Saint Camber (28 page)

But there were many ways to die, not all of them so final or so clean. The visual image of his own face, so still in death, was concrete symbol of his own quite different death and rebirth in another's life, as well as body. From here, there could be no casual turning back. For better or for worse, he was now Alister Cullen. Except for rare occasions when he might dare relax his hold, Camber MacRorie was truly dead.

That acknowledgment made, he found that he could let go of his fear. He took another deep breath and felt himself relax; breathed again as his pulse slowed and his trembling ceased.

He would not have to look on that face again. Even now, Anscom's monks were waiting for the last of the mourners to leave the cathedral, so that they might seal the body in its coffin and wrap the whole in leaden foil. Tomorrow the body would go to Caerrorie and be buried, and that would be the end of it. And he, Alister Cullen to the outside world, would go on.

Squaring his shoulders and breathing again, he turned and went back into the center of the chamber, delivering himself to the ministrations of Johannes and another monk. His movements, as he helped them take off chasuble and other vestments, were automatic, Alister's; and he allowed that other part of him to take over his physical movements as he scanned the chamber for the first time since entering it.

Anscom was gone. He suspected that the archbishop had returned to his own vesting chapel almost immediately, sensing that both of his colleagues would wish to be alone with their grief. Anscom had always been a man of practical sensitivity—only one of the traits which had first drawn him and Camber into friendship, more than forty years before.

But Joram was there, eyes averted, deep in thought, changing back into his accustomed Michaeline raiment with movements as automatic as Camber's. Camber held his arms away from his body as he watched his son, letting Johannes knot the broad white sash of Michaeline knighthood around his waist. As the other monk draped his shoulders with the formal, badge-embroidered mantle of the vicar generalship, Camber ducked his head to permit donning of the silver pectoral cross which Johannes brought. Lastly, Camber picked up the skullcap of royal blue and put it on his head, adjusting it automatically as he moved closer to Joram. Johannes motioned for the other monk to leave and withdrew to stand against the door, there to wait until his superior was ready to go.

Camber shifted the folds of his mantle to a more comfortable arrangement as Joram looked up. One of the cathedral monks was fastening Joram's cassock, a second standing by with his white sash. Joram's eyes were hooded and unreadable.

“I meant to speak to you before this, Joram, but I thought you would want the time alone,” Camber said. He was well aware that he dared not speak too openly in front of Joram's dressers. “I'm sure you're aware of the Grand Chapter. I fear it may seem precipitate, but I knew that you would be occupied with family duties for the next few days, and scheduling this meeting for today seemed the only way to permit your attendance. I value your counsel, you know.”

Joram averted his eyes as he fastened his own cloak at his throat. “Thank you, Father General. I appreciate the thought.”

“Will you accompany me?” Camber continued, laying his hand gently on Joram's elbow and gesturing toward the door with his eyes.

Joram, helpless to resist under the gaze of so many curious observers, could only murmur assent and move with him. Though Camber knew that Joram must be yearning for some time alone, under the double burden of grieving the loss of Cullen and pretending to grieve for his father, there was simply no help for it. Camber dreaded facing his first Cullenencounter with the Michaelines without Joram at his side, and Joram must leave in the morning to escort “Camber's” body back to Caerrorie.

Just outside the sacristy, Gellis de Cleary, the acting precentor, was waiting to conduct them to the chapter house. Reentering the cathedral by a north door, they made their way along the ambulatory aisle and across the south transept, exiting through the processional door into the warm brightness of the cloister walk. At least a score of Michaelines, clergy and knights mixed, were milling outside the entrance to the chapter house, catching a last breath of cooler air before joining their brethren in the closed, circular hall. The stragglers picked up their pace as they saw their vicar general approaching, the scrape of sandaled and boot-shod feet shuffling and echoing on the tiled floor.

As Camber appeared in the doorway and was seen, a respectful pathway opened before him and the chamber began to quiet. Those already seated rose at his entry, crowding together on the tiers of stone benches to make room for their more tardy colleagues. All conversation ceased as the tall, gray-haired figure moved among them.

Smiling faintly, nodding greeting and recognition to those whose eyes he met, Camber made his way through the center of the hall, knowing in a flash of dual memory that he had always come this way among his brothers in faith, reaching out to touch a hand here, a shoulder there in comfort, fingers moving in benediction above numerous bowed heads. He was aware of Joram following a few paces behind—comfort to the part of him which was Alister as well as to himself—and then another jog of memory brought a wave of unexpected sorrow: for it was Nathan who approached to conduct him to the abbatial throne, not the beloved Jasper Miller, who had performed that function for him almost from the beginning of his tenure as vicar general.

A part of him knew that the real Alister had never faced the emptiness of Jasper's absence, and that Alister himself had died only minutes after his friend fell in battle. But there was also no doubt that another part of him was responding to the knowledge of Jasper's death as though he were Alister in fact as well as in form. His dual memory seemed to be functioning forward as well as backward in time, progressing almost as if there had been no ending to Alister at all. He had not expected that.

He faltered for just an instant as he mounted the three low steps to the chair which was temporarily his, vividly aware of the sea of royal blue around him, of the brightly muraled walls, the high, hammer-beamed ceiling, the smudge of rainbow light cast from the windows far above his head. His eyes met Jebediah's, staring down at him hopefully from the right of the chair, the grand master's strong hands resting steady on the quillons of the sheathed sword of the Order.

Camber spared him a weary, reassuring smile before turning to face the others. To the left, Nathan stepped up behind a narrow table where two clarks were shuffling sheets of parchment and checking lists of names. Johannes stood directly behind the chair, and Dualta beyond, in place of a knight named Lauren, who had been slain. Joram moved quietly to his accustomed place beside Jebediah, eyes downcast.

Camber waited until all of the stragglers had found places around the sides of the chamber, then sat, signaling for the last man in to close and bar the door. The dull shuffle of feet and sheathed swords against stone briefly disturbed the stillness of the chamber as the rest of the company took their seats and settled down.

“Dearest brethren.” Camber let his hands rest gently on the arms of the chair, trying to scan all of them by vision and intuition. “I apologize if the timing of this meeting appears to follow too closely on an event which has touched us all profoundly.” He took a deep breath. “Except for the urgency of our own situation, and the familial duties which will call one of our most beloved brethren to other responsibilities for a few days, I would have risked delaying this speech for yet a little while.” He glanced at Joram. “However, under the circumstances, I do not feel that any of us would be well served by further postponement of the inevitable. I apologize that my recent ill health did not permit any earlier meeting.”

He glanced briefly at the signet on his hand as he searched for words to tell them what he must. He could hear no sound but guarded breathing in all the packed chamber. The air was close already, tight with anticipation. A part of him wished he were anywhere but here.

“My brothers and friends, I personally face as grave a responsibility in the next few weeks as has ever come to me; for I must leave you in another's care at a time when change will be but one more disruptive factor in a year already fraught with tragedy for our Order. Beginning with our decision to support the Restoration, with its concurrent dispersal of you all to places of safety; continuing through the capture and subversion of our lamented brother, Humphrey of Gallareaux, may his soul rest in peace—” He crossed himself, a movement which was mirrored immediately by his audience. “—and not ending with Imre's wanton retaliation against us, because we would not abandon our just cause—we have given much for what we believed. The cost has been high, yet I think we could not have done differently, even had we foreseen the eventual outcome as it is.”

He sighed. “Perhaps the highest price has been paid in human lives. Our battle casualties alone were staggering. Most of you are aware of losses as individuals—the friends and comrades you have lost—but some of you may not be aware of what these losses mean to the Order: yet another legacy of our dispersal to separate places. Jebediah, would you please give us your latest estimation of our precise losses in men?”

Jebediah's face did not change expression—he was too good a soldier for that—but Camber could see his tension in the whitened knuckles on the sword beside him.

“More than forty knights were killed outright in the fighting or died on the battlefield of their wounds, Father General,” he said in a low voice. “Another score lie at the brink of death even now, with surgeons and Healers battling to save their lives. Some who will live will never fight again. Our present battle-ready strength, including those on light duty because of still-healing injuries, is perhaps one hundred ten, of nearly two hundred who rode out to Iomaire.”

There were murmurs of surprise and consternation around the chamber. Camber kept his eyes averted until conversation had ceased, then resumed without looking up.

“Barely half our previous strength, brethren. Nor is our domestic situation much better. Nathan, please report on the state of our lands and properties.”

Nathan stood and moved to stand beside Camber's chair, resting a hand lightly on one turned finial as if to underline his support of his superior.

“Of the twelve major establishments functioning before Imre began his harassment of the Order, ten were looted, burned out, and razed. Even the foundations were uprooted, in some cases. The lead was stripped from the roofs and windows, and most of the usable stone and timber at each site was carried away by Imre's men for his aborted building project at Nyford.

“What little remained after the soldiers finished has been well scavenged by the local peasants, and can currently be seen in scores of cottages and walls and sheep pens. In order to rebuild at any of these sites, it would be necessary to bring in almost all new materials.”

He consulted a page lying at the end of the table. “Further, we estimate that some forty-five hundred head of cattle, sheep, and horses were appropriated by the Crown or, in some cases, slaughtered and the carcasses left to rot. All standing crops were seized, the stubble burned and ploughed under, and the whole sown with salt. If any of these fields yields a crop in the next fifty years, I will be very much surprised.”

There were rumbles of anger and bewilderment, until Camber held up a hand for silence. Porric Lunal, one of the men whose name had appeared on Jebediah's list, stood in his place, eyes blazing.

“Father Nathan, you've accounted for ten of our twelve houses. What of the other two?”

“They are somewhat better off,” Nathan conceded. “After being stripped of their lead and timber, Haut Eirial and Mollingford both were burned out and salted, but their wholesale dismantling was interrupted by the Restoration. Though some scavenging took place, the basic fabric of the stone buildings appears to be intact. Our masons feel that sufficient stone remains to rebuild smaller establishments on these sites, but I personally believe we would be better off to build elsewhere. The salted fields could not support even a small community for some years. We would be totally at the mercy of anyone who decided to cut off our supply lines.”

He glanced down at Camber, his last words and his expression leaving little doubt, at least in Camber's mind, just to whom he was referring, but Camber chose to overlook the intended implication. Nathan, like many other Michaelines, was well aware of the tenuous balance currently in effect between Deryni and the king; and the Michaelines were Deryni, in large part.

Wearily, Camber dropped his forehead against one hand and closed his eyes, in a typically Alister gesture.

“I share your concern, Nathan,” he murmured.

“What about the Commanderie?” another voice called, from somewhere on the right.

“Jeb?” Camber replied, not looking up.

“The Commanderie cannot be salvaged,” Jebediah said. His voice was bitter, and Camber could visualize the expression on his face without even having to see it.

“Imre's butchers were thorough, especially since Cheltham was the first of our houses on their list. I see no hope of ever restoring Cheltham to its former prominence, had we twice our numbers and five times our present financial resources, which we do not.”

There was silence as Camber raised his head to face them all again. Every eye was on him now, waiting for him to tell them that it was not true, for him to make things right. That he could not do—though he could give them hope. But once he had done that, he must turn discussion to his real reason for calling this meeting, and hope that he could read them all correctly.

“You have heard the reports by our esteemed brethren, my friends,” he said, in a voice which penetrated to every corner of the chamber. “I wished you to know the whole of it, that you may harbor no illusions as to where we stand.