The Harrowing of Gwynedd (49 page)

“We welcome you to this noble company, your Grace,” King Alroy told his newest duke, as he had been coached. “We sympathize with your loss, for we have also lost a father not so very long ago. In light of that loss, and at so tender an age, we would inform you that we have determined to relieve you of some of the burden of this high estate.”

“Sire, his Grace asks no relief from the burden he has just assumed with his coronet,” Graham's Uncle Sighere said, looking very much like his own late father and namesake, the first Duke Sighere, as he stood, hand resting just a little too purposefully on the hilt of his dirk. “The Clan MacEwan is willing and able to discharge the duties set out for his Grace's grandfather, the first duke, and performed by his father, the late duke; and my brother and I have already sworn to uphold your Highness' wishes in this matter.”

With a nervous glance at Earl Rhun, Alroy continued. “No one is questioning the ability of the Clan MacEwan to carry out its sworn duties, my lord of Marley,” he said. “However, since Duke Graham is even younger than myself, we feel it wisest to lighten his responsibilities at this time. Accordingly, we have this day dismantled the viceregality of Kheldour into its component lordships, and we are placing these lordships under direct Crown rule.” Consternation rippled through the assembly. “To assist us in that rule, we have appointed the Honorable Fane Fitz-Arthur as our Deputy Regent for Kheldour, to oversee the administration of these lands.”

The highlanders roared their disapproval, battering their dirks against highland targes—for they had been forbidden to enter the court armed with broadswords—and Sighere and Hrorik made empassioned appeals for a slacking in the king's intentions—or, rather, the regents' intentions—but to no avail. Well coached by his regents and bolstered by their presence at his side, Alroy was implacable. Kheldour as a separate political entity ceased to exist from that date. Henceforth, it was to be governed as a collection of separate counties, baronies, and Graham's one duchy, all under the direct scrutiny of the Crown. Graham had best take his uncles and retainers and go home, before words were spoken or deeds done that could not be undone, to the peril of the oaths of loyalty and fealty the young duke had just sworn.

Graham and his uncles went—yet another goal accomplished in the regents' master plan to bring all of Gwynedd under their closer rule. The exercise offended Javan nearly as much as the slaughter of Ewan and the hapless Declan Carmody and his family, if in different ways. He sought out Oriel to talk about it, but the Healer was still almost physically ill over Declan's death, and the manner of it, cursing his own impotence which had allowed such an outrage to take place.

“You
know
that I could have blasted them all!” he told Javan angrily. “I'm
Deryni
, able to draw on the fires of the universe if I choose. But I did
nothing
! I stood by and let it happen, to save my own skin.”

“And the lives of your family,” Javan reminded him, telling him the truth, even though he, too, would rather have denied it. “Oriel, it would have been foolish to do anything else besides what you did. While you were trying to focus the fires of the universe on those who deserve to burn, their archers would have made a pincushion of you. There was nothing you could do. There was nothing
I
could do. Do you think that makes me any happier about it than you are?”

Shaking his head wearily, Oriel managed a tiny “No.”

Javan sighed and laid a sympathetic hand on the Healer's shoulder. “Oriel, I need your prayers. I'm about to start something very dangerous,” he murmured.

“Dangerous?” Oriel lifted his head. “What are you going to do?”

Rising, Javan moved over to the tiny window in Oriel's chamber and peered out. “I'm going to skirt a little closer to the question of Holy Orders. I've got to see that something else happens, and I may actually have to take Orders in order to justify my actions, later on. I'll confess, I don't relish the idea.” He glanced back at Oriel and smiled bravely. “I do
not
have a religious vocation, despite the archbishop's most fervent prayers. And while I do have some influence over
him
these days, I haven't dared touch any of the
Custodes
. I don't think Hubert realizes what he's created. Anyway, I could end up locked away in a monastery—if I don't end up dead.”

Oriel tried to talk him out of the scheme, just as Joram did during the brief meeting they managed a few days later in the little study off the basilica sanctuary. The contact had only just been possible, for Joram and the others were deep in the throes of preparing for Revan's emergence into his full ministry at Pentecost—which was precisely what Javan wanted to talk about.

“I'm going to do it, so you'd better make sure he knows ahead of time so he can plan,” Javan told him, as the former Michaeline was gathering his wits on the Transfer Portal to leave, having exhausted all the arguments he could think of. “I'd rather have your blessing than defy you, Joram, but this is the only way I can see that might work. So you'd better make the most of the situation, because I won't be talked out of it.”

After Joram had gone, his blessing most reluctantly given, the prince spent a brief time in prayer in the basilica, where Charlan was waiting for him, then returned to begin composing the letter to Valoret, informing the archbishop of his intention to join Hubert there for several weeks' retreat, being sick at heart over the slayings he had witnessed on his birthday. In asking for the archbishop's personal guidance in several matters of conscience, some of them having to do with important choices he must make for his future, he knew he had offered Hubert a bait that would not be refused.

Nor was it. A few days before Pentecost, permission came for the prince to depart for Valoret. The archbishop's letter made it clear that he believed he had just about won Javan over to the religious life. Black-clad and somber, Javan said and did nothing to diminish that impression as he set out for the former capital with a small escort led by Hubert's brother, the regent Manfred, who would be continuing north after delivering Javan to Valoret. Enroute, Javan drew Manfred out about religion—a subject of some indifference to Manfred, until he recounted how his brother had decided upon a career in the church—a confidence that surprised Javan, especially when it came out that both Manfred and Hubert honestly believed that Hubert's was a genuine vocation.

He did not test that intelligence once he arrived in Valoret, however, for he did not want to engage Hubert in conversation that might trap him into making a commitment he would later regret. If possible, he preferred not to make any commitment at all, where that was concerned, though he was prepared to do whatever must be done, in order to see his plan to successful completion. Claiming the need for seclusion, to fast and pray awhile before discussing anything further, Javan promptly did just that—though what he prayed for was word of the success of Revan's mission with the Willimites. He would not consider the possibility of failure.

Manfred and his escort rode on to take possession of Cor Culdi, the other principal seat of his new earldom, now that his castle at Caerrorie was nearing completion. And that was how Lord Manfred MacInnis, Earl of Culdi and Baron of Marlor, came to be riding past the Willimite encampment on that pleasant June morning of 918, as Revan prepared to emerge from his forty days' retreat and announce his official mission. Without doubt, the very last thing Manfred expected to encounter enroute was the birth of a new religious cult.

Revan and his several partners in the subterfuge about to be set in motion had been honing their preparations for weeks, while he and a handful of his Willimite “disciples” kept seclusion on the mountaintop above the old Willimite camp. By skillful manipulation of a few selected individuals' memories, Sylvan O'Sullivan had been inserted into the master's inner circle with a sufficient past to satisfy any but the most dogged suspicion—though they were careful not to make him too much the master's favorite. That honor was reserved for the man called Brother Joachim, who had been among the first to respond to Revan's undoubted charisma and embrace his teachings, along with Flann and Geordie. These four formed the core of Revan's closest discipleship, and at least one of them was always with him.

And in the camp below, the disguised Tavis O'Neill also played out his role, his missing hand padded out with a bandage and supported by a sling, so that he attracted no undue attention. During the forty days of contemplation leading to this day, Revan had not come down from his mountain, but he occasionally had preached to selected audiences, sending his intimates down to invite chosen ones to attend him and hear his musings on what he believed his mission was to be; they were primed. Where Revan's own sheer persuasive force had not won them over, subtle manipulation by Tavis or Sylvan usually had; and a few had simply disappeared, if their subversion seemed too difficult or too unlikely for safety. Tavis was among them now, mingling with the other men and women gathering beside the river to await Revan's promised arrival, testing the feel of the day, doing his best to make certain that their star performer should have no unexpected surprises.

Nor would Revan go into battle armed only with his own resources. By his own charisma and a growing instinct for evaluating people quickly, Revan was perfecting his ability to induce dizziness and even a trancelike receptivity in some subjects on his own. Often, he could reinforce such tendencies with the power stored in his Willimite medallion. In addition, Sylvan and Tavis had taught Revan how to activate triggers previously set by one of the Deryni, to produce the illusion that it was Revan who took away the Willimite Deryni's magical powers, for those first miracles when they dared not have Sylvan too closely associated with Revan. And they would have their planted Willimite Deryni.

But would it all work outside a controlled situation? That was the question. Revan's performance this morning might well determine the entire course of his ministry; and any of a host of possible disasters could lead to all of their deaths.

“I'm ready, my friends,” Revan said quietly, as he emerged from the cave where he had spent that last night in solitude.

Nearly a dozen heads turned toward him expectantly, some a little fearfully. Those who had been sitting stood. Later, several would swear that even then, a light shone from his face, though some never did see it. Bracing himself against the familiar olivewood staff, Revan picked his way down the slight slope toward them, his sandalled feet stirring the bleached wool of his robe. He wore a plain, short mantle of rusty black over that, for the spring morning was chill, and his beard and hair were still damp from his morning ablutions. He gave a faint smile as Joachim and then Sylvan and Geordie came and knelt to kiss the hem of his robe. He raised his free hand in a gesture half greeting and half blessing as the others also fell to their knees, young Flann settling rapturously at his feet.

“What will happen today, Master?” one of the Willimites asked softly. “What will you tell your children?”

Revan shook his head gently and began to move among them, touching a hand here, an upturned face there, letting them see him, touch him, believe in him.

“Will you believe me if I say to you that I do not know?” he murmured. “The Lord God has vouchsafed to tell me I must go, but He has not said what I must say. You must trust, as I do, that all will be revealed in His time. Do you believe this?”

Weeping tears of hope and joy, a middle-aged woman wearing a tattered blue gown clasped her hands to her breast and nodded. “We do, Master. Oh, give us your blessing!”

“Not my blessing, but the blessing of the Lord,” Revan replied, passing his palm above them as they bowed their heads. “Now pray with me, my children, before we go to join your brothers and sisters.” He folded to his knees among them and clasped the staff before him, bowing his forehead against its gnarled smoothness.

“Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto Thee. I am not worthy to come under Your roof, so You have set me to Your work here underneath Your sky, among Your people. Give strength and guide me, Lord, as I go to do Your will, and bless all Your children who cry to You in their despair.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti
…”

“Amen,” they answered, as he crossed himself and rose.

They followed him down the mountain then, humming a tuneless hymn that began as a simple chant on a higher note and then a note several steps down, harmonies intertwining as additional voices joined in. The dozen quickly became a score, then three score, four score, as they descended toward the river. By the time they approached the spit of land he had chosen for his pulpit, jutting out into a still pool in this bend of the river, there were more than a hundred of them, and the hymn had shifted spontaneously to a
Veni Sancti Spiritus
, chanted over and over on two notes.

No one followed him onto that smooth, whitely shimmering stretch of sand, though Sylvan and the half-dozen others who were his special intimates crouched in a front rank across its narrow neck, and the others came that far. The rest began filling in behind them and ringed the pool as closely as they could, settling quietly on cloaks and mantles spread in the sun. Revan turned his back to them and bowed his head as he gave them time to settle, until well over a hundred men and women were sitting expectantly around the pool, waiting.

As a profound silence spread outward over the assembled company, Revan gave them a few more minutes to let the expectation build, then slowly raised his head and thrust his staff into the sand beside him. Lifting both arms to shoulder level, palms outstretched, he threw his head back further and closed his eyes, making his body a living sigil of the crucified Christ in Whose name they expected him to speak—and for Whose forgiveness at this near-blasphemy he devoutly prayed.