He needs to be the king's man, but he also ought to have at least some familiarity with Mearan politics. The only men who seem to fill both. requirements are either too young or too inexperienced. They can't all be like Arilan, I suppose: auxiliary bishop at thirty-five, and with his own see before he was forty."

"No, I suppose not," Morgan said. He took a thought-fill pull at his wine, then c.o.c.ked his head at Duncan. "Has it occurred to you that perhaps the bishops have expanded the episcopal structure a little too quickly? - reviving three old sees and only abolishing one - that you've used up your reserve of men qualified to promote? Plus, you've, lost - what? - four bishops in the past two years? Five, if you count Loris."

Duncan grimaced. "Count that a blessing, not a loss, cousin. Anyway, he's safely locked away at Saint Iveagh's, so I don't think we need to worry."

"Let's hope not. Wouldn't that muddy the waters, if he got out?"

"Don't even think it. They say he hasn't changed a bit, you know," Duncan went on, in a more confidential tone. 1 hear he nearly had apoplexy when he heard Arilan had been made Bishop of Dha.s.sa."

"Did he, now?"

"Oh, you needn't pretend to be surprised," Duncan replied with a droll grin. "Who, of all the so-called rebel bishops, was largely responsible for his fall, after all? And even if Loris doesn't know for sure that Arilan's Deryni, think about it. A suspected Deryni in one of the oldest sees in Gwynedd? It would have been bad enough if he'd only stayed the a.s.sistant in Rhemuth."

As if the mere mention of Arilan's name had conjured his presence, the door opened at that moment to admit Bishop Denis Arilan, closely followed by Cardiel. The two looked inordinately pleased with themselves as Duncan and Morgan divested them of their soggy cloaks, Cardiel shaking rain from his steel grey hair and smoothing back little wings of it over his ears with both palms as he sat in the chair which Morgan held for him. As the darker-haired Arilan also sat, leaning forward lazily to poke at the fire with a piece of kindling, Cardiel glanced at Duncan, who was setting new cups on the hearth by the pot of mulled wine.

"Duncan, a messenger's just arrived for you in the inner courtyard," he said. "A lad wearing your ducal livery. He's taken an amazing number of dispatches off a packhorse."

Grinning, Duncan turned over his hosting duties to Morgan and rose.

"Ah, well, I suppose they've found me. I was rather afraid the correspondence would catch up with me, if I stayed too long in Culdi. Will you excuse me for a moment, sir? I suppose I really ought to see what he's got."

Cardiel said nothing as he waved permission, but as Duncan left the room, Morgan was once again struck by an undercurrent of something brewing beneath the surface, another hint of the self-satisfaction he had sensed when the two first entered. He wondered about it as he handed Cardiel a steaming cup, aware, as their fingers brushed, that Cardiel was the source of most of it, but he did not even consider probing deeper with Arilan present. The Deryni bishop had a knack for knowing when he or Duncan were using their powers in ways of which he did not approve - in almost any way, it sometimes seemed. Of late, it often made Morgan ill-at-ease even to be around Arilan, though that was not the case today.

"Well, I'm glad Duncan's messenger arrived when he did," Cardiel said, as Morgan pa.s.sed Arilan a second br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup. "We wanted to discuss something with you privately, very quickly before he comes back. What would you think of Duncan being consecrated bishop a little sooner than we'd planned?"

Morgan nearly dropped the cup he was refilling for himself.

"You're not thinking of making him Bishop of Meara lifter all, are you?"

"No, no - not of Meara," Cardiel rea.s.sured him quickly. "Just my a.s.sistant, as we'd already decided. We have found a candidate for Meara, however. If we take him, I'm going to need Duncan's help more than ever."

Morgan made no attempt to hide his sigh of relief. Still shaking his head slightly, he hooked a three-legged stool closer to the two and sat, his back to the fire.

"Sweet Jesu, I confess I thought you'd taken leave of your senses for a moment there. Are you really going to pa.s.s over Judhael?"

"Not - exactly," Cardiel replied. "That is, we're not going to consecrate someone else bishop instead of him. We've been aware from the beginning that any bishop not to the Mearans' liking was going to have his hands full, trying to learn his job and cope with Mearan hostility both at once. But suppose we were to put someone in Meara who's already experienced? That would eliminate half the problem from the start."

"You'd transfer an existing bishop, then," Morgan guessed, running swiftly down the list of prelates in his mind.

Arilan lowered his cup to nod. "That's correct. And there can be no question about pa.s.sing over Judhael in favor of a man who already knows how to run a diocese."

"Except that all your diocesan bishops are already occupied," Morgan said, even more mystified. "Where are you going to find this paragon?"

Cardiel smiled. "Henry Istelyn, Bradene's a.s.sistant."

"Ah."

"He's already been handling a great deal of work behind the scenes for Bradene for the past two years," Arilan said. "Furthermore, when he was first made an itinerant bishop, several years ago, he spent a great deal of time in Kierney and the border areas. He probably knows the people better than anyone besides Judhael himself - or Duncan, of course. But we've already agreed that he's to be otherwise occupied."

Morgan nodded thoughtfully. From Gwynedd's point of view, the selection of Istelyn made perfect sense - but simply choosing a logically qualified candidate did not eliminate the very practical political repercussions which were likely to result if anyone besides Judhael were posted to Meara.

"You're saddling Istelyn with a heavy responsibility," he said. "What makes you think the Mearans will accept him? They have their minds set on Judhael."

"That's true," Arilan agreed. "However, even if they object - "

"Which you know they're going to do, if it's anyone else - "

"Even if they object," Arilan continued, "it's too late in the season to mount any kind of major military campaign to try to oust him. Ratharkin will be secure enough through the winter, if we leave him a detachment of episcopal troops for local security. And with the king planning to campaign in Meara next year..."

At Morgan's still-doubtful expression, Cardiel spread his hands helplessly.

"There isn't going to be a perfect candidate, Alaric - not one who will please every faction. And we could certainly find a lot worse than Istelyn.

Incidentally, when is the king due back? Naturally, we'd like his concurrence before we go ahead with any formal announcement."

Morgan raised an eyebrow, still unconvinced. "I had word this morning that he expects to be back in a few days. He's headed north to see the Earl of Transha."

"Transha - that's The MacArdry?" Cardiel asked.

Arilan nodded knowingly. "I remember when his "eager son was fostered at court a few years ago: a bright, about Kelson's age, as I recall. What was his name?"

"Dhugal," Morgan replied. "In any case. Kelson apparently ran across him over Trurill way, so he's decided to tide back to Transha with the boy and pay a courtesy call on the old man."

"Well, I suppose a few days won't make any difference, one way or the other," Cardiel said. "There are still details to work out on Istelyn - such as finding out whether he's even willing to take on Meara. This a.s.sumes, of course, that Kelson has no objection."

Before Morgan could reply, a sharp cry and the sounds of a scuffle in the corridor outside suddenly intruded, punctuated by a mental scream: Duncan's.

Morgan was on his feet and moving before the others could even glance in that direction. As he burst into the corridor, he saw Duncan struggling with someone at the far end, but by the time he could reach them, Duncan was letting the body of his attacker slide to the floor. There was blood everywhere.

"Are you all - "

"Don't touch me," Duncan gasped, cradling a b.l.o.o.d.y right hand against his equally b.l.o.o.d.y ca.s.sock and wobbling to his knees. "There was merasha on the blade." He glanced woozily at his motionless attacker. "Christ, I'm afraid I killed him."

Merasha. The very word took Morgan back for just an instant to a chapel that was no more, and a barb on an altar rail gate, and the terror of being in the drug's grip, helpless to use his powers, at the mercy of men who would have killed him because of what he was. Duncan had gotten him out and nursed him through the worst of the physical effects of the ordeal, but the memory had never been fully exorcised, especially that final, haunting image of the stake wrapped with chains, which they had pa.s.sed as they made their escape. It had been intended for him.

"Never mind him," Morgan replied, stepping over the body to crouch cautiously beside the wounded priest. "Where are you hurt? How much of that blood is yours?"

Drawn by the disturbance, others were congregating in the corridor to gawk, servants and priests and even a few guards from the courtyard outside, forcing Cardiel and Arilan to push their way through to reach Duncan's side.

White-faced, Duncan only shook his head and drew in his breath between clenched teeth as he gingerly eased open his right hand. The palm was slashed almost to the bone where he had tried to ward off his attacker's knife with his bare hand, but more terrifying, by far, was the wave of queasy disharmony that he radiated as Morgan reached out in instinctive mental probe and as quickly recoiled.

"Careful of the blade," Morgan warned, though Arilan had already stopped with his hand poised above the knife as he, too, sensed the drug's effects.

Taking care to avoid the blood, which might carry traces of the drug to affect them as well, the two Deryni turned over the dead a.s.sa.s.sin. Bright scarlet stained the front of the blue Ca.s.sani livery and steamed where it had pooled on the cold stone beneath the body, welling from a second mouth which gaped beneath a beardless chin. The b.l.o.o.d.y face could not have been more than fourteen.

"Why, it's a boy!" Cardiel murmured.

"As G.o.d is my witness, I had no choice," Duncan whispered, closing his hand again and slumping back to sit on his heels. "Until he actually cut me, I thought he was legitimate."

"You don't know him?" Arilan asked.

"No - but I wouldn't expect to recognize every last page or squire in my service. And with - with the merasha in me, I was afraid that if I didn't kill him while I still could, he might be able to outwait me, until I was helpless with the drug. Why did he do it?"

Morgan shook his head, reaching out gingerly with his mind as he slid a hand around the back of the boy's neck, where there was less blood. Sometimes it was possible to readjust a little from a dead man's mind, if he had not been dead too long, but Morgan could detect nothing beyond a few hazy images of dim childhood memories, fading even as he read them. While Arilan and a monk began gathering up the scattered dispatches, he carefully searched the body for anything which might give them a clue as to the boy's ident.i.ty or origin, but there was nothing. Duncan was beginning to weave as Morgan glanced over at him again, his blue eyes gla.s.sy from the drug, keeping them open only by the sheerest force of will. Cardiel had an arm around his shoulder to support him, but it was obvious that Duncan was slipping fast into the chaos of the merasha. Whoever the a.s.sa.s.sin had been, he had known his quarry to be Deryni.

"Thomas, why don't you take Duncan back to your quarters and see to his wound?" Arilan suggested softly, touching a hand to Cardiel's shoulder and including Morgan in his glance. "I'll see to the clean-up here and try to find out more about our boy-a.s.sa.s.sin."

Cardiel nodded, he and Morgan helping Duncan to stand.

"Very well. You might check with the guards who let the boy into the compound. Perhaps someone may have recognized him. It would also be interesting to know whether he was the original messenger sent with the dispatches, or if the real one is lying dead in a ditch somewhere - or, at the least, relieved of his livery."

Duncan went completely limp as Cardiel finished speaking, and Morgan and the archbishop together had to carry him back to the episcopal apartments.

An hour later, washed and bandaged, Duncan was sleeping soundly in his own room, an exhausted Morgan running himself through a brief spell to banish fatigue.

"I'll try to heal him in the morning, when he's over the worst effects of the drug," Morgan whispered, as he turned at last from Duncan's bed. "It's a nasty wound, but I didn't think it was a good idea to put my fingers into all that merasha.'''

His hands were trembling as he took the cup of wine which Cardiel gave him, for going into Duncan's merasha-muddled mind had been a great personal trial, as well as a physically taxing one, forcing him to relive much of his own terrifying experience. He still kept flashing on the worst of it, unless he kept his mind on short leash. He knew he would have nightmares for days to come.

But Cardiel's touch on his shoulder conveyed genuine compa.s.sion and even understanding as he guided Morgan to one of the cushioned chairs beside the fireplace. Morgan guessed that the archbishop was remembering his own part in the later aftermath of that ordeal, when Morgan and Duncan had come to him and Arilan in Dha.s.sa and disclosed all in desperate confession, seeking to make peace with the Church which had declared them excommunicate for what they had done to escape.

Morgan sat and sipped silently at his wine for several minutes, staring blindly into the fire and feeling himself gradually unwind, then laid his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes until Arilan returned. The fatigue-banishing spell did not seem to have worked very well, even though he tried it several times.

"I've been questioning some of the guards," the Deryni bishop said, sitting beside Morgan after he had looked in on their patient. "Apparently the boy came from Ballymar, up on the north coast. He was trained in Duke Jared's household and page to one of the local barons for a while, but was dismissed. One of my informants seemed to think it had to do with Mearan sympathies."

"Mearan sympathies?" Cardiel murmured. "How old is the lad?"

"Older than he looked," Arilan replied, "and old enough to risk paying for his actions with his life. What puzzles me is why he tried to kill Duncan. It can't be over the Mearan bishopric. Everyone knows that Duncan was not a candidate."

Duncan and Meara. Suddenly Morgan sat up straighter, remembering the conversation he and Duncan had observed between Judhael and old Creoda.

They had a.s.sumed that Judhael was campaigning for his coveted bishopric. What came to Morgan now was an oblique approach to Judhael getting what he wanted, but its further potential was yet more chilling.

"No, it wasn't about the bishopric - at least not directly," he said softly, reviewing the genealogical relationships in his mind just to make sure. "But Duncan is Duke of Ca.s.san and Earl of Kierney. That makes him almost a prince in his own right - and his lands have not always gone by their present names."

Arilan's deep blue-violet eyes lit in sudden comprehension. "The other half of ancient Meara," he said with a nod. "Now, wouldn't that be a power base, if one wanted to break away from one's overlord and establish an independent holding?

The two Mearas reunited!"

"And Duncan has no direct heir," Cardiel added, catching the gist of what they were suggesting. "Who is his heir-at-law, Alaric? You? You're cousins, aren't you?"

Morgan grimaced. "Not in the right degree for this, I fear - and I say that not out of any greed to ama.s.s more t.i.tles and land, but out of concern about who comes ahead of me. There are three, actually - though I'd only thought about the first two until today. Neither Duncan's father or his grandfather had any brothers, but his grandfather had two sisters. The younger, my paternal grandmother, produced one son: my father. The elder sister also produced a son, however; and he married the Princess Annalind of Meara."

"Queen Roisian's twin sister," Cardiel whispered. "Then, Caitrin's eldest son is Duncan's heir!"

Morgan nodded. "Ithel; and after him, his brother Llewell. The girl isn't in the succession, though any eventual son others would be, if her brothers failed to produce heirs." He paused to moisten his lips as the two bishops stared at him expectantly.

"You're still wondering who the third heir is, then. I'm surprised you haven't guessed." He paused. "Caitrin also had a sister, and that sister had a son.

Who else could he be but your good Father Judhael of Meara?"

As Cardiel's jaw dropped in disbelief, Arilan slapped an open palm against the arm of his chair and swore softly.

"I'm not saying he had anything to do with the attack on Duncan, mind you," Morgan went on. "I simply point out that if it had succeeded, Judhael and his kin certainly stood to gain. All we really know about his politics at this point is that he wants very badly to be Bishop of Meara. If one of his Mearan cousins were Duke of Ca.s.san and Earl of Kierney, that might make the whole thing fall together. The Bishop of Ballymar would have no choice but to support the candidate of his new duke's choice: Cousin Judhael. And with Judhael in the bishopric, that's added leverage to put his aunt on the throne of Meara - a united Meara, once she's gone and her son succeeds her in the south. It's ingenious, really."

"Its diabolical, if you ask me," Cardiel muttered, "not to mention treasonous. Denis, there must be something we can do. Perhaps we ought to call Judhael in and question him."

Arilan considered the suggestion, running his pectoral cross back and forth distractedly on its chain, then lowered his gaze.

"On what grounds, Thomas? We've been interviewing the man all week.

Other than the fact that he's ambitious, he almost shimmers, he's so pure. What Duke Alaric has just outlined is a theory only - an incredibly brilliant one, if we were Mearan - but we have no proof it has occurred to Judhael."

"Well, use your powers to find out, then!" Cardiel blurted. "What good are they, if you don't use them?"

As Arilan sighed patiently, preparing to go into the argument he had used so often when trying to explain things Deryni to Cardiel, Morgan forced himself to put the temptation from his own mind. He had wrestled with this particular ethical problem before, not always successfully.

"Ultimately, it's a matter of ethics," Arilan finally said, echoing Morgan's rationale. "I have used my powers all this week, Thomas - to gauge whether our candidates were lying about their qualifications. That I could do without their knowledge, and without revealing myself as Deryni." He smiled, "Besides, they suspected Duncan was Deryni, and that helped to keep them honest: wondering whether he could read their minds - which he couldn't, of course, under those conditions, but they didn't know that."

"Then, let Duncan be present, if you feel you need a decoy," Cardiel insisted. "Or Alaric, since Duncan is temporarily out of action. Between the two of you, you should be able to get at the truth."

"And if he really is just a G.o.dly man, with ecclesiastical ambition but no interest in politics?" Arilan asked. "Then we've made another enemy for Deryni."

'Then, make him forget, afterward, if he's innocent!"

"And that begins to enter really hazy areas of conscience," Arilan replied.

"Truth-Reading is one thing. Using our powers to detect whether a man is lying can be justified, since it doesn't force action against a person's will. To make someone tell the truth, however - well, I think that requires more than just a vague suspicion that he may be hiding something. So does making him forget.

Sometimes such measures can be justified in a life and death situation, or where the subject is willing, but where does one draw the line?"

"Are you so unsure of that line, then?" Cardiel snapped.

"Of course not. At least I pray to G.o.d that I'll never be tempted to cross over and misuse my powers. But it was abuse of power that gave us the atmosphere of the past two hundred years. It's what the Camberian Council was created to prevent."

Morgan looked up sharply at that, for Arilan had scrupulously avoided discussion of the mysterious Camberian Council for the past two years. His reaction apparently reminded Arilan that he was beginning to speak of things best left unsaid to humans, even one as close as Cardiel. The Deryni bishop paused to regroup, shaking his head as he laid a hand on Cardiel's arm.

"Listen to me, Thomas. I'm flattered at your confidence in me, but you mustn't think all Deryni are like me, or Alaric, or Duncan, or you may get hurt one day. We've tried to be very careful not to do anything which might frighten you unduly, but you have to admit that we've made you more than a little nervous on more than one occasion - and you know and trust us. Think about the ones who don't have a strict moral code like the one we follow. How many feet in the door does it take to produce a Charissa or a Wencit of Torenth? Or an Interregnum? Alaric knows what I'm talking about, don't you, Alaric?"

Grudgingly, Morgan had to agree, though sometimes Arilan's scruples seemed to him to be rigid almost to the point of crippling. But in front of Cardiel was not the place to pursue that old argument. Cardiel himself required additional persuasion, but eventually he, too, had to admit that forcing Judhael to the question was premature.

"I still think Kelson should be told what has happened," Cardiel said stubbornly. "And I don't think it should wait until he gets back in three or four days, either. That was fine when we were only talking about Istelyn, but now -"

For that, at least, Morgan had a Deryni solution.

"Not all of our powers are forbidden. Excellency," he said quietly. "It's possible I might be able to reach Kelson in his sleep, later tonight. He won't be expecting it, but I can try." Cardiel nodded happily as Morgan went on. "If that doesn't work, I'll leave for Transha in the morning, after I've seen to Duncan - unless you have a better idea, sir?" he queried, glancing at Arilan.

The Deryni bishop shook his head. "No, none. Given the bond I know binds you and Kelson, I shouldn't be at all surprised if your plan works. However, I also know how difficult it is to make the link at such a distance and without preparation at both ends. If you don't succeed, we'll make the time you need to get there physically."