The Quest for Saint Camber

by Katherine Kurtz

  “If there should be, I’ll bounce you back, return to Dhassa to deal with the situation, then come back for you again,” Arilan said, drawing Duncan close against him, his voice very near Duncan’s right ear. “Close your eyes and relax now, and we’ll go. Don’t fight me, or I swear I’ll make you take a horse next time. If we should have to do any to-and-froing, that’s going to waste enough energy as it is; and I’ve got other things to do after I’ve seen you safely on your way to Dhassa.”

  “How far is it to where the Camberian Council meets?” Duncan whispered, expecting no answer as the last of the handfire’s glow died away behind his closed eyelids.

  From Rhemuth or from Dhassa? came Arilan’s bemused reply, just before his mind wrapped around Duncan’s like a blanket of fog, dense and almost physical, and closed out everything with a soft, numbing greyness.

  Duncan felt the vague, stomach-wrenching shift of the jump, subtly blunted by Arilan’s silken control, and an instant of suspended not-ness into which not even the grief penetrated, almost as if Duncan had managed to leave it behind in Rhemuth. But then the soul-numbing sense of loss was back, and Duncan opened his eyes to near darkness again, though they were not where they had been.

  “Well, we’re in luck,” Arilan whispered. “Even Nivard’s elsewhere, though I’m going to have to go find him, if he’s to be any help to you.”

  “How much are you going to tell him?” Duncan asked.

  They had appeared in a tiny side chapel, hardly more than an oratory, opening off the left of the main chapel—Duncan presumed it was in Dhassa. A rack of votive candles in clear glass holders illumined an odd, tight expression on Arilan’s face just before he moved out of range, heading into the chapel proper.

  “Well, you’re hardly a private figure, after all,” Arilan murmured. “Don’t worry, you can trust him. Take a few minutes to learn this Portal while I try to fetch him up. And it might be a good idea at least to look like you’re praying, in case anyone should happen by. Nor would a true prayer be out of order, I think. I shan’t be long.”

  He was gone before Duncan could ask any more questions, leaving the door to the chapel a little ajar. Duncan stared after him for a few seconds, a little uneasy, then shifted his attention to the tingle of the Portal beneath his feet. A vaguely circular pattern in the mosaic of the floor tiles marked the Portal’s location visually, but he needed more than that to make it his for all time.

  Kneeling, he dropped both hands to brush the floor on either side of him, bowing his head and closing his eyes as he extended his senses to discern the peculiar features that made this Portal unique. Within a dozen heartbeats, he knew that he could reach out and link it with the power of any of the other four Portals he knew. It was a reassuring feeling that helped blunt the enormity of the physical effort he would have to exert in the next few days, though it did little to blunt the emotional beating he had taken in the past hour.

  He had doffed his cap and was praying in fact, begging God that his son and Kelson might yet be found alive, when he heard the chapel door open again. He kept his head bowed, pretending to be yet in prayer as two sets of footsteps started down the center aisle.

  “Come and meet Father John Nivard,” Arilan’s low voice said, releasing Duncan from his taut listening and apprehension.

  Duncan rose and turned to face them, expecting a staid and dignified older man, and was surprised to find that Father Nivard was young. In fact, he looked hardly old enough even to be a priest, much less chaplain to a bishop of Arilan’s stature—pink-cheeked and still a little soft with puppy fat, the top of his head barely reaching Arilan’s shoulder, dark curls springing crisply from around his tonsure like the halo on some pagan godling.

  Duncan could not see whether the eyes matched the imagery, for the young priest kept them modestly averted as he and Arilan approached, but the hands were squared and sturdy, hard with honest work, as he knelt to kiss Duncan’s ring—for Arilan introduced Duncan by his true name and rank. What surprised Duncan even more than Nivard’s youth was the quickly damped flare of shields as their hands touched.

  Good God, could this be one of Arilan’s other Deryni priests?

  “I am honored to meet you, Excellency,” Nivard murmured, awe touching voice and demeanor as he raised sea-green eyes to meet Duncan’s. “Bishop Denis tells me you require very discreet assistance. How may I be of service?”

  Awed himself, Duncan raised the young man up and glanced at Arilan, though he did not release Nivard’s hand.

  “One of ours?” he breathed.

  Arilan smiled and nodded.

  “Go ahead and test his shields. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. When I found John, nearly four years ago, he was a seminarian having a crisis of conscience because he was just beginning to discover what he was and was sure he would have to abandon his vocation. I fancy he’s done rather well since then, all things considered. I ordained him last fall.”

  “Ah, then, you’re still quite a new priest, too, aren’t you?” Duncan murmured, turning his attention back to Nivard.

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Do you mind?”

  Nivard swallowed and shook his head.

  “No, sir.”

  Duncan started to flick a tendril of thought against Nivard’s shields, then paused as the sea-pale eyes flinched a little at his mere glance.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind, Father?” Duncan repeated. “I don’t have to do this. And you don’t have to let me.”

  Nivard’s hand was trembling under his now, but the young man only shook his head again, glancing furtively at Arilan for reassurance.

  “I’m not afraid, Excellency,” he whispered. “I just—”

  “He’s just unaccustomed to having anyone else probe beyond his shields yet,” Arilan explained. “Other than myself, you’re the first of our kind that he’s ever met, who knew what he was. And I think, perhaps, that our young Father John is a little in awe of you, Duncan. John, I can play the intermediary, if you wish, but I really think you’re ready to try it on your own. I assure you, Father Duncan has a very gentle touch—probably gentler than mine, if the truth be known.”

  “Perhaps it’s best if we just wait,” Duncan said. “I can’t guarantee that my touch will be that gentle, in the state I’m in.”

  “No,” Arilan said, “it’s time he learned this; and I want the two of you to be able to work together, at least on a general level, in case you need his help when you come back. John, show him the physical layout of the cathedral complex. That’s a specific topic that isn’t at all threatening, and one that will benefit Duncan as well.”

  Trembling still, Nivard drew a deep breath and let it out as he had been taught, slipping into a light trance before Duncan could raise any further objection. Duncan sensed the surfaces of the other’s shields clearing, and on impulse, raised his free hand to touch fingertips lightly to the young priest’s eyelids. The additional physical contact, plus not having to look at Duncan anymore, was the catalyst to let Nivard roll back his shields with near-perfect control. The trembling stopped as he laid out everything Arilan had ordered for Duncan’s inspection, shyly inviting deeper contact when Duncan’s tentative penetration of his shields did not produce discomfort.

  Duncan took it all in in an instant, assimilating it without hesitation and then following as Nivard allowed an even deeper probe, gaining confidence when contact with the legendary Duncan McLain turned out to be not nearly as frightening as he had feared it might. Duncan did not push the probe, but he followed where Nivard allowed it to go. When he surfaced, just a heartbeat after Nivard, and let his hand fall away from the young man’s face, releasing his hand as well, he found Arilan staring at him, Nivard with a sheepish grin on his face.

  “Now, was that so bad?” Arilan asked dryly. “I do suspect that the contact involved somewhat more than a showing of the cathedral plans, but I gather no one has any complaints.”

  Duncan shook his head. “My compliments
to your prize student, Denis. Father, we must try that again when I’m not so distracted. Meanwhile, I think I must be off, if you don’t mind. I’ll need a good horse, instructions to the post houses for changes of mounts, and provisions for a full day on the road. I want to be in Coroth by this time tomorrow.”

  “To bring Duke Alaric back here?” Nivard breathed.

  “Aye. Can you arrange to be wherever you leave me tonight, two days hence, so we can get back here safely and without anyone knowing who we are?”

  “Yes, Excellency, of course.”

  “On that note, then,” Arilan said wryly, moving onto the Portal circle behind them, “I shall bid you both adieu and be off about my business. Father Nivard, if anyone should ask, I’ve not been here, and you know nothing about the news Duncan has brought.”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  With that, Arilan simply disappeared, so far as the two left standing in the chapel were concerned. And half an hour later, mounted on a sturdy mountain pony and lightly provisioned for the dash down the mountains and across the plain to Coroth, Duncan was on his way as well, leaving a starry-eyed young priest to muse on what he had experienced.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I am clean without transgression, I am innocent.

  —Job 33:9

  In Alaric Morgan’s capital city of Coroth, a very hard day’s ride southeast of Dhassa, nothing was yet known of the news Duncan McLain brought. Indeed, even the news of Tiercel’s death had not yet arrived, for the messenger Duncan had sent at the beginning of the week was only now disembarking from a ship in Coroth Bay and counting himself fortunate to have reached his destination at all, given the unseasonal spring storms. The monk in the forest green mantle and cassock of a canon regular of Saint George’s Cathedral drew some consolation in learning that the weather had been no better in Coroth for the past week, since the duke’s return. Today was the first day it had not rained in nearly a month.

  Nor, snug in his solarium at Coroth Castle, did Corwyn’s duke have any inkling of a messenger’s approach, either the man in the harbor or the one riding pell-mell from Dhassa. In truth, events of the outside world were far from his mind at that moment. A cold, damp wind blew off Coroth Bay, wailing around the parapets and whistling shrill and bleak around the window fittings, but it was cozy and warm where Morgan pored over a table covered with tally sticks and counters.

  Warm physically, at least. A fire burned cheerily in the fireplace across the narrow room, and a charcoal brazier warmed his booted feet, propped on a green leather footstool. But psychic frost in the air made Morgan glad of the heavy, fur-lined court robe he wore this morning, though it was a poor substitute for snuggling next to the sultry warmth of his wife on such a morning, back in their great canopied bed.

  Not that such a pleasant pastime was likely, with Richenda in her present state of agitation, even if official duties would not call him from her within the hour. While he had been reviewing revenues for an assizes court to convene shortly in the ducal hall—a tedious task, at best, that was made no more pleasant by his wife’s ill humor—Richenda had been pacing back and forth before his table and arguing.

  Or rather, Richenda was arguing and Morgan was allowing himself to be preoccupied by the counting board and the tally sticks spread out before him, only half listening, for he had heard all these arguments before. Stacks of markers dotted the checkered cloth covering the counting table, each representing the income of a particular manor in the east of Coroth over the past year—incomes in knights’ services as well as cash and kind, the former a vital ingredient for the defense of the eastern borders with Torenth, with which Kelson had charged Corwyn’s duke.

  And then there was the baby to consider—far more attractive a proposition than Richenda’s arguments or manorial incomes, so far as Morgan was concerned. He and Richenda had already chosen Kelric as the boy’s first name, to honor Kelson as well as Alaric; and Richenda favored Alain as a second—the name Morgan himself had borne the first time he and Richenda met, outside the Shrine of Saint Torin—while Morgan preferred Richard. Perhaps the lad would end up with both.

  But as Morgan mused on the joy of soon having a son in addition to the little daughter with which Richenda had presented him two years before, his attention to the mother of those children strayed beyond even her forbearance.

  “Alaric, have you heard a word I’ve said?” Richenda asked, suddenly stopping to rest both hands on the table opposite him, blue eyes flashing.

  Morgan, checking a tally stick for the newly refortified manor of the Sieur de Vali, looked up in surprise. In the sweeping blue robe she had donned upon rising—for she had announced her adamant intention to attend court with him, despite the advice of Master Randolph, her physician—he could almost forget that in less than a month, she would present him with his first son.

  “My dear, I’ve heard every word. The problem is, I’ve heard them all before—and there really isn’t time to go into all of this again, with court convening in a quarter hour.”

  “There’s never time,” she murmured, twisting angrily at the marriage ring on her left hand. “You’ve been home for a week, after nearly a month’s absence and most of a winter’s procrastination about dealing with this, and I still can’t get you to give me an honest answer. Do I have to Truth-Read to find out what’s bothering you, Alaric?”

  “I’ve told you, I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he murmured, returning his attention to the counters representing the de Vali incomes and dipping his quill to make a notation. “You shouldn’t be concerning yourself with serious matters when your time is so near.”

  “Ah, I see,” she said softly. “So a breeding woman’s judgment is not to be taken seriously, is it? You think this is just a hysterical reaction?”

  “Not hysterical, dear. But you really needn’t worry your pretty head about it. In a few months, after the baby’s born and you’re yourself again, we’ll talk about it.”

  The next thing Morgan knew, Richenda was yanking the checkered counting cloth off the table in front of him, upsetting ink across his assize roll and sending tally sticks and counters flying in every direction as he watched in helpless horror. He lunged to try to save the inkwell from smashing on the floor, but realized only just in time that to do so would have added his hands and possibly his court robe to the list of casualties. The sound of shattering glass only punctuated Richenda’s continuing tirade.

  “Listen to me, damn you!” she screamed. “I am not just a ducal brood mare! Nor am I just an ornament for your court! And I am not even mistress of my own house!”

  “Richenda!”

  He caught her wrist as she swung at him halfheartedly and burst into tears. Even though he was very angry—for the counters now scattered over the carpet represented hours of work undone, not to mention the ruined assize roll—he tried to draw her closer to calm her.

  “Richenda, you’re overwrought,” he murmured. “It’s your condition.”

  “It is not my condition! There’s nothing wrong with my condition. And if I’m overwrought, it’s because of you! I’m not sick and I’m not a child. Why do you persist in treating me like one?”

  “Because you’re acting like one, and a spoiled one at that! Look at what you’ve done!”

  “Aren’t you going to hit me?” she taunted. “That’s what one does to a spoiled child, isn’t it? I’ve upset your precious tallies. They obviously mean more to you than I do!”

  “Hit you?” Morgan released her instantly. “When have I ever hit you, or even been unkind to you? Why would you even think such a thing?”

  Drawing herself up with dignity, Richenda half turned away from him.

  “I do believe I’ve finally engaged your attention,” she said coolly.

  “My attention?” Morgan set his fists on his hips in amazement. “Richenda, you almost always have my attention. You are never far from my thoughts.”

  Tears started to well in her eyes again, and she lowered her h
ead to stare at her hands, twisting a fold of her gown in agitation.

  “Alaric, I know you love me in your way,” she said softly. “But your heart is in Rhemuth with the king and Duncan, even when your body is not.”

  “That isn’t true.”

  “It is, and you know it. I don’t begrudge you that, for they were your family long before I came into your life—and even if I didn’t know how much you love them both, your simple duty as a duke and privy councillor would require that you spend a certain amount of time at court each year.”

  “Much of which you, too, have spent at court with me,” Morgan replied. “Our separations have not been that great, I think.”

  “Perhaps not,” she conceded. “But this is my home now, Alaric.”

  “Well, haven’t you been here at home for the past six months? And haven’t I been with you most of that time?”

  She sighed. “Even when you are here, I am not mistress of my own house, for the master’s wishes take precedence. And when you are gone …”

  Morgan folded his arms at that, for they had come back to an old, old bone of contention that he had never been able to bring himself to explain.

  “Why will you not make me regent in your absence, Alaric?” she asked. “And why will you never answer me that question? Surely, after three years of marriage, you can trust that I know the affairs of Corwyn well enough to govern in your place when you’re away. I’m the granddaughter of a sovereign prince, for goodness’ sake! I learned statecraft at his knee. Do you think I didn’t run Bran’s estates for him when he was away? Have I been that bad a manager of Brendan’s lands?”

  Agonizing inside, Morgan came and took her hand, though he kept his mind tightly shielded from any attempt she might have made to pry.

  “No,” he said softly, “you’ve done very well. And I’m sure you would do as well for Corwyn, if I made you regent. Better, because you are here, while you govern Marley mostly in absentia.”