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Having made due preparation, then, Nigel felt ready to deal with whatever
might present itself. What he had not expected was the timorous appearance of
Jehana and her confessor in the doorway of a side passage leading from the hall,
off to the right. What was she doing here?
At her urgent signal that he should join her, he sent a page to inquire-
young Payne, who had been attending Liam. A few seconds later, Payne came
back.
"She says it's very important, sir," the boy whispered in his father's ear.
"You're to come immediately. She says it can't wait until after court."
A glance in her direction confirmed the insistence in her face, and the
priest looked anxious as well. The chamberlain reading the current petition was
just winding up, so Nigel leaned closer to Conall.
"Make the appropriate noises about taking the petition under advisement,"
he murmured. "I'll be right back."
As Conall straightened importantly, delighted to be delegated this
additional responsibility, Nigel rose with a murmur of apology and went out
through the side passage. As soon as he had come through the door, Ambros
closed it behind him.
"Are you sure this couldn't have waited?" he asked, eyeing both of them
impatiently.
Emphatically Jehana shook her head, her white widow's coif floating on
the air.
"Please don't make this harder for me than it already is," she murmured,
avoiding direct eye contact. "You're in terrible danger. Don't ask me how I found
out. There are men in the hall determined to kill you-or will be. I don't know if
they're inside yet. I think they want to kill you and rescue the little king."
"Oh?" Nigel immediately gave her his undivided attention, wondering how
she had found out. "Who are they? Do you know?"
She shook her head. "Not specifically. Torenthi agents, I suppose. They've
infiltrated one of the trade delegations."
"I see." Amazed, he turned his attention to Ambros, standing rigid and
nervous against the door. "Do you know anything about this, Father?"
"Only what Her Majesty has told me. Your Highness," he murmured. "But
I believe you would do well to heed her warning."
Frowning, Nigel turned his Truth-Reading talent on the priest, wondering
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whether Jehana, too, had used Deryni talents to gain the information.
"I'll see to it, then," he murmured. "I don't suppose either of you have any
idea which of the trade delegations is involved."
But both of them shook their heads at that; and Ambros, at least, was
telling only the truth as he knew it. Jehana's shields were far too rigid for him to
read through, but her shielding tended to confirm her source; and her reticence
to reveal that source would certainly make sense if she had stumbled upon the
plot as a result of her powers.
But, he must get back to the hall. He doubted the attack would come
without his presence-the delegations he suspected were still several places down
the order of presentation-but he did not want Conall to have to handle the
situation alone, if he was wrong.
"We'll speak more of this later," he promised Jehana, as he moved grimly
back toward the door. "I'll do what needs to be done. And I thank you for the
warning. I have an idea what it may have cost you."
She blanched at that, and he knew that he was right. He set his expression
as if nothing had happened as he went back into the hall, though he made eye
contact with all three of his Deryni allies by the time he had taken his seat again.
A Kheldish merchant was presenting his felicitations now, and Nigel let a part of
himself listen and make appropriate facial expressions and nods of agreement as
he leaned closer to Conall after a few seconds.
"Apparently your Aunt Jehana has gotten wind of the plot too," he
whispered, allowing himself to smile at the Kheldish merchant as a compliment
was made. "I'll let you guess how. We'll pretend we didn't know and appear to be
taking protective measures. Smile now. I've only made a jest."
Conall grinned and picked up a cup of wine, raising it in salute before
sipping at it casually, apparently completely at ease. As Nigel settled in to wait, he
caught the most fleeting brush of a mental touch and knew it was Richenda's,
from where she watched in a gallery. Soon the hunters would become the hunted,
and Nigel would spring his trap.
The second trap about to be sprung was not at all to the benefit of
Haldanes. Far from Rhemuth, and more than a day's ride north of where Kelson
prepared to try the rebels he had captured at Talacara, Duncan and Dhugal were
leading a crack Cassani strike force in fast pursuit of Lawrence Gorony's
episcopal troops, gradually drawing ahead of the main Cassani host. Cassani
warbands had been skirmishing with Gorony off and on for days, the episcopal
troops gradually giving ground and making even more desperate withdrawals
from disputed territory. And now the renegade priest seemed to be leading his
men into a mountain-ringed plain from which there was little chance of escape.
Only, suddenly Gorony's supposedly cowed force was turning to stand and
fight, hundreds of unexpected men beginning to pour from the shelter of myriad
valleys and defiles opening onto the Dorna plain-Connaiti mercenaries, well-
armed and freshly mounted, backed by more episcopal troops. And to the west,
emerging through cover of the dust Duncan's own passage had made, a bristling
wedge of heavy cavalry was driving toward a point well behind Duncan's advance
unit, threatening to cut him off from his main army.
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"Damn!" Duncan muttered, stretching in his stirrups to gain a better
vantage point as their danger became apparent. "Dhugal, I think we've just found
Sicard's main army."
Sicard's son, however, stood captive at that moment before Duncan's king,
with Brice of Trurill at his side and some forty officers of various ranks bunched
behind them, waiting for the judgment of the king's tribunal. Two dukes flanked
Kelson behind the camp table set before his tent: Corwyn and Claibourne. Each
had already signed the documents to which Kelson now affixed his signature and
seal.
"Brice, Baron of Trurill, step forward," Kelson said, looking up coldly when
he had laid aside his quill and wax.
The men on trial had been divested of all military accoutrements and
stripped to their undergarments before trial began, their wrists bound behind
them, even Ithel and Brice. Brice had also been gagged, having tried the patience
of the already sour-tempered Kelson once too often with his defiant outbursts.
When the rebel baron did not move, only glowering defiantly at the king
from behind his gag, two guards hustled him forward none too gently and thrust
him onto his knees. In sight of the impromptu court, but well-guarded by
watchful Haldane troops, the ordinary Mearan soldiers who were not on trial
watched and listened anxiously from a large holding area, straining to hear the
king's verdict-which might give some indication as to their own fates.
"Brice, Baron of Trurill, you have been found guilty of high treason,"
Kelson said, setting his hands precisely on the arms of his camp chair. "Not only
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