Kurtz, Katherine - King Kelson 01 - The Bishop's Heir

VIP免费

2024-12-23 0 0 483.02KB 183 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

THE BISHOP'S HEIR

PROLOGUE

And he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal

for a cloak.

- Isaiah 59:17

Edmund Loris, once the Archbishop of Valoret and Primate of All Gwynedd,

stared out to sea through the salt-smeared windowpanes of his tower prison and

allowed himself a thin smile. The rare display of self-indulgence did nothing

to diminish the fury of the wind shrilling at the ill-fitted glass, but the

letter secreted in the breviary under his arm gave its own grim comfort. The

offer was princely, befitting even the exalted status he had enjoyed before

his fall.

Exhaling softly of his long-hoarded bitterness, Loris bowed his head and

shifted the book to hold it in both hands, wary lest the gesture seem to make

it too precious in the eyes of his jailers, who could look in on him at any

time. For two years now they had kept him here against his will. For two years

his existence had been defined by the walls of this monastic cell and the

token participation permitted him in the life of the rest of the abbey: daily

attendance at Mass and Vespers, always in the company of two silent and all-

too-attentive monks, and access to a confessor once each month - seldom the

same man twice, and never the same one any two months in succession. Were it

not for one of the lay brothers who brought his meals, whose fondness for

intrigue Loris had early discovered, he would have had no contact whatsoever

with the outside world.

The outside world - how he longed for it again! The two years spent in

Saint Iveagh's were but an extension of the outrage which had begun a full

year before that, with the death of King Brion. On just such a chill November

day as this had Brion Haldane met his doom - blasted from life by the hell-

spawned magic of a Deryni sorceress, but leaving an unexpected legacy of

forbidden powers to his son and heir, the fourteen-year-old Kelson.

Nor had young Kelson hesitated to seize his unholy patrimony and use it

to overturn almost everything Loris held sacred, not the least of which was

the Church's stand against the use of magic in whatever form. And all of this

had been done under the guise of his "Divine right" to rule and his sacred

duty to protect his people - though how a king could justify consorting with

the powers of evil to effect that protection was beyond Loris' comprehension.

By the end of the following summer, with the help of the Deryni heretics

Morgan and McLain, Kelson had even managed to turn most of Loris' fellow

bishops against him. Only the ailing Corrigan had remained true - and his

faithful heart had given out before he could be subjected to the humiliation

Loris finally endured. The rebel bishops actually believed they had done a

great kindness by allowing Loris to attend the travesty of a trial at which

they stripped away his offices and banished him to a life of forced

contemplation.

Bitter still, but heartened by the prospect of a chance to set things

right, the former archbishop tapped the edge of his book lightly against his

lips and thought about its secret contents - yet another communication from

folk with similar cause to feel uneasy at what the new king had wrought. The

wind whining in the roof slates of Saint Iveagh's sea-girt towers sang of the

freedom of the open seas whence it came, bearing the tang of salt air and the

cries of the wheeling gulls that circled the abbey during all but the darkest

hours of night, and for the first time since his imprisonment, Loris allowed

himself to hope that he, too, might soon be free. For many, many months, he

had feared never to taste freedom again except in death.

Oh, he was not fool enough to think there would not be a price - but he

could afford to promise anything, for now. With care and craft, he might play

more than one side to his advantage, perhaps eventually becoming even more

powerful than before his fall. Then he would make himself the instrument of

God's retribution, driving the cursed Deryni from the land once and for all.

And the Deryni taint was in the very blood of the king - perhaps in all

the Haldane line, not in Kelson alone. In the very beginning, Loris had

thought Kelson's forbidden magic strictly the legacy of his Deryni mother -

that poor, conscience-hounded lady who even now kept strict seclusion in

another remote abbey, praying for the soul of her Deryni son as well as her

own and devoting her life to penance for the evil she carried. She had

confessed her guilt before them all, that solemn day of Kelson's coronation,

prepared to sacrifice life and even soul to protect him from the sorceress who

had already been responsible for his father's death.

But Queen Jehana, though she had the will, had not the power to fight

Kelson's battle for him; and in the end, the young king had had to face the

challenge with his own resources - prodigious resources, as it happened,

easily equal to the challenge, but frightening in their implications. While

granting that his mother's Deryni blood might have made its contribution.

Kelson had publicly claimed sacred right as the source of his newfound

abilities. Loris had feared otherwise, even at the time, for he remembered

stories about the boy's father.

In fact, the more Loris thought on it - and he had had ample time for

that in the last two years - the more convinced he became that Brion and

hitherto unsuspected Deryni ancestors were as much to blame for Kelson's

condition as Jehana. The full extent of the taint could only be guessed.

Certainly both Brion and his father before him had harbored Deryni at court

from time to time. The detested Morgan and McLain were but the most recent and

blatant of many such - and the latter a priest all the while, hypocrite to the

core - on both of whom Loris wished only the vilest of fates, for the two

were largely responsible for his present situation.

As for Brion, who could deny that the late king once had faced and

killed a Deryni sorcerer in single combat? Loris, then but a parish priest of

rising prominence, had heard of the incident only at second and third hand,

but even in the first throes of public jubilation at the king's victory, he

had been chilled by the recurring suggestion that Brion's opponent, father to

the woman eventually responsible for his death, had fallen not alone to

Brion's sword but to strange powers wielded by the king himself. In the

taverns for months afterward, haunted eyewitnesses with tongues loosened by

ale whispered fearfully of magic worked upon the king by young Morgan before

that fateful confrontation - the unleashing of awesome forces which Brion said

were benign, the royal legacy of his father - but even that admission cast

grave suspicions on the king, so far as Loris was concerned. Though a man of

honest if rigid religious conviction, he was not naive enough to concede that

purity of intent and fervence of faith - or Divine favor to an anointed king -

had been Brion's salvation, though he kept his misgivings to himself so long

as Brion lived.

Now Loris knew that only power such as the Enemy himself wielded could

have given Brion victory against such odds, and over such a foe. And if that

power had been granted, or even merely released, by one of the accursed

Deryni, then its source was clear: an evil legacy from years of dark alliance

with that unholy race. The double inheritance of evil from Brion and Jehana

was doubly damning in their son. Kelson was beyond redemption, and must be

eliminated.

Nor, by the same logic, were Brion's brother Nigel and his brood to be

spared - for though uncontaminated by Jehana's blood, still they, like Kelson,

traced their ancestry back through the generations of Haldane kings who had

carried forward some other variant of Deryni curse from the time of the

Restoration. The land must be freed of this evil, cleansed of the dark Deryni

taint. A new royal line must be raised to rule in Gwynedd - and what better

source, and who with better legal claim, than the old royal line of Meara,

human to the core, one of whose supporters even now offered assistance to

Gwynedd's rightful Primate, if that Primate would support Mearan independence?

With a shiver, Loris slipped his breviary into the breast of his

homespun woolen robe and drew his meager cloak around his shoulders - he, who

had worn fine linen and silk and furs before being deprived of his office! Two

years of the sparse, simple fare of the Fratri Silentii had pared a handspan

from an already trim waist and honed the hawk-like features to even sharper

definition, but the hunger which gnawed at Loris now had nothing to do with

physical appetites. As he laid one hand flat against the window glass, his eye

was caught by the amethyst on his finger - sole reminder left him of his

former rank - and he savored the words of the letter next to his heart.

Meara will bow no more to a Deryni king, the missive had said, echoing

his own determination. If this plan meets with your approval, ask shriving of

a monk named Jeroboam who shall come within the week to preach, and be guided

by his advice. Until Laas....

Laas. The very name conjured images of ancient glories. It had been the

capital of an independent Meara a hundred years before the first Haldanes came

to Gwynedd. From Laas, sovereign Mearan princes had ruled as proudly as any

Haldane, and over lands by no means less fair.

But Jolyon, the last Mearan prince, had sired only daughter? by the time

he lay dying a century before, and the eldest, Roisian, was only twelve. To

prevent the rending of his lands by avaricious guardians, regents, and

suitors, Jolyon willed his coronet and the hand of Roisian to the strongest

man he could find: Malcolm Haldane, newly crowned King of Gwynedd, a respected

former adversary.

But Jolyon's final act found little favor with Meara's native sons; the

prince had read his nobles well. Before Malcolm could even bed his young

bride, dissident Mearan knights abducted both of the queen's sisters and

proclaimed the elder, Roisian's twin, Meara's sovereign princess. Malcolm put

down the ensuing rebellion in less than a month, capturing and hanging several

of the ringleaders, but he never did locate the stolen princesses - though he

encountered their heirs many times in the years which followed. He moved

Meara's territorial capital from Laas to the more central Ratharkin the

following summer, both for greater ease of administration and to lessen the

importance of Laas as a symbol of former Mearan sovereignty, but the ancient

city remained, from time to time, a rallying point for cadet lines of the old

royal house which waxed with each new generation and as swiftly waned whenever

Haldane expeditions swept into the principality to quash the beginnings of

revolt - and execute pretenders. Malcolm and his son Donal were scrupulous

about their periodic "Mearan housecleaning," as Donal called it, but King

Brion had taken such action only once during his reign, shortly after the

birth of his own son. The venture, while necessary, had been so personally

distasteful that he had avoided even considering the need for a repeat

campaign a generation later.

Now Brion's softness was likely to cost his son a throne. The current

Mearan Pretender had no cause to love King Kelson, for she had lost a husband

as well as a child the last time a Haldane flexed his strength in Meara. It

was even rumored in Meara that an impassive Brion had watched the baby prince

put to the sword - a lie promulgated by Mearan dissidents, though it was true

that the child had died. Soon afterward, the self-styled Princess Caitrin of

Meara, descendant of Queen Roisian's twin, took as husband and consort the

ambitious younger brother of one of Gwynedd's earls and disappeared into the

mountains to breed rebellion and more pretenders - until Brion's death brought

them out of hiding. It was one of Caitrin's agents who had contacted Loris.

Sighing, Loris pressed his nose against the glass of his prison and

watched an autumn squall-line crawl toward the shore from the northwest, well

aware that many would regard what he was about to do as treason. He did not.

It was a means to an end. If he had learned one thing in more than half a

century of service to his faith, it was that the integrity of Holy Mother

Church depended upon temporal dealings as well as spiritual ones. Higher

loyalties than those binding him to any temporal lord bound him to his future

course, for as bishop as well as priest he was duty-bound to root out evil and

corruption. Inevitably, the source of that corruption lay in the devil's brood

called the Deryni.

The Deryni must be eradicated - every last one of them. The time was

past for leniency, for trying to save their souls. Though Loris' mind recoiled

at the thought of raising hand against an anointed king - Kelson, whom he

himself had crowned - the thought of not raising hand against a servant of

darkness on the throne repelled him even more.

The boy had put on a bold charade, but blood would always run true, in

the end. For the sake of every soul in Gwynedd, the Deryni heresy must be

stamped out - and Edmund Loris would use whatever means he must to accomplish

that end.

CHAPTER ONE

He made him a lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance: to bind his

princes at his pleasure.

- Psalms 105:21-22

The Bishop of Meara was dead. In more stable times, that fact might have

elicited little more than academic interest on the part of Duke Alaric Morgan,

for his duchy of Corwyn lay far on the other side of Gwynedd, well beyond the

reach of any Mearan prelate's influence. Bishops there were whose passing

would have meant a personal loss to Morgan, but Carsten of Meara was not one

of them.

This is not to say that Morgan had regarded Carsten as an enemy. On the

contrary, even though the old bishop had been of a very different generation,

bred in an age when fear of magic had made far greater men rabid in their

intolerance of such as Corwyn's Deryni duke, Carsten had never succumbed to

the open hostility displayed by some. When, on the premature accession of

Kelson Haldane to the throne of Gwynedd, it had become increasingly clear that

the young king was somehow heir to magical abilities which the Church had come

to condemn as heretical over the years - powers that Kelson intended to use

for the protection of his kingdom - Carsten had retired quietly to his

episcopal holdings in Meara, rather than choose between his fanatically anti-

Deryni archbishop and his more moderate brethren who supported the king

despite the questionable status of his Deryni soul. The king's party had

eventually prevailed, and the deposed Archbishop Loris languished even now in

the secure Abbey of Saint Iveagh, high in the sea cliffs north of Carbury.

Morgan himself thought the sentence far too lenient to balance the harm Loris

had done human-Deryni relations by his venom, but it had been the

recommendation of Loris' successor, the scholarly Bradene of Grecotha, and was

actively supported by the majority of Gwynedd's other bishops.

No such majority prevailed in the consistory Morgan now watched in the

chamber below, assembled in Culdi to elect old Carsten's successor. The

unexpected vacancy in the See of Meara had touched off old, old controversies

regarding its tenure. Mearan separatists had been agitating for a Mearan-born

prelate for as long as Morgan could remember, and had been agitating in vain

through the reigns of at least three Haldane kings. This was the first time

that young Kelson had had to face the ongoing argument, but with the king less

than a fortnight past his seventeenth birthday, it was not likely to be the

last. Even now, he was addressing the assembled bishops in the chamber below,

outlining the factors he wished them to consider in weighing the many

candidates.

Suppressing a cough, Morgan shifted forward on the hard stone seat in

the listening gallery and eased aside the heavy curtain to peer down. He could

see only Kelson's back from this angle, stiff and formal in a long scarlet

court robe, but Conall, Prince Nigel's eldest son and second in line to the

throne after his father, was visible in profile to Kelson's right, looking

very bored. The bishops themselves seemed attentive enough, but many of those

watching from the tiered benches along the walls wore stormy faces. Morgan

could identify several of the principal aspirants to the vacant Mearan See.

"We wish, therefore, to reassure you that the Crown will not interfere

unduly in your election, my lords," the king was saying, "but we enjoin you to

consider well the candidates who shall come under your examination in the

coming days. The name of the individual eventually chosen matters little to

us, personally, but the peace of Meara matters a great deal. That is why we

have spent this past season progressing through our Mearan lands. We recognize

that a bishop's principal function is to provide spiritual guidance - yet we

would be naive in the extreme if we did not also acknowledge the temporal

power wielded by the incumbent of any such office. All of you are well aware

of the weight your opinions carry in our own secular deliberations."

He went on, but Morgan released the curtain with a bored sigh and folded

his arms along the railing, allowing his attention to drift as he laid his

head on his crossed forearms and closed his eyes.

They had gone over all of this before. Morgan had not been along on the

royal progress, having business of his own in Corwyn, but he joined the king

as soon as word arrived of old Carsten's death. His first night back in the

royal entourage. Archbishop Cardiel had briefed him on the political

ramifications and acceptable successors, while Kelson listened and Duncan

occasionally added .his own observations. Duncan was down there now at

Cardiel's side, poised and attentive in his clerical black - at thirty-one,

young even to be serving as a bishop's secretary, much less an incipient

bishop himself, though he had shown sufficient promise even a full five years

ago to be appointed the then - Prince Kelson's chaplain and given the rank of

Monsignor.

Not that Duncan would be Carsten's successor - though many might have

feared that, had they known of his impending change of status. Fortunately,

most did not. The bishops knew, of course. Cardiel had determined to make

Duncan his assistant even before Carsten's death, and had spearheaded his

election as one of the first items of business when the convocation convened a

few days earlier.

But partially because Duncan's secular status already presented

complications in the deliberations ahead, and partially because he wished to

delay his formal consecration until the following Easter, no public

announcement had yet been made. Duncan's very presence at the convocation,

ostensibly as secretary for the proceedings, had been enough to raise eyebrows

among the Mearan clergy and lay observers in attendance.

Nor did Mearan uneasiness spring from the fact that Duncan, like Morgan,

was Deryni - though the Deryni question had certainly presented problems of

its own in the beginning, and doubtless would continue to be a factor of

varying importance. For nearly two centuries, no known Deryni had been

permitted ordination to the priesthood. Discovery that Duncan was Deryni and

had been so ordained had sparked a panicked flurry of ecclesiastical

speculation as to how many other Deryni might have served in the clergy

secretly, to the possible detriment of uncountable human souls to whom they

might have ministered - and how many might be serving now? No one knew how

virulent the infection might be, if Deryni consorted unbeknownst with decent

Christian folk. The very thought had sent men like Edmund Loris into near-

apoplectic fits on more than one occasion.

Fortunately, cooler logic than Loris' had eventually prevailed. Under

the physical protection of a part-Deryni king, both Duncan and Morgan had

managed to convince a majority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy that they, at

least, did not fit the image of evil for so long attributed to Deryni - for

surely evil men would not have put themselves so thoroughly at risk to save

their king and kingdom from another of their race.

But while Morgan could quickly return to a status not unlike that which

he had enjoyed before the death of Brion - known and sometimes feared for what

he was, but nonetheless grudgingly respected, if only for the threat of what

he might do if provoked - Duncan's situation required more delicate handling.

Once he and Morgan had made peace with the bishops, the Deryni priest had

spent many agonizing weeks reconciling his own conscience on the matter of

having accepted ordination to the priesthood when he knew it was forbidden to

Deryni. He had resumed his priestly function only after Kelson's victory at

Llyndruth Meadows.

In Duncan's favor, at least, was the fact that few outside the confines

of consistory and court definitely knew he was Deryni; and whatever rumor and

innuendo might be whispered beyond that circle of intimates, scrupulous

avoidance of any public display of magic had enabled Duncan not to confirm

anything. He was not known to be Deryni by most; he was only known to consort

with them - Morgan and the king, in particular. Arilan, now the Bishop of

Dhassa, was Deryni too; but among the bishops only Cardiel knew that - as did

a meager handful outside the episcopal ranks - for neither Arilan nor Duncan

had had to reveal their powers against Wencit at the Llyndruth Meadows

confrontation two years before. Morgan did not fully trust Arilan, but he was

sure he and Cardiel were largely responsible for Duncan's cautious acceptance

among the clergy. Certainly, Duncan could not have been elected bishop without

their support.

What gave the Mearans cause to distrust Duncan, then, had almost

entirely to do with Duncan's secular status; for following his father's death

without other heir, Duncan had assumed the ducal and county titles of Cassan

and Kierney - titles which had once belonged to Old Meara. To Mearan

separatists, working to establish a powerbase for a Mearan restoration, a

Cassani duke loyal to the crown of Gwynedd was merely a political annoyance

across the northern border, to be worked around and watched, as Duncan's

father had been watched for years; but if that duke was also a high-ranking

priest, and Meara's only bishopric fell suddenly vacant, matters instantly

became more complicated. A Cassani royalist duke who also became Bishop of

Meara would wield both spiritual and temporal authority over two vast areas.

Indeed, Duncan's election to any bishopric would be viewed with

suspicion in Meara; for even if he himself had no aspirations in that

direction, his politically motivated wishes could carry great weight in the

selection of the man who was chosen to occupy the Mearan See. Monsignor The

Duke of Cassan represented a threat, then, for all that he seemed to be an

innocuous-looking priest-secretary seated quietly beside the Archbishop of

Rhemuth.

Smothering another cough, Morgan glanced down at the consistory chamber

again - Kelson was winding up his speech - then allowed his gaze to drift

lazily over his own form, reflecting on the effort which had gone into making

his image less threatening in the past two years. Gone was the somber black

attire which a younger, more arrogant Morgan had affected in those days as

Brion's shadow and confidant. Cardiel had told him quite frankly that such

affectations only tended to reinforce the sinister notions most people still

entertained about Deryni.

"Why dress as the Adversary?" Cardiel demanded. "You've shown amply by

your actions that you're a servant of Light, not Darkness. Why, with your pale

hair and fair features, you could have come off my chapel ceiling: one of the

Lord's messengers - maybe even blessed Michael himself!"

And Lord Rathold, his wardrober at Coroth, had badgered him no less

mercilessly about his ducal image.

"You must think of your people. Your Grace!" Rathold had said

stubbornly. "You dress like a common soldier, when you have your way. No one

wishes to think he serves an impoverished master - or to have others think it!

'Tis a matter of pride!"

And so, unless there was a need for stealth, the sable leathers had been

put aside and replaced with color: a deep burgundy cloak at first, as a self-

conscious concession to his rank as King's Champion - he could not bring

himself to adopt the crimson Kelson favored - but worn over muted,

conservative grey, with little embellishment. Deep blues followed, and

eventually greens and golds and even particolors - the rich jewel-tones rather

than bright shades. Eventually, he even learned to like them.

His body squire had chosen verdant hues for him today: a blue-green

cloak collared and lined in silver fox drawn over a nubby wool robe in a

slightly lighter shade, ankle-length and slit front and rear for riding. The

borders and cuffs were stiff with dozens of his Corwyn gryphons worked in gold

bullion, the throat clasped with a silver penannular brooch which had been his

mother's.

He still wore a mail shirt beneath his finery, as he always had: fine,

supple chain which would turn aside all but the most direct dagger thrust. But

where once the metal would have gleamed openly at wrists and throat, boldly

belligerent and just a little to ready for trouble, now it was hidden beneath

an undertunic of rich, slubbed silk, with soft wool between the chain and his

skin. The scabbard of the sword at his left hip was mounted with silver-set

Cassani cairngorms the size of a man's thumbnail - Duncan's birthday gift to

him two months before: civilized splendor, even if the blade the scabbard

sheathed was as serviceable as ever.

A shorter blade was thrust into his right boot-top, the hilt never far

from his gloved hand, and he still carried a narrow stiletto in a wrist-

sheathed strapped along his left forearm, underneath the mail. Around his neck

he wore the gilded captain-general's chain Kelson had given him at last year's

Christmas Court, each link engraved with Haldane lions and Corwyn gryphons

chasing one another's tails. The old Morgan would not have understood the

joke.

He sighed and shifted, and the sound of the chain chiming against the

stone railing brought him back to awareness of his surroundings. Kelson's

voice in the chamber below had been replaced by another while Morgan day-

dreamed, and a quick glance between the curtains confirmed that the speaker

was Archbishop Bradene. Seconds before the door latch lifted, Morgan sensed

the king approaching even as he quested outward with his mind. He was already

rising to incline his head in a slight bow as Kelson stepped inside.

"Well, no sense trying to take you by surprise," the boy remarked with a

rueful smile. "You always seem to know it is I. How did I do?"

Morgan shrugged and returned the smile.

"The part that I heard was fine, my prince. I must confess that my

attention wandered, toward the end. We went over this so many times in

Droghera."

"I know. I nearly bored myself as well." Kelson flashed a more wistful

grin as he drifted over to peer through the curtains as Morgan had done.

"Still, it had to be said."

"Aye."

As the king stood there poised and listening, Morgan was reminded once

again how much had changed in the past three years. Kelson had grown more than

a handspan since that day Morgan had come to help a grief-stricken boy of

fourteen keep his throne. The boy was a man now - still not as tall as Morgan,

but already taller than his father had been, if more slightly built. In other

ways than size, he would also be a bigger man than Brion. Already he knew more

of his magical heritage than Brion ever had, and more of the ways of people.

The eyes were the same, though - the grey Haldane eyes that could pierce

all subterfuge and read a man's soul, even if the vigor of merely human

potential were not enhanced by Haldane magic. The silky black hair was

Brion's, too, though Kelson wore it far longer of late than his father ever

had - short across his forehead, but almost brushing his shoulders on the

sides. A golden circlet chased with an interlace design bound the long part

off his face, but the back was rumpled where it had caught the high-standing

collar of his formal court robe. Kelson raked the fingers of one hand through

the snarls and glanced aside at Morgan with a mischievous grin as he let the

curtains fall back into place.

"I've a mind to do something that I know will vex you," he said,

beginning to shrug out of his heavy outer robe. "Would you be terribly cross

if I went off and left you here for a few days to supervise the bishops?"

Adopting the bland expression as well as the stance of a valet, Morgan

caught Kelson's robe before it could slip to the floor and laid it aside,

gathering up the fur-lined cloak of scarlet that the king had worn earlier in

the day.

"I shan't deny that listening to a pack of bishops argue is among my

least favorite occupations - or that I should prefer you didn't go too far

afield, this close to Meara," he said neutrally. "On the other hand, you

generally have good reasons for the things you want to do. Where,

specifically, did you plan to go?"

Still grinning, the king took off his circlet long enough to rub his

forehead where the band had pressed, before turning to back into the cloak

Morgan extended. In the process, one long strand of hair caught on the wire of

the great ruby winking in his right earlobe, and he tossed his head to free it

as he settled the circlet back on his head.

"Why, Morgan, you're beginning to sound like a true courtier," he said,

adjusting the cloak on his shoulders and snapping the clasp as Morgan freed

his hair from the sable collar. "I need to go to Trurill, though. I'd planned

to include it in my progress this summer, but Carsten's death interrupted

that, as you know. It occurs to me that this might be my last chance to poke

about before the rains start."

"Why Trurill, in particular?" Morgan asked. "Do you have reason to

suspect trouble there?"

"No. But if Meara should go more sour than it already has, I'd like to

be certain of my border barons. Brice of Trurill says he's loyal - all of them

do, when I'm nearby and they're this far from Rhemuth - but in another few

weeks, he'll be beyond my reach until the spring."

Morgan grimaced, personal distaste for the job Kelson was leaving him

giving way to very real concern for the royal safety.

"Are you sure this isn't just an excuse to get out of an onerous job?"

he murmured. "I hasten to remind you that the troops we brought from Rhemuth

are not accustomed to the ways of the bordermen. Up here, they fight an

entirely different kind of skirmish. If Brice isn't loyal - "

"If he isn't loyal, then I need to know," Kelson interrupted. "I'm

taking Duncan's Jodrell as guide. He's familiar with the area." He paused to

grin. "And of course it's an excuse to get out of an onerous job. You don't

think I'd be fool enough to go into the borderlands without you if I really

thought Brice was vacillating, do you? You taught me better than that."

"I should like to think so," Morgan returned, little reassured. "I just

hope you're as good a judge of character as you think you are. I've met this

Brice. He's a tricky devil."

"Tricky enough to lie to me and get away with it?"

"Probably not. But he might not tell all the truth, either. Half-truths

can sometimes be more dangerous than outright lies - and Truth-Reading isn't

much defense against that."

Kelson shrugged. "That's true. But I fancy I know enough to ask the

right questions."

Morgan said nothing, but he was thinking that sometimes Kelson did now

know quite as much as he thought he did. The boy was more experienced than

many other young men of far more years, and mature for his age. God knew - he

could not have survived the past three years if he were not - but he sometimes

tended to take his newly gained maturity for granted and to overestimate what

could be done. Age and further experience would compensate for that in time,

but meanwhile, the king sometimes gave Morgan the odd, anxious moment.

Still, Morgan supposed that Kelson could not get into too much trouble

this close to Culdi, and with the local barons aware that the king's champion

was not far away and expecting a prompt return. In all ages, fledglings must

be permitted to try their wings - even if the trying sometimes turned their

mentors prematurely grey. Morgan was suddenly grateful that his hair was

already light, so Kelson would never know the extent of the anxiety he caused.

"You aren't really worried, are you?" Kelson asked after a few seconds,

when Morgan did not speak, apparently sensing the other's reservations.

"Nothing is going to happen. Ewan is dying to get away to the mountains for a

few days - I think he dislikes being cooped up at court even more than you do

- and I thought I'd take Conall along, as well. Maybe a little patrol work

will teach him patience. It's a courtesy call, Alaric - that's all. I want to

see how Brice operates when he isn't expecting me to see."

"Do as you wish, then," Morgan muttered. "You will, anyway. I don't know

why I bother worrying."

Kelson grinned, a boyish quirk of a smile which was quite at odds with

his regal attire and bearing.

"I think you do. I do, if you don't. And the day you stop worrying is

the day I'll start." He touched Morgan lightly on the shoulder.

"Just keep our wayward bishops in line for me, Alaric. I'll be back in a

few days."

By the following afternoon. Kelson was beginning to wonder whether he

had truly gotten the better end of the bargain. He had expected the weather to

hold for at least another week; but as he and his warband rode west along the

river toward Trurill - a full two dozen knights and men-at-arms, in addition

to squires and servants - the air grew increasingly still and oppressive. An

annoying drizzle set in just before noon, dampening dispositions as well as

armor and equipment. Conall, riding beside his royal cousin, spent nearly all

of their brief meal-break complaining about the weather, but at least the more

important grumbling of the men was mostly good-natured. The road was still

good, the rain only settling the dust as they resumed travel. At midafternoon

they entered an area of sparse forest, where the drizzle subsided to a less

irritating drip as it filtered through the trees.

They heard the sound of fighting long before they came upon it. The

shrill whinnies of horses in distress warned them first, setting their own

blooded warhorses to prancing and snorting with anticipation. As shouts and

the clash of steel began to reach them. Duke Ewan signalled a halt and sent

two advance riders spurring on ahead to investigate. Kelson, who had been

chatting with several of'his younger knights halfway back along the column,

eased his mount forward at once, tugging distractedlyat a gauntlet cuff.

"Jodrell, were you expecting any activity along here?" the king called

softly, as he drew rein beside their guide.

The young Kierney baron only shook his head, still poised in a listening

attitude. When the outriders did not return within a few minutes. Kelson

silently signalled Saer de Traheme to begin stripping the waterproof cover off

the Haldane battle standard.

"What are we waiting for, Ewan?" Conall fretted, standing in his

stirrups to peer ahead into the forest gloom. "If there's trouble, we should

try to stop it!"

Old Ewan, sitting his horse ahead of the two Haldanes and at right

angles to them, squeezed his eyes to calculating slits as he glanced in their

direction, armored hand already fingering his sword hilt. His bushy red beard

protruded beneath his helmet quite without discipline of razor or scissors.

"Their trouble, not ours. Your Highness - unless, of course, we insist

upon charging into things without knowing what we're about. Hush ye, now, so I

can listen."

Still the silence was broken only by the continuing sounds of the

distant fighting and the closer noises of the Haldane greathorses held in

check, bits and chains jingling, leather creaking, mail clinking softly as the

knights strained to hear. Kelson surveyed the two dozen mounted knights

settling helmets on heads and taking up shields behind him, then shifted his

attention back to Ewan.

"What do you think?" he whispered.

Ewan slowly shook his head. "I dinnae know yet, Sire. We're on the edge

of Trurill holdings, eh, Jodrell? That means that Trurill levies are likely on

one side of whatever's dusting up."

The border baron nodded. "Aye, Your Grace - though it's God's good guess

who's on the other side. I'd wait for Macaire and Robard, if I were you.

Sire."

"I fully intend to."

"But, can't we - " Conall began.

"No, we can't," Kelson murmured, giving Conall a warning look as he

twisted to take the shield that his squire had brought forward. "Jodrell,

check the men, please."

Conall started to object again as Jodrell reined his horse out of line

and headed quietly back along the column, but another sharp look from Kelson

silenced him. The prince, only a few months younger than Kelson, had been

along on the Cardosa campaign two summers before, but he still had much to

learn about strategy and the art of command. It was a common failing, and not

entirely Conall's fault, for though Gwynedd common law declared fourteen to be

the legal age of manhood, in fact few boys were actually called upon to

function as adults for several more years.

Chivalric custom recognized this, even if the law did not, denying the

knightly accolade to those under eighteen except on rare occasions. Even

Kelson, who could have made himself such an exception as king, had declined to

be knighted until his eighteenth birthday. If Conall gained sufficient

experience in the coming year, his knighting might be moved forward a few

months to coincide with Kelson's; but meanwhile, he remained in the

subordinate rank of squire, royal though he was.

That was little comfort to Kelson just now, weighing Conall's

inexperience against the possible dangers of the coming skirmish. He could not

help remembering Morgan's warning about the difference of fighting styles and

wondered whether the Deryni lord could have known he was foretelling the

future. Border fighting favored quick, lightly mounted and armed raiding

bands, not the heavier horses and armor to which Conall was accustomed and

with which the warband was equipped. Should the terrain ahead boast closer

maneuvering room than what lay immediately around them, the inexperienced

among Kelson's company might find themselves at the disadvantage despite their

numbers and superior armor.

Still, Kelson supposed he could let his untried cousin at least think he

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

THEBISHOP'SHEIRPROLOGUEAndheputonthegarmentsofvengeanceforclothing,andwascladwithzealforacloak.-Isaiah59:17EdmundLoris,oncetheArchbishopofValoretandPrimateofAllGwynedd,staredouttoseathroughthesalt-smearedwindowpanesofhistowerprisonandallowedhimselfathinsmile.Theraredisplayofself-indulgencedidnothing...

展开>> 收起<<

Kurtz, Katherine - King Kelson 01 - The Bishop's Heir.pdf

共183页,预览37页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Kurtz, Katherine - King Kelson 01 - The Bishop's Heir

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: