The Bishop’s Heir by Katherine Kurtz Read Free Book Online Page A

had formed around them while they worked. Wordlessly, Kelson took the sword and plaid while Dhugal began adjusting his armor.
    The two were nearly of a height, side by side, Kelson perhaps a few fingers taller and a little heavier, though neither had yet come into their true man’s growth. Before, Kelson had thought Dhugal’s copper-colored hair cut short, but now, as Dhugal pulled off his mail coif and ran fingers under the neck of his brigandine in the back to free his hair, Kelson saw that it was even longer than his own, drawn to the nape of the neck in border fashion and plaited in a short braid tied with a leather thong. He took the coif as the young borderman began buckling the front closures of the brigandine, leaning against a tree to watch indulgently until Dhugal, with a roguish grin, reached out to finger a strand of Kelson’s shoulder-length hair.
    â€œSo that’s what comes of having no wars for the past two years,” Dhugal said, dropping the lock and taking back the sword to loop its baldric over his shoulder. “Decadently long hair, like any common borderer. I wonder how you’d look in a border braid?”
    â€œWhy don’t you invite me home to greet your father and sample highland hospitality, and perhaps you’ll see,” Kelson returned with a smile, giving him back his plaid and coif. “If I haven’t already scandalized my men simply by being Deryni, then playing at being a wild border chieftain will surely turn the trick. You’ve changed, Dhugal.”
    â€œSo have you.”
    â€œBecause I’ve acquired—magic?”
    â€œNo, because you’ve acquired a crown.” Dhugal lowered his eyes, fingering the leather-lined mail of the coif. “Despite what you said before, you are the king now.”
    â€œAnd does that make a difference?”
    â€œYou know it does.”
    â€œThen, let it be a positive difference,” Kelson said. “You yourself admitted that with the power I’ve been given, both temporal and—other—I now have the power to do greater good. Perhaps some of the things that we only dreamed about when we were boys. God knows, I loved my father, and I miss him terribly, but there are things I’d have done differently, if I’d been faced with some of the things he had to face. Now I have that chance.”
    â€œAnd does that make a difference?” Dhugal asked.
    Kelson shrugged. “I’m alive—and my father is dead. I’ve kept the peace for two years now.”
    â€œAnd the peace is being threatened in Meara. That’s part of what this was all about, you know.” Dhugal gestured around him at the resting men and the knot surrounding the prisoners across the glade. “We’ve always had a raiding problem in the high-lands—it’s part of our way of life—but some of these men, on both sides, are at least sympathetic to the Lady Caitrin’s cause.” He made a face. “She’s my aunt, you know.”
    Kelson raised an eyebrow. “ Is she?”
    â€œAye. My Uncle Sicard’s wife. Sicard and my father haven’t spoken for years, but border blood runs thick, as you know. Some wonder that we don’t support them, being so far from central Gwynedd and all. I’m surprised you didn’t catch some inkling of that during your progress this summer. Isn’t that the sort of thing you’re supposed to be able to do now, with your new powers?”
    The question was not at all hostile, but it was clear that Dhugal was fishing for reassurance, as uncertain as any of his men about just what a Deryni king could and could not do.
    â€œI’m not omnipotent, Dhugal,” Kelson said quietly, looking the other in the eyes. “I can tell whether a man is lying, with very little effort—it’s called Truth-Reading—but to actually learn the truth, I need to ask the right questions.”
    â€œI—thought that