“And then there he was-the king!-like a sword blade- And Handy shrinking and shrivelling back from him- And I thought he was Spark! I did, I really did for a moment, I was so-so beside myself-”’
“Well,” said Apple, “that’s all right, because Shinny thought you were his mother. When we were on the docks watching you come sailing in in your glory. She kissed him, you know, Aunty Lark. Kissed the king-just like that. I thought next thing she’d kiss that mage. But she didn’t.”
“I should think not, what an idea. What mage?” said Lark, with her head in a cupboard. “Where”s your flour bin, Goha?’”
“Your hand’s on it. A Roke mage, come looking for a new archmage.”
“Here?”
“Why not?”’ said Apple. “The last one was from Gont, wasn’t he? But they didn’t spend much time looking. They sailed straight back to Havnor, once they’d got rid of mother.”
“How you do talk.”
“He was looking for a woman, he said,’” Tenar told them. “‘A woman on Gont.’ But he didn’t seem too happy about it.”
“A wizard looking for a woman? Well, that’s something new,”’ said Lark. “I’d have thought this’d be weevilly by now, but it’s perfectly good. I’ll bake up a bannock or two, shall I? Where’s the oil?’”
“I’ll need to draw some from the crock in the cool-room. Oh, Shandy! There you are! How are you? How’s Clear-brook? How’s everything been? Did you sell the ram lambs?”
They sat down nine to supper. In the soft yellow light of the evening in the stone-floored kitchen, at the long farm table, Therru began to lift her head a little, and spoke a few times to the other children; but there was still a cowering in her, and as it grew darker outside she sat so that her seeing eye could watch the window.
Not until Lark and her children had gone home in the twilight, and Apple was singing Therru to sleep, and she was washing up the dishes with Shandy, did Tenar ask about Ged. Somehow she had not wanted to while Lark and Apple were listening; there would have been so many explanations. She had forgotten to mention his being at Re Albi at all. And she did not want to talk about Re Albi any more. Her mind seemed to darken when she tried to think of it.
“Did a man come here last month from me-to help out with the work?”
“Oh, I clean forgot!’” cried Shandy. “Hawk, you mean- him with the scars on his face?”
“Yes,’” Tenar said. “Hawk.”
“Oh, aye, well, he’ll be away up on Hot Springs Mountain, above Lissu, up there with the sheep, with Serry’s sheep, I believe. He come here and says how you sent him, and there wasn’t a lick o’ work for him here, you know, with
. Clearbrook and me looking after the sheep and I been dairying and old Tiff and Sis helping me out when needed, and I racked my brains, but Clearbrook he says, ‘Go ask Serry’s man, Farmer Serry’s overseer up by Kahedanan, do they need herders in the high pastures,’ he said, and that Hawk went off and did that, and got took on, and was off next day. ‘Go ask Serry’s man,’ Clearbrook told him, and that’s what he done, and got took right on. So he’ll be back down with the flocks come fall, no doubt. Up there on the Long Fells above Lissu, in the high pastures. I think maybe it was goats they wanted him for. Nice-spoken fellow. Sheep or goats, I don’t remember which. I hope it’s all right with you that we didn’t keep him on here, Goha, but it’s the truth there wasn’t a lick o’ work for him what with me and Clearbrook and old Tiff, and Sis got the flax in. And he said he’d been a goatherd over there where he come from, away round the mountain, some place above Armouth he said, though he said he’d never herded sheep. Maybe it’ll be goats they’ve got him with up there.”
“Maybe,” said Tenar. She was much relieved and much disappointed. She had wanted to know him safe and well, but she had wanted also to find him here.