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"Besides," Rod said, feeling uncomfortable, "if you hadn't triggered her walking, I probably would have."
"Thou?" Magnus stared, then whirled to his mother. Gwen nodded, gaze fast on him. "Thy father hath waked ghosts aforetime, son." She turned to Rod, and couldn't help a smile. " 'Twas not long after we met."
Rod couldn't stop the smile, either. "No, it wasn't, was it?"
He turned back to his son. "I did something rather stupid: I went for a stroll in the haunted section of Castle Loguire—alone."
"Wherefore wouldst thou have committed such folly?" Cordelia's eyes were huge.
"Because I didn't believe in ghosts. But I saw them, all right—and I was scared hollow, till Fess figured out their trick. And mind you, I wasn't the first to see ghosts there—that part of the castle had so strong a reputation that nobody lived there any more. And the same is probably true here—I have a notion that this isn't the first time this spectre has waked, though she may not remember the others as more than a dream. I'd bet that psychometricists are more common here than she led you to believe."
A bit of color was coming back to Magnus's face now. "Yet her cries of anguish, and the wicked laughter we all heard last night, whiles the storm did rage…"
"When we weren't even inside yet. Right." Rod nodded. "Either you have a lot more range than we thought, or the ghosts linger once they're roused. Of course, all the electricity in the atmosphere might have had something to do with it."
Magnus paled again. "Dost think they may talk to one another when we living are not by them?"
"Interesting thought," Rod agreed, "but a pretty useless one, for our purposes. If they do, how can we tell, since we're not here to hear it? If a tree falls in the forest, but there's no one near to hear the noise, did it make any sound?"
The junior Gallowglasses exchanged glances, which could have meant that it was a good question that would require thought, or that Papa was being silly again.
"No matter how she hath been raised." Magnus banished the question with a wave of his hand, and Rod's heart leaped; if the kid could put it behind him, he'd been lifted past it. "Wherefore would she wish me to go, rather than asking mine aid, as she did before?"
"I don't think it was your help she was asking for." Rod rubbed the bridge of his nose. "More likely reliving a scene from the days of her life."
"And as to bidding thee go," Gwen answered, "she may have wished to hide her shame from the world."
"What shame?"
Gwen spread her hands. " 'Tis hidden yet. Naetheless, when a damsel hath been hurted deeply, she will oft wish to be alone until her wound hath healed."
"Definitely," Rod agreed, "and that's not exclusive to women. It can take a long time for a man to heal, too."
Magnus frowned. "Dost thou speak from conjecture, or from knowledge?"
"Doesn't matter," Rod said, "since the important question is really not how we've waked her, but how we can help her to find rest again."
Magnus's gaze drifted. "Aye—that is the nubbin…"
"Then," said Gregory, "we must first learn why she is unhappy."
"Back to where we left off." Rod smiled. "So tomorrow, we'll search the castle and grounds and see if we can find any more clues. But I don't think we can do too much more tonight." He lifted a hand to stifle Magnus's protest. "You're tired, son, and not at your most perceptive any more—and if any of the rest of us have this particular gift, we don't have it as strongly as you. We need to get what rest we can. Come on, back to bed." And he stepped over to lie down on his pallet. Gwen smiled gently at the children, then went to join her husband.
Reluctantly the children followed suit, and lay still in the firelight.
"Mayhap," Cordelia offered, "we ought not to meddle in this affair at all."
"Nay, we must!" Magnus protested loudly.
"Softly, softly, son," Gwen called. "I do not think we can worsen matters for the lass, Cordelia, and we well might help. Yet her affairs aside, there's some small matter of our own interest."
Geoffrey looked up. "Why, how is that?"
"I do not mean to dwell in a house where ghosts do wander in the dead of night, to disturb our sleep," Gwen said, with finality.
"An excellent point," Rod agreed. "You're right in this, Cordelia—that if it didn't affect us, we should probably mind our own business."
"Nay, even then, we ought to seek to alleviate the poor damsel's suffering, out of simple humanity!" Cordelia cried.
"Thought you were the one who was saying we should back out. Well, since we're all agreed, we'll consider ways and means—and let's sleep on it, shall we?" He rolled up a little more tightly.
Slowly, Magnus lay tense but quiet again.
The hall was still, and a branch popped in the fire.
Cordelia tossed and turned, unable to sleep, even when the low, even breathing of her mother and brothers, and her father's snoring, told her that she alone remained awake.
The thought was frightening. There was a small sound, somewhere in the great room, and she lifted her head to peer around, eyes wide, heart hammering.
She saw only the forms of her sleeping family, and the dark silhouette of the great black horse, standing watch over them. Its eyes glistened in the firelight, ever vigilant.
Cordelia felt relief; she wasn't completely alone in her wakefulness. Very quietly, she slipped out of bed and came over to the robot. Fess lifted his head at her approach. "Lie still, Cordelia. Sleep will come."
"I have need of talk." She twined her fingers in his mane.
"Your charms avail you nothing, Cordelia—I am made of metal."
"I shall try the mettle of a man, when I am grown." She managed a small smile at her own feeble jest. "Speak to me, that I may sleep."
"Am I so boring a companion as that? No, do not answer. Tell me what you would have me speak of.''
She said nothing, only set to work making a plait in his mane.
"Of love, of course," Fess answered, with a sigh. "You are, after all, a young maiden."
"Aye. Wouldst thou, mayhap, recall Papa's ma
"Cordelia!" Fess reproved, in his softest tone. "I have told you before that your father's experiences are entirely confidential, and that it is for him alone to breach that confidentiality, not I."
"Oh, thou didst not even know when the Archer did smite him!"
"How should I, when I am only a thing of iron, with no feelings? How might I recognize romantic love?"
"Thou dost know it by its signs."
"Signs that can be hidden, with self-control. I will tell you only this: that when humans do suppress such evidence of love's coming, they cease to know clearly when they are in love."
Cordelia looked up, frowning. "Why, how couldst thou know such a thing?"
"I have studied humankind for five centuries, Cordelia. Go, now, and let your fancy play with the notion."
She smiled, taken with the idea. "Why, that I shall. I knew thou wouldst know cures for wakefulness, good Fess." And she turned away, going back to roll up in her blanket.
Of course, Fess did recognize the signs of infatuation, and remembered that the young Rod d'Armand had been worried because it had never happened to him. But Fess had seen the reason clearly, when he looked at the belles of Maxima—so he had not been surprised with the quickness of love's striking, once Rod left home. He remembered, with the clarity that only comes from permanent changes in the electrical patterns of molecules. It had been a time when Rod's joy and pain had been so clear to see that Fess was, for once, quite glad he had no emotions of his own. Rod's had been bad enough. Oh, yes, he remembered…