CHAPTER FOUR

Judge none blessed before his death: for a man shall be known in his children.

—Ecclesiasticus 11:28

They delayed at Ebor longer than Camber would have liked. The horses had been fed and watered, the men of their escort provided for, while Camber and Joram were in the earl’s chambers; but when the two emerged, nothing would do but that they take a light meal with Lord Jesse and the steward—for Jesse was hungry for news of the capital and the king, and knew that the bishop had just left the court that morning.

So half an hour was lost appeasing Jesse. When at last Camber and his men rode out again, the hazy shadows were lengthening beside the muddy road, the sky dulling to a close, leaden grey which bespoke ill weather to come. With luck, a full moon would light their last miles almost as bright as day, reflected off the pale and silent snowdrifts. And if the promised new snow held off for even a few hours, they would be back at the king’s side before Compline. As for a storm—Camber preferred not to think about that.

But so far, the weather seemed to be holding. They had been riding at a steady, ground-covering canter for some time, Camber and Joram leading, the four guards following in pairs, when Camber finally reined back to a brisk walk to let the horses blow. As he caught his breath, he overheard one of the younger guards wondering softly to his colleague how such an old man could set such a pace. It was all Camber could do to keep from smiling as Guthrie, the guard sergeant, shushed the man and urged his mount alongside Camber’s, on the opposite side from Joram.

“Your Grace, do you intend that we should take this road all the way back to Valoret?”

“Now, Guthrie, that’s an odd question,” Camber answered, cocking his head curiously at the man. “This is the shortest route. You know I want to rejoin the king as soon as possible.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” The man bowed respectfully in the saddle. “The men merely wondered whether you were aware that there is another road just ahead, scarcely half an hour’s ride longer, which would take us past Dolban. If you would consent to a brief stop, they would like to visit the shrine there and pray for the king.”

Dolban.

The name of the place touched unwelcome associations in his mind, and he had to suppress the urge to shudder. Nor could he ignore Joram’s mental shiver of apprehension. Neither of them had any wish to go to Dolban.

Dolban had been the first of the shrines constructed by Queron Kinevan and his Servants of Saint Camber. It was at Dolban that the formal canonization ceremonies had taken place eleven years before, when the supposedly-dead Camber of Culdi had been declared a saint, worthy of veneration for what he had done for his people, his king, and his God; an example of what Deryni could be, even in the estimation of humans.

After Dolban had come a succession of other shrines—Hanfell and Warringham and Haut Vermelior and a dozen other places whose names Camber had no wish to remember. Defender of Humankind Saint Camber had become, and Kingmaker, and Patron of Deryni Magic, as well, though the latter was not so widely touted lately, as anti-Deryni sentiment became more widely espoused by the humans surrounding Cinhil’s dying court. Camber knew it all to be based upon a lie.

“Your Grace?” the sergeant asked, breaking into his reverie. “Your Grace, is anything wrong?”

“No, no, nothing is wrong. I was just thinking about Camber. I really—”

He broke off as the drum of hoofbeats and whoops of raucous laughter suddenly intruded in the dusky silence. By the commotion, at least a dozen horsemen were approaching from beyond the next curve, and fast. Simultaneously, he was aware of Joram already taking stock of the situation and estimating the odds—though it was obvious that they would be greatly outnumbered, if it came to a physical confrontation.

Frowning, Camber reined his grey to the left and signalled Joram and the guards to do the same, though all of them kept riding slowly in the direction they had been going. In the face of such a situation, they must proceed as if nothing were amiss, as if they had as much right to be on this road as did those approaching. He fervently hoped that there would be no trouble, for they must get back to Cinhil!

All at once the approaching riders burst into view from around the curve and thundered into the long, straight stretch, riding at a reckless gallop. They were no soldiers—their bright, multicolored clothing proclaimed that at a glance, as did their lack of discipline as they rode. Bright caps, some of them with plumes and jewels, shone on most of their heads, a few of them banded with fillets that looked almost like coronets, and might have been. Velvets and furs on cloak and sleeve and saddle trappings glowed in the waning light, swords and daggers flashing at every hip. A few of the riders brandished swords in gloved fists.

They laughed raucously as they approached, their guffaws and shouted comments becoming more ribald as they noticed the somber little band proceeding toward them. In a flurry of movement, they nearly surrounded Camber and his party, their fine horses jostling the more ordinary mounts of the four guards and making Camber and Joram’s greys lay back their ears in protest.

“Give way, my lords!” Joram shouted, flinging his mantle back from his sword arm and laying a gloved hand on the pommel of his weapon. “We would not dispute the road with you. Observe the King’s Peace!”

“Why, ’tis a lone Michaeline knight!” one of the young toughs sang, to hoots of derisive laughter from a handful of his colleagues.

“One Michaeline and an old man and a few paltry guards to stand against all of us?” shouted another. “Let’s dump them off their horses and let them walk like the last ones!”

As one man, Joram and the four guards drew steel, though they did no more than hold their weapons at the ready. Camber still had not reached toward the sword at his knee—calmly sat his horse and surveyed the surrounding riders with grim expression, but without apparent alarm, forearms resting casually on the high pommel, the reins held easily in one gloved hand.

His sobriety apparently touched some chord of response, for one of the riders jostled the elbow of another of his comrades and gestured urgently toward the black-cloaked figure sitting so calmly in their midst. The man so jostled took a hard look at Camber and then held up the riding crop in his hand. The sniggering and the catcalls died away immediately.

“Hold, lads. The old man thinks to outstare Deryni. What say you, old man? Why should we not have our way with you?”

For answer, Camber let his shields flare to visibility, though he did not permit himself to move, even then. Apprehensive murmurs rustled among the men as the silvery mantle of his Deryniness glowed unmistakably in the twilight. Several riders lowered their weapons sheepishly and tried to melt into the shadows at the edge of the road, though most held their ground with undiminished belligerence. A few flashed their own shields to light momentarily, but they did not persist when their leader disdained to follow suit. That one stared across at Camber with stony defiance.

“I see,” he murmured.

“Do you? I don’t think you do,” Camber replied, barely trusting himself to speak. “The fact that I am Deryni like yourselves alters nothing. The shame upon you all is that so many should set upon so few of any race, who have done them nary a harm. Has the King’s Grace endeavored to protect the land and guard its roads only to have his nobles flout his laws for their own sport?”

“The King’s Law? Human law!” One of the men spat, a contemptuous, bitter gesture which was repeated by several of his colleagues as the man continued. “Our forbears ruled this land and helped to guard its borders. We were held in honor and esteem, as well we should have been. Now this human king gives over all our honors to his human toadies!”

“And you play directly into their hands!” Camber retorted. “Don’t you see how you give our enemies precisely what they want?”

The hand of the band’s leader tightened on his crop, and his dark eyes took on a cold, steely gleam.

“How dare you speak to us that way? Just who are you?”

“Why should that matter?” Camber countered, halting Joram’s indignant beginnings of protest with a sharp gesture. “You do our race as much harm as the very toadies you claim so to despise! What better excuse does a man like Murdoch of Carthane need than the irresponsible actions of the likes of you, giving the proof to his lies?”

That accusation brought angry mutterings to more lips, and one brash soul spurred his horse hard into Camber’s to grab a handful of black cloak and attempt to pull its wearer from the saddle. A deft evasive movement on the part of Camber forestalled the intended result, almost transferring it to the perpetrator, but the move was also sufficient to throw the cloak back from that shoulder and expose the collar of golden H’s and jewelled pectoral cross lying on and across Camber’s chest. As their significance registered, several gasps of recognition rippled through the band.

“Good God, it’s the chancellor!”

Beside Camber, Joram allowed himself a tiny sigh of relief and lowered his sword, though he did not sheath it just yet. The four guards remained at the ready, sensing that their chances of survival had just shifted back in their favor, yet not precisely certain how that had been accomplished. Tension was sustained for several heartbeats, but then the leader of the band brought his crop up to his cap in salute and bobbed his head in slightly mocking deference.

“Sorry, Your Grace, we appear to have made a mistake.”

“I’ll say you have!” Joram muttered under his breath, starting to sidestep his horse between Camber’s and the leader’s.

But Camber’s tongue-lashing, plus the discovery of his identity, had apparently quelled any further desire of the young lords to bully the six they had met. At their leader’s signal, the band crowded past Camber and his escort with astonishing precision and galloped away on the road back toward Ebor, quickly disappearing in the growing twilight. Joram and Camber’s men made as though to follow, their outrage written plainly on their faces, but Camber held up a hand and murmured, “No!”

His men returned obediently and fell in around him, but it was obvious that they were resentful at being held back. Joram allowed himself a final, murderous glare in the direction the marauders had disappeared before sheathing his sword with a vexed snick of steel seating in steel-bound leather.

“Young ruffians!” the priest grumbled, under his breath.

Guthrie, the guard sergeant, was less circumspect.

“How dare they? Just who do they think they are?” he blurted. “Your Grace, you should have let us go after them!”

“To serve what purpose?” Camber replied. “You are all fine soldiers, but you were also greatly outnumbered, in strange territory, and at dusk, when all three factors would have worked against you. Furthermore, they were all Deryni; and except for Joram, you are not.”

“His Grace is right, Guthrie,” Joram reluctantly agreed, “though I, too, would love to have thrashed them all soundly.” He turned to Camber, Michaeline composure restored as was fitting in the chancellor-bishop’s secretary. “Under the circumstances, Your Grace, do you think it wise to divert to Dolban? The king should be told of this incident as soon as possible.”

Joram’s words gave perfect excuse to omit the visit if they chose—an option which both Camber and Joram would have preferred, rather than subject themselves to the emotional strain of a visit to the principal Camberian shrine; and Queron Kinevan was the last man that either of them wanted to see, after their few encounters at the time of Camber’s canonization—but unfortunately, a similar argument dictated precisely the delay they otherwise might have avoided. Queron Kinevan, as Abbot of Saint Camber’s-at-Dolban, had primary responsibility for keeping of the King’s Peace on the roads surrounding the abbey lands, and it was he who should be informed of the band of young Deryni bullies first, even before the king.

Camber reminded them of that, before leading them into a bone-jarring gallop on along the increasingly dim and icy road. They had not travelled a mile further toward the Dolban cutoff before they came upon the first signs of their marauders’ earlier exploits.

They slackened pace as the muddy footing of the road changed from fetlock depth to nearly knee-deep, noting without comment how even the snow-banked verge beside had been churned to slush by the recent passage of many horses. As they continued cautiously into the next curve, they checked before a ragtag assemblage of perhaps a dozen liveried men on foot, though the men’s high boots and mud-fouled spurs gave mute indication that they had not begun their journey thus.

The men drew their swords and stood their ground, darker shadows against the indistinct grey blur of the hoof-churned mud beyond. At the side of the road, in the shelter of a winter-bare tree, a youngish man in once-fine riding garb was attempting to comfort a weeping young woman. The woman’s fair hair was uncovered and coming unbound, and she clutched two muddy handfuls of clothing and cloak to her breast as she wept in her comforter’s arms. An older man in tonsure and clerical attire, also muddy, looked on helplessly and wrung his hands.

“Hold where you are!” one of the retainers shouted, brandishing his sword and pushing his way to the front of his men. “If you’ve come back to molest her ladyship again, you’ll have to kill us this time!”

Immediately, Camber backed his horse a few steps and raised his empty right hand to show he was not armed, at the same time parting his cloak so his collar and cross could be seen.

“We mean you no harm,” he called, trying to make out the men’s badges of service in the dim light. “I am Alister Cullen, Bishop of Grecotha. Were you set upon by the men who just rode off yonder?” He gestured back the way they had come.

“Cullen?” their lord exclaimed, thrusting his lady roughly into the protection of the cleric before heading toward them, hand on sword hilt. “Hell and damnation, it’s another Deryni! Haven’t you hooligans done enough? Just wait until I tell my brother what has happened!”

As the men shuffled aside to let their lord stalk through their midst, Camber glanced back at Joram, caught the slight shake of his head.

“I’m sorry, my lord, I don’t believe I know you. You are—?”

“Manfred, Baron of Marlor. My brother is Bishop Hubert MacInnis—and when he finds out what has happened here, there’ll be hell to pay, believe me!”

“I quite agree, my lord,” Camber replied, cutting off Manfred’s tirade smoothly, though he hardly raised his voice. “I am no more pleased by what has happened than you are, and was on my way even now to report the incident to the abbot at Dolban. We, too, were set upon by—”

“D’you think I care a whit for your problems?” Manfred interrupted. “As for your precious abbot—I hardly expect justice from the Deryni leader of a cult which venerates a Deryni saint!”

“The abbot, besides his religious and Healing vows, is the king’s sworn man in temporal matters,” Camber replied a trifle haughtily, despite his intention to forbear and not further offend the brother of Hubert MacInnis. “I am certain that Abbot Queron will render you and yours the same justice which is due any loyal subject of the Crown of Gwynedd. That your attackers should have been Deryni only makes me doubly anxious to see them brought to justice. My lady Baroness?” He turned his attention deliberately from the baron and guided his horse forward slowly, its feet making sucking noises as it picked its way through the mud.

“My lady, I am most sorry for what has happened. I would not remind you of what must have been a terrible ordeal, but may I inquire more specifically what was done against you?”

The lady, who had frozen at Camber’s direct address, only resumed her nearly hysterical weeping. The cleric held her close and stroked her disheveled hair as if she were a distraught child, finally raising his eyes uneasily to Camber’s.

“They—were not gentle with her, Your Grace,” the man said haltingly, “but neither did they—use her. They—tore her garments and—threw her to the ground. But then they let her go,” he added, almost puzzled. “It was a taunting sort of play, as if they meant no real harm, but only sport—”

“Sport!” The very thought set off Baron Manfred again, as he slogged his way back toward the pair and Camber. “Nay, priest, do not side with them and call it sport! They have offered grave insult to me and to my wife. For that, they shall pay!”

“And so they shall, my lord,” Camber soothed, “and I shall inform the appropriate authorities immediately. I take it that your horses were run off?”

“Do you see any horses besides your own, you fool?” Manfred raged, his hand clenching white-knuckled on the hilt of his sword. “We are stranded here afoot, and it’s getting dark, and likely to storm, and you prattle on of—”

“I shall have horses sent from the abbey as soon as possible, and an escort to see you safely to your destination,” Camber said smoothly, gesturing for his men to come closer. “In the meantime, I shall leave you two of my men and four of the horses. Guthrie, you and Caleb stay with his lordship until the abbot’s men arrive, then join us. Torin and Llew, leave your horses for now and ride double with Joram and me. It’s only a short way to Dolban.”

The moon was just rising above the frosty trees when they came within sight of the abbey gates. Torchlight illuminated several cowled figures walking guard duty above the gatehouse, and the brands flickered and spat in the light mist which had begun to descend.

Externally, the complex had changed little in the years since Queron Kinevan and the zealous Guaire of Arliss had bought the then rundown fortified manor and begun its restoration—though, according to reports, the inside no longer bore any resemblance to the modest manor house originally built there.

Neither Camber nor Joram had ever set foot inside the walls, nor had ever wished to, but it was obvious from Llew’s hoot of recognition behind Joram, and a monk’s answering wave from the gatehouse, that he, at least, had been here numerous times and was well known. Even though it was nearly full dark, the gates were opened promptly at the sight of the two double-mounted horses. By the time they had drawn rein in the courtyard and dismounted, it was clear that Camber and Joram had been recognized, too. Grey-clad men and women were gathering on the steps of the chapel which fronted the yard, even as several of their brethren took the horses away toward the stables.

Camber fidgeted a little as he drew his cloak more closely around him, wondering whether he had made a mistake in coming here. He had not realized his own household was so rife with the cult of Camber, and he knew himself to be on unfamiliar ground. He dismissed his men to go on to the shrine, then stiffened as a small, wiry man in grey robes eased his way through the waiting brothers and sisters and approached them. His face was guarded, a little anxious to one who knew how to read it, but his manner was brisk and efficient. It was plain that he still was not intimidated by either the Bishop of Grecotha or the son of Saint Camber.

“Bishop Cullen, Father MacRorie, we are honored by your visit.” He bent one knee to kiss the episcopal ring on Camber’s hand, then nodded formally to Joram. “Brother Micah said you rode in mounted double. Is anything wrong? Is it the king?”

The familiar Gabrilite braid was longer by a handspan than it had been eleven years before, and streaked with grey, where once it had been a rich, reddish brown; but aside from that, Queron Kinevan did not seem to have aged appreciably. The bright eyes still looked out with as much intensity as they had that week in Valoret when Queron and his Order had first brought their petition before the Synod of Bishops.

“Nay, the king was fine when last we saw him late this morning, Dom Queron,” he replied, trying to keep his tone as neutral and matter-of-fact as Queron’s. “There was some trouble on the road, however, both to ourselves and to another party which we encountered later. We left two of my men plus the extra horses with them until you can send assistance. You are responsible for patrol of the royal road in this area, are you not?”

“By day, yes, Your Grace. But no one has charge of the roads by night, especially in winter. What trouble did you encounter?”

With a hitch at his sword belt, Joram gestured back toward the closed gate.

“A band of young Deryni nobles—younger sons, by the feel of the situation, sir. Perhaps ten or fifteen of them, all looking for trouble. They took us for human at first, and thought to harass us, until they recognized His Grace.”

Queron clucked his tongue and slowly shook his head. “A sorry business. I do apologize, Father. And to you, especially, Your Grace. What of the other party you mentioned?”

“Baron Manfred, the brother of Bishop MacInnis, his wife and chaplain, and about ten or twelve retainers,” Camber replied. “All angry but unharmed, and horseless now. I told them you’d bring fresh mounts and escort them to their destination.” He sighed. “I hardly think I need warn you how MacInnis is going to react, when he learns of this.”

“Indeed, not. Excuse me a moment, please.”

At Camber’s nod, Queron turned away from them and conferred briefly with a number of his monks, several of whom disappeared immediately in the direction of the stables. After some further discussion with more of them, Queron returned to Camber and bowed again. The second group of monks went to meet the first, who had returned with horses and weapons from the stables.

“The baron and his party will be rescued immediately, and some of our brothers will drive off the marauders, if they are still in the vicinity, Your Grace. I am told that this kind of incident is becoming far too frequent on the roads around the capital. I regret that our kind are being driven to such acts.”

“I regret it, too, Dom Queron.”

“As you say.” Queron sighed. “But, no matter. It will be taken care of, you may rest assured. In the meantime, you will stay long enough to see our shrine, will you not?” He glanced back and forth searchingly between Camber and Joram. “Father MacRorie, I especially understand your reluctance to come here before now, but ours is a shrine of the Blessed Sacrament, as well as of your sainted father, you know. Besides, the rest of your escort will not return for some little while. Surely you will not leave without paying your respects.”

Though Camber had, for a moment, considered doing that very thing, he heard Joram’s minute sigh of resignation and knew that he, too, realized they dared not. This time they must play out the charade or else risk offending Queron and the many Camberian brothers and sisters waiting expectantly in the background. As Bishop of Grecotha, Camber could not refuse to visit any shrine unless there were very pressing reasons. Alister Cullen would never have considered such neglect of duty.

“Very well, then, Dom Queron,” Camber said quietly. “We may not stay long, for we have pressing business with the king, but we shall pay our respects. One favor I would ask, for Joram’s sake. May we have some privacy inside the shrine?”

“Of course, Your Grace,” Queron replied with a bow, turning to make a hand signal to one of his monks. Then he looked long and compassionately at the younger priest.

“Poor Joram,” he murmured. “After all these years, you still cannot accept his sanctity, can you?”

With difficulty, Joram swallowed, would not meet Queron’s Healer’s gaze, and Camber knew he was remembering how he had been forced to face Queron’s questioning in another time and place, when the legend of Saint Camber had yet to be proven.

“It is very difficult to be the son of a saint, Dom Queron. If only you knew how difficult.”

“But—”

“Please, Dom Queron,” Camber interjected, sensing a long, involved disputation if he did not get Queron and Joram separated. He laid a comforting arm around Joram’s shoulders and urged him toward the doors. “I’ll—see your people when we come out, and give them my blessing then.” That was the Alister part of him talking.

“For now, though, let’s go inside, son,” he said, drawing Joram toward the plain, metal-studded doors.

Very soon they were alone, standing quietly at the rear of the nave with their backs against the doors and their nostrils filled with warm air and the familiar scent of incense. Camber heard a door close at the far end of the church and surmised that it marked the exit of his guards.

For an instant, it was all deceptively familiar. Camber did not know what he had been expecting. He certainly was not prepared for the sight which met his eyes. He supposed he had anticipated the usual overdone treatment which was so often afforded a saint’s principal shrine, gaudy and grandiose in taste, cluttered with candles and statues and other over-pious accoutrements. This place was not.

For beginnings, the chapel had a somewhat nonstandard layout, perhaps because of its manorial origins. The nave was the usual long and narrow basilica plan, with a double colonnade running its length and dividing off a clerestory aisle to either side, like any proper church; but there was no southern transept. The southern wall, set against the former outside wall of the manor’s living quarters, was windowless and mostly blank, except for a mosaic design of red and gold surrounding each of the fourteen Stations of the Cross.

The northern wall was quite another story. Several side altars and chapels had been built into that wall, and there was a transept. As Camber and Joram began walking slowly down the left clerestory aisle, they passed a circular baptistry done in mosaic of reeds and doves and flames, a delicate Lady Chapel of gold and lapis and, in the transept, an altar dedicated to the four great Archangels, colored lamps burning at the quarters to signify the angelic protection.

At the end of the nave, in the sanctuary, was the altar guarded by Saint Camber, the vaguely lit statue of the saint standing to the left of a simple but spacious altar and retable of rose-marble. The statue of the chapel’s patron saint loomed larger than life, carved in a pale grey stone which gleamed almost silver in the light of a thick candle at its feet, arms upstretched to support a jewelled replica of Gwynedd’s crown of intertwined crosses and leaves. The pale tones contrasted subtly with the delicate rose of the altar itself, and paler pink marble veined in smoky grey faced the walls of the sanctuary and formed the altar rail, the color heightened by the glow of the red-shielded Presence Lamp which burned at the right of the altar. The Monstrance on the altar below the Rood Cross glowed like a ruddy sun in the wash of rose light.

Camber let out a low sigh as he and Joram came up to the gates of the altar rail, doggedly fixing his attention on the Monstrance and its sacred Host as he sank to his knees and signed himself with an automatic gesture. Keeping his mind to his customary set of prayers before the Sacred Presence, he closed his eyes and shut out the sight of the statue, willed a little of the serenity he derived therefrom to flow into his son, kneeling at his left elbow.

But when the prayers were finished, he had no choice but to open his eyes and look up at the figure which the world now knew as Saint Camber. His annoyance at the idealization they had made of him was overshadowed, as it had been before, by the enormity of the lie he had been living.

What colossal conceit to have allowed it to continue! True, he had not yet been struck down by lightning or otherwise shown the measure of Heaven’s wrath; but he could not, in conscience, believe that there would not be a price to pay for what he had done.

His intentions, of course, had always been as pure as he could conceive. So far, though the fight was far from over, he and his children had managed fairly well to keep alive the ideals they had hoped to preserve from the beginning, by placing Cinhil on the throne of Gwynedd.

There had been setbacks, to be sure, not the least of which had been Alister’s untimely death in battle with Ariella. And the human lords who had flocked to Court in the wake of Cinhil’s restoration had gained far more influence than Camber and his kin had hoped they would.

But to balance that was the closeness of Cinhil and Camber, which had endured for nearly fifteen years now, though of course Cinhil did not know that it was Camber and not Alister with whom he had dealt so intimately and on so regular a basis for the past twelve. That, alone, had been worth the price Camber had had to pay, if all the factors be totaled.

That price, of course, was another story altogether. Though the world had accepted him as Alister Cullen, Bishop of Grecotha and Chancellor of Gwynedd, Camber knew that this part of his life was a sham. True, he had legitimated his raising to the episcopate, by being properly ordained a priest before allowing the late Archbishop Anscom to consecrate him bishop. And he had never offended the letter of canon law—though he had bent it—and the spirit of that law had doubtless been broken times too numerous to count.

What distressed him most, on those rare occasions when he permitted himself to think about it, was that he had been forced to stand by and witness the travesty of his own canonization, powerless to object any more strongly than he had, lest he lose all for which he and his had fought.

And what of those who believed in Saint Camber? In some ways, that bothered Camber even more than the obvious accounting he would have to make concerning the Alister-Camber impersonation. For the people, both human and Deryni, believed in Saint Camber, ascribed miracles to his intercession, venerated his image and his memory in scores of shrines and chapels across the land, that he might act in their behalf.

For the thousandth time, he asked himself whether faith alone was sufficient to account for the miracles—for, as Deryni, he was well aware how important mere belief could be in effecting cures, in helping cause things to happen. For many, belief in Saint Camber seemed to bring comfort and assistance. Who was Camber to say that such belief was not valid, if it produced results?

Suppressing a sigh, he glanced aside at Joram and was surprised to see his son gazing up raptly at the statue. Joram had been against the impersonation from the start, though he had reluctantly agreed to help, when there seemed no other choice. Through all these long years, he had stood by his father, regardless of the shape he wore, and defended both Alister and his father’s name against all attack.

Camber wondered how the shrine was affecting Joram—the statue, the chamber, and what they all evoked now, for so many people. And in that moment, Joram turned his head and looked him full in the face, reaching out with his mind and willingly opening to his father’s probe. As minds leaped the boundaries of usual sensation, they knew one another’s most secret thoughts of Camber and of sainthood, and they plunged into even more profound communication.

But there was none of the old bitterness in Joram’s mind now, that combination of fear and outrage which had for so long ruled his inner balance. Something had finally enabled Joram to accept the inevitability of the situation, to forgive the dogged determination which had moved the man who knelt now beside him.

That decided, it was as if a great burden had been lifted from Camber’s mind, as well; he realized that he, too, could let go of the guilt, the uncertainty, the shadow of apprehension. Together, the two of them were doing all they could to hold back the Darkness, to preserve the Light. What more could any mortal ask?

With a smile, Camber reached out and patted his son’s hand, then let the younger man help him to his feet. Together, arm in arm, they walked back up the center aisle to speak with Queron and his Camberians, before heading back to the capital and Cinhil.

Statues would never haunt either of them again.