Free Gate of Ivrel by C. J. Cherryh Page A

proof against drugs and poisons, or save him, who was not. For his part he drank sparingly, and waited long between drafts, toying with it merely, waiting for the least dizziness to follow: none did. If they were being poisoned, it was to be more subtle.
     
    The dishes were various: they both ate the simple ones, and slowly. There was an endless flow of wine, of which they both drank sparingly; and at last, at long last, Morgaine and Kasedre still smiling at each other, the last dish was carried out and servants pressed yet more wine on them.
     
    "Lady Morgaine," begged Kasedre then, "you gave us a puzzle and promised us answers tonight."
     
    "Of Witchfires?"
     
    Kasedre bustled about the table to sit near her, and waved an energetic hand at the harried, patch-robed scribe who had hovered constantly at his elbow this evening. "Write, write," he said to the scribe, for in every hall of note there was an archivist who kept records properly and made an account of hall business.
     
    "How interesting your Book would be to me," murmured Morgaine, "with all the time I have missed of the affairs of men. Do give me this grace, my lord Kasedre—to borrow your Book for a moment."
     
    Oh mercy, Vanye thought, are we doomed to stay-here a time more? He had hoped that they could retreat, and he looked at the thickness of the book and at all the bored lordlings sitting about them flushed with wine, looking like beasts thirsting for the kill, and reckoned uneasily how long their patience would last.
     
    "We would be honored," replied Kasedre. It was probably the first time in years that anyone had bothered with the musty tome of Leth, replete as it must be with murderings and incest. The rumors were dark enough, though little news came out of Leth.
     
    "Here," said Morgaine, and took into her lap the moldering book of the scribe, while the poor old scholar—a most wretched old man and reeking of drink—sat at her brocaded knee and looked up at her, wrinkle browed and squinting. His eyes and nose ran. He blotted at both with his sleeve. She cracked the book, disturbing pages moldered together, handling the old pages reverently, separating them with her nail, folding them down properly as she sought the years she wanted.
     
    Somewhere at the back of the hall some of the less erudite members of the banquet were engaged in riotous conversation. It sounded as if a gambling game were in progress. She ignored it entirely, although Kasedre seemed irritated by it; the lord Leth himself squatted down to hear her, hanging upon her long silence in awe. Her forefinger traced words. Vanye's view over her shoulder showed yellowed parchment and ink that had turned red-brown and faint. It was a wonder that one who lisped the language as uncertainly as she did could manage that ancient scrawl, but her lips moved as she thought the words.
     
    "My dear old friend Edjnel," she said softly. "Here is his death—what, murdered?" Kasedre craned his neck to see the word. "And his daughter—ah, little Linna—drowned upon the lakeshore. This is sad news. But Tohme did rule, surely—"
     
    "My father," interjected Kasedre, "was Tohme's son." His eyes kept darting to her face anxiously, as if he found fear of her condemnation.
     
    "When I remember Tohme," she said, "he was playing at his mother's knee: the lady Aromwel, a most gracious, most lovely person. She was Chya. I rode to this hall upon a
     
    night..." She eased the fragile pages backward. "Yes, here, you see:
     
    ". . . came She even to Halle, bearing sad Tidings from the Road. Lorde Aralde ... —brother to Edjnel and to my friend Lrie, who went with me to Men, and died there—Lorde Aralde had met with Mischance upon his faring in her Companie that attempted the Saving of Leth against the Darke, which ad-vanceth out of ... Well, well, this was another sad business, that of lord Aralde. He was a good man. Unlucky. An arrow out of the forest had him; and the wolves were on my trail by then . .