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And he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing; 
and was clad with zeal for a cloak。
  Isaiah 59:17

Edmund Loris; once the Archbishop of Valoret and Primate of All Gwynedd; stared out to sea through the salt…smeared windowpanes of his tower prison and allowed himself a thin smile。 The rare display of self…indulgence did nothing to diminish the fury of the wind shrilling at the ill…fitted glass; but the letter secreted in the breviary under his arm gave its own grim fort。 The offer was princely; befitting even the exalted status he had enjoyed before his fall。
Exhaling softly of his long…hoarded bitterness; Loris bowed his head and shifted the book to hold it in both hands; wary lest the gesture seem to make it too precious in the eyes of his jailers; who could look in on him at any time。 For two years now they had kept him here against his will。 For two years his existence had been defined by the walls of this monastic cell and the token participation permitted him in the life of the rest of the abbey: daily attendance at Mass and Vespers; always in the pany of two silent and all…too…attentive monks; and access to a confessor once each month … seldom the same man twice; and never the same one any two months in succession。 Were it not for one of the lay brothers who brought his meals; whose fondness for intrigue Loris had early discovered; he would have had no contact whatsoever with the outside world。
The outside world … how he longed for it again! The two years spent in Saint Iveagh's were but an extension of the outrage which had begun a full year before that; with the death of King Brion。 On just such a chill November day as this had Brion Haldane met his doom … blasted from life by the hell…spawned magic of a Deryni sorceress; but leaving an unexpected legacy of forbidden powers to his son and heir; the fourteen…year…old Kelson。
Nor had young Kelson hesitated to seize his unholy patrimony and use it to overturn almost everything Loris held sacred; not the least of which was the Church's stand against the use of magic in whatever form。 And all of this had been done under the guise of his 〃Divine right〃 to rule and his sacred duty to protect his people … though how a king could justify consorting with the powers of evil to effect that protection was beyond Loris' prehension。 By the end of the following summer; with the help of the Deryni heretics Morgan and McLain; Kelson had even managed to turn most of Loris' fellow bishops against him。 Only the ailing Corrigan had remained true …  and his faithful heart had given out before he could be subjected to the humiliation Loris finally endured。 The rebel bishops actually believed they had done a great kindness by allowing Loris to attend the travesty of a trial at which they stripped away his offices and banished him to a life of forced contemplation。
Bitter still; but heartened by the prospect of a chance to set things right; the former archbishop tapped the edge of his book lightly against his lips and thought about its secret contents  …  yet another munication from folk with similar cause to feel uneasy at what the new king had wrought。 The wind whining in the roof slates of Saint Iveagh's sea…girt towers sang of the freedom of the open seas whence it came; bearing the tang of salt air and the cries of the wheeling gulls that circled the abbey during all but the darkest hours of night; and for the first time since his imprisonment; Loris allowed himself to hope that he; too; might soon be free。 For many; many months; he had feared never to taste freedom again except in death。
Oh; he was not fool enough to think there would not be a price … but he could afford to promise anything; for now。 With care and craft; he might play more than one side to his advantage; perhaps eventually being even more powerful than before his fall。 Then he would make himself the instrument of God's retribution; driving the cursed Deryni from the land once and for all。
And the Deryni taint was in the very blood of the king … perhaps in all the Haldane line; not in Kelson alone。 In the very beginning; Loris had thought Kelson's forbidden magic strictly the legacy of his Deryni mother …  that poor; conscience…hounded lady who even now kept strict seclusion in another remote abbey; praying for the soul of her Deryni son as well as her own and devoting her life to penance for the evil she carried。 She had confessed her guilt before them all; that solemn day of Kelson's coronation; prepared to sacrifice life and even soul to protect him from the sorceress who had already been responsible for his father's death。
But Queen Jehana; though she had the will; had not the power to fight Kelson's battle for him; and in the end; the young king had had to face the challenge with his own resources … prodigious resources; as it happened; easily equal to the challenge; but frightening in their implications。 While granting that his mother's Deryni blood might have made its contribution。 Kelson had publicly claimed sacred right as the source of his newfound abilities。 Loris had feared otherwise; even at the time; for he remembered stories about the boy's father。
In fact; the more Loris thought on it … and he had had ample time for that in the last two years … the more convinced he became that Brion and hitherto unsuspected Deryni ancestors were as much to blame for Kelson's condition as Jehana。 The full extent of the taint could only be guessed。 Certainly both Brion and his father before him had harbored Deryni at court from time to time。 The detested Morgan and McLain were but the most recent and blatant of many such … and the latter a priest all the while; hypocrite to the core  …  on both of whom Loris wished only the vilest of fates; for the two were largely responsible for his present situation。
As for Brion; who could deny that the late king once had faced and killed a Deryni sorcerer in single bat? Loris; then but a parish priest of rising prominence; had heard of the incident only at second and third hand; but even in the first throes of public jubilation at the king's victory; he had been chilled by the recurring suggestion that Brion's opponent; father to the woman eventually responsible for his death; had fallen not alone to Brion's sword but to strange powers wielded by the king himself。 In the taverns for months afterward; haunted eyewitnesses with tongues loosened by ale whispered fearfully of magic worked upon the king by young Morgan before that fateful confrontation … the unleashing of awesome forces which Brion said were benign; the royal legacy of his father … but even that admission cast grave suspicions on the king; so far as Loris was concerned。 Though a man of honest if rigid religious conviction; he was not naive enough to concede that purity of intent and fervence of faith … or Divine favor to an anointed king … had been Brion's salvation; though he kept his misgivings to himself so long as Brion lived。
Now Loris knew that only power such as the Enemy himself wielded could have given Brion victory against such odds; and over such a foe。 And if that power had been granted; or even merely released; by one of the accursed Deryni; then its source was clear: an evil legacy from years of dark alliance with that unholy race。 The double inheritance of evil from Brion and Jehana was doubly damning in their son。 Kelson was beyond redemption; and must be eliminated。
Nor; by the same logic; were Brion's brother Nigel and his brood to be spared … for though uncontaminated by Jehana's blood; still they; like Kelson; traced their ancestry back through the generations of Haldane kings who had carried forward some other variant of Deryni curse from the time of the Restoration。 The land must be freed of this evil; cleansed of the dark Deryni taint。 A new royal line must be raised to rule in Gwynedd … and what better source; and who with better legal claim; than the old royal line of Meara; human to the core; one of whose supporters even now offered assistance to Gwynedd's rightful Primate; if that Primate would support Mearan independence?
With a shiver; Loris slipped his breviary into the breast of his homespun woolen robe and drew his meager cloak around his shoulders … he; who had w

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