Gate of Ivrel

Boys raced ahead of them, yet all was strangely silent, as though they maintained hunter’s discipline even in their home. At the great arch of the main hut the greatest number of people had gathered, and here they dismounted, escorted still by Taomen and his men. They retained their weapons, and all was courtesy, men yielding back for them in haste.

Ra-koris was a smoky, earth-floored hall of rough logs, yet it had a certain splendor: it had two levels and many halls opening off the main room. Tasseled and wrought hides were the hangings, antlers and strange horns adorned its posts. It was lit by torches even at noontime, and by a hearth larger than many halls of stone could boast, its only masonry, that great hearth and its venting.

“Here you will be lodged until Roh can be called,” said Taomen.

Morgaine chose to settle at the main hearth, and by the timorous charity of the hall women, they were served a plain meal of waybread and venison and Chya mead, which they found good indeed after the suspect fare of Leth.

But folk avoided them, and watched them from the shadows of the wooden hall, whispering together.

Morgaine ignored them all and rested. Vanye nursed his sore hand and finally, troubled by the heat in the hall, at last gave up his pride and removed helm and coif, probing the soreness of the base of his skull, where Liell had struck him. A youth of the Chya laughed: a youth who did not yet even wear the braid; and Vanye looked at him angrily, then bowed his head and ignored the matter. He was not in such a position that he could complain of their treatment of him. Morgaine must be his chief concern, and she theirs.

And late in the day, when the bit of sky visible through the little windows of the high arch had gone from sun to shadow, there was a stir at the door and hunters came, men in brown leather, armed with bows and swords.

And among them was one that Vanye knew would be close kin of his, even before the youth came forward and met them as lord of the hall: for he had seen high-clan Chya before, when he was a child, and this was the image of all of them—of himself as well. The young lord looked more like a brother than his own brothers did.

“I am Chya Roh,” he said, stepping to the center of the rhowa, the earthen platform at the head of the hall. His lean, tanned features were set with anger at their presence, boding no good for them. “Morgaine kri Chya is dead,” he said, “a hundred years ago. What proof do you bear that you are she?”

Morgaine unfolded upward from her cross-legged posture with rare grace, smooth and silken, and without a bow of courtesy offered an object into Vanye’s hand. He arose with less grace, paused to look at the object before he passed it into Roh’s hand: it was the antlered insignia of the old High Kings of Koris, and when he saw that he knew it for a great treasure, and one that might have formed part of the lost crown treasury.

“It was Tiffwy’s,” she said. “His pledge of hospitality—should I need it, he said, to command of his men what I would.”

Roh’s face was pale. He looked at the amulet, and clenched it in his fist, and his manner was suddenly subdued. “Chya gave you what you asked a hundred years ago,” he said, “and not a man of the four thousand returned. You have much blood on your hands, Morgaine kri Chya; and yet I must honor my ancestor’s word—this once. What do you seek here?”

“Brief shelter. Silence. And whatever knowledge you have of Thiye and Hjemur.”

“All three you may have,” he said.

“Did Chya’s record survive?”

“The Ra-koris you know is ruin now. Wolves and other beasts have it to themselves. If Chya’s Book survives, that is where it lies. We have no means nor leisure for books here, lady.”

She bowed in courtesy. “I have a warning to give you: Leth is roused. We left them in some little stir. Guard your borders.”

Roh’s lips were thin. “You are gifted with the raising of storms, lady. We will set men to watch your trail. It may be Leth will come this far, but only if they are desperate. We have taught Leth manners before.”

“They are mightily irritated. Vanye’s horse is Leth-bred, and we quit their hospitality suddenly, in a dispute with lord Kasedre and his counselor Chya Liell.”

“Liell,” said Roh softly. “ That black wolf. I commend the quality of your enemies, lady. How much welcome do you ask?”

“The night only.”

“Are you bound north?”

“Yes,” she said.

Roh bit his lip. “That old quarrel? They say Thiye lives. It has never been in our imagination that you could survive too. But we are through giving you men, lady. That is done. We have none left to spare you.”

“I ask none.”

“You take this?” It was Roh’s one acknowledgment that Vanye lived; his proud young eyes shifted aside and back again. “You could do better, lady.”