They were seated before the fireplace in the castle’s best apartment, reclaimed from Zoë and Jovett after the wedding night. The weather had turned in the past week, and Alyce had mulled wine, anticipating a welcome evening of domestic bliss with her husband, but those plans had been suspended when Kenneth’s youngest daughter came knocking at their door. Alaric was long abed in the room he now shared with Sir Llion.
Kenneth passed a cup of mulled wine to Alazais and took a sip of his own.
«You aren’t thinking to take the veil, are you?»
«Good heavens, no, Papa! I do intend to marry. At least, I think I do. Just not yet».
«A year at Arc-en-Ciel would teach her some useful skills», Alyce pointed out, settling on a stool beside her husband. «It did me no harm, nor Zoë — and ’tis less than a day’s ride from Rhemuth, or from Morganhall».
Smiling faintly, Kenneth motioned for Alazais to come and sit on his knee, setting aside his wine to slip an arm around her waist and hug her close.
«’Tis well that I am no longer obliged to subsist on the income of a simple knight», he murmured, kissing the point of her shoulder. «Thank God that both your sisters are now safely married — and if you go to Arc-en-Ciel for a year, that delays having to provide another dowry right away».
«Papa!»
«But you shall go with my blessing, if that is what you want», he went on, smiling. «I am certain you will enjoy your time spent ‘under the rainbow,’ and only wish I could accompany you to see you enrolled». He kissed her again, then set her back on her feet. «But the king summons me, so I cannot. Perhaps Alyce would consent to go with you». He looked at Alyce in question with a raised eyebrow, and she nodded.
«I should be delighted and honored», she said with a smile. «And I should like to take Alaric with me, if I may. I would love for Mother Judiana to meet him; and the sisters and the students will adore him. All of them dote on small children».
«That is easily enough arranged», Kenneth agreed. «Trevor and Llion will accompany you — and Melissa, of course, and a small escort to see all of you safely home. I’ll take Xander with me». He picked up his wine again and took a deep draught. «Happily, this visit will be under far less stressful circumstances than applied during your last stay at Arc-en-Ciel — though I certainly cannot fault the arrangements made for our wedding night». His grin had an element of mischief. «It cannot have been the usual done thing for a convent».
«Indeed, not!» Alyce replied, suppressing her own smile. «But I’m certain we shall have a lovely visit — all of us», she added, laying a hand across one of Alazais’s. «Your aunts will wish to attend, I expect. And perhaps we can prevail upon Geill and her husband to stop there as well — and Vera and young Duncan, of course, though it remains to be seen whether Arc-en-Ciel can withstand an invasion by two small boys».
«I seem to recall that they managed well enough with several young princes, when I came with the king to witness Sister Iris Jessilde’s final profession», Kenneth said. «And they were similarly invaded for our wedding».
Alyce rolled her eyes and rose, ready to retire. «They have not reckoned with Alaric Morgan and Duncan McLain», she said archly, «but I’m certain we shall manage». She gave Alazais a fond smile. «You’d best go and tell the sisters that you have your father’s permission to go with them, my dear — and inform Geill and Vera of the slight adjustment to our travel plans. If they’re to join us, Vera will probably wish to send ahead to Culdi, alerting Jared that they’ll be a few days later in arriving home».
* * *
Their leave-taking from Zoë and her new husband was tearful on the part of the women, and stoic on Kenneth’s part, but the journey itself at least began according to plan. They numbered about thirty in all. Traveling directly westward along the Molling River valley, and taking accommodation along the way, they made excellent progress until they approached the village of Hallowdale, not far from the larger market town of Mollingford. There they stumbled upon the final moments of an incident often rumored to occur, but never witnessed firsthand by any in the company.
Sir Trevor was in the lead, riding beside a squire carrying Kenneth’s banner of Lendour. Kenneth himself was farther back along the cavalcade, chatting with Sir Thomas, the senior of the Kierney knights. Xander and another of his own knights rode directly behind Trevor and the banner, with another knight and four men-at-arms interspersed among Jared’s knights and the women. Alaric was perched in front of Llion, his preferred place of travel, and Geill’s young husband, Sir Walter, had taken up little Duncan in front of him, leaving Alyce to ride with her stepdaughter and Vera, just ahead of Kenneth’s aunt, his two sisters, and the two from Arc-en-Ciel, all of whom rode astride. The rest of the knights brought up the rear, with Kenneth among them.
They had seen the first smudges of smoke nearly an hour before they finally came upon its source. Those who bothered to speculate simply assumed that it was someone’s house alight, or perhaps stubble being burned off in a distant field. They had seen the latter the afternoon before, all across the fields of a prosperous farm by which they passed.
But this was no burning of fields or a house fire. By the time they rode into the outskirts of Hallowdale, some of the knights shifting forward toward the head of the cavalcade, smoke was billowing upward in a dense black plume, oddly sluggish in the still air. As they approached the town square, a breeze from off the river suddenly gusted back a sickly-sweet whiff of burnt flesh.
In a stomach-churning flash of prescience, Alyce knew what lay in the square ahead, and what had caused her son suddenly to turn his face into Llion’s chest with a whimper. It was an impression confirmed all too graphically by her own glimpse of a small crowd ahead, surrounding a blackened stake upthrust in their midst, which still gave off greasy tendrils of smoke. Her horrified glance back at Sister Iris Jessilde made it clear that the Deryni sister had also sensed the horror, and was drawing rein in shock. Simultaneously, Sir Trevor stood in his stirrups and raised a gloved fist in emphatic order to halt.
«What the devil?» Kenneth muttered under his breath, as he kneed his mount out of line and gigged it hard along the procession past Alyce and his son, the Kierney captain right behind him, to pull up sharply next to Trevor and the bannerbearer. Behind him, he could hear growing consternation as the others also began to realize what had happened here at Hallowdale. In the square ahead, several dozen men and women were turning to regard them warily, even defiantly. The smoking stake told its own story.
«Dear, sweet Jesu», Kenneth whispered, slowly signing himself with the Cross. And then, turning to the Kierney captain: «Sir Thomas, leave me half your men and turn the column around. Get the women and children out of here. Wait at the outskirts of the town. Trevor, Xander, men of Lendour, you’re with me!»
As though the move had been rehearsed, Sir Thomas and half a dozen of the Kierney men turned the column and fell back, bearing the women and children and baggage animals with them as Trevor and Xander formed up the rest behind Kenneth and his Lendouri men-at-arms. As Kenneth pressed his mount forward, his hard gaze searched the upturned faces of the folk who reluctantly parted before him — defiant faces at first, but gradually giving way to his tight-jawed scrutiny, guiltily averting their eyes. Without being told, his knights fanned out behind him to line the eastern edge of the square, halting with hands on swordhilts.
With Trevor at his side and Xander and his bannerbearer following behind him, Kenneth slowly rode all the way around the remains of the pyre, the clip-clop of the horses’ steel-shod hooves the only sound save for the faint jingle of harness and the whuffles of the waiting knights’ tight-reined steeds. He forced himself to look closely at what was still chained to the stake in the center of the burned-out pyre, and realized that there had been two victims of this town’s hatred. One, by its size, could only have been a child.
«Who is in charge here?» he demanded, completing his circuit and turning his horse to confront the vill
agers, searching the faces that now would not meet his gaze.
«I am the Earl of Lendour. I asked who was in charge», he repeated, his tone sharper now. «By what possible authority has this been done?»
Silence.
«You have usurped the king’s High Justice. I want to know by what authority. Speak, or I shall have every man-jack of you flogged until you do — and the women as well, if I do not get an answer! You did not spare them» — he jerked a gloved hand toward the evidence before him — «and I shall not spare you, if I do not receive an immediate explanation».
«They was Deryni», said a sullen voice from the back of the crowd.
«What?» Kenneth turned his horse in the direction of the voice. «Who spoke?»
«They was Deryni», the voice repeated, as a bandy-legged man with an enormous beard moved clear of the others and gazed up at him defiantly. «And we carried out God’s justice. The Deryni be an accursed race, an’ those transgressed against His law».
He gestured toward the pyre and spat, an eloquent gesture of contempt. Aghast, Kenneth kneed his horse closer to stare down at the man, aware of Trevor half a horse-length behind.
«And who decided that God’s law had been transgressed?» he demanded. «Tell me! Who?»
«Th’ priests», another man sneered. «Who d’ye think? Th’ bishop’s preachers come last week, an’ told us what to look for. They was Deryni, all right», he said belligerently, jutting his chin in the direction of the stakes.
For a moment Kenneth merely sat there, numb with shock, trying to fathom the kind of hatred that could have made good men commit such evil. The reference to bishops’ preachers raised strong suspicions about who might have been behind this latest incident of hatred against Deryni — there had long been rumors that Bishop Oliver de Nore’s followers sometimes burned Deryni in the region — but he had never thought to come across an incident firsthand. Being married to a Deryni wife, and one for whom de Nore held a particular hatred, he dared not undertake an immediate investigation of wayward preachers on his own, or challenge their bishop, but he would certainly report this to the king.
«I cannot accept that a loving God had this in mind for even the most notorious sinners», he finally said coldly, sweeping them with his hard gaze.
«The holy Scriptures say that sinners will burn in hell», a new speaker made bold to say.
«Perhaps after the Final Judgement!» Kenneth snapped. «But it was not your place to pronounce that judgement, nor to administer punishment».
«That isn’t what the priest said!» another voice shouted.
«What?»
«We knew what to do», the first man sneered. «The woman thought she was better’n us, an’ conjured up poisons an’ cast spells on innocent folk, an’ worked her evil magic so her man could get what was nay his! We dealt wi’ him, too». His sly glance over his shoulder drew Kenneth’s attention to the body hanging from an upper window of a nearby building, and his jaw dropped.
«And what of the child?» he demanded. «What of the innocent child?»
«She were a bad seed! An’ how could she be otherwise, with twa sich parents?» one of the women blurted. «Now she canna follow her mam’s evil example».
Now well and truly disgusted, Kenneth briefly closed his eyes, schooling himself to forbearance — for he knew how close he was to snapping — that he must not mete out judgement on his own, in the heat of his anger and outrage, without taking more dispassionate counsel.
«You have done a terrible, wicked thing», he finally said, his voice low and deadly. «All of you will answer to God for it in the Hereafter, and to the king in this life — for be certain that I shall report to him what I have seen. In the meantime, you will take what is left of those wretched souls and give them decent burial».
«Respectfully, we will not, my lord», said an educated voice he had not heard before, from off to the left.
Kenneth swiveled in his saddle to search out the new speaker: a tall, gangly individual in a mud-colored monk’s robe, sharp eyes as black as coal.
«You refuse to do this? You, a cleric? Even the Church does not deny decent burial to Deryni».
«These were not decent Deryni», another man said. «We will not do it».
«And if you force them to do it», said the monk, «they will simply dig up the remains after you have gone, and throw them in the river».
Kenneth was not normally a man to admit defeat, but he knew when he was fighting a battle that could not be won, at least for now.
«Very well», he said quietly. «It seems I cannot keep you from your folly. But know that the matter does not end here. Look to your souls, people of Hallowdale, for your God certainly shall do so. And your king shall certainly know of this as well».
With that, he wheeled his horse around and rode out of that place, Trevor and his escort falling in behind him.
Chapter 12
«There is an evil which I have seen under the sun».[13]
The rest of their journey was much subdued. The men rode tight-jawed and silent, for what they had seen was a flagrant usurpation of the king’s law, whatever personal feelings one might entertain concerning Deryni. For the Lendour men, who served a Deryni lady, the incident hit far too close to home. They gave Hallowdale a wide berth, cutting far to the south, and camped that night in a field, where the reek of burnt flesh did not befoul the air.
No one had much appetite that night. The men muttered among themselves around their campfires, even the most hardened of them shaken by what they had seen. The women had wept most of the way to the campsite, and many cried themselves to sleep that night. Alaric and Duncan were yet too young to understand what had happened, though Alaric had caught some of the emotions; but both were aware of the distress of the adults around them — so much so, that Alyce put both children to sleep in the arms of their knightly protectors, and that night blurred their memories of the experience. But her own memories she could not blur.
The next day was better, but something of the shock lingered as they set out again. Kenneth refused to discuss what had happened, and for a while considered taking Alaric back to Rhemuth with him instead of letting Alyce take him on to Arc-en-Ciel.
«I’m not even certain I should let you go, Alyce», he told her, the last night before they were to head in opposite directions, she toward the abbey school with Alazais and the other women and he on to Rhemuth. «And I don’t know that I can bear to risk Alaric as well. He is my only son, the son I thought I never should have. If you and he were to meet something like what happened in Hallowdale on the road…»
She looked away, troubled. «I didn’t tell you, at the time, how very near I came to riding back to join you, after you’d sent the men to take us to safety. But if I had, I honestly do not know what I might have done».
They were in the privacy of a tiny room at an inn on the road approaching Rhemuth from the east, and she opened one hand to a brightly glowing ball of greenish light, which hovered just above her palm. She lifted it slightly and watched it flare higher, to a fiercely burning column of fire that cast a greenish glow on both their faces.
«I was so angry, Kenneth. It would have been so very easy to unleash this on those people — and it would have felt so good, because they surely deserved to die for what they did, and allowed to be done».
She sighed deeply and closed her eyes, the column of fire dying down to a mere sphere of handfire that she quickly quenched in a closed fist.
«That would have been wrong, of course. It would have made me no better than they, except that I would have had more strength, a power they could not hope to understand or endure. Might does not make right. And it would have reinforced what they say about Deryni in the first place: that we have these terrible powers that we long to unleash against innocent humans — though those certainly were not innocent». She shook her head and lowered her fist, made it relax, open and empty, in her lap. «Do you really think that the king will be able to exact justice for the in
nocents of Hallowdale?»
Kenneth shook his head doubtfully. «I don’t know. If the incident was stirred up by itinerant preachers, it would be asking him to take on the religious hierarchy. He did that before for us — for you — and he ended up having to back down. This time — I don’t know. But I’m very glad that you didn’t do what you wanted to do».
She sighed. «You’re right — and I suppose I am glad as well. It only would have made matters worse for my people». She glanced at him sidelong. «I still should like to take Alaric with me to Arc-en-Ciel. It’s only less than a day’s ride outside Rhemuth; we would join you in three days. You can send as many men with us as you like — and we would have Jared’s men as well».
«You would only have them on the way to Arc-en-Ciel», Kenneth pointed out sourly. «You’d still have to return to Rhemuth».
«But it’s the major route north», Alyce countered, «and it’s well traveled at this time of year. I do so want Mother Judiana to meet Alaric. And for Zaizie’s sake, I cannot not go. She would be so disappointed».
She paused, then laid a hand gently on his wrist. «Darling, if you truly fear for our safety, that close to Rhemuth, you could send more soldiers to meet us at Arc-en-Ciel and escort us back to you. You could even come yourself, after you’ve reported to the king».
He chuckled aloud at that, aware that he was probably over-reacting, and enfolded her in his arms, pressing his lips to her forehead. But in the end, he agreed to let her go.
He took only Xander with him when they reached the northward road the following day, he to continue south into the city and the women to make their way to Arc-en-Ciel. Alazais wept as she parted from her father, finally understanding the tension under which he and Alyce had lived for all their marriage, and Alyce for most of her life. Alyce rode close beside her, with Llion and Alaric to her other side and Trevor at her back, all of them embedded within the Kierney party. In light of her previous night’s conversation with Kenneth, she found herself worried anew for the safety of her son, and was half surprised that Kenneth had even allowed them to come.
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