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No Man's Child  by anoriath

~ Chapter 70 ~

Aragorn, Arathorn’s son, Lord of the Dúnedain, listen to me!  A great doom awaits you, either to rise above the height of all your fathers since the days of Elendil, or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin.  Many years of trial lie before you. You shall neither have wife, nor bind any woman to you in troth, until your time comes and you are found worthy of it.

LOTR: Appendix A: Here Follows a Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen


~oOo~

TA 3019, this 10th day of Gwirith.

To Nienelen, Híril of the House of our lord Aragorn son of Arathorn, newly made Elessar Elfstone, Lord of the Dúnedain of the Northlands, and King of Gondor, Lady of the Dúnedain, your servant, Bachor, son of Haradion, sends greetings and tidings both glad and somber.

I have had word that you, your husband, and your daughter Elenir are well. For this I rejoice!

I bring news!  The Angle survives, my lady, though we are sadly diminished in folk and field. Curse the traitor Saruman and his men!  In the last, what remained of our lord’s men in the North returned to the Angle under Ranger Haldren’s command.  There they flew afore the rumor of assault from the south.  We took then to the earthenwork defenses, beat our livestock into scattering into the woods, and burned all else about so our enemy would have no relief.  Within it we endured the siege put upon us first by the Wildmen of Dunland.  Through our hours of vigil and practice were we able to hold out against fire. For they loosed burning darts upon us as a rain of stars.  At Master Orthoron’s urging, we lay deep blankets of green flax upon what structures we had within the walls so they might be slow to catch.  Master Herdir deserves every praise you bestowed upon him, for the well he dug was deep and generous with its waters.   Were that the taunts and cruel promises flung at us from about the earthenworks as easy to quell.  I will not say we did not despair.  For the nights were long and we thought ourselves very alone.  

But it was not so, for, of a night, we debated our course and thought it best to then take to the tunnelworks you had bid us dig and from there flee through the woods to our brethren among the wandering clans in the hills, though we were sure to lose many folk along the way. For our foes had been joined by goblin-men of Isengard.  It seems they knew more of the craft of war and dug tunnels to the foot of the palisades to avoid our arrows and the heated sand we poured upon them.  Though we had long ago closed in and reinforced the gate, the walls would only last so long against their assault.   We thought then, it would have been better for them to find us gone, than to pin our backs against our own refuge.  

But it was not to be, for the men we sent to scout out the opening into the woods did not return.  Muindir and I with several others crawled through the tunnelworks only to find us betrayed. Do not fear, I am bound to my bed but shall leave it hale and whole once healed, or so Mistress Nesta claims.  I do not wish to speak of it in much detail, for still I awake atimes to dreams of darkness, the smell of burning pitch, and the thrust of a knife in that small, closed place.  But, together, we blocked the way with their bodies and dragged Lorn back within the palisades to face the folk he had betrayed.  We got little from him no matter his claims of regret, for the fear of Saruman’s men was heavy on him.  We knew naught, then, what to do with him.  Ranger Haldren harbored no such doubts and, calling for the men to be rallied and the tunnels to be collapsed, he thrust a knife into the man’s neck in the midst of the outcry.  We had no choice then but to throw the weight of our folk onto our foes and hope some of our people might scatter and flee in the confusion.  

‘Twas then a great clamor arose from about the pale.  We knew not what struck fear in our enemies but knew our chance would be fleeting.  Then did Elder Tanaes rally those armed among us to issue forth from the palisades down ropes and ladders, and the folk to loose arrows and throw stones upon our enemies from its height to give them cover.  There we drove our enemy from about the defenses and into the dark, striking them down as they fled. 

With the dawn, we emerged to find them gone.  Swept aside and scattered our enemy was in the night, as by a great wind that scoured the earth clean of them.  In their wake they left their mates to rot where they fell.  There, too, we found, to our wonderment, the spent arrows of the elves of the Hidden Vale. ‘Twas then the company of the Eldar folk emerged from behind the cover of the brake of trees to greet us.  It seems we had found the source of our enemy’s confusion and had driven them into their arms.  

Ai!  My lady!  ‘Tis a sight I will not long forget!  I thought ourselves as the first Men to wander west, awakened by the singing of lord of Nargothrond.  One moment we thought naught about us but the boles of trees and the mist that arises from the cold spring ground and the next, without sound, found ourselves surrounded by a folk equally both fell and fair.  It seemed none dared break the silence ere their captain stepped from amongst them. He wore a helm of dark metal upon his head, so that when he removed it, hair as gold as summer wheat tumbled from it.  We knew him then.  He laughed at our shock and cried out to us, “Mae Govannen!  Well met, indeed, men of the Dúnedain.  It seems we have the honor of crushing our foes between us yet again!” 

Elder Tanaes, as you can imagine, would leave it to none other to lead the last defense of the Angle. And though he survived the night, he did not linger long after.  I can think only the man pressed himself to his body’s limit and only then, once he knew us safe, allowed it to fail him.   

Elder Pelara is well, and Mistress Nesta gains strength daily.  After all this time, she finally fell ill herself.  Pelara was half-mad with grief for it.  But, the worst is past, and even her father has taken to smiling more oft.  Young Lothel visits time and again, for she conveys many of our missives and messages back and forth.  She insists I convey to you her desire to see Elenir again and to include the buttercup flower I have pressed within.  I hope it shall survive the journey.   

Matilde is well, as are her sons, and my brother.  She sends her wishes for your health and swift return.  I have great hopes that they, and our folk, shall thrive, despite our losses.  

I have not the words but hope you can find some that are fitting to convey the depth of our gratitude to the Lord and folk of Imladris for their intervention.  For their generosity, we lived through that fateful night and shall have provisions enough to last to the spring harvest. We are in luck, my lady, for we had just sown the spring fields and, though we lost parts to the feet of our enemy tramping through them, for the most they look to produce more than we have seen in several years.  The sun blesses us within clear skies, no longer hiding his warmth behind that accursed pall of clouds from the mountains of Angmar.  I had given no credit to Master Herdir’s claims of an ill will that came with the weather, but now we know the wizard Saruman a traitor and the sun shines upon us after his fall from power, I am less certain.

Word spreads quickly of our lord and his companion’s efforts in lands far from that of his birth and your own efforts to beg for our aid afore the Mighty of the Eldar.  Much is clear that was not afore.  There shall be much work to do, but all is in readiness to do it, my lady.  I doubt not you are eager to join your husband, but I beg you will return to us ere you travel south to take up your crown as his queen.  I beg you do not forget your people of the North!  I have kept to our bargain and our kin but await your word.   

Believe me to be your most loyal servant and brother, my lady.  I hope this letter speeds your travels.  We have set a watch for you at the boundary just beyond the river and hope to see you with no more delay than the fortnight it takes you to journey hither.  And so, I do not say farewell, but hope to speak to you in person when next we exchange greetings.  

~ Bachor

~oOo~


Such a small thing it is I have in my hands, but it weighs nigh more than my heart can bear.  I have had news!  Ai!  And ‘tis all the more dear for the hand in which it was written.  My fingers shook so upon opening the parchment at the first I could not read what was writ there, but lit upon one word and then another, and for the roaring of my blood within my ears could make no sense of what its author was attempting to convey.  

A strange sound comes to my ears and only now know that I am moaning between the fingers pressed to my lips.  

“Nienelen!” calls her voice. 

It rings in this odd space, filled with the sound of water burbling along stone-lined canals and the beating of spring rain upon the glass of the high roof far overhead.  Lush and green within and hot with the piped water from the common baths watering the soil, I sit amongst the vines of melons and tubers, aloe plants, and strange trees grown from seeds and cuttings brought to this place by my forebears.  

Her steps falter upon finding me, but I cannot see her for the wavering of light and color that fills my eyes.  And then I am surrounded in the press of arms wrapped about me tightly, the softness of her breast against me, and the sweet smell of flowering vines.

“Hush, hush,” she says and then has pulled away.  “What is it?” she begs, her face anxious and eyes peering at me.  

But I have lost all power of speech and can only shove the letter into her hands as I attempt to draw a clear breath.  She looks to me, uncertain, I think, should she have permission to read it.  

“Oh!” she exclaims and, glancing up from the parchment, laughs high and bright.  “But it is good news!  Is it not?”  

“Aye, it is,” I say, my voice shaking and tears threatening again to spill.  

At this, she grabs me up and laughs close in my ear, rocking us where we sit.  “Oh,” she says, “I had come to tell you they were returned, but I was delayed.”

I clutch upon her and squeeze her tight in exchange. “Ai, Arwen, how can I ever repay what you have done?”

“What I have done?” she says, laughing.  “Nay, lady, do not paint me in such an unselfish light.  What better means have we of ensuring our people’s safety than the preservation of their allies.  It serves us poorly should my father’s House be surrounded with either wastes or, worse yet, our enemies.  Clever of you, lady, to set your daughter upon Lord Glorfindel more oft.  Did I not tell you?  Once it was said in his voice, the rest of the Council followed.”  

A laugh bursts from me through my tears at this, for the Lady has endured many, long hours of conference with the lord of the House of the Golden Flower.  Of all the elf-lords of her father’s house, he had the most reason for concern when it became known she had extended her forgiveness and invitation to a man who already had a wife.  

“Ah! His face when I told him the tale of the attack of weres upon your pastures when she was but an infant!  I have seldom seen his face so grim. Unfair of me, I know, but he has taken to calling you the Huntress of Weres, so mayhap it is not so bad.  You must forgive me, but I may have implied you defended not only daughter but also husband and Lord of the Dúnedain with naught but a willow switch.”

“That is far from the truth, and you know it,” I say, sniffing and wiping at my eyes o’er her shoulder.

“It will hardly damage Aragorn’s reputation and shall only add to yours,” she protests.  

“Nay, you forgot.  I had a spindle, as well.”

She laughs loud and long at this and her voice echoes high in the rafters of metal and glass.  

“Oh, Nienelen!” she says and pulls away.  “We must celebrate, aye?  I have been to the kitchens and have just the thing.  They will wheel the lemon trees into the garden upon the morrow, should the rain cease.  They are in bloom and it will be our last chance among them.”

~oOo~

I would think this the perfect place to put my mind to the task of reading a treatise this dense with names and dates and thoughts expressed in words for which I have little reference.  And yet, ‘tis not the first of such I have been set to, and ‘tis not that which rankles.  For all others I have devoured eagerly and spent much thought upon, wondering at the minds and situations of those long gone ere the bending of the world and how they might fit with what we find in this Age.   Even should I have not had the chance to speak of them with the Master of the library from which they came, they would have been reward in and of themselves.  But this one!  Och!  I cannot bear it and cannot yet think why. 

Indeed, still weighted with their bright fruit, the lemon trees have bloomed.  Their sweet scent hangs heavy upon the air about us in the heat and damp trapped within glass.  Here I sit upon a bench and pluck at the line of cloth about my neck, wishing for naught more than a cool breeze while we listen to the rain beating against the glass high o’erhead and the quiet about us.  

And I would be reading, were not the Lady of Rivendell bored and occupying her time with tossing a lemon fruit into the air beside me from where she lies upon the blanket stretched at my feet.  Up it comes and catches my eye as it passes and I, having lost my place among the words afore me, must find it again.  

We had been eating and discussing yields of dates, figs, and lemons in the groves found here under glass, and that of mushrooms cultivated and stored in caverns carved into the foot of the mountain, all of which the Lady was able to recite without referring to journal or notes.  It seems, now much of the folk of Rivendell gone, they had more than they would need and should they do naught with it, it threatened to spoil.  The problem at hand, however, was how to arrange its transport and what goods or services could possibly be offered in trade from the Angle.  

We have spent much of the winter and the following spring together, the Lady of Imladris and I, and, as comes to pass with many women, we came to know the other through the shared work of our hands.  Oft have I accompanied her on her duties as the Lady of the House, the days passing swiftly.  Together, we visit their pantries, kitchens, craftsmen, and the folk who raise crops upon the land in ways strange to Men.  And in each, she asks for my thoughts and, when I speak of them, listens with an attentive care to all that is similar and foreign among our folk.  

She is eager, I think, to learn as much of the ways of Men as I am to teach them.  For all the beauty of this place, I miss my people and my heart aches for them.  I speak of them, less willingly at first, and then with gratitude to find such a pleased and attentive ear.  Today’s considerations have been just one of a much longer conversation.  For we have talked long of our respective peoples and their need for trade and defense and how best to introduce one to the other.  

At the first, our time together excited much comment.  Her people are gracious and do not press or do aught but welcome my presence with their lord’s daughter, but I think they knew not what to make of us.  And yet, in all our errands in her father’s house, her folk find it nigh impossible to resist the Lady's will, for she insists with such good and gentle humor, it seems ungracious to refuse. 

The leather binding flaps closed upon the book with a violence I cannot bring myself to regret.  I have closed it and placed it to my lap.  Should I not be able to read much of it, mayhap it would make a better fan.  But, it did little to stir the air.  Ai!  Of all the works Master Elrond had set me to mastering, I regretted the abuse of this leather and parchment the least. 

Up comes the lemon yet again, but this time I snatch it away mid-air.  

“Am I disturbing you?” comes the question. 

I recognize that tone and, indeed, when I turn my look upon the Lady, she is smiling sweetly up at me from where she lies with her dark hair spread beneath her and lemon flowers caught up in the strands from where she had lain upon them. 

“Tis a test, that book.” She prods at the bound work lying in my lap.

“Of what?” I ask, “my attention or my temper?”  I set it aside upon the bench ere it can slip from my lap.  Should it be useless as either fan or diversion, I would much rather attend to the lemon in my hands.  

“Tis a rather strange recitation of selective facts, do you not think?” she asks.  

“Verily!” I say.  “He seems to omit the most curious things.”

She hums in agreement.  “‘Dior the Fair sprung from Thingol’ indeed!  As were Rîndir thought he a bud grafted upon a fruit tree and grown there and there were naught of woman to be found in the process.  My brother was very fond of quoting bits of Rîndir’s work at me over the morning’s meal ere I was fully awake and in charge of my temper.”

“Nor does he discuss much of how the populations of Beleriand sustained themselves throughout so many seasons of war.”

“They do seem a very odd thing to omit when assessing the effects of various theories of governance, do they not?” she asks.  “I agree; most curious.  I must wonder how Rîndir thought they would find aught of folk and hearth to return to should they have neglected what is needed for their care and sustenance.  Men at war cannot eat their swords nor their gear, and many a battle has been won but the war lost for the lack of aught to put in their soldier’s bellies.”  

Tart and clear is the lemon’s scent when I press it to my nose and breathe deep and, of a sudden, it is as were I sitting at my father’s table, cutting away thin bits of the hard skin for my aunt’s cooking, so strong is the smell and the memories it evokes.  My father had had a lemon tree when I was young that we kept in a bucket in the garden and hauled indoors of the winter, but, try though I might to remember it, I cannot recall its fate.  

“Aye, well, Rîndir was rather fond of a distilled version of miruvor.  Its use is frowned upon now, but ‘twas a surprisingly popular practice among some of the Great of that time and he was much in their company.  Mayhap ‘twas that which sustained him.”

“That,” I say, my attention now full on her, “that might explain a rather lot.”  

“Indeed it might, not the least men who sit about the campfires of the Mighty while at war and think they have learned all that needs knowing about the world.”

Curious then that I have been set to reading such a work.

“Do you count your father among them?” ask I.

“No,” she says quickly, frowning.  “While my father is very welcoming of my opinions on matters and gives them weight, he does not always welcome my ‘interference.’  And it may not have occurred to him to look to Rîndir’s faults when my mother and I complained we detested him so, but I think he set it afore you because he wishes to know more.”

I laugh.  “And so you wish me to teach it to him?”

“Should you be so kind.” And there again comes that sweet smile turned upon me.  “He seldom has the tutoring of women, and it might be of a good for him to hear similar sounds of outrage coming from more than just my mother and I – daughters to Nerwen, the ‘manly maiden,’ as we are.”  

Ai, well.  I mind it not.  Indeed, how many can say they have had the chance of sharpening their wits against one of the greatest minds of the Age?

“Prepare a list of questions challenging the omissions and implications of the lack ere you speak to him on it.  And do not let up when you present them,” she goes on, pointing her finger at me in emphasis. “This tends to keep him to a defensive posture.”  

“I shall keep that in mind.”  I drop the lemon into her waiting hands, where she catches it easily and turns it about between her fingers as she speaks.    

“Do!” she says.  “Indeed, you are like to have a much better chance at expanding his thoughts on the matter than his daughter did.  He is too familiar with and had too much of a hand in the shaping of my mind, no matter my time listening to my grandmother’s thoughts.  And your mind is far too sharp, and you have had far too much experience on which to draw to be gainsaid.”

She sets the lemon aside in the grass about us.  “But above all, avoid flattery.  He detests it.”  

Ai!  Come down!” she cries and tugs at my skirt.  “We are to be resting from our labors, not speaking of dullards who write treatises of naught more than they can see beyond their noses.  And I weary of craning my neck to see you.”

When I settle beside her on the blanket, she does naught more than then close her eyes and breathe deep.  Indeed the air is sweet and the sound of water o’erhead and in the canals about us a comfort, but it is hot here where the ground is warm and the air is heavy with the rain.  I cannot get comfortable for long and am restless.

“We should speak of what comes next,” I say, staring up at the leaves overhead and watching the water stream in rivulets down the glass.  

This is greeted with a groan. 

“Is there a fundamental inability to celebrate or take rest among Men?” 

At that I must laugh, for since I have come to know her better, I have seen the Lady as merry and without care as the Silvan folk drunk on distilled pine liquor, ‘tis true, but also lofty and cold with the wrath of her forebears among the Noldor upon her.  ‘Twas a sight I am not like to soon forget. 

But, still, we have yet to speak of things that are most near our hearts and most like to cause the other pain. And I think she knows it, for each waits for the other to begin. 

“Aye, we should,” she says at last.  She has opened her eyes and rubs at her temple with the tips of her fingers, “but it means soon you shall be leaving, and I confess I do not like the thought much.”

At the sudden pang within my own heart, I come to know that mayhap there was more to the dread of speaking of this than I had known.  I think I shall greatly miss the Lady’s company when it comes time to part.

When I turn to look upon her, she is there, the light that I had once only seen in glimmer gentle about her, and her skin aglow with the heat.

“You would have a better chance of companions of like mind in ElvenHome, would you not?” I ask, “should it come to that.”  

“Aye, I would, not the least being my own mother,” she says and for a long moment she is quiet.  “They have sailed across the sea and await me there.”

And I think, mayhap, I should not have spoken and reminded her of it, for the light about her fades and her face has fallen grim.  

But,” she says, recalling herself and taking my hand and drawing it to the crook of her arm where she clasps it, “they will not be you, dearest, loveliest Nienelen.”

So shocked am I at such a declaration, a snort of laughter bursts from me.  

“I cannot imagine how you ever discovered your father so averse to flattery,” I say when she laughs at the look upon my face.  

“I say naught that is not true,” she protests.

And though I do not believe it nor thinks she does either, I will not press it.  For ‘tis not the first I have caught her out in a flight from pain into merriment.  Mayhap, one day, beyond the Circles of the World, I shall have hope of seeing mother and father, and aunt, and sister, but, should she stay, the Lady shall not.  And I have naught else to soothe her heart should she not wish to flee from its pain or hide it from me.  

“Aye, I will be but one of many such flowers in a vast kingly garden of glass,” she says, releasing my hand to gesture about us to the glass overhead.  “My brothers would tell you I have too much of my grandmother in me.”   

She returns her hand to mine, running the pad of her finger along the edge of my nails where her touch tickles.

“And there shall be little chance of role and purpose as there is here,” she says.  “Too many princes of intellect and ambition, I should think.  And very little left of great import to be done.”  She laughs of a sudden, startled by her own thoughts.  “Listen to me!  Mayhap I am more Mortal than I thought.

“In truth, Nienelen, I am unsure I knew my own mind until the choice was taken from me and only then knew the full range of what I grieved as lost.  Ai!  Even she, Galadriel of the Golden Wood, she alone with such power and position as is unknown among the women of our kind, expects diminishment should the Valar allow her return.  She has made her choice and rejected the power to prevent it.  And now I must make mine.”  

She sighs and closes her eyes for a moment.  “Aye, it is time.  We should speak of what may be to come and plan for it.”  

She turns upon her side to face me, propping her head upon the crook of her arm and refusing to release my hand, her grip light and fingers cool upon mine.  Her eyes light upon mine.   “Ask me what you will.”  

Ai!  What to ask?  ‘Tis not that I have too few questions.  I have far too many, and they crowd in my throat and demand to be let loose.  

“What is it you wish?” I ask, turning upon my side to see her better and squeezing her hand.  “I have given you my reasons for what I have done.  But you have never said.  What shall you do, should he beg you your forgiveness and ask to renew your vows?”

She releases my hand to take up a curl of my hair from where it has fallen between us and coils it about her finger, smoothing its strands for a little ere she speaks.

“I think it shall depend upon the manner of his farewell to you and his provisions for his daughter,” she says.  “I do not think I could bind myself to a man who did not truly respect the woman he chose and honor it even in such an act as setting her aside.  I hope the man I knew never capable of less.  For, once he had committed himself to you, he would have given his heart in full, and the man I knew would never be capable of forgetting it.

“Should he not take measures to ensure his daughter has the benefit of a father and treat you well, then he is much changed, and I would be better served to choose somewhat else, do you not think?”

“Aye,” I say, though the thought of my lord choosing yet another woman, one I do not know and have no affection for pierces at my heart.  So long had I known of my lord’s love for her, he would seem a different man than the one I knew without it.  And I am unsure what to make of my grief at the thought.  For I will have lost him utterly and who he was and who he might become would become unknown to me.  I do not think I could truly let him go to another should it not be her.  

Her soft sound of dismay startles me.  With a light touch she brushes her thumb upon my cheek and wipes at the tears that have fallen there.

"Ai, Nienelen,” she sighs, “once I pitied the Men of the North.  It seemed their fate was a cruel one, to be promised hope only to have it as swiftly stolen away from them.  And yet, what manner of man would turn his back on his kin in their extremity and refuse to sacrifice his ambitions of throne and marriage for their preservation when all other choices would most like lead to their extinction?  I do not think I could love a man who could do such a thing.  Nor would, I deem, such a man deserve the faith of his people, nor the faith of any other folk.  Nor mine.

“Mayhap fate was not so unkind to the Dúnedain as once I thought, when he chose you.  They needed hope, and he needed you to give it to them, for I was not allowed the chance.  And even had I, I am unsure it would have been for the best.  And, mayhap, only then, in our sacrifice, he and I, was he made worthy."

Here she pauses, biting at her lip ere she speaks again. 

“I have a thing to say I would have thought unnatural until this moment,” she says.  “Should that have been our fate, then, and for a cause greater than himself I was to be betrothed to a man who must break his vow to me and marry another.”  And here, ‘tis her eyes that shine with tears and her voice falters, “I am comforted he chose you. For you are worthy of him and the folk of the Dúnedain in a way I do not think I could have been.”  

Ai!  

And then, ere I know it, I am enveloped in warmth and the dark of her hair falling upon me.  We bump chin and shoulder for the awkwardness of such an embrace from where we lie, and it sets the Lady to laughing.  

“Come!” she says and withdraws.  “’Tis my turn.  I have answered your question.  Indeed, more than the one, at the least.  

She halts and her look grows uncertain, biting at her lip.  

“What would ask?”

She considers me for a moment more ere speaking, and that with some hesitation. 

“Surely you do not think he would send men to take you south by force?”

“No,” I say, “he will do what he has always done.”

“Aye, yes,” she sighs.  

At this she turns upon her back to stare upon the wrack of clouds moving swiftly across the sky.  

No.  No he would not.  Why take such a risk when he needs this time to consolidate his power?  

He will do as he has always done.  Should he not take another to wife, he will leave me be, for a time.  And while he waits, as patient and planful as he has always been, he will put all in place piece by piece until he is within reach all of what he wants.  And when he moves, it will be when he deems the time ripe and he can seize his chance.  

“What shall you do?” she asks, bringing a halt to my thoughts.

“I think it shall depend on what greets me when I return to the Angle.”    

She hums a little, considering, it seems, my options.  "Power, position, and allies,” she says, tapping one finger against the back of her other hand from where they rest upon her belly.

“Aye,” I say.  Those, should I remain the Lady of the Dúnedain while he waits, with some labor I may yet achieve, I think.  “What I shall most lack is knowledge.  He shall have the advantage of me, there.”

“Indeed,” she says, and then an odd look flashes upon her face and she turns again to face me.  “Did you know, Lady Nienelen, I have heard a very strange rumor?”

I can think of naught to say, for ‘tis clear she has somewhat she wishes me to know and wishes the pleasure of telling it to me.  

“Very odd,” she says, drawing a finger upon the blanket between us.  “It seems the ice fishers of Forochel have knowledge of events far beyond their borders, despite how little dealings they have with any other folk.”

Aye, well then.  This is very interesting.

“I also hear,” she goes on, “should you credit it, they have very large and very sturdy nets.”  

Aye, currents move, the ice shifts and flows and cracks.  Who can tell what they might have found when they drag the depths of their waters during the summer thaws?  Or what their divers had found in their quest for treasure amongst the wreckage caught in the deep.  

I think she has read my thoughts easily upon my face and delights in it, for a bright smile breaks upon her face.  

“Very interesting, these rumors,” I say.  

“Indeed they are,” she says.  “I am also given to understand they have good relations with the wandering clan of the Randírim and have banded together atimes for their defense.”

“So,” I say, “should a man of this clan find his way to the icefields of the Lossoth, with somewhat in hand to trade…”

“Somewhat of land and access to fresh waters I would think.”

“Aye, one of the lost seeing - “


“Nay, Lady Nienelen, let us be clear here,” she says, wagging a finger at me and smiling.  “’Tis a thing of no account, hardly worth the price you might have to offer for it.  But, mayhap you might know of one who might have an interest in it.”


“I might.” 

Indeed I do, and he might thoroughly enjoy the challenge of it. 

“Even should you not need it to spy upon the lands about, sure it is that Aragorn will soon have the other stones in his possession, should he not already.  ‘Tis unnatural for him to be away from his daughter.”

The lady falls silent at this and I stare at the sun breaking through the leaves of the lemon trees.  The rain has stopped and now, for the heat, water rises in a mist and collects upon the glass to drip and strike leaf and grass atimes.

Aye, that would be good!  In all I have asked of my lord, ‘tis this I would regret the most, that my daughter would not grow to know her father.  

I am unsure what grabbed upon my attention, whether it be the stillness of the Lady beside me, or that she has raised her hand to her face.  But when I turn, it is to find her weeping and staring ahead.  She has clutched her mouth to muffle the sounds, and I think is shamed that she cannot still them.  

Ai!  My stomach turns upon itself at the shock of it.  Oh, of course, what else would it bring to mind but the sundering of her own kin? 

She is soft and smells of the lemon flowers in her hair.   She allows my embrace and, indeed, leans her head against my brow.  But she is restless and cannot settle for the prod of her distress.  I can think only of the beauty of the lemon trees here beneath a cage of glass, but also the bitterness of their fruit. 

Ai!” she says, panic rising in her voice as she pulls away to sitting, “it is hot in here, is not?  And so closed.” 

She fans her hands afore her face, rocking a little there as she struggles to breathe.  “So closed.”

For want of aught else to do I rise from the blanket we share, bending to take up a cloth from the basket with me as I go.  I have dampened it in one of the swift flowing canals about us and she presses it to her face when I offer it to her.  

“Can you speak of it?” I ask, settling close beside her.

She shakes her head, taking in a long trembling breath.  

The sun has broken through the clouds, sending his light streaming in upon us.  I glance about of a sudden, taking in the flowers and green of the leaves of the lemon tree, bright as were they made of elvish glass and not grown from the earth, and the press of metal and glass all about.  Mayhap ‘twas not the best place for such a conversation.

“What is it you wish?” I ask. “What would improve your mood?”  

“I would see your daughter,” comes bursting from her without thought, catching us both by surprise.  

Aye, yes!  I think I like this very much.    

“Good, then let us see what mischief she has gotten into,” I say, and this lights a smile upon her face, though her laughter is yet uncertain.  

She folds the cloth upon itself.  “Aye, lady, last I saw of her, she was making a pottage of mud and tender leaves in the bowls from her breakfast and attempting to feed them to Lord Erestor as he and Lord Glorfindel celebrated his return.”

I laugh.  For, indeed, that does sound like my child.  

“I think, mayhap, we should go rescue him, then.”

I rise and extend my hand to her.  

“He is our most skilled diplomat, Lady Nienelen,” she says as I pull her aloft. “I do not know what you intend, but I have no intention of intervening.  I intend to watch.”

~oOo~





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