"I am hight Hester," the girl said. "And thou?"

"I am hight Magnus," the young man said with a slow smile, as though he was relishing the encounter.

And in truth, he was. Wary of the girl's motives though he might be, the sensations her interest aroused in him were quite enjoyable. The early stages of this game were very pleasurable, and he intended to appreciate every moment of it. Time enough to withdraw when the game became-deeper, and the stakes needed to be put on the table. "Thou art not yet too fully grown for school?" Magnus asked.

The girl made a moue. "I have only some six months and a few days I must attend. Surely a dozen years of schooling more than suffice for any woman! Nay, to answer thy question, gentleman, I would say that I am grown enough, and more-but the bishop and his nuns would not agree."

"And their word holds sway?"

"Of course." The girl stared in unfeigned surprise. "Do they not ever?"

Magnus exchanged a glance with Rod, and said, "I have never met a bishop before-nor am I like to now, I warrant."

"Oh, he doth wish to speak with all newly come to our village!"

"I doubt me an we'll tarry long enough to be newly come," Magnus answered. He gave her a roguish smile, though, and added, "Still there might be benefit in dallying a while."

"Hester!" the innkeeper snapped, hurrying out of the kitchen. "Wherefore standest thou there in converse? Thou shalt be late for school!" He thrust a slate and a cloth bag at her.

"Oh, aye, Papa;" the girl said, with a sigh. She took the bag and slate, and turned back to Magnus. "I must away, good gentleman." Again, the innocent's attempt at a sultry smile. "Shall I see thee when I am freed?"

"Hester!" the innkeeper barked, instantly angry; but she turned a saucy smile on him. "Ought I not seek to interest him in our congregation, Papa?"

That toned the innkeeper down to a glower. "In our congregation, aye . . ."

"And I am minded to see more of thy town and thy ways." Magnus stood, facing Hester. "May I accompany thee to the school, maiden?"

"Why, I should be delighted, sir," she chirped, and the two of them set off side by side.

The innkeeper stared after them, appalled, but at a loss-by the rules of their society, he couldn't object-at least not without stronger reason for suspicion.

Rod let him off the hook. "Don't worry, I'll be right behind them." He pushed his chair back from the table. "Thanks for the breakfast, innkeeper-it was quite filling." He gestured toward the pennies. "I hope that'll cover it."

The innkeeper stared at the money. "Oh, aye, sir! 'Tis too much!"

"Then I'll come back for lunch." Rod strode toward the door. "Sorry to be abrupt, but I'm going to have to hurry to keep up with them." And he set off after his son, as he'd been doing for most of the last ten years.

"Thy father would have to follow us," Hester said, nettled. "Can they not let us live as we would?"

"Why, he can, and hath done so aforetime," Magnus said, "yet I believe he, too, doth wish to see this school of thine. 'Tis rare, seest thou."

"Rare?" Hester looked up with a quick frown. "Why, how so?"

"Outside this forest, few of the commonfolk have schools of any sort," Magnus explained.

"Ah, fortunate are they!" Hester sighed. "Would I had grown in such a village."' And, for no discernible reason, she gave Magnus a smile that would have melted ice.

"Why?" Magnus asked, with keen interest-not altogether intellectual. "Hath not knowledge made thy life richer?"

"Oh, I must say that it hath," Hester sighed, "for the nuns do tell us the Word doth enrich our souls, and increase our chances of Heaven."

"Oddly phrased." Magnus frowned. "Yet it doth, at least, tell me why thou hast a school. Thou dost wish Heaven, dost thou not?"

"Oh, aye," Hester said, with another sigh, "though only for its succor from the fires and torments of Hell, which the good sisters have told us of."

Magnus cocked his head to the side. "Thou dost not wish eternal bliss?"

"The bliss I wish is here and now-or could be." She stared directly into his eyes, hers seeming to become huge. "The Heaven in the sky is so dull a place, from all they say-only taking ease on clouds, and playing of harps and singing of hymns. The Heaven I wish is very much of this world."

Magnus forced himself not to flinch from her gaze, though he felt as much repelled as attracted. "The Heaven thou dost speak of on Earth is Heaven as I understand it to be hereafter-yet enduring forever, not for minutes only."

She started, shocked, and turned away. "Thou dost blaspheme!"

"Nay; for the bliss of the saints is even greater than that of the sinner in his fleshly preoccupation."

Hester eyed him warily. "The good sisters tell us 'tis a bliss of the soul only."

"I doubt it not," Magnus returned, "yet I tell thee of mine own knowledge, that the ecstasy of the flesh alone is a great anticipation and ascension into a moment's thrill that is far less than its expectation. 'Tis therefore that lechers forever pursue new conquests-they are ever in search of that which can only be gained by those in love. I cannot speak of the fullest ecstasy that is accorded true lovers, but from what I hear of it, it surpasseth mere lust as the ocean surpasseth the lake."

Hester stared up at him, shaken but fascinated. "Thou art a sinner!"

"That I am, to my sorrow-earthly sorrow of the here and now, not of the afterworld alone. There is great virtue in virtue, even that of chastity, though mayhap not as thy teachers tell thee."

"What thou hast said is not of their teaching."

"Gramercy for that. Yet in having any sort of school, thou art fortunate."

"I would trade such fortune gladly, for the chance to be free!" the girl said passionately.

Magnus was instantly on his guard-here was the ulterior motive. "Free? Why, what wouldst thou gain thereby?"

"Why, freedom!" She stared at him, open-mouthed. "Freedom to do as I pleased, without parents and teachers forever telling me what I must and must not do! Freedom to dance, to sing songs other than hymns, to taste of the delights of this world." She looked very directly into his eyes as she said it.

Magnus felt her gaze down into the pit of his stomach, but he tried to ignore it. "We all yearn for such freedom," he agreed. "It doth come with age."

"Nay-it doth come with marriage. And then art thou fettered to a husband's commands."

"Or a wife's." Magnus remembered the henpecked husbands. "In that, I am naive, Hester. I yet dream of a union in which husband and wife are so firmly delighted in one another that they act in concert, and take so much pleasure in one another's company that the bondage of never doing what one wishes, but ever tempering thine own desires by another's whims, seems of little moment."

"I, too, dream of that." Again, the eyes turned huge, the lips parted. "Hast thou seen such?"

"Aye, though it did not last," Magnus admitted. "As they aged, the one of them chafed the other."

"Age will make some difficult and contrary," Hester agreed. "I have seen such."

"And those of great anger grow to be of shorter and shorter temper," Magnus said with a sigh. "Yet still bide they, joined to one another, in hopes that the friction will cease."

"Before the love doth." Hester turned away, troubled. "Is there no freedom, then?"

"None that can be won once, and never striven for again-as I have heard, at the least. Freedom must ever be won over and over again."

"As must love?" Hester whispered.

Magnus nodded. "From all I have seen and heard, a wedding is not the magic charm we think it. A priest's blessing, and an exchange of rings, will not make a wild boy instantly into a prudent husband, nor transform a flirtatious lass at once into a demure and loyal wife. And, assuredly, a wedding will not make two folk who are unsuited to fall in love."