Maze of Moonlight (2 page)

Aurverelle, deserted and cheerless though it was, was nonetheless one of the largest estates of Adria, and Pytor and Jerome both knew that the other barons were already looking for ways to acquire it. There were any number of relatives of the delAurvre line scattered throughout the manor houses and castles of the land, and it would be a relatively simple matter for one of the more powerful of them to make a claim to Aurverelle. All very correct, all very legal, all very formal.

And that would be the end of it. Pytor wondered again about Castile. Franciscans and runaway slaves were not to everyone's taste. It would be a long walk.

As though to defy the sunny land to the southwest, he went to his room and took a thick cloak from the peg, then plunked down several more flights of stairs to the outer court. The rain pounded on the cloak and the mud sucked at his boots as he stepped from the cobbled gateway into the streets of the town, but he hardly noticed: he was wondering—despite his words to Jerome—whether there was still hope, whether he would ever again sleep on the floor in front of Christopher's room in the knowledge that his master slept peacefully and safely in his own bed.

A pair of goats wandered across Pytor's path, butting one another and dipping their heads for morsels bobbing in the mud and sewage that had pooled in the middle of the street. Slaughter time was near, and a pig snorted and rooted its last days away in its mire of an alley. Pytor sloshed past them, turned a corner, and pushed into the fevered light and noise of a small inn's common room. Had he so desired, he could have stayed up at the castle and drunk all the wine and beer that he could hold—drunk himself into a stupor, in fact, as he often did—but the castle was too dark tonight, the master's absence too palpable for him to find any solace there.

Over three years now. Three years and five months. And no word. And Jean de Nevers and Boucicaut, strutting their way through France in their jewels and their finery as though they had won a battle rather than lost the whole campaign, taxing their already starving peasants to pay the ransoms that Bayazet had demanded, acting the courtly clowns—

Grimacing, Pytor slammed the door behind him and threw back his hood just as a burst of laughter bounced off the walls and lingered boisterously among the dark beams of the ceiling. “Come, master beggar,” someone was shouting, “tell us of your begging.”

“I . . . beg . . .” A thin voice, halting, quavering, and oddly disturbing for that. In the light of the big fire on the hearth, Pytor could see a man as thin as his voice, as thin as the japing monkey that still lurked among the slate roofs and battlements of Castle Aurverelle, a man who lifted his hands and waved them about his head as though to gather strength from the smoky air. “I beg to live . . . and I live to beg. Gig-a-gig! God only knows how I hae run and jumped from here to the Danube!”

The beggar's sing-songing prattle followed Pytor to a bench in a dark corner. He sat down, signed to the tapster: his usual, dark and ripe with barley and malt and in the biggest tankard in the house. Inevitably, it was the same brew that Raffalda and her wenches had cooked up, so Pytor was paying money for something he could have had for nothing. But he excused himself for his profligacy: he was not paying for beer. He was instead paying for the right to occupy a seat in a wretched room that was
not
in the castle,
not
empty,
not
without a master—and for the dubious pleasure of watching some of the townsmen taunt an old, half-wit beggar.

“And did you see bears?” said Walter, the turner. “Did you?”

“Aye,” quavered the beggar. “Many a bear. And lions. Ho-ho-ho! The arms and shields hang low, and there's many a Christian knight hangs on a pole this evening!”

“You're blaspheming!” said Walter. “The priest will hear about this.”

“No man—ha-ha—can serve two master . . .” The half-wit crouched low, then sprang up, shaking as though possessed, his body a gaunt shape against the flames. “But, you know, they follow me.”

“Follow?” said someone else. “Who?”

“The fiends. The fiends in their gowns and their staves and their turned-up shoes, the ones who play pick-a-back with the popes—there's two, you know.”

“Two?”

“Two popes. One for each side: black and white. But no one knows . . .” The beggar whinnied like a horse. “. . . which is which. Or which way the board is turned. And they won't until the end.”

The men who had gathered to hear the performance drew back a little. The schism was not something about which to joke. It had been said that since Clement had been elected in direct opposition to Urban, not a soul had entered Paradise.

Few saved, many damned.
As though many would enter Paradise in any case!

Pytor accepted a brimming tankard from the tapster, poked a thumb at the beggar. “Who is that, Ernest?”

Ernest wiped his hands on his apron. “Nay, m'lord seneschal, I don't know. Hasn't said his name. Turned up this afternoon between nones and vespers and hasn't left. Otto gave him some bread and beer for the love of God, but he could surely use more.”

And, true, the man's tattered clothing hung on a frame that was not much more than bones with enough flesh to keep them dangling. His face, where it was not covered with matted beard and hair sunbleached as white as a leper's arm, was burnt almost black by the sun; and his eyes, ringed with darkness, reflected the firelight with a feral madness that had made him the entertainment this rainy night.

“I want to hear more about the bears,” someone called.

“Do you hear that, beggarman?” said Walter. “We want to hear about bears.”

“Bears? Ah-oo!”

“Not wolves, idiot.” The turner gave him a shove that nearly sent him into the fire. “Bears.”

“Bears,” said the beggar. “Bearsbearsbears . . . many bears . . . more bears than you've ever seen, master.”

“Shut up and show us how bears dance.”

The beggar hunkered and slouched and capered before the fire, now and again attempting a hoarse roar. Pytor drank his beer. Rain outside, and loneliness in Castle Aurverelle, and a master gone for over three years. The schism had riven the Church to its core, bad weather was threatening the estate with starvation next year . . . and the drunken laborers of Aurverelle had nothing better to do than to torment a daft old man.

The tapster looked at Pytor and shrugged. Pytor shrugged back. The tapster went back to the counter. Over by the fire, someone had produced an old battered lute, and Walter played the pipe and tabor, and the music echoed and pounded in time to the beggar's dance.

The merchant drinks, the student drinks,

The lord drinks, and the lady too,

The sweet girl drinks, and wencher drinks

And so all drink, and drink again . . .

But the beggar was thin and weak, and he could not play the bear forever. Soon, quite soon, he wavered and slumped onto a bench, covering his head with his hands. “Leave me, leave me,” he whimpered.

“I'm tired. I want to go home.”

“You're not through dancing, bear.”

“Leave me. It's too close.”

“Dance!”

And Walter and two other men seized him by the arms and stood him on his feet again. The beggar capered for another moment, then collapsed.

“Hey-nonny-no!” he wheezed faintly. “The fiends have me by the tail and the winds blow cold and cracked! The world is crooked, and who'll set it right?”

Walter and his friends were reaching for the beggar again when Pytor stood up. “Enough,” he rumbled. “Enough. Leave the man alone.” In the sudden silence, he turned to the tapster. “Ernest, give him some supper and a place to sleep. Tell Otto to send the reckoning to the castle.”

“It shall be done, Master Pytor.”

The men by the fire sat back down with dark murmurs, but the beggar straightened up. Even from across the room, Pytor felt the glitter of his feral eyes, and he shuddered and finished his beer standing. No solace here. It would have been better had he stayed in Aurverelle and drunk himself to sleep in the hall outside the door to the baron's bedroom.

He reached for his purse, but Ernest shook his head. With a nod of thanks, Pytor turned for the door.

Night had fallen firmly by now, the darkness weighed down by the heavy rain, and Pytor had almost reached the castle gate before he realized that the beggarman had followed him, creeping along in the shadows of the overhanging solars and wading through the torrents of muck that poured out of the alleyways.

“Go back,” said Pytor. “Go back to the inn. There is supper and a place by the fire for you there.”

The man was shivering—chattering teeth, spasmodic jerks of his arms and legs—but he crouched a few yards from the seneschal like a hungry dog and did not move.

“Go on.”

“Mastermaster. Oh! How he pinches me! Black and blue I am and—”

“Blue with cold, damn you!” said Pytor, and he would have seized the man and dragged him back to shelter, but for all his cold and weakness, the beggar was nimble enough to dodge away.

“Don't send me back there, mastermaster,” he yelped. “They make me dance, they do. They prick me with burning needles and red-hot guilts, and there's no Grandpa Roger to keep them away.”

Grandpa Roger? Pytor's eyes narrowed. Baron Roger had been dead for seven years. Was this beggar making fun of the old man? Well, half-wits had to be forgiven. “Come on, man,” he said gruffly, for the water was seeping into his boots and his cloak was as heavy as if it had been made of granite. “Come on. I'll take you to the castle. You can sleep there.”

“Thankee,” said the beggar. “Thankee. I'll sleep by a good fire in the castle, with stuffed shoes and statues all about. Thankee.”

He allowed Pytor to take him by the arm, and together they slogged up to the gatehouse. The guards saluted Pytor, but looked dubiously at his companion. “My lord,” said one, “have you taken to picking up rags in the street?”

“I myself was a rag in the street once,” said Pytor. “Baron Roger picked me up, washed me up, and patched me with Aurverelle cloth. I'm here today because of that. This man is a child of God like you and me.”

“But, he's a—”

“Beggar,” said Pytor. “Tramp. Commoner. Peasant. Yes, he is all that and more. But as Baron Roger treated me, so shall I treat him.”

The beggar had been standing owl-eyed throughout the conversation, but now he nodded and capered oddly. “Grandpa Roger! Grandpa Roger!” He bobbed up and down, splashed through the puddles in an antic dance. “He had the Free Towns in his pouch and let them go again!”

The guards stared. “Forgive him,” said Pytor. “He's mad, that is all.” He took up a lit torch, took the beggar by the hand and drew him into the courtyard. “Come on, man,” he said. “We'll have you dry and fed in a moment. It is lucky for you that Russians have an affection for madmen.” But the beggar had abruptly ceased his capering and was walking quietly at his side, head first down, then up, regarding muddy cobbles and tall towers with equal wonderment.

But Pytor found that there was something about the beggar's gait, something almost familiar, that struck him with a sense of unease. And it seemed suddenly not at all remarkable to hear this second set of footsteps—quick and light, even through the rain—blending with his own.

Grandpa Roger? What?

The guards on duty threw open the door of the keep, and torchlight spilled into the night. The beggar blinked. “
Fiat lux!
”

“Now, now . . .” Pytor took him into the vestibule. “Let's get you something warm, for the love of God.” He lifted his head. “Raffalda! Where are you? Someone call Raffalda!”

The beggar was bobbing his head. The gaunt irony had left his eyes, and he regarded the room sadly, a little dazed. “Will I . . . will I sleep in my own bed tonight?” he said in a small voice.

“You'll have a straw mattress in the hall just like—” Pytor broke off as though something had caught in his throat, for the beggar's daft tone had moderated, gentled, turned into something else. Something disturbing.

Raffalda's footsteps were approaching, but Pytor held his torch close to the beggar. No, he realized, this was no old man. This was a young man worn by years and deprivation, damaged by pain and travel. Moreover, this was a young man—

Grandpa Roger? His own bed?

Pytor suddenly felt hot, dizzy. He found himself trying to peer beneath the man's sunbleached hair and beard, almost afraid to believe, almost afraid to see. Was it possible? Beyond all hope?

The beggar blinked in the light and studied Pytor's face as earnestly as Pytor studied his. Beneath the dirt and the sunburn, the lines of madness and fatigue, a light suddenly kindled, and he laughed sheepishly and a little hysterically. “Hey-diddle-dee!” he said. “Not one word of greeting for your old cock-a-whoop, Pytor?”

Pytor stared, transfixed. Then, just as Raffalda entered the room, grumbling about bad nights and worse beggars, he thrust a torch into her startled hands and fell to his knees, embracing the beggar about the waist, pressing his cheek against the filthy and vermin-ridden garments, weeping out loud and without shame.

Christopher of Aurverelle had come home.

October. All Hallow's Eve. Outside, snow falling, muffling sounds, muting the scraping of branches across the thatch. Inside, Lake sitting up by a low fire.

By habit and will—not by need—he usually went to bed early, but tonight was different. Tonight, he stayed awake, and if he dozed at all before the flickering coals, it was only for appearance's sake, an attempt to convince himself, despite birth and heritage, that Lake of Furze Hamlet, like any doughty farmer anywhere, could, at the end of the day, feel a weariness that only sleep and oblivion could cure. Humans dozed before winter fires. Humans fell into and fought their way out of dreams that were variously pleasant or disturbed. And so Lake forced himself to do the same.

But though, through self-discipline and work, he had gotten the knack of such things, he did not sleep now, for he was listening for the knock that would come to the door. He would have a visitor tonight. He knew it. He did not doubt it. He hated his knowledge, and his lack of doubt.