Many thanks to Nilmandra for beta reading this chapter for me.  Also Happy Birthday to Elliska, who likes to read about Legolas and Thranduil.

*******

Chapter 3.  Representing the House of Oropher

Ithilden spotted the first flet and reined in his horse to fall back to where his father rode with Legolas in front of him.  “We are approaching the village, my lord.  The campsite my scouts found for us is a little to the left.  Do you want to go there first?”

Thranduil shook his head. “I will greet Feldor and the other village leaders before I do anything else.  You see to getting our camp set up.”  He looked down at Legolas, who was squirming as he waited to speak without interrupting.

“Are we there, Ada?  Can I get down?”  Legolas had grown increasingly restless in the three hours since mid-day.

Thranduil grasped him under the arms and lifted him into Ithilden’s waiting hands.  “You go with Ithilden.  You can help his warriors set up our tent.”

Ithilden laughed as he settled Legolas in front of him.  “I am sure they will be very grateful for the help too.”

Thranduil grinned at him and beckoned to the advisor who rode just behind them.  They both rode off toward the village.  Ithilden pointed at two guards, who rode after them and led everyone else to the campsite he had sent scouts to find the previous week.  It turned out to be a level, medium-sized clearing with a stream running close enough that he could hear it.  He nodded approvingly.  “Make camp,” he called.

Eilian appeared at his side with his arms up to take Legolas, and Ithilden handed him over and slid to the ground.  “Take Teldur with you and scout the woods around the camp and village,” Ithilden told Eilian.  He had no reason to think any danger lurked near this village, as close as it was to the stronghold, but he had never believed in taking chances.

Eilian nodded, set Legolas on his feet, and looking around for Teldur.  “Be good, brat,” he said and strode toward where the other warrior was helping to unload supplies from the pack animals.

Legolas stood still, looking around at the organized chaos of a camp in the making.  “Would you like to see the warriors put up the tent you and Ada and I will use?” Ithilden asked.  Legolas looked up at him with shining eyes and nodded.  “This way.”  Ithilden led him to where warriors were already preparing the ground for setting up a larger tent inside a ring of smaller ones.  “They have to move all the stick and rocks before they put the tent here,” Ithilden explained.

One of the warriors looked around.  “Would you like to help?” he asked Legolas, who nodded and immediately crouched to pick up a stone and fling it aside.

One of the cook’s helpers approached.  “Cook wants to know where you want the roasting pit, my lord.”

Ithilden glanced at the busy Legolas and went with the cook’s helper to one edge of camp to consult with Cook about digging the pit.  He was occupied for only a few minutes, but when he turned around again, Legolas was nowhere in sight.  With his heart pounding, he hastened to where he had last seen his little brother, darting glances left and right.  One of the elves who had been setting up Thranduil’s tent called, “Are you looking for Legolas, my lord?  Garion took him to see to the horses.”

Ithilden drew a deep breath and turned to go to where the horses were being tended.  He found Legolas happily swabbing at the legs of a horse with a twist of dry grass.  Garion was grooming the rest of the horse.  He turned to grin at Ithilden. “What a good helper Legolas is, my lord.”

Ithilden smiled at Legolas’s beaming face, but then he said, “Come with me, Legolas.  I need to make sure the camp’s guards are where they should be.”

“I want to stay with the horse,” Legolas protested.  “He wants me to brush him.”  Ithilden hesitated.  He did not like the idea of having Legolas out of his sight.  After all, at the moment, he was the one who was responsible for him.

“Not now,” he said.  “Perhaps you can help again tomorrow.”  Legolas scowled, but he dropped the twist of grass and took Ithilden’s hand to walk the perimeter of the camp.  When they were far enough from the horses, Ithilden released his hand to let him wander among the trees, with Ithilden’s gaze on him even when he talked to each guard they met.  Legolas picked up and dropped several twigs and finally seized a long stick and ran back to Ithilden’s side with a triumphant look on his face.

“This is my sword,” he declared, waving the stick.  “I am a guard too.”

Ithilden put up a hand to shield his face.  “Be careful!  And do not run with that in your hand.”

Legolas lowered the stick and glowered at him. “You are being mean,” he declared.  “I am going to tell Ada.”

“You do that,” Ithilden said, “but be careful with that stick, or I will take it away from you.”  Legolas scuffed along beside him, frowning as they continued their circuit of the camp.  As they neared the side that abutted the village, Ithilden caught sight of three small figures standing in the shadows under the trees.  Legolas’s head turned toward them too.  Ithilden smiled.  This village had more children than one might have expected because it was safe, so people from other villages who had young families had moved here as their own homes became too dangerous for elflings.  “Mae govannen,” Ithilden called.

The children’s eyes widened.  Then the little maid in the center giggled, and the three of them turned and ran toward the village, with their cloaks flapping behind them.  Legolas took a quick step after them, but Ithilden grabbed the hood of his cloak.  “No.  You stay here.”  Legolas opened his mouth to protest, but Ithilden forestalled him.  “Our tent is probably ready by now.  Do you want to see where you will sleep?”

Legolas hesitated, then nodded.  Ithilden led him back to the center of camp, where Thranduil’s banner now flew in front of a large tent.  He held the flap for Legolas and followed him inside.  Three cots were arranged along the walls, with a small chest at the foot of each.  “This bed is yours,” Ithilden said, pointing to the one in the middle.  Legolas ran to jump onto the cot and lie down to try it out.

“My lord,” called Eilian’s voice.

“Come,” Ithilden answered, and Eilian came into the tent.

Legolas sat up and bounced on the cot.  “This is my bed, Eilian.”  He looked around. “Where is yours?”

“I am going to sleep in one of the smaller tents with another warrior,” Eilian told him.

Legolas frowned.  “How will I know where you are?”

“I will show you,” Eilian promised.  He turned to Ithilden.  “Teldur and I checked the area and saw no sign of problems.”

“Good,” Ithilden said, feeling the muscles in his shoulders relax slightly.  Eilian was not always cautious, but he was without doubt an excellent scout. If he said no danger was in the area, then there was none.

The flap opened, and Thranduil entered.  Legolas jumped off the cot and ran to him.   “I took care of a horse, Ada, but Ithilden would not let me stay or have a sword either, and I saw three elflings.”

Thranduil smiled at him and brushed a stray hair from his forehead.  “You have been busy.”  He looked up at Ithilden.  “We are all invited to a feast in the village tonight.”

“I will set guards on our camp,” Ithilden decided.  “Everyone else can go.”  He glanced at Eilian.  “You are done for the day, Eilian.  Tell my lieutenant to choose the guards.”

Eilian nodded.  “By your leave?” he asked.  Thranduil waved permission, and he left the tent.

“We should get you settled,” Thranduil told Legolas.  “You will need to wear clean clothes tonight.”   He opened the chest holding Legolas’s belongings.  Ithilden opened his own chest and searched for the clothes and circlet he would wear that night.

“Where is my special blanket?” Legolas asked.  Ithilden turned quickly.  Thranduil was laying out Legolas’s clothes, but Legolas was pawing through the chest.

“It must be there,” Thranduil said.  Ithilden recognized the note of urgency in his father’s voice.  Legolas might survive the trip without his blanket, but Ithilden was not sure the rest of them would.  Thranduil pushed the objects in the chest around and then took them all out.  When he had finished, the conclusion was inescapable.  The blanket had not made the trip.

“How will I sleep?” Legolas demanded, panic in his voice.

“We will find you something else to use,” Thranduil said soothingly, “and Ithilden and I will be right here with you.”

Legolas swallowed hard.  “All right,” he said in a small voice, and Ithilden gave him points for bravery in the face of what must have seemed to him to be a disaster.  Thranduil washed Legolas’s hands and face in water from the ewer someone had left in the tent.  He helped Legolas dress, and then the child sat quietly on his cot while Thranduil and Ithilden readied themselves for the feast.   Thranduil took Legolas’s hand and the three of them left the tent to find Thranduil’s advisor and most of their escort gathered in the camp’s center.

Legolas spotted Eilian in the group, tugged free from Thranduil’s hand, and ran to him.  “Eilian, we forgot my special blanket.”

Eilian looked properly appalled.  “I am so sorry. What are you going to do?”

“Ada will find me another blanket, and I think I might sleep with him.”

Ithilden thought about the narrow cots and shot a look at Thranduil, whose face was set in lines of resignation.  Ithilden grinned.  He occasionally felt a twinge of jealousy when he saw how Legolas responded to Eilian, but this was one occasion on which he was glad he would not be the one Legolas turned to first.

Legolas looked Eilian up and down.  “You are still in your warrior clothes, and you forgot your circlet.”

“I am one of the guards on this trip,” Eilian said easily.  “You and Ithilden can help Ada represent the House of Oropher tonight.”  Legolas nodded a solemn acceptance of this responsibility.

“Come, Legolas,” Thranduil called.  When Legolas came running, he took the child’s hand and led the group toward the village.

Ithilden had been to Feldor’s village before, but it had grown since then as people moved to it from other parts of the Woodland Realm.  And of course, a dozen or so leaders from other villages were there to meet with Thranduil.  The feast was being held in a clearing a little south of the village, and when Thranduil’s party came out of the trees, elves were crowded into the area, with children darting in and out among their legs.  Smoke rose from where two elves were roasting venison.  Three people were playing harps, each of them striking a different tune.  Ithilden saw Legolas press himself against Thranduil’s side.  He was not usually a timid child, but he had had a long day, and everyone here was a stranger.

Feldor advanced, flanked by two other leaders, and they and Thranduil exchanged greetings in which Ithilden was soon included.  Feldor motioned them to a log that was upwind from the fire, and Thranduil sat with Legolas on one side of him and Feldor on the other.  Ithilden sat on a log at right angles to the one on which his father sat and watched Thranduil ease Feldor into genial conversation about duck hunting.  Ithilden smiled to himself.  His father might say he was too impatient to be a good diplomat, but he could charm almost anyone when he chose to.

Legolas was watching the village children.  At the first pause in the conversation, he said, “Ada, can I go play?”

Thranduil turned to look at the children too, but at that moment, an elf near the fire rang a hand bell.  “Come and feast,” he called, and Ithilden heard parents summoning children to their sides.  The harpists stopped playing, and people began to converge on the point where food was being heaped onto plates.

“Not now,” Thranduil said, as an elf came toward them holding several plates of food.  “We are going to eat now.”  The elf handed around the plates, finishing with one that he set in Legolas’s lap, where it looked very large.  Legolas stared at the food and tentatively picked up a chunk of roast squash and put it in his mouth.  Thranduil spoke quietly in his ear, and Legolas sighed and took up the knife and fork laid across the plate’s top.

Thranduil turned back to Feldor, and Ithilden watched a little apprehensively as Legolas sawed at the venison on his plate, which teetered ominously with each stroke of the knife.  He was about to move to Legolas’s other side and help him, when the plate began to slide.  Before he could even utter a warning, it had gone too far. It tumbled off Legolas’s lap and landed upside down in the dirt.

Legolas’s face reddened.  “Orc spit!” he cried.  His high-pitched childish voice penetrated the low buzz of conversation in the clearing, stopping it and making every startled face turn in their direction.

“Oooh!” breathed a child.

Ithilden blinked. Where had Legolas picked that up? he wondered, and thought immediately of Legolas’s friend Turgon.  Then, among the crowd, he caught a glimpse of Eilian’s scarlet face.  Ithilden turned quickly back to see Thranduil too looking at Eilian, his mouth set in a tight line.  Thranduil bent over Legolas.  “We do not talk that way,” he said firmly.

Legolas looked at him with his mouth trembling.  For a moment, Ithilden thought he was going to burst into tears, but suddenly, Eilian was sliding into the place on the other side of Legolas.  He held a plate of food out.  “Try this, brat. Would you like me to cut the meat for you?”

Legolas turned to him, hesitated, and nodded.  Eilian put the plate in Legolas’s lap.  “Can you hold the plate steady for me while I cut?”  Legolas grasped the plate and held it while Eilian leaned over and cut up the venison.  He handed the fork to Legolas.  “Try a little,” he coaxed.  “It is very good.”  Legolas speared a bit of meat and put it in his mouth.  Eilian put an arm around Legolas and looked at Thranduil over his head.  “Sorry,” he mouthed silently, his face miserable.  Thranduil looked at him with an expression Ithilden could not read and turned back to Feldor.  By this time, one of the villagers had picked up the fallen plate and food and the others had gone back to their conversations.

Ithilden blew out his breath and silently cursed the wild boar that had put Nimloth’s husband flat on his back in bed.

***

Eilian leaned against the trunk of the maple under which he sat. The morning sun was warm on his face, but the ground had grown cold enough that he had dragged one of the camp stools out of Thranduil’s tent, which was just behind him.  Legolas crouched nearby, poking through fallen leaves to see what lay underneath, but keeping an eye on the village children who were playing not far away.  Ithilden had told him that Legolas had been asleep in Thranduil’s arms by the time they had returned from the feast the previous night, so the missing blanket had not been a problem.  Yet.

Eilian had been avoiding his father, so he had gone to his own tent.   This morning Ithilden had brought Legolas to him, partly because Legolas wanted to see where he slept and partly because Thranduil wanted him to watch Legolas while he and Ithilden met with the village leaders.  Eilian was happy to do it.  He enjoyed Legolas’s company in any case, and he still felt guilty about having inadvertently taught Legolas language that made him flinch when he heard it coming from his little brother’s mouth and saw the way other elves looked at him.  He supposed Thranduil would have something to say about that eventually, but he hoped if he delayed their meeting long enough, Thranduil would have simmered down.

A united squeal from the group of children made him look in their direction.  A tall, dark-haired maiden seemed to be minding them.  She was laughing now as they all jumped up and down around her, begging to be chosen to fill some role in a game she was organizing.  She pointed to a maid with a single braid down her back, and the maid danced.  A boy said something to her in a singsong taunt, and the maiden in charge spoke a single sharp word. The boy scowled, scuffed one foot in the dirt, and then turned to the little maid and said something that Eilian took for an apology.

Eilian glanced at Legolas, who had stood up and was watching the scene closely.  “Do you want to play?” Eilian asked.  Legolas looked at him wide-eyed and nodded.  “You should go,” Eilian said. “They will probably let you.  Just do not go too far away.” Legolas shot him a grin and ran toward the other children.  He stopped a few feet away and stood shyly twisting one hand in the edge of his cloak.   The maiden smiled and beckoned to him, and he trotted up to stand next to one of the boys.  Eilian smiled.

He let his head fall back against the maple and wondered how Maltanaur was doing.  He had looked forward to going on this trip. For one thing, he had hoped that some wild chance might make Celuwen come to the meeting, but a quick search of the crowd last night had told him she was not there.  And now he almost wished he was back at the stronghold where he could check on his keeper.

“Mae govannen, Eilian.”

He straightened up to find a familiar face grinning down at him.  “Ganion!  What are you doing here?”

“I live here now,” the other elf told him.  He eyed the stool on which Eilian sat.  “You must be getting soft,” he said and dropped to the ground next to him.  Eilian laughed.  He had spent a great deal of his free time with Ganion around the time he came of age, but Ganion had trained as a forester and had always sworn he would move away from the stronghold and get out among the trees as soon as he could.  “I thought of you just last week,” Ganion added.  “Someone saw spider webbing two leagues west of here.”  He grinned at Eilian again.  “You have not yet succeeded in wreaking vengeance on me for that night at the river, so I thought you might want to try once again to gather some webbing to use.”

Eilian snorted.  “That was not a fair contest, and you should not have gloated over your victory in any case.”

Ganion laughed.  “But it was such a sweet one!  Even you have to admit the situation was entertaining, Eilian.”

Slowly, Eilian smiled.  Eventually he had been able to see the humor in the situation.  His father had been less amused when he learned about it, as he inevitably did, and Eilian was thankful that his mother had seemed unaware of what happened.

~*~*~

Twenty years ago

Ganion flexed his knees and pushed off, sailing with arms outstretched to land in the river, thirty feet below.  Eilian leaned over to see how close Ganion came to the floating wreath of flowers they had tossed in to serve as their target.  The other young males who had come with them from the Glade gave a ragged cheer.  Ganion looked up to the top of the river bank.  “Beat that, spider-elf!” he shouted and swam toward the rocks that offered a steep climb to the top of the bank.

Eilian laughed good-naturedly.  He was still elated over his success in his first encounter with spiders earlier that day, and he and his friends at the Glade had celebrated by buying an extra skin of wine.  He was not as steady on his feet as he could have been, but he was still certain he could dive closer to the wreath than Ganion had.  He slid his drawers down over his hips, tossed them onto the pile of his clothes, and moved along the bank, tracking the drift of the flowers.

“What have we here?” asked a feminine voice.

He glanced around quickly and saw Roniel and Viwen at the point where the path to the Glade emerged from the trees and turned to run along the river.  Hastily, he shoved off and dove into the cover of the water, followed by the hoots of his friends.  He surfaced and tread water, looking up to see a row of laughing faces bent over the bank above him, including those of the two maidens.

“You landed much farther from the wreath than Ganion did,” one of his friends called, and they all hooted again.  What bad timing, Eilian groaned to himself.  Not many maidens came along this path, and those who did were almost all of the kind his mother did not like.  He had heard her say uncharacteristically biting things about Roniel. 

Roniel’s her head vanished for a moment and then reappeared.  “Since Ganion just claimed the other tunic, I assume this one is yours, Eilian.”  She held up the blue tunic he had worn that night.

Apprehension flared in his gut.  “You would not do anything rash, would you?” he called.

She smiled.  “Of course not.  I will leave you your swordbelt.  If you want the rest of your clothes, they will be at the Glade.”  Then she giggled, and she and Viwen disappeared.

Eilian could hear his friends laughing too as he swam toward the rocks, vowing to climb out even if the maidens were still there.  He scrambled hastily up to the top of the bank, and despite his vow, he was relieved to find no sign of Roniel and Viwen.  He looked quickly to where his clothes had been and groaned.  His swordbelt was there and after a cringing moment he realized his drawers were too.  Ganion stood next to the pathetically small pile of silk, grinning and buckling his belt over his tunic.

“Could you not stop them?” Eilian demanded.

Ganion laughed.  “I talked them into leaving your drawers.  You should be thanking me.  And I won the wager,” he added smugly.

Furious, Eilian pulled on the drawers.  After a moment’s hesitation, he buckled on the belt and then started determinedly down the path.

“Are you going after them?” another elf asked.

“I am not going home like this,” Eilian declared.  He smiled maliciously.  “And fortunately I am armed.”

His friends laughed. “She will be able to see your sword,” one of them jibed, “but I do not think Roniel will be intimidated.”  Eilian ignored them and marched off toward the Glade.

***

Two hours later, he was grateful to be fully clothed as he made his way among the trees west of the stronghold.  He had waited for his friend Gelmir to come off duty and then he had set out to gather what he needed to revenge himself on Ganion.

“Tell me again what we are going to do with the webbing,” Gelmir said from behind him.

“I am going to stretch it across the rocks up from the river, and then I am going to challenge Ganion to dive again.  And when he comes out and starts the climb up, he will be caught in it.  You are going to see to it that Roniel and Viwen are around to watch the show.”

Gelmir frowned.  “But from what you told me, Roniel was the real pain in the backside, and I do not see how this will hurt her at all.  She will probably enjoy it.”

Eilian ignored him.  Someone was going to pay for his humiliation tonight, and Ganion was a far more acceptable target than the maidens were.  Ganion should never have let them take Eilian’s clothes.  He scanned the trees overhead.  “I am sure we are near the place where we killed the spiders today.  Do you see any signs of the webs?”

Gelmir looked up too.  They walked for another hundred yards or so.  Then Eilian said, “There they are.”  He pointed to thick grey strands high in the branches of an oak.  His patrol had cut down and burned most of the webs, but these strands were on a thin branch, and Eilian’s lieutenant had not wanted to risk sending anyone out onto it to cut the webbing down.  Eilian leapt into the oak and began to climb.  The branches bent under him as he edged toward the webbing.

“Be careful,” Gelmir called from the ground.

Eilian ignored him, stretched out flat along the branch, and inched along it.  The branch creaked but held, and he slid his belt knife out and sawed at the loop of web that was anchored to the oak.  Then, suddenly, the back of his neck prickled.  He froze, every sense alert.  The forest had gone still, just as it had that afternoon when he and Maltanaur had found this place.  Frantically, he looked around.

“It is looking,” hissed something behind him.

Eilian looked swiftly over his shoulder and saw a dark shape scuttling toward him from an adjacent tree.  With haste so careless it frightened even him, he scrambled back along the branch.  It bent alarmingly, and as soon as he could he swung himself to a thicker one, where he stood with his heart in his throat and drew his sword.  He cursed the absence of his bow, but when he had set out for the Glade, he had had no reason to think he would be anywhere near danger and had worn the sword only because it marked him as a warrior, a status he was proud of.  The spider stopped when it saw the sword in his hand.

“Stinger,” it creaked.

“Gelmir,” Eilian shouted, “do you see it?”

“Yes.”  Gelmir sounded half strangled, and Eilian risked a quick look to see him with an arrow fitted to the string of the bow he had been carrying when he came off duty, maneuvering around to find an angle from which he could shoot the spider.

“It was talking,” Eilian called.  “Look for another one.”  Gelmir pivoted, scanning the trees.

Eilian caught a glimpse of movement and turned back in time to see the spider charging at him, its pincers snapping.  Eilian twisted away, and thrust with all his strength to drive his sword into the creature’s left eye.  Black blood spurted, splashing onto Eilian’s arm. The spider shrieked, staggered, and tumbled slowly off the branch, as Eilian yanked his sword free and shoved at the beast with his booted foot.

He clung to the tree and looked around him, repeating to himself the orders that the novice masters had drilled into them.  “Look up and down as well as around.  Use your ears as well as your eyes.”  He saw nothing, and the only thing he heard was a soft murmur from the tree in which he stood.  “Do you see any?” he called to Gelmir.

“No.”

Eilian swung down to drop to the ground next to Gelmir.  “Perhaps it was talking to itself,” he said, struggling to draw even breaths.  Gelmir released his draw.  His right hand was shaking.  Eilian averted his eyes and made no comment.  Slowly, the two of them relaxed.

“That was bad,” Gelmir said.

Eilian grimaced.  “It is worse than you think. We have to tell the captain.”  Someone would have to come and search this area to make sure the spiders were all dead.  This one must have been away from the colony when Eilian’s patrol had found it that afternoon.

“The captain is not on duty right now,” Gelmir said.

Eilian shrugged.  “Then the lieutenant.”   He looked at Gelmir.  “I will do it,” he said.  “You do not need to come.”  The idea had been his.  Gelmir had been unenthusiastic from the start.  The lieutenant was not going to be happy that Eilian had crawled out on a spindly branch to retrieve webbing to use to play a joke.  Gelmir wavered for a moment.  “Really,” Eilian insisted.  “You do not need to.”

Gelmir heaved a long sigh.  “Thank you.”  They looked at the fallen spider.  Its hairy black legs were curled into its glittering body.  Eilian shuddered.

“Come,” he said, and the two of them started back toward the stronghold.

~*~*~

Ganion grinned.  “I was fortunate you spent the rest of that night hunting spiders rather than trapping me in nothing but my skin.”

Eilian eyed him with one eyebrow raised.  “You say you live here?  Then perhaps I will have a chance to repay your kindness during this visit.”

Ganion put up his hands in protest.  “Have mercy, Eilian.  I am married now, and that is a story I would rather my wife not hear.”

Eilian laughed.  “Then avenging myself will be easy.”  Ganion laughed too, although a little uncertainly.

The sound of an approaching step made them both turn to see Ithilden approaching.  “Mae govannen, Ithilden,” Ganion said, rising to his feet.

“Mae govannen,” Ithilden returned the greeting.  “It is good to see you again, Ganion.”

“My wife will have my mid-day meal ready soon,” Ganion said, “so I regret I must be on my way.”  He nodded to them both and walked off toward the village.  Eilian too stood.  He had to go on duty in a few minutes and had been expecting Ithilden, who was going to take on the responsibility of watching Legolas.

“Where is Legolas?” Ithilden asked.

Eilian nodded toward where the children were flitting in and out among the trees.  “He is playing over there.”  Legolas ran around with the others, although Eilian was not entirely sure his little brother understood the rules of whatever game it was they were playing.

Ithilden watched the children for a moment.  “Is that maiden in charge of them?”

“Yes.”

“She looks capable,” Ithilden said.

Eilian grinned.  Ithilden was probably wishing for Nimloth.  “She is capable,” he said, recalling the way the maiden had stopped the boy’s taunts with a single word.  “I will be on my way,” he said and started toward his tent to gather his weapons.