“You perhaps have an exaggerated idea of my capacities. I am not able to lift a sick man about, and argument did not seem profitable at the moment. When it does, I shall consider doing something. But you are charged with my safety, Nhi Vanye, and with protecting me. I do expect you to fulfill that obligation.”
He lifted his swollen hand. “That—is not within my capacity at the moment, if it comes to fighting our way out of here.”
“Ah. So you have answered your own first questions.” That was Morgaine at her most irritating. She settled again to waiting, then began instead to pace. She was very like a wild thing caged. She needed something for her hands, and there was nothing left. She went to the barred window and looked out and returned again.
She did that by turns for a very long time, sitting a while, pacing a while, driving him to frenzy, in which if he had not been in pain, he might also have risen and paced the room in sheer frustration. Had the woman ever been still, he wondered, or did she ever cease from what drove her? It was not simple restlessness at their confinement. It was the same thing that burned in her during their time on the road, as if they were well enough while moving, but any untoward delay fretted her beyond bearing.
It was as if death and the Witchfires were an appointment
she was zealous to keep, and she resented every petty human interference in her mission.
The sunlight in the room decreased. Things became dim. When the furniture itself grew unclear, there came a rap on the door. Morgaine answered it. It was Flis.
“Master says come,” said Flis.
“We are coming,” said Morgaine. The girl delayed in the doorway, twisting her hands.
Then she fled.
“That one is no less addled than the rest,” Morgaine said. “But she is more pitiable.” She gathered up her sword, her other gear too, and concealed certain of her equipment within her robes. “Lest,” she said, “someone examine things while we are gone.”
“There is still the chance of running for the door,” he said. “Ljyo, take it. I am stronger. There is no reason I cannot somehow ride.”
“Patience,” she urged him. “Besides, this man Kasedre is interesting.”
“He is also,” he said, “ruthless and a murderer.”
“There are Witchfires in Leth,” she said. “Living next to the Witchfires as the Witchfires seem to have become since I left—is not healthful. I should not care to stay here very long.”
“Do you mean that the evil of the thing—of the fires—has made them what they are?”
“There are emanations,” she said, “which are not healthful. I do not myself know all that can be the result of them. I only know that I do not like the waste I saw about me when I rode out at Aenor-Pyvvn, and I like even less what I see in Leth. The men are more twisted than the trees.”
“You cannot warn these folk,” he protested. “They would as lief cut our throats as not if we cross them. And if you mean something else with them, some—”
“Have a care,” she said. “There is someone in the hall.”
Steps had paused. They moved on again, increasing in speed. Vanye swore softly. “This place is full of listeners.”
“We are surely the most interesting listening in the place,” she said. “Come, and let us go down to the hall. Or do you feel able? If truly not, I shall plead indisposition myself—it is a woman’s privilege—and delay the business.”
In truth he faced the possibility of a long evening with the
mad Leth with dread, not alone of the Leth, but because of the fever that still burned in his veins. He would rather try to ride now, now, while he had the strength. If trouble arose in the hall, he was not sure that he could help Morgaine or even himself.
In truth, he reckoned that among her weapons she had the means to help herself: it was her left-handed ilin that might not make it out.
“I could stay here,” he said.