"Don't worry at it, Pol," Wolf told her. "These things happen from time to time. There's not a great deal we can do about it."
"I could have done something, father," she replied, looking off into the ruins. "But you wouldn't let me, remember?"
"Do we have to go over that again, Pol?" Wolf asked in a pained
voice. "You have to learn to accept your losses. The Wacite Arends were
doomed anyway. At best, you'd have only been able to stall off the
inevitable for a few months. We're not who we are and what we are in
order to get mixed up in things that don't have any meaning."
"So you said before." She looked around at the filmy trees marching
away in the fog down the empty streets. "I didn't think the trees would
come back so fast," she said with a strange little catch in her voice.
"I thought they might have waited a little longer."
"It's been almost twenty-five centuries, Pol."
"Really? It seems like only last year."
"Don't brood about it. It'll only make you melancholy. Why don't we go inside? The fog's beginning to make us all a bit moody."
Unaccountably, Aunt Pol put her arm about Garion's shoulders as they
turned toward the tower. Her fragrance and the sense of her closeness
brought a lump to his throat. The distance that had grown between them
in the past few months seemed to vanish at her touch.
The chamber in the base of the tower had been built of such massive
stones that neither the passage of centuries nor the silent, probing
tendrils of tree roots had been able to dislodge them. Great, shallow
arches supported the low stone ceiling, making the room seem almost like
a cave. At the end of the room opposite the narrow doorway a wide crack
between two of the rough-hewn blocks provided a natural chimney. Durnik
had soberly considered the crack the previous evening when they had
arrived, cold and wet, and then had quickly constructed a crude but
efficient fireplace out of rubble. "It will serve," the smith had said
"Not very elegant perhaps, but good enough for a few days."
As Wolf, Garion and Aunt Pol entered the low, cavelike chamber, a
good fire crackled in the fireplace, casting looming shadows among the
low arches and radiating a welcome warmth. Durnik in his brown leather
tunic was stacking firewood along the wall. Barak, huge, redbearded, and
mail-shined, was polishing his sword. Silk, in an unbleached linen
shirt and black leather vest, lounged idly on one of the packs, toying
with a pair of dice.
"Any sign of Hettar yet?" Barak asked, looking up.
"It's a day or so early," Mister Wolf replied, going to the fireplace to warm himself.
"Why don't you change your boots, Garion?" Aunt Pol suggested,
hanging her blue cloak on one of the pegs Durnik had hammered into a
crack in the wall.
Garion lifted his pack down from another peg and began rummaging through it.
"Your stockings, too," she added.
"Is the fog lifting at all?" Silk asked Mister Wolf.
"Not a chance."
"If I can persuade you all to move out from in front of the fire,
I'll see about supper," Aunt Pol told them, suddenly very businesslike.
She began setting out a ham, a few loaves of dark, peasant bread, a sack
of dried peas and a dozen or so leathery-looking carrots, humming
softly to herself as she always did when she was cooking.
The next morning after breakfast, Garion pulled on a fleece-lined
overvest, belted on his sword, and went back out into the fog-muffled
ruins to watch for Hettar. It was a task to which he had appointed
himself, and he was grateful that none of his friends had seen fit to
tell him that it wasn't really necessary. As he trudged through the
slushcovered streets toward the broken west gate of the city, he made a
conscious effort to avoid the melancholy brooding that had blackened the
previous day. Since there was absolutely nothing he could do about his
circumstances, chewing on them would only leave a sour taste in his
mouth. He was not exactly cheerful when he reached the low piece of wall
by the west gate, but he was not precisely gloomy either.
The wall offered some protection, but the damp chill still crept
through his clothes, and his feet were already cold. He shivered and
settled down to wait. There was no point in trying to see any distance
in the fog, so he concentrated on listening. His ears began to sort out
the sounds in the forest beyond the wall, the drip of water from the
trees, the occasional sodden thump of snow sliding from the limbs, and
the tapping of a woodpecker working on a dead snag several hundred yards
away.
"That's my cow," a voice said suddenly from somewhere off in the fog.
Garion froze and stood silently, listening.
"Keep her in your own pasture, then," another voice replied shortly. "Is that you, Lammer?" the first voice asked.
"Right. You're Detton, aren't you?"
"I didn't recognize you. How longs it been?"
"Four or five years, I suppose," Lammer judged.
"How are things going in your village?" Detton asked.
"We're hungry. The taxes took all our food."
"Ours too. We've been eating boiled tree roots."
"We haven't tried that yet. We're eating our shoes."
"How's your wife?" Detton asked politely.
"She died last year," Lammer answered in a flat, unemotional voice.
"My lord took our son for a soldier, and he was killed in a battle
somewhere. They poured boiling pitch on him. After that my wife stopped
eating. It didn't take her long to die."
"I'm sorry," Detton sympathized. "She was very beautiful."
"They're both better off," Lammer declared. "They aren't cold or hungry anymore. Which kind of tree roots have you been eating?"
"Birch is the best," Detton told him. "Spruce has too much pitch, and
oak's too tough. You boil some grass with the roots to give them a bit
of flavor."
"I'll have to try it."
"I've got to get back," Detton said. "My lord's got me clearing trees, and he'll have me flogged if I stay away too long."
"Maybe I'll see you again sometime."
"If we both live."
"Good-bye, Detton."
"Good-bye, Lammer."
The two voices drifted away. Garion stood quite still for a long time
after they were gone, his mind numb with shock and with tears of
sympathy standing in his eyes. The worst part of it was the matter-of
fact way in which the two had accepted it all. A terrible anger began to
burn in his throat. He wanted suddenly to hit somebody.
Then there was another sound off in the fog. Somewhere in the forest
nearby someone was singing. The voice was a light, clear tenor, and
Garion could hear it quite plainly as it drew closer. The song was
filled with ancient wrongs, and the refrain was a call to battle.
Irrationally, Garion's anger focused on the unknown singer. His vapid
bawling about abstract injustices seemed somehow obscene in the face of
the quiet despair of Lammer and Detton. Without thinking, Garion drew
his sword and crouched slightly behind the shattered wall.