High Deryni Read Online Free Page B

eyeing the falcon cloaks on the pair with awe and respect. Mal steadied himself against their shoulders until he could ease his leg to a comfortable position, then sat more erect and held precariously to the animal’s wispy mane. As the two men stepped back, Mal glanced in their direction and nodded, then raised his hand in farewell. The sliver of metal still glittered in his clenched fist.
    â€œI thank ye again, good sirs.”
    â€œThink you can make it now?” the darker man asked.
    â€œAye, if the beast does nae go mad an’ dump me in a ditch. Godspeed ye, friends. An’ tell th’ Lord Warin we stand ready to do his biddin’, next time ye see him.”
    â€œI will that,” the blond man replied.
    â€œThat I certainly will,” he repeated under his breath as man and donkey, boy and woman, headed back down the road and into the night.
    When they were out of sight and hearing, the blond man crossed back into the brush where they had been working and retrieved the torch. He held it aloft until his companion could recover the two dusty warhorses, then snuffed it out against the damp clay of the roadway and tossed it aside. The gray eyes were again grim.
    â€œWell, would you say I ‘o’erstepped the bounds even a duke may go,’ by healing that man, Duncan?” he asked, pulling on his gloves in an impatient gesture.
    Duncan shrugged as he handed over a pair of reins. “Who can say? We took a chance—but that’s nothing new. He shouldn’t be able to remember anything he oughtn’t. But then, you can never tell with these country folk. Or need I bother telling you that? After all, they’re your people, Alaric.”
    Alaric Anthony Morgan, Duke of Corwyn, King’s Champion, and now excommunicate Deryni sorcerer, smiled and gathered up his reins, swinging up on his tall warhorse as Duncan did the same.
    â€œMy people. Yes, I suppose they are, God bless ’em. Tell me, Cousin. Is all of this really my fault? I never thought so before, but I’ve heard it so often in the past few weeks, I’m almost beginning to believe it.”
    Duncan shook his head, touching steel-shod heels to his horse’s flanks and beginning to move off down the road. “It isn’t your fault. It isn’t any one person’s fault. We’re simply a convenient excuse for the archbishops to do what they’ve been wanting to do for years. This situation has been building for generations.”
    â€œYou’re right, of course,” Morgan said. He urged his horse to a trot and fell in beside his kinsman. “But that isn’t going to make it any easier to explain to Kelson.”
    â€œHe understands,” Duncan replied. “What will be more interesting will be his reaction to the information we’ve been gathering for the past week or so. I don’t think he’s realized the extent of unrest in this part of the kingdom.”
    Morgan snorted. “Neither had I. When do you reckon we’ll reach Dol Shaia?”
    â€œSoon after noon,” Duncan stated. “I’d stake money on it.”
    â€œWould you?” Morgan gave a sly grin. “Done! Now, let’s ride.”
    And so the two continued along the road from Jennan Vale, pushing on ever faster as the moon rose to light their way. They need not have worried about revealing their identities, these two young Deryni lords. For even had they been told, Malcolm Donalson and the boy Royston simply would not have believed that they had been in the presence of the infamous pair. Dukes and monsignori, Deryni or not, did not ride in the guise of rebel soldiers in the service of Lord Warin, with falcon cloaks and badges and three weeks’ growth of beard. It was unimaginable.
    Nor would two heretic Deryni have stopped to help a wounded rebel soldier—especially one who, only hours before, had brought death and injury to a number of royalist knights. This, too,