Camber the Heretic

by Katherine Kurtz

  “You’re sure it won’t taste nasty?” Rhys Michael asked dubiously.

  Rhys gave a good-natured chuckle. “I promise. Now, tell me how your studies are progressing, child-of-my-name. Here, you can sit on my knee and make a full report.”

  Smiling broadly, Rhys Michael took the seat offered and began rattling off a list of the things he had been learning since he and the royal Healer had last visited. In the next room, Rhys could hear the sounds of the supper being laid, the voices of the servants setting the table and laying out the food. After a few minutes, a servant finally announced that supper was ready. The two boys immediately scampered into the other room, followed shortly by an annoyed-looking Javan, who eyed the elder Healer suspiciously as he passed. When the boys had said grace and begun eating, Rhys drew back into the common room and turned toward Tavis. The younger Healer had not moved from his seat in the window.

  “Is Javan ill?” Rhys murmured.

  Tavis shook his head cautiously. “No, not ill. He is not strong, though. I try to give him energy each day.”

  “That is admirable,” Rhys replied, “but is it in the boy’s best interests? He will not always have you there to help him.”

  “I know that.” Tavis looked away, trying to hide the pain in his pale eyes.

  “Tavis,” Rhys asked softly, “are you aware of what must be the destiny of these boys? Cinhil is dying, and Alroy will succeed him, almost certainly as a minor.”

  “Alroy is the eldest. That is his right.”

  “He is also the weakest,” Rhys continued. “I hesitate to say it, but we Healers must face realities, even if others will not. Alroy may not live long enough to get an heir. And if he does not, then the crown falls to Javan. If you make him dependent upon you, how will he bear that weight when you are gone?”

  Tavis’s head shot up in challenge.

  “I shall never leave him!” he whispered fiercely. “No one else cares for him. They think that because his body is flawed, his mind is likewise unfit. But he will show them, some day. I want that for him, Rhys.”

  “If God wills that he someday may be king, then I want it for him, too,” Rhys replied. “But you must not shelter him so much that you stifle his growth.”

  “It will not be I who stifle him,” Tavis retorted, a little defiantly, though he did not raise his voice.

  With that, the younger Healer picked up a scroll from the seat beside him and began reading intently, not looking at Rhys any more. Rhys stood there for several seconds, then went back into the room to glance through some of the boys’ lessons lying on a table near the fireplace. He and Tavis had never been able to communicate very well.

  Young Gavin returned with the wine just as the boys had finished their supper and were beginning to drift back into the room with the other two squires. All six boys watched with varied interest as Rhys pulled the folded packet of parchment from his belt pouch and tossed it onto the table.

  “So, we have the grand physick against colds, to be taken in some of the finest Fianna wine ever to grace your father’s cellar.” With an exaggerated flourish, he unstoppered the green glass flagon and sniffed the contents, rolling his eyes appreciatively as the bouquet reached his nostrils. “Ah, marvelous! And let me tell you, I had a devil of a time convincing the King’s Grace that this would not be wasted on the untried palates of a gaggle of schoolboys. You’d better not make a liar of me, now.”

  As they laughed, except for Javan, who merely grimaced, he took up the packet and broke its seal, then poured its contents carefully into the wine.

  “Here are cups, m’lord,” Gavin announced, setting them out expectantly as Rhys swirled the flagon.

  “Good. You’ve brought extras. Well, there’s enough for all of you,” Rhys said, half-filling six cups with the doctored wine. “This is a sweet wine, but light—one of the Fianna varietals. Go ahead and try it.”

  The squires did not need to be invited a second time, though they did manage to restrain themselves from grabbing until their young masters had taken up their cups. Rhys Michael held his to his nose, sniffed it in imitation of Rhys with the flagon, then tasted and gulped it down. Alroy sampled his somewhat more conservatively, but he, too, clearly approved of the treat their father had allowed and quickly drank it to the dregs.

  Only Javan seemed somewhat reluctant, casting a questioning glance at Tavis for reassurance before cautiously sampling it and then draining the cup resignedly.

  So much for developing that one’s palate, Rhys thought ruefully, almost wishing he had left some of the wine unadulterated, for his own consumption. But of course, neither he nor any of the others who would be involved in tonight’s ritual had eaten or drunk anything since midafternoon, or would tonight.

  He never saw the squires drink—only their empty cups and pleased smiles bearing mute witness to the fact that they, too, had partaken. When all the cups had been replaced on their tray, Rhys smiled and clapped his hands for them to be off to bed, following them affably into the sleeping chamber. He was aware of Tavis gliding down from the window seat toward the half-flagon of wine still remaining, and he made short work of his good-nights. The squires were nodding off, too, finding their sleeping pallets, as Rhys slipped back into the common room. He was not surprised to find Tavis waiting for him, accusation in his eyes.

  “You lied,” Tavis whispered.

  “I did?”

  “That was no physick against colds,” Tavis continued, gesturing toward the flagon, eyes flashing like pale aquamarines in his anger. “You drugged them. You gave them enough cinquefoil to put them asleep until tomorrow. I could smell it! What are you up to?”

  Mentally and physically steeling himself for what would probably have to be done, Rhys feigned a look of innocence and inserted himself casually between Tavis and the door.

  “Up to?” Rhys replied. “Why, I’m simply following His Grace’s instructions, seeing that the children get a good night’s rest.”

  “Rest in peace, more likely,” Tavis muttered, touching a fingertip to the dregs of one of the cups and tasting it analytically. “You won’t mind if I check with His Grace, will-what’s this? Wolfbane and mer—Rhys, you didn’t!”

  His shields were up, his mind shuttered behind the impenetrable controls of a highly trained Healer, and Rhys knew he could not breach those defenses except against great resistance.

  So before the younger man could react, Rhys stepped forward and slammed his fist into Tavis’s solar plexus, caught him as he collapsed to the floor with a startled whoof of expelled air.

  “I’m afraid I did, my young friend,” Rhys whispered, snatching up the flagon of wine and holding it to Tavis’s lips as the man gasped for breath and tried to struggle back to control.

  He forced Tavis to swallow the equivalent of a full cup of the drugged wine, amid choking and sputters of combined pain, indignation, and fear, then eased the younger Healer to a half-sitting position against one knee as he set the flagon back on the table. He watched sympathetically as Tavis regained his breath and the drugs began taking effect.

  “I’m sorry I had to hit you, Tavis,” he murmured, laying a monitoring hand on Tavis’s forehead. “But it was necessary for you to drink, since you had the ill-fortune to be here tonight, and I doubted you would do so of your own accord.”

  “But, why?” Tavis croaked out. “My God, Rhys, you’ve given them m-m-merasha!” Tavis managed to mumble, around a tongue which was fast growing too big for his mouth and losing its coherence. “And—and anhalon, merasha and a-a-anhalon, and they’re not even Deryni!”

  “It has been done at His Grace’s command, and with his full knowledge,” Rhys said softly. “Beyond that, I may tell you nothing more. And even if I might, you wouldn’t remember … would you?”

  Tavis’s gaze became a little more distant, his eyes less focused, and Rhys could easily follow the increasingly confused and slurred surface thoughts as Tavis tried to analyze his reactions and identify their causes.

 
But his shields were also melting away. Gradually, Rhys began to extend his control into the other’s mind, gently but surely, nudging the increasingly sluggish mind toward sleep and forgetfulness. Tavis gave token resistance, and a part of him raged that he should be so invaded against his will, but after the weakest of struggles, he succumbed to unconsciousness, totally at Rhys’s command.

  Rhys, after carefully erasing what had just occurred, and inserting new memories to account for Tavis’s sleep, gently picked up the sleeping Healer and carried him to a pile of furs before the fireplace. Arranging him there amid a pile of pillows and covering him lightly with a sleeping fur, he laid Tavis’s scroll near his relaxed hand and checked the depth of his sleep a final time.

  Then, after emptying the last of the drugged wine down the garde-robe shaft, and rinsing it and the cups with water from a ewer, he poured a little of the leftover table wine from dinner into the flagon and added yet another powder—this one truly a sleep-encouraging physick. A little of this he splashed into each of the cups, then emptied all into the garde-robe again. Now, even inspection of the dregs would not reveal what had been done.

  Finally, he went to a tall wooden closet in the corner of the boys’ sleeping chamber and pressed a series of whorls and depressions in the heavy carving. A panel slid aside in the rear of the closet to reveal a bored-looking Joram sitting on the stone floor beyond, bundled closely in his Michaeline greatcloak. A narrow passageway stretched into darkness beyond him.

  “It certainly took you long enough,” Joram whispered, getting to his feet and brushing dust from his posterior. “I thought you were going to find me a stiff, frozen statue. Everyone asleep?”

  Rhys nodded. “Sorry for the delay. As I feared, Tavis was determined to stay about, so I had to drug him as well as the squires. He won’t remember anything in the morning, though. Come on. We’ll take the twins through first.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.

  —I Timothy 4:14

  Trying to remain unobtrusive, Cinhil Haldane peered through the doorway of his private chapel and watched the preparations which were taking place. That long-familiar refuge for so many years of his life had taken on a strangeness under the ministrations of Joram and, especially, Evaine—a strangeness he had sensed building for hours, even as he napped and read and prayed in the adjoining royal suite.

  They had all come to see him privately at some time during the day. Alister had come first, just past Terce, later than was his usual wont but the more rested for having slept a few extra hours. Cinhil knew that the bishop had not had much chance for sleep last night, for the two of them had prayed together nearly until Matins.

  After Alister had come Joram; and then Rhys, Evaine, and finally Jebediah—whose visit had been perhaps the saddest of all, for the Michaeline knight would not be able to share in this last task—had already said his final goodbyes. Even now he was arming himself to stand guard outside the royal suite, that the work inside might not be disturbed.

  Now, there was another Deryni who did not fit the traditional mold which humans would ascribe to all of that race—a gentle and a compassionate man, for all that he was warrior, born and bred. The king wondered why Jebediah thought the regents would not keep him on as earl marshal, once Cinhil was gone. Cinhil had assured him that his fears were groundless on all counts, but he was not certain that the earl marshal was convinced.

  One fear which was not groundless, however, was the likelihood of Cinhil’s impending death—not that Cinhil himself was particularly frightened by the prospect any more. Even the means of death did not dismay him, or hold for him the stark, soul-withering terror it once would have. This magic was of his choosing and his direction.

  Dispassionately he accepted that his life would likely end within these walls tonight—and that he was content that this be so, if only he could accomplish his last intentions. And such an end, in the service of his sons, was infinitely better than dragging on and on, ever weaker, eventually bedridden and coughing out his life in a final fit of blood and pain.

  He had told Alister so. He had made his final confession this morning and received absolution. After, he had secretly celebrated his last Mass, with Alister to assist him, reverently donning the beloved vestments technically forbidden him since a long-ago Christmas Eve when a long-dead archbishop had pronounced him prince instead of priest. That Cinhil had resumed his priestly office and continued to exercise it faithfully over the years was a secret which only he and Alister shared, a secret of the confessional which both men would carry to their graves. His reception of the Sacrament as priest, one final time, had lent him strength to face the rest of the day’s demands. Later, Alister would give one final sacrament, in its time; and after that, there would be peace. He would welcome peace, after the life he had been forced to lead.

  With a sigh, he glanced into the chapel. It seemed almost stark compared to its usual appearance, dark but for the Presence Lamp and a single taper on a small table in the center of the room. After the servants had finished the general cleaning, Evaine and Rhys had removed everything except the heavy altar against the eastern wall and the thick Kheldish carpet which covered the tile at the foot of the altar steps. This last they had moved to the center of the chamber, and brought in a smaller one which they spread in the northeast corner. Then Joram had disappeared through an opening to the left of the altar which was there and not-there, almost in the blinking of an eye. Evaine and Alister and Jebediah had continued the preparations.

  New, fresh altar cloths and hangings had been laid in place next, the altar candles replaced with new ones, the sanctuary lamp replenished with oil, woman and bishop and Michaeline knight performing all these tasks with reverence and a serenity which seemed to extend even to the doorway where Cinhil watched. Four candlesticks with colored glass shields in gold and red and blue and green now stood at the cardinal points of the room, very like those which had stood guard at his own rite so many years before, though his had all been white.

  He was momentarily startled then by a fully-armed Jebediah brushing past him, well-burnished mail clinking softly as he moved, the white belt of his knighthood gleaming against the dark Michaeline blue of surcoat and greatcloak. He bore Cinhil’s sword of state in his gloved hands, the jeweled belt wrapped loosely around the carved and gem-studded scabbard.

  Jebediah nodded respect to the king as he passed, but he did not pause. Crossing the chapel to where Alister looked up expectantly, he bowed to the altar’s Presence and then knelt to lay the sheathed weapon across Alister’s outstretched palms. Alister bowed over the sword, then laid it on the altar and began lighting the altar candles with a taper kindled from the Presence Light itself. After that, he knelt on the altar steps and bowed his grizzled head in prayer, gnarled hands folded loosely on his knee.

  Jebediah, when he had seen the candles lit, bobbed his head in obeisance once more, then rose and left the chapel as quickly as he had come. Cinhil felt a pang of loss as the knight disappeared through the outer door. He knew he would not see Jebediah again.

  Small sounds: the chink of metal against glass. In the center of the room, Evaine was arranging objects on the table—a thurible; a small, footed cup of white-glazed clay, filled with water; a slender silver dagger which Cinhil thought he remembered having seen at Evaine’s belt on several occasions. Its metal gleamed in the light of the taper, potent but somehow not sinister. Underneath the table, though he could not see them for the white cloth brushing the carpet all around, were Rhys’s medical kit, a pair of mismatched earrings made of twisted gold wire, and three small pieces of parchment already appropriately inscribed.

  These last he had copied out himself this afternoon, his final legacy to those who must wear the crown after him. The words were not much, but they would have to suffice. He had nothing else to leave them except life itself, having given them little more than th
at. Still, they were his sons, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.

  Movement caught his eye in the shadows to his left, and he was startled to discover an opening which had not been there an eye-blink before. Rhys and Joram emerged by the glow of a pale sphere of greenish light which floated near Rhys’s head, and Joram gently deposited a small, fur-bundled form on the carpet in the corner. A twisted foot protruding from under the furs proclaimed it to be Javan.

  Rhys laid the sleeping Alroy beside the small table, tossing the child’s furs to Joram, who then disappeared through the opening again, though this time it did not close after him. When Cinhil looked back, Rhys was already laying his hands on Alroy’s forehead, eyes closed, while Evaine quietly brought out the medical kit from under the table.

  Cinhil must move now. As he crossed slowly to kneel by Rhys’s side, unfastening the wire which held the great cabochon ruby in his right earlobe, he watched the Healer swab the right earlobe of his eldest son with something whose pungent aroma almost made him sneeze—stared with fascination as Rhys’s bright needle jabbed through the boy’s fair skin. No flicker of awareness crossed his son’s face as the Healer withdrew his needle and wiped away the little welling of blood, then held out his hand for the stone.

  The Eye of Rom, they had called it, when Rhys and Camber had given it to him so many years before—cut from a stone which fell from heaven the night of the Savior’s birth, the legend said, and brought to the Child by the Magi, wise men of the East who had known that this was a stone for kings. Cinhil felt a twinge of loss as he gave it up, for he had not been without it for all these years now. The stone was one of the keys to the powers they had given him on that long-ago night. And as he watched Rhys insert it in his son’s earlobe, he knew that it would protect that child as it had protected him.

  He blinked—and realized that Rhys had moved, that the Healer was now kneeling beside the sleeping Javan, his needle once more flashing in the candlelight which Evaine had brought. He heaved himself to his feet, but by the time he had made his way to where the two worked, Rhys had already inserted the wire of twisted gold which would hold the place for the Eye of Rom to lodge, should Alroy die without heirs.