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DerynifanK

March 17, 2024, 03:48:44 PM
Happy St Patrick's Day. Enjoy the one day of the year when the whole world is Irish.

The fake CC Arbitration Team. How did the real CC handle them?

Started by Lochiel, September 15, 2017, 07:03:02 AM

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Lochiel

Who were they? (Guess we'll never know that) But how were they taken out? Did the real CC Arbitration Team come along with some of their retainers and and surprise attack them or did they fight a magical battle and defeat them? Wencit was totally surprised when the real CC showed up.
Could our High Deryni Stefan Coram somehow tipped off the real CC as Rhydon and alerted them to where they were waiting or something like that? Could this be again Stefan Coram thwarting Wencit's plans clandestinely?
"And as they tread the ruined Isle,
Where rest, at length,
the lord and slave,
They'll wondering ask, how hands so vile,
Could conquer hearts so brave?"
Thomas Moore

whitelaughter

Presumably the next 4 most powerful Deryni available to Wencit, and thus movers and shakers in his court. Given the importance of the duel, I suspect that they would have been chosen for expertise in illusions rather than combat, and would have been responsible for making witnesses from both armies see a battle which appeared 'fair', as well as handling the betrayal.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they weren't killed, for a strange reason.
Consider that they will have all been connivers; any Deryni with scruples about cheating in a duel would be excluded, and so would be back with the army. If the fake team were killed, the most powerful remaining Deryni in Torenth would also have been the most honorable members of Wencit's court.

Now, IIRC Wencit's heir 'accidentally' has an accident and dies not long before inheriting the throne; Kelson is worried that he will be blamed for the death, as it prevents the heir from actively running Torenth. But if powerful, treacherous Deryni have been the powers in Torenth from that point, they would have a vested interest in arranging such an accident, and would be quite happy for Kelson to take the blame.  If they had been killed, the more honorable characters would have been on point and would likely have prevented even a real accident.

I'll now shoot my theory in the foot by suggesting Princess Morag as a candidate, as she is next in line for the throne to Gwynned, but wiki says she is shown to value her sons more than power. Is Teymuraz old enough to have been involved? I'd never even heard of him before checking names in wiki.

DesertRose

Teymuraz shows up for the first time in King Kelson's Bride, but he is a younger (full) brother of Mahael, who was himself a younger half-brother of Lionel, Duke D'Arjenol (same father; they are all the sons of Mahael I Duke D'Arjenol; Lionel's mother [Princess Jaïne of Logréine] died in childbirth in 1089, and Mahael, Teymuraz, and Mátyás are the sons of Daniela Grafina von Ryndziak, the second wife of Mahael I); Lionel died in the aforementioned four-way Duel Arcane at the end of High Deryni.

Brief digression:  Lionel was married to Morag, who was Wencit's sister, and after Wencit's direct line was extinguished, the sons of Lionel and Morag (Alroy Arion, Liam Lajos and Ronal Rurik are the ones who were alive after the events of High Deryni; Morag was pregnant at the time of Lionel's death with Stanisha, who is, per Codex, betrothed to Payne Haldane, the youngest son of Nigel and Meraude, in 1128 with the wedding tentatively scheduled for 1136), were Wencit's heirs.

Per Codex, Teymuraz was born in 1095. 

Wencit's immediate heir, Alroy Arion, King of Torenth (whose killijálay had not yet been completed; it was scheduled for 15 July), dies on 12 June 1123, of complications of a broken neck incurred on 9 June 1123 while on a hunting trip in the company of his uncle Mahael.  This happens between the end of HD and the beginning of The Bishop's Heir.

Make of that what you will.  ;)
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)

Evie

Quote from: DesertRose on September 15, 2017, 02:56:49 PM

Wencit's immediate heir, Alroy Arion, King of Torenth (whose killijálay had not yet been completed; it was scheduled for 15 July), dies on 12 June 1123, of complications of a broken neck incurred on 9 June 1123 while on a hunting trip in the company of his uncle Mahael.  This happens between the end of HD and the beginning of The Bishop's Heir.

Make of that what you will.  ;)

Yeah, I've always thought it was at least very heavily implied that Mahael was responsible for Alroy Arion's death, with or without Morag's complicity, although later events in KKB make it more likely that Morag was not complicit in her son's death, just ambitious enough to look suspicious to anyone who didn't know her love for her sons was greater than her dynastic ambitions.

While I could see Mahael, Morag, and/or Teymuraz going along with a scheme to impersonate the CC, I suspect that either they were not directly involved in such a plot, or else they somehow managed to avoid capture by the real CC, given that I can't imagine such a plot would be something the CC would take at all lightly, so give that they're not killed outright after the plot was discovered, or at least imprisoned somewhere (at least not for any length of time), and no mention is ever made of any of them having had consequences from taking those actions, I think it's more likely that the four (presumably Torenthi) conspirators attempting to impersonate the CC were not any of those three people. Also, I'm not sure Wencit would have wanted to risk them all being present on the combat field at the same time even as noncombatants, with the Gwyneddan army present, just to be on the safe side if anything somehow went wrong. 
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

DesertRose

Quote from: Evie on September 15, 2017, 03:17:20 PM
Quote from: DesertRose on September 15, 2017, 02:56:49 PM

Wencit's immediate heir, Alroy Arion, King of Torenth (whose killijálay had not yet been completed; it was scheduled for 15 July), dies on 12 June 1123, of complications of a broken neck incurred on 9 June 1123 while on a hunting trip in the company of his uncle Mahael.  This happens between the end of HD and the beginning of The Bishop's Heir.

Make of that what you will.  ;)

Yeah, I've always thought it was at least very heavily implied that Mahael was responsible for Alroy Arion's death, with or without Morag's complicity, although later events in KKB make it more likely that Morag was not complicit in her son's death, just ambitious enough to look suspicious to anyone who didn't know her love for her sons was greater than her dynastic ambitions.

While I could see Mahael, Morag, and/or Teymuraz going along with a scheme to impersonate the CC, I suspect that either they were not directly involved in such a plot, or else they somehow managed to avoid capture by the real CC, given that I can't imagine such a plot would be something the CC would take at all lightly, so give that they're not killed outright after the plot was discovered, or at least imprisoned somewhere (at least not for any length of time), and no mention is ever made of any of them having had consequences from taking those actions, I think it's more likely that the four (presumably Torenthi) conspirators attempting to impersonate the CC were not any of those three people. Also, I'm not sure Wencit would have wanted to risk them all being present on the combat field at the same time even as noncombatants, with the Gwyneddan army present, just to be on the safe side if anything somehow went wrong.

Yeah, I can't really see Wencit risking the life (and the cooperation she would likely give towards preserving his life) of Morag by involving her in the confrontation at Llyndruth Meadows, and Morag being a woman may also have entered into that calculus.

As the events of KKB tell us, Mátyás was playing a long game with his older brothers, but he was in the end too scrupulous (and too loyal to Liam Lajos [and presumably also to Alroy Arion and Ronal Rurik]) to engage in Wencit's deception re: the Camberian Council arbitration of the four-per-side Duel Arcane. 

Mahael and Teymuraz themselves were probably sufficiently unscrupulous to be willing to assist Wencit, but they probably valued themselves and their own lives too highly to take that gamble.

Morag could not herself take the throne of Torenth, because Torenth appears to have had the Deryni-verse equivalent of Salic Law (in real-world France, when it was still a monarchy), excluding women from ruling as Queens Regnant; per Codex, her sons entered the direct line of succession only after Wencit's sole living grandchild (and presumably only living direct descendant by the time) died in 1119; Wencit signed letters testamentary in 1120 to assign the succession to Morag's sons after his own demise.

But the Festillic line never had such a restriction, since the first Festillic claimant to the throne of Gwynedd after the Haldane Restoration would have been Princess Ariella, theoretically acting on behalf of her infant son, Mark/Marek, but who here (who has read the Legends of Camber of Culdi trilogy) actually believes she was acting solely on behalf of her son?  ;D

So Morag could have been ambitious for herself in regards to the Festillic claim to the throne of Gwynedd, but as to the throne of Torenth, she was probably realistic enough (however undeniably ambitious she was) to know she had no real way to become Queen Regnant.  The suspicion of her possible involvement in the death of Alroy Arion in 1123 had some plausibility since his death meant she continued to hold power roughly equivalent to that of a Queen Regnant as a regent of Torenth until Liam Lajos, her next son, came of age in 1128, until we got to know Morag a little better in KKB and realized that while she was decidedly crafty, politic, and ambitious, she wasn't quite so ambitious as to be party to or to assist in any way in killing/arranging the "accidental" death of her own son.  Assuming Alroy's death wasn't an (actual but very suspiciously timed) accident, that was (probably) all Mahael's doing or possibly Mahael's doing with the assistance/connivance of Teymuraz.

None of which answers the original question of precisely who in the world the impostor Camberian Council Duel Arcane mediators were or what happened to them in the end.  I rather suspect that whoever they were, when the real Council was informed of the whole plot, the impostors did not survive encountering the real Camberian Councillors.

But as to their identities?  They would have had to have been Deryni or at least humans who had been invested with Deryni abilities by Wencit or some other Torenthi Deryni, but if they were going to impersonate Camberian Councillors, I suspect actual Deryni, not empowered humans.  And they would have had to have been powerful enough in their magical/psychic abilities for Wencit to trust that they could pull off the impersonation and the "mediation" of the Duel. 

But they would probably also have had to have been dispensable to Wencit, people whose lives he didn't value enough to ensure that they survived Llyndruth Meadows.  I rather think that their days may well have been numbered by the time of the proposed Duel Arcane, because as it was, I really just can't see the real Camberian Councillors allowing people who would impersonate them and "mediate" a Duel Arcane to survive.

And from the Torenthi side of the whole thing, I think if, heaven forbid, Wencit and his side had won the proposed Duel Arcane at Llyndruth Meadows, Wencit would probably not have wanted his impostor Council mediators to be able to hold their participation in the Duel/impersonation plot over his head/possibly confess to the real Camberian Council what they'd done if Wencit did something they disliked strongly enough/otherwise betray Wencit, so I think he might well have planned to dispose of them in some fashion after the Duel, had he survived it/prevailed himself.  He was just far too crafty, politic, ruthless, and straight-up cruel not to have planned for that eventuality.

Which still doesn't answer the question of who they were.  We don't know enough about Torenth, never mind the Torenthi court, to know which members of the court would have been Deryni powerful enough to pull off the con, unscrupulous/ambitious enough to be willing to participate in the plot, and also dispensable (at least in Wencit's estimation).

It is an intriguing puzzle.  :D
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)

whitelaughter

Fascinating stuff.

Minor quibble  though: I got the impression from Deryni Rising & High Deryni that both Clarissa and Wencit regarded the council as at best a bit of a joke. Given it is named for an individual that the Festils regard as a traitor, and that the royal lines had ruled for several centuries before the creation of the council, that would hardly be surprising anyway.

Granted the conversation in the council regarding the fake team has the council members convinced of their own importance, they're equally ready to believe that Wencit will mock what they stand for.

Demonstrating the powerlessness of the council might well have been Wencit's goal, making the arrival of a real arbitration team that much more bitter.

Hmm - would the Council have had the *power* to deal with 4 top flight Deryni without anybody noticing? Take them down, sure: but to do it without them being able to call in reinforcements, gets a warning to Wencit, or tire the Council members out (remembering that they need to be at peak for the duel). Bluff would be smarter - calmly inform the 4 fakes that you have been informed of the need for an arbitration team, and that you have already informed Wencit that you will be mediating the duel. Even if Wencit wins, he'll want to insist that yes, he agreed to the actual team as that makes his victory more legitimate.

DesertRose

Quote from: whitelaughter on September 16, 2017, 06:30:52 AM
Fascinating stuff.

Minor quibble  though: I got the impression from Deryni Rising & High Deryni that both Clarissa and Wencit regarded the council as at best a bit of a joke. Given it is named for an individual that the Festils regard as a traitor, and that the royal lines had ruled for several centuries before the creation of the council, that would hardly be surprising anyway.

Granted the conversation in the council regarding the fake team has the council members convinced of their own importance, they're equally ready to believe that Wencit will mock what they stand for.

Demonstrating the powerlessness of the council might well have been Wencit's goal, making the arrival of a real arbitration team that much more bitter.

Hmm - would the Council have had the *power* to deal with 4 top flight Deryni without anybody noticing? Take them down, sure: but to do it without them being able to call in reinforcements, gets a warning to Wencit, or tire the Council members out (remembering that they need to be at peak for the duel). Bluff would be smarter - calmly inform the 4 fakes that you have been informed of the need for an arbitration team, and that you have already informed Wencit that you will be mediating the duel. Even if Wencit wins, he'll want to insist that yes, he agreed to the actual team as that makes his victory more legitimate.

That's a good point, regarding Charissa's and Wencit's opinions of/feelings about the Council.  I haven't read those books in a while, so I forgot about that, honestly.

I can also see your point about the real Councillors bluffing the impostors, but given the way the proposed Duel plays out in the end, the Councillors no longer have to worry about whether Wencit or anyone else will notice them dealing with the impostors, and given that the Councillors thought Kelson in his younger years to be insufficiently ruthless to be offered a Council seat, I can easily see the real Councillors killing the impostors, quietly, after the dust had settled at Llyndruth Meadows.

I just don't see the real Councillors permitting powerful Deryni who were unscrupulous enough to impersonate the Council in something as important in the Eleven Kingdoms as mediating a Duel Arcane between two reigning kings plus assorted others to survive in the end.  That's my take, anyway.  :D

Edited to add a word I realized I forgot.  This is what I get for changing phrasing pre-post while sleepy.   ;D
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)

Jerusha

Personally, I see the fake CC riding fast to lose themselves far in the back of the Torenthi army the moment the real CC appeared.
From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night...good Lord deliver us!

 -- Old English Litany

DesertRose

Quote from: Jerusha on September 16, 2017, 01:55:34 PM
Personally, I see the fake CC riding fast to lose themselves far in the back of the Torenthi army the moment the real CC appeared.

I would think that would be what the impostors would indeed want to do, but what I was envisioning goes something like:

The real CC comes upon the impostors so rapidly and unexpectedly as to startle the impostors.  The real Councillors do something non-fatal but effective to neutralize the impostors so abruptly that the impostors don't have time to react, never mind warn Wencit.  Then, after Wencit and his other two partners in the proposed Duel Arcane die because Stefan/Rhydon poisons them all, the real CC comes back to wherever they stashed the neutralized impostors (and maybe interrogates them) and then does the sympathetic-magic squeeze to stop their hearts and end them quietly.
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)

whitelaughter

Granted we are talking about a fantasy series - but murdering people is not something you do lightly.

Consider: 4 powerful nobles. That means 4 blood feuds. This alone could destroy the council, as most uncommitted Deryni will now refuse to 'take sides' and so refuse to acknowledge the council until those feuds are resolved.

And for what? Because they obeyed their king. So rather than face the council members in a duel arcane, the families could appeal to King Kelson! Of course, he can't judge the case personally, given they've just arbitrated a duel he took part in...so the trial is handled by Kelson's council: so yes, Loris is one of the judges.
I'm guessing that will appeal greatly to your typical Festillic supporter: 'Named for a traitor made saint for putting the humans in charge - well, you can be burned at the stake by human clergy in power thanks to your patron'.
I can well see Loris being pleased with this as well: if Deryni want to kill each other via judicial means, that will both further his ends and reinforce his contempt for them.

On a more practical matter - the fake arbitration team are sitting in the middle of an army a couple of hours away from the enemy, and the Torenthi have just launched a precision raid into the Gwynned camp. They'll be on full alert for any sneaky stuff by Gwynned, so the Council members simply won't be able to rely on stealth. They try anything underhanded - they die.

For that matter, how did they get there? They can't have used the portal Arilan created, it has been destroyed. IIRC the battlefield is in the middle of nowhere, so there are unlikely to be any local portals - they will need to come in through a (defended) Torenthi portal. We get an example of the defences on those in the Camber books.
And we know that the Torenthi are on the ball, given they were able to detect the creation of a portal in their enemy's camp.

DesertRose

Quote from: whitelaughter on October 25, 2017, 07:03:56 PM
Granted we are talking about a fantasy series - but murdering people is not something you do lightly.

Consider: 4 powerful nobles. That means 4 blood feuds. This alone could destroy the council, as most uncommitted Deryni will now refuse to 'take sides' and so refuse to acknowledge the council until those feuds are resolved.

And for what? Because they obeyed their king. So rather than face the council members in a duel arcane, the families could appeal to King Kelson! Of course, he can't judge the case personally, given they've just arbitrated a duel he took part in...so the trial is handled by Kelson's council: so yes, Loris is one of the judges.
I'm guessing that will appeal greatly to your typical Festillic supporter: 'Named for a traitor made saint for putting the humans in charge - well, you can be burned at the stake by human clergy in power thanks to your patron'.
I can well see Loris being pleased with this as well: if Deryni want to kill each other via judicial means, that will both further his ends and reinforce his contempt for them.

On a more practical matter - the fake arbitration team are sitting in the middle of an army a couple of hours away from the enemy, and the Torenthi have just launched a precision raid into the Gwynned camp. They'll be on full alert for any sneaky stuff by Gwynned, so the Council members simply won't be able to rely on stealth. They try anything underhanded - they die.

For that matter, how did they get there? They can't have used the portal Arilan created, it has been destroyed. IIRC the battlefield is in the middle of nowhere, so there are unlikely to be any local portals - they will need to come in through a (defended) Torenthi portal. We get an example of the defences on those in the Camber books.
And we know that the Torenthi are on the ball, given they were able to detect the creation of a portal in their enemy's camp.

Well, most people don't go around murdering people willy-nilly, and I honestly don't think the Councillors would have killed the impostors lightly.  However, the real Councillors would likely have decided that the impostors had to die, since they must have been fairly powerful Deryni who were unscrupulous enough to pretend to be Council arbitrators on behalf of Wencit, who was, by the Council's estimation, trying to kill the rightful king of Gwynedd and usurp the throne.

The impostor "Council" arbitrators were likely Torenthi, not Gwyneddan; I can't really see Wencit having trusted any Gwyneddan with that much power over his own life, even though Bran Coris is one of his companions in the proposed four-on-four Duel Arcane.  (I imagine Wencit had some means of controlling the erstwhile Earl of Marley, in addition to having empowered him/had him empowered with Deryni-like abilities.)

Thus, I can't really see where any families the impostors may have had left living having any grounds on which to petition Kelson and/or his royal council over the deaths of their relatives at Llyndruth Meadows.  What would the families say to Kelson and/or his council?  "My [father/brother/uncle/whatever other relative] was on Wencit's side at Llyndruth Meadows and trying to help Wencit cheat at the Duel Arcane?"  Loris would send them all to the flames for being Deryni at all, and the rest of the Royal Council would probably react, "And?  What do you expect us to do about the death of your relative who was trying to ensure that our king would die without issue?"

As to how the impostors got to Llyndruth Meadows at all, they could have come by another "battlefield" temporary Portal a la the one Arilan constructs to bring the real Camberian Council arbitrators, or for that matter, they could have ridden there with the rest of Wencit's troops.  And Wencit and his henchmen detecting Arilan's Portal construction doesn't necessarily mean that the actual Councillors weren't able to surprise the impostors.  It just means that at least one or two of the real arbitrators was both fast enough and sneaky enough to get to the impostors and incapacitate them (I do think now that probably the impostors were incapacitated before the Duel and not killed until afterwards) before any of the impostors even knew what had happened, never mind had a chance to warn Wencit or anyone else high in Wencit's confidence.

Or are you asking how the real Councillors got to Llyndruth Meadows?  (I'm not sure, and because Life is being a pain, I don't have my copies of Deryni Checkmate or Codex handy, and I don't have either of those on Kindle, so I can't look right now.)
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)

Jerusha

Are we making an assumption that Wencit used high ranking Deryni as his CC imposters?  Perhaps he enticed other Deryni (that he would willingly throw away) with promises of rewards to impersonate the CC members?  More established Deryni might not have been willing to take the risk, but those who otherwise might not rise to any position in the Torenthi Court just might.

I would not bet on their chances for survival whether Wencit won or lost.
From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night...good Lord deliver us!

 -- Old English Litany

DesertRose

Quote from: Jerusha on October 25, 2017, 09:03:23 PM
Are we making an assumption that Wencit used high ranking Deryni as his CC imposters?  Perhaps he enticed other Deryni (that he would willingly throw away) with promises of rewards to impersonate the CC members?  More established Deryni might not have been willing to take the risk, but those who otherwise might not rise to any position in the Torenthi Court just might.

I would not bet on their chances for survival whether Wencit won or lost.

Good point.

I would guess that the impostors were at least of minor nobility, landed gentry, or wealthy merchant at the lowest social rank, simply because we're all more or less in agreement that the faux Councillors were in fact Deryni, and they were powerful enough and highly enough trained that Wencit trusted they could pull off the deception, and that level of education tends to imply that somebody bankrolled it. 

Thus, anyone who wasn't from a well-off family would likely not have had access to the higher-level schooling, which leads me to believe that the impostors at least weren't peasants or even such middle class as existed then (I'm thinking mainly of merchants and tradespeople who weren't doing particularly well financially).  Even the son of a wealthy merchant would probably need a noble patron to gain access to high-level Deryni training; I should think it would be out of reach for anyone lower on the social ladder than wealthy merchants, and perhaps not even lower than landed gentry.

But the fact that, whether they knew it or not, their days were numbered (because I don't think Wencit would have allowed them to live after the battle even had he won, since he'd have owed them a fairly major debt if he had won) suggests that they were probably not major nobility even in Torenth, at least not the (legitimate) children of dukes or counts.  If they'd been legitimate children of a duke or count at the Torenthi court, their fathers would likely have been willing and possibly even able to attempt to collect the debt Wencit would have owed the impostors, but if they were children of lower nobility, gentry, or (effectively) upper-middle-class families, their fathers probably wouldn't have had the political clout (and possibly not the Deryni ability and/or training) even to attempt to challenge Wencit over the deaths of their children and the debts Wencit owed those children.

That being said, maybe the impostors were illegitimate children of fairly high-ranking Torenthi nobles; a Torenthi duke might well see to the education (Deryni and otherwise) of his illegitimate child, but there are a number of possible situations in which said duke might not have a leg to stand on regarding arguing with his king over the circumstances in which his illegitimate son/daughter died.
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)

whitelaughter

Again, why the immediate response to violence? Assuming that the fake team take part in a successful elimination of Kelson, then they have made a major enemy of the Camberian Council - they will be dependent on Wencit's protection. This makes them more useful to Wencit, not less. Additionally, Wencit will have just doubled the size of his kingdom, so he will not be able to afford to waste valuable minions, as he now has a large slab of lands that need to be controlled.

Getting back to who they are - Wencit is gambling his life on this duel, so he's unlikely to use 3rd rate minions. As a king, he's going to have the equivalent of weapons masters who specialize in training his family in magic; since they are used to training with Wencit, they are ideal for the duel.

....and I just realised how the real CC arrived. The fake team would have been magically disguised as real CC members, on the offchance that there were Deryni with Kelson who had met them in the past. (And for that matter, to allay the concerns of the more honorable members of Wencit's court).  The real CC team would simply waltz in, pretending to be the fakes who are expected to be wearing their bodies.

Evie

Quote from: whitelaughter on October 27, 2017, 05:04:06 AM
....and I just realised how the real CC arrived. The fake team would have been magically disguised as real CC members, on the offchance that there were Deryni with Kelson who had met them in the past. (And for that matter, to allay the concerns of the more honorable members of Wencit's court).  The real CC team would simply waltz in, pretending to be the fakes who are expected to be wearing their bodies.

Actually, I don't think this would be likely (or indeed necessary) given that the Camberian Council members have sworn an oath of blood and power to keep their memberships on the council secret (remember Dom Queron's magical induction to the Council), and IIRC, even when the real CC members show up on the field in HD, I think there's a line mentioning that their true identities are concealed by some sort of magical glamour, so while fully trained Deryni are likely to know that the CC exists, knowing exactly who is on it would be quite a different matter. I imagine there is a lot of speculation on that question in Deryni circles, but not a whole lot of actual knowledge, except of course within the Council itself. Which makes Wencit's job easier, as he can hand-pick any four Deryni he trusts with the job to be his four faux CC members, but it also would make it easy enough for the true CC to show up without the wrong people recognizing them. Especially if they also have some sort of concealment magic going on to start with.
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!