“Sir Charlan,” Javan said softly, “please escort his Highness to my quarters and wait for me there. You’re to use him kindly, but he will go with you. Do you understand?”
“Aye, my liege,” Charlan murmured, wide-eyed.
“And you,” Javan said, turning his gaze on his brother, who was nursing a trickle of blood at one corner of his mouth. “Do you understand?”
Sullenly Rhys Michael gave a nod, casting a fearful glance at the cowering Michaela. “Don’t hurt her,” he said. “It isn’t her fault.”
Javan gave his brother a look of utter disdain as Charlan came to offer him a hand up. “If you think I would lay violent hands on a woman, you truly do not know me,” he said coldly. “Go now. I’ll join you both directly.”
He waited until Charlan and Rhys Michael had disappeared from sight, the latter casting repeated anxious looks over his shoulder as they went, then moved closer to Michaela. She and Rhys Michael had been lying on a dark cloak spread on the grass, and she pulled it around herself as he approached, shrinking back when he would have helped her to her feet.
“Don’t touch me,” she murmured. “I want no hand of any kind laid upon me by you.”
“Mika, I’m sorry,” he said, reverting to her childhood nickname. “I knew he was fond of you. I didn’t know it had progressed to this point.”
“Obviously not. And don’t call me Mika. Rhysem was right. What does a monk know about love?”
Eyes closing briefly, Javan made himself draw a calming breath. The possibility of having to deal with this eventuality had been upon him for several weeks now, but he had hoped to postpone it until the winter, especially knowing that Manfred would soon be off to Culdi. He had kept an eye on his brother whenever Michaela was in the vicinity, but if Rhys Michael had been continuing to press his suit since the coronation, he had been remarkably discreet—up until now. And did his brother really think that Javan knew nothing about such things?
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “I know nothing about it. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to forbid you and Rhysem to learn anything else about it either, at least for now. He’s too young to marry yet, Mika—Michaela,” he added, at her glare of anger.
“Believe me, he isn’t too young,” she muttered under her breath. “If you hadn’t come along—”
“Yes, I can quite imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t come along,” Javan said. “Thank God I did. You don’t understand what else is at stake here.”
“I understand that you’re jealous of what you don’t have,” she said bitterly. “You couldn’t even give us tonight. Two days hence, my guardian takes his household to his country estate and I’ll be gone for months.”
As she bit back a sob, Javan grimaced, feeling like an ogre. Of all the girls he might have chosen for his brother to love and wed—eventually—Michaela Drummond was probably at the very top of the list. But at least with her about to leave Court in a few days, that removed this particular threat—for the present. All he had to do was keep the two of them apart until then.
“Your leaving Court is probably the best possible resolution anyone could recommend in this situation,” he agreed. “God knows, it’s nothing against you personally, but I can’t allow Rhysem to get involved with anyone just yet. Maybe in a year or two—”
She snorted and drew herself up taller, tossing the tawny hair back onto her shoulders, her cloak clutched around her like a queen’s mantle. “A year or two from now, we could all be dead! But you’re the king. You have the power to forbid our love.”
“That’s right, I do,” Javan said quietly. “And I have the power of life and death, too. So you’d best go back to your quarters now. Promise that you won’t cause trouble, these last few days you’re here—that you won’t see Rhysem alone—and I won’t tell Manfred or Lady Estellan about this.”
Michaela dropped her gaze petulantly. “All right,” she agreed. “Can—can I ask one favor?”
“Of course. And I’ll grant it, if it be not to the harm of my kingdom.”
She sighed and dared to glance up at him again. “You—you won’t hurt him, will you?”
Rolling his eyes heavenward, Javan had to grin. “Mika, he’s my brother. Of course I’m not going to hurt him.”
A little while later, as he faced an angry Rhys Michael across the table in his presence chamber, Javan wondered whether he was going to be able to keep that promise.
“You’re just jealous!” Rhys Michael shouted. “You’ve got what you wanted. You’ve got the crown. Can’t you let me have what I want?”
“Sit down,” Javan said, sending to Guiscard to enforce the order if Rhys Michael did not obey. The Deryni lord was standing directly behind Rhys Michael’s chair, summoned by Charlan when he brought the prince back to Javan’s quarters. Charlan himself had taken up a post with his back against the door, to listen for any approach from outside. Fortunately, the walls in this part of the castle were very thick, but if the prince kept shouting, someone was sure to raise an alarm.
“Sit down,” Javan repeated. “I will not ask a third time.”
To Javan’s intense relief, his brother did sit without Guiscard having to lay a hand on him. Javan was trembling inside as he, too, sat, but he made himself lay his hands quietly on the chair arms to either side of him, leaning back slightly in the cushions.
“Now, suppose you explain.”
“What is there to explain?” Rhys Michael muttered after a taut few seconds. “We will marry eventually. You can’t stop us. We’re both of age and we’re betrothed.”
“You’re what?”
“I said that we’re betrothed,” Rhys Michael repeated, raising his chin defiantly. “There’s nothing you can do about it. A betrothal is legally binding. You can keep us apart, but you can’t force either of us to marry anyone else.”
“It isn’t a matter of forcing you to marry anyone,” Javan retorted. “Don’t you understand? I can’t let you marry anyone. Not for a very long time. Who witnessed the betrothal?”
“I won’t tell you.”
“Was it Hubert?”
“No.”
“Oriss?”
“No. And that’s all I’m going to say.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Javan said. “I’ll get it dispensed.”
“The way you had your vows dispensed? Oh, no. You can have your own vows dispensed if you want to, but not mine. Mika and I made vows before God. I’m going to marry her!”
“And I forbid it!”
“Oh? And what will you do if I defy you? Disinherit me? Lock me away? Until you decide to marry and get an heir of your own, Javan, I’m all you’ve got!”
“I could lock her away.”
“You wouldn’t dare. She’s done nothing wrong. Besides, Lord Manfred would never stand for it.”
“Then I’ll send her away,” Javan retorted. “Come to think of it, Manfred’s already doing that for me. Thank God for that!”
Rhys Michael glanced down in utter frustration at his hands clasped tightly together in his lap. “They told me this would be your reaction,” he murmured. “It’s only for a few months, though. She’ll be back at Christmas.”
“Then at Christmas we’ll talk about this again,” Javan replied. “And who told you this would be my reaction? Hubert? Manfred?”
Rhys Michael shook his head, but Javan knew he was lying. He had been Truth-Reading since the start of their interview, but delving beyond that was impossible with Rhys Michael’s shields.
“It has to have been Hubert, at least in part,” Javan said. “He’s probably the one who put it in your head in the first place. Am I right? When did it happen?”
Rhys Michael only stared down at his folded hands, suddenly gone sullen.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” Javan said, “because you can’t convert it to marriage without the banns being read—and I won’t countenance that. Not right now, at any rate.” He studied his brother for a long moment, then
drew a deep breath.
“All right. There’s the matter now of what to do with you. Give me your word that there’ll be no more of these illicit meetings with Michaela between now and when she leaves—that you’ll not see her alone—and I’ll try to forget we’ve had this conversation.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Rhys Michael muttered sullenly. “What if I won’t agree?”
“Well, I suppose I could lock you in a dungeon for a few days to cool off,” Javan said breezily. “That could prove embarrassing for both of us, but I’d do it, if I thought it was best for the kingdom.”
Rhys Michael snorted. “It might prove more than embarrassing,” he said. “I have friends, too, you know.”
“Yes, I do know. Another option is for you to go on a colossal drunk for a few days, thus rendering you incommunicado. I understand that this is not nearly as much out of character as it once was. In fact, I fear that no one would even remark on it. I’ll concede that, under the circumstances, you probably wouldn’t be nearly as enthusiastic about drinking yourself into oblivion as you have been in the past, but believe me, your intake can be assured by force, if you insist.”
“I don’t drink that much,” Rhys Michael murmured.
“I hope I’m wrong, then,” Javan replied. “My third option is for you to become ill for a few days. I can arrange that, too,” he added as his brother looked up in shock. “There are drugs, so much more subtle than what the physicians were giving Alroy, that would cause such a raging fever that you probably wouldn’t even remember any of this conversation we’re having. Shall I summon Master Oriel to explain in further detail?”
“You’re threatening me,” Rhys Michael whispered. “You’re actually threatening me—your own brother and heir. You wouldn’t really do that, would you?”
At Javan’s minute signal, Guiscard dropped his hands heavily on Rhys Michael’s shoulders. The prince started around in alarm, craning his neck to look back and up, but Guiscard’s face was impassive. Javan knew that the Deryni was poised to punch through any gap in his brother’s shields, but the shields apparently held. Rhys Michael seemed unaware of any of this and was very subdued as he turned his face back toward Javan.
“You’re actually serious about all of this, aren’t you?” he whispered, like a little boy who suddenly realized he was not playing with other children but with adults. “Javan, I never meant—”
“Do you give me your word that you won’t try to see her in these last few days before she leaves for Culdi?” Javan said, slowly standing at his place.
Rhys Michael was trembling under Guiscard’s hands, but to Javan’s surprise, he raised his chin and then very deliberately shook his head.
“I don’t see why I should make you that promise,” he said shakily.
Javan could feel the power stirring deep within him, along with cold fury that his brother should continue to defy him, and he had to consciously relax his fists, which had already begun to gather the strands of magic to lash out. Suddenly he understood the pressures that had led his father to use his power but a few times and then set it aside for the rest of his life.
Cinhil had had that option, being surrounded by powerful Deryni to protect him while he learned to deal with his enemies by the more conventional power of the crown, but Javan did not have that luxury. Caution was essential, for with very few exceptions, the men surrounding Javan while he learned those same lessons were not Deryni, and would surely destroy him if they learned he shared any part of a power like that wielded by the Deryni. Perhaps it was time to acquaint Rhys Michael with these realities. Having shields, he shared the danger, not only of being eliminated in favor of a younger heir.
“Given what I observed tonight in the garden,” Javan said softly, “if I were to let you marry Michaela, she almost certainly would present you with an heir within a year or two. This could be all that our enemies need to justify eliminating both of us and to help themselves to a further fourteen years of regency. Since I seriously doubt that you would be willing to espouse the celibacy you seem to abhor so in me, I cannot permit you to marry Michaela or anyone else, because I cannot risk that another heir might be forthcoming before I am ready to deal with that complication. We have had this conversation before, you know. You just don’t remember it.”
Rhys Michael looked at him oddly. The abrupt shift from the argument he had been anticipating to a new topic altogether had set him slightly off balance, as Javan intended. Behind him, Guiscard was looking startled, clearly uncertain just what Javan was going to do.
“What are you talking about?” Rhys Michael whispered. “I didn’t even know you knew about Michaela before tonight. I kept meaning to bring it up, but I never quite got around to it.”
“Ah, but you did,” Javan said. He came around the table to lean against the edge beside his brother’s chair. “Don’t you remember how you came to me a couple of nights before the coronation? We started on Rhennish brandywine and then moved on to a Fianna vintage.”
Rhys Michael glanced away, wringing his hands together. “I drank too much. I had a splitting headache in the morning.”
“That’s true,” Javan agreed. “But you also told me about wanting to marry Michaela. Oh, not in so many words, but it eventually came out. You—ah—did not mention the betrothal, which is why I reacted the way I did earlier.”
Hanging his head, Rhys Michael murmured, “It hadn’t happened yet. I was going to tell you, though. I knew you’d find out eventually.”
“I did find out something else that night,” Javan went on, sending to Guiscard to be ready. “I found out that you and I are more alike than I’d thought.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you don’t. That’s why I’m going to tell you about it. I don’t know how much you remember about the night our father died, but something happened to both of us. Something magical. It had to do with Father’s power as a king. It was supposed to awaken in Alroy first, but somehow it never did—maybe because the regents kept him drugged all those years.
“But it started to stir in me. It’s been useful over the years, and it gets more useful all the time. For a long time, I was able to use it on you—to see if you were telling the truth, to help you go to sleep, sometimes to make you forget I’d done anything. It even helped me deal with the regents in those early years.”
Rhys Michael had gone very rigid as Javan unfolded his confession, and he glanced uneasily at Guiscard’s hands on his shoulders, suddenly reminded that he was held from retreat.
“What are you saying?” he whispered. “Do you have some kind of power, like your old Deryni friends?”
In answer, Javan let his shields flare around his head in a visible aura, a vaguely crimson glow of sparkling luminance. Rhys Michael recoiled at the sight, his face going white, and wilted under Guiscard’s hands.
“No,” he managed to whisper. “You aren’t Deryni. You can’t be Deryni. Because if you’re Deryni—”
“You would be, too,” Javan supplied. “But we’re not.” He conjured handfire in his right hand and held it out to Rhys Michael, a gently glowing sphere of crimson light. “Some of the powers are similar,” he murmured, dispelling the light with a snap of his fingers. “Some of them are very subtle, such as being able to recognize whether a person is telling the truth. That was one of the first things I learned to do.
“But one of the most useful talents, especially in the beginning, is having shields the way the Deryni do. It means that no one can get into your mind to control you—not a Deryni and not someone who has powers like a Deryni.”
Without warning, Javan set his right hand to his brother’s forehead and surged his mind out across the bond of flesh to wash against the resistance of shields Rhys Michael had not known he had. Rhys Michael gasped and made a halfhearted attempt to twist from under Guiscard’s grasp, but the Deryni held him steady for Javan’s continued probe—physical restraint only, but not needing to do more a
s Javan focused on putting his brother’s shields to a fairly rigorous test.
The younger prince’s initial panic shifted rapidly through frantic uncertainty and then into growing discomfort as he became aware of the unaccustomed sensation of pressure against his shields. Just when he thought he must cry out from the pain, it stopped, Javan dropping his hand and sitting back on the table edge with a perplexed sigh.
“Well, you’ll know it if anybody tries to get past those,” he murmured, cocking his brother a crooked little grin. “It isn’t likely that anyone will try—I won’t, now that I know how strong they are—but if I were you, I’d still try to avoid the notice of Sitric or any other tame Deryni the great lords might bring to court. Oriel is safe—he knows about me—but if anyone else even suspects you have shields like that, you’re dead.”
“I—don’t understand,” Rhys Michael whispered, still a little dazed.
“I don’t, either,” Javan replied, which was mostly true, though at least he knew what had finally focused his powers. “I do know that whatever abilities you might eventually develop to go along with those shields, they aren’t apt to be much help if the opposition decides you’re Deryni-tainted. Just remember Declan Carmody, if you start to get cocky.”
Rhys Michael shuddered, suddenly looking a little sick, and Javan had to concentrate to push back the images he had conjured in his own mind.
“It’s quite a quandary, isn’t it?” he said after a moment. “Somehow, I’ve been given the power to make a great deal of difference, but I don’t much dare use it, because if anyone finds out I have this power, they’ll try to destroy me—and call it divine justice, because the Church has managed to convince nearly everyone that Deryni are evil, that their powers come from the devil. It doesn’t matter that I’m not Deryni—and I’m afraid I don’t know exactly where my powers come from, though I’m reasonably sure it isn’t from the devil. They’d still damn me in the same terms they damn Deryni. Talk about a double-edged sword.”