"Katherine Kurtz - Kelson - The Bishop" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

the bishopТs heir
PROLOGUE
And he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal for a cloak.
- Isaiah 59:17
Edmund Loris, once the Archbishop of Valoret and Primate of All Gwynedd, stared out to sea through the salt-smeared windowpanes of his tower prison and allowed himself a thin smile. The rare display of self-indulgence did nothing to diminish the fury of the wind shrilling at the ill-fitted glass, but the letter secreted in the breviary under his arm gave its own grim comfort. The offer was princely, befitting even the exalted status he had enjoyed before his fall.
Exhaling softly of his long-hoarded bitterness, Loris bowed his head and shifted the book to hold it in both hands, wary lest the gesture seem to make it too precious in the eyes of his jailers, who could look in on him at any time. For two years now they had kept him here against his will. For two years his existence had been defined by the walls of this monastic cell and the token participation permitted him in the life of the rest of the abbey: daily attendance at Mass and Vespers, always in the company of two silent and all-too-attentive monks, and access to a confessor once each month - seldom the same man twice, and never the same one any two months in succession. Were it not for one of the lay brothers who brought his meals, whose fondness for intrigue Loris had early discovered, he would have had no contact whatsoever with the outside world.
The outside world - how he longed for it again! The two years spent in Saint IveaghТs were but an extension of the outrage which had begun a full year before that, with the death of King Brion. On just such a chill November day as this had Brion Haldane met his doom - blasted from life by the hell-spawned magic of a Deryni sorceress, but leaving an unexpected legacy of forbidden powers to his son and heir, the fourteen-year-old Kelson.
Nor had young Kelson hesitated to seize his unholy patrimony and use it to overturn almost everything Loris held sacred, not the least of which was the ChurchТs stand against the use of magic in whatever form. And all of this had been done under the guise of his УDivine rightФ to rule and his sacred duty to protect his people - though how a king could justify consorting with the powers of evil to effect that protection was beyond LorisТ comprehension. By the end of the following summer, with the help of the Deryni heretics Morgan and McLain, Kelson had even managed to turn most of LorisТ fellow bishops against him. Only the ailing Corrigan had remained true - and his faithful heart had given out before he could be subjected to the humiliation Loris finally endured. The rebel bishops actually believed they had done a great kindness by allowing Loris to attend the travesty of a trial at which they stripped away his offices and banished him to a life of forced contemplation.
Bitter still, but heartened by the prospect of a chance to set things right, the former archbishop tapped the edge of his book lightly against his lips and thought about its secret contents - yet another communication from folk with similar cause to feel uneasy at what the new king had wrought. The wind whining in the roof slates of Saint IveaghТs sea-girt towers sang of the freedom of the open seas whence it came, bearing the tang of salt air and the cries of the wheeling gulls that circled the abbey during all but the darkest hours of night, and for the first time since his imprisonment, Loris allowed himself to hope that he, too, might soon be free. For many, many months, he had feared never to taste freedom again except in death.
Oh, he was not fool enough to think there would not be a price - but he could afford to promise anything, for now. With care and craft, he might play more than one side to his advantage, perhaps eventually becoming even more powerful than before his fall. Then he would make himself the instrument of GodТs retribution, driving the cursed Deryni from the land once and for all.
And the Deryni taint was in the very blood of the king - perhaps in all the Haldane line, not in Kelson alone. In the very beginning, Loris had thought KelsonТs forbidden magic strictly the legacy of his Deryni mother - that poor, conscience-hounded lady who even now kept strict seclusion in another remote abbey, praying for the soul of her Deryni son as well as her own and devoting her life to penance for the evil she carried. She had confessed her guilt before them all, that solemn day of KelsonТs coronation, prepared to sacrifice life and even soul to protect him from the sorceress who had already been responsible for his fatherТs death.
But Queen Jehana, though she had the will, had not the power to fight KelsonТs battle for him; and in the end, the young king had had to face the challenge with his own resources - prodigious resources, as it happened, easily equal to the challenge, but frightening in their implications. While granting that his motherТs Deryni blood might have made its contribution. Kelson had publicly claimed sacred right as the source of his newfound abilities. Loris had feared otherwise, even at the time, for he remembered stories about the boyТs father.
In fact, the more Loris thought on it - and he had had ample time for that in the last two years - the more convinced he became that Brion and hitherto unsuspected Deryni ancestors were as much to blame for KelsonТs condition as Jehana. The full extent of the taint could only be guessed. Certainly both Brion and his father before him had harbored Deryni at court from time to time. The detested Morgan and McLain were but the most recent and blatant of many such - and the latter a priest all the while, hypocrite to the core - on both of whom Loris wished only the vilest of fates, for the two were largely responsible for his present situation.
As for Brion, who could deny that the late king once had faced and killed a Deryni sorcerer in single combat? Loris, then but a parish priest of rising prominence, had heard of the incident only at second and third hand, but even in the first throes of public jubilation at the kingТs victory, he had been chilled by the recurring suggestion that BrionТs opponent, father to the woman eventually responsible for his death, had fallen not alone to BrionТs sword but to strange powers wielded by the king himself. In the taverns for months afterward, haunted eyewitnesses with tongues loosened by ale whispered fearfully of magic worked upon the king by young Morgan before that fateful confrontation - the unleashing of awesome forces which Brion said were benign, the royal legacy of his father - but even that admission cast grave suspicions on the king, so far as Loris was concerned. Though a man of honest if rigid religious conviction, he was not naive enough to concede that purity of intent and fervence of faith - or Divine favor to an anointed king - had been BrionТs salvation, though he kept his misgivings to himself so long as Brion lived.
Now Loris knew that only power such as the Enemy himself wielded could have given Brion victory against such odds, and over such a foe. And if that power had been granted, or even merely released, by one of the accursed Deryni, then its source was clear: an evil legacy from years of dark alliance with that unholy race. The double inheritance of evil from Brion and Jehana was doubly damning in their son. Kelson was beyond redemption, and must be eliminated.
Nor, by the same logic, were BrionТs brother Nigel and his brood to be spared - for though uncontaminated by JehanaТs blood, still they, like Kelson, traced their ancestry back through the generations of Haldane kings who had carried forward some other variant of Deryni curse from the time of the Restoration. The land must be freed of this evil, cleansed of the dark Deryni taint. A new royal line must be raised to rule in Gwynedd - and what better source, and who with better legal claim, than the old royal line of Meara, human to the core, one of whose supporters even now offered assistance to GwyneddТs rightful Primate, if that Primate would support Mearan independence?
With a shiver, Loris slipped his breviary into the breast of his homespun woolen robe and drew his meager cloak around his shoulders - he, who had worn fine linen and silk and furs before being deprived of his office! Two years of the sparse, simple fare of the Fratri Silentii had pared a handspan from an already trim waist and honed the hawk-like features to even sharper definition, but the hunger which gnawed at Loris now had nothing to do with physical appetites. As he laid one hand flat against the window glass, his eye was caught by the amethyst on his finger - sole reminder left him of his former rank - and he savored the words of the letter next to his heart.
Meara will bow no more to a Deryni king, the missive had said, echoing his own determination. If this plan meets with your approval, ask shriving of a monk named Jeroboam who shall come within the week to preach, and be guided by his advice. Until Laas....
Laas. The very name conjured images of ancient glories. It had been the capital of an independent Meara a hundred years before the first Haldanes came to Gwynedd. From Laas, sovereign Mearan princes had ruled as proudly as any Haldane, and over lands by no means less fair.
But Jolyon, the last Mearan prince, had sired only daughter? by the time he lay dying a century before, and the eldest, Roisian, was only twelve. To prevent the rending of his lands by avaricious guardians, regents, and suitors, Jolyon willed his coronet and the hand of Roisian to the strongest man he could find: Malcolm Haldane, newly crowned King of Gwynedd, a respected former adversary.
But JolyonТs final act found little favor with MearaТs native sons; the prince had read his nobles well. Before Malcolm could even bed his young bride, dissident Mearan knights abducted both of the queenТs sisters and proclaimed the elder, RoisianТs twin, MearaТs sovereign princess. Malcolm put down the ensuing rebellion in less than a month, capturing and hanging several of the ringleaders, but he never did locate the stolen princesses - though he encountered their heirs many times in the years which followed. He moved MearaТs territorial capital from Laas to the more central Ratharkin the following summer, both for greater ease of administration and to lessen the importance of Laas as a symbol of former Mearan sovereignty, but the ancient city remained, from time to time, a rallying point for cadet lines of the old royal house which waxed with each new generation and as swiftly waned whenever Haldane expeditions swept into the principality to quash the beginnings of revolt - and execute pretenders. Malcolm and his son Donal were scrupulous about their periodic УMearan housecleaning,Ф as Donal called it, but King Brion had taken such action only once during his reign, shortly after the birth of his own son. The venture, while necessary, had been so personally distasteful that he had avoided even considering the need for a repeat campaign a generation later.
Now BrionТs softness was likely to cost his son a throne. The current Mearan Pretender had no cause to love King Kelson, for she had lost a husband as well as a child the last time a Haldane flexed his strength in Meara. It was even rumored in Meara that an impassive Brion had watched the baby prince put to the sword - a lie promulgated by Mearan dissidents, though it was true that the child had died. Soon afterward, the self-styled Princess Caitrin of Meara, descendant of Queen RoisianТs twin, took as husband and consort the ambitious younger brother of one of GwyneddТs earls and disappeared into the mountains to breed rebellion and more pretenders - until BrionТs death brought them out of hiding. It was one of CaitrinТs agents who had contacted Loris.
Sighing, Loris pressed his nose against the glass of his prison and watched an autumn squall-line crawl toward the shore from the northwest, well aware that many would regard what he was about to do as treason. He did not. It was a means to an end. If he had learned one thing in more than half a century of service to his faith, it was that the integrity of Holy Mother Church depended upon temporal dealings as well as spiritual ones. Higher loyalties than those binding him to any temporal lord bound him to his future course, for as bishop as well as priest he was duty-bound to root out evil and corruption. Inevitably, the source of that corruption lay in the devilТs brood called the Deryni.
The Deryni must be eradicated - every last one of them. The time was past for leniency, for trying to save their souls. Though LorisТ mind recoiled at the thought of raising hand against an anointed king - Kelson, whom he himself had crowned - the thought of not raising hand against a servant of darkness on the throne repelled him even more.
The boy had put on a bold charade, but blood would always run true, in the end. For the sake of every soul in Gwynedd, the Deryni heresy must be stamped out - and Edmund Loris would use whatever means he must to accomplish that end.


CHAPTER ONE
He made him a lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance: to bind his princes at his pleasure.
- Psalms 105:21-22

The Bishop of Meara was dead. In more stable times, that fact might have elicited little more than academic interest on the part of Duke Alaric Morgan, for his duchy of Corwyn lay far on the other side of Gwynedd, well beyond the reach of any Mearan prelateТs influence. Bishops there were whose passing would have meant a personal loss to Morgan, but Carsten of Meara was not one of them.
This is not to say that Morgan had regarded Carsten as an enemy. On the contrary, even though the old bishop had been of a very different generation, bred in an age when fear of magic had made far greater men rabid in their intolerance of such as CorwynТs Deryni duke, Carsten had never succumbed to the open hostility displayed by some. When, on the premature accession of Kelson Haldane to the throne of Gwynedd, it had become increasingly clear that the young king was somehow heir to magical abilities which the Church had come to condemn as heretical over the years - powers that Kelson intended to use for the protection of his kingdom - Carsten had retired quietly to his episcopal holdings in Meara, rather than choose between his fanatically anti-Deryni archbishop and his more moderate brethren who supported the king despite the questionable status of his Deryni soul. The kingТs party had eventually prevailed, and the deposed Archbishop Loris languished even now in the secure Abbey of Saint Iveagh, high in the sea cliffs north of Carbury. Morgan himself thought the sentence far too lenient to balance the harm Loris had done human-Deryni relations by his venom, but it had been the recommendation of LorisТ successor, the scholarly Bradene of Grecotha, and was actively supported by the majority of GwyneddТs other bishops.
No such majority prevailed in the consistory Morgan now watched in the chamber below, assembled in Culdi to elect old CarstenТs successor. The unexpected vacancy in the See of Meara had touched off old, old controversies regarding its tenure. Mearan separatists had been agitating for a Mearan-born prelate for as long as Morgan could remember, and had been agitating in vain through the reigns of at least three Haldane kings. This was the first time that young Kelson had had to face the ongoing argument, but with the king less than a fortnight past his seventeenth birthday, it was not likely to be the last. Even now, he was addressing the assembled bishops in the chamber below, outlining the factors he wished them to consider in weighing the many candidates.
Suppressing a cough, Morgan shifted forward on the hard stone seat in the listening gallery and eased aside the heavy curtain to peer down. He could see only KelsonТs back from this angle, stiff and formal in a long scarlet court robe, but Conall, Prince NigelТs eldest son and second in line to the throne after his father, was visible in profile to KelsonТs right, looking very bored. The bishops themselves seemed attentive enough, but many of those watching from the tiered benches along the walls wore stormy faces. Morgan could identify several of the principal aspirants to the vacant Mearan See.
УWe wish, therefore, to reassure you that the Crown will not interfere unduly in your election, my lords,Ф the king was saying, Уbut we enjoin you to consider well the candidates who shall come under your examination in the coming days. The name of the individual eventually chosen matters little to us, personally, but the peace of Meara matters a great deal. That is why we have spent this past season progressing through our Mearan lands. We recognize that a bishopТs principal function is to provide spiritual guidance - yet we would be naive in the extreme if we did not also acknowledge the temporal power wielded by the incumbent of any such office. All of you are well aware of the weight your opinions carry in our own secular deliberations.Ф
He went on, but Morgan released the curtain with a bored sigh and folded his arms along the railing, allowing his attention to drift as he laid his head on his crossed forearms and closed his eyes.
They had gone over all of this before. Morgan had not been along on the royal progress, having business of his own in Corwyn, but he joined the king as soon as word arrived of old CarstenТs death. His first night back in the royal entourage. Archbishop Cardiel had briefed him on the political ramifications and acceptable successors, while Kelson listened and Duncan occasionally added .his own observations. Duncan was down there now at CardielТs side, poised and attentive in his clerical black - at thirty-one, young even to be serving as a bishopТs secretary, much less an incipient bishop himself, though he had shown sufficient promise even a full five years ago to be appointed the then - Prince KelsonТs chaplain and given the rank of Monsignor.
Not that Duncan would be CarstenТs successor - though many might have feared that, had they known of his impending change of status. Fortunately, most did not. The bishops knew, of course. Cardiel had determined to make Duncan his assistant even before CarstenТs death, and had spearheaded his election as one of the first items of business when the convocation convened a few days earlier.
But partially because DuncanТs secular status already presented complications in the deliberations ahead, and partially because he wished to delay his formal consecration until the following Easter, no public announcement had yet been made. DuncanТs very presence at the convocation, ostensibly as secretary for the proceedings, had been enough to raise eyebrows among the Mearan clergy and lay observers in attendance.
Nor did Mearan uneasiness spring from the fact that Duncan, like Morgan, was Deryni - though the Deryni question had certainly presented problems of its own in the beginning, and doubtless would continue to be a factor of varying importance. For nearly two centuries, no known Deryni had been permitted ordination to the priesthood. Discovery that Duncan was Deryni and had been so ordained had sparked a panicked flurry of ecclesiastical speculation as to how many other Deryni might have served in the clergy secretly, to the possible detriment of uncountable human souls to whom they might have ministered - and how many might be serving now? No one knew how virulent the infection might be, if Deryni consorted unbeknownst with decent Christian folk. The very thought had sent men like Edmund Loris into near-apoplectic fits on more than one occasion.
Fortunately, cooler logic than LorisТ had eventually prevailed. Under the physical protection of a part-Deryni king, both Duncan and Morgan had managed to convince a majority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy that they, at least, did not fit the image of evil for so long attributed to Deryni - for surely evil men would not have put themselves so thoroughly at risk to save their king and kingdom from another of their race.
But while Morgan could quickly return to a status not unlike that which he had enjoyed before the death of Brion - known and sometimes feared for what he was, but nonetheless grudgingly respected, if only for the threat of what he might do if provoked - DuncanТs situation required more delicate handling. Once he and Morgan had made peace with the bishops, the Deryni priest had spent many agonizing weeks reconciling his own conscience on the matter of having accepted ordination to the priesthood when he knew it was forbidden to Deryni. He had resumed his priestly function only after KelsonТs victory at Llyndruth Meadows.
In DuncanТs favor, at least, was the fact that few outside the confines of consistory and court definitely knew he was Deryni; and whatever rumor and innuendo might be whispered beyond that circle of intimates, scrupulous avoidance of any public display of magic had enabled Duncan not to confirm anything. He was not known to be Deryni by most; he was only known to consort with them - Morgan and the king, in particular. Arilan, now the Bishop of Dhassa, was Deryni too; but among the bishops only Cardiel knew that - as did a meager handful outside the episcopal ranks - for neither Arilan nor Duncan had had to reveal their powers against Wencit at the Llyndruth Meadows confrontation two years before. Morgan did not fully trust Arilan, but he was sure he and Cardiel were largely responsible for DuncanТs cautious acceptance among the clergy. Certainly, Duncan could not have been elected bishop without their support.
What gave the Mearans cause to distrust Duncan, then, had almost entirely to do with DuncanТs secular status; for following his fatherТs death without other heir, Duncan had assumed the ducal and county titles of Cassan and Kierney - titles which had once belonged to Old Meara. To Mearan separatists, working to establish a powerbase for a Mearan restoration, a Cassani duke loyal to the crown of Gwynedd was merely a political annoyance across the northern border, to be worked around and watched, as DuncanТs father had been watched for years; but if that duke was also a high-ranking priest, and MearaТs only bishopric fell suddenly vacant, matters instantly became more complicated. A Cassani royalist duke who also became Bishop of Meara would wield both spiritual and temporal authority over two vast areas.
Indeed, DuncanТs election to any bishopric would be viewed with suspicion in Meara; for even if he himself had no aspirations in that direction, his politically motivated wishes could carry great weight in the selection of the man who was chosen to occupy the Mearan See. Monsignor The Duke of Cassan represented a threat, then, for all that he seemed to be an innocuous-looking priest-secretary seated quietly beside the Archbishop of Rhemuth.
Smothering another cough, Morgan glanced down at the consistory chamber again - Kelson was winding up his speech - then allowed his gaze to drift lazily over his own form, reflecting on the effort which had gone into making his image less threatening in the past two years. Gone was the somber black attire which a younger, more arrogant Morgan had affected in those days as BrionТs shadow and confidant. Cardiel had told him quite frankly that such affectations only tended to reinforce the sinister notions most people still entertained about Deryni.
УWhy dress as the Adversary?Ф Cardiel demanded. УYouТve shown amply by your actions that youТre a servant of Light, not Darkness. Why, with your pale hair and fair features, you could have come off my chapel ceiling: one of the LordТs messengers - maybe even blessed Michael himself!Ф
And Lord Rathold, his wardrober at Coroth, had badgered him no less mercilessly about his ducal image.
УYou must think of your people. Your Grace!Ф Rathold had said stubbornly. УYou dress like a common soldier, when you have your way. No one wishes to think he serves an impoverished master - or to have others think it! СTis a matter of pride!Ф