—Psalms 37:35 A short while later, kneeling at the back of the convent church, Queron did his best to help Cathan regain some measure of equilibrium before leaving him. The younger man had done with weeping for the moment and now knelt merely trembling beside the brown-robed old priest, though his face remained buried in his hands. Queron still did not know what Camber had shown to the boy, though he suspected it might have had something to do with Cathan’s final commission from the king. There had been no time to ask at the king’s bedside. Further prayers beyond the Kyrie seemed superfluous after the holy simplicity of Rhys Michael’s passing, and Queron knew he must be away from here as soon as possible. So after Cathan had tearfully slipped the Haldane sword back under the bed and removed the Eye of Rom, secreting it in his belt pouch for Michaela, Queron had left Fulk and Stevanus to grieve at the king’s bedside and silently instructed Cathan to indulge his own grief in as dramatic a fashion as he could, as cover to get the two of them out of the death chamber.
