Together they heaved the dead man onto his back, where the cause of his death became immediately evident. The hilt of a Haldane squire’s dagger was protruding from under the man’s chin, its blade driven up through the jaw and into the brain. The man appeared to be the one Kenneth had chased down the nave and lost.
“Well, at least you got him,” Kenneth muttered. “He got away from me.”
Behind him, the sound of running footsteps told of further company about to arrive, and monks were beginning to creep from their hiding places and venture closer, now that the danger appeared to be past. Meanwhile, Kenneth was making his own assessment of Jamyl’s condition, prodding tentatively at a great bloody rent in the younger man’s sleeve.
“Is any of that blood his, or is it mostly yours?” As he said it, he glanced up at the gallery behind them, but he could see no sign of Sé Trelawney. If others had seen him, it was likely they had taken him for one of the lancer archers.
Jamyl winced as he made his own inspection of his wounded arm, grimacing as his hand came away red.
“Mmm, mostly mine, I’m afraid, though some of it probably comes from that fellow.”
He nodded toward the nearest of the other men sprawled in the vicinity, who wore a cowled monk’s robe like the others. The man appeared to be breathing, but his face was covered with blood from a deep cut that sliced from the bridge of his nose downward past the right-hand corner of his mouth.
“Another nasty friend, eh?” Kenneth retorted, tight-jawed, as he reached for his sword.
But Jamyl grabbed urgently at Kenneth’s hand with his bloodied one and shook his head, the blue-violet eyes engaging Kenneth’s as they had up in the gallery—though this time, no compulsion accompanied the intensity of his gaze.
“He is not one of them, my lord,” Jamyl said very deliberately. “He is…an associate.”
“An associate?” Kenneth repeated. “What kind of—”
“Not now, my lord!” Jamyl whispered, casting an anxious glance beyond Kenneth, for Richard and the king were nearly upon them, both with swords in their fists, and Bishop Faxon Howard not far behind.
Do not betray me! came Jamyl’s further plea, as he collapsed back, moaning, though his double-squeeze of Kenneth’s hand told Kenneth that the moan was more for effect than an indication of real discomfort.
“Jamyl!” Brion cried, sheathing his sword as he pressed between the gathering monks to approach. Richard was heading on to check the other body, its features charred beyond recognition and an arrow through its throat. “Is he all right? And who the devil is that?” he added, pointing at the dead man with a Haldane squire’s dagger protruding from underneath his chin.
“I don’t know, Sire,” Jamyl said baldly before Kenneth could answer. “He was attacking one of the monks as I came down from the galleries,” he added, jutting his chin in the direction of his wounded “associate.” “When I tried to intervene, he attacked me.”
“See to both of them,” Bishop Faxon ordered, beckoning toward some of the other clergy personnel hovering nearby. “And see whether any of the others are alive.”
“It looks like one of our archers got this one,” Richard said, prodding the other dead man with a toe. “Sweet Jesu, how did he get so burned? Look at his hand and face!”
“He was Deryni, my lord!” said one of the monks, who came scurrying from behind a nearby column. “Look!” He pointed toward the damaged wall, with its singed and pocked mortar. “Praise God, that your man was able to stop him!”
Later inquiry among the remaining Haldane lancers never revealed just who had shot the arrow that stopped the man, and none of the archbishop’s guards ever admitted to it. Nor did Kenneth enlighten them. But he knew beyond any doubt that he, and quite possibly the king, owed their lives to the timely intervention of Sir Sé Trelawney.
Later that evening, with Jamyl patched up and mobile, if looking a bit peaked, Kenneth Morgan was obliged to give a fuller reckoning to the king and his uncle regarding what had happened that day in the cathedral. Sitting after supper with Brion and Duke Richard—but not the new archbishop or any of his associates—Kenneth chose his words carefully, very aware of the need to protect the secret identity of his erstwhile ally, who was excused from serving table on account of his injury, but installed nonetheless in a chair by the fire, his injured arm supported in a sling to ease his wound. He had long before decided that he would not mention Sé. He did not know what connection there might be between the Anviller knight and the squire sitting across the table from them, but he knew he must protect both of them, if at all possible.
“There is really very little to tell, beyond what you already know,” Kenneth said, topping up Duke Richard’s cup and then his own when Brion passed a hand over his own cup and shook his head. Jamyl was still nursing his initial cup, along with his wounded arm, and likewise declined.
“I met up with Jamyl after you sent me to stand-down the archers, up in the clerestory galleries, and we found Milo Guthrie dead.” That much was true. “I sent Jamyl across to the other side while I took Milo’s bow and continued forward—and saw the two men drawing down on the two of you. So I shot the first one and rushed the second; I’d only the one arrow, but I’d known I’d only have time for one shot, if there was more treachery.”
He paused to take a swallow of wine, carefully choosing the next part of his story. Knowing that Alyce had at least begun awakening Brion’s ability to Truth-Read, he knew he dared not lie outright, but he could be economical with his details. Everything had happened very quickly.
“After that, it was a matter of getting downstairs to you as quickly as I could. As I threaded my way down that ridiculous internal turnpike stair at the transept, afraid that I was going to get stuck, it occurred to me that only a Deryni could have subverted any of our men in the space of only a few hours—and that maybe he’d gotten to more than just the two I’d killed. That’s why I ordered the ones on the ground to drop their weapons. When the one in the back broke and ran, I figured he had to be our infiltrator.”
“And Jamyl had gotten down by then,” Brion said eagerly, still smiling at the image Kenneth had conjured of getting stuck in the turnpike stair, “so he was able to corner him there by the baptistery chapel.” He flashed his squire a pleased grin, eliciting a raised cup and a wan, answering smile.
“He very nearly crushed me to death, Sire,” Jamyl allowed, seizing on the opportunity to embroider on the humor Brion was finding in the story. The king was only fourteen and a bit, after all. “He was wearing mail and a breast and back under those monk’s robes. The only place I could get at him was above the neck—though that certainly sufficed.”
Brion shivered deliciously, though Richard looked thoughtful—and he was the one to be convinced, Kenneth realized, though the prince’s next comment suggested that he was not questioning the story.
“I didn’t teach you that,” Richard muttered, “though it’s a good move. It would certainly stop a man quickly. Did you learn that in King Illann’s service?”
Jamyl only shrugged and lifted his cup to the royal duke in salute, then drank again, hoping the assumption would suffice.
“Humph,” was all Richard said, though his tone was thoughtful and not at all suspicious. “I wonder if we’ll ever know who he was—or the other one, who was tossing lightning at us. The armor is Torenthi; at least the breast and back are. Very fine workmanship—and the other man’s sword is worth a small fortune. Someone is going to miss them….”
“Aye, and they’ll have friends,” Kenneth said. “I’m sure the word will get out. Whoever they were, they were enemies of Gwynedd.”
“Aye, that’s a certainty!” Richard retorted.
But Kenneth knew precisely who one of the dead men was, and by whom he had been sent, thanks to Jamyl—whose Deryni identity had been a complete surprise.
As for any connection between Jamyl and Sé Trelawney, other than their shared Deryni heritage…Kenneth took a long pull at hi
s wine, well aware that Deryni were very good at keeping secrets.
THEY had considered leaving Jamyl behind for a day to rest with the monks, but he woke the next morning declaring that he was fit enough to travel. During the night, while checking on his wounded “associate”—who would always bear the scar of the day’s misadventure—he had also learned of another body found in the cathedral sacristy, armored like the man he had killed, and with not a mark upon him. Hearing that, he asked about the boy chorister who had taken ill before the ceremony; but the monks assured him that the boy had rejoined his choir immediately after Mass, long before trouble erupted. Jamyl suspected that the story’s full telling might only be revealed when he had talked to his brother, but he kept his suspicions to himself as he retired at last to his bed and a restless night’s sleep.
Thus reassured, he was, indeed, fit to travel the next day—and he was fit enough for other things as well. Before leaving for Rhemuth, Kenneth and Richard took the opportunity to interview all the remaining lancers, lest some remained under the influence of the mysterious attacker Jamyl had slain; but there were none. It was Jamyl who brought the men, one by one, into the room set aside for that purpose in the abbot’s apartments; but even the brief transit down the corridor to get there was sufficient for him to satisfy himself that no one else had been tainted.
Kenneth quietly accepted Jamyl’s subtle assistance, and managed to convey the impression to Brion and Richard that his confidence in the questioning was due entirely to the interrogation skills of Richard and himself.
Despite Jamyl’s protestations that he was fit, they spent three days traveling back to Rhemuth instead of two, though that still would leave them with nearly a fortnight before the coronation. They had sent a pair of lancers on ahead to advise the queen and crown council of their imminent arrival.
All of the royal household were there on the great hall steps to greet them as they rode into the castle yard, the queen coming right down onto the muddy forecourt to grasp at her son’s stirrup, clinging to him as he swung down to embrace her. Prince Nigel and the king’s two sisters were also waiting to greet them, and Brion spared each of them a hug and a few words of cheer before mounting the great hall steps to receive the welcomes and good wishes of his ministers of state.
Seeing Seisyll Arilan there among them, nodding greeting to his nephew as they all dismounted, reminded Kenneth that Seisyll, too, must be Deryni like his nephew, though he found himself taking comfort in the realization that at least one more Deryni secretly served the House of Haldane. He did not know whether Jamyl would tell his uncle of confiding in Kenneth Morgan—he hoped not. The elder Arilan had always made Kenneth vaguely uneasy, though he had chalked it up to personality differences; now he knew the real reason. But he also knew that he would do his utmost to protect both these courageous Deryni who were pledged, like him, to protect the king and the royal house of Gwynedd.
But there was one person missing from the welcome home, whose well-being now became Kenneth’s focused concern. The first thing he did, when he had seen his horse looked after and taken his leave of the king and Duke Richard, was to seek out his son.
Hurrying inside, he made his way down the great hall to the stairwell that led up to the apartment he had been assigned before the present mission. Sir Llion was waiting for him just at the entrance to that stairwell, with a small, towheaded boy in his charge. Young Alaric gave a squeal of joy as he saw his father, breaking away from Llion’s grasp to come racing across the stone flags as his father knelt on one knee to receive him.
“Papa! You’re back!” the boy cried, flinging himself into his sire’s embrace to shower him with kisses. “Papa, Papa!”
“I take it that you missed me,” Kenneth replied, hugging the boy in return and glancing up as Llion sauntered nearer, smiling faintly. “Will Sir Llion tell me that you’ve been good?”
“Of course I have!” Alaric replied indignantly. “I promised Mama. And I can write all my letters now; Llion helped me practice. I can even read—well, some,” he added, at Llion’s look askance.
“Well, then, you shall have to show me,” Kenneth said, standing with the boy in his arms to exchange a handclasp with Llion.
As the two adults climbed the wide turnpike stair, Alaric riding happily in his father’s embrace, Llion gave a sketchy report of his young charge’s activities in Kenneth’s absence, and Kenneth, in turn, gave the young knight a bare-bones account of what had transpired when the new archbishop was enthroned.
“We got at least two of the instigators,” Kenneth told Llion, “but it was a near-run thing. We have Master Jamyl’s clearheadedness partially to thank for it.” He did not add that, without Jamyl’s assistance, both the king and his royal uncle might have returned from Valoret as the subjects of a funeral cortege, and that the nine-year-old Prince Nigel might now be King of Gwynedd.
The next days seemed to evaporate with little to show for them, as preparations for the coronation of Brion Haldane shifted into their final phases. A week before the scheduled coronation day, foreign emissaries and nobles from the outlying regions began to arrive, again swelling the city’s guest accommodations to near-capacity.
Visitors staying in the castle dined in the great hall every night, though the fare was far simpler than what would be provided on coronation day. Most evenings, the young king made a point of joining his guests, at least for a little while, always attended by Jamyl and with at least one crown counselor at his back. Usually, it was Kenneth.
Through all these days and nights, Kenneth often pondered the whys and wherefores by which both his and the king’s lives had been saved by the presence of an elusive Knight of the Anvil, who had been the childhood friend of Alyce de Corwyn Morgan, and who once had been a knight of Lendour.
It came as little surprise to Kenneth, then, that Sé Trelawney was present on coronation day as well, as the new archbishop crowned Brion Donal Cinhil Urien Haldane King of Gwynedd. Kenneth never saw him in the lead-up to the ceremony; but as Brion swore his coronation oath, right hand set upon Holy Writ, Sé was there in the background, the hood of his black mantle pushed back, standing with arms folded across the breast of his long black robe, just above the white slash of his knight’s belt.
He was there—though no one else seemed to be aware of it—when Brion knelt beneath a golden canopy to receive the marks of holy chrism on head and breast and hands, sealing him to the service of his kingdom.
And he was there when Archbishop Paul lifted Gwynedd’s great state crown of leaves and crosses intertwined and spoke the ancient words of king-making over Brion’s bowed head:
“Bless, we beseech Thee, O Lord, this crown, and so sanctify Thy servant Brion, upon whose head Thou dost place it as a sign of royal majesty…”
Kenneth was certain he saw Sé standing just behind the other bishops, hands upraised in benison, with the tattooed crosses dark against his inner wrists, and he seemed to hear other words inside his head.
In the name of Holy Camber, be king for all thy people of Gwynedd, human and Deryni, and reign in wisdom for all thy days…
And finally, Sé was there to offer up his fealty with the other Lendour knights, kneeling to place his joined hands briefly between Brion’s. Kenneth could not hear what passed between then, but Brion told him later that evening, as Kenneth led the happily exhausted king to the royal apartments to help him disrobe as he prepared for bed.
“Did you see that Anviller who came up with the other knights to pledge fealty, Kenneth? He told me he had been a close friend of Lady Alcye. He showed me the tattoos on his wrists, and said that he could not give me the same fealty that the other knights gave, because he now served a different Lord, but he said that if it were within his power, he would always be there when I had need.
“He told me that he was Deryni, and that his powers were mine to command, if ever I should need his services—within the limits of his vows to his order, of course. And he told me that he would look after you and
your son as well: that both of you were pledged to my service in a very special way, and that one day, your Alaric should be my Deryni protector, and awaken the full measure of my father’s Haldane legacy.” Brion paused slightly in his disrobing.
“I remember that something happened in that regard when you brought me for that last visit to your wife’s bedside. He knew about that, and he said that she had awakened a part of that legacy as her last act of service and duty to the Haldane line….”
“He told you all of that, my prince, in the time it took to set his hands between yours?” Kenneth asked, when the king had wound down and was gazing distantly at the fire on the other side of the room. He did not doubt that Sé had conveyed all of this to the king—and in the blink of an eye—but he wondered whether Brion grasped the full significance of the gift he had been given.
“He did, Kenneth,” the king replied, an odd expression coming across his face as he thought about what he had actually said. “I know he did; it’s all very clear. But I cannot, for the life of me, explain how he must have done it.”
“I expect it will come to you in time, my prince,” Kenneth said gently. He smiled as he watched the king yawn hugely and crawl beneath the coverlet of the great, canopied state bed. “I have no doubt now that a good many things will come to you in time.”
Afterward, when he had drawn the bed curtains, extinguished most of the candles, and left instructions with Jamyl, who would sleep in the adjoining room, Kenneth let himself out and returned to his own quarters, where his precious son slept. Sir Llion lay on a pallet at the foot of the boy’s cot, also sound asleep.
Moving quietly, so as not to wake either one of them, Kenneth slipped his sword from its hangers and laid it on his own bed, then eased closer to Alaric’s bedside to gaze down at his sleeping son, the future hope of the Haldanes, and perhaps of the Deryni race.
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