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

With a mirthless laugh, Ruprecht unbarred the door and threw it aside. William stood there, surrounded by torchlight and men in mail. “Come in, William,” said the baron. “Tell me more about—”

But his words were cut short, for the chancellor lunged at him. Instinctively, Ruprecht ducked and rolled, and William's sword stroke ended with nothing more than a clang on the flagstone floor. But the soldiers were already surging into the room.

Christopher's voice was loud. “Was I right?”

“Dear God,” cried Ruprecht. “You were!”

Perplexed by the strange voices in the bedroom, William and his men hesitated, thereby giving Ruprecht just enough of an opportunity to smash his shoulder into the stomach of a guard. The man stumbled and fell. Ruprecht seized a stool and knocked a second to the floor, but one of his fellows was stepping in with lifted weapon.

“Swords, Christopher!” Ruprecht shouted. “On the wall behind you!”

Natil was already pressing a blade into Christopher's hand. She was there, and then she was gone, and a moment later, the attacking guard dropped with a glazed expression.

William was lunging again for Ruprecht. Christopher, though, slid in between the two men and caught the thrust on the crosspiece of his sword. He stared into the chancellor's face as though memorizing it. “Ever hear of treason, William?”

William looked a little hysterical as he struggled to free his weapon. Christopher kicked him away, and Ruprecht's wife started to scream as the baron's sword flashed. William sprawled on the floor.

The soldiers, thoroughly demoralized by the sudden shift in fortune, gave up. Natil and Christopher disarmed and bound them face down on the floor while the baron of Maris went to his wife's bed and held her until her panic subsided into fitful sobs.

“O God, O God,” she murmured, “I thought we were safe.”

“So did I, Clarissa,” said her husband.

Christopher tied a last knot, stood up. Ruprecht looked at him somberly. “Is anyone in this castle still loyal to me?”

Natil answered. “The men in the barracks are loyal. William arranged the guard schedules so that he would have complete control by morning.”

Ruprecht blinked at the slender woman's dispassionate statement. “How . . . how do you know all this?”

How did Natil know everything? The patterns. The same patterns that had overwhelmed Vanessa. But Vanessa had learned to control herself, and the fact that Natil moved through the world with ease and assurance was a lightness in Christopher's heart. He wished that the two could meet. “Natil makes a point of knowing a great deal,” he said.

“Can I get a word to them?”

“I will bring them,” said Natil. “Fear not.”

Ruprecht handed her his signet. “This will answer any of their questions,” he said. She nodded and slipped soundlessly out of the window.

Still holding his wife, Ruprecht offered his hand to Christopher. “And as for your question, Messire Christopher, my answer . . .” He smiled wryly. “. . . is yes.”

Christopher took Ruprecht's hand. He had offered his glove, and it had been accepted. The selfish, conceited legacy of the delAurvres was crumbling. The future—his own, Adria's—was looking brighter.

I wish you were with me, Vanessa.

But the next evening, word came from Ypris: the city had fallen to an assembly of free companies in the pay of Yvonnet a'Verne.

Chapter Nineteen

“That traitorous bastard!”

Ruprecht's black beard contrasted markedly with his livid face and made his outrage seem all the more passionate. He struck his fist on the polished table in time with his words, and the impacts echoed off the walls of the study despite the thick hangings that covered the bare stone.

Ypris, according to the sketchy report, had been thoroughly destroyed and looted. Several thousand men had been involved, perhaps more, and the effectiveness of the operation was attested to by the distant column of black smoke that Christopher and Ruprecht themselves had seen from the topmost tower of the fortress of Maris.

Gutted. Completely gutted. Such was the city's reward for allegiance to the wrong pontiff.

“I should have seen this coming,” said Christopher. “Yvonnet had designs on Aurverelle, and since I put an end to that . . . with a certain amount of help . . .” He smiled thinly at Natil, who was perched on a stool by the fire. “. . . he turned his plots elsewhere. Or maybe he just used some other plots. God knows how many he's got.”

“He's a viper,” Ruprecht agreed. “Just when we're trying to protect Adria, he goes and drags in the very mercenary bands we've been trying to keep out.”

Up until a few hours ago, Ruprecht had not cared in the slightest about Adria. But Christopher let that pass. “He's obviously trying to use piety and zeal for Rome to make up for . . . ah . . .” But he had already said too much. Mentioning Rome in Ruprecht's presence was unwise, and even more so was revealing Yvonnet's sexual appetites. “For certain . . . uh . . . indiscretions of his.”

Ruprecht rumbled. “Sizable indiscretions, if you ask me.”

“Well . . . yes. I imagine so.”

Ruprecht eyed Christopher. “Well, what do we do about it? We can't very well attack a fellow member of the alliance, much as I'd like to.” He plunked his elbows on the table, interlaced his fingers as though Yvonnet's throat lay between his hands. “That Roman bastard.”

Christopher, too, wanted to lay ungentle hands on his cousin . . . though not because of schismatic alignment.

“Of course, it may not be an alliance at all,” said Ruprecht. “Quite possibly, this is but the first step in a larger campaign against the other baronies. Perhaps . . .” Suspicion suddenly wrapped about him like a dark cloak, and he glowered at Christopher from above his black beard. “. . . a campaign in the name of Rome.”

Rome. Avignon. The conflict was inescapable, a blight on the newborn century. I wish there were a few Elves about who would do something about Yvonnet, Christopher thought, and about the church in general. He realized