The cheersome mood I was in, which didn't make much sense given as I were just told I'm not a Man of the Mark anymore, plus Adri's dark tidings, faded bit by bit as we crossed the Mark for Gondor. Kestrel, for his part, didn't show no signs he even knew anything had happened. Maybe to him nothing did. Maybe he'd already made up his mind and as far as he thought it was settled long afore. Though it's never wise to assume Kestrel don't know what the two-legs around him are doing and thinking; so more than likely, he knew that we thunk he was supposed to stay with the Thane and then things changed. Maybe it just didn't seem important to him since he'd already decided. Anyhow, only thing I felt from him was an eagerness to run; it'd been a long time since he'd had wind in his mane, wind of his own making, and it was time.
But Muffin couldn't keep up if he did, and Rascal all the more so, especially over open plains (though a goat's quicker crossing steep rocky terrain where a horse has to choose every step carefully), so we kept to a slow but steady pace that put miles beneath and behind. We stopped in Middlemead, a crossroads town in Kingstead's woods where merchants were moving goods from waggon to waggon, and kept in a very busy, very loud inn for the night. Then we went on to the banks of the Snowbourn, which we followed as it arced south and then east. The land there was wooded again, so Kestrel's urge to run was checked somewhat. We camped atop a hill overlooking marshy land, not realizing there was a village, Fenmarch, a few miles farther on, nestled in the swamp. Wonder what kind of inn they'd have, if they even had one.
The next day we reached Beaconwatch and stayed the night there. The town sits on the edge of the Mark nearest Gondor, and it struck me how it felt more like a war-camp than a village. Even the women there live more like camp followers -- cooks, healers, shield-maidens -- than like tailors or farmwives or mothers. In fact, I don't think I saw a single child there. And the whole town is protected by a high palisade. Back in Marton me and Adri had fallen to talking about how Marton's not like many villages of the Mark in that it don't got a palisade or other protection. It's a large, spread-out gathering of mostly crofts, too big to wrap in a wall of wood. And when you think on it, of all the towns of the Mark it's the one closest to an enemy; the Dunlendings are just the other side of the Gap. Now, the Gap itself is an awful good natural defense; even after getting past Isengard, Dunlendings got to come in not more than three or four abreast through a gulley atop which archers can be posted to cut them down by the score before they get anywhere near in sight of the crofts. Even so, why does Marton have no protections of its own, and feel like an open space, welcoming, while meanwhile Beaconwatch, which is next to Rohan's staunchest and strongest ally, and is as far as any point in the Mark from its enemies, crouches like a fortified camp ready to march to war at a moment's notice? Sure, Beaconwatch is nearer to Mordor, but it's not that near; from what I heard while we was there, afore a troop from Mordor could reach Beaconwatch, they'd have to fight their way through the fortress at Cair Andros and then leagues of Gondor's land afore they'd get anywhere near the border. Maybe the idea that could happen is why there's walls and guards, but maybe it's something else. Could just be whatever Thane first built Beaconwatch was one had survived too many ambushes, and the way he built and ran it is how it still is, while the Thane what founded Marton weren't so hard a veteran of war, and his son and his son continued with what they learned from their fathers. Makes me wonder, though, why we don't build something like a wall, maybe with towers, at the end of the Gap, to make even better use of the defense it gives. Suppose such things are beyond the thinking of a fellow like me, anyhow. Might be there's good reasons I don't know about.
Tomorrow we cross the stream that marks the border of the Mark, in sight of the nearest of the beacons, into a land called Anórien, which I hear is going to be clear plains for a while afore it goes into dense woods. Maybe there I'll find a chance to let Kestrel run fast as he likes. Might help me not think too much about the idea as I'm leaving the Mark and no longer as welcome in it as once I were. Coming back we should have no difficulties coming in as visitors, but still, it's a thing that don't bear much thinking on.
