Saint Camber Read online

  Young Guaire of Arliss, his bright, open face expectant in the light of the torch he bore, ran toward Joram with a glad greeting on his lips which died as he saw Joram’s expression. He laid a hand on the priest’s mailed arm and jogged a few steps to catch up as Joram continued walking grimly toward the MacRorie pavilion.

  “Father Joram, what’s wrong?”

  Camber saw Joram turn his face away, the proud shoulders shaking. Guaire glanced at the bundle on the horse following Joram, then looked back at Joram in alarm—stared in sudden dread suspicion at the man he believed to be Alister Cullen—before dashing back to Joram’s horse. A groan escaped his lips as he drew back a fold of the mantle and held his torch near.

  “My God, it cannot be! ’Tis the Lord Camber!” he breathed. He grasped Joram’s elbow and spun him half around to face him.

  “Nay, say it is not true!” he demanded. “Say ’tis some other lord who has been slain! Say it is God Himself, but not Camber!”

  Three of Camber’s men drew near, shock immobilizing their faces, and pulled the sobbing Guaire away as Joram dropped the horse’s reins and began to untie the thongs securing the body to the saddle. A group began to gather, more torches joining the smoky, flickering circle. Camber, now the vicar general, gave the reins of the second horse to one of his Michaelines and came to help Joram.

  Someone took off a fur-lined cloak and spread it on the ground beside the horse. The two Michaelines, young priest and older vicar general, gently bore the body from the saddle and laid it on the fur. The body of the Earl of Culdi lay cold and lifeless in the torchlight, face serene and pale and slightly drawn in death. Terrible wounds gaped in several places, matching those which had actually cost Cullen his life. Drying blood appeared black in the torchlight.

  There was a flurry of whispered surprise and consternation, a few low-voiced exclamations of grief, and then the men, Michaelines and Culdi folk alike, were dropping to their knees, one by one, removing helmets and bowing battle-stained heads around the body of the man who had brought them all to this place.

  Into this silence came Jebediah and the king, the latter wide-eyed with disbelief, to stand mute and stunned between Joram and the dour vicar general. The grand master, after a perfunctory glance at the body on the ground, turned his anxious gaze on his Michaeline superior. Camber tried to pretend he was not aware of Jebediah’s scrutiny, knowing that here, perhaps, lay his greatest challenge of all. Alister and Jebediah had been very close.

  “What—happened?” Cinhil asked, after a long silence.

  Joram tried to speak, but could not; bowed his head and fought the sobs which tried to escape from between his lips. At last it was the vicar general who half glanced at the king, gruff voice forcing out the words.

  “Some of my men and I pursued Ariella and her escort into a wood not far from here, Sire. There she turned and stood her ground, for she could flee no farther. We fought. Most of our men were killed, and I was wounded. My strength was beginning to fail. When Camber and Joram arrived, the balance shifted, but still we could not overcome her.”

  He laid his hand on the saddle as though to steady himself before resuming.

  “Camber was sorely wounded slaying the last of her men, and Joram was knocked senseless for a time. Thus it fell to me, with my last strength, to fling my sword and pierce her through.” He rested one hand on the blasted hilt of Cullen’s sword.

  “But it was too late for Camber.”

  He bowed his head, unwilling and not daring to say more. Cinhil swallowed audibly and started to bend down to touch the body lying at his feet, then drew back and composed himself once more. His face was expressionless, except in his eyes, as he turned stiffly toward Joram.

  “We share your grief at the death of your father,” he murmured, “and we thank you for the service he has done us this day. Would to God he were here to share in our victory.”

  With that, he turned away and fled to his pavilion, almost running as he crossed the final steps. Quiet followed him until he disappeared, then surged into low, whispered mutterings among the growing crowd of soldiers.

  “Let’s take him into the tent now,” Camber said quietly, taking charge.

  He bent and started to slip his arms under the body of his slain friend, but then he saw Jebediah moving to assist and let himself stagger as though momentarily overcome by weakness. He must not let the grand master touch Alister’s body.

  “I’m all right, Jeb,” he murmured, protesting as Jebediah’s strong arms supported and raised him, while Joram and Guaire bent instead to pick up the body. “On the other hand, perhaps you’d better go and find Rhys for me.”

  “How badly are you wounded?” Jebediah asked, not releasing Camber as he searched his eyes. “I was afraid something had happened to you. I had the oddest sensation, a little while ago.”

  Camber closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he drew himself upright, wondering whether Jebediah could possibly have felt Alister’s death, praying that Jebediah had noted no discrepancy in his words or actions so far, knowing that he dared not keep up this contact much longer.

  “I’ll be all right, Jeb,” he whispered fiercely. “A few minor wounds, a great weariness. Now, go and find Rhys, please!”

  With a nod and no further word, Jebediah released him and disappeared into the darkness, leaving Camber to worry as he turned toward the pavilion which had lately been his own, where Joram and Guaire were even now carrying their pitiful burden. As they moved silently inside, two of Camber’s knights took up guard positions of honor beside the entryway, one of them holding aside the curtain respectfully. Slowly, quietly, the remaining men began returning to their duties, a few reluctantly taking the body of Ariella into custody.

  Nearly an hour passed before Rhys heard the news. Jebediah finally found him in one of the hospice tents, and waited silently until Rhys had finished healing a deep gash on a young soldier’s leg. At Rhys’ touch, the wound had closed to a thin, moist line, and his patient would have only a slight scar to show for his adventure in a week or so.

  But for now, the young man was in shock and pain—pain which Rhys’ dwindling strength could barely touch. As Rhys finished bandaging the leg, he noticed Jebediah standing a few paces behind him and beckoned him with a hand still gory from his recent labors.

  “Jeb, can you give me a hand here? I want to save what strength I still have for actual healing. He needs to be put to sleep.”

  Wordlessly, Jebediah knelt and laid his hand on the lad’s forehead. The feverish eyes sought his for just an instant, then fluttered and closed. Jebediah murmured, “Sleep,” and closed his own eyes momentarily, then looked up sadly as Rhys stood.

  “Lord Camber has returned to camp,” he said quietly.

  Rhys, washing his bloody hands in a wooden basin held by a page, glanced down with a tired grin. “Ah, he found Alister, then?”

  “Yes.”

  The stark answer, coupled with the knight’s solemn expression, suddenly sent a grim shudder of foreboding through Rhys’ mind. His eyes did not leave Jebediah’s face as he dried his hands on an already damp and bloody towel.

  “What’s happened? What are you not telling me? Leave us, Toban,” he added, sending the page on his way with a touch on the shoulder.

  Jebediah glanced at the ground, at the sleeping soldier whose life had just been saved by Rhys’ ministrations, then rose slowly.

  “Camber is dead, Rhys.”

  There was a stunned heartbeat of silence, and then:

  “Dead? But you said—”

  Jebediah swallowed, unable to look at Rhys’s stricken face any longer. “I said he had returned to camp. His body did. He and Joram found Alister locked in combat with Ariella. Alister finally slew her, but Camber died of wounds he sustained in the fight.”

  “And Joram? Alister?”

  “Alister sent me to find you. He claims minor wounds and fatigue, but I sense that there is more than that. Joram appears unharmed.”

  Rh
ys nodded numbly. “I’ll come, of course. I could have done little more here, in any case, until I have rested somewhat. But Camber—it’s impossible. It simply cannot be.”

  Jebediah clasped the younger man’s shoulders in resignation, then glanced past him and signaled another Healer who had just entered the tent.

  “Lord Rhys is needed at the royal enclosure, Master Durin. Can you take over for him?”

  Rhys did not see the other Healer nod agreement, for he was already moving out of the tent, trying to assimilate what he had just learned. As he and Jebediah left the hospice and headed toward the royal enclosure, a waiting Michaeline brother fell into step behind them with a torch. The torchlight cast wavering, distorted shadows ahead of them as they walked. Ahead, Rhys could see the MacRorie pavilion as if through a tunnel, his vision blurring out all around it save the guarded entrance and the proud MacRorie standard hanging motionless beside.

  Later, he would not remember that walk. He was aware that he walked alone, once he approached the pavilion, Jebediah having mercifully dropped back to let him be alone with his grief. But he was not conscious of his feet, or of any feeling other than unbelieving numbness, until he paused before the curtained entryway. Taking a deep breath, he laid his hands on the curtain he had drawn aside so often before and stepped inside. He let the curtain fall behind him before he could allow his eyes to raise and behold what lay within.

  All of them looked up as the curtain fell. There was Guaire, kneeling at the head of Camber’s sleeping pallet, and a ghostly-pale Joram, praying at his father’s side, and Alister Cullen supporting himself against the pavilion’s center pole, looking as taut and anxious as Rhys had ever seen him.

  But what caught and held his attention, became the core of his awareness, was the body which lay between them, stretched serenely on its pallet as though only asleep, all signs of battle now washed from the white-clad body. The face was unmistakably Camber’s.

  He stood, they knelt, in that frozen tableau for several heartbeats, no one moving except Guaire, who resumed combing his dead master’s silver-gilt hair. Joram stared at Rhys; Rhys stared at Joram, at Cullen, at Guaire, avoiding the body now that he had seen it. It was Rhys who finally broke the silence.

  “Lord Jebediah came and told me,” he said in a low voice. “Alister, he said that you were wounded.”

  The vicar general straightened wearily, ice eyes never leaving Rhys’s.

  “I had forgotten,” he said simply. He touched a particularly bloody patch on the side of his tunic, allowing a guarded look of discomfort to cross his face, and seemed to falter just a little.

  Rhys instinctively moved to his side, putting an arm around his shoulder and supporting him close. The older man’s grasp on him was much stronger than he had expected.

  Do not betray me, Rhys. A familiar voice spoke in his mind, blocking out all else with a force he would not have dreamed of resisting. React only to what you see with your eyes. It is Alister who lies dead, not I. Joram knows, but Guaire does not.

  A sob escaped Rhys, despite his attempt to control his reaction, and the vicar general held him close against his chest, helping to hide any betrayal which might cross the Healer’s face in front of Guaire.

  “Nay, no tears,” the gruff voice spoke aloud this time. “He was a soldier in a noble cause, and he would not have wished it.”

  For Rhys and for Joram, kneeling still beside the pallet, the words had a double meaning which Guaire would never share. As Joram bowed his head once more, Rhys drew back from Camber and gazed tearfully into the strange, sea-ice eyes. With an effort, he rearranged his features to the grieving he knew Guaire or anyone else would expect. Blinking back his tears, he sought and secured the control he must maintain.

  “Aye, Father Cullen,” he whispered. “I’ll try to remember that. Come, let me attend to your wounds. What strength I have must be for the living.”

  “I am not badly hurt,” Camber said.

  “Perhaps not, but you must let me be the judge of that. May we go to your own pavilion, or would you rather remain here?”

  Camber gestured vaguely. “To my own. The day has been weary, and I can do naught else here.”

  Without further words, Rhys took his father-in-law’s arm, no longer quite so familiar in form, and went with him to the entryway. They paused, both of them, to glance back at Joram, at the peaceful body lying between him and the grieving Guaire, then moved out of the pavilion. The guards drew to attention and saluted, returned to rest, as the two made their way across the clearing toward the pavilion which had been Cullen’s.

  Jebediah had been waiting, but now he was engaged in a serious conversation with two of his under-commanders, who were obviously requesting his presence elsewhere. He raised a hand to Camber, and Camber gave a reassuring wave that he had seen Alister Cullen use a dozen times. Jebediah looked relieved as he turned to go with the commanders.

  “Thank God for that,” Camber whispered as they moved away from Jebediah. “I don’t think he suspects, but he must not be given the chance to grow suspicious. You’re going to have to help me play this part, Rhys—especially now, in the beginning, until I get oriented. I’ll explain more later—why it was necessary, and such—but for now, I think it wisest that I appear to rest, and recover but slowly. I have his memories to clear eventually, as well. I shall need your help.”

  “You know you shall have it” was Rhys’s only whispered reply as they drew near the Michaeline enclosure.

  A blue-mantled guard bowed and drew back the entry flap as the two approached.

  “They said that you were injured, Father General,” the man said anxiously. “Shall I send for your servant?”

  “Nay, Lord Rhys will tend me,” Camber replied. “Pray, see that we are not disturbed for a while.”

  “Of course, Father General.”

  As the flap closed behind them, Rhys began shaking in reaction. Camber held him close for several heartbeats, trying to ease his tumultous thoughts, until Rhys could regain control.

  “My God, but you take a chance, Camber!” the young man finally whispered fiercely. “Why on earth—”

  “Hush, you must not use that name. He whom the world knows as Camber is dead. Only you and Joram know the truth.”

  “And Evaine—may she be told?” Rhys asked, drawing back to look into the cool, ice-pale eyes.

  Camber released him and began unbuckling his sword belt, the craggy face troubled. “Aye, of course. I wish there were some way to spare her the initial news, but she is bound to hear before we reach her …”

  He let his voice trail off as Rhys helped him pull off the blood-stiffened Michaeline surcoat. Rhys searched the bloody mail beneath with an anxious eye, but Camber merely smiled as he bent to remove his spurs.

  “Nay, the blood is his,” he said. “I am uninjured, I told you.”

  He paused as Rhys bent to unbuckle the fastenings of his greaves, then let his weary body sink to a campstool, let the younger man pull off his boots and ease the mail chausses from his legs. The hauberk was next, and Camber slipped out of it with practiced ease, making a wry face at the great slashes in the metal links. The quilted doublet beneath was likewise slashed and stained with blood.

  “I suppose you don’t call this an injury?” Rhys muttered as he undid laces, trying to get at Camber’s body beneath.

  Camber almost had to smile. “I told you, this is but for show. Even I can heal the wounds I bear.”

  He winced and closed his eyes briefly as Rhys worked the blood-caked doublet from what could now be seen as a particularly ugly-looking wound, and for a moment Rhys was sure his words were mere bravado. The wound he had uncovered looked frighteningly real, and thus far had defied even Rhys’s questing mind touch to be proven otherwise.

  But then he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, which Camber had undoubtedly already sensed, and knew that Camber was merely playing his part. Instantly, he slipped into his own accustomed role as concerned physician, frowning an
d muttering worriedly over his patient as the curtain was withdrawn and more torchlight streamed into the tent.

  “Pardon, Father General, but I heard that you were wounded and brought warm water and cloths to bathe your hurts.”

  The speaker was Alister Cullen’s body servant, Johannes, a lay brother of the Michaeline Order who was fairly new to Cullen’s service. Also, Camber and Rhys remembered simultaneously, Johannes was not Deryni. If they were both reasonably careful, they should be able to bluff their way through the next little while with the man none the wiser. In fact, a glib performance now would greatly reinforce Camber’s new role in the future, if Johannes spoke to his brethren—as he was almost certain to do.

  “Your arrival is well timed, Brother,” Rhys said briskly, motioning the man closer. “The father general insists that his wounds are not serious, but I want to see that for myself. I think our ideas of serious may differ. Bring you that water near.” He waved away the guard who was lurking in the doorway. “Thank you, Sir Beren. All is well.”

  As the flap fell into place once more, Rhys took the basin of water from Johannes and put it on the carpet beside him, bidding the brother stand behind Camber’s stool to support him. The vicar general was now looking decidedly pale, and Rhys marveled at Camber’s ability to assume the difficult role in so short a time.

  He reached out with his mind as he began washing the wounds, knowing that the anxious Brother Johannes could detect no trace of their communication.

  I will follow your lead in this, he thought, glancing at Camber’s half-closed eyes. But if you should seem to faint away from weakness and the pain of your wounds, that would not be unexpected. It might give you an excuse to go easy for the first few days, until you are secure in your role.

  Camber’s mind reached out in answer, his thought caressing Rhys’s mind with affection. That thought had also occurred to me, son. But for now, I think we must heal these wounds convincingly enough to assure our gentle Johannes that naught is amiss with his master. Lay your hand there, above the great wound in the side, and I will ease it away.