Gate of Ivrel

Erij stared into the fire, sidelong; his eyes flicked back again, frowning. “There is a charge on that charity.”

“What charge?”

“You.” And when Vanye only stared at him, blank and hardly comprehending: “I will release her,” said Erij, “today, with provisions, with horses, with all your gear; and she may go where she will. But you I will not release. That is the charge on my hospitality.”

Bargain us a refuge, she had ordered him before she sank into delirium, however you can. He knew that it dishonored her, to abandon him, but he knew the compulsion there was in Morgaine: she lived for that, and for nothing else, her face set toward Hjemur. She would gladly spend his life if it would set her safe at Hjemur’s border: she had said that in her own words.

“When I have fulfilled my service with her,” he offered, trying that, “I will come back to Morija.”

“No,” said Erij.

“Then,” he said at last, “for such a bargain you owe me fair payment: swear that she will go from here with all that is ours, horses and weapons and provisions adequate to see her to any of our borders she chooses: and let her ride free away from the very gate—no double-dealing.”

“And for your part?” asked Erij. “If I grant this, I will have no curse from you or from her?”

“None,” said Vanye; and Erij named his oath and swore: it was one that even a half-Myya ought to respect.

And Erij left. Vanye was overcome with cold thereafter and knelt on the hearth, feeding the wood in slowly, until the blaze grew intense. The room was still. He looked into the shadows beyond the light and saw only Handrys’s things. He had never much credited the beliefs that the unhappy dead hovered close about the living, though he served one who should have been dead a century ago; but there remained a chill about the room, a biding discomfort that might be guilt, or fear, or some power of Handrys’s soul that lingered here.

Eventually there was a clatter in the courtyard. He went to the slit of a window and looked out, and saw the black and Siptah saddled, saw men about them.

And, aided by two men, Morgaine was brought down and set upon her horse. She scarcely had the strength to stay the saddle, and caught the reins with an awkward gesture that showed she had almost dropped them.

Anger churned in him, that she was being turned out in such condition. Erij meant for her to die.

He forced his shoulder through the narrow opening, shouted down at her. “ Liyo!” he cried, his voice carried away on the biting wind. But she looked up, her eyes scanning the high walls. “ Liyo!”

She lifted her hand. She saw him. She turned to those about her, and the attitude of her body was one of anger, and theirs that of embarrassment. They turned from her, all save those that must hold the horses.

Then he grew afraid for her, that she would take arms and be killed, not knowing the case of things.

“The matter of a bargain,” he shouted down at her. “You are free on his oath, but do not trust him, liyo!”

It seemed then she understood. She suddenly turned Siptah’s head and laid heels to him, putting him to a pace headed for the gate, such that he feared she would fall at the turning. The black that had been Liell’s followed, jerked along by the rein made fast to Siptah’s saddle. There was a pack on the black’s saddle—his own gear.

And one other followed, before the gate swung shut again.

Rvn the singer, harp slung to his back, spurred his pony after her. Tears sprang to Vanye’s eyes, though he could not say why; he thought afterward that it was anger, seeing her take another innocent as she had taken him to ruin.

He sank down by the fireside again, bowed his head upon his arms and tried not to think of what lay in store for him.

“Father died,” said Erij, “six months ago.” He stretched his legs out before the fire in his own clean and carpeted apartments, which had been their father’s, and looked down where Vanye sat cross-legged upon the hearthstones, unwilling guest for the evening. The air reeked of wine. Erij manipulated cup, then pitcher, upon the table at his left hand, by gesture offered more to Vanye. He refused.

“And you killed him,” Erij added then, as if they had been discussing some distant acquaintance, “in the sense that you killed Handrys: Father grew morbid over Handrys. Kept the room as you see it. Everything the same. Harness down in the stable—the same. Turned his horse out. Good animal, gone wild now. Or maybe gone to the wolves, who knows? But Father made a great mound down there by the west woods, and there he buried Handrys. Mother could not reason with him. She fell ill, what with his moods—and she died in a fall down the stairs. Or he pushed her. He was terrible when he was in one of his moods. After she died he took to sitting long hours out in the open, out on the edge of the mound. Mother was buried out there too. And that was the way he died. It rained. We rode out to bring him in perforce. And he took ill and died.”