The King's Deryni (62 page)

The king duly arrived two days before Christmas, with Nigel and Jiri Redfearn in tow, along with half a dozen of his courtiers from Rhemuth. Jamyl briefly appeared two days after Christmas, but only to report that the queen had declined Brion's invitation to join him for Twelfth Night, and showed no signs of leaving St. Giles's Abbey before the spring. Furthermore, the weather was worsening.

Accordingly, Twelfth Night at Cynfyn was less attended than it might have been, even with the king present, but Zoë and her mother-in-law managed to put together a respectable feast to entertain Lendour's young earl and his royal guest.

After supper, with the king looking on, Earl Alaric witnessed the induction of two squires into service of his house. For the knighting that followed, of a sober young man called Ualtar Bryndisi, he directed that the candidate's spurs be buckled on by his Chandos cousins, Kailan and Charlan: excellent court service for the young pages.

Sir Jovett would have done the dubbing honors in the normal course of affairs, since Lendour's earl was not yet a knight—or the king, since he was present. But Brion deferred to his young host, and asked Alaric also to lay his hand upon the sword that created Ualtar a knight.

“Now swear your fealty to your earl, Sir Ualtar,” the king told the newly dubbed knight. “It is his privilege and your honor.”

Alaric's hands shook as he took Sir Ualtar's hands between his own and exchanged the traditional vows, but the experience was exhilarating, and only a foretaste, he knew, of what would gradually come to him as he took on increasing duties for the king.

But the king seemed not to take as much pleasure in the event, though he put on a brave face. After Twelfth Night, while the denizens of Cynfyn hunkered down in the face of a harsh winter storm, Brion Haldane brooded before the fire in Cynfyn's hall and made his plans.

The king and his party left Cynfyn late in January, as soon as weather permitted, to head north toward Shannis Meer and St. Giles's Abbey. Alaric did not go with him, much though he would have wished to spare the king the coming confrontation with Queen Jehana. Instead he traveled west with Llion, Xander of Torrylin, and Yves de Tremelan, for their presence had been requested in Culdi for the knighting of Duke Jared's eldest son, Kevin McLain.

It was an event well worthy of celebration, but more important to Alaric was Duncan's coming of age, when he also became a squire to his father, as Kevin had done. Alaric duly celebrated both events, but his late-night discussions up on the castle leads were with Duncan, regarding his strengthening call to priesthood, which only Alaric and Duncan's confessor yet knew about.

“You're still thinking to do it?” Alaric asked.

Duncan shrugged, a resigned look on his face. “Father Geordan has my studies tilted in that direction. Mother doesn't know. And Father . . .” He shuddered. “At least he doesn't know how much more dangerous it will be for me, being what I am.” By tacit agreement, both of them tried to avoid using Deryni terminology whenever possible.

“Unfortunately, Mother
does
know that,” Duncan went on, “though she's never said a word to him. But she also knows that many young men begin seminary and never finish, after discovering that they're actually called in other directions. I suspect she'll hope that's the case with me. What about you? What will happen to you, now that the queen has effectively banished you from Rhemuth?”

Alaric gave a heavy sigh. “The king came to me at Cynfyn for Twelfth Night, since it's closer to where the queen is holed up. When I left to come here, he was heading north to fetch her home.” He shivered. “I don't envy him
that
trip.”

“Nor I,” Duncan whispered, then looked up at Alaric with more enthusiasm. “But, I have a bit of court gossip for you. Prince Nigel is to be married, in early June.”

“Married? To whom?”

“A lady called Meraude de Traherne. She's sister to one of the king's squires, called Saer de Traherne. He's heir to the Earl of Rhendall. Apparently Duke Richard announced the betrothal at the Twelfth Night court he held in the king's absence. They say Nigel is quite smitten.”

Alaric thought he knew who Duncan was talking about. “Well, I wish him all happiness.” He quirked an ironic smile. “Now that the king is married, I suppose
everyone
will be getting married.”

“Not you and me,” Duncan replied, grinning. “Not me, anyway. Not if I'm going to be a priest.”

“Not me, either, especially now that this has happened,” Alaric said. “Do you know that Princess Silke actually suggested that she and I should marry?”

“No! Was she serious?”

Alaric shrugged. “Well, she doesn't want to be married off like her sister. Apparently the old queen has already picked out some Connaiti prince for her. But I did point out that no one would accept a marriage between the king's sister and a Deryni.” He gazed off into the distance. “I understand that she went into retreat with the queen, in that convent up in the north.”

“You don't think she'd take the veil, do you?”

Alaric shrugged again. “I don't know.” He sighed. “I don't feel like I know much of anything, right now. Who would have thought I'd be effectively exiled from court?”

“So, you'll go back to Cynfyn?”

“What else can I do?”

He and his knights headed back to Cynfyn the following week, passing through Morganhall to check on affairs there and for Llion to pick up Alazais and their daughter, since it appeared that he would be needed in Cynfyn for the foreseeable future. They did not stop at Rhemuth, though Alazais had heard that the queen was back in residence, and that domestic matters were settling down.

A letter was waiting from the king at Cynfyn, delivered in his absence, informing him that he and the queen were on their way back to Rhemuth. Nothing was said of the queen's state of mind, or the king's heart. Alaric was not invited to return to Rhemuth, and did not send an immediate reply.

It was early summer before more joyous news at last arrived from Rhemuth, that the queen finally was with child.

“He's obviously won her back,” Alaric said to Llion, as the two of them shared far too much ale later that night.

“So it appears,” Llion agreed, topping up his cup. “I wonder what the price will have been.”

“You think she laid down conditions?”

“I should think that both of them will have done.”

Alaric pondered that statement for a long moment, then drained his cup and held it out for a refill.

“Let us hope that she carries a son.”

“Indeed,” Llion replied. “I should hate to think that we might have to go through this for every child, until he gets it right.” He lifted his cup in salute. “To a prince!”

“To a prince!” Alaric replied.

•   •   •

T
HEY
heard nothing directly from the king through the summer, though occasional gossip did reach Cynfyn. Prince Nigel had, indeed, married the Lady Meraude de Traherne early in June, up in Rhendall, but though the king attended the marriage of this, his only surviving brother, Jehana declined, lest the journey endanger her pregnancy. And Princess Silke had not been seen at court since the queen's return, and was believed to be considering a religious vocation at a convent of hospitallers.

Alaric snorted as he read the letter, originally sent to Llion and shared by him. “Silke, to enter religion! She told me she didn't want to marry where her mother chose, at that Twelfth Night I told you about. But I didn't think she'd do this.”

“It doesn't appear that anything has been decided yet,” Llion replied, “though it would serve them all right. Poor Silke never had a chance at marrying someone she actually fancied.”

“Maybe she was serious, that
we
should marry,” Alaric said. “Not that it could ever happen, even if we were both so inclined. I told her that—and that was before the queen ran away. Somehow, I think that a Deryni brother-in-law would be absolutely the last straw.”

Llion allowed himself a tiny smile. “You're probably right.” He lifted his cup again. “Here's to Princess Silke, God bless her. May she find refuge from her blood, and satisfaction in whatever life she chooses.”

Alaric touched his cup to Llion's. “To Silke.”

•   •   •

I
T
was not long after that when Alaric decided to move his growing household to Coroth for Twelfth Night court.

“I haven't been there in a while. And it's fairly obvious that the king will not call me back to Rhemuth for
this
year's Twelfth Night court. He has other things on his mind besides an exiled Deryni.”

While they made arrangements for the move to Coroth, Llion sent ahead to Corwyn's regents, informing them of their duke's plans, and likewise sent a courier to Rhemuth.

“It's a courtesy, Alaric. You're one of his dukes. He needs to have at least a general idea where you are.”

Alaric thought it unlikely that the king would be thinking about him at a time like this, when his heir was due to be born in only a matter of months, but he allowed the message to be sent. He had been in Coroth for several weeks when a breathless messenger came galloping up to the castle gates from the harbor below, where a fast galley flying the royal standard could be seen tying up to the quay.

“Your Grace, it's the king!” the messenger gasped, almost collapsing as he blurted out the news.

“You mean, a message from the king?”

“No, it's the king himself! He's here!”

It was, indeed, the king, who strode into the hall hardly an hour later looking inordinately pleased with himself as Alaric and his regents came to greet him.

“I had to get away, if only for a few days,” Brion said, looking like an errant schoolboy. “The first few months were wonderful, when we first knew she was with child, but pregnancy has not been easy, for either of us.”

“Well, you're here now,” Alaric said happily. “What would you like to do?”

“Something I should have done months ago,” the king replied.

What the king had in mind was audacious, but it was the main reason he had abandoned his pregnant wife and risked the quick journey to Coroth so close to her term. That evening, before sitting down to meat in the great hall, the king summoned Alaric's regents into his council chamber and announced that he had decided to go ahead and declare Alaric of age in Corwyn.

“The queen, quite frankly, abhors Deryni, and has made it clear that she will not tolerate your duke at court on any kind of long-term basis,” he said. “But without his assistance last year, to release the magic set in place by my father, I probably would not be speaking to you this evening, because I most likely would be dead.”

A whisper of reaction rippled among the assembled regents, subsiding as the king went on.

“I tell you this because you, in Corwyn, have long been accustomed to having a Deryni as your duke, and lesser Deryni among you.” He nodded to the young Jernian Kushannan, whose paternal grandmother was said to have been Deryni. “You understand the benefits that can come of benevolent rule. You have watched Alaric grow from boy to young man, because his father and mine made certain that, periodically, he would live and train among you. I gather that you have been reassured by what you have seen.” He glanced at Alaric. “Please stand.”

Alaric slowly rose in his place at the king's right hand. At the king's behest, he had put aside his Haldane squire's livery and wore a faded black heraldic mantle with the green gryphon of Corwyn emblazoned on the left shoulder, which mostly covered a stark black court robe. The mantle, retrieved from storage and only a little moth worn, had once belonged to his great-great-grandfather, Stíofan Anthony de Corwyn, the sixth duke, along with the Corwyn dagger hanging at his hip. On his breast he wore his father's Lendour signet on its chain, though the St. Camber medal was inside his tunic.

“Alaric Anthony Morgan,” the king said, “you are the son and heir of a loyal knight and a noble lady whose families have ever been unshakable in their defense of the Crown of Gwynedd.” He held out his right hand to Alaric, who took it. “Now be my duke in Corwyn, following in their illustrious example of service and devotion, to rule and speak for me in Corwyn. I declare you of age in Corwyn.”

A little overwhelmed, Alaric dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the king's hand, then lifted his gaze to the king's. As the men of the council pounded on the table in approval, to cries of “Hear, hear!” and “Huzzah!” the king raised him up to a hearty embrace.

“Do you think you need to swear me oaths again, after all that has passed?” he asked, grinning.

All but overwhelmed, Alaric glanced at his council in question. “I have sworn many oaths, but I should like to swear this one, if I may.”

“Give the oath!” said Lord Hamilton, his seneschal, obviously pleased. “It is for us as well as you, lad.”

Sobering, Alaric sank back to his knees and lifted his joined hands to the king, drawing breath as the royal hands enclosed his.

“I, Alaric Anthony Morgan, do enter your homage and become your man for Corwyn and for Lendour. Faith and truth will I bear unto you and your lawful successors in all things, so help me God.”

“And I receive your homage most gladly, Alaric Anthony Morgan, recognizing you as Duke of Corwyn and Earl of Lendour, and I pledge you my loyalty and protection so long as you keep faith with me and my house.”

Again, the pounding of hands flat on the table as Alaric's regents affirmed the oath, interspersed with several verbal murmurs of approval as the king then extended a hand toward Jamyl Arilan, who passed him a gold signet ring.

“This is a new seal I've had made especially,” the king said, slipping it onto Alaric's left forefinger. “Since I wished to honor your father as well as you, I've had the double tressure from Kenneth's arms added to those of Corwyn, encircling the Corwyn gryphon.” He smiled as Alaric glanced at the ring in pleased surprise. “Wear this as a seal of fidelity to the many oaths you have sworn in the past, and as a symbol of your authority.”