Gate of Ivrel by C. J. Cherryh Page B

asked.
     
    "I feel," she said, "rather like a mouse passing a cat: probably there is no harm and the beast looks well-fed and lazy; but it would be a mistake to scurry."
     
    "If the cat is truly hungry," he said, "we delude ourselves."
     
    She nodded.
     
    This time there was a deliberate knock at the door.
     
    Vanye scrambled for his longsword, hooked it to his belt, convenient to the left hand. Morgaine moved the chair and opened the door.
     
    It was Flis again. The girl smiled uncertainly and bowed. Vanye saw her in clearer light this time, without the haze of fever. She was not as young as he had thought. It was paint that blushed her cheek and her dress was not country and innocence: it was blowsy. She simpered and smiled past Morgaine at Vanye.
     
    "You are wanted," she said.
     
    "Where?" asked Morgaine.
     
    Flis did not want to look up into Morgaine's eyes: ad-
     
    dressed, she had no choice. She did so and visibly cringed: her head only reached Morgaine's shoulders, and her halo of frizzled brown seemed dull next to Morgaine's black and silver. "To hall, lady." She cast a second wishing look back at Vanye, back again. "Only you, lady. They did not ask the man."
     
    "He is ilin to me," she said. "What is the occasion?"
     
    "To meet my lord," said Flis. "It is all right," she insisted. "I can take care for him."
     
    "Never mind," said Morgaine. "He will do very well without, Flis. That will be all."
     
    Flis blinked: she did not seem particularly intelligent. Then she backed off and bowed and went away, beginning to run.
     
    Morgaine turned about and looked at Vanye. "My apologies," she said dryly. "Are you fit to go down to hall?"
     
    He bowed assent, thoroughly embarrassed by Morgaine, and wondering whether he should be outraged. He did not want Flis. Protesting it was graceless too. He ignored her gibe and avowed that he was fit. He was not steady on his feet. He thought that it would pass.
     
    She nodded to him and led the way out of the room.
     
    Everything outside was much the same as she had described to him. The hall was in general disrepair, like some long aban- • doned fortress suddenly occupied and not yet quite liveable. There was a mustiness about the air, a queasy feeling of dirt, and effluvium of last night's feasting, of grease and age and untended cracks, and earth and damp.
     
    "Let us simply walk for the door," Vanye suggested when they reached that lower floor and he knew that the lefthand way led to the outside, and their horses, and a wild, quick ride out of this place of madmen. "Liyo, let us not stay here. Let us take nothing from this place, let us go, now, quickly."
     
    "Thee is not fit for a chase," she said. "Or I would, gladly. Be still. Do not offend our hosts."
     
    They walked unescorted down the long corridors, where sometimes were servants that looked like beggars that sometimes appeared at hold gates, asking their three days of lawful charity. It was shame to a lord to keep folk of his hall in such a state. And the hold of Leth was huge. Its stones were older than Morgaine's ride to Irien, older by far in all its parts, and in its day it had been a grand hall, most fabled in its beauty. If she had seen it then, it was sadly otherwise now, with the
     
    tapestries in greasy rags and bare stone showing through the tattered and dirty carpets on the floors. There were corridors which they did not take, great open halls that breathed with damp and 'decay, closed doors that looked to have remained undisturbed for years. Rats scurried sullenly out of their path, seeking the large cracks in the masonry, staring out at them with small glittering eyes.
     
    "How much of this place have you seen?" he asked of her.
     
    "Enough," she said, "to know that there is much amiss here. Nhi Vanye, whatever bloodfeuds you have with Leth, you are ilin to me. Remember it."
     
    "I have none with Leth," he said. "Sensible men avoid them altogether. Madness is like yeast in this whole loaf.