The Bastard Prince

by Katherine Kurtz

  —Psalms 94:21

  At least his fever seemed to have lessened. His head ached almost as much as his arm, from the aftereffects of the syrup of poppies, and he knew he would have to take more to endure the jolting of a day’s ride, but neither his brow nor his arm felt as hot as they had the night before. Stacia had left the tacil with them, and Cathan handed the king another dose of it before letting him even stir from bed.

  Rhys Michael made a face at the bitter taste but drank it down. He groaned as he got out of bed and let Cathan help him set about washing and dressing. His whole body ached, and every movement was stiff.

  “A lot of that is normal, considering what else you went through, in the process of getting stepped on,” Fulk said cheerily, as he packed up their belongings in saddlebags. “Do you want Stevanus to see you before you go downstairs?”

  “No, he won’t give me any painkiller until I’ve eaten anyway. I’ll see him in the hall after Mass.”

  “Very well. I’ll take some of these down to the yard while you finish, then, and meet you both in the chapel.”

  As soon as he was gone, Rhys Michael glanced at Cathan, who was bringing the red brigandine to put on him. As on the day before, he wore leather breeches and boots and a loose-sleeved tunic, for he could not get the tunic of his riding leathers over his bandaged hand.

  “I take it you got our friend away safely last night,” he murmured.

  Cathan settled the brigandine over the royal head and started doing up the side buckles. “Why don’t you Read it direct while I do this? It’s safer if we don’t speak.”

  Closing his eyes, Rhys Michael set his good hand on Cathan’s forearm and scanned for the memory, fetching out images of a slim but well-built young man with curly brown hair standing with his right hand clasped in Cathan’s, the blue eyes all but veiled by long lashes, lightly entranced. Sir Robert Ainslie had fearlessly accepted the king’s commission from Cathan, and offered no resistance when Cathan set such compulsions as he could.

  “He was away before midnight,” Cathan murmured, as Rhys Michael emerged from the probe. “Changing horses, and with minimal stops for rest, he should be in Rhemuth in about four days.”

  The king himself rode out of Lochalyn at midmorning, after hearing Mass with Lady Stacia, her family, and officers and eating rather more than he really wanted while standing in the castle’s hall, after which Stevanus allowed him his pain medication. They were in the saddle soon after, with Graham, Sighere, and Corban riding with them for the first few miles as escort, accompanied by a score of fierce borderers. The men they had brought from Rhemuth went with them, but the levies from Caerrorie, Sheele, and Valoret would stay for another week or so, under the joint command of Joshua Delacroix and Iver MacInnis, in case the Torenthi withdrawal had been but a feint.

  All too soon, time came for the three Kheldour lords to take personal leave of him, drawing rein to briefly touch gauntleted fists to armored breasts, proud heads inclining in wordless homage. Flanked by Rhun and Manfred, Rhys Michael could not go to them, but he read their fierce devotion as he bade them a formal farewell, wishing he could tell them what their loyalty meant to him, wishing he could stay.

  As the mounted forms receded in a cloud of dust, heading back toward Lochalyn, Rhun and Manfred drew him on. The syrup of poppies was gradually lulling his pain to a dull ache, and soon his thoughts were less for regret of what he was leaving than minding that he did not doze and fall off his horse.

  Meanwhile, from the slight disruption of the depleted Gwynedd camp, Ansel, Jesse, and Tieg had watched from the shade of a sprawling oak as the king rode past, noting the bandaged hand supported in a sling over his armor. He looked thinner than when he had arrived, pale and drawn. Tieg shook his head as the royal cavalcade receded, heading out across the plain of Iomaire.

  “I certainly would like to have gotten a look at that hand,” he murmured. “He looked as if he was in quite a bit of pain.”

  “I think you and I will pay a quick visit to Lady Stacia,” Jesse said. “This may be our best chance, while the men are riding out with the king.”

  A quarter hour later, a servant was showing the two into the laird’s solar at Lochalyn, where a slight, energetic girl-woman with a mane of dark red hair was sorting the contents of a pair of large chests. Several more women were sweeping and scrubbing, stripping the great bed, shaking out sleeping furs, bustling at the domestic chores involved in running a large household. A baby cooed contentedly in a nicely carved cradle, and a pair of shaggy grey wolfhounds lolled lethargically around it—ample reason why the servant had no qualms about bringing two strange young men to his lady’s bower.

  “These two men tae see ye, Lady Stacia.”

  The redheaded woman glanced at the two newcomers but continued folding a dull green tunic.

  “Aye?”

  Jesse inclined his head, reaching out to probe, but she was lightly shielded so he withdrew.

  “We are friends of the king, my lady. May we speak with you in private?”

  She flicked her gaze over them appraisingly.

  “The king rode out an hour ago,” she said.

  “Aye, he did,” Jesse replied.

  The dark eyes flicked over them again; then she gestured toward a doorway in the corner of the room that led into a turret stair.

  “Come ye this way,” she said.

  As they followed her, one of the wolfhounds bestirred itself to press past her up the spiral stair, waiting with tail-wagging impatience until she had opened the small door to the roof parapet and it could crowd through. The sun was warm and steady, gentled by a faint breeze. She dropped her hand to the wolfhound’s head as she turned to face the two of them.

  “Despite yer tweeds, I dinnae think ye be Kheldour men,” she said. “I receive ye fer the sake o’ the king, who is my liege. What is it ye wished tae say tae me?”

  For answer, Jesse held out one cupped hand and conjured silvery handfire in it. The fire was pale in the direct sunlight, but she saw it, and her dark eyes widened. The wolfhound yawned.

  “We came in hopes of helping the king, my lady,” Jesse murmured, as he extinguished the fire. “Unfortunately, we were never able to get close enough to him to offer our assistance. My companion is a Healer. We hoped you might be able to tell us of the king’s injury. It may be possible to gain access to him later, on the road.”

  Her gaze shifted over Tieg’s lanky, gangling frame, then back to Jesse.

  “He didnae mention that he had Deryni helpin’ him,” she said.

  “The great lords must not know,” Jesse replied. “Friendship with Deryni has already been the death of one Haldane king.”

  “It’s true, then,” she murmured. “He said they had killed his brother Javan an’ others, that he has been spared only tae breed heirs.”

  “If he told you that, then it’s clear he trusts you,” Tieg said. “Will you trust us? We need to know about his injury.”

  Stacia bit at her lip, fondling at the dog’s ears.

  “Ye need tae know more’n that,” she murmured. “The hand isnae good—a horse trod on it, an’ bones were crushed—but I dinnae think ’tis only that wha’ worries him. He had a document drawn, appointin’ Uncle Sighere an’ my cousin Graham as regents.”

  “A document?” Jesse breathed, exchanging a glance with Tieg.

  Drawing careful breath, the young Healer moved a step closer to Stacia, the hazel eyes dark and serious in the boyish face.

  “My lady, we have many questions and not much time. I think you know as well as we, how desperate is the king’s plight. We know your mother was Deryni. Will you allow me to Read the details we need? I give you my word, on my Healer’s oath, that I will do you no harm, nor Read past what concerns the king.”

  A faint smile tugged at her lips. “Yer voice is a man’s, but can ye be old enou’ tae have sworn the Healer’s oath?” she said.

  He grinned in return, looking a little sheepish. “My teachers tell me I am someth
ing of a prodigy. My father was a Healer called Rhys Thuryn. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”

  “Och, aye.” Her smile turned to a grin to match his own. “An’ Rhys Thuryn an’ his kin were e’er friends o’ the Haldane line. Wha’ will ye have me do?”

  “Crouch down here beside me,” he said, flicking a wary eye toward the wolfhound as he dropped to his knees, “and please reassure your friend that I mean you no harm.”

  “Conn? Och, he’s but a big baby. He willnae hurt ye.”

  As she slipped to a sitting position with her back to the parapet wall, the wolfhound merely settled and laid its great head in her lap. Jesse had turned his gaze out over the wall, watching for the return of Stacia’s kin, and glanced down at them as Stacia settled.

  “Try to make this quick,” he murmured.

  “As quick as I can.”

  She closed her eyes before Tieg could even clasp her head between his hands. The shielding both he and Jesse had sensed melted away at the first touch of his probe, and she breathed out a tiny sigh as he gently took control. After blocking what little power she had, he drove deep, assimilating all her memories since Rhys Michael’s arrival. The king’s plan was brilliant, if it worked—and a dangerous gamble. But knowing of it, they perhaps could help facilitate its success, if the great lords called his bluff.

  The condition of the king’s injured hand was less encouraging, though Tieg decided that the “tacil” Stacia’s midwife had given the king for fever probably was talicil, a mainstay of the Healer’s pharmacopoeia; it would have been his choice as well. He regretted that he had none with him to give her, to replace what had been sent with the king, for with the village Healer long dead, there would be no more until Deryni once more could walk freely in Gwynedd.

  But he had learned what he needed to know. He restored Stacia’s meager powers—a smattering of shields only, with perhaps a hint of Truth-Reading ability that would never come through as more than hunches—then gave her a brief assurance of the support that others of the king’s friends might be expected to give in assisting the Kheldour regency, if it came to that. She blinked and peered at him as he brought her out of trance.

  “My mother was better a’ this than I am,” she murmured, one hand shifting to caress the wolfhound’s ears. “I dinnae know what help I can be to the king.”

  “You can be his eyes and ears here in Eastmarch,” Jesse replied. He had crouched down beside them, to read the spillover from Tieg while the Healer worked. “If Graham and Sighere can achieve the regency, if anything should happen to the king, at least there’s a chance of eventually breaking the power of the great lords. With Albertus and Paulin already out of the picture, the process may already have started, if we can keep up the momentum.”

  “If the king dies,” Stacia said, lifting her chin determinedly, “Graham an’ Sighere will be at the gates o’ Rhemuth with armed men at their backs, demandin’ their rights, an’ the rights o’ the young prince. We willnae fail him, Master Healer. Tell him that, if ye can see him. An’ tell the rest o’ his Deryni friends.”

  “I will that, my lady,” Tieg replied.

  Since the king’s arrival in Lochalyn, Joram had ordered that someone be on duty at all times in the domed chamber where the Camberian Council met, with a monitoring link ready for activation at any time Ansel or one of his party should attempt to open communication. When Tieg sought contact after his and Jesse’s return from Lochalyn, it was Queron Kinevan on duty. Within half an hour of receiving Tieg’s report, he had the other available members of the rebels’ leadership gathered around the octagonal table and had shared Tieg’s intelligence.

  “The codicil idea is brilliant,” Joram acknowledged, “but can he pull it off?”

  Queron shrugged. “I certainly have the impression that Stacia and her menfolk will do whatever they can to enforce the decree, should that become necessary. Fortunately, their loyalty totally outweighs the fact that they’d stand to benefit if the king did die, so we don’t need to worry about them helping him along.”

  “True enough,” Niallan agreed, “and the very threat that the codicil exists should be sufficient to keep Rhun and Manfred in line, because they no longer stand to benefit from his death, if they have to share a regency with Kheldour. Once they know about it, I should think they’d do everything in their power to keep the king alive. It’s a pity he couldn’t have promulgated a second document as well, denouncing his great lords and calling upon his loyal Kheldour lords to free him and his family from their tyranny. They would have helped him, if he’d elected to stay; he’s going home because of Michaela and the young prince.”

  “You’re assuming,” Dom Rickart said, “that the king will survive his injuries.” He folded his pale Healer’s hands before him as if in prayer, tapping his fingertips against his lips. “All our impressions are several times removed, of course, but the fever is worrisome. While we must bless that unknown Healer who left a legacy of talicil to the goodwoman Lady Stacia brought to the king, talicil may not be enough.”

  “Are you saying this injury may be life-threatening?” Joram asked.

  Rickart shrugged. “That’s impossible to say, without actually examining him. He has fever; he’s in considerable pain. Quite aside from the fact that I mistrust the motives of any Custodes surgeon, I very much doubt that the good Master Stevanus was able to set the shattered bones correctly. If the hand heals that way, even if there are no other complications, movement is almost certain to be impaired. And as Queron will tell you—or Camlin, whose wrists will never be quite right—it is not always possible to effect full corrective Healing after the fact.”

  Camlin rubbed at one of his wrists, nodding, feeling for the king. “Couldn’t we send a Healer to intercept the king’s party?” he asked. “Perhaps in disguise—”

  Joram shook his head. “The only likely outcome of that is of losing another good man—if not the Healer himself, apprehended before he could even reach the king, then perhaps the king himself, once it was discovered that he had been Healed.”

  “I thought we’d already agreed that the codicil would protect him,” Niallan said.

  “It could protect him, if they believe he’s actually executed it and managed to get the copies dispersed; it wouldn’t necessarily protect the Healer.”

  “There’s some danger, I agree,” Queron muttered. “I still feel that a Healer ought to see him.”

  Niallan raised a grey eyebrow. “You surely don’t propose that we risk Tieg?”

  “No, no, I had myself in mind,” Queron replied. He held up a hand, shaking his head. “Now, don’t all of you jump on me; I know what I’m proposing. I was looking at the map while I waited for all of you to arrive. They’ll certainly overnight at Saint Cassian’s tonight, but they’re headed back the same way they came, toward Ebor and Sheele and Valoret. I’m the first to admit that using the Portals at any of those locations is too dangerous, but there’s the secondary Portal at Caerrorie, which isn’t that far off the line of march. I could disguise myself as an itinerant monk, a hospitaller of some sort, make my way from Caerrorie to Valoret, and then head north on the King’s Road until I meet with the returning army.”

  “And then what?” Joram demanded. “Walk right up to Rhun and introduce yourself and demand to see the king?”

  Queron rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair, drumming his fingertips on his chair arm.

  “Of course not. But I can find out what the king’s condition is by then. If it proves impossible for me to see him without subjecting myself to unreasonable risk, perhaps I can at least influence someone who does have access to him, if things can be done for him via conventional medicine that aren’t being done.”

  “Those risks are acceptable,” Rickart said, before Joram could disagree. “For that matter, it might be possible for Tieg to do much the same sort of thing, until Queron can get there to take over. We could ask him and Ansel and Jesse to shadow the army as they head south and watch for opportunities to f
ind out more.”

  The creases in Niallan’s brow had been deepening as Rickart spoke, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I—ah—believe we may be losing sight of the fact that Tieg is not yet fourteen. I know he looks older, with all that gangly height and those big hands, but I’d be very surprised if he yet has the conventional training to do that kind of infiltration. Correct me if I’m wrong, but so far as I was aware, the bulk of his preparation to date has been centered around his vocation as a Healer.”

  “That’s quite true,” Queron replied, “and I’m not prepared to risk him, under any circumstances. But Ansel and Jesse do have the necessary skills to ferret out the kind of information Rickart was talking about. They could have collected a great deal of valuable information by the time I meet up with them. And if Tieg’s assessments as a Healer are necessary, those can be done indirectly, without risking him overmuch.

  “I really think this is the only reasonable approach we can take, just now,” he went on. “The twin factors of the codicil and the king’s injury make this both a more and less stable situation than it has been for the past six years. It may totally change what we were planning for year’s end. I think we’re going to have to be both flexible and conservative in our approach until we see how the current situation resolves.”

  They continued to discuss practicalities of the coming exercise for another hour, also agreeing that while Rhysel ought be alerted to what was happening, the queen should not be told.

  “I fear for the poor lass, if the king doesn’t make it through this,” Queron told Joram, after the others had returned to the sanctuary. “This pregnancy still has a long way to go. If she should lose the king and this new baby, the way she lost the first one, I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to salvage the Haldane line—or if it’s worth even trying anymore. One four-year-old prince isn’t much on which to base a strong dynasty.”

  Joram only shook his head and dropped it to one hand. “Queron, I don’t even want to think about that possibility,” he murmured. “And I don’t want to think about what I’ll do if anything happens to you. Since we found out about the queen’s new pregnancy, we’ve been focusing our preparations to make a major attempt at shifting the balance back in Rhys Michael’s favor later in the year; but don’t lose sight of what you and I have been doing for the last six years, in addition to monitoring the Haldane situation.”