Fish, the Word came to him. That had been the leaper in the river last night. It was brown and speckled and he sat very still as he would with the mice, until with a flip of a tail it sped away across the stones, free and very much in its own element.
One ate fish. That came to him, too, and he was repelled by the thought. He had no wish to be like Owl, who gulped down his neighbors.
The river as he drank made one sound, a hoarse voice of strength. The trees sighed with another. But those were not the only sounds. The air hummed with bees and a thicket by him twittered quite happily. He washed his head and hands and looked up to find the source of the commotion.
Birds had gathered about a bush, just up the bank, birds scolding and chasing one another, as he thought at first—but he saw when he came closer that berries were thick on the bush, and ripe berries had fallen on the ground, where birds lay, too, hale and well, but quite silly and flopping about, or sitting with feathers puffed, like pigeons on a chill morning. The birds, though unacquainted with him, did not all flee him, being much too eager for the berries, and those birds lying and sitting about the bush scarcely evaded his feet, so he was careful where he trod. He took a handful of berries for himself—they were sweet, overripe, and stained his fingers, and he ate a double handful of them before the birds that had fled ventured back to take the ones he dropped.
He was sorry to take their breakfast. He sat on the bank and shared with them, tossing berries out where they dared snatch them. Some squabbled and fought over the ones he threw, while others, full-fed, scarcely reached after the ones he set in front of them. One let him pick it up, and he smoothed its feathers and set it on a branch, but it swung upside down, hung from one foot, and fell into his hands again. So he set it on the ground. It was quite puffed and quite silly, and very full, seeming completely healthy, except the sleepiness. He left some berries on the bush for the birds, and walked with something in his belly for the first time in days, feeling quite giddy, but very much better, thanks to the water he had drunk and the berries he had eaten.
He could have made cakes, he thought, if he had had flour and oil and fire. Cakes with berries. He had made them for Mauryl very often.
And the instant he thought of flour and oil and fire he thought of Mill, and Fields, and when he thought of Fields, then he thought of Men and Houses, Oxen, and Fences, recognitions that tumbled in on him disorderly as the squabbling birds, one thought chasing the other, one seizing a perch and fleeing or falling off in its turn, so chaotic that he struggled not to wonder about anything, and tried not to think beyond the necessity to place his feet one in front of the other and to keep moving, light-headed as he was.
But this morning, on this Road, the thoughts refused to stop coming.
The whole woods chattered and rang with birdsong. It was full of Words for him, and Words brought thinking that conjured more Words. His wits wandered, his feet strayed. He turned an ankle painfully in a hidden hole in the pavings, which did nothing to stop the dizzying spate of Words—trees, mosses, leaves, stones, sky, directions, the names of birds and the track of a Badger—all these things crowded into his head until it ached, and he might have wandered in complete confusion if not for the stone Road that came and went beneath the leaves.
Long and long before the supply of Words seemed exhausted—before each had confounded the last—he knew Oak from Ash, knew Acorn and leaf and every sound that came and went. The knowing poured in on him more abundant than the recognition—but he could not, it seemed, exhaust the forest’s store of Words.
In weariness of knowing things, in a muddle of sights and sounds, he sat down to rest and slept without intending to, until he blinked at a sky that had dimmed toward dark.
He had come through so much that was difficult and let his eyes close when the going became safer. Now he set out on another night of walking-he dared not sleep when the Shadows came, and he followed the Road as he had before.
Meanwhile the jumble of Words, though less than the rush by day, wanted to come back again, clamoring within that grayness in his mind, where Mauryl was, or might be. He knew Moon and Stars, and now he learned Marten and Fox.
But he tried to still the tumult and to hear only Mauryl, if Mauryl should send a Word to him out of that grayness.
He tried to hear Owl, who had not appeared all day long, but the creature that was singing now was, the song said to him, Frog, saying that it might soon rain.
He was thinking that when a wayward breeze brought the scent of smoke wafting down the Road—smoke, and the smell of something that might possibly be supper: he was not quite convinced that it was, but it smelled so like supper cooking that the hunger the berries had wakened in the morning became more and more urgent as he walked.
Fire was warmth and light, and fire also meant Men, his awareness informed him. Whatever seemed to be cooking—or burning, he thought from moment to moment—it might be good to eat. It smelled like that, although it certainly seemed overdone.
But he was still fearful, and not knowing how to call out to men who might themselves be afraid of Shadows in this woods, he decided it would be safer to go up soft-footed, as Mauryl’s tempers had taught him, and to know them first, whether they were in a good mood or otherwise, or whether it was in fact supper they were about, and not just wood or rubbish afire.
He left the Road, and followed that smell of smoke up the wind as quietly and stealthily as he could over the dry leaves. He spied firelight shining through the brush and branches, and treading now with greatest caution, he slipped up to spy on the place.
They were indeed men. They had a small fire going in a spot cleared of leaves. They were not old like Mauryl. They were not young like himself.
They went clothed in brown cloth and leather, clothes rougher than his own white shirt and breeches. They had beards, dark and full; they were cooking something on a stick above the fire, he had no notion what, but it struck the edges of a Word, and at once dismayed him and advised him that eating living things.., was permissible. It was something men did by their nature—that he should perhaps do, if they offered him a share of their supper.
“Sirs,” he said, stepping into the light, and instantly all four men were on their feet. Metal flashed—they had knives, and drew them and threatened him with them, with anger and fear on their faces.
“Sirs,” he said, quietly, “please, sirs, I’m very hungry. May I have supper?”
“He ain’t no woodsman,” one said, and with a squint across the fire:
“Who are you?” “Tristen, sir.”
“Sir,” another said, and elbowed the first man in the ribs. “Sir, ye are.”
“Where from?” the first asked. “Lanfarnesse?”
He pointed in the direction from which the Road came. “From the keep, sir. Mauryl’s fortress. Ynefel.”
One changed knife-hands to make a sign over his heart, hasty and afraid. The others looked afraid, too, and backed away, all to the other side of their fire.
“Please,” Tristen said, fearing this meant no. “I need something to eat.”
“His speech,” the third man said, “ain’t Elwynim, nor Lanfarnesse, nor any countryman’s, that’s certain. O gods, I liked it little enough bein’ here. Lanfarnesse rangers be hanged, we shouldn’t ever have come here, I said so, I said it, they’s naught good in this forest, I told ye it hove on to Marna Wood.”
The Names echoed through his bones, Words, confusing him, opening lands and fields and hills and Words Mauryl had said.
“You!” the first man said. “Whatever ye be, ye take yourself out away from here! We hain’t no dealin’s wi’ you nor your cursed master. Get away wi’ ye, ye damned haunt!”