Implementation

Imladris woke to a perfect spring morning.  The waterfalls were singing with the results of the recent rains, sending little rainbows into the air as the spray caught the sunlight.  The sky was a clear perfect blue, setting off the bright greens of the new leaves, even as it was echoed by the bluebells perfuming the ground beneath the trees. 

Lord Elrond turned to his wife as they dressed for the day. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘do I have the feeling that some dreadful doom is hanging over us today?  There seems to be an anticipation of disaster in the air.’

Celebrian tilted her silver head to one side and drew a deep breath, closing her eyes as she listened.  ‘I can’t feel anything,’ she said. ‘Everything seems to be as normal.’

‘H’mm,’ he replied. ‘If the twins were here – and fifty years younger – I’d know what I suspected, but - ,’ he shrugged, ‘they’re neither, so it’s probably nothing.’

His confidence might have been shattered had he been able to perceive just what his daughter was doing.

Arwen had already set her plans in motion the previous evening.  First she had sneaked into the storeroom and stolen a large honeycomb. Once it was wrapped in a pillowcase, she had opened the door of the cupboard where Mothwen stored the best linen and stretched as high as she could to tuck it centrally under a pile of similar objects. She stood back and looked.  Good.  It was unnoticeable and would stay that way until the sticky honey soaked through the fabric and began to drip down on the fabrics below.

Then she had made her way back to the kitchens, at their quietest after the evening meal had been cleared up and before the bakers arrived in the early morning.  She slipped over to Iavas’s normal working area and opened the crock of flour.  She removed a packet from her pocket and, using a spoon, stirred its powdery contents into the surface layer. Perfect, she thought, before leaving as quietly as she had come. It was just a shame that she wouldn’t be there to see Iavas’s reaction after she had dipped her hands in the mixture and added moisture.

In the Hall of Fire she had ensured that she was in the right position to be available when her mother had thanked Dulin for yet another of his endless songs praising her beauty and comparing her to moonlight, so that she could be sent to obtain a goblet of wine to soothe his throat.  It had been easy to add the contents of the other packet she had secreted and stir it into the deep red liquid.  Dulin had accepted it gratefully and drank it in his usual over-dramatic manner, saluting her mother before withdrawing – presumably to write some more bad poetry. Arwen had eyed him with dislike. He made her mother look ridiculous. It was no wonder Elladan and Elrohir teased him so much: he deserved it.

Arwen retired to bed to refine her remaining schemes, getting up bright and early to implement them, going first to the stables where she sprinkled itching powder onto the brushes used by the grumpy groom who had aroused her wrath, before returning to the main buildings.

She waited to be sure that Erestor had passed along the corridor on his way to breakfast, then slipped into his office to place a note conspicuously on the table. She inspected it critically. Yes, even at a second glance the writing looked like her father’s.  She didn’t think that Erestor would question it. She smiled and departed as quietly as she had come.

Ten minutes later, she joined her parents in their private rooms and sat down at the table, accepting a bowl of milky porridge from her mother.

‘Good morning, ada and naneth,’ she said cheerfully.  ‘It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it?’

Her mother smiled. ‘And what are you planning on doing after your lessons today, sweetheart?’ she asked. 

Thinking that this question was definitely best left unanswered, Arwen deftly turned the subject. ‘Do you know when Elladan and Elrohir are due home?’ she asked hopefully.

Celebrian turned her silvery-blue eyes towards her. ‘Are you missing your brothers, my dear?’

Arwen nodded.  ‘It’s not the same around here when they are away,’ she said sadly.

Elrond looked at her and smiled. ‘That is not always a bad thing, Arwen,’ he said. ‘It is, for example, usually much more peaceful. And it also gives us the opportunity of realising how much more pleasant it is to have them home.’

His daughter returned his smile sweetly. ‘Maybe today will not be as peaceful as you hope,’ she thought as she looked down at her bowl.

***

The apparent serenity of the early morning lulled Elrond into a false sense of security and his concern diminished as the hours passed.  Consequently he was caught unawares when the noise of hard-ridden horses swept up to him, together with the sound of urgent voices.  He leapt to his feet – in his long experience, such arrivals meant that his healing skills would be needed and needed quickly.

He hurried down to the courtyard, his robes billowing out behind him. He only hoped he would not be too late.

His heart contracted when he saw his sons, tired and bloodstained, in the middle of a group of Imladris’s guards. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘It was an accident, my lord,’ one of the older guards told him. ‘There was a landslip and Lord Elladan fell.  His brother did not wait for aid, but leapt straight down to see what he could do to help. We organised a planned lift to get them both back to safety.’ He looked at the twins. ‘It looks a lot worse than it is.  Scalp wounds do bleed a lot.’ He hesitated. ‘I am afraid the horse was killed.’

‘Better the horse than my son,’ Elrond replied philosophically, although, in truth, he regretted the unnecessary death of any living creature. ‘Was anyone else hurt?’

At the shake of the guard’s head, the lord of Imladris went over to his sons to insist that they follow him to the infirmary to have their injuries inspected.

The infirmary, he found, once his initial worry had been relieved, was unexpectedly busy.  As he bathed the wound on Elladan’s head and watched Sirith tend Elrohir’s scrapes, part of his attention was diverted to the others receiving care.

He recognised Dulin, of course; the young librarian was excessively fond of treating them all to the sound of his voice, while he had apparently failed as yet to realise that his talent lay in playing rather than composing.  He was ghost-white, his dark hair limp on the pillow behind him as he held his belly, groaning softly.

The groom who tended the family’s mounts, Ninniach, was also clutching at parts of his anatomy and he seemed less than happy as he was handed ice-packs to reduce the swelling.  Elrond frowned.  He accepted that, when in pain, people tended to use strong language, but he could not feel that the words coming from the mouth of the suffering elf were necessary to his recovery. He would have to have a word with him. He really did not want to have him using expressions like that in front of Arwen.

One of the cooks was over by the wash basins, her hands apparently covered in blood. Elrond would have thought that a wound that severe would have merited the attention of a more senior healer treating it with considerably more concern, so probably not all was as it seemed.  His eyes narrowed in suspicion as his mind returned to his sons.

‘What is going on here?’ he asked Sirith.

***

Erestor was tired of calling for help.  He had complied with Elrond’s rather strange request to take the scrolls relating to its design to the old ice-house by the pond. He had even tolerated the mud he had been forced to pick his way through and managed to keep his robes relatively clean, but he had not expected the nudge from behind when he had been standing in his slippery boots at the top of the steps.  Even as he overbalanced, he had cursed himself for an idiot.  Of course this could only be yet another of Glorfindel’s attempts to make him look a fool.  He had expected the door to close, leaving him to roll in malodorous filth, and he had not been disappointed.

As soon as he found his feet he had felt his way back to the top of the stairway through the thick darkness, but of course the thick slab of wood had been barred.  He kicked it, but only succeeded in hurting his foot, so that his rarely-used expertise in dwarvish curses became even more anguished.

He limped down the steps to make a circuit of his prison, in the hope of finding some possible method of escape.  He was not surprised to find that the walls seemed to be solid and the only other entrance firmly bolted.  Squelching his way back across the muddy floor, he sat down on the stairs to think.

He knew that his confinement would not last indefinitely.  He was also certain that his nemesis would ensure that he would be released in the most embarrassing way possible.  He began to spin schemes that might make the golden one suffer an equally ignominious incarceration.

***

Glorfindel had himself noticed something slightly unusual about the morning and he was beginning to suspect that somebody was pulling strings.  Unfortunately, his automatic assumption was that someone, probably Erestor, was attempting to catch him out, as part of their endless game of trick and counter-trick.  Consequently, when Arwen approached him during her lesson break, he suspected nothing.

‘Good morning, Arwen,’ he said pleasantly.

‘Have you seen Erestor today?’ she asked him.  ‘Adar asked me to give him a message, but he seems to have disappeared.  He is not in his office, and there are some rather peculiar papers on his desk.’

The tall elf stood for a moment, a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘I am sure there is nothing to worry about, poppet,’ he said. ‘I will investigate the matter for you.’

‘Thank you, Glorfindel,’ she replied gratefully.  ‘Here is the message.  I must get back to my lessons.’

Glorfindel failed to observe the look of satisfaction on her face as she strolled away down the corridor.

The papers on the desk, he discovered, were to do with the construction of the old ice house and focused on the passageway that had been built from the cellars to enable the kitchen staff to obtain ice from the store even in the most unpleasant weather.

As Glorfindel concentrated on the plans, he began to suspect that Erestor was in the process of arranging a trap for him.  His mind analysed the information.  If a snare was being set, then perhaps, if he was quick, he would be able to catch Erestor in his own net before he had time to get away. 

It did not take him long to reach the cellars and he was not surprised to see that the passageway to the old ice house showed signs of having been used recently.  He slipped quietly along to the first of the heavy doors designed to keep the small, thick-walled building suitably cold all year round, and slipped through, pausing to give his eyes time to adjust to the dark. 

As he pushed open the second door, Arwen shook her head.  This really was too easy.  She eased home the bolt on the first door, making sure it was firmly in place.  He had not even noticed that the locks of this dark disused corner had been recently oiled.  Glorfindel was slipping.

Erestor heard the creak of the door, but, although his eyes had grown used to the dim light, he was not close enough to catch Glorfindel as he entered.  He was, however, fast enough to have his friend on the ground before the door closed behind him, but, even though he pushed through into the passageway as quickly as he could, the outer door was already bolted before he reached it.

He returned to the cold and muddy chamber behind him. ‘It seems I was blaming you unjustly, my friend,’ he said. ‘We both appear to have been taken for fools.’

Glorfindel rose to his feet, rubbing ineffectively at the mud adorning his clothes. ‘By Arwen, no less,’ he said.

***

Mothwen needed to obtain fresh table coverings for Elrond’s private dining chamber. Although he and his family normally ate with everyone else, at times he and Lady Celebrian enjoyed the intimacy of a meal with just the immediate family.  The housekeeper knew that the Lady of Imladris was happy to have all her children under the same roof for a while and that she wanted to preserve the reunion throughout the evening.

There was a set of small steps pushed in by the bottom shelf and Mothwen pulled it out so that she could climb up to the finest linens.  As she climbed up, she put her hand on a lower pile in order to steady herself, only to snatch it back quickly as she felt a damp and sticky patch.

She touched her fingers together before putting them cautiously to her nose.  What could have got into the linen store?  If she had not known it to be impossible, she would have sworn it was honey.  She leaned into the cupboard to take a closer look, only to feel a thick ooze land on the top of her head and begin to spread downwards. Her hand moved quickly to wipe it off and she turned to look up, where she saw a gleaming patch seeping from the bottom of the higher shelf.

She stretched up and began to toss the sheets to the floor of the corridor, muttering furiously as she did so.

‘What is going on?’ Celebrian spoke with some irritation as she stopped by the haphazard heap of fine linen.  She inhaled suspiciously.  ‘Honey?’ she asked. ‘Why am I smelling honey?’  She crouched and felt the top layer of fabric, before moving closer to look past Mothwen into the large store.  ‘Is this something to do with the missing honeycomb about which I have just received so many complaints, I wonder?’

Mothwen drew a deep breath.  ‘I should not be surprised, my lady,’ she replied impassively.

‘I do not believe this can be the fault of my sons,’ Celebrian said thoughtfully.

‘They are away, are they not, my lady?’

‘And, impossible as it might seem, I think they are too mature for a trick quite this juvenile – at last.  There are other elflings in Imladris who are not – but I can only think of one who would be sufficiently assured as to bedew my best linens with honey.  I believe I will have to speak to my daughter.’

***

Arwen sat stiffly in front of her tutor, listening to him expound drearily on the value of mathematics to young elves.  Her morning had seemed long indeed as she waited in nervous anticipation of the reactions of those chosen to suffer her revenge.  Of them all, Baranion was the only one she was able to watch and she was finding it increasingly difficult not to reveal by her expression that something unusual was going on.

The tutor felt himself getting hot again.  There was no doubt that the elleth’s expression could be quite daunting.  It was difficult to believe that one so young could be quite so intimidating, but he supposed it ran in the family.  He took his elegantly patterned silk handkerchief and again used it to wipe his face.

The black streaks spread further across his forehead and top lip.  ‘Go on,’ Arwen urged him silently. ‘Rub your nose.’  She wondered if the pressure of her thoughts would be enough to make him use the cloth over all the exposed skin of his face.  She did hope so, she thought, her eyes as hard as chips of stone, as she wondered whether her other schemes had succeeded.

Celebrian entered the schoolroom quietly.  ‘If you would excuse my daughter now, Baranion, it is time for her to join us for lunch,’ she said, taking in the smudges that adorned his face. ‘The twins have arrived home, so we are gathering a little earlier than usual.’

Arwen closed her eyes.  There was no chance that her mother could fail to understand what she was seeing.  She was surprised to feel her stomach roll with nerves.  She was not accustomed to expecting mischievous plots to unravel in front of her, leaving her to face rebuke.  Any trouble she had ever been in before had been inadvertent, and she had usually managed to charm her way out.  This time, however, she was fairly sure it would be different.

The Lady of Imladris looked at her daughter thoughtfully.  ‘I think you should look in a mirror, Baranion, before you join everyone for your meal,’ she suggested as she turned to the door.  ‘And I am sure my daughter will be available to speak to you later,’ she added.  ‘Come, Arwen.’

***

‘This place has been out of use since it flooded,’ Erestor said waspishly. ‘We are not going to get anyone just turning up to let us out.’

‘It goes against the grain for us to sit meekly here waiting for a little elleth to come and free us,’ Glorfindel replied in exasperation. ‘Surely we must be able to come up with a plan.’  Again he prodded the door with his boot.

‘You will simply hurt your foot if you do that,’ Erestor snapped.

His friend made out his shape in the darkness. ‘How did she manage to fool you?  I would not have thought that you would have been brought to this place easily.’

Erestor leaned on the wall and watched the dim form investigating the doorway. ‘I found a note on my desk.  In Elrond’s writing.  It asked me to bring some information here – and, when I did, someone shoved me in the back and barred the door.’

‘Elrond’s writing?’ Glorfindel frowned. ‘That seems unlikely.’

‘More than unlikely,’ Erestor answered sharply. ‘Closer to impossible, I would say.  Elrond is not in the habit of sending messages in order to catch us in nets of intrigue.  Nor is he likely to sit and take dictation from any conspirators.’

Glorfindel abandoned his effort to find a weakness in the door.  He turned round and leaned on the wood.  ‘I wonder if we have discovered a talent of Arwen’s which has not previously been advertised,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘I hope not,’ Erestor replied after some consideration. ‘Elrond would not be impressed to find her skilled at forgery.  I think perhaps that we had best not mention that aspect of the trap. We can speak to Arwen later.’  He considered for a few moments.  ‘How did she get you?’

Glorfindel smiled wryly.  ‘She encouraged me to think that you were up to something,’ he said.  ‘So I came to try to forestall your plot and instead was entangled in hers. She is clever, I will give her that.’  He turned and came to sit reluctantly around half-way down the steps. ‘We should continue to look for a way out,’ he said defiantly, ‘but I think that, in the end, she may well find us awaiting release.’

‘Of course, I have not been looking for an escape route for several hours already, my friend.’  Erestor’s voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘You have been in here ten whole minutes and are still unable to find one? I would never have suspected that.’

***

Elrond was already waiting in the family’s dining room and he looked less than pleased.  The morning had indeed turned out to be difficult.  Quite apart from the twins arriving home in need of medical aid – an occurrence common enough to merit little comment – he had observed a rash of incidents that could only have been caused by the intervention of someone whose intentions were less than pure.

As far as he was concerned, that suggested two possible pairs of suspects.  Glorfindel and Erestor had, however, themselves disappeared, which suggested that they may have been victims of this particular campaign rather than its instigators, as, when guilty, they tended to remain in place to observe the outcomes of their pranks, their faces blooming with highly suspicious expressions of total innocence. That left his sons as those most likely to be behind the events of the day. Only the fact that they had been away for several weeks prevented him from accusing them without further enquiry.

Celebrian looked at him in some concern.  ‘What is it, Elrond?’

‘Were you aware that our sons have returned to us?’

‘Of course,’ she answered in confusion.

‘And that today has been singularly affected by a series of practical jokes that have taken several people to the infirmary?’

‘Elladan and Elrohir have only just come back,’ Celebrian said firmly. ‘These pranks must have been set up some days ago.  They cannot be responsible.’

‘What are we being blamed for now?’ Elladan enquired with resignation, as he and Elrohir came to join his parents.  ‘You cannot say that the landslip was my fault – although I concede that perhaps I could have been more careful.’

‘And I admit I should have waited for the guard to help – but you cannot expect either of us to remain unaffected when the other is hurt.’

‘I am not talking about that!’ Elrond snapped.  ‘I am referring to the series of childish tricks which seem to have returned to Imladris with both of you! I am not accusing you – yet – but I cannot see who else is likely to be so self-indulgent as to put others at risk in this way.’

The twins stiffened. ‘Have you any suggestion of evidence for this?’ Elrohir asked angrily. ‘Just because we involved ourselves in tomfoolery when we were elflings, does not mean that we are guilty of such things now!’

‘Who else?’ Elrond’s gaze was piercing.  ‘Tell me that.  Who else would be so careless and inconsiderate of the well-being of others?’

‘It wasn’t them!’ Arwen interrupted, her voice higher than normal. ‘Don’t go blaming my brothers.  They didn’t do anything. It was me,’ she announced and burst into tears.