"I fear that I am lost, Sir Knight." Moraga pulled a stalk of grass from the roadside and began to nibble at the tip. "Will you help me find my way in these woods?"
"Why . . . gladly, damsel." Gregory swallowed as a wave of desire rolled over him. He reminded himself that it was only a projection of Moraga's own mind and said bravely, "If you will mount and ride behind, I shall bear you out of this wood."
"I had rather it were you who did mount and ride, sir/' the milkmaid purred. "I shall bear you in delight, you may be sure."
Gregory strove to take her words at face value and failed.
"I will rise up, if you insist." The milkmaid swayed up to him, raising a hand to rest on his knee. "Still, I would liefer you came down." Her fingers traced upward on his thigh.
Gregory fought for composure and won. He inclined his head gravely. "I thank you for the invitation, maiden ..."
"I am no maiden, nor do I wish to be," she said, her voice husky. "In truth, my only regret in leaving that virtuous state is that there are so few boys who wish to play my games— or have the stamina to play them well."
"I am not gamesome," Gregory protested.
"Then I shall teach you how to play."
Now Gregory smiled with relief, back on familiar ground. "If only you could! But I have striven to learn through the years, damsel, and cannot. I go through the motions that give others so much delight but feel only boredom."
Her eyes flashed. "You would not be bored with my games, Sir Knight."
"I doubt not," Gregory admitted, "but I would certainly play them with no sense of fun, no sense of joy—for I lack both. Come, damsel—do you truly wish to dally with a man who would study his every move earnestly, paying the game only the gravest of attentions?"
In spite of her goals, Finister shivered with loathing. Gamely, though, she said, "No man can be so tragically serious as that, sir."
"Not many," Gregory agreed. "I had rather be a rare man in other ways, but I must settle for this, since it is what I am. In truth, I doubt not that I would approach the bout as a study, striving to discover which caress could elicit which shiver."
That was too much even for Finister. "Then I wish you joy of your studies, sir, for it is all the joy you shall have!" She turned and flounced away, disappearing into the underbrush in seconds.
Gregory stared after her, his breast a churning of emotions. He was relieved that he had found his prisoner again, but he found himself shaking with the aftermath of the encounter. No matter how cool a face he had presented to Moraga, his emotions were rampant. Never before had he felt such a tidal wave of desire—which was reasonable, considering that he had never met a woman at once so beautiful and so voluptuous. Worse than that, though, the woman was a projective telepath, and the emotion she had projected was raw lust in proportions he had never known, with a frightening intensity.
That intensity had saved him from falling off his horse and into her arms, no doubt—the fear of the power of the emotion itself, even though he knew that if he once confronted that fear, it would yield to a pleasure more extreme than any he had ever known. Part of him longed for it but another part was repelled by the thought of the time that would be wasted, the energy that would be leached from his research. Still, the fear of pleasure had been a good thing, for now that she had gone away, he remembered a far more practical fear—that while he was distracted by passion, she might strike him a mental blow that would stun him long enough for her to drive a dagger through his ribs or, more likely, use the passion itself to catapult him into her projective hypnotic spell, imagining himself to be some loathsome creature who could not stir from its prison, even as she had made his eldest brother believe himself to be a snake doomed forever to crawl around and around the base of a tree.
He sagged, limp with the aftermath of the confrontation, and was astounded to find that his trembling came not from exhaustion but from desire. Lust so intense was a new feeling for him, and he paused to savor its novelty, bemused, studying the phenomenon—and forgetting his ordeal. It was amazing that the woman could generate such an intensity of feeling. Before meeting her, he had always managed to sublimate such feelings into creative energy, which he channelled into research—a far more productive use.
Still, the current situation had its advantages. He had always wondered what compelled other men, such as his brother Geoffrey, to waste so much time with women. He could have understood counselling, teaching, or working with them to find some way to alleviate their poverty—but simply to trade sallies with them over cups of wine? There was nothing accomplished, nothing achieved! Why would an otherwise completely sane fellow be such a spendthrift of his hours? It seemed he was about to find out.
Gwen looked up at the sound of voices in the hallway. Glancing at her husband, she saw that he had heard it, too; from his desk to the right of the great window, he paused in his writing and looked up at the door. He glanced at her, eyebrows raised in inquiry, mouth curving in amusement, as though to say it was no doubt something minor. Gwen smiled back from her reading chair at the other side of the clerestory, a smile that said she was equally certain it was a minor matter.
Their solar was filled with light; the great window faced south and was filled with color, for the glaziers still had difficulty making clear glass and, as a result, deliberately tinted the panes in various hues. The furniture was sparse, the books many, with a figured rug covering the flagstoned floor and a tapestry over the mantelpiece. It was a warm and cozy room, though it seemed empty now that the children had all gone out into the world. Nominally, they were still at home, but actually spent very few days there, being always out and about the kingdom, caring for the needs of the people and protecting them from the predators that pervaded a medieval society.
The sentry at the door stepped into the room. "Beg pardon, lord and lady."
"Certainly, Trooper Harl." Gwen smiled to put him at ease. Ever since they had rid the castle of its ghosts and taken up residence, there had been a constant stream of poor people coming to their gate for alms. She and Rod had given a dozen of them jobs, that being the most practical way of alleviating their poverty; the number had increased as the children had begun to spend less and less time at home. They now housed a company of guardsmen, none of whom had ever seen military service before, a dozen servants, and three dozen foresters and farmers. Rod had begun by inventing jobs for poor people and had ended making a profit. It had surprised him immensely and allowed them to hire a mason and a carpenter to instruct a dozen apprentices each in renovating the castle.
"The porter brings word, milady, of a young peasant who has come to the gatehouse begging aid."
"Then bring him in and give him food."
"Well, we brought the food out and tossed it to him, milady, for he would not come near us. The aid he asks is healing; he says his whole village has fallen victim to a plague that none has ever seen before."
"A plague!" Gwen stiffened.
Rod rose. "We'll come."
"Indeed not," Gwen said with some asperity and laid her book aside, removing the spectacles Rod had fashioned for her from the prescription provided by his robot horse, Fess. She rose, saying, "If I cannot mend the disease by myself, it is exotic indeed. Continue writing your history, husband—it is at least important for future generations as healing is for this."
"Well, I do have to admit you know a lot more about medicine than I do, especially at the microscopic level." But Rod looked distinctly unhappy about it. "You'll call if you need any help?"