White Road

her chapped hands over the front of her apron. “It’s good to know you two are still about. I’d begun to wonder.”
    Micum hugged her. “We’re lucky bastards, don’t you know?”
    “You’re courting trouble from the Four, bragging like that. Better bite your tongue.”
    Micum laughed and caught his tongue between his front teeth for her to see. “There now. Safe again.”
    It was only a joking exchange, but Seregil suddenly felt a superstitious chill run up his spine. “Come on. We’ve a long ride ahead of us.”
    They set out with hot roasted yams warming their pockets that would serve as a midday meal later on, when they were cold. Alec was glad of the warmth, as the morning was bitter.
    The sky was clear when they set off, but by noon the clouds began to gather, and by the time they reached an inn called the Drover’s Head that evening, most of the stars were blotted out.
    “I don’t like the look of that,” Alec said, studying the sky. “It will be hard riding tomorrow.”
    “We could just stay put,” Micum suggested. “Therodoesn’t know what day to expect us, if he’s even there by now himself.”
    “We’ll see,” said Seregil. “I’d rather keep moving.”
    The Drover’s Head was a ramshackle establishment, with poor ale and worse food. The only good thing about that was that there were only a few other patrons, and none who stayed the night.
    The dispirited innkeeper gave them a room at the back, off the kitchen, which turned out to be more of a shed, with a few lumpy pallets thrown about on the warped floorboards.
    “Hold on,” Seregil warned as Alec went to toss his bedroll on one of them. He nudged the one closest to him with his boot, then slapped at his pant leg. As he’d feared, these poor excuses for beds they had paid a full sester for were jumping with fleas. And where there were fleas, there were probably lice, too.
    “No,” he said, regarding the room in disgust.
    “No,” Micum agreed.
    “Definitely not,” Alec said with a grimace.
    Gathering their things, they moved into the dirt-floored kitchen and spread their blankets in front of the broad hearth, where the banked coals were still giving off a nice warmth. Their innkeeper and his servants evidently slept elsewhere; the room was empty.
    Taking advantage of that fact, Seregil took a turn around the kitchen and came up with some hard black bread and a jug of sour cider. They sat on their blankets and passed the food around, gnawing a bit of the bread off and taking a swig of the cider to soften it up.
    “Another day to the Bell and Bridle, and another two to Watermead,” Micum calculated.
    “Do you think Beka and Nyal will still be there?” asked Alec.
    “I imagine so,” said Micum.
    “How is it, having an Aurënfaie as your daughter’s husband?” asked Seregil.
    “He’s a good man.” Micum stared into the fire. “They say they don’t mind the fact that he’ll see her grow old and die, but they’re both young yet.”
    “He’ll have their ya’shel children, though,” said Alec.
    “That’s true, but it’s not the same as having your wife. It’s not the way things are supposed to be. You two are damn lucky to have found each other when you did.”
    In every sense of the word
, Seregil thought.

CHAPTER 17
Snow and Blood
    A LEC WAS the last one on watch and woke the others just before dawn. Seregil left the innkeeper a few coppers for the bread and moldy cheese they took for a saddle breakfast.
    The weather had turned damp and bitter, and dark clouds sealed the sky around the horizon like pastry on a pie.
    “What do you make of that?” asked Seregil.
    Micum eyed the clouds. “Snow before the morning’s gone. Probably heavy.”
    “Then we’d better make good time while we can, if we want to reach the inn before nightfall,” Seregil said. The cold affected him more than the others, and Alec knew he wouldn’t be happy spending the night around a fire in the open.
    Micum’s assessment of the weather was, unfortunately, correct. The first flakes began to fall soon after they started out. By midday it was snowing so hard Seregil could barely make out the road ahead, much less what lay to either side. It was a wet, heavy snow that stuck to their clothes and the horses’ shaggy coats and manes. It was already deep enough to obscure the terrain, and they took turns leading on foot, tramping along trying to tell frozen road from frozen grass. It was open country, but no wind stirred the