I stared at the situation to fix the game in my mind and then lay down to sleep. The game she had set out for me looked hopeless. I did not see how it could be won with a black stone, let alone a white one. I do not know if it were the stone game or our distance from the road, but I sank quickly into a sleep that was dreamless until near dawn. Then I joined the wolf in his wild running. Nighteyes had left the road far behind him and was joyously exploring the surrounding hillsides. We came on two snow cats feeding off a kill, and for a time he taunted them, circling just out of reach to make them hiss and spit at us. Neither would be lured from the meat and after a time we gave up the game to head back for the yurt. As we approached the tent, we circled stealthily about the jeppas, scaring them into a defensive bunch and then nudging them along to mill about just outside the tent. When the wolf crept back into the tent, I was still with him as he poked the Fool rudely with an icy nose.

It is good to see you have not lost all spirit and fun, he told me as I unlocked my mind from his and roused up in my own body.

Very good, I agreed with him. And rose to face the day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Signposts

That day I traveled, as before, across the face of a wooded hillside. At first the flank of the hill was broad and gentle. I could walk in sight of the road and only slightly below it on the hillside. The huge evergreens held most of the burden of winter snow above me. The footing was uneven and there were occasional patches of deep snow but walking was not too difficult. By the end of that day, however, the trees were beginning to dwindle in size and the slope of the hill was markedly steeper. The road hugged the hillside, and I walked below it. When it came time to camp that night, my companions and I were hard-pressed to find a level place to pitch the tent. We scrabbled quite a way down the hill before we found a place where it leveled. When we did have the yurt up, Kettricken stood looking back up at the road and frowning to herself. She took out her map and was consulting it by the waning daylight when I asked her what the matter was.

She tapped the map with a mittened finger and then gestured to the slope above us. "By tomorrow, if the road keeps climbing and the slopes get steeper, you won't be able to keep pace with us. We'll be leaving the trees behind us by evening tomorrow. The country is going to be bare, steep and rocky. We should take firewood with us now, as much as the jeppas can easily carry." She frowned. "We may have to slow our pace to allow you to match us."

"I'll keep up," I promised her.

Her blue eyes met mine. "By the day after tomorrow, you may have to join us on the road." She looked at me steadily.

"If I do, then I'll have to cope with it." I shrugged and tried to smile despite my uneasiness. "What else can I do?"

"What else can any of us do?" she muttered to herself in reply.

That night when I had finished cleaning the cooking pots, Kettle once again set out her cloth and stones. I looked at the spread of pieces and shook my head. "I haven't worked it out," I told her.

"Well, that is a relief," she told me. "If you, or even if you and your wolf had, I would have been too astonished for words. It's a difficult problem. But we shall play a few games tonight, and if you keep your eyes open and your wits sharp, you may see the solution to your problem."

But I did not, and lay down to sleep with gamecloth and pieces scattered in my brain.

The next day's walk went as Kettricken had foretold. By noon I was scrabbling through brushy places and over tumbles of bared rock with Starling at my heels. Despite the breathless effort the terrain demanded, she was full of questions, and all about the Fool. What did I know of his parentage? Who had made his clothing for him? Had he ever been seriously ill? It had become routine for me to answer her by giving her little or no information. I had expected her to weary of this game, but she was as tenacious as a bulldog. Finally, I rounded on her in exasperation and demanded to know exactly what it was about him that fascinated her so.

A strange look came to her face, as one who steels oneself to a dare. She started to speak, paused, and then could not resist. Her eyes were avid on my face as she announced, "The Fool is a woman, and she is in love with you."

For a moment it was as if she had spoken in a foreign language. I stood looking down on her and trying to puzzle out what she had meant. Had she not begun to laugh, I might have thought of a reply. But something in her laughter offended me so deeply that I turned my back on her and continued making my way across the steep slope.

"You're blushing!" she called from behind me. Merriment choked her voice. "I can tell from the back of your neck! All these years, and you never even knew? Never even suspected?"

"I think it's a ridiculous idea," I said without even looking back.

"Really? What part of it?"

"All of it," I said coldly.

"Tell me you absolutely know that I'm wrong."

I didn't dignify her taunt with an answer. I did forge through a patch of thick brush without pausing to hold the branches back for her. I know she knew I was getting angry, because she was laughing. I pushed my way clear of the last of the trees and stood looking out over a nearly sheer rock face. There was almost no brush, and cracked gray stone pushed up in icy ridges through the snow. "Stay back!" I warned Starling as she pushed up beside me. She looked around me and sucked in her breath.

I looked up the steep hillside to where the road was scored across the mountain's face like a gouge in a piece of wood. It was the only safe way across that sheer mountain face. Above us was the steep boulder strewn mountainside. It was not quite sheer enough to call it a cliff. There was a scattering of wind-warped trees and bushes, some with roots straggling over the rocky soil as much as in it. Snow frosted it unevenly. Climbing up to the road would be a challenge. The slope we traversed had been getting steeper all morning. I should not have been surprised, but I had been so intent on picking the best path that it had been some time since I had looked up to the road.

"We'll have to return to the road," I told Starling and she nodded mutely.

It was easier said than done. In several places I felt rock and scree slew under my feet, and more than once I went on all fours. I could hear Starling panting behind me. "Only a little farther!" I called back to her as Nighteyes came toiling up the slope beside us. He passed us effortlessly, moving by leaps up the slope until he reached the edge of the road. He disappeared over the edge of it, and then returned to stand on the lip looking down at us. In a moment the Fool appeared beside him, to gaze down at us anxiously. "Need any help?" he called down.

"No. We'll make it!" I called back up to him. I paused, crouching and clinging to the trunk of a stunted tree, to catch my breath and wipe the sweat from my eyes. Starling halted behind me. And suddenly I felt the road above me. It had a current like a river, and as the current of a river stirs the air to wind over it, so did the road. It was a wind not of winter cold, but of lives, both distant and near. The Fool's strange essence floated on it, and Kettle's closemouthed fear and Kettricken's sad determination. They were as separate and recognizable as the bouquets of different wines.