The King’s Justice (35 page)

“You do right to reproach me,” he whispered. “I let vengeance impede my honor. I was so elated to have captured Ithel, and—oh,
God
, I wish Father Duncan were here!”

“Is Duncan your conscience?” Morgan asked, not ready to let up until he was sure Kelson understood his mistake.

“No, of course not, but he helps me listen to my conscience,” Kelson replied. “I
should
have been more merciful! By giving Ithel and Brice the same as they gave Istelyn, I lowered myself to their level!”

“It is an understandable failing in one of your years, my prince,” Morgan said softly.

“Kings can't have the luxury of falling back on that excuse!”

“But young men can,” Morgan replied, “at least so long as they learn from their errors. Not a man alive has but made his share of youthful misjudgments as he grew to manhood.”

“The men will hate me,” Kelson insisted, flouncing into his camp chair.

“The men understand,” Morgan countered. “This was a very emotion-wrought situation. Henry Istelyn was well respected in all of Gwynedd. He did not deserve the fate the Mearans gave him. Further-more, all of your own officers know what we found at Saint Brigid's and elsewhere, and the brutality that was done and permitted by Brice and Ithel. Nor do they blame you for reacting more with your heart than your head. All of them have wives or sisters or mothers, Kelson. You will find little sympathy for Ithel's and Brice's fate.”

“I would have done the same to the four Mearan officers,” Kelson said, making a last, halfhearted attempt to continue berating himself.

“Perhaps you would have. But you did not.”

“No. I made you do my duty for me. I shouldn't have done that, either.”

Morgan sighed. At last they had reached the final point he had wanted to be sure Kelson understood.

“That is true, my prince,” he said quietly, resting a hand on Kelson's nearest shoulder and kneading at the taut muscles beneath. “But I accept that burden, knowing that you have learned from my labors. Next time, you will do better. Meanwhile, there is no great harm done. Believe me.”

“I suppose you're right,” Kelson allowed.

Exhaustion began to take him soon after that, and he gratefully let Morgan's physical ministrations shift to more esoteric ones, finally surrendering to the sweet oblivion that Morgan urged upon him.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Behold, I know your thoughts, and the devices which ye wrongfully imagine against me
.

—Job 21:27

By the time Dhugal and his sullen escort pulled up in a sheltering grove of trees, it was nearly full dark and Dhugal was weaving in the saddle, both from physical exhaustion and from the more draining emotional trauma he had suffered since abandoning the field at Dorna.

Only Ciard and three others had managed to keep up with him. Their reproach lay around him like a pall, stifling and oppressive, and he could hardly blame them. They did not know of Duncan's orders to leave him and ride for help; only that their young lord had deserted his commander in battle and ordered them to do the same. Nor could they guess what obedience had cost Dhugal, or how the cost had multiplied each time he tried to cast his mind back to Duncan, and encountered only deadly silence.

Fighting back the despair born of his own bereavement, Dhugal slid to the ground and loosened his horse's girth, crouching to glance under the animal's belly for Ciard as his horseman's hands slid automatically down sweat-sleek legs and fetlocks to check for injuries. The gillie's silence of the past four hours hurt almost as much as his father's. Ciard and the other three men had taken their horses far to the other side of the clearing to unsaddle, vague shadow-shapes in the forest gloom, but Dhugal did not need to see them clearly to read their contempt. And he had never known Ciard to be so angry with him.

He shivered and pulled back his Deryni perceptions, unable to bear their psychic isolation along with their physical withdrawal. When he had pulled the saddle from his stallion's sweaty back, staggering a little as he eased it to the grass, he began rubbing the animal down with twists of grass, scouring the sweat and grime from the once-silky coat and losing himself, at least for a few minutes, in a different kind of physical exertion than had already left his body aching. The stallion's pleasure in the simple procedure, and the affection displayed in the gentle buffet of sweaty head against ministering hands, welled into Dhugal's mind like soothing balm, helping him shut out the hostility of the others performing similar functions across the clearing.

He had no idea what he was going to do when he was finished. He knew he had to try to contact Kelson, as his father had ordered, but he would not let himself think very much about the man who had given him that order. Enough to acknowledge that if he had not been able to reach Duncan, who had been far closer physically, at least in the beginning, he probably had little chance of reaching Kelson. But he had to try. And if he had to try it alone, with his men still radiating their disgust and anger all around him.…

He lingered over his grooming task until all the others had gone. Then, while he let his horse drink sparingly in the little stream, he sluiced cold water over his face and forearms, even dunking his head for good measure. He was going to need all his wits about him if he hoped to win his men back to his side.

He shook the water out of his ears like a wet puppy as he led the horse back to graze with its fellows. He still felt grimy and exhausted, but the water that ran off his braid and inside the neck of his brigandine was blessedly cool. Gathering his courage, he hefted his saddle over his shoulder and carried it, staggering, to the tiny fire that old Lambert had kindled in the lee of a rocky outcropping.

The others were already there, reclining on their saddles and sharing meager provisions: Lambert, Matthias, Jass—and Ciard. No one even looked up as he put down his saddle and sat among them, though Lambert did pass him a cup of ale and a hard chunk of journey bread. Ciard actually turned his back. He could feel the rest of them pointedly
not
looking at him as he ate and drank, and the food lay in his stomach like lead. Nor did the fire warm the chill radiating from the four.

None of them had spoken to him since well before dusk, other than to acknowledge his orders. Ciard was a glittering point of fire and ice, barely contained; the usually ebullient Jass MacArdry, who was hardly older than himself, looked as if he might cry at any minute. Matthias and old Lambert simply ignored him, always looking to Ciard for confirmation before following his own instructions.

Yes, Ciard was the key—and the one man among them who might be able to understand and accept the full truth. And if Ciard could be won over, the other three probably would follow without question.

Dhugal set down his cup and dusted crumbs from his fingers, all appetite fled.

“Please don't do this to me,” he said softly. “I need your help.”

Ciard turned his grizzled head dutifully toward his young master, but his eyes reflected only pain and bitter disappointment.

“You need our help. Aye, laddie, you do, indeed. And Bishop Duncan needed
yer
help. But he didna' get it, did he?”

“If you'll only let me explain—”

“Explain what? That The MacArdry turned tail and ran? That he left his commander t' be cut down or captured by the enemy? Thank God yer father didna' live to see this day, Dhugal! He would've died o' shame.”

Dhugal started to blurt out that
Duncan
was his father, and that he had fled at Duncan's order, but he made himself bite back his words. This was not the time to tell them of his true parentage, when they believed he had disgraced the MacArdry name.

But he needed desperately to get them back on his side. He had
not
turned craven! Perhaps a part of the truth would satisfy them.

“My father would have listened to my side of the story before condemning me,” he said coldly. “Things are not always as they appear.”

“Perhaps not,” old Lambert said, speaking for the first time. “But it
appears
that ye got scared an' ran, Young MacArdry. Not much other way t' look at that.”

Dhugal flushed, but he refused to back down from their accusing looks.

“It's true that I ran,” he said unsteadily, “but it was not by my choice.” He drew a deep breath to brace himself for their reaction. “Bishop Duncan ordered me to go.”

“Ordered ye. Wi' his magic, I suppose?” Ciard said contemptuously. “Dinna' compound the cowardice with lyin', laddie.”

“I am
not
lying,” Dhugal said evenly. “And don't call me
laddie
. As a matter of fact, Bishop Duncan
did
use his magic—though apparently, you'd prefer to believe me a coward!”

Ciard set his jaw and turned his face away at that, not saying anything, and Dhugal knew this was going to be even harder than he had thought. The others looked anywhere but at him, angry with him, embarrassed for him, ashamed of him, their minds made up as well. And he could not afford to waste much more time trying to explain. He
must
begin trying to reach Kelson, and he was frantic with worry about his father. He wondered whether he had enough skill yet to
make
them listen to him.

No, definitely not all of them, he decided. But perhaps Ciard alone. Surely the old man did not really
want
to believe him a coward—Ciard, who had served him since his birth.

“Ciard, may I speak with you alone?” he asked quietly, after a few heartbeats. “Please?”

“I ha' nothin' to say to ye that canna' be said before my kinsmen,” Ciard answered coldly.

Dhugal swallowed his pride to try again.

“You can tell them, after,” he said softly. “Please, Ciard. For the love you once bore me.”

Ciard turned his head slowly, his eyes full of ice and contempt, but he got up and went with Dhugal to where the horses cropped grass in the forest clearing. He stopped beside Dhugal's grey, throwing one arm over the animal's withers to lean against its shoulder as he glanced sidelong at Dhugal in the dimness.

“Well?”

Dhugal moved close enough to stroke the stallion's neck, choosing his next words carefully. With what Duncan and Morgan had taught him, he felt fairly confident that he could force the necessary rapport to make Ciard see the truth, but he knew he was not yet skilled enough to do it without physical contact—and that, Ciard would never permit, feeling betrayed, as he did, by his young master. Nor could Dhugal's lesser size and strength stand up to any physical contest with the experienced Ciard, who had taught Dhugal much of what he knew.

But physical contact he must have, if his ill-trained powers were to be of any help in the matter. There simply was not time to try to explain verbally, with each answer leading to yet another question. Still stroking the stallion's silky neck, Dhugal found himself wondering whether the living mass of the horse between them might be made to function as the physical link he needed—at least long enough to get past any physical resistance.

“Ciard, I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you,” he said softly.

“I'm sure ye are, Dhugal, but it's a wee bit late tae be thinkin' o' that now.”

“Perhaps.” He began meshing his consciousness with the stallion's, extending tendrils of control along equine synapses toward the man leaning against the animal's other side. The big warhorse only shuffled softly and continued grazing, unconcerned with this new sort of partnership his master was building. A part of Dhugal found himself wondering if this was how he'd come to be so good with horses in the first place, doing by instinct what he had lately been learning to do by design.

“Ciard, I—there isn't time to explain as well as I'd like,” he went on, “but I—there's a kind of magical communication that Deryni can do sometimes. When the king was at Transha last fall, he taught me a little about it. That's how Bishop Duncan gave me his orders.”

He could just see Ciard's grimace of skepticism as the old gillie twisted a strand of the horse's mane between his fingers, unaware of the tendrils of power easing through the animal's body and beginning to wind about him as well.

“A convenient explanation, after th' fact, son, but hardly convincing,” Ciard murmured. “They're Deryni—the king and Bishop Duncan. You're but border blood.”

“Border blood—aye,” Dhugal breathed, his free hand darting out to seize Ciard's arm across the horse's back, even as his mind surged across the link already made through his own contact with the animal. “But only through my mother's line. I am also Deryni!”

Even as Ciard gasped, Dhugal was in his mind, pulling him down into unconsciousness before he could draw another breath. As Ciard went limp, sliding slowly down the horse's neck despite Dhugal's attempt to slow his collapse, Dhugal released him long enough to duck under the horse's belly and catch his helpless form, himself sinking to the grass under Ciard's dead weight.

He hoped the stallion would watch where it put its feet. He had only done this a few times, and always under supervision by Morgan or his father, and he did not relish the idea of getting stepped on while he tried to work with Ciard.

But his trusty equine friend only stood with all four feet firmly planted and whuffled once, softly, in his ear, before returning to its grazing. And Dhugal's work seemed amazingly simple, once he began and let the process flow at its own speed.

“Listen to me, Ciard,” he whispered, underlining his words with the fuller pictures from his mind, as he clasped Ciard's head between his hands. “Father Duncan is my father in fact as well as title. Old Caulay was my
grandfather.”

Swiftly the images passed then, of a Duncan only Dhugal's age, wooing Caulay's daughter Maryse. Ciard had known and loved the girl.