The King’s Justice (6 page)

She loathed travelling by horse-chair; it made her stomach queasy. But three years without so much as setting toe to stirrup, combined with the austerities she had practiced as a part of her religious discipline, had left her quite unfit to make the journey from Saint Giles' to Rhemuth in any other way. The pale, well-kept hands clinging to the chair's polished wood were painfully thin; the golden marriage ring given her by her dead husband would have slid from her finger with the slightest movement, were it not for the white silk cord securing it to her fragile wrist.

Her high-necked gown was also white, like the cord: the color of a postulant's habit, though the fabric was nubby silk rather than the simple homespun wool the sisters wore, and her mantle was lined with miniver. The rich auburn hair that had been her pride and Brion's joy was concealed beneath a wimple of white silk that also hid the grey beginning to thread the auburn at temples and crown. Her face thus kindly framed, the hollows of cheeks and brow gave an impression of ascetic beauty rather than gauntness, though a pinched look about the eyes betrayed the beauty's source as internal torment, not contentment.

Only the color of her eyes remained as it had been: the smoky green of shaded summer forests, rich as the darkling emeralds Brion had loved to see her wear. She was just thirty-six.

Hard male voices jarred Jehana abruptly from contemplation, and then the sound of many riders approaching. As her horse-chair lurched to a halt, she drew in breath sharply and prayed that Kelson was not among them, cautiously parting the curtains on her left until she could peer apprehensively ahead. All she could see at first was the hind end of Sir Delrae's brawny bay, its thick tail twisted up in a neat mud-knot, and a similar view of Father Ambros' white mule.

Then, as Delrae urged his mount forward to challenge the newcomers, Jehana caught a glimpse of leather and tartan-clad riders beyond him, in green and black and white, too many to count. She remembered seeing the pattern before, but she could not recall the particular clan.

She watched Delrae confer with one of the officers of the troop for several minutes—he was senior of the four Bremagni knights her brother had sent to serve as her escort. Then Delrae gave way and allowed several of the men to fall in with his own command. As the rest of the troop rode off, and Jehana started to let the curtain fall back into place, Father Ambros kneed his mule between her and the view ahead and leaned down to reassure her.

“We've been given a guard of honor, my lady,” he said softly, with the smile that would melt the heart of an angel. “That was the Duke of Cassan's patrol. He's left men to see us safely to Rhemuth.”

The Duke of Cassan. With both Jared and Kevin McLain dead, that would be Duncan McLain—
Father
McLain, Kelson's confessor of many years—and distant cousin to the Deryni Alaric Morgan. That Duncan was also Deryni had come as a complete shock to Jehana—though she never would have dreamed of betraying that knowledge to anyone not already aware of the fact. God would exact His vengeance upon Duncan McLain for daring to accept priestly ordination in defiance of the Church's prohibition against Deryni entering priestly Orders—though how He had countenanced Duncan's elevation to the episcopate was beyond her understanding.

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Father,” she murmured.

She was not certain, as she hastily let the curtain fall, whether she had succeeded in keeping the panic out of her eyes or not, though she thought her voice had not betrayed her. Still, Ambros was a canny judge of character, for all that he was nearly young enough to be her son.

But thought of her son was not to be countenanced any more than that of McLain—and Morgan. Time enough, later on, to worry about
them
. Clasping folded hands fervently to her lips, she closed her eyes briefly and breathed yet another prayer for courage—then grabbed at the sides of the chair for balance as her procession lurched into motion again.

Reunion with her Deryni son was not the only reason Jehana was dreading the return to Rhemuth. Resumption of the very public life expected of a queen at court would not be easy, if only because she had grown unaccustomed to seeing anyone other than the sisters of Saint Giles'. Though she had taken no formal religious vows during the three years of her seclusion, she had lived and moved with the heartbeat of the community, performing all the Offices and praying for expiation of the terrible taint of Deryni evil she knew she carried in her soul, seeking release from the torment that her self-knowledge carried. Taught from childhood by family and Church that Deryni were evil, she had not yet reconciled the religious and moral dilemmas raised by the discovery that she, too, was of the race she had long believed accursed. Her spiritual mentors at Saint Giles' had assured her repeatedly that her sin was forgivable—if sin it was to use one's every resource to protect one's child from certain death at the hands of an evil adversary—but early indoctrination continued to warn a still-childlike Jehana that she had sinned.

The outward vehemence of her denial had lessened a little during her sojourn at Saint Giles'—for so long as she kept her seclusion, she had been able to insulate herself almost totally from contact with or even mention of other Deryni—but the dread rekindled and burned ever brighter as she drew closer and closer to Rhemuth and her Deryni son. Only for Kelson's sake had she left the abbey even now, anguished by the continuing toll his Deryniness seemed to take in human lives. Not even his young bride had been safe.

And that was why, ultimately, Jehana had finally chosen to leave the cloistered sanctuary of Saint Giles'; for Kelson, now nearly six months a widower, would need to take another wife soon to secure the succession. Jehana had no idea what the field of likely candidates might be like—only a notion that the right royal bride, chosen according to the standards Jehana espoused, might mitigate the negative aspects of Kelson's Deryni blood. Only thus might there be a chance to turn Kelson aside from the path he seemed to have chosen, to lure him away from the evil influences of the other Deryni at court and bring him back to salvation.

The horses' shod hooves began to strike more solid footing, picking up the pace as the way became smoother, and Jehana parted the curtains just far enough to glance outside again. Ahead, between the straight figures of Sir Delrae and a tartan-wrapped Cassani officer, she could just see the familiar walls of Rhemuth Castle shimmering silvery and pristine in the spring sunshine, bold against a sky pebbled with tiny white clouds.

White sheep
, she thought fiercely to herself, fighting down a lump threatening to rise in her throat.
White sheep on a blue hill
.…

But the childhood image, intended to divert the double pangs of fear and joy at homecoming, did not have the hoped for effect. Far from the meager comfort she had found at Saint Giles', she could feel the old emotions welling up—the terror for her soul, for Kelson's soul, threatening the composure she knew she must regain before she dared face those who would be waiting.

And in the yard at Rhemuth Castle, on the landing of the stair that led to the great hall, Kelson, too, was experiencing no small amount of trepidation at what the coming reunion would bring. Only his Uncle Nigel, Archbishop Cardiel, and Nigel's two younger sons waited with him for the queen's arrival. He had thought not to overwhelm her with too many people at first.

“It's been so long,” Kelson whispered to his uncle, standing at his left elbow. “What do you think she'll be like?”

Nigel's smile conveyed a reasonable composure as he glanced aside at his royal nephew, but Kelson knew that he, too, had misgivings about his sister-in-law's return.

“She'll be somewhat changed,” the royal duke allowed softly. “Hopefully, the changes will be for the better. God knows, she'll see
you've
changed.”

“Not all
that
much, have I?” Kelson asked, surprised.

Nigel shrugged. “What do
you
think, Kelson? You've become a man in her absence—the magic all aside. You've fought a war, you've killed—you've had to make some very difficult decisions that
I
certainly wouldn't have wanted to make.”

“I'm told it comes with the job,” Kelson murmured, managing a brief, wry grin.

“Aye, but some men do a better job than others,” Nigel returned. “You're one of them. Even now, on the eve of another war, you've kept your personal anger in check when most men of far more experience and years would have let vengeance run wild. I don't know that
I
could have kept from killing Llewell right there in the cathedral, if I'd just had my bride butchered before my eyes.”

Kelson half-turned away and began furiously twisting the ring on his little finger.

“If I'd really been in control, she wouldn't have been killed in the first place.”

“Are we going to have to go over
that
again?” Nigel replied. “That's past. It's regrettable—but continuing to reproach yourself won't change things. You can't do everything exactly right. You
can
make a difference for the future, however.”

“Yes, and my dear, superstition-blinded mother will help things enormously!”

“She's only your mother, for God's sake, Kelson.
You
haven't done anything you need to be ashamed of. If she wants to keep flagellating herself with guilt, that's between her and her God. Don't ask me to hand
you
a whip to do the same thing.”

Kelson snorted and started to cross his arms skeptically across his chest, then glanced at the gatehouse, his eyes caught by movement in the shadowed passageway. As the first of the Cassani escort trotted through the opening, he stood a little straighter and tugged nervously at the bottom of his tunic.

“Sweet
Jesu
, here she comes,” he whispered.

Two pairs of Duncan's elite lancers rode at the head of the modest procession following, blue and silver silk pennons fluttering gaily from the tips of gleaming metal lances, McLain tartan bright on shoulders and saddles, horses jigging and prancing as they sighted the gate to the stableyard. Behind rode Sir Alan Sommerfield, the seasoned McLain captain, beside a stylish-looking younger knight bearing the black ship and crimson crescent of the Bremagni kings on his white surcoat. Two horse-chairs followed close behind, the first carried by a pair of pale matched greys and escorted by a young cleric on a white mule. Behind the second horse-chair followed three more Bremagni knights and another four Cassani lancers.

“Come, Sire,” murmured Archbishop Cardiel, touching the king's elbow to lead him down the steps. “She'll be in the first chair. We should be there when she alights.”

“Why isn't she riding?” Kelson whispered to Nigel, as they followed Cardiel and the cousins down. “You don't think she's ill, do you?”

“It's a long journey,” Nigel returned. “Perhaps this was easier for her.”

The queen's horse-chair reached the bottom of the steps at about the same time the king and his party did, the priest and the two captains dismounting immediately to attend the chair's occupant as the other knights lined up to either side in salute. As the Bremagni captain drew back the heavy curtains and opened the tiny half-door, the priest offered his hand inside with a bow. Then Jehana was emerging, all white and
in
white and looking even paler for the blaze of her eyes in her pinched, wan face.

“Mother,”
Kelson breathed, reaching out to her and seizing her in a fierce embrace when she would have knelt to him on the dusty ground beside her chair. As he held her to his chest, a hand taller than last time they had met, he could feel her heart pounding beneath her silken robes—and was shocked to realize how little there was of her to embrace.

She must have sensed his surprise, for it was she who broke the embrace first, to back off a step and bob in formal curtsey, subject to king. Then she was moving on to Cardiel, bending to kiss his ring in homage, bringing forward the priest and a youngish-looking nun who had emerged from the second horse-chair.

“I beg leave to present my chaplain, Father Ambros,” she said softly, not meeting Kelson's eyes, “and Sister Cecile, my companion. Sir Delrae commands my guard. I have no other household anymore,” she finished lamely. “I did not wish to presume upon the King's Grace.”

“'Tis no presumption, Mother,” Kelson said softly. “Until I take another bride, you are still queen and mistress of this castle. And you must have a household befitting your rank. Aunt Meraude will assist you to choose new ladies-in-waiting. I pray you to take as many as you need.”

“Your offer is most generous, Sire, but I have found my needs to be far less in these past three years than one might believe. Sister Cecile shall continue to attend me—and if a place might be made at court for my chaplain, my Lord Archbishop?”

Cardiel bowed. “I shall see that Father Ambros is housed in my own palace, my lady,” he murmured. “In fact, if you have no further need of him for the rest of the afternoon, I shall take him now to begin meeting some of our brethren.”

“Thank you, Excellency,” she breathed. “Father Ambros, I shall not require your services until morning Mass.”

“As you wish, my lady.”

“And now, Sire,” Jehana went on, “if we may be shown to our quarters? Sister and I are very weary from our journey.”

“Certainly, Mother.” He cocked his head hopefully. “May I tell the court that you will join us at table tonight?”

“Thank you, no, Sire. I fear I am not yet ready for so public an appearance. I would be grateful if my knights could be afforded that courtesy, however. They have served me most loyally.”

Kelson inclined his head coolly, not surprised that she had declined his invitation. “Sir Delrae and his fellows are most welcome at our table, Mother. Gentlemen, our royal cousin, Prince Rory, will conduct you to lodgings befitting your rank. And now, if I may,” he went on, returning his attention to Jehana, “I'll take you to your rooms.”