Morgaine, low in the saddle, was by him again: Siptah’s head, nostrils wide, was alongside with the starlight in his white mane. Unaccountably Morgaine laughed, reached out a hand to him that did not touch, and clung again to the mane.
And they were through. Beyond all range of archers, safe on Baien’s level plain, they were through, and Vanye reined down the snorting black and brought him to a stop, only then remembering the youth who rode in their wake. He came, a good bowshot behind them, and they both waited—silent, Vanye reckoned, in the same concern, that the boy might have been hit, for he rode low in the saddle.
But he was well enough, pale-faced in the dim light when he rode in between them, but unscathed. The dun horse was spent, his rump sinking on one side as if he favored that leg, and Vanye dismounted to see to it: an arrow had ripped the hide and perhaps hung for a time. He explored the wound with his fingers, found it not dangerously deep.
“He will last,” Vanye pronounced. “There will be time later.”
“Then let us be off,” Morgaine said, rising in the stirrups to look behind them, even while he climbed back into the saddle.
“The surprise of the matter will not last long. They had not seen me fire before; now they have, and they will accustom themselves to the idea and recover their courage about it.”
“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, thanking him with a weary nod and a look of her gray eyes.