In the King's Service Read online

  A tap at the room’s inner door announced the intrusion of the babe’s nurse, white-coifed head ducking in apology as she eased into the light of the candles burning beside the curtained bed.

  “You have a visitor, milady,” the woman said. “The king has come to pay his respects. Shall I take the baby?”

  “No, show him in,” Jessamy replied. “Then leave us.”

  “Alone, milady?” Anjelica said, looking faintly scandalized.

  “Anjelica, he’s the king.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  The woman withdrew dutifully, unaware that her compliance had been encouraged by Jessamy’s deft reinforcement. Very shortly, the king peered around the door and then entered, closing the door behind him and grinning. Jessamy smiled in return, inclining her head over the baby’s in as much of a bow as could be managed from a mostly reclining position. As she looked up, she saw a flicker of pleased amusement kindle behind the clear gray eyes.

  He did not look his age, though she knew that she looked hers, especially after the rigors of late pregnancy and childbirth—and she, more than a decade his junior. Now past fifty, Donal Blaine Aidan Cinhil was still the epitome of Haldane comeliness, fit and dashing in his scarlet hunting leathers. Gold embroidery of a coronet circled the crown of his scarlet hunting cap, and a white plume curled rakishly over one eye, caught in place with a jeweled brooch. While his close-clipped beard and his moustache were acquiring decided speckles of gray, hardly a trace of silver threaded his black hair—unlike her own once-dark tresses. The loosely plaited braid tumbling over one shoulder was decidedly piebald.

  He took off his cap as he came farther into the room, tossing it onto a chest at the foot of the great bed with easy grace. He had been born in the halcyon years shortly following Gwynedd’s costly victory at Killingford in 1025, the only surviving son of Malcolm Haldane and Roisian of Meara, whose marriage was to have cemented a lasting peace between the two lands. Instead, it had spawned a new dispute regarding the Mearan succession—and launched the first in an ongoing series of Haldane military incursions back into Meara.

  The succession, even in Gwynedd, had remained precarious in the years that followed, for Donal was the only male heir Malcolm had produced by his first marriage, despite several children by assorted mistresses, the known ones legitimated shortly before his death but without dynastic rights. Donal’s half-siblings had made good marriages and served him loyally, and Malcolm’s second marriage to Queen Síle had produced another true-born prince in Duke Richard—Donal’s heir presumptive until the birth of Prince Brion, little though Richard aspired to the crown. Though trained from birth to rule after Donal, if need be, none had rejoiced more than he when, within a year of his brother’s new nuptials, Queen Richeldis had presented Donal with his long-awaited son: Prince Brion Donal Cinhil Urien Haldane, born the previous June.

  “Good evening, Sire,” Jessamy said to the father of that prince, as he moved closer beside the bed. “How fares the son and heir?”

  “He flourishes,” Donal replied, smiling. “When I put a sword in his hand, he doesn’t want to let go. I expect he will be walking soon. He pulls himself up already. And how fares your son and heir?”

  “He suckles well. He knows to reach out for what he wants. His father has reason to be proud of him.”

  “May I see him?” Donal asked, craning for a closer look.

  “Of course.”

  Gathering the infant’s blankets around him, and carefully supporting the tiny head, Jessamy held out the bundle to the king, who took the babe in the crook of his arm and proceeded to inspect him thoroughly.

  “He appears to have the correct number of fingers and toes and other appendages,” Donal declared. “And those are warrior’s hands,” he added, letting the infant seize one of his fingers and convey it to the tiny rosebud mouth. “He will be a fitting companion for a prince.”

  “One had hoped that would be the case,” Jessamy agreed good-naturedly.

  “Brothers—that’s what they’ll be,” came the reply. “He’s perfect. His hair will be like yours, I think,” Donal went on, gently cupping the child’s downy head. “But those are not your eyes, or Sief’s.”

  “No,” was all the child’s mother replied.

  Chuckling softly, Donal let himself sit on the edge of the bed, and was carefully giving the child back into its mother’s keeping when the bedroom door opened and Sief entered.

  “Ah, and here’s the proud father now,” Donal said, twisting around to greet the newcomer. “I’d come to congratulate you, Sief, and to inspect the new bairn. And to cheer the mother in her childbed, if the truth be known. My queen tells me that a new mother appreciates such things. Not that she speaks to me overmuch, of late. The morning sickness is a trial she would liefer have foregone for a few more months.”

  Sief found himself smiling dutifully in response to the king’s boyish grin, though he could not say why he found it unsettling to find Donal here.

  They had long been friends beyond mere courtier and prince. He had served Donal Haldane for most of his life—had been assigned by King Malcolm as the prince’s first aide, when Sief was a new-made knight and Donal but a lad of ten—and been his confidant and brother-in-arms through many a campaign and court intrigue. It had taken most of a decade for the young prince to guess that Sief was Deryni. By then, Sief had come to realize that Donal possessed certain powers of his own that were somewhat similar, somehow related to his kingship. Malcolm had possessed them as well, and perhaps had also recognized Sief for what he was, though they had never spoken of it.

  Sief had never spoken of it to the Council, either, though privately he had intimated to Donal that certain of his not inconsiderable powers were at the prince’s service. After all, part of the reason for the Council’s very existence—and for Sief’s placement in the royal household—was to safeguard the Haldane line on the throne of Gwynedd; for the Haldanes knew, as other humans did not, that the Deryni, properly ruled, posed little threat to the human population.

  In practice, Sief’s direct service to the king as a Deryni had been limited, and extremely discreet. Those of his race were able to determine when a person was lying—a talent of undoubted use to a king. In addition, a trained Deryni could usually compel disclosures when a person attempted simply to tell part of the truth, or to withhold it. With care, the memories of a person subjected to such attentions could even be blurred to hide what had been done—though such investigations were always carried out in private. The court was only aware that Sir Sief MacAthan was an extremely skilled interrogator. More often, he merely stood at the king’s side and observed, only later reporting on the veracity of what had been said.

  Over the years, such attention to nuance of truth and falsehood had become second-nature when in the king’s presence. Why, then, were Sief’s senses suddenly all atingle? Surely it was not at the prospect that the queen was once again with child.

  “Then, the palace gossip is correct,” Sief said tentatively.

  “Palace gossip,” Donal said, standing up with fists set to hips. “Surely you don’t pay any mind to that.”

  “I do, when it may pertain to the welfare of the kingdom, Sire,” Sief replied. “Prince Brion is still shy of his first birthday. It is still very early for a new pregnancy for the queen. Self-restraint, my lord,” he added, trying not to sound self-righteous.

  “A king needs an heir and a spare,” Donal said breezily, “and good men to guard them and guide them as they grow. You know the heartache of losing sons, Sief. I must make certain that Brion has brothers.”

  Suddenly Sief caught just a flicker of subtle evasion: not a lie, but a truth not fully divulged. To his consternation, it sparked a dread possibility that had never come to mind before, but which might make sense of several things in the year since the prince’s birth; but he put such thoughts aside as he forced an uneasy chuckle.

  “Just now,” Sief said, “methinks Prince Brion needs his mother more than he
needs brothers. At least have a care for her, Sire. People would talk, were you to take a third queen.”

  Donal shrugged, and his next words again left Sief with the impression that all was not being said.

  “People will always talk about kings. I little care, so long as the succession is secure.”

  “There is Duke Richard, if all else were to fail,” Sief pointed out.

  “True enough. But my brother Richard aspires to a warrior’s fame—and he has the sheer ability to excel at it. He little cares for the finer diplomacies of the council chamber—or even of marriage, at least thus far,” Donal added with a shrug. “Besides that, he is the fruit of my father’s loins; not mine.”

  “Aye, but blood is blood, Sire,” Sief said, echoing the words of the Council not an hour earlier. “Richard is as much a Haldane as you or the new prince.”

  He thought he saw Jessamy stiffen slightly at those words, though her gray-streaked head was bowed over the infant in her arms.

  “Indeed,” the king said mildly. “I trust you aren’t presuming to instruct me in my duties as a husband?”

  Sief raised a placating hand, hesitant to even consider pursuing the subject; but Donal’s manner seemed increasingly evasive, making Sief wonder whether he had, indeed, stumbled on something he would be happier not knowing.

  He ventured a cautious probe, but Donal was tight-shuttered against even a surface reading. That was hardly unusual for the king, for Sief had long ago realized that Donal had shields as good as any Deryni’s—though whether they would stand up to any serious attempt to force them remained an unknown question. What alarmed him was that Jessamy likewise had retreated behind shields far stronger than he had believed her to possess.

  Chilled, he turned to look at her sharply—and caught just a hint of something in her eyes. . . .

  With a little sob, she turned away from him in their bed, shielding the infant Krispin behind her body. In that instant, in an almost blinding flash of insight, Sief knew what more she was hiding—and Donal, as well.

  “You!” He whirled on the king, fury and betrayal in his dark glare. “He’s yours, isn’t he? You’ve made me a cuckold! Was it here, in this very bed?”

  Even as he said it, his clenched fist lifted and he lashed out with his powers, fully aware that he was threatening violence against the king to whom he had sworn fealty—and not caring, in his rage. To his utter astonishment, Donal Blaine Haldane answered with like force: potent and altogether too focused for what Sief had always imagined was the limit of the king’s power. Before he could pull back, power slammed against his own closing shields and reverberated to the deepest core of his being, forcing a breach and starting a tear in his defenses that gaped ever wider, the more he tried to seal it.

  With that realization came fear and pain—more pain than he had ever experienced in his life or even imagined he could feel. It began in his head, exploding behind his eyes, but quickly ripped downward to center in his chest, like a giant fist closing on his heart. At the same time, he felt his limbs going numb, losing all sensation as his legs collapsed under him and his arms flailed like the arms of a marionette with its strings cut. Through blurring vision, he could just see Donal, right hand thrust between them with the fingers splayed in a warding-off gesture, and Donal’s lips moving in words whose sense Sief could only barely comprehend.

  “Listen to me, Sief!” Donal’s urgent plea only barely penetrated the scarlet agony blurring his vision. “Don’t make me kill you! I need the boy. I need you!”

  “Lies!” Sief managed to whisper from between gritted teeth, as the child—Donal’s bastard!—started wailing. “Faithless, forsworn whoreson! I’ll mind-rip you!—kill the bastard!—kill . . . you . . . !”

  Enraged beyond reason, Sief tried again to launch a counter-attack against this man—his king!—who had betrayed him, bucking upward from his slumped position and dragging himself to hands and knees, clawing a hand upward to help him focus—but to no avail. To his horror and dismay, the other’s might was crushing him down, smothering the life from him—but he was too proud to yield, and too stubborn. All his life he had been so careful in how he used his powers, taken such pride in his abilities. He had always known that the Haldanes had powers that were akin to his own, but now, in extremis, he had not the strength or the abandon to turn his own powers to the wanton response that might have saved him.

  He could feel his mind ripping under the onslaught of an attack he wondered if Donal even comprehended. (Where had he gotten such power, and the knowledge of how to use it?)

  Hardly a whimper could he manage to force past his lips—nor could it have been heard, over the child’s bawling!—but he could feel himself being dragged toward oblivion, all too aware that the damage only worsened as he struggled—and he couldn’t not struggle! But somehow he had known, from that first flare of Donal’s mind against his own, that there was neither any turning back nor any defense against this.

  His last coherent thought, just before the darkness claimed him, was regret that he would leave no son from this life—for Krispin was Donal’s son.

  Yet still he tried to cling to that final image of the infant’s puckered little face before his vision—the son that should have been his—as pain dragged him into an ever-darkening spiral downward and the last vestiges of awareness trickled into oblivion.

  Chapter 2

  “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”

  —PROVERBS 22:28

  THE king could feel the pulse pounding in his temples as he made his outstretched fist unclench, face averted from the sight of his friend sinking into death, but he knew that he had had no choice, once the deception was discovered.

  He had feared it might end this way if Sief found out. He knew Sief’s jealousy, and something of the chilly relationship between Sief and Jessamy; he well remembered when Jessamy had arrived at court as Sief’s reluctant child-bride.

  That had been over thirty years ago. It had been clear from the beginning that the two cared little for one another, though in time they appeared to have achieved a reasonable coexistence. Sief had shown a decided aptitude for diplomatic work, and had proven himself increasingly invaluable to both Donal and his father; and Jessamy, when she was not attending on a succession of Gwynedd’s queens, had spent much of her time in child-bearing—though Donal knew that she had never departed from her marriage vows before Donal approached her.

  Donal himself could not say the same, though he had told himself that it was different for men, and for kings, and that his first queen’s failure to provide an heir justified his occasional trysts with other ladies of the court—though never, until Jessamy, with the wife of a friend. The several children that had come of such liaisons at least reassured him of his own virility, but there had been no true-born heir until the passing of Queen Dulchesse had allowed his remarriage with the Princess Richeldis, followed by the arrival of Prince Brion.

  And none too soon, for Donal was no longer young. The child crown prince was thriving, and Donal was honestly enamoured of his new wife, but a king in his fifties might not live to see his heir grown to manhood—even an heir with the potential to wield the mystical powers of the Haldane royal line.

  Unless, of course, that heir had a powerful protector: a Deryni protector. The very notion was dangerous—and Donal had never considered Sief himself, who might have other aspirations than merely to serve his king and, besides, was no younger than Donal. But what if a Deryni could be found who was bound to the young prince from a very early age? What if the protector himself was a Haldane, as well as carrying the powerful Deryni bloodline? It meant, of course, that such a child would require a Deryni mother. . . .

  It could be done—and had been done. Donal told himself that it had been no true betrayal of Sief, for he had not taken Sief’s wife out of lust or even covetous desire; it had been an affair of state, in the truest sense of the word.

  But not in Sief’s eyes. Whatever his origin
al intentions in marrying Jessamy, Sief would have regarded royal poaching on his marital prerogatives as, at very least, a breach of the feudal oaths that he and the king had exchanged. Donal regretted that.

  Jessamy, too, had betrayed Sief, though undoubtedly for very different reasons than Donal’s. At least on some level, Donal sensed that she had seen this service to the king as one that she herself could render to the Crown of Gwynedd, beyond the reach of whatever arrangement had bound her to Sief other than her marriage vows. One day, when the shock of what he had just done was behind them, he would ask her what hold Sief had had over her. He suspected that it had something to do with both of them being Deryni, though he wasn’t sure.

  But from childhood, he had surmised what Sief was—though he couldn’t explain just how he had known—and he had sensed Jessamy’s true nature soon after she arrived at court. In neither case did he feel either frightened or apprehensive, though he also took particular care not to let anyone else know, especially not any of the priests who frequented the court. Donal’s father had never been particularly forthcoming about what it was that made the Haldanes so special, that they could wield some of the powers usually only accessible to Deryni. But he had made it clear that this was part of the Divine Right that made the Haldanes kings of Gwynedd, and that justified extraordinary measures to protect said kingship. So far, Donal Haldane had committed both adultery and murder to keep it.

  “Is he—dead?” came Jessamy’s whispered question, putting an end to the tumble of speculation that momentarily had held the king apart from his act.

  Donal let his eyes refocus and glanced quickly around him. He had sunk to one knee beside the big bed, at the foot of which Sief sprawled motionless, apparently not breathing. Jessamy was lifting her head from over the infant clutched tight to her breast, her face white and bloodless as she craned forward to see. Krispin had stopped crying.