Maze of Moonlight Read Online Free PDF

form and the gleam of starlight that veiled him faded long before he had gone far into the falling snow. The road was suddenly empty and dark. All that was left was the cold, and the night, and the snow.
    Fading.
    Lake closed the door, barred it, and banked the fire carefully; and then he climbed the narrow stairs to the loft, undressed, and crawled under the thick comforter next to his wife. Miriam smiled in her sleep and snuggled closer to him, shifting her head from the feather pillow to his strong shoulder; and he wrapped an arm about her as though to shield her from Varden and all that he represented, as though to gather in his embrace all the mortality and humanity to which he could make some small claim and hold it up as a bulwark against the comforting, frightening, dangerous, immortal light of the stars.
    Miriam, at least, was safe: peasant born, stout, smiling, and happy. Vanessa, though, sleeping uneasily a few feet away, tossing amid visions of patterns and futures, was another matter. Well, at least she could sleep. At least she had that much.
    The pendant burned in his hand like a latent stigmata. He resolved not to give it to her. Not tomorrow, at least. Perhaps someday, but not tomorrow.
    Roxanne was dead. His mother. And now Varden was gone to whatever fate folded soft wings of oblivion about those in whom the immortal blood of the Elves ran pure.
    The tears finally came. Truly, he was alone now. “The hand o' the Lady be upon you too, Da,” he whispered, and then he forced sleep to accept him.

Chapter Three
    “He had the Free Towns in his pouch and let them go again!”
    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.