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

Christopher, or rather, the outward semblance of Christopher, crouched in the windowsill of his bedroom, his back to the shutters, looking, Pytor thought with a pang, like northing so much as the escaped monkey, save that they monkey was as hairy as a devil and Christopher had been subjected to as much of a shave and a haircut as the castle barber could manage.

Eyes wide, the baron fixed his gaze on Pytor. “What do you want now? You want to prick me with needles? Fry me in pans? Oh, a soft prison is a hard bed indeed, when you've seen your friends cut up like capons!”

Guillaume, the castle physician, entered the room behind Pytor and shut the door. He examined Christopher from a distance. “Not much better, is he?”

“No,” said Pytor heavily. “Not much better at all.”

“To be expected,” said Guillaume. “Can't have everything at once. Takes time. Took three years to get him this way: three weeks isn't going to fix him.”

Pytor was wringing his cap in his hands. “I should like it very much if we saw some improvement.”

Christopher bobbed his head like a brain-damaged hawk. Guillaume chewed over his answer. “Hard to do anything. Won't lie down, won't take his medicine. G et rid of his fever, he'd do better. Could tie him up and dose him, I guess.”

“Tie up the baron of Aurverelle?”

Guillaume shrugged. “They tie up the king of France.”

The physician was right, but Pytor was uncomfortable with such extremes. Perhaps he was a little afraid of Christopher—what would happen if the baron abruptly recovered his senses and discovered that he was bound?—but he admitted to himself that it was more likely that he did not want to confirm the seriousness of his master's condition. To have to tie him up would say, unequivocally, uncompromisingly, that, yes, Christopher delAurvre was mad, totally mad, and would best be chained to the rood screen in the chapel with a cross shaved into his hair.

Christopher pointed at the two men and giggled, then whooped, then waved his arms and growled like a bear. “Grandpa Roger knew what to do, didn't he? He planted peach trees!” More giggling, more growls. The baron seemed torn between despair and hideous amusement.

Pytor winced. “Isn't there anything else we can do?”

“Tried them. He threw things at the musicians. Tore the clothes off one of the tumblers. Frightened Efram and the lads near to death when they tried to sing. The books say happiness. I'm not one to contradict the books. But if he won't take it, he won't take it.”

“Happiness sounds like a good idea,” Pytor agreed. “He had not had much happiness these last years.”

“Hard trip. Had to be.”

Pytor nodded, but Christopher's repeated mention of his grandfather had made him suspect that there was more to the baron's condition than was immediately obvious. “Yes,” he said. “That too.”

With a sudden leap, Christopher launched himself from the windowsill and threw himself on Pytor and Guillaume. His fevered madness lent him strength, and as neither the seneschal nor the physician were willing to use much force against him, he easily tumbled them to the ground.

But an attack was not what Christopher appeared to have in mind. He left the two men sprawling, and his hands, trembling as though with palsy, went to the door latch, lifted it . . .

. . . and then he was off running down the hall, howling, with Pytor and Guillaume right behind him. Barefoot, Christopher pattered down the rush-strewn hallway, leaping over chests, vaulting balustrades, descending stairwells hand-over-hand rather than on his feet. Pytor shouted for guards, but the men of Castle Aurverelle were no more willing to use force on their baron than was he, and so Christopher gained the front door of the residence and bounded out across the court.

Wondering only for a moment what idiot had left the door open, Pytor plunged out into the November cold. The wind smelled of frost, and the eaves and ledges of the castle were dripping with icicles, but he did not have time to regret or even think about a cloak: as weak and fevered as he was, Christopher would not last long in such weather. Pytor had to get his master back into bed. Or at least back indoors.

But Christopher had vanished among the nooks and buildings of the inner court. And now it started to snow.

Pytor called for more men and ordered a thorough search of the inner court. Stables, kennels . . . even the mews was examined, the hawks and falcons fluttering and preening nervously at the sound of heavy feet. One or two of the more slender guards stripped off their mail and shinnied up drain pipes and down into cisterns.

More snow. The temperature dropped steadily. Pytor was close to tears. He had wanted his master back, and he had been granted that wish. But his master was not his master, and though these last three weeks he had prayed earnestly for a return of Christopher's senses, now he would have been satisfied simply with his safety.

A gaunt form flitted across the rooftops. Pytor opened his mouth to cry out, but it was only the escaped monkey. And was the baron winging across some other roof, perhaps? Pytor felt disloyal for the thought.

In the end, it was Efram, the priest, who found Christopher. Two hours later, when most of the men had given up, the old cleric came quietly, tapped Pytor and Guillaume on the shoulder, and beckoned for them to follow.

Silently, they crossed the inner court and entered the chapel through the main doors. It was a small building that had been tucked into an interior corner of the surrounding walls, but thanks to the habitual ostentation of the delAurvres, it made up in ornament and splendor for what it lacked in size. Even on this gloomy day, the stained glass was radiant, and the furnishings of the altar glistened with gold,