The cat seemed definitely larger than the jaguars she’d once seen in a menagerie. The horses rolled their eyes and quick-stepped nervously, while their ylvin masters soothed them.
The whole column slowed, watching the animal. When they were past, Varia quickened her horse’s pace, pulling up beside Cyncaidh. “It was beautiful,” she said. “In the south, I doubt you’d ever see one so close.”
He grinned. He’d been smiling more lately; she’d decided he must be getting close to home. “Wait till you see one in winter,” he said. “Their coat gets longer, soft and thick, and turns almost white. A pale ice blue, actually, with blue-gray rosettes.”
See one in winter? The words triggered anxiety. “How will I come to see one in winter?” she asked.
He hadn’t noticed the change in her aura. That required attention, and his was on his thoughts. “We have a place, my family, where we—” He stopped. “You may not have the word for them in the Rude Lands. We fasten long slender boards on our feet, and run on them across the snow. Which up here covers the ground for about half the year.”
“They have them on Farside,” Varia said. “In my husband’s language they’re called skis.”
His smiled faded. “Well, then,” he said, “you know what I mean.” He continued with less enthusiasm. “There are several of them there, the Great Cats, and we’ve developed a sort of mutual trust. We track one or another of them sometimes, to observe them, and sometimes they track us. They neither flee nor offer to attack, though ambush is their favored hunting strategy.”
She couldn’t tell him she’d love to see one. He might infer an interest in staying. Introverted, she said something vague and dropped back to where Caerith rode. She knew what had killed Cyncaidh’s enthusiasm: she’d referred to her husband. While her wonder over the jaguar had died when he’d implied she’d still be with him in the winter. We need to thrash this out, she thought. But not yet. She wouldn’t be able to stand it if he said she couldn’t go back. Or even if he equivocated.
The next afternoon they topped a final ridge that looked across forest to the Great Northern Sea. Cyncaidh stopped, the rest of the party stopping too, and Varia rode up to sit beside him. She liked his grin; it made him look boyish. “That’s it,” he said pointing. “I’ve sailed it—including by ice sloop—and skied and skated on it. Everything but swim in it.”
“You haven’t swum in it?”
He shook his head. “It’s too cold. You wouldn’t last a minute. Well maybe a minute, but certainly not ten. Probably not five.” He pointed northwestward. “My home is off there. Aaerodh Manor. We’ll stay in Cyncaidh Harbor tonight, at an inn, and be home about midday tomorrow.
“I love it there. When I speak of home, that’s where I mean. That was home even during my twelve years at Duinarog. Though it was about three weeks away by ship, up rivers and across both the Middle and Northern Seas.”
The Middle Sea. I never even heard of it before, she thought. Nor of Duinarog or the Northern Sea, until Caerith mentioned them. Varia realized again how limited the teaching was at the Cloister. She knew far more about the geography of Farside than about her own world, or even her own continent.
Cyncaidh grinned down at her. “You’ll love it too,” he said. “It’s made for you. It’s beautiful.”
The inn was a surprise to Varia. When Cyncaidh got down from his horse, a stable boy, a middle-aged human, took the reins grinning. “Good to see you again, Your Excellency,” he said. His voice was respectful, but not at all obsequious. Cyncaidh had the man’s name ready to his tongue: “It’s good to see you, Joleth,” he answered. It occurred to Varia then that the inn might be owned by Cyncaidh’s family.
It seemed to bustle when they entered. The house staff, mostly ylvin, treated Cyncaidh like royalty. From their auras, they were honestly pleased to see him, and Cyncaidh, in his turn, was friendly—not overly familiar but not at all aloof. The place was almost crowded; the manager told Cyncaidh that a cruise ship had arrived that day.
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