The King’s Justice (26 page)

“You speak blasphemy! I will not listen!” Jehana murmured, shutting her eyes tight and turning away, trembling.

“Aye, fly from the truth, madame!” Richenda went on, truly angry now. “But you cannot fly from Him who made both human and Deryni!”

“Would that He had not!” Jehana sobbed.

“And if He had not,” Richenda hammered on, “then
we
should not have been. Not you and I, not your son—nor even a Haldane Brion for you to marry! Why must you continue to persecute us, Jehana? Why must you persecute
yourself?”

The final accusation was too much for Jehana. Tears streaming down her face, she fled from the room, almost bowling over Conall, who had been just about to knock on the door. Glancing back over his shoulder in astonishment, Conall thrust his head around the edge of the screen and knocked on that as Jehana's running footsteps receded down the corridor. He had a letter sealed with scarlet in his hand, and wore riding leathers and a look of amazement that quickly changed to faintly amused understanding as he ventured farther into the room and spotted Richenda still standing at her loom beside the window.

“Good God, what did you say to my aunt to make her run like that?” he asked with a chuckle, making her a little bow. “One would have thought demons, at least, were after her!”

“Only the demons that she herself allows,” Richenda said weakly. “Sometimes I think we make our own hell on earth, and need no threat of demons in the afterlife. But, enough of that. You have some missive for me?”

“Oh, aye—and the messenger who brought it, too. Forgive the intrusion, but there's a peddler in the yard who claims to have letters from a Cousin Rohays. He calls himself Ludolphus, if you can believe
that
. Frankly, he looks quite the brigand—a Moor of some sort, so far as I can tell—but he said you'd recognize this seal.” He handed over the letter in his hand and grinned and bowed again as he noticed Rothana in the window embrasure behind Richenda.

“Anyway, he wouldn't let me bring the rest,” he went on, more self-conscious now that he had seen Rothana. “He insisted he had to deliver them himself. Do you want to see him?”

Richenda ran a fingertip over the seal and smiled as she sat at her loom again, aware that Rothana was becoming increasingly embarrassed by Conall's sheepish glances.

The seal did, indeed, come from Rohays, but—Ludolphus, indeed! Given the seal, Richenda had a fair idea what messenger Rohays
had
sent, and it was no peddler named Ludolphus!

But Rothana would be as pleased to see him as herself—and receiving him would extricate Rothana from an increasingly uncomfortable situation.

“Yes, thank you, Conall, I do. I've been expecting him. And would you please see that we're not disturbed?”

“Very well, if you're sure. Ah—” He glanced at Rothana hopefully. “May I, perhaps, escort the Lady Rothana elsewhere?—assuming that you wish to see the fellow privately, of course.”

“No, no, that won't be necessary.” Richenda glanced up from breaking the seal just in time to see Conall erase a crestfallen expression. “Rohays is kin to Rothana as well as myself,” she explained, shards of scarlet wax exploding across her lap as she unfolded the stiff parchment. “Besides, if the fellow is as much the brigand as you say, perhaps I shall need a chaperone.”

Rothana flashed a smile both wistful and relieved and sank down on the seat in the window embrasure, making a self-conscious adjustment of her veil.

“Very well,” Conall said doubtfully.

As soon as the prince had bowed and made his exit, Richenda cast a droll glance at Rothana and stifled a giggle, raising the letter between herself and the doorway to shield her growing mirth.

“Rothana, have you been leading Conall on?” she whispered. “He could hardly take his eyes off you! It must have been a
very
interesting journey back to Rhemuth.”

“Oh, Richenda, I was only
polite,”
Rothana protested, clasping her hands tightly in her lap and blushing furiously. “He
is
rather nice, but—I'm under
vows
, for goodness' sake!”

“Well, I don't suppose you can help how
he
reacts, can you?” Richenda replied, dismissing the subject with a smile as she began scanning her letter.

“No,” said Rothana in a very quiet voice. “Maybe I just have that effect on Haldanes.”

Richenda raised an eyebrow in surprise, wondering whether she had just heard what she thought she heard.

“Any Haldanes in particular?”

Rothana blushed and gave a furtive nod, twisting a handful of pale blue skirt in her lap.

“Aye. I wasn't going to tell you,” she whispered. “It's probably nothing—I
hope
it's nothing.”

“Go on,” Richenda murmured, lowering her letter.

“Well, it was the king,” Rothana admitted. “He—wanted to read Janniver to find out who'd attacked her. I told him no. Then he asked
me
to read her, and to show him what I saw.”

“And did you?”

Another reluctant nod. “Yes. But I was angry, Richenda. I know I should be able to forgive those who hurt me and the people I love, but I was outraged at what the soldiers had done to Janniver and my sisters, and—and maybe a little guilty that I'd escaped their fate. So I—took out some of my anger on the king. After I showed him what he wanted to know, I—made him feel a little of what it was like for—for
her
, to be—
used
that way.”

“I see,” Richenda said gently. “And you don't think that's something valuable for a king to know?”

“Oh, I suppose it is,” Rothana said with a perplexed little sigh. “I certainly thought so at the time. Only—something else happened, just before I broke the contact; a—a deeper touching than I'd planned—far more intense.”

“On whose part? Yours or his?”

“Both, I suppose,” she whispered. “I shouldn't have let it happen, though.
I
was supposed to be in control. And I don't know why I responded that way.”

“Perhaps because you're a woman and he's a man?” Richenda asked.

“Richenda, stop it!” Rothana blurted, standing abruptly to turn and look out the window, arms hugged across her chest. “I didn't do anything to encourage either him
or
Conall!”

“No one said you did,” Richenda replied. “On the other hand—well, if you should ever decide you don't want a religious life after all, you could do far worse than either young man.”

“Richenda!”

“All right! Forget I ever mentioned it,” Richenda said drolly, ducking and raising a hand in surrender as Rothana turned to stare at her in shock. “You're a body as well as a soul, however. Don't ever become so wound up in Orin's poetry that you forget that.”

Any further objection Rothana might have been contemplating was cut off by another knock at the door, followed by the tentative peering of Conall around the entry screen.

“May we approach, Your Grace? My lady?”

With a quick nod of assent, Richenda and then Rothana stood as Conall moved aside to admit a slender, wiry man dressed all in dusty black, about Conall's height. So skilled was his shielding that even Richenda, who knew what to look for, could not detect any hint that the man was Deryni.

She had no time for a close look at his face. He wore the flowing robes she had expected from Conall's description, with a bulging black satchel slung across his left shoulder on a leather strap, but the swathings of his turbanlike headdress allowed only an impression of dark eyes and a closely clipped beard and mustache before he made her a sweeping, graceful bow in the eastern fashion, fingertips brushing heart, lips, and forehead in salute. He kept his eyes averted as he straightened from his bow, his right hand returning to his breast. He did not appear to be armed, but Richenda knew he had no need to be.

“This is the peddler Ludolphus, Your Grace,” Conall said doubtfully. “If you should need me, I'll not be far away.”

“Yes, thank you, Conall,” Richenda murmured, giving him dismissal with a nod of her head and extending a hand in invitation for the visitor to approach. “Please be welcome, Master Ludolphus, and tell me the news of my cousin.”

Not until the door had closed behind Conall once more did Richenda allow her formal demeanor to slip, darting across the short distance between herself and the visitor with a stifled little cry to fling her arms around him in delight.

“Ludolphus, Ludolphus, what is this
Ludolphus
nonsense, my lord?” she whispered, letting her mind answer his psychic greeting even as he returned her physical embrace. “Rothana, do you not see who it is?”

Rothana's breath caught in a little gasp as she got a closer look at him, but because he set a finger across his lips in warning, her scarcely breathed
“Uncle Azim!”
was more a psychic whisper than a spoken name as he came to embrace her as well. Though he brushed both women with the caress of his mind, he did not speak aloud until he had drawn them into the greater privacy of the window embrasure.

“Do not give me too glad a greeting, children,” he cautioned, grinning as he set his satchel on one of the window benches and swept one arm in gesture for them to sit opposite. “I fear I might not be welcome if my true identity were recognized outside this room. Fortunately, my alter-ego Ludolphus only arouses the suspicion one must expect of a Moorish peddler come to request audience of a Christian lady.”

“Nay, my lord, that is not true!” Richenda protested.

“Ah, do not try to lie to save my feelings, child,” Azim chided, the white flash of his grin softening the rebuke. “Ludolphus the peddler arouses only human fears; Azim, brother of the Emir Hakim Nur Hallaj and precentor of the Knights of the Anvil, has been all too open that he and his Order both harbor and recruit Deryni.

“Even so, I should have had no hesitation in coming more openly to see you if Kelson were here. But with the king away at war—well, I think you have enough Deryni and near-Deryni to contend with, until he returns.”

“I think I'm acquainted with all the Deryni,” Richenda said dryly, giving him a dubious expression as she folded her arms across her breast. “You've obviously heard about our Torenthi hostages, and Queen Jehana. However, I wonder what you mean by ‘near-Deryni.'”

Azim shrugged noncommittally and opened the mouth of his satchel, searching among the ends of half a dozen leather scroll tubes. “Why, your Haldane princes left here to manage things in Kelson's absence: Nigel, and the suspicious young Conall waiting in yonder corridor, hoping for another glimpse of my lovely niece.” He smiled to see Rothana blush. “Tell me: how much time do they spend in the company of your Torenthi hostages?”

“Why, hardly any,” Richenda replied, puzzled by a faintly brittle edge to his question. “The two younger boys play with little Liam, of course—and we're quite aware that Liam's mother is a potential threat, so proper safeguards have been taken on
that
front—but I've also patterned the boys to warn us if Liam should attempt anything. Are you just worrying on general principles, or is there something else I should know? Is
that
why you played messenger, rather than sending a servant? Nearly anyone could have delivered letters and scrolls.”

Azim shrugged and handed one of the smaller scroll cases across to Richenda with a wistful look. “More of that in a moment, child. First of all, is Prince Nigel expecting a Torenthi trade delegation in the next week or so?”

“I really couldn't say,” Richenda said softly, suddenly developing a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Why do you ask?”

“In a moment. Does he have audiences scheduled for this morning?”

“No.”

“Good. Then we have a little time. First you must read the letter.” He gestured toward the leather case. “I shall warn you now that it's a blind copy of another I
know
to have been sent. I do
not
know to whom it was sent, or what other documents there may be to support it. I
can
say that my source on this particular letter is impeccable. It is for you to decide what action is to be taken—and Nigel.”

Not wasting further time, Richenda yanked the end off the leather tube and shook out the contents. As she skimmed the angular lines, the lead in her stomach rose to her throat.…

…
plans proceeding
…
liberate the royal prisoners … safety of the king of utmost importance … rescuers to pose as traders
…
access to the Haldane regent … assassination.…

She had read enough. Stunned, she raised her eyes to her old master, handing the letter to Rothana to read.

“They're going to try to kill Nigel?” she whispered. “When?”

“That, I do not know. Not this morning, at any rate. I gather you've had no inkling that anything of this sort was afoot?”

“No.”

“But you
did
permit the Lady Morag to send and receive correspondence?”

“Kelson allowed her to write to Mahael, informing him of her hostage status through the summer. I myself dictated the words.”

“And she sent no further messages, in the seals, perhaps?”

Richenda shook her head. “I would have known, even if I could not read the messages themselves. Besides, there has been no time for a further exchange of letters.”

“Well, then, perhaps something more direct,” Azim guessed. “She will have been well trained, being Wencit's sister. And Mahael of Arjenol is perhaps even craftier than his brother Lionel.”

“You think Mahael responsible?” Rothana asked, looking up from her own perusal of the letter.

“Or one of his minions,” Azim agreed. “If Mahael, however, the plot may extend even further than we think. Young Liam himself may not be safe.”