[Laiudanama]

Trystan snatched a suspicious glance back at Thornden, then turned away again. Had the older man a reason for pressing him? Almost to his own surprise, Trys found himself hoping that he didn’t. He’d lived his life with close companions, men and boys he could rely on for anything, thieves and vagabonds who had lived out of one anothers pocket whether it meant saving each others lives or stabbing each other in the back, the only thing tying them together being their unity against the law – the law of citizens, of lords, of soldiers – respectable, law abiding folk, like Saeryn, Eodwine and, of course, Thornden. When one lives a lifetime in that situation, trust to strangers really doesn’t come easily. How old was Thornden? Mid-twenties, he’d guess; Rohirrim as opposed to Gondorian; the very mark of the line law which Trystan had been tiptoeing since childhood. But despite this, they probably weren’t, he realised, all that far apart.

Trystan pulled his both hands up behind his head, scrawny elbows squewiff as he latched them at the back, then, with a huge sigh, let them drop down by his sides again, his shoulders dropping abruptly. “It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

“No.” Thornden’s answer was surprisingly sharp, and Trystan felt his suspicions rise again – but when he turned to face the solider, he found no scheming or anger in his face, only, maybe, curiosity, and some genuine desire to help. He gave a small, awkward shrug. “Look, Trystan, if something is really wrong, if you have any need of a friendly ear, of there’s something you should tell us-”

“Should tell you?” Trystan shot back immediately, picking up on the phraseology immediately: his mind flew to the possibilities. Should? They’d heard. They must have heard. Or maybe just suspected that something was wrong, put two and two together and now demanded the right to know. So now this soft voiced soldier had taken him into the wood to get the truth out of him…

Thornden stepped forward, perhaps trying to give some reassuring sign, but Trystan’s hand was to his belt and a knife in it in the blink of an eye as he stumbled backwards. “’Should’? Why have I any need to tell you anything of my life? What, you heard about some theft, some…death, and you thought immediately of me, is that it? Maybe a cat can change it’s stripes, right? Right?”

The boy was almost shouting now and his hand was shaking slightly, the light quivering off the small, sharp blade in it. Thornden’s face closed up immediately. “Put down the blade, Trystan,” he said, in a low voice. Trystan didn’t respond immediately, he was realising just how much he might have given away, but as fear welled up in his stomach, he pushed it down with projected anger once more.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, alright? I never did anything wrong!”

His words echoed slightly in the clearing in which they’d stopped, the sound dampened almost immediately by the trees pressing in around them, and the full and dreadful meaning of what they might have given away came home to Trystan with a jolt. His eyes flickered to the knife in his hand, and he let go suddenly, as if burnt, letting the little blade drop to the floor to lie passive, a harmless sliver of silver amid the leaves. He stared at it, then backed away, wiping one hand on his trousers as if trying to get rid of it – or maybe, it would appear to an observer, to wipe some previous trace from his hands. Looking up at Thornden, the young Gondorian boy’s face was startled, a glitter of fear darting across his dark eyes for a second, before it was hastily masked. The façade fell back into place and a blank, hard cover shifted across his eyes, a subtle, second, snake’s eyelid.

“So you’ve heard, have you?” he croaked. "How?"