Camber of Culdi

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  Also by Katherine Kurtz

  The Deryni Novels

  The Chronicles of the Deryni

  Deryni Rising

  Deryni Checkmate

  High Deryni

  The Legends of Camber of Culdi

  Camber of Culdi

  Saint Camber

  Camber the Heretic

  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 of Gwynedd

  King Javan’s Year

  The Bastard Prince

  The Childe Morgan Trilogy

  In the King’s Service

  Childe Morgan

  The King’s Deryni

  Other novels

  King Kelson’s Bride

  Camber of Culdi

  The Legends of Camber of Culdi, Volume One

  Katherine Kurtz

  For

  Fredrick Harry Kurtz

  and for

  The good folk of the

  Society for Creative Anachronism,

  without whom this book would have

  been finished far sooner,

  but far less well.

  Author doth not live by typewriter alone!

  Contents

  Prologue

  Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.

  —Isaiah 30:8

  I 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

  II He shall go to the generation of his fathers …

  —Psalms 49:19

  III Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him.

  —Ecclesiasticus 38:12

  IV Hear counsel and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.

  —Proverbs 19:20

  V Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month …

  —Jeremiah 36:22

  VI O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain, that I might weep day and night for the slain …

  —Jeremiah 9:1

  VII The skill of the physician shall lift up his head: and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration.

  —Ecclesiasticus 38:3

  VIII Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?

  —Proverbs 27:4

  IX When he speaketh fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart.

  —Proverbs 26:25

  X Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

  —Proverbs 20:1

  XI The just shall be in everlasting remembrance.

  —Psalms 112:6

  XII For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war.

  —Proverbs 24:6

  XIII For your hands are defiled with blood.

  —Isaiah 59:3

  XIV Blessed shall they be that shall be in those days,/He bringeth back His anointed.

  —Psalms of Solomon 18:6

  XV I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage.

  —Jeremiah 12:7

  XVI There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother; yet is there no end to all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches.

  —Ecclesiastes 4:8

  XVII But he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.

  —Leviticus 21:14

  XVIII The Lord said to my lord, “You are my son. This day I have begotten you!”

  —Psalms 2:7

  XIX And they put him in ward, that the mind of the Lord might be shewed them.

  —Leviticus 24:12

  XX Hear us, my lord; thou art a prince of God among us.

  —Genesis 22:6

  XXI For out of prison he comes to reign; whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becomes poor.

  —Ecclesiastes 4:14

  Preview: Saint Camber

  Bonus Story: Bethane

  Appendix I: Index of Characters

  Appendix II: Index to Place Names

  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

  About the Author

  Now, these are the Names of the Eleven Kingdoms, sung rightly well of old:

  Howicce, and Llannedd, and fierce Connait;

  mountainous Meara, the Land Beyond the River;

  and Kheldour, the windswept;

  and pastoral Eastmarch;

  Tolan, and Torenth, and myth ridden Mooryn;

  and lost Caeriesse, which sank beneath the sea;

  and far-reaching Gwynedd, seat of the Haldane Kings.

  —LAY OF THE LORD LLEWELLYN,

  Troubadour to the High King

  of Mooryn

  PROLOGUE

  Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe in it a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.

  —Isaiah 30:8

  Saint Camber.

  Camber of Culdi.

  Noble-born Deryni earl.

  Gifted scholar and legalist.

  Patron of Deryni Magic.

  Defensor Hominum.

  Camber.

  By the reign of Kelson I, he had been a legend for more than two hundred years, in turn respected, venerated, and feared.

  But who was the man, Camber of Culdi? What was the man before he became the saint—and the demon?

  Was he, as later legends insist, the sole perpetrator of the atrocities and terrors associated with the Deryni Interregnum? The apotheosis of Evil Incarnate? Or was there another side to this man who became a legend in his own lifetime, saint after his death, and curse word for generations to come?

  Just who was Camber of Culdi?

  The scant Deryni sources which survived by the reign of Kelson tell us that Camber MacRorie, more than any other single man, was responsible for breaking the hold of the ninth-century Festillic dynasty; he and his children who discovered, during those chaotic times, that the awesome Deryni powers and abilities could sometimes be bestowed upon certain, select humans. The old House of Haldane was restored to the Throne of Gwynedd in 904, and for more than a decade humans and Deryni lived in comparative harmony.

  Less than a year after his death, Camber was canonized for his daring contributions. This we also know is true. To humans and Deryni alike, he became Saint Camber, Patron of Deryni Magic, and Defensor Hominum—Defender of Humankind. For a time, a grateful people could not find high-enough praise for the man who had delivered them from the hated Festillic yoke. Churches and monastic schools were named for him in the decade after his death. The mental techniques perfected by Camber and the Healer Rhys Thuryn were taught in Deryni institutions of learning throughout the Eleven Kingdoms. His family and followers continued to assist the restored Haldane king and consolidate the new regime, and eventually founded the Camberian Council, a form of which still existed by the time of King Kelson.

  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.

  CHAPTER ONE

  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 le
tter 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.