It was intolerable. He felt sympathy for Liell, a sane man condemned to live in this nightmare. He understood that such a man might yearn for something other, would be concerned to watch another man of sense fall into the web.
“Lady.” He came and knelt by the bed, disturbing her sleep. “Lady, let us be out of here.”
“Go to sleep,” she bade him. “There is nothing to be done tonight. The place is astir like a broken hive.”
He returned to his misery by the fire, and after a time began to nod.
There was a scratching at the door. Minute as it was, it became sinister in all that silence. It would not cease. He started to wake Morgaine, but he had disturbed her once; he did not venture her patience again. He sought his sword, both frightened and self-embarrassed at his fear: it was likely only the rats.
Then he saw, slowly, the latch lift. The door began to open. It stopped against the chair. He rose to his feet, and Morgaine waked and reached for her own weapon.
“Lady,” came a whisper, “it is Liell. Let me in. Quickly.”
Morgaine nodded. Vanye eased the chair aside, and Liell entered as softly as possible, eased the door shut again. He was dressed in a cloak as if for traveling.
“I have provisions for you and a clear way to the stables,” he said. “Come. You must come. You may not have another chance.”
Vanye looked at Morgaine, shaped the beginning of a plea with his lips. She frowned and suddenly nodded. “What effect on you, Chya Liell, for this treason?”
“Loss of my head if I am caught. And loss of a hall to live in if Kasedre’s clan attacks you, as I fear they will, with or without his wishing it. Come, lady, come. I will guide you from here. They are all quiet, even the guards. I put melorne in Kasedre’s wine at bedside. He will not wake, and the others are not suspecting. Come.”
There was no one stirring in the hall outside. They trod the stairs carefully, down and down the several turns that led them to main level. A sentry sat in a chair by the door, head sunk upon his breast. Something about the pose jarred the senses: the right hand hung at the man’s side in a way that looked uncomfortable for anyone sober.
Drugged too, Vanye thought. They walked carefully past the man nonetheless, up to the very door.
Then Vanye saw the wet dark stain that dyed the whole front of the man’s robe, less conspicuous on the dark fabric. Suspicion leapt up. It chilled him, that a man was killed so casually.
“Your work?” he whispered at Liell, in Morgaine’s hearing. He did not know whom he warned: he only feared, and thought it well that whoever was innocent mark it now and be advised.
“Hurry,” said Liell, easing open the great door. They were out in the front courtyard, where one great evergreen shaded them into darkness. “This way lie the stables. Everything is ready.”
They kept to the shadows and ran. More dead men lay at the stable door. It suddenly occurred to Vanye that Liell had an easy defense against any charge of murder: that they themselves would be called the killers.
And if they refused to come, Liell would have been in diffi-
culty. He had risked greatly, unless murder were only trivial in this hall, among madmen.
He stifled in such dread thoughts. He yearned to break free of Leth’s walls. The quick thrust of a familiar velvet nose in the dark, the pungency of hay and leather and horse purged his lungs of the cloying decay of Leth-hall. He had his own bay mare in hand, swung up to her back; and Morgaine thrust the dragon blade into its accustomed place on her saddle and mounted Siptah.
Then he saw Liell lead another horse out of the shadows, likewise saddled.
“I will see you safely to the end of Leth’s territories,” he said. “No one here questions my authority to come and go. I am here and I am not, and at the moment, I think it best I am not.”