Free Shadow of All Night Falling by Glen Cook

season.
    “You seem poetically inclined today,” Nepanthe observed.
    Valther shrugged, pointed outward. “Isn’t that a subject fit for a poem?”
    “Yes. An ode to a Wind God, or Father Winter. Or maybe an epic concerning the odyssey of a glacier. Certainly nothing human or warm.”
    “Uhm, truth told,” Saltimbanco muttered. Then, assuming Valther wanted to talk to Nepanthe privately, he headed for the hatchway.
    “Hold on! Saltimbanco, you don’t have to leave.” Valther pretended horror at the notion. “There’ll be no secrets discussed here. And Nepanthe’s mood would fail if you left. If there was ever an elixir of the heart, a potation to buoy the spirit, then it’d be found in you. Proof? Nepanthe. Fair Nepanthe, sweet Nepanthe, once lost in her vapors, a stick of wood for all the heart she showed. And who’s to blame for the changes? Even Turran’s remarked on in. Tis yourself, Knight Ponderous.”
    Nepanthe stared at Valther, amazed.
    And Saltimbanco, who was wont to absorb the most outrageous praise as his due, was embarrassed by Valther’s out-of-character speech-though not too embarrassed to remain.
    “Harken, sister,” Valther continued. “Harken, O wind like a dragon’s dying groan. Who salvaged the spirits of a defeated clan? Who brought heart to the heartless? This man who so wisely plays the fool! I think he’s no fool at all, but a most clever rogue of an actor and clown!”
    Though Saltimbanco wore a slash of a self-conscious grin, his insides were a’boil with fear. Questions threw up sprouts of terror in the guilt-fertile fields of his mind. What did Valther know? Were these allegations? Was he being warned he was suspect?
    Nepanthe broke his thought train by asking, “Valt, what’s made you so prosey? Did?... “She bit her tongue with mock viciousness, pulled a face, continued, “I was going to say something nasty. I guess I’m pretty poor company. I mean, here’re two gentlemen trying to entertain me, and all I do is howl like a Harpy.”
    Both men protested, but she silenced them with a wave. “Who knows better than me what I’ve become?” Then she broke out laughing. The mock horror on Saltimbanco’s face was that extreme. Evidently, she had just violated some mad philosophical tenet.
    When the fat man spoke, however, he had nothing philosophical to say. “Woe!” he cried. “Hear old Ice-Wind howl! Self, am protected by wisely accumulated layers of guardian flesh. Am self-admitted obesity, yet am still to become frozen immobility before tramontane stream. Am pleading, Lord and Lady! May we move party to where great warm fires burn?”
    One look at the granite sky, at the snow flurries around them, at the barrenness on every hand, assured the two of Saltimbanco’s wisdom.
    “Hai!” Valther cried, mimicking Saltimbanco. “The man’s right again! Hot mead in the Great Hall, eh? A warm fire, hot wine, a joint of lamb, and friendly conversation. Let’s go.”
    “I’m coming,” Nepanthe said, with a little trill of laughter. “But I’ll forego the mutton. Redbeard’s wife, Astrid, told me too much meat is bad for the complexion.”
    Valther and Saltimbanco stared, poised on the borders of laughter-but checked themselves when they realized she was serious. It was laughter at the unexpected, anyway, for when had Nepanthe ever expressed such a feminine concern? Then Valther glanced at Saltimbanco, a new breed of laughter in his eyes.
    A dozen huge fireplaces roared merrily around the Great Hall. Every time he entered, Saltimbanco marveled at the hominess of the place. Dogs and small children, without regard to sex or tribe or station, frolicked and fought, snarled, and chewed on discarded bones amidst the deep straw upon the floor, brawlingly thick. Yet seldom did the servants or men-at-arms tread on pup or child...
    Turran’s soldiers, and Nepanthe’s Iwa Skolovdans, were seated at the countless tables, drinking, singing, telling lies, or suffering drunken