"Well, I can't say I like the flavor," Morgan said. "We'll not stay long at the Orsal's court today, Duncan. I may not be able to do any more at home than I can there, but I at least want to be present when things start falling apart."
"Then you're finally convinced the Interdict is a serious threat."
"I never thought any different," Morgan agreed.
The sun had sunk into the sea and Rhafallia was churning her way back toward the Corwyn coast before Morgan at last had time to relax and ponder the day's events.
It had not been a good day. Aside from the obvious horror of attempted assassination and the death of Richard, even the meeting with the Hort of Orsal had been less than satisfying. His Hortic Majesty had been in a terrible disposition, for he had just received word that five of his prized R'Kassan stallions had been stolen from a breeding farm in his northern provinces. Torenthi border raiders had been responsible for the theft, and when Morgan and Duncan arrived the Orsal had been much more interested in recovering the animals and wreaking vengeance than in discussing mutual defense in a war that was still three months hence.
So the meeting had not been fruitful in that respect. Morgan visited with his old friend and his family and was coerced into allowing the Orsal's second heir, th'e eleven-year-old Rogan, to return with him to the
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ducal court for knightly training. But the defense plans so vital in the coming months were never settled to Morgan's satisfaction. When the duke boarded Rhafallia to go home, two of his castle lieutenants had stayed behind to wrangle with the Orsal's advisors and sea captains and work out final details of the protective alliance. Morgan did not like delegating such crucial responsibilities to others, but there was no real choice in this particular case. He could not personally afford to spend at the Oral's court the days necessary to come to a final agreement.
The weather, too, had deteriorated during the day. When Morgan sailed at sunset, it was in name only. The air was so still that the ship could not even leave the quay without the aid of oars. The crew, with the good-natured resignation that was characteristic of the men on Morgan's ships, unshipped their oars and settled down to row. And as stars began to appear in the east, the crew's rough voices sang and hummed sea chanties as old as man's first ventures on the sea.
The ship was dark except for green steering lanterns fore and aft. On the afterdeck, Captain Kirby stood watchful guard beside the helmsman. Beneath him, under the shelter of the afterdeck, Master Randolph and the others of Morgan's party reclined on hard pallets and tried to sleep. The duke and Duncan were bedded down on the forward platform, sheltered against a light drizzle by a canvas canopy Kirby had rigged before they set sail.
But Morgan could not sleep. Gathering his cloak around him more closely, he leaned out from under the canopy to scan the stars. The Hunter had risen from the sea in the east, and his bright belt winked frostily in the chill March air. Morgan studied the other constellations distractedly, not thinking about what he was doing, before settling back on his pallet to sigh, hands clasped behind his head.
"Duncan?"
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"Hmmm."
"Are you asleep?"
"No." Duncan sat up and nibbed a knuckled hand across his eyes. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
Morgan sighed again and clasped his knees against his chest, chin resting on folded arms. "Tell me, Duncan. Did we accomplish anything today besides the loss of a good man?"
Duncan grimaced, tight-lipped in the darkness, then tried to force a light tone. "Well, we saw the Orsal's latest offspring—number seven, I make it. And a 'lusty bairn,' as we say in Kierney."
"Hurrah for the lusty bairn," Morgan smiled Halfheartedly. "We also saw little Orsals one through six, number three of which is now part of my entourage. Why didn't you stop me, Duncan?"
"I?" Duncan chuckled. "I thought you were desperately eager for a new Hortic squire at Castle Coroth, my Lord General. Just think—you can take the Orsal's son into battle with you."
Morgan snorted. "The Devil I can! If I take the second heir to the Hortic throne into battle and something happens to him, God forbid, I'll end up dying for my new squire, all right. But what could I say? I owed the Orsal a favor. And it would have been very difficult to bow out gracefully with the boy standing right there."
"You don't have to explain," Duncan replied. "If there's trouble, you can always put the lad on the first ship for home. I get the impression that young Rogan would Iflce that anyway," he continued wistfully. "I don't think he's the warrior type."
'Tes, hardly the sort of son I'd pictured for the Hort of Orsal. He's second in line, and I have the feeling he's not even happy about being that close."
Duncan nodded. "A potential scholar or physician or monk if I ever saw one. It's a pity he'll never have
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the chance to pursue his true calling. Instead, he'll become some sort of minor functionary in his older brother's court when the time comes—never really happy, never knowing why. Or perhaps knowing why, yet unable to do anything about it. That's the saddest part of all, I think. I grieve for him, Alaric."
"So do I," Morgan agreed, knowing that Duncan, too, was feeling the futility of being trapped in a role he did not wish to play, forced by circumstances to veil his true potential and masquerade in a world he had not asked for or made.
With a sigh, Morgan leaned out of his pallet to study the stars once more, then edged closer to the bow where light was streaming from the forward steering lantern. Sitting back against the railing, he stripped off his right glove, smiled as the gryphon signet on his hand winked coldly in the green-tinged lantern light.
Duncan scooted across the deck on hands and knees to crouch beside his cousin.
"What are you doing?"
"It's time for Derry's report if he's going to make one," Morgan replied, polishing the ring against a corner of his cloak. "Do you want to listen with me? I'm only going to first level trance unless he calls."
"Go," Duncan said, sitting cross-legged beside Morgan and nodding his readiness. "I'm one step behind you."
As both men fixed their attention on the ring, Morgan inhaled deeply to trigger the earliest stage of the Deryni Mind-Touch, then exhaled slowly as he entered trance. His eyes closed; his breathing became slow and controlled. And then Duncan was reaching across to cover the gryphon seal with his cupped hand, to join in the rapport.
They cast around for perhaps fifteen minutes, at first touching only the consciousness of crew men and members of the ducal party aboard. As they extended
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their awareness, they caught the ghostly flickers of other minds, contacts so fleeting as to be almost undetecta-ble, and certainly unreadable. But nowhere was there a sign of Deny. With a sigh, Morgan withdrew from the trance, Duncan following.
"Well, I suppose he's all right," Morgan said, shaking his head lightly to dispel the last vestiges of fog-giness which such a search usually left behind. "Unless he's in serious trouble, I know he would have called if he'd had anything to report." He smiled. "I'm afraid our young friend Deny liked his first taste of magic far too much to pass up the opportunity for a repeat performance if there was the slightest excuse he could use. I think he's probably safe."
Duncan chuckled as he crawled back to his pallet. "It's a little surprising how easily he took to magic, don't you agree? He acted as though he'd been doing it all his life, hardly batted an eye when he found out I was Deryni too."
"Product of long indoctrination," Morgan smiled. "Deny has been my aide for nearly six years. And up until two nights ago, I never let him see me use my powers directly. He saw the fruits of those powers on occasion, though, if not the methods. So when the time finally came to get involved himself, there was no question in his mind as to whether being Deryni was a bad thing. He knew better. He shows remarkable potential, too."
&
nbsp; "Could he be part Deryni?"
Morgan shook his head and lay down. "I'm afraid not. Which raises another interesting question. It makes one wonder what other humans could do, given the chance, if they weren't so damned convinced that magic is evil. Deny, for example, shows remarkable adaptability. There are a number of simple spells I could teach him right now if he were here, and he'd have no difficulty whatever in mastering them. And he doesn't even have ancestry through one of the
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original human families that carries the potential for receiving power—like Brion did, or like the Orsal's line."
"Well, I hope he's careful," Duncan murmured, rolling over and* pulling his cloak over himself with a grunt. "A little knowledge can be dangerous, especially if it happens to be Deryni knowledge. And right now, the world can be a very dangerous place for Deryni sympathizers."
"Deny can take care of himself," Morgan said. "He thrives on danger. Besides, I'm sure he's safe."
But Deny was not safe.
CHAPTER EIGHT
For there cometh a smoe out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranfa.
Isaiah 14:31
Bur DEHHY was not safe.
That morning after leaving Fathane, he had decided to head north toward Medras to see what he could learn. He did not plan to go all the way to that city, for there was not sufficient time if he was to be back in Coroth by the following night as Morgan had ordered. But Medras was where Torenthi troops were reputed to be gathering. If he were prudent, he might be able to gain valuable information to relay back to Morgan.
Of course, he had reminded himself as he rode out the gates of Fathane, he would have to exercise a great deal more caution if he intended to do his work in another establishment like the Jack Dog Tavern of the night before. Last night's altercation in the alley had been far more brutal than he cared to repeat.
And that was yet another reason for quitting Fathane as soon as possible. He didn't want to be connected with those two bodies in the alley. He doubted that any of his drinking companions of the night before would even be able to remember him, much less connect him with the deaths. But witnesses had a bad habit of remembering things at the most inoppor-
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tune times. And if, by some quirk of fate, those did—well, life would be neither easy nor long for one who had dared to kill two of Wencit's hand-picked spies.
So he had ridden north and inland toward the city of Medras, stopping occasionally at inns and wells to chat with the local folk and to peddle some of the furs in the pack behind his saddle. By noon he had reached the turn-off road to Medras, only minutes behind a large company of foot soldiers bound for that city. And he had very nearly been stopped and questioned by a pair of men from the rear guard of that troop.
If there had been any doubt in his mind before, that incipient threat convinced Derry that he had best, indeed, not go on to Medras. It was time to head west, back into Corwyn. Dusk found Derry crossing the rolling northern reaches of Morgan's territory, the fertile buffer region separating Corwyn from Eastmarch. The roads near the border were notoriously poor, and the one Deny had chosen was no exception, but he had made good time since crossing the Torenth-Corwyn border. Now, as darkness approached, however, Derry's horse stumbled and slowed on the rough footing. Derry sighed and forced himself to pay more attention to his riding.
It would soon be dark, but he had a definite destination in mind before he stopped for the night. For while this was Morgan country, it was also Warin country, if rumor was correct. There was a town ahead with a passable inn. Besides dinner, of which Derry was sorely in need, there might be valuable information to be gleaned.
Whistling a merry tune under his breath as he rode, Derry glanced at the horizon slightly to his left, then stared.
That was strange. Unless he was seriously mistaken, the sunset glow behind the next hill was not only
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in the wrong place (indeed he had seen the sun set thirty degrees farther to the right), but it was growing brighter instead of darker.
Fire?
Drawing rein to listen and sniff the wind, Deny frowned, then left the road and struck out across the open fields toward the hill. The bitter, acrid bite of smoke was strong in his nostrils now. And as he neared the crest of the hill, he could see the black clouds of smoke billowing into the still-pale sky ahead. Now, too, he was aware of shouts echoing on the chill night air.
Suspecting the worst, and hoping that he was wrong, Deny slipped from the saddle and covered the remaining few yards on foot. His face went grim as he dropped to his stomach to scan the scene below.
Fields were burning. Perhaps thirty or forty acres of winter wheat stubble were smoldering to the south, and actual flames were threatening a modest manor house just off the road Deny had left.
But it was not only fire which threatened the inhabitants of the manor house. There were armed horsemen plunging about in the manor courtyard, flailing about them with swords and lances, cutting down the green-liveried men on foot who tried futilely to ward off their blows.
All that was noble in Deny cried out in that instant. For one of the first precepts of knightly honor was to defend the helpless and the innocent. He wished desperately to go to the rescue.
Yet reason told him, rightly, that there was nothing one lone man could do against such odds except himself be cut down. And though he might very well have taken a number of marauders to the grave with him, it would be a useless death. Dying would not get word back to Morgan of what was happening here, or help the manor's occupants.
As Deny watched, sick at heart, his eye caught the
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flicker of new fires starting to the north of the main one, and men on horseback with torches in their hands. As the new group rallied and waited at the road, Deny saw that the fighting was over in the courtyard, that all the liveried men were still. There was, he noted with satisfaction, another figure on the ground—one not in livery. But his comrades picked him up and put him across a horse, then waited until two other men with torches came running from the manor house to mount up and ride.
Smoke curled from the rear of the manor house-smoke from a place where there was no chimney— and Deny gritted his teeth and forced himself to wait as the last of the marauders galloped out of the courtyard and joined their companions, then disappeared over the hills to the west.
Cursing softly under his breath, Deny ran back to his horse, vaulted into the saddle, and began careening wildly down the hillside. The manor house was blazing strongly now, and there was no chance that it could be saved. But Derry had to be certain that there was no one left alive in that scene of carnage.
He was able to make his way to within fifty yards of the manor before flames from the burning wheat stubble forced him to return to the road. And then he had to blindfold his horse with his cloak before the animal would pass between the flames to either side of the manor gate. He steeled himself as he drew rein.
It had been the manor of a lord of modest means. The house was unpretentious, though well kept— what was left of it. And the lord's retainers had apparently made the best stand they could. There were half a dozen bodies in the yard, more on the porch: most of them old, all wearing blood-stained livery of the same green and silver as the coat of arms above the ruined gate.
Vert, three wheat sheaves proper on a chevron argent. Motto; Non concedo—7 do not concede.'
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Surety these men did not concede, Deny thought as he picked his way across the courtyard and scanned the bodies. / wonder of their lord, though. Where is he?
He heard a moan from his left and saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. As he turned his horse to investigate, he saw a hand lift in supplication. He slipped from the saddle to kneel at the side of an old bearded man who also wore the green and silver livery.
"Who—who are you?" the old man gasped, clutching at Denys cloak and pulling him closer to squint in the fire-lit darkness. "You're not one of them-"
Derry shook his head and eased the man's head against his knee. It was getting darker, and the man's face was scarcely more than a blur in the railing light, but it was enough for Deny to see that he was dying.
"My name is Scan Lord Deny, friend. I'm the duke's man. Who did this to you? Where is your lord?"
"Scan Lord Deny," the man repeated, his eyes closing against the pain. "I've heard of you. You—sit on the young king's Council, don't you?"
"Sometimes," Derry said, frowning in the darkness. "But right now it's more important that you tell me what has happened. Who's responsible for this?"
The old man lifted one hand and gestured vaguely toward the west. "They came out of the hills, my lord. A band of Warin de Grey's ruffians. My young master, the Sieur de Vali, is gone to Rhelledd to seek the duke's aid for all of the local landowners, but alas..."
His words trailed off and Deny thought he had lost him, but then the creaky old voice continued.
"Tell the duke we fought loyal to the end, my lord. Though we are but old men and boys, tell him we
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would not give in to the 'Holy One,' no matter what his minions threatened. We—"
He coughed, and dark blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. But then he seemed to gain strength from somewhere, and he raised his head a few inches, pulling himself up on Denys cloak.
"Your dagger, my lord. May I see it?"
Derry frowned, wondering if the man meant to ask for the coup de gr^ce. It must have shown on his face, for the man smiled and shook his head as he relaxed against Derry's knee once more.
"I will not ask that of you, young lord," he whispered, his eyes searching Derry's. "I do not fear death. I but seek the solace of a cross to ease my passage into that other world."
Derry nodded, his face grave and solemn, and pulled his dagger from its boot-top sheath. Grasping it by the blade, hilt uppermost, he held it before the man's eyes, a faint shadow from the flame-light falling across the man's face. The man smiled and pulled the cross hilt down to touch it with his lips. And then the hand went slack, and Deny knew the man was dead.