Saint Camber

by Katherine Kurtz

  “We have two superb choices for the site of our new Commanderie: Cùilteine and Argoed, both of which will be handed over to the Order by royal charter upon the succession of your new vicar general. Which brings us to the most important reason for this meeting.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order.

  —Colossians 2:5

  The sun had set, and the cathedral bells were ringing Compline, when Camber finally adjourned the Grand Chapter. All afternoon he had listened to their discussion, with various candidates and their adherents advancing and refuting numerous opinions and concerns. By the time Camber thanked them for their attendance and dismissed them, he had a fair comprehension of the consensus of the Order, and a clear picture of the task facing him in the next few days. Already, in his own mind, he had narrowed the field of possible successors to three. He would rely upon private interviews in making his final selection.

  A few of them lingered when most of the rest had gone, making it clear that they would have liked to stay and talk further, but Camber did not encourage them, and they soon departed. Not even Jebediah tried to force further communication after the long day; besides, he had duties in the hospice where some of his men lay a-mending, and that was foremost in his mind just then. Joram had been among the very first to leave—to join Evaine and Rhys and bolster himself for the trip to Caerrorie tomorrow, Camber suspected.

  And so, when he had sent away even his own attendants, Camber was able to slip into the solitude of the cloister garth for some much-needed quiet. Leaning his back against the rough bark of one of the trees, so that he blended with the lines of the sparse grove there, he gazed sightlessly at the night sky and let the afternoon sift into place. Only when the last of the Michaeline voices had faded from hearing did he stand away from the concealing tree and reenter the cloister walk. He headed purposefully toward a postern door in the south transept, for his quarters lay on the other side of the cathedral.

  The murmur of chanting voices met him softly as he slipped inside. He melted back against a column to survey. Aside from the monks in the choir and a few people kneeling in the nave, the cathedral was deserted. Far across the transept, he could see brighter candlelight streaming from one of the north chapels, filtering softly through the carved wood screens, and he reasoned that they must have laid his alter ego’s body there for the night.

  Drawn by a need to bid one final farewell, he moved across the dim nave with bowed head, soft-soled shoes making no sound on the glazed tiles. No one marked his passage, but he felt a profound sense of relief when he had crossed that expanse of vaulted openness. Slowing his pace, he glided along the back of the chapel toward its doorway, trying to appear nonchalant as he glanced through the wooden screen.

  At least he would not have to look upon that face again. During the afternoon, the monks had laid the body away in a plain oak coffin, sealing that within the traditional wrapping of leaden foil. The MacRorie pall lay over the coffin now, the sword and chased coronet of the Earldom of Culdi resting near the head, closest to the altar. At the corners, four fat candles stood flickering vigil, taller than a man in their bronze holders. Two royal guards whom Camber did not know stood watch outside, reversed spears at rest, as much to protect the valuable sword and coronet as to keep watch over him who slept within. Now that the formal obsequies were over, the Earl of Culdi was no different from anyone else who had died in the faith and received the blessings of the Church on his passage to the Nether realms.

  The guards did not move as Camber approached, but as he started to step through the doorway, one of them turned slightly toward him and caught his eye.

  “Father?” the man whispered.

  Camber nodded acknowledgment.

  “Father, there’s someone in there, praying by the coffin. We didn’t want to intrude, but he’s been in there for several hours now. Maybe you could make sure he’s all right?”

  With a glance inside, Camber nodded and moved into the chapel, studying the mourner.

  The still, kneeling figure would not have been noticeable to the casual observer. He was huddled at the left of the coffin near the head, cloaked shoulders shaking with silent sobs, hooded head bent in shadow. Grayed, trembling hands rested on the corbeled edge of the catafalque on which the coffin rested, moving occasionally to reach up under the velvet pall and touch the lead wrappings. The candlelight did not penetrate far enough to reveal any other details.

  Pursing his lips thoughtfully, Camber moved close enough to crouch down beside the man. From the way he started at Camber’s touch on his shoulder, Camber knew that he had been so deeply immersed in his grief that he had not heard Camber approach.

  “Be at ease, son,” he murmured, trying to send a whisper of reassurance into the troubled mind. “There is nothing you can do for him here. We shall all miss him, but the grief which you feel will pass, in time.”

  A pale, tear-swollen face turned toward him in the shadows of the hood, and watery eyes gazed across at him in misery. Camber’s hand almost withdrew in shock as he realized it was Guaire.

  “How can there be peace or ease when he is gone?” Guaire whispered, before Camber could respond. “My Lord Camber was the architect of all which we now support in the king’s name. Without him, there would have been no Haldane king. Without him now—”

  As the young man broke into weeping again, Camber glanced up at the velvet-draped coffin, at the fringe of gold bullion, the earl’s coronet resting near the head. How to explain to Guaire, without revealing all, that Camber had served his purpose, that he had fulfilled his outward work and must now serve in other ways?

  Useless. He could not explain. He could only hope to comfort.

  “I know, son,” he said. “We shall simply have to try to carry on his work. He would have wished it thus. Can you not see a purpose in that?”

  Guaire hung his head and swallowed hard, as though something constricted his throat. “I loved him, Father General. He was—very special to me, in ways I can’t begin to explain. I would have died for him—gladly—and now—”

  “Then now you must live for him,” Camber said gently, trying to keep his own emotions out of his voice. “You can, you know.”

  “Can I?” Guaire laughed—a grim, humorless croak—then got to his feet. “Perhaps you’re right, Father General. But right now I can’t accept that. Now I feel only an emptiness and loss of purpose inside. Why couldn’t I have been the one to die?”

  His despair brought on another bout of weeping, and Camber rose to lay his arm gently around the young man’s shoulders and begin drawing him away from the coffin. The guards stood aside respectfully as the two of them left the chapel, but Camber kept Guaire’s face turned close in the protective circle of his arms, shielding him from the men’s well-meaning but prying curiosity.

  He tried to ease the troubled mind as they moved into the bosom of the summery night, but it was soon clear that Guaire’s grief was far more profound than he had first imagined. By the time he and Guaire had reached the comparative shelter of his own corridor, Camber knew he dared not leave him alone in this condition. On the other hand, he himself needed time alone after the day’s strain. He could not keep the boy with him all night.

  Continuing past the door to his own quarters, he walked Guaire farther along the corridor until he came to Johannes’s door. Johannes was used to odd requests from his vicar general. He would take Guaire in.

  Camber’s light knock was answered almost immediately.

  “Vicar General, what—?”

  Shaking his head in warning, Camber drew Guaire into the room and sat him down in a chair beside the small fireplace.

  “Johannes, this is Guaire, who was Lord Camber’s squire,” he said, stroking Guaire’s hair in comfort as Guaire sobbed against the hand he would not release. “Can you fix a pallet for him, and let him stay the night?”

  “Of course, Father Gen
eral. Is there anything else I can do? Would a cup of wine help, do you think?”

  “I’ll bring some from my quarters,” Camber said, extricating his hand from Guaire’s and beckoning Johannes to come and take his place. “Sit with him while I’m gone, will you?”

  Back in his room, Camber thought about Guaire as he gathered up a wine pitcher and hunted for clean cups. He supposed he had known, or at least suspected, Guaire’s devotion to him as Camber. The boy had been a close friend of his son Cathan, though Camber had not actually met him until after Cathan’s death.

  But Camber had not realized the extent of the attachment Guaire made, even at that first meeting; and the attachment had grown during the long months of confinement in the Michaeline sanctuary with Cinhil. Now Guaire’s earnest, faithful trust had turned to near hysteria at Camber’s supposed death. Whatever was Camber going to do with him?

  He found the cups he had been searching for, then took a small casket from beside his bed and began searching for a sleeping powder. A good night’s sleep was first on the agenda. Unless he had greatly misjudged, Guaire’s grief would not abate with the mere passage of time. He was despondent, without comfort or purpose. His grief must be turned to more constructive ends. Rest would set the stage, but what then? Perhaps if he had it from Camber’s own mouth: the message of hope, of courage to go on, even in his hero’s absence …

  Camber sat thoughtfully on the edge of his bed and fingered a small packet of folded parchment as he reviewed how that might safely be done, concluding that neither the risks nor the difficulties seemed overly great. After a moment, he consulted his medicine chest again and took out another packet. The first he emptied into the pitcher of wine, for Johannes would have to be provided for, as well as Guaire. He slipped the second packet into his sash before taking up pitcher and cups and returning to Johannes’s room.

  Johannes was stirring the fire on the hearth and looked up worriedly. Guaire sat unmoving where Camber had left him, tear-swollen eyes staring sightlessly at the stone floor beneath his feet. Ruddy firelight danced on the finely chiseled features but brought no life to them. Had Guaire been carved of stone, he would have been a masterpiece of grief and dejection, but as a man, he was pitiful to behold.

  “I’ve brought wine for all of us,” Camber said. “I thought we could use it, after the day we’ve had.”

  He set three cups on the hearth and filled them, then casually took the packet from his sash and emptied its contents into one of the cups. What he did was shielded from Guaire’s vision, but he knew that Johannes was watching with interest, and would think that that was the sleeping potion, not realizing that all the wine had already been doctored.

  “You’ll feel better when you’ve slept, Guaire,” Camber said, glancing over his shoulder. “Shall I heat yours?”

  He did not wait for reply. He did not expect one. Swirling the wine in its cup, he pulled a hot poker from the flames. The wine sizzled as he plunged the glowing metal into it, and the spicy aroma began to fill the room. As he took Guaire’s cup and rose to go to him, he saw that Johannes had taken up one of the others without prompting and was drinking deeply. Camber smiled gently as he put Guaire’s warm cup into his hands.

  “Drink this, son. It will help you sleep.”

  Though Guaire’s hands closed around the cup, he did not otherwise move. With a slight sigh, Camber put one hand on the young man’s shoulder and with the other raised hands and cup to Guaire’s lips.

  “Come on, son. Drink it down. You’ll feel better.”

  Guaire obeyed, each automatic swallow loud and labored in the quiet room. When he had drained it to the dregs, Camber took the cup away and helped him stand. Guaire’s eyes were already becoming heavy as Camber and Johannes walked him to a pallet which Johannes had pulled out from under his own bed. His knees buckled as he collapsed on the padded mat. Camber adjusted a pillow under the lolling head, then pulled a sleeping fur from the bed and tucked that around him.

  Johannes yawned and sat down in the chair Guaire had just vacated, his own eyelids growing heavier and heavier as he watched Camber tending Guaire. Guaire seemed to be having trouble focusing.

  “Sleep, son,” Camber murmured, brushing hair back from the glazing eyes. “You’ll feel much better when you’ve had a good night’s sleep. Go to sleep now.”

  Camber had not dared to use his Deryni mind touch on Guaire before, for he had used it several times as Camber, and the young man might have recognized that touch. But Guaire was too far gone for it to matter now; and in the future, he would no longer be able to make the connection. Camber would see to that.

  But for now, the drugged wine was doing its work, lulling Guaire into a deeply receptive mental state where Camber could move without fear. As the red-rimmed eyes closed and the breathing rhythm changed to that of slumber, Camber sat back and watched for several minutes. He could hear Johannes snoring softly behind him, oblivious to everything, and he knew that the monk would not stir for the rest of the night.

  He smiled and gave Guaire’s forehead a last, fleeting touch, then rose and glanced at Johannes, deepening his sleep as well, before tiptoeing silently out of the room. In a little while, when the drugs in Guaire’s system had had a chance to take effect completely, he would return. Camber MacRorie would see that all was made right.

  Guaire turned and moaned in his sleep, then became aware that, though his eyes were still closed, he was suddenly alert and aware of himself again—of the warm, drowsy comfort, snuggled under the sleeping furs, of the flickering firelight playing on his closed eyelids, of the faint smell of burning wood, the lingering aroma of spiced wine.

  He remembered the wine, then, and was aware of the warm glow still permeating his stomach and, indeed, his whole being. Slowly the day’s events began filtering back to him. Strangely, they did not hurt him now as they had earlier.

  There was still the sense of loss, and his throat still ached from the continual constriction it had suffered for the past eight days since Camber’s death. But he felt strangely at peace. He wondered idly whether Father Cullen had put something in the wine to make him feel so calm.

  He was mulling that idea around, vaguely aware that he seemed to be thinking somewhat more slowly than usual, when he suddenly began to sense that something in the room had changed. A cold draft stirred his hair, and he started to huddle down under the furs to escape it. But then it suddenly struck him that the draft had come from the door, and that someone else was in the room.

  He rolled over and opened his eyes, expecting to see Brother Johannes or Father Cullen; but Johannes snored softly in his chair beside the fire. And somehow he knew that he would not see Father Cullen as he turned his head toward the door.

  What in—?

  He blinked, thinking that perhaps his eyes were playing tricks on him, then stared in amazement as a tall, light-shrouded figure began to move slowly toward him. He was not afraid, though the thought crossed his mind that perhaps he should be. He was feeling rather a sense of expectation—and that, too, seemed odd. He could not see the figure’s face—it wore a long gray cloak, the hood drawn close about the head. A silvery glow extended around the whole figure, wispy, amorphous.

  Childhood fantasies swept through his mind then, and the thought occurred to him that this could very well be a ghost—it certainly did not appear to be of this world. He started to sit up straight at that—then froze halfway up, leaning on one elbow, as he saw the face.

  “Camber!” he breathed, awe wiping his face of all other emotions.

  The figure came a few steps closer, then stopped. The gray hood fell back from the well-remembered silver-gilt hair. The face was serene and untroubled, the pale eyes glowing with an intensity which Guaire could not remember having seen before.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the figure said, in a voice astonishingly familiar. “I return but for a moment, to ease your grief and to assure you that I am at peace where I now dwell.”

  Guaire swallowed and nodded,
but could not quite find the courage to reply.

  “I have seen your sorrow these past days,” the figure continued, “and I am saddened that you should mourn so much for me.”

  “But—I miss you, Lord,” Guaire managed to whisper. “There was so much to do—and now it will go undone.”

  The figure smiled, and to Guaire it was as though the sun shone in the darkened chamber.

  “There are others who will do it, Guaire. You, if you only will.”

  “I?”

  Guaire finished sitting up and stared at the apparition in disbelief.

  “But how can that be, Lord? I am only a human. I have not the resources, the talent. You were the heart of the Restoration. Now, with you gone, the king will endure unchecked. I fear him, Lord.”

  “Pity him, Guaire. Do not fear him. And help those who remain to carry on our work: Joram, and Rhys, my daughter, Evaine—my grandsons, when they are older. And Alister Cullen, who brought you here. He, most of all, has need of your support, if you will only give it.”

  “Father Alister? But he is so gruff, and sure of himself. How could I possibly help him?”

  “He is not so self-sufficient as he would have men think,” the apparition replied, the familiar smile playing about his lips. “Gruff he may be, and sometimes far too stubborn for his own good. But he, even more than my children, will miss that companionship we used to share. Will you help him, Guaire? Will you serve him as you served me?”

  Guaire dropped his gaze to the figure’s feet, which he could not see beneath the voluminous cloak, then glanced up shyly at the shining face once more.

  “I could truly help him?”

  “You could.”

  “To serve him, as I served you?”

  “He is more than worthy, Guaire. And too proud to ask you for your help.”

  Guaire swallowed.

  “Very well, Lord. I will do it. And I will keep your memory alive, I swear it!”

  The figure smiled. “My memory is not important. The work we began is. Help Alister. Help the king. And be assured that I shall be with you, even when you are least aware. I count on you to carry out my work.”