We have agreed on a candidate, if you concur, Michon replied. It would be useful to bring the Council back to its full strength as soon as may be accomplished. When do you anticipate returning to Rhemuth, or to some other place where you will have Portal access?
A frown crossed Seisyll's face. It could be weeks, perhaps even months. The Mearan situation is delicate, and requires careful handling. The king was right to send me here instead of others he could have sent, but I dare not leave until it is resolved. What candidate have you agreed?
Focusing his intent, Michon sent their recommendation in a burst of knowledge and information. Seisyll's image immediately nodded.
I concur. But I would advise that you receive him as soon as can be arranged. Do not wait until I can be present.
I agree that such a delay would be inadvisable, Michon replied. We shall make suitable arrangements — provided, of course, that he accepts.
I expect that he will, at least for a limited term, the face in the crystal said. Is there anything else?
Naught that cannot wait until this is settled, came Michon's reply. You should know, however, that the queen stood as godmother at the christening of Jessamy's son.
The face in the crystal grimaced in sour disapproval. Indeed. One might have expected that it would be the king. But then, if he is the boy's father, that would not have been canonical, would it?
Nor is fathering a child on a woman not one's wife, Michon pointed out blandly. Merely think on it, for now. Our brother Barrett has rightly pointed out that even a Haldane grandson of Lewys ap Norfal can pose no serious threat while he is yet an infant. We have time to consider our options.
The best option is one most easily carried out on an infant, Seisyll returned coldly. But I shall await your further deliberations. Please convey my fraternal greetings to our new member.
With that, his image faded in the crystal and the spark in its heart died out. Dominy de Laney sighed and briefly closed her eyes, and Vivienne eased a crick in her neck and shook out her hands. Barrett had briefly palmed his hands over his sightless eyes, and Michon and Oisín exchanged glances.
«Exceedingly well done, all», Michon said to the room at large, and grinned as he added, «I did tell you that Seisyll would be abed at this hour».
«Disturbing, however, that more progress has not been made in Mearan matters», Barrett replied.
«Aye, but that does not surprise me», Michon replied. «There will be war in Meara before another decade is out — mark my words. It will be yet another legacy of Malcolm's marriage with the Princess Roisian: they, who had thought to settle the Mearan succession by the marriage bed rather than war, after Killingford».
The others merely looked at him, knowing that he had the most direct experience of that great battle, for though none of them had been alive for that war, Michon's father had fought there and lived to tell of it. An uncle and a cousin had not been so fortunate.
«Enough of thoughts of war», Oisín said quietly, after a moment. «Do you wish me to approach our new member-elect?»
The others immediately turned their thoughts from the Mearan question, and even the question of Sief’s death, to the more immediate question of Sief’s successor. Slowly Michon nodded.
«Can you bring him tomorrow night?»
«I can bring him tonight, if you wish. If he accepts, he can be sworn to the Council immediately, and we can be about our further business».
After a glance at the others, Michon slowly nodded.
«Go, then. We shall await your return».
Chapter 5
«Without counsel purposes are disappointed; but in the multitude of counselors they are established».[6]
In the royal palace at Djellarda, in the princely state of Andelon, Prince Khoren Vastouni made his way back to the workroom adjoining his apartments, pleasantly fuddled with good wine and good company and well content with the course of the day.
He was a younger son whose elder brother had sons, so he had never entertained much likelihood of ever having to rule; but that had left him free to pursue interests of his own choosing, more artistic and academic than the arts of war and political intrigue, and to anticipate becoming a mentor to his nephew's children in due course. Now nearing his half-century, he was blessed with a loving wife and family of his own, and that morning had seen his young nephew, his brother's heir, happily remarried.
Which was well, because Fate had dealt the redoubtable Mikhail of Andelon a double blow in the past twelvemonth, making him Sovereign Prince the previous autumn, through the death of his father and Khoren's brother, Prince Atun, and then taking Mikhail's beloved Ysabeau in childbirth in the spring just past. At twenty-seven, having gained a throne but lost a wife, Mikhail had only daughters by his first marriage — the two-year-old Sofiana and the infant Michendra — but his new bride, the Lady Alinor, adored his children, and had professed herself eager to give him sons as well as more daughters, and as soon as possible.
«Oh, Mikhail, I do want lots and lots of babies!» she had declared, as she dandled little Michendra on her knee at the wedding feast and watched Sofiana playing with Alinor's own little brother, the two-year-old Thomas. «Mother, would you look at this sweet, chubby little thing?»
Approaching the door to his workroom, happily replete with good food and excellent wine, Khoren found himself smiling and even shaking his head a little at that sweet image of domestic anticipation. There had been several stillborn sons in the early years of Mikhail's first marriage, so Khoren hoped that the lovely and radiant Alinor would soon attain her heart's desire and that, in her embrace, his nephew would speedily find new happiness — and sons!
In all, the marriage augured well for the future. Only reluctantly had Khoren taken early leave of the continuing wedding festivities — which were very much a family affair, bursting with Vastouni and Cardiel cousins and even a smattering of younger royals from neighboring Jáca and Nur Hallaj. His wife would linger happily in that company for many more hours to come, along with several of their children and grandchildren, but Khoren could no longer ignore the call of a particularly intriguing manuscript he wished to consult again before retiring, written in a dialect that only slowly was yielding up its secrets.
For a fine point of translation had been eluding Khoren Vastouni for nearly a week — and had crystallized in an almost staggering flash of insight during the most solemn part of the nuptial Mass earlier in the day, nearly making him laugh aloud with sheer delight. His beloved Stasha had given him the most mortified look.
Still basking in the satisfaction of his moment of revelation, Khoren set his splayed hand against the lock plate on the door and keyed the spell that would release the lock. At its click, he pushed the door open and slipped inside, at the same time removing the jewel-studded cap he had worn in lieu of a coronet.
This he set jauntily atop a human skull on a stand just inside the door; the reassembled skeleton of its owner hung by wires from a hook in a corner of the room, for he was an anatomist among his many other interests. Then he shrugged off his outer robe and tossed it over a nearby stool, emerald damask spilling onto a carpet patterned with pomegranates as he headed toward his worktable and the unfurled manuscript lying open upon it, its edges weighted down with several stream-polished rocks, pleasing to hand and eye.
It was then that he noticed the faint glow emanating from around the edges of a velvet curtain screening off a corner of the room: his Portal, set in semi-trap mode. It enabled visitors to come and go at will, and even to leave messages, but no one could venture past the Portal's boundaries unless he gave them leave. Khoren had no enemies — at least none he was aware of — but even in Andelon, where Deryni were accepted as a matter of course, one could never be too careful.