Camber of Culdi

by Katherine Kurtz

  Cinhil, immature in many ways, despite his forty-plus years, had waxed philosophical in the months since his coronation, increasingly believing that his acceptance of the Crown had been a mistake. He was a priest, not a king, despite the archbishop’s dispensation of his priestly vows. Had he not forsaken those vows and left the priesthood, and compounded that sin by taking a wife, there would not now be the two tiny heirs, ill-starred twins, the elder sickly and frail, the younger fair and healthy, but with one deformed foot to remind his father forever of the sinfulness of his begetting.

  Cinhil saw the infants’ condition as a sure sign of divine wrath, the withering hand of God smiting that which should have been most dear, because Cinhil had deserted God’s priesthood.

  And who was to blame, in Cinhil’s skewed perspective, shaped until a year ago within the walls of an abbey? Why, Camber, of course. Was it not the powerful Deryni earl who had induced Cinhil to forsake his vows and take the throne? What more natural than that Cinhil’s resentment should fester even now within his breast? Weighed against God’s anger, of what possible importance was a token loyalty to the Earl of Culdi—even if that man was one of the few who stood between him and oblivion?

  Camber glanced away from the fire to see his daughter, Evaine, crossing the hall. Though heavily muffled against the chill in a fur-lined mantle, still she was slender and graceful as she made her way across the rush-strewn hall. Revan, her young clark, picked his way carefully after his mistress, his usual limp even more pronounced from the dampness.

  Evaine’s face was worried, her blue eyes stormy beneath the coiled hair, as she bent to kiss her father’s cheek.

  “How fares the queen?” Camber asked in a low voice, leaning back from the table so that they would not disturb the others’ discussion.

  With a sigh, she turned to dismiss Revan, who was waiting attentively a short distance away, and watched him limp across the hall to join several pages huddled by the opposite fireplace. Her pretty brow furrowed as she bent to her father’s ear again.

  “Oh, Father, she is so unhappy. Revan and I have spent the past hour and more with her, but she will not be cheered. ’Tis not right that she should be so listless and depressed, almost a full month after the birthing. Her labor was not difficult, and Rhys assures me that her physical injuries are mended.”

  “Unfortunately, ’tis not physical hurt which torments our little queen,” Camber replied, so low that Evaine had to bend very close to hear him. “If the king gave her even a small part of his attention—but, no, he must brood on his imagined sins, and condemn himself and all around him for—”

  He broke off as loud voices caught his attention in the corridor outside the far entrance to the hall. One of the voices was his son Joram’s; another, angrier one was the king’s.

  But there were two additional voices—a man and a woman—and the woman’s voice was high-pitched and nearly hysterical. All conversation at the table ceased as the king and Joram and two strangers entered the hall and began to cross the dais.

  The woman was slender and fair, and even younger than Evaine. The man, husband or brother by his bearing, was obviously a military man, though he wore no sword in the royal presence.

  The royal presence was flashing warning signs which should have been apparent to anyone. The Haldane eyes were hard with anger, the lines of the proud body taut with forced control. Joram was a sober splash of Michaeline blue against the crimson and sable of Cinhil’s kingly garb, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but at the king’s side.

  Cinhil drew his hand away in distaste as the woman threw herself on her knees and reached up in supplication.

  “Please, Sire, he has done nothing! I swear it!” she sobbed. “He is an old man. He is sick! Have you no pity?”

  “There is no pity in this one!” the man broke in angrily, jerking her to her feet and thrusting her behind him protectively. “How can there be pity in an apostate priest, who wages war on innocent old men? What are you, Haldane, so to decide the fate of your betters?”

  In the same breath, the man’s hand moved in the pattern of an arcane attack, casting a blinding flash which lit that end of the hall as if the summer sun had come inside. Instantly, all at the table were on their feet and running toward the king, Jebediah and Guaire drawing swords as they ran. Evaine hiked up her skirts and dashed frantically after her father and Rhys and Alister Cullen.

  Time seemed to stand still in the afterimage of that flash. The atmosphere grew thick with the huge exchange of energy on the dais, as both Joram and Cinhil countered the assault. The would-be rescuers moved with limbs seemingly encased in lead, trying desperately to reach the king.

  Joram, with the aid of Cinhil, managed to wrestle their attacker to the floor. But their wild thrashing in the rushes continued to be punctuated by flashes of light and wisps of frightful apparition as the assailant fought on. Joram nearly disappeared under the attacker’s body, fighting for his own life as well as the king’s. The pandemonium continued as reinforcements swarmed onto the dais.

  Camber’s eyes had not yet fully recovered from the initial flash, but he could just make out another, more immediate threat than the attacker’s magic—an unsheathed dagger in the woman’s hand. In a timeless instant, he saw that Cinhil’s back was exposed as he knelt to wrestle with the man on the floor, and that the king was not aware of his danger.

  Guaire, youngest and fleetest of them all, had seen the threat and was reaching for the woman, too close and too fast-moving to use his sword to advantage. But his feet tangled with those of the downed man as he lunged, tripping him directly into Cullen and Rhys.

  Camber screamed, “Cinhil!” and launched one last, desperate leap between his king and the woman as the knife flashed upward.

  The events of the next instant were never clear, afterward, though the results were plain enough. One second, the knife was driving unchecked toward Cinhil’s back, toward Camber’s body—the next, blood was showering them all, and Camber was sprawling half stunned at Cinhil’s feet, in a growing pool of blood. Cinhil whirled in killing rage to see the woman crumpled over Jebediah’s broadsword, her body cut nearly in two. The dagger, its blade snapped by the force of Jebediah’s blow, spun through the air in several pieces, the bright steel catching Cinhil’s glance with almost hypnotic fascination.

  Cinhil reacted like a man gone mad. With a scream of fury, he spun and loosed a last, vicious attack on the woman’s companion—a blast of magical force so powerful, and at such close range, that Joram, trapped under the man’s body, was only barely able to deflect its killing power from himself.

  Then Cullen was hurling himself against Cinhil and pinning his arms to his sides, subduing the king’s efforts to break free and wreak yet more vengeance on his attackers.

  Camber lurched dizzily to his feet and caught his balance on Cullen’s arm. Then, seizing the king’s face between bloody hands, he forced Cinhil to look at him, shook the royal head to break the killing concentration.

  “Cinhil, stop it! For God’s sake, let it pass! It’s over! You’re safe! They can’t hurt you now!”

  In that instant Cinhil froze and blinked, taking in Camber’s tone and expression and bloodstained visage; then he seemed to sag a little in Cullen’s arms. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths as guards clattered to a halt around the group and glanced at one another uncertainly.

  “It’s all right,” Camber repeated, his nod and eyes signaling the guards to withdraw from earshot until he was sure Cinhil was in control again. “It’s all right, Cinhil,” he whispered one more time.

  With that, he released Cinhil’s head and stepped back a pace, his own breathing still ragged, recovering. He could feel blood running down his left side, and knew that some of it was his own.

  “Is anyone hurt?” Cullen said softly, still supporting the now-shaking Cinhil against his chest.

  The murmurs of negation sparked a response in Cinhil, and he opened his eyes and stared blankly at the sea
of concerned faces around him.

  Rhys got shakily to his knees and started toward the bloody Camber, but the earl shook his head and indicated that he should see to the others. Rhys glanced at the woman—obviously beyond even his help—then turned his attention to the man.

  Joram struggled from under the limp form until he could sit up, as pale against his cassock as Rhys had ever seen him; but he did not relinguish his grip on his now-stirring prisoner.

  “Joram, are you all right?” Rhys murmured under his breath as he drew his hand across the prisoner’s forehead.

  “I will be,” Joram whispered. “What about him? He took a terrific jolt. It was all I could do to shield myself.”

  The man’s eyes had fluttered and tracked automatically to Rhys’s hand at his touch, but it was obvious that he was deep in shock.

  Rhys looked up at the king.

  “What did you do to him? He’s dying.”

  “He would have killed me,” Cinhil replied sullenly.

  “Well, you nearly killed Joram, you know. And I don’t think I’m going to be able to save this man.”

  Cinhil’s expression darkened at the implied accusation in Rhys’s tone.

  “He is an assassin! I did not mean for him to live!”

  As Rhys turned his attention back to his patient, golden eyes smoldering with silent resentment, Jebediah knelt down beside the dead woman. The knight’s sword dangled loosely in his grasp, the blade leaving a smear of blood on the already bloody rushes. He swallowed hard, flinching at Camber’s touch of comfort on his shoulder.

  “Assassin or no, I do not like killing women, Camber,” he whispered. “I only thought to block the knife. She was a Deryni woman. I was certain she would have arcane shields to stop my blow from further harm.”

  “You could not have known,” Camber replied, his breathing finally almost back to normal. He pressed his left elbow hard against his side, hoping it would slow the bleeding and that Cinhil would not notice. “No one could have known.”

  Cullen, tentatively letting go of Cinhil, glanced at his brother Michaeline in compassion, but he did not comment for fear of setting Cinhil off again. With a diplomatic cough, he gestured toward the man Rhys was tending.

  “Sire, can you tell us what started all of this? Who were these people?”

  “Rabble!” Cinhil snorted, starting to turn away.

  At that, the prisoner stirred and turned his head slightly toward the king and vicar general. There was no mark on his body, but pain filled the brown eyes. He pushed Rhys’s hand away when the Healer made as though to ease his discomfort.

  “Do you not know us, Vicar General?” the man gasped. “It was your Deryni court which tried our father and condemned him to rot in the dungeons beneath us.”

  “Your father?” Camber queried.

  “You know him, traitor of Culdi!” the man snapped, with more strength than any would have expected. “You, a Deryni who betrayed his own to put this human tyrant on the throne, who gave him power, I know not how—”

  Cinhil reddened at that, and started to raise a hand against the man, but Cullen restrained him.

  “Your name,” Camber demanded. “If wrong has been done, I will do what I can to right it, but I must know who you are.”

  The man coughed blood and turned away in agony before looking up at Camber again.

  “My father is Dothan of Erne, who was a lesser minister of this court. She—she who sleeps yonder—” His voice caught as he glanced away from the dead woman. “—she was my sister—O God, I hurt!”

  Joram eased the man more to a sitting position, and Rhys tried again to assist him, but the man knocked the Healer’s hand away, pointing a trembling finger at the king.

  “Your traitorous Deryni friends have taught you well, King of Rats!” he gasped, bloody froth staining his lips. “But I tell you this: you shall reap no joy of what you have wrought. I curse you in your going and in your coming! I curse you in each breath you take! I curse you in the fruit of your seed, and in all you touch—may it come to naught! You—”

  The litany of curses was more than Cinhil could bear. With an enraged, animal cry, he broke away from Cullen long enough to reach out his hand and clench the air with his fist.

  His victim took one strangled half-breath, then jerked in spasm and was still.

  As Cullen restrained Cinhil again, and the others stared in horror, their gazes alternating between the obviously dead man and the king, Rhys checked frantically for a sign of life, knowing sickly that he would find none. He looked up; and his Sight, plus the contorted expression on Cinhil’s face, showed him more than he had ever wanted to see of death and vengeance.

  Camber, mastering his own horror and distaste with some difficulty, stared at Cinhil for several seconds before speaking.

  “Why, Cinhil?” he finally said.

  “Must I give you a reason? He was an assassin—a Deryni assassin!”

  “He was a prisoner,” Camber said. “He was in custody, beyond the ability to harm anyone.”

  “He cursed me and mine!”

  “His curse was but words! Can a king afford to let himself be moved to murder just because of words?”

  “It was execution, not murder,” Cinhil replied, in a more defensive tone. “Assassins are always executed.”

  “Even assassins deserve trials!” Camber said.

  “I tried and condemned him, in my mind!” Cinhil countered hotly. “Besides, it was not just any man who cursed me, but a Deryni. How am I to gauge the potency of a Deryni curse?”

  “Cinhil, the man was already dying,” Camber began, trying to back off from the Deryni issue.

  Cinhil shook his head. “That is immaterial. Do you guarantee that a Deryni curse, especially from the lips of a dying man, can do no harm?”

  Camber started to speak, but Cinhil shook his head again.

  “Nay, I thought not. Oh, I know what you say, and I know that my own power is not inconsiderable—but what do I really know of your Deryni powers? Only that which you have chosen to reveal to me.”

  “Cinhil—”

  “Enough. I am sore accursed already, for offenses against my Lord God, without adding Deryni damnation to my lot. One son has died already, of Deryni slaying. And you have only to look in the nursery, at my poor, ill-begotten babes, to know how my wretched fate continues.”

  As he gestured toward the entrance of the hall, all of them simultaneously became aware of a long streak of blood across the back of his left hand, smeared from the edge of an angry-looking cut which had hitherto been hidden beneath the fur at his sleeve edge. Cinhil saw their glance and looked at the wound almost dispassionately.

  “Yes, assassins’ knives do occasionally draw blood, gentlemen. Fortunately, this is slight.”

  “Let Rhys be the judge of that,” Camber said, signaling with his eyes that the Healer should attend the wound. He eased closer as Rhys stood and took the injured hand in his.

  “Cinhil, has anyone verified or disproved their story?” Camber asked, trying to lead Cinhil gently away from the subject of curses and also distract him from what Rhys was doing.

  Cinhil shook his head, arrogance and defiance still flashing in the gray Haldane eyes.

  “What does it matter? I remember the case vaguely. This Dothan of Erne was arrested with Coel Howell and his adherents. Coel was executed. I recall that there were mitigating circumstances about Dothan, so he was being held for a new trial. That’s the law. It isn’t my fault.”

  “He mentioned something about his father being ill, though,” Evaine interjected. “Is he?”

  “How should I know?”

  “It is a king’s business to know,” Cullen replied.

  Cinhil threw up both hands in disgust, and Rhys had to move fast to recapture the hand he was examining. The wound was so slight that Rhys was almost tempted to let Cinhil go on his way and allow it to heal naturally. Instead, he sighed and began to slip into his healing trance.

  “I fail to unde
rstand how a crown is supposed to grant one omniscience!” Cinhil was saying angrily. “I am beset by two Deryni assassins, I am wounded in the attempt on my life, and then you try to make me feel guilty because I killed one of them. It isn’t because they’re Deryni like yourselves, is it?”

  Had he calculated it—perhaps he had—Cinhil could not have made a remark more certain to shock his listeners. The mental reaction of those around him was so violent, even if their faces did not show it, that Rhys broke out of his healing trance before he had even begun, only with difficulty schooling his face to some semblance of professional decorum. Around him, he could sense the others shielding their own stunned amazement.

  Guaire, the lone human among them, was not so adept at covering his horror, and flinched before the long, appraising study which Cinhil turned on each of them.

  It was Rhys who managed to change the tenor of the interaction, exercising the prerogative of healers to command even kings when a question of health was involved.

  “Sire, if you insist upon arguing, I can’t possibly heal you. Now, please come and sit quietly by the fire so I can take care of this.”

  As Cinhil stared at him, jaw dropping at the Healer’s effrontery, Camber laid one hand on Cinhil’s elbow.

  “He’s right, Sire. Why don’t you come and sit down? We’re all nervous and exhausted from what we’ve just been through.

  “Jebediah, unless you have pressing duties elsewhere, I’d like you to go and check on this Dothan of Erne. That’s the least we can do. And Guaire, please have the guards remove these bodies. See that they receive proper burial.”

  “No, let them rot!” Cinhil said, jerking his arm away from Camber.

  “See that they receive proper burial,” Cullen repeated Camber’s words.

  He looked Cinhil in the eye, and the king glared back for an instant before dropping his gaze and allowing himself to be led meekly to a place by the fire.

  This time, Cinhil did not resist as Rhys took his hand in his. Perhaps realizing that he had behaved less than graciously toward the man who was trying to help him, he laid his head against the chair back and closed his eyes, not seeing the glances which were exchanged among the others taking seats around him.