I borrow characters and setting from Tolkien, but they are his, not mine. I gain only the enriched imaginative life I assume he wanted me to gain.

Thank you, Nilmandra, for beta reading this for me.

*******

7.  More News

 “I have considered my advice to the settlement Elves, Adar, and I cannot understand why you are so angry.  I made no promises on your behalf, but only told them what any sensible person would have:  They endanger their families by staying where they are and therefore should move somewhere safer.  I am sorry that you disapprove of my words, but I am not sorry for the words themselves.”

With an exclamation of disgust, Thranduil flung the letter from Eilian onto his desk.  Apparently Eilian thought of himself as a “sensible person,” but sometimes he had no more sense than Sinnarn.  Thranduil had been negotiating with the settlement Elves for nearly a month now, carefully coaxing them into seeing the impossibility of the location to which they were proposing to move. During the course of these negotiations, it had become clear that they had been insulted by Eilian’s manner toward them and that their pique over his behavior was one of the things keeping them from accepting Thranduil’s advice. Yet Eilian believed or claimed to believe that the settlement Elves had seen him as simply a private individual with an opinion on where they should live.

Thranduil had no patience with such obtuseness.  If an apology from Eilian would encourage them to move someplace closer to Thranduil’s stronghold, then Thranduil was willing to force Eilian into making it.  Moreover, he intended to extract a promise from Eilian that he would stay out of such matters in the future.  Grimly, he reached for the letter again, intending to read it through before he wrote to his defiant son.

A knock sounded on the door, and Ithilden entered and then hesitated when he saw the look on Thranduil’s face. “Is something the matter?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes, something is the matter,” Thranduil exclaimed.  “Your brother claims to believe that he was within his rights to advise Sólith and his fellow settlers.”

Ithilden approached the desk.  “Eilian’s advice was not bad, so far as it went,” he observed mildly.

“He had no right to be giving advice at all!  Moreover, he was apparently rude.” Thranduil waved Ithilden into a chair and then sat for a moment rubbing his temples.  Realizing that Ithilden was holding some sort of dispatch, he sighed and set his anger at Eilian aside for a moment.  “Have you something to discuss with me?”

Ithilden grimaced.  “Yes, and you are not going to like it much either.  I have received a message from the captain of the guard at Dale.”

“What is it?”  While Thrandiul’s people traded with some frequency with the Men of Esgaroth, they had far fewer dealings with the Men of Dale, who dealt primarily with the Dwarves who had remained in Erebor when Thorin led most of his people to the Grey Mountains.  A score or so years ago, Thranduil had bought weaponry from them, but his own smiths had now trained enough apprentices that he no longer had need to deal with the Dwarves, whom he had never completely trusted.

“You will remember that one of Todith’s patrols found some dwarves in the forest a few weeks back,” said Ithilden. Thranduil nodded. He did, indeed, remember.  In addition to Todith’s report on the meeting, Thranduil had had a letter from Legolas describing it.  He smiled slightly to himself at the memory of his youngest son’s excitement over his first patrol and the encounter with the Dwarves.

“You will also remember that the Dwarves hinted they had seen something threatening in the wood but could not be persuaded to tell what it was,” Ithilden went on.  “They apparently did tell their kin in Erebor what they had seen, and the Dwarves eventually told the Men of Dale, who have passed the information along to me.”  Thranduil’s complete attention was now on Ithilden, for his tone was serious.  “The Dwarves from the Grey Mountains had run into a small party of Orcs,” Ithilden told him, his face grim. “And they apparently saw signs of more.  They thought that the Orcs might be from Mount Gundabad and that they were scouting along our borders and those of the Dwarves and Men.”

Thranduil sat immobile for a moment, scarcely able to believe what his son was telling him.  “Do you mean to say that the Dwarves have known for weeks that there are Orcs in the woods north of us, and they have not troubled to tell us?” he finally hissed.  Ithilden nodded unhappily.  Thranduil sat back in his chair, his hands gripping its arms.  “I presume you mean to have Eilian hunt for them?”

“Yes,” Ithilden answered.  “He has been uneasy all along about the Warg his patrol found.  I probably should have let him try to find where it came from, but I did not want to leave the northern border without its regular patrols.”  He looked unhappy about what had probably seemed a sensible decision at the time.

Thranduil grimaced. An immediate hunt for the Orcs would probably have had more chance of success, but nothing could be done about that now.  He reflected for a moment, and then decided that he needed to have Eilian’s apology to the settlers even if he was hunting Orcs. The letter of apology would not take more than a few moments to write, he thought irritably.  Indeed, it should have been written already.  He would do as he usually did and let Ithilden deal with the military side of things while he managed those connected to governing his people.

“Go and write the dispatch,” he directed.  “I will also have a letter to go to Eilian.  I will send it to you as soon as I have finished it.” 

Ithilden nodded and rose.  “By your leave,” he said and then withdrew, as Thranduil reached for parchment and pen.

***

“I expect you to send an apology to the settlers when Ithilden’s messenger returns.  Moreover, I charge you not to repeat this offense, Eilian.  I will not have you interfering in matters that you do not understand and whose satisfactory completion you can only hinder.  It pains me to be wroth with you, my son, and I ask you to mend this matter and sign myself, as always, your loving Adar.”

Eilian’s eyes narrowed as he read his father’s letter.  I will be hanged if I will apologize, he thought angrily. I have nothing to apologize for.  He tossed the letter onto the table and reached for Ithilden’s dispatch instead.  Still fuming, he tore the dispatch open.  Because Ithilden expected him to carry out the routine business of the northern Border Patrol without guidance, this was the first dispatch he had received from his brother since his patrol had killed the Warg.  Distracted by his anger, he started to skim it and then suddenly came to attention.

Orcs had been spotted in the woods north of here, and Ithilden was sending his patrol to hunt for them.

For a moment, he sat still with his heart pounding. Then he jumped to his feet and climbed rapidly down from his flet.  “Lómór!” he summoned his lieutenant, who was coming from the area in which they kept their horses.

“Yes, Captain?” Lómór trotted up to him.

As quickly as he could, Eilian explained the situation to him. “We need to keep two small patrols doing routine guard duty east and west from here,” Eilian finished, “and get the rest of us ready to start searching immediately for signs of Orcs.  I want us ready to move within an hour.”

Lómór blinked. “The afternoon is half gone,” he said. “Would it not be better to wait until morning?”

“No, it would not,” Eilian said firmly. “This search has been delayed enough as it is.  The groups that are out on patrol duty right now will continue the routine work. Choose two people to stay here and guard the camp and tell them what has happened. Tell them to package the dried food for those of us going on the hunt, and tell everyone else to pack their gear. We will start our search at the stream where we killed the Warg.”

Lómór nodded and started moving briskly through the camp, issuing orders.  Warriors scattered to gather belongings and prepare for departure. When Eilian turned to go back to his flet for his own pack, however, he found his Ithilden’s messenger waiting for him.  “The patrol is leaving, my lord?” he asked.

Eilian nodded and kept walking.  “You may go,” he said. “I have nothing to send with you.”

“My lord,” the messenger hurried along beside him, “the king directed me to bring a message from you when I returned.”

Eilian turned to look at him with a frown.  The messenger looked apologetic but showed no sign of giving way.  “I have nothing to send,” Eilian repeated in exasperation. He had neither the time nor the energy to deal with an irate Thranduil just now. “You may tell the king that, at the moment, all of my attention is given to tracking Orcs and eliminating them from the northern part of his woods.”  The messenger hesitated for a moment and then, reluctantly, bowed and turned to start toward his horse. Eilian briefly watched him go and then climbed to his flet and began stuffing clothes into his pack.   

***

Annael shifted his weight slightly.  He had been guarding the Great Doors of the king’s stronghold all day, and he was looking forward to going home to eat his mother’s cooking before going to visit Beliniel.  He smiled slightly to himself as he thought of Beliniel, who would be full of comic tales about the elflings she taught.  On a warm summer night such as this one promised to be, they would sit on the bench outside her family’s cottage with his arm around her and her head nestled in the hollow space of his shoulder.

His heart lifted at the thought of what the evening held.  Palace guard duty was not difficult, but it was tedious, and to Annael, who had grown up running in and out of these doors with Legolas, guarding them still felt strange.  He remembered the time that he and Legolas and another elfling had filled pigs’ bladders with water and thrown them at the guards standing where he now stood.  Thranduil had been livid with Legolas, and even his own usually understanding father had been ready to skin him alive.  Siondel had been a lieutenant in the Home Guard then and thus one of the officers in command of the soaked warriors.

At the thought of his dead father, he paused for a moment, probing gently at the sorrow that always lay just under the surface of his mind.  His grief was easing, he knew, and occasionally he thought he could reach through it and again feel his father’s presence in the tie that bound all Elven parents and children, but usually his sense of loss was too strong.

And he knew that his mother’s sorrow still left her helpless at times.  He had heard her crying in the night, and he worried about her.  Although he was deeply grateful for the friends and neighbors who visited her daily, he was beginning to think that, rather than postponing their betrothal, he and Beliniel should go ahead and announce it soon.  His mother would like having Beliniel living in the cottage once they wed, and then, perhaps, there would be elflings for her to love and by whom she would be loved in return.  A little self-consciously, he smiled to himself at the daydream he was spinning.

Suddenly, he shoved daydreams aside and came to attention, for the king had just emerged from the path that led to the stables and was striding up the steps, having obviously just returned from riding, an exercise he took in the late afternoon of most days.  Today his clothes looked wet from the waist down, Annael noted in surprise, and wondered what could have befallen him.

Over the years, Annael had spent enough time with Legolas to have seen Thranduil acting as a father, and not just as a king.  Given the erratic habits of youth, that meant that he had seen Thranduil angry as well as affectionate, but he knew that he was far less in awe of the king than most of his fellow warriors were.  And yet, there was something about Thranduil that never let one forget entirely that he was king of the Woodland Realm and sometimes seemed to keep it safe by the sheer power of his forceful personality.  Annael had always been shocked when he heard Legolas speak impudently to the king, and he had never relaxed entirely in his liege’s presence.

Thranduil almost always spoke to Annael when he saw him on duty, and today was no exception.  When he caught sight of Annael, he paused before going into the palace. “I had a letter from Legolas today, Annael,” he said. “Did he write to you too?”

“Yes, my lord,” Annael smiled. His letter had come this morning, probably with the same batch of dispatches that had carried the king’s.  “He seems to have done well against the spiders, although it sounds as if he gave Beliond quite a scare.”

The king’s eyes narrowed abruptly, and after a moment, he cautiously asked, “You think he did well then?”

Annael was suddenly uncertain.  It occurred to him that Beliond might have said something that worried the king, and Annael hastened to reassure him. “Of course, Beliond does not know yet how willing Legolas is to learn from his mistakes, especially those that affect his performance in battle.  Legolas will never again lose track of an enemy’s location. Beliond will realize that the next time they engage the enemy.”

For a moment, Thranduil stood silent and rigid.  “Lose track of an enemy’s location,” he repeated woodenly.  Annael was briefly puzzled and then, in a blinding and exceedingly unwelcome realization, he was struck by the horrible certainty that Legolas had not told his father about what had happened in the spider battle.

I should have guessed, he thought in dismay.  Annael knew that he was as close to Legolas as was anyone outside Legolas’s family, but he also knew that he would never really understand what it was like to be the son of the king.  Annael’s parents had always told him that they would be happy if he did his best, but Thranduil had necessarily demanded success from all three of his sons.  To some degree, the well being of the Realm depended on their competence.

And Legolas’s performance had always been scrutinized not only by his father, but also by everyone else around him.  Moreover, in Thranduil, the concerns of a parent and the power of a ruler were combined for Legolas.  His father had absolute control over his life in a way that Annael could not even imagine.  So Legolas had often tried to protect himself from pressure that sometimes felt overwhelming by keeping news from Thranduil that Annael would have told his own parents quite openly.  His performance in his first battle was apparently one of those things that Legolas had decided it was better that his father not know.

Now Thranduil seemed to pull himself together.  “Give your naneth my best wishes, Annael,” he said and turned to start through the doors.  Then he paused and signaled to an attendant.  “Send for Lord Ithilden,” Annael heard him snap. “Tell him that I wish to see him in my office immediately.” The attendant bowed and hurried down the steps and off toward the training fields, and Thranduil swept into the palace and disappeared in the direction of the royal family’s private quarters.

Annael stood scanning the area in front of him as he was supposed to do when on guard duty.  He would write to Legolas and tell him what had happened and apologize, he thought unhappily.  He felt a moment’s deep gratitude that he was just a warrior standing tedious guard duty and not the youngest son of the king.  And then Ithilden came hurrying up the steps and disappeared into the palace, and Annael amended his gratitude to include the fact that he was not any of the king’s sons.

***

Ithilden entered Thranduil’s office to find his father seated behind his desk, apparently doing nothing.  The sight was so unusual that he paused just inside the doorway. Then his father’s gaze came to bear on him, and he flinched slightly. Thranduil was in a fury and apparently this time he was the target.  “Did you want to see me, Adar?” he asked cautiously.

For a moment more, Thranduil sat regarding Ithilden, standing in front of his desk.  “Tell me about Legolas’s performance in fighting spiders,” he finally commanded.

So that is it, Ithilden thought resignedly.  I should have known that he would hear eventually.  I suppose Beliond told him.  He took a step toward the desk. “I told you that Todith’s patrol went after the spiders in the area and that Todith is satisfied they have gotten rid of them.  And you know that Legolas is unharmed. I would have told you otherwise.”

“That is not what I mean and you know it,” Thranduil said sharply.  “I want to know if Legolas lost track of where a spider was, and I also want to know if his doing so is a sign he should be in the Home Guard and not in the Border Patrol.”   Thranduil had never liked the idea of Legolas being assigned to Todith’s patrol rather than to the Home Guard where new warriors usually spent time gaining experience.  But the novice masters had recommended the more dangerous Border Patrol precisely because they thought Legolas might develop better as a warrior away from the all seeing eyes of his family.

“Captains do not usually send me descriptions of the performance of individual warriors,” Ithilden said carefully.

Thranduil scanned Ithilden’s face, and his eyes narrowed.  “But he did send you a description of how Legolas had done,” he declared.

Ithilden sighed. “Yes, he did,” he admitted.  “I suppose he thought I would want to know because it was Legolas.  I have told him not to do so again.”

“I do want to know,” Thranduil declared, “and I am wroth with you for not telling me.”

“I do not ordinarily report on the actions of new warriors to their families,” Ithilden said, his own irritation beginning to grow.  “And the whole reason for sending Legolas to the Border Patrol was to let him be on his own without our constant interference.”

Thranduil slammed his hand down on the desk.  “It is not interference to be concerned for my son’s safety, especially when he has been given an assignment more dangerous than that given to other new warriors. Now tell me what Todith told you.”

Ithilden drew a deep, calming breath and reined in his own temper.  Quarreling with his father was a losing proposition.  He began to give Thranduil the details for which he was pressing.

***

Tired beyond what he should have been, Ithilden approached his chambers.  He had managed to convince his father to leave Legolas where he was, but it had been a near thing, and Thranduil was still angry with him for having withheld the information about Legolas and the spider.  Experience told him that his father would recover his temper eventually, but in the meantime, their encounters would probably be tense.

With a feeling of relief, he entered his chambers, happy to be with his own small family.  Alfirin rose from her seat at her loom and came to kiss him.  “You are wearing yourself out again,” she scolded gently.  “Go and bathe and then come back to have some wine with me before evening meal.”

Ithilden smiled at her and kissed her again.  His evening looked as if it would be considerably better than his day had been. He turned to follow his wife’s instructions and saw an uncharacteristically subdued Sinnarn, sitting on the floor, playing with the set of carved animals that Alfirin’s father had made for him.  “What is the matter, little one?” he asked, scooping the child into his arms and kissing him too. “You look as if you have had a worse day than I did.”  Sinnarn peeked over Ithilden’s shoulder to look at his mother.

“Nothing has happened that you need to worry about,” Alfirin said firmly. “Go and bathe.”  She took Sinnarn from his arms, and the child stuck his lower lip out in a pout.  Ithilden raised an eyebrow, for Sinnarn seldom sulked, but he decided to let Alfirin manage their son while he soaked in a tub and let the day’s cares drain away in the hot water.

Half an hour later, he was bathed, dressed in clean clothes, and feeling much better.  He was on his way to the sitting room and passing the door to Sinnarn’s chamber when he recalled his son’s unhappy mood.   During the last week, he had been reading a book of tales to Sinnarn, and he thought that his son might brighten at the idea of being held on his lap and read to.  He entered Sinnarn’s room, picked up the book from the table near the bed, and was turning to leave when he caught sight of clothes spread on a drying rack in one corner of the room.  One of Sinnarn’s tunics and a pair of his leggings were draped over the rack, and more surprisingly, one of Alfirin’s gowns and a pair of her stockings were there as well.  Ithilden approached curiously, to find that his wife’s skirt was wet halfway up its length.  Puzzled, he turned to go to the sitting room.

Alfirin was waiting for him with a glass of wine in hand.  “How did your dress and Sinnarn’s clothes get so wet?” he asked, taking the wine and settling gratefully into one of the comfortable chairs in front of the fireplace.  She hesitated, and suddenly he noticed the tension in her face.  “What is it?” he asked sharply.  “What happened?”

Alfirin made a face.  “You will only get upset if I tell you.”

“Tell me anyway,” he demanded, increasingly annoyed at having information withheld.

“I went swimming,” Sinnarn suddenly put in from his place on the floor among his animals.  “I like to swim.”  His tone was defiant, and his mother frowned reprovingly at him.

“You will not go swimming alone again,” she declared. “If you do, you will not be allowed to swim at all.”

“He went swimming alone?” Ithilden asked in alarm. “What do you mean?”

Alfirin sighed and came to sit in the chair across from him.  “Sinnarn and I were out picking flowers this afternoon.  We were not far from the pool where the males swim. We could hear younglings laughing and splashing about.  Sinnarn asked to swim, but I told him not today.  Then when I had my back turned, he went off to the pool by himself.”

Ithilden’s heart stopped, and he turned a fierce gaze on his small son.  “I never want to hear that you have disobeyed Nana like that again, Sinnarn.  Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” muttered Sinnarn, scowling and looking so much like Eilian that Ithilden groaned aloud.

“Fortunately, your adar was riding by just as Sinnarn jumped from the rocks into the pool,” Alfirin went on, increasing Ithilden’s dismay.  “He waded in and was pulling him out when I arrived.  I did not really need to go into the pool too, I suppose, but I could not stop myself.”

“You mean to say that Adar knew about this when I talked to him a little while ago?” Ithilden asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Alfirin said.

Ithilden frowned at her. “And neither one of you was going to tell me.”

“You have enough to worry about,” Alfirin said defensively, “and no harm had been done after all.”

Ithilden felt his anger rising again.  “I will not be deceived like this, Alfirin,” he declared heatedly.  “If something happens to our son, I want to know about it.”

She bit her lip.  “There is no need to be angry,” she said with dignity. “Your adar and I were trying to make things easier for you, not to deceive you.”

Abruptly, his anger ebbed.  “I know you meant well,” he conceded, “but I do not like the idea of someone else deciding what I should or should not know about my son.”  And suddenly, he felt the irony of his position.  He had just spent half an hour telling his father that he was better off not knowing everything that was happening to Legolas.  But Legolas is not an elfling, he reminded himself.  And Thranduil might profit from having the irony of his own position pointed out to him:  He wanted to know all about Legolas but was willing to shelter Ithilden from news about Sinnarn.  He smiled to himself with some satisfaction.  He might enjoy pointing that out to Thranduil, he thought.

A small hand tugged on his sleeve.  “Will you read to me, Ada?” Sinnarn asked.

Ithilden gathered the child in his lap. “I will,” he said, “but first you must promise me that you will not swim by yourself again.”

Sinnarn wiggled impatiently. “I already promised Nana,” he declared.  “Read!”

“Swimming by yourself is dangerous,” Ithilden said firmly.  “I love you far too much to let you put yourself in danger again, so you must promise me as well as Nana.”

“I promise,” Sinnarn said, looking somewhat sobered by his father’s seriousness.  Ithilden took up the book and began searching for the place where they had left off the evening before.  Alfirin smiled at him, apparently happy that his temper seemed to have eased.  Then she walked off down the hallway, presumably to dress for evening meal.

As he settled back in the chair with Sinnarn in his arms, it suddenly occurred to Ithilden that Alfirin had waded into the males’ pool to get Sinnarn.  He paused, considered, and suddenly smiled. He would ask her for a full report later, he thought, after they were in the privacy of their own bedchamber.  He was reasonably sure he could make her blush, although she might be more brazen than he thought. In either case, the discussion might lead to more pleasant diversions.  He found his place in the book and began to read to his son.

***