A Great Friendship in Every Need by Urloth

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Chapter 2

Not grammar checked like the last chapter. Hopefully that will change in the near future.

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The morning brought Findaráto a slight exhaustion headache, mixed with a little bit of a hangover from the posset devoured on an empty stomach. The missives were still calling him but he just groaned, reached for the water pitcher by his bed and gulped down some of the cold liquid within before crawling back under his covers for a few more hours.

Tyelkormo had said it was nothing urgent after all.

Scant hours later his body awoke him again and he knew by the water clock on the mantle it was still morning. He groaned in annoyance and resisted yelping when he slipped from his warm bed and onto the cold floors between him and the bathroom.

When he returned, relieved, Findaráto found the warm cavern he had carefully preserved with his covers had been occupied by a very pleased looking Huan, who wuffed and lifted his head when he saw the lord of Nargothrond staring at him. Grabbing the much thought-about but still unread missives, he pushed the large hound aside with a grunt and slid back into his warm bed with a hint of defiance.

“How did you get in here?” he thought to ask the hound after he glanced at the door of his room and found it still closed. His fingers lingered on the lifted seal of the letter and knew he was stalling before reading but didn’t bother to stop himself.

“Your master isn’t here with you is he?” he inquired when the hound declined showing him how he’d managed to enter his rooms. He peeked under his bedcovers just in case, but no Tyelkormo was to be found and he felt a little absurd checking though he reassured himself that it was better to be safe, then to be sorry. He settled against a pillow and peered at Huan who stared back and then placed two heavy forepaws on his chest. There was sawdust caught in the long fur around the pads and Findaráto picked some off so it would not cause the

“Ah he has been practicing in the yards has he?” he stroked the hound’s ears as Huan rest his head between his paws on Findaráto’s chest and gave him a soulful expression. “Then why are you not there with him?” Huan shook himself abruptly, filling the air with a faint fume of lavender and wagged his tail, drawing Findaráto’s attention to the bright blue bow that had been affixed to it. The lord found he could not help himself and began to laugh, doubling over as Huan gave him an affronted look.

“Oh I see. Your lord’s ladies decided to give you a bath.”

Huan huffed.

“You poor thing,” he gave the dog a commiserating scratch between the ears before he finally pulled out the much folded piece of paper awaiting his perusal.

As he had expected it was no news that was pleasant save that Findekáno was still alive and Himring endured against all that Morgoth threw against it.

-

“You fool! How in Morgoth’s hells have you been walking around with such a wound?!”

“You are making too much of this!!”

The yelling brought Findaráto short of the door to the Fëanorian’s shared rooms for a moment before he pushed ahead with a flicker of unease. Was one of his cousins wounded?

The shared sitting room empty though he did notice, incongruously, a woman’s slip hanging over the back of a chair. He carried on to the bedroom the shouting was coming from and found the room slightly dishevelled and smelling faintly of sweat. Both Curufinwë and Tyelkormo were shirtless and fresh off from the practice yards given the sawdust flecked state of their leggings and discarded boots. Curufinwë was the one wounded; Findaráto saw it clearly as he entered, for his cousin was laid out on the bed with his back and the long infected cut that ran almost perfectly parallel to his cousin’s spine bared. The skin was a furious red and there were all the usual markers of an infection well and truly set in: from the greenish yellow seeping and the whitish puss.

Findaráto had been witness to a great many battles now. He had seen men beheaded and he’d seen the slower death of a gut wound. Gangrene and the terrible consequences of a crushing injury were things he knew quite well but that didn’t stop him gagging a little. It was still disgusting.

Tyelkormo’s head jerked up and Curufinwë’s head whipped around only for it to fall on the pillows again with a hiss of pain. The fair-headed brother stared at Findaráto for a moment as if confused as to why he should be staring at him.  To their side the bathroom door clicked open and a brunette woman, vaguely familiar, came out carrying all the implements that Findaráto associated with debriding a wound.

“Ah cousin; This fucking idiot got home last night and simply went to bed instead of having his back checked,” Tyelkormo gripped, clearly pleased to have someone new to point out such utter stupidity.

“I had them pour disinfectant upon it you mother hen! And I kept it clean! It’s a minor infection!” Curufinwë’s voice was slightly slurred, perhaps from pain relievers or perhaps from the pain of the wound.

“Shut up! Clearly it didn’t work and that’s not a fucking minor infection!” Tyelkormo’s enraged voice rose but Findaráto saw not the anger but the fear that was the fuel behind it, driving Tyelkormo’s voice towards hysteria so quickly.

“Do you need any help?” Findaráto interrupted swiftly as Curufinwë’s reply caused Tyelkormo to begin spitting out epithets of increasing vulgarity.

“No not really, Ilvanindil is a healer and will take care of him,” Tyelkormo’s long fingers fluttered just above the long red cut, with worried shudders that Curufinwë could not see, but Findaráto could.  He felt a pang of pure pity for his cousin. He could certainly understand the pain of losing a brother; thinking of Aegnor and Angrod was like driving a dagger into his heart.

“Thank you my lord. Lord Curufinwë, would you reach up and grab the lower bar of the bed board?” the brunette woman, surely Ilvanindil, did not waste time in securing the fifth Fëanorian’s wrists to the bed board with what looked like a tunic sash. If it were not for the seeping wound on Curufinwë’s back the sight of the pretty healer tying the far larger lord down might have been stirring.

“I am going to start the debriding now. Lord Curufinwë, has the brandy I gave you started to work? Have another shot just in case.” With his hands tied, Curufinwë had to tilt his head up and accept a small glassful of dark liquor from Ilvanindil. It seemed barely seconds later his head was slumping against the pillows, allowing the healer to prop a pillow under his cheek so he could not suffocate or drool over the linens. Findaráto raised an eyebrow at Tyelkormo who mouthed back ‘laced with poppy’ and gestured to the small dark decanter that the brandy had been poured from.

“My lords.”

Findarato’s head snapped up and he looked at the healer with trepidation as she flicked open a very thin blade, gleaming blue with razor sharpness, and plunged it into the pot of boiling water on the fire.

“My lords, perhaps you should go about your business. It is but a minor procedure, I have done it many times. Lord Curufinwë will be fine.” Ilvanindil’s voice was serene and soft but there was no mistaking her words for anything other than an order to remove themselves from the room.

Surprisingly Tyelkormo obeyed, leaving the room with a glance thrown over his shoulder to make sure Findaráto was following him. The door closed behind them with a click and the third son of Fëanor let out a shaky breath then stared down at his hands for a moment like they didn't belong to him, bemused by the slight trembling in them. He squeezed them into fists and then relaxed his fingers slowly, the trembles diminishing when he repeated the exercise a few times.

“Well that devoured a portion of my morning I did not expect to lose” Tyelkormo said after an awkward moment, catching sight of the water clock on the sitting room mantle and wincing at the late hour. “I apologise cousin, I do not usually wander about ruining the scenery like this.”

He gestured to his bare body and picked up a crumpled tunic which must have been the one he had been wearing on the field.  

“You are hardly a grotesque figure cousin,” Findaráto reassured him with a slight smile at the attempt at humour and a reassuring clasp to a sharp shoulder, acknowledging it as the attempt to cover up Tyelkormo’s still shaken nerves that it was. “Instead it is good to see what was lost on the retreat from Himlad has been recovered, and you no longer look like a walking pile of twigs held together with twine.”

There had not been a lot of food that could be grabbed before the emergency evacuation of the pass of Himlad, and the ensuring deprivation stripped all the refugees that had staggered into Nargothrond’s protective embrace down to sharp jutting bones, and unprotected, whipcord muscle.

“You mean my fat?” Tyelkormo asked depreciatively and ran his hand over his flat stomach for a moment, pinching at what was barely there.

Barahir had once accused the eldar of being a race of people with ‘not a cup of fat between all their bodies.’ Findaráto had explained, at the time, that while their greater heights and bodily inclinations meant that you would not see a rotund elf, in the way a human could become rotund, that there were indeed plumper members of their race about. Telkormo could have, in another life where he was not given to finding strenuous exercise an enjoyable hobby, been one of those; his body naturally liked to acquire softness over the muscle he had. It was something he had always been slightly conscious of, though he had never shied away from stripping down to his breechcloth to wrestle or swim. Daring to poke fun, however, at the roundness that clung to his thighs had earned his cousins and brothers a few blooded noses.

“Ch’ fat,” Findaráto sneered playfully, “you are paranoid cousin, given I can see the outline of your guts through your stomach muscles. Put your tunic on and let us go over this map now I am not asleep on my feet.”

-

“It occurs to me,” Findaráto said, when they had run out of depressing new things to discuss in regards to the letter and map, “that if Curufinwë only returned last night, as I did, then you have been by yourself for at least two days.”

“I wasn’t,” Tyelkormo reassured him, “and even if I was, I hardly need company all my waking hours, I’m not like some plant that will die from lack of sunlight, if I do not talk to a person for a few hours.

But no I was not alone. I spent a whole day playing adjudicator between Moicalócë, my chamberlain, and Orodeth, and the next day hiding from them both with my bowyer, helping her fletch arrows.”

 “And why was Orodeth arguing with your chamberlain?” Findaráto hoped he would not have to go track down his errant kinsman. Orodeth had been against the inclusion of the refugees and had counselled sending them back north to Mithlond where a ‘fellow fëanorian could pick up the cost.’

“He wanted us to raise our collateral for the loan,” Tyelkormo waved an annoyed dismissive hand, “do not worry about it. Moicalócë managed to send him scurrying away in the end without any terms of the agreement being altered. I didn’t think he had the authority to change them anyway.” He glanced over at Findaráto who was troubled by this news.

The lord of Nargothrond felt that aid should be given freely, especially to kin and kind. However when the refugees of Himlad had started to arrive, discontent whispers had begun circulating about the cost of them with some claiming they were using up precious resources without paying it back. An agreement had been struck that all provided by Nargothrond, in the first year, was a loan that the refugees had ample time to pay with their own skills and contributions. It was nothing more than a sop to these whispers and on paper was honestly a bit of nothing. But even though it was nothing more than token words on paper, the loan made Findaráto feel both uncomfortable and guilty.

“What did he want you to raise it by?” he asked.

“I have one of grandfather’s signet rings. He wanted me to give him that,” Tyelkormo was simply amused at Orodeth’s greed.

Hot shame had the blood rushing to Findaráto’s tongue and made the back of his tongue taste sour. His stomach tightened and hot anger flushed through him at Orodeth’s behaviour.

“I will have strong words with Orodeth,” Findaráto promised and then, since the opportunity was there, and he had been curious about the original collateral which simply named as a “brooch of certain value” in all the documents, asked, “May I see the actual collateral? I never got a chance to see it myself, only the valuations my accountants made.”

“Hmm? Oh. Yes. Come this way.” Tyelkormo gestured and walked into his bedroom, leaving Findaráto to hover for a moment, unsure of whether he should actually enter the bedchamber.

“I’m not carrying the damn thing out there Findaráto!” His cousin yelled, “It will blind us both in this sunlight.”

Sucking in his courage Findaráto obediently entered the gloom of Tyelkormo’s bedchambers. It was ever dark in here, the curtains only opened when the Fëanorian was not within and the room needed to aired out. In the darkness Tyelkormo’s eyes betrayed the reason for this constant shadow, the dark of what most assumed to be his irises expanded till only a little white showed in the corners of his eyes.

Cuiviénen eyes, some called them; extraordinarily sensitive to light yet incredibly keen. Like silver haired Noldo, they were something not often seen in fair Tirion since both were usually traits exclusive to Cuiviénen born.

‘Finwë’s eyes and Míriel’s hair, what are the odds of a child inheriting both of those?’ he recalled his uncle boastfully asking once, a strong hand possessive on Tyelkormo’s shoulder. Tyelkormo hadn’t looked nearly as pleased about this as his father had, squinting in the bright midday light and the odd one out between the red and black of his brothers.

Finwë had kept some rooms in his palace in pitch blackness, with no windows and no illumination, and when one found him there, usually reading, one would find his gaze devoid of any sclera at all yet able to track the slightest movement of an insect on the wall opposite to him. Whilst Tyelkormo had never had to go about veiled as their grandfather had, had to when the trees were at their brightest, he had often retreated into darkened rooms at midday. It must have been hellish on someone so in love with the outdoors to find the light stingingly bright and never getting any better.

“Here.”

The brooch was magnificent and all thoughts of Cuiviënen, Finwë and untameable uncles disappeared as Findaráto beheld it. He saw why Tyelkormo did not want to take it out into the sun. There were so many diamonds and all cut with such cunning facets that were a hallmark of Fëanaro, precursor to his work on the Silmarilli. In the sunlight such a brooch would blaze unceasingly and certainly blind anyone unfortunate to stare at it, directly or indirectly. It was made for rooms lit by the softer lights of coloured lanterns instead, a ball room to be more precise. He recalled Tyelkormo wearing this brooch more than once at the many dances they had attended.

“Amazing,” he laughed a little in disbelief, “how on earth did that survive all the way here?”

“It was in the jewellery casket I took with me from Valinor, and there it has remained until now. Though that barely covers the epic tales that can be spun about it. My jewellery casket has lives like a cat Findaráto; there have been so many times I have thought it lost for one reason or another only find that it has somehow been included in the baggage train somehow. It has had more adventures then I have.” Tyelkormo stroked the sandalwood box, so old it had lost its fragrance, tracing the design of the mosaicked ebony and ivory veneer.

“This time it was thanks to an opportunistic servant who couldn’t figure the lock but smuggled it out, swaddled in cloth like a baby, in the hopes he could crack it open and find something he could buy his way to safety with.” Tyelkormo smiled just like a wolf pack; all killer maws and unfriendly eyes. “I rewarded him, of course, for his thought in preserving my family heirloom.”

“That was Grandfather’s,” Findaráto stated, a shudder rolling up his spine at the darkness that flowed and shaped his cousin’s words. He would not ask; he would not inquire nor fall into the trap that Tyelkormo’s words set up for him and baited with morbid curiosity.

Findaráto recognised the box from where it had sat on the mantelpiece of Finwë’s bedroom: next to the jar of sweets that was always the goal for treasure hunting grandsons. It had been there for many years before it had abruptly disappeared.

“It was Míriel’s,” Tyelkormo corrected, “I received it after the twins came of age and grandfather had divided up her jewellery between himself and our family. Father apparently complained one too many times to grandfather about how I was leaving all my belongings about. He was very put out when I received the box and he did not.”

“Oh” said Findaráto because he was sure what he actually wanted to say next would earn him a beating.

“Go on. Ask what you want to ask” Tyelkormo prodded, eyes rolling as he put the brooch back in the casket and closed the lid, the complicated lock clicking many times and then whirring quietly before clicking a final time .

“Oh I will,” the lord of Nargothrond reassured him, “but later, when I’ve figured out how to ask what I want to ask without giving you such offence that you impale me with whatever is handy.”

“Fair enough,” Tyelkormo shrugged, migrating across the room towards his writing desk and riffling in the discarded, opened letters there before simply staring down at the mess of paper accumulated in piles all around his ink set. “It wouldn’t do for the Lord of Nargothrond to meet his end via bric-a-brac.”

“What are you thinking?” He asked as Telkormo’s thoughtful stare at the writing desk continued on.

“I am thinking about what a naked looking writing desk I have,” Tyelkormo replied with a slightly rueful smile at his mental divergence. Findaráto looked at the desk again and, ah!, saw what it was that Tyelkormo had seen, or rather what he had not seen. The desk was, if you looked at it with eyes of a Valinorian just arrived, a shamefully naked desk indeed, for it only one type of paper and only two bottles of ink, and both in the same colour.

In Valinor, sweet and safe Valinor, when the days were long, and the hours longer, letters not relating to business could be splendid things to receive as they were more miniature pieces of art than missives. There had been a variety of coloured papers and a developed art of using watercolours to create a background upon which the words would form the focus of the picture. Findaráto had always looked forwards to each begetting day for the letters he would receive, especially the seven from his clever cousins. There was a fluttering ache of homesickness that awoke in Findaráto’s breast for a moment and pulsed there.

“You used to enjoy writing letters didn’t you cousin? It always surprised Nerwen when they arrived. She couldn’t understand how a man so devoted to the outdoors and roughness of nature could also have such a fine hand.” He recalled the splendour of the letters he had received for the begetting day when he had come of age, Tyelkormo’s amongst them; a stag amongst the woods and dappled with sunlight, the words of the letter written in the bone white of the stag’s antlers and the leafy shadows on its hide.

“Nerwen fell into the trap that most fall into when someone is known especially for something: they believe that, that person is only good for that one thing and forget that they might have a life outside of it.” His cousin’s lips twitched down in irritation.

Tyelkormo tapped his finger on a piece of parchment and sighed with longing. “How leisurely were our days then? That we could spend hours just preparing the parchment that a letter would be written on and then hours more carefully constructing our words seems unbelievable now.”

“I know the feeling. To think I used to believe two hours to prepare a letter was barely reasonable…” Findaráto chuckled ruefully. Their lives in Valinor had been decadent compared to the lives they lived now, from the amount of cloth used in each article of clothing, the intricacies of their food to their past times which soaked the never ending hours away. “Unless I need to be especially diplomatic I don’t think I spend more than the time it takes me to put the first words that come into my head into tengwar on paper now.”

A small creak at the door interrupted what Tyelkormo was about to say and they both turned to peer down at a slight woman in the garb of a maid, her arms full of laundry. She blinked at them both, slightly put off kilter to find them here when they usually would not be and bobbed an unbalanced curtsey, trying not to lose the tunics on the top of the pile.

“Oh! Yes! Come in.” Tyelkormo stepped away from where he blocked access into the room and let her bustle in and place the pile of clothing on the edge of his bed.

“Shall I leave? There is nothing more to discuss here today I think” Findaráto proposed, realising as he stepped slightly out into the sitting room and saw the water clock, just how much time had passed.

“If there is nothing more than I won’t keep you and I will go avail myself of a bath I think,” Tyelkormo glanced at the bathing room door then had to step away as the maid, finished with sorting his laundry, left the room. She paused as she passed them both and bobbed down into a curtsey again.

She was incredibly short. The top of her head barely came to his collar bones though she had pinned her russet hair up in a braid about her crown which gave her extra height. He and Tyelkormo still both loomed over her. He recognised her, for how could one forget someone with such a vibrant personality, from a trip to Himlad sometime back, as the maid who cared for Tyelkormo’s rooms and clothing (and, as some had whispered, his body.)

“Húmenuldë, it is pleasing to see you again and know that you arrived safely from Himlad,” he smiled down at her and gave her a short bow. He had only talked to her the once, having arrived at Tyelkormo’s rooms and not found him there, and then somehow been drawn into a conversation on the appropriateness of her Lord’s affection, as she bustled about, for beige coloured clothing given his complexion. She had been witty, intelligent and at times blatantly disrespectful given their differences in station, but incredibly loyal to Tyelkormo when you picked away the concealing layers of banter.

He did not expect for Húmenuldë’s eyes to flash with pain then fill with tears, and her mouth to wobble.

“Ah no cousin, I am so sorry, I did not know you knew Húmenuldë or I would have told you,” Tyelkormo clasped his maid’s shoulders in a reassuring and familiar way, to which she replied by leaning into his touch just slightly, trusting him. No wonder there had been rumours.

“This is Hlusserë; she is Húmenuldë’s younger sister. Húmenuldë  died in Himald, during the initial siege.”

“Oh,” Findaráto swallowed in sympathy and felt grief for the loss of such a bright personality from the world. “I am so sorry Hlusserë, both that Húmenuldë is gone, and for my mistake. It is just that you are your sister’s very image…”

“Yes my lord, I am sorry myself my lord,” there was a great difference in the sister’s voices, he found, both in tone and in hesitance.

“Húmenuldë and I were twins my lord, well…triplets but Húnaiwë is male so he doesn’t look so muc- ah! I’m sorry! T-that’s nothing you wanted to know! Thank you for your kind words my lord!” the maid dropped into a curtsey so swiftly that Tyelkormo’s hands were left hovering in the air where her shoulders had been for a moment.

She trembled where she stayed in her low curtsy and Tyelkormo’s look was a sad smile of understanding mixed with pity and grief. Her expression was downcast, eyes firmly on the ground… beaten down he realised suddenly with his eyes flicking to her left wrist. Húmenuldë’s wrist had stood out for it bore a tattoo, in miniature, of the magnificent rose window that adorned the great temple to Eru, the Eru-Home, in Tirion. It had been loud and bright and suited her. Hlussere’s wrist on the other hand was lily white but marred with ugly black tengwar. A thrall’s mark… no a slave’s mark if he was being honest; borne by those who were sold into drudgery because of debt either they had owed, or a family member had owed if the debt was large enough.

Yulma vartyova.

Suddenly his memories of Valinor were no longer as perfect, golden and warm as they had been before.

“I am so very sorry again for your loss,” He murmured and gave her a deeper bow before swiftly excused himself from the room.

As he closed the door he heard Tyelkormo ask, “Have you anything you must do tonight?” and when Hlusserë replied the negative “then when your chores are done and you have had dinner, I want you to come her-”

An illicit thrill went through Findaráto as the door clicked shut and cut off the rest of the conversation. There had been rumours about Hùmenuldë; had Hlusserë become her sister’s replacement in that way as well?

-

 

Hlusserë left her lord’s rooms with her ever present, thoughtful expression. This was so common that no one paid it any mind, indeed why should they? Such was Hlusserë’s constant state of contemplation a grey elf chieftain they had encountered in travels, and who had not even said two words to her, crowned her with the epessë Menegnoth. He had also thought her a youth not even grown because her diminutive body had been swamped and shapeless beneath thick layers against a sudden cold snap. Hlusserë had been both honoured and distinctly unimpressed at the same time.

She let her feet carry her without much thought to the direction since the natural inclination of her body was to find it’s missing pieces and was not surprised that she found herself at the temporary kennels that had been set up to house the loyal hounds that had followed them all the way from Himlad. Here she found Húnaiwë who moved without a word to make space for her between the wall and his body. She curled against his side and rested her head on his shoulder, staring at the sleeping canines and missing the third piece of herself fiercely. Hùmenuldë’s devouring in Himlad had cut off the constant faint voice of her thoughts in her triplets’ heads, and the music of her fëa their faer, and with such abruptness it had caused their hearts to stop at the shock.

Leaving them twins. Leaving them bereft of their strength and their Tulcasel.

She slipped her hand over Hùnaiwë’s chest to gently check the fragile area where six months ago his ribs had been broken as Lord Curufinwë had desperately tried to restart Hùnaiwë’s heart. Her own ribs gave a small sympathetic pang of pain though she had not been subjected to the same treatment. She had instead collapsed and gone unseen, only reviving when Lord Curufinwë’s manual pumping of Hùnaiwë’s heart and lungs had brought her brother back.

In return of her touch, Hùnaiwë slipped his hand over her wrist and ran his fingers over the yulma vartyova that marred her wrist.

“You should cover this…” he murmured against her hair, not mentioning Húmenuldë for there was nothing left to mention. They had discussed her many times during their recovery, here in Nargothrond and had run out of new things to say and new ways to grieve her. Instead they now carried her frantic last thought to them, carried on a half formed image of Lord Turkafinwë: Please you must take care of h-!

“I do not have the coin to pay the ink-smith, or a patron who will pay for it,” she replied feebly, glancing at his own wrist where the harsh accounting of their father’s debt and their owner’s name had been obliterated by a colourful rendering of Lord Curufinwë’s shield.

“Lord Turkafinwë will pay for it if you but made a mention of wanting it removed. He paid for Húmenuldë’s after all,” Hùnaiwe’s response was simply the same old argument rehashed but today he had more to add then simply let Hlusserë sidle out of the argument with a comment about ‘thinking on it.’

“It was such a grand tattoo but I do wonder if the artist felt blasphemous recreating the rose window from the Eru-Home on a slave’s arm,” his breath rushed out in a sigh and he drew in his next breath hard to strengthen the arguments it would carry upon expulsion. “Húmenuldë chose well when we escaped,” he trembled at the memory of the terror, their feet pounding the dark earth as they left their master’s tent and raced towards the bright, shining flags of the Fëanorion camp in the distance; their constellation of hope.

Fly! Fly! Fly! Their faer had screamed to one another while their breathing laboured and their welts and bruises throbbed and stung.

"High Prince Fëanaro despises all slavery" Everyone knew this. There had been a tension in the thralls during the long, horrible ice journey. If they survived, Fëanaro did not represent treachery like he did to their masters. He represented a chance to escape. They three had not been the only ones to make a run. But they had been lucky like some had not.

“She chose masters that would not hold our slavery against us; she chose lords who would give us a future and it hurt her Hlussere! It hurt her to see you hold our slavery against yourself when Lord Curufinwë and Lord Turkafinwë never did! You could have had your mark covered when she did but you hid in the kitchens even though looking at it makes you sick to your stomach.” He turned suddenly and grabbed both her hands, clasping in his own, the rough skin of his callouses grounding her as her mind tried to fly away and escape the confrontation and the hot roll of tears wetting her cheeks.

“Do you think you deserve to keep father’s wrongs imprinted on your arm? Were you there at the card table, telling him the next hand would be the winning one he had been waiting for? L-Lord Turkafinwë came to talk to me this morning, before his practice, and asked me if you were considering any design. He wanted me to know that he would fund anything that you fancied, that you would not have to worry about paying the ink-smith.” Her brother was trembling as he grasped her and his cheeks were equally wet. Guilt surged through her in a hot wave of regret. How long had he held this back now?

“Oh,” she said simply. Oh! Was her echoing thought but it was far more exuberant. She sat a little straighter, eyes widening for a moment and then with a gushing sigh a whole heap of tension melted out of her shoulders. Perhaps… yes that seemed more like why he might have asked her to come to his rooms after her work was done.

Oh!

Oh she was so relieved!

Hùmenuldë had neither denied nor admitted to being their lord’s lover and had kept her mind shielded from her triplets on the fact. Although Hlusserë was utterly loyal to her sister the rumours had been so rife that a speckle of doubt had crept in, uninvited.

Perhaps he wanted to make the offer he had made to Hùnaiwë directly to her.

She could only hope.

“He takes care of us Hlusserë,” Hùnaiwë said, earnest and glowing with this belief.

Please take care of h- Hùmenuldë’s ghostly voice gasped in their minds like an echo.

-

“Should you be up and about yet?” Findaráto asked mildly as Curufinwë gingerly eased himself into the seat opposite to his, making sure the entire time that his back did not rest against the back of the  chair. His tone was at odds with how jumpy he now felt, had felt since he had overheard Tyelkormo’s remarks to his maid.

Curufinwë looked haggard with large black bags under his eyes and his skin sallow from the pain he was undoubtedly in.

“Well so long as Ilvanindil doesn’t see me” Curufinwë settled himself and glanced into Findaráto’s eyes with the same eagle gaze that Fëanaro had held. Once upon a time, father and son had been mirror images of each other. That was no longer true. Sometime before Findaráto had arrived in middle earth, a battle had resulted in a wound from Curufinwë’s brow to his crown. The resulting scar left one of his eyebrows neatly bisected and where it disappeared into his thick black hair, had left a comets tail of bristly white hair to mark its journey.

The marring did not dilute the potency of the gaze.

“I love the woman but I think she worries too much about me,” Curufinwë continued, pulling over a plate and helping himself to what was left.

“You just had your back opened up. I don’t think that is too much worry…” Findaráto replied, and then: “love? You are married.”

“Yes,” Curufinwë replied with mirth spreading on his face, “to Ilvanindil.” He tapped his index finger on the table, making his gold wedding ring flash and then held it up so Findaráto could see the lilies in reverse relief all around it.

“But she called you Lord…” he trailed off while his patchy memory finally provided why Ilvanindil had seemed so familiar. Of course: he’d seen her at Curufinwë’s wedding…as the bride. Well in his defence she had been dressed completely differently, there had been a large veil. Given his general avoidance of Curufinwë, he’d not seen her again until Telperinquar had been presented to the family, where she had also been wearing a veil, though this time just an ordinary woman’s hair veil.

“She leaves paltry things such as family relationships and long standing marital relations at the door when she at her work,” Curufinwë dug into his food, watching Findaráto like he was a very interesting bug.

“So!” Curufinwë said brightly in a way that set off a tocsin in Findaráto’s mind, “about Orodeth.”

“I have talked to him. Sternly. He knows the terms of the loan are unalterable but I am afraid here, his heart ruled over his head. There is an unfinished accounting of Tyelkormo’s belongings that has managed to make its way into his hands and he saw the listing of the ring…”

“It was little more than a daylight attempt at robbery cousin,” Curufinwë’s silver eyes flashed with dangerous fire as he glanced up at Findaráto, daring him to protest or try and defend Orodeth’s honour anymore.

“You can dress it up with sentimental value and sudden, unconquerable home sickness. You can dress it up as a sudden interest in historic conservation but the root of this is that Orodeth is greedy and opportunistic and the leash you have on him is far too slack.”

Findaráto stirred and opened his mouth for a moment before shutting his mouth again. Uncouth and offensive as Curufinwë’s words were, they were the truth and he could not deny that. Orodeth’s behaviour was going to be a source of humiliation for him for a while yet.

“I have talked to him,” was all he could say, repeating himself, “and he will not try such a thing again.”

Across the room he saw a flash of russet and his head came up abruptly enough that Curufinwë paused his reply to look to where his cousin was looking but there was nothing there, just a servant in a red-brown tunic leaving the room.

Findaráto’s stomach twisted a little and his already jumpy nerves jumped again. It was almost the end of the dinner hour and Hlusserë was probably preparing herself to go to Tyelkormo’s rooms.

Findaráto knew that extra marital sex did occur. Hells, if he wanted to admit a dark secret, when he had come of age his father had packed him off to a certain discrete house in lower Tirion for three days where a pleasant faced woman, who was by no means a maid, had taught him what he needed to know about pleasing his future wife.

He had shared nothing more than chaste kisses and carefully chaperoned embraces with Amairë.

There had been nothing more than that. The Eldar were not like humans who seemed able to rut whenever they pleased. Sex was saved for marriage because of the sacredness of the act and the bond it incurred between the fëa of those involved… only this clearly wasn’t the case.  Was a lie, heretical as it was to admit it. Even in Valinor there had been a discrepancy with the constant rumour mills of who was the lover of whom amongst all the other little intrigues.

In truth, he had lingered here in the dining hall instead of returning to his rooms because the urge to go to Tyelkormo’s rooms and eavesdrop had come upon him suddenly, startling him. Here in the dining room he was safe, people watching and listening to Curufinwë’s sly, mean but funny remarks about what his cousin was also observing.

His skin flinched and tingled though and it was like he had a thread of awareness tied to the door of Tyelkormo’s door. Was the door opening now? Was Hlusserë there already? What were they doing?

-

“Your sister did this for me… do you think you can as well? You may say no. I will understand and nothing more will be said of it and you will be treated no differently.”

The fire crackled softly, the only light now in the room now the desk lamp had been extinguished. There was more paper scattered then usual on the desk. Lord Turkafinwë had found a coloured ink set somewhere, and the results of their evening discussion covered the paper with bright patterns and ideas.

Hlusserë held the final result in her hand now, heart fluttering a little excitedly when she glanced down at the design.

She had been shocked when Lord Turkafinwë had first told her the truth, utterly shocked and quite disquieted by what she now knew and had to keep a secret, forever more. Her fingers tapped on the edge of the creamy paper. It made so much sense though. All the little inconsistencies and the little things she had noticed since she had taken over Hùmenuldë’s job now came together and clicked into a picture that should have been almost but had been so well hidden it was not.

No wonder her sister had been so loyal to Lord Turkafinwë.

“I expect your complete silence on this. No matter what you choose.”

She bobbed her head in agreement. Yes she could keep this secret and just as well as Hùmenuldë had.

A weight had been lifted from her chest and she felt a little light and giddy. Without realising it she tilted her head up and smiled at her Lord, the first true smile she had given in six months and the first real smile he had ever received from her in the centuries of her service to him. He laughed softly in delight to see it, finding that it illuminated her blue eyes to a colour like that of a robin’s egg.

Hlusserë regarded her lord with thoughtful eyes and was soothed by the soft smile on his fair face.

Please care for h-, whispered Hùmenuldë’s dying voice.

Yes Sister, Hlusserë agreed, I shall care for him.

“Yes my lord. This is one thing that I am happy to do for you,” she agreed and his smile went from soft to blinding for a moment and left her stunned, her many thoughts wiped from her mind like a child wipes their school slate clean.

“Then come…” he reached for her hair and pulled out the carved comb that held her braid up in a coil behind her head. It slithered down her back and began to unravel and he held out his hand.

She found his touch was not constrictive or cold as she’d imagined the first time she had beheld him reaching forwards to grasp her sister’s wrist in a sign of agreement after Hùmenuldë had bartered service to him for freedom. That first evening in his tent, now centuries past, she had not grasped his hand but half huddled behind Hùnaiwë’s shaking form, imagining the hand around her sister’s wrist to be like the creeping vine weeds in the garden that slowly choked away life. Here and now, she finally found out that it was warm instead, and his fingers were light on her wrist, giving her the opportunity to break the grip.

She did not however and he drew her to the bed easily.