In the King's Service tcmt-1

by Katherine Kurtz

  Seisyll turned as Alyce entered with the two boys, and the queen tearfully held out her arms to her son. Brion ran to her, burying his face against her waist, starting to cry at last as his mother shed more tears of sheer relief.

  Krispin held back at first, then pressed past Seisyll into the room beyond and stared at the dead Isan as his mother silently embraced him. Meanwhile, in the queen's chamber, her other ladies were staring at Alyce, Vera and Zoë among them, their eyes begging her to say that none of this was real. All had been weeping.

  «Majesty, I don't think Prince Brion has taken any harm», Alyce managed to murmur, not looking at Vera or Zoë. «Krispin seems fine as well. Is Lady Brigetta…»

  The queen bit at her lip and looked away, holding her eldest more tightly. «Dear child, there was nothing we could do. And your sister —?»

  Alyce shook her head, lowering her gaze and choking back tears. Beyond the queen, Zoë gave a sob and Vera went even paler than she had been, but dared not show the true extent of her grief.

  «Dear God…», the queen murmured.

  Alyce drew a deep breath. «What has happened to Lady Muriella?»

  «I don't know», the queen said dazedly. «She ran from the room, heading toward the main keep, and I heard guards running in that direction a while later…

  «But, do not tarry here, dear Alyce. Go to your sister, by all means. I am so sorry! Oh, that spiteful Muriella! Why did she do it?»

  Alyce only shook her head and fled — but not to her sister, who could not be helped in this world, but to see what had become of Muriella.

  The castle was in an uproar, with armed and angry soldiers moving everywhere, purpose in their looks and strides. When Alyce could make no immediate sense of what was happening, she caught the sleeve of a passing sergeant who usually had kind words for her.

  «Master Crawford, please — can you tell me whether they have found the Lady Muriella?» she asked.

  «No time now, m'lady», he grunted, shrugging off her touch and hurrying on. «She's run up the north tower, she has».

  He was gone at that, ducking into a turnpike stair to clatter after others also headed upward. Heart pounding, Alyce followed, gathering up her skirts to climb as fast as she could, stubbing her toe on one of the stone steps and nearly sent sprawling.

  She heard shouting as she ascended, and a woman shrieking, and — just before she reached the final doorway onto the walkway along the battlement — a renewed chorus of shouted demands by heated male voices, punctuated by a woman's anguished scream that faded and then was cut short by the distant, hollow thump of something striking the ground far below.

  «Christ, I didn't think she'd jump!» one of the men was saying, peering over the parapet as Alyce pushed her way among them.

  «Well, she has saved herself from hanging or worse», said another, cooler voice.

  Steeling herself, Alyce forced herself to peer between two of the merlons studding the crenellated wall, down at the crumpled heap of clothing and broken bones now sprawled in the courtyard below, where a pool of blood was rapidly bleeding outward from Muriella's dark head. Gagging, she turned away, one hand pressed to her lips and eyes screwed tightly closed, grateful for the hands that drew her back from the parapet.

  «Lady Alyce, you needn't look at this», someone said, not unkindly.

  «She killed my sister, and Lady Brigetta», Alyce managed to whisper, before gathering up her skirts to flee back down the turnpike stair. «And she killed a little boy…»

  By the time she got down to the courtyard, a crowd had gathered: soldiers and courtiers and servants and a stranger in priest's robes, who had just finished anointing the body. Seeing him, Alyce pushed her way through the crowd and stood there, numbly staring down at the dead woman, until the priest glanced up at her.

  «Child, there is nothing you can do», he said, closing his vial of holy oil.

  «And there is nothing you can do, either, Father», she replied in a low voice. «Do you know how many lives she has taken today, besides her own?»

  The priest's face tightened, but he said nothing, only shaking his head.

  «She poisoned three people, Father», Alyce went on, outrage in the very softness of her tone. «She murdered two innocent women and an innocent child — and very nearly killed another child. It could as easily have been one of the royal princes! And you would absolve her of that?»

  A uneasy murmur rippled among the onlookers, and the priest slowly stood, looking her up and down.

  «Are you not one of the heiresses of Corwyn, a Deryni?» he said coldly.

  «What difference does that make to the three she killed?» Alyce snapped. «Does it make them any less dead?»

  A soldier leaned closer to the priest to whisper in his ear, and the priest's face went very still.

  The deaths are regrettable, of course — as is hers», the priest said. «But it is up to God to judge her — not me. And it is not the place of a Deryni to instruct me in my duties».

  Alyce only shook her head and turned away, closing her eyes to the sight of him and the dead Muriella. She could hear the muttering following her as she made her way out of the crowd. When she found her way back to the garden arbor where she had left her sister, the body was gone, but as she glanced around in dismay, one of the gardeners approached her awkwardly, cap in hands.

  «Monks came to take her away, my lady», he murmured. «Brother Ruslan said to tell you that she would lie in the chapel royal tonight. I'm very sorry. She was very kind, even to a mere gardener».

  She stared at him blankly for several seconds, then gave him a grateful nod. His name was Ned, she recalled, and he had always had a gentle word for both her and Marie.

  «Thank you, Ned», she whispered.

  In a daze, she made her way to the chapel royal, where two black-robed monks were setting up a bier in the aisle before the altar. But of any bodies, there was no sign.

  Forlorn, not knowing what else to do, she knelt at the rear of the chapel and said a prayer for her sister's soul — and for Isan, and for Brigetta, and even for the wretched Muriella — then rose and went forward to where the brothers worked.

  «Could you tell me where the bodies have been taken?» she asked.

  The older man looked up pityingly and gave her a neutral nod.

  «You'll be asking after the women?» he said.

  She inclined her head in return.

  «We're told that some of the sisters from Saint Hilary's are looking after them», he informed her. «But they'll lie here tonight. Except for the one who took her own life, of course».

  «What about the boy?» Alyce asked dully.

  «There was a boy as well?» the younger brother asked, shocked.

  Mutely Alyce nodded.

  «Dear Jesu», the elder brother whispered, as both crossed themselves.

  «In all fairness», she forced herself to say, «I do not think the boy was meant to die — or the second woman. Or the one who planned the deed — God forgive her, for I cannot. I can only imagine that it was conceived in unreasoning jealousy, and went disastrously wrong. The poison was meant for my sister alone, but four now lie dead as a result of this day's work». She shook her head. «I'll leave you to your duties», she murmured, as she turned and fled.

  Grief urged her to look further for her sister, but reason reminded her of other duties to the living. Lady Megory had lost a son, and the young princes had lost a comrade. She returned to the queen's solar to find Richeldis and her ladies helping the bereaved mother wash and prepare her son's body for burial.

  Comforted by Zoë and Vera, Alyce wept with them and watched as they tenderly laid young Isan Fitzmartin in the queen's own bed, where the ladies would keep watch beside him during the night. A little while later, now accompanied by Zoë and Vera, she withdrew again to find the body of her dead sister.

  * * *

  They found both Marie and Brigetta now lying in the chapel royal, where the sisters from Saint Hilary’s-Within-the-Walls ha
d lovingly prepared the two for burial, laying them out upon a bier strewn with rose petals. Each had been dressed in her finest gown, crowned with a floral wreath and veiled from head to toe with fine white linen, like brides arrayed for their bridegrooms. Alyce was reminded of the veil Cerys Devane had worn for her novice profession at Arc-en-Ciel; but Marie had never sought such a life.

  A lock of Marie's bronzy hair had tumbled loose from under her veil and down the side of the bier, and Alyce gave a sob as she saw it and came to touch it with a trembling hand. At the sound, one of the sisters spreading fresh linens on the altar turned a sympathetic face toward the newcomers. She was hardly older than they, and looked to have been weeping.

  But before she could speak, her older companion inclined her head toward Alyce.

  «A terrible sadness», she said quietly. «But they are with God now».

  Gently Alyce reached out to lay one trembling hand on the bulge of Marie's folded hands beneath the veil covering her, her vision blurred by tears.

  «Dear God, I had thought I had no tears left to weep», she whispered, crumpling to her knees to rest her forehead against the edge of the bier.

  After a moment, blinking back tears of her own, Vera sank down beside her, one arm around the shoulders of her twin, and Zoë knelt on Alyce's other side.

  «Could you please leave us for a moment?» Zoë said softly to the two sisters.

  In unison, the pair inclined their heads and padded silently from the chapel, settling to wait outside until the visitors should finish paying their respects.

  * * *

  Not far from the entrance to that chapel, Seisyll Arilan watched for a long moment, then turned to make his way toward the stables.

  The day's events, of a certainty, required a report to the Camberian Council, not only to share his impressions regarding young Krispin MacAthan — which easily could have waited until the next regularly scheduled meeting — but now to report the untimely and quite senseless death of Marie de Corwyn. The death of a Deryni heiress of her importance would require the Council to considerably reshuffle their careful strategies regarding desirable marriage alliances. But before he went to tell them, he intended to have a look at the body of the accused poisoner. Because the wretched Muriella had taken her own life, she lay not in the chapel royal or even in one of the side chapels of Saint Hilary’s-Within-the-Walls but in the castle's stables, in one of the loose boxes usually reserved for foaling, laid out on boards across a pair of trestles. Two of the queen's maids had washed away the blood and dressed her in a clean white shift, wrapping her shattered head in linen bandages, so that she looked like a nun.

  Now one of the maids was sewing the dead girl into her burial shroud while the other tucked bunches of sweet herbs amid the folds of fabric. A wreath of rosemary lay beside the basket of herbs. Both of the maids looked up guiltily as Seisyll appeared at the stall door, and they dropped him nervous curtsies.

  «Is that the girl who fell to her death? Muriella, I believe?» Seisyll asked, jutting his chin toward the corpse.

  The girl sewing up the shroud gave him a fearful nod.

  «Aye, m'lord — poor lady. She'll get nae better wedding wreath», she added, nodding toward the circlet of rosemary. «But she didna' mean to do it».

  «She didn't mean to do it», Seisyll repeated, raising a quizzical eyebrow. «What — she didn't mean to kill herself, or she didn't mean to kill all those people?»

  His rapid-fire questions silenced the speaker, but the other girl boldly lifted her chin to him.

  «She didna' mean to kill anyone, m'lord! 'Specially not the boy». The other girl was now nodding emphatic agreement. «But she was fair green wi' jealousy!»

  «Jealousy of whom?» Seisyll demanded.

  «Why, the Lady Marie», came the prompt reply. «Everybody knew that — 'cept Marie an' her sister, o'course. Marie was fair smitten wi' Sir Sé Trelawney, an' too besotted to notice that Muriella fancied him, too».

  «Indeed?» Seisyll murmured. «So she did mean to kill her rival, at least. And when that went all wrong, she killed herself?»

  Both girls nodded wordlessly, wide-eyed.

  «Poor, stupid, cowardly child», Seisyll muttered under his breath.

  «Will she — burn in hell, m'lord?» one of the girls asked tremulously.

  «Probably», Seisyll retorted, then softened at the look of horror on the two faces. «But perhaps not, if we say prayers for her soul». He reached over the door to the loose box and lifted the latch. «Why don't we say a prayer for her now?» he said, coming inside to slip between the two, a hand on each shoulder pressing them both to their knees.

  At the same time, he extended his powers and took control of both of them, kneeling between them then to reach deeper memories from each. If anyone came upon them, it would appear to be only what he had claimed: the three of them kneeling in prayer for the deceased — and that was all the girls would remember.

  A superficial dip into both young minds gained him little information beyond what they had already told him. And even the more rigorous process of taking a death-reading from the unfortunate Muriella failed to reveal much more.

  The poisoned marchpane had indeed been intended for Marie alone — or possibly her sister as well, for Muriella had liked Deryni no better than she liked any rival for the affections of Sir Sé Trelawney. But she certainly had never thought that anyone else would sample the marchpane: not young Isan or the other maid of honor, and certainly not Krispin or Prince Brion. Seisyll shuddered at the thought of how close the crown prince had come to death — spared by the simple happenstance that he did not care for the sweet confection.

  Nor had Ahern de Corwyn had any part in the plan, though he supposedly had sent the marchpane. Muriella had invoked his name in order to allay any suspicion on the part of Marie, never thinking beyond the initial stages of her plan — for surely, even if the Delacorte girl had lived, and held her tongue, it still would have emerged that Ahern knew nothing of marchpane. And it had been blind fear of the hangman's rope that had impelled Muriella to throw herself from the castle wall, when she knew herself discovered and her oh-so-clever plan gone horribly wrong.

  «Stupid, stupid little girl!» Seisyll whispered under his breath, as he came out of trance, having set his instructions in the minds of the two maids.

  Leaving them on their knees to pray a while longer, he rose and gazed down at Muriella for a long moment, gently shaking his head, then wearily picked up the wreath of rosemary from atop the basket and put it on her bandaged head.

  Though the church taught that suicide was a mortal sin, Seisyll had never been able to accept that teaching as an absolute. Muriella had been frightened and desperate enough to take her own life rather than face up to the consequences of her actions — which had certainly been horrendous — but he thought that if she burned in hell, it would not be because she had loved and then had feared. And even the murder of three innocents besides herself could be forgiven, in time, if the murderer truly repented.

  But that was for Muriella to sort out with her God. For himself, Seisyll could only breathe a final prayer for her soul, with an appeal to the Blessed Mother to take this foolish child into her loving care and eventually restore her to grace.

  Pityingly, he brushed his fingertips across the dead girl's cheek in farewell, then bent to press a holy kiss to her brow before turning to go.

  Chapter 20

  «May choirs of angels receive thee…»[21]

  The following week would pass in a numb blur of grief for Alyce de Corwyn, for she now must bury her sister, as she had buried her father but two years before. As she had done after her father's death, she traveled back to her ancestral lands — not to Cynfyn, for Marie had been little a part of that, but to Coroth, the Corwyn capital, where this latest scion of the line of Corwyn's dukes would lie with her ancestors.

  In this season of the year, still languishing in the heat of the summer just ending, the cortege wound its way southward only as
far as Desse, following the royal road that ran along the east bank of the River Eirian. Thence the party transferred to the relative comfort of one of the king's galleys for the voyage into the great Southern Sea and thence around the horn of Mooryn, heading eastward then until at last they sighted the twin lighthouses guarding Coroth Harbor.

  The news, of course, had reached Corwyn's capital well in advance of the funeral party, sent by fast courier the very day of the tragedy. The king had been out hawking on the moors the day it arrived, with Lord Hambert, the Seneschal of Coroth, and the Tralian ambassador, attended by Sir Jiri Redfearn, Sir Kenneth Morgan, and Sir Sé Trelawney, along with a handful of knights. It was a bright day in early October, and the expedition was to have been the last such junket before Donal's planned departure for Rhemuth in a few days' time.

  Ahern had begged off, declaring himself possessed of a mild indisposition.

  Donal had braced himself for bad news when he saw the look on the messenger's face, as the rider in Haldane livery reined in his lathered horse and sprang to the ground. The man himself had known little of the tragedy beyond the stark fact that several had died in Rhemuth as a result of poison hidden in a parcel of sweetmeats, but Seisyll Arilan's terse missive held a fuller story.

  The poison appears to have been meant for the Lady Marie, Seisyll had written, in a letter folded around another, smaller square of folded parchment, but she shared the treat with Lady Brigetta Delacorte and some of the children — none of the princes, for which, God be praised, but young Isan Fitzmartin is dead. Ostensibly, the sweets came from Lord Ahern, in the diplomatic pouch from Corwyn, along with the enclosed letter from Sir Sé Trelawney.

  Donal's eyes darted to the folded square he had removed from inside Seisyll's letter, then skimmed on down the page.

  Young Krispin MacAthan tasted one of the sweetmeats but did not like it, and spat it out, Seisyll declared. He came to no harm. Not so, young Isan, who ate the rest of Krispin's share, in addition to his own. He perished, along with Lady Marie and Lady Brigetta. The poisoner, Lady Muriella, threw herself from one of the parapets when she saw what she had done.