King Javan’s Year (41 page)

He continued slowly down the steps as Rhys Michael and Tomais went on ahead, speaking amiably to everyone, friend and foe alike, but keeping his eyes on Rhys Michael and the earls. The earls bowed as Rhys Michael came among them to mount up, Tomais watchful at his side, but their deference was grudging, minimal.

It was then that Javan finally spotted Duke Graham, closer toward the foot of the great hall steps and more conventionally mounted on a compact little mouse-grey mare, an unadorned tunic of the same shade only drawing further attention to the ducal coronet gracing his fair head. The boy would not have thought of the gesture on his own, but he obviously had been well coached by his uncles. Even without this sartorial statement, his very presence was blatant reminder to all that border justice had not been served by that of the former king's regents. If Graham chose to demand the justice previously denied him and his family, as a condition of his continuing homage for the lands he held for the king in the north, Javan would have no option but to respond. He almost hoped Graham would.

He caught young Graham's eye and nodded greeting as he reached the yard and went past him to head for his own horse—the same tall albino stallion that he had ridden from his brother's funeral, and the same that had carried that brother to his own coronation five years before. Tammaron and Rhun were holding the animal, both glittering like princes in their jewelled silks and coronets, and Tammaron, at least, gave him a respectful bow as he approached.

“Good morning, Sire,” Tammaron said.

“My Lord Tammaron, my Lord Rhun,” Javan replied neutrally.

With a leg up from Charlan, Javan settled into the padded red saddle, gathering up the reins and adjusting the skirts of his tunic as Charlan and Guiscard spread the white and shining mantle back over the horse's rump, to hang nearly to the ground all around. When it was arranged to their satisfaction, they mounted up on matched blacks being held by pages and paced themselves to Javan's either side. More of the young knights who had helped Javan seize and keep his throne thus far fell in behind as the procession moved out of the yard and started down toward Rhemuth Cathedral, to a trumpet fanfare from the castle battlements.

The heat grew more oppressive as they made their descent, especially once they came off the castle's hill to wind through the town. Rhemuth had not seen the coronation of a Haldane king in more than a century, for both Cinhil and Alroy had been crowned in Valoret, where the Festils had kept Court. The streets were lined with people, curious for a proper look at their new king. They had known him but briefly as a boy, during those few months between relocation of the Court to Rhemuth and his own departure to seminary, and had caught but a glimpse of him at the late king's funeral. Opinion continued to vary on whether the fledgling cleric should have returned to take up his brother's crown.

But mounted on his tall milk-white steed, resplendent in glittering gold and creamy silks, none could deny that the limping boy of most folks' memory had taken on at least the appearance of an able-looking king. Certainly his twin, the ill-fated King Alroy, had never cut so fine a figure on horseback. Nor had anyone ever seen a look of such cool determination in Alroy as that displayed by Javan. Vague rumor had it that the new king might be contemplating important reforms in Gwynedd, some of them aimed at clipping the wings of certain former regents, some of whom were said to have used their offices to enrich their own coffers.

Such speculations were natural enough, with a new king come to the throne after an ineffectual predecessor and a regency before that, especially when the new king was young and still naive in the realities of governing. Somewhat more disturbing was the suggestion that he had tolerated Deryni around him for some months after his father's death, and shown a marked squeamishness for the measures applied to Deryni who came under the full penalties of the new laws.

But that had been before he went to study with the
Custodes Fidei
, who were noted for their adherence to orthodox doctrine regarding the evils of Deryni magic, and whose Vicar General had been responsible for the Statutes of Ramos that were putting Deryni increasingly in their place. Few knew much about Javan's career with the
Custodes
, but surely three years of their indoctrination would ensure that earlier tendencies toward leniency were eradicated along with Deryni themselves.

Such was the reasoning running through many a mind of those watching Javan ride to his coronation that last day in July of 921. As the procession approached the cathedral and the crowds grew larger, their acclaim grew as well, so that an enthusiastic welcome met King Cinhil's second son as he drew up before the cathedral steps and dismounted.

A new procession awaited him now, set to convey him into the sacred precincts for his king-making. Instead of the choir monks of Valoret's cathedral chapter to sing him in, a black-clad assemblage from the
Ordo Custodum Fidei
waited to perform this honor—for he
was
one of theirs, even if he had set aside his vocation to take up a crown. Eight boy altar servers dressed in white would follow the choristers, drawn up by twos behind them, each carrying a processional torch in a silver-gleaming holder, each looking most uncomfortable in the heat.

Next came the bishops' procession, a thurifer preceding a deacon bearing the great Rhemuth processional cross and then all the bishops of Gwynedd, by twos—six itinerant bishops and then the titled ones, Dhassa and Grecotha, Nyford and Cashien, Marbury and Stavenham. Rhemuth's archbishop followed them, glittering and majestic in heavy golden cope and mitre, accompanied by his chaplain. Then came the processional cross of the Primate of All Gwynedd; and behind it, the primate himself, Hubert MacInnis, looming like a walking mountain in his vestments all of white and gold, crowned like a king with the jewels of the precious mitre on his head and with his crozier in his hand, flanked by his chaplain and another deacon.

Bishop Alfred of Woodbourne and Paulin of Ramos were waiting to escort Javan himself—Alfred all in white, Paulin in the full, sweeping black robes of the Vicar General of the
Custodes Fidei
, mitred as well, for when he resigned his bishopric to found the Order, he had but exchanged his bishop's mitre for that of an abbot. As part of the procession ahead of Javan continued on into the cathedral, the two came to flank Javan, each extending him an arm, black and white.

Javan paused while Guiscard and Charlan arranged his mantle behind him and a golden canopy moved into place before the cathedral doors, borne by four young knights rather than four earls' sons as had been done at Alroy's coronation—Sorle, Gavin, Bertrand, and Tomais. Then he set his hands lightly on his escorts' arms and mounted the steps into the welcome shade. Charlan and Guiscard fell in directly behind him and slightly to either side, lest they tread on his train, followed by Father Faelan as King's Confessor.

Then came the bearers of the royal regalia: Lord Albertus as Earl Marshal, with the State Sword; Murdoch with the Haldane banner, golden lion lifting and shimmering on the faint breeze against a field of crimson silk; young Duke Graham bearing the sceptre on a crimson cushion, slender ivory encrusted with gold; Rhun with the Ring of Fire on a silver salver; and Tammaron bearing the State Crown of leaves and crosses intertwined. Behind them came Rhys Michael, still escorted by his Kheldish earls, followed by other nobility entitled to a place in the coronation procession.

Javan held his head high as he proceeded down the aisle to the choir's introit,
Laetatus sum
. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. As he went he was mindful of every eye upon him, weighing him, trying to decide what kind of a king he would be—this bold young man who had asserted his rights and taken up the crown most had thought destined to pass to his younger brother. Now, it seemed, this second son of King Cinhil had developed a mind of his own and intended to assert it—to what end, no one yet knew. He
looked
the king, though—hardly even limping in new white boots that made it difficult to see his handicap.

The assembled congregation bent in homage as he passed, following his progress into the choir, to the foot of the sanctuary steps, where the white-clad figure made a graceful reverence and then moved to the right to kneel at a faldstool. The sable head bowed in prayer as the singing went on and the rest of the procession continued filing into the cathedral to take their places, regalia being placed upon the altar, the archbishops praying silently at the foot of the altar steps, until all at last were present and ready.

This spectacle was observed with general interest by most of the congregation gathered to witness the rite now beginning, and with rather more analytical intent by diplomatic envoys from several other neighboring lands—Howicce and Llannedd to the southwest, Meara, Mooryn, and Torenth.

Representing Arion, King of Torenth, was his brother Miklos, but a year older than Javan himself—tall and graceful for his years, fair-haired and light-eyed, languid eastern manners masking a quick comprehension of all about him, quietly aglitter in tawny eastern silks. Sitting in a seat of honor along with other foreign dignitaries massed along one side of the choir, accompanied by the obviously high-born young aide who was his companion for this excursion, Prince Miklos watched with detached curiosity as the two archbishops went to raise up the young king and lead him into the center of the choir to be presented to his people. When his brother Arion was crowned some three years before in Beldour, Miklos had been quite old enough to know what he was seeing, and found it interesting to compare that rite with the one now unfolding.

“All hail Javan Jashan Urien, our undoubted king!” the Archbishop-Primate of Gwynedd announced, he and the other archbishop raising the king's arms to the East. “Be ye willing to do homage and service in his behalf?”

“God save King Javan!” the thundering response came, echoing in the vaulting of the great cathedral.

Thrice more the archbishop asked the question, turning Javan to the South, West, and North in what Miklos knew was a magical invocation of the angelic entities who ruled the Quarters, even though the humans of Gwynedd had no comprehension of such matters—nor wanted to, especially since the restoration of the Haldane line, at the expense of the Deryni Festils.

But now, having called the Four Quarters to witness—who
were
present, Miklos had no doubt—the archbishop was drawing the young king before the altar itself, where the great Book of Holy Writ lay open. From beside it he took up a sheet of parchment already prepared.

“My Lord Javan, are you now willing to take the coronation oath, sworn by your ancestors in times past?” he demanded.

“I am willing,” Javan replied in a clear, steady tenor.

As Miklos watched, idly preparing to Read the truth of the king's oath, Javan boldly mounted the altar steps and laid his right hand on the open Book, the archbishop setting his left atop it and reading from the parchment.

“Javan Jashan Urien, here before God and men declared and affirmed to be the undisputed heir of our late beloved King Alroy, will you solemnly promise and swear to keep the peace in Gwynedd and to govern its peoples according to our ancient laws and customs?”

“I solemnly promise to do so,” Javan replied.

“Will you, to the utmost of your power, cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?”

“I will.”

“And do you pledge that Evil and Wrong-Doing shall be suppressed and the law of God maintained?”

“All this I pledge,” Javan said.

As the archbishop laid the parchment back on the altar, Javan moved closer to sign it, lifting it up when he had done so and laying his right hand on Scripture again as he turned to face the people.

“That which I have here promised,” he said loudly, “I will perform and keep, so help me God.”

So saying, he laid the oath back on the altar and bent to kiss the Book, then retreated back down the altar steps to the center of the sanctuary, where he turned to face the archbishop once more.

Watching him, Miklos nodded slightly to himself. Javan Haldane had spoken the truth, at least of his intentions, but it remained to be seen whether he could keep his oath. As king, he had sworn to suppress Evil and Wrong-Doing. But if, as Gwynedd's Church taught, Evil and Wrong-Doing were personified by Deryni, then the king either must turn away from his former friends who were Deryni, or be forsworn. Except as an item of intellectual interest, that mattered not at all to Miklos, for Javan was not his king, but it mattered a great deal to the dark-haired boy sitting beside him.

“Javan Jashan Urien Haldane,” the archbishop said, “having given your sacred pledge before God and this holy people, now must you humble yourself by setting aside the trappings of worldly glory, that through us, the servant of the Most High, you may be prepared and brought before Him as a holy oblation.”

As he spoke, two
Custodes
priests came forward to take away the white mantle and the silken overrobe, leaving the king to stand in the plain white underrobe of fine linen, so like a priestly alb. In this he sank gracefully to his knees and then laid himself prostrate at the archbishop's feet, resting his forehead on the backs of his hands rather than spreading his arms in the cruciform attitude Miklos would have expected—though perhaps this was a small display of independence. Miklos had been privy to certain privileged information regarding Prince Javan Haldane's years in seminary—all but a prisoner, some said, with only feigned espousal of a priestly vocation. Small wonder, then, if he chose to distance his sacring just a little from too-close comparison with a priestly ordination.

The archbishops and other assisting clergy went to kneel around the king, all of them facing the altar, and at a signal from the Master of Ceremonies, the congregation likewise went to their knees. Then, after a moment of utter silence, the choir began to sing the
Veni Creator
, whose melody, written by a Bremagni king centuries before, was familiar even to the eastern-trained ears of a Torenthi prince.