He put on the undergarment, the padded doublet and breeches, the boots. He stood a long time looking into the mirror, studying the regal warrior’s face which stared back at him with level gaze. Then he called for the women to attend him; he could do nothing else. Gravely, he received them and thanked each one. After, he asked them to help him arm. It was fitting, he said, that a man who had never borne steel should be armed for his maiden battle by the women who had made it possible for him to go at all.
They armed him then, though many a finger fumbled with straps and clasps as eyes blurred with joyful tears. When they had finished, Evaine buckled a plain, cross-hilted sword over his surcoat—the white belt for purity, she told him as she brushed his cheek with her lips. Then she was stepping back to make a low curtsey, and it was Megan’s turn.
The princess had saved her gift for last, watching shyly in the background as her lord assumed more and more the appearance of a king. Scarcely breathing, with her nervousness, she produced a coronet from behind her skirts—not the simple, silver circlet with which he had been crowned Prince of Gwynedd on their wedding night, but a band of gold and silver intertwined, surmounted by four bold crosses.
Her hands began to tremble as she looked into his eyes. Cinhil, deeply moved, laid his fingertips on hers, so that the coronet was held between them. She swallowed and started to draw away, but he shook his head gently and closed his hands around hers.
“Please forgive me, my lady. I have ill-used you when I should instead have thanked you—for my son, for your support when I needed it.” He glanced down at her body, then met her eyes again with a strained smile. “And for our sons who are to be. There will be two of them this time, you know. Twin boys.”
Her eyes widened, for though Rhys had told her that she was with child, and that there would be a boy, there was as yet no sign of it upon her. And how could he know that there would be two?
“You—know, my lord?”
“I know,” he smiled. “I know.”
She lowered her eyes and blushed prettily at that, and Cinhil thought that he had never seen her look so lovely. He could sense Evaine and Elinor watching in the background, and the thought crossed his mind that he was probably making them uncomfortable with this moment of apparent tenderness, but he didn’t care. It had suddenly occurred to him that he might well die tonight, despite his powers; and if he did, he should never again see this lovely, unspoiled child who was his wife. Strange, but he found that the term came easily now, no longer carrying the mental qualms it once had borne. Abruptly, he regretted the weeks of neglect, spent in brooding on vengeance, and in a flash of inspiration realized what he could do to make at least a partial mending.
He raised the coronet slightly and took it from her hands.
“I shall wear this token of my lady’s favor on one condition,” he said, looking down into those incredibly turquoise eyes. “That my lady shall wear it first.” He lowered it briefly to crown her wheaten hair. “Let this be a symbol of the sovereignty we share, and the regency I leave with her on behalf of my sons that are to be. If I should not survive this night, my lady, you are Queen of Gwynedd, as the mother of my sons.”
Her eyes misted with tears as he removed the coronet and placed it firmly on his own head. Then he kissed her lightly on the lips and led her and the other women into the chapel for Mass.
It was well after midnight when the Great Lords of Gwynedd finally lit King Imre to bed in his tower chambers. It was nearly half an hour after that before Archbishop Anscom could slip away from the others and make his way to the castle’s chapel.
The evening had been tense and interminable for Anscom, harboring, as he did, the knowledge of how the night must end. He had found it far more difficult than usual to be civil to the numerous toadying hangers-on at Court; he had been curt and snappish more than once during the course of the feast and revelling. The lord chamberlain had even asked whether he would rather not be excused, since he obviously was feeling so out of sorts. Anscom had assured him that it was but a momentary touch of indigestion, and that it would pass. The chamberlain had thoughtfully brought him a cup of goat’s milk, for the archbishop’s touchy stomach was well known at Court.
He had made a great effort at least to seem to be enjoying himself, after that. But it had been an odd Court, full of strains and undercurrents not usually present at one of Imre’s gatherings—and especially not at the opening of the Yule Court, one of the most festive occasions of the year. Anscom wondered whether Imre suspected that something was brewing, or whether his frenetic gaiety was only symptomatic of the general malaise which had been growing at Court for the last year. He also noted that Imre had decreed a green court this year—not the disastrous white of the previous Christmas Court. Perhaps that, and the memories of that last Yule, accounted for Imre’s nervousness. Anscom could not say he blamed the king.
Princess Ariella was not in attendance, either—though no one had really expected her to be. She was seldom seen in public of late, and rumor had it that she had been quite ill for several months. More vicious castle gossip insisted that Ariella’s “illness” was nothing which would not be alleviated by the loss of a nine-month’s accumulation of weight, but such theories were never discussed where they might reach the king’s ears.
Anscom himself had no opinion on the matter, though if Ariella were with child, it might be the result of an incestuous relationship with her brother. If true, the child could become a serious threat to the throne, should it live; but that was a problem to be dealt with when the time came. It was entirely possible that Ariella was quite innocent—though Anscom doubted it.
And so the Yule Court fared as Yule Courts will, when one is forced to be present at an affair where one has no wish to be. The meal was passable, if somewhat tasteless to Anscom’s nerve-dulled palate; and the entertainment was of an enforced gaiety which only occasionally bordered on the genuinely amusing.
Still, when the Great Lords finally took up torches and conveyed the more than slightly tipsy king to his chambers—to the tune of drunken songs and lewd jokes—it was all Anscom could do to curb his impatience and pronounce the final blessing. When he finally reached the refuge of the chapel and slipped inside, he leaned his forehead against the cool bronze doors for several heart-pounding minutes until he could collect his wits.
Then he made his way to the sacristy door and fitted his key to the lock, stepping into total darkness as he closed the door behind him. A candle flared to light in the center of the room, and there stood Camber, Joram, Evaine, Rhys, and a few others, waiting for him, flanking the crowned Prince Cinhil.
“Stand not on ceremony, Archbishop,” Cinhil admonished, when Anscom started to kneel. “How stands the situation without? Is the tyrant abed?”
Raising an eyebrow at the new title which Cinhil had apparently bestowed upon his rival, Anscom straightened his cassock and nodded. “I accompanied the Great Lords to his chambers but half an hour past, Your Highness. With the quantity of wine which he consumed, he will be stuporous by now. The guard is in little better shape. It is as we had hoped.”
“Excellent,” Cinhil nodded. “The outside strike force has already begun infiltrating the key defense points throughout the city. We but await your word to bring our smaller force of knights here.”
Anscom sighed and nodded his head. “Then, begin, Your Highness. There is much work for us here tonight.”
Two hours later, the castle was essentially Cinhil’s, though sporadic fighting still continued in the corridors and in the castle yard. Guaire and a handful of Michaelines had slipped around and barricaded the doors to the guardroom and barracks where the main castle garrison slept, so that the rest of their force had only to contend with the guards actually on duty. Joram and Cullen led half a dozen knights and the royal party in a sweep up the main corridor to the foot of Imre’s own tower, where they fought a quick but bloody battle to gain the spiral stair. Though four of their Michaeline brethren fell to enemy sword
s, it was a matter of only minutes before the rebels were making their way up the stairs to Imre’s own door.
There was no guard outside, and no sound came from within. Joram wondered whether Imre had merely slept through the sounds of battle, or whether he waited, even now, to unleash a full arcane defense as soon as they should breach the door.
Lowering his sword, Joram wiped a blood-stained gauntlet across his brow and silenced a sigh as he reached the top of the stairs. Behind him, Cullen and Rhys and the two remaining Michaelines waited with their weapons still drawn, Camber sheathing his and standing escort beside a dark-visaged Cinhil, shielding Evaine.
Joram caught Camber’s slightly nodded signal and turned back to the door, then raised the hilt of his sword to pound heavily on the polished oak, one, two, three, four times. The sound echoed down the spiral staircase which they had just ascended at such cost.
“What is it?” a sleepy and slightly wine-blurred voice grunted, nearly inaudible.
Cinhil tensed at the sound and turned to glance at Camber. As his lips mouthed the single word, Imre?, Camber nodded and Joram knocked again.
“Who’s there?” the voice said again, louder this time. “I told you, I didn’t want to be disturbed. Go away.”
“Officer of the guard, Sire,” Joram said, disguising his voice slightly. “I have a message for Your Highness.”
“Can’t it wait until morning, man?” the voice whined irritably. “I just got to bed. You know that.”
“The gate warder said it was important, Sire,” Joram replied. “Perhaps Your Highness should take a look at it.”
“Perhaps My Highness should have you whipped for your impertinence,” the voice snapped. “Oh, very well. Slip it under the door and I’ll look at it later.”
Joram glanced at the others in annoyance, then let a slender smile flick across his lips.
“I’m afraid it won’t fit, Sire. It’s a sealed scroll,” he said, keeping the edge of smugness out of his voice, if not his expression.
They heard an exasperated sigh and a shuffle of movement from far behind the door, and then the nearly silent slap of bare feet approaching, the royal voice muttering incomprehensibly. As the bolt was shot, Joram and Cullen hit the door together. There was a whoof of surprise as the door struck the person on the other side.
They surged into the room, sweeping an astonished and indignant Imre before them, and Rhys slammed the door and shot the bolt all in one motion. Imre had been taken totally by surprise, and he paled to find himself confronted by the glint of steel.
“Treason!” he gasped. “Steel in my presence! Guards! Where are my guards? Who?—Camber!” His eyes went wide as he recognized the man with the earl’s coronet. “How dare you?! What treachery is this?”
Camber said nothing; he turned instead and, with a slight nod of deference, bade Cinhil step forward. Imre blanched as the probable identity of the other man registered, and he backed slowly away from them until his bare legs collided with a bench. Nervous fingers plucked at the neckline of his nightshirt as he whispered, “The Haldane! He does exist!”
“The Tyrant of Festil,” Cinhil countered, his voice low and deadly. “He, too, exists—at least for the moment.”
Imre, drink-fogged though he was, shook his head as though he had not heard aright, starting as he caught the movement of the two Michaeline knights circling to cut him off from the sleeping chamber. In panic, he made a dash for freedom, screaming in terror as the knights tackled him and flung him to the floor.
“Ari!” he shrieked, as he struggled to escape them. “Ari, run!”
“Stop her!” Camber shouted, as the others scrambled past Imre and crowded through the doorway. “Don’t let her get away! She carries his child!”
They almost caught her. But even as they poured into the room, the curtained bed seemed to explode in a flurry of pillows and sleeping furs and flashing white limbs. Ariella, a night-maned wraith with murder in her eyes, streaked toward the fireplace to disappear through an opening which had not been there an instant earlier. Joram and Cullen were only a few paces behind her, but it was far enough for them to rebound painfully from solid rock where, a few seconds before, a doorway had stood.
They battered at the rock, trying to find the opening, but by the time they could locate and force the triggering mechanism there was no sign of the fleeing princess. Cullen, with a resigned glance at Camber, disappeared through the opening to search, anyway, Joram following at his back.
Imre, standing now in the firm grasp of the two Michaeline knights, glanced uneasily around him, sobering fast. Escape at this time was not likely. Even if the two Michaelines had not held his arms, it was doubtful whether he could get past his other four captors. Rhys and Evaine blocked the doorway leading to the inner chamber, and Camber himself barred access to the passageway which Ariella had used. Cinhil stood near Camber, his eyes never leaving the face of his enemy.
Not that the so-called Haldane really represented a threat himself, Imre reasoned. For that matter, now that he was thinking more clearly, there were remedies even to the hold the two knights kept on him. A lightning thought, and his personal shields flared silver-bright, flinging his two captors’ hands from his person. Of course, the knights were Deryni, too; and Michaeline shields surged in response, to ring the captive in a less visible but more constricting net—but that, too, was to be expected. At least he was fighting on his own ground now.
Disdainfully, Imre drew himself to his full height—still almost a head shorter than his Michaeline guardians—and gathered the shreds of his kingly dignity.
“You are ill-advised to lay hands upon an anointed king,” he said, addressing Cinhil. “And the traitor Earl of Culdi breaks his sworn oath of fealty to aid you.” He glanced haughtily at Camber, then back at Cinhil, annoyed that the Deryni earl’s gaze did not waver. “A real man would not fear to face me on his own, Haldane! But, then, they tell me that you are really an apostate priest named Nicholas Draper, so I suppose that I cannot expect either manly or honorable behavior from you.”
“I am not afraid to meet you on your own terms, tyrant,” Cinhil said carefully, signalling the Michaeline knights to withdraw and guard the two balcony doors. “I am prepared to meet any challenge which you care to name—including the duel arcane.”
“Oh?” said Imre. “You’re bluffing, of course. You are human, if you’re who you say you are. And without your Deryni traitors, your armed men, you and all your steel are nothing.”
“I shall slay you without raising steel against you,” Cinhil said, unbuckling his sword and letting it fall to the floor. “In truth, I should slay you with salt, if that were possible. It were a fitting end for the fiend who slew my son.”
“Your son? I? Come, now, Haldane. And even if it were true, what magistrate in the land would hold me to answer for the slaying of a priest’s bastard?”
“I have been released from my priestly vows,” Cinhil said evenly, though Camber could tell he was only just controlling his temper, “and my lady wife is of gentle birth. But I will not grace your crude remarks with further answer. You are responsible for my son’s death, whether or not it was your hand which did the deed.”
“How so?”
“Do you deny that you captured a Michaeline priest, one Humphrey of Gallareaux, and tortured him until you warped him to your intentions? He learned his poison well, tyrant. My first-born died of the sacred salt placed upon his tongue at his baptism. It was your minion who did the bloody deed!”
Imre, astonished at the tale Cinhil had woven, clapped his hands in glee. “Humphrey did that? Oh, splendid! What subtle irony! I set him to slay the last Haldane heir. And that was your son, not you. So it wasn’t a futile exercise after all. And now, you plan to slay me in retribution?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Imre’s face went coldly serious. “Tell me, do you intend to have your traitorous cohorts cut me into collops? Or am I to be permitted the dignity of fair combat with my a
ccuser?”
“Fair?” Cinhil mocked. “What is fair about poisoning baptismal salt? What is fair about executing fifty peasants for a murder in which they had no part? What is fair about striking down a friend in cold blood, on suspicion only, without even ascertaining the facts? Do not speak to me of ‘fair,’ tyrant! At this moment, I hold you in the deepest contempt!”
He stood there, glaring at Imre across the few meters which separated them, and for a moment the room seemed frozen in time and space, no movement or sound disturbing the tension which bound them there.
Then Imre shrugged, a maddening, insolent lifting of his shoulders, his hands, and one proud Deryni eyebrow.
The gesture was too much—the final insult which Cinhil could not endure. Raising his arms, he cast not only a crimson shield around himself, but a bolt of scarlet fire which Imre only barely managed to deflect in time.
Imre, recovering from his initial surprise, moved his fingers automatically in the counter-spell, throwing up his own shields and instinctively marking off a protective circle for battle. His manner was thoughtful, curious, as he moved a little to the right to give himself more working room. It was obvious from his very movements that he had not expected this, and was casting frantically for an alternative to the battle which now had become not quite so sure a victory.
“They said you were human,” he said tentatively. “I see they were mistaken. If so, then you are no true Haldane—but you are Deryni, aren’t you?” His teeth flashed white in the semi-darkness. “But, come. Deryni need have no quarrel with Deryni. Give this up, and I will reward you with a place in my kingdom, with riches beyond your wildest imaginings.”
“Can you give me back my son?” Cinhil whispered, his voice hollow within the shields. “Can you restore to Earl Camber his son, revive the Willimite martyrs who, but for your want of enforcing the just laws of this land, would never have dreamed of rising against their anointed king? Can you resurrect the peasants of Earl Camber’s village whom you slew?—victims of an injustice so great I cannot bear to speak of it. Is there anything which could make you care for those people whose welfare was placed in your hands? I did not want your crown, Imre of Festil. But I am bound to take it from you now. I have no choice.”
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