The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy Page 7

  “No, I suppose not. Rhys, you mind what I say, at any rate.”

  Rhys could not resist a sidelong glance at Evaine. “I suspect that my lady wife will have something to say about that, sir.”

  “Hmm, I dare say. Evaine, answer me this. If their Benedict is Cinhil Haldane, do you propose to place an untried, uneducated—”

  Joram cleared his throat insistently. “Sir, I suspect he’s very well educated. The O.V.D. places great emphasis on scholarly pursuits.”

  Camber raised a hand in resignation. “Granted. But he’s not been educated for kingship, and there’s a difference. Don’t interrupt. Evaine, do you propose to place such a man on the Throne of Gwynedd?”

  “Did a royal education help Imre?” she countered. “And, given his background and the record of his past actions, can we not anticipate the kind of king he will continue to be? On the other hand, our Cinhil may have the potential to be a very good king. And if he has the potential, never mind the actual knowledge of kingship; he can be taught, can’t he? And what better teacher than you, who have served under two kings and had enough sense to resign when you could not serve the third?”

  “Touché!” Camber exclaimed, emphasizing both syllables and slapping his hand against his thigh in delight. “Rhys, did I not tell you she was a paragon of logic? And now she’s trapped me in my own arguments. But I suppose that I have only myself to blame. Tell me, Daughter, do I understand rightly that you would be in favor of a coup, if this Cinhil proves himself worthy of rule?”

  “Do we really have a choice?” she retorted. “Even so, we cannot do it without your counsel and assistance.”

  “We?” He gave a slight smile. “Very well. But there are conditions.”

  “That is understood.” Joram nodded, relieved. “In that case, I shall make you the following pledge: Joram, Rhys, if we can find this Haldane heir; and if he’s not an imbecile or worse; and if he agrees to let us work with him; and if we adjudge him to be more worthy than the present man who occupies the Throne of Gwynedd—then perhaps we can begin to think of ways in which such a change might be accomplished. But you must, as you promised, keep me apprised of your progress at all times. You should also keep in mind that your brother Cathan is under constant scrutiny, and may eventually be endangered by anything we do. So you must not go beyond a mere search unless all of us agree that such action would be best for Gwynedd.”

  Joram and Rhys exchanged glances, and then Joram turned back to his father. “Your terms are more than reasonable, sir. And we had already agreed between us that Cathan would be safest if he knows nothing of this for now. If you have no objections, we thought to ride to Saint Piran’s Priory later this week. Two of our candidates are there, and perhaps we can eliminate one or both of them at the outset.”

  “You’ll not reveal anything at this time?” Camber queried.

  “No, sir. We’ll only deliver the news to the proper one that his grandfather is dead and asked to be remembered in his prayers. Does this meet with your, approval?”

  “I have no objections. When will you be back?”

  “Within three days, if all goes well. It’s a day’s ride each way, and—”

  There was a great baying and barking in the yard outside, and then a muffled pounding at the outer gate. Shortly, the inner door swung open to reveal one of the household servants, with another man behind him, the wolfhounds rubbing happily against his legs.

  “My lord, it’s young Jamie Drummond to see you,” the servant said, barring the way with an arm across the doorway.

  “Jamie, lad, come in and join us,” Camber said, standing and extending an arm toward the newcomer. “Pull up a chair and share a glass of wine. I thought you’d forgotten your promise to toast Michaelmas with us.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten,” he said, striding across to kneel and kiss Camber’s hand formally, the dogs at his heels. “I was attending to a matter of some urgency. I’ve brought news from the capital, from your son.”

  He pulled out a sealed packet and handed it over to the older man, then hooked a stool with his toe and pulled it closer to the fire, nodding greeting to the others. “You’d best read it,” he said, as Camber stared at him curiously. “Cathan sent me with all haste.”

  Without further delay, Camber broke the seal and scanned the contents of the letter. His face was grim and solemn as he passed the parchment to Joram.

  “Cathan has been unable to stay the execution of the first two hostages tomorrow,” he said, snapping his fingers for the dogs to lie down. “He will continue to press Imre for a reprieve, but he does not hold out much hope. Coel Howell, the kinsman of Cathan’s wife, is urging reprisals against the Willimites, and is convinced that Rannulf’s murderers were part of a Willimite plot. He will not hear of a reprieve, nor will he permit Imre to consider it.”

  “Father, couldn’t you plead the peasants’ cause to Imre?” Evaine whispered.

  Camber shook his head wearily. “Nay, child. If Cathan, whom Imre loves, cannot persuade the king’s favor, what chance have I, who rejected Imre when he gained his crown? No, it must be Cathan’s work, if our peasants are to be saved.”

  He glanced at all of them, then crossed his arms carefully and stared at one slippered toe protruding beneath his robe.

  “But this is not totally unexpected news, I fear: Cathan also wishes us a joyful Michaelmas and drinks to our health. I think it only fitting that we should drink to his.”

  With that, he reached slowly to his goblet and raised it in the air, nodding as his children stood and did the same. The toast was drunk in silence—a silence which persisted for several thoughtful minutes until conversation once more resumed, this time on more neutral topics.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month …

  —Jeremiah 36:22

  But neither neutrality nor sobriety were common at Court in Valoret, and certainly not on the night of Michaelmas. The young King Imre had done his reluctant duty by his people by day, had attended Mass and held formal Court and shown himself at the Lantern Gate, as was customary at that season.

  But the night belonged to Imre and his courtiers and friends. No solemnities at the Court of Valoret after the sun had set. Feasting past, the king had retired to change to even more resplendent garb for the dancing and revelling to come. Even now, the royal musicians were tuning shaum and sackbutt and tambour, trilling snatches of jaunty airs and stately pavanes in the music gallery. Imre’s favorites strutted peacock-proud in the now-cleared feasting hall where their master loved to entertain, exchanging small talk and gossip and awaiting the return of their gay young liege lord. Amid that gaiety, the dour Cathan seemed doubly out of place.

  Cathan MacRorie was well known at Court. Son of the famous Earl of Culdi and heir one day to all the MacRorie lands and titles, Cathan was a member of Imre’s council and a royal commissioner for the Tariff Court as well. He was also, as his father before him, a trusted personal friend of the king. Tonight, standing with one of Imre’s young officers toward the left of the Great Hall, many saw his father Camber in him, though the famous gilt features were distorted a bit in the great man’s eldest son.

  He was not so tall as Camber, and a little darker of hair and eye and skin than his illustrious sire, yet he was still unmistakably a MacRorie; and it was to Cathan that many now looked as a voice of reason to the headstrong young king. Even the privileged Deryni did not always approve of Imre’s excesses and his occasional fits of cruel humor. That Cathan alone had sometimes managed to temper the king’s wrath remained a source of constant wonderment. Whether he could be as successful tonight remained to be seen.

  Cathan glanced toward the doors through which Imre would shortly emerge, then returned his attention to his companion, Guaire of Arliss.

  D’Arliss was one of Cathan’s closest friends at Court, aide to the notorious Earl Maldred, who would be in charge of executing the fifty hostages, beginning tomorrow. Just now, Guaire was
ticking off on his fingers the many virtues of his present employer, Maldred, compared to his previous master, Earl Santare. The latter gentle was glaring at both of them from across the hall, and obviously mouthing insulting comments to one of the junior officers at his side. So far, Coel Howell had not yet made an appearance, for which Cathan was distinctly grateful. His unctuous brother-in-law would be certain to be in league with Maldred and Santare when he did arrive.

  “So, though I’ll give you that Maldred may be cruel, too,” Guaire was saying, “he does reward faithful service, and a man can keep his personal integrity. Tanadas knows, I like a tumble in the hay with a wench as well as the next man—but with a wench, mind you! Do you think that’s asking too much?”

  Cathan shook his head slightly and controlled a smile. “No, but apparently Santare does, or he wouldn’t have dismissed you. Besides, it’s Maldred I’m concerned about tonight. Do you think he personally supports the king’s policy on this matter?”

  “Maldred supports the king, whatever his policies.” Guaire frowned. “I don’t think you have much of a chance, Cathan.”

  “It’s the hostages who don’t have a chance. And it’s not as if they’ve even done something wrong. They just happen to live in the wrong village. The Truth-Readers know that they’re innocent.”

  Guaire snorted derisively. “You don’t have to convince me. I’m on your side. But you know the answer to that argument as well as I—probably better. What does a Deryni king care for the lives of a few dozen peasants, when a fellow Deryni has been killed? Especially when the peasants are human, and the Deryni was of the nobility.”

  “He was a rotten man, Guaire, and you know it.”

  “Granted, he was a rotten man. But he was still Deryni, and of the nobility, and his murderer has not come forth or been found. Imre is simply following the law set down by his grandfather. Fifty human hostages against the life of one Deryni—it’s about even, as far as Imre is concerned. Back in the days of the original coup, it was the price one had to pay for conquest. Today—Well, apparently it’s the price Imre feels he has to pay to hold the conquest for his descendants.” Guaire snickered, a lewd glint in his eyes. “At least, that’s the theory. He’s not likely to have any descendants, at his rate.”

  Cathan looked at Guaire sharply and was about to probe further on the meaning of that last comment, when the trumpeters raised their instruments and blew a preliminary fanfare. From the opposite end of the hall, a double line of guardsmen in formal brown and gold cleared a swath through the center of the room and took up their stations behind the twin thrones. Then the trumpets were raised once more, the golden notes reverberating across the hall as the door fanned apart to disclose the king: Imre of Festil, by the Grace of God King of Gwynedd and Lord of Mooryn and Meara. At his side stood his sister, Ariella, six years his senior and yet unwed.

  The two posed in the doorway for effect until the fanfare had died away, light glowing around their heads in arcane splendor, as High Deryni were wont to appear on formal occasions. Then, with a nod of acknowledgment, they began to pass slowly toward the thrones at the opposite end of the hall, courtiers and their ladies bending like wheat in the breeze of the royal couple’s passage. Whatever might be their other faults, no one could say that the scions of the Deryni House of Festil did not know how to maximize an entrance.

  Imre himself was a striking young man, for all that he was of small stature and relatively few years. Shorter by half a head than most of the men in the room, yet he still cut a regal figure as he and his sister traversed the hall. On his head was a tall crown of gold filigree set with rubies, cunningly wrought to add unobtrusive inches to his height and blazing in the glow of his nimbus of power. His hair was of a deep chestnut hue, cropped shoulder length, surrounding lively brown eyes which bulged slightly in a pleasant, albeit somewhat vacant, face. A short, skin-tight tunic of brown velvet revealed every line of the hard, young body and emphasized a pair of well-turned legs encased in brown silken hose; he wore leather dancing slippers on his feet. A gold-and-amber cloak lined with red fox brushed the floor behind him as he mounted the two steps of the dais, and bright gems winked on slender fingers and at throat and ears.

  On his arm walked his sister, Ariella, every inch his match and more in beauty and sheer visual splendor. Gowned in dark brown velvet stamped with gold, the perfection of her form was captured in a supple flow of color from neck to wrist to slippered toe, save where the neckline made a plunging V to caress the curve of her breasts. A tawny jewel lay a-tremble in the hollow of the cleft; a tumble of chestnut curls cascaded negligently over one shoulder where they had escaped from beneath her coronet and veil.

  Her quick hazel eyes missed nothing as she and her royal brother took their places on the two thrones atop the dais. With a smile, she leaned back in her chair to bask in the admiration of the Court, then reached to touch Imre’s arm in a gesture which Cathan somehow found disquieting.

  “My gentle friends.” It was Imre who spoke, his young tenor carrying to the furthest recesses of the smoky, torchlit hall. “My sister and I bid you welcome, and pray that you will long remember this Michaelmas festivity.

  “But you have not come to listen to your king speak, rather to make merry with him. Therefore, we give you leave to enjoy yourselves—in fact, we command you to enjoy yourselves.” There was a murmur of polite laughter.

  “My Lord Music Master.” He stood and held out his hand to his sister, who rose and placed her hand on his. “We shall lead the Bren Tigan.”

  A murmur of approval sounded as the royal couple descended the dais and took their positions in the center of the cleared floor, bowing first to one another and then to the spectators as the musicians droned the opening bars. Then, as the strains of the old Deryni melody floated through the hall, Imre and his sister trod the opening pattern of the ancient dance, moving alone for the first few measures. Only when they had completed the first set of figures did other couples begin to join them in the dance.

  Cathan watched moodily for several minutes, then turned to take a goblet of wine from a servant and exchange greetings with another of the king’s courtiers. When he returned his attention to the floor, Guaire had disappeared to dance with a lady he had been eyeing all evening, and Imre was nowhere to be seen.

  Cathan sipped at his wine as the music shifted to a gavotte cadence, and slowly eased himself to a relatively quiet corner where he could observe without being disturbed—or so he thought. He was leaning against one of the main support pillars, nursing his wine and his conscience, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. He turned to find the Princess Ariella standing beside him, a coy smile on her face and a filled goblet in her hand. Quickly, he collected himself and made a courtly bow.

  “Your Highness honors me with her presence,” he murmured.

  Ariella smiled and extended her hand to be kissed. Her Deryni nimbus had been put aside with her coronet, which now rested on her empty throne. The chestnut hair nearly glowed of its own accord, though. Ariella of Festil did not need Deryni sorcery to make her alluring.

  “Why so glum, Cathan?” she purred, clinging to his hand just an instant longer than necessary, once the salute had been performed. “I thought to claim you as a dancing partner, and instead find you moping in the shadows. Where is your charming lady? Not ill, I trust?”

  Her eyes danced teasingly above smiling lips, and Cathan felt his gaze being drawn almost unwittingly toward the deep cleft of her breasts. He swallowed uneasily, knowing full well where the conversation might lead if he were not careful. He had no particular desire to bed Imre’s sister as ransom for the imprisoned peasants—though he knew that he would, if there were no other way.

  “My lady sends her regrets, Your Highness,” he said carefully. “She had not seen her parents since the birth of our second son, so she has gone to visit them in Carbury. I should likely be there myself, were it not for the current crisis.”

  “Crisis?” Ariella repeated brightly.
“I was not aware of any crisis.”

  Cathan found himself becoming annoyed at her coy façade; he lowered his eyes to disguise his true emotion. “Your Highness will surely have heard of the fifty hostages taken at Caerrorie. Your royal brother means to have them slain.”

  “Hostages? Oh, yes, I remember. The ones who were taken for the murder of Lord Rannulf. How does that concern you?”

  Cathan blinked rapidly, unable to believe she could be so ill-informed, then realized she was toying with him. “Your Highness cannot have forgotten that Caerrorie is my father’s estate,” he said coolly. “The hostages are my father’s tenants—and mine. I must find a way to spare them.”

  Ariella raised one eyebrow and touched his arm lightly. “Why, then, find the murderer, Cathan. You know the law. If the people of the village will not come forth and name his killer, then the village is amerced for the value of the man. In this case, considering that Rannulf was both Deryni and of the nobility, I think that fifty lives is quite a reasonable fine, don’t you?”

  “I—” Cathan lowered his eyes, controlling the urge to twist the stem of his goblet out of all recognition. “I must contradict Your Highness. The villagers have been Truth-Read. His Grace knows they were not responsible for Rannulf’s death. We’re almost certain it was the Willimites.”

  “Then, bring us some Willimites.” The princess smiled sweetly. “Surely you cannot expect my brother to release his hostages without some retribution. The law is the law.”

  “Yes, the law is the law,” Imre’s clear tenor echoed, as he glided in to slip his arm through his sister’s. “Maldred, I thought you said he’d given up this insane idea of saving peasants.”

  Maldred, a tall, florid man with the beginnings of a paunch, bowed unctuously. “Indeed, he gave me the impression he had, Sire.”

  Imre humphed, then turned back to Cathan. “Why are you being so stubborn, my friend? It’s not as if they’re Deryni—they’re peasants. You’re making an issue out of nothing.”