~ Chapter 71 ~

“Now as the sun went down Aragorn and Éomer and Imrahil drew near the City with their captains and knights; and when they came before the Gate Aragorn said:

‘Behold the Sun setting in a great fire! It is a sign of the end and fall of many things, and a change in the tides of the world. But this City and realm has rested in the charge of the Stewards for many long years, and I fear that if I enter it unbidden, then doubt and debate may arise, which should not be while this war is fought. I will not enter in, nor make any claim, until it be seen whether we or Mordor shall prevail. Men shall pitch my tents upon the field, and here I will await the welcome of the Lord of the City.’

But Éomer said: ‘Already you have raised the banner of the Kings and displayed the tokens of Elendil’s House. Will you suffer these to be challenged?’

‘No,’ said Aragorn. ‘But I deem the time unripe; and I have no mind for strife except with our Enemy and his servants.”

ROTK: The Houses of Healing

~oOo~

My daughter grows strong, and I am not discontent.  

I have found occupation of a gentler, quieter sort in Imladris.  Here, when the Lady and I rest from our efforts to shape what shall become of the latter and firstborn of the Northlands, I spend my time spinning the fine threads of my hosts and weaving them into patterns more ancient than I can fathom.  My daughter dances amidst our chairs upon the great terrace, her limbs grown strong and sure.  There the Lady of Imladris smiles upon her.  Her folk have taught my daughter to move and speak as one of the Eldar race.  She laughs oft, her merriment bubbling from her as one of the mountain springs and sings as easily as she breathes.  And yet, to me, in her I see the folk of the Dúnedain.  For she grows as fair and as bright and as joyful as my sister returned to us.  In her, I see my lord and I amixed, with my delight in the mastery of the threads that connect one thing to another and her father's striking gaze that takes all in and, atimes, seems to see more than you would wish.  

Here, I watch her grow and await what comes next.  

I cannot say I do so with great patience.  The world we know stands upon the very brink.  I have heard tales of wondrous deeds, performed by hands both great and small.  It is as were I standing upon the threshold of greater things.  The world is wide open beyond the door and just awaits my stepping upon it.  I have learned much and, ai, I burn with the need to take this new knowledge there.  

For, still, I dream.  

Here, in this place in which is found the voice of the Vala mingled amidst the sound of swift waters that fills the hours of both waking and sleep, they come to me.  In flashes of bright color and voices raised in song and debate, ‘tis the folk of the Dúnedain of the North. Caravans wind through hills, driving herds of goats and sheep and horses from their summer pastures afore them.  Farmers and merchants pull wagons of their wares upon roads made clear and safe.  The Council of Clans, the Elders of the Angle, and the homesteaders have been called to attendance.  For the High Days of Aderthad a Egleria are upon us.  There we meet for the business of trade, the affirmation of alliances, the courting of our folk young and old, and the plans for our mutual defense.   And, aye, there is dancing.  So much, indeed, that I am dizzy and drunk with movement and song.  

But there is naught so bright and clear as a brief moment just ere wakening, when I see again Aragorn, son of Arathorn, the last of the Chieftain of the Dúnedain of the Northlands.  There he kneels afore me in a long place with high arches of stone and marble beneath my feet.  Light strikes upon his temples where are now found silvered hairs, and the lines at the corners of his eyes have deepened.  The hall rings with the silence of the folk gathered there in witness.  For the King has returned to the North upon the shores of Lake Evendim, and would, at long last, take up his seat.  His look is as resolute as ever, but I know, so close am I, the trembling of his breath and the glimmer of light that catches upon his eyes.  And, it is my hands that hold the star of Elvish crystal bound in a fillet of mithril above his head.  

Oh, ai!  I hope.

All is in place to begin, the Lady and I done with our conversations for now.  And so, in the sweetness of the dawn of a new Age, we await my lord’s choice, the Lady and I, and find each other’s company a blessing. 

My heart has found ease here, for a little.  Were my lord here, I would tell him so.  

And so it is this day, when the air is clear and carries the scent of the budding of hawthorns off the side of the mountain, I have seen pennants of black and silver flying from the great tents of the King of Gondor’s company.  There they have set up camp on the far side of the Fords of Bruinen.  When dawn broke and we knew them arrived, the Lady and I rode with her father and his folk by hidden paths upon the mountainside where we could look down upon the encampment unremarked.  He commanded no banner displayed.  No claim of lordship o’er the Northlands or ranks of soldiers to confront the Master of Imladris upon his doorstep.  No men with weapons upon their hips sent to enter the Hidden Vale to demand my presence and enforce their liege lord’s will upon me. For the King of Gondor has come and sent the sons of Master Elrond ahead of him to beg audience ere he enters the Hidden Vale.  Even now, the Lord of Imladris has ridden to the Fords, there to treat with him.  He shall return with letters for both I and the Lady, and we await them ere we decide what to do next.

“I am as an ox plucked from the field and set to it,” I say, for I am all fumbled-fingers and ill-tempered, and am slow to pick up on the pattern we are attempting to set.  

“Nay!” Arwen cries and laughs.  My daughter on her hip, she had been singing and whirling the girl about until she hiccupped from laughter. “Do not speak so. You are not doing so bad as that.  Come, think of it as a dance.”  

She taps at my hip, urging me to make room for her on the bench.  

With the deepening of spring, they have brought the treadle looms out of doors onto a wide terrace between the burbling of cleverly crafted streams.  When, for the ache of waiting, I could not settle and she, herself, seemed nigh to distress, she has promised to show me the way of weaving upon the long floor looms of her folk.

They had awaited me, the Lady and my daughter.  Long stems of pink lady’s smock and bluebells they had plucked from about the streams and beneath the flowering trees, Elenir leading the Lady by the hand through the gardens in search of them.  And so, while I tested the warp and tightened its threads until their notes when plucked sounded true, Elenir stood between her knees waving the flowers about and the Lady wove their blooms into my child’s hair, telling her tales of I know not what to her to keep her still as she worked.  

“We have no music,” I grumble, shifting over.  Placing Elenir upon her lap where she can put her arms about her, Arwen settles beside me on the bench.  

“Come now, that is hardly an excuse.”  

“You would not wish to hear my singing.”

“Mayhap that is true,” she says, a little more quickly than to my liking.  She laughs at my sour look.  “Then we shall sing for you,” she says, peering down at my daughter, “shall we not?”

“I want to sing!” cries Elenir.  “Mamil, you do not sing.  You do not do it right.”

Ai!  I am torn between indignation and laughter.  I suppose I should accustom myself to the feeling, for with my daughter’s keen look and the ease of her laughter, I think I shall be much put to it to hide my faults.  Aye, she has the right of it.  Oh, she shall have her own voice, and I shall ensure it.  But mayhap she shall her father’s ease of singing, not mine.  

Arwen has grabbed up a wooden shuttle from the basket at our feet and, handing it to the child, Elenir bangs it against the bar upon which I have tied the warp.  I do not think it will help us keep time.  But, natheless, so we proceed.  

“Right,” Arwen says, pointing at my foot and humming a tune I have yet to recognize.

I press the treadle and the heddle raises a tent of warp and she urges me to set the wheeled shuttle darting among the threads.   

So absorbed are we in the clack of wooden treadles to the tune of their singing, and slip of heddles along the long lines of warp as I beat the weft, I do not see the shadow that has fallen upon us.  I thought mayhap we would look up to find him smiling fondly and taking us in with a deeply puzzled look as he watched, for would not be the first he had come upon us thus, but he is not.  He stands, unspeaking, his hands clasped afore him.  

When we fall silent, and even my daughter takes in his solemn look, Lord Elrond speaks low.  

“It is time.”

It seems our hands have found the other’s without our commanding it.  She says naught, for we have prepared for this, she and I.  

“No matter what comes,” she had said, and I, taking her hand, had agreed.

And so, when she steps away from the loom, she holds me firm so I might take up Elenir and ease myself from between bench and frame more easily.  

The face he turns to both is equally grave, and I cannot say from his look what my future will hold.  

And so, it has come to this.  The days have grown short until they are no more, and the time is at hand.  I follow them, for we are to go to his chambers.  At the narrowness of the path, they have walked a little afore me, father and daughter, his hand gentle upon her back.  

The spring has been kind, with rains that fall softly and tender leaves that tremble above our heads.  The wind blows upon us from beyond the White Towers and sighs in the tall pines.   

Deep is the way we shall tread into the garden upon a path that winds its way between leaf and flower.  I know not what we shall meet upon the way, for the trail twists upon itself beneath dark boughs so I cannot see its end.  But there I go. 

It is time.

~oOo~