The King’s Justice (30 page)

“You, damned? Nonsense.”

“Don't you mock me, too, Father,” she managed to whisper between sobs, withdrawing her hand from his. “
He
mocks me already. First he made you read the wrong lesson yesterday, and now he shows me what I would not know—only, only—”

“Daughter, what are you talking about?” Ambros asked, taking her by the shoulders to look her in the eyes. “
Who
made me read—”

Jehana shook her head and snuffled loudly, pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve to dab ineffectually at her eyes.

“I—I can't tell you.”

“Nonsense. Of course you can tell me. I'm a priest. I'm your confessor.”

“No, I can't! I've hurt you enough already.”

“You've
hurt
me? Jehana, what
are
you talking about?” Ambros gave her shoulders a shake. “What happened out there? Get hold of yourself! I can't help you if I don't know what's wrong.”

Snuffling forlornly, Jehana sat back on her heels, twisting her handkerchief in anxious fingers, eyes averted.

“You'll hate me,” she murmured.

“Hate you? Certainly not!”

“But, I've committed terrible sins!”

“Surely none so terrible that God will not forgive them.”

“You would not say that with such ease, did you know what I have done.”

“Daughter, daughter, it surely cannot be as serious as that! Tell me what's wrong. Surely I can find a way to help you.”

Swallowing noisily, Jehana dared to glance up at him through her tears.

“Will you keep what I shall tell you under the seal of the confessional, Father?”

“Of course.”

“Do you swear that, by your office as priest?”

“Certainly.”

“Put on your stole, then,” she demanded.

With a sigh of only partially concealed exasperation, Ambros fetched a stole draped across the altar rail and touched the violet silk to his lips before looping it around his neck.

“Now. Tell me,” he ordered.

And she did—though she would not let him touch her, lest she again succumb to the temptation to use her illicit power. When she had blurted out the entire story, beginning with the vision of Camber the day before and ending with the ominous hints she had caught of a plot against Nigel, not sparing him the account of the assault she had made upon his mind, Ambros was shaken but resolute.

“Sweet
Jesu
, you must not concern yourself for
me
, Jehana—or even for this vision of Saint Camber which you may or may not have had,” he whispered, his handsome face as pale and drawn as hers with the weight of the knowledge. “You must warn the prince. Even now, it may be too late!”

“No. I must not. Think how I learned of it, Ambros! 'Tis forbidden knowledge! Have you and I not spent two years now, trying to stamp out its taint? Even
you
have not escaped its curse!”

Ambros swallowed audibly, but he did not allow himself to shrink from her gaze.

“I—seem to have survived unscathed, my lady. Perhaps the taint is not so virulent as you have always feared.”

“No?”

With a flick of her mind, Jehana released his memory of what she had done before, watching tearfully as he blanched and turned even paler than he had been—though beyond his initial gasp, he showed little other outward sign of fear.

“I dare not ask for forgiveness for what I've done, Father, but perhaps now you understand its enormity.”

Ambros clasped his hands tightly before his bowed head for a few seconds, then looked up at her again.

“My lady, I think I do understand at least a part of why you felt yourself compelled to do what you did,” he murmured. “But you must not chastise yourself overmuch for it.”

“But, I
hurt
you, Father! Think back to it. Remember it. You can't deny that I did it.”

“I—cannot deny that I experienced—some discomfort,” he admitted haltingly, the remembered pain showing on his face. “But I—think that is as much my fault as yours.”

“What?”

“I—think that if I had been able to overcome my fear, when I realized what you were doing—”

“Are you saying that what I did was
right?
” she gasped.

“It is not—so much a matter of right or wrong, my lady, but—Jehana, you, too, were in fear! You perceived a mortal threat in the visions you have received, and you used the most powerful means at your disposal in an attempt to discern the true nature of that threat.”

“But I hurt you,” she repeated dully.

“Not intentionally,” he replied. “It wasn't intentional, was it?”

As she shook her head, he went on.

“Then, listen to me. Jehana, I don't know anymore whether the power you have is evil. Your control of that power is sometimes uncertain—and perhaps you applied it with more force than you might have, had you not been oppressed by your own fears. Perhaps that's why you hurt me.

“But now your power has revealed this plot against Nigel. And because of your power, we have learned of the plot in time to prevent it. There's nothing evil about that, Jehana!”

“But I shouldn't have found out,” she whispered dully. “Decent, God-fearing people don't find out things that way.”

“Jehana, they're going to kill Nigel!” Ambros blurted. “You can't just stand by and let that happen.”

“God help me, I don't know
what
I should do.” She wept, hugging her arms across her breast. “The knowledge is evil—”

“The knowledge can save an innocent life, for God's sake! How can that be evil? If you don't warn him, I—”

“You'll
what
,” she challenged, looking up at him angrily. “You'll tell him yourself?”

“Well, I—”

“Of course you will not,” she went on, her voice gentling a little as she broke their eye contact and turned forlornly toward the altar. “You are bound by your office and your oath. And you would never betray the faith betokened by that which hangs about your shoulders.”

Ambros recoiled as if struck by a physical blow, one hand going automatically to the purple stole he still wore, and she knew the temptation had crossed his mind. Closing her eyes against even that knowledge, though it had come from no Deryni source, she choked back a sob and shook her head.

“Please, Father. Leave me now. You have done your duty to advise me. This decision I must make on my own.”

“But, my lady,” he pleaded. “I can help. Please let me stay.”

But as he reached out to touch her shoulder in compassion, she shrank from him and shook her head.

“No! Do not touch me. If you touch me, I may contaminate you further.”

“I am not afraid,” he began.

“Perhaps not, but I am,” she replied. “Go, now,
please!
Do not add to my temptation. You will
not
betray your office, for my sake or anyone else's. Do you understand? I must discern the reason I have been given this knowledge, and I alone may make the decision as to how it shall be used.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

The king's strength also loveth judgment; thou dost establish equity, thou executest judgment and righteousness
.

—Psalms 99:4

Ithel of Meara set his shoulders stubbornly, chin held high, sullen and resentful as he and Brice of Trurill rode with their bodyguard through the silent streets of Talacara town.

The stupid peasants had
better
stay inside, if they knew what was good for them! How
dare
they question his right to do what he had done? He was risking his life to delay the invading Haldane army, buying time for his father, covering the strategic retreat of the brave and loyal men taking his mother to Laas for safety, and what thanks did he get? Since the burning of Ratharkin three days before, even his own Mearan people had begun to turn against him. And Talacara had been the most belligerent so far.

Talacara. The sharp, acrid bite of woodsmoke hung on the air with the sweeter, more distinctive smell of burning grain as Ithel jerked irritably at the chinstrap of his helmet and pulled it off. He was sweating like a pig inside his armor. He saw two men emerging from a house with their arms full of plunder, but he felt no inclination whatever to stop them.

The town had it coming. The stiff-necked folk of Talacara had not only refused to provision him; the town bailiffs had actually shut the gates against him, and the mayor had dared to shout his defiance from behind the shelter of the walls! Did they not understand that men must have food to fight, or even to flee, and that anything Ithel left behind might be seized by the enemy?

Not that there had been any question of prolonged resistance, of course. Talacara's “walls” were a crude palisade of sharpened stakes, its gates an impediment only to unarmed peasants on foot—not to an armored warband. On Brice's orders, their men had piled summer-dry brush against the gates and palisade and torched it. Once the structure itself began to burn, breaching the walls was hardly the work of an hour. When their provisioners had taken what they needed from the town's granaries and other storehouses, Ithel turned his men loose on the town before ordering them to burn what was left. Nor was further belligerence dealt with leniently. He would teach these cheeky peasants to defy
him
.

Being preoccupied, then, with cheeky peasants and the lesson he was teaching them, Ithel temporarily lost sight of the possibility that another master more canny than himself might be preparing to teach
him
a lesson.

“I want that mayor found,” Ithel said to Brice as, in the town square, they watched several of their men make rough sport of two of the captured bailiffs of the town, stripped naked and made to run at the end of ropes around their necks. “We may be in retreat, but I'm still his better!”

“I believe suitable chastisement can be found to humble the fellow, Your Highness,” Brice replied blandly. “However, we'd best not delay too long. Retribution may be sweet, but steady retreat is still our wisest course. It wouldn't do to be cornered here in Talacara.”

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when one of his own Trurill scouts came galloping through the smoking ruin of the town gates from outside, rowelling his horse's sides until the blood ran, waving an arm frantically.

“Raise the alarm! To horse! To horse! Battle force approaching!”

Men with their arms piled high with booty scattered before him as he came. Ithel went cold despite the day's heat, craning fearfully back the way the man had come, but Brice was already bawling orders, trying to rally their scattered and much preoccupied troops to flee.

“Armed riders approaching from the south, Your Highness!” the scout shouted, setting his horse on its haunches as he drew up before them, breathing hard. “Scores of men, moving fast. Oh, God, I think they're Haldanes!”

“Haldanes!”

“Sergeant, get these men moving!” Brice yelled, urging his horse among the booty-laden soldiers now milling in panic. “Drop that, if you value your lives! It may be too late already!”

He drew his sword and began using the flat of it to underline his order as another man came galloping up from the opposite direction, even more agitated than the first.

“More men, m'lord! They're closing us in! We're trapped!” And Kelson Haldane, drawing tight the noose he had set about Talacara town, set his crowned helm firmly on his head and drew his father's sword, grey eyes cold as ice in the midday sun.

“Men of Gwynedd,” he shouted, raising the blade above his head. “I want Ithel of Meara. Alive, if possible, but I want him. And Brice of Trurill as well! Now—for Gwynedd!”

And in Gwynedd's capital, Kelson's mother began an action equally important for Gwynedd.

“Father Ambros,” Jehana whispered, almost weak with relief as she came out of the basilica and found him still waiting there, against her instructions. “Thank God you're still here. Come with me, quickly! I still don't know whether I'm doing the right thing, but I cannot let Nigel be killed.”

Breathing a fervent prayer of thanksgiving, Ambros took her hand and kissed it tenderly.

“You are a true queen, my lady!” he whispered. “I prayed that you would have a change of heart.”

“It is not a change of heart,” she replied, as she led him toward the back corridors that would take them to the great hall without going through the crowded yard again. “I still must expiate my sins, but Nigel is my husband's brother. Besides Kelson, he's all I have of Brion anymore. I owe him this. I owe it to Brion. And if I can save Nigel's life today, perhaps it may not be too late to save his soul another time.”

“Nigel's soul?” Ambros said. “But, he isn't Deryni.”

“No, but they want to
make
him Deryni, Ambros—and can, or nearly so, if they put Brion's magic on him,” she answered.

“
They?
What are you talking about?”

“Morgan. And Kelson, too, unfortunately. But perhaps I can make him see the danger. Perhaps it isn't yet too late.”

“I only hope it isn't too late today,” Ambros muttered, running a few steps to keep up with her as she took an unexpected turn. “Never mind any other day.”

But it was already too late for Ithel of Meara. He was sixteen years old, and he knew he was going to die. Even though he and Brice managed to rally their men before the Haldane attackers actually came into sight, gathering them in the empty market square to make a final stand, he had no illusions about their chances. They numbered scarcely two hundred now, most of them still on foot. The ragged square formation that the battle site allowed would only be whittled away, little by little, by the vastly superior Haldane foe.

Sword in hand, then, Brice of Trurill at his side in the center of their men, Ithel watched his doom approach: silent, steely-eyed lancers in Haldane crimson, closing the ring simultaneously from all directions. All at the walk they came, stirrup to stirrup, lance points set in a glittering wall before them—scores of them. And a second line followed close on the first, with swords at ready—more heavily armored knights, another hundred, at least.