Dawn broke over the Red Crags with a sky of clean, pale amber that held not a single cloud. The bitter northeast gale of yesterday had blown itself out. That left the air crystal-clear, sharp, and cold as well-water, with a heavy white rime of frost coating every thistle, rock, and fence rail along the highway.
Tomas and Nessa stood on the rocky summit of the pass. There, the limestone cliffs dropped in a series of stepped, four-hundred-foot precipices to the huge, flat expanse of the Great Delta below.
Behind them lay the long, white road across the chalk downs—one hundred and twenty leagues of highway, through the gates of kings, past the ruined toll-posts, and over the repaired bridges of the north.
Ahead of them, stretching fifty miles to the southern horizon where the pale silver band of the sea met the sky, lay the homeland.
The view took the breath from the lungs. Under the level rays of the rising sun, the entire valley was laid out like an amazing, living map drawn in water, reed, and soil. To the east, the great River Ouse wound through the emerald stilt meadows of Brook End, its surface reflecting the orange dawn like a molten ribbon. To the west, the white limestone terraces of White Steps climbed the foothills like giant staircases. And directly south, spreading for twenty leagues in every direction, lay the dark, mysterious, beautiful maze of Fen Hollow.
