CHAPTER TWENTY

Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.

—Wisdom of Solomon 2:17

“I’ll tell you why!” Bishop Hubert raged, when the party with its prisoners had returned to Rhemuth Castle. “He was one of them!” He gestured toward the four kneeling prisoners with an angry chop of his hand. “Are they not all Deryni?”

Court had been convened in the great hall as soon as the king and regents could be summoned. The princes had been allowed time to wash and change their bloodstained tunics, but now they sat tensely on stools to either side of their brother, who nominally presided from the formal throne. A tense-looking Tavis crouched beside Javan’s stool to the far right.

The three regents resident in Rhemuth were ranged in rigid fury around the throne: Bishop Hubert, coped and mitered between Alroy and Javan, crozier clutched like a talisman against the prisoners; Earls Murdoch and Tammaron on Alroy’s other side, wearing their coronets and long court mantles of rich, dark stuff lined with fur.

Archbishops Jaffray and Oriss were also present, and Earl Udaut, the constable, and several other lesser lords, but they had been relegated to places at the right of and perpendicular to the throne, with several clarks who were scribbling notes intently. Jaffray, the sole functioning Deryni in the hall besides Tavis—for the prisoners had been drugged before they ever left the campsite to prevent Deryni tricks—only wished he could be even farther from the center of attention. Deryniness would be a key issue this afternoon, as well it had to be.

He wished he knew more precisely what had happened. From what snatches of information he had been able to pick up from those around him, it appeared that there had been an attack on the royal hunting party by, among others, those now kneeling before the court, and that Davin had been among those killed, his true form returning at his death. The logical inference seemed to be that Davin had been a key part of a Deryni assassination plot—for why else would a Deryni of Davin’s high rank join the royal household disguised as a common guard?

That Davin was dead, there was certainly no doubt, even if his psychic absence were not poignant enough reminder. His lifeless body lay on a litter before all the court, alongside those of the other four attackers who had been killed, plus the dead guard and squire. Beside them knelt the four bound and drugged prisoners who had been taken alive, each with a guard standing behind. They were Deryni—Jaffray had sent out a swift probe as they were brought in, though the shields he had encountered were hazy and confused from the drugs—but he did not recognize any of them except Davin.

“I therefore think it clear,” Murdoch was saying, “that these—Deryni,” he spoke the name with purest contempt, “did conspire to murder Your Highness’s royal brothers—and would have threatened Your Highness’s life, as well, had you not been called to your royal duties at the last moment and stayed in Rhemuth this morning. Nor is this the first instance of Deryni plots against the House of Haldane, as Your Highness will recall. Now, one of the loyal guards has been most foully slain, and another guard, who was trusted with the very safety of the Crown, has betrayed you.”

He moved down a step and gestured angrily toward the body of Davin.

“There lies the Earl of Culdi, who, by some magic surely profane in the eyes of God, took the form of another and did deceive Your Grace and your royal brothers—and was revealed as the deceiver he is only when death forced him from his evil ways.”

“He saved Rhys Michael’s life,” Javan protested. “He took an arrow meant for my brother.”

Murdoch threw up his hands in disgust. “Oh, Your Highness, how can you be so deceived? It was merest chance that the arrow struck—that!” Again he gestured roughly toward the body. “His confederates miscalculated—that is all! There is another who was so wounded. It is not always possible to choose one’s targets with great precision in the heat of battle, especially when the bowman shoots from a cowardly shelter in brush.”

He stabbed a beringed forefinger at the body of the man Javan had finished, with the arrow still projecting from its leg.

“These Deryni are all in league,” he concluded. “It is quite clear what dark Master of destruction and damnation they serve!”

It was all Jaffray could do to keep his seat, but he knew he dared not rise to Murdoch’s bait and draw the regents’ scrutiny on himself. Tavis had likewise blanched at Murdoch’s statement, but with tight-lipped forbearance he merely dropped his hot gaze to the floor by Javan’s feet.

Alroy, who had grown progressively paler as Murdoch spoke, gripped the gold-mounted ivory of his scepter as if it were his only link to sanity as he stared at the four battered captives.

“Have you anything to say to us?” he said, in a thin but steady voice.

The captives stared back sullenly, eyes a little glazed from the drugs they had been given, but none of them showed any inclination to speak.

“We do not wish it said that our justice is arbitrary,” Alroy continued, almost a little pleading. “Your crime is irrefutable. We have done nothing to provoke such an attack upon us. Yet, if you had some quarrel—”

Bishop Hubert rapped twice with his crozier on the wooden floor of the dais, the sound an echo of doom for those who knelt before him.

“No quarrel may justify raising hand against one’s lawfully anointed king, Your Grace!” he thundered in red-faced outrage. “And to strike against the king’s heirs is to strike against the king! These Deryni were engaged in sacrilegious murder and treason. They must be made an example, that none may ever again raise hand against your royal house!”

Alroy, who had shrunk down in his throne a little as Hubert made his pronouncement, gripped his scepter even tighter, and Javan looked as if he might faint. Only Rhys Michael continued to stare evenly at the prisoners, his face a chiseled mask of ice. After a few tense heartbeats, Alroy turned his face slightly toward Tavis, crouching at Javan’s side.

“Lord Tavis, perhaps a Deryni can shed some light on the motives of other Deryni.”

Tavis, with an uncertain glance at the king, then at the prisoners, rose stiffly and crossed his arms so that his missing hand was shielded behind his other elbow.

“I would gather from Your Highness’s request that my own loyalty is not in question, even though I am Deryni,” he said softly. “If this is so, do I also assume that Your Highness is asking me to Truth-Read the prisoners?”

“If you can.”

“With all due respect, Your Highness, I would rather not.”

“Your own attackers could be among them,” Murdoch offered smoothly. “Will you not serve yourself and your king in this small way, Tavis?”

Tavis returned Murdoch’s gaze implacably, then drew careful breath, clearly about to refuse.

“Do not force me to command you, Tavis,” Murdoch whispered.

For a moment, Jaffray thought the Healer might continue to defy Murdoch. Tight-jawed, he glanced at Javan, at Alroy, then gave a brisk nod, not quite a bow, before moving down the dais steps. The prisoners, even in their drugged lethargy, shrank against the guards who stood at their backs, but they could not escape his touch as he passed along their line, pausing before each man to lay his hand briefly on forehead and probe as well as he might. When he had read each one, he returned up the steps and made Alroy another almost-bow.

“I believe no useful purpose would be served by deeper probing, Your Highness. They appear to be only disgruntled younger nobility—the same breed of bully boys whose bands have plagued us for some time now. They are more young and foolish than conspiratorial, and seem as astonished as we that Earl Davin was among us.”

Javan raised his head attentively, some of the color returning to his cheeks.

“Then, Davin was not lying. He was sent by someone else, to protect us.”

“Aye, sent by someone else,” Hubert replied archly, “but not to protect you, Your Highness. He deceived you. He deceived all of us. He took another man’s form and identity. And where is the real Eidiard of Clure? No doubt, most foully murdered, so young MacRorie could come here in his place and plot his treason!”

Javan had no answer for that. Nor did Tavis. After a moment, Alroy looked at the Healer again.

“You believe there was no plot, then?”

“Among themselves, because they were personally outraged, yes, of course there was a plot, Your Highness. But it did not extend beyond their band, and it was not a Deryni plot. This was not a Deryni question, despite the fact that Earl Murdoch would have it so. I cannot speak for Earl Davin’s motives, but these men appear to have acted out of purely human motivations.”

“They ‘appear’ to have acted,” Murdoch repeated, tight-lipped. “Then, you admit the possibility that there may have been other considerations which prompted their action, which you could not read?”

Tavis shrugged, a not-quite insolent statement of subtle defiance.

“I cannot read their souls, my lord, but so far as I may determine, on an admittedly superficial but drug-assisted reading, they acted to retaliate against those who symbolized the lessening of their prospects.”

“And if more than a superficial reading were attempted?” Tammaron asked.

“They would die.”

“What!”

“They had a pact among themselves, to resist any deep probing by triggering their own deaths. Bishop MacInnis will remember a similar case early in the summer, when a prisoner willed his own death rather than permit the baring of his mind to my probe. I have the names of the living and the dead, including the one who escaped. There is nothing further to be gained.”

Hubert nodded, the pink lips pursing in the cherub face.

“He’s right. I remember.”

“I see.” Murdoch hooked both thumbs in the leather of his earl’s belt and rocked back and forth on his heels. “And I assume that if anyone else of your kind were to attempt to read them, he would likewise encounter this?”

“Undoubtedly, my lord.”

“Even Archbishop Jaffray,” Murdoch pursued it, “who is forbidden by his vows to kill?”

As Jaffray caught his breath, praying he would be spared the necessity to find out, Tavis gave a curt nod.

“You are welcome to have it tried, my lord. Archbishop Jaffray was one of my teachers, though he is not a Healer. It may well be that he has skills which I do not; but I do not think even he can elude a death-trigger.”

Murdoch turned his attention to Jaffray slyly. “Well, Archbishop, can you serve your king in this?”

Chilled, Jaffray stood.

“Your Highness,” he murmured, with a slight bow to the wide-eyed Alroy before returning his attention to Murdoch. “Lord Tavis was, indeed, my student at one time, and if he says that no one could avoid such a trigger, then I am certain that it is so.”

“I would question that, Archbishop,” Murdoch replied. “However, I will not demean your office by putting you personally to the test. Sir Piedur.”

The guard captain, standing by the side door nearest Jaffray and Oriss, snapped to attention.

“Excellency.”

“Ask Lord Oriel to attend the King’s Grace. Do not tell him anything of what has just been discussed.”

“At once, Excellency.”

“And you, Tavis, do you go to the clarks and give them the names that you have learned, while we wait for Oriel to join us,” Murdoch added.

As Piedur left and Tavis came down from the dais, Jaffray sank wearily back into his chair and folded his hands, realizing some of the worst of his fears as he watched the young Healer come and stand before a clark. He had heard vague rumor for the past month that the regents were recruiting Deryni agents by inducement and threat, and now he knew that it was true. The collaboration was beginning, Deryni against Deryni!

Tavis had nearly finished dictating to the clark, arms clasped sullenly across his chest, not bothering to look at what the man wrote down; but Jaffray could see the names over the clark’s shoulder, and knew with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that the men had come from some of the oldest families in Gwynedd. When Tavis had finished, he returned to the dais and crouched once more by Javan’s side. Murdoch, displaying a typically prim, careful smile, leaned one arm casually on the back of Alroy’s throne, surveying Tavis and Jaffray by turns.

“We thank you, Lord Tavis,” he said silkily. “And I believe you will remember Lord Oriel from the night of your injury?”

Tavis gave a curt nod.

“Good. And you, Archbishop—do you know him? He is in our employ now, as you will have gathered. It seems he has a wife and tiny daughter of whom he is inordinately fond. But, I didn’t hear your answer, Archbishop. Do you know Lord Oriel?”

“Only by reputation,” Jaffray murmured dully. He looked up and saw Murdoch’s peculiar, twisted smile—and just for an instant, he wanted to smash Murdoch’s prim, disdainful face.

“Well, you shall meet him shortly,” Murdoch was saying. “But just to keep both you and Tavis honest, I should warn you that if either of you should attempt either to influence what Oriel does or to interfere with his reading of the chosen prisoner, he will tell me—and I shall know where your true loyalties lie.” The sour smile was replaced by a grim, tight-lipped scowl. “Do I make myself clear?”

Resignedly, Jaffray nodded assent, glancing aside as Piedur re-entered the hall, escorting a young, blondish man with a wisp of reddish beard who looked far too young to wear the Healer’s green, even though he fit the description Rhys had given them in the Council. Tavis, crouching still by Javan’s stool, followed the younger Healer with narrowed eyes. Jaffray suspected that Tavis had little use for the Healer who had failed to save his hand—though it had not been Oriel’s fault, God knew.

Murdoch smiled his bitter smile again and folded his hands piously, though he did not remove his elbow from the back of Alroy’s throne.

“Lord Oriel, we have here a situation which is at once a serious matter of state and a test—of whom, I shall not say.” He gestured toward the four kneeling men with a thrust of his chin. “These prisoners were taken following their ambush of the Princes Javan and Rhys Michael whilst hunting. They killed the guard and the squire you see yonder, and the other dead are of their band. At least one man escaped. We know them to be Deryni. What I want to know first is, what are the names of all the conspirators?”

Oriel glanced coolly at the prisoners, then returned his attention to Murdoch.

“May I ask the Lord Tavis a question?”

“Ask, and I will tell you whether he may answer,” Murdoch replied.

“As you wish. Lord Tavis, I note without actually probing that the prisoners have been drugged in some manner. Am I to assume the usual combination of substances?”

Tavis glanced up at Murdoch, who nodded, then turned his attention briefly to Oriel.

“The usual combination,” he admitted reluctantly. “The minimum dosage consistent with safety for those around them, while still ensuring breakdown of defenses.”

“Very well. Earl Murdoch, have you any preference as to which prisoner I should interrogate, or did you wish all of them read?”

“The bowman, there on the left,” Murdoch said, folding his arms across his chest and fondling his close-trimmed beard with one hand.

He made no move to say anything further, and Jaffray realized that he did not mean to tell Oriel of the death-triggers. He was going to see whether Oriel detected them on his own. Where Oriel went from there was anyone’s guess, though Jaffray did not think Oriel would kill on orders from the regents. He was, after all, a Healer sworn.

Oriel turned and looked at the prisoners, then walked slowly to the bowman, on the far left of the line. The broken shaft of an arrow still protruded from his right shoulder, but he was no longer bleeding much. The pain showed in his eyes as he looked up at the Healer, though, for neither drugs nor his now-crippled Deryniness could ease the ache of arms still lashed tight at wrist and elbow, the throb of arrow still impaling, the cold dread of certain knowledge that psychic invasion was now imminent. As Oriel slowly raised his hands toward the man’s temples, he winced and screwed his eyes shut and tried to shrink back from the Healer’s touch; but the guard supporting him merely tightened his grip on the prisoner’s shoulders, at considerable additional pain, and held him fast for the contact.

Jaffray did not dare to extend and find out precisely what Oriel was doing in those first seconds of contact, but very shortly the prisoner started trembling, his eyelids fluttering involuntarily, as Oriel intensified his probe. Almost immediately, Oriel opened his eyes, apparently having withdrawn slightly, since his subject had stopped shaking, and half-turned his face toward Murdoch, though he did not take his eyes from the bowman’s.

“I have their names and families,” Oriel said softly, “including the man who escaped.”

“Speak them,” Murdoch ordered. “Clark, check these against your list.”

“This one is Denzil Carmichael. The other three are Fulbert de Morrisey, Ranald Gilstrachan, and Ivo Lovat, the Baron Frizell’s youngest son.” The two clarks collaborated over their list, nodding as each name was found and checked off. “The dead are Dylan ap Thomas, Shaw Farquharson, and Amyot and Trefor of Morland. Those last two are cousins. The one who escaped is Sholto MacDhugal.”

At the senior clark’s final nod that the lists tallied, Murdoch breathed, “Excellent.”

“And what of the Earl of Culdi?” Hubert asked.

The Healer’s eyes went a little unfocused as he apparently read again, but then he shook his head, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Carmichael has never seen him before, Your Grace. In fact, he thought the man was a guard until he—shape-changed?”

With that, he looked up, not breaking the forced rapport he maintained, but seeking Murdoch’s face for confirmation of what he had just read. Murdoch went red, and Jaffray did not even need to use his Sight to read the anger in all three regents.

“He’s lying,” Murdoch whispered. “He has to be. We know that MacRorie was part of a massive Deryni plot to overthrow the Crown. Read deeper!”

Troubled by their reaction, Oriel returned his gaze to the face between his hands, closed his eyes for a moment, then shivered visibly as he turned his face slightly toward Murdoch again.

“My lord, I dare not go deeper. This man has a suicide block of some kind. If I force his shields further, it will kill him.”

“Then kill him!” snapped Murdoch. “I want to know about the conspiracy, and I will know!”

“But, there is no conspiracy, at least not with anyone named MacRorie,” Oriel whispered. “These men sought vengeance for the death of a friend, but this Earl of Culdi whom you mention was no part of their design.”

“Read deeper, Oriel!” Murdoch commanded, taking a step toward the Healer. “If you value your life and your family, obey me!”

For a moment, Jaffray thought the Healer would refuse the order. Oriel squeezed his eyes shut as if to block out the sight of all around him; but then his shoulders sagged in defeat and his face relaxed to stony indifference.

It was over in an instant, as Tavis had promised and as Jaffray had known it would be. As the man collapsed against the guard, Oriel gave a shudder and let his hands fall away, having to steady himself on the guard’s shoulder to keep from falling himself.

Murdoch was scowling as Oriel turned toward the throne, and Hubert and Tammaron showed similar signs of displeasure. Tavis stared across at his fellow Healer with a look of raw fury which Jaffray had never seen in the pale blue eyes before. Oriel caught the look and blanched, hardly daring to lift his eyes to Murdoch.

“He is dead, Excellency, as His Highness’s Healer apparently knew would happen before I came. Why did you not tell me?”

“I told you, it was a testing. Besides, it is not for you to question us,” Murdoch said evenly. “What more did you read?”

Oriel sighed. “A few small, petty sins; terror that what he himself had set in motion could not now be recalled. But I read no conspiracy beyond the pact the nine of them shared. The one called Trefor of Morland was apparently their leader, if you could call it that; they were hardly that well organized. He was a foster brother to a—Dafydd Leslie, who was executed this summer?”

Hubert snorted, a priggish, perplexed sigh, then motioned the man away with a plump hand. “Never you mind, Oriel. We know the name. You may go now.”

Speechless, Oriel sketched a helpless, sorrow-laden bow to Alroy, then turned and followed Sir Piedur out of the hall. Jaffray could not help noticing the contempt in Tavis’s eyes as his gaze followed the younger Healer out. His own reaction he could not resolve just yet.

“Very well, Your Highness,” Murdoch said, when Piedur had returned to the hall alone. “I think it clear that pursuing this course of action will only cheat the executioners. I therefore ask Your Highness, what is your pleasure toward these men who would attempt to slay your royal brothers, and who have killed two of your good men?”

Alroy swallowed and turned slightly toward his chancellor, standing at his left hand.

“Earl Tammaron,” he said softly, “name a fitting punishment for men who would seek to murder my brothers.”

With no outward sign of emotion, Tammaron turned his gaze on the three remaining prisoners.

“Such men should be executed at once, Your Highness. Furthermore, their lands and titles, if any, should be attainted, and their heirs declared outlaw and put to the horn. In the case of younger sons, I would recommend that their fathers receive the same punishment, for having exercised so little control over their kinsmen.”

“Execution for these and attainder and outlawry for their families?” Alroy asked.

“Precisely.”

“And the method of execution?” Alroy murmured hesitantly.

“To be hanged, drawn, and quartered, befitting traitors,” Tammaron replied promptly. “The parts should be sent to every major town in Gwynedd and displayed for all to see and learn the fate of traitors and assassins.”

Alroy’s face had gone ever whiter at Tammaron’s pronouncement. Javan had closed his eyes. Rhys Michael did not change expression at all, even when Alroy stood shakily to pronounce judgment.

“We concur with the recommendation of our chancellor,” he said in a surprisingly strong voice. “The sentence will be carried out at once.”

The three kneeling Deryni blanched, even through their drugged state. Murdoch watched their reaction, then leaned close to the king to whisper something in his ear. Alroy’s knuckles whitened even further on the scepter he held, but he nodded curtly.

“We further command that the bodies of these others suffer the same sentence,” Alroy added, gesturing toward the bodies with his chin, “including the Earl of Culdi. The Earldom of Culdi is hereby confiscated to our Crown.”

“No! He saved Rhys Michael’s life!” Javan protested, half-rising from his stool.

“This is the king’s command!” Murdoch said in a loud voice. “So let it be done. Sir Piedur, you will assemble the castle garrison to assist in the executions and to witness the king’s justice.”

As Javan subsided on his stool, the king turned and went out of the hall through a side door, attended by the regents and followed by Rhys Michael and several guards and squires. Oriss and Udaut and the clarks followed them, for note would be taken of any statements the prisoners made at the time of death, but Jaffray paused to kneel briefly by the body of the dead Denzil Carmichael. As he rose, the guards took the body and began dragging and herding the live prisoners out to the courtyard at the far end of the hall. With a sigh, Jaffray moved on through the side door with the others.

When the prisoners, living and dead, had been taken from the hall, and all that remained within were a pair of guards by the doors at the far end, Javan finally roused himself from his dazed introspection and turned his gaze on Tavis, still crouching at his feet.

“Was there a conspiracy, Tavis?”

“I don’t know, my prince. I honestly don’t think so—and I say that not as Deryni, but as your loyal servant and friend. Even Oriel, who is now the regents’ tool, could find no evidence of a larger plot, it seems.” He chuckled bitterly. “In truth, I suspect they were after me, for killing Dafydd Leslie and for serving you—though it would have been a masterstroke to kill both the king’s brothers, too.”

“And Davin MacRorie—was he a traitor?” the boy asked softly.

Tavis could only shake his head in bewilderment.

“Not a traitor—though what he was, I cannot begin to guess.” He paused for just an instant, then looked up tentatively. “Javan,” he whispered, “I did not tell the Court, and there was no time to tell you earlier, but when Davin died, I thought I sensed another presence with him.”

“Another presence? What do you mean?”

“A—” He sighed and shook his head, finding it difficult to express himself in words. “Forgive me, my prince. You know of Saint Camber, who was young MacRorie’s grandfather?”

“Of course.”

“Well, it was his presence I thought I sensed. Davin acknowledged him as Camber. Camber was with him—I would almost swear it on my Sight! There was such a peacefulness about Davin as he died—not as if he willed it, precisely, but he—accepted it. And Camber upheld him.”

Javan’s eyes had grown round with wonder as Tavis spoke, and now he grasped Tavis’s good arm so tightly it almost hurt.

“You think that Saint Camber came to him at the moment of death?”

Tavis swallowed. “So it—seemed.”

“Oh.” Then: “Do saints do that often?”

Tavis gave a semblance of a nervous chuckle and shrugged helplessly. “Damned if I know. I don’t think so, though,” he concluded on a more sober note.

Javan mulled that for a moment, then cleared his throat uneasily.

“Maybe they only appear to their families.”

“I suppose it’s as possible as any other speculation. But—why do you ask that?”

“Well, Davin had a younger brother, didn’t he? Maybe we could ask him.”

“About Saint Camber? Ansel?” Tavis shook his head. “He will be long in hiding by now.”

“In hiding? Why? How could he know?”

“The two were brothers, and Deryni, Javan,” Tavis whispered impatiently. “He will have known of Davin’s death the instant it occurred, and he will have known what that would mean, for he cannot have been unaware of the secret game his brother played.”

“What about Father Joram, then?” Javan insisted. “He was Davin’s uncle, and he’s a priest. If anyone should know about Saint Camber, he should. Or, what about Lady Evaine, or Rhys?”

“Rhys, my prince? After what he did to us the night your father died? And the others are no less involved, I feel more and more certain.”

“But, how can we find out? Tavis, we must know the truth! We must!”

But they were allowed no further time for discussion just then, for the royal party was filing along an open passageway running just beneath the rafters of the hall toward the gallery at the far end. That gallery overlooked the hall in one direction and, in the other, the pitched stone courtyard which lay between the hall and the great octagonal keep. There it was that the executions were about to take place.

Sir Jason appeared in the side doorway with a cloak for Javan, for the afternoon was growing chill as evening approached, and Javan glanced plaintively at Tavis in appeal; but the Healer shook his head and helped the prince up with a hand under his elbow. Grisly though the executions would be, Javan must witness them; and Tavis would not leave the boy to face that alone. Already, the mutilation of the bodies would have started, the better to terrify the three living prisoners awaiting execution. They could delay no longer.

Sir Jason laid the cloak around Javan’s rigid shoulders, then withdrew discreetly; and Tavis, with a grim expression, began walking the boy firmly up the hall, where another narrow stair led to the gallery where the others were already assembled.

“Courage, my prince,” he murmured. “We shall find a way to get more information out of my fellow Deryni, I promise you. Let me think on it for a day or two. It may be that Rhys can be our key, after all. He and I are Healers, two of a kind. I may be able to use some of his own craft against him.”