Текст книги "The Dreamstone "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Had he loved her, he wondered? He was not sure whether he had loved anything as it deserved, only he had done his duty by everything, save only a little while, a few years for himself, to which his mind kept drifting back for refuge. But he had been very fortunate, he thought, that his duty had brought so much of love to him.

And he had made a place for gentler things. That, most. He had brought a little of the Steading with him. It all seemed a dream, and that of Aescford dimmest, and Dun na h-Eoin, and the very walls of Caer Wiell. What was real was a fire, a fish, a shadow among the oaks; but—strange—he was not afraid this time. And a small brown face with eyes like murky water.

O Man, it said, O Man—come back.

Niall Cearbhallain was dying. There was no longer any hiding it. An Beag had made trial of the borders, but prematurely: Scaga drove them out again, and harried them within sight of their own hold for good measure, before grief and concern drew him back again. So Scaga was there by the hall both day and night, and had armed men stationed here and there about the countryside; and farmers to light watchfires if anything stirred.

It was all, Evald recognized, well done, as Niall himself would have ordered it—as perhaps Niall had ordered it in his clearer moments, to the man who was his right hand and much of his heart.

So Dryw came, winter as it still was, and the frosts still too bitter for any greening of the land. He came riding up the Caerbourne with enough armed men about him to force his way if he must, like a cold wind out of the southern heights—so unlooked for that at first the outposts took alarm. But then they could see his banners from the walls, the blue and the white, and the first cheer came that Caer Wiell had known for days.

Evald watched them ride beneath the gates. It was, he knew, like what his father had told him of Dryw, not to waste time with messengers, and for the first time he felt an affection for that skull-faced madman. They came with rattle of armor and the gleam of spears and expected to be housed; but among them came a pony with ribbons in its mane, and on that pony rode a cloak-shrouded girl.

“Meredydd,” he whispered, slinking from the wall as if he had seen something best forgot. He had no heart for marryings. Not now, never now.

But, “Yes,” his father said when Dryw had come to him. “Yes, good for you, old friend.” His mind was clear, at least this evening.

So Evald met his bride, who was a thin girl whose clothes ill-fit her, and whose eyes looked nervously over him. Meara had scarcely any time for her with so much on her thoughts, so Evald was left to murmur courtesies in the lesser hall. He was only grateful she had brought her nurse to take care of her.

“I wish,” Meredydd said mouselike, from the door in leaving to go upstairs, “I wish I had got my best dress finished. It doesn’t fit.”

This was all very far from him, but he saw the red in her cheeks and saw how young she was. “It was good of you to come sooner than you promised,” he said. “That was more important.”

Meredydd lifted her face and looked at him, seeming heartened.

She was not, he decided, what he had planned, but not what he had dreaded either, having a capable way about her when she looked like that. And truth, she quickly had her own baggage up the stairs and ordered her own room and was down seeing to her father’s housing and running back and forth with this and that, taking loads from the servants and sending them on other errands so deftly all that number was fed, while his mother took the respite offered her and simply stayed by his father’s bedside.

So Evald stayed there what time he could, but never now did Niall stir that evening, but slept a great deal, and seemed deeper in his sleep.

“Go,” Meara said to him. “Tomorrow the wedding, Dryw has said. And it would please him to know. She is a fair child, is she not?”

“Fair to us,” Evald said, numb in his deeper feelings, but Meredydd had settled into his thinking as she had settled into the hold, without question, because it had to be. “Yes, fair.” His eyes were for Niall’s face. And then he turned away, and passed the door where Scaga stood watch, haggard and grim and never leaving.

“He sleeps,” he said to Scaga.

“So,” said Scaga. Nothing more.

It was a premonition on Evald that he should not go up to bed tonight, but stay near. He went down into the wardroom where there was a fire, and lingered there a time, into the dark of the night and the sinking of the fire. There was little murmur from the courtyard or the barracks where Dryw’s folk had settled: there was little sound from anywhere.

But the beat of hooves came gently through the dark, gently past the wall, so that it might have been a dream if his eyes had not been open. The hair prickled at his nape and for a moment there was a heaviness over him too deep to throw off.

After that came a scratching at the stones of the wall, and that was too much. He got up and flung his cloak about him, moving quietly, not to disturb the peace. He went out onto the wall, padding softly as he could, unsure whether his ears had tricked him.

Suddenly a darkness bounded up onto the wall, a hairy thing, all arms and eyes. He cried out, a strangled cry, and it leapt back again.

“Cearbhallain,” it piped. “I have come for Cearbhallain.”

Evald lunged at him: it was too quick and bounded away, but he threw his knife at it. It wailed and dived over the wall, and now everywhere men were crying after lights.

But Scaga reached him first, pelting down the stairs.

“It was a hairy man,” Evald cried, “some dark thing—come for him; it said, it had come for him. I flung my knife at it—it went down again.”

“No,” said Scaga. No more than that. Scaga went running for the stairs; but that nowas one of anguish—of fear, as if he knew the nature of the thing. Evald hurried after, but “Stay by your father,” Scaga shouted at him, and was gone.

He stood still upon the stairs. He heard the lesser gate open, heard the hoofbeats going away and rushed to the wall to look. It was a piebald horse with something on its back; and after it Scaga ran, down by the river, under the trees.

“Dryw!” Evald shouted into the yard. “Dryw!”

So it stopped, small and forlorn. The horse had fled, going whatever way it could. And Scaga stopped, crouched near, panting.

“Iron,” it wept, “o the bitter iron. I bleed.”

“Come back,” said Scaga. “Was it for him you came? O take him back.”

A shake of the hairy head, of all the body, indistinct in the moonlight, among the leaves. “The Gruagach pities him. Pities you. O too late, too late. His luck is driven all away now. O the bitter iron.”

Scaga looked down at himself, his weapons. He laid aside his sword. “That was his son. He did not understand, never knew you. O Gruagach—”

“He is gone,” the Gruagach said, “gone, gone, gone.”

“Never say so!” Scaga cried. “A curse on you for saying it!”

“Scaga goes wrapped in iron. O Scaga, ill for you the forest, ill for you. The Gruagach goes back again where you might go, but never will you. Ill for you the meeting. You were never like your lord. Eald will kill you in the day you meet. O Scaga, Scaga, Scaga, they wept for you when you left And the Gruagach weeps, but he cannot stay.”

There was nothing there—neither shadow nor moving branch or leaf, only the moonlight on the river.

And Scaga ran, ran with all that was in him, to reach Caer Wiell.

“He is dead,” Evald told him when he came inside, when he had reached the doors. And Scaga bowed down in the hall and wept.

There was a decent time of burying and mourning, and Dryw stayed, buttressing Caer Wiell against its enemies. Evald—lord Evald—with Scaga at his side, dispensed justice, ordered this and that in the lands round about, set guards and posts and took oaths from men that came.

Even from aged Taithleach came a message that only Dryw understood. “The King,” said Dryw privily, his skull’s-face ever more grim than its wont: “this passing has set back the time that might have been. Had your father lived and been strong—but he is gone. Alliances must be proved again.”

“Send back,” Evald said, “and say that I am Cearbhallain’s son and the lady Meara’s, no other.”

“So,” said Dryw, “I have done.”

And another time: “You cannot go back to your lands,” Evald said, “without the promise kept my father made. And I shall be glad of your daughter.” It had come to be the truth, for Meredydd had nested in the heart of Caer Wiell to his mother’s comfort and to his own, and if it was not love at least it was deepest need. If he had had to sue for Meredydd on his knees now he would have done so; and it was his father’s will, the which he tried to do in everything.

“It is nigh time,” said Dryw.

So Caer Wiell put off its mourning in the spring. The stones remained, and the grass grew and flowers bloomed, violets and rue.

And vines twined in the wood, among forgotten bones.

BOOK TWO

The Sidhe

NINE

Midsummer and Meetings

Summer lay over the old forest, when leaves veiled the twisted trunks and graced the skeletal branches with a gray-green life. They were stubborn, the old trees, and clung tenaciously to their long existence on the ridge above the dale. There was anger here, and long memory. The trees whispered and leaned together like conspirators in their old age while the rains came and the quick mortal suns shone, and shadows slithered round their roots within the brambles and the thickets. No creatures from the New Forest ventured here without fear; and none stayed the night—not the furtive hare, which nibbled the flowers that stopped at the forest edge, not the deer, which drew the air into quivering black nostrils and bounded away to take her chances with human hunters. Not the wariest or the boldest of such creatures which grew up under the mortal sun might love the Ealdwood . . . but there were hares and deer which did wander here, shadowy wanderers with dark, fey eyes, swift to run, and not for hunting.

At rare times the forest seemed other than sullen and dreambound, and stirred and wakened somewhat, while the moon shone less white and terrible. Midsummer was such a time, when the phantom deer gathered by night, and birds flew which would never be seen by day, and for a brief hour the Ealdwood forgot its anger and dreamed of itself.

On this night, after many such nights, Arafel came, a motion of the heart, a desire which was enough to span seeming and being, to slip from the passage of her time and her sun and moon which shone with a cooler, greener light, and out of the memory of trees and woods as they might have been, or were, or had once been. She brought a bit of that otherwhere with her, a bright gleaming where she walked. Flowers bloomed this magic night which without her presence might never have waked from their buds, as most flowers did not, in the Ealdwood men saw. She looked about her, and touched the moongreen stone at her throat, which was much of her heart, and shivered a bit in the cool dankness of a world she had much forgot. The deer and the hares which, like her, wandered the shadow-ways twixt there and here,moved the more boldly for her presence.

Once there had been dancing on such a night, merry revels, but the harpers and the pipers were stilled, gone far across the gray cold sea. The stone at her throat echoed only the remembrance of songs. She came this night out of curiosity, now that she remembered to come. Mortal years fled swiftly past and how many of them might have passed since her grief and her anger had faded, she did not know. She was dismayed. It pained her heart to see this heart of the wood so changed, so choked with brambles. A great mound rose in this place, thorn-ringed now, about which her folk had once danced on green grass, among great and beautiful trees. This night she walked the old dancing-ring, laid a hand on an oak impossibly old, and strength drained from her, greening his old heart and making thin buds swell at his branch-tips. Such magics she had left, native as breathing.

But overhead the stars should have shone clear. Clouds drifted, wrack in heaven. She looked up, wished them gone, that this night be what it ought. The deer and the hares looked up with their huge dreaming eyes, as for a little time the sky was pure. But quickly a wisp of cloud formed again, and fingers of wind drew the taint back across the sky.

“It is long,” Death whispered.

She turned, startled, laid her hand on the stone at her throat, for near the ring had appeared a blot of shadow, a darkness which hovered next a tree the lightning had slain, and for a moment ugly whisperings attended it

“Long absent,” said Lord Death.

“Go from here,” she bade him. “It is not yournight, and not your place.”

Death stirred. Deer, beside her, trembled, their shifting steps carrying them nearer and nearer her, and the air breathed with the dankness of most nights in this wood.

“Many years,” Lord Death said, “you have not come at all. Ihave walked here. Should I not? I have hunted here. Do I not have leave?”

“I care not what you do,” she said. But such was her loneliness that even this converse drew her. She regarded the shadow more calmly, watched it spread and settle on the riven stump as brush swayed. Something doglike settled too, a puddle of shadow at its master’s feet. It dipped its inky head and yawned, panting softly in the dark, while the deer and hares froze. “Do not settle to stay, Lord Death. I have told you.”

“Proud. Lady of cobwebs and tatters. The old oak is younger tonight. Do you not care to tend the others? Or can it be . . . that a little of you fades, each time you do?”

“He is rooted elsewhere, that old tree, and he is more than he seems. Do not set your hand to him. There are some things not healthy for you as well, Lord Death.”

“For many years, many summers, you have neglected this place. And now your eyes turn this way. Have you cause to come?”

“Need I cause . . . in my wood?”

“The Ealdwood is smaller this year.”

“It is always smaller,” she said, and looked more closely at the shadow, in which for the first time she could see the least distinction, a suspicion of an arm, a, hand, but never, never a face.

“Old friend,” he said, “come walk with me.”

She smiled, mocking him, and the smile faded, for the hand reached out to her. “Upstart youth,” she said, “what have I to do with you?”

“You have given me souls to hunt, Arafel. And they are withme when I have taken them, but there is no sense in them. No gratitude. And less pleasure. Why do I come? What do you see in your side of Eald? What is there, that I can never see?” The shadow drew itself up, and the hound rose too. The likeness of the hand was still extended. “Walk with me,” Lord Death asked softly. “Is it not a night for fellowship? I beg you—walk with me.”

The deer fled away, bounding this way and that; the hares darted for cover in panic. The hound stayed, a breathing in the shadow. Suddenly there seemed others of them, a shadowy pack, and the shuffle and stamp of hooves sounded where the darkness was deepest.

A wind started through the trees. Where stars had shone, the blight in heaven had become a dark edge of cloud. Arafel glanced from sky to trees, where the shadow flowed, where small chitterings disturbed the peace.

“Send them away,” she said, and the other shadows slunk away, and the wind fell. There was only the greater Darkness, and a chill sense of presence.

She walked with him, from out the ring and more and more solidly within this world where Men lived—incongruous companionship, elven-kind and one of Men’s less-reputed gods. He said little. That was his wont, and hers. She had no deep fear of him, for elven-kind had never been subject to him; when their wounds took them, they simply faded, and where they went, Death was not, nor ever had been. All had faded now, but she had not; they had gone away beyond the sea, but she had not been willing. She was last, loving the woods too well to go when the despair came on others. It was perhaps habit kept her now; or pride—her kind had ever been proud; or perhaps her heart was bound here. Death had never known the motives of the elves.

She did not walk the shadow-ways, that path which was mostly under her moon. Death could not reach to that other place, and she meant that he never should. She stayed companionable with him, her Huntsman, guardian of her forest what time she was absent, who had come to the land when Men came, and who haunted this forest most of all places on the earth. He showed her the land he had had in care, the great old trees with roots well sunk in her own Eald, that could not easily die. She saw their other selves, their aspect beneath this moon, and now and again she found one dangerously fading, and gave her strength to heal.

“You undo my work,” he reproached her.

“Only where you trespass,” she said, and looked again at the darkness, wherein two soft gleams seemed to shine. “If I do not go where the others have gone, at the last I shall have drawn all Eald-that-was to heal this blight that Men make; and where shall I be then, Lord Death, having used my strength up so? Is that what you wait for? Do you think my kind can die?”

“I wait to see,” he said, and his voice was soft and still. A shadow-sleeve rippled in wide gesture. “All of this you might restore, drive out Men, claim it all, and rule—”

“And die, as it did.”

“And die,” Lord Death said softer still.

She smiled, perceiving wistfulness. “Merest youth.”

“Invite me with you,” Death wished her. “Let me once see what you see. Let me see you as you are. Show me . . . that other land.”

“No,” she said, shuddering, and felt the brush of a touch upon her cheek.

“Do not,” Death pleaded. “Do not hate me. Do not fear me. All do . . . but you.”

“Banish hope. My land fadesfrom wounds.”

“But there is none can wound you,” he said. “None, Arafel. So you are bound here, to share the fate of Eald.”

“There are many who can wound me,” she said, looking placidly toward that place where she judged a face might be. “But not you.”

“Save when the woods are gone. Save when all that gives you strength has gone. And you live long, my lady of the fading trees, but not forever.”

“Yet I shall cheat you all the same.”

“Perhaps you will.” The whisper wavered, trembled. “Do you know where your kindred has gone? Do you knowthat that place is good? No. But me you know. I am familiar and easy. We are old companions, you and I.”

“Companions without fellowship.”

“Do you not know loneliness? That, we share.”

“But you are all darkness,” she said. “And cold.”

“Do all see you the same?”

“No,” she confessed.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you will come to see me as I am.”

She said nothing to that, for she was not as cruel as some of her kind, having felt pain.

“I also,” he said, “heal.”

Still she said nothing.

“Come,” he said. “I shall show you my other face.”

She stopped at his touch, for the way to another, third Ealdwood lay in his power and the wind from it was chill, that place of hismaking. “No,” she said. “Not there, my lord, never there.”

“What I take,” he said, “most oft I return. What comes into the cauldron comes out again. I have a fairer face, Arafel, which you do not know how to see, having no experience of me. You judge me amiss.”

“You have done me service,” she said, “in defending Eald from Men. Why?”

And now Death was still, giving her no answer.

“Perhaps,” she said, “I shall misjudge my time. Perhaps I shall delay in this woods too long. Only that must you hope for. I give you no hope of my consent.”

“I have no hope,” said Lord Death. Wind tugged at her, drew her farther. “But come, if not to the one place, to the other. I am anxious that you think well of me. See . . . that I can heal.”

His voice was gentle, promising no ill, and in truth there was none that he could do her. Because she had committed herself the once, she yielded, and walked where he would, as mortals walked, their common ground.

And then she wavered, because she knew where he would lead.

“Trust,” he begged of her, and the wind tugged more strongly, insistent and cold.

They walked slowly through the brambles and the thickets, mortal-wise and sometimes painfully; and at the last edge of night they came to that grove he sought, a part of the New Forest, that verge of Eald grown up on the edge of the old, nearest Men. Great trees had died, scarred with axes that she had not forgot The wanton destruction oppressed her heart, for an edge of her own Eald had died that day these trees had perished, truly died, into that gray haze which bordered all her world and bound her sight.

“See,” said Lord Death, and the shadow rippled toward a bank of bracken, lush ferns beneath the dimming stars. Man-tall saplings were springing up through it, straight and new. “See my handiwork. Can we be enemies?”

She saw, and shivered, remembering the place as it had been, when the fallen trees had stood tall and beautiful; and their counterparts in her own Eald had bloomed with stars and sheltered her with their white branches. “It is only more New Forest,” she said, “and mine is the smaller for it. They have no roots in Eald.”

“You do not see beauty here?”

“There is beauty,” she admitted, walking farther, and knelt with a pang of memory, for there were bones and shattered wood beneath the bracken, and she touched a long-broken skull. “The trees, you restored. Canst mend this, Lord Death?”

“In time, even that,” he said, twisting yet again at her heart. “Do you care for them?”

“I have my own cares,” she said; but when she had risen, an old curiosity tugged at her heart, and she walked farther with him, to the flat rock which overlooked the dale, upon a dark sea of trees. She recalled the stone keep the other side of the dale—oh, far too well, among villages and fields and tame beasts and all such business as Men cared for. It was all beyond their sight. Below them the Caerbourne rolled its dark flood seaward, a black snake dividing the wood; and that flow toward the sea made her think of endings, and partings from her kindred, and made her sad.

“Men fare as always,” said Death. “Borning and birthing and dying. There is no ending of it.”

“Yet they end.”

“Not forever. That is the nature of them. You will not look on my new woods; it does not please you.”

“Not while mine dies.”

“Dies and does not fade?”

She looked at him with cold in her heart. “Go away,” she wished him. “I am weary of your company.”

“You wound me.”

“You, spoiler of all you touch? You are beyond wounding. Begone from me.”

“You are wrong,” said Lord Death. “Wrong about my wounding. There is loneliness, Arafel; and heartlessness; I am never heartless. Beware of pride, Arafel.”

“Go hence,” she said. “I weary of you.”

There was a snuffling in the shadows at her back, a breathing, a chuckling. She frowned and laid her hand on the jewel that she wore at her throat. The sounds diminished. “You do not fright me, godling. You never did and never shall. Begone!”

The shadow fled, not without a touch, a chill which achieved wistfulness. She waved it away, and knew him truly fled. There was only the hillside, and the spoiled night, and the wind.

She walked along the ridge, having come this far. All the dale was dark before her, mortals still asleep in this their night and her day. She remembered what of hurt and of fairness Men had brought her . . . how many of their years ago she did not know. She lingered a time, and a curious longing possessed her, to know what passed there, what manner of thing their lives had become.

TEN

Branwyn

She walked that other way, that slipped with speed no mortal limbs could pace, along paths where brambles did not trouble her. She paused, in the gray glimmering of dawn down the dale, in the pleasant green of new growth, a riverside where she had not come . . . in very, very long. She was beyond the present limits of Eald, and yet not, for Eald was where she willed it, and followed her, stretched thin, so that there was effort in this going.

Morning brought mortal beauty, soft touch of sun in golden haze above the black waters of the Caerbourne, beauty of contrasts which her world did not possess, for there was no ugliness there, no dead branch, no fallen tree or unshapely limb.. She glanced aside as a shadowy deer followed her out of otherwhere, black nose atwitch and large eyes full of daybreak. “Go back,” she bade it, for it did not know its way hereabouts, and it vanished with a breaking of brush and a flash of dappled rump, which flickered into that shadow world and safety.

She walked farther, across the water, where now she could see the grim walls of Caer Wiell on its hill, with fields spread beyond it like skirts of gold and green. Evil had lived here once, surrounding itself with harsh men and edged weapons. The keep had a new tower, greater defenses. But today the gates stood open. New Forest had urged its saplings close upon this side of the hill, with grass beyond, and flowers twined upon the grim black stones. She saw Men coming and going on a path, but these Men had no hardness about them. They laughed, and her heart was eased, her interest pricked as it had not been in long years of Men . . . for Death’s taunting had cast gloom over her and this sight of life and liveliness was heart-healing.

A few women sat on the green grass, between the forest edge of saplings and the flower-twined walls, and a golden-haired child ran with baby steps with the hillside, laughing. A strange feeling tugged at Arafel’s elvish heart to hear it, like the echo of such childish laughter in the long ago. She walked out, into mortal sunlight, saw that the child at least saw her, if others did not. The child’s eyes were cornflower blue and round with wonder.

Arafel knelt then and touched a flower, drew a glamour over it, a tiny magic, a gift. The child plucked it and the glamour died, leaving only a primrose clutched in a fat human fist, and dismay in the blue eyes.

Arafel spread the glamour across the whole hillside of primroses, shedding elven beauty on them, and the childish eyes danced for joy.

“Come,” whispered Arafel, holding out her hand. The child walked with her into the forest shade, forgetful of flowers.

“Branwyn,” a woman called. “Branwyn, don’t stray too far.”

The child stopped, turned eyes that way. Arafel dropped her hand and the child toddled away, ran at last to the outstretched arms of the woman who had risen to look fearfully into the morning haze amid the bracken.

Human fear. It was chill as Death himself, and Arafel had no love of it. She cast a last longing look at the child and walked away into the shadow of the woods.

“Beware of them,” said a whisper at her shoulder. “They die.”

It was Death, in the wreckage of an old tree.

“Begone,” she said to him.

“They will give you pain.”

“Begone, upstart.”

“They have no gratitude for gifts,” he said.

“The third time—begone.”

He went, for at her third command he must, and left a chill behind him.

She frowned and drew back, departing her own way into elven night, and the light of her own and pale green moon.

She thought often about the meeting, but she took her time in venturing again in the face of Death’s taunting. Her pride, pricklish elvish pride, refused to acknowledge that he had disturbed her, but she put it off past one midsummer’s eve, and yet another, and perhaps more . . . time meant little to her, who measured the oldest trees against her lifetime. But at last she came back to that forest below Caer Wiell, dismayed anew to realize how fast human life fled, for the babe was much taller when she had found her again playing on that strip beneath the walls. The child stared at her from wide, little-girl eyes, her doll forgotten in her lap. She had her attendants, who sat to themselves and laughed shrill sly laughs and never saw their visitor. They chattered among themselves, a ring of bright skirts and fingers busy with embroideries. But the child was grave and curious.

And Arafel sat down crosslegged on the ground, let a child show her daisy-chains and how to count wishes.

They laughed together, but then the watching girls came and fetched the child away from the forest edge and scolded her.

It was not every day, nor even every moon, that Arafel came. Sometimes other concerns kept her; but she remembered Men more often than her wont in those days, and sang much, and was happy.

Still the mortal time was long; and when at last she delayed for months, the child took her pony into the woods and set out seeking her, along the Caerbourne’s willow-shaded banks.

The wood grew darker very soon; and it was no good place to be. The fat pony knew that, and shook her off and raced away in terror. And Branwyn wiped the wet leaves from off her hands and tried to keep her lip from trembling, for what had frightened the pony chuckled and whispered in the bushes nearby.

Many the human intruder in Ealdwood that dusk, with calling and blowing of horns; and they found the poor pony with his neck broken. Lord Evald rode farthest and most desperately, driven by a father’s love . . . and Scaga led the searchers farther than most would have dared but for shame to Evald’s face and dread of Scaga’s anger.

Arafel came looking too, having heard the cries and the intrusion. She found the child tucked like a frightened fawn in the hollow of an old and trustworthy tree, dried her tears, banished the dark from that glade. “Did you come hunting me?” Arafel asked, her heart touched that at last, after so many years, there was some hope of Men. “Come,” she asked of Branwyn, trying to draw her to that place where childhood might be long, and life longer still. But the child feared those other sights.

And suddenly a father’s voice rang out, distant through the wood; and the child chose once for all, and called out, and fled for him.

Arafel drew away; and stayed away very long. It was shame perhaps, for intended theft. And pain . . . that, perhaps, most of all. Midsummers passed, and beltains, while mortal Eald grew rank and Death did as he would there, failing her presence.