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Hearpwine was too caught up in his own joy to notice the distress in Maercwen’s voice and face. Looking past her to another well-wisher who cried out to him, he took another man’s hand in his own and spoke quickly to a third while the girl waited for an answer to her question with increasing anxiety. When finally Hearpwine turned his attention back to her he spoke through his grin while dashing the tears from his face with the back of his hand. “I am to be apprentice to Eorcyn, and heir to the title of Bard to the King! Do you hear that Mae! Someday I will stand before the Throne of the King and my song will fill the Hall to its Rafters!” He laughed like the ringing of a clear bell and swept Mae up in his arms, swinging her clear off her feet.
By the time he put her down again, Mae was breathless and becoming impatient. As Hearpwine turned away to speak with yet another well-wisher, she clasped him by the arm. “But why do you wear the coat of the Lady Éowyn?” she cried, and for the first time Hearpwine saw the tears of frustration starting from her eyes.
Those tears sent a chill to Hearpwine’s heart, for until that moment he had not realised how deeply the girl’s feelings had perhaps gone for him. Surely he had not done anything to lead her to think that he and she… But as he remembered the dancing of last night, and thought over his manner this morning as he had begged Aylwen to allow Mae to accompany him to the Hall; and his disturbance when they had thought she had been lost… A deep swell of shame came over his heart. He regarded Mae as a fair and happy lass, one whom he desired to look on, and whose looks he liked to draw himself. The sight of her bright eyes lighting up as he sang was one deeply to be desired, but beyond these trivialities his mind had not yet gone. He had been so caught up in his desire to become Bard that it had never occurred to him that his attentions might have been misunderstood by the girl… But still, there was no knowing what was in her heart, and perhaps things were just as they appeared: she had asked a question of him that he had not yet answered, and she was growing impatient with him for it.
He took Mae by the hand and led her away from the crowds so he could speak to her with greater attention. “The King has decided that it would not be best for there to be two Bards at the Hall throughout the year. Even though I am apprentice to Eorcyn, there can be only one Bard to sing the praises of the Rohirrim, and nobody wants there to be differences of opinion amongst the people of Edoras as to whom they would rather hear sing those praises! So I shall spend half the year in Ithilien with my Lady Éowyn, to whom I am now in service, and the other half of the year will I dwell in Meduseld, where I will hone my abilities under the strict tutelage of my new Master. Oh Mae!” he broke out once more, “is it not wonderful? Why this is better than my dreams of winning the Contest! Now I can spend years in travelling the length of Rohan and Gondor, seeing the peoples and places I have only dreamed of, learning the songs of all the lands about us, and then, when I am mature and growing stiff in my bones, I can settle myself here and sing of these things to my King until either he or I is laid in our tomb.”
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