A Leap of Faith - Chapter 24

[AnnieUK]

July 4th
Llyndruth Plain

“Now are you certain you have everything that you need?” asked my uncle, as he held out an arm to assist me into the litter.  Brendan and Sister Luke were already settled in theirs.  

“Yes, thank you, uncle,” I replied, “We shall be perfectly fine.  Please don’t worry.”

“I shall be back in Dhassa in two or three day’s time, I expect.  Will you still be there when I arrive?”

“I don’t intend to leave for Rheljan before the end of the week.  I want to send ahead to my father, rather than just turning up on his doorstep, and I don’t know how much he will have heard about what has happened.  Better that he gets used to the idea of his daughter being a traitor’s widow gently, I think.”

“Ah, my dear, what I wouldn’t give to have had things turn out differently.”  Uncle Thomas squeezed my hand compassionately, and I lowered my eyes.  I couldn’t meet his, as in truth would I rather things had turned out differently?  I would be returning to the north as Bran’s wife rather than his widow and with the image of Alaric Morgan fixed in my memory.

“Thank you, uncle.  It is tragic for Brendan that all this has happened, and he will be a long time getting over it, if he ever does completely.”  There, I hoped that sounded the right note of regret, while not actually saying that I grieved over Bran’s passing.  It wouldn’t do to lie to one’s uncle, especially when that uncle happens to be a bishop, but I wondered if he understood what I said.  Surely he must have realised that there was little love between Bran and me.

Over my uncle’s shoulder, I could see the King and Alaric emerge from Kelson’s pavilion, the scarlet of the King’s tunic making a splash of colour on a misty morning.  Alaric was carrying a bundle wrapped in fabric and he and Kelson were talking earnestly, carrying on a conversation they had been having in the tent.  

“We shall talk more of this later,” Kelson was saying as he reached the litter, and he and Alaric both bent to kiss my uncle’s ring.  

Kelson bowed slightly to me, while Alaric hung back, leaving the King and me to speak alone.

“My Lady Richenda, I trust all your travel arrangements are in order?” said Kelson.  “Your uncle has been most insistent that all possible attention should be paid to your comfort,” he smiled, “and you know that bishops have a habit of getting their own way.”

Uncle Thomas chuckled.  “I have become very fond of my great-niece and her son over the past few months, sire.  Surely an uncle is allowed to indulge his favourite niece?”

“I wish you a pleasant journey to Dhassa and onwards to your home,” said Kelson.  “Duke Alaric has some possessions of your husband’s that he thought you should have, so I shall leave him to give those to you.  Bishop Cardiel, would you attend me, please?”  He bowed slightly again and turned on his heels, my uncle giving me a last farewell before following him to his pavilion.  The meaningful look that Kelson gave Alaric left me in no doubt.

He knows, doesn’t he?

He finally worked it out.  And I’ve just been read a lecture on politically sensitive matches.   I stared at him in alarm.  It had not occurred to me that the King would forbid our relationship, although of course he could. Don’t worry, my love, he was joking - mostly.  But we are quite scandalous, you know.  His eyes glittered with amusement as they met mine.  

“Lady Richenda, as you requested, here is your husband’s dagger.”  He ducked a quick bow as he spoke – outwardly the proper courtier.  “And a few other bits I thought you might not want servants poking through.  I’ll have the rest packed up and sent on to Marley.”  His lips twitched in a brief smile.  And there’s something for you in there too.

Something for me?  Heavens, and I had nothing for him!  I had been so wrapped up in everything it hadn’t even crossed my mind to send him away with a keepsake.  I frantically thought what I could give him – all my belongings were in the boxes in the wagon and I didn’t even have any jewellery on me, not even a hairpin.  

My mind flashed back to how he had stroked my hair the previous night, and how much he had admired it.  On an impulse I reached up and loosened the scarf that bound my hair, shaking it free and letting the waves tumble around my face.  There would be plenty of time on the journey to attempt a serviceable braid and no-one in the litter to see my indecently flowing curls.  I could wear my the hood of my cloak up in Dhassa until I was safely inside, just in case.

“And this is a little something for you, my lord,” I smiled, “until we meet again.”

“Which please God will not be too long,” he murmured fervently, pressing the scarf to his face, and shifting slightly to block the view of me from prying eyes.  “Ah, it smells of you.  Lavender and rosemary.  The scent may fade, my lady, but the memory will not.”  He tucked the scarf inside his tunic and bowed.  I offered my hand and he kissed it, courtier-like and formal, but his eyes met mine as he did so, and he sent a mental caress which raised shivers from my head to my toes and set my heart to pounding again.   “This will have to last me for now.  But I shall write, after your mourning is over, and as often as I can.”

The lead rider gave the command to set out and we drew away from the camp.  Alaric stared intently after us, the edge of the scarf just visible as it peeped out of his tunic.  

He stood watching us depart until a squire in Haldane red emerged from the pavilion and came to speak to him.  Alaric nodded and turned reluctantly to follow the squire.  I watched until he ducked inside the King’s tent, sending one last wistful look towards our departing company, and then disappeared from sight.

With a sigh, I unfolded the bundle.  Tucked inside the fabric I found a letter, neatly secured with Alaric’s gryphon seal, and set that aside for the moment.  Bran’s dagger was sheathed in a well-worn scabbard and Alaric had returned a few personal effects too – a ring, a chain Bran had often worn about his neck and a few letters tied with a ribbon, one of them the last one I had sent him from Dhassa, I noticed, although I doubted there was any sentimental reason why Bran had kept it.  I wrapped the items back up carefully and picked up Alaric’s letter.

I ran my fingers over the seal, extending my senses and getting an impression of such love and tenderness that it felt as though his arms enfolded me there and then, assuring me that all would be well.  I could have sworn I could smell leather and wood smoke – the scents I had come to associate with him from right back at our first meeting at Saint Torin’s.  It seemed that his smile, his warmth and his strength had flowed into this splash of sealing wax, ready to pour out when I touched it.  The final impression was a hint of regret at our parting and a gentle guarantee of our reunion soon.  That on its own would have been enough to satisfy me without the words inside and I touched the seal to my lips.  

What magic was this?  A second message, triggered by the kiss?  Without the constraints of formal tutoring, Alaric seemed to have experimented, explored in a way that those of us raised in the High Deryni tradition maybe did not.  How to place a second message in a seal – perhaps known to others if not to me, but an ability that meant the world to me today.

That second message was a twinkle in his eye as he kissed the seal himself to set the magic.  A rueful thought that I might not find it, yet a near certainty in his mind that I would and amusement at what my reaction would be.  Jesú, but I loved him, and the playfulness as he used his magic was a contrast to the exhausted and troubled man that I had seen over the past few days.  We needed to get to know each other properly, away from the stresses of the battlefield and the aftermath of combat and this glimpse of a peaceful Alaric made a start.  I wondered where and when we would meet again, and prayed that he would still feel the same – that some other woman without the burden of treachery hanging over her would not catch his eye before then.

The words on the parchment were written in a strong, precise script, exactly as I would have expected his handwriting to be.  As I read, tears started in my eyes – never in all the years of marriage to Bran had I received anything that I could remotely call a love letter.  His had been terse, functional letters for the most part, conveying the information that needed to be told.  Here in my hand lay a letter from another soldier, no longer than it needed to be, yet its words spoke directly to my heart.

My dearest Richenda,

Since I first saw you at Saint Torin’s these months past, you have haunted my dreams.  Although I had scarce any hope of discovering your identity, let alone finding you, you all unknowingly captured my heart.  I knew that no-one would match the ideal of my mystery woman, and all others would be compared to you and be found wanting.  

Now that I have found you, and you have let me dare hope that you may be mine someday, my dreams will be more restless still until we can be together again.  Until that time, know that you have all my love.  

Alaric.

And in a postscript he wrote  Kelson knows, and says to assure you that he will keep faith with you, so banish those worries of convents and fostering from your mind.  I think he fancies himself quite the matchmaker, so I impatiently await his plans to bring us together.  AM

***

Don’t ask me how many times I read the letter on the way to Dhassa, or how many times I pressed the seal to my lips to hear Alaric’s quick laugh in my head, for I would be ashamed to admit it.  Even after Brendan came to ride with me, I kept the letter under my hand, some irrational fear that it would somehow be lost making me keep it close.

We talked for a long time when he rode with me, remembering his father without tears this time.  I shall talk to him about Bran and try to remember the good times, for my son’s sake.  It would not be right that he should completely forget his father, whatever he may have done.  As for me, I will remember Bran with fondness so far as I can, for he gave me my son and without him Brendan would not be the little boy I adore.  

Alaric has proved to be a good and faithful letter-writer.  Yet even now, when my secret trove of letters grows large enough that it really needs a longer ribbon to bind it, I still return to that first letter when I miss him, which is often.  After each reading, I touch the seal and I can see sparkling grey eyes and hear his gentle laugh.  

And I swear I can smell leather and wood smoke.

[AnnieUK]

The End!  

It is done, and I have survived unscathed (mostly ) and I submit for your discussion a little bending of the magic in seals thing.  Can Deryni do that?  Don't know.  Was it fun to *have* Alaric do it?  Hell yeah!

[Evie]

What a lovely ending!  And as for the secondary message in the seal, it seems plausible enough (not to mention fun...   ).  After all, it seems like every new KK book has magic used in at least one new way we've not seen before, or at least with a bit of a new twist on something she's done before, so I can hardly imagine that she's managed to deplete the Deryni arsenal of magic tricks!      And, more to the point, it fits in well with the sorts of magical use she has shown already, so it's not like you made something up completely out of whole cloth that doesn't fit in well with that world, like creating castles that float in the sky or having Richenda wave a wand to bring forth a cow that will produce chocolate milk for Brendan!  

Oh, and I still have my husband's love letters, written some 23 years ago....   

[Alkari]

Magic bending?  LOL - we haven't seen too many instances of love-letters in the books, so I think you are free to do that! 

Lovely ending, sad but full of hope.   And good to see Richenda talking to Brendan quietly about Bran, so they can remember the good things.

[derynifanatic64]

All good things must come to an end.  An excellent story.

[Elkhound]

"Can Deryni do that?"

It seems that 'can' and 'need' or 'want' are closely related.  Time and again we have seen Deryni do things that they didn't know they could do, or that the official line was that they couldn't do them, when there was an urgent need to or a very strong desire to do them.

E.g., Richenda's attempted friccaseeing of Bran, or Rhy's healing of Cymber.  In the first case, Richenda had never been taught offensive combat magic, and only very little defensive; but her need and desire to protect her child called forth the ability.  (I'd like to see an AU in which she did succeed in serving up a dish of "Errant Husband Flambee".)  In the latter, while Rhys knew that there was such a thing as Healing, he didn't know he was a Healer--until he had an injured cat that he had to heal or risk making Evanie cry, and even at 11 he didn't want Evanie to cry.

[kirienne]

I have truely loved this story, and am sorry to see it end, but know that it must, for now. I love the voice you have given to Richenda, and to my favorite character, Duke Alaric. You have portrayed events so closely to what I had imagined, I could swear you read my mind. This is one I shall read over and over again, probably as often as Richenda reads those letters from her love.

[Alkari]

... Richenda's attempted friccaseeing of Bran, or Rhy's healing of Cymber.  In the first case, Richenda had never been taught offensive combat magic, and only very little defensive; but her need and desire to protect her child called forth the ability.

We don't know that she hasn't had that sort of 'offensive combat magic' training at all.   Indeed, she actually sobs to Duncan that she probably would have succeeded in killing Bran, had Derry not impeded her and Wencit arrived.  SHE doesn't seem to be in any doubt about her skills / knowledge, and I have always interpreted her words as meaning that she could have killed Bran, and knew that!   We DO know that she had formal training from some of the same people who trained Morag in Torenth (like Azim), and the Camberian Council were apparently concerned at the extent of that training, given her marriage to Alaric.  We also know that Denis Arilan (who tends to look down on the skills and abilities of both Alaric and Duncan) respects Richenda's training and abilities enough to allow her to take the lead in the ritual for Nigel.  And he is also clearly very comfortable with her skills as she functions in the links to Kelson and Alaric in TKJ, and there is never any hint that he disparages her abilities.   The fact that Denis essentially treats her as a magical equal probably says a very great deal about what she does know!!   So I don't know that you can include Richenda's actions against Bran in HD as the same sort of spontaneous "as needed" magic as Rhys's healing of Cymber.

Alaric's discovery of his Healing powers was a far better example of 'as needed' powers, because he didn't 'know' he could do that - he was just plain desperate.  In the rediscovery of the old Deryni skills as the Schola takes shape after KKB, it will be interesting to see how they are able to develop and learn from Deryni who evidence particular types of magic in this way.  It may be, for example, that someone finds a reference to something in an old manuscript and someone just tries it, or experiments with the general idea.  I suspect that the schola's formal learning / discovery process will tend to have that element of 'as needs' discoveries as a critical part of the new regime.

[Gyrfalcon64207]

Well, if we're talking about need-induced results, let's use Jehana in Deryni Rising when she tries to protect Kelson from Charissa.  We all know for a fact that she hasn't had any training whatsoever.

[AnnieUK]

Looking though The Priesting of Arilan last night, I spotted this - Denis is 20 at the time and presumably on a par training-wise as Richenda.  In fact probably ahead, since her's would have stopped by the time she married and the implication here is that Denis's is ongoing.

"If Denis had known how to turn his powers to destruction at that moment, he cheerfully could have blasted the archbishop into Hell for that - but he had not yet been taught how..."

So it's obviously not something they let the younger members of the community loose with too early!

[Alkari]

We don't know that Denis and Richenda had had the same teachers!!      (In fact, if Richenda was trained by some of the people who trained Morag (and perhaps even Wencit), I'm not too sure their training would have been exactly parallel! )

But yes, Jehana's burst of power against Charissa would be a much better example of need-induced powers, given her attitude to the Deryni.  She'd had no training at all, yet was able to direct a pretty powerful blast.

[Elkhound]

... Richenda's attempted friccaseeing of Bran, or Rhy's healing of Cymber.  In the first case, Richenda had never been taught offensive combat magic, and only very little defensive; but her need and desire to protect her child called forth the ability.

We don't know that she hasn't had that sort of 'offensive combat magic' training at all.  

Not in KK's canon, but this is a discussion of "A Leap of Faith" and in THAT story it is canon that she didn't, for she says so.