“Need I point out that the priesthood has been no bar to Mearan pretensions in the past?” he asked. “Witness the Prince-Bishop Judhael, whom Kelson finally had to execute. Furthermore, I think the king would be very wary of another potential Sidana. The parallels between Noelie, Brecon, and Christophle Ramsay are altogether too close to Sidana, Ithel, and Llewell.”
“True enough,” Laran agreed. “On the other hand, it would be a great personal triumph for Oksana Ramsay.”
Mild amusement rippled among five of the six present. Sir Sion Benét, seated farther around the great octagonal table, cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, looking like a perplexed lion with his yellow eyes and beard and mane of tawny curls. At forty-two, he was the Council’s youngest member and, in the absence of its most recent appointment, the most junior—though by only a few months. The Council had filled its last vacant seat only at the end of the previous new year, bringing its full complement to seven. (The eighth chair, in the North, remained always vacant and was known as Saint Camber’s Siege.)
“I . . . gather,” Sion said, “that the lady harbors some motivation beyond mere motherly ambition, to see her daughter make this particular match.”
“Ah, that girl!” Vivienne exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “Willful, even as a child!”
Dark-eyed Sofiana, sovereign princess in her own land of Andelon, cast a faintly amused glance at the dismayed Sion.
“You must forgive Vivienne,” she said, not unkindly. “It was something of a scandal at the time. I well remember the gossip in my father’s hall. Oksana Ramsay is distant kin to Vivienne’s late husband, and also to the Hort of Orsal’s line. That descent, while noble, was unlikely to attract a royal match, but nonetheless she set her sights on first Brion and then Nigel Haldane. Unfortunately, both princes chose others. She has never forgotten the slight.”
Sion nodded. Himself an under-chancellor to the royal House of Llannedd, he was currently dealing with another headstrong young woman at home: the Princess Gwenlian, half-sister to the King of Llannedd, unmarried and high-spirited, who had already been discussed and not yet discarded as a potential bride for Kelson.
“I quite understand, now that you’ve explained,” he said. “But she did marry well enough.”
“Not well enough to suit her,” Arilan said drily. “Jolyon Ramsay may bear the name of the last effective Prince of Meara, and even a trace of the blood, through the youngest daughter of that prince, but he is still a simple knight, descended in the male line from a cadet branch of a rather minor earldom at the back of beyond.”
“Mearan separatists regard that lineage with rather more respect,” Laran pointed out. “A difference of opinion over which your king has already fought one war, and been left a widower before he was truly a husband. Still, marrying the Mearan problem may still be the best way to resolve it, in the end. Tell me, has he shown any interest in the Mearan girl?”
Arilan shook his head. “No—though they were thrown together often enough last summer, when the marriage contract was being arranged between her brother and Kelson’s cousin. It was certainly not for the mother’s want of trying.”
“Let’s move on,” said blind Barrett de Laney, the Council’s second coadjutor. “We’ve discussed this match before. Laran, who is our next candidate?”
Laran ap Pardyce, serving as recorder for the proceeding, consulted the parchment sheet before him, ticking off another name. “Kelson’s other cousin, Araxie Haldane,” he announced.
Sion looked up sharply, lips pursing in a silent whistle, but before he could speak, Vivienne shook her grey head.
“I’ve said it before: a dangerous match,” she declared. “Double-Haldane blood. Impossible to predict what the children would be like.”
Sion cleared his throat, shrugging slightly as all eyes turned toward him.
“Court gossip in Llannedd has it that, any day now, an official announcement will be made of a betrothal between the Princess Araxie and Prince Cuan of Howicce.”
“An interesting notion,” Barrett said, as several of the others murmured among themselves. “Harmless enough, politically. Rather a waste of Haldane blood, however—especially if, as we now suspect, the Haldane gifts may be some form of Deryni inheritance. Who knows what else might surface in the children of such a union?”
“Yes, who knows?” Vivienne retorted. “One shudders to contemplate! What the Haldanes need is a good infusion of Deryni blood to stabilize things—and there’s Deryni blood in the Orsal’s line. Marry him to the Orsal’s eldest. Good bones and teeth, sturdy heirs, and no surprises!”
Sofiana smiled as she leaned her head languidly against the high back of her chair. “I still like the idea of a double-Haldane cross.”
“One would think we were talking about breeding horses!” Arilan grumbled. “I, for one, should be glad if Kelson could summon up some enthusiasm for just about any prospective bride besides Rothana!”
“Be careful what you wish for . . .” Laran murmured.
“You know what I mean. Could we just get on with it? I need to get back.”
“Yes, we all have other duties,” Barrett said. “Laran, how many more are on the list?”
“Five,” Laran said. “But I suppose we can eliminate the Princess Janniver.”
“Hmmm, yes,” Vivienne agreed. “A pity about that, but nothing to be done. Let’s return to the Princess Gwenlian.”
CHAPTER ONE
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord.
Proverbs 18:22
Marriage was very much on the mind of Kelson of Gwynedd as, later that evening, he paused before the door to the chapel royal at Rhemuth Castle, royally arrayed—though the marriage about to take place within was not any of those the Camberian Council had in mind. At twenty-one, he had been resisting the Council’s “guidance” for a full third of his life, and would not have been surprised at the antipathy they held for the woman he shortly would lead before the altar.
Growing impatient, he glanced back at the squire waiting behind him and brushed distractedly at a bothersome wisp of black hair escaping from the queue at his nape, braided and doubled back on itself with a wrapping of gold. He had cause to regret the latter gesture at once, for the glint of gold on his left hand drew his attention to the narrow band gracing the little finger, next to a signet of his Haldane arms as king—a ring he had given to other brides in other times, one slain and another forever beyond his reach. But he must not let himself think of that; not now.
He straightened and drew a fortifying breath, determined not to let his disquiet show when the bride appeared. Mindful of his rank—and hers—he had arrayed himself in Haldane crimson for the small, almost clandestine ceremony shortly to begin. Though only a plain gold circlet adorned his brow, not the crown of state, the border of his crimson mantle was embellished with the emblems of his House: a favorite pattern of lean, stylized running lions, their legs and tails interlaced in an ancient design, echoing the larger lion rampant guardant worked in gold bullion on the breast of his tunic.
He smoothed the lion absently and drew another deep breath. Waiting beyond the door were a carefully chosen handful of his closest intimates, whose lives had long been intertwined with his: his uncle, his cousins, even the young hostage king, Liam-Lajos, who had endeared himself to the royal family during his four years of squireship under Nigel.
The Deryni Bishop Duncan McLain was also among them, though not as celebrant of the nuptial Mass about to begin—for this marriage would provoke controversy. Presiding instead would be Kelson’s personal chaplain of the past year, a young Deryni priest called John Nivard.
Also within was Duncan’s son Dhugal, Kelson’s blood-brother and perhaps his closest companion. And standing across from Dhugal, her mere presence enough to tear out Kelson’s heart, would be the woman who should have been his bride but had sworn never again to wed: Rothana of Nur Hallaj, here to witness for the golden-haired young woman who
now shyly set her hand on Kelson’s arm.
“Sire?” she whispered.
Nervous as any bridegroom, the king turned to smile down at her as he covered her hand with his, thinking that he had never seen her look so lovely.
“Courage,” he murmured. “You are a bride to make any man proud.”
She flushed prettily, the high color in her cheeks rivaling the pale pinks and creams of her bridal bouquet and the rose wreath crowning the mane of golden curls. Her gown was of silver samite, befitting a royal princess.
“Sire, you do me far more honor than I deserve,” she said. “Not many men would—”
“Not another word,” he said, with a shake of his head to silence her protestations. “The altar is prepared, and we have business there, I think. Shall we go in?”
Her color faded, but she nodded, briefly biting at her lower lip before turning her face toward the older woman waiting to open the door before them. The Duchess Meraude, Kelson’s aunt, had dressed the bride and brought her to the chapel door, and leaned closer to gently kiss her cheek before opening the door and herself slipping inside to join her husband.
Kelson’s appearance in the doorway with the Princess Janniver on his arm elicited a soft murmur of anticipation, quickly stilled, rather than the trumpet fanfare that should have greeted a royal bride. She had opted not even to have the choir Kelson could have summoned with a word, to sing the responses of the entrance antiphon. He could feel her trembling against his arm as Father Nivard began merely reading out the antiphon as the two of them walked down the short aisle.
“Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.”
“Qui fecit caelum et terram,” the witnesses responded.
“Domine, exaudi orationem meam.”
“Et clamor meus ad te veniat.”
Our help is in the name of the Lord . . . Who made heaven and earth . . . O Lord, hear my prayer . . . and let my cry come unto thee. . . .
Kelson kept his gaze averted as they walked, not for the first time regretting the circumstances that required this marriage to be solemnized in private. But it was better than might have befallen the unfortunate Janniver, who had never asked for the fate that befell her en route to another set of nuptials some four years before. Though then betrothed to the King of Llannedd, both he and her own father had utterly rejected her following her violation at the hands of a now-dead Mearan prince.
It was Kelson who had avenged her, and who had found her a sympathetic refuge in the household of his aunt; but it was one of his former squires who had lost his heart to the shy and gentle Janniver, and who now stepped forward almost reverently to take her hand from Kelson’s, adoration mingling with awed incredulity at his remarkable good fortune. Not often might a mere knight aspire to the hand of a royal princess.
With a nod and a smile at Sir Jatham Kilshane, Kelson set his hand briefly over their joined ones, then bent to lightly kiss Janniver’s cheek before stepping back beside Dhugal. Father Nivard also smiled as he moved forward to greet the couple, inviting them to pray.
“Dominus vobiscum.”
“Et cum spiritu tuo.”
“Oremus.”
Only when the prayer was done and Nivard began to speak briefly about the institution of marriage did Kelson dare to lift his gaze to the other woman standing near the altar, now holding Janniver’s bridal bouquet—the woman for whom he gladly would have sacrificed almost anything within his power, if only she might consent to the vows Janniver and Jatham shortly would exchange.
Rothana of Nur Hallaj: a princess of ancient royal blood, full Deryni, and his match- and soul-mate on every level. Standing there on Janniver’s other side, with dark eyes demurely downcast over the bouquet that should have been her own, she was gowned in the simple grey habit worn by the Servants of Saint Camber, whose patronage she had taken up following the birth of her son. Though the Servants were not a true religious order, she had covered the blue-black splendor of her hair beneath a nun-like fall of snowy wimple and veil, perhaps intending to remind him that she considered herself no more obtainable now than she had been when first they met—a vowed novice in the abbey where Janniver had broken her journey to another bridegroom never meant to be.
It so nearly had been otherwise. Herself as drawn to Kelson as he was to her, Rothana had tested the strength of her religious vows and eventually set them aside, intending to marry him, persuaded that her higher vocation lay in becoming his queen—and a queen for the Deryni.
But when faced with Kelson’s supposed death, as all the court believed, she had allowed his cousin Conall to persuade her that she now should be his queen, and still a queen for the Deryni, and had married him, borne his son. It mattered not that their brief marriage, of less than a month, had been based on deceptions that had ended with Conall’s execution as a traitor, leaving her free to marry again; Rothana had lost faith, and regarded herself now unworthy to be Kelson’s queen.
Father Nivard’s prenuptial exhortations concluded, and Kelson returned his attention briefly to the rapt bridal couple as Nivard now addressed first the groom, in the formal reiteration of betrothal that preceded the marriage vows.
“Jathamus,” he asked, “vis accipere Jannivera hic praesentem in tuam legitimam uxorem juxta ritum sanctae Matris Ecclesiae?”
“Volo,” Jatham breathed, his word of assent hardly audible for the joy welling in his eyes.
“Et Jannivera, vis accipere Jathamus hic praesentem in tuam legitimam maritum juxta ritum sanctae Matris Ecclesiae?”
“Volo,” she replied, her eyes never leaving Jatham’s.
They exchanged vows then, but Kelson hardly heard them. Even with Dhugal at his side, he had never felt so alone, never been more aware that, unless fate took a drastic turn, it was likely that he himself would never experience even a small part of the joy so obviously surrounding the couple before him. But he did his best to mask his own sorrow as the ring was blessed, the nuptial Mass celebrated, the bridal bouquet laid as an offering before the statue of the Queen of Heaven, over at the side of the chapel royal.
Afterward, when Kelson had led the bridal party to his own quarters for an intimate wedding supper, he set himself to play the gracious host as they dined on venison and roast fowl and poached salmon and savory pies. Three of his aunt’s ladies-in-waiting had undertaken to provide musical accompaniment for the meal, and their sweet voices mingled with the gentle strains of lute and dulcimer that drifted through the open door to Kelson’s bedchamber while the guests washed down their fare with ample portions of fine Vezairi wines brought up from the royal cellars. By the time the debris of the main courses was cleared away and the squires began laying out little cakes and honeyed dates and other dainties, he had let the wine blunt a little of his personal hopelessness.
He was seated directly across from Jatham and Janniver, on one side of a long trestle table laid out in the center of the withdrawing chamber adjacent to his private quarters. Meraude and Nigel flanked the happy couple, with Rory and Payne Haldane and young Liam ranged around the end of the table on Nigel’s side, the young Torenthi king looking almost like another Haldane, save for the bronze glints in his clubbed hair. Under the indulgent eye of Rory, recently knighted, both younger boys had been partaking freely of the wine brought up from the royal cellars, and had elicited more than one raised eyebrow from Nigel.
A smothered snicker from Payne earned the pair a raised eyebrow from Kelson as well, but he made himself smile as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet, taking up his goblet. At least this part of his hosting duty would be a pleasure. Dhugal sat at his left hand, across from Duchess Meraude, with Duncan beyond him—and then Rothana, safely between him and Father Nivard. It was Meraude who had persuaded Rothana not to forego the wedding supper, since she was as close to family as the Princess Janniver could claim, on what should have been an occasion for family rejoicing on both sides.
Kelson cast a furtive glance in her direction as conversation gradually died away and all eyes
turned in his direction, his thumb unconsciously worrying at the ring on his little finger—the ring she had cast into the moat before her marriage to another, believing him dead—recovered that next summer, through no little exertion of the powers of several of his Deryni associates. He knew she would not long linger, once the formalities of the meal had been concluded. Knowing his own sorrow, he knew hers hardly could be less.
“My friends,” he said, putting aside the sorrow as he scanned the smiling faces upturned toward him, “it is now my happy privilege to offer a toast to Sir Jatham’s fair bride. But before I do that,” he went on, turning his focus on the pair, “I have something to say to the two of you.” He set down his goblet and cast an inquiring glance at Nigel, who nodded minutely.
“My lady Janniver, I should first like to point out that I have given you to a husband I took great pains to bring up properly—which is no mean feat for a king who is hardly a year older than his squire.” The droll observation elicited smiles and a few chuckles as Kelson continued. “I can assure you, however, that I regard Sir Jatham Kilshane as a credit to my court and to whatever bride he might have chosen. Little did I realize that he would choose a royal princess—though every bride is a princess on her wedding day.”
Janniver blushed, Jatham ducked his head sheepishly, and gentle laughter rippled among the wedding guests.
“This leaves us, however, with an interesting point of protocol,” Kelson went on. “It is long-established custom that a bride takes the rank of her new husband on her wedding day, no matter how exalted her birth—which means that you, my dear princess, rank now as the wife of a simple knight.”