None of that made shooting a bow left-handed look anything less than awkward to Morgan, however, accustomed to more conventional shooting stance. And as he shook his head and glanced again at Kelson, who was still gazing raptly at the archers, he knew it was not Dhugal’s unorthodox shooting that was troubling the king, either. Nor was it their earlier discussion of the necessity for remarriage, though that was sure to bring a rise, even under the best of conditions, whenever the subject was broached.
No, today’s preoccupation had to do with what Kelson was—Deryni as well as king—and the necessity, this very night, to make Deryni confirmation of the man who would succeed him on the throne of Gwynedd, should Kelson not return from the Mearan campaign. For failing an heir of Kelson’s body, which he did not yet have, the crown and the Haldane legacy of magic would pass to Prince Nigel, Kelson’s uncle and brother of the dead King Brion.
Brion. After more than three years, the emptiness of the former king’s loss no longer ached in Morgan’s chest in quite the way it once had, but the uncompromising loyalty once visited on the father now lay upon the royal son—this slender, grey-eyed youth, only now verging on true manhood, who prepared to face yet another test that should have been reserved for one of greater years and experience.
At least the physical shell better matched the test. The boy-king who had been was gone forever. Intensive weapons training for the coming campaign had stretched and hardened boyish muscles to more manly proportions, and a winter’s growth spurt had given him another hand-span of height, in addition to chiseling the rounded facial planes of youth to sharper angles. He now stood nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Morgan, and had recently been obliged to employ a razor several times a week to maintain the clean-shaven appearance that he, like Morgan, preferred.
But where Morgan still wore his fair hair cropped short for ease of care in the field, as most fighting men chose to do, Kelson had allowed his to grow during the past two years of relative peace—“like any common borderer,” as Dhugal had laughingly noted, when first reunited with the king the previous fall. For bordermen traditionally wore their hair pulled back in a braid at the nape of the neck and tied with the colors of their clan; no one remembered why.
Unexpectedly, however, the whim of a few seasons of peace soon became a political asset, for it had enabled Kelson to sleek his black hair into a neat border braid like those sported by Dhugal and his kinsmen, underlining his own border connections with Dhugal as well as the clan and thereby binding his border allies more firmly to his support. Only after it had served its political purpose did Kelson discover that the affectation was also both comfortable and practical, working as well under a helm or mail as the bowl-shaped cut or the Roman style that most seasoned warriors favored.
Since then, many of the younger men and boys had begun to adopt the king’s border braid as their hair grew long enough, though lowland purists and those of a more conservative persuasion still considered short locks to be the mark of genteel civilization. Conall was one such purist, and wore his hair accordingly, though both his younger brothers boasted stubby border braids tied with ribbons of Haldane scarlet—somewhat less consequential than Dhugal’s coppery braid, to be sure, but meant as fervent compliment, both to their royal cousin the king and to his dashing foster brother, who took the time to coach them at archery, and did not laugh when their arrows went wide of the mark.
A patter of applause and girlish laughter from across the yard shifted Morgan’s focus back to Dhugal himself, who had just placed an arrow very near the center of the target. The young border lord lowered his bow and leaned on it like a staff as he glanced at Conall, watching in silence as his royal opponent carefully drew and let fly, placing his shot directly beside Dhugal’s—though no nearer the center.
“He’s quite good, isn’t he?” Kelson breathed, gesturing with his chin toward his eldest cousin.
As Conall’s brothers, thirteen and eight, moved forward to take their turns, Dhugal giving the younger boys helpful pointers, Conall stepped back from the line and glared sourly at his chief rival.
“Aye, he’s skilled enough,” Morgan agreed. “Perhaps one day he’ll learn to compete gracefully as well. I wonder where he gets his temper. Certainly not from Nigel.”
Kelson smiled and shook his head, glancing instinctively across the yard where his uncle, Conall’s father, was working with a pair of pages under his tutelage—lads too young to go along on the coming campaign. While an old, retired battle stallion plodded a patient circle in the mud, one youngster straddling its broad back behind the massive war saddle while a second attempted to stand and balance on the moving animal’s back, Nigel walked alongside and barked instructions. Jatham, Kelson’s own squire, led the horse.
“Watch it …” Kelson murmured to himself, as Nigel’s pupil teetered and started to tumble headfirst into the hoof-churned mud—only to have Nigel snatch him in midair by his belt and a handful of tunic and boost him back into position.
They could not hear what Nigel said to the lad, though his words brought an immediate flush of scarlet to the downy cheeks. Almost at once, the boy found his balance and was standing up, erect if shaky, but moving more and more confidently with the gait of the horse. Lent new bravery by his companion calling encouragement from behind him, he even began to grin as Nigel nodded approval and started slowly backing toward the center of the circle the old stallion trod.
“God, I’m glad I’ve got Nigel,” Kelson whispered, echoing Morgan’s own appreciation of Gwynedd’s Iron Duke. “I suppose kings have always had to ride off to battle not knowing how their heirs will handle things if they don’t return, but at least with Nigel after me, Gwynedd will be in good hands.”
Morgan glanced at him sharply. “No prescience of impending doom, I hope?”
“No, it isn’t that.”
Morgan raised an eyebrow at the note of distraction in the royal answer, but he said nothing, only noting how the king had begun twisting at a gold ring on the little finger of his left hand. Briefly it had been Kelson’s bridal token to the Mearan princess who now slept eternally in the vaults below Rhemuth Cathedral; the ring had a tiny Haldane lion etched on a facet pared from along the top of the band, the eyes set with miniscule rubies. He had worn the ring constantly since the day of her burial. Likewise, when court protocol did not dictate otherwise, he had taken to wearing black. He was so attired today, not even a circlet adorning his royal head.
Nor did Morgan know how much the outward symbols of mourning reflected the true extent of the king’s grief. Kelson said that both gestures were but visible reminders of the vow he had made to bring the Mearan rebels to justice, but Morgan wondered whether the significance might run deeper—though he would not have dreamed of prying. Faced with a marriage of state to a girl who had been bred to hate his very name, Kelson had let himself retreat to the more comforting fantasy that he was falling in love with Sidana, and she with him. By the time they recited their vows before the high altar, he had nearly convinced himself that it was true—or at least that he eventually could have caused it to be true.
Her violent death, then, before the fantasy could be tested in the reality of a consummated marriage, had left the young king foundering in a sea of unresolved adolescent passions and shattered ideals. Playing the grieving and aggrieved widower gave him time to sort things out before circumstances forced him once more into the matrimonial sea. Both he and Morgan knew that he would have to marry again, however, and fairly soon. And as before, he would always have to place dynastic considerations firmly before considerations of the heart.
“Well, it’s natural to be a little nervous about tonight,” Morgan said, guessing apprehension rather than grief to be behind today’s mood. “Don’t worry. Nigel will do fine. You’ve been preparing him all winter for this.”
“I know.”
“And you’ll do fine,” Morgan continued, covering that aspect as well. “Why, I’ll wager that no Haldane king since Cinhil himself ha
s had so many Deryni to help him designate his magical heir. Your father certainly didn’t. All he had was me.”
“What do you mean, all?” Kelson snorted, though the protest was a little too quick to be quite as casual as he tried to pretend. “Why, I’d rather have you standing at my back than any other man I can think of—no matter what I was about to do. And as far as magic is concerned—”
Morgan quirked him a quick, lopsided smile and chuckled aloud, knowing he had guessed correctly.
“As far as magic is concerned, you might do better with just about any trained Deryni at your back,” he said lightly. “Even Duncan and I don’t have a full set of training between us.”
“Maybe not, but maybe formal training isn’t that important. Besides, Richenda’s trained. And Arilan.”
“Arilan.” Morgan sighed and managed not to look as uneasy as he felt. “You’re aware that he’ll tell the Council every detail, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“Kelson, you know he will. Despite his apparent loyalty to you, he has oaths of far longer standing with the Council—and far more binding. Even I know that.”
“Well, they’ll have to find out sometime, I suppose,” Kelson murmured. “Besides, they’ve got access to records we’ll need if we’re ever to restore Saint Camber to his place of honor.”
“So you’ll compromise our security.”
“No, I’ll encourage further dialogue among fellow Deryni.” Kelson smiled. “Did you know that old Laran ap Pardyce has begun to use our library, for example? His scholar’s mind couldn’t stand not knowing what we had. And as a physician, he’s fascinated that you and Duncan can heal—though he won’t admit that to very many people.”
“And just how do you know that?”
“Oh, I’ve met him there, once or twice.”
Before Morgan could respond to that new piece of information, a raucous whoop from Rory and Payne, Kelson’s younger Haldane cousins, drew their attention back to the archery match, where Dhugal had just put his last arrow squarely into the center of the target.
To a patter of appreciative applause from the watching ladies, Conall moved forward to take his last shot—though there was little chance he could even come close to Dhugal’s, much less beat it. Nor did he.
“Well, that’s that,” Kelson said, as Conall’s arrow thumped home a full handspan from Dhugal’s—respectable enough shooting, but clearly not in Dhugal’s class.
The ladies again applauded—for a prince was nearly as good a catch as a king—but Conall all but slammed down his bow, though he did manage a stiff little bow of acknowledgment before stalking off sullenly toward the stables. Kelson glanced wistfully at Morgan as a subdued Rory and Payne trailed along with Dhugal to retrieve the arrows from the target.
“Well, well, well,” he said, sliding to his feet off the stone balustrade, “that was nearly far more exciting than anyone would have wished. Let’s go congratulate the winner, shall we? I don’t know how, but he even managed to keep Conall from losing his temper.”
“Which is an achievement in itself, aside from the brilliant shooting,” Morgan replied, as they headed down the stair and into the yard. “Perhaps one may venture to hope that Conall is learning.”
“Aye. Perhaps the presence of the ladies helped a little.”
They were waiting at the firing line when Dhugal returned, Rory and Payne carrying the arrows in adoring attendance. After the boys had made their duty to Kelson, Payne chattering excitedly about Dhugal’s victory, the young border lord sent them on their way and gave his foster brother his own casual yet respectful salute. In public, at least, he was always careful to give Kelson the deference their ranks required.
“Well shot, Dhugal,” Kelson said, smiling, “And a well-managed victory.”
Dhugal inclined his head and returned the smile, golden-amber eyes meeting Haldane grey, exactly aware what Kelson meant.
“Thank you, Sire.”
Though still not as tall as Kelson, he, too, had shot up over the winter—to the dismay of the castle armorers, who must even now rush to complete the season’s second alteration of his steel and leather brigandine, before he left on campaign on the morrow. He wore new boots and supple new leather britches of the same russet hue as his border braid, but the linen tunic was old, and pulled across the chest, the sleeve not bound with an armguard for archery hitting well above the wristbone. He had laid aside his plaid in the noonday sun, but no one would have mistaken his rank.
No sword hung from the gilded earl’s belt circling his narrow waist, but he wore a border dirk at his left hip, with a water-pale amethyst set in the hilt. The three eagle feathers of a border chief bristled from behind a MacArdry badge on his leather border bonnet.
Dhugal grinned as he dropped his arrows into a standing quiver, large, square front teeth flashing bright-white beneath the sparse, silky smudge of mustache that, at sixteen, was all the facial hair he could yet produce.
“Care to shoot a round, Sire?” he asked impishly. “We missed you just now.”
Smiling benignly, Kelson picked up Conall’s discarded bow and tested its pull, then nocked an arrow to string and casually drew.
“Conall didn’t miss me,” he said, letting fly and holding as he watched the arrow thump precisely into the center of the target. “And Conall hasn’t yet learned the graceful art of losing.”
He ignored the flurry of applause and the sighs of appreciation from the watching ladies as he lowered the bow and took another arrow from the wistful Dhugal, laying the shaft across bow and string and carefully fitting nock to string again.
“I see,” Dhugal said, not resentful, but curious. “So I get the job of humbling Conall.”
Almost lethargically, Kelson raised the bow and began to draw again, closing his eyes and turning his face slightly away from the target as he locked into full-draw.
“At least it was an honest competition,” he said softly, releasing his second arrow after the final word.
Eyes still closed, he held the position as the arrow made its flight, lowering the bow to look at Dhugal only when the arrow had thumped home precisely beside the first, the two shafts touching all along their length, the fletching on the two arrows indistinguishable from one another. The ladies applauded even more enthusiastically, and Kelson half-turned briefly to glance up at them and incline his head slightly in graceful acknowledgment as Dhugal gaped.
“I’m afraid I must confess to taking what Conall could consider an unfair advantage on that one,” the king admitted with a droll smile and a wink in Dhugal’s direction. “Being Deryni does have its more mundane advantages.”
He shifted his attention to Morgan. “And you will note, Alaric, that I am not totally insensitive to the interest of the ladies at my court,” he went on. “I am simply cultivating an aloofness in keeping with my eligible status—though I must confess that it seems somehow to have taken on some of the mystery that you yourself used to generate when you were in your darkling phase—and still do, I suspect, known Deryni sorcerer that you are. Perhaps it comes from wearing black.”
Any determination on Morgan’s part to maintain decorum disintegrated into delighted laughter at that, for Morgan’s own former penchant for black attire was well known and of only recent abandonment—and affected, in the past, for reasons very similar to those Kelson had just cited. Nowadays, he wore black for practicality, or because nothing else was handy—which was precisely why he had donned it this morning: serviceable black leathers over mail, for a predawn ride. The coincidence made Kelson’s comment a singularly suitable retribution for Morgan’s earlier jesting.
“Perhaps you ought to go ahead and try a shot,” Kelson suggested, suddenly aware that the bewildered Dhugal was still puzzling over the implications of Deryni advantages. “Show Dhugal how we Deryni do it.”
“You mean—”
Dhugal broke off in astonishment as Morgan merely raised an eyebrow and took up a bow, casually fitting an
arrow to the string. He could not come to full draw with the shorter shaft the younger men used, but nonetheless his shot slammed squarely into the angle formed by Kelson’s first two, even though he deliberately averted his eyes before locking on the target. Nor did he look up as he nocked and drew again, his second shot completing the square formed by the four shafts.
“Bloody hell!” Dhugal whispered, as sighs of awe and more timid applause issued from the ladies’ gallery.
Morgan laid down his bow and favored his admiring audience with a courtly acknowledgment of his own before herding the two younger men along with him toward the target with vague shooing motions. Dhugal tried hard not to goggle.
“How did you do that?” he breathed. “No one can shoot like that! You really did use magic, didn’t you?”
Morgan shrugged noncommittally.
“Simple enough, when one knows how,” he said, keeping his outward demeanor casual and offhand. “Fortunately, our feminine admirers aren’t aware how unusual that kind of shooting is. Nor, I suspect, should we titillate them very often with performances like this. Right now, they are probably only reflecting that Conall and his brothers are rather poor shots by comparison with the three of us. Conall, on the other hand, might have guessed the truth—and been furious.”
“I’ll say,” Dhugal murmured. “He’s insufferable enough when he doesn’t win.”
Kelson reached the target first, and began carefully pulling the telltale arrows and handing them to Morgan.
The King’s Justice Page 3
