King Javan’s Year (62 page)

His Deryni allies tried to ease a little of the tension by throwing the uncertainty into public light. Within a few days of the arrival of the second demand letter, the real Ansel MacRorie sent a statement disavowing any connection with whomever had sent the demands and reiterating his continued loyalty to the House of Haldane, even from exile. He also assured the king that though he had been nowhere near Grecotha at the time of the prince's abduction, he had his men working there now, looking for the real abductors of the prince.

Hubert naturally dismissed this as specious, declaring that of course Ansel would claim that, after the fact, when he realized that his threats were not going to get him what he wanted. That made as much sense as any other explanation, at least to the rest of the Council, but it pleased Javan not at all. Hostility toward the Deryni Ansel increased dramatically after the receipt of his letter, and several members of the Council even suggested that the Ramos Statutes should be tightened even more and dragnets put out to find the impudent Ansel and finish him, once and for all.

More days passed, and Javan became increasingly convinced that Paulin and Hubert knew more than they were letting on. Both men assured him of their concern and a desire to help, and he never caught either of them in an outright lie, but both sometimes went to great lengths to avoid answering precisely the question he had asked.

They were hiding something, but he dared not accuse them. He knew it was too risky to try to press Paulin for information he was determined not to give, especially when the extent of the Vicar General's relationship with the mysterious Dimitri was unknown. He might be protected. Archbishop Hubert, though hardly without risk, was a much more likely prospect. Javan had meddled before, where Hubert was concerned. The trick was to get Hubert alone and in a frame of mind such that he would suspect nothing.

It took the better part of a week for Javan to find his opportunity, after several days of laying careful groundwork. He could do little else, so long as he received no new demands from his brother's abductors. On a Sunday late in November, when Javan knew that Hubert and not Oriss would be officiating at solemn Vespers and Benediction down in the cathedral, the king put on a suppliant's face and betook himself to divine services there, closely cloaked and hooded both against the cold and casual recognition and accompanied by Charlan and Guiscard as was his usual wont.

The congregation was small, for winter was settling in with a vengeance. A moderate snowfall earlier in the week, followed by rain, had left the streets a quagmire of mud and puddles now turning to icy patches, for new snow had been flurrying as Javan and his companions made their way down from the castle mound. To his relief, Paulin was nowhere in evidence either before or after the service, and what few worshippers had been present did not linger once the participating clergy had withdrawn to the sacristy.

The great cathedral grew very quiet as the last of the altar candles were extinguished and the responsible acolyte retreated. Hubert was still in the sacristy. Javan could see its only door from where he remained kneeling far back in the choir, his hood pulled up. Eventually Hubert appeared, turning to give some final instruction to someone still inside.

Drawing a fortifying breath, Javan rose and headed toward him, Charlan and Guiscard trailing at a discreet distance. Hubert looked up at their approach, one hesitant hand on the sacristy door, not pulling it closed until Javan pushed back his hood to reveal his identity.

“Your Grace, may I speak with you?” he said.

“Oh, it's you, Sire,” Hubert said coolly. “If this is in the nature of official business—”

Javan shook his head and bowed it as he sank to one knee.

“It's personal,” he whispered, hoping Hubert would extend his ring to be kissed. “I—have need of a priest.”

“I believe a new royal confessor has been appointed, Sire,” Hubert said. “Has your Highness found him to be unsatisfactory?”

Abandoning the ring ploy as an excuse to touch Hubert, Javan got to his feet, keeping his head slightly bowed over folded hands.

“I'm sure he is admirably qualified for his position,” he said. “This matter—touches on older concerns with which you are already acquainted.” He swallowed nervously before offering the next persuasion. “You gave me good counsel then, and I didn't heed it. I've done a great deal of soul-searching in these past few—could we go somewhere private? Your quarters, perhaps? I can't really discuss this, standing out here.”

The archbishop inclined his head, the blue eyes unreadable in the cherub face, and gestured toward a side door.

“Very well, my prince. The accommodations are modest, but they serve my purpose well enough—a place to lay my head at night, which even the Son of man hath not.”

Catching the allusion, Javan promptly responded, “Saint Luke,” and chanced a faint grin at Hubert, knowing the archbishop would not have expected him to pick up on the reference. “Shall I give you chapter and verse as well?”

To his relief, Hubert responded with a pleased if slightly wary chuckle, leading him through the door and along a polished corridor. Charlan and Guiscard followed silently behind.

“Now, I wonder,” Hubert said. “Is that the bluff of a man who wants me to think he remembers the full citation, so that I won't ask for it, or do you really know?”

“Saint Luke, chapter—nine, I think.” In the old days, when Javan had been under Hubert's instruction prior to entering seminary, it had been an intellectual exercise they both had enjoyed. “
The foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head
.

“Not that an archbishop really has to worry about a place to lay his head,” he added, as they approached a polished door with the episcopal arms of Valoret painted on it. “You know, this would be far more impressive if the arms were carved, like the door back at Valoret.”

Hubert smiled and pushed the door open without looking. “Why this apparent effort to make me recall old times, Sire? I had great hopes for you. I was greatly disappointed.”

As they went through, Charlan and Guiscard took up posts to either side, their backs to the wall, exchanging apprehensive glances. Inside, through a small vestibule, Hubert led the king into a small, cozy parlor with a fire blazing cheerily in a modest fireplace. An elderly priest had been mulling wine in an earthen pot set on the hearth and went at once to fetch another cup when he saw that the archbishop had company.

Not speaking, Hubert lowered his bulk into the largest of the three chairs set before the fire and pushed his fur-lined cloak back off his shoulders, gesturing for Javan to take the chair beside him. Javan laid his own cloak over the back of the other chair, then moved the remaining one a little closer to his host. Until the old priest had come and gone, he dared do nothing more overt.

“Thank you,” he murmured, settling into the chair. “I'm sorry I've been such a trial to you. May I—make what I have to say to you in the nature of a confession?”

“
Is
it a confession, my son?” Hubert asked quietly.

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose it is—or may become one,” Javan replied, falling silent as the priest came back in with an extra cup and knelt by the hearth once more, to ladle mulled wine into both.

“Thank you, Father Sixtus, you may go to bed now,” Hubert said when the priest had delivered the steaming cups. “I shan't need you more tonight.”

Bowing, the priest withdrew through another door and closed it. Hubert sipped at his wine and said nothing, gazing distractedly into the fire until the sound came of another door closing, farther away.

“Very well, Sire. Father Sixtus will not disturb us further,” the archbishop said at last. “You may assume that the purple stole is about my shoulders and that what passes between us shall be held under the seal of the confessional. What did you wish to discuss?”

Sighing, Javan set his cup aside and shifted forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his hands dangle between them as he intertwined his fingers. He needed to get at Hubert for a proper probe concerning his part in Rhys Michael's abduction—which was far more difficult than the simple control and blurring of memory he had imposed on the archbishop the morning of Alroy's death. For one thing, Hubert was paying close attention tonight—if no longer quite suspicious, then certainly curious about why Javan had sought him out.

Further, the control required for a proper probe required physical contact—and that could turn dangerous, if Hubert somehow guessed what was happening and tried to offer physical resistance. Javan did not know whether a cry for help would carry beyond his own men waiting outside the door, but he did know that in sheer physical bulk, he was no match for Hubert.

“These last few weeks have made me think quite a lot about what it means to be king,” he said softly, a vague enough opening that was certain to get Hubert's attention. “I thought I was ready to handle it, but when they sent me Rhysem's toe—”

He shivered and buried his face in one hand—the hand farthest from Hubert—but also leaving cracks between his fingers so he could see.

“I'm afraid, Father,” he whispered. “They're going to kill my brother. They've demanded that I do something I can't do, but if I don't—”

“My prince,” Hubert murmured, leaning forward. “You mustn't lose heart. We'll find him in time. You'll see.”

Shaking his bowed head, Javan let his shoulders shudder in a feigned sob, at the same time
willing
the archbishop to reach out to him.

“I know you have to say that,” he whispered. “I know it's meant to be comforting, but—”

In that instant, as Hubert's hand reached across to pat Javan's shoulder in sympathy, Javan shifted to cover Hubert's hand with his, surging controls across the bond of flesh.

Hubert blinked as Javan raised his head to look into his eyes, held by the grey gaze as well as the hand grasping his. Alarm flickered briefly across the cherubic face, disappearing utterly as Javan raised his free hand to touch Hubert's forehead between the closing eyes.

“Thank you, Archbishop, we'll make this quick,” the king said, slipping to his knees at Hubert's feet, just in case Father Sixtus came back after all. He took both of Hubert's hands in his, resting them on the archbishop's purple-covered knees, then settled onto his haunches to bow his head over the joined hands.

Thus poised, he sent his mind into Hubert's to query regarding his brother—and gasped at the scope of the plot so revealed, hatched primarily by Paulin and Albertus but fully endorsed by Hubert.

Of having Rhys Michael abducted by disguised
Custodes
knights who let it be assumed that they were Ansel's. Of engineering the prince's “rescue” by more players in the plot—Manfred's men, who had taken the freed but injured prince to Culdi to recover.

And the plot had not really been about Deryni presumption or smearing the name of Ansel at all, though that had been a convenient side benefit. The real goal had been to accomplish Rhys Michael's marriage with Michaela Drummond. Apparently, the former regents really were thinking in terms of controlling a future heir, if they could not control Javan or Rhys Michael. It was very long-term planning, but what else could they do, without risking outright civil war?

And Rhys Michael had been an innocent dupe throughout. Even now the prince had been safe at Culdi for several weeks, recuperating from his “ordeal,” blissfully unaware that neither his own letters nor any supposedly sent by his host had reached Rhemuth to inform the king of his brother's safety. Perhaps occasionally he wondered why no word came by return, no royal explosion to forbid resuming the courtship cut short by his darling's departure from Court two months before—though Rhys Michael carefully avoided mentioning Michaela in his own sparse letters.

But the snows were beginning to fall, and travel was slower, and there in Culdi, it was easy to put unpleasant possibilities from mind and resume his single-minded wooing of the object of his desire, cheerfully encouraged by a solicitous and cooperative host. “Besotted” was the word Albertus had used in his last letter to describe the prince—and he had not been referring to wine.

The information stunned Javan. Even in his joy at learning of his brother's physical safety, his heart sank; for there was no way he could act on what he knew, even if he were in time to prevent the marriage—which could take place at any time, if it had not already. It was treachery of a most insidious sort, and he could not prevent it. When the conspirators finally decided it was time for Rhys Michael to be “rescued,” Manfred would return to Court in triumph, with the rescued prince now wed to the childhood sweetheart who had nursed him back to health after his ordeal—a romantic tale to wrench the hearts of any who heard it. After that, any further opposition on Javan's part would only make of him an ogre.

Approaching footsteps warned of the feared return of Father Sixtus. Startled, Javan rose back onto his knees and shifted his hands to clasp between Hubert's. At the same time, he went quickly back into Hubert's mind to erase any awareness of what he had done and insert more diverting memories—of a brief chat by the fire and a halting, red-faced confession by the king of vaguely “impure thoughts” regarding several young ladies of the Court. It was the only thing he could think of on such short notice that might begin to balance out the implications of what he had learned about Rhys Michael.

In particular, Hubert would recall mention of one Juliana of Horthness, Rhun's daughter, whose naming had shifted Hubert's hopes firmly to the possibility that Javan, too, might eventually be induced to marry as the lords of Council directed. The scenario was repugnant to Javan, for never would he even consider joining his blood to Rhun's detested line, but he hoped the sheer audacity of the notion would tend to confirm that Javan really had confessed it.