The King’s Justice by Katherine Kurtz Read Free Book Online

She was just thirty-six.
    Hard male voices jarred Jehana abruptly from contemplation, and then the sound of many riders approaching. As her horse-chair lurched to a halt, she drew in breath sharply and prayed that Kelson was not among them, cautiously parting the curtains on her left until she could peer apprehensively ahead. All she could see at first was the hind end of Sir Delrae’s brawny bay, its thick tail twisted up in a neat mud-knot, and a similar view of Father Ambros’ white mule.
    Then, as Delrae urged his mount forward to challenge the newcomers, Jehana caught a glimpse of leather and tartan-clad riders beyond him, in green and black and white, too many to count. She remembered seeing the pattern before, but she could not recall the particular clan.
    She watched Delrae confer with one of the officers of the troop for several minutes—he was senior of the four Bremagni knights her brother had sent to serve as her escort. Then Delrae gave way and allowed several of the men to fall in with his own command. As the rest of the troop rode off, and Jehana started to let the curtain fall back into place, Father Ambros kneed his mule between her and the view ahead and leaned down to reassure her.
    â€œWe’ve been given a guard of honor, my lady,” he said softly, with the smile that would melt the heart of an angel. “That was the Duke of Cassan’s patrol. He’s left men to see us safely to Rhemuth.”
    The Duke of Cassan. With both Jared and Kevin McLain dead, that would be Duncan McLain— Father McLain, Kelson’s confessor of many years—and distant cousin to the Deryni Alaric Morgan. That Duncan was also Deryni had come as a complete shock to Jehana—though she never would have dreamed of betraying that knowledge to anyone not already aware of the fact. God would exact His vengeance upon Duncan McLain for daring to accept priestly ordination in defiance of the Church’s prohibition against Deryni entering priestly Orders—though how He had countenanced Duncan’s elevation to the episcopate was beyond her understanding.
    â€œYes, of course. Thank you, Father,” she murmured.
    She was not certain, as she hastily let the curtain fall, whether she had succeeded in keeping the panic out of her eyes or not, though she thought her voice had not betrayed her. Still, Ambros was a canny judge of character, for all that he was nearly young enough to be her son.
    But thought of her son was not to be countenanced any more than that of McLain—and Morgan. Time enough, later on, to worry about them . Clasping folded hands fervently to her lips, she closed her eyes briefly and breathed yet another prayer for courage—then grabbed at the sides of the chair for balance as her procession lurched into motion again.
    Reunion with her Deryni son was not the only reason Jehana was dreading the return to Rhemuth. Resumption of the very public life expected of a queen at court would not be easy, if only because she had grown unaccustomed to seeing anyone other than the sisters of Saint Giles’. Though she had taken no formal religious vows during the three years of her seclusion, she had lived and moved with the heartbeat of the community, performing all the Offices and praying for expiation of the terrible taint of Deryni evil she knew she carried in her soul, seeking release from the torment that her self-knowledge carried. Taught from childhood by family and Church that Deryni were evil, she had not yet reconciled the religious and moral dilemmas raised by the discovery that she, too, was of the race she had long believed accursed. Her spiritual mentors at Saint Giles’ had assured her repeatedly that her sin was forgivable—if sin it was to use one’s every resource to protect one’s child from certain death at the hands of an evil adversary—but early indoctrination continued to warn a still-childlike Jehana that she had sinned.
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