Grommet nodded; the device came as no surprise. "So you'll be legitimately of the nobility, but since you won't be competing with anybody for inheritance, you won't make enemies out of the dead lord's heirs—and, of course, you'll have a marriage contract and a statement from the priest who married them, just in case they want you to prove it."
"Of course," Finister agreed sweetly. "After all, we have the best forgers in the country, don't we?"
"The best we know about, Chief—so even the High Warlock and his wife won't be able to deny you."
"No, they won't. What good would it do them, anyway? I'll have their son so emotionally hog-tied that saying no will only make him elope with me."
"They'll disinherit him," Grommet warned.
That struck a qualm within Finister, making her angry at herself—she knew it for the mere instinctive response that it was. So she took it out on Grommet, speaking harshly. "What difference does that make? With his sword and my magic, we'll carve out our own fortune fast enough! But I don't think they will cut him off—their children mean too much to them, the fools! They won't be able to deny me, either. No one will."
"Least of all Geoffrey," Grommet said darkly. "So you'll live like a duchess, with all the respect and kowtowing that goes with it."
"Yes, I will," Finister said, gloating, but she thrilled inside at the thought of the less public rewards that would go with marriage to Geoffrey. She hid it, though. "I'll be in an excellent position to sabotage the government of King Tuan and Queen Catharine, too."
"Very subtly, of course," Grommet said sourly. "Can't risk your cover, can you?"
"Only as far as making sure I don't have any children," Finister assured him. That was no great sacrifice—she hated the little monsters anyway, especially babies, and wasn't about to go through that much inconvenience and pain, to say nothing of the damage it would do to her figure—or to her relationship with Geoffrey; the enforced abstinence of pregnancy would weaken the power she intended to have over him.
"How are you going to hold onto him if you don't give him the children he wants, though?"
Finister flashed Grommet an angry glare, then followed it with a lazy smile, stepping closer. "The same way I hold onto you, little man, and make sure you do exactly as I want. Could you dream of disobeying me?"
Grommet turned away, his face scarlet.
Finister gave him a low, gloating laugh, then turned away and tossed her head. "Don't worry, I'll have a grip on him that no infant could match—a grip so strong that he'll have to be faithful to me, whether he likes it or not."
"A compulsion," Grommet breathed. He knew it would not be completely natural.
"Yes, a compulsion—and don't worry about his defenses. Psi or not, he can't stand against this form of projective telepathy. He's a man, after all, and this is my area of psionics."
Grommet didn't doubt it for a second. With Finister around, testosterone haze would cloud Geoffrey's psi abilities to the point of disability.
"I'll see to it that he can't even think of leaving me!"
Finister's eyes glowed. "He'll be so ecstatic that he'll never regret the children he doesn't have—at least, not for any longer than it takes to come near me."
"He doesn't exactly seem to be the fatherly sort, anyway," Grommet grumbled. Then he saw a chance to get a little of his own back, and took it. "But even your charms can't last forever, Chief."
Finister tossed her head as though she didn't care, but inwardly marked Grommet for a long and painful revenge. "There's always the poison bottle."
"Why don't you just kill him right now and be done with it?" Grommet muttered.
"Because I can't get close enough to him for long enough, of course! I have to win his confidence first, so that he's willing to drink what I give him. We've already tried all the other ways—several times, too. The man has an uncanny knack for knowing where the knife is coming from."
It was a good excuse, but she and Grommet both knew the real reason—that she hated to see such a good hunk of manflesh go to waste. Finister intended to take her pleasures of Geoffrey first; there would be time enough to kill him later—and it would be far easier when his wariness had been blunted by love and trust.
In the meantime, if he could give her the power and status she had always craved, so much the better.
"It's just a matter of time, then," Grommet said. "Yes," Finister echoed, "just a matter of time." Time until she had her way with him, time until she wed himtime until she killed him.
"Of course," Grommet said spitefully, "there's always the chance that there might not be that much time." Finister suppressed a surge of rage-because she knew the man was right. Every day that passed increased the chance that Geoffrey might meet the wrong woman—wrong for Finister, anyway—and fall in love. He was at that atrociously dangerous age—one of the characteristics that made him so fascinating. He was twenty, which was old for a peasant to marry, just right for a lord. He might well hold onto bachelorhood for another ten years—or he might surrender it tomorrow.
"Don't worry," she assured Grommet, with her sweetest smile. "I can frustrate any romance he might develop and it's more fun after it's started. First I lead him into infidelity, then I make him forget the woman he thought he loved."
If that failed, of course, she had an excellent team of assassins, and though Geoffrey might have proved immune to them, his ladylove certainly would not.
"You failed today." Grommet was becoming reckless indeed, in his jealousy. "You might fail, period."
"Don't be ridiculous!" Finister snapped. "You know I would have had had him today, if it hadn't been for that blasted elf!" For a moment, she let her anger boil over, picturing the little fellow screeching through all manner of delightful torments, then shut the picture away with a shudder of pleasure and turned her mind back to Geoffrey, who quite frankly held much more of her attention than an enemy should. She would never admit it aloud, but she knew Grommet was right—Geoffrey was a tougher target than any she had ever faced. She would have to be very industrious in her seductions.
Well, she had failed to captivate him again—but it did not much matter that the elf had destroyed this opportunity for her. "I'll find another chance," she assured Grommet, "or make one."
Grommet knew she would. Finister excelled in the use of makeup, so none of the Gallowglasses had ever seen her in the same guise twice. A discerning eye could see which facial features Doll had in common with the Faerie Queene, or the Hag of the Tower, or La Belle Dame Sans Merci—but when she appeared to one of the Gallowglass boys, their minds were scarcely discerning.
"I'll meet Geoffrey Gallowglass again," she breathed, "in one disguise or another—and I'll know him when we meet, but he won't know me."
CHAPTER 2
If Finister had thought about it, she might have wondered why Geoffey didn't have to follow the elf back to "The Chief." Of course, by the time she came down from the loft, he was long gone, so the thought never crossed her mind.
What crossed Geoffrey's mind was the need to get out of that farmyard before the farmer happened to come by. He strode out the gate, totally unaware of the haystorm going on in the loft, and veered into a grove of trees. There he stopped and called out, "Well enough, Puck, I am come! What is your pleasure?"
There was an instant's pause—no doubt Puck had been shadowing his every footstep, but it still took him a moment to catch up—then a brawny, foot-and-a-half-high form detached itself from the shadows under the leaves, and a deep voice chuckled. "Well asked. We know what thy pleasure was, lordling!"