The Name of the Wind

“What did you sing last night?” I asked. “For the wedding.”

“The usual,” Denna said, kicking through a pile of leaves. “Bright stuff. ‘Pennywhistle.’ ‘Come Wash in the River.’ ‘Copper Bottom Pot.’ ” She chuckled. “ ‘Aunt Emme’s Tub’ ...”

“You didn’t,” I said, aghast. “At a wedding?”

“A drunk grandfather asked for it,” she shrugged as she made her way though a thick tangle of yellowing banerbyre. “There were a few raised eyebrows, but not many. They’re earthy folk around here.”

We walked a little longer in silence. The wind gusted in the high branches above us, but where we trudged along it was just a whisper. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard ‘Come Wash’ before....”

“I’d have thought ...” Denna looked over her shoulder at me. “Are you trying to trick me into singing for you?”

“Of course.”

She turned and smiled warmly at me, her hair falling into her face. “Maybe later. I’ll sing for my supper.” She led us around a tall outcrop of dark stone. It was chillier here, out of the sun. “I think he left me here,” she said, looking around uncertainly “Everything looks different during the day.”

“Do you want to search the route back toward the farm, or circle out from here?”

“Circles,” she said. “But you’ll have to show me what I’m supposed to be looking for. I’m a city girl.”

I briefly showed her what little I knew of woodcraft. I showed her the sort of ground where a boot will leave a scuff or a print. I pointed out how the pile of leaves she had walked through were obviously disturbed, and how the branches of the banerbyre were broken and torn where she’d struggled through.

We stayed close together, as two pairs of eyes are better than one, and neither of us was eager to set off alone. We worked back and forth, making larger and larger arcs away from the bluff.

After five minutes I began to sense the futility of it. There was just too much forest. I could tell that Denna quickly came to the same conclusion. The storybook clues we hoped to find once again failed to show themselves. There were no torn scraps of cloth clinging to branches, no deep bootprints or abandoned campsites. We did find mushrooms, acorns, mosquitoes, and raccoon scat cleverly concealed by pine needles.

“Do you hear water?” Denna asked.

I nodded. “I could really do with a drink,” I said. “And a bit of a wash.”

We wandered wordlessly away from our search, neither one of us wanting to admit that we were eager to give it up, both of us feeling in our bones how pointless it was. We followed the sound of running water down the hill until we pushed through a thick stand of pine trees and came upon a lovely, deep stream about twenty feet across.

There was no scent of foundry runoff in this water, so we drank and I topped off my water bottle.

I knew the shape of stories. When a young couple comes to a river there is a definite shape to what will happen next. Denna would bathe on the other side of the nearby fir tree, out of sight on a sandy bit of shore. I would move off a discrete distance, out of sight, but within easy talking distance. Then ... something would happen. She would slip and turn her ankle, or cut her foot on a sharp stone, and I’d be forced to rush over. And then ...

But this was not a story of two young lovers meeting by the river. So I splashed some water on my face and changed into my clean shirt behind a tree. Denna dipped her head in the water to cool off. Her glistening hair was dark as ink until she wrung it out with her hands.

Then we sat on a stone, dandling our feet in the water and enjoying each other’s company as we rested. We shared an apple, passing it back and forth between bites, which is close to kissing, if you’ve never kissed before.

And, after some gentle goading, Denna sang for me. One verse of “Come Wash,” a verse I had never heard before, which I suspect she made up on the spot. I will not repeat it here, as she sang it to me, not to you. And since this is not the story of two young lovers meeting by the river, it has no particular place here, and I will keep it to myself.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE Pegs

Not long after the apple was gone, Denna and I pulled our feet out of the water and gathered ourselves to leave. I considered leaving off my boots, as feet that can run bare over Tarbean’s rooftops are in no danger of being hurt by the roughest forest floor. But I didn’t want to appear uncivilized, so I pulled on my socks despite the fact that they were damp and clammy with sweat.

I was lacing up my boot when I heard a faint noise off in the forest, out of sight behind a stand of thick pine trees.

Quietly, I reached out to Denna, touched her shoulder lightly to get her attention, and held my finger to my lips.

What? She mouthed silently.

I moved closer, stepping carefully to make as little sound as possible. “I think I hear something,” I said, my head close to hers. “I’m going to go have a look.”