The Quest for Saint Camber (25 page)

It was cold in the cathedral, despite heavy clothing—damp and dreary and
dark
, despite the blaze of candles burning on the altar and the torches lighting the aisles. Kelson had begun to wonder if he would ever see the sun again. He huddled down in his cloak and tried to get warm as he knelt beside Dhugal in the choir and heard Mass, but he was miserable. And most of his carefully rehearsed speech was going out of his head as his sinuses filled up—and more being lost, every time he sneezed.

By the time Mass was over and everyone began moving on to the chapter house, Kelson hardly cared that this was the place where a similar gathering of prelates and other clergy had declared Camber MacRorie a saint, two hundred years before—or even that, for a time, one of the cathedral's side chapels had been consecrated to the Deryni saint. He sneezed repeatedly in the relatively short length of time it took him to go from the choir, through the south transept, and out through the processional door to the cloister walk. The state of his humor and his already damp handkerchief were not improved by having to dab continually at his reddened nose.

Nor did it count for much that the cloister walk was covered, for Archbishop Bradene's secretary bade Kelson and his party wait outside the chapter house entrance while the milling prelates and other clerics found their places and an episcopal chamberlain tried to bring the gathering to order. The entryway was cold and windy, even standing in the lee of Dhugal's cloaked and hooded form, with rain blowing through the arched and pillared colonnades of the cloister's inside perimeter and puddling on the paving stones. Kelson was surprised the puddles were not icing over and said as much to Dhugal. He only barely resisted a show of royal temper when the rest of his party were invited to go in and find seats on the top tier of benches, leaving him and Dhugal to freeze.

The filthy weather had not even permitted the king to wear the court garb customary for such an important occasion. He had been reduced to wearing his thickest wool breeches and not one but two heavy wool tunics, with heavy, thick-soled riding boots that came to mid-thigh—not that anyone was likely to notice, under the bulky, fur-lined cloak. Nor had he bothered with the heavy state crown, in this weather. The bishops would just have to settle for the plain band of hammered gold that was constricting his forehead inside his fur-lined hood.

At least the hall looked reasonably dry inside, though several puddles growing near the open doorway might bespeak roof problems rather than just blowing rain. And it was hardly more light inside than out, despite the torches set in cressets around the walls for general illumination and the rushlights on the table where the clarks would take down the proceedings—though it
had
to be warmer inside. Half a dozen firepots had been positioned around the perimeter of the room at floor level, with a seventh smoldering cheerily between the archbishops' thrones on the dais—probably vain attempts to take the edge off the damp and chill, but Kelson resolved to end up near one of them, no matter what else happened.

As he slipped his sheathed sword from its hangers and gave it to Dhugal to hold, crowding a little closer to move out of the puddle growing at his feet, he had about reached the point that he was ready to go inside anyway, regardless of what the archbishop's secretary wanted—though it really had not been that long, he knew.

Then he sneezed again, several times in rapid succession; and when he could see properly, after blowing his nose, the chamberlain was nearly at his side already, with a look of extreme solicitude for the king and a reproving glance for the archbishop's secretary.

“Father, you should have let His Majesty wait inside the doors, out of the wind,” said the chamberlain, a portly priest of middle years named Father Elroy. “Sire, I'm dreadfully sorry. The weather has everything askew. Please come in. Would you prefer to sit or stand for your address?”

“I'd prefer to lie down,” Kelson said sourly, “though, since that doesn't seem to be one of the available options, I suppose I'll sit. I don't know that I could speak from a supine position anyway—I'm sorry, Father,” he amended, cutting himself off at Father Elroy's recoil to his sharp answer. “It isn't your fault I've got this beastly cold or that the weather's rotten. Do you suppose we'll have forty days and forty nights of rain, for our sins?”

Father Elroy managed a prim smile, uncertain whether to be mollified by the king's apology, annoyed at the slightly irreverent reference to Scripture, or still affronted.

“Your Majesty surely recalls that the Lord vowed never to mete that punishment again and gave us the rainbow as sign of His promise.” The priest's reply had started out stuffy, but then his strait-laced expression softened to one of very human commiseration. “On the other hand, Sire, thirty-nine days and nights would not surprise me, judging by what we've seen so far.”

And at his wink, Kelson chuckled despite his misery and clapped Father Elroy on the shoulder in appreciation as he moved on into the hall, wiping his nose again and then pushing back his hood. Perhaps he could get through this after all. It did seem a little warmer, now that he was out of the wind and damp.

“My Lord Archbishops, Your Excellencies, Reverend Lords,” said the chamberlain, rapping his iron-shod staff to call them all to order, “His Majesty the King.”

All those not already standing rose as Kelson strode across the tiled floor to approach the dais where the archbishops were enthroned. Dhugal did not accompany him, but slipped into a place at the rear of the hall near Saer de Traherne and Jass, his back against the doors the archbishop's secretary closed and barred.

The prelates and other clerics bowed as Kelson passed, some of them with familiar faces, many not. All of the bishops had chairs on the ground level of the circular chamber, each with a chaplain attending at his side; the rest stood in two rows along the tiered stone benches ringing the hall, some of them crowded very close. Five of the chairs were empty: Duncan's, beside Cardiel; that of the vacant See of Meara, whose incumbent had been so brutally murdered more than a year before—and whose sainthood would be under consideration during the days and probably weeks to come; and those of the three titled bishops currently under suspension for their parts in or acquiescence to that murder, at least one of them almost certain to lose his office, if not his life, in addition to the freedom that he, like the other suspendees, had already lost.

No chairs had been set out at all for the five itinerant bishops also under suspension for the Mearan misadventure, though doubtless at least a few vacancies would be created and filled by the time the prelates finished disciplining their wayward brethren. Father Lael had shown Kelson a list of the seven itinerant bishops who were
not
under suspension, assuring him that every one of them would make a point to be present, and Kelson believed it. He and the little priest had linked up all seven names with faces while they waited for Mass to begin, between Kelson's sneezes. Lael had never used precisely the imagery of vultures gathering to dine off the carcasses of their fallen fellows, but that was the impression with which Kelson was left.

And if some of the itinerant bishops expected to become titled, then
their
offices would fall vacant—to be filled, perhaps, from the ranks of the many abbots and priors and other high-ranking churchmen who had also made a point to be present for consideration. It was far worse than the jockeying and maneuvering that had gone on to choose the
last
Bishop of Meara. This synod must replace that office again and also choose several more prelates. Kelson wondered if there had been so profound a shakeup of the episcopate since the first massive reorganizations following the Restoration.

“Welcome to Valoret, Sire,” Archbishop Bradene said, bowing over Kelson's hand when the king had ascended the steps of the dais and bent his knee to kiss the primate's ring. “I am most sorry that our prayers were not more efficacious in bringing finer weather for your journey. Perhaps you would have been better served had you ridden directly here with Archbishop Cardiel and Bishops Arilan and Wolfram after your knighting—on the occasion of which, incidentally, all of our colleagues here present who were not able to witness that most momentous event offer their most sincere congratulations, along with their prayers that Your Majesty may ever find the fulfillment of your knightly vows a joy, rather than a burden.”

“Thank you, my Lord Archbishop,” Kelson murmured, waving off a monk who was trying to approach surreptitiously with the chair the chamberlain had ordered. “Thank you, Father, I'll stand, after all. It will encourage me to be brief. Pardon me, my lords.”

He stepped up between the two archbishops, gathering up the edges of his cloak to hop over the firepot, then turned and pushed it nearer the edge of the dais with his boot, so he could stand behind it and still be even with the archbishops. The warmth was blessed respite from the cold and damp he had just left outside, and he shook the front edges of his cloak a little to either side to trap and hold the heat. The fur-lined wool was a deep, subdued crimson, so dark as to be almost black in the dim light, and parted to show only the white gleam of his knight's belt against unadorned grey as he held his gloved hands over the firepot to warm them. The hilt of a dagger protruded from one boot top, but that was his only visible weapon. He wore no apparent jewelry save his golden circlet and the Eye of Rom that had been his father's.

“Pray, be seated, my lords. The rain has me a trifle indisposed, so I hope you will forgive me if what I say seems more blunt than my usual wont.”

As the assembly obeyed, settling with an expectant murmur, Kelson rubbed his gloved hands together a few times, surveying his audience, then gave his nose what he hoped would be the last wipe for a while and tucked his handkerchief into one sleeve.

“I bid you good afternoon, Reverend Lords,” he said, warming his hands again as he inclined his head in respect. “I thank you for your felicitations and for the opportunity to address you before you begin your deliberations. Many of you I have met before, but I have yet to make some of your acquaintances. If I do not succumb to this chill I seem to have taken from the rain that Father Elroy assures me will not last forty days and nights—though it could last for thirty and nine, he tells me—I shall look forward to meeting all of you this evening at dinner.”

His quip brought a modest ripple of amusement, but Kelson feared it might be the last such as he hooked his thumbs in his belt and prepared to make the transition to the real meat of what he had to say.

“Now, as I have assured many of you in the past, I value your advice and counsel greatly, in temporal as well as spiritual matters. I hope, therefore, that you will not think it too presumptuous if I offer my advice and counsel on a few of the spiritual matters which you will be considering during this synod.”

A few murmurs whispered through their ranks at that, but he had not expected otherwise. At least they were not hostile. And he was feeling better, now that he was speaking to them, having to think on his feet. He simply must be careful that he was not too candid and risk turning them against him.

“First of all, I do not envy you your task of disciplining those among your number, none present here today—” He quirked them a grateful smile. “—who broke faith with you and with me during the unfortunate business of last summer. As you no doubt have already been informed, I rendered justice then—with the advice and consent of Archbishop Cardiel and Bishop McLain—to three clerics whose treason against me and against your chosen hierarchy was so great that, in conscience, I should have felt compelled to intervene if the Church had not herself voluntarily surrendered them to temporal justice.

“Fortunately, the crimes of all three individuals were such that there was no disagreement among their superiors and myself regarding disposition. Former Archbishop Edmund Loris, Monsignor Lawrence Gorony, and Prince-Bishop Judhael of Meara were executed by my command in July of last year—the latter primarily for reasons of state, which I regret, though his canonical betrayals and disobediences were such that his superiors did not dispute the political necessity, under the circumstances. And it is my understanding that the other two would have been hanged by an ecclesiastical court, had I not been there to do it.

“With those three executions, and several more purely secular ones necessitated by trial of certain individuals for particular crimes against chivalry and the conventions of wartime, the letter of the king's justice has been satisfied. I seek no additional deaths, for far too many have died already as a result of last summer's treachery and its terrible aftermath. However, I wish it noted that, should you see fit to impose the death penalty on additional parties involved in the Mearan unpleasantness, I will support your decision. I believe there are eight men in question, all of them bishops, all of them now in custody of the Archbishop of Valoret.”

He let them ruminate that for a moment while he paused to cough and blow his nose. That part had not been too difficult. He had simply been reiterating what most of them already knew. Nor was the next topic apt to draw much controversy.

“The second item I wish to address is connected with the first, for it concerns the election of a successor to the See of Meara, presently vacant, and of successors to those vacancies likely to be created by your actions in the first item—for even if the lives of some or all of those offenders be spared, I suspect that you will find at least a few of those men no longer fit to hold high episcopal office.

“Regarding those elections, I will say only that I am aware of the qualifications of some of the candidates considered during your deliberations two years ago and believe that some of those men are probably even more qualified now than they were then. I am sure you will give them all due consideration, as well as new candidates who have come to notice since. Several weeks ago, after consultation with several of my temporal advisors, I gave Archbishop Cardiel a letter outlining some of my own observations and recommendations regarding candidates known to me. He will share that information with you at the appropriate time. I trust I need not remind you, however, that you and those you elect wield and shall wield extensive temporal power as well as spiritual and that your choices must, therefore, be considered in a temporal light as well. The events of the past few years and of last summer, in particular, have shown us amply that it is no longer sufficient for a bishop merely to be a pious churchman and shepherd of his flock. He also must be an administrator and sometimes a politician—though I should point out that he ought never to allow his spiritual obligations to be overshadowed by the latter occupation. In the matter of elections, then, I shall simply wish you clear minds, honest hearts, and souls that listen to the direction of the Holy Spirit, as you deliberate to choose new Shepherds of the Flock.”