Camber of Culdi (40 page)

“What is it?” a sleepy and slightly wine-blurred voice grunted, nearly inaudible.

Cinhil tensed at the sound and turned to glance at Camber. As his lips mouthed the single word,
Imre?
, Camber nodded and Joram knocked again.

“Who's there?” the voice said again, louder this time. “I told you, I didn't want to be disturbed. Go away.”

“Officer of the guard, Sire,” Joram said, disguising his voice slightly. “I have a message for Your Highness.”

“Can't it wait until morning, man?” the voice whined irritably. “I just got to bed. You know that.”

“The gate warder said it was important, Sire,” Joram replied. “Perhaps Your Highness should take a look at it.”

“Perhaps My Highness should have you whipped for your impertinence,” the voice snapped. “Oh, very well. Slip it under the door and I'll look at it later.”

Joram glanced at the others in annoyance, then let a slender smile flick across his lips.

“I'm afraid it won't fit, Sire. It's a sealed scroll,” he said, keeping the edge of smugness out of his voice, if not his expression.

They heard an exasperated sigh and a shuffle of movement from far behind the door, and then the nearly silent slap of bare feet approaching, the royal voice muttering incomprehensibly. As the bolt was shot, Joram and Cullen hit the door together. There was a
whoof
of surprise as the door struck the person on the other side.

They surged into the room, sweeping an astonished and indignant Imre before them, and Rhys slammed the door and shot the bolt all in one motion. Imre had been taken totally by surprise, and he paled to find himself confronted by the glint of steel.

“Treason!” he gasped. “Steel in my presence! Guards! Where are my guards? Who?—Camber!” His eyes went wide as he recognized the man with the earl's coronet. “How dare you?! What treachery is this?”

Camber said nothing; he turned instead and, with a slight nod of deference, bade Cinhil step forward. Imre blanched as the probable identity of the other man registered, and he backed slowly away from them until his bare legs collided with a bench. Nervous fingers plucked at the neckline of his nightshirt as he whispered, “The Haldane! He
does
exist!”

“The Tyrant of Festil,” Cinhil countered, his voice low and deadly. “He, too, exists—at least for the moment.”

Imre, drink-fogged though he was, shook his head as though he had not heard aright, starting as he caught the movement of the two Michaeline knights circling to cut him off from the sleeping chamber. In panic, he made a dash for freedom, screaming in terror as the knights tackled him and flung him to the floor.

“Ari!” he shrieked, as he struggled to escape them. “Ari, run!”

“Stop her!” Camber shouted, as the others scrambled past Imre and crowded through the doorway. “Don't let her get away! She carries his child!”

They almost caught her. But even as they poured into the room, the curtained bed seemed to explode in a flurry of pillows and sleeping furs and flashing white limbs. Ariella, a night-maned wraith with murder in her eyes, streaked toward the fireplace to disappear through an opening which had not been there an instant earlier. Joram and Cullen were only a few paces behind her, but it was far enough for them to rebound painfully from solid rock where, a few seconds before, a doorway had stood.

They battered at the rock, trying to find the opening, but by the time they could locate and force the triggering mechanism there was no sign of the fleeing princess. Cullen, with a resigned glance at Camber, disappeared through the opening to search, anyway, Joram following at his back.

Imre, standing now in the firm grasp of the two Michaeline knights, glanced uneasily around him, sobering fast. Escape at this time was not likely. Even if the two Michaelines had not held his arms, it was doubtful whether he could get past his other four captors. Rhys and Evaine blocked the doorway leading to the inner chamber, and Camber himself barred access to the passageway which Ariella had used. Cinhil stood near Camber, his eyes never leaving the face of his enemy.

Not that the so-called Haldane really represented a threat himself, Imre reasoned. For that matter, now that he was thinking more clearly, there were remedies even to the hold the two knights kept on him. A lightning thought, and his personal shields flared silver-bright, flinging his two captors' hands from his person. Of course, the knights were Deryni, too; and Michaeline shields surged in response, to ring the captive in a less visible but more constricting net—but that, too, was to be expected. At least he was fighting on his own ground now.

Disdainfully, Imre drew himself to his full height—still almost a head shorter than his Michaeline guardians—and gathered the shreds of his kingly dignity.

“You are ill-advised to lay hands upon an anointed king,” he said, addressing Cinhil. “And the traitor Earl of Culdi breaks his sworn oath of fealty to aid you.” He glanced haughtily at Camber, then back at Cinhil, annoyed that the Deryni earl's gaze did not waver. “A real man would not fear to face me on his own, Haldane! But, then, they tell me that you are really an apostate priest named Nicholas Draper, so I suppose that I cannot expect either manly or honorable behavior from you.”

“I am not afraid to meet you on your own terms, tyrant,” Cinhil said carefully, signalling the Michaeline knights to withdraw and guard the two balcony doors. “I am prepared to meet any challenge which you care to name—including the duel arcane.”

“Oh?” said Imre. “You're bluffing, of course. You are human, if you're who you say you are. And without your Deryni traitors, your armed men, you and all your steel are nothing.”

“I shall slay you without raising steel against you,” Cinhil said, unbuckling his sword and letting it fall to the floor. “In truth, I should slay you with salt, if that were possible. It were a fitting end for the fiend who slew my son.”

“Your son? I? Come, now, Haldane. And even if it were true, what magistrate in the land would hold me to answer for the slaying of a priest's bastard?”

“I have been released from my priestly vows,” Cinhil said evenly, though Camber could tell he was only just controlling his temper, “and my lady wife is of gentle birth. But I will not grace your crude remarks with further answer. You are responsible for my son's death, whether or not it was your hand which did the deed.”

“How so?”

“Do you deny that you captured a Michaeline priest, one Humphrey of Gallareaux, and tortured him until you warped him to your intentions? He learned his poison well, tyrant. My first-born died of the sacred salt placed upon his tongue at his baptism. It was your minion who did the bloody deed!”

Imre, astonished at the tale Cinhil had woven, clapped his hands in glee. “Humphrey did
that?
Oh, splendid! What subtle irony! I set him to slay the last Haldane heir. And that was your son, not you. So it wasn't a futile exercise after all. And now, you plan to slay
me
in retribution?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” Imre's face went coldly serious. “Tell me, do you intend to have your traitorous cohorts cut me into collops? Or am I to be permitted the dignity of fair combat with my accuser?”

“Fair?” Cinhil mocked. “What is fair about poisoning baptismal salt? What is fair about executing fifty peasants for a murder in which they had no part? What is fair about striking down a friend in cold blood, on suspicion only, without even ascertaining the facts? Do not speak to me of ‘fair,' tyrant! At this moment, I hold you in the deepest contempt!”

He stood there, glaring at Imre across the few meters which separated them, and for a moment the room seemed frozen in time and space, no movement or sound disturbing the tension which bound them there.

Then Imre shrugged, a maddening, insolent lifting of his shoulders, his hands, and one proud Deryni eyebrow.

The gesture was too much—the final insult which Cinhil could not endure. Raising his arms, he cast not only a crimson shield around himself, but a bolt of scarlet fire which Imre only barely managed to deflect in time.

Imre, recovering from his initial surprise, moved his fingers automatically in the counter-spell, throwing up his own shields and instinctively marking off a protective circle for battle. His manner was thoughtful, curious, as he moved a little to the right to give himself more working room. It was obvious from his very movements that he had not expected this, and was casting frantically for an alternative to the battle which now had become not quite so sure a victory.

“They said you were human,” he said tentatively. “I see they were mistaken. If so, then you are no true Haldane—but you
are
Deryni, aren't you?” His teeth flashed white in the semi-darkness. “But, come. Deryni need have no quarrel with Deryni. Give this up, and I will reward you with a place in my kingdom, with riches beyond your wildest imaginings.”

“Can you give me back my son?” Cinhil whispered, his voice hollow within the shields. “Can you restore to Earl Camber his son, revive the Willimite martyrs who, but for your want of enforcing the just laws of this land, would never have dreamed of rising against their anointed king? Can you resurrect the peasants of Earl Camber's village whom you slew?—victims of an injustice so great I cannot bear to speak of it. Is there anything which could make you care for those people whose welfare was placed in your hands? I did not want your crown, Imre of Festil. But I am bound to take it from you now. I have no choice.”

“That man betrayed me!” Imre shouted, stabbing a finger at Camber. “That is why I slew his son. You do not know what Cathan's death cost me. I loved him!”

Camber bowed his head, compassion welling in his heart for this weak, misguided king.

“But Camber's complicity in
this
treason is proof that I was right,” Imre continued, hysteria edging his voice despite his best efforts. “Coel knew. I was a fool not to listen to him sooner. I should have destroyed the whole MacRorie brood while there was yet time!”

With that, he lashed out, silver flame lancing molten and searing against the crimson nimbus surrounding Cinhil. The prince's defenses held, and for a moment he merely let the ravening tide of Imre's anger spill and course around him harmlessly. The fire flared and spat and crackled between them for a timeless while, neither man touching or touched, until Imre, in rage, abruptly changed his tactics.

Dread and hideous shapes began to condense and solidify out of the mists, then—grotesque creatures of night and unfathomed dark sea-slime, with gaping jaws and tentacles, and claws and teeth and mottled leather wings. The stench of rotten carrion and brimstone filled the air even beyond the shields; the screams of grisly slithering things pierced the air and hinted at forms guessed only in blackest nightmare.

Poisoned fangs clashed on prey which was no longer there; twisted talons grated on slate fouled with sodden, slime-sogged fur, touched shudderingly on barely shielded mind. Each one Cinhil managed to reflect back upon its creator, terror held in abeyance so that vengeance might prevail. At length Imre stood, sweat-drenched and breathless, to face Cinhil across only the flicker of their shields.

The king raised a shaking hand in interruption, nodded truce as Cinhil cocked his head to peer in question.

“I do not understand,” Imre whispered, all swagger gone from his voice now. “I am nearly spent, and you—you stand still, hardly touched, strong, though only God knows how!”

He breathed deeply, hugging his arms close to his body as the chill of the room settled around him. Cinhil stood regarding him, unruffled, composed, scarcely a hair out of place on the darkly silvered head, the pale hands relaxed at his sides.

“Do you concede?” Cinhil asked quietly.

“Concede? You know I cannot.” Imre shook his head. “I will not accept defeat from you. I have yet one escape. Not the way I would have chosen, but never mind.” A wry smile contorted his face as he staggered against a table, his breath catching in his throat. “I am master still of mine own body,” he gasped, “and that I shall never concede.
I
choose where and when I die. And I choose here and now, and by mine own—mind!”

With that, he collapsed against the table and slowly sagged to the floor, his face going ashen as his eyes closed and his shields melted away. Cinhil instantly dropped his own defenses and darted toward him, a look of shocked amazement on his face.

Camber started to raise a hand in warning, for it could be a trick. But then he saw that Cinhil was very much aware and on guard, despite his swift approach; he watched as Cinhil bent to touch the side of Imre's neck for a pulse.

The prince's disgust was apparent as he turned away from the cooling body. “He's dead,” he said, thin-lipped with anger. “He willed his own death rather than bear defeat at my hand.”

“He was Deryni, Sire,” Camber said quietly. “You will learn, in time, that he truly had no other option. Remember, I knew his father, and his grandfather before that.”

Cinhil did not answer, but stood for some seconds looking steadily across at Camber. Outside, there was an uproar in the courtyard, the sound of fighting men, and Cinhil flicked his gaze toward the balcony doors in mild annoyance. Gesturing for Rhys and the knights to look outside, Camber reached the paling Cinhil's side just in time to catch him as he crumpled to his knees and swayed in aftershock.

It was some time before Cinhil could raise his head. For several minutes, he simply shook in Camber's arms and fought the churning in his stomach, as the realization of the past hour's work stabilized in his mind. Finally, he raised his head and passed a shaking hand across his forehead, looked into the eyes of his mentor with a strange and distant gaze.

“I—am King of Gwynedd now, am I not?”

“You are, My Prince.”

Cinhil bowed his head and took a deep, sobering breath, then glanced to where Imre's body had lain but a few minutes before—startled to see that it was gone. But in that same instant, he saw that the two Michaeline knights had taken the body, had lifted it under the arms as though it lived, and dragged it through the balcony doors. As the body became visible to the soldiers battling in the yard below, the sounds of conflict ceased, the voices died down.