Katherine Kurtz - Camber 2 - Saint Camber

DUEL OF SORCERY

Camber could feel himself slipping even deeper into trance. Images formed and reformed on the blackness of the

spellbound water before him, only to fade before he could read them.

But he must read them. He dared not fail.

At the very limits of awareness, he touched Ariella's sleeping mind. And abruptly he knew the location of all

Ariella's strength.

He was almost ready to withdraw, when suddenly the picture blanked and he caught an almost mindsplitting

explosion of rage. A wrenching pain lanced behind his eyes, blinding him. He had been detected! His touch had been

too clumsy, too direct!

Ariella was awake and aware of his link—and she was trying to sustain the link he had created, to surge back

mentally across that link . . . and destroy him!

"Anybody can write about magic, but it takes a special talent to convince the reader that the magic is real. Saint

Camber is Katherine Kurtz's best book to date—unqualified. It has everything I enjoy in a book: magic, wonder,

heroism, adventure, real people I can love and hate . . . and that marvelous blend of fantasy, medievalism and reality. A

winner!" ----MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY

Also by Katherine Kurtz

Available from Ballantine Books:

The Legends of Camber of Culdi

Volume I: Camber of Culdi

Volume II: Saint Camber

The Chronicles of the Deryny

Volume I: Deryni Rising

Volume II: Deryni Checkmate Volume

III: High Deryni

SAINT CAMBER

Volume II in the Legends of Camber of Culdi

Katherine Kurtz

A Del Rey Book

BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

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: 78-16702

ISBN 0-345-30862-X

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: October 1978

Paperback format

First Edition: September 1979

Fifth Printing: March 1983

Cover art by Darrell K. Sweet

Map by Bob Porter

This one is for JOHN H. KNOBLOCK

who started me on my intellectual love affair with the medieval world and its church,

and for all the other men and women

of whatever faith who helped to turn that cerebral fascination

into an affair of the heart,

whether or not they were aware of it.

In our own ways, we all feed our sheep.

Contents

prologue

Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare:

before they spring forth I tell you of them. —Isaiah 42:9

I By long forbearing is a prince persuaded,

and a soft tongue breaketh the bone. —Proverbs 25:15

II But continue thou in the things which thou

hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast

learned them. —II Timothy 3:14

III For death is come up into our windows,

and is entered into our palaces. —Jeremiah 9:21

IV For it is better, if the will of God be so,

that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil, doing. —I Peter 3:17

V Am I therefore become your enemy, be

cause I tell you the truth? —Galatians 4:16

VI I have fought a good fight, I have finished

my course, I have kept the faith. —II Timothy 4:7

VII And thou shalt be called by a new name,

which the mouth of the Lord shall name. —Isaiah 62:2

VIII Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little

folding of the hands to sleep. —Proverbs 24:33

IX As a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the

foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed

how he build' eth thereupon. —I Corinthians 3:10

X The father of the righteous shall greatly

rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.

—Proverbs 23:24

XI Grant unto thy servants, that with all bold-

ness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal.

—Acts 4:29-30

XII I am made all things to all men, that I

might by all means save some. —I Corinthians 9:22

XIII For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am

I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order.

—Colossians 2:5

XIV I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed

upon you labour in vain. —Galatians 4:11

XV I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in

the presence of all his people. —Psalms 116:14

XVI For every high priest taken from among

men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer

both gifts and sacrifices for sins. —Hebrews 5:1

XVII Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind,

be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you.

—1 Peter 1:13

XVIII Even the mystery which hath been hid

from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints.

—Colossians 1:26

XIX Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw

near to battle. Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand

forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, and put on the

brigandines. —Jeremiah 46:3—4

XX And the servant of the Lord must not

strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness

instructing those that oppose themselves. —II Timothy 2:24-25

XXI And let us not be weary in well doing: for

in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. —Galatians 6:9

XXII For thou shalt be his witness unto all men

of what thou hast seen and heard. —Acts 22:15

XXIII I desire to be present with you now, and to

change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you. —Galatians 4:20

XXIV For neither at any time used we flattering

words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetous-ness; God is witness: nor of

men sought we glory.

—I Thessalonians 1:5-6

XXV How is he numbered among the children

of God, and his lot is among the saints! —'Wisdom of Solomon 5:5

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

Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare:

before they spring forth I tell you of them.

—Isaiah 42:9

It was the spring of 905, half a year since the crowning of Cinhil Haldane at

Valoret; half a year since the last Deryni king, Imre of Festil, had been deposed

and defeated by Cinhil's new-won magic; since Imre's sister Ariella, heavy with

his child, had fled the halls of Valoret to seek sanctuary with the hosts of

Torenth to the east.

The Deryni Lord Camber MacRorie had been the hero of that day—Camber

and his children: Joram and Evaine and Rhys-—and Alister Cullen, proud Vicar

General of the Order of Saint Michael, which had made the physical fact of the

Restoration possible.

Now the Haldane throne was steadying, Cinhil’s queen safely delivered of

twin sons to replace the one murdered by Imre's agent before Cinhil's

emergence. King Cinhil, though reluctant still to set aside his former monkish

life, was perhaps beginning to understand his role as monarch.

But Camber was ill at ease, for he knew that the last Festillic chapter had

yet to be written, nor would it be written so long as Ariella lived, and Imre's

bastard with her. All the winter long, there had been no word out of Torenth,

though all knew that to be her place of refuge. She was biding her time. The

child would have been born by now. Soon, soon, she would make her move.

Perhaps she was beginning, already.

And in a high solar room of a castle called Cardosa, remote in the mountains

between Torenth and free Eastmarch, the woman in question stood before a

tabled map of the Eleven Kingdoms and plotted her revenge. A babe suckled at

her breast, but she paid him no mind as she stared at the map and sprinkled

water from her fingertips onto the lands of Gwynedd, the while muttering words

beneath her breath, her mind locked on one ill-willed purpose.

Each day for a week she had worked her magic now; soon she would see its

fruition. Her army was gathering, even as the spring rains washed the

mountain passes clear of snow and bogged the plains her enemy must cross to

try to stop her. Soon, soon, she would make her move. Then the upstart

Haldane priest would wear the Gwynedd crown no more.

chapter one

By long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the

bone.

—Proverbs 25:15

Rain was falling steadily in the city of Valoret. It had been falling for the past

four days, unseasonable for June. Outside the precincts of the royal keep, the

cobblestone streets ran with mud and flood-borne refuse. Standing pools of

rain and mud rose higher with each hour, threatening and sometimes

inundating the doorsills of shops and houses.

Inside the keep, it was spirits which were dampened instead of mere

physical surrounds. Chill, moisture-laden air rose foully from the middens

through walls and garderobe shafts to rot the rushes underfoot in the great hall

and waft among the rafters. Though fires blazed on three enormous hearths,

their heat could not warm the icy apprehensions of the handful of lords

assembled there.

No formal summons had gathered them. King Cinhil had been avoiding

structured councils of late, much to the dismay of his would-be advisors. The

men who now sat around a table before one of the side fireplaces were the same

who had placed Cinhil on the throne six months before—men who now feared

for the king they had made—feared for all whose safety and well-being they had

thought to ensure by ousting a Deryni tyrant and restoring a prince of the old,

human line to Gwynedd's throne.

They were an odd assortment—all, save one, of the same race of

sorcerer-magicians whose scion had lately ruled Gwynedd:

Rhys Thuryn, the young Deryni Healer, bending his shaggy red head to

study a map whose strategies he did not really understand.

Jebediah of Alcara, Deryni Grand Master of the militant Knights of Saint

Michael and acting commander in chief of King Cinhil’s army—if the king could

be persuaded to use that army to proper advantage.

Alister Cullen, the graying, ice-eyed Vicar General of the Michaeline Order,

and Jebediah's technical superior, also Deryni, leaning with hands clasped

behind his head to study a cobweb high in the beams above him—though the

seeming casual posture concealed a tension shared by all of them.

Guaire of Arliss, young and earnest, and sole human member of the group.

Heir in his own right to a considerable fortune, he was one of the few men of

the last regime to retain a position in the court being formed under the new

king.

And of course, Camber MacRorie, Earl of Culdi— chiefest Deryni of them all.

Camber had aged but little in the months since the Haldane Restoration,

neither appearance nor manner betraying his nearly threescore years. The

silver-gilt hair still gleamed bright in the light of torch and fire, and the clear

gray eyes showed only a few new wrinkles at the corners. In all, he was as fit as

he had been in the last decade—hardened and refined, if anything, by the

privations and adversities all of them had endured since making their decision

to replace the anointed king of Gwynedd.

But Camber, kingmaker that he was, was no more at ease than the rest of

his colleagues. Though he had not wished to alarm them, Deryni or human, he

suspected that the rain which fell so unceasingly outside was more than

ordinary rain—that the enemy who had eluded them last year at the moment of

triumph plotted still more grave offenses from afar; that the coming encounter

on the field of battle, no longer to be postponed by winter snows and the

enemy's indisposition, might be fraught with far greater dangers than steel and

spear and arrow. The rain could be but a warning token.

He had confided his suspicions about the weather to the gentle Dom Emrys,

Abbot of the Gabrilites— one man who might know for certain whether such

things were possible, even for Deryni. The Order of Saint Gabriel was renowned

and respected, even among humans, for the purity of its discipline, for its

preservation of ancient wisdom and teaching of the healing arts.

But even Dom Emrys, that pale paragon of Deryni calm and sagacity, had

only been able to suggest a way by which Camber himself might explore the

question further—and that way was not without its dangers. Camber was

familiar with the procedure at which Emrys hinted, but he had not yet brought

himself to use it. He wished there were some less-hazardous method of

investigation.

A movement at the table caught his eye, and Camber turned back in on the

conversation which had been continuing around him. Jebediah had been

leading a discussion of their military preparedness, and was cursing the

weather anew as he pushed troop markers around on the map. His scarred

fingers were surprisingly agile on the delicate markers.

"No, even if Jowerth and Torcuill do manage to get through, I don't see how

we can field more than five to six hundred knights," he said, replying to a

question Rhys had raised. "That includes all the royal levies, the Michaelines,

and few dozen more from the other military orders. Perhaps twice that many

mounted men-at-arms. For foot and archers, say, five hundred and two

hundred, respectively. We'd have more, but most of the main roads are flooded

out. Many of the men we could ordinarily count on won't be able to reach us in

time to do any good."

Rhys nodded as though he actually understood the significance of the

numbers, and Guaire studied his clasped hands, understanding all too well.

Camber reached out to shift the map board to a better angle.

"What's our most accurate estimate of Ariella's strength, Jeb?"

"About half again what we've committed, so far as we can tell. Her mother

was related to the royal house of Torenth, you know. She's drawing heavily on

those ties. Also, it apparently isn't raining east of the Lendours."

"Which means," Guaire began tentatively, "that if we could get our men

together and get through those mountains—"

"We could meet Ariella somewhere in Eastmarch." Jebediah nodded.

"However, getting the men there is the key problem."

Guaire toyed with one of the extra map markers. "What about one of your

Deryni Transfer Portals? Might that be a way to get some of our extra men

there?"

Alister Cullen, the Michaeline vicar general, shook his steel-gray head. "We

daren't use magic that openly, Guaire. Cinhil has made his feelings all too clear

on that subject, of late. Besides, the men we need most are the foot soldiers

from the outlying regions—humans, almost to the man. After just escaping the

yoke of a Deryni tyrant, 1 doubt they'd willingly cooperate with any Deryni

working, no matter how benign."

"You make it sound, well, ominous," Guaire murmured, "as if there were

something sinister about your Deryni powers."

His expression was very serious as he spoke, until he realized the irony of

those words coming from his human lips and became aware of how far he,

himself, had come in his estimation of the Deryni. Fault amusement registered

in the eyes of the men around him, not unkindly, and Guaire colored a little in

embarrassment.

Camber chuckled sympathetically.

"It's all right, Guaire. That's how many humans view our powers. And

between the humans who distrust us because we're Deryni and the Deryni who

distrust us because we deposed a Deryni king in favor of a human one, I

suppose we're lucky to have the support we do."

"And if Cinhil doesn't unbend a little," Cullen snorted, "the two peoples are

going to be driven even further apart. One wrong word from him could lose us

half our army between dawn and dusk."

Rhys, who had been listening without comment, leaned forward and

prodded the map.

"So, what can be done about it? And what about the more immediate crisis?

Do we even know for certain where Ariella will launch her attack?"

Jebediah nodded thoughtfully. "Alister and I have come up with three likely

locations, Rhys, two of them fairly close together. If Sighere sides with us and

brings his Eastmarch levies to join us, we can eliminate one of the three."

He bent over the map and began moving markers again, and Camber

permitted his attention to wander to the dancing fire, slipping back into his

own private reverie.

Cullen's comment about Cinhil had struck a sobering chord. Cinhil’s

growing rigidity was becoming a major problem, and Camber himself was

having to bear more and more of the king's resultant uneasiness.

Cinhil, immature in many ways, despite his forty-plus years, had waxed

philosophical in the months since his coronation, increasingly believing that

his acceptance of the Crown had been a mistake. He was a priest, not a king,

despite the archbishop's dispensation of his priestly vows. Had he not forsaken

those vows and left the priesthood, and compounded that sin by taking a wife,

there would not now be the two tiny heirs, ill-starred twins, the elder sickly and

frail, the younger fair and healthy, but with one deformed foot to remind his

father forever of the sinfulness of his begetting.

Cinhil saw the infants' condition as a sure sign of divine wrath, the

withering hand of God smiting that which should have been most dear, because

Cinhil had deserted God's priesthood.

And who was to blame, in Cinhil's skewed perspective, shaped until a year

ago within the walls of an abbey? Why, Camber, of course. Was it not the

powerful Deryni earl who had induced Cinhil to forsake his vows and take the

throne? What more natural than that Cinhil's resentment should fester even

now within his breast? Weighed against God's anger, of what possible

importance was a token loyalty to the Earl of Culdi—even if that man was one

of the few who stood between him and oblivion?

Camber glanced away from the fire to see his daughter, Evaine, crossing the

hall. Though heavily muffled against the chill in a fur-lined mantle, still she

was slender and graceful as she made her way across the rush-strewn hall.

Revan, her young clark, picked his way carefully after his mistress, his usual

limp even more pronounced from the dampness.

Evaine's face was worried, her blue eyes stormy beneath the coiled hair, as

she bent to kiss her father's cheek.

"How fares the queen?" Camber asked in a low voice, leaning back from the

table so that they would not disturb the others' discussion.

With a sigh, she turned to dismiss Revan, who was waiting attentively a

short distance away, and watched him limp across the hall to join several pages

huddled by the opposite fireplace. Her pretty brow furrowed as she bent to her

father's ear again.

"Oh, Father, she is so unhappy. Revan and I have spent the past hour and

more with her, but she will not be cheered. ‘Tis not right that she should be so

listless and depressed, almost a full month after the birthing. Her labor was not

difficult, and Rhys assures me that her physical injuries are mended."

"Unfortunately, 'tis not physical hurt which torments our little queen,"

Camber replied, so low that Evaine had to bend very close to hear him. "If the

king gave her even a small part of his attention—but, no, he must brood on his

imagined sins, and condemn himself and all around him for—"

He broke off as loud voices caught his attention in the corridor outside the

far entrance to the hall. One of the voices was his son Joram's; another, angrier

one was the king's.

But there were two additional voices—a man and a woman—and the

woman's voice was high-pitched and nearly hysterical. All conversation at the

table ceased as the king and Joram and two strangers entered the hall and

began to cross the dais.

The woman was slender and fair, and even younger than Evaine. The man,

husband or brother by his bearing, was obviously a military man, though he

wore no sword in the royal presence.

The royal presence was flashing warning signs which should have been

apparent to anyone. The Haldane eyes were hard with anger, the lines of the

proud body taut with forced control. Joram was a sober splash of Michaeline

blue against the crimson and sable of Cinhil’s kingly garb, looking as if he

wanted to be anywhere but at the king's side.

Cinhil drew his hand away in distaste as the woman threw herself on her

knees and reached up in supplication.

"Please, Sure, he has done nothing! I swear it!" she sobbed. "He is an old

man. He is sick! Have you no pity?"

"There is no pity in this one!" the man broke in angrily, jerking her to her

feet and thrusting her behind him protectively. "How can there be pity in an

apostate priest, who wages war on innocent old men? What are you, Haldane,

so to decide the fate of your betters?"

In the same breath, the man's hand moved in the pattern of an arcane

attack, casting a blinding flash which lit that end of the hall as if the summer

sun had come inside. Instantly, all at the table were on their feet and running

toward the king, Jebediah and Guaire drawing swords as they ran. Evaine

hiked up her skirts and dashed frantically after her father and Rhys and Alister

Cullen.

Time seemed to stand still in the afterimage of that flash. The atmosphere

grew thick with the huge exchange of energy on the dais, as both Joram and

Cinhil countered the assault. The would-be rescuers moved with limbs

seemingly encased in lead, trying desperately to reach the king.

Joram, with the aid of Cinhil, managed to wrestle their attacker to the floor.

But their wild thrashing in the rushes continued to be punctuated by flashes of

light and wisps of frightful apparition as the assailant fought on. Joram nearly

disappeared under the attacker's body, fighting for his own life as well as the

king's. The pandemonium continued as reinforcements swarmed onto the dais.

Camber's eyes had not yet fully recovered from the initial flash, but he could

just make out another, more immediate threat than the attacker's magic—an

unsheathed dagger in the woman's hand. In a timeless instant, he saw that

Cinhil’s back was exposed as he knelt to wrestle with the man on the floor, and

that the king was not aware of his danger.

Guaire, youngest and fleetest of them all, had seen the threat and was

reaching for the woman, too close and too fast-moving to use his sword to

advantage. But his feet tangled with those of the downed man as he lunged,

tripping him directly into Cullen and Rhys.

Camber screamed, "Cinhil!" and launched one last, desperate leap between

his king and the woman as the knife flashed upward.

The events of the next instant were never clear, afterward, though the

results were plain enough. One second, the knife was driving unchecked

toward Cinhil's back, toward Camber's body—the next, blood was showering

them all, and Camber was sprawling half stunned at Cinhil’s feet, in a growing

pool of blood. Cinhil whirled in killing rage to see the woman crumpled over

Jebediah's broadsword, her body cut nearly in two. The dagger, its blade

snapped by the force of Jebediah's blow, spun through the air in several pieces,

the bright steel catching Cinhil’s glance with almost hypnotic fascination.

Cinhil reacted like a man gone mad. With a scream of fury, he spun and

loosed a last, vicious attack on the woman's companion—a blast of magical force

so powerful, and at such close range, that Joram, trapped under the man's

body, was only barely able to deflect its killing power from himself.

Then Cullen was hurling himself against Cinhil and pinning his arms to his

sides, subduing the king's efforts to break free and wreak yet more vengeance

on his attackers.

Camber lurched dizzily to his feet and caught his balance on Cullen's arm.

Then, seizing the king's face between bloody hands, he forced Cinhil to look at

him, shook the royal head to break the killing concentration.

"Cinhil, stop it! For God's sake, let it pass! It's over! You're safe! They can't

hurt you now!"

In that instant Cinhil froze and blinked, taking in Camber's tone and

expression and bloodstained visage; then he seemed to sag a little in Cullen's

arms. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths as guards clattered to a

halt around the group and glanced at one another uncertainly.

"It's all right," Camber repeated, his nod and eyes signaling the guards to

withdraw from earshot until he was sure Cinhil was in control again. "It's all

right, Cinhil," he whispered one more time.

With that, he released Cinhil’s head and stepped back a pace, his own

breathing still ragged, recovering. He could feel blood running down his left

side, and knew that some of it was his own.

"Is anyone hurt?" Cullen said softly, still supporting the now-shaking Cinhil

against his chest.

The murmurs of negation sparked a response in Cinhil, and he opened his

eyes and stared blankly at the sea of concerned faces around him.

Rhys got shakily to his knees and started toward the bloody Camber, but

the earl shook his head and indicated that he should see to the others. Rhys

glanced at the woman—obviously beyond even his help—then turned his

attention to the man.

Joram struggled from under the limp form until he could sit up, as pale

against his cassock as Rhys had ever seen him; but he did not relinquish his

grip on his now-stirring prisoner.

Katherine Kurtz - Camber 2 - Saint Camber

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