“Well, I know that,” Kelson muttered, giving Dhugal a sour glance. “Where’d you get a fish?”
Dhugal chuckled and held up his hands, wiggling his fingers in display. “I charmed him right into my clutches. Marvelous, the things one can do, if one’s Deryni. He hadn’t any eyes, either.”
“No eyes?” Kelson glanced at the fish spitted on a stick above the fire. “What do you mean, no eyes?”
Shrugging, Dhugal fetched the fish on the stick and handed it to Kelson.
“He hasn’t got any. Here, see for yourself. He’s ready to eat, anyway. I guess they don’t need eyes, living down here in the dark and all.”
Looking a little queasy, Kelson handed the fish back.
“I don’t know if I want to eat a fish that doesn’t have eyes. It isn’t—natural.”
“Well, I think it’s natural down here,” Dhugal said, as he slipped the fish off the stick and onto a clean-washed depression in the stone floor of the cavern, breaking it open so it could cool a little. “Besides, there’s nothing else to eat, now that the horse-meat’s gone bad. This is the fifth or sixth one I’ve caught, and none of them had eyes. I threw the first few back, because of that, but they’re all the same.”
He licked a fingertip and raised an appreciative eyebrow. “They taste good, at least. And they’re certainly proper Lenten fare. My father would approve.”
Kelson sighed, nibbling halfheartedly at a morsel of fish after Dhugal had broken off a more sizable chunk and fallen to.
“Do you think Duncan and Alaric will come looking for us, Dhugal?” the king asked. “Or will they think we’re dead?”
Dhugal, hungrily wolfing down another bite of fish, shook his head.
“I dunno,” he said, when he had swallowed. “I have the feeling we’re pretty far underground, so I’m not sure they’d know where to look. I’m hoping there’s a way out of here by following the stream bank in the direction the water’s flowing. We certainly can’t get out the way we came in.”
He picked up another chunk of fish. “We were tumbled along for quite a while before we beached in this cavern, though. We could have come miles. I’m sure they’ll try to look, but—”
As Dhugal shrugged again, Kelson sighed and glanced toward the darkness in the direction the stream was flowing.
“God, I wish I could remember more about what happened,” he whispered. “My memory’s starting to come back, but—”
“How about your powers?” Dhugal asked quietly.
“Nothing.” Kelson shook his head forlornly. “I keep trying to focus—on anything—but nothing happens except that my head hurts worse. Do you think they’ll come back?”
“You’re asking me?” Dhugal said.
“Well, you’re the battle surgeon,” Kelson replied. “How long do the effects of head injuries last?”
“With a concussion like you’ve had—weeks, maybe. But I don’t know about your powers being affected, Kel. I’ve never had a Deryni patient with a concussion before—at least not that I was aware of.”
Kelson sighed explosively. “Well, you’ve got one now. Besides, you’re Deryni.”
“Yes, but only recently—recently discovered, that is. You know my training is marginal.”
“Maybe you’re a healer, like Duncan,” Kelson said. “Maybe you could heal me.”
“Kelson, I wouldn’t dare.”
“But, you already said you’d healed my head, where the skull was pressed in.”
“No, I did a physical manipulation with my mind, like opening a lock without a key. There’s a big difference between that and healing.”
“I suppose.”
“Anyway, now that you’re getting back on your feet again, we need to start moving downstream. We can’t stay here indefinitely.”
Kelson looked doubtfully at Dhugal’s boot, strapped with strips of fabric wound round the ankle.
“Can you walk on that?”
“I’ll manage.” Dhugal grimaced as he got to his feet, leaning heavily on his staff. “I’m pretty sure it isn’t broken. It does hurt, though.”
“You mean, you haven’t looked at it?”
“I didn’t dare take off the boot,” Dhugal replied, giving Kelson a hand up as he braced himself against his staff. “I’m getting pretty good at sensing through leather, though. I tore some ligaments, but they’re mending. It’s less swollen than it was.”
As Dhugal thrust a stick of driftwood into the fire for a torch, Kelson shook his head gingerly and picked up another stout piece of branch that would serve as a walking stick. Dhugal slung the saddlebags across his shoulder, and Kelson carried the flask.
Even that soon proved too great a burden for the king, however. Although Kelson thought they had been walking for several hours by the time they took their first rest break, Dhugal knew it had been far less time than that. Regardless of how long it had been, the king was exhausted. Dhugal had to let him sleep for several hours before he could summon up the strength to go on. Dhugal wondered how long they could keep this up.
It went on for several relays of hobbling on along the rushing riverbank and then falling into exhausted sleep, the roar of the water lulling them almost immediately into deep, dreamless slumber; but finally the roof above them widened and opened out into a vast cavern, so high they could not see the ceiling, even when Dhugal sent a sphere of handfire as high as he could make it go. The darkness seemed to press closer around them the farther they followed the river across the cavern, and pieces of driftwood for torches became fewer and fewer, so that Dhugal finally had to begin picking up suitable branches whenever he could find them and packing them along in the tops of the saddlebags.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.
—Proverbs 4:19
In Rhemuth, Conall’s luck continued to hold. Nigel’s “seizure” was taken as exactly that, as first guards and servants, then a distraught Meraude, and finally a coterie of physicians flocked into the royal suite to attend the stricken king. Beyond initial, hurried inquiries regarding what had happened, no one paid much attention to the apparently devastated Conall; and he made a point to stay out of their way.
Arilan came, too, a little while later, but he was no physician; and by then, Conall had fixed a stunned façade of innocence in the outer halls of his mind, so that the Deryni bishop was unable to detect any hint of what really had happened to Nigel—and certainly, no one else was astute enough to discern the truth. By dusk, Nigel’s condition had stabilized, but he did not regain consciousness.
“He’s been working too hard since we brought back word of Kelson’s death,” Conall said to Father Lael, when the latter had withdrawn from the royal bedside at last, the first to think seriously of seeing how the king’s heir fared. “I told him he should rest more. He was distressed about having to send out those letters to the barons, too.”
He gestured toward the table in the window, where the letters lay temporarily forgotten, and Lael followed his glance.
“He was working on those when he had his seizure?” Lael asked.
Conall nodded. “They’re the letters proclaiming his accession. He’d already signed them when I came in, and I was helping him seal them. It all went against the grain, though. He never really wanted or expected to be king. Archbishop Cardiel’s probably told you what the privy council went through, just to gain his consent to be proclaimed right away. If he’d had his way, he would have made them wait a year and a day for that, as well as for the coronation. He was complaining about it when he—”
He broke off in a choked sob and buried his face in one hand, feigning overwhelming sorrow as Lael laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
“It’s been hard on you, too, hasn’t it, son?” Lael murmured. “Don’t you think you should get some sleep, though? There’s nothing you can do for your father right now. I or one of the other physicians will stay with him through the night.”
Con
all sniffled back tears and looked up, shaking his head. In the event that anyone started to get suspicious, he wanted to be awake—just in case he needed to defend himself.
“I don’t think I could sleep.”
“I’ll give you a sedative.”
“But, what if he needs me?”
“Nonsense,” Lael said. “Even if he does regain consciousness during the night—which I doubt he’ll do—there’s nothing you could do for him. Besides, I think you’re still a bit in shock yourself.”
Conall started to protest, but then he cut himself off and shook his head, for he had begun to weigh the merits of having people at least think he was asleep, thereby putting him beyond possibly dangerous questioning. Bed might, indeed, be the best place for him through the night, but he was not certain about Lael’s sedative—just in case he did need to function at his best on short notice.
“I—perhaps you’re right, Father,” he said softly, all diffidence and subdued Haldane charm. “Undoubtedly you’re right. I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep since it all happened.”
“Well, then, let’s see what we can do to ensure that you get one tonight,” Lael replied. “In the morning, we’ll have a much better idea how your father’s condition is going to progress, and it will be far more important for you to be clear-headed and rested then. In case it hasn’t yet dawned on you, you’ll be king if Nigel dies. And even if he lives, you’ll be regent until he recovers—if he recovers.”
“You mean, he could be this way forever?” Conall asked softly.
“He could. Until he dies, at any rate. I’m sorry, Conall. I wish I could give you a more encouraging prognosis.”
A quick pang of guilt stabbed at Conall’s conscience, but it was quickly overshadowed by satisfaction. He had never really wished his father ill, but neither had he been prepared to accept the consequences of being blamed for Tiercel’s death. He had intended neither, but he could not bring himself to regret either one, given the alternatives otherwise. Besides, what was done was done now; and the prospect of being regent and eventually king was far too tantalizing not to thrill him.
“I think I will have that sedative you mentioned, Father,” he whispered, making himself look up at Lael in sad resignation.
“Fine,” Lael replied. “Let’s get you into bed first, though. You’ll rest best in your own room, I think.”
Without further discussion, an apparently dutiful Conall led Lael to his chambers and undressed in silence as the priest mixed a potion from his medical satchel. But instead of getting into bed immediately, the prince drew on a night robe and went to the priedieu set against the wall near the door, feigning restlessness.
“Set it on the nightstand there beside the bed, if you will, Father,” Conall murmured, resting one hand on the armrest of the prie-dieu as he glanced back at the priest. “I think I’d like to pray a little while before retiring.”
“Of course,” Lael murmured, complying. “Would you like me to pray with you, or would you rather be alone?”
Conall bowed his head. “I think I’d prefer to be alone, Father, if you don’t mind. This has all been—very difficult.”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
Conall thrilled to the title of address as Lael made him a bow and left the room, but as soon as the priest had gone, he went to the nightstand and emptied the contents of the cup into the chamber pot under the bed. He poured fresh wine into the cup after that and sat sipping at it in a window for nearly an hour, gazing lazily down into the darkening garden. Just at sunset, before it got too dark to see, he was pleased to observe Rothana among a group of other nuns and ladies of the court whom Father Ambros was leading back from the basilica, returning from evening prayers.
Soon after that, he did go to bed, and his dreams that night were of Rothana, as they had been several times since his return from Valoret, and of making love to her. He woke in a sweat more than once, determined to make the dream a reality as soon as possible.
“Once,” said Morgan, “just once, before I die, I’d like to ride into Dhassa without having to resort to subterfuge.”
“If you don’t keep your voice down, we’ll be doing it this time,” Duncan murmured, “possibly with consequences that are at least inconvenient. Act like a monk, now.”
“Dominus vobiscum,” Morgan muttered, bowing in the saddle of his little mountain pony as a merchant passed by.
He and Duncan were making the final approach to the city gates from the northeast shore of the lake, mail and leather concealed under the ubiquitous black habits and cowls of lay brothers attached to the cathedral chapter there. As courier monks, they were even entitled to the swords strapped beneath their knees—though Morgan had wrapped the hilt of his with leather to hide the gold wire and gemstones that adorned it, and sheathed it in a plain black scabbard.
The disguises had been Father Nivard’s idea, before sending Duncan on his way three days before. The two also wore the pilgrim badges of both Dhassa’s patron saints, though Saint Torin’s had burned to the ground the last time these two particular Deryni passed through Dhassa territory. Both Morgan and Duncan had made substantial donations to cover the cost of rebuilding the shrine, so discovery of their true identities would not invite their murder, as it once might have. Nor were they any longer under episcopal Interdict and excommunication, and therefore to be incarcerated for canonical trial and execution. Still, their presence in Dhassa might raise awkward questions for Arilan as well as the two of them, if it were learned that they had come there to use a Deryni Transfer Portal.
But the delicacy of their situation, as well as any Deryni aspect of it all, paled almost to insignificance beside the very human ache of Kelson’s loss. Morgan had been trying, all during the long, hard ride from Coroth, to make himself accept that Kelson and Dhugal were, indeed, dead, but his heart refused to countenance the notion with any real seriousness; and when, occasionally, it did, the dull, heavy weight in his chest far surpassed the grief he had felt even at Brion’s death—and at least at the time, he had thought he could never grieve for anyone as he had for his dead friend and king. Duncan’s grief he dared not touch at all.
And so, in clergy masquerade, Morgan followed his cousin through the gates of Dhassa and up toward the market square before the entrance to the bishop’s palace. On this Lenten Sunday afternoon, the square was mostly deserted, but Duncan headed immediately toward the public well, where several black-cowled monks were watering half a dozen milk cows. A young man whom Duncan greeted as Father Nivard stepped out of their midst at the two’s approach and bade one of the monks take their ponies, waiting while they unstrapped swords from saddles before leading them briskly into an inner chamber of the palace, not far from the chapel. Duncan had told Morgan about Nivard, during one of their infrequent rest stops on the way, but Morgan was still surprised to see how young the Deryni priest looked. Morgan’s light, tentative probe confirmed that in shielding, at least, the priest knew what he was about. Still, he seemed very young and vulnerable as he closed the double doors and turned toward them, awe lighting his face now that they were alone.
“We shan’t be disturbed here, my lords,” Nivard said, crossing self-consciously to add wood to the fire burning on the hearth. “Bishop Denis has instructed me to give you every cooperation I can.”
“I see,” Morgan replied cautiously. “Our mutual benefactor,” he gestured to indicate the room, with the arms of the Bishop of Dhassa above the fireplace, “neglected to mention that he’d been—ah—recruiting. Is it safe to talk here?”
“Or to do anything else that you might deem needful,” Nivard said. “Bishop Denis said you’d want to try for a long range contact with the king or Lord Dhugal, before you go on to Rhemuth, and that you might want to use me to augment the link. I haven’t a great deal of experience in that particular kind of working—none, in fact,” he added with a fleeting, sheepish grin, “but he assured me that it wasn’t necessary, and that you’d know what to do with me.”
As he glanced expectantly between the two men, Morgan exchanged a skeptical glance with Duncan.
“Are you sure he’s up to our needs, Duncan?” Morgan asked. “Sometimes a little knowledge is worse than none at all. Humans might be better, for our purposes.”
“But not as potentially powerful,” Duncan replied, giving Nivard a kindly smile. “Arilan had him make a light link with me, before I left for Coroth, and he was steady as a rock. Besides, he’ll be worth three or four humans who don’t know what they’re doing, even if he doesn’t either.”
“Very well,” Morgan murmured.
He had no idea how broad Nivard’s experience might have been with Arilan, but as he and Duncan made the physical arrangements necessary for what must be done, drawing three chairs into a tight circle so that knees could touch when they were seated, Nivard seemed to take it all in stride, not batting an eye when Morgan pulled out the red leather box containing his ward cubes and began placing the black and white cubes in the proper configuration on the floor at their feet.
He could sense Nivard centering and relaxing, his psychic presence smoothing out, as minute adjustments were made to the positions of the black cubes, set at the corners of the white square formed by the four white ones. By the time Morgan was ready to touch his forefinger to the first white cube and name it, Nivard was as steady as Duncan, his leashed potential already settling into a light guidance by Duncan—who drew both of them back just a fraction as Morgan activated the first cube.
“Prime.”
Nivard hardly batted an eye as the first cube began to glow—if anything, seeming to center even deeper. When the speaking of the next cube’s name—“Seconde”—brought hardly any more reaction, Morgan put Nivard almost totally from his mind and concentrated on the cubes exclusively. Nivard was not likely to bolt from ward cubes, at any rate.
“Tierce” and “Quarte” followed close on, giving four white-glowing cubes. And as Morgan straightened momentarily to take a deep breath and get the cricks out of his back, shifting the polarities in his mind before tackling the black cubes, Nivard closed his eyes and bent to lay his forehead against his crossed forearms, supported by his slightly splayed knees, his shields now wholly transparent and quiescent.
The Quest for Saint Camber Page 32
