Eorling Mead Hall

[Folwren]

“Thank you,” Thornden said when he heard Garmund’s slow, reluctant promise to obey. “Go back through these vines here. I think you’ll be safer if you are more hidden.” He turned once he had spoken and ran to the wall. He paused one moment, glanced back towards Garmund, and then went beyond it.

A faint path could scarecly be seen, leading the way between thick woods and thicker underbrush. Visibility on either side was next to nothing. Thornden pursed his lips. He didn’t think anyone would envy his position just now. “I certainly don’t envy me,” he said with some irony in his voice. All the same, he had to go one.

And he did, at a swift walk. Turning the first bend, he saw Falco up ahead, looking down the path at him. Thornden hurried forward, frowning like a thundercloud. “Are you satisfied, Falco?” he asked as he drew near. “Let’s go back and quit looking before one of us gets hurt! I don't like leaving Garmund alone, either."

[Firefoot]

Léof was tying the horses down in the aisle when Javan trotted into the stable, although Léof noted with approval that he slowed upon entering. Léof wondered what had brought Javan back, whether he had needed something or liked horses or simply assumed that Léof would prove more interesting than whatever it was Saeryn and Medreth would have to talk about. He suspected that while it might be a combination, it would be more the latter than the former two.

Half-waiting for Javan to begin a conversation, he began to unsaddle Medreth’s horse. When he didn’t, Léof offered up a question, “So do you have any other siblings, besides Thornden and Medreth?” He glanced over the horse’s back at Javan as he asked, and realized that he was still just standing there as if he weren’t quite sure of himself. “You can sit down over there if you want,” Léof offered, indicating the ledge where Linduial had sat watching him just a month ago. “Of if you’d rather, you can help by unsaddling your horse.”

[Folwren]

Javan thankfully chose the second option and hurried forward to his horse. His hands flew as they undid the girth and pulled the saddle off. He followed as Lèof led the way to the place where saddles were kept and they put them up. Lèof handed him a cloth and brush from a bag hanging on the wall and they went back out to rub the horses down.

“So. . .” Lèof said once again as they began their work. “Do you have any siblings other than Medreth and Thornden?”

“Oh, yes!” Javan said, looking up briefly. “I have two more sisters and another brother. Thornden and Medreth are the two oldest. Medreth’s married and has a son now, you know. They say I’m an uncle, but it seems rather odd. I’m not very old yet.” Javan gnawed on his lip as he rubbed the sweaty back of his horse where the saddle had been. His hands moved more and more slowly and his eyes looked around the stable slowly. He craned his neck about as far as it would go in attempt to see a horse in one of the stalls.

“Do you work in here all day? With the horses?” he asked, turning again towards Lèof.

“Pretty much,” Lèof replied, glancing up slightly as he continued steadily. Javan hurried to go on with the rag, but he couldn’t help saying –

“That must be fun. And you must be awfully skilled with horses.”

[Laiudanama]

Trystan had slipped discretely out of the stable shortly after Saeryn had entered and this new woman, this Medreth, had begun questioning her about her relationship with Eodwine. He shook his head to himself, wandering out towards the woods not far from the Mead Hall, no clear direction in his mind except to put some distance between himself and such conversations. He knew already what Saeryn’s answer would be; after all, was it not the same answer that she had given to every nosy busybody who wanted an insight into gossip. An apprentice only; nothing between Eodwine and Saeryn; yes, the titles can be confusing; he is my mentor, that is all.

Trystan picked up a stick and childishly swiped at a nearby bush. How many mentors address their wards by the name ‘love’, combined with a swift wink, before they ride off on business? Aye, he’d seen that exchange before Eodwine had ridden off, had seen the look that he had given her before turning away without a backwards glance – but, much to his frustration, the youth had been unable to see whether Saeryn’s expression had reciprocated such surprising affections. What did it matter what the Lady Saeryn’s feelings in that direction were though anyway. It wasn’t as if she would be – interested – in – him…

Each word was punctuated with a swift chopping blow against the undergrowth, childish, petty acts of violence that did little more to relieve his anger and frustration than had his previous inactivity. It simply reminded him of what a child he must appear in Saeryn’s eyes – why, she was barely older than him, surely! Yet she seemed so much older, a Lady, wise – and noble, of course. Unattainable. Always reaching for something you cannot have, Trystan – after all, wasn’t that the problem with Tamarin: just had to have something you shouldn’t have gone near…

Trystan glared at an inoffensive looking shrub that, to its own misfortune, momentarily took on the features of the Lord of the Hall and drew back his stick to deliver a splendid back handed blow—

The sound of sharp voices nearby made him freeze, stick frozen in mid-air.

“Garmund, get back here!”

Garmund? Garstan’s son? And the other, deep, curt and Rohirrim, was Thornden: a life in the shadows had blessed Trystan with a skill at recognising voices without the help of faces. The sharp command was followed by a softer exchange, the boy protesting against Thornden’s firm hand, and Trystan found himself drawn towards the voices. As he arrived soundlessly behind them in the space of the ruins, Trystan was just in time to see Thornden’s form disappear into the wood, leaving Garmund alone in the ruins. The boy certainly was unhappy with the situation, hanging back, but just barely, and apparently inwardly torn between Thornden’s clear request to stay and his own desperate desire to follow. For a moment, it seemed that the latter would prevail and Trystan decided now was as good a time as any to announce his presence.

“Not so fast – wouldn’t want to be rushing into things now, would we?” Trystan’s wry voice, with more than a hint of irony, made Garmund spin around immediately to face him, and the panic on his young features quickly settled into a scowl at the sight of the youth watching him, his slim form leaning unconcernedly against one of the lone trees that had crept daringly forward from the general line of the wood. Trystan gave him a quick grin then turned his gaze upon the wood, nodding towards the path which Thornden had taken a few moments previously. “May I ask the cause of the fuss from which you and I appear to be excluded?”

Garmund surveyed Trystan for a second, then shrugged, with maybe a little too much nonchalance: this was his story, his adventure, and evidently he didn’t appreciate the older boy’s gate-crashing. But the desire to share the adventure won over his initial resentment, although he kept his tone carefully casual. “Oh…well, there was this man hiding in the ruins, and he was huge, hiding there—”

He trailed away. Trystan had suddenly tensed, straightening up immediately from his lazy position against the tree, and a decidedly hunted look had taken itself into his grey eyes. His fingers itched, ready to grab for the knife in his boot – after all, though one remained on a shelf in the stables, an admission to Leofric of his horse-thieving intentions if he was ever to reclaim it, Trystan was not unarmed, and a similar, slender knife remained within his high boots. He’s found me; he’s come all the way from Minas Tirith, just for this, just to make me pay – gods, he’ll kill me, he’ll kill me all over that blasted Tamarin…

“What did this man look like?” he asked, softly.

[Firefoot]

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” answered Léof, slightly unsure of how to answer this comment. “I guess you could say that I’ve never really wanted to do anything else.”

This appeared to impress Javan very much, but Léof thought, It had its price. Everything has its price. He had neither the will nor the heart to explain this to Javan, however. Why should he? Javan would become a man soon enough and find out such things for himself. Léof thought of his own sister, just about Javan’s age, and how much sooner she had had to grow up. What was she doing now? Was she well? He had heard naught of her in over two months now, despite the second letter he had sent three weeks ago. He wished he might see her now as young-seeming and unfettered as Javan appeared to him.

“You seem a fair hand with horses, yourself,” Léof commented. He had noticed Javan's curious gaze wandering around the stable. "If you'd like, I can show you around once we're done with these two."

[littlemanpoet]

“Are you satisfied, Falco?” asked Thornden as he drew near. “Let’s go back and quit looking before one of us gets hurt! I don't like leaving Garmund alone."

"Aye, I'm satisfied," Falco answered, "satisfied that you shouldn't have left Garmund alone! Better to have brought him with! Get on with you! I'm right behind! I don't want your big lumbering feet tripping me up from behind!"

Thornden furrowed his brow but apparently could think of nothing to say, so turned back around and started for the opening where they had left Garmund.

Falco turned to the brush where Lefun and Ritun were hidden and gave a big wink in their general direction, then trotted after Thornden. Somehow he needed to get Garmund away from Thornden, he was not sure how, but the chance might arise somehow, so that Garmund could meet Lefun and Ritun for himself. He would have to warn the boy somehow so that the poor lad didn't shreek with fright at first glimpse. He would have to see how this would go, he promised himself.

Then his sharp hobbit ears picked up yet another voice, another of the big people, a young man by the sound of him, in the opening where Garmund was. Who? Falco furrowed his own brow in sudden fear for the boy. There was no knowing who it might be.

Thornden had turned the corner and stopped dead in his tracks. Falco scrunched between his legs to get a look. It was Trystan! Garmund was telling him about the man.

[Celuien]

Garmund scowled black as a thundercloud when Trystan entered. After Thornden left, he had fully meant to quietly follow from a bit off the path. Far enough away to avoid Thornden's watchful eye, but close enough to see any excitement - and to help in a fight if needed. With Trystan's unexpected arrival, that plan was thwarted, and Garmund again forced to remain behind like a child who needed watching rather than a great boy of nine.

"What did this man look like?"

The question briefly drew Garmund away from his irritation. At least he was asked to tell some of the tale instead of being forced out of it.

"A great, tall man, twice as high as me, with a great, dark, shaggy beard and rough, dirty clothes. He talked strangely. Like a man out of the tales, only real. Then Master Thornden came, the man ran away, and Master Falco and Thornden followed. Master Thornden wouldn't let me come, so here I am." Garmund looked at the ground, kicking it a bit harder than he had thought to do.

"I wish I knew what they were doing out there."

[Folwren]

Now that was injustice! Thornden positively smarted under Falco’s scornful rebuke. Leaving Garmund alone? It wasn’t his idea, to be sure! He had only left to save Falco. Why try to argue the point? He turned and walked back the way he had come.

Coming round the old wall, he became aware of another voice. He stopped as he came into view of Garmund. Trystan was there, too. He could hear Garmund telling Trystan about the man they had stumbled upon. Trystan’s face was sharp and his figure tense.

After pausing a moment, Thornden went forward. He drew near, just as Garmund said in a rather bitter tone, “I wish I knew what they were doing out there.”

“Nothing happened,” Thornden said. Garmund turned to look at him and Falco. “I didn’t see him again and Falco’s in one piece. Hello, Trystan. When did you get here?”

[Laiudanama]

Trystan almost flinched at the voice, tense as he was, and his reflex was to spin around immediately, knife in hand - an impulse that he just barely resisted. Half-turning his body to face Thornden, he slipped the knife into the back of his belt, under his jerkin, and hoped that neither he nor Falco had seen it: it was a practised action, smoothly and discretely done, but he didn't know how much they had seen, and Thornden certainly did have a look of storm about him. To be found holding a knife to the son of one of Eodwine's men - how well Saeryn would take that take of events!

He smiled disarmingly, turning fully and pretending to breathe a slight sigh of relief. "Why, Thornden, you startled me, I didn't see you there - and what with apparent fugitives running around left, right and centre, I wasn't sure what to think."

Thornden's lips went through the motions of returning the smile, but Trystan fancied that it did not quite reach his eyes. Trys continued, "I came but a few moments ago - Garmund was just telling me of a man found here, a 'great, tall, shaggy man'?" Despite attempting to keep his voice neutral, mildly interested, he was afraid maybe a little more eagerness than was perhaps usual slipped through, but tried to relax; the ex-soldier would merely put it down to curiousity, or to 'boyish enthusiasm', he hoped, with more than a hint of irony. Boyish enthusiasm: not one of Trystan's usual traits, but he could pretend in an emergency...

The comment was recieved with narrowed eyes, then Thornden looking towards Garmund, who nodded sulkily in confirmation. Trystan resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow: his word was taken at the confirmation of a mere child of nine or ten years. Such respect had he evidently gained within the past month at the Mead Hall... But such thoughts were not the most pressing in his mind at the present: his head was still spinning with thoughts of this man, this 'huge, shaggy, man' with apparently some sort of foreign accent.

Stagram.

The name sounded through his mind like a death knell. The root of Trystan's problems, the reason he had spent more than a month before his stay at Mead Hall on the run from everyone and everything he had ever known - and a figure who could well fit such a description. Admittedly, running away had never really been Stagram's style, but he had always been a coward, and to be this far away from home, he would be looking for only one thing, or, well, one person: Trystan himself.

"Is there anything I could do to help? You say you have not yet found this man...?"

Thornden shook his head begrudgingly. "Nay. Falco lost him in the woods somewhere, and I was unable to catch up-"

He's still loose somewhere near the Mead Hall. A shiver ran down Trystan's back, and he responded a little too sharply, cutting off the end of Thornden's statement in his haste. "Then surely we should find him?"

"I reckon this big people is no more dangerous than any other of you log-footed folk, Trystan," said Falco, watching the other carefully. Trystan could feel his facade slipping by the second, but he was beginning to panic at the helplessness which was coming over him: panic and helplessness, two states with which he was rarely confronted, and which he was therefore unpractised. It was almost suffocating - and he couldn't tell anyone why! Forcing himself to maintain an outward calm, Trystan gave a quick smile and shrug, before responding. "Aye, of course, but maybe it would be unwise to take chances? To have a ruffian of such dimensions on the loose near the Mead Hall, with women and children present - and valuable horses too, of course," he added, with another brief grin, to which Falco allowed a reluctant half smile: after a month, Trystan had just about rid himself of the label of would-be horse thief, but it was nonetheless how he knew he had appeared when he first entered. Taking advantage of a moment of such good nature, he continued, "Maybe if I was to help you search? That way someone could stay with Garmund so as to avoid him coming to harm in the case of this man returning...That is, if you think it a wise idea?" he added with a perhaps not altogether convincing air of nonchalance - although he was inwardly desperate to get a glimpse at this man, to see whether it was indeed Stagram. To see whether his past had pursued him all the way to the Gap of Rohan...

[Firefoot]

As Léof showed Javan around, he was forced to revise his earlier supposition about him. Javan had probably not come back to the stables so much for avoiding his sister and Saeryn’s conversation as for being near the horses and Léof, for his being the ostler. Javan had not grown bored or fidgety as Léof had half-expected, especially when Léof had started telling him about the individual horses; to the contrary, Javan was all wide-eyed curiosity, and Léof welcomed his company.

“Do you have a horse?” Javan asked, apparently out of nowhere, although Léof supposed it was a rather logical question.

“Sure do,” answered Léof. “She’s right down here.” He skipped past a couple occupied stalls and an empty one to stop at Æthel’s stall. She had poked her head out of the stall and whickered a greeting. “This is Æthel,” said Léof, not without some pride. It occurred to him then for the first time that Æthel may not in truth be his, but his father’s – what would happen if he demanded her back? He doubted he could afford to buy her. I’ll never let that happen. Ever. Aloud, he added, “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that a horse can’t be your friend.” That was a comment he had heard often enough from his father. “Æthel is one of the truest.”

[littlemanpoet]

Falco pursed his lips and pondered a moment. There's something false about this Trystan, sure as shine when the sun's out, Falco thought to himself. Seemed the boy always had a mask on, because every now and then it slipped; and Falco was nothing if he wasn't quick to mark such things. So much for pondering.

"Aye, you two go on ahead and I'll stay back with Garmund," Falco replied. Thornden eyed him suspiciously. "What're you lookin' at me like that for? You ought to be happy I let you come along at all! Garmund will be fine with me. Now go catch up the lad, can't you see he's leaving you behind?"

Thornden, still eyeing Falco, glanced to where Trystan had been; he was not there. He threw up his hands in consternation and set out at a run to catch up to Trystan.

Falco turned to Garmund who was again looking a little sullen. "There now, my boy, they've gone on a goose chase wild as you like. You want to see the man? I'll show him to you if you like."