Maze of Moonlight by Gael Baudino

the heavy oak table in the council chamber. “Completely mad, of course, but really remarkable. Avignon won't like this at all.”
    “And what about . . . ah . . . Rome and the friar?” said Lengram, who stood with folded, disapproving arms.
    “Well, I suspect that the friar was not so holy a man as he pretended to be. You know that kind.”
    Lengram was indignant. “He might well have had his weaknesses, Baron Yvonnet, but he was a man of God!”
    Yvonnet grabbed a bowl of fruit and pawed through it until he found a pear. It must have come from far to the south, since the fruit of Adria was just now getting out of the flower stage. Expensive pears. He bit into it noisily anyway: baron's prerogative. That was what taxes were for. “Just as we all have our own weaknesses,” he said. “I doubt whether either of us expects to be dealt with any better at the gates of heaven.”
    Lengram frowned, looked away.
    Yvonnet continued with the pear, stuffing his mouth with large bites. “So it seems that—umm, umm—cousin Christopher is not quite so mad as he was made out to be—umm, umm—or perhaps is less mad now than he was.” He finished the pair and hurled the core at a servant. It struck the man square on the forehead. Well-schooled in the routines of the baron of Hypprux, the servant did not even flinch. “No matter.”
    “No matter?” said Lengram.
    “No . . . matter. . . .” Yvonnet licked his hands clean and clasped them behind his head. “We'll just have to think of something else.”
    But what he was thinking of now was Martin, the lithe-loined lad from Shrinerock who was making his way home to Saint Blaise and dispensing greetings and gifts from his foster father at the same time. Yvonnet had put a close watch on the young man, and messengers in relays had been riding back and forth along the road through the dairylands of Adria with information as to his progress for the last several weeks.
    Three years ago, it had been a wonderful party. Yvonnet had just come of age, he had just dismissed the troublesome and tiresome regents that had overseen him and his estate since his parents had died. He had been anticipating knighthood and, more important, money and lands and revenues enough to allow him to live as he wanted. Martin, a splendid gift on a splendid occasion, had been handsome and gay . . . and easily intimidated. In fact, Yvonnet was sure that the lad had come to enjoy their week of trysts, had come even to look forward to the occasional rough treatment to which his bedmate had subjected him.
    Ah, such a fine piece of a man! And finer still, doubtless, now that he was grown up a little, was a little sturdier . . . and . . . yes, the bells of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mercy were ringing nones. Martin would be arriving in Hypprux any time now.
    “What did you . . . ah . . . have in mind?” said Lengram.
    Yvonnet smiled. “Oh . . . quite a number of things. . . .”
    “I meant about Aurverelle.”
    “Oh, that.”
    But a knock came to the door, and a servant brought word that Martin had arrived in the city and was even now being escorted to the baronial residence.
    Yvonnet kicked the table away. The bowl of fruit clattered to the floor and unleashed a flood of tumbling apples, quinces, pears, and oranges. “I want him brought to the great hall,” he said. “Bring him there immediately. I want to see him.”
    The servant bowed and turned to go.
    “Wait,” said Yvonnet. “Is he alone?”
    “There are two men at arms with him along with a captain of the Shrinerock guard, my lord baron.”
    No problem, really. Yvonnet could easily send the soldiers off. They would relish a cup of ale and the barracks-room conversation of their peers. “Anyone else?”
    “The messenger mentioned a young woman, my lord.”
    “A woman?” Yvonnet was vexed. Had Martin married? It would not be at all surprising. But Paul delMari had had no eligible young women in his household, save, perhaps, for his sister. And