Maze of Moonlight by Gael Baudino (top 20 books to read txt) 📗

his men's. Italy, though, was not the place to stay. Perhaps, come spring, they could cross into France and see what the other free companies had left of the place. For now, though, his men would be comfortable. “Impregnable, eh?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jehan. “There are ways in, of course, that aren't normally guarded because almost no one knows about them, but the defenses are otherwise magnificent. David of Saint George designed it back in my great--great-grandfather's day, and it's actually been improved upon since then.”

Shrinerock . . . and ways in. Berard found himself considering the future. He did not care about what he did not have, but he cared a good deal about what he might have. “Ah . . . by the way, Jehan,” he said. “I think I've come up with a name for our little band. What do you think of 'The Fellowship of Acquisition'?”

Jehan looked at him with a twisted mouth. “Berard, that is evidence either of the most abominable taste of the most magnificent humor I can imagine.”

Shrinerock. Interesting. What a life! “Do you like it?”

Jehan did not answer for a time. The stacked bags and chests glowed in the sunlight. “It will do.”

The flames crackled and snapped. Berard heard a girl crying out somewhere.

***

“SCREEAARRAACH!”

Christopher opened his eyes, sat up in bed, and found his startled gaze returned by a hairy caricature of a man squatting on the windowsill. Cold winter air was pouring in through the unfastened shutters, and the caricature was waving its over-long arms about as it clutched the mushy remains of what had once been a pear. Its face, as hairy as the rest of it, writhed and contorted, alternately puckering up and opening out like a mass of dough being kneaded.

Christopher blinked. The monkey blinked back. On an impulse, Christopher bared his teeth and stuck out his tongue. The monkey did likewise.

“Very good,” said the baron. “You'd make a fine nobleman.”

The remains of the pear smacked into the headboard inches from his head. With a derisive wave and a lewd gesture, the monkey fled through the open window and down the outside wall of the castle.

Christopher got up and staggered to the window. The monkey was gone. “A fine nobleman, indeed,” he murmured.

He closed and fastened the shutters, then turned around to face a room with which he had become much too familiar during his convalescence. Flat on his back, spoon fed sops and broth by Pytor or Raffalda or one of the maids from the kitchen, lifted bodily from bed to chamber pot and then back again, he had been given ample opportunity to count the number of chisel marks on the ceiling beams, enumerate the gilt threads in the bed hangings, learn the intricacies of tapestry stitches.

Today, though, he felt well enough to get up . . . or at least to make faces at monkeys. This was a distinct improvement. Perhaps the wretched stuff that Guillaume and Pytor had been ladling down his throat possessed some virtue after all.

Dizzy and weak now more from long inaction than from illness, he lurched to the side table, poured water from the ewer into its companion basin, and washed, still marveling at the feel of a shaved face and groomed hair. The open shutters had allowed the room to chill, and though, naked as he was, he shivered, it was a good shiver, one that told him that he was alive.

“I suppose I should be grateful,” he said to himself, running his hands back through his hair. “To whom and for what, I'm not exactly sure.”

He shivered again. Time for clothes. Anna's wardrobe, he discovered after opening it out of curiosity, was empty. He shrugged. Perhaps she had been buried with all her gowns. That would have been fitting.

His own, though, was well stocked, and holding tightly to the door so as not to topple, he pawed one-handed through the silks and satins and velvets. The delAurvres dressed well. So did the nobles of France, though Nevers and his company had, he recalled, preferred green. Green gowns. Green livery. Green tents. Green saddle blankets. Had it been possible to make green gold for the tableware, he was certain that it would have been done.

And then there were the lances and the tabards, the pennons and the banners and the twenty-four wagons full of delicacies and sweet wines. And that was just for the lordling of Burgundy and his immediate retinue. . . .

Christopher, spirals of light swirling through his vision, groped until he found tunic and stockings of plain black. Black, that was it. Mourning. Mourning for Aurverelle. Mourning for poor dead Christopher, who, though still alive, had seen what shabbiness underlay this glittering business of nobility.

He thought about summoning servants, but decided against it. He had gaped and capered through much of Europe without servants: he could put on his own clothes now. Odd, though, that the screech from the monkey had not brought everyone running.

Sitting on the side of the bed and resting frequently, he dressed; but when he knelt, opened a chest, and looked for shoes, he could find only a few of the pointed, curled, stuffed-toe monstrosities favored by his peers. Impatiently, he tossed them aside, and by the time he found a pair of soft boots that were as unfigured and unadorned as the rest of his somber garb, he was panting with exertion and wondering whether, now that he was dressed, he would actually be able to reach the door.

But as he had forced himself across a continent, so he drove himself across the room. Let Nevers and Boucicaut whimper about not having beds and viands of sufficient delicacy. This shambling wreck here was a delAurvre.

The door swung open on greased hinges and presented him with the sight of a serving boy sound asleep on the floor just outside the bedroom. Well, Christopher considered, it was early in the morning, and judging from the odor of wine, the lad had doubtless been carousing