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

had ascended to an upper window, and that she was stretching down a hand to him.

“Isn't there another way?” he said.

“There are guards on the stairs,” replied Natil. “Ruprecht is a cautious man. He worries about plots, and frequently fears for his safety. Hence, his tower bedroom.”

With a shrug then, he took her hand and strained himself up until he was perched beside her. He tried to ignore the drop beneath his feet. “What now?”

Natil's eyes flickered inwardly. They were in shadow at present, but further climbing would inevitably expose them to the light of the moon only a few days past full. “Up to the roof. Then across and down. The guards on the parapet can be avoided.”

“Is that what the . . .” He decided to risk it. He was already thinking it, for it was becoming uncomfortably obvious. “. . . patterns say, harper?”

Her eyes were on him. The breeze from the sea was cool, moist. “Patterns can change, my lord.”

“So Vanessa found. You see them, too, then.”

“I do.”

He forced a nervous laugh. “I don't see you going about terrifying everyone—except maybe for me. There's hope for Vanessa, then?”

“There is always hope.”

“What about . . .” He glanced down, wished that he had not. “What about for us?”

Natil shrugged. “Anything can happen. There are but differing degrees of probability.”

“You could be burned for saying things like that, you know.”

Natil looked away. “We have.”

Christopher regretted his words. Natil's past and her people were her own business. She was helping him. That was enough. “I'm sorry.”

“Be at peace.” Natil rose, took the coil of rope from Christopher, and went clambering up the wall. IN a few minutes, the end of the rope came whispering down, and Christopher knotted it about himself and, thus supported, fumbled his way up.

When he at last crawled over the edge of the roof, he collapsed, gasping. “How much farther?”

“Across, then down to a subsidiary wall, across to another, then we double back and climb again.” Christopher shut his eyes and groaned softly. “The only staircase is guarded,” Natil explained, “and the guards are awake.”

Christopher rubbed his face. “Yes . . . of course . . . that's what you said before, wasn't it?” It was going to be a hard night, but it was precisely the presumed impregnability of the fortress that would give strength to Christopher's arguments.

Nothing was safe. Not Hypprux. Not Maris. Not even Aurverelle. And . . .

With a pang, he looked southward as though he could see a city there: a wealthy city with tiled roofs and a conceited fool for a mayor.

. . . certainly not Saint Blaise.

At times, it occurred to him that, somehow, he might have eventually made Vanessa happy. It was not pity that moved him now, nor was it the yearning of a starving ghost for the blood of mortality: it was to her humanity that he had at last responded.

He smiled softly. Yes, Vanessa, I think I've come far enough to love you.

He looked up into Natil's eyes. “I'm ready,” he said.

“Then let us go.”

Chimneys, flèches, eaves . . . Christopher and Natil ducked and wove among them. Natil's footfalls were silent, and her eyes peered, Christopher assumed, into the patterns of action and inaction that made up the fortress. Padding as quietly as he could, seeing but what was before him, he followed her.

She brought him to the edge of the roof, and he looked down on a stony sea of walls and towers. The bright moonlight turned all into a maze of light and profound darkness, but the darkness, he knew well, was not impenetrable: it was, rather, merely obscure. Profundity or impenetrability stemmed solely from his point of view. And in much the same way, his own guilt and despair had stemmed from his ignorance and limited perceptions. They also were a maze built solely of moonlight.

He was beginning to understand that. He was not his grandfather. He had his own choices. He could be free. He wanted to be free.

Natil stood at his side, watching him. “Are you ready?”

“Probably about as ready as my grandfather was when . . .” He shrugged. Whatever the final confrontation, Roger had obviously lost.

Natil looked away as though in shame, and Christopher was surprised by her reaction: she appeared to take some kind of personal responsibility for Roger.

“One of us obsessing on my grandfather is quite sufficient, Natil,” he said. “Let's go see Ruprecht.”

Painstakingly, they worked their way along the route that Natil had . . . what? Felt? Saw? Foretold? Christopher did not know. But though the path—or the pattern—that the harper took was an intricate blend of backtracking and stealthy approach, they drew steadily closer to the tower that contained Ruprecht's bedchamber until, just as a distant bell was ringing lauds, they stood on top of the peninsular wall that joined the tower with the rest of the fortress.

Natil was examining the climb. “Very difficult,” she said.

“Impossible?”

“Nothing is impossible.”

Christopher met her eyes, saw a distinct gleam. “There are only differing degrees of probability.” Natil nodded. “I learn fast,” he said. “They'll have to burn me, too. How do we get up?”

“I will go first,” said the harper. “Then—” She suddenly froze. “O dear Lady . . .”

“What is it?”

Her sight was inward. Patterns again. “Something is happening in the castle. I see men and swords . . .”

“We've been discovered?”

She shook her head. “It is—sweet Lady!—the chancellor. He is going to try to murder the baron.”

Christopher leaned against the tower and passed a hand over his face. “Of all the damned luck. Adria's being threatened by a horde of human locusts, and William's grabbing for power.”

Natil was still staring into empty space. “He has a number of men in his employ, including the tower watch and several captains of the guard.”

“And with enough money, the rest will shift allegiance without complaint.”

She looked sad. “That is indeed what he is hoping.”

Patterns. Shifting patterns. Anything could indeed happen. “If we climb, will we arrive