The Spell-Bound Scholar (13 page)

"Empathy?" Gregory asked in surprise. "I have always thought my ability to feel what others felt was my curse, for even before I uttered a syllable, I began to imagine how my words might sting others' feelings!"

"So that is why you have spoken less and less as you grew older," Cordelia said thoughtfully.

"Is not such empathy so extreme as to be a weakness?" Gregory demanded. "Do I not feel others' pain out of all proportion to good sense?"

"You must allay sympathy with judgement, of course," Gwen said slowly,
"
A but I would hate to think caring to be weakness."

"He always was the gentlest of us four," Cordelia admitted.

"But you learned to hide those qualities as you grew, Gregory," Gwen interpreted. "Did they make you prey to others' petty cruelties?"

Gregory flushed and looked away. So did Cordelia, though her expression was guilty.

"Shame upon those who played upon your kindness!" Gwen said with a severe glance at her daughter. "Do you now fear that this Finister shall do so, too?"

"She already has, Mother," Cordelia said, "for as she has projected her allure, has she not exploited his instinct to care for others?"

"Do you ask if she has used desire to induce your brother to search for her natural virtues, even though they may not be there?"

"But they are, Mother!" Gregory burst out. "I have felt them, though I have not probed deeply enough to discover memories of infancy. I have sensed good qualities in her that have been twisted into making her the treacherous assassin she has become!"

"We are answered, Mother," Cordelia said softly.

"Why, what villainy is this," Gwen said, voice low and trembling, "to use a man's love to strike at him?!"

"It is only as she was taught," Gregory said stubbornly.
"
There is great sweetness underlying the shell of malice she has grown, Mother!" Then he broke off, staring from mother to sister and back. "What have I said? What makes you so intent?"

"The clarity of your love for her," Gwen said. "It is not that you have been duped into loving a viper, but that you have seen the loving babe she was 'ere the sorcerer transformed her."

"This love, at least, is not blind," Cordelia agreed, "though at first I thought it was."

Gwen shook off the mood and spoke. "If your love sees truly, I shall have to be extraordinarily wise and skillful to peel away that shell of scars to reveal the sweet and gentle child beneath—if that child has not died."

"She has not! Oh, Mother, she is still there and alive! I know it, I feel it!"

"How is this, then?" Gwen said with a rueful smile. "Do you love the child, or the woman she grew to be?"

Gregory stared, more into himself than outside, then said slowly, "Neither. I love the woman that child could have grown into and that may yet be—a Woman of If."

"Then let us see if we can make of her a Woman That Is," said Gwen. "I shall go to learn what I may of the human heart and mind. Whiles I am gone, do you submit yourself to the less-than-gentle ministrations of your brother, and when he lets you rest, read the sleeping mind of this woman in depth. Come to know her needs, delights, and secret fears,

that you may fulfill the first and avoid the last."

Gregory nodded, huge-eyed. "I shall, Mother."

"You shall also have to acquire a sense of fun and play," Gwen said grimly. "I know you have never truly done so, but few women would wish a man who can never be gamesome." She turned to her daughter. "Tease him unmercifully, Cordelia, until he has learned to recognize it and enjoy it."

Cordelia looked dubious. "I shall try, Mother, though Heaven knows I did enough of that when we were young, and he always mistook it for cruelty."

"I shall learn it now," Gregory assured her.

"Betimes engage him in contests of wit," Gwen counselled. She turned back to Gregory. ' 'Therein, at least, you may discover pleasure in the game itself. Once you do, you can enlarge that to other play."

Now Gregory looked uncertain, but he said, "I shall do all that I can to achieve it."

"There is something more you shall need to know," Gwen told him. "Geoffrey shall teach it to you, mind to mind."

Gregory blushed even at the thought.

Cordelia smiled wickedly. ' 'He shall listen with a beet-red face, Mother."

Gregory turned to her with a frown but saw his mother's smile of amusement. "Oh! I see. This is some of that 'teasing' of which you spoke. Well, if I must learn lovemaking, I shall, even if it must be with a purple face—but it shall also be with dogged determination."

"I would rather it would be with delight and wonder," Gwen sighed, "but I will take what I may."

Gregory glanced at her uncertainly, then glanced away. "Mother—do you truly believe I can become all these things?"

"What have I told you of your ability to learn, Gregory?" his mother demanded.

"Why, that I could learn anything I wished. . . . Oh. I see." Gregory tried to smile. "At last I wish to learn it, is that what you mean?"

"Exactly," Gwen told him. "I will say now what I said then, my son—you can learn anything you truly wish to learn.

It is simply that, before this, you have never seen any sense in it."

Gregory frowned, looking inward again. "Am I truly being a devoted lover, Mother, or am I seeking to remake myself in slavery to a woman's whims?"

Cordelia looked quite worried, but Gwen let the question roll over her and took her time phrasing the answer. "You are setting yourself to realizing your full potential, my son, with which you never would have bothered if this Finister had not spurred you to it."

"
To become her ideal male, and to cure her of her urge to maim and kill," Gregory whispered, daunted. "Surely only magic can bring about either one!"

"Then I shall go and learn that magic," Gwen promised him. She turned to Cordelia. "Be sure she stays asleep."

The trip took Gwen the rest of that day and most of the next, for she had to fly half the length of Gramarye, and even at airspeed and with a favorable wind, that took time. She stayed the night at an inn, then went on to her goal at sunrise and came in sight of the convent early in the morning of the third day. She brought her broomstick down in a clearing so as not to frighten the holy women and walked the rest of the way.

When she came out of the trees, though, Gwen stopped, staring, wondering if she were in the right place. A mob of children was running about outside the walls, some playing with a ball, some whirling tops, others playing an intricate game involving small hoops, and some simply standing about and chatting. Gwen watched, rather startled—on her last visit, she'd had the impression that the nuns isolated themselves from the neighboring villages. That had to have been a mistake, of course—they were healers; patients must come to them in a regular procession. Her last visit had been in the Christmas season; no doubt the children had been home with their families.

But what were they doing here?

A nun came out of the convent gate and clapped her hands. The children immediately quieted and formed concentric cir-

cles, the oldest on the outside, the youngest and shortest on the inside. The nun nodded, satisfied, and said, "Good morn, my pupils."

A chorus of voices answered, "Good morn, Sister Elizabeth!"

"Let us ask God's blessing on our day's work." The nun knelt and the children imitated her. She began to pray aloud, and Gwen watched, scarcely able to believe what she saw. Was this truly a school for peasant children? In a land where only the nobility and the clergy learned to read and write?

But never women. No, Sister Elizabeth must have been there to teach them only religion.

The prayer done, they stood. One of the smallest raised his hand.

"Yes, Lawrence?"

"Must we go inside, Sister?" the little boy asked, his voice plaintive. " 'Tis so warm and so sunny outside!"

Sister Elizabeth cast a knowing smile at the oldest children, one or two of whom had the grace to blush and look down; they had put the child up to asking but hadn't fooled Sister for a minute.

"Nay, I think not," Sister said. " 'Tis indeed beauteous, and like to be one of the last warm days of autumn. We shall stay out of doors."

The children cheered. Sister Elizabeth smiled and waved for them to quiet down. As their noise subsided, she said, "Sit, now, and take out your slates."

The younger generation disposed itself on the grass, not without a bit of chatter. Sister Elizabeth clapped her hands. "Pay heed, an't please you! Senior students—write out an answer to this question: 'How could Christ be both fully man and fully God?' "

The older teenagers bent over their slates, frowning. One or two began writing immediately.

Gwen stared. Peasant children, writing?

Sister Elizabeth was going on. "Junior students—are those we call witches truly evil magicians devoted to Satan, or people like any other, but with talents few of us have? Judge by their works, good or evil. Then say if your answer could be

true anywhere but on this Isle of Gramarye. As you write out your answer, bear in mind the three parts of an essay."

The younger teenagers frowned at her, puzzled, then looked down at their slates, growing thoughtful.

Gwen was astounded, not only by the fact that these youngsters could write and therefore presumably read, but also at the nun's application of religion to a problem that was, for anyone on Gramarye, an issue of daily life.

"
Older children, come near this tree!" Sister Elizabeth took a sheet of parchment from her sleeve and tacked it to a tree trunk. It was covered with arithmetic problems. "Solve these on your slates," Sister said as she glanced back at the senior students—then glanced again. "Garrard! Your eyes on your slate, young man! Truly, one of your age should be above letting your eyes wander without purpose!"

There was a smothered snicker from the teenagers, and one of the boys snapped his gaze back to his slate. The girl at whom he had been gazing glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, then back at her slate with a covert smile.

Sister Elizabeth turned to the youngest children. "Now, then! Let us recite the alphabet!" She held up a hand, but glanced back at the older children and snapped, "Matthew!"

One of the boys looked up, startled and guilty.

Sister Elizabeth stepped over to him and held out her hand. "School is for slates and chalk, naught else. Give me your reed, young man."

In sullen silence, the boy pulled a narrow tube out of his sleeve and gave it to her.

"You may keep the beans," Sister said, "so long as you do not use them. If you are well behaved the remainder of the day, you shall have this reed again." She didn't say what would happen if he didn't; apparently everyone knew. She turned to go back to the youngest students but stopped short as a girl quickly covered her slate with her sleeve. Sister levelled a forefinger. "Ciphering only, Cynthia. I wish to see naught but numbers on your slate."

Other students craned their necks, trying to see what Cynthia had been drawing or writing.

"Eyes on your own slates," Sister reminded them, and

they all whipped their gazes back to their work. Sister sighed and shook her head as she returned to the youngest—and Cynthia took out a scrap of cloth to erase her slate. "Now," said Sister, "the alphabet."

The children began to chant with her.

Gwen moved on, shaking her head with amazement. A school for peasant children was unheard of! Still, now that she knew of it, it made a great deal of sense—an order dedicated to the health of the mind would naturally wish to develop those minds as fully as possible.

She was also amazed at the woman's patience. A few days of that would have reduced her to a screaming scold—or a gibbering idiot. She wouldn't blame the nuns if they changed teachers every few days—but from the children's air of familiarity, it was evident Sister Elizabeth was with them constantly. A truly amazing woman, indeed.

The novice at the gate started looking frightened as soon as she realized that Gwen wasn't just an accidental passerby, but she held her ground and stammered, "What would you, milady?"

"Speech with your Mother Superior," Gwen answered. "Good day to you, lass."

"G-good day." The girl's eyes were huge. "Who shall I say wishes speech with her?"

"The Lady Gwendolyn Gallowglass."

The girl swallowed heavily, nodded, and stammered, "Y-yes, your ladyship." Then she turned and scrambled away, leaving Gwen to wonder why they bothered with a gate when the wall was so low—or, for that matter, why they bothered with having a porter.

She took the opportunity to study the layout of the convent. It was very obviously a homemade affair, built with the willing labor of the local peasants—Gwen had a momentary vision of fathers and brothers hauling blocks of stone for the curtain wall and wattle and daub for the buildings. The structures were only larger versions of peasant huts—considerably larger, since several of them were double-storied. But regardless of their construction, their layout adhered to the time-