CHAPTER NINETEEN
For thou seest that our sanctuary is laid waste, our altar broken down, our temple destroyed.
Joram took Queron’s Mass the next morning. Queron slept until ccmidaftemoon and lay on his pallet thereafter, thinking, until Evaine came with a tray of supper, an uncomfortable-looking Joram accompanying her.
“Ah, you’re awake,” Evaine said brightly. “I’ve brought you something to eat. How do you feel?”
Queron smiled and swung his legs off the bed, taking the tray on his lap. “Hungry. How should I feel, after you’ve let me sleep all day?” He chose to ignore the look the two exchanged as he bit into a slab of bread spread thick with butter and honey. “I do hope someone showed up to celebrate Mass this morning,” he went on, around the bite of sweetness. “It’s one of my few contributions to this little flock, in addition to rather niggling Healer’s duty when one of the children has a scuffed knee or a stomachache. You should let me do more.”
“You’ve already done a lot,” Joram said quietly. His eyes had a faintly haunted look. “We haven’t the right to ask more of you.”
“But you have asked,” Queron replied. “And I’ve thought it over and I accept.”
Evaine glanced at her hands, suddenly shy to look him in the eyes. “Searching out the records we need is only the beginning, Queron. If we find what we’re looking for, the magical working required almost certainly will be unlike anything any of us has ever done before. Nor will it be without its dangers, perhaps to our very souls as well as our lives. You should know what you’re getting into.”
Queron started to speak, then paused to pass both hands in a ritual gesture somewhat hampered by the piece of bread in his hand. The impediment did not affect the Wards that rose up around the room in a shimmer of silvery light.
“I wonder, do either of you know what you’re getting into, where that’s concerned?” Queron said, after another bite of honeyed bread. “Oh, you know you must try to reverse a spell that you think Camber worked successfully—and I’d like another look at him, now that I’ve somewhat recovered from my initial shock—but neither of you knows any more than I do about what may actually be involved. You’re not even sure how the spell was set, never mind how it needs to be reversed.”
“I’ve seen the result of a failed setting at rather close range,” Joram said quietly, “back when this whole thing began. Ariella tried it, after the real Alister pinned her to a tree with a spell and his sword. Either she died before she could complete it or she did it wrong. Father did neither.”
“I believe you may be right,” Queron answered softly.
“I was also with him when Rhys was dying,” Joram went on, almost daring Queron to deny it. “He was confident enough that he could work the spell that he thought about using it to try to save Rhys until a Healer could get there to do a proper job. He decided that the decision was one he couldn’t make for another soul—which means, one must conclude, that he felt there was danger that went beyond the mere finitude of existence in a physical body. From that and from the research Evaine and I have done, I think we realize the kind of power we’re dealing with. Gabrilite training isn’t everything, you know.”
“No one ever said it was, son.”
For a few minutes, Queron only continued eating, finally pouring himself a cup of ale from the pottery pitcher on the tray and gulping it down.
“I think you’ll agree that Gabrilite training does offer some unique features, however,” he went on, as if the break had not occurred. “In general terms, you’re surely aware of some of the things it implies. I’ll bend my vows by telling you that it also implies connection with an ancient mystery school whose very existence I’m not supposed to reveal. It’s entirely possible that knowledge coming from that source might apply to what we need to do—in which case, I’d have to consider very carefully what I dare share with you. I am still bound by some oaths no less strong than those I gave you in the keeill a few weeks ago.”
Evaine breathed out softly, still not looking up at him. “We’re aware of the existence of other traditions alongside the Gabrilite,” she said. “You studied with Dom Emrys, didn’t you? He once told Father that he’d had his original training in a tradition that was neither Gabrilite nor Michaeline. It was even pre-Varnarite, wasn’t it? We’ll be looking at some Varnarite texts, with any luck.”
As she looked up at him at last, her blue eyes were glowing like sapphires. Joram’s face was closed and shuttered, the grey eyes like granite, but no threat could be read from either of them.
“I think,” Queron said, setting aside his tray, “that we never quite finished some business in the keeill, back when I gave you my oath. I don’t think we need go back there for this, do you?” he went on, holding out a hand to each of them. “If I’m to help you, I need to know everything you kept back because it was tied in with your secret about Camber. I can handle it here, if you can, but we need to get this resolved, I think.”
Wordlessly, Evaine and then Joram sat down on either side of him, joining hands with him and then with each other across his knees. In a harmony jagged at first, with Queron unused to their three-way linkage, they settled into deep rapport.
This time, there was no holding back save in the areas of Queron’s esoteric oaths of secrecy and his and Joram’s priestly offices. This Evaine and Joram simply knew, with a certainty that echoed the closest bonds any of them had ever had with other Deryni. All knowledge pertinent to the situation was shared, including a full briefing to Queron of all the material they had assembled thus far and what Evaine felt they needed next. Whatever misgivings any of them might have had about one another previously were dispelled by the time they dismantled the rapport.
“I shouldn’t think we ought to waste any time, though,” Queron said, plucking a piece of cheese from the discarded tray and taking a bite. “The Varnarite library is sure to be an early target for the Custodes Fidei, if Bishop Edward’s minions haven’t already gotten to it.”
“You don’t think they’ll burn the library, do you?” Evaine asked, horrified.
“Oh, very likely. Parts of it, at least.” Queron poured himself another cup of ale to wash down his cheese. “That would be a particular pity, since Grecotha had a copy of the Liber Ricae, the last time I looked. We should go tonight.”
“Tonight?” Joram had said it, but both he and Evaine looked surprised.
“But don’t you need to rest?” Evaine asked. “We put you through a lot last night.”
“Very true,” Queron replied, draining off his ale. “Gabrilites have wonderful resiliance, though. When this is all resolved, and we have more time, I’ll teach you both some of our techniques. Go get changed now, both of you, while I finish eating. Michaeline blue is not conducive to sneaking into establishments run by paranoid bishops these days, Joram. And Evaine—you can’t go climbing around ruins comfortably in skirts. Borrow someone’s boots and breeches.”
An hour later, all of them suitably garbed and fed and armed with implements for shifting earth, their excuses made to Niallan, who must take charge in their absence, the three of them stood outside the door to the sanctuary’s Transfer Portal. Though they had not consulted among themselves, all had chosen clothing in shades of grey and black, stone- and shadow-colored. Joram wore a close-fitting leather cap with his ears exposed and handed one to each of his companions.
“Besides providing camouflage for the two of us with yellow beacons for hair, the caps give some protection where headroom is close,” he said, as Evaine coiled the braided tail of her hair inside hers and pulled it on. “At least Evaine won’t concuss herself, with all that padding,” he added with a grin, as she felt the soft cushion on top of her head.
Queron smiled and put on his cap as well. “One would think you’d done this kind of clandestine foraging before,” he said. “One of the advantages of Michaeline training, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” Evaine said, before Joram could reply. “Who’s going through first?”
Joram ended up going through first with Queron, since he had been there before, then returned to bring Evaine. Queron’s silvery handfire met Evaine and Joram as they stepped from the plastered Portal chamber into a timbered corridor strewn with rubble. Both Evaine and Queron had seen the place through Joram’s memory, but it was different, seeing it in person. Different individuals noted different things. Evaine was struck by the dank, stagnant air, overlaid with a faint, sweetish odor she had smelled before.
“Dry rot?” she whispered, brushing fingertips across a crumbling wall panel.
“And wet rot, rising damp, woodworm, deathwatch beetles—you name it,” Joram replied, pulling on gloves. “God, it’s worse than I remembered!”
“Well, you were here in the autumn before,” Queron murmured, his boots making crunching sounds as he ground rubble against the tessellated tiles. “I’d expect winter to be wetter. To the left, I believe?”
Joram nodded, steadying himself with a hand against the wall as he stepped across the debris to join Queron. “As good a direction as any other. You probably ought to see the parts I saw, before we get too far afield. There’re some interesting frescoes on these walls ahead. Watch your heads.”
The frescoes to which Joram referred had long since ceased to have any artistic merit. If Evaine squinted her eyes just right, she could imagine she saw the scenes of monastic and academic life Joram had noted on his first visit, but that was stretching credibility to its limits. What lay ahead interested her far more, in any case—just around a sharp bend to the right.
The vast doorway once had supported heavy double doors of oak bound with iron. One of the doors had fallen since Joram’s last visit, its upper hinge finally rusted through; the lower had been ripped from the wood by whatever catastrophe had brought the place to ruin. Joram did not attempt to push the remaining door ajar, but scrambled up the gentle incline of the fallen one and held out a hand to Evaine when he had jumped down to the littered floor level on the other side of the door sill.
“Adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum, et confitebor nomini tuo,” Queron recited behind them, reading from an inscription carved on the lintel beam high above his head. “I will worship toward Thy holy temple, and will give glory to Thy Name.” He chuckled softly. “Well, that’s apt.”
“Yes, but for what?” Joram murmured, as Queron joined him and Evaine. “Father and I were never able to figure it out.”
“Oh, it’s apt for the folk who built this place,” Queron replied, gesturing forward. “Shall we?”
The great domed chamber they had just entered was vast, sucking up the feeble light of their handfires even when they each conjured a second sphere. It bore a superficial resemblance to the keeill underneath the Camberian Council chamber, but it was much larger. A circular dais of seven steps supported a black and white cube altar very like the one in the keeill, but the top level of the dais was inlaid with black and white tiles set in a checkerboard design that echoed the motif of the altar sides. The pavement was badly damaged, as was the top of the altar, perhaps by the impact of something heavy and substantial that had fallen from a length of broken chain dependent from a central boss high above. The chain ended in nothingness well short of the cracked altar top, which once had been a polished expanse of white marble. Above and all around, the ribs and arches of the chamber’s domed ceiling disappeared into a gloom that was little dissipated by handfire, even when they sent several additional spheres aloft. Shattered glass and masonry littered the steps around the altar, though the dais itself had been swept mostly clear.
“Father and I did that,” Joram whispered, indicating the space.
As Queron glided closer to inspect some of the glass shards, crouching beside the bottom step, Evaine began moving around the room’s perimeter.
At least in the evocations depicted on the chamber’s walls, the place had been an elemental shrine, Evaine soon realized. As she moved from quarter to quarter, making the complete circuit of the chamber, the cool greens of a shaded forest glade gave way to a dark, brooding sky filled with scudding storm clouds, to the fire of summer lightning, and then the cool, tranquil beauty of a lake shore nestled among craggy mountain peaks. The familiarity was somehow comforting, though the chamber itself was not.
Evaine glanced at Joram, standing near the door and watching their reactions, arms folded across his chest. Queron had ascended the dais steps and was standing at the altar, his hands spread flat on its surface, eyes closed. As she mounted the steps to join him, Queron looked up, still in the trance of his deep reading, a trace of an odd little smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
“I see what Joram means about the altar still being a power source, after all these years,” he murmured, inviting her to feel it for herself.
Without comment, she moved in beside him, setting her hands flat on a part of the altar that had been exposed when the top was smashed, one hand on a black surface and the other on white. Closing her eyes, she felt the upsurge of power almost at once, strong eddies of pure energy that spiralled upward like a gentle tide, washing at the edges of her mind with a force that held just a hint of menace behind the raw potential.
She blinked as she withdrew, unconsciously wiping her palms against the sides of her tunic as she glanced at Queron uneasily.
“Do you have any idea who used this altar?” she murmured. “And more important, for what?”
Queron shook his head. “I could hazard a few educated guesses, but I’d prefer to wait until I’ve had a chance to digest all of this,” he said. “Meanwhile, I seem to recall a library that wants finding. We’d best not spend too much time here.”
“Come this way, then,” Joram said, gesturing back the way they had come. “There’s supposed to be a branch off the main corridor, not far from here. We’ll start there.”
They spent the remainder of the night picking their way through a series of partially collapsed passageways that got worse the farther they went. Toward the end, they had to stop and dig through where a portion of roof had fallen in.
“Father did this,” Joram told them in hushed tones, as they shifted the rubble, stone by stone. “A branch of this passageway, farther along, was one of the ones that still led close to the surface. He didn’t want anyone wandering down here who shouldn’t be. We’ll have several places like this, if I’ve interpreted the plans correctly.”
That night’s work brought them little closer to their goal, however. The next night was hardly more fruitful. The third night saw them gain hesitant access to an area immediately underneath one end of the bishop’s residence, however, skirting a cellar complex that once had held a fine collection of wine amassed by Camber-Alister and his predecessors as Bishops of Grecotha. Only Evaine’s curiosity, as she investigated a supposedly blocked up squint in a wall, averted what might have been a fatal mishap. She had to stretch to peer through the narrow spy hole, and nearly gasped aloud at what she saw.
What is it? Queron asked, his question blasting into her mind.
She eased back to let him look, still seeing the scene before her in memory: the dim, close confines of the hall beyond, lit by smoky cressets along the walls, its floor virtually lined with the sleeping forms of dozens of soldiers of the bishop’s garrison. And this late at night, the slightest sound made in the hidden corridor that passed so close might be heard and remarked by the men sleeping there.
They beat a quiet but hasty retreat after that, and shifted their operations to the daylight hours in the future, when inadvertant sounds would not carry such potential danger. Since little natural light penetrated to the depths where they moved, the change of time made little difference on that account; they still used handfire, rather than torches, to eliminate the risk of smoke giving away their presence. A difference it did make was the opportunity it gave them to spy upon actual activities instead of sleeping men. On the fifth day, they even gained access to a narrow lancet window that looked out onto the main courtyard of the bishop’s manor.
Smoke was curling upward from something smoldering in the center of the yard. At first Evaine thought they were burning leaves or the blacksmith had set up his forge in the center of the yard and was having trouble getting his fire to draw properly.
Then she saw the monks carrying the stacks of parchment rolls and the occasional bound book, lining up to consign the volumes to the flames.
“So, dear Bishop Edward is purging his library,” Queron murmured, close beside her ear. “What do you want to bet that our Liber Ricae is either in that lot or on its way in there?”
Evaine shuddered and turned away to bury her face in her brother’s shoulder. “How can they do that?” she whispered. “How can they burn books?”
“The same way they burn people,” Joram muttered. “Books are just as dangerous.”
“And they’d gladly consign us to the same fire, if they could,” Queron said. “Come, let’s be away from here. We can do nothing to stop that, and watching it will only depress our spirits even more.”
They lingered for a while longer, even so, and returned to the hidden Portal in silence.
“So, what next?” Evaine asked, when they were safely back in the little study next door to the room where Camber lay. “We needed that text.”
“Well, we’ll have to make do with something else, unless we’re granted a miracle,” Queron replied. “In the meantime, we’ll go back over the sources that we do have. I’ve been racking my brain, all the way back. How about Kitron’s Principia Magica? Have you got a copy of that?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t have—”
“Parts of Kitron are coded,” Queron said brusquely. “I haven’t read it in a long time, but there may be parts that apply. It’s also just possible that I still might be able to get hold of a copy of the Liber Ricae. We have to do something, though.”
Joram nodded. “I was thinking about Jokal of Tyndour, too. I remember Rhys talking about some of the Healing passages, and being surprised by some of the procedures—which means they can’t have been straight-forward techniques. Maybe there’s a more esoteric connection.”
Sighing, Evaine shook her head despondently. “We’re grasping at straws, I’m afraid. Maybe we’re mad even to think about continuing. Maybe we should just let Father be dead and forget about it.”
Neither man answered that remark, all too aware that the temporary setback they had suffered was only that—temporary. And after a while, the three of them went into the next room to pray, and so that Queron could investigate the spell more carefully.
While research continued in the Michaeline sanctuary, Javan had not been idle, either. The royal party finally reached Rhemuth on Quinquagesima, the Sunday before Lent. On Tuesday morning, the new capital was treated to the spectacle of a state wedding, that of Richeldis MacLean, the Heiress of Kierney, to Iver MacInnis, Heir to the new Earl of Culdi. The ceremony was conducted jointly by the bridegroom’s uncle, the Archbishop of Valoret, and his younger brother, the Bishop of Grecotha. A bleak-eyed Jamie Drummond gave away his former ward, with the king to witness, and the king’s own brothers served at the couple’s nuptial Mass, further setting the royal seal of approval firmly on the match. All the regents and their wives attended.
The wedding feast in Rhemuth Castle’s great hall would be the talk of Rhemuth society well into the summer. Javan would rather have forgotten it. The thirteen-year-old bride looked thoroughly overwhelmed by the entire affair and burst into tears when the ladies of the court came to convey her to the bridal chamber. The bridegroom, eight years her senior, drank too much, talked too loudly, and strutted like a bandy cock before following after her half an hour later, to hoots of encouragement and ribald suggestion. The next morning, before repairing to the basilica to receive the ashes marking the beginning of Lent, young Iver pronounced himself passing pleased with his new wife, and boasted of having been in Kierney the night before.
Javan hated him doubly for that, for though young Richeldis was not yet Countess of Kierney in fact, he had little doubt that the deficiency would be remedied all too soon. Nor was he surprised when, but a few weeks after the wedding, word came that the bride’s uncle had met a fatal accident while hunting.
All Javan’s skills as an actor were put to the test when he again was required to lend the legitimacy of his presence as his brother confirmed the new Countess of Kierney in her title and acknowledged her husband as the new earl. The prince had murder in his heart as he stalked off afterwards to pray in the Chapel Royal, the ever-present Charlan at his heels, and spent some hours devising suitable fates for those guilty of Iain MacLean’s death, though he knew his chances of carrying out any of them were nonexistent.
At least he felt better, afterwards. Nor did he count any of the regents innocent of the old Earl of Kierney’s death. It was as well that they dispersed to other pursuits for the rest of Lent, for Javan found himself hard-pressed to be civil to any of them, even if prudence forced him to spare their lives.
Iver’s father, Manfred MacInnis, returned to Grecotha with his younger son, Bishop Edward, to loot and censor the Varnarite School, taking Ursin O’Carroll with him. Duke Ewan headed north to resume his viceregal duties in Kheldour. Periodically, Earl Tammaron betook himself to Caerrorie on Manfred’s behalf to oversee the dismantling of the castle there, for Manfred wanted no old Camberian associations remaining when he took up residence in the new manor being built at the opposite edge of the holding. Murdoch and Rhun remained with the king at Rhemuth, but the two made frequent trouble-shooting forays to the north and east, all during those weeks of early spring—which made them relatively easy to avoid, most of the time.
Javan’s chief personal nemesis, Archbishop Hubert, returned to Valoret soon after the MacInnis-MacLean wedding, to get on with the concluding business of the Council of Ramos. He took with him Rhemuth’s archbishop, Robert Orris, but handed over the care of Javan’s soul to Orris’ auxiliary, Bishop Alfred of Woodbourne. Javan had respected Father Alfred as a priest, and supposed the man might have turned out to be a reasonably good bishop, had he not succumbed to the temptations Hubert offered in exchange for his integrity, but the prince had no use for Alfred as a spiritual director. Instead, Javan drafted a round, merry priest of middling years called Father Boniface, who was attached to the old basilica in the grounds of the castle. With Boniface, he pursued sufficient scholastic endeavors of an ecclesiastical bent to disarm increasingly any serious worry about him as a rival for Rhys Michael’s eventual succession to the throne.
As a consequence, Bishop Alfred and the remaining regents mostly left Javan alone, except when his presence was required for state occasions, of which there were few during Lent. Otherwise, the Lenten season progressed as Lent usually did—for Javan, a welcome respite from the round of endless banquets and other court entertainments that seemed so empty and hypocritical, as he watched his brother’s royal prerogatives slowly eroded. Javan worried increasingly, as Lent progressed and none of his Deryni allies managed to contact him even indirectly to reassure him that he was not forgotten, but he continued with what he believed Evaine and Joram would have wanted him to do—spying on the regents and, in particular, trying to find out more about the true feelings of his brothers.
Rhys Michael proved easy enough—still an uncomplicated if increasingly self-centered child, mostly concerned for his toy knights and games of strategy, and whether his governors would allow him sufficient practice time in the weapons yard and in his equestrian pursuits. Midway through Lent, Javan managed an entire afternoon with his younger brother, with Charlan unwittingly distracting Rhys Michael’s senior squire over a spirited game of Cardounet while Javan pretended to need help with the translation of a treatise on strategy—which assistance Rhys Michael was only too willing to provide. The youngest prince was never to realize what other assistance he provided by sitting close enough to read over Javan’s shoulder and make comments as Javan limped through the translation. Javan left the afternoon’s work no better versed in strategy, but convinced that his younger brother had begun no breakthrough whatever into his Haldane heritage—which was how things were supposed to be, Javan knew, even though he himself was different.
Seeing his brother the king privately again was yet another story. Several times Javan contrived plausible excuses to be in his elder brother’s presence, only to find others with even more plausible excuses. As Eastertide approached, he began to despair of ever managing to attempt a proper reading in reasonable safety. An unexpected opportunity finally presented itself on a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon late in March, when Alroy was confined to bed with a bad sore throat and cold and Javan came to inquire after his health. Alroy’s squires had been sent off to weekly confession—and interrogation by one of the regents’ agents, Javan had no doubt—and only Oriel was in attendance when the prince arrived. Alroy had been coughing; and his voice was hoarse as he greeted his brother.
“Ah, at least someone’s come to pay me a visit!” Alroy croaked, seizing Javan’s hand as his brother came to sit on the edge of the bed. “Oriel doesn’t count, because he has to come to see me. Maybe now he’ll leave me long enough to run down to the wine cellars and fetch some of that Rhennish brandywine for a new cough posset he’s been promising me. I’ve been fair to hacking my lungs out this afternoon.”
“Has he, Master Oriel?” Javan asked, glancing at the Healer.
Oriel tried not to look concerned. “I will concede that his Grace’s cough has not responded as well as I would like. And if your Highness would agree to stay a while, my mind would be more at ease while I fetch the wine.”
“Why, certainly,” Javan breathed, hardly able to believe his good fortune. “Go immediately, Oriel. Perhaps my brother would like me to read to him.”
Alroy nodded weakly but enthusiastically. “No, just talk to me, Javan. Tell me what you’ve been doing. I hardly see you anymore.”
“I shan’t be long,” Oriel murmured, bowing out the door.
Alroy nestled down contentedly under his sleeping furs as the door closed behind Oriel, not releasing Javan’s hand as he stifled a dry, nagging little cough with his free one.
“So, tell me what you’ve been up to lately. I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time on your knees. Earl Rhun makes snide remarks when he thinks I don’t hear, but I think it would be a wonderful thing to be a priest the way Father was.”
“You sound as if you’ve got me ordained already,” Javan said with a smile, reaching to brush Alroy’s damp forehead with his free hand. “Hey, you’re running quite a fever. You need to take better care of yourself.”
As he laid the hand flat, ostensibly to better judge the fever’s intensity, he sent a gentle command to sleep, immediately eliciting a wide Haldane yawn.
“I’m trying, Javan,” Alroy whispered, his eyelids drooping. “Really, I am. I’m so tired all the time, though. I’ve been taking my tonic, but it doesn’t seem to do much good.”
The king drifted into sleep as he finished the sentence, and Javan encouraged it, easily following up on the reference to Alroy’s “tonic.” The royal physicians had prescribed it, but Alroy sensed that Oriel did not approve—Alroy had no idea why.
Javan could guess why, though. Tavis had warned him months ago that the regents were keeping Alroy compliant with regular sedation.
But what of Alroy’s potential as a Haldane? Further probing of a more general sort elicited stirrings of a beginning ability to Truth-Read—though Alroy counted it as a prerogative of his divine right as king—but no suspicion on Alroy’s part of any of the further power that should be his as their father’s heir. Appalled, Javan pressed his inquiries longer than was prudent, only suddenly becoming aware that he himself was under scrutiny. He started as he glanced up to see Oriel staring at him from just inside the door, a stone flask almost forgotten in his hand.
“Ah, Master Oriel. I didn’t hear you come in,” Javan said, quickly drawing back his hand from Alroy’s forehead and trying to cover his tracks in Alroy’s mind. “Did you get the wine?”
Oriel nodded minutely, his eyes never leaving Javan’s. Javan could feel the other’s mind probing at his, not hard but determinedly, for several seconds before Oriel broke eye contact and crossed to the table where his Healer’s implements were laid out.
“I’ll just make that posset now,” he said, “though I see that the King’s Grace has managed to drift off to sleep.”
“I—think it’s probably the fever,” Javan murmured lamely, “though I’m sure you’re aware of that.” He did not move—only watching with growing apprehension as the Healer poured a small cup of wine, then dumped in a measured amount of powder from a parchment packet and stirred it briskly with a horn spoon. Oriel said nothing as he came to sit on the other side of the bed from Javan, only nodding his thanks as Javan helped raise the sleeping king to a sitting position to drink the posset. When the cup was empty, Oriel set it aside and motioned for Javan to join him in the window embrasure beyond. The gesture was not an invitation but a command. Javan shivered as he stepped up into the alcove. The yard beyond the diamond-paned glass was grey with rain, and the cold stone sucked away at body heat despite the heavy woolen drapes intended to insulate.
“Are you going to tell me about it, or do I have to make an issue of this?” Oriel said quietly, glancing beyond Javan at the rain as they sat down.
“Tell you about what?”
Slowly Oriel turned his face toward Javan, one hand moving slowly but deliberately to encircle one of Javan’s wrists. Immediately, the sensation of the other’s mind pressing at his shields intensified, though not to the extent that he felt they might breach.
“If anyone should come in now, I am monitoring your general health,” Oriel said quietly. “Unless you tell them otherwise, no one will ever know differently. But what I really want to read is what you are. The king didn’t just fall asleep while I was gone, Javan.”
“What makes you say that?” Javan persisted. “Of course he fell asleep. He’s been ill. He was worn out from coughing. And maybe he was worn out for other reasons, too. He told me about the tonic, Oriel.”
“Then I trust he also told you that the tonic was not my idea, and that it’s given to him without my approval.” Oriel grimaced as he glanced at his hand on Javan’s. “It’s a sedative, of course—just enough to take the edge off any resistance he might make to what the regents want.”
Javan nodded miserably. “I knew they’d been doing that at one time. I didn’t think it had continued. Can’t you do anything about it?”
“Do anything? Me?” Oriel snorted, glancing out at the rain streaming down the windowpanes. “Oh, I’m free as a bird, with my family held hostage for my good behavior. Have you forgotten that I have a wife and baby daughter I’ve hardly even seen since the regents took them into custody? Believe me, I’m sympathetic to your brother’s plight, but my own family comes first—unless you know even more than I think you do,” he added, suddenly looking back at Javan sharply. “Just how did you learn to do what you’re doing?”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re shielding, dammit!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Javan replied steadily. “Forget about it.”
“I can’t forget about it, and you’re lying when you say you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Oriel whispered, leaning closer to stare into Javan’s eyes. “Did Tavis teach you this, or—Good God, was it you that those Deryni came through the Valoret Portal to see? Has all this sudden compliance with the regents’ wishes just been lip service?”
“I know you can Truth-Read me, so I’m not going to answer those questions,” Javan whispered.
“And with those shields, I can’t just dig the answers out for myself, either,” Oriel murmured. “Lord, I’ve never seen a human with shields. And I wouldn’t even have noticed if you hadn’t given me cause to be suspicious. I’m sure the others don’t know. I—can it be that you’re still in contact with Lord Rhys and the other exiled Deryni, Javan? Do I dare to hope it isn’t all over, after all?”
“Some of it is over,” Javan said woodenly. “Lord Rhys is dead. I can’t speak for anyone else right now. But you tell me, knowing that you are being Truth-Read—is your loyalty to the regents based upon anything besides the threat to your family, if you don’t play along?”
Oriel closed his eyes briefly, his face contorting in a grimace of barely controlled anguish. Tears glittered in his eyes as he opened them again, and his hand tightened on Javan’s wrist.
“I’ll answer your question with yet another question, my prince,” the Healer breathed. “Can you sense that I’m lowering my shields and giving you access to the controls for those shields as well as access to my innermost thoughts? And know by Truth-Reading me that if you enter my mind, there is nothing I can do to resist you until you choose to withdraw. By the lives of my wife and daughter, I can’t give you any greater pledge than that.”
Every word Oriel spoke was true. Javan knew that with the same certainty by which he was assured of the loyalty of his Deryni allies. And time was growing short. At any moment, the squires or other servants might return, forever rendering this moment impossible.
If you betray me or mine, I’ll kill you, Javan sent, as he surged into the other’s mind. I don’t care what threat Rhun or any of the others make against your family, because I know you can deceive them if you really want to.
Oriel harbored no thought of betrayal, however—too overcome to even contemplate a deception of this most unexpected and welcome ally.
I’ll do anything for you, my prince, if only you’ll promise to do what you can to save my family, Oriel sent. I hate what they’ve made me do—and myself, for having let them bend me to their will—but if you give me even the hope of a hope, together we might be able to make them pay!
Together they forged their bond, without need for further words, Javan emerging with the certain conviction that he had made an ally for life. It was well he felt that, for in the first instant that he emerged from trance, that conviction was put to the test.
“Oriel, is he all right?” asked an all too familiar voice, as Javan fought to open his eyes.
Let me handle this, came Oriel’s smooth assurance, as his hand came to Javan’s forehead and urged relaxation, even as he answered, “He’s fine, my lord. I do think he may have a touch of the same fever that has lately plagued the king, however. Cough for me again, your Highness,” he urged with voice and powers. “This damp is beastly. You should be in bed.”
Javan obeyed, his free hand going to his mouth to help mask his consternation, wondering whether he and Oriel really could pull this off. Thank God it was Tammaron watching the interchange and not Rhun or Murdoch; Tammaron basically was a decent human being, for all that he was one of the regents. Fortunately, Tammaron did not seem in the least bit suspicious.
“The cough really isn’t that bad, Master Oriel,” Javan said after delivering an appropriately dry, hacky cough, making the expected protests. “I’m fine—really. Must’ve gotten a breath of dust from these drapes.”
“Yes, well, maybe a little rest would do you good, your Highness,” Tammaron said, to Javan’s relief. “I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time on your knees in cold, draughty chapels of late. I confess, none of us would mind if you found yourself a vocation as a priest, but for now, you are the heir. You mustn’t endanger your health.”
Both Javan and Oriel were Truth-Reading Tammaron as he spoke, and knew that the earl meant what he said, without rancor or deception.
“Perhaps his Highness would allow me to prescribe a posset with a light sedative,” Oriel said smoothly. “Did you not say you hadn’t been sleeping well the past few nights, my prince?”
Javan picked up the prompt without hesitation. “Aye, but it’s just a stuffy head—and my ears feel blocked up. Can you really give me something to help that?”
Smiling, Oriel rose, shifting his hand from Javan’s wrist to his shoulder and urging him down out of the window embrasure. “Most assuredly, I can, your Highness. Lord Tammaron, if you’ll excuse us? The king will sleep until suppertime now. What I’ve given him will offer respite from his cough. The squires should be back shortly.”
“They’re back now,” Tammaron replied with a satisfied smile. “And congratulations on convincing Prince Javan that his asceticisms were too much for this cold, damp weather. You take care of yourself now, you hear, son?”
Making vague noises of agreement, Javan let Oriel lead him out of his brother’s quarters. As they headed for his own rooms, the two of them refrained from interacting in any way besides verbal small talk, lest they encounter any of the castle’s other tame Deryni, but Oriel gave him additional reassurance before bedding him down with the promised posset—a harmless enough drink made of hot brandywine and milk, with honey and an egg beaten into it. The sleep that descended upon the prince when Oriel had gone was a gentle, undemanding one, and Javan felt as heartened as he had been in many a week.
His only worry, as he drifted off, was how, eventually, he was going to rescue Oriel and his family. Maybe he could somehow smuggle them out to Revan …