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gid's."
As the speechless Jehana darted her gaze from Richenda to the startled-
looking Rothana, who was replacing her veil with all possible speed, Richenda
lifted a hand in invitation for the queen to join Rothana in the window seat. The
queen would refuse, of course, but Richenda found herself taking an almost
perverse pleasure to be making the offer.
"Please join us if you wish. Majesty," she said. "Perhaps you would care to
hear more poetry. Interspersed with more traditional material, Rothana was
reciting from the works of the great Orin. He was Deryni, like the three of us."
Jehana swallowed audibly and went nearly as pale as her white robes,
looking as if she might bolt at any instant, green eyes darting fearfully to the
silent Rothana and then back to Richenda.
"But, she's a nun!" she whispered, shaking her head in denial. "She can't
be D-D- She simply can't be! Not and be in religion. ..."
Richenda had all she could do to keep her anger from flaring visibly. "Why
not? That's what you wish to be, isn't it? What makes you think you're the only
one?"
"That's an entirely different matter," Jehana said weakly. "You know it is. I
turned to the Church to help me cast out my evil; you celebrate yours!"
"Nay, madame! We celebrate our closer kinship with the Creator,"
Rothana answered. "You yourself commended Orin's verses-"
"Deryni verses!" Jehana snapped.
"Verses that were perfectly acceptable before you knew their author,"
Richenda countered. "Do you fear to be contaminated simply by listening,
madame? I assure you, if it were possible to win acceptance of our race by the
mere speaking of Deryni poetry, then all the hilltops of this land should resound
to Orin's verses! Alas, for those of us who must endlessly continue trying to prove
ourselves pious and upright servants of the same God you serve, things are not
that easy."
"You speak blasphemy! I will not listen!" Jehana murmured, shutting her
eyes tight and turning away, trembling.
"Aye, fly from the truth, madame!" Richenda went on, truly angry now.
"But you cannot fly from Him who made both human and Deryni!"
"Would that He had not!" Jehana sobbed.
"And if He had not," Richenda hammered on, "then we should not have
been. Not you and I, not your son-nor even a Haldane Brion for you to marry!
Why must you continue to persecute us, Jehana? Why must you persecute
yourself?"
The final accusation was too much for Jehana. Tears streaming down her
face, she fled from the room, almost bowling over Conall, who had been just
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about to knock on the door. Glancing back over his shoulder in astonishment,
Conall thrust his head around the edge of the screen and knocked on that as
Jehana's running footsteps receded down the corridor. He had a letter sealed
with scarlet in his hand, and wore riding leathers and a look of amazement that
quickly changed to faintly amused understanding as he ventured farther into the
room and spotted Richenda still standing at her loom beside the window.
"Good God, what did you say to my aunt to make her run like that?" he
asked with a chuckle, making her a little bow. "One would have thought demons,
at least, were after her!"
"Only the demons that she herself allows," Richenda said weakly.
"Sometimes I think we make our own hell on earth, and need no threat of
demons in the afterlife. But, enough of that. You have some missive for me?"
"Oh, aye-and the messenger who brought it, too. Forgive the intrusion, but
there's a peddler in the yard who claims to have letters from a Cousin Rohays. He
calls himself Ludolphus, if you can believe that. Frankly, he looks quite the
brigand-a Moor of some sort, so far as I can tell-but he said you'd recognize this
seal." He handed over the letter in his hand and grinned and bowed again as he
noticed Rothana in the window embrasure behind Richenda.
"Anyway, he wouldn't let me bring the rest," he went on, more self-
conscious now that he had seen Rothana. "He insisted he had to deliver them
himself. Do you want to see him?"
Richenda ran a fingertip over the seal and smiled as she sat at her loom
again, aware that Rothana was becoming increasingly embarrassed by Conall's
sheepish glances.
The seal did, indeed, come from Rohays, but-Ludolphus, indeed! Given
the seal, Richenda had a fair idea what messenger Rohays had sent, and it was no
peddler named Ludolphus!
But Rothana would be as pleased to see him as herself- and receiving him
would extricate Rothana from an increasingly uncomfortable situation.
"Yes, thank you, Conall, I do. I've been expecting him. And would you
please see that we're not disturbed?"
"Very well, if you're sure. Ah-" He glanced at Rothana hopefully. "May I,
perhaps, escort the Lady Rothana elsewhere?-assuming that you wish to see the
fellow privately, of course."
"No, no, that won't be necessary." Richenda glanced up from breaking the
seal just in time to see Conall erase a crestfallen expression. "Rohays is kin to
Rothana as well as myself," she explained, shards of scarlet wax exploding across
her lap as she unfolded the stiff parchment. "Besides, if the fellow is as much the
brigand as you say, perhaps I shall need a chaperone,"
Rothana flashed a smile both wistful and relieved and sank down on the
seat in the window embrasure, making a self-conscious adjustment of her veil.
"Very well," Conall said doubtfully.
As soon as the prince had bowed and made his exit, Richenda cast a droll
glance at Rothana and stifled a giggle, raising the letter between herself and the
doorway to shield her growing mirth.
"Rothana, have you been leading Conall on?" she whispered. "He could
hardly take his eyes off you! It must have been a very interesting journey back to
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Rhemuth."
"Oh, Richenda, I was only polite," Rothana protested, clasping her hands
tightly in her lap and blushing furiously. "He is rather nice, but-I'm under vows,
for goodness' sake!"
"Well, I don't suppose you can help how he reacts, can you?" Richenda
replied, dismissing the subject with a smile as she began scanning her letter.
"No," said Rothana in a very quiet voice. "Maybe I just have that effect on
Haldanes."
Richenda raised an eyebrow in surprise, wondering whether she had just
heard what she thought she heard.
"Any Haldanes in particular?"
Rothana blushed and gave a furtive nod, twisting a handful of pale blue
skirt in her lap.
"Aye. I wasn't going to tell you," she whispered. "It's probably nothing-I
hope it's nothing."
"Go on," Richenda murmured, lowering her letter.
"Well, it was the king," Rothana admitted. "He-wanted to read Janniver to
find out who'd attacked her. I told him no. Then he asked me to read her, and to
show him what I saw."
"And did you?"
Another reluctant nod. "Yes. But I was angry, Richenda. I know I should
be able to forgive those who hurt me and the people I love, but I was outraged at
what the soldiers had done to Janniver and my sisters, and-and maybe a little
guilty that I'd escaped their fate. So I-took out some of my anger on the king.
After I showed him what he wanted to know, I-made him feel a little of what it
was like for-for her, to be-used that way."
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