The West Wind Quartet by Himring

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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?

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.

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