"Kurtz, Katherine - Deryni Chronicles 02 - Deryni Checkmate 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

You For JOHN G. NELSON
who, like the Deryni, strives to hold back the darkness-of whatever kind.
A Del Rey Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright (c) 1972 by Katharine Kurtz
ISBN 0-345-29224-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition: May 1972 Seventh Printing: May 1980


DERYNI CHECKMATE

CHAPTER ONE
Three things there are which defy prediction: a woman's whims, the touch of the Devil's finger, and the weather of Gwynedd in March.
St. Veneric, Triads

MARCH HAS long been a month of storms in the Eleven Kingdoms. It brings the snow sweeping down from the great northern sea to layer a last coat of winter on the silver mountains, to seethe and swirl around the high plateaus of the east until it finally funnels across the great Gwynedd plain and turns to rain.
March is a fickle month at best. It is the last stand of winter against the coming spring, but it is also harbinger of the greening, of the floods which yearly inundate the central lowlands. It has been known to be mild though not recently. Still, it is spring close enough for men to dare hope that winter might end early this year; it has, on occasion.
But those who know the ways of Gwynedd do not build their dreams on the chance of an early spring. For they have learned through hard experience that March is capricious, often cruel, and never, never to be trusted.
March in the first regnal of King Kelson of Gwynedd was to be no exception.
Nightfall had come early in Kelson's capital at Rhemuth. It often did in March, when- the northern storms rolled in across the Purple March from the north and east.
This particular storm had struck at midday, pelting the brightly canopied stalls and shops of the market square with hail the size of a man's thumbnail and sending merchants and vendors scurrying for cover. Within an hour, all hope of salvaging the interrupted market day was gone. And so, amidst thunder and rain and the pungent lightning-smell which the wind carried, the merchants had reluctantly packed up their sodden wares, closed up their shops, and left.
By dusk, the only people to be found on the rainswept streets were those whose business compelled them to be out on such a night- city watchmen on their rounds, soldiers and messengers on official errands-, citizens scurrying through the wind and cold to the warm hearthsides of their homes.
Now, as darkness fell and the great cathedral bells in the north of the city rang Evensong, sleet and rain whined through the narrow, deserted streets of Rhemuth, slashing at the red-tiled roofs and cupolas and filling the cobble-lined gutters to overflowing. Behind rain-blurred windowpanes, the flames of countless evening candles shivered and danced whenever a gust of wind managed to force its way through cracks in wooden doors and shutters. And in houses and taverns, inns and roadhouses, inhabitants of the city huddled around their firesides to take their evening meals, sipped good ale and traded yams while they waited for the storm to subside.
At the north of the city, the archbishop's palace was likewise under siege from the storm. In the shadow of palace walls, the massive nave of Saint George's Cathedral loomed dark against the blackening sky, stubby bell tower thrust brazenly heavenward, bronze doors sealed tightly against the onslaught.
Leather-cloaked household guards patrolled the ramparts of the palace proper, collars and hoods muffled close against the cold and wet. Torches hissed and flared under sheltered eaves along the battlements as the storm raged and howled and chilled to the .bone.
Inside, the Lord Archbishop of Rhemuth, the Most Reverend Patrick Corrigan, was snug and warm. Standing before a roaring fireplace, pudgy hands extended toward the flames, he rubbed his hands together briskly to further warm them, then pulled his fur-lined robe more closely around him and padded on slippered feet to a writing desk on the opposite side of the room. Another man, also in episcopal violet, was poring over an elaborate parchment manuscript, squinting in the light of two yellow candles on the desk before him. Half a dozen candle sconces placed around the rest of the room made a feeble attempt to further banish the gloom encroaching from the darkness outside. And a youngish-looking priest-secretary hovered attentively over the man's left shoulder with another light, ready to apply red sealing wax when he was told to do so.
Corrigan peered over the reader's right shoulder and watched as the man nodded, picked up a quill, and scrawled a bold signature at the foot of the document. The secretary dripped molten wax beside the name, and the man calmly imprinted the wax with his amethyst seal of office. He breathed on the stone and polished it against his velvet sleeve, then looked up at Corrigan and replaced the ring on his finger.
"That should take care of Morgan," he said.
Edmund Loris, Archbishop of Valoret and Primate of Gwynedd was an impressive-looking man. His body was lean and fit beneath the rich violet cassock he wore, and the fine silvery hair formed a wispy halo-effect around the magenta skullcap covering his clerical tonsure.
The bright blue eyes were hard and cold, however. And the gaunt hawk-face was anything but beneficent at the moment. For Loris had just affixed his seal to a document which would shortly cause Interdict to fall upon a large portion of Royal Gwynedd. Interdict which would cut off the rich Duchy of Corwyn to the east from all sacraments and solace of the Church in the Eleven Kingdoms.
It was a grave decision, and one to which both Loris and his colleague had given considerable thought in the past four months. For in all fairness, the people of Corwyn had done nothing to warrant so extreme a measure as Interdict. But nor, on the other hand, could the true cause of the measure be ignored or tolerated any longer. An abhorrent situation had existed and continued to exist within the archbishops' jurisdiction, and it must be stamped out.
And so the prelates salved their consciences with the rationalization that the threat of Interdict was not, after all, directed against the people of Corwyn, but against one man who was impossible to reach in any other way. It was Corwyn's master, the Deryni Duke Alaric Morgan, who was the object of sacerdotal vengeance tonight. Morgan, who had repeatedly dared to use his blasphemous and heretical Deryni powers to meddle in human affairs and corrupt the innocent, in defiance of Church and State. Morgan, who had initiated the boy-king Kelson into the forbidden practice of that ancient magic and loosed a duel of necromancy in the cathedral itself at Kelson's coronation last fall. Morgan, whose half-Deryni ancestry doomed him to eternal torment and damnation in the Hereafter unless he could be persuaded to recant, to give up his powers and renounce his evil heritage. Morgan, around whom the entire Deryni question now seemed to hinge.
Archbishop Corrigan frowned and picked up the parchment, his bushy grizzled brows knitting together in a single line as he scanned the text once more. He pursed his lips and scowled as he finished reading, but then he folded the document with a decisive crackle and held it flat on the desk while his secretary applied wax to the overlap. Corrigan sealed it with his ring, but his hand toyed uneasily with the jeweled pectoral cross on his chest as he eased himself into a chair beside Loris.
"Edmund, are you sure we " He halted at Loris' sharp glance, then remembered that his secretary was still awaiting further instructions.
"That will be all for the moment, Father Hugh. Ask Monsignor Gorony to step in, please."
The priest bowed and left the room, and Corrigan leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
"You know that Morgan will never permit Tolliver to excommunicate him/' Corrigan said wearily. "Do you really think the threat of Interdict will stop him?" Duke Alaric Morgan did not technically fall within the jurisdiction of either archbishop, but both were hopeful that the letter on the table would shortly circumvent that small technicality.
Loris made a steeple of his fingers and gazed across at Corrigan evenly. "Probably not," he admitted. "But his people may. Rumor has it that a band of rebels in northern Corwyn even now preaches the overthrow of their Deryni duke."
"Humph!" Corrigan snorted derisively, picking up a quill pen and dipping it into a crystal inkwell. "What good can a handful of rebels hope to do against Deryni magic? Besides, you know that Morgan's people love him."
"Yes, they do now," Loris agreed. He watched as Corrigan began carefully inscribing a name on the outside of the letter they had written, watched with a hidden smile as the tip of his colleague's tongue followed each stroke of the rounded uncials. "But will they love him as well once the Interdict falls?"
Corrigan looked up sharply from his finished handiwork, then vigorously sanded the wet ink with pounce from a silver shaker and blew away the excess.
"And what of the rebel band then?" Loris continued insistently, eying his companion through narrowed lids. "They say that Warin, the rebel leader, believes himself to be a new messiah, divinely appointed to rid the land of the Deryni scourge. Can you not see how such zealousness could be made to work to our advantage?"
Corrigan pulled at his lower lip in concentration, then frowned. "Are we to permit self-appointed messiahs to go gallivanting around the countryside without proper supervision, Edmund? This rebel movement smacks of heresy to me."
"I've given no official sanction yet," Loris said. "I've not even met this Warin fellow. But you must admit that such a movement could be highly effective, were it given proper guidance. Besides," Loris smiled, "perhaps this Warin is divinely inspired."
"I doubt it," Corrigan scowled. "How far do you propose to pursue the matter?"
Loris leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his waist. "The rebel headquarters is reputed to be in the hills near Dhassa, where the Curia meets later this week. Gorony, whom we send to Corwyn's bishop, has been in touch with the rebels and will return to Dhassa when he finishes his current assignment. I hope to arrange a meeting with the rebel leader then."
"And until then, we do nothing?"
Loris nodded; "We do nothing. I do not want the king to know what we are planning, and "
There was a discreet knock at the door, followed by the entrance of Corrigan's secretary and an older, nondescript-looking man in the traveling garb of a simple priest. Father Hugh lowered his eyes and bowed slightly as he announced the newcomer.