The King's Deryni

by Katherine Kurtz

  “That’s one blessing, then.” Kenneth breathed out in a long sigh. “Very well. I doubt this changes anything in the short term, but the king should know what we’ve found out. And let’s keep our scouts out awhile longer. Any additional information could be useful.”

  “That can be done,” Airlie agreed.

  “Meanwhile, I probably should think seriously about heading back to Rhemuth,” Kenneth continued. “I had never planned to be away this long.”

  Laurenz Udaut inclined his head. “You will be missed, my lord, but we do understand. Had it occurred to you that you might return by sea? It’s getting late in the season, but you could skirt the coast and then sail north to Desse.”

  “That’s true,” Kenneth replied. “It would save horses—and our backsides. We’ve already done a good deal of riding this season.”

  “I’ll see about a ship,” Airlie said. “I believe we have a smaller one due within the week, bringing over wine from Fianna. The cargo was intended for the market in Corwyn, but it could be profitably diverted to Desse.”

  “That would be ideal,” Kenneth replied. “Thank you.”

  He shared the news with Llion shortly after the meeting broke up, sharing nothing of his speculation regarding the black knight, and the young knight offered no speculation of his own. By suppertime, Xander and Trevor had also heard the news, with Xander remarking on the coincidence of Brion’s challenge by a black knight, but neither offered any theory of who either man might have been.

  “Good riddance, I’d say,” Trevor muttered darkly, echoing Seamus’s remarks. “That’s one less Festillic pretender.”

  Thereafter, conversation turned to the preparations that must be made for their return to Rhemuth by ship.

  Chapter 13

  “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.”

  —I JOHN 2:9

  THE expected ship made port two days later, and its crew began making immediate arrangements to divert to Desse, offloading some of its cargo and taking on new consignments to accommodate the changed schedule. Some of the crew aboard the ship had heard about the death of Prince Hogan’s son, but no one had any information that Kenneth and his council did not already know.

  Meanwhile, in preparation for his imminent departure, Kenneth held several final courts and, on their last night in Coroth, promoted several pages to squire. After supper that evening, while Kenneth and Llion drank with the men who would resume running the duchy, Alaric watched moodily as Jernian and Viliam set up the cardounet board for a final set of matches. He would miss their camaraderie. He had few friends near his own age besides Duncan and Kevin, and they were cousins, so it hardly counted. Back at Rhemuth, he had none, really—and more than one who hated him.

  “Alaric, you look like your best friend just died,” Jernian observed.

  Forcing a wan smile, Alaric propped his head against one hand and sighed. “It’s almost that bad,” he replied. “I shall miss the two of you.”

  “Well, then,” Viliam said. “We aren’t dead yet. But we shall miss you, too. We haven’t been able to find anyone else to play as passionately as you do.”

  “I’m no match for either of you,” Alaric said, straightening one of the archers on the board. “I can’t be much challenge.”

  “On the contrary,” Jernian said. “You’re getting quite good—at least compared to most players.”

  “They must not be very good.”

  “No, they aren’t,” Viliam said flatly. “We live in eternal hope, but you . . .” He glanced at Jernian. “Shall we give it to him now?”

  “I think so. Otherwise, he’s apt to get all mawkish on us.”

  Alaric glanced between the two of them in question. “What are you talking about?”

  “We have a parting gift for you.” Viliam reached into the front of his tunic to produce a much-folded sheet of parchment. “Jernian copied out most of it, and I did most of the translation. But neither of us knew some of the Torenthi words, so you’re on your own for that.” He handed the parchment to Alaric.

  “I did include some diagrams,” he went on. “Those should help. It’s the opening section of Count Koltan’s Elements of Strategy—or as much as would fit on that piece of parchment. He had to write really, really tiny, so it’s going to be tedious to read. As if Koltan isn’t already tedious.”

  A pleased grin slowly spread across Alaric’s face as he realized what a very special gift the two had prepared for him: a gift nearly as precious as the friendship the three of them had shared in the previous weeks.

  “You copied out part of Koltan for me?” he said, unfolding the packet.

  “You’ll have to start learning Torenthi,” Jernian warned. “It won’t be easy.”

  “The best things are rarely easy,” Alaric replied, casting an eye over the tight-crabbed script and then peering more closely. “I do know the Torenthi alphabet, though, and a few simple words. My Aunt Delphine taught me.”

  Viliam sat forward eagerly. “Does she play cardounet?”

  Still grinning as he shook his head, Alaric refolded the parchment and slipped it into the front of his tunic. “I shall ask her, the next time I see her. She’s very clever. But this is a wonderful gift, Viliam. Thank you, both of you. I shall study it on the voyage to Rhemuth, and I shall think of the two of you. We sail in the morning, you know.”

  The faces of both older boys fell. “We know,” Jernian said.

  “And that’s why we must play tonight,” Viliam said, pushing the board slightly closer, to invite Alaric to play the whites. “Your move, Duke of Corwyn!”

  In the game that followed, Alaric came very close to beating Viliam, and was almost certain that the older boy had not held back to give him a better chance.

  Viliam and Jernian then played a fast, brilliant match at which Alaric could only shake his head in wonder. And when Alaric did finally play Jernian, he actually won.

  “Viliam, did you see that coming?” Jernian demanded, as Alaric sat back to savor his victory.

  The older boy only shook his head and gave a tiny smile. “Only toward the end, my friend. But it wasn’t my place to tell you. Nicely done,” he said to Alaric, extending his hand for a congratulatory handshake. “You’re actually a very quick student. I shall look forward to our next game.”

  On that happy note, Alaric retired for his last night at Castle Coroth, dreaming of strategies when he finally fell asleep.

  • • •

  NEXT morning they rode down to the docks several hours before the tide was to turn, accompanied by most of the regents. Alaric rode ahead of the adults with Jernian and Viliam, who had been given special permission to come along, ostensibly to attend Jernian’s father.

  The ship waiting at the quay was a sleek cargo cog called the Gryphon, middling in size, with faded green sail furled along her wide yardarm and Corwyn’s long sea pennant of green-black-green floating lazily from the top of the mast. Aboard the ship, members of the crew clearly were stowing equipment and cargo and readying for departure, but a considerable commotion was brewing quayside, where several men in green knitted caps apparently were trying to load a horse that, quite clearly, did not want to be loaded. They could hear its squeals and the frenetic clatter of hooves on stone well before they got close enough to see the cause.

  “Whatever are they doing to that horse?” Viliam said, trying to stand in his stirrups for a better view.

  “Frightening it half to death, it would appear,” Alaric retorted, then gigged his pony as close as he could get without trampling bystanders.

  “You there, stop that!” he shouted, as he threw himself from the saddle and began pushing his way between the nearest of the sailors. “Can’t you see she’s afraid?”

  Struggling his way closer, he could see that the distressed animal was a magnificent grey mare of
obvious R’Kassan breeding, apparently disinclined to put even one dainty hoof on the boarding ramp leading into the dark hole of the hold. Two men on the ramp had a long rope looped around the mare’s hindquarters, trying to make her move forward, and another was tugging at a rope attached to the mare’s headstall, but a new explosion of frenzied resistance sent one of the men into the water with a dull splash.

  “Easy, lad!” another man cried, putting out an arm to block his way. “D’ye want to get killed? She’s a demon, she is!”

  “She isn’t a demon, she’s just frightened,” Alaric replied, focusing on reaching out to the mare with his mind as well as his hand. “Papa, I can gentle her. I know I can.”

  “Yes, I believe you can,” said Kenneth, who had worked his way closer to the drama at quayside, with Llion and Lord Hamilton close behind. “Gentlemen, why don’t you back off and let my son give it a try? He really is very good with horses. What have you to lose?”

  The men looked dubious, but they backed off dutifully at a nod from Lord Hamilton, one of them tossing an end of the come-along rope to his mate in the water and another edging his way around the mare to hand Alaric the end of the lead. A second lead trailed from the headstall and was tangled under the mare’s feet, but she had ceased her plunging as the men backed off, and now was merely snorting and blowing, rolling the whites of her eyes as she turned her attention to this new threat in the shape of a boy, gathering up the slack of the lead rope in his hands.

  “So, what’s this all about?” he crooned. “No one is going to hurt you. There’s a good girl. Aren’t you the fine, fierce battle steed? I’m sorry if you were frightened, but you needn’t be worried. I know, it’s a big, dark, scary hole, but I promise that there’s nothing aboard the ship that wants to eat horses. You’re very, very beautiful, and I’m sure you’re very, very fast. . . .”

  As he talked to her, mostly nonsense just to catch and hold her attention, he gradually eased closer. She whuffed a few times, and whuffed again to get the scent of him as he held out his hand to her velvety nose. But when he had stroked her neck a few times, at the same time gathering up the rope tangled under her feet, she seemed to sigh and lean into his caress, even half closing her eyes.

  “That’s better,” he murmured. “Now let’s go inside. It’s just a big barn, really, and they’ve got lots of oats and hay for you.” He took a few steps toward the loading ramp, and she followed obediently, before he could even tug on the lead. “Good girl! Just keep walking. And once we’ve got you bedded down, they’ll give you a nice rubdown and a good feed.”

  With that coercion, the mare walked calmly into the hold of the ship and let herself be tethered in a waiting stall next to a dun gelding, who whickered greeting across the divider. A stableman immediately brought her a wooden pan of oats, stroking the mare’s neck as she tucked into it. He then showed Alaric how to pass the canvas support sling under the mare’s belly and secure it.

  “How far is she going?” Alaric asked, as they fastened the last buckle.

  “Nyford, I think,” the man replied, then added, “You do have a way with horses, lad. I heard her carrying on outside.”

  “She was just frightened,” Alaric replied, smiling as he gave the mare a final pat. “She should be fine now, especially with another horse for company. But I’ll be aboard until Desse, so call me if there’s any problem whatsoever.”

  The man nodded. “I will, young sir. And who should I ask for?”

  “Just ask for Alaric Morgan,” the boy replied, with a cheery smile as he turned on his heel and went back out the loading ramp to the quay.

  His father and the regents were waiting as he emerged into the sunlight, and several gave him pleased huzzahs. The crew had mostly returned to the rest of their duties, but the man he had spoken to out on the quay touched two fingers to the edge of his cap and nodded in approval. Kenneth and most of the rest of their party had dismounted—only Llion and Xander would be accompanying them, along with four men-at-arms—and the regents were in the process of taking their leave.

  Some of the partings were poignant. Trevor Udaut had served Kenneth since his knighting, some four years before, and had spent much of his time going back and forth between Rhemuth and Coroth as Kenneth’s liaison with the regents, for his father, Lord Laurenz, was part of the council. Now Trevor was leaving Kenneth’s service to remain in Coroth, for he had married the year before and now had a wife and twin daughters. In due time, he would succeed his father as Baron Varagh, but more immediately, he was to become the council’s most junior member.

  “You will be missed in Rhemuth,” Kenneth told him, as Trevor clasped hands with him at the gangplank with his young wife and his parents. “But you have family responsibilities of your own now. You don’t need to be traipsing all over the kingdom with me.”

  “Xander is still a bachelor, my lord,” Trevor replied, with a smile and a nod at Xander. “He’ll take good care of you. And Alaric will need Llion less and less, as he shifts into official training as a page.”

  “That is very true,” Kenneth agreed. “And meanwhile, I shall rely on you as another pair of safe hands here in Coroth, to keep my son’s duchy safe.”

  “You have my word on it, my lord,” Trevor said with a smile. “Godspeed.”

  “And keep you safe as well,” Kenneth replied, turning to another of the regents.

  A further farewell was of particular poignancy for Alaric, for he must say good-bye to Jernian and Viliam, who stood now near Jernian’s father as Alaric prepared to board.

  “You must write if you find someone to play cardounet with you,” Jernian said.

  “Of course I will,” Alaric replied. “And when I come back next summer, I intend to trounce both of you!”

  “Oh, yes?” Viliam retorted.

  “Oh, yes!” Alaric answered, tapping the breast of his tunic, over the bulge of the Koltan transcript. “I have the magic formula, and I intend to master it!”

  “I hope you do,” Viliam said honestly. “Godspeed, Duke of Corwyn.”

  “And God bless both of you,” Alaric replied, just before Llion hustled him aboard. Kenneth had already gone up to the afterdeck with Xander, and seemed to be deep in conversation with several of the crew.

  Llion stayed with Alaric at the ship’s rail as the crew began to cast off the mooring lines, first the bow and then the stern, the pair of them watching as the tide caught the bow and slowly began swinging the ship out from the quay. Once they were clear, men belowdecks ran out the oars to row a few dozen strokes that moved the ship into a patch of wind as sailors aloft began to unfurl the great, green sail.

  High atop the mast, the narrow green-black-green pennon of Corwyn’s maritime service lifted and writhed on the growing breeze, and the heavy canvas of the sail bellied and snapped until the crew could secure the sheets. But once they trimmed the sail and ran the oars back in, the ship’s speed increased and they began moving briskly on into the harbor, headed out between the great sea jetties of tumbled granite.

  “Listen, and you can hear the bells on the sea buoys that mark the harbor entrance,” Llion said, gazing toward the end of the nearer jetty. “The one on this side has a deeper voice than the other, so you can tell them apart in the dark or in rough seas. Do you hear it?” At Alaric’s rapt nod, Llion swept a hand toward the lighthouse towers bracketing the harbor mouth, horizontally striped green and white.

  “And those towers have fire platforms at the top, where beacons can be lit at night to mark the harbor mouth and warn ships off the rocks. The harbor at the Isle d’Orsal has similar ones.”

  Something suddenly shuddered underneath the bow, scraping along the keel toward them, and Alaric leaned out in some alarm to look down.

  “That’s only the harbor chain,” Llion told him, pointing as they passed over the submerged shadow-line of massive chain—“There!”—and watched it recede into the gloo
m behind them. “When it’s raised, big ships can’t pass. It’s part of Coroth’s sea defenses.”

  Alaric’s delighted grin said far more than words as the two of them watched the lighthouse and jetty recede and they passed into open water, now skirting westward along the rolling pasturelands of Tendal. After a while, with admonitions to keep a good grip until Alaric was sure he had his sea legs, Llion abandoned him and went up on the afterdeck where Kenneth and Xander stood chatting with several of the crew. Their four men-at-arms were gathered nearer the bow, one of them already looking a trifle queasy as the light chop of the enclosed harbor gave way to more rolling swells.

  But Alaric found the experience exhilarating. The wind was fresh, the sun pleasant, and a decided nip of autumn was in the air. He had been aboard ships before, tied up in the harbor at Coroth, but he had never been at sea, and he squinted happily against the wind and the sea spray, glad of the wool cloak and cap Llion had insisted he wear.

  After a while, when he was beginning to tire of watching the slow crawl of the distant shore, Llion came back down to fetch him onto the afterdeck. There he found his father and Xander talking with a man Alaric could only assume must be the ship’s master: a wind-burnt, bandy-legged individual with a thatch of wiry grey hair escaping from underneath his salt-stained leather cap. The battered cockade affixed to the brim might once have been the green of Corwyn’s sea service. The worn leather jerkin and breeches under the man’s cloak of faded black obviously had weathered many a storm.

  “Alaric, meet Rafe Winslow, master of the Gryphon,” Kenneth said, indicating the captain.

  “Honored, milord,” the captain replied, touching two fingers to his cap. “And that shaggy fellow at the helm is Henry Kirby, my first mate,” he added, jutting his chin at the tall, lanky man steering the ship. As Kirby also gave Alaric a nod, white teeth flashed in his full beard and mustache, which were bleached rusty-brown by the sun and rain.