Camber the Heretic

by Katherine Kurtz

  Not daring to speak first, Camber gazed across the table at Joram and caught the quick thought, troubled and angry despite himself, yet resigned, which his son sent only for him. He watched as, with a slow intake of breath, Joram cautiously raised his eyes to Jaffray.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I have—vivid memories of Queron, as you may well imagine. Time has eased my feelings somewhat, but—yes, we did see him at Dolban. We even visited the shrine.”

  “You did?” Gregory’s surprised delight was written all across his narrow face, for he was a devoted adherent of Saint Camber, despite all Camber had been able to do to discourage him. “Joram, you have no idea how happy I am to hear that. I knew you’d come around eventually. Your sainted father—”

  “His sainted father,” Camber interrupted smoothly, shaking his head and trying to smile, “is still a delicate subject for Joram, and you know it, Gregory. Can we get back to the subject?” He faced Jaffray again. “Understand that I don’t know Queron except from a few brief meetings—at the synod, mostly. As Deryni, he’s—formidable. But I’m no Healer to judge in that area. Can you tell us more about him? You and he were Gabrilites together. You know his abilities better than any of us.”

  Thoughtfully, Jaffray sat back in his chair and scanned them all, clicking his ring of office against one large front tooth.

  “He’s good, Alister,” the archbishop finally said. “One of the best I’ve ever met, as I said. We were very close at one time, before I became a bishop and left the Order. I can tell you this: in his prime, he made most Healers look like first-year apprentices by comparison. In those days, you couldn’t find a man with better Healer’s credentials—outside this room, of course,” he ended, nodding deferentially to Rhys.

  “And now?” Rhys asked. “No idle compliments, Jaffray. I have to know. By his own admission, he’s not been an active Healer for years, except in his own community. That may or may not make a difference.”

  “That’s one reason I suggested Emrys first,” Jaffray replied, “though I don’t think it will make a difference with Queron. I’ve seen him do things that made me doubt my own perceptions. But he was always inclined toward the dreamer, the wild-eyed idealist—witness his departure from the Gabrilites to set up the Servants of Saint Camber. You, on the other hand, have both feet firmly on the ground. That’s important, but you’re also unafraid to delve into the unknown. This new Healing quirk is a case in point. In all, though I haven’t seen you work as much, I think you have the potential to be at least as good as Queron.” He paused. “Do you need any further comparison?”

  “No further. Thank you,” Rhys whispered.

  “Very well, then. On that somewhat less than enthusiastic recommendation,” Jaffray said with a slight, wry smile, “I propose that we go ahead with plans to get you together with Emrys and Queron as soon as possible. I think Alister should go, too, since he has observed your work rather more than anyone else excepting, perhaps, your lady wife. Evaine, I would have suggested you, except that I think another priest would do better than a woman in dealing with Queron—and someone who is not related to Saint Camber,” he added, for Joram’s sake.

  Camber’s secret amusement at Jaffray’s last statement almost overshadowed his reluctance to face Queron again. At least as a non-Healer, he would not be expected to enter as deep a rapport with Queron as Rhys would. And since Queron had known Alister Cullen only after Camber’s assumption of that identity, and Camber hardly at all, consistency should be no problem. Still, both he and Rhys would be at least somewhat vulnerable in the sort of rapport necessary for Rhys to show and teach his odd, newfound talent. They would have to be careful to put Queron off balance from the beginning in that regard, so he simply would not have the leisure to read them too deeply in any but pertinent areas.

  “Good. That’s settled, then,” Evaine said, lacing her fingers together and placing her joined hands precisely on the table before her. “I think that now we need to talk more about the framework in which our Healers are going to work—assuming, of course, that the talent can be taught. We’ve been skirting the issue because of its theological implications—my brother has already voiced his objections, in private—but it has to be faced. Alister?”

  Camber nodded slowly. “Very well. I’m no more comfortable with the idea than the rest of you, but it does seem the lesser of a number of evils at this point. And there is historical precedent for the kind of movement we talked about earlier. The concept of dying to the world and being reborn is a fairly universal one, going back even before Judaic traditions. John the Baptist was neither the first nor the last to preach it.”

  “That much I’ll grant you,” Jaffray said. “And the idea of dying to one’s ‘evil’ Deryni powers, to the extent that they really are gone and not just denied—well, that’s a stroke of genius, Rhys.”

  Rhys shrugged. “I don’t know about genius. It still makes me a little uncomfortable. But it may work.”

  “It will work,” Evaine said. “However, to make it work, we’re going to need an undeniably human front-person, whose background and motivations will be unquestionable, both to us and to those to whom he’ll be ministering.”

  “And you have the perfect candidate,” Jaffray guessed, an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Ah, Evaine, my child, I can see that you’ve inherited a full measure of your father’s legendary duplicity.”

  “I’ll take that as the compliment I’m sure you intended,” she retorted with a matching grin.

  Jaffray nodded. “So be it. And who is this paragon of human competence and suitability who is to be our voice in the wilderness?”

  “His name is Revan. Some of you have met him.”

  “Revan?” Gregory’s eyebrows were raised in surprise. “Not the clark?”

  “The same.”

  “Who is Revan?” asked Jaffray.

  Evaine lowered her gaze, remembering with some reluctance. “When Imre was still king, one Lord Rannulf, a Deryni, was found murdered in the village below my father’s keep. Though Willimite terrorists were blamed, Imre took fifty villagers to be executed, two each day. My brother Cathan tried to intercede—and was granted one life, which he must choose! He chose Revan, then a boy of about thirteen. After Cathan was killed, I took Revan as my confidential clark and saw that his education was continued. For the past five years, he has been tutor to our two younger children.”

  “And you think him suited to our purposes?” Jaffray asked. “With his Deryni connections?”

  Jebediah raised an elegant eyebrow in speculation. “Has it occurred to you that it might be precisely those Deryni connections which would make his apparent defection all the more believable? Also, those who keep track of such things will remember his part, however small, in the Rannulf affair, and the alleged Willimite ties. It’s said that the Willimites are active again, by the way. Some of my men reported an entire community of them living in the hills near Saint Liam’s. If we send Revan in there, with the right background, he’ll have a ready-made movement to assimilate. God knows, the Willimites hate Deryni—though they do have several renegades among them, who Truth-Read for them but use no other of their powers.”

  “Renegades, eh?” Jaffray mused. “His cover will have to be impeccable, then, if he’s to stand being Truth-Read. One almost wonders whether the Willimites hate Deryni too much, though. Suppose Revan can’t convince them of his mission?”

  Joram crossed his arms across his chest and scowled. “Oh, he’ll convince them, all right. He has all the marks of a messiah, don’t you know? He was a carpenter’s apprentice when Cathan found him, and he walks with a limp, just like Prince Javan!”

  “Joram, that’s enough!” Evaine snapped. “I know you don’t approve of this plan, and I know why. But since you have no better suggestion, I’ll thank you to keep your trepidations and pious quibbles to yourself!”

  With an expression of angry amazement, Jebediah brought the flat of his hand down hard on the ivory tabletop.
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  “Now, stop it! Both of you! This bickering is—”

  “It’s none of your concern, Jeb!” Joram retorted. “Stay out of it! Evaine, I’m getting a little tired of your—”

  “Children!” Abruptly Camber stood, the thought behind his word carrying his paternal shock even as the verbal exclamation underlined the consternation of the part of him that was Alister. Joram and Evaine both froze in amazement as they realized what they had done.

  “I’m sorry, Father Alister, Joram, Jeb,” Evaine murmured, not looking at her brother or her father.

  Joram, too, bowed his head.

  “Sorry, Jeb, Evaine. But you know how I feel about such things. Alister, I’m sorry that you had to step in that way.”

  “It’s understood, son,” Camber murmured, once more taking his seat, and thankful that the outburst had been covered so well, though he still was concerned at Joram’s obvious hostility. “We’ll talk about it later. For now, though, don’t you all think we should get back to the subject? Gregory, Jaffray, the rest of us know Revan to varying degrees, and are reasonably satisfied with his suitability for the job at hand. Even Joram has no objections to the man. It’s the job that gives him problems. How do you feel?”

  Gregory glanced at Jaffray, and the archbishop nodded slowly.

  “It seems to me that you’re asking a great deal of one so young,” Jaffray said. “How old is Revan, did you say?”

  “Twenty-six or twenty-seven, by now,” Evaine replied.

  “Gregory, what do you think?” Jaffray asked. “I’m reserving my opinion, for the moment.”

  Gregory shrugged. “He does seem a little young for what Alister has in mind—but Our Lord was little older when He started His mission. Besides, who would expect Revan to be involved in such a thing, even if they should come to suspect a subterfuge?”

  “Exactly the point,” Rhys agreed. “The very fact that he is so well known to be devoted to Evaine and me will work in our favor, to convince people that his conversion is genuine, when he starts preaching our message.”

  “Provided he has someone to work with,” Jaffray said quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” said Jaffray, “that right now, you’re the only one who can do what you can do, as a Healer. Suppose it can’t be taught? What then?”

  “Then I’ll simply have to make the sacrifice and do it myself, won’t I?” Rhys said lightly. “We’ll have to figure out a rationale for me to appear to defect and renounce my powers, and go on from there. I’m hoping that won’t be necessary, though. I don’t really think I’m cut out to be a messianic figure.”

  “Neither was Camber,” Joram muttered under his breath, “and look what happened to him.”

  “What was that?” Rhys asked.

  “Never mind. I think you’ll make a fine latter-day John the Baptist, Rhys—running around in the desert, eating nuts and berries and—damn it, this whole thing is too risky!”

  “So it’s risky,” Jaffray countered. “So is being wiped out by humans, because we’re Deryni. So unless you have another solution, I think we’ll all thank you to keep your objections to yourself. Evaine, Rhys, I think you should talk to Revan as soon as possible. If he’s willing to do it, he’s going to need all the time we can give him to build his cover with the Willimites. Have you considered what happens if he won’t do it, by the way?”

  Evaine sighed. “He’ll do it. He has no more choice than we do. We’ll try to go to Sheele by the end of the week.”

  “Good. And in the meantime, I’ll see about setting up Rhys’s and Alister’s meeting with Emrys and Queron.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine?

  —Isaiah 28:9

  A few days later, on a morning bright with sunlight for the end of winter, Evaine and Rhys rode to their manor at Sheele, ostensibly to visit their children. Once there, Evaine pleaded a slight indisposition, leaving Rhys an ideal excuse to take the children riding while she rested at the manor with Revan for company.

  Revan’s limp was far less pronounced than usual as they went into the winter-dead garden. Pleasure and contentment lit his eyes as he sat at Evaine’s invitation. Together they watched the seven-year-old Rhysel demonstrate her newly forming riding skills to her father, astride the gentle bay pony her parents had given her at Twelfth Night. Tieg, half her age, had to be content to sit in front of his father, wedged securely between him and the high, tooled-leather pommel. The boy crowed with delight as Rhys’s big chestnut pranced and cavorted. The picture wanted only Aidan, the eldest of the three children, to make Evaine’s pride complete; but Aidan was at Trurill, near Cor Culdi, fostered to his cousin Adrian MacLean, a grandson of Camber’s sister Aislinn, and father of another Camber, called Camlin, who was a year Aidan’s senior. Evaine saw her firstborn mostly at holidays.

  With a wistful sigh, she brought herself back to Revan sitting at her side. His fine hands, stained with ink around the nails, cradled a scroll of creamy new parchment—no ancient scrolls for Revan. Though Evaine could not bring herself to ask, she suspected that it was some new verse or song which Revan himself had written. The lame carpenter’s apprentice had become a learned scholar and bard in the years since his rescue by Cathan. A twinge of guilt assailed Evaine as she considered how what she must ask would end so much of that. And yet, there was nothing else to be done.

  “How go the children’s studies, Revan?” she asked, trying to delay the inevitable for yet a while longer.

  Revan smiled, brushing a strand of light brown hair back from his face. Like many men of the younger generation, he wore his hair long, brushing his shoulders.

  “Lord Tieg is too young for much formal training yet, my lady,” he said easily, “though he knows most of his letters and shows great promise. Lady Rhysel is the one who gives me the most delight. She will be another scholar like you, if she continues.”

  Pleased, Evaine plucked a dead twig from the hem of her gown and twirled it absently between her fingers.

  “A family trait,” she said with a smile. “She favors her grandfather, too.” She studied her twig as if she had never seen one before, searching for the words. This was not going to be easy.

  “Revan, you have served my family for many years now. Do you enjoy your work?”

  He smiled, a quick, sunny grin which was typical of his nature, then dropped his gaze a little shyly.

  “My lady, you know I do. You and Lord Rhys have been very kind to me. The children are almost like the brothers and sisters I never got to know. In fact, I—sometimes like to think I am more than just a tutor to your children—that I am a part of the family, if only a poor cousin.” He dared to glance up at her. “You’re not angry, are you?”

  “Angry? Of course not! You are a part of this family. With you here, Rhys and I have never had to worry that we must spend so much time away from the children. We have always known that they were in good hands.”

  He did not reply to that, though he looked pleased, and Evaine knew that she could no longer delay the inevitable.

  “Revan—Rhys and I did not come here today only to see the children. Nor am I at all unwell. I wanted to discuss the nature of your service with us and to ask whether—you might be willing to consider a different kind of service, much more difficult than anything which you have done hitherto. If we did not consider you as family, I would not dare to ask you what I must.”

  “What different service, my lady?” Revan murmured. Suddenly his face had become more serious, the lights of laughter fading from his eyes. Laying aside his scroll, he turned his full attention on Evaine, waiting, fearing.

  “We—Rhys and I—have a problem.” She broke off a piece of the twig she still was holding and let it fall to the ground. “No, there is nothing wrong between the two of us,” she added, catching the look of concern which flashed across Revan’s face. “Rhys and I are mated in our souls, as well as hearts and bodies
. We could not ask for closer union in this life.”

  Questing out with her mind, she caught Revan’s relief at her assurance, knew as she had never realized before just how much the young man idolized Rhys, worshipped her. Firmly she forced herself to withdraw.

  “No, this has to do with Rhys as a Healer,” she continued, worrying at a strip of bark on her twig with one snagged thumbnail. “In the past few weeks, Rhys has discovered an important new facet of his Healing powers, and we feel that it could benefit all of our Deryni people. But it’s an odd sort of talent. It enables the Healer to block out the powers of a Deryni, to make those powers disappear so completely that they cannot be used, detected, or even remembered. So far as we know, no one has ever been able to do that before.”

  As she glanced at him, sidelong, Revan shook his head slowly, confusion showing in his pale brown eyes.

  “But, why would you want to take away a Deryni’s powers, my lady? Give them, maybe, but take them away? I don’t see the point.”

  “Neither did we, at first. But—” Sighing, she rose and began pacing back and forth in front of the bench, gestured for Revan to remain seated when he would have stood, too.

  “Revan, you’re surely aware of the way people feel about Deryni, especially since the death of the king.”

  “Well, some people, my lady,” he admitted, with a disparaging shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t, and the others of the staff here at Sheele don’t.”