But the afternoon seemed interminable, even when servants began laying out a light collation and the wine began to flow. After an hour or so, Rhys Michael wandered off in the company of some of the younger denizens of the Court—Cathan Drummond, who was his junior squire, and Quiric and Fulk Fitz-Arthur, the sons of Lord Tammaron, all of whom were slightly younger than the prince. A little later the four had become part of an animated cluster of other youngsters, among them a bevy of chattering young girls. Glancing across the room at them as he pretended to be interested in the droning condolences of a baron from Desse, Javan was amazed to see how the girls he had known from childhood were turning into women. For some, the changes were not entirely for the better.
Udaut’s pretty daughter Lirin, wed to Murdoch’s son Richard when she was only twelve, was now a slightly dowdy though animated matron of fifteen, the hub of a flutter of adolescent chatter that also included an attractive, dark-haired girl with slightly haunted eyes whom Javan suddenly realized must be Richeldis MacLean, now MacInnis. Political maneuverings shortly before Javan left Court three years before had left Richeldis’ elder sister mysteriously dead in her sleep, and Richeldis herself sole heiress of Cassan and the reluctant bride of Earl Manfred’s elder son. Rumor had reached Javan of a daughter born to the pair sometime last year, and she looked to be carrying another child now, one hand curving protectively over a gentle bulge beneath her grey gown. He could only hope and pray that Richeldis’ children would provide her some consolation for having been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
Cathan’s sister Michaela was another who could probably look forward to such a fate. Several years older than her brother, she was turning into quite an attractive little thing, with her bright blue eyes and waves of tawny hair cascading down her back. She would bring no spectacular dowry to her marriage, for James Drummond, her father, had only been a younger son of the gentry; but the Drummond blood was old. She also was a distant cousin to Richeldis, and like Richeldis, her line had been proven untainted by an infusion of Deryni ancestry far back in their pedigrees. Javan would never forget the day the regents had tested all three children with merasha, that first time the doomed Declan Carmody had begun to crack under the strain of forced collaboration.
Since then, rather conveniently, James Drummond had been killed in a skirmish with highway robbers while on a mission for one of the regents. The children’s mother, once married to the slain son of Saint Camber whose name was borne by their son, had retired to a convent near Valoret—probably not entirely at her own instigation. But by then both Michaela and young Cathan had been fostered at Court, Michaela to the household of Manfred’s countess and Cathan as Rhys Michael’s squire. Javan was pleased to see the two apparently flourishing despite what had happened—and even more pleased when he could finally take his leave and quietly retire.
Oriel was waiting in Javan’s presence chamber when he and Charlan at last returned to the royal apartments. The Healer looked professionally concerned, and brought a rushlight closer as Javan sank down wearily in a chair beside the window embrasure and Charlan knelt to begin unbuckling his boots, starting with the right.
“How did the foot hold up?” Oriel asked.
Javan took off his coronet and cap of maintenance and set them aside, running his fingers through his sweaty hair and permitting himself a sigh of relief as Charlan pulled the boot off his crippled foot.
“Well enough,” he said. “Better than I expected.” He dropped a hand onto Charlan’s head and gently exerted control. “Relax, Charlan,” he murmured. “Remember nothing of what you’re about to hear unless I tell you to.”
Charlan hardly missed a beat as he turned his attention to the other boot. Oriel, after observing him for a moment, said, “That’s twice I’ve seen you do this sort of thing in the last few days. I hope you don’t make a habit of it.”
“Only when there’s need,” Javan replied as Charlan pulled off the other boot. “Charlan, you can bring over a basin of water now, if you would. My feet could do with a bit of a wash before Master Oriel works on me.”
As Charlan went to fetch the requested water, Javan leaned a little closer to the Healer.
“Before you start lecturing me, you should know that Lord Rhun is back, as from today,” he said quietly. “That’s primarily my problem, but they’re saying he’s brought Sitric with him. From what I hear, Master Sitric is rather more resigned to his work than most Deryni in your position. We’re both going to have to be careful.”
Oriel gave a little shudder as Charlan returned, a towel over one shoulder, and knelt to set a basin and ewer on the floor at Javan’s feet. When he had lifted out the ewer, Javan shifted his feet into the cool basin, wiggling his toes contentedly as Charlan poured water over them.
“He’s a dangerous man, is Sitric,” Oriel murmured, watching the operation. “He’s ambitious—and Rhun knows just how to feed that ambition without actually conceding anything. Fortunately, he isn’t half the man that Declan Carmody was—God rest his soul—and he isn’t nearly as well trained.”
“What can he do, Oriel?” Javan asked. “Obviously he can Truth-Read, or Rhun wouldn’t have kept him. Can he read minds?”
“Aye—and rip them, if there’s resistance,” Oriel said bitterly. “He hasn’t much finesse—but then, Rhun doesn’t demand that, does he?”
“No, he doesn’t,” Javan agreed. “But perhaps that will be to our advantage.” He touched a hand to Charlan’s shoulder and gave a silent command, retaining the towel as the knight rose and retreated to a nearby chair, there to close his eyes and lapse into light snoring as his head came forward on his chest.
“Tell me about Sitric’s limitations,” Javan went on, pretending not to notice Oriel’s raised eyebrow at what he had just done. “What’s his range? How much danger am I in, if I’m merely in the same room with him? How careful do I have to be?”
Recalling himself to the questions, Oriel took the towel from Javan and drew a stool under himself, laying the towel across his lap and lifting the crippled foot, dripping, to rest it on his knees as he began his examination.
“If he’s Truth-Reading, you’d better remember everything you’ve ever been taught about avoiding the direct lie, because he’ll catch any deviation from the literal truth,” Oriel said, gently probing the misshapen ankle. “Of course, kings are allowed a certain amount of lying—diplomatic half-truths and such—but if you lie about anything important, you can be assured that Sitric will tell Rhun—if not then, certainly at the very earliest opportunity. Your foot isn’t too bad, considering how far you had to walk,” he added, clasping the ankle close between his two hands. “Just give me a minute here.”
Javan could feel the Healing already radiating like warmth from Oriel’s hands. Closing his eyes, he let himself bask in the bliss of it as the stiffness melted away and overstressed muscles relaxed. When Oriel had finished, bathing the foot again before drying it, Javan wiggled his toes luxuriantly and sighed, forcing his mind back to the original question.
“He can Truth-Read me, then,” he murmured, collecting his thoughts. “And probably will.”
“I think we must assume that as a given,” Oriel agreed. “It takes very little effort on his part, for a potentially great return, if he does catch you in an important lie. But that’s nothing you didn’t know before.”
“No.” Javan lifted his good foot out of the basin and let Oriel dry that one, too. “What else do I have to worry about?”
“The biggest danger would be direct physical contact,” Oriel replied. “Given his level of training and ability, he’d need that for any actual Reading, or for trying to force the truth—but I don’t think he’d dare lay hands on you unless Rhun ordered it. Of course, if you were careless enough to let Rhun and his cronies get you alone—”
“I plan to avoid that,” Javan assured him. “If I couldn’t, though, would my shields protect me?”
“Probably,” Oriel conceded. “At least unti
l they got some merasha into you.” He grimaced. “I’m assuming that if you have shields like a Deryni, you’d probably react like a Deryni to the drug. And that would really raise the hue and cry.”
Javan swallowed, suddenly less sure of himself than he had been only minutes before. He had seen all too graphically what merasha did to Deryni and had no idea whether it would affect him or not.
“I’ve got to be sure I don’t give them cause to try that, then,” he murmured. “Either to have Sitric try to Read me or to dose me with merasha. Is there anything it is safe to do, if Sitric is around?”
Oriel cocked an eyebrow thoughtfully. “I think you’re safe enough to Truth-Read in his presence—so long as you don’t try to Truth-Read him and you don’t let it be known what you’re doing—but if you tried anything else, he might detect that. Of course, I don’t know what else you might be able to do.”
“Neither do I,” Javan said a bit sheepishly. “And it looks as if I’d better be very careful while I learn.”
Oriel nodded. “We both must be careful. And what of Sir Charlan?” he asked, nodding in the sleeping knight’s direction. “How much does he know?”
“If he could remember it all,” Javan said with a sickly smile, “probably enough to send me to the stake several times over, king or not, if the Custodes had anything to say about it. As it is, he just thinks he learned years ago to catch the odd catnap while waiting for his somewhat eccentric master to tire of all-night prayer vigils and forays to obscure scholars to talk about undoubtedly boring manuscripts.”
“Does he really?”
“Well, I think that was how he’d explained it to himself when he was my squire,” Javan said with a grin. “From the very beginning, though, he’s always been absolutely loyal—far beyond whatever duty he owes me. I—suppose he must be the closest thing I’ve got to a friend, with Tavis gone away—at least with someone who’s near my own age.” He sighed.
“It’s been very difficult, not intruding on his trust any more than I had to. The worst was once I started my campaign to get sent off to seminary, because then I had to protect both of us. It can’t have been easy for him, knowing he had to spy on me and report back with a Deryni present. I expect you were the Deryni, at least some of the time.”
Reluctantly Oriel shrugged and nodded. “I never guessed a thing, though, or had to risk a false Reading. You covered your tracks well.”
“I had to.” Javan looked down at his hands, at the Ring of Fire. “Now that I’m back, though, I’m trying not to interfere any more than absolutely necessary. It seems ungrateful, at very best, to compel a loyalty that’s already freely given. I—have made memory adjustments a couple of times, as I did just now, to protect both of us, but I’d like to think he wouldn’t object, if he knew why. He took a huge personal risk by coming to fetch me out of Arx Fidei. I suppose I’ve put my life in his hands more times than I’d care to count—and doubtless will do so again.”
Oriel glanced over at the sleeping Charlan, then back at Javan.
“He has no idea about any of this, then,” he said softly.
Javan shook his head. “It’s safer if he doesn’t know, for both of us.”
“May I?” Oriel asked, gesturing toward the knight.
Swallowing, Javan lowered his eyes. “If you can detect who else has controlled him in the past week or so, you’d better not,” he said. “I’ve—been to Joram twice since I got back. And I had help.”
“And if I don’t know from whom, I can’t reveal it, even under interrogation by Sitric,” Oriel agreed, nodding. He closed his eyes briefly. “That means there are other Deryni about, whom even I don’t know about.” A hopeful light came into his eyes as he looked again at Javan. “Does it also mean that perhaps my family may soon be free?” he dared to whisper.
Javan shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t promise anything right away,” he said quietly. “There are a lot of details to be worked out first. But I hope at least to let you see them before too long. I know how hard it must be for you.”
“If only you knew, my prince,” Oriel breathed, shaking his head softly. “Not seeing Alana for these three years and more has been bad enough. But Karis, my little girl …” His voice choked up a little as he went on. “She was only a few months old when they were taken hostage. She was just a baby. I try to imagine how she’s growing, how she must look like a tiny version of her mother, or maybe a bit like me. She’ll be a little person now—walking, talking by now—and I’ve missed all these years …”
“I promised you I’d do what I could,” Javan murmured, “but it’s going to take some time. Are they still being held in the same place?”
“Aye, so far as I know.”
“And the other hostages?”
Oriel nodded, pulling himself together. “Sitric’s mother and sister, Ursin O’Carroll’s wife and son—and Ursin himself. They’re said to be comfortable enough, if it weren’t captivity. But I’m told that Ursin has been in solitary confinement since they brought him back from the Baptizers and that the Custodes test him periodically with merasha, to be certain his powers haven’t come back. God, how they must fear us!”
Javan, having been subjected to the constant harangues of the Custodes for nearly three years on the evil of the Deryni and how they must be isolated from all decent folk, could only agree.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?
—I Corinthians 15:30
Javan managed to avoid any confrontation with the dangerous Sitric in the first days that followed, but the same could not be said of Rhun, his master. Possibly on the advice of Murdoch and the others who had been faced down in earlier encounters, even Rhun dared not make open defiance of the new king—not yet, at any rate—but his staunchest advocates could not have called him cooperative. He offered his resignation dutifully enough, when the Council met on the morning after Alroy’s funeral—knowing Javan dared not accept it—but criticism and obstruction were to become regular features of his activity within the Council context. Keeping him on the Council rankled, but Javan really had no choice.
Far more pleasing was the return of Baron Hildred, Alroy’s former Master of Horse, who also had arrived just in time for the funeral. Hildred had no part of politics and wanted none; his focus was horses and those who rode them well. All three Haldane princes had begun their experience in the saddle under Hildred’s tutelage. The appearance of another friend at that first Council meeting after the funeral brightened an otherwise taut day for the new young king.
Javan was grateful as well for the briefings that Jerowen and Etienne had been giving him over the past few days. For as soon as Hildred and Rhun had made token resignation of their offices—and Bonner Sinclair, who had missed the funeral but arrived in time for the meeting—Earl Tammaron produced a letter from his son, Fane Fitz-Arthur, the sole member of the Council yet to turn up.
“My son begs you to pardon his absence, Sire,” Tammaron explained as he unfolded the letter Fane had sent. “A bereavement in his wife’s family requires his continued presence in Cassan—though he intends to be present for your Grace’s coronation and to present his compliments at that time.”
“I am sorry to hear of his bereavement,” Javan said, immediately guessing what Tammaron was about to tell him and very glad he had paid attention to his various briefings. “His wife is the daughter of the Prince of Cassan, I believe?”
Tammaron gave him a formal inclination of his head, as if surprised that Javan remembered.
“She is, Sire,” Tammaron replied. “Alas, it is her father who has passed away—Prince Ambert Quinnell. He had been ill for some time. However, under the terms of treaties drawn up during the reign of your late father—”
“Why so modest, my lord?” Javan said, schooling himself to a taut, slightly ironic smile; for if he played this right, Tammaron’s vanity would have him eating out of the royal hand. “Under the terms of the bridal contract that you negotiated, your
son’s marriage to the Princess Anne set in place an irrevocable covenant by which Cassan devolves to Gwynedd upon the death of her father, he having no sons. I thank you for Gwynedd’s new duchy, my lord.”
“Well, I—”
“It was brilliantly done, my lord,” Javan went on, keeping up the momentum. “Would that I may have someone as shrewd as yourself to negotiate on my behalf when I eventually wed. You have done Gwynedd a great service, and I shall not forget.”
“You—are aware, I trust, that Fane is not to be the first duke,” Tammaron said tentatively. “That was the original provision, but it was changed after the birth of Fane’s son, Ambert’s grandson.”
“Yes, young Tambert,” Javan said easily. “I was so informed. Named, I believe, for both his noble grandfathers.”
At Tammaron’s look of astonishment, Javan allowed himself a faint smile. The thought of a long regency for one of his vassals was not particularly appealing, but having the jump on Tammaron was exquisitely satisfying.
“I thank you for conveying your son’s message, my lord,” he said, reaching out to take the letter Tammaron still had not managed to read to the Council. “Baron de Courcy, I shall ask you to send an appropriate reply to Cassan. Say that I shall be pleased to acknowledge my new duke when he arrives for my coronation and to receive his homage and fealty through his most excellent regents.
“Say also to Lord Fane that, as he now has a duchy to administer, I excuse him from further obligations as a Council lord and shall accept his resignation when he offers it, for I would not have his old obligations interfere with his new responsibilities as regent for his young son. Please assure him that his seat shall remain vacant until a worthy replacement can be chosen to succeed him.”
So couched, no one could find any reasonable cause to object without sounding deliberately contentious. Tammaron even nodded his agreement, for the logic of Javan’s decision was inescapable; the regent of a faraway duchy the size of Cassan could not possibly give useful service to the Council as well. Not even the volatile Murdoch raised an objection, though glances were exchanged among several of the other former regents.