Camber of Culdi (2 page)

But human gratitude is short and selective, and the gratitude of kings more capricious still. It was difficult to put aside completely the reminders of Deryni dominance, especially when many Deryni still occupied positions of authority and prominence. It seemed almost disloyal to the memory of those humans who had suffered so under Festillic rule to ignore the injustices which had marked the eighty-plus years of the reigns just past. A bitter people soon forgot that salvation, as well as slavery, had come from the powerful hands of the Deryni; and the result was a rising tide of anti-Deryni feeling, culminating, on King Cinhil's death in 917, in a purge which annihilated fully two-thirds of the Deryni population of Gwynedd.

Thousands perished by the sword, in fire, at the end of a rope—brutal sacrifices in retribution for the evils done or imagined done under the Festils. Those few who survived were forced to go into hiding, eking out an uncertain existence in fearful exile, denying their once-proud heritage and awesome powers. Only a privileged few found refuge and still retained their identities, and even these were forced to live out their lives in semi-confinement, begging the tenuous and sometimes careless protection of the few human lords who remembered how it had really been. As late as the Gwynedd-Torenth War of 1121, to be a known Deryni was neither an easy nor an easily admitted thing.

Needless to say, Camber's sainthood was one of the first casualties of the persecutions. In 917, the Bishops' Council of Ramos, acting on the demands of King Cinhil's son and heir, Alroy, repudiated Camber's sainthood and forbade even the mention of his name. The Church Militant, spurred by the backlash of quasi-religious movements such as the Willimites, proclaimed anathema all use of magic, for whatever purpose; declared Deryni sorcery to be among the chiefest of her heresies; barred men of Deryni descent from any and all participation in the hierarchy of the Church. On the secular side, Deryni were forbidden to own property except under the most stringent of supervision; were denied the right to hold public office or appointment; could not marry or inherit without the leave of their liege lord. The policies set forth in the decade which followed were to persist. almost without change, for nearly two centuries.

But even repudiated saints were human once—or Deryni, in the case of Camber. Written records may be lost or destroyed, and oral traditions garbled in the telling, and the passage of years may leave a larger-than-life composite of fact and myth and outright lie. Yet there is a truth about Camber of Culdi; and the man is far more and far less than his many legends.

Camber's world was, in many respects, a land less graceful and less refined than the world of Kelson Haldane and Alaric Morgan; but it was a study in contrasts and, perhaps, contradictions. It was a land two centuries closer to the ancient gods and their arcane traditions, and yet the awesome powers of the Deryni were more a science and less of magic than they had become by the reign of Kelson.

It was a time when some few, gifted Deryni had learned to heal most physical injuries, and were learning about the causes of disease—knowledge lost for many, many years in the dark times following the persecutions; when Transfer Portals, though still costly in terms of time and strength and power to establish and operate, were used as an ecclesiastical communication network over most of the Eleven Kingdoms; when Mind-Seeing was an openly acknowledged practice among many Deryni.

It was but a century since Pargan Howiccan, the great Deryni lyric poet, had set the known world afire with his epic sagas of the old gods; but half a century since the death of the Lord Llewellyn, the greatest bard and troubadour the world had ever seen. Castles and palaces and churches soared, using building techniques which would not be rediscovered until late in Kelson's reign. Ecclesiastical scholarship flourished at half a dozen growing universities and cathedral schools, learning becoming available to laymen as well as religious. Yet, it was the twilight of the Deryni Festillic dynasty, though none knew it yet.

Into this world had come, fifty-seven years before, the Lord Camber MacRorie, third son of the Sixth Earl of Culdi and later the Seventh Earl. A brilliant scholar and legalist, as tradition tells, a devoted husband and father, which legends generally do not mention, he was the loyal servant of two Festillic kings—though not the new-crowned Imre. For Camber had seen the trends developing under the young king's father, Blaine, and knew he could not serve the king Imre was to become.

Retiring to his castle at Tor Caerrorie, near the Valoret capital, Camber settled in to resume his studies, to become reacquainted with his children and grandchildren, and to watch further developments of the new reign. He was disapproving, but not surprised, when the vain young Imre issued his first great tariff act, shortly after his accession:

We, Imre, son of Blaine, son of the House of Festil, by the Grace of God King of Gwynedd and Lord of Meara and Mooryn, do command that, no later than Mid-Summer next, all male subjects of Our Realm, who shall have attained the age of fourteen years, shall pay into Our Royal Treasury at Valoret the money-worth of one-sixth of all their possessions and land holdings, the monies thus raised to be used in the erection of Our New Capital at Nyford. There shall be no exceptions to this tariff, whether highborn or freedman, clergy or layman, save as the Crown may deign to grant
.

We further decree that those men having a worth below a minimum to be determined by Our Financial Advisors, shall have the option of indenturing themselves and all their dependents to the Crown for a period not to exceed one year, in lieu of payment in silver, their services to be used in the construction of Our City of Nyford. Default, whether in coinage or in service, shall be punishable by forfeiture of all property, imprisonment for a term to be determined by a Court of Crown Commissioners to be created for that purpose, and may, in duly designated cases, be construed as treason, punishable by death
.

Wherefore do We appoint to Our Royal Commission Our Well-Beloved Ministers: Lord Jo-werth Leslie, the Honourable the Earl of Grand-Tullie, Lord Coel Howell, Lord Torcuill de la Marche
, …

PATENT ROLLS, 2 Imre I

The MacRorie lands were extensive and rich, and Camber was able to pay the tax for himself and his tenants; but many were not so fortunate. Nor would the Great Tariff, as it came to be called, be the last rash measure promulgated by Imre. Unrest which had been low-pitched and mostly token became more blatant. Semi-terrorist groups began to arise, whose sole purpose was to harass Imre's escheators and to punish Deryni who used their status and powers to excuse unlawful indulgences. Camber sat secure in his manor house at Caerrorie and watched, not yet tempted to consider open resistance, but aware of the rise of anti-Deryni feeling.

Camber MacRorie. Seventh Earl of Culdi. Gifted scholar and legalist. Retired civil servant. Sometime practitioner of Deryni magic.

In 903, he had not yet earned the title of Saint.

C
HAPTER
O
NE

In the multitude of people is the king's honour; but in the want of the people is the destruction of the prince
.

—Proverbs 14:28

Though it was but late September, a wintry wind howled and battered at the ramparts of Tor Caerrorie, rattling the narrow, glazed windows in their frames and snapping to tatters the
gules/azure
MacRorie standard atop the tower keep.

Inside, the only daughter of the Earl of Culdi sat huddled over the manorial accounts beside a crackling hearth, wrapped in a fur-lined mantle against the chill of the deserted great hall, a brindle wolfhound asleep at her feet. Torches guttered on the wall behind her, though it was not yet mid-afternoon, besmirching the stone walls with soot. Smoke mingled with the scent of mutton roasting in the nearby kitchens, and a rushlight cast a yellow glow across the table where she worked. It was with some relief that she finally marked the last entry with her cipher and laid down her quill. Umphred, her father's bailiff, heard her sigh and came to collect the rolls with a bow.

“That completes the accounts for last quarter, mistress. Is all in order?”

Evaine MacRorie, chatelaine of Tor Caerrorie since her mother's death seven years before, favored Umphred with a gentle smile. The wolfhound raised his great head to look at the bailiff, then went back to sleep.

“You knew it would be,” Evaine smiled. She touched the old man's hand in affection as he curled the membranes into their storage tubes and gathered them into his arms. “Would you please ask one of the squires to saddle a horse and come to me?” she added. “I have a letter to go to Cathan in Valoret.”

As Umphred bowed and turned to go, Evaine pushed a strand of flaxen hair from her forehead, then began nibbling at an inkstain on her thumb as she glanced at the letter on the table. She wondered what Cathan would say when he got the letter. For that matter, she wondered how her other brother, Joram, would react when the news reached him.

Actually, Cathan's reaction was not difficult to predict. He would be shocked, dismayed, outraged, in turn; but then the double bond of friendship to his king and duty to his father's people would move him to plead the king's mercy, to urge the tempering of royal wrath with princely pardon. Though the MacRories themselves were not implicated in what had happened, the incident
had
taken place on Camber's hereditary lands. She wondered whether Imre would be in one of his difficult moods.

Joram, on the other hand, was not so bound by the cautious duty which ruled his elder brother. An avowed priest of the militant Order of Saint Michael, Joram was apt to explode in one of the grandiloquent tirades for which the Michaelines were so justly famous, when he heard the news. However, it was not the possibility of Joram's eloquent and caustic rhetoric which made Evaine apprehensive; it was the fact that the priests of Saint Michael were just as likely to follow verbal pyrotechnics with physical action, if prudence did not take the upper hand. The Michaelines were a fighting as well as a teaching order. More than once, their intervention in secular affairs had touched off incidents best forgotten by their more contemplative brethren.

She consoled herself with the probability that Joram would not receive the news until he got home for Michaelmas two days hence, then stood and stretched and fished for a missing slipper in the rushes with one stockinged toe, bidding the hound remain in the hall. Perhaps, by Michaelmas, the situation would have resolved itself—though Evaine doubted it. But whatever the outcome, the MacRories' Michaelmas would be a bit more sober than usual this year. Joram would be home, of course, bringing her beloved Rhys with him; but Cathan and his wife and sons must remain in Valoret with the Court. The young king was demanding, and no more than on the time and attention of his favorites, like Cathan. Evaine remembered the long months her father had spent at Court, when he had been in the old king's service.

A squire came and bent his knee to her, and she bantered with him briefly before handing over the missive he was to deliver to her brother. Then she pulled her mantle close and crossed the rush-strewn hall, to make her way up the narrow, newel staircase to her father's study. She and Camber had been translating the classic sagas of Pargan Howiccan, the Deryni lyric poet, and this afternoon Camber had promised to go over a particularly difficult passage with her. She marvelled again at the many facets of the man who was her father, fond memories accompanying her up the spiral stair.

Camber's secular successes had never been quite anticipated, nor were they by design. In his youth, he had been preparing for the clergy and had earned impressive academic credentials at the new university in Grecotha, under some of the greatest minds of the century. There would have been no limit to his rise in the Church.

But when plague took two elder brothers and left him heir to the MacRorie lands and name—and he not yet under his final vows—he had found himself quite rudely plucked from the religious life by his father and thrust into the secular world—and found he liked it. Further honing of his abilities as an educated layman, and an earl's son at that, had been accomplished, earning him wide academic notoriety long before he was first called to the Court at Valoret. When the old king's father, Festil III, had sought the most brilliant men in the land to advise him, Camber had had little competition. The next quarter-century was spent mostly in the royal service.

But that was past. Now in his late fifties, Camber had retired three years ago, on the death of King Blaine, to his beloved Caerrorie, birthplace of himself and his five children. It was not the principal seat of the Culdi earls; that was reserved to the great fortress tower of Cor Culdi, on the Kierney border, which Camber still visited several times a year to preside over the feudal court. But here, near to the capital and his children's active lives, he was free at last to resume the academic pursuits which he had abandoned for the Court so many years before—this time in the company of a fair, witty, and insatiably curious daughter whose depths he had but lately begun to discover.

If confronted, he would have vigorously denied that he favored any one of his children above the others, for he loved all of them fiercely; but Evaine unquestionably occupied a special place in his life and his heart—Evaine, youngest of his living children and the last to remain at home. Evaine accepted this facet of her father as she accepted all the others, without consciously stopping to analyze it—and without needing to.

She reached her father's door and knocked lightly before slipping the latch and going inside.

Camber was seated behind a curved hunt table, the leather surface littered with rolls of parchment and ink-stained quills and other accoutrements of the academic mind. Her cousin, James Drummond, was with him, and both of them stopped speaking as she entered the room.

Cousin James looked decidedly angry, though he tried to conceal it. Camber's face was inscrutable.