Home's Tale by Haeron

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Chapter 10

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Some time ago in the library of Imladris, Glorfindel and I had sat together and he wove the stories of the festivals of Yule and Midsummer at Gondolin with lowered voice and gentle touch upon my palm. I listened, lost to his weaving, and might have wished palely that I could have bore witness to described events, but more ardent was my wish for him and for the little time we had together in the relative secrecy of the library to stretch to an infinity.

 

How strange it was for me to suddenly have these half-hearted wishes realised! New Gondolin thrived on the same celebratory lifeblood as the old city of the Second Age, and of course, who else better knew how to cherish and proclaim joy than these folk? None, it would seem, if the sheer number of gathered elves was anything to go by. The village square was quite full of people, tables piled high with food and drink and large sections were kept clear for couples who wished to dance to the night’s song; insect wings and ballads of yore.

 

They were of full voice, all of them, and quite merry with wine that passed from hand to hand and lip to lip. I recall doing an awful lot of standing and watching rather than any actual party procedure and felt as though I were the only one the fire’s warmth did not reach; the night was cold, autumn fast approached and I felt the change that night upon my skin.

 

The ranks of the crowd swelled ever on and on. If it had not been for Glorfindel’s stalwart presence at my side I fear I would have gotten quite lost amidst them and vanish into their song and chatter and become a spectral ghost -- transparent. He remained nearby to reassure me and ask if I had finished the wine I was sipping or if I quite fancied food, dance or anything else at all. I shook my head each time he asked and bade him only stay with me a little longer so I might cling to reality. He smiled too, the way one who is just slightly inebriated smiles.

 

In my own sober state I felt the sundering between us even through our joined hands. Perhaps that was why Glorfindel accepted the offers of drinks that were alarmingly in abundance. The night might have ended more sweetly for us both had not glass upon glass been pushed into my husband’s hands, but his levity and kindliness would not have him refuse a single one. So I watched him grow more and more intoxicated until my words of caution fell on deaf ears and I ultimately ceased altogether. He never grew rude or bawdy, mind you, only bolder.

 

At the centre of the village square a grand fire burned, gathered around which were a handful of citizens come to rest from the dance or those who would rather forgo the activity altogether and more passively spend the evening in pleasant, sober company. I was a fool to think Glorfindel might desire to sit with me there when there was so much else to do, but still over we went and he tried to disengage himself from his own culture -- on my behalf! I looked heavenwards and remarked on the clouds, inky skybound tides, that were crossing the constellations and creating entirely new ones. Glorfindel looked up for a little while but his name was being called from the throng and the dimming of stars behind night-time clouds was not a priority for him.

 

He said my name; tentative. I kept my face pointed towards the skies but closed my eyes for a moment or two and imagined we were someplace else, in the library again perhaps, where this might just be another vivid retelling fallen from his lips. It was a base wish, a wish of a child but such was the honesty of it, I am afraid. The separation between us was given physical voice from the elves who called to him and when finally I did lower my eyes to his, his question was asked silently.

 

I nodded, once.

 

Glorfindel kissed my brow, my temple, and it was a lingering embrace that felt as an apology of sorts. To hold him to it would only embolden the voices, would only strengthen their claim upon him. I said his name and he listened when I bade him swallow his apologies, he nodded and I breathed the scent of him but it was marred with wine now.

 

I let him go. Glorfindel rose up and away from the fire until he was lost to a crowd I could not navigate.

 

Time passed strangely then. Have you ever heard the sound of ten dozen elves singing their jubilation when you yourself felt only your own melancholy? It was a strange thing I let wash over me and I became detached from the entire event though I was seated at the heart of it. The song I heard without properly listening and the individual timbres of the singers melded to one voice, indistinguishable and threatening somehow. The lyrics that rang in my ears were unknown; the voice did not sing of any victories that belonged to me.

 

I sat at the fireside with a few other souls who stared as vacantly into the flames or out at the surrounding countryside, and I might have done too had their faces not been lit so brilliantly by the blaze and wonderful to look at. Once or twice one would return a glance to me and we would share a soiled smile that was more a twitch of the lips than anything real. Once or twice I was even asked to dance by very, very hopeful individuals, their courage was respectable (if utter folly, elbereth, there is that word again) but to myself I kept and declined each offer with grace I hoped seemed sincere and impersonal.

 

The elder elleth, the same from previous episodes, was even out and about, revelling and swishing her skirts about to the minstrel song that floated down from a lofty squat hill beneath a white pavilion with silver tassels. Her breath was spent and shallow when she spied my silhouette and came to sit beside me. She smiled, melting the years from her countenance most beautifully in a way that reminded me of Celebrían. She asked what I was doing and my wordless gaping explained quite clearly enough. She raised a delicate brow and shook her head, ‘This will not do at all, Erestor.’

 

No, it wouldn’t. When I said so I looked beyond her; the mountains were greyed to black and far, far away. I wondered how dark the sea would be tonight and if the waves would lap blackly on the beaches, I wondered how dark the opposite shore would be and if there were any still living there who might care for such things. The elleth clicked her fingers inches from my face and I tore myself from grimness with a slight start. I heard the song again, the lilting of the elf-flute and the hollers and shouts of frolicking elves dancing with swift feet and high spirit and the sounds were all so very real and present; time moved strangely, and strange things an immortal elf will feel when he loses his affiliation with time.

 

‘Shall we send you to Tirion so you can brood with the other old elves in dusty robes? You’re being ridiculous,’

 

‘That’s my word. You can’t use my own word against me.’

 

She laughed. She bowed her head and shook it.

 

‘It is forbidden to fret so deeply and constantly on the day of festival, my young one. Here, I would not have thought you would break our rules, Erestor, of all people!’ she could not hide the smirk on her face nor the once in her voice. How much apple wine and good ale has passed her lips? A prudent question that was more prudently kept unasked.

 

‘Pay me no heed! I’d not sap your happiness from the celebrations, put me from your thoughts and dance, return to them and turn your mind from me.’

 

‘I could no sooner ignore you than I could ignore a splinter in the heel of my foot,’ here she laughed at the expression on my face. ‘And so says I with all fondness imaginable, of course!’

 

‘Indeed?’

 

‘Indeed.’ she said, copying my cadence with another wry smirk. Incredibly and despite the apple wine that I could indeed smell on her breath, she become serious in the blink of an eye and demanded my attention. ‘The night is for you both, as one and as two. Glorfindel seeks only to rediscover a bit of his past self and connect with what was and has been, permit him that and find your own joy in our merry rabble, Gondolin, New Gondolin I should say, loves and frees all on nights like these!’

 

Yes, yes, she had quite aptly honed in on the source of my fretting but how could I rightly tell her that it was Glorfindel’s rediscovery of himself that set me to fears!? The night was perfectly indicative of Gondolin during her height and fame and so close to the tales Glorfindel had told me. He would find the past here as alive and renewed as he was himself, he would find the person he was who he had been in the company of the elves who’d come out to play, with a glass in each hand and a bright smile lighting his face.

 

The elder mercifully took my blatant gape of horror for contemplation. She gave my hands a squeeze and hopped to her feet more agilely than I was sure I’d ever manage again.

 

‘The dancing calls to you just as it does to him, forget yourself tonight and come.’ she said, a parting pearl of wisdom that echoed about my head for a time as I watched her leave and melt into the crowd, like butter into a warm scone.

 

***

 

The night intensified around me as the hour grew so late it became early. Here dwelt elves much more thickblooded than the folk I had grown and lived with for the better part of my life and their tolerance for drink was impeccable if marginally alarming. My sensibilities were quite unneeded, as you might imagine, and I had long since resigned myself to the post of observer rather than participant. But something was bubbling my own blood that could not be attributed to drink.

 

I turned my head to try and catch a breeze on my cheek that might dissuade the sensation but there was only the warm lick of the bonfire that roused me sluggishly to my feet, lest it be allowed to blaze and ignite the spark that’d set me afire, also. What I planned to do once stood, I had no idea, and so meandered through the crowd for a time and smiled and nodded and clapped strangers on the back when they greeted me as brother and asked where I had been hiding for so long.

 

My excuses were satisfactory, the night was not for quarrelling or suspicions anyway. I took bold sips of the ale they passed me and swigged as easily as though it were water. My eyes stung to remind me of my own fragility, but I ignored the warnings of my body and drank steadily more. The ale burned as furiously as a liquid fire one may imbibe, and the elves who were removing their cloaks or overcoats suddenly seemed more rational to me.

 

I even danced over the carpet of well stitched garments cast to the ground with an elleth whose name I cannot remember, though I doubt she would remember mine, either. She laughed and was pliant and energetic in my arms and it took the bulk of my will to keep up in time with her. She named me something in Quenya that made me blink, but then she giggled and swept us away dancing once again. With a final spin and a shallow bow, I sent her on her way and she carolled my new Quenyan name as I walked, her voice lifted above the din of the music just barely until she too, like everyone else, fell into the crowd.

 

It became clear to me that I was searching for Glorfindel, ignoring how I might be deadweight at his side at worst and a mute shadow at best, but I felt I must see him to check his wellbeing and keep myself from losing all scruples. But the ale had sunk to my feet, apparently, and my steps were ill-placed so that I stumbled often and had to cling to arms of strangers I did not know to keep myself from falling. But their ire did not flare at being so wildly clawed at. Instead, the elves would chuckle and help me along; it was strange, strange indeed and my head swam horribly and warped their smiling faces. I moved on quickly, and if I seemed rude for not granting them my thanks or even a passing smile -- so be it, or such was my adopted attitude.

 

An ill thing it is when a counsellor forgets his manners, thought I, and yet my endeavour to behave rather more responsibly lasted what, a handful of seconds at best? For there he was, waving at me and beckoning across the crowd with a request to join him. Ecthelion.

 

He’d know where Glorfindel was, surely, but I deemed myself not yet so desperate to find him that I’d rely upon the object of my envy to provide me with answers. I soundly ignored him despite having met his eyes. His waving stopped though his arm remained raised, was he shocked at the height of my pride? Snobbery better describes it, in truth, and no amount of Noldorin genes can excuse such an act.

 

I was too stubborn to regret it that night, though each elf I asked (and I asked no small number) of Glorfindel’s whereabouts told me they did not know or to ask Ecthelion. When I expressed distinctly irritable concern that no-one seemed to know where the Lord of the Golden Flower was, my query was flapped away with a wave of a hand and I was told not to worry for he was a grown boy. I might have scoffed and turned on my heel, spurred by laughter ringing about my ears and folksongs grown tiresome and loud.

 

Nobody in Imladris would dared have tell me not to worry! How absurd, but then I was not chief counsellor in this village, was I? They did not know of the power I once held, they did not know who I was (can you taste the arrogance in these thoughts of mine?). Oh yes, I missed my old authority then and longed for the ability to command a handful of willing elves to hunt down my wayward lover, but I was a simple guest in the home of one mightier than I and each negative answer I received reinforced this quite clearly.

 

Each thread of that life I had forged out for myself, with sword and quill and sharpened wit, was unravelling faster than I could sew patches. I gave up too easily and succumbed to the inevitability of another night where Glorfindel and I would sleep apart. If I had been meant to find him -- I would have, or so I believed. And yet as soon as I retraced my steps to the central bonfire and perched myself on the same seat I had occupied not an hour ago, I saw him!

 

I couldn’t move myself to my feet again though I jolted at the sight of him. I observed rather than participated and felt so very tired that I feared I’d fall even if I did try and reach him. I would fall and be lost under the feet of the crowd that stamped and jumped and beat out the rhythm of the anthems upon the earth.

 

Glorfindel did not look tired, no, quite the opposite. He shone with a light I had not seen in too long a time and beamed at the gathering about him, elleth and ellon looking to his face as though he were the prophet Eonwë himself, come with holy word to spread amongst them. What indeed would he be talking of, I thought. He spun an elleth under his arm, a lazy sort of dance in which he could keep conversation with the others and still delight his partner. My throat was dry and I wished I had the passion left to turn my head and burn with ire, but I was weak and watched and burned with something all consuming and pitiful; a wasting disease of the consciousness.

 

Not even when Ecthelion draped his arm about Glorfindel’s shoulders did I turn away. He whispered something into my husband’s ear and Glorfindel laughed, freely, beautifully, and Ecthelion joined his own mirth to it; all was right in the world then, as the Lords of Fountain and Flower were matched in glee as always it should have been. Bitterness swamped me, that I, the one bound with him, could move him to nothing beyond apologies. It did not occur to me that if I had swallowed my impudence when Ecthelion had called to me that I might be sharing in whatever joke had stirred them to such laughter.

 

What did occur to me was that I could, if I truly applied myself, rise and go over to them. You could, you could, but would he want you there? His raven husband come with rainclouds and doom? I raked my hair back and tried closing my eyes and lifting my face, as I had done before, but the firelight burned through my eyelids and bade me face the present, but I did not want to! There was no sanctuary in the sky, no peace in the night and I felt suddenly ill.

 

I faced the fire, stared at it as if locked in a virulent glare with one particularly nasty elf. If there is nowhere else to look besides the fire, then into the fire I will look and perchance see the ruin of my life burn to cinders.

 

Glorfindel laughed, I heard it, I heard his voice but not his words. He had found himself and his joy, just as I had predicted, and a fool he would be if he did not stay there now, with those who might care for him, purely.

 

Even as I thought so, something within me that might have been my heart screamed no! No, nobody would, or will, ever love that elf as much as I, as fiercely or wholly as I. But they may love him more kindly, more gently, more patiently...

 

And I wanted to reach into the fire and seize those life-cinders to see how easily they might break to ash between my fingers, how black they might stain my hands. Consumed, thought I, it is all gone now, all of it.

 

If again I wept for anger or pure sad sorrow, none could say, for the fire burned the tears from my face.