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

"It's magnificent," Duncan whispered, with the awe in his voice of any artisan looking at a particularly fine tool of his trade. "Where did you ever find such an enormous it is a shiral crystal, isn't it?"
Morgan nodded. "The very same. The Hort of Orsal found it for me a few months ago at an outrageous price, I might add. Go ahead. Touch it if you like."
As Duncan slipped into the nearer of the two chairs, the forgotten saddlebags slung across his arm bumped against the table. He looked down with a start, as though just remembering he had them, and his handsome face went tense, guarded. He lifted the bags to the table and started to speak, but Morgan shook his head.
"Go on with the crystal," he urged, seeing Duncan's discomfiture. "I don't know what you've got in there that you think is so important, but whatever it is it can wait."
Duncan bit his lip and looked across at Morgan for a long moment, then nodded acquiescence and eased the bags to the floor. He took a deep breath and pressed his palms together for an instant, then exhaled and reached out to surround the crystal with his two hands. As he relaxed, the crystal began to glow.
"Beautiful," Duncan breathed, the tension draining away as he moved his hands lower on the crystal to better expose it. "With a crystal this size, I ought to be able to form images without half trying."
Concentrating anew, he gazed deeply into the crystal and watched the glow intensify. The sphere lost its opacity and became a transparent amber, clouded briefly as though breathed upon from within. Then a shape began to form in the mist, which gradually solidified and took on human aspects. It was a tall man with silvery hair, wearing an archbishop's robes and miter and wielding a heavy jeweled crozier. He was very angry.
Loris/ Morgan thought to himself as he leaned forward to inspect the image. What the Devil is he up to now? He certainly has Duncan riled, whatever it is....
Duncan snatched away his hands as though the crystal had suddenly become hot to the touch, and a look of disgust contorted his features for an instant. As his hands left the sphere, the form vanished and the sphere again became translucent. Duncan nibbed
his hands against his cassock as though wiping away something distasteful, then forced himself to relax, folded his hands neatly on the table. He looked at his hands as he spoke.
"I suppose it's fairly obvious that this isn't just a social call," he murmured bitterly. "I couldn't even hide it from the shiral crystal."
Morgan nodded understandingly. "I realized that when you got off your horse." He studied the gryphon signet on his right forefinger and rubbed it absently. "Do you want to tell me what has happened?"
Duncan shrugged and sighed. "There isn't any easy way to say it, Alaric. I I've been suspended."
"Suspended?" Morgan's jaw dropped in amazement. "What for?"
Duncan forced a wry smile. "Can't you guess? Apparently Archbishop Loris convinced Corrigan that my part in the coronation battle was more than just that of Kelson's confessor. Which, unfortunately, is trufc. They may even suspect that I'm half-Deryni. They were going to call me before an ecclesiastical court, only a friend found out and warned me in time. It's what we always feared might happen."
Morgan exhaled and lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry, Duncan. I know how much the priesthood means to you. I I don't know what to say."
Duncan smiled wealcly. "It's worse than you suspect, my friend. Frankly, if it were only the suspension, I don't think I'd be so worried. I find that the more I function as a Deryni, the less important my vows seem to become." He reached to the saddlebags beside his chair and withdrew a folded piece of parchment which he placed on the table between them.
"This is a copy of a letter now enroute to your bishop, Ralf Tolliver. A friend of mine who's a clerk in Corrigan's chancery risked a lot to get it for me. The point of the letter is that Loris and Corrigan want Tolliver to excommunicate you unless you recant your powers and 'take up a life of repentance.' Those are Archbishop Corrigan's words, I believe."
"Me, recant?" Morgan snorted, an incredulous half grin on his face. "They must be jesting." He started to slide the letter across the table and pick it up, but Duncan held his wrist.
"I still haven't finished, Alaric," he said quietly, holding Morgan's gaze with his own. "Unless you do recant and comply with their orders, they'll not only excommunicate you they'll put all of Corwyn under Interdict."
"Interdict!"
Duncan nodded and released Morgan's wrist. "Which means that the Church will effectively cease to function in Corwyn. There will be no Mass, no marriages, baptisms, burials, no last rites for the dying nothing. I'm not sure how your people will react."
Morgan set his jaw firmly and picked up the letter. He unfolded it and began reading, and as he read his grey eyes went cold and steely: " To His Most Reverend Excellency Ralf Tofliver, Bishop of Coroth ... Reverend Brother, it has come to our attention ... Duke Alaric Morgan ... heinous crimes of magic and Sorcery contrary to the laws of God ... if said duke does not recant his Deryni powers . . . excommunicate . . . Corwyn under Interdict . . . hope that you will do this... sign of good faith ...' Damn!"
Swearing explosively, Morgan half-crumpled the parchment in anger and threw it down on the table.
"May nameless maledictions pursue them to the depths of Hell-slime! May lyfangs devour the last of their line, and thirteen devils forever haunt their sleep! Damn them, Duncan! What are they trying to do to rne?"
He sat back in his chair and exhaled explosively, md Duncan grinned.
"Do you feel better?"
"No. You realize, of course, that Loris and Cor-rigan have me exactly where they want me. They know that my influence in Corwyn is based not on pro-Deryni feeling, but on my people being pro-Morgan. If the Curia of Gwynedd declares me anathema because I'm Deryni, they know full well that my people will go along rather than see Corwyn put under Interdict. I can't ask my people to give up their faith for me, Duncan."
Duncan slumped back in his chair and gazed expectantly across at his cousin. "So, what are we going to do about it?"
Morgan smoothed the crumpled letter and looked at it again, then pushed it back across the table as though he had seen enough of it.
"Has Tolliver seen the original of tliis letter yet?"
"I don't see how. Monsignor Gorony sailed aboard the Rhafallia two days ago. If my calculations are correct, he should be arriving sometime tomorrow."
"More likely about three hours from now, when the tide shifts," Morgan retorted. "Gorony must have bribed my captains to pile on more sail. I feope they made him pay!"
"Is there any chance of intercepting th'e letter?"
Morgan grimaced and shook his head. "I don't dare, Duncan. If I do, I'm violating the immunity of the very Church I'm trying to protect in Corwyn. I have to let Gorony get through to Tolliver."
"Suppose I get there first, then. If I were to show Tolliver our copy of the letter and explain your concern for the situation, he might agree to delay for as much as several weeks before he takes action. Besides, I don't think he's going to like being dictated to by Loris and Corrigan. It's no secret that they consider him a backwater priest, country simpleton of sorts. We could play on his resentment whatever it takes to keep the Interdict from falling. What do you think?"
Morgan nodded. "It might work. Go make yourself presentable and tell Derry to saddle a fresh horse for you. While you're doing that, I'll write a second letter to Tolliver asking for his support. It's not going to be easy." He rose and crossed to his desk, already drawing out parchment and ink.
"Somehow I must strike just the proper balance between ducal authority, penitent son of the Church, and long-time friend all without making the Deryni issue so strong he feels he can't in conscience go along."
A quarter of an hour later, Morgan scrawled his signature at the bottom of the crucial letter and added his paraph, the highly personal flourish at the end of the stroke to guard against forgery. Then he applied sealing wax in a bright green blob below his name, pressed his gryphon seal into the hot wax.
He could have done without the wax. With a little help, the Deryni signet was easily capable of imprinting without benefit of wax. But he didn't think it would be much to the bishop's liking. The Most Reverend Ralf Tolliver had nothing against the Deryni personally, but there were bounds beyond which even Morgan dared not go. A flagrant, or even minor, act of magic at this stage could entirely undo whatever good the letter, so painstakingly drafted, might accomplish. Morgan was folding the letter to seal it again when Duncan returned, a heavy wool riding cloak flung over one arm. Derry was with him.
"Finished?" Duncan asked, crossing to the desk and peering over Morgan's shoulder
"Almost."
He dripped sealing wax on the overlap to seal the letter closed and quickly stamped it with his seal. He looked up as he blew on the hot wax to cool it, then handed it to Duncan,
"Do you have the other letter?"
"Umm." Duncan snapped his fingers. "Derry, bring me that, would you?"
He pointed to the letter on the central table and Derry brought it, watching as the priest tucked it into the cincture of his clean cassock.
"Do you want an escort, Father?" Derry asked.
"Not unless Alaric does. Personally, I think that th~e fewer people who know about this, the better off we are. Alaric, do you agree?"
Morgan nodded. "Good luck, Cousin."
Duncan gave a quick grin, a nod, then was out the door and on his way. Derry stared after him for a moment, then turned back to Morgan. The duke had not moved from where he sat, but he seemed to be in a world of his own. It was with some hesitancy that Derry ventured to interrupt that world.