“My lady?” he said gently.

Richenda sniffled and swallowed noisily, lifting her head to wipe at her eyes with a handkerchief. Then she bowed her head miserably again, without looking up at him.

“I have done a terrible thing, Father,” she whispered. “I have done a terrible thing, and I cannot even ask forgiveness, because I would do it again, if I had the chance.”

Duncan’s mind raced back over the events of the last little while and tried to think what she could be referring to, totally forgetting, for the moment, that he was still suspended from his priestly functions.

“What terrible thing is that, my lady?” he asked. “I don’t see how you can blame yourself for anything that happened here tonight. Didn’t Derry lure you here, to try to kidnap you and your son?”

Richenda shook her head. “You don’t understand, Father. My—my husband was one of those in the circle, who stole my son away. And I—I tried to kill him.”

“You tried to kill him?” Duncan repeated, wondering how this slip of a girl thought she was capable of such a thing.

“Yes, and I probably would have succeeded if Wencit hadn’t been there and Derry hadn’t hindered me. You are Deryni, Father. You know whereof I speak.”

“I know?” Duncan broke off, suddenly realizing the implication of what she had said. “My lady,” he whispered, drawing her nearer the pavilion wall, away from the others, “are you Deryni?”

She nodded but would not look up at him.

“Does Bran know?”

“He does now,” she murmured, chancing a look at his face. “And I—oh, Father, what’s the use? I cannot lie to you. I think there was another reason that I tried to kill Bran. He—I—oh, God help me, Father, but I’ve come to love another man. I’ve come to love your Alaric, and he loves me. I’ve not betrayed my marriage vows yet—at least not in deed. But if Alaric kills Bran tomorrow—and such is likely—the law…Oh, forgive me, Father. I am not even thinking about Bran. But he is a traitor. What am I to do?”

She began sobbing bitterly again, and Duncan gathered her against his shoulder, easing them both to sit on the edge of Kelson’s great bed. Across the chamber, Morgan and Kelson still knelt motionless beside the enthralled Derry, Arilan and the restraining guards now watching impassively. Duncan could expect no help from that quarter. This was one cup that would not pass until he had drunk it in full measure. He bowed his head against the woman’s hair and tried to sort out his jumbled emotions.

Richenda and Alaric. Of course. It all came together now. He had been blind not to see it sooner. Knowing Alaric’s scrupulous conscience, nothing would have happened yet, so far as actual deeds were concerned. Richenda herself vowed that she had yet been faithful to her marriage bed.

But Duncan knew, too, the inward guilt the two must feel, the anguish over motives, and what tomorrow might bring. He wondered briefly why Alaric had not confided in him, then realized that there had really been no time—and even if there had been time, it was something that Alaric would have thought so shameful, so dishonorable, that he could not have mentioned it, even to his priest-kinsman. To lust after another man’s wife would be totally unacceptable to Alaric Morgan.