Maze of moonlight, p.24
Maze of Moonlight, page 24
From the courtyard below came the rapid sound of a horse's hoofs clattering on cobblestones, the shouts of the servants. Hoping that the commotion marked a reply at last from the master of Shrinerock, Christopher rose form his bed and went to the window. But it was not a messenger from the baron of Furze. The rider was a slim, dark young man whose demeanor, even at a distance, held a touch of nervousness. Christopher wondered why Martin Osmore would pay a visit to a madman who knew too much about his shameful relationship with Yvonnet; but hoping that, whatever Martin's reasons, he might be induced to share some news of Vanessa, he pulled on his boots and went downstairs with Natil following and the monkey on his shoulder.
Unlike his father, Martin was exceedingly conscious of the social gulf that separated him from Christopher. At the baron's approach, he dismounted and bowed deeply, and upon straightening, he searched Christopher's face as though for some indication of what kind of reception he might receive today.
The monkey chuckled and pulled on Christopher's ear. “Yes, little friend,” he said, “I've been tamed a bit also.” He offered his hand to Martin. “Don't be afraid. I won't eat you.”
“God bless you, Baron Christopher.”
Christopher called for the grooms to take away Martin's horse, waved the servants away, and personally led him towards the door. “Did you want to make this a formal visit, Martin?” he said, wondering how it was that he had become so gracious a host. “Shall I tell Raffalda to draw a bath and set out clothes?”
Martin blushed, at once overwhelmed and a little frightened. “If it please you, my lord, I think I'd just as soon speak now.”
Christopher stopped on the porch. “All right, then. What is it? Has your father finally decided that Aurverelle might be a worthwhile ally?”
“It's not that at all.” Martin looked extremely worried. “It's Baron Paul. I've written to him fairly regularly, and he's written back. About once a week. We were very close, almost like . . . uh . . . father and son . . .” Martin looked uneasily at Christopher. “. . . but lately, I haven't heard a word from him. No letters, nothing. I wrote again after a fortnight, but the messenger didn't come back, and there's still no word from Shrinerock.”
And Christopher had written a month ago. No reply. And the messenger had not returned, either.
A shout from the watchman at the top of the great keep, but Christopher was too intent upon Martin's words to make out what he was saying.
“I'm worried,” continued Martin. “I've talked to Father, but he isn't bothered by anything: he just wants me to get married. But lately, I've heard some rumors. Nothing definite, you know, but they all say that's something happened down by Furze.”
And the free companies had disappeared. Nearly four thousand men . . .
The guard at the top of the keep was still shouting, and he had become insistent enough that Christopher finally listened to him:
“Smoke! Smoke to the southeast!”
The realization struck Christopher like a leaden fist, and, pulling Martin after him until the lad understood and followed on his own, Christopher ran across the court to the stairway that led to the top of the keep. Cursing, taking the large steps two at a time, while the monkey clung to his neck and shrieked with fear, Christopher bounded upwards.
When, panting, he burst out into the open, he looked off to the southeast. It was as the watchman had said: beyond Malvern, beyond the wide dairylands that stretched from the far edge of the forest to the Bergren River, a pillar of smoke, black and gray, was rising into the cloudless sky.
Martin was at his side. “What . . . what is it?” he said when he found his voice.
Christopher planted his elbows atop the parapet, covered his face with his hands. “It's Furze. Dammit, it's Furze.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The smoke rose and spread into the air as Christopher watched. It could only be Furze. Yes, the free companies were in Adria, and yes, their movements were erratic. Indeed, they had completely bypassed Belroi and had instead, knowingly or not, struck directly at the alliance.
A puffing from the direction of the stairs told Christopher that Pytor had arrived. “Get some messengers off, Pytor,” he said without turning around. “Tell Ruprecht we'll need immediate aid at Furze. And tell Yvonnet . . .” He wished indeed that he had strangled his cousin. “Tell that son of a bitch that . . .”
He noticed that Martin looked away quickly.
“I'm sorry, Martin,” said Christopher. “I know you didn't have anything to do with this.” He turned back to Pytor. “Tell him the same thing you tell Ruprecht: that we'll gather the forces at Furze as quickly as possible. Make whatever arrangements you think best.”
Pytor spread his hands. “What about master?”
“I'm going ahead of you all.”
Martin lifted his head, wiped his eyes. “I'm coming, too.”
“Can you fight?”
“Of course I can fight.”
“But not against churchmen.”
Martin colored. “I was stupid. Etienne surprised me. I learned.”
Pytor was wringing his hands again. “Is master sure of this?”
“Of course I'm sure,” said Christopher. “You have the word of a madman.”
Pytor did not look reassured, but before an hour had passed, Christopher, Martin, and Natil were cantering down the switchback road to the lowlands. The men were both armed and wearing light mail. Natil, though, had dispensed immediately with her customary gown and reverted openly to her garments of green and gray.
Christopher performed introductions on the fly. “Natil, Martin Osmore,” he called above the dusty clatter of hooves. “Martin, this is my harper, Natil.”
“God bless you,” said Martin, but Natil, peering out across the miles of dark trees with a stricken look in her blue eyes, acknowledged him but distantly.
When they reached the base of the hill, Malvern Forest lay squarely in their path. There was no road through it—there never had been—and Christopher gestured to right and to left. “It won't make much difference whether we go north or south,” he said. “It's going to be a long ride either way.”
“The south road will take us through the Free Towns,” Martin pointed out.
“Would your father have any available men we could snatch up?”
The lad shook his head, embarrassed. “Father's never taken any of your concerns very seriously, Messire Christopher. I believe he thinks he can buy the safety of his city if the companies approach.”
Christopher wished that he were indeed as mad as he claimed: then he could scream and throw things with perfect justification. “What in the Lady's name happened to the Free Towns? You people fought like devils when you threw out old David a'Freux.”
Martin shrugged. “That was many years ago. Times have changed . . . people are more comfortable . . .”
“And complacent, yes,” Christopher snapped, though when he saw Martin's hurt look, he regretted his words.
Natil spoke. “Some of the Towns have preserved their old ways,” she said. “But times have indeed changed.” She pointed at the forest. “I can take you straight through Malvern,” she said. “We can be at Furze in two days.”
“But there's no road,” said Christopher.
Natil's face was set, and when she looked at Christopher, there was a grimness about her eyes that he had not seen before. “None . . . none of which humans know,” she said. “But our need is great, and so I am willing to reveal what has previously been hidden.”
Martin was suddenly staring at the harper. Christopher saw suspicion in the lad, suspicion rooted on both fear and wonder.
“Will you trust me?” she said.
Christopher did not hesitate. “With my life.”
“Then come.”
Christopher had never been fostered out to a distant baron's household: old Roger had raised him. As a result, Christopher knew Aurverelle and portions of Malvern as well as he knew the halls of his castle. But Natil led him towards the thick trees and overhanging branches, and he found himself riding into an opening large enough for a horse and rider.
And opening he had never seen before.
Natil led her companions onto a path carpeted with leaves and soft moss. It led straight ahead and into the green distance.
Christopher was staring. “Where did this come from?”
“It has always been here,” Natil replied calmly.
“That's absurd. I've been in this forest a thousand times. How could I have missed it?”
Natil glanced back at him. “Well . . . perhaps you were not looking for it, my lord.”
They rode, and the shadows of the afternoon slipped towards dusk. But, occupied as his thoughts were with Furze and what might have happened to Paul delMari, Christopher could not help but think of Vanessa and wonder why Martin had said nothing about her. It had been almost a year since she had taken the road to Saint Blaise: surely there would be some news of her.
Conscious that the already delicate balance of the alliance was steadily becoming even more delicate, Christopher was unwilling to confess his obsession to a practicing sodomite, but as the miles passed, he began to become annoyed. Dammit, Martin's family had as much as been given ownership of the girl. Surely, after all that had happened, the lad would have something to say about her.
But no, nothing.
Selfish bastard.
A chitter from his saddlebag answered his thought, and he started with a gasp. Natil turned, staring, then laughed as Christopher unfastened the bag and extracted the monkey. It grinned at him and clambered up to his shoulder.
Christopher sighed. “Two riders . . . and two monkeys,” he said. “Thank you for reminding me.”
***
Late in the afternoon of the second day, Christopher, Natil, and Martin rode out of the trees and onto the pastureland that stretched eastward from the edge of the forest. But even in the shadows that the Aleser Mountains flung far to the east—a premature dusk—Christopher could see that the normally lush grass was brown and withered, the gullies dry, the streams sluggish. Spring had brought a drought, and it was a bad one.
“It's about five leagues to Furze,” he said.
“Five leagues,” said Martin. He looked at the sky, plainly worried. “There's a little light for now, and there'll be a moon tonight. We could ride.”
Christopher wished that Martin would demonstrate as much concern for Vanessa, but he looked to Natil for advice. She nodded to the horses. “We should not ride fast, my lord. The animals are weary.”
“I have no intention of riding fast.” The monkey on his shoulder looked relieved. “But I do want to find out what happened at Furze. And if the free companies are about, I don't think I want to do that in full daylight. Can you read the patterns, harper?”
Martin started, then suddenly stared at Natil.
“They are clearer, my lord,” said the harper. “But they do not look at all reassuring.”
There were no roads here—none indeed were needed—and they rode straight across the rolling fields and into a falling darkness in which herds of thirsty cattle were a rustling, stirring shadow, and herders' huts and dugouts gleamed now and again with the faint yellow of rushlights and hearth fires. A moon barely touched with gibbous waning lit their way, but the shadow that was Furze was not pierced by its light. Growing larger as they approached, it remained dark, black, impenetrable, lit only occasionally by sparks of red that arose, flared, then subsided like a failing heart.
Near midnight, they left the horses and the monkey in the shelter of a dry canal and approached on foot. Keeping to the shadows, they crept about the perimeter of the city until they came to a gatehouse. The gates, though, were gone: the massive, bronze-bound doors were lying on the ground ten yards from the wall, shattered and broken.
Christopher pointed to the city. “Can you see?” he whispered to Natil.
“I can,” she whispered back. “There are a few survivors. The gate is guarded. Those who did this are . . . elsewhere.”
“Where?”
“I am not sure.” She closed her eyes, her brow furrowed. “It will take time.”
“Then let me be mad a little longer,” said Christopher. He drew his knife. “There's a guard, you say?”
“One.” Natil's eyes were sad, their light troubled. The work of men.
Alone, Christopher worked his way slowly up to the opening in the wall. A shape in the darkness just within the gate showed the rough outlines of a man, and in another minute, the baron had slipped behind him and laid a blade against his throat. “Not a sound unless I say, or you're dead.”
The man nodded mutely. He was clad in rough leather armor, but he did not have the manner of a seasoned warrior. A townsman, then, Christopher guessed: conscripted by disaster, guarding against another invasion . . . and feeling hopeless about it.
“What happened here?”
“Who . . .”
“Who am I?” Christopher grinned. “I'm Christopher, baron of Aurverelle. The one who's mad.”
“You'd ha' to be, to cam here.”
“What happened?”
“Robbers. Thousands. They cam up from the south. We wan't expecting anything, an' as most o' them wore the Shrinerock arms, we ha' no reason to.”
Shrinerock arms? That meant . . .
Shrinerock? How?
But Christopher betrayed nothing of his dismay. “And then, once they were inside, they started looting and burning.”
The man nodded. “Orders o' Baron Paul, they said.”
“You believe that?”
“Nay.”
“Good. Don't.”
“An' then, once they'd taken e'erything, they left.”
“Which way did they go?”
“To the south.”
“All right.” Christopher removed the blade from the man's throat. The guard shuddered with relief, looked close to tears. He had seen his town looted and burned, had probably watched his friends or his family die. Christopher was moved to give him a pat on the shoulder. “Carry on, friend. Just remember: you didn't see me. You never saw or heard anything tonight. I wasn't here. Understand?”
“Aye, master.”
“Good man. I'm doing what I can, remember that.” Christopher slipped back into the darkness. Shrinerock. Dear Lady!
They returned to the horses and put several miles between them and the city before Christopher called a halt. The horses were exhausted, as were—with the exception of Natil—their riders. The monkey was cross and petulant, and it squished up its face and rubbed its eyes as Christopher waggled a finger at it. “Don't you wish you'd stayed in Aurverelle?” he said. “You could be throwing fruit at David.”
The monkey looked sad. Christopher gave it some bread and dried meat, plunked a cup of water down beside it. The monkey squatted down and ate.
Christopher himself was almost too tired to put food in his mouth, but in the contest between hunger and sleep, hunger was winning for now. Nevertheless, he ate mechanically, his thoughts on Furze . . . and on Shrinerock.
Natil, too, was abstracted. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, she was staring off into space, eyes closed, mouth set. Abruptly, she came to herself and sighed. “Shrinerock has been taken,” she said.
She had only confirmed what Christopher already suspected. With an effort, he swallowed a bit of bread. “What about Paul and his people?”
“They are . . .” She stood up, peered to the southeast. Ten miles away rose the mountain that gave the castle its name. “They are somewhere near the castle.”
“Dead?”
Her voice was hoarse. Grief? Fatigue? “Many.”
They spent the rest of the night and most of the next day in the shelter of a series of low, tree-covered hills. The sun glared down, parching an already parched land. Christopher fretted, Natil looked strained, Martin fidgeted. Even the monkey seemed more serious than usual, and when Natil offered to play with it, it shook its head somberly.
When dusk came on, they mounted and rode toward Paul's castle, staying off the roads, keeping to valleys and depressions. The outline of Shrinerock grew. This was Vanessa's country: dairyland accents, pastures, cows, the silhouette of the loveliest castle of Adria rising against the sky. Somewhere nearby was the hamlet where she had been born, the little cluster of houses and huts that had first nurtured, then rejected her. Christopher wondered whether her parents were alive or dead. He was not sure that he cared. They had sent their youngest daughter off into the care of strangers and therefore had, in his opinion, renounced all claim to her.
The sound of Saint Adrian's spring was loud in the cricket-sown darkness as they rode into a stand of trees and dismounted. Above them, the mountain was dark, the fortress that surmounted it a collection of white walls and towers and spires that turned silver as the moon rose. Lights gleamed from a few windows.
“Baron Paul and his people are nearby,” said Natil. Her voice was pitched economically: just loud enough to carry above the water, no more.
Martin seemed awe-struck by her certainty. “Can . . . can you find them?”
“I believe I can.”
Still carrying her harp, Natil led them deeper into the trees. Christopher tried to leave the monkey with the horses, but the three had not gone twenty paces before the little creature came scampering after them. It clung to Christopher's neck and refused to be dislodged. It was not an encouraging sign.
The forest was thick, dense, but this was not Malvern. Once, perhaps, this place might have been wild and forbidding, but the years it had spent in the good-natured hands of the barons of Furze had gentled it. Nonetheless, it was a dark place, and the moonlight only patched the forest floor with isolated puddles of silver.
After a time, Natil halted. “The patterns are confused, my lord,” she said. “They have faded so much . . .” She bent her head.
Christopher put an arm about her shoulders. She seemed terribly thin and frail tonight. His demands had been draining her for weeks, months perhaps, but for some reason she was willing to give, to keep giving, to heal and to help so long as there was strength left in her. It seemed at times to be her only reason for existence.
