The King’s Justice (39 page)

All but despairing, Duncan wrenched his gaze above the growing flames and concentrated on the hills beyond, praying that he might be granted the grace to die as well as Henry Istelyn—steadfast and true, faithful unto death to himself, his king, and his God.

Judge me, O Lord; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the Lord; therefore I shall not slide. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.…

And his trying would be ruthless, Duncan knew—deadly, at least to his body. The flames leaped ever higher, beginning to eat toward him, but the heat that drove Loris and his minions back with its intensity would not reach him for some time—perhaps as long as half an hour. Not hot enough to kill, at any rate. He could feel the sting of sweat drenching his lacerated back, streaming down his limbs, but that was as much from his nerves and the beating sun as from the fire.

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily.… Into thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth
.…

Beyond the flames, Sicard and his officers began returning to their units and preparing to move out, cavalry and foot bristling with lances and pikes and bows as they formed up, mounted scouts already scattering to the west to reconnoiter.

The camp had nearly disappeared around him, even Loris' tent all but dismantled as his men packed the canvas onto sumpter mules. Farther out, the white-clad episcopal knights were mounted already, the mettlesome battle chargers fidgeting and anxious at the flames leaping up ever stronger around the condemned Duke of Cassan.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.… The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.…

So rapt was Duncan in his devotion that he did not even notice, at first, that the light of the eastern sky had begun to reflect from the points of hundreds of lances, or that the eastern glare masked the steady approach of Haldane banners.

But Sicard noticed—and Loris. And as their officers began bawling frantic orders to arm and mount, the dust of the Haldane advance roiled on the plain like the coming of an avenging angel.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering and to conquer
.

—Revelations 6:2–3

“
A Haldane!
”

Suddenly the hills to south and east were abristle with lances and raised swords, the Haldane host streaming down onto the plain of Dorna to sweep the Mearan army before them, crimson banners flying. Through the flames rising higher around him, Duncan was dully aware of the Mearan panic and its cause, but that knowledge was a thing apart, a theoretical change of circumstances touching him hardly at all; because he knew the flames would reach him before his rescuers could.

Around the pyre, the Mearan forces so recently drawn up to watch him burn were milling in confusion and panic, their composure not aided by Loris, shaking a crozier at the attacking Haldane forces and screaming for a horse. White-surcoated ecclesiastical knights boiled around the renegade archbishop as one was brought, but their greathorses, skittish with battle fever, only made it more difficult for Loris to mount, and he ranted at them while Gorony tried to rally the Connaiti mercenaries.

The secular levies were somewhat better disported, for Sicard commanded with a logic unheated by the passions that had impelled Loris, but even with his reasoned direction, some of the Mearan levies milled in confusion as their officers tried to order them for a counteroffensive. Ragged formations were beginning to charge across the plain to intercept the attacking Haldanes, but isolated bands were already fleeing in disorder, streaming westward along the only avenue of escape not already menaced by Haldane attackers.

None of it was to Edmund Loris' liking—and even less, the possibility that his victim might yet escape his vengeance. Cursing and muttering in his mitre-crowned helm, he yanked his horse's head around and gigged it with his spurs, forcing it nearer the flames, and pointed his crozier at the half-fainting Duncan as if he wished it could strike him dead.

“God damn you, Duncan McLain!” he shouted above the crackle of flames and the din of battle being joined. “God damn you to eternal Hell!”

The sound of his name roused Duncan a little from his pain-dulled stupor, but lifting his head toward Loris only made the horror of his situation all the more terrifying. The flames leaped ever higher as they ate at the edge of the pyre, their heat an increasingly stifling oppression threatening to choke him even before the fire could consume his flesh. Beyond the fire and the white-clad renegade archbishop, the glad, welcome sight of Haldane and Cassani banners fighting their way toward him only taunted, for he knew they could never reach him in time. He tried to believe they would, and to shutter off his fear—as he had done so many times in the past half-day—but the
merasha
in his body still raveled his concentration. Dully he watched as Gorony returned to Loris' side, two nervous episcopal knights in attendance.

“Excellency, we must flee!” he dimly heard Gorony shout, as the priest kneed his mount into the side of Loris'. “Leave McLain! Let the flames do their work.”

Stubbornly Loris shook his head, the blue eyes blazing with the single-minded fanaticism that had brought all of them to this event.

“No! It burns too slowly! They will save him. He must die!”

“Then, put an end to him some other way!” Gorony begged, signalling his episcopal knights to throw themselves between Loris and the first Haldane attackers now beginning to penetrate the former Mearan campsite. “We must be away, or they will take us!”

Shaking with indecision, Loris stared through the flames at Duncan, his hate distorting his reason even as the heat distorted his vision. The sounds of battle crashed ever nearer, but Loris did not seem to hear.

“Fight through to the duke!” Duncan heard someone cry, from beyond the pyre's opposite perimeter.

“Save the bishop!” someone else shouted hoarsely.

Face contorting with rage, Loris pointed his crozier toward the nearest of the Connaiti mercenaries still remaining in the immediate area.

“Archers, I want him dead!” he screamed, ignoring the pleas of Gorony and other of his episcopal knights to come away to safety. “Kill him
now!
I will not leave until he is dead!”

Instantly three of the men detached themselves from their fellows and began working their way to Loris' side, drawing deadly little recurve bows from saddle cases.

“Kill him!” Loris ordered, gesturing toward the feebly struggling Duncan as the archers drew rein before him. “Slay him where he stands. We cannot wait for the flames to finish him!”

“Your Excellency, you
must
come away!” Gorony muttered, again sidling his horse closer to Loris' snorting stallion, this time close enough to seize the near rein. “Let them do their work. You must not be taken.”

Loris jerked the rein out of Gorony's grasp.

“No! I will see him dead!”

The end was very near now. Duncan knew it as surely as he knew Loris would pay for what he had done—though Duncan would not be there to see it. As the flames leaped higher, smoke stinging his eyes, and the heat began to scorch at his bare legs, he watched the archers fitting feathered death to bowstrings, trying to hold fire-skittish horses steady with knees and legs as they maneuvered close enough to take aim.

Both Dhugal and Morgan saw the Mearans' intent, though from much too far across the field to make a difference. Dhugal, fighting a heated encounter with Mearan lancers, Ciard and other of his MacArdry clansmen at his back, could only rage inwardly, redoubling his efforts to reach his father. Morgan was no less pressed, but his greater experience conceived a plan that just might buy Duncan a little time—but only if he could find Kelson.

“Jodrell, to me!” he cried, standing in his stirrups to look for the king. “Guard my back!”

He spied Kelson almost at once, sword in hand but relatively unpressed behind a phalanx of Haldane bodyguards and officers. Attackers swirled around the king's party, drawn by the Haldane standard Ewan bore behind him, but Kelson himself was virtually in the clear, as Morgan was not.

Fending off a Mearan spear thrust that got past Jodrell, Morgan focused all his concentration on touching the king's mind, if only for an instant.

'
Ware for Duncan!
he sent, faltering briefly while he took time out to plunge his sword into the throat of an attacking Mearan foot soldier.
Kelson! Remember the archery yard!

But Kelson had already noted Duncan's increased danger—and grimly reached the same conclusion as to what must be done. He disliked making public display of his powers, but none of his archers were in range to handle things more conventionally. Nor could Morgan assist him, for working the delicate magical balance required was next to impossible when one was physically fighting for one's own life. Morgan's very warning was something of a miracle, under the circumstances.

Glancing around quickly to confirm that he was well protected physically, Kelson rested his sword across his saddlebow and drew deep breath to center, stretching his mind tentatively toward the stake and its helpless captive. He could feel the strain, for the distance was nearly twice that to which he was accustomed. Nor was working the spell under battle conditions the same as the light diversion of a quiet practice yard. It was one thing to guide an arrow of one's own sending, where the stakes were only points in a game—quite another to deflect another's shaft from feathered death, and not once but many times.

But the proper connections locked into place in time to deflect the first-loosed arrow. He saw the archer mouth a curse as the shot went wide, and shifted his attention to the next, just then setting the nock to his ear.

Even above the sounds of battle, he seemed to hear the twang of the second shot; and the feathered shaft again zinged harmlessly past Duncan's head. He could see the look of dismay on the archer's face, and the determination in the stance of the first as he and the third man nocked and drew simultaneously. Beyond, Duncan had closed his eyes, and only flinched as the third and fourth arrows thudded home in the stake itself, fletching tightly interlocked, less than a handspan above his head.

“The priest defends himself with magic!” one of Loris' men cried, pointing at the stake as a fifth arrow whizzed harmlessly past Duncan's shoulder.

“That's impossible!” Loris shouted, looking wildly around from the back of his rearing horse. “He
can't
be working his magic—not with the drug! He
can't
be!”

“It's Morgan, then,” Gorony muttered. “But he can't do it if he's fighting for his life.”

And with an oath, he wheeled his charger and took off in Morgan's direction, two score of his episcopal knights giving him support.

Only a handful of men remained to Loris himself, most of them shaken by the merest suggestion that Deryni magic might still be operable, whether from Duncan or some other Deryni. All but three turned tail and ran, one of the archers among them. But at Loris' even more vehement exhortations, the remaining bowmen only increased their efforts—though to no better effect.

It was Sicard who, fighting his way ever closer to the Haldane standard, finally connected Kelson's motionless stare, concentrated on the chained Duncan, with the extraordinarily poor showing of the Connaiti archers.

“Kill the king!” Sicard shouted, motioning his men with his sword to charge the royal position. “Break his concentration! 'Tis
he
who works magic to save the Deryni priest!”

The distraction had its effect. As Sicard and his shock troops swept up the hill in attack, and Kelson's warband must begin more vigorous defense, Kelson himself faltered—and a Mearan arrow skittered along Duncan's side, deflected by his ribs but opening a painful gash. Duncan's cry of pain further unnerved the king, and before he could recover, a second shaft thudded home in Duncan's right shoulder.

“Father!”
Dhugal screamed, not caring who heard as he and his bordermen continued hacking their way toward the stake, though most would have taken the epithet as reference to Duncan's priestly office.

Kelson knew his control was gone as another arrow smacked into the fleshy part of Duncan's right thigh, but Sicard's attack had all but ended any possibility of continuing. Swept suddenly into a running battle with Sicard and his men, Kelson was able to spare only one last, desperate plea to Morgan, before physical survival became the highest priority, even for a Deryni king.

But Morgan was closer by half than he had been before. Though beleaguered himself by Gorony's new assault, he barely managed to slide into the protective link even as Kelson abandoned it altogether. The distraction from his own defense cost him a bruising blow to his side, but the brigandine held, and the next arrow meant for Duncan only grazed an ear, rather than burying itself in his unprotected throat.

Morgan was able to hold his defense long enough to make the difference. After a few more diverted shots, when it became apparent that someone besides Kelson was now protecting the prisoner, one of the remaining archers spotted Morgan standing in his stirrup and surrounded by men determined to give him respite from the general fighting—and galloped off, taking his companion and Loris' last mounted guard with him.

Loris raged at the abandonment. And as Sicard drew the king farther from the pyre, and Gorony forced more aggressive defense by Morgan and his men, the rebel archbishop suddenly reined in at the edge of the fire and threw himself from his horse. Cursing, he thrust his crozier into the burning bundles of kindling and began wrenching them aside.