Content. Dauntless. Between those two words, Robird could feel his fate being sealed as he walked homewards under the westering sun. Before he had met the Oak King and his daughter, he could have been content with his lot. Now, he knew that he had no choice but trying for dauntlessness.

Next day, he left home early, taking his time to study the oaks along the way carefully. One or two he thought might be the dancer that he had seen in the Princess. But somehow, might be didn't seem enough. He was looking for certainty. Of that, he harboured no doubt - he would know when he found her.

Homewards, he took the cart track instead, thinking that she might be found along that. Ambling along at the pace of the old and infirm, he let his gaze roam the woods as far as it could reach. It was late and they were getting worried for him at home when at last he got there, none the wiser for his time.

The day after that, he went three turns around each of the might-be oaks, just to make sure none of them was her. Of course they weren't. At work, building a stone wall for the cattle, he was so distracted that he didn't even notice the landlord's daughter stopping just beside him on her horse. Not until she let her steed bump into him and trotted away laughing as he keeled over. Then he just picked himself up, scratched his head as he peered absently at her and went back to work with hands and mind.

About a month was the time he had until midwinter's eve. It felt like ample time, but then for all he knew, her tree could be anywhere in the forest. A month was nowhere near sufficient time to search all that expanse for her, and he couldn't spare the time from labour. A little time on the way there and home was all he could pilfer, making haste on the way, leaving a little early and returning a little late. So he had better use it wisely.

Somehow he felt sure that it would be possible for him to find her. Surely she wouldn't set him am impossible task? Only if she wanted to be rid of him for certain. It has not seemed so.

When the sun began to think of retiring for the night and the workday ended, his plan was laid. He brought a handful of light brown mud from one of the new ditches, then marked an oak near the beginning of the path. From there, he walked away from the path, looking briefly but carefully at all the oaks within sight. Every fifth or so he marked with a splash of mud. When he had gone as far as he thought he could afford, he turned back to the path only a little further ahead, looking and marking the oaks in the same fashion.

When he returned to the path, very little was left of daylight, but he knew the way in the dark. Passing by the hill, he quietly bid the Majesty sweet dreams and sped along, again returning home late.

Next morning he repeated the procedure, from the other direction, on the other side. This way, he estimated that he would have searched all the forest along the path, between home and the manor, for at least five furlongs on either side. Homage days he would spend searching from the Oak King's hill and outward.

Still he couldn't count on finding her. Wul's words echoed in his ears. An acorn could sprout far from its mother - or father - tree, courtesy of squirrels. And a nagging doubt whispered to him that in the stories, it wasn't plain dogged methodical searching that won the prize, but a stroke of luck or wit, or a heroic or selfless deed.

He felt neither lucky not witty, and the opportunity for deeds of the required sort seemed scarce. Then again, he wasn't in a story, was he? So until something else came up, he just kept up his search.

As autumn drudged on towards winter, a curious mud epidemic seemed to afflict the oaks along the path and around the hill. None of them bore any resemblance to the dancing oak princess under the hill - or in Robird's dream, though he insisted to himself that it had been real.

And as time shrank before midwinter, so did his anxiety grow. The diminishing daylight shortened the work-day at the manor, but Robird's day was not done at that. He took to carrying brands that he made secretly in the forest, like Wul had taught him, hiding them near the end of the path along with his flint and tinder. When his family worried that he came home so long after daylight, he shrugged it off with a /n embarrassed laugh.

"I just like it in the forest in the dusk, it's so peaceful," he'd say. "I know the way so well after walking it all these times, I won't get lost." And, knowing him, they believed him, though his brothers had a feeling that it wasn't the whole story.

They were not the only ones, either. One day, when midwinter was less than two weeks away, Robird suddenly found that he had company as he sat down for his mid-day meal, a rather bland stew and crude bread brought from the manor's kitchen.

He was sitting on the unfinished stone wall they were working on, absently spooning up the stew with the bread and thinking about how much forest he had left to explore and whether he had missed the princess' tree, when a voice intruded on his worries.

"So who is it?"

It was Ebery, one of the elder workers and the one who directed the work on this section of the wall. He was a heavy-set man with small eyes, a big nose and a rare, feral grin. Along with his deep and coarse voice, the impression was that of a wild boar in human guise, but Robird knew that his heart was warm underneath the bristles. Nevertheless he was startled, for he had not heard the man seating himself next to him.

"Who's who?" he asked, perplexed.

Ebery grunted. "Whoever you're moping for," he said. "No use denying it. I've seen the look before. You never use to be chatty but you used to talk once in a while, though much of it never made sense to me. Now you're as quiet as a mole." He scratched his beard with a rasping noise. "No complaints, mind you. But I can tell your heart isn't in your work anymore, and that bothers me. Not that you do a bad job," he added hastily, noticing that Robird was about to object, "but you used to put in more than your share of work and we all appreciated that, you being young and strong and full of life." 

He looked Robird straight in the eye now, his small eyes searching. "Nowadays you do as much as you ought to and no more. I can't ask more than that. I'm just wondering if you'll keep dropping off and that would spell trouble." 

He looked away, and then, unexpectedly, leant over and gave Robird a firm and companionable shoulder nudge. "Besides, I like you. You're a good lad. Rather not see you in trouble. So I'm wondering what - or who - is eating you. "

Mind racing, Robird cast about for someone he could credibly be mooning for, as Ebery put it. An oak princess wouldn't do at all. Being from the same village, the man would know exactly which young maidens were eligible. Or perhaps he should pin it on someone out of reach? Of course, the landlord's daughter! Hopeless love, that was the key.

"It obviously ain't the landlord's daughter," Ebery said at that moment, apparently done waiting, and Robird bit his tongue. "You used to gawk at her as much as any of us, pretty little teaser that she is. But you've barely noticed her of late." He chuckled. "Right pissed her off I'd say, vain little minx that she is. I know you're a lot up at the hunter's, so I guess his daughter could be the one. Wouldn't be surprised if she had an eye up for you. Ylwi, right?"

Rainwish, Robird thought and blushed. Countless times they had played at being a couple, never once had he thought of the possibility of actually courting her. Remembering their pretended wedding ceremony of a few weeks ago, he tried to keep himself from cringing. What if she... No, he stopped the thought short at that, with a feeling that it would come back to haunt him before sleep.

Ebery, oblivious to the turmoil he caused - or possibly all too aware but too tactful to show it - continued. "Of course, there's a few other likely lasses I could name. Doesn't matter, I don't expect you to tell. Just wanted to give you a piece of advice. Been in your shoes too, you know. I mean, what man hasn't?"

He sighed,  turning his face towards Robird and pointing at it. "At least you're better off than I was in one respect. I didn't look much better than this at your age. Never thought any lass would look twice at me. Know what my old pa did, bless his soul? Taught me to dance, he did!" He nodded and grinned, and this close, Robird could see that behind the appearance of something between a leer and a sneer, the smile carried genuine affection. "He was the light-footedest dancer for a day's walk and he taught me all he knew. All I can tell you, lad, is that there's more than one way to win a heart. And also that the heart you hope to win isn't always the one that beats in tune with yours."

Now he shook his head and gazed wistfully skywards, as if watching scenes from his youth played out on the wispy clouds tumbling slowly past the sun. "If I'd married the lass I was mooning for, I'd have been one unhappy bastard by now. Nothing wrong with her as such," he said with a sideward glance, not wanting to offend the object of the young worker's desire, "she's happy as she is and so am I. Just saying, at your age you feel as if 'tis a matter of life or death if you don't get her. But it ain't. Paying attention to what's going on with the rest of your life, however, is going to do you a whole lot of good."

He rose, patting Robird's shoulder. "Heed me or not, I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Don't slip any more than you do at work and you'll be fine. Finish you meal now, we'll soon get back to work."

For the remainder of the working day, while Robird was still unusually quiet, he paid greater heed to his work, earning himself a nod of approval from Ebery before parting. He seached a new stretch of the woods as conscientiously as ever, marking the oaks with daubs of mud. But his thoughts were elsewhere, now dancing around the worrying implications of Ebery's words about Ylwi, now fretting about the possible consequences of pissing off  the landlord's daughter, now bashing himself over being so obvious in his love woes and agonising over how to be less so.

Sleep was long in the coming that night, and when at last it claimed him, it brought strange dreams. He was climbing an oak, chasing an elusive figure up, always up and around the great trunk. Always just a little too high for him, the figure looked down at him now with the face of the oak princess, now with Ylwi's, now with that of the landlord's daughter, ever with the same teasing laugh. When he reached the top, no one was there but there grew a great acorn, which he gripped with the claws of his feet, for he was now a bird who spread his wings and flew. Out he sped over a neverending canopy of huge oaks leaves, reaching up like fingers to catch him while the weight of the acorn dragged him down so that it was all he could do not to be caught. And all the while, he cried a name again and again - Eyrdis, Eyrdis! - but no answer came.

When he woke up, that name was still ringing in his ears. Rolling out of bed with a groan, he knew that it was the name he would give to the Oak Princess. If he could find her. His head buzzing with to little sleep and to much doubt, he sat on the edge of his bed, rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands.

"Eyrdis," he whispered into the muffling flesh, hoping it would be enough to keep his family from hearing, rousing themselves around him. "I'll find you yet," he added even more quietly, trying to convince himself before rising to another day.