The King’s Justice (43 page)

“Do you mean to imply that the Deryni are honest and diligent?”

“Some undoubtedly are. But it is only a parable, my lady.” Arilan smiled. “One more. If a woman learns of a plot against an innocent man, but has always believed the source of the knowledge to be wicked—if reliable—should she not, even so, give warning, and thereby save an innocent life?”

“You're making it sound so clear-cut, so logical. It isn't the same!” she replied, tears welling in her eyes. “Bishop Arilan, you can't know how I suffer with such knowledge—how I long to be the same as other mortals. How can I make you understand?”

Still smiling, shaking his head in compassion, Arilan cast beyond the doorway with his powers to be sure of privacy and projected a glamour to repel idle intrusion.

“Oh, believe me, I understand, child,” he said softly, letting his shields fall away and the silvery light of his aura begin to glow around him.

She gaped at him, dumb with shock, as he cupped his hands before him and conjured handfire: cool, quicksilver light brimming in his hands and spilling in a sharp radiance that lit his face from below and cast his handsome features in light-limned relief.

“A child's trick,” he conceded, as he let the light contract and closed it in one hand, quenching its fire—though the nimbus around his head remained. “But it serves a purpose. It's time you knew me for what I am—and that I view what I am as a blessing, an enhancement of my relationship with the Creator—not a detriment.”

Bonelessly Jehana collapsed sideways to a sitting position, both hands pressed to the stones on either side of her, as if contact with the earth might help to ground her bewilderment and shock. Her colorless face seemed carved of alabaster as she stared up at him, appalled.

“You're Deryni, too.”

“Yes. Nor, I think, is that a terrible thing to be.”

Shaking her head, tears spilling from her lashes, Jehana glanced over her shoulder at the Virgin gazing down from her star-studded pedestal, carved hands outstretched in compassion.

“I was taught otherwise,” she said dully. “I have believed it all my life.”

“Does belief alter truth, then?” Arilan asked. “Or is truth a constant, whether we believe or not?”

“You're confusing me! You play with the words!”

“I don't mean to confuse—”

“Yes, you do! You twist the words to mean what you want them to mean! You even use holy writ to—sweet
Jesu
, was it
you
who made Father Ambros change the lesson yesterday?”

“What lesson?” Arilan asked blankly.

“The reading for Mass,” she murmured, her eyes going a little glassy as she remembered back. “Ambros changed it. It should have been the Commemoration of Saints Peter and Paul, but he read Paul's conversion—and Saint Camber …”

“So, whether or not it actually happened,” Arilan told the Camberian Council a short while later, “Jehana
believes
that she had a vision of Saint Camber, and that he rebuked her for persecuting Deryni.”

“Is that possible?” Laran asked.

“That Camber rebuked her?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know. Saint Camber talks to Duncan McLain, and Morgan—and now Jehana, apparently. He doesn't talk to me.”

“Really, Denis,” Vivienne muttered.

“Well, he doesn't. He hasn't, so far, at least. But Jehana insists that
someone
—and she was convinced it was I, once she knew what I was—
someone
somehow induced her chaplain to read the story of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.”

“Ah, how the guilty heart can embellish,” Sofiana murmured. “And
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
becomes
Jehana, Jehana
…”

“Precisely,” Arilan agreed, as Tiercel slipped quietly through the doors to the Council chamber and took his seat to Sofiana's right. “
I
can't explain it. Maybe she
did
see Camber, though.”

Kyri, cool and tranquil as a summer forest at Arilan's left, fingered a green glass bangle on one wrist and glanced languidly at the tardy Tiercel.

“Denis has just come from revealing himself to Jehana,” she said, disapproval edging her tone. “And now he would have us believe that the Deryni-hating queen has been graced with a vision of Saint Camber.” She favored him with a droll, weary grimace. “You have missed little, Tiercel.”

“Kyri!” old Vivienne murmured reprovingly, as Arilan bristled, Laran scowled, and Barrett de Laney looked decidedly uncomfortable.

Kyri only yawned delicately and leaned her head against the high back of her chair, bored.

“Is it not true?” she asked, gazing idly at the crystal sphere hanging above the table, sparkling and cool in the purpled moonlight that filtered through the faceted dome above. “Why must we continue to waste time and energy on Jehana?”

The remark produced a flurry of comments, pro and con, which did not diminish until Barrett rapped on the table for silence.

“Enough,” he said. “We shall table all further discussion of the queen for the nonce. And of Saint Camber. More pressing matters require our attention. Denis, how stands the Torenthi question?”

Twisting the amethyst on his hand, Arilan shrugged.

“The prisoners have been questioned,” he said.

“By?” Vivienne asked.

“By Prince Nigel, with the assistance of Richenda and myself.”

“Prince Nigel
does
Truth-Read, then?” Tiercel asked.

Arilan nodded. “He does. Not as well as a Deryni, perhaps, but that could be as much from lack of practice as from lack of ability. He is yet new to what power he has been given. Time will temper him.”

“What of the plot itself?” Laran ventured. “Is the Lady Morag involved, as we suspected?”

Again Arilan shrugged. “Difficult to say. It seems most unlikely that she could
not
have known what her brother-in-law planned. Still, if she continues to deny—as
I
would deny, were I in her place—it will be impossible to call the question without a dangerous confrontation. I think neither Morag nor Nigel is ready to take that risk. Morag's sons are young, after all—younger than Kelson. Time is somewhat on her side.”

“I see,” old Vivienne murmured, her grey head cocked in an attitude of speculation. “You do not believe a Torenthi campaign will be necessary for a while, then?”

“Not this season,” Arilan replied. “And perhaps not for several years, though Morag and Liam must be close-guarded, and Mahael will undoubtedly conduct border skirmishes from time to time. We shall have no immediate war on two fronts, if that is what concerns you.”

Old Barrett shook his hairless head slowly, the blind emerald eyes gazing into some unknown realm.

“It is not that which concerns
me,”
he breathed. “It is the war in Meara. If the king should die—”

“The king will not die,” Sofiana said, at Barrett's right. “At least, he
should
not, if he played his strategies as he ought. Today's battle should have brought him victory.”

“Today's
battle?” Arilan murmured.

“What talk is this?” Laran said, sitting up straighter.

Even Kyri watched a little more attentively as Sofiana seemed to pull herself back from some inner contemplation long enough to sweep them with her black eyes.

“I have an agent in the royal entourage,” she said softly. “He has been reporting to me on a regular basis since the Haldane host left Rhemuth. I am awaiting his contact even now.”

“Well,
that's
cheeky,” Laran muttered, as Vivienne leaned across him to pass a whispered comment to Kyri.

Tiercel only watched Sofiana the more avidly, along with the other men. Once more, Sofiana and her desert ways of silence and stealth had caught them all off-guard.

“You have an agent in the royal entourage,” Arilan repeated, stunned. “Then, you
know
what has been happening of late?”

Sofiana, her pale, exotic face framed by the snowy drapery of the Moorish
qiffieh
, raised her eyes to the crystal sphere above their heads, already centering for the contact she expected.

“Yesterday, the Bishop-Duke of Cassan made a grave tactical error. He found the main Mearan army he had been searching for—or, rather, they found him.”

“
Sancta Dei Genetrix!
” Tiercel breathed. “Sicard's host. Was McLain defeated?”

“He, personally? Yes. But not his army,” Sofiana replied. “Apparently he ordered them to scatter when he realized he had led them into a trap, reasoning that Loris would try to take
him
at all cost, and the army might escape to fight another day—which is precisely what happened.”

“Was Duncan killed?” Arilan asked, grave dread turning his soul to lead.

Sofiana shook her head, closing her eyes.

“Not killed—at least, not outright. Captured. But if still alive, he is now in the hands of Loris and Gorony, who understand the weakness of Deryni when plied with
merasha.”

Even those with least cause to love the half-breed Duncan McLain shuddered at that, for all had experienced the effect of
merasha
in the course of training. Arilan's hands were actually shaking as he tried to fold them carefully on the ivory table before him.

“You said your agent was in the Haldane camp,” he whispered. “Then, Kelson knows of Duncan's capture, and the rout of the Cassani host?”

“He does. Somehow, young Dhugal MacArdry contrived last night to contact him. The king immediately turned all his resources toward the relief of the Cassani host, and the rescue of Duncan McLain, in particular, if he was still alive. They rode all through the night, and would have engaged the Mearan host early today. It will have been resolved by now.”

“Dear Lord, it has all come to naught, even as we spoke,” old Vivienne murmured, twisting her gnarled hands together in despair. “Sofiana, have you
no
idea how it went? Can you tell us nothing further?”

Without opening her eyes, Sofiana spread her arms to either side and took the hands of Tiercel and Barrett, drawing in another deep, centering breath.

“The moon has risen. My agent will be making his arrangements for the contact. If you will join with me in providing a channel to assist him, we shall have our answers all the sooner.”

He was slight and wiry in the manner of the desert folk of Nur Hallaj, unassuming and unmemorable in appearance, as became a seasoned scout of the Haldane eastern levies. He was physically tired, but the news he had for his mistress lent both vigor and urgency to his mood as he passed through the Haldane camp, glancing up at the moon. Time was nearly upon him.

“What ho, Raif!” a sentry called amiably. “Off on the king's business again?”

Raif raised a friendly hand in greeting as he drew abreast of the sentry, shaking his head bemusedly.

“No, the king is abed. I thought I'd check horses once more before I turn in. And you?”

The man shrugged. “I just came on watch. I'm here for another two hours. I intend to make up for the lost sleep when I
do
go off duty, though. Raise a few snores for me, friend.”

“I shall. Sleep well.”

Raif mulled what he had learned as he made his way softly between two barrack tents and headed toward the horse lines. The news was better than he would have dared to hope a few hours before. He had already been gathering information for several hours, as the encampment sprang up all around him over the ruins of the Mearan Grand Army, deftly questioning dozens of soldiers who would remember little of their conversations in the morning. He had shadowed the compound where the prisoners slept, ringed by wary Haldane troops, and he had braved the battle surgeons' encampment, with its tents full of wounded and dying men.

Now, as the homey sounds of finished meals and slumber replaced the harsher martial sounds of earlier in the day, he could turn his thoughts to more pressing matters. The man he sought would be by the lancers' picket line.

His passage aroused no special interest. Scouts were as familiar as grooms and squires along the picket lines, for scouts, like the armored knights and men-at-arms, depended upon good horseflesh for their lives and livelihood. A few men raised hands in greeting as he strolled among the horses, pausing occasionally to stroke a velvet nose or satin flank, but no one challenged him. He found Hoag propped against a saddle just outside the tent of the lancers' captain, drinking wine by light of a tiny campfire. No one else was within earshot.

“Hello, Hoag,” he murmured, tossing his cloak beside the man and flopping down to share his saddle backrest.

“Ah, Raif. I wondered whether you'd show before I passed out for the night. Have some wine?”

“A few swallows, perhaps. Thank you.”

He caught Hoag with his eyes as the wineskin changed hands and he made contact, taking the man so deftly into thrall that Hoag was completely unaware that anything had changed.

“So, how goes it?” Raif went on, lifting the wineskin to his lips. “Is the captain still abroad?”

Hoag blinked, glassy-eyed, his voice low and devoid of expression.

“Nay, he's abed.”

“Good. I'm sure he needs the sleep.”

Raif glanced casually toward the horse lines as he set the wineskin between them, pretending amiable camaraderie for the benefit of anyone watching, then poked at the pile of kindling near the fire until he found a twig. He broke off a few projecting bits as he lay back against the saddle beside the dazzled Hoag, then gave the man a lazy, casual smile as he smoothed a patch of sand between them, next to the wineskin.

“You know, today's strategies were really quite brilliant,” he murmured, beginning to sketch a pattern which, to the uninitiated, would appear to be a battle diagram. “Do you realize what the king did, when he ordered the charge from the east?”