The Quest for Saint Camber by Katherine Kurtz Read Free Book Online

you.”
    But he had caught a glimpse of something else, something he knew Duncan had never even told his old confessor. It was intensely personal for Duncan, but not particularly notable of itself. Still, it certainly would seal the validity of his intent.
    â€œTell me what happened next, Duncan,” he whispered. “Before you left the chapel, you did something else. What was it?”
    Duncan drew a deep breath and let it out audibly, making a conscious effort to relax.
    â€œWe knew that marriage was a sacrament that two people give to one another. We also knew that our own administering of that sacrament was irregular. But we wanted to make it as special and holy as we could, without a priest. So I—went up to the altar and—took a ciborium from the tabernacle.”
    â€œWasn’t it locked?” Wolfram muttered.
    But Cardiel only hushed him as Kelson shook his head and urged Duncan to go on.
    â€œYou took out a ciborium,” Kelson repeated, glossing over the opening of the tabernacle and the memory of Deryni powers brought into play to drop the tumblers of the door’s tiny lock into place. “Then what did you do?”
    â€œI—brought it down to the altar step and knelt beside Maryse. Then we—gave one another Holy Communion. We—knew it wasn’t normally allowed, but I was accustomed to handling the altar vessels when I served Mass. And we couldn’t have a nuptial Mass.…”
    â€œI take it,” Arilan interjected softly, “that everything was done with due reverence for the Blessed Sacrament?”
    â€œYes,” Duncan breathed.
    â€œI think there can be no doubt that the intent was there to solemnize a valid and sacramental marriage,” Cardiel said quietly. “Arilan? Wolfram?”
    As both nodded, Cardiel went on.
    â€œBut one final question must be asked, then. Where and when was the marriage consummated? You need not give any further details beyond that.”
    Duncan smiled dreamily, grateful for the kindness.
    â€œAfter we had finished in the chapel, we stole away to the stable loft, snug and hidden in the sweet-smelling hay. Innocent that I was, it never even occurred to me to wonder whether our one painfully brief union might have borne fruit. And communication, once she would have known, was impossible, given the bad blood between our two clans. Perhaps she tried to write to me and tell me, but no messenger ever reached me. It was only a full year later that I learned she had died the previous winter, ostensibly of a fever. The first inkling I had otherwise was when, a year ago, I saw Dhugal wearing the cloak clasp I had given Maryse.”
    When Duncan had finished, it remained only for Dhugal himself, the offspring of that union, to come forward and offer as final evidence the tokens his parents had exchanged that long ago night in the chapel of Culdi: the cloak clasp bearing the sleeping lion’s head, its concealed compartment still containing the ring woven of Duncan’s and Maryse’s hairs intertwined, and the honey-colored lump of shiral that Dhugal had worn since that day, now a year long past, when he and his father had finally discovered their true relationship.
    â€œKeep it,” Duncan had said, “in memory of your mother.”
    â€œBut, that leaves you with nothing of hers,” Dhugal had protested.
    â€œIt leaves me with everything,” Duncan had replied. “I have her son.”
    Now father and son stood a little shyly in a windowed alcove opening off the king’s dayroom, still savoring the heady triumph of the archbishop’s tribunal and the more creaturely satisfaction of the hot meal Kelson had ordered sent in upon their return. The king, Morgan, Nigel, and Arilan continued to converse over the remnants of that meal, but Dhugal had felt the need for more private counsel with his father. As he and Duncan moved a little farther into the alcove, out of sight and earshot