“Nigel, can you read the others’ devices?” the king said, fumbling at his saddle to draw out his own spyglass.

“Not at this distance, Sire. Shall I send out a party to meet them?”

“Not yet. Let’s be careful on this. Gloddruth, get one of your men ready to ride.”

The horsemen drew to a halt perhaps four hundred yards from their own lines, only the rider with the parley banner continuing toward the center of the field. With a nod, Kelson signaled Gloddruth to send out his own man; and as the Gwynedd rider was dispatched, Kelson lifted his glass to scan the men waiting on the plain beyond.

Seven men sat blooded horses behind the banner rider. Four of them could be mostly dismissed as a military escort of mounted archers, liveried in the tawny orange of Torenth. The men were bearded, turbans swathed around their steel caps, with short recurve bows slung across their backs and short swords at their knees.

But the other three were not mere fighting men. One Kelson judged to be a priest or a monk, black robe kilted up around his knees, a dark cloak muffled and closely hooded around his shoulders. But the other two were High Lords of Torenth, bright as peacocks in their battle silks and steel. Arilan identified one of them as Duke Lionel of Arjenol, kinsman to Wencit himself. He was the one wearing white silk over his armor, the sun gleaming brightly from his gold-washed mail. An ebony braid hung down his back from beneath his mailed coif, and the helm itself was adorned with a ducal coronet set with jewels.

The other—and here, the Deryni bishop’s face hardened—was Rhydon of Eastmarch: a full Deryni, and apparently one whom Arilan had no cause to love, though he did not say so. Rhydon wore a flowing caftan of blue and gold brocade over his armor. Kelson could not see the man’s face at this distance, even through his glass.

Kelson lowered the glass. The two banner riders had met in the center of the plain half a mile away and held their mounts in tight, mincing circles as they conferred. Kelson glanced at Morgan for a reaction but saw that he was staring beyond the front lines of the enemy to where a small forest of bright silk banners was moving onto a small rise. Beneath the banners, Kelson could see a handful of well-born riders. Morgan grunted as he put a spyglass to his eye and brought it into focus.

“There’s Wencit,” he said in a low voice. “I thought it was about time for him to make an appearance. I believe that’s Bran Coris to his left.”

Kelson studied the group for a moment with his own glass, then glanced at Morgan once more.

“Morgan, I think we’d better abandon the idea of the Lady Richenda trying to sway her husband. I have never liked the idea—and this is no place for a woman. I never should have brought her here.”