The Quest for Saint Camber

by Katherine Kurtz

  “If you are too ill, we can delay, my lord,” she said quietly. “I would not increase your discomfort.”

  “If you know what I went through last night, then you know what it’s costing me to function today—but, no, there’s no need for delay.” He drew another deep breath. “What did you wish to ask me?”

  “Very well, my lord. It concerns your squire. What can you tell me of him?”

  “Jatham?”

  He knew immediately that her interest was in Janniver’s behalf, for he had seen the Connaiti princess’ reaction when his squire came into her presence; but even so, he felt a quick pang of alarm clench at his throat as he feared, just for an instant, that Rothana asked for her own sake. Something of that fear must have slipped past his still unsteady shields, for suddenly she blinked and seemed to bite back a distressed smile, though she covered most of the reaction by turning deliberately to look out at the garden again.

  “Nay, do not look in his direction, my lord. We are here to inspect the garden. And pray, keep your voice down. But you saw how he and Janniver looked at one another. I can tell you that she is quite taken with him—and it seems there is a certain attraction on his part as well, though I suspect he believes himself too far beneath her ever to have his suit encouraged. What is his lineage, if I may ask?”

  The question annoyed Kelson, perhaps because he had heard it asked all too often about potential royal brides.

  “Oh, come, my lord, he cannot be baseborn, or he could not be a royal squire,” Rothana murmured, her soft voice tinged with impatience. “Therefore, he must be of gentle, if not noble birth—and he will be Sir Jatham, come Tuesday, will he not? And the accolade well deserved, from everything I hear.”

  Kelson snorted. “If you have heard all that, my lady, I wonder that you need to ask my counsel.”

  “Oh, fie, that is but common gossip around court, Sire! I had hoped you might tell me more of the man. I would see my little princess honorably wed—” Her face fell. “Or, is Jatham one of those men who would not deign to offer marriage to a ruined girl?”

  “Ruined?” Kelson found himself saying, not a little defensively. “Isn’t that a trifle harsh, my lady, and you her friend?”

  Rothana looked out at the garden again, dark eyes shuttered.

  “Pray, remember that there are others nearby, my lord. The world is sometimes harsh. And the harsh truth of this matter is that most men prefer their brides unsullied. Kings and princes insist upon it.”

  “This king would not!”

  “No?” she returned. “Would you marry her, then, my lord? I think not. Nor would your lords of state permit it, even if you so desired. Besides, could you truly take her to your sacred marriage bed, knowing that Ithel of Meara had had his pleasure of—”

  “Pleasure?” Kelson remembered only just in time that he must keep his voice down and managed not to shout. “Madame, there was precious little of pleasure in that act, for either of them!—as you, yourself, should know!”

  Rothana recoiled a step at that, herself obviously reminded of the intimacy of that moment when she had forced the memory of Janniver’s rape upon him in the ruins at Saint Brigid’s—and what else had passed between them.

  “Forgive me, Sire. I should never have done that to you,” she whispered. “I am occasionally far too willful for a nun. It was an unconscionable liberty on my part.”

  Breathing out audibly, Kelson managed a taut, careful nod.

  “Aye, it was,” he conceded, at least partially mollified. “But probably a valuable piece of education for a king. And you’re right that I wouldn’t marry Janniver—though not because of anything that happened to her at Saint Brigid’s. I suppose I still dare allow myself to hope that love will have a part in the selection of my next wife.”

  “I hope that it may, my lord,” Rothana murmured.

  “And I. Still, I won’t have you speaking that way of Janniver. The poor girl didn’t ask to be raped, after all—though one might think she had, judging from the correspondence I’ve had in the last six months from her father and her former husband-to-be.” He sighed. “I’m afraid they’re two princes of the kind you were talking about.”

  “Alas, I must agree, Sire,” Rothana replied quietly. “But your Jatham, I pray, is not a prince, or even such a man.”

  “No.”

  “Then, would he have her to wife, do you think?”

  Kelson managed a wry smile. “I think he might, given the slightest encouragement.”

  “Royal encouragement, Sire?” she asked, looking at him sidelong.

  “Well, I can’t command the man to fall in love.”

  “Oh, no one said anything about commanding, Sire. You need not even persuade him, as only one of our blood could do.”

  She turned her gaze to the forgotten garden once more.

  “Well, then, that’s settled,” she murmured. “Just say that you will do your best to encourage him—and then we can get on with this dreary business of picking out the greenery.”

  “Dreary—greenery?”

  “Well, that is why we’re standing here, looking out at the garden, is it not?”

  “Why, Sister Rothana, you love this, don’t you?” Kelson blurted, in that instant, amazed beyond thinking of his own romantic interests. “Can it be that the little nun is actually called to be a matchmaker?”

  He regretted that, the instant he had said it, for it was all to near his own wishes in the matter. He was horrified to realize that he was blushing, but mercifully she had kept her gaze riveted to the garden, pretending that she had not heard.

  “Now, then,” she breathed, after he had had time to recover. “We were selecting greenery—and we really should go back to the others. Yes, ivy, I think, for the knighting of a winter king and his compan—”

  “Kelson, should you not be in seclusion, preparing for your impending knighthood?” a cool female voice asked, unexpectedly close behind them in the opening of the window embrasure as they turned to go. “And Sister, I cannot imagine that your lady abbess would approve of private speech with a young gentleman.”

  The speaker was Jehana, Kelson’s mother, and where she had come from, Kelson had no idea, for she had not been in the hall when he entered. He wished she were not now, for he had no energy to spare for dealing with her, especially after the exchange he had just had with Rothana.

  Jehana had returned to court the previous spring, immediately stating her intention to have a hand in the choosing of Kelson’s next wife, for she believed that the right woman could make him renounce his powers as she had done with Kelson’s father, thereby mitigating the evil of his Deryni blood. She had brought her chaplain and a sister called Cecile and continued to wear the stark white habit of a novice of Saint Giles’ Abbey, but she had not yet managed to reconcile the vast potential of her own Deryni blood. Nor had the renunciation of her own powers been nearly as successful as she might have wished. More than once, since her return, she had been driven to use those powers, always at great cost to her notions of morality about such use.

  She still paid lip service to her intention not to use them again, however, and heartily resented any Deryni who did use the powers she believed Satan had given. Rothana’s abbess and the rest of the sisters of her order continued to reside within the castle precincts, awaiting the milder days of summer before journeying back to abandoned Saint Brigid’s, so Jehana had taken to attending their Masses and other offices, though she habitually shunned Rothana. She deemed it an abomination that the Deryni girl should have presumed to take religious vows—a thing she longed to do, but dared not.

  “Sister, I am speaking to you,” Jehana continued pointedly, when the two merely turned to gape at her. “Should you not be about your devotions? I would have speech with my son. Please be so good as to leave us.”

  Rothana lowered her eyes and made the queen a dutiful curtsey, ready to obey, but Kelson stayed her with an arm outstretched to bar her way.

  “Sister Rothana and I h
ave not yet finished our conversation, Mother,” he said crisply. “And for your information, I was preparing for my impending knighthood. We were discussing the altar decorations for the vigil tomorrow night. Is it to be ivy, then, Sister?”

  He could sense the smile Rothana dared not show as she made him a slight bow, hands tucked demurely in her sleeve openings and eyes still downcast.

  “I think so, my lord. And holly, if there’s any left this late. That will lend some color. I would suggest mistletoe as well—that’s apt, for virgin knights—but the archbishop would probably forbid it as a pagan practice. If you will excuse me, Sire, I’ll see to it.” She made him a curtsey that included Jehana, though with just a hint of defiance. “Good day, Your Majesty.”

  Jehana was speechless until Rothana had entirely quit the hall.

  “The insolence! The cheek!” she murmured. “I’ll speak to her superior.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Kelson replied, firmly taking her arm to lead her deeper into the window bay. “You were very rude. That’s graceless in any woman and inexcusable in a queen.”

  “How dare you speak to me that way?”

  “If you wish to continue welcome at this court, you’ll curb your tongue, madame!” He had not raised his voice, but there was no mistaking his anger. “You were rude because she is Deryni. I won’t tolerate that.”

  “But she’s a nun, Kelson. As Deryni, her soul was already in jeopardy, but to take vows—”

  “I believe the lady’s soul is her own business, Mother—and that of her confessor.”

  “Who is, himself, Deryni, and he a bishop!” Jehana challenged. “Or didn’t you know she’d begun going to your precious Bishop Duncan?”

  “Careful, Mother. He’s my confessor, too.”

  “And damned, for having defied the Church to be ordained, knowing what he was!”

  Kelson turned away to look out into the hall and caught several people staring—though they immediately pretended not to be.

  “It’s pointless to continue this discussion,” he murmured. “You’re making a scene. And you’re absolutely correct that I should be in seclusion, preparing for my knighthood. I’ll do that now, if you don’t mind. Dhugal, Jatham, attend me, please.”

  He had raised his voice to call them from the next bay, and they appeared almost at once, both looking frankly embarrassed, for they could not have failed to overhear much of the exchange.

  “Gentlemen, my lady mother has correctly reminded me that we should all be making preparations for tomorrow,” he said, stepping past Jehana to join them. “We shall keep a nightlong vigil on the morrow, so tonight should see us early to bed. Jatham, this means you as well. You’re hereby relieved of all further squiring duties. Dolfin will serve tonight, and you’ll dine with Dhugal and me in my quarters. There’s something I wish to discuss with you,” he added, glancing at the door whereby Rothana had exited. “Mother, I and my companions bid you a respectful good night.”

  His brisk bow before turning on his heel to leave was echoed a trifle more respectfully by the two who followed him wide-eyed from the hall. Blessedly, no one apprehended them again on their way to his chambers. He and Dhugal even had time for a nap before Dolfin brought a hearty supper—a meal that quickly took on festive overtones when Kelson broached the subject of the Princess Janniver to Jatham.

  Afterward, Duncan came to them briefly, to ensure that all three slept soundly in preparation for the ceremonies of the next two days. They rose at noon, sober but refreshed, to pass the remaining hours until sunset in quiet reflection, as was seemly for young warriors about to undergo their knightly initiation.

  The formal observances began at Monday Vespers, with the assembly of all the candidates and their sponsoring knights at Saint Hilary’s Basilica. Prince Nigel stood for Kelson and Conall, and Morgan for Dhugal, and there were more than twenty candidates, each with his sponsor armed and formal at his side. Monks from the cathedral chapter came up from Saint George’s to sing the Office, and their voices floated celestially pure among the roof beams of the ancient church.

  Archbishop Cardiel preached the sermon that night, instructing all present on the duties and obligations of the estate about to be entered. As a part of the service, all the sponsoring knights renewed their knightly vows as a group, that they might better assist their charges. Afterward, assisted by Bishops Arilan and McLain, the archbishop presented each novice knight with the traditional garments of knightly profession: the long, loose-fitting white tunic, symbolizing purity; the shorter overtunic of black, with hose and boots the same, reminder of death and the earth to which all must eventually return; and the crimson mantle, betokening nobility, but also the blood that a true knight must be prepared to shed in defense of his lord and in the service of his vows.

  These the candidates donned after undergoing the prescribed ritual bath, each assisted by his sponsor. They returned at midnight, in solemn, candlelit procession, there to make their own vows before the high altar, witnessed by their sponsors and the bishops. After that, following special prayers and blessings, the candidates were left alone to keep watch over their arms through the rest of the night.

  Kelson knelt on the lowest altar step, hands resting on the quillons of the Haldane sword, sometimes resting his forehead against the pommel when he bowed his head in prayer. Conall knelt slightly behind and to his right side, Dhugal to his left. It was not until nearly dawn, when the altar candles had nearly guttered out and Kelson’s attention was drifting, that he realized there were tiny cuts of mistletoe mixed in with the holly and ivy on the altar.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Many seek the ruler’s favor.

  —Proverbs 29:26

  As steel descended toward his unarmored shoulder, King Kelson of Gwynedd suddenly found himself helpless to move or even to blink. Eyes as grey as his own, Haldane keen and as little to be swayed, held him frozen as the blade flashed inexorably downward. Kelson had the chilling impression that he could not have broken that immobility even if his life depended on it—which, thank God, it did not.

  For it was his Uncle Nigel’s hand on the hilt of the weapon—the royal sword that had knighted Nigel and nearly every other seasoned warrior present in the great hall of Rhemuth Castle—and the loyal Dukes Alaric and Ewan MacEwan stood solemn witness to either side of Nigel, sanctioning the deed. What held Kelson was not fear, but awe at joining the ranks of knights such as these, as the flat of the blade pressed briefly to his right shoulder, left shoulder, then to the top of his uncrowned head.

  “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, be thou a good and faithful knight,” Nigel said, lifting the blade to kiss the sacred relic in its hilt before handing it off to Morgan, who sheathed it with characteristic economy of motion. “Arise, Sir Kelson Cinhil Rhys Anthony Haldane, and receive the other symbols of thy new estate.”

  Released at last from his immobility, Kelson grinned and obeyed, letting Nigel and old Ewan assist him to his feet. The golden spurs of knighthood were already on his heels, set there by Morgan and Ewan before he knelt to receive the accolade. The spurs, like the sword, had been his father’s.

  Two other items of this morning’s attire also had been his father’s, though they had to do with kingship rather than the accolade he had just received. One was the great ruby in his right earlobe, worn by every Haldane sovereign since the great Cinhil of the Haldane Restoration. The other was the fist-sized disk of red enamel clasping his crimson mantle, bearing the golden lion rampant guardant of the House of Haldane.

  Only noble significance—not royal—attached to the rest of the king’s garb this morning, however. For beneath the crimson mantle, he still wore the traditional garb of any novice knight, received from the archbishop the night before. He held his arms a little away from his body as his mother, Queen Jehana, buckled the white belt of knighthood around his waist. Like the white undertunic, it signified purity, but in the sense of chastity, or faithfulness to one’s chosen s
tate—a fitting virtue for any upright man.

  That symbolism was behind Jehana’s now customary white novice’s habit and wimple, too, though Kelson thought she might have worn more queenly attire today, of all days. It was one thing for professed nuns like the Sisters of Saint Brigid to wear religious garb to such an important court function; it was embarrassing when one’s mother, who had taken no vows as yet, retained her austere adopted garb as a personal statement of protest against her son’s way of life. The queen’s sole concession to rank this morning was a cross-embellished circlet holding her veil in place, which paled almost to insignificance beside the jewels and Haldane crimson worn by Meraude, the only other woman seated on the dais. Even the men outshone her—Nigel, resplendent in a heraldic surcoat richly appliquéd with his arms in silk and gold bullion, a voluminous mantle of Haldane crimson falling from his shoulders, collared with black fox; old Ewan in his fur-lined robes of fine wool and highland tartans; and Morgan—

  Of course, if Morgan had wanted to, he could have overshadowed every other person in the hall by his mere presence. He could wear sack cloth and ashes and still be more a prince than most men born to the purple and dressed in the richest raiment and most costly jewels. Clad in forest green velvet as he was today, ducally crowned with gold and with Kelson’s sword in his hands, he looked like some elemental godling—sunlight on forest leaves and pine boughs, puissant and vital, but focused only on his king and liege.

  It was Morgan who approached Kelson now, to bow his golden head and lay the sheathed sword of state across his king’s outstretched hands—the royal sword, King Brion’s sword, a potent symbol handed down through the Haldane line for generations—and sometimes, in the duly consecrated hands of an anointed Haldane king, a magical implement. King Brion was more than four years dead now, but his legacy both of crown and of magic seemed secure at last in this slender eighteen-year-old who had just been dubbed knight. Kelson wondered, as he brought the hilt of the sword to his own lips in salute, whether Brion would have approved of what his son had done with the kingdom left him so untimely; he wished his father could have lived to see this day.