In the King's Service tcmt-1

by Katherine Kurtz

  Well, that's a relief, Zoë, responded. But maybe, just to make sure, you ought to shut me down until tomorrow's ceremonies are over.

  That's what Father Paschal suggested, Alyce sent. You know, you're getting far too good at this.

  We'll credit that to your ability as a teacher, Zoë returned, as she yawned hugely. I am but a mirror to reflect your own brilliance. Why? Did he think there was any real danger?

  I don't think so, Alyce replied. But it doesn't hurt to be safe. I'll do it in the morning.

  Maybe we should just go a-Maying instead, Zoë said. Tomorrow is going to have entirely too much ceremony and far too many important people.

  Go to sleep, Alyce ordered. Tomorrow, we're both going to need all our wits about us.

  Chapter 11

  «Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God».[12]

  Festivities the following day were to begin at noon. As expected, Jessamy rode up from Rhemuth to witness her daughter's final vows, bringing along Jessilde's two younger sisters and also young Krispin, just turned three.

  As a courtesy to Jessamy, the king and queen also made the journey up from the capital, their presence lending additional solemnity to the occasion, even though it was a private visit. Prince Brion, who was almost four, rode proudly at his father's saddlebow; the toddler Blaine, much to his disappointment, was relegated to a well-padded horse-litter with his mother, who was six months gone with child.

  The three-year-old Krispin had expected to share that fate, but to his glee found himself hoisted up before Sir Kenneth Morgan, who had come along as the king's aide, and also to help supervise the three boys — and to visit with his daughter.

  The convent chapel was packed even before the royal party's arrival, not only with the families of the two principals in the day's ceremonials but with local folk come to catch a glimpse of the king and queen.

  «It's rather like a wedding», Jessilde had told Alyce, Marie, and Zoë early that morning, amid the bustle of last-minute preparations. The previous afternoon, while the nuns saw to the final cleaning of the convent church and made certain that linens were pristine and habits brushed up, the students had woven floral garlands to bedeck the altar rails and pillars in the nave, and now were finishing the final touches. It was Jessilde herself who had made the wreath of multi-colored roses for Cerys.

  «These have opened nicely», she said, adjusting one of the pale pink ones. She'll wear her hair loose on her shoulders like a bride, and her best gown, all of it covered with a very fine, very long white veil».

  «Is there a bouquet?» Marie wanted to know. «I can't remember whether they carry flowers or not. I've only seen this happen once before».

  «No, these will be her flowers», Jessilde replied. «She'll carry a lighted candle instead — carefully, lest she set her veil alight! — and her parents will conduct her down the aisle while you and the rest of the choir sing the Ave Vierge Doreé».

  «I don't think her parents are entirely happy about her decision», Zoë said. «Her mother looked like she'd been crying when they arrived last night, and her father hardly said a word».

  «They had a rich husband all picked out for her», Alyce said. «Of course, he was old enough to be her father — and nearly, to be her grandfather».

  «I'm sure they did», Jessilde replied. «She's a beautiful young woman, and she would have made a fitting adornment to any lord's court». She flashed an impish smile. «Of course, God had other plans for her».

  Marie screwed up her face in a grimace of dismay. «Somehow, I don't think that being a bride of Christ is quite the same».

  «No, it's much better!» Jessilde said happily, «at least for me. And for Cerys». She picked up the finished floral crown. «I'd better go and help her finish dressing».

  They had decked the chapel with flowers, bursting from vases to either side of the altar and garlanded all along the altar rails, in addition to the garlands festooned across the ends of the benches set to either side of the rainbow-carpeted center aisle, where the guests would sit. Flowers also bedecked the fronts of the choir stalls, and hung in swags from the canopies over the back row. The altar wore a blanket of roses as a frontal, and had acquired a rainbow canopy of fine tapestry, with threads of gold woven amid its many colors, so that it glistened in the light that poured through the east window, already aglow from the colored glass.

  By noon, the church was packed, Marie with the soloists of the choir, Alyce and Zoë amid the other students in their places with the general choristers, the sisters, servers, and clergy waiting ready for the entrance procession. As the last stroke of the Angelus bell faded into stillness, the choir-mistress moved before the choir, gathered their attention with a glance, and raised her hands in signal for them to rise.

  With the first sweet notes of the Salve Regina, sung a cappella in three-part harmony, the two girls given the honor of conducting the king and queen to their seats started forward, with the royal couple and the two young princes walking under the rainbow canopy they carried. Zoë's father and one of the queen's ladies followed behind them as the royal party were led along the rainbow carpet and into the choir, where they were shown to seats of honor on the Gospel side, nearest the altar.

  Sir Kenneth caught his daughter's eye and winked as he took a seat next to the king, also sending an amiable nod and a smile to Alyce; the young princes sat dutifully between their parents. In the nave, Jessamy stood before a front bench with her two younger daughters and Krispin, also on the Gospel side — and on the Epistle side were Cerys's brothers and sisters, all dressed in their finest. Their parents waited at the rear of the nave with the daughter soon to be received under the rainbow, for her reception would precede Jessilde's final vows.

  Others, too, had particular cause to be present here today. Standing in the row behind Jessamy and her children, Alyce noticed a pretty, dark-haired young woman who looked a lot like Jessamy, who glanced back at the double line of blue-robed sisters now starting down the aisle behind the crucifer and two torch-bearers. By the woman's expression, as she saw Jessilde among them, Alyce decided that the one who looked like Jessamy must be her eldest daughter Sieffany — which suggested that the two men next to her, farther from the aisle, were probably her husband and her father-in-law, both of them Deryni.

  It occurred to Alyce that Jessamy had mentioned the father-in-law before, and had said that he came occasionally to court — Michon de Courcy, was it? — and the son was Aurélien. Jessamy had not said it in so many words, but Alyce had been left with the distinct impression that the father was a formidable Deryni, indeed, and to be avoided, if at all possible.

  Certain it was that Jessamy did not look pleased to have him standing behind her, and had positioned herself as a buffer between him and her youngest, the boy Krispin, sitting quietly in the aisle position. Surely she did not think that Michon would hurt the boy?

  The sisters filed into their stalls and the clergy took their places to begin the Mass, for the two ceremonies would take place within that context, following the Gospel. After the opening prayers, the readings spoke of being called by God, and the symbolism of the rainbow as a sign of His promise, and then a pious account of the apparition by which the Blessed Virgin had made her will known concerning the foundation of what became l'Ordre de Notre Dame d'Arc-en-Ciel.

  At the conclusion of that reading, as the girls with the rainbow canopy went back up the aisle to fetch Cerys and her parents, a hush settled within the sun-drenched brilliance of the chapel, and then Marie's pure voice lifted in the first verse of an old Bremagni bridal hymn, Ave Vierge Dorée. The rest of the choir joined in as two of the youngest girls from the school strewed fragrant rose petals before the bridal party as Cerys's parents led her down the rainbow aisle. Uplifted before her, Cerys bore her candle of profession as if it were the most precious treasure the world could offer.

  With all eyes focused there, young Krispin chose that moment to d
art from his mother's side and into the choir to join the two princes, eliciting smiles and a few suppressed giggles among the girls of the convent school, a stern glance from the king, and an indulgent hug of the culprit from Queen Richeldis as he settled happily between her and Prince Blaine for a better view of the proceedings.

  Murmurs of amusement gave way to sighs of wistful admiration as Cerys passed into the choir, for she had never looked more beautiful, or more content. Her figure-skimming gown of costly damask was the rich lilac hue of hyacinths, shot with gold, her loose hair tumbling down her back like a cascade of flame, and crowned with roses in every color the convent gardens had to offer. A veil of sheerest gossamer fell to her waist in the front and onto her gown's short train in the back.

  By contrast, her mother looked like a plump and somewhat gaudy songbird in a gown of several shades of blue and green, with tears brimming in her blue eyes as she and her husband, a shorter and more somberly dressed man of middle years, presented their daughter before Mother Judiana, seated on a cushioned stool at the foot of the altar steps, and returned to sit with their other children.

  There followed an exchange of questions and answers between superior and postulant, after which Judiana folded back the front of Cerys's veil and conducted her to the altar, where they set the candle at the feet of the statue of the Virgin, then passed though a side door while the choir sang another hymn.

  When they returned to bow before the altar, Mother Judiana with the veil over one arm, the new postulant wore the pale blue habit of the order, much as she had done while a student with the other girls, but now with a snowy wimple close-covering her hair — save for the bright-flame tail of it, now braided and hanging down her back — and the wreath of roses now set atop.

  This she removed and lifted up in offering before laying it reverently on the altar. Then she came down off the altar pace and lay prostrate in the midst of the choir, arms outstretched, Judiana covering her from head to toe with the fine veil she had worn and then kneeling beside her, while the community sang a litany of the saints in antiphon, answered by the choir of the school.

  When they had finished, Judiana assisted Cerys to rise and led her back to the stool at the foot of the altar steps, sitting as the new novice knelt to offer up her joined hands between Judiana's and made her first profession of chastity, stability, fidelity to monastic life, and obedience. After that, she returned briefly to the altar to sign a copy of the promises she had just made, before kneeling again before the community's superior.

  All that remained was the veiling of the new novice, accomplished very simply as two novice members of the community brought the white veil with its rainbow edge and held it taut above her bowed head while Judiana pronounced the formal words of blessing:

  «Dearest daughter in Christ, henceforth to be known among us as Sister Iris Cerys, receive this veil in token of your chastity, and as a sign that you are enfolded in our Lady's grace and received within the embrace of the rainbow, a symbol not only of God's promise to have mercy on His people, but of our Lady's reassurance that she shall be our Advocate in the day of final Judgment.

  «And though you now shall endeavor to dwell beneath the rainbow, turning your face toward the brightening sun, may the cloud-white of the novice veil remind you that you have yet to achieve the fullness of that rainbow-vision that comes with true knowledge of the Son of God».

  She draped the rainbow-edge over the new novice's wimple, arranged the veil's folds on her shoulders, then set her hand on it as she pronounced the words of final blessing, «In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen».

  With that, while the choir sang a joyful Alleluia, Judiana traced a cross on the new novice's brow, conducted Sister Iris Cerys to the place in choir that henceforth would be hers, and returned to the stool before the altar.

  On a visual level, the reception of Jessilde's final vows was far simpler, though it held a greater poignancy for those who understood its greater import. Coming before the community's superior, Jessilde placed her hands between those of Judiana and pledged her lifelong promises, repeating the traditional monastic vows Cerys had just made — and she, like Cerys, went to the altar to sign her agreement to the vows just sworn.

  But then, instead of lying prostrate before the altar, she stood close before it and spread her arms in self-offering, leaning forward then to rest her forehead against the snowy altar linens as she sang an exhortation from the Psalms, repeated by the choir:

  «Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum, et vivam…» Receive me, O Lord, as Thou hast promised, and I shall live; and disappoint me not in my hope..

  This exchange they sang three times, Jessilde beginning on a slightly higher note with each repetition and the choir answering, after which she came to kneel once more before Judiana, bowing her head as the white veil of a novice was removed, shears brought on a silver tray, and the back of her wimple loosened so that Judiana might release the coiled braid of her hair and cut it off, close at the nape.

  This time two vowed sisters brought the rainbow-edged blue veil that would replace the white one; but before doing that, Judiana removed the plain blue scapular that Jessilde had worn as a novice and replaced it with one embroidered along the lower edges with rainbow bands. Her words, as she laid the pale blue veil across Jessilde's head, were similar to those she had spoken earlier:

  «Dearest daughter in Christ, known among us as Sister Iris Jessilde, receive now the veil of a fully vowed member of this order, the clear, celestial blue of our Lady's mantle, enfolding you in the bright rainbow that signifies God's promise and our Lady's benison. May you dwell ever in the Son-light that creates this Sign, In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen».

  As she had done for Cerys, now she traced a cross on Jessilde's forehead, before placing a gold ring on the marriage finger of her left hand. Jessilde raised that hand above her head, so that all could see the ring, then bent to kiss Judiana's hand before being raised up.

  After that, she took back the coiled braid of her hair from the silver salver and laid it on the altar in offering, as Cerys had offered up her flower crown. One day, in one of their sessions with Father Paschal, he had told Alyce and Marie and Jessilde that, in the days before the great persecutions, the men of the all-Deryni Order of Saint Gabriel had worn a similar braid, though of four strands, never cutting their hair once they had made their vows; and if forced by circumstance to cut their braids, had been obliged to dispose of the braid in ritual far more intricate than Jessilde's simple offering.

  Alyce thought about that parallel all through the Mass that followed, wondering how many others within these walls were aware of that ancient Deryni custom besides those Father Paschal had told.

  * * *

  Michon de Courcy knew, though he would have been surprised to learn how many others present were also privy to that knowledge. His purpose in attending Jessilde MacAthan's final profession, while ostensibly to honor this important milestone in the life of his son's sister-in-law, was actually a long awaited opportunity to hopefully gain him access for that closer look at her younger brother; for there had been little doubt in Michon's mind that the boy's mother, Jessamy, would ride up from Rhemuth for the event, and probably would bring all of her younger children — as, indeed, she had done.

  Not that she had been pleased to see Michon in the party with her eldest daughter — though, given his familial connection, he was certain that no one else would have thought his presence inappropriate. The king and queen certainly had been cordial enough.

  But he suspected that it was Jessamy who, to remove young Krispin from such close proximity to a man who might uncover the truth about him, had instigated the boy's sudden dash forward to sit with the princes — though Krispin's impulsive action was not altogether inappropriate or unexpected, under the circumstances. The young princes had occupied the best seats in the house for a close view of the proceedings; and though, by special dispensation, the Mass ran well into th
e afternoon, the three boys had been quite well behaved, given their young ages.

  But though Michon had feared that the change of seating arrangement might stymie any chance of success in the true purpose of his presence, he found his opportunity later that evening when, after supper in the refectory with the rest of the close family and friends invited to stay the night, he chanced to be walking in the cloister garden. After pausing to chat briefly with Sir Kenneth Morgan and his daughter — and Lady Alyce de Corwyn, in whose presence he kept himself carefully shielded — he noticed three dark heads clustered somewhat conspiratorially in a sheltered corner of the garden, one of their owners poking at something on the ground. Wandering closer, he saw that the object of their interest was a very small, very dead bird — a swallow, by the look of it, not yet fully fledged.

  «What a pity», he said, as he crouched down casually among them. «What do you suppose happened?»

  There in the convent garden, none of the three showed any sign of wariness, for they had seen Michon in the church, sitting behind Krispin's mother, and knew he was kin to one of the nuns.

  «I think he falled out of his nest», said Prince Brion, who was senior of the three both by age and by rank. Under the eaves above them, Michon could see the bulges of several tiny nests plastered close against the rafters.

  «But, why didn't he fly?» Blaine said plaintively.

  «Because his wings are too small», Brion replied, grasping the tips of both tiny wings and stretching them out to display their juvenile state. «See, they're only little. But I think he was going to be a swallow, like those up there».

  He glanced upward at a nest tucked up under the eaves, with several little heads looking down at them with beady little eyes. Nearby, several adult swallows were clinging to precarious toeholds amid the ends of the rafters, heads swiveling to watch them.