Free The Quest for Saint Camber by Katherine Kurtz

were Morgan’s hands.
    â€œKeep your eyes closed, take a deep breath and let it out, and try to concentrate only on my voice,” Morgan commanded. “Your shields are nearly gone. Try not to resist what I’m about to do. This isn’t going to be pleasant for either of us, but I’ll show you what’s happening and how to make the best of it.”
    Kelson could not have disobeyed, had his soul’s salvation depended on it. The touch of Morgan’s mind was far worse than the touch of his hands. All he remembered of the next hour or two was screaming—though they told him, later, that he had uttered not a sound.
    He supposed they had finally given him Arilan’s sedative, at the end, because when he finally woke, it was the next morning, and Jatham, his senior squire, was rousing him for Sunday Mass, and his head hurt worse than any hangover he could ever remember having or even hearing about.
    â€œGod, how did Duncan function at all?” Kelson whispered, hardly even able to lift his head as he waited for Jatham to fetch Morgan. “The merasha disruption, on top of everything else they did to him!” He shifted one arm over his aching eyes to shut out the light. “And my father! I doubt he even knew what was happening to him.”
    Dhugal, stirring from the cot where he had slept at the foot of the king’s great bed, groaned as he managed to raise himself far enough to clamp both arms around one of the bedposts and look muzzily in Kelson’s general direction.
    â€œYou mustn’t let yourself dwell on it,” he said, “just as I mustn’t let myself think about what my father suffered. It does no good. What’s important is that we’ve learned what can be done if we ever have to face merasha again—God forbid!”
    But though it was their resolve not to dwell on such troubles, both of them did—until Morgan’s arrival shifted their attention to more practical concerns.
    â€œWe have to go to Mass this morning, Alaric,” Kelson replied, when Morgan suggested that a day in bed would do both young men far more good than attendance at any ritual. “Cardiel will be reading the tribunal’s dispensation from the pulpit. Dhugal should be there.”
    Morgan could not fault that reasoning, though he warned both of them that any immediate relief he might bring them was but a temporary measure, cautioning that only another good night’s sleep would really complete their cure. After applying what healing measures he might, he underlined his advice by going back to bed himself.
    At least Cardiel’s announcement proved popular. After Mass, dozens of well-wishers flocked around Dhugal and the king to offer their congratulations, for the young border lord had made himself well-liked at court in the past year and more—and doubly so, now that the social onus of bastardy had been laid to rest. A contingent of Dhugal’s borderers, come to Rhemuth to attend his knighting two days hence, cheered him as he and the king left the cathedral, though Ciard O Ruane, Dhugal’s aged gillie, was quick to observe—and to point gleefully out to his clansmen—that both their young chief and the king apparently had over-celebrated the night before, judging by their bleary eyes and aversion to light and loud noises.
    Neither Dhugal nor Kelson disabused them of that notion, of course. Even were it not expected that all those to receive the accolade should retire early that evening, before plunging into the two-day round of ceremonies and festivities officially marking the event, a hangover gave both of them added excuse to seek seclusion. By the time they had crossed the castle yard and mounted the steps to the great hall doors, only Jatham was still with them, for the clansmen and young warriors who had buzzed around them after Mass or accompanied them back to the keep had drifted on about their business. Besides, Jatham, too,