Gregory's heart wrung with sympathy for the sweet, loving child of whom he gained such furtive glimpses; he was strongly tempted to probe more deeply in an attempt to learn more, perhaps even to cure—but even the ethical penetration of an enemy's mind had its limits, and Finister had not yet shown evidence of being so dangerous as to justify such an invasion—at least, not very dangerous to himself.
Besides, Gregory was afraid of causing more trauma than he might cure. Firmly putting temptation behind him, he turned his mind away from Moraga and concentrated on his favorite mantra, the reconciliation of general relativity with quantum mechanics and the search for an equation that would unite the two.
Moraga woke before dawn, amazed that she had slept so deeply and so well. She stretched, then remembered her current mission and sat up, stretching again as luxuriously as possible, chin up, back arched, arms reaching backward. She glanced at Gregory out of the corner of her eye but saw him in profile, glassy eyes gazing steadfastly ahead. If he had seen her at all, it was only out of the corner of his eye.
Piqued, she pulled her robe on over her shift, a shift far more clinging than any true peasant would have worn—after all, it had been made with artificial fibers spun by a very advanced technology—and went off into the bushes to perform her morning ablutions. When she came back, she found Gregory as she had left him and reflected that she really need not have risked a poison ivy rash—she had only needed to step around behind his back.
That thought made her toy with the notion of giving herself a sponge bath where she had slept, at the corner of his eye— but no, Moraga was supposed to be modest, if not truly innocent. That would have to wait.
On the other hand, Moraga was no virgin and, being a normal, healthy young woman, might very well have normal, healthy appetites—perhaps even more than normal. She stood eyeing Gregory, letting her face and form adjust a little farther toward their natural state. She might feel herself heavy and distasteful, but she knew by experience that men thought just the opposite, no doubt because of the sensuality she projected into their minds. Besides, she had to admit that her natural figure was voluptuous and her mane of blond hair was her glory. Her face she would have characterized as goggle-eyed, snub-nosed, fat-lipped, and frog-mouthed, but she had learned that men wished to kiss those fat lips and lose themselves in those goggling eyes. She didn't understand it, really, but she knew how to make use of it.
She advanced on Gregory with the intention of doing exactly that.
Chapter 2
Moraga knelt at Gregory's side, put her lips next to his ear, and breathed, "Waken, Sir Knight. A damsel awaits you, famished and eager to satisfy her hunger ere the night ends."
Gregory sat, mute and immobile, eyes still gazing off into the lightening woods.
Irritated, Moraga moved toward the front and into Gregory's line of sight, bending toward him and wishing she had chosen a low-cut gown, though it would have been out of character. She could, however, undo the topmost button, and she did. "Come, sir! Would you keep a woman waiting? That is most ungentlemanly of you! Cease your vigil and celebrate life with me!"
Still Gregory gazed ahead unmoving, as though she had not even been there.
Moraga passed beyond irritation into outright anger. He would notice her, he would pay attention, she would distract him! She sat back on her heels, tossing her head so that her hair fell forward, its color lightened from the real Moraga's mousy brown to a rich, vibrant red. She smiled secretively, letting her eyelids droop and her lips moisten, then sat directly before Gregory, fingering the second button and purring, "Wake, sir, for the day will be upon us soon! Then we must be on our way, with no more excuse for. . . dalliance. ..." She let her voice trail off suggestively, leaving the nature of the dalliance to his imagination.
It would seem he had none. His eyes remained glazed, his posture rigidly upright, his expression unvarying.
"Oh, you might as well be made of wood!" she cried, and leaped to her feet. "This is like talking to a wall! Could a woman be more unfortunate than to be cursed with a man whose body is there but whose heart is not? Nay, sit in your trance, then, and may you have joy of your loneliness!" She turned on her heel and strode off into the trees, seething with rage.
Long she paced the wood, letting the anger crest, then subside. How could she begin to seduce a man who scarcely noticed her? How, if his mind was so absent that she could not gain his attention? And not only his mind, either—she found herself wondering if there was also something missing in his body.
Finally she calmed, her course of action becoming clear, her resolution hardening. She sat on a fallen log, letting her mind clear and emotions fall away, then thought, with clear precision and with all her strength,
She was very much aware that Gregory could be listening, of course, or any other esper loyal to the Queen. It was an old problem for the anarchists of SPITE, the Society for the Prevention of Integration of Telepathic Entities, one they had solved by developing a code that sounded much like children's nonsense verses. In this case it meant, "All home agents come to the Chief on the High Road twenty-one miles north of Castle Loguire."
She rose from her log with malicious satisfaction. Soon she would begin the ending of this farce, and the Gallowglasses' interference with SPITE's plans.
Gregory came up from his trance striving to fight down the thrill of Moraga's breath in his ear, the memory of her leaning close and the hint of voluptuous contours beneath her sacklike dress, the longing to discover what undoing that second button might disclose. She was quite right, of course—it was time to have breakfast, for the false dawn would not last long, and they should be on their way as the sun rose. He stood, stretching, and called, "Your pardon, damsel, but rising from my trance takes some little time."
He waited a few minutes for her reply, then frowned when there was no answer. He had watched her go off into the trees, but surely she could not have gone very far. "I do not truly scorn your hunger," he called. "Do you blow the coals aflame, and I shall fetch journeybread from my pack and ..." His voice trailed off as Moraga failed to reappear. He waited several minutes, but no voice replied to his. He frowned, eyes losing focus, the clearing about him becoming less real than the world of the mind as he listened for responding thoughts—but there were only the sharp sensations of small predators on the hunt, the fear of their prey, some child reciting a nonsense rhyme in her head, and more distantly, the grumbling thoughts of farmers as they stumbled about their morning tasks, cursing their lack of sleep.
Gregory frowned—what could have upset the damsel so that she would have gone so far away? Certainly it was rude of him not to answer when she spoke to him, but when he explained that it took a while for him to surface from his meditations, she would understand, would she not? It was scarcely a calculated insult. She was herself an esper and should understand the requirements of the mental powers that passed for magic on this world. Why should she be irritated if his reply were delayed?