Saint Camber (19 page)

As a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon
.

—I Corinthians 3:10

There was silence for a dozen heartbeats. He knew that Cinhil must be standing in the entryway, and ached to turn his head and see for sure; but he dared not. Cinhil still might leave.

Finally, when the waiting had grown almost intolerable, soft footfalls approached, muffled on the thickly woven carpet. Another silence, as the footsteps stopped a few paces from his head, and then a light touch on his shoulder.

He continued to feign sleep, still hoping that Cinhil would give up, but the touch became a shake. With a grunt which he hoped was convincing, Camber grimaced and turned his head slightly. Letting his brow furrow in mild irritation, he blinked groggily at Cinhil, pretending to be still befogged by sleep, then rolled onto his back to peer at Cinhil more closely. The king looked disturbed, and old beyond his years.

“Sire?” Camber said.

Cinhil nodded quickly, swallowing, and stepped back a pace.

“Forgive me for waking you, Father Cullen, but I had to talk with someone.”

With a weary sigh which was not at all contrived, Camber sat up on the pallet and drew the sleeping furs more closely around him, rubbing his eyes with one hand and stifling a yawn as his mind raced.

He was obviously committed to talking with Cinhil, much against his better judgment at this early stage in his new persona. He only hoped he could remember enough to keep himself out of trouble. Thank God that Joram had thought to tell him of the conversation between Cullen and Cinhil the night before. And the pair's stormy parting, early this morning, would lend credence to any brusqueness which Camber might have to apply to cover gaps in his knowledge.

Yawning again, he made his eyes focus on Cinhil's dim features, a resignedly patient expression on his new face.

“Forgive me, Sire. Rhys made me sleep, and resisting his compulsion is not an easy thing. How may I serve you?”

Cinhil glanced at his booted feet in embarrassment. “I'm sorry, Father. I know that you were wounded, but I—I had to ask you more about Camber. I cannot believe that he is dead.”

Camber made himself look away, afraid of where this line of discussion might lead, and decided to take the offensive.

“You saw his body,” he said softly. “Why can you not believe? Is this not what you wanted, in the end?”

Cinhil gasped, his face going white, and Camber wondered whether he had gone too far.

“What I wanted? Father, I have never—”

“Not consciously, perhaps,” Camber conceded, not giving Cinhil a chance to protest too much. “But all of us who have tried to be close to you, to help you, have been aware of your resentment. He was its focal point. He it was who found you, who had you taken from the life you loved, who hammered at your conscience, day by day, until you had to accept your destiny.”

“But I never wished him dead!”

“Perhaps not. Outside your heart, it matters little now,” Camber replied wearily. “He
is
dead. He who was responsible for your plight is gone. Now there is no one to hold you to your duty.”

With a strangled little cry, Cinhil sank down on a campstool, burying his face in trembling hands. As Camber cautiously turned his head toward him, he could see Cinhil's shoulders shaking with silent sobs, the frosted sable hair gleaming faintly in the feeble rushlight.

Camber said nothing—merely waited until the sobbing had stopped and the royal head began to lift from hands which still shook with emotion. He let Alister's icy eyes soften as Cinhil lifted teary gray ones to them.

“Forgive me, Cinhil, I was over-harsh. It's late, and I am war-weary and sleep-fogged and not myself.”

“Nay, in some respects you were right,” Cinhil whispered, wiping a sleeve across his eyes. “I did blame him for the loss of my religious life, and I suppose that, in a way, I always will.” He sniffed loudly and lowered his eyes. “But he was a man of wisdom, who loved this land and its people in ways that I will probably never understand. And in many respects,
he
was right: however much I personally resent it, there was no other candidate for the throne besides myself. For the good of Gwynedd, I must accept that—but you must try to understand, when my inner self cries out with longing for something I can never have again.”

Camber bowed his head, wondering whether he could have misjudged Cinhil's true feelings for him. But though the king seemed genuinely contrite at the moment, Camber suspected that the truth might be exactly as Cinhil had painted it: a love-hate balance which would never be resolved, even with Camber's death.

Now, to determine whether Camber's end had, perhaps, at least opened the way for a further working relationship with Cullen …

“I believe I do understand, Sire,” he finally said, after a long pause. “And what is more, I think Camber did, too.”

Cinhil's tear-streaked face turned hopeful. “Do you really think so, Father?”

“Aye. He died in my and Joram's arms, but his last thoughts were of you, Cinhil: of wondering what would happen to you and to Gwynedd and to all else he had begun, once he was gone. He cared about you greatly, my son.”

“I was not worthy of his last concern,” Cinhil said miserably. “He should have turned his thoughts to God.”

“He did that, too,” Camber replied. “He died convinced that he had done the best he could with his life—as easy a death as I have ever seen. I truly believe he is at peace now.”

“I pray you may be right,” Cinhil whispered.

An awkward silence fell upon them both, as Cinhil averted his eyes and appeared to be lost in thought. But then Cinhil looked up again, a hopeful yet apprehensive expression on his face.

“Perhaps this isn't the time or the place to ask this, Father—but I think that Camber would approve. I wanted to ask whether—whether it was too late to accept the offer you made me last night.”

“What made you think it might be too late?” Camber asked quietly, wondering what, specifically, Cinhil was referring to.

Cinhil pleated an edge of his cloak between nervous fingers, not looking up. “We—were both very angry this morning.”

“We were both anxious for the day,” Camber replied, “with not enough sleep and too much imagination for either of our good. I should not have lost my temper.”

“No, I said hateful things,” Cinhil insisted. “You were right, and I didn't want to believe you. Had I been stronger in my faith, I might have chosen differently. God did not will it so.”

“God gives us all the will to make choices,” Camber pointed out. “He does not necessarily compel us to make the right ones.”

“Alas for that.” Cinhil sighed and stood. “But I made my choice, for whatever reason. Now I must learn to live with the consequences of that choice. Good night, Father.”

“Good night, Sire,” Camber murmured as Cinhil headed slowly toward the entryway, not looking back. “So must we all learn,” he added when Cinhil had gone.

They did not start back to Valoret for several days, for men and beasts were battle-weary, and there was much still to do at Iomaire. While Healers of both the physical and spiritual kind worked their craft among the living, others saw to the needs of the dead of both sides. The grave mounds erected in the days which followed would forever change the face of the Iomaire plain, for only the bodies of the highest nobility would be returned home for burial. The scarred hills of Coldoire would be a grim reminder of the realities of war for generations to come.

Other work there was that first night, and all the day after, as yet another group of men—crack soldiers, all—scoured the hills and glens of Iomaire for remnants of the invading army which had escaped their grasp in battle. Most of the enemy not actually taken during the fighting had scattered with the evening winds if they could, but there were many more who were too badly wounded to flee. These the royal troops ferreted out, bringing the living to the ministrations of the surgeons and the dead to the tendering of the priests and burial details.

In the end, prisoners of actual Torenthi allegiance numbered more than fivescore, most of them of the Torenthi nobility who had family or feudal obligations to the slain Ariella of Festil. These Cinhil immediately declared eligible for ransom, realizing, rightly, that ransom could help to replenish Gwynedd's war-depleted coffers. The Torenthi prisoners would be marched back to Valoret with the victorious army, there to be detained under strict but honorable conditions until arrangements could be hammered out for their release with agents of the King of Torenth.

But for the men of Gwynedd who had taken arms against their lawful king—no matter that they had sided with the representatives of their former liege lord—Cinhil could not afford to be so lenient. The point must be made, and firmly made, that Gwynedd's new master was exactly that, and would tolerate no further rebellion, under whatever guise. An object lesson was required, and it was Cinhil who must decide how it was to be administered.

It was not a task which the king relished, but Jebediah and Earl Sighere impressed upon him its necessity. At Cinhil's request, his advisors outlined a wide selection of fitting and just punishments, describing them in terms which left very little even to Cinhil's naive imagination. After much learned discourse, and more than one tearful session at prayer, Cinhil made the first truly independent decision of his reign, settling upon a disposition which was at once harsh, just, and merciful.

The surviving Gwynedd prisoners, numbering nearly two hundred fifty, would be decimated, each tenth man being chosen by lot, without regard to rank, for public hanging along the way home, as a vivid lesson on the fruits of treason. But for those spared the gallows trees, a more clement fate was destined—though those men would not be told of the king's mercy until they reached the capital with the Torenthi prisoners. Though they would be marched home in bondage, wrists lashed to spears across their shoulders and stripped of all titles and lands, at Valoret they would be pardoned and released, free from that moment to build new lives without further prejudice for what they had done.

As for the slain Ariella, her severed head was mounted on a spear and given to the Royal Archer Corps to carry back to Valoret—Sighere's suggestion—the rest of the body being divided and pieces sent to various of Cinhil's cities for display on their gates. In this way, it was hoped, future malcontents would observe and learn the true mettle of their new king, and future rebellions would be discouraged. Cinhil had a kingdom to settle. He could not afford another war for some time.

The decisions made, camp was struck. Sighere bade farewell to his erstwhile allies and took his army back into Eastmarch's heartland to lick his wounds, while Cinhil and his army started on the road to Valoret. At five-mile intervals, Cinhil's sentence was carried out on the chosen prisoners, so that the trees of Gwynedd bore strange, dangling fruit which jerked briefly and then was still until the carrion birds came. Local peasants and nobles were forbidden to cut the bodies down until thirty days had passed, under pain of attainder and banishment. Cinhil forced himself to watch the first execution, but after that he had Jebediah oversee the operation.

As for Camber, Cinhil was apparently still contrite over his recent harassment of the dead lord and his other Deryni mentors, and had decreed that Camber's body should be given all honors during the journey back. The shrouded body, magically preserved by Rhys to prevent decomposition in the late June heat, was borne on a litter carried by two cream palfreys, escorted by six of Gwynedd's highest-ranking lords in full battle array, the assignments changing twice a day to accommodate all those who wished so to serve.

Clergy with candles and incense and processional crosses marched before and behind the bier, chanting psalms and prayers for the repose of the dead man's soul; and Camber himself, in his guise of Alister Cullen, was obliged to lead the Michaeline contingent just behind the procession, with Joram sometimes riding at his side as a Michaeline and sometimes marching afoot in a closer position of honor as Camber's son.

Camber disliked the experience intensely, and made a point of engaging, or appearing to engage, in deep meditation whenever possible, that he might not be drawn into unnecessary conversation and risk betraying himself. But his self-imposed mental isolation had its drawbacks, for it gave him too much time to absorb and analyze the reception the cortege was meeting along the way.

Not to many men is it given to observe the reaction to their own death. For Camber, it was an illuminating experience. He was, in turn, amazed, flattered, and a little disturbed—though he could not put his finger on the reason for that last reaction.

He had expected sadness. For that, he was prepared. He could hardly have been unaware of the gratitude of the people for his restoration of the Haldane line, after the excesses of Imre. But he had not thought to find so much personal affection for Camber among the common folk, who could hardly know much of his actual role in bringing Cinhil to the throne. Apparently, news had traveled more quickly, and with far more embellishments, than he had dreamed. Though he was certain he had never done anything to warrant it, he found himself being lauded as a new folk hero. That realization made him distinctly uncomfortable.

But if the ride back to Valoret was difficult, the arrival, on the Calends of July, was even more traumatic. Because of the slow progress of the funeral cortege and the train of wounded, and the necessity to execute the requisite prisoners along the way, word of their coming and the outcome of the battle had reached the capital several days before they did. Into a strangely silent city they rode, past throngs who cheered halfheartedly and bowed as Cinhil passed, but fell silent, some kneeling in respect, as Camber's bier went by.