"I understand you."
"We will hold them." There was sorrow etched deep in the old qhal'sface. "We shall lose many of our numbers, I fear, but we shall hold them. We have no choice. Go now. Go and sleep. In the morning you will go with Lellin and Sezar, and we shall hope that you keep faith, lady Morgaine: I have shown you much that could greatly harm us."
She inclined her head, respecting the old qhal."Good night, my lord," she murmured and turned and left. Vanye replaced the lamp carefully on its hanging chain near the old lord's chair, thinking of his comfort, and when the aged qhalsat down, he bowed too, the full obeisance he would have shown a lord of his own people, forehead to the ground.
"Man," said Merir gently, "for your sake I have believed your lady."
"How, lord?" he asked, for it bewildered him."
"Your manner-that you are devoted to her. Self-love shows itself first that qhaland Man cannot trust one another. But neither you nor she is afflicted by that evil. You serve, but not because you fear. You affect the manner of a servant, but you are more than that. You are a warrior like the sirrindim,and not like the khemi.But you show respect to an elder, and him not of your blood. Such small things show more truth than any words. And therefore I am moved to trust your lady."
He was stricken by this, knowing that they would fail that trust, and he was frightened. All at once he felt himself utterly transparent before the old lord, and soiled and unclean.
"Protect Lellin," the old qhalasked of him.
"Lord, I will," he whispered, and this faith at least he meant to keep. Tears stung his eyes and choked his voice, and a second time he inclined himself to the mat, and sat back again. "Thank you for my lady, for she was very tired and we are both very weary of fighting. Thank you for this time you have given us, and for your help to cross your lands. Have I leave to go, my lord?"
The old qhaldismissed him with a soft word, and he rose and left the tent, sought Morgaine's in the dark, on the rim of the gathering. The merriment there still continued, the eerie sounds of qhalursinging.
"We shall both sleep," Morgaine said. "And the armor is useless. Sleep soundly; it may be some time before we have another chance."
He agreed, and put up a blanket for a curtain between them, suspended from the cross-pole; gladly he stripped of the armor, and of clothing, wrapped himself in a blanket and lay down, and Morgaine did likewise, a little distance away on the soft furs provided for their beds. The makeshift curtain did not reach the floor, and the light of the fires outside cast a dim glow within. He saw her gazing at him, head pillowed on her arm.
"What kept thee with Merir?"
"It would sound strange if I said it."
"I ask."
"He said that he trusted you because of me . . that if there were evil in us, it would show-between you and myself; of course they take you for one of their own."
She made a sound that might have been a laugh, bitter and brief.
"Liyo,we shall ruin these people."
"Be still. Even in Andurin, I would not discuss that; Andurin is laced with qhalurborrowings, and I do not feel secure in it. Besides, who knows what tongue these sirrindimspeak, or whether some qhalhere may not know it? Remember that when we travel with Lellin."
"I shall."
"Yet thee knows I have no choice, Vanye."
"I know. I understand."
Her dim face seemed touched by that, and a great sorrow was on it
"Sleep," she said, and closed her eyes.
It was the best and only counsel in the matter.
Chapter Five
Their setting out was by no means furtive or quiet The horses were brought up before Merir's tent, and there Lellin took leave of his grandfather and his father and mother and great-uncle… grave, kind-eyed folk like Merir. His parents seemed old to have a son as young as Lellin, and they took his leaving hard. Sezar too they bade an affectionate farewell, kissing his hands and wishing him well, for the khemeisseemed to have no kinfolk among the Men in the camp: it was of Lellin's family that he took his leave.
They were offered food, and they took it, for it was well-prepared for keeping on the trail. Then Merir came forward and offered to Morgaine a gold medallion on a chain, intricate, beautiful work. "I lend this," he said. "It is safe passage." And another he brought forth and gave to Vanye, a silver one. "With either of these, ask what you will of any of our people save the arrha,who regard no authority of mine. Even there it might avail something. These are more protection in Shathan than any weapon."
Morgaine bowed to him in public respect, and Vanye likewise… Vanye at his feet, and not grudgingly, for without the old lord's help, the passage which now lay so easily before them would have been a terrible one.
Then they went to their horses, Siptah and Mai glistening from a bath and content with good care. Someone had twined star-like blue flowers in long chains from Siptah's mane, and white in Mai's-the strangest accouterment that ever a Kurshin warrior's horse bore, Vanye thought… but the gesture was like these graceful folk, and touched him.
There were no horses for Lellin or Sezar. "We will have," Lellin explained, "farther."
"Do you know where we are going?" Morgaine asked.
"Where you will, after I have taken you clear of this camp. But the horses will be there."
And by this it was clear that they would be under more eyes than Lellin's during their journey.
They set out down the main aisle of the camp, while the people both Men and qhalinclined to them in a bow like the rippling of wind through tall grass-as if they honored old friends; the rippling flowed with their passage almost to the edge of the wood.
There Vanye turned and looked back, to convince himself that such a place had been real at ail. There was the forest shade on them, but a golden-green light fell over the encampment, which was all tents and movable-and would, he suspected, swiftly vanish from the place.
They entered the forest then, where the air was at once cooler. They took a different path than that by which they had come: Lellin avowed they must follow it until noon. And Lellin strode along by Siptah's head, while Sezar vanished shadow-wise into the brush. The qhalwhistled a few clear notes from time to time, which were echoed from ahead, evidence where Sezar might be… and sometimes, for what seemed Lenin's own joy, the notes trilled into a snatch of qhalursong, wild and strange.
"Do not be too reckless," Morgaine bade him after one such. "Not all our enemies are unskilled in the forest."
Lellin turned as he walked and swept a slight bow… he seemed too happy by nature to keep the spring from his step, and a smile came naturally to his face. "We are surrounded at the moment by our own people .. . but I shall remember your warning, my lady. "
He had a fragile look, this Lellin Erinhen, but today, against what seemed the habit of his people, he went armed… with a smallish bow and a quiver of brown-feathered arrows. It was probable, Vanye reckoned to himself, that this tall, delicate-looking qhalcould use them, with the same skill that he and his khemeiscould travel the woods unheard. Doubtless the noise they must make in riding seemed so loud to their young guide that he felt he might as well whistle songs into the bargain… but thereafter he heeded Morgaine's wish and signaled only. He still seemed cheerful, songs or no.
They rested at noon, and Lellin called Sezar back, tosit beside them at a streamside, while the horses drank and they took the leisure for a bit to eat. They had become well-fed in their recent travels, accustomed to meals at regular times and abundant provisions, when before, their travelling and their scant rations had worn them so that they had made new notches in their armor straps. Now they were back to the old, and rested in a patch of warm sun. It would have been easy to fall under Shathan's whispering sell. Morgaine's eyes were half-lidded and lazy, but she did watch, and observed their two guides as if her thoughts much turned upon them.
"We must move," she declared sooner than they would have wished, and rose; dutifully they gathered themselves up, and Vanye took up their saddle-kits.
"My lady Morgaine says our enemies are forest-wise," Lellin said then to Sezar. "Be most careful in your walking."
The Man set his hands in his belt and gave a short nod. "It is quiet all about, no sign of trouble."