The Bird In A Cage by Himring

Part II, ch. 3: No Sun In Nan Elmoth

An unexpected visitor and a decision.

Today, the trees of Nan Elmoth were speaking Quenya.

‘Irisse,’ they whispered softly, ‘Irisse.’

Nobody in Nan Elmoth called her by that name. She pretended not to hear.

There was silence, for a while, and then the trees whispered again, like a breeze among the leaves: ‘Irisse, Irisse.’

She waited until she was sure nobody else heard them. She waited until she was sure none of Eol’s servants were observing her. She waited until she was quite sure Eol was not concealed somewhere among those trees watching to see whether she would betray herself at the whisper of a Quenya name.

Then she arose from her seat beside the cradle and followed where the trees were calling her—across the threshold of Eol’s house, out of the clearing in the heart of the wood and eastward along the winding path among the trees.

‘Irisse.’

The voice seemed much closer now.

At first, she thought what she was seeing was just a patch of sunlight within the dense undergrowth. But there was no sunlight in the heart of Nan Elmoth. Nan Elmoth was all black and green by day, black and white in the moonlight. The patch of reddish-brown colour was as out of place here as her Quenya name.

She came closer, stared, came closer again. The blur of colour resolved itself into a familiar face, a keen, narrow face under a mane of reddish-brown hair.

 ‘Pityo!’, she whispered, startled even though she had expected the unexpected from the moment she heard her name spoken in Quenya. For who would be coming after her now, after all this time?

 ‘Irisse’, Amrod repeated. ‘It is really you! I’ve found you!’

 ‘Or I you?’, she asked. ‘What are you doing here, Pityo?’

 ‘Irisse, we had no idea where you were! We couldn’t trace your movements at all! Turko finally concluded you had given up on him and gone back to Gondolin. Only, then, just recently, Telvo picked up a rumour in Ossiriand…’ Amrod stopped to catch his breath. ‘Turko was all for storming Nan Elmoth immediately to break you out, but Nelyo said: No, let’s not compound our mistakes, if we can avoid it. So he sent me. Don’t let yourself be seen by anybody but Irisse, he said. Make sure it is her, this “Noldorin wife of Eol’s” they are talking about. And ask her, ask her…’ Amrod stopped again, caught a deep breath this time and asked, solemnly, almost formally: ‘Do you want us to come and get you out, Irisse?’

She could almost hear Maedhros’s voice asking the question, as if, in speaking for all seven of his brothers, Amrod was unconsciously imitating the head of his House.

She opened her mouth to answer and closed it again.

She thought of the child in the cradle. She thought of its father, of her enduring anger at the discovery that she had let herself be deceived and ensnared, her anguished suspicion that she had somehow connived with the deceit, her growing familiarity with Eol and his ways—and how horrified and disgusted both Eol and Celegorm would be if they ever learnt that, in her eyes, they were coming to resemble each other in more respects than she would have thought possible… She thought of her son in his cradle, her Lomion.

 ‘Too late’, she told Amrod, paused and added: ‘Or too early…’

 ‘Too late?! Oh Irisse, we have failed and abandoned you yet again!’

Amrod’s eyes were swimming with tears.

He cares, she thought surprised. But of course he did.  She had gone on thinking of Amrod and Amras as irresponsible children, even after Losgar, but they had no longer been children, even then, and were certainly not now.

 ‘No!’, she said. ‘You came. You asked. It means much to me. Tell the others so.’

She leaned forward and gave him a quick cousinly kiss.

 ‘Go now,’ she said, ‘and at once. It will not be good if he spots you, either for me or for you.’

She stood back and closed her eyes. She heard no sound except a sudden complete silence, but when she opened them again, he was gone, and there was no sunlight in Nan Elmoth, which was all black and green as before.

Only, on her cheek, there glistened a tear. It wasn’t hers. Her eyes remained bone-dry.

Chapter End Notes

If something like this had happened, I think it would help to explain Curufin's attitude when he and Eol talk after Aredhel's escape.