Alain started to pull on his hose. "Then I must tell her!"
"Nay, nay." Geoffrey restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. "If she should prove by child, I said. If she does not, she will keep the memory of this night to herself, I doubt not—or if she chooses to share it, 'twill be as a boast, that she shared the bed of the knight who slew the monster." Alain hesitated, half into his hose.
"Nay, do pull on your clothes," Geoffrey urged, "for we must be away."
"Ought I not..."
"Nay, you ought not, for she may try to presume upon your good nature." Geoffrey did not add "and innocence."
"Did you say a single word about love, or desiring anything further of her?"
Alain scowled, clutching his head, forcing the memories up from the alcoholic murk. "Nay. As I remember it, I could scarce say a word."
"Then do not seek her out again, for if you do speak of love you do not feel, or of desiring further acquaintance with her, you would hurt her heart when you left. As it is, she will remember a night's sport, and so will you—and since that is all she desired and more than you promised, she will have nothing bitter in her heart. Speak again, and she may. Come, be of good cheer!"
Alain stood, fastening his hose-belt about his waist, but he was still dark of face, brooding.
Geoffrey eyed him narrowly. "What else, then?"
"What a vile excuse for a man am I!" Alain burst out. "To bed one woman while I love another! Indeed, how can I truly say I love Cordelia, if I go slavering after every shapely form like a dog in heat!"
"I would scarcely say that you went slavering," Geoffrey said drily, "or that it was you who went after her. Still, 'tis a sad fact, Alain, and maybap the bane of our species, that a man can desire many women, even though he loves only one."
"But does this not mean that I am not truly in love with her?"
"Not a whit," Geoffrey assured him. "The troubadours would have it otherwise, I know—they sing to their patronladies that a man's desire springs from falling in love, and that the man will only desire her with whom he is in love but the truth is otherwise. It is for me, at least."
Alain looked up. "You have been in love with one, yet desired others?"
Geoffrey shrugged. "Either that, or been in love with many at one time, or never been in love at all—have it as you will. I fear that fidelity is as much a matter of selfcontrol as of love, Alain."
"Well—I am schooled in that, at least." The Prince seemed somewhat reassured.
"Too much so," Geoffrey told him. "Indeed, I rejoiced most amazingly to see you drop your armor of chivalrous discipline for a few hours, Alain. There is more to life than rules and duties."
"I have been told that." Alain looked him straight in the eye. "I have been taught that a wise ruler must recognize that impulse toward excess in his people, so that he may understand and be merciful if they do not cleave to the letter of his laws."
"Have you been told, too, that men may be tempted and fall?"
"Aye." Alain looked away. "But I think that I never truly understood it before."
"That may be, that well may be," Geoffrey agreed, "but you do understand it now."
"Oh, aye! Most thoroughly!" Alain turned away in selfdisgust. "Surely I am not worthy of the Lady Cordelia." Geoffrey sighed. "I thought you had but now said that you could understand that men could fall."
"Well ... aye, but .. ."
"Then what matter this one lapse, so long as you are faithful after you wed?"
"But how can I be sure that I will be? I had thought love was my assurance, but ... Geoffrey! How if I am not in love?"
"If you can even ask the question, then you are not," Geoffrey said, with inexorable conviction, "and if you are not, then 'tis far better you learn it now, than after the wedding."
"I am in love with her!" Alain said. "I must be, for I have planned it for years!"
"'Twas your head did that planning, not your heart. Yet if your love is sure, it will stand the test."
"What test is that?"
"The test of conversing with pretty maids and beauteous ladies, even of kissing them now and again. You must risk your heart, Alain, or you may never truly find it." Geoffrey clapped him on the shoulder. "Come, don your doublet, for the day draws on apace."
"Aye, if you say it." Alain shrugged into his doublet and turned away, fastening the buttons as he went.
Geoffrey followed him, reflecting that a quick exit might be advisable, in case the wench came back looking for her hero. He trusted neither her, nor Alain's conscience and sense of duty. Besides, they had a world to wander, villains to chastise, damsels to rescue ...
Beautiful damsels, and pretty maids all in a row. A long row, Geoffrey decided. If he was going to trust his sister's happiness to Prince Alain's heart, he was going to make sure that heart had been tried in the crucible first.
In the vastness of the forest, a woman cried.
Alain snapped rigid, like a bird dog hearing the flap of wings. "A damsel in distress!"
"Aye, from the sound of it." Geoffrey turned toward the sound, too. "Let us beware of traps, though."
"Ridiculous!" Alain scoffed. "Who would think to trap two knights with a woman's cry?"
"Who would think to summon drakes to the arrow by simulating the cry of a duck?" Geoffrey returned. "Nonetheless, we must go—but with tactical soundness, shall we not? Let one go posthaste, and the other go carefully."
"Then I shall take the posthaste." Alain grinned and plunged into the thicket at the side of the road. His horse neighed in protest, but fought its way through. Geoffrey followed the path made by Alain's horse, but rather more warily.
He could hear the sobbing through the trees—forlorn, heart-rending, almost as though the woman who wept was trying to choke her sobs down, but not succeeding.
Alain rode through the brush and between the trees until they opened out into a river meadow, a broad expanse of clover dotted with wildflowers and bordered along the stream by weeping willows. Under the largest sat a damsel, head bowed into her hands.
Alain slowed, going softly, wondering if he had the right to interfere—and Geoffrey came up behind him. They were so silent in their approach they were almost upon her before she heard the horses' hooves. She leaped up in fright, then gasped in fear and backed away under the willow branches.
"Fear not, fair maiden." Alain reined in his horse. "I would not hurt a lady in any way."
"We are knights," said Geoffrey, "sworn to protect the weak and punish the wicked."
"If any man has wronged you, tell us," said Alain, "that we may challenge him to mortal combat."
The damsel stopped withdrawing, at least. Alain's eyes were fast upon her, and it was scarcely a wonder. She was slender; long lashes swept across her eyes, so pale they seemed gossamer; her golden hair fairly glowed in the sunlight, sweeping down to the middle of her back. Her little heart-shaped face was the perfect setting for such huge, lustrous blue eyes and her small, pert nose. The width and fullness of her lips were surprising, seeming somewhat out of place—but making a man ache to lean down and kiss them. When she looked up at him, he felt a stirring within him, and had to fight to keep it from emerging as a shudder. She was, after all, a beauty—very much a beauty. She wore a bliaut and a kirtle, highnecked, full-sleeved, that should have been very modest, but was made of some fabric that molded itself to her body with every gentlest breath of wind, revealing the lush contours beneath.