Racing Towards the Start by Agelast

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Chapter 3

 

I thought this would be very fitting, what with Fingon, Aredhel and Argon showing up in this chapter. Talk about impetuous!

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Findekáno was momentarily confused to see the most talented member of Makalaurë’s woodwinds section at his door. He wondered for a moment if this was some kind of joke on his cousin’s part, but that did not seem likely, nor very funny. Makalaurë took his music far too seriously to joke about it anyway.

Ehtelion, who was called the fairest of the Noldor, not unfairly, cleared his throat, somewhat impatiently, and Findekáno snapped back to attention. Hastily, he rang for someone to bring them tea and inquired after Ethelion’s parents and his sisters. He was answered back politely, though rather distantly. Ehtelion seemed preoccupied; his gaze was drawn to the bay-window that took up the entire south face of Findekáno’s office. Findekáno followed his gaze, and then gestured toward it. “Shall we?”

They did. Outside, the great square of Tirion brimmed with life. It was high-summer and fruit and vegetable sellers had set up shop very near the royal offices. Maids darted between the stalls, their baskets piled high with produce.

One girl, dark-haired and lovely, cried out in dismay as a juicy, ripe peach fell from her basket, and was squashed by a guardsman’s boot. They fell into a furious argument, and it seemed that someone would have to intervene when suddenly the guardsman had a change of heart, and gave the girl a coin, presumably to buy another peach.

She accepted it with a huff, and went off to do her business, with the guardsman following behind, with a wholly love-struck look on his face. She turned once, to give him a severe, though not entirely discouraging glance, and turned back to her purchase.

“It’s a lovely view,” Findekáno said, “very absorbing. I find myself spending a lot of time looking out into the square. All these little dramas, played out before me.”

“Do you not have enough to do here?”

Ethelion hadn’t meant to be rude, probably, Findekáno supposed, so he said, “Well, I am obliged to spend an afternoon here, from time to time, and it pleases my father to know that I can obey him. The staff here give me enough to do, certainly, though I suspect I rather get in the way of their real work.”

“I suppose you would rather be out there, having adventures and the like, than here,” Ehthelion said, rather stiffly, and turned away from the window. He took a seat near the the tea-table, at Findekáno’s wordless invitation, and though the all the chairs had been chosen for their comfort, Ehtelion devised to look as uncomfortable in it as if it was lined with spikes.

“Now, Ehtelion, suppose you tell me what it is that I can do for you?,” Findekáno said briskly, as a light knock at the door interrupted them. “Come in!”

It was Mercas with the tea-tray, which he poured out expertly. Findekáno was pleased to see that the almond biscuits that he especially liked had been included. “Thank you, Mercas,” he said, giving his assistant a grateful smile. Mercas gave him a friendly nod -- he was not the most loquacious of men -- and went out again, closing the door behind him.

As soon as he was gone, Ehtelion said, “It was your father that sent me, or rather, his assistant, who interrupted my morning rehearsals and insisted I present myself to Prince Findekáno at my earliest convenience. You have a task for me, I take it.”

Ehtelion jerked up his chin, and looked at Findekáno in a challenging way, as if asserting that his time, at least, was a little more valuable than the other’s.

Findekáno’s face was absolutely blank. He had no idea why he should need a flutist, no matter how talented -- or, yes, how artistically tempered. What could his father be thinking of?

They stared at each for the moment before realization dawned over Findekáno, like the first blooming of Laurelin, bright and illuminating.

“Oh yes, of course, I do want you!,” he exclaimed, “You’re the plumbing genius everyone’s been talking about! Forgive me for being rather dim, it was just that I saw you in concert a few weeks ago, and so your musical talents were foremost on my mind. I do have a task for you, if you should chose to do it, though you mightn’t, it is rather like using a sword when a pen knife will do. You see, there a broken fountain in the Weaver’s Quarter that I have, well, I have decided to fix. You could help me, if you wish.”

Whatever Ehtelion had expected, this outburst was not it. He retreated back to his tea, and gave a neutral-sounding assent when Findekáno offered him an almond biscuit.

“This is very good,” he said at last, when the silence between them had grown well-nigh unbearable.

“It is,” Findekáno agreed. “The secret is the almond paste in the dough; Mercas’ mother thought it up when she was a girl. It is her most popular recipe by far.”

“Hm.”

And they lapsed into silence, once again.

After the tea and biscuits had all but run out, Ehtelion said, “Yes.”

Findekáno blinked. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, I’ll help you.”

“Very good! I suppose you will need your supplies,” Findekáno said, getting up. He rang for Mercas again, and Ehtelion stood as well, nodding.

“I will have to know what I’m dealing with. Don’t suppose you know?”

“I haven’t actually seen the fountain, and I’m not quite sure where it is located,” Findekáno said, and catching Ehtelion’s withering look, he continued on, hastily, “but I know someone who can help us. Let’s get your equipment and get it done.”

As Ehtelion was leaving, he turned back to Findekáno and said, “People really call me a plumbing genius?”

“I’m afraid so,” Findekáno said, with his most sympathetic smile, and showed him out.

+

Nindë was quite bewildered to see Findekáno again, and she stared at Ehtelion and the large leather bag he was carrying with bright suspicion. Ehtelion stared back at her, until she turned her attention away.

 

Findekáno said, “Hello, Nindë! I am glad to find you here.”

“Outside my house, my lord? Yes, I am often here,” she said, with a bemused expression of someone far older. Findekáno gave her an elaborate bow, which was when she burst out giggling. She covered her mouth and looked a little guilty.

“None of that, Nindë! I thought we were friends. Will you show us the way to your fountain?” Findekáno said, falling in step with her. She nodded. He picked up her water jug, after a brief struggle between them, she allowed him to do it.

“My father says that you can’t be friends with royalty. And no one else would believe me when I said I’d met you. They said I made you up!”

Ehtelion muttered something about little girls not having the imagination for all of that, but Findekáno said, “What about your sister? I assume she knows that I exist.”

“Oh, Herenë is off to her apprenticeship in Formenos, and her mistress is very strict. Apprentices can’t write to their family for the first three months of their time there. I don’t know why. It seems like a very stupid rule.”

“It does,” Findekáno said. “And why does your father say you can’t be friends with me? With royalty, I mean.”

Nindë stopped in her steps and seemed to consider it. “Well, at first, Ata said I must have imagined you coming here, but once Herenë showed him the money you gave us for Amil’s ribbon, he went red and said we don’t need charity, especially from an upstart house like yours.”

Ehtelion snorted loudly behind him and Nindë stopped and looked worried. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, no, well, yes, I suppose your father would be upset if he heard that you repeated that, but he won’t hear it from me. And there’s nothing wrong with it being his opinion, I suppose. He is a supporter of my uncle’s, I take it? That would explain Herenë being sent to Formenos. There are certainly many weavers here in Tirion, and not all so strict as that.”

“Ata said he doesn’t want her getting distracted,” Nindë said significantly.

“By boys,” she elaborated at Findekáno’s silence.

“By you,” she said, when he still failed to reply.

“Ah. Nindë, that. I hope I have always acted honorably toward you and your sister. You have to know that I have no ulterior motives towards any of you, whatsoever. You do believe me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Nindë said, after a pause, while she looked him over with a critical eye. “You far are too silly to be bad, I think.”

Findekáno smiled and nearly bowed again -- until he remembered the jug in his hands. He had to be content a grave nod. “Thank you. I am grateful for your confidence in me.”

“As if a prince would ever marry a weaver’s daughter,” Ehtelion muttered, who had, it seemed, begun to feel out of sorts again. Findekáno supposed it was quite understandable; his bag was very heavy and no one had offered to carry it for him.

“Why not? A king once married a weaver -- well, a embroideress, anyway,” Findekáno said.

Ehtelion said, “And look how that turned out.”

They lapsed into a long silence which was only broken when Nindë said, “We’re here.”

The fountain was in the middle of a small square, almost deserted in the noon-day heat. A few stragglers wandered here and there, but there were no shops, no stalls; everything had a closed and dusty look about it, as if without the water from the fountain, the very heart of the place had ceased to beat. A melancholy wind blew through the square, picking up with it a small scrap of cloth and waved it around dispiritedly, like a flag of a defeated country.

“Well, that’s not so bad,” Findekáno said brightly.

The fountain itself was an old one, built at the time when High King Ingwë still ruled from Tirion, and it was decorated on all sides by vines, wrought by from marble. They ran up the curves of the fountain and wrapped themselves around a figure of a woman, seated as though she was observing her own reflection on the now-empty basin.

The woman looked a bit like his grandmother, Findekáno thought, though perhaps it only was warm color of the stone that made him think so. Laurelin’s rays hit it such a way that it seemed like her hair as was golden as Indis’ was, and the expression her face, though worn away by time and the weather, was kindly and contemplative, and not unfamiliar.

The statue’s hands were palmed, and a dark hole look out at them. That was where the water usually gushed out -- the hands were still stained a deep green from algae, long since dried up.

But now, instead of water, a small brown lizard slipped out from the pipe, startled by the sound of their footfalls.

“Hm,” Ehtelion said, and then set his bag down and opened in and began to rummage through it. He ignored both Findekáno and Nindë who sat down on the edge of the basin, and began to guess at the shape of clouds. In this part of the city, it was still possible to see the clouds and blue sky overhead.

“Look there, that’s an Orc,” Findekáno said, pointing one particularly ill-shaped cloud that drifted slowly overhead.

“No! That’s a horse,” Nindë said.

“You’ve obviously never seen a horse close up before.”

“But Orcs aren’t real, silly!”

Findekáno, already regretting bringing it up, said quickly, “Nevermind about that. Yes, I can see it now. Very horsey.”

“I like horses,” Nindë said.

Ehtelion cleared his throat and they both looked up. “I need to go below the street. The blockage isn’t coming from here. You --” he pointed to Nindë, “go get a lantern and come back quickly and you --” he pointed to Findekáno, “are going to hold it for me.”

“Oh, all right,” Findekáno said, getting up. Nindë took off from a different direction than they had come. She came back a few minutes later with a lantern, which she handed to Findekáno. She was strictly commanded to say there and amuse herself -- Nindë rolled her eyes, but obeyed.

Ehtelion took out a crowbar and with Findekáno’s help they were able to lift up of the cover. There were several metal steps that went down into the dark of the sewer.

Findekáno was rather grateful for the lantern -- it gave enough light for them to go, but not enough to see everything around them. The air below was humid and dank; more than once his boots slipped on something suspicious.

But Ehtelion seemed to know what he was about, he lead them to a turning a few feet away from their entranceway. They made their way through a narrow passage that allowed only two people to go through in single file. As they walked, Findekáno cocked his head. He could hear faint noises echoing through the sewers. He remembered the stories he had heard as a child of serpents being released into the pipes and drains of the city by ineffectual pet-owners, but he had always assumed that they were merely urban legends.

He did not say anything about this to Ehtelion, who was busy trying to get the water-pump to work -- there was something jamming it.

“Will we have to replace it?” Findekáno asked anxiously.

Ehtelion said nothing, only studying it more close.

“No, I can fix it,” he said at last. And with a brief smile, he said, “After all, I am a plumbing genius.” He worked a while, with Findekáno holding up the light, and handing him such tools that he might want, until finally he raised a hand.

“Here,” he said, “help me.” And Findekáno sent down his lantern some ways away from the wheel and joined Ehtelion in trying to move it from its stuck position.

They worked slowly, as not to flood the pipes right away, and the wheel of the pump was dreadfully rusted through, enough so that the grease Ehtelion had put on it hardly did a thing for it. It was difficult, sweaty work, and often their elbows would stick sharply against another’s face or ribs, but eventually, slowly but surely, there came to them the welcome sound of water rushing through the pipes. Ehtelion and Findekáno looked at each other in triumph and that was when there was loud noise and the light went out, plunging them into darkness, with something scrambling around with them, brushing against their feet.

Findekáno pushed Ehtelion behind him -- ignoring Ehtelion’s protests that he had a crowbar, for Eru’s sake -- and reached out blindly to the creature in the sewer. His hands grabbed something -- something furry -- and they were licked by a warm, wet tongue.

“How did a dog get in here?”

The dog barked, but gave no other answer.

Eventually, they all made it out, muddied and weary beyond description, Ehtelion, Findekáno, and the dog (carried by Findekáno), into the light of the square. Nindë had gone by then and no wonder -- the sky was tinted subtly silver rather than gold. It was dinner time.

But it was not that the square was empty, far from it, for towards them strode Laurefindil, dressed in white and silver.

The dog slipped from Findekáno’s grasp and bounded over to Laurefindil, his paws out. They all winced at what followed. Findekáno chased after him, and finally caught him just before he left the square. After a while of coaxing, he managed to lead the dog back to the fountain, which was now bubbling away. The accumulated dirt and debris on the basin began to churn up around them, but the dog allowed Findekáno to clean him, and soon he was transformed back into a rather ordinary-looking dog with long, golden-brown fur.

Laurefindil looked regretfully at the muddy splotches on his otherwise pristine clothes, while Ehtelion pointedly ignored him, and began to wash the dirt from his face and hands.

“I heard that you two were here from Mearas, and then I had to ask at least ten different people before I could find this place. But --” Here Laurefindil broke out into a lovely smile, “I decided to bring you something to eat,” Laurefindil explained.

Then, a touch regretfully, he said, “I suppose I should have brought a change of clothes instead.”

“Thank you, Laurefindil, very decent of you to bother,” Findekáno distractedly. He wondered if the dog belonged to anyone. Surely not, or else why would it be wandering the sewers by itself?

“Would you like to go home with me, boy?”

The dog wiggled in his arms, and licked his face, as a sort of answer.

Eventually, it was determined that neither Ehtelion nor Findekáno were in the mood to eat -- not until they were cleaner, at least -- and so the dog was given a portion of the roast chicken meant for them. Laurefindil had ridden to the square on his horse -- which was as light of a grey as to be white, nearly -- but he lead it along, so he could walk with them. It seemed to Findekáno that there was a strange sort of tension between Ehtelion and Laurefindil, but he did not know why. It was entirely possibly that Ehtelion had a strange tensions with everyone he knew.

The dog, though decently clean -- in Findekáno’s opinion, anyway -- was given a wide berth by both Laurefindil and Ethelion, and by the people on the streets. It was true that there was a distinct, doggy sort of odor that followed him around. But considering his still-murky origins, that was easy to forgive.

The sky was steeped in silver by the time Findekáno came home, with the dog sniffing the ground behind him. He was let in readily enough, but the guardsmen balked at letting the dog in.

It took some persuasion on Findekáno’s part to change their mind -- as well as a promise for some time off during the autumn festival -- but soon enough they were in the courtyard of Nolofinwë’s house. Now, Findekáno was not quite valiant enough (or foolish enough) to try to get the dog inside -- not yet anyway, so he lead the dog to the stables and got a blanket for him to sleep on.

“Now,” he said, stroking the dog’s side, “what should your name be? Your fur is a very pretty color when it isn’t wet, almost the color of honey... Perhaps, hm, how about Linnen? Do you like that?”

The dog rolled over, and presented his other side to be scratched. Findekáno smiled and said, “All right, Linnen, go to sleep. We’ll work out the rest in the morning.”

 

*

Findekáno woke to find his little brother’s face pressed into his chest. Arakáno blinked and looked at him sleepily. Then he buried his head back onto Findekáno’s chest and mumbled, “You smell like wet dog.”

“Hm? Who let you out of the nursery?”

“No one let me out, I escaped.”

“Arakáno, you will be the death of us. I’m sure I wasn’t half as much trouble when I was your age.” After saying so, Findekáno sat up and hauled Arakáno to his lap. His little brother did not make it easy; Arakáno could wiggle out of close confines with the best of them. But as soon as Findekáno got up, and began to stagger to the washroom, Arakáno decided it would be better to cling to him like a burr, even when Findekáno began to clean his teeth.

“Aren’t you going to brush your teeth? Comb your hair?” Findekáno asked, but Arakáno only made a face and shook his head.

“Little beast!” Findekáno said, not without affection and Arkáno stuck out his tongue.

“Finno,” Arakáno said later, when Findekáno had begun to dress.

“Hm?” Findekáno’s head appeared out from snowy folds of his shirt.

“Ambarussa promised me that they would show me something that they’d made for me. Will you take me to Uncle Fëanáro’s house so I can see what it is?”

“Knowing them, knowing you, it’s probably a cannon... Or a battering ram. Anyway, I am needed in town today. Irissë can take you.”

“But she won’t! She’s fighting with Tyelkormo this week. She says he’s been unspeakably vile to her, that they are no longer friends.”

“Mm. Give it another week then.”

“Finno. Please! Don’t you want to go? And see Maitimo?”

“Maitimo is away for the summer --”

“He isn’t, he’s come back--”

“How do you know that?”

“Irissë told me.”

“How does Irissë know when I don’t?”

“I haven’t been crawling through the sewers for days, for one,” said Irissë, striding into the room, and kicking away a robe that lay near her feet. Findekáno, who always thought himself as a rather patient and loving elder brother, wondered why he deserved to such obnoxious brats for siblings.

Such was life in Arda Marred.

He finally managed to chase both Arakáno and Irissë away from his rooms, but not before they had extracted a promise from him to go to Uncle Fëanáro’s house that afternoon. Irissë had especially wanted to go because -- “Tyelkormo won’t know that I’m ignoring him all the way from here. I’ll hunt with Carnistir instead.”

“You’ll break your bow over his head,” Findekáno said, rather desperately.

“Then Tyelkormo can make me a new one,” Irissë said, the very spirit of tranquility. Arakáno shuddered, but Findekáno was far too grown-up to do so. Instead, he merely nodded, ceding defeat.

+

As it turned out, Anairë was glad to see them go. “Go! Go! I shouldn’t want you. The house will be filled with Elenwë’s sisters and her mother. Though I suppose Irissë should stay and receive them.”

“Oh Amil, no! Must I?” Irissë’s butter knife stabbed through her crumpet, she looked ready to do violence.

But Anairë was not at all disturbed by this. “No, I shall be enough, I think. But you cannot run away from these responsibilities forever, you know.” She looked around to her children, all present, except for Turukáno, who never stayed for breakfast.

“That goes for all of you.” And she gave Findekáno an especially hard look.

Findekáno blandly stared back and nibbling on a strawberry.

“Me as well?” Arakáno asked hopefully.

“Arakáno, don’t be silly. What responsibilities do you have?” Irissë said, still irritable over her close call.

“He can be the Master of Escapes and Lock-picking,” Findekáno said, finishing with his strawberry and moving on to the melon.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Anairë said, with a distant look in her eye -- Findekáno knew that look, it meant that his mother would soon be paying Aunt Eärwen’s house for rest, relaxation, and copious drinking. Angaráto had told him all about it one bored afternoon when they had had nothing else to talk about.

Anairë sighed. “Arakáno’s nurse-maid just gave notice. What I am to do with you all?”

She followed them out to the front hall after breakfast was over and made both Findekáno and Irissë promise solemnly that they wouldn’t let Arakáno out of their sight. Anairë looked a little wistful when she finally shooed them away and Findekáno decided that he would make sure that his mother would have a really good bottle of wine with her, the next she should go to Aunt Eärwen’s house.