‘Unless, as Marken said, he’s special,’ Angwen re-plied, significantly. ‘And he is a Hearer, I’m sure.’
Derwyn sat down and rested his head on his hand. ‘Someone special,’ he muttered. ‘Forest protect me. The ordinary’s difficult enough to deal with.’ He gave a theatrical sigh. ‘I wonder if I can persuade EmRan to take over as Second.’
Angwen laughed, then wound an arm around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. Derwyn rested his head on her arm. ‘I’ll see what the lad wants to do,’ he decided. ‘Then when that’s been cleared up I suppose we’ll have to have a lodge Congress about it.’ He unwound his wife from about him. ‘Though I don’t think that’s going to do much more than add more unanswerable questions. And EmRan’s going to be a real pain.’
Angwen patted his head, patronizingly. ‘There, there. You’ll live, I’m sure,’ she said, insincerely.
On the Forest floor, far below, Edrien and Farnor were nearing the stables. Farnor was walking quite slowly.
‘What’s the matter?’ Edrien asked.
‘Just my legs,’ Farnor admitted reluctantly. ‘I’ve never done so much climbing in all my life.’ He bent forward and rubbed his throbbing thighs and calves.
Edrien watched him patiently, though, like all Val-deren, a climber since she was a child, she was at a loss even to begin to understand his discomfort. Echoing her mother’s conclusion, she blurted out abruptly, ‘It’s very strange. You’re a faller if ever there was one, Farnor. I don’t think you’ve got two drops of Valderen blood in your veins. But I think you’re a Hearer. I think you Hear the trees and that they’ve brought you here because of that.’
Farnor remained stooping, head lowered, appar-ently concentrating on his weary legs. ‘Is it far to the stables?’ he asked, affecting not to have heard her remark.
‘No,’ Edrien replied, simply. ‘Why don’t you answer my question?’
‘You didn’t ask one.’
The reply came so quickly that Edrien momentarily reverted to her childhood and stamped her foot angrily. ‘Are you a Hearer?’ she demanded.
‘I’m not Valderen. You said so yourself,’ Farnor replied, wilfully evasive. He looked around. ‘Where are the stables? I want to see how my horse is.’
With an effort, Edrien tried a softer approach. ‘Far-nor, having the gift of Hearing is a great honour – a very special privilege. One that enables a man or a woman to help and guide the people of their lodge…’ Her voice faded as she met Farnor’s unreadable gaze. She made to say something else, then changed her mind and turned away sharply.
The trees under which they were standing were widely spaced and very tall. High above, Farnor could see walkways and platforms winding in and out of the canopy, and, here and there, there were dense shadows in the foliage that he presumed were lodges. For a moment he had a vision of having to lower his horse from some towering eyrie. Edrien’s voice dispelled it. ‘Come on, we’re nearly there,’ she said flatly, setting off again.
As they walked, Farnor finally identified something that had been troubling him; the sound that mingled with the wind-stirred branches and birdsong was the sound of human voices; many voices.
He looked upward. ‘How many people are there up there?’ he asked.
Edrien followed his gaze and frowned. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ she said irritably. ‘You ask the strangest questions. You’ll be wanting to know how many birds are up there next.’
Farnor let the matter lie. Perhaps it had not been the most sensible of questions. Nevertheless, he was drawn to look up again. His eyes narrowed as he listened intently. Although individual voices came and went, shouting, laughing, there was a steady continuous hubbub. And too, there were other sounds: footfalls along the wooden platforms, a door slamming, a dog barking? And sounds that he could not identify. It might have been a silly question, he mused, but he would have liked an answer to it even so. There were a great many people up in that dense green canopy.
‘Come on.’ Edrien’s shout brought him out of his reverie. He began running towards her, until his legs reminded him that they had had more than enough vigorous exercise recently, and reduced him rapidly to a leisurely and cumbersome walk.
A little further on, they came to an area where the trunks of the trees were seamlessly joined together with bark-covered walls such as Farnor had seen on the lodges, except that here they reached down to ground level. A faint smell of stables reached him, suddenly bringing back an unexpectedly vivid and not particu-larly welcome memory of the farmyard at home.
Edrien however, walked on past these walls and towards a large, rounded hillock that welled up out of the Forest floor. It was covered with dense shrubbery through which rose a widely spaced cluster of particu-larly tall trees.
Farnor gazed up at them giddily. ‘No one lives up these, then?’ he asked.
Edrien was regretting her brusque dismissal of his previous question a little and, remembering her father’s injunction to watch her tongue, she answered as pleasantly as she could. ‘No one lives up most of the trees. I don’t suppose your lodges at home cover absolutely everywhere.’
Farnor conceded the point with a nod.
‘Most of the lodges are where they are because they’re where they are,’ she went on unhelpfully, with a disclaiming shrug. ‘They’ve always been there. I don’t suppose anyone knows exactly why.’ She paused and nodded to herself reflectively. ‘I’d never thought about it before, to be honest,’ she announced, after a moment, giving Farnor a puzzled, slightly surprised, look.
‘I expect some trees are more suitable than others,’ Farnor offered vaguely.
‘Oh yes,’ Edrien replied. ‘I don’t know much about it myself, but choosing a tree for a lodge is quite a performance.’ She leaned forward confidentially. ‘There’s an awful lot of talk goes on amongst the gnarls before any decisions are made,’ she said, slightly disdainfully.
‘The gnarls?’ Farnor echoed.
Edrien pondered the question for a moment. ‘The Congresim,’ she answered, pursing her lips severely and screwing up her face by way of explanation. ‘The old folks. Father, EmRan, you know, all our wise and revered parents and…’
She stopped suddenly and her hand leapt to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, Farnor,’ she said desperately, her eyes widening. ‘I forgot. I didn’t think… I…’ She bit her bottom lip and looked up into the trees as if to call the words back.
‘It’s all right,’ Farnor said. ‘No amount of words, thoughtless or otherwise, is going to have any effect on me now. Finish telling me how the trees are chosen for the lodges.’
‘Well,’ she stammered awkwardly, ‘it seems to be mainly talk, as I said.’ She looked at him hesitantly. ‘Marken has a big say in what happens, of course, because a tree can’t be built in without their goodwill. But after that, it’s all, how big should this be? how big should that be? should this branch be trimmed? should that? I don’t understand much about it really. And the Climbers make most of those decisions anyway, as far as I can gather.’ Recalling something, she clapped her hands. ‘If you were staying, you’d be able to see a first climb,’ she said excitedly, her confusion evaporated. ‘I’d forgotten in all this upheaval.’
Farnor looked bewildered.
‘One of my cousins is starting his own lodge,’ Edrien went on. ‘All the talking’s finished and the first climb will be in a few days. As soon as all the local Climbers are here.’
Farnor raised his hands to stop this sudden flow. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.
‘The first climb,’ Edrien said again. ‘It’s… it’s… a celebration to start the building of a new lodge.’ She waved her hands up and down rapidly. ‘There’s the drums – and the race. You must stay and see it…’
‘I can’t stay,’ Farnor said, cutting across her enthu-siasm none too gently. ‘I have to go.’
Edrien looked at him expectantly for a moment and then sagged a little. ‘If you must, I suppose you must,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I got excited, it’s just that…’