It was cold, and the falling snow thickened as the road wound out of Norsdale, across the uplands, where the fringe forests made black scars against the white.  In the spring, in the summer, in autumn, the dale lands were green with richly rooted grass and tree, bush and briar, but in winter they held aloof, alien to those who dwelt in village or upland farm.

Into Harrowdale the road narrowed.  Before the long war of the invasion, men had spread out and out to north and west, putting under tillage land uncut by plow before.  And then there had been travel on these roads, pack merchants, hill lords and their men, families with their worldly possessions on carts, driving their stock, moving out to fresh new lands.  But since the war years communication across the Dales had dwindled, and what had been roads became mountain tracks - narrowed and blurred by the growth of vegetation.

There was little or no talk among our party as we rode, not mounted on such horses as the host kept for raiding and battle, but rather on shaggy coated, short legged beasts, ambling of pace, yet with vast powers of endurance and deep lungs to take the rough up and down going of the back country with uncomplaining and steady gait.

At first we rode three and four abreast, one or two of the escort with each pair of women.  Then we strung out farther as the brush encroached and the road became a lane.  I was content to keep silence behind veil and hood.  For a space I had ridden stiff of back, tense, lest some call from the Abbey... a rider sent after... would reveal me for what I was.  Still did it puzzle me that the Abbess Yulianna had not unmasked me in that farewell moment.  Did she have such tenderness for Marimme that she was willing to let the deception stand to save a favorite?  Or did she consider me a disturbing factor in her placid community, of whom she would be well rid?

Every hour we traveled lessened the chance of any return.  And Imgry forced the pace where he could, conferring with the taciturn guide who led our party at least twice during the morning.  How far away was our rendezvous?  I only knew that it lay upon the edge of the waste at some point of landscape which was so noteworthy as not to be mistaken.

Harrowdale with its isolated farms was gone, and yet the road climbed with us.  Save for our own party we might have passed through a deserted countryside.  No animal, no bird - and certainly no man - came into sight.  When winter wrapped the farms their people kept much indoors, the women busy at their looms, the men at such tasks as they wished.

Now followed the sharper descent into Hockerdale and the murmur of water, for the swift flowing stream there was not yet completely ice roofed.  We passed a guard post at the head of that dale, and men turned out to salute our leader and exchange words with him and the guide.  It was at that pause another pony edged close to mine and she who rode it leaned a little forward in her saddle.