The Chief in a Village by Himring

Chapter 8

Enough Exposure to Last a Lifetime

Having gone AWOL, Fingon unexpectedly returns to Barad Eithel with bad news and a baby. Confronting his father represents a serious challenge to his social competence.

‘Fingon!’

Berion stared at me as if I was an apparition that had just materialized in front of the gate. For a moment, he stood there, thunderstruck; then he came running down the ramp, cloak flying.

‘My lord Fingon!’

He half opened his arms as if he was about to throw them around my shoulders. But right away he remembered the respect he considered due to my superior station in life and dropped them to his sides again.

‘He will be so happy to see you, sir!’ he said breathlessly. ‘Overjoyed! Yes, yes, all of us! We were afraid…  We thought… Where have you… No, don’t tell me! No, no, come, he must see you—I must take you to him at once!’

His hands came up again, as if he was half considering grabbing me and dragging me bodily up into the castle and into my father’s presence.

I felt a bit overwhelmed by such an effusive welcome. It had not been an easy journey—any part of it—and the previous night had been one of the more difficult ones. I had gained enough experience by then to be almost certain that all Gil was suffering from was gripes, but Gil himself had been not disposed to take things so lightly. He had howled as if he was suffering the attention of the master torturers of Angband, refusing to be soothed by any means I could devise.

By the time he had finally succeeded in passing enough wind to relieve his poor little belly, he had driven me into near panic. Mellon, of course, had picked up on our distress and was whining, adding to the cacophony. When morning came, we were all worn out. Gil had fallen into exhausted sleep in the sling in which I carried him, tucked inside my cloak. I, however, had pushed straight on, reasoning that we were so close to home that it was not really worth stopping to recuperate. It occurred to me now that that might have been a serious miscalculation.

‘It is very good to see you, Berion’, I said. ‘I trust all is well here? So my father is in residence?’

‘Yes, yes, he is here, and the border has been quiet, more or less—nothing more than the usual incidents. But, sir, please, you must come and speak to your father without delay!’

‘All right, Berion, if you think my father is ready to see me just now, but are you sure that…?

Berion looked flabbergasted.

‘If I think your father is ready to see you! Of course, he is!’

Once again, he barely restrained himself from grabbing me. I allowed myself to be rushed through the gate and up the steps to the main entrance. As we passed, heads turned and a murmur rose behind our backs, but Berion shooed me onward before I could do more than nod to anyone. I did not start putting up any resistance until I saw exactly where he was taking me.

‘Berion, that isn’t the way to my father’s private apartments. You’re not taking me to the Great Hall, are you?’

‘He’s in the Great Hall, yes. What does it matter where he is? Please, sir, he’ll have my head, if I don’t take you to him immediately and be quite within his rights to do so, I’m sure.’

‘Oh, come on, Berion, you’re exaggerating. But if he is in the Great Hall, you know, that means…’

By now we were right in front of the door.

‘My lord’, Berion begged me, almost in tears at the thought of any further delay to the reunion of father and son. ‘Please!’

‘Oh all right, Berion. Take care of my dog for me at least, will you?’

It seemed Berion had not even properly noticed Mellon yet. He looked startled, but nodded.

‘Mellon, stay’, I said. ‘Berion…’

But Berion had meanwhile opened the door. I took a look inside and started back, but Berion’s feelings finally got the better of him at this point. He gave me a shove between the shoulder blades and I almost stumbled forward into the hall.

***

Berion meant well, of course, but I should not have listened to him. It was terrible, a disaster.

Everyone was there—and I mean everyone and his wife and her kid brother and possibly the nanny and the family pet as well, if I had had time to look. Most of the population of Hithlum seemed to have crammed itself into the Great Hall that day.

As for my father—of course I don’t need to have that pointed out to me—he had been very much afraid I had gone missing for good and he would never see me again. I cannot even argue that he was wrong to be afraid. It was still a mistake to haul me over the coals for it in public, though.

I think he hardly even raised his voice. It was just in my imagination that the echoes chased each other round and round the rafters of the hall, as all the people inside listened with bated breath. Evidently, I had been the bane of my father’s existence ever since I had had the lack of consideration to be born and since then I had unrepentantly continued to commit one callously irresponsible act after another.

I swear I had had no plan, had not planned it in any way. During my hasty journey across Beleriand, whenever I had not been worrying frantically about Gil’s needs and whether I was taking care of him adequately, I had been racking my brains what might be the best way to tell my father about Irime. It might briefly have crossed my mind that it was a pity that although I now had a child to raise, that was not likely to stop my father from badgering me to marry—in fact, I admit that it did cross my mind—but that was all.

But when the word heir recurred for about the fifth time during his animadversions on my character—or maybe it was the sixth or the seventh or the eighth—I lost my temper and self-control completely, without warning.

I shouted: ‘I’ve brought you an heir!’, yanked Gil out from under my cloak where up until this moment he had remained completely unobserved in his sling by Berion, my father or anyone else, and held him up for all to see.

My father fell abruptly silent, in mid-sentence. Gil, who had heartlessly gone on sleeping while his foster-father received the worst tongue-lashing of his life, was rudely awakened and naturally began protesting loudly and vociferously. And I watched the faces before me as everyone—every single one of them—jumped to the wrong conclusion.

I opened my mouth and tried to say something. It was inaudible. Gil, experts in childcare have since assured me, was actually a relatively peaceable child, but when he was thoroughly roused he had the organ of a future battle commander. I tried to say something else, but his yells drowned out the sound of my voice altogether.

I decided I had had enough public exposure to last me a lifetime, clutched the yelling infant to my chest and precipitately fled the scene.