«Ah, my lord, if it were only that, I should not mind», she assured him breathlessly, «but the gown was expensive, and the floor is none too clean, and — and hard. Not to mention that some of our wedding guests might still be abroad».
«Then, where is our room?» he demanded, his embrace beginning to lift her right off her feet. «Show me, or I will take you right here!»
For answer, she wrapped her arms around his neck and drew his mouth down to hers again, this time sending her mind into his with the information he desired. Next morning, neither of them would be able to recall precisely how they had gotten from there to the room and the bed made ready for them.
The family guests who had come from afar to see Zoë wed lingered at Cynfyn for another fortnight, for they had arranged to travel back as far as Rhemuth with Kenneth and his household and guard escort, since it was very nearly time to return to court for the winter season. Though Earl Jared had remained in Culdi to attend to business, he had sent his own Kierney escort of a dozen knights with his wife and son and his aunt Nesta McLain, who was also Kenneth’s sister-in-law. Included in that party were Kenneth’s daughter Geill and her young husband, who was one of Jared’s knights. Kenneth’s two sisters, a single maid, and the two knights of their far more modest household had joined the party when it passed near Morganhall, and were traveling back in the same manner.
His daughter Alazais was to have returned to court with her father and stepmother to stay through Twelfth Night, but in the days since the wedding she had spent a great deal of time with the two sisters from Arc-en-Ciel, who also were to travel as far as Rhemuth with the Earl of Lendour’s party. Two days before they were to leave for the capital, she announced that she would prefer to spend the next year studying at the convent school.
«Zoë and Alyce studied there, Papa», she said reasonably. «The finishing would do me good. I did enjoy being at court last season, but it was also…a bit intimidating. And I am not at all certain that I am yet ready to wed».
They were seated before the fireplace in the castle’s best apartment, reclaimed from Zoë and Jovett after the wedding night. The weather had turned in the past week, and Alyce had mulled wine, anticipating a welcome evening of domestic bliss with her husband, but those plans had been suspended when Kenneth’s youngest daughter came knocking at their door. Alaric was long abed in the room he now shared with Sir Llion.
Kenneth passed a cup of mulled wine to Alazais and took a sip of his own.
«You aren’t thinking to take the veil, are you?»
«Good heavens, no, Papa! I do intend to marry. At least, I think I do. Just not yet».
«A year at Arc-en-Ciel would teach her some useful skills», Alyce pointed out, settling on a stool beside her husband. «It did me no harm, nor Zoë — and ’tis less than a day’s ride from Rhemuth, or from Morganhall».
Smiling faintly, Kenneth motioned for Alazais to come and sit on his knee, setting aside his wine to slip an arm around her waist and hug her close.
«’Tis well that I am no longer obliged to subsist on the income of a simple knight», he murmured, kissing the point of her shoulder. «Thank God that both your sisters are now safely married — and if you go to Arc-en-Ciel for a year, that delays having to provide another dowry right away».
«Papa!»
«But you shall go with my blessing, if that is what you want», he went on, smiling. «I am certain you will enjoy your time spent ‘under the rainbow,’ and only wish I could accompany you to see you enrolled». He kissed her again, then set her back on her feet. «But the king summons me, so I cannot. Perhaps Alyce would consent to go with you». He looked at Alyce in question with a raised eyebrow, and she nodded.
«I should be delighted and honored», she said with a smile. «And I should like to take Alaric with me, if I may. I would love for Mother Judiana to meet him; and the sisters and the students will adore him. All of them dote on small children».
«That is easily enough arranged», Kenneth agreed. «Trevor and Llion will accompany you — and Melissa, of course, and a small escort to see all of you safely home. I’ll take Xander with me». He picked up his wine again and took a deep draught. «Happily, this visit will be under far less stressful circumstances than applied during your last stay at Arc-en-Ciel — though I certainly cannot fault the arrangements made for our wedding night». His grin had an element of mischief. «It cannot have been the usual done thing for a convent».
«Indeed, not!» Alyce replied, suppressing her own smile. «But I’m certain we shall have a lovely visit — all of us», she added, laying a hand across one of Alazais’s. «Your aunts will wish to attend, I expect. And perhaps we can prevail upon Geill and her husband to stop there as well — and Vera and young Duncan, of course, though it remains to be seen whether Arc-en-Ciel can withstand an invasion by two small boys».
«I seem to recall that they managed well enough with several young princes, when I came with the king to witness Sister Iris Jessilde’s final profession», Kenneth said. «And they were similarly invaded for our wedding».
Alyce rolled her eyes and rose, ready to retire. «They have not reckoned with Alaric Morgan and Duncan McLain», she said archly, «but I’m certain we shall manage». She gave Alazais a fond smile. «You’d best go and tell the sisters that you have your father’s permission to go with them, my dear — and inform Geill and Vera of the slight adjustment to our travel plans. If they’re to join us, Vera will probably wish to send ahead to Culdi, alerting Jared that they’ll be a few days later in arriving home».
Their leave-taking from Zoë and her new husband was tearful on the part of the women, and stoic on Kenneth’s part, but the journey itself at least began according to plan. They numbered about thirty in all. Traveling directly westward along the Molling River valley, and taking accommodation along the way, they made excellent progress until they approached the village of Hallowdale, not far from the larger market town of Mollingford. There they stumbled upon the final moments of an incident often rumored to occur, but never witnessed firsthand by any in the company.
Sir Trevor was in the lead, riding beside a squire carrying Kenneth’s banner of Lendour. Kenneth himself was farther back along the cavalcade, chatting with Sir Thomas, the senior of the Kierney knights. Xander and another of his own knights rode directly behind Trevor and the banner, with another knight and four men-at-arms interspersed among Jared’s knights and the women. Alaric was perched in front of Llion, his preferred place of travel, and Geill’s young husband, Sir Walter, had taken up little Duncan in front of him, leaving Alyce to ride with her stepdaughter and Vera, just ahead of Kenneth’s aunt, his two sisters, and the two from Arc-en-Ciel, all of whom rode astride. The rest of the knights brought up the rear, with Kenneth among them.
They had seen the first smudges of smoke nearly an hour before they finally came upon its source. Those who bothered to speculate simply assumed that it was someone’s house alight, or perhaps stubble being burned off in a distant field. They had seen the latter the afternoon before, all across the fields of a prosperous farm by which they passed.
But this was no burning of fields or a house fire. By the time they rode into the outskirts of Hallowdale, some of the knights shifting forward toward the head of the cavalcade, smoke was billowing upward in a dense black plume, oddly sluggish in the still air. As they approached the town square, a breeze from off the river suddenly gusted back a sickly-sweet whiff of burnt flesh.
In a stomach-churning flash of prescience, Alyce knew what lay in the square ahead, and what had caused her son suddenly to turn his face into Llion’s chest with a whimper. It was an impression confirmed all too graphically by her own glimpse of a small crowd ahead, surrounding a blackened stake upthrust in their midst, which still gave off greasy tendrils of smoke. Her horrified glance back at Sister Iris Jessilde made it clear that the Deryni sister had also sensed the horror, and was drawing rein in shock. Simultaneously, Sir Trevor stood in his stirrups and raised a gloved fist in emphatic order to halt.
«What the devil?» Kenneth muttered under his breath, as he kneed his mount out of line and gigged it hard along the procession past Alyce and his son, the Kierney captain right behind him, to pull up sharply next to Trevor and the bannerbearer. Behind him, he could hear growing consternation as the others also began to realize what had happened here at Hallowdale. In the square ahead, several dozen men and women were turning to regard them warily, even defiantly. The smoking stake told its own story.
«Dear, sweet Jesu», Kenneth whispered, slowly signing himself with the Cross. And then, turning to the Kierney captain: «Sir Thomas, leave me half your men and turn the column around. Get the women and children out of here. Wait at the outskirts of the town. Trevor, Xander, men of Lendour, you’re with me!»
As though the move had been rehearsed, Sir Thomas and half a dozen of the Kierney men turned the column and fell back, bearing the women and children and baggage animals with them as Trevor and Xander formed up the rest behind Kenneth and his Lendouri men-at-arms. As Kenneth pressed his mount forward, his hard gaze searched the upturned faces of the folk who reluctantly parted before him — defiant faces at first, but gradually giving way to his tight-jawed scrutiny, guiltily averting their eyes. Without being told, his knights fanned out behind him to line the eastern edge of the square, halting with hands on swordhilts.
With Trevor at his side and Xander and his bannerbearer following behind him, Kenneth slowly rode all the way around the remains of the pyre, the clip-clop of the horses’ steel-shod hooves the only sound save for the faint jingle of harness and the whuffles of the waiting knights’ tight-reined steeds. He forced himself to look closely at what was still chained to the stake in the center of the burned-out pyre, and realized that there had been two victims of this town’s hatred. One, by its size, could only have been a child.
«Who is in charge here?» he demanded, completing his circuit and turning his horse to confront the villagers, searching the faces that now would not meet his gaze.
«I am the Earl of Lendour. I asked who was in charge», he repeated, his tone sharper now. «By what possible authority has this been done?»
Silence.
«You have usurped the king’s High Justice. I want to know by what authority. Speak, or I shall have every man-jack of you flogged until you do — and the women as well, if I do not get an answer! You did not spare them» — he jerked a gloved hand toward the evidence before him — «and I shall not spare you, if I do not receive an immediate explanation».
«They was Deryni», said a sullen voice from the back of the crowd.
«What?» Kenneth turned his horse in the direction of the voice. «Who spoke?»
«They was Deryni», the voice repeated, as a bandy-legged man with an enormous beard moved clear of the others and gazed up at him defiantly. «And we carried out God’s justice. The Deryni be an accursed race, an’ those transgressed against His law».
He gestured toward the pyre and spat, an eloquent gesture of contempt. Aghast, Kenneth kneed his horse closer to stare down at the man, aware of Trevor half a horse-length behind.
«And who decided that God’s law had been transgressed?» he demanded. «Tell me! Who?»
«Th’ priests», another man sneered. «Who d’ye think? Th’ bishop’s preachers come last week, an’ told us what to look for. They was Deryni, all right», he said belligerently, jutting his chin in the direction of the stakes.
For a moment Kenneth merely sat there, numb with shock, trying to fathom the kind of hatred that could have made good men commit such evil. The reference to bishops’ preachers raised strong suspicions about who might have been behind this latest incident of hatred against Deryni — there had long been rumors that Bishop Oliver de Nore’s followers sometimes burned Deryni in the region — but he had never thought to come across an incident firsthand. Being married to a Deryni wife, and one for whom de Nore held a particular hatred, he dared not undertake an immediate investigation of wayward preachers on his own, or challenge their bishop, but he would certainly report this to the king.
«I cannot accept that a loving God had this in mind for even the most notorious sinners», he finally said coldly, sweeping them with his hard gaze.
«The holy Scriptures say that sinners will burn in hell», a new speaker made bold to say.
«Perhaps after the Final Judgement!» Kenneth snapped. «But it was not your place to pronounce that judgement, nor to administer punishment».
«That isn’t what the priest said!» another voice shouted.
«What?»
«We knew what to do», the first man sneered. «The woman thought she was better’n us, an’ conjured up poisons an’ cast spells on innocent folk, an’ worked her evil magic so her man could get what was nay his! We dealt wi’ him, too». His sly glance over his shoulder drew Kenneth’s attention to the body hanging from an upper window of a nearby building, and his jaw dropped.
«And what of the child?» he demanded. «What of the innocent child?»
«She were a bad seed! An’ how could she be otherwise, with twa sich parents?» one of the women blurted. «Now she canna follow her mam’s evil example».
Now well and truly disgusted, Kenneth briefly closed his eyes, schooling himself to forbearance — for he knew how close he was to snapping — that he must not mete out judgement on his own, in the heat of his anger and outrage, without taking more dispassionate counsel.