Gate of Ivrel

CHAPTER IV

THERE WAS A tattered look about the hall, full of cobwebs in the corners, the mortar crumbling here and there, making hollow gaps between the big irregular stones so that spiders had abundant hiding places. The wooden frame did not quite meet the stone about the door. The bracket for the burning torch hung most precariously by a single one of its four bolts.

The bed itself sagged uncomfortably. Vanye searched about with his left hand to discover the limits of it: his right hand was sorely swollen, puffed with venom. He could not clearly remember what had been done, save that he lay here while things came clear again, and there was a person who hovered about him from time to time, fending others away.

He realized finally that the person was Morgaine, Morgaine without her cloak, black-clad and slim in men’s clothing, and yet with the most incongrous tgihio–overrobe—of silver and black: she had a barbaric bent yet unsuspected; and the blade Changeling was hung over her chair, and her other gear propping her feet—most unwomanly.

He gazed at her trying to bring his mind to clarity and remember how they had come there, and still could not. She saw him and smiled tautly.

“Well,” she said, “thee will not lose the arm.”

He moved the sore hand and tried to flex the fingers. They were too swollen. What she had said still frightened him, for the arm was affected up to the elbow, and that hurt to bend.

“Flis!” Morgaine called.

A girl appeared, backing into the room, for she had hands full of linens and a basin of steaming water.

The girl made shift to bow obeisance to Morgaine, and Morgaine scowled at her and jerked her head in the direction of Vanye.

The hot water pained him. He set his teeth and endured the compresses of hot towels, and directed his attention instead to his attendant. Flis was dark-haired and sloe-eyed, intensely, hotly female. The low peasant bodice gaped a bit as she bent; she smiled at him and touched his face. Her bearing, her manner, was that of many a girl in hall that was low-clan or no clan, who hoped to get of some lord a child to lift her to honorable estate. No seed of his could ennoble anyone, but she surely plied her arts with him because he was safe at the moment and he was a stranger.

She soothed his fever with her hands and gave him well-watered wine to drink, and talked to him in little sweet words which made no particular sense. When her hands touched his brow he realized that she made no objection of his shorn hair, which would have warned any sensible woman of his character and his station and sent her indignantly hence.

Then he remembered that he was surely in the hall of clan Leth, where outcasts and outlaws were welcome so long as they bore the whims of lord Kasedre and were not particular what orders they obeyed. Here such a man as he was no novelty, perhaps of no less honor than the rest.

Then he saw Morgaine on her feet, looking at him over the shoulder of the girl Flis, and Morgaine gave him a faintly disgusted look, judgment of the awkwardly predatory maid. She turned and paced to the window, out of convenient view.

He closed his eyes then, content to have the pain of his arm attended, required to do nothing. He had lost all the face a man could lose, being rescued by his liyo, a woman, and given over to servants such as this.

Leth tolerated Morgaine’s presence, even paid her honor, to judge by the splendor of the guest-robe they offered her, and indulged her lord-right, treating her as equal.

Flis’s hand strayed. He moved it, indignant at such treatment in his liyo’s presence, and her a woman. Flis giggled.

Brocade rustled. Morgaine paced back again, scowled and nodded curtly to the girl. Flis grew quickly sober, gathered up her basin and her towels with graceless haste.

“Leave them,” Morgaine ordered.

Flis abandoned them on the table beside the door and bowed her way out.

Morgaine walked over to the bed, lifted the compress on Vanye’s injured hand, shook her head. Then she went over to the door and slid the chair over in such fashion that no one outside could easily open the door.

“Are we threatened?” Vanye asked, disturbed by such precautions.

Morgaine busied herself with her own gear, extracting some of her own unguents from the kit. “I imagine we are,” she said. “But that is not why I barred the door. We are not provided with a lock and I grow weary of that minx spying on my business.”

He watched uneasily as she set her medicines out on the table beside him. “I do not want—”

“Objections denied.” She opened a jar and smeared a little medication into the wound, which was wider and more painful than before, since the compress. The medication stung and made it throb, but numbed the wound thereafter. She mixed something into water for him to drink, and insisted and ordered him to drink it.

Thereafter he was sleepy again, and began to perceive that Morgaine was the agent of it this time.

She was sitting by him still when he awoke, polishing his much-battered helm, tending his armor, he supposed, from boredom. She tilted her head to one side and considered him.

“How fare you now?”

“Better,” he said, for he seemed free of fever.

“Can you rise?”

He tried. It was not easy. He realized in his blindness and his concern with the effort itself, that he was not clothed, and snatched at the sheet, nearly falling in the act: Kurshin were a modest folk. But it mattered little to Morgaine. She estimated him with an analytical eye that was in itself more embarrassing than the blush she did not own.

“You will not ride with any great endurance,” she said, “which is an inconvenience. I have no liking for this place. I do not trust our host at all, and I may wish to quit this hall suddenly.”

He sank down again, reached for his clothing and tried to dress, one-handed as he was.

“Our host,” he said, “is Kasedre, lord of Leth. And you are right. He is mad.”

He omitted to mention that Kasedre was reputed to have qujalin blood in his veins, and that that heredity was given as reason for his madness; Morgaine, though unnerving in her oddness, was at least sane.

“Rest,” she bade him when he had dressed, for the effort had taxed him greatly. “You may need your strength. They have our horses in stables downstairs near the front entry, down this hall outside to the left, three turns down the stairs and left to the first door. Mark that. Listen, I will show you what I have observed of this place, in the case we must take our leave separately.”

And sitting on the bed beside him she traced among the bedclothes the pattern of the halls and the location of doors and rooms, so that he had a fair estimation of where things lay without having laid eye upon them. She had a good faculty for such things: he was pleased to learn his liyo was sensible and experienced in matters of defense. He began to be more optimistic of their chances in this place.

“Are we prisoners,” he asked, “or are we guests?”

“I am a guest in name, at least,” she said, “but this is not a happy place for guesting.”

There was a knock at the door. Someone tried it. When it did not yield, the visitor padded off down the hall.

“Do you have any wish to linger here?” he asked.

“I feel,” she said, “rather like a mouse passing a cat: probably there is no harm and the beast looks well-fed and lazy; but it would be a mistake to scurry.”

“If the cat is truly hungry,” he said, “we delude ourselves.”

She nodded.

This time there was a deliberate knock at the door.

Vanye scrambled for his longsword, hooked it to his belt, convenient to the left hand. Morgaine moved the chair and opened the door.

It was Flis again. The girl smiled uncertainly and bowed. Vanye saw her in clearer light this time, without the haze of fever. She was not as young as he had thought. It was paint that blushed her cheek and her dress was not country and innocence: it was blowsy. She simpered and smiled past Morgaine at Vanye.

“You are wanted,” she said.

“Where?” asked Morgaine.

Flis did not want to look up into Morgaine’s eyes: addressed, she had no choice. She did so and visibly cringed: her head only reached Morgaine’s shoulders, and her halo of frizzled brown seemed dull next to Morgaine’s black and silver. “To hall, lady.” She cast a second wishing look back at Vanye, back again. “Only you, lady. They did not ask the man.”

“He is ilin to me,” she said. “What is the occasion?”

“To meet my lord,” said Flis. “It is all right,” she insisted. “I can take care for him.”

“Never mind,” said Morgaine. “He will do very well without, Flis. That will be all.”

Flis blinked: she did not seem particularly intelligent. Then she backed off and bowed and went away, beginning to run.

Morgaine turned about and looked at Vanye. “My apologies,” she said dryly. “Are you fit to go down to hall?”

He bowed assent, thoroughly embarrassed by Morgaine, and wondering whether he should be outraged. He did not want Flis. Protesting it was graceless too. He ignored her gibe and avowed that he was fit. He was not steady on his feet. He thought that it would pass.

She nodded to him and led the way out of the room.

Everything outside was much the same as she had described to him. The hall was in general disrepair, like some long abandoned fortress suddenly occupied and not yet quite liveable. There was a mustiness about the air, a queasy feeling of dirt, and effluvium of last night’s feasting, of grease and age and untended cracks, and earth and damp.

“Let us simply walk for the door,” Vanye suggested when they reached that lower floor and he knew that the lefthand way led to the outside, and their horses, and a wild, quick ride out of this place of madmen. “Liyo, let us not stay here. Let us take nothing from this place, let us go, now, quickly.”

“Thee is not fit for a chase,” she said. “Or I would, gladly. Be still. Do not offend our hosts.”

They walked unescorted down the long corridors, where sometimes were servants that looked like beggars that sometimes appeared at hold gates, asking their free days of lawful charity. It was shame to a lord to keep folk of his hall in such a state. And the hold of Leth was huge. Its stones were older than Morgaine’s ride to Irien, older by far in all its parts, and in its day it had been a grand hall, most fabled in its beauty. If she had seen it then, it was sadly otherwise now, with the tapestries in greasy rags and bare stone showing through the tattered and dirty carpets on the floors. There were corridors which they did not take, great open halls that breathed with damp and decay, closed doors that looked to have remained undisturbed for years. Rats scurried sullenly out of their path, seeking the large cracks in the masonry, staring out at them with small glittering eyes.

“How much of this place have you seen?” he asked of her.

“Enough,” she said, “to know that there is much amiss here. Nhi Vanye, whatever bloodfeuds you have with Leth, you are ilin to me. Remember it.”

“I have none with Leth,” he said. “Sensible men avoid them altogether. Madness is like yeast in this whole loaf. It breeds and rises. Guard what you say, liyo, even if you are offended.”

And of a sudden he saw the lean face of the boy leering out at them from a cross-corridor, the sister beside him, rat-eyed and smiling. Vanye blinked. They were not there. He could not be sure whether he had seen them or not.

The door to the main hall gaped ahead of them. He hastened to overtake Morgaine. There were any number of bizarre personages about, a clutch of men that looked more fit to surround some hillside campfire as bandits—they lounged at the rear of the hall; and a few high-clan uyin that he took for Leth, who lounged about the high tables in the hall. These latter were also lean and hungry and out-at-the-elbows, their trousers gaudy, but frayed at hems: to do justice to their charity and hospitality to Morgaine, they were indeed less elegant than what they had lent to her.

And there was a man that could only have been Leth Kasedre, who sat in the chair of honor at center, youngish to look upon—he could surely have been no more than thirty, and yet his babyish face was sallow, beneath a fringe of dark hair that wanted trimming; no warrior’s braid for this one, and much else that went to make up a man seemed likely wanting too. His hair hung in twining ringlets. His eyes were hunted, darting from this to that; his mouth was like that of a sick man, loose, moist at the edges. He exuded heat and chill at once, like fever.

And his clothing was splendor itself, cloth-of-gold, his narrow chest adorned with brooches and clasps and chains of gold. A jeweled Honor blade was at his belt, and a jeweled longsword, which added decoration useless and pathetic. The air about him was thick with the reek of perfumes that masked decay. As they came near him there was no doubt. It was a sickroom smell

Kasedre arose, extended a thin hand to offer place to Morgaine, who tucked up her feet and settled on the low bench courtiers had vacated for her, a place of honor; she wore Changeling high at her back and released the hook mat secured the shoulderstrap at her waist, letting strap and blade slide to her hip for comfort, sitting. She bowed gracefully; Kasedre returned the courtesy.

Vanye must perforce kneel at the Leth’s feet and touch brow to floor, respect which the Leth hardly deigned to acknowledge, intent as he was on Morgaine. Vanye crept aside to his place behind her. It was bitter: he was a warrior—had been, at least; he had been proud, though bastard, and certainly Nhi Rijan’s bastard ranked higher than this most notorious of hedge-lords. But he had seen ilinin at Ra-morij forced to such humiliation, refused Claiming, forgotten, ignored, no one reckoning what the man might have been before he became ilin and nameless. It was not worth protest now: the Leth was supremely dangerous.

“I am intrigued to have the likes of you among us,” said Leth Kasedre. “Are you truly that Morgaine of Irien?”

“I never claimed to be,” said Morgaine.

The Leth blinked, leaned back a little, licked the corners of his mouth in perplexity. “But you are, truly,” he said. “There was never the like of you in this world.”

Morgaine’s lips suddenly acquired a smile as feral as Kasedre’s could be. “I am Morgaine,” she said. “You are right.”

Kasedre let his breath go in a long sigh. He performed another obeisance that had to be answered, rare honor for a guest in hall. “How are you among us? Do you come back to ride to other wars?”

He sounded eager, even delighted at the prospect.

“I am seeing what there is to be seen,” said Morgaine. “I am interested in Leth. You seem an interesting beginning to my travels. And,” a modest lowering of eyes, “you have been most charitable in the matter of my ilin–if it were not for the twins.”

Kasedre licked his lips and looked suddenly nervous. ‘Twins? Ah, wicked, wicked, those children. They will be disciplined.”

“Indeed they should be,” said Morgaine.

“Will you share dinner with us this evening?”

Morgaine’s precise and delighted smile did not vary. “Most gladly, most honored, Leth Kasedre. My ilin and I will attend.”

“Ah, but ill as he is—”

“My ilin will attend,” she said. Her tone was delicate ice, still smiling. Kasedre flinched from that and smiled also, chanced in the same moment to look toward Vanye, who glared back, sullen and well sure of the murder resident in Kasedre’s heart: hate not directed at Morgaine—he was in awe of her—but of the sight of a man who was not his to order.

Of a sudden, wildly, he feared Morgaine’s own capabilities. She slipped so easily into mad Kasedre’s vein, well able to play the games he played and tread the maze of his insanities.

Vanye reckoned again his worth to his liyo, and wondered whether she would yield him up to Kasedre if need be to escape this mad hall, a bit of human coin strewn along her way and forgotten.

But so far she defended her rights with authoritative persistence, whether for his sake or in her own simple arrogance.

“Have you been dead?” asked Kasedre.

“Hardly,” she said. “I took a shortcut. I was only here a month ago. Edjnel was ruling then.”

Kasedre’s mad eyes glittered and blinked when she casually named a lord his ancestor, dead a hundred years. He looked angry, as if he suspected some humor at his expense.

“A shortcut,” she said, unruffled, “across the years you folk have lived, from yesterday to now, straightwise. The world went wide, around the bending of the path. I went through. I am here now, all the same. You look a great deal like Edjnel.”

Kasedre’s face underwent a rapid series of expressions, ending in delight as he was compared to his famous ancestor. He puffed and swelled so far as his narrow chest permitted, then seemed again to return to the perplexities of the things she posed.

“How?” he asked. “How did you do it?”

“By the fires of Aenor above Pyven. It is not hard to use the fires to this purpose—but one must be very brave. It is a fearful journey.”

It was too much for Kasedre. He drew a series of deep breaths like a man about to faint, and leaned back, resting his hands upon that great sword, staring about at his gape-mouthed uyin, half of whom looked puzzled and the other part too muddled to do anything.

“You will tell us more of this,” said Kasedre.

“Gladly, at dinner,” she said.

“Ah, sit, stay, have wine with us,” begged Kasedre.

Morgaine gave forth that chill smile again, dazzling and false. “By your leave, lord Kasedre, we are still weary from our travels and we win need a time to rest or I fear we shall not last a late banquet. We will go to our room and rest a time, and then come down at whatever hour you send for us.”

Kasedre pouted. In such as he the moment was dangerous, but Morgaine continued to smile, bright and deadly, and full of promises. Kasedre bowed. Morgaine rose and bowed.

Vanye inclined himself again at Kasedre’s feet, had a moment to see the look that Kasedre cast at Morgaine’s back. It was, he was glad to see, still awestruck.

Vanye was shaking with exhaustion when they reached the security of their upstairs room. He himself moved the chair before the door again, and sat down on the bed. Morgaine’s cold hand touched his brow, seeking fever.

“Are you well?” she asked.

“Well enough. Lady, you are mad to sample anything of his at table tonight.”

“It is not a pleasant prospect, I grant you that.” She took off the dragon sword and set it against the wall.

“You are playing with him,” said Vanye, “and he is mad.”

“He is accustomed to having his way,” said Morgaine. “The novelty of this experience may intrigue him utterly.”

And she sat down in the other plain chair and folded her arms. “Rest,” she said. “I think we may both need it.”

He eased back on the bed, leaning his shoulder against the wall, and brooded over matters. “I am glad,” he said out of those thoughts, “that you did not ride on and leave me here senseless with fever as I was. I am grateful, liyo.”

She looked at him, gray eyes catwise and comfortable. “Then thee admits,” she said, “that there are some places worse to be ilin than in my service?”

The thought chilled him. “I do admit it,” he said. “This place being chief among them.”

She propped her feet upon her belongings: he lay down and shut his eyes and tried to rest. The hand throbbed. It was still slightly swollen. He would have gladly gone outside and packed snow about it, reckoning that of more value than Flis’s poultices and compresses or Morgaine’s qujalin treatments.

“The imp’s knife was plague-ridden,” he said.

Then, remembering: “Did you see them?”

“Who?”

“The boy—the girl—”

“Here?”

“In the downstairs corridor after you passed.”

“I am not at all surprised.”

“Why do you endure this?” he asked. “Why did you not resist them bringing us here? You could have dealt with my injury yourself—and probably with them too.”

“You perhaps have an exaggerated idea of my capacities. I am not able to lift a sick man about, and argument did not seem profitable at the moment. When it does, I shall consider doing something. But you are charged with my safety, Nhl Vanye, and with protecting me. I do expect you to fulfill that obligation.”

He lifted his swollen hand. “That is not within my capacity at the moment, if it comes to fighting our way out of here.”

“Ah. So you have answered your own first question.” That was Morgaine at her most irritating. She settled again to waiting, then began instead to pace. She was very like a wild thing caged. She needed something for her hands, and there was nothing left. She went to the barred window and looked out and returned again.

She did that by turns for a very long time, sitting a while, pacing a while, driving him to frenzy, in which if he had not been in pain, he might also have risen and paced the room in sheer frustration. Had the woman ever been still, he wondered, or did she ever cease from what drove her? It was not simple restlessness at their confinement. It was the same thing that burned in her during their time on the road, as if they were well enough while moving, but any untoward delay fretted her beyond bearing.

It was as if death and the Witchfires were an appointment she were zealous to keep, and she resented every petty human interference in her mission.

The sunlight in the room decreased. Things became dim. When the furniture itself grew unclear, there came a rap on the door. Morgaine answered it. It was Flis.

“Master says come,” said Flis.

“We are coming,” said Morgaine. The girl delayed in the doorway, twisting her hands.

Then she fled.

“That one is no less addled than the rest,” Morgaine. “But she is more pitiable.” She gathered up her sword, her other gear too, and concealed certain of her equipment within her robes. “Lest,” she said, “someone examine things while we are gone.”

“There is still the chance of running for the door,” he said. “ Liyo, take it. I am stronger. There is no reason I cannot somehow ride.”

“Patience,” she urged him. “Besides, this man Kasedre is interesting.”

“He is also,” he said, “ruthless and a murderer.”

“There are Witchfires in Leth,” she said. “Living next to the Witchfires as the Witchfires seem to have become since I left—is not healthful. I should not care to stay here very long.”

“Do you mean that the evil of the thing—of the fires—has made them what they are?”

“There are emanations,” she said, “which are not healthful. I do not myself know all that can be the result of them. I only know that I do not like the waste I saw about me when I rode out at Aenor-Pyven, and I like even less what I see in Leth. The men are more twisted than the trees.”

“You cannot warn these folk,” he protested. “They would as soon cut our throats as not if we cross them. And if you mean something else with them, some—”

“Have a care,” she said. “There is someone in the hall.”

Steps had paused. They moved on again, increasing in speed. Vanye swore softly. “This place is full of listeners.”

“We are surely the most interesting listening in the place,” she said. “Come, and let us go down to the hall. Or do you feel able? If truly not, I shall plead indisposition myself—it is a woman’s privilege—and delay the business.”

In truth he faced the possibility of a long evening with the mad Leth with dread, not alone of the Leth, but because of the fever that still burned in his veins. He would rather try to ride now, now, while he had the strength. If trouble arose in the hall, he was not sure that he could help Morgaine or even himself.

In truth, he reckoned that among her weapons she had the means to help herself: it was her left-handed ilin that might not make it out

“I could stay here,” he said.

“With his servants to attend you?” she asked. “You could not gracefully bar the door against them yourself, but no one thinks odd the things I do. Say that you are not fit and I will stay here and bar the door myself.”

“No,” he said. “I am fit enough. And you are probably right about the servants.” He thought of Flis, who, if she entertained everyone in this loathsome hall with the same graces she plied with him, would probably be fevered herself, or carry some more ugly sickness. And he recalled the twins, who had slipped into the dark like a pair of the palace rats—for some reason they and their little knives inspired him with more terror than Myya archers had ever done. He could not strike at them as they deserved; that they were children still stayed his hand; and yet they had no scruples, and their daggers were razor-sharp—like rats, he thought again, like rats, whose sharp teeth made them fearsome despite their size.

He dreaded even for Morgaine with the like of them skittering about the halls and conniving together in the shadows.

She left. He walked at his proper distance half a pace behind Morgaine, equally for the sake of formality and for safety’s sake. He had discovered one saw things that way, things that happened just after Morgaine had glanced away. He was only ilin. No one paid attention to a servant. And Kasedre’s servants feared her. It was in their eyes. That was, in this hall, great tribute.

And even the bandits as they entered the hall watched her with caution in their hot eyes, a touch of ice, a cold wind over them. It was curious: there was more respect in the afterwave of her passing than the nonchalance they showed to her face.

A greater killer than any of them, he thought unworthily; they respected her for that.

But the Leth, the uyin that gathered at the high tables, watched her through polite smiles, and there was lust there too, no less than in the bandits’ eyes, but cold and tempered with fear. Morgaine was supremely beautiful: Vanye kept that thought at a distance within himself—he was tempted to few liberties with the qujal, and that one last of all. But when he saw her in that hall, her pale head like a blaze of sun in that darkness, her slim form elegant in tgihio and bearing the dragon blade with the grace of one who could truly use it, an odd vision came to him: he saw like a fever-dream a nest of corruption with one gliding serpent among the scuttling lesser creatures—more evil than they, more deadly, and infinitely beautiful, reared up among them and hypnotizing with basilisk eyes, death dreaming death and smiling.

He shuddered at the vision and saw her bow to Kasedre, and performed his own obeisance without looking into the mad, pale face: he retreated to his place, and when they were served, he examined carefully and sniffed at the wine they were offered.

Morgaine drank; he wondered could her arts make her proof against drugs and poisons, or save him, who was not. For his part he drank sparingly, and waited long between drafts, toying with it merely, waiting for the least dizziness to follow: none did. If they were being poisoned, it was to be more subtle.

The dishes were various: they both ate the simple ones, and slowly. There was an endless flow of wine, of which they both drank sparingly; and at last, at long last, Morgaine and Kasedre still smiling at each other, the last dish was carried out and servants pressed yet more wine on them.

“Lady Morgaine,” begged Kasedre then, “you gave us a puzzle and promised us answers tonight.”

“Of Witchfires?”

Kasedre bustled about the table to sit near her, and waved an energetic hand at the harried, patch-robed scribe who had hovered constantly at his elbow this evening. “Write, write,” he said to the scribe, for in every hall of note there was an archivist who kept records properly and made an account of hall business.

“How interesting your Book would be to me,” murmured Morgaine, “with all the time I have missed of the affairs of men. Do give me this grace, my lord Kasedre—to borrow your Book for a moment.”

Oh mercy, Vanye thought, are we doomed to stay here a time more? He had hoped that they could retreat, and he looked at the thickness of the book and at all the bored lordlings sitting about them flushed with wine, looking like beasts thirsting for the kill, and reckoned uneasily how long their patience would last.

“We would be honored,” replied Kasedre. It was probably the first time in years that anyone had bothered with the musty tome of Leth, replete as it must be with murderings and incest. The rumors were dark enough, though little news came out of Leth.

“Here,” said Morgaine, and took into her lap the moldering book of the scribe, while the poor old scholar—a most wretched old man and reeking of drink—sat at her brocaded knee and looked up at her, wrinkle browed and squinting. His eyes and nose ran. He blotted at both with his sleeve. She cracked the book, disturbing pages moldered together, handling the old pages reverently, separating them with her nail, folding them down properly as she sought the years she wanted.

Somewhere at the back of the hall some of the less erudite members of the banquet were engaged in riotous conversation. It sounded as if a gambling game were in progress. She ignored it entirely, although Kasedre seemed irritated by it; the lord Leth himself squatted down to hear her, hanging upon her long silence in awe. Her forefinger traced words. Vanye’s view over her shoulder showed yellowed parchment and ink that had turned red-brown and faint. It was a wonder that one who lisped the language as uncertainly as she did could manage that ancient scrawl, but her lips moved as she thought the words.

“My dear old friend Edjnel,” she said softly. “Here is his death—what, murdered?” Kasedre craned his neck to see the word. “And his daughter—ah, little Linna—drowned upon the lakeshore. This is sad news. But Tohme did rule, surely—”

“My father,” interjected Kasedre, “was Tohme’s son.” His eyes kept darting to her face anxiously, as if he found fear of her condemnation.

“When I remember Tohme,” she said, “he was playing at his mother’s knee: the lady Aromwel, a most gracious, most lovely person. She was Chya. I rode to this hall upon a night... ” She eased the fragile pages backward. “Yes, here, you see:

“... came She even to Halle, bearing sad Tidings from the Road. Lorde Aralde—brother to Edjnel and to my friend Lrie, who went with me to Irien, and died there– Lorde Aralde had met with Mischance upon his faring in her Companie that attempted the Saving of Leth against the Darke, which advanceth out of... Well, well, this was another sad business, that of lord Arald. He was a good man. Unlucky. An arrow out of the forest had him; and the wolves were on my trail by then.... herein she feared the Border were lost, that there would none rallye to the Saving of the Middle Realms, save only Chya and Leth, and they strippt of Men and sorely hurt. So gave she Farewell to Leth and left the Halle, much mourned... Well, that is neither here nor there. It touches me to think that I am missed at least in Leth.” Her fingers sought further pages. “Ah, here is news. My old friend Zri—he was counselor to Tiffwy, you know. Or do you not? Well.... Chya Zri has come to Leth, he being friend to the Kings of Koris.” A feral grin was on her face, as if that mightily amused her. “Friend”—she laughed softly—“aye, friend to Tiffwy’s wife, and thereon hung a tale.”

Kasedre twisted with both hands at his sleeve, his poor fevered eyes shifting nervously from her to the book and back again. “Zri was highly honored here,” he said. “But he died.”

“Zri was a fox,” said Morgaine. “Ah, clever, that man. It was surely like him not to have been at Irien after all, although he rode out with us. Zri had an ear to the ground constantly: he could smell disaster, Tiffwy always said. And Edjnel never trusted him. But unfortunately Tiffwy did. And I wonder indeed that Edjnel took him in when he appeared at the gates of Leth.... he has honored us by his Presence, tutor... to the younge Prince Leth Tohme ... to guide in all divers manner of Statecraft and Publick Affaires, being Guardian also of the Lady Chya Aromwel and her daughter Linna, at the lamented Decease of Leth Edjnel... ”

“Zri taught my grandfather,” said Kasedre when Morgaine remained sunk in thought He prattled on, nervous, eager to please. “And my father for a time too. He was old, but he had many children—”

One of the uyin tittered behind his hand. It was injudicious. Leth Kasedre turned and glared, and that uyo bowed himself to his face and begged pardon quickly, claiming some action in the back of the hall as the source of his amusement

“What sort was Tohme?” asked Morgaine.

“I do not know,” said Kasedre. “He drowned. Like aunt Linna.”

“Who was your father?”

“Leth Hes.” Kasedre puffed a bit with pride, insisted to turn the pages of the book himself, to show her. “He was a great lord.”

“Tutored by Zri.”

“And he had a great deal of gold.” Kasedre refused to be distracted. But then his face fell. “But I never saw him. He died. He drowned too.”

“Most unfortunate. I should stay clear of water, my lord Leth. Where did it happen? The lake?”

“They think—”Kasedre lowered his voice—“that my father was a suicide. He was always morose. He brooded about the lake. Especially after Zri was gone. Zri—”

“—drowned?”

“No. He rode out and never came back. It was a bad night. He was an old man anyway.” His face assumed a pout. “I have answered every one of your questions, and you promised my answer and you have not answered it. Where were you, all these years? What became of you, if you did not die?”

“If a man,” she said, continuing to read while she answered him, “rode into the Witchfires of Aenor-Pyven, then he would know. It is possible for anyone. However, it has certain—costs.”

“The Witchfires of Leth,” he said, licking moisture from the corners of his mouth. “Would they suffice?”

“Most probably,” she said. “However, it is chancy. The fires have certain potential for harm. I know the safety of Aenor-Pyven. It could do no bodily harm. But I should not chance Leth’s fires unless I had seen them. They are by the lake, which seems to take so much toll of Leth. I should rather other aid than that, lord Leth. Seek Aenor-Pyven.” She still gave him only a part of her attention, continuing to push the great moldering pages back one after another. Then her eyes darted to the aged scholar. “Thee looks almost old enough to remember me.”

The poor old man, trembling, tried the major obeisance at being directly noticed by Morgaine, and could not make it gracefully. “Lady, I was not yet born.”

She looked at him curiously, and then laughed softly. “Ah, then I have no friends left in Leth at all. There are none so old.” She thumbed more pages, more and more rapidly. “... This sad day was funeral for Leth Tohme, aged seventeen yeares, and his Consort... lady Leth Jeme... Indeed, indeed—at one burying.”

“My grandmother hanged herself for grief,” said Kasedre.

“Ah, then your father must have become the Leth when he was very young. And Zri must have had much power.”

“Zri. Zri. Zri. Tutors are boring.”

“Had you one?”

“Liell. Chya Liell. He is my counselor now.”

“I have not met Liell,” she said.

Kasedre bit at his lips. “He would not come tonight. He said he was indisposed. I”—he lowered his voice—“have never known Liell indisposed before.”

“... Liell of the Chya... has given splendid entertainments... on the occasion of the birthday of the Leth, Kasedre, most honorable of lords... two maidens of the... Indeed.” Morgaine blinked, scanned the page. “Most unique. And I have seen a great many entertainments.”

“Liell is very clever,” said Kasedre. “He devises ways to amuse us. He would not come tonight. That is why things are so quiet. He will think of something for tomorrow.”

Morgaine continued to scan the pages. “This is interesting,” she assured Kasedre. “I must apologize. I am surely wearying you and interfering with your scribe’s recording of my visit, but this does intrigue me. I shall try to repay your hospitality and your patience.”

Kasedre bowed very low, thoughtlessly necessitating obeisance by all at the immediate table. “We have kept in every detail the records of your dealings with us in this visit. It is a great honor to our hall.”

“Leth has always been very kind to me.”

Kasedre reached out his hand, altogether against propriety—it was the action of a child fascinated by glitter—and his trembling fingers touched the arm of Morgaine, and the hilt of Changeling.

She ceased to move, every muscle frozen for an instant; then gently she moved her arm and removed his fingers from the dragon blade’s hilt.

Vanye’s muscles were rock-hard, his left hand already feeling after the release of his nameless sword. They could perhaps reach the midpoint of the hall before fifty swords cut them down.

And he must guard her back.

Kasedre drew back his hand. “Draw the blade,” he urged her. “Draw it. I want to see it.”

“No,” she said. “Not in a friendly hall.”

“It was forged here in Leth,” said Kasedre, his dark eyes glittering. “They say that the magic of the Witchfires themselves went into its forging. A Leth smith aided in the making of its hilt. I want to see it.”

“I never part with it,” said Morgaine softly. “I treasure it greatly. It was made by Chan, who was the dearest of my own companions, and by Leth Omry, as you say. Chan carried it a time, but he gave it to me before he died in Irien. It never leaves me, but I think kindly of friends in Leth when I remember its making.”

“Let us see it,” he said.

“It brings disaster wherever it is drawn,” she said, “and I do not draw it.”

“We ask this.”

“I would not—” the painted smile resumed, adamant—“chance any misfortune to the house of Leth. Do believe me.”

A pout was on Leth Kasedre’s features, a flush upon his sweating cheeks. His breathing grew quick and there was a sudden hush in the hall.

“We ask this,” he repeated.

“No,” said Morgaine. “This I will not.”

He snatched at it, and when she avoided his grasp, he spitefully snatched the book instead, whirled to his feet and cast it into the hearth, scattering embers.

The old scholar scuttled crabwise and sobbing after the book, spilling ink that dyed his robes. He rescued it and sat there brushing the little charring fire from its edges. His old lips moved as if he were speaking to it.

And Kasedre shrieked, railing upon his guests until the froth gathered at the corners of his mouth and he turned a most alarming purple. Ingratitude seemed the main burden of his accusations. He wept He cursed.

“ Qujalin witch,” be began to cry then. “Witch! Witch! Witch!”

Vanye was on his feet, not yet drawing, but sure he must.

Morgaine took a final sip of wine and gathered herself up also. Kasedre was still shouting. He raised his hand to her, trembled as if he did not quite have the courage to strike. Morgaine did not flinch; and Vanye began to ease his blade from the sheath.

Tumult had risen in the hall again: it died a sudden death, beginning at the door. There had appeared there a tall, thin man of great dignity, perhaps forty, fifty years in age. The silence spread. Kasedre began instead to whimper, to utter his complaints under his breath and petulantly.

And incredibly this apparition, this new authority, walked forward to kneel and do Kasedre proper reverence.

“Liell,” said Kasedre in a trembling voice.

“Clear the hall,” said Liell. His voice was sane and still and terrible.

There was no noise at all, even from the bandits at the rear; the uyin began to slink away. Kasedre managed to put up an act of defiance for a moment Liell stared at him. Then Kasedre turned and fled, running, into the shadows behind the curtains.

Liell bowed a formal and slight courtesy to them both.

“The well-renowned Morgaine of the Chya,” he said softly. Here was sanity. Vanye breathed a soft sigh of relief and let his sword slip back. “You are not the most welcome visitor ever to come to this hall,” Liell was saying, “but I will warn you all the same, Morgaine: whatever brought you back will send you hence again if you bait Kasedre. He is a child, but he commands others.”

“I believe we share clan,” she said, cold rebuff to his discourtesy. “I am adopted, kri Chya; but of one clan, you and I.”

He bowed again, seemed then to offer true respect. “Your pardon. You are a surprise to me. When the rumor came to me, I did not believe it. I thought perhaps it was some charlatan with a game to play. But you are quite the real thing, I see that. And who is this, this fellow?”

“It is all family,” Vanye said, a touch of insolence, that Liell had not been courteous with Morgaine. “I am Chya on my mother’s side.”

Liell bowed to him. For a moment those strangely frank eyes rested directly upon him, draining him of anger. “Your name, sir?”

“Vanye,” he said, shaken by that sudden attention.

“Vanye,” said Liell softly. “Vanye. Aye, that is a Chya name. But I have little to do with clan Chya here. I have other work... Lady Morgaine, let me see you to your rooms. You have stirred up quite a nest of troubles. I heard the shouting. I descended—to your rescue, if you will pardon me.”

Morgaine nodded him thanks and began to walk with him. Vanye, ignored now, fell in a few paces behind them and kept watch on the doors and corridors.

“I truly did not believe it at first,” said Liell. “I thought Kasedre’s humors were at work again, or that someone was taking advantage of him. His fantasies are elaborate. May I ask why—?”

Morgaine used that dazzling and false smile on Liell. “No,” she said, “I discuss my business with no one I chance to leave behind me. I will be on my way soon. I wish no help. Therefore what I do is of no moment here.”

“Are you bound for the territory of Chya?”

“I am clan-welcome there,” she said, “but I doubt it would be the same warmth of welcome I knew if I were to go there now. Tell me of yourself, Chya Liell. How does Leth fare these days?”

Liell waved an elegant hand at their surroundings. He was a graceful man, handsome and silver-haired; his dress was modest, night-blue. His shoulders lifted in a sigh. “You see how things are, lady, I am well sure. I manage to keep Leth whole, against the tide of events. As long as Kasedre keeps to his entertainments, Leth thrives. But its thin blood will not breed another generation. The sons and grandsons of Chya Zri—who, I know, found no favor in your eyes—still are the bulwark of Leth in its old age. They serve me well. That in hall—that is the get of Leth, such as remains.”

Morgaine refrained from comment. They began to mount the stairs. A pinched little face peered at them from the turning, withdrew quickly.

“The twins,” said Vanye.

“Ah,” said Liell. “Hshi and Tlin. Nasty characters, those.”

“Clever with their hands,” said Vanye sourly.

“They are Leth. Hshi is the harpist in kail. Tlin sings. They also steal. Do not let them in your rooms. I suspect it was Tlin who is responsible for your being here. The report was very like her misbehaviors.”

“Hardly necessary that she trouble herself,” said Morgaine. “My path necessarily led to Ra-leth. I had the mood to come this way. The girl could prove a noisome pest.”

“Please,” said Liell. “Leave the twins to me. They will not trouble you... What set Kasedre off tonight?”

“He became overexcited,” said Morgaine. “I take it that he does not often meet outsiders.”

“Not of quality, and not under these circumstances.”

They wound up the remaining stairs and came into the hall where their apartments were. The servants were busy at their tasks, lighting the lamps. They made great bows as Liell and Morgaine swept past them.

“Did you eat well?” Liell asked.

“We had sufficient,” she said.

“Sleep soundly, lady. Nothing will trouble you.” He made a formal bow as Morgaine went inside her own door, but as Vanye would have followed her, Liell prevented him with an outthrust arm.

Vanye stopped, hand upon hilt, but Liell’s purpose seemed speech, not violence. He leaned closer set a hand upon Vanye’s shoulder, a familiarity a man might use with a servant, talking to him quickly in whispers.

“She is in great danger,” said Liell. “Only I fear what she may do. She must leave here, and tonight. Earnestly I tell you this.” He leaned closed until Vanye’s back was against the wall, and the hand gripped his shoulder with great intensity. “Do not trust this and do not trust the twins above all else, and beware of any of Kasedre’s people.”

“Which you are not?”

“I have no interest in seeing this hall ruined—which could happen if Morgaine takes offense. Please. I know what she is seeking. Come with me and I will show you.”

Vanye considered it, gazed into the dark, sober eyes of the man. There was peculiar sadness in them, a magnetism that compelled trust. The strong fingers pressed into the flesh of his shoulder, at once ultimate and compelling.

“No,” he said. It was hard to force the words. “I am ilin. I take her orders, I do not arrange her business for her.”

And he tore himself from Liell’s fingers and sought the door, trembling so that he missed the latch, opened it and thrust it closed, securely, behind him. Morgaine looked at him questioningly, even offering concern. He said nothing to her. He felt sick inside, still fearing that he should have trusted Liell, and yet glad that he had not.

“We must get out of this place,” he urged her. “Now.”

“There are things yet to learn,” she said. “I only found the beginnings of answers. I would have the rest. I can have, if we remain.”

There was no disputing Morgaine. He curled up near their own little hearth, a small and smoky fireplace that heated the room from a common duct, warming himself on the stones. He left her the bed, did she choose to use it

She did not. She paced. Eventually the restlessness assumed a kind of rhythm, and ceased to be maddening. Just when he had grown used to that, she settled. He saw her by the window, staring out into the dark, through a crack in the shutters, an opening that let a further draft into their chill room.

“Folk never seem to sleep in Leth-hall,” she commented to him finally, when he had changed his posture to keep his joints from going stiff. “There are torches about in the snow.”

He muttered an answer and sighed, glanced away uncomfortably as she turned from the window then and began to turn down the bed. She slipped off the overrobe and laid it across the foot, laid aside her other gear, hung upon the end-post, and cloth tunic and the fine, light mail, itself the worth of many kings of the present age, boots and the warmth of her leather undertunic, stretched in the luxury of freedom from the weight of armor, slim and womanly, in riding breeches and a thin lawn shirt. He averted his eyes a second time toward nothing in particular, heard her ease within the bed, make herself comfortable.

“Thee does not have to be overnice,” she murmured when he looked back. “Thee is welcome to thy half.”

“It is warm here,” he answered, miserable on the hard stone and wishing that he had not seen her as he had seen her. She meant the letter of her offer, no more; he knew it firmly, and did not blame her. He sat by the fire, ilin and trying to remind himself so, his arms locked together until his muscles ached. Servant to this. Walking behind her. To lie unarmored next to her was harmless only so long as she meant to keep it so.

Qujal. He clenched that thought within his mind and cooled his blood with that remembrance. Qujal, and deadly. A man of honest human birth had no business to think otherwise.

He remembered Liell’s urging. The sanity in the man’s eyes attracted him, promised, assured him that there did exist reason somewhere. He regretted more and more that he had not listened to him. There was no longer the excuse of his well-being that kept them in Ra-leth. His fever was less. He examined his hand that her medications had treated, found it scabbed over and only a little red about the wound, the swelling abated. He was weak in the joints but he could ride. There was no further excuse for her staying, but that she wanted something of Kasedre and his mad crew, something important enough to risk both their lives.

It was intolerable. He felt sympathy for Liell, a sane man condemned to live in this nightmare. He understood that such a man might yearn for something other, would be concerned to watch another man of sense fall into the web.

“Lady.” He came and knelt by the bed, disturbing her sleep. “Lady, let us be out of here.”

“Go to sleep,” she bade him. “There is nothing to be done tonight. The place is astir like a broken hive.”

He returned to his misery by the fire, and after a time began to nod.

There was a scratching at the door. Minute as it was, it became sinister in all that silence. It would not cease. He started to wake Morgaine, but he had disturbed her once; he did not venture her patience again. He sought his sword, both frightened and self-embarrassed at his fear: it was likely only the rats.

Then he saw, slowly, the latch lift. The door began to open. It stopped against the chair. He rose to his feet, and Morgaine waked and reached for her own weapon.

“Lady,” came a whisper, “it is Liell. Let me in. Quickly.”

Morgaine nodded. Vanye eased the chair aside, and Liell entered as softly as possible, eased the door shut again. He was dressed in a cloak as if for traveling.

“I have provisions for you and a clear way to the stables,” he said. “Come. You must come. You may not have another chance.”

Vanye looked at Morgaine, shaped the beginning of a plea with his lips. She frowned and suddenly nodded. “What effect on you, Chya Liell, for this treason?”

“Loss of my head if I am caught. And loss of a hall to live in if Kasedre’s clan attacks you, as I fear they will, with or without his wishing it. Come, lady, come. I will guide you from here. They are all quiet, even the guards. I put melorne in Kasedre’s wine at bedside. He will not wake, and the others are not suspecting. Come.”

There was no one stirring in the hall outside. They trod the stairs carefully, down and down the several turns that led them to main level. A sentry sat in a chair by the door, head sunk upon his breast. Something about the pose jarred the senses: the right hand hung at the man’s side in a way that looked uncomfortable for anyone sober.

Drugged too, Vanye thought. They walked carefully past the man nonetheless, up to the very door.

Then Vanye saw the wet dark stain that dyed the whole front of the man’s robe, less conspicuous on the dark fabric. Suspicion leaped up. It chilled him, that a man was killed so casually.

“Your work?” he whispered at Liell, in Morgaine’s hearing. He did not know whom he warned: he only feared, and thought it well that whoever was innocent mark it now and be advised.

“Hurry,” said Liell, easing open the great door. They were out in the front courtyard, where one great evergreen shaded them into darkness. “This way lies the stables. Everything is ready.”

They kept to the shadows and ran. More dead men lay at the stable door. It suddenly occurred to Vanye that Liell had an easy defense against any charge of murder: that they themselves would be called the killers.

And if they refused to come, Liell would have been in difficulty. He had risked greatly, unless murder were only trivial in this hall, among madmen.

He stifled in such dread thoughts. He yearned to break free of Leth’s walls. The quick thrust of a familiar velvet nose in the dark, the pungency of hay and leather and horse purged his lungs of the cloying decay of Leth-hall. He had his own bay mare in hand, swung up to her back; and Morgaine thrust the dragon blade into its accustomed place on her saddle and mounted Siptah.

Then he saw Liell lead another horse out of the shadows, likewise saddled.

“I will see you safely to the end of Leth’s territories,” he said. “No one here questions my authority to come and go. I am here and I am not, and at the moment, I think it best I am not.”

But a shadow scurried from their path as they rode at a quiet walk through the yard, a shadow double-bodied and small. A patter of feet hurried to the stones of the walk.

Liell swore. It was the twins.

“Ride now,” he said, “There is no hiding it longer.”

They put their heels to the horses and reached the gate. Here too were dead men, three of them. Liell sharply ordered Vanye to see to the gate, and Vanye sprang down and heaved the bar up and the gate open, throwing himself out of the way as the black horse of Liell and gray Siptah hurtled past him, bearing the two into the night.

He hurled himself to the back of the bay mare—poor pony, not the equal of those two beasts—and urged her after them with the sudden terror that death itself was stirring and waking behind them.