He shook his head in silent admiration and rose, turning away, to take a look at the princess.
Alisande stood in the center of the Ring, eyes wide in wonder and delight, lips parted.
It was so much unlike her usual demeanor that it frightened Matt. Was she okay? He went up to her quietly, almost diffidently. "Uh - is your Highness well?"
"Oh, very well!" Alisande breathed. "What a goodly place is this, Lord Wizard!"
"Well goodly isn't exactly the word I'd choose." Matt looked around him. "But I think I know how you feel; 'high' is what we called it back home."
"Nay, goodly! I feel as I have never felt this last twelvemonth, with calm, kind goodness filling all the air about me! 'Tis as if I curled again within my father's arm, as if--" Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. "-as if the good kind God himself looked down and smiled."
Whatever she had, it was contagious; as Matt looked about him again; he suddenly realized the Ring's resemblance to a great church. A cathedral hush enveloped them; the sarcens seemed like great Gothic columns; the occasional fallen slabs seemed like side altars. Moonlight filled the air and plated every slab with silver.
Alisande gave a little half laugh that caught in her throat. "Though I must own, if God has given shelter here this night, 'tis through yourself that he has given it! I had not known you could command a spirit of such vasty power. 'Twas most well done, Lord Matthew:"
"Well, there was a lot at stake." Matt swallowed through a suddenly tightened throat.
"What man are you, who can command such forces?" Alisande breathed, stepping closer, face shining up at him.
Matt was tempted to launch into a lecture on science, out of sheer self-defense. He reminded himself he'd been wanting this. "I'm only a man, your Highness."
"Nay, more than that! The title I accorded you, you've earned a hundred-fold this night!"
Matt could see nothing but her eyes. They seemed dark blue in the moonlight, long-lashed, huge, and deep ...
He pulled himself back from the brink. "I've got to be honest, your Highness - I don't know if I could have controlled the Demon if it weren't for the power of this Ring. It's flowing through me, here; I'm just a channel for it."
Her face had softened, growing almost tender. "Aye, this Ring lends you its power - because you are, beneath all else, a very good and upright man."
Matt felt a thrill of danger course through him. This was getting out of hand. "Well ... yes," he said slowly. "Aside from a few fleshly lapses..."
"Aye," she said, with a low, throaty laugh, "but you are safe from them in this place. I cannot believe that vice could touch you here, where every particle of earth and air cries out to me of goodness, order, and all things well done! Oh!" She pirouetted away from him. "I could sing, I could carol for joy! My body trills, in every bone and fiber, and craves good works to do!" She looked back at him. "Do you feel so, too, Lord Matthew?"
"Yes," he said, his eyes glued to her. "Right now, I do."
Her eyes flew wide in surprise; she inclined her head, looking up at him through lowered lashes, suddenly coy and roguish.
Then she turned away from him again, laughing with delight. "I have not known happiness this whole past year - and now I've that year's worth upon me in an instant!"
She leaped away, dancing in whirling turns and soaring leaps, laughing joyously. Matt followed her every movement, unable to pull his eyes away from the sweet, clean line of her body showing through her gown as it whipped about her.
At last she dropped to her knees, bowed over clasped hands for a moment, before she flung back her head, her closed eyes uplifted in prayer, bathed in moonlight, and Matt felt his excitement ebbing; the dance was done. Still he watched her, the peaceful rapture of her face framed in disordered golden hair.
Then she was coming toward him, almost on tiptoe, face flushed with exertion, gleaming with perspiration, eyes still alight, full lips parted in exhilaration. The breeze molded her gown to the contours of her body, and the full force of her voluptuous femininity hit Matt like a shock wave. His whole body sizzled with the sudden heat of passion, and he was striding toward her, reaching out.
Lust! The monitor mind yammered, and Matt realized that any vice let loose in here would feed back off the forces of evil lingering in the stones, fusing his mind into a mass of depravity. He slowed and stopped, sliding his reaching hand out to clasp hers, interlacing her fingers through his own. It sent a jolt up his arm into his chest, and he concentrated all his attention on the feel of her hand.
She'd lost her smile for a moment, but now it returned, with a greater warmth than friendship. "For a moment, you had frightened me, Lord Matthew!" She lowered her head, looking up at him through long lashes. "'Twas scarcely gallant."
Matt caught his breath, trying to ignore the thrumming along his nerves. "I rejoice to see you joyful, Highness."
"You've never seen me truly so." She looked up, suddenly grave. "You met me at a somber time; yet this wondrous Ring undoes my sorrow."
"Indeed it does," he breathed, and desire flamed in him again.
She saw it in his eyes and dropped his hand with a little gasp, stepping away and burying her hands behind her. "Lord Matthew ... My most sincere regrets ... I had not meant..."
"No," he said, managing to drown the desire under a flood of tenderness and smiling. "Of course not."
She turned away, confused. "A princess cannot think of love. She marries whom she must, for purposes of state. So, as I grew, I hardened my heart and learned to think of men and women alike, as people only. I disdained in any way to attract the male eye -- until this night. For which, I repent."
"I don't." Matt drew a long breath. "Not for a moment, Princess. I'm still whole."
"You are," she said gravely; and, for a moment, there was almost awe in her eyes. "And I think I may begin to realize, Lord Matthew, what strength that required."
Matt stared, poleaxed by the compliment.
She turned to him, lifting her head and throwing her shoulders back, once again every inch a queen. She took his hand, but the warmth in her eyes was only friendship again. "I thank you for that strength, Lord Wizard; for I think you could have used my playfulness, this night, against me."
"Yes," he murmured, cursing his own gallantry. Idiot! Chump!
You blew your big chance!
She leaned closer, her voice lowered, husky. "But I thank you more for letting me know, this night, the taste of my own womanhood, by your gallantry - for I'll flatter myself to think it was sincere."
"Oh, it was," Matt breathed. "Believe. It was."
She laughed, leaning away, coy for a moment again, then sobered with a sudden completeness that spoke of will power. "I do believe it, and I thank you deeply; but we must turn away from each other now, to our cold beds of turf. Yet if you were tempted here, be certain I was, also, and you cannot know how sorely."
"I might." Matt swallowed. "It will be a cold and lonely night."
"I think not." Her face lit with sudden warmth again. "I'll have dreams for company, warm and comforting - for I know I'm a woman now."
She leaned forward, reaching out almost shyly to touch his cheek. Then she was gone, gliding away over the turf toward her horse, to fetch her cloak and find some softer ground for sleeping.
Matt sighed and turned away, trying to summon the self-anger to regret his self-control - but found he couldn't. In fact, he felt a pleasant glow of self-esteem.
"What do you, Wizard?"
Matt looked down at the singing voice and saw the spot of brilliant light hovering near him. "Hiya, Max."
"Max?" The Demon sounded wary. "What has caused this foolishness?"
"Women," Matt said, grinning. "I'll never understand 'em."
"Why, how is this? They cannot differ greatly from you; they're of your species."