The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy

by Katherine Kurtz

  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 day. 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 th
e princes, only now becoming aware that something was amiss.

  “What should we do with Deryni who aid the enemy?” another voice rasped, as Tavis began to struggle weakly and tried to reach out with his mind.

  He felt an answering surge of shields locking into place around him—his captors were Deryni! He shook his head and tried to scream for help, but to no avail. A gloved hand was clamped over his mouth, his head immobilized against a velvet-clad chest.

  He continued to squirm, all the while being dragged further into the darker reaches of the alley, and again he sought to reach out with his mind, somehow to break the bonds of those other minds surrounding him, as well as the physical restraints; but another blow to the side of his head jolted him so that it was all he could do just to stay conscious.

  “This is one Deryni who will aid the enemy no more!” the first voice said.

  And Tavis heard a sword whisper from its scabbard, steel against well-oiled steel.

  There were shouts coming from the street now, as his escort began trying to make their way to his aid, yet still protect their royal charges—but suddenly he knew that they would be too late.

  He struggled even more frantically, though already almost resigned to the fact that he was not going to be able to escape them. They were too many and too strong, and he was not trained as a fighting man.

  But then, in an even more horrifying realization, he felt his left arm being jerked out to his side, the hand and forearm being pinned against the wall beside him. Through the swell of an even greater terror than the threat of mere death, he saw the sword gleaming in ruddy torchlight as it drew back and then descended, flashing inexorably toward the join of hand and wrist.

  God, no! Not his hand!

  He convulsed with dread and tried to scream again, strained and wrenched with even more frenzied strength in that instant. But those who held him pinned were stronger, and the hands which gripped his body and his arm were like tempered steel; he could do no more than force an anguished gurgle of horror.

  If thy hand offend thee, cut it off! The words rang in his mind.

  He felt the steel strike his wrist with hot, numbing force, felt his stomach knot as he saw the flesh and bone part beneath the blade—but not all the way through—not with that first stroke, for the wall had deflected the blade a little. As he retched and felt his world lurching askew, he knew that the blade struck two more times, saw the black shower of his blood spurting from his severed wrist with each terrified beat of his pounding heart, heard the guards fighting through to him in earnest now—though he knew, as his senses faded, that it was too late.

  They released his head then, and he screamed with all his strength, his shriek escalating to one of sheerest agony as he saw that they were not yet done with him. A torch approached, in the hands of a man whose face he would remember until the day he died, despite the fact that the man wore a mask across his eyes.

  The last thing he remembered, before he mercifully passed out, was the sickening, pungent-sweet stench of his own seared flesh, and the excruciating anguish of a hand which was no longer there.

  By the time the guards won through the crowd at the entrance to the alley, the attackers were nearly out of sight at the other end. Two of the guards started to pursue, but their fellows called them back. They dared not leave their royal charges, and Tavis must have help immediately.

  Grimly, then, for an initial glance as they passed had told them there was nothing they could do to save Tavis’s hand, they returned to find Prince Javan crouched beside the unconscious Healer and surrounded by a growing press of spectators. The boy had clamped one hand over the end of the severed wrist, trying to staunch the blood which spurted between his too-small fingers, and with his other hand he was searching for the pressure point under Tavis’s upper arm. From his actions, it was clear that the boy remembered the theory, but he did not have the sheer physical strength to hold the pressure firm.

  The guards did not pause for further reflection. While one of them ran to commandeer a cart and a pair of mounted town constables, another began to clear away the crowd, so that his remaining two colleagues could see to Tavis. Working quickly, they knotted a tourniquet around Tavis’s upper arm, where Javan had tried to find the pressure point, then eased the prince’s hand from the wound and bound up the bloody stump as tightly as they could. Rhys Michael, who had been huddling by the blood-stained wall in stunned shock until now, chose that moment to begin weeping hysterically, his mental state not improved by stumbling over Tavis’s severed hand when one of the guards tried to turn him away from the bloody scene.

  Javan watched all in stony silence, trying to stay out of the way until the cart arrived. While the guards loaded Tavis into the cart, he quietly retrieved the severed hand, wrapping it carefully in the sleeve which he tore from his own shirt. He cradled it against his chest all the way back to the castle, hoping that by warming it against his own body, it might be kept sufficiently alive for another Healer to reattach it. Sir Jason tried half-heartedly to take it from him, but the boy gave him such a look that he immediately backed off. Nor would he wipe Tavis’s blood from his hands.

  But locating another Healer proved difficult. Rhys had moved from the castle weeks before, but was reported to be living at the opposite end of town, so they sent a constable to inquire. When they paused at the archbishop’s palace to ask whether Jaffray knew of a Healer nearby, the archbishop’s secretary recommended several, then remembered that Rhys Thuryn had gone riding with Bishop Cullen, though they were expected back momentarily. Should Rhys be sent to the castle when he returned?

  He should. Further, there in the shadow of the castle walls, the guards judged that at last it was safe to divide their number, so Robear and Corund borrowed horses from the archbishop’s stables and went out to look for Rhys, while the other constable returned to town to search for one of the other Healers named. Jason and Piedur carried Tavis into the castle and laid him in a room near the princes’ quarters, at Javan’s grim insistence.

  The royal physicians were summoned then, and did what they could while they waited for a Healer to arrive, but they were only human. To keep Tavis from hemorrhaging to death, they were obliged to cauterize the wound further with red-hot steel, searing flesh and bone beyond even a Healer’s ability to reconstruct.

  Nor was Tavis their only patient. Rhys Michael remained so hysterical that he had to be put to bed with a sleeping potion; and they would have done the same to Javan, but the elder prince would not allow it. With a show of royal hauteur which would have made even the regents take notice, he insisted upon being allowed to wait for word of his friend’s condition—though even threats would not persuade them to let him wait inside the room.

  Alroy and the regents returned from the tournament shortly after that, and were told briefly what had happened. The regents mouthed suitable regrets over Tavis’s injury, but Murdoch got it in his head almost immediately that the attack had really been aimed at the princes, as part of a Deryni plot. Bishop Hubert was even heard to remark that it was typical of the soulless Deryni that they should attack and maim their own kind, and good riddance.

  Word arrived that a Healer had been located and was on his way, and Alroy asked to wait with his twin for news, but the regents would not hear of it. The king had already had a tiring day, and must guard against the return of the cold he had so lately shaken.

  So Alroy, too, was put to bed with a sedative; and when Murdoch would have insisted that Javan do likewise, he was met with such cold resistance that even the normally merciless Rhun softened, suggesting that in the case of this prince, perhaps it might be better if he were permitted to keep vigil until the Healer’s condition was stable.

  So Murdoch relented, though not until he had seen Tavis’s blood washed from the boy’s hands. Javan was permitted to curl up in a chair outside Tavis’s door, wrapped in a warm blanket, after which he was promptly ignored. Hubert stayed with the physicians inside, but the other regents went down to s
upper. To Javan, the minutes seemed to crawl.

  The Healer finally arrived from town, one Lord Oriel by name, a young, almost beardless man only recently matriculated from his final training at Saint Neot’s. But though he was reasonably skilled, there was little he could do for his brother Healer at this late date other than to plunge him into even more profound sleep and try to ease the trauma done to tissue by cautery of flame and iron. Even if Tavis’s wrist had not been so brutally seared—though the searing had saved his life—the hand which Javan had guarded so carefully had been severed too long for even a Healer to reattach. Butcher’s leavings, Bishop Hubert observed, just before leaving, as Oriel sadly bade a squire dispose of the sleeve-wrapped hand.

  So Oriel and the physicians administered a sedative to the unconscious Tavis, to ensure against his waking while they worked, and set to cleaning and dressing the raw first-aid already given, before Oriel could attempt a further Healing. A dusty Rhys arrived shortly, with Evaine, Joram, and Bishop Cullen in tow, to see Oriel preparing to work a final Healing of the stump, to seal a better closure and set in play long-term Healing so that Tavis might eventually be fitted with a hook.

  The royal physicians were only too happy to defer to Rhys. Surgery was not their favorite occupation, especially something this gory, and they had been nervous enough about working with an unknown Healer. Rhys’s arrival was ample excuse to bow out and leave their patient to his fellow Healers’ care—and bow out, they did, though they did look in on the sleeping Alroy and Rhys Michael before retiring, and tried once more to persuade Javan to go to bed.

  But Javan was having none of it, and almost succeeded in bullying his way into the room while Rhys and Oriel conferred. Only the arrival of Father Alfred, the boys’ childhood confessor, kept Javan from making another scene. Camber, waiting with Joram near the door, where he would be out of the way, could only note Father Alfred’s actions with approval and vow to put in a good word for him with Jaffray. The last thing Rhys needed was a hysterical prince disrupting things just as he and the other Healer settled down to work.