oasis

I wake to the nagging of my bladder. I ask it, is this really necessary. Like an insisting child, it keeps returning to my conciousness. But I am so relaxed. In the charmed circle of the fire, nestled in the furs, I am finally warm. The thought of deliberately leaving this nest ... but no... there it is again. I drag my folded robe off the top of my pack, pull it under the fur. The sudden intrusion of the chill fabric makes me hiss. I bundle it under my bare feet, taking the moments of cold as payment for comfort later. I try to keep the frigid cloth away from him, try not to disturb his sleep, then fumble with the robe and the fur, trying to slip it over myself without having to leave our nest. We made this camp two days ago, coming down from the high pass. An oasis of light and warmth, the living fire here a blessing beyond imagination. Fall on my knees and worship, like a primitive hillman. The folk here are coolly cautious, lifegiving hospitality ... to the extent that life is nurtured, but nothing more. We are here on their sufferance, that is made clear. I doubt they would abandon us to the cold, but they would not weep at our stupidity were we to be lost. We are... ephemeral. I make my way over to the place they have shown me for women to attend nature's calls. I silently mutter against the perfidity of nature, that makes me leave life affirming warmth to trudge in cold boots to the far edge of the camp, and bare to the biting frost that which should be more tenderly treated. But, I will observe all that they require of me, I dare not trespass on some hidden customs that will break what fragile tolerance they have; I dig as I have been shown, where I have been shown. She did not give her name, the woman we spoke to today. From what I understood of her speech, she is a trader, come down to this most southerly camp. Amlarad understood more that I did of her words, each jaw breaking sound. I was unsure whether they spoke of places, of people or of prey. But it is clear we need to trade. The furs we have will not be enough. I realised today, as we stood for too long motionless in the snow, that my clothes are woefully inadequate. Moving, I can keep warm; under the furs, with his bulk beside me, I am warmer. But I begin to sense that this snow is no more that a summer squall compared to the might of winter. Pissing in the snow ...and how it steams... I think of my lord steward, how tonight he sleeps in his rich bed, the canopy embroidered, a glass of cordial beside him if he wakes. I wish ... I did not have to do this. But oath bound, what choice is there? Whether I begin to fear the snow or not, whether it sucks out the last warmth of my body and leaves me a white statue in ice, here I am bidden to be and here I am, staring up at the clearest sky I have seen since I left home. As I walk back the fire glows, a beacon of life. The fire is my sun, its circle of warmth now encompasses all there is of my world. The furs my home. I pull off my robe and grit my teeth against the physical slap of the cold and burrow back under them as quick as I can, rolling my chilled frame into the still warm hollow next to its hearthstone.