Camber the Heretic (45 page)

Revan gave a sour grin. “None that two Deryni can help me with, I fear—unless you're wanting to become the first two object lessons in our little scheme.” He glanced at Rhys. “Is it to be you, then, or have you managed to teach anyone else?”

“So far, no,” Rhys replied. “We still have hope, however. How soon do you think you'll have to start producing results? I'll make the sacrifice if there's no other way, but if you can hold off, I still hope to find you another Healer.”

With a low chuckle, Revan shook his head. “I think I can stall a bit longer. The Lord's ways are historically slow. Besides, I haven't yet told them what to expect, so I can really do just about anything. My notoriety is only now beginning to spread beyond the immediate area. And once the winter comes, things will slack off. It's going to be grim up here, once the snows start.”

“We'll try to stay in touch,” Rhys agreed. “You think you can hold off until spring, then?”

“I think so. What about you? Do you think you'll find somebody?”

Evaine sighed. “That is anybody's guess right now. But, we're losing precious time. Rhys, did you want to do a quick probe, just to make certain everything is still as it should be? We shouldn't keep our friend Joachim under for much longer.”

“Right. Will you watch him, please, and keep a probe out for strangers?”

As Evaine shifted her attention to the still slumbering Joachim, Rhys laid his hand on Revan's shoulder and gave a nod. For reply, Revan simply closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, instantly locking into a deep rapport with the Healer. The exchange took only seconds, as Rhys plunged deep and read detailed memories of the background Revan had thus far forged as prophet and sage, testing also the limits of the safeguards which he and Evaine had given Revan against casual probing by other Deryni. The camouflage held, undetectable unless one knew precisely where to look.

With another deep breath, Rhys emerged from trance, steadying Revan with his hand as the younger man followed a heartbeat behind. Evaine grinned at both of them, then held out her hand to reestablish the link.

“Someone is coming up the path—not our Deryni lady, though. Let's slip back into character, Brother Revan.”

With a nod, Revan bowed his head once more and half-closed his eyes, feeling the support of Rhys's and Evaine's hands to either side.

“The Lord of Hosts be praised, for He has given you the courage to leave the ways of darkness and seek a new life,” Revan murmured, glancing at the two of them, once more the slightly wild-eyed evangelist. “Joachim, you have done well to bring me these two lost children.” Joachim lifted his head with a slight start at the sound of his name. “The Holy Spirit has spoken in my heart and doth vouchsafe to give you peace, my children.”

“Then, we may be free of the Deryni taint, Master?” Evaine whispered, staring at him almost glassy-eyed. “We may receive your blessing?”

“Not my blessing, but the blessing of the Lord of Hosts,” Revan said, releasing their hands and lifting his to rest on both their heads. “Bow your heads and pray for His blessing and protection, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” came their whispered response, all humble peasant folk now, as Joachim looked on with awe.

“Go now, in peace, to love and serve the Lord,” Revan said gently, dropping his hands to pick up the tallow lamp before it should be overturned in their passage.

As he stared into the flame, not moving from where he sat, the two of them got up, followed by Joachim, and stumbled out of the cave. Others were waiting outside, but Joachim bade them sit and wait, explaining that the master was tired now, but would come to them shortly. As he moved among them, himself seemingly transformed by the apparent sanctity of the man he had just left, Rhys and Evaine made their quiet way down the path and out of the Willimite encampment. They met no more Deryni.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous
.

—Nahum 3:19

Rhys's and Evaine's visit to Revan was not entirely reassuring, despite its apparent success. True, Revan had met the challenge of surviving alone in the dangerous and even deadly company of the Deryni-hating Willimites, but they could not put aside a vague sense of disquiet at how easily Revan seemed to be assimilating his developing role as savior and seer. Revan had not yet realized the full potential of the power he might someday direct but, when he did, would he be able to resist the seductive lure which such power presented? For that matter, would any of them be able to control what they were creating? Though it seemed advisable for a religious movement to arise from their efforts, if Deryni were to be spared as a result, suppose it got out of hand, as “Saint” Camber had?

Rhys and Evaine reported both their reassurance and their uneasiness to the Council. Jaffray and Davin continued to relay their observations from among the regents and royals at Rhemuth, and the summer dragged on with little expectation of any marked change for the better.

Developments on the Michaeline front did little to ease the sense of impending doom which increasingly permeated their thinking. By mid-September, Jebediah could no longer delay telling his fellow Council members the long-unwanted news: Crevan Allyn was dispersing the Order. Already, most of the brethren had been secretly relocated to places of greater safety. The coming Michaelmas would likely be the last ever at Argoed, their commanderie of the past thirteen years.

The decision had been made a few weeks earlier. With the August redeployment of the Gwynedd army to Rhemuth and Valoret, and scattered regiments constantly on the move elsewhere, it had become clear to the most naive lay brother that the regents were gearing their military strength toward the capability to command all of Gwynedd on very short notice. Castles and garrisons were being invested all over the kingdom, and new keeps thrown up almost overnight. There could be no benign reason for such a state of readiness, when no enemy hounded at Gwynedd's borders, and the regents had made their feelings about the Deryni-dominated Knights of Saint Michael quite clear when they had purged them from the army the previous spring.

And so, at the beginning of September, Crevan Allyn had begun his final departure from Gwynedd. Most of the nonfighting brethren had already been shifted out of the kingdom but now the rest of his knights went, too, the majority of them retreating to Djellarda, at the southern tip of the Forcinn. One of the petty Forcinn princes feared Moorish invasion, for which there was ample historical precedent, and had promised refuge, additional land, and employment if the Knights of Saint Michael would relocate on his border. In a way, it was a homecoming, for the Michaeline Order had had its beginnings there on the edge of the great desert called the Anvil of the Lord. After the Michaelines had been welcomed into Gwynedd, the little commanderie at Djellarda had been relegated to a minor outland holding of the Order, as the headquarters were moved to Cheltham at the invitation of King Bearand and his successors. Soon Djellarda would be restored to its former status.

Now only a handful of Michaelines remained in Gwynedd, no more than a score besides the three of the Council, spread mostly between Argoed and Cùilteine to suggest at least that the Order still functioned under the Haldane regency. Haut Eirial and Mollingford, never restored to their full strength and size after Imre's suppression, had been given over to their local bishops in late summer; and the bishops, never ones to disdain gifts of land and buildings, had promptly installed new communities of monks on the abandoned premises. The regents' officials did not notice that the habits of the occupants had changed, only that bodies still came and went. As Michaelmas approached, the Michaelines were little missed.

The Michaelines were not the only group about whom the regents had made their feelings quite clear, as the summer wore on into fall. Especially in the towns, Deryni continued to bear the brunt of regency harassment in increasingly blatant ways. Deryni nobles were not deprived of their holdings or titles—yet—but new offices and preferments invariably went to non-Deryni. When a Deryni official died in office, or his term expired, he was replaced by a non-Deryni. Deryni artisans and merchants, formerly under royal patronage, found their services no longer required. By early September, there were virtually no Deryni in positions of responsibility in Rhemuth except Archbishop Jaffray and Tavis O'Neill.

The phenomenon of Tavis gave the regents pause to consider. Tavis himself could be pushed only so far, but other Deryni might be more pliable, and more useful, if there were adequate controls to keep them in line. Healers, in particular, could be very valuable, so long as one had ample guarantee of good behavior.

Not all of the regents were in favor of pursuing this line of reasoning initially. Rhun and Ewan, in particular, simply fed one another's anxieties, where the subject of Deryni conspiracies was concerned. But when they considered further, all of them had to admit that if one wished eventually to be rid of Deryni once and for all, it would behoove one to be able to tell for certain whether a given captive were Deryni or not. Of course, there were drugs which would detect such things, but those would only incapacitate or kill a Deryni, not render him vulnerable to use himself. It took a Deryni to discover a Deryni, to force a Deryni—unless, of course, the methods of force used were not against the Deryni's particular strength at all, but against more universal considerations.

Accordingly, toward the beginning of September, it was decided to begin a trial program of limited Deryni “recruitment.” Rhun was given the assignment, for it was felt that he would test it most efficiently, being generally suspicious. And so, on a single night in mid-September, he and his captains surreptitiously swept through a score of different hamlets and towns and took to hostage several dozen known Deryni and their families, the women and children to be held against the good conduct of their menfolk. The swoops were repeated for several nights running, until more than fifty new “agents” had been taken. All of the captives were held incommunicado for several days, the men separated from their families and all of them dosed heavily with Deryni-specific drugs so that none might use their powers to attempt escape. They were then offered the terms of the regents' service.

Within a week, nearly every regiment or other military group of any size had a “Deryni sniffer” attached to its command staff, with orders for immediate execution of the Deryni and all his family, no questions asked, if any harm befell the commander. After several recalcitrants, suitably bound and drugged to helplessness, were forced to witness the execution of their families, including children and small infants, before themselves being tortured and killed, the word spread quickly among the remaining captives, and Deryni began to collaborate. The promise of reward, and a kind of tolerance, even induced some Deryni to offer their services on their own initiative, as Hubert had suspected they would.

The very existence of the collaborators was not widely known, especially outside the towns and villages, but it was well enough known to begin driving zealous men to desperate deeds. Perhaps it accounted, in part, for what finally happened on the eve of Michaelmas, near Rhemuth, touching once more on the royal family itself.

The day was sunny and fair, though the nip of fall had been in the air early that morning. All three princes had planned a day of riding and hawking, but that morning a court had been scheduled in Rhemuth town which required Alroy's personal attendance, so he was not permitted to go.

Hence, they were nine as they rode out that morning: Javan and Rhys Michael; a squire apiece, to see to their lunch and carry the game the party hoped to snare; four guards, including Davin; and a pleased Tavis O'Neill, bearing a gentle merlin on his leather-clad forearm, delighted to find that this was one sport which was not denied him by his loss. Javan, though entitled by his rank to a much more flashy bird, had chosen a favorite kestrel for the day, because she had been his first really well-trained falcon. Rhys Michael did not like birds—they made him sneeze—so he had merely come along for the ride and the opportunity to be out. He and “Eidiard” had struck up quite a good friendship, and the prince, whose passion was horses, had been pestering Eidiard for the past month to begin teaching him some of the advanced horsemanship which Eidiard made look so easy.

They rode throughout the morning, Rhys Michael amusing himself with periodic races with the guards and squires while Javan and Tavis flew their hawks with fair success. By midday, all of them had worked up appetites befitting the enormous amount of food the squires had brought along; so, after some discussion, a suitable site by a stream was selected and the squires set about laying a noon repast. While the guards unsaddled the horses and set them to graze and water a little downstream, Corund jessing their birds to a convenient tree limb, Javan excused himself and disappeared into the trees and brush up the hill. When he returned, a few minutes later, his young face wore a thoughtful expression. Quickly he found Tavis and drew him aside, watching only distractedly as Tavis unlaced the leather hawking vambrace from his left arm.

“Tavis, would you come with me, please?”

His voice was low, pitched so that the others could not overhear, and something in his tone made Tavis take notice even more than he usually would have.

“What is it, my prince?”

“Come with me. You'll see,” the boy insisted, catching Tavis's sleeve and drawing him up the hill, the way he had come.

They climbed only a short way, picking a path through underbrush and several levels of shrouding trees until they came out into a wide, grassy clearing.

“Look you. There's a fire ring, and a little cairn of stones, over there. Do you suppose the little folk use this place?”