Maze of moonlight, p.6
Maze of Moonlight, page 6
“Lake . . . hmmm.” Paul pretended to be thinking deeply, though he knew quite well who Lake was. “Lakelakelake . . . ah, yes. Lake. I did say that I would see him, didn't I? Ha-ha! Where is he?”
Lake was in the lobby, but Paul instructed Nicholas to bring him up to the library. Nicholas moved off solemnly, an important man doing important work. Paul, for all his forty years, bounded off in the direction of the library like a boy with a piece of sugar waiting for him. Lies, he reflected, had their advantages. Another noble might have steered his way through the castle like a Venetian galley and therefore would have missed the utter joy of vaulting over an astonished serving girl who was scrubbing the corridor floor and sending her pelting away with a sustained shriek.
In the library, he settled himself in the big chair by the fire and waited; and a short time later, Lake entered alone with his cap in his hands. He gave Paul a heavyset bow, his eyes downcast. Today the farmer, too, seemed to be wrapped in a lie.
“Well, my man, what can I do for you?” said Paul. “Not wanting to indenture yourself for more land, I hope. If you work off any more contracts as quickly as you did your first, I'm afraid I'll be calling you baron before too long!”
Lake looked uncomfortable. He was a hard worker. Almost inhumanly so. Always the first out in the fields, always the last to go home. Thirty-five years ago he had come to the estate with nothing but a bundle of clothes and a knife. Now he owned his own land, employed his own men to work it, and paid not fees but taxes to Shrinerock. If sweat and labor could ennoble a man—as Abbot Wenceslas and his monks always insisted that it did—Paul could indeed imagine Lake working himself up tot he baronage.
But Lake was reserved by nature, and a bit solitary, too. He was uncomfortable about people, especially important people, and Paul sensed that today he was uncomfortable for other reasons, too. “It's na an indenture, m'lord,” said Lake. “It's my daughter, Vanessa.”
“Vanessa. Ah! I remember her.” Paul had, in fact, never met her. “Lovely girl, simply lovely. Is she going to marry? You know as well as I, Lake, that you don't need my permission for that.”
“Nay,” said Lake. “It's na that.” He fidgeted. His gaze, downcast until now, involuntarily rose to meet Paul's, and for a moment, the baron wondered whether Lake's eyes were reflecting more light than they should have.
It was possible, he supposed. After all, his own mother, Janet Darci, had possessed a bit of elven blood. But Paul pretended not to notice. Though the current fashion had declared Elves to be a legend and belief in their existence to be heretical, it was dangerous, even for a daft baron to notice such things. “Certainly you can't be having any trouble with a suitable dowry, Lake.”
“Well . . . ah . . . that is . . . me and tha wife want sa'thing a little better for her. Vanessa is a . . . bright girl. I think that sa'day she could . . . ah . . .”
Yes, Lake had his lies, too.
“We thought,” said the farmer laboriously, “that maybe a position would be best for her. Perhaps in a trade. She could better herself.”
Paul nodded slowly. He understood. And Jehan had wanted to better himself, too. And Jehan was gone. “Ah,” he said brightly, “very commendable of you, Lake.”
“We thought you might be able t' help, m'lord.”
“Well . . .” Paul stared at the ceiling with eyes that he occasionally suspected showed a little too much light of their own. “I have the personal acquaintance of some artisans in Furze—they made the new hangings in the hall, Lake: have Nicholas show them to you on your way out—weavers and embroideresses . . . affiliated with the Béguines, you know.” Feeling Lake's increased discomfort, he winked. “They behave themselves, don't you worry a bit! My lord bishop doesn't worry about them. Actually, I suspect that he worries more about the Ypris benefices he lost to Benedict than about the Béguines, ha-ha!”
Lake was not reassured. “Please, m'lord,” he said. “Not Furze. We were thinking o' . . . ah . . . Saint Blaise.”
“Oh, the Free Towns.” Lies, lies, lies. Lake was plainly dissembling, but Paul could not help that. Lake did not pry into the delMari family and its visitors and customs, and Paul would not pry into the motives of his hard-working and talented tenant. “Very prosperous, the Free Towns.”
“Aye, and Saint Blaise is friendly.”
“Well, yes,” said Paul. “Quite friendly, especially since my father married the mayor's daughter.” Paul felt a genuine smile well up. What a couple that had been! Charles: courtly, amorous, studious; Janet: bright, practical, and intelligent, with a spark of immortal blood that made her every word and gesture a joy. Such a birthright he had received from them! With a pang, he wondered what kind of birthright he had given Jehan.
I want to play at tables, the boy had said in his last letter home, not do accounts on them.
Barons like Christopher delAurvre went off on crusades. Barons like Paul delMari, it appeared, stayed at home and gave parties. But Paul kept his smile. “Can't get much friendlier than that, can we?”
“Nay, m'lord.”
“Hmmm . . .” Paul examined Lake's request, found nothing amiss. Lake, father of two sons and three daughters, could well afford another dowry, even if Vanessa were exceptionally ugly, which, given the light in her father's eyes, Paul knew she was not. But Vanessa's inclinations might have been towards independence, and the Towns, though their legendary tolerance had been slipping for some years, still at least understood independence. A young girl with ambitions for more than marriage or a nunnery could do much, much worse than make her way to the Free Towns.
“I think it can be managed, Lake,” he said. “We can find her something in Saint Blaise. She's an intelligent girl, isn't she? Ha-ha, I knew it! She'll want something quiet, I'm sure. Can she read? Yes? Bonnerol doing his job, then? Good. How soon did you want to do this?”
“Please, m'lord: as soon as possible.”
Lake was anxious, eager. Lies. Everybody lied in one way or another. What was Lake's way?
Paul nodded slowly. “Yes, that would be for the best, wouldn't it? But . . .” He got up and went to the window. He knew what he could do for Vanessa. Simple, really. But that brought him straight back to Martin. And Martin made him think of Jehan. “But won't you miss her?”
Lake bent his head quickly.
The glass window gave a distorted and wavy view of the landscape below. Paul could see it, and yet much remained hidden, obscure. Just like that. Just like Paul delMari.
He had sent his son away, and now he was gone. He had to try to tell Lake about what might be the results of his request. “I miss my Jehan,” he said. “Just about ten years ago, he went off to Saint Blaise to be fostered with Mayor Matthew. The mayor's son, Martin, came here.” He shook his head sadly: even the daft could be melancholic upon occasion. “Jehan never liked people he deemed below his status. Manly little chap.” He laughed softly, but Jehan was gone. He had no son, only a much loved fosterling and a few memories. And Martin was leaving. “He left the household there after only a few years. Wandered off to make his own way. He'll turn up someday, I imagine, but Isabelle and I both miss him. He was our only child. . . .” He turned back from the window. “Are you sure you want to do this, Lake? Saint Blaise is a good distance away, and it's a big city. Quite a change from Furze Hamlet. Are you sure you don't want something closer and . . . smaller? Saint Brigid is only two days' ride form here. It's a nice little town—”
But he broke off at the sight of Lake's tense, frightened face. The farmer was shaking his head violently: short, abrupt swings as though he were palsied. “I'm sure, m'lord. I think it's for tha best. An' it ha' better be Saint Blaise, too.”
“All right.” Paul gave a last look at the window. Maybe someday he would see Jehan riding up the road from the lowlands, perhaps clad in armor won in some far-off battle, a spear in his hand and the delMari griffin and silver star on his shield. “Maybe it will indeed be for the best.” He shrugged, mustered his little grin. “After all, anything is possible. There are only differing degrees of probability.”
Lake started.
Paul watched him understandingly. Compassion. The Elves had always spoken of compassion. It was an old way, a good way, and he would hold to it. “I'll help you, Lake. Martin is due to return to Saint Blaise in the spring, and Vanessa can go with him. Mayor Matthew has his pretensions, but if I send him a letter telling him to find her a good position where she can learn an honorable trade, he'll do it.”
Lake rose and bowed. “Thankee, m'lord. We're deeply obliged to you.”
Paul offered his hand, smiled at Lake's grip. They could not acknowledge one another—Lake himself perhaps did not even know—but it was good that what bare traces of the old blood were left in the world could touch in friendship. “You tell Vanessa that she'll be well taken care of, Lake. Ha-ha! You tell her that she has adventures—yes, adventures!—ahead of her.”
“Thankee, m'lord. I wi'.” And bowing again, Lake went to the door. Nicholas, unctuous and official, had been waiting for him, and the steward escorted the farmer along the hall, down the stairs, and out of the castle.
Pondering, Paul examined his hand. A touch. It was not much, but it would have to do.
Lies. And it was getting to be so dark!
***
“Black bread?” David's voice, faint with horror, echoed off the walls of the kitchen.
“With beans in it.” Pytor nodded.
“Beans?”
“Beans.”
“Dear God.” The chef of Aurverelle passed a hand over his face. “But he can't possibly want to eat that! It's . . . it's not . . .”
“Not noble,” Pytor prompted.
“Yes. Exactly.”
Pytor shrugged. It was Christopher who gave the orders in Aurverelle, not the seneschal, not the bailiff, nor, for that matter, the chef. “It is now.”
“And those . . . rags he's wearing.”
These days, the kitchen was not a busy place, for the castle possessed less than one third of its usual population and therefore, the sound of snickering from one of the kitchen boys who was stirring a pot was loud in the silence.
But it was Baron Christopher who was being snickered at, and black bread or no, David whirled and clouted the lad on the back of the head. The boy resumed his stirring attentively. David glared at him, then turned back to Pytor. “Rags!”
“Raffalda would not allow the baron to go about in rages, Master Chef,” said Pytor, though he himself had unconsciously come to think of Christopher's garb as such. “His clothes are simply of black and brown. He prefers it that way.”
“But . . . where's his style?”
“In black bread, at present.”
David sniffed. “It's inedible.”
Pytor cleared his throat: a deep rumble. “Are you telling me, Master Chef, that one who trained under the great Taillevent himself is incapable of making a decent loaf of black bread?”
The chef shook his head. “You have to understand, Master Seneschal. This bread he wants. It's something . . . else. It's full of . . .”
“Beans.”
“Well, yes. Beans. But not just beans. It's rye and spelt and barley and brank, the coarsest of flours, with only enough wheat in it to keep it from turning into a rock. Peasants are fit to eat it, but not anybody of any decency.”
Pytor, a peasant—and an escaped slave—who had eaten black bread with beans and worse in it, said nothing. One had to be a little tolerant of David. And, these days, of Christopher, too.
“And peasants are . . . well . . . they're just different,” David went on. “They can make a meal of thorns and acorns if they want. Black bread is nothing to them. It's actually good for them. But the baron . . .”
Muttering inwardly at the chef's casual bigotry, Pytor tried to be diplomatic. “My good chef, the baron had more than his fill of thorns and acorns during his journey home, and he told me that a little black bread will not hurt him.” Baron Christopher, of course, had said nothing of the sort: he gave orders, not explanations. “Besides, he fears that the noble food you customarily prepare for him might prove to be too rich so soon after his illness. Therefore, now that he can finally keep down something beyond gruel, he wants black bread. And he will, of course, look forward to eating your delicacies as soon as he is ready.”
David glared. “Black bread?”
The Russian sighed. “With beans.”
Another voice cackled, then shouted. “Lots of beans!” Startled, Pytor and David whirled to see Christopher and Jerome standing in the doorway. Christopher's hands were balled into fists, and he raised them up above his head as he leaped down the three steps to the flagstone floor, sending the kitchen boys running in fear. “Handfuls of beans! Buckets of beans! Bushels of beans!”
“Dear God,” David whispered. “He's mad.”
“And a little heap under the stairs!”
Pytor's eyes narrowed at the chef. “Master is as sane as you or I,” he murmured in his deep basso. “Another disloyal word like that, Master Chef, and I will have you put in irons.”
“Beans!” said Christopher as he snatched a dry apple from a barrel, and for a moment, Pytor was terrified that his master was going to gnaw it down to the core and then hurl what was left at the nearest head.
But the apple, uneaten, smacked into the hands of the kitchen lad who had been snickering. “Next time,” said Christopher, “laugh louder.”
The boy was white. “Yes, m'lord.”
“You hear me?” shouted Christopher. “Louder!” And then he whirled on David. “Beams!”
Faced with a direct confrontation with the master of Aurverelle, the chef wilted. “As you wish, Baron Christopher.”
Christopher nodded, satisfied. “And a bowl of that lentil soup you make . . .the thick kind. The kind with the onions in it.”
David nearly cried out in horror. “But I make that for the dogs when they're sick!”
Christopher was undeterred. He picked up another apple. “Such will be my supper until I inform you otherwise.” The apple streaked at David's head, and the chef barely caught it in time. “Have an apple. Enjoy. And don't forget to laugh.” He beckoned to Pytor. “Come, sir. Let us go and leave Master Chef to his bread and beans.”
Together, Christopher, Pytor, and Jerome left the kitchen and strolled out into the courtyard. Pytor stayed close to his master's side, for though Christopher's strength had much improved, he still had to lean occasionally on a friendly arm to catch his breath. This afternoon, though, he insisted on a lengthy walk, one that took them out the castle gates, through the streets of the surrounding town, and past the inn where Pytor had discovered him.
In contrast tot he wretched autumn, the weather was mild and reasonably dry for January. The majority of the townsfolk were still keeping indoors, attending to the quiet tasks of the winter, but those who were out smiled and bowed and curtsied and saluted Christopher with a cheery “God bless you, m'lord.”
But when the baron lifted a black-clad arm to acknowledge their greetings, he did so absently. “They obviously think I've gone daft,” he said to his companions. “I can see that. Poor Baron Christopher, running about in donkey skins.” He looked at Pytor. “Did you and David have a nice chat about my taste in sackcloth?”
Pytor colored. “David is distressed, master.”
“And what about you?”
“Master may wear what he deems most fit.”
“But you don't like it, do you?”
Pytor cleared his throat, spoke cautiously. “I must admit that it is not what is considered stylish.”
“Stylish! Yes . . . that's the important thing, isn't it? Perhaps I should wear green, like Jean de Nevers. After all, one can't go about looking like a friar, can one?”
“If I may say so,” said Jerome, his arms still folded in his Franciscan habit, “I think that a friar is a very fine thing to look like.”
Christopher laughed. “Bless you, Fra Jerome.”
But Jerome shook his head. “My lord, it is not for us to question your choice of food or clothes: the holy Baptist ate locusts and honey, after all. But I might remind you of your position in Adria. Word of your ways has reached some of the other baronies of the land. It has caused some . . . discussion.”
Christopher stopped laughing, and Pytor, hopeful, caught a flash of the old delAurvre defiance. “Discussion? Ah, yes. I saw that letter you left on my bed. Who sent that, anyway?”
“One of your men nominally in the employ of Yvonnet of Hypprux,” said Jerome. He coughed. “Nominally.”
“A spy.”
“If you recall, my lord, you had quite an established network,” said Jerome. “The legacy of your grandfather. Pytor and I did our best to maintain it in your absence. We thought it prudent.”
“My grandfather . . .” Christopher mused. “Damn, but that was a man.” He thought some more, but then his face turned pained. “All right, I can guess. Yvonnet is my cousin—second, third, I can't recall—and if I'm mad, I can't hold onto Aurverelle, can I?”
Jerome nodded his gray head. “One of Yvonnet's people was examining the lineage rolls in Maris about a month before you returned, my lord. Obviously, the baron of Hypprux had some designs on Aurverelle that were predicated upon its rightful master's death. Those, of course, were dashed by your return. Now, though, your—shall we call it fanciful?—behavior has raised another possibility.
“Yvonnet is more interested in banquets and balls than in battle.”
Pytor shook his head. “If master would let me speak, I would say that I would not underestimate Yvonnet. He has ridden in his share of tournaments. But I doubt that he would himself come to attack master. There are other ways. The free companies, for instance.”
Jerome nodded his gray head. “They've been active in France since the truce with England. France has been stripped: they'll be looking for wealthier lands. And some of Yvonnet's gold might persuade them that Aurverelle is that land. The Italians have been using the companies for political purposes for decades, and in France some captains have actually been rewarded with castles and fiefdoms for their services against one nobleman or another. Common, very common. It would only take a message or two, a few bags of gold, a promise, and a wink. . . .” The friar shrugged.
