Gate of Ivrel com-1

by C. J. Cherryh

  He found an object which answered the question, such that set his stomach over.

  It was a medal, gold, set in the hilt of a saddle knife, the sort many a man bore beneath the skirt of his saddle; and on it was a symbol of the blockish, ugly look he had seen graven on the Stones. It was qujalin. Whenever any strange and long-ago things were found, folk called them qujalin and avoided them, or burned them, or cast them into deeps and tried to lose them. Most such were likely only forgotten oddities, Kurshin and harmless. Somehow he did not think this was such as that

  He showed it to Morgaine when she wakened to take her turn at watch.

  “It is an irrhn,” she said to him. “A luck-piece. It has no other significance.” But she turned it over and over in her hands, examining it.

  “It is no luck,” said Vanye, “to a human man.”

  “There is qujalin blood mixed in Leth,” she said, “and Liell is its tutor. Tutors have ruled there nigh a hundred years. Each of the heirs of Leth has produced a son and drowned within the year. If Kasedre is capable of siring a son, he will most probably join his ancestors, and Liell will still be tutor to the son. I wonder,” she added irrelevantly, looking at the blade, “who sired Hshi and Tlin.”

  “And on what,” Vanye muttered sourly. “Keep the blade, liyo. I do not want to carry it, and perhaps it may bring luck to you.”

  “I am not qujal,” she said.

  That assertion, he reflected, might have filled him with either doubt or relief some days ago, at their meeting; now it fitted uncomfortably well with the thing he had begun to suspect of her.

  “Whatever you are,” he said, “spare me the knowing of it.”

  She nodded, accepting his attitude without apparent offense. She slipped the knife within her belt and rose.

  A green-feathered arrow hit the ground between her feet

  She reached to her back, hand to weapon, quick as the arrow itself. And as quick, Vanye seized her and pushed her, heedless of hurting: Chya warning, that arrow. If she fired, they would both be green-feathered in an instant.

  “Do not,” he appealed to her, and turned, both arms wide, toward their unseen observers. “Hai, Chya! Chya! Will you put kin-slaying on your souls? We are clan-welcome with you, cousins.”

  Brush rustled. He watched the fair, tall men of his own mother’s kindred slip out of the shadows, where surely a few more kept arrows trained upon their hearts; and he set himself deliberately between them and Morgaine’s own arrogance, which was like a Myya’s for persistence, and likely to be the death of her.

  They did not even ask names of them, but stood there waiting for them to speak and identify themselves. Looking at the living person of one who had been minutely described in ballads a century ago, wondering perhaps if they were not mad—he could estimate what passed in their minds. They only stared at Morgaine, and she at them, furiously, in her hand a weapon that could deal death faster than their arrows.

  They would kill her of course, if she could die; but she would have done considerable damage: and her ilin who was her shield would be quite dead. He had heard of a certain Myya who strayed the border and was found with three Chya arrows lodged in his heart, all touching. Clan Chya lived in a hard land. They were impressed by few threats. It was typical of them that they had not yielded and begged shelter from the encroaching beasts, as had other folk; or died, as had two others. They used Hjemur’s vile beasts for game, and harried the border of Hjemur and kept Thiye contained out of sheer Chya effrontery.

  Vanye placed hands on thighs and made a respectful bow, which Morgaine did not: she did not move, and it was possible that the Chya did not know that they were in danger.

  “I am Nhi Vanye i Chya,” he said, “Ilin to this lady, who is clan-welcome with Chya.”

  The leader, a smallish man with the simple braid of a second– uyo, cousin-kin to the main clan, grounded his longbow and set both hands upon it, eyes upon him. “Nhi Vanye, cousin to Chya Roh. You are i Chya, that is true, but I thought it was understood that you are not clan-welcome here.”

  “She is,” he said, which was the proper answer: an ilin was not held to his own law when he served his liyo: he could trespass, as safe or as threatened as she was. “She is Morgaine kri Chya, who has a clan-welcome that was never withdrawn.”

  They were frightened. They had the look of men watching a dream and trying not to become enmeshed in it. But they looked from her to the gray horse Siptah and back again, and swords stayed sheathed and bows lowered.

  “We will take you to Ra-koris,” said the little man. “I am Taomen, tan-uyo.”

  Then Morgaine gave him a bow of courtesy, and Vanye kept his silence hereafter, as befitted a servant whose liyo had finally deigned to take matters into her own hands.

  The Chya were not happy at the meeting, it was clear. Clan-welcome had not been formally withdrawn because surely it had seemed a pointless vengeance on the dead. And the young lord of Chya, Chya Roh, his own cousin, whom he had never seen, still pursued bloodfeud with him for the sake of his mother’s dishonor at the hands of Rijan. Rob would as soon put an arrow through him as would Myya Gervaine, he was sure, and probably with greater accuracy.

  There was a vast clearing in the Koriswood, that the noon sun blessed with a pleasant glow; the whole of it was full of sprawling huts of brush and logs. Chya, the only clan without a hall of stone. Once there had been the old Ra-koris, a splendid hall, home of the High Kings; its ruin lay some distance from this, and it was alleged to be haunted by angry ghosts of its proud defenders, that had held last and hardest against the advance of Hjemur. The grandsons and great-grandsons of the warriors of Morgaine’s age kept only this wooden hall, their possessions few and their treasures gone, only their bows and their skill and the gain of their hunting between them and starvation. Yet none of them looked sickly, and the women and children watching them as they rode in were straight and tall, though plain: there was beauty in this people, much different from the blighted look of clan Leth.

  Boys raced ahead of them, yet all was strangely silent, as though they maintained hunter’s discipline even in their home. At the great arch of the main hut the greatest number of people had gathered, and here they dismounted, escorted still by Taomen and his men. They retained their weapons, and all was courtesy, men yielding back for them in haste.

  Ra-koris was a smoky, earth-floored hall of rough logs, yet it had a certain splendor: it had two levels and many halls opening off the main room. Tasseled and wrought hides were the hangings, antlers and strange horns adorned its posts. It was lit by torches even at noontime, and by a hearth larger than many halls of stone could boast, its only masonry, that great hearth and its venting.

  “Here you will be lodged until Roh can be called,” said Taomen.

  Morgaine chose to settle at the main hearth, and by the timorous charity of the hall women, they were served a plain meal of waybread and venison and Chya mead, which they found good indeed after the suspect fare of Leth.

  But folk avoided them, and watched them from the shadows of the wooden hall, whispering together.

  Morgaine ignored them all and rested. Vanye nursed his sore hand and finally, troubled by the heat in the hall, at last gave up his pride and removed helm and coif, probing the soreness of the base of his skull, where Liell had struck him. A youth of the Chya laughed: a youth who did not yet even wear the braid; and Vanye looked at him angrily, then bowed his head and ignored the matter. He was not in such a position that he could complain of their treatment of him. Morgaine must be his chief concern, and she theirs.

  And late in the day, when the bit of sky visible through the little windows of the high arch had gone from sun to shadow, there was a stir at the door and hunters came, men in brown leather, armed with bows and swords.

  And among them was one that Vanye knew would be close kin of his, even before the youth came forward and met them as lord of the hall: for he had seen high-clan Chya before, when he was a child, and this was the image of all
of them—of himself as well. The young lord looked more like a brother than his own brothers did.

  “I am Chya Roh,” he said, stepping to the center of the rhowa, the earthen platform at the head of the hall. His lean, tanned features were set with anger at their presence, boding no good for them. “Morgaine kri Chya is dead,” he said, “a hundred years ago. What proof do you bear that you are she?”

  Morgaine unfolded upward from her cross-legged posture with rare grace, smooth and silken, and without a bow of courtesy offered an object into Vanye’s hand. He arose with less grace, paused to look at the object before he passed it into Roh’s hand: it was the antlered insignia of the old High Kings of Koris, and when he saw that he knew it for a great treasure, and one that might have formed part of the lost crown treasury.

  “It was Tiffwy’s,” she said. “His pledge of hospitality—should I need it, he said, to command of his men what I would.”

  Roh’s face was pale. He looked at the amulet, and clenched it in his fist, and his manner was suddenly subdued. “Chya gave you what you asked a hundred years ago,” he said, “and not a man of the four thousand returned. You have much blood on your hands, Morgaine kri Chya; and yet I must honor my ancestor’s word—this once. What do you seek here?”

  “Brief shelter. Silence. And whatever knowledge you have of Thiye and Hjemur.”

  “All three you may have,” he said.

  “Did Chya’s record survive?”

  “The Ra-koris you know is ruin now. Wolves and other beasts have it to themselves. If Chya’s Book survives, that is where it lies. We have no means nor leisure for books here, lady.”

  She bowed in courtesy. “I have a warning to give you: Leth is roused. We left them in some little stir. Guard your borders.”

  Roh’s lips were thin. “You are gifted with the raising of storms, lady. We will set men to watch your trail. It may be Leth will come this far, but only if they are desperate. We have taught Leth manners before.”

  “They are mightily irritated. Vanye’s horse is Leth-bred, and we quit their hospitality suddenly, in a dispute with lord Kasedre and his counselor Chya Liell.”

  “Liell,” said Roh softly. “ That black wolf. I commend the quality of your enemies, lady. How much welcome do you ask?”

  “The night only.”

  “Are you bound north?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Roh bit his lip. “That old quarrel? They say Thiye lives. It has never been in our imagination that you could survive too. But we are through giving you men, lady. That is done. We have none left to spare you.”

  “I ask none.”

  “You take this?” It was Roh’s one acknowledgment that Vanye lived; his proud young eyes shifted aside and back again. “You could do better, lady.”

  But then he went and bade his women make place for Morgaine in the upper levels of the hall, and separate place for Vanye by the hearth. This Morgaine allowed, for Chya was a proper hall, and they were indeed under its peace as they had not been in Leth. And after that Morgaine and Roh talked together some little time, asking and answering, until she finally took her leave and passed upstairs.

  Then Vanye gratefully put off his armor, down to his shirt and his leather breeches, and prepared the blankets they had given him by the warm hearthside.

  Taomen came, spoke to him softly and bade him come to Roh; it was a thing he could not refuse. Roh sat cross-legged on the rhowa, with other men about him.

  Of a sudden Vanye’s feeling of ease left him. There was merry noise elsewhere in the hall, busy chatter of women and of children; it continued, masking softer words, and there were men ringed about so that no one outside the circle could see what was done there.

  He did not kneel, not until they made it clear he must; then all the uyin of the Chya sank down on their haunches about him and about Roh, swords laid before them, as when clan judgment was passed.

  He thought of crying aloud to Morgaine, warning her of treachery; but he did not truly fear for her, and his own pride kept him silent These were his kin: to trouble an ilin for a family matter violated honor, violated the very concepts of honor under the ilin–codes, but Roh’s offense was a powerful one. He did not know this cousin of his: his hope of Roh’s honor was scant, but it kept him from utter panic.

  “Now,” said Roh, “and truthfully, Nhi Vanye, account for her and for your business with her.”

  “Nothing she told you was a lie and nothing less than the truth. She is Morgaine, and I am an ilin to her.”

  Roh looked him over, long and harshly. “So Rijan threw you out. You robbed him of one of his Myya wife’s precious nestlings and he banished you. But you are due no kinship from us. My aunt did not choose your begetting. I only blame her because she did not leave Morija and come back to us. She was no captive by then, great with child as she was.”

  “To what should she come back—to your welcome?” Temper overcame sense, for Roh’s words stung. “I honor her, Chya. And Chya’s honor would not have taken her back as she had been, not after Rijan had had her, whether or not she were willing. She gave me life and died doing it, and I know the misery she had of Rijan better than you folk, that had not the stomach for coming into Morija to get her back, after Rijan rode into Chya lands to take her from you. Where is your honor, men of Chya?”

  The stillness was absolute. Suddenly the hall was deserted but for them. The fire crackled. A log fell, showering embers.

  “What became of her?” asked Roh at last, tilting the balance toward life and reason. “Was it death in childbirth, as they said?”

  “Yes.”

  Roh let go his breath slowly. “Better had Rijan drowned you. Perhaps he regretted that he did not. But you are here. So live, Nhi Vanye, Rijan’s bastard. Now what shall we do with you?”

  “Do as she asked and let us pass from this hall tomorrow.”

  “Do you serve her willingly?”

  “Yes,” he said, “it was fair Claiming. I was in need. Now I am in her debt and I must pay it.”

  “Where is she going?”

  “She is my lady,” he said, “and it is not right for me to say anything of her business. Look to your own. You will have Leth at your borders for her sake.”

  “Where is she going, Nhi Vanye?”

  “Ask her, I say.”

  Roh snapped his fingers. Men reached for the blades laid before them. They unsheathed them so that the points formed a ring about him. Somewhere in hall a dish fell. A woman ran cat-footed into the corridor beyond, drew the curtain and was gone.

  “Ask Morgaine,” Vanye said again; and when his breathing space grew less and an edge rested familiarly on his shoulder, he maintained his composure and did not flinch, though his heart was beating fit to burst “If you continue, Chya Roh, I shall decide there is no honor at all in Chya. And I shall be ashamed for that.”

  Roh considered him in silence. Vanye went sick inside: his nerves were strung, waiting, the least pressure from them likely to send from his lips a shout to raise the hall and Morgaine from sleep. He was not brave. He had long ago discovered in himself that he had no courage for enduring pain or threat. His brothers had discovered that in him before he had. It was the same feeling that churned in him now, the same that he had known when they, out of old San Romen’s protective witness, had bullied him to his knees and brought tears to his eyes. That one fatal time he had seized arms against Handrys’s tormenting of him, one time only: his hands had killed, not his mind, which was blank and terrified, and had his hands not been filled with a weapon they would have found him as always, as he was now.

  But Roh snapped his fingers a second time and they let him alone. “Get to your place,” said Roh, “ ilin.”

  He rose then, and bowed, and walked—it was incredible that he could walk steadily—to the place he had left at the hearth. There he lay down again, and wrapped himself in his cloak and clenched his teeth and let the fire warm the tremors from his muscles.

  He wanted to kill. For ev
ery affront ever paid him, for all the terror ever set into him, he wanted to kill; and he squeezed the tears from his eyes and began to reckon that perhaps his father had been right, that his hand had been more honest than he knew. He feared a great many things: he feared death; he feared Morgaine and he feared Liell and the madness of Kasedre; but there never was fear such as there was in being alone among kinsmen, among whom he was always bastard and outcast.

  Once, when he was a child, Handrys and Erji had lured him into the storage basements of Ra-morij, and there overpowered him and hung him from a beam in the deep cellars, alone in the dark and with the rats. They had only come after him after the blood had left his hands and he could not find the strength to scream any longer. Then they had come with lights, and cut him down, hovering over him white-faced and terrified for fear that they had killed him. Afterward they had threatened worse if he showed the cruel marks the ropes had made.

  He had not complained to anyone. He had learned the conditions of his welcome in Nhi even then, had learned to clutch his scraps of honor to himself in silence, had practiced, had bit his lip and kept his own counsel, until he had fairly won the honor of the warrior’s braid, and until the demands of uyin honor must keep Handrys and Erij from their more petty tormentings of him.

  But the looks were there, the subtle, hating looks and secret contempt that became evident when he committed any error that cost him honor.

  Even the Chya tried him, in the same way—scented fear and went for it, like wolves to a deer.

  Yet something there was in him that yearned to like the lord of Chya, this man so like himself, that showed kindred blood in his face and in his bearing. Roh was legitimate: Roh’s father had virtually abandoned the lady Del to her fate, captive and bearing Rijan’s bastard, that must in nowise return to confound the purity of Chya—to contest with his son Roh.