So far, the new SPITE chief, Finister, had succeeded in giving the eldest son, Magnus, a very unhealthy distaste for sex in any form, and especially for women as sexual beings. As a result, he had left home to go traipsing around the galaxy, looking for wrongs to right and oppressive governments to overthrow.
Now Finister had set her sights on Cordelia. How she would prevent Cordelia from ever being married, or even seduced, she didn't know—but she would improvise. Half the fun of her job, she had decided, was in finding how things came out.
So Alain rode through a golden morning, blithely unaware of the Futurian witch who was setting her sights on himself and his beloved. Not knowing, he was able to delight in the day.
"How shall you greet the lady, Your Highness?" asked young Sir Devon.
"With cordiality and respect, Hall" It was such a pleasure to speak so freely, without all that ridiculous and unnecessary formality that the older folk used. "Thee" this and "thou" that, when a simple "you" would suffice! "As I would greet any fine lady!"
Sir Devon didn't seem so sure. "Mayhap, Highness, you should treat her in some degree warmer than that."
"What? And have her forget that I am her sovereign-to-be? Pooh, Hal! It would be beneath my station!"
Hal started to say something more, then bit his tongue. Alain saw. "Come, come! You must speak your mind with me, Hal—for if my own friends do not, who will? What had you in mind to say?"
"Only that it is a perfect day for so joyous an occasion, Highness," Sir Devon said slowly.
"It is that." Alain looked around him with a broad grin. Yes, it was a perfect day to become engaged, to kiss a lucky maiden for the first time. The thought was somewhat heady—he had always more or less planned to marry Cordelia, and the notion of actually doing so made his heart sing, though it also roused a nervous fluttering in his stomach. However, he could ignore that—as he could overlook the fact that she wasn't a princess.
He also overlooked the possibility of sending a page ahead, to announce his coming.
Gregory looked up; pale light was beginning to lend color to the leafy roof overhead. He folded up his notes with a satisfied sigh; it had been a good evening's watching, and he had learned quite a bit about the habits of the great horned owl. He rose to his feet with a wince as cramped muscles protested, and noted that he must not be doing enough yoga exercises. If only eight hours of immobility for a night's watch made him stiff, how would he endure the round-the-clock spell of meditation that he knew was coming? His mind was working itself up to that—when it brimmed over with new knowledge, he would have to go into a trance to sort it all out. He didn't dare do that when Mother and Father were home, of course—but they travelled a good deal these days, so he was free to keep night—long vigils in the forest if he chose, or twenty-four-hour sessions of meditation. He knew it would worry his sister Cordelia, but she would only hover over him, not interrupt.
And, of course, there was the problem of trying to contact his eldest brother Magnus, halfway across the galaxy.
He felt the need of that, too, from time to time, and it was very demanding of both body and mind. Heaven knew the lad wrote seldom enough!
His body was making its needs felt in other ways, too. Gregory felt a pang of hunger, and decided, with regret, that he would just have to devote half an hour to taking on some food. He made his way out of the forest and off toward the nearby village, where there was an inn that would be serving breakfast.
As he came into the inn, the serving maid looked up, then gave him a very, very warm smile; her lips seemed to glisten, her eyes to grow larger. Gregory gave her an automatic smile in return, instantly concerned—was the girl beset with a fever? But no, on closer look, he could see no other symptoms—the swellings in her bodice looked natural enough.
He sat at a table, asked her for ale and porridge, then instantly forgot her as he noticed the motion of dust motes in a sun-ray that hinted at a pattern ...
Something tugged at his attention; irritated, he glanced at the wench's retreating back. He noticed the exaggerated swaying of her hips, and remembered his older brother Geoffrey telling him that when a woman walked that way, she was seeking a dalliance. Then Gregory finally remembered that the look on her face had been one that Geoffrey had told him of, too—but he also remembered his brother's caution that the lass might have a shallow dalliance in mind, or a very deep one, or anything in between, and that a man had to move slowly, trying to read her intentions, for frequently she wouldn't know them herself.
It all sounded very tedious to Gregory, and singularly unproductive. He supposed that he would have to try it some day—but just now, he had far more interesting matters to deal with. He was only sixteen, after all. And, to be quite frank, he couldn't imagine how the physical pleasures Geoffrey described could ever approach the ecstasy of intellectual insight, the long hours of study and meditation that led to the rapture of new understanding of natural phenomena.
Of course, women were natural phenomena, too—but somehow, he doubted that they wanted to be analyzed. And he was quite sure they didn't want to be understood.
The drawbridge was down, the porter sitting at his ease on a stool in the shade of the gatehouse, cutting bits of apple and nibbling at them. He stiffened abruptly at the cry of the sentry in the tower above; then the troop of horsemen came into view, and the guards snapped their halberds down. "Who comes?"
"Alain, Prince of Gramarye!" cried the foremost knight, and behind him, the golden Prince himself sat, cocksure and smiling, head tilted back, resplendent in cloth of gold and velvet, with a plume in his hat.
"Your Highness!" The porter bowed, his expressionless face hiding his surprise, almost shock, at the suddeness of the Prince's arrival. "I regret that Lord and Lady Gallowglass are not within!"
"No matter, no matter," Alain said with careless generosity, "so long as the Lady Cordelia is. Say, are there any others of the family present?"
"His Lordship and Her Ladyship are away for the day, sir. I regret there are none here but the servants, the steward, and myself, saving Lady Cordelia."
"A most excellent notion," Alain said with joviality. "Save her ladyship, indeed—and summon her!"
The porter blanched at the thought of "summoning" Lady Cordelia. He decided to summon the steward instead, and let him deal with the lady. After all, porters were not paid that much.
Cordelia was in the stillery, brewing medicines to replace the stock depleted by the winter chills and agues and fevers of all the peasants on the Gallowglass estates. She enjoyed the work, but it was tiring, not to say messy—her apron was spotted with the extracts of various herbs and the mauve and purple from the juices of various berries. Her hair was tied back in a severe bun, to keep loose strands from being caught in the glassware. Her face, too, was smudged with touches of extract, bits of charcoal, and smudges of soot from tending the burners. The solution in the alembic had just begun to boil up into the cooling tube when ...
...the steward stepped through the door and announced, very nervously, "Milady, Prince Alain has come to call on you. He awaits you in the solar."
"Blast!" Cordelia cried, instantly furious. "How dare he come unannounced! How durst he enter just as my brew has come to the boil!"
The steward stood mute, stretching out his hands in bewilderment.
"Well, there's no help for it!" Cordelia snapped, gaze going back to the cooling tube. Drops of distillate had begun to drip into a beaker. "Tell him I will come directly." The steward bowed and left, relieved.