Camber...the healer?

[whitelaughter]

While visiting the Gabrielites, Camber reflects on his grief that he isn't a healer – which makes the knowledge that as a saint he can work with Morgan and other to heal a delightful ending to his story.
But...suppose the reason he grieves is that he is meant to be a healer?

Camber has a Healer grand daughter, and we're told that female Healers are incredibly rare. If Camber was genetically a healer, then she would have both a father and maternal grandfather as Healers, explaining why she gained the ability.

Any number of accidents or other genes could have crimped Camber's healing abilities, so that they never expressed. And of course, having that potential could explain why he was so powerful a Deryni: the insights that would otherwise allowed Healing were instead expressing themselves through normal magic.

[Bynw]

Things that we know for certain.

• Camber is not a Healer as he is unable to actually heal.
• We also know that the hereditary information in some of the older books has been recinded, it is not valid canon any longer so we can't go by that information on who gets what healing gene from whom.
• Camber does understand healing from an intellectual point of view having worked with his son-in-law and other healers over the years.
• And there are healers in his line. Mostly from Rhys.

Does he have the potential to a Healer and it just never manifested for some reason?

Hmmm, that is an interesting idea. Rhys himself didn't come from a known healer family so he was never tested. It is hard to believe that Camber would not have been tested at some point as a child or young man given his original religious vocation. Rhys ability surfaced when he had the injured Symber in his arms after the attack on the Camber household by thieves. But did Camber himself ever have some kind of trigger needed to awaken the potential? And just never had it awakened. That is something to think about.

[Evie]

There could have been many over the years who carried the potential, but it was never expressed simply because there wasn't a triggering event, so the gift wasn't discovered.

[Laurna]

Rhys was orphaned at a young age. We do not have very much information about his parents and grandparents. I am sure his family had to have Healer potential, it is just that this information did not make it down to Rhys's guardian, who was Camber. 

Camber worked with many healers and studied the level of focus necessary to Heal. I am not saying that he could not have been a carrier of the gene, but I believe that if he could have manifested that trait, he would have. It is also possible that Camber's Wife could have been the carrier of the gene, and that is how Evaine was able to double up with Rhys's talent and pass it down to Teig and to their daughter, Jerusha.

[drakensis]

Whatever qualities are needed to be a healer, if Camber had been a healer it seems unlikely he would have followed the same path in life.

He had a call to the church early and only became Earl because his older brothers died young. There's a high chance he was a Gabrielite until that point, rather than a more scholarly order (not that they aren't studious in that field).

This might well have meant he was not as politically significant. Still an Earl and probably on the royal council - the MacRories were descended of the Torenthi lords who followed Festil I - but there's a good chance he wasn't made chancellor. He may also have been less of a favorite to Blaine (also of a clerical background).

In this scenario, it's possible Cathan isn't as close to Imre and that the young king doesn't see his opposition as such a personal betrayal. In turn, Cathan may live and the pressure to overthrow Imre seem less... Particularly with Camber's influence seen as less of a threat by those who want to be Imre's favorites at court.