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.”
“Sire, I beseech you,” Cathan said dully. “If you do this, the weight of it will be upon your conscience. Amerce the villagers in coin, if you must. My father will be willing to pay. But do not take out your wrath in innocent human lives. The peasants of Caerrorie did not slay Rannulf. You know that.”
Imre looked around at his growing following of courtiers in wry amusement, though it was apparent that he was beginning to be a little annoyed. “Cathan, you’re making me out to be a bully,” he said under his breath. “You know I don’t like that.”
“Please, Sire,” Cathan repeated, dropping to his knees and lifting one empty hand in entreaty. “For the sake of our friendship, have mercy. Will you condone the taking of innocent human lives?”
“Oh, come now, get up from there! Ariella, why is he doing this to me?”
Ariella started to shrug, then looked at Cathan carefully as he got to his feet, her mouth curving in a strange smile. “I have a thought, Brother. Why don’t you give him what he wants? Give him one of those lives he finds so precious. For the sake of your friendship.”
Cathan’s head snapped around to stare at her aghast, and the room suddenly became silent. Imre glared at her owl-eyed, then glanced at Cathan uncomfortably. His annoyance had changed to uncertainty.
“One life?”
Ariella nodded. “If Cathan is indeed your friend, dear brother, you could hardly refuse him this. Forty-nine peasants are enough for the life of Rannulf. He was a dreadful bore.”
“One life …” Imre repeated, savoring the sound of the words on his tongue and wetting his lips beneath the tiny smudge of mustache.
He looked at Maldred and Santare, at the courtiers watching expectantly, at the growing horror on Cathan’s face as he realized that the king was considering the suggestion seriously—then folded his arms across his chest with a sly grin.
“It would be novel.”
“And merciful,” Ariella crooned, clinging to his arm and gazing up at him adoringly.
Imre glanced sidelong at her, his mouth curling in a pleased expression, then returned his gaze to Cathan. The royal lips parted.
“Very well. Done. One life. Granted.” He glanced at Maldred and gave a curt nod. “Maldred, take Lord Cathan to the keep and let him choose a prisoner.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“And it’s not to be by lot or anything, either, Maldred,” Ariella added, smiling sweetly as Cathan stared at her in astonishment. “Our Lord Cathan has been granted the power of life and death—if only over a single person. If he’s to save a life, he should experience the exquisite torture of having to choose which one it is.”
As Maldred bowed, Cat
han fidgeted in disbelief and started to turn to Imre.
“Did you have something to say, Cathan?” Ariella snapped, before he could speak.
“Your Highness, I—”
“Before you speak, let me remind you that His Grace can retract the boon,” Ariella warned, hazel eyes flashing. “It can be all fifty dead, you know—or more, if you press the issue. Now, do you still have something to say?”
Cathan swallowed heavily and bowed his head. “No, Your Highness. I—thank you, Sire.” He bowed. “If Your Highness will excuse me, I—will attend to your command.”
“You are excused, of course,” Ariella purred. “And, Cathan …” He stopped, but did not turn to face her. “You will be riding to the hunt with us in the morning, won’t you?” she continued. “You promised.”
Cathan turned beseechingly. “Aye, I did promise, Your Highness. But if I might prevail upon you to relieve me of—”
“Nonsense. If you stay home, you’ll simply brood about those peasants and become even duller than you’ve been these past few days. Imre, make him keep his promise. You know it will be good for him.”
Imre glanced at his sister, then at Cathan. “She’s right, you know. You have been almost boorish lately.” He touched Cathan’s shoulder in a comradely gesture. “Come, Cathan. You mustn’t take things so seriously. After a week or so in the country, you’ll forget all about this peasant thing.”
Cathan knew the tone of Imre’s voice, and knew better than to argue—especially when Ariella was nearby. With a defeated sigh, he nodded in acquiescence and bowed once more, then turned to follow Maldred from the hall. Just now, he had more important things on his mind than royal hunting expeditions. Unexpectedly, victory of a sort had been won—but it was dark, indeed. For out of fifty prisoners, he must choose one to live. Life for one; death for forty-nine. He shuddered at the power he now held in his choosing.
Ten minutes later, he was standing with Maldred before a heavy door, watching numbly as a guard raised the iron bar and swung the door back on groaning hinges. Maldred bowed, and gestured toward the open doorway with a lazy wave of his hand.
“When you’ve made up your mind, come to the door and call,” Maldred said, not bothering to disguise a yawn. “I’ll await you here. I find prisons quite depressing.”
Cathan nodded, not daring to trust himself to speak, then slipped past Maldred and onto the landing. A torch blazed in a cresset on the wall to his left, and a long flight of stone steps descended into murky darkness before him. Shielding his eyes against the glare, he took the torch and began descending the staircase. The brand gave off a greasy smoke that made his nose itch and his eyes water.
Eight steps. The steps turned. Then a narrower progression down eight more steps, another turn, and he was at the bottom. A corridor stretched off into a brighter area, and there were roughly forged iron bars along one side of the passage. On the other side of the bars was a series of interconnected cells, each with eight or ten human forms lying huddled together in the straw for warmth.
A few of the forms stirred as he began moving down the corridor, and shortly there were soft murmurs. “Lord Cathan, it’s Lord Cathan!” The prisoners roused themselves and shuffled to the bars to peer at him. He noticed with a shock that there were at least five women among the prisoners, and several young males who were scarcely more than children.
“Lord Cathan?”
A familiar voice called from the end of the row of cells, and he approached to find old Edulf the Ostler clutching at the bars in amazement. Edulf had been one of his first riding instructors when he was a boy, the keeper of his father’s stables for as long as he could remember. He found his vision blurring, and he had to look down. He knew it was not caused by the smoke from the torch.
“Lord Cathan?” the old familiar voice called again.
“Yes, Edulf, it’s Cathan,” he said.
He looked up at the old man, then let himself scan the others briefly. He found that he could not meet their eyes, and focused instead on their feet.
“I’ve come from the king,” he finally said. It was all he could do to keep his voice from choking, but he managed to control it. “I—I’ve tried, from the instant I knew, to gain your release, but I’m afraid the news I bring is not good. The—executions will proceed tomorrow, as planned—with one exception.”
He took a deep breath and dared to look up at them again, forcing himself to search their eyes. “I can save one of you. Only one.”
There was silence as the words sank in, and then a few gasps, a muffled sob from one of the women. Old Edulf shuffled his feet in the straw and glanced at the others, then looked back at Cathan carefully.
“Ye—ye can only save one, lad?”
Cathan nodded miserably. “My Michaelmas ‘gift’ from Imre. Whom I choose shall live; the others die. I—don’t know how to make a choice.”
A murmuring broke out among the prisoners, and then dead silence as all eyes turned to him. Faced with the anguished knowledge that only one of them could live, and that the choosing lay in the gift of this one man, whom many of them had known from boyhood, they looked instinctively to him, blindly trusting, each of them, that he would be the one Cathan would save. The thought that all forty-nine others would die was pushed to the recesses, as something which could not be comprehended. The MacRories had always taken care of them in the past. Surely this was all some kind of terrible jest. And yet, they could not conceive of Lord Cathan being the perpetrator of so grim a charade. Dazedly, they watched as Cathan turned away to jam his torch into an empty cresset and bury his face in his hands.
Cathan was no less affected. How could he choose? How dared he be the arbiter of life and death, and for his own people—some of them folk he had grown up with? Justice called for a cool, analytical, unemotional evaluation of the prisoners, with life given to the one best suited for survival and positive contributions for the future.
But there were women, and young men scarcely into manhood. His chivalry cried out for the weak, the helpless. How could he possibly decide?
He raised his head and inhaled deeply, forcing himself to hold the breath for a moment and then exhale slowly, the while reciting the words of the Deryni charm which would mask his fatigue. He must have a clear head to make so grave a decision. Another deep breath, and he felt his pulse steadying, the flat taste in his mouth receding.
Squaring his shoulders, he turned slowly to face his people.
Edulf was standing, hopefully, near the bars of his cell, two older men behind him, a young woman and two boys to their right. He recognized one of the boys as a herdsman from the village, and reasoned that the other was probably his brother, the girl possibly a sister or cousin. He did not know the two with Edulf.
“Edulf?” he said softly.
“Aye, m’lord.” The old voice was low, scared.
“Much as I regret it, only one of these fine people will be able to leave with me tonight.” He swallowed to regain his composure. “And since I shall not have the opportunity to meet the others again, would you be so kind as to introduce the rest to me? I’m sure you know them all.”
The old man blinked. “Aye, m’lord. Ye mean—ye want to meet each one by name, sir?”
Cathan nodded.
Edulf shuffled his feet uncomfortably and looked at the floor, then turned slightly toward the two men standing behind him. “Well, sir, if that’s what ye want. These are the Sellar brothers, Wat and Tim.”
Cathan bowed acknowledgment and the brothers tugged their forelocks in embarrassment.
“An’ this is Mary Weaver, an’ her brother Will an’ a cousin, Tom …”
The introductions went on, Cathan often recognizing a name, or a face, or remembering that he had heard of this man or that as being particularly skilled at his trade, or a troublemaker, or reliable.
He saw a young couple whose wedding he remembered Joram celebrating a year or so ago, the girl big with child, huddling in the protective circle of her husban
d’s arm; another, older man whose house Cathan had always seen teeming with happy, laughing children—children who would now have no father, unless Cathan intervened. A young man whose name Cathan recognized as having been one of Evaine’s brightest pupils in the village school—he was perhaps thirteen by now, and an apprentice carpenter by trade; another boy, the son of the manor bailiff, whom Camber had been thinking of sending off to Saint Liam’s for proper schooling as a clerk, so quick was the boy’s wit, and he but eleven, at that.
And the list went on, each human soul unique in its own way, each properly entitled to life in its fullest; each, save one, condemned to die—and he must decide.
When the last one had been presented, Cathan scanned them all again, his eyes touching briefly on Edulf, the pregnant girl and her husband, the young apprentice. Then he turned away and bowed his head. When he moved again, it was to walk briskly to the stone steps and vault up them two at a time. There was a grillework in the door at eye level, and it opened as he reached the landing.
“Made up your mind, Cathan?” Maldred’s cruel voice said.
Cathan leaned a forearm against the door and peered at the vague outline of Maldred’s head on the other side of the grille.
“Maldred, you’ve got a pregnant woman down there.”
“That’s right,” the voice responded. “Do you want her or the child?”
“Her or—” Cathan cut off his retort in mid-sentence. “You mean that if I choose her, I could have only her? Not the child as well?”
“His Grace said one, not two, Cathan,” the voice replied. “And you’d better make up your mind before he changes his. The guards will be here any minute to take the first two out.”
Any minute! Cathan glanced at Maldred’s shadow, then at the floor, as he tried to calm his thoughts.
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