The Bastard Prince Read Online Free PDF Page A

sickbed for the occasion and who looked as if he might not make it through the court Behind them, Tammaron was instructing a captain of archers, surreptitiously indicating the long gallery that overlooked the right side of the hall. Farther to the left, just off the dais, Rhun and Manfred appeared to be lecturing an angry looking Lord Richard Murdoch. Albertus was not in evidence. Out in the hall itself, scores of knights and lesser courtiers were also drifting toward the dais where the king shortly would emerge.
    And far at the back of the hall, carefully watched by guards in Haldane livery, the legation from Torenth was waiting: half a dozen men-at-arms in eastern-style armor, cloaked in the tawny orange of the Torenthi House of Furstan. One of them bore a flagstaff trailing a banner of white silk. Beneath that banner stood a short, dark man who must be the Torenthi herald. As expected, his tabard bore the springing black hart of Furstan on a silver roundel, differenced of a golden coronet around its proud neck.
    â€œI think they’re about ready for us, Sire,” Fulk murmured close by his right ear.
    With a grunt for answer, Rhys Michael let fall the curtain and held out his hand to Cathan for the sheathed Haldane sword, laying it in the cradle of his left arm with the hilt like a cross at his elbow. At his nod, Fulk grasped an edge of the heavy curtain and drew it aside, following when the king and then Cathan had gone through.
    Those first to notice his entrance stirred and then grew silent as he crossed the dais, turning to follow his progress and bowing when he passed, but not giving his arrival the formality of a state entry, lest too much ceremony acknowledge the importance of the men waiting. Rhys Michael acknowledged their bows with an air of preoccupation, settling stiffly into the throne-chair set under the Haldane canopy, and then handing off the Haldane sword to Cathan again. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing it were Javan still alive to sit here in his place, but he made himself dismiss the thought as futile. Javan was dead, and he was alive; and if he hoped to stay alive, he must be very, very careful how he handled this.
    And as Constable Udaut came forward to inquire about the visitors seeking audience at the back of the hall, another reason for caution suddenly became clear. Lord Albertus was entering through the screen entrance at the other side of the dais, accompanied by the two haggard-looking Eastmarch messengers and a handful of his staff, mostly black-robed Custodes knights. Among the latter, similarly garbed in black, was a small, dark man known only as Dimitri, said to be Deryni, though few at court were aware of that. Though ostensibly employed by Paulin and the Custodes Fidei , his exact allegiance was unknown, the last time Rhys Michael heard—and it had been Javan who had told him that, in one of their last conversations before Javan rode off to what was to be his death. In the back of his mind, Rhys Michael had always wondered whether the mysterious Dimitri was at least partially responsible for the treachery.
    It was certain that Javan’s Deryni allies had not counted Dimitri an ally; and whether he was working only for Paulin and his Custodes remained an unanswered question. Not for the first time, Rhys Michael lamented the fact that not one of Javan’s Deryni allies had managed to make contact with him since Javan’s death, though reason reminded him of their small numbers even then; and the few that he knew of personally had died by the same treachery that took Javan.
    The one ray of hope that made him keep believing that there had ever been Deryni backing for the House of Haldane was the fact that, as Javan had predicted, Rhys Michael gradually had learned to discern whether a man was telling the truth. This usually was a Deryni talent, he knew, and ordinary humans could not detect or prevent its use against them—a decided advantage in his