The Bastard Prince (52 page)

Protocol demanded the attendance of the entire household at Mass that morning, out of respect for the archbishop. En route to the Chapel Royal, Rhysel contrived to press the king's ring into Michaela's hand, biting her lip at the glad surge of happiness that swelled the queen's breast as she slipped it on her hand with the seal turned inward and clasped her hands prayerfully around it.

The Mass itself provided focus for Rhysel to set about the next of the tasks Joram had set her the night before. Kneeling beside the queen, who soon lost herself in renewed prayers for her husband's safe return, his ring clasped between her hands, Rhysel offered up her own prayer for the repose of the king's soul, then used the remainder of the service to gently insinuate new controls in Michaela's mind, set to damp her grief when the inevitable word came that her beloved Rhysem was dead—for nothing must interfere with the child she carried, now become Heir Presumptive of Gwynedd, even before his birth.

Afterward, when the queen returned to her solar for the morning's unvarying session of needlework with her ladies, all unaware what her Deryni confidante had done, Rhysel betook herself to the castle gardens, far toward the end by the great hall. There she set herself to cutting flowers for the queen's bower, taking her time, laying them one by one in a flat basket, being careful to move slowly and openly among the garden's wide paths. She had carried her basket into a rose arbor and was admiring a perfect bloom of blood-crimson when Robert joined her, slipping his arms around her waist from behind and leaning down to nuzzle the side of her neck.

She stiffened and averted her face, ready to muffle his reaction if he could not, as she whispered, “Please, you mustn't. I have ill news. The king is dead.”

She felt him go rigid as well and sensed the dull grief welling from deep inside him even as he held her more tightly, burying his face against her neck for comfort now rather than passion.

“His hand?” he asked.

“His physicians,” she replied, turning in the circle of his arms to face him. “Or rather, I should say his
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physicians. They bled him, Robert. Four times in less than a day and a night, and far too much. Even once or twice would have been perilous, as weak as he had become. One of our people got to him before the end—a Healer, even—but it was too late. He died yesterday afternoon.”

Robert swallowed hard and held her to him. She could feel his heart beating next to hers, but she steeled her own will and made herself extend light controls as she slid her arms around his waist.

“You must go back as quickly as you can,” she whispered. “The little king is safe enough for now, but Lord Cathan must be protected. He will be one of the queen's few sources of comfort when she learns of the king's death—but only if he can stay alive to do it. He knows this, but his grief could make him rash. It also may not have occurred to him how important his help will be in aiding the Kheldour lords to assert their rights as regents. You must go to him and be his voice of reason, if you can. I'll set a message for him. You will not know what you carry until he Reads it from you. Are you bold enough to invite his touch?”

“To use his powers on me?” Robert asked. “He did before, and you have done. If I was going to be afraid of
that
, it's a little late, isn't it?”

She drew back and smiled sadly, setting her fingertips lightly on his cheeks. “My bold, brave knight,” she whispered. “How I wish we had met in less dangerous times. I like it not, to impose my will on one I would liefer have offer his aid.”

“Dear lady, I gladly offer all I have and am,” he breathed, “whether you are Deryni or no, whether or not you must impose your will to help me do what will help our new young king. Do you think I would scorn such assistance, knowing it will make me stronger in his service? I am not so proud as to think I cannot be the more effective tool, simply because the aid you give me is beyond my ability to do alone. If it is humanly possible, I will bring Lord Cathan back safely to the queen. Tell her she may depend upon it.” He frowned. “She doesn't know yet, does she?”

Rhysel shook her head. “No, and she must not, until official word comes, lest I be discovered. It will also give me time to prepare her. I've begun that already. Nothing must be allowed to endanger the child she carries.”

“Aye, God forbid,” he murmured, bending to gently kiss her forehead.

She used the contact to implant the message for Cathan, sent and set in the blink of an eye, even as Robert pulled back to look at her in question.

“You must get to him somehow and give him opportunity to Read you,” she murmured. “I hope he will know to attempt it when he sees you have returned. There will be at least one other among that company who can help you; he will make himself known to you. Once Cathan has my instructions, simply do as he and the other bid you and try to bring both of you back safely. Both the queen and I shall be waiting.”

She kissed him then, this time with no subterfuge or mental augmentation, simply letting herself melt into his arms, feeling the sweet pleasure flooding through her body and his. It was he who pulled back at last, trembling with passion yet unleashed, to draw apart and only hold her hands, looking searchingly into the golden eyes and drawing shaky breath.

“When I come back, Rhysel Thuryn, I intend to ask for your hand in marriage,” he whispered. “Don't answer now; just think on it until I return. I don't care what you are; perhaps I love you more because of it. I do know that I love you, as God is my witness. May He keep you safe.”

With that, he was bending to kiss both her hands, then catching up the perfect red rose she had laid in her basket just when he arrived. He took it with him as he receded down the path, not looking back, and Rhysel sank to her knees to weep over her basket of roses, unable to watch him go, wondering whether all their efforts would come to naught. The codicil was even now in force, but could the Kheldour lords execute it?

The codicil to the king's will was about to become of great interest to others in Rhemuth, though they would not learn for some days that it was already in force. As Sir Robert Ainslie galloped northward out of the city, a sedate ecclesiastical procession under
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escort was winding its way back up to the castle after a noon Requiem Mass for the departed Archbishop Oriss, whose body now would lie beneath the cathedral transept until his state funeral, two days hence. Archbishop Hubert had presided alongside Rhemuth's Auxiliary Bishop, Alfred of Woodbourne, and now gave blessings from the scarlet-upholstered sedan chair that had become his habitual mode of transport in the last few years, as his bulk increased beyond the ability of any single horse to carry him securely.

Six burly gentlemen bore him this afternoon, all but engulfed by the vast black cope that swept from beneath a jeweled golden mitre. His crozier was in his left hand, set in a socket along the side of the sedan chair. A crucifer and two priests swinging thuribles walked before him, and Lord Tammaron and Richard Murdoch rode to either side, both soberly clad in mourning like the rest. The two pressed on ahead as the litter negotiated the last ascent through the castle gate, and as Hubert alighted from the chair before the steps of the castle's great hall, he was surprised to see Tammaron already reading a missive just handed over by a weary-looking courier in Rhun's livery.

“I think we'd better go inside to discuss this,” Tammaron said, giving Hubert an odd, strained look as he folded the letter and slipped it into his gown. “It's from Rhun. It appears the king may have taken the bit in his teeth in a totally different manner than we feared. Oh, and Paulin has died.”

When they were closeted in Tammaron's private study and Hubert had read the letter for the third time, he tossed it onto the table and shook his head, anger lighting the china-blue eyes. He had shed his mitre and cope and loomed in the sober purple of his episcopal robes.

“It has to be a bluff,” he said. “There's no way he could have executed a codicil to his will. And even if he did, it wouldn't stand up in court. Not one of
our
courts.”

“You've read Rhun's letter,” Tammaron said blandly. “He saw the draft copy. If it isn't a bluff—if enough originals were executed and witnessed by enough people—even one of our courts would at least have to give the matter consideration. And there's no doubt that the Kheldour lords would certainly push it as hard as they could. I've always said it was a mistake to eliminate Duke Ewan from the last regency, and now it's come back to haunt us. Sorry, Richard, but your father was occasionally overzealous.”

Richard picked up the letter and scanned it again, ignoring the reference to his father.

“We can force him to write a new will when he gets back,” he said. “We'd already begun drafting the provisions to replace Albertus and Paulin in the list of future regents. We'll simply make certain the wording is ironclad, superseding anything else he's ever signed.”

Tammaron waved a hand dismissively. “That's understood. It still won't stop Claibourne and Marley from producing their documents and trying to assert their rights.”

As he sighed, Hubert was pulling a fresh piece of parchment toward him and taking pen in hand.

“I'm sending for Father Secorim,” he said, over the scratching of the pen on parchment. “Oriss' death leaves another gap on the Council that I want to fill as quickly as possible, certainly before the king returns. I trust neither of you will object if I name Secorim as archbishop-designate? He'll have to be ratified by the bishops, of course, but they'll do as I command. That will put another man I can trust back on the Council right away.”

Tammaron cocked his head quizzically. “Didn't you have him in mind for Paulin's replacement?”

“Yes, but if he were only vicar-general of the
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, he could be ousted; the Archbishop of Rhemuth can't. I'll find another vicar-general: Lior, perhaps, or maybe Hallex, out at
Arx Fidei
. Meanwhile, this will give us another strong voice on the Council, to put pressure on the king when he returns. Richard, give this to a courier, please.”

As Richard disappeared with the summons, Tammaron gave Hubert an uneasy glance.

“He's pulled a very shrewd move, has our clever young king,” he murmured. “Even the threat of such a document's existence ensures that we'll do our utmost to keep him alive. It cancels out all our old threats until Owain comes of age.”

Hubert picked up the offending letter once again and hefted it in his hand, the rosebud lips pursed in sour indignation.

“It's a clever enough challenge, I'll grant you. But I think he'll find it isn't clever enough by half. He thinks he's found the ideal threat, but it's worthless, so long as he's alive. And while he's alive, he
can
be manipulated. There are worse threats than death, for a king.”

But the king had already passed beyond the threat of death. The military cavalcade that had borne him ailing to Saint Ostrythe's Convent two days before left it that morning as a funeral cortege, silent save for the creak of leather and the jingle of harness and the quiet whuffling of fresh steeds eager for the day's journey.
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monks mounted on black horses led the procession, one bearing a processional cross and the other the king's banner, the latter drabbed by black streamers drooping from its staff.

The king's body, now coffined in oak and covered with a rich funeral pall, traveled in a litter borne by two black horses and escorted by a score of black-clad
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knights. Atop the black damask and velvet of the pall had been fastened the king's sword and the golden circlet he had worn upon his helmet. The king's earl marshal and vice-marshal rode to either side of the coffin as a particular guard of honor, both in borrowed black
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mantles despite the rising heat of the day.

Sir Cathan Drummond, the dead king's brother-in-law, rode farther back in the cortege, hollow-eyed and looking very pale. There was reason for that besides his grief, for he had clawed his way from drugged sleep that morning to find that he had been bled during the night—probably not enough to endanger health, for they preferred to keep him alive for Mika's sake, but certainly enough to weaken him appreciably. The other bed in the tiny room had been slept in—by Fulk, he supposed—and a dried smear of blood on the sheet suggested that he, too, had been bled.

The threat did not need further elucidation. Clearly, even the possibility of resistance was not to be allowed. Even as Cathan had considered this grim development, fingering the bandage on his bare arm and trying to shake off a beastly headache, Stevanus had come into the little room with a monk Cathan did not recognize, who silently examined the arm and then remained until the patient had drank down every drop of the cup he had brought. It looked and smelled like ordinary morning ale, perhaps a bit better than most, but there was an undertaste to it that Cathan did not dare to question. Once the monk had left, he rounded on Stevanus in near panic.

“What was that?” he demanded. “What does this mean?” He indicated his bandaged arm. “And where is Fulk?”

“You'd better dress while we talk,” Stevanus said quietly, drawing the pile of Cathan's discarded clothes to him and sitting on the edge of the bed.

Wearily he related how Fulk had already been removed from the temptation to speak of what he had witnessed in the king's death chamber—rousted from bed at daybreak and posted off to Cassan without so much as a by-your-leave, in custody of two
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officers and half a dozen Culdi archers, to enter house arrest at his brother's court until it was certain he could hold his tongue.

“As for you,” he went on, “that was your new physician, Brother Embert. The ale he gave you was laced with rather a stronger dose of what the regents used to give Alroy to keep him tractable. I'm afraid you can expect the same every morning. Embert's also the one who bled you, on Manfred's orders. I don't think they'll do it again soon—they've made their point abundantly clear—but you'd better be very, very careful. Rhun didn't try to stop it. I hardly need remind you that he's wanted to see you dead for a very long time. The only thing saving you for now is that he and Manfred both know they'll have to answer to Archbishop Hubert if you die and then the queen loses the new baby. If Hubert had been along on this expedition, things might have gone very differently. He's a very pragmatic individual.”