The King's Deryni

by Katherine Kurtz

  Brion sighed and glanced away briefly. “Anyway, it all happened very quickly, and I doubt even his attackers thought they’d succeed in killing him. When Jamyl and the rest of our escort came around the headland, most of the Mearans fled, though we did kill one, and captured a few more.

  “But by then, the deed was done. Morian . . . was still conscious, but he knew his wound was mortal. We all did. The narwhal tusk had pierced his lung, and it was the only thing holding his life in. So he—asked your father to release him, for the sake of the Deryni woman he had dared to love.”

  Alaric’s mouth had fallen open as the king spoke, and he caught his breath in wonder.

  “He knew about my mother?”

  Brion nodded. “He did. And Kenneth agreed to do as Morian asked. He could do no other. The end was very quick, very gentle. Morian—did not suffer further.”

  He sighed and shook his head, forcing himself to continue.

  “For that act of mercy, Morian’s family later would return the favor. His body—was not in the best of condition by the time we got it back to them. The heat had begun to take its toll, so we buried him the very next morning after arriving at his home. But then, when your father died that afternoon, Morian’s widow and his son offered to place the preservation spell on his body, to spare you what they had experienced. They believed that he would have done the same for Kenneth, had he been able. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Alaric shook his head, numb with the knowledge, and stunned that such a thing was even possible. “How long will it last?” he whispered.

  “Another week or so, I am told,” the king replied. “Sir Halloran has asked leave to return to his family in the morning, but he assures me that the spell will last long enough to see him safely to Morganhall, so that his sisters and his daughters can bid him a proper farewell. Incidentally, I did not see Bronwyn with the rest of your family, when they came earlier. Did they decide not to let her see him?”

  “I don’t know,” the boy whispered. “Probably. I didn’t know he would look . . . this way. I thought she would be frightened.”

  “Would you like me to bring her, in the morning before Mass?” the king asked gently.

  “Would you?” the boy replied.

  “Of course.”

  Alaric looked at his feet, suddenly awkward. “I’ll come along, if I may.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “I’m the older brother. That’s part of my job.”

  “Very well, I’ll bring both of you,” the king said.

  Chapter 28

  “The memory of the just is blessed . . .”

  —PROVERBS 10:7

  THE king was as good as his word, and brought both Alaric and Bronwyn to visit their father early the next morning. Llion accompanied them. Bronwyn held back with him at first; but then, at the urging of the king, who crouched down to her level, she let him pick her up and carry her over to gaze into the coffin. She was wide-eyed and curious, a little timid, but not at all frightened, for it was, after all, her father, lying next to all she knew of her mother.

  She gazed silently at his veiled face for several minutes, saying nothing, then turned away to bury her face against the king’s shoulder. Alaric had stood stonily on the other side of his mother’s effigy, not really looking, but when the king made to carry Bronwyn from the chapel, the boy tarried, resting his hands lightly on his mother’s effigy.

  “Alaric, are you coming?”

  “In a few minutes, Sire,” the boy murmured. “Will they close the coffin before it’s taken over to the church?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, I’d like a few minutes in private,” came the reply. “Could Llion stay?”

  “Of course.”

  With a speaking glance at Llion, the king carried Bronwyn from the little chapel and closed the door behind them. Llion, with a nod to his young master, took up a position with his back against the door, hands clasped behind him and head bowed.

  It was deathly quiet in the little chapel, as was fitting in this place of death. The vigil lights of the previous night had burned out, other than the Presence lamp above the little altar, but the soft morning light streamed through the open window above, bathing Kenneth’s body and his wife’s effigy in a golden haze.

  Bracing himself, Alaric trailed one hand along the cool alabaster of his mother’s effigy and moved around to the prie-dieu set beside his father’s open coffin. Kneeling there, he awkwardly signed himself with the cross as he bowed his head in wordless prayer, because he knew he should. The king had said that Halloran’s spell would last until Morganhall, but it might not. Delays sometimes happened. Alaric knew that this might be his last chance to say a proper good-bye to the man who had given him life and the love of a precious father.

  He crossed himself again, then leaned forward to fold back the veil covering his father’s face. Again, especially in the soft glow of morning, it was easy to imagine that some semblance of life lingered, that his father only slept beside the silent effigy of the mother who also had died all too untimely.

  “Oh, Papa,” he breathed, tears welling in his eyes. “Why did you have to leave? I needed you here, with me!”

  He briefly closed his eyes at that, fighting back the tears, which he knew would change nothing. Then, vision still blurry, he slipped a hand into the neck of his tunic and pulled out his father’s silver locket, now hanging from a leather thong around his neck. Fumbling it open, he took out the tiny miniatures of himself and his sister, which he earlier had pried loose from their settings, and let the locket dangle as he glanced briefly at the two likenesses.

  “I’ve thought about it, Papa,” he whispered, fingering the two miniatures, “and I want you to have these, so that you won’t forget us.” He was biting at his lip as he leaned forward to slip the tiny keepsakes into the front opening of his father’s robe, close to the heart. “And when we get to Morganhall, I’m going to ask Aunt Delphine to paint a new one of you, to keep in the locket with the one of Mummy.” He swallowed painfully. “I guess I don’t really need pictures to remind me of you, because you’re always in here”—he touched his chest over his heart—“but I’ll have them to look at when I’m really missing you.”

  He gently reached out to brush his father’s cheek, then bent to press a final kiss to the cold forehead, remembering a similar kiss he had given his mother in farewell.

  “You should go to her now, Papa,” he whispered very softly. “I think she’s been waiting for you. I only wish she could have waited a little longer, because I still need you so much!”

  He could feel his throat tightening, and sensed the tears starting to sting again behind his eyelids, but he pulled himself together by an act of sheer will as he straightened to draw the veil back into place across his father’s face. He was composed if somber by the time he rose and made his way back to Llion, and held his head high as Llion opened the door to admit the men waiting to close the coffin.

  • • •

  THE funeral cortege left for Morganhall directly after the Requiem Mass celebrated at Culdi in Kenneth’s behalf. His now-coffined body again traveled in the canopied cart, escorted by his son and Llion, the king, the Duke of Cassan, and an honor guard of Cassani borderers. The king retained two of his Haldane cavalrymen as personal guards, but sent the rest back to Rhemuth with Jiri and Jamyl to report to Duke Richard and advise him regarding the Mearan venture.

  Kenneth’s daughter Geill and her husband did not accompany the party going on to Morganhall, for Walter feared that the hurried journey might endanger her pregnancy. Vera likewise remained at Culdi with Bronwyn, who was deemed too young for further exposure to death, and also Kevin and Duncan; all had already said their good-byes. The burial at Morganhall would be strictly a family affair.

  Obliged to travel slowly because of the cart and its cheerless burden, they took several days
to make the journey to Morganhall. Kenneth’s sister Delphine was waiting to receive them, along with his daughter Alazais, just arrived from the Convent of Notre Dame de l’Arc-en-Ciel. With her had come the abbess, Mother Iris Judiana, and several other sisters who had known and admired Kenneth. Though all the sisters were garbed in the distinctive sky-blue habit of their order, with a rainbow-embroidered band along the front edge of the veil, Alazais wore deepest black; for though she had been in residence at Arc-en-Ciel for some years, and was establishing herself as an illuminator of note like her sister and sister-in-law before her, she yet remained a secular member of that house. Claara did not come down for the reception, being still confined to her bed, but the Morganhall knights brought her downstairs in a litter later that evening, to visit her brother’s coffin and dine with the new arrivals.

  That night, over a simple meal in the great hall, Jared reiterated his account of Kenneth’s passing, for the benefit of the Morgan women gathered there. Meanwhile, the coffined body lay in Morganhall’s tiny chapel. Llion kept vigil, since he had heard the story all too many times. Alaric was allowed to sit with the adults, flanked by his Aunt Delphine and Lady Melissa, his former nurse, but it was mostly a rehash of what folk had been saying for the past week, and he found himself nodding off early.

  Zoë and her husband arrived the next afternoon with Xander, exhausted from their helter-skelter dash from Cynfyn, where they had left their young children with Jovett’s parents. Zoë’s reunion with her sister Alazais was joyous, but tinged with the sorrow that all of them shared as Jared retold the story and tears were shed anew.

  After a little while, Alaric could bear it no longer, and excused himself to go with Llion up to the rooftops, as had long been his place of refuge when life became too intense.

  “I couldn’t stand it anymore, Llion,” he muttered, as he plopped down behind one of the parapets and Llion crouched beside him. “They just keep repeating the same things that I’ve heard before. He was my father. With him gone, nothing is ever going to be the same.”

  “No, it won’t,” Llion agreed. “But he was Zoë’s father, too—and Alazais’s, and Geill’s. And Bronwyn’s, not to mention being grandda to the grandchildren that will never know him. Do you think that things will be the same for any of them?”

  “No,” the boy whispered.

  “Then, what is your true concern?” Llion asked after a moment, shifting to a seated position beside him. “Are you worried about what will happen to you now?”

  Alaric had clasped his arms around his drawn-up knees, and rested his chin on his knees. “I suppose. Llion, I’m going to miss him so much. . . .”

  “Of course you are. You loved him, and you always will. But life will go on.”

  “At court now, I suppose.”

  “That’s true. But you knew that.”

  “But it wasn’t supposed to happen so soon!” Alaric blurted. “I was supposed to have a few years at Uncle Jared’s court!”

  “Yes, well, I think that would have been a good idea, too, but the king has changed his mind, under the circumstances. I’m sure you’ll get a few weeks’ reprieve, possibly even a few months, until your arm has completely healed, but my guess would be that you’ll go to court permanently after the first of the year.”

  Alaric lifted his chin indignantly. “It’s already been decided, then?”

  “It has been discussed,” Llion allowed.

  “When?”

  “Over the past week or so, when you were safely abed. I won’t lie to you,” Llion added, when the boy looked at him rebelliously. “Like you, I must answer to a higher authority—and at this point, I’m not even sure who that is, since my service was directly to your father. The difference is that one day, provided I’ve managed to get you safely to adulthood, there won’t be a much higher authority than you.”

  “I hadn’t even thought about your service,” Alaric whispered. “Llion, they won’t take you away from me, will they?”

  Llion shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Sir Ninian de Piran offered me a place on Duke Richard’s training staff, if ever I should leave your father’s service—though I don’t think any of this was what he had in mind. For the present, however, I do answer to Duke Jared and the king, as you do. And they’ve determined that, with your father gone, you’ll be safest, and get the best training, if you are directly in the king’s service. Believe me, there are far worse fates than to be the king’s personal page, and then his squire, until you become his Duke of Corwyn.”

  Alaric turned his face away for a long moment, then lifted his chin to gaze out at the night. “I suppose that part is all right,” he agreed. “And if you join Duke Richard’s staff, I’d still see you. But will you still be my knight, Llion?’

  “Always, my lord,” Llion replied with a smile. “And your friend, if you’ll have me.”

  The boy managed a faint, tentative smile. “Then I suppose I do still have control over something,” he said, and awkwardly extended his good hand. “Thank you, Llion.”

  • • •

  LATER that night, the last before Kenneth Morgan’s burial, Alaric dressed carefully in his old Lendour surcoat over a black tunic and breeches, and buckled on the small sword he was allowed to wear for formal events, along with the dagger that had belonged to his Corwyn grandfather. To that he added the tartan sash of his Cassani page’s service, for he knew how proud his father had been of that. Then, around his neck, he hung the leather thong on which he had strung his father’s gold Lendour signet, quietly given him by the king shortly after they returned from Meara with Kenneth’s body. It was Alaric’s now, for he had become Earl of Lendour at his father’s death, though he was still years away from being able to actually claim the title.

  Llion, for his part, kept to his all-black attire, though with Kenneth’s Lendour badge prominent on one sleeve, since both of them intended to take a turn at keeping vigil beside the coffin.

  Down in Morganhall’s tiny chapel, Xander and three other knights from Lendour had already mounted a guard of honor at the corners of the closed coffin, facing away from it, heads bowed and hands clasped at their waists. The banner of Lendour covered the coffin, its white and crimson folds billowing down the sides.

  But when Alaric started to enter the room, he realized that Jovett was also present, at the back of the chapel, in quiet conversation with another dark-clad man. Jovett turned as Alaric paused in the doorway, Llion also holding back, then quickly came to meet them. His companion remained in the shadows. The four guardian knights did not lift their heads.

  “Alaric,” Jovett said quietly, also nodding to Llion.

  “Llion, please keep watch at the door,” the other man said, emerging from the shadows to join them.

  Llion immediately moved to the side of the doorway, half turning to keep an eye on the stair from which they had just emerged. By the light of the candles set at the head and foot of the coffin, Alaric felt a thrill of recognition as he saw that Jovett’s companion was Sé Trelawney.

  “You!” he whispered. “I prayed that you would come!”

  Sé inclined his head. “Would that it were in happier circumstances. I am very sorry that this has happened.”

  Alaric shrugged and briefly averted his gaze. “So am I. But thank you for being here. He would appreciate that, I know. In fact, you have always been there when he needed you—and I thank you for that as well.”

  Suddenly making a connection that had not occurred to him before, he glanced at Jovett, then at Sé again. His consternation must have shown on his face, because Jovett smiled faintly and folded his arms across his chest.

  “Yes, I am,” he said quietly. “And we’ll speak of this at a more appropriate time. In the meantime, I trust that you’ll keep your sudden enlightenment to yourself.”

  “Of course,” the boy murmured, wide-eyed.

  “And m
ore immediately,” Sé interjected, “I gather that you’ve come here for the same reason we did: to pay honor to your father.” He glanced approvingly at Alaric’s sword and mourning attire. “Shall we rotate in, then, and allow our colleagues from Lendour to take a well-deserved break?” he asked, jutting his chin in the direction of the oblivious Lendouri knights.

  Alaric only nodded solemnly, suddenly aware that Sé must have controlled the knights as he had done to others in the past. He wondered whether Llion was also controlled, but his mentor seemed well aware of what was going on, with none of the dazed look about him that characterized the guardian knights. Which meant that Llion knew about Sé—and now, Jovett as well—and that Sé trusted the young knight to keep their confidence.

  “Gentlemen, Lord Alaric and these other knights will take over for a while,” Sé said to the men, opening his arms to include all of them in a vague shooing motion toward the door. “Sir Xander, please remain outside the door to give us some privacy.”

  Without demur, the four lifted their heads and filed out of the room, Xander pulling the door closed behind them. Jovett started to move into one of the guard posts around the coffin, but Alaric caught his sleeve and glanced at Sé. Before they began their vigil, there was one other thing he needed to do, here in the presence of his father.

  “Sir Sé, Jovett, before we proceed, could I ask your indulgence?”

  Both Deryni paused, exchanging glances, and Llion also looked at him in question.

  “Earlier this evening,” Alaric said carefully, “Sir Llion agreed to be my knight. We clasped hands on the bargain, but with his permission, I should like to make the arrangement more formal, in front of witnesses. If he’s still willing, that is.”

  At once Llion sank to one knee before him, lifting his joined hands to the boy in the traditional gesture of vassal to lord.

  “You know that I am your knight, my lord,” he murmured. “Will you receive my vow?”

  Alaric nodded and clasped Llion’s hands between his, and the two Deryni moved closer to witness.