The Years of Waiting

Gilraen closed her eyes.  ‘I need reality,’ she said.  ‘I need to have people around me to whom I am more than a passing inconvenience.  I need the urgency of fighting a recalcitrant winter and striving to defeat an ever-present death.’  She raised her head to inspect her son’s betrothed.  ‘I do not expect you to understand,’ she sighed.  ‘Not yet – but you will, one day, if our frail hopes are ever realised.’  Pity softened the frosted shadows of her gaze.  ‘You have chosen a hard path, Undómiel.’

‘Would not he wish you to remain here in safety?’  Elrond’s daughter asked gently.  ‘It gives him one less thing about which to worry as destiny drives him across the face of the world.’  The gentle breezes of Imladris caressed them, even as the scents of autumn breathed across the land and reminded them that the days were shortening.

‘I will be safe enough in my brother’s house,’ Gilraen declared.  ‘It is not as if I have not spent months there at a time – and, with his wife’s illness, he needs me as none here do.’  She smiled.  ‘I wished to know you, Elrondiel.  I wished to know in my heart that you would love my son as he should be loved – I know that now.  There is no need for me to remain longer here in Imladris.’

‘Adar will be grieved to feel that you cannot be happy here,’ Arwen tried. 

‘My part is played.’  Arathorn’s widow shook her head.  ‘It is no matter what becomes of me now.’

A slight flush coloured Arwen’s pale cheeks.  ‘Surely you are not accusing my adar of cynicism!’ she protested.  ‘He does not consider anybody to be disposable!  Even if you were not Aragorn’s naneth, he would spend of himself to protect and support you – you are under his care.’

Gilraen laughed.  ‘I do not doubt your adar for a minute,’ she said.  ‘He has spent far more time than the matter deserves trying to convince me to remain and assuring me of his esteem – but I know what I need, Undómiel, and it is not this cushioned life.  If I am to stand any chance of enduring the coming years, I need work – work that is suited to the hands and heart of a woman of the Dúnedain, and I will not find that here.’  She contemplated the beauty of the elleth beside her.  ‘Imladris leaches the meaning of life from men,’ she tried to explain.  ‘There is no need to try – all is provided, and so much better than any man can do it.  I have been here far too long as it is – but, if I am to try to endure, then I need to feel the sting of snow and see the green of spring struggle to sprout in the cold rain beyond this sheltered valley.  I need to see women swell with the promise of children and to help ease the passage of those to whom life has become a burden.’  She brooded for a moment.  ‘We face hard times, Arwen,’ she said.  ‘I do not believe that I will come to see them end – but that is part of being one of the Secondborn.  We strive in hope – and give of ourselves for a future that belongs to those we will never know.   Elves,’ she mused, ‘endure for the whole of time – they can expect to see the ending of all their efforts, but men must fight and die and trust in their heirs.  I have done what I can to raise his father’s son – with the aid of all those here in Imladris – and Aragorn has become a man of whom we can be proud – but I have had to let him go.  What will be is in his hands.’

Arwen inspected the polished pink of her nails.  How was it, she wondered, that this woman, nearly an age younger than she was, could make her feel so inexperienced?  It was not as if Gilraen had said anything she had not heard before.  It was the relevance, the Evenstar realised.  This was no gentle deploring among elves of the limitations of a mortal life – this was what she had chosen.  She would, if they survived the fight, go forth from her adar’s house to take her place among those whose every day brought them nearer to death, those who knew that the future for which they fought was for the benefit of those not yet born and that they would not live to see it.  Would she be able to accept it with as much grace as this daughter of the Dúnedain?  She would not know until she had no alternative.

Gilraen’s thin fingers covered her hand.  ‘You will be fine,’ she said comfortingly.  ‘You will find that there are compensations that make even the most difficult times worthwhile.’

***

Glorfindel unrolled the message weighted down with Dain’s dark red seal.  It was not often that the dwarves who passed from the Lonely Mountain back and forwards to the Blue Mountains bothered to visit Imladris with scrolls from their king.  Not because Dain and Elrond were not on diplomatic terms, but more because the dwarves saw little point in the elaborate courtesies in which the elves delighted and preferred to keep their knowledge to themselves.

‘I take it that the King under the Mountain has something of importance to convey,’ he said idly.

‘Just read it,’ Elrond suggested.  ‘A page of cautiously-phrased Westron should not tax you too highly.’

‘I am insulted,’ his friend returned.  ‘Are you insinuating that I cannot read?’

‘Would I?’

‘Not if you wished to retain your health.’  Glorfindel grinned.  ‘I just find dwarf-drawn letters hard on the eye.  They seem to feel obliged to make their letters look architectural.’  The tall elf leaned in the doorway to the balcony to read the document, reluctant to settle in Elrond’s study when he could be outdoors.  He reached the end and turned it over to inspect it before returning to the beginning and picking his way through the information again.  ‘Foolishness,’ he said flatly.

‘The time to reclaim Khazad-dûm is most assuredly not yet,’ Elrond agreed.  ‘I doubt that any of this party will survive to return to their kin.’

‘Why did Dain feel the urge to tell you this?’ Glorfindel stared speculatively at the paper.  ‘He is not generally much inclined to impart information – not, at least, unless it is a choice between speaking and having an axe between the ears.  And I would certainly not expect him to speak with outsiders on the subject of Moria – from which the dwarves fled so reluctantly and so secretively.’

‘I suspect he knew that there were enough in Dale who would be willing to pass the information on.  They would not be able to kit out such an expedition in total secrecy – and Dain is clever enough to make a generous gift of information we would receive in any case.  He obliges me to inform him of various matters we have learned of the spread of the vile creatures throughout the mountains – and he seeks to learn what the elves might know of the time of flight.’  He smiles wryly.  ‘I think he is torn between hoping we are completely unaware of Durin’s Bane and wishing we knew enough to justify his recalling this expedition.’

‘Balin,’ Glorfindel said meditatively.  ‘Was he one of Mithrandir’s dwarves?’

‘I doubt he would appreciate the description, but yes.’ 

‘I cannot recall which.’  Rolling the message up, Glorfindel strolled across to the desk and deposited it in front of Imladris’s lord.  ‘I salute his courage and wish him good fortune – but I doubt he will find it.’

‘No.’ Elrond sighed.  ‘I wanted to speak to you about the valley’s defences.’

Glorfindel hitched his hip on a corner of the desk and waited.

Elrond studied the quill between his fingers.  ‘We have to ensure that everyone’s skills are refreshed,’ he said.  ‘There are many who laid down their swords after Dagorlad and took up more peaceful pursuits – but I do not think we can allow that situation to continue.’  He raised his head to meet his friend’s eyes.  ‘It may come to that.’  He kept his voice even.  ‘I will not have my people unprepared.  Those who are not willing to take up arms must consider whether they should sail.’

It was as if Anor had lost all warmth.  Glorfindel suddenly realised that he had stopped breathing and inhaled.  ‘Things are not that bad,’ he objected.  ‘Our borders hold – and what is beyond them is little worse than it has been for years.  Imladris is safer than Thranduil’s realm – where Dol Guldur again spews forth its poison.  We are safer than Lothlórien – which rests on the wrong side of the mountains and too close to Dol Guldur.  We must prepare, certainly – it would be foolish not to do so, but there is not yet a need for such extreme measures.’ 

The Lord of Imladris rested his head on his hand.  ‘You know as well as I do, that by the time it is clear that we need to prepare, it will be too late to do it.’

Glorfindel fixed his gaze on his friend.  Celebrían’s wounding had changed something deep in Elrond’s heart.  He had never felt invulnerable – he was not that arrogant and he had seen enough disaster in his time – but he had retained some faith in power of right.  Now – he never wanted to see anyone else dear to his heart suffer as she had suffered.  ‘It is too much,’ he said.  ‘Too much, too quickly.’  He pushed himself to his feet and began to pace back and forth across the still room.

‘I want scouts in the lands beyond our borders.  Not to be seen – but learning what is normal, so that they will know at once what changes.  My sons will be able to train them – they are not as insensitive as they would have people believe.’

Glorfindel stopped, settling into stillness.  ‘You have read more into the dwarf’s message than I have seen,’ he said.

‘They are stirring up what would be best left undisturbed.’  Elrond looked up.  ‘I feel it is a beginning.’

A crooked grin lifted one side of the Balrog-slayer’s mouth.  ‘It will take time to set in motion,’ he said.  ‘But who am I to gainsay the foresight of Elrond Eärendilion?’

***

She sat beside his bed, her eyes on the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

The door opened and closed, but she did not move her head to see who crossed the room.  Elladan came up behind her and rested his still-damp hands on her shoulders.

‘Adar wants me to go back to Daernaneth for a while,’ she said, her voice remote even to her ears.

Several minutes passed before he spoke.  ‘Will it make any difference?’ her brother asked.

She bowed her head.

‘I thought not.’  Elladan’s raised one hand to run his fingers through her hair comfortingly.  ‘You might as well go – provided Adar sends half Imladris’s guard to see you there safely.  It is not as if remaining here will enable you to see much of Estel.’  He looked at the figure in the bed.  ‘And when you do see him . . .’ He stopped.

‘He is invariably in need of Adar’s care rather than mine,’ she finished.

They watched the man in silence until Elrohir entered with a tray of dressings.  ‘Has he roused?’ Elrond’s son asked.

Arwen shook her head slightly as her brother placed the tray on the bedside table and took his foster brother’s wrist gently in his long fingers.

‘If men only washed,’ Elrohir murmured waspishly, ‘they would be a great deal less likely to come to harm.  ‘But they wind bandages round wounds and leave them to fester and then . . .’

‘How they can have failed to notice that a clean wound – treated by clean hands – is less likely to become infected is beyond me,’ his brother agreed.  ‘They look on Estel as some kind of wonder because those he treats heal – and talk of elven medicine, when the solution is – literally – in their own hands!’

‘Please!’ Arwen drew a ragged breath.

Her brothers looked at each other.

‘He is strong, little sister,’ Elladan told her gently.  ‘He has survived worse than this.’

‘And how long will he continue to survive?’ she asked.  ‘Or will his life pour out on some unconsidered piece of earth in some insignificant combat – leaving the line of Isildur to fail and the hope of men to end?  Will I be left to mourn him until my life, too, is forfeit to the minions of the Dark Lord?’

Elrohir blinked. 

Arwen’s thumb brushed a tear from her cheek impatiently.  ‘And all I can do is wait,’ she said savagely.

Elladan drew a deep breath.  ‘He would rather you were safe,’ he said.  ‘We would rather you were safe.  To go out into the world and fight – you do it with an easier heart if you do not have to worry about those you love.  To know that they dwell in safety and comfort brings consolation as you confront the perils of the night.’

‘And what of me?’ she asked.  ‘What of those who remain?  Clad in silk and sleeping in featherbeds – wrapped in a cocoon of care until we suffocate.  How do you expect us to survive sending those we love into constant danger?  Waiting in the desperate hope that one day you will return – and that the blood on your clothing is not yours.  Dreading what your arrival might bring: dreading your absence even more.’

The weak movement from the bed was a relief, Elrohir decided, as he really had no idea how to respond.  For all his long years as a warrior – for all the many times he had returned to Imladris in need of care – he had never thought what it must be like to wait in perpetual fear of hearing that those you loved would never return.  Their adar had been a warrior – of course he had – but he had put his sword down at the end of the Second Age and his children had only ever seen him as a healer – they had never seen him ride off to battle.  Elrohir busied himself with pouring the sticky elixir he intended to give Estel before the man was aware enough to refuse it. 

‘Elrohir?’  Estel’s voice was croaky with disuse.

‘Take this, my brother, and then I will give you water to drink before we look at those dressings.’

‘Did you have no marigold petals, little brother?’ Elladan asked teasingly.  ‘No powdered clove?  Or do you think using these things to prevent infection is beneath you now?’ 

Aragorn ignored them, blinking owlishly at the vision beside his bed.  A blissful smile spread across his sweat-stained face.  ‘Undómiel,’ he breathed.

She stared at him stonily.  ‘I will fetch Adar,’ she said.

The three males gazed at the door as it slammed behind her.

‘What did I do?’ Estel asked in confusion.

***

His dusty boots looked rather broken down, but they were comfortable.  Mithrandir picked his way among the rocks and the sun-hardened ruts of the road.  It would open out again soon and he would be able to walk on the rabbit-nibbled turf – which would be easier on his old feet.  And, he thought, it would not be long before he was joined by a lean figure in shabby grey, his cloak pinned with a star.  You told the Rangers to guard – and guard they did, he thought approvingly. 

The sun had set and the steam beginning to rise from the small pot of water boiling over his fire before his expected guest stepped out of the shadows.

‘You took your time,’ the wizard grumbled.

‘I was on my way to Bree,’ the new arrival said mildly.  ‘If you remember, you were planning on heading to Imladris after you left the Shire.’

‘Yes, well. . .’ Mithrandir waved his hand irritably.  ‘Things change.’

The Ranger stepped silently up to the fire and removed the water, adding some leaves from his pack and leaving it to steep.

‘That was going to be soup,’ Mithrandir complained.

‘Remarkably flavourless soup unless you got round to adding some other ingredients,’ the Ranger said easily, taking out a loaf of rather stale bread and some cooked rabbit.  ‘This will do for now.’

‘Do you have someone following the halfling?’  The wizard ate as if he had seen no food in days – which was, the Ranger thought, extremely unlikely, considering that he had been visiting some of the foremost halflings of the Shire.

‘My brothers said they would do it.’

Mithrandir nodded.  ‘If any can keep him safe while remaining unobserved, the Elrondionnath should manage.’

‘Why is it so important?’  Aragorn took a meagre portion of the remaining food.

‘I think I have come close to making a very big mistake.’  The wizard’s deep eyes brooded on the events of the past half century.  ‘And I am not sure yet that we can escape disaster.’  He glanced quickly at the man sharing his fire.  ‘I might need to go to Minas Tirith,’ he declared, ‘to discover if what I suspect is true.’

Aragorn raised his head, like a deer scenting danger.  ‘Denethor will be less than pleased to see you,’ he said.  ‘Are you sure that you will not find what you seek in Imladris?’

Mithrandir shook his head.  ‘If it were there, I would have found it long ago.’  He stopped.  ‘The guard on the Shire must be tightened, my friend.  Trust me in this – keeping the Shire safe might be the most important thing in Arda right now.’

Accepting the wizard’s word without explanation was testing of even the closest of friendships – and Aragorn knew that concentrating his forces here would reduce what he could achieve elsewhere.  But the wizard did not ask lightly.  ‘I will do what I can,’ he promised.

The relaxing of Mithrandir’s shoulders suggested that he had not been certain that the Ranger would comply with his demand.  ‘I must find news of a creature that has been lost these fifty years,’ he said.

‘It still lives?’  Aragorn raised an eyebrow.

‘Oh yes,’ the wizard said in a low voice.  ‘If what I fear is true, it still lives somewhere among the dark places of the world.’  He stared into the heart of the fire, watching the embers fall into grey dust.  ‘I think I need your help in this, Dúnadan.’

‘My duty lies with my people, Mithrandir.’

‘And your people extend further than this small corner of the northlands, heir of Elendil.’  A red gleam lit the wizard’s sharp eyes as they focused on the shadowy face.  ‘You have left your people before, Estel, for your sake and for theirs.  There is nothing more important than what I need of you now.’

The fire had died down to ashes and the glade lit only by the stars before either spoke again.

‘I will do what you ask of me, wizard,’ Aragorn said softly.

***

The small house was simple – nothing about it could compare to Imladris – but, as Gilraen had told him, it was hers.  She had lived in her parents’ house, dwelt for a few years in Arathorn’s ancestral home, spent his youth as Elrond’s guest, left to care, for a while, for her brother’s rambling farmhouse, but now, at last, she had a place that she could call her own.

He did not see her often enough.  It did not mean she was not in his mind, in his heart – but she knew, none better, that duty did not permit the Dúnadan to indulge in the satisfaction of family visits.

Gilraen was milking the goat.  Her long black hair was dusted with grey and her over-gown a simple brown wool.  Her head rested again the animal’s flank as she squeezed efficiently at the turgid teats, sending a spray of white into the bucket.

Her son watched her, pain tugging at him.  When had she turned from his pretty young mother to this angular woman whose clothes seemed too big for her?  Over the years when she had been left to endure the loneliness of a widow whose only son spent more time in the company of orcs that he did with her?   How did women endure this hard life?  Would he do this to Arwen, if ever the time came when he and she could be joined?  Was he doing it to her now as she endured their endless separation in the sun-kissed beauty of the Golden Wood?

He drew a deep breath.  If he were to wed Arwen, he would be king – and she would be by his side.  And if he failed – then she would sail to that land beyond the sea where elves lived in peace and ease.

‘Naneth?’  He spoke softly, not wanting to startle her.

‘Aragorn?’  She raised her head and turned to look at him.  Her cheeks were flushed and she wore a look of dreamy satisfaction.  ‘Aragorn, is it really you?’

No-one said his name the way his mother did.  She rolled the word over her tongue as if the mere syllables gave her pleasure.   He stepped closer and took the bucket before the goat could kick it over.

‘My son!’ Gilraen said with pleasure, touching his straggling hair with her warm fingers.  ‘I have water heating in the kitchen.  Let us go and wash and find you some dry clothes.’

‘I am not the only one who is wet, Naneth,’ he protested.

‘I would not want you to get chilled,’ she told him firmly, sending him straight back to boyhood.  The disregard the elves showed for cold and wet had always irritated her – and she had spent far too much time organising hot baths or forcing him to drink ginger tea after some adventure with his brothers.  He had not understood at the time, but had gradually become aware that he, alone of all those in Imladris, was likely to become ill.  It had been yet another reason to resent his humanity.

‘I would rather have some tea,’ he suggested.  ‘And talk to you.’

‘You can do both,’ she insisted, ‘once you are clean and dry.’

‘I sometimes think you spent too long among elves, Naneth,’ he teased.  ‘You seem to have developed an aversion to dirt.’

‘Dirt, the smell of long-unwashed bodies, horses and goats,’ she nodded.  ‘Not to mention dead orc, butchered deer and gutted fish.  Do Rangers never bathe?  Is it written somewhere that it reduces their masculinity and weakens their sword arm?’

‘Probably,’ Aragorn agreed easily.  ‘Although it may only be superstition.’

Grey eyes met grey and they laughed.  ‘I will get the bath,’ he offered.  ‘Far be it from me to offend my naneth’s nose.’

His visit was short – as they always were: an interlude on his way from one place to another, a few short hours spent in the company of one who had given him all her time.  They talked – but never of what he was doing now, never of what he hoped the future would bring.  Their words were always of the past, of his father who had died too young, of the years of his boyhood.  She fed him, dressed him warmly and filled his pack with waybread and dried meat and freed him to go on his way.

‘I want to go even less this time, Naneth,’ he said.  His trained eye saw evidence in her face that his heart wanted to deny.  She was too thin; her eyes too big in her face – and the stain of colour along her cheekbones gave only an illusion of health.  She subdued the cough while he was there to hear, but he did not need it to know that she was ill.  ‘Let me take you to Imladris.  Elrond can help you better than any other.’

She smiled slightly and shook her head.  ‘No, Aragorn, my son.’  She took his hand between both of hers and held it to her cheek, her eyes bright with tears.  ‘This is our last parting, Estel, my son.  I am aged by care, even as one of the lesser men; and now that it draws near I cannot face the darkness of our time that gathers upon Middle Earth.  I shall leave it soon.’

Aragorn drew her into his arms and held her close.  She leaned her head on his leather coat and savoured the strength and gentleness of her only child.

‘Yet there may be a light beyond the darkness; and if so, I would have you see it and be glad.’  He rested his cheek against her hair.  ‘It it not yet time for us to be parted.’

They stood in silence, their distress too powerful for words, until Gilraen murmured in Sindarin, ‘Onen i-Estel Edain, û-chebin estel anim.’  She drew a deep breath to steady her voice and repeated as if to herself, ‘I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept no hope for myself.’

Gilraen it was who stepped back from their embrace.  ‘You have my blessing, my son,’ she told him.  ‘Wherever your path takes you, I know you will conduct yourself as befits your father’s son.  Fly with eagles, Aragorn son of Arathorn, the hope of men, and you will reach your heart’s desire.’

He mounted his horse in silence, heavy of heart, and turned only once to look at her, a silhouette against the light of early morning, one hand raised in farewell. 

He did not see her again.

***

Celeborn worked loose the buckles that held his armour in place.  ‘They are coming more often,’ he said.  ‘And they are getting bigger – and less inclined to hide from the light.’

His granddaughter came to help with the buckles that were out of his reach.

‘They come from the south,’ Galadriel mused.  ‘I am ever more convinced that Isengard is at the heart of this new wave of orcs’

‘We have always been able to keep our face turned principally towards Dol Guldur,’ Celeborn wriggled out of the leather and metal to drop it to the floor like an insect shedding its outer casing.  ‘But that is no longer possible.’

‘Curunír has betrayed us,’ the Lady of the Wood said.  ‘If we cannot trust an Istar, who can we trust?’

‘You cannot trust people for who they were born to be,’ Arwen remarked.  ‘Only for what they are.’

‘You think that your Dúnadan can stand up to forces that break an Istar?’ Celeborn asked cynically.

‘He is true through and through,’ Arwen said firmly.  ‘Whereas Curunír has long seen himself as better than those he is here to defend.  Curunír would think himself strong enough to stand up to Sauron himself – while Aragorn has too much sense to try.’

‘I will not deny your Dúnadan’s courage,’ Celeborn admitted.  ‘Or his persistence.’

‘It is a start.’ Her husband’s frown made Galadriel smile.  ‘I feel that the urgency is growing,’ she said.  ‘Events are moving ever faster – and they will soon be out of our control.’

Celeborn laughed.  ‘I was not aware that they had ever been under our control in the first place.’

‘Well – they will be even less under our control.’  Galadriel closed her eyes and listened to the trees.  ‘A cold wind is blowing beyond the shelter of these woods.’

‘Will the elves go to war?’ Arwen asked.

‘I think not,’ Galadriel said.  ‘Not this time.’

‘We will not need to.’ Celeborn bent to pick up his armour.  ‘War will come to us.’  He exchanged a quick look with his wife.  ‘I do not want you to see it, Undómiel.  You, at least, should remain unaware of what one creature can do to another.’  He straightened and gazed at his granddaughter.  Behind him Galadriel shook her head and pressed her lips together.  ‘Your daernaneth should be able to hold the wood inviolate,’ he said, ‘while we defend its bounds from those who would breach them – but I think you would be safer in the hidden valley.  Lothlórien is too close to the evil that emanates from Dol Guldur.’

‘Bathe, my lord,’ Galadriel said firmly, pushing him towards the door.  ‘You smell of metal and sweaty leather – and it is not my favourite fragrance.  I will talk to our grandchild.’

‘Convince her,’ Celeborn commanded, turning to draw a teasing finger along his wife’s jaw before leaning to kiss her.

‘I will do my best.’

Arwen looked at Galadriel wistfully as her daeradar left them, racing down the stairway as swiftly as her brothers did on their rare visits.

‘You are more likely to see Aragorn in Imladris,’ her daernaneth remarked.

‘I am not an elfling; I am not a simpleton; I am not a piece of fragile glass to be wrapped in cloth against a bitter frost.’  Arwen looked out over the forest.  ‘I have spent decades doing my part in readying the Golden Wood for war – but I am to be packed off to safety.’

‘You are our insurance for the future, Undómiel.’  Galadriel joined her.  ‘As Estel is man’s hope, you are ours.’  She sighed.  ‘Whether my lord admits it or not.  Without you, all will fail.’

‘I do not notice Aragorn being shut away from peril.’

Galadriel shrugged.  ‘That is the way it is,’ she said.  ‘Orcs would need to be swarming in the talans of Caras Galadhon before your daeradar would see me take my sword in my hand – and, even then, he would die to defend me.’

‘I do not see a happy end to this,’ Arwen’s murmur was almost inaudible.

‘All hangs by a thread,’ Galadriel admitted.  ‘A single thread, mithril-bright – strong, for all it is so thin.  But even the culmination of all our hopes will come at a cost, my granddaughter – and we must be prepared to pay it.’

‘Daeradar will come to you in time,’ the Evenstar said softly.  ‘He will not leave willingly, but he will be unable to endure without you for ever.’

‘I will miss you.’  Galadriel put her arm round her granddaughter’s waist.  ‘I will miss you always, but your adar needs you now, Undómiel.’