In the King's Service (41 page)

“Let me help,” she murmured, pulling off her riding gloves as she pushed her way through to the horse’s head and reached for it.

“Stay clear, m’lady, or you’ll get kicked!” one of the men warned, as she skittered back from a flailing hoof. Another was drawing his dagger, obviously intending the
coup de grâce
to still the animal’s plunging.

“Let me touch him,” she said, shouldering past the man’s blade, already focusing her powers as she slipped her hands under the muffling cloak. “I’m Deryni. I can calm him.”

A few of them backed off a little at this reminder of what she was, but the horse subsided immediately under the touch of her hand and mind, still whuffling and snorting but with all four legs now firmly planted, head dropping obediently.

“Easy, boy . . . That’s it. Good boy. . . . Now, brace the saddle and pull it off with him,” she ordered, slipping one hand along the horse’s neck to grasp Kenneth’s nearest wrist, flesh to flesh. “Give it good support, and try not to hurt him too much. Sir Kenneth, look at me!”

He did, concentrating through his pain—and found himself captured by her eyes, caught by a sensation of falling into them, even as the men began lifting him and the saddle clear of the horse. The movement still hurt him—and he cried out as they carefully lowered him to the ground—but she moved with him, still grasping his wrist, wary of the horse as it was led out of the way, snorting.

Two men continued to support the heavy saddle as two more examined the angle of the arrow jutting from Kenneth’s leg. Zoë had crowded in behind Alyce, craning to see her father’s condition. As Alyce scrambled to his head, laying both her hands along the sides of his face and taking him into unconsciousness, one of the men carefully wrapped both hands around the feathered end of the shaft, obviously intending to attempt withdrawing it.

“Don’t try to pull it,” one of the other men warned. “The barb’s gone all the way through.”

“Just break off the fletching,” another man said. “It’s going to be easier on him if the shaft is pulled on through, once it’s free of the saddle.”

“Wait,” said another man, working with one hand squeezed flat between saddle and pinned flesh. “I’ve nearly got it loose . . . there!”

At his nod, men lifted the saddle clear, those closest bending for a closer look at the arrow transfixing Kenneth’s thigh. A knot of observers had gathered to give suggestions for separating man and saddle, and now eased forward warily as Alyce, too, shifted her attention to the damage done. Zoë dropped to her knees at her father’s head, casting anxious glances between him, Alyce, and the wound.

The tip of the arrowhead, a wicked-looking barbed affair made for bringing down large game—or men—was just protruding from the back of Kenneth’s thigh, and would surely do additional damage as it exited, whichever way it was removed. Alyce knew he would also bleed a great deal, though at least the arrow had passed through deep muscle, well away from the great vessel whose severance meant almost instant death.

“I wouldn’t break off the arrow just yet,” she said, moving one hand to stay the man about to do so. “It may be better to cut the arrowhead off cleanly, back at the castle, and then back the arrow out of the wound, with plenty of shaft for a handgrip. He’s going to bleed a great deal.”

“Do as she says,” came the voice of the king, suddenly among the onlookers. “I won’t lose him because we rushed things here in the field. Can he ride?” he asked, crouching down between Alyce and Zoë.

“Not really, Sire. He’d be far safer and more comfortable in a litter or a wagon, if one can be arranged.”

“See to it,” Donal ordered two of his men. “And go gently, Rannulf. He took that arrow for me.”

 
 
THEY were several hours getting Kenneth home, carrying him in a litter until they could commandeer a wagon and bed him down in that. They padded out the wagon bed with hay and wadded cloaks to keep the injured leg supported, and Alyce settled down beside him to keep careful watch over his condition. The king had ridden on ahead with the prisoners, and another party had taken the queen and the rest of her ladies back to the castle by the most direct route, though a junior maid had been left behind for propriety’s sake, riding just ahead of the wagon with Jiri Redfearn. Zoë rode anxiously alongside the wagon, and half a dozen of his knights behind.

After a while, Alyce allowed Kenneth to regain consciousness, blurring as much as she dared of his pain. She could feel the eyes of the king’s men upon her as she sat there—judging, assessing, many of them disapproving—for she had been obliged to use her powers far more openly than was her usual wont; but it was not in her nature to let any living thing suffer, if she was able to do something about it. Sir Kenneth Morgan was the father of her dearest friend, a kind and gentle man, and had always treated her with the utmost courtesy and even affection, though he knew full well what she was.

“I must be dead,” he murmured, after a long interval of jouncing along in comparative silence, accompanied by only the rumble of the wheels, the jingle of harness, and the occasional low-voiced converse of their escort.

She looked at him sharply.

“Are you in pain?”

He gave her a faint, strained smile and a slight shake of his head.

“No worse than before, dear girl. But since I am in the keeping of an angel, I can only suppose that I have passed to the next world.”

She raised an eyebrow and gave him a genteel snort, along with a faint smile of her own.

“I doubt these gentlemen would agree, my lord.” She gave a slight jut of her chin in the direction of the men accompanying them. “Most would judge me anything
but
an angel. But I am glad that your discomfort is not too great.”

He raised his head slightly to glance down at his leg, lightly touching the shaft of the arrow with his fingertips, then lay back with a grimace and a sigh, casting a reassuring glance at his daughter, riding along beside them.

“Is the arrowhead embedded?” he asked, returning his gaze to Alyce. “Will it have to be cut out?”

She shook her head slightly. “I think not, my lord—or, only a little, perhaps. It mostly went through—though I fear that your saddle is ruined. And your horse is in a very ill temper—though he is only slightly injured.”

He chuckled bleakly at that, smiling faintly as he looked back at her. His eyes were the same shade of sandy steel-gray as his hair, though with a hint of sea-blue in their depths. Though his face was weathered and tanned, bespeaking much service in the field, she sensed that the crinkles at the corners of his eyes came mostly of good humor.

“He isn’t a very good horse anyway,” Kenneth confided. “I’d meant to ride another today, but the vile beast cast a shoe and there was no time to have it reset.” He glanced away with a snort. “Not that
that
horse is much better. When the shoe came off, the nails ripped an almighty chunk out of the edge of his hoof. I suspect he’ll be lame for weeks. And I reckon it could be months before a smith will be able to keep a shoe on that foot. But I don’t suppose that I shall be riding again very soon anyway. . . .”

He was talking, she knew, to take his mind from his injury. In fact, Sir Kenneth owned excellent mounts, some of them given him by the king. All the horses had been fractious before they rode out that morning, for the weather had turned very cold in the past few days, and a hard frost had been on the cobbles. She had seen Sir Kenneth’s first horse cast its shoe in the stable yard as they were mounting up to leave, jinking and kicking out at any other animal that got too near—and somehow managing to catch the edge of the shoe with its own hoof, so that it very nearly fell.

Alyce smiled and nodded knowingly. “I was aware of the incident, my lord. The queen was convinced you were both going down. They should spread more straw on the cobbles when it’s frosty.”

“A
sensible
horse wouldn’t act up like that on slick cobbles,” Kenneth retorted. “But he
is
fast—at least when he isn’t trying to kill himself and me.”

He fell silent at that, tensing as he shifted in the hay, trying to find a more comfortable position. Alyce checked his wound, but he did not seem to be bleeding—though he would, when the arrow was drawn. When he grimaced and closed his eyes, obviously concentrating on trying to ease his pain, she considered nudging him back into sleep; but there were too many eyes upon them.

They rattled into the forecourt of Rhemuth Castle just as the shadows were lengthening. The king’s physician and Duke Richard’s battle-surgeon were waiting as they carried Sir Kenneth through the hall and into one of the ground-level guest rooms that opened off the royal gardens. The queen joined them very shortly, and directed Alyce to assist the physicians as they dealt with the wound, she and Zoë holding basins and towels as the surgeon eased the arrow through far enough to cut off the arrowhead and then drew out the shaft.

Though Kenneth uttered not a sound as this was done, and bled less than they had feared, his face went gradually more and more taut and pale, until Richeldis nodded minutely to Alyce to intervene. The patient had been given a draught of strong spirits before they began, and now Alyce gave him more, at the same time brushing his mind with hers as she lifted his head to put the cup to his lips, nudging him gently into sleep.

If the surgeon noticed how quickly the draught worked, he said nothing, only bending to his work of cleaning and bandaging the wound, backing off then to wash his hands as the queen laid a hand on the sleeping man’s forehead.

“The test will be whether a fever develops,” she said, shifting then to help Alyce and Zoë pull the blankets up to cover him. “It appears we should have given him more drink, and sooner. It would have spared him some discomfort. We’ll let him sleep now,” she said to the room at large. “Alyce, I know you and Zoë will wish to sit with him and keep him comfortable. I’ll send someone to relieve you in a few hours.”

The guarded look that passed between her and Alyce made it clear what she meant, having experienced the ease of Deryni powers during childbirth and other times of discomfort—though usually from Jessamy. The church did not approve, of course, but it was a perquisite of royalty to ignore certain of the laws that governed ordinary folk, though discretion was always essential, even for a queen.

Still, the wife of the king and the mother of future kings could be forgiven certain lapses, so long as they did not occur too often or too flagrantly; and none could dispute that Sir Kenneth Morgan was the king’s good servant, and had taken an arrow meant for his sovereign. Alyce saw the hardening of Father Denit’s expression as he watched from the doorway, and guessed that he suspected what had just transpired, but she did not think he would countermand the queen’s order, under the circumstances, though he might well mention his displeasure to the king—or to the archbishop. He gave them a stiff nod in lieu of a bow before turning on his heel to leave the room.

“I’ll send Jessamy to you a little later. Be careful,” the queen whispered to Alyce, briefly hugging her and Zoë around the shoulders before herself departing, along with the physician.

 
 
THE care they had taken in dealing with Sir Kenneth’s injury soon reaped dividends, for he never developed the fever the queen had feared, and his wound healed cleanly. After a few days, he was allowed to sit with his leg propped up before the fire in his room, where he received daily visitors: Sir Jiri, with a favorite cardounet board and playing pieces, and sometimes ladies sent by the queen to sing for him while they strummed at lute and psaltery and crwth.

He also read a great deal, and was read to, sometimes by his daughter, but more often by Alyce. With the latter, it was usually histories borrowed from the king’s library—and sometimes, correspondence sent by the king for his review. But occasionally, she found copies of popular ballads and poetry lying on the cabinet beside his chair. He colored when he saw that she had noticed.

In truth, the convalescent was finding himself most agreeably distracted by the gentle attentions of the queen’s ladies, and entertaining such thoughts as had not crossed his mind since the death of his wife, several years before.

Oh, there had been the occasional flirtation with tavern maids and farmers’ daughters when he was in the field, and gentle dalliance with certain ladies of his sisters’ households when he went home to the ancestral estates of Morganhall to visit his younger daughters, who were being raised by their aunts. But largely, he had thrown himself into his military career, with increasing service to the king himself, growing mostly resigned to the likelihood that he would live out his life as a widower. He was but a simple knight, albeit a trusted servant of the king. What could he offer a woman?—he, whose meager income from the Morgan estates must go to support the children of his youth.

Yet now he was surprised to find himself thinking decidedly domestic thoughts, little though there was any practicality to such thinking. He had not the wherewithal to support a wife and possibly a second family. Even so, the idea began to surface more and more often during those weeks of convalescence, daily in the company of the beautiful and accomplished ladies of the queen’s household, and of one young lady, in particular.

Alyce de Corwyn . . . heiress to one of the richest duchies in all the Eleven Kingdoms. She was so far above him as to be the embodiment of a fantasy he could hardly even conceive, at least in this life. When first they had met at Arc-en-Ciel, he had esteemed her as his daughter’s friend, almost as another daughter of his own. Now, as their association shifted into adult friendship, he decided that he had not been far off the mark when he had compared her to an angel, during that long, pain-filled journey back to the castle after his injury.

Of course, she
was
Deryni. He had no idea what that might mean in practical terms, but he knew that it put her all but outside the pale where the Church was concerned. Being who she was, she had the protection of the Crown for so long as she walked a narrow path of propriety and care, keeping her powers securely leashed and curbed—she could not help what she was. But were she to stray from what the Church regarded as acceptable for those of her race, even the king’s favor might not be enough to save her. Oddly, he had never felt threatened by close proximity to her—or if he had, it was because she was so beautiful, and so beyond his reach.