In Winter's Shadow Read Online Free Page A

Moreover, I had been gone a long time. They would not oppose him to support me.
    Best to get it over with. I picked the letter up, rose from the desk, and dropped it in the fire. It uncurled slowly, wrapping itself around the coals, and the ink darkened even as the parchment went brown, standing out sharp, clear, and absolute. Then the coals ate through, here and there, and it darkened to illegibility, while the air was full of its burnt leather stink.
    My eyes stung and I wiped them with the back of my hand, finding that my hand shook. But it was over now, and the only thing I could do, done. I must get back to work, and not brood over it.
    I picked up the light spring cloak which I had draped over a chair when I sat down to read the letter, then picked up my mirror to check that I appeared dignified and composed, as befitted an empress. I saw instead that I was crying. “It’s the smoke,” I told myself, aloud, but I had to set the mirror down and stand a moment, wrestling with myself. I went into the adjoining room, found the water pitcher, and washed my face. The cold water was soothing against my hot eyes, and I felt calmer when I went back and checked the mirror again. Better. I could not afford to show weakness, not when Camlann was as tense as it was at present.
    There was more white in my hair, I noted absently, when I looked to see that it had not come down when I washed my face. Well, red hair does not suit purple cloaks. I turned the purple border of my own cloak inward so that it would not clash as much. If my hair were white I could stop worrying about that, at least. There, there was the picture of the woman I had to be: still looking younger than thirty-four, thick hair pulled back severely and piled behind her head, gold necklace proclaiming wealth; poised, controlled. My eyes were red, and I could not smooth the lines of tension on my face, though I smiled at the reflection, trying to lie to it. But probably no one would notice, if I acted assured. I took a deep breath and went out.
    The house Arthur and I shared was next to the feast hall of Camlann, on its west. It had three rooms: an outer room for conferences, with a fire pit; a bedroom, and a washroom. The servants who looked after it lived down the hill to the north, so that, though we had to fetch our own wood and water at night, we had privacy. The house faced north, looking over the most crowded part of the fortress: the road from the gates past the stables to the Feast Hall. The hall covered the crown of the hill, set east of the center of the walled enclosure. The hill slopes very steeply on the east, and the houses on that side cling to the slope at an angle. Standing in the door of the house I looked out at the huddled houses along the side of the road, with their chickens scratching in the dust around them; at the stables sprawling along the north slope, and some horses, being worked on a lead rein, circling in the sun of a practice yard.
    The green patches between the houses grew larger further down the slope, and then the great gray bulk of the walls broke the pattern, firmly set stone with a wooden rampart above them. The gates were guarded by a single watch tower, but, because it was a time of peace, were left open. Beyond them the road stretched away, turning eastward across the patchwork of fields, fallow and pasture and plowed land. It was April, and the swallows, returning from the remote south, were beginning to wing circles about the eaves of the Feast Hall, while dandelions flowered in the grass, and apple trees scattered here and there were budding. That morning it had rained, but now the sun was out, and everything glittered, the light so sharp it seemed to cut into the soul. Here was Camlann, here was my fortress, the strong heart of the visionary Empire. I took another deep breath, then turned from the view and walked along the west wall of the Hall to the south, where the storerooms were.
    The fortress was generally short of