The Bishop’s Heir Read online

  Kelson grinned, a boyish quirk of a smile which was quite at odds with his regal attire and bearing.

  “I think you do. I do, if you don’t. And the day you stop worrying is the day I’ll start.” He touched Morgan lightly on the shoulder.

  “Just keep our wayward bishops in line for me, Alaric. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  By the following afternoon, Kelson was beginning to wonder whether he had truly gotten the better end of the bargain. He had expected the weather to hold for at least another week; but as he and his warband rode west along the river toward Trurill—a full two dozen knights and men-at-arms, in addition to squires and servants—the air grew increasingly still and oppressive. An annoying drizzle set in just before noon, dampening dispositions as well as armor and equipment. Conall, riding beside his royal cousin, spent nearly all of their brief meal-break complaining about the weather, but at least the more important grumbling of the men was mostly good-natured. The road was still good, the rain only settling the dust as they resumed travel. At midafternoon they entered an area of sparse forest, where the drizzle subsided to a less irritating drip as it filtered through the trees.

  They heard the sound of fighting long before they came upon it. The shrill whinnies of horses in distress warned them first, setting their own blooded warhorses to prancing and snorting with anticipation. As shouts and the clash of steel began to reach them, Duke Ewan signalled a halt and sent two advance riders spurring on ahead to investigate. Kelson, who had been chatting with several of his younger knights halfway back along the column, eased his mount forward at once, tugging distractedly at a gauntlet cuff.

  “Jodrell, were you expecting any activity along here?” the king called softly, as he drew rein beside their guide.

  The young Kierney baron only shook his head, still poised in a listening attitude. When the outriders did not return within a few minutes, Kelson silently signalled Saer de Traherne to begin stripping the waterproof cover off the Haldane battle standard.

  “What are we waiting for, Ewan?” Conall fretted, standing in his stirrups to peer ahead into the forest gloom. “If there’s trouble, we should try to stop it!”

  Old Ewan, sitting his horse ahead of the two Haldanes and at right angles to them, squeezed his eyes to calculating slits as he glanced in their direction, armored hand already fingering his sword hilt. His bushy red beard protruded beneath his helmet quite without discipline of razor or scissors.

  “Their trouble, not ours, Your Highness—unless, of course, we insist upon charging into things without knowing what we’re about. Hush ye, now, so I can listen.”

  Still the silence was broken only by the continuing sounds of the distant fighting and the closer noises of the Haldane great-horses held in check, bits and chains jingling, leather creaking, mail clinking softly as the knights strained to hear. Kelson surveyed the two dozen mounted knights settling helmets on heads and taking up shields behind him, then shifted his attention back to Ewan.

  “What do you think?” he whispered.

  Ewan slowly shook his head. “I dinnae know yet, Sire. We’re on the edge of Trurill holdings, eh, Jodrell? That means that Trurill levies are likely on one side of whatever’s dusting up.”

  The border baron nodded. “Aye, Your Grace—though it’s God’s good guess who’s on the other side. I’d wait for Macaire and Robard, if I were you, Sire.”

  “I fully intend to.”

  “But, can’t we—” Conall began.

  “No, we can’t,” Kelson murmured, giving Conall a warning look as he twisted to take the shield that his squire had brought forward. “Jodrell, check the men, please.”

  Conall started to object again as Jodrell reined his horse out of line and headed quietly back along the column, but another sharp look from Kelson silenced him. The prince, only a few months younger than Kelson, had been along on the Cardosa campaign two summers before, but he still had much to learn about strategy and the art of command. It was a common failing, and not entirely Conall’s fault, for though Gwynedd common law declared fourteen to be the legal age of manhood, in fact few boys were actually called upon to function as adults for several more years.

  Chivalric custom recognized this, even if the law did not, denying the knightly accolade to those under eighteen except on rare occasions. Even Kelson, who could have made himself such an exception as king, had declined to be knighted until his eighteenth birthday. If Conall gained sufficient experience in the coming year, his knighting might be moved forward a few months to coincide with Kelson’s; but meanwhile, he remained in the subordinate rank of squire, royal though he was.

  That was little comfort to Kelson just now, weighing Conall’s inexperience against the possible dangers of the coming skirmish. He could not help remembering Morgan’s warning about the difference of fighting styles and wondered whether the Deryni lord could have known he was foretelling the future. Border fighting favored quick, lightly mounted and armed raiding bands, not the heavier horses and armor to which Conall was accustomed and with which the warband was equipped. Should the terrain ahead boast closer maneuvering room than what lay immediately around them, the inexperienced among Kelson’s company might find themselves at the disadvantage despite their numbers and superior armor.

  Still, Kelson supposed he could let his untried cousin at least think he was performing an important function, while still keeping him relatively safe and under watchful eyes. As he adjusted the angle of his helm and secured the chin strap, he cast a stern glance at the impatient Conall, then relented and nodded to Traherne. Immediately, Conall was kneeing his charger between the two of them and reaching out for the royal standard, tight-jawed but triumphant as his gloved hand locked around the polished staff.

  “No heroics, now,” Kelson warned.

  “Don’t worry.”

  The crimson of the banner’s field seemed almost subdued against the deep green of the surrounding forest, but the golden Haldane lion shimmered like a living thing as Conall gave the silk a shake and set the butt of the staff in his stirrup rest. The prince’s grin was infectious, and Ewan and Traherne as well as Kelson found themselves smiling in response as muffled hoofbeats approached. Kelson cast about for hidden dangers as a returning scout burst through the trees and reined his horse to a sliding halt, but he sensed nothing other than the body of men ahead.

  “Liveried men-at-arms, Sire—lightly mounted, against what appears to be a band of brigands,” the man reported. “Maybe twenty on a side, but none of them are particularly well armored.”

  “Whose livery?” Kelson demanded.

  “Trurill, Sire. Two swords in saltire over a third in pale, all on a blue field.”

  Kelson glanced at Ewan, who nodded confirmation.

  “Those’ll be Brice’s lads, right enough. Do we have maneuvering room, son?”

  “At least as good as here, Your Grace. Part of the area is an open glade. Robard has stayed to watch they don’t shift while we’re planning.”

  “Well done.” Kelson drew his sword and glanced back at his waiting men. “Very well, gentlemen, I think it’s time to show ourselves. If we can manage without bloodshed, so much the better. Traherne, I want you on Conall’s other side. Jodrell, you ride on my right. Ewan, deploy the men.”

  With an economy of silent hand signals, Ewan gave the necessary orders. As ever, Kelson was impressed with the efficiency and polish which came with more than thirty years’ experience as a field commander. The jingle of harness and the wet, sucking sound of the horses’ hooves on the moss-covered forest floor temporarily covered the battle sounds as the knights peeled off to either side and fanned out in perfect parade ground formation, Ewan and one of the senior knights each taking a wing. Kelson urged his bay forward at the trot, sword at the ready, he and his escort marking the center of a deepening crescent intended to engulf attackers and defenders alike. Ahead, through the trees, he began to see the signs of battle.

  “Yield, in the king’s name!” he hear
d Ewan cry, as the royal knights burst upon the skirmish. “Hold, in the name of Kelson of Gwynedd!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh.

  —Song of Solomon 3:8

  Kelson’s first impression, as he and his warband burst into the clearing, was one of brawl rather than battle. Though most of the Trurill men were armed with swords or the short horse-spears favored by bordermen, their opponents seemed limited to cudgels, quarterstaffs, and the occasional dirk. Nor did the Trurill men appear inclined to overpress their advantage. Even as the Haldane ring tightened, Kelson saw a Trurill retainer grab his opponent’s plaid and yank him off his pony, cracking him across the back of the head with the pommel of his sword when he just as easily could have killed him. Several of both sides lay unmoving or groaning feebly on the ground, but few seemed seriously injured.

  Trurill livery and leathers swirled and surged chaotically around Border tartans strange and familiar, loose ponies and an occasional terrified highland sheep creating additional hazards for the few men who continued to fight from the ground. The ponies’ whinnying and the frantic bleating of the sheep made vocal counterpart to the grunts and exclamations of the struggling men.

  The confrontation was quickly over. With shouts of “A Haldane!” the royal knights closed, shouldering their greathorses deftly between the smaller, lighter border mounts to break up individual skirmishes, flat-blading recalcitrants who tried to keep on fighting, and sometimes bowling over horses and surprised riders of both sides. Kelson and the rest of the royal party held back as a reserve, but their help was never necessary. The closest Kelson came to action was the startled leap his horse made when one of the sheep suddenly bolted between its front legs.

  Soon the brigands began dropping their weapons and raising their arms in surrender. With a shout, the Trurill men rallied to surround them. As Kelson’s warband pulled back to sit their horses quietly at the perimeter of the clearing, still encircling captors as well as prisoners, the Trurill men began ordering the prisoners to dismount and to bind them, a few starting to see to the injured. Ewan, scanning his own command for injuries and seeing none, kneed his charger to Kelson’s side and saluted with up-raised gauntlet.

  “Well, that was a pleasant enough romp, Sire,” he said in a low voice, nodding toward the borderers. “You there—Trurill Sergeant!” he called in a louder voice. “Attend us at once!”

  At his command, one of the older, better armored Trurill men glanced back at him, then broke away from the rest of his band and rode slowly toward the royal party, eying the Haldane standard with something akin to suspicion. He gave perfunctory salute with his sword as he reined in before them, glancing first at Kelson and Conall, then at Ewan.

  “You are well come, sir,” the man said, sheathing his sword. “By your plaid, I make you a highland man. Would you be The Claibourne, then?”

  But before Ewan could reply, the man glanced less certainly between Kelson and Conall once again. “And you, my lords—I thank you for your assistance. We see few Haldanes this far west.”

  And doubtless wish to see fewer still, Kelson thought sourly, as he also sheathed his sword and removed his helmet.

  He supposed he should not be annoyed that the man did not recognize him. Other than his own brief foray into Culdi two years before for the ill-fated wedding of Kevin McLain and Morgan’s sister Bronwyn, Kelson doubted any other Haldane had penetrated this deep into the western borderlands for several years before his father’s death. His progress of the summer just past had been confined primarily to Meara itself, and the flatlands of Kierney and Cassan. And even were bordermen not notorious for their indifference to lowland titles of nobility, how could a mere border sergeant be expected to know his king by sight?

  “I am Kelson,” he said patiently, pushing back a sweat-stained arming cap from damp black hair and handing off his helmet to a waiting squire. “It appears that the presence of this particular Haldane was rather timely. You are—?”

  The man dipped his head in dutiful if chilly respect.

  “Gendon, my Lord King, in service to the Baron of Trurill.”

  Kelson favored the man with the same sort of cool, impersonal nod which he himself had received, then scooped damp tendrils of hair from his face with the back of one mailed gauntlet as he glanced over the prisoners being secured by Gendon’s men. How to unbend the man?

  “Gendon, eh?” he said neutrally. “Tell me, Master Gendon, what brought about this little set-to? Actually, I’m not sure you needed our help at all. They weren’t very well armed.”

  “They’re outlaws, my lord,” came the surprised reply, as if that explained everything. “They raid across the borders for livestock—sometimes even women and children.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, we try to stop it, of course, my lord,” the man went on a little defensively. “The baron posts a regular patrol, as is his duty, but a man can slip off into these hills with half a dozen sheep and never be seen again. The young Laird MacArdry says this particular lot have been plaguing Transha as well.”

  “The young laird—you mean Dhugal, the chief’s son?” Kelson asked, his more personal interest suddenly piqued.

  Gendon raised one eyebrow in surprise. “You know young Dhugal, my lord?”

  “You might say that,” Kelson replied with a grin. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen him lately?”

  “Lately? Aye, my lord. Every blessed day.”

  But as Gendon gestured toward his men and twisted in his saddle to look, clearly taken aback at this lowland king’s apparent recognition of highland relationships, Kelson had already spotted the object of his inquiry: a slight, ramrod-straight rider wrapped in a grey, black, and yellow plaid which only partially hid the russet leather of a neat Connaiti brigandine. He was talking to a Trurill man balancing on one leg beside his horse, gesturing for someone else to come and assist the man. A mail coif partially obscured the hair which would have made a beacon of his presence out of war harness, but the shaggy brown-and-white spotted border horse he rode was well known to Kelson, though its markings were common enough not to be remarked during the heat of battle—doubtless the reason Kelson had not noticed them earlier.

  The MacArdry heir became aware of the royal scrutiny at about the same moment Kelson first saw him. One look at the riders sitting beneath the royal standard was enough to make him break away and urge his mount into a trot toward the king, grinning hugely.

  “Dhugal MacArdry, what the devil is that?” Kelson shouted, pointing a gauntleted finger at the other’s steed and grinning almost as widely as he. “Surely, ’tis no horse that looks so strange!”

  The young MacArdry drew rein and almost flung himself from the saddle, pushing his coif back from bright copper-bronze hair as he thumped to both knees before the king’s horse.

  “Why, ’tis the beast who threw Your Grace the first half-dozen times you tried to ride her!” Dhugal replied. His sword hung from a baldric over his left shoulder, rigged to be drawn from the left, but he half-drew it with his right hand and offered the pommel in salute, face glowing with pride.

  “Welcome to the borders—my King! It’s been too many years.”

  “Aye, and I shall trounce you for a knave if you don’t get off your knees at once!” Kelson said happily, signalling the other to rise. “I was your brother before I was your king. Conall, look how he’s grown! Ewan, you remember my foster-brother, don’t you?”

  “Aye, Sire—and the mischief which which both of you used to terrorize my pages’ school! ’Tis good to see you, Master Dhugal.”

  “And you, Your Grace.”

  As Dhugal let his sword slip back into its scabbard and stood, and Kelson jumped down from his tall R’Kassan stallion, Conall also nodded in tight-lipped response to Dhugal’s slight bow in his direction; the two had been keen rivals in those earlier days. Though nearly as tall as Kelson, the young border lord looked hardly older than whe
n he had left court four years before, a sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheeks only adding to the childlike first impression. Large, square front teeth flashed bright white as his face creased in a pleased, open grin, the smudge of reddish mustache across his upper lip hardly more than adolescent down. But the eyes which met Kelson’s were no longer those of a child.

  The two young men embraced exuberantly, thumping each other on the back and then drawing apart to study the other more soberly. Kelson did not resist as Dhugal took his hand and pressed fervent lips to the back of the gauntlet in homage before looking back at him.

  “How are you, Dhugal?” he murmured.

  “I am well, my prince, now that you are here,” Dhugal replied softly, in the cultured court accents he had learned so many years before. “We have heard stories here in the west, of course, but—” He shrugged and grinned broadly. “Well, frankly, I did not think to see Your Grace in person until the day I came to claim my earldom. The borders and highlands have never been a favorite haunt of Haldane kings.”

  “The borders are loved by this Haldane,” Kelson said, flashing with fond remembrance on the image of Dhugal’s elderly father, who had fostered Dhugal to court when he was seven and Kelson nine. “And praise God it did not take your father’s death to bring us back together after all. How is old Caulay?”

  “He does as well as one might hope,” Dhugal replied, a trifle more subdued. “He’s not travelled since your coronation, though. I’ve spent the past three years standing in for him, learning a proper border soldier’s trade. I—don’t suppose my apprenticeship can last much longer now.”

  “His illness is worse, then. Dhugal, I’m sorry,” Kelson murmured. But before he could continue, Gendon, the Trurill sergeant, cleared his throat.

  “Your pardon, Lord King, but young MacArdry does have duties. Dhugal, there are wounded.”

  “Aye, Sergeant, I’ll see to them directly.” Dhugal gave Kelson a short bow of apology. “By your leave, Sire.”