King Javan’s Year

by Katherine Kurtz

  Grateful that he seemed to have avoided yet another potential disagreement with his balky Council, Javan refrained from mentioning his other duke just then, for Graham, the young Duke of Claibourne, was an extremely sore point with the former regents, Murdoch in particular. He allowed the discussion to move on to the subject of possible coronation dates, finally settling on the last day of July, but when they finally adjourned, he held back Jason and Robear with Charlan after the others had left.

  “I wasn’t going to mention it during the meeting, but no one has yet said anything about my other duke,” he said, “and no one has mentioned him in any of my briefings thus far. Are the Kheldour lords going to show up for the coronation?”

  The three knights exchanged guarded looks, both Robear and Charlan deferring to Jason.

  “I’m afraid the Kheldour situation has not improved during your absence, Sire,” Jason said. “If anything, it’s deteriorated. No one from Kheldour has been seen at Court since young Graham and his uncles came to have his title acknowledged as Duke of Claibourne and his regents sworn in. You were still here when that happened, I believe.”

  Javan nodded agreement as Jason continued.

  “Since that day, so that no one can say they’ve violated the letter of their feudal obligations, Claibourne and the Earls of East-march and Marley have continued to send their taxes and minimum levies for royal service—but nothing beyond what the law requires. Even that has slipped in recent months.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, young Graham would have reached his majority earlier this year—which means he should have come to Rhemuth to have his coming of age confirmed and his regency officially ended. Need I say that he didn’t come?”

  “I can’t say I blame him,” Javan murmured, “when the man responsible for slaying his father still sits on the royal Council and has never been held accountable. I’m not sure I would have come, in his position.”

  “The question is, will he come to you, once he learns that your brother is dead?” Robear retorted. “If he doesn’t—if he and his uncles fail to appear at the coronation, if they decline to acknowledge you as their overlord and do homage for their Kheldour holdings—reasonable men could justly construe that Kheldour has withdrawn from the alliance that brought Kheldour to Gwynedd in the first place. If that should happen, you’re in no position to attempt bringing them back into the fold by force. Any war you fight in the next few years almost certainly will have to be against a Festillic pretender trying to invade from Torenth and regain what he regards as his throne.”

  “I’m aware of the Festillic danger,” Javan murmured. “I know I can’t afford to fight with Kheldour.” He paused a beat. “You really think they won’t come?”

  Jason snorted. “I’m almost more afraid that they will come and decide that this is the time to renew their quarrel with Murdoch.”

  “Murdoch was responsible for the death of the boy’s father,” Javan said sharply. “And what he did to Declan Carmody and his family—I’ll never forgive him for that!”

  All three men looked distinctly uncomfortable, for all had been present at that terrible birthday court three years before, forced to witness the cold-blooded execution of Declan’s wife and young sons and the cruel tortures inflicted on the former Deryni collaborator until he finally died.

  “Ewan did attack Murdoch first, Sire,” Robear said uneasily.

  “Yes, after Murdoch provoked him!”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t perceived that way by the Court,” Jason said, “and your witness would be judged faulty because you were a minor at the time. If you try to reopen the case after this long, you will be perceived as being either soft on Deryni or escalating a personal vendetta against Murdoch. I don’t think you can afford either perception.”

  Javan sighed heavily, knowing Jason was right—yet another burden of the crown he was struggling to keep.

  “I hadn’t in mind to go after Murdoch,” he finally said. “At least not now. Back to the Kheldour lords, though—do you think they’ll come?”

  “I believe Etienne has sent notification north to inform them of your brother’s death, Sire,” Robear said. “Also, official summons to appear at the coronation. Whether or not they comply remains to be seen—and the consequences, whichever way they go.”

  Which was all anyone could say, at this point. Shaking his head in resignation, Javan picked up the Haldane sword and got to his feet.

  “Thank you, gentlemen. You’ve given me yet another thing to worry about. It isn’t your fault,” he added, flashing them a tight smile. “It simply means I’m walking a sword-edge rather than a mere tightrope. Let’s go down to the great hall and get something to eat.”

  He thought about how to ease the situation while he ate a light midday meal with his knights, vaguely distracted from their easy banter. The prospect of a secession in Kheldour, not to mention possible war against a Festillic invader, had brought home the very real military challenges he might have to face, in addition to the more insidious threats he had already anticipated from the former regents. By the time they had ridden out for an afternoon’s light exercise, galloping along the long, straight stretches beside the riverbank, he decided that part of his personal preparation for either eventuality lay in making himself better physically fit for the job he had inherited. After even this short jaunt, his thighs ached.

  “I want you to put me back in training,” he told Robear and Jason as they rested their horses in the shade of a stone bridge that spanned a stream just above the city. “I haven’t had a sword in my hand in three years, other than to cut myself at the Accession Council, and I’m not sure I even remember how to draw a bow.”

  The latter certainly was not true, and all of them knew it, for Javan’s skill at the archery butts had been better by age twelve than most of the men in the Haldane Archers Corps. Jason himself had encouraged it, for archery was a martial art not dependent upon agility of foot.

  Swordplay was another matter entirely, however. And it was true that three years of mostly sedentary pursuits at Arx Fidei had not exactly provided the opportunity for ongoing physical development of a king who might need to lead men into battle, much less defend himself against rebellious subjects.

  “You’ll give us free rein?” Robear said, casting him one of those sidelong glances that Javan knew meant he was going to have to work, and work hard.

  “I wouldn’t have asked, if I didn’t mean to do it right,” Javan replied. “I’m not expecting it to be easy. I need you to make a proper knight of me, though, if I’m to live up to the pledges we exchanged a few days ago.”

  “Are you willing to make the regular commitment of your time?” Jason asked. “It can’t be done overnight, or slapdash.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Javan said. “You can have my mornings, when it’s still a little cooler; I’ll keep other businesses to the afternoons, at least until we’re well started. I want you to push me as hard as you think I can stand, and then some. I know it’s going to involve a lot of sweat and not a little pain. I’m not looking forward to that. But I’ve got to do it. Next time one of the Council lords tries to defy me, I may need more than a glib tongue to get me out of it.”

  A glib tongue continued to keep Javan’s opponents off balance in the next few weeks, as concern turned increasingly to planning for his coronation, but thereafter his days began in the practice yard, alternating between weapons drill, riding, and weapons drill while riding. He spent hours striking at the pells to begin building up his shoulders again and sparring with one or another of his knights. He spent more hours at the archery butts, quickly regaining his accuracy but appalled at how light a bow he had to use at first to do it.

  On alternate days, training shifted to the breaking yard, where Baron Hildred endeavored to bring his riding skills back up to their previous level. Javan had been a bold and brilliant rider before leaving Court and remembered everything he had ever been taught; but getting disused riding muscles to
obey him again was a humbling experience. Hildred took him back to basics for the first week or so, putting him up on a smooth-paced, reliable palfrey at the end of a lunge line and making him circle for what seemed like hours at the trot and canter, going over low jumps, deliberately falling off—all without stirrups.

  Later, when he began to get legged up again, the arena sessions alternated with the tilting yard, working with lance or spear, and sword drill from horseback. Once he could draw one of the powerful little R’Kassan recurve bows again, there was shooting from horseback as well. It was all very hard work; but in this as in all the other disciplines he had resumed, Javan was pleased to find that his body performed far better at sixteen than it had at thirteen.

  Mornings usually ended with a gallop down to the river again, where he could relax a little and pretend that he still enjoyed riding. Sometimes, when he got down from his horse at the end of a morning’s training, his legs would hardly support him for their trembling—and it had nothing to do with his weak foot. His shoulders ached almost continually, for most of the skills he was reinstating made use of upper body strength, to compensate for his lessened mobility on foot.

  Noonday sessions with Oriel after a bath became a regular feature for those first few weeks, the only way Javan could revive himself enough to face his afternoon obligations—for meetings seemed to multiply weekly, sometimes with the Council, increasingly with various commissions and assize courts, sometimes with staff from the earl marshal’s office regarding plans for the coronation, now definitely set for the thirty-first of July.

  One rather more pleasant if bittersweet accomplishment of those first few weeks was to arrange Oriel’s longed-for reunion with his wife and daughter. It did not last long, and Javan had to reinforce his demand to the Custodes guards with the threat of Charlan and Guiscard lurking at his back, hands on sword hilts; but at least until one of the men summoned higher-ranking reinforcements, Oriel’s joy was uncontained. While his own men barred the open doorway, Javan watched moist-eyed as the Healer wordlessly embraced his wife and then knelt to entice a tousle-headed toddler from behind her mother’s skirts, to meet the father of whom she had no memory.

  But all too soon, a well-armed Custodes captain was striding up to the doorway to end the scene of domestic happiness. With him came half a dozen more Custodes knights who looked even less inclined to be swayed by royal whim or sentiment.

  “Sire, this must end at once,” the captain said, courteous but single-minded. “I have standing orders that the Deryni collaborators are not to be granted access to their families. My authority comes directly from Brother Serafin as Grand Inquisitor, as set out in the Statutes of Ramos. Master Oriel will have to come away immediately.”

  Javan considered arguing the point, for he doubted that the Custodes commander’s orders extended to laying hands on the king, but Charlan and Guiscard were not immune. Furthermore, current law did give Serafin the right to issue such orders—and further time stolen in defiance of the increased Custodes presence clearly would be of little worth.

  “I had forgotten those were your orders,” he said quietly, reluctantly beckoning for Oriel to come away. “Master Oriel has been a steadfastly loyal servant of this Court for many years now and had not seen his little daughter since shortly after her birth. It seemed a harmless kindness to repay him for his services.”

  “The Grand Inquisitor does not deem it harmless,” the captain replied, watching Oriel like a cat fixed on a mouse as the Healer tearfully disentangled his daughter’s arms from around his neck and gave her back into the arms of his wife, unable to look at them as he returned to the king’s side.

  Javan said nothing as he shrugged and turned to go, but he would never forget the look of despair on Oriel’s face as the door closed behind them, the Healer’s hand outstretched in final farewell to the weeping woman and the rosy-faced toddler who was blithely waving good-bye to him, wide-eyed and innocent beneath a tangle of red-gold curls. The incident left Oriel bound to him even more firmly and made Javan all the more determined that he must do whatever he could to reverse this blight that the former regents had set upon his kingdom.

  To do that, he needed to survive; day-to-day survival depended partly upon domestic stability to bolster his efforts. His personal household began to take shape during those first few weeks, as his schedule became more fixed and some routine began to emerge. He had not yet dared to dismiss any of the officers of the previous reign, but the Court slowly began to include men of his own choosing. He named Lord Jerowen Reynolds to the seat being vacated by Fane Fitz-Arthur and appointed him Vice Chancellor. Baron Etienne de Courcy became his confidential secretary, and Guiscard became one of his aides.

  The appointment he broached to the Council at a meeting in mid-July, however, had more personal implications, for it touched on a more personal need. And unlike the other appointments he had made, he must gain permission for this one—and from the Custodes Fidei. It represented a backing down from the adversary stance he had been forced to assume against the Order while securing his throne, and it rankled—but keeping Paulin and Albertus totally on their guard would only make things more difficult. Paulin was already annoyed over the Oriel incident.

  “One last item this afternoon, gentlemen. I should like to make a personal request of Father Paulin,” Javan said, forcing himself to keep a suppliant’s face as he addressed the Custodes Vicar General, “but first, to offer him an apology.”

  “An apology, Sire?” Paulin looked dubious.

  “Yes, Father. I formed my decision to leave Holy Orders in good conscience, and after sober reflection, but I regret that the manner of my leaving may have left ill feelings—with my abbot, in particular, and with you, Father. I also regret any disrespect I may have seemed to show to you, Archbishop,” he added, casting his glance at Hubert. “I learned much under your tutelage and I am grateful for it. I am also grateful for the grace with which you have handled my dispensation from Orders.”

  Hubert nodded, and Paulin inclined his head cautiously.

  “Your Highness mentioned a personal request,” the latter said.

  “Yes, Father.” Javan drew a deep breath. “I desire to appoint a personal chaplain. The confessors I used when last I lived at Court are no longer available. Father Boniface has died, and his Grace has other duties that take him often from Court—as is only proper, for he has other sheep to tend besides this rather black and wayward one.” He essayed a glance at Hubert and saw the archbishop was covering a faint smile with one pudgy hand.

  “Perhaps his Highness would care to avail himself of my offices,” Archbishop Oriss said, looking slightly affronted. “I believe that my auxiliary, Bishop Alfred, has occasionally confessed him.”

  Javan shook his head as if distracted, returning his attention to Paulin.

  “I thank your Grace, but I have found a less busy priest I think would better serve my needs,” he said. “One nearer my age, who knows something of my past few years. He is a Custodes priest, Father General, whose wisdom and counsel I came to respect while resident at Arx Fidei.”

  “One of my priests, Sire?” Paulin said, uncertain whether to be pleased or suspicious.

  Javan kept his expression bland and guileless as he made himself meet Paulin’s eyes. “His name is Father Faelan. He was not my confessor at the abbey, as you must know—only one of my tutors—but it is clear that his superiors must count him a worthy representative of his Order, else they would not have kept him there after his ordination, to train up more like him. If you have no objection, I would ask that he be transferred to my household, to serve as Chaplain Royal.”

  “Faelan, you say?” Paulin murmured, glancing across at Albertus, who shook his head minutely—but in nonrecognition, not disapproval.

  “Yes, Father. I don’t believe I ever heard his surname, but I found him gentle and pious—and sensible. I believe he could provide responsible guidance without being stodgy—no offense to any of my previous confessors, of
course.”

  “Of course,” Hubert murmured, no longer smiling, though Paulin almost was.

  “Very well, Sire,” Paulin said, jotting the name on the edge of a paper. “I make you no promises, but I shall inquire regarding this Father Faelan; and if he is deemed suitable, you shall have him, as a gesture of goodwill on my part—and for the sake of your immortal soul.”

  Javan inclined his head in what he prayed Paulin would take for humility. “I thank you, Father. I shall await your decision.”

  He hoped, as they moved on to other topics, that he was not putting the kind young Father Faelan into an uncomfortable position, for Faelan was not any part of Javan’s intrigues. He had been a friend, though; and Javan had a desperate need of friends.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Surely I will keep close nothing from you.

  —Tobit 12:11

  In the days that followed, others besides Paulin of Ramos made inquiries touching on the king’s business. One evening, with the coronation less than a fortnight away, Guiscard lingered after supper in Javan’s apartments when everyone but Charlan had gone.

  “I’ve found you a site for the Portal,” he said when Javan had sent Charlan off to the cellars for a new flask of wine. “It’s on the level just below us, next to that room where the new library’s being assembled.”

  Javan scowled, trying to picture it. “I thought it had to be at cellar level,” he said. “Doesn’t the floor need to be natural rock or earth?”

  “That is the floor requirement,” Guiscard replied, grinning. “But you don’t really want to go skulking around the cellars to get to it, do you? Kings who do that are apt to arouse some suspicion.”