The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy

by Katherine Kurtz

  “Will you help me, Javan? With your rapport, perhaps we can both go back to that night. The more I consider the timing, the more I begin to suspect that the key lies there.”

  “What must I do?” the boy replied. “You know I want to help. Tell me what I must do.”

  “All right.”

  Quickly Tavis slued around on the cushion until he faced Javan, his left leg curled up on the seat in front of him. Javan did the same, tucking up his right leg. Gently Tavis took the boy’s left hand in his right, laid his other forearm along Javan’s right. He felt the boy’s right hand cradle his left elbow to steady the link, since he had no hand of his own to seal that bond. He took a deep breath and let it out, watching Javan follow his example.

  “All right,” Tavis said softly. “I want you to relax and let yourself go, the way we did that night you helped me before. You’ll feel the same kind of slight pulling sensation, but this time, I want you to stay conscious. You may feel drowsy, but don’t go to sleep. Try to center in on that night when Rhys came into your room and gave you the wine. See yourself with your brothers now, back at Valoret.”

  As Tavis concentrated on his breathing, he felt the boy slipping into a trance state as easily as if he had been doing it all his life. In half a dozen breaths, his eyes were closed and he was as deep as he had been the night of Tavis’s injury, relaxed and yet alert, even as Tavis had instructed him.

  Gently, lightly, Tavis initiated mind contact, letting Javan experience it at first as only an intensification of the physical touch they shared. Deftly he guided his thoughts back to that night, feeling Javan moving back with him through time. He closed his eyes and let the scene take shape, integrating his awareness with Javan’s point of view as the boy, too, began to relive the night in question.

  The three princes and their squires had gathered around Rhys after supper, where Rhys had produced a packet from his pouch and emptied it into the flask of sweet Fianna wine which one of the squires had fetched. As Tavis watched curiously from a seat in the window, cups were poured for princes and squires and emptied by all. Prayers had followed, and then sleepy climbings into beds.

  Now they both rode Tavis’s memories as the Healer glided down to the table and picked up the empty flask, wondering what Rhys had given them.

  “What was this?” Tavis asked, as Rhys rejoined him by the table.

  “I told you, a physick against colds. The king ordered it. Taste it, if you like.”

  Tavis had shaken his head and put down the empty flask, and had watched Rhys head toward the chamber door. With a yawn, Tavis had picked up his scroll and wandered over to the pile of furs beside the fireplace, had read for a little while, had drifted off to sl—no!

  In his agitation at finally seeing the crack in the memory, Tavis stirred a little from his trance, some of his indignation spilling over undiluted to Javan, who gasped under the emotion of it.

  Swiftly Tavis reschooled his thoughts to calm, reassured Javan, and went back to the beginning.

  Back to the point where you fell asleep, he ordered Javan. Rhys returned to the common room, but the flask wasn’t empty!

  It was not until he had said it that he realized he had spoken in his mind, and that Javan had responded.

  He picked up the flask and sniffed the contents, and this time he could feel the shock which had first surfaced in his mind that night.

  “You lied!” he had whispered.

  “I did?”

  “That was no physick against colds. You drugged them. You gave them enough to put them to sleep until tomorrow. What are you up to?”

  He watched as Rhys returned his gaze, the picture of righteous amazement, and it was only in this remembering that he realized how deftly the older Healer had inserted himself between Tavis and the door.

  “Up to? Why, I’m simply following His Grace’s instructions, seeing that the children get a good night’s rest.”

  Feeling his suspicion anew, Tavis relived the instant he had touched a finger to the dregs in one of the cups, brought it to his nose.

  “Rest in peace, more likely. You won’t mind if I check with His Grace, will—what’s this?” He could hardly believe what his senses were telling him. “Wolfbane and mer—Rhys, you didn’t!”

  His shields went up, all in a rush. He felt the swift, tentative probe of Rhys’s mind, and shuttered his own all the more tightly, the while trying to decide what he was going to do.

  Without warning, the elder Healer’s fist slammed into Tavis’s solar plexus! As Tavis collapsed, gasping for breath, Rhys seized the wine flagon and pressed it to his lips, forcing him to drink.

  Pain!—of chest, laboring to breathe—of throat, forced to swallow once, again, again.… Indignation. And now, genuine fear, though physical function had started to return—for mental function had begun to haze as Rhys’s potion took effect.

  “I’m sorry I had to hit you, Tavis,” Rhys had said. “But it was necessary for you to drink, since you had the ill-fortune to be here tonight, and I doubted you would do so of your own accord.”

  Tavis’s mind whirled with growing disorientation, and it had been all he could do to get out the words.

  “But why? My God, Rhys! You’ve given them m-m-merasha! And—anhalon. Merasha and anhalon, and they’re not even Deryni!”

  “It has been done at His Grace’s command, and with his full knowledge,” Rhys had murmured. “Beyond that, I may tell you nothing more. And even if I might, you wouldn’t remember … would you?”

  But Tavis did remember, now, and lived again the altered vision, the increasingly sloppy shields as the drugs invaded his controls and opened them to Rhys’s probe.

  Now, as he forced himself down, taking Javan with him, he knew the places where Rhys had touched him; knew how to restore what Rhys had changed.

  But there was little more to change, beyond that point, for the unconsciousness brought about by Rhys could not be reversed. There was no way to restore memory of what had not been witnessed. There was nothing to do but return to waking consciousness and try to determine what it all meant. Javan’s eyes went wide and amazed as he came out of his trance and stared at Tavis.

  “Why would he do that?” Javan murmured. “For some reason, he drugged us all that night, and then he made you forget about it.” He paused for a moment, then stared at Tavis in horrible suspicion. “Tavis, you don’t suppose he knew that my father was to die?”

  Tavis gazed back at the prince neutrally, not daring to follow that suggestion to its logical conclusion.

  “How could he have known that, Javan?”

  With a shudder, Javan turned partially away and drew his knees up under his chin, hugging them tight against his chest, not looking at Tavis. “No, that’s impossible. He’s a Healer. Healers don’t kill people.”

  “Not by choice, anyway,” Tavis murmured. “And if Rhys knew ahead of time that Cinhil was to die, then there must have been a choice involved.” He slammed his fist into the cushion beside him in frustration. “It doesn’t make sense. He said he’d drugged you and your brothers at your father’s orders. If he were part of some ghastly plot to kill the king, why would he have wanted you and your brothers only to sleep through it? The drugs he gave you were potent, but certainly not deadly.”

  Javan thought about that for several seconds, then glanced uneasily at Tavis again. “Tavis, could magic have been somehow involved?”

  “Magic?” Tavis cocked his head at the boy quizzically. “What gave you that idea?”

  “Well, he gave us Deryni drugs—which, I gather, aren’t supposed to work on humans.”

  “A mixture, actually. Some of them were not specific. They would have worked on anyone.”

  “Nonetheless. And then, there’s the matter of my shields. I must have gotten them that night. Is it possible that—well, that he and my father—did something to us that night?”

  “Did something? Such as—what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” the boy pouted, swinging his
clubbed foot across to rest on the cushion on the opposite side of the window seat. “You’re the Deryni. You tell me. Maybe they were going to—I don’t know—put shields on all of us, and they didn’t want you to know.”

  “Why would they do that? And who are they? I thought we were talking about Rhys.”

  “Well, he can’t have done it alone, can he? Maybe Evaine helped him. She’s his wife. Or Bishop Alister!” The boy sat bolt upright. “That’s who he was talking to, the night I heard him say he’d done something to you! So Alister must know! Maybe he was a part of it, too!”

  Slowly Tavis nodded. “And that would also make Joram a part of it, and probably Earl Jebediah. They were all in the chamber when the regents brought you in to see his body, except Evaine—Rhys, Alister, Joram, and Jebediah. And all of them except Jebediah were there the night of my injury! There’s got to be a connection.”

  “But, what?”

  “I don’t know. They’re not likely to tell us, either.”

  Javan thought on that a moment. “Is there a chance I could tell us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Javan continued thoughtfully, “whatever happened to me, I must have been there. Can’t you make me remember?”

  Tavis frowned, gazing unseeing back into the dim bedchamber.

  “You were drugged. I don’t know whether I could get past that or not.”

  “You were drugged, too, but you got past it.”

  “I’m Deryni,” Tavis answered absently.

  Javan scowled. “Don’t you dare use that excuse on me,” he muttered. “Can’t you at least try to make me remember?”

  “I don’t know.” Tavis cocked his head. “Unless you regained consciousness between the time you fell asleep from the physick and when Jebediah and the regents woke you, I doubt there’s anything to remember.”

  “But, there must be—something.…” Javan’s voice trailed off and he squinched up his face in concentration. “There was a … dark room, I think, and my father … damn!”

  “Don’t swear,” Tavis said automatically.

  “Well, I can’t help it!” the boy fumed. “There is something—maybe I just dreamed it, I don’t know. For just a second there, I had a flash, though. Can’t you try to follow that?”

  “Right now?”

  “Of course, right now. You won’t hurt me.”

  “I know I won’t hurt you, Javan,” Tavis sighed. “I don’t want to tire you, though. You’re not used to this.”

  “You’re damned right I’m not used to this!”

  “And if you’re going to get yourself all overwrought—”

  “I am not overwrought! I’m—” Abruptly he broke off and dropped his gaze, a reluctant grin playing at his mouth. “You’re right. I was overwrought. But—can’t you at least try?”

  Echoing Javan’s grin, Tavis glanced around the seating alcove, then fetched a cushion from the opposite bench and put it on the seat between himself and Javan.

  “If it’s that important,” he said, patting the cushion. “Lie down and make yourself comfortable. Let yourself go into trance exactly the way you did before.”

  The boy lay back with a triumphant little smile.

  “Don’t think you’re getting away with anything,” Tavis added good-naturedly, resting his hand lightly on Javan’s forehead. “I just happen to agree with your argument. Now, close your eyes and center in. Let yourself slip back to your last waking memory of that night.”

  Javan did as he was bidden. Gradually he gained the impression of being warm and safe in his old bed, winged back to Valoret and February by agile memory, and then of Tavis’s active presence receding. As the reality of it all intensified, he shifted onto his side and snuggled his face against the cushion, only a minute part of him still vaguely aware of the Healer’s hand maintaining contact with his brow. Then he felt himself being gently nudged forward from bed and into dreamless sleep.

  At least, he thought it was sleep, in the beginning. There were the usual flitting images of things he’d done at play or at his lessons that frigid winter season. But there was also an elusive flickering of something else, after a while: faces, familiar, yet strange; a cloudy haze around lights gold and red and green, the feeling that one was somehow missing; a footed cup whose whiteness blocked out all his view of anything else—and colors, feelings, sounds, spinning and tumbling together—and nothing, nothing.…

  He clawed his way up from the odd, white darkness to find Tavis staring down at him, a puzzled expression on his face. He sat up and shook his head to clear it, then looked at the Healer again, almost afraid to ask.

  “What did you see?”

  “It was odd,” Tavis replied. “I can’t tell whether it was a dream or something that really happened but was distorted by the drugs they gave you.”

  “Well, what did it look like?”

  Tavis shook his head. “I honestly don’t know, my prince. Damned if I do!”

  “Don’t swear,” Javan retorted without thinking, bringing an amused smile to Tavis’s lips. “Tavis,” the prince went on, “we’ve got to find out what it was.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, then, do something.”

  Tavis considered, then looked at Javan again.

  “All right. I do have one idea, but you have to promise not to nag me while I work out the details.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, you were drugged when—whatever happened. So I think it’s worth our time to try duplicating the drugs Rhys gave you, then dose you and let me try to break through the memories that way. I’ll have to do some research, though. I know most of what was in there, but I’ll have to work out the proportions and dosage.”

  Javan wrinkled his nose. “Another ‘physick’?”

  “Aye, as close to the original as I can manage. I don’t really relish the idea, but I haven’t got any better ones just now. Are you willing, before I go to all that trouble?”

  With a perplexed sigh, Javan nodded. “I suppose so.”

  “Just what I love to hear—enthusiasm,” Tavis said, slapping the boy’s shoulder affectionately and getting to his feet. “I don’t suppose you’d like to give the whole thing up?”

  “And just forget about my shields?” Javan replied archly.

  “There is that,” Tavis agreed. “But, we’ve given ourselves enough to think about for one afternoon. Let’s go bother Cook. I’m starving.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

  —Isaiah 40:3

  Tavis and Javan were not the only ones given much to think on, as the summer wore on and temperatures and tensions rose. Though a certain normality had begun to emerge from the reign’s rather tumultuous beginning, it was far different from what anyone had known before. The uncertainty of a regency and a child king on the throne did nothing to lessen the growing sense of foreboding, especially among Deryni who had an inkling what was taking place.

  This sense of foreboding certainly permeated the actions of the Camberian Council. Gregory and Jesse continued to patrol their lands and keep the peace there but, after the attack on Tavis, Gregory grew withdrawn and grimly thoughtful. The idea that Deryni would attack Deryni deliberately had affected him more than he was willing to admit. He came and worked his turn at monitoring Davin, and attended the meetings of the Camberian Council, but he had become a dour and troubled man. Camber learned that he had purchased a small, isolated estate in the Connait, and was preparing to move his family there. Camber could not say he blamed him.

  Jaffray, too, began to show the strain. He continued to report the actions of all the Court from his vantage point inside the regency council, and kept a more normal contact with Davin, now that Rhys had been able to remove the blockage and restore his true memory. The young man was functioning with full powers restored. But the move to Rhemuth had forced Jaffray to spread hims
elf entirely too thin. He had duties in Valoret, as archbishop, which could not be entirely delegated; and he knew that the regents were aware of this, and even counted on it to keep him away from meetings of the council as much as possible. Still, such eyewitness reports as Jaffray was able to provide were infinitely more valuable than the slanted view they got from monitoring Davin, in his relatively sheltered position guarding the princes. So long as they had Jaffray more or less securely in the council, at least they might have some advance warning of any drastic measures the regents might be contemplating.

  Jebediah also kept a feverish pace, circulating among the various Michaeline houses and directing preparations for going underground again. Even Crevan Allyn, his human vicar general, understood and feared the signs which were becoming all too clear—though with his Order so scattered throughout Gwynedd, he dared not begin an open abandonment of Michaeline facilities too quickly, lest their retreat seem to give credence to suspicions about Deryni elements in the Order. When the army of Gwynedd had been purged of Michaelines earlier in the year, both Crevan and Jebediah had hoped that anti-Michaeline sentiment would diminish; but by Lammas, it was clear that this was not to be. Several Michaeline knights and men-at-arms, human and Deryni, had been arrested and imprisoned by the regents for various vague reasons. To protect these men, nothing must be done by other members of the Order which might further antagonize the regents.

  Given these factors, Michaeline withdrawal from Gwynedd had to be accomplished more subtly than the overnight operation of Imre’s time. The commanderie at Argoed, in particular, could hardly be closed down without arousing suspicion; but its complement was cut drastically, all its remaining brethren and knights having definite assignments in the event of a general suppression. Cùilteine, second only to Argoed in Gwynedd proper, kept a token force of brothers and knights within its precincts and endeavored to make them look like twice their number.

  Many of the remaining knights Jebediah sent to the three Michaeline houses outside Gwynedd, a few at a time: Brustarkia, in Arjenol; Saint Elderon, across the border into Torenth; and desert Djellarda, the original mother house of the Order, which overlooked the Anvil of the Lord.