The Bishop’s Heir (27 page)

There was clear space around him now—except for the bloody body of the slain and trampled guard—but the panicked citizens fleeing his horse's hooves would block pursuit for only so long. He must take his chances now. Far across the square he could see archers approaching. If he could not break free at once, they would cut him down. Kneeing his mount closer to the gate and the petrified Sidana, he seized her upper arm and dragged her up to the saddlebow in front of him, to shouts of dismay from the approaching soldiers.

“Sorry, coz, but you must be
my
escort now,” he gasped, fighting to keep girl, sword,
and
his seat as he made the bay rear in defiance. “Out of my way, if you'd not risk the lady's safety!” he shouted.

She squirmed in his grasp, elbowing him in the ribs hard enough to nearly make him drop her, but he only swore under his breath and held her the more tightly, clapping heels to the horse and incredulously watching the guards melt from his path as he bolted for freedom. Sicard and his sons were screaming frantically for horses, Caitrin half-fainting, Loris mouthing unheard orders as Dhugal shot by them. His passage through the city streets became a blur of screaming, scattering people and shouting soldiers in pursuit, the chaos heightened by the loose horse which plunged along just ahead of them, helping to clear a path. Only a handful of riders pursued them at first. The city gates stood open as they usually did during daylight, and Dhugal and his still-struggling passenger careened past the gate guards and out across the snow-slick draw before anyone could do more than stare in surprise.

His pursuers were heavier than he in their war harness, so Dhugal managed to pull away slowly for the first few miles—but only at the expense of his gallant bay, running out its heart for him. Double-mounted, he could not sustain such a pace for long—but neither could his pursuers. He had temporarily lost sight of them when he pulled the blown bay to a shuddering halt and slid from its back, thrusting his sword upright in the snow. The horse staggered at the sudden lessening of weight and nearly went down, and Sidana clutched at the saddle, white-faced.

“Easy, good friend,” Dhugal murmured, laying hands on the bay's heaving chest and soothing with his voice. “Better service a man could not ask, but you have earned your rest. Your stablemate shall carry us from here.”

Still stroking the spent animal with one hand, he turned and held out his other to the sorrel, whistling low. The second horse was also lathered and breathing heavily, steaming in the cold air, but still with spring in its step for having run unburdened. Whuffling softly, it pricked up its ears and came to butt its head against his chest and present a sweaty face for scratching.

“There's a good fellow,” Dhugal said with a grin as he obliged, glancing up at Sidana as he continued to stroke both animals.

Her expression brought him to her side at once, to lift her down and let her sink onto the snow in a heap of fur-lined cloak, weeping.

“I'm sorry for your rough treatment,” he said, easing to a crouch beside her. “I had to get away, though—whatever the cost.”

“Whatever for?” she sobbed. “Didn't my father offer you enough? Can you betray your blood so easily?”

“To have stayed would have been to betray it far more,” he replied. Nervously he glanced back the way they had come. “What your father is doing is wrong. He usurps the rights of King Kelson.”

“Kelson?” Sidana hiccoughed and tried to stop her sobbing. “What obedience do you owe
him
?”

“I am the heir of Transha,” Dhugal replied. “My father is King Kelson's liegeman.”

“Your
father
is his liegeman.
You
have sworn no oaths.”

“Have I not?”

“Well, you are free to give your allegiance where you will,” she said, staring up at him with great, accusing eyes. “But how
could
you, with your family's blood joined to Meara's? Your uncle is my father, and the father of future kings. My brother will someday rule a reunited Meara. You could have been a part of it—
would
have been a part of it. Father had promised you a dukedom!”

Sadly Dhugal shook his head. “Only my king may give me that, Lady,” he said, standing to rest his hand on the bridle of the bay. “And it is not
your
brother who shall rule a reunited Meara, but
mine
.”

“But—I thought you had no brothers.”

He shrugged and smiled. “None yet live who were born of my mother—but I have a brother, fair cousin: a brother of blood, to whom I owe total allegiance; one worth forfeiting my very soul to protect and serve—which I may have done, by breaking my oath in escape, and taking you with me.” He sighed.

“But having risked that, I don't intent to waste it all by being taken now,” he said, offering his hand to help her rise. “Your hand, please, my lady,” he added, when she drew back in protest. “Don't force me to add another offense to the litany of my crimes. Despite what you may think, I was taught to honor and revere women.”

Rebellion and indignation flared again in her dark eyes, but Sidana was too much the daughter of nobility not to recognize an untenable position. Spurning his offer of assistance, she gathered the shreds of her pride around her with the fur-lined cloak she wore and wobbled to her feet, though she did allow him to lift her onto the sorrel's saddle. She sat woodenly as he scrambled up behind her and reached around her to gather up the reins.

A moment to retrieve the sword set upright in the snow, and then he set heels to their mount and urged it forward, glancing back over his shoulder at the dark specks of their pursuers. The bay followed them for a while, but gradually fell behind and was lost as the sorrel settled into a modest but steady pace.

They managed to keep moving for another hour, until the shadows were long and weak on the virgin snow of the Cùilteine Road, but their horse was nearly spent as Dhugal drew rein at the top of a rise and turned to look back. Their pursuers could be discerned as three or four score horsemen now, drawing inexorably nearer. Sidana stirred in his arms and gazed after him, the wind whipping a tendril of her dark hair against his face.

“My father will kill you,” she said softly, not turning her head. “
After
my brothers finish with you.”

A tightness spreading beneath his aching ribs, Dhugal swallowed and shifted his gaze in the direction they had been fleeing—toward Gwynedd, and safety. They would never reach it now. Their horse would be lucky to make it down the hill, much less carry them beyond. And whether or not Dhugal were calloused enough to threaten harm to Sidana when they caught up to him—and even if he followed through—they would kill him for what he had done. Whether quickly or painfully hardly mattered, under the circumstances. Dead was dead.

But as his eyes darted longingly back toward the east and safety, he caught a trace of unexpected movement: more horsemen approaching, perhaps even more than pursued him. He drew in breath sharply as he strained his eyes in that direction, for they could not be Sicard's men, and have ridden fast enough to circle round this way. But if not Sicard's, then it mattered little
whose
they were. Anyone was preferable to being taken by the Mearans.

He did not pause to analyze it further. Setting his heels to their trembling mount, he forced it down the hill, holding Sidana close against him as the animal stumbled and lurched, near to foundering.

He might still die. He might break his neck falling from this fool horse, if it didn't watch where it was putting its feet. Or the men ahead might be no more merciful than the ones behind.

But he was not going to wait for the Mearans to take him.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to
the
border:
the
men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee
.

—Obadiah 1:7

“Uh-oh, we have company,” Kelson murmured.

He reined back to a walk and stood in his stirrups for a better look, pointing at a snowy ridge far ahead where a mounted horse had just appeared, silhouetted against the twilight sky.

“D'you see him?”

Morgan, with a curt signal to halt the column of knights riding four abreast behind them, also drew rein and peered into the distance, casting about with other senses than sight, lest the rider not be alone.

“Aye, and he's undoubtedly seen us by now as well,” he replied. “So much for approaching Ratharkin unob—what the—?”

He broke off in astonishment as the horse suddenly broke from the top of the hill and began plunging down the snow-covered slope, each ponderous lurch threatening to send both rider and steed tumbling.

“Is he
trying
to break his neck?” Kelson gasped.

The horse stumbled and nearly went down even as Kelson spoke, then suddenly both he and Morgan saw the reason for at least a part of the animal's labor.

“He's carrying double!” Kelson exclaimed in amazement.

“Aye, and to be riding double at that speed and on a horse that spent, the Devil himself must be chasing them,” Morgan agreed. “Care to give the Devil some sport, Sire?”

Kelson raised an eyebrow at the borderline blasphemy, but he needed no second invitation. He had been spoiling for just such a skirmish all day. With a grin which had nothing to do with mirth, he unsheathed his sword and raised it over his head, glancing back to where Conall was already shaking out the folds of the Haldane battle standard.

“Forward at the canter and fan out!” he ordered, standing in his stirrups and pointing with his sword. “Whoever's chasing that fellow is going to have a surprise, I think!”

Immediately Conall and Saer de Traherne spurred forward and to Kelson's left, folds of scarlet silk billowing on the wind as the battle standard unfurled. Jodrell led another detachment to the right. The deadly hiss of steel slithering from scabbards joined the jingle of bits and spurs and the creak of leather as the knights broadened their line, outriders spurring ahead on the flanks. They were nearing the start of the hillrise now, the fleeing horse nearly upon them—close enough for Morgan to see that the front rider on the horse was a girl, dark hair whipping in the wind. And the other—

“It's Dhugal!” Kelson cried, even as the other rider's arm flailed in a frenzied wave of recognition.

Dhugal was in their midst then, laughing aloud despite his exhaustion, Kelson and Morgan reining in to bracket his faltering mount as the rest of the warband swept on up the hill. Morgan caught the horse's near rein and drew its head close to his stirrup, his own mount scrambling for footing as the sorrel staggered and nearly fell.

“Steady!”

“Here, take her!” Dhugal gasped, helping lift his protesting companion to a new perch in front of Morgan's saddle. “She's Sidana, the pretender's daughter. Her father's men are right behind me.”

“How many?” Kelson demanded, as he gave Dhugal a hand up behind him.

Dhugal hooked a hand in the back of Kelson's belt to steady himself and shook his head happily.

“Not enough to give your men any trouble, Sire. Am I ever glad to see you!”

“And I.” Kelson wheeled his stallion on its haunches and glanced after his knights nearing the crest of the hill. “But let's make sure you counted correctly. Morgan, stay out of the fighting unless we're needed, but come along with me. Oh, and welcome to Gwynedd, my lady!”

Morgan felt the girl stiffen in his arms as she heard his name, but he only shifted her closer into the curve of his shield arm as he urged his horse up the hill after the king, naked sword still ready in his gloved right hand. Ahead of them, the warband spilled over the crest of the hill with shouts of glee. He could hear the answering cries of consternation as Dhugal's pursuers saw the Haldane standard in the midst of their attackers.

The sortie was all but over by the time Morgan drew rein at the top of the hill with Kelson. Down on the plain, a handful of Haldane knights were in pursuit of a few stragglers, but the rest of the opposition were on the run far ahead. Several men unhorsed in the encounter were scattered down the other side of the hill, picking themselves up shakily, but none of them wore Kelson's livery. Haldane knights stood guard over each one, Traherne and Conall marching another one back to join his fellows while the squires rounded up all the loose horses. A cheer went up from Kelson's knights as he started down the hillside, and at his signal the battle horn sounded to call back their knights still in pursuit. Grinning, Morgan urged his horse after the king's.

“A happy circumstance, Sire,” he said as they drew abreast at the bottom of the hill and halted, glancing down in amusement at the girl now beginning to wriggle in his arms as he reached around her to sheathe his sword. “And a rich prize young Dhugal has brought us, too. There's no point in struggling, my lady. You'd best save your strength for the ride back to Rhemuth.”

“My father will avenge me!” Sidana cried. “You took him by surprise.”

“But, that's the whole point, isn't it, my lady?” Kelson asked with a grin. “To take the enemy by surprise? I would be a poor commander if I sent my men into battle in rebel territory without the best possible advantage. Your father would have done the same.”

“My father is not a rebel!” Sidana said. “He seeks to restore my mother to the throne which is rightfully hers, and to give Meara back its freedom. We shall not be ruled by—by a Deryni heretic!”

The taunt was only an accustomed annoyance to Morgan, inured from childhood to ignore such affronts, but Kelson reacted as if he had been stung, apparently not expecting it from a beautiful young girl. Dhugal, sitting behind the king, could not see how the grey eyes flashed warning, but he obviously sensed the sudden tension before Kelson brought his anger under control. Even Sidana gasped as she realized what she had said, and to whom, and in whose arms. Morgan forced himself not to react, waiting to see how Kelson would handle this.