"And my son?" Caulay managed to rasp.

"Taken," was all Caball would whisper miserably.

He tried to tell Caulay that they believed Dhugal still to be alive, though wounded - and that Caball would send out the fiery cross to summon the clan and pursue - but the news was the final blow to Caulay's already frail health. Without uttering a sound, the old man clutched at his chest and sagged in his chair, eyes rolling up and out of sight. He died within seconds, cradled in the arms of Kinkellyan the bard, his helpless kinsmen able to do nothing.

Though numbed almost beyond further reaction, and weak from his own injuries, Caball had the alarm rung and summoned the remaining clansmen at Transha to the great hall - young boys and old men, for the most part, though some of the women came to tend the wounded. Stripped to the waist so his own wounds could be cared for, Caball sat on a stool beside the slumped body of the dead chief as the others gathered before him, one hand gripped tight on the edge of the table against the pain. As castellan and next in succession after Dhugal, it had become his grim duty to a.s.sume the leadership of the clan until Dhugal's condition should be learned. He winced as his wife and Kinkellyan began washing out his wound, trying to ignore the bard's troubled muttering.

"Young Dhugal is our chief now," he told the a.s.sembled men, "if he lives. I dinnae know what his captors will do wi' him, but since they didnae kill him when they first threatened, we must hope he is still alive."

"We should go after!" one of the men rumbled. "If young Dhugal still lives, then he must be rescued - an' if he be dead, then he must be avenged!"

"Aye, an' where is the prisoner?" another demanded. "Before we gae chargin' offtae take on rebel knights, we should first find oot wha' we be dealin'

with."

"Ciard, bring him," Caball ordered, waving off those tending his wound as the gillie and another clansmen went to do his bidding.

The prisoner's face was pale as whey, his sword arm splinted and bound to his chest, but he managed to stay on his feet as he was marched roughly to the dais. Though they had stripped him down to woolen singlet and boots and breeches beneath his black mantle, he still wore a rust-stained arming cap on his head. He bit back a groan as he was shoved to his knees before Caball, only barely catching himself on his good hand.

"On yer knees an' uncovered before yer betters, man!" Ciard barked, yanking back the man's coif and shoving his head closer to the floor.

The man's lank hair was cut in the bowl-shaped hair-style favored by many warriors, but a tonsured spot gleamed at the crown. As the significance registered, Caball seized a fistful of hair and yanked the man's head up to look at his face, heedless of the blood streaming down his wounded arm.

"By the good G.o.d, he's a cleric an' come armed among us!" Caball breathed. "Look a' the tonsure! What's yer name, priest? Wha' master d'ye serve, who sends priests armed into the king's lands?"

The man merely grimaced and closed his eyes as Caball twisted the handful of hair harder.

"Speak up, priest! I hae little patience t'day."

"I have nothing to say," the man whispered.

"Dinnae waste yer time wi' such slime, Caball!" one of the clansmen snarled. "He's a traitor. Let's gie 'im a traitor's reward."

"Aye, hang him, Caball!"

'Touch me and your lands go under Interdict the instant my master hears of it!" the prisoner responded, opening blue eyes defiantly. "He'll excommunicate the lot of you. I claim benefit of clergy and the right to ecclesiastical trial. You have no authority to judge me."

"Interdict?" one of the men murmured, as several others crossed themselves.

Caball gave the man's hair another vicious twist.

"Mind yer tongue, priest! Yer traitor master cannae save ye here! Speak up. Who are ye?"

Consternation flickered across the man's face for just an instant, but still he shook his head stubbornly.

"I do not have to answer to you."

"No, but ye may well wish ye had," Caball replied, releasing the man with a shove that overbalanced him into a groaning heap on the floor. "An' there is one to whom ye will answer."

Caball backed off unsteadily and leaned against the edge of the table, catching Ciard's eye as he let his wife and Kinkellyan return to their ministrations.

"Ciard O Ruane, as gillie to our young laird, I give ye the charge o' tellin'

the king what has occurred. Spare neither self n?? steed, sae lang as ye reach Rhemuth quickly. If the king is n?? there now, he will arrive shortly, so wait."

"Aye, Caball."

"As for the prisoner," he smiled menacingly as he turned his eyes back on the defiant captive, "a suitable escort shall follow ye tae Rhemuth on the morrow.

'Tis only for this that we spare ye, priest. An' know that th' king is bloodkin to our young laird, an' will be greatly wroth if any further harm should come to him.

Ye'd best pray that yer master does nothing rash. Take him out."

As the prisoner was jerked to his feet and led none too gently from the hall, a grim Ciard following, Caball collapsed back against the edge of the table.

Behind him, a gillie handed Kinkellyan the cloth-wrapped end of a glowing iron.

"Devlin, send out the fiery cross to summon the seven chieftains," Caball said to the clan's gleeman, who stepped forward at his name. "An' let th' piper sound the corranach tae speed Th' MacArdry on his way." He steeled himself as Devlin and another man moved in to hold him for Kinkellyan's work.

"An' let the women prepare The MacArdry's body for his final rest," he went on. "Until we hear otherwise, young Dhugal is our new chief, an' I shall direct the clan only in his - "

The hiss of the hot iron searing flesh cut off further speech, and Caball's body arched with the agony, though he uttered not a sound. He slumped into merciful unconsciousness before it was done, so he did not hear the lone piper begin his lament for the dead chief, or the women keening as they drew around the body to take it away.

Those who had ridden with the new chief heard it, however; and Ciard O Ruane, as he mounted a fast horse to ride for Rhemuth, hoped desperately that the corranach was not for the young laird as well as the old.

Dhugal MacArdry would have deemed the piper's lament wholly appropriate in the days which followed, though he stubbornly refused to die. Nor, it seemed, did his captors wish him dead. He vaguely recalled shouted threats to do him harm, when he first had been taken, but he sensed that his captors considered him a hostage of some value. When he first regained consciousness, they were bandaging his head, though nothing was done about his cracked ribs.

He pa.s.sed out again when they made him stand to put him on a horse of his own, however, and he drifted in and out of consciousness often in the days which followed. Even when he was awake, swaying groggily in the saddle of the rough-gaited mount they had given him, his head throbbed and his broken ribs burned with every breath and jolt. Sometimes, the very effort of trying to focus on the world around him made him pa.s.s out.

Unconsciousness was something of a blessing initially, for there was no part of his anatomy which did not hurt. He could not fall off his horse, for his feet were bound to his stirrups and lashed beneath the animal's belly, but whenever he fainted, which was all too often, his already battered body sagged limply against the ropes and strained tortured muscles anew.

But his head was the worst. As often as not, when they roused him from one of their infrequent rest stops and made him stand, he pa.s.sed out again. No matter how he reckoned that, it meant a serious concussion - for which the only cure was rest. And so long as his captors continued to press onward toward their unknown destination, he knew he would simply have to endure.

In such manner did the days pa.s.s - four since his capture, so far as he could calculate. He had learned the ident.i.ty of the men his captors escorted, but that was hardly more rea.s.suring than his condition. That the notorious Archbishop Loris had somehow managed to escape his sea-girt prison was chilling. He wondered whether Kelson knew. He suspected Loris' escape somehow had to do with the Mearan question Kelson had been worrying about, but he could not seem to put it all together. His head started aching anew everytime he tried to think about it.

He worried about his head and about Loris as they rode through the snow on that fourth day. The first snow-storm of the season had swept down upon them with the morning's first light, and he shivered with the cold of it, despite the extra mantle they had wrapped around him. Exhausted and bordering on delirium, wrists chafed raw from days of riding with his hands tied in front of him, he laced his fingers in his horse's mane and concentrated on staying conscious as they seemed to float in a sphere of silence through the still-falling snow. When their pace eventually slowed and he weakly raised his head far enough to see why, they were approaching the ghostly blackness of city gates.

He thought it was Culdi at first, for the guards who admitted them wore the Bishop of Culdi's livery. But even as he thought it, he realized it could not be Culdi. Culdi was loyal to Kelson; Loris would never go there. They had ridden west and south. He decided it might be Ratharkin.

They rode for what seemed like hours through the silent streets, pulling up at last in a darkened courtyard where he was unceremoniously hauled from his horse and half-dragged, half-carried inside a formidable-looking stone building.

Being supported under his arms put excruciating pressure on his cracked ribs, but worse by far was the jolting of his head. He pa.s.sed out as they manhandled him down a narrow, ill-lit stair.

The next thing he knew was the warmth of a fire not far away and the play of firelight on his closed eyelids. He lay curled on his left side with his bound hands partially shielding his face. There was fur underneath him, besides the fur lining of his cloak. Voices buzzed low in the background, occasionally discemable as words and phrases, punctuated by the muted clank of men disarming and the snap of mantles being shaken out. He caught the scent of mulled wine behind him, but the sound of others arriving warned him to feign continued unconsciousness. Cautiously he eased his eyes open to the merest slits to see two men in clerical attire entering the room. The elder he recognized as Creoda, Bishop of Culdi.

"Your Excellency," Creoda murmured, bowing to kiss Loris' ring.

"Welcome to Ratharkin. May I present Father Judhael of Meara, whose family is responsible for arranging your escape."

As Creoda stepped aside, a younger man with silver hair came forward to bend in homage before the renegade archbishop, remaining on one knee when he looked up and Loris did not release his hand.

"So, Father," Loris said, "I see I must thank you for my freedom."

"In truth, it is not I, personally, who am responsible, Excellency," Judhael replied, gazing up at him raptly. "My Lord Creoda felt it wisest if I knew none of the details of my family's involvement. Apparently that was a wise precaution.

When General Morgan questioned me about the attempt on Duncan McLain's life last week, I was honestly able to say that I knew nothing. Tis said the Deryni can make a man speak the truth whether he will nor no."

"The Deryni. Aye." Loris' eyes took on a dangerous, preoccupied glint.

"They also say the traitor archbishops plan to make McLain a bishop at Eastertide. A Deryni bishop! Blasphemy! Blasphemy!"

"Yes, Excellency," Judhael murmured meekly.

His tone seemed to remind Loris where he was, and the archbishop's expression softened as he looked down at Judhael again and smiled, raising him to his feet.

"But more of the Deryni and their accursed race later. 'Tis also said that your bishopric has been given to another, my son. Do you intend to stand for that?"

Judhael looked a little taken aback. "I am not certain I have any say in the matter. Excellency. I am eager to serve, of course, but Henry Istelyn now holds the See of Meara directly from Archbishop Bradene and the king. What of him?"

"What of him?" Loris replied. "I am Primate of Gwynedd - not Bradene.

Are you willing to accept a slightly less pretentious t.i.tle than Bishop of Meara, to unsettle these dissident bishops who have usurped my position and yours?"

Creoda's brow furrowed in question. "What t.i.tle did you have in mind.

Excellency?"

"Bishop of Ratharkin," Loris said. "Because the Meara you know today is not the Meara which will exist when we are finished. We will take back the ancient Mearan lands when I confound the heretic Duncan McLain - who shall never enter into his lands as prince and prelate while I breathe - and you, Creoda, shall be Patriarch of the new Mearan state," he finished pointedly. "Does that please you?"

Creoda flushed with pleasure. "A promotion for all of us, my lord. Of course I am pleased. And allegiance to the rightful queen upon the throne of Meara?"

"Perhaps to a queen of far more than only Meara," Loris said softly. "It is not only in the episcopate that the Deryni taint has cast its pall."

Creoda blanched. "The king?"

"He is Deryni, is he not?"

Dhugal, following their conversation with growing horror, nearly gasped aloud at the implications. It took all his strength simply to close his eyes and force his body not to tense in outrage. The three clerics continued to discuss minor details of the flight to Ratharkin for several minutes, while Dhugal lay there numbly and tried to think what he could do to stop them. The clink of goblets jarred through the buzz of their further discussion, almost directly behind him, and suddenly he knew that their eyes were on him.

"Who is that?" Judhael asked.

"A hostage," Loris said casually. "My Lord of Trurill tells me he's the Master of Transha, Clan MacArdry's heir. You'll want his support when Transha is reintegrated with Meara."

Dhugal felt hands rolling him face upward, and the pressure on his ribs made him moan and actually black out for just a few seconds.

" - want him to witness Judhael's consecration, then," Creoda was saying, as consciousness returned. "Is he badly injured?"

"Brice?" Loris called.

The Baron of Trurill came away from unbuckling his armor and knelt to peel back one of Dhugal's eyelids.

"He's no worse than he was, Excellency," the traitor baron said, pressing his fingertips to the pulsepoint in Dhugal's throat. "He has some cracked ribs that nothing could be done about while we rode, and probably a concussion, but you're mainly seeing exhaustion. He's a strong lad; he'll mend."

"Well, if he's that strong a lad, we'd better put him in a secure place, hadn't we?" Creoda said. "Gendon, take him to one of the chambers below and have someone tend to him in the morning. I don't think he'll be causing anybody any trouble before then. After that, you can see to your men. Excellency, if you and Father Gorony will follow me, please, I'll show you to quarters where you'll be secure from prying eyes until we're ready to confront Bishop Istelyn in the morning. I expect you're in need of sleep yourselves."

"A few hours will suffice," Loris said, as they headed out the door. "I wish little delay before informing Istelyn of the error of his ways. Perhaps we can..."

Dhugal lost the thread of Loris' words in pain, groaning anew as Gendon and one of Trurill's knights lifted him between them and began slowly walking him toward the door. His only thought, as he tried to make his feet move with theirs through the fog of anguish, the pounding in his head, was that Kelson must be informed of what was happening here. But he did not know how he was going to accomplish that.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Thou art wearied in the mult.i.tude of thy counsels.

- Isaiah 47:13 Kelson and his warband swept into Rhemuth the following forenoon on the fringes of a thunderstorm, half-frozen and soaked to the skin despite oiled riding leathers and fur-lined cloaks. Prince Nigel met them in the castle yard, bare-headed and heedless of the rain pelting down, and set his hand urgently on the king's bridle. The ill tidings he conveyed set a chill on Kelson which had nothing to do with the storm.

"Loris? But that isn't possible."

The words carried to the others of his close circle - Morgan and Duncan, Cardiel and Aribn - despite the downpour. Young Baron Jodrell was the first to spring from his horse when the others would have sat there dumbly in the rain, all but immobilized by shock. His movement jarred the rest of them to action.

Kelson beckoned his intimates to follow as he dismounted and splashed up the steps to the shelter of the great hall, anger warring with despair.

"I expect you'll want to question the messenger yourself," Nigel said, handing off Kelson's sodden cap and gloves to a page and hurrying to keep up.

"Yes, but tell me briefly what he said right now, so I'll be prepared."

He listened tight-lipped as he stalked through the great hall, unclasping his wet cloak with one hand while his other fumbled at the buckle of his sword belt. Morgan collected cloak and sword as he shed them, pa.s.sing them to another page in exchange for a towel which Kelson used on his dripping face and hair.

Nigel left king and company in a small withdrawing chamber while he went to get the messenger.

They sought the meager comfort of the fire while they waited, heaping sodden outer garments in a comer and exchanging guarded glances, no one wanting to be the first to break the silence. Jodrell played squire to the tight- jawed Kelson, removing vambraces and spurs and helping him shinny out of his mail shirt, while Payne and Rory, NigeFs younger sons, moved among the others with cups of mulled wine. The king stiffened at the approach of footsteps outside the door, hastily drawing a dry robe over his clammy undertunic.

"This is Father Bevis, my liege," Nigel said, ushering in a nervous-looking young priest in the sea blue robes of Saint Iveagh's Fratri Silentii. "He has been given dispensation from his abbot to speak aloud."

The man had the courage to come forward alone, but he could not bring himself to meet Kelson's eyes as he knelt at his feet. Glancing at the others to draw them nearer. Kelson wrapped his robe closer and sat with his back to the fire, stretching one leg slightly to the side so Jodrell could pull off a soggy boot.

"Be welcome at our court. Father Bevis," he said formally, "though I fear I cannot say that your news is welcome. Forgive me if Baron Jodrell continues to disarm me while we speak, but I should rather not take a chill - especially if, as it seems, my old enemy is once more at large."

The priest's tonsured head bobbed even lower.

"Nay, it is I who must ask to be forgiven. Sire - I and my brethren. We have failed you." His voice was hardly above a whisper despite his dispensation. "We made every effort to keep the Lord Loris secure as you commanded, but he - got out." He looked up fearfully. "Please do not hold us entirely to blame. Sire. Father Abbot says he must have had help from outside."

Morgan, warming his backside to Kelson's right, snorted contemptuously, but Kelson only shook his head and sighed, bracing himself so Jodrell could pull off his other boot.