“Aye,” he said.
“By Men, is it?”
“Aye,” he said still softer.
‘To what purpose do they hunt you?”
He said nothing, but she reckoned well enough for herself.
“Come then,” she said, “come, walk with me. I think I should be seeing to this intrusion before others do.—Come, come, have no dread of me.”
She parted the brambles for him. A last moment he delayed, then did as she asked and walked after her, carefully and much loath, retracing the path on which he had fled, held by nothing but his name.
She stayed by that track for a little distance, taking mortal time for his sake, not walking the quicker ways through her own Eald. But soon she left that easiest path, finding others. The thicket which degenerated from the dark heart of Eald was an unlovely place, for the Ealdwood had once been better than it was, and there was still a ruined fairness about that wood; but these young trees they began to meet had never been other than desolate. They twisted and tangled their roots among the bones of the crumbling hills, making deceiving and thorny barriers. It was unlikely that any Man could ever have seen the ways she found, let alone track her through the night against her will—but she patiently made a way for the boy who followed her, now and again waiting, holding branches parted for him. So she took time to look about her as she went, amazed by the changes the years had wrought in this place she once had known. She saw the slow work of root and branch and ice and sun, labored hard-breathing, mortal-wise, and scratched with thorns, but strangely gloried in it, alive to the world this unexpected night, waking more and more. Ever and again she turned when she sensed faltering behind her: the boy each time caught that look of hers and came on with a fresh effort, pale and fearful as he seemed, past clinging thickets and over stones; doggedly, as if he had lost all will or hope of doing otherwise.
“I shall not leave you alone,” she said. “Take your time.”
But he never answered, not one word.
At last the woods gave them a little clear space, at the veriest edge of the New Forest. She knew very well where she was. The baying of hounds came echoing up to her out of Caerdale, from the deep valley the river cut below the heights, and below was the land of Men, with all their doings, good and ill. She thought a moment of her outlaw, of a night he sped away; a moment her thoughts ranged far and darted over all the land; and back again to this place, this time, the boy.
She stepped up onto the shelf of rock at the head of that last slope, while at her feet stretched all the great vale of the Caerbourne, a dark, tree-filled void beneath the moon. A towered heap of stones had lately risen across the vale on the hill. Men called it Caer Wiell, but that was not its true name. Men forgot, and threw down old stones and raised new. So much did the years do with the world. And only a moment ago a man had sped—or how many years?
Behind her the boy arrived, panting and struggling through the undergrowth, and dropped down to sit on the edge of that slanting stone, the harp on his shoulders echoing. His head sank on his folded arms and he wiped the sweat and the tangled pale hair from his brow. The baying, which had been still a moment, began again much nearer, and he lifted frightened eyes and clenched his hands on the rock.
Now, now he would run, having come as far as her light wish could bring him. Fear shattered the spell. He started to his feet. She leapt down and stayed him yet again with a touch of light fingers on his sweating arm.
“Here’s the limit of my woods,” she said, “and in it hounds do hunt that you could never shake from your heels, no. You’d do well to stay here by me, Fionn, indeed you would. Is it yours, that harp?”
He nodded, distracted by the hounds. His eyes turned away from her, toward that dark gulf of trees.
“Will you play for me?” she asked. She had desired this from the beginning, from the first she had felt the ringing of the harp; and the desire of it burned far more keenly than did any curiosity about Men and dogs—but one would serve the other. It was elvish curiosity; it was simplicity; it was, elvish-wise, the truest thing, and mattered most.
The boy looked back into her steady gaze as though he thought her mad; but perhaps he had given over fear, or hope, or reason. Something of all three left his eyes, and he sat down on the edge of the stone again, took the harp from his shoulders and stripped off the case.
Dark wood starred and banded with gold, it was very, very fine: there was more than mortal skill in that workmanship, and more than beauty in its tone. It sounded like a living voice when he took it into his arms. He held it close to him like something protected, and lifted a pale, still sullen face.
Then he bowed his head and played as she had bidden him, soft touches at the strings that quickly grew bolder, that waked echoes out of the depths of Caerdale and set the hounds in the distance to baying madly. The music drowned the voices, filled the air, filled her heart, and now she felt no faltering or tremor of his hands. She listened, and almost forgot which moon shone down on them, for it had been long, so very long, since the last song had been heard in the Ealdwood, and that was sung soft and elsewhere.
He surely sensed a glamor on him, in which the wind blew warmer and the trees sighed with listening. The fear passed from his eyes, and while the sweat stood on his face like jewels, it was clear, brave music that he made.
Then suddenly, with a bright ripple of the strings, the music became a defiant song, strange to her ears.
Discord crept in, the hounds’ fell voices which took the music and warped it out of tune. Arafel rose as that sound grew near. The harper’s hands fell abruptly still. There was the rush and clatter of horses in the thicket below.
Fionn himself sprang to his feet, the harp laid aside. He snatched at once at the small dagger at his belt, and Arafel flinched at the drawing of that blade, the swift, bitter taint of iron. “No,” she wished him, wished him very strongly, and stayed his hand. Unwillingly he slid the weapon back into its sheath.
Then the hounds and the riders came pouring up at them out of the darkness of the trees, a flood of dogs black and slavering and two great horses clattering among them, bearing Men with the smell of iron about them, Men glittering terribly in the moonlight. The hounds surged up the slope baying and bugling and as suddenly fell back again, making a wide circle, alternately whining and cringing and lifting their hackles at what they saw. The riders whipped them, but their horses shied and screamed under the spurs and neither horses nor hounds could be driven farther.
Arafel stood, one foot braced against the rock, and regarded this chaos of Men and beasts with cold curiosity. She found them strange, harder and wilder than the outlaws she knew; and strange too was the device on them, a wolf’s grinning head. She did not recall that emblem—or care for the manner of these visitors, less even than the outlaws.
A third rider came rattling up the slope, a large man who gave a great shout and whipped his unwilling horse farther than the other two, all the way to the crest of the hill facing the rock, and halfway up that slope advanced more Men who had followed him, no few of them with bows. The rider reined aside, out of the way. His arm lifted. The bows bent, at the harper and at her.
“Hold,” said Arafel.
The Man’s arm did not falclass="underline" it slowly lowered. He glared at her, and she stepped lightly up onto the rock so that she need not look up so far, to this Man on his tall black horse. The beast suddenly shied under him and he spurred it and curbed it cruelly; but he gave no order to his men, as if the cowering hounds and trembling horses had finally made him see what he faced.