After another hearty meal, shared not only with Medwyn but with various four-footed guests, the companions retired once more to the byre. Thanks to the afternoon's repose, Eilonwy was anything but sleepy. While Taran and Fflewddur settled into the straw, she stood in the doorway and gazed out at the night. Crickets chirped in the stillness, and the stars hung low and liquid, gazing at their reflections in the mirroring lake. The air was crisp and clear, with just enough bite to make her cross to their packs, retrieve a cloak, and wrap it around her shoulders.
When she returned she saw that Taran was also sleepless. Fflewddur, having been satisfied that the bear had departed for parts unknown, was already snoring quietly in the rear corner, but the boy was sitting up, his eyes wide open and troubled.
"You've been very glum all evening," she remarked, sitting opposite him. "You look like you're sitting in a briar. What's the matter?"
He chewed at his lower lip before answering. "Medwyn thinks Hen Wen might be dead."
"Can he know that for certain?"
Taran picked at a piece of straw, crumbling it into bits. "No. But he does think she'd come here first if she were in trouble. Since she's not here..." His head drooped.
"I'm sorry," Eilonwy sighed. "But...you aren't giving up, surely. Perhaps she was prevented from coming this far, and is hiding somewhere."
"Maybe." He shrugged. "Which will make her even harder to find. And I can't go home without her, and I can't even think about looking until after we get to Caer Dathyl, if we ever do." His voice was thick, his face hidden by the fall of his long hair, and she thought he might be crying. "I just..."
He broke off, and sympathy for him welled in her breast and swelled until she thought she'd burst. It propelled her across the byre to him, where she crouched down with a hand on his arm.
"It's all right," she said gently. "You've done very well, you know. We've come far, we're all alive, and it was your idea got us here. I'd never have thought it of you when I first found you in that dungeon."
Taran made a sound somewhere between a snort and an ironic chuckle. "Thanks a lot."
She bit her lip in penance and went on. "That's not...what I mean is, it's quite a lot for an Assistant Pig Keeper to be doing. The most you've ever been called on to do, I expect. And if you're a bit overwhelmed, it's nothing to be ashamed of."
He was silent a moment, and then lifted his head, sniffing. He turned his face from her quickly, but not before a liquid glimmer in his eye confirmed her suspicion. The welling sympathy turned into a twisting ache, so sharp that she nearly threw her arms round him, and was checked only by a strange shyness that made her drop her hand instead, in confusion.
Taran cleared his throat. "I do thank you. Really. I know what you meant. And I know very well I couldn't have done any of it on my own." He sighed. "It makes me afraid. After we get to Caer Dathyl, that'll be one task done. But then I'll have another, with even less chance of success, and I'll have to do it alone."
"Whoever said that?" Eilonwy demanded. "I could come with you."
"Would you?" He whirled his head around, his face surprised and hopeful. "I thought you'd want to stay in Caer Dathyl."
Pleasant warmth bloomed in her face at his expression; it had been an impulsive declaration, and she had not expected him to seize upon it so eagerly. "Well, I... I have been planning on staying," she stammered. "But there's no hurry, is there? It's not going anywhere. Besides," she added, "I daresay Fflewddur and Gurgi would come too if you asked them. If fact, if Hen Wen is as important as you say, perhaps the Sons of Don will send out search parties. They'll owe you a boon if we get there in time."
His eyes dimmed. "Yes. If. If we get there, and if we're in time, and if Hen is even alive."
"You can't make any of those things so by worrying about them now," she pointed out a bit tartly. Before he could answer, a sudden, earsplitting snore from Fflewddur, louder than the rest, reverberated through the byre, seeming to set the stone walls a-tremble. Eilonwy flinched, startled. So did Taran, who caught her eye and grinned. She giggled. And then they were both laughing...laughing uncontrollably, their heads close together, and all the harder for trying to muffle it.
Taran buried his face in his elbow, his shoulders shaking. She clutched at his wrist and leaned toward him to confess, in a hoarse whisper, "Do you know, he wakes me up more times dreaming I'm caught in an avalanche, or that a thunderstorm is coming up on us?"
"It's a wonder either of us sleeps at all," he whispered back. "Probably we only both do when he's on watch."
Another snore rumbled through the byre like a tumbling boulder, leaving a fresh wave of hilarity in its wake. "Belin," Eilonwy gasped, "how does he not wake himself up? Have you ever heard anything like it?"
"Coll snores," Taran said, "but not like that. We share a room and he never keeps me awake."
"What a mercy Fflewddur's usually alone then."
"Perhaps that's really why he goes wandering," he suggested. "Couldn't find a wife to put up with sleeping in the same room, and too lonesome without one, living in some old castle."
"Oh, poor man," she began, before being cut off by another snore. It took a moment to compose herself enough to add, "He's never mentioned a queen, has he? No, there can't be. No woman would put up with a man flitting all about the country and not taking her with him. I wouldn't, anyway."
Taran snorted. "I'll bet you wouldn't." He rose from the straw, crawled over to Fflewddur, and shoved the sleeping bard, rolling him over. Fflewddur mumbled something indecipherable, and presently fell silent, his loud snores subsiding into a softer rhythm of snuffling breath.
Eilonwy wiped her streaming eyes and lay back into a convenient mound of hay, ribs aching. Still the giggles came. She held her sides and groaned. "Ooow. I can't stop laughing. How do I stop?"
Taran resumed his nest next to her, suggesting, "Think of something that makes you angry."
"I can't."
"Shall I do something to set you off, then? I'm quite good at that." His crooked grin shone in the dark.
"You aren't helping at all," she whispered fiercely, and he poked her in the ribs, provoking a loud squeal.
"Shhh!" He clapped a hand over her mouth in mock alarm. "You'll wake him up! How can you be so inconsiderate?" His other hand poked her again and she twisted away in outrage, yet still, somehow, the laughter came. Gasping for breath, she swatted at him; he grabbed her wrist and tickled her under the arm. She yelped; he shushed her again; his hands darted like adders, pinching and poking and she was laughing...helplessly, maddeningly; oh, yes, make her angry? She was angry, or...something, something that felt mightily like anger, and he'd better stop, or else...actually she wasn't quite sure she wanted him to stop, but she couldn't breathe - oh, Belin. Enough.
She brought her foot up, made indiscriminate contact and shoved with all the strength in her leg. He grunted and fell back, and threw an armful of straw at her. She growled, shook it off, and crawled back to her own spot, flopping onto her belly.
"Can you stop now?" His voice was merry in the darkness and she grinned into the hay.
"I'll stop you,Taran of Caer Dallben." She called him a name Achren's horsemaster had frequently applied to recalcitrant mounts, and he choked on another burst of laughter.
"What a way for a young lady to talk," he exclaimed, feigning shock. "What will they say at Caer Dathyl?"
"They'll say Assistant Pig-Keepers are the most provoking creatures in existence," she grumbled, settling in and pulling the cloak over her head.
Taran chuckled. "Coll used to tickle me when I was younger, to wear me out at bedtime."
Eilonwy humphed, but after a moment peeked over an edge of her cloak. He was still sitting up, framed by shafts of glittering moonlight slanting from chinks in the wall. "Do you remember much from when you were little?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I guess so. Bits of things, you know. Coll teaching me to fish. And having snowball fights with him in winter. Once I hit Dallben right in the face with one." He ran a hand through his hair with a rueful laugh. "I remember when I was too small to climb the stone wall round the cottage, and Coll had to lift me over. I haven't thought of that in years."
He was rambling now and she held her breath, listening. "The Rover caravans come by every few years and we'd all go out to meet them; trade things and hear the news, but I always looked forward to playing with the other children. It was the only time I ever saw any, and they had such marvelous games and songs. And dances." His gaze was far away, but now snapped back to her, sparking with curiosity. "Why?"
She hesitated, unwilling to admit the truth, even to herself. "I can't remember anything." Bits of straw in front of her mouth fluttered, small and frail, in the stream of her breath. "Nothing at all, until the last few years. It's as though I didn't exist before living with Achren." One of the straw bits broke off, and fell somewhere into the tangled stalks underneath.
"Perhaps you lived with her since you were a baby," Taran offered. "Nobody remembers things that far back. I wasn't quite a year old when I came to Caer Dallben, and of course I don't remember anything before that."
"Maybe." She rolled to her back, and watched the dust motes dance in the moonlight shafts. "But I can't remember even being little at Spiral Castle. I go back just a few years, maybe four or five, and then there's just...nothing."
"How old are you?"
"I don't know," she sighed. "If Achren did, she never told me. You?"
"Fourteen or so. I don't know my birth month, of course, but Coll says it was summer when I came home, so we mark the season," Taran said. "You're as tall as I am. You must be around the same age."
"So go back to when you were nine or ten. Can you remember things before that?" she asked. "Because I can't."
He was quiet for a while, mulling it over. "Strange, then. Why is it, do you think?"
"I haven't any idea in the world." Unhappiness made her voice rasp and she swallowed hard. "I'm not sure I want to know."
Silence. Crickets. Finally Taran spoke, a bit tentatively. "If it helps...you must have been somewhere better than Spiral Castle. I don't know, but...if you'd always been with Achren, I think you'd be more like her. Because you'd never have seen anything else, or been taught any differently."
She raised herself up on one elbow to stare at him. "Then you don't think I'm like Achren?"
The question had never even occurred to her before, yet now the whole world trembled upon the edge of his answer. She held her breath, hearing Medwyn's voice falling like dead weights in her mind. I smell her mark on you everywhere.
Taran blinked, and looked for a moment as if he would laugh at the absurdity of the notion, but saw that she was in earnest. "I...I only saw her for a few minutes," he faltered, "but...no." His voice became suddenly very firm, dropping to its lower register. "You are nothing like her. Nothing at all."
Her breath released in a whoosh of relief, and she dropped onto her back. The warmth of the hay was soothing; the peace of the valley seeped around her like a slow-moving river. There was a long silence. After a long time she heard Taran rise and leave the byre, thought about calling after him, and decided against it. Where he was going was his own business.
She rolled to her side and curled up, burrowing deeper, thinking. Why had she offered to go with him to find that silly pig? Not that she regretted it - on the contrary, his pleasure at the idea had been astonishing and gratifying. But still, it was odd. A scant few days ago she couldn't wait to get away from him, and now here she was offering to accompany him into the wilderness indefinitely. What had come over her?
It did rather throw her plans into a mess, too. The promise Caer Dathyl offered, of a safe haven and rest, did not throw further wanderings in the wilderness into a rosy light. And once they'd found Hen Wen, Taran would no doubt want to return straight home, and where would that leave her? How would she get back to Caer Dathyl on her own?
Perhaps there was no sense in worrying about it now. You couldn't get back to somewhere you'd never been, and it would be difficult enough getting there the first time.
She lay in darkness for what seemed hours, unable to sleep, turning his words over and over. You are nothing like her. Nothing. Suppose he were lying to please her. But there, she had never known Taran to lie, least of all to please her, which he certainly wasn't in the habit of doing.
He might be mistaken.
No. Even if it wasn't true now, she'd make it so. If he believed it...so could she.