“I’m going to bring two more minds into our link, Den. As soon as we’re stable, I want you to let your memory of Jorian’s ordination run—everything you yourself witnessed, and everything you learned or heard about afterward. We’ll do it now.”
Denis’s assent had not been asked for and was superfluous in any case, given the depth of Jamyl’s controls; but he gave it anyway, trying to actively bridge as the new contacts eased deftly into place, sensing the raw strength of the newcomers beyond even his brother’s, though Jamyl was a powerful and highly trained Deryni. The surge of memories began almost at once, shaking him nearly as much as the actual events had done, bittersweet even in the recollection of the earlier parts, before disaster struck—but he would not have blunted them even if that had been within his control, which it was not.
He thought he had weathered it well when the run ebbed to a close, his controllers also having demanded his recall of Jorian’s execution; but then they took him deeper still, until he lost all consciousness of any function whatsoever. When he came to his senses again, it was no gradual easing back to awareness; he simply was there, sitting in a chair opposite two men he had never seen before. The table he had sensed before was at his right now, ancient ivory banded with gold, and Jamyl sat perched on the chair arm at his left, gently kneading the tight muscles across the back of his neck, smiling.
Any discomfort besides the one I’m working on? his brother whispered in his mind.
Intrigued by the two strangers and what they had done to him—far beyond Jamyl’s ability, he knew—Denis only answered, No. The younger of the other two men looked hardly older than Jamyl; he, too, was smiling, pale eyes lit with wry amusement, absently raking the fingers of one hand through a forelock of shortish, white-blond hair that kept slipping over one eye. His tunic was the same vibrant blue as the background of the shield above his head on the back of his chair—something with chevrons and arrowheads, vaguely familiar, though Denis could not quite place it.
The other man appeared to be in his forties, reddish-brown hair winged with grey at the temples, dark eyes very serious in his lean, angular face. He wore scholar’s robes over an expensive-looking undertunic and had ink smudges on the first and second fingers of his right hand. He was leaning close to the table to drape a veil of purple silk over the biggest shiral crystal Denis had ever seen.
“It’s a lovely one, isn’t it?” the younger man said, his pleasant baritone catching Denis’s attention instantly. “Shiral, of course. Don’t even think about what it cost. Incidentally, I’m Stefan.” He grinned at Denis’s blink of confusion. “That’s Laran, our physician; and the fellow sitting beside you is Jamyl. I think you know him already. And there’s certainly no doubt that you’re an Arilan, is there?” He shifted his gaze to Jamyl with a roguish chuckle. “Jamyl, your brother may go even farther than you, someday—if we can get him through his ordination, that is.”
Denis swallowed a little uneasily at the light banter. He was not accustomed to hearing anyone besides family address his brother in quite so casual a tone. These men must be close, indeed. As he glanced at Jamyl for reassurance, the man identified as Laran sat in the empty chair beside Stefan’s and pulled a stoppered flask from inside his robes, reaching across to set it in Denis’ hand.
“That’s all that’s stopping you right now, young Denis Arilan,” Laran said. “Incidentally, you were absolutely right about merasha in the wine.”
Denis nearly dropped the flask as he realized he must be actually holding some of the merasha-laced wine.
“We’ve been wondering for nearly two hundred years how the bishops kept blocking us from getting some priests ordained,” Laran went on. “We don’t have to wonder anymore. Unfortunately, merasha is the almost ideal substance for screening out Deryni. There’s no known antidote, before or after the fact—though we can minimize some of the nastier physical effects. In humans, right up to fatal dosages, it only acts as a sedative, the depth varying with the dose and the individual—in that sample, a little drowsiness, perhaps.” He waved a hand toward the flask Denis held. “Nothing that can’t be explained by simple reaction to strong wine on an empty stomach, in a system already keyed up by the emotional tension of the priestly initiation—and nothing to attract attention to a one-time use of a bishop’s private stock of wine for a priest’s first communion.
“For Deryni, however—and unfortunately for your young friend Jorian …” He sighed. “But I don’t have to tell you what happened to him.”
Shaking his head, Denis set the flask carefully on the table, then wiped his palms against his thighs distastefully.
“Is that from de Nore’s private stock?” he asked.
“No, it isn’t,” Stefan said. “We haven’t even tried to penetrate his staff yet. It will be risky enough when we do have to infiltrate, to do whatever we decide to do to help you. That’s from another bishop’s sacristy, though. And we’ve spot-checked two others.” He grimaced. “They all have a special supply of wine that comes from the archbishop-primate’s office on a regular basis and that’s used only for ordinations. Needless to say, they’re all adulterated with merasha. So we can’t even consider trying to get you ordained in another diocese.”
“I couldn’t anyway, having trained at Arx Fidei,” Denis murmured. “Not without having to answer a lot of very dangerous questions, especially after Jorian. What about switching the wine?”
Laran nodded. “We’re working on that. We’ve even located some untainted wine of the proper vintage. Unfortunately, that isn’t the entire solution.”
“Why not?”
Laran shrugged. “Well, aside from the obvious logistical problem of actually making the switch without getting caught, there’s the question of whether anyone who shouldn’t will be able to notice a difference in taste. Merasha doesn’t have any taste per se, but it does have a distinctive aftertaste, as we all know—not as noticeable to humans, I’m told, but nonetheless it’s there.”
“And you’re afraid de Nore will notice, if it isn’t there,” Jamyl guessed.
“Well, he is known for his discriminating palate,” Laran pointed out. “Not only is that a convenient excuse for bringing along his own wine when he travels and for sending special shipments to the other bishops as a sign of episcopal favor, but he celebrates enough Masses at enough ordinations to know quite precisely what his private stock should taste like. To keep a switch from being detected, I must find something that will give an aftertaste similar to merasha, that acts like a light sedative, but that also has no other side effects, for humans or Deryni—probably some combination of substances.”
He sighed heavily, then went on. “Or maybe we’ll have to go with pure wine and take our chances that de Nore won’t notice something’s missing. It’s better than the alternative. We know what merasha will do.”
“Maybe the pure wine isn’t as risky as you think,” Denis ventured. “I’ll bet that’s what he uses for daily Masses. He wouldn’t dare use the special vintage every day, if only because of the sedative effect.”
“Hmmm, he might have built up a tolerance to that,” Laran argued, “but your point is well taken. Knowing how de Nore feels about Deryni, and assuming that even he knows just what makes the ordination wine different—”
Startled, Stefan turned to look at Laran, his intensity cutting off the physician’s speculation in mid-phrase.
“Are you implying that he doesn’t know there’s merasha in the wine, or that someone else may be responsible for adding it?” he asked softly.
Laran fluttered ink-stained fingers in a gesture of impatience.
“Either could be true, Stefan, or neither. That doesn’t really matter. It’s been going on for many years after all, and individual archbishops come and go. Think back to how it must have started, though!”
In the blink of an eye, Laran the physician gave way to Laran the professor, academic intensity displacing medical dispassion, his sharp features lighting with zeal as he slipp
ed into the role of lecturer.
“The religious question of good and evil aside, barring Deryni from the clergy served the inheritors of the Council of Ramos very well,” he said. “It concentrated all spiritual authority in human hands, and a great deal of temporal authority as well—an action totally justified in human minds, since everyone knew that Deryni abuses of power had triggered the Haldane Restoration and its aftermath. However we may deplore it, using merasha thereafter to screen candidates for the priesthood was only a logical extension of what had already begun. It was the perfect vehicle for ensuring that our people would never regain power, for the effects of merasha on Deryni, to those who did not know better, would appear to be the wrath of God striking down evil Deryni who would dare aspire to the holy office of priest. All that was wanted was to ensure that it was used consistently.”
“A charge that was given to the bishops,” Jamyl supplied.
“Probably—at least in part. But since, in the greater picture, no individual bishop lives forever, I think it’s worth considering that the Ramos Fathers might have set up some separate, secret, on-going body to be their deputies, to see that only humans rose through the ranks of clergy. Perhaps a small, elite religious order. Perhaps one that makes wine. Sheerest speculation, I suppose, but it bears further thought.”
Stefan snorted and folded his arms across his chest. “I refuse to believe that de Nore doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“Oh, he may know exactly what he’s doing,” Laran agreed. “That doesn’t necessarily rule out a group to back him, however. Perhaps the secret is imparted to each new archbishop by some designated representative, whose job it is to ensure that his bishops use ‘specially blessed’ wine at ordinations and that they know what to look for. However it’s done, it works. We certainly have no Deryni priests or bishops.”
Even Denis could find no quarrel with that conclusion, though it almost seemed to anger Stefan. After what seemed like an eternity, Stefan slammed the heel of one hand against the arm of his chair and let out an explosive sigh. Laran only sat back in his chair, once again the cool and analytical physician, and glanced back at the flask of wine on the table beside them.
“Well, then,” Laran said amiably. “Whatever we may or may not have resolved while I played the professor at you—for which I apologize to all—young Arilan is probably right about de Nore declining to use his special wine on a regular basis. Even if it had no Deryni associations, the sedative effect could cause problems over a period of time. So perhaps his experience with merasha is limited enough that he would not notice a substitution of pure wine for tainted.”
“Perhaps isn’t good enough,” Jamyl muttered, getting up from his perch on Denis’s chair arm to begin pacing restlessly. “We’re talking about my brother’s life.” He paced a few more steps, thumbs hooked in the back of his belt, then paused to glance back at them.
“I don’t suppose we dare just interfere directly with de Nore?” he asked. “It should be possible to induce him to switch the wine himself and then bury the memory.”
“Not wise at all,” Stefan said. “Any tampering with de Nore could conceivably invalidate Denis’s ordination, if it were ever found out what we’d done.”
“What about someone on de Nore’s staff, then?” Denis asked. “You already said you’d infiltrated other bishops’ staffs to get samples of their wine. Doesn’t that constitute tampering?”
“Of course,” Laran conceded. “But they’re not ordaining you.”
“Well, here’s another thought, then,” Denis went on, seizing on sudden inspiration. “De Nore only has a sip of the wine before bringing it down for the new priests to communicate. It’s his chaplain who finishes it off and performs the ablutions. Maybe you could tamper with him. He doesn’t have anything to do with ordaining me.”
Laran looked dubious, but Stefan slowly began nodding.
“The lad may have a point. What’s the name of de Nore’s chaplain? Gorony? It’s Gorony’s taste we have to fool, Laran—not de Nore’s. And it’s Gorony who’s in the ideal position to make a switch. What would it take to keep him from noticing a slight difference in the wine?”
“For me, or for you?” Laran replied, giving Stefan an odd look.
Stefan snorted, a sly smile flashing across his face so quickly that Denis was never sure he really saw it. “We’ll work on it,” Stefan said enigmatically. “Meanwhile, it’s getting late, and we should be finishing up. I do think Denis should know what he’s getting into if we don’t succeed, however.” He picked up the flask of drugged wine. “Have you got a cup and some water, Laran?”
As Denis stared in horror, Stefan began working the stopper loose from the neck of the flask, Laran rising to leave the room briefly. Denis hardly saw him go.
Surely they didn’t really expect him to take merasha without a fight, after what had happened to Jorian? He’d had the drug before, of course, in training, but this was different. This was the wine that had betrayed Jorian to his death!
“You may have to take it this way, if something goes wrong,” Stefan said, answering Denis’s unasked questions as he took the empty goblet Laran brought and slowly poured wine into it. “At least if you know what to expect, you may have some chance of hiding your reaction. We’ll give you something to counteract what we can, before you leave tonight. Is that about right?” He held out the goblet, a quarter-filled with dark, potent-looking wine, and Denis tried to imagine it as de Nore’s chalice, his heart hammering in his chest.
“You need to add water now,” he managed to whisper.
Coolly Stefan took a second goblet from Laran, filled with water, and held it over the drugged wine, preparing to pour—then thought better of it and offered the water to Denis.
“You’d better do this. You know how much it should be.”
Hands shaking, Denis took the goblet and poured too much.
“You’re going to have to add some more wine,” he heard himself saying, as Laran took the water from him and began rummaging in his physician’s satchel for a drug packet. “I added a little more than I meant to.”
“How much would de Nore add?” Stefan asked, slowly pouring more wine until Denis signaled him to stop.
“I don’t know,” Denis admitted. “I’ve never served Mass for him—or for any bishop. I think he’d deliberately go light on the water at an ordination, though, since so much depends on the wine …”
His voice had trailed off as Stefan set the flask aside, and he had to clasp his hands tightly in his lap to keep them from shaking.
“I’m afraid I have to agree with your logic,” Stefan said quietly, moving a little closer with the drugged cup. “Think before you drink this, now. How big a swallow would you normally take, and how small a swallow can you get away with, without arousing suspicion?”
Denis closed his eyes briefly, remembering de Nore’s huge, jeweled chalice. It would have to be a noticeable swallow.
“Here it comes now,” he heard Stefan say softly, far closer now, as the rim of the goblet touched his lips. “Remember what I asked you.”
Almost without volition, Denis lifted his hands to steady the cup as Stefan tipped it for him to drink. He had never received communion by Cup as well as by Host, for that was reserved for priests and bishops. The wine was rich and fruity, and he was not sure whether he could detect any of the expected merasha aftertaste at all as Stefan took the cup away and he carefully swallowed. Laran had come around behind him while he drank and monitored his reaction with a cool hand laid along the side of his throat.
“Well,” Stefan murmured, handing off the goblet to an anxious Jamyl, “I’ll confess I’ve never made a study of the size swallow priests take when they drink communion wine, but that seemed plausible to me.” His manner was casual as he sat back in his chair, but his eyes never left Denis’s face. “Try to keep from showing any distress for as long as you can,” he said. “I would estimate you’ll have an hour or more before you can safely slip away, if
you have to do this for real. With any luck at all, though, that won’t be necessary. Tell me, could you taste the merasha?”
He was tasting it by then, faintly bitter at the back of his tongue. He did his best to describe it, aware that Laran was delving deeper to catch every nuance of memory about it, but he could feel the drug gradually extending its tendrils of disruption into every corner of his mind, insidious and terrifying, even though he knew he was safe here. He lasted a little longer than Jorian had, but not nearly long enough to have gotten through the rest of the Mass and subsequent celebrations safely. The dose was a little lighter than those he’d had in training exercises, but that only made it ease him into thrall instead of hitting him like a mountain falling on his head. He tried not to imagine what it had been like for Jorian, who had been given to drink from the chalice a second time—and then given more wine in the sacristy, almost certainly from de Nore’s private stock.
His head was throbbing and he could hardly see by the time Laran took pity on him and gave him the second cup, to counteract some of the effect of the first. He never knew how Jamyl got him back through the Portal and into bed. He woke briefly at noon the next day, his head still pounding, but rose only long enough to relieve himself and take another dose of the sedative Laran had sent with Jamyl. He was mostly recovered by the second morning and had time for only a brief visit with Stefan and Laran before be must head back for Arx Fidei, his leave now exhausted. This time, the two came to Tre-Arilan, gathering conspiratorially in Jamyl’s little ritual chamber.
The Bishop’s Heir Page 45