The Spell-Bound Scholar

Chapter 7

Queen Catherine was livid. Even as the guards hauled the assassins away to the dungeons of Castle Gallowglass, the Queen, alerted by a royal witch, paced the flags of her solar, fuming, "How dare they rise against my son? How dare they strike at his Cordelia? I shall flay them within an inch of their lives! I shall make them howl and gibber and beg for death!"

"They will be fortunate that you do not punish them as harshly as they deserve," King Tuan said with a completely straight face.

"They shall indeed!"

"Nonetheless, my love, before the torturers have reduced them to babbling husks, might we not ask them a few pertinent questions?"

Catherine halted, pivoting to glare at him, beginning to feel the slightest bit abashed. "What questions are these?"

"Why," King Tuan said, "who sent them, why they wished to slay Alain and Geoffrey and Cordelia and Quicksilver, and most importantly of all, how they managed to penetrate Castle Gallowglass even to Lady Gwendylon's private garden."

Catherine gave him a long and steely glare beneath which fury simmered, warring with common sense. At last she said, "You have the right of it in this. Set the investigation in train, husband, an it please you."

In those very gardens, Cordelia and Quicksilver watched the guards haul away the last of the assistant gardeners, or gardening assistant assassins, whichever they truly were.

"Why did they set upon us?" Quicksilver demanded. "I know your family has no shortage of enemies, Cordelia, but even here? Which ones are these, and why did they set upon you?"

"They are likely agents sent by a government yet unborn." Cordelia took a deep breath and explained to Quicksilver about the futurians who were trying to sabotage the government of Gramarye in order to win control of the planet in centuries to come, and why. She had expected to have to wheedle and work her way around disgusted disbelief, but Quicksilver only listened with narrowed eyes, nodding every now and then as points connected to make her kind of sense. When Cordelia had finished, she asked only, "So you think these fools were of those who seek to abolish all government?"

"I do," Cordelia said. "Assassination is more their sort of work. The totalitarians prefer to foment rebellion, setting the peasants to slay the aristocrats."

"There is reason enough for that, surely!" said the woman who had been driven into outlawry by a rapacious lord. "Still, from what I have seen of how your family manages their estates, your peasants would not be among those rebelling."

"I would hope not," Cordelia said with a grateful smile. "But the most recent of these futurians, sister-to-be, is the one who sought to seduce Alain from my side, then under a different disguise, to woo Geoffrey from yours."

"You do not say it! That caitiff Moraga?"

"That was neither her true name nor her true form," Cordelia said. "No one knows what they may be. She appeared to my eldest brother Magnus in four separate shapes to drag him into heart's torture and devastating humiliation."

"As a result of which, he will never trust women again." Quicksilver nodded heavily, her face stormy. "So you think it is she who sent these backstabbers'*"

"She, or the one who commands her."

Quicksilver's scowl darkened even more. "But you say this witch Moraga is only one of her disguises. Was not she dispatched to Runnymede under guard of your little brother Gregory?"

"She was," Cordelia replied. Then she caught the implication and her eyes widened in horror. "Dear lord! Gentle

The Spell-Bound Scholar

Gregory! If she could so mangle our great towering Magnus, what has she done to my sweet, mild lad?"

"A question well asked," Quicksilver replied, "and I think you had better answer it as quickly as you may."

Cordelia's eyes lost focus as she paid more attention to the world of thought than to the world of the senses. Abruptly they sharpened again with horror. "He is alive, but his whole soul is filled with mourning—and with thoughts of death! Your pardon, Lady Quicksilver! I must go to him!"

"With all speed!" Quicksilver cried. "I shall follow with all the haste four hooves can muster!"

Minutes later, Cordelia spiralled up from the garden on her broomstick and shot off toward the south.

She landed in a meadow, looking about her in alarm. The vista was peaceful, a grassy carpet adorned with wildflowers and surrounded by murmuring trees, set off by the roughness of a boulder in its midst.

The boulder! By it knelt her brother, and he was weeping! Cordelia ran to him, heart hammering in panic.

She slowed as she came near him, almost embarrassed, uncertain how to begin. His gaze was fixed on the face of a sleeping woman, one whose beauty shocked Cordelia and filled her with instant envy even as anger rose in her, for she recognized the witch, and she was as far from the dumpy Moraga she had seen at Castle Loguire as Terra was from Gramarye.

Silent tears rolled down Gregory's cheeks. "Good afternoon, sister. It was good of you to come—though I cannot say what good you may do here."

"Whatever happens, you shall not face it alone." Cordelia sent a quick probe into the woman's mind and found it sleeping, but alive. "Gregory ..." She broke off in confusion.

"You wonder why I weep," Gregory said, his tone leaden, "but who would not weep at the death of beauty?"

"Death?" Cordelia darted another quick look at the sleeping woman but saw her breast rise and fall. She smiled with fond condescension, relieved that his grief was mistaken. "She is not dead, poor lad—only sleeping." She dropped to her knees beside him and caught his hands. "Gregory—she means you harm! No matter how beautiful she is, her heart is hideous! It is she who maimed Magnus and who sought to slay Alain! I do not doubt that she means to slay you, too!"

"I am quite sure of it," Gregory said, but his gaze stayed on the sleeping woman. "She has already made the attempt, but I had forged a mental shield that reflected her own assault back at her, and this is the result—save that the reflection must have scattered the energies, if she only sleeps."

Cordelia stared down at the unconscious woman, appalled. "Why, the vile witch! But if you know she sought to kill you, why do you weep for her?" She guessed the answer, though, and her heart sank.

"Because I have fallen in love with her." Geoffrey's whisper confirmed her fear.

Blind rage struck and Cordelia knelt rigid, waiting for it to pass. It would not help her brother for her to slay the sleeping woman out of hand. In fact, such a deed would lose him forever. But the fury ebbed, leaving her panting. She had not the slightest doubt that the creature had manipulated Gregory's emotions shamelessly—and had made him fall in love for the first time! The very first! And with such betrayal and such hurt for so sensitive a young man's first, he might very well never be strong enough to love again! "Gregory—you cannot think to woo her. ..."

"I do not," Gregory said in a flat, lifeless tone. "Be assured, sister, that I have tested her goodwill and found it lacking. Greatly though I desire her, I know that if I reached out to her, she would try again to kill me, and again and again. Therefore must I never touch her." The tears rolled down his cheeks with renewed force.

Cordelia searched for words of comfort and found some— of a sort. "It is not you alone she has sought to slay, but all of us, even Quicksilver and Alain. She has even plotted to kill the King and Queen!"

"Do you not think I know?" Gregory's tone became utterly devoid of emotion. "If I had not known it before, I certainly do now, for I saw it in her mind when, in panic, I sought to discover if she lived. Therefore must I execute her."

"Execute!" Cordelia cried, appalled. Striking the woman down in self-defense she could have understood, but not this, not cold and emotionless killing! "Gregory, you must not!"

"Conspiring to regicide is a capital crime," the lifeless voice answered. "So is attempting to murder the heir apparent. Both are high treason—and I assure you, sister, that I have seen three successful murders in her memory, done for her own personal reasons, not for her Cause. The woman is a murderer, and the law demands that she die."

"Then leave it to the law! Leave it to a judge and a jury!"

"Wherefore?" Finally Gregory turned to her. His tears had dried and his eyes become like chips of ice. "I know her guilt from the evidence of my siblings. If more were needed, she stands convicted by her own memories."

"But. .. but you love her!"

"I do." The words seemed wrenched from his heart; then his tone deadened again. "It is wrong for me to let my own feelings sway me from the path of justice. I know her guilt; I must execute her." He turned back to the sleeping witch. "Best to stop dithering and be done with it. Logic forbids any other course." His gaze sharpened.

With a shock, Cordelia realized he had begun to concentrate on slowing Moraga's breathing. She seized his arm to distract him and cried, "Then a pox upon logic! Emotion, too, is a part of truth!"

"When that emotion is the product of scheming and manipulation?" Gregory shook his head. "There is no truth in that—and when you have done with emotion, what is left but logic?"

"Intuition!" Cordelia cried. "The back of the mind assembling a host of facts to present a thought that will then stand the test of reason—and my intuition tells me that this is wrong, that by slaying her you would do grave harm to yourself!"

Gregory's eyes lit with a furtive gleam of hope. "If to myself, then perhaps to others. I pray you, sweet sister, dredge those facts up from the back of your mind to the front. Tell them me, so that my logic may yield."

Cordelia breathed a massive sigh of relief, then realized that she was trembling. She hid it by clenching her fists and stiffening her body, summoning the self-possession she would need to persuade this gentle brother who had suddenly turned into a remorseless killer. Well, not remorseless, perhaps— indeed, he would feel remorse for the rest of his life. But he would nonetheless kill her.

She took a deep breath and said, "I am appalled that I should have need. You yourself, brother—have you no heart, no conscience that may tell you what mine do?''

"Aye, I have," he returned, "but if reason contradicts the impulse of conscience, I must choose the course of reason. Even now Conscience tells me not to strike a woman in cold blood, but Reason shows me that she merits death and, moreover, will find a way to strike at us again if I let her live."

"But you cannot know that!" Cordelia cried. "She might become sincerely penitent, might truly become your loyal friend!"

Gregory frowned at his big sister. "Do you truly think she does not merit death?"

Then he saw in her eyes that it was not what the woman deserved that concerned Cordelia, but her sudden fear of what her little brother had become. Gregory gazed at her, sadness weighing down his heart. "I am nothing more than I ever have been, sister," he said softly. "It is only this occasion that has made you see it."

The trembling took her again. "The Gregory I have known would always seek the course of mercy! Why death, Gregory? Why not some lesser punishment?" Then a happy thought struck her, and her hand tightened on his arm. "Would it not suffice for her to dwell forever in a prison from which she could not escape?"

"Aye, it would." Gregory gave her a sad smile. "But this is a woman of commanding presence, Cordelia, or she would never have risen to authority among her own band. Come, you know how intelligent and resourceful she is, and how unscrupulous. Do you truly think there is a jailer whom she could not bend to her will or a prison from which she could not escape?"

Cordelia stared at the ground, fists clenched, thinking frantically. Surely the woman was a snake and a backstabber, surely she deserved to suffer, but death? Surely not, surely it would be evil to deprive her of life, especially when she was so young, had so much of life left, so many joys to come....

Inspiration struck, and she smiled at her brother in triumph. "Aye, she could escape from any prison—save one in which she wished to stay."

Gregory stared. Then he frowned and said slowly, "She deserves to suffer for what she has done—but aye, I would be content if you could invent a prison that gave her so much joy that she wished to dwell there forever. How could you craft such a thing?"

"I cannot build a prison, but I can craft witch-moss," Cordelia said. "Let us find a huge mass of that fungus and fashion from it Moraga's ideal man."

Gregory frowned, searching her face, not understanding. Then comprehension dawned and his eyes widened. "Of course! If we search her mind to discover all she wants in a man, then make a construct that embodies those qualities, even all its contradictions and paradoxes, she might become so besotted with him that she would be content to stay with him all her days!"

"Even so," Cordelia said, beaming. "Of course, we would plant it in his mind to take her away to some hidden valley where they might celebrate their love forever..." She stopped at the twist of pain in her brother's face.

It smoothed instantly, though, and he said, "Continue. This scheme might march, and a human life is worth the trouble."

And the pain, Cordelia thought, and her heart flowed with love and pity for the lad. She did continue, though. "We would, of course, enclose that valley with an enchanted, invisible wall and ask the elves to set sentries about it night and day."

"In case she does discover her imprisonment? But if she does, elves or no elves, she will one day escape."

"I doubt that highly," said Cordelia, "but I doubt even more that she would ever realize that wall existed. If the construct were truly her ideal mate, she would never tire of her dalliance with him and would never wish to stray far from his side."

Hope warred with hurt in Gregory's heart. Reason told him that after the novelty of being in love wore off, Finister would take up where she had left off. He warned his sister, "Ideal or not, she would tire of him and manage to escape, though she might come back. What damage could she do while she were loose, Cordelia? Surely she would strive to achieve the anarchists' goals and, even more certainly, her own. She would continue to disturb the peace, seek to assassinate the monarch, slay people whenever they were in her way or could not be controlled, and generally wreak havoc."

Despite his words, though, Cordelia could see that hope drowned out reason, and the pain of seeing Finister with another man would be far less than living with the guilt of executing her. "There might be some way to purge her of those desires."

Hope ebbed; Gregory gave her a sad and weary smile. "How might we do that? We speak of impulses inculcated throughout childhood, perhaps even inborn, probably so deeply ingrained that she is not fully aware of them. How can we purge her of such as that?"

Grasping at straws, Cordelia protested, "There must be some way! If telepaths cannot do it, who could? It only remains to learn more of the workings of the mind!"

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?"