The King’s Justice (17 page)

The sheer offhandedness of his remark left the entire Mearan royal family speechless. Caitrin blanched as white as her gown and coif; Sicard seemed frozen in his place. Young Ithel, his handsome face draining of color to be so lightly dismissed, sank back to his seat on the hearth and looked mutely to both his parents in appeal, the bright surcoat on his breast suddenly as much a potential shroud as a proud banner of war.

“Jesus, you're a cold bastard, Loris!” Brice muttered under his breath, laying a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder and glowering at the archbishop. “What a thing to say.”

Loris only shrugged and studied the nails of one well-manicured hand.

“Don't be impertinent, Brice,” he said. “We must be realistic.”

“Very well,” said Sicard, beginning to regain his balance. “Let's
be
realistic, then. Judhael is a priest. Even if he
should
eventually succeed instead of Ithel, the line would end with him. And there's no question that the Ramsays are junior to Kelson's line.”

“That needn't concern true Mearan partisans,” Loris assured them. “And Judhael's unquestionably senior line need not end with him. It could continue in the same manner in which the Haldane line continued when Cinhil Haldane, a priest of the
Ordo Verbi Dei
, was restored to the throne of Gwynedd two hundred years ago.”

“And what manner is that?” Caitrin asked.

Loris allowed himself a prim smile of satisfaction.

“His priestly vows can be dispensed, as King Cinhil's were. I have already spoken with him on the matter, and he has agreed.”

As a resentful-looking Ithel exchanged tight-jawed glances with Brice and his father, Sicard hitched his thumbs in his swordbelt and turned away disgustedly.

“I don't suppose you feel that's just a little premature?”

“No, merely prudent,” Loris said. “Unless, of course, you mean Meara's cause to end in the event of the present principals' demise.” He smiled frostily. “Of course,
you
are not a Quinnell, are you, Sicard? You only married one. Three generations of Quinnells have fought to preserve a royal heritage that you have known for less than a score of years, and only, if I may gently point out, as the consort of a queen. One can hardly expect you to understand.”

As Sicard whirled, aghast, Brice aimed a vicious kick at one of the logs burning in the fireplace, sending up a shower of sparks as he, too, turned on the archbishop.

“Loris, I don't care if you
are
an archbishop—you're a pompous ass!” he said, restraining Sicard with an arm across his chest. “No
wonder
they couldn't stand you in Gwynedd anymore.”

“Watch your tongue, Trurill!”

“Brice, please!” Caitrin interjected. “Sicard, I beg you.…”

“Your pardon, madame, but he goes too far,” Brice returned. “We're going to
win
this one, Loris.
If
, that is, you and your goddamn Connaiti mercenaries do what they're supposed to do.”

“They will do what they are paid to do,” Loris said icily. “And if the army under my Lord Sicard does what
it
is to do, McLain will be lured into a trap from which there is no escape.”

“He'll not escape!” Sicard snapped.

“Just as that MacArdry boy did not escape, when you were responsible for his security last fall?” Loris retorted.

Young Ithel flushed bright red and jumped to his feet.

“
I
want Dhugal MacArdry's blood!” he cried.

“You'll
ride with Brice and harry the Haldane army,” his father replied.
“I'll
deal with my dear nephew—and McLain.”

“You may
have
the boy,” Loris said. “You may even deal with McLain in the field—though I hope you will not have to kill him outright. I have a special fate planned for our dear Deryni bishop-duke. If he's captured, he belongs to
me!
”

“You'd best capture him first, then,” Sicard said, turning away in disgust.

They continued to bicker for several moments, tempers wearing ever thinner, until a page's knock on the door announced the arrival of Bishops Creoda and Judhael, both wearing scarlet copes over their priestly vestments. Old Creoda looked venerable and stately in the full panoply of his bishop's regalia, but Judhael's cope seemed more the royal mantle than the ecclesiastical trapping as he came forward to bend and kiss his aunt's cheek, prematurely silver hair gleaming like a crown already as he passed into the sunlight surrounding her. If he noticed the coolly resentful looks he received from Ithel and Brice, he did not acknowledge them.

“Your Royal Highness,” said Creoda, making Caitrin a solemn bow, “the procession to escort you to the Mass of Leave-Taking is ready to depart. Your loyal subjects await you.”

Flashing Loris a withering glance, Caitrin rose and shook out the folds of her gown.

“Thank you, Bishop Creoda. We are ready to join them.”

As she adjusted the coif veiling her grey hair, Sicard brought her a casket from across the room, kneeling on one knee for her to take out the crown inside. The rubies and sapphires studding the golden circlet flamed in the sunlight, endowing her plain, tired features with a classic and regal dignity as she set it on her head. In that instant she looked every inch the queen she hoped to be, and all in the room sank to their knees to do her homage—even Loris.

“You shall rule a sovereign and reunited Meara, my lady—I swear it!” said Brice, seizing her hand to kiss it fervently.

“Aye, madame, you shall!” came Creoda's enthusiastic agreement, and Judhael's, and Loris' more restrained one.

Then her husband was escorting her from the chamber, Loris and his clerics preceding her, Brice and Ithel bringing up the rear and muttering quietly between them as they watched the proud archbishop go before them.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear
.

—Nahum 3:3

The weeks that followed quickly brought home the rigors of war to rebels and Haldane supporters alike. Aware that a joining of the Cassani and Haldane armies would spell an end to Mearan hopes, the Mearan commanders proceeded with their agreed strategy of harassment and potential entrapment, Brice and Ithel harrying and laying waste in the south and east to slow Kelson's advance while Sicard and the main Mearan army played a game of cat-and-mouse in the north, beginning the maneuvers they hoped eventually would lure Duncan's Cassani levies into a trap. The first encounters were not what either Gwynedd commander had expected, puzzling Kelson in particular.

“I thought we'd get more traditional resistance here in the south,” he told Morgan, when they had finished repelling yet another nighttime raid on the periphery of their camp. “We've never seen more than a few hundred men at a time. I begin to wonder whether we're dealing with an army at all.”

Morgan set his teeth as he watched a lancer sergeant put down a foundered chestnut mare, one of nearly a dozen horses deliberately hamstrung by the enemy in the skirmish just past. Blood fountained black in the torchlight, and young Brendan buried his face against his stepfather's side.

“I don't think we are, my prince,” Morgan said softly, comforting Brendan with a hand stroking his reddish gold hair. “Each new engagement shows signs of different leadership. My guess is that Sicard has split at least part of his army into fast, mobile raiding parties, hoping to wear us down with these hit-and-run raids. It's a typical border tactic.”

“Sire! Your Grace!” Kelson's squire, Jatham, approached them at a run. “Duke Ewan took a prisoner, but he's failing fast. You'd better hurry if you want to get any information out of him!”

They ran with Jatham to where a battle surgeon was working zealously over a ghost-pale man in border leathers and plaids, trying to staunch a gaping belly wound. The man was sobbing for breath, rigid with pain, hands clawing futilely at the wad of bandage the surgeon was pressing to his wound. Archbishop Cardiel knelt at the man's head, putting away his holy oils, but he drew back, tight-lipped, and shook his head as Kelson thumped to his knees beside him and laid hands along either side of the man's head.

“He isn't going to make it, Sire,” said the battle surgeon, Father Lael, catching the man's wrists and restraining them as Morgan crouched opposite and thrust one hand underneath the blood-soaked bandage, the other slipping smoothly inside the front of the leather jerkin to monitor the pounding heart.

The man's struggles weakened as Kelson began to block the pain, but it was as much from a deteriorating condition as any easing of his agony. Blood was pulsing from between Morgan's fingers with every labored heartbeat—so much that Morgan wondered how the man had lasted this long—and in a desperate attempt to at least slow the inevitable, he eased his hand deep into the wound, clear to the last set of knuckles, and began to call up his healing talent.

“It's no good. I'm losing him,” Kelson whispered, closing his eyes as he tried to force his mind past the barriers of fading consciousness that, even now, were melting into the darker, more tenuous mists of death.

“So am I,” Morgan answered.

He did his best to send healing across the link, and felt the power begin to stir in him; but abruptly he came up short, gasping, as if he were a fish flopping helplessly in a too-small container, and waterless besides. It was too late.

He stopped trying, and the sensation ceased. The man sighed softly, twitched, and was still. Morgan did not attempt to intrude on what Kelson was doing; only blinked and drew himself a long, steadying breath to reorient as he raised his head, paying no mind to the reactions of the others watching.

“So,” Kelson whispered, taut and just a little indignant as he raised his head and blinked, focusing with difficulty on Morgan's face. “He was Grigor of Dunlea's man. God, I didn't know
he'd
betrayed me, too!”

Sighing, Morgan pulled his hand slowly out of the dead man's body. The stench of blood and sundered bowels made him particularly grateful for the basin of clean water and the towel that Conall offered him, kneeling expectantly between him and Kelson.

“Are you really surprised at that, my prince, given the border tactics we've been seeing?” Morgan murmured, mechanically washing his hands as he continued settling back into normal consciousness.

Duke Ewan crouched down beside the king and held out a piece of bloodstained tartan.

“Aye, an' here's another border token, Sire. D'ye recognize the sett, Alaric?”

At Morgan's negative, Ewan grimaced and tossed the bloody plaid contemptuously over the dead man's face.

“MacErskine. An' one o' my scouts swears he saw old Tegan O Daire. Sicard's recruited goddamn
outlaws!
”

“More likely, Brice of Trurill's recruited outlaws,” Kelson retorted, getting wearily to his feet. “He and Grigor of Dunlea were always like two kernels on the same ear.”

Morgan said nothing as he dried his hands and laid the towel over Conall's arm with a nod of thanks, but he relayed his and Kelson's growing suspicions to Duncan a few nights later, when they made one of their increasingly regular contacts via deep Deryni trancing.

We begin to suspect the main Mearan army isn't in the south at all
, he told Duncan.
So far, all we've met are skirmish bands
—
no more than a hundred men or so at a time, and they never strike in the open. Sicard may have their main strength in the north, hunting you
.

While Brice and his minions slow you down?
Duncan replied.
That could well be. We have yet to encounter an actual army ourselves, though we see occasional signs that large bodies of men have passed. They can't afford to let our two armies meet, though
.

That's for certain
, Morgan agreed.
Where are you now?

South of Kilarden, well into the great plain. Like you, we're fighting a will-o'-the-wisp enemy that strikes in the dark and out of the setting sun
—
Connaiti mercenaries for the most part, though we see the occasional episcopal knight. Jodrell's gotten it into his head that they're under joint command of Gorony and Loris, though no one's seen them yet.

“Then, where is Sicard?” Kelson asked aloud, when the contact had been broken, and he watched Morgan prepare to banish the Wards Major. “If
we
haven't seen him, and
Duncan
hasn't seen him.…”

Shaking his head to fend off further discussion until he was done, Morgan blew out the candle set on the camp table between them and put on the signet ring he had just used as a focal point for concentration. All around them, barely discernable against the redder glow of a lantern hanging from the tent pole, the dome of the warding he had raised to shield them glowed a cool, gentle silver. It pulsed briefly brighter as he raised both arms to shoulder height on either side, empty hands upraised, and drew a slow, centering breath.

“Ex tenebris te vocavi, Domine,”
Morgan whispered, slowly turning his palms downward.
“Te vocavi, et lucem dedisti.”
Out of darkness have I called Thee, O Lord. I have called Thee, and Thou has given light.

“Nunc dimittis servum tuum secundum verbum tuum in pace. Fiat voluntas tua. Amen.”
Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy will. Let it be done according to Thy will.…

As he lowered his arms, the doming light faded and died, leaving only four pairs of dice-sized polished cubes set towerlike, white atop black, at the quarter-points beyond their chairs. Two of the four sets toppled as Kelson leaned down to retrieve them, too precariously perched, on the straw matting of the tent's floor, to stand steady without the balancing effect of magic. Morgan sat back in his chair and sighed, wearily rubbing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, as Kelson stowed the ward cubes in their red leather case.