The Harrowing of Gwynedd

by Katherine Kurtz

  After another minute or so, his labors were rewarded. As he drew a deeper breath, letting it out with a soft sigh, Hubert’s sigh was deeper still, the scroll slowly slipping from his hands and sliding, first to the bed-steps, then softly onto the carpet beneath, to roll back on itself. Javan did not falter in his concentration, lest the sound should have jarred Hubert from his dozing—for if Hubert bent down to retrieve it, he might see the huddled form lurking under his bed—but the archbishop did not move.

  After another deep sigh and the alarming vibration of the bed moving above him, Javan realized that Hubert was simply settling in, slipping ever deeper into sleep. Liquid-sounding snores soon confirmed it. A few seconds later, Javan was easing out from under the other side of the bed to peer gingerly up over the edge, hardly able to believe his good fortune.

  Hubert was definitely asleep. His ponderous bulk was propped up on half a dozen fat pillows, his head tipped back so that his jaw fell slack, and Javan almost had to laugh at the ridiculous, fur-lined nightcap covering the archbishop’s head and ears. Ridiculous, but it also would help to muffle any inadvertant sound Javan might make in the course of his escape.

  And there was more that might be done to ensure that escape, first to the Portal and then from the room. Now confident that Hubert would respond, Javan slowly reached across to touch his fingertips to the archbishop’s forehead, at the same time commanding even deeper sleep and an opening to Javan’s will. Hubert moaned softly, but he did not stir, and Javan knew he had him. Reinforcing the command, he made the suggestion that the archbishop should settle into a more comfortable position for sleeping, maintaining contact while the man obeyed. Hubert groaned and shifted farther under the sleeping furs, burrowing into his pile of pillows, then was still, his mind blank and receptive.

  Now remain sleeping until I tell you otherwise, Javan sent. And as he cautiously drew back his hand, Hubert did not stir.

  Excellent! This was even better than Javan had dreamed and well worth the anxiety he had endured to reach this point. Touching one hand to the breast of his tunic to confirm that his report was still in place, he headed across the room and slipped between the heavy curtains hiding the little oratory. After all the difficulties he had already overcome, he was all prepared to have to search for the Portal, but its intact presence blazed up in his heightened senses like a warming flame, directly in front of the little altar with its Presence Lamp.

  Thank God! Now, if he could only work the Portal. He would have only one chance. Either he could do it or he couldn’t. Drawing a deep breath, he visualized the Portal in the Michaeline sanctuary, reaching out for the energies. He could feel them, like a tangle of fiery skeins, but he paid no attention to the heat, wrapping his mind around them and then, with a faintly breathed prayer that this would work, wrenched the energies.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumbering upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction.

  —Job 33:15–16

  Javan staggered as the floor lurched under his feet, flinging his arms to either side for balance. Simultaneously, he opened his eyes to torchlight rather than a Presence Lamp, the light coming from beside him rather than in front. One hand smacked into stone, but the one toward the light flailed into empty space, nearly hitting a man who had not been there an instant before.

  The man caught his wrist and yanked him from the Portal before he could even cry out, deftly spinning him around so that suddenly Javan’s wrist was twisted up behind his back, pressure arching him backward with pain and the promise of real damage to the wrist if he made the slightest attempt to escape. At the same time, the man’s other hand slid around his neck from behind and clamped hard across the carotid pressure points, even as crisp, efficient Deryni shields wrapped around his mind, testing. Javan pawed at the choking hand with his free one, vaguely trying to dislodge it, but his vision was already tunnelling in toward blackness.

  “Don’t even think about fighting me, son,” a strange, brisk voice commanded, just beside his left ear. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

  “You’re already hurting me!” Javan managed to gasp, though he made an immediate effort to stop struggling. “Who are you?”

  The tension on his trapped wrist backed off just a fraction, and most of the pressure eased from his throat, but escape still was out of the question.

  “Odd, I was about to ask you the same question,” the stranger murmured. “So since you’re the intruder here, suppose you tell me first.”

  Javan’s alarm gave way to vague indignation at the presumption of this glib stranger to take such liberties with the person of a Haldane prince, but now was hardly the time to quibble over niceties of protocol. The man’s very presence in the Michaeline sanctuary declared him no enemy, for all the menace of the hands still holding Javan quite immobilized and the mind surrounding his, Truth-Reading him.

  “Fair enough. I’m Javan Haldane, and I need to see Tavis right away.”

  “Ah, and so you are. He didn’t tell me to expect you.”

  The hands released him immediately, their owner stepping back to make him an apologetic bow of the head. The man appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with kind-looking hazel eyes twinkling beneath a shock of shortish brown hair—somewhat surprising, in light of the force he had just displayed to keep his prisoner under control. He wore a Healer’s badge and some other on the shoulder of his plain brown mantle, and his sparse beard and mustache looked only recently grown.

  “Sorry, your Highness,” the man said. “I’m afraid Tavis isn’t available. Will someone else do?”

  “He isn’t available?” Javan repeated. “But, he has to be. What about Queron, then? Or one of the MacRories?”

  “Not Queron. But I can fetch Joram or Evaine within a few minutes.”

  “No, I daren’t stay that long. I’m on borrowed time as it is.” Javan took the packet out of his tunic breast and hefted it in his hand, looking the Healer up and down, Truth-Reading in turn. “The fact that you’re here ought to mean that I can trust you. Tell Father Joram that the regents are moving the entire Court to Rhemuth the day after tomorrow, so I don’t know when a direct contact will be possible again. And give him this.” He handed the packet to the Healer. “It’s a report of what’s been happening in Valoret for the last three weeks, since Tavis and Ansel were there.” He cocked his head at the man. “Ansel is all right, isn’t he? The last time I blithely assumed that someone had recovered from an injury incurred on my behalf, it was Rhys—and he hadn’t.”

  The Healer’s smile was bittersweet as he fingered the sealed packet.

  “In that regard, I can assure you, your Highness. Ansel is fine. I was personally involved in Healing him, when he came back. In fact, so far recovered is he that he’s out on a mission now. Dom Queron has gone to fetch Revan back from the Willimites, and Ansel is waiting for them with Tavis at the Portal outside Caerrorie. They could return at any time—which is why I was waiting here. Oh, and my name’s Sylvan O’Sullivan. I was one of Earl Gregory’s battle surgeons before Tavis—ah—recruited me.”

  “Tavis recruited—then, you can block? They’ve finally found another?” Javan breathed.

  “Oh, yes. For that matter, Lady Evaine’s little son can, too—though, hopefully, we’ll never have to use him.”

  “You mean Tieg?”

  “Yes, that’s his name.”

  Javan sighed, closing his eyes briefly. “Babies. It isn’t enough that I don’t even get a chance to grow up.”

  “Beg pardon, sir?”

  Javan shook his head. “Don’t mind me. It’s been a very difficult night. I—ah—used Archbishop Hubert’s Portal to get here—left him sleeping just on the other side of some curtains. I think I’ve covered all the details, but I’ve got to get back before somebody tries to wake him or I’m missed from where I’m supposed to be.”

  “Wait a minute.” Sylvan set his
hand on Javan’s shoulder to hold him from going back into the Portal. “Am I to infer that you put Hubert to sleep?”

  Javan gave him a sheepish grin. “Yeah. I had to hide under his bed, and I didn’t dare touch him at first, but I managed. Don’t worry. He won’t remember anything.”

  “You’d better pray he doesn’t,” Sylvan muttered, looking troubled as he glanced again at the sealed packet. “And this report doesn’t have a word about any of that, does it?”

  “Well, no. Of course not. When I wrote it, I didn’t know I could do it.”

  “But you know now. And what’s more important, the others should know.” Sylvan tucked the report under his belt. “There is a way to remedy that, of course. You could let me read you before you go back.”

  Javan’s heart went into his throat at the very thought of letting this stranger enter his mind. He had been Truth-Reading the man for some time and accepted that Sylvan O’Sullivan was exactly who and what he said he was, but consciously permitting what Sylvan asked was a very frightening notion.

  “I—don’t think I dare take the time,” he whispered, offering a milder excuse than his own fear.

  Smiling, Sylvan made him a slight bow, one hand to his heart. “I don’t blame you for your apprehension, your Highness. Tavis is your mentor, and you hardly know me. But with all due respect, what I’m asking would only take a few seconds. Queron has been teaching me rapid reading techniques, so I can gather information from subjects while they’re being ‘baptized.’ I can strip out the information very quickly, without the subject even being aware.” He grinned. “Of course, that normally would occur after I’d blocked them—and Tavis has made it quite clear you’re not to be blocked, after he’s worked so hard to help you awaken your powers—but with your cooperation, the process should differ very little.”

  “But I really should be getting back,” Javan whispered, trying to edge a little closer to the Portal entrance.

  Nodding, the Healer dropped one arm between Javan and the door frame, blocking the entrance.

  “Do you think I don’t know what I’m asking?” Sylvan said quietly. “And I’ll make my request even more unfair by pointing out that I don’t know how long it will take for regular contact to be reestablished with you. That makes a detailed report all the more valuable at this time. But I won’t insist, if you feel really uncomfortable about it.”

  Biting at his lip, Javan sighed. Sylvan was correct, of course, and had offered the undeniable argument. Tavis and the others should know about these most recent developments. That realization did not make Javan any happier about the proposition, but he knew he must concede the point.

  “Very well,” he said quietly. “Make certain you don’t do anything that would prevent me going back, though, or interfere with handling Hubert. I really don’t dare stay much longer.”

  “We’ll be done before you realize,” Sylvan murmured, setting one hand across the back of Javan’s neck and the other on his forehead. “Draw back your shields and close your eyes. No need to be nervous. Visualize a door opening, and hold that image. I’ll do all the rest.”

  Javan obeyed, surprised to find the requested action much easier than it had been in previous attempts. Because he was looking for it, he felt the faint, gentle tickle of Sylvan’s mind wrapping around his own, then a gentle, swooping sensation that momentarily set him a little off balance, so that he swayed between Sylvan’s hands. Then the hands had shifted to his shoulders and he was looking up into Sylvan’s smiling face.

  “You’re a young man of many surprises,” Sylvan allowed. “Audacious—but perhaps that’s what’s necessary in these troubled times. I’m proud to be in your service. But you mustn’t let me delay you any longer. As soon as you’ve settled in at Rhemuth, you must try to establish as public a daily routine as you can. We’ll find some way to contact you.” The Healer’s hands propelled Javan gently toward the Portal. “Godspeed, your Highness—and be careful!”

  Javan’s mind was whirling with the praise and the heady excitement of having exceeded Sylvan’s expectations, but he schooled his thoughts to the necessary discipline as he stepped into the Portal, raising a hand to the Healer in farewell before closing his eyes to orient himself. This time, he braced his feet a little farther apart so that he would not overbalance on contact. Just before he warped the energies, he wondered what he would do if someone had come into the oratory while he was gone—unlikely but possible—but only silence met him as torchlight gave way to the little oratory’s Presence Lamp. He waited, listening, for several dozen heartbeats, then cautiously parted the curtains enough to peep outside.

  The door was still closed the way Javan had left it, all quiet save for Hubert’s gentle snores. Nor were there any sounds of movement from outside the room. Greatly reassured, Javan crept softly over to the bed and parted the hangings, considering what else must be done before he fled.

  The archbishop had not stirred in Javan’s absence, other than to burrow his tonsured head more comfortably into the hollow of the pillow. One plump hand rested on the coverlet beneath his multiple chins, the jewel of his archbishop’s ring glowing darkly in the light of the single candle still burning at the head of the bed. With his blond head cradled on the silk of the pillowslip and the rosebud lips relaxed in sleep, Hubert hardly looked capable of the monstrous acts of which Javan knew him to be guilty. He did look incredibly vulnerable—and was.

  For several long seconds, the temptation simply to kill Hubert and be done with it was very strong. Certainly the archbishop deserved to die for what he had done—and for what he would do, if only through the terrible instrument he had created in the Custodes Fidei. How many more must suffer before Hubert earned some tangible wrath of a just God? It was all very well to say that Hubert would reap his reward at the Final Judgment, but could not justice find him a little sooner?

  Savoring the temptation, Javan considered the various means at hand. Most direct was the quick satisfaction of a dagger drawn deftly across the fat throat. More fitting, perhaps, was a pillow—of which the shade of Giesele MacLean certainly would approve. Held fast in the thrall of Javan’s emergent powers, Hubert would not even be able to struggle against the smothering press of feather-stuffed silk—a fair exchange, since Giesele had not been able to fight the physical restraint of her murderer. Whoever eventually found the body might even attribute the death to natural causes—far more believable in the case of the corpulent Hubert than in Giesele’s case. Ah, tempting thought!

  Briefly tempting, too, was the realization that Javan could probably make Hubert take his own life! It would require more active control than Javan thought he could manage just yet, but a more telling reason for rejecting that notion utterly was the Church’s teaching regarding suicide. If Javan were to make Hubert kill himself, he was more guilty than Hubert. No retribution, however just and sweet, was worth that.

  Nor was any retribution possible just now, Javan realized. It was not even the killing itself that bothered him. He had killed once before, defending Tavis against assassins on the day Davin MacRorie died.

  But killing a man in battle was one thing. Even ordering an execution after proper trial was justifiable, if only to ensure that the guilty would commit no further crimes—though no death could cancel out crimes already committed or bring back the innocent dead.

  But killing a man while he slept, regardless of his guilt, was quite another matter and made the killer little better than his victim. Not only that, if Hubert died, who might be his successor, both as archbishop and as regent? It could even be two individuals. Hubert’s brother Manfred was a likely regent, already functioning almost as a sixth regent for some time. And for archbishop, Javan guessed it might be Paulin of Ramos, now that his Custodes were established and he had their might behind him. Somehow, Javan didn’t think Paulin would refuse an archbishop’s miter. However bad Hubert was in that respect, Paulin would be worse. At least Javan knew what to expect from Hubert, for the most part.

 
Or did he? And might there be something Javan could do to improve Hubert’s predictability? For that matter, might Javan improve his own standing with the archbishop?

  This temptation, unlike murder, was too enticing to resist. Javan knew he dared not try anything too drastic or someone else might suspect tampering, even if Hubert did not. Whether Oriel or one of the other Deryni sniffers could detect specifics, if they tried to investigate, Javan had no idea—but he didn’t want to find out. Which meant that any suggestion planted in Hubert’s mind must be subtle—nothing that would actually change Hubert’s basic attitude, but perhaps just soften it a little.

  Quite suddenly, Javan thought he knew how to do that. In fact, he had already laid some of the groundwork. Even the plan’s success held its dangers, however.

  He had been leading Hubert to believe he was considering a religious vocation. As a means to an end, the premise had suited Javan admirably, since it allayed whatever suspicions Hubert and his staff might have had about Javan being in the episcopal palace tonight—a vital necessity if Javan was to use Hubert’s Portal.

  Support of Javan’s potential religious vocation had suited Hubert very well, too, since Javan’s eventual acceptance of Holy Orders would almost certainly promise his removal both from Court and from the royal succession, thus clearing the way for the more biddable Rhys Michael to succeed Alroy. The danger was that if Javan played his part too well, and Hubert got impatient, Javan could end up locked away in a monastery for the rest of his life, regardless of whether or not he had a true vocation. Javan was sure that Paulin of Ramos would know of several small, secure, out-of-the-way monasteries suitable for immuring inconvenient princes—if Hubert did not simply arrange a convenient accident.

  The challenge, then, was to strike just the right balance: saying neither yea nor nay to the religious life, shutting no doors; to exploit his youth in seemingly earnest indecision and avoid taking any steps that might raise real impediments to his eventual succession—all without getting himself locked away or killed. For now, telling Hubert at least a little of what he wanted to hear seemed the wisest course. Also, a Hubert trying to encourage a vocation was more likely to be a Hubert inclined to indulge Javan a little.