The Complete Morgaine by C. J. Cherryh

food,” they cried, “for charity.”
    The gray, Siptah, reared up, lashing with his hooves; and Morgaine reined him aside, narrowly missing the boy. She had hard shift to hold the animal, who shied, wide-nostrilled and round-eyed until his haunches brought up against the wall upon the other side, and Vanye curbed his Mai with a hard hand, cursing at the reckless children. Such waifs were not an uncommon sight in Koris. They begged, stole shamelessly.
    There but for Rijan, Vanye thought occasionally: lord’s bastards sometimes came to other fates than he had known before his exile. The poor were frequent in the hills of Andur, clanless and destitute, and poor girls’ fatherless children generally came to ill ends. If they survived childhood they grew up as bandits in earnest.
    And the girl perhaps would spawn more of her own kind, misery breeding misery.
    They could not be more than twelve, the pair of them, and they seemed to be brother and sister—perhaps twins. They had the same wolf-look in their eyes, the same pointed leanness to their faces as they huddled together away from the dangerous hooves.
    â€œFood,” they still pleaded, holding out each a hand.
    â€œWe have enough to spare.” Vanye directed his words to Morgaine, a request, for their saddlebags were still heavy with the frozen venison of days before. He pitied such as these children, loathsome as they were, always gave them charity when he could—for luck, remembering what he was.
    And when Morgaine consented with a nod he leaned across and lifted the saddlebag from Siptah’s gray back and was about to open it when the girl, venturing close to Mai, snatched his saddleroll off the rear of the saddle, slashing one of its bindings.
    He cursed volubly, wiser than to drop their food and give chase to one while the boy lingered: he tossed the leather-wrapped packet at Morgaine, flung his leg over the horn. The boy fled too, vaulting the wall. Vanye went close after him.
    â€œHave a care,” Morgaine wished him.
    But the fleeing urchins dropped his belongings. Content with that, he pushed to gather things up, annoyed that they returned to jeer at him like the naughty children they were, dancing about him.
    He snatched as the boy darted too close to him, meaning no more than to cuff him and shake him to sober sense; the boy twisted in his grip and gave forth a stream of curses, and the girl with a shriek rushed at him and clawed at his hold upon the boy—a bodkin in her hand. It pierced deep, enough that he snatched back his hand.
    They shrieked and ran, leaving him with the spoils, and vanished among the trees. He was still cursing under his breath when he returned to Morgaine, sucking at the painful wound the little minx had dealt his hand.
    â€œChildren of imps,” he muttered. “Thieves. Misbegotten brigands.” He had lost face before his
liyo,
his lady-lord, and swung up into Mai’s saddle with sullen grace, having tied his gear behind. Until this time he had felt unworthily used, taken in treachery and unworthily on
her
part: it was the first time he had to feel that he had fallen short in his obligation, and that made him doubly debted, disgracing both himself and his
liyo.
    And then he began to feel strangely, like a man having drunk too much wine, his head humming and his whole person strangely at variance with all that was about him.
    He gazed at Morgaine in alarm, reluctant to plead for help, but suddenly he felt he needed it. He could not understand what was the matter with his senses. It was like the onset of fever. He swayed in the saddle.
    Morgaine’s slim arm stayed him. She put Siptah close to him, holding him. He heard her voice speaking sharply to him and sternly ordering him to hold himself up.
    He centered his weight and slumped, wit enough to do that, at least, distributing his failing body over Mai’s neck. The saddlehorn was painful; the bending cut off his wind. He