Maze of Moonlight (47 page)

Out across the fields, he saw Paul delMari. The baron of Furze was helping Martin direct the burials. Paul had fought with the strength of a youth that morning, but his manner with the vanquished was now polite and businesslike. But as Christopher watched, Paul seemed to consider, and then he suddenly beckoned Martin to his side.

The bond between Paul and Martin had grown. Paul grieved for Jehan, for all the foolishness of his son's brief life, and for his own errors and misjudgments. Martin still agonized about his homosexuality and the uncertainty of his future. But they were indeed father and son now, and they were both determined to shape the patterns of the future to their desires.

Vanessa bent her head, Natil put her arms about her. “You have always been a kinswoman, Vanessa. Now there is a greater tie between us.”

Vanessa shook her head, half-sorrowful, half-puzzled. “I am sorry, Natil: I just want to be human.”

Paul was calling to Jamie and one or two of the other barons who were nearby. Martin stood before him, looking perplexed. But when Paul was surrounded by his peers, he spoke in a stern voice, a voice that carried clearly across the fields. “Kneel down, Martin.”

Seemingly in shock, Martin knelt.

“Some,” Natil was saying, “will always be more than human. That was foreordained from the first sharing of love between immortal and mortal.”

Paul drew his sword. A touch of the blade to Martin's shoulders, a light tap of Paul's fist on his chin—old Roger, in accordance with the delAurvre tradition, had nearly struck Christopher to the ground—and it was over.

The assembled barons were smiling. Paul's voice came again: proud, clear. “Rise, Messire Martin of the house of delMari!”

For Martin, embraces, smiles, congratulations to one who had just taken his place in a brotherhood of arms. No one in the little group doubted his worthiness. Peasant blood? That had just been done away with, and Paul delMari's reputation, particularly this morning, was such that no one would ever doubt his ability to make knights . . . or sons.

But Vanessa was staring at her hands, examining fearfully the work of her own blood. The change was subtle, but profound. No one who had known her could have any doubt. “I just wanted to help,” she said. The grief in her voice was deep. “I just wanted to do something.”

Christopher knelt before her. “You did. If you hadn't changed the patterns, we might well have lost. You saved your village. You saved all of us.”

Vanessa closed her eyes. “But now . . . there are stars in my head—I can see them—and now I d-do not have a village at all.”

“You've still got Saint Brigid.”

She shook her head. “They knew me before, Christopher. They are good people, and they would take me in, but they would know, and what is worse, I would know. It just cannot be the same.”

Christopher touched Vanessa's cheek with his gloved hand. Her voice and speech and manner had changed. Her face, though, was just as sweet, her heart just as valiant. A fighter. Just like every delAurvre who had ever borne the name.

And that included himself, he realized. A fighter. And he had, in the end, conquered even his grandfather. Perhaps, just perhaps, such a feat granted one certain privileges . . . such as the planting of a few peach trees. Preferably—and he found himself thinking it without hesitation—with his beloved at his side.

You might na wan' me after.

Elven blood in Vanessa. Elven blood in many. Fading, but lingering. And in that legacy of sleeping blood, perhaps lingering forever.

In the beginning,
Natil had told him once,
people needed Elves to help them. Later on, they needed Elves to believe in. Then they needed something to fear. And now they need something to hate.

Yes, and now they needed the Elves to fade, to take with them the knowledge of the patterns and the luminous wonder of the world. Their immortal blood, though, would spread throughout humanity: maybe people needed that, too. And maybe someday they would need it to wake up again.

He looked at the elven faces: Mirya, Terrill, Natil. Friends. Fading friends. There was a transparency about Mirya and Terrill, and Natil's solidity seemed poised on the edge of a sword. Fading. And soon . . .

ALways, Vanessa. Always.

Always.
He wanted to tell her that, wanted to hold her, take her hands, feel flesh against flesh . . . mortal or immortal it no longer mattered. But his gloves—noble clothing again—were in the way, and though he started to pull them off, he stopped halfway through and stared at his right glove, weighed it in his hand.

His glove.

He looked up. Paul and Martin, arm in arm, were walking off towards the village.

“Nothing c-can be the same,” Vanessa was saying. The elven accent was irresistible, but it lay still awkwardly on her tongue. “I do not know what to do . . . I dan . . . don't . . . d-do not know where to go.”

His glove. The baron of Furze could make knights. What about the baron of Aurverelle. What could he make?

Christopher knew. Still kneeling, he held out his glove to her, offering it, offering himself. “You could . . . you could come to Aurverelle,” he said softly.

Vanessa stared at him. “But . . .”

He took her hand, put his glove into it. Roland had his God, Christopher had his lady. “You could come to Aurverelle,” he said again. “And . . . live with me.”

Her voice was full of tears and wonder both. “Do you still want me, then? Even though—”

He put his bare hand lightly to her cheek, as though he touched a sunbeam. “Even though, my lady.”

The Elves were silent. Paul and Martin had reached the village gates and had vanished into the world of streets, houses, mortal men and women. In the distance, Malvern continued to burn, the smoke rising into the air, streaking away to the west to redden the sun that was already dropping down toward the peaks of the Aleser.

Vanessa still stared at the glove as though afraid to close her hand on the pattern it represented. “I am just a peasant girl, Christopher. . . .”

He shook his head. Her lineage was far older than his, stretching back as it did to the first dawning of a new-created world, and therefore it was he himself who begged for grace, for a chance to care for and sustain what small fragments were left of an ancient order, until . . . someday . . . perhaps . . .

“. . . but . . .” Her hand shook, but it, at last, closed. “Yes,” she said softly. “I will come.”

She sobbed again, broke, and cried as helplessly as Christopher. But he gathered her into his arms, wondering still at the lightness about her. She had been a symbol for him, and then she had become human, and now she was both . . . and yet neither. But he had been graced, indeed. He had been graced by the Elves, by Vanessa, and (though he was surprised to think of it in just that way) even by his grandfather.

Yes, he thought. He would plant peach trees. If Roger of Aurverelle, swaggering and violent, docile and doddering, had taught him nothing else, he had taught him about peach trees.