The Quest for Saint Camber (11 page)

But Conall's loyalty was not in question today. Nor was he at all
un
worthy of the honor soon to be bestowed upon him. Like all of the young men being dubbed today, Conall had more or less proven himself during the Mearan campaign the previous summer. If he had not precisely distinguished himself, at least he had not disgraced himself or his family. Following in the footsteps of a father like Nigel was asking a great deal of any novice knight.

The king scanned the hall again, impatient to continue, as old Duke Ewan bowed himself from the dais and went to escort the troop of young boys who would be sworn to pages' and squires' service next. The break also would set off Conall's knighting further from the shadow of following Kelson's, by making him first of the remaining knightings. Only now, with the first, personal intensity of the day safely past, did Kelson truly have time to notice that the great hall was filled almost to capacity by those who had come to see their king and his companions knighted. Even the side galleries were thronged with ladies and pages—and watchful Haldane archers, gently dressed and with bows well concealed behind arras and railings, but ready to deal with anything untoward that might transpire later on—for there were political ramifications to the taking of one of the squires a little later in the ceremony.

The youngest boys came first, ages six to ten, to kneel and pipe their carefully rehearsed oaths in chorus at the foot of the dais steps before Nigel and Ewan invested each with the crimson tabard of Haldane pages' livery. After that, the new crop of junior squires approached, a dozen or so, most of them twelve to fourteen years of age and already seasoned by several years' duty as pages.

These swore their oaths individually, each one being assigned to a particular knight who would act as his sponsor until he achieved full knighthood. Kelson took two into his direct service, one to replace the junior squire moving into the place vacated by Jatham's forthcoming knighting and another simply to assist with the increasing work as Kelson became busier and in need of more assistance.

Nigel also took a new squire—the ten-year-old King Liam of Torenth, a vassal of Kelson since the death of his elder brother two summers before, whom Kelson had taken hostage the previous summer to ensure Torenthi neutrality while he fought his Mearan campaign. It was this squiring that was likely to cause an uproar when Kelson revealed it to the Torenthi ambassador waiting for audience just outside the keep, for Liam's regents expected both Liam and his mother, the Lady Morag, to be released by summer's end. Negotiations to that end were to be held in Cardosa, at the conclusion of Kelson's summer progress, but the Torenthi were not yet aware that only Morag's release would be discussed—and that was contingent upon the king's satisfying himself that Morag and her children's uncle, Duke Mahael of Arjenol, were not plotting treachery against him, with Morag's sons the first victims. The youngest, Prince Ronal, was in Mahael's hands already, but the Torenthi duke would not get his hands on Liam as well.

As for Liam himself, Kelson had plans that he hoped would make the young king an ally rather than an adversary by the time he came of age. The boy was Deryni, like his mother, but he was ill-trained in the use of his powers and tamed by a year's exposure to the more normal pursuits expected of a noble-born boy of his age. Kelson expected no trouble from Liam, now receiving his blued-steel squire's spurs from Nigel; and the Lady Morag was not even at court anymore, having been secretly moved to Coroth during the winter. Richenda was Morag's gaoler now, ably guarding her Deryni hostage while she awaited the birth of her and Morgan's second child.

No, trouble today, if it came, would come from the Torenthi ambassador, even if it only evidenced as a verbal altercation. As Liam and the last of the new-sworn squires filed back to their places at one side, Ewan remaining among them to curb any youthful restlessness during the lengthy ceremonies to follow, Kelson smiled and put the whole thing out of mind for the moment. Gradually the hall quieted as the rest of his attendants took up their places to continue. Vestigial murmurings hushed to utter silence as Nigel came from among the squires and moved before his nephew's throne to bend his knee and speak the ritual phrase.

“Sire, I would ask a boon of you.”

“Name it, Uncle. And if it be within my power to grant it, saving my honor and the honor of the realm, I shall gladly do it.”

“Then I may ask with joy, Sire, for I would request that you grant the accolade of knighthood to my eldest son Conall, who today has attained his eighteenth year.”

“Right gladly shall I grant it, Uncle. Please to bring the candidate before us.”

With a slight nod to acknowledge the command, Nigel rose and moved down the steps, sweeping back through the hall to where Conall and the other candidates waited.

There was no mistaking the Haldane lineage of sire or son as Conall came slowly down the hall at his father's side—half a handspan taller than Nigel, if more slightly built; lightly mustached since the previous winter, with night-black hair barbered in the close-shorn style favored by most of the older fighting men, including Nigel, though the king and many of the younger men, including Conall's two brothers, had adopted Dhugal's border braid. The brooch securing his crimson mantle was larger and more ornate than that of anyone save the king; but beyond that concession to pride, he wore the same traditional raiment of any novice knight, for all that he was a prince.

“My Liege,” Nigel said with a formal bow, as Conall slowly knelt on the bottom step of the dais and bowed his head, his father's hand on his shoulder. “I have the honor and privilege to present my eldest son, Prince Conall Blaine Cluim Uthyr, as a candidate for knighthood.”

Kelson returned the bow with a nod. “Let Prince Conall be vested with the spurs.”

Instantly, Conall's youngest brother, Payne, came proudly forward with the spurs on their damask cushion. Nigel knelt long enough to affix them, then stood and moved to Conall's left, making Kelson another bow, deeper than the previous ones, before he dropped to one knee.

“The candidate has been vested with the spurs, Sire.”

Kelson stood, the sheathed royal sword still held across both hands, and leaned forward to speak quietly to Conall.

“I mean you no slight, cousin, but may I offer your father the privilege of giving you the accolade? I think it would please him greatly—and he is a far greater knight than I, who have myself been dubbed but a short while ago, and by his hand.”

Kelson could read the leap of relieved assent in Conall's eyes without recourse to any of his magic and knew he had found the perfect sop to Conall's tender ego, to be spared receiving the accolade from one only months his senior. He noted pleased approval on Nigel's face as well as he turned his attention there.

“I think there can be no question of your son's desires, Uncle,” he murmured, “and rightly so, for you are one of the most honorable knights I know. May I deputize you to perform this happy duty for your son?”

Nigel all but grinned as he gave the king a nod and got smoothly to his feet.

“It will be my privilege and honor, Sire.”

“It is a father's right, if he be a knight himself,” Kelson replied. “Come and stand beside me. Conall, with what sword would you be knighted?”

Conall's grey eyes darted to the sword in Kelson's hands and then to his father's face.

“With all due respect, Sire, I would be knighted with my father's sword.”

“So be it.”

A murmur of approval whispered through the hall as it gradually became apparent what was about to happen. Conall's face seemed almost to glow as he raised his eyes to Nigel's and watched his sire draw a sword nearly as distinguished by its battle honors as Kelson's was hallowed by Haldane magic. Both Jehana and Meraude, Conall's mother, were blinking back tears as Nigel reverently kissed the blade and then raised it above his son's head.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, be thou a good and faithful knight,” Nigel said, dubbing Conall firmly on both shoulders and the crown of the head. “Arise, Sir Conall Haldane.”

Kelson smiled and made appropriate murmurs of congratulation as Conall was girded with his new white belt by his mother, and presented by his father with a goodly sword that his brother Rory brought forward, but his thoughts were already flying to the next candidate, with whom he shared far more by spiritual kinship than he ever would share by blood with his eldest cousin. Dhugal had appeared at the far end of the hall now, waiting with the other candidates to be called forward next; and Kelson sent him a tight-focused greeting, mind to mind, before returning his attention to Conall. He slipped his sheathed sword into the hangers at his belt as the newly dubbed Conall knelt once more and placed his hands between the king's to swear him fealty.

“I, Conall, Prince of Gwynedd, do become your liege man of life and limb and earthly worship; and faith and truth will I bear unto you, to live and to die, against all manner of folk, so help me God.”

No trace of Conall's usual resentment marred the moment as Kelson returned the oath, pledging his justice and protection for Conall's loyalty, and then raised Conall up with words of honest congratulation. He gave Conall his full moment of unshared glory while his parents and brothers embraced and welcomed him to his newly adult status. Only when Conall had put on the coronet of his rank and taken a seat on a stool to his right, just to the other side of Nigel's chair, did Kelson turn to glance at Morgan, still waiting behind and to Kelson's immediate right. Morgan stepped forward at Kelson's slight nod.

“Duke Alaric, I believe it is your intention to sponsor the next candidate. Please bring him forward.”

Whispered asides rippled all through the hall as Morgan made his way down the aisle to where Dhugal waited, many a curious glance looking for Duncan, now legally and openly recognized as Dhugal's father, but apparently to have no part in the knighting of his son. By most folk's reckoning, that was only as it should be—for, notwithstanding the decree of the archbishop's tribunal, the oddness of a bishop with a legitimate son still had many people off balance. An act of legitimation might have removed the last legal and religious impediment to Dhugal's reception of the accolade or succession to his father's titles, but there would always be those who continued to call him bastard, especially as his Deryni heritage became more widely known. Fortunately, most folk had not yet made that connection, just as most preferred not to believe that Duncan really was Deryni, no public evidence having been presented to the contrary.

Today, therefore, Duncan was present, to be sure, but he had attempted to appear no kind of a bishop, lest his episcopal presence further confuse the court's reception of his son. Rather than standing on the dais with the king, as was his due as bishop or duke, he waited anonymously in the ranks of other, lesser nobles come to witness the day's ceremonies, but with no part to play. He also had eschewed his customary purple cassock in favor of a dove grey tunic and breeches of very conservative cut, with a plaid of McLain tartan brooched to his left shoulder and across his chest, green and black and white. A soft grey cap of maintenance covered most of his tonsured brown hair, fur turned up around the edge almost to obscure the simple, cross-embellished coronet of silver circling the crown—the only hint of either ducal or episcopal rank.

Rather than a sword, he wore a border dirk at his hip, its pommel and scabbard set with cairngorms—for among the highland and border clans, he was chief of his name in addition to his other titles. A captain-general's chain lay around his shoulders, and the bishop's amethyst on his right hand, if one did not look too closely, could have been simply the ornament of any secular lord.

With those around him, Duncan craned his neck to see, ignoring the faces that turned to watch his reaction as much as Dhugal's, as Morgan escorted Dhugal down the length of the hall—for in that moment, Duncan saw only his son.

Dhugal MacArdry McLain. He was no longer the rustic border lordling of his upbringing, first fostered from the borders to King Brion's court, where he and Kelson had bound their friendship, then tempered to a true borderman as he rode patrol duty for the man he had thought his sire up until last year. Today, rather than the distinctive border attire that had become his personal trademark, he sported the traditional garb of the other knightly candidates, though he still wore his coppery hair pulled back cleanly in a border braid. The mustache that had been a smudge of reddish down a year before had reached bushy proportions over the past winter, bristling across his upper lip and drooping at the corners of his mouth, but revealing large white teeth when he smiled, which was often, though not now. He was taller by a handspan, too—nearly Morgan's height as the two of them mounted the dais steps, just before he dropped to his knees.

“My Liege,” Morgan said, from the step behind Dhugal, “I am honored to present Lord Dhugal Ardry MacArdry McLain as a candidate for knighthood.”

“We are most honored to receive him, Your Grace,” Kelson replied, looking inordinately pleased with himself as he hooked his thumbs in his new white belt and glanced out at the thronged hall, apparently looking for something. “But before we proceed with this well-deserved honor, we command that Duncan, Duke of Cassan, come before us.”

The command startled Duncan, and he considered briefly and futilely trying to melt back into the crowd; but eyes were already turning toward him, and he knew there was no escape. Setting his left hand on the pommel of his dirk, he worked his way reluctantly among those standing between him and the dais, murmuring apologies to those he had to jostle, and made the king a puzzled but respectful bow as he came to a halt beside Morgan and a little behind his son.