The Birds of the Temple Garden by Huinare

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The Devout

Slightly inebriated youth are not to be underestimated.

Also, enter Ar-Pharazôn.

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THE DEVOUT

_______Some weeks later

“My understanding,” the youngest of the acolytes held forth, with due humility and self-importance, “is that death and life are inextricably intertwined. With the noble–the notable, beg pardon,”–she was on her second glass of wine–”exception of the inert life, the plants and soforth, all life causes death in order to perpetuate its life. If we fear to be a cause of death, is that not to say that perhaps we fear our very life?”

Saklinzil paused and glanced into her goblet as though noting an approving nod there. In their respective places at the table, the high priest and the king sat very still. It may have been the exceeding dim light in the place, the odd angle of the candleflames under tinted glass shades, but the two men looked expressionless, hollow-eyed.

This hardly fazed Saklinzil, a distant relative of the king’s. Possibly the distance was not so very great, reflected Mairon, given the breeding habits of noble houses. The young lady was classically pallid, raven-haired, and grey-eyed, possessed of a physical delicacy and grace; before having done with her long hair and lavish wardrobe, she’d cut a striking figure in court. Even so, something had ever seemed inexplicably but persistently incongruous about her then, but that might not be chalked up to inbreeding, since it was gone–or rather, integrated–now.

“Or perhaps we consider ourselves plants,” Saklinzil added for emphasis.

Pharazôn clapped his hands, once, in a momentary state of high amusement which was presently ousted by a brooding consideration. He leaned forward a bit, into the light, the mask of shadow drawing back to reveal an aging and fairly unremarkable countenance. Mairon also leaned a ways into the light, chin on the back of his hand, pleasantly attentive.

“That would be a great shame,” the Númenorean king mused, “to be as a plant, passive, awaiting in good faith the blessing or doom wrought by those above–sun, rain, beast, Man… Indeed, such passive things take not the shape of their own will, if such they have, but the will of any which would use them.” The parallel furrows proceeding from the inner edges of his eyebrows grew deeper, encroaching farther into his high forehead. He stabbed the air excitedly with one forefinger. “And that is why–”

He stopped, eyes widening and then settling back into their hooded glower. In the anticlimactic pause, Saklinzil took a subdued sip of her wine.

Pharazôn turned his head to peer full at his host. “What would you say of this tree, Melkrubên? If the histories be true, this mere plant has lived for many generations of Men–of Adûnâim!–and has been regarded more highly by certain factions than are the kings themselves. It neither gives nor receives death. It is not shaped–rather, it shapes those who hold it in reverence.”

Mairon let his hand drop back to the edge of the table and eyed the king somberly. The White Tree had done him no favors in entering the conversation at this junction, but things might still be salvaged. “That is no typical plant, lord. It came first from the Undying Lands. They–do things differently there.”

“‘Differently,’ eh? Do undying plants go about using Men as footstools?”

The high priest of the Temple of Melkor smirked. “Metaphorically, that may not be far from the truth.”

“I am too dense for your metaphors,” snapped Ar–Pharazôn. He took a deep draught from his cup, setting it back on the table with a vindictive clack.

“I should not say that,” Mairon said mildly. Saklinzil noted that he did not seem the least bit uneasy to have the king’s moody impatience trained upon him. “I might make bold to assume that you have seen already what I am intimating. Just before you spoke of the tree, you said…”

“Ah. I was going to say, that is why we do not have dealings with the West anymore. The Lords of the West only ever conveyed, via their smug Elvish puppets, that they wanted us to be as plants. A little garden full of people that they could keep fenced and trained and trimmed upon this island. As far as I can tell, these Valar never wanted us to be our own, but to sit here passively in the shape of their will, so that they might glance our way and congratulate themselves on their benevolence.” Pharazôn’s voice had risen steadily until he was nearly shouting, but on this occasion it did not strike Mairon as a careless tirade. Sometimes the man was eloquent, nearly admirable in his pride.

More often, he was merely vain beyond all reason. He also thought himself clever. Mairon smiled at the man’s cleverness, and at the thought of how little it would avail him in the end. “They are much as you say, lord. They forbid you to venture to the Undying Lands yourselves, saying that it would sap your life, yet there they produce mere witless plants that persist for many lives of Men.”

Pharazôn nodded and nodded whilst sawing a bite of roast swan off his plate. “Where does all this life of theirs come from? If, as Saklinzil was saying and as you seem to support, sentient life must take life in order to persist, then these Valar must bathe daily in blood.”

Saklinzil grinned very faintly. Unlike Aksnuzîr, she’d had no qualms about dispensing with one of the other two who had been captured in the raid on the mountain village. Excepting Oromë, Mairon had never seen a Vala so bloody as that young lady of noble breeding had been in that hour. Saklinzil was useful because she believed everything that Mairon told her about Melkor, unreservedly. She was not particularly credulous as a rule, but most anyone could become so, given a circumstance which validated their own private understanding of the world.

“As I said,” Mairon answered the king, “things are done rather differently in Aman. They need not take life in a literal sense. They simply deny life to others. They would not have you know this, of course; why else would they wish to keep you away from their lands, to conceal from you their faces? All of the potential, all of the experience and innovation that might be, if the lifespan of Men were not so lamentably brief–this they pour like wasted mead upon–upon trees!”

Pharazôn sat with his fork raised halfway to his mouth, where the subdued light bounced off it as his hand shook. “None of it surprises me.”

“What would happen,” Saklinzil put in, measuredly, “if we felled Nimloth?”

The king stared at her, then at Mairon, and food at the end of his fork continued wobbling. “Could we–?”

The high priest did not air the delight which had overtaken his mind at Saklinzil’s suggestion. Pragmatically, he recited, “You are the King of Anadûnê, son of a regal lineage, lord of a coastal empire stretching–”

“Yes, yes,” Pharazôn waved his fork impatiently for silence. Mairon, subduing a jocular thought about Alqualondë, ducked his head to avoid the errant bite of swan as it launched from the cutlery and sailed over him. “I’m aware that I could have the damned thing chopped down right now. I meant, figuratively, could one do that. Even for those who don’t take it as a religious symbol, it’s, well, a cultural relic of great historical significance.”

“That may be. Culture changes, some things lose significance, others gain it.”

“I do not wish to speak of this now,” announced the king, but the thought had taken root. It might be tended carefully, reaped in its own time.

“As you please, lord.” Mairon shot a brief glance in Saklinzil’s direction and raised his cup.

. . . . . . .**||** . . . . . . .

INTERLOGUE: The Garden

Saklinzil explores the garden. It is good to traverse tall grass and shrubs without snagging or tripping on elaborate courtly clothing. The more the noble of Anadûnê dread death, the more they clutter their lives with silk and jewels. Yet the hand of death will not be stayed nor tempted by decadence.

Walking under the long-neglected arbor, Saklinzil looks for grapes. Only a few have put in an appearance, on the sunny top layer of the monstrously tangled old vine. These, the mockingbirds have been attending to. It is supposed to be Aksnuzîr’s task to frighten them away. Saklinzil considers lurking in wait until one of the pair comes for more grapes, then throwing a knife at the bird, but perhaps it would be ill-advised to do Aksnuzîr’s job for him.

She walks north, back toward the main structure of the compound, then turns east and walks the length of the building, first past the low cellar windows. One of the three heretics still inhabits a locked cellar, a situation about which His Reverence has been circumspect. Another acolyte, not Aksnuzîr, sometimes brings food and drink there.

Saklinzil reaches the corner of the main building and proceeds into a small copse of deciduous trees. Autumn is quiet at this low elevation and so near the coast, but a few of the trees sport feebly golden leaves.

It was well done, Mairon had said. It had been her idea, her own, to dispense with Nimloth, and he agreed that it would strengthen their position if they could bring it about. Saklinzil smiles to herself. Hearing a whirring sound, she looks up to where a large web hangs suspended between two low branches. A tiny iridescent green figure strains vainly to break loose. Saklinzil’s eyes widen and she goes forward, until she stands under the hummingbird, so close she could reach up to free it. She could reach up to crush it her fist.

She sits down on the leaf litter and watches for the spider’s return.

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Chapter End Notes

The name of Saklinzil is my construction. Adûn. sakal = “shore/coast [inferred, per http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/adunaic.htm]”; inzil = “flower”.

Adûnâim: Númenoreans

 Melkrubên: Bên appears to be a commonly accepted fan construction of “servant” in Adûnaic (originating from here, I think?). But it does the job, which was to give Pharazôn some thing by which to call Mairon; I got the sense that the former would find any existing option awkward or unpalatable in some way, especially as the latter starts gaining power. “Servant of Melkor” is suitably vague in that one almost can’t tell whether it’s an honorific or a slight.

The occurrence of swan at the meal is a nod to the unique and somewhat disturbing song “Olim Lacus Colueram,"a part of my writing soundtrack for this tale, from Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Readers under the misapprehension that I pulled the hummingbird getting stuck in a spider web out of my imagination are advised to look up hummingbirds and spider webs on youtube, at least if that’s your thing. Also available on youtube, for the soulless among us, are videos of spiders and mantids snacking on hummingbirds.