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

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The peony, slowly and grandly, starts to stir.

Chapter title again by Issa (d.1823)

Unbeta'd for now.

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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.”