In the King's Service tcmt-1

by Katherine Kurtz

  Sief had never spoken of it to the Council, either, though privately he had intimated to Donal that certain of his not inconsiderable powers were at the prince's service. After all, part of the reason for the Council's very existence — and for Sief’s placement in the royal household — was to safeguard the Haldane line on the throne of Gwynedd; for the Haldanes knew, as other humans did not, that the Deryni, properly ruled, posed little threat to the human population.

  In practice, Sief’s direct service to the king as a Deryni had been limited, and extremely discreet. Those of his race were able to determine when a person was lying — a talent of undoubted use to a king. In addition, a trained Deryni could usually compel disclosures when a person attempted simply to tell part of the truth, or to withhold it. With care, the memories of a person subjected to such attentions could even be blurred to hide what had been done — though such investigations were always carried out in private. The court was only aware that Sir Sief MacAthan was an extremely skilled interrogator. More often, he merely stood at the king's side and observed, only later reporting on the veracity of what had been said.

  Over the years, such attention to nuance of truth and falsehood had become second-nature when in the king's presence. Why, then, were Sief’s senses suddenly all atingle? Surely it was not at the prospect that the queen was once again with child.

  «Then, the palace gossip is correct», Sief said tentatively.

  «Palace gossip», Donal said, standing up with fists set to hips. «Surety you don't pay any mind to that.»

  «I do, when it may pertain to the welfare of the kingdom, Sire», Sief replied. «Prince Brion is still shy of his first birthday. It is still very early for a new pregnancy for the queen. Self-restraint, my lord», he added, trying not to sound self-righteous.

  «A king needs an heir and a spare», Donal said breezily, «and good men to guard them and guide them as they grow. You know the heartache of losing sons, Sief. I must make certain that Brion has brothers».

  Suddenly Sief caught just a flicker of subtle evasion: not a lie, but a truth not fully divulged. To his consternation, it sparked a dread possibility that had never come to mind before, but which might make sense of several things in the year since the prince's birth; but he put such thoughts aside as he forced an uneasy chuckle.

  «Just now», Sief said, «methinks Prince Brion needs his mother more than he needs brothers. At least have a care for her, Sire. People would talk, were you to take a third queen».

  Donal shrugged, and his next words again left Sief with the impression that all was not being said.

  «People will always talk about kings. I little care, so long as the succession is secure».

  «There is Duke Richard, if all else were to fail», Sief pointed out.

  «True enough. But my brother Richard aspires to a warrior's fame — and he has the sheer ability to excel at it. He little cares for the finer diplomacies of the council chamber — or even of marriage, at least thus far», Donal added with a shrug. «Besides that, he is the fruit of my father's loins; not mine».

  «Aye, but blood is blood, Sire», Sief said, echoing the words of the Council not an hour earlier. «Richard is as much a Haldane as you or the new prince».

  He thought he saw Jessamy stiffen slightly at those words, though her gray-streaked head was bowed over the infant in her arms.

  «Indeed», the king said mildly. «I trust you aren't presuming to instruct me in my duties as a husband?»

  Sief raised a placating hand, hesitant to even consider pursuing the subject; but Donal's manner seemed increasingly evasive, making Sief wonder whether he had, indeed, stumbled on something he would be happier not knowing.

  He ventured a cautious probe, but Donal was tight-shuttered against even a surface reading. That was hardly unusual for the king, for Sief had long ago realized that Donal had shields as good as any Deryni’s — though whether they would stand up to any serious attempt to force them remained an unknown question. What alarmed him was that Jessamy likewise had retreated behind shields far stronger than he had believed her to possess.

  Chilled, he turned to look at her sharply — and caught just a hint of something in her eyes…

  With a little sob, she turned away from him in their bed, shielding the infant Krispin behind her body. In that instant, in an almost blinding flash of insight, Sief knew what more she was hiding — and Donal, as well.

  «You!» He whirled on the king, fury and betrayal in his dark glare. «He's yours, isn't he? You've made me a cuckold! Was it here, in this very bed?»

  Even as he said it, his clenched fist lifted and he lashed out with his powers, fully aware that he was threatening violence against the king to whom he had sworn fealty — and not caring, in his rage. To his utter astonishment, Donal Blaine Haldane answered with like force: potent and altogether too focused for what Sief had always imagined was the limit of the king's power. Before he could pull back, power slammed against his own closing shields and reverberated to the deepest core of his being, forcing a breach and starting a tear in his defenses that gaped ever wider, the more he tried to seal it.

  With that realization came fear and pain — more pain than he had ever experienced in his life or even imagined he could feel. It began in his head, exploding behind his eyes, but quickly ripped downward to center in his chest, like a giant fist closing on his heart. At the same time, he felt his limbs going numb, losing all sensation as his legs collapsed under him and his arms flailed like the arms of a marionette with its strings cut. Through blurring vision, he could just see Donal, right hand thrust between them with the fingers splayed in a warding-off gesture, and Donal's lips moving in words whose sense Sief could only barely comprehend.

  «Listen to me, Sief!» Donal's urgent plea only barely penetrated the scarlet agony blurring his vision. «Don't make me kill you! I need the boy. I need you!»

  Lies!» Sief managed to whisper from between gritted teeth, as the child — Donal's bastard! — started wailing. «Faithless, forsworn whoreson! I'll mind-rip you! — kill the bastard! — kill… you…!»

  Enraged beyond reason, Sief tried again to launch a counter-attack against this man — his king! — who had betrayed him, bucking upward from his slumped position and dragging himself to hands and knees, clawing a hand upward to help him focus — but to no avail. To his horror and dismay, the other's might was crushing him down, smothering the life from him — but he was too proud to yield, and too stubborn. All his life he had been so careful in how he used his powers, taken such pride in his abilities. He had always known that the Haldanes had powers that were akin to his own, but now, in extremis, he had not the strength or the abandon to turn his own powers to the wanton response that might have saved him.

  He could feel his mind ripping under the onslaught of an attack he wondered if Donal even comprehended. (Where had he gotten such power, and the knowledge of how to use it?)

  Hardly a whimper could he manage to force past his lips — nor could it have been heard, over the child's bawling! — but he could feel himself being dragged toward oblivion, all too aware that the damage only worsened as he struggled — and he couldn't not struggle! But somehow he had known, from that first flare of Donal's mind against his own, that there was neither any turning back nor any defense against this.

  His last coherent thought, just before the darkness claimed him, was regret that he would leave no son from this life — for Krispin was Donal's son.

  Yet still he tried to cling to that final image of the infant's puckered little face before his vision — the son that should have been his — as pain dragged him into an ever-darkening spiral downward and the last vestiges of awareness trickled into oblivion.

  Chapter 2

  «Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set».[3]

  The king could feel the pulse pounding in his temples as he made his outstretched fist unclench, face averted from the sight of his friend sinking into death, but he knew that he had had
no choice, once the deception was discovered.

  He had feared it might end this way if Sief found out. He knew Sief’s jealousy, and something of the chilly relationship between Sief and Jessamy; he well remembered when Jessamy had arrived at court as Sief’s reluctant child-bride.

  That had been over thirty years ago. It had been clear from the beginning that the two cared little for one another, though in time they appeared to have achieved a reasonable coexistence. Sief had shown a decided aptitude for diplomatic work, and had proven himself increasingly invaluable to both Donal and his father; and Jessamy, when she was not attending on a succession of Gwynedd's queens, had spent much of her time in child-bearing — though Donal knew that she had never departed from her marriage vows before Donal approached her.

  Donal himself could not say the same, though he had told himself that it was different for men, and for kings, and that his first queen's failure to provide an heir justified his occasional trysts with other ladies of the court — though never, until Jessamy, with the wife of a friend. The several children that had come of such liaisons at least reassured him of his own virility, but there had been no true-born heir until the passing of Queen Dulchesse had allowed his remarriage with the Princess Richeldis, followed by the arrival of Prince Brion.

  And none too soon, for Donal was no longer young. The child crown prince was thriving, and Donal was honestly enamoured of his new wife, but a king in his fifties might not live to see his heir grown to manhood — even an heir with the potential to wield the mystical powers of the Haldane royal line.

  Unless, of course, that heir had a powerful protector: a Deryni protector. The very notion was dangerous — and Donal had never considered Sief himself, who might have other aspirations than merely to serve his king and, besides, was no younger than Donal. But what if a Deryni could be found who was bound to the young prince from a very early age? What if the protector himself was a Haldane, as well as carrying the powerful Deryni bloodline? It meant, of course, that such a child would require a Deryni mother…

  It could be done — and had been done. Donal told himself that it had been no true betrayal of Sief, for he had not taken Sief s wife out of lust or even covetous desire; it had been an affair of state, in the truest sense of the word.

  But not in Sief’s eyes. Whatever his original intentions in marrying Jessamy, Sief would have regarded royal poaching on his marital prerogatives as, at very least, a breach of the feudal oaths that he and the king had exchanged. Donal regretted that.

  Jessamy, too, had betrayed Sief, though undoubtedly for very different reasons than Donal's. At least on some level, Donal sensed that she had seen this service to the king as one that she herself could render to the Crown of Gwynedd, beyond the reach of whatever arrangement had bound her to Sief other than her marriage vows. One day, when the shock of what he had just done was behind them, he would ask her what hold Sief had had over her. He suspected that it had something to do with both of them being Deryni, though he wasn't sure.

  But from childhood, he had surmised what Sief was — though he couldn't explain just how he had known — and he had sensed Jessamy's true nature soon after she arrived at court. In neither case did he feel either frightened or apprehensive, though he also took particular care not to let anyone else know, especially not any of the priests who frequented the court. Donal's father had never been particularly forthcoming about what it was that made the Haldanes so special, that they could wield some of the powers usually only accessible to Deryni. But he had made it clear that this was part of the Divine Right that made the Haldanes kings of Gwynedd, and that justified extraordinary measures to protect said kingship. So far, Donal Haldane had committed both adultery and murder to keep it.

  «Is he — dead?» came Jessamy's whispered question, putting an end to the tumble of speculation that momentarily had held the king apart from his act.

  Donal let his eyes refocus and glanced quickly around him. He had sunk to one knee beside the big bed, at the foot of which Sief sprawled motionless, apparently not breathing. Jessamy was lifting her head from over the infant clutched tight to her breast, her face white and bloodless as she craned forward to see. Krispin had stopped crying.

  «Donal? Is he…?»

  «I think so», the king said, a little sharply. He crawled on hands and knees to press his fingertips to the side of Sief's neck, just beneath the ear, but he could feel no pulse. The eyes were closed, and when Donal peeled back one eyelid, the pupil was fixed and dilated. But he had already known, in a way that had something to do with his Haldane kingship, that Sief’s essence was fled beyond retrieving, the quick mind stilled forever.

  «Jesu, I didn't mean for this to happen», Donal whispered, sinking back onto his heels. «But he'd guessed the truth. He turned on me. He was beyond reasoning».

  «I know», Jessamy said softly, burying her face against the blanket wrapped around her child — their child.

  «We shall say that it was his heart», Donal said dully, dragging himself upright against the side of the bed. «No one else need know otherwise. His heart stopped. That is the ultimate cause of all death, after all».

  Jessamy slowly raised her head to look at him.

  «You must not allow any of your nobles to inspect the body», she said.

  At his questioning look, she went on.

  «There are Deryni in your household whom you do not know. What you have just done — leaves certain signs that can be read by those who know how».

  «There are other Deryni in my household!» Donal repeated, incredulous. «Besides yourselves. And you did not tell me?»

  «I was not permitted to tell you», she replied. «I was physically incapable of telling you. I still cannot tell you certain things».

  The king's face went even more ashen, if that were possible, but indignant question was already stirring in his eyes.

  «They mean you no harm, Sire», she whispered, still clutching the child to her breast. «There are… those who have long been charged to watch over the House of Haldane, and to report back to… superiors. I am bound not to reveal their identities. They — have other obligations as well, an agenda of their own, which Sief served. It was they who required my marriage with him, after my father passed away».

  Donal simply stared at her for a long moment, finally bestirring himself to draw a deep breath.

  «Other Deryni», he murmured. «Why did it not occur to me before?»

  When she said nothing, he slowly got to his feet, his gaze drifting back to Sief’s body.

  «Is your brother one of them?» he said quietly, after a pause.

  «You know what he is, Sire», she replied. «And you know that he has always served you faithfully. More than that I may not tell you».

  «How dare…» He had started to answer her sharply, but broke off and took a deep breath, glancing again at Sief.

  «Jessamy», he whispered very softly, «you must help me in this. What we have done, we have done for the guarding of Gwynedd. But my guarding is incomplete, if I do not know as many of the dangers as possible. I must ask you again: What other Deryni are here at court?»

  «I cannot tell you», she said, very softly. «I wish that I could — but I cannot».

  She was silently weeping by the time Donal summoned help and men came running from outside Sief MacAthan's suite of rooms, in the part of the castle where the king's most trusted advisors were privileged to lodge. At that time, only the king himself was to know that the widow's tears were tears of relief, to be free at last of Sief’s long tyranny.

  * * *

  The Camberian Council learned of Sief’s death the following day, shortly after the news began to disseminate within the court at Rhemuth, for Seisyll Arilan attended on the court nearly every morning. Seisyll had been surprised to hear it, since Sief had seemed in good health the previous evening, but he dutifully set in motion the usual mechanism by which the Council was summoned outside their normal schedule of meetings, and continued to gath
er what further information he could, until time came for them to meet.

  «It seems to have taken everyone by surprise», Seisyll told his fellow Council members early that evening — now only five of them, for their missing member had yet to regain Portal access. «I'm informed that the king's own physician was summoned immediately, but there was nothing to be done».

  «You weren't able to see the body?» Barrett asked.

  Seisyll shook his head. «Not yet. There was no way I could manage it without calling attention to myself. Besides, they're saying it was his heart. He was about sixty, after all — the oldest among us».

  «But not that old, for one of us», Michon said quietly. «You and I are hardly a decade younger, Seisyll».

  Seissyl merely shrugged as Dominy de Laney cocked her head in Michon's direction.

  «Surely you don't suspect foul play», she said.

  «No. It's curious, though, that the king was with him. It would have been late. Did anyone hear him mention that he planned to see the king after he left us?»

  The others at the table shook their heads.

  «That wouldn't signify, if the king came to him,» Barrett pointed out. «He wouldn't necessarily have known that the king would seek him out».

  «Are we reaching for some connection between the king's presence and Sief’s death?» Dominy asked. «Because I don't see any. What motive could there be, if there were? From all accounts, Sief had an excellent relationship with the king».

  Seisyll nodded. «They had been friends for years. So had…»

  Speculation kindled in the blue-violet eyes as his voice trailed off, echoed in the expressions that began to animate the faces of the others with him.