Five Things That Never Happened to Caranthir's Wife by grey_gazania

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Five Things That Never Happened to Caranthir's Wife

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I

 

It has taken months to work up the courage for this, months of agonizing and worrying, but now she is here, in the office of the head of the Archive, hands clenched around a cup of tea as she answers his rapid questions.

 

"Well, Maryacúnë, you certainly know your material," he finally says. "Tell me, who was your tutor?"

 

She swallows. "I didn't have one, sir. I'm self-taught."

 

"You have never been tutored?"

 

She shakes her head. "We didn't have the money. We're farmers, sir."

 

Surely that won't make a difference. She's shown her knowledge already; what does it matter where she gained it?

 

But he's looking at her with disdain as he sets his mug down, and she feels her stomach drop.

 

"Farmers," he repeats. "You thought we would hire a farmer here? You've wasted your time – and mine. Go back to your fields, girl, and leave this place to the scholars."

 

 

II

 

They are sitting on a bench in the garden. His face is as flushed as the roses that abound by the path, and his eyes are fixed on his hands instead of her face.  She knows how much this confession has cost him. And as much as it hurts, she owes him an honest answer.

 

"I'm sorry, Carnistir," she says softly. "But I just don't feel the same way."

 

 

III

 

She can feel her child kick as she walks through the Treeless streets, lit now by smoking torches. The basket on her arm is empty of its seeds and sprouts, infant plants that can give their own dim light as they grow.

 

(It seems unnatural, Parmacundë, Arafinwë had said. I will have to consult with Lady Yavanna before I make any decision.)

 

Bread. She needs bread, regardless of what he decides.

 

Walking to the makeshift market, her basket held in front of her, she does not expect the hands that grab her and shove her to the ground, scraping her palms and ripping her sleeves, grinding mud into her skirt. Even less does she expects the blows, and she curls up, hands over her head and knees drawn towards her face.

 

"Bitch," her attacker is yelling, clawing at her hair, slamming a boot again and again at her stomach. "Walking so proud with a Kinslayer's child, how dare you--" 

 

She can feel blood leaking between her thighs, hot and sticky, and she nearly drowns the other woman out with her own screams. My baby, my baby, not my baby, please...

 

The next kick finds her neck. Her head slams against the cobblestones. Her vision blurs. And the half-formed life inside her flickers and dies.

 

 

IV

 

She is exhausted, soaked in sweat, barely able to sit upright, but that doesn't matter. Not even the darkness in Valinor matters, because her child is crying in her grandmother's arms and that means everything is going to be all right.

 

"Let me see her," she says, holding out her arms. "Let me see my daughter."

 

Her mother helps her up against the pillows as her grandmother wraps the child in a blanket. "She has your eyes," Cuivellë says, settling the squalling newborn in her arms.

 

It's true. The girl's eyes are large in her pink face, matching her damp fuzz of dark hair. But she has her father's nose and downturned mouth, and that opens in another cry as she flails her tiny fists.

 

"Hush, hinya," Parmë says, carefully holding the girl to her breast. And when the child latches on as though she'll never need anyone else in the world, Parmë knows that bearing her was the right decision.

 

 

V

 

The snow has soaked into her skirt, leaving a cold, sodden mess of fabric under her knees and bottom, but she makes no move to stand. She is only barely aware of her own teeth chattering and of the clouds of moisture that puff from her mouth each time she exhales.

 

They come from his mouth, too, but in ragged, uneven bursts that are accompanied by fresh flecks of red on his blue lips. His head is resting in her lap, eyes half closed and face far paler than it has any right to be.

 

"Shh," she croons, as he shakes with another choking, convulsive cough. "Shh."

 

He doesn't answer; he doesn't have the air to answer. Even when she found him, after stumbling through the forest with nothing but the clenching of her heart to guide her, he had only a feeble wheeze that might have been her name. And he has only grown bluer and paler and colder, with his head in her lap as she holds his hands, strokes his hair, murmurs hollow comforts.

 

She cannot bring herself to kill him. Instead, she watches as he slowly drowns, and when he finally breathes his life out with a last, bloody gasp, the sudden silence swallows her whole.

 

She does not rise. The outcome of the battle, the fate of the Silmaril – what do they matter? They cannot bring him back. Her hands pause to close his eyes before they return to his hair. Where her tears fall, small crystals form, matching the ice in the trees and the snow that coats the forest floor.

 

All too soon, there are footfalls, the dull clink of armor, the rough breathing of running men.  They stop short when they see her, these men who are all blood and metal and narrowed eyes. "It's one of them," says the man on the left, gesturing to the blood-soaked star on her husband's chest. More silent than snow and quicker than death - far, far quicker - a sword is at her throat.

 

"Tell us what your people have done with our princes, and we'll let you live," says the one with the sword.

 

She closes her eyes. She does not speak.

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Chapter End Notes

hinya - Quenya; an affectionate contraction of hinanya, meaning "my child"