"Do you doubt my word, my lord?Do you want an earnest of my intentions?"
"She is mad," Hesiyyn exclaimed.
Chei gathered himself hastily to his feet. "Up," he said, dragging at Hesiyyn, at Rhanin. And cast an anxious glance at Morgaine, whose weapon stayed centered on him, whose eyes were, as Hesiyyn said—mad and beyond all reason.
Chapter Sixteen
"Vanye. Vanye,"Morgaine's voice called him gently.
"Aye, liyo."He opened his eyes, trying to bring her face out of the dusk. He could not, quite.
"Vanye, will you trust me?"
"Aye, liyo."
"I am going to go over there and rest, the night. Listen to me. I have not the strength to take care of thee—" Her fingers brushed his cheek. Her voice shook. "Chei will help thee, he will do everything he can for thee—he has agreed, at peril of his life. Does thee understand, Vanye? I do not want thee waking and not knowing where I am. And if he hurts thee I will shoot him. And if thee does not mend I will shoot him. And he knows it."
He blinked at her. When she took that tone it was her intention beyond a doubt, even if it made no sense at all.
"Thee understands?"
"Aye," he said.
The dark swallowed him up a time, and there was movement about him—firelit faces between him and the night sky.
One was Chei's.
He forgot, then, where he was.
"Ah," he cried, and tried desperately to fight them.
"Be still," Chei said, and put his hand over his mouth. "Be still, man. Vanye. Vanye—listen to me."
He recalled then, some insanity that Morgaine was with him. Or would come. He could not remember which.
"Look." Chei lifted his head, carefully, gently, and showed him a strange sight: showed him Siptah, and at Siptah's feet a stump, or some object, and Morgaine sitting with her hands between her knees. He was afraid, until he saw Changelingacross her lap
"You are safe," Chei said. "You are quite safe with us."
"She has promised to shoot one of us." Hesiyyn gently unfastened a buckle at his side as Chei let his head back. "I have no doubt which one of us. My lord Chei is necessary, Rhanin wins everyone, and I am told I make enemies. I pray you know I shall be careful."
He blinked dazedly. He recalled some such thing, mad as it was, and lay still, until they needed to work the mail shirt off. But that they did gently, easing his arms as they worked it free.
It was all one with the dark, the fever, the nightmare that began to become ease of pain. They put warm compresses on his hurts, renewing them constantly; they put hot cloths over him, soaked in herbals; they made him drink something complex and musky, and breathe something that gave his throat ease. He became comfortable, finally.
And slept till Chei roused him and made him drink something else.
"No more," he said.
"Drink this," Chei said fiercely. "Damn you, drink; we will not die for your convenience."
He heard the harshness of panic in that voice. He recalled a nightmare, wherein Morgaine had asked him bear with everything.
He struggled onto his arm, dislodging compresses, to see was she safe and his memory true.
She was there. Changelingwas still with her. Siptah stood close by her. Her head had fallen forward, her pale hair touched with fire-glow and starlight.
"Drink," Rhanin said.
He trusted them then, and drank, with a clearer head than he had had. He shivered, and the bruises hurt less. They renewed the compresses out of a pan of hot water, and smothered him in blankets.
Only his chest hurt sharply, where ribs might be cracked. But that, he thought, was bearable, if he were not so drained and weak. The burns hurt far less; the other injuries that had near taken his mind with pain, were so much relieved he seemed to drift in enervated numbness.
The qhal whispered among themselves, urgently, debating something they might give him. Or how much they might give him, to put him on his feet. One said no, there was risk. Another objected he had to ride, and could not else: he would never last in the saddle. And that was Chei and Hesiyyn.
He lay and thought about that. He tested his breathing, how much it hurt; he moved his right leg, to test whether it hurt as it had, and looked at the two who argued.
"Is there something," he asked faintly, in a lull, "will let me ride today?"
He shocked them, perhaps. There was a moment's utter hush.
"Yes," Chei said. "There is something that will. But the end of it is worse than the first. Best you do without it. You will ride. That is what she asked. That is what she will have. We have kept our end of the bargain."
"Do you drink it," he asked, the faintest of whispers, "or swallow it?"
"Not, I say."
"Chei—tell me what it will do."
"It will kill you, that is what it will do. And no."
"It would keep a dead man on his feet," Hesiyyn said. "It would not improve his judgment. And my lord says the truth: it would take a heavy toll."
"Give it to me. To carry. Chei, give it to me and we are quit of a great deal."
Chei gnawed at his lip—young Chei's face, a mature qhal's calculation as he rested with his arm on his knee and his eyes, by firelight, flickering with changes.
"You would take only a taste of it on your tongue," he said. "I will tell you the truth, man, if you use it in extremity—you will not survive it."
He thought about that. He drew breaths against the ache in his ribs, and knew what his sword-arm or his archery was worth at the moment. He thought how far they had yet to go.
"You are not the man I would choose," he said. "But there is a great deal you could learn from my liege. There are more worlds than you know. If you knew more than you did, I think you might understand her more. You would know why she is right. More than I do. Give me this thing and do not tell her. The important thing is that we get there."
Chei looked at him in profound disturbance. His fist clenched and unclenched, of the arm which supported his chin, and his brow was ridged and glistening with sweat. "And you do what—lay this in her lap? Tell her then we tried to kill you?"
"We will have no quarrel, Chei. What do you want? That she stop somewhere further on—for my sake? That is what she isdoing. Give it to me."
Chei delved into his belongings, and gathered out a packet. "One pellet. One. No more than that. Three and your heart would burst. I am putting it with your belongings. That is all I will do." He busied himself and mixed something with water, and boiled it.
"What is this?" he asked, when Hesiyyn intended he drink it.
"I thought we were allies," Hesiyyn said. "Drink. This is for the fever."
"Also," Hesiyyn said when he had drunk it, "it will make you sleep."
The sun came up, and Morgaine still drowsed, he saw as he lifted his head, with Siptah's tether passed across her shoulder, with the sword in her lap, her back against a rock, and the small black weapon between her knees, in both her hands.
It was Chei whose eyes had shadows. It was Chei who offered him an overcooked porridge, with a hand that shook with exhaustion.
He took it. He forced it down. It came at too much cost to refuse.
Across the little distance, Siptah jerked his head up and snorted challenge to Rhanin's approach. Morgaine lifted her head abruptly, the weapon in her hand.