Bishop Istelyn had gone white at the account, and Richard of Nyford shuddered and crossed himself, shaking his head. The pair had joined the original six dissenting bishops at Dhassa several days after the departure of Loris and his adherents, first Istelyn and then Richard, bringing their number to eight. Together, they believed and hoped that Loris had gained no additional support, without which his decree of Interdict for Corwyn still did not technically have the force of law.

“I must go to the king,” Istelyn said quietly. “He should know of this latest development.”

“True enough,” Bishop Arilan replied. “He will not take it kindly that one of his bishops tried to kill another.”

“Indeed, he will not,” Cardiel agreed. “And he should have one of us in his household to give him heart when Loris continues to make demands. Nor should he be without spiritual counsel when he must eventually face Wencit of Torenth.”

SOMEWHAT farther north and east of Dhassa, hard on Gwynedd’s border with Torenth, that same Wencit of Torenth was receiving a report of other occurrences in Kelson’s kingdom. Though it had not been he who had threatened Kelson’s crown at the coronation just past, he was of the same dynastic line as the woman whose challenge had failed, and he now counted himself as next in that line of succession. He had long coveted the lands of his neighbor to the west, and but awaited the coming thaws to take advantage of Kelson’s youth and press an invasion plan well advanced even before the assassination of the boy’s father.

“No one seems to be certain who worked the magic to slay the pair, or whether it was even wholly intended,” Wencit’s informant told him, though his gaze was unfocused, his voice a monotone, for it was not he who spoke to the Torenthi king but a skilled and powerful agent far away, using more reliable magic to convey the information. “Nonetheless, it will have hurt Alaric Morgan to lose his only sister. In addition, the death of the Earl of Kierney leaves Jared Duke of Cassan with only a priest as his heir—though, as you know, Father Duncan McLain does seem to have Deryni powers. Certainly, Gwynedd’s bishops believe that to be true—and have excommunicated both him and Morgan. They even threaten Interdict for Corwyn.”

“That little concerns me,” the Torenthi sorcerer-king replied with a negligent flick of one beringed hand.

Shortly after the coronation of his new rival the previous autumn, as soon as the first snows closed the Cardosa Pass from the west, Wencit had begun assembling his army for the next year’s campaign and laid siege to the disputed mountain city of Cardosa, lurking through the winter at the Royal Abbey of Sankt Nikolas with his general staff and a unit of crack cavalry to prevent possible relief efforts to the city. He had occupied Cardosa early in June, immediately after the spring thaws allowed an approach from the east. By then the city had been very hungry. The apartment where he now made his headquarters—and where he had received the messenger seated before him—had belonged to the former royal governor, who now languished in a sparse but decent cell deep in the bowels of the fortress known as Esgair Ddu. The darker man with the scarred face, standing at the king’s elbow, had helped him take the city.