Peonies bloom and the world is full of liars. by Urloth

Baradui awoke feeling horrible. Her head was aching and her nightdress stuck to her with sweat. Her sleep had been restless; her roommate had a tendency to cry softly in her sleep, just loud enough to wake Baradui up, and despite the seaside location, this time of year the Havens of Sirion were oppressively hot.

She flung open the small window the sleeping room had, allowing in a trickle of sea breeze. This area of Sirion might have once received a good sea breeze, but with the walls of buildings that had gone up hurriedly and cheaply to house the thousands of refugees pouring out of Doriath and now Gondolin the breezes no longer stood a chance. Between her dehydration-headache, and the nearly nauseous feeling of exhaustion, she almost flopped back onto her musty, wrinkled sheets but stopped herself. 

No, she must go. There were scratches and bruises and suspected broken bones to diagnose. There were children who had eaten the wrong thing from the garden and those who suffered from inexplicable exhaustion and threadbare nerves; invariably diagnosed as grief though that never soothed the patient who usually wished for something that a trip to an apothecary could fix.

To the window she went and peered out, standing on tiptoes to get a small glimpse of the lodging house’s green garden. The sight soothed her own nerves and she gave herself a thoroughly unsatisfying sponge bath from the jug of room temperature water in the washbasin, placating her crawling skin that tonight she would have enough coins to pay for a trip to a public bathhouse.

Everything in Sirion was just so damnably expensive. Food and board. She already got a ridiculous discount for this cramped shared room, one of five that lead onto the same common room, for offering her services as a healer and even then she barely kept her stomach full from the grateful presents some patients gave her.

Tonight though she would have enough little copper coins to make a much needed trip to the one bathhouse she could trust to have changed its water since she last paid a visit. Cleanliness was a fact of life for a healer yet the authoritative body had yet to approve of an account at a reputable bathhouse for its healers. Oh if she wanted to go soak in a pool so thick with dead skin it formed a leathery surface on the bottom of it, she could do so for free. But one of the bathhouses that regularly serviced its pools and changed the water? 

She shuddered a little at the thought of the dirty bathhouse that, coincidentally, the sister of one of the members of the authoritative body owned, her resolution to spend hard earned copper at her preferred bathhouse strengthening.

She pulled on her robe and smoothed it down, staring morosely at the suspicious stain on the front pocket. The laundry too, tonight she would do the laundry, before the bathhouse so that she was partially clean and could spend more time soaking in the hot water. She spared a glance at her roommate, wondering if she should ask her if she would help with the washing.

Férinael continued to sleep, cheek probably glued to her tear sodden pillow. Baradui felt uncontrollably cross and guilty as she stared at her roommate. Cross because Férinael’s crying continued to keep her up and guilty because Férinael’s grief was natural; family lost, surviving sister disappeared and her betrothed taken by Orcs just outside Sirion. It was Baradui who felt a bit unnatural, having been unable to shed a tear despite her own losses.

Never mind. Let Férinael sleep.

The sun was barely dragging itself over the horizon which meant she had ten minutes to run to the house of healing before she was late. Baradui reached for her sole piece of jewellery, stroking the silver nightingale of the fibula with reverence and whispering a prayer before she secured it at her shoulder where all could see it.

More precious than a diamond, this fibula was her meal ticket. The nightingale was set against Melian’s Nimloth device in case the wearer had any doubt about who had issued the fibula. Around the rim was Baradui’s full names including best known epessë, her rank and the number that had once also belonged to a file kept in the large records office, in the grand House of Healing of Menegroth. 

Tuiweril Merilthuiwiel, ‘Baradui’, Journeyman Healer in Her Majesty’s Service. 02798 

No one in their right mind would duplicate fibulae like this, at least not in Doriath where the vast network of healers could constantly double check on one another. 

And why such a vast network on healers?

King Elu had, had his march-wardens.

Queen Melian had, had her march-healers to make sure the march-wardens didn’t die of anything less than decapitation.

Cheerful thought really.

Baradui’s legs flew across the ground as she sprinted towards Sirion’s house of healing, a considerably less inspiring structure than the “grand-house” of Menegroth. There was something that made her pause though, skidding on the streets uneven stones as she rounded a corner. 

A patient, two years past, had given a gift of several peony root divisions to the healing house. Not knowing what else to do with them, they had been duly planted by Baradui and the other healers in their minimal free time, along the barren patch of earth that separated the healing house from the street. The root sections had been miserable brown things that had reminded Baradui of nothing more than desiccated hearts.

Now suddenly overnight, or so it seemed, they had become a thriving green wall with sheltered green buds the size of an infant’s fist.

She slowed to take a look at this sudden transformation and because of this, put herself right in the trajectory of another who was sprinting along the street to try and make it to the house in time. 

The resulting collision sent her into one of the bushes she had been admiring, whilst the projectile whom she tentatively identified as the girl who looked after the waiting hall, bounced back onto the street.

“Oh! OH! Tuiweril! I am so sorry! SO SORRY!” Hands clumsily plucked her out of the bush and brushed her down.

“No it is not a problem,” Baradui rubbed her head and frowned at the small smear of blood. She must have cut herself upon one of the branches. 

The girl, Lagorwen, still gave her a worried look probably frantic that she had not lost favour and thus her job. Given she had been given the job as a punishment to begin with, she lived constantly with the fear that she would be sent away for the slightest infraction.

“Really,” Baradui reassured her. 

Even if she had the rank to dismiss the girl for such a minor incident, she would not have. Lagorwen might have begun maintaining the peace of the waiting hall as punishment for an unspecified offence (possibly involving someone’s prized gazebo and a fire,) but she had swiftly discovered an innate ability to discern those actually in need of a healer from those who needed a cup of something hot and sweet and someone to talk to. Strange to think that a delinquent of 40 years old, not even old enough to drink in a inn, was now the only thing upon which increasingly frazzled healers could count on to keep them from complete exhaustion. 

It also stung a little that Lagorwen would think that of her. She thought they were almost friends, certainly Lagorwen didn’t talk to the other healers as much as she talked to Baradui.

“I thought I told you, you could call me Baradui.”

“It does not seem respectful… you being a healer but I will if you insist.”

Lagorwen beamed brightly at her and opened the little gate for her with a chivalrous flourish that had Baradui suspecting Lagorwen’s unnumbered mass of younger brothers had been playing at being “dashing lords” again and Lagorwen had been joining in.

“Thank you,” she chuckled and led the way in. 

-

It might have seemed a bizarre skill for a group specifically trained to take care of warriors constantly on the move, but no healer left the Great Hall without knowing the basics of midwifery. This was because whilst march-wardens were the strong backbone of Doriath’s security and heroes in their sacrifice for their duty, they were also still men (and women) with needs and the occasional drive to settle down and start a family.

Also horses. 

Must not forget the horses. 

“Everything seems to be normal,” Baradui had repeated that sentence so many times she probably said it in her sleep. 

The mother-to-be wriggled off the examination bed and began rearranging her skirts whilst Baradui turned her back to give her some modesty (despite where her fingers had been just previous) and washed her hands with the small lozenge of carbolic soap and water that Lagorwen had made sure was refreshed after every patient. (Bless her.)

The patient left with a soft murmured thank you and a gentle clink of coppers into the small box by her door.

Baradui rubbed the back of her neck and scowled at the sweat that she found accumulated there. She washed her hands again and pushed open the window of her examination room a little wider. A sea breeze, far less stifled than the ones that reached the built up refugee quarter, teased at the fly away strands of her hair.

Her rooms had once been a storage cupboard and the only redeeming feature of this was that it had been the cupboard that stored the astringent and antiseptic herbs (which it still did, in hastily built cabinets high above her head), leaving the small room smelling clean despite the clutter. Like the rest of Sirion, the house of healing was too small and lacked resources.

“Hello! Tisane time! And I have some news for you!” Lagorwen poked her head around the door carrying a large mug of apple tisane laced heavily with honey and a slice of some sort of bread which was probably a present from one patient. Such offerings tended to get shared on pain of horrible things happening to a greedy healer.

“Eru bless you and keep blessing you.” Baradui took the bread first and ate it in three bites before not-quite gulping her tisane, moaning in delight when she discovered it had been chilled. The thick ceramic of the mug was cold as well and without any shame she pressed it against the back of her neck, sighing in delight.

“I put the mugs in the chillroom with the tisane this morning,” Lagorwen beamed at her and frisked excitedly.

“What is the news you have?” Baradui unstuck her dress from her chest and pressed the still cool mug against her throat.

“A new healer arrived today… with… they look like farmers carts…but covered…and green.” 

“Healer’s wains, they are how medicines were distributed to the depots around the kingdom, to areas where a herb might not grow or some such,” Baradui felt a flicker of excitement. 

“Ah…well there are a few of those and one healer.”

“What sort fibula? Where is he or she going to work from?” the healing house was at full capacity, as evidenced by her storeroom-cum-examination-room.

“Silvery and he is going to work from the …uh…wains, I heard.” 

Baradui’s excitement dimmed at the mention of a silver fibula. She had been hoping to hear of the gold of a master healer. Silver fibulae indicated that the healer had left the main healing school Melian had set up and that all healers working in Doriath had to attend if they wished to practice their trade. Then for the next fifteen years, conveniently the amount of time that a healer who went through the healing halls had to serve amongst the march-wardens to pay for their education, they wore the silver. Silver indicated capability but didn’t indicate how much experience.

“Yes…silvery…that special sort of silvery,” Lagorwen was clicking her fingers, searching for a word in hear head. “You know, the really, really shiny silvery… ….shimmery….grey… misty …”

“Mithril?” Baradui’s excitement flared again and became an inferno. She leaned forwards and grabbed Lagorwen’s arms in excitement. “What coloured stone was it set with?!”

“YES! Mithri-whoa!! Turquoise”

Baradui’s excitement dropped.

“Not nacre?”

“What is nacre?” asked Lagorwen whose black lacquered hair comb was decorated with insets of the stuff.

“Mother-of-pearl,” Baradui tried not to shake her in frustration.

“Oh! It has another name? But no it was definitely turquoise. I did not see him for very long. He left to go back to where he has settled the… wains?”

“Wains,” Baradui confirmed and thought to herself for a moment. First was the disappointment that the healer was not likely to be her old mentor but following that was the excitement that they had a grand-master healer. Turquoise indicated their focus was herb-lore and the delicate chemistries of the apothecary room. The lack of resources in Sirion extended to its herbal medicine. 

“I am guessing this is something good? Bragollaer did a little dance when I told him so…”

“Yes,” Baradui nodded.

“But not the person you would want him to be?”

“No,” Baradui admitted with a casual shrug. “The healer who looked after the students starting in the same year as I, was called Nirthon and his badge was mithril set with nacre. I am still not sure what has become of him.”

“Ah, well perhaps our new healer might know. There were not a lot of healers with mithril fibulae were there?”

“A handful. They were the ones entrusted to teach in the healing school because their knowledge in their specialities was considered absolute. He is probably Lithwaloth if it is a turquoise setting.”

“He should know then.”

“Yes.” Baradui’s stomach coiled and the bread she’d eaten felt like lead. On the days she felt like admitting the truth to herself, she did not hold out much hope that her mentor had survived. The golodh had ploughed into Menegroth and the destruction there was said to be nearly absolute.

But if this honoured teacher had survived, surely others had piped up her little used voice of optimism.

“Well I had better let you get back to work. There is quite a crowd today, mostly to do with the weather.” Lagorwen hopped to her feet. She looked so young. Baradui tried to remember what she, herself had been like at 40, not actually all that long ago, but she could not remember being as cheerful and energetic Lagorwen.

“This heat is healthy for no one, especially if they live in the refugee quarter.” The infrastructure simply could not handle the amount of waste. She suspected she would be seeing quite a few cases of sore-stomachs, vomiting and diarrhoea in the coming summer months.

Joy.

-

The day had concluded and night had crept in by the time the last little copper coin rattled into Baradui’s box. Everyday all of the healers in this crowded house worked from the moment the sun could illuminate their rooms, to the point where they had used up their day’s allowance of candles and lamp oil, but still Largorwen had to send people lingering in the waiting hall away at the end of each day.

They did not have enough healers. They did not have enough space for the healers that they did have. They did not have enough medicine. They did not have enough space to house patients that needed on site care. It was just one big headache.

And speaking of headaches, that was what was pounding about in Baradui’s head incessantly. Her thoughts about going to the bathhouse and doing her laundry were dead, old things in the face of the incessant stabs of exhausted pain through her skull. 

She just wanted to sleep.

The evening meal sat in her stomach uncomfortably: the usual fare of vegetables and fish that the city provided for the healing house.

Someone knocked lightly on her door and she raised her head wearily to see Lagorwen peek in at her worriedly.

“Here, the last of today’s tisane,” the girl presented her the mug and took a seat, looking a little wilted and tired.

It was cold and beautiful as she drank it down.

“Another long day,” Lagorwen commented after a moment.

“Another long day,” Baradui agreed.

“The committee is talking about buying another house,” Lagorwen offered up second hand gossip with an air of hope.

“The committee says a lot but I have yet to see them do a lot,” Baradui mumbled into her cup, killing the conversation. She felt a stab of guilt but exhaustion was making her limbs like slabs of stone. 

Silence reigned over the room. The window was still open despite the growing dark outside and it was still as warm as it had been when Baradui had awoken that morning; an oppressive, never ending heat that baked your bones and stuck your clothing to your skin.

“My mam calls this weather ‘ghost weather’,” Lagorwen said after a moment, her voice gaining a slight Teleri brogue when she spoke of her mother who was the Teleri influence in her life.

“Does she? Why?” Baradui had never heard of that expression before. 

“Well she says that the heat makes ghosts restless so they start to wander about. That because bodies rot faster in the heat, the bodies that are in graves begin moving about. Which disturbs the ghosts lingering there.”

“That is utterly…” Baradui began, her nose wrinkling.

“Charmingly horrific?” a voice suggested from the doorway.

Baradui jumped, and Lagorwen jumped and then both turned to the doorway and shrieked a little at the looming, dark figure standing there.

“My apologies for startling you, ladies. Healer Tuiweril I wanted to make the acquaintance of all the healers I am to work with. I am Lithwaloth Mornion.”

“Oh I know,” Baradui answered tiredly without thinking then snapped her jaws shut, mortification painting her face bright pink. 

It was the truth though. Once she had gotten over her little fright she had recognised him immediately. There had been two teachers of apothecary in the healing school at the time she began her studies. One had been the patient Tuilinniel, onetime apprentice of Lithwaloth, whose gold fibula had been about to be replaced with mithril. The other had been Lithwaloth.

Tuilinnel had handled the introductory classes to herb lore. Lithwaloth had then taken over and ensured they were terrified of ever miss-stepping in an apothecary.

“You… uh… I mean… you… um… taught me sir,” she squeaked.

“I am not offended. I believe I have taught nearly all the healers here at one point; all of the Doriath trained ones at least.” Lithwaloth stepped into the room.

He was tall. Very tall. You noticed that first. And his eyes were dark to the point of being unable to see the colour of his irises. Completing this was the long fall of his hair, black save for a strange dappling of light grey across it.

Baradui realised suddenly that Lithwaloth looked like a Golodh. It was an alarming thought. As a student, with Melian’s girdle keeping the outside world at bay, most of the Noldor she knew of had been the golden haired relatives of their king and she had never made the connection. Now that she was a little more world wise she knew those golden haired relatives had been the exception to the rule. 

His dark eyes saved him from a complete resemblance though. Everybody knew that the flame-eyed all had grey eyes to go with their black hair. 

“Yes… ah…” Baradui hopped to her feet, followed by Lagorwen who was half bristling, half curious.

“Well it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance again Healer Tuiweril. I suspect the last time that I saw you, you were still wearing the copper badge.”

“It is a pleasure and an r-relief to make your acquaintance again as well Healer Lithwaloth,” the instinct to call him sir or Teacher was a hard one to suppress. 

Lithwaloth smiled down at her and she managed a smile back.

“Do either of you ladies need someone to walk with back to your homes? I am walking to the refugee quarter to meet an old friend.”

“No, I live in the opposite direction,” Lagorwen answered but with a worried glance at Baradui.

“I am going in that direction. Thank you for the offer,” Baradui went to her window and closed it tightly before locking up her room.

The lamps had completely died in the hallways and Lagorwen snuffed them behind her as they walked out, creating a feeling of pitch blackness stalking them. 

“Well…. Um, Baradui would you like me to walk with you too?” Lagorwen offered impoliticly, glancing at Lithwaloth, when they at last stood outside the healing house under the flickering glow of the candle lit street lamps. Baradui felt her face heat with both mortification and gratitude at the offer and also glanced at the elder healer who just laughed, not insulted in the least.

“No I shall be fine but thank you for the offer. I am going to the bathhouse on Haddock Street then straight home to bed,” Baradui offered the last part as a sop to Lagorwen’s worry and they parted ways.

“A good friend,” Lithwaloth commented as they began the walk into the refugee quarter, “or you shall be when she is a little older and you have stopped thinking of her as a child.”

His words were accurate to the point of pain and Baradui winced a little at the censure she imagined they carried.

They walked in silence a while. Then suddenly Lithwaloth exclaimed “aha! Dewberry!” which made Baradui’s face flame with colour all over again.

“Forgive my silence, I was trying to remember what class you belonged to, you were a Dewberry were you not?”

“Yes that was my class Teacher,” Baradui mumbled shyly.

“And Nirthon Sigilion was in charge of the six of you.”

“E…eight,” Baradui corrected, “we had the Canniel twins join us halfway through the first year.”

“Oh yes I remember, Healer Cannion’s daughters.”

Lithwaloth was smiling and it was a charming expression on his haughty features.

“Teacher…” Baradui started.

“I am hardly your teacher any more Healer Tuiweril, you may call me Lithwaloth if you wish.”

“Then I insist you call me Baradui,” Baradui reciprocated and then shored up her courage and started again.

“Healer Lithwaloth, about T..teacher Nirthon…”

They had come where Haddock Street turned off the main road and there they paused in the light of a street lamp. Baradui was staring up at Lithwaloth with her stomach tense and sore. Lithwaloth’s dark gaze, which she recalled from her student days as being as impenetrable as obsidian, softened.

“He died in the kinslaying,” Lithwaloth said gently but firmly. Baradui felt the words like a chilled punch to the stomach and reached up to grip the lamppost for support. An icy feeling of nothingness began to spread through her chest and her throat began to hurt. She swallowed convulsively. Six years of uncertainty had just been ended and the news was what she expected. It was still hard to comprehend though.

“H…how… if you know?” She croaked.

“Ah that is a discussion best given a couple of hours, when is your next break day?”

“Oh we don’t have break days. I have the morning off in three days though.” Lithwaloth frowned darkly at her words but said nothing.

“Then in three days shall we meet? We can discuss Nirthon then.” 

“Three days. Shall I come find you?”

“Yes. I should be permanently settled by then and easy to find.”

“I shall come find you,” Baradui inclined her head and despite a concerned glance at her, Lithwaloth left her there and continued on her way while she continued to the bathhouse.

She scrubbed herself thoroughly, paying attention to all the nooks and crannies of her body. The chilled water of the cold pool shocked her from her daze before she crawled into the hot pool to soak thoroughly for a while. The steam gathered thickly around her exposed body, condensing on her skin and if there were a few extra trickles of water making their way down her face, nobody knew, least of all herself.

Lagorwen’s mention of ‘ghost weather,” mingled with her numbness had her flinching and jumping all the way back to the boarding house; freezing with terror at one point against a wall when she heard soft hissing only to discover it was a pair of cats disputing their territory.

She crept at last into the boarding house, finding the common room silent and dark. She made her way by memory to her rooms, bracing herself for the musty smell of unwashed cloth which would be all the more horrible in her cleansed state.

Instead she walked into a totally clean smelling room, the air carrying only a faint hint of the strong laundry soap available here, the type which had been heavily laced with lavender. There was a large pile of washed and neatly folded clothing on her bed which she moved after a moment of staring at it. Then she sat down on freshly made bedding, wincing a little at the loud crunching noise her mattress made.

“I hope you do not mind. I noticed that our linens were getting quite musty,” Férinael said sleepily from her bed, awakening at the noise and espying her roommate. Thin moonlight highlighted the long coiled braid of silver-gold that lay across Férinael’s pillow, and the bright crimson cord that hung around her neck, likely holding some sort of protective charm or pendant. Such things were common here where Teleri superstition mated with the Pagan ways of surrounding Silvan groups.

“No not at all,” Baradui replied dazedly, “How much do I owe you?”

“Two coppers but pay me in the morning. Go to sleep. You work too hard,” Férinael was silent while as Baradui shucked her dress and slid into her bed, revelling at the feeling of clean sheets on her clean body.

“Baradui?”

“Yes?” Baradui stirred from where reverie had almost taken her before she had braided her damp hair into its sleeping plait. She hastened her hands and finally lay down completely. The pillow was cool against her cheek and smelt sweetly of lavender.

“I wish to apologise for my behaviour these past couple of months. I know I have not been a very good roommate. I let my grief make me lazy and selfish. It shall not happen again.”

This must be a dream, Baradui thought, dazed like she’d been hit in the head. Punch-drunk, that was the sentence she was looking for. First Lithwaloth, then Nirthon and then this. Life seemed to be out to unbalance her today.

“You were grieving,” she replied lightly.

“Ah but my behaviour went beyond that. You rise so early every morning and stumble home exhausted whilst I have the evening to myself most days. I could have helped ease your burden instead of letting you run yourself to a thread.”

“Well… uh…” Baradui blinked, her eyelids feeling like granite slabs, “you are forgiven.”

“Thank you,” Férinael whispered plaintively and then there was a companionable silence until reverie took them both. Despite her tiredness Baradui stayed awake a while longer, contemplating the great feeling of nothing that had come over her at the news of Nirthon’s death. Should there not be tears now that she knew for certain he was dead? He had been as dear to her and as loved as her parents, and she had, had a considerably better relationship with him than those that had brought her into the world.

Nothing came through. Not weeping. No storm of tears. She felt cheated and worried over her lack of reaction. Férinael’s breathing came steadily from the other side of the room and like a lullaby it soothed her and she abandoned thoughts of grief.

Chapter End Notes

The system of healers from Doriath might seem overly contrived. Let me explain my head canon:

With a maia as a queen and the girdle keeping them fairly well protected (though not entirely) Doriath had time to become quite advanced. Also with Elu's great army and the march wardens there was a pressing need for healers to support that army.

Essentially the Great Hall of Healing in Menegroth served not only as a house of healing but as the only medical school and a compulsory medical school to  ensure healers in Doriath had a consistent level of knowledge. 

Anybody was accepted and housed there so long as they weren't legally forbidden from being a healer and they had the right attitude. Students studying there wore a copper fibulae to distinguish themselves from patients and also served as orderlies and nurses when not at their lessons.

In exchange for this after completing the scholarly side of their education those healers served as essentially army-medics for fifteen years (silver fibulae). Those coming from small communities (The amount of land Elu claimed was huge. There had to be more than Menegroth) would have wriggle room to be stationed near their home communities.

Then after that (gold fibulae) they were free to go or to stay on in their positions or if they had a particular interest in a field of medicine, return to the great house to study that field until they were considered a master in it  (mithril fibulae). Whereupon they would be obliged to teach incoming students their speciality.

Ok that's all folks. Sorry for talking your ears off.

Baradui was not sure exactly what she had expected to happen with Lithwaloth’s arrival and she was both surprised and unsurprised by what did occur. She had expected a general improvement in their medicines after a day or two once the master was settled. That happened, though not all at once. They had to make their way through what they had prepared already of course. There was also a general neatening-up, no more robes with large stains or holes (small holes and stains were the natural course of any garment a healer wore and as such, remained.)

She had not really expected much more than that. Lithwaloth had set his healers wains in a vacant lot about three houses down from the House of Healing. Without his direct presence in the building he should not have been able to wield much power or authority. It seemed though that she had forgotten about how he had ruled the apothecary offices with an iron control despite never leaving his workroom save to take classes. 

The first clue should have been the vacant lot. It had been the subject of a lengthy legal battle and as such, it had not been eaten up by the hasty building boom. Within a few hours of entering the Haven he had convinced both sides of the argument to allow him to place his wains in the lot for the duration of his stay here or until there was an adequate expansion of the House.

The massive change he wrought came a day and a half after his arrival. The healer who had ruled the House unofficially since before Baradui’s arrival knocked on her door. He had come to inform her of changes to the roster. Apparently she now had an entire day off instead of half. His skin was pale and he was shaking slightly, a sheen of nervous sweat on his lip as he ensured she knew that from now on she had a break-day per twelve-night.

She did not attribute this particular change to Lithwaloth’s presence immediately though. She was not the only healer who went from a half break-day to a full. Instead she put it down to someone finally going over the rosters and shuffling work routines about.

“What am I going to do with an entire day to myself?” she asked Férinael despairingly.

Férinael’s strange but welcome mood change had not disappeared yet. She was smiling lightly as she mended a hem for one of the other women in the boarding house for a discount on Férinael's usual fee. Her swift seamstress hands were making quick work of the hem. 

“Well you are seeing that important healer in the morning. Why not come visit me in the afternoon and come see the market-hall? I do not think you have visited that particular hall and it is most definitely worth a visit.”

Baradui considered her. Férinael had begun reaching out tendrils of friendship, not just to her but others. It would not do to discourage the fledgling attempts at normalcy and the thought of visiting the market-hall near where Férinael’s workshop was located did tempt her.

Sirion had four market-halls. Baradui visited the one near the House of Healing the most, and when she was desperate, the crumbling market hall in the middle of the refugee-quarters. The other two she had not had the chance or interest to visit. Now though she recalled that the market hall near Férinael’s workshop was the one favoured by local silvan’s as their trading point. Interest sparked in her.

“I see the idea pleases you,” Férinael grinned and Baradui nodded shamelessly.

“How about an hour past the midday? That should give you plenty of time to talk to your healer friend.”

“Oh he is not my friend, he is a new colleague and he was once my teacher but friendship does not lie between us,” Baradui protested. She finished braiding her hair for the night and swung the heavy rope of it over her shoulder, intending to leave the common room and go to bed.

“It might,” another woman in the room pointed out and there was a leer to her words, “is he married or betrothed?”

“I was not talking about that sort of friendship,” Férinael cut off any taunting or teasing before it could begin with a sniff of derision, “here, the hem is mended.”

-

The next day dawned as all days dawned for her and she rose with the light barely colouring the sky. Someone had left a small scrap of paper stuck to the water jug; herself from the night before.

“You do not have to work this morning. Go back to sleep,” her past-self ordered her. Baradui stared at the note for a moment and then stared out the window. Then she stared at her bed. Tentatively she sat down on it as if expecting the mattress to reject her.

Across the room Férinael was still dead to the world. An errant gleam of light from dying stars seemed to catch upon the bright red cord around her neck and dipping into her nightdress. It was a bright thing that caught Baradui’s eye often though she could not remember how long Férinael had been wearing it. Truth-be-told she had not paid very much close attention to Férinael as she had the past three days.

She lay her head tentatively down on her pillow and closed her eyes. 

Then she opened them again. Férinael was humming softly to herself as she dressed herself and their room was flooded with sunlight.

“I did not realise our room got so much light,” she said with a voice crackled from sleep. Her tongue felt fuzzy and heavy. Férinael passed her a glass of water and Baradui drank it despite its luke-warm temperature.

“Have you ever been here during the day?” Férinael asked as she pinned her braid up into a circlet around her head.

“No,” Baradui admitted, “not since I took lodging here… oh… about seven months ago.”

“Why did you come here if you do not mind my asking? You have been in Sirion for six years correct?”

“My last boarding house burnt down. Over-crowding and cheap candles do not mix very well,” Baradui stretched her limbs and slid from her sheets. As much as she would love to luxuriate, the moment she had become aware she had noticed the heat and sweat was gathering all over her body. 

She rose to her feet and stripped her nightdress, feeling slightly self-conscious with Férinael about. Usually the seamstress was asleep when she got up. She scrubbed herself as thoroughly as she could and after a moment of consideration, dabbed between her breasts and beneath her armpits with scent. She did not have patients and irritable noses today. She could do as she wished.

“Is that why you have so few belongings? Your side of the room is rather sparse.”

“Yes, though I did not have much to begin with. That is… uh… why I was so enthusiastic about keeping the belongings that were left here.” Baradui’s face went pink, remembering how pleased she had been to find that the last to live in her room had left behind some clothing and bedding.

“Well I am happy my sister’s belongings are being put to good use,” Férinael sighed sadly and glanced at the rose patterned quilt on Baradui’s bed.

“Perhaps you might find something nice for yourself at a good bargain in the market this afternoon. You are still visiting me yes?”

“Yes,” Baradui reassured her, tugging on her shift and then with great care, extracting the one dress she did not wear in the House from her shelf. On it went and she ran her hands appreciatively over the light blue of it. 

“Well then I will see you later today. Have a good morning.” Their door swooshed open, letting in the sound of someone singing in the common room, before swooshing shut and blocking the noise again.

“I shall,” Baradui said decisively, for the benefit of herself since Férinael was gone. “yes. This morning is going to be a good morning,” she repeated under her breath. This was the first time in six years that she had a morning to herself. She was going to pay a social visit like a normal member of society did and not think of tinctures or sprains or bruises or undiagnosable maladies at all.

‘Because discussing the probably gruesome death of a mutual acquaintance is what normal members of society do,” a snide voice whispered inside her.

‘Tis the social visit that is the normal part. Not the content of the social visit,’ she told herself then realised she was talking to a voice in her head and firmly stopped the internal dialogue.

She braided her hair in its usual style then shook it out. There was no need to keep her hair swept cleanly back from her face and secured so it did not fall into any wounds. She braided it again, finding her hands clumsy as she tried to remember the usual braids she had preferred for socialising in Doriath. She had to redo them three times before she was satisfied.

Then at last she settled her belt and its pouch about her waist and was off. There was no rushing down the streets today. She followed the familiar route to the house but with an appreciation for the street itself. Though squalid compared to Doriath, there was loveliness to be found here if you looked for it. 

Cracks between fences revealed lovingly tended gardens; utilitarian in nature of course, if you could not build on land you grew food on it here, but the greenery was more lush and beloved than any rosebush had ever been.

Houses were painted bright colours; most were whitewashed though in Sirion thought white was a misleading term to use. Ochre was traditionally added, or sometimes other dying substances and the houses she walked past ranged from brilliant white, to broken-cream, to blue, to purple, to bright pink and soft butter yellow.

Above her head window-boxes were overflowing with greenery though as the summer drew on that greenery would likely wither away.

Yes Sirion and its quarters full of the refuge of broken, prouder and more beautiful cities had its own loveliness.

The peony buds before the House had swollen and she could see a hint of white and pink petals, peeking out behind the protective green sheaths. It felt strange not to walk to the gate and then go up into the House. She forced her legs to keep walking past, glancing up at the many opened windows. Her ears caught snatches of the voices inside; nothing more than chunks of syllables. 

She turned the corner the House was on, where Tern Street met with Kingfisher Street and went down Kingfisher street. Three houses down and she found the lot where Lithwaloth had settled. He arranged the wains in a semicircle and between the fourth and first wain a pole had been hammered into the ground which held up a large canvas that stretched out from the roof of each wain.

“Convenient is it not?” Lithwaloth greeted from where he was grinding something in a mortar and pestle, just inside the third wain. “You could arrange up to ten wains in a circle and join their canvases together for this effect; a backup should a tent housing the wounded somehow fail. Fore-thought that saved a great many lives in Menegroth.”

Baradui shivered.

Lithwaloth left the wain he was in and went to a water-pump to wash his hands. Sunlight caught his hair and made the strange grey patches in it highly obvious. One of Baradui’s classmates had been intensely infatuated with Lithwaloth and written a poem about him once. She’d called his hair ‘a river of shadow, beset by a fall of blossoms made of moonlight.”

Baradui had thought her completely daft and not a very good poet to boot. A more suitable metaphore would probably be: ‘a pony’s dappled backside (only hair. Not a backside)’ but she wasn’t going to say that out loud. She did wonder though what caused it.

“As you can see I am working out of the last three wains. The first I live in with my daughter.”

The words distracted Baradui from her contemplation of poetry and what utter rot it was. 

“You have a daughter Healer Lithwaloth?” she glanced at the first wain, wondering if the girl would emerge but no one appeared. “I did not know you to be married.”

Lithwaloth fluttered his fingers at her, nothing or rather no ring adorning his auspicious middle finger.

“You are a healer Baradui; you should know that you do not need a marriage to create a child. No matter what some of our more conservative members of society would have Men think of us.” He grinned wide when Baradui blushed and gestured to where two chairs had been set in the shade of the canvases. A table was between them, set with a flask that was beading in the warm air. 

“Some of that tisane the lovely, young lady who keeps the waiting hall makes. She offered to make something a bit ‘more adult,’ but it is only morning and I did not want to have to contemplate where she would get her hands on what would make it ‘more adult’”.

Baradui agreed with the sentiment. The first time she had, had to go before a disciplinary committee as a character witness for Lagorwen she had found herself lying from the moment she opened her mouth. Now she lived by the mantra that the less she knew about Lagorwen’s extra-curricular activities the less she’d have to lie to the next disciplinary committee. 

“Is your daughter here at the moment?” she inquired, letting him pour her a glass and sipping at it, relishing the cool tart taste.

“Yes. She is within the wain. Do you know of the deep-unconsciousness known as Lúrien’s cradle?”

Baradui nodded.

“She lies within it. She has since the kinslaying.”

“I am sorry,” Baradui dropped her eyes then suddenly part of his words registered and her eyes snapped up, “for six years?!” 

“Aye. It is not the usual unresponsiveness. It would be better to say that her body is entirely willing to go on but her fëa has become disconnected. I am able to feed her and she responds to some stimulus. Occasionally she makes her way back to consciousness but never for more than a few hours; she will talk then for a while. But then she will lose her hold on herself and sink into the cradle once more.”

“I see,” it sounded fascinating and the healer in her wanted to go inspect Lithwaloth’s poor daughter, to see this for herself. She reigned herself in but clearly she had not kept the spark of fascination from her gaze.

“There is nothing to see,” Lithwaloth said, his placid tone not altering; he did not need harsh tones to warn her away, “just a woman sleeping quietly in her bed; her eyes closed and her body pale and withered.”

Baradui dropped her gaze again.

“Ah but we did not meet today to discuss the tragedy of my darling Iavel. Though before that, might I ask you how the start of your first full break-day in six years has been?” 

Baradui glanced into Lithwaloth’s eyes and found they were twinkling in a way that suggested mischief. Certainly he was amused, mouth curled in a smug smile.

“…Did you organise it?” She asked, blush rising.

“When you mentioned you only had half break-days I became concerned as the healer that welcomed me upon my arrival mentioned I could find him at his home if I needed to speak with him since it was currently his monthly sennight-break,” Lithwaloth’s mouth pinched for a moment before relaxing.

“A sennight-break per month?!” Baradui’s shy blush became one of rage and her voice rose in a shriek at the end of her question.

“Yes. I asked and found that this was the case with quite a few of the …shall we say native healers? They have only been working two weeks out of three and leaving the rest of the work to the Doriath arrivals.”

Baradui saw red.

“Be calm,” Lithwaloth ordered her and ingrained habit from her student days had her forcing her muscles to relax and her jaw to stop grinding her teeth together, “I used it as a good chance to put a healthy fear of me into them. I also mentioned in a few pious ears how there has been a distinct lack of generosity and fairness in the House.”

Baradui swallowed. Whilst she made her living from donations, several healers in the House drew a wage from the Eru-Home on account of having taken a priest’s oath alongside their healer’s. (Sirion did things strangely. But she wasn’t one to judge.) It explained why the Bishop had come to visit the day after Lithwaloth’s arrival.

“The old friend you were visiting in the refugee quarter?” she guessed shyly.

“Bishop Gailchathol asked me to help him handing out alms. He had several parishioners who have been… self-medicating and he wanted me to make sure they were not doing themselves harm. It was fortuitous you told me about your lack of breaks before I saw him.”

“The bishop hands out alms in the refugee quarter?” Baradui questioned disbelievingly.

“Gailchathol holds his vows very seriously. He is truly a man of the cloth. I knew him as a child, I am fairly sure he was born pious.” Lithwaloth laughed and then suddenly the amused light in his eyes died and he sat up straight. 

“Now, we met so I could tell you of Nirthon Sigilion. It surprises me that his story has not reached Sirion and become a ballad already.” A bee buzzed nearby, investigating a patch of wildflowers. Baradui wriggled and settled herself to listen to Lithwaloth. She steeled her heart and girded her emotional barriers with steel but there was an inevitability of tears being shed.

“We hear surprisingly little of what occurred in Menegroth from those who survived there. Most survivors are from the smaller towns that were mangled but not decimated when the Golodhrim passed through.” A faint breeze wound its way through the wains and set tinkling the wind chimes she had not noticed hanging by the doorways of each wain.

“I see. Yes that makes more sense. The death toll in Menegroth was…high. They cut down anybody they saw as getting in their path to reach the royal chambers. As each prince died their followers seemed to go mad as well; wantonly destroying instead of working with a purpose. And when they could not find the princess they tried to smoke her out,” Lithwaloth’s gaze strayed to the east where the richer quarters of the cities were situated, and where Elwing Nimlothiel was growing up in the luxury of a distant kin’s mansion. 

There was a tension for a moment. The air filled with indescribable fury and grief for a bare second, almost levin like.

“Then word came through the ranks. They had a marvellous system of communicating amongst the masses those golodhrim. The princess has been taken to a secret tunnel, one that tunnelled right under Menegroth and came out in a little known vale. A tunnel that began in the House of Healing,” Lithwaloth’s voice did not waver but the feeling of fury and grief grew in the air.

“No!!” shock was Baradui’s first emotion and then betrayal, betrayal by her own royal family…and then outrage to match Lithwaloth’s fury. “Did anyone know of this?”

“No one save the royal family must have known of the tunnel. Not one of our fellows knew of the tunnel. I suspect Melian must have had it commissioned when we first built the House then bound the builders to silence. It was located within one of the oldest wards; part of the original building.” Full horror swept through Baradui at those words.

In her mind she ran through the Great House, her feet that of a child-student’s, always being asked to run messages. Into the grand waiting hall she went, with its smaller off shoots for those who were… leaking. Down into the corridor feeding the examination rooms and then darting across covered outdoor hallways; the great and beautiful gardens full of herbs and medicinal plants flashing either side of her. Further in her mind’s eye she followed the twisting labyrinth, past workshops and classrooms and many other rooms with a great many varied uses.

Then finally across another walkway into the oldest part of the House; grown apart from the newer splendid buildings but connected by this bridge which ran through a large poppy field, red headed blooms bowing their heads to her. Here the gardens were at their most beautiful, their most cultivated and pleasing to the eye. The walls of the hallways and the wards were covered in thousands of beautiful mosaics created with brilliant tile and precious gems. No expense had been spared in decorating every inch of wall space and also the ceilings; grandly mural’d with fantastical scenes. 

The hardest part of healing, most healers would tell you, was keeping a patient inert long enough for their art to work. This required a great deal of distraction in most cases and young minds, in particular, needed engagement so that curious hands would not pick at wounds and dressings.

“The children’s halls,” her words dragged out of her in a moan of grief. Lithwaloth had been silent and he swallowed now. She realised he’d not gone silent to let her come to her own conclusions but because grief had clogged his throat and made it impossible to speak.

“Those escorting her were not as discrete as they could have been. Like wolves the Fëanorian’s caught her scent soon enough and began to chase her down,” Lithwaloth whispered brokenly and his head suddenly dropped, hands sliding over his face for a moment to hide his eyes and mouth.

Baradui was grateful for the silence. She closed her eyes and felt hot tears begin to roll down her face. It shocked her, they had to be the first tears she had cried, truly, save some hysterical weeping in the first few days, which had come and gone as quickly as she could blink.

She wondered if this was the first time Lithwaloth had, had to recount this, given his own emotional lapse. Or perhaps the wound simply refused to heal and he wept every time he had to tell of how those that should have cared the most, had not cared at all for the sanctity of the Healing House.

“How… how could they?” she asked, her voice coming out as a heartbroken wail.

“For the princess? Anything, lives of the many, the innocent many, for the lives of one…and not even a life. For the preservation of the Silmaril I think there were some who would have thrown open the gates of Menegroth if it would have kept the gem in his … their hands.”

Dior… their king. Their beautiful, failed king.

“They failed us,” she whimpered.

“Hush, no treason. We are still bound to him and his line, and their decisions.”

Hot rage washed through her but swiftly on its heels came an emptiness similar to what she had felt when he told her of Nirthon’s death. She slumped, staring at the gently swaying wind-chimes.

“Take a drink,” Lithwaloth suggested gently, “in this weather neither of us can afford to lose water.” His own cheeks were damp as he followed his own suggestion.

They sat in silence for at least half of an hour, collecting themselves and shoring up the rather alarming breaches in their respective masks.

“Now,” Lithwaloth cleared his throat and took a breath, “of Nirthon Sigilion and how he achieved the impossible.” He chuckled suddenly. “Though if anyone were to achieve the impossible, it would have been Nirthon. I remember seeing him the day they presented him with his classmates as the new entrants. I looked at him and thought ‘he will not last out the month.’”

Baradui’s mouth dropped open and she stirred in defence for her mentor.

“Of course he proved me wrong,” Lithwaloth cut her off, “but at the time…well. He was too beautiful and he positively reeked of pampered privilege. I could not envision him getting his hands dirty or finding the empathic part of our duties easy. And of course there was the history of alcohol abuse that his family had.”

“Teacher Nirthon might have been able to hold his liquor very well but he was no alcoholic,” Baradui protested, stung by this commentary, “and there no better person to set a bone nor a better person to counsel an amputee both before and after the loss of a limb.”

“Nirthon Sigilion came from a family where drinking a bottle of wine per person at every meal was the norm and if you started your day with a stiff drink, no body blinked,” Lithwaloth stated firmly. 

“I say these things as fact, not as accusations against Nirthon himself but to explain why I doubted him so much as an apprentice. Elu himself referred to the entire clan Nirthon came from as a nest of ‘white-vipers’ though they were his sister-kin. Until Nirthon came into his own King Thingol often would say that the only good men to come from the House of the White Snake were Oropher and Celeborn. And they were not actually counted as of that house; their blood was too removed…ah but I have gone totally off track!”

Baradui grumbled but what Lithwaloth said of Nirthon’s background was true. To be honest he should not have been nearly as honourable and kind as he had been. Not that he’d been prone to excessive kindness. His concept of honour, as well, had been ever so slightly divergent from the norm. Lithwaloth sipped tisane and taped his fingers against his cup.

“Nirthon Sigilion; beautiful Nirthon who held the title of the most beautiful lathrim until little Lúthien was born. He had been attending some sort of council that morning, on behalf of his family. However he was soon called away. A child had fallen from a roof, and she had broken her legs so badly that they felt his expertise was required.” 

Baradui imagined Nirthon’s relief at being given an excuse to fob off any duties he had to a cousin or brother. How he would have gone straight to the Great House without bothering to change.

“He went straight to the House from the meeting; still dressed in all his political finery,” Lithwaloth confirmed her thoughts as he leaned back into his seat.

“When the Noldor finally arrived he would not have known at first. The Great House was isolated from where the brunt of the fighting took place, and the children’s hall was even isolated then that. The first sign he had that something was wrong was when Elwing and her entourage tore past the room he was working in. He went out, calling mentally to other master healers since he thought the princess had been brought in because she was ill. Instead he saw them disappear down the tunnel like rats, not even closing the secret entrance of it behind them. That is when we, as a whole, found out about the tunnel. He was so alarmed he stretched his mind as far as it would go, asking every healer he could find if they knew about it. He closed the tunnel. It was superb craftsmanship; it was made to look to be part of the mural. No wonder we never noticed it.”

Another sip of tisane. Baradui’s head felt so heavy and sore, her imagination painting imagery both vivid and terrible to behold.

“Elwing’s entourage had been kind enough to warn those they met as they ran along at the very least and we were starting to prepare. The apprentices in the waiting hall had shut the doors and were barring them. I was teaching a class; I escorted my students back to their dormitory, thinking it would be safer. Nirthon would use mind speech to talk to me once in a while. He was busy trying to evacuate the children but it was hard work. There were only a handful of very frightened apprentices to help him.”

Poor children themselves, probably Lagorwen’s age.

“In the end I think he hoped that the Fëanorion’s did not know enough to know where exactly in the House Elwing’s group had fled to. He gave up evacuating, went back to the workroom he had been using and covered his patient in a sheet. He bade her to breath shallowly and be as still as she could be. I think he hoped they would think her a new corpse. Her sister was there, he told her to hide in one of the cupboards. She heard much of what happened and she told us he picked up several instruments, including a bonesaw.”

“The very last I heard from him he told me that he could hear the running, and he was going to negotiate but if that failed, he was armed as much as he could be and he would not die without a fight.”

Baradui’s stomach felt sore and her head was swimming but she could not have stopped listening; could not had bade Lithwaloth to stop his recounting.

“There were several fore-runners. They would not negotiate. He dispatched them. From their wounds, probably with a caitlin or a scalpel. One was bashed to death with a leg brace. He was wounded but was not killed. Then the main group arrived. A son of Feanor was leading them; Caranthir. I cannot tell you exactly what happened because those golodh are now dead and so too Nirthon and those apprentices. From what we guessed from what was left behind, Caranthir challenged Nirthon instead of simply letting his group overpower him – “

It seemed to Baradui, when she looked back later, that the very wind held its breath for what Lithwaloth said next.

“ – and somehow Nirthon managed to kill him. Though he died in the process, stabbed straight through the chest. His lung was punctured. He would not have suffered for very long –“

But he would have drowned on his own blood. Baradui closed her eyes and swallowed miserably. No tears came but her throat felt tied shut and there was a scream building in her chest.

“His success seemed to spur on the apprentices we think. They engaged the golodh as did some of the patients. None survived of the first two groups though many of the children’s wards remained untouched, their patients intact.”

“The element of surprise probably helped. No one expects a child to try and kill you.” Baradui whispered then gagged; nausea flooding her. She stumbled out of her chair and retched into a miserable patch of flowers behind a wain. 

Warm hands pulled back her hair and then held her as she threw up bile and tisane.

“No breakfast,” Lithwaloth commented lightly, handing her a cup of water and a cloth to wipe away the sweat on her face.

“I have gotten out of the habit,” Baradui admitted, taking a deep breath through her nose, gagging again and spitting to the side. 

“Thank you for telling me… I know this is not the most graceful of reactions,” she washed her mouth out vigorously.

“I am surprised you did not tell me to stop.”

“I had to know,” despite the warmth of the day Baradui started to shiver, her stomach roiling. She was in shock, she realised distantly. Lithwaloth’s warm hands settled on her shoulders and guided her back to the toppled chairs.

Then he lead her past them into the first wain and sat her on a bed. The darker surroundings and coolness were welcome though she began to shiver harder as her sweat cooled on her skin. “Here,” a biscuit, fresh and sugary, was placed in her hand and a blanket draped over her shoulders “eat while I make you something to repair your nerves.”

She nibbled at the biscuit, finding it crumbly which distracted her enough, trying not to get crumbs all over her skirt. Her eyes strayed about the wain and came to rest on the bed opposite to the one she sat on. 

A woman who must have been Lithwaloth’s daughter lay there; eyes closed, body pale and withered just as Lithwaloth had said. Her face had the same sharp, haughty lines as Lithwaloth’s but her hair was so pale it seemed to glow in the light. Baradui’s eyes trailed over the creamy braid that had been pulled away from ...Iathel’s? head, and coiled like a rope above her pillow. 

She thought of Nirthon’s bone-white hair, dead straight but usually pulled back in a tight single braid with the braids of his house at his temples. 

A soft sob tentatively shook her chest but she supressed it, not liking the jerking feeling in the muscles of her diaphragm.

Lithwaloth’s daughter stirred faintly, eyes sliding open. They were as dark as Lithwaloth’s; pupil and iris indistinct from one another. Her eyebrows furrowed when she saw Baradui then relaxed when her gaze found Baradui’s fibula where it was pinned to her bodice.

“Nirthon mentioned to me once that he was considering an apprentice,” Lithwaloth was boiling water on a small woodburner in the corner of the wain, dosing it with measured amounts of herbs from different pots. His daughter flicked her eyes up towards the sound of his voice then stared at Baradui again.

“It might not have been me,” Baradui hesitated, crumbling biscuit between her fingers, “but when I got my silver fibula I did essentially dropon my knees, hug his legs and beg him to take me as his apprentice when I returned with my gold.”

“I think he was talking about you then,” Lithwaloth chuckled, “are you the little girl who brought in about ten dioramas of animals to her entrance interview? The ones that she had found dead in her garden and deboned all by herself?” His daughter smiled lightly, gaze still resting Baradui’s fibula.

“That was me,” Baradui’s blush was back. As a new entrant she had thought Eru had smiled upon her when she had discovered what Nirthon specialised in. Like Eru was giving her the blessing that her parents would not give her future. Bones had been his speciality and bones had fascinated her since she had played knuckle-bones with her brother.

Later she had learned Nirthon’s assignment to her class was on purpose. It had been felt by those interviewing her that a thirty year old with the dedication to make her dioramas would likely one day seek the mithril in his speciality. She had not minded that little bit of manipulation. She would have undoubtedly have orientated towards Nirthon whether as her mentor or a teacher she would have met later

Something hot was pressed into her hands. She glanced down at the mug and tentatively swallowed the brew Lithwaloth handled her.
“Healther Lithwaloth. Your daughter is awake I think,” she hesitantly gestured, watching the other woman startle at the movement

“Is she? Iavel, dear-heart, are you awake?” Lithwaloth leant over his daughter, cupping her face and stroking her cheeks as she focused her eyes on him for a moment.

“Yes,” Iavel murmured softly. 

“Good. It has been two weeks since you were last awake. We are now in Sirion.”

“Smelled …peonies,” the invalid’s gaze drifted from her father to Baradui again. 

“Yes this is Baradui, a healer here in Sirion.” Lithwaloth explained. With his daughter awake he became the very figure of exuberance. 

“She smells like ghosts,” Iavel strained at Lithwaloth’s hands, attempting to sit up.

“What do you mean darling?” Lithwaloth hurried to slide his arms under her thin arms, bracing her body.

“She smells like ghosts,” Iavel repeated, “like dead things seeking vengeance.”

Lithwaloth was truly a master of his discipline. Whatever he had put in his nerve soothing brew was so very effective that Baradui only managed to raise her eyebrows when a significant chunk of masonry fell off the bridge she was crossing when making her way over. 

She had not known what to make of Iavel’s proclamation and neither had Lithwaloth. He had apologised and she had accepted. Intense waking-dreams were commonly observed in those who had experience Lúrien’s cradle. Perhaps this was that she suggested anxiously.

Lithwaloth had agreed that it was possible though his gaze had been troubled. Nothing though had diminished his palpable joy at his daughter’s awareness. 

Iavel’s eyes had not left Baradui though she had not managed many more words after her startling statement. She had worked up such a sweat in levering herself upright that the white cotton of her nightdress was translucent by the time she was settled in an upright position against several large sacks stuffed with clothing. Light had gleamed on a flat gold chain around her neck, interrupted by flat medallions in the shape of gold flowers and pulled sharply down by the weight of whatever pendant was attached to it.

The incongruity of it had caught Baradui’s attention, the richness of the chain against the poorness of its owner. Iavel had, for an invalid, a surprising amount of wealth about her person. Not only the chain and its unseen pendant but a row of intricate filigreed gold rings had pierced up the side of each of her ears. The amount of piercings was not uncommon, ears were meant to be adorned; Baradui had four piercings apiece in each ear. 

But the gold was.

Baradui spared a thought that perhaps whichever Avari group Lithwaloth came from, was one that used dowries and perhaps required their women to wear a percentage of said dowries. She remembered something of the like from the ethnic diversity classes the House required of students.

Iavel displayed clear frustration at them as they talked over her. Her annoyance shot the theory that she had been wake-dreaming like a fish in a barrel. It had also made Baradui feel uncontrollably guilty. The sharp eyes that had watched her belonged to someone with their mental functions fully intact. 

Lithwaloth’s daughter had lain there, staring at her, with her hands clenching rhythmically on her covers, reminding Baradui of nothing so much as the naked reaching branches of winter-raped trees. There were yellow-green bruises in the cuticles of her nails and under her eyes; blue veins branching out around her mouth. The sallowness of her skin suggested a skin tone darker then Lithwaloth’s snow-whiteness when healthy.

Baradui could not accurately judge height with Iavel so swaddled in blankets but she suspected Iavel could look her father in the eye easily. It made her wonder why she’d not noticed Iavel about. Surely she would have noticed a woman that tall and so startlingly coloured. Perhaps Iavel had not resided in Menegroth normally.

Every so often Iavel’s nostrils would flare and Baradui wondered if she was scenting the air. It had made her uneasy though Lithwaloth’s brew had been starting to kick in there and the unease had faded every time she noticed. 

Dead things seeking vengeance was what Iavel claimed to smell. Baradui pillaged her memory to try and remember a patient she had failed or someone she had caused harm to that might have died.

Baradui had finished her visit with a promise from Lithwaloth to deliver some of Nirthon’s belongings to her. Nirthon had been cremated with his fibula, but Lithwaloth had scavenged all that could be recovered of the Great House’s book collections and library. Somewhere in his second wain which was packed full of documents, several of Nirthon’s treatises and anatomy books lay. 

“Better they sit on your bookshelf and be used instead of sitting in the wain and gathering dust,” Lithwaloth had forestalled her protestations. 

By that time the brew had thoroughly kicked in and she had smiled but not gone dancing around the wain in excitement at the prospect of the books as she might have.

“Are you alright?” Férinael’s voice interrupted Baradui’s reflection.

“I am fine,” Baradui reassured her, “though perhaps a little shaken; half the railings came off the bridge on Abalone Canal whilst I was crossing it.”

“Oh you poor thing! Do you need something for your nerves?”

“NO! No…thank you,” Baradui hastily shook her head. If she had anything more to sooth her nerves she’d be so nerveless she wouldn’t be able to walk. 

“I shall be fine after perhaps some lunch,” she added when Férinael stared at her questioningly, “I’ve only had tisane and a biscuit so far.”

“Oh that is just not healthy!” Férinael scolded. They were sitting in a seamstresses’ workroom. It was in fact a loft floor, with sky lights all along the roof to let in as much light as possible. There were six women sharing the space along with five of those limbless, headless bodies that seemed so important in making clothes. They gave Baradui the chills just looking at them.

“Come, we will go to the market-hall now. There are several food stalls.” Determination seemed to give Férinael’s crisp skirt an extra snap to its rustling pleats. 

“Girls I am going for my lunch break,” farewells ushered them out the door. The other seamstresses all seemed to be cut from the same cloth as Férinael, to use an unforgivable pun; quiet, smiling and polite; hands swift and eyes sharp.

They descended the loft stairs onto the shop floor where one could buy premade shifts and plain gowns if one was of average size, or be fitted, if you were not, behind lattice screens of wood.

Out the door they went, the bell ringing after them and Férinael began to lead Baradui down a street far busier than the healer was used to. This was one of Sirions’ two economic centres, this particular one where one went for anything unrelated to sea matters. Here were the tailors and the seamstresses; shoemakers and saddlers; carpenters and masons. Further down the street in the large market hall, the produce of surrounding farms and trade coming from inland routes was hawked.

The sound that hit them as they entered the hall was immense. Baradui staggered momentarily as her ears were assaulted by merchants calling out their wares from every which direction. Férinael, quite used to this, simply grabbed her arm, slotted it through her own and began to lead her firmly between the aisles of stalls.

A meaty smell caught Baradui’s nose.

Her mouth watered. 

Suddenly it was not Férinael doing the towing but herself as she tracked the scent down mercilessly, hunger suddenly raring its head and snarling. Then finally she saw it and nearly wept. It was a stall, first and foremost, that sold smoked meat but the enterprising owners were also brought in some fresh meat and were cooking, then serving it on thin slices of bread.

The owner saw her coming and the look in her eye must have warned him for he had a generous amount served before she had reached the stall. She slapped down the copper coin required down, took the bread, and glared at Férinael over her first mouthful, daring her to say anything.

“Been a while since you had red meat?” the seamstress inquired tactfully. Baradui nodded, chewed, swallowed and debated taking another mouthful. No. She had manners. She was not some savage.

“The only meat I get is the two fish meals they serve at the House,” she then allowed herself another bite as self-congratulations on her civility.

“I see,” Férinael had covered her mouth with her hand but there was no hiding her amusement. Baradui took another bite instead of defending herself. There was nothing to defend. She was making up for six years abstinence from the truly terrifying diet she had, had when working with her march-wardens. 

“I ate mostly meat in Doriath; my wardens patrolled an area with not a lot of fishing but bountiful with birds and rabbits,” she found herself needing to explain, “and occasionally we waved leaves over our cooking and called that our vegetables.” Six years of fish (cooked in all the ways you could cook fish) and steamed vegetables hadn’t been bad per say… just mind numbingly boring, and lacking that certain something that digging your teeth into a bit piece of venison had.

She finished the morsel with a sigh. She debated getting another serving then decided that she could not afford to. She had better things to spend her coppers on then filling her stomach when the House provided free food. The stall owner offered her a jug of water and she washed the grease off her hands then gulped a whole mug of it.

“Thank you,” she sighed, looking longingly at the meat for a moment more, “that was wonderful.”

“My pleasure. Please come by again,” the owner solicited.

Férinael tucked her arm in Baradui’s again and they left.

“Ate the whole serving in less than three minutes,” they heard the stall owner whisper to his neighbour.

“I know. I saw!” the neighbour whispered back.

Férinael clearly could not stop herself any longer and laughed softly. Baradui simply blushed from her toes to her hair.

“Where to now?” she asked Férinael, trying not to think of how her skin was burning and must appear to be fuchsia to the rest of the world.

“Where-ever you would like. There is one stall I would like to stop by but it is on the other side of the building and up two floors to boot. Perhaps we could circle the floors so you can see what this market-hall has to offer.”

“Sounds like a plan,” and so Baradui let Férinael lead her in circles around the market-hall. It felt a little silly at first, and useless, walking about the stalls without much intention of buying anything. She noticed after a while though, that she was not the only one idling through the stalls with no particular purpose, arm and arm with company.

They finished the first floor in good time; most of it dedicated to those who hawked food. Then up onto the second floor they went to where cloth and clothing was sold. She expected Férinael hustle her past this floor, decrying the quality. In fact their pace slowed down whilst Férinael floated between stalls like a bee between flowers. 

Baradui herself was enjoying counting the many different ethnicities she saw behind the stalls. She’d lost count a few times and simply restarted. She had heard Sirion was a trading city first and foremost, but she had never seen the evidence before, life spent in transit between working in the Healing House and sleeping in cheap boarding houses.

“This will suit you,” Férinael said suddenly. They had halted before a stall filled with bolts of cloth and she was holding a swath up to Baradui’s face. It was brilliantly turquoise. Baradui was instantly reminded of the tiles of her grandfather’s great hall. 

“Oh?” she reached up and touched the cloth, finding it soft but definitely wool of some sort. “Far too warm for this weather and I do not think I can afford it, never mind have it made into a dress.”

“For winter. Buy the cloth now. It is cheaper than buying it closer to winter.”

Baradui looked at the cloth then at Férinael. “I have a winter dress.”

“You have my sister’s winter dress, ” Férinael indicated to the cloth’s price which Baradui saw to be very reasonable indeed, “the one with the large patch sewn over the arse of it.” The cloth was still dear, but certainly better than if she had thought about buying a dress closer to winter.

Férinael’s comment was true though, the one winter dress she had did have a rather noticeable patch across the backside of it. Or more like it was missing the back half of its skirt which had been replaced with an ugly brown wool. It was like the repairer had not been able to source any cloth remotely close to the rose wool the dress was made out of.

“I will make it up into a dress for you in my spare time if you are that worried about the cost, same discount as the rest of the women at the boarding house get,” Férinael offered when Baradui almost wept as she paid for the cloth and then clumsily helped the merchant wrap the cloth in a protective sheet of cheap linen. She had to pay for the linen too but she was reassured it was suitable to be cut into loin cloths when she was done. 

“Thank you,” Baradui was relieved to have that cost taken off her hands. She tucked the bundle of cloth under her arm and wondered if she should acquire a side-slung bag like she had seen some of the women in Sirion favouring.

They finished perusing the second floor and then up to the third they went. Baradui did not know how to categorise this floor and dubbed it miscellaneous.

“Amazing is it not?” Férinael confused her contemplative silence for awe at yet another packed floor revealed to her. 

“It is even more amazing when you realise that this is only a quarter of the whole building that is open to the public. The rest is where the truly serious business takes place. Eiriengíeth and I used to go sit in on the flower auctions. It is amazing to see how intense betting can get over bunches of irises.”

“Eiriengíeth?” Baradui twisted her tongue around the name.

“My sister…have I never said her name before?!” Baradui shook her head. No, not once in the seven months they had known one another.

“Well how about that, how silly I was to avoid saying her name,” Férinael mused.

“You were grieving,” Baradui fell back on her usual reply for this sort of thing.

“Yes but… that badly?”

“She was your sister,” Baradui said before she could help herself then cursed thricely.

“Yes, my beautiful baby sister,” Férinael sighed and the smile fell from her face. Her eyes focused somewhere in the distance as she began to lead Baradui through the stalls without giving her time to look at the truly fascinating wares up on the third floor.

“We were the middle of five siblings you know,” Férinael said abruptly.

“Were you?” Baradui hurried her pace so she was not dragged, wondering where Férinael was going at such a pace.

“Yes, we had two older brothers and a younger sister, they were all in Menegroth,” Férinael’s determined gait had lead them up to a stall well adorned with weavings for sale. No matter how much Baradui searched her dusty memories she simply could not place which tribe the very clearly Avari running the stall belonged to. 

They all had very distinctive tattoos across their faces, winding designs across their foreheads or crawling up from their chins. They were silver haired and golden skinned; eyes the colour of robin’s eggs every one of them. Dressed in dark grey and brown tunics, liberally decorated with white-work, they cut distinct silhouettes against the reds, whites and greens of their stall. They wore their hair drawn back save two locks left on either side of their head, woven with strips of coloured leather from which hung fresh water pearls, bright pebbles and small, carved wooden tokens. The rest of their hair and indeed the great part of their heads were covered by long shawls of muted greens and browns.

One hanging had been hung at the back of their stall with a great amount of care. It was bright ochre red with a device in black upon it. The device was a circle with five stylised arrows pointing out of it to form the image of a single star.

Something at the back of Baradui’s memory stirred, like a bear coming out of hibernation. She found herself squinting at the standard in disguise. Which tribe or clan was this? She must have heard of them before.

“Férinael!” one of the men greeted cheerfully as he caught sight of them both, sparing Baradui an appreciative glance. He had a tattoo rising from his chin in sinuous tendrils that were organic in shape; suggestive of plant life without directly depicting it. It continued down his neck, coiling in the dip between his collarbones which Baradui could just barely see given the modest cut of his tunic.

“Hello Iethrovan,” Férinael greeted cheerfully.

“And what can the Tribe of Five Arrows do for you today?” Iethrovan grinned widely. 

Whatever it was niggling at Baradui stirred again. She had definitely heard that name before, even if she could not place this tribe by their dress.

“You can hand over those embroidery samples you promised me of course,” Férinael prodded him authoritatively. A change had come upon her, her expressions were lively and her eyes gleamed. Iethrovan laughed and ducked into the shelving along the side of the stall.

“Oh! Hello Pethras!” Another Avari was sorting some tapestries and looked up at the greeting. He had a tattoo also, though a little less abstract. Baradui was fairly sure that the careful work between his eyebrows and then flowing up over his brow into his hairline had something to do with the moon and its phases.

“Férinael how are you?” he asked, glancing at Baradui for a moment, eyes widening before his gaze swept swiftly back to Férinael.

“Oh I am good. I don’t suppose Asgarthur is about?” Férinael asked so casually her intentions were painfully obvious. Baradui’s eyebrows slammed up. 

“Ah, no…” Pethras looked alarmed at the question, he hesitated then opened his mouth as if to say something more but the return of Iethrovan interrupted him.

“Found them!” The samples were handed over. They did not look impressive; the same dark material of the tunics Iethrovan and Pethras wore with the same embroidery. Férinael looked excited though. “I heard you inquire about Asgarthur as well,” Iethrovan added. “I am afraid our resident owl is sleeping. You will see him about though once the sun goes down.”

“Thank you,” Férinael blushed under his knowing look, tracing embroidery patterns with her nail until he laughed again and reached up to tug lightly on the red cord about her neck. “Still wearing this I see; truly this is a childish affection. If you want a proper good luck charm you should ask someone who actually makes them for a living.”

This was all said with a smile on Iethrovan’s face but Pethras’ face became so dark and hateful as he stared at the two that Baradui took a large step back from the stall with her heart rising up in her throat in fright. The other two did not see him but she did.

“Are you not a little old to be jabbing at your brother like that?” Férinael admonished Iethrovan teasingly, “I wear the bracelet you made me as well.”

“Ma’am are you interested in buying anything?” Pethras suddenly addressed Baradui, catching sight of her instinctive flight. Baradui’s skin crawled at how quickly he had adopted a smiling demeanour identical to Iethrovan’s.

“Oh no I am just accompanying Férinael,” she shook her head, keeping her distance from him.

“Oh? Are you a new seamstress at her workshop? A friend?” Pethras asked. It was a perfectly innocent inquiry but Baradui balked at the Avari knowing anything about her. Pethras smiled inquiringly at her and the words seemed to crawl up her throat and out of her mouth despite how she tried to swallow him; the syllables desperate to fill the silence that began to grow taunt between them.

“I am her roommate at the boarding house,” came the compelled words, “I am a healer.”

“Oh, you work up at the Healing House then? I have visited there twice. You are all very proficient in your art.”

“Thank you,” Baradui glanced at him, finding him fit and healthy looking though who knew how many years he had been coming to Tirion and what accidents he might have become involved in.

“I took Férinael and her sister to the House when they first arrived in Sirion because both were quite ill,” Pethras explained, “and then I once broke my leg and had to have it set.”

“Oh you knew Férinael and Eiriengíeth?” Baradui gave herself a mental pat on the back for getting Eiriengíeth’s name right on the first time.

“Yes. We travel from the East every other year to trade in Doriath and Sirion; we came upon them on the road, walking to Menegroth though we were not aware of why they were so determined to go there at the time. We took them there and when they found that there was nothing left for them, we took them with us to Sirion.”

Férinael glanced towards them, breaking up a conversation with Iethrovan about some common acquaintance they both knew. Pethras gave her a warm smile. “Just telling your friend how we met,” he explained quietly.

“Oh where are my manners? Baradui this is Pethras! Pethrs, this is Baradui and yes; I am not sure what we would have done. Likely starved to death or fallen prey to wolves before we reached Menegroth,” Férinael glanced at a hanging that was draped next to the large hanging at the back. It was woven with geometric designs in bright blue and white.

“Thank goodness for your father and his generosity… is that his weaving at the back?”

“What? The blue one? Yes it is,” Iethrovan gestured and drew Férinael’s attention away from them again. He seemed very eager to engage her attention. Baradui wondered if there was perhaps Iethrovan held a tendresse for Férinael. Pethras’ gaze upon the couple was stony though he was being careful not to let his expression drop as it had the last time. Perhaps more than tendresse. And Férinael had mentioned another with clear affection in her voice. Asgarthur was it not? What a vicious name.

“You look like a woman who might need a bag of some variety,” Pethras interrupted her thoughts about drama and just how quickly Férinael was moving on from her betrothed now that she had decided to end her grieving. Baradui glanced at him as he pulled out several woven bags, all of the side-slung variety she had pondered acquiring earlier.

Baradui sighed and calculated what she had left in her coin purse. 

“How much?”

-

“Do you have other plans for your break-day?” Férinael asked as they left the market-hall. Baradui’s new bag had acquired not just her parcel of cloth but a few fripperies. For all her worrying over money, she had not exactly spent a lot on herself for six years and there was still the small box of coins she had hidden away for emergencies.

“Just my usual ones,” Baradui smiled at her as Férinael glanced at the sun then exclaimed over the time. She squeezed Baradui’s hand.

“Thank you for visiting me, I hope I might see you tonight instead of being asleep when you stumble home,” she laughed as Baradui nodded with a blush. They parted ways, Férinael rushing back to her workshop whilst Baradui turned towards the centre of the city and began to walk.

It was earlier in the day than she usually paid this visit. Usually her half break-day began at lunch when she would partake in the House meal then disappear back into her workroom to give it a thorough cleaning. After that she might spend an hour catching up on any paperwork she was behind on. Finally then her break would begin and she would allow herself a hour to read in the light of her lamp. Reluctantly she would extinguish the lamp after an hour so that she would have extra oil for the next day and leave the House to make her way to the Eru-Home in the growing twilight.

The large wooden gate of the Eru-Home was painted blue and black, tile insets depicting long empty lines of music, representative of the song they knew not one note of. It was never locked, for no one had the right to deny any Eruhini from finding contemplation of His splendour or comfort from His love.

It opened under her touch without a sound, and she stepped into the courtyard. There were no acolytes or priests in sight but that did not matter. She needed no permission for where she was going. She did not enter the great Eru-Home with its magnificent coloured glass windows. She circled around it to the large field at the back of it. Here large pillars stood amongst lush grass, adorned with brightly coloured tiles. Each and every one of the tiles bore a name and a date, sometimes two

The bodies of the quendi returned to Eru’s great design with greater speed then their mortal brethren. Because of this it was not uncommon for bodies to be placed in internment houses, on the borders of the city, until within a matter of months they had turned to dust and earth. Then usually this matter was scattered to the winds and some sort of memorial was created.

The memorial garden of the Eru-Home of Sirion was colourful and bright; there was a cottage industry for the brilliant tiles that captured names and dates in careful tengwar then enlivened them with images of sea waves and dancing ships; bright birds and impossible flowers. 

Baradui settled herself on a bench and stared at the pillar that she had painstakingly paid for in her second year in Sirion. The names were embedded into her mind and she did not need to read them. The colours were soothing and pleased her; she was sure that those they commemorated would enjoy the colours she had picked for them as well: mainly spring imagery with oaks, stags and waterfalls joining together to form a mural down the left side of the lined up tiles.

In the first year of her life in Sirion Baradui had escaped to this garden often, during her lunch break;sometimes even skiving off working to come and sit in the garden until midnight bells roused her. She felt guilt about it now but she also realised that Sirion had been stupid to ask her work immediately (and she to accept), not with how fractured she had been.

This pillar had not been decorated then; it had been a bare cement construct waiting for someone to pay for use of its surface. She would stare at its barren planes for hours and babble to herself, reliving the days after the kinslaying inside her head. Usually a priest would eventually notice her and come sit with her then; holding her hand though she’d never acknowledged their attempts to counsel her. 

Their faces blurred together, she could not remember the distinct appearance of one of the many men and women who had sat with her and listened to her rambling recounting of how the dark had come over her march-wardens and her.

How the distant smell of burning meat told them that there was nothing but death waiting for them if they tried to go to Menegroth and so they had turned towards smaller settlements.

How each of those settlements had been completely empty of life.

How they had walked and walked and finally come to the decision to abandon Doriath entirely and try to get to Sirion.

The darkness came chasing after their heels though they had not realised it at first. They had travelled and one by one they had begun to disappear. During the night at first but then whenever one of them separated from the main group. 

The girdle had been broken and now the march-wardens were scattered. Morgoth’s followers seized the chance whole heartedly to wreck a little pent up frustration on the sheltered realm.

Her march-wardens had banded tighter together but it did no good. Slowly they began to dwindle and soon it was not just the hand of the dark one but their own hands that thinned their numbers down. Baradui had, had no cure for wrung-necks bruising from well strung ropes, and had not been able to stop the raiding of her pack for the poisons she kept down at the very bottom.

The last days had been spent the merciless grip of fear. There had been five of them, then four, then three. They ran and ran through the night and through the day but still they were pursued.

There were three, then there were two and finally there was just Baradui sprinting for her life and knowing she would never make it. She could hear them behind her for they did not bother to hide themselves anymore. They had such heavy footsteps and they would laugh when she stumbled.

On she ran, knowing she would never make it to safety; never find light again until abruptly she had. 

She had run straight into the city-border patrol’s campsite; actually literally running into their fire before she could slow her momentum, feet flying across the coals so fast she did not burn herself. Her pursuers had come after her and met their end as pincushions for Teleri arrows.

She had been a gasping, sobbing wreck of a creature, soiled by terror and death. She wondered how the Teleri had known her from the yrch pursuing her.

A warm hand was holding hers. Baradui jerked a little, coming out of dark memories with a slight gasp. She glanced at the priest who had silently taken a seat beside her unnoticed, and who taken her hand in his. He had callouses and a warm smile as she blinked like a sleeper come awake.

“Ah…thank you sir,” she shook her head in alarm, dismayed that she fallen prey to the mental trap of remembering. 

“Be well Sister,” she no longer needed a priest’s hand on hers to stop the feeling that she could step outside her body to join her march-wardens, where she had once imagined them, watching her from the corners of the garden. It was still nice though to feel warm skin on hers. 

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Do ghosts exist?” Baradui thought of Iavel’s dark words in the morning, and of how she had once seen her captain beckoning her from the deep shadows behind the wisteria trees crawling up the garden wall before her.

“There are many kinds of ghosts Sister. The ghosts of the mind created out of guilt and grief. There are also the Houseless, those who have chosen not to go West for reasons best not known and who linger.”

“What are they supposed to be like?” Baradui asked.

“They are cold creatures who long only to live again and thus be warmed once more. They will try and take advantage of the living to necessitate this. The Avari have a great many stories about the Houseless.”

Suddenly the priest gave a contemplative sigh. 

“There are some who believe that in death we are given two options. We may go West to the Halls of Mandos or we may go East and return to the earth-womb that birthed us. Those that ascribe to this belief believe that those who are Houseless either do not wish to go West but do not know they can go East or have refused both options because they have business that they must complete in the realm of the living.”

“I had never heard of that belief… the one about the East I mean.”

“You were a healer amongst the march-wardens were you not Sister? I see you wear Melian’s badge.”

“Yes I was sir,” Baradui cautiously agreed, unsure of what he was getting at.

“Did you ever hear your march-wardens ask one another whether they would “go east or west?””

Baradui thought. “Yes I did,” she said after a moment, eyes widening, “often.”

“They would have ascribed to that belief then; that they could go either to Aman or to Cuiviénen if they died. It permeates far more of our culture then the Orthodox would like,” the priest was of clear Sindar stock and spoke with experience colouring his voice but no judgement. 

“My family was Orthodox and then I did not have time for religious learning when I was studying. I believe I have just had my eyes opened,” Baradui looked at the pillar of her march-wardens with fresh eyes.

“The race of Men have an expression that ‘one learns something new, every day that they live.’ I shall leave you to your contemplations Sister,” The priest murmured a blessing over her and touched her forehead. She accepted the gesture without protest and watched him leave in a swirl of indigo cloth. She stared at the pillar and reached out to wipe imaginary smudges off the bright ceramic.

-

It was only just blushing twilight when Baradui returned to the boarding-house, a new occurrence for her, just like waking when the sun was up. There was a communal pot of peas-porridge that her rent technically covered. She helped herself to a large bowl without guilt and ate it before the fire.

Lithwaloth had warned her that the brew he made her would not make her drowsy but that she would feel its side-effects towards the end of the day. She felt them now. Her head was beginning to feel like she had a few rocks packed inside.

Yawning she made her way into her room where Férinael was sitting on her bed, reading a book of some variety. There was the large stamp of the municipal-library on its cover.

A hideous screeching and yowling suddenly started up beneath their window. Baradui jerked in surprise and stumbled away from the alarming racket.

“Elbereth preserve us,” Férinael grumbled angrily, “those damn cats again. I am sorry Baradui, you are not usually home to know about this. The local cats seem to enjoy battling beneath our window at sunset. It has been happening for about a week. I think there must be a queen in heat about.”

“Really?” Baradui asked in alarm.

“Aye and pouring water out the window does no good either.” 

The cats continued to fight for a good five minutes before they wore themselves out or one was victorious. The sudden drop in noise was as startling as the start of it. Baradui resisted going to the window to see if she could espy the fleeing felines and undressed instead.

“Tired?” Férinael lit the lamp in their room and began to copy Baradui’s actions, making the healer feel twice as self-conscious as she already suffered when Férinael was awake and Baradui was dressing.

“Exhausted. I am not used to walking about. All that sitting in the House all day.” Her bed seemed to embrace her as she slid between the sheets and rest her head on the pillow. Oh yes the after-effects of the brew was certainly setting up shop now.

Her eyelids grew heavy and her breathing was evening out whilst she was still aware. Férinael’s reply became a mumbled noise as the ocean roar of reverie sucked her under.

-

The recollection swept through her reverie suddenly, taking her from a gentle drifting between half conversations to bodily standing within a childhood memory.

Her hands seemed impossibly small though she was not all that young; 35, her body rebellious and all limbs. Her hands moved before her eyes as she turned the page of the grand book before her. Only five years into her studies and spending her break-day in her mentor’s parlour, tucked up with one of the books he had written.

“Anything with bones!” she begged Nirthon who raised an elegant, pale eyebrow at her before presenting her with “Observations of bone spurs and other excessive bone growth in the Yrch of the Greater Doriath Region.”

Payment for being allowed to read the book was a specific set of instructions in dealing with any visitors that came into the parlour.

The subject was fascinating and she was so engrossed in the material she did not hear the opening of the door out into the public hallway. She only noticed an extra presence in the room when footsteps passed by her spot and paused. She was curled up on a settee, the book balanced on her lap and she had to crane her neck to peek over the edge of it. There was a man was staring at her as if she were one of the oddities Teacher Aewagar liked to present at the start of each of his classes. He had a tenseness about his eyes and a frown on his lips; the burden of worry upon his stiff shoulders.

His hair was the dead-straight, pure-white hair she associated with Teacher Nirthon’s House, but with liberal streaks of old gold interrupting the pristine pallor of it. One eye was dark green like Teacher Nirthon’s but the other, like his hair, seemed to have been stained and was a vivid gold. Not the light brown that some people might call gold, but a genuine gold which focused with a raptor’s intensity on her.

“Can I help you Sir… Lord… Sir?” she warbled nervously.

“Is Nirthon within?” the man asked her.

“He is in his study sir,” she pointed nervously at the door, “if you are visiting him socially.”

“And if my visit is not social?” the probably lord asked her with an indulgent smile.

“If you’re here on business then it is his break-day and Healer Galdineth is overseeing the ach sad today. If you are his family, he says to s…s…s…s…s…” her voice trailed off as his smile became amused.

“Go on,” he gently encouraged her.

“Sod off Sir…Lord…Sir…” She shrunk down so that the book hid her whilst he laughed, a loud peeling sound like a great bell had been struck.

The door of Nirthon’s study clicked open and she peeked over the book to see her mentor eye the visitor with something between a sneer and a welcoming smile on his face.

“Ah Celebengion. Given the rumours I have been hearing I wondered if I might see you.” 

The amused smile on the visitor’s face dropped like a stone into a pond and the burden of worry returned. He swept into Nirthon’s study without a word and the door clicked shut. The catch must have been faulty however, for it clicked back open a moment later, allowing a small gap to open between door frame and door.

“Ah but before you ask me anything, how is your father? I have not seen Celebeng since we last tried to heal the breach between our families and he called my mother a pox riddled, grasping whore.”

Baradui found the book before her far more engaging then the discussion of family troubles. Others might have found the dealings of the House of the White Snake fascinating. Sadly Baradui’s great-grandfather headed the House of the Verdant Cloud and it was all the same to her, save with a touch more swearing and poison. She returned to her reading, riveted by a generous depiction of an yrch’s head, both with the skin on and with the skin removed to show how its apparent horns had grown out of its skull.

It was hard enough to judge time when engrossed in reading; being in reverie made it even worse and she jerked, not knowing if it had been hours or seconds, when Nirthon’s voice rose enough to be heard through the crack in the door.

“Five Arrows?! I wash my hands of this then!”

She brought her head up, alarmed to hear real fear in Nirthon’s voice.

“Please you must help! No one will talk of them or even hint as to what Annestel has become involved in. Your reaction is more than I have received from any else!” 

“They are sorcerers and sages of the worst variety! They sold themselves to the Dark One for survival in the lands they once called home and HE taught them unnatural ways! Dire-Witches, Necromancers, and Death-Brokers the lot of them!” Nirthon snapped. 

“They might have come crawling to Elu King, hands on hearts that they had escaped Morgoth but for all Elu’s forgiveness they still practice what their former master taught them. What are they doing this far west as well?! They are supposed to have removed themselves over the Misted Chain into the Green Woods there.”

“I do not know,” Celebengions voice was despairing, “all I know is that Annestel has been dealing with a man of the Five Arrows on my behalf, and since then… he is so drawn and pale, flighty and given to shaking at the slightest sudden sound.”

“You should have left poor Annestel alone. Bad enough you hid your betrothal from him till the last moment. But then to come crying to him when you found your wife sterile, expecting … no demanding the continuance of his love for you…”Nirthon’s voice was so full of censure that Baradui’s skin shrank tight though it was not directed at her.

“Oh I am well aware of how you ‘comforted’ Annestel,” Celebengion’s voice was laced with jealousy and fury, “but I did not come here to take issue with that. I came here because I worry for him and so should you if you shared even an ounce of my regard for him!”

“Why,” Nirthon’s voice suddenly became weary, “why is Annestel dealing with this man of Five Arrows for you? And do not feed me that lie again about possible trading opportunities. Annestel is a gold-smith and has nothing to do with the merchant branch of your family.”

“He said he could find a way for a son to be born to me without causing a scandal,” there was a silence.

“All I can advise you to do is kidnap Annestel, take him West and sail as soon as you reach the water. Even then you might not be safe,” there was the sound of robes rustling as Nirthon stood and began to pace. 

“But if Annestel has already brokered the deal then I am afraid you can do nothing. The price will have already been paid and it is now upon your head, what happens next. There are a great many married couples with no children and given how you treat those you profess to love – ”

“I love Annestel!” Celebengion’s voice was passionate, “I have always loved him but he could give me no children and there was nothing I wished for more than to be a father! My son when he is born will be loved and want for nothing. Annestel as well… I owe him that much.”

“Yes you do,” Nirthon came to the door of his parlour and opened it, showing Celebengion out of his quarters.

“I will spend my life repenting for how I treated him,” Celebengion promised with sincerely as he came to the door and turned to look at Nirthon.

“Annestel is far too forgiving of your worthless hide, I doubt you will have to repent for that long. But know this, if I find that you treat your son with the same callous disregard that Annestel suffered then I will use every ounce of my power to remove him from your custody. Your family may have been removed from the register of the House of the White Snake but a word in the right ear can add you all again.” Nirthon sneered. 

“Now go. I am sorry I could not help you at all.”

“I am just glad to have a reason for why I was turned away when I tried to find out whom he was talking to. I will go to him immediately and see if he has already…” Celebengion’s voice trailed off, uncertain of how to define what his lover was doing.

“Go, though I fear the chance to intervene had been lost,” Nirthon shooed him from the room, sighing deeply as he closed the door. Then he turned and caught sight of Baradui who was studiously staring at the book before her without reading a single certh.

“Apprentice Baradui,” the formality of his voice made her head reluctantly lift, “how much did you hear?”

“Your uh… kinsman had a male lover whom he left to get married. His wife turned out to be sterile. His lover is now trying to find a way for your kinsman to have a son without causing a scandal,” Baradui summarised, blushing to the roots of her hair. 

“Possibly with black magic,” she added when he raised his eyebrow at her.

“Which is something you must never share with anyone else,” Nirthon said firmly, coming to take a seat beside her. She glanced up at him; he was staring at her with his pine forest green eyes solemn and his generous lips turned down in a frown.

“I promise.”

“Promise me properly.”

“I swear unto The All Father and his Powers that I will not tell.”

“Good.” Nirthon looked exhausted and as worried as Celebengion had looked when he had arrived.

“Your kinsman had a gold eye…” Baradui tentatively mentioned.

“Hmmm? Oh! It is light brown,” Nirthon denied.

“No it is not,” Baradui objected indignantly, “I saw for myself. It is gold!”

Nirthon pinched the bridge of his nose. “If someone asks you for your opinion upon it, you will tell them it is light brown. Do you understand me?”

Baradui set her jaw stubbornly, “tell me why.”

“When you are older,” Baradui made a frustrated noise. Her parents used that excuse to avoid ever telling her things.

“I swear unto the All Father and his Powers that I will tell you when you are old enough to hear such truths,” Nirthon sighed.

Baradui nodded victoriously, “I swear upon the same that I will always state that your kinsman’s eye is light brown.”

“Good girl.”

“Teacher?”

“Yes?”

“I hope that everything will be alright…for your kinsman I mean.”

“So do I Baradui, if only for the sake of Annestel and the future Oropherion,” Nirthon’s gaze was pensive. “Promise me that if you hear of a tribe known as Five Arrows that you will stay clear of them.”

“I promise Teacher,” they had sounded nasty. She did not want to go anywhere near people who had served the Dark One.

The recollection faded conveniently at that point and she drifted back into half remembering every day occurrences for the rest of her reverie. She finally awoke at an early hour feeling anxious and flighty. Her eyes were drawn to Férinael’s neck but for once she did not find herself admiring the brilliant red of the cord. Instead a cold hard shudder ran through her and she longed to rip the charm away and throw it in the fire.

She had never heard another mention of Five Arrows after that and after the initial excitement they had been relegated to the back of her mind. More than the back really. They had totally disappeared from sight, lost behind the action and the now of Baradui’s life.

HE taught them unnatural ways

There came a rattling at their window. Baradui lay still and calmed her breathing which had hitched at the noise.

Again the window rattled, determinedly and unceasingly till at last she heard their cheap little catch give way under the vibrations. It was a struggle not to scream, really it was. She felt trapped in her bed as if her limbs had turned totally to stone.

The smell of flowers filled the room at first though she could not pin point which floral scent it was. Upon their dresser beneath the window a hand came down the brace the body sliding through the portal. It was a lovely hand, delicately boned and sure of itself as it felt for the edge of the dresser to pull the body forwards. Its fingers flexed and the skin across the knuckles ripped, white bone shoving through the bloodless wounds.

The rest of the body suddenly slid forwards and landed on their floor in a crumple of twisted limbs. The tattered remains of some sort of dress pooled on the ground and the head was obscured by a shawl of some coloured cloth (perhaps lavender?) Slowly it propped itself up and slithered towards Férinael, levering up onto the seamstresses’ bed and perching upon her chest. Férinael moaned in her sleep but did not wake despite the horror, even when it stroked her face with loving hands.

Baradui smelled rot now, saw the maggots winding their way through the pale skin of a bared neck.

Whatever held Baradui in its paralysing grip released her then and she screamed.

A head swung towards her; Férinael’s face! But no it could not be for the Seamstress still lay on the bed beneath the monster! Hair was slowly falling off a desiccated scalp and the jaw hung loose under bloated cheeks and white sheened eyes. Still beneath that she could see the same bone structure, the ruined remains of Férinael’s face.

There was a kerfuffle out in the common room and the sound of feet running. The door was thrown open, allowing briefly the light of a dying fire to enter before a mass of bodies blocked the light again.

“AI! WHAT IS IT?”

“AN INTRUDER!”

“WHAT IS THAT?!”

A cacophony of female voices filled the air. 

The thing suddenly leapt with far more speed than it had shown entering the room, shoving through the small window. There was a thump and the sound of something moving in the garden.

“He’s down below! GO GET HIM!” 

“Somebody go and summon a night watchman!”

More running.

“Baradui! Baradui! Are you alright? You can stop screaming! The intruder is gone!”

Baradui realised she had not stopped screaming and silenced herself. Over the room Férinael was stirring, groggy and terrorised. Her movements dislodged the red cord about her neck and let the little pouch hanging from it come into view. It was made of the same vermillion silk as its cord save the embroidery across it of a white peony in full bloom.

Dire-Witches, Necromancers, and Death-Brokers the lot of them!

Chapter End Notes

ach sad:

ach taken from http://www.realelvish.net/reconstructed_sindarin.php as the reconstructed word for bone

sad taken from hisweloke as n. limited area naturally or artificially defined, a place, spot 

so bone-area which I thought would do for orthopaedic department :D

“And the intruder then slid in through your window?”

“Yes,” Baradui croaked and huddled more under her blanket, wishing she could have some of Lithwaloth’s nerve soother right at that moment. The night-watchman had asked her that question three times now, making her go through what she had seen over and over again.

She was wilting where she sat, sandwiched within a protective line up of the women who resided here.

So far she had not told them of the true horror of what she had seen, editing her account to be of a shambling, shadowed creature she could not properly make the features out of. There were plenty of holes in this, she was well aware of all of them; the first being that with elf-keen eyesight, the amount of light in the room should have been plenty.

She had no wish to be thought mad at best or tossed into the enclosed walls of the hospice for those so mentally deranged they had to be locked away from society, at worst. She had experienced a near brush with such an incarceration in her first year of Sirion. The experience had left her terrified.

The watchman seemed to have guessed she was holding back though and kept making her go through the scenario with a fixed, understanding smile on his face.

“That is quite enough is it not?” the owner of the boarding-house interjected sharply as the watch-man looked to ask her why she had woken up (he had asked this every time after asking her how the intruder had entered.)

“Your questioning has become harassment; Baradui is a fine girl, she pays her rent early and works tirelessly as a healer, she is not lying to you sir watch-man. She does not have a dishonest bone in her body. Look at her! She is exhausted and terrified and you are making her say the same thing over and over and over again!”

“Just routine ma’am,” the watch-man eyed the owner with some trepidation. She was a tiny slip of a woman but she had a voice like a brass horn, when she decided to use it, and a scowl like a punch to the face.

“You have repeated your routine three times and it is tiresome and causing my boarders anxiety. If you have nothing new to ask then get thee hence and do not return until you have information or better yet, have brought this intruder to justice.” The owner’s little chest swelled.  Looking at her the first impression that a casual observer got was she should have had a much larger body, possibly rotund though their kind could not attain such a shape. Certainly she should have been born into a body with a much larger bosom to swell impressively when she took her decisive breaths inwards.

“Yes alright. Just to check your details ma’am,” the watch-man gave up what would be a lost battle anyway and turned back to Baradui, “you are Tuiweril Merilthuiwiel. You are 64 years old. You are a journeyman healer by profession and you work exclusively at the House of Healing located on the junction of Tern and Kingfisher?”

“Yes that is me,” Baradui agreed tiredly.

“And just to be certain, you will continue to reside here or will yo-“

“We will be replacing the catch on her window, free of charge,” the owner interrupted, sensing a possible loss of a reliable and respectable tenant.

“I will be staying here,” Baradui agreed to the unspoken offer in the owner’s voice.

“I will be back then Healer Merilthuiwiel. Please take care of yourself. “ The watch-man turned and gestured to his fellow who had been questioning Férinael (in a far nicer fashion) and after a few minutes the common room was completely devoid of the presence of military power.

“Well then girls, it is almost dawn, perhaps you had better go back to bed whilst you can. Glassíliel? Merilthuiwiel? We can make up beds out here if you require it?” well almost devoid of military power. Certainly the owner house could have been a general with her deep brassy voice.

“No thank you,” Baradui yawned till her jaw cracked alarmingly, “I should probably go and dress. I have work this morning.”

It was harder than usual to get dressed and leave the boarding house. She was escorted part of the way by another boarder given the shared group consensus that the intruder might still be lingering.

“Of course it is Férinael that I am truly sorry for, you seem to be holding up fairly well but she is in a complete mess,” Meduivereth (call me Medueth!) commented, strolling along like it wasn’t the arse-crack of dawn and she was wearing her nightgown under her dress instead of a shift.

Férinael had gone chalk white the moment she had awoken and discovered what had happened. She had not regained that colour either, instead she had started trembling in shock and her eyes had rolled in full terror. She had been laid down in the common room until she had a better control of her nerves but she had still been a shaking mess when Baradui had left, barely managing to wave goodbye.

“Yes,” Baradui agreed quietly with Medueth’s assessment.

“After everything that has happened to her. Losing her sister and then her suitor and his brother disappearing… though if you ask me,” Medueth looked around for anybody who might overhear her, “I feel sorry over the sister but not the suitor, the shifty bastard.”

“Oh?” Baradui made motions with her hand for Medueth to carry on. With that guilty but pleased look of gossips everywhere, Medueth did so.

“I did not like the look of him from the first time I met him. He was far too callous with Férinael’s feelings and whenever Eiriengíeth was in the room; ah you had to feel so sorry for her the way he did not bother to hide his lust.”

Medueth shook her head in disgust, “but then of course the bastard had to go and show that he was a good heart underneath all that. Joined the night-watch in a good wage so he could care for both of the girls. Paid their rent for them so that Férinael and Eiriengíeth could save up to buy their own work-shop. Still I just could not feel comfortable in their presence. Bad business both he and his brother, thick and thieves and constantly making you feel like you’d been dipped in slime just by being in their presence.”

She heaved a sigh, “Eiriengíeth, on the other hand, was a true sweet-heart. Cheerful, happy and always willing to help someone. She seemed to good a person to be true and together with her beauty it could make you feel obsolete as a woman.”

Baradui chewed this over. Medueth glanced over at her and abruptly nudged her in a friendly but firm way. In Baradui’s ponderous sate this almost sent her stumbling into a gutter.

“And you are only 64? I thought you were MUCH older! You are so serious all the time! I thought you had seen an Age at the very least.”

“O..oh,” Baradui was taken aback. She was not that dour was she?

“Ah well, here is where I turn back. You make sure you take good care of yourself. I think Thirthil is going to try and be here this evening when you finish.”

“If you see Tirthil you can tell her that I will be alright. I finish very late at night; later than most night shifts.” Baradui clasped Medueth’s hand, “thank you for walking with me.”

“Ah well, it is not a problem to me. I was not going to be able to sleep after the excitement.”

Baradui left Medueth at the rise of the hill that lead to the House. Her footsteps slowed as she reached the House. The windows were all dark and closed, the curtains closed over most. There was not a single sign of life within. Dread rising she tried the door and found it locked.

She was so early that the House had not been opened by the official first day-patrol.

All the nervous energy in her limbs seemed to desert her and she sat down hard on the doorstep. It would not be long before the patrol came past to unlock the house, given the angle of the sunlight barely staining the sky.

Dawn was just a breath away, usually she would be rising at this moment and preparing to flee towards the House in fear of being late. It was actually nice to be able to arrive early and sit here, enjoying the encroaching morning’s artistry.

No it wasn’t. It was dark and silent in this part of the town, and every time a bush rustled or she heard the slightest sound her muscles went tight and her heart rate accelerated.

At least it was cold… colder than the day usually was.

She debated getting up and walking to Lithwaloth’s wains to see if he was possibly awake and so too, Iavel. The likely hood of this was quite small though. She also had a feeling that turning up at the crack of dawn to interrogate his daughter about ghosts would not endear her to the master-healer.

She stared at the low hedge of green peony bushes before the House, the bulbs larger than the last time she had bothered to notice them. There was definite white pushing through and the lacy edges of petals were beginning to reveal themselves.

“Those descendants of the Minya who made the Great Migration have their own word for peonies you know. It translates roughly as ‘poetry-flowers’,” a voice said.

Baradui shrieked and threw the doorstop (a large rock left out on the front doorstep at night) in the direction of the voice.

Pethras merely inclined his head to the side, the doorstop sailing past his head without even ruffling his shawl. “The Vanyar especially prized white and yellow peonies and grew them in great numbers. Well I use the past tense but they probably still do.”

Baradui wheezed in a breath and then another, finding that her chest had tightened up in fear. Her skin shuddered and began to writhe against her muscles in discomfort. How had she not heard the Avari approaching her? Why had she not noticed him? Why was he here?

“The Noldor also have a specific word for peonies,” Pethras continued, unworried that she had just tried to brain him via rock, “Though it is specifically meant for white and yellow peonies. It translates as ‘infidelity-flower.’”

“I di-did not see you,” Baradui wheezed, forcing air in and out of her lungs even though it felt like there was an iron band around her chest squeezing her ribs shut.

“You were very deep in contemplation of the peony bushes, I thought it might be best to break the silence talking about them,” Pethras glanced over his shoulder at where the doorstop had landed on the street and split in half.

A simple good morning could not have sufficed? Baradui swallowed roughly, finding her throat sore both from the constriction in it and from her earlier screaming.

“Sorry about the rock,” she gathered her pride around her and sat up straighter, ears burning as her blush made an appearance right on cue, “you surprised me.”

“Yes I could tell that,” Pethras reached out and caressed a peony bud which bloomed before both his and Baradui’s eyes. Baradui shouted in alarm, not just because of this blatant act of power but because she had noticed that each one of Pethras’ fingers had been tattooed black right down to the last knuckle. Some space had been left untouched to form twisting tengwa or perhaps cerith. Her eyes could not focus on them properly to see which. Every time she tried to stare her eyes began to water and it was like trying to read through a heat haze.

“It is rude to stare,” Pethras admonished her.

She dropped her eyes then raised them again angrily, the heat of her flush burning away the chill of the morning air against her face.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded rudely.

“I am here to see a healer of course,” Pethras took off the strips of cloth he had wrapped around his palms and held up his hands. She winced, seeing large, deep scratches all over the pale skin of his palms. They were deep, ugly things and looked as though they might need a few stitches.

“Of course,” she agreed with just a little sarcasm, “but I am afraid the House is still locked. Surely you know the working hours of it, having visited before.”

“Of course,” Pethras agreed, taking up her exact tone, “but I want to be first in the waiting hall so I see a healer as soon as possible, Iethrovan is away today and I am the only one who can manage the stall.”

“What about your other fellows? What about that Asgarthur I heard Férinael mention?”

Pethras’ face contorted darkly for a moment, “Asgarthur…” he paused, mouth working silently before he shut his mouth hard enough for the teeth to clink together. “Asgarthur,” he tried again after a moment that seemed far too long for Baradui, “Is sleeping. He is usually up all night and sleeps from dawn until just before dusk.”

“That seems very unhealthy,” Baradui commented.

“It is normal for Asgarthur,” Pethras dismissed but his face twisted in distaste as though Asgarthur’s name left a bad taste in his mouth. He moved forwards and Baradui instinctively moved away until the small of her back pressed against the step behind her.

“I get the feeling Madam Healer that you do not like me,” Pethras commented. He paused, standing above her and his shadow was the darkest of all the early morning shadows. Then he sat beside her without another word. The scent of him enveloped her: earth, clear spring water and ancient forests.

Baradui lifted her chin up in defiance and wished for a dagger or a scalpel close at hand. “I know who the Five Arrows are.”

Time crawled treacly as Pethras narrowed his eyes at her, the thick rill of his silver lashes nearly eclipsing the bright blue. “Oh,” he said in tightly measured tones, “I did not pick you to be one who believes in casual lies and rumours Madam Healer.”

“I heard what I know of your tribe from my mentor who would never lie. He was far too smart a man to believe rumour or unsubstantiated whispers.”

“And who is this paragon of wisdom and sensibleness?” Pathras asked and she got the distinct feeling she was being mocked.

“Nirthon Sigilion,” she answered proudly but his face did not even twitch, remaining mildly unimpressed. “The last Prince of the House of the White Snake,” she added, legs twitching uncontrollably under her; aborted attempts to leap up and run away.

“Ah,” Pethras’ expression changed and his eyes ceased to narrow. He looked thoughtfully at her now, like she had suddenly gained a value that she had not had before. Baradui abruptly wished she had not opened her mouth. Words though, have a way of escaping and nervousness is the great unlocker of reticent tongues alongside alcohol.

“And I knew a man who dealt with your tribe,” she stepped out onto the fragile ice of semi-lies and deception, “Annestel the goldsmith.”

“Ah Annestel,” Pethras signed abruptly and his voice was laced with a longing that had her skin prickling with a different sort of unease, an interested twinge zinging through her blood in spite of her unease. There was only so much lust one could pack into a word, but Pethras did his best to exceed that.

“But we were so good to Annestel and he got a far better deal out of us then he should have,” Pethras arched an eyebrow, “so why so chill and angry?”

“Because my mento-“ perhaps she should not say anything more. She was only putting herself into a highly uncomfortable and dangerous feeling situation.

“…Nevermi-” Baradui’s words dried up on her tongue as Pethras turned his head and stared directly into her eyes.

They were incredibly blue. Like the concentrated pigment a painter turns into paint. Yes indeed she had never seen such blue eyes…

“You were going to tell me what your mentor said,” Pethras coaxed and his voice seemed to come from a distance and had a golden sweetness like honey. It was such a nice voice, her unease and discomfort fled before it.

And his eyes were so blue…

“Dire-Witches, Necromancers and Death-Brokers the lot of them,” Baradui mumbled willingly and unknown to her, her voice took on a timbre and depth that it should not have been able to; the voice of Nirthon Sigilion gliding out of her mouth like it belonged there.

“Are you two alright?” a voice interrupted their conversation. Baradui blinked, finding her eyes were sore and dry like she had not blinked in a while.

“Yes we are both waiting for the House to be opened, she is a healer and I am unfortunately in need of a healer’s services,” Pethras replied pleasantly. Beside him Baradui was getting her head back. It was swimming like she had imbibed a shot of strong spirits. The past few minutes were an incomprehensible blur but no matter, it was probably just the tiredness and lingering shock from last night’s fright jumbling her head.

One of the day-watchmen was standing in front of them, fumbling for a set of keys on his belt with a embarrassed expression on his face.

“I hope you have not been waiting too long,” he pushed past them to unlock the door and bobbed his head nervously.

Your mentor was correct.

“Not at all, thank you for all your hard work in this city,” Pethras pressed a hand into the small of Baradui’s back and ushered her into the House. Mechanically she lit the candle laid out from the night before, for the morning, using it to light the lamps in the waiting hall as Pethras exchanged idle pleasantries with the day-watchman and then with the first arrivals at the House. Two healers bustled in and then the woman who ran the Waiting-Hall when Lagorwen did not. She took over the lantern lighting and shooed Baradui off to her room.

But it is not the usual talents of those you mentioned that are the danger here. No, the danger here is a rare condition that can develop from the use of those powers.

Baradui walked down the long hallway with the tread of her feet sounding far too loud. She clutched the candle she had taken like it was a life line, manoeuvring through the still night-dark hallways where no windows could let in the light of day. Up the staircase she went to the second floor. She reached for her keys, unlocked her room and sat down behind her desk.

Hunger.

Abruptly she began to shake. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

“Oh dear Madam Healer, you seem unwell,” Pethras followed her into her room with cat-silent feet and a smile that was so innocent Eru himself would be fooled.

“I am well.”

Her head hurt. She rose and lit the burner that would boil water for her, intending to make some willow tea.

Hunger for the uniqueness that some faer develop over the course of an interesting life lived.

“I believe you wanted your hands looked at?” she found herself asking distractedly. The wounds had not looked infected but she could not risk it. She picked up a new salve that had been distributed just a few days prior, Lithwaloth’s stamp set in the ceramic lid. She wondered how he had, had personalised containers made for him so swiftly then dismissed the thought.

It was both an anaesthetic and an analgesic, suitable for minor to medium flesh wounds. She rolled up her sleeves, poured herself a mug of hot water and dumped a spoonful of willowbark tea into it. Then she spooned a descent quantity of the bitter powder which would make her an astringent wash into the remaining hot water and selected a freshly washed cloth from the pile upon her desk. 

She brought the pot of water over and dipped the cloth in. Pethras silently presented his hands to her and she began to very gently clean the wounds. He hissed a few times but that was par the course, the astringent had a quality to it that made one aware of the smallest papercut on their hands if doused in it.

Once she had cleaned the hands to her satisfaction she poured the soiled water out of the window and tossed the cloth into her laundry basket. She reached for the pot next and cracked the wax sealing on it.

A small part of her mind rebelliously muttered that she should not be wasting such precious material on a servant of the dark but it was shushed swiftly.

Such a stubborn mind. It goes well with your fae. Now listen carefully. I cannot say much for I am bound to silence. Be wary of Asgarthur.

She had no proof at all now did she? How unfair and bigoted of her.

She dipped a clean blush into the salve and applied it to the largest wounds. Then out came the needle and thread to stitch shut the largest wounds. Just a few over each.

“I did not know that the House used the services of an Herb-Witch,” Pethras commented lightly.

Confused and aggrieved at this slander, Baradui bristled. “We do not,” she replied sharply. Pethras looked her in the eyes and abruptly her head prickled and her mind felt like it was being squeezed.

So blue…

“Master Healer Lithwaloth created this salve,” she added unbidden.  Not a threat at all, she thought with relief.

She applied more salve with a tuneless hum coming to mind. Her work was swift this morning, possibly the fastest she had cared for such injuries and all whilst maintaining a good standard of neatness. Satisfaction washed through her; good, now she would be able to return to the stall in good time.

Baradui took a roll of bandages and her cutting sheers from their drawer and set about covering up Pethras’ hands, paying attention to wrapping the material so he would have as much dexterity as possible.

“How did you receive such injuries?” she wondered, securing the cloth.

“Iethrovan had a temper-fit and threw something precious of mine into a bramble patch,” Pethreas sighed.

Keep your eye upon Férinael. If she begins to act strangely, come to me.

Baradui clicked her tongue in disapproval. “I am done, do not strain your hands and no more bramble climbing.”

“Thank you Healer Baradui, you do not know how pained my hands have been,” Pethras rose and dropped a few coins into her box with a smile. To the door he went and as he opened it Pethras turned back to say something more. His eyes caught hers.

Baradui drowned in blue.

A bird chirped in the tree near her window.

Sunlight was slowly sliding over the windowsill, as reluctant as she to be up so early in the morning.

Baradui paused in the middle of doing something important. She found that there was a strong herbal scent in the air that did not quite gel with the usual scent of her rooms. She glanced down and found she was holding a brush loaded with the new salve Lithwaloth had created for the House.

Now why…?

Her free hand pulsed with pain. She bit her lip and glanced down, alarmed to find a cut running across the side of her palm. Now where had that come from?!

Her eyes flicked about the room and she saw the shears she cut bandages with lying on her desk, an incriminating sheen of red upon the left blade.

Oh yes that was right. She had cut her had on the shears. She had not noticed them on her desk and had put her hand down, cutting herself in the process. Her mind must have stalled. Not surprising given the night she had, had and her general tiredness. She inspected the cut and found it needed not stitches. She applied a layer of salve, sighing at the relief of the anaesthetic quality of it as it sank into her skin.

Applying a bandage she cleaned up the mess that she had created.

That would teach her to forget to put her shears away with her bandages like she usually did!

-

“How is the fish cooked today?” Baradui asked as she joined the milling line into the small dining room at the back of the house.

“Fried I think,” Healer Sedilhul raised his thick eyebrows enough to see out from under them, glancing at Baradui when she lightly nudged his shoulder to get his attention, “it certainly smells like it.”

Baradui smiled, “oh good.”

“Oh good? A fan of fried foods are you? They are bad for you in large quantities you know.”

“Prove it.”

Sedilul touched his gold fibula meditatively, “If I had no decided I wanted ten more years out in the wilds before I locked myself up in the Great House again I might have the treatise and the mithril that would be all the proof required.”

“Aye but you would also most likely be dead,” Healer Brécherves pointed out, a few places in front of them in the line and evesdropping without shame. There was a rumbled agreement down the line. Sedilul nodded at this wisdom, not irritated.

“Ah but to calm your concerns I am going out of the House for my lunch break and it is easiest to eat fried fish when walking,” Baradui reassured him, grinning as someone near the front of the line told an off colour joke involving birthing forceps.

The fish was unseasoned but tasty enough. She ate it in quick bites as she walked towards Lithwaloth’s wains.

She found that a section of the lot had been sections off with modesty screens of the like found in Férinael’s workshops or in the rooms of girls at the boarding house who wanted privacy from their roommate. She washed her hands at the water-pump and then idled over to the screens. She knocked on the edge of one.

“Healer Lithwaloth, it is Baradui,” she peered around the edge of the screen.

She found Lithwaloth kneeling on the ground in front of Iavel. The ground had been covered in a canvas and Iavel lay on it naked. Lithwaloth had a sponge in his hand and a steaming pail of water beside him. A scent rose from the steam that took Baradui straight to the long term wards of the Great House where the patients often smelled of this particular herbal mixture. It helped prevent bed-sores and skin-infections in general.

“Do you require help?” she offered immediately.

Lithwaloth eyed her for a moment before reaching for another sponge and offering it to her, “I do not require it but it would be helpful. I have quite a build-up of work I have to complete but this had to be done today. Start with her feet if you please. Iavel dear, Healer Baradui is going to help me. I trained her. She is trustworthy.” Baradui felt a burst of pleasant warmth as this praise.

Iavel’s eyes were half-shut and remained so but she made an agreeing noise, indicating her acknowledgement and to Baradui’s relief, the fact that she was still awake and aware.

Baradui started at the feet, carefully getting between the toes and then migrated her way up the ankles and onto the leg.

There were a damn of a lot of scars. Old white things and mostly slashing marks. Here and there however the puckered remains of arrow-strikes lingered. Across the knee a set of scars that had definitely come from claws. Further up the thigh and a deep bite-scar, possibly wolf by the look of it.

Iavel mumbled softly to herself and Baradui paused, finding she was being stared at.

Iavel’s nostrils flared once and then twice. Her eyebrows furrowed sharply but then relaxed when Lithwaloth made an inquiring noise.

“Smells like Peonies,” Iavel muttered.  Her voice was raspy and prone to croaking mid syllable.

“Peonies have a scent?” Baradui sniffed at herself, trying to discern an actual scent apart from her skin, cheap soap and the herbal smell of her rooms.

“All sorts of scents,” Iavel confirmed, eyes sliding fully open, “some like roses, some like lilies, some like lemons and some entirely their own.” Her eyes were startlingly aware for a woman who had been sleeping for the past two weeks. They had the same affect that Lithwaloth’s had; pinning Baradui until Iavel shifted restlessly and pressed her leg against the sponge dripping over her.

Baradui set herself back to work but then paused once more. She was up near the pubic area now and abruptly noticed three things. It was not that she was looking specifically at the site and looking for oddities, but her eyes simply picked up on them as she raised her gaze and her mind filled in the blanks.

She noticed firstly that for a grown woman, Iavel’s hair was oddly sparse, more in line from what Baradui would expect from a girl halfway developed. Secondly that Iavel’s hips were small; small enough to possibly give her problems delivering a child. The third distraction confirmed the tentative theory formed from the second; that those narrow hips had given Iavel difficulty because she had a unique scar lying low on her pubic area, livid red where it slashed directly across the invalid’s womb.

Theoretically Baradui knew exactly what procedure had caused the scar which was so out of synch with the battle scars littering Iavel’s body. In practice she had never seen one because most women who had ever had to endure a uterine section birth did not survive. It was a procedure for when all hope was lost for survival of the mother but the child had a possibility of living.

“Um,” she said after a moment, realising that she had been staring and that Lithwaloth had paused and was staring down at her along with Iavel.

“How did you survive?” she asked bluntly, deciding the best course of action was to be honest and direct after being caught inspecting Iavel’s loins like she was a exhibition.

“By the skin of my teeth,” Iavel rasped out, clutching her father who had returned to washing her, tilting her upper torso slightly.

“Well yes I would imagine so,” Baradui wondered if she should cease inquiring; Iavel’s short, snappy answer indicated she did not wish to talk.

“One of the finest healers to walk the shores of Arda,” Iavel added after a moment, “not adar,” she added when Baradui looked at Lithwaloth with the start of awe.

Lithwaloth rolled his eyes, unconcerned with the unintentional jab at his skills.

“Was it particularly painful?” Baradui inquired, unable to help herself.

“Yes but I was near to stepping outside of my body when the decision was made, it is really all a confused mess in my memories until they placed my son on my chest.”

“But you survived,” Baradui was impressed. She rewet the sponge and continued upwards.

“Well,” Iavel looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, “Mandos said something that pissed me off rather badly. I decided I was not going to give him the pleasure of continuing to say such things to my face.”

“That… that is not how it works,” Baradui protested.

“Tell that to Mandos,” Iavel retorted, voice clicking hoarsely over irritated words “because he surely remembers me as the woman who told him to go fuck himself.”

“Now, now,” Lithwaloth murmured, pouring a fresh bucket of water over Iavel’s unbound hair, “no need to get your temper up. Baradui did not doubt you.” He began to massage soap through the wet, heavy mass. Finding the rest of Iavel’s body clean, Baradui shuffled up to help him.

“Why not cut it?” she asked the both of them. Iavel’s hair had to be knee-length at the very least.

“Extra insulation during winter,” Iavel grunted. Baradui glanced at Lithwaloth.

“I could not bring myself to cut it,” Lithwaloth admitted, “She has her grandmother’s hair.” He stroked a long strand wistfully. It took several buckets of water to rinse Iavel’s hair to suitable standards and as the water flowed off it, strands of silver glowed within the cream white of it.

Teleri grandmother possibly? Lithwaloth’s mother or the mother of Iavel’s mother? Baradui pondered this as she helped squeeze out the extra moisture and then dry Iavel thoroughly with soft cloths.

Clean and freshened Iavel was laid out on a blanket in the sunshine. The modesty screens kept anyone from seeing her naked figure. This was good because ten minutes after they had laid her out, a frantic voice interrupted their discussion about willow-bark and ways to improve the taste.

“Healer Lithwaloth?! There is a patient who is developing a rash after the use of … um… amixturetohelphimmaintainanerection.” It sounded like an apprentice, too inexperienced with barely enough knowledge to keep them afloat. Sirion was hardly the best place to be learning either. It was much like being tossed into the middle of the ocean in order to learn how to swim.

“I left instructions in the case of that happening,” Lithwaloth replied, annoyed that he had to get up.

“Those were for a red or pink rash sir, this rash is purple,” it was indeed an apprentice. Baradui recognised him as having joined only a month ago.

“How purple?” Lithwaloth asked wearily.

“Lilac,” the apprentice said decisively.

“That’s very specific,” Baradui commented.

“We have a lilac tree outside our house ma’am; the rash is exactly the colour of its flowers.”

“Baradui I must go attend to this, I know what is happening but I have to go see the patient myself. Would you please take Iavel inside in another ten minutes?”

“Yes,” Baradui watched Lithwaloth disappear into a wain and reappear carrying a small black jar which sloshed ominously which he carried down the street with the cautious air of a man who holds something deadly.

“Now that is convenient,” Iavel murmured when Baradui ducked back around the modesty screen. The invalid stretched as much as she could, muscles straining and Baradui’s eyes were drawn towards the scar across her pelvis again, finding that the sight of it made her skin crawl slightly. To have to be cut open for something that should have come so naturally…

“I did not develop properly as a child, my sexual maturation stalled then halted entirely halfway through,” Iavel’s hair had been gathered to one side of her head and she began to braid it.

“Do not give me that look, your pretty skull keeps your thoughts sacrosanct but your face blurts them out to the world regardless,” Iavel added with a sneer when Baradui gave her a sharp look, suspecting a touch a mind-reading.

 “But that is not important right now. Death comes on many different feet; dancing, striding, stalking,” Iavel croaked and laughed as Baradui drew back from the icy touch of her hand when it drifted to touch Baradui’s wrist. “I was barely awake the last time and did not get a good scent of you. Now though there is no doubt in my mind that you’ve been consorting with ghosts of varying natures.”

“Ghosts as in multiple?” Baradui croaked in alarm, “but I only saw the one last night.”

“Oh yes tell me Healer, how did Death visit you last night?”

At the mocking tone of Iavel’s voice, Baradui almost resolved not to tell her a damn thing but then she bit her lip. It seemed Iavel had some kind of awareness of what was going on, even if she had a flare for the dramatics that made Baradui want to throw her in the nearest harbour for it.

She began to tell Iavel of what had happened, starting with entrance of the … thing and then backtracking to her dream as an afterthought.

“Well,” Iavel stared at the sky. Baradui realised it had been far more then ten minutes since Lithwaloth had left. She hurriedly lifted Iavel up with a small grunt at the weight. Iavel was far too light for her body size and yes, unexpectedly light. That did not mean she lacked density. She still had all that bone which gave her, her height as well as what muscle was left and the rope of her hair.

Not to mention she was just plain awkward to manoeuvre around. Legs and arms had a habit of getting in the way.

“Wait,” Iavel protested as Baradui was going to put her down on the bed inside the wain. “Let me on my feet.”

Doubtfully Baradui righted her down on her feet beside the bed.

Iavel took exactly half a step and then she crumpled. Baradui caught her with a hiss as her shoulder wrenched, and wrestled uncooperative limbs onto the bed.

“I doubt you will be walking any time soon. You have months of relearning your body after six years of inactivity,” she scolded Iavel who glared up at her, as much sweat on her body as on Baradui’s. Baradui felt cheated. She’d done considerably more work!

“I don’t have months,” Iavel pointed at a chest at the bottom of the bed. “You will be dead by then and the entertainment will have passed on. Or it will be stalking someone I don’t have access to!”

Baradui opened the trunk and found clean clothing. She extracted a long tunic and helped Iavel wrestle herself into it.

“I am not your entertainment,” Iavel glared rebelliously up at her. Baradui felt no charity towards her.

“I am not. Listen to me! Something came into my room last night and …and attacked my roommate!”

“It did not sound that way when you described it the first time,” Iavel pushed herself up onto her temporary backrest of clothing sacks, inch by inch until Baradui helped drag her up.

“I … well what else was it doing?” Iavel glanced over at the dresser and pointed to a small ceramic bowl. Baradui picked it up, finding the gold chain and earrings she had noticed on Iavel were in it. She saw the pendant from the chain for the first time, a long rectangular piece of some white stone that was laced through with hair thin strands of silver and gold

Iavel cast a panicked look of impatience when Baradui paused and fished the pendant out to get a closer look at it. “I do not know but I would not be so quick to say it was an attack. I doubt this was the first time the Empty-One you saw has made an appearance. If it wanted to attack either of you it would have done so and you would not be here, gracing me with your lovely company.”

It had some sort of carving on it, containing writing but her eyes skipped over the inscription whenever she tried to focus on it, like she was trying to read through a heat-wave. De-ja-vu rippled through Baradui but she could not place from where she had experienced such a similar phenomenon.

She could make out the carvings on it though, framing the writing. Two trees arching over the words, their branches locking together in an embrace. The creator had taken the thin strands of gold and silver into account with some of the branches following the routes the threads took through the stone.

“What is an empty-one?” she asked, dropping the pendant back into the bowl and offering it to Iavel.

Iavel nearly snatched the bowl out of her hands and fussed with the pendant until it was sitting against her skin.

“It is the opposite of a Houseless. The houseless of fe-!!-fff-faaaah-kkk…Fae without a hr-rr-r…Rhaw” Iavel appeared to choke on her own spit pronouncing the terms and spluttered through the latter half of her sentence. She cleared her throat and continued.

“Houseless are haunted by the memory of having a Rhaw. It is why they try and possess the living. Empty-ones are Rhaw without Fae who are still compelled to move by the memory of having a Fae. I am not sure though, what it is they try to do or why.”

With slower movements Iavel inserted her earrings. The level of dexterity was astounding for someone who had lain within Lúrin’s cradle, as was Iavel’s ability to hold her arms up for so long. Then again the only case that Baradui had seen personally had been that of a Man. They healed far slower than edhil. Perhaps this was it.

Just as Baradui thought this, Iavel dropped her arms with a weak thump. There was a beading of sweat on Iavel’s lip and her eyes were tightened from pain.

Ah not so much swift-healing as sheer determination or stubbornness. Iavel was not a good patient; she was likely the sort that drove healers to fits by pushing themselves too far, too soon. Baradui could tell that much. Poor Lithwaloth, no wonder he had such an authoritative presence. He must have developed it to control his daughter.

“But that was Férinael’s face I saw,” Baradui took a seat and watched Iavel who was watching the ceiling like it held the answers to the eternal questions.

“Do not be stupid. You said she was sleeping. No it was not your friend unless she was the Fae to the Empty-One’s Rhaw which would imply she i-“

“Oh she is quite alive!” Baradui interrupted as quick as she dared, hands wind-milling in protest. Férinael was quite solid and quite strong given how she had dragged Baradui about the market.

“Well if you are so sure then that cannot have been her. Has she lost anyone recently? Close to her?”

“Her family in the kinslaying, then her fiancé and his brother were taken by orcs patrolling just outside Sirion.”

“What absurdly bad luck. It cannot be Menegroth, Melian committed a great deal of power to its very foundations, some of which prevented…well…there are no ghosts in Menegroth or who could have come from Menegroth. No one else?”

Baradui tried to shrug off the grief that mentioning her home had brought as well as the disbelief at the knowledge Iavel so casually distributed.

“Well her sister ran away a  y-“

“It will be her sister then, though I would check to see if there was a resemblance between them just in case. Siblings can look completely unlike one another,” Iavel did not seem to care how callous she appeared.

“I myself will check if she went East.”

“And just how are you going to do that?”

“I will go the junction a-“

“The what?!” Baradui snapped, frustrated at Iavel’s assumption that she would know all of these things she talked of. And her assumption that Baradui would believe the things that came out of her mouth.

‘And yet here we are’ a snide voice pointed out in her mind, ‘we sought this one out because of what she said before. Because there is no way what crawled in the window last night was anything human.’

“Well some might poetically call it the Crossroads of Life and Death but crossroad implies a road that lies perpendicular to the one you are on and is still a junction; a specific kind.”

“The point please,” Baradui encouraged sharply.

Iavel drew breath and let it out in a huff, her hand like ice as she pressed it to Baradui’s weakly. Alarmed at the coldness the healer began to rub it to try and encourage the circulation back into the fingers.

“Here then,  isten to me and I will tell you something not usually known until you die. Should your fae ever depart East it will follow a road of its own devising for half the journey before it reaches the junction,” it seemed to Baradui that the air grew darker though it was midday. Slowly shadows crept up the wall and a hush fell over them like that of twilight.

“Unnumbered roads meet hear to become a single road that leads straight into the heart of Cuiviénen.”

“How do you know this?” it had to be asked. In her grip Iavel’s hand seemed to grow colder and heavier.

“That is where I have lived the past six years, occasionally retracing the path I took though always I stumble and find myself back at the junction before I ever reach my body. This is the first time I have ever completed the journey instead of standing ten paces away from life and calling out, hoping Lithwaloth can hear me.”

“And it is because of you,” Iavel’s hand moved, would have squeezed hers if she had the strength, “because the smell of such suffering and desperation; of the desire to avenge and to murder was a beacon.”

“It cannot have really been me,” Baradui whispered, appalled.

“Nay, it was the smell of ghosts as I told you, two at the least, if not three; a sufferer, an avenger and a murderer.” Thoughtful dark eyes inspected her.

“Shall we talk payment?” Iavel said suddenly, apropos to nothing.

“What?” Baradui asked, knocked out of the secretive feeling of dark secrets shared by surprise.

“Well you need my help. Clearly. But I will not do this for free. I want payment… payment that you cannot tell Lithwaloth about.”

Baradui narrowed her eyes at Iavel who was squirming oh so slightly (or giving off the feeling of squirming without actually moving) in anticipation of this hypothetical payment.

“If it is something that Lithwaloth is not to know of then I do not think I can pay you in that currency,” disapproval laced her voice.

“I am a grown woman and what adar does not know cannot hurt him,” Iavel licked her lips salaciously and Baradui’s imagination supplied a hypothetical payment that was both ludicrous and suddenly quite possible.

“If Lithwaloth would disapprove then I think you should not be even contemplating whatever it is,” she stated firmly.

“Why not? I have needs you know. I have been an adult longer then you have been alive Healer.”

Baradui’s entire being recoiled. She knew why the scar had made her so uncomfortable now. It was not that Iavel had, had a child it was what Iavel had done to create that child. Iavel was an invalid; a creature not meant for sex or anything associated with such things. The knowledge, no the proof that Iavel had once engaged in coitus clashed with the neutered aspect Baradui had unintentionally applied to her.

It was a stupid line of reasoning, Baradui was well aware of it; she saw patients with children, patients who had grandchildren in fact, and once in a blue moon patients who had injured themselves in the bedroom. The scar seemed far more real than any of that. Or perhaps it was the patient that made it seem so wrong.

The aforementioned patients were usually all hale and hearty. Iavel was so worn away by her illnesses that even her father’s gentle repositioning had left bruises.

“Now,” Iavel licked her lips again and smiled in a manner that filled Baradui with dread, “as for my payment.”

“How are you even going to do anything for me while you are lying in a bed, unable to move yourself?” Baradui asked desperately.

“I have help,” Iavel’s eyes flicked away from hers swiftly, “those I have met at the junction are happy to help me and teach me in exchange for favours.”

“What sort of favours?”

“News about the living word or passing on a message to a loved one usually,” Iavel would not look her in the face now, her own turned towards the window and the birds outside.

“Now! Let us talk about payment.”

Baradui swallowed. Iavel was not going to demand that was she? Her brain was racing with excuses or laws she could quote. Nausea began to coil up in her stomach.

“Alcohol.”

The bubble of tension and dread popped.

“What?” Baradui asked.

“I want alcohol. If I’m to spend my days awake and malingering in here then I want some relief. Get me some alcohol…decent alcohol. Not red wine, Sindar cannot make red wine to save themselves. Perhaps white or a cider of some kind. Not beer or ale. It is disgusting.”

“I cannot get you alcohol!” she protested immediately, relief unlocking the tenseness in her spine, “it would kill you in the state you are in! I would not be surprised if Lithwaloth has you on a diet of gruel and broth, your body is likely so compromised!”

Iaven snarled; animal like in her displeasure. Her pale cheeks reddened and her limbs twitched as if she would leap to her feet though of course she could not do that.

Baradui drew herself up in a fit of annoyance, using the voice she usually applied to Teleri fishermen who thought: ‘Rest your hand’ meant: ‘Go pull nets in. Sure. Pull all the nets in that you want. Actually you know what? Anchors. I recommend pulling anchors up with that hand of yours.’

“You have been in Lúrin’s Cradle for six years. You would do well to remember that! Lúrin may have been gentle with your mind but your body has still suffered from the inaction!”

“I have not been anywhere Lorien! Did you not hear me?” Iavel growled, her voice surprisingly deep, “and even if I wished to rest in Irmo’s care the way to his gardens is blocked for me. I can no more step foot on the Olorë Mallé than you can step foot on the Eastern Route.”

Baradui found her tongue tripping over the unfamiliar name but she found she needed no translation. She must have read it in a text perhaps, or heard it in passing but she knew, immediately what it was that was being spoken of.

“The only people who cannot step foot upon the Path of Dreams are the Noldor and the unrighteous. You strike me as neither,” she responded with dread suddenly growing in her when Iavel’s face contorted and then a feral smirk stretched over the invalid’s red lips. Baradui’s skin tightened in fear and a sudden icy chill that swept through her.

“Oh Iavel is neither,” Iavel’s voice deepened even more and became no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, the voice of woman, “but I most certainly am not.”

It was still Iavel upon the bed before her but Baradui’s vision blurred and she saw a man lying there as well. It was like the afterimage of a bright burst of light; the strange way a sunspot continued to linger in one’s vision for a while. She could not focus on him but she still saw him there: pale haired and black eyed as Iavel was and haughty of face but the similarities ended there. The body she saw was in full health and clearly masculine; made of the sharp musculature that one only gained through the mastery of sword.

A circlet shone upon a proud forehead and he wore long robes of an unfamiliar cut and cloth, rich in embroidery; incredibly so. The embroidery was redolent with pearls and other gemstones as well. She did not need an in depth knowledge of foreign fashion to know who he was or who he had followed; an eight pointed star shone on the hilt of his sword whilst a sixteen pointed star glowed from a ring on his centre right finger.

A flicker and she saw him in soiled armour that gleamed through the blood that drenched him. Menegroth burned everywhere and there was not a space in the courtyard to step; the bodies piled up high.

“Tyelkormo Fëanárion at your service,” said the Houseless possessing Iavel’s body, “or Celegorm Fëanorion as your lot insist on calling me.”