Across the Face of the World Read Free

but left them when his mother came through the door, slapping and stamping with the cold.
    'Did you find many good leaves?' Hal asked over his shoulder as he put more water on to boil.
    'Enough. There aren't many about. Will you need much of a supply this winter?'
    'Yes; but there's no point in collecting it all just yet. This could be a long winter, and it will be better in the ground for now than drying in the cupboard. Coming, Leith,' he called, and poured more soup into a bowl.
    'I'll take it to him.'
    The small but strong woman kicked off her boots and padded quietly across the warm rugs covering the polished wooden floor. Her son stirred and reached out a weak arm as she knelt down and offered him the steaming bowl, shaking her head at him. 'Men!' she jibed good-naturedly, hiding her concern at the sight of his too-bright eyes and fevered brow. 'They're so tough. A bit of a cold and they think they're dying.'
    'It's not just the Icewind fever.' Hal spoke quietly to his mother, out of earshot of the patient.
    'He was hurt yesterday. He feels let down. Mostly, though, he misses his father.'
    'Don't we all.' The woman turned away.
    'I don't think he wants to get well. Someone needs to spend time with him, but he doesn't want to wait around for a crip¬pled brother all the time. His friends always seem to be doing something else now, chasing girls, spending their afternoons down by the lake, diving from the rock, hiding in the woods, you know the places they go. Leith feels he's not welcome, so he's been playing with some of the younger boys. He gets teased a lot because of it. And when he asked Stella to go out to the lake . . .'
    'Pell and Herza's daughter?'
    Hal nodded. 'She's the popular one at the moment. All the boys want to be seen with her. They ridiculed Leith when they heard that he had asked her out, and they'll ridicule him even more because she didn't show up.'
    'How old is she?'
    'Fifteen, sixteen, something like that. Sixteen, 1 think.'
    Indrett sighed. Why did adolescents make things so compli¬cated? How did these fortunate ones contrive to make themselves so unhappy? She remembered her own teenage years. . .
    'Leith's been out of sorts since his father left,' Hal said. He pursed his lips thoughtfully and turned back to the skillet.
    His mother sat down on her favourite high-backed chair, head in hands. Leith is not the only one, she thought. How much longer? If ever?
    The next few days dawned crisp and clear, with bright mild after¬noons. No one in the village was the least bit fooled by their great enemy: he always tempted them with false hope, as if he thought he could convince them that spring was just around the corner. Even though his ruse was obvious, there were those who wished that they could trust the good weather that was offered in the balmy days of autumn.

    The world of the North March of Firanes was ruled by the weather. Near the coast, cold northerlies and warmer southerlies fought all winter, and when snow fell it fell heavily but melted quickly. The inhabitants of coastal towns like Loulea and Vapnatak lived in an in-between world of soft white snow and sodden slush. Further inland, up on the Fells where the southerlies did not pene¬trate, only four months separated last spring and first autumn snow.
    Though the snow fell inland no more heavily than on the coast, the bitter cold prevented it from melting, and so it steadily accu¬mulated until the spring thaw. The people of northern Firanes could be distinguished by the winters they endured: the few hardy and fierce inlanders holding the 'softer', less adventurous coasters in contempt. Winter controlled much of the lives of all northern Firanese people, wherever they lived, but the northerners had come to understand him. So when five days of fine weather were followed by a bitter north wind and an overnight blanket of white embracing the village, no one in the village was surprised.
    Driving sleet, a frost and a day of low cloud and