Childe Morgan

by Katherine Kurtz

  “Very good,” she murmured, allowing herself a reassuring smile. “And what element does Gabriel command, do you know?”

  Alaric considered the question briefly, then pronounced wisely, “Water.”

  “Correct!” Alyce smiled as she smoothed his white-gold hair. “Saint Gabriel rules the element of water. Now, Duncan, the last one is yours. See, your mother lights the candle in the north. Do you know whose candle it is? This one is a little harder.”

  She almost had to laugh at the intensity of Duncan’s expression as he searched for the answer.

  “He’s the archangel for earth,” he said after a studied pause. “And his name is…his name is…I forget! It’s too hard!”

  “Never mind, darling. You got it partly right. He is the archangel of the earth, and his name is Uriel. Say ‘Uriel,’ both of you.”

  “Ur-i-el,” the boys repeated obediently.

  “Good. Now, see, Duncan, your mother has lit Uriel’s candle, and now she comes back around to the east, because the east is the source of light, where the sun comes up. When setting Wards, we always start and finish in the east, to do honor to the Light of God. Will you remember that for me?”

  Both boys nodded solemnly as Vera returned to the table and knelt to set down her candle with its mate. They watched with fascination as she took a charcoal brazier from under the table and set it between the two candles, brought out a small dish of incense with a spoon of carved horn.

  She held her hands over the charcoal for only a few seconds before it began to smolder, to the boys’ chortling delight. She gave them a stern glance, which at least produced silence, then spooned a few grains of incense onto the glowing charcoal and raised the censer a little toward the altar, inclining her head slightly in homage.

  “Stetit Angelus justa aram temple,” she murmured, continuing the phrase as she set the censer down long enough to get to her feet.

  “Mummy, what she said?” Alaric demanded in a loud whisper, tugging impatiently at his mother’s sleeve.

  “Shhh. Those are ancient words of blessing, darling,” Alyce explained. “She said, ‘An angel came and stood before the altar of the temple, having a golden censer in his hand…’”

  As the fragrant smoke spiraled upward, dispersing in the draft from a partially opened window, Vera picked up the brazier and carried it toward the eastern quarter again, again speaking in Latin.

  “Ab illo benedicaris, in cujus honore cremaberis, Amen.”

  “‘Be thou blessed by Him in Whose honor thou shalt be burned,’” Alyce translated for her two rapt listeners. “Now, watch what happens as she walks around us to visit the other quarters. She’s tracing out a circle to protect us. It’s possible that you may see something in the smoke she leaves in her path. Tell me if you notice anything strange.”

  As Vera traced the circle with incense, Alyce could feel and see the next layer of energy being built around them. A glance at the two children confirmed that they, too, were aware that something was happening. By the time Vera had returned to the center of the circle to cense the three of them, Alaric was craning his neck to look at the candle-marked boundaries, squinting as if trying to focus on something that was not quite clear to his untrained eyes.

  “What did Auntie Vera do, Mummy?” he whispered, tugging at her sleeve again and looking again at the candles. “Something funny. I see it, but I don’t. It’s all fuzzy.”

  “Shhh, just watch,” Alyce murmured, resting her hands on both the boys’ shoulders.

  The incense was back on the table, and now Vera moved around the circle again, this time sprinkling the perimeter with water from a small earthen bowl. When she had completed her third circuit, the haze of the protective circle was unmistakable. Alaric’s cherubic face was wreathed in smiles, and Duncan’s a study in delight as he pointed out the golden glow to his cousin. As Vera came to kneel before them with her bowl of water, Alyce caught their gaze and laid a finger across her lips for silence.

  The two watched intently as first Alyce and then Vera dipped two fingers in the water and blessed themselves. But this, at least, they understood, for they had done it many times before. Very solemnly, for children so young, each of the boys followed suit, neither of them spilling even a drop in their determination to do things correctly. Both of them watched expectantly as Vera set the water bowl on the little table and changed places with Alyce.

  Alyce could feel the boys’ eyes following her as she went to the other side of the table and unsheathed the sword, heard their little gasps of wondering as she lifted it point-upward before her and moved toward the eastern Ward. With both hands wrapped around the hilt to steady the weight of the weapon, she brought the hilt to eye-level and closed her eyes, breathing a silent invocation from a bygone time, whose precise sense was no longer accessible to conscious thought. The crimson light of the vigil lamp and the warmer fire of the eastern candle burnished her face to richest gold, save where the shadow of the quillons fell across her forehead.

  She extended the sword in salute then, the hood slipping from her pale hair as she threw back her head and gazed for an instant along the length of shining blade, her eyes momentarily dazzled by a light brighter than mere reflected fire, which rippled along the polished metal.

  Then she was lowering the tip of the sword to touch the floor, turning to the right to trace the circle of protection a third and final time. Golden light followed her blade where the sword passed, merging and growing with the earlier glow to rise in an increasing wall that curved inward far above their heads.

  She could not see anything besides the light as she walked, though she could feel Vera’s sustaining strength adding to her own and knew that the boys were watching with awe. As she completed the circuit, she felt the shielding canopy of the circle close above their heads with a satisfyingly hollow surge of energy, a golden hemisphere of light that obscured what lay outside.

  She saluted the east again, then brought the blade to ground and laid it on the floor at the foot of the eastern candle. She could feel the prickling, tingling sensation of the circle’s protection surrounding them all as she returned to her son’s side and crouched down beside him, disarming his apprehension with a smile. Vera had already drawn Duncan away from his cousin, the pair of them standing closer beside the table, and was speaking with him quietly.

  “Alaric, my love,” Alyce murmured to her son, lightly touching his forearm with one hand. “Did you like what Mummy did?”

  Alaric rolled his eyes upward to study the canopy of light again, then pursed his lips speculatively, nodding. “Mummy made light,” he said in a whisper. “How you did that, Mummy?”

  “One day you shall learn, my love. Just now, though, Mummy has to help Aunt Vera for a little while. Will you do something for me while I’m busy?”

  At his nodded assent, she tucked the fur-lined cape more closely around his baby legs and moved his almost-forgotten candle a little closer to his crossed feet. Alaric was already intrigued, watching everything she did with great interest.

  “I’d like you to watch this candle for me,” she said.

  His eyes darted obediently to the flame, and Alyce brushed his forehead with her hand, watched the grey eyes go glassy, the long-lashed eyelids droop in trance.

  “That’s right. Now sleep a little while, my love. Go to sleep.”

  Another touch, a passing of her hand downward, and the grey eyes closed, the white-gold head nodding against the chest. Alyce touched her lips lightly to her son’s forehead and sealed his sleep, then returned to where Vera was kneeling beside the standing Duncan, one hand steadying the candle he held in his two chubby ones.

  “Very good,” Vera was saying, as Alyce came to kneel on Duncan’s other side. “Now, I want to ask you another question. Can you tell me the difference between right and wrong?”

  Duncan nodded confidently, the light of his candle reflecting twin stars in the enlarged pupils of his baby eyes.

  “You can? Well, then, will you t
ell me about something that’s wrong?” Vera encouraged.

  Again, Duncan nodded. “It’s wrong to break promises, and—and to hurt people and animals, and make them cry. I don’t like to hurt things, Mummy.”

  “I know you don’t, darling,” Vera said, giving the boy a quick hug. “And as you grow up, I want you always to remember that. Will you do that for me?”

  “Yes, Mummy.”

  “Thank you! Now, because I love you very, very much, I am going to give you a very special present. It’s another name, besides the ones you already have: a special name, a magical name, a name for you to use when you’re being very, very good, and you’re not to tell anyone else what it is. Would you like that?”

  “Can’t tell anybody?” Duncan asked, cocking his head to one side in puzzlement. “Not even Papa an’ Kevin an’ Alaric?”

  “Well, perhaps Alaric, someday, but not even Papa and Kevin. This is a very special, secret name, all your own, because one day, when you are a big, grown man like Papa, you will be very strong, and you will have great power to help people or to hurt them. You must promise that you will only help them. Will you promise me that, my love?”

  Duncan’s eye had lit with wonder at the story his mother told him of someday, when he was grown up, and he nodded earnestly. Alyce was certain he was seeing his father and other great knights in his young mind, and wished there were some way that she and Vera could impart to both the boys just what their heritage actually meant.

  But not yet. Such knowledge was too dangerous to entrust to such young children—especially Duncan, whose Deryni heritage was yet unknown beyond those present in the room. God willing, she and Vera would have many years to train both Alaric and Duncan in the ways that they should go; but if not, then what happened here tonight must be so binding that, even later, their sons would be able to piece together the path they should walk.

  Smiling reassurance, Alyce took Duncan’s candle and set it on the table, then laid one hand on the boy’s shoulder as Vera reached under the tablecloth to withdraw a quill and ink, a slip of parchment, a small earthen bowl, never before used. She watched as her sister put the quill in Duncan’s baby hand and dipped the ink and guided it to trace out the letters of the name they had chosen for him.

  “Your special name shall be Phelim,” Vera said softly, finishing the round stroke of the P and then moving on to the H. “Phelim is a name that means a good person, someone who tries always to do the right thing.”

  Together, their hands traced the E, the L, moved on to the I.

  “Sometimes it may be hard to live up to that name,” Vera went on, as they finished the final stroke of the M, “but I know you’ll try ever so hard, won’t you?”

  Duncan frowned at an ink blot on one of his fingers and nodded distractedly as his mother laid down the pen and put the slip of paper into the earthen bowl.

  “There’s my brave, clever boy. And you must always try to be brave for good things.”

  “I be brave for you, Mummy,” Duncan said gravely. “I always protect you.”

  “I’m sure you will, my darling.”

  Vera took the dagger that Alyce passed her from under the table and wiped the blade on an edge of her cloak.

  “And Mummy must be brave, too. Mummy must prick her finger, and then Phelim must prick his. Will that be all right?”

  As Duncan watched wide-eyed, soft lips agape, Vera touched the point of the dagger to her right index finger and pressed until it drew blood. One drop she allowed to fall on the parchment beside her son’s new name, before briefly sucking the wound clean. Then, as she held the dagger for Duncan, Alyce let her hand slip from Duncan’s shoulder to the back of his neck, extending control and blocking pain as the little boy fearlessly put his own finger against the dagger point and pressed.

  He drew back a little as the skin was punctured, but more from surprise than any real discomfort or fear. He watched almost clinically as his mother squeezed a drop of his young blood onto the parchment beside her own.

  Then, as the boy sucked on his wounded finger and watched her absorbedly, Vera opened a locket around her neck and withdrew a coiled hair—Jared’s—which she laid on the parchment and anchored with a drop of wax from Duncan’s candle.

  “Now, as this parchment burns,” she said, putting the candle in Duncan’s hand and guiding him to set the parchment alight, “remember that this is a secret name, which you must tell no one. Because if a bad person knows your secret name, it can make him strong, and he might be able to hurt you.”

  She watched Duncan watch the smoldering flame until it had died away and there was only a residue of ash in the bottom of the earthen dish. Then she pressed her thumb to the ashes and traced a smudged cross on her son’s brow, the while murmuring the words of a blessing. Eyes closing at her touch, Duncan breathed out with a little sigh as his mother’s mind caressed his. Then Vera laid both her hands on his brown hair, her own eyes closing in trance.

  Alyce watched for several seconds, briefly adding her own strength to the patterning being done, then withdrew unobtrusively and got to her feet. Moving to where the sword lay at the foot of the eastern Ward, she lifted it and saluted the east, then touched the point to the floor at the left of the eastern Ward and swept it up and back down in a tall, narrow arc, opening a doorway to the altar steps.

  She knelt, her hands on the quillons of the sword, as Vera led the dreamy-eyed Duncan to the threshold with his candle and waited. Fearlessly he passed through the doorway, leaving the circle, and mounted the three shallow steps alone, there to stand on tiptoes while he set his candle on the altar. When he was satisfied with its placement, his head bobbed in a bow and then he rushed back through the doorway and into his mother’s embrace. Vera hugged him close, murmuring words of endearment and stroking his hair to lull him into slumber as she gathered him into her arms, giving Alyce a relieved smile, for Duncan’s part in the ceremony now was complete.

  But as Alyce rose and moved to seal the gateway again, she started and then froze as a shadow moved in the chapel doorway, obscured by the haze of the protective circle. She had warned Kenneth not to interfere, to admit no one, but now a slit of dappled moonlight was widening behind him, outlining the silhouette of a second hooded figure in the doorway.

  “Kenneth?” she called softly, instinctively raising the sword across the gateway in a guard position and preparing to close it instantly, if needed.

  Kenneth did not reply, only stepping aside with bowed head while the second shadow, cloaked and hooded in black, slipped past him and moved westward along the periphery of the circle, still unrecognizable in the shimmer of the golden light. Black-gloved hands pushed back the fur-lined hood as the intruder passed the northern Ward.

  “No, it isn’t Kenneth,” said a frighteningly familiar voice, low but unmistakable. “There is no need to fear. Do not close your circle.”

  Chapter 18

  “And as a mother shall she meet him.”

  —ECCLESIASTICUS 15:2

  ALYCE gasped as the king came into full view between the northern and eastern Wards, still moving toward her and the open gate.

  “Sire!”

  In her hands, the sword seemed suddenly to turn to lead, its tip weaving and slowly sinking until it touched the floor. Beside her, Vera drew the sleeping Duncan close against her breast and stared at the king in speechless fear. It had been daunting enough that Kenneth now knew her true identity—and that of her son. For the king to know as well…Granted, tonight’s working was being done at the king’s behest, but neither of the sisters had anticipated that Donal might come in person, or that Vera’s participation with Duncan now placed both of them in danger of exposure.

  “My apologies if I have given you cause for alarm,” Donal said, bowing slightly to Alyce as he unbuckled his sword and wrapped its belt around the scabbard. “I thought you might expect me. Lady Vera, please be assured that your secret is safe with me.”

  Before either of them could speak, he had
turned to make a spare but dignified obeisance toward the altar, also laying his sword along the angle of the altar’s lowest step. Then he was filling the light-limned gateway with his presence, his grey eyes locked with Alyce’s as he laid his hand over hers on the sword hilt.

  Numbly she relinquished the weapon, driven back a step by the intensity of his gaze. As Donal took her place at the threshold, he turned his attention to Vera, giving a formal bow over the quillons of the sword that, in his hands, seemed almost toylike.

  “My lady, I must ask you to retire. I shall assist my lady Alyce in what further must be done. Take your son and go to bed, and speak of this to no one.”

  Vera did not tarry. With an anxious glance at her sister and a quick curtsy to the king, she swept Duncan onto her hip and slipped through the gateway and away, not daring to look back. When she had gone, when Kenneth had closed the door behind her and again set his back against it, looking like a stranger, Donal drew the tip of the sword slowly across the open threshold of the circle, left to right.

  Golden light flared in the sword’s track, sealing the breach in the glowing canopy, briefly gilding his face as he bent to lay the sword across the threshold. Heart still pounding, though she had not moved, Alyce retreated another step as he turned the intensity of his gaze upon her again, driven back by his sheer magnetism.

  Though no longer young, Donal Haldane was still a man to be reckoned with—potent, dangerous—even if he had not been a Haldane, and king. This night he wore a plain black cloak and austere riding leathers of no particular distinction, and the sword he had laid at the altar step was plain; but his bearing would have proclaimed him a man of means and authority even if his attire did not. Only the fine ruby affixed in his right earlobe gave further hint of his true station. Protector he had always been, and occasionally mentor. She could not help wondering why he had come.

  He smiled then and released her eyes, turning his attention to the removal of his worn leather gloves. Suddenly she found that she could speak again.