Exile's Gate (21 page)

"God in Heaven—"

But it was not a simple thing that she meant. It was all that she was. It was the whole that she was.

Chei, then, was not the one she had meant—
be his friend. Let him go.

He took her face between
his hands. He kissed her on the brow, and on either cheek, as a man
might his kin. He kissed her a third time on the lips, not after the
same fashion. It was desperate; it became passionate, and her arms came
around him, while the tumult went on outside.

Then he remembered she had
not wanted this, and he heard the arrival of the horses out beside the
shelter; and reckoned that there was too much of ill in this place and
too much chance of disturbance and too much that they risked. Perhaps
she had the same sense of things. He separated himself from her in
consternation, and she touched his face.

"I think they have brought
the horses," she said, foolish for the moment as he was, one heartbeat,
one way of thinking, one intention between them, and all of it sliding
in that way a dream might—coming apart and passing into the ordinary.

"Aye," he said, feeling
himself still breathing in time with her, and all the world having
shifted in its balances, and still reeling. He drew another breath.
"Best I see where the rest of our gear is."

And outside, with the
horses, dealing with the several men who tried with little success to
deal with the gray—"Let him be," he said, and took the reins himself.
"Put the tack over there—" He gave orders while the figures at the fire
moved darkly against the glare, and shouts rang out, and his mind was
dangerously busier with his liege than it was with Arunden's men and
with Chei and Bron, who had deserted them.

"Whoa, whoa," he whispered
to the gray stud, and to the mare, the both of which were unsettled by
the place, the fire, the strangers about them. He spoke to them in his
own tongue, he stroked them with his hands.

It was strange that he
could suddenly be so content to stay a night in this wretched place, or
that he could suddenly put the matter of Chei and Chei's betrayals out
of his mind. He went back in, he shared a supper of yesterday's bread
and a little honey and a sip of their own arrhendur liquor, and somehow
they sat closer together than they were wont, and leaned together,
armored that they were—and not, after all, fools enough to shed it,
whatever the temptation.

"There is time," she said
against his cheek, when they were also fools enough to lie down
together, because it was easier than to move elsewhere.

And what she had said somehow frightened him, like an ill omen.

There was a third presence by them, an unliving thing. She had laid
Changeling
on her other side, that fell thing without which she never slept, and with and without which she could not rest.

Against that, against the things which had begun to move in the world, he knew he had no power.

Chapter Seven

There had been quiet in the
camp for some time, in Vanye's restless sleep. The tumult around the
fire had sunk away. Now a milky daylight was streaming through the reed
walls, and he lay with his eyes open a moment content only to breathe
and to feel Morgaine's warmth against his side, and to know that it was
no dream that had happened. Sleep, she had bade him finally: if there
was harm here they would have done it—only sleep lightly. It had
thundered in the last of the night, a little flashing of lightning, a
little sifting of rain against the reed roof, no more than that.

He drifted again, in that
half-sleep in which he had spent the little of the night they had had
left, alternate with Morgaine, when she would shake at him and tell him
it was her turn for an hour of deep rest.

It was more rest, at least,
than sitting awake and battling exhaustion during a first watch: as the
course of things had gone, it was rare luxury, considering the weather
and the night chill.

But he came wide awake
again at the simultaneous realization that there was a quiet stirring
in the camp, and that Morgaine had shifted onto her elbow.

"They are awake out there," he said reluctantly; and she:

"We had best take our leave of this place, gather Chei, and go."

"I will find him."

She rested her hand on his
chest. "Do not stray from here." Fingers tightened on his harness. "The
horses first. Then we both find Chei, if he does not come to us. We can
break our fast on the way."

She was always cautious.
This had other cause. He sensed that suddenly, wider awake than a
moment ago, though he did not know which cause of many he could think
of.

"Aye," he said. He
understood it for something of instinct; he did not take his own such
impulses lightly, when they came; and Morgaine's, which were reliable,
set a chill into him and cleared his head faster than cold water.

He gathered himself up and moved.

All the world outside was
gray and wet, in a hanging fog—except he had kept the blankets dry, and
seeing the likelihood of dew, even if he had not foreseen the rain, had
thrown a reed mat over the good leather of their tack—being of
mountainous Morija, where heavy dew and sudden rains were ordinary. The
horses blew and stamped and threw their heads when he came to saddle
them, and shifted skittishly as he worked, liking the drying-off, all
the same.

Around the dead fire below,
the women labored, wrapped in blankets, strange moving shapes like
their own huts gone animate in the mist, among the less energetic forms
of men who had begun to rise and wander about the peripheries of the
camp similarly shrouded.

Morgaine came out with
their packs and slung them over Siptah's saddle, pausing to cast a
glance downhill toward the fire-site and the moving figures.

"There will be aching heads
this morning," Vanye muttered, pulling Arrhan's girth tight; and heard
someone walking near them, through the brush, the which sound set his
heart beating a little faster in apprehension. "Who will that be?"

Morgaine made no answer. She had her cloak slung on one-sided against the cold; and because of the weapons she had. She carried
Changeling
at
her back; and she stood by Siptah's side looking in the direction of
that quiet tread—more than one man was there, that much was certain.

It was Chei that came out of the mist and the trees, with Bron limping behind him.

"We are leaving," Morgaine
said quietly. "Chei, one last journey and I release you from your
word—guide us as far as the Road. Beyond that—you are quit of us and
you can go where you like, with our thanks."

"Lady," Chei said, "you
mistake me. Where I want to be, is with you and with Vanye. Myself and
Bron, together. We have both decided. He understands everything. He
agrees."

"There is no need,"
Morgaine said with a shake of her head. "Believe me: that one service
is all you need do us, and then go back, find some other place, do as
you choose."

"I am not helpless," Bron
declared fervently—a man much like his brother in all points, but
taller. It was the identical anxious look. "Lady, I limp, but I am a
whole man on horseback—I shall not slow you; it is my leg that is
wounded, that is all, and it is healing. I will not be lame, I have my
gear, and I will not slow you."

The silence went on then, painfully. "No," she said then.

The man drew in his breath, slowly. "Then at least—do not cast Chei off for my sake."

"You do not understand," she said.

"You
do
not understand," Chei said, and held out his hand toward Vanye with
that same expression. "Vanye—we were worth something to our lord, Bron
and I; Bron—Bron was the one he used to say—had no fear of the devil
himself. You see he is wounded; but he will heal—
I
will heal; you have never seen what I can do, and the two of us—you
will never regret taking us, we will fight for you, Bron and I, against
any
of your enemies, human or qhal; we will
never find a better lord, I believe that, and Bron believes it—He knows
what you might have done here, and did not, and how you dealt with
Arunden—and how you dealt with me—Tell her, Vanye. Tell my lady we will
repay everything she spends on us. We will earn our keep. We are worth
having, Nhi Vanye!"

"It is not your worth she disputes, Chei."

"Then what? Do you doubt
us? I brought you through this. I have gotten you safe passage. I swore
to you. What do you think—that I have not kept my word? Bron and I—will
go with you on our own. We will prove to you what we are worth. Take us
on those terms. You owe us nothing. Only for God's sake do not leave us
in Arunden's debt."

Entanglement showed itself,
unguessed and dark, an obscurity of honor and obligation. "You mean
that Arunden has some claim on you."

"For Bron's life," Chei
said. "For mine, if you leave me here; I will have to trade him
everything I own; and most of everything that comes to me or Bron; and
then we will never be free of him. One or the other of us he will
always find a way to keep in his debt—that is the way he is. Lady, I
swear we will manage, we will take nothing of your supplies—have I not
brought you my own horse and gear already? Bron has his gear, he has a
good horse—he traded his small-sword for it last night. He has his
other. We will not slow you. We will earn our way, every step of it."

"Foolishness," Morgaine said harshly. "Two wounded Men and qhalur territory ahead of us. And you
would
use our supplies. We have no time for hunting."

"We have them! We have provisions—we—"

"Chei. Chei, no. This much
I will do, if you have some debt here. Ride with us, both as far as the
Road. I will at least get you free of here. You will see us as far as
the Road and then we are quit of each other. You will have no debt to
me or to Arunden, and that is as much as I can give you. I claim
nothing of you."

"Did you not promise—
promise
to me—that you would take me through the gate if I chose?"

Morgaine stopped for once
with her mouth open, caught. Then she shut it abruptly and frowned.
"That had condition, condition you cannot meet. You know nothing about
the land further on."

"I thought it was for my life's sake—for my protection. Not a few nights gone.
I will not deny you that right,
you said."

"I said I would advise you against it."

"But I will go, lady, and my brother will."

"You,
I said. No other!"

Chei's face went paler
still. "Both of us. You will not hold me to that. You will not deny me
for Bron's sake, you would not do that, lady."

"You do not know
what
I would do, fool!"

"I know I will follow you. And Bron will. Both of us. And you will not turn us back. Please."

A long moment she stood still. And Chei was next to weeping, Bron's face pale and set. "You are not afraid for
that?"
She swept her hand toward the camp, the dead fire, Arunden's place and others'.

"You have no fear of your priest and his curses?"

"We will follow you."

"We will talk about it again before Tejhos. By then, you may have another opinion."

"Lady,"
Chei
said fervently, and knelt down and seized her hand, his brother after
him kneeling and taking her hand and pressing it to his brow, the which
she endured with a look of dread on her face.

"We are leaving," Morgaine
told the brothers. "Arm and saddle and take everything you can. I would
dispense with any long leave-takings with Arunden, if we can avoid
that, Chei. Or if you have to deal with him, say we will remember him
kindly—say whatever will keep him content and keep him off our trail."

"Aye, lady," Chei said, and
Bron murmured the same, rising with a great effort not to falter in the
act. Chei delayed for him and then the both of them went off directly
across the camp in all the haste Bron could use.

Morgaine swore beneath her breath and shook her head.

"It is freedom you offer them," Vanye said. "Evidently they are beholden for whatever they take at Arunden's hand."

"If that is all they want," she muttered, and turned to Siptah to tie the thongs that held her blanket roll.

"What would they want?"

She cast him a frown over
her shoulder. "Glory. Whatever else you name it. Power. I have seen it
before." She finished the tie with a vengeance. "No matter. I could be
wrong."

"You do not understand them. I think that is a good man, Chei's brother. I think that Chei is trying to be. He is young,
liyo,
that
is all, and too proud, and he knows too little, and acts on it too
soon, that is the trouble with him. I have done that, now and again."

"Then thee generally did it
younger. No, likely I do not understand: men and Men, did I not say it
from the beginning? When did I say I kept my promises? I lie; thee
knows I lie;
tell
this boy."

"Why am I always the messenger?"