M'Lady Witch

by Christopher Stasheff

  Geoffrey turned to him with narrowed eyes.

  "Hold!" Alain was jolted back to his senses. "'Tis me with whom he fights! Stand aside!"

  Geoffrey turned toward the Prince. "But, Highness..." Sir Devon cried.

  "Aside!" Alain stormed, and the thrill of battle sang through his veins. He turned to his erstwhile friend Geoffrey with an almost savage delight; this would be the perfect outlet for the rage and frustration of Cordelia's rejection. "He is mine!"

  "Then have at thee, boorish Princeling!" Geoffrey bellowed, and slammed his horse into Alain's.

  But Alain had already seen the maneuver used against Sir Devon, and was braced for it. He rocked in the saddle but held his seat, and parried Geoffrey's overhand slash, then parried another, and another ... the blades rang, strokes fast and furious, the horses dancing around one another, the knights of the bodyguard crying out in anger and alarm.

  Geoffrey was staring in surprise, and Alain felt a thrill of satisfaction; the Gallowglass had not expected him to be so able an opponent! The satisfaction was strong enough to urge him to use Geoffrey's own trick against him—he spurred his horse and slammed it into Geoffrey's mount with a suddenness that took the young warlock by surprise.

  So did Alain's shoulder in his short ribs.

  Geoffrey reeled in the saddle. Alain reached over to shove with his left hand, and with a very ungraceful scrabbling and grasping, the young warlock fell off his horse. He landed and rolled up to his feet, sword still in his grasp, face red with embarrassment and fury—to see Alain dismounting and turning to him.

  "Oh, very chivalrous!" Geoffrey snarled, and was on him.

  Now the blows flew thick and fast, thrust and parry and slash and counter. There was no use of horses as weapons now, but only naked steel, sword and dagger against sword and dagger. But Alain was quickly on the defensive; he gave ground, and gave ground again, astounded to realize that he was fighting for his life, that his sword was beaten back again and again, that Geoffrey's blows came so thick and fast that it was all he could do to parry, not even having time to riposte.

  Sir Devon cried out and spurred in.

  "Hold off, Sir Devon!" Alain cried, but not soon enough; Geoffrey leaped aside, whirled, and caught Sir Devon's foot as the knight galloped by. He heaved, and Sir Devon came crashing down from the saddle. Geoffrey spun back, ready to ward off Alain's blow, but the Prince was standing on guard. "I would not dishonor myself by striking at a foeman's back!"

  "Would you not?" Geoffrey snapped. "Then your sense of honor shall cause you to be slain some day, Highness!" And he leaped in to the attack again.

  Alain saw his one chance to regain the offensive, and took it, leaping aside from the blow and thrusting at full extension—but Geoffrey twisted to parry in a gyration that Alain would have thought impossible, and slashed backhanded at the young Prince's chest. Alain parried in the nick of time, then parried again and again, giving ground with each stroke. His companions howled their alarm and pressed in, but Alain bawled at them to hold their places.

  Then, suddenly, Geoffrey's blade swirled around his own, his hilt twisted in his hand and wrenched against the fingers, and his sword went flying away through the air.

  Aghast, he stared at the point of Geoffrey's blade, six inches from his face.

  The young knights cried out in alarm and spurred their horses.

  "Back!" Geoffrey roared. "Or my hand might slip!" The knights reined in, hard.

  "Now," grated Geoffrey, "you shall apologize to me on my sister's behalf, Your Highness, and swear to take your apologies to her in person, or I shall witness the color of your entrails with my own eyes."

  Alain tried to glare back at him, but he remembered the rash words he had snapped at Cordelia, and dropped his gaze in chagrin. "I do most humbly apologize, for those were rude words indeed that I spoke, and the lady deserved them not in the slightest." He lifted his head, looking back into Geoffrey's puzzled gaze. "As to fear of yourself or your blade, why, if you think me a coward to have apologized at sword's point, then stab with that point, and be done! You have sneered at the notion of honor, so I shall not be surprised you have so little of it yourself, that you would slay an unarmed man!"

  Sir Devon gasped, gathering himself for a desperate spring—but Geoffrey's eyes only narrowed to slits. Before he could speak, Alain went on. "Yet be advised, young warlock, that your sister's words had a sting of their own, and did stab me most unexpectedly."

  "Did that warrant your insults and threats of revenge?" Geoffrey countered, grim-faced.

  "I spoke in anger, hurt, and shame," Alain replied. "I spoke rashly and foolishly. Surely, Geoffrey, you know that I would never dream of hurting Cordelia—and to realize that I have done so is cause for great shame! I shall apologize as honor dictates I must, apologize to the lady most abjectly!"

  "Why, how now?" Geoffrey eyed him warily. "Will you do what honor dictates, when your station contradicts it?"

  "Honor is of more import than rank," Alain returned. "In truth, I cannot honestly claim royal station if I have lost honor. Nay, I shall apologize to your sister as soon as I may come to her."

  Geoffrey tried to maintain the glare, but had to let it drop, and his sword's point with it. He eyed his old friend with disgust. "Why, how can I stay angry with you, if you behave so admirably? You are a most aggravating opponent, Prince Alain!"

  "And you a most astounding one," Alain returned, suppressing a tremor of relief. "I have never been beaten before, save in childhood duels with yourself. You humiliated me, for you were two years my junior—and you have done so again now."

  "You have deserved it," Geoffrey said grimly.

  "I know that I have." Alain frowned. "Yet we have not duelled since we were twelve, for my father forbade it."

  "Aye." Geoffrey smiled. "He forbade it as soon as we were old enough to be truly a danger to one another. One must not imperil the heir to the throne."

  "You would not have slain me!"

  "Not with purpose, no. Accidents have happened with swords ere now, though, and will happen again. 'Tis a dangerous game."

  "But how could you win so easily?" Alain protested. "Partly by my own skill." Geoffrey's anger had largely abated. "The other part was your overconfidence."

  "None have won against me save you!"

  "Of course they have not." With friendly exasperation, Geoffrey explained, "Who among your courtiers would dare to defeat the Heir Apparent, Alain?"

  Alain stared. "You do not mean they have let me win!"

  "Certainly they did! Would any man in the Court dare to antagonize the future King, whose favor will determine each man's fortune?"

  Alain looked away, numb and confounded. "I had thought myself the epitome of courtesy and chivalry!"

  "Well, mayhap in your daily conduct." Geoffrey relented. "Yet surely not when you are angered. Your speech with my sister was somewhat less than charming, Alain." The Prince looked up again, alarmed. "Less! How rude was I, Geoffrey? I came so filled with enthusiasm and excitement that I may, ah, have overlooked the niceties."

  "Niceties?" Geoffrey grinned. "Forsooth, Alain! You did not send word of your coming, you did not ask to be admitted, you virtually commanded the lady to appear and, worse, informed her that she was your choice! A lover should plead and sue, not command!"

  "Should he indeed?" Alain stared. "I know naught of this."

  "That," Geoffrey said drily, "is somewhat apparent" Alain's gaze wandered again. "I had never thought to court a lady! Princes' marriages are arranged for them; I did not think to have choice, nor to have to woo, and therefore never learned the way of it."

  "No, you surely have not." Geoffrey felt a stab of sympathy for his friend. "A lad does not dictate nor condescend to the lady whom he loves, Alain, and well she knows it. She must be sure that he yearns for her so greatly that he will cherish her always."

  Alain frowned, puzzled. "How do you know so much of it?"

  Geoffrey answered with a knowing grin. "Ah
, well, my friend, I am not a Prince, nor do I have so exalted a sense of forbearance as you seem to have."

  "You do not mean that you have courted ladies!"

  "Well, not ladies," Geoffrey allowed. "With them, I have only flirted, stealing no more than a kiss or two. With ladies of one's own station, one is apt to be constrained to become a husband, if one seeks to dally. With commoners, though, there is less expectation, and greater willingness."

  "You have flirted with chambermaids and milkmaids, then?"

  "I will own to that," Geoffrey admitted, "and to having won their favors."

  Alain ached to ask just how extensive those favors had been, but it would have been rude. The sudden, overwhelming realization struck him: any favors he had won from women had been almost by accident—and intoxication. "Alas! If I am not the chivalrous knight I had thought myself, however am I to win your sister's love?"

  "Chivalry does not always have a great deal to do with it," Geoffrey allowed. "Do you truly wish to win Cordelia, though? Or is it only that you have been ordered to?"

  "I have not been so ordered!" Alain cried vehemently. "She is my choice, my heart's desire! I have known that I loved her since I was fourteen!"

  Geoffrey sat still a moment, absorbing the fact of his friend's passion. Then he said quietly, "Well, well. You have kept your own counsel well, have you not?"

  "So have I been bred." Alain looked away. "My father has taught me that a king must indeed do so, for his bosom will need to hold many secrets."

  "You have kept this one too well. I doubt that my sister knows anything of it."

  "But how am I to tell her?" Alain cried. "I cannot merely step up to her and declare it!"

  Now it was Geoffrey's gaze that wandered. "No-o-o-o," he agreed. "That would be unwise. You must create the right mood for such an announcement, if you wish her to believe you."

  "Why, how is this?" Alain stared, astounded. "Is there no love arising by itself, from a woman? Might not she fall in love with me ere I have even spoke a word?"

  "She will, if she is your one true love," Geoffrey said. "If she is not in love with you, no persuading of yours will ever create that love, though your conduct and bearing may inspire it. When all's said and done, it is what you are that will win the lady—and if you wish to win her, 'tis a matter of what you can become."

  "I cannot be anything but myself!"

  "That is true," Geoffrey agreed, "and you were best to wait for the lady who loves what you are, rather than try to become what she loves. But you may have sterling qualities that would inspire her love, if only you could show them. When all's said and done, winning a lass is a matter of how you present yourself. That, and learning to be romantic."

  "What is this `romance'?" Alain asked, frowning. Geoffrey spread his hands, at a loss. "'Tis as much a fantasy as a reality, my friend. The troubadours know it'tis not a matter of lying, exactly, but of making the plain facts more appealing, of surrounding the bare bones of life with a pleasing form. 'Tis this that awakens desire in a lady—candlelight, and viols playing, and a dance that whirls her away."

  "You speak of deliberate planning, of cozening," Alain protested. "Must I persuade her that what I say is true?" Geoffrey shrugged. "Her future, her entire life, depends upon it, Alain. She must be sure."

  "Then however am I to win her?" Alain cried in despair. "For I have no gift in persuasion, no silvered tongue, no ability to charm! I am only a blunt, plain-spoken soldier who knows how to guard his words!"

  "Guarding one's words is not altogether what the ladies want," Geoffrey advised him, "though you must choose those words well. They wish you to be borne away by a flood of passion so strong that tender, caring words burst out of you."

  "And all my training has been to keep words in!" Alain turned away in misery. "I shall never win her love, then! I shall never win any woman's love!"

  Now Geoffrey felt the first faint twinges of alarm—of concern for his friend but, moreover, for his sister. He knew Cordelia had always thought of Alain as her personal future property, and frankly, the young Prince was the only man whom he thought worthy of his sister—not because he was the future King, but because he was as dependable as a rock and, beneath all his pomposity, goodhearted and warm. Geoffrey didn't doubt that, if they were married, Alain would treat Cordelia like the precious thing she was. He felt a sudden need to boost his friend's ego. "It is nothing inborn," he said, "no quality within you. It is only that all your life, all your experience, has been spent in the safe confines of your parents' castle, the controlled and artificial world of their court."

  "Artificial!" Alain looked up, amazed and affronted.

  "'Tis quite a work of artifice, a thing made by people, not by God," Geoffrey explained. "Hunger and ugliness are banished and kept out; oppression and cruelty are veiled and harnessed by custom and manners. You have never faced real danger without others to ward you, nor dealt with the world on its own terms."

  "What terms do you speak of?" Alain demanded sharply.

  Geoffrey realized that there were suddenly more concerns than Cordelia on his mind. "Terms of danger, my Prince—the danger of cruel men who murder and steal, the dangers of famine and disease. You have never seen how your future subjects live, nor to what authority they must answer. You have never gone through your kingdom solely as Alain, not as the Prince."

  "Why, thou dost paint me as a stock of a man, a painted stick, a hollow effigy!"

  "Even so; you have said it."

  "How dare you!" Alain cried, the anger of his defeat finally bubbling over. "How dare you speak so to your Prince!"

  Geoffrey nodded with grim satisfaction. "Even now you do it—even now you seek refuge behind your title. As to how I dare, why—I have only answered the questions you asked. Do you truly ask me how I dare to answer them honestly?"

  Alain stared at him, then spoke, seeming numb. "No. I cannot fault you for that, can I? Indeed, I should praise you for the truthfulness all others near me do lack."

  Suddenly he turned away, once again in despair. "But how can I ever face her again? If I am truly so shallow, so puffed-up and pompous, how can I ever hope to win Cordelia's heart? How, if I am so superficial and vain?"

  "Become a true man," Geoffrey answered, "one of flesh and bone, with hot blood in your veins."

  "Why, how can I do that?"

  "Go off on a quest of your own, friend, to discover what you truly are—with none to ward you, and no sign of your true rank."

  "I would not know how to bear myself, nor where to go," Alain protested.

  Geoffrey threw up his hands in exasperation. "Why, then, I shall show you! Come, and we shall go adventuring, you and I—but come straightaway. Do not go to your home to shift your clothes, nor to pack your gear, but come away now!"

  "'Tis even as you say; my parents would never hear of it." With sudden resolution, Alain said, "Why, then, I shall learn the way of it—of courting, of living, of being true! Come, old friend, let us go!"

  Sir Devon watched, amazed, as the two young men rode off into the forest side by side. Clearly, the Prince had forgotten Sir Devon. The knight felt a moment's rage before he remembered how preoccupied Alain had been, how sunk in gloom; then Sir Devon's resentment melted like ice in tea, for he had been raised on romances like any other young gentleman of Gramarye, and knew that all can be forgiven the lover who is driven to distraction. He allowed himself a moment for a sad smile, then sighed and called his horse. Alain might have been forgiven, but Sir Devon still had his duty—to report what had happened to Their Majesties.

  He rode away down the road. Scarcely had he passed beyond the first bend when Cordelia came shooting into view on her broomstick. From her higher vantage point, she could see a break in the trees, where Alain and Geoffrey were riding away together. For a moment, she stared; then a hot surge of indignation reddened her cheeks, and she banked into a sharp turn, heading back toward Castle Gallowglass, growing angrier and angrier with every mile she flew.

&nbs
p; CHAPTER 3

  "How could he! How could he go gallivanting off with one who has but lately given his sister insult!"

  Cordelia was pacing the floor of the solarium, fuming, tiny slippers tapping. Rod and Gwen sat by, watching their daughter and biting their tongues. At least, Rod was biting his.

  "Perchance," Gwen suggested, "thy brother had already rebuked Alain, and punished him."

  Cordelia looked up, instantly dismayed. "Oh, say not so! I know the manner of Geoffrey's rebuke." She frowned. "Nay, he could not have, or there would not be enough of Alain left to sit a horse!"

  "Unless Alain apologized," Rod pointed out.

  Cordelia stared. "Alain, apologize? That stuffed, selfimportant popinjay, lower himself to apology?"

  "I think thou dost wrong him in that, daughter," Gwen said gently. "He is chivalrous enough to apologize, if he could be brought to see that he had wronged you."

  "Even if he had, 'twas to me he should have apologized—not Geoffrey!"

  "Why, that is so," Gwen said, puzzled. "Wherefore would he not seek thee out?"

  "Scared," Rod opined. "I would be, too, if a pretty girl had just rejected me flat out."

  Cordelia turned to him, puzzled. "Why should this be?"

  "Just a quirk of the male mind. We're sensitive about being told we don't matter."

  Cordelia frowned. "But I did not."

  "Sure—you just told him "no.' Right? No explanations, no excuses—nothing but a flat "no.' "

  "There was more than that." For the first time, a trace of guilt crept into Cordelia's expression.

  Rod was silent, waiting—but Cordelia was silent, too, lost in recent memory, and mortified.

  Finally, Gwen broke the silence. "Thou hast ever been quick and sharp of tongue, daughter."

  "Oh, but I so rarely mean what I say in the heat of the moment!"

  "Aye—'tis naught but the telling remark, the barbed retort, that matters, is't not? Yet hast thou thought of the hurt thy hasty words may do?"

  "Surely he knows that rash words are not meant!"

  "Alain? No," Rod said. "I don't think he knows anything of the kind. Very serious young man, that. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks angry words show how a person really feels."