"Trouble enough." He reached for her hand, held it tightly, to assure himself she was solid and with him. "What of you? What are these folk? What are we amid here?"
"Arrha.Keepers of Nehmin, among other things. They are dangerous. But without them I would not have survived, whatever else we have to do one with the other."
"Are you free?"
"That is a question yet to be tried. There is nowhere to go from here. Three nights ago the marshlanders tried our defenses. They are still out there. We held them then. Lellin Sezar the arrha.I have tried to stay back from it, to avoid having them know me but then I could not. Even so it was close."
A host of questions pressed on him. He felt her hand, how thin and fragile it had become. "Are you all right? Your wound-"
She moved her hand to her hip, where the leg joined. "Mending. The arrhaare skilled healers. It was a bad one. I came close enough to dying. I do not remember the last of that ride, but that Lellin and Sezar knew where they were going or thought they did. And the arrhalet us pass."
"If you had not stayed ahorse" He did not finish the thought, sickened by it.
"Aye. I had the same thought for you. But you reached Merir after all. And yet you sent me no message."
He was confused for a moment, realizing then how she had misconstructed things. "Would my course had been that direct," he said, and a sudden fear possessed him, reluctance to admit what had happened most of all to have her know he had been in the enemy's hands. Gate-force could change men: Roh was proof enough of that; and he recalled a time when she would have killed out of hand for any such doubt of a companion. "Forgive me," he said. "I have used allies in getting here that you will curse me for taxing. And Merir knows both what you hold and what you have come to do what wecame to do. Forgive me. I trust too easily."
She was silent a moment. Fear touched her eyes. "The arrhaknow both by now, then."
"There is more, liyo.One of the men out there is Roh."
She drew back.
"I have been to the Gate and back again," he said hoarsely, refusing to let her go. "Liyo,on my soul, I had no choice; and I would not be here but for Roh."
"What of an oath you swore? What of that? You were not to let him live. And you have brought him to me?"
"He has helped us both. He asked only to see you; that was his condition. I warned him I confess that I warned him and tried to persuade him to run. But he would come. He has run out of friends. And without him-. Will you not hear him?"
She looked down. "Come with me," she said, and rose, still with her hand in his. He rose and walked with her among the rocks, down the other slope of the hill, by yet another trail. "Our camp is here," she said as they walked. "Extraordinary dispensation: no axe touches Nehmin but the arrhabrought wood from the outside, and built this for us. In some regards they have been more than kind."
A wooden shelter was almost hidden among the tall trees; a ghostly horse grazed beside it Siptah. He recognized the gray Baien stud with a pang of relief, for Morgaine loved that horse, and had she lost him, she would have grieved . .. as much, he thought, as she might for him, for the gray horse had come with her farther and longer. Two other horses grazed slightly apart: Lellin's and Sezar's, one conspicuous for its white stockings. All of them looked sleek and well-cared for.
"Roh," she murmured as they descended toward the shelter. "The arrhameant to hold all of you from me at least overnight, to ask their own questions, I do not doubt. But they understand the bond of khemeisand arrhen,and when I accused them of harming you, they let you come, out of shame, I suppose. Roh's presence that concerns me. I would not have him giving witness of me."
"We might try to break out of here."
She shook her head. "I fear our choice is in the Shiua's hands. They are on two sides of us at least." She drew back the curtain of the shelter, gray gauze like the harilim'sveils, like old moss, many layered. It swung against his face as he entered, and he did not like the feel of it.
Morgaine bent and touched a reed to a brazier of coals and transferred that tiny flame to a single-wicked lamp, so that a dim light surrounded them. "The harilimdo not like fire," she said. "But we are very careful. Drop the curtain. Shed the armor. No enemies can come at us here without a great deal of trouble, and as for the arrhathey are of a different sort. I will find out what we have about here to eat."
He stood motionless in the center of the small shelter as she searched through the collection of jars in the corner. There was Siptah's harness, and that of Lellin's and Sezar's horses; there were three pallets, with gray gauze veils dividing one off for privacy; Morgaine's armor, laid neatly in the corner; and Changelingas if it were only another sword, leaned by it. Even to have walked up to the hilltop without that fell thing was something incredible in her a dulling of cautions by which she had survived. There was after all a change about her, something alien and distant. In this place of familiar things she was the difference. He watched her in the dim light, slender and delicate as the qhalin the white garments and her features when she looked up at him: the tautness of pain had been there recently. So close,he thought with sudden anguish, so very close to losing her; perhaps that is the mark on her.
"Vanye?"
He reached for the straps of his armor, worked at them clumsily, managed them. She helped him pull it off, received the two-stone weight of mail into her hands and laid it aside. He unlaced the haqueton and shed it, sank down onto the mat with a sigh. Then she gave him water to drink, and bread and cheese of which he could eat only a few bites. He was more content simply to lean against the support of the shelter and rest. It was warm; she was there. It was for the moment, enough.
"Do not worry about the others," she said. "Lellin and Sezar will give warning if anything threatens us, and the arrharefuse to lay hand on them or me. -Oh, it is good to see thee, Vanye."
"Aye," he murmured, for his voice was too taut to say more.
She sat on the mat beside the brazier, locked her hands about one knee. A moment she gazed at him, as if taking in small details. "You have been hurt."
"It passes."
"Your fall out there-"
"I rode into that blind." He grimaced. "I thought to warn you of my company."
"You succeeded." Her face grew the more concerned, deeply distressed. "Vanye. Will thee tell me what happened?"
"Roh, you mean."
"Roh.. And whatever else thee thinks good for me to know."
He glanced down, up again. "I have gone against your orders. I know that. I could not kill him. I confess to you it has not been the first time. I agreed with him that I would speak to you he asked nothing more, not even that much, but I told him that I would; I owed him. He is out of allies, out of hope, except to come here."
"And you believe him."
"Yes. In that-I do believe him."
Her hands clenched on her knee until the knuckles were white. "And what do you expect me to do?"
"I do not know. I do not know, liyo."He made the profound obeisance, which gesture she ordinarily hated, but the time demanded it. "I told him that I would speak with you. Will you let me do so, and hear me? I set my word on that."
"Do not hope that it will make any difference. My choices are not governed by what I would or you would."
"All I ask is a hearing. It is not easy to explain. In any sense, it is not easy. And I have asked few things of you, ever."