The Bastard Prince (65 page)

“God damn, where did he go?” Ansel gasped, looking around wildly as his men fanned into the transept to begin searching in side chapels and behind pillars and piers, and Cathan stared mutely at the deserted transept.

From back up the nave, Robert came bounding breathlessly to a halt beside Cathan, also casting a glance around.

“He killed Manfred and wounded Lior, and Tammaron's got the queen.”

“And Rhun's got the king,” Cathan murmured. “But
where
?”

“Not here, m'lord,” one of Ansel's men called, as Ansel himself poked under altar cloths with his sword, more and more frantic, and others also called out, “Nothing here.”

But Cathan's attention had been suddenly diverted to a burly man investigating a little door standing ajar in the main support pier, at the northwest corner of the crossing. He was already trotting toward it with Robert, tugging at his sword belt, his eyes searching the arched colonnade of the triforium level high above, whose narrow access walk looked to run all around the transept and back along the length of the nave.

“Up there?” Robert asked, following his gaze, accepting the sheathed sword that Cathan thrust into his hands and surrendering his dagger—for Cathan had none of his own. The man investigating the doorway backed out at Cathan's approach, for his bulk had already prevented him from going any farther.

“He's mine,” Cathan murmured, peering upward, hefting the dagger as he pressed past the fellow and set his foot on the first of the narrow treads.

The little spiral stair was very steep and very narrow, only dimly lit by occasional slits that looked down into the cathedral, invisible amid the carving that adorned the vast supporting pier. From somewhere above him, Cathan could hear the scrabble of booted feet and an occasional whimper, magnified by the sounding column of the tunnel of stone he climbed.

He was breathing hard by the time he reached the level of the triforium walk and cautiously poked his head out of the little stair to look left and right. There was no one in the long stretch of narrow colonnade that extended west along the nave, but just where the transept walk turned to cross the north transept end, he caught just a glimpse of moving black shadow. He launched himself in that direction, scrabbling half-sideways in the narrow passage, his dagger held along his thigh, straining for some further glimpse of Rhun and Owain.

He reached the northwest corner; they were waiting for him in the northeast corner, Owain sitting in one of the arched openings of the colonnade with his legs dangling over the edge, his back against Rhun's chest, Rhun's blade at his throat. He had lost his cap and coronet in the scuffle. He looked more affronted than afraid, but Cathan's heart sank at the thought of the forty- or fifty-foot drop below him, onto the unyielding marble mosaic of the floor below.

“You're very troublesome, Drummond,” Rhun said, as Cathan began cautiously moving across the north end of the transept. “I should have killed you years ago, when I had the chance.”

“Aye, you should've done,” Cathan replied, trying to catch his breath, hoping he could keep Rhun talking while he figured out what he was going to do.

Something was not right about this scene, not right about how Rhun had acted down in the crypt. Manfred and Rhun had been close friends, despite their difference over whether to kill Rhysem. Part of that difference undoubtedly had been caused by Rhysem himself, as a result of the compulsions he finally had dared to set—subtle compulsions, that would not require Rhun to act too far out of character, lest someone suspect Deryni interference.

Until today. What happened in the crypt had been totally out of character. And it was not the first time, though it was the most blatant. The old Rhun would have had no qualms about having Rhysem bled to death, if it would further his power as a regent—but Rhun had tried to prevent it.

And then Cathan began to make the connection. It had to stem from that night when Rhysem had told Rhun of the codicil, to keep from being bled; and afterward, seizing the opportunity to take control of Rhun at last, he had spent quite a long time working deep in Rhun's mind. He had never revealed to Cathan precisely what he had done; but nothing he had ordered could possibly have permitted killing Owain.

“Rhun, you can't kill the boy,” Cathan whispered, now certain he was on the right track. “You can't kill him. The king forbade you to let
him
come to harm, and you know he meant that for his son as well.”

Rhun's eyes darted to the boy's black hair, just under his chin, at the little legs dangling over the parapet, at the blade along the boy's throat.

“Pull him in and let him go, Rhun,” Cathan whispered “What was it the king ordered you to do? Did he tell you to kill the other regents when you got the chance?”

Rhun looked at him sharply, bewilderment suddenly in his eyes.

“I—killed Manfred. I didn't want to, but—I had to.”

“But, didn't he deserve to die? He kept you from saving the king, when the
Custodes
decided to bleed him to death.”

“I—I tried to stop them,” Rhun whispered.

“I know. I was there. I couldn't stop them either.”

Rhun swallowed, nervously turning the dagger against Owain's throat. Somehow the boy knew to keep very still and very quiet. Cathan wondered how much he understood of what he was hearing. Far below, a crowd was gathering, upturned faces white and anxious—Ansel, Robert, Lord Ainslie, Sighere, and Graham—all of them very quiet, bunching together beneath where Owain dangled, to try to break his fall if Rhun let go.

“You can stop
this
, Rhun, even though we couldn't stop the other,” Cathan went on softly. “The boy doesn't have to die. If you let him live, God will not forget.”

“I'll be already damned,” Rhun whispered, turning his face away, knuckles whitening on the hilt of the dagger. And suddenly Cathan guessed what Rhysem's last instruction had been to Rhun.

“Rhun, did the king order you to kill yourself, after you'd killed as many of the other regents as you could?”

Rhun hugged the boy closer, burying his face in the black hair, the knife hand going farther around his neck, the blade no longer touching flesh.

“My own boy is ten,” Rhun whispered. “I would have liked to see him grown up.”

So would Rhysem
, Cathan thought to himself, though he only said, “It's difficult for a boy without a father. I—hope to be a father to Owain. If you'll let me.”

Slowly Rhun lifted his head to look at Cathan, a flash of the old cunning rekindling in his gaze.

“I might just give you that chance,” he said softly. “There would be a price, of course.”

“Name it.”

Rhun compressed his lips, considering, then pulled the boy back in from the parapet and set him on the floor in front of him, though the dagger remained near his throat, his other hand firmly on the boy's shoulder.

“You claim to serve the king's justice, do you not?”

Cathan nodded, wondering whether he dared try to grab Owain and yank him to safety before Rhun could cut his throat.

“And the king's justice demands my death, doesn't it, even though I've saved you having to execute Manfred and Lior?”

Again Cathan nodded.

“Well, I won't kneel down at the block or put my neck through a noose. I won't be taken, but I
will
try to take you with me. That's my price, if I let the boy go.”

Cathan drew a deep breath, knowing he must accept but wondering whether he had any chance at all. Tieg's drag and spell were still working strongly in him, and he was half Rhun's age—which should make him quicker—but Rhun's extra years were years of experience, and Rhun outweighed him considerably, none of it flab.

“Let him go,” he said evenly.

Smiling the old Rhun smile, the earl pulled Owain around behind him and gave him a shove.

“Get back out of the way, son,” he said. “Uncle Cathan and Uncle Rhun are going to fight.”

Cathan knew he was outclassed as soon as they closed. After Rhun blooded him the second time, he knew he was going to lose. He fought gamely on, though, because he had no choice; because there was always a chance that Rhun might make a mistake. But he never did.

Ducking to avoid a particularly vicious thrust, Cathan recoiled so hard that part of the stone colonnade gave way, opening a gap nearly as long as a man and sending debris raining over the edge to shatter on the marble below, scattering the onlookers. Cathan nearly followed it, but Rhun caught his sleeve and yanked him around to face another vicious upthrust, only just parried.

An immediate counterattack drew his blood again, more seriously than the previous two times. He tripped and went down, sprawled on his back and precariously near the edge—and Rhun was suddenly on top of him, driving his dagger toward Cathan's throat as Cathan tried desperately to block it, to slow it, his own knife hand pinned by Rhun's.

Except that suddenly Rhun's hand was releasing his knife hand, shifting to grab a handful of his hair and jerk his head back to expose his throat. Most incredibly, it left Cathan's knife free to thrust upward unimpeded, directly under the arm, full to the hilt.

Somehow Rhun did not even seem surprised. He made no sound save a faint, bubbling gasp. His whole body tensed, as if trying to arch away from the blade, but a faint smile curved at his lips as the blade poised at Cathan's throat fell from nerveless fingers, and his other hand relaxed its grip on Cathan's hair, the light dying in his eyes as his full weight collapsed across Cathan's chest.

For a few heart-pounding seconds Cathan merely lay there, hardly daring to breathe, astonished both at what Rhun had done and that he himself was still alive. When, at length, he summoned the strength to try to shift free from under Rhun's weight, he had to push the body toward the edge, for the wall was close along his right side. The shift of weight pulled the body over—one leg was already over the edge—to fall like a sack of feed to the floor far below.

As Cathan rolled breathlessly onto his side to look down at the men crowding around the body, Owain came running to him with a squeal of relief, to fling his arms around his neck and bury his little face against Cathan's chest without regard to Rhun's blood.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-SIX

And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you.

—Deuteronomy 19:20

With only Hubert left alive of the original regents who had set out to make puppets of Gwynedd's kings more than a decade before, the two regents appointed at such cost by the late king immediately set about consolidating a new regency that would provide responsible guidance for the king's young heir as he grew into manhood. They chose to ignore any element of magic that might have contributed to Tammaron's sudden death—or if they did not precisely ignore it, they imputed such intervention to the priest calling himself Donatus, who melted away into the confusion even as Bishop Ailin exhorted thanksgiving for God's mercy—and simultaneously secured his own place in Gwynedd's future. Obedient to the late king's instruction, Graham of Claibourne and Sighere of Marley summoned Sir Cathan Drummond back to the crypt and took his oath as regent on the very tomb of his late brother-in-law. His sister looked on in joy and relief, and his young nephew held the Papa knight in witness—though he left it on the tomb when they headed back to the castle, for he still thought it proper that his father should have a king on his tomb like his grandfather and his uncles.

Archbishop Hubert MacInnis was taken into custody and eventually tried before the same council of bishops that soon suspended him from office and eventually confirmed Ailin MacGregor as his successor. As Archbishop and Primate, Ailin gained an immediate seat on the new Regency Council, to the great satisfaction of his fellow regents. One of his first acts as archbishop was to quietly bring back Bishop Dermot O'Beirne as his auxiliary in Valoret—for it was Dermot who had kept the lines of communication open during those years of planning for the crown's liberation from the great lords. Ailin dared not restore the Deryni Niallan, but those Deryni aware of Ailin's courage in even bringing back Dermot slept a little easier in their beds in the years that followed.

The outcome of Hubert's trial was rather less satisfying. Though most of his fellow bishops quickly became convinced of his treason, as the evidence mounted, they were loath to sully the titles and office he had borne by turning him over to secular authorities for certain execution—though several felt execution far too lenient. In the end, he was banished to close confinement in a distant religious house whose name and location were never made public, there to submit himself to a regimen of fasting and penance from which there was no earthly appeal, allowed no human contact save with a confessor and certain spiritual directors. He died in his bed within the year—peacefully, it was said, nearly half his former weight and bulk—never having repented any of his deeds.

Of the
Custodes Fidei
implicated by Cathan in the king's murder, only two came to trial. After a hearing before the bishops, Brother Polidorus and Father Magan were handed over to a secular court, tried, convicted, and eventually hanged; Lior had escaped trial by dying of the wound dealt him by Rhun.

Master Stevanus would have been pardoned, but was found to have died while in retreat at the Order's Mother House in Ramos, the result of overzealous indulgence in certain privations and disciplines customary within the Order—voluntary, of course, or so the abbot said. Four
Custodes
knights who had gone into retreat at about the same time also died under curious circumstances, but the abbot similarly declined to discuss the causes, invoking the confidentiality of the confessional to justify his silence. The abbey at Ramos was dissolved, its abbot given into the custody of the spiritually sound
Ordo Verbi Dei
for rehabilitation; the rest of the Ramos brethren were dispersed to the remaining houses of the Order.