King Javan’s Year (56 page)

“I would rather die,” Faelan whispered, his words almost inaudible.

“What was that, Father?”

“I said I would rather die than go back!” Faelan repeated, his head jerking up with a start, the dark eyes wild and frightened. “I will never submit to that again. Never! I would rather—”

“I did not ask what you would rather do,” Paulin said coldly. “I ordered you to—”

“You order no one in my hall, my lord!” Javan said, finally having heard enough. “Father Faelan has made it clear that he does not wish to return to
Arx Fidei
. The subject, therefore, is closed.”

“If he does not go back, then he places himself outside the protection of the Order,” Paulin said. “Furthermore, such willful disobedience by a priest toward his superior is grounds for immediate suspension. If he defies the suspension, excommunication will follow. Is it worth it, Father?” he said, rounding on the quaking Faelan, who had collapsed onto his haunches, face buried in his hands. “Is your loyalty to a secular king who has forsaken his own holy vows and would lure you from your own, or to the Order to which you willingly gave the care of your immortal soul?”

“That's enough!” Javan said, coming to his feet to interpose himself between Paulin and the trembling Faelan, one hand upflung to warn Albertus against intervening. “It becomes increasingly clear that your real quarrel isn't with Faelan; it's with me. Believe me when I tell you that Father Faelan had no part in my decision to leave your Order. He was and is a good priest, but you have driven him to this. Most reluctantly, he finally told me what was done to him before you let him come to Court. I find it appalling that you would sacrifice so good a man merely to get at me.”

Paulin drew himself to his full height and looked down his long nose at Javan, Albertus sidling closer, one hand on the hilt of his sword—and Charlan and Robear fingering theirs—then exhaled on a long sigh.

“I see that the situation is even more serious than I imagined,” he said quietly. “Rot, quite obviously, is at the very root of this Court.” He turned a disdainful gaze on Faelan, still cowering at his feet.

“I offer you one remaining chance to save your immortal soul, Father,” he said. “Submit to the authority you swore to uphold when you made your holy vows to the
Ordo Custodum Fidei
. Come away with me now and let Brother Albertus take you back to
Arx Fidei
for spiritual counseling. From this moment, because I greatly fear for your spiritual health, I relieve you of your priestly duties, until such time as your superiors may judge you fit to resume sacerdotal function.”

Faelan's body recoiled as if struck a physical blow, but he did not raise his head.

“If you refuse this most generous offer,” Paulin went on, his voice drawing out the phrase in dreadful anticipation, “I shall take immediate steps to excommunicate you.” He turned on Javan. “And if, in defiance of suspension and excommunication, Father Faelan attempts to exercise any part of his priestly office, I shall ask the archbishop to place the entire Court of Gwynedd under interdict. He will do this and impute the blame to you, since you personally would be responsible for allowing Faelan to defy the bans of suspension and excommunication in your Court, he having been your confessor.”

“I will appeal to the archbishop myself, Vicar General,” Javan said coldly. “There will be no interdict.”

“No
Custodes
priest will serve you, until you make your peace with the Order,” Paulin warned.

“There are other priests, other Orders,” Javan said. “I will temporarily seek another confessor from among them.”

“You are free to seek, but you will not find.”

“Be that as it may,” Javan said, though he felt less certain than he hoped he sounded. “I take Father Faelan under my personal protection. He has transgressed no civil law. If you believe he has defied canon law, I require that you present concrete evidence as to his error. Other than declining to return to a place where grievous hurt was done to him without cause, I find no fault with him. Nor would any honest man.”

“That is not for you to judge,” Paulin said. He planted his hands behind his back and glared down at Faelan. “Be aware, Father, that your own willfulness has brought your fate upon you. At the setting of the sun, you will be declared excommunicate, with all the opprobrium that can be focused upon so pitiful a sinner as yourself, but it is you who have already separated yourself from God and His Church. When you eventually come to your senses and repent of your errors, Mother Church will joyfully receive you to her bosom, but until that time, you have consigned yourself to outer darkness. I also remind you that, should you die without having sought reconciliation, you approach the throne of heaven already damned.” He made Javan a curt nod. “Sire.”

With that, he turned on his heel and stalked from the room, Albertus at his heels. Robear looked ready to charge out after him—and did—and Charlan was glaring murder in his eyes, but Javan's concern was only for Faelan.

“Father, I'm sorry,” he murmured, sinking to his knees beside the huddled priest, slipping an arm around his shoulders. “Don't worry. I'll protect you. I shouldn't have asked you to come here. I should have realized that Paulin would know how to cut you to the quick without even drawing steel.”

He was appalled to find that Faelan was weeping silent, choking tears, his head weaving back and forth in anguished denial.

“It isn't your fault, Sire,” he managed to choke out. “I have failed in my vocation. I should have held my tongue when I first came to you and simply served you as best I could. I should have borne my burden silently. And yet—”

“And yet?” Javan whispered.

Faelan sniffled miserably and raised his chin, but he could not bear to look Javan in the eyes. “And yet, it did give me joy to offer up the Mysteries in your behalf, Sire. At the abbey, when first we met, I cared for you as I cared for any of my brethren, but as your tutor, I also came to treasure the intellect you brought before me to be trained. I never had a finer or more eager student.”

The raw emotion pouring from Faelan almost overwhelmed Javan, and he had to blink back tears.

“That should have been enough for me—I know that now,” Faelan went on haltingly. “Perhaps it
was
pride that led me to answer the summons when you became my king and sent for me. I should have realized, when they put me to the question—” He shook his head.

“But I have failed you. As your confessor, it should be my role to help you in your work. Instead, I have become an occasion of contention between you and the Order to which I had offered up my heart and soul. That they should turn against you, and ask me to do so as well—” He shook his head. “I—do not know if I can bear this, Sire. To lose my priesthood and to be excommunicated, barred from all solace of the Sacraments—”

“Keep heart, my friend,” Javan murmured, himself sick at heart. “You have a refuge here for as long as you need it, and you are still a priest forever, regardless of what Paulin may say. While, as king, I cannot allow you public exercise of your office until this is resolved, you are free to celebrate in private, within your own quarters. If it causes you no distress, I would also be pleased if you would continue to celebrate Mass privately for me there, with selected members of my personal staff.”

“And risk interdict, Sire?”

“Someone would have to find out first, wouldn't they?” Javan retorted with a grim little smile. “But come. I don't
need
to hear Mass until Sunday. Maybe this will be resolved by then. Meanwhile, why don't you go back to your quarters and lie down? Sleep would do you good.”

“I couldn't sleep,” Faelan said miserably as Javan helped him to his feet. “I will never find peace until this shadow is lifted from me—and Father Paulin will never relent.”

“I agree that the shadow needs to be lifted,” Javan said, reaching out with his senses, “but I think you'll find that you can sleep.” He touched controls at the edge of Faelan's mind and sent a wave of drowsiness rolling briefly over his consciousness, bracing his arm around Faelan's shoulder as the priest swayed on his feet.

“Shall I help you sleep, Faelan? Just briefly, you can remember all that you have been to me besides my confessor. Will you let me help you in this?”

He saw in Faelan's eyes when the memory surfaced, in a blink and a brief unfocusing of the dark gaze. Then those eyes were turning to him again in fearfulness but also in trust and in full knowledge of what Javan was and what he could do, Faelan's taut shoulders relaxing against his arm.

“Aye, my liege,” he whispered. “Sleep would be a mercy. I place myself in your hands.”

“Good man,” Javan murmured, setting his free hand across Faelan's eyes as they closed. “Deep sleep. And remember none of this.”

A moment only it took to set the controls. Then he was giving the priest into Charlan's hands to walk him back to his quarters. He went with them as far as the door. Outside, the fuming Robear had been watching Paulin and Albertus retreat down the great hall, the two of them pausing occasionally to speak to other black-clad
Custodes
before disappearing through the doors at the far end. Robear turned as Javan emerged, casting a look of query after Charlan as the younger knight led Faelan away by another route.

“Is he all right?” Robear murmured.

“He will be, after he's slept a bit.”

Robear shook his head, folding his arms across his chest. “Paulin was rough on the priest. What did he
do
to him, before they let him come to you?”

“Assorted tortures, in the name of religion,” Javan said briefly. “You don't want to know details.”

“Probably not. Will Paulin really excommunicate him?”

“I expect so. Would you place me an observer or two and see if he does?”

Robear nodded. “I'll see to it. He said sunset. You'll be in your quarters, when I have something to report?”

“Aye.”

Without further word, Robear sketched him a salute and headed off down the great hall. Javan, after watching him for a few seconds, went off in the direction Charlan had gone with Faelan.

An hour after sunset, Archbishop Hubert joined Paulin of Ramos in the sacristy of Rhemuth Cathedral, as the latter was taking off the vestments he had worn to pronounce Father Faelan's excommunication. It was Paulin who had presided over the ceremony, but Hubert and Archbishop Oriss had been in prominent attendance, as were several dozen
Custodes
brethren and most of the cathedral chapter. Albertus and one of his knights stood guard outside the sacristy door, for Paulin had not been at all certain the king would permit the excommunication to take place.

“My Lord Archbishop,” Paulin said formally as Hubert came into the sacristy. Father Lior was just lifting a black cope from his shoulders from behind. “Thank you for attending. The presence of yourself and Archbishop Oriss ensures that the excommunication will be heeded. I confess myself still somewhat amazed that the king permitted it to proceed.”

He was left wearing a very plain alb over his black
Custodes
habit, with black stole and cincture stark against the snowy white. Hubert likewise was funereally clad in a plain priest's cassock rather than his customary purple, relieved only by his ring and pectoral cross. The expanse of black made the archbishop look less ample than usual, but only just, as he gave Paulin an indolent shrug.

“Despite his defiance of canon law in this particular instance, the king understands it well enough,” Hubert said as Paulin pulled off his stole and handed it to Lior. “Faelan, by his own actions, had already excommunicated himself. It would have served no purpose to stop the formal declaration of that excommunication. Besides that, I do not believe the king wishes to force any public confrontation with your Order at this time. He has enemies enough at Court. Open warfare with so powerful a faction is hardly in his best interests.”

“Perhaps not, but he
has
declared war on us,” Paulin replied. “He certainly has declared war on me.”

He had been pulling off the black cincture cord from around his waist, and now looped it around both his hands and tugged it taut, as if he wished it were around a royal neck. “The insolence—”

“He is yet young,” Hubert murmured, calmly taking the cincture from Paulin and starting to coil it up. “I will try to reason with him. There are those of us he
cannot
eliminate from the circles of power, and he must be made to realize that it is in everyone's best interests to reach an accommodation. This business of Father Faelan is not in anyone's best interests, as it will further polarize the Court—especially if the disciplines imposed on Faelan should become general knowledge.”

“Laymen don't understand the nuances of monastic discipline,” Paulin muttered from inside his alb, which he and Lior were endeavoring to pull off over his head.

“That's true,” Hubert agreed. “In particular, they wouldn't understand about minution, especially as it was applied to Father Faelan—and to the king. Of course, Javan was only the heir presumptive then.”

Stony-faced, Paulin emerged from under the folds of white linen and pushed the garment roughly into Lior's hands. “Thank you, Father, you may leave us.”

Smooth as silk, Lior bowed and laid the alb across a chair back, then quietly withdrew. When he had gone, Paulin turned away from the archbishop and began putting on the wide crimson sash that marked him as Vicar General.

“Mind you, I'm not criticizing your methods,” Hubert said with a droll grimace, moving in to help Paulin wrap the sash around his waist. “I'm certain minution made the desired impression on Father Faelan at the time, just as I'm certain the king will never forget his experience of same. You must admit, however, that by lay standards, Faelan's interrogation before he came to Court could be viewed as excessive. It could reflect badly on the Order, if he were to make his experience generally known.”