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 was 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 Kandrys’ 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.