"Well," he said lightly, to the grey sky, or to the spitting snow, or to his lifemate. "Perhaps we should go inside and find some tea."

#

Jelaza Kazone

Surebleak

It was not, upon inspection, a very good road.

In point of fact, it was less a road and more a track the farther Yulie Shaper's land fell behind him. Daav walked along slowly, compiling mental notes in order that he might offer the fullest report possible to his delm. He also, so it seemed, walked alone; Aelliana had withdrawn from his awareness almost the instant he had stepped into the morning parlor in search of tea, to find his son and his son's lifemate at breakfast.

The children had been in spirits, and interested in news of their closest neighbor. Of the road a-building in Melina Sherton's territory, they were sanguine; it would appear that Boss Sherton had confided to Boss Conrad her vision of forging a route to the sea, which Daav thought, recalling his Surebleak geography, was an undertaking of no small ambition.

It pleased the delm to accept Yulie Shaper's neighborly offer to act as ambassador to Boss Sherton, and also to make Daav's return trip into double-duty. So after breakfast, saving a moment to write a note, should there be reason to have one, Daav had once again set off into the sullen day.

Yulie Shaper had not been "obvious" when he returned to their rendezvous point of the early morning. He paused a moment before making the minor leap over the gully, walking toward the gnarled tree with hands in plain view, and held slightly away from his body.

While not precisely a boulevard, the route "up" to the house made by the farmer in his rounds was obvious enough even to the eyes of an old scout. The weeds by the side of the path quivered from time to time, as if he were being paced, and he twice saw the gleam of cat-eyes among the straggling stems. No one approached him, though, either feline or human, and at last he came to the house, a tidy dwelling built of hardened wood.