The Bird In A Cage by Himring

Part I; ch. 4: Leavetaking

Aredhel departs--but some things get said after all, at the very last minute.

There were so many traders departing the fair in a southerly or westerly direction now that Aredhel must have found it easy to find another group to attach herself to. The group she had picked was still busy sorting itself out, amid great bustle, and she seemed in no hurry to join it quite yet. She waited a little way apart with her bay stallion, saddle bags ready packed. She was clearly not in the best of moods and, when she saw Maedhros coming towards her, leading the red roan palfrey, she glowered.

‘I told you I didn’t want you to give her to me…!’

‘She’s a loan’, said Maedhros quickly. ‘Send her back to me when you have no use for her anymore.’ Taking care to lower his voice and speak Quenya rather than Sindarin, he continued: ‘I guess there might not be much space for horses where you’re going.’

‘You’, she said dangerously, ‘you think you’re so clever!’

‘Not at all’, said Maedhros. ‘Your father…’

‘He told you everything!’

‘No, no, he didn’t! He told me he knew all about it and to mind my own business and for goodness’s sake not to raise a fuss. After that, it wasn’t too hard to figure it out. I have kept things as quiet as I could, on my side.’

Aredhel gave a half-sob of laughter.

‘Poor Father...!’                                                                                        

She reached out and patted the red roan’s mane. Maedhros took a couple of steps away to allow the two of them to reacquaint themselves. The roan was clearly happy to see Aredhel again and, in the face of such an affectionate greeting, Aredhel could not hold out for long and was soon whispering sweet nothings into her ear. Then she reverted to more practical considerations and started re-organizing the saddle bags.

Now she was mounted and looking down at Maedhros. In the background, the traders also seemed to have finished sorting themselves out and were getting ready to move. It was high time for farewells.

He looked up at her and then after all did what he had promised himself not to do. He put his hand on her wrist and asked: ‘But, Irisse, what about Turko?’

It seemed she had expected him to say something like this. She showed no surprise, but looked at him warily and answered: ‘What about him?’

There was an uncomfortable pause.

‘Well, I guess you can tell him that we are more like each other than I thought. When in doubt, we stick to those who are closest to us.’

Maedhros’s hand tightened a little on her wrist, but he said nothing.

‘What would you have me do?’ she asked, crossly. ‘Am I to be forgiving and patient, merely because I am a woman? Who stood aside at Losgar for Irisse?’

Maedhros recoiled as if she had struck him with a whip.

If he had been in the habit of talking about Losgar, there might have been things he might have said. He might have said that although he had been thinking mainly of Fingon during the crossing—in the brief moments when he was not thinking about how painfully little he really knew about matters such as masts and rigging, sails and oars, backboard and starboard, and about the dangers of the shoreline of Endore, which he had studied so carefully in sketchy maps—however much he had been thinking of Fingon, at the moment when he stood aside he had, in fact, chiefly been thinking of his father and his brothers: What are we becoming? What is becoming of us?

But a whole fleet of ships does not burn all in a moment, however terrifying the speed at which the flames took hold and leapt from ship to ship. There had been plenty of time to think, to wonder whether it was really death he had seen in his father’s eyes as he dared to argue for Fingon—for Fingon, at least—and failed. There had been plenty of time to think of Irisse then and he had thought of her and of all the others, of Findarato and Turukano, of Angarato and Aikanaro, of Artanis and Artaresto and Nolofinwe… There had even been time to recognize that somehow, foolishly, absurdly, he had still harboured the hope that they might one day be able to return at least some of those ships to Olwe intact.

And when they were down to three ships—three ships only remaining un-burnt of all that large fleet—he had wondered whether his father would stop him if he tried to rescue one ship, just one, and somehow sail it single-handedly back across the straits. And he had wondered what exactly it would gain anybody if he succeeded—except that he would have left his brothers and the rest of the Feanorians in the hands of a leader he apparently no longer trusted not to kill his own sons, in a foreign country they knew virtually nothing of and about to face a merciless enemy they probably could not hope to defeat. He envisioned himself stepping ashore in Araman and saying to Fingon: Not only have I shunned you ever since you rushed to save us at Alqualonde and then deserted you treacherously on this shore, but I let them burn all the ships save this one and now I have no help to offer you. And the burning shame of that thought blinded and paralysed him—and when he had looked again, the time of decisions was already past: there were no more ships left.

That was what he might have said but he was not in the habit of talking of Losgar, he did not think it constituted much of a defence—and in any case, it was irrelevant, for it was not himself he was pleading for, but Celegorm, who had not stood aside, neither for Irisse nor for anyone else—and who, shattered as he was by the death of his father and its consequences, had never concentrated quite hard enough on making peace with Aredhel since.

He looked up at Irisse, who leaned down, caught his hand and clasped it firmly, as if to say: Idiot! You know I didn’t want you to take it like that.

‘What would you have me do?’ she asked again.

He shrugged, helplessly.

‘Irisse, the Oath only sleeps’, he said, not even knowing whether it was a plea or a warning.

‘And I don’t know why you think that that, of all things, should make a difference. But maybe it does. I will think about it’, she said, squeezed his fingers a little and let go.

He wished now that he had said nothing, wanted simply to wish her well on her journey but was suddenly afraid to say anything at all to her. Maybe Turgon was right, after all. She shook her head, gave him a small smile and rode off to join the departing traders.

She remained clearly visible for a long time—a single small white dot among all the more practical greys and browns and blacks moving away across the plain.