Katherine Kurtz - Heirs 1 - Harrowing of Gwynedd

WHO SHALL KNOW A SAINT

Evaine sank to her knees beside the body of her father. Camber's

well-loved face was peaceful in repose. It was nearly a week since she

had found him in the snow, but there was no sign of corruption.

Joram set his hand on her shoulder as he knelt beside her. Then he

crossed himself, and they both rose. He cleared his throat, looking

decidedly uncomfortable.

"Evaine," he asked, "if saints aren't taken directly into heaven,

what other thing sometimes happens to their bodies?"

"They don't decay," Evaine breathed. "They remain incorruptible."

"Exactly. And right now, his body is incorruptible—for no logical

reason we can offer." He glanced at the shrouded body with a mixture of

disbelief and awe.

"Evaine, what if he really is a saint?

By Katherine Kurtz Published by Ballantine Books:

THE LEGENDS OF CAMBER OF CULDI

CAMBER OF CULDI

SAINT CAMBER

CAMBER THE HERETIC

THE CHRONICLES OF THE DERYNI

DERYNI RISING

DERYNI CHECKMATE

HIGH DERYNI

THE HISTORIES OF KING KELSON

THE BISHOP'S HEIR

THE KING'S JUSTICE

THE QUEST FOR SAINT CAMBER

THE HEIRS OF SAINT CAMBER

THE HARROWING QF GWYNEDD

THE DERYNI ARCHIVES

LAMMAS NIGHT

The Harrowing of Gwynedd

Volume I of The Heirs of Saint Camber

Katherine Kurtz

DEL REY A Del Rey Book

BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

A Del Rey Book

Published by Ballantine Books

America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random

House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-7414

ISBN 0-345-36314-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Hardcover Edition: February 1989

First Mass Market Edition: October 1989

Cover Art by Michael Herring Map by Bob Porter

For

Anne McCaffrey,

who saved our sanity, if not our lives,

too many times to count

during that incredible first year in Ireland!

[Harrowing of Gwynedd Map.jpg]

Contents

prologue

Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. —Ecclesiasticus 44:1

I Every purpose is established by counsel. —Proverbs 22:18

II They were killed, but by accursed men, and such as had taken up an unjust envy against them. —I Clement 20:7

III For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land. -Psalms 35:20

IV Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their hearts? -Job 8:10

V For thou bringest in certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.

—Acts 17:20

VI He hath set fire and water before thee: stretch forth thy hand unto whether thou wirt. —Ecclesiasticus 15:16

VII Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also, and the thoughts of many hearts shall be revealed.

—Nicodemus 12:5

VIII I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. —Psalms 69:8

IX They will lay hands on the sick, who will recover. —Mark 16:18

X Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not

divine. -Micah 3:6

XI For thou indeed mayest be tyrant over unrighteous men, but thou shall not lord it over my resolution in the matter

of righteousness either by thy words or through thy deeds. —IV Maccabees 2:58

XII Who will rise up against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?

—Psalms 94:16

XIII Woe be unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed.

—Proverbs 10:1

XIV For thy power is the beginning of righteousness.

—Wisdom of Solomon 12:16

XV He discovereth deep things out of darkness. —Job 12:22

XVI 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

XVII A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren. —Acts 1:31

XVIII So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and

thy expectation shall not be cut off. -Psalms 24:14

XIX For thou seest that our sanctuary is laid waste, our altar broken down, our temple destroyed. —II Esdras 10:21

XX Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their hearts? -Job 8:10

XXI Foursquare shall it be being doubled. —Exodus 28:16

XXII And thou shall put it under the compass of the altar beneath, that the net may be even in the midst of the altar.

-Exodus 27:5

XXIII But you shall not mock at me thus, neither will I break the sacred oaths of my ancestors to keep the Law, not

even though you tear out mine eyes and burn out mine entrails. —IV Maccabees 2:5

XXIV The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach . . . deliverance -to the captives.

—Luke 4:18

XXV Then they that gladly received his word were baptized. —Acts 2:41

XXVI I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came. -Job 3:26

XXVII And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed. -Isaiah 29:11

XXVIII I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children. —Isaiah 47:8

XXIX Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into morning.

—Amos 5:9 389

XXX Where is Uriel the angel, who came unto me at the first? for he hath caused me to fall into many trances.

—II Esdras 10:28

appendix I: Index of Characters

appendix II: Index of Places

appendix III: Partial Lineage of the Haldane Kings

appendix IV: The Festillic Kings of Gwynedd and their Descendants

appendix V: Partial Lineage of the MacRories

prologue

Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.

—Ecclesiasticus 44:1

Silvery handfire preceded Evaine MacRorie down the narrow, cut-stone

passageway. It lit the subterranean darkness ahead and glinted the gold of her

coiled and braided hair to tarnished silver, but the dusty black of her gown

swallowed up most of the remaining light.

The close darkness fitted her mood—bleak and weary, especially this early

in the morning. She had slept but little after she and Joram finished their work

of the night before. Only the two of them knew what lay this deep beneath the

Michaeline haven that they once again called home, as they had some twelve

years before, when upholding the rights of a now-dead king. The secret of that

knowledge would be guarded by every resource at their disposal—and the

resources of Evaine and her kin were by no means inconsiderable, as the

regents of the present king had cause to know full well. Still, caution mingled

with uneasiness as Evaine quietly rounded the last corner.

Different light shimmered cool and opalescent across the doorway she

approached, parting like a curtain at her gesture, but she allowed herself only

the faintest of smiles as she pushed at the narrow door beyond and felt it move

beneath her hand—acknowledgment of a thing working as it should, rather

than any real satisfaction, for what lay within the tiny cell was a source both of

hope and of dread.

I'm here, Father, she whispered, though she would not look at him until she

had closed the door behind her. She had not been alone with him since she

and Joram brought him from Saint Mary's, two days before.

She crossed herself as she turned, still wrenched anew to see him laid out

thus, the blue-clad body shrouded from head to toe with a veil of white samite.

Her hands shook as she lifted the part of the veil covering his own dear face and

carefully folded it back. She did not cry, though. She had no tears left for

crying.

Camber. Camber Kyriell MacRorie. Father Camber. Father.

Lovingly Evaine recited his true names in her mind as she sank to her knees

beside his body, the fingertips of folded hands pressed hard against her lips to

stop their trembling.

Oh, Father, do you know what they've done? They called you Alister Cullen,

and bishop, for these last twelve years—and Saint Camber, for more than a

decade. Now there are those who want to ruin both good names. They 're calling

you traitor and heretic, using our young king's regency to enrich their own

coffers.

She shook her head as she gazed at him, finding but little comfort in the

knowledge that he no longer need play at anyone's conception of who or what

he ought to be. He had worn the Alister Cullen identity for the last twelve years

and more of his life, and vestiges of it remained—and would, even to the grave.

The fine, silver-gilt hair capped close to his head was tonsured in the manner

his alter-ego had favored, but both men had loved the white-sashed cassock of

rich Michaeline blue. And the smooth, roundish face now dimly illuminated by

her handfire was wholly his own.

He looked more austere in death than he had seemed in life, even as Alister,

but the well-loved face was peaceful in its repose, the agonies of those final

moments all but erased by some small, secret satisfaction evinced in a gentle

upturn of lip discernible only to close intimates.

Well, the regents shall have their reward in the end, God willing, she mused.

What do they know of truth, who twist and mold it to their own ends ? Traitor and

heretic you are none, nor ever were, for all that such declaration serves their evil

purposes. Alister Cullen you are no more, though remaining priest forever. Saint,

I know not. But you were and are my father, my teacher, my friend.

She bowed her head at that, closing her eyes against the sight of him dead,

and wished she could close her mind to memory as well—of finding him in the

snow, nearly a week before, his own shape upon him, his quicksilver head

pillowed on the breast of the dead Jebediah, their life's blood mingled and

frozen on the icy crusts surrounding them.

But though "Alister Cullen" appeared to be as dead as Jebediah, Evaine had

come to believe he had not died at all, but lay bound in a deep and powerful

spell, thought by most magical practitioners to be only the stuff of legends. The

coolly polished Deryni adept part of her warned that such speculation might be

mere denial, an unrealistic refusal on her part to accept the inevitability of his

death; but the loving daughter, so recently bereft of husband and first-born son

as well as father, kept whispering seductively, What if? What if?

Help me know what to do, Father, she breathed, raising her head to look at

him again after a few seconds. I don't know where you are now. If you really are

—gone beyond my reach—then it is my fervent prayer that you abide in the

Blessed Presence, as your beautiful soul most certainly must merit.

But what if you aren't really dead? Is that only my loving wish, to keep you

with me a little longer, or does some part of you truly cling to life as we mortals

know it, so that we really could somehow bring you back to us?

She felt a fluctuation in the shields behind her and then the soft breath of

the door opening and closing for another presence. Joram set his hand on her

shoulder as he knelt beside her for a moment, golden head bowing in a brief

prayer for the man who had sired both of them. Then he crossed himself in a

brisk, automatic gesture and turned his gaze full upon her, grey eyes meeting

blue.

"Ansel is waiting for you to relieve him," he said quietly. "The others will be

expecting us at Dhassa."

Sighing, Evaine gave him a nod and rose as he, too, got to his feet.

"I suppose it is time we began picking up the pieces," she murmured. "I've

indulged my grief quite long enough."

Joram managed a taut smile. "Don't be too harsh with yourself. You've lost a

husband and a first-born son as well as a father. I'd be the first to agree that

grieving overlong begins to be self-indulgent to the point of selfishness, but the

loss does need to be acknowledged."

"Yes, well, I think I've done that rather thoroughly. Now it's time to make

plans for the future. I can't do anything about Rhys or Aidan, but Father . . ."

" I wish you wouldn’t."

"Joram, we've had this discussion before."

“That doesn't mean I have to like your conclusion.'' He sighed and set his

hands on his hips.

"Look. He lived a long, full life in his own right. By taking on Alister's

identity twelve years ago, he had another full, productive life, at an age when

most men are about ready to meet their Maker. He was seventy-one, for God's

sake, Evaine. Why can't you just let him be dead?"

"But what if he wasn't ready to die?" she retorted.

Joram snorted, shaking his head bitterly as he turned his gaze to the

shrouded body.

"How like Father, to presume to take that decision out of God's hands!"

"How is it presumption, if God gave him the means to continue, and it harms

no one? His work was unfinished."

"All men leave work unfinished when they die. Why should he be any

different?"

She grinned, despite the weight of their conversation. "Are you going to tell

me that he wasn't different?"

"We both know that he was," Joram breathed. "That isn't the question."

"Then, what is the question?"

He sighed. "It's the same question he asked himself, when Rhys was dying.

By then, he was fairly confident that he could work the spell—and it might have

spared Rhys until a Healer could be brought. But he also feared that a spell

powerful enough to hold back Death might have its own terrible cost, to the

subject as well as the operator. He would have been willing to accept the risk to

himself; but he decided that no one has the right to make that decision for

another soul.''

"But no one else was involved in Father's spell," Evaine reminded him.

Joram nodded. "That's true. But again, the spell is powerful. If Father is still

alive in some strange, mysterious way, who's to say he wouldn't rather stay that

way? Who are we to try to bring him back?"

She glanced down at the body before them, then drew the veil of samite over

his face once more. Farther down the veil, she could still see the slight bulge of

the hands—not just folded peacefully on his breast, the way they had folded

Jebediah's, but slightly curved—just—so. That he had tried to work the spell to

hold back Death, she had no doubt. Whether or not he had succeeded, they

would not know until they attempted to reverse it and bring him back. But she

believed he would want them to try.

"Joram, I know this isn't an easy question," she said quietly, not looking at

him. "But when have we ever expected easy answers? Actually, we aren't

considering one question at all, but several. First of all, if he tried the spell and

failed, then he's merely dead, and nothing we do will make any difference—so

it doesn't hurt to try.

"But if he is under the spell, then there are three distinct possibilities.

Either we bring him out of it and restore him— which, presumably, is what he

would have wanted, so he can carry on his work. Or we bring him out of it and

he dies anyway—which at least releases him to the normal cycle of life and

death. Or we can't bring him out of it, and things stay the same.

"But we can't just leave him here, in limbo, not knowing whether we could

have made a difference. And what if he's somehow trapped in his body? We

certainly couldn't bury him, not knowing."

Joram nodded grimly, unable to refute that argument, at least. "The last is

certainly a factor," he agreed. "I can't imagine anything much more terrifying

than regaining consciousness in a tomb and realizing you'd been buried alive."

"I can," Evaine murmured, not looking at him. "Being bound to a body that

really, truly, is dead—decaying."

Joram shook his head and suppressed a shiver. "There's no sign of that, at

least. It's something more than just the cold, too. Almost as if Rhys—as if one of

the Healers had put a preservation spell on it," he amended awkwardly.

"Jebediah's body— isn't in this condition."

"No, and the real Alister's body isn't in this condition, and there was a

preservation spell on him,'" she said quietly. "But DeathReadings were done on

Alister and Jebediah. We know they're dead."

Sighing, Joram nodded. "And we couldn't Read Father," he murmured.

"Ergo, he isn't dead. Or it could just be the blocks he would have set, to

preserve the identity of his alter-ego—"

"From us?" Evaine interjected. "Joram, it isn't that there's nothing to Read.

It's that something won't let us Read. He knew we would be there soon. Do you

really think he would have cut us off that way?"

"No."

"Neither do I." She looked at him oddly. "Something else is bothering you,

though."

Joram cleared his throat, looking decidedly uncomfortable— but in a

different manner than before.

"Well, yes. How can I explain this to you without sounding as if I think it's

true?" He cocked his head at her, searching for just the right words.

"Do you remember how, when everyone thought Father had been killed and

they wanted to canonize him, we didn't dare produce his body, for fear it would

be discovered that Alister had died instead of him? The bishops said he had

been 'bodily assumed into heaven,' and used that as part of the rationale for

declaring him a saint. But if saints aren't taken directly into heaven, what other

thing sometimes happens to their bodies?"

"They don't decay," Evaine breathed. "They remain incorruptible."

"Exactly. And right now, his body is incorruptible—for no logical reason that

we can offer.'' Joram glanced at the shrouded body with a mixture of disbelief

and awe.

"Evaine, what if he really is a saint?"

chapter one

Every purpose is established by counsel.

—Proverbs 22:18

"I have to tell you that burying those three men was one of the most difficult

things I've ever had to do," Joram confessed to their Dhassa compatriots an

hour later—though he tried not to think about that fourth body he had just

left, hidden beneath the chapel where the other three lay. "I know we must put

our grief and outrage behind us now, and move on to the more constructive

measures we all know they would have wished, but I won't even pretend that

can happen overnight. For now, we're going to have to take it a day at a

time—and maybe even hour by hour, when things get particularly difficult."

He was pacing back and forth beside a table in Bishop Niallan's private

quarters in besieged Dhassa, drawn and gaunt-looking in monkish black

instead of the now-dangerous blue of the Michaelines—though he had worn his

former habit the day before, to honor two of the three men he buried. The pale

cap of his hair, tonsured now in the manner of any ordinary priest, shone like a

halo as he paused where a beam of weak winter sunlight filtered through an

east window. Niallan, seated at the head of the long table, resisted the urge to

cross himself in awe at the pent-up power smoldering in Saint Camber's son,

though he, like Joram, was Deryni and fully capable of not a little power

himself.

So were most of the other men ranged around the bishop's table—all, in

fact, save the younger man at Niallan's immediate left, who also wore episcopal

purple. Dermot O'Beirne, the deposed Bishop of Cashien, had thrown in his lot

with Niallan on that fatal Christmas Day a fortnight before, when everything

else seemed to fall apart. The regents' assault on Valoret Cathedral, given color

of authority by the young king's active presence and participation, had put an

end to Alister Cullen's brief tenure as Archbishop of Valoret. It had also put an

end to any subsequent hope of tempering the regents' increasingly anti-Deryni

policies via the established Church hierarchy. Indeed, one of the most

notorious of the regents now occupied the primatial throne, and had

suspended and excommunicated both bishops at Dhassa as one of his first

official acts.

The rest of Niallan's now-renegade household were under similar bans, for

standing by their master and refusing to surrender his See of Dhassa to his

designated successor. At Niallan's right sat his chaplain and personal Healer of

many years' standing, Dom Rickart, the Gabrilite priest's white robes a startling

contrast to the bishops' purple and the shades of mourning that everyone else

wore. Rickart was of an age with Niallan, but the long hair drawn back in the

tight, single braid of his Order was glossy chestnut, where Niallan's hair and

neatly trimmed beard were steely grey.

Another, younger Healer sat across from Rickart, next to Dermot, though

nothing in his demeanor or dress declared his Healer's calling today. Both his

tunic and his nubbly wool mantle were a dull dust-umber, the color of

weathered stone. Nor did he look old enough to be a Healer, though up until a

few weeks ago, he had been personal Healer and tutor to young Prince Javan,

the king's clubfooted twin brother and heir. The talented and sometimes

headstrong Tavis O'Neill was not exactly a member of the bishop's household,

but Niallan had given him refuge when he was forced to quit Valoret. He

remained their one reliable contact with the prince.

Tavis was also, so far as they knew, the sole possessor of an apparently

unique Deryni talent that held up some hope of preserving their Deryni race

against evil times to come—though the ultimate cost of such salvation might be

dire, indeed. His dark red head tipped downward in close-shielded reverie, the

pale eyes moody and unreadable as his right hand absentmindedly massaged a

handless left wrist.

And at the far end of the table, looking gloomily preoccupied, the

seventeen-year-old Ansel MacRorie turned a dagger over and over in his hands,

his pale golden hair proclaiming him close kin to Joram, even if all in the room

had not already been aware that he was Joram's nephew. Though Ansel should

have been Earl of Culdi by right of his birth, as heir to Camber's eldest son, he,

like Joram and everyone else in the room, was an outlaw in the eyes of the

established government.

The rest of Niallan's principal household officers and functionaries occupied

stools set along the rest of the table, two men to a side, his chancellor,

comptroller, provisioner, and garrison commander, the latter still wearing the

dark blue tunic and white sash of a Michaeline knight.

Sighing, Niallan slowly shook his head, not in negation of anything Joram

had said, but in grim resignation.

"Aye, 'tis an incalculable loss," he murmured. "Alister, Jebediah, and Rhys.

And unfortunately, I'm afraid we have to expect that things may get worse

before they get better. To assume anything less would be to leave ourselves

open to even greater disaster than we've already suffered."

"Which is precisely why I want you safely out of Dhassa, sir," Joram said

quietly.

"I will not even try to gainsay you," Niallan agreed, "but do try to accept my

position. When I became Bishop of Dhassa, I was made shepherd of all her

people, human as well as Deryni. I have Deryni responsibilities, that is true;

but I cannot desert my human flock when they need me most.''

"No, but you must not wait so long that you let yourself be taken," Joram

retorted, setting his hands on the back of Ansel's chair. "That does no one any

service except the regents, who you know seek your death."

Niallan smiled, toying with the bishop's amethyst on his right hand. "Then, I

am in good company," he said lightly, "for you and Ansel have even higher

prices on your heads than I. But don't worry, my friend. There is no martyr's

blood in these veins. I shall stay here in Dhassa as long as I may, but only to

ensure that nothing will fall into the regents' hands that ought not."

"Including Dhassa's bishop?" Ansel said archly.

"Including Dhassa's bishop," Niallan repeated, favoring the boy with a fond

smile. "But you must remember, dear Ansel, that such title applied to my

person no longer means what it once did, now that one of the regents is our

new archbishop."

"Hubert MacInnis will never be my archbishop,'' Joram stated flatly, as he

started pacing again.

"No, nor mine," Niallan agreed. "But in the eyes of those who do not know

that his election required deception, slander, and murder, he is senior

archbishop and Primate—and woe be unto the people of Gwynedd, in the

hands of such a shepherd.''

"If I'm given the chance," said Tavis O'Neill, speaking for the first time, "I

shall kill him!"

"And betray your Healer's oath?" Dom Rickart gasped, obviously putting into

words what several of the others also felt.

"Healer's oaths be hanged, if they protect a man like Hubert MacInnis!" Tavis

snapped, the pale aquamarine eyes blazing as he glared across at the other

Healer. "I am no Gabrilite, to submit meekly to the slaughter. I will not offer my

throat to the regents like some silly sheep, as your brethren did at Saint Neot's.

Nor will I allow Prince Javan to become their victim— not while there is breath

in my body to prevent it!"

"Easy, Tavis, easy!" Joram murmured, jerking out a stool beside Rickart and

straddling it as Niallan and Dermot also made soothing noises and gestures.

"No one's asking you to sacrifice yourself—or faulting your defense of the

prince."

"Certainly not," Rickart hastily agreed. "Prince Javan is our major hope that

something eventually may be done to reverse what the regents have set in

motion. But I beg you, Tavis, do not deliberately seek out MacInnis' life."

"Shall your brethren die unavenged, then?" Tavis demanded.

As Ansel and the Michaeline Knight at the end of the table muttered

something between them about divine retribution, Rickart gently shook his

head.

"My dear young friend, Hubert MacInnis shall pay for what he has

done—never fear. Not only to my Gabrilite brethren but to all innocent folk who

have become victims of his avarice. But it is not our place to seek vengeance.

'Vengeance is mine, saith—' "

"Yes, yes, but the Lord generally works through mortal agents," Joram

interjected, raising a hand in a fending-off gesture. "Please, Rickart, let's not

start a theological debate. Tavis is not a Gabrilite or a Michaeline, so he's not

arguing from the same assumptions. If the two of you want to take up this

discussion privately, at a later date, that's another matter. Right now, however, I

Katherine Kurtz - Heirs 1 - Harrowing of Gwynedd

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