Rhys and Evaine, stranded at Ebor for nearly four hours with Joram’s messenger and their escort, could only fret and listen to the wind and wait, until at last, near noon, their guard commander judged that it was reasonably safe to go on. Even then, the road was slickly treacherous, every frozen tree and bush and tuft of ice-laden grass a cruel, razor-edged obstacle for man and beast. When they reached the city at last, hours later than anticipated, all were nearly frozen, their cloaks stiff with ice.
The spent horses shivered as they trudged the final weary mile through the city gates and up the steep cobblestone street to the castleyard, even though they bore thick bardings to ward off the cold. Their legs were red almost to the knees from breaking through the icy crust on the road and sometimes falling, and their steps left bloody hoofprints to show the way that they had come. As they drew up in the yard, heads lowered and blowing, Rhys slid from his mount gratefully and staggered on numbed feet to help his wife from the saddle.
Joram was waiting for them at the top of the stair, bundled in his Michaeline greatcloak and looking anxious and worn. For the benefit of their escort, he informed them that Bishop Cullen was awaiting their arrival. When they had hurried to the bishop’s chambers, they found a tired but hale Camber waiting for them by a roaring fire, with bowls of steaming stew and mulled wine and warmed fur-lined robes to wrap around themselves while they thawed out from their ride.
He would not let them speak until they had gotten some of the hot food into their stomachs and stopped their shivering, preferring instead to outline the previous night’s events to give them background. He finished his synopsis at about the same time that Rhys set aside his empty bowl and accepted another cup of mulled wine from Joram. The Healer drank deeply, then absently held out the cup for another refill, his attention fully on Camber. Beside him, Evaine was finishing a piece of bread spread thick with butter and honey, licking the sweet stickiness from fingers no longer red and stiff with cold.
“How is Cinhil taking it all?” Rhys asked.
Camber sighed and laced his fingers together in a gesture which was at once his own and Alister’s.
“He is resigned, I would say. You will be better able to judge his physical state, of course, but though he is weak and knows it, he seems resigned to what must be done and to the possible price he may have to pay. I don’t think that even he expects to survive this night, but somehow that does not seem to alarm him now. He is past fear.”
“Past fear,” Evaine whispered. “Would that we all could be. When he is gone—”
She shuddered, not with the cold, and Rhys reached blindly to his left and took her hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“Well,” she said briskly, “we’d all best see about reaching that state, oughtn’t we? We knew this day would come eventually. It’s just a shame it has come so soon. Father, has he given you any idea what kind of ritual he would like, or is he planning it himself?”
“He wishes it to take place in his private chapel,” Camber replied, “and he has given us leave to make the physical preparations. I reviewed the essential elements of an effective ritual with him this morning, but the rite is to be of his guiding. He made that quite clear.”
“Can he be trusted to do it?” Joram asked. “He has deliberately given himself as little experience as possible, in using his powers. Suppose he breaks under the strain?”
“In that case, we must be prepared to step in,” Camber replied. “But he is not to know that. For as long as we can, we must let him believe that he is truly in charge. And he may even surprise us.”
Evaine nodded, then glanced at her brother. “Joram, how much has actually been done in preparation? Is the chapel ready yet?”
“Not entirely. I had the servants give it a thorough cleaning after Mass this morning. I was waiting for you to arrive before tackling any more specific preparation, though. If you’ve rested enough, we can get started whenever you’re ready.”
“Fine. It will keep us from thinking too much.”
She got to her feet and cast off the extra robe she had wrapped around her while she ate, touching Rhys’s hand a final time. “Rhys, will you need any help with the children, or can Joram and I get started with our part?”
Rhys shook his head. “I can manage. I’ll see Cinhil first, to make certain he’s resting. Joram, can you meet me at the nursery-end of the passage when you’ve finished helping Evaine? Shortly after Vespers will be fine. I’ll let you in.”
“Good enough. By the way, what about Tavis O’Neill? He’s been spending a lot of time with Prince Javan. He’s never far from his side.”
With a sigh, Rhys laid his hand on his pouch. “I’ll ask Cinhil on that one, but if worse comes to worst, the drugs I have will put him out of commission, just like the other servants. But before I go drugging other Deryni and royal princes, I intend to see His Grace—just to make certain that this is what he wants.”
A few minutes later, Rhys found himself being admitted to the king’s apartments by a solemn-faced squire who bowed him in and immediately withdrew. Cinhil was ensconced in a pile of cushions and sleeping furs before the fireplace in his sleeping chamber, half-reclining while he perused a well-worn scroll of devotional readings. A bank of rushlights on the floor at his elbow cast a warm glow on his face.
At Rhys’s tentative knock on the doorframe, he looked up as though brought back abruptly from some other, more serene world, the grey eyes blinking in the light of rushlights and fire as he saw and recognized the Healer.
“Rhys! How glad I am to see you!”
He started to struggle to a more upright position, stifling a cough, but Rhys, with a protesting shake of his head, crossed quickly to his side and knelt, there to take one thin, cold hand in his and kiss it gently.
“Please, Sire, do not bestir yourself for me. You should be resting.”
Cinhil shook his head, his tight smile revealing a genuine affection for the Healer which he rarely permitted to show.
“There will be ample time for resting when all of this is done, young friend—an eternity of resting. For now, though, these holy words are my best comfort. These, and your presence. Alister would also be a comfort, but he is busy making preparations, as you no doubt know. He sent you to me, did he not?”
“Aye,” Rhys whispered, lowering his eyes. “And I am sorry that it could not be he instead of me. I know what comfort he affords you—and you, him.” He allowed himself to meet the grey eyes again, a touch of his customary banter returning to his voice. “But for now, will you allow me to see for myself that all is well with you? For all your wisdom, and his, you have not a Healer’s touch, you know.”
“Well do I know,” Cinhil sighed, glancing away at the fire. “And all is not well.”
He let the scroll under his hand curl back on itself with a crackle of brittle parchment. Rhys laid it on the furs beside the king before resting his hand gently on the king’s arm again. Even with Camber’s warning, he had not expected Cinhil to be so weak. Just the mental commitment to the night’s work must already have cost Cinhil a great deal.
“Let me help, Cinhil,” he whispered, slipping his hand to Cinhil’s shoulder when the king did not protest. “Relax and let me see what can be done.”
When Cinhil still made no move of protest, Rhys shifted to the right, toward Cinhil’s head, and let both hands slip to Cinhil’s shoulders from behind, supporting the king’s head on his lap. He felt the tense muscles relaxing as he extended his Healing senses, and he let himself begin to sink into his Healing state, to monitor the body which lay beneath his touch.
At first, he thought Cinhil was going to resist him; for though the body yielded to his touch almost immediately, the churning mind inside did not. Several seconds passed before he felt Cinhil’s thoughts slacken and go still as well, sensed the surrender of conscious control to his Healer’s touch.
A moment’s deep but gentle probing confirmed what Cinhil had said, what Rhys had feared increasingly for many
months. The king’s lungs were very weak, his general condition frail. And there was nothing Rhys could do save to ease his discomfort, to try to pour more energy into Cinhil’s meager reserves and give him strength for these final days or hours—for even a Healer could not reverse aging.
Drawing from deep within his own reserves, Rhys channeled all the excess energy he could spare into the king’s tired old body, at the same time setting a strong but overcomable inclination to rest until the last possible minute. Then he withdrew.
But as he shifted back beside Cinhil, and the king opened his eyes again, Rhys knew that he had lost that particular battle. Cinhil’s eyes were bright and a little defiant, aware of Rhys’s suggestion and already overriding it.
“You do not intend to rest, do you?” Rhys muttered accusingly, shaking his head in resignation.
Gently Cinhil echoed his headshake. “I told you, there will be time enough for that.” He picked up his scroll again. “Be content, Rhys. You have done what you felt you should. Be free to go now. I believe you have business with my sons before this night’s work begins.”
Jaws tightening with emotion, Rhys gazed across at the king for several seconds, then sketched a stiff nod of agreement and reached into his belt pouch to withdraw a folded packet of parchment sealed with green wax.
“If you refer to this—yes. I wished to be certain that this is what you want.”
“A sleeping potion?”
“Among other things. Working with children, it is more certain than the—techniques we used before your own assumption of power.”
“What other things are in it?” Cinhil whispered, not meeting Rhys’s eyes. “Tell me. They are my sons. I have a right to know.”
“Would the names mean anything—?”
“Yes!” Cinhil insisted, turning his grey gaze on Rhys with an intensity the Healer had not expected. “I have read. I wish to know!”
With a slight shrug and a nod of his head, Rhys held the packet in his palm and returned Cinhil’s gaze.
“Cinquefoil and poppy extract, for sleep. Wolfbane, a very minute amount, for Vision. And another drug known only to those of Healer’s training. I may not name it for you, but I promise it will not harm them. It will place them in a receptive state of mind for what must be done. You were given the same substance the night of your power assumption, though you may not remember it.”
Cinhil’s eyes glazed slightly, and Rhys knew that he was casting back in memory, reliving that night so long ago when a younger Cinhil had stood entranced in a magical circle and watched them prepare a cup; knew he was finally making the connection with the rain of white powder which had fallen from Camber’s fingers onto the surface of the magically charged wine, the wine which Cinhil had then been compelled to drink.
Cinhil blinked and shook his head slightly, and the spell of memory was broken. With a little shudder, the king glanced quickly at the fire.
“It is a Deryni drug, then?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“But, it works on humans and Deryni, alike?”
“Not precisely alike. But unless activated by the kind of activity we plan tonight, it acts primarily as a sedative, gentle but insistent. I had thought to give it under the guise of a physick against colds. I am told that Alroy has been abed with coughing for much of the week, so we can surmise that the other boys are similarly inclined toward such ailments, and a physick will not be suspected. Also, it is safe enough that even if others should taste of it, it will only make them sleep.”
“Tell them you act on my authority, that I am concerned for their health,” Cinhil said softly. “And if the squires sleep in the boys’ chamber, they are to partake, as well.”
“I understand,” Rhys said. “What of Tavis O’Neill? I am told by Jebediah that he and Javan are inseparable these days.”
“You are a Healer and his senior,” Cinhil said shortly. “Can you not govern him?”
“I can try. But he is a Healer. If he inspects the ‘physick,’ he will know something is amiss. This is no remedy for colds, as he will well know.”
Stonily Cinhil turned his face back toward the fireplace.
“Then he must drink, too. And you must erase all memory that aught is amiss. You are a Healer. I leave it in your hands, Rhys.”
“Very well. There is nothing further I can say to persuade you to rest?” he asked.
“There is nothing.”
With a deep sigh, Rhys started to turn and go, but then he saw Cinhil begin getting to his feet.
Grimly, Rhys helped him to stand, led him to a seat in the window embrasure where he might watch the fading western sky, and tucked a sleeping fur around the frail body to insulate against the cold radiating through the leaded glass.
“It will be my last sunset,” Cinhil explained wistfully, as Rhys adjusted the draperies to give him an unobstructed view. “One might have hoped for a less grey one, but any is better than none.”
Rhys could not trust himself to answer that. Swallowing a lump which had been building in his throat for the past few minutes, he bowed profoundly, touching the king’s hand in understanding, then turned and fled the chamber.
He found a scene of unexpected tranquillity when he entered the nursery suite, and the contrast was soothing to emotions as keenly edged as his had been in the last hour. Rushlights had been lit to dispel the gloom of the gathering dusk, and the princes were just finishing their baths, in preparation for supper and an early bed.
The boys had outgrown their childhood nurses the summer before, those stalwart and loyal ladies having been replaced by a corps of eager young squires of suitably noble birth and a brace of royal governors appointed by the king. The former, most of them hardly older than their young charges, saw to the business of dressing, serving meals, and otherwise assisting their masters in learning the manners and mannerisms befitting young gentlemen and princes. The latter were gone now, the day’s lessons done. And though the close proximity of so many boys and very young men at times became more than a little raucous, tonight that was not the case.
Huddled sleepily beside the fireplace in the main dayroom, a yawning Prince Alroy was nursing a cup of warm milk laced with wine. His squire combed the raven hair as it dried by the fire’s heat. The eldest prince was already dressed for bed, long white woolen nightshirt covered by a fur-lined dressing gown of crimson wool. Matching slippers embroidered with the Haldane lions showed beneath the hem of the gown. The boy’s thin shoulders were hunched down in the fur against the cold.
From behind a lattice screen at the far side of the fireplace, Rhys could hear the childish exclamations of the youngest, Rhys Michael, apparently disputing the entrapment of his head and arms inside his nightshirt while his squire tried to free him. Said squire, a lanky, good-natured youth of only a few more summers than his young master, could be seen towering head and shoulders above the top of the screen, his adolescent face creased in a grin as he labored to extract the royal hands and head from their fabric prison, roughhousing to an extent he would not have dared with the more delicate Alroy or the serious Javan.
As for Javan, Rhys had to look for him at first, but then spotted the crippled prince seated quietly in a nearby window embrasure with Tavis O’Neill, a glowing charcoal pot at their feet. Javan seemed oblivious to what went on in the rest of the room, eyes closed, his hands resting open-palmed on his knees and covered lightly by Tavis’s. Even from where he stood, Rhys could discern the high energy level surrounding both of them, and surmised that Tavis was working some kind of healing with his young charge.
Just then, Alroy noticed Rhys’s arrival and put aside his cup of milk, smiling tentatively, the grey eyes bright and a little feverish-looking.
“Lord Rhys!” he called, his words eliciting a cough which sounded of nerves as much as any physical ailment.
His greeting resulted in a squeal of delight from behind the screen and then the launching of a small, shirt-clad body into Rhys’s arms, staggering the Healer wit
h the force of his arrival.
“Lord Rhys! Did you come to have supper with us?”
Rhys hugged his namesake and tousled the dark hair gently. “Thank you, I’ve already eaten. Now, get back to your squire and get dressed before you catch cold like your brother.”
As Rhys Michael scurried to obey, Rhys moved closer to Alroy, who had hung his head at Rhys’s words. Lightly he touched the boy’s forehead to check for fever.
“And how are you this evening, Your Highness?” he asked easily. “Your father tells me that you’ve not been well this week.”
Alroy flashed a wan, tentative smile and cleared his throat, trying to muffle another cough. “I am well enough, Lord Rhys. Sometimes I cough a lot, but I’m better than I was last winter.”
“You feel a little feverish.”
“It’s the fire,” Alroy insisted, moving a little back from the flames. “I’m better. Really, I am.”
With a smile, Rhys took one of the prince’s hands lightly in his own, extending his senses, then shook his head lightly and dropped it.
“You’re better than last winter,” he agreed, “but you’re not well enough. I think it’s early to bed for all of you tonight, and a physick against colds to boot.”
“Oh, Rhys—”
“Now, none of that,” Rhys countered, gently but insistently. “I assure you, it’s tasteless. I’ll tell you what, though. We’ll make it in the nature of a special treat.” He glanced at Alroy’s squire. “Gavin, while Their Highnesses are at supper, would you go down to the wine cellar and bring up a flask of that sweet Fianna wine, please? You’ve all been wanting to taste it, and His Grace said it would be all right just this once.”
Young Gavin’s grin was like sunlight in the gloomy room.
“I’ll go right now, m’lord. I’d even take a physick for the chance to sample that wine!”
“Then, you shall have that chance,” Rhys grinned, slapping the boy on the shoulder and sending him off toward the door. “Go and bring it, and a brace of cups, and we shall all sample.”
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