She Walks in Beauty

Winter thawed into spring, and the first bluebells had woken in the forests of Dor-en-Ernil when the sun rose upon the morn of her leave-taking - a day of smiling tears and loving farewells. For a long while the princess stood on the threshold of her father's Hall in her wedding finery of white damask and saffron silk, bright-eyed with joyful pain. Tenderly, the Prince set the royal gold-work of Dol Amroth on his daughter's brow and held her close.

"May the Valar keep you my dearest child. May they keep you always."

Then, with a kiss and a trembling heart he let her go.

Drawing her mantle about her with a tremulous hand Finduilas turned from her father, the dark smoky hearth of her home and its time-dimmed tapestries to a soaring rose-domed sky still twinkling with stars. A single tear fell, then another, splashing on the glittering sapphire ring that bound her to her beloved. For the last time she passed through the great double doors of the Swan Prince's Hall, taking with her a delicate harp of silver wood, a most precious thing, for within it was the music of her soul and the sound of the sea. She never looked back, for the wise women said that a bride who gazes home-wards would taste nothing but sorrow.

Misty-eyed she followed the winding downward path to the ancient harbour where the ships waited, their bright bold pennants fluttering in the crisp sea-winds. And the folk who gathered there remembered for ever after how the Lady Finduilas, veiled in the golden light of the sun’s rising, walked away from her old life clad in the radiance and beauty of her youth; and it was so that she passed into song and memory.

At the tide's turning she sailed with the long-prowed galleys of the Swan Prince, taking the sea-road to a city of stone. There, her betrothed awaited her coming, and as the white strands of Dol Amroth vanished into the place where sea and sky became one, she wept for the grief of parting and for the happiness to come.

Author's note:

Throughout history princesses have left their homes to marry foreign princes and kings, and this little scene is in part inspired by such stories. The other part came perhaps from the fact that I was starting a very long flight and the idea for a travel-based story came to me literally as I was buckling my seat belt!  

One historical tale that sticks in my mind is the Han dynasty princess Zhaojun who journeyed to the steppes beyond the Great Wall to marry a nomad king. She brought with her a lute which kept her company on the journey north and during her lonely years of exile.

I enjoy connecting stories through objects associated with characters, so Finduilas's silver harp appears in one of my earlier stories "The Phrygian Flute," also in "A Captain of Gondor," and music is particularly linked with Finduilas in my Faramir-Denethor fics. The sapphire engagement ring first made its appearance in another old tale of mine "In the Forest Singing Sorrowless," and the title “She Walks in Beauty” was stolen from Lord Byron’s poem of the same name.