High Deryni (21 page)

“It's the fasting; he's not accustomed to it,” he said, bending over the unconscious man to loosen his collar. “Can someone please bring him some wine? He needs nourishment.”

A monk was dispatched to fetch the wine, and Duncan ventured a quick, clandestine probe of Morgan's mind. Morgan really
had
fainted; there was no doubt about that now. His face was pale, his pulse rapid and ragged, his breathing shallow. Duncan knew he would eventually come around of his own accord, none the worse for the experience, but he dared not prolong this scene any longer than necessary. Cardiel had crouched beside him, also reaching out to touch Morgan's wrist, Arilan and another of the bishops behind him. And several of the barons and generals and warlords nearest the chancel had left their places to stand uncertainly in the aisle, some fingering the hilts of swords and daggers suspiciously. These men must be reassured, and at once, or there would be trouble.

With a look of concern that was not entirely feigned, Duncan took Morgan's head between his hands, thumbs massaging at the temples, at the same time silently applying the Deryni spell to banish fatigue. He felt Morgan's stirring in his mind long before the slack body moved slightly.

Then Morgan gave a low moan and rolled his head to one side, eyelids fluttering as consciousness returned. A monk knelt with a hanaper of wine, and Duncan lifted his cousin's head against his knee to bring the wine to his lips. Morgan's eyes slowly opened.

“Drink this,” Duncan ordered.

Morgan nodded meekly and allowed himself to be given several swallows of the wine, steadying Duncan's grip on the hanaper with both hands, then passed one hand before his eyes as though to clear away a troublesome memory. As he did, his other hand contracted almost infinitesimally on Duncan's, reassuring him that the danger was past. Morgan was once more in control.

Morgan took another swallow of the wine, swirling it around his tongue and judging it too sweet, then pushed the hanaper aside and sat up. The bishops hovered over him with a mixture of concern, indignation, and suspicion, and several of the barons crowded closer to the altar rail to hear what Morgan would say by way of explanation.

“You must pardon me, my lords. A silly thing to do,” he murmured, allowing the real fatigue that remained to tinge his speech with hesitation. “I fear I am not accustomed to fasting…”

He let his voice trail off dazedly, permitting himself to swallow with effort, eyes downcast, and the bishops nodded. The effects of fasting were something they could understand. Under the strain of the past three days, it was not altogether inappropriate that the Duke of Corwyn should faint away at Mass. Cardiel touched Morgan's shoulder lightly in acquiescence, then stood to reassure the waiting barons and warlords as Morgan and Duncan resumed their places at the prie-dieu.

Arilan stayed looking down at them for long seconds as they knelt again, returning to his place only when Cardiel mounted the altar steps once more. The objects of his scrutiny noted this hesitation and exchanged wary glances as the Mass got underway once more.

From that point, however, the Mass continued to its conclusion without further incident. The two penitents received communion and a blessing, final prayers were said, and at length populace and prelates filed from the cathedral, with Cardiel, Arilan, and the two Deryni ending up in the sacristy with the rest of the bishops. Arilan removed his miter and retired to the tiny vesting chapel off the sacristy while the rest of the prelates finished their business in the room and finally were gone. Only then did he rejoin them, still vested, to move slowly to the door and bolt it.

“Is there something you wish to tell me, Duke of Corwyn?” he asked softly, not turning toward them from his place before the bolted door.

Morgan glanced at Duncan, then at Cardiel, who was standing quietly to one side and looking very uncomfortable.

“I am not certain that I understand your implication, my lord,” Morgan replied carefully.

“Is it usual for the Duke of Corwyn to faint at Mass?” Arilan asked, turning to face Morgan with cold, blue-violet eyes.

“I—as I have said, my lord, I am unaccustomed to fasting. It is little done in my household. And the late hours we have kept these three days, the little sleep, the lack of food—”

“—do not constitute an acceptable excuse!” the bishop snapped, crossing to look Morgan in the eyes. “You gave your word. You lied to us. You used your Deryni powers in the very cathedral, even though we forbade it both of you! I trust that you can produce a justification that seemed valid at the time!”

MORGAN
returned Arilan's cold stare unflinchingly for several seconds, then nodded slowly.

“Yes, I used my powers tonight. I had no choice.”

“No choice?” Arilan echoed. “You dared to risk this entire operation, the work of weeks of careful planning, by your disobedience, and you say you had no choice?”

He turned on Duncan and held his gaze also. “And you,
Father
Duncan. As a priest, I would have thought your word would mean more to you than that. I suppose you had no choice either?”

“We did what had to be done, Excellency. If there had not been grave cause, we would not have considered breaking our promises to you.”

“If there was grave cause, I should have been informed of it. If Cardiel and I are to lead this force effectively, we must know what is happening. We cannot have the two of you making what could be critical decisions without our knowledge.”

Morgan only barely held his temper in check. “You would have been told in due time, my lord. As it was, the decision had to be ours to make. If you were Deryni, you would understand!”

“
Would
I?” Arilan breathed.

He turned away abruptly, hands clasping tightly together, and Morgan hazarded a glance at Duncan. In doing so, he could not help noticing Cardiel, who had gone almost as white as the alb he had just removed. His expression was strained, his eyes riveted on Arilan. Before Morgan could reach any conclusion regarding the bishop's reaction, Arilan turned and took two long strides toward him, stopped to face him down, hands on hips.

“Very well, Alaric. I had not thought to tell you yet, but perhaps it is time after all. Surely you did not think that you and Duncan were the only Deryni in Gwynedd?”

“The only—” Morgan broke off in consternation, finally understanding why Cardiel was staring at his colleague so intently. “But, you…” he murmured.

Arilan gave a curt nod. “That is correct. I am Deryni also. Now tell me why I should understand what the pair of you did tonight.”

Morgan found himself speechless. Shaking his head in denial and disbelief, he staggered backward several steps and found a chair behind his knees. Gratefully he sank down on it, unable to take his eyes from the Deryni bishop. Duncan, who had retreated as far across the room as he could go, merely stared at Arilan and nodded slowly, as though putting together pieces of a puzzle he had held for a long time and never knew they formed a picture. Cardiel said nothing. Arilan, with a faint, almost self-conscious smile, turned and began removing his vestments, watching all of them out of the corner of his eye.

“Well, can't one of you say something? Duncan, you must surely have suspected. Am I that good an actor?”

Duncan shook his head, trying to keep an edge of bitterness from his voice. “You are among the best I have ever seen, Excellency. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to live a lie, to keep the secret you and I have kept. But, tell me, did it never bother you to stand idly by while our people suffered and died for lack of your assistance? You were in a position to help them—yet you did nothing.”

Arilan lowered his eyes, then removed his stole and touched it to his lips, hung it carefully on a wooden peg before replying. “I did what I dared. I would it had been more. But being both priest and Deryni is not an easy role, as I'm sure you will agree. So far as I know, you and I are the only men to be ordained in several centuries. I dared not jeopardize what greater good I might achieve by revealing myself prematurely. You can understand that, can't you?”

Duncan did not answer, and Arilan ventured a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Duncan, I know how it must have been for you. It will not always be as it has been.”

“Perhaps you're right. I don't know.”

With a patient sigh, Arilan turned his attention back to Morgan, who had not moved. The duke had regained most of his composure while the two priests spoke, and now he lifted his gaze to Arilan almost defiantly. The bishop understood immediately, and moved closer to Morgan's chair.

“Is it so hard to trust, Alaric? I know that your path has not been easy either. We priests have no monopoly on sorrow.”

“Why should I trust you?” Morgan said. “You deceived us before; why not again? What reassurance do we have that you'll not betray us?”

“Only my word—and it is at least as good as yours.” Arilan smiled wanly. “Or no, there is another way. Why don't you let me show you why you should trust? Let me share a little of the other side with you, if you are not afraid. You may be surprised at what you see.”

“You would enter my mind?” Morgan breathed.

“No, you would enter mine. I shall allow it. Do you accept?”

Even as Morgan started to shake his head in instinctive refusal, Arilan abruptly dropped to one knee before him, a hand resting lightly on the arm of Morgan's chair as he gazed into Morgan's eyes. It was not an offer of physical contact—a condition that Morgan had always thought essential for a first Mind-Touch between strangers. But he sensed that Arilan did not seem to expect that this would be necessary.

Very tentatively, Morgan sent out a questing tendril of thought—and at once found himself skimming along the outermost levels of Arilan's consciousness, floating without effort along vistaed halls of ordered, reasoned intellect whose fascination he could not resist. He caught glimpses of Arilan as a young man in seminary, in his first parish, in the chambers of the Curia last March, opposing the Interdict. How much there was that he had not expected!

Then he was back in his own mind, and Arilan was merely looking up at him. Without a word, the bishop stood and resumed removing his vestments, finally finishing in his familiar purple cassock and cloak. Only then did he meet Morgan's eyes again, his manner now totally serene and matter-of-fact, as though nothing had happened.

“Shall we go?” he said easily, gliding to the door and shooting back the bolt.

As Arilan pulled the door wide and stood aside, Morgan nodded sheepishly and got to his feet, Duncan and Cardiel falling in quietly behind him.

“And you might tell us, as we walk, of what you learned in the cathedral tonight,” Arilan added, spreading his arms to include them all in his comradely embrace. “After that, I think we all had best retire to rest. We march at first light, and we wouldn't want to keep Kelson waiting.”

TWO
days later, Kelson received the homage of the rebel bishops at Dol Shaia, and himself knelt to the formal absolution they pronounced to free him of the taint of consorting with former excommunicants and heretics. Two days after that, they were at the gates of Coroth.

Strangely enough, Kelson had not seemed terribly surprised to learn that Arilan was Deryni. He had been aware, from the minute that Morgan and Duncan and the rebel bishops joined him, that something vital had changed. Other than Cardiel, none of the other bishops knew of Arilan's newly revealed status; but even so, there was a subtle difference in the way they deferred to him as opposed to Cardiel, almost as though they felt his power without actually being aware.

Kelson, long a student of the subtle nuance in speech and movement, had even noticed a difference in Morgan and Duncan's attitude toward Arilan; something that even he, after long association with both men, could not fully explain.

Once Arilan was revealed to him, however, it was a simple matter merely to take the information in stride, accepting Arilan's Deryniness as an old and established fact. This ready acceptance worked much to his favor, for by the time the royal army came within sight of Coroth late the next afternoon, the four Deryni were a team. Kelson felt relaxed and confident as they drew rein at the top of a rise and watched the army deploying around Morgan's occupied city.

They had flushed out several bands of gray-clad rebel horsemen as they advanced toward Coroth, so any element of surprise they might have had was long gone by the time the first royal advance scouts sighted the city.

Now the plain outside Coroth lay empty, deserted, the late-afternoon breeze rippling the sea grass to a gently undulating ocean of pale green. To the southeast, down a wide stretch of ocean strand, they could see the flat crinkle of the sea, green and silver in the mist-shrouded afternoon sun. The tang of salt was in the air, along with the slightly sharp scent of decaying seaweed, a whiff of the castle middens with their ripe decay.

Kelson surveyed the scene for several minutes, eyeing the blank castle walls, the empty expanse of plain and sand dunes, bare except for the rapidly advancing royal army. Far to the northwest, he could see the violet banners of Cardiel's Joshuic Foot, war standards slowly giving way to spears and then to armed foot soldiers with tall, kite-shaped shields as they came over the rise.

Closer on his left flank, Prince Nigel's crack Haldane archers were taking positions at a point of vantage atop a cluster of sand dunes. The regiment's drummers, garish in their lowland dress of green and violet stripes, were hammering out a fast, complicated marching beat, twirling their sticks above their heads and shouting occasionally as they marked time with their feet. Each archer was partnered with a foot soldier armed with spear and shield, whose duty it would be to protect his archer during a rain of enemy bow-fire. All the men in the regiment wore the green and violet feather cockades of the Haldane Archers Corps in the front of their hard leather fighting caps.

At Kelson's back, the flower of Gwynedd's cavalry waited, knights and squires, pages and men-at-arms pulling quickly into position behind their king. The banners of the Lords of Horthness and Varian, Lindestark and Rhorau, Bethenar and Pelagog, floated above the heads of the royal knights: leaders of the greatest houses in Gwynedd, scions of families loyal to the Crown through all of Gwynedd's noble history, since the inception of the Eleven Kingdoms. Morgan's black gryphon banner could be seen off to the right, where Morgan was conferring with several of his officers on some minor point of strategy.

And riding toward Kelson was Duncan, accompanied by a squire carrying his McLain banner of sleeping lions and roses, the banner marked with the red label of three points that identified him as the heir to Cassan and also, since the death of his elder brother Kevin, Earl of Kierney. Duncan wore a fighting harness as he joined Kelson atop the command rise, only a small, plain silver pectoral cross denoting his priestly calling in the midst of McLain plaid and fighting gear.

The Deryni priest nodded greeting to Kelson as he drew rein, then turned to watch Morgan now riding toward them. The gryphon banner joined sleeping lion and roses and the Gwynedd lion, followed shortly by Arilan's episcopal banner of Rhemuth and Cardiel's Dhassa banner. Nigel's crescent-charged demi-lion was also approaching.

“Well, what think you, Morgan?” Kelson asked. He pulled off his helmet and ruffled at damp raven hair with one gloved hand. “You best know the strength of your own seat. Can it be taken?”

Morgan sighed and slouched in the saddle, resting crossed forearms across the high, tooled pommel.

“I should hate to try to take it by force of arms, Sire. Any wall can be breached, given time and the proper equipment. I would prefer to have my city back intact, of course, but I realize that may not be possible. We haven't a great deal of time.”

Arilan cocked an eye at the lowering sun, increasingly shrouded in mist, then turned in his saddle to glance at Kelson. Leather creaked as he moved, and his bishop's cope gleamed in the weakening sunlight. Both he and Cardiel were mailed and armed beneath their bishops' robes: two fighting bishops ready to fight for the Church Militant. Arilan's keen eyes sought out Kelson's in question.

“It will soon be dark, Sire. Unless you mean to engage in night battle, we should begin making arrangements for camp.”

“No, you're right. It's too late to make our move today.” Kelson flicked a fly away from his horse's ears. “I do want to parley with them, though. There is a chance, though only a slim one, that we can reach agreement without raising a sword.”

“Very little chance of that, I should think,” Duncan retorted. “Not while Warin has anything to say about it, at least. The man is obsessed with his hatred of Deryni. He'll take a lot of convincing.”

Kelson frowned. “I know, but we have to try. Cardiel, call the rest of the bishops to assemble with us here in front of the lines. Morgan and Father Duncan, I'd like you to spread the word that we'll be camping here tonight, and have the men start making preparations. You might also set the watches before we try to parley. I don't want the outlying camps harassed during the night by rebel patrols.”

“Aye, my prince.”

HIGH
on the rampart walls, the activities of the royal army were being watched by other eyes. In the shelter of a merlon near the great portcullis gate, Warin de Grey and several of his lieutenants peered down from the castle wall and observed the preparations being made. Warin's gray eyes searched the plain carefully, noting and recording the banners of the great lords assembled there, mentally tallying the hundreds of soldiers who appeared to be encamping on the plain below.

Warin had not the appearance one might expect in a man who had brought half of Corwyn to its knees. He was only middling of height, with close-trimmed hair and beard of a nondescript dun color. Gray was his tunic and cap, gray the cloak he now pulled more closely around his narrow shoulders. Only the stark black of the falcon badge emblazoned on the chest of his leather tunic broke the monotony of it all, black and white against the dull, plain gray. Steel gleamed at throat and wrists and on greaved legs, but even that was muted, satin-bright. Only the eyes were truly outstanding about this man now known as the Lord Warin: the eyes of a mystic, a seer, some said, a saint.