The figure gave an impatient sigh as Farnor drew nearer, then casually lifted the branch and pointed it at his face. The timing of the movement was such that Farnor could neither focus on, nor dodge around the branch, and as his head flinched backwards to avoid the inevitable impact, so his legs and body continued forward, and he fell flat on his back again. The knife floated from his hand in a graceful arc, glittering in the firelight.
Some reflex in him struggled on, despite the lack of air in his lungs, and his hand banged petulantly about the turf in an attempt to recover his weapon. Noting this tattoo, the figure stretched out the branch and casually drew the knife towards its feet. A hand reached down and picked it up. Still gasping, Farnor made an effort to rise, but the branch flicked out and, with unexpected gentleness, brushed away his supporting arm, dropping him back on to the ground again.
‘Do you always attack defenceless old women when they come to your camp for a little warm, young man?’ the figure asked, sitting down by the fire.
The words slowly penetrated the noise of Farnor’s pounding heart and rasping breathing. The voice was that of an old woman, though it was remarkably free from any hint of frailty. Further, she was none too pleased, by her tone. As Farnor eventually managed to lift his head to examine his interrogator, the end of the branch hovering menacingly in front of his face confirmed this conclusion.
‘Well?’ the voice insisted. The figure’s hood turned towards him, and he could feel himself being intensely scrutinized. Then there was a soft sigh of recognition, and the branch was withdrawn. ‘You are the outsider, then,’ the figure said, returning to poking the fire with the branch. ‘I thought you must be, lighting a fire like that. It’s unusual in the Forest. They don’t like it, you know.’
Farnor watched the figure warily, but made no at-tempt to renew his attack. He had no idea how this… woman… had done what she had done, but she had tossed him through the air seemingly with even less effort than had Nilsson, and, the falls having apparently awakened every fading bruise in his body, he was loath to risk any more. And too, she now had his knife.
How had she come on him so quietly? Why hadn’t the horses given some indication of her approach?
The woman motioned him to rise. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you, approaching you like that,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realize you were so engrossed. Are you all right?’
Farnor was still wide-eyed and panting as he clam-bered to his knees, however, and he ignored both the apology and the inquiry. He pointed to the spot where he had landed previously and asked the question that was uppermost in his mind. ‘How did you do that?’ he said, his voice hoarse.
The figure peered around him to examine the place at which he was pointing. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘Throw me right over there like that,’ Farnor ampli-fied.
‘Oh, that,’ she said dismissively. ‘I didn’t. You did.’ She chuckled softly. ‘I put you down as gently as I could.’
‘But…’
‘Sit down – Far-nor, is it? What strange names you people have.’
Farnor had recovered his wits and breath suffi-ciently now to be a little indignant at this cavalier dismissal of his heritage. ‘You have a name yourself, do you?’ he asked caustically. The figure turned to him slowly, and the branch twitched slightly. Farnor flinched in anticipation.
‘Mind your manners, young man,’ came the authori-tative reply, as she returned her attention to the fire. ‘Round here they call me Uldaneth Ashstock,’ she went on, her tone slightly conciliatory. Farnor frowned. The name was unexpectedly familiar, but where he had heard it eluded him. Then she was chuckling again. It was a warm, female sound, markedly at odds with the impact its owner had just delivered to Farnor and the way she was idly examining his knife in the firelight. ‘Ashstock,’ she repeated to herself, and the chuckle became a soft laugh as though in response to some inner amusement. Then she laid the branch across her knees and tested the blade of the knife with a tentative thumb. ‘A good edge,’ she concluded. There was genuine appreciation in her voice. ‘In fact, a very good edge. Haven’t seen the like of that in many a day. Where’d you learn to do that, young man?’
Farnor abandoned his search for the name, and shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I just do it now,’ he said. ‘I suppose my father showed me once but I always seem to have been able to do it.’
‘Good,’ Uldaneth said. ‘That’s very heartening. Don’t forget to show other people how to do it, as well, though. Otherwise you’ll lose the greater value of the skill, won’t you?’
Farnor did not know what to say by way of reply, but before he could consider the problem, the knife had been gently tossed towards him, handle first. He caught it with a nervous scramble. When he recovered, he found that the hooded head was turned towards him again. Questions flooded into his mind. Awkwardly he thrust the knife back into his belt, ‘Who…?’
‘Why do you carry a kitchen knife, Farnor?’ Uldaneth asked before he could continue.
The question seemed to surge out of nowhere and it felt to Farnor like yet another winding blow. Darkness and anger rose up within him, and simultaneously the many aches plaguing him suddenly began to throb. ‘If you know my name, you know the answer to that as well,’ he replied unpleasantly.
Once again, he felt an almost imperious authority radiate from the shapeless black figure.
‘Just answer me simply, we’ll get on a lot better that way,’ Uldaneth said.
Farnor gazed into the fire for a moment, his face taut and his jaw working. He could not move away from his pain and anger. ‘Mind your own damn business, then. Is that simple enough?’ he snarled, viciously. ‘What I carry is what I carry, and I’ll answer to no one for it, least of all to some strange old woman who sneaks up out of the darkness like a thief.’ He braced himself determinedly for impact.
Uldaneth, however, turned back to the fire, prodded it a couple of times then laid the branch down and sat silent, staring into the flames. Farnor waited, still angry.
After a while, Uldaneth reached up and slowly drew back her hood. For a moment, Farnor thought he caught a glimpse of the proud, handsome face of a young woman but he dismissed it immediately as a trick of the firelight as Uldaneth turned towards him. As with Marken, Farnor found that he could not gauge the age of his new companion. She was certainly an old woman, but her face was that of a powerful and vigorous personality, and though its largest feature was a long nose it was her eyes that dominated; they seemed to look into the very depths of him.
‘I apologized for that,’ she said. ‘And you’re right. It is none of my business. I’m just naturally curious.’
The complete absence of any antagonism or even reproach in her voice and manner unbalanced Farnor almost as much as the throws that had tumbled him across the Forest floor, and his anger drained out of him instantly, leaving him feeling empty and not a little guilty. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, instinctively apologiz-ing. Uldaneth nodded and returned to her contemplation of the fire again. Farnor looked at her intently. Then, as much for want of something to say as curiosity, he said, ‘You’ve got black hair, haven’t you? I thought none of the Valderen had black hair.’
‘I’m not Valderen,’ Uldaneth replied. ‘I’m what they’d call an outsider these days, like you.’ Farnor thought that he caught a flicker of a sad, lonely smile as she spoke, but it vanished into the firelit shadows playing over her face and the impetus of Farnor’s curiosity swept it from his mind.
‘But I thought that they usually kept outsiders out,’ he said, lowering his voice and flicking a thumb towards the surrounding trees.
‘Oh, they don’t bother about me,’ Uldaneth replied. ‘I’m just an old teacher wandering from lodge to lodge. They’re used to me. I’ve been doing it for… a very long time.’
A teacher! Much of her manner now made sense to Farnor. And he remembered where he had heard her name. ‘Angwen,’ he said, half to himself.
Uldaneth raised a quizzical eyebrow.