The Harrowing of Gwynedd

by Katherine Kurtz

  “Perchance my lack of faith comes from my wretchedness,” he muttered softly. “A Deryni must expect nothing better.”

  Father Lior bristled at the unmistakable mockery in Ursin’s tone, and Javan dreaded the possible consequences, but Hubert only chuckled softly.

  “I really don’t care whether you believe me or not, my dear Ursin, so long as you do as you’re told. Now, pretend to be one of the faithful and go down to the ‘Master,’ if you value even your wretchedness—and that of your family. Captain Ramsay, please accompany him—and you will no doubt wish to ‘purify’ yourself as well, after such prolonged contact with a Deryni.”

  Ramsay’s expression suggested that he wished no such thing, but he was a good soldier and would obey orders. He saluted briskly before dismounting and handing off his horse to another of the officers, pausing to divest himself of helmet, sword, brigandine, and boots.

  “Come, Ursin, we must not keep Master Revan waiting,” Hubert urged, when Ursin did not immediately follow suit. “And do not disappoint me, Ursin. You know how I hate disappointments.”

  Though still reluctant, Ursin knew better than to argue further. Sighing resignedly, he swung down from his horse and took off his mantle, belt, and boots, handing them to a sour-faced soldier who approached with the stripped Ramsay. The sun shone brightly on their bare heads as they started down the hillside, Ramsay all but shepherding Ursin with a hand under his elbow, and Javan wondered whether the Deryni’s fears really were well-founded. Surely Hubert would not discard Ursin so lightly, once he was no longer of use. Not even Hubert could be that heartless. And what would happen to Ursin’s family, if Ursin was discarded?

  But, no time to worry about Hubert now. For better or for worse, Ursin O’Carroll was about to become an official example of Revan’s supposed power. Javan prayed that if it all went wrong, the end would be quick, both for Ursin and his family, but meanwhile Ramsay and the captive Deryni were wading into the pool. Along with the rest, Javan watched anxiously as the two were met by several of Revan’s disciples—one of them Sylvan, he suddenly realized!—and were deftly shunted into different lines, Ursin in the one Sylvan had charge of. The two would still come to Revan in succession, but Ramsay would come first. And Ursin, who was expecting something to happen when Revan tilted him under the water, would not be expecting an assault to come from Sylvan. Perhaps Sylvan had already worked his magic!

  All unaware, the Deryni sniffer stood beside the Healer as another Willimite led the reluctant Ramsay forward to receive purification at Revan’s hands. As Revan set a hand on the man’s shoulder and spoke to him quietly, and the man ducked his head selfconsciously at some question Revan asked, Javan realized that Sylvan had casually turned his gaze up to the bluff where the episcopal party watched, and thought he caught just a hint of acknowledgment from Sylvan, just before the Healer returned his attention to Revan.

  “Receive purification, ye who would repent of past corruption,” Revan said, laying Ramsay back into the water against his arm, his other hand pressing the forehead under the water. “Arise a new man, washed clean in the grace of the Lord of Hosts.”

  Ramsay sputtered and wobbled a bit as Revan brought him to his feet, but looked immensely relieved as his Willimite guide began leading him back toward the shore. He quite forgot to look for his charge. Ursin, unaware that he was already blocked and controlled, never faltered as Sylvan led him to stand before Revan, who clasped his hands prayerfully at his breast before lightly laying them on Ursin’s arm.

  “Rejoice and pray with me, my brothers and sisters, for I perceive that another actual Deryni has come to beg the Lord’s mercy. His Grace the Lord Archbishop has seen fit to send us his own Deryni, in the hopes that he might be cleansed of his evil. Look, there sits his Grace to witness this great blessing.”

  The stir and whisper of the multitude turning to look at Hubert and his party covered whatever Revan said next—which annoyed Hubert greatly, for he had hoped not to have attention called to his presence—but apparently the prophet had only asked Ursin’s name, which Ursin gave.

  “Then, take my hand and believe that the Lord will make you clean, Brother Ursin,” Revan said, clasping the Deryni’s head between his hands and laying him back in the water. “Come, Holy Spirit, and purify the heart of this child of darkness, that he may know light. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” he concluded, as he raised Ursin up.

  Ursin coughed and sputtered as he got his feet under him, drying his face on a cloth that one of the other disciples handed him. He staggered a little then, as the totality of his loss hit him, so that Revan had to steady him with a hand under his elbow. Javan could see him nodding at something Revan said, and kissing Revan’s hand before passing beyond him to emerge from the water while the next man faced the Master, but his face was white as he rejoined Ramsay, and he kept passing a hand over his eyes, as if trying to push aside a veil.

  It took him several minutes to make his way slowly back up to the bluff where Hubert waited, and Javan could see the dread in his eyes as he came, dripping and pasty-faced. Hubert and Lior had dismounted, and the Custodes priest was readying one of the Deryni prickers as Ursin approached. Javan and the others of Hubert’s party remained mounted. Ursin appeared dazed and hardly even flinched when Lior stuck him in the back of the hand with the pricker, just as he knelt to kiss Hubert’s ring. Hubert’s hand on his shoulder kept him on his knees.

  “What happened, Ursin?”

  The man shook his head. “Your Grace, I don’t know what came over me,” he whispered, lifting stunned, desperate eyes toward the archbishop. “He—he must be a miracle-worker. When he took my hand, I—got dizzy. I felt a sudden warmth come over me, and my senses reeled as I fell back into the water. It was like—like being wrapped in a rainbow for just an instant, and then a moment of—not really pain, but a—a wrenching feeling.”

  “And then?” Hubert urged.

  “I—I’m not sure. I think I—passed out for a few seconds. Because the next thing I knew, I was standing up again and someone was helping me wipe my face—and my—my powers were gone!”

  “How do you feel now?”

  Ursin managed a wry, bitter grimace. “Bereft. Blind.”

  “Not—disoriented?”

  Ursin swallowed hard. “No, your Grace.”

  Hubert glanced past him at Lior, who was curiously examining his needle and vial. “Is it possible he’s shamming?”

  “If he is, he’s shamming no reaction, which I’ve always been given to understand is impossible for Deryni,” Lior murmured, coming around to peer under one of Ursin’s eyelids. “I don’t understand it. He’s reacting like a human.”

  “Dose him again,” Hubert ordered.

  “He could pass out.”

  “I didn’t ask for a medical opinion; I gave an order.”

  “Very good, your Grace.”

  Javan could not tell whether Lior approved or not—not that it mattered much, for Lior was the regents’ tool, and would do what he was told. The priest showed no emotion as he dipped his instrument into the vial of merasha again, then jabbed it hard into the muscles of Ursin’s left forearm. Ursin gave a little gasp and tensed, sinking back on his heels with a sob when Lior had pulled the needles out, but all of them knew that the dose was not yet deadly, even for a Deryni—though a third might be. Hubert fidgeted impatiently as they waited for the drug to have its effect, but all that happened was that Ursin soon began to weave on his knees. His eyes, when Lior tilted his chin toward the sun, were wide and dilated, but even to Javan’s unpracticed observation, Ursin appeared to be feeling no effect beyond the sedative action expected of a human. Ursin himself looked amazed, for he surely knew what the effect of even a single dose of merasha ordinarily would have been.

  “It’s impossible, and yet—where’s Captain Ramsay?” Lior suddenly seemed to remember that the guard captain had gone down with Ursin. “What did you experience, man? Did this Revan—do anythin
g odd?”

  Ramsay blinked once or twice, apparently having trouble with his recall. “I—he asked me my name,” he said tentatively. “I told him, and then he asked if I wanted to be purified from my contacts with Deryni.”

  “And you said?”

  Ramsay’s expression said that he thought that quite the most ridiculous question he had heard in some time. “His Grace told me to say that I did, so that’s what I said, Father.”

  “Don’t be impertinent,” Hubert warned. “Did he immerse you then?”

  “Aye, your Grace.”

  “And what happened then? Spill it, man. What did he do to you?”

  “I—he—he pushed me back under the water,” Ramsay murmured, gazing unseeing past Hubert as he made himself remember. “It was a falling sensation, as you might expect, and I felt the water close over my face like a tomb. It wasn’t cold, though. It was warm, and I was safe. And I—think, if he’d kept me under very long, I would have breathed in the water without a struggle—but he brought me up before I could do it. I felt light-headed as I came to the surface, like—like something had happened. But I don’t know what it was,” he added lamely, as his eyes flicked back to Hubert’s face. “I swear I don’t, your Grace.”

  “Hmmm, the man obviously commands a certain magnetism, your Grace,” Lior said, after a few seconds. “I think he may be very dangerous.”

  Hubert nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, but mostly to Deryni, perhaps. I wonder.”

  For the first time, Javan dared to speak up.

  “Your Grace, have you considered that God may well be presenting you with a unique opportunity?” he said quietly.

  “Eh, what’s that?”

  “Well, you want to eliminate the Deryni, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, isn’t it far better to let God do it, so that you don’t have their blood on your hands?”

  Hubert bristled. “The Deryni slain so far have been criminals whose eradication was ordered by temporal as well as ecclesiastical authority, for sedition and treason against the Crown as much as any disobedience of Holy Mother Church. There is no blood on my hands.”

  Raising one hand in a gesture of forbearance, Javan shook his head. “No, you don’t understand, your Grace. I never said there was—yet,” he said, personally allowing as how little Giesele MacLean and Declan’s wife and sons were just as dead, for having no blood shed. “But here you have an unrivaled opportunity to let someone else be the agent of Deryni destruction, so that you can’t possibly be blamed. If a new prophet has come along who can eliminate the Deryni and make the people see it as a positive thing, without the killing, isn’t that what would most please a God Who seeks out His sheep who have strayed, and Who rejoices when the prodigal returns home?”

  Lior looked doubtful, but Hubert clearly was thinking about what Javan had said.

  “What harm can it do, just to try it for a while?” Javan urged. “It certainly can’t hurt for humans to go through his little ritual, if they believe they’ll be better people for it—and he may catch quite a few Deryni in the net. With a little encouragement, he might catch even more. And,” he gave the word extra emphasis, “if he later became troublesome, he could still be eliminated, discredited. Father Lior has already suggested a heresy tribunal as just one possibility.”

  “That is, perhaps, true,” Hubert allowed.

  “Of course it’s true. All he needs right now is a bit of semiofficial support for what he’s doing—even the vaguest confirmation that receiving his ‘purification’ is a desirable thing—for humans as well as Deryni. And someone important needs to set an example for the humans. You couldn’t do it, of course, because it all really is on the shaky fringe of orthodoxy, but I have an excellent notion who could.”

  Even as Javan’s intention started to register, he was squeezing his horse forward, already past the guards who might have tried to seize his bridle.

  “Your Highness, no!”

  “I know what I’m doing, your Grace,” Javan called, pulling up to pivot his mount on its haunches. “It’s so simple, it’s beautiful. I’ll give you a full report after I’ve seen him.”

  Red-faced, Hubert started after him a few steps. “Javan, this is madness! You don’t know what he might do to you. By the obedience you owe me, come back at once!”

  “Tell those men to stay where they are!” Javan snapped, stabbing a warning finger in the direction of guards who had started forward to try to stop him. “If anyone lays a hand on my royal person, I’ll see him hang! This is a matter of conscience, between the archbishop and myself.”

  As the guards pulled up in confusion, Javan minced his horse slightly across the hillside, farther from the guards, but no farther from Hubert, who was fuming.

  “And what says your conscience about this willful disobedience?” Hubert said harshly. “Whatever are you thinking? Or are you thinking?”

  “I am thinking that I’m in my fourteenth year, your Grace, and nearly a man,” Javan said quietly. “I am thinking that I’m a prince of the blood, whose example can influence a great many people, in ways that mere decrees never would. I am thinking that if I were to endorse that man down there, many people might go to him who otherwise would not have the courage, and that this might save more bloodshed. And as a man whose father was a priest, and who has been considering the priesthood for himself, this is a service I could do right now, years before I could actually become a priest—a service that might be pleasing in the eyes of God.”

  “And just what do you intend?” Hubert demanded, a bit less emphatically, after a taut moment of consideration.

  “Why, my entire line has been tainted by contact with the Deryni,” Javan replied, keeping a straight face only with an effort. “Surely you agree. If one of the royal family presents himself for purification from that taint, who will not follow?—Deryni as well as humans!”

  He did not give Hubert time to think further on that argument. Turning his horse’s head, he urged it down the hillside, ignoring the archbishop’s halfhearted continuing protestations and praying he had not gone too far. The crowd parted before him as he drew nearer the water, his identity finally registering. Revan had been busily baptizing during Javan’s exchange with the archbishop, but everything came to a halt as the prince’s horse splashed into the water fetlock deep and Javan reined it in. The prince swept back his hood fully onto his shoulders so they could all get a good look at him, his eyes meeting and locking with the prophet’s. It was the first time he and Revan had met face to face.

  “You preach an interesting message, Brother Revan,” he said quietly, as the crowd hushed all around him. He could sense Hubert and his entourage easing down the hillside, but he did not turn to see their progress. “I wonder, is it equally valid for princes as for these good folk?”

  As he swept his free hand over the assembly, Revan came a little into shallower water, flanked by Sylvan and Brother Joachim.

  “The Prince Javan Haldane,” Revan said quietly, making him a slight bow, right hand to breast. “Yes, Sire, my message is for all who would truly repent of their past and give themselves into God’s merciful cleansing.”

  Javan backed the big palfrey a few steps so that it no longer stood in the water, noting that Hubert and his minions had halted, apparently abandoning their threat to interrupt what he was about to do.

  “It will take a great deal of cleansing, I fear,” he said, returning his full attention to Revan. “The Deryni have touched all my family for many years. Can God wash that away?”

  “Why, what can God not do, your Highness? The Scriptures tell us that all things are in His power. And He welcomes all his sheep back into His fold.”

  Javan forced a bitter laugh. “I fear I am a black sheep, Brother Revan. Nor is this pool deep enough to wash the taint from me.”

  “In this case, your Highness,” Revan countered, “the efficacy of the cleansing depends not upon the depth of the water but upon the strength of the cleaning age
nt.”

  “You, Brother Revan?”

  Smiling, Revan fell to his knees, shaking his head. “Not I, my prince, but the Lord of Hosts, to Whom be all glory forever and ever.” He lifted his eyes and his arms heavenward, praying for his subject.

  “Lord, hear your servant, who yearns to bring this gentle prince to the purification You have promised. Move his heart to repentance, and his soul to acceptance of this wondrous gift which You offer. Give him the courage to shake off the evil which has enslaved him—”

  As Revan prayed on, Javan let himself be wrapped up in it, regretting the hypocrisy of what he was doing, but confident of the necessity. After a few seconds, he bowed his head, letting his shoulders gradually slump as if in resignation. And though the tears he conjured were for the friends he had lost in the past months, they would serve as tears of softening and contrition to observers.

  “—I command no one, I compel no one, but the Lord of Hosts shall do all these things—”

  After a while, increasingly lulled by Revan’s prayer, Javan allowed a faint sob to escape his throat and swung a leg over his horse’s back, letting himself slip to the ground. His fumbling attempt to unlace his boots was soon assisted by several pairs of willing if hesitant hands, and someone else took his mantle and belt as he stepped out of the boots and began limping into the water toward Revan.

  “The Lord’s name be praised, for He brings His servant to be blessed,” Revan said, shifting from prayer to preaching again as he rose to acknowledge Javan. “May the Lord bless you in this hour of repentance. May He stretch forth His hand and lead you to purification.”

  He held out his hand as Javan approached, and Javan could feel a very real magnetism in the guileless brown eyes as the prophet backed into deeper water, drawing Javan with him like a moth to flame. A part of him wondered how Tavis and the others had done that.

  “Blessed be your feet, which have brought you to this place,” Revan murmured, pausing when the water had reached his waist and waiting for Javan. He laid his left arm around Javan’s shoulders as the prince reached him, tears streaming down both their faces now, and raised his right hand in blessing above Javan’s head.