They headed into the forest on foot, with Piak leading the way. The path was easy enough to follow and it was covered with a thick layer of dead leaves, which muffled their steps. Tiuri stayed alert, but he didn’t see anything unusual.
Isadoro said, “We can take a look and then ride to the old hunting lodge. But I can tell you now that you’ll only see pine trees and bushes there.”
“Does your father ever go hunting here?” asked Tiuri.
“He used to, but that was a long time ago. The hunting lodge isn’t used these days. When Father goes hunting now, it’s in the Forest of Islan.”
Piak pointed ahead. “It’s this path,” he said. “We’re nearly there.”
He walked on, but Isadoro hesitated. The path was not only narrow, but also extremely muddy. There were big puddles everywhere.
“Do I really have to go on?” she said, smiling yet clearly reluctant, as she glanced down anxiously at her clothes, which were indeed most unsuitable for a walk in such surroundings.
“Are you coming?” called Piak. He’d already gone on ahead of them.
“I’ll carry you!” offered Tiuri.
“Fine,” said the lady. “If you really want to.”
Tiuri picked her up. Isadoro was light, but still he could feel his heart thumping away as he carried her onto the path. She had put one arm around his neck and her hair lightly brushed his cheek. He wondered if he would have kissed her, before, if Piak had not called out to him. What had that question in her eyes meant? He held her tightly and hoped the rest of the path would be just as muddy.
“Ha, finally! There you are!” cried Piak.
Tiuri almost missed his footing, but managed to stay upright. Carefully, he put Isadoro down, avoiding Piak’s eyes, and looked for the stone.
He spotted it at the side of the path, where it sank at an angle into the boggy ground, grey, old and partially covered with moss. But the letters, which must have been carved into it long ago, were still clearly visible. Tiuri leant forward to decipher them. However, the words they formed were unfamiliar to him.
Isadoro began to speak. “It’s a signpost, and this is what it says.” She continued in a singsong voice:
You who come as an enemy,
retrace your steps
or may the Wood devour you!
You who come as a friend,
tread this path in peace
and may you reach your goal,
may you not go astray
and may the Spirits of the Forest watch over you!
Then she walked up to the signpost and sat on it as if it were a throne. “My father found this stone when he was still a boy,” she told them, “buried under creepers and dead leaves. He had it placed upright here as a reminder of days gone by. Someone later translated the words for me.”
“Who?” asked Piak.
“Someone I once met,” replied Isadoro, and there was something evasive about her expression.
“How old do you think the stone must be?” asked Piak.
“Hundreds of years ago there were castles where the trees now grow,” said Isadoro. “That’s what the chronicles and legends say. Knights and princes lived there, who had come from afar, from beyond the Great Mountains…”
“From the Kingdom of Unauwen,” whispered Piak.
Lady Isadoro shrugged. “Who can say?” she said. “Those days exist only in stories now, stories that not everyone believes.”
Tiuri realized the words on the stone might well be written in the old tongue of the Kingdom of Unauwen, which was still used by some as a secret language.
“This is what they say,” said Lady Isadoro. “In a castle on the Black River lived a knight who loved peace. But war stalked the land and enemies pressed in on every side. So the knight said he wished to be left alone and swore never to leave his castle again. And trees began to grow around his castle and to hide it from people. But there were paths that led there, and he had them marked with signposts like this one. As the years went by, the paths became overgrown and closed up, and he died all alone and was forgotten. His castle, the Tarnburg, became a ruin, entangled deep within the forest. But they say the knight’s ghost still haunts the place. People call him the Master of the Wild Wood.” She stopped talking and sang another fragment of the song she’d begun the night before:
I heard tell of a fortress grim
by mountains and by rivers wide.
That once was so, but is no more,
for there, by riverside,
there now stand only trees.
Dreams, schemes. Who may go near?
Tiuri and Piak stared at Isadoro as she sat on her strange perch, the bottom of her white and red cape falling across those ancient carvings.
But suddenly she leapt to her feet and said, “I mustn’t sing that song here! We should go.”
Tiuri picked her up again and they headed back along the path in silence.
As they approached the meadow, they heard the sound of hoofs.
“Put me down,” said Isadoro.
Tiuri did as he was told. He had continued to carry her even after they’d left the muddy path.
A rider dressed in brown and yellow was approaching. It was the grim-faced captain of Sir Fitil’s men.
“Hamar!” Isadoro exclaimed.
The man-at-arms reined in his horse. His expression was even grimmer than usual. “Lady Isadoro,” he said, politely but sternly, “you know your father does not allow you to go out alone.”
“My dear Hamar,” said Isadoro, “I am not alone! Look, Sir Tiuri and his squire are accompanying me.”
“Sir Tiuri and his squire know their way in the Wild Wood even less well than you,” replied Hamar. “When I heard which direction you’d ridden in, I immediately came after you. That’s what your father would have ordered me to do had he been at home.”
“Sir Tiuri and Piak wanted to ride to the old hunting lodge,” said Isadoro. “Father knows about it. And I thought I could go with them.”
“Does your father know about that, too?” asked Hamar, still politely, but with an expression that clearly said he wasn’t planning to let Isadoro dismiss him.
Isadoro seemed to realize that, because she smiled and said, “Ride with us, Hamar, and do not let us out of your sight!”
Hamar bowed his head. “Thank you, my lady,” he said.
They walked back to the horses. Tiuri was the last one to mount his horse. As he did so, he gave a gasp of surprise. Little yellow flowers had been woven throughout Ardanwen’s bridle!
“Look at this!” cried Tiuri. “Who could have done it?”
“How strange!” exclaimed Piak.
“Your horse has certainly made itself look very fine,” said Hamar.
Tiuri leant forward to take a closer look at the flowers. There was no way it could have happened by chance, as they were so neatly woven into the leather.
“Who did this?” he said, looking at the others.
“Well, it wasn’t me,” said Piak.
Grim Hamar grinned scornfully at the thought that he might have come up with such an idea. Then he looked at his mistress. She was staring in amazement at the yellow flowers that stood out so brightly against Ardanwen’s gleaming black coat. She slowly shook her head.
“Well, someone must have done it!” Tiuri cried.
“You really don’t need to ask,” growled Hamar, his eyes still on Isadoro.
“It wasn’t me,” she said, but it didn’t sound very convincing. “Come on, let’s go to the hunting lodge,” she said as she rode off.
Tiuri caught up with her. “Did you do it, Isa?” he asked quietly.
She frowned and replied, “Hamar’s right. There are some things you shouldn’t ask about.”
“But…” Tiuri began, but then he fell silent. He really didn’t know what else to say. Isadoro seemed just as mysterious as the stories about the Wild Wood.
Now they were riding along the path in the direction Sir Ristridin had come from. Of course, there was no sign he had ever passed that way. Any trace had been wiped out after such a long time, and there were no people living anywhere around who might have been able to answer their questions.
“What are we actually doing here?” asked Hamar, when they stopped.
“I don’t know,” Isadoro said with a sigh. “It’s so dark and gloomy!”
The abandoned hunting lodge was dilapidated and covered with moss; its doors were closed and the windows nailed up. It was surrounded by tall, dark pine trees and brushwood that was dry and old. The path came to a dead end there.
“Look, some branches have been snapped,” said Piak, pointing. “Do you think it might have been Sir Ristridin?”
“It could just as easily have been an animal,” said Hamar. “There are wild boars around here.”
“Oh, let’s go home, shall we?” Isadoro pleaded.
There was little else they could do than grant her wish. There was no chance of finding any sign of Ristridin here.
“And what if we had found something? What then?” said Tiuri to himself, as they rode back to Islan. “Ristridin has already left the forest.” He felt annoyed and dissatisfied.
The yellow flowers were starting to wilt and he wondered again what they could mean. Piak had not woven them into the bridle, because he surely would have said so. Hamar had not done it either; the very thought was ridiculous. So it must have been Isa. But why would she deny it?
Oh, of course, he realized, she’s embarrassed.
“Every flower has a meaning,” said Isadoro’s voice beside him, as if she had guessed his thoughts.
“A meaning?” asked Tiuri.
“In some cases, the names speak for themselves,” she replied. “Rue, heartsease, forget-me-not… For others, you need to know the language of the plants. Rosemary for remembrance, violet for modesty…”
“What about this one?” asked Tiuri.
“They’re primroses,” she said. “And primroses mean…” She looked right at him. Then she whispered, “I want to speak to you, alone.”
She urged on her horse and rode ahead of him towards the castle.
“So it was her!” said Tiuri to himself. He was about to chase after her, but thought better of it. She had said enough and apparently no longer wanted to ride with him. She had never ridden very closely beside him, even though she had allowed him to carry her.
Why did he still feel so uncertain?
It was only as they arrived at the gates of Islan that the answer came to him.
Isadoro was so scared of Ardanwen that she didn’t dare to approach the horse. So it could not have been her who wove the yellow flowers into the bridle!