Free Saint Camber by Katherine Kurtz Page A

on the bed, Rhys took the last two and set them on the floor behind him, Tertius to his left, toward the head of the bed, and Quartus to the foot. Then, as Evaine moved around to the other side to place Primus and Secundus, Rhys sat down at the head of the bed beside his father-in-law, laying a sleep-deepening hand on Camber’s forehead as Evaine paused at the foot of the bed to activate the wards.
    Facing toward the first of them, she raised her arms heavenward and threw back her head for a moment, eyes closed, then opened them and pointed to each of the wards in succession as she spoke their names and the words of power:
    â€œPrimus, Secundus, Tertius, et Quartus, fiat lux!”
    A silvery canopy of light sprang up around them with her final words, its edges defined by the limits laid out by the ward components. Evaine smiled as she came to join her husband, taking the hand he held out to her and touching it tenderly to her lips. Rhys sighed contentedly and leaned back against the headboard, pulling her into his lap with an arm around her waist. They had just settled into a comfortable position, she with her head smuggled in the hollow of his shoulder, when suddenly she giggled.
    â€œA giggle at a time like this?” he whispered.
    She pulled away to peer at him mischievously. “My love, you’re going to giggle, too, when I tell you.”
    He raised one eyebrow in question, the corners of his mouth curving up in anticipation of her explanation, as she brushed his lips with hers and laughed again.
    â€œI was just sitting here, thinking about cleaning up Father’s dressing room in the morning, and I remembered that, in the excitement, I dumped everything down the garderobe—including the Haldana necklace!”
    â€œSurely you’re joking!”
    Evaine giggled again and shook her head. “And that means, dearest husband, that someone is going to have to go wading in the middens tomorrow and find it.”
    Rhys shook his head incredulously and drew her closer in amused disbelief.
    â€œI knew things had gone far too smoothly,” he chuckled, nuzzling her ear. “Now all we have to decide is who’s going to do it. Let’s see—who do we know who needs a little humbling?”

C HAPTER F OUR
    For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing .
    â€”I Peter 3:17
    In the end, it was not a humbled soul at all, but Camber himself, who went into the middens to retrieve the Haldana necklace. He would not have thought of relegating the task to any other man; besides, they dared not involve any outsider in what they had done.
    When Camber awoke the next morning, to find Rhys and Evaine cuddled asleep in each other’s arms beside him, his head was clear, his body rested, and his memory intact. He, too, recalled what had happened to the necklace. After rousting his daughter and son-in-law from bed, he dressed hastily and set Evaine to straightening his quarters. Rhys he took with him.
    In fact, it was not as complicated or as odious a task as Rhys and Evaine had imagined it to be. On reaching the dungeon level, where all the garderobes of that range emptied out, Camber simply scanned the moat directly beneath the appropriate shaft with his mind, seeking lightly to reestablish the link he had forged with the necklace the night before.
    The water was almost clear from the past week’s rain, yet neither eyes nor mind could locate the necklace at first. But further investigation on Camber’s part soon revealed the necklace still inside the garderobe shaft, caught just a yard or two inside its mouth. Once Camber had reached up and disengaged the tangle—the jewels had fouled on weeds and other refuse—the necklace came away in his hand, intact and hardly the worse for wear. Camber flushed it with clean water from the well, when they came out into the courtyard again, then wrapped it carefully in a clean cloth he had