Gate of Ivrel

by C. J. Cherryh

  They had three horses: Siptah; the ungrateful black, who tried to bite and desisted sullenly with a rap of the quirt along his jaw; and Ryn's dun horse, hardly fine-blooded, but long in the legs and deep in the chest.

  Vanye estimated that the beast might hold the courses they set, at least as long as need be; and the youth could ride: he was Morij, and Nhi.

  "Leave the harp," Vanye protested when he saw the thing slung on the youth's back, as they led their horses out into the starlight. "The rattle of it will kill us all."

  "No," said the youth flatly, which was what one might expect of Nhi Ryn Paren's-son. And rather than snatch it from him and delay for argument, Vanye cast a stern look at Morgaine, for he knew that the boy would heed her word.

  But she forebore to do anything, and, effectively set in his place, Vanye led the black after Siptah's tail, until they were at the comer. There was a gate to be opened: he led the black to that point and heaved back the rusty bolt, shouldered it wide; and Morgaine and Ryn thundered through, Vanye only an instant slower, springing to the saddle and laying heels to the animal. Siptah's white tail flipped gay insolence as the big gray took the retaining wall, warning Vanye what he had forgotten over the years: that there was a jump there. Ryn took it; his own black gathered and jolted down to a landing, skidding downslope, haunches down like a bird in landing, for the grass was wet.

  And arrows flew. Vanye tucked down to the black's opposite side, making himself as inconspicuous as possible. He hoped the others had the same sense. But through the black's flying mane he saw a streak of red fire, 157

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  Morgaine's handweapon; and there was silence from that quarter then, no more arrows. Whether she had hit anything firing blind, he did not know, but they were Morij, those men, and in his heart he hoped that the archers had simply lost heart and run.

  Bruising force hit his side. He gasped and nearly lost his grip for the pain of it, and he knew that he had been hit: but no arrow at that range could pierce the mail. His worst fears were for the vulnerable horse. It went against Morij honor to hit a man's horse, but here was no chivalry. These men must face Erij if they let them through, and that was no pleasant prospect for them.

  They were near the end of the pass. He laid heels to the black and drove him harder, and the panicked beast gathered himself, saliva spattering back against Vanye's leg as the horse took the rein he wanted. He passed even Siptah, answered to main force as Vanye hauled his head round toward the north again, toward the cleft of Baien's pass through the hills, and leaped forward under the brutal impact of Vanye's heels. In that instant he almost loved the vile beast: there was heart in him.

  Morgaine, low in the saddle, was by him again: Siptah's head, nostrils wide, was alongside with the starlight in his white mane. Unaccountably Morgaine laughed, reached out a hand to him that did not touch, and clung again to the mane.

  And they were through. Beyond all range of archers, safe on Baien's level plain, they were through, and Vanye reined down the snorting black and brought him to a stop, only then remembering the youth who rode in their wake. He came, a good bowshot behind them, and they both waited—silent, Vanye reckoned, in the same concern, that the boy might have been hit, for he rode low in the saddle.

  But he was well enough, pale-faced in the dim light when he rode in between them, but unscathed. The dun horse was spent, his rump sinking on one side as if he favored that leg, and Vanye dismounted to see to it: an arrow had ripped the hide and perhaps hung for a time. He explored the wound with his fingers, found it not dangerously deep.

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  "He will last," Vanye pronounced. "There will be time later."

  "Then let us be off," Morgaine said, rising in the stirrups to look behind them, even while he climbed back into the saddle. "The surprise of the matter will not last long. They had not seen me fire before; now they have, and they will accustom themselves to the idea and recover their courage about it."

  "Where will you?" Vanye asked.

  "To Ivrel," she answered.

  "Lady, Baien's hold lies almost athwart our path. They were hearth-friends to you once. It may be we could shelter there a time if we reached them before Erij."

  "I do not trust hold or hall this near Ivrel," she said. "No."

  They rode, an easy pace now, for the horses were spent and might be called on again to run; and soon the fire of whatever thing had entered his veins was spent as well, and he felt his senses going. His side hurt miserably. He felt of the place and found broken links in the mesh, but little hurt beneath. Assured then that was not bleeding his life away, he hooked one leg over the high bow of the saddle, and wrapped his arms tightly about him for support, and so gave himself to sleep.

  Bells woke him.

  He looked up and eased cramped muscles out of their long-held position, and saw to his shame that Ryn led his horse, and that it was well into morning. They filed along a peaceful pineshaded lane by the side of a stone wall.

  He leaned forward and took the reins, beginning to realize where they were, for he had visited this place in his youth. It was the Monastery of Baien-an, the largest in all Andur-Kursh that still remained safe and occupied by the Gray Fathers. He rode forward to join Morgaine, wondering whether she knew what this place was, or if she had been led to 159

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  it on Ryn's advice, for here was an abundance of witnesses to her passing, and a place that could not be friendly to her.

  Brothers tending their wall paused at their work in wonder. A few started forward as they might to welcome travelers, and then hesitated, and seemed to abandon the idea altogether, their faces bewildered. They were gentle men. Vanye had no fear of them.

  And there was a terrible weariness upon Morgaine's face, pain, as if her wound troubled her. He saw that, and bit his lip in reckoning. "Do you think to stay here?" he asked of her.

  "I do not think that the Abbot would abide that," she said.

  "I do not think that you are fit for much further riding," he said. And he saw also the youth Ryn, who was shadow-eyed, and miserable; and he reckoned that pursuit would not look to find them here.

  He reined the black in by the gate, for he remembered a guesthouse that was kept by the abbey, probably little used in winter, but it was there for such persons as were not acceptable within the holy walls.

  He brought them there, asking no permission, taking them past the wondering eyes of the Brothers in the yard, and into the privacy of the house beyond its evergreen hedge. There he dismounted, and held up his hands to help Morgaine down as he might a lady: she tried awkwardly to accept his help, better suited to dismounting on her own, but her leg gave with her when she touched the ground, and she leaned upon his arm, thanking him with a weary nod and a look of her gray eyes.

  "There is sanctuary here," he said. "It is the law. There will none touch us here, and if the place is surrounded… well, we will reckon with that when it happens."

  She nodded again, plainly at the end of her strength, and a sorry three they were, she and the youth and a warrior so stiff with bruises and wounds that he could scarcely manage to climb the steps himself.

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  There were no other guests. He was thankful for that, and helped Morgaine to the first of the several cots, before he went out to tend the horses and bring Morgaine's gear into the room: she was concerned with that above all else, he knew, and she gave him a grateful look before she tucked the dreadful sword into her arms and sank down upon the bare mattress.

  Ryn helped him with the horses, and carried all their gear and their saddles into the guesthouse; and afterward Ryn joined him in the stables and stood by with concern in his eyes as Vanye applied some of their cooking oil to the wound in the dun's rump.

  "He will not go lame," Vanye judged. "It was an arrow mostly spent, and it is not the season for pests to infest the wound. Oil will ease it, but it will scar, I think."


  Ryn walked with him back to the guesthouse, a short distance hence, among the tall pines and the hedge. The bells had fallen silent now, the Brothers filing in to their prayers.

  There was a difference in Ryn. He did not quickly decide what it was, but that a boy had slung harp on his back and ridden after Morgaine from Ra-morij; it was a tired, older youth that walked beside him in the daylight and observed things in silence. Ryn carried himself differently. He walked with a bearing as out of place in these pine-rimmed lanes as Vanye's own.

  They had ridden out of Baien-ei and he had ridden hindmost; there was a new hardness to his eye that had learned to reckon more than to wonder.

  Vanye took account of that new silence in him, estimated it, clapped a weary hand upon his shoulder when they had come into the guesthouse.

  He lowered his voice, for Morgaine seemed asleep.

  "I shall watch," Vanye said. "I am not good for long; yours is next, then hers."

  The youth Ryn might have found some silly protest; he had been sullen at his father's orders when they first rode together into Morija. Now he nodded assent to that justice of things, and sought a bare cot himself, 161

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  while Vanye took his sword and set himself on the front steps of the guesthouse, point set between his feet, hands gripping the quillons, head leaned against its hilt. In such position he could stay awake enough. In such a manner he had watched many a night on the road.

  And considering himself then, he reflected wryly that he had seen such occupations of Morija's lower guesthall only when there was some marginally honorable hill-clan passing through, bound for other pastures and asking road-right. Some bandit chief asleep in the guesthouse, his men lounging about swilling cheap wine and scarring the furniture with their feet, while, seal upon the door, some man more villainous looking than the rest sat the steps as door-warden, sword in arms and a sour expression on his face, terrifying the boys who lurked to see what visitors had come among them.

  It was a warning to other would-be guests that they would be mad to seek that shelter, and must look elsewhere. Villainy had possessed the only beds, and unless the lords in the hall would take arms and dispossess them, so it would remain until the morning.

  So the Brothers found him.

  He came fully awake at the first tread upon the flagstone walk, and sat there with his sword between his knees while the gray-robed Brothers came cautiously up to the steps with earthen jars of food.

  They bowed, hands tucked in robes. Vanye recognized innocent courtesy when it was offered and made as profound a bow as he could from his seated posture.

  "May we ask?" It was the traditional question. It could be refused. Vanye bowed again, full courtesy to the honest Brothers.

  "We are outlaws," he said, "and I have stolen, and we have killed no few men in the direction from which we come: but none in Baien. We will not touch flock nor herd, nor field of yours, nor do violence to any of the house. We ask sanctuary."

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  "Are—" There was hesitance in the question, which was always asked, if questions were asked at the granting of sanctuary. "Are all among you true and human blood?"

  Morgaine had not worn the hood when she rode in; and she was, in the white furs and with her coloring, very like the legends, one survivor of which had come to die a holy man at Baien-an.

  "One of us may not be," he acknowledged, "but she avows at least she is not qujal. " Their gentle eyes were much troubled at that answer; and perhaps through the legends they knew who and what she was, if sanity would let them believe it.

  "We give shelter," they said, "to all that enter here under peace, even to those of tainted blood and those that company with them, if they should need it. We thank you for telling us. We will purify the house after you have gone. This was courtesy on your part, and we will respect your privacy. Are you a human man?"

  "I am human born," he said, and returned their bows of farewell.

  "Brothers," he added when they began to turn away. They looked back, suntanned faces and gentle eyes and patient manner all one, as if one heart animated them. "Pray for me," he said; and then because some charity on his part was usually granted for that: "I have no alms to give you."

  They bowed together. "That is of no account. We will pray for you," said one. And they went away.

  The sunshine felt cold when they had done so. He could not sleep, and watched far beyond the time that he should have called Ryn to take his place. As last, when he was very weary, he went down the steps and gathered up the earthen jars and took them inside, letting Ryn replace him on the step.

  Morgaine wakened. There was black bread and honey and salted butter, a crock of broth and another of boiled beans, which both were cooling, but wonderful to Morgaine, whose fare had been less delicate than his the last 163

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  many days, he suspected; and he took Ryn his portion out upon the step, and the youth ate as if he were famished.

  The Brothers brought down great armloads of hay and buckets of grain for their horses, which Vanye saw to, storing the grain in saddlebags against future need; and in the peace of the evening, with the sun headed toward the western mountains, Ryn sat in the little doorway and took his harp and played quiet songs, his sensitive fingers tuning and meddling with the strings in such a way that even that seemed pleasant. Some of the Brothers came down from the hill to stand by the gate and listen to the harper. Ryn smiled at them in an absent way. But they grew grave and sober-eyed when Morgaine appeared in the doorway; some blessed themselves in dread of her, and this seemed greatly to sadden her. She bowed them courtesy all the same, which most returned, and retired to the inner hearth, and the warmth of the fire.

  "We must be out of this place tonight," she said when Vanye knelt there beside her.

  He was surprised. "Liyo, there is no safer place for us to be."

  "I am not looking for a refuge: my aim is Ivrel, and that is all. This is my order, Vanye."

  "Aye," he said, and bowed. She looked at him when he straightened again and frowned.

  "What is this?" she asked of him, and gestured toward the back of her own neck, and his hand lifted, encountered the ragged edge of his hair, and his face went hot.

  "Do not ask me," he said.

  "Thee is ilin," she said, a tone that reproved such a shameful thing. And then: "Was it done, or did thee—?"

  "It was my choice."

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  "What chanced in Ra-morij, between you and your brother?"

  "Do you bid me tell you?"

  Her lips tightened, her gray eyes bore into him, perhaps reading misery.

  "No," she said.

  It was not like her to leave things unknown, where it might touch her safety. He acknowledged her trust, grateful for it, and settled against the warm stones of the hearth, listening to the harp, watching Ryn's rapt face silhouetted against the dying light, the pine-dotted hill beyond, the monastery and church with the bell-tower. This was beauty, earthly and not, the boy with the harp. The song paused briefly: a lock of hair fell across Ryn's face and he brushed it back, anchored it behind an ear. Not yet of the warriors, this youth, but about to be, when he made his choice.

  His honor, his pride, were both untouched.

  The hands resumed their rippling play over the strings, quiet, pleasant songs, in tribute to the place, and to the Brothers, who listened.

  Then the vesper bell sounded, drawing the gray lines of monks back into their holiness on the hill, and the light began to leave them quickly.

  They finished the food the Brothers gave them, and gave themselves by turns to sleep for most of the night.

  Then Morgaine, whose watch it was, shook them and bade them up and make ready.

  The red line of dawn was appearing on the horizon.

  They were quickly armed and the horses saddled, and Morgaine warmed herself a last time by the fire and looked about the room, s
eeming distressed. "I do not think that they would have any parting-gift of me,"

  she said at last. "And there is nothing I have anyway."

  "They bade us be free of the matter," Vanye assured her, and it was certain that his own gear was innocent of anything valuable to the Brothers.

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  Ryn searched his own things, took out a few coins and left them on the bed, a few pennies— it was all.

  It was upon the road with the morning light still barely bringing color to things that Vanye remembered the harp, and did not find it about the person of Ryn.

  There was instead only the bow slung from his shoulders, and he was strangely sorry for that. Later he saw Morgaine realize the same thing, and open her lips to speak; but she did not. It was Ryn's choice.

  It was said by men of Baien that Baien-an was a fragment left from the making of Heaven. However that was, it was true that this place surpassed even Morija for fairness. Winter though it was, the golden grass and green cedar gave it grace, and the mighty range of Kath Vrej and Kath Svejur embraced the valley with great ridges crowned with snow. There was a straight road, with hedges beside it— one did not see hedges kept so anywhere else but in Baien— and twice they saw villages off the road, golden-thatched and somnolent in the wintry sun, with white flocks of sheep grazing near like errant clouds.

  And once they must pass through a village, where children huddled wide-eyed at their mothers' skirts and men paused with their work in hand, as if they were held between rushing to arms or bidding them good day.

  Morgaine kept her hood upon her at that time, but if there was not the strangeness of her, riding astride and with the sword-sheath under her knee, there was Siptah himself, who had been foaled in this land, before all the great herd of king Tiffwy had been taken by Hjemur's bandits.