King Javan’s Year (38 page)

“I've taken the necessary measures to safeguard them, my prince,” Niallan murmured, touching his shoulder in reassurance as they changed places on the Portal square. “Unless you permit it, they'll remember nothing of tonight's work. God keep your Highness.”

“Thank you,” Javan whispered.

With a nod and a smile, Niallan was gone, leaving Javan to direct his charges back to their respective quarters. It was accomplished without incident. When he and Charlan had gained the safety of the royal apartments, he checked on Rhys Michael—still dead asleep and snoring, reeking of wine—then sent Charlan to bed down on his accustomed pallet by the door. Once crowned, Javan intended to move his aides into quarters across the hall, near at hand yet retaining his privacy, but for now he was glad of their company—even if the oblivious Charlan retained no knowledge of Guiscard's dark mission, which weighed so heavily on Javan's mind.

He took his time preparing for bed, but Guiscard still had not returned by the time he was finished. Beginning to get a little anxious, he pulled on a cool night robe and went into the outer chamber to wait. He had extinguished all the lights but one candle on the trestle table and was sitting in the darkened window of the outer room when Guiscard finally came in, after another quarter hour.

“Guiscard, I'm over here,” he whispered as the Deryni knight closed and bolted the door.

Guiscard stiffened for just an instant, then came reluctantly across the room to set one foot on the step up into the window embrasure where Javan sat.

“I was hoping you hadn't waited up,” he said quietly.

“I had to know,” Javan replied. “It's finished?”

Guiscard nodded and turned to sit wearily on the step, clasping his arms around his knees.

“It shouldn't be that easy to kill a man,” he murmured after a long moment.

Javan closed his eyes briefly, then drew his night robe more closely around him and stood, going down to sit beside Guiscard.

“I don't like this part of being king,” he said.

“It isn't my favorite part of serving a king, either,” Guiscard replied, “but sometimes it has to be done. If it's any comfort, he never felt a thing, beyond the first twinge.”

“I suppose that's something,” Javan said. He heaved a great sigh and put it out of his mind. “No point dwelling on it, though. It's done now. I suppose I ought to try to get some sleep. I suggest you do the same. We're likely to need all our wits about us tomorrow.”

“Aye. God keep your Grace,” Guiscard murmured.

As Javan crawled into bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping Rhys Michael, he feared he might not sleep at all, but fatigue washed over him like a wave before his head could even hit the pillow. In those few seconds before sleep claimed him, he made himself put aside speculation about a party of
Custodes
monks probably even now bearing the body of their stricken brother to Saint Hilary's or the archbishop's palace.

Instead, he turned his last conscious thought to what had happened between him and Joram, and was not surprised that he dreamed of Saint Camber that night—and of hallowed hands lifting up a shining crown above his head.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at the length
.

—Proverbs 29:21

Javan had hoped to sleep late the next morning, the last before his coronation, but he found himself drifting into consciousness shortly after dawn. He kept his eyes closed against the glare coming from the balcony doors—open to admit of a faint breeze—and tried to recapture some of the blissful escape he had attained in sleep, resolutely putting aside both his satisfaction at the setting of the new Portal and his remorse at having been obliged to order another man's death. Both had been necessary for survival. He must not dwell on what he could not change.

Having acknowledged the darkest aspect of this day he must face, he directed his further attention to the more positive aspects of his situation. Today, for example, because of Sunday morning obligations and the special Cassani Court at midday, he was excused from the rigorous schedule of physical training he had ordered Jason and Robear to set for him—and which certainly was accomplishing its purpose.

In fact, he had never been so fit and strong. A month of very determined work had added breadth to his shoulders and chest, trimmed an already slender waist, and even put muscle onto his legs such that his limp was less pronounced. The process had been gruelling in the heat, and in so short a time, but as he stretched lazily in bed, he could take satisfaction in the knowledge that he even stood a few fingers taller now—though perhaps that was as much from increased self-confidence as from any real increase in height.

Stretching brought one foot into contact with a warm body—Rhys Michael's—and Javan cracked an eye open to gaze across thoughtfully at his sleeping brother. Hardly unexpectedly, Gwynedd's heir presumptive was looking decidedly fragile this morning, even asleep. Javan's cautious probe confirmed what promised to be a rather spectacular hangover, as soon as Rhys Michael woke—and also the hitherto unsuspected shields.

Feeling only slight remorse over his part in his brother's incipient misery, Javan turned his gaze vexedly to the underside of the canopy above him and considered what to do about him—besides let him sleep as long as possible this morning. The previous night had produced several unwelcome revelations about Rhys Michael Alister Haldane.

Shields aside—and Javan supposed they were really an inevitability of being a Haldane heir—he had not intended to have to deal with Rhys Michael at all last night, and certainly not concerning the very delicate subject of marriage. Nor had he expected the insinuations by both Charlan and Guiscard concerning Rhys Michael's drinking habits. The prospect of his heir becoming a drunkard was not at all appealing.

Even less appealing was the prospect of his heir wanting to marry, at least in the very near future. The alcohol question was sufficiently serious to bear closer observation, though it probably could not be assessed reliably in the context of festivities accompanying a coronation; but Rhys Michael's apparent intentions regarding the fair Michaela could well become a prelude to disaster. Javan wondered if his brother really did not understand how the premature provision of additional heirs could put the present heirs' lives in danger.

Or perhaps the younger prince, the darling of the regents during his formative years, simply did not want to believe that, to regain the influence they had lost when the regency ended, such men might well resort to murder. Once the coronation was out of the way, Javan knew he was going to have to set his younger brother straight on more than one fact of life.

Feeling vaguely like a spoilsport—for that was probably how Rhys Michael would view the interference with his romance—Javan got up and padded over to use the garderobe, then set about his morning ablutions. On impulse, while he washed, he decided to see about sneaking in a quick gallop before he had to deal with the noon Court. Charlan stirred while he was dressing, sitting up blearily on his pallet.

“You were going to sleep in,” he said. “What are you doing up so early?”

“I thought I'd roust Father Faelan for an early Mass and then have a quick ride before it gets too hot,” Javan replied, tightening a spur strap. “One last burst of freedom before I have to settle down to ‘king things,' as Rhysem so aptly put it last night. If you want to come, you'd better get dressed.”

He left Guiscard to see that Rhys Michael made it out of bed in time for Court. He and Charlan heard Mass privately in Faelan's little oratory, then betook themselves down to the stables like a pair of errant schoolboys to saddle two of the faster horses of the royal menage.

Charlan wore a sword at his side and was turned out in riding leathers that would see him through the Court scheduled for later in the day, but Javan rode in shirt sleeves that morning, perhaps the last time he would be allowed to venture forth so informally, and unarmed as well. This early, and with Charlan at his side, he was safe enough; the troop of Haldane lancers who trailed them at a discreet distance were armed to the teeth. Pounding along the north road that paralleled the river, the wind on his face and the feel of good horseflesh beneath him, Javan was almost able to put out of mind the concerns he must face when he returned to the castle.

But as he and Charlan walked their horses back up the cobbled approach to the gatehouse again, into a castle yard far more congested than when they had ridden out, it was clear he must be a king once more. His principal courtiers were waiting for him on the great hall steps, taking advantage of the slight breeze. Most of them swept before him into the hall as he and Charlan dismounted and came up the steps, heading in the direction of the withdrawing room behind the great hall dais. For smaller Courts like the one scheduled for today, Javan far preferred its intimacy to the vastness of the great hall, which was in the process of being set up for the morrow's coronation banquet.

Jason and Robear and a few more of his intimates fell in beside him as he and Charlan strode through the great hall. Guiscard and a squire were waiting for him just outside the withdrawing room, armed with the royal accoutrements that would make of a wind-burned royal escapee some semblance of a king: a fresh tunic, simply cut from white linen but embroidered around neck and hem and cuffs with little crimson lions; the Haldane sword, though Javan must carry it rather than wear it until he was crowned; and hooked over one of Guiscard's wrists, the hammered coronet of golden lions intertwined, set with rubies.

He stripped off his horsey-smelling shirt and towelled down, then pulled on the long Haldane tunic, holding the coronet while Guiscard fastened a belt of silver plaques around his waist and the squire haltingly applied a comb to his sweat-plastered hair. Jason thrust a goblet into his hand, and he gulped it down gratefully. The wine was well watered but very refreshing, chilled in snow brought down from the mountains by Cashien.

The combination of fresh clothing and cool drink made him feel cooler, even though he knew it would not last for long. Squaring his shoulders, he cradled the sheathed sword in the crook of his left arm, the hilt extending like a cross above his left shoulder. Just as Guiscard was setting the coronet on his head, Rhys Michael and Tomais joined them, the prince decently garbed in a royal-blue tunic and silver circlet but looking as if he wished he were anywhere else, particularly in bed again.

“Rhysem, are you going to be able to get through this?” Javan asked, genuinely concerned for his brother's condition.

Though paler by far than was his usual wont, Rhys Michael nodded. “It'll be all right. Just don't let anyone make any loud noises.”

“I'll do my best.” Turning to Tammaron, who had just emerged from the withdrawing chamber, Javan asked, “Are they ready inside?”

“They are, Sire,” Tammaron said. He was wearing the Chancellor's gilt collar of linked Haldane H's over a long robe of forest green. “This way, if you please.”

The outward informality of those assembled in the withdrawing room belied the importance of what was about to take place. Public affirmation of today's actions would be made tomorrow, during the coronation, but the kernel of the matter was this: that the Princess Anne Quinnell, sole heiress of the ancient principality of Cassan, should present unto Javan the decrees of her late father's will, formally setting in motion the procedures that ceded Cassan to Gwynedd and made of her son Cassan's first duke.

Conversation ceased as Javan entered the room. Moving casually toward the chair of state prepared for him, pleased that his limp was hardly noticeable, he could see the ducal party gathered in one of the back corners. He recognized Tammaron's son Fane, husband of the Cassani princess. To either side of Fane were a veiled, richly coronetted lady in murrey and gold, who must be the princess herself, and an older woman in black, also wearing a coronet—perhaps the dead prince's widow?—holding the hand of a bright-eyed, blue-clad boy of three or four.

Also assembled, in addition to Javan's personal household and the expected lords of state—Manfred, Udaut, Rhun, Murdoch, and Hubert, who would witness on behalf of the Church—were various other members of Tammaron's family: his other two sons, Fulk and Quiric; their mother, Nieve; and her sons by her first marriage, Albertus and Paulin. The latter looked preoccupied, and even more grim than usual—as well he might, Javan thought, having just lost his Inquisitor General.

“My lords and ladies, the King's Grace,” Tammaron said as Javan reached the state chair.

They had hung a great tapestry of the Haldane arms behind the chair since he last had been in the room, with a rich canopy of state above it. In that instant, as he turned to face the men and women assembled, Javan was aware of the connection with all his Haldane ancestors. His subjects bowed as he made to sit. Settling, he laid the sword across his knees and waited for his aides to take their places behind and to either side of him, Rhys Michael to sit at his left, before turning expectantly to Tammaron.

“My Lord Tammaron, I believe you have business to bring before our Court?” he said.

“I do, Sire,” Tammaron said, bowing. “It is my very great honor to present my daughter-in-law: her Royal Highness the Princess Anne Quinnell of Cassan, daughter and sole heir of the late his Royal Highness the Prince Ambert Quinnell, Sovereign Prince of Cassan. My son Fane I believe you know.”

Tammaron's eldest son brought his wife forward—the slender figure gowned and veiled in murrey silk. As both of them knelt before the king, the princess folded back her veil over coils of jet-black hair, then handed forward the scroll her husband had carried.

“May it please the King's Grace, I bring greetings from far Cassan and this testimony of my father's last will concerning the disposition of his lands,” she said. Her voice was low and melodious, her dark-lashed eyes a clear blue-grey in the pale perfection of her face, and Javan found himself thinking what a lucky man was Fane Fitz-Arthur.