The Bishop’s Heir (51 page)

Before Morgan could respond to that new piece of information, a raucous whoop from Rory and Payne, Kelson's younger Haldane cousins, drew their attention back to the archery match, where Dhugal had just put his last arrow squarely into the center of the target.

To a patter of appreciative applause from the watching ladies, Conall moved forward to take his last shot—though there was little chance he could even come close to Dhugal's, much less beat it. Nor did he.

“Well, that's that,” Kelson said, as Conall's arrow thumped home a full handspan from Dhugal's—respectable enough shooting, but clearly not in Dhugal's class.

The ladies again applauded—for a prince was nearly as good a catch as a king—but Conall all but slammed down his bow, though he did manage a stiff little bow of acknowledgment before stalking off sullenly toward the stables. Kelson glanced wistfully at Morgan as a subdued Rory and Payne trailed along with Dhugal to retrieve the arrows from the target.

“Well, well, well,” he said, sliding to his feet off the stone balustrade, “that was nearly
far
more exciting than anyone would have wished. Let's go congratulate the winner, shall we? I don't know how, but he even managed to keep Conall from losing his temper.”

“Which is an achievement in itself, aside from the brilliant shooting,” Morgan replied, as they headed down the stair and into the yard. “Perhaps one may venture to hope that Conall is learning.”

“Aye. Perhaps the presence of the ladies helped a little.”

They were waiting at the firing line when Dhugal returned, Rory and Payne carrying the arrows in adoring attendance. After the boys had made their duty to Kelson, Payne chattering excitedly about Dhugal's victory, the young border lord sent them on their way and gave his foster brother his own casual yet respectful salute. In public, at least, he was always careful to give Kelson the deference their ranks required.

“Well shot, Dhugal,” Kelson said, smiling, “And a well-managed victory.”

Dhugal inclined his head and returned the smile, golden-amber eyes meeting Haldane grey, exactly aware what Kelson meant.

“Thank you, Sire.”

Though still not as tall as Kelson, he, too, had shot up over the winter—to the dismay of the castle armorers, who must even now rush to complete the season's second alteration of his steel and leather brigandine, before he left on campaign on the morrow. He wore new boots and supple new leather britches of the same russet hue as his border braid, but the linen tunic was old, and pulled across the chest, the sleeve not bound with an armguard for archery hitting well above the wristbone. He had laid aside his plaid in the noonday sun, but no one would have mistaken his rank.

No sword hung from the gilded earl's belt circling his narrow waist, but he wore a border dirk at his left hip, with a water-pale amethyst set in the hilt. The three eagle feathers of a border chief bristled from behind a MacArdry badge on his leather border bonnet.

Dhugal grinned as he dropped his arrows into a standing quiver, large, square front teeth flashing bright-white beneath the sparse, silky smudge of mustache that, at sixteen, was all the facial hair he could yet produce.

“Care to shoot a round, Sire?” he asked impishly. “We missed you just now.”

Smiling benignly, Kelson picked up Conall's discarded bow and tested its pull, then nocked an arrow to string and casually drew.

“Conall didn't miss me,” he said, letting fly and holding as he watched the arrow thump precisely into the center of the target. “And Conall hasn't yet learned the graceful art of losing.”

He ignored the flurry of applause and the sighs of appreciation from the watching ladies as he lowered the bow and took another arrow from the wistful Dhugal, laying the shaft across bow and string and carefully fitting nock to string again.

“I see,” Dhugal said, not resentful, but curious. “So
I
get the job of humbling Conall.”

Almost lethargically, Kelson raised the bow and began to draw again, closing his eyes and turning his face slightly away from the target as he locked into full-draw.

“At least it was an honest competition,” he said softly, releasing his second arrow after the final word.

Eyes still closed, he held the position as the arrow made its flight, lowering the bow to look at Dhugal only when the arrow had thumped home precisely beside the first, the two shafts touching all along their length, the fletching on the two arrows indistinguishable from one another. The ladies applauded even more enthusiastically, and Kelson half-turned briefly to glance up at them and incline his head slightly in graceful acknowledgment as Dhugal gaped.

“I'm afraid I must confess to taking what Conall could consider an unfair advantage on that one,” the king admitted with a droll smile and a wink in Dhugal's direction. “Being Deryni does have its more mundane advantages.”

He shifted his attention to Morgan. “And you will note, Alaric, that I am not totally insensitive to the interest of the ladies at my court,” he went on. “I am simply cultivating an aloofness in keeping with my eligible status—though I must confess that it seems somehow to have taken on some of the mystery that you yourself used to generate when you were in your darkling phase—and still do, I suspect, known Deryni sorcerer that you are. Perhaps it comes from wearing black.”

Any determination on Morgan's part to maintain decorum disintegrated into delighted laughter at that, for Morgan's own former penchant for black attire was well known and of only recent abandonment—and affected, in the past, for reasons very similar to those Kelson had just cited. Nowadays, he wore black for practicality, or because nothing else was handy—which was precisely why he had donned it this morning: serviceable black leathers over mail, for a predawn ride. The coincidence made Kelson's comment a singularly suitable retribution for Morgan's earlier jesting.

“Perhaps you ought to go ahead and try a shot,” Kelson suggested, suddenly aware that the bewildered Dhugal was still puzzling over the implications of Deryni advantages. “Show Dhugal how we Deryni do it.”

“You mean—”

Dhugal broke off in astonishment as Morgan merely raised an eyebrow and took up a bow, casually fitting an arrow to the string. He could not come to full draw with the shorter shaft the younger men used, but nonetheless his shot slammed squarely into the angle formed by Kelson's first two, even though he deliberately averted his eyes before locking on the target. Nor did he look up as he nocked and drew again, his second shot completing the square formed by the four shafts.

“Bloody hell!”
Dhugal whispered, as sighs of awe and more timid applause issued from the ladies' gallery.

Morgan laid down his bow and favored his admiring audience with a courtly acknowledgment of his own before herding the two younger men along with him toward the target with vague shooing motions. Dhugal tried hard not to goggle.

“How did you do that?” he breathed.
“No one
can shoot like that! You really
did
use magic, didn't you?”

Morgan shrugged noncommittally.

“Simple enough, when one knows how,” he said, keeping his outward demeanor casual and offhand. “Fortunately, our feminine admirers aren't aware how unusual that kind of shooting is. Nor, I suspect, should we titillate them very often with performances like this. Right now, they are probably only reflecting that Conall and his brothers are rather poor shots by comparison with the three of us. Conall, on the other hand, might have guessed the truth—and been furious.”

“I'll
say,” Dhugal murmured. “He's insufferable enough when he doesn't win.”

Kelson reached the target first, and began carefully pulling the telltale arrows and handing them to Morgan.

“And now you know another reason I declined to compete,” he said. “It would have taken unfair advantage. When you've learned how to enhance a skill as Alaric and I have done, it's a great temptation to use what you've learned.
Your
skill, on the other hand, comes from genuine talent with the bow—and can become better yet, once you learn how to use your powers more broadly.”

“You mean,
I
could do that?”

“Certainly. With practice, of course.”

As they started back toward the line, Conall and a squire burst from the distant stableyard on fractious bay coursers and clattered across the cobblestones toward them, the squire, at least, giving flying salute to the king as they shot past. Conall pretended not to have noticed any of them. The two had to draw aside at the great portcullis gate to let a returning patrol enter the yard, but they were gone as soon as they could squeeze their mounts past the last tartan-clad riders.

“Ah, look who's back,” Morgan said, spotting his cousin Duncan among the men bringing up the rear.

Bishop Duncan McLain, Duke of Cassan and Earl of Kierney, looked hardly even ducal, much less episcopal, as he urged his grey forward alongside the ordered ranks of men. Besides a mist-pale plume in his cap, only a shoulder plaid of green, black, and white set off his drab brown riding leathers. He grinned and raised a gloved hand in greeting as he spotted king and company by the archery butts; however, he jogged his mount smartly in their direction instead of continuing on toward the stables with his men. A smiling Dhugal caught the horse's bridle as Duncan reined in, gentling the animal with a word and a deft touch of hands to velvety nose.

“Good morning, Sire,” Duncan said to Kelson with a nod, swinging a leg and his sword casually over the high pommel of his saddle and springing lightly to the ground on the off side. “Dhugal. Alaric. What's got into young Conall? One would have thought he was pursued by demons.”

“Only the demons of jealousy.” Kelson snorted, resting both balled fists on his narrow hips. “Dhugal outshot him, fair and square.”

“Did
you, then? Well done, son!”

All three of them echoed his grin at that, for calling Dhugal “son” in that context was one of the few ways that Bishop Duncan McLain could publicly acknowledge that Dhugal MacArdry really
was
his son—for Duncan's heartbreakingly brief marriage to Dhugal's mother, though consummated long before Duncan entered holy orders, had been irregular in the extreme, so irregular that its existence could no longer be proven except by magic, so irregular that neither father nor son had learned of their relationship until a few short months before, though they had known one another as priest and royal page for many years. The secret was still shared only by the four of them and Morgan's wife, Richenda, though Duncan was quite willing to acknowledge his son if Dhugal wanted it.

But both had agreed that the timing was not yet right for that. Public disclosure just now would only brand Dhugal a bastard, undermining his right to the leadership of Clan MacArdry and his rank as earl, as well as weakening Duncan's credibility as a Prince of the Church. It would also cloud the succession to Duncan's Cassan and Kierney lands—a factor in the coming Mearan conflict, since Prince Ithel held some claim to the titles if Duncan eventually died without issue, as bishops normally were expected to do.

A less immediate but far more dangerous result, in the final reckoning, was the possibility that Dhugal would eventually be branded a Deryni, once Duncan's Deryni status became a confirmed fact rather than the present whispered rumor. And of the several Deryni at court, Dhugal was the least well-equipped to deal with that accusation.

Never having suspected this aspect of his heritage any more than he had his true paternity, Dhugal had never learned to use his magical birthright while he was growing up; indeed, had been hampered at first by rigid shields that were only finally breached by Duncan himself, and still remained resistant to all but the most cautious and delicate probes of any other Deryni. Even Arilan had tried—though before Dhugal's kinship with Duncan was discovered.

“It was a good contest,” Morgan said, enjoying the interplay between father and son. “Dhugal, however, was not aware that one might improve one's performance with the application of certain—ah—‘alternate' skills, was he, Kelson?”

“We wouldn't dare use them with Conall,” Kelson agreed. “He already rides off in a snit when he loses.”

Duncan laughed and pulled off his leather riding cap, ruffling a gloved hand through short brown hair. In preparation for the coming campaign, with its need for long hours spent under arming cap, mail, and helm, he had grown out his clerical tonsure save for a small, token circle right at the crown, no larger than a silver penny. The rest of his hair was barbered in the same martial-style that Morgan favored, in marked contrast to Dhugal and Kelson's border braids.

“Oh, I think Conall has a paramour somewhere in the city,” he said with a droll smile quite out of keeping with his clerical rank. “Perhaps that's where he was in such a hurry to go, when he nearly rode me down just now. I've noticed that he isn't too attentive to most of the ladies at court—and he nearly always comes back with a silly smile on his face. Perhaps our king should take his example?”

Kelson knew Duncan was only jesting, but he still was faintly annoyed as Dhugal elbowed him in the ribs, flashing his bright-white grin, and Morgan raised an eyebrow in an amused expression of silent approbation.

“Must
we keep harping on that same tired theme?” he said a little sharply, taking an arrow from Morgan and pretending to sight along it critically. “How was your patrol, Duncan? Are your men fit?”

Duncan's smile vanished immediately, his blue eyes gone coolly serious as he put on his cap again, once more the restrained and efficient soldier-priest.

“Aye, fit enough, my prince. However, I fear we did come upon something I think will not please you overmuch. The queen's party is less than an hour from the city gates.”