~ Chapter 54 ~

Strider looked grave. 'I do not know,' he said. 'I came west with Gandalf in the spring. I have oft kept watch on the borders of the Shire in the last few years, when he was busy elsewhere. He seldom left it unguarded. We last met on the first of May: at Sarn Ford down the Brandywine.  He told me that his business with you had gone well, and that you would be starting for Rivendell in the last week of September. As I knew he was at your side, I went away on a journey of my own.

FOTR: Strider

~oOo~

~ TA 3018 1^st day of Nárië:  Master Fimon reports no sign of him as yet. 

~oOo~

Silence has fallen upon us and I listen to the children playing upon the Elder’s garden, for here we spend our morning hours speaking with Mistress Pelara while my daughter scampers and squeals in the care of the children of his house.  Their cries spill in through the door with the sun, yet there is a deeper silence which I do not understand.  Elder Maurus has gone visiting and leaves his hall to the women, protesting the choice given of either moving his weary bones or having to bear with our chattering.  

Elesinda's head bends over the pages of my journal as she carefully inscribes the lists of fields ploughed and those yet to be seeded.  Such is the quiet I can hear the scratch of her quill upon the parchment. She is diligent in her scribing, and I am pleased with her efforts, though she is slower at it than afore.  We have seen little of her, for she, too, had been stricken with fever and cough o’er the winter, and only now had the strength to rejoin us.  Soon, when she is more recovered, she is to find work among Nesta’s folk, so great is the need for those who have survived the sickness.

Pelara waits at the table for Elesinda to finish, her chin in her hand as her eyes look to some far distant place. She is beyond what once brought her shame, with naught of ale or cakes with which to ease our debates. In their stead, we sit and watch the sun drift across the floor, and I puzzle at the silence about us. 

Ai!  I have forgot yet again to attend to the sheep!  Neither today nor the day afore have I seen to them, but left them to pasture on their own.  Aye, well, there is naught for it, now.  They shall have to wait until I return to my lord’s hall.  Mayhap I should have done as Pelara had advised, and trained some willing youth to the task, for no longer could I ask it of Master Herdir.

Ah.  I have it now.  'Tis the hens.  No longer does their sleepy clucking fill the air about the Elder’s door.  Aye, they are long gone.  Not even the scant promise of their eggs saved them, so thin was our hope for the coming of spring. 

Yet, I prayed for soft rain in the cool of even and clear dawns for the ploughing, and they have come.  I have prayed for my lord's return, and he lies down to sleep beside me when night falls.  Even now he awaits me at home, and I am eager to return.  Ever has his counsel been worth the waiting. 

I wish to ask him how to spread our store of seed though it has dwindled to but a pittance of what we once thought needful to sow upon the fields.  Aye, we must get it to the soil ere the temptation to grind it for our bread grows too strong.  And then what to do?  For it shall be many weeks ere the fields bear fruit. Master Herdir’s men have needed their cudgels more than once of late and I fear more than heads shall be split asunder ere we find relief.  Aye, I would hear what words my lord might say of how we are to spin thin the days upon poor gleaning of the forests until then. 

I hear my daughter's laughter in the midst of my musing ere it is then cut short. I startle alert at the lack, gasping and my heart thundering in my ears.  The hand holding my chin aloft falls to my lap.  There it joins the spindle and meager thread I had not the heart to work.  Ah, then next there is her wail.  I sigh.  Ai, so few are the places upon the Angle my daughter will deign to release her hands from my skirts and play freely, and now this.  She bursts through the door with Lothel trailing anxiously behind her, the girl's arms warding away all danger it seems but the very air about the child.  But my daughter will have none of it, for her brow lowers darkly as she cries, tears streaming down her face. 

"Aye, now, lapsinya," I say, setting aside my spindle.  She climbs sturdily upon my lap, her face a study of righteous hurt. 

Elesinda looks up only to smile ere returning to her to work.  Mistress Pelara chuckles and waves her son's daughter to her side.  The poor girl's look is stricken as she gazes upon the overwrought child, for Elenir buries her face to my breast and wails mightily when I rub her back.

"Best to tell me what came to pass, Lothel," I say and hope my voice kindly though I must raise it to be heard over my daughter's cries. 

"Lo'el pushed me," wails the muffled voice of my daughter, rising from where she remains pressed to my breast.  She points her accusation at the girl with her small finger and Pelara raises a swift hand to hide her smile. 

"Truly, my lady, I did not," the girl protests. 

"Aye, you did."  My daughter's voice is now sullen. 

"I am sure Lothel did not push you down apurpose," I say for poor Lothel’s face is piteous in its earnestness. 

"I thought you were going to trip.  'Tis why I grabbed you.  I did not mean for you to fall." 

"There now, lapsinya," I say to the small head pressed to me.  "You have your apology.  Any anger you should now reserve for the ground, not Lothel." 

She sniffs and clings the more tightly to my dress.  I think my daughter poorly convinced in this moment but hope she shall have no mind for her complaint upon her next awakening.   

At that, Mistress Pelara laughs and rises.  "Come now, pet," she says and pats Lothel upon her shoulder.  "'Tis the best I think you are going to receive.  It comes fast upon the child's noon meal and I am sure she tires." 

"Aye, Lothel, rest assured," I say, shifting my daughter's weight upon my lap.  "She shall forget all upon the morrow.  In fact, I believe she will be asking for you again ere the day is done." 

Elesinda blows upon her work and waves a hand above it, the better to hasten the drying of the ink. 

"Go on now, girl."  Lothel looks up into her grandmother's face, her concern better eased.  "You are, like as not, just as hungry.  Go draw water and I shall see what we can find to eat."

The girl nods against her grandmother's side.  When she takes her leave, I see the hint of the woman she may yet become in her face and in the lengthening of her limbs.  It brings an ache to my heart I cannot place.

"The Council shall ask for the end of rationing, my lady.  Just you wait," Mistress Pelara says as Elesinda shuffles slips of parchment into order. 

"Aye, well, they may ask, but unless they also find another manner of multiplying our grain that does not involve sowing it upon the fields, then the answer remains 'no.’"

“My lady!” comes a voice from without.  His shadow precedes him, but I know it for Master Fimon.  I have been dreading his arrival, though I knew not when it would come to pass. 

“Come!” I call and when he enters, he removes his cap and brings his fingers to his brow.

“We have found him,” is all he says.

My daughter's small nose digs into my neck where she is snugged.  I shift her about so I might rise and then must stumble to keep my feet for the lightness of my head.  Pelara’s hand comes upon my arm to steady me, faster and more close than Master Fimon’s hand, though he offers it. 

“Come now, little one,” says Pelara to Elenir.  “I shall find thee somewhat to eat as well.” 

When I take my leave and put the Elder’s door behind me, it is to find my lord’s kin, my Great Hound, deep in a drowse beneath the sun beating upon the Elder’s house.  There he sits breathing deeply, with his face tipped back into the full face of the day and his head resting upon the wall.  His beard has thinned and strands of gray now spring from below his lip and upon his temples.  I had not thought him so reduced, but there is no lie to be found in the bright light that hollows his cheeks and throws shade upon his sunken eyes. 

It takes but a word and soft touch to his shoulder to startle him awake, though loath was I to do it.  With that, he stumbles to his feet and, without word, takes in Master Fimon’s presence at my back, and then nods.  And so we walk together, Master Fimon, Halbarad, and I, past doors that are darkened, gardens gone to grass and seed, and stretches of homes and hearths where now there is silence.

~oOo~

There he is, his features so swole with death and the water in which he had drowned I would not have recognized my lord’s reeve had it not been for the wool of his tunic and coat.  I think I have no tears left to shed, for I have none now, though piteous is the sight.  Entangled in the branches of a fallen beech, the river held him in her grip, pressed in place by waters made swift and deep from the melted snows of the north against a wall of stone at a bend at the river’s course.  There we stand amidst the roar of the current upon a far bank made muddy by rain and the river’s water.  There I, Halbarad, Master Fimon, and the men I have given him to command, look upon Master Herdir and knew not what to do for him.

Aye, he is gone.  Lost to mischance, he was.  When the river rose, he had called men to clear debris and shore up the dams.  I doubt not Master Bronon’s death weighed heavily upon him, for when his brother, Stevan, fell to the river, Master Herdir was not long behind.  Stevan we pulled from the river and, his lungs once full of its water, he recovers under Nesta’s care.  Days we have spent walking the shoals and riverbanks in search of Master Herdir, for him only to emerge not far from where my lord surprised me with his return and together we pulled reeds from the river bed.

“We could use ropes to secure a boat,” says Master Fimon, gesturing at the tall beeches upstream, but then falls silent. 

For the water batters both rock and the man caught within the branches of the tree, and in its rush downstream the river sucks all within it beneath the trunk of the tree that lays o’er its path.  And not only that, but the tree’s fall from above has left the high riverbank soft and treacherous, with naught on which we could fix and lower a man down. 

Halbarad shakes his head, his face grim, but it is not his place to decide what is to be done.  It is mine.  And so it is with a heavy heart that I speak.  I cannot think how I shall do what needs to be done. So steady and so kind had he been.  And this is how I shall repay him.

“No.”

“My lady,” says Fimon, shaking his head.  “Surely, we cannot just leave him there.”

“Would you attempt it?” I ask and he shrugs his face against his shoulder ere he answers.

“No,” he says low. 

“Nor would I,” I reply.  “I have no desire to leave him there, either.  But neither will I send living men after him, not yet.  I can only hope he would understand and would not wish it himself.”

Master Fimon looks steadily at the toe of his boot where he drives it into the grass and wet soil, his features tight with his disquiet. I know not his thoughts, but I could guess them should I put my mind to it.  I had attended upon Master Bachor o’er the course of his illness, and Fimon and I had been thrown much together.  Without an Elder to direct his efforts, Fimon had taken to spending much of his time with my lord’s reeve and shouldered much of the burden Master Bachor could no longer bear.  I knew more of the man’s mind and, I think, he mine. 

It is some time ere Fimon nods.  ‘Tis then he suffers me to lay a hand upon his arm.  He will not look at me but blinks to rid himself of the tears that come to him with my touch.  His voice is rough when he speaks.

“I will set a watch on him.” 

I let him go.  “Let me know when the river starts to fall and mayhap we can use ropes to clear the tree from where it is trapped and set nets downstream.” 

“I will think on it, my lady.”

“I hope you discover some means of recovering him, for all our sakes.”

And then there is naught to do but return Master Fimon’s nod and turn away.   Halbarad then takes my hand and draws it through the crook of his arm.  We lean upon the other and make our way back.

Slow we walk the path to my lord’s house, Halbarad carrying my books and I my daughter.  There is little to say we have not already said.  The sun slides swiftly west and sends shadows beneath our feet.  I am hungry, but it is a dull and distant ache, well-worn in our acquaintance with it.  It seems not to end, our journey, no matter how short the distance and familiar the road.  After some time, my back aches and I must jostle my daughter's weight about so to bring ease to it, for she has fallen to a drowse. 

Ah, but my daughter grows heavy!  I would wake her and set her down, but her arms wrap so tightly about me.  Without comment, Halbarad tugs her grip gently from about my neck and, whispering softly to her to ease her complaints, pulls her tight to his breast with one arm and carries my journal with the other.

~oOo~

I am swift in my ablutions, spattering water upon the floor of the solar in my haste as I wash.  From the long chest I pull my best linen dress of a light green, the color of the reeds from the river beyond our pastures, though I know it no longer fits me well nor shows my form to best effect, no matter how I pull at the ribbons that weave through its sides and trail to my feet.

It is said that the women of the Elves wear their hair unbound and uncovered, but I have little time to master this untamed cloud that stands about my head. For I have lost much of its length and have, of late, given little thought to its care. The hair runs thin upon my temples.  It is dry and lacks the sheen and strength that once it had for want of oil.  For want of time, I run my fingers through its strands, no matter the hairs that break for which I must shake my hand to loosen their grip upon me and catch them up in loose braids about the crown of my head and roll their free lengths upon the back.  There I secured it in place with a silver comb affixed with green glass to match the dress.  I fly about the room on as swift feet as I dare, collecting my shoes and tossing my abandoned clothing into a pile, for my lord has company below stairs. 

When we returned to my lord in his house, he was no longer alone. There standing beside him by the hearth were two tall men of the Eldar race clothed in gray and green cloaks of a hue that shifted like the water of a deep river as it runs through sunlight and shade.  They turned when we entered and had I not heard the tale of the sons of Elrond, I would have thought them but one and the same man and my eye fooled by some trick. 

“Mae govannen,” Halbarad said through his surprise, and they nodded solemnly. 

“Mae govannen,” they said each in turn. 

I had taken Elenir from Halbarad so that he might be unburdened to open the door.  From my arms, she stared raptly at the twins, her eyes wide and her fingers of one hand playing upon the tip of her ear and tugging at the curls that lay about it.

“Well met, indeed, Ranger Halbarad, kinsman,” said one with a quick, bright smile.  “Thou art looking well, much better than when last we met.”

Halbarad snorted at this and with a quick glance to my lord, walked to his table. 

The other elf gave Halbarad a wry look.  “I beg thee forgive my brother, Halbarad.  He was our mother’s favorite and she failed to curb him many a time when she should have. He is no longer a child and has had quite a few years to make up the lack, but he puts so little effort into it we despair of him ever keeping a civil tongue in his head.”  

Halbarad shook his head and huffed as he dropped my journal to the table, leaving me to stand rooted afore our door.  “My thanks to thee, Elladan, but I am sure to have a chance to avenge myself, and soon, too, but not, mayhap, in the presence of a small child.”

At this, Elrohir laughed easily.  “I doubt it greatly.  For first thou must come from behind the shield thou makest of Estel’s infant daughter. For shame, kinsman!  She is far fairer a thing than e’er we thought he could have had a hand in the making.”

So, it seemed, then, they knew Halbarad and were on easy terms.  I, on the other hand, the brothers regarded curiously once done with their teasing. 

Ai!  This is my home!  How came they here?  My lord’s nearest of kin, save Halbarad, but, to my knowledge, ne’er afore have they attended upon him here.  And what shall the brothers tell their lady sister, were she to ask?  That the tentative beauty of her errant lover’s wife fades with the passing years and the mean existence she lives?  Will they speak of my lord's grief and the weariness of his days his wife is unable to soothe away? 

My daughter protested in my arms and at that I knew I clutched at her too tightly.  ‘Twas then I came to see my lord’s keen gaze upon me.  It seemed he was studying me intently, but now his look passed swiftly into resignation and somewhat of regret, as had a dreaded moment finally arrived and he must gird himself to face it. 

I am shamed to admit it, but his pain gave me some little solace, for in the brief glance we shared came understanding.  My lord reads me easily, and now, I think, there is no hiding the truth. 

“Lady,” said my lord and lifted a hand to urge me to him.

“Come, my little poppet,” Halbarad said brightly to my daughter and drew her gaze upon him and away from the strangers in her home.   “We shall away to the garden, hmm?  I have somewhat to show you.”

“I do,” he said to her querying look and she leaned from my arms into his.  With that he bore my daughter through the buttery door and I had naught left to do but go to my lord where he awaited me. 

"Lady," he said, taking my hand and bringing me forward.  "Here you find Elladan and Elrohir, sons of Elrond the Halfelven, Master of Imladris."  And here my lord nodded to each in turn.

Their grave faces are alike in their beauty, but in one lies a strength of nose and chin and the other a depth of gaze the color of shadows upon the snow that sets one apart from the other.  

“Here you find my wife, Nienelen, the Lady of the Dúnedain,” my lord said and refused to release my hand.

They bowed to me in greeting in the manner of the Elves, their look equally grave and searching.

"Thou art welcome in my home, guests of my lord,” I said and offered a reverence, my lord’s grip offering his support as I rose, “and even more for the love he bears thee as his kin.”  

I had no wine to offer them and my face heated for it.  The cups they held are filled with an ale I knew was thin for the lack of grain this season.  It is bitter to the taste and barely worth the effort to swallow it. What food I had to offer for their even’s meal I would not wish to eat myself, had I the choice.

When then I trip down the stairs and out into the hall, my lord's head lifts at the suddenness with which I burst into the room.  He is seated at his table, parchments weighted with a heavy seal open afore him.  The only company he keeps is the cups, now empty of ale.  He is alone.  My steps falter. 

The last I had seen such a missive had been in the first months within my lord’s house.  Much shorter in length than this one, but my lord had read it with an intent look.  So somber had been his mood after, he had not spoken the rest of the day.  At the time, I had thought it would excite much discussion with his kin, for I could not think it contained aught but troubling news.  But it was not so.  He had put it away and I ne’er saw it among his belongings again. 

My eyes must be wide with the shock, for my lord ceases his reading.  He folds the letter upon itself and tucks it beneath his journal, his movements slow and deliberate.  Had I not known him so well, I would have said his look was untroubled.  But I know what it means when my lord's gaze is turned from mine and his tongue is still.   

"My lord, are they not to stay?" 

"No," says he, rising. 

I can think only that my lord sent them away for fear I would make them unwelcome.  My heart beats so that my face grows hot.  I know not what to make of this new thing.  Ever has this love of my lord's ghosted upon the confines of our life.  Now, no longer does she slip between the shadows of our hall but stands openly afore our very hearth.  Aye, unspeaking and unmoving is she, but no less there, and, I deem, no longer unnamed between us. 

"Did you send them away, my lord?"

He frowns gently and shakes his head.

"They would go, no matter what I said,” he says and rounds the hearth with unhurried steps.

I do not know what he intends, but it is clear my lord comes to my side, and I stammer, "But, my lord, why would they not stay? Any guests of yours, my lord, I would have made welcome." 

But aught else I may protest must wait, for my lord has placed his hands upon my arms and there, his touch stiff and unsure, he studies my face.  I know not for what he searches, nor had he found it, but his look softens with regret and he draws me to his breast where he may tuck me beneath his chin and clasp the back of my head.  By the weight of his silence, I know of the anguish lodged in his heart.  At that, I cannot forebear from resting upon him in turn.  There I can feel the beating of his heart and rise and fall of his breath.  There, he speaks no words, but the gentleness of the thumb that caresses the nape of my neck fills my heart to aching. 

He takes a breath as though to speak, and then halts.  His voice low, as should he not dare give his thoughts speech, at length he asks, “How long have you known?”

I know what he would wish me to say, but it seems a cruelty to tell him the truth. 

"I would have brought no shame upon you, my lord," I say, my voice small against my lord's breast.

"I did not think it, lady," he says and shakes his head from where he rests upon me.  His sigh warms the skin of my brow.  “Indeed, it seems I owe you an even greater debt of forbearance than I had thought.”

When I do not give answer, he goes on, “Think you they have learned naught of the suffering of the Dúnedain in their time here?"  He peers down at me.  "Nay, lady.  Be easy. The signs are easily read and they would not wish to eat where it might mean we would go hungry for it, nor would they wish to force you to plead with them to stay.  No, they took their leave and asked me to say they wished to meet you again when they had time to take their pleasure of it."

"Did they truly have none to spare now?"

"Mayhap not, their need is great and presses them on."

"And so the news they brought, my lord, it is urgent?"

"Aye," he says and, with a deep breath, releases me. 

"Come lady," he says, and turns away.  Still those averted eyes.  Still that resigned look.  "Find our daughter and bring her to the table.  I will watch over her, should you like, while you prepare our meal.  We will have much to discuss, but let us wait until later." 

~oOo~

“But you have just returned!”  I can do naught but stare at my lord.  I know I say little of good sense but so great is my shock I have not the strength to defend my tongue from the press of my ill-formed thoughts. 

Here we sit at his table, our meal cleared, our daughter at rest in the solar above the stairs.  Here my lord asked Halbarad for his report on the events in the lands about us.

“Aye, Melethron could go, could he not?” my lord had asked.  His thoughts, it seemed, tended more toward the map on which he had clustered white stones to our west than to the news his kin had relayed.

“Aragorn,” Halbarad said and my lord’s gaze snapped to him for the wary sound to his voice. “Melethron died last summer.

“Aye, you said.” He rubbed at his brow.  “Lathril, then.”

“My lord,” his kin said wearily, but got little chance to continue.

“Aye, I was there when we found him.”  My lord pressed his fingertips into the hair about his brow and closed his eyes.  It seemed he struggled to temper his breathing ere he could speak again.  “Send Haldren.”

Halbarad toyed with his stylus.  He looked not at his kin but upon the hinged wax tablet open afore him on the table.  “Who would you wish I assign to the escort to Imladris in his place?” 

“I do not know!” my lord snapped from behind his hands, and Halbarad’s gaze flicked to him briefly.

My lord then dropped his hands from his face in the stillness that followed. 

“Do what you think best, Halbarad,” he said, his voice low.  “But the men at Sarn Ford must be prepared to hold it against an assault like we have not seen against it in this Age, and I cannot be there.  You must go in my stead.  We must hold it.  It matters not what else we must sacrifice to it.” 

With that, Halbarad nodded and closed his tablet, tucking the stylus into the leather that bound it.

And now, it comes to my lord and I to speak, for he has asked me for my report of the Angle’s readiness.  My lord’s kinsman has taken to carving some small thing as we talk and sits upon a bench at the far side of the hearth.  I know not what he crafts, but with the rising of our voices, he bends fixedly over it as would it lessen the room he takes in the hall. 

“And so long absent.  It has been but a handful of days!”

“I do only what I must, lady.”

“And what of your folk of the Angle?  Will you not see to them?”

“It is my care for them that drives the necessity of it!”

Had I thought my lord’s resolve a thing of iron afore, I had not known its full measure.  He stares at me tightly from across his table, his face is as stone with his chosen course and the displeasure of having to defend it to his lady wife. 

“Lady, we have no time to be idle,” he insists firmly. “The hour is now upon us. The Shadow is poised to fall, and either we move this instant or we break beneath it. We must set aside all but what is most needful.”

Ah, my lord need not speak to me of sacrifice.  I know it well.  Had my lord spoken of a debt of forbearance not just hours afore?  Mayhap he could spend some small amount out of it now. 

“And what of your daughter?  She knows little enough of her father already.”

He presses his lips thinly at the question.  “It will matter naught for our daughter should I go.  She will not be here.”

“What are you saying?”  My hands have come of themselves to grip the edge of the wood of the table. 

“When the men are gathered to take her there, she will leave for Rivendell.  It is only there I can make her safe.”

The ache in my fingers is a distant thing for the flight of thoughts in my head.  I cannot make sense of aught my lord is saying.  What have I been about, all this time?  For what the terror at each unbidden noise below the stairs when I sleep curled about my daughter at night?  For what did I betray my closest kin and visit banishment and death upon folk with whom I have shared bread and hearth?  Ai!  And the plague of doubt at each visit we must take to the barrows?  For this?

“My lord!  I do not understand!  How can this be?  You had me build a fortress of hope for your people, and you would now abandon it in your own despair?” 

My lord shakes his head, his face grim.  "’Tis not despair that moves me, lady.  The House of Isildur must endure. With all my heart, I would that I had sent our children earlier.  I will not make that mistake again.  I will not delay my choice.”

Ai! I gasp for the pain of it. “You would take my child from me?”

“No, lady,” he says, frowning.  “Is it not clear? You will attend her there.”

“No.”

At this Halbarad’s face lifts of a sudden from where he sits. 

My lord scrubs harshly at his face.  “Lady, we have just spoken of this.  My men are needed elsewhere.  I do not have the means to protect both the Shire and you!”

“And what of you?  Are you to travel with your daughter as well, my lord?”

At this, his hands drop to the table with a thud, scattering the stones spread there and sending one skittering o’er the edge to clatter against the floor.  “No!”

I yet stare at him agape, our disbelief at the other mirrored in our faces.  Halbarad has risen and abandoned all attempts at being overlooked.  He turns a pained face to us and clutches the small wooden thing in his hand so I think it might snap in two. 

“Lady,” my lord says.  “Have you not heard me?  I have other business of great urgency.  It cannot wait.”

I shake my head.  “No, I will not go.” I say and anger flashes harsh upon my lord’s face. 

“You have little time, lady, to reconsider your opposition to this course.  I send my daughter to Rivendell, and soon.”

I rise from my seat upon the bench.  I am done.  There is no more to say.  “Send my daughter from me should your heart have grown so cruel you could do such a thing, but I care not what you say. You have not been here.  You have not seen, nor touched, nor tasted the bitterness of what you ask.  I will not go!”

My lord thrusts himself up from his chair, heaving it behind him, his face hard.  “You forget yourself, lady!  Do not accuse me of brutality and indifference, and do not put yourself in my place.  Mine is the charge of the preservation of our people. ‘Tis not your decision to make.  Should I say you are to go, then go thou shalt!" 

I think my lord regrets his words swiftly upon their saying.  He has fallen silent, though he yet returns my glare.  But his words cannot be unsaid and, stiffly, I drop my eyes.  Above our heads comes a thin wail.

"Should it please thee, hîr nín, I will not."  I turn my back upon him and abandon him for the stairs to the solar. 

I can tell by its sound that my lord lets loose a noise of vexation and bewilderment.   

"Confound the woman!" I hear behind me said low but with great fervor.

By the creak of wood beneath my lord, I know he lets himself fall heavily to his chair.

"In this, of all things, she chooses to defy me." 

I can hear Halbarad's voice behind me.  "You ask more than you know," he says, his voice low and meant privately. 

He must have gone to lay a touch upon his kin, for next I hear the cuff that knocks his hand away. 

“Leave off, Halbarad!” my lord commands over sounds of scuffling.  “She speaks naught but from foolish pride --”

“Aragorn!  Be still and listen to me!”

A quick glance behind me as I enter the stairs and I see that Halbarad attempts to pin my lord’s shoulders to his chair with his greater strength.  He seeks his kin’s eye and speaks earnestly.  “She has grown careless with herself.  Do you not see it?” 

At this, they fall still, breathing heavily, and my lord stares up at his kin.  I turn away and proceed up the stairs ere I can hear aught else Halbarad might say.  I know not were they exchanging angry words in quiet, strained voices or even had my lord aught to say in reply. 

After the heat and noise of the hall, the stairwell seems cool in comparison, though my cheeks are on fire. For I am overcome with a great pain I cannot understand.  It burns deep within my breast and steals the very breath I need for climbing.  I blink and grasp the wall for support, else I think I might fall. I do not go far, for I cannot think of what I am to do next.  I do not understand.  From whence come these tears that blind my eyes?  What am I to do?  Surely with all that must be done, there is somewhat I am to do.  Ne’er has the need been more great.  Ai!  Should it only come to me! 

“Mamil!” I hear in response to the noise of my feet upon the risers.  I rush to her.

I hear naught from below in the hall, for I have set myself to soothing my child.  I sit upon the edge of the trundle bed and draw a hand down Elenir’s back.  She lies upon her side, hiccupping atimes and humming with her attempt to still her own tears. 

“’Twas naught,” I whisper. “Take no heed.  I am here.” 

I freeze at the sound of light footsteps upon the risers and the nigh imperceptible sense of my lord framed in the opening of the stairs at my back. 

"Lady?" he calls softly.  When I do not answer he stirs as would he come near. 

"Baw! Daro!" I say and he halts. 

I do not turn to him, nor raise my head to look upon him. 

"Leave us be."

He does not speak, but for a long moment, stands in the dimness of the solar ere he turns away.  He obeys my command, and his footsteps lead him softly away. 

~oOo~

At the fall of night, beside my lord I shall lay upon our bed.  There we shall be sheltered by the wooden canopy above and the curtains about us.  There he shall listen to my breath, that faint sighing in and out of air that tells him the woman beside him is real and not borne of his slumbers. 

There he shall tell of watching as my lids flutter and my hands move upon the pillow, wondering what paths I walk in dreams.  When I moan and my brow draws tight while my limbs wrench as were it against some unseen thing that fetters them, he will awaken me with a touch. 

For I dream of my lord’s house made a husk of black timbers.  From his place standing at the hearth, he peers at me from below as he were hemmed into a narrow space and all about him is shadow.  The wind through the ruined walls blows upon us, stirring the ash.  I can recall fear and flight and the echoes of cruel laughter, and the ripple of heat and thick smoke that arose high about me. In the way of dreams, I knew not whose hand had set my lord’s family home ablaze, but was plagued with the thought it may have been my own.

When my lord speaks low of the shaded thoughts that come at night, he shall draw my head upon his breast.  Only then, with his hand heavy against my cheek and fingers twined about my hair, shall I close my eyes and truly rest, my head rising with his breath as were I riding with my lord upon the waves of sleep.  

~oOo~