Miccola must have ridden away quite a bit earlier than I could quit my long-winded High Scribe. However, Breva's swift legs closed the distance fast and I caught up to Miccola at the forest's edge.
A bank of an ice-bound river stretched before us. The ground was flat, coated in snow, poked through with twigs and boulders. A row of brown cat-tails marked off the river. They rustled in the breeze, mixing their fluff with the snowflakes.
A bit ahead, in the crook of a river bend, my new allies set up their camp. This camp was what Miccola was surveying with her lips pursed. I tilted my head to one shoulder to see what caused her dismay.
The rough-cloth tents, brown and gray, lined up in straight rows. Sharpened wood stakes provided a basic defensive perimeter. Even in the wilderness, it was a wise precaution. Tendrils of smoke trailed from the cooking fires. Breeze carried the smell of cheap foodstuffs that kept well through the winter—pickled and dried peas, porridge, cabbages, onions, tack—and hastily discarded offal. All of it was pungent, but Miccola wasn't new to business.
"Did it pass your inspection?" I asked at last.
Miccola muttered something incomprehensible.
"Guess your saliva is freezing. Let's see if they have something to thaw it."
We rode forward to talk to the sentries.
My riders streamed out of the forest in a column, then swarmed, impatient to stop for the night as the pale sun angled to the horizon. The ridiculously short day was drawing to a close.
We seemed to be in luck. The biggest man I had ever seen hurried toward us like he meant business.
"You reckon that's the deserter-and-strategist, who Pheodoxia fretted about?" I asked Miccola, watching his progress.
He moved swiftly, but with a threat backed up by size in each step. The shaggy fur hat and knee-length jacket enhanced the resemblance to the largest predator in these woods. If not for his size, I would have taken him for a woman, for he had the air of confidence normally not associated with his sex. I decided that I liked him.
"Did he pass your inspection?" Miccola needled me.
"Not yet. I'll wait until he talks about strategy."
She squinted at me suspiciously, but before she could share her conclusions, the man came close enough to overhear.
"Did your mother bed a bear?" Miccola asked him.
His brows were wider than my thumb, thick and darker than his hair and beard. I wouldn't have thought this attractive before seeing him. Frost etched any hair touched by his steaming breath with pristine white. It sparkled in his hat, collar, beard.
For all that hair, both his own and borrowed, and for how deeply his eyes sat under his brows, their gaze wasn't overshadowed. It must have been the color that made them shine so. I saw this gray everywhere I looked in Nortlungen. In its sky, its ice and its steel.
Rounder than they appeared at the first glance—because his brows were straight like arrow shafts—those eyes slipped past Miccola. He ignored her jape and looked directly at me. "Your Grandissima. Welcome."
His tone didn't imply a question, but I chose to interpret it as such. "You are correct, I command the Deadhead Company's women. Where is your Commander?"
He took his huge, fur-lined mitt off and bowed, with his bare hand pressed to his heart. I suppose it was to show that he didn't secret a killing blade in his sleeve. A nice thought, possibly a necessary precaution in these parts.
"Venerable Yadwiga doesn't like to be bothered for matters that don't need her advice." By the slight crease between his brows, I guessed that he conveyed Yadwiga's words verbatim. "The days she has left to spend on the Knowable World are growing too short."
At that moment, Phedoxia drew up by me and Miccola, so I gave into temptation. "How wise of her!"
He bowed again, but I couldn't decide who he meant the bow for, Yadwiga or me.
"These are my lieutenants. My second, Miccola. And my High Scribe Phedoxia."
"I'm Ondrey." Then, with an exaggerated frown at the darkening sky, he added, "I'll show where you can set up for the night. We have firewood. Let me know if you need extra blankets."
We rushed about like ants to beat the snow, the cold and the night—the perpetual race in this abominable climate. By the time we crowded into Ondrey's tent to make plans, the twilight just gave way to darkness. My fingers turned to icicles, my bones grew heavier than lead. I stepped inside, grateful to be out of the whistling wind and snow.
I was looking forward to the corralled warmth from a smoky brazier and didn't expect more than that. Yet, my feet sunk into fur. Even in my riding boots it felt luxurious.
Despite weariness, I gawked. Furs lined every inch of the round space. A couple of bear skins, black and reddish. Something less threatening, beige, probably sheep. A folding bed covered by a snow-white one, maybe an icepard. The most welcome site was a brazier full of glowing coals, with a few mint and birch twigs tossed on it to freshen the smoke with the smell of spring. I let my gloves drop to the floor and extended my hands toward it.
Ondrey scooped my gloves off the floor and put them on the table. As he straightened, he darted a glance at my shivering fingers, frowned and stepped out for a moment.
He came back with a slab rolled in a cloth that he dropped on the table strewn with maps. By the thud, the content of the package was frozen solid, but it started melting right away. The tent now stunk of garlic and my stomach rumbled.
While Phedoxia and Miccola watched the proceedings in tired silence, he unwrapped the package, revealing a block of fat, probably pork-belly, scrubbed the salt off with his dagger, then sliced thin, white strips...
He offered a couple of them to me off the knife's edge. "Eat, Your Grandissima."
I happily opened my mouth, for I was ravenous, but Phedoxia piped in, "What's this?"
Did she think he'd poison me on the spot?
"Cured pork fat. Will help with this," Ondrey lifted my fingers up to the light. They ached as they thawed, changing to bluish from the unnatural white.
To my surprise, Phedoxia nodded. It made me feel important. A High Scribe approving of the food I'm given! Like a Queen or a Princess! I yanked the slice off and chewed, while Ondrey doled out the same stuff to Miccola and Phedoxia.
"That's food or medicine?" I asked him. It tasted like salt, garlic and little else. If it were medicine, it would be an improvement on how medicine usually tastes. If it were food, I wouldn't be bringing back a supply of it to treat Kozima to exotic fare.
"You decide." Ondrey shrugged out of his fur jacket. Once it fell down on the folding bed, it blended with the décor. "You eat it, so you don't die. The tea's coming."
If the furs lining the tent floor to ceiling surprised me, his physique didn't. Thick neck, wide shoulders, everything that could be corded and bulging was. It strained the homespun, unadorned fabric of his shirt. The wind brushed growth-free skin with pink, rivaling the blossoming plum-trees. Maybe that's why he wanted a beard, to appear less fresh-faced.
Or maybe he wanted to appear prettier, because his beard thawed out in ringlets, just like his shoulder-length hair. The curl was lazier than my husband's, and the shade was so much fairer, like sand on the beach. Those curls and the winter-blush aged him down from my first impression. He was nowhere near thirty. He was at most five years my senior, maybe even less.
Ondrey pulled up a low sturdy seat to the table and bent over the map.
I tapped his rock-solid shoulder. "Ondrey, is Venerable Yadwiga okay with you handling the maps? And when will she be joining us?"
He turned his head, those amazing brows domed. "As I've already reported, Venerable Yadwiga doesn't like to be bothered—"
My brows must have mirrored his in consternation before he could repeat the spiel word-for-word.
"The plan for our joint advancement is beneath her attention?" I asked, surprised more than insulted.
"She had entrusted me with this part of the campaign."
"Where is she?"
"I'll show you after we have settled the details, Your Grandissima. If you wish."
Phedoxia's eyes glinted at me like flint arrowheads from across the table. Yes, this was suspicious.
Ondrey lowered his eyes to the map, his fingers impaled into the table. His voice remained controlled.
"I understand your misgivings, but we've expected you earlier in the day. If you're unsatisfied with my suggestions at any point, I'll beg Venerable Yadwiga to arrive at first light to parley."
I studied the map.
The layout was simple. Heartwoods here, heartwoods there, a ribbon of the river we've just arrived to. The road clinging to its shore, if you could call it a road.
Ratne sat at the joining of our river and the bigger one. That bigger one cut all the way through the various Queendoms and Orders of Nortlungen to spill into the few warm-water ports on the seashores. Above that, further north, was sheet ice.
Maybe it wasn't worth waking up an old woman for.
"Camp, break camp, march, rinse, repeat," I mused. "Good enough strategy?"
Phedoxia scoffed. Maybe one less crone around the war table wasn't such a loss. A beautiful man added a certain charm to the routine proceedings as a substitute.
"How many days to Ratney, Ondrey?" I asked.
"Seven in the summer. This season, I'd say ten, particularly if the weather turns against us," he replied.
Beyond the tent's walls, the wind howled. Somewhere in the woods, the wolves echoed. It sounded like a large pack.
"And if it's the worst case scenario?"
This time his brows creased deep enough to meet at the bridge of his nose. "We can wait for spring here if you wish, Your Grandissima."
"I intend to spent the rest of the winter within Ratne's walls." I hoped they had thick walls, an adequate stockpile of firewood and houses with those huge floor-to-ceiling fireplaces.
Ondrey's lips stretched in a slow smile. First the corners of his lips quivered, then they stretched, the upper lip lifting until the white teeth flashed. At the same time, merry twinkles glinted in his eyes, as merry as the steel of a saber brandished in the air during a charge. When all the components of that smile came together, he looked the happiest I'd seen him so far. Ridiculously so.
"The winter hadn't started yet," he informed me. Laughter laced his voice. "We call this early fall."
I needed a glass of wine, but there was none on offer. I didn't sigh. I swear, I didn't sigh.
"If the snow crusts by morning, the horses' legs—" Miccola rubbed her brow, taking his attention away from me. For some reason it irked me. Hay, horses, bandits on the road, scouts' reports, how to best organize the column, the supply train... it all seemed trivial next to this man. I wanted him to laugh at me and explain the intricacies of the local customs.
Alas, this wasn't a brothel. This was a war table. So, I listened to Ondrey respond to my lieutenants.
Occasionally, I traded glances with Phedoxia. Yes, I too wanted to get to the truth about Yadwiga tomorrow.
If the witch hid from me, it was paramount that I would see her as soon as possible. Provided we didn't have our throats slit in the middle of the night, but I trusted that if Ondrey wanted me dead, he wouldn't sneak at me like a scorpia assassin.
There was something familiar in his demeanor. The person he reminded me of would never stoop to base treachery. Never.