A Bridge in Dor-lomin by Himring

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Chapter 1

 

(Russandol=Maedhros; Findekano=Fingon, Findarato=Finrod Felagund)

 

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I

 

It is spring. The beech leaves in the grove on the other side of the river glow blatantly green in the sunlight, but as my eyes pass over them almost unseeingly, preoccupied with what is going on in this side, they pause on a flicker of autumn colour among the trees.  On this bank of the river, there is half a bridge. There are the conflicting explanations of the engineer and the master mason why the construction of the bridge is proceeding less quickly than planned. There is polite acrimony that I will need to resolve if I want my bridge completed as soon as possible.

On the other bank, the trail to Barad Eithel that I want to turn into a road passable even in winter vanishes into the trees. And once again, among the beech trunks, I catch a glimpse of red. Perhaps it is a dead sapling or broken branch that never shed its dead leaves to put on the new green—but, no, it has begun to move. It moves out from the shadows of the grove into a shaft of sunlight and turns an even brighter red. It is moving at about the height of an elf’s head—the height of a tall elf’s head. It’s the colour of my cousin Russandol’s hair. It is my cousin Russandol.

The engineer and the master mason realize that they have completely lost my attention for the moment. They stop arguing, turn around, and so all three of us are watching as Russandol emerges from the trees. He gazes across at us, raises his hand in a brief wave and walks down the path to the ford below the bridge. By the time he has reached the last stepping-stone and crossed to our side, I am there to meet him. Everyone else is covertly staring at the two of us from a discreet distance.

‘Russandol.’

‘Findekano.’

‘I didn’t know you were coming to visit me.’ Well, no, of course I didn’t, because you didn’t choose to tell me.

‘No. I’m afraid I rather upset your housekeeper.’

‘You’ve talked to Viresse?’

‘I had two of your father’s men with me, guards from Barad Eithel. I left them there. Your housekeeper told me where to find you.’

‘Ah.’

Ah. We haven’t met since the Mereth Aderthad and even then he didn’t seek me out, although he very carefully didn’t avoid me either. He‘s written me scores of letters, but he’s never come to see me. There were a few occasions, when I just missed meeting him, but there was always a perfectly good explanation why he had to leave just before I arrived, why he couldn’t come until I’d already left. In fact, the explanations were suspiciously good, just a little too convincing... I’ve considered just turning up on his doorstep in Himring, remarking casually: Fancy your forgetting to invite me... But in the face of what had gone before, it never seemed quite appropriate.

And now here he is, practically on my doorstep, without warning, and it looks as if there is also going to be no explanation. What am I supposed to say? A star shines over the hour of our meeting?

‘Have you come to see my bridge?’

His eyes, meeting mine, narrow slightly. Then he smiles, a genuine, honest-to-goodness smile.

‘Yes, I’ve come to see your bridge. Tell me all about it.’

Suddenly, I’ve got a lump in my throat. That won’t do at all. I quickly reach out, take Russandol by the elbow and almost drag him over to the bridgehead. Ignoring the polite way he removes himself from my grasp and adjusts his sleeve, I hastily launch into an explanation of my plans for roads in Dor-lomin and this bridge in particular.

And Russandol listens.  He smiles in the right places, frowns in the right places, asks the right questions.  The engineer and the master mason get their comeuppance because soon they are roped into the discussion—and are suddenly far less keen to  blame their shortcomings on each other in the presence of the notorious son of Feanor and master of Himring, who, they fear, will be able to see through their patent excuses in no time at all. After about an hour, I remember that he’s only just arrived after a journey all the way from Barad Eithel and I haven’t even offered him a drink.

II

 

No further explanation for Russandol’s unannounced arrival is given, but he manages to mollify my housekeeper nevertheless. In fact, she’s soon falling over herself to provide him with the best we have to offer and he, I observe, is meticulous in showing his appreciation. I’ve asked a few cautious questions, but haven’t elicited much in the way of answers. He does tell me that he was visiting Findarato in his new stronghold of Nargothrond before he came north. I manage to draw him out a little on the subject of Nargothrond; it seems I could extract a full description of the place, if I wanted it, but I don’t particularly want one, just now. Sooner or later I will go and have another look at Nargothrond myself, now Findarato has completed his work on it.

So I allow my housekeeper to feed him our best food, ply him with our best wine and stick with the conversational topic that has already been shown to work. I talk about Dor-lomin and Hithlum. We graduate from roads and bridges to building projects in general; then I meander on, talking about various plans, problems, local events, and people in no particular order. If he isn’t interested in any of this, he’s concealing it awfully well.

He looks so much better now than he did in Mithrim. I suppose he already must have done at the Feast of Reuniting, but then I wasn’t able to study his face and posture at leisure across the table, as I’m doing now. He had already recovered his physical strength before he left Mithrim. He has filled out a little more and the scars hardly show up any more at all, but the main difference is one of attitude. He still sits a little straighter than anyone else I know, but that stiff tenseness, the air of enormous strain that made me never quite know whether I wanted to give him a hug or grab him and shake him, seems to have gone. And he’s meeting my eyes again.

What was I talking about? Oh, crops... ‘We’ve given up on wheat. I guess it might be possible to breed a special winter-hardened variety that is up to coping with the rigours of the Hithlum climate—didn’t you mention something like that in one of your letters?—but at the moment we are doing better with oats and barley... Russandol, it is late, you travelled a long way earlier today, and I’m droning on about cereals.’

‘I suppose it is quite late, isn’t it? It wasn’t really that much of a trip. I’ve observed that the dwarves manage to grow crops at amazingly high altitudes and very low temperatures, in spite of their not being all that much interested in agriculture. Their heart isn’t in it... I’ll try to find out more for you. Yes, it really is late...’

We part at the bottom of the stairs. As he turns on the landing to mount another flight up to his room, he looks down for a moment and there is something about the angle at which the light of the lamp strikes his face...

‘Kill me then.’ Although his face is marred and disfigured with suffering, it shows no regret—and no pity. There are tears leaking out of his eyes, but he’s not weeping. Not really. ‘Kill me quickly and leave.’

I feel myself going pale at the shock of the unwanted memory. Suddenly, I want to throw up, here on this peaceful spring evening in this nice, quiet country house in Dor-lomin. How much can Russandol see from up there?

His voice comes drifting gently down from above. ‘Good night, Findekano. Sleep well.’

III

 

The bad aftertaste of that memory is still with me the next morning, when I meet Russandol over breakfast. He doesn’t seem conscious of my feeling of constraint, however.

‘What is your schedule for today?’

‘Well, there are quite a number of things, but of course I didn’t know you were going to be here today...’

‘Don’t let me disrupt your plans. I didn’t announce I was coming. I’m happy just to tag along, if you don’t mind.’

At first I do mind, although I wouldn’t admit it on any account. But in the course of the morning, as he unobtrusively follows me all over the place—as I discuss business with my secretary in my study, household accounts with my housekeeper in her office, affairs of the community with the mayor of the nearby town in the town hall—never interfering or interrupting, occasionally asking a perceptive question or two in the intervals, I relax.

In the late afternoon, though, the matter of the bridge comes up again, as the engineer and the stone mason arrive for further discussion about exactly how much building material, how many workers and draught animals, how much supplies are needed.

I look at Russandol, after they leave, and find myself blushing.  ‘You’ve just come from Nargothrond, and I boast to you about a half-built bridge—showing off to Teacher like a kid.’

He raises his eyebrows.  ‘It’s been a long time since I had anything much to teach you, Findekano.  I’ve got all to learn about Dor-lomin... Nargothrond is Nargothrond. Besides, Findarato had help from Doriath. You’re doing this on your own, from scratch.’

There is a moment of silence. I’m trying to decide whether it is a comfortable silence, when he asks me:

‘Findekano, forgive me for asking, but you were really rather bored during those last years in Tirion, weren’t you?’

I am startled at the question. ‘Yes—weren’t you?’

He looks at me thoughtfully. ‘I guess I should have realized it then. Perhaps I wasn’t in a very noticing frame of mind. But it struck me today... You are very much in your element here, aren’t you? You enjoy what you’re doing and you’re good at what you do.’

‘Why...thank you.’

He frowns a little. It appears he’s gone back to mulling over my earlier question. ‘No, I wasn’t bored—I think. I guess I was too afraid already by then—although persistent fear is almost a kind of boredom...’

He gives me a twisted smile. ‘I wasn’t afraid of anything that actually happened, of course—no prescience involved. Just of your father’s adherents and mine battling it out in the streets of Tirion. But I wasn’t bored... I guess, in any case, it is quite difficult to be bored, living in the same house with someone as monumentally restless as Atar. Like trying to yawn at an earthquake...’

He looks at me and, for some reason, my heart misses a beat. ‘Although...’

‘Although...?’

But no more is forthcoming. Russandol is gazing absent-mindedly out of the window and seems to have forgotten all about this conversation. There is a flutter in the apple tree outside the window. A blackbird alights on one of the boughs and begins trilling its evening song. Russandol watches the blackbird. I watch Russandol.

IV

 

Our after-dinner conversation is all about the affairs of Dor-lomin again. As we step into the hall, I tense. But this time, as he mounts the stairs, there are no unwelcome memories of Thangorodrim. Instead, I remember the weight of him doubled over my forearm, sobbing, several times during the weeks in Mithrim. I’m so glad all that is over. What is it about the memory that leaves me with a hint of regret?

And the next day, he leaves. I don’t know what I expected, but not that. I feel myself beginning to pout and stop myself, want to throw a tantrum and don’t. Yet again, Russandol expertly soothes the ruffled feelings of my housekeeper, heaping praise on her for anything from the quality of her pastry to the comfort of the bedding. I stand, un-soothed, as he and my father’s two guards mount up and depart, back to Barad Eithel.

I hold out for two days; then I throw over all my plans and follow him to Barad Eithel. But when I arrive there, of course, he is gone.

‘I told him it was ridiculous’, says my father. His voice holds that peculiar mixture of admiration, pity and irritation that has characterized his attitude to Russandol ever since Mithrim. ‘All that travelling—and then he stays for...what? Three days in all? But he said he was needed back in Himring.’

My cousin has vanished back into the East like a mirage over the plain of Ard-Galen. The next letter to arrive from Himring discusses dwarven varieties of winter-hardened crops—and only that.

V

 

After that too, too decorous meeting on the road, I am on my best behaviour for two days. Then I can’t stand it anymore. As our escort stops yet again for a break just before the river crossing, I turn to him and say abruptly: ‘Come with me’, and head off into the woods at high speed.

I walk straight into the heart of the beech grove and turn round. I hadn’t realized how close he was behind me. For a moment, his proximity paralyzes me. In the dimness, his eyes are dark and questioning. He leans towards me, and his lips brush mine. At the touch, my brain shorts out completely. Next thing, I find I’ve pinned him against the trunk of a beech in a position that must be very uncomfortable, given that he’s so much taller than me. I hope he hasn’t banged his head.

‘Sorry.’

‘What about? Please. Don’t let go now... You still want me.’

‘You had doubts about that!’

‘When I thought about myself—every day. When I thought about you—never.’

‘You’re beautiful!’

‘Deluded cousin. No, I’m not. Not any more. But as long as you want me, it doesn’t matter. I used to give myself leave to mourn the loss of my looks every second Friday of the month, by way of light relief from more serious troubles. Now I’ve got better things to think about.’

‘Such as?’

‘I don’t think I ought to tell you just now. Dear heart, this grove may be safe enough for a snatched kiss or two, but I don’t think we should take it any further. It’s too close to the road.’

‘I guess you’re right but...’

The temptation is too much to resist. I allow my hips to grind into his with provoking slowness. The way his body arches in response is most satisfactory.

‘Findekano!’

‘Just reminding you of what’s in store for you...’

‘As if my imagination wasn’t running riot already...’

We confine ourselves to kissing and stay as long as we dare. Then to prolong those moments alone together a bit, we do not head back directly to the road but a little to the left, to the bank of the river. We find ourselves in the outskirts of the beech grove, on higher ground, with a good view of the bridge.

‘Russandol, when you visited me that time, you know the time I mean...?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were watching me from about there, from the shelter of the trees, before I spotted you, weren’t you?’

‘Oh, yes. I must have stood there watching you for at least a quarter of an hour.’

‘Russandol...? What was that although about? I don’t know if you remember...’

‘I do. You’ve realized the purpose of that visit?’

‘Maybe you had better tell me...’

‘I thought that enough time might have passed since Mithrim, and the memory of all those emotional upheavals might have faded a bit. Life had been comparatively peaceful for a while, and we all of us had been very busy with our separate affairs. It seemed likely that my un-cousinly ardour had had time to cool, and I might now be able to offer you the unqualified friendship I thought you deserved... Of course, when I got here...’

‘Your ardour hadn’t cooled?’

‘It had not. I stood up here and found that even seeing you at that distance, on the other side of the river, was enough to reduce my capacity for rational thinking to zero. I decided I had made a tremendous mistake, and it was really only the thought of scandalizing your poor housekeeper even more that stopped me from beating a hasty retreat, gathering up my two guards and fleeing straight back to Barad Eithel. And then you spotted me...and insisted on telling me about your bridge...’

‘But that although?’

‘Be patient with me, I’m trying to answer you... I’d just come from Nargothrond, where I’d been a terrible disappointment to poor Findarato. He was so proud of his achievements there! He showed me all over the place, and I duly took notice of everything and said the polite things. We went over the whole list: Spacious halls—tick; overhead lighting—tick; golden ceilings—tick, and so on... And after he’d finished showing me one of the wonders of Middle-earth, he could tell that the only thing that really interested me about Nargothrond was its defensive capabilities. I cared about Nargothrond, yes, but only because it looked like a very safe place to me...  And then there was you and your dinky little half-finished bridge. In Valinor, I wouldn’t have given it another glance...’

‘Hey, be nice!’

‘No, you’re not following what I’m saying; I thought the bridge was wonderful! And so were you.’

‘You’re right, I think, I’m not following you...’

‘It had to do with what we talked about the next day, about your seeming in your element in Dor-lomin, perhaps more than you’d ever seemed to be in Valinor. The bridge looked right somehow, even half-finished. You looked right, standing beside it, bursting with pride...’

‘You’re exaggerating...’

‘Not by much. So when I said although, what I was thinking of was Prince Nelyafinwe of Tirion, who hadn’t been bored—as if he was somebody else, as if he hadn’t ever been me, as if he had gone on existing somehow in Valinor, after we left... He seemed to have all the advantages over me: a reasonably clear conscience, to start with, no blood on his hands... But it occurred to me that he would never, ever see you explaining your bridge to him, wouldn’t even have a clue what he was missing... And suddenly, for a moment there, I stopped envying him and thought: The poor sod... Of course, after that I had to leave very quickly, before I forgot myself and did something outrageously stupid.’

‘Stupid?’

‘Like this...’

‘I think I appreciate outrageous stupidity in you...’

‘You do now...’

I wish we could head back right into the grove, no, even deeper into the woods.

‘Findekano...? I think we’d better move. If we don’t, our escort will come looking, and Hurin is waiting for us.’