The Spell-Bound Scholar (38 page)

As she lay wrapped in the arms of the first man she had ever begun to really trust, weakened and dazed in the afterglow, Allouette trembled, for she had to admit to herself that

she was truly in love again at last, and the vulnerability that created frightened her.

Gregory felt her shivering. "What troubles you, love?" he said tenderly. 'Tell me the wound, and I shall heal it."

"Only I can do that," Allouette said into his chest, not meeting his gaze. "I feel so horribly guilty, Gregory."

Gregory was still, then said sadly, "I had thought you were healed of that."

"Of thinking sex evil? Oh, be sure that I am, and what your mother did not mend, you now have!" She felt his lips on her forehead but resisted the diversion and explained. "Naetheless, I am supposed to be seeking penance, and I have found only ecstasy!"

"Ah," Gregory purred, and there was a wealth of understanding and reassurance in the sound. "Take what comfort you can, love, for you have already saved a widow and her children, not to mention two whole villages. Take what strength I can lend, for I am sure you will find yourself weary work to do."

"Well," Allouette said, "if you put it that way, I suppose ..." She let the sentence trail off and tilted her head back to accept his full kiss, letting the energy it gave tingle through her.

As they labored the next day, a doubt surfaced in Allouette's mind. She told herself to accept the most complimentary interpretation, but felt the determination to face the facts instead. "Gregory," she said, "your walls of this strange psi-proof substance serve most excellently for shielding the villagers round about from the danger of our projections, but I cannot think you intended that when you began your building."

"Intended to craft a love nest into which to entice you?" Gregory looked up, shocked, and a hundred-pound block fell to the ground. "I would not have had such audacity! Never think that I have taken you for granted!"

Well, that put a different light on the matter—and a flow of warmth within her. "Never do," Allouette advised him.

"Therefore, if you did not craft it as a means of inducement, why did you begin it?"

"It is my site of power, love," Gregory explained. "When I found it, I knew. ..."

"Not that it would increase the force of our lovemaking!"

"No, though it seems to have served that function as well." Gregory's gaze warmed. "Still, I intended to research the ramifications of psionic powers here, and am well aware that I may make mistakes that could have drastic side effects—as the animal life in this area has shown."

Allouette frowned, intent on the other implications of his words. "But some side effects could be harmful?"

"Aye, and with the power of this site to fuel them, they could be most harmful indeed. Therefore do I wish to craft walls about me that will contain any such, so that my research will not contaminate the countryside."

Allouette kept her frown. "What manner of researches could these be?"

"Ways to keep weeds from sprouting while crops grow faster," Gregory told her, "so that fewer people will go hungry. Ways to cure diseases, even to prevent them from beginning. Perhaps, though I doubt any study can achieve it— ways for noblemen to resolve their differences and ways to limit their ambitions, so that we need never again see war stalk the land."

He took a breath to go on, but Allouette cried, "Enough!" She stood vibrant, eyes shining. "If these researches can yield so much good as that, there is some small chance they may redeem me from the evil I've done! To work, wizard! Let us be done building this tower so that we can begin with research! I shall aid you, I shall study by your side, and you shall have to grind away most slavishly if you do not wish me to surpass you!"

Gregory stepped close to embrace her with shining eyes. "There is just so much that labor can do in this work, my love, and that is the testing of an idea. The idea itself comes when it will come, and there is no way to force it; one must needs wait until it occurs of its own accord. Will you be my inspiration, then?"

Allouette's breath caught in her throat, but she managed to say, "Aye, and your slave driver, too!" before his lips cut off her words.

At last she pushed him away, saying,
"
To work!" and stalked off to find another mound of brush.

Gregory gazed after her with shining eyes.

At the end of the day. the tower was thirty feet tall but still had no roof. The birds and the bees were quite busy that night, too.

But the next day, as they worked. Gregory became less and less talkative, seeming absentminded, saddening. Allouette became indignant that he seemed to pay so little attention to her, then noticed that he stole glances at her when he thought she wasn't watching—but they were furtive glances, and guilty.

As she melded the molecules of the underbrush into a new and crystalline structure, she began to seethe within. So he was no better than the others after all! He yearned for her until he had what he wanted, and when he was satiated, he gave way to postcoital depression, to the puritanical imperatives of his religion, took the excuse of sinner's guilt to turn away from her, to spurn her!

Well, let him go if he wished! Allouette would finish this tower and undertake her researches without him! She built blocks and stacked them at a furious rate, burning with rage at the perfidy of men.

Thus it was that when Cordelia and Gwen stopped by to visit, they found two people working at building a tower, neither of them talking, and the air charged with both the tension of anger and the miasma of despair.

Cordelia shuddered as they landed. "What manner of lovers' quarrel is thisT'

"There is more to it than passion worked into a knot," Gwen said, frowning. "Do you draw out the woman, daughter, and I shall worm the truth of this out of my son."

Cordelia nodded and went over to Allouette.

The closer she came to the great pale structure, the more awed she became by its scale. Allouette looked up, irritated by the company, then quickly looked away, feelings of guilt rising as she remembered that she had tried to kill this woman, to rob her of the life of discovery and wonder that lay before her, and she no older than Allouette herself.

"The grandeur of this structure is astounding!" Cordelia said. "For what purpose do you build it?"

"To contain his researches." Allouette jerked her head toward Gregory. "He thought to make a mere house, but to live here with him and only him, I shall surely deserve a few luxuries to make my stay bearable!"

"Will you stay with him, then, only the two of you in isolation from the rest of humanity?" Cordelia asked in disbelief.

"So I had meant," Allouette said, thin-lipped, "and he seemed to welcome the thought of my company while he labored at finding solutions to the problems of the world. He seems to be having second thoughts, though."

"Does he truly!" Cordelia felt a woman's indignation toward false promises. "Has he taken what you offered, then, with no sign of recompense or devotion?"

That gave Allouette pause. "No .. . until today, he gave every sign of craving my presence."

"Craving, perhaps." Cordelia could feel the anger at her brother increasing. "But did he say he loved you?"

Allouette was silent for a minute, then admitted, "Several times."

Cordelia's eyes widened. "I am glad to hear it, for he certainly told it to us, and with great pain, because he thought it unrequited. Surely you do not think that you have requited only to have that love withdrawn!"

"It would seem so," Allouette said grimly.

"Have you told him you love himl"

Allouette thought back. ' 'Well, no . . . but I have given him every sign of my love! Surely that would be enough for any man."

"Not one who thinks his only worth is as a scholar," Cordelia said, "and who has absolutely no opinion of himself as a man."

"Oh, but he is a most splendid lover! I mean ..." Allouette blushed flame-hot—"I had not meant to say ..."

"It does not shock me," Cordelia said with a smile, "nor am I jealous of my little brother. In fact, I am relieved and rejoice to hear it." Then the smile vanished. "Still, I know Gregory well enough to think that he could never suffer so strongly from love as I have seen him languishing over you, and be sorry for it the next day. There is more to this than he speaks of. Come, let us confront him."

Allouette looked up at her in alarm, but Cordelia was already striding away. Allouette ran after her. "No! We must not! What if he should say he does not want me here?"

"Then we had best know it at once," Cordelia said with iron determination.

"But if he says it, I can no longer ignore it!"

Cordelia couldn't believe this was the same woman who had tried to ensnare and steal Alain if she could and, if she couldn't, slay Cordelia herself—both without the slightest trace of remorse. "Best to know the worst," she called over her shoulder as she bore down upon her brother.

Gwen, meanwhile, had come up to her son, who finished placing a block and turned to her with a courteous but miserable attempt at a smile. Gwen's heart twisted at the sight,

but she looked up at the sixty-foot wall before her and said,
"
An amazing accomplishment, my son."

"Oh—not when I have had such excellent assistance." But Gregory's face crumpled at the thought, though he smoothed it again quickly enough.

Gwen probed the wall with her thoughts, found it telepath-ically opaque, and drew her own conclusions. In a low tone she said, "Rejoice therefore, Gregory. You have found true love, you have found your life's work, and Allouette has found her way to come to terms with herself for her past deeds."

Surprise came slowly over Gregory's face. "That is all true. I had not summarized it so."

"Then do." Gently, Gwen asked, "Why are you troubled, when an embarrassment of riches lies before you?"

"That is so," Gregory said slowly, "though Allouette has never said she loves me..."

"You know that she does, though, and that her love will grow if you are true to her."

"Yes . .. but..." Gregory's composure broke. "But by that very love, I shall hold her prisoner! What manner of lover am I, Mother, to doom my darling to life imprisonment, here where she shall have no society but me, no human contact but my poor self?"

Gwen studied him for a minute, smiling slowly. "I think she will not notice the lack, my son, not for a long time— and if she does, be sure she will journey where she wants. Will you go with her if she does?"

"Of course! But still, Mother, what manner of life could it be for a gentle and loving woman to be bound to a bookish recluse all her days? Oh, aye, there shall be the occasional festival, and I have no doubt the Crown will summon us for dire tasks now and again—but when all is said and done, we shall live alone more years than not! How can I claim to love her when I do this to her?"

"Have you thought, my son, that after all she has suffered at the hands of other people, she might well choose such isolation with the one man she can trust?"

Gregory was silent awhile, considering the matter.

Gwen matched his silence, letting him work it out. When she thought that consideration was turning into brooding, she said, "You have doomed himself to the same isolation, my son."

"Well, surely—but I have chosen it!"

"So has she," Gwen reminded him.

"What has she?"

Gregory looked up in alarm to see his sister looming, with Allouette fluttering after her in distress.

Cordelia came to stand foursquare, glaring at her brother, hands on her hips. "What has she done?"

"She has been foolish enough to choose me," Gregory said through wooden lips.

"Foolish!" Allouette cried, staring.

"Do you believe me now?" Cordelia asked over her shoulder though she kept her gaze on Gregory. Still, her voice was softer as she asked, "There is nothing foolish in that choice, my sib!"

"But there is!" Gregory cried. "She chooses life imprisonment if she chooses me! She chooses exile, isolation, and one so lovely and so graceful deserves neither! She deserves only to be cosseted, cherished, admired. ..."

Allouette's eyes glowed as she stepped close to him. "Cosset me, then. Cherish me. Admire me!"

"Oh, I shall," Gregory said fervently, "but you merit far better than me, and you deserve the envy of every woman, the adoration of multitudes!"

"I have had all that and found it worthless." Allouette twined her arms about his neck. ' 'What I have not had is the sincere devotion of one good man—and if you think that, having found it, I shall ever cast it away, you are witless!"

"I do not doubt it," Gregory said, numb but thawing by her nearness. "Still, there is the isolation—"

"Solitude," Allouette corrected, "and I welcome it. Oh, it may be that in a year's time, or two years or three, I may desire to go among people again—and will you not escort me if I do?"

"With great delight," Gregory said fervently.

"Then what need have you to feel guilty, my love?"

Gregory stared, struck by the word "love" more than by the question—and while he was frozen, Allouette kissed him.