Camber of Culdi (26 page)

Touching a finger to his lips, Joram glided to the foot of the lay brothers' stair and peered up into the darkness, casting out with his Deryni senses for some indication of movement above. But there was none, save the slight echo of snoring. This early after Compline, most of the brethren should be getting what meager sleep the Rule allowed such an order. From now until Matins, well after midnight, should be the quietest time for the entire abbey.

With an inclination of his head, Joram gestured Rhys to follow, then began making his silent way down the side aisle, staying close to the wall, taking advantage of every possible shadow. The first of the side chapels lay ahead, flanking the nave altar.

The chapels on the left were empty—they could see that already—their recesses dimly lit by Presence lamps and the banks of vigil candles guarding the nave altar itself. Behind the main altar, the brass interlace of the rood screen glowed darkly in the candlelight, mostly in shadow. Beyond that stretched the rest of the nave, with more side chapels, and the choir looming in the transept crossing. The night stairs they were seeking lay in the south transept itself, hard against the west wall. So far there was no sign of movement, but they could not count on that until they had made certain.

They reached the side wall of the first chapel on the right, and Joram peered gingerly around the corner and inside.

Deserted.

The process was repeated with the second.

Again, deserted. Thus far, their luck was holding.

They crossed the second chapel, venturing as close to the rood screen as they dared, to peer up the rest of the nave and scan the north chapels before venturing further into the open for the breaching of the screen itself. But the remainder of the nave appeared to be clear, and the darkened choir showed no sign of movement. If anyone was stirring in the cloistered portion of the church, they could only hope that whoever it was would stay safely in the apse, far beyond the transept and the stairs which Rhys and Joram sought. Neither man wanted to have to desecrate a church by harming anyone within its precincts—and both men knew, though they had never voiced it, that they
would
kill, if necessary, to ensure Cinhil's safe removal from Saint Foillan's.

They crouched and listened for several minutes, finally satisfying themselves that all was still. Then Joram eased his way behind the altar to the rood screen and laid his hand on the gate latch, cursing silently under his breath as the thing resisted and he realized it was locked. He cast a tense look at Rhys, who was anxiously scanning back the way they had come; then he knelt and laid his hands on the locking mechanism and extended his senses around it. After a few seconds, which only
seemed
interminable, the latch moved in Joram's hands. But before he could begin easing the gate open, wondering whether it would squeak, he caught Rhys's frantic hand signal out of the corner of his eye and flattened himself against the back of the altar.

Now he, too, could hear the
slap-slap
of sandal-clad feet moving up the nave. The man was alone, for which Joram thanked Providence, but if he continued on his present course he would soon be abreast of Rhys's hiding place. Silently, Joram willed the man to move into one of the first side chapels—he
had
to choose one of the first side chapels, or Rhys would be discovered.

He was never precisely certain, later, whether he or Rhys had any influence over the choice made by the hapless lay brother. But for whatever reason, the monk paused only briefly to bow before the nave altar, then moved noisily into the first chapel on the right, next to the one where Rhys was hiding. After several minutes, in which there was no further sound from the chapel in question, Joram eased his way to the left of the altar and peeped around the corner.

He could not see into the chapel where the monk must be—but that was good, because it meant that the monk could not see him, either. Rhys had crept silently to the wall common to the two chapels and was peering around the edge when Joram looked out. After a moment, he withdrew and glanced at Joram, giving a slight nod of his head. If the monk's suspicions should be aroused now, at least Rhys could silence him before he could give the alarm.

With a deep breath to steady his nerves, Joram moved back to the rood screen and turned the latch. No sound came from the metal as he eased the gate back far enough to enter. Thank God for the monks' industry; the hinges were well oiled and silent. They gained the relative shelter of the next side chapel without mishap, leaving the rood-screen gate closed but not latched as they passed into the domain of the cloistered monks.

A sound from the direction of the occupied chapel froze them in the shadows, and they watched unmoving as the monk shuffled before the nave altar to bow again. They had about decided that the man meant to pray there forever, when he bowed again and moved into a chapel on the other side of the nave. Grateful for that, at least, Joram and Rhys turned their attention to the tasks ahead. They dared not worry where the man might be when they had to come out again, or that next time there might be more than one.

They were within the cloister precincts now, and doubly damned should they be caught. Creeping past the great processional door—barred now—which led, by day, from cloister garth to church, they found their way blocked by yet another brass grillework. Joram had already dismissed it, and was moving on to try entrance through the choir, when Rhys laid his hand on the gate and felt it move under his hand. Sending the briefest and weakest of calls to Joram, he swung back the gate and slipped through. Joram, startled, doubled back and followed him through the gate to crouch silently at the foot of the night stairs. Rhys's shoulder pressed hard against his as they peered up the stairway into the darkness.

“Now?” Rhys mouthed silently.

For answer, Joram took a deep breath and nodded resolutely. Then they began making their cautious way up the stairs.

The door stood open at the top, and another, narrower stair continued upward from the landing beside the door. They listened for several minutes, but other than the sounds of sleep, they heard only the creak of the building itself as the snow settled on the leaded roof. Now they must find Cinhil and bring him safely out.

There was a single vigil light burning at the top of the stairs, but it cast only scant illumination down the long dormitory. Straining to see in the dimness, Rhys led Joram slowly past the first of the curtained sleeping cubicles, moving to the right of the chests and shelves ranged down the center of the room. Cinhil's cell was the fifth from the end—Rhys had marked it well on his last visit here—and as he paused in the curtained entryway, Joram pulled two spare white robes of the professed brothers from a stack just outside.

Stealthily they entered the cell, to stop with pounding hearts until Joram had conjured a tiny sphere of handfire. By its light, Rhys moved toward the head of the narrow pallet and leaned close enough to verify the sleeper's identity. Then they were pulling on the robes over their clothes, Joram nudging the handfire near while Rhys bent to gaze at their sleeping quarry's face. Gently, he sought to touch Cinhil's mind, hoping to ease the man from sleep to deep control without awakening him.

But the touch was not gentle enough, or Cinhil's sleep not so deep as they had thought. Cinhil's eyes popped open with a start; he was fully awake at once. And when he saw two figures bending over him, illuminated by the ghostly glow of Joram's handfire, his immediate and natural impulse was to panic.

Rhys had clamped his hand against the monk's mouth at the first sign of movement, so Cinhil could make no outcry; but now the monk was trying to twist from under his hand, legs kicking frantically underneath his thin blanket. Joram threw himself across Cinhil's body to hold him quiet, pinning arms and legs while Rhys tried to force control, but the Healer could not seem to get through. It was as though the shields which he had sensed before grew doubly strong under assault, to keep Rhys from even touching the mind behind those shields. Clearly, they would not take Cinhil this way. And if they did not subdue him in the next few seconds, his struggling would awaken his brethren all around him.

It was a time for drastic measures.

Without further waste of motion, Rhys clamped his free hand across the Prince's throat and applied carotid pressure, not relenting even when Cinhil's body arched a final time before going limp beneath his hands. There was resistance still, as Rhys extended his senses, Cinhil's shielding of memory and intellect remaining intact; but his center of consciousness, at least, was taken.

Securing control as he had on his previous visit, Rhys straightened carefully and allowed himself a scarce-breathed sigh of relief. Joram cast a nervous glance at the curtained doorway as he picked himself up.

There had been no sound outside, no indication that their scuffle with Cinhil had awakened the other monks. Nonetheless, they waited for several strained minutes to make certain. Finally, Rhys bent and pulled the unconscious Cinhil to his feet, got a shoulder under his arm. He watched anxiously as Joram let the light vanish and peered out the curtains. Miraculously, the dormitory still echoed only to the sounds of snoring men.

They slipped out the way they had come, Cinhil between them, keeping close to the shelves and chests until they reached the vigil light again. They had just stepped onto the landing when Joram froze in a listening attitude, then motioned urgently for Rhys to get their unconscious burden up the stairs toward the tower. As Rhys struggled to obey, he could hear the sounds of sandal-clad feet approaching the night stairs from below.

There must have been monks in the east end of the church all this time!

Not daring to breathe, they eased their way up the spiral staircase past the first bend, to huddle motionless as the feet ascended the night stairs. They heard no conversation, nor did they expect to, and at length the footsteps faded away into the dormitory. They waited for several minutes, in case the monks just returned had come to awaken replacements for some all-night vigil, but no further sound came from above or below the night stairs. Finally, they gathered the courage to bundle their senseless charge down the stairs and through the transept gate, to shrink breathlessly against the closed processional door and listen again for a long moment.

The next half-hour was later to be remembered only hazily by both of those conscious enough to recall it at all. They were able to make their way back through the rood screen without being detected, and actually gained the shelter of the last side chapel. But their plans were nearly foiled by the approach of another lay brother from the stairs at the west end of the nave.

Joram heard him long before he came into view, for the man coughed and wheezed asthmatically all the way down the stairs. But there was nowhere to hide. Quickly, they arranged the unconscious Cinhil on one of the
prie-dieus
, Rhys kneeling to support him while Joram hid in the shadows at the back corner.

But it was not sufficient to fool the old brother who came shuffling down the nave. One look at the pair kneeling in the side chapel was enough to convince him that something was amiss. After all, the two wore the white robes of professed monks, not the gray of the lay brethren. Not that there was anything wrong with the monks using the lay brothers' area of the church—especially in deep winter, when there was not likely to be an outsider on the premises. But the lay brother, being the friendly, talkative sort, was curious as to who the two monks might be, kneeling in what he had come to think of as
his
chapel.

And naturally, he had to ask them.

He had time only to gaze in astonishment at the fierce, redheaded stranger who looked up from beneath his cowled hood, and at Brother Benedictus, who appeared to be asleep. Then there was another brother standing behind him and taking him by the shoulders—a tall, golden man with piercing eyes which bored into his and made his head spin.

As he sank to his knees, oblivious to all around him, his memory of the entire encounter conveniently fled. He would awaken during Matins, when the rest of the brethren joined him in the great nave, joints stiff and aching from the hours he had spent kneeling in the cold church, unable to explain what urgent need he had felt to spend his night in prayer.…

By the time the abbey was rousing for the Great Office of the Night, Joram and Rhys were lowering their precious burden over the wall, wrapped once again in their white fur cloaks, their quarry bundled into a similar cloak and bound hand and foot to his horse for his long, unconscious ride.

The snow fell more heavily now, erasing all sign of their passage, and they rode with their backs to the storm, Cinhil's horse between them on a double lead. They would ride thus until tomorrow night, with stops only as necessary, until they reached the relative safety of Dhassa. There, if all went well, they would make their way to the Portal held by the Bishop of Dhassa. By now, it was probably the only Portal which was not barred to them, one way or another. They should be safe in Camber's haven by this time tomorrow night.

But for now, there remained only to ride, and to try to keep the cold a thing apart, that they might eventually reach Dhassa alive and uncaptured. If the hue and cry had been raised against them in the past three days since Cathan's burial, as it well might have, they would have to be doubly careful. Capture now would be certain disaster for their new and fragile cause.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage
.

—Jeremiah 12:7

As it happened, they were never in any real danger on the journey to Dhassa, for news travels slowly across winter-bound Gwynedd. But Rhys and Joram learned a great deal about their captive in the course of their ride.

The first few hours, and those most crucial to their escape, were accomplished under cover of darkness and the gradually slackening storm—that and the snow-filtered moonlight which slowly faded as gray dawn approached. The snow layered everything with a drifting powder which muffled sound and concealed their tracks; but it also concealed holes and buried branches—hazards to the horses, who stamped and shied at every snap of snow-laden bough. Their unconscious captive, bound hand and foot to his horse between his two abductors, had a less than gentle ride.