Camber of Culdi (31 page)

Camber nodded. “Cinhil, a human king with Deryni-like powers, would unite us, instead of letting us continue to tear ourselves apart with interracial bickering, and oppression by whichever race is currently in power.”

“And we thought we were talking about a simple coup,” Rhys finally said, when he had digested what Camber was suggesting. “I guess things are never as simple as they seem.”

“Never,” Camber agreed. “And wait until I tell you what Imre's done
now.”

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

But he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife
.

—Leviticus 21:14

But Imre's latest move, at least so far as Camber and Rhys knew, was not to have nearly the impact of his next and far less obviously menacing one. For Imre's men, four days after the destruction of the Michaeline Commanderie began, chanced to capture one Humphrey of Gallareaux, a Deryni priest of the Michaeline persuasion.

Taken captive at Saint Neot's, while claiming sanctuary with the Gabrilite Order there, Humphrey had been spirited away to Valoret under close guard, permitted no sleep and but little food on the grueling, three-day ride to the capital. Imre was informed of the prisoner's capture within half an hour of his arrival. It was but minutes before he had taken leave of his sister and friends and was striding into a lower room where the Deryni captive waited.

Coel and Santare were already there, Coel paring his nails with a jewelled dagger Imre had given him, while Santare conversed softly with the guard captain who had brought the prisoner in. The prisoner himself was nodding in a heavy wooden armchair, prodded to wakefulness from time to time by one of the two guards stationed to either side of him. He glanced up dully as Imre entered the room, seeming about to faint when the guards jerked him roughly to his feet.

Imre waved the others to their ease, then signalled the guards to release the prisoner's arms. The man swayed unsteadily under the king's sharp gaze.

Humphrey of Gallareaux was an unimposing man, of the indeterminate years which are so often attributed to those in religious life. By appearance alone, he would have alerted no one to the fact that he was anything but the simple country cleric his habit proclaimed him to be. (It was
not
the Michaeline habit, Imre noted disdainfully. The man had obviously been trying to pass as an itinerant friar.)

But the real clue to his otherness was in the way the eyes, even dulled with fatigue, gazed across at Imre with a calm serenity which came only with Deryni discipline. Imre reached mentally to Truth-Read the man, and was not surprised to find that he could not. With a grim smile, he gestured for the man to be seated, then nodded curt thanks as one of the guards brought a second chair for him to sit facing the prisoner.

“Dispensing with formalities, you are Humphrey of Gallareaux, a Deryni of the Michaeline Order, despite your habit,” Imre said, his eyes locking with Humphrey's in a no-nonsense stare. “I believe you know who I am.”

“The King's Grace is well informed.” The priest's voice was carefully neutral.

“Thank you. Do you know why you have been brought here?”

“I know only that Your Grace's soldiers broke sanctuary at Saint Neot's to take me from retreat,” Humphrey replied. “And that I have not been permitted to rest in the three days since my arrest. May I ask why?”

“You may not. Tell me, is it usual for a Michaeline to go into retreat in a Gabrilite establishment?”

“Not usual, no. However, the novice master at Saint Neot's was my spiritual director before I chose my own order. I had sought out his guidance.”

“I see.” Imre studied the priest's face for a long moment. “And I suppose you will next tell me that you did not know that your order has been outlawed, that the rest of your brethren have gone into hiding, that I have ordered the destruction of Michaeline establishments and the surrender of your vicar general?”

“I have been in retreat, Your Grace,” Humphrey replied softly. “I can only say that I am shocked to hear Your Grace's words.”

Imre flicked his glance down Humphrey's spare body, then back to the face, irritation beginning to touch the corners of his mouth.

“Are you aware that you will likely be executed as a traitor?”

Humphrey's face blanched and his hands tightened on the chair arms, but other than that he did not move. “I claim benefit of clergy,” he whispered.

“Coel?” The king swung to face the older man, who had been watching and listening in silence.

Coel sauntered to Imre's side with an easy grace, folding his arms across his chest. “Archbishop Anscom claimed benefit of clergy for the Michaelines when he first learned that they had been put to the horn. Unfortunately for him, and for any Michaelines who chance to fall into our nets, Archbishop Anscom does not know that Father Humphrey is our guest. Nor is he likely to find out.”

“How regrettable.” Imre smiled. “For Father Humphrey, that is. Of course, if he were to give us certain information which we seek, his release might be arranged …”

His eyes, slipping over Humphrey's face, hardened as he saw defiance written there. In a single, abrupt movement, he was standing at Humphrey's knee, leaning both hands on the chair arms to stare into the grim brown eyes.

“Don't be a fool, Humphrey,” he whispered. “I may lack the finesse of your Michaeline training, but I come from a long line of ruthless Deryni, who were not afraid to take what they wanted by brute force. I can break you if I must.”

“Then, do what you must, Sire,” Humphrey said in a low voice. “And I must resist you with all my might. I give you my word as holy bond that I am innocent of treason, but beyond that I may not go. My mind is mine own and God's, holding the secrets of many men, imparted to me in perfect trust. Not even my Lord King may command that of me, though it cost me my life.”

“The seal of the confessional,” Imre said with a sigh, straightening wearily to shake his head and lean back against the arm of his own chair. “How convenient. And how useless. Santare, ask the Healer to attend us. I want to be certain of his physical condition before I start tampering with his mind.”

Mind-tampering of a sort was the concern elsewhere, as well, only there it must be coercion rather than brute force; for the mind to be influenced was that of Prince Cinhill Haldane, who must be persuaded to take up his inheritance and become his people's champion.

Some outward progress had been made. The lean, elegant man who stood so defiantly before the fireplace this Christmas Eve bore little resemblance to the frightened monk whom Joram and Rhys had whisked from Saint Foillan's but a scant three weeks before. Clad in a winter robe of claret velvet, his high, Haldane cheekbones accentuated by the trim of the neat beard and mustache, the physical resemblance to his great-grandsire was uncanny. Even Cinhill, looking at his ancestor's portrait when he must, could not control a shiver of kinship whenever his eyes met the identical gray ones of his predecessor. He avoided this whenever possible, but the life-sized copy of the original portrait now hung above the fireplace, where he could scarcely miss it. Time and again he found his eyes drawn to it when he thought he should be meditating.

But if Cinhil looked a prince, he did not yet act it. Camber, with the aid of Rhys and Joram and even Evaine, had worked with Cinhil daily, trying to coax a yielding in the royal will, hinting at the power which might be bestowed, if he would only cooperate. The prince was polite but firm.

Today, the Eve of Christmas, was doubly difficult, since each of the five of them present in the room knew what the night must bring—and Cinhil was still having none of it. He had been telling them so for the past two hours.

Camber decided that it was time to change the direction of the discussion.

“Tell me, Your Highness, does your silence mean that you condone what the king is doing?” Camber asked, when Cinhil's arguments against matrimony had at least temporarily run down.

Cinhil looked at the older man sharply and started to make an indignant retort, then remembered who he was desperately trying to be and folded his hands piously instead.

“I am a man of God,” he said evenly. “I could never condone the deaths of innocent men.”

“No, but you could cause them,” Joram said. “By your non-action,” he added, when Cinhil opened his mouth as though to protest.

Cinhil turned back toward the fireplace, hands clasped stubbornly behind his back. “I cannot be concerned with the affairs of the world. You do not understand my mission.”

“No, it's
you
who don't understand,” Camber corrected. “Can't you get it through your head that you're involved already with the outside world, that a great number of people are going through a lot of pain and suffering, and some of them dying, because they believe in you and your cause?”

“My
cause?” Cinhil retorted. “Nay, 'tis
yours
. I never asked to be made king. I never wanted anything but to be left alone, to find my peace with myself.”

“And can you be at peace,” Evaine murmured, “when you know that you could make a great change in the world, that you could ease much suffering? And yet, you do nothing.”

“What would you know of such things?” Cinhil snapped. “Am I not a man? Am I not entitled to lead my own life as I see fit?”

Camber sighed impatiently. “If you were my son, speaking that irresponsibly, I'd thrash you within an inch of your life, even at your age!”

“You wouldn't dare!” Cinhil stated, a hard edge of command biting into his words.

Camber controlled the urge to smile a little as he noted the reply. “No, you're right, I wouldn't. And part of the reason is because you're starting to sound like a prince, despite your best efforts to the contrary. Do you think that Brother Benedict would have answered me the way you did just now?”

Cinhil dropped his gaze to the floor uncomfortably, the whir of his tangled emotions almost audible, then fumbled his way awkwardly to his chair and sat. He would not look at Camber, and he was keeping his hands folded in his lap only with a visible exertion of control.

“I—I'm sorry. Please forgive me.”

“Forgive you? For acting like a man for once? Certainly not. Don't you see, you
are
Prince Cinhil Haldane. That is where your destiny lies—not in the alias of your Brother Benedict. Think of that identity as a temporary refuge, which you used when it was needed, which kept you safe until it was time to answer your greater call.”

“But—”

“Princes are not like ordinary men, Cinhil. They have obligations—don't you understand?—to push back and defeat the destroyers. Your royal line had a knack for it in the old days. Your great-great-grandsire, father to that same Ifor Haldane whose portrait hangs on yonder wall, was known among his people as Saint Bearand, even during his lifetime. It wasn't all for being gentle and pious, either, though he was that. He pushed the Moorish invaders back into the sea and broke the back of their naval power once and for all. Their legions have never dared to cross the great wastes or to sail the Southern Seas again. That saintly man did all of this.”

Cinhil was silent for a long moment, but when he spoke his voice was edged with bitterness. “Saint Bearand. Very pretty. Of course, you're not asking me to do anything as spectacular as pushing back the Moors—no, only to forsake my priestly vows and depose a powerful Deryni king. And you'll have to admit that there's little, chance of an apostate priest ever being known as Saint Cinhil.”

“Is
that
your aim: sainthood?” Rhys asked quietly. “Most of us are not so proud as to think that we could ever attain that kind of perfection.”

Cinhil recoiled as though struck a physical blow, myriad emotions flashing across his face in rapid succession. Then he sagged in his chair, his hands fluttering uncertainly as he searched for the proper words.

“It—it isn't like that at all. How can I make you understand what it's like to be able to live a life totally committed to God? Father Joram might, if he weren't constantly playing devil's advocate, but …”

As he spoke, the door opened quietly behind him and Alister Cullen appeared in the doorway, pausing unseen to listen as the prince continued.

“It's as though you're shielded in a soft, golden light, floating about a handspan off the ground, and you're safe from anything that might try to harm you, because you know that He is there, all around you,” Cinhil said, wrapped up now in his own remembrance. “It's as though—you reach out with your mind and grasp a beam of sunlight, yet even as you grasp it, it's all around. You …”

As Cinhil spoke, his eyes took on a strange,
other
glow, and the air around him became gently suffused with light—a pale, ghostly flickering which was almost, but not quite, indiscernible in the firelight and wavering candle flames. Camber was the first to notice it, followed almost immediately by Rhys; and Camber shook his head slightly as Rhys started to make a reaction. While Cinhil rambled on dreamily, his words no longer important to Camber, the Deryni lord reached out with his own senses and poised on the brink, mentally ready to fling himself across the void to essay the opening he could sense was imminent.

Cullen must have made some indication of his presence at that instant, for Cinhil suddenly turned in his chair and saw the vicar general. He broke off his detached monologue in mid-syllable, before Camber could make the contact he had so desperately sought. As Cinhil scrambled to his feet to bow nervously to the vicar general, Camber let out a long sigh which was mentally echoed by Rhys. Joram and Evaine appeared unaware of the exchange, until Camber saw Evaine touch her brother's hand and nod.

“Father Cullen,” Cinhil murmured.

Cullen returned the bow, scowling somewhat. “Your Highness.” He flicked his gaze past Cinhil to Rhys. “Lady Megan is here, Rhys. I think you should see her before she's given any further information. Camber, we told her you'd sent for her. I think you ought to be the one to tell her why.”