Just and Equitable Government by Himring

Chapter 3

Findekano hastens along the shore of Lake Mithim—which is in fact not a trackless waste, for although his father and the Feanorians are still keeping a cautious distance from each other, there has now been sufficient communication between the two camps to wear a track from one to the other, narrow by Valinorean standards, but more clear and well-defined than any traces left by occasional Sindarin hunters passing through the region. There is still an area about midway that either party hesitates to enter, though, a kind of unofficial no man’s zone where nobody is likely to be encountered at this hour of the night.

Findekano, on the path skirting the lake, is alone with his thoughts. There are too many he has found himself unable to voice to anyone. The oppressive silence seems to weigh on his chest like a solid thing, almost making it difficult to breathe.

‘Russandol!’, he cries out finally, in the shelter of the solitude and the dark. ‘That was a fine and private place you had, up on Thangorodrim! Only Moringotto to worry about and a few thousand orcs—no one whose opinion you would have given a fig for—and even they left you alone most of the time… Until I came and saw you and cut you down and dragged you here and exposed you to the eyes of all those you cared about! But what would you have had me do?  I had to! I had to put a stop to it! Would you have had me rescue you blindfold? Was I to inch up the cliff backwards, guiding the stroke of my sword in a mirror?’

Russandol, of course, has made no suggestions whatever of that kind. What he did say is: Why couldn’t you shoot me when I asked you to?—and although Findekano has done his best to pretend, even to himself, that that was just another of those foolish comments that are best ignored because at present Russandol clearly cannot be trusted to know what he is saying, the question still lodges under his skin like the hooked head of an arrow that will not let itself be pulled free of the wound.

There are many, his father among them, who would say that this is merely another flagrant proof of Feanorian ingratitude. But it is all too easy to say that on the other side of the lake about a Feanorion they do not see before their very eyes. For, after all, was it not their Findekano who freed Russandol from Thangorodrim and was that not a heroic deed? That is what they think. But Findekano has witnessed his cousin’s sufferings too closely, for too many days and nights—and, no, life after Thangorodrim is not simply the continuance of torture by other means, but he finds himself having to remind himself of that again and again…

‘Do you think you are the only who has suffered!’—it is the obvious, the self-righteous question to ask, trying to cut Russsandol’s pain down to size.

Only Russandol does not think that, has never shown the least sign of thinking that.

***

One of those couple of times he simply broke down and wept and wept in my arms until he started retching violently…  He abruptly lifted his head and, wiping bile off his lips with the back of his hand, croaked, harsh as a raven:

‘Fools! Idiots! Why are you here!  Were you so eager to have songs sung about you?’

***

As Findekano swiftly moves along the path, aggrieved and yet purposeful, the moon rises over Mithrim. To some of the Noldor, moonlight is chiefly a reproachful, tainted memory of Telperion, a reminder of the lost light of forsaken Valinor. To others, it has become merely light to see by; already they are used to having light again, after their long journey through darkness, and they are too concerned with present troubles.

But to Findekano, each moonrise is still the miraculous repetition of the first, and it fills him with unabated wonder. He halts, just a little, to watch the white disc fully edge its way above the mountain crests of the Ered Wethrin and admire the gleaming path the moon’s reflection creates along the dark surface of the lake.

I love Middle-earth, he thinks. If I had guessed in the slightest what price would have to be paid for me to be standing here, I would never have dared to wish to come. But I did, and here I am and, despite everything, I love Beleriand.

Just for a moment, he feels obliged to try and repent of such a selfish delight as this but the fact is that he does not, could not, not for Turukano’s sake, nor for Russandol’s either. And it soothes him. For a while, by the lake, he is almost at peace, although he has started moving again and indeed he is speeding up as he goes, for at the end of this journey there is Russandol, who is waiting, perhaps, who needs him, maybe…

The words of Makalaure come back to him. Nelyo reminded him of your valour at Alqualonde. Father didn’t relish being told that, without your help, many more of us would have ended up riddled with Telerin arrows on those quays.

Perhaps indeed many more—certainly one in particular…

***

When I had finally fought my way through to them, it came almost as a surprise to discover that there were no more Teleri swinging strange and dangerous implements at me, blocking my path to my cousins.

I remember thinking, half conscious of the absurdity of the thought: Haven’t their mothers told them not to wave their boathooks about like that because they might kill people that way? At the back of my mind there was an answering voice urgently trying to remind me what my mother and her bosom friend, Auntie Earwen, might have to say if they saw me wielding a blood-stained blade on the quays of Alqualonde. Some parts of my brain were only just beginning to catch up with the other parts that had known what to do to survive in the melee and were puzzling out exactly what had happened to those Teleri who had stopped trying to bash my head in or otherwise damage me.

I could not afford to concentrate on any of this yet. I had to make sure my cousins were as unharmed as they seemed to be and find out who was not. I started down the quay towards Russandol and Curufinwe—and just as I reached them, and opened my mouth to ask Russandol an urgent question that was about to be completely wiped from my mind by what happened next, I caught a movement in the corner of my eye.

Without stopping to consider, I reached out, grabbed young Tyelpo, who had either lost his helmet or never put one on to begin with, and threw myself sideways. The Telerin arrow whizzed past, exactly through the space where Tyelpo’s head had just been and onward and, as I scrambled upright again, I saw that it had hit a buckle on Russandol’s shoulder and stuck there, two hand-breadths from his unprotected throat.

Oops, I thought rather sickly.

But Russandol was apparently completely unimpressed with the current position of the arrow. As far as he was concerned, clearly the one important thing was that I had probably saved Tyelpo’s life. He didn’t need to say anything, his face lit up with such a glow of admiration and gratitude…

 I discovered, there in the midst of the bloody mess that was Alqualonde, that I was still pathetically addicted to Russandol’s praise. His approval had always seemed somehow more valid, more meaningful than anyone else’s. And even after all that had passed, the sight made me forget about the distressing circumstances, just for a moment…

But I could do without his approval, of course I could. And I had to, for his gaze wandered down my sword arm—and suddenly he looked utterly horrified as if a bloodied weapon in my hand were somehow worse than in anyone else’s. Or maybe it was just that seeing one in my hand brought everything home to him.

When exactly did you decide, cousin, that making fatal errors is a strictly Feanorian privilege?