“You could come and join my household, when you’re grown,” Alaric said. “If you’re not to be a duke, you could always be the right-hand man of a duke.”
“Maybe I will,” Duncan replied, quirking him a taut smile. “One never knows.” He sighed and got to his feet. “But I don’t suppose we’re going to figure that out today, or even tomorrow. Besides, we’re only eleven years old.” He cocked his head at Alaric. “Fancy a ride?”
“Of course.” Grinning, Alaric likewise rose, dusting off the seat of his breeches. “We’ve got a few more hours of daylight—and whatever either of us ends up doing, we’ll need to know how to ride. I’ll race you to the stables!”
• • •
THREE days later, with the weather still holding, Twelfth Night dawned, with all the pomp and ceremony of the most formal court of the year scheduled for the afternoon. It started out well enough. The new archbishop attended that year—his first as Primate of All Gwynedd—along with several other bishops, who were entirely too numerous to make Alaric happy; but he was not obliged to serve any of them.
At opening court, after Archbishop de Nore had given the blessing, he duly took Cornelius Seaton into his household as a senior squire—which was good riddance, so far as Alaric and many of the other squires and pages were concerned, for Alaric was not the only one who had smarted under Cornelius’s bullying ways. It annoyed Alaric that the smarmy Cornelius now would proceed toward eventual knighthood without the tempering influence of Duke Richard’s discipline, but he told himself that there was nothing he could do about it. Cornelius immediately donned the purple episcopal livery of his uncle’s household and took up squiring duties at his father’s side, haughty and proud.
For his own part, Alaric was instructed to serve the queen and her daughters, as he had done the year before. Paget served beside him as duty squire. Alaric had hoped to serve Duke Jared and Duchess Vera, but that honor went to Duncan and the Redfearn twins, who now were squires. Llion, now a valued member of Duke Richard’s staff, stood attendance on the duke; and his wife, Alazais Morgan, now expecting their first child, attended the queen.
When the official business of the court had been concluded—the making of pages, the promotion of new squires, several knightings—formal court was adjourned to the dais end of the hall, so that guests might pay their individual respects to the king and servants could set up the rest of the hall for the feast to follow.
The mild weather had brought foreign visitors as well as the local nobility, some of them most welcome and others less so. The Hort of Orsal, whose investiture they had witnessed only months before, appeared now with a small delegation and the gift of a Thurian harper to entertain during the feast to follow court. No longer in mourning for his father, the Tralian prince was brilliantly arrayed in velvets and silks of peacock hues, with rings on every finger and ropes of pearls about his neck, one of which he removed and presented to his fellow sovereign.
“Perhaps for your eventual bride,” Létald murmured with a wink, as he pooled the pearls into Brion’s hand. The prince also made a point of speaking personally with Alaric after court.
“I was very pleased to meet you at my investiture, young duke,” the Hort said, shaking his hand. “We are, both of us, starting out our careers as rulers of our respective lands, and I look forward to many years of harmonious interaction. I hope we shall be friends.”
“And I, Your Highness,” Alaric murmured. “I was very glad that I could attend.”
Another welcome and half-expected visitor was the young heir of Bremagne, whom they had met in Tralia: Crown Prince Ryol, accompanied by an uncle, Prince Joscerand, who was half-brother to King Meyric. It fell to Joscerand to unwrap and present Bremagne’s gift: miniature portraits of his three royal nieces, painted on boards and handsomely framed in gilt wood.
“This is Jehane, the eldest . . . and this is Aude . . . and Ursuline,” Joscerand said to the king, as Ryol handed each portrait to Brion, in turn. “My brother hopes that you will come soon to Bremagne to meet them,” he added, as Brion inspected the likenesses and made the required polite but noncommittal responses.
“Most charming,” Brion murmured. “Please convey my thanks to King Meyric for his kind gifts, and say that I hope to visit his kingdom very soon.”
As the gifts were duly handed off to a courtier and then passed to the queen and her daughters, Alaric caught just an impression of auburn hair and pale faces before Xenia and Silke commandeered the portraits and began whispering over them, raven heads pressed together.
Other foreign guests were also seen, many of whom also offered gifts as well as Twelfth Night greetings. Two who were perhaps less welcome than most were a pair of Torenthi nobles, richly arrayed in the silk brocades and furs favored at the Torenthi court, with sweeping mustaches and braided side-locks beneath the cylindrical flat-topped hats that Alaric always associated with Torenth. Because they were Torenthi, and nobility at that, he reckoned that they most probably were Deryni. Cautious, because he well remembered his lesson with Sé, he tried to sharpen his senses regarding the two men, and caught the faint tingle of shields around both.
“Majesty,” said the elder of the pair, as he and his rakish-looking companion gave the king flamboyant court bows. “I am Constantin Furstán-Arkadia. My companion is Sigismund Count von Golzcow. Our sovereign lord, Nimouros ho Phourstános Padishah, commands us to convey his best wishes for the new year, and to present this token of his esteem.”
At his gesture, the younger man unfurled a generous length of multicolored Moorish silk from under his arm and allowed it to cascade down the dais steps, to indrawn breaths from the assembled nobles and from the direction of the queen and her daughters.
“I recognize that Your Majesty’s tastes may run to less . . . exuberant patterns,” Constantin continued with a droll smile, “but perhaps the noble ladies of your household will find this one pleasing.”
Before Brion could frame a diplomatic response, his mother the dowager queen rose in her place and inclined her head to the Torenthi courtier.
“My lord, we thank you for your master’s most generous gift,” she said. “And from my daughters’ expressions, I rather suspect that we shall have . . . animated discussions regarding who shall wear it.” She paused to pull a ring from one hand and extended it to the Torenthi noble with a tight smile. “Pray, convey this to your master with my thanks.”
As Count Constantin took the ring, both Torenthi nobles bowed deeply and backed away, to retreat into the crowd. A glance from the queen summoned Alaric to gather up the silk and deposit it between the two princesses, but he decided to keep an eye on the Deryni who had presented it. He thought the silk itself was safe enough; he could detect no danger. But the men . . .
The next few hours passed pleasantly enough, without apparent incident. While the rest of those who wished to do so presented their compliments and sundry gifts to the king, the Twelfth Night feast proceeded, interspersed with diversions of singing and several performances by a troupe of Logreini mummers, not to mention the harper brought by the Hort of Orsal. Later on, there was dancing. Alaric and Paget, on duty serving the queen and her daughters, had a superb vantage point from which to observe all that went on, and to appreciate the finery of the young ladies of the court.
Alaric would have counted the night’s festivities a resounding success, except that, when he was sent to fetch more wine for the queen’s table, and took a shortcut down to the cellars, he noticed a partially open doorway into one of the storerooms adjacent to the kitchens, and heard muffled moans of pleasure coming from within.
He ducked his head and suppressed a wry smile as he prepared to scurry past. Accustomed as he was to moving in court circles, he could hardly be unaware that large gatherings at court were often the occasion of clandestine amorous encounters among the guests—and what they looked and sounded like. Pages and squires were instructed to i
gnore such activities whenever possible, or at least to be discreet, but he nonetheless caught the unmistakable impression of a brocade-clad male form bent into the embrace of an apparently willing partner—and white legs writhing amid a flurry of crimson skirts.
That fleeting image brought him up short to backtrack a few steps and gaze in shock, for the woman, by her dress, almost had to be the Princess Xenia, the spirited elder of the king’s two sisters.
He tried to stifle his gasp, but was not altogether successful. The sound was enough to alert the man, who spun and saw him—and stabbed a hand toward him in reinforcement of a powerful command that surged hard against Alaric’s shields.
“You, boy! Come here!”
Chapter 35
“Where the word of a king is, there is power . . .”
—ECCLESIASTES 8:4
INSTINCTIVELY Alaric recoiled and hardened his shields, wrenching his gaze from that of his attacker and bolting back the way he had come. It had been one of the Torenthi courtiers, he realized, as he pounded back up the stairs; and as he jerked to a halt in the doorway back into the hall, to look around wildly for the nearest adult in authority, he spied Llion conversing with Sir Jiri Redfearn before one of the great fireplaces nearby.
At once he hurried in that direction, schooling his features to show no emotion, weaving among bystanders and dancers as quickly as he could, but also trying not to create too much of a stir, for he was about to report an appalling scandal.
“Sir Llion, could I have a word?” he murmured, catching at the knight’s sleeve.
Llion looked at him oddly, but let himself be drawn out of earshot of Sir Jiri, where Alaric quickly told him what he had seen.
“You’re certain it was Xenia?” Llion asked, when Alaric had wound down.
“Not absolutely certain—I didn’t see her face—but who else could it have been?” He was still looking around—for Xenia, for the Torenthis, for anyone whose presence might make it not be true. “Llion, only the royals wear that much red—and the queen and Princess Silke are over there. Xenia isn’t.” He jutted his chin in the direction of the royal dais, where the queen and Silke were chattering with Alazais and others of the queen’s ladies, still inspecting the gift of brocade.
“And where are the Torenthis?” he continued. “I know it was one of them—and if I’d not been Deryni, God knows what he might have done. He did try to control me.”
“Go back to your post,” Llion said, low voiced, as he too scanned the hall. “Say nothing until I get back to you.”
With that, Llion returned to Jiri and spoke to him briefly before the two of them disappeared through the doorway where Alaric had emerged. The king was in very focused conversation with Prince Joscerand and his nephew.
The festivities of Twelfth Night continued all around, but Alaric had lost his taste for celebration. Unsettled, he fetched a flagon of wine from a sideboard and took it back to the queen’s table. Fortunately, another of the pages had also fetched more wine, and the queen was in animated discussion with Alazais, a goblet in her hand, though her good humor certainly would end when she learned of her daughter’s indiscretion.
Settling into his former post near the queen and her ladies, and trying not to look as anxious as he felt, Alaric continued to scan the hall. After a moment, he noticed Duke Richard leaving in the company of a senior squire. Soon after that, he spotted the senior Torenthi ambassador and several of his entourage, but not the man who had unfurled the length of silk on the dais steps. Could it be that the missing man was the one he had seen in the storeroom, who had tried to control him?
Very shortly, Duke Richard’s squire returned to whisper urgently in the queen’s ear. She blanched, then rose and whispered to Alazais and one of her ladies-in-waiting before following the squire from the hall, followed by Alazais. The remaining lady took Princess Silke’s hand and led her protesting from the hall, just as Paget returned from some mission of his own.
“What’s going on?” Paget murmured to Alaric. “Do you know?”
“Not a clue,” Alaric replied. But as he glanced again at the king, he saw that Prince Nigel had entered the hall and was whispering something to his royal brother, who immediately excused himself from the Bremagni princes’ presence and headed briskly in the direction of his withdrawing room. He did not look happy.
The situation clearly was deteriorating. Very shortly, Alaric’s worst fears were reinforced as Princess Xenia, weeping and resisting, was hustled past him and Paget into the king’s withdrawing room by a furious Queen Richeldis and a tight-lipped Duke Richard. Following at a discreet distance, and accompanied by Llion and Jiri, came a pair of stony-faced Haldane guards escorting the missing Torenthi courtier, who apparently was under close arrest.
“What’s going on?” Quillan Pargeter whispered, joining him and Paget, for he had just come to take his turn serving the now-absent queen. “Who was that?”
“One of the Torenthi nobles,” Alaric murmured.
“When I passed them in the corridor, it looked like he was under arrest,” Quillan replied, though in a low voice, for other guests were drifting closer to their vicinity. “You don’t suppose that he and Xenia . . .”
“We mustn’t suppose anything,” Alaric said sharply, for he dared not say more.
They learned little more of the incident in what remained of the evening, though they soon saw Duke Richard emerge from the withdrawing room and make his way purposefully to the rest of the Torenthi party, drawing them aside in serious discussion. Alaric noticed that several household knights drifted closer during the conversation, and soon escorted the foreigners from the hall. Duke Richard then sought out Duke Jared, and the two dukes soon disappeared in the direction of the king’s withdrawing room. Duncan retreated into the nearest window bay in apparent uncertainty, looking troubled.
After that, people gradually began to filter from the hall, for the night’s festivities clearly were winding down. Others of the pages and squires approached Alaric, Paget, and Quillan as the servants began to clear the remains of the festivities, curious for some explanation, but Alaric only shook his head when questioned, as did Paget and Quillan. Discretion was greatly valued in a future knight, especially those in close service to the Crown, and the three of them were well aware of their privileged positions. Even when Alaric retired to his quarters, joined now by Duncan, he could not bring himself to speak of it.
“Duke Richard did seem concerned, when he came to get my father,” Duncan said tentatively. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“It isn’t for me to say,” Alaric replied.
But it was not long afterward, while the two of them were readying for bed, that Llion came knocking on the door.
“Alaric, a word in private, if you please,” Llion said, nodding apology to Duncan.
Alaric immediately went to him, silent as they moved into Llion’s apartment next door, where Llion closed and latched the door behind them, indicating a chair before the fire. Alaric saw no sign of Alazais, so assumed she must still be about the queen’s business, quite possibly seeing to the wayward Xenia.
“It appears that your concerns about Princess Xenia were well-founded,” Llion said as he sank into a second chair. “It was not a pleasant scene, as you can imagine. The princess was hysterical. The queen could hardly speak. And the king—” Llion shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry. For a while, I was afraid that steel would be drawn.”
“It was one of the Torenthis, wasn’t it?” Alaric said.
“Aye, the cocky one who unfurled that silk. Count Sigismund, he’s called.”
Alaric suppressed a shudder. “He’s lucky he isn’t the late Count Sigismund.”
“He is,” Llion said flatly. “But as part of the Torenthi delegation, he has diplomatic immunity. The king dares not start a war over this. Furthermore, Sigismund has declared his undy
ing devotion regarding the king’s sister, and desires to marry her.”
Alaric gave the young knight a grimace. “Llion, he’s probably twice her age. Does she want to marry him?”
“She says she does. She says that she adores him, and that they wish to be wed. It does appear that he had her maidenhead. Alazais was one of the women ordered to examine her.”
Alaric suppressed a shudder, shaking his head. Xenia deflowered by Count Sigismund. And she had said that she “adored” him? He very much doubted that. Not that she had said it, but that it was true. Sigismund could have made her believe it. . . .
“Llion,” he said hesitantly, “Count Sigismund is Deryni.”
“You did indicate that he is.”
“Then . . . it may be that he took control of her. He could have,” he added, at Llion’s look of dismay. “Especially, if he were already seducing her, flattering her, touching her. It wouldn’t have been difficult to make her believe that it was what she wanted, to give herself to him.”
“He could do that?”
“A properly trained Deryni could,” Alaric replied. “I probably could—though I never would,” he added hastily, wondering whether he had said too much already. “It—wouldn’t be proper.”
Llion was staring at him, his expression unreadable.
“You’re saying that Sigismund could have forced her, not by physical strength but by magic?”
“It’s possible,” Alaric allowed. “And if he did, it wasn’t Xenia’s fault. It would be rape. Maybe she wouldn’t have to marry him.”
After considering for a few seconds, Llion came to his feet.
“Come with me. I think the king needs to hear about this.”
• • •
HALF an hour later, with Llion’s urging, Alaric had revealed his suspicions to the king. Duke Richard was also present, and looked as appalled as Llion had, only a short time before. Brion remained unreadable, though he did not contradict anything the boy had said.
The King's Deryni Page 43
