“Who?” it asked him; and he knew it was no natural bird. He got up on cold-stiff legs, and it flew off a little distance.
“Who?” it asked again.
Otter trembled, knowing the reputation of that bird, and whence it came—Paisi had said so, and Gran had nodded, confirming the story. He could see the fireside that night, when Paisi had told him how that creature had come into the Zeide and stayed with Lord Tristen. “It weren’t no bird as ever was,” Paisi had said. “An’ it weren’t friendly. It’d bite soon as look at ye. But it turned up where he did.”
“My name is Otter!” he called out to the woods, the owl, and any listener. “I’ve come to see Lord Tristen!”
The owl spread its wings and flew to another, farther tree, veiled in snowfall.
Otter took the reins and clambered up on a rock to get to Feiny’s saddle, fearful that the owl would move again and vanish into the woods. He urged Feiny onward, and the owl took wing, never minding that brush barred his way, and he had to fight past low, clawing branches.
“Owl,” he called to it, “good Owl. Be patient. Stay for me.”
“Who?” it asked, and perversely took flight.
The brush was too thick. He had to get down and lead the horse, tugged him along when the horse had as soon stopped altogether, finally having to take him close by the bit to keep him moving at all, and going near hip deep through a drift.
“Who?” Owl said, mocking him, and flew on through the snow, vanishing almost—but it seemed a bluish light outlined his wings and ran after him, like troubled water. Otter stared into the falling snow, his very eyes chilled, and kept going. Breath hissed between his teeth as he tried to warm it before taking it down. At times he lost Owl altogether, but then a passing shape brushed his hair and startled the horse as Owl winged ahead of him, glowing in the overcast.
His feet were already numb. That numbness crept from his feet to his legs and made him stumble in the snow as they left all semblance of a trail and followed a weaving course through a darker and darker forest. Feiny stumbled, and went down to his knees, and Otter pulled on the bridle, trying to help the horse up, all the while keeping his eyes on Owl, who vanished among the dark trunks and snowy branches.
Feiny gained his feet and followed, as numb and as miserable as he, Otter was sure, and Owl showing no mercy at all. He had sped through the darkest of the woods, where there was no light to be seen. The horse struggled and stumbled on hidden roots, and Otter feared he would go down and not get up: he had brought the heavy caparison, but even that was not enough. He took off his own cloak and flung it over the horse, saddle and all. Wind cut like a knife.
“Owl?” he called out desperately, casting about.
A pale shape sailed over his head and on through the trees, and he followed, stumbling, himself, on the uneven ground, and leading Feiny carefully, trying to keep them both on their feet. Ahead, a seam of twilight opened up between the trees, and Owl flew into it. They went after, passing under a network of bare branches, seeing that seam widen. It became a path, and, it seemed, a bridge, on the end post of which Owl sat, turning his face away.
Otter tugged at the bridle and brought Feiny along.
Owl spread his wings and flew as they passed the last screen of branches.
A fortress sat across that bridge, a place so overgrown and age-eaten it seemed a part of the rocks. The fortress gate cut off all view beyond the wall, except a little scrap of river and the top of a ruined tower.
Owl sailed up and up over that wall, and toward that ruined height, and vanished.
He had no choice now. He trusted himself to the old stones and the timbers and led Feiny across what might be a rubble pile or a bridge, on timbers with no few gaps. The ancient gates rose higher and higher, until they blotted out the sky. He stood and hammered them with his fist, which made little sound at all.
“Lord Tristen!” he called out to the heights. “Lord Tristen, can you hear me?”
Even his voice seemed lost, swallowed by the deep sound of the moving river under him, and he stood alone in the dark, beyond shivering in the cold. Twice more he shouted out and beat at the gate, waiting each time, in fading hope of an answer.
He had been a fool, he thought. He had come uninvited. He might die out here, no one knowing until spring and snowmelt.
Then a door opened and shut, somewhere beyond the wall, and he called out again, desperately: “Lord Tristen! It’s Otter! Gran and Paisi’s Otter! Can you hear me?”
Footsteps came, faintly in the distance beyond the gate, and then closer and closer, muffled by new snow, crunch, crunch, crunch. An inner bar grated and thumped back, and the gate swung and creaked inward, just enough to let him and the horse pass through.
He eased through the gap, seeing first a snowy courtyard, and the black bulk of the keep, and then, right by him, a grim man in a cloak and gloves.
“Sir,” he said respectfully, though he knew this thickset man could not be the lord himself, and he found his teeth chattering when he did it. “I’ve come, I’ve come—”
“Ye’re here,” the man said. “Ye’ll come in and have a warm bowl and a cup o’ tea.” The man took the reins from his fingers and patted Feiny’s snowy neck. “A horse in a cloak, is it? My son’ll see to ’im. Ye’ll come along.”
“You’re Uwen Lewen’s-son.”
“That I am,” the man said, and led him and the horse toward a low, ramshackle, and snowy cottage, with a long stable beside it, and other horses. That pricked Feiny’s interest, and drew a soft, low grunt, and an answering restlessness from the stable.
“He kicks,” Otter said, warning Master Uwen as the horsemaster had warned him, but now a young man had come out of the cottage, the open door of which shed a momentary rectangle of light onto the snow. He shut it, walked out, and that young man received his orders from Master Uwen.
“A good rub and a careful feed,” Uwen said. “He’s been without, summat, hain’t he, lad, an’ ain’t ye, both?”
“There was grain yesterday,” Otter said, “but not much.”
“Good lad.” Uwen’s heavy arm landed about his shoulders and swept him on, irresistibly, into the light of the door and up the steps into the cottage.
Inside, the warmth was thick and all-enveloping, and a red-faced, gray-haired woman bent by the hearth, ladling up a bowl as Uwen shut the door. The latch dropped. The woman set the bowl on the table, with a spoon and a piece of bread.
“Sit,” the woman said, no more to be questioned than Gran, and Otter eased his numb feet past the bench and sat down.
“The silly lad let the horse wear ’is cloak,” Uwen said. “Which is a good lad, by me. Kick the boots off, boy. Warm those feet. Floor’s warmer ’n that frozen leather.”
He had a piece of bread in hand, dipped in the good thick soup, which was hot, and good, and the wonderful bread was fresh-baked. He obeyed, however, using one foot to shove off the other boot, and ate and struggled with the second boot at the same time.
“That’s a boy,” Uwen said, and bent down by the table and pulled the boot off himself, and rubbed his icy feet with large, warm hands. “Half-froze, is what. Best is warming from the inside. Where’s that tea, wife?”
“Here,” the woman said, and set a mug down by the bowl, which was just in time to wash down a bite. Otter did that, and felt his throat overheat all the way down. It made his eyes water, and Uwen tugged the hood back off his head and felt of his ears, which were cold and sore.
“Well, well,” Uwen said, “he’ll be well enough.” As if he were a sheep they were looking over; and mannerless as a sheep, he’d devoured the bread and sat with spoon in hand to get the substance of it, the best soup he’d ever had, even better than Gran’s.