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

of the others, the coppery streak of his border braid made bold contrast against the unadorned black that he, like his father, had donned for the morning’s solemn proceedings.
    â€œI know you told me before, but I’d forgotten that you and Maryse gave one another communion after you made your vows,” Dhugal said in a low voice, looking out at the rain while he fingered the shiral crystal that had been his mother’s. “Of course, you would have. In fact, you were a priest even then, weren’t you?—even though you’d not been ordained or even started in holy orders. Yet you were willing to give it all up for her.”
    Duncan sighed and set both hands on one of the horizontal bands of iron supporting the mullioned window panes, leaning his forehead against the cool glass as he stared, unseeing, at the rain beyond. At midafternoon, it was nearly dark already, but not nearly so dark as that dark night of the soul through which he had gone that long-ago summer.
    â€œI thought I was willing,” he said, after a moment. “I fully intended to give it up, at the time. And yet, I suppose I was already a priest. I guess I’ve always known that, but I—put it aside when I met your mother. I used to wonder if that was why God took her from me—because I was His priest.”
    â€œWhy did He let you fall in love, then?” Dhugal demanded. “Was He only testing you? And then, when you failed the test, did He kill her, so you couldn’t have her?”
    Duncan looked up sharply at the bitterness in Dhugal’s voice, hearing an echo of his own rebellious anger when he learned that Maryse had died.
    â€œDhugal, no!” he whispered. “It’s true that she died, son, but He didn’t kill her. If I’ve learned anything in thirty-odd years of living, it’s that He’s a loving God. He doesn’t slay His children—though, for His own reasons, He sometimes lets them suffer adversities that we don’t understand. She might have died bearing anyone’s child. I don’t think she was singled out because she dared to love a man God intended as His own.”
    As he looked out at the rain again, remembering what it had cost him to truly believe what he had just said, Dhugal snorted and turned away, shoulders rigid with rebellion.
    â€œI understand what you’re feeling,” Duncan said, after a few seconds. “In some ways, you may be right. It may well be that God was testing me—and that I did, indeed, fail. For a while, after I heard she’d died, I used to think so. But now I wonder if there wasn’t another reason He brought me and Maryse together. He still wanted me for His own, but—maybe that’s the only way you could be born.”
    â€œMe?”
    As Dhugal turned to stare at him aghast, Duncan smiled gently.
    â€œYou’re so like Alaric sometimes. He’s another who doesn’t like to think he’s been the subject of Heaven’s special attention. Ask him sometime, if you don’t believe me.”
    â€œWell, it does take some getting used to.”
    â€œWhy? Don’t you think God has a plan for each of us?”
    â€œWell, of course,” Dhugal said uncomfortably. “But only in a general sort of way. We have free will.”
    â€œTo an extent,” Duncan agreed. “But what was my will, set against the will of God, Dhugal? He wanted me to be His priest. I’m not sure I ever had a choice in the matter—not really. Not that I mind,” he added. “Not now, at any rate, and not for many years—though I certainly minded after your mother’s death.
    â€œBut there’s a certain heady comfort in knowing one has been chosen, warts and all. I don’t know why He wanted me so badly, but other than that one brief flare-up of rebellion—which may have been all in His plan anyway—I’ve been content in His service. No, more than