Arrows followed Oswy as he galloped into the wood. The silver birches, which had been at first slender and widely spaced, grew together, hindering their flight. Now beech and ash began to appear, their boles like the grey pillars of an empty hall. Stands of chestnut looked strange to Oswy's plains-trained eye, as though the branches had been cut and cut again, until a once-single tree had become a nest of small shoots, perfect to snare the feet of horses.

Distances closed up, and the light dimmed to green. As they slowed, an unearthly silence fell about them. The very trees seemed watchful, thoughtful with some deep pondering beyond the thoughts of men. Behind him Cyn cried out, a harsh sound, suddenly muffled, and birds burst in answer into the sky.

On the borders, a wolf howled, its call breaking off into whining, and Oswy heard the harsh laughter of orcs. They were following.

A dread fell on him. Light shone in little golden flecks over his head, dancing in the new green leaves of spring, but shadow was all around him, and the sense of being watched was heavy on him. The grip of his father's sword felt slippery in his wet hands, and the helmet too large, and of a sudden all he desired was to weep. Why was his father not here? He would know what to do, and Oswy did not.

"Cyn?" he reined in, waiting for the young warrior to come beside him. When it did not happen he turned back, and saw his father's man slumped in the saddle, a black arrow lodged between his shoulders. He must have been hit in the last moment the enemy had them in sight. "Cyn?" Oswy rode back and touched the warrior's arm. Blearily, Cyn raised his head, trying to focus on Oswy's face.

"Not as bad... not... "

"Leofwyn!" Oswy called, but she was already there. She looked narrowly at the wound, laid a hand on Cyn's forehead and his throat.

"If we find somewhere safe, and if the arrow comes out clean, and soon, he may live."

Leaves rustled. The air tasted full of new growth and, as Oswy wondered what to do, the petals of white flowers fell softly about him from the hoar heads of a stand of ancient cherry trees. It felt as if the whole wood was mocking him.

"We'll climb up." he said, dismounting, "Sending the horses on. Perhaps they will follow them. But even if they don't, they can only climb one or two at a time, and you and I can take them together. Nor can the wargs reach us."

"That's well," she said, unbuckling the baby's closed basket from her saddle and handing it to him, "Into the cherries then. The scent of blossom may prevent them from smelling us."

Gytha had already scrambled down, her round face taut with held in tears, her lips pressed firmly together, silent in the face of her father's new battle. She reached up for a handhold, small hand closing on a broken branch, and "Daro!" called a voice at Oswy's shoulder, where he had <$1em>known they were alone.

Gytha gave a startled cry. She fell to the ground and curled into a ball there, covering her hands with her face. Oswy spun, and saw, just beyond the reach of a sword, the moving light glimmer on an arrowhead like polished silver, aimed at the centre of his eye.

Behind the arrow the archer was little more than guessed shapes in shadow; tall, slender, hooded, and still. Even half glimpsed there was something uncanny about him - a presence, a press of will against Oswy's mind, a suggestion that the trees themselves leaned over to hearken as he spoke.

"Do off your weapons." The voice was musical but chill, ageless with arrogance, and laden with an accent Oswy could barely understand. He spoke slowly, as if unfamiliar with Westron, and that was good, for Oswy's knowledge of the language was also slight.

"I do not..." Anger woke in Oswy's heart. He was lord now - albeit lord of a sacked village, leader of children - but his father had given him this sword with his last strength and he was loath to easily part with it.

"Oswy, please!" Leofa knelt over Cyn protectively, and looked up with resignation. Mindful of her son's dignity she spoke in Rohirric so that the creature who watched their quarrel could at least not understand the words. "He could slay you where you stand. For your bondsman's sake do not anger him."

"He is but one!"

"And that is enough."

Oswy held her gaze for a while, wondering at how small a step it was to go from mother to councillor, but he could not endure the steady regard long. She was right. Sighing, he put the sword and his long knife down on the grass in front of the creature's feet.

"The Man's sword also."

Feeling utterly humiliated, Oswy tugged Cyn's blade from its scabbard and placed it with the rest. When he had done so, the archer stepped forward, pinning the weapons under one lightly shod foot. Sunlight filtered through the boughs of the ancient cherries and there was silence for a second, and then a clamour, very close, of orc voices, yelling in agony and fury. Slipping into dreams, Cyn cried out in answer, something of the pain in those screams calling to him. Already his brow was damp with sweat and his face sunken.

The creature - elf, it must be, Oswy thought - did not stir at the sounds. The stillness in it was like that of the trees. With another Man, even an enemy, Oswy would have begged for help, asked for succour for his wounded. But tales spoke chillingly of the mercy of the Golden Wood. Few were allowed in, and fewer returned, and of those none were unscathed; wrought strange by whatever power dwelt within. There was nothing the elves might bestow that it was good for a mortal man to receive.

But Gytha did not remember the tales. With a child's desperation and innocence she ran up to the elf and took two handfuls of his cloak, looking up beseechingly. "Please help us! Please help my daddy!"

The elf's aim had not once wavered from Oswy's face, but now the hooded head tilted, as if listening, and then he took the arrow from the string and replaced it in its quiver. He slung the bow on his back and crouched down, face to face with the little girl. "Boe adar lin dartha i Hîr a Hîril beth," (1) he said, and taking down his hood he showed a face fairer than that of mortal man, with long dark hair and eyes like starlit steel, "Be boe ammen." (2) But he smiled at the child as if she was a rare flower.

His expression was distantly kind as he turned back to Oswy. "I am Erethôn, march-warden of Lorien. You will come with me."

"And if I chose not to?" At the high-handed treatment, Oswy's anger flared again and he clenched his fists, thinking that perhaps he could yet fight the creature hand to hand. It was tall, but did not look sturdy. In the corner of his eye, he was aware of a change in the texture of the light - a swift falling of shadows too patterned to be the movement of leaves, and when next he looked three other elves stood in a circle around their small group, bows drawn.

"That choice is not yours," said Erethôn coldly, "The orcs who pursued you have been slain. Yet I deem you to have news the Lord and Lady must hear. Therefore you will come." He picked up Oswy's weapons and passed them to one of his silent companions. Then he whistled and all three horses trotted up to him as if they had been raised by him from foals.

"Come, Oswy," Leofa's voice broke into his feeling of betrayal and doom, "What cannot be cured must be endured. Help me set Cyn on Sceadu."

It was, by the angle of the sun, but an hour after noon, when Oswy looked back in the direction of the free fields of Rohan once more, and with a heavy heart bid them farewell. He did not imagine that he would ever see them again; not at least as a free man, in possession of his own spirit. He wondered once more whether it might not have been better had they thrown themselves into Anduin and so met a clean death, but for Cyn's sake, and for the sake of his daughter, he did not now try to attack the elf who lead them, knowing that while death might release him, it would leave the children all the more unprotected.

Even discounting their strange guide the path was disquieting. Oswy was used to the open plains, to sky overhead and views for miles. Here among the trees he felt hemmed in. There could be enemies on every side, waiting in ambush, and he could not see them. Ever and anon he would turn, expecting to see his father walking behind him, and the stab of realisation did not grow less each time.

The air was still, yet sometimes a breeze would come like a sinuous brook through the quiet, and bring the smell of flowers unknown to Man. Then the canopies of the trees would toss with a noise like the sea, and light would whirl dizzying over his head, and he felt more removed from the world at every step, haunted by the sweetness of days and places he had never seen; ages long ago gone to dust.

As their journey progressed the feeling waxed. The ache of grief was not forgotten, but it was hallowed and made splendid, as - in the hands of a great bard - even lamentation becomes a matter of glory. All things now seemed touched with awe and fear, and Oswy began to percieve each raindrop on the end of a twig as a diamond and each blade of grass as a new creation, each shade of green a new colour, each shape a thing of wonder. There was a power in all things, resting over the whole land like the golden light in Autumn just before a storm, and under that power all things were revealed as stainless and full of wonder. He caught himself wondering if perhaps this holyness which rested over all, was not infact the truth. The truth that underlay all. A truth that sometimes Men were simply too busy to notice.

The ground fell away into a thickly wooded combe, like a vast bowl. At its lip they paused, and Oswy looked out, seeing, far off, a mighty hill crowned with towering trees, silver barked, bannered and garlended with blossom radient as the sun. It was from them that the unearthly scent flowed, and at the sight of them he felt freed of something, as though the burden of sorrow and responsibility he had been carrying had been eased by other hands than his.

"What is it?" he said to himself, "What do I feel?"

Erethôn smiled again his small smile. His slender hand reached up to steady Cyn in the saddle. "You feel the power of the Lady of the Wood," he said.

And Oswy cursed. He had not, after all, reached some understanding of the nature of purity. He had merely been ensorcelled by the temptress in the centre of the web. Deeply ashamed, he bit his cheek until the blood ran, determined not to be so weak again.