The biting cold that coated Alagaesia's north and central parts seemed to have seeped into her very veins. She didn't know if it was because this was the first time that she was up this north or if it was a side-effect of some other illness that was secretly affecting her. But what she did know was that she may be cured of it if she had sometime for herself, away from all the gloom and doom reports of the Varden.
Martland Redbeard was as good a tactician as Jormundur and it wasn't difficult to envision him leading the Varden for a couple of weeks while she would get her 'rest'. But the thing that was difficult was getting her advisers who included the eternally meddlesome council of elders, the night-hawks(who had taken up as the personal security ensurers of the leader of the Varden) and the senior most captains of the Varden army to accept her proposal.