Part 9

Legolas returned to the farmhouse anxious to discuss his suspicions with Eowyn.

The elderly couple had retired for the night, the old woman having made up a bed for her guests on the settle. Eowyn, however, was still sitting at the kitchen table and, with her chin resting on her folded arms, was gazing intently at something on the table top.

“Melmenya...?”

“Come, Lassui,” she cried. “Look at this!”

Legolas slid onto the bench beside her. She was showing him a tiny lump of pure blue—bluer than the sky over Rohan on a summer’s day; bluer than the ocean off the Bay of Carhilivren; bluer than the blue-enamelled doors of Golden Hall of Eshmunazar—it was the bluest blue that Legolas ever seen, except, perhaps, on a butterfly’s wing and, like a butterfly’s wing or a bird’s breast, it seemed to glow with an inner light.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” replied Eowyn. “Mistress Ioreth found it stuck to the sole of my boot. But, watch...” She picked it up and rubbed it across the back of her hand, leaving a long, blue smear on her milky skin. “This is what I saw on the outlaw’s face, Lassui. I am sure of it.”

“Could it be artist’s chalk?”

“That was my first thought. But what would artist’s chalk be doing at the bottom of a boar trap?”

Legolas could not answer that, and they sat in silence for a while. Then Eowyn asked, “Did you speak to the Reeve?”

“Yes.”

“Was he very angry with us?”

“No. Not at all. In fact, his reaction was strange.”

Legolas frowned, trying to recall exactly what he had seen, and why it had made him feel so uncomfortable. “I do not think he was surprised at all, Melmenya. He was shocked, yes, and afraid for his son but, once he had mastered the fear, it was as though he had been warned that Arador might be taken, and had already planned what to do if he were.”

He turned to Eowyn, and took her hand. “He insists on coming with us tomorrow, Melmenya. And we must be very careful, because I think he may do something rash.”