Camber of Culdi Read online

  “Necessary,” Imre repeated in a strained whisper.

  He did not hear the wax as it hissed and spat, falling on the parchment and receiving the imprint of the royal seal. And shortly after that, they were striding down the corridor toward the Great Hall, Imre with a cup in his hand once more—Coel had not dared to refuse it to him—and the orders on their way to the guards who would escort Cathan’s body home to Camber.

  The feast that night went even more badly than Coel had feared, given Imre’s initial state of inebriation.

  Ariella, predictably annoyed at her brother’s failure to appear at the appointed hour, had waited a reasonable amount of time, the guests milling restlessly in the hall, then had made her own entrance and ordered the company seated—though even she did not dare to begin the feast without Imre. But the musicians played and the wine flowed freely, and the conversation sparkled at the Yule Court of Imre of Festil, as did his guests.

  Seated at the high table beside her brother’s empty chair, Ariella laughed and drank and flirted with the great lords and gentlemen seated near her, her vivid beauty glowing from its setting of velvet and satin and snow-white fur. Diamonds blazed at throat and wrists and around the hem of her gown; more trembled seductively on her forehead beneath the silky fur hood which confined her hair and framed her face like some strange winter flower.

  All the company was garbed in white tonight, out of deference to Imre’s wishes for a true winter court, and thus it was with a breath of surprise that the assembled gentles greeted the appearance of their monarch in the doorway of the Great Hall, clothed from head to toe in scarlet, except for the lining of the mantle he wore. From his demeanor and the cup in his hand, it was simple to deduce what had delayed the King’s Grace—or so they thought.

  Without pausing for ceremony, Imre wove his way down the hall, Coel limping in a little embarrassment at his right elbow. The surprised guests knocked over benches and stools to get to their feet and bow as he passed, though Imre would not have known the difference if they had not moved. Ariella, better accustomed than most to her brother’s idiosyncrasies when he had been drinking, picked up a new goblet of wine as he approached and offered it to him with a curtsey as he reached the dais and staggered to his seat.

  “You’re drunk and you’re late,” she whispered, sotto voce, as he took the cup and drained it to the dregs. “Where on earth have you been?”

  “In Hell, madame, in Hell.”

  Imre burped, then waved the Court to their seats and bade the musicians play.

  As music and conversation resumed, Coel slipped to his accustomed seat near the high table and sat, watching apprehensively, as Imre drank a second goblet, ignored Ariella’s further attempts to question him, then paused while a page refilled his cup and drained that, too. The stewards had not even been able to get the first course served before the king lurched to his feet, his face flushed from the wine, the cup unsteady in his hand.

  “Why do you laugh and sport among yourselves?” he shouted.

  The room was quickly hushed, and the musicians broke off with a few discordant notes.

  “Why do you make merry?” the king repeated, indignation coarsening his voice, his eyes glittering dangerously. “You, Selkirk, why such merriment on this night, of all nights?”

  The weapons master, seated at a table partway down the hall with a number of his fellows, jumped hastily to his feet and bowed, his face as white as the tunic he wore.

  “By your leave, Your Grace, but you did command it.”

  “I?” Imre paused to take a deep draught from his goblet. “I did command it,” he repeated incredulously, as though he had never heard of anything so preposterous. “Damn you, Selkirk, do you not know that a man is dead?”

  He hurled the goblet toward the shrinking weapons master, where it narrowly missed a page’s ducking head, then swept his arm across the table, sending silver ewers and platters crashing to the floor.

  “Damn you, get out! All of you, get out!”

  He picked up another ewer—this one of glass—and dashed it to the floor with an oath, then lurched backward and overturned his chair as he stumbled from the hall.

  His sister, stunned and outraged at his actions, murmured instructions to the head steward to clear the hall, then followed in the direction Imre had gone. A wide-eyed guard pointed out the chamber into which the king had disappeared, but all of Ariella’s cajoling and pleading could not induce him to come out. Finally, in a fit of temper herself, Ariella stalked back to the hall to see that her orders had been obeyed, before retiring to her chambers to sleep.

  Imre also slept, after a time, sprawled facedown on the floor of his refuge chamber, a cup of wine staining the carpet beside his head. But guilt and an urgent bladder awakened him before many hours had passed, and it was with extreme care that he staggered, still quite drunk, into the room’s garderobe to relieve himself. His head was reeling from the wine, and he poured himself another cup with shaking hands before venturing to the chamber door and raising the bar.

  Outside, the torches in the cressets were nearly burned down, the corridors silent. A lone guard snapped to attention and gave a royal salute as the king made his way down the narrow passage, fending himself off from the walls with his empty hand. Faintly, from the direction he had come, Imre could hear the sounds of servants clearing away the disaster in the Great Hall, and abruptly the reason for his drinking came back to him.

  With that, he was taken by a fit of shaking, and it was all he could do to bring the cup to his lips and drink again. Then he was climbing the winding stairs toward his chambers, halting to rest halfway up, then turning and descending again, shuffling uncertainly down another passageway to another winding stair.

  He would go to Ariella. She would understand—though he thought he remembered her shouting at him through the door as he fell asleep earlier. She would know what to do. She who had soothed his childhood hurts and held him close against the terrors of the dark—she would find the words to comfort him now. She would not fail him, though Cathan and all others did.

  Within minutes, he was standing hesitantly outside her chambers, swaying uncertainly on his feet, staring into the depths of his nearly empty cup. Abruptly, he drained off the contents and then knocked thunderously on the door.

  “Ar—Ari?” he called, his voice cracking on the first attempt. “Ari, open the door—please?”

  “Who—who is it?” came a timorous voice on the other side of the door. One of the servants, no doubt.

  “I want to see Ari. It’s me, Imre.”

  There was a gasp, an unintelligible command from farther away, and then the door was open and a maid was making a deep curtsey. Ignoring her, Imre stumbled past and headed for the doorway of the inner chamber. Candles were being lit by another servant within, and as he entered he was aware of the shadowy form of his sister pulling on a robe over her sleeping shift near the great, curtained and canopied bed. The glare of the candles hurt his eyes, and he could not seem to see her clearly.

  “My cup is empty, Ari,” he whispered plaintively, turning the cup upside down and giving it a shake to demonstrate that it was indeed so.

  His sister’s voice came from the shadows, soothing, reassuring. “Maris, pour some wine for His Grace and then leave us.”

  The girl by the candles came to him then, dipping in a quick curtsey before filling his cup. But when she started to go, he caught her sleeve and held her fast while he drained the cup and extended it again. With a glance at her mistress, the girl filled the cup a second time, then left the flagon on a table and went out. Imre began to drink again, but something blocked his light and he looked up. His sister was standing between him and the candles, her reddish hair tumbling down around her shoulders. He could not see her face, but the flames touched her hair with fire.

  “Ari?” he said in a small voice.

  A slim white hand was extended toward him, resting on his where he held the cup.

  “Don’t you think y
ou’ve had enough for one night?”

  “Never enough to wash this away,” he mumbled, starting to raise the cup again and frowning as she did not release his hand.

  “You don’t understand, Ari. He’s dead. I killed him.”

  The hand on his did not move.

  “Who is dead, Imre? Whom did you kill?”

  His hand jerked spasmodically at that, and he lost his grip on the cup; he would have dropped it had she not caught it. His sob stuck in his throat and shook his body as he buried his face in his hands.

  “Cathan. I’ve killed Cathan. He was a traitor, and I had to do it, but—Oh, God, Ari, I’ve killed him. And I—loved—him.”

  Ariella closed her eyes briefly, remembering the solemn, determined Deryni lord, whose price she and Imre had never found, and slowly raised Imre’s cup to her lips and drank deeply in ironic salute. Then she let the empty cup fall to the carpet beside her and took her brother in her arms as she had done when they were children.

  “It will be all right, Imre,” she murmured, as he clung to her shoulders and the tears stung his eyes. “You are the king, and must do what you must do. But you are also a man, and a man may mourn a friend.”

  With that, Imre’s grief came pouring over him and he sank, sobbing, to his knees, to bury his face against her waist. So he remained for a long time, sobbing bitterly. She stroked his hair, rubbed the tension from his shoulders, and brushed the top of his head with her lips. At length the anguish faded, to be replaced by a growing tingling in every part of his body—and in hers. And as he raised his tear-streaked face and read the passion in her eyes, he was suddenly aware of the soft promise of her body locked in the circle of his arms.

  In one dazzling flash of revelation, he knew that both of them had been moving toward this moment for a long time.

  As he struggled to his feet, her mouth sought his, as hungry as his own need. He was aware of her pressing hard against him as they clung to one another, the exquisite softness as his lips moved down her throat, as he crushed his face against her flawless breasts.

  Then they were being drawn, one by the other, toward the shadowed recesses of the great, curtained bed, and his blood was roaring in his head, and he lost himself in the urgency of sweet oblivion.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The just shall be in everlasting remembrance.

  —Psalms 112:6

  It was a stunned and hushed contingent which met the royal escort that next day bore Cathan MacRorie home.

  The cortege from Valoret arrived amid light snowfall near noon, bearing Cathan’s body on a two-horse litter, the horses plumed and caparisoned in black, the body covered with a velvet pall, snow-frosted. The king’s men, a score of them, carried their spears reversed in their stirrups. A pair of monks walked to either side of the bier, swinging censers and chanting prayers for the soul of the departed. After the royal escort, another litter bore the dead man’s widow and children, young Revan following behind on horseback with Wulpher and a handful of the loyal Tal Traeth servants. None of them were misled by the royal pageantry, for they had seen the blood-stained body before it was washed and dressed and laid out in state for the short journey home. They knew the king’s hypocrisy for what it was, though even they did not dream of the extent.

  Word had flown from the capital as only news of tragedy can fly, reaching Tor Caerrorie in the small hours of the night. The man who brought the news was Crinan, Cathan’s devoted body squire. He had been at Tal Traeth when the soldiers brought his master home; he had watched, mindless in his grief, as the king’s lieutenant barked orders for the preparation of the body; and he had bristled with pride as old Wulpher, the steward, pushed the man aside and himself performed this last service for their slain young lord.

  Torn at first between his wish to stay at his master’s side and the necessity to warn the rest of the family of what had happened, Crinan held his peace until the king’s men had bedded down in the Great Hall for the night—for they would be accompanying the body to Caerrorie the next morning. Then, spurred by the fear that the king might make retribution against all the MacRories, Crinan left his grieving vigil and took horse for Caerrorie. Three hours later, he was pounding up the approach to the outer gate.

  The sound of his horse’s hooves shattered the night silence of the castle and set the hounds to baying, and soon the entire household was awake and shivering in the cold, ill-lit Great Hall.

  At first Crinan could not tell them—he was physically unable, after his long and breathless ride in the cold and snow. But he was sure that Camber knew before he spoke, in that uncanny way which only Deryni seemed to have. Camber had received his words with wooden silence, had turned his face away for a mere instant before tonelessly asking Sam’l to ride on to Saint Liam’s and pass the word to Joram. Rhys Thuryn was already in the house, had been working late on documents in the MacRorie library, and he, too, came into the Great Hall at the commotion, to hear the news in shock and hold the weeping Evaine close in helpless comfort. After a few more low-voiced commands to the servants regarding necessary preparations for the morrow, Camber had requested them all to return to their respective chambers to try to rest. There was little further sleep for anyone at Caerrorie that night.

  Next morning, under a cold, sapphire sky, Camber’s household gathered in Caerrorie’s village church to pray for the soul of Cathan MacRorie and wait for his body to come home. Joram arrived before dawn, and young James Drummond an hour later. Evaine and Rhys knelt together at Camber’s side, with Crinan and Sam’l and a dozen of the closest household servants, as Joram led the prayers for the dead.

  Outside, the people of the village gathered, and Camber permitted as many of them to enter the church as could be accommodated, the rest of them kneeling quietly in the outer yard. When, at last, word came that the cortege was approaching, the villagers still outside went and lined the road in silence, each one making a deep obeisance as the bier passed.

  The king’s lieutenant was visibly annoyed at this sign of devotion—which, to his mind, should have been reserved for their sovereign—but he dared do nothing. For there was a grim, proud man waiting on the steps of the church to receive his son—a High Deryni Lord capable of unspeakable vengeance if he chose to wreak it. The lieutenant was Deryni himself, and not unskilled in the use of his powers, but he did not relish an arcane confrontation with Camber of Culdi. The lieutenant ordered his men to stand quiet, and silently prayed that the Earl of Culdi would not defy the king’s commands.

  The lieutenant’s fears were unjustified. He should have known that violence was not Camber’s way, even in extreme grief. Camber stood straight and calm—deadly calm—as the cortege drew to a halt, fixing the soldiers coldly with his gaze as Joram, Rhys, and the faithful Crinan and Sam’l removed the bier from the horse-litter and bore it into the church. He embraced Elinor and his grandsons before sending them inside. Then Camber stood watch until Wulpher and Revan and the other servants from Cathan’s household were permitted to come forward, to kneel weeping at his feet until he raised them up and, with low and gentle voice, bade them also go inside.

  Slowly and deliberately, he himself followed them and closed the doors, making it clear to the most hardened of them that the king’s men were not welcome in this hour of grief. The Lieutenant wisely chose not to challenge that statement, but bade his aide command the men to stand at ease. Inside, Joram MacRorie began the Requiem Mass for his slain brother.…

  When the Mass had ended, Camber remained kneeling for a long time beside the body of his son, pondering his next move. Burial would not be until that evening, for the grave was not ready, so most of the villagers had gone into the courtyard after Mass, leaving only members of the immediate family and household to keep silent vigil.

  But the guards were still outside, and Camber wondered about that, wondered why they were staying, what orders they had received besides the command to escort Cathan’s body home. Though the king’s lieutenant had said nothing to him—in
deed, he had not given the man a chance—Camber considered whether their mission might entail more than they had done thus far. (Or was this his own guilt projecting suspicion?) What if they were holding arrest warrants for the entire family, and awaited only the conclusion of the burial rite tonight to serve those warrants? There had been some reason for Cathan’s murder. Suppose Imre had somehow gotten wind of their quest for Prince Cinhil?

  He let his eyes search those remaining: Rhys at his side; Evaine, comforting the grieving Elinor; James Drummond, kneeling sullen and alone far to the right of the nave; the family servants of his and Cathan’s households. Sam’l had taken the children back to the castle minutes before—no need for them to stay in the church for the rest of the afternoon, grief-strained and frightened. What he now planned would be difficult, but it must be done.

  With a slight sigh, Camber crossed himself and got to his feet, shaking his head when Rhys looked up and made as though to accompany him. Moving alone toward the back of the church, he stopped beside one of the young pages still kneeling there and spoke with him quietly for some minutes, the boy nodding vigorously from time to time. Then Camber was tousling the boy’s head in affection, a slight smile crossing his face as he turned and moved back up the aisle. Just before Camber reached his former place by Rhys, the page glanced around nonchalantly, got to his feet, and slipped away through a side door.

  Now, what was all of that about? Rhys wondered, and started to ask as Camber knelt beside him once more.

  But the proud old Deryni shook his head and held a finger to his lips, his head bowed as though in prayer once more. Puzzled, Rhys watched as Camber reached out and caught the edge of the pall shrouding Cathan’s body, to bring the silk-fringed velvet gently to his lips.

  It was not the pall which Imre had sent, Rhys knew. That had been removed as soon as the body was safely inside the church and the doors closed, to be replaced by another one bearing the MacRorie arms, Cathan’s label of cadency stitched to it lovingly in the pre-dawn hours by his sister Evaine.