Did Brion know?

[macsorcery]

Did Brion know that Jehana was deryni? I don't mean when he married her but later in life. Did he find out? Is this why Camber played such a central role in the transfer of power to Kelson? Brion was preparing for the first Deryni Haldane King?

I am re-reading Deryni Rising for the first time since 1979 How could I not, after the Childe Morgan trilogy? Now that we have the luxury of looking at the timeline as a whole, CoC to KKB, it kind of looks like Brion found out sometime in between KD and DR.

[Evie]

Jehana seems to have been unaware that she was Deryni until the spontaneous use of  her power to defend Kelson at his Coronation. So if Brion somehow knew, he probably would have had to find out through some other source than by asking her. (Especially since as Deryni-averse as Jehana was, she probably would have been in deep denial and would just have said No if asked directly.) I think it's more likely that Brion, though his exposure to Alaric and other Deryni, might have come to revere the Deryni saint and hoped that Kelson would be able to help the Deryni race more openly in his lifetime than Donal or Brion was able to do.

I'm not sure if Kelson was actually the first Deryni Haldane, since I believe other brides of Deryni blood married into the Haldane family before Jehana if you look at the genealogies, though perhaps their powers were simply explained away to others as being part of their Haldane heritage.

[Laurna]

This is an interesting question. The information about Saint Camber was new to Alaric at the time of Kelson's coronation. He admits to knowing the basics about Saint Camber at the time, but little more than what the church histories were willing to pass down. For Brion to put so much importance on the Saint Camber seal in the Cathedral shows that the information came down from the Haldane line and that it was Brion himself who had done the research on Saint Camber. His own power assumption did not have any involvement with Saint Camber and I do not think that King Donal's power assumption did either. Although we do not know that for sure. Perhaps, Brion did the research because he discovered Jehana was Deryni, however, I do not recall anything that would suggest that. I think Evie is closer to the truth, "that Brion was hoping Kelson would be able to help the Deryni Race more Openly." Or perhaps he discovered that secret in his heritage that had Camber's ancestry as part of the Haldane Legacy.  It would be interesting to see at what point between TKD and DR that he learned more about the Deryni Saint.

[HealingWaters]

I believe that He may have at least suspected later in time, remember how close Kenneth and Alyce were with full knowledge of her powers, I don't think that Brion would not have tested the boundaries  at least in some degree.

[Elkhound]

I wonder why J. didn't know.  There wasn't the terrible persecution of Deryni in Bremagne that there was in Gwynned, so there wouldn't be any stigma.

[HealingWaters]

Maybe not as much but Mother church still played a part there as well

[Evie]

I wonder why J. didn't know.  There wasn't the terrible persecution of Deryni in Bremagne that there was in Gwynned, so there wouldn't be any stigma.

Maybe not as much but Mother church still played a part there as well

True, but not all of the Churches of the Eleven Kingdoms were opposed to Deyrni. The Church of Torenth openly accepts Deryni clergy, for one, and according to the Codex, Thomas Cardiel originally came from Bremagne, and it would be hard to come up with a more Deryni-accepting human clergyman, at least once Denis Arilan and the other Deryni he encounters manage to convince him through their actions that Deryni are no more inherently evil than any other person.  I think Jehana's aversion to Deryni stems largely from her exposure to the Deryni-hating abbess at the convent where she received her education. If she sensed any burgeoning powers in herself when she reached puberty (their usual time of onset), and was being schooled in that environment, then that could set up feelings of fear of that side of herself that she'd think she needed to suppress at all costs, and also the hostility and fear of Deryni that we see her display through most of the series. But the beliefs and attitudes of one abbess don't necessarily reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the Church of Bremagne as a whole. For all we know, that abbess might have originally come from Gwynedd and imported her prejudices when she was transferred to Bremagne.

[HealingWaters]

All true but what of the priest she also brought with her, unless he to was a transplant, it leaves one to wonder if maybe a bit of the prejudice eaked it's way over.

[Evie]

All true but what of the priest she also brought with her, unless he to was a transplant, it leaves one to wonder if maybe a bit of the prejudice eaked it's way over.

That's certainly possible. She could also have brought over a priest and others in her retinue who were picked because they were like-minded on the issue. After all, people who feel very strongly about particular issues tend to associate with other like-minded people rather than willingly leave their comfort zone and have their beliefs challenged by surrounding themselves with companions with differing opinions to bring to the table. Jehana may have done the same thing, cherry-picking those companions whose views aligned with hers and not considering anyone for her retinue who held what she would have considered to be heretical beliefs, or at least lax ones.