“You may be a little sore,” Dhugal said. “And you might cough a bit of blood for a day or two. But this shouldn’t slow you down much.”
Behind them, Azim was now untying Derry’s hands. Derry himself lay pale and unmoving, eyes closed. The desert prince cast an approving glance at Mátyás, who lay his head back gratefully on Liam’s knees.
“That,” said Azim, with a nod toward Mátyás, “is one of the things my niece must have taught in her schola. And this,” he continued, as he freed Derry’s hands, “should never have been allowed to continue for so long.”
Kelson blinked at him in astonishment, and Morgan turned to face him, as Azim made a tsk-ing sound with his tongue.
“Most appalling,” he said to Kelson, as he handed Araxie’s veil back to her with an apologetic shrug for its condition. “There have been three very powerful and highly skilled Furstáns poking about in his mind, in the past seven-year. Yon Alaric made a fair job of cleaning up after the first, considering his lack of formal training, but more must be done. The most recent intruder has left him badly used.”
Morgan went a little grey, scooting closer on his knees, and Azim settled back on his haunches, briefly contemplative, bracing graceful hands on his thighs.
“I can resolve this now, if you will,” he said. “The process is relatively straightforward, if tedious.”
“But—when did this happen?” Kelson asked.
“In Beldour, while all of us were occupied with the aftermath of killijálay. Oh, Morag was very subtle.”
“We didn’t know,” Kelson said, appalled.
“Of course you did not. How could you, without the training to recognize the signs? It is magic of a darker sort, which I would not expect to fall within the purview of a Haldane’s knowledge.”
He cast a sour glance at the unconscious Derry, then back at Kelson.
“A Haldane may, perhaps, aid in its resolution, however—and in doing so, learn how to safeguard against it in the future. As I said, the work will be tedious rather than difficult, and taxing only in the energy required; but I shall be here all night, if I have not assistance. I would prefer to spend the time refocusing the search for Teymuraz himself. For with that ring—unless he has sense enough to discard it, which I think he will not do, in his arrogance—we have now a means to trace its link back to him. Fetch it for me, please, Rothana—and only grasp it in a fold of your skirt. I would not have you touch it.”
As she rose obediently to do his bidding, Azim returned his gaze to Kelson, cocking his head in question.
“I shall ask of you the same thing Alaric asked Mátyás: unconditional trust—for I shall need to draw deeply from your energy reserves, lest I deplete my own and have none left for Teymuraz. Do you consent?”
“I consent,” Morgan said, before Kelson could speak. “Derry is my responsibility—my vassal, as well as my friend.”
“And you have already given much of yourself in the saving of Mátyás,” Azim replied. “Best let another serve this need.”
Without comment, Kelson scooted closer to the Deryni master, settling close beside him and the hapless Derry. Not to assist was unthinkable, given all that Derry must have suffered, over the years, from what had been done to him by Wencit—and in the service of Morgan and himself.
To his surprise, Azim then turned to Araxie, who seemed not at all dismayed by the way he had briskly taken charge—or perhaps, as his sometime pupil, she was used to his forthright manner.
“And you, child—will you stretch your wings with us?” he said. “What I will ask is well within your ability. You may consider it your rite of passage, from neophyte into the ranks of working Deryni—for such you must be, now to share in the work of our friend, the King of Gwynedd.”
He smiled as he said it, and held out his hand, and her eyes laughed as she put her hand in his, slipping easily into trance as her head bowed and her eyes closed with the ease of utter trust, pupil to master. Himself already poised to do the same, Kelson could sense their rapport like a sweet note of harmony faintly vibrating just beyond the range of hearing. After a moment, Azim held out his other hand to Kelson.
“And now you, young Haldane.”
Drawing a deep breath, Kelson set his hand in the master’s and slowly exhaled, closing his eyes, letting his shields fall away, yielding up control. The embrace of Azim’s shields bore him gently downward into a tranquil resting place, away from any physical sensation, where he found himself content to float in quiet limbo, waiting. . . .
Azim briefly drew back. Kelson waited, vaguely aware of power stirring still deeper within him. When Azim returned, it was to draw him into harmony with the sweetly pulsing skein of presence that was Araxie—like the shimmer of music on moonlight—as yet, a skein of less substantial strands than his, but strong, like the silk that had bound Derry’s wrists.
Delicately Azim began to tease out precisely the threads he needed for his task, from both his charges. Kelson sensed it as a gentle but insistent drawing forth, from some depth he had not known existed, and he gave willingly and gladly. For Azim wove of the threads a fine, shimmering net with which he quickly sifted out the last vestiges of Wencit’s taint from Derry’s mind, healing as he went, in a magic altogether different from the healing done for Mátyás.
When, at last, Azim’s need slowly abated, Kelson was allowed to settle back into that tranquil resting place. He sensed a beginning of withdrawal, and prepared himself to slowly start to surface; but curiously, he found himself impeded.
Stay yet a while longer, came Azim’s thought, gossamer soft. One need yet remains. You shall come to no harm.
Kelson sensed a further gentle probing, different from before. Then, in a faintly giddying upward spiral, he was being drawn toward the surface—bobbing back into full consciousness with control and shields restored.
He opened his eyes, sight quickly stabilizing any lingering disorientation. Azim had drawn their hands down upon Derry’s chest while they worked, and pressed Kelson’s before releasing it, bending then to kiss Araxie’s hand before releasing her as well. Derry appeared to be sleeping peacefully now, his color better, apparently restored.
“Well done, children. An excellent piece of work. I thank you. On that note, I think it time we were all of us about our various obligations. Rothana, that ring, if you please.”
“But—what, exactly, happened?” Morgan asked, as Azim got to his feet, himself scrambling to rise as Kelson also stood up. Mátyás was sitting up now, apparently none the worse for his ordeal save for a tattered robe. Dhugal sat cross-legged beside him and Liam, looking altogether pleased.
“Ah. That I can now explain with somewhat greater certainty, having seen the extent of interference in his mind,” Azim said. “Walk with me to the Portal, all of you, for I must be soon away. Rothana, stay you with Derry.”
The others scrambled to their feet and fell in with him as they began moving slowly toward the sacristy.
“What, exactly, happened is that the magic Wencit set some years ago in young Derry was never fully rooted out—which is not your fault, my lord Alaric; you did not know. Kelson can show you later what we did. Save that this failing had left snippets of memory troubling to Derry, the matter might have ended there—except that the match-mate to this ring”—he held up the ring he had taken from Derry—“was the same that had belonged to Wencit, and which had bound him to the one you took from him and, most rightly, destroyed after Wencit’s death.
“I can only surmise the general unfolding of events since that time,” he went on, turning the ring in his fingers. “Morag, who was Wencit’s sister, came into possession of his ring after his death. Presumably, she also obtained knowledge of what it was and what it could do. Whether Wencit himself told her, I do not know. But she learned its history and had another made, binding it to her brother’s ring, and his to her, and laying plans against the day when she might use it—preferably against the two of you,” he said, with a nod toward Morgan and Kelson, “for you had
caused the deaths of both brother and husband.
“She knew of Derry’s connection with the original link,” he went on. “She had him brought to her while he was in Beldour, overcame him, and ascertained that enough remained of what Wencit had sown to re-establish the old link with this—which she cleverly disguised by encasing it in gold, leaving Derry with the belief that it was a trinket he had acquired while in Beldour.” He displayed it again between thumb and forefinger. “Through its link, she would have been able to see everything that he saw, and to hear what he heard, so long as the link was open.”
“Then, did Teymuraz take it, when he killed my mother?” Liam asked.
“So it would appear—and learned to reach far deeper into the link than your mother had done, to bend Derry’s will to his—as Wencit had done, when he first set the link. Perhaps, in time, she would have done so as well; but Teymuraz took it from her before she progressed that far, so we shall never know. I did make a thorough sifting of Derry’s memories since acquiring the ring in Beldour. Only in the last few days had there begun to be interference with his will, so we may conclude that all Morag did was to observe.
“Not so, Teymuraz, of course—though he shall never use this link again.” He closed the ring in his fist, his gaze hardening briefly before his usual benign expression returned. They had reached the sacristy, and Azim paused before the open doorway.
“You may rest assured that Derry is now free of whatever hold Wencit—and his kin—had on him. He may regret missing the wedding festivities, but I would have him sleep a full night and a day. Do you see to it,” he ordered Dhugal, who dipped his head in unquestioning agreement. “He will remember nothing of this when he wakes. And if no one of you tells him”—he swept an admonitory glance over all of them—“he need never know of this final obscene assault on his will. Nor will he ever be haunted by what is now past.”
Morgan glanced back across the nave at Derry, peacefully asleep under Rothana’s watch, greatly regretting that their ignorance had caused the faithful Derry so much pain.
“Thank you, Master Azim,” he said quietly. “We all have much to learn from you.”
“We have much to learn from one another,” Azim said, nodding toward the clean flesh visible through the hole in Mátyás’s robe. “And my niece’s schola here in Rhemuth will be only the beginning. But for now, Kelson of Gwynedd,” he continued, tucking the false ring into his robe, “I must take this to my brethren, for I hope it may lead us back to Teymuraz. Liam, I would recommend that you and Mátyás return at once to Beldour, much though I know how you will have anticipated the wedding festivities here in Rhemuth. I shall keep you informed regarding Teymuraz.
“Meanwhile, my king,” he said, returning his gaze to Kelson, “I believe you have wedding guests awaiting you back at the castle—and I think,” he added, with a glance at Araxie, “that you have a very important announcement concerning this young woman, whose true mettle only now begins to emerge. You would be well advised to marry her as soon as you may, and crown her your queen.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Come unto her with thy whole heart.
Ecclesiasticus 6:26
Kelson took Azim’s wise counsel and did exactly that. He and Araxie were wed a week later, to the joy of all Gwynedd. He would have done it then and there, but even Deryni kings and queens cannot conjure such magics on the spot.
Abandoning all royal precedent, he rode with his own wedding procession only as far as the cathedral square, there dismounting to give the state crown of Gwynedd into the keeping of his uncle, the Duke of Carthmoor, while he waited to receive his bride, who approached beneath a canopy of gold-fringed golden silk, attended by her sister, a bride of the week before.
Lord Savile, their stepfather, had led her along the flower-strewn processional route from the castle, his hand set proudly on the headstall of her mount, and clasped an affectionate hand to the king’s shoulder as he gave over its velvet lead-rein. As Kelson gazed up at his bride, he could put aside the memories of that other bride he had led to this place, for he had no doubt that the patterns of the past had been broken.
The cheers of the crowd swelled in happy rejoicing as the king led his bride from under the canopy, traversing that last expanse of the cathedral square amid a bevy of brightly clad children, among them those of the ill-fortuned Conall, strewing flowers in their way—he in a sweeping robe of tissue gold powdered with tiny scarlet Haldane lions, she on her honey-colored palfrey, gowned in the pale golden silks of her mother’s homeland and crowned with golden roses still moist with the morning dew, both of them aglow in the golden sunlight—or was it the shimmer of their magic, mute testament to the love that had grown between them?
There before the great cathedral doors, kneeling upon a prie-dieu all but smothered under flowers, they made their vows before Duncan McLain like any other bridal couple in the land, there before the sight of all who could crowd into the square behind them.
I, Kelson, take thee, Araxie, to be my wedded wife. . . .
When he had given her a ring, and at last they kissed, the square erupted in rapturous cheering as the cathedral bells rang out the Angelus and then continued pealing as he led her inside to be crowned, preceded by a hastily organized procession of the families of them both, who had ranged the steps informally to either side to witness the exchange of vows. Liam of Torenth and Mátyás were quietly among them, along with Azim—and Barrett de Laney, his arm clasped by Kelson’s mother in more than mere affection between master and pupil.
Rothana, too, was close by Azim’s side, her son beside her, clad in the royal blue of his Haldane father, her presence no longer a stabbing reminder of what might have been, but a quiet promise of new roads opening before all of them—and with the steady and joyful support and love of the woman at Kelson’s side: his queen, his wife, his soul’s true mate.
As was customary, Kelson and his bride went first to the side chapel of the Virgin to offer up the roses of her bridal crown, while family and the nobles of his court arranged themselves to witness her sacring as queen. In this, too, Kelson had decreed that precedent should be broken.
As the pealing of the bells died away, in preparation for her crowning, Kelson conducted his bride to a modest kneeling bench set upon the seal of Saint Camber, where he had achieved his own epiphany as a true Haldane king, there presenting her before the archbishops and the holy Presence of the altar beyond. He then stepped back amid his family and closest friends, retrieving his own crown from Nigel, as Araxie knelt to receive anointing from the hands of Archbishop Bradene, was adorned with a royal mantle of tissue gold embossed with their Haldane lions, and Archbishop Cardiel then brought forward the glittering, pearl-bestudded crown of Gwynedd’s consort.
Cardiel, most assuredly, was not Deryni; but as he raised the crown above her head and intoned the holy words of royal consecration, it seemed to Kelson that another presence moved to overshadow the good archbishop, laying hands upon Cardiel’s hands as he set the crown on Araxie’s head. The glory that blazed briefly around her was not visible to human eyes, but even Cardiel seemed to sense it.
Morgan, standing at Kelson’s right, saw it, as did Dhugal and Duncan, standing on his other side. The thought crossed Kelson’s mind that the vision could be mere illusion; with the number of powerful Deryni focused on this moment, who knew what they might summon forth?
But the vision was of but an instant, and apparently unnoticed by those of merely mortal vision. As Kelson went to raise her up, his own crown upon his head, the bells began to peal again, their varied voices cascading down the scale in joyous affirmation that Gwynedd, indeed, had a queen at last. The kiss the two exchanged was honey-sweet, and he hardly remembered taking her back up the aisle and into the sunlight, to accept the adulation of the cheering multitudes outside.
Their wedding feast was the one they had mostly missed the week before, with none of the stiffness of protocol that nearly always had marred Kelson’s enjoyment of
state occasions in the past. Certain it was that all of Gwynedd had given their hearts to the king’s fair Haldane bride. Content to let the night unfold in due time, he let himself enjoy the long-drawn festivities of the afternoon and evening, sampling but sparingly of the culinary offerings tendered by a never-ending succession of eager pages and squires, though many a morsel he took from Araxie’s own hands, minds caressing every time their eyes met.
When, at last, as the summer twilight began to fall, and the ladies of the court came to sing her to her bridal chamber, he rose with the men to drink her health in courtly salute, lingering in a flurry of final good wishes from his closest friends before himself retiring from the hall.
The song they sang to light him to his bride was the same they had sung when Jatham wed the Princess Janniver, what seemed a lifetime ago; but the words of the old Transhan folk tune now sang to him of joy and gentleness, not loss and sorrow. Conducted to the outer chamber of the queen’s apartments, now Araxie’s domain, it was Morgan and Dhugal who helped him to undress, adorning him in a robe of scarlet silk, while the ladies sweetly sang from beyond Araxie’s door and the men answered, in ardent counterpoint, Rory’s rich tenor leading the refrains.
When the song had died away, the ladies emerged and Kelson went in to his bride. Duncan had already blessed the bridal bed. And given the other blessings already dispensed in the course of the day, no others seemed necessary, though the women sang a final bridal blessing as they departed, their voices slowly receding behind the door Kelson closed softly behind him.
Araxie was propped amid the pillows of the queen’s great bed, which was hung with airy silks and softly lit by a sphere of golden handfire hovering just above her head. In that light, she, too, seemed to be kissed with finest gold, her pale hair spread upon the pillows, one lock trailing across the shoulder of a nightdress of gossamer silk. Her grey Haldane gaze met his with utter trust as she held out her hand to him.
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