Cordelia sleepwalked Gregor into the tiny shack, felt her way to a cot, and rolled him onto it. He whimpered in his sleep as she dragged the blankets over him. She stood swaying, numb-brained, then in a last burst of lucidity kicked off her slippers and climbed in with him. His feet were cold as a cryo-corpse's. As she warmed them against her body his shivering gradually relaxed into deeper sleep. Dimly, she was aware that Kly—Bothari—somebody, had started a fire in the fireplace. Poor Bothari, he'd been awake every bit as long as she had. In a quite military sense, he was her man; she should see that he ate, cared for his feet, slept . . . she should, she should. . . .

* * *

Cordelia snapped awake, to discover that the movement that had roused her was Gregor, sitting up beside her and rubbing his eyes in bleary disorientation. Light streamed in through two dirty windows on either side of the wooden front door. The shack, or cabin—two of the walls were made of whole logs stacked up—was only a single room. In the grey stone fireplace at one end a kettle and a covered pot sat on a grating over a bed of glowing coals. Cordelia reminded herself again that wood represented poverty, not wealth, here. They must have passed ten million trees yesterday.

She sat up, and gasped from the pain in her muscles. She straightened her legs. The bed was a rope net strung on a frame and supporting first a straw-stuffed mattress, then a feather-stuffed one. She and Gregor were warm, at least, in their nest. The air of the room was dusty-smelling, tinged with a pleasant edge of wood smoke.

Booted footsteps sounded on the boards of the porch outside, and Cordelia grasped Gregor's arm in sudden panic. She couldn't run—that black iron fireplace poker would make a pretty poor weapon against a stunner or nerve disruptor—but the steps were Bothari's. He slipped through the door along with a puff of outside air. His crudely sewn tan cloth jacket must be a borrowing from Kly, judging from the way his bony wrists stuck out beyond the turned-down sleeve cuffs. He'd pass for a hillman easily, as long as he kept his urban-accented mouth shut.

He nodded at them. "Milady. Sire." He knelt by the fireplace, glanced under the pot lid, and tested the kettle's temperature by cupping a big hand a few centimeters above it. "There's groats, and syrup," he said. "Hot water. Herb tea. Dried fruit. No butter."

"What's happening?" Cordelia rubbed her face awake, and swung her legs overboard, planning a stumble toward that herb tea.

"Not much. The Major rested his horse a while, and left before light, to keep his schedule. It's been real quiet, since."

"Did you get any sleep yet?"

"Couple of hours, I think."