Communities were small in the loftiness of the Peaks. Flat land was scarce, the growing season short. In the hamlet of Cascade Dell, the chimney smoke of each homestead rose within sight of every neighbor. When snows grew deep, the families gathered to spend four and sometimes five months housed within the great lodge, their dogs at their feet, their livestock in the vast barn across the yard.
Of all the people of the Dell, only the Seekers of Truth lived apart. That bleak fact plagued Scholar Radiance as she emerged onto the balcony of the contemplation hall. A stone's throw to her right, the waterfalls for which Cascade Dell was named thundered into a great pool. The noise failed to drown out her thoughts. She gazed down the terraced slope. The distance from abbey to lodge never shrank. But today, the weather fair and her fortnight's quota of scrolls already copied, Radiance had dispensation to enjoy the refuge of those log-and-mud walls again, if only for a few hours.
Her feet collapsed newly fallen snow as she set out along a trench path deeper, in shady areas, than she was tall. The scholar inhaled the tang of the fresh powder, a rarified, scentless scent she doubted she would know again this spring. Much as she loved the white purity that cloaked the peaks, she welcomed the melt. The winter's storminess, sheer cold, and extended darkness often precluded visits such as this, even when her monastic duties did not.
Numbness was clutching at her toes by the time she raised the flap of the scullery entrance and descended upon her usual stool by the kitchen hearth. A cornucopia of aromas washed over her. Rising bread. Hot clay. Cooked bacon. Welcome smells of home--even the whiff of ripe swaddling clothes as Metirha suckled her new baby by the butter churn.
"Mulled cider for you, Scholar?" asked Metirha's older daughter. The eight-year-old, looking very pleased that she was no longer the youngest of her family, filled a dipper at the steaming pot.
"Thank you, child." Radiance let the first swallow percolate downward, quelling the residual shiver in her bones. She smacked her lips.
Metirha grinned. Shifting the baby to her other breast, she commented, "Your near-brother was asking if you had come down the mountain today."
"Where is he now?" the scholar asked.
"Splitting logs, I believe."
Radiance sipped more cider, fortifying herself against the renewed embrace of the snow.
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