King Javan’s Year (34 page)

“I think there's some left in the other room, Sire. I'll go and see.”

As he withdrew to get it, Javan shifted his attention back to Rhys Michael, who was tossing off the last of his brandywine.

“This
was
very good,” the prince said, setting his empty goblet aside with a smirk. “Sorry you didn't get any. Serves you right for that cheeky remark. I don't consort with serving wenches.”

Allowing himself a halfhearted chuckle, Javan sat back in his seat, hoping Guiscard would hurry.

“It might almost be better if you did,” he said, determined to keep his brother off balance while Guiscard dealt with this new complication. “Even if the worst happens, you can't be made to marry one. Royal bastards might be an embarrassment, but they aren't a threat to the crown—at least not until they're grown.”

“It isn't like that!” Rhys Michael began.

“No? I'm glad to hear it,” Javan went on. “Because if you play around with a girl of ‘suitable' breeding and you get
her
pregnant, her father—by definition—is going to be highly enough placed to put a lot of pressure on you to marry her. And if you do, and she bears you a son, that could be all our enemies need as an excuse to eliminate both of us and help themselves to fourteen more years of regency. After that long in virtually absolute power, do you really think they'd be willing to step back from that power and let your son take up his crown in any meaningful way? He'd be a puppet, Rhysem, the same way Alroy was!”

“Alroy wasn't a puppet, and they'd never do that,” Rhys Michael said sulkily as Guiscard came back into the room with a new pair of goblets. “You've broken the back of the old regency. You'll have your own men in place in a matter of weeks. Besides,” he muttered under his breath, “her father is dead.”

“Whose father?” Javan said as Guiscard delivered one of the goblets to his brother.

“It isn't important. Nothing's going to happen,” Rhys Michael said, and took a fortifying gulp from his cup.

Javan, reaching for his own, knew immediately who his brother was talking about.

“It's Michaela Drummond, isn't it?” he said.

Don't drink that
, came Guiscard's warning as his hand brushed Javan's.

Rhys Michael took another deep pull from his cup and glanced out the window, not noticing that Javan set his cup aside untasted.

“What if it is?” he declared, sullen and closed. “I like her. After you left Court, she was one of the few friends I had. She's suitable.”

“Yes, and she's the ward of Manfred MacInnis, fostered to his lady's household. I'll bet that he and the Lady Estellan have made it very easy for the two of you to be together, haven't they?”

Rhys Michael was starting to droop visibly, his head nodding over his cup, but he took another deep swallow before answering.

“You don't unnerstand,” he whispered, his speech starting to slur. “It isn't like that. Besides, we—haven't done anything. And even if we had, and she—Well, I—can't believe the regents would do what you're suggesting. It's—monstrous.”

“Yes, that's a good word to describe it,” Javan agreed. “And they've never done anything monstrous before, have they? Their hands are spotlessly clean—unless you count the Duke of Claibourne, and Declan Carmody and his wife and sons, and little Giesele MacLean, smothered in her bed.”

Rhys Michael had drifted into sleep somewhere during this recitation, and Javan reached across to take the goblet from his relaxing fingers. At once Guiscard moved in from the shadows, shoving his fingers hard against one of the carotid pulse points in Rhys Michael's throat.

“Is he all right?” Javan whispered.

“He's fine,” Guiscard said, sinking down beside the sleeping prince and reaching across for Javan's untouched goblet. “Let's get a little more of this in him, and then we'll see if we can't get far enough past those shields to tidy up any memory of this.”

As Javan watched wide-eyed, Guiscard tipped back the prince's head and set the goblet to his lips, tilting the wine through the parted lips. To Javan's surprise, his brother began swallowing—a succession of halting contractions of his throat, almost yielding to coughs, but enough to drain the cup by half before Guiscard relented.

“That should do it,” the Deryni knight said, handing the cup off to Javan. “Swallowing is a reflex, when someone is unconscious. Fortunately, shields don't interfere with triggering that reflex—not that his shields are particularly strong. They aren't even complete. I've gone ahead and dealt with what little memory might have aroused suspicion later on, but I gather that you hadn't expected this turn of events.”

Javan shook his head. “It's part of the Haldane legacy. It has to be. Maybe Alroy's death triggered something.” He sighed. “We can't worry about this now, though. Will he sleep all night?”

“Oh, yes. There's no immediate problem—other than his apparent infatuation with the Drummond girl. Charlan, come and give us a hand getting the prince to bed,” he added in a slightly louder voice. “Fortunately, the coronation should keep him sufficiently occupied with official duties that he won't have time or energy to dig himself in deeper with his lady-love. Once you're safely crowned, though, it might be wise to find an excuse to get her away from Court.”

As Charlan approached, Guiscard was already easing around to the prince's other side and pulling him to his feet, setting a shoulder under his arm as Charlan took the other.

“Poor Rhysem,” Javan murmured as the two half dragged and half walked him staggering into the other room. “I expect he's going to have quite a head on him in the morning.”

“Maybe less than you might think,” Charlan said, “unless Guiscard's potion makes things worse than usual. He's acquired quite a capacity while you were away from Court, Sire.”

Shocked at the implication, Javan glanced at Guiscard. “Is that true?”

Guiscard grimaced as he and Charlan hefted the prince onto the great canopied bed. “Well, I won't go so far as to say that his Highness has an outright problem with drink, but he does manage to put away far more for his size than one might imagine. That isn't the issue right now, however. Let's get him undressed and bedded down. People are waiting for us.”

“Aye, of course.”

Javan watched a little stunned as they stripped his brother of his boots and outer garments and installed him in the state bed. By the time they finished, the king had forced himself back to something approaching equilibrium.

Minutes later Charlan was heading down for their rendezvous next to the incipient library, while Javan and Guiscard diverted to Father Faelan's quarters. Their knock at the priest's door produced a somewhat rumpled-looking Faelan. In the heat, and not consciously expecting visitors this late, he had put aside his hooded scapular and opened the throat of his habit, which he hurriedly began doing up again as the king's presence registered. In the little oratory beyond, a breviary lay open on the armrest of the
prie-dieu
, illuminated by a fat yellow candle in a black wrought-iron candlestick.

“I've disturbed you at your prayers, Father. I'm sorry,” Javan said. Laying a hand on Faelan's wrist, he triggered light controls as he and Guiscard moved Faelan back into the room and Guiscard drew the door closed behind them. “I require your services for an hour or so this evening. Will you come?”

Faelan blinked, surprise and apprehension damped heavily by Javan's controls, then gave a dazed jerk of his chin.

“Aye, my lord,” he whispered.

“He'd better put the rest of his habit back on before we go, Sire,” Guiscard murmured, holding up a mass of black. “I know you dislike it, but questions would be asked, if he should be seen without it.”

He was right, of course. With a curt nod, Javan turned away to close Faelan's book and extinguish the extra candle in the oratory while the priest drew the offending garment back over his head, Guiscard preparing to open the door. Faelan was still adjusting his garments as he headed out of the room, Javan and then Guiscard following—and all but collided with two men wearing black habits that matched his own.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

Observe, and take good heed, for thou walkest in peril of thy overthrowing
.

—Ecclesiasticus 13:13

Of all the men Javan would have preferred not to meet just then, members of the
Custodes Fidei
ranked among the very least desirable.

“Why, Father Faelan, were we planning some late-night assignation?” the taller of the two said coldly, at first noting only that Faelan was accompanied, but not by how many and by whom. He did not see Guiscard melt back into the shadows behind the door.

“Actually,” Javan said, moving farther into the light, “the good Father's ‘assignation' was to accompany me back to my apartments. This close to my coronation, I felt the need of spiritual guidance—which is precisely why I have a personal chaplain.”

“It's the king!” the second man murmured.

Stepping back a pace, the taller one eyed Javan impassively, then favored him with a formal inclination of his head.

“Your Highness.”

As the man straightened, and as Javan got a better look at him and his companion, his heart sank. Scarcely could this meeting have been more ill-timed. The tall, gaunt monk occasionally haunted Javan's nightmares, as he surely must haunt Faelan's, for Brother Serafin was the Grand Inquisitor of the
Custodes Fidei
. The priest accompanying him was Father Lior, his assistant, equally dangerous. Peripherally, during his years in seminary, Javan had dealt with both men; both had been involved more recently and more directly in Faelan's interrogation-
cum
-torture.

“So, may I ask what brings you abroad this late, gentlemen?” Javan said pointedly, sending to Guiscard to keep out of sight but be ready to act—for if Javan could not divert the two, and quickly, other measures would be necessary.

Clasping his hands behind his back, Serafin gazed down his long nose at the king. “Father Faelan may be your chaplain, Sire, but he is still a member of the Order you chose to abandon. Having heard that he was indisposed when he first arrived here yesterday, our superior—and his—instructed that we inquire regarding his health. We anticipated that a late visit would least incommode your Highness. Obviously we misjudged.”

“Yes, you did.”

Faelan, meanwhile, had been standing mute in the midst of this exchange—still sufficiently controlled that his anxiety did not show, but increasingly aware of his danger, if the two tried to take him away for any intense interrogation.

“Sire, there is no need to vex yourself over this interruption,” he said to Javan. “And Brother Serafin, Father Lior, I assure you, I am well recovered. It was a fatigue of the journey, nothing more.”

“Were you seen by the Healer Oriel?” Serafin asked, gimlet eyes fixed on the priest.

“He saw me briefly, yes,” Faelan said truthfully. “I did not request it, but his Highness thought it prudent.”

“Perhaps his Highness will not mind if we have a few words in private,” Serafin replied, boldly seizing Faelan's arm and propelling him toward the still-ajar door, as Lior simultaneously pressed between them and the king. “If you'll excuse us, Sire. We'll send him on to your quarters in a few minutes.”

Javan could not stop him. The captive Faelan was already nearly through the door, Serafin at his side and Lior right behind them—and Guiscard was on the other side of the door!

Take Serafin as soon as he's inside
, he sent to the Deryni knight.
I'll see to Lior
.

He moved in on Lior even as the startled Serafin was suddenly jerked into the room by one arm. While Javan clapped one hand hard over Lior's mouth from behind, his other arm reached around for a choke hold. He was not heavy enough to take the priest down on sheer physical strength, but at least he was able to keep him from crying out as he sought either a pressure point or a control that would produce unconsciousness.

Lior struggled manfully for a few seconds, lifting Javan right off his feet as he twisted and bent sharply forward in an effort to throw off his assailant, but then he went limp. He and Javan collapsed in a confused heap, fortunately mostly inside the room. As Javan hurriedly scrambled to his feet, breathing hard, an appalled Father Faelan grabbed several handfuls of Lior's habit and helped drag him the rest of the way in, nudging the door closed behind them. Guiscard had subdued Brother Serafin rather more easily and was standing astride the supine figure, bent with one hand clasped across Serafin's throat.

“God
damn
, this man's a nuisance!” he murmured. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but now we've got them, what do you intend to do with them?”

He straightened, wiping his hands against his thighs in distaste, and stepped clear of his unconscious captive.

“Well, I didn't
want
them, but the situation was escalating,” Javan said, making sure Lior was not going to stir. “I didn't need this, on top of the business with Rhysem.” He sighed. “I suppose we're going to have to doctor their memories and let them go.”

“Mmmm, tricky, making sure both sets of memory match,” Guiscard replied. “Are
you
up to it? I'm not sure I am.”

“Then we'll have to take them down to Jesse,” Javan said impatiently, keeping his voice low. “What else was I to do? Serafin's the Grand Inquisitor, for God's sake. I don't know how I would have explained you being here, and I couldn't have him sniffing around before we've at least got a bolt-hole.”

“Sire,” Faelan interrupted, “he knows who Paulin's Deryni is.”

“What?”