“It will soon be dark, Sire. Unless you mean to engage in night battle, we should begin making arrangements for camp.”

“No, you’re right. It’s too late to make our move today.” Kelson flicked a fly away from his horse’s ears. “I do want to parley with them, though. There is a chance, though only a slim one, that we can reach agreement without raising a sword.”

“Very little chance of that, I should think,” Duncan retorted. “Not while Warin has anything to say about it, at least. The man is obsessed with his hatred of Deryni. He’ll take a lot of convincing.”

Kelson frowned. “I know, but we have to try. Cardiel, call the rest of the bishops to assemble with us here in front of the lines. Morgan and Father Duncan, I’d like you to spread the word that we’ll be camping here tonight, and have the men start making preparations. You might also set the watches before we try to parley. I don’t want the outlying camps harassed during the night by rebel patrols.”

“Aye, my prince.”

HIGH on the rampart walls, the activities of the royal army were being watched by other eyes. In the shelter of a merlon near the great portcullis gate, Warin de Grey and several of his lieutenants peered down from the castle wall and observed the preparations being made. Warin’s gray eyes searched the plain carefully, noting and recording the banners of the great lords assembled there, mentally tallying the hundreds of soldiers who appeared to be encamping on the plain below.

Warin had not the appearance one might expect in a man who had brought half of Corwyn to its knees. He was only middling of height, with close-trimmed hair and beard of a nondescript dun color. Gray was his tunic and cap, gray the cloak he now pulled more closely around his narrow shoulders. Only the stark black of the falcon badge emblazoned on the chest of his leather tunic broke the monotony of it all, black and white against the dull, plain gray. Steel gleamed at throat and wrists and on greaved legs, but even that was muted, satin-bright. Only the eyes were truly outstanding about this man now known as the Lord Warin: the eyes of a mystic, a seer, some said, a saint.

With those eyes, Warin could bore into a man’s soul, they said; could heal in the manner of the ancient prophets and holy men. Out of the north had he come, preaching a violent end for those of Deryni blood, calling for holy war to rid the people of the Deryni scourge that had lain too long upon the land.

Warin was appointed by God—or so he believed. At any rate, his successes, the charismatic leadership he seemed to display over his men, all appeared to point to the truth of that statement. Even the Curia of Gwynedd had been swayed to his cause, though Gwynedd’s Primate, Archbishop Edmund Loris, had been himself a foe of the Deryni for lo, these many years.