The West Wind Quartet by Himring

Chapter One: Arrival

Maglor's Gap, named after the greatest singer of the Noldor but not otherwise known as the cultural capital of Beleriand. A dark handsome stranger walks into an inn... No forget that, they're both married to somebody else. All right, a dark silent stranger walks into an inn. No, no, NO! He's Maglor. You don't want him to be silent, do you?

Read Chapter One: Arrival

I

As a solo player, I’m a good harpist and a decent singer, no more, but I’m an excellent accompanist, even if I say so myself, and an experienced teacher. I learned with the best. For a time I was a student of Maglor Feanorion.  You would prefer me to say that it was Daeron who was the best, not Maglor, because he was one of ours? But to compare Daeron and Maglor is to compare a pomegranate with a bunch of grapes. It is a possible to have a personal preference, but to claim that one is a better example of a piece of fruit than the other is utter nonsense.  I am talking of their music, of course. Personally, I think Maglor was the better teacher, but perhaps all I’m saying is that his style of teaching suited me better...

Then as now, my husband was a bit of a wanderer. I never found out what made him pick Maglor’s Gap as his destination that time; Oderen was extremely vague on the matter and for all I know he rolled a pair of dice. He could afford to indulge himself; a craftsman like him was welcome anywhere.  There was always someone who wanted a bit of decorative carving done, a spray of leaves on a mirror frame, a frieze of animals on a mantelpiece. I trailed along quite happily, picking up a song here, a dance tune there, playing for our supper at inns and gatherings.

We were vaguely aware that the country was at war, but it was the time of the Siege, and we didn’t take the war all that seriously then. We certainly had no intention of getting involved in any of the fighting ourselves. Maglor’s Gap did have more of the feel of a garrison town to it than any of the places we’d been to so far; we noticed that, when we arrived. It was hard to miss, the way the barracks towered over the rest of the buildings. But the goings-on in the town were peaceable enough; there was as much need for ornamental wood-carving and dance music in the evenings as anywhere else.

We were not, of course, anyone special. It’s true that, later, I was one of the court musicians in Lindon for a while, but that was afterwards, when Maglor’s name had begun to open doors for me, provided I didn’t speak it too loudly. We didn’t expect any of the higher-ups to take much notice of our arrival, and, except for the routine run-down on local taxes and tolls, delivered by the town reeve and received by us with the customary grumbling, they didn’t.

We had heard of Maglor, certainly. I had even learned some of his songs, in the Sindarinized version in which they had reached Eglarest, although I thought I’d better avoid playing them here, where they were sure to be familiar with the originals. I thought I’d probably get a glimpse of him some time during our stay. It seemed unlikely I would ever get a chance to hear him play—after all, he was a prince, wasn’t he?

We had been in town for some weeks already. I had been hired to provide evening entertainment at the Red Lion. That particular evening, I had a responsive audience and I was doing fine—the song about the Adan who mistook a Green Elf for a bush got the usual laughs, and the Fishermen’s Reel had set people tapping their toes, even if few of them had an interest in dancing tonight. Then a couple of high-class customers walked in. I had barely noticed the unusually good quality of their clothes, when a murmur ran round the room.

‘Maglor’, said one of the people at the table closest to me, ‘that’s Maglor.’

I stared. Actually, all I could see was black hair and a shoulder underneath a magnificent cloak. The rest of Prince Maglor was concealed behind his companions. They had remained in a group at the bar, talking to the landlord. Nevertheless, I sat there with my harp in my lap and gaped. I was in the same room with the greatest singer of the Noldor.

The landlord partly emerged from behind the group and waved to me impatiently. I understood I was to go on playing. He actually expected me to sing and play in the presence of Maglor Feanorion.

I adjusted my harp against my shoulder, raised my fingers and opened my mouth. What came out was a jangle of strings and the most embarrassing squeak. The shoulder underneath that magnificent cloak jerked slightly. I felt a rushing sound in my ears. I had never completely dried up from stage fright before.

I tried again and, this time, at least the notes on the harp rang true, but no sound at all emerged from my throat. I stopped again. The landlord frowned. Maglor’s face emerged from behind the back of another noble Noldo, looking at me. Lachenn. I stared at him as a rabbit might look at a snake.

He said something brief and inaudible to his companions, then crossed the room towards me. I don’t know what I thought was happening, but what I felt was utter panic, as if I were about to be sentenced to death for the unspeakable crime of massacring a piece of music in his august presence. What he actually did, though, was reach out his foot and hook a stool from underneath the table next to me with his ankle. Then he sat down right in front of me, with his back towards me.

‘Now’, he said and I heard his voice for the first time. I found later on that he could sing flawlessly in a dozen Sindarin dialects, but when he spoke, his Sindarin had a clear Noldorin accent.  ‘I’m not here. I’m not listening. Try again.’

I looked at the back of his head, loose raven hair streaming down across a broad embroidered collar. I took a deep steadying breath and let it out again. Then I began the song the third time, and this time I gave my all to it.

When I had finished, he turned round and looked up at me.

‘Good’, he said. ‘Not good enough, though. You can do better than that. I’ll teach you how.’

And so I became the student of Maglor Feanorion. He never asked me whether I wanted to be. But no musician worth her salt would have refused.

 

II

Although I did my very best, practising daily with a fervour and dedication I’d never quite managed before, it was by no means plain sailing for me.

‘Why do you bother with me?’, I asked him in despair, once, during a lesson in which nothing seemed to have gone quite right. ‘If you let it be known that Maglor Feanorion is taking on students, the cream of young musicians would flock to you from all over Beleriand!’

‘Taking on the most gifted of students is a heavy responsibility’, said Maglor. ‘If I summoned anyone in that league to Maglor’s Gap to study with me, they would expect me to devote all my time to them and their talents, and they would be quite right to do so, especially as I have no colleagues here to share my teaching duties with, for that is how I myself was taught in Valinor. But I cannot devote all my time to teaching music. I rule Maglor’s Gap. I keep watch on Angband. These things must have priority.'

He glanced briefly towards the northern window; then he turned back to me.

'You yourself are not quite that class of student—although perhaps it is just the necessary vanity and obstinacy you lack. But what is more important—I have not summoned you. You live here already, right in front of my nose. I cannot allow your talent go to waste, if I can help it, Angband or no. It would be a crime.

Just now you’re trying too hard. You want to play a piece of music, not rip out a tree by its roots. You’ll be sore tomorrow, with nothing much to show for it. Try to relax here...’, he lightly rapped my shoulder with his knuckle, ‘and here’, he rapped my lower back.

I tried to follow his instructions, but found myself distracted by his explanation.

‘You shouldn’t have to bother about Angband at all’, I said hotly. ‘A musician of your talents! I don’t know what that brother of yours can be thinking of! Surely even he can see that you ought to be free to spend all your time playing music, if not teaching it. Can he find nobody else to watch the Gap for him?’

‘My brother Maedhros shouldn’t have to spend all his time keeping watch on Angband either’, said Maglor. ‘But he does. I can do no less.’

‘Prince Maedhros?’, I said astonished. ‘They say he loves war!’

‘We none of us love war’, said Maglor. ‘We are Noldor and Feanorians. That means that perhaps we value our own skills and creations too highly as opposed to those of others, but it also means that we abhor the destruction and waste of skill that war entails. At least that is who we used to be; it is less clear to me who we have become... But still my brother Maedhros does not love war.’

I felt a bit sceptical. What Maglor said, I was sure, was true of himself. To see Maglor bending over his harp and listen to him explaining his growing interest in instrumental chamber music and how he was thinking of going on to compose a series of quartets—all this was the very antithesis of war.  But was it true of Prince Maedhros? Nothing I had previously heard of him showed him in any other light than someone whose sole purpose in life was to eradicate Angband from the surface of the earth.

As I said, it was the time of the Siege and we had spent most of our time further south. I had been born in Brithombar, under the Sun. I did not doubt in the slightest that Angband was evil and extremely dangerous, but it did not really occur to me, then, that I wanted Angband carefully watched for my own sake as much as anyone else’s.  

Nor had I ever laid eyes on Maedhros. When Maglor went to Himring, he did not take me with him; I stayed behind at Maglor’s Gap with Oderen. Shortly after the night I met Maglor, the landlord at the Red Lion had tripled my fee.

---

Chapter End Notes

Lachenn: Maglor has the bright eyes of those who have lived in Aman during the Time of the Trees, which would make being looked at by him even more scary for a Sinda.

Chapter Two: The Retreat from Maglor's Gap

Major battle scene, most of which manages to take place just out of sight. Maglor kills an orc (really!). A mistimed genealogical discussion causes upheaval. ...and also an incidental dragon, obviously.

Read Chapter Two: The Retreat from Maglor's Gap

I

 

The morning of the day the Siege ended started in no way unlike any of the previous ones.  On my part, there were no premonitions whatever. I remember studying a threadbare patch at the heel of one of my stockings and deciding I could just about wear that stocking one more time without darning it. I don’t remember any of the conversation over breakfast, from which I conclude that probably neither Oderen nor I said anything we hadn’t said a hundred times before.

 

About mid-morning, there was a commotion outside in the street and I went out to check. People were standing about in small groups, whispering worriedly. I joined several, one after the other, but couldn’t quite work out what was going on.  A messenger, last night, with bad news—definitely. But what had been his message?  Nobody really seemed to know. I discounted several wild speculations that later turned out to be distressingly correct and went back in.

 

By early afternoon, at the butcher’s , however, everyone was certain a major attack from Angband was under way, although, still, nobody seemed to have any evidence or direct knowledge of anything. I decided to forget about the greengrocer’s, went home and told Oderen.  Soon after that we heard the town crier announcing the news everyone already knew. We regarded each other uncomfortably, still not sure whether it was really any concern of ours—Maglor and his troops would deal with it surely, somewhere out there—but alarmed that we were even this close to a war that looked like suddenly turning into a serious proposition. At the same time we were rather ashamed of our selfishness—or at least that was how I felt, because we didn’t really discuss it. And yet, it still hadn’t quite sunk in.

 

Later that afternoon, I made my way to Maglor’s headquarters for my scheduled music lesson. It wasn’t that I necessarily expected it to take place; in fact, I rather thought I might be going to be told by Maglor’s secretary that it had been cancelled, but it did not occur to me not to adhere to the usual routine. The square in front of the barracks, when I arrived, seemed to be a scene of utter chaos, horses and soldiers and stable hands milling about. In fact, it was rather more orderly than that, as I discovered after I’d stood gaping for a bit, but everywhere there were signs of urgency and haste. After a while, I spotted Maglor in the midst of it, his secretary next to him, busily jotting down Maglor’s orders. I hesitantly made my way towards them.

 

Maglor’s gaze, as he looked from one of his captains to the other, came to rest on me.  It was almost as if he had trouble recognizing me. I looked into his eyes and I realized that Maglor, the greatest singer of the Noldor—Maglor, who, as I had known him up to now, had lived, breathed and dreamed music, despite that conversation about priorities and Angband—did not at this moment remember that music existed. I might have been a visitor from another world.  So that was what War meant. I turned around and went home. I stood in the middle of the room, arms dangling, and tried to think what to do next. Nothing came to me, nothing at all.

 

 

 

II

 

The evening of the following day Maglor’s orders were relayed from the north, saying that Maglor’s Gap was to be evacuated. The civilian population was to make its way to Himring as fast as it could. However, the evacuation of a whole town is a tricky business and a slow one. I think Maglor had begun making some provision for this eventuality before he left—or at any rate someone had, because there were extra wagons, pack ponies and food rations—but there had been little warning, nevertheless.  Although each of us followed orders as best we could, our column did not move fast enough.

 

It was the ash clouds and the smoke that caught up with us first, billowing in the higher reaches of the air and obscuring the sun, as a strong northern breeze drove them across the sky. Then there came an acrid stench of burning on the wind, and the clouds of smoke appeared lower and more threatening. Soon after that that a detachment of Maglor’s riders, sent to intersect with us from the north, found us and urged us to greater speed.  Their appearance alone told a grim tale—blood-stained bandages and grey faces—and it hardly needed their words to warn us that danger loomed on the northern horizon.

 

We began throwing any of the heavier and less necessary items of our luggage out of the carts to lighten the load of the draught horses and oxen, and those of us who were fit enough got down and ran alongside. We were still not fast enough. Meanwhile Maglor’s main body of troops had retreated to try and hold such earthworks and fortifications as there were around Maglor’s Gap against the enemy, protecting our flank and our backs.  But they failed, because the enemy was too strong, and were driven south and west. When they rallied and caught up with us, we were still in the plain, just in sight of the hills. They fanned out around us, Maglor and his personal guard bringing up the rear, and shouted at us, their voices hoarse with fear.

 

We thought we had already been going as fast as we possibly could. Now, however, we found ourselves in an out-and-out race. A few of Maglor’s riders rode in among us, picked up any children they could get hold of and galloped straight for the hills. The poor oxen and horses drawing the carts were whipped into a bone-shaking pace; the carts lurched madly behind them. Oderen and I ran hand-in-hand. Sweat poured down my face. My heart was hammering. I was gasping for breath. I didn’t know what exactly was behind us and I hoped we wouldn’t find out. But we did.

 

The sunlight had already been weak and discoloured, filtering as it did through heavy clouds of ash. Now it seemed to grow even darker, and at the same time an unseasonal mist began to rise up from the ground under our feet.  It burned where it touched the skin, like acid, and thickened into a noisome fog, as if we were wading through a marsh, making it more difficult to see where we stepped and causing us to stumble on uneven ground. Then an overwhelming stink wafted up from behind, making us gag, even as we continued to run as fast as we could.

 

Relentlessly, the acid fog rose higher and higher, until it was above our heads, and we could not see the way ahead. There were shouts of warning, screams of panic, and then he was there among us, bursting through Maglor’s rear guard almost without slowing. Glaurung.  Glimpses of something huge, weaving in and out of the fog, towering above us like a wall, spreading a poisonous yellow glow.  I never saw all of him or his head; if I had, I doubt I would be here to tell the tale. But the fog filled with the fell strength of his malicious intent, brimming over with it, and sent many of us mindless with panic. Blank fear seemed to seep out of the air and through the soles of our feet.  It overwhelmed me, and I became incapable of coherent thought. If that unfortunate young Turin had the strength of mind to face Glaurung twice over, all I can say is that, however he failed in other ways, his soul must have burned brighter than some are willing to give him credit for. I didn’t manage to keep my wits together even when Glaurung wasn’t focussing his attention solely on me.

 

It was at that point that Lord Maedhros intervened, coming to our aid. I did not know he had. All I knew was that the fog lifted slightly, and the pressure of the worm’s malice on my mind eased. Later, I learned that Maglor, on first encountering Glaurung up north, had attempted to employ the tactics that Prince Fingon had once used so successfully, attacking him with mounted archers. But Glaurung’s scales had hardened, and the arrows could no longer pierce his armour. He ignored the archers, breached the front line of Maglor’s troops, and the orcs rushed into the gap after him. So Maglor’s defence failed, but he sent messengers to Maedhros, warning him of Glaurung’s increased strength.

 

Maedhros considered Maglor’s message and decided to try attacking Glaurung with cross-bows and see whether the greater force of cross-bow bolts might be enough to pierce the dragon scales. But cross-bows could not be used on the back of a galloping horse in the same way as bows and arrows could, so he would not be able to attack Glaurung out in the open and needed to set up an ambush. In the end, our plight stopped him from using his cross-bows as he’d planned. Instead, he and his troops attacked Glaurung straight out, but managed successfully to lure him into a shallow valley among the outlying hills, despite heavy losses. Maedhros had stationed men with cross-bows on the slopes, making the best use of what cover there was. The newly-improvised strategy didn’t entirely work. The valley was too shallow to hold Glaurung in, and the cross-bow bolts succeeded in penetrating the scales, but not deeply enough. However, Glaurung, who must have believed himself invulnerable, was sufficiently disconcerted by his wounds to lose his taste for the attack. He broke out of the valley, not without inflicting further losses, and went off eastwards, looking for easier prey.

 

But of all this, at the time, I knew nothing. When Glaurung’s malice receded, I found myself lying face-down in a shallow ditch, sobbing into the dirt. I gradually realized that I was quite alone and that I had no idea where Oderen was. It was very tempting just to stay where I was, keep my face buried in lovely, solid, reassuring soil, and hope that the enemy would continue to overlook me. But, for one thing, the ditch wasn’t nearly deep enough to be a safe place to hide and, for the other, I clearly needed to find Oderen if I could. I tried to wrestle down my paralyzing fear. It took a while.  Then I lifted my head and began to crawl in what I thought was the most promising direction. We had been going towards the hills. They seemed very close now, so I continued that way.

 

After a while, I concluded that I really ought to have a means to defend myself, if I met an enemy. Procuring one involved dropping the pretence that the motionless heaps strewn here and there were just a feature of the landscape. I halted by the corpse of a soldier who had an orc arrow sticking out of his back. As he had fallen forward, sprawling, the sword had fallen from his hand. I picked it up and realized at once that I would not be able to use it; it was too heavy for me. I bit my lip, took a deep breath and turned him over to get at the dagger in his belt. I drew it from its sheath; then I looked at the dead man’s face. A Noldo. He looked faintly familiar; I must have seen him about the town, but had never really met him or known his name.

 

‘Thank you’, I said to him.

 

It was all I could do, right then. I got onto my knees and elbows and resumed crawling.

 

 

 

III

 

There seemed to be some kind of movement visible to my left now. There were also faint, indistinguishable sounds from that direction. I was by no means certain that sound and motion were good signs, but I was alone and lost in unfamiliar country and staying with the dead would get me nowhere, so I cautiously headed that way.

 

There were more corpses, but now there seemed to be more dead orcs than elves. Perhaps things hadn’t gone quite as badly as it seemed? I avoided looking too closely at the orcs as much as I’d avoided looking at the dead elves. I’d hoped never to get this close to an orc, living or dead.

 

I came to an area where a couple of our carts had obviously broken down. Perhaps the draught animals had stampeded until they stumbled and broke their legs or the carts had overturned. But the horses that had drawn the nearest one at any rate seemed to have been killed by the enemy. There were arrows in their flanks, and I thought I also glimpsed tooth marks. I shuddered.

 

I crept past them and peered around the corner of the cart to the other side. There seemed to be troops massing further off, but I didn’t look too closely at them, because my attention was immediately drawn to the group in the foreground. There, over there among them, surely, surely—yes!  A profile I knew!

 

It wasn’t until that moment, feeling that dizzying surge of relief, that I realized I’d been sure Maglor must be dead. After all, he’d been right in the dragon’s path, he and his guards, when it descended on us. But there he was, still alive after having encountered Glaurung three times in a handful of days, organizing his men, who split up into small groups and began searching the area in haste, evidently looking for wounded survivors. I clung to the side of the cart for a moment, breathing a prayer of thanks to the Star-Kindler.

 

Maglor turned to those who remained with him and addressed them, perhaps giving them a message to deliver. He was not so very far away, but between us there was a space where a small skirmish seemed to have taken place and the corpses lay more thickly. Suddenly, I glimpsed movement among the dead. Someone wounded regaining consciousness... No!

 

An orc leapt up from between the dead and went straight for Maglor, and he wasn’t the only one, for out of the corner of my eye I saw others springing up, ready to attack. They must have been cut off from their main force and have lain in hiding, waiting for Maglor’s soldiers to disperse. A monster heading for my teacher’s unprotected back—I rushed after him without stopping for thought, brandishing the dead Noldo’s dagger. As he reached Maglor, I caught up with him and hurled myself against the orc from behind, trying to ram the dagger through his hide. Even with all my weight and impetus behind the thrust, I found it unexpectedly difficult. I felt the impact of the blow travel up my arm and knew it couldn’t have been strong enough to inflict real damage. I stumbled, and the rank smell of orc filled my nostrils.

 

Meanwhile Maglor, warned by the commotion and his comrades’ warning cries, had whipped around, sword in hand, and caught the orc in the belly. Weak as my blow was, coming unexpectedly from that angle, it was apparently enough to shove the orc further onto the point of Maglor’s sword, and it sank forward with a gurgling cry. Maglor’s eyes met mine across its shoulder.

 

‘He looks angry’, I thought. ‘That’s right; he didn’t need me.’

 

Maglor yanked his blade out of the orc, leaped around him and grabbed me by the shoulder. He dragged me back to the broken-down cart and thrust me behind the wheel.

 

‘Stay here’, he ordered. ‘Hide. I’ll come back for you.’

 

Then he ran to help one of his men who was being attacked by two orcs at once. I cowered behind the wheel, clutching my blood-stained dagger and shaking. Reaction had set in, and I knew I would never have the courage to go out there again. I didn’t even dare look, although after a time things grew quieter outside. There was still the sound of running foot-steps and loud voices, but the clash of metal on metal had ceased and there were no more screams. But I’d lost my nerve altogether by then.

 

I pressed my cheek against the axle and repeated to myself over and over again, silently: ‘He said he’d come back. He said he’d come back.’

 

Lower voices, less hurried footsteps—and then the voice of someone softly speaking Quenya. I couldn’t speak Quenya—still can’t, in fact—but Maglor had made me learn a whole repertoire of Quenya songs, so I understood it much better than the average Sinda, and it was precisely the fact that the voice was speaking so quietly and in a language that I associated mainly with music that allowed it to penetrate my panicky consciousness.

 

‘I’m sorry I was late. It looks as if we will have to redefine shouting distance, don’t you think? Or maybe we could just settle for your standing right next to me most of the time in the near future. I seem to have grown very nervous during the last couple of days.’

 

‘You’re not the only one’, Maglor’s voice answered. He sounded extremely tired, but I could follow his Quenya even better than the other speaker’s, because I was used to hearing the words of the language in his voice.

 

‘Any news of Carnistir?’

 

‘No, not since the dragon came between us. I tried to send messengers but they couldn’t get through, and the last ones I sent didn’t return.’

 

‘Who?’

 

Maglor named three names. There was a short silence.

 

‘Tyelkormo and Curufinwe?’, Maglor asked then.

 

‘That’s why I didn’t get here in time to assist you earlier. The enemy attacked Aglon as well, but not only that. They came from the west as well as the north, down the slopes from Dorthonion. I think...I think Aikanaro may be dead. We’ve had some refugees from Ladros and they reported rumours...

 

At any rate, a part of Morgoth’s army came between us like a wedge and our forces were split up, with Tyelkormo and Curufinwe on the other side. From what I could make out, they seemed to be retreating south and west in relatively orderly fashion, but there were too many enemy troops between us—and I had received your messages about Glaurung.’

 

‘I ought to have evacuated the town sooner’, said Maglor. ‘But the earliest reports badly underestimated the threat...’

 

‘I know. Findekano tried to warn me about Glaurung, but I don’t think even he foresaw what he would become... And who would have thought we had quite so many distant relatives out there?’

 

That last sentence, so softly spoken in regretful Quenya, took a moment to comprehend. Up until then, I had only thought of us as being attacked by terrifying monsters. That had been quite bad enough. I stared at the orc blood on the dagger in my hand and began to retch violently.

 

There was the sound of someone coming quickly towards me and then I was hauled forth from behind the cart wheel by Maglor, who steadied me as I vomited. Evidently, the first sound I’d made had reminded him where exactly I was. 

 

‘I think you would do better in the future not to discuss genealogy on the battlefield, brother’, he said, now in Sindarin.

 

‘I’m sorry, mistress, I had no idea you were within earshot’, Lord Maedhros apologized.

 

I ignored him; I wasn’t even hearing properly what he’d said.

 

‘His blood...! I stabbed him. I stabbed him from behind...!’, I whimpered.

 

‘I’m very glad you didn’t try to stab him from the front, Emlinn’, said Maglor grimly. ‘He was twice as tall as you and three times as wide, and you have no training whatsoever, don’t you? I should have seen to it that you had at least some lessons in basic self-defence.’

 

It was true; I had no training at all. Oderen knew how to handle a quarterstaff. That had been enough to ensure safety on the streets of Eglarest and Brithombar. We had naively assumed that it would be enough out here on the borders as well.

 

I drew the back of my hand over my mouth. Maglor made sure that I was able to stand and then released me. It occurred to me that I’d just interrupted a private interview between the Sons of Feanor, who happened to be not just the rulers of the district, but the military leaders on whom our safety depended. I backed away against the cart. Maedhros frowned, but not at me.

 

‘We ought to have waited until we’d got you all safely behind walls to exchange our news’, he said to Maglor. ‘The enemy are dismayed for the moment by the withdrawal of Glaurung and are holding off, but I don’t think that will last long. Gather up Mistress Emlinn and the rest of your people and get them to Himring as fast as possible. Clearly, you’re all exhausted, and none of you are in a condition for another skirmish. I and my troops will provide a screen for your backs. With luck, we can get everyone out of here, before they make up their minds to attack again.’

 

He turned and left. Maglor quickly summoned his remaining captains from farther off, but, before they arrived, he looked once more at me.

 

‘That last lesson we missed’, he said. ‘I’m not letting you off the hook, you understand. We’ll re-schedule it once we get to Himring.’

 

He was telling me that after all that had happened, after War and Glaurung and blood on the blade, there was still music in the world and would be again for the two of us. He was the one who would know; he’d been through things like this before. I could have hugged him and wept on his shoulder, but we were not in the habit of doing such things. Besides, he was about to be very busy.

 

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

 

And then I firmly concentrated my thoughts on Oderen. He was alive, he just had to be, and we would find him soon. 

 

He was, and we did. Maglor swept up everyone who had survived Glaurung’s attack, and the remaining population of Maglor’s Gap finally limped its way into Himring. The gates swung shut behind us. For the moment we were safe, but, out there, Maedhros’s troops were alert and manning the lesser fortifications on the lower hills all round about. There were enemies to the west and the north and the east; soon they would be to the south of us as well. We had exchanged the Siege of Angband for the siege of Himring.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

Quenya names (in the conversation between Maedhros and Maglor): Aikanaro=Aegnor, Carnistir=Caranthir, Findekano=Fingon, Curufinwe=Curufin, Tyelkormo=Celegorm

 

Emlinn during the retreat from Maglor's Gap has now been drawn by Alasse: see the following link to her journal:

http://alasse-mirimiel.livejournal.com/14637.html

 

Update: new version of Alasse's drawing in her collection on AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20456276/chapters/48536480

 

Chapter Three: Himring Besieged

Maedhros waves his sword around to music and then sits down and reads a good book. You thought I was joking, didn't you?  Also contains some discussion of Art with a capital A--and the maximum amount of embarrassment I could squeeze into a single chapter.

Warning: This chapter contains a couple of references that probably should be labelled "Adult" for sexual content (and also for mentioning torture). To conclude anything from this about the general character of the chapter, I feel would be rather misleading (see above).

Read Chapter Three: Himring Besieged

 

I

It ought to have been chaos. Himring was overrun with refugees from Dorthonion, Aglon and Maglor’s Gap, not to speak of Maedhros’s own people from outlying villages who had also sought shelter within its walls. But someone—or perhaps several someones—clearly had a genius for organization, and it even seemed as if Himring might have originally been built with just such a purpose in mind. We were, by this stage, far too exhausted and bewildered to fend for ourselves in any way, but one of the steward’s staff took us in hand and, amazingly, space was found for us.  There was a pallet for us to lie on, large enough for two. There was water to drink and to wash with. There would also have been food but, before it could be made ready, we’d already collapsed on to that inviting pallet and were sleeping like logs.

I awoke to the light of early dawn. Oderen was still sleeping. Unlike me, he had briefly been involved in actual fighting, but had sustained no more than a scratch on his ribs, which had been treated and bandaged by the healers of Himring. We had both been tremendously lucky. I left him asleep and had a look around. There was already quite a lot of activity going on in the courtyard. In a corner someone was handing out pieces of bannock and mugs of steaming herbal tea.

Soon, I was feeling considerably better, and my thoughts turned to Maglor. Presumably, the last thing on his mind right now would be rescheduling that music lesson, but still... I didn’t know whether I wanted to make sure that he was all right or tell him that I was at his service, if he wanted me for anything, but in these unfamiliar surroundings I felt the urge to go and look for him. I found him more quickly than I anticipated, for as I was making my way to what I had been told were his quarters, I met him hurrying down the stairs. He was holding a small fiddle in his hand.

‘I’ve no time right now’, he said, as soon as he saw me. But when he saw my somewhat crestfallen face, he added: ‘Is there any trouble? You can come along, if you like.’

I assured him I was all right and trailed after him. He clearly knew his way about the place very well indeed. We ended up in another courtyard that seemed to be some kind of exercise yard. It was filled with a large number of guards and soldiers embarked on a bewildering variety of military activities. In the far corner, there seemed to be an open space and, even as we arrived and Maglor began weaving his way across the yard, a tall red-haired man walked out into the middle of that open space, sword in hand, and began to run through a series of slow sweeping movements that seemed to be some kind of fairly complicated exercise.

I learned later that Maedhros routinely did this set of exercises every morning at this hour and that Maglor knew them well, because when he’d visited Maedhros in Himring previously, they always practised them together. Maedhros, however, was obviously not expecting Maglor that morning, in view of yesterday’s events, and had not waited for him. Maglor, with me trailing after him, reached the edge of the open space. Maedhros was apparently completely focussed on his exercises and seemed to take no notice of him.
Maglor tucked the fiddle under his chin and began to play a slow searching tune. Maedhros did not pause in his movements, his legs and arms moving in an unbroken, intricate pattern. He might not have heard those first couple of notes at all. But it soon became clear that Maglor was synchronizing the notes of the tune with Maedhros’s movements, that in fact the tune was designed to accompany the set of exercises.

They ran through the whole set together. Then they repeated it. Then—and it was impossible to tell which of them had initiated it, Maedhros or Maglor—they speeded up and went through the whole set more quickly. They repeated it. They speeded up again. Maedhros’s movements, so slow and deliberate to begin with, began to resemble an exotic dance, as the sword wove in and out and drew arcs and straight lines in the air. By now, all over the courtyard, everyone had interrupted what they were doing and was watching Maedhros.
Maedhros and Maglor speeded up again. And then they went even faster. It became difficult to follow the movement of the sword with the naked eye. They went faster than that, and it seemed incredible that anyone should be so quick on his feet. They went even faster than that, and now just to play the fiddle so quickly and precisely as Maglor was doing was a noteworthy feat. As for Maedhros’s face, it was a pale blur, and all that could be seen of the sword blade was a reflex of light that danced around Maedhros like a spark of fire.

It was not only an amazing display of skill. It was a work of art, beautiful, the more so, as the man himself was not. For he was after all marred, crippled. I altogether forgot for the moment that all this was about war, too, as much as the ugliness and horror outside the walls; I was thinking of dragonflies I’d seen dancing over pools in the woods of Neldoreth. Suddenly, Maglor played a long drawn-out note and, right in the middle of that whirl of speed, Maedhros came to a halt and at once stood still as a stone, the blade in his hand slowly sinking towards the ground like a leaf drifting down from the branch of a tree. In the ensuing silence, all the bystanders let out their breath in a collective sigh.

Maedhros sheathed his sword and came towards us. He seemed to be breathing more shallowly and quickly, true—but well short of panting.

‘Thank you’, he said to Maglor. ‘A bit showy, perhaps, but under the circumstances, good for morale, I think.’

‘That’s what I thought’, said Maglor.

The brothers exchanged a brief smile. Then Maedhros spotted me, lurking behind Maglor’s back.

‘Well met again, Mistress Emlinn’, he said. ‘I trust your needs have been taken care of?’

‘Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord’, I murmured.

‘There have been further developments during the night, which I need to discuss with you’, said Maedhros to Maglor and, turning to me again: ‘Will you be able to find your way back to your accommodation alone, Mistress?’

‘I don’t think she knows her way about yet,’ said Maglor.

One of the guards took me back to Oderen, while the brothers went off in the opposite direction. I looked back over my shoulder and saw them climbing the steps up to the battlements.
 

II

‘I don’t think that sounds quite right’, I said. ‘Maybe more like this?’

I plucked a sequence of three chords to show him what I meant.

‘No, I understand what you are saying, but that’s not quite right either’, said Maglor.

He frowned in concentration, then inverted the chords.

‘Maybe like this?’

‘Yes!’, I said enthusiastically and Maglor smiled.

Then there was a discreet tap on the door behind us. It opened and, without looking around, I knew it was Lord Maedhros. My heart sank right down to my toes.

***

Maedhros, it seemed, had not expected the outer fortifications to hold out very long–nor had they. But before they fell, the inhabitants of Himring had driven all the cattle and other animals they kept within the inner walls, culled anything edible from the kitchen gardens, mown all the grass for fodder, cut down any shrubs for fuel and burnt anything left in the outer ring so as not to yield any advantage to the advancing enemy. Food and fuel had already been strictly rationed within the castle since the earliest days of the attack.

And so, surrounded on all sides, we had settled in for a siege of indefinite length, with no expectation of help from any quarter. From other regions of Beleriand, for a long time there was no news at all. Every morning Maedhros and Maglor were seen walking the circuit of the walls, gazing east and south and west, but they could learn nothing of the fates of their brothers, their cousins or their uncle, however much they strained their eyes to try and pierce the intervening woods and mountain slopes.  Nor was there news from any of our own kin. Looking out across fields and meadows that seemed to grow nothing but orcs as far as the eyes could reach, it was difficult not to doubt whether even the Girdle of Melian could withstand such an onslaught.

It would have been easy to give in to despair, but Lord Maedhros did not seem to know the meaning of the word—not yet, not then. He was indefatigable. Organizing the defence, spurring on his soldiers, taking the brunt of the attack himself if he could—he was continuously on the move. It became the most familiar of sights to see him rush along the walls or across a courtyard, sword in hand—except he actually seemed unhurried, so fast and controlled were his movements, and the speed at which he was going became obvious only when you looked at the people who were trying to keep up with him.

Maglor was sometimes with him, a couple of steps behind and struggling to keep breathing evenly, but as often as not, Maglor had his hands full fielding another attack on the opposite side of the castle, for where there were so many enemies, there was need of more than one able commander.  Maedhros’s confidence in his brother’s abilities and those of his other captains seemed to be as complete as his faith that he himself could handle whatever Morgoth chose to throw at us. So calm and competent did he seem that, after hours of battle, often the only sign of dishevelment he would show was his hair—his one remaining vanity, I would guess, from the time when he was considered good-looking. As the unrelenting attacks went on and he countered each of them—fending off one frontal assault on the gates after another, thrusting back orcs attempting to scale the walls on ladders, spotting sappers at work and blocking their access—his hair that had been tied straight back to begin with would gradually work itself free until it billowed about his head as he ran and turned, like a fiery cloud. Once or twice, during a minor lull, I saw Maglor catch him in flight as it were, and with quick, practiced movements, tie his hair firmly back again, while Maedhros stood with patiently lowered head, as if at a familiar routine—and then, with a quick word of thanks, was off again.

When the first full-scale attack had abated somewhat, I received the lessons in self-defence Maglor had promised me. Together with every remaining man, woman and child in Himring who had not had a chance or had not bothered to acquire the necessary skills, I was taught a few basic moves to render us less helpless in the face of attack. Those moves were to come in useful much later, in Eregion. Learning how to use my newly-acquired Noldorin dagger more effectively, I also remembered Maedhros’s comment about distant relatives and had a quiet word with the instructor. He gave me a thoughtful sideways look, but showed me where to stab myself to make an end quickly, at need.
 

As it turned out, in Himring things never got as desperate as that or indeed desperate enough that the defence had to call on my rudimentary skills with the dagger. Instead, during attacks, I was hard at work either fetching and carrying pails of water and stacks of cloth for bandages for the healers or—more dangerously—hauling cauldrons of boiling oil and pitch, quivers full of arrows and even more pails of water up narrow stairs for the use of the defenders of the walls and assisting the walking wounded on their way down. Being by no means indefatigable myself, by the time another attack had been repulsed, I was usually ready to drop with exhaustion. I had become used to seeing the wounded, the dying and the dead—as much as one does at any rate, for at odd moments the horror of it all would still get through to me, leaving me feeling sick and dizzy.

But nevertheless, as Maglor had promised, there was music. There were intervals when, for whatever reason, the enemy did not attack, although rigorously maintaining the siege—whether they were themselves exhausted, whether they hoped to lull us into a false sense of security, or whether they were trying to wait us out until we ran out of food and fuel. And as soon as the first such interval occurred, Maglor rescheduled the skipped music lesson.

Summoned to his rooms, I arrived, nervous and slightly incredulous, to find him matter-of-factly tuning his harp.

‘You lost yours, I know’, he said. ‘Have you had a chance to replace it yet?’

‘No.’

‘I thought not. Try this one for size, will you?’

And so the lessons went on, whenever Maglor could make time for them—except that they seemed gradually to be turning into combined practice and composition sessions, for Maglor began to turn me loose on pieces he was actually working on at the time. He would explain his ideas and we would try them out to see if they produced the desired effect. Sometimes it was just my musical skills that were not up to properly executing them, but sometimes he would spot a flaw in the score itself and correct it. It was unbelievably thrilling... Astonishingly, sitting next to Maglor with my fingers on the harp strings, it was almost too easy to forget that Morgoth’s troops were still encamped outside.

The only fly in the ointment, as far as I was concerned, was Lord Maedhros. With frightening regularity, sooner or later, the door would discreetly open behind our backs and Lord Maedhros would slip into the room. Murmuring a brief apology, he would perch on a chair far enough away so as not quite to infringe on our space and, for the rest of the session, out of the corner of my eye I would see the outline of his tall figure, sitting there, almost unmoving, listening, watching. It unnerved me and I found it difficult to ignore his presence and go on playing. At first I suspected that he somehow disapproved of me. Maybe he considered that I was not a suitable companion for his brother? Not well-born enough, not Noldorin enough—or maybe simply because I was female and Maglor was married? But Maedhros was always meticulously polite on the rare occasions when he addressed me.

Then I began to fear Maedhros might be taking a personal interest in me of another kind. You may well raise your eyebrows. I must confess I don't know just how I came to entertain this ridiculous idea. I was not significantly more physically attractive then than I am now—they called me "The Dwarf" at school in Brithombar, and it was not always meant kindly... And this particular Noldorin prince had had his first sight of me as I was being hauled out from under a cart in the middle of a battle-field, muddy, tear-stained and retching my guts out. It was hardly a first encounter designed to leave a lasting impression of charm and grace.

Partly, I am sure it was simply that I myself couldn't help feeling out of place, playing at being a musician with Prince Maglor in his princely apartment. The outbreak of the War and our flight to Himring had forcibly reminded me of what, over time in Maglor’s Gap, I had managed to forget: how high Maglor was in station above me, how vastly more experienced both in music and in life in general. My fears that I was outclassed in every way by the situation in which I found myself latched onto the person of Maedhros—as the owner of Himring and brother of Maglor, he seemed somehow to stand for the vast gulf that separated me from my teacher.

However, perhaps I had also spent too much time as an entertainer in the taverns of Eglarest and Brithombar, listening willy-nilly to more fanciful—and more malicious—gossip about Prince Maedhros than I myself would have chosen to engage in. When the wine and spirits flowed, there was no end to the speculations about what exactly had or had not been done to him in Angband. The lack of liaisons or acknowledged romantic inclinations on Maedhros’s part led to heated discussions among seasoned tipplers whether or not, after Angband, Maedhros was still capable of the act. I’m afraid some of all that must have rubbed off and I came away harbouring a sneaking suspicion that there was something slightly murky about Maedhros’s sexuality.

Not that any of this had ever been confirmed closer to home. Rumours in Maglor’s Gap if anything hinted that Maedhros never stayed in bed long enough to have time to use it for any of its conventional purposes and, if he ever ran his eyes over a woman’s body, was sure to be checking it for concealed weapons.  As for the good people of Himring, to hint that anything was wrong even in the slightest with their great hero and only hope of survival would have been to risk a lynching. There were people in Himring at the time of the siege who would give you dirty looks if you so much as mentioned that Maedhros was one-handed.

‘Left-handed’, they would insist, frowning anxiously, ‘he’s left-handed.’

They seemed to believe that any comment implying a lack in Maedhros might somehow jinx his luck and bring the forces of Angband down on us. But superstition was rife in Himring during the siege, of course, as it is in all such places.

Meanwhile I continued blinkered by my fears, cringing inwardly whenever I imagined I felt Maedhros’s gaze on me, until a chance-heard snatch of conversation, a few muttered words that passed between the two brothers before the door had fully closed behind me, finally made the scales drop from my eyes.

‘Sorry’, said Maglor to Maedhros, ‘this time, we were completely stuck, you see, and had only just come up with a solution...’

Yes, yes, of course, it should have been obvious all along, but you know me, when I have my head full of music...!  Maedhros had never had the intention of dropping in on our music lessons at all. What was really happening was that our sessions continually overran, because Maglor and I lost track of the time and so, inadvertently, they encroached on times when the brothers had previously arranged to meet—privately, that is, not for the purposes of war or government. It was only Maglor’s boundless enthusiasm for music, which often made him go right on playing even when his brother’s arrival reminded him of the time, that had concealed this blatant fact from me—and Maedhros’s aristocratic good manners which stopped him from voicing any comment or complaint in front of a comparative stranger like me.

“Utter mortification” is completely inadequate as a term to describe what I felt as soon as I realized. Not only had I had the shocking rudeness repeatedly to monopolize the time of my noble host’s brother when he wished to have a conversation with him in his own home, but I had added further insult by suspecting him of the basest of motives—and unspecified kinkiness. The only mitigating circumstance was that he could not possibly guess just how absurd my suspicions had been. At least I had kept my foolish mouth tight shut and not said anything to anyone... But nevertheless I felt I owed Maedhros an apology for my lack of common courtesy.

This, however, was easier determined than achieved. Although, from then on, I began trying to exert gentle pressure on Maglor to finish the lesson as soon as possible once Maedhros had walked in through the door, whenever I attempted to open my mouth to try and actually address the matter in so many words, I experienced a severe case of lockjaw. It was only on the third occasion, when my unobtrusive attempts to curb Maglor’s enthusiasm had failed completely and Maedhros and I ended up leaving the room at the same time, that I finally found my voice.

I saw his back about to disappear down the corridor to the left, wrenched my jaws apart, dashed after him and yelped:

‘Lord Maedhros!’

He turned around at once and courteously waited for me. I stumbled to a halt in front of him and peered up at him. He towered far above me in the gloom, swathed in a thick, black, voluminous cloak. The chill of winter was beginning to bite, the days were growing shorter, the fire on the hearth in Maglor’s room had been positively tiny, and there was neither heating nor lighting in the corridors of Himring in those days of fuel rationing.

I opened my mouth and was, once again, forcibly struck how idiotic I had been to assume, even for a moment, that this sombre and remote being might have any designs on me whatsoever. Unfortunately, the impact of that consideration completely scrambled my vocabulary and wrecked my grammar. Lord Maedhros looked intrigued and bent down as if to hear me better. It could hardly have been the first time he had been addressed by stammering underlings, but maybe I had just plumbed new depths of incomprehensibility.

I discovered it is not physically possible to die of embarrassment—not unless you have a previously existing heart condition. That way of escape being barred, I tried again and must have produced something more comprehensible this time, for he suddenly looked enlightened.

‘But, Mistress Emlinn, there is no need at all for you to distress yourself!’, he exclaimed. ‘Trust me, I know my brother—and the day that he stops playing immediately when I enter the room is the day I will start worrying about him! Indeed, although I see you do not realize it, I rejoice to see the two of you so hard at work on his music, even now.  Because of the unfortunate circumstances of your arrival at Himring, I am afraid I did not extend the welcome to you that your skills deserve. But I have long wished for someone like you to settle in the Marches, someone with the knowledge and skill to engage in a discussion of music with Maglor at his own level...’

Startled, I gazed into his eyes, but could detect no mockery, no polite exaggeration. He seemed quite sincere.

‘When I first realized that my brother might be a musical genius,’ he explained, ‘I took care to acquire at least a smattering of theoretical knowledge—I wished to ensure that he would receive the right schooling and training. But I am no musician. There are those in Himring who know how to play an instrument pleasingly enough—but you have heard them, I think!

It has burned my heart—my brother is acknowledged the greatest singer of the Noldor, but, over the centuries, the arts have flourished in Doriath and in Nargothrond, while Maglor’s Gap was famous chiefly for its horses... I suggested to him that he should found a school, but he seemed to think that the place was not secure enough—and recent events, I suppose, have shown him to be right. Maglor, I am sure, would still be the greatest singer of the Noldor if he was marooned all by himself on a desert island, but there is no doubt at all that even he finds that inspiration flows more easily when he has a sympathetic audience. Your knowledge and love of music have been a bright light to us during these dark days.’

He smiled at me. The smile lit up his face and, for the first time, after all those abstruse imaginings of the past weeks, he looked to me like someone a woman might possibly fall in love with, given the right circumstances. I remembered that in Tirion, reportedly, they had. When he saw that I was too dumbfounded to answer, he smiled again and, turning around, went swiftly up the corridor, heading towards whatever task next required the attention of the master of Himring.

I stood still, staring after him. Maedhros thought I was a musician—not, of course, a musician of the first rank like Maglor himself or those others whose names were spoken with awe even among those who had never heard them, Daeron or Elemmire or Ecthelion, but nevertheless a true musician of the second rank, not just someone who knew how to play an instrument pleasingly enough of an evening or a fairground entertainer with more pretensions than talent... It was no more than Maglor himself had told me, of course. But I knew that Maglor wished to encourage me, so I had perversely insisted on subtracting more than half of any praise I received from him and counted his equally unsparing criticism double. Besides, Maglor, when in full flow, was a true egalitarian—none of us, as far as he was concerned, was anything but a lowly servant of Her Grace, the Lady Music.

But Maedhros, although clearly more approachable than I had ever imagined, was concerned mainly not with me or even with music, but with his brother, and so I found myself trusting his assessment where I had passed off Maglor’s own words with something of a shrug. I was the real thing. Maedhros had said so.
I tried for some common sense. We were in the middle of a siege. We could all die tomorrow and the orcs of Angband, I reminded myself, wouldn’t care in the slightest whether the woman they butchered was a musical adept or an inexpert bungler.  It did not work. I felt a wide foolish smile extending itself across my face. There, in that gloomy, chilly corridor, I glowed.

III

Maedhros took to bringing a book with him when he came to Maglor’s rooms.  He would enter, sit down, rather closer to us than before, and immediately open the book, propping the pages open on his knees as a clear signal that he did not expect our sessions to stop for his sake. How much reading he actually got done at those times was another question. Sometimes those pages turned very, very slowly. Indefatigable Maedhros might seem, outside, among his soldiers and his staff, but by the time he reached his brother’s rooms he was often completely exhausted, too tired even to go to sleep, and now that I was no longer afraid to look at him, I could see it. His eyes would drift away from his book, and he would be staring blindly at nothing. Then he would come to himself with a slight jerk, his gaze would gratefully fix on his brother’s face and, after a moment, he would lower his eyes to the page again.

Some of those books, I think, were familiar friends. Once, I saw him brush his fingers along a book cover as another might caress the silky ears of a favourite dog. When Maedhros abandoned Himring after the Nirnaeth, I have heard that he ordered fire to be set to the library and the archive, because he would not risk leaving any information that might be of any use to the Enemy. To Erestor, that is one of the great tragedies of the First Age; he speaks of it with tears in his eyes. We do not know whether in fact any more books were lost then than at the Fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin—nobody outside the halls of Mandos now knows how many books the library of Himring contained. But that Maedhros should have forced himself to destroy them by his own command is what breaks Erestor’s heart, more than the destruction wrought by orcs or balrogs of whom no better could have been expected.

I do not think myself that Maedhros loved his books so much that he would not have grieved a great deal more for the loss of all those people, dying within the brief space of  a couple of days like flies. When, towards the end of winter during the siege, there was no kindling left for the fires in the hospital wing, he offered pages from his books to the healers to light the fires. He selected the pages carefully and ripped them out himself, but I saw no sign of regret on his face.

Reclining in his chair in Maglor’s room, letting our professional chit-chat wash over him, together with fragments of tunes, barely sketched-out harmonics and bass lines, as well as the occasional dissonance, followed by mild profanity, he seemed visibly to revive. 

‘No, no, no!’, Maglor would exclaim vehemently, getting passionate and argumentative about a semi-quaver as he never seemed to get about anything in real life, and Maedhros would look up and, with affectionate amusement, smile and relax in his chair, until eventually he would go away to sleep a little. Or until a sudden alert came, a messenger from the guards on the walls—and then instruments and books were dumped aside unceremoniously, as we rushed off to take up our various parts in the defence, different as they were, and I saw Maedhros miraculously transmuting himself into a tireless hero with nerves of steel again, the unbowed spirit of Himring, as he leapt lightly down the stairs.
And Maglor? His brother’s tacit permission seemed to have rendered him completely shameless. Sometimes he wouldn’t acknowledge Maedhros’s arrival in the room at all, so immersed did he appear to be in the intricacies of the West Wind Quartet. And yet, for all Maedhros’s sincere belief that it was collaboration with me that made Maglor’s inspiration flow so freely, now that I had discarded my own prejudices against Maedhros, I thought that was by no means the whole truth of it. Often, the brothers hardly exchanged a word, but, once Maedhros had entered, gradually, imperceptibly, Maglor’s posture in his chair would shift, until, although it was still me he was talking to as before, he seemed to be playing for his brother.

Maglor liked applause as much as the next performer. We had begun to perform together now, in the Great Hall of Himring where more and more the population of the castle gathered to share warmth and the benefit of company, to shield themselves against the rigours of winter as well as the threat outside the walls. Food, fuel and alcohol of any kind all being rationed, words and music were the only comfort that was still to be had freely, and our offerings were most eagerly received.

Maglor was a past master at gauging his audience’s mood, whether they wanted to laugh and forget or hear their own praises sung to bolster their confidence. Sometimes what they needed was an opportunity for tears, a safe reason for weeping. When Maglor tenderly sang of their childhood sweethearts waiting for them down at the corner of the street in Tirion long ago, even the hard-bitten veterans of Maedhros’s border patrols sobbed unashamedly and then raised a storm of clapping and yelled for an encore.  I would covertly watch Maglor and see a positively unholy gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.  It was political, too, of course. “A bit showy, but good for morale”, as Maedhros had said on that first morning after I had arrived in Himring.

But the general applause seemed to scratch only the surface of what drove Maglor the artist. I have been told that you could blindfold Mablung and spin him around until everyone else would have been dizzy, and he would still be able, infallibly and without hesitation, to point to where north was and where west. I would never claim to be as infallible as that, but having passed that winter in the company of the sons of Feanor, if anyone had asked me where the music in Maglor came from, I would have pointed towards Maedhros. Would Maglor have still been the greatest singer of the Noldor if he had been marooned on a desert island? Maybe so—but more certainly if he had had Maedhros with him. Looking back, I thought that, in Maglor’s Gap, dutifully observing his share in the watch on Angband, Maglor had greatly missed his brother’s company, even though they were not so very far apart, and that, even if the siege were lifted, he would not willingly leave his side again.

I have heard many among the Noldor claim with utter conviction that it was the pain and loss of exile that transformed Maglor from an outstanding artist into a musical genius. They hear their own grief mirrored in the Noldolante and ignore most of the rest of his work, crying: “Behold! How true it all is! Yes, that it is exactly what we suffered. It is Great Art indeed!”

I would not wish to cast any doubt at all on the status of the Noldolante, which I myself consider unsurpassed, but I do seriously doubt that pain and grief themselves ever produce great art, although I admit that often they may seem to. All that pain and grief on their own can produce is silence—or incoherent screaming. What makes great art, I would say, is what the artist still has in reserve to pitch against his grief.  And in the case of Maglor, I would guess, it was mainly Maedhros. And so, when Maedhros died...

There had been more than this once, I am sure, although I know little of that, for he never spoke of it to me. There must have been his wife. And he must have loved his father. They must have been a close-knit family, Feanor and his sons, for why else would Maglor have sworn the Oath? And there were the unimaginable splendours of Valinor, all they had to offer to an artist. But so much of that had been lost and more than lost.

As the winter deepened and the siege lengthened, the three of us huddled closer and closer together about the now empty hearth, in the grey light of day or under the faint blue gleam of a rare Feanorian lamp. There were no more fires at all except in the Great Hall and in the hospital wing, and shivering cold had become the price of privacy. Wrapped in several layers of cloaks, Maglor and I plucked the harp strings with stiff fingers, until practice warmed them, our hands protected by fingerless gloves, and sternly ignored the complaints of our empty bellies.

But the music! I had heard Daeron sing for Luthien, I have since heard the best musicians from Balar to Laurelindorenan, but I had not heard the like before and shall not hear its like again. For so much of his thought had Maglor begun to share with me in those days that, in my mind, I heard not the music he actually wrote but the music he wished to write, sharing with me a dream woven of harmony and rhythm—and, this being Arda Marred, even with the greatest musicians the reach of inspiration is never quite matched by execution.

The dream wrapped itself around me so that, now, during the attacks, even when one of the wounded died before I could get a healer to him or a stray arrow whistled past me, missing me by only by an inch or two, Maglor’s music seemed to interpose itself between me and the horror of it all. I wondered at the morality of this, but decided to accept it as a gift. For would any of the victims of violence be helped at all, if I froze like a rabbit before a snake? And if it was an illusion like this that helped me to function more effectively, would any of them care?

---

Chapter End Notes

 

Sindar probably don't have pre-existing heart conditions unless maybe they are thralls that have escaped from Angband. That line has to stay, though, until I can think of anything else that could make a Sinda drop dead from embarrassment.

Chapter Four: Departure

The economic downturn hits East Beleriand, and a sidelined character gains importance.

Read Chapter Four: Departure

I

I stood on the walls of Himring and surveyed a landscape ravaged by seven years of intermittent warfare.  The Marches had not suffered as badly as Ard-Galen—I had heard that nothing grew there now and they called it Anfauglith. But it was bad enough, and from the walls of Himring the damage was especially visible, for during the past years enemies had been encamped below more often than not. Again and again, grass had been churned into mud and newly planted gardens uprooted. Any attempt to plough or hoe turned up rusty metal and charred bones.

That morning, as I sat nursing my mug of scalding hot mint tea, Oderen had spoken to me hesitantly:

‘Do you think perhaps it might be time to leave?’

I had almost dropped the mug straight into my lap, tea and all.

‘Leave? How—leave?’

We were back in private quarters. Fuel was now to be had, if not plentiful. Besides, it was summer, and there was no need for heating. There had been no major raid by the enemy for a couple of months. The raids seemed finally to be slackening off, and the pass of Aglon remained closed.

Oderen looked most uncomfortable. Then he said, almost at a whisper:

‘You have learned a lot from the son of Feanor. But...’

‘But...? What are you implying? I revere Maglor as my teacher and as an outstanding musician, as I certainly should, no more than that!’

‘I know. That is bad enough’, said Oderen unhappily.

I stared at him. He flushed an unbecoming colour, twisted around as if he had acute stomach ache and murmured something incomprehensible. Finally, I distinguished among the mutterings:

‘...Kinslayers....cursed...’

‘You were not so quick to call them that when they kept the enemy from the walls!’, I said sharply.

He looked away and didn’t answer. My anger subsided. I looked thoughtfully at Oderen.

Despite the danger, the cold and the shortage of food, I had flourished in Himring. Oderen had not. At a time when, during emergencies, even a lot of the existing furniture had been broken up to feed the fire or to make more arrows, there had been no call for ornamental wood-carving. Oderen had done some crude carpentry, maintaining catapults, mending broken ladders and the like, but little enough even of that. Mostly he had fought on the walls and had hated every minute of it. It was, in truth, no wonder that he wished to leave.

As for this business of the Curse, it was not the first such muttering I had heard, now that my kin had discovered that Maedhros had been able to ensure the survival of the majority who had reached Himring, but could restore neither peace nor former prosperity. People were remembering what many had been happy to forget as long as things had gone well: rumours that the Feanorians were doomed by the Belain for ill deeds done on the other side of the Sea. Other Sindar were talking of leaving. Indeed, some had already headed for Doriath as soon as opportunity offered.

These were thoughts I myself might have had, once. In Brithombar, at a time when I had not even laid eyes on more than maybe two dozen Noldor and never had a private conversation with one,  I had blithely talked of Kinslayers, as if all that meant were that they were different from us, brutal, unpredictable, slayers of our kin, and not that they were our kin, too. But that had changed irreversibly the moment Maglor walked into the inn in Maglor’s Gap, pulled out that stool and sat down in front of me. I was the only student of Maglor the Singer on record on this side of the Sea, and so, to the extent of my limited capabilities, I had become his heir—and because Maglor the Singer was not separable from Maglor Feanorion, I would never again be able to regard kinslaying as something that real elves just did not do. I thought of Sindarin escapees from Angband killed by their own relatives out of fear that their escape was a ruse and they had been sent by the enemy to spy us out or worse. To be sure, that was nothing like what had happened at Alqualonde, but the pretence that we ourselves were incapable of killing other elves was just that, a mere pretence.

But my change of heart on the subject had been due to circumstances that did not apply in the same way to Oderen. Could I blame him for sharing the opinions of our people? Oderen, I thought, had been unusually tolerant, really. If Maglor had not taken me on as a student, we might well have had left Maglor’s Gap by the time the attack came. Oderen had sympathized with my elation at being being taken up by Maglor and had shown pride in my progress; he had been honestly delighted by my success as a performer at Maglor’s side at a time when Oderen’s own career was at its lowest point.

I had known many a Sinda and many a Noldo, too, who paid lip service to his wife’s craft, complimenting her profusely for her efforts, but would not have been at all happy if, like me, she had suddenly transformed herself from a dilettante, an amateur—even as an entertainer, let alone as a musician—into a serious professional and appeared to outstrip him in the public eye. Although, in music, I remained an accompanist, in our marriage I would now never again be quite the compliant accompanist I had once been, but I did owe a lot to Oderen, I decided.

Did I, however, owe it to him to leave?  For that would mean deserting Maglor. And how could I possibly desert Maglor?

That evening, Maglor said to me: ‘You are having difficulty keeping your mind on the music, Emlinn. I have known you to have no difficulty at all in concentrating in the depths of winter, at the height of the siege, when your fingers were frozen and it was likely we would be dead within the next couple of days. What can it be that is troubling you now?’

I had not meant to let my distraction show, but now that he had spotted it, I felt bound to answer him. Trying to express things in a way that would not offend him, I told him of my dilemma as honestly as I could. He was silent for a while.

Then he said: ‘I’ve taught you all I could teach you. The rest you must teach yourself.’

‘You want me to go!’, I exclaimed.

Had I only deluded myself, thinking I had become necessary to him?

He scowled at me a little.

 ‘I train up the perfect accompanist and, once I’ve got her, I can’t wait for her to leave? Talk sense, Emlinn! But as your ex-teacher, I would prefer my student to be in a safer place. I’m not so sure there are any safe places in Beleriand now, but we Feanorians are hardly experts on this kind of thing... If your Oderen can find a place of safety, good luck to him.’

I looked at him—that bright, direct Noldorin gaze that had so daunted me at our first meeting, the face that had become so familiar in all of its moods over the past years—and thought of all that he had shared with me.

‘You are not just my teacher, Maglor,’ I said, ‘you are my own true lord. I do believe that my heart recognized you when you walked into that inn, even before you chose me as your student. Teachers can be put aside or outgrown—but I would not break faith and leave you, my lord.’

‘Is that so?’, he asked me quietly.

My face grew hot. There was a sour taste in my mouth.

‘You think because I am a Sinda—because I am the daughter of a ship’s chandler—because I am a woman and a wife...’

‘Oh hush, Emlinn! I am thinking none of these things. But you are a musician. If you wish to serve someone else beside the music, if you wish to serve me, you will, I think, still serve me best by serving my music. It is, after all, the best part of me. Do you remember how you scolded me once for not taking on other students beside yourself?’

‘But I was wrong! You told me why...’

Besides, that was not how I remembered that particular conversation.

‘I wonder. I thought that the watch over Angband must have priority—but my watch on Angband failed anyway. I thought that the place was not safe enough for a school—and now there is no place in Beleriand that is truly secure, and those centuries of peace have gone to waste. Maybe I thought it was a penance, that I should not seek to perpetuate myself in my students, having been denied children—but if it was a penance, it does not seem to have been accepted.’

‘Maglor!’

‘I have entrusted you with my music, Emlinn. It is there, in your head. Take it to safety, if you can.’

 

II

It occurred to me that Maedhros might be displeased at my leaving Himring; after all he had wanted my company for his brother. But I had spent too many hours sitting across from a tired man with a book on his lap to be still in awe of Maedhros. When he summoned me, I approached the interview with far less trepidation than I would have felt at the prospect of encountering Elu Thingol or even our own Lord Cirdan.

By now, though, I should have known to expect the unexpected from Maedhros. He got up from behind his desk to meet me. His face was very serious.

His first words were: ‘You behold me shamed, Mistress.’

I blinked.

‘In the days before the Siege’, he continued, ‘I would not have seen an artist of your skill depart Himring after years of service without remuneration that should have done both of us honour and equalled your talents.  Now—you have seen it—I am the lord of poisoned wells and salted fields. We are only just beginning to recover. More than half the treasury has already gone in payment for food, weapons and wood to Belegost, Nogrod and Ossiriand, and more will soon follow. I cannot even give you horses—we have too few left and you will need to return those I will lend you for the journey. Maglor has told you that we have arranged for you to accompany a mission into Ossiriand so that you will be able to travel under guard?’

‘Not yet’, I said.

‘Truly dispossessed is he that cannot reward good service as he wishes to’, said Maedhros .

He reached out and laid a small but heavy bag in my palm. Whatever he might have just said, it clearly contained more coin than I had held in my hand before at any one time in my life. But before I could open my mouth to tell him so, he had turned away to his desk and when he turned back, he held a book.

‘And there is this’, he said.

I hastily put the bag of money away and took the book from him.

‘For some reason’, Maedhros said, ‘he thought I should be the one to give you this.’

I opened the book. The gloriously messy sprawl that was Maglor’s draft of the West Wind Quartet had been carefully copied in an orderly hand, with alternative scorings in footnotes, neatly cross-referenced.  I leaved through the pages. I acquired a smattering of musical knowledge, Maedhros had told me. I should have realized, I thought, that sons of Feanor did not do things by halves. He must have been able to follow far more of our conversation than I had given him credit for. Of course Maglor had insisted that Maedhros should be the one to give the book to me. If I had been given it by Maglor, I would have been so preoccupied with the content that I would never have stopped to consider the question who had penned it. I reached the last page and looked up. He misunderstood my expression.

‘All I had time for’, he said regretfully.

‘It is the most precious gift you could have given me,’ I said.

‘You will see it performed as it should be’, he said—not a command or a challenge, but with complete confidence.

 

 III

Maglor accompanied us to where Maedhros’s messengers and their guards waited for us, a short way down the hill. He stopped a little way off, just out of earshot. Oderen eyed him uneasily.

‘I would beseech you to take care of my student or thank you for your efforts to keep her safe’, said Maglor to him, ‘but that would perhaps be a bit inappropriate, wouldn’t it?’

Oderen looked as if he did not know what to make of this.

‘My brother Maedhros gave me this to give to you’, said Maglor.

He took out a carpenter’s plane and held it out to Oderen. It seemed to be a very simple tool, but by the look on Oderen’s face I could tell it was perfect of its kind.

‘Why, thank you, my lord’, he said.

Oderen still uses that plane, and in all those centuries it has barely needed sharpening once or twice. Maybe it was made by Lord Curufin or perhaps it had been brought from Valinor itself.

Maglor turned to me.

‘Don’t forget’, he said to me, ‘to relax the shoulder and the back.’

He lightly touched my shoulder. Then he went back up the hill to the castle.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

Some of the events during and after the Dagor Bragollach are not recounted entirely in the sequence in which they are told in the Silmarillion in Chapters Two, Three and Four of this story. However, I'm not sure how uncanonical my arrangement actually is, for in the book some of these events seem to be told in geographical (that is, West to East) order rather than in chronological order and I find it difficult to sort out which is which. My interpretation of the events, no doubt, is slightly AU in any case...

Chapter Five: Legacy

Fast-forwarding past Balar and Lindon at almost indecent speed, we arrive at Imladris, where Erestor and Emlinn fundamentally disagree about copy-right issues.

It all ends in tears, of course, but not entirely so.

Read Chapter Five: Legacy

I

If I had been in Doriath or at the Havens, when they came, my loyalties might have been tested beyond the point of breaking.  But I was not. Oderen had listened carefully, as I haltingly reported what I felt I could of my conversation with Maglor.

‘So Maglor Feanorion thinks that Doriath is not truly safe?’, he asked then. ‘Then maybe it is not’, he concluded.

Instead of making for Doriath, like many of our kin, Oderen took me straight across southern Beleriand back to our own Lord Cirdan. We went with him to Balar and stayed there, despite slim pickings.

‘For’, said Oderen, ‘if nowhere in Beleriand is safe, at least we can always escape by ship.’

And so I was on Balar, when the sons of Feanor attacked the Havens and committed the Third Kinslaying. I had feared that they would. There were those who believed they would desist because the Havens were inhabited by Noldor—in other words, not only by Sindar or Teleri.  But I had all along thought that in this they were mistaken.

Whatever they might have thought of Thingol and his descendants, those two sons of Feanor that I had encountered had given no sign that they held Sindarin lives cheap. Perhaps the others had done so, the three who had died in Doriath, of whom I knew little. But none of the four who survived, if pushed into killing at all, were likely to be fortuitously stopped by racial prejudice, not if what I had heard of Amrod and Amras was true.

When I had learned about the fall of Doriath, my first reaction had been an overwhelming desire to rush off into the wilderness of East Beleriand and search out Maglor. It was as if only by seeing his face with my own eyes could I confirm that it was indeed he who had done this. Then disbelief gradually evaporated and I envisioned myself actually meeting him and opening my mouth and... What could I possibly say? Any questions beginning  “Why did you...?” or “How could you...?” were clearly going to be so much waste of breath. In one sense, the answers were blindingly obvious. Dior had refused to hand over the Silmaril, and the terms of the Oath were by now known throughout Beleriand. And I could scarcely claim that I had thought Maglor incapable of kinslaying.

He would have followed Maedhros anywhere, I thought, a couple of steps behind and struggling to keep breathing evenly. As for Maedhros, despite my slightly different point of view, I had ended up hero-worshipping him much as everyone else in Himring had done at the time, but I would never have claimed really to understand him. Who was I that I thought the sons of Feanor would see a need to justify themselves to me, assuming I could so much as find them? In East Beleriand after the Nirnaeth, even fugitive princes with the tattered remains of an army would be almost impossible to locate and extremely dangerous to seek. I could not go alone, and I could not drag Oderen along with me on such a mad quest.

“My music is, after all, the best part of me”, Maglor had said. But my dream of music had cracked, and the north wind whistled through the cracks. I stayed on Balar and prayed to any and all Belain whose name I could think of: to protect the sons of Feanor from Morgoth, to protect them from themselves, and to protect others from them.

As soon as the first rumours about the attack on the Havens reached me, I ran out onto the eastern beach. Across the straits, I could see flames leap into the sky. I did not know I had sunk to my knees, until I felt the gravel bite into my shins. I tried to think which of the Belain to invoke for Maglor and Maedhros now they had done this thing and came up empty.

‘Nienna have pity on us all’, I whispered finally.

Oderen found me and stayed with me there on the beach, as all through the night we watched the Havens burn.

Finally, when dawn was about to break, I stirred.

‘Now are the Stars of the House of Feanor drowned in blood,’ I said. My voice sounded hoarse in my own ears, harsh like a crow’s. ‘Who will remember that they were a shining light in the North, while hope lasted? That they defended the weak, supported widows and orphans and tended the sick and wounded?’

‘You will’, said Oderen. ‘You do.’

‘What are you saying? Have you not been proved right? Why are you not reproving me for lamenting the killers rather than their victims?’

‘I don’t know’, Oderen said slowly, ‘at the time I thought nothing of it. I was the worst of soldiers, and in any case it would not have occurred to me that I owed true loyalty to any but Lord Cirdan. But I remember Maedhros as he was on the walls of Himring. His spirit burned like a white fire, and he was as one who returns from the dead. So many of us left afterwards, and he graciously gave us leave. I guess he might even have considered us in the light of fewer mouths to feed. But if we had not left...? Maybe it would have made no difference. Maybe there would just have been more of our kin who died in the Nirnaeth, and he would have attacked Doriath anyway...’

‘You are saying that we deserted them when they needed us?’

‘I am saying that maybe I deserted Maedhros, just a little. And it would not have occurred to me to think like that at all, if I had not seen you weeping for him. But you did not desert Maglor. You were sent by him. He entrusted his music to you. That task has just become more difficult. Are you giving up?’

‘No.’ I got up and looked him fully in the eye for the first time that night. ‘Thank you.’

I peered across the straits.

‘I think I see Cirdan’s ships returning’, I said. ‘The healers will be needing pails of water and rolls of cloth for bandages again. Let us go.’

 

II

I had to proceed carefully in Lindon. There were too many there who didn’t just believe, but knew that the sons of Feanor drank the blood of children. Their fingers ended in claws and, when they looked into your eyes, their gaze would incinerate you. It was no use arguing; the wounds in their souls were too fresh and the evidence of their pain silenced anything I could have said.

I worked hard. I sat up in the night, translating lyrics and ballad texts from Quenya into Sindarin. On my desk sat a well-thumbed two-volume dictionary, a fat grammar, and a small encyclopaedia.  I rearranged. Solo pieces became pieces for small orchestra. Choral pieces became instrumental. Parts of a larger whole became complete works.  I ruthlessly Daeronized the style of the accompaniment, when I thought it might be required. And of course I never, ever mentioned Maglor’s name.

I suspected my colleagues knew perfectly well what I was doing, but none of them ever admitted it. When the pieces that I produced fit the bill, they accepted the scores I handed them and did not question my evasions on their provenance as long as the music proved effective in performance. Perhaps Gil-Galad also guessed—I never quite worked out what his personal attitude to Maedhros and Maglor was, for he had to be so careful not to antagonize any of the factions at his court that he seemed unable to afford to have an opinion on the sons of Feanor at all. He preferred them to be buried in silence.

Erestor, of course, disapproves of what I did. He is a librarian and archivist, and he is shocked at my readiness to bow to political necessities and corrupt the pure wellspring of tradition, especially as I was uniquely privileged to have access to it. I disagree. In the case of some texts, it may be all very well for the original manuscript to sit untouched in the library in lonely splendour, but Maglor’s songs were meant to be performed. They need an audience.

Take the ballad of The Woodcutter’s Daughter—yes, of course it is originally by Maglor, what did you think? In whichever language that ballad is sung, no matter on which instruments it is played, it is still Maglor’s ballad, his plot, his tune. I have heard it played straight and deeply melancholy, I’ve heard it played as a parody, and I have even heard it played as a dance tune. I’m sure he would want it to be out there, being sung by people.

Some of my adaptations and rearrangements have proved quite effective. I think Maglor might be inclined to accept them as alternative ways of performing his work. Perhaps he has heard them, wherever he may be wandering, and perhaps he does approve. It is the only way I might be able to reach him now, let him know I’m still doing what he wanted me to do.

The Noldolante, of course, never needed my help. Nobody has ever wanted to leave the Noldolante to the Noldor, just as the Noldor have never wanted to leave it to the Dispossessed. Although it is such a complex work—I do not think it has been performed in its entirety more than five or six times—you encounter bits and pieces of it all over the place. You have heard them, haven’t you? Through sorrow to find joy, through sorrow to find joy!—sung by Avari who would be deeply shocked to learn they were singing the words of Feanor himself and wash out their mouths with soap if they knew—sung by Men who have no idea who Feanor was and who couldn’t care less—all the way across Middle-Earth, even in Harad and Rhun where the stars are strange...

But the West Wind Quartet, the score composed by Maglor with just the smallest bit of assistance from me during the siege of Himring, written by Maedhros’s own hand, my most precious possession by far...  I could never bear to use that as raw material for any of my rearrangements. Not until now, here in Imladris, have I seen a chance to perform it as exactly as it should be and as Maedhros expected me to. My lord Elrond, although he says little, remembers Maglor and Maedhros well–he will not object.

I removed the manuscript from the safe place where I keep it and took it to Erestor to get copies made. He looked positively greedy, when he first laid eyes on it. In my anxiety, I stood over him, literally breathing down his neck, as he took a closer look.

‘I know perfectly well how to take care of old manuscripts, Emlinn!’, he said with great irritation. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve encountered a document written by Maedhros himself.’

‘Just don’t forget that the original is mine and I want it back just as it is’, I said. ‘You can have a copy for the library if you like, of course.’

When I gave Lindir and the others their copies, he frowned. Lindir has known me since our time together at the court in Lindon; he had a very good idea what he was looking at right away.

‘Why do you want to play that?’, he asked, reluctantly.

I gave him my best Noldorin glare.

‘Because it is an excellent piece of work, that’s why!’

Lindir, although amazingly good with a knife in a fight, would run a mile to avoid a quarrel or an argument, so he gave in at once. And as soon as we had started practising, all four of them caught fire.  There were no more protests at all.

And so here we are, practising the West Wind Quartet. Listen to the voices of the tenor and the alto flute weaving in and out of each other like swallows at dusk. And now Lindir starts in on the fiddle, sweet and sorrowful...

Paradoxically, the siege of Himring kept them safe. Others would have succumbed to such a direct assault, but although the threat they faced was overwhelming, it was not in their nature to yield to it. That challenge they met magnificently, and so saved our lives as well as their own. But in surviving, they went on to succumb to a more insidious fate.

They must have been afraid all along what the Oath might yet do to them, if they managed to live through the siege. In the same room with them, I was aware of the love and the grief, but if I sensed the fear at all, I assumed naively that it was only the fear they shared with the rest with us, fear of the enemy beyond the gates. Now I hear it, in the melodious sigh of the flutes, in the anxious wail of the fiddle, and tears are running down my cheeks as I pluck the strings of my harp. The others pretend not to see.

When we perform the West Wind Quartet in the Hall of Fire at Tarnin Austa, I will not weep. I will walk out there with the others; I will sit down, take a deep breath and give it my all. For Maedhros who dwells in Mandos. For Maglor.

---

Chapter End Notes

Oderen's description of Maedhros defending Himring is quoted straight from the Silmarillion. The sentence about the stars over Rhun or Harad is probably quoted from LOTR, but I did that from memory, so I'm not sure.

Oh, and Feanor's words that Emlinn allegedly quotes from the text of the Noldolante are taken from the Silmarillion, too, of course. For Dawn's ficlet collection of the same name, see here.

Bonus Chapter: Like a Friendly Touch Among the Crowd

At Gil-galad's court in Lindon, Elrond has an unexpected encounter.

Written for Independence 1776 for Fandom Stocking 2015

Rating: General Audiences

Read Bonus Chapter: Like a Friendly Touch Among the Crowd

He was crossing a room full of chattering people milling about, all by himself, when a sound came and touched him on the shoulder. He felt the touch and its friendliness before he could identify the sound. He stopped to listen for it.

Voices, many voices--some he knew and some he did not--but it was not the sound of a voice he had heard, he thought. There, again, in a short interval, a lull between many conversations: the sound of harp strings, a familiar phrase...

***

Maglor.

It was Maglor he had heard play that tune, one evening in spring when Maglor's mood seemed to have lifted and lightened as if with the white blossom on the trees.

'I have not heard this one before,' he had said, when the hand rested on the harp strings. 'Is it new?'

'Ah, no,' Maglor had replied, smiling a little wistfully, 'I wrote that quite a while ago--before you were born, even. In happier times...'

***

Elrond's gaze sought the harpist, among and behind the chattering guests. Discreetly in a corner, an ensemble of court musicians had been arranged in order to provide a musical backdrop. But the musician who held the harp was a stranger, someone who he might or might not have glimpsed before, but who he had never spoken to, he was sure: a Sindarin woman, a little on the short and dumpy side, dressed in shades of brown. The only bright thing about her seemed to be the yellow ribbon in her hair--and the notes that flowed quick from under her fingers, without emphasis, as if trying to worm themselves into the consciousness of the audience without drawing attention to themselves...

***

'Emlinn,' said Gil-galad. 'I think that's the one you mean. From Brithombar--well, at any rate, that's where she was from, before.'

'One of Cirdan's people?' said Elrond, surprised. 'I thought she might hail from further east.'

'They were wanderers, she and her husband, even before,' said Gil-galad. 'There are rumours, unconfirmed--I've heard it said she studied with Maglor for a time.' He shrugged, casual and unconcerned. 'As far as I know, Maglor never ran a school...'

His royal cousin, Elrond had learned, seemed so straightforward, almost blunt at times, that it was easy to overlook his evasions. He did not doubt that Gil-galad had deliberately refrained from enquiring further into those rumours.

'Don't worry, Gil,' he said. 'I won't rock any boats, if I can avoid it.'

Gil-galad nodded, a brief smile acknowledging his promise.

 

***

He waylaid her in a shadowy corridor, like a conspirator or a lover seeking an assignation. It was perhaps not surprising that her eyes widened with alarm.

'Lord Elrond,' she gasped, hastily sinking into a curtsy.

'You are Emlinn of Brithombar?' he asked.

'Yes,' she responded warily.

'That song you played the other night...'

She seemed to know instantly which one he meant. Her alarm intensified.

'Oh please, Lord Elrond, please don't stop me playing! I'm sorry, very sorry if the memories are unwelcome, but I need to... I promised...!'

She barely refrained from wringing her hands. He feared she might be about to burst into tears. She had already been on edge; there were too many who regarded the Sons of Feanor as a nightmare they wished to forget. He had not handled the matter well.

'No,' he said quickly, 'no! Quite the opposite. What I was going to say--please go on playing, do. And if anyone gives you any trouble over it, come to me.'

She caught her breath in surprise and relief.

'Thank you, Lord! Thank you...'

***

He was crossing a room full of chattering people, when a sound came and touched him on the shoulder--a little friendly touch among the crowd: another song that he had not heard for far too long. He glanced across at the musicians just as the harpist raised her head. It was the most fleeting of exchanges that passed between them--as if between co-conspirators. Elrond smiled to himself and moved on.

---

Chapter End Notes

Posted to the Fandom Stocking 2015 collection as an independent piece.

I thought I'd add it here on SWG, though, as it's also a sort of gapfiller for the final chapter for the longer story.