And They Looked Up and Saw a Star by grey_gazania

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Chapter 5

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Golden light spilled through the window of the boys’ room, the sun’s rays taking the place of the candle that had guttered out hours ago. The red patches on the quilt glowed like rubies, and the morning light glinted off the brass bells that adorned each corner.

 

Beneath the quilt, Elrond and Elros were deep in slumber, silent and motionless except for the steady rise and fall of their chests. Maglor watched them from the doorway, his heart aching in his breast. Maedhros must have brought the quilt out in the night. Neither of them had looked at it in years, not since they had packed it away after Caranthir’s death.

 

He missed Caranthir. He missed all of his brothers. Losing Amrod and Amras seemed to have torn off the scab covering the wound that the deaths of his middle brothers had made, and now the pain felt just as fresh as it had when he had stood beside their funeral pyres.

 

Maedhros was all he had left. Maedhros, and two tiny, terrified, immeasurably valuable children.

 

Stepping fully into the room, he approached the bed and spoke the boys’ names.

 

"Elrond. Elros."

 

They were slow to wake, both blinking blearily and turning their faces away from the light. When they finally roused themselves, they sat staring at Maglor with identical expressions of wariness in their large grey eyes.

 

“It’s time for a bath,” Maglor said, nodding towards the pile of clean clothes he held. “After that we’ll head down to breakfast. Come along.”

 

The boys exchanged an inscrutable look that reminded him painfully of his youngest brothers, and then, reluctantly, they climbed from the bed and began to follow him down the hall. He led them to the bathroom he shared with Maedhros, set the clothing off to the side, and turned on the tap.

 

At the smell of sulfur, the twins both wrinkled their noses, and Elrond crept cautiously towards the tub. His eyes widened when he saw the water flowing from the pipe, and he turned to stare up at Maglor.

 

“How does it work?” he demanded.

 

“It’s called plumbing,” Maglor said, unable to hold back a smile. “My brother Curufin perfected it. There’s a hot spring that runs under the keep. Pipes carry the water from the spring up to this room, and the kitchen, and a few other places. It saves us the trouble of mucking about with kettles when we need a lot of hot water.”

 

“It smells,” Elros said, with the blunt honesty of childhood. “It smells like bad eggs.”

 

“You’ll get used to it,” Maglor said. “Come, now. You didn’t bathe yesterday. It’s time to wash.”

 

Elrond stuck one finger gingerly into the water, and then turned to Elros. “It’s nice,” he admitted, though it was plain that he didn’t want to. “Come on, Elros.”

 

With Maglor’s help, they wriggled out of their nightshirts and clambered into the tub. Maglor could see the bruises Elros had mentioned, ugly yellow-green pinch marks that dotted the insides of Elrond’s arms, and he felt a surge of anger. But he forced himself to contain it, lest he frighten the boys further. The way Elros had flinched away from him yesterday had not gone unnoticed.

 

“I have a balm for those,” he said instead, his voice even. He passed them each half a bar of soap and sat back as the boys set to work. Elrond began washing beneath his arms, and Elros scrubbed at a grubby spot on his knee. “If anyone does anything like that again -- to either of you -- you must tell me immediately, all right?”

 

“Why?” Elrond demanded, the soap squeaking from his grasp and falling into the water as he clenched his fingers. “You don’t care.”

 

“I do care,” Maglor said, still trying to present the illusion of calm. “I care very much. I will not see either of you harmed. Maedhros and I have commanded it, and we expect our commands to be obeyed. None of our people are to cause you any pain.”

 

“Tell that to Galwen,” Elrond muttered.

 

“I intend to.”

 

Elrond didn’t answer, but simply sat staring at Maglor with a look of great mistrust, until Elros fished the dropped soap from the water and handed it to him. Then he returned to his task, now scrubbing behind his ears.

 

Maglor watched in silence, his placid mask still in place, until the boys had finished. Then, one at a time, he washed and combed their hair, taking care not to get shampoo in their eyes. Elros squirmed a little, but Elrond sat as still and silent as a stone.

 

Soon they were dried and dressed, with their damp hair pulled into neat braids and balm smeared on Elrond’s bruises. Maglor would not let it be said that he neglected his charges, not only because he needed them unharmed, but also because they were children. They deserved to be properly cared for, even if they were hostages.

 

Taking them each by the hand, he led them down to the warmth of the kitchen. Cúroneth was already gone, for it was late in the morning, but she had left the pot of porridge to warm on top of the stove. Ólloth and her brother were there, breaking their own fast, and Nelmir waved to Elrond and Elros.

 

“Hi!” he said brightly once he’d swallowed his mouthful of porridge. Patting the bench beside him, he added, “You can sit by me.”

 

The twins exchanged another silent look before crossing the room to join Nelmir at the table, and Maglor smiled to himself as he turned to the stove to dish up the boys’ breakfast. They were making friends. That was good; Nelmir and Arthoron were the only young children among Maedhros’ and Maglor’s followers, and Maglor could well imagine how much more difficult things would be if Elwing’s sons had decided to shun them.

 

“Ólloth, would you watch Elrond and Elros again this morning, please?” he asked, setting a bowl down in front of each of the boys.

 

“Of course, Lord Maglor,” she said. “Nelmir enjoyed their company yesterday.” She tousled her brother’s hair and, fondly, added, “Didn’t you, Nelmir?”

 

Nelmir nodded vigorously. “We built a tower,” he said. “And we played tumbling timbers. Elrond was really good at it.”

 

Beside him, Elrond didn’t quite manage to keep an expression of surprised pleasure off his face.

 

“Elrond must have steady hands,” Maglor said, smiling. “You boys enjoy your breakfast. Ólloth will look after you until I get back.”

 

He went in search of his brother, eventually finding Maedhros down in the storerooms with Cúroneth, the pair of them adjusting their estimates of how much food they would need for the winter now that they had lost so many of their people at Sirion.

 

“Where is Galwen?” he asked.

 

“She took the southern patrol out at dawn,” Maedhros said absently. Most of his attention was fixed on the abacus cradled in his arm, and his fingers speedily flicked a few of the beads. “Three and five-eighths pounds each day,” he declared. Cúroneth scribbled the number down on the slate she held.

 

Maglor jumped in before they could begin another calculation. “Malnas leads the southern patrol,” he said. “Not Galwen. She has the eastern patrol.”

 

“Malnas’ arm is still healing. The wound that Egalmoth gave him was deep.”

 

Maglor didn’t wince, though he wanted to. The attack on Sirion had been a disaster for many reasons, the failure to regain the Silmaril and the loss of so many of their people being foremost among them. But what had been most painful for Maglor had been the number of familiar faces among those he was fighting. There had been altogether too many people from Gondolin in the fray -- people he’d known in Valinor, people he had even considered friends once, but people he had slain all the same.

 

People like Egalmoth.

 

It didn’t bear thinking about. If he dwelled on it too long, it would paralyze him.

 

He took a deep breath and forced the thought away, shutting in the box where he locked the blood and the screams and the death. He’d become good at that, over the years, good at not letting himself ruminate on the memories of the things he had done.

 

“Come find me when you’re finished here,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

 

***********

 

Maedhros tracked Maglor down a little over an hour later, finding Maglor in his study, poring over a stack of the old primers that Ólloth had used when she’d first been taught to read and write.

 

There had always been few children among the followers of the Sons of Fëanor, for many of the Eldar refrained from having children in times of war, and Beleriand had been in a state of near-constant war ever since the Dagor Bragollach. The number had dwindled even further after the attack on Doriath, for some of their people had departed their lands then, unwilling to engage in warfare against their own kind any further. Heledir and Faeldis, Galwen’s foster parents, had been among those who had turned away, though Galwen had stayed, being devoted to Amras to the bitter end.

 

Such loyalty was to be valued.

 

Now, though, Ólloth, Nelmir, and Arthoron were the only children left, and Maedhros worried sometimes what the future would hold for them. They weren’t Kinslayers, but they were the daughter and sons of Kinslayers, and would surely be unwelcome in any of the remaining havens of the elves. But that was a problem for another day.

 

“Well, we have enough food to make it through the winter,” Maedhros said, dropping into a chair. He didn’t say that the food would stretch far enough specifically because they had lost so many at the Havens of Sirion, but then, he didn’t need to say it. Maglor knew.

 

“That’s good,” Maglor said, a little absently. But then he pulled his attention away from the book in front of him and turned to face his brother. “That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about, though,” he said. “It’s Galwen. She’s been hurting the boys – pinching them. Hard enough to bruise, too. You should see Elrond’s arms. It’s unacceptable.”

 

“I’ll talk to her when she returns,” Maedhros said. “She listens to me more easily than she listens to you. But we should probably start teaching the boys our sign language as soon as possible. If she can talk to them directly, she’ll probably be less inclined to try to make her point in more physical ways.”

 

“That’s reasonable,” Maglor conceded. “I was just starting to think about their education. I know they’re young, but…well, I’m not sure how quickly they’ll grow. I mean, half-elven children… Neither of us have any experience with that. I think I ought to start as soon as possible. If the Silmaril is found, and we do exchange the boys for it, I won’t have it said that we neglected them in any way.”

 

Maedhros nodded. “By all means,” he said. “If there’s anything you need, tell me.”

 

***********

 

The day wore on for Elrond and Elros. Ólloth worked once more on her spinning as Nelmir, Arthoron, and the twins occupied themselves and, when they grew restless, she took them out to the courtyard, where they played tag in the frosty air, their cloaks flapping as they ran. Then she shooed them back inside and fed them a lunch of bread, cheese, and cold sausage.

 

Maglor joined them at the table halfway through the meal, with a pile of slates and some chalk, but he waited until they had finished eating to reveal his purpose.

 

“Boys,” he said, “how much education have you had? Do you know how to read?”

 

“Nana taught us to read the Cirth,” Elrond said. “But Pengolodh only just started showing us the…tengwar, I think they’re called?” Then his expression crumpled, and he turned his face into his brother’s shoulder. They were probably never going to see Pengolodh again. He was probably dead, dead like their mother, killed by Maglor and Maedhros and their people.

 

Maglor reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, but Elrond pulled away. “Don’t touch me,” he mumbled, glaring at Maglor through teary eyes. Elros, too, was glaring at the man, with his arms wrapped tightly around his twin.

 

Surprisingly, Maglor took his hand away and sat back, giving the two of them some space. It might have seemed a kindness, but Elrond didn’t trust Maglor’s attempts at kindness. He wasn’t a kind man. A kind man would not have destroyed Elrond’s home or killed his family. He was only being nice to Elrond and Elros now because he needed them, because they would be a useful bargaining chip if it turned out that the Silmaril hadn’t vanished forever into the waves.

 

Probably, if Maglor and Maedhros hadn’t needed them, the brothers would have killed them, too, just like the Sons of Fëanor had killed their mother’s brothers in Doriath, before Elrond and Elros were born.

 

“Come now,” Maglor said gently. “We need to focus on your schooling. You’re young, and there’s much you need to learn. We are the Noldor – the Wise. Education is key. We start today. You’ve had time to play, and you’ve eaten. Now it’s time to study.” He set a slate and a piece of chalk down in front of each of them and said, “We’ll work here for today. I haven’t set up a proper schoolroom yet, but the kitchen is always warm.”

 

Maglor copied several lines onto his own slate – the tengwar alphabet, Elrond thought, though he still didn’t have a handle on each of the letters.

 

“Let’s begin,” he said. “This is tinco. It makes the tuh sound. After that comes parma…”

 

Clearly, there was no escaping this. Reluctantly, hating himself for it, Elrond turned his attention to the lesson.