In the King's Service (11 page)

“I—suppose not,” Clarisse said dazedly.

“No,” Richeldis went on, “a regency council would have ruled Howicce until I’d had a male heir. Of course, my mother would have sat on that council. But instead of marrying the king, I would have been married off to some other likely prince who was not apt to become a king in his own right—and hopefully, we would have had sons. As it is, if something were to happen to my brother and all his brood, I expect that the Howiccan council would reach an agreement with the king whereby the Howiccan Crown would pass to a younger brother of Brion, once there was one, so that Howicce could have a separate king again.”

“Then, that explains why you must do homage to your brother,” Jessamy said, as she adjusted a gold circlet of Celtic interlace atop the queen’s veil. “Because Prince Brion is the next heir after your brother and his sons,” she added, for the benefit of the other ladies.

“Exactly correct,” the queen agreed.

“But, Madam, what if—”

“Clarisse, don’t worry,” Richeldis interjected, smiling as she touched a reassuring hand to the younger woman’s wrist. “It isn’t likely to happen. My brother and his wife are breeding like rabbits, and God willing, Brion will have brothers. But if the male line
were
to fail, I suppose a regency council could—oh, elect a new king from among their number.”

“Elect a king, Madam?” Lady Megory asked.

“Yes. Odd, isn’t it? But that’s Howiccan law for you.”

“Odd, indeed,” Jessamy agreed. “But I suppose it’s all a matter of blood, in the end.”

“Aye, it is.”

The queen peered at her reflection once more, pinching her cheeks and twitching at a fold of her veil, then turned to smile resignedly at Jessamy and the others—all, save the two of them, gowned in the bright colors usual at court. Though Jessamy wore the black of conventional mourning, her gown was cut of rich brocade, embroidered with jet and crystal, and the narrow fillet of emeralds binding her black veil had come from the queen’s own coffers.

“Goodness, would you look at us?” Richeldis said with a gentle laugh, catching up both of Jessamy’s hands and glancing at the others. “We look like a pair of magpies, amid all these brightly colored songbirds! But Illann will thank us for our effort, I think.” She released Jessamy’s hands and made shooing motions toward the door. “Come, ladies. We must do Gwynedd proud.”

Chapter 7

—ECCLESIASTICUS 7:24

 
 
 
 
 
 
BACK in Rhemuth, during Jessamy’s absence from court with the queen, the father of both their children paid regular visits to the royal nursery, where the boys were thriving. Prince Brion had reached his first birthday in June, and took his first steps shortly after the queen’s party sailed for Llannedd. The baby Krispin would need a few years to catch up with his elder half-brother, but he was growing quickly. Given that the boy had lost his presumed father shortly after birth, and his mother and godmother were absent, no one thought it odd that Donal doted on Jessamy’s child along with his royal heir.

Seisyll was not there to observe it, being still detained on the king’s business in Meara. Nor could Michon gain ready access to the royal children, though he made several low-key appearances at court during those weeks, hoping for an opportunity—and eventually had to give it up. Had the boys been a few years older, beginning to engage in the activities of pages and the like, finding a few minutes’ access would have been no very difficult matter; but the very young children of the royal nursery were rarely brought farther than the fastness of the castle’s walled gardens, and then only in the company of many governesses and wet nurses. Further examination of Jessamy’s son would simply have to wait until he was older, or until Jessamy herself could be persuaded to allow it, regardless of any suspicions the Council might entertain regarding this grandson of Lewys ap Norfal.

Meanwhile, the summer wore on—one of the hottest and driest in living memory. In Pwyllheli, as Queen Richeldis prepared for her brother’s investiture as King of Llannedd, almost daily letters from her husband reported drought and falling river levels. In one that arrived the very day of the investiture, while the royal party was occupied at the cathedral, Donal declared his intention to move the royal household to his country estate at Nyford until the heat broke.

“Good heavens, he’ll already be on his way by now,” Richeldis said to Jessamy, as she read through the letter. “Listen to this.

“I bid you meet me at Carthanelle, rather than returning to Rhemuth,”
Donal had written,
“for the heat will be much eased, closer to the sea. I have taken this decision for the sake of Prince Brion, in particular. The royal nursery is stifling in the heat, and I cannot think that is good for small children. Nor would I subject them to the rigors of travel by horse-litter, which I must do if I wait too long and the river continues to fall. Already, the waters of the Eirian are near to impassable from Desse to Concaradine—though I have obtained several barges of very shallow draft that will still serve. You may tell the Lady Jessamy that her son will be traveling with the other children of the court, so she need not fear for his health. Both boys are well.”

The queen glanced up at Jessamy, who had bowed her head over folded hands.

“Be of good cheer, dear friend,” the queen murmured, smiling as she handed the letter to Jessamy. “This means we shall be reunited with our sons all the sooner. Megory? Ladies?” she called, clapping her hands toward an open door for the rest of her women.

“Ladies, we shall be leaving as soon as can be arranged,” she continued, as they began to appear. “The king summons us to Carthanelle—which will be a far more pleasant place to pass the rest of summer than Rhemuth. And he’s bringing all the royal household—and the children.”

This announcement elicited a flurry of happy speculation among the women, for several besides Jessamy and the queen herself had left young families behind in the capital, and now could look forward to an earlier reunion than had been thought. The prospect lent extra deftness to eager fingers, so that the royal party would have been ready to depart on the following day, except that King Illann asked his sister to stay a while longer, in the aftermath of his inauguration.

The royal galley finally departed Pwyllheli early in August, its limp sails augmented by the men at the sweeps as they skirted the Llanneddi coastline east and northward, into the sheltered waters of the Firth of Eirian. The sea was like glass, the air close and humid, but toward noon of the second day out of Pwyllheli, as they struck out across the estuary, the lookout sighted the chimneys and towers of Nyford town, slowly emerging from the heat-shimmer.

“Nyford ahead,” he cried.

The ancient market town of Nyford possessed an anchorage rather than a true harbor, mostly concentrated within the further shelter where the River Lendour met the Eirian. Standing far forward on the galley’s port side, Jessamy squinted up at the sun overhead, then returned her attention to the scattering of ships riding at anchor before the town. Most showed the colors of Gwynedd at masthead or bow, but some hailed from elsewhere. A few were drying sails aloft, but the air was very still. Indeed, only the faintest of breezes from the galley’s own passage stirred the crimson-dyed canvas of its sail, painted with its Haldane Lion. Jessamy was lifting the edges of her black widow’s veil to fan her face when the queen joined her, today gowned in the scarlet and gold of Gwynedd for her reunion with her husband.

“There are more ships here than I expected,” Richeldis said.

“No doubt, because the king is here,” Jessamy replied.

“Aye, that’s probably true.” Richeldis shaded her eyes with one hand to gaze more closely at two galleys tied next to one another. “It appears we have a visitor from the Hort of Orsal,” she noted. “And can that be a Corwyn ship alongside?”

Somewhat surprised, Jessamy turned her gaze toward the two vessels, squinting against the brightness until she could, indeed, pick out the green and black of Corwyn trailing from the stern of one of the galleys—and Lendour’s scarlet and white beside it, for Keryell Earl of Lendour was guardian and regent for his minor son Ahern, whose claim to the Duchy of Corwyn came through his mother. For now, however, the title of duke was a courtesy only, its authority held in abeyance until Ahern should reach the age of twenty-five, for the ducal line was Deryni, and allowed to be so, because Corwyn provided a strategic buffer between Gwynedd and Torenth to the east, and because the dukes of Corwyn, Deryni or no, had long been loyal to the kings of Gwynedd.

“I knew the mother of the young duke,” Jessamy said wistfully.

“She died, didn’t she?” Richeldis replied. “In childbed, wasn’t it?”

“Not exactly,” Jessamy said. “A pregnancy gone badly wrong, in its very early months—and she had never really recovered her health after she bore Ahern. He must be ten or twelve by now. But Keryell wanted another son. . . .”

The two fell silent at that, for both were well acquainted with the realities of dynastic duty and the cost it sometimes demanded. Just how high that cost could be was something that Jessamy hoped the young queen need never learn firsthand.

Slowly the galley glided to a halt a few cable-lengths from a cargo vessel with Bremagni markings, and the crew shipped their oars. The splash of a lowering anchor turned the women’s attention toward the bow, where Duke Richard was overseeing the deployment of lines to secure the galley. Abaft, one of the junior squires was already aboard a small dinghy drawn alongside, and was fixing the queen’s colors to a small flagstaff in the bow.

“It appears we shall be ready to go ashore very shortly,” Richeldis said, turning back to Jessamy. “We’d best make ready. I can hardly wait to see the boys!”

 
AMOUNTED escort was waiting to conduct the queen’s party up to the manor house in the hills above Nyford. On this August afternoon, Donal had sent the Duke of Cassan to meet them: the loyal Andrew McLain, of an age with the king, who was veteran of many a military foray in the company of king and royal duke. The duke’s eldest son was one of the senior squires in the queen’s party—Jared Earl of Kierney, due to be knighted at the next Twelfth Night—and he gave his father a cheerful nod as he took charge of the queen’s horse, brought up by one of the men accompanying his father.

“Welcome home, your Majesty,” Andrew said to the queen, as he made ready to help her mount. “I trust that my son has not disgraced his good name while in your service these past weeks.”

“Indeed, he has not.” Richeldis favored young Jared with an affectionate smile as she settled into the saddle. “You and Richard have trained up a noble company of squires.” She gestured back toward the ships riding at anchor. “What visitors have we?”

With a lift of one eyebrow, Andrew turned his attention to adjusting one of the queen’s stirrups, pointedly not looking up at Richeldis or any of the other women, and especially not Jessamy. “An envoy of the Hort of Orsal, your Majesty. And the Earl of Lendour is here, with his three children.”

His tone was carefully neutral, here within Jessamy’s hearing, but she could sense the wariness that it masked—and saw, by the flicker that passed across the queen’s face, that Richeldis also recognized it. Unlike many at court, Andrew never allowed antipathy for the Deryni to color his courtesy, but it was also clear that his comment was meant as a guarded warning to the queen.

“I have heard that they are lovely children,” Richeldis said quietly. “And Earl Keryell has ever been loyal and true to the House of Haldane.”

“You know what they are, m’lady,” Andrew murmured, in an even lower voice.

“Yes. Thank you, Duke Andrew.” Richeldis gathered up her reins and shifted slightly in her saddle, deliberately turning her attention to Jessamy and the other women. “Come, ladies. I am eager to see my son, as I know the rest of you are eager to see yours. I am told that Prince Brion has taken his first steps, but I would wish to confirm that with my own eyes!”

 
 
WITHIN an hour they were entering the demesne of Carthanelle, the royal manor, perched on a hillside that overlooked the River Lendour and Nyford town and port, to the south. Long a summer residence for the dukes of Carthmoor, it was rarely used by the incumbent, the bachelor Richard, so King Donal and his family were wont to use it themselves. Though discreetly fortified, the house was set within walled parkland so extensive that it gave the illusion of being undefended, with fat cattle drowsing in the golden paddocks to either side of the long avenue approaching the house.

When the new arrivals had dismounted in the stable yard, one of Carthanelle’s resident stewards was waiting to convey the queen and her ladies to the king. They found him relaxing with several of his gentlemen on a shaded terrace adjoining the formal gardens, tossing crusts of bread to a pair of peacocks. Beyond, dotted among the wide-spreading shade trees, a scattering of nursemaids and governesses were overseeing nearly a score of children, all of them under the age of ten.

“Over here, my dear,” Donal called, standing and holding out a hand to Richeldis. “Lady Bronna, please bring Prince Brion,” he added, to a neatly clad middle-aged woman not far away, who was holding both hands of a dark-haired toddler as he took a succession of wobbly legged steps.

With a glad cry, the young queen lifted the hem of her gown and ran across the lawn to sweep the toddler into a joyous hug, showering him with her kisses. At the same time, Jessamy espied her daughter Seffira and her own son’s nurse, Mistress Anjelica, fussing over a large wicker basket, the four-year-old peering over her shoulder.

Allowing herself a somewhat more restrained smile than the queen’s, Jessamy made her way across the lawn at a pace more appropriate to the heat and her age and slipped an arm around her daughter to kiss her, also sinking to her knees beside the nurse.