King Javan’s Year (23 page)

“Steady!” Joram admonished, catching him under one arm as the sword fell from his fingers in a clangor of steel against stone steps. Tavis caught him under the other arm, and as they eased him to a sitting position on the bottom step, Queron grasped one hand to monitor.

“He's all right,” the Healer murmured. “I'd have been a bit surprised if he
hadn't
had a bit of backlash. You're going to need another good night's sleep, my prince,” he said, crouching down to look Javan in the eyes. “You should be able to access a fatigue-banishing spell now. Can you?”

Javan blinked and nodded, still breathing a little hard and definitely looking less certain than he had before.

“What you're experiencing is quite normal after a working like you've just been through,” Queron reassured him. “Would you like me to take you through the spell, so you'll know how to do it next time?”

“That might be a good idea,” Javan agreed.

“All right. First I want you to put your head between your knees for a few seconds, to get rid of the light-headedness.” He set his hands to either side of Javan's head and guided him, urging him to straighten after a moment. “Now close your eyes and cup your palms over them, with the fingers overlapping—that's right—and center on the spell. You've got it. Now draw a deep breath to trigger it …”

After a few seconds Javan drew a second deep breath and dropped his hands, opening his eyes with a surprised and slightly sheepish grin.

“I did it,” he murmured.

“And did it very well, too,” Queron said, smiling as he glanced at Tavis. “You'd better take him back to the Portal now. The longer he's here, the more chance there is of him being missed and dangerous questions being raised.”

“But—when shall I see you all again?” Javan asked, even as he got to his feet to go with Tavis.

“That will have to be worked out in the days and weeks to come, my prince,” Joram said, also rising. “Displacing the Deryni from Court was not accomplished in a day, and restoration of a balance will not be possible overnight, either, however good all of our intentions. Etienne de Courcy and Guiscard will give you guidance on some of the legislative revisions needed. In the meantime, we have in mind that a new Portal somewhere in the castle would be the most useful immediate thing we could do for you, to expedite further communication. The one you've been using will become too dangerous, if it's used very often.”

“A new Portal—where?” Javan breathed.

“That's what you'll need to decide,” Joram said, motioning Tavis to go on ahead. “Think about it for a few days—and keep in mind that we'll have to smuggle in a Deryni or two to actually set it up.”

“How about in my apartments?” Javan asked.

Queron shook his head. “If it's to be as secure as it must be, it will require several days' preparation to do it right, Sire. How would you keep nonessential personnel out of the royal apartments for that long? No, better some other room—easily accessible to you, but not in particular demand for any other purpose. Give yourself time to think about it. You have other things to worry about for the next few days. Joram will endeavor to get a message to you in a week or so via Guiscard—who will be waiting for you, by the way.”

Javan nodded, taking it all in. “What
about
Guiscard?” he asked. “I can't think that you want him to know about everything I—ah—accumulated tonight.”

Joram smiled. “I think you'll find that Tavis has taken care of that,” he said. “You'd best go now, my prince.”

“Not without a proper Deryni blessing,” Javan retorted, eyes shining as he thumped to both knees at Joram's feet and folded his hands before him. “Then I'll go,” he added in a whisper.

Tears glinting suddenly in his grey eyes, Joram likewise clasped both hands before him to collect his intent, then raised both above the king's head.

“The compassing of God and His right hand be upon you, my prince,” he murmured, touching his hands lightly to Javan's bowed head. “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” He made the Sign of the Cross in the air between them, then brought his hands back to his breast in a bow. “Amen.”

“Amen,” Javan responded, repeating the gesture.

Then he was on his feet and turning to flee through the door Tavis had left ajar, not looking back. When he had gone, Queron cast an appraising glance at Joram.

“That
was
who I thought it was during the ritual, wasn't it?” he said, his tone making it no question but a statement. “Do you think Javan saw him?”

“Only for a few seconds,” Joram replied, “and I doubt he knew what he was seeing. He was only an infant when my father was ‘killed,' after all—less than a month old. He couldn't possibly remember what he looked like.”

“He's seen paintings,” Queron ventured.

“Not the same. Besides, he wouldn't have been expecting to see a ‘saint' in our ritual.”

“What about the night Cinhil died?” Queron persisted. “Could he have seen anything then?”

Joram shook his head. “No. Camber never shifted from his Alister form.
Cinhil
saw the truth—but that was something different, at the moment he passed over. None of us knew about that until Camber told us. The princes couldn't have known.”

“Then it's just Tavis we have to worry about,” Queron said. “
He
saw Camber tonight—and he may well have known who he was seeing.”

“We'll just have to hope the full implications don't sink in for a while—and be ready to deal with the situation when they eventually do.”

He did not want to consider, as he turned to begin gathering up the accoutrements of their night's work, just what
he
thought about his father's unexpected and very mystical reappearance.

The next day dawned sunny and bright again in Rhemuth, but not as hot as it had been. The black-clad procession that accompanied the coffin of the dead king down from the castle to the cathedral was more sombre than Cinhil's had been, four years before, for the new king was an unknown quantity to most people. Though physically he resembled a taller and more robust version of his twin who had died—except for the clubfoot that made him limp as he walked behind his brother's coffin—he had been absent from Court for most of the past three years. Thanks to the careful campaign of the former regents, even before the late king's health entered its final decline, most folk assumed that Javan's call to the religious life had been a genuine one and found themselves uneasy that he should be walking behind the coffin as his brother's heir, wearing the full Haldane achievement on his otherwise sombre tunic.

But he was an adult by law; this time Gwynedd need not be governed by regents until the king reached his majority. What
kind
of a king he would be was another question. Having spent the last three years in seminary training, he would be well educated to rule; but what would God say about a king who set aside his Holy Orders to take up an earthly crown? Granted, the father had done so; but the father had not known who he was until called from his monastery; Javan had known before he even entered.

And even so, God had punished the father for renouncing his holy vows. The first Haldane son had died at his baptism, poisoned by a Deryni priest turned renegade. And why else should one twin be born clean-limbed and whole, if sickly, the other with a twisted foot that made of him a cripple?

Nor was it a question of no other Haldane being available. Prince Rhys Michael, the engaging youngest son, had endeared himself to the ordinary people since his first exposure to them, at the funeral of the late king his father. Since then, his pleasant disposition and growing interest in and aptitude for the activities of the weapons yard had made him easily the most popular prince to come along in many a year. Many folk had thought it long settled that Rhys Michael should reign if Alroy died without heir. Why, then, was he not wearing the accoutrements of the heir?

Not that Rhys Michael seemed to mind. Fondly attentive, he walked at his brother's side and a pace behind and showed every evidence of being exactly where he wanted to be, if one must march in a funeral procession at all. And Javan comported himself with a kingly dignity that did not go unnoticed, despite his limp—which was far less than most folk remembered. The long walk to the cathedral would have its price, for Javan was far less accustomed to walking long distances than he had been four years before, when he followed his father's coffin. But though his newfound abilities had enabled him to put aside the discomfort without recourse to outside assistance, he knew he would need Oriel's services by the end of the day, to repair the very real damage he was doing by blocking the warning signs of pain.

They would not mistake him for a priest, though. He had been determined about that, within the bounds of propriety. The bright Haldane shield emblazoned on chest and back made the black tunic bear no resemblance to clerical attire; and to minimize the visual reminder of his tonsure, only just beginning to grow out, he wore a cap of maintenance with his chased-gold coronet—black velvet and sable, which blended with his hair. Rhys Michael wore one as well, under his silver circlet, so the ulterior reason for Javan's would not be so obvious.

A mounted escort led the procession, all on black horses, wide black baldrics partially masking the Haldane surcoats they wore, black plumes nodding in the horses' headstalls. The coffin was borne on the shoulders of six young knights, for Alroy had died a young king. Sir Gavin, his last squire to be knighted, walked at the coffin's left, as captain of the coffin detail, drawn sword carried before him at
present arms
, either perspiration or tears running down his face.

The stiffened black pall covering the coffin was adorned with escutcheons of the Haldane arms, three to each side, and fell well over the shoulders of the knights beneath, so that only the first two could see Lord Albertus leading the late king's charger just ahead of them—the tall albino stallion Alroy had ridden to his coronation, caparisoned in crimson, with the king's boots reversed in the stirrups. Atop the coffin, the State Crown of Gwynedd glittered in the sunlight, gold and silver leaves and crosses intertwined, rich against a pillow of crimson velvet, with Earl Tammaron to walk beside it and watch it did not tumble.

Behind the coffin came the new king and his brother, with an honor guard of young knights directly at their backs, four abreast, and the rest of the Court ranged behind, also in fours—peers and officeholders and a rear guard of mounted escort. Muffled drums beat out the cadence, and Great George tolled the final passing of the king.

Two archbishops met them at the doors to the cathedral, and the full choir of Saint George's began a psalm as the ecclesiastical procession formed up and then began processing slowly inside. The air was close and the heat oppressive, but no worse than many other times Javan had been forced to endure—and certainly more bearable than that first Requiem sung the morning of Alroy's death.

Javan set himself to go through it a little detached—he had done his mourning for Alroy several days ago. He went forward for Communion at the proper time, forcing himself not to mind that it was Hubert's hand from which he must receive it. And when the final prayers had been said for the repose of Alroy's soul, and the coffin had been carried down into the undercroft where the royal vaults lay, he watched impassively beside his brother as the plain wooden coffin underneath the pall was shifted into the sarcophagus prepared for it. It was cooler down in the crypts, and he and Rhys Michael lit a final candle for their dead brother as the heavy lid was slid onto the sarcophagus and Great George slowly tolled again—sixteen times, once for each year of the king's life.

They emerged from the crypt when the last leaden toll had died away, moving toward the cathedral doors in less formal procession to a sung
Laudate
. Horses were waiting for him and Rhys Michael as they came out, Alroy's white stallion for Javan and a chestnut for Rhys Michael. As they mounted up, additional mounts were brought up from among the waiting escort, for Charlan and the other three young knights who were their personal bodyguard. Javan kept his head high as they rode, knowing that on horseback, at least, he looked every inch a king.

He maintained the façade all the way to the castle; and the respite for his lame foot, while riding, enabled him to make his entrance into the great hall without limping very much. There, as he moved informally among those come to pay their respects, even those most inclined to look for fault in the new king could find little to complain about.

The ladies of the Court undoubtedly applied different criteria from their menfolk in sizing up the new king. Other than servants, women had been little in evidence during the first few days after Javan's return, while the Court was in deepest mourning, but the prospect of an unmarried king come to the throne had brought the ladies out in force. They reminded Javan of doves, fluttering and cooing among themselves in their gowns of quiet blacks and greys. A few called to mind more predatory birds.

One of the more obvious of these, because Javan knew who she was and exactly what she was after, was the daughter of Rhun of Horthness by his first marriage—Juliana, a bold, dark-eyed beauty about a year older than Javan whose name had been mentioned more than once in the past three years as a potential queen for Alroy. Such a match would have been the ultimate achievement for Rhun, whose own brilliant second marriage to Murdoch's only daughter had given him a powerful political alliance with his fellow regent, in addition to the son and heir denied him by his first wife.

Unfortunately for Juliana and for Rhun, Alroy's declining health had made it less and less likely that any woman would ever be his queen. Javan liked to think that Rhun himself, by condoning the regents' policy of keeping Alroy biddable by constant medication, had perhaps contributed to the failure of any match to take place. Rhun undoubtedly would renew his quest for a crown for his daughter now that Alroy was dead, but he could campaign until hell froze over, so far as Javan was concerned. Of all the former regents, Javan probably detested Rhun the most—though Murdoch ran a very close second.