The Spell-Bound Scholar (7 page)

Under the sultry words, though, Gregory sensed a secret longing, secret perhaps even from Finister herself—a yearning for love and for someone who would be so much in love with her that he would never leave her, no matter how unpleasant a companion she might be—and he was beginning to realize that Finister knew herself to be unpleasant indeed. She had, in fact, so low an opinion of herself that she didn't believe anyone else could like her. After all, she didn't.

"If I should choose your company," he told her, "it would be because you were a pleasant and trustworthy companion, not because of your beauty."

Honey stared with surprise; then her eyes flashed with scorn, but she kept them lidded, kept the sensuous curve of her mouth as she said, "No man chooses a woman for anything else."

"Try me," Gregory challenged. "Ride with me a week and do not invite my caresses. See if I reach out to you with my hands then, or only with my words. See if you would choose me as a companion for more than a night!"

"You are surely not more than a knight, nor even as much!" Honey shook with anger. "Do you think I wish a man whose hands are turned only to craft and never to me? What use would you be to me then?" Suddenly she relaxed, her body undulated again, and she stretched out a hand, beckoning as she backed away. "Come, sir, and you shall have no regrets. If you wish my companionship by day, your nights are my price."

Now Gregory was truly tempted, for she no longer pretended to be offering only but showed some sign of demanding. Still, he realized he must make her believe that one man somewhere might value her for more than her body alone. He would not reap the rewards of a loving nature that believed in itself, but some other man somewhere might, and certainly she would. "I thank you, no," he said. "I own I am lonely and would appreciate laughter and conversation, but I wish them for more than a night."

"Do you fear me, then?" Honey taunted. "Are you afraid I would suck you dry?"

"Why, how could that be?" Gregory asked with a self deprecating laugh. "If you are truly as hungry as you say, so slight a man as I would scarcely be a morsel."

"Slight indeed!" She saw his self-control was back, saw he had slipped her grasp yet again, and let her temper flare. "A mere scrap of a man, one who could scarcely be a mat underfoot, let alone a mattress beneath my body! Go your ways, wanderer, and mourn the day you left me!" She spun on her heel and ran away. Gregory caught the sound of a sob.

That was almost his undoing. He nearly turned his horse, nearly rode after to take her in his arms and offer comfort— but he had at least the good sense to realize it was too late, that he had let the moment pass.

Now Gregory could no longer deny how deeply Finister attracted him. He had always thought that his one big weakness had been his ability to sympathize and empathize—indeed, his unwitting inclination; he had never been able to hear weeping without instinctively feeling the person's pain and, if he learned its cause, maiming their aching as though it were his own. He had worked long and hard to contain that impulse for, although the thoughts he heard from those in anguish might demand comfort, the people were not always willing to accept it—and so he thought it might be in this case. He could only guess, though, for "Honey's" thoughts had disappeared the instant she had turned and fled, leaving only the mental shield that seemed to come so readily with Finister's frustration or anger. Oh, he could read the dire, raging thoughts that came from it, as light reflected from a mirrored ball, but he could not detect the true thoughts or feelings within.

He was amazed to realize how much he desired to do so. It unnerved him to realize that Finister's projective telepathy had reached him, though not in the way she had intended. True, her sexuality had aroused a maelstrom of emotions in him, but it was her angst that had played upon those feelings, not her seductiveness. Sensibilities sharpened by a sudden rush of hormones had induced his empathy to emerge from its shielding, bringing him to sympathize with her and search for the natural good qualities in her that must have been

twisted into making her the murderous vampire she had become.

Not that he thought Finister a maligned innocent; far from it. He knew quite well how poisonous she was but couldn't help sensing an underlying sweetness and vulnerability, both rigidly controlled and hidden inside an emotional shell that was virtual plate armor. He was attracted to her deeply and sharply, there was no denying it, but that attraction owed more to sympathy and empathy than to lust. Simply put, his own generosity of spirit had put him perilously close to falling in love with her.

Finister stalked through the woodlands, seething with fury, trembling with rage. Her most blatant invitations, her finest voluptuous form, and the man came away as unshaken as a plaster statue! Oh, she knew she had punched through his reserve, had grasped his nerves, that she'd had him by the glands for a few minutes there. How had he managed to recover his poise? How had he managed to refuse?

How had he managed to escape?!

Well, there was no point in any further attempt. The man had the potential for lust, but he had quashed it so firmly that there was nothing but potential left! He was a eunuch, not a man, and there was nowhere to catch him!

It would have been so much simpler if he had been as susceptible as the rest of his sex. She could have married him, enthralled him, warped him to her so thoroughly that he would not even have dreamed of protest when she failed to conceive. She could have guaranteed that he would father no children—though she might have given him one sired by another man; she was curious about the experience of pregnancy and birth. And in addition, she would have been a lady by marriage, a noblewoman of a family close to the throne, where she could take steps to ensure that the royal bloodline would end with Alain, that Cordelia would never carry a baby to term, that Quicksilver would never conceive!

It would have been so easy, so convenient—but that shell of a man had defeated her hopes! She would have her revenge, revenge on all the Gallowglasses, and when Cordelia

was dead, she would encounter Alain again. This time, without interference or competition, she would win him and wed him and make sure he never fathered a son.

Best of all, when his mother died, she would be Queen!

She burst into a clearing and found a log where she could sit, working to compose herself, to let her churning emotions calm enough to project her coded thoughts out to her lieutenants. They all knew what the message meant—that they should fall upon the enemy at noon.

One by one, they replied, their thoughts appearing in her mind as her own did, but with different flavors, the overtones of their personalities. When each had confirmed receiving the message and set about his or her task, she sat still awhile, gathering her scattered energies and gloating at the victory to come. In one instant she would be revenged for all the humiliations these Gallowglasses had heaped upon her!

But one most of all, and that revenge would be the most personal. She would see Gregory racked with agony, as he deserved for having scorned her.

There was one way in which Gregory still might be vulnerable, one possible Achilles' heel. Since it didn't necessarily lead to bedding and marriage, Finister had ignored it. Now, though, it was certainly worth trying—now, when all she needed was to come close enough to him to slip a knife between his ribs, or to induce him into lowering his guard so she could plant a mental bomb in his brain. She doubted it would do much good, for Gregory certainly seemed to have little of the knight-errant about him, but the damsel in distress might wring sympathy even from such a stone as he.

Accordingly, she retailored her physical projection to be modest but still alluring (why waste a chance, no matter how slender?). The body's contours were scarcely spectacular and the face was pretty, but neither was striking or fascinating. The gown was modest and serviceable, a green broadcloth with yellow bodice and kirtle. She indulged her dramatic streak and chose a black veil.

Then she sent coded mental instructions to Lork, who, ever faithful, was indeed not far away. That done, she took up her station farther along the road where it opened out into a meadow. She found a boulder for her seat, rolled a log to its foot, and tied her ankle to it with three feet of rope, then bowed her head in grief and despair, thinking of the horrible fate in store for her, concentrating on it until it seemed real, until she felt the tears welling up in her eyes. She held them there, listening with her mind, waiting for Gregory's approach.

Gregory rode alert, mind open to receive, though his shields were still in place. He detected the thoughts of despair, sensed

the sobbing, but also recognized Moraga's mental signature. Doubly wary, he rode through the leafy arch into the meadow and beheld a most touching tableau.

On a boulder in the middle of the meadow sat a damsel in green and yellow, head bowed in distress, sobbing piteously. Her auburn hair fell unbound behind her face, making her skin seem to glow even more than was natural. She was the very picture of Beauty in Distress, a portrait to wring the heart of any knight-errant and inflate his protective instincts, vulnerable femininity to perfection.

In fact, too perfect. Gregory eyed her askance, then decided that the wisest course was to fall in with the situation she had devised and watch how she made it develop.

His mind may have known it, but his heart did not. As he rode up to her, the alarm, concern, and sympathy wrung from his masculine nature by her pose and her weeping welled up. For once, he let them show—a little. He dismounted and knelt by her, asking, "Damsel, what grieves you so?"

She recoiled, gasping and staring at him; then, seeing it was only a clean-favored youth, relaxed, burying her face in her hands as her sobs redoubled.

"What horror could affright you so?" The anxiety in his tone was quite real; he almost forgot that this was the predator who stalked his family; only a remote part of his mind remembered it, staying vigilant. "Maiden, what is it? Tell me, I beg of you!"

"Call me not maiden, for I am that no longer, and therein lies my plight!" she sobbed.

Gregory frowned, feeling an edge of sternness arise, anger at a man unseen. "Is it a false love who has used you and left you? The fault is his, not yours!"

"Nay, sir—well, it is that surely, but I suffer only shame for that. Now, because of it, I am likely to suffer much more." She raised a tear-streaked face to him.

It was a lovely face, even reddened by tears—a heart-shaped face with rosebud lips and large dark eyes. Gregory stared, freezing as he felt the wave of her erotic projection roll over him, rocking him. He held still, only gazing on that lovely face as he waited for the wave to crest and begin to

level off, and it was all he could do to keep himself from reaching out to take her into his arms. Then he asked, ' 'What affliction is this that can hurt you worse than a true love turned false?"

"Bandits, sir! Here I sit, a sacrifice to them, a victim to their rapaciousness! They have despoiled my people's village these five years, and only by giving them what they seek can my people save themselves from pillage and slaughter."

Gregory scowled, a black mood coming on him. "And you are what they seek?"

"Every fall they come to take half of the harvest," the damsel told him, "and every spring they come to take a young woman for their pleasure." She shuddered at the thought. "To have been seduced, then left, has been like being plunged from Heaven into Purgatory—but to be the toy of a score must be a descent into Hell!"

"It shall not happen," Gregory said, his tone iron. "But you must be a squire's daughter, not a peasant! How durst your villagers turn you out?"

"My people decide who will next be offered to the wild men by discovering who allowed herself to be seduced in the year past, for, say they, 'twould be a shame to send a virgin— so our girls tend to be very circumspect."

"Do not tell me that your swain boasted of his conquest ere he spurned you!"

Her shoulders slumped and her gaze fell. "How else would any but we two have known?"

"But your father, the squire of the village! Could he let his daughter be thrown to the wolves thus?"

"My father, and my mother, too, have cast me out in shame," the young woman said. "These past five years, everyone in the village has become most self-righteous, for those who always inveighed against the sins of the flesh cry that these bandits are Heaven's retribution."

"What a horrid malediction is this!" Gregory said. He stood, looking down at the young woman, and laid a hand gently on her shoulder, but she flinched, and he drew his hand away. "Be calm, damsel," he told her. "They shall not touch

you. But if I am to ward you from these bandits, may I not know your name?"

"Why .. . surely, sir." Hope sprang in her eyes. "I am called Peregrine. But how can you, one man alone, stop twenty?"

"By magic," Gregory answered. "I am a wizard."

The spark of hope flared alive in Peregrine's eyes and she clung to his hand, staring up at him, lips parting in wonder

Gregory wondered, too. What kind of magic could give him, a slender and peaceful man, victory over twenty hardened robbers?

Any, the remote part of his mind answered, for it remembered that Peregrine was, after all, really Finister.

The disease hadn't been much, as epidemics went—only an old virus that had mutated into a new one—but the peasants of that village had had no immunity to it. Left to itself, it could have spread into a plague that swept the whole island. Gwen reflected on the episode as she flew home, amazed to realize that fifteen years ago she would have had no idea how to cope with the outbreak. Her sojourn in the interstellar civilization of the twenty-second century had given her the opportunity to learn advanced physics, chemistry, and a host of other sciences, including microbiology—all direct from the minds of scientists and engineers themselves. Not that she had eavesdropped—she had simply asked questions and really listened to the answers.