The Bishop’s Heir (10 page)

In the sullen silence of the next little while, Kelson could not help noticing the contrast between Dhugal's casual dismissal of the incident and Conall's petulant formality. His cousin's behavior had embarrassed him greatly. The squire soon returned with their meager baggage and helped Conall dress in a fresh court tunic which was far too ornate for this casual highland setting, but when Kelson tried tactfully to mention that to Conall, his cousin renewed his tirade about stiff-necked bordermen and declared that he would show them all how a proper prince behaved, donning a silver circlet of rank as he stalked out the door. Kelson sent the squire after him, hoping he could prevent Conall from insulting any other bordermen he encountered, and pulled a clean woolen singlet from his own pack in silence.

“I really am sorry about Conall's boorishness,” he said after a moment, as Dhugal's head emerged from the neck of a saffron-colored shirt. “I hope it's only the folly of youth.”

“Youth?” Dhugal made a rude noise, his courtly veneer vanishing in border frankness. “Kelson, he's a year older than
I
am. If respect is what he values, he'll never win it with behavior like that. He's second in line for the throne, too.”

Kelson crouched to help his foster-brother finish arranging the pleats of a great kilt on the floor, unable to disagree.

“That's true, in theory,” he said, watching Dhugal lie down on the kilt to belt it around his narrow waist. “Thank God his father comes first—and I've never heard anyone say an unkind word about Nigel. Perhaps by the end of next year there will be a new heir altogether. Still, you're right about youth being no excuse for rude behavior. Conall can be a terrible boor.”

Dhugal, sitting up to brooch part of the plaid to his shoulder with an amethyst the size of plover's egg, looked up from the gem's clasp with a start to stare at the king.

“Bugger Conall! What do you mean, a new heir? Kelson, you aren't betrothed, are you?”

“No, no, not that, yet,” Kelson replied with a chuckle. “But don't look so shocked. I'm seventeen and I'm a king. It's expected. Nigel and Aunt Meraude have been badgering me for over a year, and Morgan nearly as long.”

“Morgan, too?”

Kelson shrugged wistfully. “Well, all of them are right, of course. The succession has to be secured. I've lost count of the princesses and countesses and other eligible girls I've had to inspect in the last year. Every lordling in Gwynedd with a marriageable daughter or sister between the ages of twelve and thirty has been finding some excuse to bring her to court. Even Morgan is threatening to trot out some R'Kassan princess for Twelfth Night. She's a relative of his wife.”

“His wife?” Dhugal stared even harder, though now he, too, was grinning. “So that's what it's all about! Morgan's gotten married, so now he thinks everyone else ought to be. Who's the lady?”

Kelson shook his head and grinned. He kept forgetting how isolated Transha was from the capital and its doings.

“You
are
out of touch, aren't you? You
did
know I'd made him Lord Protector of the South, didn't you?”

“No.”

“Did you know that Torenth has a regency again?” Kelson ventured.

“A regency? What happend to Prince Alroy?”

Kelson sighed, trying to keep at least some of the old worry out of his voice.

“A fall from a horse, around Midsummer. He broke his neck. From what I've been able to gather, it was clearly an accident, but he'd just come of age. So some folk are saying I arranged it—the way Charissa
arranged
my father's death.”

“You mean, with magic?” Dhugal whispered.

Kelson nodded. “They don't know me very well, do they?”

“But, what possible motive could you have, even if you
were
able to—
are
you able to kill someone with magic, Kelson?”

“If you mean, do I have the ability to kill someone with magic, the answer is yes—I have the power and the knowledge to do so,” Kelson said quietly. “I've—had to do it once already. I killed Alroy's father and uncle that way—and the Earl of Marley. I'm not proud of it, but there was no other way at the time. And I'd do it again to protect my kingdom.”

He swallowed uncomfortably. “As for motive, I'm afraid I have that, too. Keeping a minor on the throne of Torenth lessens the chance that Torenth will move against me in anything but border skirmishes, at least until the new king is of age. Liam, Alroy's next brother, is only nine. That gives me nearly five years to get things settled in Meara, before I have to worry seriously about Torenth again—maybe more. I didn't kill Liam's brother, though.”

“I believe you,” Dhugal said.

The three words were spoken quietly, with little inflection, but Kelson knew that they were true. Four years had passed since he and Dhugal last had met, but he could sense that the old closeness had not weakened with the passage of the years and all that had gone on during them. He glanced down at his hands, the hands which literally held the power of life and death over so many, then shook his head, knowing he would never be able to put aside the knowledge of his power.

“But, enough of all this,” Kelson continued more brightly. “You asked about Morgan, and Morgan's wife. He married Richenda of Marley a year ago last spring. They have a little daughter who's nearly a year old now. Briony, she's called.”

“For your father,” Dhugal murmured, nodding approvingly. “I like that. But Richenda of Marley—wasn't she the Countess of Marley? Didn't you just say you'd had to kill her husband?”

“Yes. But she wasn't responsible for her husband's treason,” he said softly. “Nor was their son. I confirmed young Brendan in the Earldom of Marley when he turned six this past summer. I've made him Morgan's ward, until he's of age, and Richenda his regent.”

“And what will he say when he's older, and he learns who killed his father?” Dhugal whispered. “Suppose he comes to hate you for it?”

“I suppose I hope that by then, he'll have learned why I had to do it,” Kelson said with a sigh. “Bran Coris' was one of the first lives I had to take. Unfortunately, it won't be the last. At least I've learned a few things since then—not that they'd make any difference if I had to do over again.” He sighed again, a gesture of finality.

“But that's done. There's no sense brooding about something I can't change. One thing I hope I
can
change is the reception I got when I rode in here an hour ago.”

Dhugal laughed aloud, the solemnity of the past few minutes dispelled.

“Now, that
will
be magic, if you can accomplish that. You saw them, Kelson. They're bordermen. Most of them have never been to court, and never will. You can't expect to earn their respect overnight.”

“Not overnight, no. But I do have an idea for making a start, perhaps.”

Half an hour later, two young bordermen emerged from the tower room where only one had entered. Dhugal's comment about his long hair the day before had given Kelson his inspiration. He had decided not to hazard a great kilt such as Dhugal himself wore, for he was disinclined to trust a garment which depended on only a belt to discipline so many pleats, so he had chosen a set of Dhugal's rust-colored border leathers instead—close-fitting trews and sleeveless doublet over a saffron wool shirt like Dhugal's. A length of grey, black, and yellow MacArdry plaid was caught across his chest baldric style and secured at the left shoulder with a deeply chased silver ring brooch, and soft indoor boots of buckskin encased his feet in comfort. Instead of the golden circlet which would have adorned his head at any normal court function, he wore a border bonnet like Dhugal's. His black hair made a borderman's braid shorter by a handspan than Dhugal's copper one, but that, plus the clothing, transformed the king from a polished young lowland noble into a darker echo of the chief's son. Now, if only old Caulay would play along.

He began to hear the skirl of pipers tuning as he followed Dhugal down the newel stair and along the passage toward the castle's great hall—dissonant and whining at first, but then catching and carrying a traditional border air, one of the few he knew. The music put a new spring in his step as he and Dhugal emerged near the entrance to the hall, and he could hear Dhugal whistling softly under his breath.

Border henchmen, servants, and a few Haldane men alike milled in the anteroom outside the open doors to the hall, but in Dhugal's company, dressed as he was, no one paid Kelson any particular notice. Seizing a torch from a fire-blackened cresset, Dhugal led him through the press and quickly through a nondescript wooden door just beyond the entryway, signing for silence as he continued up a steep, narrow intramural passageway which paralleled the great hall. When Kelson judged them to be about halfway along its length, Dhugal stopped and uncovered two narrow squints cut at different angles in the stone, carefully holding his torch below and close to the wall to shield its light. Using each squint in turn, Kelson could see nearly all the length of the hall below, though the entrance and the dais at the other end were out of range.

“It looks like most of your men who aren't on duty are already seated,” Dhugal murmured, gazing downward with Kelson. “You can see how they've all kept to themselves, though. A lot is going to depend on how you're received.”

Kelson nodded as he studied the hall. Since, by border custom, all clansmen were more or less of equal rank, there were no separate arrangements for nobles and men-at-arms. He saw Duke Ewan moving down the hall with a surly-looking Conall—to be seated at the high table, Dhugal assured him—but other than them, almost all the rest of the royal entourage seemed to be crowded on either side of a long table parallelling one side wall—carefully isolated, Kelson noted, from the rest of the clansmen and their women. Hospitality, it seemed, had its limits.

He was thoughtful as he followed Dhugal farther along the passageway and around a bend, the pipers' jig hardly intruding at all now on his thinking as he gazed through another squint looking toward the high table. From there, he was able to survey everyone on the dais, including the Earl of Transha.

Caulay MacArdry had aged in the three years since Kelson last had seen him, but though time had robbed the old border chief of much of his mobility, it clearly had not touched his other faculties. A gillie had to help him into his chair at the high table, for he could no longer walk without assistance, but the arms emerging from his fine saffron shirt were still corded with muscle, tanned nut-brown from the high summer sun and wind of the Transha highlands. Kelson could see the muscles ripple as the old man hefted a full wineskin and drank unerringly from a stream of red without spilling a drop.

His wiry grey hair was drawn back in a borderer's clout and bound with a ribbon woven in the colors of his clan, but the full beard flowing onto his chest still showed a little of the chestnut gleam of his youth. The brown eyes were clear and alert as he conversed with Duke Ewan, seated on the other side of Conall, at his left hand; but he kept glancing at the far end of the hall as if in expectation.

“Is he looking for us?” Kelson asked softly, glancing aside at Dhugal. “Hadn't we better go on in?”

“Yes, but not in the way you're thinking,” Dhugal replied. He grinned slyly as he seized a fold of Kelson's sleeve and drew him back into the passage. “Let's go. Just follow my lead, and do what I do.”

Soon they were emerging behind the screens which separated the kitchen from the dais in the great hall, Dhugal nudging the king through one of the bays to move with him among the gillies serving the high table. The men deferred to their chief's son, but they hardly gave Kelson a second look other than to avoid running into him as he stuck to Dhugal's side. They were too busy watching Conall, seated on the chief's left, and Jodrell, who had pulled up a stool at the end of the table to sit and speak to Ewan between them. The old Duke of Claibourne had been readily accepted among them, for he came of the same clan system as themselves and understood their customs, but the others were lowlanders, like the knights and men-at-arms seated in the hall below. Conall, defiantly aloof in court dress and the silver circlet of his rank, looked particularly out of place.

But Kelson sensed Dhugal's intentions now. As the younger boy worked his way closer to the high table, gesturing toward the place of honor at old Caulay's right and easing onto the bench to the right of that, Kelson controlled a smile and followed. With casual nonchalance, he slipped into the place between Dhugal and the old man and leaned an elbow on the table, merely raising an eyebrow at a gillie who ducked between him and Dhugal to pour wine for both of them and started to question.

Some of his own men began to recognize him at that, however, and as more and more of them got to their feet with much clatter and scraping of wooden benches against stone floor, the commotion caught old Caulay's attention. As he turned to ascertain the reason for it, he was astonished to see a strange young borderman sitting at his right hand. The pipers' skirling wheezed to a halt as all eyes turned toward the MacArdry chief.

“The Haldane gives fair greeting to The MacArdry of Transha,” Kelson said gravely, inclining his head in respect as Caulay's jaw dropped. “My brother Dhugal bade me sit at your right hand, sir, and I am right honored to do so, for his father must be my father, since I have none anymore.”

Stunned speechless, Caulay stared into the grey Haldane eyes as the buzz of questions grew among his people, seeing the strange mixed with the familiar. The last Haldane old Caulay had seen had been a boy of just fourteen, on the occasion of his coronation. The lad before him was young, but he was a man, with the frank, direct gaze of his other border chieftains. As he glanced beyond the stranger at his son, Dhugal rose and came to kiss his father's cheek with a grin.