Emissary by Uvatha the Horseman

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Book 1: Haven of Umbar - The Foundling

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Chapter 1 - The Foundling

The Haven of Umbar, TA 2932

Urzahil's[1] mother slid out of bed and crawled toward the door until her arms collapsed beneath her. She lay on the floor, and her breath came in wheezing gasps. After a time, she struggled to regain her hands and knees, but fell again, and lay still.

Urzahil abandoned the warmth of the blankets and toddled over to her. He clung to her all night, waiting for her to wake up while her body cooled in his arms. By the time the horizon lightened to grey, he was desperately hungry and needed to nurse. He began to cry.

After a time, the door opened and filled the room with light. Urzahil looked up. The woman from next door stood in the doorway, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. Urzahil clung to his mother even more tightly, the woman had to pry his fingers loose before she could pull him to his feet and lead him outside.

That evening, Urzahil sat at the big farm table in the neighbor's kitchen, his feet dangling over the hard-packed dirt floor. The room smelled of smoke. A few coals burned on the hearth, enough to warm the room and drive off the chill of the ocean fogs that blanketed the city in winter.

Urzahil pushed pieces of bread around the plate that had been placed in front of him. The murmur of women's voices flowed over him, the chitchat of the neighbor ladies from up and down the street. He caught a number of words that were familiar to him, but he couldn't put together their meaning.

"My husband went to her village and talked to her people there, but they don't want him. They disowned her when her pregnancy started to show, and they've no use for the bastard. They won't take him, they don't even want to see him."

"Will the rug makers take him? The finest rugs have the tiniest knots, which can only be tied by the smallest hands. They're always looking for children to sit at the looms."

"Children, not toddlers like him. He was only born two winters ago."

"Can he be sold into servitude, then?"

"He's too young. The slave traders won't take them before they're at least six."

The women fell silent. Someone was chopping vegetables on a butcher block, and an ember popped on the hearth, but otherwise the room was silent.

"Do we know who the father is?"

"She said it was Tar-Lintoron. He's from an ancient house, one of the Great Families of Umbar. I hear he's been supporting the two of them all this time: the rent on the cottage, an allowance for food, everything. He even visits sometimes."

"Would he take the boy, then?"

"I doubt it, he has a wife and family of his own, and a reputation to protect."

"Even so, the boy has nowhere else to go. It can't hurt to ask."

A few days later, Urzahil climbed the marble steps up to the grandest house he'd ever seen, his small hand completely enclosed in his father's. There was a portico over the double door, and stone balconies at each of the upstairs windows.

Before they reached the door, it was opened for them from within. They entered, and a servant took his father's cloak and walking stick.

He looked around. As his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, he saw a floor of polished white stone with an inlaid pattern that looked like waves. A long walnut table dominated the room. Under it was a thick red carpet with a complicated pattern of flowers and animals. Recesses in the wall held silver vases with flowers. A sculpture of a fish sat on the table.

He realized they were being watched. A woman with hair the color of honey stood in the entry hall, her body stiff and her mouth set in a hard line. Behind her, a girl a year or two older than Urzahil, with the same honey-colored of hair, poked her head around the woman's skirts and smiled.

"I don't want your bastard in our home, Eädur," said the woman.

"I have no choice, he has nowhere else to go," said his father.

"The rumors that you took up with a farm girl when I was huge and clumsy with our first child were bad enough, but displaying the evidence where all our friends can see it is too much."

"He's just a child, Vanimeldë. He's blameless in all this," his father said.

-o-o-o-o-o-

By the time he was eight, Urzahil struggled to remember his mother's face, even though he still loved and missed her. That fragment of memory was all he had of her, and it was precious to him.

One day when he was walking in the marketplace with his sister Aranelaith, he saw her. It was her, he was sure of it. He let go of Aranelaith's hand and ran to her. The woman gathered him in her arms and kissed him.

"You've gotten so big, I missed you so!"

"Mother, it's really you."

She laughed and kissed him again.

"No, it's Nanny. Don't you remember? I looked after you when you first came here," she said. Aranelaith was laughing too, but Urzahil hung his head, blinking hard. He had no memories of his mother at all.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Urzahil thought he heard voices and came downstairs. It was late for a ten-year-old to be up. He thought everyone else in the household had gone to bed, but a lamp still burned in the dining chamber. Urzahil pressed himself against the plaster wall just outside, holding his breath and listening hard.

"… he's a constant reminder that, barely a year after we were married, you fell in love with a sweet and pretty girl who gave you a son. Every single time I see him, it's like a slap in the face." Lady Lintoron's voice rose well above its usual pitch.

His father murmured something in response. Urzahil couldn't make out the words, but the syllables were low and soothing.

Urzahil was glad his father was never far from home. The fathers of his friends were often away for months at a time, hunting down the enemy's ships at sea, or riding with a caravan through the desert along the spice routes.

Without his father acting as a buffer between himself and Lady Lintoron, he didn't think they could live together under one roof. He was sure that if Lady Lintoron had her way, she'd have his things tossed into the street and the door barred against him.

-o-o-o-o-o-

When Urzahil was sixteen and his two brothers had reached the age at which boys begin school, a tutor was hired to teach the three of them. Pellardur was the younger son of a noble family. He had a University education, but since his family's estate was entailed to the first-born heir, he had to make his own way in the world.

He lived with Urzahil's family as a teacher and companion to the children, a common occupation for the younger sons of noble houses with no property of their own.

Urzahil realized Pellardur would be with them only until his family secured him a position as a ship's captain or an advisor at Court. That's how it had always been with younger sons, first sons ran the family estate and younger sons entered the professions. Urzahil didn't even want to inherit the Lintoron fishing fleet, he wanted to become a scholar.

As the oldest of the three boys, and having a love of learning like his father, Urzahil got the largest share of Pellardur's attention. His brothers were more athletic, and preferred playing sports to studying.

The young tutor tried to teach them enough astrology and geometry to navigate by the stars, and enough geography to travel cross-country, but the younger boys had no interest in the history of Númenor or in ancient languages.

"Urzahil, you're a natural. You should consider staying on at the University to teach, after you finish your course of study," Pellardur said.

Urzahil was flattered, and the more he thought about it, the more he thought that's what he wanted to do.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Urzahil picked his way down the steep road that led from the seaward gate to the harbor below. He reminded his younger brothers to hang on to the railing and watch where they put their feet. The road from the city to the waterfront was so sharply inclined that, here and there, the steeply sloped cobblestones had been replaced by stairs.

The day was already hot, but in the shadow of the walled city on the cliffs hundreds of feet above them, they were shielded them from the sun. Wildflowers grew from cracks in the stone bluff and stirred in the breeze from the ocean, glittering in the west.

The walled city of Umbar dominated the harbor below. Behind the city, on the highest part of the bluff, a stone pillar[2] held a crystal globe that glittered in the sun. It was said that on a clear day, the pillar could be seen miles out to sea.

The Haven of Umbar stretched out before him, an inlet of the Bay of Belfalas and one of the most important strongholds on the coast of Arda. From this height, the hundreds of ships in the harbor, fishing boats and cargo ships and the ocean-going vessels of the Corsairs tied up at the quay or anchored further out, looked like model ships that children launched in the shallow waters of sandy coves.

Of all the havens on the coast, the Númenorians had chosen Umbar for their stronghold when they decided to extend the reach of their power into the mainland.

Urzahil stood up a little straighter. Umbar was a mighty city. With its double ring of walls and so many ships to resupply it from the sea, it could withstand any siege.

The steep road gave way to the level quay surrounding the harbor. By the time they reached the quay, Urzahil's calves ached and his clothes were sticking to his skin. The harbor smelled of salt spray, dead fish, and mud flats. Urzahil breathed it in, it was the smell of sea voyages and adventure.

To their left were the waterfront grog shops, shuttered at this time of day. They turned right instead, and followed the quay along the well-appointed storefronts of Merchants Row where the moneylenders and import-export firms had their offices.

"Do you think he'll let me hold the tiller?" Aldamir spun around to look at him.

"Only if he wants you to capsize us." Urzahil was unsure about the whole adventure. He only went along because, as someone of Númenorian descent, he was supposed to like boats.

Every day when the weather was fair, the fleet left before dawn and returned in mid-afternoon with their catch, great quantities of fish spilling out of the nets, tails flapping and panting through crimson gill slits.

The boys weren't normally allowed on the family's fishing boats. Even Tar-Lintoron usually stayed on shore when the boats were working, saying he didn't like to get in the way. His brothers begged for weeks before their father finally agreed to take them on a pleasure trip on the bay after the boat returned to the wharf and unloaded its catch for the day.

A great ocean-going vessel was tied up at the pier opposite Merchants' Row. Strong men were carrying crates down the gangplank and loading them onto a cart that had been driven onto the pier.

Further up the quay were the smaller vessels, including the fishing boats.

"It's one of Father's boats!" Aldamir shouted. He ran to the edge of the quay, close enough to risk falling in. Urzahil looked at the stone curb, the pilings sharp with barnacles, and the approaching vessel. He leapt forward to pull his brother away from the edge.

The boat dropped sail, turning nimbly and coming to rest against the quay. Coils of rope tossed over the side unwound in the air towards the quay, where dockhands caught them and cleated them down. Urzahil and his brothers watched the boat unload its catch, the silvery fish spilling from the nets like silver coins.

To his brothers, it was just an exciting day at the waterfront, but Urzahil had heard the adults' conversations, and he knew that, along with the rents from a few farms somewhere up north, the fishing boats were the main source of the family's wealth.

"Are you ready to go sailing?" Urzahil turned around, and saw Tar-Lintoron, dressed in old clothes. He helped the younger boys climb aboard. Urzahil, with his long legs, stepped across the gap between dock and boat, trying not to look down at the water, which looked oily and cold.

They found places to sit along the bow, where they would have the best view. The deckhands cast off, and a crewman raised the sail. The boat heeled over as it caught the wind, and they headed out to sea.

They cleared the harbor and reached the relatively open water of the inlet, where cliffs pressed in from either side. The bow rose and dropped, spray dashed his face. It was exciting.

It was hot, and the smell of fish began to bother him. Or perhaps it was the bilge, with its odor of mildew and rotten eggs. He wondered how long it would be until they turned back. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, his mouth was filling with spit.

"Are you all right? You look pale." His father frowned, a chisel-line between his brows.

"Come on, Urzahil. Númenorians are a seafaring race, we don't get seasick, " said Aldamir.

Urzahil laid his head against the gunwale, feeling completely miserable.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"How dare you take that tone with me!" Lady Lintoron spat out the words, then turned on her heel and slammed the door behind her.

Urzahil sighed. He'd chosen his words with care, addressing her by her title and inquiring after her health. The trouble was, he'd spoken them in an amused, contemptuous tone. She hadn't liked it any better this time than she had in the past.

He stormed up to his room, a small space under the stairs to the attic. It was on the same floor as the rooms of his brothers, but it lacked a fireplace, and it had a view of the blank wall of the house next door rather than the gardens and the sea beyond.

He flung himself onto the narrow bedstead. The ceiling over his feet was close enough to touch, if he stretched and pointed his toe. He kicked it a few time while his eye moved over the plain furnishings, a table and chair, an oil lamp, a shelf for books, and a clothes chest that doubled as a place to sit.

Urzahil and Lady Lintoron had never gotten along. He understood why she resented the daily reminder that, in the first year of their arranged marriage[3], Tar-Lintoron had fallen in love with a pretty farm girl, who'd not only won his heart but given him a his first son, a son he seemed to prefer over their legitimate children. But even though he knew what she was feeling, it didn't seem to stop what came out of his mouth.

To her credit, while his father's wife was distant and cool towards him, and treated him as a poor relation, she'd never been cruel. Most of the time she just ignored him.

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Chapter End Notes

[1] Urzahil of Umbar was later known as The Mouth of Sauron

[2] "…on the highest hill of the headland above the Haven they set a great white pillar as a monument. It was crowned with a globe of crystal that took the rays of the Sun and of the Moon and shone like a bright star that could be seen in clear weather even on the coasts of Gondor or far out upon the western sea." Christopher Tolkien, The Peoples of Middle-earth

[3] I modeled arranged marriage in Umbar after the experiences of my neighbor, a Brahmin from India who came to America as a small child. She vetoed the first engagement, which her parents set up for her without her knowledge, with no bad consequences other than some yelling. Later, she had a role in selecting the candidates, and held the deciding vote. Ten years later, she's obviously in love with her husband.