“When Oriel first found the death-trigger, he withdrew a little,” Jaffray was saying. “He told them what would probably happen if he pushed too hard, but they made him go on by threatening the safety of his family. Perhaps he thought he could get past it—I don’t know. He couldn’t, though. The man’s name was Denzil Carmichael. I think I may have known his grandfather. At least his death was easy, compared to the others.”
“What happened to the others?” Evaine asked, horrified yet fascinated.
“The three remaining prisoners were executed in the castleyard, as befits traitors and assassins.”
“Drawn and quartered?” Gregory murmured, with a great lord’s knowledgeable raise of an eyebrow.
“Aye, and hanged first, though not to death,” Jaffray whispered. “The regents wouldn’t even let them see a priest before it started. Poor Alroy and Javan.…”
With a shake of his head, Camber flung up his shields again and blocked out Jaffray, taking but an instant to balance between black and white as he placed his first two fingers on Prime and Quinte and shaped the phrasa.
Prime et Quinte inversus! He switched the two cubes’ positions and felt the energies warp slightly.
Quarte et Octave inversus! Again, the change of place, an intensification of the weaving, the stranding, of the power being harnessed. He laid his fingertips on Septime and the transposed Prime.
Prime et Septime inversus!
And Sixe et Quarte inversus! The final phrasa, suiting action to words.
The cubes lay in a saltire configuration now, one diagonal glowing a deep blue-black and the other gleaming white on white against the marble slab, their arrangement and the working he had done steadily drawing in more energy and laying in new strands to be commanded. He came back to the others, their words of the past few seconds flooding into his consciousness and making him wince with the intensity of accompanying emotion.
“… terrible thing for children to have to witness,” Evaine was saying, one protective hand cradling her own swelling abdomen. “Sweet Mary and Joseph, is it to be this kind of bloody reign forever?”
“So long as the regents hold sway, I fear it will get worse before it gets better,” Jaffray replied. “Their vengeance reaches far. Already, they have issued writs of attainder and outlawry against all males of the families of the assassins. And Ansel, I saw your death warrant signed myself.”
“Then, they counted my brother as one of the assassins!” Ansel said bitterly.
“They did—though both Tavis and Oriel insisted there was no evidence. Of course, they are both Deryni, and therefore suspect.”
“What—what about Davin’s body?” Ansel asked, almost dragging the words from his lips.
Jaffray bowed his head. “The regents determined to make an example of the assassins. Parts of—parts of their bodies were ordered sent to all the major towns of Gwynedd. The heads hang even now at the gates of Rhemuth as warning. They—did the same to the bodies of those already dead,” he finished lamely.
“To Davin?” Ansel gasped.
Jaffray could only nod.
A groan escaped Evaine’s lips, and several of the others shook their heads, Jesse blinking back tears. Rhys embraced his wife and would not meet anyone’s gaze. Joram’s jaw tightened even more than it had been throughout, the grey eyes hard and cold.
Camber tried to resist the raw emotion, for reason told him that it made no difference what happened to Davin’s body. Blinking back tears which nonetheless threatened, he tilted back his head and made himself focus on the vaulting high above their heads. He could only let the horror run its course and be thankful that at least Davin had not suffered the torture that the others had—and pray for the repose of all Deryni dead.
At last, under control once more, he glanced at the waiting cube configuration, then at Jaffray, sending a silent query. Jaffray made no response, caught up in his own working out of the day’s tragedy, so Camber resignedly took charge, drawing a deliberately audible breath as he extended his right hand over the cubes. Gradually he gained everyone’s dazed attention.
“This will be a new working for some of you,” he said, voice steadying as discipline displaced the flux of mere emotion. “Ansel, Jesse, you’re about to see one of the few second level configurations we’ve had the nerve to try—and one of even fewer that we’ve gotten to work. It seems to have limited application, so far, but we’re still learning. We have Evaine’s research to thank for it.”
As Evaine smiled weakly, Camber carefully picked up the cube named Septime and placed it on Quinte, black on black.
Quintus! he spoke in his mind, feeling the energy lick up around his fingers for just an instant before he moved on to Quarte, stacking it on Seconde, white on white.
Sixtus!
“More energy, twining with the first,” he murmured, gesturing for them to sense it for themselves.
He felt their support and Ansel’s and Jesse’s increasing curiosity as he set Prime atop Tierce, Sexte on Octave.
Septimus!
Octavius!
He did not know whether the words themselves were important—he suspected not—but the mental energies behind them were, and he could feel them woven among his fingers as he held his hand above the cube he had formed. The pillars of the temple, Joram had called the configuration, the first time he saw it. It reminded them all of the shattered altar beneath Grecotha.
Carefully, Camber got his feet under him, ready to stand, then let his right hand rest squarely on top of the cube. With his left he motioned the others to move back slightly. Then he actively engaged the energies.
He could feel them tingling in his hand and all up his arm, even tickling at the edges of his mind, as if hand and cubes had fused in one vibrant unit. As he wrapped his mind around the strands of energy and wove the grid, he could feel the potential building, so that by the time he began slowly to lift his hand, the cube rose, too—and also the marble slab, soundless save for the faint whisper of polished stone in passing.
The slab continued to rise, as effortlessly as if it were feather instead of marble, supported by four large cubes, black and white alternating. Camber stood as the rest of them rose, his upper body still bent over the smaller cube whose power he had harnessed. A second course of black and white cubes began to appear, these set in opposition to the first course, finally revealing a black base of the same size as the mensa on top. Pillars the size of a man’s arm stood at the four corners of the cube thus revealed, alternating black and white like the broken ones under Grecotha.
When the black slab had risen to the same thickness as the top one, the entire mass stopped. Camber, with a slight sigh, withdrew his hand out to the side of the small cube and flexed his fingers experimentally, then glanced at his intrigued audience as he scooped up the wards and returned them to their pouch.
“Its own weight will take it back into place when we’re done,” he said matter-of-factly. “One only needs the cubes to raise the thing.” He looked at the archbishop. “Jaffray?”
“Aye. Ansel, I wish I could have brought back your brother’s body, but since I could not, I thought to bring you our Lord’s. I thought the Blessed Sacrament might offer us all some measure of comfort.”
Ansel inclined his head, unable to reply with words, but then Jaffray’s hands began shaking so badly that he could not even unfasten the straps which closed the leather case. Camber stepped in at that, moving the box away from Jaffray and himself unbuckling the latches to raise the leather lid. Inside were all the accoutrements needed to celebrate Mass.
“It was a fine and thoughtful idea, Jaffray,” he murmured, touching the small gold chalice and paten reverently. “I should have thought of it myself. It will help all of us to center in and clear our heads so we can make cogent plans.”
Jaffray shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know now, Alister. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. I didn’t even bring any proper vestments, I was so anxious to get away from the stench of blood.
Do you think He will mind?”
“Surely not,” Camber said gently, as Joram roused himself from his stunned lethargy to shake out the linen cloth which his father handed him.
“But—we don’t really know what kind of altar this was before,” Jaffray continued. “We don’t even know whether the Airsid celebrated the Mass as we know it.”
At his distress, Evaine moved around and laid her hands on his shoulders, leaning her cheek against his back.
“Oh, Jaffray, I’m sure they must have,” she said, as Rhys picked up the box and nudged Camber’s handfire higher, so Joram could spread his linen. “And even if they didn’t, I think it’s high time a Mass was said within these walls. It would be a beautiful and fitting memorial for Davin.”
Even Jaffray, in his distraught state, had no quarrel with that, and watched numbly as Joram laid a small crucifix in place, set out the two half-burned candles in their simple wooden holders, passed his hands over them, and brought them to life, at the same time quenching the handfire.
Camber took out the chalice and paten and set them in place, then extracted four large unconsecrated Hosts from a flat metal box he found in the case and laid them carefully on the thin gold plate; Joram removed the water and wine, in their leather-covered glass flasks, and set them to one side. The narrow purple stole, much folded and creased, Camber shook out and laid across Jaffray’s trembling fingers with a slight bow. Jaffray stared at the stole for a moment, then shook his head.
“I can’t, Alister,” he whispered. “God help me, for the first time since I was ordained a priest, I can’t. I saw, Alister! I had to watch while they hacked his poor, murdered body to pieces! There’s no charity in my heart for what they did. God, I had come to love that boy like a son!”
“So had I,” Camber whispered under his breath.
But he took the stole from Jaffray’s stiff fingers and touched it to his own lips, put it on, moved to the west side of the altar as one walking in his sleep, and waited for the others to range themselves around him. Jaffray he motioned to his left, with Rhys between him and Ansel. On his right stood Joram and Evaine, ready to serve him. Jebediah, stoic and silent outwardly, but churning inside, stood opposite with the shaken Gregory and Jesse.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen,” he whispered, as his hand moved in the sign of their faith, the familiar words beginning to give him an anchor to sanity. “Introibo ad altare Dei.”
“Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam,” the others responded, Joram leading them coolly in the response.
I will go up to the altar of God, to God Who gives joy to my youth.…
“Judica me, Deus …” Camber continued. Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.
“Quia tu es, Deus.…” For Thou, O God, art my strength; why hast Thou cast me off? the others replied. And why do I go sorrowing whilst the enemy afflicteth me?
They offered up the Mass for Davin and his memory. They willed the meaning of every word to penetrate beyond their grief, lifting them into a renewal of their purpose. They had no book of scripture for their use that night, so each of them contributed from memory a verse which meant something to him or her in this troubled time—something to give comfort, or hope, or courage to go on.
Camber celebrated the Mass in the Michaeline manner, giving both Host and Cup to all who shared the rite. Now he moved among these loved ones of his, laying a piece of consecrated Host in each reverently outstretched palm, while Joram followed with the Cup. When he had finished, he had gained a measure of peace which almost transcended the tragedy of Davin’s death. Somehow, he resolved, Davin’s death would not have been in vain.
Ansel returned to Grecotha with Camber and Joram that night, for there was virtually no place in Gwynedd where the last Earl of Culdi might show his face and live, once the regents’ writ was circulated. But another monk would not be noticed, especially in the household of a bishop; and so, with his bright locks shorn in a clerical tonsure and dyed a light brown, Ansel was introduced to the Grecotha community as Brother Lorcan, a Michaeline lay scribe sent to augment Bishop Alister’s clerical staff. The difference of garb and hair, surrounding a face which had not been that well known anyway, was sufficient to hide Ansel without benefit of magic.
Father Willowen and the rest of the Grecotha congregation welcomed the new brother warmly, and thought nothing amiss the next day when, after the commemorative Mass which the bishop celebrated for the chapter, the newcomer was invited to share the bishop’s private Michaelmas observances with his secretary. Everyone knew that Michaelines stayed together, especially for this important feast day. Camber and Joram used the time to good advantage to instruct Ansel further regarding ecclesiastical deportment and the Order to which he pretended. Within a few days, he was sufficiently informed to be able to move among the priests and monks of Grecotha without suspicion.
The others, too, returned to their various abodes, though all of them strove to keep as low a profile as possible in the days and weeks ahead. With no further need to monitor poor Davin, Gregory retired to Ebor and began making quiet arrangements for his family to leave Gwynedd, though he himself would return as often as the Council needed him. Jebediah went back to Argoed and bade farewell to his Michaeline brethren. Rhys and Evaine kept the feast of Michaelmas at Sheele with their children, but their celebration was much subdued by having to tell the children that their cousin Davin was dead. Little Tieg was too young to understand fully, but the eight-year-old Rhysel cried and cried.
Jaffray returned to Rhemuth to conduct the appropriate religious observances at Saint George Cathedral the next morning with Archbishop Oriss; but that night he slipped out of his apartments in Oriss’s episcopal residence and made his way to a little-known Portal in the cathedral’s sacristy, whence he whisked off to Saint Neot’s and his old Order.
He spent that night and most of the next day closeted with Dom Emrys and the Elders of the Order, telling them of all that had happened in King Alroy’s hall the day before and seeking counsel. His visit sparked a flurry of speculations and consultations among his brethren at Chapter; and when Jaffray met with the Camberian Council the following week, he told them of the Gabrilites’ growing concern. If the Michaelmas Plot, as it had come to be called, pushed human reaction to the breaking point, the Gabrilites felt that the Deryni religious houses would be among the first to feel the regents’ wrath. Nowhere else could one find so high a concentration of Deryni in close proximity. And the Gabrilites, as teachers of the most sophisticated Deryni practitioners in the known world, would be prime targets.
There were other Deryni establishments—the Varnarite School, and Llenteith, near the Connait, and the newly established schola near Nyford—which had already been burned out once and partially rebuilt—and the Council saw to it that all of these were warned, Camber and Jaffray making especial use of their episcopal rank to help the religious houses formulate escape plans. They could only hope that there would be time to use those plans, if the worst came to pass.
For nearly a month, their luck held. But then, in late October, during a last wave of near-summer weather, the balance swung once more against the Deryni and their cause.
The unseasonable heat, then in its second week, had brought a resurgence of the so-called Deryni plague which had swept through Gwynedd in high summer; in Valoret, a mob of irate townsfolk and farmers had whipped themselves up to stone a merchant family which had been spared the plague and was, therefore, suspected of being Deryni. A riot ensued when the town guards tried to rescue the intended victims, and they had been forced to summon a troop of the archbishop’s household guards to assist them.
The archbishop himself led the sortie, since he was then in Valoret on one of his now-rare pastoral visits, a snow-white surcoat over his hauberk and a closed-face helm covering his head. A burnished bronze crucifix laid along the nasal and overshadowing the eyes proclaimed his id
entity, but he carried no weapon himself, save his crozier of office, for his Gabrilite Order was sworn to nonviolence. Jebediah, visiting Jaffray on his way back to Grecotha from a trip to Argoed, rode at the archbishop’s side in full Michaeline array.
They had ridden out well-armed and twenty-strong in the noonday sun, alert, but not as vigilant as they might have been—for who would have thought that scarcely-armed townsmen and farmers could seriously threaten mounted knights on the city streets? The knights pressed their destriers into the fray, the weight of the great horses seemingly insurmountable by men on foot, laying about them with weighted riding crops and the flats of swords.
Only Jebediah at once recognized the danger from hoes, bills, and pitchforks, or the stones which whizzed past their ears and occasionally rang against steel helm or thudded hollowly against a shield. Too late he tried to call them in to regroup and guard one another more closely—too late, as one of Jaffray’s men was suddenly yanked from his horse and buried under shouting, poking, pounding men. All at once, the milling, muttering gathering of disgruntled but basically law-abiding subjects had become a ravening animal, intent on destroying any who stood in its way.
Even Jebediah’s swift blade was not fast enough to block the chance thrust of a bill-hook before it buried itself to the haft in the eye-slit of Jaffray’s helmet. The archbishop was dead before his body even hit the cobblestone pavement.
The act took an instant only to register. Stunned by the sacrilegious murder of their archbishop and primate, both sides shrank from the still, white-garbed form as if expecting lightning to arc down from the heavens and slay them all where they stood.
But lightning did not strike them; and when the immensity of what had happened reached other levels, it was Jaffray’s Deryniness which did strike them—and the fact that a Deryni had fallen at their hands—that so high a Deryni as the Primate of All Gwynedd could be killed like any other man!
Camber the Heretic Page 39