The Harrowing of Gwynedd

by Katherine Kurtz

  “What—what are you going to do?” Javan dared to whisper. “It sounds dangerous.”

  “No more dangerous, in its way, than what you are doing.” She smiled. “But we all must serve as best we can. Please don’t ask me more.”

  “Very well.” He inclined his head in assent. “Will I—see you again, soon?”

  “If it is within my power, you have my word on it, my prince. And if I cannot come, someone else will. We shall not abandon you.”

  He felt tears welling in his eyes, and he had to look away to keep from crying.

  “Are you going to die?”

  “Eventually we all die, Javan.”

  Javan had all he could do to keep from shouting at her. Biting back his fear and anger, he made his fists ball in his lap until he could feel the nails cutting into his palms.

  “I know that!” he whispered, daring to meet her eyes. “And you know that isn’t what I asked. This thing you have to do—could you die from it?”

  He saw her own tears glittering, just before she looked down.

  “Yes. That’s one of the reasons I came to you tonight.”

  “To say good-bye?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “And to give you certain knowledge that you may need, if I—can’t be with you in the future. If you should become king.”

  Her words hit him like a fist in his gut, calling up confused half memories of the night his father had died. They had not wanted him to remember any of it, but he and Tavis had dredged up fragments—enough to know that magic had been worked upon him and his brothers—his father’s magic, Deryni magic.

  And if he did become king eventually, the magic would be his, too. Part of it was his already, to all their great surprise. He was gasping open-mouthed as he came forward on his knees to stare at her, his hands squeezing the armrest of the prie-dieu in a death grip.

  “What happened to me, the night my father died?” he whispered. He had asked the question so many times before, he could hardly believe she might finally answer it. But her grave, solemn expression promised that this time would be different.

  “I mayn’t give you conscious recall, but I will set the knowledge in place, to be triggered if you need it,” she said, setting her hands on his shoulders. “This also will be less gentle than I would have wished for you—but unfortunately, we haven’t the luxury of time for subtlety. I daren’t risk being interrupted by Hubert.”

  “I understand,” he whispered. His eyes never wavered from hers. “Just do what you have to. I’m not afraid.”

  “No.” She smiled. “You are one of the bravest young men I know. Relax and open to me now. And remember to pray for me.”

  He nodded wordlessly and closed his eyes as her hands slipped up to his temples. He tried to obey her instructions, but his eyes were stinging with tears, and he could not seem to clear his thoughts.

  Peace, my prince, she whispered in his mind. If we should not meet again in this life, remember what we have fought for—you and I and Tavis and Rhys and all the others—and do your best to help the Light triumph.

  I will—I promise! he managed to form the words in his mind.

  God bless and keep you, my prince. Now go deeper yet, and take the knowledge of your destiny.

  She rammed the knowledge home then, knowing that she hurt him, but unable to temper the force of her sending, lest she not have time to finish—for Hubert would return very soon. Javan passed out before she had made more than a start—which was as well, since it freed her to go even faster, without worrying over whether she hurt him.

  She blocked his memory then of all but her request for his prayers, knowing that at least she had given him a chance, if he had to take a throne alone one day, without Deryni support. She left him slumped over the prie-dieu with the memory of a dream that she had come, brushing a last, fond kiss to his downy cheek before leaving him to the footsteps that approached through the archbishop’s outer chamber.

  Her awareness of his prayers would help her endure what she had to do, and reminded her of yet another reason it might be necessary to offer up her life—whether or not that offering was accepted.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into morning.

  —Amos 5:9

  Javan woke with a nagging headache on the appointed day, exhausted by dreams that he could not recall and light-headed with hunger, for Hubert had prescribed a strict fast of bread and water only for the three days leading up to his profession. Charlan was not due to rouse him for nearly an hour, but he could neither retrieve the dreams nor go back to sleep. He thought one of the dreams might have been about the Lady Evaine, but he could not define more than a vague sense of foreboding. To appease his anxiety, he decided to pray for her. Charlan found him a little while later, kneeling beside the bed in his nightshirt, head bowed over his folded arms, and marked it as evidence of humility before the step he was about to take.

  “Beg pardon, your Highness,” the squire said hesitantly. “I apologize for the intrusion, but it’s time to dress for Mass. You must be very moved by what you are about to do.”

  Javan looked up blearily, not bothering to correct Charlan’s misapprehension, since he knew it would go straight to the archbishop as soon as Charlan left, and would reinforce what he wanted Hubert to think.

  He would miss the squire—if not his apologetic spying for the archbishop. Charlan would be leaving his service today, for lay brethren, even royal ones, were not permitted servants. They had already said their good-byes. Charlan was being transferred to the king’s household—though with luck, he could continue to visit Javan once a month to report on affairs at court. It was a stipulation the archbishop had agreed to readily enough, in exchange for Javan’s promise to try the religious life, but Javan did not know how long the arrangement would last, once he was under vows.

  But he must not waste precious energy worrying about that just now. He had enough to concern him, wondering whether Hubert might try to put something over on him during the ceremony of profession—some innocent-seeming phrase inserted into the vows, for example, that later might be used to try to bind him more permanently. He thought not, but he knew he could never fully trust Hubert, no matter how closely he believed himself to be in control—and his controls just now were not nearly as close as he would like.

  He dressed carefully for the archbishop’s early Mass, affecting an air of thoughtful detachment as he donned a layman’s attire for perhaps the last time. He was not required to serve this morning, since he would be a central figure in the afternoon’s ceremony, so during the Mass he had time to pursue his own meditations while others made the appropriate responses. Charlan, kneeling beside him for the last time, was very, very quiet. Javan found himself thinking about Saint Camber, and wondered whether the Deryni saint ever deigned to extend his protection to humans.

  He hoped so, for he sorely needed protection of some sort, to keep him from being swallowed up by the situation he himself was about to allow. The thought of devoting a few years to God at this stage of his life did not distress him in the least, for he was practical as well as reasonably pious and recognized the advantages of the intensive training he would receive during that time.

  But he must not let Hubert and the others force or trick him into making it permanent. His brother Alroy had not looked good at all, the last time Javan saw him, and might well die before he got an heir—an heir who would be the regents’ puppet from the start, to the detriment of all Gwynedd.

  Better that Alroy should die without issue than play into the regents’ hands by giving them a new king—for Javan felt sure that his brother would not last long, once the regents had themselves a new prince in the direct line. He wondered whether they had already picked out the royal bride—and whether Alroy and Rhys Michael would attend this afternoon. He had asked that they be present, even though the ceremony was a semiprivate one; he had sent the invitation himself, along with an e
xpurgated account of his reasons for taking vows.

  But one could never be certain whether letters got through or how they might be altered in transit. The regents were all too clever and devious. He would not put anything past them, if it served their purposes.

  The sacring bells of the Consecration called him back from his mental wanderings, and he made himself concentrate on the rest of the Mass in a more seemly fashion. He noticed, as first the Host and then the Cup were elevated—and as he had begun to notice some weeks ago—that a faint shimmer seemed to surround each. He wondered whether Hubert or any of the others could see it, too—though he doubted it. Someday, if he ever got the chance, he thought he might ask Father Joram about it. It seemed like the sort of thing that a Deryni might see—though the question of why he himself should see it did not occur to him.

  Meanwhile, the familiar magic of the Sacrament gave him scant comfort this morning, for Hubert passed him by for Communion. He would not be permitted to receive again until he had been confessed and professed, later this afternoon. He felt cold and empty when he rose to leave the chapel, for he had not begun the day without Communion for many a week now.

  Nor was he allowed any further ease after Mass was over. Hubert paused on his way out to bless him, before going on as usual to break his fast with the brethren of the Custodes Fidei, but Javan was not invited to accompany him this morning. Nor did Charlan linger, after bobbing self-consciously and a little moist-eyed to kiss the royal hand a final time as squire to prince. Instead, two monks Javan had never seen before came to conduct him silently to a close, narrow chamber where a barber monk trimmed his hair in the short, pudding-bowl shape affected by most clergy. He would receive the tonsure later, during the ceremony of actual profession—something Javan found vaguely disturbing, though Hubert had assured him that tonsuring was symbolic only, and did not bind him irrevocably to the religious state.

  He was taken to another room after that, windowless and lit only by a few rushlights set in pottery dishes, where steam lazed upward from behind a heavy woolen curtain of grey a shade darker than the room’s stone walls—the ritual bath required of all postulants making their first profession. As a purification, a symbol of washing away one’s past, Javan supposed it was not dissimilar to what Revan was preaching down by the river, though Hubert would be appalled if he knew Javan had even thought of the comparison.

  More conventionally, Javan recalled that candidates for knighthood underwent a similar purification the night before their dubbing, for similar reasons, and told himself that this was little different. He would be a knight, but owing allegiance to the Light rather than any earthly overlord—though he must pay lip service to his archbishop, at least for now.

  As he had been coached beforehand, he bowed and murmured, “Deo gratias,” when one of the monks drew aside the curtain and indicated that he should enter and disrobe. The cubicle beyond was close and humid, lit by one rather puny rushlight set high in a niche in the corner. The bath was wooden and round, its ironbound edge reaching nearly to his waist, steam billowing energetically from the water’s surface. Javan stripped quickly when the curtain had fallen, glad to be rid of the high-necked black tunic and hose, which he folded neatly on a three-legged stool. He could find no towel or replacement garb, but supposed those would be provided at the appropriate time.

  Only setting aside his special supportive boot gave him any particular pang of regret—though Hubert had assured him he might have it back tomorrow. The archbishop knew that walking without its support was an awkward and painful process, but insisted that even a prince must go unshod to his profession. Javan teetered a little unsteadily on the lame foot as he climbed into the wooden tub, wincing as he lowered himself into the steaming water—hotter by half than he would have wished on this balmy August morning. Trying not to think about it, he ducked under the water several times, riffling through his shorn hair to rinse away the loose clippings from his barbering. Between dunkings, he was vaguely aware of footsteps outside the curtains and doors opening and closing. He tried not to think about that, either.

  Hubert had said he would have the best part of an hour for the ritual bath, but he was ready to get out in half that time. As he climbed out, dripping, he was not surprised to find that someone had exchanged his secular clothing for a rough-napped towel and a thin, ankle-length black robe, similar to the one he had worn to the disciplinarium. He hoped they would not be repeating that little excursion as a part of the profession. And not only was there no girdle to knot around his waist this time, he noted, as he began toweling himself dry, but there were not even any undergarments.

  He shivered as he pulled on the robe, knowing it was all calculated to produce anxiety, to make the postulant feel stripped down to the barest essentials—and annoyed with himself because the intention was working. He found a comb hanging on a nail on the wall, and used it to slick his shorn hair into some semblance of clerical decorum, though he had no mirror to inspect his handiwork.

  Shortly, two different monks returned for him. The air outside was cool compared to the bath chamber, and he felt it as a chilling draft across his bare nape and down the neck of his thin, billowing robe, as they led him hobbling from the room on bare feet. In another small, close room, an anonymous priest waited behind a screen woven of rushes and thin wooden laths to hear his confession. The voice that greeted him in the name of God and invited him to confess his sins was not that of Hubert or Secorim or any of the Custodes clergy that he recognized, but he had no doubt that the man was a member of that Order—and Javan firmly believed that Custodes priests would violate the seal of the confessional without a second thought, if they deemed it for the good of the Order.

  So Javan turned his thoughts to the common failings he had rehearsed ahead of time—a general confession that would astonish no one and implicate no one. Easing his weight off his lame foot, he knelt beside a grille set in the screen and bowed his head, crossing himself as he spoke the ritual phrases.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a day since my last confession, and I have committed no conscious sin since then. But because I am about to take holy vows, I desire to make a general confession covering my life. These are my sins.”

  Three others sought shriving that morning as well—not as preparation for holy orders, for two were priests themselves, but as fortification against the dangers they might encounter in the hours ahead. Joram and Queron confessed one another, in the still, early morning hours before heading off to make their final preparations, but Evaine sought out Bishop Niallan, after the sanctuary’s morning Mass. Like Javan, she did not confide all to her confessor, even though she knew that this priest would keep the confessional’s seal even unto death. Still, she did tell him more than she had dared confide to Joram and Queron.

  “I have lied to Joram and Queron, Father,” she whispered, focusing on one end of the purple stole set around his shoulders. “I have told them there is but little danger in a mission I must perform. But if I told them the truth, they would not let me go—and I must.”

  Niallan nodded slowly, his steel-grey eyes shuttered and unreadable. They were sitting in Niallan’s cell, on the edge of his cot, with Wards set round the little room for privacy.

  “This danger,” Niallan ventured, sounding her out with consummate skill. “Is it to you alone, or does it involve them as well?”

  “There is some small danger to them as well, but they know the risk and are willing to accept it. My risk is far greater.”

  “And you are prepared to accept that risk?”

  “I am, Father.” She looked up at him with bright blue eyes. “I must. And if a sacrifice is required, then I must make that, too. Is it wrong to insist that I be free to make this choice?”

  Niallan was looking at her strangely, a taut foreboding playing about the lines around his mouth, and for an instant Evaine was not sure of him.

  “You obviously have thought long and carefully about this,” he said, afte
r a troubled pause.

  “Yes, Father. And I have begged that this cup not be placed before me. But if it is presented, then I must drink it to the dregs.”

  “And must your children drink it, too, if you should perish in this venture?”

  “That is the hardest part of all,” she whispered, looking away. “To know that my children may become orphans because of my actions. And yet, I still must take that risk. I’ve—made arrangements, if I should not return.” She handed him a sealed parchment packet. “Fiona will see to my little ones and be a better mother to them than I could be, if I decided not to dare what my heart tells me I must. But only I can do this other thing. Do you understand, Niallan?”

  After a moment, he closed his eyes and nodded, laying his hand over her folded ones, his bishop’s ring burning like a beacon between them. “Not entirely, child, but it’s clear that you have powerful reasons for what you are doing. I—will not question you further, for I sense a power at work here which far transcends anything I might call into play.” He glanced up at her with a sad wistfulness. “Will you at least allow me to pray for you?”

  “Aye, of course,” she said with a faint, tremulous smile. “And there is one other favor you can do for me as well.”

  “Anything that is within my power, dear child.”

  “You can give me the Last Anointing and Viaticum, in case my journey takes me—beyond where either of us would have me go. It would give me great comfort.”

  Niallan winced as if she had struck him a physical blow, but after a few heartbeats he gave a stiff nod.

  “If you truly desire it, of course I will do it. You should be aware, however, that Joram and Queron may sense it. The mark of such sacraments is often discernable to priests of their caliber.”