The Quest for Saint Camber

by Katherine Kurtz

  The king had kept official mourning for a full year following her death, even though it would not have been required or expected, since the marriage was never consummated. He had said, in the beginning, that he only wore the black to remind him of his vow to bring the Mearan rebels to justice. He had said he wore the ring for the same reason, since court protocol required that he sometimes put aside his mourning attire.

  But though the last Mearan rebel had been brought to bay by the previous fall, it was only two months ago, on the actual anniversary of her death, that he had finally ceased wearing black. And he still wore the ring.

  “Did you love Sidana?” Dhugal asked softly, as he had asked a dozen times before.

  Kelson shrugged, as he always had, and put down his cup, but his actual answer, this time, was slightly different.

  “What does it matter? She’s dead. Even if I did, it doesn’t mean I can never love again.”

  Amazed, Dhugal raised one eyebrow, nodding carefully.

  “I see. Then, you are falling in love with Rothana.”

  All Kelson could manage was a silly grin.

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, I’ll be …”

  “Neither of us is going to make any binding decisions before I leave for Torenth. We both need the time apart to think things out.”

  “Sweet Jesu, do you really think you’ll marry her?” Dhugal breathed.

  “It—ah—wouldn’t be a placid marriage,” Kelson hedged. “You remember how I told you what she did to me, the first time we disagreed.”

  “Well, she is Deryni, after all.”

  “And I’m a king, Dhugal. A lot of things would have to be worked out. And chiefest among them, for starters, is whether she’s even inclined to marry someone besides the Church. I hate to think of competing with God.”

  Dhugal grinned wickedly. “Oh, I don’t think you need worry too much about that. Sometimes I think you’d give even Him a run for His money.”

  “Dhugal, that’s blasphemy!” Kelson gasped. “Take it back right now!”

  “Well, you might,” Dhugal insisted. “Hey, easy!” he yelped, as Kelson launched himself at Dhugal and both their chairs went over with a crash.

  “Take it back!”

  “No, it’s true!”

  Dhugal ended up half on his stomach and half on his side with Kelson straddling him, one arm pinned beneath his own body and the other fruitlessy trying to fend off the choke-hold the king had just about succeeded in locking across his throat from behind. He could not help laughing, despite the fact that he was losing. Their wrestling upset the pitcher of water on the hearth, soaking the bearskin rug and making the fire hiss and steam. It also brought Dolfin and Ivo charging into the room with drawn daggers, to see what the commotion was.

  “Go back to bed!” the king ordered, taking advantage of the diversion to make his choke-hold secure and beginning to see the humor of the situation. “My brother and I are having a difference of opinion. I don’t need any help. Dhugal, if you don’t take it back right now, I’m going to put you out! And with as much as you’ve had to drink tonight, you’ll probably puke when you come to!”

  The squires disappeared immediately, Dolfin dragging the wide-eyed Ivo by a sleeve—he had seen the pair’s high jinks before—and Dhugal went limp, no longer putting up a fight. The pressure across his throat was already beginning to make things go black around the edges, and he could feel a wave of nausea threatening as well.

  “Take it back, or I’ll still do it!” Kelson demanded.

  “All right, all right! I take it back,” Dhugal gasped. “Hey, let me up! I’m breathing soggy bear hair!”

  He wormed onto his back and managed a game grin as Kelson released him, even though the other still was half sitting on his protesting stomach, and he lay there for a few seconds to catch his breath as Kelson got to his feet.

  “Are you all right?” Kelson asked.

  Dhugal sat up with a nod and took the hand Kelson offered to help him up.

  “If I don’t throw up in the next thirty seconds, I will be. But, Jesu, I must have hit a nerve! I mean, what flesh and blood woman in her right mind would want to marry the Church when she could have the King of Gwynedd for a husband?”

  “Watch it,” Kelson warned.

  Wagging a finger at Dhugal, still breathing a little hard, the king righted the overturned chairs and helped the queasy Dhugal sit in one and put his head briefly between his knees. He was not really angry, but Dhugal had touched a spot Kelson had not realized was so sensitive. One did not joke about God that way. Not when the stakes were this high.

  “I’m sorry,” Kelson murmured, when Dhugal had straightened and gingerly laid his head against the chair back. “I guess I overreacted.” He picked up the overturned pitcher and began mopping the worst of the spill with a towel. “Some day, though, you need to sit down with your father and have him explain about religious vocations. I confess, I don’t really understand them either, but I respect them. And however much I might find myself attracted to Rothana, and however good a wife you think she’d make for me, I wouldn’t marry her if I thought I’d made her give up the Church.”

  “Well, she wouldn’t really have to give up the Church, after all. She just wouldn’t be a nun,” Dhugal said, rubbing at one wrist where Kelson had pinned him.

  “You know what I mean,” Kelson said. “Anyway, this is all premature. I’m not even going to think about it any more tonight.”

  But he did think about it, of course. After Dhugal had gone and he had reassured his squires that nothing was amiss, he lay awake for nearly an hour and was the worse for the lack of sleep when Ivo came to wake him again at eight.

  CHAPTER SIX

  For he offereth the bread of thy God; he shall be holy unto thee.

  —Leviticus 21:8

  “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.… Memento, homo …”

  Kneeling at the altar rail in Rhemuth Cathedral, huddled deep in the collar of his sable-lined cloak, Morgan waited blearily to receive the ashes that marked the beginning of Lent.

  “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es.…” Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.…

  His head felt as if it were filled with dust this morning, and his mouth tasted of it. Worse, Duncan would not even lecture him, later on, about the folly of overindulgence. But it had been a fine Vezaire port.…

  “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es.…”

  Morgan had missed Mass, too, though perhaps Duncan had not noticed. The Deryni bishop was far toward the left-hand end of the line of penitents kneeling at the altar rail, solemnly bending to smudge a young page’s forehead with ashes. Both he and Father Shandon, the young priest assisting him this morning, wore the somber violet vestments appropriate to the beginning of the Lenten season, but suddenly it occurred to Morgan that far more people were waiting on Shandon’s side of the sanctuary than on Duncan’s, despite the fact that people usually preferred to receive anything from a bishop rather than an ordinary priest.

  Ah, but that assumed that the bishop was also ordinary, Morgan suddenly realized—and a Deryni bishop was far from that. Given the official position of the Church regarding Deryni, was it any wonder that, as news spread of Duncan’s display of the day before, many folk would have qualms about having an admitted Deryni touch them? No matter that the archbishop and two other bishops had witnessed the incident and had done nothing. Who wanted to be among the first to test whether harm might, indeed, come from a Deryni priest’s touch?

  Clearly, not everyone felt that way. Thank God for that. The men kneeling to either side of Morgan—a young MacEwan man-at-arms and an even younger sergeant of lancers that Morgan knew had been present in the hall the day before—could hardly fail to know who and what both he and Duncan were; but they seemed to have no hesitation either about kneeling next to Morgan or receiving ashes from Duncan, who was proceeding back along the altar rail toward them, now tracing a sooty cross on a Hal
dane archer’s brow.

  “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.…”

  In fact, Morgan suddenly noticed, the common factor among most of those apparently willing to have Duncan minister to them was that they were young, most of them younger than Morgan and Duncan themselves—which at least bespoke hope for the future, if Duncan could ride out the immediate outcry.

  “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es.…”

  Intrigued by that observation, Morgan scanned the altar rail again. There was a correlation by age, though it was not ironclad. In fact, as Father Shandon reached the center of the altar rail and crossed back, to resume at the far end of the rail again, Morgan saw several older men, just past where Shandon had left off, rise and edge surreptitiously into the queue of men and women waiting to kneel on Shandon’s side. It was quietly done, but it was done, nonetheless. He supposed it was too late for some men to change.

  “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es.…”

  Duncan was giving ashes to the lancer sergeant now, and Morgan raised his head to meet his cousin’s eyes as the Deryni bishop finished and came before him.

  “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris,” Duncan murmured, tracing the cross on Morgan’s brow with special attention. So glad you could finally make it this morning, he added mentally. Meet me in the sacristy, after.

  Morgan had to duck his head to keep from smiling, waiting until Duncan had finished with the MacEwan man-at-arms and moved on before crossing himself deliberately and easing to his feet. He withdrew into the relative shelter of one of the pillars of the clerestory aisle, shadowed and anonymous, to continue watching until the last penitents had received ashes. No one actually got up and left when Duncan began helping Shandon finish with those kneeling on Shandon’s side or refused to receive ashes from Duncan, but Morgan could feel the apprehension and tension radiating as the people left the rail, their duty done at last. He even saw one man scrub surreptitiously at his forehead to remove the ashes Duncan had placed there, as soon as he thought no one would notice.

  Morgan knew that it would take a few minutes for Father Shandon to unvest and leave, so he waited quietly for a few more minutes before heading for the sacristy. But by the time he got there himself, he could hear angry voices within, neither of them Shandon. Deryni shields, not Duncan’s alone, tingled against Morgan’s own as he pushed the door open in alarm and entered.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it, Denis,” Duncan was saying, though neither he nor Arilan even glanced aside as Morgan drew the door closed and leaned against it, watching and listening warily. Over on a stool beside a vestment press, Father Shandon slumped asleep or unconscious, still fully vested in surplice and stole, obviously taken unawares by one of the two Deryni when the argument began to get too specific for outsiders to witness.

  “Well, you’d better think again about talking about it,” Arilan said. “Don’t you realize that you may have put the entire Church at jeopardy? You saw what happened out there. It was one thing when they only thought you might be Deryni. God, Duncan, couldn’t you have waited?”

  “And just how long was I supposed to have waited?” Duncan countered. “Twenty-odd years, like you? Is that how long you’ve been a priest? And you still haven’t owned up to what you are! Someone’s got to be the first, if there’s ever going to be a change.”

  Too angry to reply, Arilan spun away to glare unseeing at the tiny window above the vesting altar. It was filled with colored glass in a random pattern suggestive of ocean waves, and the sunlight cast sickly greenish blotches on Arilan’s face and hands and on the plain black working cassock he wore. Morgan glanced at Duncan, not daring to intervene beyond his mere presence, but Duncan was focused only on his fellow bishop.

  “I was the first, once,” Arilan finally said, very softly. “Or, no, I wasn’t the first—Jorian came before me—but I was the first one to make it through successfully that I know of.” He leaned the heels of both hands against the edge of the altar and stared down at the white-worked linen covering it, then glanced back over his shoulder.

  “That’s not such a poor distinction, is it, Duncan? To be the first Deryni successfully ordained as a priest in nearly two hundred years? And you were ordained. And after you, in the past two or three years, there have been a few others, too. I’ll bet you didn’t know about those. But if I’d tried to do it all when I was the first, I’d be as dead as Jorian and all the rest that they killed before him! So, damn it, don’t you dare talk to me about someone has to be first!”

  As he turned to confront Duncan again, Morgan felt himself sag against the door, closing his eyes against his own memories.

  Jorian. God, he remembered Jorian! Morgan had been just barely thirteen, a squire at Brion’s court, when one of the royal chaplains had insisted that the king’s pet Deryni be taken to witness the execution of the Deryni ex-priest Jorian de Courcy, whose defiance of the law had been betrayed by the very hand of God at his ordination. Morgan was sure his own almost paralyzing fear of death by fire must spring from that terrible day, from being forced to watch the flames engulf de Courcy’s helpless, writhing body. Nor was it the last time he had witnessed such horror.

  He found himself sweating inside his heavy cloak as he opened his eyes, all but shaking physically in reaction, but his reaction was nothing compared to Duncan’s. The younger bishop had blanched nearly as white as the alb half-unlaced at his throat, and his shields were absolutely impenetrable, even to Morgan.

  “What do you mean, there have been a few others?” Duncan whispered. “Are you saying there are more of us now? Other Deryni priests?”

  “Not enough—but some,” Arilan said stonily, half turning back toward the ocean window.

  “And—you were the one to arrange it?”

  “At some cost, yes. Being a secret Deryni in the ranks helped enormously. And being a Deryni bishop who isn’t known to be Deryni helped even more.

  “But now everyone knows, or soon will know, that there’s at least one of us who’s infiltrated even to the episcopate; and where there’s one, there could be more. That may not bother the sane, honest churchmen like Wolfram, once they’ve had a chance to get used to the idea, but suppose there are a few more bishops or would-be bishops out there who are more like Edmund Loris than Thomas Cardiel? Do you want to unleash that on the innocent again?”

  Duncan recoiled almost as if struck a physical blow. Arilan was sparing him not a whit.

  “It’s exactly to stop that from being unleashed again that I did it,” Duncan murmured, sinking down on a bench behind him. “We have to show the world that we aren’t evil, by the example of our lives. I did it so that my son will have the chance to be a part of that example.”

  “And that’s truly the crux of it, isn’t it?” Arilan said quietly. “Dhugal, your son.” He sighed and crossed his arms on his chest, glancing down at his feet. “Perhaps that’s why we don’t permit our clergy to marry, Duncan. We grow too fond of the flesh of our flesh; and when the time comes that we have to make a choice, it’s awfully difficult to choose for God rather than one’s child. Few men can do it. Nor should they be asked to do it.”

  Drawing breath audibly, Duncan looked up. “I’ll stand by my decision, Denis. I’m a father and a priest, and I intend to continue being both. In fact, that’s part of what finally led me to do what I did: the sheer wonder that God worked His magic the way He did, to lead me to His service but also to let me sire that young man.”

  Arilan snorted. “How poetic. Is that supposed to move me not to be angry anymore? And you’re absolutely right that you’ll stand by your decision. You haven’t really got much choice.”

  “It was a decision made in good conscience,” Duncan said defensively, a brittle edge to his voice.

  “Oh, I’m sure it was. I just don’t know whether you considered that this act of conscience of yours might cost you your mitre—and maybe even your office as a priest.”

  As Morgan held his
breath, Duncan slowly straightened and stood, as grey as the smudge of ash on his forehead.

  “What do you mean?”

  Arilan tried to maintain eye contact, but failed.

  “You’re aware that the general synod meets next week in Valoret. There’s been some talk this morning of suspending you, at least until the synod has had a chance to consider what to do,” he said, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands. “Cardiel doesn’t really want to, but Wolfram isn’t sure. And it could go further than suspension.”

  “How much further?” Duncan whispered. “The mitre doesn’t really matter. I never particularly wanted to be a bishop in the first place. And I’ve been suspended before—even excommunicated. It was unpleasant, but it passed. It didn’t change what was in my heart. But what else might they do to me, Denis?”

  “Just be glad that the Church doesn’t burn Deryni anymore,” Arilan said gruffly. “Not officially, at any rate. We won’t count renegades like Loris, or what still goes on occasionally in the outlands. And even if enough bishops wanted to try, the king would never permit it. Which could precipitate another, entirely different kind of crisis—the king attempting to interfere in episcopal matters—but we needn’t worry about that for the present. Neither Cardiel nor Bradene would ever let it get that far.”

  “So they won’t burn me,” Duncan said impatiently. “That’s been tried and failed. What about my priesthood?”

  “Don’t get cocky!” Arilan snapped. “You might not be so lucky, next time around. Or your luck might not hold for Dhugal.”