It was a debt that deserved better payment than he was
about to give; but desperation smothered any impulses to honor. He knew where the stable was, around at the back of the little house, a place where he and Erij had watered their mounts once upon a better time. He left the bay tied to a branch by the side of the road, and took Changeling upon his shoulder, and slipped down the ditch by the roadside until he was within sight of the stable.
Then he ran across the yard, skidded into the shadows and flung open the door, already hearing the livestock astir: the men of Romen’s house would be waking, seeking arms at any moment, and running out to see what was among them. He chose the likeliest pony he could in the dark, already haltered in its stall: he put a length of rope in the halter ring, the only thing there was to hand, flung open the stall door and backed the pony out.
Running footsteps pelted up to the door. He expected its opening, swung up to the pony’s bare back with the halter rope for a rein, and as the door was flung open, he rammed his heels into the pony’s flanks and the frightened animal bolted out into the yard—an honest horse and unused to such treatment. It ran for the road, scrambled up the side of the ditch, and he wrapped his legs about its fat ribs and clung, unshakable. He wrenched its head over in the direction he wanted it to go, and when he reached the crossroads over by San-hei, he turned there, heading for Baien-ei by a slightly longer road, but a lonelier one.
There was a rider on the road ahead, sai-uyo, Vanye thought, uyo of the lesser clans, but uyo, and armored: he rode like a warrior. There was no hope that the little beast he rode could match a proper horse. There was no avoiding the meeting. Vanye rode along at leisure, legs dangling, like any herder-boy returning at evening. Only upon the heights the warning-fires still gleamed, and the roads were watched; and he for his part could not look to be a herdsman, for boots and breeches were of weathered leather such as was proper to an uyo, not a countryman, he carried a great sword, and his shirt of white lawn marked him for a man untimely rushed from some great hall, high-clan: dai-uyo, Nhi.
This man, he thought unhappily, he might have to kill. He reached to the belt, unhooked the sheath, and gripped the
sheath of Changeling in one hand and the hilt in the other, and the sai-uyo on his fine dappled charger came closer.
And perhaps he already recognized what quarry he had started, for he moved his leg and lifted his blade from its place on the saddle, and rode also with his sheathed blade in hand.
It was one of Torin Athan’s sons: he did not know the man, but the look of the sons of Athan was almost that of a clan apart: long-faced, almost mournful men, with a dour attitude at variance with most of the flamboyant men of Torin. Athan was also a prolific family: there were a score of sons, nearly all legitimate.
“Uyo,” Vanye hailed him, “I have no wish to draw on you: I am Nhi Vanye, outlawed, but I have no quarrel with you.”
The man—he was surely one of the breed of Athan—relaxed somewhat. He let Vanye ride nearer, though he himself had stopped. He looked at him curiously, wondering, no doubt, what sort of madman he faced, so dressed, and upon such a homely pony. Even fleeing, a man might do better than this.
– “Nhi Vanye,” he said, “we had thought you were down in Erd.”
“I am bound now for Baien. I borrowed this horse last night, and it is spent.”
“If you look to borrow another, uyo, look to your head. You are not armored, and I have no wish to commit murder. You are Rijan’s son, and killing you even outlawed as you are would not be a lucky thing for the likes of a sai-uyo.”