King Kelson's Bride Page 3

  Before she could make indignant protest, a smiling Kelson held up a hand and shook his head. “Now, I know you’ll say it doesn’t matter, and I have the distinct impression that the two of you would be quite content to live together in a humble cottage somewhere in the woods,” he continued, “but even for a simple knight and his lady, that’s hardly suitable. Furthermore, it would require your departure from court, which is not a prospect I relish. Not only would I miss Jatham’s useful counsel, but I would lose one of Rhemuth’s loveliest adornments. I have, therefore, decided to remedy the situation in my own way.”

  He glanced again at Nigel, who had reached behind him to retrieve a rolled scroll adorned with pendant seals along its edge, which item he passed across to the king. Kelson did not unroll it; merely held it out to Jatham, who rose uncertainly to receive it.

  “You don’t need to read it now,” he said, at Jatham’s look of bewilderment. “I’m sure you see enough royal writs in my chancery that you don’t need to read one on your wedding night.” He favored Janniver with a fond smile before continuing.

  “Suffice it to say that, with the consent and enthusiastic approval of the Duke of Cassan”—he gestured toward Dhugal, who bowed in his chair—“I have this day revived the ancient barony of Kilshane, in the earldom of Kierney, and have created you Baron of Kilshane.” He ignored Jatham’s look of astonishment and Janniver’s little gasp of surprise. “This comes with a grant of the castle of Kilshane and all the rents and incomes thereunto appertaining. After all, you now have a baroness to support—though I’ll still expect the pair of you to spend a reasonable amount of time at court each year. I would have made you an earl, Jatham—and I do hope to revive the old Kilshane earldom, which has long been extinct—but Nigel pointed out that it might be more appropriate to let you prove yourself as baron first.”

  Delighted laughter greeted this remark, along with a general pounding of hands on table in approval. A teary-eyed Janniver had risen to clasp her new husband’s arm in adoring affirmation, and Jatham turned the scroll in his hands as if unable to believe what had just happened.

  “Sire, I—”

  “No, not another word. The title is yours—my wedding gift to the pair of you. We’ll confirm it in open court in the morning—or maybe in the afternoon, depending on what time you two decide to emerge from the bridal chamber,” he added with a wink. “You needn’t worry about the details. Your new overlord will organize what needs to be done.”

  “I will, indeed,” Dhugal agreed, clearly delighted to be sharing in the king’s largesse.

  “I—Sire, we thank you most humbly,” was all Jatham could manage to murmur, as the two of them sat down, exchanging still-disbelieving glances.

  “You’re both very welcome,” Kelson said, feeling pleased with himself as he took up his goblet again. “Given what’s just been done, then, I ask everyone to be upstanding for a toast to the bride’s health.” He paused as all of them rose in a scraping of chairs on stone, except for Janniver, who was dabbing at her eyes with the edge of a sleeve.

  “I give you the bride: the new Baroness of Kilshane. May her life with her bold new baron be long and happy and fruitful.” He lifted his cup. “To the bride!”

  “The bride!” the others chorused, also raising their cups in salute before draining them.

  When the toast had been drunk—and another to the king, offered by the now-recovering Baron Jatham—the guests settled back to nibble on the sweetmeats and candied fruits, while the bride fed the groom bits of honeyed cake and the wine continued to flow. Almost immediately, Kelson withdrew to his private chamber, dismissing the musicians with his thanks and a purse of silver and sending a page to request Rothana’s attendance before she could depart. She came; but she clearly was uneasy to have been summoned away from the others.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said, when she had given him a formal curtsy and the page had left them—and before she could speak. “I wished to advise you, before I left for Torenth, that construction is nearly completed on the chapel to be reinstated for Saint Camber. I believe Duncan has been in communication with you, regarding its consecration. I look forward to the presence of the Servants of Saint Camber on that historic day.”

  She averted her eyes and sighed. “My lord, I have told you that I would be there on that day. But you must not continue contriving these meetings in private, which but cause us both pain. I have told you I will not marry again.”

  “And I must believe you,” he said quietly. “I suppose that, in time, I must accept it, too.” He sighed and dropped his gaze, unable to bear the sight of her with the candlelight gilding her cheek. “I cannot promise that my heart will ever accept it, though. How can you ask me to break the bond we have shared?”

  “It must be broken, Sire,” she whispered. “And you must forge a like bond with another, for the sake of your kingdom. The faith of your queen must never waver.”

  “The queen I would wed never broke faith with my kingdom, even when she thought its king had perished!” Kelson replied, looking up at her. “Can you not see that?”

  She paled in the candlelight, her dark eyes like twin caverns burned in the pale mask of her face. “I see only that the one you would have made your queen lost faith in you,” she said miserably. “You deserve better! Gwynedd deserves better!”

  He closed his eyes and turned his face away, head drooping onto his chest as the breath caught in his throat. Only after a long moment did he find his voice.

  “We must agree to disagree on this point,” he finally said, bracing his shoulders again.

  “Yes,” she managed to answer. “We agree on that.”

  “Thank you.” He swallowed painfully. “There is—another matter I would discuss with you. In this, perhaps you will permit your heart to soften. It concerns your son—who might have been our son.”

  She stiffened. “Sire, my heart is resolved in that regard as well. Albin is promised to the Church.”

  “Rothana, he is a Haldane prince. If that is his choice, if it is God’s choice, then so be it—Haldanes have served thus before. But do not presume to make that choice for him!”

  “It is the best choice,” she said, “and better that, than that he should someday challenge your own line. And do not remind me that holy orders give no guarantee against the lure of secular pretensions—well do I remember the fate of the Mearan prince-bishop!”

  So did Kelson. It was he who had been obliged to order Judhael’s execution.

  “Rothana,” he said, “until I wed and sire heirs of my own body, Prince Albin Haldane is still my next kin after Nigel, no matter what you do. No cloister wall can alter that.”

  “And if you were to have no sons,” she said, “I should be well enough content that he succeed you and Nigel. But you must have sons. And what I fear is that my Albin should someday be turned against those sons—sons by a proper queen. . . .”

  She turned her head away on a sob, and Kelson bowed his head again.

  A proper queen . . . She was his proper queen! He could not tell her how he had watched her that afternoon from a window that overlooked the castle gardens, as she and Janniver gathered flowers for the bridal bouquet, the two-year-old Albin trundling happily behind them with a wicker basket to carry the blooms—the very model of a Haldane prince, with his fair skin and pale eyes and shock of night-black hair. Whenever he saw the boy, Kelson found it all too easy to wish and even to pretend that Albin surely must be his own son, not the traitorous Conall’s.

  But by now he had heard the same arguments often enough from Rothana to know she was firm in her plans both for herself and for Albin; and with a sickly, sinking feeling, he feared he was starting to accept them.

  “It—seems, then,” he heard himself saying, as if from very far away, “that I must start thinking seriously about a—proper queen.”

  Her strangled little gasp told of the pain that statement cost her, as well as himself.

  “I am—pleased to hear you s
ay that, my lord,” she said, her voice steadying after the first few words. “To say that I do not love you would be a lie—and you would know it—but we must, both of us, get on with our lives. I have made arrangements for my future, and for Albin’s, and I—have made certain inquiries concerning your own. If—If you will hear me, I—believe I may have found you the queen you require.”

  “You have found—”

  Shocked and stunned, he turned away from her, unseeing, not in rejection of her offer—for it bespoke a love beyond mere human yearning—but in dull recognition that what remained of their relationship was about to move beyond any hope of reconciliation. And there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

  “Can there be no hope at all for us?” he whispered.

  “None.” Her voice was stark, strained. “But there must be hope for Gwynedd—and for that, you must have sons. If—If you will give her even half a chance, I think that the bride I would propose will please you.”

  “I am all too well aware of my duty to provide Gwynedd with sons,” he said. “As for pleasure—”

  He shook his head dismally, unable to go on, and flinched as she laid her hand gently on his forearm.

  “My dearest lord, you have so much love to give,” she murmured. “Whatever queen you take, you must share at least a portion of that love with her—for your own dear sake, as well as that of Gwynedd, and the princes you will sire, and the woman who will bear them. To do less would be to vow falsely before God’s altar—and the King of Gwynedd that I know would never break his holy oath. Besides”—she released him and turned nervously aside—“the bride I have in mind is already known to you. You got on very well when you were children.”

  He blinked at her in mute astonishment. Then:

  “You’re speaking of someone I already know?”

  “Well, of course. I would not see you wed a total stranger.” She eyed him cautiously. “Kelson, I have not been idle while you have been pining, these past three years. After Albin was born, I took him to Nur Hallaj, so that my parents might meet their new grandson—for he is that, whatever else he may become. I returned by way of the Ile d’Orsal, for the Orsal’s line are distant kin to my family. It was that summer that Gwynedd’s envoys first approached your great-aunt Sivorn regarding marriage between your cousin Richelle and Brecon Ramsay.”

  “If you’re thinking of Brecon’s sister, Noelie, I only met her last summer, when she came to Rhemuth for her brother’s betrothal—though my council would certainly approve of the match—as would her mother!”

  “And being vexed with the pressures being brought to bear by both the mother and your council,” Rothana said with faint amusement, “no doubt you failed to mark the Lady Noelie’s interest in a different Haldane prince besides yourself.”

  “What?”

  “Kelson, Kelson, it is Rory she should wed, not you,” she replied. “They were most discreet, but their mutual attraction did not go unnoticed by my uncle Azim, who has served as my good agent in searching out a bride for you. Oh, both will marry where required, for they are bred to duty, as we all have been—but think on it: a marriage between Rory and Noelie would further bind Mearan loyalty to Gwynedd, just as your council desires, with Haldane heirs to succeed them. And in the meantime, you could have an ongoing Haldane presence in Meara, for Rory might live there, where you could not.”

  “Rory and Noelie,” Kelson repeated dazedly. “But it . . . does make sense—especially if, as you say, there’s an affinity already. . . .”

  She glanced at her hands, twining her fingers to stop their fidgeting. “It is a great blessing when needs of the state can be made to match desires of the heart,” she murmured.

  Her declaration immediately brought Kelson back to the original direction of their conversation, reluctant though he was to take it up again.

  “You—said that I already know the woman you have in mind for me,” he said quietly. He could not bear to ask the question that naturally followed on that statement, but at his hesitation, she smiled and sadly shook her head.

  “My dearest prince, we must go on,” she whispered. “Tell me truly, did you pay no mind at all to Richelle’s sister?”

  “Araxie? You mean my cousin? But she’s all but betrothed to Cuan of . . . Howicce . . .” His voice trailed off as Rothana slowly shook her head. “She isn’t?”

  “A smoke screen, my lord. Oh, marriage certainly has been discussed at length—but not between the two of them. They regard one another as brother and sister.”

  “But—that isn’t possible. All the court gossip—”

  “—is precisely that, with as little substance as usually pertains to gossip. In fact, Cuan wishes to wed his cousin Gwenlian.”

  “Gwenlian?! But her brother hates Cuan! He’d never allow it.”

  “Indeed,” Rothana replied. “Hence, the need for misdirection, in which Araxie has been only too happy to conspire.”

  Through his own stunned consternation—for his own cousin had never even crossed his mind as a possible royal bride—Kelson felt an accompanying tug of sympathy for Gwenlian, whose brother was the very same King Colman who once had been affianced to the Princess Janniver. But he was only vaguely listening as Rothana launched upon a clipped précis of the convoluted succession laws operant in the United Kingdoms of Howicce and Llannedd, whereby the present heirs of Colman—still unmarried, after his broken betrothal to Janniver—were his sister Gwenlian in Llannedd, but their cousin Cuan in Howicce, since women could not reign in that land.

  Araxie. His cousin Araxie. The notion was so unexpected that he could not, for the life of him, conjure up more than a vague recollection of what she even looked like, grown to womanhood, though he knew he must have seen her with Richelle the previous summer. Presentable enough, he supposed, for he would have noticed if she were not, but quiet and unpresuming in the shadow of her vivacious elder sister, who favored her Haldane blood and, as the prospective bride of Meara, had been the focus of the family’s visit.

  More vivid were childhood memories of a laughing, snub-nosed little girl with knobby knees and freckles and flaxen braids, who had romped with him and her sister and Conall in the royal gardens, and fled squealing and giggling with Richelle when he and Conall decided it would be good sport to tease and chase the girls.

  “The thought that Cuan should inherit even Howicce is abhorrent to Colman,” Rothana went on, “but the only way he can prevent that is by producing a male heir of his own, who would then take precedence over even Gwenlian and inherit both crowns. Of course, he must make a suitable marriage first—which is proving difficult, since no decent house will entertain his suit after his shabby treatment of Janniver.”

  This last declaration was delivered with some satisfaction, for Rothana was a staunch partisan of the wronged Janniver, even though the marriage just celebrated was a happy resolution to the princess’s ill fortune.

  “Meanwhile, did he know of it, Colman would do his utmost to prevent a marriage that would eventually allow Cuan to sit on both thrones,” she concluded. “Did he even suspect, he would lock up Gwenlian, or worse. Hence, the illusion that an understanding exists between Cuan and Araxie.”

  “Then, she is not contemplating marriage with Cuan,” Kelson said, after a beat.

  “No, she is not. Nor with any of the other suitors who have, from time to time, sought her hand. Think of it, my lord: She is a Haldane, your distant cousin, so no one could take political exception to such a marriage—and there is Deryni blood through her mother’s line. It may even be that she carries some form of the Haldane potential you possess.”

  Kelson thrust his hands through his belt and began pacing restlessly before the fireplace, hardly daring to look at her. In truth, not even his council had ever suggested his younger Haldane cousin as a potential bride, believing her already matched with Cuan. Nor had he paid her much note on that visit last summer, being focused on the Mearan match. Now he was beginning to recall brief glimpses of a tallish, fai
r, vaguely attractive girl who looked a lot like his Aunt Sivorn.

  “My cousin Araxie,” he finally murmured, feeling disloyal already. “I . . . suppose she is grown by now,” he ended lamely.

  Rothana cast her glance heavenward with an exasperated sigh. “Men pay so little attention. Sometimes I truly do despair. Of course she’s grown. She’s nearly nineteen.”

  Kelson cleared his throat, trying unsuccessfully to merge the blond imp of childhood memory with an imagined Araxie now become a woman, wearing the crown of Gwynedd’s queen consort.

  “Rothana, I can’t do this,” he said. “I confess that you’ve presented very sound arguments, but I—I really do hardly know her.”

  “You knew her as a child,” Rothana replied. “You know her better than any of the other candidates your council has been pushing in your direction for the past five years. And you certainly know her better than you knew Sidana, before you married her.”

  Kelson flinched at this reminder of his slain bride, his hand closing unconsciously on the ring he had given to her and Rothana.

  “It would still be a marriage of state,” he said woodenly. “Besides, what makes you think Araxie would have me?”

  “Because I have asked her,” Rothana replied, only blinking at his look of startled panic. “Be assured, it was not a sudden whim—either the asking or her acceptance. But she has indicated her willingness, if you consent.”

  He was staring at her speechlessly, stupidly, unable to believe she had taken this upon herself.

  “She is fond of you, Kelson—or at least of the boy you were,” Rothana said softly. “I cannot think she will be any less fond of Kelson the man. You both could do far worse. She is intelligent, well-read, attractive—and a Haldane with Deryni blood, though not so much as yourself. But she has some ability emerging—and shields. My uncle Azim has been giving her instruction for some time.”

  Kelson hung his head, fighting the lump in his throat.