The King's Deryni (59 page)

of Haldane—'tis thy royal, sacred Right.

The king gazed unseeing at Alaric, at Nigel, at the red enameled brooch heavy in his hand. Then he turned the brooch over and freed the golden clasp pin from its catch, held out a left hand that did not waver.

“
Three drops of royal blood on water bright
,” he repeated. He brought the clasp against his thumb in a swift, sharp jab. As blood welled from the wound, he laid the brooch aside and squeezed the thumb, letting three dark drops fall upon the water—once, twice, thrice—to spread scarlet, concentric circles across the silver surface. A touch of tongue to wounded thumb, and then he was spreading his hands above the water, closing his eyes.

Stillness. A crystalline anticipation as Brion began to concentrate. And then, as Alaric extended his right hand above Brion's two and added his strength to the spell, a deep, musical reverberation, more felt than heard, throbbing through their minds. As the sunlight brightened, so also brightened the space beneath Brion's hands, until finally could be seen the ghostly beginnings of crimson fire flickering on the water. Brion's emotionless expression did not change as Alaric withdrew his hand and knelt.

“
Fear not, for I have redeemed thee
,” Alaric whispered, calling the words from memories not his own as the fire grew.
“I have called thee by name, and thou art mine. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned: neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. . . .”

Brion did not open his eyes, but as Alaric's words faded into silence, the king took a deep breath and slowly, deliberately, brought his hands to rest flat on the silver of the bowl, heedless of the fire. Nigel gasped as his brother's hands entered the flames, but no word or sound escaped Brion's lips to indicate the ordeal he was enduring. Head thrown back and eyes closed, the king stood unflinching as the crimson fire climbed his arms and spread over his entire body. But when the flames shortly died away, Brion opened his eyes upon a world that would never appear precisely the same again, and in which he could never again be merely mortal.

He leaned heavily on the altar-stone for just a moment, letting himself settle back into his body as he caught his breath. But when he lifted his hands from the stone, his brother stifled an oath. Where the royal hands had rested, the silver was black, burned away. Only the dark silhouettes remained, etched indelibly in the hollowed surface of the rock.

Brion went a little pale when he saw what he had done, and Nigel crossed himself, but Alaric merely got to his feet and returned to the east, throwing back his head and extending his arms before the Haldane sword in a banishing spell, watching the canopy of golden light dissipate as he turned his hands downward and lowered his arms.

But as he laid his hands on the hilt of the Haldane sword, he suddenly realized that they were no longer alone. While they had worked their magic, the men following Nigel had found the royal campsite: ten livery-clad Haldane lancers with bows slung across their backs. They were gathered near the horses in as uneasy a band as Alaric had ever seen. Neither Brion nor Nigel seemed to have noticed yet, apparently still caught up in what had happened.

At once Alaric pulled the sword from the ground and hurried back to the king to present it hilt first, hoping he would not get an arrow in the back before he could surrender it, for the men would not take kindly to a Deryni handling the precious Haldane sword. At the same time, Nigel also noticed the men and touched Brion's elbow to warn him, jutting his chin in their direction as his brother looked up. As Brion turned toward them in surprise, hand now on the hilt of his sword, they went to their knees as one man, several crossing themselves furtively.

“Bloody hell,” Brion murmured under his breath. “Did they see?”

Alaric gave a careful nod, keeping his hands in sight, away from his body. “So it would appear, Sire. I suggest that you go to them immediately and reassure them. Otherwise, the more timid among them are apt to bolt and run.” He did not add that the men might well shoot
him
.

“They would run from
me
, their king?”

“You are more than a mere man to them just now, Sire,” Alaric said uncomfortably. “They have seen that with their own eyes. Go to them, and quickly.”

With a sigh, Brion took the scabbard from Nigel and sheathed the Haldane sword, giving it into his brother's keeping, then twitched at his battle harness and strode across the clearing toward the men, nervously wiping his hands against his thighs. The men watched his movements furtively as he came to a halt perhaps half a dozen steps from the nearest of them. Noting their scrutiny, especially of his hands, he lifted them to show the palms.

“You are entitled to an explanation,” he said simply, as all eyes fastened on the hands, which bore no mark upon them. “As you can see, I am unharmed. I am very sorry if my actions caused you concern. Please rise.”

The men got to their feet, only the chinking of their harness breaking the sudden stillness that had befallen the glade. Behind the king, Alaric quietly gathered up the king's cloak and the lion brooch and came after him, Nigel at his side with the royal sword. The men were silent, a few shifting uneasily, until one of the bolder ones cleared his throat and took a half step nearer.

“Sire.”

“Lord Ralson?”

“Sire.” The man shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and glanced at his comrades. “Sire, it appears to us that there was magic afoot,” he said carefully. “We question the wisdom of allowing a Deryni to influence you so. When we saw—”

“What
did
you see, Gerald?” Brion asked softly.

Gerald Ralson cleared his throat again. “Well, I—we—that is, when we arrived, Sire, you were holding that brooch in your hand”—he gestured toward the lion brooch that Alaric held—“and then we saw you stab it into your thumb. You looked—not yourself, Sire. As if—as if something else was commanding you.” He eyed Alaric meaningfully, and several of the other men moved closer behind him, hands creeping to rest on the hilts of their weapons.

“I see,” Brion said. “And you think that it was Alaric who commanded me?”

“It appeared so to us, Majesty,” another man rumbled, beard jutting defiantly.

Brion nodded. “And then you watched me hold my hands above the stone, and Alaric held his above my own. And then you saw me engulfed in flame—and that frightened you most of all.”

The speaker nodded tentatively, and his movement was echoed by nearly every head there, along with low murmurs of frightened agreement. Brion sighed and glanced at the ground, looked up at them again.

“My lords, I will not lie to you. You were witness to very powerful magic. And I will not deny, nor will Alaric, that he lent me his assistance. And the Duke of Corwyn is, most definitely, Deryni.”

The men said nothing, though a few exchanged glances.

“But there is more you cannot be aware of,” Brion continued, keeping them snared in his grey Haldane gaze. “Each of you has heard the legends of my house—how, nearly two centuries ago, we returned to the throne of Gwynedd when the Deryni Imre was deposed. But do you really think that the Haldanes could have ousted a Deryni usurper without some power of their own?”

“Are you saying, then, that you are Deryni, Sire?” asked one bold soul from the rear ranks.

Brion smiled and shook his head. “No—or at least, I don't believe that I am. But the Haldanes do have very special gifts and abilities, handed down from father to son—or sometimes from brother to brother.” His glance flicked briefly to Nigel, now standing at his right. “You know that we can sometimes tell when a man is lying, that we have great physical stamina.

“But we also have other powers when they are needed, which enable us to function
as if
we were, ourselves, Deryni. My father, King Cinhil, entrusted a few of these abilities to me before his death, but there were other abilities whose very existence he kept secret, for which he left certain instructions with Alaric Morgan,
unknown even to him
—and which were triggered by the threat of Hogan Gwernach's challenge which we received last night. Alaric was a child of four when he was instructed by my father, so that even
he
would not remember his instructions until it was necessary. And apparently I was also instructed.

“The result, in part, was what you saw. If there was a commanding force, another influence present within the fiery circle, it was my father's. The rite is now fulfilled, and I am my father's successor
in every way
, with all his powers and abilities.”

“Your late father provided for all of this?” one of the men whispered.

Brion nodded. “There is no evil in it, Alwyne. You knew my father well. You know that he would never have drawn down evil.”

“No, he would not,” the man replied, glancing at Alaric almost involuntarily. “But, what of the Deryni lad?”

“Our fathers, mine and his, made a pact: that Alaric Morgan should come to court to serve me when he reached the proper age. That bargain has been kept. Alaric Morgan serves me and the realm of Gwynedd.”

“But, he is Deryni, Sire! What if he is in league with—”

“He is in league with
me
!” Brion retorted, setting his left hand on Alaric's shoulder. “He is
my
liege man, just as all of you, sworn to my service since the age of nine. In that time, he has rarely left my side. Given the compulsions that my father placed upon him, do you really believe that he could betray me?”

Ralson cleared his throat, boldly moving a step forward and making a bow before the king could continue.

“Sire, it is best that we do not discuss the boy. None of us here, Your Majesty included, can truly know what is in his heart. You are the issue now. If you were to reassure us, in some way, that you harbor no ill intent, that you have not allied yourself with dark powers—”

“Do you require my oath to that effect?” the king said softly, letting his hand fall from Alaric's shoulder. The mildness of his response was, itself, suddenly threatening. “You would be that bold?”

Ralson nodded carefully, not daring to respond with words, and his movement was again echoed by most of the men standing at his back. After a frozen moment, Brion gave his brother a curt nod. At once Nigel unsheathed the Haldane sword and knelt to hold up the cross-hilt before the king. Brion laid his bare right hand upon it and faced his waiting men.

“Before all of you and before God, and upon this holy sword, I swear that I am innocent of your suspicions, that I have made no dark pact with any evil power, that the rite you have witnessed was benevolent and legitimate. I further swear that I have never been, nor am I now, commanded by Alaric Morgan or any other man, human or Deryni; that he is as innocent as I of any evil intent toward the people and crown of Gwynedd. This is the oath of Brion Donal Cinhil Urien Haldane, King of Gwynedd, Prince of Meara, and Lord of the Purple March. If I be forsworn, may this sword shatter in my hour of need, may all succor desert me, and may the name of Haldane vanish from the earth.”

In silence he crossed himself slowly, deliberately: a gesture that was echoed by Alaric, Nigel, and then the rest of the men who had witnessed the oath. Then he set his hand on the hilt of the sword and took it from Nigel, raising it.

“Now: ride with me to Rustan!”

“Thou wilt prolong the king's life . . .”

—PSALMS 61:6

T
HE
rest of Nigel's lancers caught up with them while they were breaking camp, along with a score of Arban Howell's men led by Arban himself. All the day long, their expanded party clambered along the rugged Llegoddin Canyon Trace: a winding trail treacherous with stream-tumbled stones that sometimes shifted beneath the horses' hooves.

The stream responsible for their footing ran shallow along their right, sometimes spilling onto the trail and sometimes even crossing it. At least it was cool in the little canyon, the shade a refreshing respite from the glaring sun, but Alaric knew that the echo of steel-shod hooves would announce their approach long before they actually reached Rustan. Along the last few miles, the canyon walls closed in on them until the riders were obliged to go two abreast. Alaric thought it seemed a perfect place for an ambush, though his increasing knack for sensing danger gave them almost no warning.

Right after the track made a sharp turn through the stream again, it suddenly opened out to a wide, grassy meadow of several acres. Across the center waited a long and broad line of armored horsemen, nearly twice the number of Gwynedd's forces—and most of the king's men were still behind them.

The Tolan men were mailed and helmed with steel, their lances and war axes gleaming in the afternoon sun. Their white-clad leader sat a heavy sorrel destrier before them, lance in hand and banner bright at his back. The device on the banner gave little doubt regarding his pretension. Along with the ducal arms of Tolan—the ermine field with a red lion's
jambe
clutching a coronet—he had quartered royal Gwynedd.

An academic point, however. All around Alaric, Brion and Nigel and the others were drawing their swords, urging their horses forward so the men behind could crowd after them. Suddenly Alaric realized that this was real, no training exercise, that very soon the men ahead were going to try to kill him and those around him. Even as he drew his own sword, and as the men behind jostled to ride clear of the canyon's confines, the Festillic pretender lowered his lance and began the attack.

The thunder of their charge shook the ground, punctuated by the jingle of harness and mail, the creak of leather, the snorting and whinnies of the heavy Tolan warhorses and the lighter steeds of the lancers. As quickly as they could, the Gwynedd men fanned out to absorb the charge. Just before the two forces clashed, a man charging near the king shouted, “A Haldane!”—a cry that was picked up and echoed immediately by most of his comrades in arms.

Then all were swept into the melee, steel clashing, men and horses falling, horses screaming riderless and wounded as lances splintered on shield and mail and bone. As the fighting closed hand to hand, lances falling aside, cries of the wounded and dying punctuated the butcher sounds of sword and axe on flesh.

It was so very different from Duke Richard's drills: Alaric's first true battle. Somehow surviving the initial clash unscathed, he soon found himself locked shield to shield with a man twice his age and size, who pressed him relentlessly and tried to crush his helm with a mace.

Alaric countered by ducking under his shield and wheeling his horse to the right, hoping to come at his opponent from the other side, but the man was already anticipating his move and swinging in counterattack. At the last possible moment, Alaric deflected the blow with his shield, reeling as he tried to keep his seat and strike at the same time. But his focus had been distracted, and instead of coming in from behind, on the man's temporarily open right side, he only embedded his sword in the other's high cantle.

He recovered before the blade could be wrenched from his grasp—just—gripping hard with his knees as his horse lashed out with a steel-shod foreleg and caught the man in the knee. Then, desperately parrying a blow from a second attacker, he managed to cut the first man's girth and wound his mount, also kicking out at yet a third man who was approaching from his shield side. The first man hit the ground with a muffled clank of battle harness as his horse went down, and narrowly missed trampling as one of his own men thundered past in pursuit of one of Brion's wounded.

Another strike, low and deadly, and Alaric's would-be slayer was, himself, the slain. It was the first time Alaric had killed a man, but he dared not think about it just now. Breathing hard under his helmet, he wheeled to scan the battle for the king—and immediately had to defend himself from renewed attack by two men now afoot. He managed to finish them off, but less cleanly than he might have wished. He tried not to look at the ruins of the second man's face as he fell screaming. But on a battlefield, he realized there was little room for finesse; only survival.

The king himself was faring little better. Though still mounted and holding his own, Brion had been swept away from his mortal enemy in the initial clash, and had not yet been able to win free to press for single combat. Nigel was fighting at his brother's side, the royal banner in his shield hand and a sword in the other, but the banner mostly served to hamper Nigel and mark the location of Gwynedd's king. Just now, both royal brothers were under serious attack from half a dozen of the Tolan men.

As for the Marluk, Alaric finally spotted him on the far side of the fighting, sword now in hand, apparently content, for the moment, to concentrate his efforts on cutting down some of Brion's men and avoiding Brion's reputed superior skill. As the two Haldane brothers beat back their attackers, the king glanced across the battlefield and saw his enemy, unhorsed another of his opponents with a backhanded blow, raised his sword, and shouted the enemy's name:

“Gwernach!”

The pretender turned in his direction and jerked his horse to a rear, circling his sword above his head. His helmet was gone, either lost or discarded, and pale hair blew wild from beneath his mail coif.

“Leave him to me!” he shouted to his men, spurring toward Brion and cutting down another Haldane man in passing. “Stand and fight, usurper! Gwynedd is mine by right!”

The Marluk's men fell back from the Gwynedd line as their master pounded across the field. With a savage gesture, Brion waved off his own men and spurred his horse toward the enemy.

Now was the time both sides had been waiting for: the direct, personal combat of the two kings. Steel shivered against shields as the two men met and clashed in the center of the field, exchanging ferocious blows. Their men, suddenly aware of the shift in battle, gradually ceased their own fighting and drew back to watch, temporarily suspending hostilities. Alaric kneed his mount closer to Nigel, standing a little in his stirrups to see, praying that the king could survive.

For a time, the two seemed evenly matched, exchanging and parrying blows with ease, though both men clearly were tiring. The Marluk managed to take a chunk out of the top of Brion's shield, but Brion divested the Marluk of a stirrup, and nearly a foot.

Finally, Brion's sword found the throat of his opponent's mount. The wounded animal collapsed with a liquid scream, dumping its rider in a heap. Brion, discarding niceties in the interest of survival, tried to ride down his enemy then and there.

But the Marluk rolled beneath his shield on the first pass and nearly tripped up Brion's horse, scrambling to his feet and bracing, sword still in hand, as Brion wheeled to come at him again. The second pass cost Brion his mount as well, gutted by the Marluk's sword. As the horse went down screaming in a bloody tangle of entrails, Brion rolled clear and managed to end up on his feet, whirling to face his opponent.

Both men were breathing hard. Alaric could hear them panting inside their helmets. For several taut minutes the two circled one another and exchanged tentative blows as the rest of their forces eased cautiously closer to observe. Though the Marluk had the advantage of weight and height, Brion had youth and greater agility in his favor. The outcome, in terms of mere physical ability, was by no means certain.

Finally, after another inconclusive flurry of blows, the two again drew apart, visibly tiring, and the Marluk sketched an ironic salute in the direction of his opponent.

“You fight well, for a Haldane,” he conceded, still breathless. He gestured with his sword toward the waiting men. “We are well matched, at least in steel. And even were we to cast our men into the fray again, it would still come down to the same, in the end: you against me.”

“Or your power against mine,” Brion amended softly, letting the tip of his sword sink to rest against the ground. “That
is
your eventual intention, is it not?”

The Marluk shrugged and started to speak, but Brion interrupted.

“No, you would have slain me by steel if you could,” the king said. “To win by magic exacts a price, and might not give you the sort of victory you seek, if you would rule my human kingdom and not fear for your throne. The folk of Gwynedd would not take kindly to a Deryni king, after your bloody ancestors.”

The Marluk smiled and shrugged again. “By force, physical or arcane—it matters little in the long reckoning. It is the victory itself which will command the people after today. But you, Haldane, your position is far more precarious than mine, dynastically speaking. Do you see yon riders, and the slight one dressed in blue?”

He gestured with his sword toward the far opening of the clearing, where a dozen watching riders surrounded a pale, blue-clad figure on a mouse-grey palfrey.

“Yonder is my daughter and heir, Haldane,” he said smugly. “Regardless of the outcome here today,
she
rides free—you cannot stop her—to keep my name and blood and memory alive until another time. But you—your brother and heir stands near, his life a certain forfeit if I win.” He gestured toward Nigel, then rested the tip of his sword before him once more. “And the next and final Haldane is your uncle, Duke Richard of Carthmoor: a childless bachelor of fifty. After him, there are no others.”

Alaric cast a nervous glance at Nigel, watching with the Haldane banner beside him. What the Marluk had said was basically true. There were no other male Haldanes beyond Brion's brother and his uncle, at least for now; and the queen, thus far, had failed to quicken, though he knew it was not for want of trying. Brion seemed besotted with his new queen, and she with him.

Nor, indeed, was there any way to prevent the escape of the Marluk's heir, regardless of the outcome here. Even if Brion won today, the Marluk's daughter would remain a future threat. The centuries-long struggle for supremacy in Gwynedd would not end here—unless, of course, Brion lost.

He knew Brion was very much aware of that, too. They had known it before they worked the ritual that, God willing, had released the Haldane potential in Gwynedd's king and given him the knowledge and power to stand against the Festillic pretender. He found himself holding his breath as the king, in a gesture of disdain, cast aside his shield and then removed his helm, tossing it after the shield.

And then, displaying far more confidence than he probably felt, for he would never play for higher stakes than life and Crown, Brion Haldane slowly backed off a few paces and lowered the tip of his blade to the ground, carefully and decisively tracing a symbol in the dust.

“Hear me, Hogan Gwernach, for I, Brion Haldane, Anointed of the Lord, King of Gwynedd and Lord of the Purple March, do call thee forth to combat mortal, for that thou hast raised hostile hand against me and, through me, against my people of Gwynedd. This I will defend upon my body and my soul, to the death, so help me God.”

The Marluk's face had not changed expression during Brion's challenge, but now he, too, cast aside his shield, pulled off his mail coif and arming cap, then strode out confidently, to set the tip of his sword to the symbol scratched in the dust and retrace its lines.

“And I, Hogan Gwernach, descendant of the lawful kings of Gwynedd in antiquity, do return thy challenge, Brion Haldane, and charge that thou art base pretender to the throne and the crown thou holdest. And this I will defend upon my body and my soul, to the death, so help me God.”

With the last words, he began drawing another symbol over the first one. Alaric could not see what it was, but it caused Brion to start back and then dash the Marluk's sword aside with his own, using his boot to obliterate whatever his opponent had begun to draw. Alaric could not hear what Brion said then, as he restored the original lines, but he sensed the anger, and prayed that the king would not let that anger sway him to recklessness.

Fortunately, good sense prevailed. Whatever the king had said, it caused the Marluk to step back and salute sharply with his blade, a hard look on his face, then retreat perhaps a dozen feet as Brion did the same. As the king extended his arms from his sides, sword still in hand, Alaric saw his lips move: a warding spell, no doubt, for answering fire sprang up crimson at his back.

The Marluk answered with a similar defense, blue fire joining crimson to complete the protective circle. Nigel and the other men around Alaric gasped as it flared up in a containing dome of shimmering purple, and everyone moved back a few steps more.