There's a place where the land slopes down from the Wold, through a bit of woods, and comes round a steep hillside just afore you come down into the Norcrofts, where all of a moment you see the whole plain as far as the eye can see. There's farms everywhere, as the name would suggest, on account these fields are the best farmland in the whole of the Mark, and the grass here is the most green, more so even than the fields near Beoda's family farm. Miss Adri and I hardly noticed any of it excepting that, since you can't see Cliving until you're almost at it, she asked whether we'd need to camp, or see if a crofter might let us keep in a barn. As I were telling her of Cliving coming up, I realized I didn't think we'd spoke the whole day since we left Harwick until that moment.
And the whole next day, making for Eaworth, we was just as quiet, and I got to wondering if maybe I were mistaking the reason for it. I'd thunk she were just keeping her hurt to herself, but maybe it weren't hurt but just… well, just her being quiet. Some because she can be that way, and some because she's in a far distant land, and some because most the time we was around anyone other than one another, folks spoke in Rohirric, and even when we talked while alone, it were mostly in Rohirric too, for the sake of her practice. She'd got fair good at Rohirric, leastwise I thunk so, but it were still an effort for her. Maybe that's all it were. I suppose I'll never know. If she's keeping her hurt to herself, that's not my place to ask after, to push through. And if she's not, there's nothing for to ask after. So it all comes out even from my saddle.
Eaworth gave us more chance for to talk, when we delivered Miss Inayat's letter to her ma, Mel, and her pa, Carthen. Turns out they keep in the house of a tanner and his wife, and they invited us in to share a meal and to talk long, about Hookworth, and Inayat and Arenborne, and ourselves, and our travels, and anything else we'd talk about. They shared a supper with us and even invited us to stay the night, though the house were scarce big enough for them -- and would be more so when the tanner's wife had her baby, which couldn't be long. It were a nice evening, and I felt for the first since Langhold a bit of ease in my heart, though maybe it were less a healing and more just a distracting. Even Adri talked some, not as much as she might back in the Pony, but might be that were only on account of the language. They was glad of our company but I reckon they was relieved when I said no thankee to their offer to stay, as kind as I knew how to, and we went to the barracks for the night.
We set out early the next morning following the Entwash's flow south toward the crossing at Entwade. On the way we were passing close to the Stone of Wyrgende, and we paused a few so I could have a good look at it, and tell Adri a bit about the tale. (The curse ain't no secret, just that the lantern were supposed to break it, though by now I'm sure Adri knew that, and anyhow, it don't matter on account there's no lantern.) Then on to the ford, and into Kingstead, where we came within a few miles of Edoras. My first time seeing the Golden Hall in the distance under a bright sunny sky, thinking it to also be my last -- on the return journey east, we'd be going farther north, like when I left the Mark, passing through Woodhurst. As we came into the Westfold, for the first time since we came to the Mark we camped on the plains, as there's not many villages atween Edoras and Marton, excepting them as are far south in the creases of the mountains, far out of our way.
Tomorrow when we leave this camp we ride for Marton, and it'll be probably middle afternoon when we reach the Mead Hall. I've talked a bit to Adri about what to expect there, but truth is I don't rightly know. I figure the Thane will give us the hospitality of the hall, at least. But how will he answer when I tell him what I found? For that matter, it'll be a surprise that, three years on, I'm still alive, and here to complete my duty. That seems like enough worry to fill the thinking of a fellow as dim-witted as me, don't it? And yet, I keep thinking of Adri. If she's just quiet because she's in a distant land speaking a difficult language, a day waiting at the Mead Hall won't be a problem, but if she's quiet because she's keeping a deep hurt quiet, and I'm all caught up with the Thane so she's proper alone the whole time, will that be good for her, or bad? And for that matter, when we call on my family, will it be good or bad for her to be the opposite of alone, hung about with so many folks trying to make her welcome?
Maybe I shouldn’t worry about her. I don't know much about her life but I reckon she's been through hurt afore and if there's a way through it she'll be better at finding it than all the worry and all the thinking someone like me could dredge up could ever hope to achieve. Maybe I only worry for her to keep from worrying for myself.
