Maglor Plays For His People After Doriath by Himring

Chapter 2

He remembers Daeron and how everyone seemed to be determined that they should be rivals before they had even met. The Sindar pointedly praised Daeron to the skies; the Noldor reacted with undisguised, although often unexpressed scepticism. Whatever their attitude to Teleri and to the Sons of Feanor more generally, even the followers of the House of Finarfin seemed to expect Maglor to defend the honour of the Amanyar against this Sinda who had never seen the Light of the Trees.

When they finally encountered each other at the Mereth Aderthad, he eyed Daeron warily and found the Sinda cautiously eyeing him back. Daeron, he thought, might not have been hearing about him as long as he had been hearing about Daeron, but he clearly had been getting more than an earful recently. Maglor inclined his head. Daeron politely inclined his; then he stepped back beside his Sinda companion, the visibly sturdier and more warlike Mablung.

After that, it all became very embarrassing very quickly indeed. Eventually he and Daeron had caught each other loitering at the fringes of each other’s audience one too many times--unconvincingly pretending a merely casual interest as if they had just happened to be passing by--and they both decided to give up their ridiculous game of hide-and-seek. When they next ran across each other again among the crowds of festival-goers, they grabbed each other simultaneously like over-eager lovers and unceremoniously dragged each other into the shelter of the next storage tent.

A while later, Fingon came rushing in, apparently bent on making sure they were not strangling each other, but stopped in his tracks at once and retreated outside again on tiptoe.

‘It’s all right’, he was heard reassuring concerned bystanders on the other side of the tent wall. ‘Really, it’s all right! Artists being artists, you know. Just ignore the shouting and swearing…’

‘Being artists?’ Mablung’s voice asked, sounding a bit sceptical.

‘Music’, replied Fingon, tersely, ‘some minor differences in the fingering of certain chords between the Iathrim and the northern Sindar which I confess had completely escaped my notice until now. But I’m afraid my cousin is rather prone to get excitable about such things…’

Sometime later, Maedhros touched Maglor’s elbow and drew his attention to the basket containing a jug of water, a bottle of wine and a packet of flat-bread cut into handy bite-sized pieces, which he had just deposited next to him. When he was certain that the content of the basket had properly registered with his brother, he nodded, smiled and quietly withdrew.

But Maglor and Daeron went right on exchanging tunes, lyrics and techniques, taking turns, with hardly a break even for a sip and a bite, until they were hoarse as crows, their fingertips were bleeding, and their arms felt as if they were about to fall off. They stumbled out of the tent into the dusk of the following day, blinking and weaving like drunks on their way to their respective beds. But after they had slept off their musical hangover, they performed together every evening for the remaining duration of the Mereth Aderthad and to resounding success.

For a time, Daeron had been Maglor’s brother-in-music, never mind that there were things he did not understand about Daeron and that, moreover, he often was not quite sure which of them had to do with Daeron himself and which of them had to with Doriath: the other’s complicated feelings towards Luthien, Thingol’s daughter, for instance—a woman Maglor had never met, although of course he had heard of her—which seemed to be reflected in stunningly beautiful but somehow worrying songs.

Naturally, it could not last. When the rumours had reached Maglor that Daeron had obeyed Thingol’s command to the letter and beyond—dropping not only all lyrics in Quenya from his repertoire, but also the tunes, Valinorean techniques and little flourishes he had learned from Maglor, which now all seemed tarred with the same Noldorin brush as the words—that had hurt. It had hurt a surprising amount, more than he expected. Not that he had any right to complain. He could hardly claim that Thingol had had no provocation or that Daeron owed it to Maglor to disobey him. After all, if Maglor himself had permitted bonds forged by music alone to override all others, he might have fought on the opposite side in Alqualonde…

He could not even claim virtue in not following Daeron’s example. Daeron’s audience, in Doriath, was naturally made up purely of Iathrim. If he had not given up Noldorin songs of his own free will, they would probably have demanded it of him. Maglor, in the Marches, on the other hand had continued to play for Sindar as well as for Noldor and he went on studying how to reach their hearts with his music—until the Siege broke in the Dagor Bragollach and so many of the Sindar, his Sindar, died or left and later, at the time of the Nirnaeth, once again left or died.

Maglor is grateful that Daeron had departed from Doriath long before they attacked it. He is very grateful that in Menegroth he did not encounter any of those at the point of his sword who had once fought under his command, by his side, and deserted him when times turned against him. He knows others were not as lucky.

And all the while, while he is remembering all this, he is setting up to play, arranging himself on his chair on the dais and tuning the harp strings.