The King's Deryni (42 page)

But the ceremony clearly was not finished. As another trumpet blare reverberated into silence, a slow drumroll drew all eyes to the far end of the hall where, to an accompanying drumbeat, an erect, middle-aged woman dressed all in white bore a glittering, princely cap of scarlet upon a black velvet cushion.

“That is Létald's mother, the Princess Maya,” Lord Rathold murmured, close beside Alaric. “He has no wife as yet.”

Alaric had already surmised the woman's identity, and only nodded as the princess passed between the two rows of worthies ranged along the dais steps, acknowledging their salutes, then herself made a reverence to her son, holding the cushion aloft. She then turned to give the cap into the keeping of the six Forcinn lords, who received it and knelt before Létald, each with a hand supporting it, in sign that they would support the man about to wear it. They lifted it and bowed their heads in homage as the archbishop began an invocation imploring God's blessing on Létald and all the states now owing him allegiance.

“Is that a crown?” Alaric whispered aside to Jiri Redfearn.

Jiri shook his head. “Not a crown, a cap of maintenance. The medallions suspended along the front are symbolic of the five regions over which Létald is superior.”

“I understand.”

When the archbishop had concluded his blessing, the princes came forward with the cap to stand around Létald's chair of state, holding the cap briefly above his head before, together, placing it on his head.

“All hail Létald Sobbon Jubal Josse von Horthy, Sovereign Prince of Tralia,” a herald proclaimed, as the deed was done and the princes bowed themselves before him, “and now, by acclamation, Hort of Orsal and Overlord of the Forcinn Buffer States.
Axios, axios, axios!
”

“He is worthy,” Lord Rathold translated, leaning in from Alaric's other side.

Alaric only nodded, gravely taking it all in, for many of these men would be his neighbors when he came to his majority.

At table later that evening, he sat in an honored place at the king's right hand, where he had further opportunity to observe the great and good of the region. To Brion's other side, Meyric King of Bremagne was seated beside his eldest son, Crown Prince Ryol, just come of age. The Bremagni king, perhaps in his forties, sported a head of copper-bronze curls that tumbled onto his shoulders and a curled beard twined with golden cords.

“You must visit Bremagne, my lord,” King Meyric said, leaning close to Brion, and apparently in his cups. “I have another son and three comely daughters at home, and the girls all will be looking for husbands very soon. You could do far worse than to take a Bremagni bride.”

Brion smiled politely and raised his cup in salute to his fellow monarch. “I am sure I could, my lord. Perhaps in a few years. My reign is yet young, and I have much still to learn.”

“Then, perhaps my sons might visit Rhemuth,” Meyric returned with a wink, jostling an embarrassed Prince Ryol with an elbow. “I believe you have several comely sisters . . . ?”

Other guests offered perils of a more threatening sort. “Sire, do not react,” Jiri said aside to Brion a little later, when they had risen from table and were preparing to mingle with other guests, “but it appears that the King of Torenth has sent one of his sons as an observer. Prince Wencit, I believe. Do you see him, yonder?”

Brion had stiffened at Jiri's words, and cast a quick glance in the direction Jiri indicated. Alaric also managed to look that way whilst plucking an imaginary bit of fuzz from his sleeve. He had never seen the Torenthi prince, but from descriptions, he immediately recognized the slender, haughty young man in tawny silks and velvets, a little older than the king, with reddish sidelocks emerging from beneath his richly embroidered cap and a smudge of tawny mustache beneath piercing amber eyes.

“What is
he
doing here?” Brion muttered to Jiri, tight-lipped, as Wencit caught his gaze and inclined his head coolly before turning his back.

“Perhaps observing, like the rest of us,” Jiri said with a sour grimace. “Or perhaps something more. I shall try to make a few discreet inquiries.”

With that, Jiri moved away from the king, taking Jamyl with him, to blend casually with the milling courtiers. Brion himself seemed a little subdued as he, too, turned his back and made polite conversation with others who approached him. A little later, as Alaric prepared to top up the king's wine, Brion shook his head distractedly, darting another glance across the room in the direction of the Torenthi prince.

“I certainly would like to know why he's here,” he muttered, signing for Alaric not to pour. “No more of that; it's vile stuff. A pity that neither of us is competent to read his intentions. And you're not to try!” he added, at Alaric's eyebrows raised in silent query. “It's just that his family would dearly love to take back my throne.” Flustered, he thrust his goblet into Alaric's hand. “See if you can find me something that's remotely drinkable, will you? Wherever this came from, it tastes like horse piss! And no, I've never tasted horse piss, but this is giving me a headache. Just get rid of it.”

With a nod of agreement, Alaric moved off to look for something better, wondering whether the king's sour mood might have another source than the wine. As he headed toward a sideboard holding pitchers of wine, set in a curtained archway, he found himself surreptitiously eyeing the Torenthi prince, considering whether he might be able to do anything to help the king. Though he had begun to develop a little skill at Truth-Reading, he knew his training was still sketchy. Trying to Read a powerful and no doubt well-trained Deryni probably was not a good idea.

Nonetheless, he ventured a cautious and incredibly delicate feeler in that direction—and immediately withdrew as he caught the merest prickle of odd, dangerous shields he did not care to probe further. Fortunately, neither Wencit nor any of his obviously Torenthi companions appeared to have noticed.

But someone did notice. As Alaric continued on toward the sideboard with the wine, setting the king's goblet on the polished wood, he found himself suddenly yanked behind the nearby curtain, a leather-clad arm clamped across his chest from behind and a gloved hand pressed hard to his mouth. Even as his fingers flew to the restraining arm in near panic, all of his body tensing in an instinctive attempt to twist away, a voice murmured, soft in his ear, “And what, precisely, did you intend to do, if you had actually managed to touch him?”

At the same time, a familiar mental “voice” reverberated in his mind:
Are you trying to get yourself mind-ripped?

“Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.”

—PROVERBS 8:33

A
RE
you trying to get yourself mind-ripped?

Stifling what would have been a whimper, Alaric all but wilted against his captor's chest with relief, for he knew both the voice and the mental touch. He had not seen Sir Sé Trelawney during Prince Létald's investiture or even during the banquet, but neither did it come as any great surprise to find the Anviler knight in attendance. He supposed that Sé's order might well have an interest in the stability of the Forcinn, just like the King of Bremagne and the Torenthi observers.

As he relaxed, letting his hands fall away from Sé's arm, the hand fell away from his mouth and the Deryni knight continued to hustle him back along the corridor and into the shelter of a shadowed doorway, where he released him. Little to Alaric's surprise, there was no one in the vicinity.

“What
were
you thinking?” Sé said softly, disapproval in his tone as he seized Alaric's shoulders and held him with his gaze. “Do you realize the risk you took?”

Alaric managed a difficult swallow, well aware that Sé was absolutely right.

“I did it for the king,” he whispered.

“The king did not ask you to do it,” Sé retorted. “He expressed a wish that one of you
could
do it, well aware that neither of you could. And he should not have done even that. Your powers are still developing, and your training is sketchy at best. His are all but nonexistent, until you are old enough to assist him to his powers. In the future, if he asks something you know to be beyond your ability, you must decline. You will do him no good if you try and fail and he loses you.”

Alaric ducked his head. He could not disagree, but to refuse the king was not in his nature.

“I'm sorry,” he said meekly.

“As well you should be.” Then: “I shall come to you over the winter, and see if we can speed things along. This is not the time or place. Look for me toward Christmas.”

Alaric looked up in surprise, but Sé was already backing away and bowing in farewell, right hand pressed to heart. He was gone before Alaric could draw breath to question.

Still reeling from Sé's stinging reprimand, heart still pounding, Alaric drew a series of deep breaths and simply stood with his back pressed hard against the wall for several long seconds, willing his racing heart to slow and trying to regain at least an outward semblance of composure. Only then did he square his shoulders and make his way back to the hall, where he would try again to find a wine that would please the king. He decided not to mention the encounter with Sé.

•   •   •

H
E
slept poorly that night, shaken by the unexpected appearance of Sé and by his own near encounter with Wencit of Torenth, which so easily could have gone disastrously wrong. He found himself wondering if Sé had somehow intervened so that Wencit did
not
detect Alaric's clumsy attempt to probe him. He had no doubt that the powerful Deryni knight was capable of doing so, if he wished.

To his relief, the king was not inclined to linger the next morning. Alaric, for his part, had no desire to be anywhere in Wencit's vicinity, if he could help it. They sailed with the noonday tide, when the morning fog had mostly burned off and the weather looked to hold for long enough to make safe harbor at Coroth. Only as the cliffs of Tralia and the Orsal's winter palace fell away behind them did Alaric begin to breathe easily again.

On the short dash back across to Coroth, he mostly managed to put the previous night's events behind him. He chatted with Llion for most of the way and, as they sailed between Coroth's sea jetties, found his thoughts returning to more practical considerations, and wondering how Cormac had fared the previous day, leading the Michaelmas procession to the cathedral.

But as the galley's crew tossed lines ashore and warped it to the quay, he realized that he need not have worried. The prince was among those waiting quayside to greet them as they came down the gangplank, and made a point to ride beside Alaric as they headed back up to the castle. In fact, Cormac could hardly stop grinning as he recounted all the details of his great adventure.

“It's very different from Pwyllheli,” the prince enthused, “but I much liked it. I was much taken by the idea of Saint Michael being the patron of knights, with a yearly ceremony to reinforce that devotion. I wonder whether my father might agree to such a custom. Though I would have to persuade my brothers first.”

His sheer delight in so simple an activity underlined the sometimes bleak role Cormac was allowed at home, as a very junior prince only distantly in the succession. It was an aspect of Cormac's life that Alaric had never thought about before, and he found himself wondering whether, when Cormac returned to his brother's court, he would find it even more difficult to carve out a meaningful role. But at least for now, he could count himself a valued page in the court of Gwynedd.

The following day, Corwyn's regents belatedly celebrated Alaric's birthday with a final ducal court. There, taking advantage of the presence both of the king and of their future duke, the regents presented several squires for knighthood, which honor the king duly conferred, with Alaric's hand upon the sword. For a duke in training, it was a singular privilege, and one that he would long treasure.

He treasured, too, the time he had been given with his age-mates in Coroth, particularly Jernian and Viliam, whom he recruited to assist in the knightings, helping to buckle on the spurs. And that night, after he had supped with the king and his regents, he and Cormac were able to play a few more cardounet matches with Jernian and Viliam.

The voyage home was uneventful, though the rough weather curtailed much activity on deck, and caused many of the ship's company to spend an inordinate part of their time standing at the leeward rail, sometimes making reluctant offerings to the sea gods. Alaric suffered no such indignity. By mid-October they were back in Rhemuth, where Alaric resumed his Haldane livery and Haldane duties, settling back into his training with new focus as he counted the days until Sé should make an appearance.

October gave way to November, and November to December, and autumn duly eased into winter, with sleety rain and hard frost. The leafless branches bore a mantle of icy rime that rarely melted even at midday, then froze again. The slush underfoot was treacherous, and hardened with the dusk to a brittle layer of ice that bloodied horses' fetlocks and left bloody hoofprints where they passed, causing the royal stable masters to suspend unnecessary ride-outs until the weather should improve. Ordinary folk moved as they must. And whether by day or by night, the wintering weather chilled to the bone, sending many a denizen of the city to huddle close to fires or scurry early to their beds for warmth.

Not long into Advent, Alaric and Prince Cormac were among those who sought their beds early, though only Cormac would sleep that night. Alaric sensed Sé's presence behind the door as the two of them entered, and schooled himself not to react as a black-clad arm reached from behind the door to clasp the back of the prince's neck from behind. Even as Cormac's knees buckled, Sé was sweeping him off his feet, his black cloak engulfing the boy like the wings of some gigantic bird as he carried him to the bed that Alaric wordlessly indicated, almost as if they had planned it that way all along.

“He has come to no harm,” Sé murmured, as he deposited the sleeping prince on the bed.

“I know that.” Alaric closed the door and threw the bolt, watching as Sé tucked Cormac's cloak more closely around him, then covered him with a sleeping fur. A good fire was blazing on the hearth, and firepots waited beside each of the beds, flaring to life at a gesture from the Deryni knight. As an afterthought, Sé also lit a rushlight set in a niche above the bed head.

“Tell me,” Alaric said, “is it always necessary to touch a person, to put him to sleep?”

“Usually, at least the first time. After that, it depends on the depth of the link one has already forged, and how much energy one is willing to expend.”

Sé briefly turned his face back toward the door and gave a nod, one hand moving minutely in a gesture of warding. “That should keep us from being disturbed. Llion and Alazais are already asleep next door.”

Alaric cocked his head at the older Deryni. “You put them to sleep, too?”

“Yes.”

“Can you teach me?”

Sé glanced at the sleeping Cormac, his lips tightening, then nodded. “Very well. I had intended another lesson, but perhaps we can do both. Any lad brash enough to attempt Reading a Torenthi mage from across the room is probably ready to learn—if not that particular skill. You are very fortunate I was there.” His tone held exasperation, but also indulgence. “Come along, then.” He beckoned Alaric to join him by Cormac's bed. “Sit here beside him. He will not wake, I assure you.”

Alaric had not reckoned on Cormac being his first subject, but he eagerly did as Sé directed, scrunching closer to the sleeping prince as Sé sat behind him. He tried not to tense as Sé set hands on his shoulders and drew him back against his chest, fingertips slipping forward to rest on his carotid pulse points.

“I believe I shall try the method by which we train novices in my order,” Sé said softly. “Still yourself now, and open to me. Close your eyes. You may lose awareness for a time.”

Alaric started, for that last statement underlined how real this was about to become—what Sé was about to do—but he did his best to comply, closing his eyes and willing himself to relax against Sé's chest. Focusing on his heartbeat pulsing under Sé's touch, he let himself drift with it, vaguely aware of the feather brush of Sé's controls slipping into place and pressing him deeper. Then he was aware of nothing.

“Well, then,
that
was interesting.” Sé's murmur immediately brought Alaric back to awareness, though he had no idea how long it had been. “I see you have already begun to Truth-Read. That is a skill that will, indeed, be useful to the king, as well as yourself. Continue working on that.

“But for now, let us look at putting a subject to sleep.” Sé slid his hands back onto Alaric's shoulders. “This will be the prelude to a number of additional skills that you will also learn to exercise, in time. Reach across and rest your hand on Cormac's forehead. I shall be right with you. You won't hurt him,” he added, as Alaric stiffened minutely. “Nor will I hurt you.”

Nodding, Alaric reached out his hand and touched Cormac's forehead, aware of Sé's presence at the back of his mind.

But he wasn't afraid. At Sé's prompting, he drew a slow, steadying breath and “reached” his mind into Cormac's, gently seizing control, astonished at how easy it was. He was also faintly aware of Sé's approval.

“Good. You may let your hand fall away now,” Sé whispered. “You have him. Cormac, your sleep will be far more restful if you remove your outer garments, just as you normally do before going to bed. You need not pay us any mind.”

As Cormac roused, apparently oblivious to their presence, he sat up and yawned, folding back the sleeping fur, then swung his legs over the other side of the bed. As he did so, Sé urged Alaric to his feet and drew the two of them back into shadow to watch as Cormac unfastened the cloak clasp at his throat and let it fall away, then bent to remove his boots.

Under Sé's guidance, Alaric followed Cormac's unfocused musings as he straightened and rose, pulling his discarded cloak from the bed to hang it from a nearby peg. He then unbuckled and removed his belt and dagger, hanging them on another peg, with the dagger within reach. After that, he raked both hands through tousled hair and yawned again, then padded to the garderobe across the room and disappeared behind the curtain.

“He is quite unaware that we are here,” Sé said softly, “and he will remember none of this unless you wish it.”

He shifted to pure thought, swiftly insinuating further teaching: the concepts that would give his pupil access to this important skill: to take control or impart communication, most often without the knowledge or consent of the subject.

Responsibility comes with that ability,
Sé sent.
And prudence is essential.
The actual words unaccountably resonated in Alaric's mind, almost painfully.
If only out of common courtesy, one does not impel behavior that contradicts an individual's free will—unless, of course, it touches on your own safety or the safety of others.

“You must forgive me if I seem to lecture,” Sé murmured aloud, laying an arm around Alaric's shoulders and briefly ducking his head. “It is one of the ways we are taught, in my order. That point, regarding free will, is extremely important.”

He jutted his chin in Cormac's direction as the prince came out of the garderobe, stretching and yawning again as he fumbled out of his shirt and pulled it off over his head. “This is different: a harmless training exercise, so that you may learn how to use this ability. I do hope you appreciate the degrees of acceptable interference.”