Gregory stared, scandalized. "Do you speak of reaching into her mind to cure all the mental deformities that have made this damsel a ruthless killer?"
Cordelia looked down, abashed. "I know it goes against every telepath's rule of right and wrong—that we must never peer into others minds against their wishes, unless they are enemies and the danger they present is immediate—and that we may never meddle with their minds unless they attack and we act in self-defense." Her head snapped up; she glared into her little brother's eyes. "But Gregory, she is an enemy, and though the danger she presents is no longer immediate, it is sure and drastic! As to meddling with her mind to cure her homicidal ways, surely that is self-defense! There is no question that she will attack—only a doubt of when!"
Gregory showed not the slightest sign of scandal or disgust; he only looked thoughtful. "Such an outcome is most surely desirable, and I have been tempted to try it once myself."
Cordelia's hopes soared. "Why did you withhold?"
"Why, because of the very ethics of which you have spoken," Gregory said, "but more out of concern that I might make things worse instead of better, for I know so little of the mind."
"You know so little of the mind?" Cordelia stared. "You who have studied it all your life?"
"I have studied psi powers," Gregory clarified. "I know a great deal about that, though never enough. Of the rest of the mind's workings, I am ignorant."
Cordelia knew that Gregory had immense knowledge of people and the twists and turns of their thinking, but she could understand his feelings of incompetence—the mind was an amazingly complicated thing, after all. Nonetheless, she seized on his uncertainty. "Then it is only a matter of how to cure her, not of its lightness."
Gregory took his time answering that one. "True—but that 'how' is so complex as to make the task impossible, or at least too chancy to risk—is it not?"
"But it is only a matter of how, not of lightness!" Cordelia insisted. "You do not doubt that if we could cure her instead of killing her, we should!"
Again, Gregory was slow to answer. "We should if we could, that is true—but what if our efforts fail? What if she seems to be cured but is not?"
"We may still let her dwell in that prison she will not wish to leave! Between the two, it should be safe to let her live!"
"Perhaps," Gregory mused, "but if we could so cure Mor-aga, ought we not to spare every convicted murderer in like fashion?"
"We should," Cordelia agreed, "but I think medieval justice will be a long time accepting the idea. This Moraga, however, has not been given into the hands of that justice yet. She is our prisoner still, and if it was right of you to execute her without regard to the Queen's Justice, then it is surely our right to cure her instead!"
"Only if we can be sure she will be rendered as harmless as the dead." Gregory raised a palm to forestall his sister. "I know, I know—on this planet, the dead are not always harmless. Still, we can be sure of the lightness of our merciful course only if she becomes no more dangerous than a ghost. After all, dear sister, there may be some people who can never be cured, whose wickedness is born into them, or so deeply bred that they live for it and will never willingly leave off."
"That is possible," Cordelia allowed, "but I doubt that this Moraga is one of them. We know she is an agent of our bitter enemies, after all, and young enough so that she was probably raised by them, reared and trained to be a traitor and assassin. Is that not as much as to say she was warped and twisted in her growing?"
"Most likely," Gregory said with immense relief. "You have argued well, Cordelia. If we can cure her, we shall— and cure her or not, we shall do all we can to consign her to the happy prison of her ideal man, at least until we are sure it cannot hold her."
Cordelia breathed a massive sigh of relief. For a moment she swayed, almost unable to stand.
Gregory's arm steadied her. She looked up at him and was astounded to see his face woeful and gaunt with yearning. "But Cordelia—must we consign her to a witch-moss construct? Could I not become her ideal man as easily as some mind-built toy?"
Chapter 8
That gave Cordelia pause, for all her instincts protested against the idea of letting her little brother remake himself to suit some she-wolf's whims. "There is danger in that, Gregory. Surely it is wrong for anyone to yield their identity to another person's will—wrong and impossible, for you are what you are, and no matter how you try to hide it and pretend to be otherwise, sooner or later it shall burst out in outrage."
"True," Gregory said, pleading, "but I do not speak of changing myself, only of learning what she truly wants and needs of a man, so that I can provide it to her."
"Surely you do not mean to make yourself her willing slave, to be ever at her beck and call, pathetically eager for her slightest nod of pleasure! No woman wants a man who so abases himself!"
"You see?" Gregory said. "Already you have told me one thing that women do not want in a man. You could tell me more, sister, and her mind could tell me the rest if we seek among her memories. It is only a matter of technique, of learning how to speak to her, how to woo—for surely I have never learned anything about courting a woman!"
"You think it is purely a matter of skill, as the song says?" Cordelia asked. "There is more, Gregory. It is not enough to act the part for her—either you are in essence what she wants in a man or you are not; there is no other way about it."
"True, I cannot be anybody but myself," Gregory agreed, "and to try would be only a living lie. But surely I can learn to become all that I can be and to discover how to let it show forth. Where is the wrongness in that, sister? After all, if I am not to her liking, we can still forge the artificial construct, her ideal man."
Cordelia barely managed to bite back the retort that all ideal men were indeed only artificial constructs, but she put it aside; her brother's need was more immediate. He was so forlorn, his face so beseeching, that Cordelia found herself saying, "Let us discover what her ideal man is. Perhaps you are already he."
Gregory gave a mirthless, sardonic laugh. "I am scarcely a warrior bold!"
"It may be that she is not either, in her heart," Cordelia pointed out. "It may be that she is by nature a shy and retiring creature whom her tyrannical employers fashioned into a weapon as she grew." She shrugged. "Who can say?" Then she stepped back, surveying her little brother with a critical eye. "I shall tell you this, though—if you would become any woman's ideal man, you shall have to gain great brawn on that skinny frame, for most women do like a bit of muscle on a man."
Gregory's jaw firmed. "If that is what she shall want in me, I shall do it!"
"If you would do it at all, you must do it quickly," Cordelia warned, "and there may be great pain when 'tis done in a matter of days, no matter the magic that aids it."
"I can withstand it," Gregory said stoutly. "Who knows the doing of such things?"
"Whom should we call to heal the lass's mind?" Cordelia countered.
"Mother," Gregory replied.
It was handy being related to the wisest witch in the land. He closed his eyes for a second, sending out a silent appeal, then was surprised to feel an overwhelming sense of relief in answer.
So did Cordelia. They stared at one another, eyes widening; then she hastened to reassure her mother that she, too, was alive and well. Gwen informed them of the attacks on herself, Geoffrey, Alain, and their father, then told them that she would be with them straightaway.
Cordelia boiled over with wrath, pacing the grass. "The gall of them, the duplicity, the malice! To separate us and strike at us all at the same minute, so that we could not come to aid one another! Whoever their captain is, he deserves to be hanged! We must seek him out, we must rake him over hot coals, we must see him drawn and quartered!"