C. Cherryh - Gate of Ivrel

“Where will you?” Vanye asked.

“To Ivrel,” she answered.

“Lady, Baien’s hold lies almost athwart our path. They were hearth-friends to you once. It may be we could shelter there a time if we reached them before Erij.”

“I do not trust hold or hall this near Ivrel,” she said. “No.”

They rode, an easy pace now, for the horses were spent and might be called on again to run; and soon the fire of whatever thing had entered his veins was spent as well, and he felt his senses going. His side hurt miserably. He felt of the place and found broken links in the mesh, but little hurt beneath. Assured then that was not bleeding his life away, he hooked one leg over the high bow of the saddle, and wrapped his arms tightly about him for support, and so gave himself to sleep.

Bells woke him.

He looked up and eased cramped muscles out of their long-held position, and saw to his shame that Ryn led his horse, and that it was well into morning. They filed along a peaceful pine-shaded lane by the side of a stone wall.

He leaned forward and took the reins, beginning to realize where they were, for he had visited this place in his youth. It was the Monastery of Baien-an, the largest in all Andur-Kursh that still remained safe and occupied by the Gray Fathers. He rode forward to join Morgaine, wondering whether she knew what this place was, or if she had been led to it on Ryn’s advice, for here was an abundance of witnesses to her passing, and a place that could not be friendly to her.

Brothers tending their wall paused at their work in wonder. A few started forward as they might to welcome travelers, and then hesitated, and seemed to abandon the idea altogether, their faces bewildered. They were gentle men. Vanye had no fear of them.

And there was a terrible weariness upon Morgaine’s face, pain, as if her wound troubled her. He saw that, and bit his lip in reckoning. “Do you think to stay here?” he asked of her.

“I do not think that the Abbot would abide that,” she said.

“I do not think that you are fit for much further riding,” he said. And he saw also the youth Ryn, who was shadow-eyed, and miserable; and he reckoned that pursuit would not look to find them here.

He reined the black in by the gate, for he remembered a guesthouse that was kept by the abbey, probably little used in winter, but it was there for such persons as were not acceptable within the holy walls.

He brought them there, asking no permission, taking them past the wondering eyes of the Brothers in the yard, and into the privacy of the house beyond its evergreen hedge. There he dismounted, and held up his hands to help Morgaine down as he might a lady: she tried awkwardly to accept his help, better suited to dismounting on her own, but her leg gave with her when she touched the ground, and she leaned upon his arm, thanhing him with a weary nod and a look of her gray eyes.

“There is sanctuary here,” he said. “It is the law. There will none touch us here, and if the place is surrounded... well, we will reckon with that when it happens.”

She nodded again, plainly at the end of her strength, and a sorry three they were, she and the youth and a warrior so stiff with bruises and wounds that he could scarcely manage to climb the steps himself.

There were no other guests. He was thankful for that, and helped Morgaine to the first of the several cots, before he went out to tend the horses and bring Morgaine’s gear into the room: she was concerned with that above all else, he knew, and she gave him a grateful look before she tucked the dreadful sword into her arms and sank down upon the bare mattress.

Ryn helped him with the horses, and carried all their gear and their saddles into the guesthouse; and afterward Ryn joined him in the stables and stood by with concern in his eyes as Vanye applied some of their cooking oil to the wound in the dun’s rump.

“He will not go lame,” Vanye judged. “It was an arrow mostly spent, and it is not the season for pests to infest the wound. Oil will ease it, but it will scar, I think.”

Ryn walked with him back to the guesthouse, a short distance hence, among the tall pines and the hedge. The bells had fallen silent now, the Brothers filing in to their prayers.

There was a difference in Ryn. He did not quickly decide what it was, but that a boy had slung harp on his back and ridden after Morgaine from Ra-morij; it was a tired, older youth that walked beside him in the daylight and observed things in silence. Ryn carried himself differently. He walked with a bearing as out of place in these pine-rimmed lanes as Vanye’s own. They had ridden out of Baien-ei and he had ridden hindmost; there was a new hardness to his eye that had learned to reckon more than to wonder.

Vanye took account of that new silence in him, estimated it, clapped a weary hand upon his shoulder when they had come into the guesthouse. He lowered his voice, for Morgaine seemed asleep.

“I shall watch,” Vanye said. “I am not good for long; yours is next, then hers.”

The youth Ryn might have found some silly protest; he had been sullen at his father’s orders when they first rode together into Morija. Now he nodded assent to that justice of things, and sought a bare cot himself, while Vanye took his sword and set himself on the front steps of the guesthouse, point set between his feet, hands gripping the quillons, head leaned against its hilt In such position he could stay awake enough.

In such a manner he had watched many a night on the road.

And considering himself then, he reflected wryly that he had seen such occupations of Morija’s lower guesthall only when there was some marginally honorable hill-clan passing through, bound for other pastures and asking road-right Some bandit chief asleep in the guesthouse, his men lounging about swilling cheap wine and scarring the furniture with their feet, while as seal upon the door, some man more villainous looking than the rest sat the steps as door-warden, sword in arms and a sour expression on his face, terrifying the boys who lurked to see what visitors had come among them.

It was a warning to other would-be guests that they would be mad to seek that shelter, and must look elsewhere. Villainy had possessed the only beds, and unless the lords in the hall would take arms and dispossess them, so it would remain until the morning.

So the Brothers found him.

He came fully awake at the first tread upon the flagstone walk, and sat there with his sword between his knees while the gray-robed Brothers came cautiously up to the steps with earthen jars of food.

They bowed, hands tucked in robes. Vanye recognized innocent courtesy when it was offered and made as profound a bow as he could from his seated posture.

“May we ask?” It was the traditional question. It could be refused. Vanye bowed again, full courtesy to the honest Brothers.

“We are outlaws,” he said, “and I have stolen, and we have killed no few men in the direction from which we come: but none in Baien. We will not touch flock nor herd, nor field of yours, nor do violence to any of the house. We ask sanctuary.”

“Are—” There was hesitance in the question, which was always asked, if questions were asked at the granting of sanctuary. “Are all among you true and human blood?”

Morgaine had not worn the hood when she rode in; and she was, in the white furs and with her coloring, very like the legends, one survivor of which had come to die a holy man at Baien-an.

“One of us may not be,” he acknowledged, “but she avows at least she is not qujal .” Their gentle eyes were much troubled at that answer; and perhaps through the legends they know who and what she was, if sanity would let them believe it

“We give shelter,” they said, “to all that enter here under peace, even to those of tainted blood and those that company with them, if they should need it. We thank you for telling us. We will purify the house after you have gone. This was courtesy on your part, and we will respect your privacy. Are you a human man?”