The Quest for Saint Camber

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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

The Quest for Saint Camber

The Histories of King Kelson, Volume Three

Katherine Kurtz

For

Chevalier Scott Roderick MacMillan, GCJJ

“Steel True,

Blade Straight,

A Knight.”

C
ONTENTS

P
ROLOGUE
Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. —
Job
4:3

I  I will make him my firstborn.
—Psalms
89:27

II  Open thy mouth, and drink what I give thee to drink. —
II Esdras
14:38

III  Many seek the ruler's favor.
—Proverbs
29:26

IV  It is good to keep close the secret of a king.
—Tobit
12:7

V  A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry.
—Ecclesiastes
10:19

VI  For he offereth the bread of thy God; he shall be holy unto thee. —
Leviticus
21:8

VII  Ye have set at naught all my counsel.
—Proverbs
1:25

VIII  Teach me, and I will hold my tongue.
—Job
6:24

IX  An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed.
—Proverbs
20:21

X  A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness. —
Joel
2:2

XI  We will return and build the desolate places. —
Malachi
1:4

XII  The way of a fool is right in his own eyes.
—Proverbs
12:15

XIII  Behold, my terror shall not make thee afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee. —
Job
33:7

XIV  Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave. —
Job
33:22

XV  I am clean without transgression, I am innocent.
—Job
33:9

XVI  Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.
—Proverbs
19:18

XVII  And they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son.
—Zechariah
12:10

XVIII  The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.
—Proverbs
4:19

XIX  Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
—Proverbs
9:17

XX  The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death.
—Proverbs
21:6

XXI  They have pierced my hand.
—Psalms
22:16

XXII  If I wait, the grave is my house.
—Job
17:13

XXIII  Fear not the sentence of death, remember them that have been before thee, and that come after. —
Ecclesiasticus
41:3

XXIV  And his brightness was as the light … and there was the hiding of his powers.
—Habakkuk
3:4

XXV  Do no secret thing before a stranger: for thou knowest not what he will bring forth. —
Ecclesiasticus
8:18

XXVI  In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men.
—Job
33:15

XXVII  Ask now the priests concerning the law.
—Haggai
2:11

XXVIII  A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes.
—Proverbs
20:8

E
PILOGUE
Thou hast granted me life and favor, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit. —
Job
10:12

Appendix I: Index of Characters

Appendix II: Index of Place Names

Appendix III: Partial Lineage of Haldane Kings

Appendix IV: The Festillic Kings of Gwynedd and Their Descendants

Appendix V: Partial Lineage of the MacRories

About the Author

P
ROLOGUE

Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands
.

—Job 4:3

Thunder rumbled not far away, low and ominous, as Prince Conall Haldane, first cousin to King Kelson of Gwynedd, pulled up with his squire in the meager shelter of a winter-bare tree and huddled deeper into his oiled leather cloak, squinting against the spatter of increasingly large raindrops.

“Damn! I thought we'd finished with storms for a while,” he muttered, jerking up his fur-lined hood. “Maybe we can wait it out.”

Conall's comment was more a wishful aside than a statement of real belief, for March in Gwynedd was notorious for its unpredictable weather. An hour before, when the two young men rode out from Rhemuth's city gates, the sky had been reasonably clear, but all too quickly fast-moving clouds had closed the countryside in a flat, grey gloom more appropriate to dusk than noon, plummeting the temperature accordingly. As thunder rolled closer and shower turned to deluge, Conall could taste the acrid bite of lightning-charged air moving just ahead of the storm. Had it continued only to rain, Conall still might have borne the situation with reasonable good humor—for the day's outing was one of Conall's choosing, not someone else's notion of royal duty. But his fragile forbearance quickly evaporated as the icy downpour turned to hailstones the size of a man's thumbnail, pelting prince, squire, and horses hard enough to sting.