Vanye looked nervously between the houses and among the trees that stood close behind, and across the wide fields which lay beyond in the vast clearing. He scanned the open windows and doors, the pens and the carts, seeking some ambush. There was nothing. He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, which rode at his side; but Morgaine had her hands free and in sight . . . all peaceful she seemed, and gracious. He did not scruple to look suspiciously on everything.
Morgaine reined in before the little cluster that had gathered before the hall steps. All the folk bowed together, as gracefully and solemnly as lords, and when they looked up at her, their faces held wonder, but no hint of fear.
Ah, mistrust us, Vanye wished them. You do not know what has come among you. But nothing but awe touched those earnest faces, and the eldest of them bowed again, and addressed them.
Then Vanye’s heart froze in him, for it was the qhalur tongue that these Men spoke.
Arrhthein, they hailed Morgaine, which was my lady; little by little as they rode, Morgaine had insisted to teach him, until he knew words of courtesies and threat and necessities. Not qhal in any case, these small dark folk, so courteous of manner . . . but the Old Ones were clearly reverenced here, and therefore they welcomed Morgaine, taking her for qhal, which she was to the eye.
He reasoned away his shock: there was a time his Kurshin soul would have shuddered to hear that language on human lips, but now it passed his own. The speech was current, Morgaine had persuaded him, wherever qhal had been, in whatever lands Gates led to, and it had lent many words to his own language—which disturbed him to realize. That these folk spoke it nearly pure . . . that amazed him. Khemeis, they addressed him, which sounded like kheman: accompany . . . Companion, perhaps, for my lord he was not, not where qhal were honored.
“Peace,” he bade them softly in that language, the appropriate greeting; and “How may we please you and your lady?” they asked in all courtesy, but he could not answer, only understand.
Morgaine spoke with them, and they with her; after a moment she looked across at him. “Dismount,” she said in the qhalur tongue. “Here are friendly people.” But that was surely for show and for courtesy; he dismounted as she ordered him, but he did not let down his guard or intend to leave her back unguarded. He stood with arms folded, where he could both see those to whom she spoke and keep a furtive watch on the others who began to join the crowd—too many people and too close for his liking, although none of them seemed unfriendly.
Some of what was said he followed; Morgaine’s teaching with him had encompassed enough that he knew they were being welcomed and offered food. The accent was a little different than Morgaine’s, but no worse than the shift from Andurin to Kurshin in his mother tongue.
“They offer us hospitality,” Morgaine said, “and I am minded to take it, at least for tonight. There is no immediate threat here that I can see.”
“As you will, liyo.”
She gestured toward a handsome lad of about ten. “He is Sin, the elder Bythein’s grandnephew. He is offered to care for the horses, but I had rather you did that and simply let him help you.”
She meant to go among them alone, then. He was not pleased at that prospect, but she had done worse things, and, armed, she was of the two of them the more dangerous, a fact which most misjudged. He took Changeling from her saddle and gave it to her, and gathered up the reins of both horses.
“This way, khemeis,” the boy bade him; and while Morgaine went into the hall with the elders, the boy walked with him toward the pens, trying to match his man’s strides and gawking at him like any village lad unused to arms and strangers . . . perhaps amazed also at his lighter complexion and his height, which must seem considerable to these small folk. No man in the village reached more than his shoulder, and few that much. Perhaps, he thought, they reckoned him halfling qhal, no honor to him, but he did not mean to dispute it with them.
The boy Sin chattered at him busily when he reached the pens and began to unsaddle the horses, but it was conversation all in vain with him. Finally the realization seemed to dawn upon Sin, who asked him yet another question.
“I am sorry; I do not understand,” he answered, and the boy squinted up at him, stroking the mare’s neck under her mane.
“Khemeis?” the boy asked of him.
He could not explain. I am a stranger here, he could say; or I am of Andur-Kursh; or other words, which he did not intend to have known. It seemed wisest to leave all such accountings to Morgaine, who could listen to these people and choose what to reveal and what to conceal and argue out their misconceptions.
“Friend,” he said, for he could say that too, and Sin’s face lighted and a grin spread across it.
“Yes,” Sin said, and fell to currying the bay mare with zeal. Whatever Vanye showed him, Sin was eager to do, and his thin features glowed with pleasure when Vanye smiled and tried to show satisfaction with his work . . . a good folk, an open-handed people, Vanye thought, and felt the safer in their lodgings. “Sin,” he said, having composed his sentence carefully, “you take care for the horses. Agreed?”
“I shall sleep here,” Sin declared, and adoration burned in his dark eyes. “I shall care for them, for you and for the lady.”
“Come with me,” Vanye told him, slinging their gear on his shoulder, saddlebags which held things they needed for the night, and food that might draw animals, and Morgaine’s saddle kit, which was nothing to be left to the curiosity of others. He was pleased in the company of the boy, who had no shyness or lack of patience in speaking with him. He set his hand on Sin’s shoulder and the boy swelled visibly with importance under the eyes of the other children, who watched from a distance. They walked together back to the hall, and up the wooden steps to the inside.
It was a high-raftered place, the center filled with a long row of tables and benches, a place for feasts; and there was a grand fireplace, and light from the many wide windows which—like the unwalled condition of the village—betokened a place that had never taken thought for its defense. Morgaine sat there, a bit of pallor black-clad and glittering with silver mail in the dusty light, surrounded by villagers both male and female, young and old, some on benches and some at her feet. At the edge of that circle mothers rocked children on their laps, keeping them still, themselves seeming curious to listen.
Way was made for him, folk edging this way and that to let him through at once. He found a bench offered him, when his place was sitting on the floor, but he took it; and Sin managed to work eelwise to his feet and settle there against his knee.
Morgaine looked at him. “They offer us welcome and whatever we have need of, equipage or food. They seem most amazed by you; they cannot conceive of your origins, tall and different as you are; and they are somewhat alarmed that we go so heavily armed . . . but I have explained to them that you entered my service in a far country.”
“There are surely qhal here.”
“I would surmise so. But if that is the case, they must not be hostile to these folk.” She made her voice gentle then, and lapsed back into the qhalur tongue. “Vanye, these are the elders of the village: Sersein and her man Serseis; Bythein and Bytheis; Melzein and Melzeis. They say that we may shelter in this hall tonight.”
He inclined his head, assenting and offering respect to their hosts.
“For now,” Morgaine added in Andurin, “I only ask questions of them. I counsel thee the same.”
“I have said nothing.”
She nodded, and speaking to the elders, turned again to the qhalur language, with fluency he could not follow.
• • •
It was a strange meal they took that night, with the hall aglow with torches and with firelight from the hearth, and the board laden with abundance of food, the benches crowded with villagers young and old. It was the custom here, Morgaine explained, that all the village take the evening meal together as if they wer
e one house, as indeed was the custom of Ra-koris in Andur, but here even children attended, and played recklessly among their elders, suffered to speak at table with abandon that would have fetched a Kurshin child, be he lord’s son or peasant, a ringing ear and a stern march outside to a more thorough chastisement. Children here filled their bellies and then slid down from table to play noisily in the pillared wings of the hall, laughing and shouting above the roar of conversation.
It was not, at least, a hall where one feared an assassin’s knife or poison. Vanye sat at Morgaine’s right—an ilin should stand behind, and he would rather have tasted the food that she was offered to be certain, all the same; but Morgaine forbade that, and he gave up his apprehensions. In the pen outside, the horses fed on good hay, and they sat in this bright, warm hall amid folk who seemed more inclined to kill them by overfeeding than by ill will. When at last no one could eat any more, the children who did not wish to be quiet were cheerfully dismissed into the dark outside, the oldest of that company leading the youngest, and there seemed no thought in anyone that the children might be in any danger in the dark outdoors. Within the hall, a girl began to play on a tall, strangely tuned harp, and sang beautifully with it. There was a second song which everyone sang, save themselves; and then they were offered the harp as well—but playing was long-past for him. His fingers had forgotten whatever childish skill they had once had, and he refused it, embarrassed. Morgaine also declined; if there was ever a time when she had had leisure to learn music, he could not imagine it.
But Morgaine spoke with them instead, and they seemed pleased by what she said. There followed a little discussion, in which he could not share, before the girl sang one last song.
Then dinner was done, and the villagers went their own way to beds in their houses, while the oldest children were quick to make their guests a place nearest the fire . . . two pallets and a curtain for privacy, and a kettle of warm water for washing.
The last of the children went down the outside steps and Vanye drew a long breath, in this first solitude they had enjoyed since riding in. He saw Morgaine unbuckle her armor, ridding herself of that galling weight, which she did not do on the trail or in any chancy lodging. If she were so inclined, he felt himself permitted, and gratefully stripped down to shut and breeches, washed behind the curtain and dressed again, for he did not utterly trust the place. Morgaine did likewise; and they settled down with their weapons near them, to sleep alternately.
His watch was first, and he listened well for any stirring in the village, went to the windows and looked out on this side and on the other, on the forest and the moonlit fields, but there was no sign of movement, nor were the village windows all shuttered. He went back and settled at the hearth in the warmth, and began to accept finally that all this bewildering gentleness was true and honest.
It was rare in all their journeying that there awaited them no curse, no hedge of weapons, but only kindness.
Here Morgaine’s name was not yet known.
• • •
The morning brought a smell of baking bread, and the stir of folk about the hall, a scatter of children who were hushed to quiet. “Perhaps,” Vanye murmured, smelling that pleasant aroma of baking, “a bit of hot bread to send us on our way.”
“We are not going,” Morgaine said, and he looked at her in bewilderment, not knowing whether this was good news or ill. “I have thought things through, and you may be right: here is a place where we can draw breath, and if we do not rest in it, then what else can we do but kill the horses under us and drive ourselves beyond our strength? There is no surety beyond any Gate. Should we win through—to another hard ride, and lose everything for want of what we might have gathered here? Three days. We can rest that long. I think your advice is good sense.”
“Then you make me doubt it. You have never listened to me, and we are alive, all odds to the contrary.”
She laughed humorlessly. “Aye, but I have; and as for my own plans, some of the best of those have gone amiss at the worst of times. I have ignored your advice sometimes at our peril, and this time I take it. I reckon our chances even.”
They broke fast, served by grave-faced children who brought them some of that hot bread, and fresh milk and sweet butter besides. They ate as if they had had nothing the night before, for such a breakfast was not a luxury that belonged to outlawry.
• • •
Three days went too quickly; and the courtesy and gentleness of the folk brought something that Vanye would have given much to see: for Morgaine’s gray eyes grew clean of that pain which had ridden there so long, and she smiled and sometimes laughed, softly and merrily.
The horses fared as well: they rested, and the children brought them handfuls of sweet grass, and petted them, and combed their manes and curried them with such zeal that Vanye found nothing to do for them but a bit of smithing—in which the village smith was all too willing to assist, with his forge and his skill.
Whenever he was at the pens with the horses, the children, particularly Sin, hung over the rails and chattered merrily to him, trying to ask him questions of the animals and Morgaine and himself, little of which he even understood.
“Please, khemeis Vanye,” said Sin, when he leaned to rest on the edge of the watering-keg, “please may we see the weapons?” At least so he put the words together.
He recalled his own boyhood, when he had watched in awe the dai-uyin, the high-clan gentlemen with their armor and their horses and weapons . . . but with the bitter knowledge of bastardy, which—for he had been a lord’s bastard, gotten on a captive—made the attainment of such things desperate necessity. These were only village children, whose lives did not tend toward arms and wars, and their curiosity was that which they might hold toward the moon and stars . . . something remote from them, and untainted by understanding.
“Avert,” he murmured in his own tongue, wishing harm from them, and unhooked the side ring of his sheathed sword, slipped it to his hand. He drew it, and let their grimy fingers touch the blade, and he let Sin—which filled the boy with delight—hold the hilt in his own hand and try the balance of it. But then he took it back, for he did not like the look of children with such a grim thing, that had so much blood on it.
Then, pointing, they asked to see the other blade that he carried, and he frowned and shook his head, laying his hand on that carven hilt at his belt. They cajoled, and he would not, for an Honor-blade was not for their hands. It was for suicide, this one, and it was not his, but one he carried, on his oath to deliver it.
“An elarrh thing,” they concluded, in tones of awe; and he had not the least idea of their meaning, but they ceased asking, and showed no more desire to touch it.
“Sin,” he said, thinking to draw a little knowledge from the children, “do men with weapons come here?”
At once there was puzzlement on Sin’s face and in the eyes of the others, down to the least child. “You are not of our forest,” Sin observed, and used the plural you—surmise which shot all too directly to the mark. Vanye shrugged, cursing his rashness, which had betrayed him even to children. They knew the conditions of their own land, and had sense enough to find out a stranger who knew not what he should.
“Where are you from?” a little girl asked. And, wide-eyed, with a touch of delicious horror: “Are you sirren?”
Others decried that suggestion in outrage, and Vanye, conscious of his helplessness in their small hands, bowed his head and busied himself hooking his sword to his belt. He pulled on the ring of the belt that crossed his chest, drawing the sword to his shoulder behind, hooked it to his side. Then: “I have business,” he said, and walked away. Sin made to follow. “Please no,” he said, and Sin fell back, looking troubled and thoughtful, which in no wise comforted him.
He walked back to the hall, and there found Morgaine, sitting with the clan elders and with some of the young men and women who had stayed from their day’
s work to attend her. Quietly he approached, and they made place for him as before. For a long time he sat listening to the talk that flowed back and forth between Morgaine and the others, understanding occasional small sentences, or the gist of them. Morgaine sometimes interrupted herself to give him an essential word—strange conversation for her, for they spoke much of their crops, and their livestock and their woods, of all the affairs of their village.
Like, he thought, a village discussing with its lord their state of affairs. Yet she accepted this, and listened more than she spoke, as was ever her habit.
At last the villagers took their leave, and Morgaine settled next the fire and relaxed a time. Then he came and rested on his knees before her, embarrassed by what he had to confess, that he had betrayed them to children.
She smiled when he had told her. “So. Well, I do not think it much harm. I have not been able to learn much of how qhal may be involved in this land, but, Vanye, there are things here so strange I hardly see how we could avoid revealing ourselves as strangers.”
“What does elarrh mean?”
“It comes from arrh, that is noble, or ar, that is power. The words are akin, and it could be either, depending on the situation . . . either or both: for when one addressed a qhal-lord in the ancient days as arrhtheis, it meant both his status as a qhal and the power he had. To Men in those days, all qhal had to be my lord, and the power in question was that of the Gates, which were always free to them, and never to Men . . . it has that distressing meaning too. Elarrh meant something belonging to power, or to lords. A thing—of reverence or hazard. A thing which . . . Men do not touch.”
Qhalur thoughts disturbed him, the more he comprehended the qhalur tongue. Such arrogance was hateful . . . and other things Morgaine had told him, which he had never guessed, of qhalur maneuverings with human folk, things which hinted at the foundations of his own world, and those disturbed him utterly. There was much more, he suspected, which she dared not tell him. “What will you say to these folk,” he asked, “and when—about the trouble we have brought on their land? Liyo, what do they reckon we are, and what do they think we are doing among them?”