Camber the Heretic

by Katherine Kurtz

  Lonely or not, the evening was not without its pleasures, even for the boys, though they might have enjoyed it more, had they been better rested. The food, if overrich and exotic for young palates, was wonderfully presented, to madrigal and instrumental accompaniment, and usually paraded about the hall for the amazement of all, before being served: roast venison and stuffed capons; sturgeons arrayed in aspic, so that they appeared still to be swimming; cygnets and doves stuffed inside pheasants; great tarts and meat pies; eels seethed in wine; and a peacock roasted to perfection, still bearing all its jewel-glowing, iridescent feathers as it was brought to table. There was even a subtlety of the Haldane Lion done in gilded marzipan and spun sugar, with glazed cherries for eyes, of which Alroy got the tuft at the end of the tail and one ear for his portion.

  Some of the entertainment also held appeal for children as well as adults—acrobats and harpers and a few of the less bawdy of the troubadours. Alroy was particularly taken with a short mummer’s play depicting his father’s defeat of the hated Deryni Imre—though he would never know how the story had been altered by the regents to show Imre falling on his own sword, rather than willing himself to die by his powers, to avoid being taken captive by the Deryni-supported Cinhil and his Deryni allies. Other than Imre and Ariella, Deryni did not even appear.

  By then, it mattered little anyway, so far as the princes were concerned. Despite Tavis’s earlier ministrations, it was not long before the day’s accumulation of fatigue began to tell on all three boys. Indulged by their adult companions with as much wine as they wished, first Rhys Michael and then Alroy nodded off, before the third course had even been completed.

  A squire nudged Alroy unobtrusively to present a finger-bowl for his use, and Alroy thanked him sheepishly but by then, Javan, too, was yawning mightily and Rhys Michael had slipped groggily from his chair to curl up in the rushes beneath his end of the table and go to sleep. None of his dinner companions even seemed to notice.

  Tavis noticed. From his vantage point in the gallery above the hall, he had been watching all three boys throughout the feast, and waited for a time when he might finally take action. During a particularly rowdy dance interlude at the far end of the hall, he and two squires slipped quietly onto the dais and woke the now-drowsing Javan, the squires accompanying Javan and Alroy while Tavis collected the sleeping Rhys Michael from under the table and took him out.

  Tammaron saw them go and waved his approval to Tavis, for he had young sons of his own at home in bed. Other than Tammaron, no one else even missed them. By the time the dance had ended, Murdoch and Rhun could be seen lolling on the arms of the throne and hoisting cups in toast while they led the assembled nobles in a rousing rendition of one of the bawdier tavern ballads currently making the rounds in Valoret town. Ewan and his brothers, Hrorik and Sighere, started a wagering game in one corner of the hall with four other men. Bishop Hubert was rapidly drinking himself into red-faced and exuberant inebriation, much to the distress of his fellow regents’ wives or any serving maid who chanced too close to His Grace’s chair.

  Jaffray, one of the very few Deryni present in the hall that night, and one of the handful of either race who remained relatively sober, could only shake his head to himself and wonder how they would manage to survive the next few years, if these were the men who were to govern Gwynedd.

  Fortunately for the princes, the next day boded better. For one thing, it started later. By the appointed hour of noon, the regents were only beginning to revive from the previous night’s festivities, and they were nearly an hour late collecting the boys for that day’s events.

  The first afternoon’s offering was but prelude to a week-long series of entertainments devised to please young boys of ten and twelve and keep their young minds from the serious business of ruling. For further diversion, the regents brought their own children and kin of about the princes’ ages, and Hubert brought his brother’s children; no sense in all the expense being used for just three boys.

  Prime among the performances was a troupe of puppeteers and Morris dancers, who mimed several tales of Gwynedd folklore to the accompaniment of a gaily clad troubadour; and jugglers and a young harper, hardly older than the twins, who sang and played so sweetly that the boys were held in thrall by the tale she wove in song, and seriously discussed how they might keep her there at the castle—though none of them was old enough or experienced enough in the world to know what they might do with her other than have her sing. After the harper had finished, the Morris dancers did a fierce sword-clashing drill to the accompaniment of pipes and drums, which nearly frightened the ten-year-old Rhys Michael at first, whirling and interweaving their swords in patterns, first slow and then fast, which were nearly as ancient as the history of the land.

  An added attraction was the presentation of a menagerie which was to be displayed at the fair opening in the town the following day. The boys had never seen such animals: a dancing bear, which roared and growled most ferociously when prodded to perform; several strange, dust-colored animals with humps on their backs; a pair of real lions, like the one on the Haldane arms, brought from beyond the borders of Bremagne and kept in a stout cage; and, the gift of the small, quick man who owned the menagerie, three exquisite R’Kassan yearling colts, jet-black now, but promising to turn to purest white by the time their young owners should be old enough to ride them as warhorses.

  The boys’ excitement knew hardly any bounds, and that night they slept the gentle sleep of normal, boyish fatigue. Tavis began to relax a little.

  The second day saw a resumption of more vigorous activities. First among the royal duties—and a fascinating task it was, which the boys minded not in the least—was a state visit to open the town fair which had been proclaimed in honor of the new-crowned king. Alroy and his brothers personally witnessed the official opening, standing by eagerly while a herald read the official decree and commanded all, in the name of King Alroy, to keep the king’s peace within the boundaries of the fair.

  The royal party progressed through the fairgrounds to drum and trumpet after that, while a liveried attendant bore before them the gilded gauntlet on a pole, which was symbolic of the king’s protection and patronage. To the populace, the king and his brothers dispensed copper coins struck with Alroy’s likeness for the occasion of the coronation, in return sampling the wares of several of the stalls and being given numerous small trinkets and gifts which the regents even allowed them to keep.

  But there was no time to linger, for the king must attend a tournament being held that afternoon in his honor; and so they had to leave the fair long before boyish curiosity had been satisfied. Cinhil had not believed in such frivolity, and so the boys had never been permitted even to see a fair or marketplace. For that matter, they had never attended a tournament other than as spectators, though they had been taught the skills of horsemanship requisite for participation in such an activity. Tournaments had only been introduced during the latter days of King Blaine, Imre’s father, to keep the skills of war honed even in times of peace. All manner of martial accomplishment might now be tried in the name of sport.

  Therefore, a tournament designed, at least in part, for the participation of children held a special allure for the princes. After the initial ceremonies, and the first skirmishes between adult horsemen, a squires’ list was held, and then one for Alroy and Javan’s age-group.

  The king had a slight cold, and so was not permitted to ride—though he was promised that he might on the morrow, if his health was improved—but Javan tilted at rings and ran at the quintain most stylishly, to the great surprise of most folk watching, for on horseback, he was as secure as any other rider, and the long surcoat he wore obscured the special boot on his right foot. He even won a second place in pole-bending: a chaplet of wildflowers which the Countess Carthane, Murdoch’s lady, bestowed.

  The ten-year-old Rhys Michael also acquitted himself quite nobly against the young pages of his age group, managing to snag several more than his sha
re of rings in the ring-tilting competition. The crowd cheered for him in particular, for his sunny disposition was fast making him the popular favorite. All three boys again slept the sleep of the righteously exhausted when they went to bed that night.

  Commitments were far less rigid on the third day. Though the king’s presence was expected at the continuing tournament, and he had, indeed, been given permission to compete this time, the two younger boys were not required to attend. A little judicious pestering of Earl Tammaron, who was known to be indulgent with his own boys, produced the exhilarating permission to go to the fair with Tavis instead of to the tournament, taking only a small guard escort with them.

  The boys were ecstatic, and their enthusiasm was so infectious that Tavis was even prevailed upon to let them dress as pages rather than princes, so that they might pass for ordinary boys on holiday at the fair. Tavis’s own tunic, with its badges of Healing and royal service bold on the sleeve, he covered with a short cape of grey, for the day was warm and the event informal. Even the guards were cajoled into the spirit of the day’s adventure, somewhat disguising themselves by wearing plain harness and throwing worn, nondescript cloaks over their badges of household and personal rank.

  It mattered not to the boys. They had the semblance of freedom, if only feigned, and the guards were sympathetic, several of them with small children of their own. Almost, the boys could imagine that they were, indeed, the simple pages that they appeared to be. It was a delicious taste of what they had always imagined it might be like to lead an ordinary life, and they revelled in it.

  All day long they ran through the aisles of the fair, inspecting stalls and booths, watching with awe as a man breathed fire here, produced fresh flowers from a woman’s hair there. They saw women weaving baskets out of sleek, sweet-smelling reeds, gaped in astonishment as a bowl grew under the supple fingers of a master potter.

  A baker’s stall provided fresh-baked pastries and tough, chewy brown rolls at midday, far different from the fine white manchet bread to which they were accustomed at home; and from a cheesemaker’s booth they procured fragrant, frothy milk kept cool in a crock which had been buried in the ground the day before.

  And there were comfits to be munched greedily—rare treats which Tavis only occasionally permitted—and small bundles of fragrant herbs to be tucked into belts against the less pleasant smells of such a large gathering, such as those of the butcher’s stalls, which both boys avoided when they realized what happened there. Violent death, even of animals, had not yet become a part of their reality.

  In a cutler’s booth, Rhys Michael found a dagger scaled just right to fit his boyish hand, and Tavis was finally persuaded to let him buy it.

  Javan’s purchase was more poignant, still, for while ferreting about in a saddler’s stall for a suitable sheath for Rhys Michael’s blade, the elder prince came upon a length of supple white calf’s leather about a handspan wide and nearly as long as he was tall. He made no particular reaction when he first found it—merely looped it twice over his arm and continued helping his brother’s search—and soon they located a sheath of Haldane-red leather tooled in an interlaced design.

  But while Rhys Michael and one of the guards, Sir Piedur, haggled with the saddler over the sheath’s price, Javan fingered his length of white leather thoughtfully and then drew aside another of the guards, Sir Jason. The two spoke confidentially for several minutes, Tavis unable to ascertain what was passing between them; but when Rhys Michael paid the agreed-upon price for his sheath, Javan bought the strip of white leather without even arguing the price, an expression of grim determination on his face as he tucked his rolled-up prize in his belt pouch. It was not until half an hour later that Jason was able to come casually to Tavis, while Javan and his brother watched a glassblower at work, to tell him how Javan planned the white leather to become the belt of a knight. Jason, who was known for his skill at leather-working as well as his knightly virtues, had not had the heart to tell the boy the futility of his dream—that his club foot would almost certainly bar him from that rank unless, somehow, he should become king.

  Tavis said nothing further of the matter, though he thanked Jason for telling him. But his heart ached for Javan—this prince who would be all things to all men, whom fate had flawed in a way which had nothing to do with his noble spirit but which would forever mark him, nonetheless. Not for the first time, he wished that his Healer’s powers could somehow make of Javan the whole prince which he was in everything excepting body.

  Other treasures the boys also found on that afternoon, though they were not permitted to buy everything that they saw. For their royal brother, they picked out a fine leather riding crop, its handle tooled with mysterious designs from far Torenth. Rhys Michael insisted that the carved leather would match beautifully the white headstall on the R’Kassan colt Alroy had received two days before.

  For old Dame Lirel, who had been the boys’ chief nurse up until the previous year and still kept their quarters tidy, they bought a length of sky-blue ribbon the color of the Lady’s mantle; for Botolph, who kept the horses, a fine cambric shirt embroidered at neck and wrists with the odd, geometric cross-stitching of his Forcinn homeland.

  The four guards received handsome leather pouches worked with each man’s badge or device in bright dyes and threads while they waited. And for Tavis, the boys picked out a leather hunt cap in Healer’s green. The pleased Tavis wore it proudly for the rest of the day.

  But for the most part, all of them simply looked and marvelled at what the fair had to offer. The day passed quickly, as the boys enjoyed their unprecedented adventure and freedom, and they remarked several times that they wished Alroy could have been there to share it with them.

  One brief incident threatened to mar their outing, though nothing came of it at the time. Toward midafternoon, when the boys’ boisterous running around had been temporarily abated by a pause for cheese and fruit, Tavis had stopped to relace Javan’s special boot, the boy perched genially on a vintner’s empty barrel while he munched on an apple. As Tavis crouched there, gently massaging the boy’s foot and unobtrusively delivering a little Healing energy, he was jostled by a passing group of richly-dressed young men whom he instantly recognized as Deryni in his heightened state of awareness.

  He lost his balance momentarily, as one of the men’s feet grazed his heel in passing, and his cloak slipped far back on his shoulders as his arms flailed out to keep him from sitting hard on the ground. The movement exposed the Healer’s badge and royal device on his sleeve, and he caught a quick psychic gasp from one of the men, a mental grimace of distaste, quickly damped and shielded, before he could recover his balance and twitch his cloak into place and try to locate the precise source of the reaction.

  He managed only a glimpse of the men’s backs before they melted into the throngs. He tried to reach out with his Deryni senses and touch them again, to learn why the one had recoiled at his badge, but he could detect nothing. The men must be shielding heavily. As swiftly as their bodies, the men’s auras had disappeared in the crowded area.

  Thoughtfully he finished lacing Javan’s boot, aware and thankful that the boy had scarcely noticed the incident. There was probably nothing to it. The fair had been crowded all day, and this was not the first time one of them had been jostled. Sir Robear made a good-natured comment about some people’s rudeness, but his attention was soon engaged by an exotic-looking dancing girl performing in front of a stall farther down the aisle.

  Tavis, with a mental shrug of resignation, dismissed the incident as a fluke and took Javan’s hand as they and their guard moved on. He had long been aware that there were Deryni who did not approve of Deryni service to humans, just as there were humans who did not approve, like the regents. It really mattered little to Tavis, since his service was to Javan and not to humans in general. Let them presume to think what they liked. So long as Javan needed him, he would stay.

  He thought no more about the incident for the rest of the da
y. The boys were full of energy and had to be watched constantly, lest they wander off unescorted to investigate some new temptation which beckoned from booth or stall or brightly-clad entertainer; and Tavis himself found many things to catch his eye.

  By dusk, as they were heading back through the narrow streets and alleys toward the castle, Tavis was concerned only with getting two tiring and sleepy princes to bed for the night. Javan, his foot finally having given out on him a little while before, was gleefully but sleepily riding the shoulders of Piedur, the largest of the guards, while Rhys Michael, still somewhat energetic, continued to foray off with Jason, Robear, and Corund, to peer into side streets and shopfronts.

  The streets were crowded with jostling, merry people, some of them in masks, for tonight was carnival and celebration. One group passing by sang a three- or four-part marching song, and Piedur joined in. Tavis did not notice that he was in the midst of a rather different kind of merrymakers until suddenly he was seized by either arm and jostled into the mouth of an alley.

  “Deryni should not aid the enemy!” a voice whispered in his ear, just as a blow struck the back of his head and he momentarily lost track of what was happening.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand.

  —Micah 5:12

  He staggered, stunned, but he could not even fall while gripped so tightly. His reeling senses told him only vaguely that he was being half-propelled, half-carried, further into the alley—and that the men around him were masked, and his escort still in the main street with the princes, only now becoming aware that something was amiss.