Camber of Culdi Page 8

  “Then, by the same token,” Cathan continued, “if the woman should have her child before her turn comes for execution, you’d have to let another one go, wouldn’t you? I mean, a living child would make the number fifty instead of forty-nine. He’d have to release another one besides the one I take tonight, wouldn’t he?”

  There was an appreciative chortle from behind the grille. “That’s what I admire about you, Cathan. Always thinking. As a matter of fact, I suppose he might let another one go, if that were the case. Of course, that assumes that the woman survives that long, and isn’t chosen before her time comes to deliver.”

  Cathan glanced down the steps again, his lip between his teeth, then stood clear of the door.

  “All right, then, I’m ready to make my choice. Come down and let’s get on with it.”

  The door opened, and Maldred and two guards came through and followed Cathan down the dark stairs as two more guards closed the door behind them. They reached the bottom of the stairs and Maldred swept his gaze over the prisoners.

  “Well, which one is it to be, Cathan? I haven’t all night.”

  Cathan gestured for one of the guards to open the bars, then stepped through the opening to stand among his people. As he did, several went to their knees, and one of the women began sobbing softly. His hand brushed her bent head as he passed, and then he was moving among them, touching a hand here, a face there, this time extending his Deryni senses to the fullest, delving deep into the emotion filling the room, searching for the best of them to save.

  There—he had caught it!—the spark for which he searched. Now, to localize. It was coming from the right, from one of three young—

  He heard the sound of the door being opened at the top of the stairs, and he froze.

  “They’re coming to take the first two,” Maldred said behind him. “You’d best make up your mind.”

  He could hear footsteps descending the stair, the measured tread of well-trained soldiers coming to do their duty, however grim, and he cast a last, lingering look across the people gathered around him. Some of the younger men—boys, really—were trying to hold back sniffles, and two of the women were weeping openly. As the footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs, Cathan took two quick steps across the straw and held out his hand.

  “Revan, come with me,” he said, mentally flinching a little as the boy looked up at him in blank amazement.

  It was the carpenter’s apprentice, who walked with a slight limp, and from whom Cathan had read the thoughts worthy of salvation.

  “M—me, m’lord?”

  The boy’s eyes were wide, frightened, awed, and he stood frozen there, unable to reach out his hand to Cathan’s. The footsteps were approaching the cell now, the door being swung back to admit three of the soldiers, who were heading in his direction.

  “Take my hand, Revan,” Cathan commanded, his eyes boring into the boy’s. “Come out of this place of death, and live.”

  The guards took one of the women out of the cell, and she began moaning softly as the shackles were fastened to her wrists. As the guards re-entered the cell, the boy slowly reached out his hand. It touched Cathan’s just as the guards were about to take him, and they hesitated but a moment before fastening, instead, on Revan’s young companion, the bailiff’s son, who wailed as they carried him, kicking and crying, from the cell and shackled him as well. His cries sent the trembling Revan sobbing to his knees at Cathan’s feet, his hand still linked with the young lord’s.

  Maldred observed the scene with amused distaste.

  “Well, if that’s your choice, let’s get him out of here,” the Earl finally said, motioning out of the cell as the guards took the two prisoners back up the stairs.

  As Maldred withdrew, taking the torch from the wall cresset, Cathan drew the boy to his feet and hugged him close for a moment, letting the boy’s tears relieve his anguish, then brushed the boy’s head with his palm, forcing calm into the boy’s mind. After a moment, the sobbing stopped and Revan stood on his own. With a weary sigh, Cathan put his arm around the boy’s shoulder and guided him out of the cell. When the guard had locked the bars, Cathan turned to look at them once more.

  “Good night, my friends,” he said quietly. “I dare not hope that I shall see you again in this world.” He lowered his eyes. “I pray that the next will give you more justice. My prayers will go with you.”

  As he turned to go, there was a faint rustling in the cells, and then all within were on their knees.

  “God go wi’ ye, young master,” Edulf called gently.

  “Keep the lad well,” another called.

  “We thank ye.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain, that I might weep day and night for the slain …

  —Jeremiah 9:1

  Later, Cathan was unable to remember leaving the keep. Somehow, he got the boy home safely and had him fed and put to bed by the servants. He remembered the hour he had spent writing to his father about the night’s failure (for so he viewed it), which missive was dispatched straightaway by messenger when Cathan had signed and sealed it.

  But of the rest of that evening’s aftermath, he remembered not a thing, from the time he put his head down on his arms at the desk, intending only to rest his eyes for a moment, until he felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him to wakefulness, and heard the voice of his steward, Master Wulpher, quietly informing him that it was near dawn and his bath drawn.

  Cramped muscles protesting, he allowed himself to be led into his chamber to bathe and don fresh clothes, fidgeting in irritation as his body servant tried to shave him. But he could not stomach the morning ale which Wulpher brought him. The mere thought made him queasy. After giving Wulpher instructions to cover his absence with the royal hunt, he looked in once more on the sleeping Revan before making his reluctant way down to the courtyard where Crinan, his squire, waited with the horses.

  Half an hour later, he was elbowing his way through the throng gathered in the yard of the Chapel Royal, his head—though not his heart—much cleared by his ride. Cathan looked neither left nor right as he crossed the yard toward the chapel, hunching down in the fur collar of his cloak and hoping to avoid conversation about the night before.

  But anonymity was not to be his that morning. Confrontation in the form of his wife’s kinsman, Coel Howell, was looming unavoidably in his path. Coel had apparently been watching from the instant Cathan and Crinan rode into the yard. The older man’s thin lips contorted in a smug, strained little smile as he nodded greeting to his brother-by-marriage.

  “Good morning.” He moved closer so that there was no way Cathan could gracefully avoid him. “Did you sleep well last night, brother mine? You look a little tired.”

  Cathan bristled mentally, but managed to keep any outward sign of his anger from showing.

  “Well enough, thank you. And you?”

  “I generally have little trouble sleeping,” Coel drawled, watching hawklike for any sign of weakness or regret. “But then, I have no reason to be anxious.” He toyed idly with his riding crop, glancing up at the watery sun, then returned his attention to Cathan. “I hear that you have a new page,” was his next remark.

  “A new page?”

  “Yes, recruited from among your peasants.”

  Cathan felt his jaw muscles tighten, and wondered how the man had known. Maldred must have told the entire Court, after he and Cathan left the keep.

  “That’s true,” he finally said. “I bring several to Tal Traeth for training each year. Why do you ask?”

  Coel shrugged. “No special reason. I was just curious, I suppose. Surely you will have guessed that you were a topic of merry conversation after Maldred returned last night?”

  “How fortunate that I could provide such amusement for His Grace’s Court, even in my absence,” Cathan said, in as droll a tone as he could manage. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to attend to, as I am sure you must.”

  H
e started to push past Coel and flee into the chapel, but Coel put a gloved hand on his shoulder and restrained him.

  “His Grace is in very good spirits this morning, Cathan,” he said pointedly. “He has asked me to ride at his side in the hunt today.”

  “Should I offer my congratulations?”

  “That is your concern. However, if you were to say or do something which distressed him, so that he became irritable and nasty, as is sometimes his wont, I would not look upon it as a kindness. In fact, I would be greatly annoyed, kinsman or not.”

  “You need not worry on my account,” Cathan said evenly. “I have no intention of speaking with His Grace unless he himself requests it. Now, if you will permit me to pass, I should like to pray in private before Mass. Innocent peasant folk are to die today.”

  “Innocent?” Coel arched a skeptical eyebrow as Cathan pressed past him. “Why, Cathan, I’m surprised. I shouldn’t think that peasants ever qualify as innocent. But then, you MacRories always were an odd lot.”

  When Mass was over and Cathan had received the Sacrament, he was able to make his way back to his horse and mount up without having to converse with anyone. Mercifully, Crinan had made a place for them near the rear of the procession of huntsmen, away from anyone to whom his master might have felt obliged to speak. It was an awkward moment when the Princess Ariella rode past with several of her ladies and blew him a lighthearted kiss from the tips of her gloved fingers; but she did not stop, for which Cathan gave great thanks. He was not certain he could have faced her just then.

  It was well that Crinan had made such provisions; for as they rode out the city gatgs a little while later, the huntsmen winding their hunting horns and whipping the hounds into order, two bodies were swinging from gibbets a little way above the wall, one of them, by size, hardly more than a child.

  Cathan’s vision swam at that, and for a long time he rode in total silence, head bowed, one arm clutched lightly across his aching, throbbing chest. He tried not to think about the identities of the two victims, much less of the others who would join them over the next twenty-four days. But try as he might, he could not resolve the guilt he was feeling, the sorrow which ate like a canker at his heart and mind. He could have saved them, if he had tried harder—surely he could have.

  He could find no comfort, nor would he for a long time.

  Most of October passed, and with it the executions of the hostages. True to his word, Imre did not relent in the slayings; nor, on the other hand, did he threaten any further reprisals against the village whose people had failed to come forth with the killers of his vassal, Lord Rannulf. The peasants mourned their dead, but at least there were no more deaths.

  But besides the kinfolk of the people who died, it was probably Cathan who suffered most from the tragedy—Cathan who, for twenty-five days, anguished anew with each rising of the sun, each dawn portending the deaths of two more of his people; each of whom, but for his choice, might have lived if he had chosen that one instead of the boy Revan.

  Somehow he retained his sanity, possibly because of the special tenacity which has always been a characteristic of the Deryni race. Through the enforced merriment of the hunt with King and Court, he tried hard—and successfully—to mask the loathing he found himself feeling for Imre’s stubbornness, so unlike the Imre he had known and loved in times past.

  The hunting expedition lasted not one week or even two, but nearly three, in the end. And by the time the royal party returned to Valoret, it was all Cathan could do to contain his rage and frustration at not being able to get through to Imre and make him stop the slayings.

  Imre was likewise provoked at Cathan’s dogged obstinacy, and began snubbing him at Court. Cathan, not trusting himself to remain in the capital with the recalcitrant king, betook himself and the boy Revan to Saint Liam’s and the comfort of his priest-brother. There he went into retreat for the duration of the appointed days, sinking into ever deeper depression with each new sunrise.

  Toward the last, he took to staying more and more in the room they had assigned him, speaking little, eating hardly at all, unable even to look at Revan, whose salvation had been bought at the cost of the other lives. When, on the final day, he received word of the last death—the pregnant girl, her child born dead the week before, on the day her husband died—Cathan could no longer contain his grief. Joram’s frantic message brought both Camber and Rhys hurrying to the retreat at Saint Liam’s; and it took many hours of talk and prayer and gentle reasoning before Cathan began to come out of his depression. Even then, Rhys’s healing gifts had to be applied more than once, before the old Cathan began to re-emerge.

  A week later, on All Souls’ Eve, Cathan kept vigil alone in the cold abbey church, all through the long and lonely night. He never spoke of the preceding month again, nor would he discuss what must have gone through his mind during his private vigil. But after Mass the following morning, he and Camber and Joram and Rhys set out at last for the MacRorie manse at Caerrorie. It was a very quiet homecoming.

  Understandably, then, it was some time before Rhys and Joram were able to resume their search for the Haldane heir. During the executions, they had felt their places to be with Camber and his people; and Cathan’s breakdown had delayed them further. Thus it was not until the Feast of Saint Illtyd, in the first week of November, that they found themselves at last on the road to Saint Piran’s.

  Anticipation was; high as they covered the few remaining miles.

  The first snow was on the ground. It had fallen during the night while they slept, covering the ground with a fluffy blanket of white which dazzled the eye and made the horizon blend in with the blank, featureless sky. The damp air chilled them to the bone, and the horses frisked and pranced at the new sensation, frost coating the tiny whiskers on their muzzles and making them snort in annoyance. The two riders sat straight in the saddle, watching the road for hidden potholes and other hazards; they were the first to come this way this morning. The horses’ hooves broke the virgin snow in a spray of fine, feathery wake.

  “Are we nearly there?” Rhys asked, after they had ridden in silence for nearly an hour.

  Joram blew on a gloved hand and held it to his face to warm it. “It’s just ahead. Those are some of the outbuildings off to the left. Actually, we could have made it last night, but it would have been late. We stand a much better chance of getting what we want by showing up at a decent hour.”

  They topped a rise, then drew rein to gaze down into a wide valley. Less snow was on the ground here, and the outbuildings of the monastic compound could be seen spread across the whole valley floor. At the other end of the valley, the priory proper stood atop a slight promontory, a gilded cross glinting from the church tower. In between, the neatly ordered fields were spread in early-morning tranquillity, the high-piled haystacks and barns covered lightly with the season’s first snow. To the right, brothers in heavy brown habits and tabard-aprons were turning the cows out to pasture, the morning milking done. A thin curl of smoke drifted from the top of the refectory hall, adjacent to the main monastic buildings.

  “They must have hundreds of hides of land here,” Rhys remarked, as they made their way toward the main gate. “I thought that the Ordo Verbi Dei was fairly small.”

  Joram nodded. “There are some younger sons of a cadet branch of the royal family in holy orders, though—the current royal family, that is. I think the gift of land dates from the time of Festil I.”

  Their reception was far different from the last time they had ridden together through monastic gates. The gate warder, a layman in gray working tunic, bowed from the waist and swept off his cap, clutching it to his chest as they passed. No sooner had they reined in than their horses’ bridles were taken by a pair of black-robed novices. The novices bowed respectfully as the two men dismounted, though they appeared to regard the Michaeline badge on Joram’s mantle with some trepidation.

  A gray-clad lay brother hurried across the courtyard to meet them, bowing nervous gre
eting first to his fellow religious, then to the Healer’s green.

  “Good morning, Father, my lord. God’s blessings be upon you. My name is Brother Cieran. How may I serve you?”

  Joram returned the man’s bow politely, maintaining a cool and slightly aloof air. “Good morning, Brother. I am Lord Joram MacRorie, of the Order of Saint Michael. This is Lord Rhys Thuryn. We should like to speak with your prior.”

  “Certainly, noble sirs.” The man bowed again. “If you will come this way, please, I shall ask His Excellency to attend you.”

  As the man turned away, Joram cast a sidelong glance of reassurance at Rhys, then fell into step behind Brother Cieran.

  They were led across the courtyard and through a long passageway, then along one side of a cloister garden, snow-dotted now, and into a rather large presence chamber. There they were left to wait, surrounded by four wainscotted walls and an assortment of religious paintings—no chairs or benches—until an elderly man in a white habit entered from the opposite end of the room. He had pure white hair and rather startled-looking brown eyes, and wore a plain silver cross on a braided leather thong around his neck.

  “I am Father Stephen, Prior of Saint Piran’s,” he said, bowing slightly. “How mav I serve you, Father, my lord?”

  Very soon, the two were being shown by Brother Cieran into a small, close room with a wooden bench along the wall opposite the door. There was an opening at about waist level, no more than a handspan in diameter, filled in with a grille made of tightly woven rushes or strips of bark—Joram could not be certain in the dim light.

  Brother Cieran indicated that they should be seated, then bowed and gently closed the door behind him.

  Air and some light came through a tiny skylight in the ceiling, but otherwise the room was very gloomy. A brighter light came from beyond the grille, but the light source was apparently the open doorway of a room similar to the one they now occupied. A shadow momentarily blocked the light as someone entered, and then the door closed. They could hear someone breathing noisily through his nose—a someone who then drew near the grille and sat.