Exiles Gate com-4

by C. J. Cherryh

  Chei said nothing at all. He looked from one to the other of them, and for a long while Morgaine stood by the streamside, arms folded, staring off into the gathering dark.

  Vanye buried their fire, and went down to wash the single pan they had used.

  "Thee confuses me," Morgaine said, standing behind him as he rinsed the pan. "Thee considerably confuses me."

  It was not, precisely, what he had expected her to say.

  "Then," he said, "we confuse each other."

  "What will you?"

  That was not the question he was prepared for either—or it was the earnestness of it which confounded him.

  "What will you?" He turned from the stream, for he sensed her precisely where she was, her back turned to their prisoner and the horses; and all manner of mischief possible. "I have no idea—"

  "Thee does not kneel."

  "I am washing the cursed dish," he retorted, "and you have your back to the man. Do you trust him that much?"

  "Now thee is watching. I trust that thee is watching. What will thee? To let him free? Ride in among his folk, on his guidance? Or do we kill him or leave him for the wolves?"

  "Ah. I thought it was his oath we trusted."

  She drew in a sharp breath, and said nothing at all as he got to his feet. They were of a height. He stood lower on the bank. And for a long moment he did not move.

  "Or," he said, "do you think we should not trust his guidance? Lord in Heaven, you took his oath. Did you count me so lightly? I do not recall my pledge was much different."

  "Thee is Kurshin," she said, and recalled to him what he had forgotten: that it was more than the language she spoke, that she was, perhaps to a greater extent than he had thought—Andurin, out of the woodland cantons of his own land.

  "You will not let me remember it," he said, and jutted a clenched jaw toward the man who waited by the dead fire. "He is human. But it is not considering my scruples you took his oath. You deceived him and you refused to confide in me. Why?"

  "I do not deceive you."

  "You do not tell the truth."

  "Thee pleaded for his life."

  "I had as soon have left him at the last camp, where he had some choice where to go. I had as soon gone further west from the beginning and come up through the hills."

  She pressed her lips together in that way she had when she had said all she would. So their arguments tended to end—himself with the last word, and Morgaine lapsed into one of her silences that could last for hours and evaporate at the last as if there had never been a word of anger.

  But always Morgaine did as she would—would simply ride her own way, if he would not go with her; there was no reasoning with her.

  "I will get your cursed horse," he said.

  She drew a sharp breath. "We will go his way, by the trails."

  He felt his face go hot. "So we walk turn and turn."

  "I did not ask that."

  "That is a wounded man. How much do you think he can do?"

  "I am willing to wait here. Did I not say as much?"

  "Wait here! With the enemy over the next hill!"

  "What would you?"

  Now it was he who found no words. He only stood there a moment, half-choked with anger; then bowed his head and walked on past her, back to put the pan with their gear.

  Chei looked at him with the same bewilderment, his eyes jerking from one to the other—lastly toward Morgaine, who came and sat down on her heels beside them.

  Vanye sat as he was a moment, jabbing at the ground with a stick between his knees. "I reckon," he said mildly, "that we could make the back trails. If Chei and I rode and walked by turns."

  Morgaine rested her arms on her knees, her brow on the heels of her hands. Then she dropped her arms and sat down cross-legged. "Myself," she said, "I am not of a mind to be inconvenienced by this Gault of Morund."

  A touch of renewed panic hit him. "Liyo —"

  "On the other hand," she said, "your suggestion is reasonable. Unless our guide knows where we might find horses, otherwise."

  "Not except we raise the countryside," Chei said in a faint voice.

  "How far a journey—clear of his lands?"

  "By morning we are clear."

  Vanye rested the stick in both his hands, "In the name of Heaven," he said in the Kurshin tongue, "he will tell you whatever he thinks will save his life: he was wrong this morning, and we rode under sun and in the open."

  "Trusting him is thy advice, and first it is aye and then nay—which do I believe?"

  "I am a Man. I can trust him without believing him. Or trust him in some things and not in others. He is desperate, do you understand. Wait here. I will go and steal you a horse."

  "Enough on the horse!"

  "I swear to you—"

  "Vanye—"

  "Or lord Gault's own cursed horse, if you like! But I should not like to leave you with this man. That would be my worry, liyo. Leaving you here, I would tie him to a tree, and I would not take his word how far it is across this cursed lord's land. I will tell you what I had rather do: I had rather do without the horse, strike out due west, far from here, and come north well within the hills."

  "Except it needs much too long."

  "Too long, too long—God in Heaven, liyo, it needs nothing but that we ride quietly, carefully, that we arrive in our own good time and disturb no one. I thought we had agreed."

  "He named a name," Morgaine said.

  "What, he? Chei? What name?"

  "Skarrin, in Mante. This lord in the north."

  His heart clenched up. "Someone you know?"

  "Only an old name. We may be in great danger, Vanye. We may be in very great danger."

  For a moment there was only the sound of the wind in the leaves.

  "Of what sort?" he asked. "Who?"

  "In the north," she said. "I am not certain, mind. It is only a very old name—and this north-lord may be an old man, very old, does thee mark me. And once he knows his danger, there are measures he might take which could trap us here. Does thee understand me?"

  "Who is he?"

  " I do not know who he is. I know what he is. Or I guess. And if I bind this man by oaths and any promise I can take from him—I do not loose him near that gate behind us, does thee understand? From Morund I might gain something. From Morund I might draw this north-lord south, out of reach of his own gate. But thee may be right—there is the chance too that this Gault is mad, and that there is no dealing with him."

  "With a man who feeds his enemies to wolves?"

  "With a devil, there is dealing—sometimes far easier than with an honest man. And by everything Chei has told us, there are Men enough among the qhal and not the other way about, so we need not worry for thy sake. But thee says trust this Man, and trust ourselves to his folk—"

  "I did not say that!"

  "What does thee say? Leave him? Kill him? Is that what thee is asking? Or ride on with him? We are too far into this to camp, and if this lord Gault finds us skulking about without his leave, that brings us to a fight or to Morund-gate, under worse terms."

  Vanye raked his hair out of his eyes, where it fell forward of the braid, and raked it back again, resting his elbows on his knees.

  In Andur-Kursh, Men would shoot a qhal on sight.

  "Has Chei ever heard my other name? Did you by any chance tell it to him?"

  "I do not know," he said, dismayed. "The one the Shiua used?" And when she nodded: "I do not know. I think not. I am not sure. I did not know—"

  "Do not speak it. Ever. And do not ask me now."

  He glanced at Chei, who stared at him and at her as his only hope of safety—his life, Chei surely sensed hung in the balance in this dispute he could not follow. It was a sensible man, Vanye thought, whose eyes followed all their moves, but who had the sense to hold his peace. "He is surely wondering what we say—Heaven knows what he understands of us—but in God's good mercy, liyo —"

  She rose and walked back to Chei; and he ros
e and followed.

  "Can you walk?" Morgaine asked in the qhalur tongue, looking to Chei. "Do you think you can walk through the night?"

  "Yes," Chei said.

  "He is telling you anything he thinks he must," Vanye said in the other. "He fears you. He fears to refuse any qhal, that is the trouble with him. Let him ride and I will walk, and let us go the trails he says he knows, quietly as we may. That is my advice. That is all the advice I have. Quickly and quietly, and without bruising a leaf. It is Men here I had rather trust. And you know that it is not my human blood makes me say it: I had no such feeling in the arrhend, and you well know it."

  "My conscience," she named him. "And has thee forgotten—it is a world's honest men who will always fight us. I dread them, Vanye, I do dread them, more than the Gaults and all the rest."

  "Not here," he said with conviction. "Not here, liyo. Nor, let me remind you, in my land, where you found me."

  "Ah, no. Thee saw only the end of it. In Andur-Kursh I did my very worst. And most I killed were my friends." It was rare she would speak of that. There was a sudden bleakness in her face, as if it were carved of bone, and as if there were only the qhal-blood in her and nothing else. "But thee says it: this is not Andur-Kursh. Thee trusts this man, and I had rather be where I know what a man stands to gain—have I not said I have no virtue? But so be it. I do not say I have always been right, either. We will go his way."

  He was frightened then, with a fear not unlike the moments before battle.

  The north, she had said—an old enemy. And he argued against her instincts which had saved them a hundred times over, however unlikely her choices.

  Heaven save them, who in this land could know her name, when they had never passed this way in their lives, nor had aught to do with the people of it?

  "We are going on," he said to Chei, who looked at them with bewilderment. "I will walk. You ride. My liege thinks it too much risk to venture Morund for a horse."

  There was still the bewilderment in Chei's eyes. And gratitude. "She is right," he said, in innocence.

  He did not want to take it for omen.

  He went up to the ridge and fetched the horses down. He saddled them, and arranged their gear.

  "Get up," he said then to Chei, who waited, no more enlightened than before. "I am leading the horse. From time to time we will trade places."

  "And hereafter," Morgaine said, touching Chei on the shoulder before he could get to the saddle, "should we meet anyone, if you have heard any other name than Morgaine and Vanye—consider your own safety and forget that ever you heard it: there are those who would do worse to you than ever Gault did, to have their hands on anyone who knew different—and you could not tell them what they would want. Do not ask me questions. For your own sake."

  "Lady," Chei said to her, half-whispering. He looked straight into her eyes close at hand, and his face was pale. "Aye, lady."

  Vanye walked, the qhal-witch rode, when they had come down the streamside and found that trail Chei knew—that narrow track the fey-minded deer and determined borderers took which ended, often with like result, on Gault's land.

  Chei watched them from his vantage—the qhalur witch, the man who deferred to her at most times and argued with her with a reckless violence that made his gut tighten instinctively; a man knew, a Man knew lifelong, that the qhal-lords were not patient of such familiarity—or Vanye himself had deceived him, and was not human. But he could not believe that when he looked in Vanye's brown and often-worried eyes, or when Vanye would do him some small and unnecessary kindness or take his side—he knew that Vanye had done that—in argument.

  What these two were to each other he still could not decide. He had watched all their movements, the gestures, the little instants that an expression would soften, or she would touch his arm at times when she gave an order—but never did he touch her in that same way or truly bid her anything, for all he might raise his voice and dispute her.

  They are lovers, he thought sometimes. Then he was equally sure that they were not—not, in the way the man deferred to her: my lady, Vanye would say; or my liege, or a third word he did not understand, but which likely signified the same.

  Now they raged at each other, argued in voices half-whisper, half-shout, in which debate he—Vanye had said it—was undoubtedly the center of matters.

  It was not the threat to his life that bewildered him. It was that there was argument possible at all. And between arguments he saw a thing he had never, in all his life, beheld. He watched them in a fascination which, increasing, absorbed his fear.

  Unholy, he thought. But there seemed profound affection between them. There was more than that—but not in the way of any man and any woman he had known. It was that loyalty which bound the bands together.

  It was that devotion for which men had followed Ichandren till he died.

  It was that motion of the heart which he thought had died in him; and it ached of a sudden, it ached so that he rode along with the branches and the leaves raking him, and the tears running down his face—not fear such as he had felt in the night, but a quiet ache, for no reason at all that he could think of except he was alone.

  He reckoned even that it was a spell the witch had cast over him, that from the time she surprised him with that look into his eyes, from that moment his soul had been snared. Now he found himself weeping again—for Falwyn and the rest, and for Bron and Ichandren his lord, and even for his father, which was foolish, because his father was many years dead.

  He was weak, that was all. When the lady reined back and the man stopped the horse under them, saying they would rest, he was ashamed, and pretended exhaustion, keeping his face toward the horse as he climbed down.

  So he sat with them, at the side of what had become a dirt track, and tucked his knees up and bowed his head against his arms so he should not have to show his eyes damp.

  He should find some means to get a weapon and break from them—in this night, in this tangle he knew and they did not. The man he had once been would have done something to resist them, be it only slide off the horse and hope that he could put brush between them and him, and lie hidden.

  But he let go his hopes in all other directions. He began truly to mean the oath that he had sworn. He wiped his face, disguising tears as sweat, despite the night air, and took the cup of water they passed him, and took their concern—for all that he had thought Vanye's earlier anger was half for him, Vanye's hand was gentle on his shoulder, his voice was gentle as he inquired was he faint.

  "No," he said. "No. I will walk a while."

  "Horses will fly," Vanye muttered to that. "We have half the night gone. What do we look to find ahead?"

  "I will know the border," he said. "We have come halfway."

  "As you knew the plains yonder?"

  "This, I know," he insisted, anxious, and found the stirrup as the lady mounted up. He heaved himself into the saddle and took his seat as the horse started to move, Vanye walking ahead on the road, defined in a ray of moonlight and gone again, ghostly warrior in forest-color and mail and leather, the white scarf about his helm, the sheen of the sword hilt at his shoulders the most visible aspect of him. And the lady was no more than gray horse and shadow: she had put on her cloak and the dark hood made her part of the night.

  Only he himself was visible, truly visible, to any ambush—helmless, in a pale linen shirt and astride the white mare that shone like a star in the dark. He thought of arrows, thought of the gates of Morund which lay beyond the woods, across the ancient Road.

  He thought of Ichandren's skull bleaching there, and the bodies of the others cast on Morund's midden heap, and shivered in the wind, taking up his gray blanket again and wrapping it about himself partly for the cold and partly that he felt all too visible and vulnerable. He trembled; his teeth chattered if he did not clench them, and every measured tread of the horse beneath him, the whisper of the wind, the small sounds of the night—seemed all part of a terrible dream begun at Gyllin-br
ook.

  He had ridden this way, part of Ichandren's band. In those days they had been Gault's allies; in those days they had won victories. For a few years there had seemed to be a turning in their fortunes against the northlord.

  It was the same road. But the boy who had traveled it, keen on revenge for both mother and father, on winning a sure victory against the thing Gault had become . . . had become a thin and beaten man, much the wiser, in the company of strangers and on a journey which at one moment seemed swift and full of turns, and in this forever-lasting night—such a peak of terror that it could not last; as the things they did to his comrades could not last; as the nights atop the hill could not last: there was always a morning, and done was done, and a man survived somehow, that was all—but O God, the hours between, that a man had to live. . . .

  They rested yet again. Quietly the woman spoke—some suggestion which Vanye refused: perhaps, Chei thought, it was to put him off the horse and make him walk a time. And Vanye would not, whatever it was, which imagined kindness reassured him and made him warmer in the long night.

  But he was afraid with a growing fear—that he had not accurately reckoned their pace: the rides he recalled had been swift and none of them had been afoot. Once he had misjudged the plains: that was the mistake of a shock-dazed memory. But now he misjudged again—he knew that he had, and that safety was further than daylight at the pace they were setting; and more difficult than he had thought, for the shock was done and the mind began reckoning clearly again, that since Ichandren was lost—any situation might prevail and the borders might have moved as they did after battles: things might not be what they had been and it was not to a known land that he was returning.

  Nor was it any longer a known land in which he was both guide and hostage.

  And to confess to them the fact that he had twice mistaken the distance—or given them false assurance—

  He moistened his lips. He shifted his weight in the saddle. "Man," he whispered. "Vanye."

  Then something else came to his ears beyond wind and leaf-whisper and the sound of their own horses. Vanye stopped the horse. The lady reined back and circled back toward them, then stopped again in mid-turn.