Exile's Gate (22 page)

"Because thee is the honest man in this company. Did I not tell thee how trouble looks for an honest face?"

"I cannot tell him—"

"Peace, peace, forbear. We
will settle it later. I only want us away from here. We are already
delayed. Now we have these two making noise in the camp—"

"And it is trouble if we slip out without it. You will shame this Arunden if you leave with no courtesy to him."

"A wonder, something that
would shame Arunden. No, I will pay him courtesy; and well enough it
were short courtesy, and ourselves well away from here." She took
Siptah's reins and flung herself to the saddle, reining back as the
horse started forward. "Before noon, I hope."

Vanye mounted up more
carefully, and leaned to pat the white mare's shoulder as she stood
quietly at Siptah's side. In the camp in general there were more folk
up shambling about their private business. A little tongue of fire
gleamed through the mist, where blanket-shrouded figures crouched.

And in a very little time
there was the sound and the ghostly shapes of two riders coming back
again through the mist, but they were not alone. A handful of bearish
figures went after them afoot.

"There
is trouble," Morgaine said between her teeth, about the time the riders broke free and came cantering their way.

They did not shake the
followers. A loud shout rang through the misty air and dark shapes
jogged at the riders' heels, others rousing from fireside and shelters
and every occupation in the camp.

The brothers did not bring
the trouble that far. They turned their horses about and stopped there,
in the face of the oncoming crowd.

Morgaine sent Siptah
forward and Vanye touched his heels to Arrhan, overtaking her as she
reined in alongside Chei and Bron, in the face of Arunden himself and
his priest, and by the size of the crowd that was rallying there, of
every man in camp.

"You do not take them
only," Arunden shouted at her, waving an arm at the brothers. "Here is
a man in debt to me—I release him! I make no claim against him or his
brother for his keep! But if it is my safe-conduct you want, by Heaven,
lady, you do not have it through my land with these guides, and you do
not have it without my riders. That is no lie, lady, God knows what
they have told you to send you riding out like this, with no farewell
cup and no advisement to me, but you are ill-advised to listen to them."

"My lord Arunden, I counsel
you,
I am traveling with all speed, and the more speed and the fewer and the more silence the safer."

"Arrows are quicker than
any horse," Arunden said, and set his fists on his hips, walking
forward. Siptah snaked his head for more rein and Vanye sent Arrhan
sidestepping closer on his side, forming a solid wall, whereupon
Arunden stopped in his tracks. "My lady Morgaine—Yonder is no trail for
any qhal, much less a woman and handful of men, two of them such as I
would never send out on a ride like this, and who do not have leave to
come and go in my land. My warders will stop you, and at best hail you
back here, and at worst shoot without asking questions! Whatever these
two scoundrels have told you, I will tell you, you do not pass through
these woods or any other without a good number of reliable men around
you, and you before God do not ride that road without there be good
human men around you, and men my warders know, or before Heaven,
someone will take that hair of yours for a target! First cover that
head of yours before someone takes you for some of Gault's own, and
stand down and wait while we break camp. We will rouse you more than
one clan, my lady, and I will personally see you to the Road!"

"We need no help," Morgaine
said. "The four of us are enough. Do not press me, my lord Arunden. Pay
your attentions to Gault, southward."

"Do not be a fool," Arunden said, and stalked off a few paces to give a wave of his hand at his gathered men. "Break camp."

The men started to obey;
and froze and scrambled back as red fire cut through the mist and smoke
and then flame curled up at Arunden's feet. Arunden stood confused a
moment, looked down and retreated in alarm as the tiny fire grew to
larger points. Then he looked back at Morgaine, wide-eyed, and Vanye
settled back in the saddle with his hand still on his sword-hilt.

"Witch!" Arunden cried; and his priest held up the sword.

"You have been my host,"
Morgaine said coldly. "Therefore I owe you some courtesy, my lord.
Therefore your land is untouched. But do not mistake me. Here I am
lady, and these are men of mine, and whoever rides with me takes my
orders or Vanye's orders. There are no other terms with me, and I am
sure they are not to your liking. If you would have my gratitude—my
lord—then be sure of that southern border, where Gault is very likely
to be no little disturbed by what we have done in his lands."

A series of expressions fleeted through Arunden's eyes, from fear to other things less easy to read.

And the priest thrust
himself forward with his sword for a cross, chanting prayers and
imprecations at them, at the crowd, at Heaven above.
Witch,
was
the general murmur in the crowd that was melting backward; and there
was fear in Bron's eyes too, as he controlled his horse and glanced her
way. At the priest's feet the fire had spread to a small circle,
faltering in the wet grass, and he kicked at it suddenly with a
vengeance, stamping it underfoot as Arunden and his men murmured behind
him. "Fire," the priest cried, "such as took the woods down in the
valley. Fire of your making. Who burns the woods is cursed of God!
Cursed be all of you, cursed who ride with you—"

Vayne crossed himself. So
Bron and Chei made some sign, and backed their horses, when the priest
pressed forward with his sword uplifted hilt to Heaven; but: "Hai!"
Vanye cried, seeing he was going at Morgaine, and rode forward and
shouldered the priest back and back.

"Cursed and damned!" The
mailed priest's sword wheeled and came down at Arrhan's neck. Vanye
swung his sheathed sword up and struck the blade up, then kicked the
priest sprawling in the smoking grass, the priest howling and writhing
instantly with the heat of it. "Damned!" he shouted,
"Damned!"—scrambling up and after his sword.

Arunden brought his foot down on the blade as his hand reached the hilt, pinning it to the blackened ground.

"Is this your help?" Morgaine asked dryly. "I shall do without, my lord Arunden."

"You will take what I give!"

"I said that I was Gault's
enemy. I have told you what I will do, and where I am going, and I will
have done it before Gault spreads the alarm to his masters if you do me
the grace to do what I have said. I should take that advice, my lord,
if it were my lands bordering Gault. But far be it from me to say what
a free Man should do. That is your choice—to help or hinder."

"Do not listen to her," the priest cried, and snatched up the sword Arunden's stride released.

Arunden turned and
interposed his arm at the same time Vanye bared steel; and grasped the
priest's sword-hilt in his hand and wrenched it away, disarming the man
and flinging the sword far across the grass. "My lady," Arunden said.
"Take my advice. I will not argue strategy with you. I will go with you
myself, with ten of my men. My lieutenant will go south and close the
road, others east and west and advise the other clansmen. Ichandren's
skull is bleaching on a pole at Morund, and it is only my word and
yours that tells my warders these lads are still human or that
he
is.
I can vouch for you, and get you to Tejhos-gate never touching the
Road. My word carries weight in these hills with bands beyond this
one—there is no one says I am one of Gault's minions—ha? Ha, priest who
eats my food and warms at my fire? Take the curse off.
Off,
hear?"

"God remembers," the priest muttered, and made a sign, half with an eye to Arunden.

"Well enough," Arunden said. "See? We are friends."

"Liyo,"
Vanye
said in his own language. "There is no mending this man. You will
regret any good you do him. And much more any help he gives. Do not
have any part of his offer."

Morgaine was silent a moment, in which Arunden stood looking up as solemn and sober as he had yet been.

"You will not regret it,"
Arunden said. "Time will come, you will need us, my lady—you will need
someone the other clans know, a man they will listen to."

"Then prove it, now,"
Morgaine said. "Send messengers to the clans and prevent Gault from
your land and from the southern gate. Three of your men can manage our
safe-conduct. But all this land will regret it if Gault learns what I
am about, he or his neighbors; and if one of Gault's men reaches that
gate in the south and brings help from Mante—do me that grace, lord
Arunden, and I will freely own myself in your debt."

Arunden's face darkened,
suffused with a flush. He gnawed on his lip and raked a hand back
through his disordered hair, where it had come loose from its braids.

"Whoever commands that
position," Morgaine said, "will command the south. When that gate
dies—you will feel it in the air. When it dies you will know that I
have kept my promise; and you will sit as lord at Morund. That I offer
you—that and anything you can take and hold. The south will need a
strong lord. I will have those three men you offer. I will send them
back to you when I have cleared your lands. My own, I keep!"

She wheeled Siptah then and
rode, as Arunden stood open-mouthed and with a thousand hostile and
avaricious thoughts flickering through his eyes. Vanye did not turn
away from him. "Go with her," he said to Chei and Bron, who had moved
up beside him; and the brothers turned and rode after Morgaine, leaving
only himself facing Arunden and his folk.

"My lord," Vanye said then sternly. "Your three men."

Arunden came free of his
astonishment and called out three names, at which Vanye inclined his
head in respect to Arunden. "I trust," Vanye said, without a trace of
insolence in his tone, "that your men can track us."

Then he whirled about and rode after Morgaine and the ep Kantorei.

"Damned, who defies the priest of God!" the priest shouted after him. "Cursed are ye—!"

He cast a look back. No
weapons flew. Only words. Ahead of him Morgaine waited on the slope,
Bron and Chei on either side of her, dim figures among the ghosts of
tall trees.

"Was there trouble?" Morgaine asked him as he reined in.

"My back is unfeathered," he said, and refrained from crossing himself. He felt more anger than distress.

"He is not much of a priest," Bron said. "No one regards him. It is only words."

"Well we were out of here," Morgaine said, "all the same." And motioned Bron and Chei to lead. "Vanye?"

Vanye drew Arrhan to a walk beside Siptah as Chei and Bron led them out of the misty clearing and in among the trees.

"Do we have the escort?" Morgaine asked.

"He did not refuse it," he said. "I said they should find us on the trail."

"Good," Morgaine said.
Then, in the Kurshin tongue: "Did I not tell thee? Power. Arunden does
not know what I am. He thinks he knows, and fills in the gaps himself.
At least it is honest greed. And it is rarely the first rebel in any
realm who ends by being king. There will far worse follow."

He looked at her, troubled by her cynicism. "Never better?"

"Rarely. I do not put treachery past him—or the priest."

"The three he is sending?"

"Maybe. Or messengers he may send ahead of us and behind."

He had reckoned that much
for himself. He did not like the reckoning. He thought that he should
have forced a challenge and taken off Arunden's shoulders all capacity
for treachery.

He was not, he knew all too
well, as wise as Morgaine, who had improvised a use for this man: but
Arunden, last night, had touched on an old nightmare of hers: he had
felt it in the way she had clenched his hand at the fireside.

They would not listen, she
had said of that moment human lords had broken from her control;
because I am a woman they would not listen.

And ten thousand strong, an army and a kingdom had perished before her eyes.

That was the beginning of
that solitude of hers, which he alone had breached since that day. And
what they had almost done in the night was very much for her—Heaven
knew any distraction was a risk with that burden she carried,
dragon-hilted and glittering wickedly against her shoulder as she rode,
and trust was foreign to everything she did—trust, by her reckoning,
was great wickedness.

So he was resolved, for his
part, not to bring the previous night into the day, or to be anything
but her liegeman under others' witness, meticulous in his proprieties.

Wet leaves shook dew down
onto them as they maintained their leisurely pace and refused to give
any grace to Arunden's laggard men. A fat, strange creature waddled
away from the trail and into the brush in some haste, evading the
horses' hooves: that was all the life they saw in the mist. Trails
crossed and recrossed in the hollows, along ravines and up their sides,
in this place where Men seemed to have made frequent comings and goings.