King Javan’s Year (4 page)

He pulled the silver signet from the little finger of his left hand, the seal with the Haldane arms differenced by the label of a third son, and put it in the hand that Charlan held out to receive it.

“This will be your authority to procure whatever is necessary for your journey,” he said. “Know that you travel with my goodwill as well as that of the king. And if my brother should question that this is, indeed, my desire—” He faltered briefly as he considered, then reached to his right earlobe. “I bid you give him this.”

Quickly he removed the earring of twisted gold, mate to one that Javan himself once had worn—though Javan had been forced to put aside both his earring and his signet when he entered the abbey. Javan would recognize it, though—and that his brother would not part with his unless there were dire cause, for their father had given them the earrings not long before his death.

Charlan glanced at both items, the ring and the earring, then slipped the signet over the end of his middle finger for safekeeping and wrapped the earring in a handkerchief that he tucked into the pouch slung below the white belt of his knighthood. The sleeveless leather jerkin over his full-sleeved linen shirt would take him to
Arx Fidei
well enough, but he was bare-legged and sandaled like many of the men who had been lounging in the breezeway and now drifted closer to see what was amiss.

“I shall be away as quickly as I may, your Highness,” Charlan said, joining his hands palm to palm and extending them to the prince, dropping to one knee as he did so. “I give you my renewed pledge, as I gave it at my knighting, that I am the king's loyal man.”

He bowed his head as Rhys Michael took the hands between his in the time-hallowed gesture of fealty accepted.

“Not on my own behalf, but in the name of the king who is and the king who shall be, I bid you go, Sir Charlan,” the prince whispered. “Javan shall be king next—not me. Go to him now—quickly. Please!”

As Charlan rose and turned away, already summoning those men to his side who would ride with him to
Arx Fidei
, Rhys Michael watched him go. He had asserted himself as a prince and as a man, as was his right and duty, but he felt like an errant schoolboy just the same. He wondered if Archbishop Hubert would have him whipped—and what
he
would do, if Hubert tried it. The archbishop once had had Javan whipped for disobedience—but Rhys Michael was not and never had been under obedience to Hubert the way Javan had been. He didn't think Hubert would dare.

Still, he did not relish the next few hours, or facing the men in the room between him and his dying brother.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown
.

Revelations 3:11

Three hours' ride from Rhemuth, the cloister garden attached to the seminary at
Arx Fidei
Abbey was still and silent—no less stifling than at the capital, but the Haldane prince who sought its refuge in the stillness of the summer night at least had fewer immediate concerns than his two brothers. Following Matins, the Great Office of the night, after which every soul under the discipline of the abbey fell under the Great Silence until after Morning Prayer, Javan had passed quietly through the processional door and into the cloister garth rather than returning to his cell via the night stair.

Now he settled quickly on the granite curbing around the carp pool—to meditate, should anyone inquire. It was one of the few indulgences he had gained in his two years here: permission to enjoy the gardens in solitude while the rest of the abbey slept. It had caused its own stir among the abbey's hierarchy, for the abbot, a strict
Custodes Fidei
priest named Father Halex, did not approve of any divergence from the strict discipline and regimentation expected of his seminarians.

Fortunately, Javan was no ordinary seminarian. Even though also a clerk in minor orders, he was also a prince. Royal blood could demand some privileges. Yet even this concession had taken the intervention of the archbishop, and then only after several months of exemplary behavior at
Arx Fidei
and as a grudging recognition of Javan's having come of age and being, therefore, free to leave altogether, if he insisted.

Though what a fourteen-year-old heir presumptive might have done better with his time for the next few years, even Javan had to agree was a moot point. Far better to spend those years between legal and actual manhood as he was doing, acquiring the formal education that would stand him in good stead if he eventually became king, as seemed more and more likely—so long as the lords of state did not manage some trick to bypass him and give the crown to his younger brother, now of age, as well, but who was thought to be less clever and more biddable.

Sighing heavily, Javan pulled off the stiff, hooded scapular that was part of the habit of the detested
Custodes Fidei
, though long training bade him fold it neatly before dropping it on the parched grass beside the carp pool. The black soutane he wore as a seminarian fastened at the right shoulder and down the right side, and he undid enough of the buttons to loosen the standing collar, briefly pulling the opening away from his neck a few times to puff air inside. Then he hiked the garment's hem up above his knees and shifted himself slightly around to the left so he could swing his sandaled left foot up onto the granite curbing and cradle his knee, idly turning his gaze over his shoulder to the water beside him.

The moonlight mirrored on the water's surface, reflecting back the clean-lined image of a pale, serious face surrounded by a close-cut shock of glossy black hair, slightly rumpled from pulling off the scapular. From this angle, he could not see the clerical tonsure his circumstances forced him to wear and was free to pretend that he was the layman and prince he longed to be.

In a rare outward declaration of that pretense—though hardly particularly daring, since no one was likely to see it—he slipped his good left foot out of its sandal and nudged the offending item off the side of the granite curbing, then slid that foot into the water as he bent to unfasten and remove the special boot that supported his misshapen right foot. He smiled as he flexed the toes in newfound freedom, briefly massaging the thickened ankle before shifting around to ease it into the water beside the other.

The mud on the bottom was squishy and cool, and his smile turned to a grin. At sixteen, the occasional stolen pleasures of an all-too-brief childhood still held their own allure, to be relished between the more serious aspects of surviving as a superfluous prince.

And survival was the name of the game. In the nearly three years since placing himself under the obedience of the
Custodes
, Prince Javan Haldane had learned survival skills far beyond the mere academics expected of the future priest and ecclesiastic they were trying to make of him. Along with the dutiful assimilation of cloistered life and the round of devotions that marked every hour of the abbey's calendar, he had also learned the subtler arts of dissembling and subterfuge.

He had learned to keep his own counsel, and to watch and listen far more than he spoke. By seeming to go along with the program of spiritual direction and study mapped out by Archbishop Hubert and the other men who had been the royal regents when it all began, and who now continued as his brother's ministers of state, Javan had gained their guarded approval of his apparent piety, a grudging respect for his academic achievements, and even a degree of freedom to return occasionally to Court—though he was careful to hide the true extent of his accomplishments, and especially not to reveal any hint of the Deryni-like powers stirring ever more deeply within him. Hubert himself, though he did not know it, had felt subtle touches of Javan's influence from time to time—though if Javan chose to exercise that influence to the extent that Hubert began to act out of character, the discovery of Javan's part in it was almost inevitable and almost certainly would cost him his life.

And if Javan himself were not found out, then the blame was sure to fasten on one or more of the few Deryni still at court—the “Deryni sniffers,” as they were sometimes called in derision, or the great lords' “pet” Deryni. According to the provisions of the Statutes of Ramos, enacted shortly after the death of Javan's father, Deryni were officially prohibited from holding any office, from teaching, or from endeavoring to seek out any religious vocation, especially the priesthood. Ownership of property was being increasingly restricted. In addition, Deryni were forbidden to use their powers in any manner whatsoever, under pain of death.

The sole exceptions were those Deryni forcibly recruited to royal service and compelled, by threats to their families held hostage, to exercise their powers in behalf of the regents, now the principal lords of state. Not infrequently, their duties required the betrayal of other Deryni, or at least the perversion of their powers for intimidation. At one time, four or five such men had been the regents' personal pawns, with another several dozen attached to various military units.

There were not so many now, for unquestioning obedience was not a characteristic of most Deryni, and the regents' answer to any resistance had been the immediate execution of the offender's family before his eyes—wives and children, even tiny infants, it made no difference—followed by the offender's own slow death by torture. Javan had been forced to witness more than one such outrage, and the memories sickened him still.

The Healer Oriel was most visible of those Deryni still managing to eke out so precarious an existence. As Javan trailed a hand in the water, watching the patterns of ripples in the moonlight, he wondered how Oriel continued to tolerate such a state. It helped, of course, that young King Alroy trusted his Deryni Healer far more than his human physicians, whom he judged to be bumbling incompetents. The former regents had attempted to undermine that trust, but to no avail. At the great lords' whim, the Healer still might be required to turn his Healing talents to betrayal of fellow Deryni at any time, but at least direct royal patronage gave him some measure of protection.

Fortunately for Javan, it was Oriel alone, of all the men at Rhemuth, whether human or Deryni, who even guessed a part of what Javan was achieving on his own, as he bided his time and prepared himself, waiting for the day when he might dare to defy the former regents. It was Oriel who had managed to smuggle out the occasional letter to Javan, here in the abbey, telling him of his brother's gradual decline and the necessity to be ready to take up the crown. Javan had seen his twin just last month, when he was permitted to return to the capital for their joint birthday celebration. It had been clear even then—though the lords of state were at pains to assure him otherwise—that barring miracles, Alroy was not going to last out the summer, never mind the year.

There had been no chance to speak privately with his brother, for the great lords had every hour planned out, and watched all three princes with a solicitude that passed for utter devotion among those who did not know better. But Javan did manage a few minutes alone with Oriel, who was able to pass on a more detailed report in that manner available only to Deryni and those who shared their powers.

Javan was not yet as adept at this as he would like, for his contact and training with his old Deryni mentors had ceased perforce with his taking of temporary vows and subsequent removal to
Custodes
control; but he was far more adept than any human had a right to be—even a Haldane human with Deryni-like powers, which only the king should have, but which Javan had and Alroy did not. Javan knew that his powers had something to do with whatever his father had done to him and his brothers the night he died, but even Joram MacRorie, son of Saint Camber and the only man still alive who had been present that night, could not account for it.

Regardless of
what
had been done, its result could only be welcome, for it might be the one thing to keep Javan alive until he came into his own. He regretted that it had not seemed to help Alroy, whose failing health was of increasing concern. Tonight, during Matins, he had offered up special prayers for his brother's recovery, for throughout the day he had become increasingly aware of a vague uneasiness somehow centered on his brother. The psychic bonding so often noted between twins seemed further heightened in Javan, whose perceptions had been strengthening in all areas as his unexpected powers emerged and matured. Tonight, when most of those around him slept and psychic interference was at its ebb, that impression of dark foreboding connected with his twin was even stronger.

Closing his eyes, Javan tried to bring the perception into clearer focus, ignoring the faint, tickling sensation of several carp come to investigate his feet and to mouth gently at his toes. He gained a greater measure of tranquillity, but no clearer impression of what was amiss. After a while he looked up with a start, his attention recalled to the present by the sound of horses approaching the gate to the yard on the other side of the cloister wall, and a somehow familiar voice shouting “Porter!”

Charlan?
The thought came immediately to Javan, as he turned his head to listen more closely and the voice cried out again.

“Porter? Open the gate, I say. Open in the name of the king! I bear a message for Prince Javan!”

It
was
Charlan!

Even as Javan jerked his feet out of the water and set to drying them hastily on the hem of his soutane, other voices were added to Charlan's, along with the sounds of bolts being withdrawn and the clatter of many hooves on cobblestones as a large number of horses entered the yard. The glare of many torches lit the air above the cloister wall, and Javan estimated that there might be as many as a dozen men with his former squire. As the voices died down, Javan realized that someone must have been summoned to speak to Charlan.