The Harrowing of Gwynedd (30 page)

Hardly daring to breathe, Javan slipped inside and glanced around quickly, flattening himself against the wall beside the door. The anteroom into which he had entered was dimly lit by a vigil lamp burning beneath a painted icon of Saint Sebastian, its reddish gleam picking out the gilt on the arrows piercing the martyr's body—all too vivid a reminder of his own fate, if he was caught, figuratively, if not literally. Beyond, another door standing slightly ajar led into a larger room furnished with several comfortable-looking chairs piled with cushions and furs, grouped around a large, stone-manteled fireplace, the floor before it covered with a dark-patterned carpet and more furs. Javan inspected the room as he entered, looking for another door or curtained opening that might conceal the oratory, but he remembered that Tavis had said it opened off the sleeping chamber—and a closed door, just to the right of the fireplace, must lead to that.

Now he was really getting daring, left with no possible explanation, once he went into Hubert's bedroom. Cautiously he tried that door, holding his breath as the latch moved beneath his hand and the door swung silently inward. At least it did not creak. He caught the gleam of another votive light off to the right, which must certainly be the oratory; but just before he was able to close the door behind him, he heard someone come into the anteroom from the corridor outside, closing the door with no attempt to be quiet.

Good God, it was either Hubert or a servant, and either way, someone was almost certain to come where Javan was!

In an instant that seemed like eternity, he scanned the room. Hiding in the oratory was his first thought, but that was out of the question because the curtains across its entrance were open. If Hubert decided to pray before retiring—

And there was not enough light to see what other hiding places the room might afford—and which would continue to offer hiding, once the candles were lit. The only thing Javan could make out for certain was the location of the great state bed, directly across from the still partially opened door, its vast canopy and hangings looming dark and forbidding in the gloom.

That was all too obvious a possibility, and truly audacious, but as Javan heard footsteps passing from the anteroom into the one with the fireplace, panic triumphed over reason, and he darted to the bed's far side, there to drop to his belly and slither underneath as quickly as he dared, even as he realized he
could
have gone into the oratory, and simply said he was waiting there for Hubert, at the archbishop's invitation. He prayed that whoever had just come in would not notice that the bedroom door was not closed all the way.

His heart was hammering as he inched his way as close toward the head of the bed as he could get, curling up in a tight, miserable ball. The bed was high enough that he could lie on his side, his back hard against the wall, but it was also high enough that someone just might think to look under it, before the archbishop mounted the steps on the bed's other side to get into it.

Javan would not be anything but dead if that happened, for he could offer no excuse for being found here. And the packet he carried next to his breast would surely seal his fate.

He tried to make himself consider options as he lay there in the dark, certain that anyone who came in now would instantly hear his heart pounding and yank him from his hiding place. Numb with terror, he forced himself to take deep, careful breaths and slow his racing pulse. Gradually the booming in his ears receded until he could pick out the faint, desultory sounds of someone moving around in the next room.

Brighter light began to spill through the crack of the partially open door. Soon the scent of woodsmoke and the crackle of a good fire underscored Javan's realization that a servant must be responsible, making things ready for the master's return. Briefly the prince considered trying to make a dash for the oratory, so near and yet so far away, in hopes that he might yet use his excuse of waiting there for Hubert. But he gave up that idea immediately as stronger light approached the partly open doorway and then a hand pushed it open, sandalled feet below a black monastic robe carrying the light around the room to light several candles in wall sconces and on the chest to the right of the great bed.

Javan tried to breathe very, very softly as he watched the feet move back and forth, their owner laying out night robes and water for washing up and even slippers, just beside the bed steps, so close that Javan could have reached out and touched them. He wondered briefly whether contact with the man's foot would be sufficient to let him extend control and concluded that it probably would. He decided not to try it, though, not knowing when Hubert might show up to interrupt.

The decision was a prudent one, for Hubert returned very shortly in the company of someone who lingered long enough in the outer chamber to have a cup of wine before taking his leave. The monk working in the sleeping chamber went out to serve them, but he left the connecting door open and continued to move back and forth between the two rooms, finishing up his chores. Javan never did learn who the visitor was, but he heard his own name mentioned several times. Nor did he catch the gist of what else they were discussing, though at least their tone was positive.

All of which was very fine, but then the visitor left. Javan spent the next half hour or so in sheer, quaking terror, while Hubert padded around the sleeping chamber, getting ready for bed. After the monk had assisted him from canonicals to nightrobes and left with his blessing, Javan had to watch the fat feet pacing back and forth in their embroidered slippers, their owner pausing from time to time to gaze out at the snowfall while he had another cup of wine. Javan approved of the wine, for it increased the chances that Hubert would sleep deeply when he eventually did go to sleep, but
when was he going to do it?

Apparently, not for a while, Javan soon realized. Hubert had another cup of wine—or perhaps it was water; Javan could not tell from under the bed. Then he had to use the garderobe. Then he came out to kneel in the oratory for a little while.

Finally he rose and came back into the room, drawing the curtains before the oratory and extinguishing the candles in the wall sconces, and Javan thought he might be going to bed at last. Hubert did get into bed, dangerously straining the lattice of ropes that supported the mattress so close over Javan's head. But then he took up a scroll from the chest beside the bed, where a candle still burned, and began to read.

The situation was fast growing intolerable. Javan now believed he was reasonably safe from discovery here under the bed—and eventually, Hubert
would
fall asleep—but he was beginning to worry about Charlan, left waiting in the chapel. The squire would stay indefinitely the way Javan had left him, but what if someone tried to speak to him? Javan had never planned to be gone this long.

So he must move things along. With the curtains now closed across the oratory, Javan felt reasonably certain it was safe to try using the Portal—once Hubert was asleep. But could he somehow help Hubert along? He dared not touch the archbishop directly, so long as there were signs that he was still awake—as occasional rustlings of the scroll periodically attested—but perhaps he could encourage Hubert to sleep without actually having to touch him. Javan knew that trained Deryni could communicate at a distance with individuals whose minds they already knew; and they could certainly Truth-Read without touching someone, as he himself could do. And earlier, Hubert had responded to his suggestion that no one should disturb him. If he could combine all those principles …

Slowly, carefully, he shifted until he could lay his right hand flat against the underside of the mattress just above his head, visualizing Hubert's bulk only a double handspan above it. Closing his eyes, he gathered all his concentration, the way Tavis had taught him, and began sending the soft, gentle command to
sleep
. He synchronized his breathing with Hubert's, having to speed his own up considerably in the beginning; but when he began to slow his, Hubert's followed.

So sleepy, so drowsy
, Javan continued to send, as he slowed the breathing yet again, certain now that he was having an effect.

After another minute or so, his labors were rewarded. As he drew a deeper breath, letting it out with a soft sigh, Hubert's sigh was deeper still, the scroll slowly slipping from his hands and sliding, first to the bed-steps, then softly onto the carpet beneath, to roll back on itself. Javan did not falter in his concentration, lest the sound should have jarred Hubert from his dozing—for if Hubert bent down to retrieve it, he might see the huddled form lurking under his bed—but the archbishop did not move.

After another deep sigh and the alarming vibration of the bed moving above him, Javan realized that Hubert was simply settling in, slipping ever deeper into sleep. Liquid-sounding snores soon confirmed it. A few seconds later, Javan was easing out from under the other side of the bed to peer gingerly up over the edge, hardly able to believe his good fortune.

Hubert was definitely asleep. His ponderous bulk was propped up on half a dozen fat pillows, his head tipped back so that his jaw fell slack, and Javan almost had to laugh at the ridiculous, fur-lined nightcap covering the archbishop's head and ears. Ridiculous, but it also would help to muffle any inadvertant sound Javan might make in the course of his escape.

And there was more that might be done to ensure that escape, first to the Portal and then from the room. Now confident that Hubert would respond, Javan slowly reached across to touch his fingertips to the archbishop's forehead, at the same time commanding even deeper sleep and an opening to Javan's will. Hubert moaned softly, but he did not stir, and Javan knew he had him. Reinforcing the command, he made the suggestion that the archbishop should settle into a more comfortable position for sleeping, maintaining contact while the man obeyed. Hubert groaned and shifted farther under the sleeping furs, burrowing into his pile of pillows, then was still, his mind blank and receptive.

Now remain sleeping until I tell you otherwise
, Javan sent. And as he cautiously drew back his hand, Hubert did not stir.

Excellent! This was even better than Javan had dreamed and well worth the anxiety he had endured to reach this point. Touching one hand to the breast of his tunic to confirm that his report was still in place, he headed across the room and slipped between the heavy curtains hiding the little oratory. After all the difficulties he had already overcome, he was all prepared to have to search for the Portal, but its intact presence blazed up in his heightened senses like a warming flame, directly in front of the little altar with its Presence Lamp.

Thank God! Now, if he could only work the Portal. He would have only one chance. Either he could do it or he couldn't. Drawing a deep breath, he visualized the Portal in the Michaeline sanctuary, reaching out for the energies. He could feel them, like a tangle of fiery skeins, but he paid no attention to the heat, wrapping his mind around them and then, with a faintly breathed prayer that this would work, wrenched the energies.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumbering upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction
.

—Job 33:15–16

Javan staggered as the floor lurched under his feet, flinging his arms to either side for balance. Simultaneously, he opened his eyes to torchlight rather than a Presence Lamp, the light coming from beside him rather than in front. One hand smacked into stone, but the one toward the light flailed into empty space, nearly hitting a man who had not been there an instant before.

The man caught his wrist and yanked him from the Portal before he could even cry out, deftly spinning him around so that suddenly Javan's wrist was twisted up behind his back, pressure arching him backward with pain and the promise of real damage to the wrist if he made the slightest attempt to escape. At the same time, the man's other hand slid around his neck from behind and clamped hard across the carotid pressure points, even as crisp, efficient Deryni shields wrapped around his mind, testing. Javan pawed at the choking hand with his free one, vaguely trying to dislodge it, but his vision was already tunnelling in toward blackness.

“Don't even
think
about fighting me, son,” a strange, brisk voice commanded, just beside his left ear. “I don't want to have to hurt you.”

“You're already hurting me!” Javan managed to gasp, though he made an immediate effort to stop struggling. “Who
are
you?”

The tension on his trapped wrist backed off just a fraction, and most of the pressure eased from his throat, but escape still was out of the question.

“Odd, I was about to ask you the same question,” the stranger murmured. “So since
you're
the intruder here, suppose you tell me first.”

Javan's alarm gave way to vague indignation at the presumption of this glib stranger to take such liberties with the person of a Haldane prince, but now was hardly the time to quibble over niceties of protocol. The man's very presence in the Michaeline sanctuary declared him no enemy, for all the menace of the hands still holding Javan quite immobilized and the mind surrounding his, Truth-Reading him.

“Fair enough. I'm Javan Haldane, and I need to see Tavis right away.”

“Ah, and so you are. He didn't tell me to expect you.”

The hands released him immediately, their owner stepping back to make him an apologetic bow of the head. The man appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with kind-looking hazel eyes twinkling beneath a shock of shortish brown hair—somewhat surprising, in light of the force he had just displayed to keep his prisoner under control. He wore a Healer's badge and some other on the shoulder of his plain brown mantle, and his sparse beard and mustache looked only recently grown.