"How long have you been gone?" she demanded to know.

"From Molly? Almost a year."

"A year! Men," Starling muttered softly to herself. "They go off to fight or to travel and they expect their lives to be waiting for them when they get back. You expect the women who stay behind to keep the fields and raise the children and patch the roof and mind the cow, so that when you walk back in the door, you can find your chair still by the fire and hot bread on the table. Yes, and a warm, willing body in your bed, still waiting for you." She was beginning to sound angry. "How many days have you been gone from her? Well, that's how many days she has had to cope without you. Time doesn't stop for her just because you're gone. How do you think of her? Rocking your baby beside a warm hearth? How about this? The baby is inside, crying and untended on the bed, while she's out in the rain and wind trying to split wood for kindling because the fire went out while she was walking to and from the mill to get a bit of meal ground."

I pushed the image away. No. Burrich wouldn't let that happen. "In my mind, I see her in many ways. Not just in good times," I defended myself. "And she isn't completely alone. A friend of mine is looking after her."

"Ah, a friend," Starling agreed smoothly. "And is he handsome, spirited, and bold enough to steal any woman's heart?"

I snorted. "No. He's older. He's stubborn, and cranky. But he's also steady and reliable and thoughtful. He always treats women well. Politely and kindly. He'll take good care of both her and the child." I smiled to myself, and knew the truth of it as I added, "He'll kill any man that even looks a threat at them."

"Steady, kind, and thoughtful? Treats women well?" Starling's voice rose with feigned interest. "Do you know how rare a man like that is? Tell me who he is, I want him for myself. If your Molly will let him go."

I confess I knew a moment's unease. I remembered a day when Molly had teased me, saying I was the best thing to come out of the stables since Burrich. When I had been skeptical as to whether that was a compliment, she had told me he was well regarded among the ladies, for all his silences and aloof ways. Had she ever looked at Burrich and considered him? No. It was I she had made love with that day, clinging to me although we could not be wed. "No. She loves me. Only me."

I had not intended to say the words aloud. Some note in my voice must have touched a kinder place in Starling's nature. She gave over tormenting me. "Oh. Well, then. I still think you should send her word. So she has hope to keep her strong."

"I will," I promised myself. As soon as I reached Jhaampe. Kettricken would know some way by which I could get word back to Burrich. I could send back just a brief written message, not too plainly worded in case it was intercepted. I could ask him to tell her I was alive and I would return to her. But how would I get the message to him?

I lay silently musing in the dark. I did not know where Molly was living. Lacey would possibly know. But I could not send word via Lacey without Patience finding out. No. Neither of them must know. There had to be someone we both knew, someone I could trust. Not Chade. I could trust him, but no one would know how to find Chade, even if they knew him by that name.

Somewhere in the barn, a horse thudded a hoof against a stall wall. "You're very quiet," Starling whispered.

"I'm thinking."

"I didn't mean to upset you."

"You didn't. You just made me think."

"Oh." A pause. "I am so cold."

"Me, too. But it's colder outside."

"That doesn't make me the least bit warmer. Hold me."

It was not a request. She burrowed into my chest, tucking her head under my chin. She smelled nice. How did women always manage to smell nice? Awkwardly I put my arms around her, grateful for the added warmth but uneasy at the closeness. "That's better," she sighed. I felt her body relax against mine. She added, "I hope we get a chance to bathe soon."

"Me, too."

"Not that you smell that bad."

"Thank you," I said a bit sourly. "Mind if I go back to sleep now?"

"Go ahead." She put a hand on my hip and added, "If that's all you can think of to do."

I managed to draw a breath. Molly, I told myself. Starling was so warm and near, smelling so sweet. Her minstrel's ways made nothing of what she suggested. To her. But what was Molly, truly, to me? "I told you. I'm married." It was hard to speak.

"Um. And she loves you, and you obviously love her. But we are the ones who are here, and cold. If she loves you that much, would she begrudge you an added bit of warmth and comfort on such a cold night?"

It was difficult, but I forced myself to think about it a bit, then smiled to myself in the darkness. "She wouldn't just begrudge me. She'd knock my head off my shoulders."

"Ah." Starling laughed softly into my chest. "I see." Gently she drew her body away from mine. I longed to reach out and pull her back to me. "Perhaps we'd better just go to sleep, then. Sleep well, Fitz."

So I did, but not right away and not without regrets.

The night brought us rising winds, and when the barn doors were unbolted in the morning, a fresh layer of snow greeted us. I worried that if it got much deeper, we'd have serious problems with the wagons. But Nik seemed confident and genial as he loaded us up. He bid a fond farewell to his lady and we set forth again. He led us away from the place by a different trail from the one we had followed to get there. This one was rougher, and in a few places the snow had drifted deep enough that the wagon bodies gouged a path through it. Starling rode beside us for part of the morning, until Nik sent a man back to ask her if she'd come ride with them. She thanked him cheerily for the invitation and promptly went to join them.

In the early afternoon, we came back to the road. It seemed to me that we had gained little by avoiding the road for so long, but doubtless Nik had had his reasons. Perhaps he simply did not want to create a beaten track to his hiding place. That evening our shelter was crude, some tumbledown huts by the riverbank. The thatched roofs were giving way, so there were fingers of snow on the floors in places and a great plume of snow that had blown in under the door. The horses had no shelter at all other than the lee of the cabins. We watered them at the river and they each got a portion of grain, but no hay awaited them here.

Nighteyes went with me to gather firewood, for while there was enough by the hearths to start a fire for a meal, there was not enough to last the night. As we walked down to the river to look for driftwood I mused on how things had changed between us. We spoke less than we once had, but I felt that I was more aware of him than I had ever been before. Perhaps there was less need to speak. But we had also both changed in our time apart. When I looked at him now, I sometimes saw the wolf first and then my companion.

I think you have finally begun to respect me as I deserve.

There was teasing but also truth in that statement. He appeared suddenly in a patch of brush on the riverbank to my left, loped easily across the snow swept trail, and somehow managed to vanish in little more than snow dunes and leafless, scrubby bushes.

You're no longer a puppy, that's true.

Neither of us are cubs anymore. We've both discovered that on this journey. You no longer think of yourself as a boy at all.

I trudged wordlessly through the snow and pondered that. I did not know quite when I had finally decided I was a man and not a boy any longer, but Nighteyes was right. Oddly, I felt a moment of loss for that vanished lad with the smooth face and easy courage.

I think I made a better boy than I do a man, I admitted ruefully to the wolf.

Why not wait until you've been at it a bit longer and then decide? he suggested.