Maze of Moonlight by Gael Baudino (read with me TXT) 📕

understand why Yvonnet was not worried about the free companies, and since Maris' fortifications were superior even to these, Ruprecht's sentiments were equally comprehensible. But it was not for the nobles of Adria that Christopher was proposing this alliance. It was (though he dared not speak of such a thing before his peers) solely for the peasants: those whose lands and lives would be wasted while their overlords held quaint dances to beguile the tedious hours of a siege.

For the peasants. For Vanessa.

Yvonnet was waiting for him just inside the main gate. Behind him, the formal gardens were in late-summer bloom, the flowers brilliant, the hedges and trees sparkling in the sunlight.

“Well, cousin! How nice to see you!” The baron of Hypprux always spoke at full volume in public. Christopher theorized that the custom had something to do with intimidation. He was not intimidated. Looking at Yvonnet, though, he was reminded in a disturbing way of his grandfather.

“Hello, Yvonnet.” Steeling himself, he dismounted, embraced Yvonnet, and even managed to kiss him without gagging. Upon what lips—or other bodily part—had his cousin's mouth been most recently planted? Christopher suppressed an inward shudder. “I'm very glad to be here.” It was a lie, and everyone knew it, but this was an official visit, and so Christopher assumed that insincere kisses and outright lies were in order.

“Ah, so you are!” said Yvonnet, his basso reverberating off the walls. “But not as glad as I am!”

Christopher noticed that Natil looked worried, but the harper curtsied deeply to Yvonnet when presented to him, and even offered to play that evening. Something in the new style from the courts of Italy and France?”

Yvonnet was faintly interested. “Perhaps,” he said, dismissing Natil with a glance. “Perhaps after our dear Cousin Christopher . . .”

Son of a bitch Cousin Christopher, Christopher translated, who didn't have the decency to stay missing or dead.

“. . . and I have a chance to talk of . . . the matters that have brought him here.” Yvonnet turned to Lengram, the chamberlain of the city, and lifted an eyebrow. “Whatever they are.”

“I think my dear Cousin Yvonnet knows,” said Christopher quietly.

“Yes . . . well . . . we'll have to talk about that, won't we? Later.”

“Whenever you wish, Yvonnet.”

“But first, we have hospitality! Yes! Hospitality! We can't go on letting our dear cousin stand out here in the hot sun after such a long journey, can we? Hospitality is the mark of a . . .” He eyed Christopher. “. . . civilized man, isn't it? Girls! Get out here!”

And the young women of the castle, well-schooled by Yvonnet's wife, whose name Christopher could never remember, took the visitors in hand. Natil was escorted to a room of her own, and Ranulf and the men were taken to the barracks, but Christopher was bathed, fed, and given clean clothes—more embroidery, more gems—and made to feel like an honored guest.

This, too, was a sham, and he made sure that he kept a knife at hand even when in a tub full of scented water. Yet, though it probably was indeed the action of a madman to come to Hypprux, he decided that he would rather be mad and offer his glove than be sane and stay huddled up in Aurverelle while the entire country went to hell.

Nonetheless, he was relieved when Natil and Ranulf appeared a few hours later, the harper with her harp, the soldier with his sword. Lengram brought them and also delivered a message that Yvonnet was expecting to meet with Christopher in his private chambers to discuss the matter of his visit. There would be a feast that night, of course.

“Will that be with or without poison, Lengram?” Christopher inquired with a smile.

Lengram stared, swallowed. “Ah . . .”

“Don't worry, Chamberlain. I was . . . just joking.”

“Yes . . . ah . . . of course. . . .”

Was it Natil's tense expression earlier that day, or was Christopher detecting a sense of unease in the Château? He shrugged. He was here for a purpose. Best to get on with it.

But though, delivered in person, Yvonnet's reply to Christopher's plan was less terse than before, it was substantially the same. “I'm not interested in sending my men into battle for anyone except myself and my own,” he boomed from his gilt-canopied chair. The bedroom echoed with his words, and the old cleric with a deformed nose who was acting as secretary was nodding unconsciously in agreement. “If the free companies want to come to Hypprux, let them come. They can batter themselves against the walls as much as they'd like.” Sitting in an equally ornate chair—a symbol of his rank, or, more likely, of Yvonnet's ability to afford such things—Christopher sighed. Complacency. Idiocy. As the crusade, so Adria.

“Really, dear cousin,” said Yvonnet. “I can't see what's gotten into you. Aurverelle is as ably fortified as Hypprux. Perhaps . . .” And he nodded to Ranulf, who was standing with Natil near the secretary's desk. “. . . even more ably.”

Ranulf did not appear to be aware of the flattery.

“It's not a matter of Aurverelle or Hypprux being attacked,” said Christopher. “Or even Ypris.” He noticed Yvonnet's eyes narrow at the mention of the rebellious town. “It's the land itself. Who pays for all this finery and these castles? The commoners. Where would we be without their taxes and tithes? Penniless.”

“You know as well as I that we can borrow from the Jews.”

“And the Jews themselves are commoners, too. It's the same thing. I can't put this ornately, Yvonnet, because it's not an ornate subject; but if we want to continue to live as we do, then we have to safeguard the foundation upon which we live. The commoners.”

Yvonnet snorted. “They breed like pigs. There will always be more commoners. And if there are commoners, then there will be taxes and tithes.”

And so it went for an hour. Yvonnet was proof against argument or coercion if only because