The Follower by Ivanneth

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Chapter 4: Gold

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IV. Gold

“Mother believes,” said Maitimo, “that if Káno spent a year sitting at Nienna’s feet and did nothing but listen and learn, he might well make trees weep and rivers run uphill with his voice. I say give him time, and he’ll succeed in doing so on his own.”

“Káno?”

“Makalaurë. Lauro, Kanafinwë, Káno— dearest brother, songbird, appalling little show-off -- he answers to all those and to a few more besides. He calls me Russandol, did you know? None too inspired a choice, I think, given his lyrical talent. Well, I adore him nonetheless. But you’ll have noticed that by now.” A yawn, half suppressed, tightened his jaws. He rubbed his temples, then settled his chin on his crossed arms.

Few people remained in the Hall. Some lay sprawled atop the benches, dreaming, dozing, staring at the smoke-dark ceiling; others talked. Somewhere a woman sang, softly. Maitimo’s brothers had long gone up to their chambers, Makalaurë cradling his harp with the tenderness of a man carrying his weary child to bed.

“His voice is—magnificent,” I said awkwardly. “As… as if the very gold of Laurelin had become sound.”

“Funny you should say that. Father always claimed he let Káno have a sip, when he brought him as a baby to Varda’s hallowed vats. Don’t look so shocked, my dear; I doubt it’s true.”

After a pause, I said, “What an abundance of names you and your brothers have.”

He eyed me through his lashes, not bothering to lift his head. “Yes, yes. But can you see my problem?”

“No, what is it?”

“We can’t very well have another Káno here, so what may I call you for short?”

“Anything you want,” I said, before downing another swig. The wine was strong. It warmed my throat and belly, though my head seemed curiously light.

“’Fíno’ sounds nice enough, what do you think? Or is it a new name altogether you wish for? Have a care, through, I’ve a raging imagination.”

“Go on. Astonish me.”

“Why, now,” he said with a low chuckle, sitting up a little, “is that a challenge?”

“Rather.”

“And if you should resent my choice, what then?”

“That’s hardly the point,” I said, bold as brass. “It’s for you to choose, and for me to live up to it—or to prove you wrong.”

“My valiant cousin. I expected no less.” He held up his hand, closing his fingers slowly upon his thumb a few times as he spoke, signaling ‘braggart’. I laughed and flicked some drops from the water-basin in his face.

On we went, back and forth, whetting our wine-muddled wits, heads close together, oblivious to all else. Does it bear mentioning that in the end he chose no epesse for me that day? That he thought the matter worth his while was ample reason to make my chest swell; that he sat for hours talking with me, as a man will with a friend, an equal, filled me with enough pride to last a year.

Our flagon empty, we agreed on a last one, and sent for it. Afterwards his answers grew slow in coming. His cheek rested on his folded arms again. Presently I realized he was asleep. The clasp had come loose and his hair spread out from under the wilting garland, shrouding his face. At last a page brought the jug and set it down on the tablecloth, adding a few more stains to the lot.

“He’s had a bit much, eh?” he said, pointing his chin at my cousin. I did not care for his grin. Half rising from the seat, I said, in a voice so unlike my own I gave myself a start, “Mind your tone, boy, when speaking of your prince.”

Only after the youth had scampered off did I recognize the voice. It had been my father’s, and those would have been his words, brisk and chill, like a wind blowing from the sea.

Having poured the wine, I sat undecided, hesitant to wake Maitimo. Perhaps he would then want to go up. And when he’ll rise from his bed to another day, I thought, his brothers will be there. And everyone else, and work. But surely it was unkind to let him sleep in this cramped, undignified pose? After this cup, I told myself. My own lids felt heavy, my eyes dull from the smoke from the hearth. For a while I mulled over what Maitimo had said about Makalaurë and my uncle, and the sacred rain of Laurelin’s blossoms. If a jest, it was a poor one. Yet it fit the picture I had painted of Fëanáro in my mind. I wondered how one so irreverent of all things holy could command respect from his sons, his servants, his people. I had then of course no way of knowing that respect was not what Fëanáro desired; it was my mistake to measure him by his half-brother’s standards.

Moot tales of past sacrilege aside, my uncle’s second-born was indeed gifted with a glorious voice. Clear, sweet, true as gold; too powerful, it seemed, to rise from so slender a chest, so supple it might have spilled from a bird’s throat. With one’s eyes closed, it was at times hard to say whether a man, a child, a woman was singing: his range was extraordinary, the timbre unlike any other. An unsettling voice, flawless, the fairest of all.

It was also a pitiless voice, as keen and arrogant as a sword’s blade. In Makalaurë’s defense you might ask, how not? He was then but a few dozen years past boyhood, pleasure and praise having been his whole life, with nothing asked in return. For all I know, he never did follow his mother’s advice. Maitimo was right: in time Makalaurë achieved all he yet lacked in the sheltering grace of Aman. He may have wished for a less cruel road to that end. But any fool can sing of sorrow, pain, and love; the true power to stir the soul comes at a price. Whether change first set in when darkness fell, or whether it came with the oath, I cannot say. I know that after Alqualondë it began to show, though it took another death, a brother’s agony, and long years of war to bring him to his full might. Today he may still not move water uphill, but he gives a voice to the grief in your heart. He taught Maitimo to weep again when I’d lost all hope.

I’m leaping too far ahead, as usual.

While in thought, I’d been twisting a strand of my hair about my finger, a habit from childhood. Maitimo’s locks lay spread over the table. Without being quite aware of my fingers’ intent -- a state you’ll recognize, if you’ve ever been in your cups -- I watched myself reach for two of the long strands, and entwine them with my own in a neat little plait. A silly thing, really. I was about to undo it when a piece of crockery, dropped by a careless hand nearby, burst on the tiles, and Maitimo flinched and sat up. He tried, anyway. There was a startled yelp, lost among my own curse of dismay. Our necks bent at an awkward angle, the plait dangling from a bridge of hair between us, we stared at one another.

He burst into laughter. My face scalding, I fumbled with the ends of the plait to unravel it, but he seized my hands.

“Wait, let me.” He’d drawn his knife and held it up, brows raised in a questioning look. When I nodded, he began to cut, carefully. He let the small tress drop to the table and tucked away the blade, then searching the sleeve of his tunic pulled a loose gold thread, and wrapped the ends of the plait into a loop. In spite of all the drink, his long brittle fingers worked the knot smartly.

“There, that was easier, wasn’t it?” he said as he slipped his right hand through the plait, without meeting my eyes. I’ve seen ten-year-olds lie more convincingly.

The cord of hair made for a humble bracelet next to the broad copper one he wore. Nothing anyone would notice. Even so, the next day it was gone; I did not see it again until many years later, when he decided I needed it more and gave it to me. It remains with me still, though it never did fit over my broad knuckles. And I often wonder if anyone watching us that day might have picked up more than there was to see and hear. I certainly failed to grasp the undercurrents, much as it amazes me now. Whether Maitimo, hardly less innocent than I in those days, but older and wiser to the pain of self-knowledge, worried he had revealed too much, I cannot say. I’ve never asked. I do remember he was heedful of how much he drank for years to come, at least around me.

With a glance toward the row of western windows, Maitimo now said, “Ninquelótë will soon take to his rest; come and watch with me.”

I thought we might sit outside on the steps, as we had done before, but instead he took me to a hilltop beyond the carved stone arch. The brisk walk did him good. By the time we reached the slope and began to climb, his speech had lost the slur and his eyes had a sparkle. There came a last steep piece over bare rock, then the ground leveled out. From here one had a fine prospect of the plain.

I have often been asked to tell of the Mingling of the Light, by those who have never witnessed it. As a rule I smile and tell them that some things cannot be described. I daresay the look on my face discourages them from asking again.

But were I to oblige, I might say this: it is the gentle hour, when the birds fall silent and the air grows still as the wind ceases and any rain dies away, when vows are spoken and quarrels ended, and even the most fretful infants sleep in their cradles. Beasts lie quietly, suckling their young. Mallets rest and quills are tucked away, the forge fires burn low, and the hunt slows to a halt. It is a time for drawing together, to food, tales, song and laughter; yet some desire to be alone. And those who face west and give their minds in wonder, they hear the song of the Trees as one wanes and the other waxes. They breathe the keener scent of earth and grass and damp leaves, of flowers heavy with dew, and know the hour to be holy. The skies are as deep as the sea and the clouds like shining pearls, and a pale mist rises from the valleys as the realm recalls itself in awe and gratitude.

The words are not my own. They owe most to Makalaurë’s Song of Ezellohar. Which I will not write out here; it speaks of all in the past, now lost and vanished. I occasionally find solace in pretending.

We spoke little during our stay on the hilltop. I was weary, and my cousin seemed as one in a dream. Later, back at the house, I took at once to my chamber and to sleep, but Maitimo stripped himself of his finery and went out into the fields.

My gloomy predictions came true. Maitimo had small use for me in the time that followed. Now that his brothers were back, he doubled his efforts on the building of his father’s study. Working us hard and himself raw, he grew short-tempered and cross when things went not his way. Yet no one appeared to mind. They bore it almost cheerfully. I admit it puzzled me. Even my father, esteemed and admired as he was, would for certain have met with long faces, were he to drive people with such rough words. Except that Nolofinwë, prince of Tirion, would sooner dance naked through the city than allow his anger to show so plainly. I mused aloud on this, leaving out the dancing bit, to Andamaitë one day as we hauled a cart loaded with cut stone across the muddy, deeply furrowed site.

“I will tell you,” he said. “Fëanáro may be their lord; they’re as fond of him as can be, and prouder than peacocks of what he is, and they would follow him over a cliff, singing as they went. But it’s his first-born they love.” He wiped the sweat from brow and neck, smiling, his plaits streaked with dust. What token courtesy he had shown me in the past had turned a sort of amiable candor, lingering just this side of insolence. Working close, day after day, had hardly helped; still my reluctance to take him to task was not easy to defend. It may have been a sense that I was being goaded with some skill, maybe even with a purpose. Any hint of success would have pleased him far too much. Closer acquaintance does not always make for greater love. I had been surprised to find a quick mind lurking behind the mocking smile and the chatter; one at least was never in danger of tedium with Andamaitë about.

We had stopped for a moment to catch breath. I let the harness slide off my shoulder, stretching my back. Without thinking, I said, “And you, son of Téramaitë? Would you follow either of them over a cliff?”

He hesitated, making a show of breathing hard. His eyes were flat, guarded of a sudden. “My first allegiance is, and always will be, to Finwë Noldoran. As is your own, son of Nolofinwë -- no doubt.”

“None, and none of your concern,” I said coldly. “Yet you asked to remain at my uncle’s court, and Sérondo rode back to Tirion alone. Why?”

“Because Sérondo did not care for my company?” He opened his eyes wide, his lower lip quavering in feigned distress. I had to turn away to keep from laughing.

“He never does. A poor answer; try again.”

“Well then, how about this,” he said, as we slipped the harness back on. “It seems that the house of Fëanáro is in need of another groom.”

“Another groom, when their horses run free all hours of the day? I never heard anything so absurd!”

“That was not for me to judge, when my lord Maitimo put the request to me.”

“It was my cousin’s wish?” Perhaps if my voice, which had of late dropped quite a bit, had not betrayed me with an awkward squeak, my dismay might not have showed so plain.

Andamaitë looked like the proverbial cat in the cream dish. “The son of Fëanáro has always dealt graciously with me,” he said, “how could I refuse him?”

To this I had no answer. Nor to why Maitimo had said nothing, had merely given a shrug and a nod when I had brought up my groom’s desire to stay.

Soon after we arrived at the foot of the wall, and people came to unload our cart. When I saw a girl struggle with a large stone, I rushed to help. I stuck with her and her friends until the day’s labor was finished. They sang prettily as they worked. Between songs we cursed the dust that made us cough, and, with an eye on the orchard, we spoke of the future harvest. On Andamaitë I wasted not another glance. I wish the same could have been said of my thoughts.

Once work on the site rested again, with three of the walls finished, I had time on my hands. Maitimo made certain he had none. Withdrawn and brooding since the feast, he found sundry small tasks in need of his attention. Even our meetings under the willow had ceased. When there remained nothing at all left for him to do, he seemed to prefer the company of Makalaurë. I was little given to introspection, but now spent hours wracking my mind over what grief I might have caused. At last, at the end of my wits and too foolish to ask, I grew angry, as was my wont; I stopped following him about, and went off to sulk alone.

One day my wanderings brought me to a seldom used part of the gardens. Grass grew knee-high here, and the vines had a look of having sprouted in the days of Yavanna’s first labor. The path had disappeared; my feet trod on moss and fallen leaves. I ducked under a bough dripping with pale golden blossoms, so fragrant they made my head reel and my nose prickle, and finding myself in a clearing, drew breath in surprise.

The glade was a near perfect circle. Not large, no more than twenty paces across. A carpet of grass and white flowers covered the ground, all but shrouding the stone bench at the center. My surprise, though, had been for neither.

With wary steps I neared the closest of the three marbles, the one just to my left. A slender youth, his polished shape slumped against a mound of stone left quite untouched by the chisel. He lay partly wrapped in a blanket or cloak; the sprawl of limbs, the calm of the face with its closed lids spoke of peaceful sleep. One hand was flung to the side, the other rested upon what I first mistook for bunched folds of his cloak. It was only when I drew around that I saw the tiny fist and the infant’s face, the curve of the mouth a little distorted by the cheek pressing against the youth’s chest. I half expected to see the eyelids flutter, the lips twitching into that quaint newborn smile.

Now, sculptors are as common in Tirion as pebbles in a riverbed. The young are handed hammer and chisel as soon as their wrists are strong enough to wield them, and most are able to cut a straight block or carve a decent dogtooth pattern by the time they’ve shed their milk teeth. Those who have the gift will take it further. The results are all over the city. So accustomed was I to fine stonework that that I hardly ever gave it more than a fleeting look. But I knew that I had not seen this kind of mastery before.

The second marble was nearly overgrown; the vine had found its way into the clearing itself. I had to tear back some of the tendrils. The same youth, I realized as soon as his face lay free. Already it seemed graven into my memory, though here it wore an air of absorption so fierce it was almost a frown. He sat crouched over a small anvil, hair bound tight at the nape, holding something in one hand. A large cut gem, I saw as I edged closer, dark as sweet wine. It had been neatly fitted into his marble palm; when I nudged it with my finger it stayed in place.

Coming to the third statue, I looked up slowly as one might in a sacred ceremony, half-aware there was a reason I had saved this for last, though it was the one my eyes had set on first. Like the others it was life-sized, yet here the boy’s figure rose straight and upright, just a little taller than I, and some of the height owed to the pedestal. I could have sworn he was my age to a day. He seemed to gaze at some distant point over my shoulder. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, but it was not a happy smile, and the faint pucker of the brows made it all the more poignant. He was wreathed with flowers though his hair had not been plaited; rippled by an unseen breeze it flowed to his lean waist. There was boundless pride in the lift of the narrow head, grace beyond words in the tilt of the hip. Nothing in that self-assured stance seemed to agree with the troubled yearning of the face, yet when I went around there were the hands, clasped behind his back with such force the veins and knuckles stood out.

I laid my own hand on the gleaming shoulder and let it trail to the hollow of the flank, hardly daring to breathe, lest he might disappear like the dream one clings to just before waking.

This, I recall thinking for the first time, is beauty.

A flock of birds flew up; from a distance drifted voices. I froze as still as the statues. When the sounds had passed, I slipped back through the thicket and returned to the house, but not before breaking a sprig of the golden vine, and twisting it into my hair.