Camber the Heretic (51 page)

“Oriel?” Rhys gasped. “He's helping the regents?”

Jaffray nodded. “Joram, you and Alister and Jebediah have been warning us for years that Deryni would turn against Deryni, and now it's happening. I didn't want to believe the rumors I'd been hearing, the little hints around Court, but now I've seen it with my own eyes. The regents have been soliciting collaborators. In Oriel's case, they have his wife and infant daughter to hostage. I have no reason to hope that this is an isolated case.”

“Sweet
Jesu
,” Joram whispered under his breath. “And Oriel just set it off, knowing it was there? He deliberately killed the man?”

“Not exactly. Tavis had found it initially and warned the regents what would happen. He did a superficial reading and gave the regents the names of those involved—they were all dead or captured anyway, except for one who got away—and then they brought in Oriel to check on Tavis. In all fairness to Oriel, he did it reluctantly.”

As Jaffray continued recounting the incident in detail, Camber took a deep breath and made his conscious mind block out what the archbishop was saying, laying a finger on the white cube in the upper left of the square before him and projecting its
nomen
.

Prime!

He had not spoken the word aloud, but immediately the cube lit from within, glowing with a cool white light.

Seconde!

The upper right cube gleamed like its companion.

Tierce!

So followed the cube below the first.

Quarte!

The last cube's activation made of the four of them a single, softly glowing square of cool white light, whiter than the slab on which they lay. A moment Camber paused to shift his perspective to the other side of Balance, from white to black, then touched the black cube next to Prime. Jaffray's voice was a meaningless buzz as Camber formed the first black's name:

Quinte!

The touched cube sparkled to life, a dark, blue-black glitter of darkest opal fire, as he moved on to the next.

Sixte!

The fire seemed to leap instantaneously from the first black cube to Camber's finger to the one so-named, and to follow as he touched the remaining black cubes in rapid succession.

Septime! Octave!

As the fires stabilized in the heart of the last cube, Camber drew a deep breath and let his conscious resume its attention to Jaffray's words, wincing a little as what he had blocked now came through in full force, filling in the gap of his brief psychic absence.

“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.