Maze of Moonlight, Gael Baudino [ebook reader screen TXT] 📗

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