As Conall left Cardiel’s study, after receiving the archbishop’s blessing on his enterprise, he fancied that even Arilan would not be able to penetrate the truth of what had just transpired. Nor should the Deryni bishop have cause to question, in the first place. Conall was whistling under his breath as he rode back to the castle with Squire Ivo, whose services he had appropriated upon his return, along with the crown he hoped soon to wear and the bride he hoped soon to wed, the archbishop’s imprimatur secure at his breast.
Once safely ensconced at the castle again, however, the prince decided to waste no time confirming Rothana’s part of what he had just set in motion. He must see her at once—and determined to have her summoned to see him this time, to ensure that they would not be interrupted or disturbed. After checking on his father and taking a leisurely lunch with his mother, Conall retired to the withdrawing room behind the dais in the main hall and sent Ivo to ask Rothana to attend him. She came half an hour later, clad still in the black habit of mourning, thinner than Conall remembered her, leaving one of the sisters to wait outside the door, for appearances’ sake.
“You wished to see me, my lord?” Rothana said, cocking her blue-coiffed head at him in mild curiosity as she made him a curtsey.
“I did,” he replied, gesturing for her to be seated beside him on a bench before the fire. “Please, sit down.”
She folded her hands inside her sleeve openings as she obeyed, keeping her eyes modestly downcast as he stretched his booted feet out on the hearth, closer to the fire, and sighed wearily.
“A great deal has changed since we last spoke, my lady,” Conall said after a moment. “No doubt you’ve heard about my father’s seizure.”
“Yes, I have, my lord,” she replied. “We pray for him daily, but I have heard—”
“What you have heard is undoubtedly true,” Conall said quietly. “The prognosis is not good. I thank you for your prayers, but—”
He shrugged, letting a tremor of grief pass through his body as he lowered his head into one hand.
“Forgive me, my lady. It’s just that I feel so helpless. First Kelson, and now Father, slipping away …”
She turned her face in profile to him, gazing unseeing at the fire beyond his boots.
“They say he will not last the summer,” she said softly. “You will be king, when he is gone. And they say you are regent already.”
He nodded carefully, hardly daring to believe that she had led into precisely the topic he wanted to discuss.
“I am, my lady; and I will be. Nor do I feel myself ready to shoulder such an enormous burden. Have you—considered what we discussed before?”
As she turned her head to look at him, all wide, frightened eyes, he uncoiled from the bench to kneel at her feet, seizing the edge of her hem to press it fervently to his lips, shaking, for all that he had believed he was in control.
“I love you, Rothana,” he murmured. “And what’s at least as important, for a king, I need you. I need you by my side to help me rule Gwynedd. Without your support and guidance, I don’t know that I can bear the weight.”
“You could learn to love another,” Rothana whispered, extracting her hem from his grasp only to have him take her hand and press a kiss to her knuckles. “There are—many princesses who would be honored to give you their hand in marriage.”
“But none to compare with you, my lady,” Conall replied. He turned her hand to kiss the palm. “I am a Haldane, but I was never trained to be a king. I am king now, in everything except name. In the space of a few days, I will be master of all the power that being a Haldane king implies—and I don’t know the first thing about using it properly. But you’re Deryni. You could teach me. And our children—”
“My children—”
A sob caught in Rothana’s throat, and she bowed her head in her free hand.
She was weeping for Kelson. Conall felt a sharp stab of envy, but he made himself put it aside as useless. Kelson was dead, and he, Conall, was alive, to reap the Haldane benefits. He could afford to be indulgent.
“You loved Kelson, didn’t you, Rothana?” Conall said quietly, “and you thought your children would be his children, too.” He paused a beat. “I think I know how much you wanted that, but it can never be, now. What can be is similar, however—a chance for most things to be almost exactly the way they would have been, if he had lived.”
“It can never be the same,” she managed to whisper.
“Of course it can,” he crooned. “You had plans, Rothana—and there’s no reason most of those plans can’t go forward, with me as your husband instead of Kelson. You’d be the Deryni Queen of Gwynedd, with all that implies, with an unassailable position from which to improve the lot of your people—our people. You could found religious institutions, explore the extra spiritual dimensions the Deryni seem to have, maybe even restore the cult of Saint Camber, as Kelson wanted. And you’d be the mother of Haldane princes and princesses—and I do want lots of children, my darling. Even if you don’t love me now, do you not think you might learn to love me?”
As he pressed a kiss to her palm again, then let his tongue linger for just an instant to caress the smooth skin, teasing, he felt her shudder. And a very cautious probe, out from under his double shields, found her own shields in chaos, as she apparently found no reason to be on guard against his mind.
Her body was a different story, however. He knew that she was responding to him and that it disturbed her. She was not afraid that he might try to take advantage—though she should have been—but her own body was only barely held in check. He was annoyed to find that she compared his touch to Kelson’s, but reassured to note that the comparison was favorable.
“Ah, I’d forgotten something,” he said, releasing her hand to reach into his tunic and withdraw the parchment he had just had Cardiel sign. “I saw Archbishop Cardiel this morning, and he thought you might like to have this now, rather than waiting for the official writ in a day or two.”
As he handed it to her, she blanched, her hands trembling as she opened the stiff parchment and scanned the few words Cardiel had penned.
“I’ll be released,” she whispered dully. “Why did he give this to you?”
“Because I told him I want to marry you.”
“You—told him.”
Slowly she crumpled the parchment against her breast, staring into the fire, tears welling in her eyes, not resisting when he took the parchment from her hands and set it beside her on the bench. Nor did she pull back when he took her hand again, cradling it between his two as he stared up at her longingly.
“Marry me, Rothana,” he whispered, conveying all the yearning he dared, with mind as well as with voice and body. “Be my queen and my love. There’s nothing to stop you now. You’re free to do as you choose.”
Sadly, she shook her head. “No, not free, my lord. I am as much a prisoner of duty as you are. More, perhaps, for I have been bred to what I am, while your duty is new-come.”
“And is Gwynedd so unpleasant a prison?” he asked. “Would you find me so abhorrent a jailer?”
“It—isn’t that, my lord, as you must surely know. It is only that—it is so soon.”
“I share your despair at that, dear heart,” he agreed. “It is far too soon for the burdens being laid upon me, but sometimes we have no choice. If you will share those burdens, we can make of our prison a palace, I promise. We shall be the fairest king and queen ever to rule this noble kingdom, and I shall be your lord and love, and live only to make you happy.”
He laid his head in her lap as he spoke, slipping his arms around her waist, and after a few seconds, when she did not pull back, he raised his head to graze his lips against her breasts. She moaned at that, closing her eyes, and even through the stiff wool of her habit, he could feel her response.
That realization brought him to his feet, drawing her after him, to enfold her in his arms and press his mouth to hers. After a few seconds, as her lips parted beneath his, he swept th
e coif from her night-black hair, releasing its braid to tumble wantonly down her back and graze her buttocks, as one of his hands was doing. She made a tiny, whimpering sound, deep in her throat, but he did not relent, drawing her with him to ever increasing depths of arousal as his kiss lingered.
Pulling back, as Kelson had done that night Conall watched them in the garden, was almost more than he could manage, for Conall wanted her more than ever; but the value of a royal and virgin bride was almost beyond price for a king—or a future king—and he did not want to risk her denunciation, if he took her here and now, in her present state of vulnerability, and she later regretted it.
So he did pull back, still hardly daring to believe that, without coercion, she had agreed to marry him. But it was only then that it occurred to him that, indeed, she had not yet said she would.
“Will you marry me, Rothana?” he whispered.
But when uncertainty showed in her eyes, spilling over from her churning shields, he kissed her again, soundly, thrusting his tongue lingeringly past her lips until he thought he must explode from that alone. He was shaking as he drew back again, to gaze into her eyes, and she was shaking, too. But this time, she did not shrink from his gaze as he held her there, gazing down into her teary brown eyes.
“Marry me, Rothana,” he repeated. “You can’t deny there’s something between us.”
Shuddering again, as if exerting all her strength to pull herself together, Rothana nodded.
“I will,” she mouthed, so silently he could not hear her.
“Say it louder,” he demanded, grinning with wonder. “Say, Conall Haldane, I will marry you!”
She managed a ghost of a smile and gave him a little nod.
“Conall Haldane, I—will marry you,” she said.
He crushed her hard against him for several seconds then, breathing of the heady perfume of her hair but refraining from any further intimacies, now that he had her promise; and after a while he let her go, with a scarce-breathed murmur of his thanks. He used the time it took her to tidy her person and put her coif back on to bring his own emotions back into order, bridling his elation and commanding his body to quiescence with several deep, well-disciplined breaths.
He would pay for that later, when he tried to sleep, but it was worth it, for the present. All his dreams and desires were now within his grasp, could he but contain his impatience. He had only to endure the power ritual planned for him the next night, without betraying himself, and he would have all the Haldane power validly confirmed. As soon as the banns could be read after that, he and Rothana would be wed.
For now, though, and until that time came, he must keep his ambitions in check a while longer. Enjoining her not to speak of their betrothal to anyone save Cardiel, if she must—and for the same reasons he had given the archbishop—he gave her leave to go, waiting a few minutes after she had gone, to lessen the likelihood that anyone would note that she had spent time alone with him.
Thus Conall Haldane was smug and quite pleased with himself as he returned to his quarters to adopt at least the semblance of meditation and fasting required for the next twenty-four hours; for with Rothana wedded to him and the Haldane power officially confirmed in him by Morgan and Duncan themselves, no one could defy him. In fact, he doubted that even a resurrected Kelson would be able to stand against him!
Not that he believed, for even a moment, that Kelson was still alive …
Kelson was still alive, of course, but still not really himself. Though he had recovered enough to maintain a reasonable pace, as he and Dhugal hiked through seemingly endless caverns, he complained almost constantly of headaches, and his memory of how to use his powers did not come back. He was strong enough to walk mostly under his own power—which was more than Dhugal could say, at times, as his ankle continued to pain with every step—and he ate what Dhugal put before him; but the king seemed to have lost focus and sometimes went for hours without uttering a word, as he and Dhugal trekked on.
The days passed—or so Dhugal presumed, for he had lost all notion of time as the hours stretched on, unmarked by any day or night—and Dhugal wondered with less and less hope whether anyone was still looking for them. Several times, just before he sank into exhausted sleep, when he and Kelson would stop to eat and rest, he tried to send his mind out beyond the confines of their underground prison; but he never got any impression that his calls had been heard.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death.
—Proverbs 21:6
“Why did we let ourselves be talked into this?” Morgan asked, as dusk bore the room into ever-deeper shadow and he and Duncan finished putting the final touches to preparations for the rite to empower Conall.
Duncan gave his cousin a forbearing look as he carefully laid another log on the fire, but both knew the question was rhetorical. It had been asked too many times during the past week, as they debated the final form the ritual would take, exploring various options and methods of approach—for nothing was predetermined for the unprimed Conall, whom no one had ever expected to be king. Unfortunately, the only consistent answer was that they had no choice.
For Nigel certainly was dying. He might last weeks or even months, but his general condition was deteriorating with every passing day, the once-powerful body slowly wasting away, the mists growing thicker behind what shields had survived his seizure. They had set up in his room this afternoon, deeming it only fitting that the uncrowned king should be present, at least in body, as the Haldane legacy was confirmed in his son—and to permit at least a form of withdrawing the mandate of Haldane power from him before beginning its facilitation in Conall, though nothing but his lingering shields remained to show that even rudimentary Haldane gifts had ever been conferred.
The last had been Arilan’s suggestion, at the behest of the Council—formally withdrawing the mandate, just in case the prohibition against more than one Haldane holding the power at a time should interfere when the time came to bring Conall into his inheritance. No Haldane king or regent had ever been so endowed while his predecessor still lived—not that Nigel lived in anything but physical form.
That brought them to another point which neither Morgan nor Duncan had yet dared to voice but which plagued both of them—for, if power was manifested in Conall, then it would be nearly incontrovertible proof that Kelson was, indeed, dead.
Nearby, the object of their concern waited somewhat nervously to be fetched, doggedly schooling his thoughts in the appropriate directions to survive what was to come. Conall was hungry from fasting, and his knees ached from kneeling at the prie-dieu, but he put these discomforts of body aside as he reviewed his precautionary measures one final time—for someone would be here soon.
Odd, but he felt a curious detachment from what was about to happen to him. He had been given little hint of what physical trial might await him, but he believed he could face that, so long as his psychic defenses did not fail him.
Nor had he any real concerns in that regard, for he knew that the defenses with which Tiercel had endowed him would stand against a great deal. He had reinforced his shields by several levels, doubly shielding the guarded portions of his mind so that he felt certain he could withstand anything short of total merasha disruption—and he did not think tonight’s ordeal would involve merasha, judging by what he had gleaned from Tiercel’s memories on the subject. For the most part, the respect of trained Deryni for the drug put it outside normal use, except for learning how to cope with it and occasionally using it to prevent the use of powers.
Of course, there were other substances aplenty that might put him through dire experiences, totally at the mercy of Morgan and Duncan—and Arilan, who truly frightened him, because the Deryni bishop was so highly trained—but Conall knew about most of the possibilities through his contact with Tiercel, either from firsthand experience during his training or from the forbidden knowledge he had gained in final re
ading. And while there was nothing he could do to stop a reaction to medication, he was confident he could ride out its effects with minimal risk of exposing his true power—and its source.
He started, though, as a soft knock at the door announced the arrival of his escort, and ducked his head reflexively in a rote childhood prayer for protection.
It would be one of the two bishops come to fetch him, either Arilan or Duncan; and the locked door would stop neither man for more than a few seconds. Like his father, Conall ordinarily did not put much stock in outward religious observances, but now that the moment had come, hypothetical bravery wavered just a little before realistic apprehension about the unknown, and a prayer seemed in order. Besides, Conall as king would be expected to pay at least lip service to the appropriate minimal forms—so it surely could not hurt to let his priestly escort observe at least an outward semblance of piety.
After a few seconds, the formerly locked door swung softly inward on its hinges; and a moment later, Conall felt a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s time, Conall,” Arilan said softly. “Or do you need a little longer?”
Squaring his shoulders, Conall raised his head to meet the bishop’s gaze unflinchingly.
“I’ve prayed enough, Excellency—but I’d welcome your blessing before we go.”
He stayed kneeling as Arilan laid a hand briefly on his head in benediction, echoing the bishop’s movement as the sign of the cross was sketched above his head.
Then he was rising to let Arilan lay a dark cloak around his shoulders, drawing the hood close around his face at Arilan’s gesture. He kept his face averted as Arilan led him out into the corridor and finally up the narrow stair that led to his father’s rooms, his heart pounding in his chest.
Standing opposite Duncan, on the right-hand side of the bed where Nigel lay, Morgan waited, arms crossed on his breast in a ritual posture of readiness, of receptivity, fingertips brushing opposite shoulders. Like Duncan, he wore a cowled black cassock girdled in scarlet, hood pulled low over his forehead to block out distractions. Though his gryphon signet adorned his right hand, he had taken off that of the King’s Champion and put it on a leather thong around his neck, for now he was champion of neither Kelson, nor the uncrowned Nigel, lying motionless before him, nor of Nigel’s regent son, yet to be crowned. But he would keep Kelson’s ring until the day he died, in loving memory of the king who was lost.