"Probably. Dualta wasn't there today-in fact, I haven't seen him for months-but Queron did indicate that he would produce absent witnesses tomorrow. One can only a.s.sume that Dualta will be among them. Rhys received a summons."

"Blast the man's competence!" Cinhil hissed. "Does anyone else know?"

"About you? Jaffray, for certain."

"Jaffray?"

"Of course. After all, he could hardly have Truth-Read Queron and not be aware of all Queron's arguments. However, he, too, has declined to bring your name into evidence yet, for reasons best known to himself and Queron. He's apparently content to let Queron present the case in his own good time, to feign ignorance of any but the matter directly at hand, until Queron is ready for it to be revealed."

"I fail to see the logic in that," Cinhil muttered.

"Why, to enhance his credibility with the human contingent, I should imagine. Whether he means to or not, that's what's happening. All the bishops appear to trust Jaffray, and especially the human ones. It was Bishop O'Beirne who urged Jaffray to perform the Truth-Read and confirm Queron's original testimony, after Queron had suggested it. I doubt there are half a dozen men who were present who are still unconvinced that Guaire did, indeed, see Camber MacRorie." And none of them realizes that he really did, Camber added to himself.

Cinhil harrumphed and threw himself into another chair beside Camber.

"Jaffray. He's going to be a problem, isn't he? He was here briefly, too, you know."

"Oh?"

"Yes. He asked permission to move tomorrow's session into the great hall here at the castle, to accommodate the increased attendance he expects, once word of this gets out."

"And he invited you to attend," Camber guessed.

"Well, I could hardly refuse, could I? After all, I'm the king. Your precious Camber saw to that. If the kingmaker is going to be canonized, then the king should obviously support the measure. It would be highly disrespectful, not to mention ungrateful, if His Highness did not grace this august a.s.semblage."

Camber could not help a small Alister smile. "Jaffray said that?"

"Not in so many words, but the meaning was plain enough. He'll force me to testify, too, won't he?"

"Well, I hardly think that 'force' is the proper word, but, yes, he'll certainly try to persuade you. Or Queron will. He'd be a fool not to. Your value as a witness is inestimable.

Everyone knows that Cinhil Haldane would never dare to lie under oath. And if the king attests to a miracle regarding Camber MacRorie, who can gainsay him?"

Cinhil looked down at the floor, silent for some seconds. When he finally stirred, it was to gaze into the dancing flames on the hearth before him.

"Was it a miracle, Alister? What did I really see? I've asked myself a thousand times since then, but I'm still no closer to an answer. I'm not even certain I'm capable of objectivity, where he's concerned. How can I feel so many conflicting emotions about one man? In some respects, I have to admit that I respected and even admired him, but another part of me hates him for what he did to me."

Camber dared not meet the king's eyes.

"He gave and demanded much, Sire. He did what he thought he must, but the cost was great, for you and for him. I think he would not fault you for your uncertainty, though. I suspect that he, too, had mixed emotions about what he felt he had to do. He would not have hurt you, had there been any other way to save Gwynedd."

"But was he a saint?" Cinhil whispered. "They will ask me, Alister. How can I speak of what I do not know?"

"Then, if you must speak, speak of what you saw and do not make a judgment, Sire. Let that be upon the bishops' heads. Such things are no longer your concern."

"Are they not?" Cinhil replied softly.

A strange, almost awkward silence settled between them, with Camber receiving the definite impression that Cinhil was struggling with himself, that there was something else bothering the king which he had not yet revealed. After a few minutes, Cinhil rose and began pacing a brisk, nervous track between the two chairs and the hearth, back and forth, only a few steps to either direction. Finally, he stopped to face the watching bishop.

"There's something I wish to confess to you, Alister. I have wanted to tell you for some time, but I -was afraid you wouldn't approve. You probably still won't."

Camber furrowed his bushy Alister brows. "If you seek absolution, you have your own very capable confessor, Sire."

"No, I wish to confess to you, even if you cannot grant absolution, once you've heard.

Will you hear me, Alister?"

"Very well, if you wish."

Camber felt distinctly uncomfortable as he rose and followed Cinhil across the room to a lighted candlestick which the king picked up and carried toward his bed. Camber was wondering where they were going, for the oratory was behind them, when Cinhil paused at the foot of the bed and knelt before a large, metal-bound trunk. He handed the candlestick up to Camber and then manipulated the locking mechanism and opened the lid. As he turned back the top layer of brown wool, the rich tracery of ecclesiastical embroidery gleamed in Camber's candlelight.

Camber caught his breath as Cinhil lifted that layer, for beneath lay a chalice, paten, and other priestly accoutrements. He knelt down to lay one hand on the edge of the trunk in disbelief, somehow knowing that these did not belong to Cinhil's confessor, not daring to articulate what he was thinking. If what he suspected was true ...

Almost as though he were no longer aware of Camber's presence, Cinhil pulled out a neatly folded bundle of fabric and shook out the folds of a chasuble, white silk and gleaming gold. He stared at the cruciform orphrey bands limning the shoulders and breast, as though trying to divine some new justification for his conscience, then laid the garment over his arms for the bishop's inspection.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" he whispered.

chapter twenty three.

I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.

-Galatians 4:20 "I'm-not sure I understand, Sire," Camber said, after a slight pause, afraid that he understood far too well. "Aren't these Father Alfred's vestments?"

"No, they're mine. Father Alfred has never used them."

"But you have," Camber said, in a flat, stunned voice.

"Yes-since the day you were consecrated bishop, every day, faithfully, even as I used to do."

With a sigh, Camber leaned one elbow on the edge of the trunk and rubbed his forehead, trying to decide how to respond. How had he not foreseen this? No wonder Cinhil had seemed to settle down, of late.

He knew what his response should be, of course. Alister Cullen could quote chapter and verse of canon law and why Cinhil, as a laicized priest, was courting serious sanctions by resuming the exercise of his office. Even Camber, in the relative newness of his own year- old priesthood, was well aware of the ecclesiastical implications of what Cinhil had done.

Any priest would be.

But he could not find it in his heart to condemn Cinhil. Had he not already brought enough unhappiness to the pious king? What harm did it do for Cinhil to resume his priestly functions in private? A priest was a priest forever, never mind the words of a now- dead archbishop who had commanded this particular priest to set aside his office and a.s.sume a crown. If celebration of his love for G.o.d helped to ease Cinhil's mourning for his stolen vocation, and made the bearing of his royal exile easier, then who was the supposedly dead Camber MacRorie, in his own hypocrisy, to tell the king he must not do it? Could this not be Cinhil's secret, as Camber had his?

"You're shocked, aren't you?" Cinhil whispered, when he could stand the silence of Camber's contemplation no longer. "G.o.d, you must think me some kind of a monster!"

Camber looked up at the king with a start. He had not realized how his silence must be feeding Cinhil's guilt-as if the poor, beleaguered king needed a further portion of remorse. What Cinhil had done was unwise, and could have drastic repercussions if his secret were ever learned by anyone else, but he must not be allowed to add this failing to what he already considered to be a shattered life.

"Monster?" he murmured. "Good G.o.d, no, Cinhil! That was the furthest thing from my mind, believe me. I confess, I was surprised. You know the law in this regard as well as I- better, perhaps, for you surely considered very carefully before doing what you did."

Cinhil nodded miserably, too overcome to make a verbal response.

"Tell me, does it give you comfort, what you do?" Camber asked gently.

"It-is my life's blood!" Cinhil choked, head bowing over the chasuble in his arms.

For a moment, Camber said nothing, not daring to disturb the balance which Cinhil was so precariously maintaining between longing and near despair. He watched Cinhil's thumb caress the folds of creamy silk, caught the trembling of the hand Cinhil thought he could not see. He wondered whether Cinhil thought he would try to take the chasuble away from him.

"Cinhil?" he finally said, leaning closer but not touching the tensed body. "Cinhil, I want you to realize that I understand what has brought you to this. I understand, and I do not condemn you for it. I will not even forbid it. Nor can I think that Our Lord, in His infinite comprehension of all men's hearts, would hold such love of Him against you."

Cinhil swallowed and raised his head slowly, dazed eyes seeking visual confirmation of what he had just heard.

"Do you really mean that?"

"I do."

Cinhil seemed to ponder that for a moment, but then he glanced at Camber's bishop's ring and sighed as he began folding the chasuble once more.

"Well, you may be right about Him-I want to believe that you are. But what about the bishops? What will they do to me when they find out?"

"Why, how should they find out, Sire?" Camber asked, his brow furrowing as Cinhil laid the vestment back in the trunk. "You've confessed to me. Do you intend to confess to the rest, as well?"

"You won't tell them, then?" Cinhil said hopefully.

For answer, Camber reached into the trunk and felt among the folded vestments until he found what he had seen before: a wide, embroidered stole of violet silk. This he pulled out and held across the fingers of his right hand, his eyes rising to meet Cinhil's.

"Do you see this, Sire?"

"Yes."

"Well, there is another like it, which you cannot see. It has lain around my neck since I rose from yonder chair beside the fire. How should I tell anyone what you have confided?

Do you think my vows less binding than your own?"

They prayed together after that; and in a little while, Cinhil shyly asked his brother priest to help him celebrate a Ma.s.s. With some misgivings, Camber consented, serving as deacon and making the responses as Cinhil moved through the rite. But his hesitancy soon melted away in the fire of Cinhil's devotion; and partway through the Ma.s.s, the king's thoughts and prayers began to soar with the same fervent clarity which Camber had not seen since a long-ago night in a hidden, rock-bound chapel. So open and single of mind was Cinhil that Camber could almost have read him like a fine-penned scroll at noon, without the king being any the wiser. The experience confirmed that Camber had been right in taking an accepting stance on Cinhil's technical disobedience, and helped to cement even further the rapport which had been building steadily between king and bishop all through the past year.

But for all its rea.s.surance, the incident was strained for Camber. By the time he left, an hour later, he was even more in need of the solitude he had originally sought. Taking a torch from one of the guards at the foot of the King's Tower, he made his way back through the castle yard and out the southern gate once more, hardly daring to let himself think about what he had just learned. When finally he re-entered the wing of the archbishop's palace where his own apartments lay, he went down instead of up, into the older levels, pa.s.sing at last through a modest oak door onto a stone-paved landing. A small chapel lay below him, accessible by a wide, man-high flight of stairs which ended in the center of the chamber.

It was not Camber's favorite retreat, especially at this winter time of year, but it was out of the way and usually deserted, as it was tonight: a fitting refuge for one who must wrestle ancient wars of conscience. The simple barrel vaulting had originally been lime-washed, in hopes that the white would help to gather the scant daylight which filtered through the three arched lights set high and deep above the door; but time and the dampness had made the lime flake off in unsightly patches. The walls, once frescoed with scenes from the life of the Virgin, had long since been abandoned as a lost cause and mostly chipped back to the bare stone.

Still, the chapel was not in ruin. The floor was kept scoured clean and the altar maintained, for the place was still used by the occasional overflow of visiting priests who must find somewhere to celebrate their daily Office. But there were no frills. The altar was bare of ornament except for the necessary linens, two candles in nondescript holders, a plain wooden crucifix, almost crude in its execution, and a graceful but time-grayed statue of the Virgin which stood with downcast eyes beside an unpretentious tabernacle, arms folded across her breast in an att.i.tude of perpetual adoration. No place for high-flown grandeur, this.

With a sigh, Camber started down the steps, his torch casting a circle of ruddy light around his feet as he descended, the only illumination besides the sanctuary lamp burning red above the altar. He bowed and crossed himself at the foot of the steps, then shoved his torch into a cresset set in the rough north wall. Then he returned to the s.p.a.ce before the altar and lowered himself to the floor, to lay prostrate as he had on the night of his ordination, only the layers of his mantle somewhat insulating him from the cold and dampness of the stone.

G.o.d help him, where did he now stand? What had he done today, in the furtherance of his own perhaps misguided judgment? Was he going to be able to live with what he had wrought, in the days and months and years ahead?

What about Cinhil, for example? Camber had told him that an infinitely compa.s.sionate G.o.d would not hold his loving disobedience against him-but suppose Camber was wrong?

By rea.s.suring Cinhil, perhaps Camber was plunging the already foundering king into even deeper disfavor with a G.o.d who was also infinitely just.

And while he was on the subject of justice, what would a just G.o.d have to say, in the final reckoning, to a man who was allowing His Church to be led astray and call holy one who knew himself not to be as he appeared, whose entire present existence was based upon a grand deception?

Was he wrong to let the charade continue? Had he now involved G.o.d's honor? Had he really been motivated by the betterment of the kingdom, or was he a victim of his own pride, seduced by the arrogant belief that his guidance, and no other, could save the kingdom and the king?

And yet, his original justification still seemed solid. Without Cinhil, coolly plucked from his monastic life and forced to a.s.sume his destined role as king, Gwynedd would probably still lie under the cruel and negligent rule of Imre of Festil. And without the continuing temperance of Alister Cullen, whoever the guiding mind behind the external facade, Cinhil would have been expending far too much energy in sullen resentment of the man who had placed him where he still did not wish to be.

Now Cinhil was beginning to function as a king should function, especially as he found his own personal stride within the framework of the part he had been dealt. Already, awesome gains had been made in the governance of Gwynedd, not to mention the expansion in size and alliances. If Camber had not done what he had done, where would Cinhil be today? Where might Gwynedd be tomorrow?

The opening of the chapel door intruded on his inner dialogue at that. His first thought was to wonder whether someone had sought and found him, or if it was simply someone else looking for a quiet retreat, who had also known that this chapel was not often used at this hour.

He did not move as footsteps entered and paused on the landing, hoping that whoever it was would have the good sense to go away and leave him in peace, seeing his att.i.tude of prostration and realizing that he did not wish to be disturbed.

But the intruder did not move from the top of the landing. Camber could hear him breathing lightly, caught the hollow sc.r.a.pe of boot on stone as the watcher shifted weight minutely. The total absence of any psychic impression told him that the intruder was Deryni, too, his mind carefully shielded from any intrusion. The door closed, but the footsteps had not moved back through the doorway first.

With a sigh, Camber raised his head and got stiffly to his knees, the cold which had permeated him suddenly achingly apparent. His hood fell back from his head as he turned to look up.

Jebediah stood there on the landing above him, handsome face turned to a grim mask by the light of the torch he held, white sword belt gleaming against the dark of the rest of his raiment.

"I thought I might find you here," he said in a low voice.

Camber felt a shiver of apprehension ascend his spine, a chill unconnected with the tomb-coldness of the room itself. Why had Jebediah sought him out, and why so grave of mien? Could the grand master possibly suspect that Alister Cullen was not all he seemed?

Had Camber made some fatal error in council this afternoon?

No, that was paranoia slipping into his thinking. As serious as the possibility of suspicion was the probability that Jebediah had finally decided to press him for the reasons for their decreased personal relationship in the past year. While that could prove distinctly awkward, it was far preferable to suspicions of Allister himself.

Camber got clumsily to his feet, giving Jebediah an open, welcoming smile.

"Ah, Jebediah. And here, I thought I'd found a refuge, safe even from you," he said lightly. "After this afternoon, and several hours with the king, I felt the unmistakable need for solitude. But you are always welcome."

"Am I?"

Turning, Jebediah dropped the door bar into place with an ominous thud and then moved rapidly down the steps to put his torch on the wall opposite Camber's.

"Actually, I thought we might talk," he continued, bending his knee to the Presence signified by the altar lamp. "We really don't get much chance any more, you know-except officially, of course. Frankly, I find our joint planning sessions with Cinhil and the council a poor subst.i.tute for the times we used to share."

"Well, our various duties-"

"Are perhaps not the real reason for our distance," Jebediah Interrupted. He leaned both hands on the hilt of his sword and looked at the floor. "Strange, but I have the recurring notion-and I pray I'm wrong- that being the bishop's secretary is perhaps more important than merely being His Grace's friend of many years' standing. I'm sorry if that sounds petulant, Alister."

Camber, hands clasped behind his back in an unconscious Alister gesture, was so startled at the bitterness in those last words that he could only stare in amazement. Why, Jebediah was jealous of Joram!

"My G.o.d, Jeb, you surely don't think that, do you?" he asked softly, when he had recovered from his initial shock. "Why, we've both been so busy this past year, I in Grecotha and here, and you here and on campaign-I thought you understood that. Joram was with me, almost like a son. Surely you don't begrudge him my support now, when he needs it most?"

"Begrudge him? No," Jebediah whispered. "I envy him, though. It's a fault, I know, but I can't help it. I envy his time with you, his interaction with your life, the way we used to be.

We were both busy in the old days, too, Alister, but we still managed to find the time to share our problems and successes." He looked up, hardly able to meet Camber's eyes, in his misery. "Oh, I understand that you're a bishop now, and cannot, in your office, open all to me. I understand that." He looked away again. "But I always thought you realized how much your friendship meant to me.

Sometimes it's almost as if you had died instead of Camber."