Egelric hurts

At last Egelric permitted himself to turn away from the broad expanse of the downs and step into the woods. Almost at once he was cut off from the echoes of laughter and the distant cries that had come ringing up onto the uplands.

The trees silenced the sounds of men, but they had a clamor of their own. At the forest’s edge there was the clatter of the birch leaves that hung from their ropy branches and shook at the merest breath of wind. Beyond were the clapping of the waxy beech leaves, the whistling of the ancient yews, and the hollow, sea-​​like roar of the oak canopy far overhead, which he loved.

All that lacked, to his mind, was the sighing of the pines, but the small pines in this forest huddled close together in dark, impenetrable stands, sheltered from the wind by the taller oaks and beeches, and silent therefore. But he thought that it was a sound that was best appreciated alone.

He had waited with the people until the excitement of the fire and the novelty of the dancing and the drinking had worn into an even hum of pleasure among them. Then he had left the bonfire in the care of Osric and Alfric and hurried up onto the downs.

He was ashamed – although he did not know why – to admit it to himself, but he had been looking forward to this night for weeks. Always before he had met her by surprise, and had been annoyed or anxious at first, and then in a hurry to be away. This time she had asked him to come, and he had promised to come, and he was coming, and it would be different, if only she met him. He would stay with her as long as she let him, until dawn if she would, whatever the elves or the men thought of it.

He wanted to feel like a boy again, and she, more than anything, more even than a journey home with his cousins, could give that to him. He could laugh with her like the boy he had been while his father yet lived, in a way that was neither crude nor cruel. And she laughed with him like a girl, but better, for she had that rare and endearing ability to laugh at herself. It was a faculty that he entirely lacked, but he thought that he could almost attain it with her help.

He stopped abruptly upon hearing a giggle, his shoulders caught between the bushes that bordered the narrow deer path he was following. He had thought that by coming to the woods here, at the edge of the downs, halfway between the two castles and far from any of the fires, he would be least likely to surprise any young lovers in the forest – or be surprised. Now he wasn’t sure.

“Who’s there?” he called softly.

“Egelric, I see you!” Another giggle.

He smiled so broadly it hurt. “I don’t see you.”

“You go home!” she laughed.

“Oh, no! I come to see you!”

“You go home, you seleep in de good evenin’.” Her voice seemed to swerve from bush to bush like the call of a nightjar.

“No, no! Where are you?” He pushed forward through the branches and stopped in the first clearing he reached. “Where are you, you little minx?”

“I go home, I seleep in de good evenin’,” she laughed.

“No, you go here! You come to me!”

“I seleep taree!”

“Oh, you’re in a tree?” he asked, looking up.

“I seleep taree in de summer. Taree drop Sela in de autumn!”

“No! Tree throw Sela in the good evening!” he laughed, and the laughter hurt so that tears came into his eyes. He turned slowly, looking up, looking down, for her voice seemed to be everywhere.

“Egelric, what you call dis?” she asked, and she laughed to demonstrate.

“Laugh. Ha ha ha!”

“Egelric, I laugh you, laugh you, laugh you!”

“Sela, I throw you!” he threatened, laughing too. “If I ever get my hands on you, that is.”

“No you trow me, taree drop me!” she cried, and she let herself fall from a branch that was nearly over his head. For a sickening instant he believed the fall far too steep for her to land uninjured. He moved to catch her, but she landed easily on her feet, and it was he who nearly lost his balance and knocked the both of them over. They stumbled together, and she gasped, “You trow me, trow me?”

“No, I hold you, hold you, hold you, Sela,” and indeed he wrapped his arms around her waist as if he did not intend to let her go.

She laid her arms over his shoulders and asked gravely, “Egelric, what you call dis?”

“What?”

“No.” She pressed her cheek against his and shuddered, and her rapid breathing rang loud and hollow in his ear, and it hurt.

“What is it, Sela?” he asked softly.

“No you go home,” she mumbled.

“I shan’t go home. I stay with you.”

“You go home in de good mornin’.”

“That’s right,” he said, and he began to stroke her hair. It had the sweet, grassy odor of a wild rabbit’s fur, and it unnerved him, and it hurt, for always before he had smelled it when he plucked a dead animal from a snare. They were cold and limp and glassy-​​eyed, while she was warm and alive, breathing into his ear and moving with him. And still he felt like a predator.

“Sela, don’t you want to go home?” he asked in an anguished whisper.

“No you go home.”

“Sela, don’t you want me to drop you?”

“No I drop you.”

“No, no. I drop you.”

“No you drop me. You hold me, hold me, hold me.”

“Sela…” he sighed.

“No you talk me.”

“But, Sela – ”

She lifted her head and laid a hand over his mouth. “No you talk me, no, no. You hold me in de good evenin’, hold me, hold me.”

Everything hurt, but it was no great surprise, so unfit had he grown. He had forgotten how it felt to hold a woman he did not hate.