Deryni Checkmate (13 page)

Bronwyn lifted the lid and gasped in wonder. A high tiara heavy with diamonds glittered against a bed of black velvet, throwing a shower of flashing fire on Bronwyn’s simple blue gown.

“How magnificent!” Bronwyn breathed, carefully setting the box on the bed and lifting out the tiara. “This is the McLain nuptial crown, isn’t it?”

Margaret nodded. “Why don’t you try it on? I want to see how it will look with your veil. Martha, bring the veil, will you, please?”

As Lady Martha and her companion brought the veil, Bronwyn moved to the mirror again and stared at the reflection of the tiara in her hands. Margaret and Martha draped the unfinished veil over Bronwyn’s golden hair and fussed with it until it hung to suit them, then Margaret took the tiara and set it gently atop the veil, nodding her approval.

“It’s beautiful!” Bronwyn exclaimed.

Lady Martha handed her a smaller mirror so she could see the back, and as Bronwyn turned to look, she was startled to see two men standing in the doorway of the room. One was her future father-in-law, Duke Jared. The other was only vaguely familiar.

“You look absolutely enchanting, my dear,” Jared said, crossing toward her with a smile. “If I were Kevin, I’d have carried you off years ago, and damn your mother’s will!”

Bronwyn lowered her eyes self-consciously, then ran to Jared and flung her arms around him in an affectionate hug.

“Papa Jared, you are the most wonderful man in the whole world! Next to Kevin, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” Jared replied, kissing her forehead and then holding her carefully away from him to avoid crushing the veil. “I must say, my dear, you make a lovely McLain. This tiara only graces the heads of the Eleven Kingdoms’ comeliest ladies, you know.” He joined Margaret and kissed her hand affectionately, eliciting a blush.

Jared had been holding court for most of the day. Like most land magnates of his stature, much of his time was not his own and must be spent attending to the official duties of his overlordship. He had come directly from a session of the ducal court this afternoon, and he still wore his ducal coronet and a brown velvet robe with McLain tartan sweeping from the shoulder. An enameled silver brooch with the McLain lion
dormant
secured the plaid on the left shoulder, and a heavy silver chain of office with links the size of a man’s hand lay around his broad shoulders. His blue eyes were mild and relaxed in the lined face, and he brushed aside a stray lock of graying hair as he gestured toward the other man who had remained standing in the doorway.

“Rimmell, come in here. I want you to meet my future daughter-in-law.”

Rimmell bowed and crossed toward his master.

The most extraordinary single feature about Rimmell at first glance was his snow-white hair. Rimmell was not an old man—he had but eight-and-twenty years—nor was he an albino. He had, in fact, had perfectly ordinary brown hair until the age of ten when, on one warm summer night, it had suddenly and inexplicably turned white while he slept.

His mother had always blamed it on the “Deryni witch” who was permitted to live on the outskirts of the village. The village priest had vowed the boy was possessed and had tried to exorcise the evil spirits. But whatever the reason, and despite all they did to try to change it, Rimmell’s hair had remained white. It was only this, coupled with eyes of a startlingly brilliant blue, that rescued him from the anonymity of very ordinary features and a slightly stooped posture.

He wore a gray tunic and high boots, a gray velvet cap with Jared’s sleeping lion badge sewn to the front, and carried a scuffed gray leather equipment pouch slung across his chest on a long leather strap. Several long rolls of parchment were tucked under his arm, and he clutched them nervously as he reached Jared’s side and bowed again.

“Your Grace,” he murmured, removing his cap and keeping his eyes lowered. “Ladies.”

Jared glanced conspiratorially at his wife and smiled. “Bronwyn, this is my architect, Master Rimmell. He has drawn up a few sketches on which I should like your opinion.” He gestured toward a table near the fire. “Rimmell, let’s spread them out over there.”

As Rimmell crossed to the table and began unrolling his parchments, Bronwyn took off the tiara and veil and handed them to a serving maid, then walked curiously to the table. Jared and Rimmell were opening out a number of parchment documents that appeared to be plans of some sort, and Bronwyn’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement as she leaned closer to inspect them.

“Well, what do you think?”

“What are they?”

Jared grinned and straightened, folded his arms across his chest in anticipation. “They’re plans for your new winter palace in Kierney, my dear. Construction has already begun. You and Kevin should be able to hold Christmas Court there next year!”

“A winter palace?” Bronwyn gasped. “For us? Oh, Jared, thank you!”

“Consider it the only proper wedding present we could think of for the future duke and duchess of Cassan,” Jared replied. He put an affectionate arm around his wife and smiled down at her. “Margaret and I wanted you to have somewhere for the grandchildren to play, something to remember us by when we’re gone.”

“You!” Bronwyn teased, hugging them both. “As if we needed a drafty old palace to remember you by! Come! Show me the plans! I want to know about every last cubbyhole and stairway.”

Jared chuckled and bent down beside her, began pointing out the features of the structure. As he proceeded to regale his eager audience with tales of the palace’s splendor, Rimmell withdrew a few paces and tried to study Bronwyn unobtrusively.

He did not approve of the coming marriage of his master’s heir with this Deryni woman. He had never approved, from the first time he set eyes on her seven months ago. In those seven months he had never spoken to Bronwyn. Indeed, he had only glimpsed her a handful of times. But those were enough.

They were enough to make him realize the gap between them—she a lord’s daughter and heiress of many lands; he a commoner, an architect, of no family at all. And they were enough for him to realize that, against all reason, he was falling hopelessly, helplessly in love with this exquisite creature.

He told himself that he disapproved of the coming match for other, more aesthetic reasons than the true ones. He told himself he disapproved because Bronwyn was half-Deryni, and therefore had no business marrying the young Earl Kevin, that she was not good enough for one so high. But whatever his objections, they always came back to the one inescapable, irreconcilable fact:
he
was in love with Bronwyn de Morgan, Deryni or no. And he must have her or die.

He had no quarrel with Kevin. Lord Kevin McLain was his future master, and Rimmell owed him the same allegiance that he did Duke Jared. But neither could he allow the earl to marry Bronwyn. Why, even the thought was beginning to make him hate the very sight of Earl Kevin.

His pondering was interrupted by a voice outside the balcony window—the voice of the hated earl himself.

“Bronwyn?” the voice called. “Bronwyn, come to the window. I want to show you something.”

At his call, Bronwyn hurried through the balcony doors and peered over the edge of the railing. From his spot near the table, Rimmell could just see the tips of pennants on lances above the balcony, and the shadowy shapes of riders on horseback through the narrow slits in the balcony railing. Lord Kevin had returned with his men.

“Oh!” Bronwyn called out, her face bright with excitement. “Papa Jared, Lady Margaret, come and see what he’s brought! Oh, Kevin, she’s the most beautiful palfrey I’ve ever seen!”

“Come down and try her, then,” Kevin shouted. “I bought her for you.”

“For me?” Bronwyn squealed, clapping her hands like an excited child. She glanced back at Jared and Margaret, then turned back to blow Kevin a kiss.

“We’re coming right down!” she called, gathering her skirts around her as she flew across the room to join the McLains. “Don’t go away!”

As the three hurried from the room, Rimmell stared after Bronwyn longingly for a moment, then moved slowly across to the balcony. There in the courtyard below, Earl Kevin, in full skirmish attire, was seated on a great roan destrier with McLain tartan on the saddle. A page had taken his lance and helmet, and he had pushed back his camail so that his brown hair was rumpled and tousled. In his right hand he held the lead rein of a cream-colored palfrey, caparisoned with green velvet hangings and a white leather sidesaddle. As Bronwyn appeared at the head of the stairs, he tossed the lead to another page and moved his destrier to the steps, then reached up and lifted Bronwyn to the saddle in front of him.

“Come here, wench! What do you think of
that
?” he laughed, crushing her against his mailed chest and kissing her heartily. “Is that or is that not a horse fit for a queen? Or a future duchess, at any rate.”

Bronwyn giggled and snuggled closer in the protective circle of his arm, and Kevin guided his mount back toward the palfrey. As Bronwyn reached out to touch her new prize, Rimmell turned away in disgust and stalked back to the table.

He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he must stop this wedding from taking place. Bronwyn was his. She
must
be his. If only he could find the right moment, he was sure he could convince her of that, could make her love him. It did not occur to him that he had just stepped across the border from fantasy into madness.

He rolled up his plans and scanned the room carefully, noting that all the ladies-in-waiting and servants had moved to the balcony to watch the spectacle in the courtyard below. Unless he was gravely mistaken, some of the women watched with more than a little jealousy. Could he, perhaps, play on that jealousy in some way? Perhaps one of the ladies could tell of a way to win a woman’s love. At any rate, it bore closer watching. Since he truly meant to stop the marriage and take Bronwyn for himself, he must not miss a single possibility. Bronwyn must be his!

CHAPTER SIX

PSALMS 38:12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ ’NOTHER round!” Derry said thickly, slapping down a silver coin on the bar and gesturing magnanimously around him. “Drinks for all o’ these fine gentlemen! When ol’ John Ban’r gets drunk, all his friends get drunk, too!”

A roar of approval greeted this declaration as a half-dozen rough-looking men in hunters’ and sailors’ garb lurched back to the bar around Derry. Grinning, the taverner snatched up a huge oak pitcher and began slopping ale into the upheld earthen mugs.

“Thash a good boy, Johnny-lad!” one called, spitting amiably toward Derry’s feet as he held out his mug.

“Fill ’er up!” another hollered.

It was early yet. Darkness had just fallen. But already the Jack Dog Tavern in Fathane was almost filled to capacity, its patrons as loud and boisterous a mob as any in the Eleven Kingdoms. Over against one wall, a sailor in the worn jerkin of a top rigger was leading an old sea chanty to the accompaniment of a reed pipe, an out-of-tune lute, and two heavy trestle tables that had become the percussion section. Around the group, which was growing larger and noisier by the minute, more serious drinkers were having to raise their voices more and more to compete with the singing. But they knew better than to express displeasure at the noise and risk a brawl with the crusty sailors.

Fathane, just at the mouth of the river isthmus, was predominantly a sailing town. Ships from Torenth and Corwyn across the river traded there regularly, and it was also a point of departure for hunters and trappers going farther upriver to the great Veldur forests. The combination of interests made Fathane a very lively town.

Derry took a long pull from his fresh mug and turned unsteadily toward the man on his right, apparently listening to his story.

“An’ so this man says, ‘Wha’ d’ye mean, Lord Varney’s wine shipment? Thash mine, an’ I paid fer it, an’ the Devil take Lord Varney!’ ”

There was a roar of laughter at that, for the storyteller was evidently one of the more respected spinners of yarns in the village. But Derry had to fight hard to restrain a yawn.

He had gained a great deal of information in the past three hours of drinking and storytelling, not the least of which was the fact that Torenthi royalist troops were gathering somewhere north of here near a place called Medras. The man who’d told him of it hadn’t known just what their purpose was—he was not the brightest of informants, and he’d been half-drunk by the time Derry got to him—but he had said there were as many as five thousand men being mustered there. Evidently the information was meant to be kept secret, for the man had suddenly clammed up when a Torenthi soldier poked his head in the doorway while making his rounds.

Derry had pretended not to be that interested and had quickly changed the subject. But he had carefully filed the information away with the rest of the things he’d learned that afternoon. The mission thus far had been a highly fruitful one. A decided pattern was beginning to emerge.

He looked into the depths of his ale mug, affecting that morose, brooding mien so often exhibited by men who are very drunk, and considered his next move.

It was almost totally dark now, and he had been drinking all afternoon. He was not drunk—it took more than ale to do that—but in spite of a capacity for spirits that Morgan assured him bordered on the prodigious, he was beginning to feel the effects. It was time he got back to the room he’d taken at the Crooked Dragon. He did not want to miss his scheduled rendezvous with Morgan.

“An’ so I says to the lass, ‘Darlin’, wha’s yer price?’ An’ she says, ‘More ’n you’ve got, sailor. You couldn’t even keep me in petticoats!’ ”

Derry took one last swig of the tepid ale, then pushed himself back from the bar and straightened his leather jerkin with an exaggerated motion. As he fumbled another small coin onto the bar, a man on his left lurched and nearly poured his ale down Derry’s boot, but Derry managed to sidestep and steady the man without looking too sober.