Of kin she had never spoken. She might have risen out of the elements, out of moonbeams, out of the tales of his people.
Iam not qhal, she had said time and again. And at one time: I am halfling.
"Are you saying this Skarrin—then—is kin of yours?"
"None, that I know."
"Who was your father?"
"An enemy." She cast another pebble into the darkening water, and did not look at him. "In a land before yours. He is dead. Let it rest."
He would not have trod on that ground for any urging.
"He was qhal, to your way of thinking," Morgaine said. "Give it peace. It has no significance here. Anjhurin was his name. You have heard it. Now forget ever you heard it. This Skarrin is no one I know, but my name might warn him, changed as it is."
He took in his breath and let it go again, stripping a bit of grass in his fingers, looking only at that. And for a long time neither of them spoke.
He shrugged. "I will scout out tomorrow," he said, to have the peace back, to ease her mind, however he could. "When I go for forage. There might be something over the hills."
"Aye," she said, and shifted round to lean her shoulder against his back. He sighed at the relief that gave the center of his back, against the armor-weight. "But two of us would—"
"I. Do we need start every bird and rabbit 'twixt us and Mante?" He felt a sense of impending calamity, such that his breath came in with a shiver, and he let it go again. "I will go."
"Afoot?"
"No. I can ride the stream-course. There will be no difficulty." He sighed against her weight on his shoulders, and looked at the sky in which the stars had begun to appear. "We should rest," he said sullenly.
"Is thee angry?"
He drew in his breath, and shifted about to face her. Aye, he was about to say. But the sober, gentle look she gave him was rare enough he hesitated to offend it.
She was always and always the same, always devil-driven, always restless, incapable even of reason.
And she had brought them through, always, somehow—was always beforehand, always quicker than her enemies expected, and not where they expected.
She might drive a sane man mad.
"Vanye?" she asked.
"What more?" he said shortly.
She was silent then, and sat back with a wounded look that shot through him and muddled all the anger he could muster.
It was not, not, Heaven knew, the face she turned to the world. Only to him. Only to him, in all the world.
He got to his feet and snatched up a wildflower at his other side, knelt and solemnly offered the poor thing to her, all closed up for the night as it was. Bruised, it had a strong grass smell, the smell of spring lilies, that reminded him suddenly of rides on a brown pony, of—Heaven knew—his boyhood.
Her eyes sought up to his. Her mouth curved at the edges, and solemnly she took it, her fingers brushing his hand. "Is this all thee offers?"
"Aye," he said, off his balance in his foolishness: she always had the better of him with words—was not, he suddenly thought, taking it for a jest; or was; he did not know, suddenly; it was like everything between them. He gestured desperately beyond his shoulder. "Or," he said briskly, deliberately perverse, "I might find others, if I walked along the stream there. I might bring you a handful."
Her eyes lightened, went solemn then, and slowly she rose up to her knees and put her arms about his neck, whereat the world went giddy as the smell of flowers.
"Do it tomorrow," she said, a long moment later; and gently she began the buckles of his armor, that she had helped him with a hundred times to different purpose.
Changeling slipped from its place and fell with a rattle as they made themselves a nest there of their cloaks and blankets. She reached out and laid the dragon sword down beside them, the hilt toward her hand, and loosed his hair from the ivory pin.
So he laid his own sword, close by the other side. They never quite forgot. There had been too many ambushes, that they could ever quite forget.
It was up and prepare to move at sunrise, in the dewy chill and the damp; and Vanye shut his eyes, wrapped in his blanket, leaning his back against Morgaine's knee and letting her comb and braid his hair this morning, carefully and at leisure, which a lady might do for her man. He sighed in that quiet, and that contentment.
There was no blight could touch the hour, nothing at all wrong with the world or with anyone in it, and the quick deft touch of Morgaine's fingers near lulled him to sleep again. He shut his eyes till she pushed his head forward to plait the braid, and rested so, head bowed, till she tied it off and brought it through and pinned it in its simple knot at the back of his neck.
So she was done with him. So it was time to think about the day. He leaned his head back against her knees and sighed to a touch of her fingers pulling at a lock by his temple. "Does thee intend to tie this someday? Or go blind by degrees?"
"Do what you like." No blade came on an uyo's hair, except for judicious barbering, at his own hand. But his hair was twice hacked and hewn and grown out again, and truth, some of it was often in his eyes. "Cut it," he said, nerving himself. His Kurshin half was aghast. But it was Chya clan which had taken him from his outlawry, it was a Chya he served, it had been a Chya who had proved his true kinsman; and a Chya was what he became, less and less careful of proprieties. He faced about and leaned on one hand, while she took her Honor-blade and cut the straying lock; and cut it again, and cut another.
At that he opened his mouth to protest, then shut his eyes to keep the hair out and bit his lip.
"It was another one."
"Aye," he said. He was determined not to be superstitious; he prepared himself to see her cast the locks away, he would not play the fool with her, not make her think him simple.
But she played him that kind of turn she did so often, and put the locks of hair into his hand as if she had known Kurshin ways.
He scattered them on the moving water, since they had no fire; so any omen was gone, and no one could harm his soul.
And he turned on his knee and settled again on both knees, like a man who would make a request. ,
"Liyo-"
"I have a name."
She had had some lover before him. He knew that now. But into that he did not ever want to ask. Folly to look back, profoundest folly, and against all her counsel—
She had so little she could part with. Least of all her purposes.
"Morgaine," he said, whispered. Her name was ill-omen. It burned with the legends of kings and sorceries, and too much of death. Morgaine Anjhuran was the other face, not the one he loved. For the woman he knew, he did not have a name at all. But he tried to fit that one around her, and took both her hands in his as he knelt and she sat on a stone as if it were some high queen's throne, under the last few stars. "Listen, my liege—"
"Do not you kneel," she said harshly, and clenched her hands on his. "How often have I told thee?"
"Well, it is my habit." He began to get up; then sank back again, jaw set. "It still is."
"You are a free man."
"Well, then, I do what I please, do I not? And since you are a lord, my lady-liege, and since I am only dai-uyo at best, I still call you my liege and I still go on my knees when I see fit, for decency, my liege. And I ask you—" She started to speak and he pressed her hands, hard. "While I am gone, stay close, take no chances, and for the love of Heaven—trust me, however long. If I meet trouble I can wait it out until they leave. If I have to wonder about your riding into it, then I have to do something else. So do me the grace and wait here, and be patient. Then neither of us will have to worry, is that not reasonable?"