THE MIGHTY horse carried his insignificant rider with tireless ease. Trained in the hard school of combat, Balder was used to bearing the weight of grown men in full armor upon his broad back. Quentin, clinging like a cold leaf to the magnificent animal’s neck, was scarcely a burden at all.

The day was young and although still overcast as on the day previous, the low cloud covering showed signs of breaking up before long. The wind had freshened, sending whirling white clouds across the tops of the drifts with every fitful gust. Each blast sent a shiver along Quentin’s ribs. He wondered whether he would ever be warm again. But he did not greatly mind the discomfort, for at last the change long foretold was in motion. Where it would lead, what it would mean, he did not know. For the present he was caught up in the adventure of it, yet he kept his eyes sharp to any omen which might present itself.

Nothing presented itself to his gaze except a vast expanse of white, unbroken except by irregular dark lumps mushrooming out of the snow. These were the peasant huts, and sometimes he saw a face peer at him from around the corner of a doorpost, or a timid wave acknowledged his presence as a bent form hobbled through the snow under a burden of firewood.

In his seven years’ cloister within the temple, the land, it seemed to Quentin, had changed little. Yet it had changed.

There was something unmistakable in the eyes of the peasants he met, something which struck him fresh each time he saw it. Was it fear?