The Harrowing of Gwynedd

by Katherine Kurtz

  “The cough really isn’t that bad, Master Oriel,” Javan said after delivering an appropriately dry, hacky cough, making the expected protests. “I’m fine—really. Must’ve gotten a breath of dust from these drapes.”

  “Yes, well, maybe a little rest would do you good, your Highness,” Tammaron said, to Javan’s relief. “I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time on your knees in cold, draughty chapels of late. I confess, none of us would mind if you found yourself a vocation as a priest, but for now, you are the heir. You mustn’t endanger your health.”

  Both Javan and Oriel were Truth-Reading Tammaron as he spoke, and knew that the earl meant what he said, without rancor or deception.

  “Perhaps his Highness would allow me to prescribe a posset with a light sedative,” Oriel said smoothly. “Did you not say you hadn’t been sleeping well the past few nights, my prince?”

  Javan picked up the prompt without hesitation. “Aye, but it’s just a stuffy head—and my ears feel blocked up. Can you really give me something to help that?”

  Smiling, Oriel rose, shifting his hand from Javan’s wrist to his shoulder and urging him down out of the window embrasure. “Most assuredly, I can, your Highness. Lord Tammaron, if you’ll excuse us? The king will sleep until suppertime now. What I’ve given him will offer respite from his cough. The squires should be back shortly.”

  “They’re back now,” Tammaron replied with a satisfied smile. “And congratulations on convincing Prince Javan that his asceticisms were too much for this cold, damp weather. You take care of yourself now, you hear, son?”

  Making vague noises of agreement, Javan let Oriel lead him out of his brother’s quarters. As they headed for his own rooms, the two of them refrained from interacting in any way besides verbal small talk, lest they encounter any of the castle’s other tame Deryni, but Oriel gave him additional reassurance before bedding him down with the promised posset—a harmless enough drink made of hot brandywine and milk, with honey and an egg beaten into it. The sleep that descended upon the prince when Oriel had gone was a gentle, undemanding one, and Javan felt as heartened as he had been in many a week.

  His only worry, as he drifted off, was how, eventually, he was going to rescue Oriel and his family. Maybe he could somehow smuggle them out to Revan …

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their hearts?

  —Job 8:10

  Lent wore on in the Michaeline sanctuary as well as in Rhemuth—a bleak succession of dreary days punctuated by increasing reports from outside of further hostility against Deryni. Before the events of the previous fall and early winter had brought everything to a head, Ansel had organized a small but efficient intelligence network in the Valoret area, partly made up of men who had ridden patrol with him and Davin in the old days, to try to curb the worst excesses of young Deryni. A few ex-Michaeline colleagues of Joram’s had joined them since, mostly human.

  Now these men became the eyes and ears of the Deryni resistance, such as any resistance could be, so stripped of its leadership and set off balance by the purely physical reprisals the regents were setting in motion. A few came directly to the Michaeline sanctuary to report; others Ansel met nearby in the hills north of Caerrorie, for the sanctuary, though well hidden underground, could be accessed from the surface. Despite their best intentions, its location could not remain a secret indefinitely.

  Against that eventuality, Joram, now senior member of the MacRorie family, made plans to disperse at least the women and children to places of greater permanent safety, Evaine excepted. Fiona MacLean had charge of the Thuryn children and waited to take them to Gregory and Jesse in Trevalga on a moment’s notice. Mairi MacLean, numbed by nightmares of her husband’s tortured death, retreated increasingly into her own world of grief and mindless religiosity, spending hours praying for her husband’s soul and becoming more and more withdrawn. Even Queron could not reach her and in the end suggested that the kindest thing would be to let her enter some secluded religious house, her scant Deryni powers blocked and her memories altered to protect herself and those at the sanctuary.

  “But leave her her grief,” Evaine whispered, as Queron prepared to go to Mairi and make the delicate memory adjustments that would forever change her life. “That’s the only thing that makes her want to keep living. She prays for him constantly.”

  “And ignores the fact that her son still lives,” Queron said, disapproval sharpening his voice even though he agreed with Evaine’s assessment. “She still thinks Camlin died in that castle yard with Adrian.”

  “The Camlin that she knew did die,” Evaine murmured, not looking at him, “just as surely as my Rhys and Aidan died. The boy that Ansel takes out raiding with him, with his own memories of that day and the stigmata of crucifixion on his hands and feet, will never again be the boy she knew and loved. Nothing will ever be the same for any of us.”

  So Queron left Mairi with her memories, softening only those details that might lead a dogged interrogator to those who must be protected at whatever cost. And the night before he took her through the Portal to put her in the charge of the monks and sisters at Saint Mary’s in the Hills, little Tieg was called upon to block her, carefully controlled by his mother. Evaine slept with Tieg that night, silently crying herself to sleep after Tieg had drifted off in her arms.

  She tried to make more time for the children after that, for she knew that the day would come all too soon when Fiona must take them to a place of greater safety. A Deryni wet nurse already had been found for little Jerusha among the refugees at Trevalga—a shy young widow called Nicaret, hardly more than a girl herself, whose husband and baby had died in a fire set by zealot raiders intent on burning out Deryni—and Evaine sadly began resigning herself to the likelihood that her youngest child eventually would come to call Nicaret or Fiona mother.

  The latter days of Lent brought more positive progress in other areas, however. The regular reports from Sylvan, on retreat with Revan in the hills above Valoret, were uniformly reassuring. Nearly a dozen of Revan’s original disciples from the Willimite camp now had found and joined him, and he and Sylvan had been working with quiet diligence to set the stage for the desired reception, come Pentecost. Under Sylvan’s tutelage and with the help of the Willimite medallion that Sylvan regularly recharged, Revan perfected his laying on of hands to the point that his suggestions of disorientation and dizziness almost always were accepted. The sensation could be fought, if the subject were inclined to do so, but those presenting themselves for baptism would be predisposed to experience something at the hands of a supposed miracle worker and possible messiah. With this additional resource at his disposal, Revan looked forward to beginning his public ministry with increasing confidence that he could actually pull it off—which greatly reassured those in the sanctuary, who were gambling so much upon him.

  Finally, and most immediately important to Joram, Evaine, and Queron, a report came in from Rhemuth, from one of Joram’s ex-Michaelines working as a groom in the castle stables, that the royal household at last had settled in and established a regular enough routine that further contact with Prince Javan again might be feasible. Evaine had immersed herself in her researches, spending a portion of each day in meditation by her father’s body, in as compulsive a behavior as any Mairi had displayed, but it was she who determined to make the contact, against any remonstration that Joram or Queron could come up with.

  “When Sylvan took Javan’s last report, he didn’t know about Portal accessibility in Rhemuth, so Javan will be expecting our contact to come from outside the castle,” she told them, indicating the written report that Ansel had received the day before from his agent. “Nor does he know who that contact might be.

  “To that end, he’s obviously tried to set himself a reasonably public and predictable schedule of activities. We know, for example, that he takes classics instruction from a monk at the cathedral three afternoons a week—a pursuit appropriate
to a prince as well as to a fledgling religious, and which also provides an excellent opportunity for someone to approach him. In addition, he’s a daily communicant at the mid-morning Mass at the basilica during the week—another shrewd move, since almost anyone can get into the outer ward if they say they’re going to Mass and don’t look too suspicious. To broaden his excuse for hanging around the basilica, he’s begun treating the rector as his informal spiritual director, and often lingers after Mass to talk. Castle gossip is that he’s turning into a regular monk like his father.”

  “Just as long as he doesn’t take any binding vows,” Queron muttered. “Oh, he can always be dispensed, later on, I suppose—Cinhil was—but vocations aren’t something to take lightly.”

  “I’m sure he’s well aware of the delicate line he treads,” Evaine said. “What matters more right now, though, is that he’s unwittingly set the scene for an almost ideal contact situation. Of the several Portals still accessible to us in Rhemuth, the one in the basilica was my absolute first choice. We have you to thank for that one, Queron.”

  The Healer-priest shrugged. “You have the present rector’s predecessor several times removed to thank for it,” he amended. “Gabrilite adepts set up that Portal when Blaine of Festil, King Imre’s father, had a Gabrilite Healer-Confessor, before most of us were even born. It has the distinction of being one of the few Portals I know of that can be used without potentially having to materialize in the open, where anyone around could see.”

  “Which makes it precisely the kind of Portal we need,” Evaine said.

  “No one’s arguing that,” Joram said crossly. “I am arguing the advisability of risking you, personally, to make this contact. The risk to Javan himself is bad enough, no matter who makes the contact, but if something were to happen to you, it could also affect a certain other project that only you can lead.”

  “I think the risk is minimal,” she said, “and I want to see Javan, at least this once. And one of the reasons is precisely because all of us run a very real risk when we eventually push that certain other project to its conclusion. Please don’t fight me on this, Joram. It’s important to me.”

  Joram sighed, glancing at Queron for support which, surprisingly, was not forthcoming.

  “If it’s that important, then let her go,” the Healer said. “It’s no more dangerous than what any of a number of our people are doing daily.”

  “That isn’t the point,” Joram muttered. “Besides, this isn’t a job for a woman.”

  “Then, I won’t go as a woman!” Evaine retorted. And before their very eyes, her face began to change.

  It was not a sudden metamorphosis. The air before her face seemed to sparkle, a shadowed mist gradually building up behind and all around. She was wearing one of the ubiquitous grey habits that many of the inhabitants of the sanctuary wore, and she drew its hood over her hair before lightly covering her face with both hands and bowing her head. Joram, who had seen the transformation once before, only caught his breath a little and stared, suddenly very sure who would shortly look up at him. Queron appeared less concerned as the spell was bound, but he gasped aloud and almost recoiled as the hands fell away from the averted face and then a bearded stranger raised smoky black eyes.

  “My God!” Queron whispered, crossing himself almost without volition. “Is it—”

  “Dom Queron Kinevan, permit me to present ‘Brother John,’” Joram said drolly. “Other than myself, Rhys, our late King Cinhil, and one of my Michaeline brethren who has since dropped out of sight, I don’t believe anyone else has ever met this good monk, though a lot of people were looking for him in the weeks leading up to Camber’s canonization—yourself included, I believe.”

  “Brother John” made Queron a deferential bow, right hand pressed to his chest. Queron, even knowing what Evaine had done, and drawing on the memories that she and Joram had shared with him of Brother John’s only previous incarnation, could hardly believe what he was seeing.

  “This is how you looked to Cinhil and young Lord Dualta, the night Camber assimilated Alister’s memories?” Queron whispered.

  “Brother John” lowered his startling black eyes under long black lashes, inclining the hooded head slightly. “If it please your Worship, I am but an ignorant monk, and unlearned in such matters,” he replied, in a voice quite unlike Evaine’s. “But it did seem to me that some other person was in the room besides the Father General. In fact—” White teeth flashed in the beard as the thin lips parted in a wry smile. “—it did seem to me that there were several people in the room whose presence had not been expected. It was most unfortunate that we had to entertain those extra visitors.”

  Despite his best intentions, Queron chuckled. “You certainly made my work more difficult by disappearing so thoroughly. But then, that was the entire point, wasn’t it? Ah, what a tangle we all wove for ourselves.”

  “It isn’t going to get any less tangled, either,” Joram said, “if Evaine goes to Rhemuth as Brother John.”

  The bearded figure shrugged, and in that instant became Evaine again. “I have to use some disguise to move about the basilica without suspicion. So would either of you, if you went. Why waste energy inventing a new one? It isn’t as if Dualta’s likely to show up; and ‘Brother John’ means nothing to Javan.”

  Actually setting up the contact took several days. Holy Week was approaching, and preparations for it meant that more people were in and out of the basilica daily, many of them clergy, the majority of them unknown to Father Boniface, as Evaine quickly learned the rector was called. Among so many new faces, a slight, almost frail-looking monk in the deep-grey habit of the long-established Ordo Verbi Dei raised not an eyebrow.

  The bearded young cleric showed up at Mass several mornings running, only kneeling piously near the back of the church, not even venturing forward to receive Holy Communion. Nor did he attempt to approach the black-cloaked prince who also came to Mass each day with his squire but knelt in the royal stall, close to the altar, though he watched them covertly from between his fingers, as he also memorized every detail of the building itself, under cover of bowing deep in devotions.

  The two were there on the third day, as expected, but something in the squire’s restlessness, and the way he kept glancing anxiously at his younger master, suggested that they might have other plans that day besides lingering at the basilica. After the last Gospel, as soon as the priest and his servers had disappeared into the sacristy, the monk who was Evaine glided down the center aisle to approach the royal stall. Javan was still kneeling beside his squire, head bent dutifully to the usual prayers following Mass, and he looked up curiously as the dark, bearded young monk bowed to the High Altar and then came to dip a knee before the royal stall.

  “Your pardon for any intrusion, your Highness,” Evaine murmured in her stranger’s voice. “My superior asked that I give you this medal and his blessing, if I should see you here in this holy season. A soldier of the Lord should have such a patron.”

  As the monk held out something vaguely coinlike in shape and silvery in color, Javan extended his hand automatically. The stranger’s fingers brushed the royal palm as the gift was imparted—an emphatic tingle that warned wordlessly not to react visibly—followed by the crisp, impersonal order crackling in his mind: Go to the priest’s study when I have gone, and wait.

  Stunned, Javan did not even look at the medal immediately, only closing it in his palm and bowing his head, stammering some inanity of thanks as the monk’s hand moved in the promised blessing. Charlan edged closer as soon as the man had disappeared through the door leading to the sacristy and Father Boniface’s study, craning his neck to get a look at what Javan held.

  “What is it? What did he give you?”

  Javan glanced at the medal long enough to see that it was a Saint Michael, then passed it to Charlan, using the brief contact of their hands to ready the pre-set controls he was being forced to use more and more often to distract his squire.

  “I
t’s just a Saint Michael medal,” he said under his breath.

  “A Saint Michael?” Charlan whispered, tilting the medal on his palm. “Now, why on earth would he want to give you that? You don’t suppose he’s a Michaeline?”

  Javan shook his head, though he suspected that the stranger, if not a Michaeline himself, at least had been sent by one—probably Joram. “You heard him, Charlan,” he whispered, planting the plausible lie. “He said a soldier of the Lord should have such a patron. If I do find a religious vocation, doesn’t that make me one of God’s soldiers, after a fashion?”

  “I suppose,” Charlan agreed. “I wonder who he was, though. Do you suppose Father Boniface knows?”

  “He might,” Javan replied, taking back the medal and slipping it into an inner pocket as he got to his feet. “Come on, let’s ask him. We can wait in his study.”

  “Very well, but we can’t stay long. You know how testy Earl Rhun gets when you’re late for court.”

  “It doesn’t start until noon,” Javan said, as he made for the door with Charlan at his heels.

  The little corridor beyond was dim and chill, only faintly lit by a rushlight set in a niche beside the sacristy door at the far end. The door to the priest’s study was closer, directly to Javan’s left, and he tapped at it lightly before trying the latch and then boldly entering, ignoring the dull buzz of voices in the sacristy beyond.

  He had half expected to find either Joram or the stranger monk inside, but the little panelled room was deserted. A fire blazed merrily on the hearth to the right, lighting the well-scrubbed stone flags before it to a golden glow and warming the bed mounded with sleeping furs, where Father Boniface had lately slept, but the mullioned window opposite the fireplace was covered with heavy woolen drapes of a dull green-gold that filtered out almost all the daylight.