So he eavesdropped with his eyes closed, listening, feeling, sensing what Alain sensed ...
...sensed a dream, one that featured his daughter, and that he had no business overhearing.
He severed that connection, too, but sat, wakeful in the dark, waiting, listening.
From a distance, Cordelia saw her mother, a lighter shred of cloud almost, a spark in the moonlight, circling down into Cromheld's Wood. No one else would have thought to look, of course. Cordelia breathed a silent prayer of thanks, and sent her broomstick arrowing after Gwen's.
She darted down to the ground, pulling up short and leaping off, running to her mother, saying "Oh!" and burying her face in Gwen's bosom.
Gwen held her for a timeless moment, folding her arms around Cordelia and holding her, a faint smile on her face. She could feel her daughter's turmoil, could tell what her trouble was—and it was a trouble that Gwen was delighted to discover in Cordelia. She had wondered if the child would ever fall in love, truly in love. There had been a few infatuations, but not nearly enough, to Gwen's mindand certainly, nothing serious. "Yes, child," she said softly. "Now—what troubles thee? Speak!"
"'Tis ... Alain, Mother."
"Ah. Alain."
Then, in halting phrases, with sobs always beneath her voice but never quite in it, Cordelia explained.
She had always been fond of Alain, as she might be of a lapdog. She had always thought of him as being hers, but he had made such a wretched botch of his proposal, being frankly insulting, that she had turned him away.
Gwen found a sawn stump of a tree and sat, listening. She had heard this part before; she waited.
"He has always been so—been so—boring!" Cordelia clenched her fists, jamming them down at her sides. "There is no other word for it, Mother. Oh, aye, I have always had the comfortable feeling that I was quite his superior—but still, he was boring."
"And this ... Forrest? The bandit?" Gwen interjected softly.
"Aye, the bandit! But he is a gentleman born, Mother!" Cordelia's eyes lit with enthusiasm. "He has been knighted! Yet he has strayed from the straight and narrow, that is quite sure. But he is—exciting. When he holds me, when he kisses me, I melt inside!"
"Yes," Gwen breathed, "yes." But she felt a frisson of fear for her daughter, for she knew that plans to reform a man failed far more often than they succeeded. She knew better than to say so at the moment, though; instead, she said only, "Does not that decide thee, daughter? What else dost need to know?"
"But he is so corrupted, Mother! Can I truly plight my troth to a .knight who has abandoned his vows, and has given no sign that he will redeem himself? Who has looks that fairly undress me, aye—but undress every other damsel around him, too! Can I, Mother?" The words were wrenched out of her. "Can I trust him?"
Gwen breathed a hidden sigh of relief, then chose her words carefully. "Looking doth not breed mistrust, daughter."
Cordelia stared, appalled. "You do not mean that Father has regarded other women in that way! Not since he met you!"
"Well, no," Gwen admitted, then chose her words carefully again. "Not that I know of. If he hath, he hath certainly been quite circumspect..."
"Oh, Mother, you bandy words!" Cordelia said impatiently. "Father has never so much as glanced at another woman since he met you!"
"Not since he met me, aye. But before that, he looked at one other in that way, surely."
"Oh." Cordelia felt obscurely shocked. "Is it ... anyone I know?"
Gwen debated within herself for a moment, then nodded. "Aye. It was Queen Catharine."
"The Queen!" Cordelia stared.
Gwen laughed softly, catching her daughter's hand with her own. "Oh, she was beautiful once, daughter."
"But she must have been so unlike you!"
"She was," Gwen admitted, "but at the last, it seemed your father preferred my sort, rather than hers."
"And ... has he looked at her ... again?"
"Not at all." Gwen smiled, feeling very complacent. "Or at least, not in the way we speak of. He doth look upon her as he would upon any friend, nothing more—and considerably less, for he must be ever wary, never sure when she will turn upon him."
Cordelia giggled, nodding. "Indeed, all men feel that way with her—even King Tuan, does he not?"
"Well, mayhap," Gwen admitted. "It pleases me to think that it may add spice to their marriage. I hope that I am right."
Cordelia sobered again, dropping her gaze, dropping her voice. "That is what I seek, too—one who will ever be true to me, who will never look at another woman once he has become my husband." She looked up at her mother. "But perhaps I am not so alluring as you were."
"And as I still am, to thy father," Gwen told her, with some asperity, "though only to your father, I doubt not. As to yourself, though—you do not know the limits of your allure yet, my dear, nor did I, at your age. Have you learned nothing of them, on this quest of yours?"
"Well . .." Cordelia blushed, lowering her gaze again. "Tonight ... I did seem to be ... something of a favorite ... with the young men...."
"Show me," Gwen said.
Cordelia closed her eyes, remembering the sight of all the young men crowding around her, clamoring for her attention, for a dance with her. She remembered quick snatches of each dance, the partners changing with dizzying rapidity—though Alain's masked visage, and Forrest's, kept recurring. The scene was very vivid; she could see it all again, almost smell the flowers decking the hall, hear the chatter, the gay laughter ...
Gwen gave a sigh of satisfaction. "Oh, I rejoice to see it! I knew thou wert a beauty, daughter, but I have waited long for the men of this world to see it!"
"And Father has prayed that they will not, I am sure," Cordelia answered, with irony. "Yet what am I to do now, Mother?" She spread her hands. "Not only one man has seen some beauty in me, but two!"
"Two?" Gwen frowned. "You speak of Alain?"
"Aye." Cordelia stood up and began pacing again. "I had thought that he regarded me only as his property, even as I thought of him. I believed that he had come to claim that which he thought was his by right of birth—and mayhap he did ... But now..."
"Now what?" Gwen said; and again, "Show me, daughter, if it is not too private."
Cordelia closed her eyes and let herself remember the dances with Alain, his arm about her, his body pressing against hers ... She broke off the memory. "More than that I will not show, Mother."
"As thou shouldst not," Gwen agreed. "I think I can guess the rest of it." Inwardly, she was delighted. "So, then. Two men make thee melt inside; there are two who make thee guess at pleasures thou wottest not of, not yet."
"Two. Aye." Cordelia looked down at her twisting hands. "I would never have thought that one of them would have been Alain!"
" 'Tis surprising," Gwen admitted, "though pleasant. And the other? What is he like, this paragon?"
"He is scarcely a paragon! Indeed, he is not at all suitable!" Cordelia cried. "Oh, aye, he is well formed—but he behaves abominably. Nay, any knight who would stoop to outlawry should no longer be called a knight, and is certainly no fit husband for a gentle lady!"
Gwen gazed off into space. "Do not think that thou shalt change him, daughter. No woman can ever change a man to become what she doth wish him to be. Marriage will change him, aye—not all at once, not in the moment the priest pronounces thee wed, not in a month, not even in a year, but gradually, little by little, he will change—as wilt thou thyself. Thou canst but hope that he will change more closely to that which thou dost wish him to be."