The King’s Justice (16 page)

“Very good.” Richenda smiled. “They're said to have sprung from Moorish interaction with fled Knights of Saint Michael after the Michaeline expulsion from Gwynedd in 917. Incidentally, Anviler tradition has it that Camber, at the insistence of his son Joram, was buried in Michaeline habit—which was dark blue,” she added, glancing at Morgan. “And the Servants of Saint Camber, the religious order that was founded to venerate him, wore grey.”

Morgan looked up abruptly and whistled low under his breath, and Kelson went a little pale.

“I know,” Richenda murmured. “It fits the pattern of every instance of possible Camberian intervention that we know of.”

Swallowing a little nervously, Kelson let the scroll roll back on itself and handed it back to Richenda.

“I'd better not read any more of this right now, or tomorrow I'll be heading east instead of west. This is incredible! Do you think the Knights of the Anvil know where Camber is buried?”

“No. But through them, we may eventually be able to find out.”

“And this Azim is one of them?” Kelson asked.

She nodded.

“Well, when you next communicate with him, please tell him it's very important to me,” Kelson said, gesturing toward the letters. “And send me progress reports while we're on campaign, if you can.”

“I shall, Sire.”

She would have continued, but Nigel came into the garden at that moment with Conall, Payne, and Brendan, obviously looking for Kelson. Both Conall and Nigel wore riding leathers. Brendan pretended to be very matter-of-fact about being included in the prince regent's entourage, stiff and correct in his page's livery, but he grinned ear-to-ear as Richenda and Morgan gave him grave nods of approval.

“I hope I'm not interrupting anything too important,” Nigel said, as Kelson twisted to look up at him, “but those new lancers have finally arrived from Carthmoor. I thought you might like to inspect them and meet their officers before they unsaddle and scatter for the evening. I wasn't sure they'd get here in time to go with you tomorrow.”

“Well, I suppose I'd better come and have a look, hadn't I?” Kelson said, setting Richenda's scroll aside and getting to his feet. “My lady, I apologize for dragging your lord away to play the soldier, but I think he probably ought to see them, too, since both our lives may depend upon them.”

Smiling, Richenda reached out to take Briony from Morgan, she and Morgan both having to disengage the baby's hand from Morgan's captain-general's chain.

“I would not dream of interfering with my lord's duties, Sire,” she said, standing. “Besides, I have duties of my own, I think. I shall be most interested to meet the Princess Morag and her young son.”

She scooped up the sealed letters and held them out to Conall, who took them with a bow. “Please see that those go to a messenger at once, would you, Conall? You can do it on your way out with His Majesty. And Payne—perhaps you would be so kind as to return these scrolls and writing materials to my chambers.”

Young Payne, clearly delighted to be included in the notice of the beautiful Richenda, flushed bright red and bowed.

And Conall, following Brendan and the adults out of the garden toward the castle yard, fingered the letters in his hand thoughtfully, turning them over and over in his hands.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

For they have consulted together with one consent; they are confederate against thee
.

—Psalms 83:5

The Haldane host left Rhemuth the next morning. Nor did news of their advance toward Meara take long to reach the rebel leaders in Ratharkin. Before Kelson and his army had ridden a day's march west, rebel spies on fleet R'Kassan steeds were carrying the news in relays across the western Gwynedd plain and through the mountain passes of Cùilteine and Droghera.

They already knew of the Cassani army massing in the north, and were preparing to meet it. Mearan partisans had been converging on Ratharkin since the first thaws, the picket lines and bright pavilions of their encampments springing up like strange, exotic wildflowers against the new spring green of the surrounding meadows. Lured by the old dream of a sovereign Meara, perhaps even restored to include Kierney and Cassan, zeal fanned through the winter, first by promises of support from a militantly independent ecclesiastical hierarchy and then by the news of the capture and killings of Princess Sidana and her brother, they came by the hundreds: from the northern strongholds of Castleroo and Kilarden—always on uneasy terms with their Cassani neighbors farther north—and as far west as Laas and Cloome; from the central Mearan plains and the mountains to the east; and from as far south as the Connait. By the time word arrived that Kelson was on the move, more than two thousand were camped before the gates of the Mearan capital.

Three hundred Connaiti mercenaries also swelled their ranks: the princely gift of Meara's self-proclaimed patriarch, Edmund Loris, the former Archbishop of Valoret—who could afford to be generous since, if the venture succeeded, he stood to gain as much as Caitrin, albeit on ecclesiastical rather than secular grounds.

And if Loris paid his troops with silver smuggled out of the treasury of Valoret by his henchman, Lawrence Gorony, what was that to Meara? If Kelson of Gwynedd had unjustly deprived Loris of his former office, what better retribution than to employ the assets of that office to defeat Kelson and restore Loris to what was rightfully his?

Others of former Gwynedd service Loris had likewise recruited: William du Chantal and Grigor of Dunlea, neighbors of the traitorous Brice of Trurill, both of whose defections would shock Kelson when he learned of them. And other men of even less savory reputation: the border chieftains, Tibald MacErskine, Cormac Hamberlyn, and Tigan O Daire—brigands to the man, all but outlawed in the days of Kelson's father—who would bring their clansmen to Meara's aid out of greed for the promise of booty and spite against Haldanes in general.

So had they come, for all the myriad reasons that usually draw men to war, and now prepared to embark upon the great venture that would either free them from Haldane sovereignty or else lay waste to the land for yet another generation. As the sun approached the zenith on that balmy day in May, the soldiers formed their ranks before the gates of Ratharkin and awaited the coming of their queen, banners lifting bravely on the breeze that swept south through the passes and off the nearby lake.

All was prepared for her arrival. Just outside the gates, beneath the shade of an open-sided white pavilion, an altar had been erected for celebration of a rite of blessing no different in intent from those rites celebrated in Rhemuth only days before—for surely the Mearan cause was just, and God was on their side. The priests gathering at the pavilion for Mass had told them so, as they made their way through the camps the night before and heard confessions.

Soon would come their archbishop to confirm that belief: Edmund Loris, who would also ride with the Grand Army of Meara, to command his episcopal levies and the fierce Connaiti mercenaries he had bought. His captain-general and chief aide, Monsignor Lawrence Gorony, rode along the ranks of the gathering soldiers even now, heartening the men with his words of encouragement and blessing, giving final instructions to the officers and lords who had come to free their land.

Just inside the gates, the rebel bishops who supported Loris waited to escort the Mearan royal family from the bishop's palace to the pavilion—the Bishops of Cashien and Ballymar, youngish men formerly sworn to obedience to Loris' successor as Archbishop of Valoret, Bradehe, and four ambitious itinerant bishops: Mir de Kierney, Gilbert Desmond, Raymer de Valence, and Calder of Sheele, the latter an uncle of Dhugal MacArdry. By day's end, only they and a small garrison would remain behind to attend their sovereign lady and await news of the Haldane defeat.

And in Ratharkin itself, the
soi-disant
Queen Caitrin of Meara met with the remnants of her family and their key leaders for one final conference before riding out to the open-air Mass that would send Meara's hopes on their way. She had gathered them in the solar of the bishop's palace, whence she had kept informal court all through the long winter. This morning, however, the scene was one more of domesticity than of pomp.

Seated in a pool of sunlight near the chamber's largest window, looking more like a nun than a queen in royal mourning for her two slain children, Caitrin spent the tension of her anticipation in the soothing, mind-lulling pastime of mending, making a last-minute repair to a surcoat bearing the sovereign arms of Meara differenced by the label of the eldest son. Nearer the fireplace, the surcoat's owner, Prince Ithel, occupied whatever predeparture jitters he might have harbored by helping his father adjust a greave to support a leg still weak from a winter fall. Both wore fine Connaiti brigandines of leather and steel, Sicard's partially covered by a surcoat quartered with his own arms and those of his wife, the MacArdry border cats on crimson, bordured
or
, and the sable dancing bear and crimson
etoilles
of Meara on chequey of silver and gold.

“No, that will have to be tighter,” he murmured, as Ithel slid a finger underneath a strap and tried the tension.

Edmund Loris, looking far younger than his three-score years, lounged in a chair to Ithel's and Sicard's right, burgundy riding leathers and mail mostly covered by an ankle-length white surcoat embellished with a large blue cross on breast and back. He and the Mearan royals were listening, with varying degrees of agreement, to the impassioned rhetoric of an intense, able-looking man of half Loris' years, his war harness emblazoned with the arms of the Barony of Trurill. Loris, in particular, did not look pleased.

“I still maintain that Kelson's approach from the south is hot nearly as great an immediate threat as what Cassan is doing in the north,” said Brice of Trurill, who would lead the force about to head South under the nominal command of the sixteen-year-old Ithel. “I can harry Kelson; I can slow him down a great deal without sustaining major losses. I'll even lay waste to our own lands in the south and east to buy you time, if I must.

“But in the end, it all boils down to one incontrovertible fact: if your lot doesn't stop Bishop McLain's northern army before he joins the main Haldane force, we haven't got a prayer.”

Loris' blue eyes smoldered with the low, dangerous fire of the fanatic as he twisted the bishop's ring on his right hand.

“Your arguments have long since passed the point of tedium, Brice,” he muttered. “Can you speak of nothing but that jumped-up Deryni priest?”

Sicard gave a buckle at his knee a final tug and shot Loris a sharp look.

“For God's sake, let it be, Loris,” he said irritably. “Brice isn't the only one who's becoming tedious. That ‘jumped-up Deryni priest' is no less competent for your constant berating of the state of his soul.”

“You speak as if the state of his soul meant nothing, my lord,” Loris said frostily.

Sicard, his patience clearly stretched near the breaking point, straightened wearily and set both fists on his hips, and young Ithel eased himself quietly to a seat on the raised hearth to watch his elders have at it. Caitrin ignored them all, apparently intent on her sewing.

“McLain's soul,” Sicard replied, “is not a factor in determining how hard a fight he'll give us. His cleverness and intelligence are. If McLain is anything like his father in the field, he'll be a most formidable opponent—and that's all that matters until the battle has been won.”

“He is a symbol of all that is evil in Gwynedd,” Loris muttered. “Corruption of sacred as well as secular authority. His very existence offends me.”

“As yours undoubtedly offends him, Archbishop,” Sicard retorted, snatching up his sword belt and buckling it on. “Despite your sometimes overly simplistic view of what is good and what is evil, it's just possible that some things in this world are really shades of grey.”

Loris' eyes narrowed dangerously. “Do you dare to suggest that there are instances in which one might
condone
what McLain has done?”

“Sicard is suggesting no such thing, Edmund,” Caitrin said, knotting her thread and biting it off. “Don't be so quick to take offense.
We
aren't your enemies; nor are we Deryni—nor are we in sympathy with those who are. It simply becomes a little wearing when you constantly single out McLain for your anger, as if he alone were responsible for our present situation.”

Loris drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, flexing and unflexing his fingers around the ends of his chair arms.

“You are right, my lady,” he conceded. “I am sometimes intemperate in my hatreds. It is a failing.”

“But an understandable one, I will grant you. Ithel, this is finished, my dear.” She shook out the surcoat and extended it toward her son, who took it and began drawing it over his armor.

“I, on the other hand,” Caitrin went on, “have had many years to bank my hatred of the Haldanes to a lower but no less vehement flame. I will concede that it was rekindled, however, when word came that they had slain my sweet Sidana and her brother.”

“Ah, yes. As I recall, King Brion slew your first husband, didn't he?” Loris said softly, eyes narrowing to calculating slits.

Caitrin turned her head grimly toward the window.

“Aye. And my firstborn, who was but a babe suckling at my breast.” She sighed and crossed herself, bowing her head. “But I was young then. I am no longer young. Now Brion's son has slain two more of my children. If he slays my Ithel as well, it will all have been for naught. Even if Sicard and I were to survive, I am too old to begin yet a third family.”

“God forbid that it should come to that,” Loris said without much conviction. “But if it should, you still have a scion of the Mearan royal line in Judhael. And I believe there is a cadet line as yet untouched, is there not? Ramsay of Cloome, I believe?”