Camber the Heretic

by Katherine Kurtz

  But their patient had thrashed about so violently when touched that they dared not maintain the contact for a proper reading, lest he blindly begin flinging objects once more in his delirium. Nor was his thrashing doing his physical injuries any good.

  The injuries to his body were easy enough to assess. A dislocated shoulder he surely had, by the angle of the arm inside the loose blue tunic; and most likely a fractured collarbone, as well, though Rhys could not be certain of that until his patient permitted a more thorough examination.

  That left some other explanation to account for Gregory’s irrational behavior—perhaps a severe head injury, though neither his son nor his steward could remember him hitting his head at the time of the accident. Still, a Deryni of Gregory’s proven ability simply did not lose control for no good reason.

  Rhys’s amber eyes narrowed as he let them focus through the red and blue glass. With a resigned sigh, he ran one hand through unruly red hair and moved back toward the fireplace and his wife. Evaine sat huddled in her fur-lined travelling cloak, quietly watching her husband and the man they had come to heal.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked, as he crouched beside his medical satchel and began rummaging inside.

  Rhys shook his head and sighed again. “We’re going to have to sedate him, first of all. We may even have to knock down his shields. I don’t really want to do either one. He could have been a big help. We can’t have him destroying the place while I try to work on him, though.”

  He extracted a green-sealed packet of folded parchment and read the fine script on the back, then closed the satchel and stood.

  “We’ll try this first,” he said, carefully breaking the wax seal. “I wonder if that horse could have kicked him in the head? Pour me a small cup of wine to mix this with, please. The sooner we get it in him, the better.”

  With a nod, Evaine MacRorie Thuryn, only daughter of the sainted Camber of Culdi, rose gracefully and went to a low table nearer the fire, laying aside her cloak as she knelt. Though she was now thirty-five and the mother of three, her face and form were still those of a very young woman. The wool and leather of her riding dress clung to every gentle curve, the dove-grey setting off the fine blue eyes as no other color could. Her hair, shining like burnished gold in the firelight, had been twisted into a neat coil at the nape of her neck to keep it tidy for riding, but a strand near her face kept escaping from behind one delicate ear and added to her youthful image.

  Carefully she poured half a cup of wine from a flagon on the table, holding it out thoughtfully to receive Rhys’s powder. As always, when they were together, they were in a light rapport.

  “You’re right, I suppose,” she said, swirling the contents of the cup and watching the drug dissolve. “He’s certainly making things worse by his thrashing. And if he starts throwing things around again—well, I don’t know how much more this room can take.”

  Rhys sniffed the cup delicately, then gave her a wry smile.

  “Have you no confidence in my potions, my love?” he chuckled. “I guarantee this will take the edge off.”

  “You have to get it into him first,” Evaine countered. “Just how do you propose to do that?”

  “Ah, there lies the Healer’s secret!” He stripped off his Healer’s mantle and tossed it in a heap on top of hers, then crossed to the door and flung it wide.

  “Jesse, would you come in here, please, and bring a couple of your servants with you? I’m going to have to give him a sleeping draught before he’ll let me touch him. Don’t worry, I won’t let him do anything dangerous.”

  Cautiously, a husky, olive-skinned youth peered around the doorjamb and then eased his way into the room, followed by three blue-and-white-liveried servants. Jesse, who had sent to Valoret for Rhys, was a quiet but intense young man whose concern—and healthy respect—for his sire’s abilities was evident in every line of his bearing. Neither he nor his men made any effort to move closer to the great bed where the earl tossed and fretted, though they did glance surreptitiously in that direction.

  Rhys took Jesse’s arm and urged him and his men toward the bed with reassuring words.

  “Now, this isn’t going to be as difficult as it may seem,” he said easily. “He’s going to be all right, and so are you. Nobody is going to get hurt. Now, you men—I want you to pin his legs and his uninjured arm when I give the word. Sit on them, if you have to, but keep him still. My potion isn’t going to do him any good if it isn’t in him. Jesse, I need you to help me hold his head. If you can keep him from thrashing around, I’ll worry about getting his mouth open so that Evaine can pour the stuff down. Do you all think you can manage that?”

  Jesse looked dubious and a little scared. “You’re sure he won’t start throwing things around again? I mean, I don’t suppose he would hurt me, but what about the servants?”

  “You let me and Evaine worry about that,” Rhys said, gesturing for the men to move closer. “Is everyone ready now?”

  Reluctant but obedient, the men eased in gingerly around the bed and made assignments among themselves, watching as Rhys and Evaine took positions near the head and Evaine readied the cup. A moment they paused, one man surreptitiously crossing himself before the expected struggle. Then, at Rhys’s signal, all of them pounced.

  Pandemonium ensued. Gregory arched his body upward in reflex, almost throwing off even that array of physical force, and the bed began trembling from more than his movement. Rhys heard something smash against the floor behind him as he forced the earl’s jaws apart, but he ignored that as he tried, at the same time, to apply pressure for temporary unconsciousness. Gregory let out a terrified animal gurgle as Evaine began pouring the drugged wine down his throat, but Rhys’s skillful touch evoked a swallowing reflex once, twice, a third time, and then it was done.

  Releasing Gregory’s head, Rhys signalled the servants to withdraw to the safety of the doorway, then stood back with Evaine and Jesse and tried to dampen the effects of the earl’s temporary wrath. A bowl and pitcher of water across the room toppled to the floor with a crash that made them all jump. Then a pair of swords over the mantel came careening through the air to clatter against the opposite wall, narrowly missing young Jesse’s head.

  Finally, the earl’s pale eyes began to glaze, his head to cease its fitful tossing from side to side, as the drug at last took effect. He moaned several times, obviously still fighting, but it was evident that he was losing the battle. As the earl at last grew quiet, Jesse gave a great sigh of relief and shuddered, hugging his arms across his chest against more than physical chill.

  “I told him not to ride that stallion,” he whispered fiercely, almost to himself. “The animal is a killer. Valuable stud or not, he should be destroyed!”

  “What, exactly, happened, Jesse? Were you there?” Rhys asked, beginning to relax a little. “Do you know whether he was thrown against something, or did he just hit the ground?”

  The young man shivered again, closing his eyes as if that might keep him from remembering. “I was there. I wish I hadn’t been. The stallion threw him into a fence, hard, and then I think he kicked him, though I can’t be sure of that. It all happened so fast.”

  “But he was unconscious for a time?” Rhys urged.

  “Either that or just stunned. The master of the horse said he thought it was just a dislocation and the wind knocked out of him, at first. But by the time they got him up here, he was moving the way you saw and raving with the pain. That was last night. Things started flying around the room shortly after that. Our household Healer is away for a few days, so that’s why I sent for you.”

  “I see,” Rhys said. “Well, I’m pretty sure he has a fracture and a dislocation. And given his psychic activities, there’s probably more at work than that. Anyway, we’ll see what we can do, now that he’s manageable. You can wait outside, if you’d rather.”

  With a nod, Jesse swallowed and slowly backed toward the door, finally turning to flee with the servants. Rhys suppressed
a smile with some effort until the door had closed behind them, then laid an arm across Evaine’s shoulders.

  “Well, love, shall we try it again?” he asked lightly.

  Evaine took her place at their patient’s head and laid her hands on his temples, Rhys moving in opposite, at the man’s left. This time Gregory calmed immediately under her touch, slipping swiftly into an easy, profound sleep which was intensified by the sedative they had given him. A peaceful stillness descended on the room, dispelling the previous agitation of the man beneath her hands, as she centered and held their patient’s consciousness for her husband’s touch.

  Rhys could feel the change of atmosphere, Evaine’s readiness. With a sigh of relief, he unlaced Gregory’s tunic and eased it back from the injured left shoulder, gently slipping his hands inside to curve around the broken angle of joint and clavicle. Extending his senses to probe and explore the extent of the injury, he traced the damaged muscles and nerve-ways and mentally felt out the dislocation of the joint, the clean break in the collarbone, physically eased the dislocation back into place before lining up the ends of the snapped bone and beginning the processes which would regenerate it.

  Profoundly centered now, as his Healing talents took over from mere intellectual sensing of the injuries, he closed his eyes and let himself drift into his Healing mode, let the power flow, feeling life-force channel through him as it had so many times before, a part of him marvelling yet at the miracle of Healing which had been given into his use.

  He could feel the bones knitting beneath his fingertips, the swollen and torn muscles shrinking back into place and mending, the bruises fading and healing. He could sense the warmth of increased blood flow through the injured area, carrying away damaged tissue and speeding the growth of new.

  Finally, he opened his eyes and let more usual senses confirm what his soul already knew, pressed sensitive fingers along the line of previous break and dislocation, and knew that this part of his work was essentially done. His patient might be a little stiff for a few days, but that was small price, indeed, to pay for the outrage which had been done to his body. He did not think that Earl Gregory would begrudge that small discomfort. Now he must try to discover the reason for the rest of Gregory’s symptoms.

  As he raised his head and let his eyes refocus on the visual world, Evaine caught his attention.

  “I think I’ve found why he was so uncontrolled,” she said, running the fingers of one hand lightly along Gregory’s skull just behind the left ear. “He’s got a knot here, hidden in his hair. I think he did get kicked. There’s a slight abrasion. You’d better take a look.”

  Frowning, Rhys moved his hands to the man’s head and probed, his eyes glazing lightly in his concentration. After a moment, he nodded.

  “There’s swelling inside the skull, as well as outside. That could well account for his behavior. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Again he sank into trance, his eyes closing, and this time the questing was much more draining, the Healing more demanding. He had far more difficulty visualizing what should be inside the skull, and he kept getting tangled in Gregory’s sedated thoughts.

  But there was relief in his eyes as he emerged from this second Healing, and he allowed himself a soft but satisfied sigh as he straightened and stretched.

  “Hmmm, I wouldn’t want to do that every day, but I think he’s going to be all right now. You can let him come to. The drug should be just about out of his system. After a good night’s normal sleep, he ought to be fine.”

  “With a bit of a headache, I should imagine,” Evaine replied, easing out of the controls she had been maintaining. “Can he have some wine?”

  “Certainly. He’s going to want something to eat, too. He needs energy, after what he’s been through.”

  With a final glance at her charge, Evaine went to the door and ordered food and drink to be brought, for the previous wine had been a victim of Gregory’s crockery-smashing. By the time Gregory’s pale eyes were flickering open, she had managed to get a servant to clean up the mess and was ready at his head with a cup of warm milk laced with spirits stronger than wine. Raising him with an arm under his shoulders and head, Evaine put the cup to his lips and let him drink; she and Rhys watched with approval as his look of bewilderment diminished and he appeared to reorient to his surroundings.

  “Rhys,” the earl murmured, focusing first on the Healer’s red hair, then on his face. He blinked several times, trying to put things into perspective. “What are you—how did I get here? I was riding that—oh.…”

  “That’s right.” Rhys nodded. “You’re starting to remember. You got thrown and kicked, and you’re lucky to be alive. Your son sent to the king for a Healer, and the king sent me to put you back together.” He smiled reassuringly. “I must say, you didn’t seem very eager to have me work on you, though. You were throwing things around the room and making a terrible scene.”

  “You mean, I fought you?” Shock and embarrassment flashed across the earl’s narrow face. “I used my powers? Rhys, I am sorry. I—”

  He froze for just an instant, a look of increasing consternation growing in his eyes as he turned his mind inward—a look which quickly changed to one of incredulity and fear.

  “Rhys? I can’t sense you, Rhys!” Like a drowning man, he reached out blindly and grasped the Healer’s arm. “What’s happened? What have you done to me?” His other hand went to his temple in alarm.

  “Rhys, I can’t See you with my mind!”

  “What!”

  In an instant reflex, Rhys sent his mind out in quest, almost recoiling in horror and surprise as he realized that the other’s mind was totally open to him. Gone were the customary Deryni shields which should have been reestablished with Gregory’s return to consciousness, gone all evidences of power which were the trademark of a skilled and powerful Deryni like the Earl of Ebor. Suddenly, he was in Gregory’s mind, able to find no vestige of the tremendous strength and ability against which he had been struggling not a quarter hour earlier!

  He could feel Evaine’s concern mingling with his own shocked disbelief as she slipped into rapport with him, sounding out the emptiness, the lack of resistance, as if Gregory of Ebor were a human of the most unsophisticated background. What could have happened?

  Shaking his head a little to clear it, he slipped his hands to either side of Gregory’s head and pressed him back gently onto the pillow, splayed fingers cradling the back of Gregory’s skull as the thumbs rested on the damp temples, mind deepening the link. The earl did not resist, staring up at him with frightened, accusing eyes which held no awareness of the Healer’s mental touch. He was helpless, vulnerable.

  Closing his eyes against the sight, Rhys reached out his mind and exerted gentle but firm pressure, easing his patient back into merciful unconsciousness while he continued to probe and explore. He had never heard of such a thing! Deryni did not lose their powers. Had he truly done this?

  What happened, do you know? came Evaine’s clear thought, cutting through his bewilderment and dismay.

  It must have been something I did in Healing his head injury, while I was very, very deep, he responded, only part of him paying attention to her query. Stay with me, love. I have to find it again. It has to be about—there!

  As he ended the communication, he forced himself to slip deep, deeper, exploring all the possible avenues he might have touched in some unaccustomed way. For a long time his trance was so profound that even Evaine could not follow, so deep that all she dared do was watch and monitor, making sure that his body remembered to breathe, his heart to keep up its slow, controlled, regular beat.

  He was so deep that even he was not consciously aware when he had found the right spot—knew only that he had found it and set things right. One last scan to make certain that everything was, indeed, restored, and then he was taking a deep breath and coming to the surface again, looking tired and still a little puzzled, but satisfied. His hands shook a little as they slipped from Gregory�
��s head to his own, and he allowed himself the utter luxury of sinking bonelessly to the floor beside the bed, leaning his head against the edge of the mattress as he took another deep breath and then yet another.

  Evaine darted around from the other side to take one of his hands in hers and search his eyes anxiously, her other hand caressing his cheek.

  “Rhys, are you all right?” she demanded, relaxing a little as her senses confirmed what his nod declared. “Where were you? I’ve never seen you go so deep.”

  Wearily Rhys shrugged and smiled, drawing his wife into the circle of his arm. “Me neither. That’s probably one of the oddest things I’ve ever experienced. I still don’t know how I did it, either. It’s going to take some digging to bring it to the surface.” He paused, then continued thoughtfully. “You know, this is something your father should see. I wonder if he’d come here, if we sent a message.”

  “Can’t it wait until the next council meeting?” Evaine asked. “He isn’t going to want to leave Cinhil alone, even for the few hours it will take.”

  “Cinhil will be all right for a few hours,” Rhys replied. “Tavis is always there, if another Healer should be needed, and there are other Healers in town. But I really think that this should be checked out before Gregory has a chance to reorganize and possibly mask what happened. Maybe he can even help me figure out how I did it.”

  “Hmmm, you’re right. And there’s certainly no one better qualified for that. How are we going to persuade him to come, though? You can hardly tell him what’s happened in a written message. Suppose Cinhil saw it?—not to mention the messenger.”

  “That’s true. On the other hand—”

  Reaching inside his Healer’s tunic, he caught and pulled on a narrow green silk cord until a dull silvery medallion appeared, the size of an early walnut. This he fingered thoughtfully, absently rasping this thumbnail across the heavy carving while he considered his next move. Then he gave Evaine a hug and got to his feet, letting the medallion dangle as he gave Evaine a hand and helped her rise.