Like a blast of cold air, he entered their lives, and left nearly as quickly. They were suspicious, at first, not trusting this pampered southerner with his rich clothing and lilting accent. He was nothing like the men she had known before, dwarfing most of the Riders, and standing considerably above even her brother and cousin. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. He did not have the sheer strength of her kin, was instead slender and agile, moving so quickly and silently that he seemed to appear and disappear at will.
She could remember her grandmother, a southerner like this one. Even into her nineties, the Queen had stood tall and straight, her hair still dark, although streaked with silver and her face lined but not wrinkled. And when her will was crossed, she looked beautiful and terrible, her clear grey eyes blazing so brightly that the children dared not look into them. Witch some had called her, and they were never certain whether she was or not. In six months' time, she had aged twenty years before their eyes and died before she could suffer decrepitude or senility.
She had not thought of her grandmother in years, for present griefs occupied most of her mind, but somehow this lord from Mundburg reminded her of the Queen. It was mostly about the eyes, she thought; for this stranger's eyes were not only the same clear grey as her grandmother's, but shone like stars in his pale face. She had heard tales of the great Men of the West who had risen up, as it seemed, out of the very sea, the light of the uttermost west in their faces. They were akin to the wizards, some said, for they had wrought works that could only be enchantment, Orthanc where their wizard-ally dwelt, and Mundburg, and staves that returned to their owners. The other southerners did not seem as if they could be heirs of the Westmen, as the tales said they were, and they certainly displayed no skills at enchantment to battle the evil to the East — but she looked at him, and thought of the stories, and of her grandmother, and wondered.
