Maze of Moonlight (10 page)

King I am not

Nor prince, nor duke, nor count.

I am the Master of Aurverelle.

“You insolent young pup!” Etienne looked ready to reach for his sword again.

Ranulf spoke. “Beggin' your pardon, m'lord monsignor, but I must ask you t'show more respect to Baron Christopher.”

Etienne stared, Christopher nodded to the churchman as he might acknowledge the presence of a hound. “You don't recognize me, Etienne, but I recognize you. You were the priest who bravely blessed the brave crusaders in Vienna . . . and who then bravely stayed at home. It's amazing the way one can rise in the world by staying home, isn't it, Etienne?”

Etienne fumbled for words. “Christopher . . .”

“
Baron
Christopher,” said Ranulf.

“I said I wouldn't see you,” said Christopher. “So I'll do my best to forget that I have, and that you were willing to threaten my seneschal and even more willing to give orders before my castle like the womanizing lout that I saw you were in Vienna.
Be brave,
you said back then,
and do God's will.
That itself should have told me what kind of company I was keeping, for even if I hadn't been well schooled in whoring by then, I would have soon learned much of the subject on the way to Nicopolis.”

Etienne had gone white. “My lord baron—”

“That's much better, Etienne,” said Christopher. He clapped his hands sardonically and advanced until he was shoulder to shoulder with Ranulf.

“I have come on a mission of great urgency.”

“Yes. The schism. Let's see . . .which pope are you?”

This was too much for Etienne. “You
dare
!”

“Shut up.” Christopher's murmured command carried greater weight than Etienne's bluster, and the churchman, seething, fell silent. “I'll tell you this. I support no one. Aurverelle is for Aurverelle, and so is Christopher delAurvre. He always has been, he always will be. Now take your rabble and go. Be glad that I talked to you at all.”

Laughter from the townsfolk. The delAurvre style, indeed!

Etienne blinked at Christopher's bluntness. “But, my lord,” he stammered, “don't you care about your soul? About the souls of the people of Adria?”

Christopher had half turned to go, but he swung back. “My soul? Someone like you is asking about souls? You with your perfumes and your banquets and your unconscionable stiff prick?” His gray eyes were hot and bright. “To answer your question, though: No, I don't care about souls, or about the popes, or about anything. I don't believe in anything. I don't go to mass, and I don't receive the sacraments, and I don't give a damn. All right? Are you
satisfied
?”

“Nothing?” The churchman seemed as dazed by Christopher's anger as he was by his words.

“Nothing. I follow the example . . . of my grandfather.”

Pytor winced, looked away.

“He didn't believe in anything either,” Christopher continued. “Or if he did—” He fell silent for a moment, shook his head. “I'll tell you this, monsignor. There is a cask of wine in my cellar. I believe in that. Do you understand?”

Slowly, Etienne gathered his wits. “You are an evil man, Baron Aurverelle.”

“Careful, monsignor,” murmured Ranulf.

Christopher smiled thinly. “That's all right, Ranulf. Our dear monsignor is probably correct. I
am
an evil man. I've danced with bears, and I've rooted with pigs, and I've gone so far as to stare at the lives of common people as though they were a hot, smoking dish of venison. Indeed, I may hardly be a man at all any more.” He strode up to Etienne. “Go away. The inn's good enough for you. You should be flattered: your God was born in a stable, after all.”

Pytor heard the folk of Aurverelle whispering to one another. Christopher's language had been strong. Very strong.

Shaking with frustrated rage, Etienne signaled to his attendants, and they turned back down the main street of the town. The crowd parted to let them through, but Etienne stayed for a moment more. “His Holiness sent me personally, my lord.”

“And I'm sending you back. Personally.”

“I will stay at the inn until you see me.”

“Stay as long as you want,” said Christopher. “You can stay until the devils or the Elves or whoever else owns your rotten little soul comes for you. Just pay your reckoning when you leave, or I'll have you hanged as a common thief.”

With a snort of contempt, Etienne turned away.

Christopher stood with a bowed head for a moment, then sighed. “Thank you, Ranulf,” he said with a small bow to the captain. “I appreciate your loyalty and your fine work.”

Ranulf bowed deeply in return and strode away.

Then, unexpectedly, Christopher turned to the folk of Aurverelle. “And thank you also, my friends. I'm proud to be the baron of such fine and devoted people.”

A moment of silence. And then, one by one, growing from a trickle into a torrent, came the peasants' acknowledgments.
Thankee, m'lord. God bless you, Messire Christopher.
Someone began to cheer, and the sentiment rapidly became universal.

Christopher bowed, took Pytor's arm, and drew him towards the gate. “Come, my friend. And my thanks to you for your toleration of this unpleasantness.” But he peered into Pytor's face as though examining it for the first time. “You are my friend, aren't you?”

Friendship was something that Pytor had never really thought about. He was Christopher's man, that was all. But he cared about the baron, and he loved him. If that was what Christopher meant by a friend, then Pytor of Medno was a friend indeed. “Master . . . I . . .” He spread his arms, his tongue constrained by his status.

Christopher nodded, clapped him on the back. “That'll do. I understand.”

“Dear master,” said Pytor with a gesture towards the retreating Avignonese, “was that wise?”

“To tell a buffoon that he's a buffoon?” They passed through the gate into the outer courtyard. Outbuildings dotted the lawn, and daffodils and hyacinths sparkled: yet another legacy of old Baron Roger. “I can't see why not.”

But Christopher's eyes were shadowed, and Pytor caught his hand. “Do you really believe in nothing, master?”

Christopher stopped, regarded him sympathetically. “I know, Pytor. You've been separated from Orthodoxy so long that you miss your religion terribly, and so it hurts you to hear me say something like that. But I'm afraid that it's true. I once believed in Grandfather. No more. I once believed in chivalry, and that my sword could do something good, something for . . . for someone. Maybe for God. Maybe for myself. No more.” He tipped his head back, gazed at the great keep. “You know, I'm not even particularly good at whoring.” He dropped his eyes, shook his head. “That cask of wine sounds good to me now, but that's about all.”

“Master . . .”

Christopher gripped his hand. “If you'll stay my friend, Pytor, I shall consider myself well recompensed for my continuing, miserable existence. But come now. You have your Orthodoxy, and I have my cask of wine, and . . .” He looked over his shoulder. “. . . Etienne has his inn and whatever women he can come up with to use and abuse.”

Yvonnet received the report from Bishop Alphonse's friar at about the same time as he heard of the reception that Aurverelle had accorded Etienne of Languedoc. He was nonplussed. On the one hand, Christopher's rejection of the first was a serious matter, especially since the friar had been sick and weak with traveling. On the other, Christopher had done to Etienne exactly what Yvonnet had always wanted to do to an arrogant churchman, and the baron of Hypprux was doubly delighted that his cousin's insults had been directed at an emissary from Avignon.

“Remarkable man, Christopher.” He propped his feet up on the heavy oak table in the council chamber. “Completely mad, of course, but really remarkable. Avignon won't like this at all.”

“And what about . . . ah . . . Rome and the friar?” said Lengram, who stood with folded, disapproving arms.

“Well, I suspect that the friar was not so holy a man as he pretended to be. You know that kind.”

Lengram was indignant. “He might well have had his weaknesses, Baron Yvonnet, but he was a man of God!”

Yvonnet grabbed a bowl of fruit and pawed through it until he found a pear. It must have come from far to the south, since the fruit of Adria was just now getting out of the flower stage. Expensive pears. He bit into it noisily anyway: baron's prerogative. That was what taxes were for. “Just as we all have our own weaknesses,” he said. “I doubt whether either of us expects to be dealt with any better at the gates of heaven.”

Lengram frowned, looked away.

Yvonnet continued with the pear, stuffing his mouth with large bites. “So it seems that—umm, umm—cousin Christopher is not quite so mad as he was made out to be—umm, umm—or perhaps is less mad now than he was.” He finished the pair and hurled the core at a servant. It struck the man square on the forehead. Well-schooled in the routines of the baron of Hypprux, the servant did not even flinch. “No matter.”

“No matter?” said Lengram.

“No . . . matter. . . .” Yvonnet licked his hands clean and clasped them behind his head. “We'll just have to think of something else.”

But what he was thinking of now was Martin, the lithe-loined lad from Shrinerock who was making his way home to Saint Blaise and dispensing greetings and gifts from his foster father at the same time. Yvonnet had put a close watch on the young man, and messengers in relays had been riding back and forth along the road through the dairylands of Adria with information as to his progress for the last several weeks.

Three years ago, it had been a wonderful party. Yvonnet had just come of age, he had just dismissed the troublesome and tiresome regents that had overseen him and his estate since his parents had died. He had been anticipating knighthood and, more important, money and lands and revenues enough to allow him to live as he wanted. Martin, a splendid gift on a splendid occasion, had been handsome and gay . . . and easily intimidated. In fact, Yvonnet was sure that the lad had come to enjoy their week of trysts, had come even to look forward to the occasional rough treatment to which his bedmate had subjected him.

Ah, such a fine piece of a man! And finer still, doubtless, now that he was grown up a little, was a little sturdier . . . and . . . yes, the bells of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mercy were ringing nones. Martin would be arriving in Hypprux any time now.

“What did you . . . ah . . . have in mind?” said Lengram.

Yvonnet smiled. “Oh . . . quite a number of things. . . .”

“I meant about Aurverelle.”

“Oh, that.”

But a knock came to the door, and a servant brought word that Martin had arrived in the city and was even now being escorted to the baronial residence.

Yvonnet kicked the table away. The bowl of fruit clattered to the floor and unleashed a flood of tumbling apples, quinces, pears, and oranges. “I want him brought to the great hall,” he said. “Bring him there immediately. I want to see him.”

The servant bowed and turned to go.

“Wait,” said Yvonnet. “Is he alone?”

“There are two men at arms with him along with a captain of the Shrinerock guard, my lord baron.”

No problem, really. Yvonnet could easily send the soldiers off. They would relish a cup of ale and the barracks-room conversation of their peers. “Anyone else?”

“The messenger mentioned a young woman, my lord.”

“A woman?” Yvonnet was vexed. Had Martin married? It would not be at all surprising. But Paul delMari had had no eligible young women in his household, save, perhaps, for his sister. And everyone knew about
her
.

Marriage, however, was no real problem. Yvonnet himself was married . . . to a woman who knew her place. But in any case, his concerns evaporated a short time later in the great hall, for Martin was obviously not at all related either by blood or by matrimony to the woman—girl, rather—who was with him. She was but a peasant. Pretty enough, to be sure, with large brown eyes and long blond hair that she wore, according to custom, in twin braids, but a peasant nonetheless, one who was not even sophisticated enough to stand with her hips swayed forward. Martin's parents would never have approved. Yvonnet wondered why she was even in his company.

But Martin was terrified of being in the presence of the baron of Hypprux, and his dark eyes—still large, still, as Yvonnet remembered, with the look of a restless woman about them—were fixed on the floor, as though he feared that by looking into the face of his host he would ensure his submission.

Such a fine time a few years ago! Really, it was not much that Yvonnet wanted. Just a few days . . .

“Martin,” he said, “so nice to see you again! And such a lovely little sparrow my brave eagle has brought with him!”

Lengram, who had followed the baron into the hall, looked away, his lips pressed together.

The dark lad's eyes were now roving about the large, tapestried room as though seeking an escape. But there was no escape. Yvonnet a'Verne always got what he wanted, and the commoners—and, yes, Martin was a commoner: he would be accommodating—were there to provide it.

With an obvious effort, Martin forced himself to stand his ground. “Vanessa of Furze Hamlet is my traveling companion, Baron Yvonnet.”

“Aha!” Yvonnet kept his voice hearty and loud. “Eagles and sparrows, indeed! And is this little fledgling meat for tonight's pot? Or is she expected to provide provender for a lengthy journey?”

But when he turned his immense smile on Vanessa, he was met by eyes that stilled his voice. Dark brown eyes. Huge eyes. Eyes that seemed to see everything at once, that could take in, in a single glance, all of Hypprux, all of Adria, and then, focusing down with a piercing light, could pry into his inmost secrets and lay bare his desires and his vices.

Vanessa was lovely, but she was also alive with a feral gleam that touched her with all the crazed menace of a rabid fox. “It's a' right,” she said. “I know.”

Yvonnet faltered, no longer quite sure whether Martin drooped because of an imminent and forced liaison or because he had been in the company of this . . . changeling . . . for several weeks. “You . . . know . . .”