Part Two
“I don’t see why I can’t go out on patrol with the rest of you? Thalien is a head shorter than me, and she’s a captain already.”
Elrond’s children were having breakfast in the kitchen at the small table where senior staff took time off to relax with tea during the day. The door was open and the scents of damp soil and herbs growing in the kitchen garden wafted in to vie with new baked bread, frying oatcakes and other breakfast-related smells.
“Because Father’s hair would turn white overnight?” suggested Elladan, trying unsuccessfully to steal a forkful of mushrooms from his brother’s plate.
Elrohir defended his omelette firmly, glaring at his twin. “You just wanted fruit and bread, you said it was healthier. So eat it, leave mine alone. Yes, that, and she’d probably drive the captain crazy with questions every few paces.”
Arwen returned look for look. “Oh, right. Well at least I’d be reliable and do as I was told. Unlike some of us. If there’s no harvest festival this year, Erestor will make your life so miserable.”
“Of course there’ll be a festival. Just goes to show, you don’t even remember what we were talking about last night.”
“I heard your promises,” Arwen told him between mouthfuls of lightly stewed fruit. “I just don’t see anything happening yet. And it’s a shame about the fireworks, I love big fireworks. Did you see Erestor and Glorfindel pretending not to be a couple? That was much more interesting.”
“They’re bad at it, aren’t they?” Elrohir said with a grin. “I’ve caught them holding hands when they thought no one was watching.”
Elladan looked uncertain. “Aren’t they a bit old for that?” he asked. “And – Erestor holding hands with anyone sounds wrong.”
“Erestor had a huge, scandalous affair back in Lindon,” Arwen confided. “I heard all about it.”
“Listening in doorways again?” Elrohir asked disparagingly.
“I do not eavesdrop,” his sister retorted crossly. “I just happen to overhear people talking, that’s all. And listening in doorways isn’t half as bad as following Eirien around like a little puppy…”
“I do not!”
“Yes you do. Little puppy, woof, woof, woof.”
“Arwen you are a…”
“Shut up you two, people are looking.” Elladan didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t have to. This was a family mantra, second nature to quasi-royal children who had been on display from birth. “And you know you shouldn’t listen to gossip, Wen.” He briefly fought temptation, then succumbed. “Who was he having the affair with then?”
Arwen frowned. “I didn’t hear the name, but it was someone important. They were talking about when he’d been sleeping with ‘you know who’, and….”
“Mother would wash your mouth out with soap,” Elladan interrupted.
“Mother probably still believes I think the wild geese bring babies,” Arwen laughed. “I hope I know better than that, so stop acting so virtuous and precious. Anyhow we weren’t talking about this, we were talking about the festival.”
Elrohir held up a hand placatingly. “Right, the festival – but if you ever hear who it was, you have to tell us. Father will do the speech and present the first fruits in honour of Lady Yavanna. I’ve talked to Lindir and Handiel, and they’re making a special composition to play in the background while he talks. The fireworks — they’ll have to be toned down, but Sael says we can still have those little glow worm lights, those sparkly lights on a stick? And then there’ll be a special harvest dance – Lindir’s seeing to that – with pretty costumes, And we’ll eat like pigs, of course.”
“Sounds good,” Elladan said round a mouthful of still-warm bread. “Think I’ll have some oatmeal after all, I’m taking a patrol across the Ford later today. Oh, that’s another reason you can’t be a warrior, Wen. Daffy’s way too fat and lazy to gallop.”
Displaying unusual diplomacy, Elrohir beckoned one of the junior cooks over and asked if his brother could have some oatmeal, neatly preventing the outbreak of sibling warfare. Arwen loved her horse.
~*~*~*~
“Don’t you think this might just be word association?” Erestor asked softly. They were lying in bed in the half light before dawn, Glorfindel with his head resting in the hollow of Erestor’s shoulder while Erestor’s fingers carded absently through his hair.
“How do you mean?” Glorfindel moved his hand up from Erestor’s waist to rest in the centre of his chest, letting the tension from the nightmare fade into the steady heartbeat against the palm.
“Just – we were talking about a festival, a celebration in dangerous times, and it has to have reminded you of the attack on Gondolin. What would be more natural than that you should have a strange dream after that?” Erestor was gentle but practical, the motion of his hand remaining constant.
“You think this is just – overactive imagination?”
“No, no, not imagination. Just that it’s too close to a very painful memory – hidden valley, enemies searching for it, a feast day…”
Glorfindel sighed and sat up, pushing his hair back from his face. He felt it slide down his back and shoulders, cloaking him, and Erestor reach up a hand to continue stroking it. “So you think my judgement’s been skewed by my past and it’s affecting my sleep?” He tried and failed to make it sound like a joke. “Yes, I have concerns based on what happened in Gondolin, but that’s mainly due to the way we failed to take enough care on that one day – there was no proper watch, everyone wanted to take part – there were only two really big festivals a year, you know, and…”
“I know, baby.” Erestor’s voice was soft, fitting the early morning hush. “And after such a long time I can understand everyone’s caution slipping for one day, but that won’t happen here. The danger is too close and too present, there’s guards at the access points, a full watch up the mountain – nothing left to chance. Elrond would never allow it, you know that.”
Glorfindel looked out the window, watching the light slowly change and brighten. “I remember getting up round this time the day it happened,” he said quietly. “Needed to weave flowers in my hair, get into all that finery – formal dress in Gondolin was a thing apart. Took forever to get it all straight. “
“And it wasn’t much later than this that it happened, was it? With the rising sun, you told me. But this will be at night, in the heart of the valley, the safest place in Arda. Go over the watch deployment with Caelian again if it’ll make you feel better. He won’t mind and I – don’t want you having any more dark dreams.”
“Because they mean you have to wake up an hour early and make soothing sounds,” Glorfindel said with a grin, taking Erestor’s hand and raising it briefly to his lips. “Sorry, it’s not a habit of mine. And I haven’t had a full-fledged nightmare for ages either.”
“Mm, I know. Not since you stopped sleeping alone. I have my uses.”
“Yes, you do, and they are many and varied.” Glorfindel left the bed and walked naked across the room to the window, the air fresh and cool against his skin. He leaned a hand on the sill and looked out. The room was high above the river, not far from the second waterfall. The opposite wall of the ravine climbed straight up to the high ground, small, hardy bushes clinging to shallow crevices and tenacious trees thickening into a small forest near the top. The world was dawn-grey.
He studied the skyline, frowning to himself. There were watchers on the moorland, just as there were watch stations at various points along the cliff. This was, as Erestor said, possibly the safest place in Arda, and yet – the dream had whispered of darkness and power and things moving that should lie buried deep in the earth. Erestor might feel it was nothing more than a bad memory, and Erestor was smart and wise. But he was not always right.
~*~*~*~
“You look tired.”
There was a little square near one of the side entrances and Elrond was there, sitting on a bench under an old chestnut tree. He was leaning back with his face turned up to the sun, his eyes closed. Glorfindel could feel the power of the Ring of Air wrapping around him lightly like a summer cloak.
Elrond opened grey eyes and gave him a half smile. “It was a late night followed by an early morning. Come and join me here in the sun. I was enjoying the birds and the water.”
Glorfindel, who had spent the best part of an hour looking for the lord of the valley and now aimed to make the encounter seem purely serendipitous, sat down beside him on the bench. The flowing water was only a little louder than the waterfall further upstream, the birds were indeed singing and the sun was pleasantly warm. He breathed in deeply and forced himself to relax. He had learned that skill in Gondolin, as with so many others he would formerly have been embarrassed to own. In the rarefied atmosphere of Turgon’s court, it was never wise to seem tense or anxious. It made people nervous.
“Late night?”
Elrond shrugged slightly. “I sat on my balcony when I got back and walked the borders of the valley in my mind, every trail, every rabbit track, making sure everything was as it should be and that there were no blind spots. It took hours. I followed the river as far as I could see her, too.“
“Nothing?”
“Nothing to cause concern yet. Further out towards the crossroads I could feel orcs, but they were moving south. I’ve sent word up that they’re to keep an especial watch on the Ford, though nothing will cross there without my knowing.”
Glorfindel nodded, considered. “Should you be using – what you are using, at this time? Power is its own signpost, they say. If I can sense it…”
Elrond’s smile was easy, lighting his face and smoothing the lines under his eyes. “Oh, but you are vastly different than anything or anyone we need to stay hidden from, my friend. You can sense things because you were born across the water – twice. This would be too subtle for an orc to understand.”
“They know power,” Glorfindel reminded him. “They grew in darkness and fear and were moulded by power.”
“And they would know dark power, yes, but not light. The light is foreign to them and those who command them.”
Glorfindel studied the view down the gorge to where the river turned and the mountain blocked his view. “Those who command them. The so-called Witch-king, you mean? I wish we knew more about who or what the lord of Angmar is. The rise of that power came so quickly, too easily.”
“There was plotting and preparation out of sight first, yes,” Elrond agreed. “Kingdoms don’t just appear. I don’t know. Galadriel thinks something remained from the last war and grew while we were occupied elsewhere, but — I have my own ideas.”
Glorfindel waited, but Elrond fell silent, watching the birds up in the tree. Eventually, keeping his tone light, he asked, “You’ve not sensed anything else in the past few nights? Nothing moving just beyond sight, perhaps? I had a dream of sorts, but Erestor thought it was to do with Gondolin. I – wasn’t so sure.”
Elrond’s eyes took him in carefully. “Have you been having the dreams again, then? I hadn’t expected them to return.”
Glorfindel had been plagued for years after his arrival by dreams of smoke and fire, desperate screams, searing pain. It was his fëa coming to terms with past reality, Elrond hazarded, and in time they had stopped. Erestor’s part in that was still a private matter, not something he was ready to share. He shook his head now. “Nothing like that, more like a feeling of something waiting in the dark.”
He smoothed the hem of his tunic, his fingers following the line of embossed leaves, light green on dark. “Elrond, is the harvest festival a good idea at a time like this really? I know what I said about morale, but aren’t we making ourselves vulnerable? Even the guard posts will have a portion of the feast – it’s a distraction at a time when we have men missing, no news coming in of what’s happening in the outside world…”
“And you’re reminded of another festival, another threat, and it makes you uneasy? Well, that’s perfectly understandable.” Unlike Erestor, Elrond did not stroke his hair, but his voice was equally indulgent. Glorfindel forced himself not to let the flash of annoyance he felt show on his face. The more he thought of it, the more certain he was that the dream, which lay in misty fragments these many hours after, had nothing to do with the attack on Gondolin.
“That’s not the point,” he said evenly. “I know the festival would be reassuring for almost everyone living here; it signifies life going on as it does year on year. It might even take people’s minds off the missing fighters for an hour or two. But there’s something not right, something that makes me uneasy on a level no dream has ever touched. You’re certain you haven’t felt anything – unusual?”
Elrond shook his head. “My lord, there is nothing to sense, just the uneasiness of war on the air and empty seats at table. You know the men who guard our sleep as well as I, you’ve ridden with them, hunted down orcs with them, broken bread with them. I am not my great-grandfather, Glorfindel. There will be no sleeping on watch in my valley. Angmar will not touch us here.”
~*~*~*~*~
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Beta: Red Lasbelin