It was honesty. When Morgaine became obscure it was an offered confidence. Honesty with her was one thing and the other. It was Chei she meant, and Chei she looked at, and Chei looked confused as a man might. "I—do not think I have had luck, lady, except you brought it."
"Any man might have been there, at the gate. Luckier for your friends if we had been a fortnight earlier. It is finding Bron I mean."
"I had no hope of it," Chei said earnestly. "I only went home. I wanted no more mistakes. I thought—I thought—there was no way to get through without meeting ambush. When you told me—what you told me—I knew there was hope in talking. So I did not try to slip around the long way. I brought you up the short way, and took no pains to be quiet, you were right, lady. But we were dead, the other way. It was all I could do."
"And did not tell me."
There was long silence. Chei looked at her, only at her, and his face was pale in the firelight.
"But you did not know," Morgaine said, "that Bron was there."
"No, lady. On my soul, I did not know."
"He could not have known," Bron said. The fire snapped, wet wood; and scattered sparks.
"Arunden took you up," Morgaine said.
"I fell in the fighting," Bron said. "Arunden's folk came down to collect the gear. To steal anything they could. That is what they are."
"Gault's men leave their enemies' gear?" Vanye asked. "For others to take up?"
"This time they did," Bron said, and drew a long and shaken breath. "I do not know why. Probably they had wind of Arunden's folk close by. They took up prisoners—I saw them. I fainted then. I thought they would gather up weapons and they would find me alive and finish me. When I woke up it was one of Arunden's men had found me, that is all I know. And Gault's men had taken none of my gear."
"You were fortunate," Morgaine said. "Did I not just say how I abhor good fortune?"
Bron looked anxiously at Chei, last at Vanye, a worried look, a pleading look.
"It is truth," Bron said. "That is all I know."
Vanye shifted position, having found his arm cold from the wind gusting through the woven-work. He found his heart beating uncomfortably hard. "Arunden was an ally of your lord's?"
"We were ambushed on our way to join with him. The qhal may have known he was there—" The thought seemed to come to Bron then. His mouth stayed open a moment. His eyes darted and locked.
"And withdrew," Morgaine said.
Bron had nothing to say. He darted a look of his own Eoghar's way and back again. Chei's breath was rapid.
"No one would—" Bron said.
"You say yourself, changelings are not uncommon. A man too close to qhalur lands, a scout, a hunter—"
"We are not that careless!"
Heaven save us, Vanye thought. And aloud: "Is your enemy without guile? Or luck?"
Both the brothers were silent. At their own fire, Eoghar and his cousins talked among themselves, voices that did not carry over the water sound.
"It would be easy, then," Morgaine said, "for messengers of all sorts to come and go. From the camp, for instance."
"We do not know it is so!" Chei said.
"No," Morgaine said. "It might be coincidence. Everything might be coincidence."
Bron exhaled a long slow breath. "A treaty with Gault?"
"Possibly," Morgaine said, "you were only fortunate. There is chance in the world. It is only very rare—where profit is concerned."
Bron ran his fingers back through his hair and rested, his hands clenching his braids. Then he looked at Vanye and at Morgaine. "Are you, after all, from Mante? Is this something you know? Are you having games with us?"
"We are strangers," Morgaine said. "We are not from Gault and not from Skarrin. We do not know this land. But of treachery and of greed we have seen altogether too much. Perhaps it has occurred to you—that there is profit to be had. We do not withhold it. Anything, you can gain from us, take. We will have no need of power in this world. Do you want Gault's place? Or any other—take it."
Bron caught a breath. "Everything," he said in a faint voice, "that Chei has told me about you I believe. I never—in all my life—In all my life, I never—never knew I would—come to—to owe—"
"A qhal?" Morgaine asked.
Bron swallowed the rest of that speech. His face was bone-white, his pain-bruised eyes set on her as if he could not find a way to move. "But," he said after, "it is you I will follow. I do not think we will live long. I do not think we will live to see Mante. But for what you did for my brother I will go with you; for what you did for both of us, I will do everything I can for you. I do not deny I am afraid of you. There is a cost—to serving qhal—and I do not know what you would choose, between us and others. But what you say you will do—if you seal the Gates—is a chance for every man alive; and we never had one till this. It is worth a life. And mine is spun out longer than I expected, since Gyllin-brook. Chei's, too. Where else shall we find a place for us?"
Morgaine looked at him long; and turned then and began to pack away their belongings. "I do not know. But I would you could find one." She looked up at them. "When we reach the road, turn back. Go somewhere far, and safe. Two more humans will be a hazard to me—only that much more likelihood that someone will know me for a stranger."
Chei had opened his mouth to protest. He shut it as she spoke and he caught a breath. "But," he said then, "they would take us for the Changed, that is all. There is no reason not."
"It is that common."
"Half the qhal in Morund—have human shape."
"So," she said softly, and her frown deepened and darkened. She put a last packet into the saddlebags and wrapped the ties tight. "They are using the gates that often."
"I do not know," Bron said, looking as bewildered as his brother. "I do not know how often they come and go."
"No one knows," Chei said. "None of us go south. When they want to come and go—they use Morund-gate. They do not need to ride through our land."
"Frequently?"
"Maybe—several times a year. I do not know. No one—"
"So a message has already gone to Mante."
"I think that it would have," Chei said. "When the woods burned. I think they would send for that. Gault is not friendly with Mante. With his lord. So they say."
"Rumor says," Bron amended. "Men who come and go off Gault's land. Some do, still."
"Too much here is tangled," Morgaine said; and Vanye shifted his mailed and weary shoulders back against the rock and picked up the thongs that depended from his belt, beginning to braid three of them.
"As to changelings," Vanye said, "we do not do that, with friend or enemy. You are safe with us, as safe, at least, as we are. And we intend to reach Mante, and go beyond it. But that—that, has no return. You should understand that. My lady advises you turn back. There is reason. You should listen to her."
There was silence after, except a discordant muttering from Eoghar and his cousins, about their separate fire. A little laughter drifted from them, about their own business. Doubtless Chei and Bron were distressed. He did not look up.
"Lady," Chei said.
"For your sake and ours," Morgaine said firmly.
Again there was silence, long silence, with only the noise from the other fire where, Vanye saw with a shift of his eye, the three clansmen had unstopped what he reckoned was not a waterskin, and began to pass it about. He did not like it. He did not want the quarrel now, either, with unhappiness enough in their camp. "Liyo," he said in a low voice and when he had her attention, shifted his eyes to indicate the matter.
She frowned, but she said nothing. They were not boisterous at the other fire, only men taking their ease of the dark and the rain in a way as old as men on any earth.