There was gray light outside the window, through a white blur of snow. There would be no sunrise today. Callista lay quiet in her narrow bed across the room, her back to him so that he could see only the braids on her pillow. She and Ellemir were so different, Ellemir always awake and astir at dawn, Callista never waking until the sun was high. He should soon be hearing Ellemir moving in the other half of the suite, but it was early even for that.

Callista cried out in her sleep, a cry of terror and dread, again some evil nightmare of the time when she had lain prisoner of the catmen? With a single stride Andrew was beside her, but she sat up, abruptly wide awake, staring past him, her face blank with dismay.

“Ellemir!” she cried, catching her breath. “I must go to her!” And without a word or a look at Andrew she slid from her bed, catching up a chamber robe, and ran out into the center part of the suite.

Andrew watched, dismayed, thinking of the bond of twins. He had been vaguely aware of the telepathic link between Ellemir and her sister, yet even twins respected one another’s privacy. If Ellmir’s distress signal had reached Callista’s mind it must have been powerful indeed. Troubled, he began to dress. He was lacing his second boot when he heard Damon in the sitting room of theirsuite. He went out to him, and Damon’s smiling face dispelled his fears.

“You must have worried, when Callista ran out of here so quickly, I think Ellemir was frightened too, for a moment, more surprised than anything else. Many women escape this altogether, and Ellemir is so healthy, but I suppose no man can tell much about such things.”

“Then she’s not seriously ill?”

“If she is, it will cure itself in time,” Damon said, laughing, then sobered quickly. “Of course, just now she’s miserable, poor girl, but Ferrika says this stage will pass in a tenday or two, so I left her to Ferrika’s ministrations and Callista’s comforting. There’s little any man can do for her now.”

Andrew, knowing that Ferrika was the estate midwife, knew at once what Ellemir’s indisposition must be. “Is it customary and proper to offer congratulations?”

“Perfectly proper.” Damon’s smile was luminous. “But somewhat more customary to offer them to Ellemir. Shall we go down and tell Dom Esteban he’s to expect a grandchild some time after Midsummer?”

Esteban Lanart was delighted at the news. Dezi commented, with a malicious grin, “I see you are all too anxious to produce your first son on schedule. Did you really feel so much obliged by the calendar Domenic made for you, kinsman?”

For a moment Andrew thought Damon would hurl his cup at Dezi, but he controlled himself. “No, I had rather hoped Ellemir could have a year or two free of such cares. It is not as if I were heir to a Domain and had urgent need of a son. But she wanted a child at once, and it was hers to choose.”

“That is like Elli, indeed,” Dezi said, dropping the malice and smiling. “Every baby born on this estate, she has it in her arms before it is a tenday old. I’ll go and congratulate her when she is feeling better.”

Dom Esteban asked, as Callista came into the room, “How is she, then, Callista?”

“She is sleeping,” Callista said. “Ferrika advised her to lie abed as long as she could in the mornings, while she still feels ill, but she will be down after midday.”

She slipped into her seat beside Andrew, but she avoided his eyes, and he wondered if this had saddened her, to see Ellemir already pregnant? For the first time it occurred to him that perhaps Callista wanted a child; he supposed some women did, though he himself had never thought very much about it.

For more than a tenday the storm raged, snow falling heavily, then giving way to clear skies and raging winds that whipped the snow into deep, impenetrable drifts, then changing to snowfall again. The work of the estate came to a dead halt. Using undergrown tunnels, a few of the indoor servants cared for the saddle horses and dairy animals, but there was little else that could be done.

Armida seemed quiet without Ellemir bustling about early in the mornings. Damon, idled by the storm, spent much of his time at her side. It troubled Damon to see the ebullient Ellemir lying pale and strengthless, far into the mornings, unwilling to touch food. He was worried about her, but Ferrika laughed at his dismay, saying that every young husband felt like this when his wife was first pregnant. Ferrika was the estate midwife at Armida, responsible for every child born in the surrounding villages. It was a tremendous responsibility indeed, and one for which she was quite young; she had only succeeded her mother in this office in the last year. She was a calm, firm, round-bodied woman, small and fair-haired, and because she knew she was young for this post, she wore her hair severely concealed in a cap and dressed in plain sober clothing, trying to look older than she was.

The household stumbled without Ellemir’s efficient hands at the helm, though Callista did her best. Dom Esteban complained that, though they had a dozen kitchen-women, the bread was never fit to eat. Damon suspected that he simply missed Ellemir’s cheerful company. He was sullen and peevish, and made Dezi’s life a burden. Callista devoted herself to her father, bringing her harp and singing him ballads and songs, playing cards and games with him, sitting for hours beside him, her needlework in her lap, listening patiently to his endless long tales of past campaigns and battles from the years when he had commanded the Guardsmen.

One morning Damon came downstairs late to find the hall filled with men, mostly those who worked, in better weather, in the outlying fields and pastures. Dom Esteban in his chair was at the center of the men, talking to three who were still snow-covered, wearing bulky outdoor clothing. Their boots had been cut off, and Ferrika was kneeling before them, examining their feet and hands. Her round, pleasant young face looked deeply troubled; there was relief in her voice as she looked up to see Damon approaching.

“Lord Damon, you were hospital officer in the Guards at Thendara, come and look at this!”

Troubled by her tone, Damon bent to look at the man whose feet she held, then exclaimed in consternation, “Man, what happened to you?”

The man before him, tall, unkempt, with long wiry hair in still-frozen elf-locks around his reddened, torn cheeks, said in the thick mountain dialect, “We were weathered in nine days, Dom, in the snow-shelter under the north ridge. But the wind tore down one wall and we couldna’ dry our clothes and boots. Starving we were with food for no more than three days, so when the weather first broke we thought best to try and win through here, or to the villages. But there was a snowslide along the hill under the peak, and we spent three nights out on the ledges. Old Reino died o’ the cold and we had to bury him in the snow, against thaw, with n’more than a cairn o’ stones. Darrill had to carry me here—” He gestured stoically at the white, frozen feet in Ferrika’s hands. “I can’t walk, but I’m not so bad off as Raimon or Piedro here.”

Damon shook his head in dismay. “I’ll do what I can for you, lad, but I can’t promise anything. Are they all as bad as this, Ferrika?”

The woman shook her head. “Some are hardly hurt at all. And some, as you can see, are worse.” She gestured at one man whose cut-off boots revealed black, pulpy shreds of flesh hanging down.

There were fourteen men in all. Quickly, one after another, Damon examined the hurt men, hurriedly sorting out the least injured, those who showed only minor frostbite in toes, fingers, cheeks. Andrew was helping the stewards bring them hot drinks and hot soup. Damon ordered, “Don’t give them any wine or strong liquor until I know for certain what shape they are in.” Separating the less hurt men, he said to old Rhodri, the hall-steward, “Take these men to the lower hall, and get some of the women to help you. Wash their feet well with plenty of hot water and soap, and” — he turned to Ferrika — “you have extract of white thornleaf?”