The King’s Justice (25 page)

Duncan was also still fully armored, save for helmet and gauntlets, and sat sipping a cup of cool water on a camp stool outside his tent; it was yet too hot to sit inside. Nearby, Dhugal sprawled half-reclining on another stool and tried to brace himself so that Ciard O Ruane could hammer on one of his greaves, jammed at the knee joint during one of the day's several skirmishes.

As Ciard cursed under his breath and gave the offending piece of armor yet another blow with the hilt of his dagger, the joint unlocked with a screech of tortured metal.

“Got
the little bastard!” Ciard muttered, as Dhugal let out a whoof of relief.

“Any damage to the knee?” Duncan asked.

Dhugal shook his head as he and Ciard undid the buckles and pulled the greave off his leg, flexing the knee to test it. His boots came almost as high as the greave had, and he ran a finger inside the top edge to ease out a crease.

“I think it's all right. It's a bit stiff from not being able to bend all afternoon, but a little walking should take care of that. Ciard, can you fix the thing before morning?”

As Ciard grunted assent and wandered off with the damaged greave, Dhugal removed its mate and stood, grinning wanly as he hobbled over to his father, favoring the suspect knee.

“I feel really stupid, getting clipped like that,” he said, as Duncan set aside his cup and bent to run both hands over the stiff joint. “Can you sense anything through the trews?”

“Just give me a moment,” Duncan murmured, extending his Deryni senses through the leather to the knee. He surrounded the joint with healing warmth for several seconds to increase the circulation, feeling Dhugal's mind reach out in fond caress and returning the affection, then permitted himself a relieved sigh as he straightened and glanced up at his son.

“Nothing serious,” he said, “though I might not be able to say the same if you hadn't been wearing that steel. I suppose it's days like this that justify the heavier armor, despite the heat.”

Dhugal flexed his knee again, smiling at the improved mobility, and pulled his stool closer to sit beside his father. He had a grime-streaked towel draped around his neck, and he used one end to wipe his sweaty face yet again. Duncan, when he noticed the condition of the towel, offered him a cleaner one that had been lying across his own shoulder.

“What do you think is going to happen next?” Dhugal asked softly, when he had unbuckled the front of his brigandine to mop at his neck and fan a breeze into his soggy undertunic.

Duncan shook his head, retrieving his cup to sip at it again. “I wish I knew. Have some water?”

Grinning, Dhugal took the cup and poured the contents over his head, basking in the cool as the water sluiced over his hair and into his armor. Duncan only chuckled and took the cup back as Dhugal toweled off again, refilling it from a pewter ewer at his feet.

“Waste of good water,” he muttered, as Dhugal sighed and slumped contentedly on his stool. “Doesn't it get rather soggy in there?”

“No soggier than it was from my own sweat,” Dhugal retorted with another grin. “You should try it.”

“Hmmm, thank you, no.”

“If we can't get out of our armor tonight, it's better than nothing,” Dhugal ventured.

Duncan chuckled and shook his head. “Dhugal, do you know how much I
despise
being filthy? It isn't so bad during the day, but not to be able to get clean at night—uck!”

“And you call yourself a borderman!”

“I do
not
call myself a borderman; I happen to be chief of a border clan, but I am a duke, and a son of a duke, and a prince of the Church, thank you very much,” Duncan said in mock indignation. “And neither dukes nor sons of dukes nor princes of any sort whatever should have to put up with being grimy after a long day of fighting for their king.” He grinned. “On the other hand, complaining about it does provide diversion after such a day, doesn't it?” His manner sobered abruptly. “Sweet
Jesu
, I wish I knew where Sicard's army was! I'd give a great deal to face an enemy that would stand and fight.”

“I know,” Dhugal said bleakly, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his hands. “It's getting to be more than just annoying, isn't it? Do you think we should try to contact Morgan? Maybe he and Kelson have got Sicard occupied, down in the south.”

“You know they haven't. Anyway, I'm too tired to try a contact tonight.” He yawned and stretched as he stood. “Besides that, they won't be expecting contact for another three days. Are you about ready to see what Jodrell has managed to scare up for supper? I don't know about you, but I'm famished.”

“I suppose. Only—”

“Only, what?” Duncan asked, setting his fists on his hips to peer at his son as Dhugal also stood.

“Well, I was just wondering what you would do if we
had
to contact Morgan, and he wasn't expecting us.”

“Hmmm, considerably more difficult than a planned contact,” Duncan murmured, glancing around to be certain they were not overheard. “However, if it
had
to be done, I'd wait until it was very late, when I was sure he'd be asleep. He'd be more receptive asleep. We'd probably get through.” He cocked his head in question. “Does that answer your question?”

“I suppose,” Dhugal murmured. “There isn't much point to it just now anyway, is there? We
know
who's been giving us fits for the past two weeks: Loris and Gorony.”

“That's right,” Duncan agreed. “And when we catch up with them, I intend to thrash them both for every bath I
haven't
had during this campaign. Now, come on and let's find supper. It's bad enough to have to sleep in our armor. I'm
damned
if I'll do it on an empty stomach!”

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof
.

—Job 4:12

“Angelus consilii natus est de virgine, sol de stella
,” Richenda quoted, sitting at her loom the next morning as she and Rothana capped verses back and forth between them. “The angel of counsel is born of a virgin, the sun from a star.
Sol occasum nesciens
, a sun that knows no setting, a star that is always shining, always bright.”

Rothana, following the text from a scroll in her lap, rocked back and forth with delight.

“Yes, yes! I know that one.
Sicut sidus radium, profert virgo filium, pari forma
. As a star puts forth its ray, so the virgin puts forth her son, in like manner.…”

They were alone in the ladies' solar. Rothana was perched cross-legged in the shade of a window seat, pale blue habit tucked demurely around her knees and bare feet. Here in the privacy of the women's quarters, she had taken off her veil, and the heavy braid of her hair gleamed blue-black over one shoulder, the end brushing the manuscript unrolled across her knees. Her fingers fluttered in emphasis like the wings of the doves that nested in the eaves above the window, her face lighting dreamily with the rapture of the ancient verses.

“Neque sidus radio, neque mater filio fit corrupta
. The star does not lose virtue by giving forth its ray, or the mother by bearing a son.”

There had been a time when Richenda, too, had felt that adolescent rapture. Now the words brought a deeper enjoyment, tempered with the wisdom and experience of nearly twice Rothana's years. The half-decade of marriage to Bran Coris had been a resigned suspension of the scholar's life Richenda had enjoyed as a young girl, for Bran had not thought it seemly that a woman should be too learned. That life had been revived with Bran's death, not only tolerated but actively encouraged by Alaric, and fed by Duncan's and Kelson's even more avid interest in the things she found to share with all of them. It was Duncan who had managed to locate the scroll Rothana now held, though it had been Alaric who paid the exorbitant sum the scroll had cost.

“I remember a related text from
Ecclesiasticus,”
Rothana was saying, running an eager finger down the columns of fine-penned script. “‘I am the mother of fair love, of fear, and knowledge, and holy hope.… My memorial is sweeter than honey, and mine inheritance than the honeycomb.'”

Richenda smiled encouragement and made a sound of concurrence, but her shuttle never missed its rhythm as Rothana resumed reading.

The solar was warm already, though it was only just past Terce, the “Third Hour” of the ancient world, when the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles. It would be warmer still, before the evening brought relief. Longing for the blessed cool of the lakes of her mother's Andelon, or even the brisk sea breezes that swept into Coroth, Richenda paused in her weaving to readjust a pin in her coiled, flame-gold hair; like Rothana, she had shed her veil on returning from early Mass. Her gown this morning was a soft rose rather than the blue she usually favored, out of deference to the azure habits of Rothana and her sisters. The shade suited her, but it played up the high color in her cheeks that the heat brought out, and drained off the fire from her bright tresses.

The heat would be even worse in Meara, Richenda reflected, as her fingers resumed their patient, steady rhythm, casting the carved bone shuttle back and forth hypnotically across the pattern she was working.

But no sense worrying about Alaric; that would do neither him nor her any good whatsoever. And the poetry Rothana recited was pleasant, the cadence only reinforcing the easy spell she wove into her threads. She found herself slipping into a light, pleasant trance as the words dropped into the morning stillness like polished pebbles into a shaded pool, and she was glad they had come here early, before any of the other women thought to join them.

“‘Hail, Queen of heaven; Hail, Lady of the Angels,'” Rothana went on. “‘Salutation to thee, root and portal, whence the light of the world has arisen.'”

A tangle in the thread required Richenda's closer attention, and as she bent closer to her canvas to work it free, a part of her mind continuing to follow the spell Rothana was weaving with her poetry, she suddenly became aware that someone else had entered the room and stood now behind the carved screens set before the entryway, listening—and that the someone was Deryni, shields tight and unreadable.

Glancing curiously over her shoulder—for the interloper must be one of only two royal ladies, to enter without knocking here, in the women's quarters—she caught a glimpse of white through the screens that confirmed her suspicions: Jehana, obviously not recognizing Richenda from behind, in rose rather than blue. If the queen chose to come closer, this might prove most interesting.

Don't stop
, she sent to Rothana, as the younger woman, too, became aware of their visitor, though not her identity.

Rothana continued with hardly a break in her rhythm, only shifting the scroll a little on her lap. Richenda bent more intently to her canvas and kept her face averted as Jehana came around the edge of the screens.

“I beg your pardon,” Jehana said softly, as Rothana looked up and stopped reading. “I was drawn by your beautiful poetry, and I—are you one of the sisters who recently arrived? You're very young.”

“And out of habit, I fear, my lady,” Rothana said, smiling sheepishly as she picked up her veil and rose to make the queen a polite curtsey. “It's very warm, and as a novice, my sisters often overlook my childish lapses.”

“Nay, it
is
warm, child. I shan't tell on you,” Jehana said with an answering smile, only then glancing at and recognizing Richenda, who had also risen at her approach.

“You!”
she whispered, after a little gasp.

Richenda inclined her head in acknowledgment and dipped in dutiful curtsey.

“Majesty.”

“Majesty?” Rothana echoed, cocking her head at Richenda in question.

“Jehana of Bremagne, mother to the king,” Richenda said softly, not taking her eyes from the queen. “Your Majesty, may I be permitted to present my kinswoman Rothana, daughter of Hakim, Emir Nur Hallaj, a novice of Saint Brigid's.”

As the speechless Jehana darted her gaze from Richenda to the startled-looking Rothana, who was replacing her veil with all possible speed, Richenda lifted a hand in invitation for the queen to join Rothana in the window seat. The queen would refuse, of course, but Richenda found herself taking an almost perverse pleasure to be making the offer.

“Please join us if you wish, Majesty,” she said. “Perhaps you would care to hear more poetry. Interspersed with more traditional material, Rothana was reciting from the works of the great Orin. He was Deryni, like the three of us.”

Jehana swallowed audibly and went nearly as pale as her white robes, looking as if she might bolt at any instant, green eyes darting fearfully to the silent Rothana and then back to Richenda.

“But, she's a nun!” she whispered, shaking her head in denial. “She
can't
be D-D—She simply
can't
be! Not and be in religion.…”

Richenda had all she could do to keep her anger from flaring visibly. “Why not? That's what
you
wish to be, isn't it? What makes you think you're the only one?”

“That's an entirely different matter,” Jehana said weakly. “You know it is. I turned to the Church to help me
cast out
my evil; you
celebrate
yours!”

“Nay, madame! We celebrate our closer kinship with the Creator,” Rothana answered. “You yourself commended Orin's verses—”

“Deryni
verses!” Jehana snapped.

“Verses that were perfectly acceptable before you knew their author,” Richenda countered. “Do you fear to be contaminated simply by listening, madame? I assure you, if it were possible to win acceptance of our race by the mere speaking of Deryni poetry, then all the hilltops of this land should resound to Orin's verses! Alas, for those of us who must endlessly continue trying to prove ourselves pious and upright servants of the same God you serve, things are not that easy.”