Deryni Checkmate (2 page)

With that, he sank to one knee in a whisper of dark silks and bowed his head, the golden cords of his keffiyeh gleaming like a coronet, for he was a prince among his own people. In the graceful hand he extended was a mailed gauntlet with a froth of fine linen protruding from the cuff.

Wencit King of Torenth, receiving the account in his winter presence chamber in Beldour, rose slowly and took the gauntlet, motioning his informant to rise. The bit of linen was a lady’s handkerchief, one delicate corner embroidered with a golden coronet above the letter
C
. This he carefully pulled free of the leather and chain of the mailed glove, lifting it to inhale of its scent. Then he closed it gently within his fist and pressed it to his breast, setting the gauntlet aside.

“Show me!” he demanded, then added, in a gentler tone, “if you please.”

Inclining his head as he rose, the Moor extended his right hand in invitation, palm upward. As Wencit clasped it, both men closed their eyes. The Torenthi king was as fair as the Moor was dark, though with a fire in his hair and in his amber eyes that brought to mind a fox. Within seconds, a stillness settled between the two of them, a faint blue aureole gradually engulfing both bowed heads as the Moor shared his impressions of the final moments of Charissa of Tolan, sometimes called the Shadowed One.

There had been a circle of fire cast about her and the young Haldane king, both to contain the power the two of them would summon and to ensure that neither gave way until battle was done. It had not occurred to Charissa or to Yousef that she might be the one to suffer defeat.

For, against all expectation, Kelson Haldane had been able to answer every test that she could set him, at last demanding a final stark contest of sheer will and power, his against hers. And his had been more powerful, though neither Yousef nor Wencit, reviewing the contest some hours after the event, could account for the source of the young king’s knowledge and strength. His power had overwhelmed her in the end, pitiless and unrelenting—and indeed, as Yousef had opined, the ending could not have been easy for her.

Wencit shuddered as he broke off contact with the Moor, half turning away to blindly tuck her handkerchief into the front of his tunic.

“My lord?” Yousef murmured.

Shaking his head, Wencit gestured for the other to leave him.

“And send the Patriarch to me at once,” he ordered. “With my cousin’s passing, I am now inheritor to all of her pretensions—and that includes the crown of Gwynedd. I intend that, with the new year, I shall be proclaimed king thereof, and inaugurated as such. The Haldane thinks he has won his crown, but I shall maintain and assert my ancestors’ claim to it. When the spring thaws come and our forces go to war, what is mine in law shall become mine by right of arms.”

 

IN Gwynedd, meanwhile, the new young king began settling somewhat uneasily into the role until recently held by his late father. The cheering crowds that lined the way for his procession back to the castle had no inkling how very nearly it might have been funereal.

But instead, it was festive. That evening, as dusk settled on the city and candles and torches were lit at the castle, Gwynedd’s new sovereign was feted at a state banquet in his honor, presiding from a raised dais at the end of the great hall. Gifts were presented to mark the occasion, and foreign emissaries offered guarded felicitations. The king’s uncle and heir presumptive, Prince Nigel, sat at his right hand, but Queen Jehana, the king’s mother, made only a token appearance before retiring to her chambers, much disturbed by the events of earlier in the day.

Others were disturbed as well, though there was a longstanding tradition that the Haldane kings possessed mystical powers that enabled them to protect and keep their thrones. The king’s bishops muttered among themselves. In truth, many others also muttered, though not in the hearing of the king or his close confidants.

The King’s Champion and his personal chaplain, chiefest among those confidants—and most contentious—kept strictly to the sidelines, well aware that speculation would be rife regarding their roles in what had occurred. The bishops’ scrutiny was especially intense. Morgan’s assistance had not been blatantly magical, but he would always be a subject of frightened and disapproving speculation simply because of what he was. The status of Father Duncan McLain was less precarious, for nothing in his outward assistance could be construed as magical, but merely coming to the aid of his wounded Deryni cousin was perhaps enough to damn him by association.

But no repercussions were immediately forthcoming. And meanwhile, there was a new king come to the throne of Gwynedd. Though he had attained his legal majority on the day before his crowning, Kelson was well aware that, at fourteen, he would still require guidance as he took up the reins of government.

Fortunately, he would be able to rely heavily on his uncle, the much-loved brother of the late king; and Alaric Morgan was still a member of the king’s privy council, and Duncan McLain still his chaplain. In the days and weeks immediately following, hoping to put aside the turmoil and contention his coronation had raised, the young king kept mainly to his private apartments and the privy council chamber, consulting with his closest advisors and beginning to learn a man’s perspective regarding the kingdom he had not thought to inherit until he possessed many more years. His council sat almost daily to give him detailed briefings concerning the hard realities of the threats facing them in the new year.

The end of November brought the first hard snowfall of the season and put an end to any serious worries about further military threat from Torenth until the spring. With the coronation so recent, and Twelfth Night court so soon to come, the young king and his court kept Christmas quietly that year. More snow throughout December further increased the likelihood that peace would endure for several months more.

But the winter held its own challenges for Alaric Morgan.

“My prince, I regret that I must abandon you so quickly,” he told the king on the morning after Christmas, “but . . .” He lowered his gaze. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are matters in Corwyn that require my attention.”

“Surely someone else can handle them,” Nigel replied before the king could speak.

Morgan grimaced, reluctant to offend the royal duke. “With all due respect, Your Highness, several ‘someone elses’ were handling my Corwyn affairs all last summer and autumn, while I was about your brother’s business in Cardosa. But some things only I can do.”

At Kelson’s look of question, he added, “I must see to my sister’s dowry arrangements, my prince. She has worked tirelessly with my deputies in my absence, helping to oversee my estates and even presiding over the ducal court. But my subjects have the right to expect that their duke should be in residence at least occasionally. I have good men in Corwyn, God knows—and thank God that Bronwyn was able to deputize for me—but sometimes my presence is needed. And there
is
the matter of sending out summons of array to raise the levies you will need in the spring.”

Nigel was slowly nodding, a perplexed expression across his handsome face.

“Yes, of course. And I had forgotten that Bronwyn is soon to be married. Early April, is it not?”

“Aye.”

“Then you must go, by all means.”

“Aye, you must,” Kelson agreed, though he still looked unhappy.

Morgan glanced at Duncan, then back at the king.

“There . . .
is
another reason I should probably absent myself from court for a few months, Sire,” he said. “It may have escaped your notice, but at Christmas court yesterday, your archbishops seemed less than happy with my presence. They will probably continue to overlook your actions at the coronation because you are a Haldane, but mine . . .”

“He’s right,” Duncan murmured. “Thus far, I seem to have escaped censure for my part in the proceedings—I’ve received absolutely no comment from my superiors—but Alaric’s absence would help to ensure that they are not reminded of this oversight.”

“So we shall hope,” Morgan agreed. “I doubt I shall be so lucky.” He glanced at Kelson. “Please give me leave to go, my prince. I
shall
return if there’s need—and definitely in the spring. You know that.”

Kelson nodded, lower jaw set. “I understand what all of you are saying. You have my leave, of course. I must begin standing on my own two feet. This is as good a time as any. And as you have said, nothing of great import is likely to happen before the spring.”

 

MORGAN rode out of Rhemuth early the following morning, accompanied by his aide, and reached his own capital in time to celebrate the turning of the new year. On the first morning of that new year, in a great cathedral farther to the east, another was laying claim to the crown Morgan had lately seen placed upon the head of Kelson of Gwynedd. Word of that event reached the Duke of Corwyn two days later, courtesy of an emissary from one of his eastern allies. A fast courier was dispatched immediately to convey the news to King Kelson. The news of Wencit’s inauguration reached Rhemuth on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany.

“My lord the Duke of Corwyn bade me bring you word, Sire,” the courier declared, dripping snow on the carpet in the king’s withdrawing room beyond the great hall. “It took place at the new year, as is the custom in Torenth. The Patriarch proclaimed him in the Cathedral of Holy Iób, by right of his descent from the last Festillic king of Gwynedd, and set a golden circlet upon his head.”

Prince Nigel, the king’s uncle, nodded wisely. “They followed Gwynedd protocol, then: to crown him, as we do. Torenth makes her own kings by magic, and by girding with a holy sword. The king does wear a crown,” he added, at Kelson’s look of surprise, “but ’tis almost an afterthought. The investiture with the sword is what makes the king.”

“The effect is much the same,” said Ewan Duke of Claibourne. “Wencit has claimed your crown, Sire.”

“But so did Charissa,” Nigel pointed out. “Claiming is not the same thing as possessing.”

“No, he will try
that
in the spring,” Kelson said gloomily.

 

NEWS of the Torenthi king’s presumption was on the lips of everyone at Twelfth Night court the next day, and helped to avert undue speculation regarding the youth and inexperience of Gwynedd’s new king. Since Kelson himself was not yet of an age for knighthood, Duke Nigel performed the honors for several dozen candidates, both those long anticipated and several more moved ahead a few months because of the impending war.

But the king’s hand was on the sword along with the royal duke’s, for he still was king; and since, with Brion Haldane’s death, his brother Nigel now was universally recognized as the most puissant knight in the kingdom, none of the new knights felt at all slighted to have received the accolade from his hand. Under the circumstances, the royal image was not unduly lessened. All agreed that the young king comported himself with dignity and grace.

After Twelfth Night, all of Gwynedd lay locked in bitter winter for the next two months, though at least the weather prevented any serious military movement within the Eleven Kingdoms. Messages aplenty flew back and forth between the king’s council in Rhemuth and all his dukes and earls, calling up the levies that would be needed for the coming season. Other than King Wencit’s belligerence at the new year, no further threats were forthcoming from Torenth, but all held their breath and knew that it was only a matter of time.

CHAPTER ONE

SAINT VENERIC, TRIADS

 

 

 

 

 

MARCH has long been a month of storms in the Eleven Kingdoms. It brings the snow sweeping down from the great northern sea to layer a last coat of winter on the silver mountains, to seethe and swirl around the high plateaus of the east until it finally funnels across the great Gwynedd plain and turns to rain.

March is a fickle month at best. It is the last stand of winter against the coming spring, but it is also harbinger of the greening, of the floods that yearly inundate the central lowlands. It has been known to be mild—though not recently. Still, it is spring—close enough for men to dare hope that winter might end early this year; it has, on occasion.

But those who know the ways of Gwynedd do not build their dreams on the chance of an early spring. For they have learned through hard experience that March is capricious, often cruel, and never, never to be trusted. March in the first regnal year of King Kelson of Gwynedd was to be no exception.

Nightfall had come early in Kelson’s capital at Rhemuth. It often did in March, when the northern storms rolled in across the Purple March from the north and east. This particular storm had struck at midday, pelting the brightly canopied stalls and shops of the market square with hail the size of a man’s thumbnail and sending merchants and vendors scurrying for cover. Within an hour, all hope of salvaging the interrupted market day was gone.

And so, amidst thunder and rain and the pungent lightning-smell that the wind carried, the merchants had reluctantly packed up their sodden wares, closed up their shops, and left. By dusk, the only people to be found on the rain-swept streets were those whose business compelled them to be out on such a night: city watchmen on their rounds, soldiers and messengers on official errands, citizens scurrying through the wind and cold to the warm hearth-sides of their homes.

Now, as darkness fell and the great cathedral bells in the north of the city rang Evensong, sleet and rain whined through the narrow, deserted streets of Rhemuth, slashing at the red-tiled roofs and cupolas and filling the cobble-lined gutters to overflowing. Behind rain-blurred window-panes, the guttering flames of countless evening candles shivered and danced whenever a gust of wind managed to force its way through cracks in wooden doors and shutters. And in houses and taverns, inns and roadhouses, inhabitants of the city huddled around their firesides to take their evening meals, sipped good ale and traded yarns while they waited for the storm to subside.