Camber the Heretic

by Katherine Kurtz

  Still, the charm of three young princes was undeniable. No one knew a great deal about the children, since their father had protected them fiercely from too much public exposure during his lifetime, but it was said that at least the heir and the youngest were intelligent and engaging boys, though the heir was a trifle sickly.

  They did not talk much about the middle son, clubfooted Prince Javan, who bore the mark of God’s displeasure in every step he took. Some there were who felt sorry for the boy, but no one was sorry that it was Alroy and not Javan who was to be crowned in May, on the twins’ twelfth birthday. It was not thought seemly that a cripple should sit upon the throne of Gwynedd—though law did not prohibit such a thing.

  But, perhaps that, too, would change under the rule of the regents. It was said that the boy required a Healer at his side, day and night. Perhaps he would die, and save them all the further embarrassment. Had the regents been asked, and answered truthfully, they could not have argued with that rationale. Rhys Michael was a full year and a half younger than Alroy and Javan—with a correspondingly longer minority.

  The princes’ first public function after Cinhil’s death, other than their brief appearances at the chapel royal beside the bier, was to walk behind their father’s coffin in the funeral procession. From the castle, where Cinhil’s body had lain in state for the past week, the procession wound its way out the courtyard and down the narrow, serpentine streets of the town, finally ending at the great Cathedral of All Saints, back near the castle.

  Young Alroy, a royal prince’s circlet of gold shining on his raven hair, walked directly behind the bier. Still a little pale, and very austere looking, he held his head high and looked neither right nor left; he had been well-coached by his tutors for the past week in royal deportment. He wore black, befitting the solemnity of the occasion, but the undifferenced shield of the Haldanes was blazoned bold on his chest and back to mark him as the heir. His brothers walked behind him, also in black, though without the shields, and wearing silver circlets.

  Javan limped a little less than usual that day—a surprise to those who had never seen him, for many had thought him hideously deformed, to hear the common rumor. His manner was as cool and regal as his twin’s; but those who watched would never know of the special ministrations given him by Tavis that morning, to block the pain of so long a march; nor would they know the price that walk cost him later that night, when the damage must be faced and Healed. For now, he was a royal prince and knew it.

  And beside Javan, spritely and engaging, a sunny-dispositioned Prince Rhys Michael moved out confidently, in rapport with the crowd as only a natural-born leader could be, only barely able to refrain from smiling and waving to the people as he passed.

  Next came the regents—all except Bishop Hubert, who would be assisting at the funeral and was already waiting at the cathedral with the other prelates. They walked four-abreast behind the princes, garbed in funereal black but by their bearing leaving little doubt of their own estimation of their importance in the future of Gwynedd.

  Cinhil’s Requiem Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Jaffray and Bishops Cullen and MacInnis—friends of Cinhil, all, though not universally of one another—a fitting farewell to a most pious king. It was attended by Deryni and humans alike.

  When it was over, Cinhil was laid to rest in a crypt in the cathedral undercroft, near the tombs of the Festil kings who had once ruled Gwynedd. The regents had announced earlier in the week that Cinhil’s body would be removed to Rhemuth later and reinterred with his Haldane ancestors, as, indeed, the entire Court would relocate to the old Haldane capital as soon as rebuilding was sufficiently advanced. The regents had even made inquiries to locate the graves of Cinhil’s father and grandfather: Alroy, known as Royston, and Aidan, known as Daniel Draper.

  The pronouncement was an auspicious one for the new regime. Such a poignant outward sign of piety and respect for the past touched responsive chords in Deryni as well as humans, and put the regents in a very positive light from the start. The veneration of the Haldane line, the planned retreat to the old human capital, with its associations of more fortunate days, seemed positive auguries for a more enlightened and responsive reign ahead.

  Hence, for the first few weeks after Cinhil’s funeral, the regents were careful to do nothing which might diminish their carefully nurtured first impression. While the Court was still in mourning, the regents occupied themselves with making quiet preparations for Alroy’s coronation in May, the while setting out their long-term strategy for the months and years ahead. The council having been purged of all its Deryni members save one, it now became the regents’ quiet task to ease out Deryni members of the royal household, the while rearranging staffs and quarters and schedules to extend even more rigid control over the three princes.

  To begin this reorganization, the boys were moved into separate apartments—in the same wing, but separated by intervening suites occupied by staff and some of the regents themselves. Their schooling went on, as it must, but now in a more concentrated format, with even more rigid schoolmasters; and Alroy was often absent from the formal sessions still held in the old common room of the nursery, the regents avowing that he could learn more by travelling around his kingdom and observing his government at work firsthand. In fact, what now began for Alroy was a carefully calculated program of isolation and growing dependence.

  Tavis was permitted to stay at court, to avoid royal tantrums on Javan’s part before the new king was safely crowned, but castle rumor had it that his days were numbered, and he walked a very narrow line of tolerance. He was one of a very few Deryni who did not taste the regents’ cool rejection in those early days—and knew it.

  For the Deryni dismissed from office, like Camber, those weeks of late February and early March were a time of making arrangements for other occupations, other livings; and many of those anticipating dismissal did likewise. Archbishop Jaffray had requested Camber’s participation in Alroy’s coronation, giving him an excuse to remain at the capital yet a little while longer, and perhaps mitigate some of what the regents planned; but eventual departure was inevitable, Camber knew. Fortunately, he still had Grecotha. At least at Grecotha, he would have a secure base from which to function—which was more than many could say.

  Mostly, though, Camber spent his time in prayer and contemplation, considering their situation as a race and trying to cement strong ties of friendship and mutual aid with those who would remain at Court when he was gone. Also high on his list of priorities was to learn all he could about the men who now held Gwynedd’s destiny in their avaricious hands.

  As if that were not enough, he must also worry about Davin and Ansel, who were actively trying to break up the bands of young Deryni bravos who increasingly terrorized the roads now that spring was upon them. The identity of some of the ringleaders was now known, thanks to Joram’s briefing, and Davin, as Earl of Culdi, had tried and hanged two in his county court for raping and killing a farmer’s wife at Childermas. Vigilante bands of humans had begun to roam the roads of late, too, sometimes clashing violently with the Deryni. Some said that it was such a band which had burned a mostly-Deryni monastic school near Barwicke, a scant week after Cinhil’s funeral.

  Nor had Gregory and Jesse been idle in the Ebor area. Of the men who had attacked Camber and Joram, a full half-dozen had been known to Jesse or his father, and had been detained and questioned accordingly. A lynch mob had almost taken them the first night they were jailed, but Gregory’s men had been able to prevent it—at the cost of four Deryni and two human lives. The prisoners had now been moved to safer quarters, but Gregory doubted he could hold them much longer. The young men’s fathers were clamoring for their release, claiming that the Earl of Ebor could not keep them safe. Besides, boys would be boys.…

  In the face of such frustrations, Camber’s one positive idea for utilizing Rhys’s talent seemed almost brilliant—until he began examining its ramifications in depth. Synthesizing the basic concept took th
e better part of several weeks, and even when it came, he explored the concept for days with Rhys and Evaine and Joram before he even considered taking it to the Camberian Council. He and Jebediah spent an entire day and night going over the military and religious implications and arguing about all the things that could go wrong.

  Finally, even Camber had to admit that it was a terrible idea, that it had only a ghost of a chance of working—but it was also the only idea they had, at that point. Only desperate circumstances could warrant its use, for it was a mere survival plan for certain of their race—and saving some of them would mean the loss of much of what they had gained.

  Yet, it was better than no plan at all. And if there was even the most remote chance that such a drastic plan might one day have to be implemented, then preparations must be begun. They could always abort the plan, if it became no longer necessary.

  “I know the outcome is risky,” Camber said, after he and Rhys had just summarized the proposal to the Camberian Council, meeting informally around the great, ivory council table. “But at least it would give some of our people a chance, especially the ordinary Deryni of no particular training or rank, who haven’t access to the hiding methods of many of us.”

  “I don’t know,” Jaffray said, shaking his head doubtfully. “To begin with, I don’t like this idea of using a religious framework to present it. God knows, there are enough religious hoaxes that can’t be helped, without deliberately inventing one.”

  “I agree,” Camber said. And if only you knew, he continued to himself. “You must admit that it’s a perfect foil, however.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” Jaffray sighed for at least the fourth time that evening. “That isn’t my only reservation, though.”

  Camber smiled. “I had hardly dared hope it would be.”

  “I’m serious!” Jaffray protested. “In addition to the dubious theological aspects of what you propose, this whole plan hinges on whether other Healers can be trained to do what Rhys can do. What if they can’t? If that comes to be the case, suppose something should happen to him? With no one else to reverse the block, we don’t know whether people’s powers would eventually return spontaneously or whether they’d be lost forever as Deryni. That could be the death of our race just as surely as if we all fell beneath human swords or died at the stake.”

  “Maybe Deryniness is transmitted to the children, even if the parents’ powers are blocked,” Evaine said quietly. “Maybe the children would still be Deryni.”

  “And maybe they would not!” Gregory said pointedly. “You have children, Evaine. Would you want to take that chance?”

  As Evaine shook her head, Jebediah sighed and shrugged.

  “We may have to take that chance, Gregory. We might succeed. There’s even the chance, albeit slim, that the persecutions we fear might never come—or that they might be far less severe than expected.”

  “And snakes can fly!” Gregory said emphatically. “Come on, Jeb, you know better. You’ve seen the signs. How many of your officers have been ‘transferred’ to other assignments and replaced by the regents’ human cronies, even before you were dismissed as earl marshal? How many of our friends and acquaintances have suddenly been eased out and their places filled by men we never heard of, but who have the regents’ ears? And then, there are our own people who simply invite the regents to move against us, the ones that Jesse and I and your nephews, Evaine, have been trying to take out of circulation so they won’t provoke even more vicious retaliation than we saw at Nyford.”

  “But the highway bands weren’t responsible for Nyford,” Evaine protested. “Besides, I thought they were being put down. You said they were.”

  Now thoroughly agitated, Gregory slapped both hands flat on the table and rolled his eyes toward the crystal sphere hanging above the center of the table.

  “My dear child, how can you be so naive? A mere pittance! A tear in the ocean-sea! If there were no more bands—if the harassment stopped now, tonight—it would be too late for that! You say the persecutions may not come? I say that they’re here already, growing in small, insidious ways. Given our fine, self-righteous, Deryni-hating regents, and given a two-year minority of our new king—or his next brother, if Alroy shouldn’t last that long—or more than three years, if Rhys Michael should come to the throne before his majority—you can bet that it’s only going to get worse! The only questions in my mind now are how bad and how soon?”

  He sat back explosively. “I’m sorry. That’s been building for a very long time. But that’s how I feel.”

  The rest of them stared at him in shocked silence for several seconds until Camber finally cleared his throat and glanced around self-consciously. They had deserved that—all of them. Perhaps they had all been too far-removed, too blindly trusting that fate would intervene to save them. But it was not too late—was it?

  “Your warnings are well taken,” Camber said, unusually subdued for Alister. “Perhaps we’ve all been guilty of refusing to recognize how serious things are. Oh, we’ve realized what was happening in a day-to-day sense, in bits and pieces, but I think it’s only really begun to sink home since Cinhil’s death. We do not have Cinhil’s tempering influence to protect us anymore, however tenuous that protection might have been. We do have a set of unscrupulous and avaricious regents whose next specific moves are unpredictable, but whose general attitude is quite clear: they do not like Deryni! I think we have—perhaps—until the coronation to decide what we’re going to do to protect ourselves, as a race as well as individuals. And frankly, Rhys’s talent presents the best hope I’ve seen so far.”

  There were nods of agreement at that, even Gregory giving grudging acquiescence. But when all attention had returned to Camber, he glanced casually at Rhys, across the table. The Healer was staring at his two hands lying palm-down on the table—slender, fine hands with supple fingers and short, well-kept nails. Rhys felt their scrutiny, but he did not lift his gaze from his careful study of his hands. His voice was almost fragile as he spoke.

  “You wonder that I stare at my hands,” he said softly, not looking up at them. “There is a reason for that. They are a Healer’s hands, consecrated to the service of mankind—human as well as Deryni. I pledged that service in my Healer’s oath, many years ago. I have often held life itself between these hands—sometimes your lives. Now it appears that I have been given not just the lives of individuals, but of our race—here, in the span of these two frail hands. Do you wonder that I feel the burden?

  “Gregory, you’ve been our doomsayer tonight, our gadfly, our goad, our Nesta, who foretold the fall of Caeriesse—except that no one believed Nesta, and she was right. I hope that you aren’t.” He looked up finally, directly at Gregory.

  “But even if you are, I’m not ready to concede this fight. And I don’t think the others are, either, or we wouldn’t be here together, looking for a miracle. We need you with us, Gregory. We need your strength and—yes, we even need you to warn us when we’ve gotten off our focus, as you did tonight. Especially, we need you for that.”

  “I’m with you,” Gregory said gruffly, blinking an unaccustomed brightness from his pale blue eyes. “I never meant to imply that I wasn’t, or that I doubted you. It’s just that—damn it all, man! I’m a soldier. I don’t understand your poet’s ways. Speak to me in a language I can understand!”

  “All right. Progress report,” Rhys replied briskly. “If you want to be military, I can be that, too. Item: we have established that the Deryni-specific drugs most commonly accessible to humans do not affect blocked Deryni. This means that Deryni could be hidden right under the noses of the authorities and they’d never be detected, as long as no one knew they were Deryni to begin with. For the ones who are known, but choose this option, it means a massive relocation program, once we get the operation underway in earnest. That’s a much later problem.

  “Item: unfortunately—or fortunately, depending upon your point of view—my blocking talent seems to be exclusively a Healer�
�s function. So the next question is, can other Healers learn to do it, or am I a fluke? And can all Healers do it, or can only a few learn how? Jaffray, a while back, you offered to get me access to other Healers. I assume you were referring to Gabrilites?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Very well. Bearing in mind that we almost have to tell them the background on this, including at least some background about the Council, whom were you considering?”

  “Well, Dom Emrys comes to mind first of all,” Jaffray said promptly. “You’ll not find a better Healer or teacher of Healers anywhere. And since he declined a seat on this Council years ago, I think we need not worry about his discretion. I would trust Emrys with my immortal soul—and have done so, on occasion.”

  Rhys returned Jaffray’s wistful smile with a chuckle. “I know what you mean. I thought you might recommend him. I was going to, myself. I only trained under him a short while, but I admire and respect him greatly. I do have some reservations about his age, though. What is he, close to eighty?”

  “Maybe more. He’s in good health, though. And if anyone can learn to do what you do, he should be able to. Also, he’d be able to help train others.”

  “A telling point. Very well. Who else?”

  “Queron Kinevan,” Jaffray replied. “I haven’t seen him in years, but he’s one of the finest Healers I ever knew. Some of you will remember his demonstration at the synod which canonized Saint Camber. Sorry to bring up a sore point, Joram, but his performance was brilliant.”

  “I know,” Joram whispered.

  “So, do you know where he is, these days?” Jaffray continued. “Didn’t you say you’d seen him at Dolban, a few weeks ago?”

  Joram had lowered his eyes guardedly as Jaffray extolled Queron’s abilities, and Camber knew that his son must be remembering their chilling personal encounter with the Healer at the synod Jaffray had mentioned. Then Joram had nearly been forced to bare his mind to Queron’s ruthless scrutiny, threatening the betrayal of every detail of his father’s change of rôle. Camber, as Alister Cullen, had managed to avert Queron’s probe by himself seeming to conduct a Truth-Read of Joram regarding his supposedly-dead father, but the terror which both of them had felt while they worked to reach that goal had been too real, the threat of Queron’s rumored ability to strip away all deception, all too powerful. Joram was not now in danger, if Queron were chosen to try to learn Rhys’s new talent; but Rhys could be. Neither Camber nor any of his kin wished to have Queron delve any deeper into the inner workings of anyone who knew the truth of Camber.