The Work of Small Hands by Dawn Felagund

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The Caravan

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I decide to stay.

I sit at the vanity table given to me by my father when I was a little girl, brushing my hair. I have to slouch to fit my full reflection in the mirror, and I do not recognize my face. When did I age so? When did weariness pull harder at my face carved by shadows? When did my mouth fall so naturally into a frown?

No mind. I am home.

I wait for the burdens of the past few months to lift from my shoulders. I try to hum a tune--a Telerin lullaby--but it sounds flat in my voice, like a dirge. But why? I am home. Behind me is a window full of darkness. It used to not be that way. It used to look at the Calcirya and the golden bar of light from Ezellohar; it used to make me think of Arafinwë in his father's court, restless and looking toward the sea, toward me, as I looked constantly toward him. Our fathers had been so pleased at our betrothal, for we united our peoples. Our fathers had long been friends, since the days of darkness at Cuiviénen. "I named Finwë," my father told us once at the feast held in honor of Arafinwë's and my betrothal. "He doesn't like to admit it because the word--which I chose because I liked the sound and it matched his face--came to mean 'he who never shuts up.'" Laughter. Finwë raised his wineglass, and by the touch of color in his face and the mirth in his eyes, I knew the story was true. My father answered his toast. "We are kin now," he said. Though there was a smile on his face, his voice was grave. All laughter ceased. "After an age and so much strife, at last, I can name you my brother."

"Arafinwë is probably dead by now." I say it out loud. I say it out loud, again and again, as I brush my hair to the rhythm of my words. Arafinwë is probably dead by now. Dead by now.

Dead.

But I know that he is not.

"I am home," I say. My voice breaks on home, and I see the Treelight in Tirion; I see my children scampering down the long hallways of our house and their father behind them, no weariness on his face from their games, his smile broadening at the sight of me, stealing a kiss before having his hand tugged by Artaher: "Atar! Atar! Hurry! It is your turn to hide!"

I am not home, I realize. My home is forever gone.

In the darkness in the window behind me, Arafinwë waits; Anairë waits; a whole people wait on a single woman to save them: me.

~oOo~

For a long time, I stand outside the door to my father's study. It used to be that it was impossible to stand here motionless for so long without being smacked in the face by the door as one of Father's lords or counselors exited, calling over his shoulder, laughing, even as the door fell shut, or being bowled over by one of the many waiting to see him and crying greetings as they went. It used to be that voices and laughter and the sound of the wind and the surf through the opened windows rioted in that room and became senseless noise--but oh, so joyful! It used to be that one had to raise one's voice loud and shout because one's joy competed with that of the others: joy, not pride like the Noldor. Not anger and dissention and the endless lust for power. Father, may I go to the market? I had to shout to be heard over the laughter. No more.

Now, only silence fills the room behind that door. Yet my father is there: I watched him enter. And he is alone. I watched him banish with a wave of his hand all of the lords and counselors gathered grave-faced in the hallway. Not today … Tomorrow, maybe, his eyes downcast and his shoulders sagging. And they eased down the hall, faces strange to see so lined and shadowed, as my own had been in the mirror. Just yesterday … his son, I heard muttered.

But I am his daughter. His heir. Always, I have been permitted entry to the chambers of my father, even when all others were barred.

But my hand does not want to lift and touch the handle to the door. I know what I must do, but the words lie like a stone at the back of my tongue, and I cannot imagine uttering them into the stillness of the room beyond this door. In my hand, I hold Anairë's letter, but even as I stand there, knowing what I must do, then I know that I will never give it to him. I cannot imagine asking my father to endure hearing what I am about to request.

But I must.

With a hand heavier than if it lifted a bag of sand, I raise my fingers to rest against the wooden door to his study. In the silence, the light scratching fills the room beyond; I hear the rustle of my father's robes as he rouses himself. "I am taking no counsel today. All should return to their homes," he calls in a thin voice.

"It is I, Father."

The door falls open in front of me. Did I cause that? Surely, my father must be able to hear my heart pounding in my chest. How can you do this? part of me screams. How can you not? the other part answers, in that rational voice that sounds like Anairë. We have committed no crime; our lives are as innocent as those lost of your mariners. I fold my hands in front of me so that they do not tremble, crumpling her letter within them. I do not bother to smile; it would look false, and it would not sway him. Sway him! The outraged voice erupts again, louder than the rational one. You are no better than a slithering diplomat seeking political favor! An image comes unbidden upon me: of Fëanáro pacing the steps of the palace, lit by the flames of the torches borne by his people, of his voice, loud and shrill, so easily drowning the steady, temperate voice of my husband.

"Father, I have come to speak on the behalf of my husband's people."

There it is. I wait for his reaction. Dulled by grief, his hand only passes quickly over his face, pausing briefly to rub at his eyes where tears have long dried into grit in the corners. "Daughter," he says at last. "Eärwen. Do not make me lose two children this day. Do not make me--" He stops, and his chin tips forward slightly. But I know the words he cannot speak: disown you.

That is a chilling thought. Before I was a queen--even a wife--I was a daughter. There was a time when my father's disapproval was the worst punishment that I could imagine, for he was great and flawless, and if he saw an error in me, then what did that say of me? The vestiges of that sentiment remain. Have always remained. After I have lost so much! comes the lament: first my children, soon my husband, now my father? I feel my body leaning toward the door. For what purpose?

For something larger than you, Eärwen. That is not Anairë's voice, nor Arafinwë's. It is my own: clear and sweet and uniquely my own. I feel my head bow. I speak.

"Father, not all of the Noldor committed crimes against our people but remained in Tirion, loyal not to the rebels but to the Valar and the traditions that people have long held there. Yet they, too, suffer for the evil of their kin. Father, Tirion is a wreck." I draw a shuddering breath. I remember the upturned carts, the scorched sides of trees, the hungry woman and her crying baby. I think of my husband dying in his bed while I work over plans for lamps and water purification. Anger touches my heart. "The people are starving, Father," I say in a voice that quivers. "Many have already died, and more will follow if we answer their cries with inaction."

"Answer?" He spreads his hands wide and indicates the dark, silent study around him. "This is our answer! This darkness, this grief, this endless hurt! This is our answer to their bottomless pride and lust! How can you dare to ask for more?" Anger is rousing itself on a face that has forgotten all save sadness. I am reminded of storm clouds gathered suddenly on the horizon; the first bite of a bitter wind and the urge to turn the rudder and sail home--or Alpaher's wind-whipped face and bold words: "We can weather it, Eärwen."

"It was the Noldor who brought darkness to this land! It was the Noldor who admitted evil into their hearts! It was the Noldor who forged the first swords and the Noldor who wielded them against those they had named brothers and sisters, just short years before! What the Noldor suffer, they have earned. And that is my answer." Roughly, he stands, knocking back his chair. He strides to the window to gaze out on the dark. There is Fëanáro's mirror: the glass over the blackness; I can see the tears streaking my father's face.

"Not all of the Noldor," I reply.

"I saw your husband's banner among the kinslayers, Daughter. If the gentle boy I loved enough to grant to him the hand of my daughter has hands red with blood, then, yes, the Noldor in entirety have indeed fallen."

"No, Father," I say. "No. It is not as you think. He came home to me. He abandoned his brothers and their foolish quest. He came home in a grief just like ours because he could not change the past, bring back the dead; he could not save us or the Noldor from their greed and folly! He was too late, and the deed was done when he arrived, and he can no more change it than we can. But he would! He would, Father, if he could."

"Then why," said my father, turning, "is he not here? Why is he leaving my daughter to do work meant for his hands?"

"Because he cannot change the past!" I expect silence as the only answer to my father's logic, and my voice alarms me, so sudden and brash. He flinches; it alarms him too. "He is welled in grief, for he cannot change what was done by the hands of his brothers' people. And just like the stubborn, proud Noldo that he is, that which remains beyond the reach of his hands haunts him. He cannot forget it. But he has forgotten that our people are young, and what we've lived is only a blink in the long years of our existence. He has forgotten the living in favor of the dead.

"But I have not, Father. And that is why I am here."

"You ask me to aid those whose kin murdered my son? Your brother?" His voice breaks.

"They are no more evil than we, Father. Fëanáro once had his own chamber, right in this palace. You loved him as you loved his father. Nolofinwë, too, dwelt with us for a time, and Maitimo and Macalaurë, or do you forget? Do you forget that they shared your table many nights when Macalaurë had lessons with the music teachers in Alqualondë? That you welcomed them as you would one of your own house? Perhaps the Noldor in Tirion could have done something differently to change what happened at the harbor that night. But share the blame equally, Father! They were our friends too! You named their lord Finwë your brother, remember, and his kin your own? We are divided, you think, but we were once united, and any blame of those in Tirion is ours as well. And I would not see them starve for misspent vengeance anymore than I would stand and allow you to starve your own people for the folly of their friendships."

I am trembling when I finish speaking. My father laughs, but it is a cold, humorless laugh, and I shiver: that such a sound should replace the mirth that once filled this room!

"Allowing the children of the Noldor to perish shall not bring back our own," I add in a whisper, and his head snaps up; the laughter abruptly ceases. He ponders me. "We have both lost sons. We have both lost brothers. Aman was not supposed to be such a place. We can stop it. We can reclaim our people in the name of compassion and love. But we must do it. No other will."

Silence grows thick again in the room between us. My father's head tips forward to rest against the cool windowglass; his eyes have closed, but the tears endlessly course down his face and drip to the floor, the weathered boards of which have grown sated on the salt of the sea but have never known the taste of grief until now. This room was built around the shape of laughter; no one ever imagined this. The silence persists until I think it thick enough to close my fist upon it. My father makes no answer.

I prepare to leave and to tell him that I will return to hear his answer and give him time with his thoughts. But there comes a whisper, furtive and not quite to be believed. Yes …

"P-Pardon?" I stammer.

"Yes," he answers. "We must."

~oOo~

My father requests aid on behalf of the remaining Noldor from those who would give it, but he makes neither demands nor decrees. "I cannot force the healing of their hearts, Daughter," he says with a weary smile, "nor can I force understanding and compassion to reluctant minds. Let those who would serve do so with joy than to allow bitterness to take its hold too on our people."

But it has ever been the way of the Teleri to find joy in service and in sharing: in pearls given freely or songs that are no sooner touched to a harp for the first time and are being taught to others, sung by others, shared with the entire city. Many come. I wait by the gate, and the first lanterns bob out of the darkness, fixed to the halters of horses drawing carts laden with fish and seaweeds. For many hours, I am busy, compiling lists and ledgers for Anairë, sending messengers ahead to prepare her for our arrival. The fishermen say little to me as I work, and I wonder what they think to see their crown princess aiding those of the same people who had slain her kin. I wonder what memories they hold in their own hearts of the Noldor they will journey through the dark to save.

Whatever they may be, they clog the street with fishermen offering aid, and none turn aside.

As I prepare the messengers to depart ahead of the caravan, I see a cluster of widows just beyond the crowd at the gates. One speaks feverishly, gesturing wildly. A few from the crowd gathered around her straggle away, heads shaking in disapproval. Others press closer, their eyes shifting in the dark, before the whole crowd disperses suddenly, each heading for her own house, it seems, with strides long and purposeful.

I force my attention elsewhere. "My sister will know what to do," I tell the messenger. "She will make all of the arrangements for the provisions. Be as quick as you can upon the road, but beware the dark." He is young and trying hard not to look frightened. My thoughts wander unbidden to my own sons--Aikanáro is not much older than he--and the road they keep. "May Oromë guard your road," I tell him, and I hand him my lantern.

"And may Oromë guard yours, my Princess," he answers, and he is gone.

I turn to finish readying the caravan. Behind me stands the widow who was at the head of the group moments before. Her hair is unkempt. Grief lines her face.

Behind her, the other widows are assembling. In their hands are the lanterns extinguished in the name of the dead. They are fumbling with flints; the lanterns are flaring to life once more.

"My Princess," she says. "You will need light to keep a safe road."

~oOo~

We move slowly along the road with the fishermen and the carts at the center and the widows with their lanterns at the edges. Every now and again, one calls warning of a hazard upon the road, and we must slow even further to navigate around it. As we walk, they sing. They sing a song brought from the Outer Lands, sung in words that only the oldest and most learned among us know, in voices raw and keening: one need not know the words to understand that it is a lament.

When each finishes her verse, she speaks the names of all among the dead that she knows. Sometimes, the names go longer than the verses.

The song comes to me. I sing the verse with a tongue made awkward by strange syllables reminiscent of the dance of starlight upon dark waters. Others add their voices, softer, to mine in low harmonies that are like the gathered shadows beside the road. And so our caravan moves onward as a clot of light and song.

I come to the names. "Alpaher," I say first and then, softer, "Findaráto"--for is he not also dead, gone with a madmen to a land of darkness to face an indefatigable foe? None challenge me, so I go on. Each of their names is like a blade in my heart. Will this grief ever subside? "Artaher. Angaráto, Aikanáro. Artanis." I pause. "Arafinwë."

As we pass through the Calcirya, another of the widows walks at my side and holds my hand in hers.