Maze of Moonlight Read online

  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 sudden
ly 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.

  Chapter Two

  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.

  Up in the wide loft, Miriam, his wife, breathed softly in unfeigned repose, and Vanessa's fourteen-year-old restlessness rustled the straw and feathers of her bed.

  Vanessa. Did she sleep? She seemed to. But that, perhaps, was her only normal quality. Lake rose, crept to the stairs that led to the loft, peered up anxiously. It was important that Vanessa be asleep tonight. It was important that she remain asleep. She saw enough already: it would not do at all for her to hear also.

  The fire crackled abruptly and sparked once, twice, and the mules and oxen grumbled sleepily in the adjoining stable as they hunkered down amid dry and plentiful litter. Vanessa groaned softly as though in reply. Lake bowed his head, wondering what she saw in her dreams, frightened because he suspected that he knew.

  An hour dragged by. Two. Distantly, he heard the bells of the Benedictine abbey, and he began to wonder whether he had been wrong, to hope that the subtle but unmistakable feeling that had prompted him to remain awake by the fire was false, the product of worry about himself, his past . . . and his youngest daughter.

  A tapping on the door: measured, light.

  Lake stared at the fire. In the corner of his mind, he detected a barely perceptible glimmering. It was inviting, gracious. He thrust it away.

  Once more the tapping; this time softly, reluctantly, as though it would not be repeated again. With yet another anxious glance at the loft, Lake rose and crossed the room, lifted the bar softly, and swung the door open.

  The night was cold and black, but even if the glow from the fire had not illuminated faintly the gray-cloaked figure standing in the snow outside, Lake would nonetheless have seen enough to confirm his feelings and his vigil, for there was a light about his visitor that seemed to shine from within. It played softly on his womanly face, and it echoed the gleam of starlight in his eyes.

  “Varden.” Lake spoke reluctantly. “I . . . expected you.”

  “Be at . . .” Varden hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Be at peace. May I enter?”

  In answer, Lake turned away from the door and went to stand before the fire with folded arms. Behind him, Varden entered and shut the door, but though Lake heard the rustle of a cloak being removed, shaken out, and hung up on a peg, he also heard enough to tell him that Varden, as though unsure of what hospitality he might find in this house, had stayed just within the threshold.

  Silence. The crackle of the fire. The scrape of branch against snow-laden thatch.

  “It has been a long time,” said Varden at last.

  Lake did not turn. “Ha' it been that long?”

  “Twenty years,:

  “That's na long . . . for such as you.”

  Varden was silent. Then, cautiously: “I believe I feel the years more now than I once did.”

  Even though his back was turned, Lake sensed his visitor's manner and presence. Slender and straight, arms folded, eyes troubled, Varden had not moved. It had indeed been a long time. Lake would have preferred that it had been longer.

  “How is Ma?” Lake said at last.

  “She is . . .” Varden's voice was suddenly strained. “She is dead, Lake. She died a week ago.”

  Lake bowed his head, but he could not find the tears.

  “We can still do much,” Varden continued softly, “but we cannot take away age.”

  “You never could.”

  “Not so. Once—” But Varden broke off, stood in silence. “Roxanne believed in cycles,” he said after a time, “and in her Goddess, and in death and rebirth. She would not have allowed such magic, even had it still been possible.”

  Up in the loft, Vanessa stirred again. Lake started, looked towards the top of the stairs.

  “But she was old,” said Varden. “It was her time, so she told us. Natil and Mirya and Terrill and I were with her when she left. Charity, too.” He hesitated. “I . . . I do not know where she is now.”

  Lake found that his jaw was clenched against tears that he could not, would not feel. Annoyed with himself, he unclenched it. “Well, that's wha' comes o' being human,” he heard himself say. “That's wha' comes o' getting old. I'm old myself. Middle-aged, and getting fat and . . .”

  Lake turned around, and he saw plainly the gleam of starlight about Varden. His voice caught. He could see it. Of course he could. And he could see what had happened to Vanessa, too. Thank God or the Lady or whoever watched over such as made up his family that it took that taint of ancient blood to detect such things, otherwise . . .

  Involuntarily, he looked up at the loft again. No. Never. Vanessa would have a chance. Maybe in a city somewhere, away from her father, away from reminders, even unconscious reminders, of another heritage and race, her symptoms might fade. She might never know what she was. She might never have to.

  Yes, he could do that. He could do . . . something.

  “I'm . . . old myself,” he repeated. “I suppose that's good. I'd have a hard time explaining endless youth as well as everything else.”

  Varden had not moved. “Everything else?”

  “Well . . . the stories, the rumors. They've followed me even here. And I've ne'er learned to sleep very well. People noticed that, too.” Lake scuffed at the rushes on the floor. “It's hard to get away from your birth . . . or your parents.”

  Varden's young face turned pained. “Lakei—”

  “Dan call me that.”

  Varden lowered his gaze. “And do you hate me so much?”

  Lake turned away, eyes stinging. “I dan hate you. If I hate anything at a', I hate what you di' to me. An' so I hate wha' I di' to Vanessa.”

  “I am sorry.” Varden fell silent again, and when Lake looked up, he noticed that, in addition to the almost subliminal shadow of starlight that played about Varden, there was a hint of transparency to him, as though he hovered on the borders of existence.

  He blinked, looked again. It was true. Roxanne was dead, and Varden, in accordance with the fate of his kind, was . . . fading . . .

  “Cam sit down an' . . .” Lake's voice caught at the invitation as much as at his realization, but he pushed on through, “. . . an' warm yourself.”

  Varden hesitated for a moment, then nodded and sat down on the bench near the hearth. Clad simply in the green and gray of the shadowed forest, he seemed to Lake a gleaming, wild thing, as out of place in this peasant dwelling as a fox. But the firelight only heightened the sense of the ephemeral about him. Hovering, Only hovering. And Roxanne was dead. Soon, very soon, only the heritage would remain.

  Lake rem
ained standing. Outside, the wind picked up, and the snow rattled on the wooden shutters.

  “I stayed away because I knew your desires,” said Varden, and if he himself had noticed the transparency, he gave no sign. “I came because I gave in to my own. Roxanne is . . .” The starlight in his eyes was troubled by grief, “Roxanne is gone. There are but four of us left in the world. I . . .”

  He bent his head. Lake could not find the tears. Varden could.

  “And so you wanted to see me,” said Lake.

  “It is . . . so. I wanted to see you, to . . . to know that life continues. Roxanne and Charity speak of the mystery of the corn, the dry head of seed which appears dead, but which grows into new life. I need that hope now. So, I believe, do we all at this time of fading. So I wanted to see—”

  “You wan' to know about Vanessa.”

  Varden nodded. “I do. I looked. I have seen.”

  “I was afraid you'd do that.”

  Abruptly, the light in Varden's eyes turned angry, defiant. “Why? Do you not think that I care?”

  Lake fought with his own anger, the burst of temper that would have done no good. How could one rage against what had already been done. Roxanne had loved Varden. Other people had loved . . . others. Lake's heritage was shared by many: how was it that he found the temerity to complain? “My other children—girls and boys both—they dan see it. Whatever they've got from you is hidden. An' that's good. But Vanessa: she's . . . taken after me . . . an' . . .”

  He whirled suddenly on Varden. “Dan it bother you? Dan it touch you? No . . . it can't, I guess. You're down there i' Saint Brigid wi' people wha look at you wi' belief an' dan hate you. An' you're fading anyway: soon you'll na ha' to worry about anything.” Varden looked away quickly, but Lake continued. “But Vanessa and the rest, and their children, and their children's children . . . now and again it's going to show up in them, and they'll ha' to fight wi' it, and they'll either deny it, or go mad, or get burned or . . . or . . .” His hands were shaking furiously, and he clenched them and thrust them into the pockets of his overtunic. “Or they'll ha' it wake up i' them, and then one day, if they've enough o' it, they wan't be human anymore. An' then it'll be all the same for 'em. They'll die anyway.”