The Bastard Prince (22 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

Whereas thy servant worketh truly, entreat him not evil, nor the hireling that bestoweth himself wholly for thee.

—Ecclesiasticus 7:20

The flow of power ceased utterly as Dimitri crumpled like an ox felled with a poleax, arms trailing limply down Paulin's chest as he sagged to his knees and was dragged apart by ready hands.

But merely subduing Dimitri did not end Paulin's agony. Though his shrieking choked off in midscream, his body arched in a strangled convulsion, still flailing as it pitched to the floor.

“Stevanus, see to him!” Rhun shouted, as he and Manfred stripped the belt from Dimitri's own waist and began to lash his wrists together.

Stevanus was already scrambling to Paulin's side. The convulsions were weakening, but Paulin's eyes were vacant and staring. His rigid chest kept heaving with the effort to draw breath, but clearly no air was reaching his lungs.

“He's dying! He can't breathe!” Stevanus gasped, rolling Paulin onto his side and prying the rigid jaws apart.

In the corridor, Rhys Michael clung to the door frame and craned his neck to see what was happening. Blood gushed from Paulin's mouth as Stevanus thrust his fingers inside, apparently probing for whatever was obstructing the airway.

“Jesus, he's swallowed his tongue!” the king heard him gasp.

As Stevanus forced his fingers deeper to dislodge the obstruction, the abbey's infirmarian came creeping timidly from under the table where he had taken refuge. Together, the two of them quickly managed to get Paulin breathing again, albeit shallowly, but Paulin had bitten his tongue nearly through as he convulsed. The bloody lump of it lay in the blood-soaked straw beside his head as Stevanus cast his knife aside and shakily shifted a gory hand to the pulse point in his patient's neck. The infirmarian was pressing a wadded edge of his scapular to the stump of Paulin's tongue to staunch the bleeding, keeping the head turned so he would not choke on his own blood.

“Dear God,” Rhys Michael murmured, slumping weakly against the door frame. He had not expected anything of this magnitude.

Meanwhile, Paulin's spine-chilling screams had brought men running from either end of the corridor, wide-eyed monks and soldiers with swords in their hands. Crowding anxiously around the doorway, trying to peer in, most hardly noticed how they jostled the shaken king and his aides, pressing them back into the room. The priest Ascelin was cowering in shock beside the body of Albertus, farther toward the shuttered window, and both Stevanus and his erstwhile assistant looked white-faced and shaken.

“Is he still alive?” Rhun demanded, glancing around from the still unconscious Dimitri as Manfred tightened a belt around their captive's ankles.

“Yes.” Stevanus grimaced as Paulin's pulse fluttered beneath his bloody fingers.

“Jesus, where did all the blood come from?” Rhun said, rising to come closer.

“His tongue.” Stevanus gestured toward the bit of bloody flesh in the straw. “Even if he survives whatever else Dimitri did to him, he'll never speak again.”

“God in heaven,” Rhun murmured. “Then, he may still die?”

“I don't know. Since I have no idea what the Deryni did to him, I can't even tell you which to hope for.”

“Damn the Deryni and their powers!” Rhun said, uneasily glancing back at Dimitri. “I
told
Paulin something like this would happen one of these days, if he insisted on continuing to use Deryni.”

Brother Polidorus, the infirmarian, glanced toward Dimitri and fought down a shudder.

“'Tis black magic,” he muttered. “Woe be unto all of us, if the Deryni has summoned evil spirits under this roof.”

Rhun rolled his eyes heavenward, though he, too, darted another nervous glance back at Dimitri. Manfred had shifted nearer the Deryni's head, his dagger pressed to the upturned throat. He flinched at the monk's words and blanched even paler, his free hand fumbling at the open neck of his tunic until it could close around a substantial gold crucifix.

“Good God, you don't really think—”

“I think,” Rhun said, “that Brother Polidorus ought to see about getting Father Paulin to the infirmary. Stevanus, I need you here with me. Let the priests deal with Paulin and make sure
he
can't do anything when he comes around.” As he prodded Dimitri's bound form roughly with a booted toe, he finally noticed the men crowded into the doorway behind the king and stabbed a forefinger at the soldiers in the front.

“You, you, and the two of you, come and help get Father Paulin to the infirmary. What are the rest of you gawking at? Go back to your quarters, all of you. Everything is under control.”

As the four selected edged warily into the room, giving distance to the dark-clad form Manfred guarded, the others reluctantly began to disperse. Directed by Brother Polidorus, the four briskly lifted the unconscious Paulin onto their shoulders and carried him out. Stevanus was bending over Dimitri.

“Now, Fulk,” Rhun went on, spotting Fulk beside the king and beckoning him nearer. “Inform the abbot what's happened, then fetch me Father Lior, Father Magan—and Gallard de Breffni. Tell Gallard to bring his tools. Go!”

As Fulk threw a salute and ducked out the door, Rhun turned next to Cathan.

“You, help Father Ascelin see about taking Lord Albertus' body to wherever the mortuary chapel is, then find Lord Joshua Delacroix and tell him what's happened. Tell him he's acting Grand Master of the
Custodes
knights until the Order can make an official appointment of Albertus' replacement—or is there someone more senior, Stevanus?”

“No, he's suitable,” the battle surgeon said. He had come away from Dimitri momentarily to wash the gore from his hands, over at the washstand beside the single bed.

“Right, then. Delacroix is acting Grand Master. Acting vicar-general, too, for that matter, unless it has to be a priest. You
Custodes
will have to sort that out. Go, Cathan. Meanwhile, as Albertus' designated second-in-command, I take the office of earl marshal to myself and hereby assume command of this campaign—unless you want it back, Manfred. You were earl marshal before Albertus.”

“And I resigned,” Manfred said. “But I'll serve under you as vice-marshal, if you wish.”

“Thank you. I'll welcome your experience. Now, let's get this Deryni secured before he regains consciousness. We've got a long night ahead of us, but I intend to break him before dawn.”

Neither Rhun nor Manfred seemed to have any particular instructions for Rhys Michael, as they now proceeded to turn the room into an impromptu interrogation chamber. The king had no desire to stay and watch what was going to happen, but since they had commandeered his room, he really had nowhere else to go. Nor did he think he ought to go very far, at least until one of his aides returned. And the question remained of whether Dimitri would reveal anything that might endanger Rhys Michael, even though the Deryni had
claimed
that he was ordered to protect him.

Apparently all but forgotten by the two, as men came and went to do Rhun's bidding, the king soon found himself eddied into a dim corner of the room where the torchlight did not really reach—which at least was a vantage point from which he might watch and not himself be noticed. Now, if he could just avoid doing anything that might shift attention back onto himself …

After a few minutes,
Custodes
monks came to carry Albertus' body away. Soon after they had departed, Fulk returned with Father Lior, the
Custodes
inquisitor-general, who was accompanied by a younger man in priest's garb and a greying, blondish man wearing the black jazerant and red-fringed white sash of a
Custodes
knight.

As Fulk came over to join him, Rhys Michael found himself staring at the knight, squinting against the dimness and trying to recall where he had seen the man before. The context had not been good; he was sure of that. Not that he held any
Custodes
knight in high regard.

“What's happened?” Lior demanded, as his companions came in and set down leather satchels on the table, the knight clearing the maps from it with a sweep of his arm.

At Rhun's direction, Manfred had stripped the bedclothes and thin mattress off the narrow bed and dragged it out from the wall. As he turned it upside down, Rhun said, “It appears the good Dimitri has turned on his masters. Or perhaps he's been serving different masters all along. He killed Albertus, and he's half killed Paulin. I want him broken. I want to know what he did to the king, and I want to know who he's been working for.”

Lior was already crouching beside Dimitri, peering under an eyelid, then feeling at the pulse in the captive's neck. Kneeling on Dimitri's other side, Stevanus had a Deryni pricker in his hands again, nervously twisting the cap as he awaited further instructions.

“How much has he already had?” Lior asked.

“Just a single dose, Father. Rhun managed to tap him behind the ear before it could take effect, but I think he's going to need more when he comes around.”

“Which is going to be soon,” Lior said, wiping his hands on his thighs and glancing around behind him. “Gallard, let's get another of these beds in here. One is too narrow to be effective. Sir Fulk?” He summoned the aide with a beckoning gesture. “Come and help the surgeon strip him.”

With Lior standing back to supervise, the men went about their preparations with an efficiency that spoke of ready acquaintance with what the inquisitor-general intended. Very shortly the abbot showed up with one of his subpriors and a
Custodes
captain-general and briefly drew Rhun aside for an update on the situation. Watching from his shadowed corner, Rhys Michael tried not to think about the tortures they were preparing, glad he could not get a clear look at the instruments and vials the younger priest was taking from one of the leather satchels, laying them out in neat rows on the table.

Fulk and Stevanus had Dimitri stripped by the time the knight named Gallard dragged another wooden bedstead into the room, Manfred helping him upturn it beside the first and lash the inside legs together. Though Dimitri had served an enemy prince, Rhys Michael felt the gorge rise in his throat as he watched them shift the helpless Deryni onto this improvised bed of torture and begin tying him spread-eagled to the bedposts, stretching the flaccid limbs taut.

In that instant, as he watched the knight named Gallard securing one of the bonds, he suddenly remembered where he had seen the man before. He had never learned the man's name, and he had never again seen the man at Court in the six years since, but certain it was that Gallard de Breffni had been the cold-eyed
Custodes
knight at Hubert's side when the great lords turned on him in council and seized control of the castle, the same day that others of their number had treacherously slain an anointed king. It was Gallard who had murdered the loyal Sir Tomais d'Edergoll before his very eyes, Gallard who had dared to lay traitorous hands on Rhys Michael's own person when they marched him up to see Sir Sorle and the Healer Oriel slain, and to take Michaela into custody.

And that had been but an extension of earlier treason, for the man whose name he only tonight had learned also had been his principal keeper while, months before those other murders, he lay abducted by the great lords' agents. They had been
Custodes
, all of them, though Rhys Michael had been induced to think them Ansel's men at the time—that it was Deryni who had turned against him and the great lords who had rescued him. And all the while, the great lords had been working toward that moment when Javan must be slain and Rhys Michael set in his place, but as a puppet king; and in his youthful arrogance and blindness, Rhys Michael had never even suspected until it was much, much too late.

Long-banked anger smouldered into flame. In this one man was embodied much of the treachery and betrayal of a lifetime, finally given name and form. Gallard de Breffni's life was forfeit in that instant, just as Albertus' had been. Rhys Michael Haldane was an anointed king, entitled to dispense justice. He had the right and the means to take de Breffni's life. Dimitri had shown him how. He could feel his newfound power starting to stir within him, tendrils of energy uncoiling down his arms as his hands clenched into fists and the spell began to take shape. Even from here, all he had to do was reach out and—

“Sit down and have a front-row seat, Sire,” Rhun said in a low voice, suddenly beside Rhys Michael.

Taken totally by surprise, Rhys Michael started back violently and went into a crouch, one hand going instinctively to the dagger at his belt, even as he recognized Rhun's voice. He frantically pushed the power back down. In the concentration of his anger, he had not even noticed Rhun's approach.

Weak-kneed with relief, he made himself stay his hand and straighten up, trembling in after-reaction as he cast a shaken glance at Rhun. What had he been thinking? Tempting though it might be to slay de Breffni, to slay Rhun—to slay everyone in this room, for that matter—he knew he dared not.

Not with
merasha
in so many hands. Not on the eve of a confrontation with a Deryni pretender. Not without a man to call his own, save Cathan, who was not even here.

“Good reflexes,” Rhun commented, totally unaware how close he had come to death. “He must have given you a good scare. Here.” He pulled the nearest chair closer and shoved it against the wall. “You're entitled. I suppose you're as anxious as we are, to find out whether he got into your mind. But don't worry; we'll break him. His days of playing both sides have just come to an end.”

He did not wait to see whether the king sat, for Dimitri was starting to come around. A moan escaped the Deryni's lips as Manfred tightened down one of the wrist restraints, trailing off as the dark eyes opened and the bleary gaze slowly found focus. Pain was in that gaze, but also resignation. As Stevanus moved the standing rack of rushlights nearer his head, their sickly glow gave Dimitri's dark visage an oddly jaundiced pallor. The torchlight from the walls cast a paler, flickering light over his naked form and on the faces of the hard-eyed men looking down at him. The abbot, a round little man with beady eyes and not a hair on his head, crossed himself and drew back into the corridor with his two attendants.