“God save King Alroy!” the people shouted, only Deryni—and not even all of those—aware that they were participating in the very magic which the young king’s regents would later swear to suppress.
To the south the archbishop led the young king, raising his arms as before and repeating the recognition.
“God save King Alroy!” the people repeated.
To the west and then to the north they went, each time repeating the ancient formula and hearing the answering affirmation of the people. When the last echoes had died away from the northern recognition, the archbishops led the king back to the east, up the steps of the altar itself. There lay the open book of the Gospel, an elaborately calligraphed and illuminated document beside it. With a bow, Jaffray released the young king’s hand, half-facing the people once again as he said:
“My Lord King Alroy, are you now prepared to take the hallowing oath?”
“I am willing,” the boy replied, though in a voice so soft that even Camber, standing within a few feet of the boy, could barely hear him.
Gently Jaffray took the boy’s hand and placed it on the open Gospel, picked up the scroll and began to read.
“Alroy Bearand Brion Haldane, here before God and men declared and affirmed to be the lawful heir of our late liege lord, King Cinhil, do you solemnly promise and swear to keep the peace in Gwynedd, and to govern its peoples according to our ancient laws and customs?”
“I so swear,” Alroy murmured.
“Will you, to the utmost of your power, cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?”
“I so swear,” Alroy repeated.
“And do you solemnly pledge that Evil and Wrong-Doing shall be suppressed, and the Laws of God maintained?”
“All this do I swear,” Alroy repeated, yet a third time.
“Let the Lords Regent come forward,” Jaffray said, turning toward them and bowing slightly as they approached.
Oriss drew back to stand with folded hands beside Camber as the five regents made their obeisances and ascended the steps on either side of Alroy.
“Murdoch of Carthane, Tammaron Fitz-Arthur, Rhun of Horthness, Ewan of Rhendall, acting for his father, Sighere of Eastmarch, and Hubert MacInnis: having been charged by our late Sovereign Lord Cinhil with the duty to govern our young king until he shall come of age, do you solemnly swear to uphold the selfsame oath which His Highness has just sworn, to serve as loyal stewards and faithful regents of the Crown of Gwynedd, so help you God?”
“We so swear,” the regents replied, in perfect unison.
The archbishop placed a quill in Alroy’s hand and watched him neatly trace his Alroi Rex at the bottom of the page in his careful, childish hand. When the regents had added their signatures and seals to the document, and Jaffray and Oriss and Camber had witnessed it, Alroy gravely laid his small hand on the Gospel and, without further prompting, turned slightly to face the people.
“That which I have here promised, I will perform and keep, so help me God,” he said, in a much louder voice than he had hitherto managed.
Then he stood a little on his tiptoes to kiss the Book, waiting until his regents had done the same before descending the altar steps to kneel and be divested of his mantle and outer robes. As he prostrated himself before the altar, now clad in only a simple, alblike garment such as the priests themselves wore, the bishops and priests knelt all around him and the choristers began to sing the Veni Creator, words written by a centuries-dead king of Bremagne and long reserved for the hallowing of kings, priests, and bishops:
“Veni, Creator Spiritus, mentes tuorum visita, imple superna gratia, quae tu creasti pectora.…”
A sacring prayer was recited while Jaffray and his assistants censed the altar and the prostrate Alroy, and then the choir monks intoned the ancient coronation formula: Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon, and they are come up from thence rejoicing.…
As the song ended, Alroy was raised to his knees by Camber and Hubert and the canopy brought into place. Under this protection, Archbishops Jaffray and Oriss began the anointing which would make Alroy a sacred king.
“Be thy head anointed with this holy oil, as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed,” Jaffray said, pouring oil on the bowed raven head in the form of a cross.
“Be thy breast anointed with holy oil,” the archbishop continued, tracing the sign on the boy’s chest through the open neck of his alb.
“Be thy hands anointed with holy oil,” the archbishop concluded, tracing the symbol on each upturned and trembling palm. “As Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so mayst thou be anointed, blessed, and consecrated to the service of these, thy people, whom the Lord our God has given thee to govern in His Name. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
They raised him up then, and garbed him in robes befitting a king: a tunic of cloth-of-gold, a jewelled white girdle, and a mantle of fur-lined crimson, thickly encrusted with gems and gold bullion.
On his heels they placed the golden spurs; in his hands, momentarily, they placed the kingly sword which had been his father’s, before giving it into the keeping of Ewan, the new marshal, to be laid on the altar. On his finger they placed the Ring of Fire, sized down now to fit his boy’s finger—though the jewelled band had already done its most important work. The scepter, a slender wand of gold-encrusted ivory, was placed in his hands long enough for him to feel the weight of it, then set aside on the royal throne.
Finally, solemnly, the boy knelt at the archbishop’s feet, before the altar, as Jaffray took up the crown and raised it high above the boy’s head, his eyes riveted on the tracery of gold and silver leaves and crosses intertwined.
“Bless, we beseech Thee, O Lord, this crown. And so sanctify Thy servant, Alroy, upon whose head Thou dost place it today as a sign of royal majesty. Grant that he may, by Thy grace, be filled with all princely virtues. Through the King Eternal, Our Lord, Who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.”
So Alroy was crowned King of Gwynedd, as a silvery fanfare underscored the completion of the moment and the people shouted, “God save the king!”
After that, the bishops and lesser clergy and then the nobles, led by Alroy’s brothers, came forward to render homage and fealty and to receive the royal recognition, the regents standing triumphantly to either side of the throne as the others came forward. Mass followed the fealty, with the king himself bringing forward the offerings of bread and wine, and then the procession from the cathedral—the procession of a very tired young king.
Nor could the king’s day end with his return to the castle, for there was yet the obligatory coronation feast to be endured. Though the Vesper bells were ringing as the procession passed into the castleyard, and though Alroy’s head ached abominably from the weight of the crown and the heat and the lack of food since late the night before, little respite would be allowed.
An hour they had—long enough for Alroy to discard his heavy robes and crown for a little while and lie down, there to succumb to exhausted sleep, which Tavis made more than just a brief nap. On both the other boys, Tavis likewise worked his Healing of forced sleep, and delayed waking them until the regents would be put off no longer. He did manage to insist that they eat something substantial and nourishing first, but beyond that there was nothing else he could do except watch from the sidelines and be prepared to make a rescue, if necessary. If the king fell asleep at table before the evening’s festivities were through—well, older kings than Alroy had been known to nod over their cups or doze into their plates.
So the king and his brothers were escorted into the hall for the feast, to a trumpet flourish and the cheers of the assembled nobles. Alroy sat on the dais at the center of the high table as official host, dwarfed by the royal throne which had been his father’s and flanked by his regents and their wives, all in furs and jewels and the badges of their offices.
Javan and Rhys Michael were isolated at either end of the high table and likewise surrounded by adult courtiers who were far more interested in the prestige their seating gave them than in easing the public discomfort of children forced too soon into adult roles. Other than the pages and squires who helped serve the feast, the royal brothers were the only children in the hall. The evening was to be the first lesson, but not the last, on the loneliness of the Crown.
Lonely or not, the evening was not without its pleasures, even for the boys, though they might have enjoyed it more, had they been better rested. The food, if overrich and exotic for young palates, was wonderfully presented, to madrigal and instrumental accompaniment, and usually paraded about the hall for the amazement of all, before being served: roast venison and stuffed capons; sturgeons arrayed in aspic, so that they appeared still to be swimming; cygnets and doves stuffed inside pheasants; great tarts and meat pies; eels seethed in wine; and a peacock roasted to perfection, still bearing all its jewel-glowing, iridescent feathers as it was brought to table. There was even a subtlety of the Haldane Lion done in gilded marzipan and spun sugar, with glazed cherries for eyes, of which Alroy got the tuft at the end of the tail and one ear for his portion.
Some of the entertainment also held appeal for children as well as adults—acrobats and harpers and a few of the less bawdy of the troubadours. Alroy was particularly taken with a short mummer’s play depicting his father’s defeat of the hated Deryni Imre—though he would never know how the story had been altered by the regents to show Imre falling on his own sword, rather than willing himself to die by his powers, to avoid being taken captive by the Deryni-supported Cinhil and his Deryni allies. Other than Imre and Ariella, Deryni did not even appear.
By then, it mattered little anyway, so far as the princes were concerned. Despite Tavis’s earlier ministrations, it was not long before the day’s accumulation of fatigue began to tell on all three boys. Indulged by their adult companions with as much wine as they wished, first Rhys Michael and then Alroy nodded off, before the third course had even been completed.
A squire nudged Alroy unobtrusively to present a finger-bowl for his use, and Alroy thanked him sheepishly but by then, Javan, too, was yawning mightily and Rhys Michael had slipped groggily from his chair to curl up in the rushes beneath his end of the table and go to sleep. None of his dinner companions even seemed to notice.
Tavis noticed. From his vantage point in the gallery above the hall, he had been watching all three boys throughout the feast, and waited for a time when he might finally take action. During a particularly rowdy dance interlude at the far end of the hall, he and two squires slipped quietly onto the dais and woke the now-drowsing Javan, the squires accompanying Javan and Alroy while Tavis collected the sleeping Rhys Michael from under the table and took him out.
Tammaron saw them go and waved his approval to Tavis, for he had young sons of his own at home in bed. Other than Tammaron, no one else even missed them. By the time the dance had ended, Murdoch and Rhun could be seen lolling on the arms of the throne and hoisting cups in toast while they led the assembled nobles in a rousing rendition of one of the bawdier tavern ballads currently making the rounds in Valoret town. Ewan and his brothers, Hrorik and Sighere, started a wagering game in one corner of the hall with four other men. Bishop Hubert was rapidly drinking himself into red-faced and exuberant inebriation, much to the distress of his fellow regents’ wives or any serving maid who chanced too close to His Grace’s chair.
Jaffray, one of the very few Deryni present in the hall that night, and one of the handful of either race who remained relatively sober, could only shake his head to himself and wonder how they would manage to survive the next few years, if these were the men who were to govern Gwynedd.
Fortunately for the princes, the next day boded better. For one thing, it started later. By the appointed hour of noon, the regents were only beginning to revive from the previous night’s festivities, and they were nearly an hour late collecting the boys for that day’s events.
The first afternoon’s offering was but prelude to a week-long series of entertainments devised to please young boys of ten and twelve and keep their young minds from the serious business of ruling. For further diversion, the regents brought their own children and kin of about the princes’ ages, and Hubert brought his brother’s children; no sense in all the expense being used for just three boys.
Prime among the performances was a troupe of puppeteers and Morris dancers, who mimed several tales of Gwynedd folklore to the accompaniment of a gaily clad troubadour; and jugglers and a young harper, hardly older than the twins, who sang and played so sweetly that the boys were held in thrall by the tale she wove in song, and seriously discussed how they might keep her there at the castle—though none of them was old enough or experienced enough in the world to know what they might do with her other than have her sing. After the harper had finished, the Morris dancers did a fierce sword-clashing drill to the accompaniment of pipes and drums, which nearly frightened the ten-year-old Rhys Michael at first, whirling and interweaving their swords in patterns, first slow and then fast, which were nearly as ancient as the history of the land.
An added attraction was the presentation of a menagerie which was to be displayed at the fair opening in the town the following day. The boys had never seen such animals: a dancing bear, which roared and growled most ferociously when prodded to perform; several strange, dust-colored animals with humps on their backs; a pair of real lions, like the one on the Haldane arms, brought from beyond the borders of Bremagne and kept in a stout cage; and, the gift of the small, quick man who owned the menagerie, three exquisite R’Kassan yearling colts, jet-black now, but promising to turn to purest white by the time their young owners should be old enough to ride them as warhorses.
The boys’ excitement knew hardly any bounds, and that night they slept the gentle sleep of normal, boyish fatigue. Tavis began to relax a little.
The second day saw a resumption of more vigorous activities. First among the royal duties—and a fascinating task it was, which the boys minded not in the least—was a state visit to open the town fair which had been proclaimed in honor of the new-crowned king. Alroy and his brothers personally witnessed the official opening, standing by eagerly while a herald read the official decree and commanded all, in the name of King Alroy, to keep the king’s peace within the boundaries of the fair.
The royal party progressed through the fairgrounds to drum and trumpet after that, while a liveried attendant bore before them the gilded gauntlet on a pole, which was symbolic of the king’s protection and patronage. To the populace, the king and his brothers dispensed copper coins struck with Alroy’s likeness for the occasion of the coronation, in return sampling the wares of several of the stalls and being given numerous small trinkets and gifts which the regents even allowed them to keep.
But there was no time to linger, for the king must attend a tournament being held that afternoon in his honor; and so they had to leave the fair long before boyish curiosity had been satisfied. Cinhil had not believed in such frivolity, and so the boys had never been permitted even to see a fair or marketplace. For that matter, they had never attended a tournament other than as spectators, though they had been taught the skills of horsemanship requisite for participation in such an activity. Tournaments had only been introduced during the latter days of King Blaine, Imre’s father, to keep the skills of war honed even in times of peace. All manner of martial accomplishment might now be tried in the name of sport.
Therefore, a tournament designed, at least in part, for the participation of children held a special allure for the princes. After the initial ceremonies, and the first skirmishes between adult horsemen, a squires’ list was held, and then one for Alroy and Javan’s age-group.
The king had a slight cold, and so was not permitted to ride—though he was promised that he might on the morrow, if his health was improved—but Javan tilted at rings and ran at the quintain most stylishly
, to the great surprise of most folk watching, for on horseback, he was as secure as any other rider, and the long surcoat he wore obscured the special boot on his right foot. He even won a second place in pole-bending: a chaplet of wildflowers which the Countess Carthane, Murdoch’s lady, bestowed.
The ten-year-old Rhys Michael also acquitted himself quite nobly against the young pages of his age group, managing to snag several more than his share of rings in the ring-tilting competition. The crowd cheered for him in particular, for his sunny disposition was fast making him the popular favorite. All three boys again slept the sleep of the righteously exhausted when they went to bed that night.
Commitments were far less rigid on the third day. Though the king’s presence was expected at the continuing tournament, and he had, indeed, been given permission to compete this time, the two younger boys were not required to attend. A little judicious pestering of Earl Tammaron, who was known to be indulgent with his own boys, produced the exhilarating permission to go to the fair with Tavis instead of to the tournament, taking only a small guard escort with them.
The boys were ecstatic, and their enthusiasm was so infectious that Tavis was even prevailed upon to let them dress as pages rather than princes, so that they might pass for ordinary boys on holiday at the fair. Tavis’s own tunic, with its badges of Healing and royal service bold on the sleeve, he covered with a short cape of grey, for the day was warm and the event informal. Even the guards were cajoled into the spirit of the day’s adventure, somewhat disguising themselves by wearing plain harness and throwing worn, nondescript cloaks over their badges of household and personal rank.
It mattered not to the boys. They had the semblance of freedom, if only feigned, and the guards were sympathetic, several of them with small children of their own. Almost, the boys could imagine that they were, indeed, the simple pages that they appeared to be. It was a delicious taste of what they had always imagined it might be like to lead an ordinary life, and they revelled in it.
The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy Page 111