“Jehana, they’re going to kill Nigel!” Ambros blurted. “You can’t just stand by and let that happen.”
“God help me, I don’t know what I should do.” She wept, hugging her arms across her breast. “The knowledge is evil—”
“The knowledge can save an innocent life, for God’s sake! How can that be evil? If you don’t warn him, I—”
“You’ll what,” she challenged, looking up at him angrily. “You’ll tell him yourself?”
“Well, I—”
“Of course you will not,” she went on, her voice gentling a little as she broke their eye contact and turned forlornly toward the altar. “You are bound by your office and your oath. And you would never betray the faith betokened by that which hangs about your shoulders.”
Ambros recoiled as if struck by a physical blow, one hand going automatically to the purple stole he still wore, and she knew the temptation had crossed his mind. Closing her eyes against even that knowledge, though it had come from no Deryni source, she choked back a sob and shook her head.
“Please, Father. Leave me now. You have done your duty to advise me. This decision I must make on my own.”
“But, my lady,” he pleaded. “I can help. Please let me stay.”
But as he reached out to touch her shoulder in compassion, she shrank from him and shook her head.
“No! Do not touch me. If you touch me, I may contaminate you further.”
“I am not afraid,” he began.
“Perhaps not, but I am,” she replied. “Go, now, please! Do not add to my temptation. You will not betray your office, for my sake or anyone else’s. Do you understand? I must discern the reason I have been given this knowledge, and I alone may make the decision as to how it shall be used.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The king’s strength also loveth judgment; thou dost establish equity, thou executest judgment and righteousness.
—Psalms 99:4
Ithel of Meara set his shoulders stubbornly, chin held high, sullen and resentful as he and Brice of Trurill rode with their bodyguard through the silent streets of Talacara town.
The stupid peasants had better stay inside, if they knew what was good for them! How dare they question his right to do what he had done? He was risking his life to delay the invading Haldane army, buying time for his father, covering the strategic retreat of the brave and loyal men taking his mother to Laas for safety, and what thanks did he get? Since the burning of Ratharkin three days before, even his own Mearan people had begun to turn against him. And Talacara had been the most belligerent so far.
Talacara. The sharp, acrid bite of woodsmoke hung on the air with the sweeter, more distinctive smell of burning grain as Ithel jerked irritably at the chinstrap of his helmet and pulled it off. He was sweating like a pig inside his armor. He saw two men emerging from a house with their arms full of plunder, but he felt no inclination whatever to stop them.
The town had it coming. The stiff-necked folk of Talacara had not only refused to provision him; the town bailiffs had actually shut the gates against him, and the mayor had dared to shout his defiance from behind the shelter of the walls! Did they not understand that men must have food to fight, or even to flee, and that anything Ithel left behind might be seized by the enemy?
Not that there had been any question of prolonged resistance, of course. Talacara’s “walls” were a crude palisade of sharpened stakes, its gates an impediment only to unarmed peasants on foot—not to an armored warband. On Brice’s orders, their men had piled summer-dry brush against the gates and palisade and torched it. Once the structure itself began to burn, breaching the walls was hardly the work of an hour. When their provisioners had taken what they needed from the town’s granaries and other storehouses, Ithel turned his men loose on the town before ordering them to burn what was left. Nor was further belligerence dealt with leniently. He would teach these cheeky peasants to defy him.
Being preoccupied, then, with cheeky peasants and the lesson he was teaching them, Ithel temporarily lost sight of the possibility that another master more canny than himself might be preparing to teach him a lesson.
“I want that mayor found,” Ithel said to Brice as, in the town square, they watched several of their men make rough sport of two of the captured bailiffs of the town, stripped naked and made to run at the end of ropes around their necks. “We may be in retreat, but I’m still his better!”
“I believe suitable chastisement can be found to humble the fellow, Your Highness,” Brice replied blandly. “However, we’d best not delay too long. Retribution may be sweet, but steady retreat is still our wisest course. It wouldn’t do to be cornered here in Talacara.”
Hardly were the words out of his mouth when one of his own Trurill scouts came galloping through the smoking ruin of the town gates from outside, rowelling his horse’s sides until the blood ran, waving an arm frantically.
“Raise the alarm! To horse! To horse! Battle force approaching!”
Men with their arms piled high with booty scattered before him as he came. Ithel went cold despite the day’s heat, craning fearfully back the way the man had come, but Brice was already bawling orders, trying to rally their scattered and much preoccupied troops to flee.
“Armed riders approaching from the south, Your Highness!” the scout shouted, setting his horse on its haunches as he drew up before them, breathing hard. “Scores of men, moving fast. Oh, God, I think they’re Haldanes!”
“Haldanes!”
“Sergeant, get these men moving!” Brice yelled, urging his horse among the booty-laden soldiers now milling in panic. “Drop that, if you value your lives! It may be too late already!”
He drew his sword and began using the flat of it to underline his order as another man came galloping up from the opposite direction, even more agitated than the first.
“More men, m’lord! They’re closing us in! We’re trapped!” And Kelson Haldane, drawing tight the noose he had set about Talacara town, set his crowned helm firmly on his head and drew his father’s sword, grey eyes cold as ice in the midday sun.
“Men of Gwynedd,” he shouted, raising the blade above his head. “I want Ithel of Meara. Alive, if possible, but I want him. And Brice of Trurill as well! Now—for Gwynedd!”
And in Gwynedd’s capital, Kelson’s mother began an action equally important for Gwynedd.
“Father Ambros,” Jehana whispered, almost weak with relief as she came out of the basilica and found him still waiting there, against her instructions. “Thank God you’re still here. Come with me, quickly! I still don’t know whether I’m doing the right thing, but I cannot let Nigel be killed.”
Breathing a fervent prayer of thanksgiving, Ambros took her hand and kissed it tenderly.
“You are a true queen, my lady!” he whispered. “I prayed that you would have a change of heart.”
“It is not a change of heart,” she replied, as she led him toward the back corridors that would take them to the great hall without going through the crowded yard again. “I still must expiate my sins, but Nigel is my husband’s brother. Besides Kelson, he’s all I have of Brion anymore. I owe him this. I owe it to Brion. And if I can save Nigel’s life today, perhaps it may not be too late to save his soul another time.”
“Nigel’s soul?” Ambros said. “But, he isn’t Deryni.”
“No, but they want to make him Deryni, Ambros—and can, or nearly so, if they put Brion’s magic on him,” she answered.
“They? What are you talking about?”
“Morgan. And Kelson, too, unfortunately. But perhaps I can make him see the danger. Perhaps it isn’t yet too late.”
“I only hope it isn’t too late today,” Ambros muttered, running a few steps to keep up with her as she took an unexpected turn. “Never mind any other day.”
But it was already too late for Ithel of Meara. He was sixteen years old, and he knew he was going to die. Even though he and Brice managed to rally their men before the Haldane attac
kers actually came into sight, gathering them in the empty market square to make a final stand, he had no illusions about their chances. They numbered scarcely two hundred now, most of them still on foot. The ragged square formation that the battle site allowed would only be whittled away, little by little, by the vastly superior Haldane foe.
Sword in hand, then, Brice of Trurill at his side in the center of their men, Ithel watched his doom approach: silent, steely-eyed lancers in Haldane crimson, closing the ring simultaneously from all directions. All at the walk they came, stirrup to stirrup, lance points set in a glittering wall before them—scores of them. And a second line followed close on the first, with swords at ready—more heavily armored knights, another hundred, at least.
And beyond the second ring, heralded by the crimson and gold Haldane standard, came King Kelson himself, backed by half a dozen officers and aides, crowned helm gleaming in the sunlight and a fair sword resting across his armored shoulder. At his side rode a man in black, bearing a green gryphon on brigandine and shield and a ducal coronet on his helm: surely the infamous Alaric Morgan, the king’s Deryni.
Ithel hardly dared breathe. For an interminable few seconds, the only sounds in the square were the jingle of bits and harness, the checked huffing of the greathorses, eager to be released to the charge, the dull stamp of iron-shod hooves on the trampled earth—that, and the pounding of Ithel’s pulse in his ears, seeming to echo inside his helmet.
Hardly anything moved. The deadly certainty of the ring of Haldane lances shimmered in the heat like a moment snatched from hell. A breeze stirred the pennons on the lance-tips, the Haldane standard, wisps of the battle chargers’ manes and tails, but it did not reach Ithel, stifling in his brigandine and helm.
Then a heavyset man with tartan pleated baldric-wise across his breastplate broke from the knot of men surrounding the king, kneeing his mount carefully forward to ease between the ranks and join the front line, sword in hand. The coronet on his helm proclaimed him a duke; and when he raised his visor to speak, a bushy red beard and mustaches bristled from the opening.
“Ah, yes,” Brice muttered through gritted teeth, close at Ithel’s side. “Yet another nail in our coffins.”
“Who is he?” Ithel asked.
“Ewan of Claibourne.”
“Is that bad?”
“It isn’t good,” Brice replied.
“Well, it can’t be worse than Morgan,” Ithel muttered, gathering what shreds of courage still remained him, as Ewan let his mount move half a horse-length closer still, and halted.
“Men of Meara, throw down yer weapons!” Ewan commanded in a broad border accent, pointing to the ground with his sword and sweeping the listening soldiers with his gaze. “Ye stand in arms against yer lawful king, Kelson of Gwynedd, who has come t’ reclaim what is his. Ye canna’ escape his justice, but if ye surrender now, ye may hope for his mercy. Ye need nae throw away yer lives for these who hae led ye astray.”
Before Ithel could stop him, Brice of Trurill raised his sword in defiance.
“We have not been led astray!” Brice cried. “The destiny of the borders rightly lies with Meara! The Haldane usurper—”
At Brice’s first word, Kelson’s sword had raised in warning. Now the tip of the blade dipped in curt signal toward the nervous Mearan troops, his voice cutting off Brice’s diatribe.
“Duke Ewan and the first rank, one horse-length forward—move!”
Instantly the first rank obeyed. The distance between them and the surrounded Mearans closed perceptibly, to the extreme consternation of the men crowded around Ithel and Brice, most of them on foot and ill-armed. Appalled, Ithel struck at Brice’s arm for silence. The idiot was going to get them cut down like so many sheep at the slaughter!
“I speak for these men of Meara—not Brice of Trurill,” he said, beginning to work his mount toward the edge of his troop, closer to Kelson. “Surely you do not mean to butcher them where they stand!”
“That is your choice, and yours alone,” Kelson replied, for the first time turning his gaze directly on the Mearan prince. “I hold you and your officers entirely responsible for what has happened here—and in other places. You have much to answer for, Ithel of Meara.”
“If I have, it is not to you!” Ithel retorted, though his answer carried not nearly as much conviction as he would have wished. “You have usurped the legitimate succession in Meara. I answer only to my sovereign Lady, Caitrin of Meara, she who is lawful successor to Prince Jolyon, the last Mearan Prince to rule this land independently.”
“Aye, so your brother also maintained, until the day he died,” Kelson said. “That did not save him, however; nor will it save you.”
“You murdered him, because he was the lawful heir to Meara after me!” Ithel cried. “And you murdered my sister!”
The sword in Kelson’s hand started to lift again, but then he stopped and let it rest across his shoulder once more.
“I executed your brother, because he murdered your sister—despite what you may prefer to believe,” the king said evenly. “And I shall do the same to you—not because of what you are, but because of what you have done.”
“You have no authority to try me,” Ithel said bravely. “I can be tried only by a court of my own peers.”
But his blood ran cold as the king’s crowned helm moved slowly back and forth in a gesture of negation.
“I almost pity you,” came the royal answer. “But I am King of Gwynedd and Prince of Meara, and I can afford no pity when justice must be done. My writ must run in all my lands. And I have with me all the authority I need to carry out my justice.”
As he swept his sword to include the men surrounding Ithel’s forces, Ithel felt himself flush with shame and fear.
“I am not a despot, however,” Kelson went on. “I shall not hold your men culpable for carrying out the orders of their superiors. Men of Meara, if you will throw down your weapons, I give you my word that only the guilty shall be punished. But if you force me to order the attack, I swear that I shall execute ten for every one of my men who is slain. Now, which is it to be?”
Their answer came not in words but in the sound of weapons being cast to the ground, until only Ithel and Brice remained armed, watching dumbly as Kelson’s men began riding into the square of surrendering men, cutting off groups of six or eight at a time and herding them into custody.
Finally, when only Ithel and Brice remained within the ring, Kelson and Morgan rode in, weapons sheathed. Brice started to raise his sword, but a glance from Morgan stopped him in mid-motion, frozen until Morgan rode close enough to relieve him of his weapon. Ithel, too, found himself unable to move; only sitting numb and motionless until Kelson had reached casually across to take his sword as well, helpless before the Haldane gaze.
“Bind them and bring them before my tent when camp is made,” Kelson ordered, not even bothering to look at Ithel anymore as he and Morgan turned to leave the ring of steel.
Meanwhile, two more rings of steel were readied to close on their unsuspecting targets. The first was in the crowded great hall at Rhemuth Castle, where Nigel Haldane presided from a thronelike chair on the dais, flanked by tables of busily writing clarks, and pretended to listen to the petitions of diverse merchants.
“When Lord Henry brings his wool to market at Abbeyford, however, he pays no tithe to the monks, the town, or any other local lord,” a bailiff was reading. “If Lord Henry believes he is above the law …”
Nigel knew, of course, of the ring of steel prepared for him—and had prepared his own counter-ring after Richenda warned him the night before. It was the Torenthi agents who would be caught when the trap was finally sprung—not Nigel.
Nigel had even sweetened the trap by allowing young King Liam to attend court, ostensibly to receive the greetings of the Torenthi trade contingents and gain experience in statecraft. Even now, the boy was fidgeting on a stool at Nigel’s right, uncomfortable in the stiff, formal clothing that court protocol decreed f
or a king, beginning to be bored with the seemingly endless petitions. He had grown increasingly biddable since being taken from his mother’s influence, however; and Morag herself was safely under guard in another part of the castle, lest she attempt to lend Deryni aid to the plot about to unfold.
And if there were other Deryni in the surprise contingent that Nigel was expecting, he was prepared for them as well. Richenda and Rothana sat unobtrusively in the musicians’ gallery at the far end of the hall, and Bishop Arilan watched from behind an arras to the left. Nor was he totally without recourse himself, though he hoped he would not be called upon to test his meager skills.
As for the physical aspects of Nigel’s preparations, an attentive Conall sat on a stool at his left, ready to command nearly a score of extra guards strategically stationed around the hall. Saer de Traherne lurked in the withdrawing room right behind the dais with another twenty men. Archers manned the side galleries as well, posing as servants, and Haldane agents comprised one entire trade delegation waiting just outside in the yard.
Having made due preparation, then, Nigel felt ready to deal with whatever might present itself. What he had not expected was the timorous appearance of Jehana and her confessor in the doorway of a side passage leading from the hall, off to the right. What was she doing here?
At her urgent signal that he should join her, he sent a page to inquire—young Payne, who had been attending Liam. A few seconds later, Payne came back.
“She says it’s very important, sir,” the boy whispered in his father’s ear. “You’re to come immediately. She says it can’t wait until after court.”
A glance in her direction confirmed the insistence in her face, and the priest looked anxious as well. The chamberlain reading the current petition was just winding up, so Nigel leaned closer to Conall.
“Make the appropriate noises about taking the petition under advisement,” he murmured. “I’ll be right back.”
The King’s Justice Page 23