M'Lady Witch

by Christopher Stasheff

  Mother, I am so confused! I must talk with you! I listen. Gwen was already more wakeful.

  Nay, not in this fashion. Cordelia wrung her hands. Face to face. I must be with you, be in your presence! I know it is a hard thing to ask, but—can you meet me?

  At Cromheld's Wood. Aye,. surely. Gwen was fully awake now, and all compassion. In half an hour's time. I shall fly. Aye, Mother. I thank you. Cordelia broke the contact and, already feeling a little better, hurried to doff her evening gown and don her travelling dress. Cromheld's Wood was halfway between Sir Julian's manor house and Castle Gallowglass. Cordelia caught up her broomstick, leaped astride it. It sank half a foot, then lifted and shot out through the window.

  In the forest clearing half a mile away, Gwen prepared to do the same.

  "Don't let her see you, dear." Rod had awakened as soon as he heard Gwen rising from her bedroll beside him in the tent.

  "I shall not, husband," she assured him. "Indeed, I shall go past Cromheld's Wood and come back. If she doth see me, she shall think that I have come from Castle Gallowglass."

  "Horrible to lie to our children this way, isn't it?"

  "I do not lie, strictly," she said primly. "I merely leave matters open for her to believe as she wishes. Good night, husband. Do sleep—there is no need for you to be watchful and wakeful." She bent down to kiss him, lightly and quickly, then turned away to leap sidesaddle onto her broom.

  "Good night, love," Rod called softly. He watched her go, diminishing into the night. As to the need for watchfulness and wakefulness, he had his own opinions. He sat up straight, very straight, legs folded in half-lotus. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the mind of his son Geoffrey. It came clear ... he could feel ...

  Passion.

  Instantly, Rod severed the connection. Well, he certainly wasn't going to learn anything about what was going on in the manor house that way.

  For that matter, neither was Geoffrey. Instead, Rod focussed on Alain's mind.

  This was more difficult for Rod than for his wife or children—he had not been born to it or learned it as he grew up. He'd had the gift inborn within him, but it was only contact with Gwen that had brought it to life. Even then, he had blocked it, until Father Al had helped him to unlock it fully.

  So he eavesdropped with his eyes closed, listening, feeling, sensing what Alain sensed ...

  ...sensed a dream, one that featured his daughter, and that he had no business overhearing.

  He severed that connection, too, but sat, wakeful in the dark, waiting, listening.

  From a distance, Cordelia saw her mother, a lighter shred of cloud almost, a spark in the moonlight, circling down into Cromheld's Wood. No one else would have thought to look, of course. Cordelia breathed a silent prayer of thanks, and sent her broomstick arrowing after Gwen's.

  She darted down to the ground, pulling up short and leaping off, running to her mother, saying "Oh!" and burying her face in Gwen's bosom.

  Gwen held her for a timeless moment, folding her arms around Cordelia and holding her, a faint smile on her face. She could feel her daughter's turmoil, could tell what her trouble was—and it was a trouble that Gwen was delighted to discover in Cordelia. She had wondered if the child would ever fall in love, truly in love. There had been a few infatuations, but not nearly enough, to Gwen's mindand certainly, nothing serious. "Yes, child," she said softly. "Now—what troubles thee? Speak!"

  "'Tis ... Alain, Mother."

  "Ah. Alain."

  Then, in halting phrases, with sobs always beneath her voice but never quite in it, Cordelia explained.

  She had always been fond of Alain, as she might be of a lapdog. She had always thought of him as being hers, but he had made such a wretched botch of his proposal, being frankly insulting, that she had turned him away.

  Gwen found a sawn stump of a tree and sat, listening. She had heard this part before; she waited.

  "He has always been so—been so—boring!" Cordelia clenched her fists, jamming them down at her sides. "There is no other word for it, Mother. Oh, aye, I have always had the comfortable feeling that I was quite his superior—but still, he was boring."

  "And this ... Forrest? The bandit?" Gwen interjected softly.

  "Aye, the bandit! But he is a gentleman born, Mother!" Cordelia's eyes lit with enthusiasm. "He has been knighted! Yet he has strayed from the straight and narrow, that is quite sure. But he is—exciting. When he holds me, when he kisses me, I melt inside!"

  "Yes," Gwen breathed, "yes." But she felt a frisson of fear for her daughter, for she knew that plans to reform a man failed far more often than they succeeded. She knew better than to say so at the moment, though; instead, she said only, "Does not that decide thee, daughter? What else dost need to know?"

  "But he is so corrupted, Mother! Can I truly plight my troth to a .knight who has abandoned his vows, and has given no sign that he will redeem himself? Who has looks that fairly undress me, aye—but undress every other damsel around him, too! Can I, Mother?" The words were wrenched out of her. "Can I trust him?"

  Gwen breathed a hidden sigh of relief, then chose her words carefully. "Looking doth not breed mistrust, daughter."

  Cordelia stared, appalled. "You do not mean that Father has regarded other women in that way! Not since he met you!"

  "Well, no," Gwen admitted, then chose her words carefully again. "Not that I know of. If he hath, he hath certainly been quite circumspect..."

  "Oh, Mother, you bandy words!" Cordelia said impatiently. "Father has never so much as glanced at another woman since he met you!"

  "Not since he met me, aye. But before that, he looked at one other in that way, surely."

  "Oh." Cordelia felt obscurely shocked. "Is it ... anyone I know?"

  Gwen debated within herself for a moment, then nodded. "Aye. It was Queen Catharine."

  "The Queen!" Cordelia stared.

  Gwen laughed softly, catching her daughter's hand with her own. "Oh, she was beautiful once, daughter."

  "But she must have been so unlike you!"

  "She was," Gwen admitted, "but at the last, it seemed your father preferred my sort, rather than hers."

  "And ... has he looked at her ... again?"

  "Not at all." Gwen smiled, feeling very complacent. "Or at least, not in the way we speak of. He doth look upon her as he would upon any friend, nothing more—and considerably less, for he must be ever wary, never sure when she will turn upon him."

  Cordelia giggled, nodding. "Indeed, all men feel that way with her—even King Tuan, does he not?"

  "Well, mayhap," Gwen admitted. "It pleases me to think that it may add spice to their marriage. I hope that I am right."

  Cordelia sobered again, dropping her gaze, dropping her voice. "That is what I seek, too—one who will ever be true to me, who will never look at another woman once he has become my husband." She looked up at her mother. "But perhaps I am not so alluring as you were."

  "And as I still am, to thy father," Gwen told her, with some asperity, "though only to your father, I doubt not. As to yourself, though—you do not know the limits of your allure yet, my dear, nor did I, at your age. Have you learned nothing of them, on this quest of yours?"

  "Well . .." Cordelia blushed, lowering her gaze again. "Tonight ... I did seem to be ... something of a favorite ... with the young men...."

  "Show me," Gwen said.

  Cordelia closed her eyes, remembering the sight of all the young men crowding around her, clamoring for her attention, for a dance with her. She remembered quick snatches of each dance, the partners changing with dizzying rapidity—though Alain's masked visage, and Forrest's, kept recurring. The scene was very vivid; she could see it all again, almost smell the flowers decking the hall, hear the chatter, the gay laughter ...

  Gwen gave a sigh of satisfaction. "Oh, I rejoice to see it! I knew thou wert a beauty, daughter, but I have waited long for the men of this world to see it!"

  "And Father has prayed that they will not, I am sure," C
ordelia answered, with irony. "Yet what am I to do now, Mother?" She spread her hands. "Not only one man has seen some beauty in me, but two!"

  "Two?" Gwen frowned. "You speak of Alain?"

  "Aye." Cordelia stood up and began pacing again. "I had thought that he regarded me only as his property, even as I thought of him. I believed that he had come to claim that which he thought was his by right of birth—and mayhap he did ... But now..."

  "Now what?" Gwen said; and again, "Show me, daughter, if it is not too private."

  Cordelia closed her eyes and let herself remember the dances with Alain, his arm about her, his body pressing against hers ... She broke off the memory. "More than that I will not show, Mother."

  "As thou shouldst not," Gwen agreed. "I think I can guess the rest of it." Inwardly, she was delighted. "So, then. Two men make thee melt inside; there are two who make thee guess at pleasures thou wottest not of, not yet."

  "Two. Aye." Cordelia looked down at her twisting hands. "I would never have thought that one of them would have been Alain!"

  " 'Tis surprising," Gwen admitted, "though pleasant. And the other? What is he like, this paragon?"

  "He is scarcely a paragon! Indeed, he is not at all suitable!" Cordelia cried. "Oh, aye, he is well formed—but he behaves abominably. Nay, any knight who would stoop to outlawry should no longer be called a knight, and is certainly no fit husband for a gentle lady!"

  Gwen gazed off into space. "Do not think that thou shalt change him, daughter. No woman can ever change a man to become what she doth wish him to be. Marriage will change him, aye—not all at once, not in the moment the priest pronounces thee wed, not in a month, not even in a year, but gradually, little by little, he will change—as wilt thou thyself. Thou canst but hope that he will change more closely to that which thou dost wish him to be."

  She looked back at her daughter. "Though love and affection, and thine unceasing reassurance, building him up in his own eyes, will make him stronger inside, and will help most wondrously. Still, when all is said and done, thou canst not know for certain what he will become; thou mayest but be sure that he will change, and if he doth love thee as well as thou dost love him, then, with good fortune, thou wilt grow together, to become more like one another."

  Cordelia gazed into her eyes. "I think that you speak from knowledge and life, not from faith."

  Gwen nodded slowly. "By Gramarye's standards, thy father was not at all suitable as a husband—nay, not suitable for any but a peasant. He had no family here, seest thou, and though he claimed to be nobly born; none could prove nor disprove it, for his folk were far, far way indeed, even on another star. And he was an adventurer—none can deny that, though 'twas for the good of other people he adventured, not for estates and a fortune. Surely he had no inheritance, other than Fess and his ship, for he was a second son of a second son."

  She smiled at her daughter. "Then again, I too was not the most eligible. I was, by all accounts, a foundling, raised by elves, with only the knowledge that my mother had been gently born, and had died at my birth. Her father had been a knight, but he was dead, too, as was all her family. Oh, the elves raised me with assurances that my father was noble, but never told me his name—even though he still lives." For a moment, her eyes crinkled with mirth, though she was quick to hide it.

  Cordelia was rather irritated. Whatever the jest was, her mother was not sharing it—and it had very little to do with her problems of the moment. "But did you and Father grow together? Or did you grow apart?"

  "By Heaven's blessing, we have grown together," Gwen answered, "though there is no assurance that all the changes have been for the better. At least I had no concern that he would spend more time with friends at the tavern than he would with me—for he had no friends here, and had become persona non grata with the Crown, by the style in which he ended the first rebellion against Catharine. Surely the two of us were ever together, and rejoiced in one another's company. After our sojourn in Tir Chlis, though, he changed, and changed very badly."

  "Yes, I remember," said Cordelia. "His temper..." Gwen nodded. "Yet still were we in love. That, and the madness that came upon him when he ate the witch-moss chestnut, which still comes upon him ever and anonthose have been sore trials. And this was a most goodly man among men when we met, mind you!"

  "These have been heavy burdens in truth," Cordelia murmured.

  "They have indeed. Yet the elves had warned me as I grew that such as this happened to the best of men, from time to time—and women too, daughter! We are human, do not forget!"

  "Trials that ended, you could bear." Cordelia came and sat by her mother, taking her hand to hold. "What was it that you could not bear, then?"

  "His ever-abiding conviction that he was not good enough for me. Nay, say naught, do not deny it! It is there, and if thou dost think on it, thou shalt see it. This is the trial that does not end—that ever and anon must I build up his inner picture of himself, to shore it up, lest he leave me, ashamed of his weakness, ashamed of his lack of Talent, of his ugliness."

  "But none of those are true!" Cordelia protested. "He is comely even now, and must have been far more so when he was young! Aye, in a rough-hewn way, but comely still! And his talents have kept this land of Gramarye balanced 'twixt tyranny and lawlessness—though you have been of great aid to him there..."

  "I have," Gwen said, "though I would not have undertaken it of myself, but would have left governance to the Queen, and I do not think that she would have called upon me, for she did not know me well—and I was too old to feel easy among the Royal Coven ... Nay, it is your father who has brought me to such cares about governance, and it is his plans and strategies that have kept Catharine and Tuan on their thrones. He is a most puissant man, my dear, but he believes it not."

  Gwen shrugged. "He doth believe that his success hath been good fortune, or that at most, he hath been able to bring others together, and it is they who have managed the troubles that have arisen, not he. Left to his own devices, he doth not believe well of himself. This has been my sorest trial—to always, always give and give, unceasing. But what I have received from him, in affection and outpouring of his love, is at least as much as I have given."

  For a moment, Cordelia wondered fleetingly what trials her father would tell of in his lifelong courtship of her mother—but the thought was fleeting indeed, for it had little to do with her own troubles. "But such giving must be to only one, Mother. How shall I choose? And if I choose wrongly, how much grief shall I bring to them both?"

  Gwen sighed. "This is a family disease, my dear—being too serious, too concerned for others' welfare. Nay, we seem to have the need, your father and I, to take others' burdens on our shoulders—and not the burdens of one person, or a few, but of all those on this Isle of Gramarye. Still, 'tis what has made us noble, I think—the feeling of obligation for others."

  Cordelia became very thoughtful. "If I had not known you were speaking of us Gallowglasses, Mother, I would have thought 'twas Alain." She lifted her head swiftly, sharply. "Am I as dull as he?"

  Gwen laughed softly. "Most certainly you are not, my dear! Your moods change like the sun's light in a field of sailing clouds. As soon as a man might begin to think you are serious, you suddenly laugh, and are gay. Nay, you have always been frolicsome, and have a sense of playfulness that Alain doth lack. Your own mercurial temperament offsets his stolidity quite well—and that is one of the reasons why you are well matched."

  "Well matched?" Cordelia gazed into Gwen's eyes. "We should marry, then?"

  "Oh, nay, nay!" Gwen raised a hand. "Simply because thou dost well together, because thou canst function well in tasks shared, does not mean you should marry. Only love can mean that. If thou dost love him, and he doth love thee, then wed him. If he doth not, be his friend, be one of the pillars upon which he can rest his kingdombut do not be his wife. What can tell you that you should marry? Only love, my dear—only love."

  Cordelia reddened. "It may be that love is tel
ling me to wed someone else, Mother."

  "If it may be, then it is not," Gwen said firmly.

  "But do I love them?" Cordelia cried. "And do I love one, or do I love both?"

  "Why, rejoice!" Gwen said softly. "Two men desire thee, two men kindle a burning within thee—and one of them is a rogue, while the other is a prince in every sense of the word. What choice is there, daughter?"

  "But how can I be sure of either of them?" Cordelia cried. "I have seen how they look at that ... that cat, Delilah! How I have matched her in beauty, I do not know, but I seem to have, this last night—yet I can surely never be as seductive as she! How can I be sure that either of them would cleave unto me, and not unto such as her? Can true love be a true defense? And which is my true love?"

  "Ah." Gwen nodded slowly, her eyes glowing. "If you do not know yet, daughter, you must not say yes to either of them."

  "Yes to which question?" Cordelia asked, guarded. "Any question! Thou must not say yes to any question that either doth ask thee!" Gwen said severely. "Not until thy whole heart, and thy whole body, and thy whole soul do answer `Yes!' before thy lips and tongue have dreamed it."

  "But how shall I know when that comes?"

  "Thou shalt know, daughter," Gwen assured her. "Believe me, thou shalt know. But if thou must have some guide, here it is: If thou dost find thyself even asking the question, 'Am I in love?' then thou art not. When thou art in love, thou wilt know it beyond the shadow of a doubt. If thou dost wonder if thou art in love, then thou art not. Aye, if thou art in love, thou wilt know it—and there is no more to be said."

  "Truly, good mother?" Cordelia asked, in a very small voice—and for a moment, Gwen saw her as a little girl again, a five-year-old clinging to Gwen's skirts. She stood up, smiling, and embraced her child. "It was true for me, my daughter—oh, how it was true, and is! I cannot say what was true for others, only for myself. If it is love, thou wilt know it. It will not be, "Am I in love?' No, the voice within thee shall say, "So this is love!' "