The Quest for Saint Camber

by Katherine Kurtz

  “I don’t really understand why you want to go down there, Sire,” the man said, wringing his hands together as Saer joined in and the beam shifted. “It will be full of water, after all this rain. And I understand that no effort was ever made to restore the graves that were desecrated.”

  “Why, for shame, Brother,” Kelson murmured, grunting and straining at the slowly shifting beam. “Even if you hold with those who took away Camber’s sainthood, surely his kin before him did no harm, that they should deserve such treatment.”

  “Why, no one would argue that, Sire,” Brother Arnold said. Able to stand it no longer, he pitched in on the beam and helped move it far enough aside that a boy or a slender man could slip through, but not one of his own size, or even of Saer’s. “People did strange things in those days, though. They say that one of Camber’s sons used to be buried down in my churchyard, too, but the mob didn’t spare him when they sacked the castle, either; and he died long before all the rest of this happened. Local tradition has it that he should have been the saint, not his father.”

  “Indeed?”

  Kelson peered down into the opening and considered whether he really wanted to get his feet as wet as it looked to be down there.

  “How deep is it?” Dhugal murmured, craning to see over his shoulder.

  Saer took a torch from Dolfin and shoved it into the opening, but the resultant smoke obscured anything the increased light might have revealed.

  “Hmmm, that’s no good,” Kelson muttered. “Dhugal, do you want to do the honors? Brother Arnold, if you’re likely to be offended by a little Deryni assistance here, I suggest you leave now.”

  Arnold gulped audibly, but he did not back off.

  “I’ll—stay, my lord. You’ll—need someone to direct you to where the crypts were.”

  “Suit yourself.” Kelson took Dhugal’s hand as Dhugal lowered himself through the opening and dropped with a splash and a muffled oath.

  “Are you all right?” Kelson called.

  Silvery light filtered upward from the opening, and Brother Arnold blanched and crossed himself furtively.

  “Aye. Let me have a look around here. Wouldn’t you know I’d find the only pit in the place? The rest seems to be only ankle deep—except for the spot I picked.”

  “And how deep is that?” Kelson called, chuckling as he and Saer exchanged glances and Dolfin tried not to laugh behind his torch.

  “Oh, a little past my knees—just high enough to slosh over my boot tops when I landed. I just love wet feet. Try to aim a little farther to your right. I’ll guide you. And Saer had better stay up there, in case we need help getting out. You might send Dolfin for a rope, too.”

  Still chuckling, Kelson vaulted his legs over the edge of the opening and supported himself with his hands until he could lower himself enough to feel Dhugal’s hands on his boots, pushing him farther to the right.

  “All right, come on.”

  Smoothly he let himself drop, missing the hole but almost sprawling on his hands and knees instead, for the footing was uneven under the shallow water. Dhugal caught him, though, and steadied him as he straightened in the silver-lit gloom.

  “Creepy, isn’t it?” Dhugal murmured, as Kelson scanned the close-ceilinged chamber by the handfire hovering near Dhugal’s head.

  Kelson shivered, though as much from cold as from anything else. The place stank of stagnant water and the musty, slightly sweet odor of the charnel house, though perhaps that last was as much imagination as any real scent, for Kelson felt sure there could have been no burials down here for at least a hundred years. He motioned for Dhugal to take his handfire in hand again as he glanced up at the opening where the silhouettes of Saer and Brother Arnold blocked out most of the daylight.

  “Brother, you can come down if you want, but I fear it may be a tight squeeze for you to join us,” Kelson called. “Not to mention that it’s a goodly drop, and the only way out is back up a rope. You might prefer to direct us from there.”

  A nervous cough came from the side of the opening that was not Saer’s.

  “Ah, if you please, my lord, I think I would prefer to stay. I haven’t been down there in years and I’m not as thin as I used to be. But if you’ll turn so that a carved doorway is to your backs, you should be facing toward the length of the vault. Move straight ahead, as best you can, until you can’t go any farther, and you ought to be near the place where it’s said the Earl Camber was interred.”

  “And that’s where his shrine was?” Kelson asked.

  “Yes, Sire. But there’s really nothing left. They burned it, you know. That’s what brought down part of the roof.”

  “Bluidy fond of burning, they were,” Dhugal muttered darkly, his border accent oddly noticeable.

  Kelson flashed his foster brother a speculative glance.

  “All right, Saer, we’re going on in. We shouldn’t be too long.”

  “Aye, Kelson,” came Saer’s low reply.

  Kelson conjured more handfire as he followed Dhugal farther into the ruin, crimson to Dhugal’s silver, and set it to floating just above head level behind him. The footing continued to be very uneven under the water. Marauders had been thorough in their destruction of the place, and the passage of time had not improved on the state of things.

  “Look here,” Dhugal called, bending over a broken slab of marble just ahead. “Ballard MacRorie, Sextus Comes—Sixth Earl of Culdi. I can’t quite make out the dates, but it looks like 808 to 871. Would that make him Camber’s father?”

  Shuffling his feet to keep from splashing, Kelson moved closer to see what Dhugal had found, bending to pick up gingerly a piece of jawbone gleaming just under the surface of the water beside it.

  “I should think so,” he said. “Wasn’t Camber the seventh earl? Look at this.”

  “Hmmm, good teeth,” Dhugal observed, turning his attention back to another piece of slab jutting from the water beyond the first one. “This one says Ballard MacRorie, too, but it’s a later date: 877 to 888. Why, he was just a boy. And here’s another set of dates, 876 to 888, but the part with the first name’s broken off. Why in God’s name did they have to destroy the tombs of children?”

  Kelson shook his head. “Mankind has done a lot of stupid, wasteful things in God’s name, Dhugal. When has any of this sort of thing made sense?”

  He moved on past the spot where Dhugal was scrubbing at a film of moss growing on another marker stone and nearly fell as his boot slipped on a step going down. He must be very close to where the Camberian shrine once had been, for he was almost at the end of the chamber. But the water was deeper ahead, at least half a dozen steps leading down to the lower level of the final section of the crypt. He sent his handfire ahead, but there was little to see. Burned-out stubs of beams and ancient chapel furniture jutted from the water, interspersed with broken slabs of marble, and several tomb niches yawned wide and empty in the back wall. He thought he might be able to work his way a little closer by balancing on some of the underwater debris, but there seemed little point.

  “What do you think?” Dhugal asked, sloshing to his side. “Do you really want to get even wetter than you are?”

  Kelson wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Not particularly. It’s at least waist deep down there, and one can see from here that the tombs are all empty. Besides, whether one believes that Camber’s body was assumed into heaven from here or that his son moved it to another resting place, it hasn’t been here for over two hundred years.”

  “Well, we knew that before we came.”

  “True. But I wanted to see for myself. I might try one other thing before we leave, though,” Kelson added, picking his way carefully to the left until he could lean against a rough, slanted chunk of granite that had fallen from the arch. “Come and give me a little support. I’m going to try to cast for psychic impressions that may still be lingering.”

  Dhugal frowned, though he came dutifully, if soggily, to stand beside the king.

  “You’ll
be opening yourself up to a lot of garbage besides Camber, if you’re not careful. And all of this mayhem is a lot more recent than anything that might remain of him.”

  “True,” Kelson conceded. “None of it is likely to be very powerful after so long, though. I ought to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff without too much trouble.”

  “Well, you know your own abilities. What do you want me to do?”

  “Just give me your hand and stand by to brace my shields,” Kelson said. “One way or another, this isn’t going to take long.”

  Dhugal’s hand was cold in his as Kelson closed his eyes and let himself slip easily into trance, bolstered by Dhugal’s support. He went cautiously at first, only gradually slipping his shields to let impressions from his surroundings begin filtering through.

  Intimations of lingering violence came through most strongly, of course, just as expected, but he was able to shift that aside with relative ease. Actual images of what had happened here were harder to divert—the sacrilege of the shrine’s destruction, the tombs broken open and plundered, and bones, half-decomposed bodies, and even partially mummified remains dumped unceremoniously into the pyre whose fire eventually had brought down part of the roof.

  Kelson winced at the intensity of it, letting a little of it spill over for Dhugal’s reading. But there was nothing of the presence he had come to associate with Saint Camber. It was almost as if the saint had never been here. He was shaking his head as he came out of trance.

  “No luck?” Dhugal asked, blinking himself back to full awareness as well.

  “Not really.” Kelson gave the ruined chamber another visual scan, then called his handfire back. “Maybe we’ll have better luck at Iomaire, where he died. We’ll be there next week. Did you want to look at anything else?”

  “No, I just want to get my feet dry,” Dhugal quipped, lifting one wet boot clear of the water. “I could also use some food. Even the Lenten fare of our hosts at Saint Bearand’s will be welcome, with the empty pit I’ve got in my stomach.”

  The remark reminded Kelson that he was hungry, too, and the two of them jested about food as they made their way back to the entry hole and called for Saer and Dolfin to let down a rope.

  The king had not yet returned to Saint Bearand’s when Arilan’s courier finally caught up with the king’s party there at midafternoon. He was not expected back much before dusk. Earl Roger and a few of the men-at-arms had gone out for a gallop after the noon meal, and Jass and many of the others were still hunting, so Conall was the ranking knight present when the courier arrived.

  Hence, it was he to whom the courier reported, when he had made himself known to the Haldane lancer on duty at the abbey gate; and since Conall was the king’s cousin and at least a few of the letters were addressed to him in particular, the courier turned over the dispatch pouch without demur and went on to the refectory to sup on the sparse abbey fare of a Lenten Friday.

  Conall’s stomach tried to tie itself into knots as he took the pouch into the room he had been assigned. His squire was there, mending a strap on a breast collar off one of the sumpter horses, but Conall put him deeply and somewhat precipitously to sleep before upending the pouch on the rug in front of the fireplace and sorting quickly through the letters. Those addressed to himself, one each from his mother and his two brothers, he put aside immediately, for he could deal with them later, after Kelson returned; but those addressed to the king he scanned without opening, using the talent Tiercel had taught him for reading a sealed letter.

  Not unexpectedly, most were from Nigel and dealt with the day-to-day running of the kingdom—the usual sorts of dispatches sent to a king while away from his capital, to keep him generally informed as to what was occurring in his absence. A few were in Duncan’s hand, either in a clerical capacity for the prince regent, signed by Nigel, or else his own analysis of certain items. Those, too, were innocuous enough.

  One was from Duncan to Dhugal, however, with instructions to share it with Kelson, and it made Conall almost dizzy with fear, for it detailed Duncan’s discovery of Tiercel’s body in the secret passageway.

  Blast! It would have to have been Duncan who found the body!

  Another was from Arilan to Dhugal, inquiring as to any knowledge he might have of what transpired to bring about Tiercel’s death. The Deryni bishop had written a similar letter to Kelson, asking him to be certain that Dhugal responded to Arilan’s inquiry immediately.

  These last three frightened Conall, both singularly and in their combined implications. He had known that Tiercel’s body eventually must be found, but it was one thing to learn that the expected had happened and another to know that Duncan had found it—the one man in Rhemuth who might have been expected to recognize the dead man.

  And by now, not only Arilan but very likely all the other powerful and mysterious members of the Camberian Council had applied their not inconsiderable Deryni talents to probe Tiercel’s death further. And while none of the letters even hinted that Arilan suspected Tiercel’s death had not been accidental, much less mentioned Conall, Conall’s guilt gnawed at him like a hungry wolf; already extant jealousy began almost immediately to color the guilt.

  Conall found that the thought of Dhugal being questioned in the matter terrified him. If Arilan or Duncan or one of the others had been able to pin down a precise time for Tiercel’s death, Conall knew that Dhugal’s alibi was iron-clad. Conall had an alibi, too, for Jowan, his squire, could swear honestly under oath that his master had been abed early that night; but close questioning of the boy might reveal that his memory had been tampered with, and by whom.

  That, in itself, could be damning enough to press the inquiries further, for Conall had no business knowing how to do such things. And who knew but that Dhugal, under intensive interrogation, might remember hearing something connected with Conall’s wary approach to the doorway into his chambers, when Conall had tried to return through the palace after arranging Tiercel’s body on the landing? What if he could make a connection to Conall? After all, Conall had pushed Tiercel, even though he had not meant to do him serious harm.…

  But suppose, on the other hand, that evidence somehow could be contrived to implicate Dhugal in the matter? Now, there was an attractive proposition. Perhaps Dhugal could even be framed, thereby eliminating not only a dangerous potential betrayer, but also a troublesome rival. Of course, steps would have to be taken to ensure that Dhugal could not defend himself.…

  Conall thought about the notion as he restored all the letters to the dispatch pouch saving his own and the three dealing with Tiercel’s death. He had brought Tiercel’s drug satchel with him, for he dared not leave it behind and risk it being found. Perhaps something from that could be put to good use. He did not know the purpose of all the drugs in Tiercel’s pharmacopia, but he knew some of them—enough to ensure, if he could figure out a way to administer them, that Dhugal should not survive the next day.

  And not by a mere poison or overdose, either, for they rode through some very rugged country tomorrow. A more subtle solution was required—something sufficient only to blur the victim’s judgment or perceptions, or perhaps to lull him into a false sense of security. According to the monk who would guide them, there were ample opportunities for an unwary rider to meet a fatal accident.

  But Conall could do nothing to further his developing plan until the others returned, in any case, and he needed the time to decide exactly what he was going to do. After closing the courier pouch, he took it next door, into the room Kelson and Dhugal shared, and left it beside the snoring Ciard O Ruane. Then he went back to his own quarters to let Jowan wake up, to read his own letters, and to firm up his plans for later in the evening.

  Kelson and his companions returned just in time to hear Vespers, and Conall watched fearfully and jealously as Dhugal walked into the abbey, arm in arm with the king. The prince did not even try to pray as he knelt not far from them, though he mouthed the responses dutifully enough and bowed his head at
the appropriate times.

  Afterwards, at supper, Conall was as merry as any in the refectory, at least within the bounds of Lenten propriety. He even stayed a while to listen to the ballads one of the lay brothers sang when the royal party had retired to the abbot’s quarters for another casual hour by the fire.

  No one tarried late, though, for Saer meant them to get an early start, to be well through the pass before any chance of failing light. And so, when the king and his favorite retired even before Compline, Conall, too, made his devoirs to the abbot and repaired to his bed.

  He dared not sleep, however. Not much later, when all the abbey slept in those deeply silent hours between Compline and Matins, Conall made his way without challenge to the abbey stables, where harness and equipment was already assembled, ready for an early departure after Mass in the morning. There he located Dhugal’s belongings without difficulty, and slipped the stopper from a shoulder flask already filled with wine for the next day’s journey. He sniffed of the contents before adding the contents of the earthenware vial he had concealed on his person since late afternoon, to ensure that the scent and taste would cover what he had added. He need not worry if Dolfin or Ciard or one of the other servants had a nip from the flask, for Tiercel had told Conall that the drugs only affected those of Deryni blood.

  Then, apprehensive but at the same time thrilled, Conall quickly returned to his own bed and lay down, though he did not sleep much in what remained of the night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The way of a fool is right in his own eyes.

  —Proverbs 12:15

  The next morning dawned still and damp, pregnant with the probability of more rain, though none was yet falling. The local monks, when questioned about the outlook, avowed that the weather should clear by noon—but the time of year was capricious. Even snow was not unheard of in the passes, well into March. Given the present aspect of the sky, either storm, snow, or a clear day were equal possibilities.

  After Mass and over a far more leisurely breakfast than originally planned, Kelson considered what to do. It still was not raining. Nor did they even need to worry about getting all the way through the pass today, for there was a small abbey at the summit that could surely provide them a dry place to sleep, if it came to that. Saer declared himself half of a mind to delay another day, in hopes that more definite signs of clearing weather might prevail over the clouds scudding along the eastern horizon, but Kelson was impatient to be gone, fired by the prospect of what he might learn at Iomaire—for a shrine once had graced the spot where Camber fell in battle, and the king hoped he might learn more there of Camber than he had at Caerrorie.