Gentle Climb

The Prince remained isolated from the community of the Margrave's hall and Illumina set about the business of organizing the trip to Nina's home. It was simple enough; she found three traveling companions, men she knew and trusted and that she knew the Margrave would trust to look after her. They would take three dog sleds, each one pulled by a team of ten dogs. One team would be a group of dogs she had been helping to train for the last two years. They knew her well and though she had not seen them for over a month they welcomed her back in the guarded, cordial fashion of a working dog.

The bitches were all named for flowers and the dogs for herbs; she had Daisy, Iris, Mustard, Mint and six other assorted scents and flavors. Illumina set about getting reacquainted with the dogs and sought out anyone she could that had done the trip before at the same time of year. There were a couple of different routes she could take, so that had to be settled. Much would depend on the weather.

The quickest and easiest route was through the low-lying country on the edge of the forest. A longer and harder route was to head south a little and then approach Nina's home through the mountains. If the weather was cold, the lower route would be best, but if it was warm, the lower route had a lot of rivers and streams that had to be crossed and it could be dangerous in the cold as there could be open water or, worse yet, thin ice. She waited to see what kind of weather would come with the first snows.

In talking with people about the trip up into the Summer Lands she happened to have a conversation with her father in which he jokingly said, "You should ask the Prince, he's been there before." She was annoyed, not thinking it an amusing thing to say at all and asked him what he meant. The Margrave told her that the Prince had actually been to the Summer Lands as a baby. The King and Queen had spent a winter and the best part of a summer in Loro when the Prince was little more than a year old. It was a time when the King had been a lot less secure in his position. His father had recently died and, when he took the kingship, there was some doubt as to whether he would hold it. He came to Loro several times and then finally abandoned the city altogether as it had become too dangerous for him and the Queen. He brought her and the Prince up to Loro and spent the best part of a year raiding his own people; using soldiers loyal to him and people loyal to the Margrave to attack those in the lowlands that had plotted against him.

In the summer, the people of the lowlands made a gathering against him and sent a force up to the Winter Lands to try and destroy him and the people of Loro. "Of course there was no one here. They burnt a few crops. We blocked the passes and they couldn't get out again. It took no more than a couple of months. They surrendered, you know the story." What was new was the fact that the Queen and the Prince had taken refuge in the Summer Lands while the King's enemies rampaged around the Winter Lands.

"Did she actually go to Nina's village?" She asked.

"She may have done. I don't recall but there was a connection between Nina and the royal household. I believe she acted as a nurse for a time."

Illumina realized that something of the puzzle of the relationship between Nina and the Prince had just fallen into place; though she had the feeling it was not all of it. It seemed likely that Nina had acted as nurse to him before and was revisiting that role, though there was still that intensity to it that seemed so unnatural to Illumina.

The cold came and with it the snow. Illumina woke one morning feeling the chill in the air and hearing the stillness typical of a landscape newly covered by snow. The only sounds were the distant call of the dogs, they knew it was time to travel, and the occasional cawing from the ravens that lived on the roof of the great hall. They were crying defiance at the winter, calling on the world to wake from the night and go about the business of the day that was always a source of such interest and concern to them.

Illumina got up and got dressed, calling to her brothers and sister in the pre-dawn dark. Later that morning she stood on the house porch with the Margrave and her older brother, feeling the air and looking at the snow. "I will give it two days, if it stays like this I will take the forest route." They agreed, it was cold and the snow exceptionally heavy.

Illumina ate breakfast and then walked over to the hall to find the others in the traveling party. She wanted to organize a short trip before they actually left to make sure they could pack everything efficiently and the people could travel effectively with the available dogs and other equipment. She even dragged the Prince out into the cold, taking him for the moment out of Nina's hands and showing him how to dress, how to care for his face, his feet and his hands, taking him through the routine of caring for his clothes and what he would need to sleep in.

At first, he resented it but accepted it after some sharp words from Illumina. These came after some particularly stupid remark about someone else caring for his boots. She took him to one side, out of earshot of the others and told him, in no uncertain terms, what she thought of him and what would happen to him if he didn't do as he was told. "You have never heard a man screaming in agony as his hands and feet die from frostbite. I tell you this, if you do not listen to me and do exactly as I tell you, the screams you here will be your own. Do you understand? Look at me you fool and tell me: Do you understand?"

He was obviously shocked to the core by the ferocity of her words and eventually recovered himself sufficiently to nod his head and then say 'I understand'.

Illumina turned away from him without another word and returned to preparing the sleds. They waited two days and the weather, if anything, grew even colder. There was a thick covering of hard, dry snow on the ground, ideal for the sleds and the dogs. Taking the dogs out on the trial run, it was all they could do to get them to stop running when they came back to the Margrave's village.

On the third day, they left. They traveled directly north for a time coming at the end of the first day's travel to the edge of the forest at which point they would turn west and start a gentle climb up to the high country. In the event, there were just five of them, one of the men having decided to stay behind. The two that came were Cosimo and Taddeo. Taddeo was an old friend of her father's. Cosimo was a younger man, a relative of Taddeo's and childhood friend to Illumina.

Cosimo and Taddeo were both from the area round Nina's village and welcomed the opportunity to make a winter's journey to see friends and relatives. They traveled with Cosimo and Taddeo each driving a sled; Illumina drove her own team. Nina either skied or rode depending on the conditions. Even when she skied she was towed by a line from one or other of the sleds. The Prince rode almost all the time.

Occasionally Illumina would make him get out, put on snow shoes and run. Running in the snow shoes was hard work and on the first day he quickly tired. He was young and in much better shape than he had been when they left the city. On the second day, as they traveled next to the forest, Illumina made him run further and made him do it several times.

The Prince remained an outsider, even to the dogs. Daisy was the lead dog in Illumina's team. She was bigger and stronger than any of the other dogs in the team and imposed her will on the others as surely as Illumina imposed hers on the team as a whole. The dogs were friendly enough but cautious with strangers. They were trained not to take food from anyone they did not know.

One evening the Prince, thinking to ingratiate himself with the dog, came and offered her a piece of cooked meat. He had seen Illumina flip morsels of meat to the dogs and he took a piece and went over to Daisy and bent over offering the meat. She was curled up, her nose tucked into her tail for warmth. When he persisted, she looked up at him, her eyes bright and inscrutable. She raised her lips in a silent snarl showing her teeth, making it clear he was not welcome.

Illumina had watched the whole performance, half expecting Daisy would snap at him. She called the Prince over and told him about the dogs being trained to only take food from someone they knew. He asked why they would do such a thing.

"Why do you think?" Illumina asked the question out of genuine curiosity, thinking that he of all people should understand the dangers of taking food from a stranger.

He laughed, with something close to a genuine note of bitter irony in his tone and his expression. "I should know I suppose. What does one do in a world in which everyone is a stranger? It seems the only option is to starve."

Illumina looked at the fire for a moment and then laughed in her turn and said, "Starve, or live dangerously."

To follow this thread in the story go to: A Vague Shadow

The next section to read is: Taste and Texture

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