The King’s Justice

by Katherine Kurtz

  “You’re bluffing,” Sicard whispered. “What will the world say, if the great Kelson Haldane cuts down an enemy in cold blood?”

  “They will say that a traitor was executed for his treason, without further endangering honest men,” Kelson replied. Raising his bow arm, he began a slow, smooth draw. “I say that enough lives have been spent on you and your misguided cause. Are not three of your own children sufficient price to pay?”

  “Three?” Sicard gasped. “Ithel—?”

  “Is dead,” Kelson said, as he sighted down the shaft at Sicard’s heart. “I hanged him and Brice of Trurill yesterday. Now, throw down your sword. My arm is getting tired. And archers, if I have to shoot him, and his men do not immediately surrender, stand by to cut them down the same way. What’s it to be, Sicard? If you say no, I let fly.”

  The head of the war arrow leveled at his heart gleamed dead black in the afternoon heat, but it no longer held the dread it once had. Numbly Sicard stared at the man who had now killed both his sons, as well as bringing about the death of his only daughter. It had all been for naught.

  Then, as the Haldane archers nocked arrows, maneuvering their horses for clear shots at his men, Sicard MacArdry slowly raised his eyes above Kelson, toward the western hills and the queen he had lost—he, who had dreamed of a throne beside his Mearan queen—and whispered a single word.

  “No.”

  Before any of his men could utter a word, Kelson’s arrow took him cleanly through the left eye—a last-second change of target, lest Sicard’s armor deflect the barbed arrowhead and prolong Sicard’s final agony. The Mearan consort died without a sound, sword falling to the sand from lifeless fingers, toppling silently until his body hit the ground in a clash of armor. The sound seemed to release his men from their awed and stunned observation of the act; and as Kelson took another arrow and his archers began choosing targets, a murmur of protest rippled among the Mearan knights, quickly dying as all eyes fastened on the king.

  “I now require your decision, gentlemen,” Kelson said, as he nocked his second arrow. “Your commander was a brave man, if a foolish one, but for all that he was steadfast to the end in his loyalty to his lady, I shall see that he receives honorable burial—as I had already determined to give to Prince Ithel. You will now surrender, and face whatever just penalties your individual actions may have incurred, or else suffer the same fate as your late master.”

  The Mearans were not made of the same stuff as Sicard. Muttering there was among them, but almost at once, weapons began hitting the ground, empty hands rising above armored shoulders.

  “Ewan, take them into custody,” Kelson murmured, handing off his bow as he stood in the stirrups to gaze back toward the site of the stake where he had last seen Duncan chained. “We have our victory, but pray God that Bishop Duncan’s life has not been part of the price.”

  General Gloddruth took the Haldane banner from Ewan and fell in with Kelson as the king urged his horse back toward the center of the former Mearan camp to find out. Battle surgeons had begun ministering to those who could be helped, priests to those who could not, and the cries of the wounded and the dying surged and eddied around the king on the stifling summer air as he picked his way back across the battleground.

  Closer to the stake, a few Haldane scouts guarded the bodies of dead Connaiti mercenaries and episcopal knights. A little farther on, Baron Jodrell rose at Kelson’s approach to give salute, grim triumph in his eyes as he gestured toward a middle-aged man gasping on the ground between a squire and a battle-surgeon priest bandaging his wounds, armor and a bloodstained white surcoat discarded to one side.

  “Do you recognize him, Sire? Unfortunately for him, he’s going to live to stand trial.”

  Kelson frowned. “One of Loris’ minions?”

  “His chief minion,” the surgeon-priest muttered, silencing his patient with a precise blow to the jaw as, at the sound of Kelson’s voice, the man opened his eyes and began cursing and squirming.

  “Lawrence Gorony,” Jodrell supplied, as Gorony fell back, unconscious. “It’s too bad Duke Alaric didn’t finish him off, but since he didn’t—”

  “Alaric? Oh, God, where is he?” Kelson interrupted, swinging an armored leg over his horse’s rump and dropping heavily to the ground. “And Bishop Duncan? Is he alive?”

  “Over there, Sire.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The skill of the physician shall lift up his head.

  —Ecclesiasticus 38:3

  Like a man possessed, Kelson ran toward the billow of canvas that Jodrell pointed to, dreading what he would find. Heat and fatigue dragged at his limbs, weighted by armor, and his breath burned in his lungs as he ran, but he did not let his steps slow until he had reached his goal, heart pounding with fear as much as the exertion as he staggered to a halt.

  Partially under the shelter of the tent some men-at-arms were hastily erecting, familiar heads were bent over a supine, nearly nude figure who surely must be Duncan; but before he could make sure, Kelson had to duck his head between his knees, suddenly light-headed, until the throbbing in his temples eased. He tugged loose the buckles of his gorget as he straightened, still breathing hard, but no one even looked up. He tried to tell himself that things were not as bad as they appeared as he slowly stumbled closer to the crouching men.

  It was, indeed, Duncan who lay there. Kelson’s stomach threatened to revolt as he saw what had been done to him. A broken-off arrow protruded from his thigh, angry looking burns marked his bare legs, and his filthy, blood-caked toes were raw and nailless. What Kelson could see of his chest, past the men working over him so intently, was bloody and crisscrossed with welts, and at first seemed not to be moving.

  But Morgan was one of those who knelt at his head, one hand across Duncan’s closed eyes, the other rising and falling very slightly with Duncan’s shallow breathing, his bright gold head bent close to Dhugal’s more reddish one. Beside Dhugal, his back to Kelson, was Father Lael, Cardiel’s chaplain; and Cardiel himself watched over Lael’s shoulder, hands braced on his thighs.

  The presence of the two priests sent a chill of dread through Kelson’s already fear-numbed brain, and another wave of nausea made him stumble as he moved closer still.

  “Dear God, he isn’t dying, is he?” he whispered.

  Cardiel turned and caught him by the shoulders before he could fall.

  “Easy, son! He’s holding his own.”

  “But, Father Lael—”

  “Is here as a surgeon, not a priest—at least so far. And I’m just here to lend moral support.”

  Swaying on his feet with relief, Kelson let himself sag against Cardiel for just a second, fighting sudden light-headedness.

  “Oh, thank God! How bad is he?”

  “Bad enough—but I think he should make it. The burns are superficial, and the nails will grow back, and his back looks worse than it is. He took some arrows, though, and he’s lost more blood than we’d like. The wound they’re working on is the worst.”

  “Easy,” he heard Dhugal murmur, as Lael cut deftly around the arrow embedded in Duncan’s shoulder and Dhugal tried to work it free. “Are you sure it’s missed the lung?”

  Kelson moved around behind Lael as the little priest grimaced and slipped a fingertip along the shaft and partway into the wound, probing to free the barbed arrowhead.

  “The angle looks good. I don’t think we’re in the lung. He’s bleeding from somewhere, though. Be ready when this thing breaks loose.”

  “I’m watching,” Dhugal breathed. “Easy—”

  Suddenly the arrow came away in his hands, Lael’s hand with it, and the wound began to pump bright red.

  “Damn!”

  As Lael slapped a compress over the wound, leaning most of his weight on the heels of both hands as he shouted for Ciard, Duncan moaned and went greyer around the lips, his breath rasping in his throat. With a whispered oath, Morgan shoved Lael off balance and ripped away the compress, shuddering as he rammed two f
ingers into the wound and shut his eyes, drawing a ragged breath.

  “Alaric, no!” Dhugal cried.

  He tried to pull Morgan off as Lael, too, clamped a hand around Morgan’s bare wrist in an attempt to stop him, but Morgan only shook his head. Kelson dropped to his knees and stared, all but paralyzed by shock, and Cardiel tripped over him trying to get around to Morgan.

  “Morgan, are you crazy?” Lael gasped, still fighting him.

  “He’s hemorrhaging!” Morgan answered, though he was beginning to shake with exertion. “I’ve got to stop it.”

  “There’s merasha in his system, for God’s sake! Get out of there!”

  “I can’t let him bleed to death!”

  “He won’t bleed to death if you’ll let me at him,” Lael retorted, still trying to pull Morgan away while he blotted frantically at the blood seeping around Morgan’s fingers. “He’ll die of shock, though, if you don’t do something about that. And you can’t, if the merasha gets to you. Ciard, where’s that iron?”

  Abruptly, Kelson became aware of Dhugal’s gillie bending closer with a red-hot poker wrapped at one end with an insulating cloth—and that Lael’s hand was lifting to take it.

  “Morgan, get his blood off your hands now!” Lael ordered. “Sire, he needs your help!”

  Somehow, Kelson knew that Lael meant Duncan, not Morgan. As Morgan withdrew with a little sob, plunging bloody hands into a basin of water a whey-faced squire offered, Kelson clamped his own hands to either side of Duncan’s sweat-slick face and reached for rapport—and recoiled instantly as he nearly got intertwined in the merasha disruption Morgan had been fighting.

  God, how had he stood it?

  He made himself go back, though, and his body arched in shared response with Duncan’s as Dhugal threw himself across his father’s body to hold him steady and Lael thrust the tip of the glowing iron into the wound.

  Kelson’s scream intertwined with Duncan’s weaker cry as the agony jolted his concentration. He tried to damp both their pain, feeling his own pulse rate soar in response to Duncan’s, but the merasha muddling Duncan’s controls interfered with his own functioning. The stench of scorching flesh immediately catapulted him back to Duncan’s memory of the stake, and the flames reaching hungry fingers toward his body, beginning to scorch—

  Only Morgan’s dripping hands forcing him aside enabled him to break the link, Morgan’s more experienced control driving through even merasha fog to jar him back into his own mind and keep him there while he moderated Duncan’s distress. Ciard caught the king by the shoulders as he reeled, overcome by vertigo, and quickly hauled him back from the three laboring over Duncan as he became aware he was about to be violently ill.

  He fell to his hands and knees and retched himself empty. Then he shuddered with dry heaves until he thought he must surely cough up his guts with the bile, though the reaction gradually began to abate. But his vision went grey after that, and then black.

  When Kelson came to himself again, he was lying on his side, the front of his brigandine unbuckled, and Archbishop Cardiel was bathing the back of his neck with a cloth wrung out in cool water. With returning consciousness, all the horror of the past few hours came flooding back as well, but when he tried too soon to sit up, his vision blurred and the bile rose in his throat again.

  “Lie back and drink this,” Cardiel murmured, easing him back to lean against his knee and pressing a cup into his hand.

  “What is it?”

  “Water. You’re exhausted from the heat. Drink it down, and I’ll give you some more. You’ll be all right in a little while.”

  Kelson rinsed his mouth to get rid of the bile taste and spat weakly to one side. Then, as he drank more deeply, praying for the pounding in his head to cease, he realized that he was not where he had been. A curtain had been strung between himself and the rest of the tent, and low voices spoke of the presence of several people behind it: Morgan, Dhugal, Father Lael, and—

  “Oh, Jesu! Duncan—is he—?”

  “He’s alive,” Cardiel said, closing a hand firmly around Kelson’s on the cup and topping it off. “And he’s in good hands. Now, drink up. There’s nothing you can do to help him until you’ve got yourself in order.”

  “But, Alaric—Dhugal—”

  “They’ve stopped the bleeding. He was given some drug that interferes with Deryni power, so they have to wait before they can do much more.”

  “Merasha.”

  “I think that’s what they called it. Now, drink that, or I’m not telling you another thing. They don’t need another patient to worry about. None of the surgeons do.”

  Shaking, Kelson drained the cup. There was no arguing with that logic. When Cardiel refilled the cup, Kelson drained it again.

  He was beginning to feel waterlogged as the archbishop refilled it a third time, but he kept sipping dutifully, propping himself on his elbows as Cardiel balled up a cloak and shoved it under his feet. After a few minutes, with some careful nudging on his part, the pain in his head began to abate. Unfortunately, awareness of his other responsibilities came flooding back to replace it.

  “I’ve rested enough,” he said, setting his cup aside. “I need casualty reports. Where’re Ewan and Remie? And Gloddruth?”

  “Lie flat for a while longer, Sire,” Cardiel said, pressing Kelson’s shoulders back when he would have tried to sit up instead. “Actual losses were relatively light, at least on our side, though the surgeons will be busy through the night patching up the wounded. All the fight seems to have gone out of the Mearans. Most of the prisoners seem eager to reaffirm their allegiance to you.”

  “Prisoners …?”

  Kelson closed his eyes for a few seconds, remembering Sicard toppling from his horse, an arrow protruding from one eye socket, then sighed dismally and laid an arm across his forehead.

  “Did they tell you what I had to do to Sicard?”

  “Aye.” Cardiel’s voice was low, expressionless. “He was taken in arms against you, Sire, and he refused to surrender.”

  “So I shot him,” Kelson muttered.

  “Aye, he shot him,” Ewan said sternly, poking his head through an opening in the flap that led to the outside, as Kelson lifted his arm to look. “An’ don’t ye dare let him wallow in self-pity for that little lapse, Archbishop. The lad has guts. He executed one traitor to force the peaceful surrender of many others.”

  Unconvinced, and suddenly deadly tired, Kelson lurched to a sitting position, not caring that the sudden movement made his head throb for a few seconds.

  “I still should have tried to bring him to trial.”

  “That was his choice, Sire.”

  “But—”

  “Kelson, he was a dead man already, an’ he knew it!” Ewan said, crouching down to take the king’s forearm and look him in the eyes. “Think on it. He was sore wounded. He’d been taken in rebellion, an’ his last son already killed. D’ye think he didna’ know what his fate must be? Is it nae better to die wi’ sword in hand, than face trial and execution as a traitor? Is nae one arrow better than the rope, or the headsman’s sword—or drawin’ an’ quarterin’—”

  Kelson swallowed and glanced at the ground between his knees. “I—hadn’t thought about it that way,” he admitted.

  “I didna’ think ye had,” Ewan muttered. “’Tis not an easy thing, growin’ up an’ bein’ king all at once, is it, laddie? If it’s any consolation, it was no easier for yer father, God bless ’im.”

  Kelson smiled bleakly. “I suppose not.”

  “Let’s have nae more o’ this, then.”

  Kelson nodded and drew a deep breath, making himself brace against Ewan’s words, the logical part of him knowing that the old duke was right, even though he would have wished it otherwise.

  But then he thought of Loris, who ultimately had brought about this whole sorry state of affairs, and set his jaw resolutely as he looked up.

  “Aye. You’re right, Ewan,” he said. “And I know another who is even more t
o blame than Sicard for this day’s work. Where is Loris?”

  “Secure, Sire,” Cardiel said promptly, locking down his hand on Kelson’s shoulder when the king would have gotten to his feet. “And Gorony as well. I think it might be best if you waited until morning to see them, however.”

  Kelson’s grey Haldane eyes went dark and cold, and he sensed it took all of Cardiel’s strength not to quail before them, even though he extended not a jot of Deryni control.

  “I saw Gorony and managed not to kill him in cold blood,” he said evenly. “What’s the matter? Do you think Loris would be too much temptation?”

  “Edmund Loris is enough to tempt even a saint to mayhem, Sire,” Cardiel replied. “I know I would not trust myself to see him just now, knowing what he has done to Duncan, and what he did to Henry Istelyn.”

  “I’m not going to kill him without a trial, Thomas! Nor do I torture prisoners, however much I might be tempted.”

  “No one said you would, Sire.”

  “Then, why shouldn’t I see him now?”

  Cardiel braced his shoulders against Kelson’s continued hard gaze, refusing to be baited, until finally Kelson lowered his eyes, regretting his outburst.

  “You aren’t afraid of me, are you?” he whispered.

  “No, Sire. Not for myself, at least.”

  “Th’ Archbishop is right, though, Sire,” Ewan interjected, hunkering down for more intimate conversation with the king. “Why not wait ’til mornin’? Bein’ captured by Deryni is torture enough for the likes o’ Loris an’ Gorony. Let ’em stew for a while! The longer ye make ’em wait, worryin’ what yer goin’ t’ do to ’em, the weaker they’ll be.”

  Pulled up short again by Ewan’s unarguable logic, Kelson glanced aside at the flap leading out of the tent.

  “I wish I had that option, Ewan.”

  “An’ why not?”