Camber of Culdi

by Katherine Kurtz

  Cinhil stared at the archbishop as though unable to believe his ears, joy transfiguring his face as it had not for many, many months.

  “Can this be true?” he whispered. “I am to be permitted this?”

  Anscom nodded gently and put the ewer into the prince’s hands.

  “Fiat, Frater,” he murmured.

  Bowing his head in humility, Cinhil took the ewer to his chest and bowed thanks, then turned back to where his son awaited him. The infant had quieted in Evaine’s arms, and as Cinhil motioned her to move closer, the baby yawned and appeared to doze. Evaine shifted so that she could hold the baby over the font, and Rhys laid his right hand on the child’s shoulder.

  “Aidanus Alroi Camberus,” Cinhil whispered, beginning to pour the water over the crown of the baby’s head the requisite three times.

  Camber’s eyes flashed to Cinhil in surprise as the prince continued, for he had not known that his name was to be given to the royal child.

  “Ego te baptizo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

  But as Cinhil returned the ewer to its place and reached for the towel which Joram held, Rhys froze, then laid both hands on the baby’s head. The infant whimpered once, coughed and gave a little sigh; then it was still. As Rhys’s jaw dropped in shock, Cinhil’s eyes darted to the child.

  “Sweet Jesus, what’s wrong with him? Why isn’t he moving? He’s not breathing!”

  Rhys stared numbly, not daring to speak the icy horror which lay beneath his hands, and Evaine raised stunned eyes to the prince.

  “He—he’s dead, Cinhil,” she said in a small voice.

  There was no sound in the chapel for perhaps five heartbeats, and then Princess Megan gave a little cry and fainted. Guaire of Arliss caught her as she crumpled, his stricken “My Lady!” breaking the still tableau; but even as Cinhil turned shocked eyes toward her, he clutched at his chest in pain and started to collapse.

  He caught himself on the edge of the baptismal font, clung to it unsteadily, drunkenly, clamped his eyes shut and shook his head as though to break free of some binding force which would crush him. White-knuckled, he bent over the rim of the font, a long, almost animal cry escaping his lips as he stared into the water. Then he jerked upright to look wildly about him, a terrible expression lighting his eyes.

  “They have killed my son!” he cried, his glance striking each of them as though with physical blows. “They have killed my son, and now they seek to destroy me!”

  “Who is trying to destroy you, Cinhil?” Camber retorted. “Name your attackers! Tell us what you feel!” His eyes sought some clue around the room, yet were drawn back to fasten on Cinhil in dread fascination. He could detect no attack, no hostile threat at all. If Cinhil was under attack, his assailant was very skilled.

  “No, not they—he!” Cinhil gasped. “He is in this room! He is one whom we trusted. Do not touch me!” he added, as Rhys moved as though to restrain him.

  Whirling about abruptly, he snatched the body of the dead baby from Evaine and clutched it protectively as he backed against the altar.

  “We will find him, my Aidan,” he whispered savagely. “I will avenge you!”

  “Cinhil!” Camber’s voice cut through the rising horror as though he had shouted, though he had scarcely raised his voice. “Cinhil, there is nothing you can do. Let Rhys take the baby. Perhaps he can—”

  “No. He is dead.” The voice was flat, leaden. “I know it, Camber, with the sure certainty which you yourself tried to teach me.” He swept his hard gaze around the room again. “One of you has betrayed me!”

  “Has he gone mad?” Joram whispered to Rhys.

  Rhys shook his head. “No. The baby was poisoned—in the salt, I think. I—”

  The prince had been scanning everyone in the room, and now he whirled and strode to the center of the chapel, there to glare in outrage at a man in the habit of a Michaeline priest—the same priest who had been assisting Anscom with the baptism. The man’s eyes were calm, unreadable, until Cinhil took a single step closer and whispered, “You!”

  As all eyes locked on the priest, and those closest shrank away, a change came upon the man. His eyes came alive, the body stood straighter—and then the arms were upraised in the beginnings of a spell, fingers moving in a certain pattern of attack and defense.

  Instinctively, Cinhil threw up one arm in a warding-off gesture, a faint corona of pinkish fire partially veiling his face. He gaped at the man unabashedly as everyone else crowded against the walls.

  “You, a priest, would dare raise hand against brother?” Cinhil murmured, unaware of what he had just done.

  The Michaeline said nothing; only stood and stared across at the Haldane heir, his eyes smoldering.

  Power was building in the center of the room. But if Cinhil’s attacker was a trained Deryni, Cinhil himself was at least untested, and neither had yet paused to cast a protective circle around the battle area. Camber, fearing for the humans among them, signed for his kin to shield the noncombatants. It was just in time, for Cinhil’s next words shook the very air, the ancient, awesome phrases echoing from arch and joist and mosaicked panels.

  Cinhil’s words brought crimson fire to encircle him—a dancing, living flame which was not so much seen as felt and experienced, by those on the outside. It was a fire which was sensed, if at all, out of the corner of the eye—which disappeared when sought head-on, but which was no less deadly should it come within reach of the unprotected. Cinhil stood straight and terrible, his dead son clasped close against his breast.

  The Michaeline moved toward him in a haze of gold, until only a few meters of sparkling air separated them.

  The air glittered with power, visible lightning arcing across from one man to the other, only to be dashed ineffectually against the other’s shields. The air was sharp and acrid, like the charged, moist stillness before a thunderstorm. The candles guttered wildly in the growing flux of energy. Energy howled and echoed in the rockbound chamber, coruscating around the heads of the two combatants like mad, misshapen haloes. A greater surge now blew out all the candles, and for a moment the wind moaned on in near-darkness.

  Then the roaring of the wind increased in pitch, until the watchers could discern two voices—wordless, mighty, contending darkly in the abyss which had been opened by the forces locked in mortal combat. The pressure grew, and the watchers tried to cover their ears, their eyes, their minds, against the not-sounds, not-sights, not-thoughts which barraged the senses from every angle.

  Finally, the Michaeline staggered and let out a low, desperate cry, his eyes at last clearing from their trancelike stare as he reached out in desperate supplication and fell. Abruptly, all sound ceased, and the room was plunged into blackness.

  Silence. Velvet darkness, save for the fading aura, felt rather than seen, of the victorious Cinhil, wrapped in the living light of his now-realized powers, living arms still locked protectively around the dead form of his infant son.

  It was Camber who finally had the presence of mind to break the tension, by stepping from his place against the wall to flare the candles back to light. Anscom was not far behind, walking slowly to the side of the motionless Michaeline priest, kneeling to cradle the man’s head wordlessly in his lap. Rhys came and laid a hand on the man’s forehead, but the priest was dead. Together with Anscom, then, Rhys entered the dead man’s mind, clearing the way for Anscom to read what little still remained.

  When Anscom raised his head, it was to turn shocked eyes upon Cinhil. He did not rise, but bowed his head in shame.

  “Forgive me, My Prince. I fear that I am partially to blame for all of this. I should not have brought him here. He told me, before, that Imre’s men had tried to capture him last spring—that was one reason I took him in. But he could not tell me that, in fact, they had succeeded. He—is not responsible. Please forgive him.”

  “The king had done this?” Cinhil asked, his voice low, dangerous.

  “Yes, My Prince,” Anscom w
hispered.

  “And he can warp a man’s mind to do such a thing against his own will?”

  Anscom nodded, not daring to speak, and Cinhil turned his terrible gaze on Camber, then on the rest of them gathered still around the edges of the chapel, sweeping with his glance but not really seeing any of them. Then he moved purposefully to where Anscom and Rhys knelt by the fallen priest and stooped to lay his hand gingerly on the dead man’s shoulder.

  “For that you were vanquished by another stronger than yourself, and yourself wished me no harm, nor harm to my son”—his voice started to break, but he controlled it—“I forgive you.”

  He rose quickly to his feet, his face terrible in the candlelight.

  “But for him who has done this thing to you and me and mine, there can be no forgiveness in this world or the next. Woe be unto thee, Imre of Festil, and to all thy base and cowardly line, who would strike down helpless infants and break good men to the yoke of evil. I will avenge them and all whom thou hast made to suffer by thy might. This I swear—I, Cinhil Donal Ifor Haldane—by my faith, by the Crown of Gwynedd, which my forefathers wore and which I shall surely wear again, if only to destroy thee, and by the body of my murdered son. There shall be an end!”

  And as the Prince of Gwynedd stood straight and tall beneath the eyes of God and men, the raw power dying around his head as he became only slightly more than mortal once more, every knee bent in fealty, and every head bowed in homage. Camber, kneeling with the others, tried to push his own apprehensions to the back of his mind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  For out of prison he comes to reign; whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becomes poor.

  —Ecclesiastes 4:14

  They buried the infant Prince Aidan in a tiny tomb beneath the floor of the chapel where he had died, on the Feast of the Four Crowned Ones, who had also been martyrs to royal tyranny centuries before. Cinhil, terrible in his grief, would not permit anyone else to touch the body at first, keeping watch alone in the cold little chapel for a night and a day and a night, taking no food and sleeping not at all. Only on the morning of the second day did he permit them to enter and seal the baby in its tiny casket and consign it to the grave. He would not speak of the incident after the burial.

  The slain priest, too, was buried in the chapel a day later, though it was only the Michaelines and Camber who came to mourn him. Alister Cullen performed the simple rites. Later, much later, there would be a carved stone set into the wall where he lay, but the words would be brief, as they had always been for every Michaeline who died in the Faith: Here lieth Humphrey of Gallareaux, a priest of Saint Michael. Only that and the dates. Beyond that, they could do nothing for him.

  Cinhil was much changed after this. If he had been withdrawn and subdued before, now he was cold, ruthless, machine-like in his dealings even with his allies. No longer the quiet, guilt-ridden priest-cum-prince who had wrestled with his conscience to reconcile his new calling, now Cinhil was coldly interested in every facet of the planning which was being carried out at fever pitch—for all that his interest was darkly colored by vengeance and shrouded by aloofness. He must know their military strength, and from where each group of men would attack when the order came, and who would command, and what provisions had been made for each detail of the infiltration plan. Most of all, he would know when. Delay now made him restless.

  The information was his for the asking, though Camber continued to harbor some concern about his motives. The Michaeline knights, he was told, were gathering even now, the original fifty in the vicinity of the haven, and another century and a half at Dhassa. The Culdi levies were also preparing, secretly raised by Camber on one of his infrequent trips outside the haven, five hundred of them prepared to stand the city of Valoret to siege if the Michaeline assault should fail.

  They planned their move for the first of December, the night of the opening of Imre’s Yule Court, when everyone of any importance in the kingdom would be within Valoret’s walls and, more importantly, within the confines of Imre’s castle. Judging from past Yule Courts, it would be a night of drunkenness and debauchery—in all, a perfect night for invaders to infiltrate, overpower less-than-wary guards, and topple a dynasty.

  They learned more, too, of the man who had been responsible for Prince Aidan’s death. There had been no deliberate betrayal; and Imre’s actions regarding Humphrey had resulted in a mere fluke. When captured, Humphrey had not even known for certain of the Haldane’s existence, and had no idea of the location of the haven; even Imre had recognized this as soon as Humphrey’s will was broken. But just in case Humphrey should happen upon word of such a man, the king had taken pains to plant the seeds of treachery and destruction. Humphrey was released with the memory that he had not been captured at all, though he had come close. Naturally, he had flown to Archbishop Anscom for refuge; and Anscom, unwittingly, had taken Humphrey in. When Anscom returned to the haven to baptize Cinhil’s heir, it was the most natural thing in the world for Humphrey to accompany him. After all, were not the Michaelines his brethren?

  This information was dutifully passed on to Cinhil, along with all of the other intelligence they were gathering; and it did soften his heart a little toward the man whose physical body had been responsible for his son’s death.

  But though Cinhil continued to show an astounding grasp of the military tactics and planning with which he was being bombarded, an aloofness continued to surround him, couching an ever-deeper resentment for the Deryni despite the circumstances of Humphrey’s betrayal. Camber became increasingly aware of it, as his earlier fears were reinforced by Cinhil’s actions; and he discussed this with the others more than once. But there was really nothing that anyone could do, other than to be aware of the potential problem—and to hope and pray that they would not have to deal with it in any major way.

  Cinhil’s princess probably suffered most directly in the weeks that followed. Though she was soon with child again, Cinhil having been impressed with the necessity of another heir as soon as possible, she was a wraith-like shadow of the spirited, sensitive girl who had come less than a year before to be the bride of Haldane. A little genuine attention from her lord husband could have eased her heartsickness considerably, but Cinhil was too busy, too preoccupied, to notice her need. He was gently courteous to her in public, as was fitting the mother of his future heirs, and it could not be said that he abused her or even ignored her, but there was a cool superficiality to their relationship, as though living the role of prince and future saviour of Gwynedd had sapped him of all ability to love or be loved. Though he now seemed to have accepted his role as prince, he had an increasing otherworldliness about him—not purely of religious fervor, though that continued to be an integral part of his personality, but more a clinical detachment, an emotional divorce from the feeling of what had happened, and what must happen in the future, if all of them were to survive.

  Camber observed all of this in sadness—doubly so, because he loved Megan like a father, and saw how she was grieving and alone when she most needed the love and support of her husband. Camber understood what it was to lose a child. He had paid the price of a son, and knew that he would pay the price of other children, and his own life, if need be, if there were no other way to save their cause.

  But to lose a child in battle with the enemy was one thing; to have one pine away for lack of loving was quite another. He and Evaine and Rhys made special efforts to try to comfort Megan, but it was poor substitute for what Megan really needed. He could only hope that Cinhil would realize, after a time, what he was doing to her.

  The evening of the first of December found their preparations complete, the first steps set irreversibly into motion. Late in the afternoon, the fifty Michaeline knights who would be leading the assault through a Portal in the castle itself had attended a Mass of special intention for the prince’s cause, reconsecrating their swords to the holy fight in which some of them were certain to perish. The other century and a half of Mich
aelines, under command of Lord Jebediah of Alcara and Jamie Drummond, was already at the Portal in Dhassa, awaiting Transfer to the archbishop’s apartments in Valoret. They would secure the city itself, overpowering the city garrison and making certain that none but Haldane supporters passed the city gates.

  The final blessings given, all that remained in the chapel were the principals: Cinhil; Camber and his kin; and the noncombatants, who would remain behind. The men wore mail and helms and bright swords girded at their sides, surcoats and coronets proclaiming the ranking among them. Only Cinhil was not clad as all the rest—and that, in itself, was a victory of a sort.

  Cinhil had not wanted to go armed at all. He had wanted to wear only a long, belted robe of white, to show the purity of his intentions. He was not a warrior. He had not thought it appropriate that a priest-king should go forth armed with mere mortal steel to battle the archenemy. After all, it would not be steel which would defeat Imre of Festil.

  But the women had maintained otherwise, and had taken steps to ensure that their prince should go forth as a king ought. Megan, Evaine, and Elinor had labored for weeks, not showing him what they wrought. When, on the afternoon before battle, he had gone to his chamber to meditate before appearing for Mass, he had found a king’s attire awaiting him.

  He never learned where they had gotten the gold-washed mail, though the stuff had a cold, unearthly glow about it which he somehow did not care to think about. This was to go over an undergarment of white silk, a doublet of softest leather cushioning the metal links from his skin. Greaves of gold-chased steel buckled over leather breeches and boots; matching vambraces guarded his forearms. Scarlet gauntlets, rich-embroidered with his Haldane crest on the cuff, were the gift of the slain Cathan’s Elinor. Over all would go the knee-length surcoat of crimson silk, with the golden lion of Gwynedd blazoned bold on chest and back in gold-bullion thread. Cinhil was speechless.