“Do it, then,” Nigel whispered. “But I want to be back in complete control before it’s time for—the other.”
“You can depend on it,” Kelson said, raising his right hand to touch Nigel’s forehead as he locked the grey eyes with his own. “Close your eyes and take a deep breath.…”
With a little shudder, Nigel obeyed.
“Now hold it for a count of five—and let it out. Feel the apprehension drain away as you empty your lungs, until you’ve reached a level of lower tension that you can handle. Have another breath if you need to.” He dropped his hand as Nigel breathed in deeply again. “Now let it out and look at me.”
As Nigel exhaled with a whoosh, his eyes fluttered open and he blinked.
“Better?” Kelson asked.
Nigel nodded bewilderedly. “A little dizzy—as if I’d had a glass of heavy wine on an empty stomach.”
“That will pass,” Kelson said, turning away and pacing off a few precise steps to the left of the fireplace. “Now I’m going to show you something I first learned from Morgan. After tonight, you’ll be able to do it, too. Are you watching?”
“Yes.”
He could feel Nigel standing at his right shoulder, far steadier than he had been, and sensed that at least a part of his uncle’s new calm had come as much from his own strength of character and trust as from anything Kelson had done. That was reassuring, for Kelson himself was not without his own apprehensions about the work ahead, though for different reasons than Nigel.
Lifting the handfire still cupped in his left hand, he raised his right hand as well to trace a smooth, intricate pattern in the air with his forefinger. A psychic triggering went along with the physical act, but Nigel would receive that along with the rest of the night’s accomplishments.
“I—don’t think I caught that,” Nigel whispered, gasping as a section of the wall swung back to reveal a dark stairwell.
Kelson smiled and stepped into the opening, turning to beckon Nigel to follow.
“Don’t worry. You’ll remember if there’s need. Many of the Haldane powers operate that way.” As he started down the shadowy stairs, Nigel had to scramble to keep up.
“In fact,” Kelson went on, “I’m going to try to give you a few limited abilities tonight, even though we’re primarily just setting your potential. Some of mine started coming through in Father’s lifetime, so I don’t see that there’s any conflict. We’d better be quiet now, though. We’ll be passing close to some occupied parts of the castle, and I shouldn’t want anyone to think they’re hearing ghosts in the walls.”
Nigel snorted at that, but they traversed the rest of the passage in red-lit silence, halting finally before an apparently blank wall. There Kelson quenched his handfire and peered for a long time through a peephole set at eye level. Then a narrow section of the wall was swinging back silently and a lighter patch of courtyard lay before them in the starlight.
The passage closed silently behind them as they emerged. Ahead, the silhouette of Saint Hilary’s Within-the-Walls loomed black against the dark night sky, the darkness broken by the occasional glint of starlight on shadowed glass. Kelson made no attempt to conceal their passage, as he led Nigel briskly across the yard. Not until they had almost reached the top of the steps leading to a western door did Nigel see why.
“All’s well, Sire,” said Sean Lord Derry, stepping from the shadow of a column to give casual salute. “The others are already inside.”
Kelson nodded. “You’ve posted adequate guards around the yard?”
“Lord Dhugal’s own borderers, Sire.” Derry’s grin flashed in the darkness. “They have very precise orders.”
“Thank you. I’m certain they have.” Without further ado, he drew Nigel through the postern door and into the narthex.
The inside of Saint Hilary’s had changed little since Kelson had come here the night before his coronation, he the subject that night, and Morgan the escort. It seemed, perhaps, a little brighter. To either side of the high altar, in what would have been the transepts of a larger church, racks of votive candles glowed sapphire and crimson before secondary altars to the Blessed Virgin and the church’s patron, Saint Hilary. In the sanctuary itself, the expected Presence lamp burned above the tabernacle set behind the altar, where the Reserved Sacrament kept a place of honor. Nothing moved besides the captive flames dancing behind bright glass, but foreboding washed over Kelson like a wave—Nigel’s as much as his own, Kelson suddenly realized.
Time to set things into proper balance and get on with it. Further delay would only make it more difficult for both of them.
“We’ll pray for a moment before we join the others,” he said softly, leading Nigel resolutely down the side aisle to a pew near the front, where he and his uncle knelt side by side.
When Kelson had finished, and composed himself to face the others, he reached out with his mind and released the slight control he had been holding on Nigel. As he raised his head, Nigel looked up with a start.
“I’m going to leave you to meditate for a few more minutes on your own,” Kelson said. “When you’re ready, you can join us in Duncan’s study. We’ll know when you’ve come to the door.”
Nigel swallowed and managed a weak smile. “You’ve let me go, haven’t you?”
Kelson nodded.
“You’re sure I’ll come?”
“Quite sure.”
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THE PRIESTING OF ARILAN
AUGUST 1, 1104–FEBRUARY 2, 1105
The Deryni Bishop Arilan has been a subject of fascination for me ever since he showed up on Kelson’s Regency Council in Deryni Rising. I knew, from the beginning, that Arilan was secretly Deryni (though, at that time, I had no idea the Camberian Council even existed), but he wasn’t revealed as such until High Deryni, and I doubt Brion ever knew. Still, Brion’s appointment of a very junior auxiliary bishop to his privy council must have reflected a close personal trust and friendship. (In fact, Denis Arilan was Brion’s Confessor at the time of his death and how he came to be so will be told in a future novel.)
Arilan’s fellow bishops obviously didn’t know he was Deryni either, or he could not have been elected to the episcopate. Indeed, had the Synod of Bishops known what Arilan was, he could not even have been ordained a priest—for, as part of the strictures placed on Deryni as a result of the Council of Ramos, Deryni were forbidden to enter the priesthood, on pain of death.
The Church obviously had some way of enforcing its ban over the years—though Arilan apparently found a way to get around it. The Deryni bishop states in High Deryni that, so far as he knows, he and Duncan are the only Deryni to have been ordained in several centuries. (One suspects that Arilan might have had a hand in getting Duncan through safely, though Duncan obviously never knew, or he would have known Arilan was Deryni.)
So, how did the Church keep Deryni out of the priesthood? What was there to stop Deryni from being secretly ordained anyway? How did Arilan circumvent the ecclesiastical barriers to ordination—and what was the price? What justifications did he have to make, in his own mind? Did he have any regrets?
“Tell me,” Duncan demands, in High Deryni, “did it never bother you to stand by idly while our people suffered and died for lack of your assistance? You were in a position to help them, Arilan, yet you did nothing.”
Arilan counters, “I did what I dared, Duncan. I would it had been more. But … I dared not jeopardize what greater good I might achieve by acting prematurely.” We can surmise by those words that the price was high.
THE PRIESTING OF ARILAN
I
The twenty-year-old Denis Arilan, vested for choir in black cassock and white surplice, did not know whether God really would strike down any Deryni presuming to seek ordination to the priesthood, but he was about to find out—or rather, his friend Jorian de Courcy was about to find out.
“Embue me with the garment of innocence and the vesture of light, O Lord,” Jorian recited softly,
from inside the new white alb Denis was pulling over his head. “May I worthily receive Thy gifts and worthily dispense them.”
The linen smelled of sunshine and summer breezes, and fell in soft folds over Jorian’s cassock as Denis helped him with the ties at the throat.
You don’t have to go through with this, you know, Denis whispered mind-to-mind, as only Deryni could, the link enhanced by the contact of their hands.
Three other candidates were also vesting in the library of Arx Fidei Seminary on this balmy August morning, each of them also assisted by a senior seminarian, for the usual vesting area in the church sacristy had been taken over by the visiting archbishop and his entourage, as was always the case for ordinations.
What if it’s true? Denis went on. Jorian, listen to me! If they find you out, they’ll kill you!
Jorian only smiled as he took a white silk cincture from Denis and looped it around his waist, murmuring the accompanying prayer as he tied it.
“Bind me to Thee, O Christ, with the cords of love and the girdle of purity, that Thy power may dwell in me.”
Jorian, what if it’s true? Denis insisted.
Maybe it ISN’T true, Jorian responded mentally, in far more intimate exchange than mere speech would have allowed, especially with others nearby, who must never find out that the two were Deryni. But we’ll never know if someone doesn’t take the chance. I’m the logical someone. I’m not highly trained like you are—nor ever wanted to be—so I’ll be far less of a loss to our people if I AM caught. Being a priest is what I was born to do, Denis—and if I can’t do that, I might just as well be dead.
That’s crazy talk!
Maybe. I’m not turning back now, though, when I’m so close. If I’m supposed to be ordained, God will look after me.
Jorian paused to recite another prayer aloud as he laid the white deacon’s stole over his left shoulder and let Denis bend to secure it at the right hip.
“Oh Thou who hast said, ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light,’ grant that I may bear Thy blessing to all the world.”
And if I DON’T make it, Jorian went on mentally, maybe you’ll make it for me.
Denis was too well schooled to let himself change expression, as Jorian slipped the maniple over his left forearm and secured it, whispering another prayer, but he knew Jorian was right. Though they had been careful to play down their friendship all through seminary, so that Jorian’s fall, if it came, would not drag down Denis as well, neither of them had ever harbored illusions that things could end in other than this ultimate testing. Someone must be the forerunner, and Jorian was it. The Church had taught for nearly two centuries that Deryni must not seek priestly ordination, on pain of death, and that God would strike down any Deryni presumptuous enough to try. Tradition had it that He had done so, many times, in the years immediately after the onset of the great anti-Deryni persecutions, early in the tenth century. And every seminary had its horror stories, impressed on every entering seminarian, of what had happened to those who had tried since.
As a result, there had been no Deryni priests or bishops in Gwynedd for nearly two hundred years. None that Denis’s teachers knew of, in any even—and they were in a position to know, if anyone was. But if Deryni were ever to reverse the persecution of their people and regain a place of dignity and shared authority in the kingdom, part of the impetus must come from within the Church, by gradually reversing the teaching that Deryni were evil because of the powers they could wield. That meant not only reinfiltrating the Church, but eventually assuming positions of high authority again. Denis Arilan’s teachers hoped for nothing less than a bishopric for their prize student and had been relieved, if saddened, when the older and less talented Jorian de Courcy elected to clear the way for Denis by going first.
“Your attention please, reverend sirs,” came a low voiced warning from Father Loyall, the abbot’s chaplain, as he stuck his tonsured head through the library doorway and then stood aside.
As Father Calbert, the energetic young Abbot of Arx Fidei, came into the library with several members of his faculty and a few visiting priests, all eyes turned toward him, the four candidates making hurried last-minute adjustments to their vestments. Denis retreated with the other seniors who had been assisting, and all of them bowed dutifully as Calbert raised both hands in blessing and gave them ritual greeting.
“Pax vobiscum, filii mei.”
“Deo gratias, Reverendissimus Pater,” they replied in unison.
“Ah, such fine priests you will all make,” Calbert murmured, beaming with approval as he inspected his charges. “Choir, you may go and take your places while I have a few final words with your brethren.”
Denis fell into line obediently with the other three, eyes averted, as was seemly, but as he passed closest to Jorian, he sent his mental farewell winging to the other’s mind in a final act of defiance—not of Calbert, for he was a most learned and holy man, but of the outrage of a law that made this a day of dread for Jorian when it should have been a day of joy. Without physical contact to facilitate the mental link, and with Jorian not actively seeking it himself, the brief rapport took a great deal of energy, but Jorian’s weaker but no less fervent thank-you made it all worthwhile in that instant just before the door closed between them.
Then Denis was out in the cloister garth and falling into line behind the thurifers and processional cross with his classmates, his voice joining with theirs in the entrance hymn as his heart lifted in a final prayer that Jorian might be granted his priesthood and that God would not smite either of them for their presumption.
“Jubilate Deo, omnis terra,” he sang with his brethren. “Servite Domino in laetitia. Introite in conspectu euis in exsultatione …” Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing …
The Abbey Church of the Paraclete was packed, both because of the archbishop’s presence for the ordination and because several of today’s priestly candidates were of highborn families in the area—as was Jorian, though most of his blood relatives were dead. That had been yet another factor in allowing Jorian to risk exposure as he did today, for no ecclesiastical or civil reprisals realistically could be visited on the dead—even Deryni dead. Numb foreboding accompanied Denis Arilan as he moved with the choir procession into the crowded church.
The altar blazed with candles. The candlesticks and altar plate gleamed. The familiar scents of beeswax and incense made Denis’s senses soar with an old joy as he followed into his place in the right-hand section of choir stalls ranged to either side of the High Altar, hands joined piously before him.
“Bendicte, anima mea, Domino,” the choir sang on, shifting to another psalm. “Et omnia quae intra me sunt nomini sancto eius …” Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name …
The archbishop’s procession seemed to go on forever; nor did its composition bode well for any Deryni discovered today in deception. The archbishop was bad enough—the fire-breathing Oliver de Nore, Archbishop of Valoret and Primate of All Gwynedd, who was known to have burned Deryni in the south during his days as an itinerant bishop—and two of the priests accompanying him were also gaining a reputation for anti-Deryni zeal. The worst was a Father Gorony, the archbishop’s chaplain, already responsible for the ferreting-out and eventual execution of several Deryni. Another was a priest of rising prominence named Darby, newly appointed pastor of nearby Saint Mark’s parish, traditionally a stepping stone to a bishopric for favored sons of the Church. Every cleric in Gwynedd had heard of Alexander Darby, whose treatise on Deryni, written during his own seminary days at Grecotha, had become required reading for all aspiring clergy.
But this was no time for Denis to dwell on the foibles of the visitors of Arx Fidei. Today was Jorian’s, walking third in the line of candle-bearing deacons following at the trail end of the procession led by Abbot Calbert. Despite whatever fears the young Deryni might have had about his impending fate, his
plain, earnest face was suffused with guarded joy as he approached the sacrament for which he had spent his life preparing. Denis prayed again, as he had never prayed before, that Jorian might be spared; and for a time, it appeared his prayer would be answered.
No lightning smote Jorian de Courcy when he answered, “Adsum” at the calling of his name and came forward to kneel and hand over his candle to the archbishop with a reverent bow. His tongue did not cleave to his palate as he answered the ritual questions demanded of each candidate. Nor was he struck dead as hands were laid on his head in consecration and blessing, first by the archbishop and then by every other priest present, or when the sacred chrism was spread on his upraised palms.
When, vested in the white chasuble and stole of a priest at last, Jorian and the three other new priests gathered at the altar to concelebrate their first Mass with the archbishop, Denis began to believe they just might make it through without incident. But as Jorian, after receiving Communion from Archbishop de Nore, came forward with a ciborium to assist in administering to the school and congregation, the look of rapture on his face suddenly turned to one of surprise and then fear, and he stumbled.
“O sweet Jesu, help me!” Denis heard Jorian murmur, as the new-made priest blanched and staggered to his knees, catching his weight against the altar rail with one hand and nearly spilling the contents of the ciborium in his other.
Father Oriolt, one of the others ordained with Jorian, had the presence of mind to rescue the ciborium, but Archbishop de Nore was already moving purposefully toward the now-swaying Jorian, handing off his own ciborium to Father Gorony as Abbot Calbert also converged on the stricken priest.
“Jorian, are you ill?” Calbert asked, laying arms around Jorian’s shoulders in support as de Nore and several others crowded nearer.
From where he knelt in choir, Denis could not hear Jorian’s reply, or indeed any of the further exchange that passed between them, but there was no mistaking Jorian’s distress, as he sank lower and lower to the floor, now almost hidden by anxious clerics. At de Nore’s imperious signal, Gorony brought down the archbishop’s own chalice from the altar, and Jorian was given to drink from it, but the draught did not seem to help. If anything, Jorian seemed worse.
The Bishop’s Heir Page 42
