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

Madness. It was simply not acceptable. Attributing Roger's reformation and subsequent behavior to madness was something like saying the sky was blue because it pleased God for it to be that way. While God's pleasure might be acceptable to the theologians and the doctors of the Church, it did not satisfy Christopher delAurvre any more than did madness.

But who believed in Elves? Was that not madness? And now Christopher had discovered not only that Roger's belief in the legendary immortals had begun well before his sudden change but also that the old man had, in effect, blamed the collapse of his plots against the Free Towns on them.

Worse and worse.

Christopher wished frequently that he had been able to examine some of the old records kept in Yvonnet's library. Roger had been chamberlain of Hypprux: surely something had been documented—letters, transcripts, maybe even something about that escaped witch—that might reveal the genesis of his change. But Christopher had not had time to look, and now he was very sure that he did not want to sample any more of Yvonnet's hospitality. Dear cousin, indeed!

And the question nagged at him. And he chafed.

“Roger was a good man, Natil. I can't ignore that fact.” A December storm was throwing snow against the shuttered windows of Castle Aurverelle, and the cold drafts were only marginally damped by the hangings and the tapestries. Christopher was sitting in an arm chair in his bedroom, his bare feet stretched out toward the hearth, warming himself after a trek through the town. Nothing special, really. Just making sure that everyone was all right. “He was a bit of a bear, even when I knew him, but he was a good-hearted bear. If you know what I mean.”

“I do.” The harper smiled. She was sitting on a pillow on the floor, tailor fashion, her harp on her lap and her gown tucked neatly in about her toes. She seemed much as she always had: sweet and kind, always willing to play and sing, helpful . . . and tranquil in her helpfulness.

And yet Christopher knew her also as someone who was perfectly willing to climb about on the outside of a fortified castle and hold a knife to the throat of the chamberlain of Hypprux, or to ditch and dredge in the fields alongside the men. A strong, fearless woman, as loyal as he had ever seen. And so, though some of her comments and actions seemed to be as cryptic as her past, he liked her, trusted her, and eventually had been moved to confide in her about his grandfather.

“I always liked him when I was a boy,” he said. “He took me fishing. And he taught me how to hunt, and how to fight. Manly things. He didn't seem mad at all. He seemed . . .” He fell silent. The storm battered at the shutters. “He seemed considerably more sane than I.”

Natil's eyes were on him, seemingly reflecting more light than came from the fire.

“I mean, he didn't go about throwing fruit at people. Or climbing up drainpipes. Or acting like a bear.” He felt himself grow warm, but not from the fire.

The harper sighed softly, regretfully. “You bear your grandfather . . . like a burden, my lord.”

The old wounds twinged. “What am I supposed to do, Natil? Roger was first a failure at being a human being, and then he was a failure at being a delAurvre. He started it all, my father thrashed about like a fop until the plague got him, and then I—damn my eyes—continued the fine old tradition. Roger failed with the Free Towns. I failed at Nicopolis. Roger acted like a fool. I act like a madman. And now every rag-tag bunch of robbers thinks that they can just ride off with a sack of Aurverelle wool. And they're right, too.”

“What . . .” Natil seemed to be choosing her words carefully, her eyes flickering with firelight . . . and something else. Again, she reminded Christopher of Vanessa. But if Natil saw too much, she did not blench. “What did you hope to accomplish at Nicopolis, my lord?”

He glared at the fire. “Redemption.”

“For yourself?”

Christopher kept his eyes on the fire. “For myself, for being a delAurvre. And for my grandfather, for being a . . .”

Natil's eyes were luminous, compassionate. Christopher felt their gaze, tried not to look at them.

“. . . a coward.” He struggled with his bitterness. Natil's questions had lanced a festering boil, and the pus came eagerly. “For my entire family, for being a bunch of mean-spirited, single-minded brutes without a shred of compassion or decency.”

Natil was looking at him, he thought, in much the same way as he had looked at Vanessa. “And yet you condemn your grandfather for showing compassion and decency.”

“I didn't say that it would make any sense.” Christopher picked up the poker, prodded at the burning log. Fire. This was what they used to burn witches. And, if the old stories held any truth, Elves, too.

Elves. The word kept surfacing. Christopher would have preferred madness.

“Let me tell you about something,” he said, giving the log another shove. Sparks flew up like stars and mounted into the chimney. “Years ago, I went to Paris with my grandfather. Mother and Father were dead by then, and Roger took me everywhere with him. He more or less raised me.” He grinned at the heat from the flames. “Fitting, eh?”

Natil said nothing.

“The reason for the Paris trip was the coronation of Queen Isabeau. Roger was only distantly related to King Charles, but Charles was determined to have a fine show, and so he invited everyone. Roger went, so I went. I was already having doubts about the old man, though. I'd grown up worshiping him. Roger could do anything. Roger was God. But then I'd started hearing stories—people talk, and all that—about what he was like . . . before. The people he'd hanged. The girl he'd chained to his bed and