The Quest for Saint Camber Read online

  “This questioning has nothing to do with my office as bishop,” he explained to Wolfram, as the latter glanced in question at the ring. “I am here as a father who wishes to acknowledge his son.”

  “A Deryni father, acknowledging a Deryni son?”

  Duncan managed a fleeting but stiff smile.

  “I believe His Majesty said I was not to be asked that question.”

  “My Majesty did, indeed,” Kelson said, setting a hand on Duncan’s left shoulder. “Shame on you, Wolfram.”

  Wolfram shrugged. “I only ask what others are asking, Sire. I think he probably is—and I begin to wonder whether there is, indeed, harm in that, apart from the law—but, no matter, for now. I am not devil’s advocate for that question, thank God.” He glanced at the others, at the clark, who had looked up furtively at this last exchange, and motioned the young man to continue taking his notes. “Shall we proceed?”

  “With the understanding that I will ask the questions, yes,” Kelson replied. He settled gracefully on the stool at Duncan’s left, his hand sliding down Duncan’s arm to grasp the wrist inside the loose-fitting black sleeve. In his peripheral vision, he could see Morgan sitting beside a stiff and anxious Dhugal, with Nigel leaning forward a little, the better to observe what was about to happen.

  “For the benefit of Bishop Wolfram, who’s never seen this done before, I’ll explain what I’m doing,” Kelson said, addressing the three bishops. “I’ve asked Duncan to lay his open hands on the table so that you will be able to observe any sign of tension as the questioning progresses—though I don’t expect to see any. I have my hand on his wrist, partly for the same reason and partly because I’ve found that physical contact enhances control in this kind of procedure. Are you comfortable, Duncan?”

  “Physically? Yes. Emotionally—” The Deryni duke-bishop shrugged and grinned, still playing innocent of direct Deryni knowledge. “I’ve watched this done before, Sire. I’m not sure I look forward to reliving the days of my brash youth. I was very ardent.”

  Kelson smiled fleetingly, feeling for Duncan, but there was no way around it. It had to be done.

  “Nonetheless,” the king said, as he turned his Truth-Reading talent on his friend. “Let’s begin with a simple review of basics. Please state your full name for the noble lords of this tribunal, and all your offices.”

  “Duncan Howard McLain,” Duncan said easily. “Priest and bishop. King’s Confessor. Duke of Cassan and Earl of Kierney. Acting Viceroy of Meara. I also have some subsidiary titles and offices. Do you want those, too?”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary. Did you contract a valid marriage with Dhugal MacArdry’s mother?”

  “I did.”

  “When was that?”

  “It would have been early in April of 1107.”

  “And you were how old?”

  Duncan smiled. “An intellectually precocious but very naïve fifteen, courting an older woman. Maryse was a year older.”

  “I see. But you were both of noble houses, you a duke’s son and she the daughter of an earl. What made you decide to contract a secret marriage?”

  Duncan shook his head wistfully, letting his gaze shift in the general direction of the ring before Cardiel, remembering.

  “Youth. Impatience. Maryse and her mother and sisters had come to stay at Culdi while our fathers took their levies into Meara on campaign. The two clans had been closely allied for several generations. The way I heard it told, one of my father’s men killed one of her father’s men in a drunken brawl. Unfortunately, her father’s man was Ardry MacArdry, her eldest brother—the heir.

  “The culprit was tried and executed in the field, as was proper, but neither side was really satisfied. Our fathers feared a blood feud if contact continued between the clans. So old Caulay broke off his MacArdry levies and had them transferred to another command, separate from my father’s, then rode back to Culdi with a small escort to get his womenfolk and hie them back to Transha.”

  “Maryse as well?” Kelson prompted.

  Duncan blinked several times and nodded, his voice faltering just a little as he continued.

  “I never planned to fall in love that spring. I had my studies and my vocation. I was to enter the seminary at Grecotha in the fall. I was old enough to go on campaign, but I’d stayed behind to host my father’s guests while he and my brother went. Nothing like love was supposed to happen.”

  He shook his head, amazed anew at how events had upset all their plans.

  “It did happen, though. Within a few weeks, we were all caught up in it. We kept it secret, because we knew my mother would be furious when I told her I would not be entering the priesthood, but we planned to ask our parents’ permission to marry at the end of the summer, when our fathers came back from the war. Caulay’s unexpected return changed all that—and the threat of a blood feud.”

  “What changed?” Kelson asked.

  Duncan sighed. “We decided to marry anyway. We were thinking clearly enough not just to run away, but we knew none of the local priests would marry us without our parents’ consent, especially at such short notice. So we agreed to meet in the chapel at midnight and make our vows before the only Witness we knew would not betray us.”

  “The Blessed Sacrament,” Kelson supplied, glancing at the bishops and noting Wolfram’s interest, in particular.

  “Yes.”

  “And did you, in fact, meet? And did you, in fact, exchange marriage vows that you considered binding?”

  “We did.”

  “Thank you.” Kelson reached with his free hand to brush Duncan’s brow, carefully avoiding eye contact with Wolfram.

  “Close your eyes now, Duncan. Close your eyes and slip deeper into memory of that night. In a moment, I’m going to ask you to recall exactly what you and Maryse said to each other. Are you willing?”

  As Duncan complied, nodding dreamily, Kelson pressed his fingertips lightly on the closed lids, extending control without encountering resistance, then slid his hand down to rest on Duncan’s sleeve, his other hand still circling the relaxed wrist. Only then did he look at the bishops again.

  Arilan, who knew exactly what Kelson was doing, and how truly Deryni it was, had raised one hand casually to shield a faint smile from Wolfram. Cardiel looked alert and fascinated, as he usually did when watching the king work. Wolfram himself appeared a little apprehensive, but that was only to be expected. He started a little as Kelson nodded in his direction and glanced deliberately at Duncan’s passive, upturned hands.

  “He’s been telling the truth exactly as he remembers it, my lords,” the king said softly. “There’s been no flicker of resistance, no hint of deception. I have no doubt that they did exchange marriage vows. Is it necessary for me to go on?”

  “It—won’t hurt him, will it?” Wolfram asked.

  “Not at all—though, as he said, the intensity of some of those memories may be a bit uncomfortable. In a sense, he’ll actually be reliving the incident.”

  Wolfram swallowed. “I—don’t wish to cause him distress, Sire, but I would like to hear the words. The words can confirm much of his intent.”

  “Very well.” Kelson sighed and turned his attention back to Duncan, waiting docile and ready beneath his hands. “Duncan, I’d like you to go back to that night when you and Maryse exchanged vows. Think back to the chapel at Culdi. You’re fifteen years old, and it’s midnight. Did Maryse come to you?”

  “Yes,” Duncan breathed.

  “And what, if anything, did you say to each other?”

  “We knelt before the Blessed Sacrament,” Duncan whispered. “I took her hand in mine and made my vow.

  “‘Before Thee as the Supreme Witness, my Lord and my God, I make this solemn vow: that I take this woman, Maryse, as my lawful wedded wife, forsaking all others until death do us part.’” His free hand lifted vaguely to his left shoulder, then subsided as he went on.

  “‘I give thee this token of my love and take thee for my wife, and her
eto I plight thee my troth.’”

  “And what did you give her?” Kelson prompted softly.

  “A silver cloak clasp, shaped in the likeness of a sleeping lion’s head.”

  “I see. And what were the words she spoke to you?”

  Kelson could feel Duncan trembling beneath his touch, but it was the trembling of emotion, not resistance to the probe.

  “‘I take thee as my wedded husband. I give thee this token as a sign of my love, and hereto I plight thee my troth.’”

  “And she gave you—”

  “A shiral crystal, smooth from the river bottom and drilled to receive a slender leather thong,” Duncan replied, swallowing with difficulty. “It was—still warm from her body as she placed it around my neck. Her perfume clung to it.”

  “Be easy,” Kelson murmured, soothing the poignancy of the memory and shaking his head a little. “I know this is uncomfortable for you.”

  But he had caught a glimpse of something else, something he knew Duncan had never even told his old confessor. It was intensely personal for Duncan, but not particularly notable of itself. Still, it certainly would seal the validity of his intent.

  “Tell me what happened next, Duncan,” he whispered. “Before you left the chapel, you did something else. What was it?”

  Duncan drew a deep breath and let it out audibly, making a conscious effort to relax.

  “We knew that marriage was a sacrament that two people give to one another. We also knew that our own administering of that sacrament was irregular. But we wanted to make it as special and holy as we could, without a priest. So I—went up to the altar and—took a ciborium from the tabernacle.”

  “Wasn’t it locked?” Wolfram muttered.

  But Cardiel only hushed him as Kelson shook his head and urged Duncan to go on.

  “You took out a ciborium,” Kelson repeated, glossing over the opening of the tabernacle and the memory of Deryni powers brought into play to drop the tumblers of the door’s tiny lock into place. “Then what did you do?”

  “I—brought it down to the altar step and knelt beside Maryse. Then we—gave one another Holy Communion. We—knew it wasn’t normally allowed, but I was accustomed to handling the altar vessels when I served Mass. And we couldn’t have a nuptial Mass.…”

  “I take it,” Arilan interjected softly, “that everything was done with due reverence for the Blessed Sacrament?”

  “Yes,” Duncan breathed.

  “I think there can be no doubt that the intent was there to solemnize a valid and sacramental marriage,” Cardiel said quietly. “Arilan? Wolfram?”

  As both nodded, Cardiel went on.

  “But one final question must be asked, then. Where and when was the marriage consummated? You need not give any further details beyond that.”

  Duncan smiled dreamily, grateful for the kindness.

  “After we had finished in the chapel, we stole away to the stable loft, snug and hidden in the sweet-smelling hay. Innocent that I was, it never even occurred to me to wonder whether our one painfully brief union might have borne fruit. And communication, once she would have known, was impossible, given the bad blood between our two clans. Perhaps she tried to write to me and tell me, but no messenger ever reached me. It was only a full year later that I learned she had died the previous winter, ostensibly of a fever. The first inkling I had otherwise was when, a year ago, I saw Dhugal wearing the cloak clasp I had given Maryse.”

  When Duncan had finished, it remained only for Dhugal himself, the offspring of that union, to come forward and offer as final evidence the tokens his parents had exchanged that long ago night in the chapel of Culdi: the cloak clasp bearing the sleeping lion’s head, its concealed compartment still containing the ring woven of Duncan’s and Maryse’s hairs intertwined, and the honey-colored lump of shiral that Dhugal had worn since that day, now a year long past, when he and his father had finally discovered their true relationship.

  “Keep it,” Duncan had said, “in memory of your mother.”

  “But, that leaves you with nothing of hers,” Dhugal had protested.

  “It leaves me with everything,” Duncan had replied. “I have her son.”

  Now father and son stood a little shyly in a windowed alcove opening off the king’s dayroom, still savoring the heady triumph of the archbishop’s tribunal and the more creaturely satisfaction of the hot meal Kelson had ordered sent in upon their return. The king, Morgan, Nigel, and Arilan continued to converse over the remnants of that meal, but Dhugal had felt the need for more private counsel with his father. As he and Duncan moved a little farther into the alcove, out of sight and earshot of the others, the coppery streak of his border braid made bold contrast against the unadorned black that he, like his father, had donned for the morning’s solemn proceedings.

  “I know you told me before, but I’d forgotten that you and Maryse gave one another communion after you made your vows,” Dhugal said in a low voice, looking out at the rain while he fingered the shiral crystal that had been his mother’s. “Of course, you would have. In fact, you were a priest even then, weren’t you?—even though you’d not been ordained or even started in holy orders. Yet you were willing to give it all up for her.”

  Duncan sighed and set both hands on one of the horizontal bands of iron supporting the mullioned window panes, leaning his forehead against the cool glass as he stared, unseeing, at the rain beyond. At midafternoon, it was nearly dark already, but not nearly so dark as that dark night of the soul through which he had gone that long-ago summer.

  “I thought I was willing,” he said, after a moment. “I fully intended to give it up, at the time. And yet, I suppose I was already a priest. I guess I’ve always known that, but I—put it aside when I met your mother. I used to wonder if that was why God took her from me—because I was His priest.”

  “Why did He let you fall in love, then?” Dhugal demanded. “Was He only testing you? And then, when you failed the test, did He kill her, so you couldn’t have her?”

  Duncan looked up sharply at the bitterness in Dhugal’s voice, hearing an echo of his own rebellious anger when he learned that Maryse had died.

  “Dhugal, no!” he whispered. “It’s true that she died, son, but He didn’t kill her. If I’ve learned anything in thirty-odd years of living, it’s that He’s a loving God. He doesn’t slay His children—though, for His own reasons, He sometimes lets them suffer adversities that we don’t understand. She might have died bearing anyone’s child. I don’t think she was singled out because she dared to love a man God intended as His own.”

  As he looked out at the rain again, remembering what it had cost him to truly believe what he had just said, Dhugal snorted and turned away, shoulders rigid with rebellion.

  “I understand what you’re feeling,” Duncan said, after a few seconds. “In some ways, you may be right. It may well be that God was testing me—and that I did, indeed, fail. For a while, after I heard she’d died, I used to think so. But now I wonder if there wasn’t another reason He brought me and Maryse together. He still wanted me for His own, but—maybe that’s the only way you could be born.”

  “Me?”

  As Dhugal turned to stare at him aghast, Duncan smiled gently.

  “You’re so like Alaric sometimes. He’s another who doesn’t like to think he’s been the subject of Heaven’s special attention. Ask him sometime, if you don’t believe me.”

  “Well, it does take some getting used to.”

  “Why? Don’t you think God has a plan for each of us?”

  “Well, of course,” Dhugal said uncomfortably. “But only in a general sort of way. We have free will.”

  “To an extent,” Duncan agreed. “But what was my will, set against the will of God, Dhugal? He wanted me to be His priest. I’m not sure I ever had a choice in the matter—not really. Not that I mind,” he added. “Not now, at any rate, and not for many years—though I certainly minded after your mother’s death.

  “But there�
��s a certain heady comfort in knowing one has been chosen, warts and all. I don’t know why He wanted me so badly, but other than that one brief flare-up of rebellion—which may have been all in His plan anyway—I’ve been content in His service. No, more than content. He’s brought me joy. And one of my greatest joys, though I didn’t know it for a long, long time, is that He let me sire you—and all without compromising His honor.”

  Dhugal, much moved, turned awkwardly to gaze out the window again, all but blinking back tears.

  “What about His laws?” he asked after a moment. “The ones that forbid Deryni to seek the priesthood.”

  “Laws are written by men, Dhugal, even if God inspires them. Sometimes men misunderstand.”

  Dhugal glanced sidelong at his father.

  “What if Maryse hadn’t died, though? Would you still have become a priest? For that matter, did she know what you were?”

  “That I was Deryni? Of course. I told her that afternoon, before we were wed.”

  “And she didn’t mind?”

  “Did she mind? Of course not. To her, it was the same kind of odd but useful talent as the second sight some of your borderers have—just a bit more diverse. I’m not sure she ever quite understood what all the fuss was about, though she knew it could mean my death if I were discovered. The border folk have always been a mystical people. Perhaps the terrible persecution of Deryni in the lowlands never quite reached the same proportions in the borders and highlands.”

  “Aye, that’s true enough,” Dhugal agreed. “But you haven’t answered my other question. What would you have done, if she hadn’t died?”

  Curiosity about what might have been, loyalty to the mother Dhugal had never really known—Duncan could hardly fault his son for any of that, but neither could he really give an answer. How was he to explain, without shattering whatever idealism might remain to this keen-eyed young man who had already lived so much and in such adversity?