The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy

by Katherine Kurtz

  Rhys smoothed the iron-gray hair on Camber’s forehead with an absent gesture and shrugged. “Perhaps. That is not for me to say.”

  That much, at least, was the literal truth, though he knew that Cinhil was not reading it that way. The king got to his feet and turned away, passing a hand over his eyes as though to convince himself that his senses had not lied. Too late Rhys realized that Evaine was still kneeling in the doorway of the oratory—knew that Cinhil could not help but notice her, and question her witness of what had just happened.

  He glanced hurriedly at Joram, but the priest was still huddled beside the now-sleeping Camber, face bowed in the shielding shelter of his hands. Evaine, too, had her head bowed, face invisible beneath her blue cowl.

  He saw Cinhil freeze, as though becoming aware of the additional person in the room for the first time, to stare for several heartbeats, hands clenched rigidly at his sides. He held his breath as Cinhil started toward Evaine, for he knew without any benefit of Deryni talents exactly what the king must be thinking.

  “Rhys, who is the monk?” Cinhil asked, pausing to gesture toward her jerkily with his chin.

  Rhys projected as much fatigue into his voice as he could, hoping he might yet distract Cinhil.

  “Joram said his name was Brother John,” he sighed. “There was some disciplinary matter. Alister had asked to see him.”

  “Has he been here the whole time?” Cinhil insisted.

  “I suppose so. Frankly, I’d forgotten about him.”

  He prayed that Cinhil would not pursue the matter, though he knew that plea was hopeless.

  Cinhil turned back to “Brother John” and then glanced at the floor uneasily.

  “Brother John, did you see what just happened?”

  Evaine’s shoulders stiffened just slightly, and she hesitated the merest instant before straightening to a more conventional kneeling posture and tucking her hands into the folds of her sleeves once more.

  “If it please Your Grace, I am but an ignorant monk,” she murmured, in a low, muffled voice. “I am not learned in such matters.”

  “You don’t have to be learned,” Cinhil snorted, clasping his hands together and beginning to pace back and forth nervously. “Just tell me what you saw. And look at me when I’m speaking to you!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

  —I Corinthians 9:22

  The king’s back was to Rhys as he spoke, so he could not see the look of horror which flashed across the Healer’s face at his words. Nor could he note how Joram’s head snapped up and the priest nearly came to his feet in sheer reflex. Dualta had also turned to stare curiously at the young monk, so he, too, missed the reactions of the two Deryni.

  But by the same token, Cinhil did not see their other reactions, as “Brother John” raised a young but bearded face to gaze at him with eyes of smoky black—not blue. Those incredible eyes flicked guilelessly to the king’s for just an instant, forever establishing the differentness from any other identity which Cinhil might have suspected or even dreamed of, then dropped decorously under long black lashes. Lips far narrower than Evaine’s moved hesitantly in the bearded jaw, speaking in a voice which bore little resemblance to any which Rhys or Joram could have foretold.

  “If—if it please Your Grace,” the monk replied, “it did seem to me that some other … person … was in the room …”

  As the voice trailed off uncertainly, Cinhil’s eyes flashed and he leaned closer to grip the young man’s shoulder.

  “Another person? Go on, man! Who was it?”

  “It—it was him, Sire. And he drew his shadow across the vicar general.”

  “Name him,” Cinhil whispered dangerously. “Name me his name!”

  The monk’s hands wrung within the royal blue sleeves, and the black eyes glanced furtively at the king once again.

  “It—it seemed to be the Lord Camber, Sire. Yet, he is dead. I have seen him! I—I have heard of goodly men returning before, to aid the worthy, but—p-please, Sire, you’re hurting me!”

  Cinhil’s eyes had gone almost glassy as he stared at the monk, but at the man’s last words, he blinked and seemed to shake himself free of some inner compulsion, murmuring an apology as he released the monk’s arm. He stared at his hand for several heartbeats, as though still not totally in touch with the real world, then slowly turned back to Rhys and Joram. The monk bowed his head and said nothing.

  “I … must retire to think further on this,” he said haltingly. He wrung his hands together and would not meet their eyes. “It—cannot be, and yet …”

  He swallowed and made a visible effort to regain his composure.

  “Please tell Father Cullen that I shall speak with him later, when he is stronger,” he said briskly. “And I should prefer that none of you speak of—of what has happened, until we have all had time to think further on it. If only …”

  With a shake of his head and a gesture of futility, he turned and let himself out without further words. The sound of the closing door was the trigger which released them all.

  Dualta sank back on his heels and glanced at his hands—white and bloodless from clasping them hard for so long—then turned frightened eyes on Rhys and Joram.

  “Father Joram, I don’t understand.”

  “I know, Dualta,” Joram whispered, studying his own folded hands.

  “But I must speak of this with someone,” Dualta insisted. “It—it was a miracle! May I not tell even my confessor?”

  Joram shuddered, unable to look up at his brother knight. “Only if I am that confessor, Dualta,” he said in a low voice. “The king is right. Word of this should go no further until we have had time to assess it.” He forced himself to look up at the younger man. “Are you agreeable to that?”

  “That you should confess me? Certainly, Father, if you wish it. But—it was your blessed father! I saw him!”

  Joram closed his eyes in resignation for just an instant, then sighed and got slowly to his feet, stiffly, like an old man. As the Michaeline knight also rose, Joram touched his shoulder lightly, at the same time extending his mind to touch Dualta’s, undetected.

  “I know what you think you saw,” he said wearily. “But for now, and until I give you permission, you are to speak of this to no one except the people in this room. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Father,” Dualta murmured, eyes downcast.

  “Thank you.” Joram dropped his hand. “You’d best go now. The father general needs his rest, as do we all. You can wake Lord Illan and tell him that Rhys thought you should be relieved of duty for the rest of the night. You must be very tired.”

  Dualta glanced at Rhys at that falsehood and started to protest, but Rhys only sat back against the legs of the chair behind him and nodded agreement, golden eyes catching and holding Dualta’s brown ones.

  “Joram is right, Dualta. We’re all tired. And if it hasn’t actually hit you yet, it will.” At the very suggestion, Dualta’s eyelids drooped and he swayed on his feet, opening and closing his mouth several times in bafflement.

  “Ask Illan to relieve you, and then go to bed,” Rhys ordered.

  Dualta, with a murmur of assent and a perfunctory bow, turned and staggered toward the door. Rhys and Joram both held their places until the door had closed. Then, as Joram rushed to bolt the door behind him, Rhys scrambled to his feet and raced toward the monk still kneeling in the oratory doorway. As he grasped the blue-clad shoulders, Evaine raised her own familiar face to gaze at her husband tiredly.

  “Are you all right?” Rhys demanded.

  With a contented sigh, she slipped her arms around his waist and let him help her stand, a cryptic smile lifting her lips as she laid her head against his shoulder.

  “The question is, are you all right?” she replied. “And is Father?”

  She pulled back to look at him, then glanced at her brother as Joram came to take one of her hands and press it fervently to his lips
, as though to reassure himself that it was really there. There was no mistaking the disapproval in his gray eyes.

  “You shape-changed,” he said accusingly. “How?”

  “I managed.” She pulled away from both of them and crossed to kneel beside the sleeping Camber, Rhys dogging her footsteps. “When Rhys and I read the scroll last night, we reviewed the information before the memory assimilation, too. I thought it might help if we understood a little of how Father got the way he did. I must confess, I never thought I’d have to use that knowledge myself.”

  Joram was scowling as Rhys again bent over Camber, but he said nothing until the Healer looked up. Then: “You realize what she’s done, don’t you?”

  “By shape-changing? I don’t think it did any harm. Besides, what else could she have done, under the circumstances? If the ruse has to be given up eventually, I certainly don’t want to do it when Camber is unconscious and helpless.”

  Joram sat in one of the chairs and laid his hands precisely on the arms. “That’s not the point. Dualta thinks he witnessed a miracle. The Church has very strict laws regarding such matters. And Cinhil—God knows what he thinks!”

  Evaine rocked back on her heels and stared up at her brother in surprise. “Is that what you’re worried about? Better they should think there’s been a miracle than that they should guess the truth! Rhys is right. Besides, this is only one isolated incident. What harm can it do?”

  “I suspect we shall find out, eventually,” Joram replied softly. He laid his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. “I wonder whether Father will agree. I wonder whether he’ll even remember. You can rest assured that Cinhil will.”

  And in another part of the archbishop’s palace, in the flickering light of death-watch candles, a frightened and resentful Cinhil made his way down the long aisle of the cathedral and approached the bier of Camber of Culdi. Royal guards stood at rest with their backs to the four corners of the catafalque, spears reversed at their sides, eyes downcast, not moving as the king came near. From the choir, the chanting voices of a score of monks drifted eerily on the incense-laden air, the only sound in the vastness of the great church.

  Cinhil approached the bier slowly, reluctantly, almost as if his feet were hampered by some new weight which he must drag behind him. He moved along the left of the great catafalque, where kings of Gwynedd had lain in state, and let his gaze pass slowly from the feet toward the head, taking in all the somber splendor of the funeral pall which covered the body to the chest.

  The MacRorie arms on the pall glowed satin-rich in the flickering light, gules and azure, with the ancient sword impaling the Culdi coronet in a profusion of gold and silver threads. Above the pall’s black velvet, rich Michaeline blue continued to the corpse’s neck and framed the silver-gilt head with shadow. Still hands clasped a crucifix of rosewood and carved ivory. The seal ring of the Culdi earls gleamed on a finger of the left hand, the silver changed to ruddy gold in the candle glow.

  Cinhil laid his hands on the edge of the catafalque and stared at the familiar face for a long time. He was only vaguely aware of the preserving spell which surrounded the body like an invisible shroud, keeping it temporarily from corruption. He was not aware of the spell’s other function, to mask residuals of other magic which an adept might otherwise have detected.

  What is it you want of me? he asked as he studied the once-handsome features. You’re dead. Why can’t you stay dead?

  The waxen lips made no reply, and Cinhil glanced down with eyes which were rapidly filling with tears of frustration.

  You can’t come back! he thought stubbornly. You’re dead. Haven’t you done enough?

  The monks’ chanting broke through his consciousness in a paean of joy for the soul’s promised ascension to God. Cinhil, with a stifled sob, sank to his knees and laid his feverish forehead against the back of one white-knuckled hand.

  O God, you let him take away my life, he thought. You let him take me from Your house. Now he is gone, yet still he keeps me from Your service. Will he never give me peace?

  He raised tear-blurred eyes to stare at the still profile, but there was no answer in any of its lines. Though he waited for the better part of an hour, vaguely aware that the guards were becoming uncomfortable, the monks a little curious, still no answer came. When finally he rose from numbed knees and bowed his head toward the High Altar, there was desolation in his heart.

  He returned to his quarters in the keep after that; but he found little sleep.

  Of them all, it was probably Camber who slept best, once the night’s crisis was past. He it was who woke first the next morning, to find Rhys curled up under a blanket in a chair beside his bed and no sign of either Joram or Evaine. By the light slanting in through a mullioned window, it was not long past dawn.

  He lay motionless for several minutes, letting consciousness settle slowly into place. He had not yet moved, other than to turn his head toward Rhys, but so far he seemed to be completely recovered. All traces of headache were gone, and he was experiencing none of the disorientation or grogginess he might have expected.

  Even his body felt resigned to its adopted shape, almost as if he had always worn it. He seemed to recall a slight problem with control last night, but most of the experience was a blank haziness. However, he must have made no serious slips, else all would not now be so peaceful. When he got the chance, he would have to ask Joram or Rhys for a full report.

  With a contented yawn, he flexed his limbs experimentally beneath the blankets and withdrew a strange yet familiar hand, spreading the fingers and turning them to and fro before his pleased eyes. Barring extreme stress and conditions requiring massive outpourings of energy, he knew that the shape was truly his now. Alister’s signet was cool and a little loose on his finger.

  And just as he knew the security of his physical identity, so he knew that the mental aspects of Alister had also sorted themselves out during the night. As he reached into the depths of recall, he found the other’s memories no longer alien, and as accessible as his own.

  To be sure, there were some gaps in his adopted memories. He had known, when he first probed the dead Alister’s mind, that much was gone already. But he had gained far more than he had expected, and with what remained, he knew he could function as Alister with only reasonable attention to detail. What had been done before on sheer acting skill could now be trusted to instinct.

  He turned his head and glanced at Rhys again—no need to wake him yet, after all the Healer had been through for his sake the night before—then eased himself slowly to a sitting position and swung his legs out from under the blankets, touching bare feet luxuriantly to the furs spread beside the bed. He paused a moment, to be certain he could trust his newly rested body, then leaned to study Rhys more closely.

  The Healer slept soundly, but he seemed to be cramped in the chair. Dark circles smudged the hollows of his eyes, and the fiery hair seemed to draw all hint of color from the gold-stubbled face.

  With a smile, Camber touched Rhys’s brow and deepened his sleep, then stood and slipped his arms under the relaxed body, shifting it gently to the bed which he had just vacated. After tucking a blanket around Rhys, he padded barefoot into the garderobe, emerging a short while later dressed in a clean cassock of midnight blue and with his toilet complete. Before anyone came to help him vest for the funeral at noon, there was much to be done.

  At least he now knew Alister’s candidates for the vicar generalship, he thought, as he sat down at the writing table which had been his alter ego’s. And those, plus the future of the Michaelines, must now become a prime consideration.

  As he took a sheet of parchment from a stack at his elbow, his other hand was dipping a well-used quill into an inkstand. His hand moved automatically in another’s writing as a list of names flowed onto the page, adding to Jebediah’s nominees two additional names which he knew Alister had been considering.

  Then he put that sheet aside and began drafting a second piece: insu
rance, in case he had inadvertently omitted anyone he oughtn’t. Half an hour later, after recopying his second missive, he pushed his chair away from the table and took both pieces of work to the outer door.

  A tired-looking Dualta had been leaning against the wall opposite the door, talking in low tones with Brother Johannes, Alister Cullen’s former aide, and both men came to smart attention as Camber appeared in the doorway. Each of them wore the formal blue mantle of their Order, Dualta with the full Michaeline badge on the shoulder, Johannes with only the silver cross moline fitchy of the lay brotherhood. They appeared surprised to see him.

  “Father General, you’re awake early,” Dualta said, looking a little guilty.

  Camber controlled the urge to lift an eyebrow in surprise, for he had not expected the young knight to be there. Johannes, yes. Johannes was waiting to conduct him to the cathedral for vesting, as he did before every major celebration. Besides, Camber now knew exactly where Johannes had stood with Alister, and knew that he could continue the relationship without alteration.

  But Dualta—had he not been on guard duty last night? He seemed to remember something about Dualta coming to the door with Cinhil, but beyond that, he did not know. What had Dualta seen?

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, warm yet reserved. “Johannes, I’ve missed your helping hand. And, Dualta—you haven’t been here all night, have you? I must confess that much of what happened last night is a blur, but I cannot believe that Joram expected you to guard all night and still be here this morning.”

  “No, sir, he didn’t,” Dualta admitted sheepishly. “He told me to ask Lord Illan to relieve me—and I did,” he added, as it occurred to him that the vicar general might think he had disobeyed an order. “But I couldn’t sleep very well, sir, so I came back after Matins. I thought you might need something before you go to the cathedral.”

  With as much of a smile as Alister usually permitted himself, Camber clapped the younger man’s shoulder—he was a boy, actually, even younger than Joram or Rhys—then gave Johannes a conspiratorial wink.