Camber of Culdi

by Katherine Kurtz

  Cinhil had been looking more and more pale for the past half-hour, and Rhys knew that they would have to rest soon or risk having Cinhil pass out. There was also the very real uncertainty as to what Cinhil might do when they entered the city and tried to make their way to the bishop’s palace. If he should resist, if his seeming compliance all day was but preparation for a public denunciation—Rhys preferred not even to think about that possibility.

  Nor had Rhys been able to probe their royal captive’s mind during the long, silent hours of riding. It was as though a sleek, rigid wall had been erected—one which Rhys felt certain he could eventually broach, given time and rest and the proper preparations, but one which he dared not even attempt without making Cinhil more alert than he already was to the potential power of the Deryni men who held him captive.

  No, some more insidious method would have to be used on Cinhil—at least until they were safely among allies, where his protests would do no good. What Rhys had in mind for now would also help to numb the pain of tortured leg and thigh muscles until more thorough and lasting methods could be applied.

  As though sensing Rhys’s growing disquiet, if not the exact reasons or solution for it, Joram stood in his stirrups to stretch and yawn, then gestured toward the side of the road where the configuration of the stream bank allowed an approach to the swiftly running water. Dismounting, he moved to Cinhil’s side to assist him from his horse, then supported the limping prince to a seat on a rock sheltered from the wind. Rhys, in a more leisurely manner, got down and led the three horses to the stream to drink, then took an empty water flask from his saddle and knelt by the water, hiding the flask with his body as he filled it from the icy stream.

  Joram was helping to massage the knots from Cinhil’s legs when Rhys returned. The prince, when he had drunk deeply from Rhys’s flask, passed it to Joram without thinking. Before the priest could drink in turn, Rhys reached across and took the flask with a slight shake of his head, pouring the rest of the contents into the snow.

  “You’ve drugged him.” Joram’s words were a simple statement of fact, only a little surprised.

  Rhys nodded as Cinhil turned his head to stare.

  “The water?” Cinhil whispered.

  “It was necessary. A sleeping potion to calm you, to ease your discomfort until we can rest properly.”

  “And to guard against my betrayal, as well,” Cinhil said, a strained smile playing across his lips. A muffled sob escaped him and he bowed his head, closing his eyes briefly. When he looked up again, he would not meet their eyes.

  “What—what will happen to me?”

  “From the drug?” Rhys looked across at him steadily. “You will become very sleepy. Your perception will be blurred. You will probably drift in and out of consciousness. It will be better this way, believe me.”

  “Better for whom?” Cinhil whispered. “Did you really fear I would betray you? I gave my word. It”—he gestured toward the flask—“it was not necessary.”

  At that, Joram stood abruptly and strode back to the horses, to kneel at the edge of the stream, his back to Cinhil. Rhys followed, keeping a wistful eye on Cinhil, to hunch down beside the priest. He could tell that Joram was annoyed.

  “Was it necessary?” Joram asked, leaning down to scoop water from the stream and drink.

  “I thought it was. Joram, I’ve been trying to read him for hours, hoping something would slip. Nothing. He’s like a blank wall. He has some kind of natural shield when he’s under pressure, which I couldn’t penetrate—at least not without letting him know what I was trying to do. I think that’s why we had trouble controlling him last night. I didn’t think we could afford to take chances with him in Dhassa, especially with both of us as tired as we are.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Joram dried his hands on his cloak, then half turned toward Rhys. “He really has that kind of natural defense, eh? Do you think you’ll be able to get through to him later?”

  Rhys shrugged, permitting himself a slight, nervous smile. “There are ways to overcome anyone’s resistance eventually, especially if one is a Healer. Besides, I’ll have Camber working with me, once we reach the haven. It’s a bit of a challenge, but I think we’ll be able to handle it between us.”

  With a raise of his eyebrow, Joram stood and stretched, then glanced toward the resting Cinhil. “Did you tell him the truth about the effects of the drug?”

  “Yes. We should have ample time to get him through the Portal before it wears off. And he will sleep, if we let him.”

  “Hmm. Won’t he attract attention, if he’s in a stupor?”

  “Not as much as he would if he made a scene,” Rhys replied. He put the flask back on his saddle. “If there should be any question, he’s ill and we’re taking him to the Bishop’s Healer. That seemed like a simple enough ruse to me.”

  “Aye.” With a resigned sigh, Joram shook his head and gave a smile. “I must be more tired than I thought. I must say, though, you’ve certainly caught on to the ways of conspiracy with the proper enthusiasm. And this is a man who never played the treason game before.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t use that word.”

  “What, ‘treason’?”

  With a chuckle, Joram clapped Rhys on the shoulder and gestured toward their nodding prince. Now they must get Cinhil back on his horse and ride. On the next hour rested the fate of a kingdom.

  Fortunately for the three who rode toward Dhassa at that hour, the wheels of feudal bureaucracy were grinding with their accustomed slowness, with the result that only now was the Abbot of Saint Foillan’s putting the pieces together properly to explain the absence of a man known as Brother Benedictus.

  As Rhys and Joram had suspected, Brother Benedict’s absence was not first noted until after Matins, when it was remarked by the precentor that he had not seen Brother Benedict in choir during that Divine Office. But the precentor was a busy man, with many duties to perform, and it was not until several hours later, when Bother Benedict did not appear at Lauds or Prime, that he became truly concerned.

  Fearing that Brother Benedict might have taken ill, the precentor checked with the infirmarian; but Brother Reynard had not seen the missing monk for several days. A thorough search of the rest of the abbey precincts after Terce likewise revealed no trace of the missing monk. To be sure, his bed had been slept in, but no one remembered seeing him after Compline the night before.

  A pair of lay brethren went out on horseback to scout the road as far as a man might have strayed on foot—just in case Brother Benedict had, indeed, taken ill and wandered off in delirium. But the storm had done its work well. If Brother Benedict had managed to wander off and die, they would not know for sure until spring. Sadly, but with the resignation necessitated by the situation, the abbot had a Mass sung for Brother Benedict the next morning, and life went on in the abbey as usual.

  So the matter might have remained indefinitely, had not the abby’s vestiarian, Brother Leviticus, chosen the next afternoon to begin his winter inventory of the abbey’s clothing supply. Checking the shelves near the cell of the missing Brother Benedict, Brother Leviticus was astonished to discover that two robes could not be accounted for. Careful inquiry among the brethren who shared the area revealed that the robes had almost certainly been there two days before, but no one could explain their absence now.

  Puzzled, the vestiarian reported the matter to the subprior, who told the prior, who eventually told the abbot himself, that evening after dinner. The abbot started to shrug it off, but his mind had been lingering all day on the disappearance of his friend, Benedict. Abruptly, the pieces began to fall together.

  “Brother Patrick, how many robes did Brother Leviticus say were missing?”

  “Why, two, Father Abbot.”

  The abbot picked up a quill pen and twirled it between bony fingers. “Tell me, do you remember the two men who came to see Brother Benedict a few weeks ago?”

  “The Healer and the monk?” The young man blinked. “I remem
ber the visit, of course, Father. And the monk was in the service of the archbishop, but—”

  “Aye, I remember that,” the abbot snapped. “He was a Gabrilite brother—or claimed to be!”

  As the prior watched owlishly, not daring to say a word, the abbot pushed back his chair and extracted a calendar roll from a shelf behind his desk. Not finding what he sought among its notations, he tossed it back on the shelf in annoyance and drummed his fingers on the desk.

  “Please ask the infirmarian to attend us at once, Brother Patrick. Also Brother Paul and Brother Phineas and Brother Jubal.”

  “At once, Father Abbot.” The prior blinked myopically and backed out the door.

  For the next ten minutes, the abbot sat and chewed at a hangnail, suspicion growing in his mind that his theory would prove correct. The two men had come on the same day that Benedict had fainted and had been speaking with him when it happened. Something about an important message from Brother Benedict’s dead grandfather. He himself had been standing in the background, listening.

  And the one had been a Healer—what was his name? Lord Re—Ro—Rhys—Yes, that was it. And when Benedict had not responded to the ministrations of the infirmarian, they had asked this Rhys person to take a look at him, had even permitted the man to enter the cloistered area. Why, he and the monk with him had been permitted to attend Benedict in his very cell!

  Stifling an unholy but entirely provoked oath, the abbot sat bolt upright and crumpled the letter he had just finished writing to his vicar general in Valoret. He tossed it into the fire with an angry gesture.

  Benedict had not become delirious with some new illness and wandered out of the abbey to die in the snow. Indeed, he probably had not been ill at all, either two nights ago or a few weeks earlier! He had been kidnapped from right within the abbey walls—from the cloistered area itself!—and spirited away by those two—

  His anger was interrupted by a timid knock on the door, and he forced himself to submerge his anger and assume the proper paternal mien.

  “Come.”

  Brother Patrick peered in apprehensively before entering, followed by Brothers Jubal, Paul, Phineas, and Reynald. The abbot stood as each came forward to bow and kiss his ring, then waited until Brother Patrick had closed the door before sitting down again. The monks stood silently, hands folded and hidden in their voluminous sleeves, as the abbot dipped his quill to ink and drew a fresh piece of parchment in front of him.

  “Brother Reynald, do you recall the date of Brother Benedict’s last illness?—the day he fainted whilst speaking with the two visitors.”

  Brother Reynald studied his sandalled toes for a moment, then looked up. “That would have been about the Feast of Saint Margetan, Father Abbot. No, it was the day after, Saint Edmund’s Eve.”

  “Which one, Brother Reynald?”

  “Saint Edmund’s Eve, the”—he consulted his calendar again—“the fourteenth of November.” He jotted down the date, then looked up at Brother Jubal.

  “Brother Jubal, you were gate warder that week, I believe.”

  “Yes, Father Abbot.”

  “Can you recall the names of the two visitors? There was a Healer and an older man, a monk.”

  After considering the question for a moment, the monk raised an eyebrow. “I believe the monk’s name was Brother Kyriell, Father Abbot. From the Order of Saint Gabriel.”

  “Ah, yes. Brother Kyriell,” the abbot repeated. “Did he give any other name?”

  “No, only his order,” Brother Phineas volunteered. “And that he was in the service of Archbishop Anscom, of course, Father Abbot.”

  The abbot chewed on the tip of his quill for a moment, then shook his head. He could associate nothing more with the name, though he had the feeling he should be able to. But even the one name ought to enable the vicar general to do something—if the monk called Brother Kyriell really was in the service of the archbishop, of course.

  He wrote the name down, tracing each letter carefully, then scanned the brethren once more.

  “Now, the name of the Healer—Lord Rhys Something.”

  “Moorin, or Toorin, or something like that?” Brother Jubal interjected.

  “I think it was Thoorin, Brother Jubal,” Brother Reynald murmured, craning his neck a little as the abbot started to write it down. “I’m not sure about the spelling, but that was the sound of it. Thoor-in. He was a Healer, all right. I had a toothache that day, and he—”

  He broke off as the abbot looked up at him sharply, then bowed his head self-consciously. After a long moment, the abbot bent his head to write again. The pen scratched briefly on the parchment, and then he dismissed all of them with a wave of his hand. As the doors closed behind them, he took out a fresh piece of parchment and began a new letter to his superior, this time making all his letters clear and round.

  “Most Reverend and Excellent Father General,” the letter began. “I regret to report the abduction from Saint Foillan’s of one of our brethren in Christ, Brother Benedictus, two nights past. The wise of his taking is described as follows.…”

  “‘And so,’” the vicar general read to his superior, the Archbishop of Valoret, five days later, “‘it appears likely that Brother Benedict was taken by the said Brother Kyriell and Lord Rhys Thuryn in the manner I have described, though for what reason I cannot discern. I am forwarding copies of all our records pertaining to Brother Benedict, in the hopes that Your Reverence will be able to make some connection which I have missed, and beg to remain Your Reverence’s good and faithful servant, et cetera, et cetera.’”

  The vicar general lowered the letter and glanced up at his superior with something of a perplexed expression on his face. The archbishop, who had been sipping at an earthen goblet of goat’s milk, drained the glass with a final swallow and made a face, then held out a gnarled hand for the missive. As he sat back to read, the vicar general helped himself to another slice of cheese.

  It was mid-morning, and the archbishop’s custom was to break his fast with his subordinates while reviewing the day’s correspondence. Of course, Robert Oriss, Vicar General of the Order of Saint Jarlath, hardly qualified as a mere subordinate. Born within a week of the archbishop, he and Anscom of Trevas had been reared a scant ten miles apart, and had first met at the tender age of ten, when both boys were enrolled in the famous monastery school at Saint Neot’s. Though Anscom was Deryni and Robert was not, this had not diminished the friendship which had sprung up between them. In fact, when Robert was resident in Valoret and not out inspecting the abbeys and monasteries under his care, it was his custom to meet with the archbishop at least once a week. Anscom was one of those rare men who did not forget his old friends simply because he had risen above them; and Robert, though he did not always understand everything his Deryni colleague did, greatly valued their continuing interaction.

  But the good vicar general had already made his visit for this week, two days before. It was the receipt of the letter now in the archbishop’s hand which had prompted his urgent message last night, and that same letter which accounted for Robert’s presence here this morning. The vicar general poured more goat’s milk for the archbishop—Anscom hated it, but drank it to soothe a delicate digestion—then nibbled at a piece of bread until the archbishop looked up. Anscom’s seamed face was puzzled and a little sad.

  “What is so special about this particular monk, Robert? Why would anyone want to abduct him?”

  The vicar general shook his head. “I am at a loss to explain it, Your Grace. I’ve gone over his records: He’s a poor draper’s son, an orphan. He has taken a vow of poverty.… I simply don’t know.”

  “And this abbot of yours, this Zephram of Lorda—is he trustworthy?”

  The vicar general started to protest—for he believed all of his subordinates to be trustworthy—then spread his palms in a yea–nay gesture. “I have received no unfavorable reports of him, so I must assume …”

  The archbishop grunted, and dropped the letter on the tabl
e, staring past the vicar general for several seconds.

  “Did you know that Cathan MacRorie died last week?”

  “The king’s advisor?”

  “The son of Earl Camber of Culdi,” the archbishop amended. “And Camber’s daughter Evaine is betrothed to Rhys Thuryn.”

  “Rhys Th—” The vicar general broke off and flicked a glance at the letter on the table. “The same Rhys Thuryn?”

  “The same.”

  The vicar general let out a long sigh and sat back in his chair, all thought of breakfast forgotten. When his superior did not volunteer further comments, the vicar general pursed his lips and gazed thoughtfully across the table.

  “Your Grace, you’re not implying that Earl Camber had something to do with Brother Benedict’s abduction, are you?”

  The archbishop looked up with a start, an instant of pain darting across his usually inscrutable face. “Are you mad?” he whispered softly. “I know Camber. He and I studied for the priesthood together at Grecotha, before his brothers died and made him his father’s heir. I married him to his wife, baptized all his children, ordained his son Joram, married Cathan and Elinor—Besides, what possible reason could he have?”

  “I don’t know, Your Grace. By your comment, I thought you might.” He sighed. “This Rhys Thuryn—I’ve never heard of him. Is he active at Court? You seem to know him.”

  “I know of him,” the archbishop replied. “He is very young for a Healer, but has an excellent reputation. He is also very close to Camber’s younger son, Joram, who is a Michaeline—Hmm, I wonder.”

  “You think that this Joram may have been the monk?”