Camber the Heretic (48 page)

“I'll tell you why!” Bishop Hubert raged, when the party with its prisoners had returned to Rhemuth Castle. “He was one of them!” He gestured toward the four kneeling prisoners with an angry chop of his hand. “Are they not all Deryni?”

Court had been convened in the great hall as soon as the king and regents could be summoned. The princes had been allowed time to wash and change their bloodstained tunics, but now they sat tensely on stools to either side of their brother, who nominally presided from the formal throne. A tense-looking Tavis crouched beside Javan's stool to the far right.

The three regents resident in Rhemuth were ranged in rigid fury around the throne: Bishop Hubert, coped and mitered between Alroy and Javan, crozier clutched like a talisman against the prisoners; Earls Murdoch and Tammaron on Alroy's other side, wearing their coronets and long court mantles of rich, dark stuff lined with fur.

Archbishops Jaffray and Oriss were also present, and Earl Udaut, the constable, and several other lesser lords, but they had been relegated to places at the right of and perpendicular to the throne, with several clarks who were scribbling notes intently. Jaffray, the sole functioning Deryni in the hall besides Tavis—for the prisoners had been drugged before they ever left the campsite to prevent Deryni tricks—only wished he could be even farther from the center of attention. Deryniness would be a key issue this afternoon, as well it had to be.

He wished he knew more precisely what had happened. From what snatches of information he had been able to pick up from those around him, it appeared that there had been an attack on the royal hunting party by, among others, those now kneeling before the court, and that Davin had been among those killed, his true form returning at his death. The logical inference seemed to be that Davin had been a key part of a Deryni assassination plot—for why else would a Deryni of Davin's high rank join the royal household disguised as a common guard?

That Davin was dead, there was certainly no doubt, even if his psychic absence were not poignant enough reminder. His lifeless body lay on a litter before all the court, alongside those of the other four attackers who had been killed, plus the dead guard and squire. Beside them knelt the four bound and drugged prisoners who had been taken alive, each with a guard standing behind. They
were
Deryni—Jaffray had sent out a swift probe as they were brought in, though the shields he had encountered were hazy and confused from the drugs—but he did not recognize any of them except Davin.

“I therefore think it clear,” Murdoch was saying, “that these—
Deryni
,” he spoke the name with purest contempt, “did conspire to murder Your Highness's royal brothers—and would have threatened Your Highness's life, as well, had you not been called to your royal duties at the last moment and stayed in Rhemuth this morning. Nor is this the first instance of Deryni plots against the House of Haldane, as Your Highness will recall. Now, one of the loyal guards has been most foully slain, and another guard, who was trusted with the very safety of the Crown, has betrayed you.”

He moved down a step and gestured angrily toward the body of Davin.

“There lies the Earl of Culdi, who, by some magic surely profane in the eyes of God, took the form of another and did deceive Your Grace and your royal brothers—and was revealed as the deceiver he is only when death forced him from his evil ways.”

“He saved Rhys Michael's life,” Javan protested. “He took an arrow meant for my brother.”

Murdoch threw up his hands in disgust. “Oh, Your Highness, how can you be so deceived? It was merest chance that the arrow struck—
that!
” Again he gestured roughly toward the body. “His confederates miscalculated—that is all! There is another who was so wounded. It is not always possible to choose one's targets with great precision in the heat of battle, especially when the bowman shoots from a cowardly shelter in brush.”

He stabbed a beringed forefinger at the body of the man Javan had finished, with the arrow still projecting from its leg.

“These Deryni are all in league,” he concluded. “It is quite clear what dark Master of destruction and damnation they serve!”

It was all Jaffray could do to keep his seat, but he knew he dared not rise to Murdoch's bait and draw the regents' scrutiny on himself. Tavis had likewise blanched at Murdoch's statement, but with tight-lipped forbearance he merely dropped his hot gaze to the floor by Javan's feet.

Alroy, who had grown progressively paler as Murdoch spoke, gripped the gold-mounted ivory of his scepter as if it were his only link to sanity as he stared at the four battered captives.

“Have you anything to say to us?” he said, in a thin but steady voice.

The captives stared back sullenly, eyes a little glazed from the drugs they had been given, but none of them showed any inclination to speak.

“We do not wish it said that our justice is arbitrary,” Alroy continued, almost a little pleading. “Your crime is irrefutable. We have done nothing to provoke such an attack upon us. Yet, if you had some quarrel—”

Bishop Hubert rapped twice with his crozier on the wooden floor of the dais, the sound an echo of doom for those who knelt before him.

“
No
quarrel may justify raising hand against one's lawfully anointed king, Your Grace!” he thundered in red-faced outrage. “And to strike against the king's heirs is to strike against the king! These
Deryni
were engaged in sacrilegious murder and treason. They must be made an example, that none may ever again raise hand against your royal house!”

Alroy, who had shrunk down in his throne a little as Hubert made his pronouncement, gripped his scepter even tighter, and Javan looked as if he might faint. Only Rhys Michael continued to stare evenly at the prisoners, his face a chiseled mask of ice. After a few tense heartbeats, Alroy turned his face slightly toward Tavis, crouching at Javan's side.

“Lord Tavis, perhaps a Deryni can shed some light on the motives of other Deryni.”

Tavis, with an uncertain glance at the king, then at the prisoners, rose stiffly and crossed his arms so that his missing hand was shielded behind his other elbow.

“I would gather from Your Highness's request that my own loyalty is not in question, even though I am Deryni,” he said softly. “If this is so, do I also assume that Your Highness is asking me to Truth-Read the prisoners?”

“If you can.”

“With all due respect, Your Highness, I would rather not.”

“Your own attackers could be among them,” Murdoch offered smoothly. “Will you not serve yourself and your king in this small way, Tavis?”

Tavis returned Murdoch's gaze implacably, then drew careful breath, clearly about to refuse.

“Do not force me to command you, Tavis,” Murdoch whispered.

For a moment, Jaffray thought the Healer might continue to defy Murdoch. Tight-jawed, he glanced at Javan, at Alroy, then gave a brisk nod, not quite a bow, before moving down the dais steps. The prisoners, even in their drugged lethargy, shrank against the guards who stood at their backs, but they could not escape his touch as he passed along their line, pausing before each man to lay his hand briefly on forehead and probe as well as he might. When he had read each one, he returned up the steps and made Alroy another almost-bow.

“I believe no useful purpose would be served by deeper probing, Your Highness. They appear to be only disgruntled younger nobility—the same breed of bully boys whose bands have plagued us for some time now. They are more young and foolish than conspiratorial, and seem as astonished as we that Earl Davin was among us.”

Javan raised his head attentively, some of the color returning to his cheeks.

“Then, Davin was
not
lying. He
was
sent by someone else, to protect us.”

“Aye, sent by someone else,” Hubert replied archly, “but not to protect you, Your Highness. He deceived you. He deceived all of us. He took another man's form and identity. And where is the real Eidiard of Clure? No doubt, most foully murdered, so young MacRorie could come here in his place and plot his treason!”

Javan had no answer for that. Nor did Tavis. After a moment, Alroy looked at the Healer again.

“You believe there was no plot, then?”

“Among themselves, because they were personally outraged, yes, of course there was a plot, Your Highness. But it did not extend beyond their band, and it was not a
Deryni
plot. This was not a Deryni question, despite the fact that Earl Murdoch would have it so. I cannot speak for Earl Davin's motives, but these men appear to have acted out of purely human motivations.”

“They ‘appear' to have acted,” Murdoch repeated, tight-lipped. “Then, you admit the possibility that there may have been other considerations which prompted their action, which you could not read?”

Tavis shrugged, a not-quite insolent statement of subtle defiance.

“I cannot read their souls, my lord, but so far as I may determine, on an admittedly superficial but drug-assisted reading, they acted to retaliate against those who symbolized the lessening of their prospects.”

“And if more than a superficial reading were attempted?” Tammaron asked.

“They would die.”

“What!”

“They had a pact among themselves, to resist any deep probing by triggering their own deaths. Bishop MacInnis will remember a similar case early in the summer, when a prisoner willed his own death rather than permit the baring of his mind to my probe. I have the names of the living and the dead, including the one who escaped. There is nothing further to be gained.”

Hubert nodded, the pink lips pursing in the cherub face.

“He's right. I remember.”

“I see.” Murdoch hooked both thumbs in the leather of his earl's belt and rocked back and forth on his heels. “And I assume that if anyone else of your kind were to attempt to read them, he would likewise encounter this?”

“Undoubtedly, my lord.”

“Even Archbishop Jaffray,” Murdoch pursued it, “who is forbidden by his vows to kill?”

As Jaffray caught his breath, praying he would be spared the necessity to find out, Tavis gave a curt nod.

“You are welcome to have it tried, my lord. Archbishop Jaffray was one of my teachers, though he is not a Healer. It may well be that he has skills which I do not; but I do not think even he can elude a death-trigger.”

Murdoch turned his attention to Jaffray slyly. “Well, Archbishop, can you serve your king in this?”

Chilled, Jaffray stood.

“Your Highness,” he murmured, with a slight bow to the wide-eyed Alroy before returning his attention to Murdoch. “Lord Tavis was, indeed, my student at one time, and if he says that no one could avoid such a trigger, then I am certain that it is so.”

“I would question that, Archbishop,” Murdoch replied. “However, I will not demean your office by putting you personally to the test. Sir Piedur.”

The guard captain, standing by the side door nearest Jaffray and Oriss, snapped to attention.

“Excellency.”

“Ask Lord Oriel to attend the King's Grace. Do not tell him anything of what has just been discussed.”

“At once, Excellency.”

“And you, Tavis, do you go to the clarks and give them the names that you have learned, while we wait for Oriel to join us,” Murdoch added.

As Piedur left and Tavis came down from the dais, Jaffray sank wearily back into his chair and folded his hands, realizing some of the worst of his fears as he watched the young Healer come and stand before a clark. He had heard vague rumor for the past month that the regents were recruiting Deryni agents by inducement and threat, and now he knew that it was true. The collaboration was beginning, Deryni against Deryni!

Tavis had nearly finished dictating to the clark, arms clasped sullenly across his chest, not bothering to look at what the man wrote down; but Jaffray could see the names over the clark's shoulder, and knew with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that the men had come from some of the oldest families in Gwynedd. When Tavis had finished, he returned to the dais and crouched once more by Javan's side. Murdoch, displaying a typically prim, careful smile, leaned one arm casually on the back of Alroy's throne, surveying Tavis and Jaffray by turns.

“We thank you, Lord Tavis,” he said silkily. “And I believe you will remember Lord Oriel from the night of your injury?”

Tavis gave a curt nod.

“Good. And you, Archbishop—do you know him? He is in our employ now, as you will have gathered. It seems he has a wife and tiny daughter of whom he is inordinately fond. But, I didn't hear your answer, Archbishop. Do you know Lord Oriel?”

“Only by reputation,” Jaffray murmured dully. He looked up and saw Murdoch's peculiar, twisted smile—and just for an instant, he wanted to smash Murdoch's prim, disdainful face.

“Well, you shall meet him shortly,” Murdoch was saying. “But just to keep both you and Tavis honest, I should warn you that if either of you should attempt either to influence what Oriel does or to interfere with his reading of the chosen prisoner, he will tell me—and I shall know where your true loyalties lie.” The sour smile was replaced by a grim, tight-lipped scowl. “Do I make myself clear?”

Resignedly, Jaffray nodded assent, glancing aside as Piedur re-entered the hall, escorting a young, blondish man with a wisp of reddish beard who looked far too young to wear the Healer's green, even though he fit the description Rhys had given them in the Council. Tavis, crouching still by Javan's stool, followed the younger Healer with narrowed eyes. Jaffray suspected that Tavis had little use for the Healer who had failed to save his hand—though it had not been Oriel's fault, God knew.

Murdoch smiled his bitter smile again and folded his hands piously, though he did not remove his elbow from the back of Alroy's throne.