The Quest for Saint Camber Read Online Free PDF Page A

sigh, Duncan nodded once. “Aye, my lord. He was an old man even then. He lived only a few months past my ordination.”
    â€œDamned convenient,” Wolfram muttered.
    â€œNow, Wolfram, be reasonable,” Cardiel chided gently. “The man would be past eighty, after all.”
    â€œIt’s still convenient, my lord.”
    â€œBut not to the point, in any case,” Duncan said softly. “Because even if he still lived, Excellency, and I gave him leave to speak of matters of the confessional, he could tell you little of Maryse. My sin was in failing to be more bold, in not trying harder to contact her in the months that followed, before she died. But she and I had committed no sin. We were married in God’s eyes.”
    â€œAye, so you say.”
    And that, indeed, was the ultimate question, for who would presume to claim he saw through God’s eyes? A more practical question was to ask whether vows had, indeed, been exchanged, thereby contracting a valid marriage. If so, then Dhugal MacArdry was Duncan’s true-born son, entitled to his name and all the other honors that went with that high lineage.
    Or was Dhugal MacArdry only the result of innocent but unsanctioned fumbling between desperate young lovers who knew they would be parted on the morrow, and Duncan’s present assertion but an attempt, after the fact, to legitimize the son he had never dreamed would come of that union?
    Such an attempt certainly would be understandable. Indeed, it was to nearly everyone’s benefit that Duncan should be able to prove his son’s legitimacy. A direct legal heir would enable Duncan to resign his secular titles to his son during his lifetime, thus releasing his own energies for the high episcopal office he held. That would please the Church. Dhugal’s accession to his father’s estates would ensure loyal continuity for another generation in the ducal and county estates of Cassan and Kierney—which would please Kelson.
    And of course, Dhugal himself would benefit. Through tanistry, from the man he now knew to be his maternal grandfather, Maryse’s father, he was already Earl of Transha and Chief of Clan MacArdry. That would not change, regardless of the outcome here today. His Transha men adored him. But if, in time, he also succeeded to the vast estates of Duncan McLain, adjacent to his own Transha lands, he would be one of the most powerful magnates in all the Eleven Kingdoms.
    In purely practical terms, Dhugal eventually would get his patrimony anyway, since, if Duncan died without legitimate heir, the last of the McLains, his lands would escheat to the Crown—and the king then could bestow those lands on whom he pleased. Or, for that matter, Duncan could resign his lands and titles to the king during his lifetime—and the king still could give them to Dhugal, bastard or not.
    But grants of lands were far from the thoughts of most present here this morning. It was the honor of Dhugal’s impending knighthood that stood to gain or lose, depending on the outcome of this hearing. If doubt remained that Duncan McLain had made his claim in utter honesty, it could color Dhugal’s reception beyond even a king’s ability to make it right. Thus had Wolfram de Blanet been appointed to argue against the case, in every way he could, so that no one might say, later on, that a biased court had found in Duncan’s favor.
    â€œWe have only his word,” Wolfram finally said, folding his hands on the table before him. “I see no other way around it.”
    Cardiel nodded unhappily, obviously feeling the weight of his official responsibility.
    â€œI’m afraid I must agree. We appear to have reached an impasse, then. It all comes back to whether Duncan’s oath can be deemed sufficient—whether he did, in fact, make vows with Maryse MacArdry before the Blessed Sacrament. As a private person, and Duncan’s friend, I have no doubt that he is