In the King's Service (46 page)

Two chairs of state had been set before the fireplace for the king and queen, who both were dressed in funereal black, both wearing crowns. The two courtiers standing behind them likewise wore black, as well as the young woman standing beside the queen. Ranged along both side walls of the room were archers—eight of them, black crepe banding their upper arms and with arrows nocked to their short recurve bows—each choosing a target as Richard closed the door behind them and stood with his back against it, one hand on the hilt of his sword.

“What on earth is the meaning of this?” Deldour asked, most of his former belligerence evaporating as the gravity of the situation became apparent.

“I, in turn, might ask the same question,” the king replied. “A child was murdered here two nights past. Brutally. Obscenely. By two of your men. And that man condoned and finished the job.” His finger stabbed at Septimus de Nore.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Septimus blustered.

“Do not further disgrace your cloth by a lie,” Donal said calmly. “The only remaining question is, which of the six behind you brutalized the boy?”

“This is preposterous!” Deldour blurted. “What on earth would make you concoct such charges?”

“Ask
him
if the charges are false,” Donal replied, pointing randomly at one of the men-at-arms. “Did you participate in the rape and murder of one of my pages?”

The man went white, looking wildly at the other men as he fell to his knees, lifting his joined hands to the king in trembling entreaty.

“Sire, I swear I know nothing of this!” he blurted. “I swear to you, on my mother’s life—”

“I do not want your mother’s life!” the king snapped. “But I
will
have the lives of the men who did this. How about
you?
” He stabbed his finger at another white-faced man. “Did you do it?”

The man melted to his knees, speechless with terror.

“Speak up, man. One word is sufficient: yes or no.”

“N-no, Sire,” the man whispered.

“And you?” The royal glare shifted to the man directly behind the nay-sayer.

“I am innocent, Sire,” the man said defiantly. “What kind of man would murder a child?”

“Two of the men in this room,” Donal replied, his eyes narrowing. “But let us see how many of them we have uncovered thus far. Lady Alyce?”

As he turned his head in her direction, Alyce moved softly behind the chairs of state to stand at the king’s right hand. With her fair hair covered by a close-wrapped veil like the queen’s, the men in custody had paid her scant attention until now. But she saw recognition lighting in their eyes as she moved, remembering her from her Twelfth Night betrothal, and naked fear and even loathing flickered among them.

“The second man is lying, Sire,” she said quietly. “And his accomplice will be one of the three you have not yet put to the question.”

The guilty man gave a sob, cringing back on his hunkers and covering his face with his hands. Consternation stirred immediately among the others, stilled only when the bowmen raised their weapons and half-drew in warning. Lord Deldour was staring at the guilty man as if he suddenly had sprouted horns, even shying back from the two men who had been cleared, as they scuttled sideways on their knees, distancing themselves from their wretched comrade.

Septimus de Nore had gone even paler in his black cassock, though he had stood his ground thus far. As the king swept his gaze over the remaining suspects, the three of them sank raggedly to their knees, white faces averted, cringing both from fear of the king’s wrath and the even more dangerous scrutiny of the woman whose blood they now remembered.

“Ask him again, Sire,” Alyce said softly, indicating the guilty man with a jut of her chin.

“No,
you
ask him this time,” the king replied, his voice hard and cold. “Be very specific, and use whatever persuasion you deem necessary.”

She looked at him sharply, for she did not think it wise to be blatant about her powers in front of hostile witnesses. But even as she balked at the prospect, a way around it occurred to her.

“Very well, Sire,” she murmured, returning her gaze to the guilty man.

He cringed anew, beginning to whimper, but she only continued to look at him until he glanced up again—and found himself snared in her eyes.

“What is your name?” she asked quietly.

“A-Alvin de Marco,” he managed to whisper.

“Thank you.” She inclined her head to him, aware that all eyes were now upon her. “Alvin de Marco, you have nothing to fear from me, for it is merely my gift to know when a man tells the truth—and when he lies. It is the wrath of the king you should fear, in answer for your crime—and God’s judgement, at that final reckoning, if you do not repent of your sins and purge yourself of your guilt.”

“Do not
you
presume to lecture
him
about anything to do with God!” Septimus blurted, livid with anger. “What has a Deryni to do with God? What worth is a Deryni’s word? How
dare
you?”

She glanced at him mildly, staying the king’s intervention with a slightly raised palm. “I am no longer your student, that you may lecture me, Father. It is not I who am on trial here.”

“This is no trial!” Septimus retorted. “You have no proof that any of us had a hand in whatever happened here!”

“You know full well what happened here,” the king cut in, “and
I
will decide what is sufficient proof. Proceed, my lady.”

Inclining her head, Alyce returned her attention to the cowering Alvin de Marco.

“Alvin, did you assault the boy?”

Sniveling now, trembling, the man gave a nod of his head.

“Say it, Alvin: yes or no.”

“Y-yes,” the wretched man managed to croak.

“And another man also did the same?”

Again, “Yes.”

“Please point him out to us, Alvin.”

Trembling, the accused turned on his knees to find his accomplice, but the guilty man had already betrayed himself by the pool of urine spreading outward from his cringing form.

“You miserable worm!” the king said softly, ice in each condemning word. “You have the bollocks to bugger a little boy, but not to admit your guilt like a man. Well, we’ll at least see if we can’t find a punishment to fit the crime. Captain?”

The officer of the archers stepped forward smartly and bowed.

“Sire?”

“Take those two to the guardhouse and fetch them a priest—not
that
one, because he’s disgraced his office, but I’ll not deny any man the chance to make peace with God before he dies. It’s more than they gave the boy. But when that’s done, I want them taken to the stable yard where the crime was committed and strung up—and geld them first. As for
this
miserable excuse for a man,” he concluded, glaring at Septimus, “I have an altogether more fitting disposition in mind for
him
.”

 
 
SEISYLL Arilan had been one of the courtiers attending the king that gray day in January, and was able to report the fate of Septimus de Nore when he met with the Camberian Council a few days later.

“I must give Donal Haldane credit,” he said, when he had outlined the basic events of the past week for those unable to be present at a previous emergency meeting. “It was Old Testament justice—there were some rumblings about some aspects of the proceedings—but I think most would agree that the end result did fit the circumstances.”

The execution of Lord Deldour’s two men had, indeed, been met with general approval, as the word got out. Assaults against children were never condoned or even tolerated, whether the child was human or Deryni. Many years before, disgruntlement about a child predator had lit the first sparks that led to the Haldane Restoration of 917.

The fate of Father Septimus de Nore had sparked rather different reactions, not because he was innocent of murder—because he was not—but because he was a priest, and the brother of a bishop. Grandly claiming benefit of clergy, and making much of his family connection, he had demanded to be bound over to ecclesiastical justice, preferably his brother’s, by which he might have anticipated being locked away to a life of penitence and self-mortification—or even gone free with a mild reprimand, since his victim had been Deryni.

But the king had exercised his own notion of justice in the matter of the killing of Krispin MacAthan, and had dealt Septimus de Nore a sentence commensurate with what he had done to his innocent victim. He might be innocent of rapine, but his had been the hands that had tipped Krispin down the well to drown.

First stripping him of his clerical attire—and of undergarments and boots as well—they had flogged him thirty lashes, in token of his betrayal of a child’s trust of his office. He then had been shoved head-first down that self-same well into which he had dropped young Krispin—with a rope bound round his ankles and extending back up the well-shaft, to facilitate eventual retrieval of his body.

Because he was larger and stronger than Krispin had been, he had managed to delay the inevitable for close to half an hour, slipping incrementally closer to oblivion; but he had not been able to stop it or reverse it. When, the following morning, his body was pulled from the well, as had been done with Krispin’s, the flesh of hands, elbows, and knees was lacerated nearly to the bone—but none had pitied him.

“And good riddance!” Vivienne had said fiercely, when Seisyll finished his account. She and Dominy both had wept when they heard of Krispin’s brutal slaying, and the fate of his killers bothered them not at all.

“Aye, but it is having repercussions beyond what I think Donal probably expected,” Seisyll replied. “Septimus was the brother of Bishop Oliver de Nore, who is pressing the Archbishop of Rhemuth to excommunicate the king.”

“He won’t do that—will he?” Dominy said.

“Unknown,” Michon answered. “Ultimately, Archbishop William must take his direction from Valoret—and Michael of Kheldour
tends
toward moderation. But neither archbishop has made more than token gestures to curb de Nore’s excesses in Carthane. The death of one more Deryni boy, weighed against the dozens who have burned in the Nyford area, counts for very little in the grand scheme of things.”

“On the other hand,” Khoren observed, “these other Deryni were not possible kin to the king—though Krispin’s death does render that question academic now.”

“Do you still believe he was the king’s son?” Oisín asked Seisyll.

“Most probably,” Seisyll replied. “Not that there was any overt sign of it at the boy’s funeral. I watched Donal closely, for any indication that his affection for the boy might have gone beyond that of any other page in his service, but he was cool as ice.”

“How is Jessamy holding up?” Dominy asked.

Seisyll shook his head, sighing. “She was devastated, as one might expect—and definitely showing her age. She has buried children before, of course—and a husband—and Krispin was laid to rest near them, down in the crypts beneath the cathedral. Very sadly, I think she shall bear no more children, even should she marry again, so Krispin was her last hope of a son. I pity her grief.”

“This is all distressing news, to be sure,” Barrett said after a moment. “However, I am somewhat heartened by your report of Alyce de Corwyn through all of this sad unfolding. Her handling of the interrogation of the suspects was masterful—avoiding as much as she could of any outward show of her abilities.”

Seisyll inclined his head. “True enough. She seemed to sense the importance of caution in the presence of Lord Deldour—for she will have known that, whatever passed in that room, and whatever became of Father Septimus, word would find its way back to Bishop Oliver.”

“She has good sense,” Khoren agreed. “Fortunately, Truth-Reading is perhaps the least threatening of all our talents, since it does not involve any direct interference with the person being read.”

Seisyll gave a nod of agreement. “Aye, it was exceedingly well done. I would love to know what training has given her such wisdom. But since she already knew of de Nore’s part in the affair, mere Truth-Reading was sufficient in the case of the guilty pair—and by inducing the one to inform on the other, our Alyce cleverly avoided having to compel answers from any of them.

“And once the first man was discovered in his lie,” Michon agreed, “it was he who exposed his fellow—mostly out of fear for what more she might do, if answers were not forthcoming. That is both our strength and our vulnerability among humans—that they
don’t know
what we can actually do.”

A few of them chuckled at that, for it was perfectly true.

“What has been the reaction?” Barrett asked. “Nothing has yet reached Nur Sayyid.”

Seisyll shrugged. “Bishop Oliver is said to be livid over the outcome, as one might expect, but that is largely a question of the authority of the Church, aside from his personal pique at having lost a brother; Septimus
was
a murderer, after all, and had betrayed his office.

“Few question the fate of the two sodomites. Among the common folk—those who know of it—I have talked to no one who argues with the king’s disposition of the case. Though some might have stopped short of the gelding, all seem to agree that the punishment did fit the crime—especially since the two did acquiesce to the victim’s death.”

“Then, it appears we must wait to see what further develops on that front,” Oisín said. “I am very glad I do not live down in Carthane.” He slapped his palm against the ivory table, shaking his head. “
Why
did they do it?”

“Not for the obvious reasons,” Barrett said evenly. “It will not have been a matter of lust. Resentment might be a better guess—even hatred. Young Krispin had been invested as a page that day. Most at court no longer remark that his mother is Deryni, but it is known; and some would resent that he was being brought up with the royal children. He was an intimate of the king’s sons—and their
corruptor,
by the reckoning of some, simply by association, by the sheer fact of being what he was.”