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whitened barleyfield on the one hand and a bare-limbed apple orchard on the other, that they were coming to the crossroads.
    “There is Padys Ridge, and the shrine and the spring just below it.”
    A very old oak, winter-bare, fronted that ancient outcrop, sole wild representative of his kind in an otherwise tame land of orchards and small, pruned trees. Just beyond it, still within the reach of its limbs, snow-covered, was the slight evidence of a road.
    “There’s our turn to Levey, my lord.”
    “Banners!” Uwen ordered, as they turned onto that track beside the oak, and the banners, dark and bright, unfurled.
    Crissand had said there was a shrine of sorts. Indeed, with the Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
    scouring of the morning’s wind, a small pile of man-set stones was peeping out from its snow blanket. It recalled one near Emwy village far to the west. That had been summer. The spring here was frozen where it flowed out of the natural rock, and had made a glorious mass of icicles.
    “Padys Spring and the shrine, my lord. One of the last of the old places. The king’s men overthrew most, wherever they found them. I ask you’ll keep it. The village sets great store by it.”
    “A shrine of the Bryalt?” he asked, largely ignorant of gods, study as he would in Efanor’s little book.
    “Perhaps older, my lord. Though Bryalt offerings may turn up here, the king’s law and the Quinalt notwithstanding.” Crissand spoke in the hearing of Guelenmen, in Uwen’s hearing most of all, and was surely aware it. “We go uphill from here, a clear, smooth road, as I recall it, no ditches or pits to fear on either side.”
    No track disturbing the snow since the last snowfall, either, but the blanket sank down considerably in a long line through the ridge, showing where the road was, and the stone sheep walls on either side, visible ahead of them, confirmed it. They rode past old stones, and many of the Guelenmen made a small sign against harm.
    “The farmer folk are staunch Bryaltine,” Crissand began to say as they rode past.
    But just as they passed under the spreading branches of the oak a Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
    fierce gust of wind blew past them, driving the banners sideways and startling the horses with a pelting of snow from laden branches.

    Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
    Chapter 2
    « ^ »
    Gods!” Crissand said in dismay, and reined up sharply… for an old woman stood by the shrine, so gray and brown in her shawl and skirts she might have been part of the oak in the last blink of their eyes. She had drawn her shawl over her gray head, but hanks of her hair flew in the gale and the driven snow. She had a necklace hung with smooth river stones and knots of straw. Her skirts were weighted with braided cords and coins, and the fringes of her shawl flew wild as the icy wind skirled up.
    “Gods!” Crissand said a second time, with an anxious laugh, soothing his horse with his off hand. “You gave me a fright, mother. I don’t know you. Are you from Levey?”
    She was no stranger and no common woman, Tristen knew it, and held Gery still: Uwen had halted beside him. So had all the column behind halted, and the banner-bearers ahead had turned back to face the woman in dismay.
    “Auld Syes,” Tristen said, for to name a thing was to have some power to bid it. “What brings you so far from Emwy?”
    “Why, I come to bring the lord of Amefel to his senses,” the old woman said, and pointed a bony bare arm from out of the clutch of flying fringes, stark and commanding as the wind continued to Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
    blow. “Lord of Amefel and the aetheling! Why do I find the twain of you riding west like common fools, when your road lies south? South for friends, lord of Amefel, north and east for foes, and blest the lord who knows one from the other! Mistake them not again, lord of Amefel!”
    North for enemies and south for friends