After a bit too much mead, and wearing out her ability to keep up in Rohirric story-telling in the barracks while half-drunk, Adri retired to her top bunk berth for the night. She didn't manage to fall asleep right away even there, and used the light from the nearby fire to start some journalling.
I've been letting Mister Leoffrith coddle me in language learning, I think. Now that we're in the Mark, I've discovered I can't really keep up in conversations very well after all. And that has been mattering.
The outpost of Stangard wasn't that impressive to me, but then, it's not actually in Rohan after all, and is kind of a place of exile without it being real exile, or so I gathered.
Until I learned that, I was rather confused there. I keep hearing so much about shield-maidens and the like, but I may have been the only woman there. Even in a military camp, I was expecting more. For an exile camp, it makes a little more sense. Still odd, but I reckon a lot of things are going to seem odd to me.
For all I loved seeing and being in Lothlórien, I was glad to get out where we had open sky over us again. And there's something about the skies here – I'm in Harwick is I write this – that makes the stars even prettier. We aren't into the actual rolling plains quite yet, but it's already a lot different.
And part of the reason we're not in the plains yet is because of me. Well, I writ before that I had to look for Wendiwyn. Seems we got here about two weeks too late for that.
We rode up the hill to Langhold, once we'd crossed the Limlight and were in the Riddermark proper, but I'd been noticing skulking small groups of men in the brush. Well, probably men, anyway. When we neared the palisade for the town, we started seeing too much smoke, and not hearing enough noises – especially not the right kind of noises. When we got up really close, we stopped to talk it over. No children playing, no conversations, that was one thing. No guards at the gate was yet another.
He's the archer of us, and I'm the one with more experience in getting jumped. After a little discussion, I went in first, looking for scavengers, mostly of the two-legged sort. The place was too still, and too burnt-out, for worrying about worse, or just the two of us wouldn't have gone in. I thought I heard some such scrabbling noises while we were there, but just like in the scrub outside, two people in armour and on warhorses do not make an inviting target for that sort of person. Too dangerous.
I was mostly looking for what I'd call large signs at first. Like outlining a drawing, or the start of a scouting map – broad strokes, the big picture, before getting to details. I noticed where there were some things that could be looked at more, but I was getting the lay of the place. At Leof's suggestion, we made our way up toward where the mead hall was built, up more on the hill, and maybe built up extra with wood and stone besides, for all I can tell.
From up there, I finally could see just how bad the looting and – probably mostly accidental – burning had been. That was no longer a habitable town. It could be again, with a lot of work, but not now. Turns out they'd spiked the doors to the mead hall. That makes me think they managed to preserve it some during the town defence, or maybe in coming through after to see the damage and clean up – because someone sure had. Crows and ravens and such don't leave the streets that clean. Even wolves don't carry off bones. Scatter them while gnawing on them for marrow, sure, but then they're done with them.
Well, it was looking calm enough everywhere that we backtracked, looking for more signs in detail of what had happened. I saw three different kinds of axes had been used in the fighting that had dislodged some of the lamp-posts along the street, and the blade style of one is not something I've seen on anyone of the Mark, but I have seen as being for sale once or twice back in Esgaroth. And, well, the river isn't exactly impassable, especially not in this region. I had to reckon on Easterlings of some sort.
That also made sense of why the town was mostly abandoned, and not occupied and being re-built. Unless there were enough Easterlings massed up to try taking the Mark – well, I don't reckon that's even possible. So of course it was a strike and retreat back to their own lands. Anyway, I saw bits of gear in the dirt here and there, some of low-grade Rohirric type, almost only scraps of cloth, and some of Easterling style, usually of better grade, and a little of real armour in Rohirric style as well. The lay of some of it confused me until something I heard later, about traitors being involved. The really rubbish bits I found were with the Easterling bits – from the 'traitors' fighting alongside them, as I reckon it now.
Anyway, while looking for such bits of gear, I saw a scrap of knot-work that about stopped my heart. I thought I recognised the pattern – and I was right. When I got it dug up, it was exactly what I'd feared. Cut and bled on in a way that strongly suggests a sword-swipe that got its wearer – and it was a bracelet, twin to my own, that sits under the one Audea gave me. I haven't been wearing that older bracelet, in part because of the years getting to it, and in part of because of having given up on seeing Wendy up in the north again, but it was my pledge from her. She said such bracelet pairs were a tradition of sorts, and the knot-work pattern was one of her devising, and was supposed to be unique. And here it was, the right size for her wrist, cut, bloody, and left in the dirt.
I nearly fell apart on poor Leoffrith right there. I reckon I would have done if he hadn't been there. Still, there wasn't enough blood, so to speak. She didn't die there. No guarantee about after, of course, especially since the nature of the destruction in the town made me think the Easterlings had won the day. And, as we later heard, none of their bodies were recovered by the folk who went back up to see to things after. And neither was Wendiwyn's.
But that's getting ahead of myself. I lost my heart for further investigation in Langhold, of course. I reckon Leoffrith saw that. He tried to give me some time alone, but even as quiet as the place was, I didn't reckon that as being a good idea. He'd offered to scale the tower up at the mead hall to look for whether Harwick was also affected., and reminded him of that, but he allowed as how, if we were leaving in that direction anyway, we'd see at least as well from the road. So that's what we did.
And, given I'm writing in Harwick, as I already writ, it should be clear that it wasn't that way here. We found a welcome of sorts in the barracks here, and got directed to the camp where they still have a lot of the Langhold folks. Apparently there's too many for them to just take up in the town here. And then we got directed to where Langhold's Lady Cíllan managed to buy a house, and has a lot of the folks staying with her. We got to talk with her, and that's where most of the other information I've already mentioned came from.
Seems she'd known Wendy, and almost recognised my name – and did recognise the knot-work on the bracelets. She was pretty nice about things, considering we were dredging up such recent wounds for her. I'm given to understand her husband, Thane Utred, is also among the missing – though there's conflicting rumours on that. Maybe she just hasn't accepted that he's among the fallen? Or maybe they dragged his body away, and she's clinging to hope based on that?
I only know what she said about bodies, however, and what the rumours are in the barracks and their camp – and that's limited by my ability to understand the conversations around me. What does seem certain, though, is they only found Eorlings to bury or burn, depending, and the Easterlings seem to have taken their fallen with them – probably along with captives. And, as I already writ, there wasn't enough blood for Wendy to have died where she got cut and lost the bracelet. But whether the captives are hostages, slaves, or just what, there's no telling as yet. And a group of Easterlings that can take a defended town – I'm good, and I might even be crazy, but I'm not stupid. There's not even anything I can scout usefully, because there's nobody who'd use the information I got.
I just have to swallow my pain, and the knowledge that I was just a little too late to see Wendy again after all – and that she'd been still wearing that bracelet. We continue on our ride in the morning, going to deliver Inayat's letter, and toward Marton. I hope I don't bring Leoffrith too far down on how I'm going to be for a while, but I can't help hurting.
