[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Smothering a little sob, she sat back on her heels, bloodless fingers
partially masking her face.
"Oh, God, don't you mock me, too, Excellency," she cried. "You cannot
have forgotten what I am. And yesterday I- I-"
"Yesterday, you saved the prince regent from a most terrible threat,"
Arilan said smoothly. "I have just come from speaking with him. He is very
grateful."
"Grateful that I discovered the plot by use of my cursed powers?" she
replied. "Aye, that is like Nigel of late. He is too much among Deryni, and he
cannot see the danger. What does he care if I endanger my immortal soul to save
his mortal flesh? He is my husband's brother, and I could not fail to warn him,
once I knew, but-but-"
"But you fear that to use the powers God has given you, even in a good
cause, is somehow suspect," he ventured.
She looked up at him more directly, uncertainty and shock playing in her
tear-bright green eyes.
"How can you, a bishop, even suggest that God has anything to do with it?"
He smiled gently and eased down to sit on the kneeler of the prie-dieu
beside her, hands now folded carefully on his knees.
"Allow me to ask a question in return, daughter, he said. "If a man were
granted extraordinary physical strength, and found his friend slipping over a
precipice, and could save him by means of his strength, bodily dragging him back
to safety, should he not do it?"
"Well, yes, but-"
"In fact, would he not be remiss if he did not do it?"
"Of course, but-"
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
"Another example," Arilan continued. "An innocent man is on trial for his
life, accused by those who would do him ill. A king's magistrate has been told of
an eyewitness who can prove that the accused is innocent. But the informant is a
tax collector-honest and diligent in the performance of his duty, but despised by
men. Even so, should the magistrate not use the knowledge given him to produce
the witness, arrive at the truth, and set the innocent man free?"
"Do you mean to imply that the Deryni are honest and diligent?"
"Some undoubtedly are. But it is only a parable, my lady." Arilan smiled.
"One more. If a woman learns of a plot against an innocent man, but has always
believed the source of the knowledge to be wicked-if reliable-should she not, even
so, give warning, and thereby save an innocent life?"
"You're making it sound so clear-cut, so logical. It isn't the same!" she
replied, tears welling in her eyes. "Bishop Arilan, you can't know how I suffer
with such knowledge- how I long to be the same as other mortals. How can I
make you understand?"
Still smiling, shaking his head in compassion, Arilan cast beyond the
doorway with his powers to be sure of privacy and projected a glamour to repel
idle intrusion.
"Oh, believe me, I understand, child," he said softly, letting his shields fall
away and the silvery light of his aura begin to glow around him.
She gaped at him, dumb with shock, as he cupped his hands before him
and conjured handfire: cool, quicksilver light brimming in his hands and spilling
in a sharp radiance that lit his face from below and cast his handsome features in
light-limned relief.
"A child's trick," he conceded, as he let the light contract and closed it in
one hand, quenching its fire-though the nimbus around his head remained. "But
it serves a purpose. It's time you knew me for what I am-and that I view what I
am as a blessing, an enhancement of my relationship with the Creator-not a
detriment."
Bonelessly Jehana collapsed sideways to a sitting position, both hands
pressed to the stones on either side of her, as if contact with the earth might help
to ground her bewilderment and shock. Her colorless face seemed carved of
alabaster as she stared up at him, appalled.
"You're Deryni, too."
"Yes. Nor, I think, is that a terrible thing to be."
Shaking her head, tears spilling from her lashes, Jehana glanced over her
shoulder at the Virgin gazing down from her star-studded pedestal, carved hands
outstretched in compassion.
"I was taught otherwise," she said dully. "I have believed it all my life."
"Does belief alter truth, then?" Arilan asked. "Or is truth a constant,
whether we believe or not?"
"You're confusing me! You play with the words!"
"I don't mean to confuse-"
"Yes, you do! You twist the words to mean what you want them to mean!
You even use holy writ to-sweet Jesu, was it you who made Father Ambros
change the lesson yesterday?"
"What lesson?" Arilan asked blankly.
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
"The reading for Mass," she murmured, her eyes going a little glassy as she
remembered back. "Ambros changed it. It should have been the Commemoration
of Saints Peter and Paul, but he read Paul's conversion-and Saint Camber ..."
"So, whether or not it actually happened," Arilan told the Camberian
Council a short while later, "Jehana believes that she had a vision of Saint
Camber, and that he rebuked her for persecuting Deryni."
"Is that possible?" Laran asked.
"That Camber rebuked her?"
"Yes."
"I don't know. Saint Camber talks to Duncan McLain, and Morgan-and
now Jehana, apparently. He doesn't talk to me."
"Really, Denis," Vivienne muttered.
"Well, he doesn't. He hasn't, so far, at least. But Jehana insists that
someone-and she was convinced it was I, once she knew what I was-someone
somehow induced her chaplain to read the story of Paul's conversion on the road
to Damascus."
"Ah, how the guilty heart can embellish," Sofiana murmured. "And Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me? becomes Jehana, Jehana ..."
"Precisely," Arilan agreed, as Tiercel slipped quietly through the doors to
the Council chamber and took his seat to Sofiana's right. "I can't explain it.
Maybe she did see Camber, though."
Kyri, cool and tranquil as a summer forest at Arilan's left, fingered a green
glass bangle on one wrist and glanced languidly at the tardy Tiercel.
"Denis has just come from revealing himself to Jehana," she said,
disapproval edging her tone. "And now he would have us believe that the Deryni-
hating queen has been graced with a vision of Saint Camber." She favored him
with a droll, weary grimace. "You have missed little, Tiercel."
"Kyri!" old Vivienne murmured reprovingly, as Arilan bristled, Laran
scowled, and Barrett de Laney looked decidedly uncomfortable.
Kyri only yawned delicately and leaned her head against the high back of
her chair, bored.
"Is it not true?" she asked, gazing idly at the crystal sphere hanging above
the table, sparkling and cool in the purpled moonlight that filtered through the
faceted dome above. "Why must we continue to waste time and energy on
Jehana?"
The remark produced a flurry of comments, pro and con, which did not
diminish until Barrett rapped on the table for silence.
"Enough," he said. "We shall table all further discussion of the queen for
the nonce. And of Saint Camber. More pressing matters require our attention.
Denis, how stands the Torenthi question?"
Twisting the amethyst on his hand, Arilan shrugged.
"The prisoners have been questioned," he said.
"By?" Vivienne asked.
"By Prince Nigel, with the assistance of Richenda and myself."
"Prince Nigel does Truth-Read, then?" Tiercel asked. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]