Whatever you do this time of the year,<\/p>\n
Midwinter up here, midsummer down south<\/p>\n
I hope you have joy and friends all around you<\/p>\n
The taste of your favorite foods in your mouth.<\/p>\n
This is a scene that came to me from well after the end of Crown…years after, I think.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’m not sure who this is (and if you think you know, take it to spoiler-space just in case, please.) \u00a0 I’m not certain it will ever be in a book, and I don’t know what came immediately before or will come immediately after.\u00a0 But it’s an appropriate scene for the time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, so here it is.<\/p>\n
………………………………………………………………<\/p>\n
The rider paused when she caught sight of the great house, dark against the snow,\u00a0 no lights showing at all.\u00a0\u00a0 She glanced up at Torre’s Necklace high in the sky.\u00a0\u00a0 Stars shone steady, hardly any glitter at all, but for the light thrown back by the snow itself, each facet of each snowflake sparking with light when she moved her head.\u00a0 So.\u00a0 Midwinter night, and in a house like that all would be together in one room, most likely the kitchen.\u00a0 Lord and lady, if there were a lady, children and servants, all around the bare hearth, telling those stories told only in the dark midwinter, and waiting for the sun’s return.<\/p>\n
A cold draft touched the back of her neck and she shivered, then adjusted her scarf.\u00a0 Such houses gave shelter freely at Midwinter; she could go there and stay for the feast, if she would.\u00a0\u00a0 The thought had hardly come to mind before she cast it away.\u00a0 She was no waif cast adrift in the winter, helpless and homeless.\u00a0\u00a0 She was out this Midwinter night by choice, not chance.\u00a0\u00a0 Under her, the horse she rode heaved a sigh; she laughed softly, patted the long, silken mane, and rode on.\u00a0\u00a0 She let her mind dwell a moment longer on the ceremonies of Midwinter, let herself imagine the lord of that house, wondered what such a lord would choose for a lady, wondered how many of the children of the house were theirs, how old they were.\u00a0\u00a0 It was pleasant to think of such houses being inhabited, not in ruins.<\/p>\n
Unseen, unheard, she rode across the open ground, enjoying the sparkle of starlight on snow.\u00a0\u00a0 Smiling.\u00a0\u00a0 Her own Midwinter tales rose into her mind and she recited now the rituals, the questions and answers, even those roles she had never lived.<\/p>\n
The next morning, the lord of that house saw hoofprints, blue-shadowed, leading past the house and out across the meadow, veering toward the frozen ford and then away again on the far side.<\/p>\n
“Danger?” asked the lady.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know.”\u00a0 He frowned, bent down and sniffed a hoofprint, touched it with his fingers.\u00a0 “Last night…something came near, but I felt no menace.\u00a0 I felt I should know, but I don’t.\u00a0\u00a0 It has a faint smell of horse,\u00a0 that is all.”<\/p>\n
“It can’t be a stray, surely…a stray would have come to the smell of the other horses.”<\/p>\n
“Not a stray,” he said.\u00a0\u00a0 “But someone who meant no harm, and had no need of our shelter ”\u00a0\u00a0 He shrugged.\u00a0 “A Midwinter mystery,\u00a0 love.\u00a0 But we should be making merry, not worrying.\u00a0 The sun returns!”<\/p>\n
“The sun returns,” she said, just as boldest of the children threw snowballs that hit the lord in the face and the lady in the shoulder.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For the rest of the day, all made merry and played the games of joy and strength,\u00a0 then ate the hot rich foods that celebrate the sun’s return.\u00a0\u00a0 That night’s vigil was shorter and easier on them.<\/p>\n
…………………………………………….<\/p>\n
There are several potential locations for this, in my mind, and each would have different characters.\u00a0\u00a0 It may come clear later, or it may not.\u00a0 But I hope you enjoy it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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