He laughed therewith; she laughed not, but seemed glad, and said soberly:
‘Yea, I may well be thy sister; for belike I also am of the people of the Gods, who have come into these Dales by many far ways. I am of the House of the Ragged Sword of the Kindred of the Wolf. Come, brother, let us toward Wildlake’s Way.’
Therewith she went before him and led through the thicket as by an assured and wonted path, and he followed hard at heel; but his thought went from her for a while; for those words of brother and sister that he had spoken called to his mind the Bride, and their kindness of little children, and the days when they seemed to have nought to do but to make the sun brighter, and the flowers fairer, and the grass greener, and the birds happier each for the other; and a hard and evil thing it seemed to him that now he should be making all these things nought and dreary to her, now when he had become a man and deeds lay before him. Yet again was he solaced by what Bow-may had said concerning battle to come; for he deemed that she must have had this from the Friend’s foreseeing; and he longed sore for deeds to do, wherein all these things might be cleared up and washen clean as it were.
So passed they through the wood a long way, and it was getting dark therein, and Gold-mane said:
‘Hold now, Bow-may, for I am at home here.’
She looked around and said: ‘Yea, so it is: I was thinking of many things. Farewell and live merrily till March comes and the token!’
Therewith she turned and went her ways and was soon out of sight, and he went lightly through the wood, and then on skids over the hard snow along the Dale’s edge till he was come to the watch-tower, when the moon was bright in heaven.
Thus was he at Burgstead and the House of the Face betimes, and before the hunters were gotten back.
CHAPTER XV. MURDER AMONGST THE FOLK OF THE WOODLANDERS.
So wore away midwinter tidingless. Stone-face spake no more to Face-of-god about the wood and its wights, when he saw that the young man had come back hale and merry, seemed not to crave over-much to go back thither. As for the Bride, she was sad, and more than misdoubted all; but dauntless as she was in matters that try men’s hardihood, she yet lacked heart to ask of Face-of-god what had befallen him since the autumn-tide, or where he was with her. So she put a force upon herself not to look sad or craving when she was in his company, as full oft she was; for he rather sought her than shunned her. For when he saw her thus, he deemed things were changing with her as they had changed with him, and he bethought him of what he had spoken to Bow-may, and deemed that even so he might speak with the Bride when the time came, and that she would not be grieved beyond measure, and all would be well.