“Where are they all going?” Morgan murmured, as his cousin finished his apple and hitched up his sword under his cloak. The main doors to the church were farther to the left, below the stubby stone towers, and they could see townspeople going in, several monks standing at the church doors to greet those who entered.

“I should have realized,” Duncan said under his breath, “that in any city where there’s a large monastic community, it’s customary for the brethren to attend services in the bishop’s basilica, if there is one. They’re on their way to Vespers.”

“Vespers,” Morgan breathed. He kept silent as they continued to walk toward the church, now heading away from the palace gates. Then: “Duncan, we are not going to attend Vespers in that church, are we?” It was less a question than a statement.

Duncan shook his head lightly, and Morgan had to control a smile.

“That’s what I thought.”

Ten minutes later, two more monks joined the line of brethren filing slowly into the Bishop’s Palace. They walked briskly to catch up with their fellows, these two laggard monks in their tall, black cowls and floor-length robes. They bowed their heads humbly as they passed between the sentries guarding the postern gate, hands piously folded in long, loose sleeves. Inside, as they passed sedately along the glistening corridors, an occasional footstep sounded oddly hollow amidst the sandaled tread of their brother monks.

But the two moved with care, anxious to do nothing that might cause them to stand out from their fellows, for these were no ordinary monks. They bore steel beneath their coarse black robes: swords girded close against their sides, and daggers in boots and sleeves and belts, and bright mail beneath the riding leathers the robes covered.

And something more telling there was, to distinguish these particular monks, had anyone known. For the two at the end of the line were Deryni, and carried magic in their souls.

Morgan and Duncan drew aside as the rest filed into the basilica, blending into the shadows of a cul-de-sac at the end of a nearby corridor. After a short while, they could hear the sound of the monks’ voices raised in song and praise, and then the sung responses of the service itself. Several times the doors opened to admit latecomers, and once Duncan thought he heard Cardiel’s voice within.

Finally the office of Vespers ended, and the doors were flung wide. Servants of the bishop’s household, pages and squires, several lords and their ladies, and several prelates filed from the chapel, some engaged in low conversation, all heading in different directions where the corridor branched before the doors. In the midst of them all came Bishops Cardiel and Arilan themselves, followed shortly by a number of priests and clerks and then more lords and their ladies.

Duncan nudged Morgan in the ribs as the two bishops appeared, for he knew Arilan and had seen Cardiel at a distance before. But Morgan froze with an intake of breath at the sight of a woman and child who followed a short distance behind the lords and ladies. The woman, dressed all in sky blue, was speaking in a low voice to another, darker lady, her hand on the shoulder of a boy about four years of age. She was tall and slim, her carriage regal without being imposing, and Morgan’s eyes widened almost involuntarily as he drank in every detail of her presence.