The Spell-Bound Scholar (4 page)

"It would seem that the grandson has kept the iron hand," Alain said, "but has lost the prosperity, at least for his people."

"He must be chastised," Catherine said, pale with anger. "No lord may treat his people thus and be safe from the Queen's Justice!"

"Even so," Tuan agreed, "but we must have proof of his misdeeds, for if we move against him without showing that he has broken the law, all other lords will rise in revolt."

"They would not dare!" But it was bluster; Catherine had already faced one such revolt and had put it down only with the help of Tuan, Rod Gallowglass, and the High Witch Gwendylon.

Geoffrey rose with a wolfish grin. "I shall find that proof, sire. I shall go in disguise and witness his misdeeds myself."

"I, too!" Alain was on his feet in the instant, chin firm.

"You shall do no such thing!" Catherine had finally found a target for her anger. "What, sirrah! Shall we risk the heir? What would the land do if you were slain?"

"There is Diarmid. ..."

"He shall have his hands full with the Duchy of Loguire! Never think of it, my son! You shall stay close at home! Your mother commands it! You shall not go gallivanting over the land like a fox-errant! Your Queen forbids it!"

Then the ladies brought the maiden in, bandaged, cleaned, and groomed, still pale with shock but clad in a light blue homespun bliaut with a black bodice. Both young men stared, for without the streaks of tears and smudges of soot, she was indeed a beauty.

The Queen turned to consoling, reassuring, and discreetly questioning. Geoffrey caught Alain's eye, jerked his head toward the door, then turned to the King and Queen and asked, "Shall we leave, Majesties?"

"Aye, go," Catherine said absently. l 'We shall have our hands full here."

Both young men bowed, then sidled out the door.

As it closed behind them, Alain exploded. k My mother commands, my Queen forbids! Am I never to ride forth

among my people? How shall I fare if I must lead an army in war when I am King?"

"You may notice that the current King did not forbid the expedition," Geoffrey pointed out.

"
What matter's that? He is King only by marriage! It is my mother who is true monarch!"

'Then let her blister your hide with invective after you have returned in victory," Geoffrey said. "Can you not stand her chiding?"

"Of course I can." Alain turned to him with a frown.

"Well, when she is done, she shall have to laud you for having protected her people." Geoffrey grinned. "Ride with me as far as the wood's edge, Alain—and if you should happen to ride farther, I promise I shall not tell."

Alain stared at him a moment. Then he began to grin.

The next morning they both mounted, inhaling the chill of the morning air, eyes bright with the lure of adventure.

Cordelia reached up to give Alain the token he had begged—her scarf. "Be mindful, sir. If there is trouble, only think my name, and I shall fly to you!"

"I shall indeed," Alain promised, "and the thought of you shall strengthen me throughout the journey." He leaned down.

As they kissed, the peasant girl, escorted by a servant woman, came forth from the kitchen door.

Geoffrey smiled down at her. "Will you show us where your village lies, maiden?"

"Gladly, sir." Her voice was so low he could scarcely hear her; her eyes were huge, darting from one to the other. Now that the shock had worn off, she was like a rabbit, frightened by the presence of royalty and nobility.

Alain straightened in the saddle and asked the maiden politely, "Will you ride?"

"Of course she will, Highness." Geoffrey moved his horse closer to the girl and reached down. "But she shall ride upon my mount. You would not risk your fiancee's wrath, would you?"

Cordelia eyed the peasant, whose beauty was considerable

now that she had recovered. "Ride with my brother, lass, but ride warily."

"Surely you wrong me, sister!" Geoffrey swung the young woman up behind him. "Ride behind me, lass, and guide us to your people."

"Surely, sir, as you wish it," the young woman said, her voice still low.

"And what shall I tell your fiancee when she returns from her errand of mercy?" Cordelia asked pointedly.

"Shh!" Geoffrey laid a finger across his grin. "Tell her no more than you have to, or she will come to join in the fun."

His grin was wide, but she saw the anxiety that touched his face and was gone. "She has faced an army, brother," Cordelia said softly. "You need not fear for her safety if she joins you in fighting a jumped-up bandit's grandson and his thugs."

"Ah, but before, she had an army of her own," Geoffrey reminded.

"And if you should be hurt in the fray yourself, brother? Is it fair to her to leave her to worry over you?"

"Worry over me?" The anxiety disappeared completely, and Geoffrey's grin was as wide and cocksure as ever. "Come, Cordelia! You need not deal in fantasy!"

While her henchmen gathered their forces and laid their plans, Finister became a bit more deliberate in her attempts. She ambushed a milkmaid, knocked her out with a bolt of mental force, changed clothes with her, and left her to waken and explain to her swain why she was wearing such unattractive charcoal-gray robes that draped her without any hint of a figure and were eight sizes too large for her in the bargain. To be truthful, Finister didn't even think about the effects her actions might have on the milkmaid; she was intent on finding Gregory again.

She found him wandering disconsolately along a woodland path, eyes downcast, shoulders slumping. Elation filled her— had she had some effect after all? Did he miss her already?

Then common sense cleared her mind. He was probably

depressed only because she had so easily slipped away from him, and disgusted with himself for having failed in his duty. Either that, or he was contemplating one of his endless problems again.

Well, she would end that, at least.

Moraga took a moment to adjust her mental screen, projecting a figure even more voluptuous than her own and a face dazzling in its beauty, framed by hair of a rich mahogany. Sure that she would have tempted a eunuch and strained the vows of a monk, she stepped from the underbrush ten feet in front of Gregory's horse, a playful, inviting smile on her lips, eyes heavy-lidded. "Good day, Sir Knight."

"Hmm?" Gregory looked up, startled—as indeed he should have been, for he had been listening to Moraga's thoughts coming closer and closer to him, and if he quailed within at the vengeful tone, no sign of it showed in his face.

But the woman he saw before him bore no resemblance to the dowdy yet sensuous creature he had been escorting. Indeed, the fusty robes had gone, and she wore a blouse, skirt, and bodice that emphasized both the slenderness of her waist and swelling of her hips as well as a spectacular bosom. But the thoughts were Moraga's; he recognized their overtones and emotional color as well as he would recognize a very familiar face. He was startled indeed.

"I fear that I am lost, Sir Knight." Moraga pulled a stalk of grass from the roadside and began to nibble at the tip. "Will you help me find my way in these woods?"

"Why . . . gladly, damsel." Gregory swallowed as a wave of desire rolled over him. He reminded himself that it was only a projection of Moraga's own mind and said bravely, "If you will mount and ride behind, I shall bear you out of this wood."

"I had rather it were you who did mount and ride, sir
."
the milkmaid purred. "I shall bear you in delight, you may be sure."

Gregory strove to take her words at face value and failed.

"I will rise up, if you insist." The milkmaid swayed up to him, raising a hand to rest on his knee. "Still, I would liefer you came down." Her fingers traced upward on his thigh.

Gregory fought for composure and won. He inclined his head gravely. "I thank you for the invitation, maiden ..."

"I am no maiden, nor do I wish to be," she said, her voice husky. "In truth, my only regret in leaving that virtuous state is that there are so few boys who wish to play my games— or have the stamina to play them well."

"I am not gamesome," Gregory protested.

"Then I shall teach you how to play."

Now Gregory smiled with relief, back on familiar ground. "If only you could! But I have striven to learn through the years, damsel, and cannot. I go through the motions that give others so much delight but feel only boredom."

Her eyes flashed. "You would not be bored with my games, Sir Knight."

"I doubt not," Gregory admitted, "but I would certainly play them with no sense of fun, no sense of joy—for I lack both. Come, damsel—do you truly wish to dally with a man who would study his every move earnestly, paying the game only the gravest of attentions?"

In spite of her goals, Finister shivered with loathing. Gamely, though, she said, "No man can be so tragically serious as that, sir."

"Not many," Gregory agreed. "I had rather be a rare man in other ways, but I must settle for this, since it is what I am. In truth, I doubt not that I would approach the bout as a study, striving to discover which caress could elicit which shiver."

That was too much even for Finister. 'Then I wish you joy of your studies, sir, for it is all the joy you shall have!" She turned and flounced away, disappearing into the underbrush in seconds.

Gregory stared after her, his breast a churning of emotions. He was relieved that he had found his prisoner again, but he found himself shaking with the aftermath of the encounter. No matter how cool a face he had presented to Moraga, his emotions were rampant. Never before had he felt such a tidal

wave of desire—which was reasonable, considering that he had never met a woman at once so beautiful and so voluptuous. Worse than that, though, the woman was a projective telepath, and the emotion she had projected was raw lust in proportions he had never known, with a frightening intensity.

That intensity had saved him from falling off his horse and into her arms, no doubt—the fear of the power of the emotion itself, even though he knew that if he once confronted that fear, it would yield to a pleasure more extreme than any he had ever known. Part of him longed for it but another part was repelled by the thought of the time that would be wasted, the energy that would be leached from his research. Still, the fear of pleasure had been a good thing, for now that she had gone away, he remembered a far more practical fear—that while he was distracted by passion, she might strike him a mental blow that would stun him long enough for her to drive a dagger through his ribs or, more likely, use the passion itself to catapult him into her projective hypnotic spell, imagining himself to be some loathsome creature who could not stir from its prison, even as she had made his eldest brother believe himself to be a snake doomed forever to crawl around and around the base of a tree.

He sagged, limp with the aftermath of the confrontation, and was astounded to find that his trembling came not from exhaustion but from desire. Lust so intense was a new feeling for him, and he paused to savor its novelty, bemused, studying the phenomenon—and forgetting his ordeal. It was amazing that the woman could generate such an intensity of feeling. Before meeting her, he had always managed to sublimate such feelings into creative energy, which he channelled into research—a far more productive use.

Still, the current situation had its advantages. He had always wondered what compelled other men, such as his brother Geoffrey, to waste so much time with women. He could have understood counselling, teaching, or working with them to find some way to alleviate their poverty—but simply to trade sallies with them over cups of wine? There was nothing accomplished, nothing achieved! Why would an otherwise

completely sane fellow be such a spendthrift of his hours? It seemed he was about to find out.

Gwen looked up at the sound of voices in the hallway. Glancing at her husband, she saw that he had heard it, too; from his desk to the right of the great window, he paused in his writing and looked up at the door. He glanced at her, eyebrows raised in inquiry, mouth curving in amusement, as though to say it was no doubt something minor. Gwen smiled back from her reading chair at the other side of the clerestory, a smile that said she was equally certain it was a minor matter.

Their solar was filled with light; the great window faced south and was filled with color, for the glaziers still had difficulty making clear glass and, as a result, deliberately tinted the panes in various hues. The furniture was sparse, the books many, with a figured rug covering the flagstoned floor and a tapestry over the mantelpiece. It was a warm and cozy room, though it seemed empty now that the children had all gone out into the world. Nominally, they were still at home, but actually spent very few days there, being always out and about the kingdom, caring for the needs of the people and protecting them from the predators that pervaded a medieval society.

The sentry at the door stepped into the room. "Beg pardon, lord and lady."

"Certainly, Trooper Harl." Gwen smiled to put him at ease. Ever since they had rid the castle of its ghosts and taken up residence, there had been a constant stream of poor people coming to their gate for alms. She and Rod had given a dozen of them jobs, that being the most practical way of alleviating their poverty; the number had increased as the children had begun to spend less and less time at home. They now housed a company of guardsmen, none of whom had ever seen military service before, a dozen servants, and three dozen foresters and farmers. Rod had begun by inventing jobs for poor people and had ended making a profit. It had surprised him immensely and allowed them to hire a mason and a carpenter to instruct a dozen apprentices each in renovating the castle.