The Bishop’s Heir Page 9

  His own men pounded on the tables in approval, but Kelson held up his hand again for silence.

  “But though I be lowland born, yet am I a borderer like yourselves, by choice and chosen blood, as my brother Dhugal has said. I would assure you, therefore, that whenever possible, I shall place the considerations of the clan above my own concerns, an’ it be not against the interests of the other folk I have sworn to protect and defend. In token, therefore, I ask that you host me not as king tonight, but as kinsman, and that you join with me in toast to our noble chief: The MacArdry—long may he guide his children in peace and plenty. Air do slainte!”

  It was the one border phrase Kelson could remember, and he blessed old Caulay for having refreshed his memory earlier, but it produced the desired response. This time there was no restraining the men of Transha. The hall erupted in echo of the traditional border toast, even the most dour of the old chieftains raising their cups with more thoughtful expressions. Soon the pipers struck up another dance tune and the floor filled with other dancers eager to tread a few steps with their new young kinsman. Some of the girls were very pretty. Kelson answered their first few invitations with laughing good humor and an honest attempt to follow, but the dance with Dhugal had exhausted both his knowledge and his energy. He soon had to bow himself out and retreat to the safety of his place by the chief. Dhugal remained on the floor.

  Caulay was jovial company for what remained of the evening, but he downed three cups of wine to every one of Kelson’s and quickly began to show the effects. Any serious return to their discussion was impossible under the circumstances, so they were soon reduced to rambling exchanges about the dancers, Dhugal’s escapades and prospects for the future, and an increasingly maudlin tendency on Caulay’s part to dwell on his failing health. By the time people began falling asleep at table and bedding down in the hall for the night, Kelson had managed to diminish the effect of his own alcoholic consumption to a dull buzz, but Caulay was on the verge of passing out. Dhugal was less steady on his feet than Kelson, but not really drunk, either.

  “I think he’s about had enough, don’t you?” Kelson murmured, when Dhugal returned to the table to refill his cup during a piper’s slowly skirled lament.

  Dhugal looked down at his father, steadying himself on the edge of the table as he watched old Caulay bobble and grin, then signalled to a gillie who towered at least a head and a half above either him or Kelson. The man scooped up his chief with no more effort than Kelson might have picked up a three year old, and carried him tenderly out of the hall and up the newel stair with the two young men following behind, Dhugal with his arm linked in Kelson’s for stability. When they had gotten the old man to bed and the gillie had gone, Dhugal sank down in a window seat and sighed, glancing up at Kelson with a tired grin.

  “Well, you certainly left your mark on Transha tonight. The clan will be talking about you all winter—and speaking well, too.”

  Kelson smiled and leaned against the window embrasure, tossing his bonnet to the seat beside Dhugal. The climb to the laird’s chamber had finished clearing his head, and now the considerations of earlier in the evening came flooding back. To have won the confidence of the clan was a fine thing, and part of what he had set out to accomplish, but he still had not learned all he needed to know about Caulay’s Mearan kin. And if Ithel of Meara was plotting …

  “I wonder, will they speak well of me when they remember that I’m part Deryni?” he mused, trying to decide how best to approach what he wanted to ask. However he phrased it, Dhugal was going to be either frightened or insulted.

  Dhugal frowned. “What difference does that make? And what makes you think of it now?”

  “It isn’t all a bad thing, you know—being Deryni,” Kelson continued, testing. “You saw that when I put that trooper to sleep so you could sew up his arm. It does have its positive uses.”

  Dhugal swallowed with an audible sound, suddenly far more sober than he had been, not seconds before, all the gaiety gone.

  “Why do I have the sudden feeling that something very scary is about to happen. You’re warning me, aren’t you?”

  “Not—exactly.” Kelson glanced down at Dhugal’s upturned face, then over at the sleeping Caulay.

  “Dhugal, I’ve never even been tempted to take unfair advantage of a friendship before,” he said softly, “but damn it—he hasn’t told me everything he knows.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kelson shook his head. “Oh, I don’t mean to imply a deliberate deception. I think he just doesn’t want to get involved—and one can hardly blame him. Sicard is still his brother, after all. Unfortunately, Sicard is also the father of a boy who may just try to take away my throne—and Caulay hinted of conspiracies at dinner, just before he clammed up.”

  “Surely, your not suggesting he’d keep such knowledge from you, if there really were a danger?” Dhugal asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kelson replied. “I do know that your father has information I may need—and that I have the means to take it, if I must, without his knowledge and without hurting him.”

  “With magic,” Dhugal supplied. His face had stiffened to a taut mask as Kelson spoke, and now the honey-amber eyes reflected cold resentment, as well as a little fear.

  “Kelson, I can’t stop you,” he continued, after a long, slow breath. “If that’s what you’re determined to do, there isn’t a thing I can do to prevent it.”

  “I know that. That’s why I’m asking if I may. He wouldn’t remember it,” Kelson added. “He need never even know I talked with him tonight.”

  “And if you had to use what you learned against him?” Dhugal asked.

  Kelson sighed. “I hope to God it never comes to that,” he murmured, eyes downcast. “You know I would never deliberately do anything to hurt you or your family. But if information that I gained had to be used to stop a war, to save innocent lives—well, what would you do?”

  Only after a long pause did Dhugal’s answer come: halting, reluctant—and resigned.

  “I suppose I—would do what I had to do,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not.

  —Hosea 8:4

  I would do what I had to do.

  Dhugal’s words put responsibility squarely back on Kelson—where it had always rested, with the other burdens of the Crown, but this particular responsibility was unique to a king endowed with magic. Kelson found himself wondering whether his father had ever had to make such a demand of a friend. Somehow he could hardly imagine Brion using his powers for much of anything, even though he knew his father had slain the Marluk with magic and obviously had taken the necessary measures to ensure that his legacy passed to Kelson.

  But Haldane magic was not the same as that derived from being born Deryni—and perhaps that difference was the source of some of Kelson’s uneasiness just now, for he had the limitations as well as the benefits of both sorts. The Haldane legacy came full-blown to each successive male heir in the senior royal line, its potential sealed by the previous king and triggered in the heir by ritual whose essential elements apparently had altered little in nearly two hundred years. It was of Deryni origin, to be sure, but it was a somewhat artificial construct, so far as Kelson had been able to learn, crafted by the great Saint Camber for the defense of Cinhil Haldane against mad Imre, to end the Interregnum, and perpetuated in Cinhil’s descendants ever since.

  Such magic dealt primarily with protection—holding and keeping what was Haldane. But it was power to be called up without training and without real understanding, a compendium of set spells whose use and, indeed, very existence generally became apparent only when the need arose—difficult to call to mind of one’s own inclination. A few casual skills there were of Haldane origin, like Truth-Reading and extending one’s physical endurance, duplicating some Deryni functions, but the more subtle and satisfying uses of magic—and the ones most open to abuse—l
ay within the province of Deryni only. Indeed, most of the magic readily accessible to Kelson came from his Deryni blood, not Haldane sources: mostly what Morgan and Duncan had been able to teach him about that aspect of his heritage—and much of that still lay in the realm of theory.

  Now his meager experience with the two of them must be melded with the impersonal knowledge at his beck and call from Haldane sources, and techniques chosen to fit the very personal situation here before him. Several times in the past two years he had watched Morgan do this kind of thing—and had done it himself under Morgan’s guidance once or twice—but this was different: himself, alone, questioning someone he cared about—not some hostile prisoner, from whom the truth must be dragged by force. With Caulay’s natural discretion already lowered by the wine, Kelson was not too concerned about the actual procedure, but he was concerned about alienating Dhugal. The friends he could trust, who were not afraid of him, were few and precious.

  “If it should come to that, then I suppose I’ll have to do what I have to do,” he finally whispered, meeting Dhugal’s eyes miserably. “That’s one of the more unpleasant parts of being king. In the meantime, I’m afraid this is something I have to do.” He paused a beat. “You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to. You can leave, or I could—put you to sleep, blur the memory. Neither of you has to remember.”

  Dhugal’s jaw tightened visibly, the sun-amber eyes scared and a little desperate.

  “If that’s what you want, I’ll—bow to your wishes, of course, but—dammit, Kelson, I won’t let myself be afraid of you! God knows, I don’t understand what you’ve become, and if you’d rather I didn’t watch, I—I’ll let you put me to sleep or whatever you feel you have to do. I don’t want to leave, though.”

  The courage and blind trust blazing in Dhugal’s face as he looked up precluded all further discussion. Kelson’s grateful “Stay, then,” was more mouthed than said, but Dhugal understood. His shaky smile and Kelson’s quick, answering grin were all the further comment necessary. Together they moved back into the room where Caulay slept, Kelson no longer worried.

  The old man snored on obliviously as Kelson sat down on the right side of the bed and drew a few deep breaths to compose himself, centering as Morgan had taught him. He did not touch Caulay, for he did not wish to alarm Dhugal in these early stages. Dhugal, initially skittish, claimed a stool on the opposite side of the bed and settled down to watch; but gradually even he responded to the calm and stillness radiating from the king. Like Kelson, his breathing soon slowed to a shallow, even cadence, nimble surgeon’s fingers intertwined passively in the lap of his kilt, thumbs brushing tip to tip.

  Reassured, Kelson shifted attention from his own slow breathing to that of Caulay, gently spreading his right hand across the old man’s forehead and letting his thumb and little finger rest lightly on the closed eyelids for a few seconds. He could sense the blur of the alcohol as he sent his consciousness cautiously into Caulay’s, but he quickly bypassed that to make the necessary connections for what must be done, closing his eyes as he felt his way through wine-drugged dreams.

  “Listen only to me, Caulay,” he whispered.

  Dhugal’s tiny start of surprise caused Kelson to glance up momentarily, and instinctively he sent a tendril of reassurance in the other’s direction. He did not think Dhugal sensed it on any conscious level, but the young border lord seemed to relax again almost immediately, releasing a guarded sigh as he leaned forward to gaze at his father’s placid face.

  “Stay deep asleep and hear only my voice,” Kelson went on, returning his attention to the old man. “You can hear every word I say, even though you’re asleep, and you’ll want to answer my questions as fully as you can. Do you understand?”

  “Aye,” came the blurred highland voice.

  As Dhugal glanced up at him in wonder, Kelson sat back and gave him a faint smile, crossing his arms casually on his chest.

  “He’s going to do just fine,” he murmured to Dhugal in an aside. “That’s very good, Caulay. Let’s talk about your brother, first of all. Do you know where Sicard is right now?”

  Caulay grimaced in his sleep. “Aye.”

  A precise answer to the question asked, but nothing volunteered. Loosening control a little, Kelson reframed his question.

  “Good. And where is that?”

  “Ach, I suppose he’s in that keep o’ his in Laas—he an’ his schemin’ wife,” Caulay said. “I didnae like her from the day I first set eyes on her, but he would marry her.”

  His voice was more animated now, the tone so casual and glib that he might have been back at table, confiding opinions over a cup of good ale, except that his eyes were closed.

  “The Lady Caitrin?” Kelson asked.

  “Aye, Cate Quinnell—an’ she callin’ herself a princess!” Caulay went on contemptuously. “They’ve become a brazen lot, an’ that’s for sure—high an’ mighty, where they think ye cannae see them. ’Tis said they keep court as if she were a queen, and not upstart pretender.”

  Kelson nodded and relaxed control just a little more. He did not like the implications of what the old man was conveying, but the delivery was just about perfect.

  “As if she were a queen, eh?” he repeated softly.

  “Weel, surely ye knew, lad—an’ ye must nae allow it tae go on. They say she takes liberties due only a sovereign. She that steals yer homage also steals yer honor.”

  Kelson could sense Dhugal bristling indignantly, but he stayed him with a gesture. This was not the time for righteous outrage. If Caulay was using homage in its legal sense, the situation in Meara was even more serious than he had been led to believe. Homage implied the granting of land in return for service—the military service of knights. If Caitrin of Meara was receiving homage as suzeraine of Meara—

  “Caulay, what liberties has she taken?” Kelson asked, glancing at Dhugal’s stunned face.

  “She swears knights tae her service, wi’ the promise o’ land when Meara is free again,” Caulay replied promptly. “An’ new knights hae been made. Even the two boys hae been knighted, an’ they younger than yerself!”

  Kelson felt his own anger rising to match Dhugal’s, and he had to push it down with a conscious effort.

  “Who knighted them?”

  “My brother,” came Caulay’s response, though not quite so promptly, this time. “I wouldna’ hae thought it possible—my own kin, that swore faith tae yer father, God bless ’im. I couldnae believe it mysel’, when I heard the news. Young Ithel brags that he is a knight now, and will one day be Prince of Meara of his own account. Would he hae died at birth! He is nae true MacArdry, an’ that’s for sure!”

  “I see.” Kelson probed gently for a physical image of the upstart Ithel. “Tell me about this Ithel, then. I want to know everything you can remember.”

  And in Culdi, Alaric Morgan prepared to enter his own kind of grim, dark concentration, opening a red leather case half the size of his fist and dumping out a handful of polished cubes carved of ivory and ebony. They clicked against each other and the table top with solid, satisfying snicks as he set them down, reflecting dark and light as Morgan brought a single candle closer on the table before him.

  Quickly he arranged the cubes in the traditional pattern: four white in the center, forming a single larger square; the four black set one to each corner, not quite touching. The champion’s signet on his right hand gleamed as well, as he poised his fingertips above the center of the white square, but he ignored it for the moment as he set his thoughts in order.

  The odd black and white dice were called Wards in the parlance of those who knew about such things, named, like the most secure perimeter fortifications of a castle, for their function of defense. To set wards was to create a magical sphere of protection encompassing the area defined by the four points at which the individual wards were placed, containing the energy within and restraining the entry of disruptive forces. Such protection was all but essential when one intended a magical
operation such as Morgan planned—for to reach Kelson at such distance, and without prior preparation, would require that Morgan place his body in deep trance, oblivious to physical sensation or danger, while his mind ranged forth in search of the king.

  “Prime.”

  As he spoke the nomen of the cube in the upper left corner of the white square, he touched it with his fingertip and sent power into its matrix. Instantly the cube began to glow from deep within—milky, opalescent white.

  “Seconde.”

  The process was repeated with the cube at the upper right, with similar results.

  “Tierce. Quarte.”

  He was halfway through his preparation, the four white cubes forming a square of ghostly white light. He could feel the power drain. Slowly and deliberately he drew deep breath: tangible cue to trigger the reversal of polarities from white to black, positive to negative, male to female, the other side of the balance. The pull this time would be subtly different, slightly more difficult to channel, but well within his abilities. Breathing out softly, he brought his fingertip toward the black cube resting near the upper left of the white square.

  “Quintet.”

  A tiny spark jumped between his fingertip and the cube just before they touched, green-black fire kindling from within. Quickly, before his momentum was lost, Morgan shifted his attention to the upper right black cube, bringing his forefinger nearer.

  “Sixte.”

  Again, the eerie glow.

  When the process had been repeated for Septime and Octave, all eight of the cubes shimmered with internal light, four white and four black. Now for the mating of opposites, the balancing of energies to build the watchtowers.