"Aye. What else shall they do with their interminable lives? They have no need to labor, they have no duties to occupy them. What else shall save them from dying of boredom, save games of one sort or another?"
Magnus was amazed all over again, not at how much his brother knew-he was getting used to that-but at the depth of his understanding.
"Yet thou, by thine appearance and imminent departure, won through to her," Gregory explained. "She could see that the force of Albertus's resentment, of his will to banish thee, was stronger than thy desire to stay-so she took the only means she knew, to increase thy desire."
"And his." Magnus stiffened in a moment of insight. "She could not lose thereby, could she? For the action that inflamed my passion, inflamed his also, till it burst the bonds of his reserve and made him abandon all else in his need for her."
"Even so," Gregory agreed. He started to say something else, then caught himself.
"I am a cat's-paw, eh?" Magnus's mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. "Thou dost think that she but made use of me, as a tool to win the other whom she truly wished."
"Nay, not so," Gregory quickly assured him. "She would have been as glad to have thee as him."
"Why, what tolerance!" Magnus said, with a hard laugh. "How gracious, to accept either one! How open-minded of her! Yet I think she would rather have had him, brother, for he was of her world."
"Mayhap." Gregory frowned.
"And so." Magnus pulled on his boots and stood, buckling on his sword belt. "So he hath gone to the elven kind, and is lost. Doubly lost, tenfold lost, for winning the favors of the Queen's body; the ecstasy she brings him will have him ever panting after her for another favor."
"Aye; and she must give them," Gregory said, "or his desire will curdle into hatred, and he'll storm away from her."
"I doubt it not. So she will bed him now and again, ever in time to keep him from turning away, and will hold him all his days--or till she tires of him." He turned a bleak gaze upon his little brother. "How then? How then, when he is cast out of Elfland? Will he not despair, and seek death?"
"She dare not enrage him too greatly," Gegory pointed out, "for he is a mortal who can wield Cold Iron, and a wizard, who doth know the ways in which to wield it most shrewdly 'gainst the elven kind. Nay, if 'tis as much his desire that holds him, as her own, then she must needs quench his yearning when her own doth lapse."
Magnus frowned down at him. "Dost thou know this of thyself?"
"Nay; I had it of Vidor. Such liasons are naught new, in Tir Chlis. They endure seven years-or at the least, 'tis seven years till the one enthralled returns again to mortal kind."
"Time may run at different rates within the Faerie's spells." Magnus nodded. "So he is gone from his enemies for that long. How will the land fare without him?"
"His father, his mother, and Vdor endure," Gregory reminded him. "They may mourn his loss, but will preserve his inheritance."
"If he doth wish to take it up."
"He will," Gregory said, with some certainty. "The Faerie-taken return to waste away, or with greater zest for life-and I think that Albertus is not the kind to pine."
Looking within himself, Magnus had to agree. He would survive out of sheer stubbornness, if nothing else-but he was equally likely to stay alive just out of anger. He nodded. "He will live, and thrive. Thou sayest he will have greater appetite for life?"
"Aye; Faerie will drain him or fill him to bursting, the one or the other. And he will return with knowledge of elven magics, added to his own."
Magnus shuddered at the thought. "He will be a most puissant wizard."
"Aye, in the future-and for now, he is happy. Or if not happy, at least living in delight."
Magnus wondered at his brother's distinction, but decided he didn't want to hear it explained.
8
Rod looked up, then looked up again, wide-eyed. Sure enough, that was Magnus, riding into the village square. But why the look of cold determination? What had happened to his son in the forest?
Somehow, he didn't think he should ask. The lad would tell him, if and when he was ready.
But there were some things he could say. He stepped toward the young man, waving. "Good to see you back, son! Changed your mind?"
"Resolved it, rather." Magnus dismounted and stood beside him. "We must have some purpose in living, must we not? And if we have none, we must make it." He glanced around to be sure no one was near, and lowered his voice. "Folk have the right to leave this place, if they wish it. Let us see if there are any we should aid."
Rod grinned and slapped Magnus on the shoulder while he wondered at the boy's words. But there would be time enough to puzzle them out later. For now, mending fences was more important. "I don't know about you, but it's been a while since I've eaten. Let's go find a tankard of ale and something to munch."
Magnus glanced up at the sun. "Aye; 'tis noon. I find I could surround a flagon."
"Just take the ale out of it first, okay?"
They found the tavern, got a tankard each and some sausage, that being all the tavernkeeper had on hand. He served them himself, since Hester was still in school. Rod watched Magnus keenly for signs of regret, but didn't spot more than a sardonic twist of the lips.
They had no sooner begun to eat than a shadow darkened the doorway, and the grizzled peasant Roble came in, walking heavily, face pale and grim. He leaned on the counter and said, "Corin! A stoup of ale, an it please thee!"
Corin did a double take, then shied away as though he were looking at an unclean spirit. "It pleaseth me not, Roble! For I cannot o'erlook the sins thou hast committed in leading thy son to take his own life."
"'Twas not I who pushed him thither, but His Grace the bishop!"
"Blasphemy!" Corin gasped. "I cannot serve thee, Roble, when thou wilt not confess to thy sins! Look no more upon me!"
"Since when was it blasphemy to criticize a priest?" Magnus murmured to Rod.
"Since that priest decided it was," Rod murmured back. "Hush, son, and listen."
Roble narrowed his eyes. "I will look most shrewdly upon thee, till thou dost give me mine stoup of ale."
Corin's face set itself into grim lines. He turned away to dust and polish.
Roble stood and glowered at him.
Corin's shoulders squared, and he went on bustling about, then turned away and went out to the kitchen.
Roble sagged and lowered his eyes.
Magnus glanced at Rod, then stood and stepped over to the bar. He leaned across and hooked a tankard off its peg. He beckoned to Roble, who looked up in surprise, then followed him back to the table, where Rod and Magnus were each pouring half their tankards into the empty one.
"Drink." Magnus set the stoup in front of him. "We are not of the village."
Roble looked them slowly up and down, with suspicion but also with relief, then growled, "I will-and bless thee, strangers." His lips quirked with a mirthless smile. "If the blessing of a sinner and an outcast will do aught for thee."
"I certainly can't cite anyone else for being a sinner," Rod rejoined, "and the blessing of a father should certainly . . ." But Roble was sinking again. "I am parent no longer. Call me not `father,' goodman."
The innkeeper came bustling back out and jarred to a halt, staring at them, shocked. Then he remembered that he wasn't supposed to even see Roble, and turned away.
Magnus decided to press his luck. He stepped over to the counter, calling, "Ho, goodman! Fill the bowl again, if thou wilt!"
Corin turned to stare at him, then let a slow smile show. "Aye, stranger." He refilled Magnus's tankard, took down a new one and filled it, too. "For thy father." Then he turned away quickly, back to the kitchen.