Wall of Shiuan

He saw the reason for his presence among them now, how he had been, in his cleverness, guided to this. He knew that he should have held his peace from the beginning. Now silence itself would accuse, persuasive as admission. His muscles tautened, mind numbed when he most needed it. He had no answer.

“To seal the Wells forever,” Roh said. ‘Tell me, my honest, my honorable cousin—is that or is that not the truth?”

Still he held his peace, searching desperately for a lie, not practiced in the art. There was none he could shape that could not be at once unravelled.

“Deny it, then,” said Roh. “Can you do that?”

“I deny it,” he said, reacting as Roh thrust at him what he most wanted; and even as it slipped his lips he knew he had been maneuvered.

“Swear to it,” Roh said; and as he began to say that also: “On your oath to her,” Roh said.

By your soul: that was the oath; and their eyes were all on him, like wolves in a circle. His lips shaped the words, knowing the effort for useless, utterly useless; on his soul too was his duty to Morgaine, that bade him try.

But Roh set his hand on his arm, mercifully stopping him, leaving him trembling with sickness. “No,” Roh said. “Spare yourself the guilt, Vanye; you do not wear it well. You see how it is, lord Hetharu. I have shown you the truth. My cousin is an honest man. And you, my lord, will swear to me that you will set no hand on him. I bear him some affection, this cousin of mine.”

Heat mounted steadily to Vanye’s face. There seemed no profit in protesting this baiting defense. He met Hetharu’s dark and resentful eyes. “Granted,” Hetharu said after a moment, and glanced at Roh. “He is yours. But I cannot answer for my father.”

“No one,” said Roh, “will set hand on him.”

Hetharu glanced down, and aside, and frowned and rose. “No one,” he echoed sullenly.

“My lords,” said Roh, likewise rising. “A safe sleep to you.”

There was a moment of silence, of seething anger on the part of the young lord. Surely it was not accustomed that Bydarra’s son receive his dismissal from a dark-haired guest. But fear hovered thickly in the room when Roh looked at them all in their turn: eyes averted from his, to one side and the other, pretending to find interest in the stones of the floor or the guarded door.

Hetharu shrugged, a false insouciance. “My lords,” he said to his companions. “Priest.”

They filed out with rustling brocade and the clash of metal, those slim fair lords with their attendant guard, half-human—until there was only Roh, who quietly closed the door, making the room again private.

“Give me the sword again,” Vanye said, “cousin.”

Roh regarded him warily, hand on the hilt. He shook his head and showed no inclination to come near him now. “You do not seem to understand,” Roh said. “I have secured your life, and your person, from some considerable danger. I have a certain authority here—while they fear me. It does not serve your own cause to fight against me.”

“It is your own life you have secured,” Vanye said, and arose to stand with his back to the fire, “so that they will not try me too severely and find your kinsman is only human.”

“That too,” said Roh. He started to open the door, and hesitated, looking back. “I wish that I could persuade you to common sense.”

“I will go back to the room where I was,” Vanye said. “I found it more comfortable.”

Roh grinned. “Doubtless.”

“Do not touch her,” Vanye said. Roh’s grin faded; he faced him entirely, regarded him with an earnest look.

“I have said,” Roh said, “that she would be safe. And she will be safer—apart from you. I think you understand this.”

“Yes,” Vanye said after a moment.

“I would help you if you would give me the means.”

“Good night,” Vanye said.

Roh delayed, a frown twisting his face. He extended his hand, dropped it in a helpless gesture. “Nhi Vanye—my life will end if your liege destroys the Wells—not suddenly, but surely, all the same. So will everything in this land... die. But that is nothing to her. Perhaps she cannot help what she is or what she does. I suspect that she cannot. But you at least have a choice. These folk—will die, and they need not.”

“I have an oath to keep. I have no choice at all.”

“If you had sworn to the devil,” Roh said, “would it be a pious act to keep your word?”

Unthought, his hand moved to bless himself, and he stopped, then with deliberation completed the gesture, in this place of qujal, where priests worshipped devils. He was cold, inside.