Javan had learned the night before that the new laws were to be promulgated. The measures would spell the next thing to active extermination, for it would be nigh impossible to live as Deryni without infringing on at least part of what the regents were to decree. The regents had agreed to everything recommended by the bishops, and had added points of their own. Penalties for any deviation would be stringent.
The prince had told Tavis of this, and then had all but commanded the Healer to flee to safety in the morning. What followed had been their most profound mind-sharing to date, with Javan’s response almost indistinguishable from that of a Deryni, albeit an untrained one. The two had spent the rest of the night and early morning talking and testing and sharing thoughts with growing facility, and had even arranged a system by which they could maintain occasional communication, once Tavis had gone.
But then, at midmorning, Javan had pulled himself together as a prince must, arrayed himself for court, and taken quiet leave. Tavis, torn by conflicting wants and needs, had made his way to their secret garde-robe Portal without incident—and the rest, Alister knew.
“Well, I suppose it could have been worse,” Camber whispered, as he and Tavis withdrew all but a thread of contact and Camber quickly shared what he had learned with the other two Deryni. “At least you had time to make arrangements with Javan—and the manner of your leaving, on the day the laws are decreed, will lend credence to whatever you decide to do next. Do the laws take effect immediately?”
Tavis shook his head wearily. “Javan didn’t know. It’s likely, though. He saw the unsigned writs escheating all Deryni-owned lands to the Crown, and the attainder lists for the Deryni lords. There were some expressed exceptions, in the case of a few Deryni heiresses who will be married off to suitable human lords, but otherwise, I think every Deryni of any rank at all is on their lists. Listen, could we sit down somewhere? I didn’t sleep last night, and I’m a little shaky from all of this.”
“We can go to my solar,” Niallan said promptly, ushering them toward the door. As they moved through the corridors, Camber continued to press the Healer with questions.
“What about the prohibition against teaching Deryni? Are they keeping the execution clauses?”
“Yes, in fact, there was serious talk of forbidding any education for Deryni, but Javan says they finally dropped that—too difficult to enforce. But Deryni won’t be allowed to teach anything, for fear they might teach magic.” He sighed. “At least our folk won’t have to be illiterate.”
They discussed the ramifications of Ramos in depth as they settled around a table in Niallan’s solar, grudgingly concluding that the new laws could have been worse—though not much. Details of the arrangement for continued communication between Javan and Tavis were explored—for with Javan now isolated among the hostile regents, it was essential that he have an outlet, both for the exchange of information and for a timely escape, if his position became absolutely unbearable. Camber and his colleagues agreed that the garde-robe Portal should continue to be their rendezvous point, on a five-day cycle for exchange of messages, but suggested that Tavis warn the prince that any of the four of them who were Deryni might be his contact, and that if he needed to speak to someone in person instead of leaving a message, he should be on the Portal just after Compline on one of the scheduled days. His presence would indicate that it was safe for someone to come through and bring him back for a face-to-face meeting, though they must not do this too often, for fear he might be seen or missed.
“At least he’s reasonably safe, so long as he keeps playing the cowed simpleton,” Niallan commented, when they had fairly well concluded their assessment of Javan’s situation. “But what about you, Tavis?”
As Tavis shrugged half-heartedly, Camber gave him a tight little Alister grin.
“That depends a lot on Javan, doesn’t it, my friend? We hadn’t thought to have you so soon, but since we do, we can certainly make use of the time. Are you willing to take on the role we discussed before, with Revan?”
“I’d have to stand with Rhys on that, Alister,” the Healer replied. “I’ll do it if no one else can be found. I’d be lying if I said I wanted to do it. And this is going to make me pretty recognizable,” he concluded, holding up his stump. “Even a shape-change can’t give me another hand.”
“No, but your own appearance and apparent defection will seem all the more plausible, by the time we get through establishing your new cover,” Camber said. “It’s known that Deryni did that to you. You’ve already left Court under a cloud. And if Javan plays his part well—bitter and angry that you deserted him—you should be quite ready for the Willimites by spring. We’ll have you look for other suitable Healers, of course, but we’ll also have you turn up in a few major towns and cities all through the winter and lay some foundations. By the time you ‘stumble’ on Revan in March or so, you should be able to give quite a convincing performance.”
With a grimmer look, Camber laid a hand on Tavis’s upper arm. “I know it won’t be easy, son. If it’s any consolation, you won’t be alone. Niallan, do you think you could take our young friend in tow for the next month or so? All of us will want to move on to the old Michaeline sanctuary as soon as possible, but Jebediah and I may have to go to Saint Mary’s first, if they can’t manage the new Portal there without help. We should be hearing from Joram on that in the next few days.”
“I’ll take care of him,” the younger bishop agreed. “In fact, while I work with Tavis, this will be an ideal opportunity for Dermot to learn more about us.” He glanced at his human colleague. “How about it, Dermot? Are you ready to be corrupted by heretical and God-curst Deryni?”
Dermot returned Niallan’s grin without a trace of apprehension. “It seems I already am.”
They spent that afternoon and most of the next day in planning. The evening of the third, Camber excused himself before the evening meal to prepare for communication with Joram. Jebediah went with him into his sleeping chamber, there to keep watch while Camber stretched out and pushed himself down into the profound state of relaxation which was the required precursor for such contact, especially over such a distance. The contact came on schedule, but it did not bring the news which Camber had expected.
He received Joram’s account in numbed passivity, so shocked by the senseless brutality of Trurill that little else registered in those first stunned moments. Instinct prompted him to draw Jebediah into the link as a buffer against the horror, but even Jebediah could offer little but blind support and comfort in the wake of the dread news.
Camber could barely comprehend the extent of the butchery at Trurill. He had never been exceptionally close to his sister Aislinn or her children, and had met his cousin Adrian only a few times, but it was difficult to conceive of men who could subject any living beings to what had occurred at Trurill. The general slaughter and torture was bad enough, but emotions already torn raw by the tragedy of Rhys’s loss could only throb and ache anew at the death of Rhys’s eldest son, even softened in the telling by Joram at third-hand. This was the second grandson Camber had lost in the past half-year, and Aidan’s death had been neither quick nor painless compared to Davin’s. Even the miracles of those who had survived seemed pale, balanced against the atrocities of Trurill.
A little later, he and Jebediah related Joram’s news to the others at a subdued supper gathering. After initial outrage on the part of all present, they determined that Alister and Jebediah should lose no time in reaching Joram and the others at Saint Mary’s, so the Portal could be completed and all brought to safety. Accordingly, by midnight the two were stepping onto the rounded design of the Portal in Niallan’s chapel, both dressed in worn black riding leathers and fur-lined cloaks. Plain swords were buckled at their hips, sturdy fur-lined caps pulled firmly over hair and ears. Mail shirts warmed but slowly under otherwise unremarkable tunics of leather and wool. Camber wore no insignia of his rank save his archbishop’s ring, which he kept under glove, and a small gold pectora
l cross, which he tucked into the front of his tunic.
Goodbyes had all been said before the two of them knelt for Niallan’s blessing and Godspeed beside the chapel’s altar. No further words were needed as they moved into the purple haze of the guarded Portal and felt it fall away at Niallan’s unvoiced command. In silence Camber linked with Jebediah to warp the energies and they were gone. They reappeared in darkness in the ruins beneath Grecotha.
They had considered surfacing openly in Alister’s tower Portal and taking horses from the episcopal stables. Such could have been construed as due the former Bishop of Grecotha, had these been ordinary times. But they did not know whether Edward MacInnis might already have taken possession of his new see. Besides, Hubert might have sent troops with his nephew, anticipating just such an event as the appearance of the Deryni Cullen at his former residence. Neither Camber nor Jebediah wished to risk a physical confrontation with great numbers of the enemy.
In caution, then, they used the Portal in the ruins, and spent most of the night working their way out, clearing a passage through the collapsed corridors by the light of handfire and the sweat of much toil until, near dawn, they reached the open air. A while they spent concealing the way they had come, and waiting for the city to wake. Then they must time the theft of two horses just to coincide with the opening of the city gates for the day, and cover their departure with a confusion at the marketplace, so that the city guards should be diverted until the two could make good their escape.
They were not pursued after the first few hours; and the jump to Grecotha had cut their total journey to only two or three days. They changed horses several times, and took a variety of lesser roads and tracks when they must eventually pass through the lands of Horthness and Carthane—though at least they knew that the lords of those holdings were not about in person; they were wreaking their mischief in Valoret and places farther east. Though they passed several mounted patrols each day, they aroused no special attention. In their plain black leathers and fur-lined cloaks, with unadorned swords at their sides and fur-lined caps drawn close around their heads and faces, they appeared little different from any pair of fighting men travelling on some winter errand—though a closer look would have revealed one of them to be rather older than one might expect still to be in military service, and the other was scarcely younger.
Still, in ordinary times, they would have aroused no special attention as they left the Purple March and began to penetrate the foothills which lay below Saint Mary’s; and they had been careful to avoid both Cor Culdi and the ruins of Trurill. It was only the most unfortunate of ill luck that they paused at a tiny inn on the Culdi road to wait out a snowstorm and had to share the common room with, among others, a quartet of rough-looking knights wearing the livery and badge of the Earl of Culdi—the new Earl of Culdi, of course. And it was worse luck that Camber’s pectoral cross slipped out of his tunic and flashed in the firelight as Camber shrugged his cloak back off his shoulders when he and Jebediah settled down to eat and drink in the room’s further corner. Camber tucked it back inside with an automatic gesture as the barmaid plunked tankards on the table, and thought no more about it. The room was crowded, the jumble of thoughts chaotic, and no one was likely to attempt thievery of the cross here, in front of so many witnesses.
The cross alone might have elicited no more than passing interest on the part of the knights; for while the ornament was rather more valuable than most soldiers could afford, it was possible that its wearer simply had stolen it off some unlucky churchman—an abbot, perhaps, by the size of it. One of the knights had a ring he had stolen from a body only a few days before.
But when the two black-clad strangers did not remove their fur-lined caps while they ate, it prompted the knights to wonder. The men might simply have kept on their headgear against the cold—but on the other hand, such caps could conceal tonsures—and why would tonsured priests be travelling disguised as fighting men?
That question so intrigued the knights that they determined to get a closer look at their fellow travellers. Offhand, they could think of no logical reason for priests to be travelling incognito in this part of the country at this time of the year—unless the two were Deryni! Earl Manfred had told them only the previous week that all the bishops were supposedly at Ramos even now, drafting stringent new statutes against the accursed Deryni. He had expounded on the subject at length, before sending them out on that thoroughly satisfying raid of Trurill.
Trurill. Now, there had been sport! And condoned by the Church, too! Earl Manfred’s brother, now Archbishop and Primate of All Gwynedd, had sent his special apostolic blessing on everyone who took part; and young Bishop Edward, the earl’s son, had also sent his promise of prayers for their intention.
They snickered over their tankards for a while, recalling choice details of the day’s work, then returned to the more serious business of the two men across the room, since they had no better sport while they waited for the storm to pass. Soldiers or priests? Human or Deryni? Both of them were far older than the knights had at first estimated—perhaps as old as fifty. And why would they not take off their caps indoors? The taproom was not that cold!
So, in the next half hour, each of the knights contrived excuse to take a closer look, making his way to the tap to refill tankards with frothy brown ale, or to the privy to relieve a full bladder, or to the kitchen to commandeer more meat for their table—for knights in the service of the Earl of Culdi could exact some privileges. When they had all had a surreptitious look, they regrouped to compare notes.
Their combined impressions produced no other conclusion about the younger of the two men than the probability that he was, indeed, a soldier like themselves—perhaps gently born, but a fighting man, for sure. The dark eyes held a flintlike steadiness which was familiar to all of them, and the scarred and agile fingers were never far from the hilt of sword or dagger.
The older man, however, presented more interesting possibilities, though he, too, had that look in his light-colored eyes. His craggy features seemed vaguely familiar to one of the knights, who had spent some time at Court a few years back; and when he realized that what had appeared to be a plain gold band on the man’s right hand was, in fact, a more elaborate ring with the stone turned inward, pieces began to sift into place.
Could the ring be a seal of office? A bishop’s amethyst, perhaps, in keeping with the cross and the suspected tonsure? He had it! Could the man be Alister Cullen, former Chancellor of Gwynedd and Bishop of Grecotha? If that were true, he would also be Deryni, and a fugitive from the regents’ justice. Cullen had been a Michaeline before his election to the See of Grecotha. He could easily play a soldier.
But why would the renegade Alister Cullen have fled to Kierney, of all places, travelling with but one companion? That companion would be Michaeline, too, they realized now, both by his bearing and the fact that Cullen was Michaeline, but who was he? Not Joram MacRorie, the heretic Camber’s son and longtime secretary to Bishop Cullen. MacRorie was younger and fairer.
Who, then?
“What about Jebediah of Alcara?” one of the men guessed. Earl Manfred had said something about Alcara escaping with Cullen and MacRorie on Christmas Day. Could this be the infamous Earl Jebediah, grand master of the now-proscribed Michaelines?
The dual possibility sobered the four, for the thought of taking on two Deryni—and Michaelines, at that—was not reassuring. Of course, they could always enlist aid from others here at the inn; but princely rewards had been offered for the apprehension of both these men, especially if Cullen could be taken alive, and avarice demanded that the reward not be shared. Besides, as one of the knights recalled, those other Deryni at Trurill had not put up that much of a fight. They had died as easily as any other folk, their highly vaunted magic never making an appearance at all. If these Deryni were no different, what had they to fear on that account? And were not the blessings of Archbishop Hubert and Bishop Edward still upon them?
As for M
ichaelines, what were they? These Michaelines were old men, and only two of them. Against four elite knights, half their age, how good could they be?
Their courage thus bolstered by bravado and mellow ale, they settled down to plan their strategy. If these men were Cullen and Alcara, they still had not deduced why they were in Kierney—and that was doubtless something their lord would like very much to know. Perhaps it was all a part of some Deryni plot, such as Earl Manfred had been warned of by his brother only last week, when word of the renegade Cullen’s suspension and condemnation had been received at Cor Culdi.
The possibility that the two were on their way to rendezvous with others of their kind whetted the knights’ greed even more, for if they could lead their lord to a whole nest of Deryni, they would receive even greater reward than if they only brought in Cullen and Alcara. And if they could capture even these two alive, how much greater pleasure might their lord derive—and how much greater reward give—if he could torture them before their execution? In the meantime, if they could but follow the two after the storm and discover their intention, they might find that they could handle the situation all by themselves. Then they would have to share their reward with no one.
And so the four did not confront the strangers that night, merely keeping watch, by turns, that the pair should not slip away before they knew it, as the storm waned.
And Camber and Jebediah, unaware of the scrutiny and the conspiracy they had inspired, now that they were so close to their destination, did not take it amiss that, as they rode out the next morning, close on the dawn, the four knights were also saddling up to ride.
They stopped near noon to rest the horses, pausing in the refuge of a small roadside shrine which also embraced an ice-choked stream and pool. While Jebediah led the horses to the pool, breaking the ice-crust near the edge with his heel, Camber crunched across the fine powder of the previous night’s snow to the shrine itself to pay his respects, his boots leaving darker footprints in the virgin snow. They were only a few hours from Saint Mary’s. Best to try to contact Joram and Evaine now, for there had been no opportunity in the closeness of the inn the night before.
The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy Page 143