Adriellyn seems to think she's not speaking Rohirric so well, and she apologized about it after we left our camp in the Westfold, but seems to me she speaks it better than I speak Westron, and it's only been a couple months. Slower, sure, but that's to be expected. I don't doubt that when we get to the croft later this morning to see the family, she's going to be all manner of lost in how many of them is talking and how fast they do it. She also apologized for being in a bad way after what she found in Langhold, and I suppose it's good to know that her quiet is on account of that, but I don't see as she ought to be apologizing about it. It's more as I should, for not knowing how to help her. Wish she had a better friend with her when this happened, one as knew better what to say.
And even if I were the kind what would know, today's a day I wouldn't be able to think on it, because the sight of Marton on the horizon set my thoughts firm and unshakeable upon the conversation that was to come. I'd made up my mind that I'd start with the bad news, and then tell how I come to it, and all day I went over in my head all the things I thought I might need to say, and all the answers to every question I could think he might ask. I think it helped. I didn't fumble over my words near as much as is my usual. He were quite welcoming, and his wife, Agelwyn -- seems that the tapestry ma made him to court her did its job, and they're married now -- was also very interested in our tales, though she seems an awful quiet sort otherwise.
It went about how I imagined. He didn't believe at first as I could know, or leastwise, be as close to certain as I was, that the lantern were just a tale. When I got to the part about visiting the Dwimordene, I figured as he’d think I’d been bewitched, and dismiss everything else I were telling him, but he hardly blinked — maybe he already knows the tales told about the Golden Wood are so much nonsense. He asked more than a little about the accounts of all the strange places I’d been, and Agelwyn was even more caught up in the tales of our travels, though he kept bringing it back to my task. The fate of the cousins of the Éothéod didn’t seem to interest him near so much as it done when first he told me of the task — back then it were the main thing I was sent to do, with the lantern added, but now it seemed the lantern was the important thing. Maybe there's more urgent need to break the Curse now than three year ago.
When the part came up about my plans to go back to Bree, about how I had a home and an apprenticeship and a girl wearing my ring there, he seemed surprised, and put off balance, and maybe a bit irked. I were afeared that he might be thinking as it's his choice whether to allow it, and I don't think it is but I reckon I can't be sure, only I know I'm leaving one way or another as I got promises to keep. In the end though all he said is I were to stay in Marton until he'd had time to think about it and seek counsel and then talked to me about it. Which I agreed to, of course. He told Adriellyn she were under no such bond, but she don't mean to leave afore I am ready to do. And once that were settled, he left the hall in a hurry, and it seems he were making ready for a journey, because this morning we hear that he left before the sun on a horse heading east.
We was of course given the hospitality of the hall, with food and a soft bed and proper stable care for the horses, though I did have to go out and teach the stable-hand how to care for Rascal. While I were there, I said my goodbyes to Kestrel. Didn’t want to do it in front of Adriellyn on account I were sure I was going to cry, which I did. Bad enough I had to do it in front of the stable-hands. Kestrel for his part didn’t seem to understand, which is odd as he always understands everything, more than I do in fact. I'm leaving him here, of course, and moved all my things from his saddlebags, so now it's a matter of trying not to bump into him when I go to ready Muffin and Twilight to go to the farm, so's I don't go getting weepy again. I wonder, if I'm having this hard a time saying goodbye to him, how it'll go when I have to tell the family. Maybe I'll end up wishing they don't seem to understand it neither.
