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

. . . what? Healing? Comfort? Was that not what she had given him? And yet, at the hands of her kind, his grandfather had—

Shaking, he turned away from her, forced his eyes and his attention onto Paul, Isabelle, the abbot and the black huddle of his monks. Martin's darkling presence at the edge of the clearing. People: ripe with the odor of good, human sweat, pungent with the aroma of defeat.

“We can't stay here,” said Christopher. “We've got to get all of you away.”

Wenceslas' broad face was shrewd with the knowledge of one who had once been a soldier. “I doubt we have enough weapons to go around, even if we all could use them. And with no horses, 'twill be a long way across the pastures. We'd be seen afore we reach cover.”

“I doubt we could fight our way out in any case, Abo,” said Paul, “but Messire Christopher is right. Fields or not, we'll have to get away. The companies are already looking for us.”

“Haven't they done enough?” said the abbot. “They've taken the castle, they've done their killing.” He looked discouraged. He had obviously entered the monastery to escape the very thing that had found him. “They've got what they want.”

“Not all of it,” said Christopher. He was too conscious of Natil's presence. She might well have been a star, blindingly incandescent to his inner sight. “There's a nice gold cross you have, lord abbot. And those rings of yours . . . I'll bet they 'd fetch a fine price.” He paused meaningfully. “As would you.”

To Christopher's surprise, the churchman removed his rings and his pectoral and tossed them on the ground. “So much are they worth to me, Baron Christopher. I'd give 'em all—including my life—for thes afety of those who are here. Or even for the healing of a single scratch of one of the wounded.”

Natil spoke. “Payment,” she said, “is not required. What I have, I give freely. Those who were hurt are healed.”

The monks looked plainly frightened, but the abbot shook his head resignedly. “I knew you had some strange friends, Messire Paul. You and your father both.”

“Friends, indeed,” murmured the baron. He reached out, and Natil took his hand. “You can trust Natil with your life, Abo.”

Christopher remembered his own words. He also had trusted Natil with his life, and he had said so. And she had never given him any reason to regret that trust.

Could he still trust her? She had not indicated otherwise. Indeed, any distrust he felt was apparently of his own making, for Natil, to all outward appearance, was still Natil. She harped, and she healed. That she had suddenly been revealed as an Elf and a worker of magic had not changed her. And Christopher recalled that, though she apparently held immense potencies in her hands, her attentions toward him had been only of the most mundane sort: a touch, a smile, good counsel, and sweet music.

But what the hell did she want?

He could have asked, but he was unwilling to parade his fears and his grandfather before everyone. Yet, at the same time, he was not at all sure that, even had he and Natil been alone, he would have had the nerve to utter the question. Feeling helpless, feeling frightened, he let it be. There were more immediate problems at hand.

He told Paul and the others that he had already sent word to the members of the alliance . . . though he omitted certain pertinent facts about Yvonnet's involvement with the free companies. But he estimated, and Paul and Wenceslas concurred, that it would be another week at least before the forces of Hypprux and Maris were gathered and equipped. It was almost a certainty that the companies that had taken Shrinerock would find the refugees hiding in the forest by then.

They had to get away, but fifteen or sixteen miles of open pasture lay between them and Malvern Forest, the nearest cover. On foot, the refugees had no hope of crossing it undetected. The companies would see them . . . and ride them down.

The stars hovered about midnight like a flock of white geese. Christopher eyed them. Bad days and worse news. “Everybody go to bed,” he said brusquely. “We're just going to give ourselves headaches if we keep on this way, and I'm sure that's exactly what the companies want. We'll . . .” He glanced at Natil. As tranquil as she was, she almost seemed embarrassed, like a girl caught stealing fruit. “We'll figure out what to do tomorrow.”

Paul was silent for a time, then, at last, he nodded as though relieved that someone else was willing to give orders for a few hours. He rose slowly, offered his arm to Isabelle, and took her away to a bower of bracken that his men had prepared. Wenceslas and his monks retired to bare dirt. The soldiers arranged watches.

Natil eyed Christopher as the camp rustled into a silence broken only by the call of night birds and the faint clink of mailed and vigilant guards. Christopher ignored her and climbed a tall oak tree. The monkey ascended leisurely beside him, but Christopher grunted his way up, smiling inwardly at the bitter irony. Taken and tamed, perhaps, but not quite a monkey.

From the upper branches, he could see the castle standing upon the mountaintop, shimmering in the moonlight like some impenetrable fortress out of an old poem. Pinnacle upon pinnacle, tower upon tower, whitewashed and filigreed and chimneyed and spired, Shrinerock seemed hardly to belong to the world of men and women and their constant and humiliating depravity.

Tired, discouraged, Christopher wedged himself into a fork, wrapped his arms about the trunk, and dozed, his mind still slogging through the problem: one of the capital fortresses of Adria, taken without a struggle, its calamity brought on by the idiocy of the very barons whose help Christopher had enlisted. And now it was supposed to be saved