“Why would they do that? And who are they? I thought we were talking about Rhys.”
“Well, he can’t have done it alone, can he? Maybe Evaine helped him. She’s his wife. Or Bishop Alister!” The boy sat bolt upright. “That’s who he was talking to, the night I heard him say he’d done something to you! So Alister must know! Maybe he was a part of it, too!”
Slowly Tavis nodded. “And that would also make Joram a part of it, and probably Earl Jebediah. They were all in the chamber when the regents brought you in to see his body, except Evaine—Rhys, Alister, Joram, and Jebediah. And all of them except Jebediah were there the night of my injury! There’s got to be a connection.”
“But, what?”
“I don’t know. They’re not likely to tell us, either.”
Javan thought on that a moment. “Is there a chance I could tell us?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Javan continued thoughtfully, “whatever happened to me, I must have been there. Can’t you make me remember?”
Tavis frowned, gazing unseeing back into the dim bedchamber.
“You were drugged. I don’t know whether I could get past that or not.”
“You were drugged, too, but you got past it.”
“I’m Deryni,” Tavis answered absently.
Javan scowled. “Don’t you dare use that excuse on me,” he muttered. “Can’t you at least try to make me remember?”
“I don’t know.” Tavis cocked his head. “Unless you regained consciousness between the time you fell asleep from the physick and when Jebediah and the regents woke you, I doubt there’s anything to remember.”
“But, there must be—something.…” Javan’s voice trailed off and he squinched up his face in concentration. “There was a … dark room, I think, and my father … damn!”
“Don’t swear,” Tavis said automatically.
“Well, I can’t help it!” the boy fumed. “There is something—maybe I just dreamed it, I don’t know. For just a second there, I had a flash, though. Can’t you try to follow that?”
“Right now?”
“Of course, right now. You won’t hurt me.”
“I know I won’t hurt you, Javan,” Tavis sighed. “I don’t want to tire you, though. You’re not used to this.”
“You’re damned right I’m not used to this!”
“And if you’re going to get yourself all overwrought—”
“I am not overwrought! I’m—” Abruptly he broke off and dropped his gaze, a reluctant grin playing at his mouth. “You’re right. I was overwrought. But—can’t you at least try?”
Echoing Javan’s grin, Tavis glanced around the seating alcove, then fetched a cushion from the opposite bench and put it on the seat between himself and Javan.
“If it’s that important,” he said, patting the cushion. “Lie down and make yourself comfortable. Let yourself go into trance exactly the way you did before.”
The boy lay back with a triumphant little smile.
“Don’t think you’re getting away with anything,” Tavis added good-naturedly, resting his hand lightly on Javan’s forehead. “I just happen to agree with your argument. Now, close your eyes and center in. Let yourself slip back to your last waking memory of that night.”
Javan did as he was bidden. Gradually he gained the impression of being warm and safe in his old bed, winged back to Valoret and February by agile memory, and then of Tavis’s active presence receding. As the reality of it all intensified, he shifted onto his side and snuggled his face against the cushion, only a minute part of him still vaguely aware of the Healer’s hand maintaining contact with his brow. Then he felt himself being gently nudged forward from bed and into dreamless sleep.
At least, he thought it was sleep, in the beginning. There were the usual flitting images of things he’d done at play or at his lessons that frigid winter season. But there was also an elusive flickering of something else, after a while: faces, familiar, yet strange; a cloudy haze around lights gold and red and green, the feeling that one was somehow missing; a footed cup whose whiteness blocked out all his view of anything else—and colors, feelings, sounds, spinning and tumbling together—and nothing, nothing.…
He clawed his way up from the odd, white darkness to find Tavis staring down at him, a puzzled expression on his face. He sat up and shook his head to clear it, then looked at the Healer again, almost afraid to ask.
“What did you see?”
“It was odd,” Tavis replied. “I can’t tell whether it was a dream or something that really happened but was distorted by the drugs they gave you.”
“Well, what did it look like?”
Tavis shook his head. “I honestly don’t know, my prince. Damned if I do!”
“Don’t swear,” Javan retorted without thinking, bringing an amused smile to Tavis’s lips. “Tavis,” the prince went on, “we’ve got to find out what it was.”
“I know.”
“Well, then, do something.”
Tavis considered, then looked at Javan again.
“All right. I do have one idea, but you have to promise not to nag me while I work out the details.”
“What is it?”
“Well, you were drugged when—whatever happened. So I think it’s worth our time to try duplicating the drugs Rhys gave you, then dose you and let me try to break through the memories that way. I’ll have to do some research, though. I know most of what was in there, but I’ll have to work out the proportions and dosage.”
Javan wrinkled his nose. “Another ‘physick’?”
“Aye, as close to the original as I can manage. I don’t really relish the idea, but I haven’t got any better ones just now. Are you willing, before I go to all that trouble?”
With a perplexed sigh, Javan nodded. “I suppose so.”
“Just what I love to hear—enthusiasm,” Tavis said, slapping the boy’s shoulder affectionately and getting to his feet. “I don’t suppose you’d like to give the whole thing up?”
“And just forget about my shields?” Javan replied archly.
“There is that,” Tavis agreed. “But, we’ve given ourselves enough to think about for one afternoon. Let’s go bother Cook. I’m starving.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
—Isaiah 40:3
Tavis and Javan were not the only ones given much to think on, as the summer wore on and temperatures and tensions rose. Though a certain normality had begun to emerge from the reign’s rather tumultuous beginning, it was far different from what anyone had known before. The uncertainty of a regency and a child king on the throne did nothing to lessen the growing sense of foreboding, especially among Deryni who had an inkling what was taking place.
This sense of foreboding certainly permeated the actions of the Camberian Council. Gregory and Jesse continued to patrol their lands and keep the peace there but, after the attack on Tavis, Gregory grew withdrawn and grimly thoughtful. The idea that Deryni would attack Deryni deliberately had affected him more than he was willing to admit. He came and worked his turn at monitoring Davin, and attended the meetings of the Camberian Council, but he had become a dour and troubled man. Camber learned that he had purchased a small, isolated estate in the Connait, and was preparing to move his family there. Camber could not say he blamed him.
Jaffray, too, began to show the strain. He continued to report the actions of all the Court from his vantage point inside the regency council, and kept a more normal contact with Davin, now that Rhys had been able to remove the blockage and restore his true memory. The young man was functioning with full powers restored. But the move to Rhemuth had forced Jaffray to spread himself entirely too thin. He had duties in Valoret, as archbishop, which could not be entirely delegated; and he knew that the regents were aware of this, and even counted on it to keep him away from meetings of the council as much a
s possible. Still, such eyewitness reports as Jaffray was able to provide were infinitely more valuable than the slanted view they got from monitoring Davin, in his relatively sheltered position guarding the princes. So long as they had Jaffray more or less securely in the council, at least they might have some advance warning of any drastic measures the regents might be contemplating.
Jebediah also kept a feverish pace, circulating among the various Michaeline houses and directing preparations for going underground again. Even Crevan Allyn, his human vicar general, understood and feared the signs which were becoming all too clear—though with his Order so scattered throughout Gwynedd, he dared not begin an open abandonment of Michaeline facilities too quickly, lest their retreat seem to give credence to suspicions about Deryni elements in the Order. When the army of Gwynedd had been purged of Michaelines earlier in the year, both Crevan and Jebediah had hoped that anti-Michaeline sentiment would diminish; but by Lammas, it was clear that this was not to be. Several Michaeline knights and men-at-arms, human and Deryni, had been arrested and imprisoned by the regents for various vague reasons. To protect these men, nothing must be done by other members of the Order which might further antagonize the regents.
Given these factors, Michaeline withdrawal from Gwynedd had to be accomplished more subtly than the overnight operation of Imre’s time. The commanderie at Argoed, in particular, could hardly be closed down without arousing suspicion; but its complement was cut drastically, all its remaining brethren and knights having definite assignments in the event of a general suppression. Cùilteine, second only to Argoed in Gwynedd proper, kept a token force of brothers and knights within its precincts and endeavored to make them look like twice their number.
Many of the remaining knights Jebediah sent to the three Michaeline houses outside Gwynedd, a few at a time: Brustarkia, in Arjenol; Saint Elderon, across the border into Torenth; and desert Djellarda, the original mother house of the Order, which overlooked the Anvil of the Lord.
Even the teaching brethren of the Order were slowly recalled from their posts and sent to safety. As the summer wore on, those few schools still staffed, at least in part, by Michaeline teachers found those men being replaced, seemingly at random, by brothers and priests of other, human orders. Reassignments were quietly arranged by Jaffray and Bishops Cullen, Trey, and Descantor, who also managed to “lose” the records of several small but strategically placed houses which might later become places of refuge.
Camber himself stayed in Grecotha through the summer, Joram running interference with Father Willowen and the rest of the cathedral chapter while Camber continued to work with Rhys, Emrys, and Queron on discovering how Rhys’s talent might be passed on to other Healers. But try as they might, they could not isolate the function well enough to teach it. Though Emrys and Queron were probably the most skillful Healers of Rhys’s acquaintance, neither could offer him a solution.
Meanwhile, there was Revan to consider. Revan’s uncertain position kept matters in a perspective of ongoing urgency, which was complicated by the fact that no one of the Camberian Council had seen or spoken to him since his flight from Sheele at Eastertide—though they knew approximately where he was. Everyone assumed that his cover was still intact—else they would have heard of it—but no one knew for sure.
In addition, it became increasingly likely that for Rhys’s plan to work, he was going to have to carry it out himself. They might never find another Healer who could learn; and against that eventuality, Rhys must begin easing himself into a working relationship with the exiled Revan.
Accordingly, on one hot afternoon toward the end of August, Rhys and Evaine made their way to the Willimite encampment in the hills above Valoret, dull as mice in the greyed russet firze of common folk, with bright hair darkened to nondescript dust-tones by the art of Deryni illusion. They were careful to be diffident and wide-eyed as they approached the Willimite perimeter, a properly meek peasant couple who had come to seek out a holy hermit. Their going among the Willimites was a somewhat risky venture, for the martyred Saint Willim had been a victim of Deryni ill use, and his adherents believed Deryni to be the Devil’s own spawn, deserving a suitably terrible fate unless they recanted their detestable heritage; and there were known to be several “reformed” Deryni who lived lives of penitence among them and might Truth-Read suspicious strangers in defense of the brotherhood. Rhys and Evaine must be careful not to arouse the wrong kind of attention.
“Your pardon, good sir,” Rhys murmured, with a tug at his cap as he approached the first man he saw. “I wonder if you could tell me where I might find the holy hermit who is said to live in these hills.”
The Willimite, a weathered and emaciated-looking man, looked over the colorless couple with an appraising eye, noting their shabby clothing and the woman’s obvious pregnancy, then relaxed a little and favored them with a thin smile and a slight bow over piously-folded hands.
“A holy hermit, y’say? Well.” His voice held the clipped lilt of the Mooryn highlands. “Can ye perhaps be more specific? We have several holy men among us—and all are sworn to resist the evil of the godless Deryni, curst be their souls!”
“Oh, aye,” Rhys murmured, nodding earnestly and making a gesture of agreement with one hand. “The man we seek is a youngish man, they say. He walks with a limp, like the young heir. They say he used to be the servant of a Deryni house, and that he ran away. They say, that he has—visions—and that the Lord favors him greatly, and that—his touch brings luck to them as he esteems.”
The Willimite nodded self-importantly. “Ah, that would be Brother Revan. ’Tis said his former master killed his sweetheart—and the master a Healer, and all!—and after that, young Revan went a little strange.” His voice took on a tinge of genuine awe.
“But he’s touched by God, he is! Everyone says it. He has speech with a great stone on the mountain top, and it tells him what to preach. He says a great doom is coming upon the Deryni—that many will be slain—and the only ones that might be saved are those who repent of their evil ways. He says the Lord will reveal how some Deryni might be spared, if they approach the throne of heaven with humble and contrite hearts!”
Evaine, who had pretended to be listening raptly to every word the man said—which she was, though she was also casting out all around them for danger—plucked at the man’s sleeve with awed urgency.
“Then, praised be the Lord, for what we have heard is true! They say he can even remove the taint from those who have been forced to serve the Deryni—that his touch can make one clean!”
“Och, aye, he’s a very holy man,” the man returned, a little taken aback at her apparent fervor. “As ye say, he does give blessing to them as ask.”
“Will you take us to him?” Evaine begged. “Oh, please, good sir. You do not know the weight which has been upon us these many years, forced to live in the village of a Deryni lord. Now we mean to—to run away! But for the sake of my unborn child, I would have us cleansed before we go. I know this holy man’s blessing can wash away the taint!”
Rhys cleared his throat self-consciously. “My wife—she is overwrought in her condition,” he said faintly, extricating Evaine’s fingers from the man’s sleeve and bobbing his head apologetically. “But we would seek Brother Revan’s blessing, if you would be so kind. Please, for my wife’s sake.…”
They had managed to gather the attention of several other men and women of the Willimite community as they spoke, one of them a woman with shorn hair and a pinched, lined face who was almost certainly Deryni, though she made no attempt to reach out and probe them. Just to be safe, however, Rhys reached into Evaine’s mind and sprang the triggerpoint, blocking everything else which was not appropriate for the peasant woman she appeared to be. With his hand still on her arm, he caught her slight stumble as she made the transition, then withdrew deep into himself where a casual probe from the woman would not touch his shields. As the first man began leading them on through the camp, the others fell in behind in a li
ttle parade, including the Deryni woman.
They crossed the Willimite encampment, with its motley collection of tents and rudely-constructed lean-tos, then began a steep climb up the side of the mountain. The gorse and felderbloom were parched and sere from the summer’s heat, but a breeze stirred increasingly as they climbed. By the time they had reached a small plateau halfway up the mountainside, the wind was blowing steadily from the east, cooling steamy faces and dispelling the odor of bodies too seldom washed and clothing too long worn. Across the plateau, just in front of the mouth of a narrow cave, stood an almost unrecognizable Revan, with nearly a dozen men and women crouched in a semicircle around him.
He was clad in an ankle-length robe of some greyish homespun stuff, threadbare and much patched, though cleaner than the garb of most of those around him, and he cradled a twisted staff of what looked to be olivewood in the crook of his left arm. His hair had grown several inches since they last had seen him, and he had a full beard which looked almost blond in the strong sunlight. He was preaching as they first saw him. Gradually his words became discernible as they came closer.
“The day is coming when those who have walked in darkness must be tried in the forge of the ages, and all imperfections burned away. Even as our Lord foretold, the wheat shall be separated from the chaff, and the good seed from the bad.
“But I say unto you that even for those who have walked in the uttermost darkness, the Light may yet be seen and known. To him who doth earnestly repent of his evil and renounce the darkness forever, the Lord shall give a sign of His grace. The evil ones shall be changed, the dross refined from the true gold, and the Kingdom shall thrive in the fullness of the Lord’s love.”
A murmur passed among them at that, dying away as one woman spoke up.
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