The Complete Morgaine by C. J. Cherryh Page B

because he was safe at the moment and he was a stranger.
    She soothed his fever with her hands and gave him well-watered wine to drink, and talked to him in little sweet words which made no particular sense. When her hands touched his brow he realized that she made no objection of his shorn hair, which would have warned any sensible woman of his character and his station and sent her indignantly hence.
    Then he remembered that he was surely in the hall of clan Leth, where outcasts and outlaws were welcome so long as they bore the whims of lord Kasedre and were not particular what orders they obeyed. Here such a man as he was no novelty, perhaps of no less honor than the rest.
    Then he saw Morgaine on her feet, looking at him over the shoulder of the girl Flis, and Morgaine gave him a faintly disgusted look, judgment of the awkwardly predatory maid. She turned and paced to the window, out of convenient view.
    He closed his eyes then, content to have the pain of his arm attended, required to do nothing. He had lost all the face a man could lose, being rescued by his
liyo,
a woman, and given over to servants such as this.
    Leth tolerated Morgaine’s presence, even paid her honor, to judge by the splendor of the guest-robe they offered her, and indulged her lord-right, treating her as equal.
    Flis’ hand strayed. He moved it, indignant at such treatment in his
liyo
’s presence, and her a woman. Flis giggled.
    Brocade rustled. Morgaine paced back again, scowled and nodded curtly to the girl. Flis grew quickly sober, gathered up her basin and her towels with graceless haste.
    â€œLeave them,” Morgaine ordered.
    Flis abandoned them on the table beside the door and bowed her way out.
    Morgaine walked over to the bed, lifted the compress on Vanye’s injured hand, shook her head. Then she went over to the door and slid the chair over in such fashion that no one outside could easily open the door.
    â€œAre we threatened?” Vanye asked, disturbed by such precautions.
    Morgaine busied herself with her own gear, extracting some of her own unguents from the kit. “I imagine we are,” she said. “But that is not why I barred the door. We are not provided with a lock and I grow weary of that minx spying on my business.”
    He watched uneasily as she set her medicines out on the table beside him. “I do not want—”
    â€œObjections denied.” She opened a jar and smeared a little medication into the wound, which was wider and more painful than before, since the compress. The medication stung and made it throb, but numbed the wound thereafter. She mixed something into water for him to drink, and insisted and ordered him to drink it.
    Thereafter he was sleepy again, and began to perceive that Morgaine was the agent of it this time.
    She was sitting by him when he awoke, polishing his much-battered helm, tending his armor, he supposed, from boredom. She tilted her head to one side and considered him.
    â€œHow fare you now?”
    â€œBetter,” he said, for he seemed free of fever.
    â€œCan you rise?”
    He tried. It was not easy. He realized in his blindness and his concern with the effort itself, that he was not clothed, and snatched at the sheet, nearly falling in the act: Kurshin were a modest folk. But it mattered little to Morgaine. She estimated him with an analytical eye that was in itself more embarrassing than the blush she did not own.
    â€œYou will not ride with any great endurance,” she said, “which is an inconvenience. I have no liking for this place. I do not trust our host at all, and I may wish to quit this hall suddenly.”
    He sank down again, reached for his clothing and tried to dress, one-handed as he was.
    â€œOur host,” he said, “is Kasedre, lord of Leth. And you are right. He is mad.”
    He omitted to mention that Kasedre was reputed to have
qujalin
blood in his veins, and that that heredity was given as reason for his