Phais turned. "Where?"
"Down there, down where the stream enters the wood."
Hearts pounding, long they looked, seeing nothing but dark snarls. "It's gone," said Beau at last, resignation in his voice, "if ever it was there."
During these same weeks, Rael, hearing of Tipperton's interest in legend and song, gathered the buccan under wing and began teaching him bardic lore. They spent many a candlemark sitting before Rael's fire, she and Jaith singing songs and telling tales and teaching the wee buccan how to strum a lute, though it was a bit overlarge for the Waerling and his fingers didn't seem to fit.
Too, each night of these bardic doings, Rael would take up a small iron container and loose its tiny clasp and open its hinged top and remove a crystal from a square of black silk. Pellucid it was, the crystal, five inches down its length and six-sided, each end blunt-pointed with six facets. And the Dara would peer into its depths, seeking a clue as to Tipperton and Beau's fate. Yet nought came of her gazings, and she would at last sigh and say, "Though 'tis charged with moonlight to see the future, nought do the facets reveal," and she would lay it aside.
Meanwhile, Phais introduced Beau to brown-haired, brown-eyed Aris, an herbalist. And she took him to her cottage with its trays of various soils stacked here and there and waiting for the spring, and to the attached drying shed, aromatic in its presence. And they spoke of nostrums and poultices and medicks, of simples and teas and tisanes, of mints and flowers and oils, of harvesting and drying, of stripping and pressing, of dicing and grinding, of cooking and storing and other preparation, and of growing and foraging as well, she sharing her lore, he sharing the knowledge contained in his red-bound book.
"Lor', Tip," said Beau after one of his meetings, "she knows everything!"
Tip looked up from the lute he was trying in vain to chord. "Did you tell her of your plan to treat the plague?"
"That I did, and she said it might improve things, mixing silverroot and gwynthyme. She hadn't tried it, you see, and she and I both hope we never need to."
"Well then, Beau, she doesn't know it all."
Beau shrugged. "Perhaps she doesn't know everything, but she knows a deal more than I do, that's for certain."
Tip again attempted to set his fingers to the chord. Frowning over the strings, he said, "Given the ageless lives of Elves, I suspect that she's simply had more time to learn. -By the bye, did she give you any of that mint? Gwynthyme, was it?"
Beau sighed. "She offered, but I declined. I mean, with all that's going on in Drearwood-the Spawn and Gargons and other such, Vulgs among them-I said it'd have more use here than in some trial of mine which may never come."
Plang! Tip strummed a discordant sound. "Oh, bother," he growled.
Not only did the Warrows spend their time sharpening old skills and learning new, but they also were put to work in the Elvenholt, for as the buccen quickly learned, all shared in the labor of the vale, even Talarin, even Rael. In this case, Tip and Beau joined with others working in the stables, feeding horses and mucking out stalls and rubbing tallow into tack.
During this time they watched as more and more Elven patrols left the strongholt to scout deep into Drearwood or, acting upon the information gained, watched as mounted Lian warbands left the stables and rode away on raids into that great tangle of woods, often returning with bloodied swords and empty quivers and wounded of their own.
And at these times Beau would be called upon to tend injured Lian, though mostly he watched and learned as skilled Elven healers cleansed and bound wounds and stitched cuts and treated hurts.
And Tip would grind his teeth in frustration and practice all the harder with his bow, for Lord Talarin would not allow him to go on the Elven raids; nor had the time yet come for Tip and Beau to set forth to deliver the coin.
February had gone, and March slowly trod toward the coming of spring. During the second week of that raw month, Rael and Elissan and Seena came to the cote of the Waerlinga, and they bore with them clothing sized to fit the buccen: breeks, jerkins, tunics, stockings, vests, underclothing, and more. Among the garments were silken vestments, finely embroidered with Elven runes.
"I say," said Beau, holding up his russet silken robe, "these are splendid."
Tip held up one of lavender. "What are they for?"
Rael smiled. "In a sevenday and some comes the first of the cycle of the seasons, and we would have ye join us in celebration. E'en in troubled times such as these, three days we rejoice, three days of banquet, the midmost of which is the turn."
"Oh, I love parties," said Beau enthusiastically.
"Of needs ye must work," said Jaith, "for e'en in this 'tis share and share alike."
Tip nodded. "Gladly," he replied, then glanced at his lute in the corner. "Will there be music?"
Seena nodded. "That and dance."
"Then sign us up," said Beau, smiling broadly. "When do we work and when do we play, and what would you have us do?"
"Ye may take labor on the first night with me," said dark-haired Elissan. "On nights two and three we shall play." She smiled at Beau and winked at Tipperton, and still Tip blushed, for he yet recalled the night she had stepped into the bathing room and he standing there in the tub, blinded with soap and all unclothed.
Over the next week and some, as the days fled and the new moon slowly grew, the grim air of war was alleviated somewhat by knowledge of the coming celebration. Too, a warm wind blew up from the south, and much of the snow thawed in the deep-notched glen, though it clung stubbornly to the heights of the Grimwall. Even so, all took the melt within the vale as a sign of the spring to come. Finally, the three days of banquet came, and on the first of these days, Tip and Beau were assigned the kitchen task of running and fetching, while others tended the fires, and yet others prepared fish and game and vegetables, while still others cooked. A full third of the Elves were in some manner preparing the celebration for the others to enjoy. On the morrow and the next, another third and a third after would do the same, and those who worked this eve would celebrate in turn.
At last the sun set, with the waxing half-moon in the sky. And Elvenkind gathered in the great hall. And with great pomp and formality, the dishes of food were paraded about the hall for all to see, trenchers laden with venison and trout and goose and leg of lamb, with creamed parsnips and peas, brown beans, and breads and sweet breads and honey and jellies and jams… and more. And now with the cooking done, Tip and Beau along with several others were assigned the task of keeping the wine and mead and pure mountain water flowing from pitcher to chalice, and it seemed as if every Elf, Dara and Alor alike, called on the buccen to serve, for Waerlinga in their small-ness and tipped ears and tilted eyes and bright smiles are much like the children of Elvenkind, and it had been long since any Elfchild had been seen. And so, thither and yon scurried the Warrows, bearing silver ewers of bloodred wine and filling the cups of soft-gazing Lian, some with tears in their eyes.
But finally the meal was over, and now commenced singing and dancing and the playing of harp and flute and lute and drum… and the epic telling of tales, though these sagas were spoken in Sylva. If it had not been for Elis-san's whispered translations, neither Tip nor Beau would have understood a word of aught said, even though their hearts pounded in response to the wide-rolling words.
On this night Jaith sang a song so heartrending that all in the hall wept, even the Warrows, though they knew not a single word sung.
At last the celebration ended, and Tip and Beau helped with the cleaning, and dawn stood in the eastern sky when they fell into bed at last.
On the second night of celebration, Tip and Beau dressed in their raiment, silken vestments o'er all. Yet as they made ready, there came a tap on the cottage door, and Phais stood outside. "I am to escort ye to the clearing, for this is the eve of the day when light and dark exactly balance one another, and there the celebration begins."