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had worked as well, if in different ways. Together, they had dreamed of shaping a better world,
where differences would not give others leave to kill. Perhaps their children would not need to
live in fear, as they had done.
But there were to be no children; none that lived, at any rate. Too soon had come a
renewed wave of madness in their village, condoned and even encouraged by the local lord.
Darrell, unknown to be Deryni by most of their acquaintances, had been a teacher of
mathematics in nearby Grecotha. With several of his Deryni colleagues, he also had been
tutoring young children of his race in secret, though it was a capital offense against the law of
Ramos if they were caught.
They had been betrayed. Agents of the local lord, all armored and ahorse, had raided the
small farmhouse where the Deryni schola met and slain the teacher schooling them that day.
More than twenty children were captured and driven like sheep into a brush-filled pen in the
village square, for the lord's man and the village priest meant to burn them as the heretics they
surely were.
She remembered the smell of the oil-soaked wood in the pen, as she and Darrell huddled
in the crowd which gathered to see sentence carried out. She saw again the looks of dull terror
on the faces of the children, most of them no older than the girl Bronwyn and her brother now
playing across the meadow. Her stomach churned in revulsion as it had so many years ago, as
a line of guards bearing torches marched out of a courtyard behind the square and took up
stations around the captive children. The guard captain and the village priest followed, the
captain bearing a scroll with pendant seals and cords. The crowd murmured like a wild animal
aroused, but the cry was not of horror but anticipation. In all their number, there was no one to
plead the cause of these terrified little ones.
"Darrell, we have to do something!" she whispered in her husband's ear. "We can't just
let them burn. What if our child were among them?"
She was just seventeen, carrying their first child. Her husband's voice was tinged with
despair as he shook his head.
"We are two. We can do nothing. They say the priest betrayed us. Even the confessional
is not sacred where Deryni are concerned, it seems."
She bowed her head against his shoulder and covered one ear with a hand, trying to blot
out the pious mouthings of priest and captain as holy words were spoken and writs of
condemnation read. All pretense of legality and justice was but excuse for murder. The child
she carried beneath her heart kicked, hard, and she cradled her arms across her adbomen as she
began to sob, clinging to Darrell s arm.
Hoofbeats intruded then, and a disturbance behind them. She looked up to see a band of
armed men forcing their horses through the crowd, more of them blocking the exits from the
square stern-looking horse-archers with little recurve bows, each with an arrow knocked to
bowstring and more in quivers on their backs. At their head rode a fair-haired young man in
emerald green, surely no older than herself. His eyes were like a forest in sunlight as he swept
the crowd and urged his white stallion closer to the captain.
"It's Barrett! The young fool!" Darrell whispered, almost to himself. "Oh, my God,
Barrett, don't do it!"
Barrett? she thought to herself. Is the man Deryni?
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"Let the children go, Tarleton," the man named Barrett said. "Your master will not take
kindly to children being slain in his name. Let them go."
Tarleton gazed back at him agog, his writ all but forgotten in one slack hand. "You have
no authority here, Lord Barrett. These are my lord's vassals Deryni brats! The land will be
well rid of them."
"I said, let them go," Barrett repeated. "They can harm no one. How can these infants be
heretics?"
"All Deryni are heretics!" the priest shouted. "How dare you interfere with the work of
the Holy Mother Church?"
"Enough, priest," Tarleton muttered. At his hand signal, the men holding the torches
moved closer to the pen where the children huddled in terror, fire poised nearer the oil-soaked
brush.
"I warn you, Barrett, do not interfere," Tarleton continued. "The law says that those who
defy the law of Ramos must die. Whether it happens to these now or later makes no difference
to me, but if they die now, you doom them to die without blessing, their Deryni souls
unshriven. You cannot stop their deaths. You can only make it worse for them."
No one moved for several seconds, the two men measuring one another across the short
distance which separated them. Bethane could feel her husband's tension knotting and
unknotting the muscles of his arm, and knew with a dull certainty which ached and grew that
Barrett was not going to back down. The young lord glanced behind him at his men stationed
all around, then dropped the reins on his horse's neck.
"I never have liked the law of Ramos," he said in a clear voice, casually raising both
hands to head-level as though in supplication.
Instantly he was surrounded by a vivid emerald fire which was visible even in the sunlit
square. The gasp of reaction swept through the crowd like a winter wind, chill and fearsome.
Tarleton reddened, and the village priest shrank back behind him, crossing himself furtively.
"By my own powers, which are everything those children have not realized, you shall not
have those lives," Barrett stated. "This I swear. I can stop you with my powers, if I must, and
save at least a few, but many others are likely to die who do not deserve such fate."
The crowd was beginning to look around uneasily for an escape, but Barrett's men had
closed the perimeter even more tightly, guarding all exits from the square. There was no place
to go.
"I give you this choice, however," Barrett continued, raising his voice above the rising
murmur of dismay. "Release the children, allow my men to take them away to safety, and I will
give myself into your hands as their ransom. Which will please your lord more? A handful of
untrained children, who can do no harm to anyone? Or someone like myself, fully trained and
able to wreak havoc any time I choose? though I would not do so willingly, despite what I
know you are thinking."
In the rising panic around them, no one heard Darrell's choked, "No!" except Bethane.
Tarleton let the crowd seethe and mutter for several seconds, then held up a hand for silence.
He was obviously unnerved by Barrett's implication that he was reading minds, but he put up a
brave front, nonetheless. Gradually the crowd noises died down.
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Click here to buy
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"So, the aristocratic Lord Barrett de Laney is a Deryni heretic himself," the captain said.
"My lord was right not to trust you."
"Your lord must wrestle with his own conscience in the dark, early morning hours and
answer for his own actions at the day of reckoning," Barrett replied.
"A prize, indeed," Tarleton continued, as though he had not heard. "But, how do I know
that you would keep your part of the bargain? What good is the word of a Deryni?"
"What good is any man's word?" Barrett returned. "Mine has been my bond for a long as [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl aikidobyd.xlx.pl
had worked as well, if in different ways. Together, they had dreamed of shaping a better world,
where differences would not give others leave to kill. Perhaps their children would not need to
live in fear, as they had done.
But there were to be no children; none that lived, at any rate. Too soon had come a
renewed wave of madness in their village, condoned and even encouraged by the local lord.
Darrell, unknown to be Deryni by most of their acquaintances, had been a teacher of
mathematics in nearby Grecotha. With several of his Deryni colleagues, he also had been
tutoring young children of his race in secret, though it was a capital offense against the law of
Ramos if they were caught.
They had been betrayed. Agents of the local lord, all armored and ahorse, had raided the
small farmhouse where the Deryni schola met and slain the teacher schooling them that day.
More than twenty children were captured and driven like sheep into a brush-filled pen in the
village square, for the lord's man and the village priest meant to burn them as the heretics they
surely were.
She remembered the smell of the oil-soaked wood in the pen, as she and Darrell huddled
in the crowd which gathered to see sentence carried out. She saw again the looks of dull terror
on the faces of the children, most of them no older than the girl Bronwyn and her brother now
playing across the meadow. Her stomach churned in revulsion as it had so many years ago, as
a line of guards bearing torches marched out of a courtyard behind the square and took up
stations around the captive children. The guard captain and the village priest followed, the
captain bearing a scroll with pendant seals and cords. The crowd murmured like a wild animal
aroused, but the cry was not of horror but anticipation. In all their number, there was no one to
plead the cause of these terrified little ones.
"Darrell, we have to do something!" she whispered in her husband's ear. "We can't just
let them burn. What if our child were among them?"
She was just seventeen, carrying their first child. Her husband's voice was tinged with
despair as he shook his head.
"We are two. We can do nothing. They say the priest betrayed us. Even the confessional
is not sacred where Deryni are concerned, it seems."
She bowed her head against his shoulder and covered one ear with a hand, trying to blot
out the pious mouthings of priest and captain as holy words were spoken and writs of
condemnation read. All pretense of legality and justice was but excuse for murder. The child
she carried beneath her heart kicked, hard, and she cradled her arms across her adbomen as she
began to sob, clinging to Darrell s arm.
Hoofbeats intruded then, and a disturbance behind them. She looked up to see a band of
armed men forcing their horses through the crowd, more of them blocking the exits from the
square stern-looking horse-archers with little recurve bows, each with an arrow knocked to
bowstring and more in quivers on their backs. At their head rode a fair-haired young man in
emerald green, surely no older than herself. His eyes were like a forest in sunlight as he swept
the crowd and urged his white stallion closer to the captain.
"It's Barrett! The young fool!" Darrell whispered, almost to himself. "Oh, my God,
Barrett, don't do it!"
Barrett? she thought to herself. Is the man Deryni?
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Click here to buy
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"Let the children go, Tarleton," the man named Barrett said. "Your master will not take
kindly to children being slain in his name. Let them go."
Tarleton gazed back at him agog, his writ all but forgotten in one slack hand. "You have
no authority here, Lord Barrett. These are my lord's vassals Deryni brats! The land will be
well rid of them."
"I said, let them go," Barrett repeated. "They can harm no one. How can these infants be
heretics?"
"All Deryni are heretics!" the priest shouted. "How dare you interfere with the work of
the Holy Mother Church?"
"Enough, priest," Tarleton muttered. At his hand signal, the men holding the torches
moved closer to the pen where the children huddled in terror, fire poised nearer the oil-soaked
brush.
"I warn you, Barrett, do not interfere," Tarleton continued. "The law says that those who
defy the law of Ramos must die. Whether it happens to these now or later makes no difference
to me, but if they die now, you doom them to die without blessing, their Deryni souls
unshriven. You cannot stop their deaths. You can only make it worse for them."
No one moved for several seconds, the two men measuring one another across the short
distance which separated them. Bethane could feel her husband's tension knotting and
unknotting the muscles of his arm, and knew with a dull certainty which ached and grew that
Barrett was not going to back down. The young lord glanced behind him at his men stationed
all around, then dropped the reins on his horse's neck.
"I never have liked the law of Ramos," he said in a clear voice, casually raising both
hands to head-level as though in supplication.
Instantly he was surrounded by a vivid emerald fire which was visible even in the sunlit
square. The gasp of reaction swept through the crowd like a winter wind, chill and fearsome.
Tarleton reddened, and the village priest shrank back behind him, crossing himself furtively.
"By my own powers, which are everything those children have not realized, you shall not
have those lives," Barrett stated. "This I swear. I can stop you with my powers, if I must, and
save at least a few, but many others are likely to die who do not deserve such fate."
The crowd was beginning to look around uneasily for an escape, but Barrett's men had
closed the perimeter even more tightly, guarding all exits from the square. There was no place
to go.
"I give you this choice, however," Barrett continued, raising his voice above the rising
murmur of dismay. "Release the children, allow my men to take them away to safety, and I will
give myself into your hands as their ransom. Which will please your lord more? A handful of
untrained children, who can do no harm to anyone? Or someone like myself, fully trained and
able to wreak havoc any time I choose? though I would not do so willingly, despite what I
know you are thinking."
In the rising panic around them, no one heard Darrell's choked, "No!" except Bethane.
Tarleton let the crowd seethe and mutter for several seconds, then held up a hand for silence.
He was obviously unnerved by Barrett's implication that he was reading minds, but he put up a
brave front, nonetheless. Gradually the crowd noises died down.
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Click here to buy
Click here to buy
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"So, the aristocratic Lord Barrett de Laney is a Deryni heretic himself," the captain said.
"My lord was right not to trust you."
"Your lord must wrestle with his own conscience in the dark, early morning hours and
answer for his own actions at the day of reckoning," Barrett replied.
"A prize, indeed," Tarleton continued, as though he had not heard. "But, how do I know
that you would keep your part of the bargain? What good is the word of a Deryni?"
"What good is any man's word?" Barrett returned. "Mine has been my bond for a long as [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]