The Harrowing of Gwynedd (7 page)

“Indeed?” was all Queron said, as he and Joram stepped into the Portal outside.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land
.

—Psalms 35:20

Valoret, at that moment, was a scene of triumph for the regents—not for Prince Javan, who dared act nothing like a Deryni if he hoped to survive. The royal stewards at Valoret had turned the castle's great hall into a gala banquet room for the new Earl of Sheele's wedding feast, for the earl was one of those regents. That noon, the former Baron Horthness, sometimes called Rhun the Ruthless, had exchanged nuptial vows with the only daughter of Murdoch of Carthane, another of the regents—whose elder son Richard had wed Lady Lirin of Udaut, the Constable's daughter, in a double ceremony. The two couples now sat at the high table to either side of young King Alroy, resplendent in wedding finery no less sumptuous than his own—royalty themselves, were one to judge only by their appearance. Rhun and his bride wore coronets more costly than those worn by the king's own brothers.

Not that
everything
was exactly as the nuptial couples would have wished, Prince Javan thought, as he studied the other occupants of the high table while pretending to listen to a minstrel troupe performing in the center of the hall. The randy young Richard Murdoch would not even be permitted to bed his bride tonight—a circumstance for which he probably had found scant cause to thank his father. Lirin Udaut was only twelve, even younger than Javan and the king. For several more years, young Lirin would continue to live in the Udaut nursery, under the watchful eyes of her mother, her marriage a matter of form and financial alliance only—much to Richard's annoyance, though he doubtless would find other willing partners eager to share his bed.

Unfortunately—for Javan hated Rhun of Horthness
quite
thoroughly—the youngest of King Alroy's five regents had fared far better than his new brother-in-law in the marriage market. Rhun's countess, glorying in her new place at the king's high table, there between him and her husband of four hours, would not be going back to the nursery with
her
mother when the feast was over. At eighteen, Agnes Murdoch was more than ripe for marriage. The king's twin, though hardly an initiate himself into the mysteries of bridal chambers, had seen that look on enough maids at court to know that Agnes could hardly wait for the bedding ceremony. For that matter, Javan doubted she was even still a maid!

Snorting softly to himself, for he knew that the alliances made today had been largely those of politics, to cement firmer ties among the regents' families and their allies, Prince Javan Haldane raised his cup to his lips with exaggerated care and pretended to gulp deeply. He let his eyelids droop as he set the cup down, feigning wine-fogged sleepiness as he let his gaze drift idly over the rest of the hall.

He was not drunk, though. In fact, he had managed to drink very little today, though wine had been flowing freely in the hall since the feast began, early in the afternoon, and he was sure that anyone bothering to notice him assumed otherwise. He wished it were later, though, because he was eager to take his leave of this mockery of the marriage sacrament. Tavis was coming tonight!

But Vespers had only rung a short while before, the bell sounds drifting with the dusk and the falling snow, and he dared not seek out the renegade Deryni until after Compline—which was probably just as well, since most of the wedding guests would be too drunk to notice his departure by then. Or so he hoped.

Meanwhile, he must keep up his façade of an amiable if lonely drunk. At least it got easier, as the evening deepened along with the guests' cups. The darkness outside had dulled the glazing of the hall's clerestory ranges and window embrasures, making the glass mirror back the light of the torches in their cressets and the dozens of good beeswax candles ranged down the long, food-laden tables. The firelight made the silver and pewter glow golden, and gilded the increasingly florid faces of the revellers. Had Javan not loathed his immediate company so, he might have managed at least a grudging acknowledgment of the beauty of the setting.

Not that
everyone
was terrible, of course. He loved his brothers, though he did not think either of them was having a good time. He knew that Alroy was not. Trapped at the center of the high table between the two brides, Alroy looked bored but resigned—and tired,
too
tired—tugging irritably at the collar of his stiffly embroidered state tunic—though at least he had set aside his crown a little while earlier, so it did not threaten to tumble into his plate every time he tried to eat something.

Poor Alroy. He had never been physically robust. Javan, clubfoot and all, had always been the healthiest of the three boys. Of late, Alroy seemed almost fragile—though Earl Tammaron, the least odious of the regents, had assured Javan that his brother was in fine health, the one time Javan dared to inquire.

But Javan hardly ever got an opportunity to speak privately with his twin these days—and when he did, it was increasingly obvious that they were drifting apart. Nor was it just the weight of kingship that kept widening the gap—or if it was, it was isolating Alroy from everyone else as well. Between the physical sequestering, couched in a new set of protocols and etiquettes for keeping the king apart from common people and things, and the insidious medication that Javan felt
sure
was being slipped to the king on a regular basis, Alroy was an extremely lonely boy, growing ever more dependent upon his regents.

And then there was Rhys Michael, who was eleven and well on the way to being drunk tonight—not that it probably mattered. More and more, of late, wine seemed to be Rhys Michael's recourse. At the other end of the table, the youngest prince was chatting very animatedly with Lady Nieve Fitz-Arthur, Earl Tammaron's countess. The earl himself had gone to exchange some ribald anecdote with Archbishop Hubert, seated at Alroy's right hand, next to Rhun and his bride.

Whatever he told Hubert was uproariously funny. Tears streamed down the archbishop's face as he listened, the rows of extra chins quivering beneath the deceptively cherubic face, with its blond-fringed pate and pale blue gaze and rosebud pout. Capping it all, the flat golden links of Tammaron's chancellor's collar of Haldane
H
's had gone askew over one shoulder, so that the pendant seal dangled in a dish of gravy as Tammaron gesticulated—something Bishop Cullen
never
would have allowed when he was chancellor! Javan loathed both men, and wondered how Tammaron's wife could put up with him. She had always made a point of being kind to Javan and his brothers.

Not that
she
could be trusted any more than
they
could. One of her sons by her marriage to the late Earl of Tarleton was Paulin of Ramos, the newly created Bishop of Stavenham, who had spearheaded much of the anti-Deryni legislation enacted in the past three weeks at Ramos. And Peter Sinclair, the present Earl of Tarleton, was touted to be a rising star in the new army of Gwynedd. He had been with Rhun at the sack of Saint Neot's—at the express behest of his brother Paulin.

Nor was the countess' eldest son by Tammaron much better. Two years ago, while still inveigling a position for himself as a future regent, Tammaron had arranged a brilliant political match between his eldest son, Fane Fitz-Arthur, and one of his wife's cousins by her first marriage—the Princess Anne Quinnell of Cassan. Young Fane stood to inherit most of Cassan when his father-in-law died, for Prince Ambert had no sons. Cassan would become a duchy in the holding of Gwynedd, and Fane its first duke. Naturally, the new duke would be his father's man in all things. No, with entanglements like that, Javan did not think it wise at all to trust the Lady Nieve.

Nor was Gwynedd's only other duke to be trusted, sitting with his pretty wife to Javan's left, listening to Tammaron's anecdote along with Hubert. Oh, the noble Sighere's son Ewan might be Duke of Claibourne now and apparently in the process of establishing a new dynasty in the person of his ten-year-old son, young Graham MacEwan, who had been one of the pages at the wedding earlier, but Ewan was proving himself an opportunist of the worst sort. Ewan shared blame with Tammaron, Murdoch, and Hubert for giving the orders to sack Saint Neot's and two former Michaeline establishments on Christmas Eve—unforgivable, as far as Javan was concerned, even if the deed itself had actually been carried out by the elder of today's bridegrooms.

And then there was Murdoch of Carthane and his bitch of a wife, over between their newly married son and Lady Nieve. God, how Javan hated Murdoch, with his whiney voice and his pious mouthings and his hypocritical heart! It was Murdoch who had actually come up with the idea to strike at the former Deryni houses on Christmas Eve, and Javan
knew
that the smarmy little weasel followed Archbishop Hubert's fanatical philosophy.

But, if Javan let himself dwell too long on the despicable Murdoch, he knew he was going to start showing his anger and ruin everything. For nearly a year now, since his father's death, Javan had tried to keep a very low profile, cultivating the outward mannerisms of an immature and almost simple-minded child, uninterested in politics or the machinations of the regents—and staying out of the regents' way. People who wanted to believe that the deficiency of his clubbed foot was indicative of deficiencies in his mind seemed ready to accept that he was harmless—though he knew the act might prove a double-edged weapon, if something should happen to Alroy and Javan must try to assume the crown, especially if he was still underage and must satisfy the regents.

Usually, however, the regents left him alone these days, especially since the beginning of the year, when Tavis had fled court on the very day that the Council of Ramos promulgated its new anti-Deryni statutes. Javan had feigned a childishly single-minded indignation that stood up even to the casual scrutiny of Lord Oriel, the Deryni Healer forced to use his talents for the regents. And since then, Javan had made it increasingly clear that he regarded Tavis' defection as a personal betrayal, perhaps extending to a growing distrust of all Deryni. It galled Javan to have to play that part, but Tavis had assured him since that the lie was permissable, under the circumstances. It was certainly safer that way, for now.

So Gwynedd's heir presumptive consoled himself with thoughts of future restitution as he dreamed over his cup, running an idle finger around the rim and letting the din of the banquet continue to wash over him like a mind-numbing wave, details of sight and sound receding as he retreated into his own mind. Another course was served—roast swan stuffed with chestnuts and wheatberries, presented with the plummage still in place—and he picked at his portion despondently, wishing for escape. The escape that came, however, boded ill by its very appearance, even as the chamberlain's iron-shod staff rapped on the flagstones to command attention to an eminent new arrival.

“My Lord King, Your Royal Highnesses, my lords and ladies,” the chamberlain intoned, “The Lord Manfred MacInnis, Earl of Culdi and Baron Marlor.”

Good God!
Javan thought, as his eyes, like everyone else's in the hall, darted to the cloaked and capped form of the archbishop's elder brother just entering the room.
What's
he
doing here
?

Manfred was smiling as he swept off his cap and strode down the hall, but it was not a smile that Javan liked. A seedy-looking knight in Manfred's livery followed at his master's heels, a helmet tucked under his left arm, and
he
looked pleased with himself. Manfred's son Iver brought up the rear—a pimply-faced boy in his early twenties whom Javan had abhored on sight, when he came to court the previous season. Javan noted with disgust that Iver had donned the white belt and gilt spurs of knighthood since his last appearance at court.

Conversation died as Manfred and his party approached the dais. Hubert had stood as his brother entered the hall, easing to his left until he stood beside Alroy's chair, a beringed hand resting on the finial by Alroy's ear, and it was to the archbishop that Manfred bowed when he reached the high table—not to the king.

“I bring news that will cause joy within this assemblage, my Lord Archbishop, Sire,” Manfred said, brandishing something small and shiny gold as he straightened from his bow. “Consider it a wedding present to Lord Rhun and his bride, and to Lord Richard and his.” He included both couples in his expansive gesture. “I bring you a cross lately worn by the renegade Alister Cullen, and am happy to report that both he and the outlawed Jebediah of Alcara are dead!”

In the eruption of whooping and shouts of relief and pleasure that followed, Javan was just barely able to temper his own shock and horror, though it took every jot of his will and self-control to do so. Alroy's control was not as good, and he looked appalled. Rhys Michael, who had idolized Jebediah before his resignation as earl marshal, appeared to be close to tears. The two
could
not be dead! It was impossible! Surely Manfred must be lying.

But as the new earl sketched his account of the slaying, giving due credit to the fawning knight beside him, Javan very much feared that Manfred was not lying. Nor was the knight, supplying details on demand. Javan even dared, after brief consideration, to try using his growing ability to tell whether a person was telling the truth—a Deryni ability, Tavis had told him, though Alister Cullen had hinted that it was much, much more, somehow tied in with the succession and with what he and Javan's father had done to him the night Cinhil died. Whatever its source, Javan seemed to be able to do it. Tonight, he wished he could not.

“They slew three other of my knights before they fell, and the good Sir Rondel was knocked senseless for a time,” Manfred was saying, “but he saw the bishop's ring on Cullen's finger. His descriptions of both men leave little doubt as to their identities.”