Deeds of Small Hands by StarSpray

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.
- Elrond, The Lord of the Rings

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Nellas was busily weaving a garland of dark green ferns and pale niphredil blossoms when a finch came swooping out of the trees to alight on a branch beside her head. “Hello, little one,” she said without looking up. “What gossip do you have for me today?” The finch replied in a flurry of chirrups, hopping back and forth on the branch and ruffling its feathers in excitement.

Not gossip, but real news—there was a stranger in the forest, and not an Elf. Nellas immediately abandoned her project, and followed the finch, darting with the ease of a squirrel through the treetops. The finch darted in and out of her sight, pausing often to wait for her to catch up.

Summer was dwindling toward fall; here and there leaves had only just begun to change color, green receding to make way for gold and red. Soon the whole forest would take on the color of fire, and the days and nights would grow cold, and frost would creep onto Nellas’ windows while most of the birds who called Doriath home departed for the warmer climes of the south.

It would not be a good time for someone stumbling about alone in the wood. According to the finch, the stranger had wandered through the Girdle some weeks earlier—this the bird had had from a squirrel, who’d had it from a fox, who’d spent a few nights curled up with the stranger to keep him warm.

Unusually kind behavior, from a fox, Nellas thought, very curious now to see this stranger.

She found him in a glade beside the Esgalduin. He sat on the riverbank, staring blankly into the water without seeing it. Nellas dropped silently to the ground across the river, and peered through some blackberry brambles at him.

Hair covered most of his pale, gaunt face, falling in dirty tangles over his eyes. She thought his hair was dark, but it was equally possibly that it was just that dirty. His clothes hung off him in tatters, and his boots had long ago fallen apart and away, leaving him barefoot. Nellas could see half-healed cuts on his feet and his ankles.

The finch landed on her shoulder and chirped quietly in her ear. He’d come down from the north, from the dark mountains where evil things lived. He’d come alone, and he spoke kindly to birds and beasts, and understood when they spoke back. Nellas listened quietly, watching the strange man watch the river. He is a Mortal Man, she realized eventually. But what was he doing in Doriath? How had he gotten past the Girdle?

In the end, she decided it didn’t matter. The forest creatures approved of him, after all. But she didn’t approach him or try to speak with him. He hardly seemed to notice where he was, and only occasionally stirred himself to eat or drink, and seemed almost more a skittish and wild animal than a person.

This wouldn’t do. Nellas took to the trees again, this time returning to her small house high in the branches of a beech near the river where she could hear always the music of the water flowing, and gathered together a basket of food. She had dried fruit a plenty, and some bread her mother had baked the day before, and some nuts she’d been saving with no particular purpose in mind.

After some consideration, Nellas slipped across the river to her parents’ house, nestled on the ground among some elm trees, with her father’s workshop beside it. Her brother was away with the marchwardens, but she knew he had an extra pair of boots beneath his bed that he never wore, claiming they were too big. She climbed through his bedroom window, avoiding her mother in the kitchen, as she would only ask questions, and pulled the boots out, along with a pair of socks. They seemed to her the right size for the stranger, and Calemir would not miss them.

Then she took to the trees again, heading northward along the river. She paused once when she spotted Beleg lounging on the grass by the water. He had a fishing rod tucked into some roots, but didn’t seem to be paying much attention, instead dozing with his head tilted back into the sun. Any other time Nellas would have settled down to pelt him periodically with acorns, but with her hands full and the thought of the half-starved, unhappy stranger on her mind, she passed on, leaping from branch to branch with practiced ease. The trees knew her, and reached eagerly to catch her, so she never had to fear losing her footing.

Once in the distance she heard the sound of Daeron’s piping, off no doubt in some shady glen where he could compose without interruption or audience. Like tossing nuts at Beleg, Nellas liked to hide in the trees near Daeron to listen to him play, though of course she never let on that she did so—he hated for anyone to hear his music before it was perfected.

The stranger was just where she’d left him, though he’d fallen asleep, much like Beleg, lulled to dozing by the warm sunshine and the sweet-smelling grass, and the sound of the river flowing. Nellas crept to his side carefully, laying the basket and the boots nearby, within arm’s reach. He stirred, and she fled, scrambling up the nearest tree just as he jolted awake with an anguished cry. It was so awful to hear that Nellas almost dropped back to the ground, almost ran back to offer comfort.

But she didn’t. She wasn’t sure he’d want it, especially not from a stranger. Instead she watched, saw him notice what she’d left, and held her breath as he looked sharply around, searching the brush for the mysterious gift-bringer. His gaze never strayed upward, though, and Nellas counted herself lucky. He seemed old and haggard, but his eyes were sharp and keen, if also shadowed with sorrow and despair. She wondered who he was, where he’d come from, what had happened.

He ate some of the food, cautiously, like he wasn’t quite sure he could trust it. Nellas smiled.

 

“Where do you go, when you run off into the woods?” her sister asked a week later, when Nellas finally remembered to call on her. They sat on the floor of Hedil’s house, fingers busy weaving baskets. Hedil had been with the potters that morning, and still had a streak of pale clay on her forehead. “Hardly anyone has seen you these past few days.”

Nellas shrugged. She wasn’t given to lying, but she didn’t think it a good idea to tell anyone about the stranger. She didn’t know why no one else had discovered him—he wasn’t trying to conceal himself—and it seemed as though something else was at work, keeping him from notice, at least for now, and whatever happened, it was not her part to reveal his presence, of that she was certain, without really knowing why. But explaining herself to anyone—especially her sister—had been something Nellas had not thought of before. After all, it wasn’t unusual for her to go days without speaking to anyone but the birds. “I don’t really go anywhere in particular,” she said finally, once she finished the basket she’d been working on. Setting it aside, she brushed bits of grass off her tunic. “Just wherever the breeze takes me, I suppose.”

Hedil laughed. “Fair enough. Ada was looking for you, though. He’s going hunting, and wanted to know if you’d like to join him.”

Nellas considered. She rarely turned down an invitation from her father—and with winter coming, she needed to store away as much food as she could, for when ice and snow made it scarce. “I’d like that,” she said finally. “I’ll go tell him now.”

“If you bring down a deer I will make you a new tunic from the skin,” Hedil promised, rising to kiss Nellas farewell.

Nellas found Tinnion polishing a new longbow, a mighty thing carved of black yew wood, with runes for strength and good aim carved delicately into it, while Beleg lurked sheepishly nearby. “Didn’t you need a new bow just last spring, Beleg?” Nellas asked, peering at him curiously.

“He broke it,” her father said, rolling his eyes. “Cannot even go a year—”

Beleg pushed pale strands of hair from his eyes and frowned. “It was during a skirmish, Tinnion,” he said. “Orcs wear iron shoes, you know, and this one was a great big son of a—”

“Well, what you were doing taking a longbow into such close fighting—”

“It was an ambush!” Beleg crossed his arms, and when his hair fell into his face again he tried blowing it away, which didn’t work and instead made him look like a petulant child.

Nellas bit back a giggle. “Ada, Hedil told me about the hunting trip. When are you planning to leave?”

“Day after tomorrow, I think, before dawn—if this one can go two days without breaking something—” Beleg made an indignant noise. “—I thought we’d leave at dawn.”

“All right. I’ll meet you here.” Nellas pressed a kiss to his cheek and, with a smile for Beleg, took to the trees.

“Are you sure you didn’t inadvertently adopt a squirrel, Tinnion?” she heard Beleg ask as she climbed higher. She knocked a branch on purpose and sent a few spiky chestnuts showering down on his head. Laughing to hear him yelp, she whistled for her friend the finch, and set off for the river.

She found the stranger in another glade, sitting beneath a stand of trees—more sheltered than he had been, though she couldn’t be quite sure whether it was intentional or not. Nellas had followed him in his wanderings, but he’d never strayed far from the place she’d first seen him, by the Esgalduin.

He’d been muttering about a nightingale, the finch told Nellas. He’d seen a nightingale and it had been the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes on—according to the robin from whom the finch had gotten this gossip—and now the nightingale was gone, and he was lost.

Nellas frowned, as a nightingale fluttered to a bush near the stranger’s head. He looked up and watched it for a while, until it flew off again, but he didn’t seem particularly upset by it. Nellas thought he’d been lost long before he’d laid eyes on whatever it was that he called Nightingale.

Then, from somewhere far down the river, Lúthien’s laughter rang out, echoing through the trees like birdsong, and the stranger sat up, eyes going wide. Nellas heard him whisper hoarsely, Tinúviel, and understood. Lúthien was his Nightingale. “Oh, you poor thing,” she murmured, as he got to his feet, only for Lúthien’s laughter to fade away, leaving him with slumped shoulders and a still-breaking heart. She knew what loving Lúthien was like—everyone knew Daeron the minstrel was in love with her, spoke her name like everyone else whispered Elbereth, like the Man below murmured Tinúviel. All his most beautiful songs were written for Lúthien’s dancing and for her singing. And Lúthien smiled at him and kissed his cheek, just like she kissed Celeborn or her parents or Nellas herself.

It wasn’t love like what Nellas’ parents shared, or even, she suspected, like the love held between Thingol and Melian. But if there was another way to love Lúthien, no one had found it. Certainly it could not be expected of a Mortal Man who’d only caught a glimpse of her at summer’s height, probably dancing and singing beneath the moon beside the river, as was her wont.

The stranger settled down beneath the trees again, and was soon asleep. Nellas had not brought him anything new, but she still settled down to watch for a while.

“I’m going away with my father tomorrow,” she told the finch as she made her way back home later, after gathering a big basket full of nuts—acorns and walnuts, mostly. “You must keep an eye on him, little finch.” It chirped its understanding and flew off, perhaps to tell the other birds and beasts. And Nellas went home to prepare for the hunt, putting the stranger and his strange plight out of her mind—mostly—for a time

She and her father went southward tracking game—herds of deer that roamed the forests, and quail and pheasant and other birds whose feathers Tinnion could use for fletching—and returned jubilant and successful, with venison to last most of the winter, and birds to be baked into pies, or boiled into soup, or roasted over a fire till they were dripping with juice and cooked a beautiful golden brown.

By the time they returned home, autumn had reached the height of its splendor, the trees all golden-yellow and fire-orange and brilliant-red. When Nellas woke the morning after her homecoming, she found frost had painted its delicate patterns across her windowsill.

She had not forgotten the stranger in the forest, and now that cold weather was upon them, she dug through her chest for the thickest, warmest blanket she owned, along with some extra furs. She did not use them, having plenty others, and she knew mortal Men felt the cold more acutely than Elves did.

She found him nestled beneath the hemlock umbels, wrapped in the blanket she’d already left for him, and shivering slightly. Nellas dropped to the ground and, very carefully, draped the thicker blanket over his shoulders. He stirred, and she leapt into the branches of the nearest tree. By the time she dared pause to look back, he’d settled again without waking.

Autumn passed much the same as summer had. Nellas watched the leaves fall, twirling on the breeze like weightless dancers, and listened to the chorus of birds that gathered together before departing for warmer climes somewhere far to the south, with great phalanxes of geese leading the way. The whole court of Doriath seemed to flood out of Menegroth to spend the last warm days of the year in the sunshine, dancing and feasting and singing on the banks of the Esgalduin. Nellas saw Lúthien there often, sitting at her father’s feet and laughing with Prince Celeborn, or joining the dancing on the river bank. Often she lifted her voice in song, praising the beauty of the flame-colored wood and the creeping frost.

Nellas avoided the gatherings, except to sit sometimes with her parents to watch the dancing, or to listen to Daeron perform. For the most part she preferred the solitude of her talan or the forest, where there was naught for company but birds and beasts, though it would not be long before even their company was scarce.

 

Winters were never harsh within the Girdle, but this one was even milder than usual. There was little snow, and the forest slowly faded from the brilliant colors of fire to dull grey and brown, hazy with mist in the mornings and evenings. The lack of foliage made bringing things to the wandering stranger without being seen much more difficult, but Nellas loved a challenge.

One afternoon she returned to her talan to find Daeron sitting beneath it, piping absently. He stopped when she approached, and rose, and she realized he’d been waiting for her. “Hello, Daeron,” she said, dropping lightly to the ground. Leaves crunched beneath her feet. “What brings you out here? I thought you hated the cold.”

He wrinkled his nose. “I do. But I wished to speak with you.”

“Oh. Well, then, come up. I think I have mulled cider.”

As Nellas warmed the cider, Daeron settled himself beside her stove, rubbing his chapped hands together as he peered around the small talan. “Very cozy,” he remarked.

“Thank you. I’m afraid it’s not nearly as grand as Menegroth’s halls…”

“No, but it suits you, I think.” Daeron accepted a mug and took a sip. “Ah, that is good.”

“It’s my sister’s recipe, but I think she’ll shoot you if you try to get her to share it.” Nellas settled herself on the floor, and drew some furs over her legs before sipping her own cider.

Daeron laughed. “I shall keep that in mind.”

“What did you want to speak with me about? If you’ve a new song I will happily listen, but I don’t know if I can offer criticism.”

“No, nothing like that—Nellas, you spend all your time out in the forest. You must see many things.”

“I suppose…is it the winter habits of foxes or badgers you are interested in? Because I saw a fox today that—”

“No, I just—last summer I was piping for Lúthien; she was dancing beside the river, and singing, but I thought I saw something in the brush. A person, perhaps? I didn’t get a very good look, and no one else has reported seeing any strangers. But it has been bothering me ever since, the thought that someone might have slipped through the Queen’s Girdle, somehow. Perhaps I should have said something before, but it always seemed to slip my mind.”

Nellas blinked at him. “What sort of someone? Surely not an orc—”

“I don’t know—I don't think so. I was hoping perhaps you could say.”

She had not expected this. But perhaps she should have. The stranger had seen Lúthien at least once, and gotten enough of a look to fall in love or in awe with her, and Nellas knew that where Lúthien was dancing, Daeron was usually not far away. And then she thought, suddenly, wildly—why not tell Daeron the truth? The stranger was obviously not an orc, and she did not believe he posed any threat at all to Doriath. She’d come to suspect he was a victim of the Dagor Bragollach, driven from his home somewhere in Dorthonion, perhaps, and fleeing the Enemy had come somehow to Neldoreth. Wouldn’t it be better for him to find aid and shelter in Menegroth, instead of enduring the winter mists alone?

But something whispered to her, in the wind through the trees outside and the crackling of her fire and the beat of her own heart, not yet, not yet. It is not for you to reveal him—not yet!

Nellas shook her head. “I’ve not seen anything that could possibly be a threat to Doriath,” she said. “If there were such a person—or creature—surely the Queen would know.”

Daeron sighed. “Ah, you’re right, of course. Maybe it was a young bear. Mablung was talking last summer about a mother and her cubs he’d seen splashing around in the Esgalduin.”

“Perhaps,” Nellas said, and sipped her cider. “You needn’t worry about bears, Daeron. They’re far more likely to turn and run than they are to attack, unless it’s a mother defending her cubs—and even then, I knew a bear well enough a few years ago that she let me wrestle with her cubs.”

“Of course you did. And there is a pack of wolves in Region that think of you as one of their own, hm?”

Nellas laughed. “No, but to hear my brother tell it—”

“I can never tell if you are teasing me,” Daeron complained, but he was smiling. “Perhaps Beleg is right and there really is squirrel blood in your veins.” He finished his cider and stood to wrap his cloak around his shoulders again. “Thank you for the cider, Nellas. And the company.”

“You are welcome to visit any time,” Nellas said, rising to see him to the talan’s edge.

“As you are in Menegroth—you should at least come to the Midwinter festivities. I have new songs to perform.”

“Perhaps.” Nellas remembered Midwinters from when she was small—there was much dancing and singing and feasting. But she remembered better the discomfort of looking up and up and seeing only stone where there should have been sky. The stone trees and carved vines and jeweled flowers and leaves were all very beautiful, and the Elves and Dwarves who had carved them long ago had been skilled indeed—but Nellas would take the ugliest, most gnarled old crabapple tree over a vaulted expanse of stone any day.

She did consider going, and made it almost to Menegroth’s great gates before deciding she really would much rather spend Midwinter’s night watching the stars.

 

Spring seemed to come suddenly that year, in a burst of warm sunshine and birdsong. The frozen river cracked like thunder as the ice began to thaw, and soon it was flowing along as merrily as ever, swollen with snow melt from hills and mountains in the north.

Nellas watched the water flow from a tree branch that jutted out over the water. It trembled in the breeze, but she was not afraid of falling. Somewhere nearby Lúthien was singing with joy so keen it pierced the heart, and Nellas fancied she could already smell the perfume of niphredil blossoming in the meadows where Lúthien danced.

Then Lúthien’s song ceased mid-verse, and Nellas leaped to her feet, hearing a familiar, hoarse voice cry out, “Tinúviel! Tinúviel!” The forest echoed with his plaintive cry, shuddering through the still-bare branches, nearly drowning the music of the Esgalduin.

Nellas raced through the trees, and then dropped to the ground, searching for the stranger, and for Lúthien, but though she looked long and hard, until the sun vanished westward and the stars twinkled overhead, she could not find either one. Some strange enchantment seemed to have fallen like a veil over the wood, hiding the stranger, and maybe hiding Lúthien, if she’d not fled back to Menegroth.

That did not stop her from searching. It took her several weeks to find the stranger again, and when she did it was near the place she almost always found him, near the river, and a thicket that provided shelter. And this time he was not alone. Nellas was so surprised she nearly fell out of the tree, catching herself just in time.

He sat on her blankets, both spread out over the pale new grass, and Lúthien sat behind him, a pair of shears in her hand and laughter on her lips. She snipped carefully at his wild tangles; he’d already trimmed his beard, and with a smile on his face he looked years and years younger than Nellas had thought he was. Hardship had aged him terribly, but joy had returned him to youth.

“—get these blankets, Beren? And those boots? You did not bring them from beyond the mountains. They are of Elven-make,” Lúthien was saying. Nellas felt her face flush red, even though she could not be seen.

“I know not. The past year seems like a dream I can hardly recall.” The stranger—no, Beren was his name—ran his fingers over the weave. “The Elves have strange customs of hospitality!”

Lúthien laughed. “It is no custom I have ever heard! But perhaps your benefactor was only shy, and that is what keeps her in the trees now, watching us like the squirrel Beleg calls her!” Her grey eyes rose to Nellas, twinkling with mirth. “Come down, Nellas, and join us! I’ve missed your merry face these winter months.”

“Beleg had best be careful, or I shall set real squirrels to throwing acorns at him whenever he passes!” Nellas dropped to the ground and crossed her arms. Lúthien laughed again, and Beren looked up, startled, and then smiled. “Hello, Stranger!”

“Hello, Nellas,” he said. His voice was no longer rough and broken from disuse, and Nellas found it was truly pleasant to listen to. “It seems I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

She shook her head and sank onto the edge of the blanket. “I only wanted to help—and I am glad to see that I did.” Niphredil was blooming all around them, and she plucked a handful of blossoms to begin weaving them together into a garland. Lúthien pressed her for tales of the forest that spring, and she told them about all the nests she had found so far, and of the baby deer that had been born, and of the new cub she was expecting to emerge with its mother from her favorite den any day now.

After that the spring passed as idyllically as any springtime could. Lúthien could not always come walk and dance with Beren, but Nellas had no duties to die her to anyone, and she spent many days speaking and laughing with Beren. He taught her the language of the People of Bëor, and some of their songs and old tales, and—haltingly—told her of the Dagor Bragollach, and the fate of his father Barahir and his last companions. When Nellas asked him how he’d come through the Ered Gorgoroth, though, he shook his head, and refused to speak of it. When she saw the horror in his eyes, she swiftly changed the subject to a silly tale about a badger that had once nearly bitten off Beleg’s fingers.

She had not thought at first that Lúthien cared for Beren any differently than she cared for her other friends—but Nellas soon realized that was wrong. The heart of fair Lúthien had at last been given away, and her singing that spring was all the sweeter for it, and even the Sun herself seemed to shine all the brighter for it.

 

In the middle of summer Nellas went to spend the day with her father, helping him gather wood suitable for making into staffs and bows and spears. In the afternoon Beleg found them, and called out, “Hello, Tinnion! And well met, Little Squirrel, what brings you down from your tree?”

Nellas tossed her hair out of her eyes and glanced up into the trees. A moment later Beleg yelped as a handful of nuts rained down on him. “Ow, Nellas!”

“It’s what you get for teasing,” she informed him primly.

“I hope you’ve not already come for a new bow,” Tinnion said.

“Indeed not! I only came to thank you for your excellent work. Belthronding has served me well, and I don’t doubt other marchwardens will soon be flocking to you for bows of their own.”

“Belthronding, is it? Thank you, Beleg.” Tinnion straightened and frowned, looking over Beleg’s shoulder. “Is something amiss?” For Mablung was approaching, with a group of soldiers all armed, and grim-faced.

“Cúthalion,” Mablung called out, “will you come with us? There is an intruder, a mortal Man, in Doriath, and the King wishes him brought before him.”

“An intruder in Doriath?” Tinnion repeated, aghast. Nellas dropped the wood she held. How had Beren been discovered? And what had the King heard, to make him send his servants so armed? “How can this be?”

“I do not know, and the Princess will not say.”

“The Princess?” Beleg repeated, raising his eyebrows. “This is strange indeed. Very well, I will come.” He shouldered his great bow again and, with an apologetic glance at Tinnion and Nellas, followed Mablung northward.

“I am surprised you did not discover this intruder, Nellas,” Tinnion said as they watched Mablung and his men disappear upriver. “You know these woods better than any.”

Nellas did not answer; she was too afraid. Ignoring her father’s confused exclamation, she took off running, racing after Mablung and Beleg before taking to the trees. If she could find Beren first—

There was no need. She had not gone far before she found Lúthien leading Beren back toward Menegroth, speaking in a low voice into his ear, apparently intending to forestall her father’s intentions. Being brought before the King by Lúthien, Beren was an honored guest, rather than some malefactor hauled to the throne in chains.

Nellas followed them into Menegroth before she could think better of it, ignoring the twist discomfort in her chest that came with the vanishing of the sky overhead, and found a place in the crowd to watch everything unfold. King Thingol’s face was terrible to behold, as he demanded an explanation of Beren, but Lúthien was undaunted when she replied, “He is Beren son of Barahir, lord of Men, mighty foe of Morgoth, the tale of whose deeds is become a song even among the Elves!” If it were true it was not a song Nellas had heard—but she did believe it. Beren himself had told her there was a price on his head to match that of the High King of the Noldorin Exiles.

“Let Beren speak!” the king snapped. Nellas flinched. At his side the Queen gazed with an unreadable expression at Beren. And then her bright eyes flicked to Nellas, a knowing look in them. The tiniest of smiles touched her lips, and Nellas relaxed.

Then Beren did speak, and the pride of the House of Bëor rang in his voice, though he left the whole court speechless; a hush fell over the great throne room, broken only by the sweet sound of silver fountains. When he held up his father’s ring, many eyes strayed to Lady Galadriel, Felagund’s own sister, but she stood still as a statue and as unreadable, beside Prince Celeborn, who was not watching Beren or his wife, but instead Lúthien.

Whatever Nellas had expected when she followed Lúthien and Beren into Menegroth, it was not to hear the king demand of Beren a Silmaril. A Silmaril! The famed Jewels that held trapped inside them the light of Laurelin and Telperion from whom the Sun and Moon had come! Nellas was not the only one who gasped. She saw Lúthien’s fists clench in her skirts.

But even more shocking was Beren’s reply—he laughed! “For little price to Elvenkings sell their daughters: for gems, and things made by craft. But if this be you will, Thingol, I will perform it. And when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown; for you have not looked the last upon Beren son of Barahir!”

He boldly kissed Lúthien farewell before he strode from the hall with his head held high, the emeralds on his ring glinting like small green stars.

The Queen was speaking to the King, but Nellas was not listening. She slipped out of Menegroth and went after Beren, but he was already gone. She stood on the bridge over the river, and though it was summer the wind seemed suddenly cold.

 

With Beren’s departure a change came over Doriath—and not for the better. Lúthien did not sing or dance beside the river anymore, and for a long while she refused to speak to Daeron. For it was Daeron who had spied she and Beren laughing together in the forest, and had gone straight to the King. And while Lúthien did not sing, he did not play, and Doriath fell silent.

“The Queen thinks Thingol has wrought the kingdom’s doom in this,” Beleg said. He and Nellas sat beside the river, idly tossing pebbles into the water. “It is ill for you, whether Beren fail in his errand, or achieve it, I heard her say, for you have doomed either your daughter, or yourself. And now is Doriath drawn within the fate of a mightier realm.”

Nellas shook her head sadly. “And what did the King say?”

“That he would not sell to Elves or Men what he cherishes above all other treasure—meaning Lúthien, of course.”

“Fathers should not sell their daughters to anyone,” Nellas said. “Lúthien’s heart and hand are hers to give, if she will.”

“It seems to me she’s already given her heart. Poor Daeron,” Beleg shook his head, pale hair falling into his eyes. “All his years of pining have come to naught.”

Nellas had thought once that Beren loved Lúthien the way Daeron did—something nearer worship than real love—and maybe at first that was true, but it had not remained so. Nellas was fond of Daeron, but if Lúthien had ever returned his affections she did not think he would have known what to do, and it would have all come to a very sad end.

Not that this was coming to an end any happier. “Is it true that Beren’s deeds are a matter of song even among the Elves?” Nellas asked. “I have not heard any such songs.”

“Because you never go into Menegroth where they are sung!” Beleg tugged at one of her curls. “Yes, it is true. I was astonished when Mablung told me it was Beren son of Barahir we were to apprehend as though he were some common criminal! I am glad Lúthien forestalled us; I would have never been able to visit Brethil again if I’d put Beren in chains.”

“Why?”

“Because his mother dwells there. Emeldir, called the Manhearted by many. She led a remnant of the People of Bëor out of Dorthonion during the Bragollach, mostly women and children. They came over the mountains at great peril, and into Brethil. Now that is a feat worthy of song! Yet none have put it into verse.”

“And now they dwell in Brethil? Poor Beren, he came so near his kin and never knew!”

“Only a few still live among the Haladin,” Beleg said. “They do not have the resources. Most went on to Dor-lómin, and were welcomed by the Folk of Hador. Only those too old or too sick or hurt to travel any farther remained in Brethil.”

“Still,” Nellas said.

Beleg shrugged a shoulder and tossed another rock into the water with a low ka-plunk. “Poor Beren, that he feels he must brave the Enemy’s very throne room to win Lúthien’s hand! Neither we nor his mother will ever see him again, I fear.” He sighed and rose. “Alas, Little Squirrel, I must go. I’m wanted on the eastern marches in two days’ time.”

Nellas got to her feet. “Farewell, Beleg. Be careful of your bow! It would not do to harm your namesake!”

Beleg raised his eyes skyward. “Ai, Elbereth! You will never let me forget that, will you?”

“I will stop reminding you if you stop calling me Little Squirrel.”

“But it is so apt a name! Ah, well, we all have our burdens to bear.” Beleg grinned at her and tugged at her curls again. “Farewell, Nellas!”

Once Beleg was gone, Nellas wandered along the river bank, occasionally tossing pebbles into the stream and watching the ripples flow away downstream. It was not long before she neared Menegroth, and as she did she heard odd noises—hammering and sawing, and also shouting.

Nellas rounded a bend and stopped, dropping the last pebble in her hand to the ground. Elves were scurrying like ants about the great tree called Hírilorn, and it seemed they were just as busy—building a house, of all things, high in the branches! The king stood beneath, arms crossed over his chest and hair flowing over his shoulders in a river of silver. Lúthien stood before him, white-faced and nearly incandescent with rage, face white amid the shadows of her hair and her eyes burning like stars.

The folk of Doriath could only watch in astonishment as Lúthien was imprisoned in Hírilorn. Nellas heard murmurs both for and against Daeron for again betraying her to the king—and for and against Lúthien for trying to leave the safety of Doriath in the first place to follow Beren.

Then one moonless night Nellas woke to a tapping on her window. She lay still for a moment, thinking she’d imagined it—but then it came again, like someone had tossed a pine cone against the shutters. Warily, Nellas crept to the window and pushed the shutters open, peering into the darkness below, and seeing nothing. The night air was cool and smelled of pine and leaf mold, but there was something thrumming in the air, a tension or a power at work beyond Nellas’ understanding.

It reminded her of the feeling she’d had about Beren, when she’d been so sure she should not betray his presence to anyone else in Doriath.

“Nellas!” There was movement below, and Lúthien pushed back the hood of her cloak, which had hidden her utterly in the shadows before. Her face was pale in the gloom, and her hair had been shorn about her ears. It made her look strangely young.

“Princess!” Nellas gaped at her. “What are you doing?”

“I need your help, please!”

Nellas immediately cast down the rope ladder she kept near the door, and in moments Lúthien was sitting on the floor, while Nellas lit a lamp. She saw immediately why she had not noticed Lúthien beneath her talan at first—she was wearing a cloak that seemed woven of living shadow. “How did you escape the house in Hírilorn?” Nellas asked.

Lúthien’s smile was knife-sharp. “I am the daughter of Melian the Maia, am I not? The arts of enchantment are no mystery to me. But the many paths of the forest are.” She leaned forward. “Nellas, you knew of Beren for nearly a year and did not betray him to my father. I must ask you to speak of this to no one.”

“I won’t,” Nellas said immediately. “I swear, I will tell no one where you went.”

“I hate to ask you to lie—”

“I will not have to lie, Princess. No one will ask me.”

Lúthien’s smile was softer this time. “Thank you, Nellas. Would I had thought to come to you sooner. I must leave Doriath, I must go after Beren—my mother has told me he is trapped in the dungeons of Gorthaur, in Tol-en-Gaurhoth, along with my cousin Finrod Felagund.” Nellas shivered. “I must go—there is no one else! I would save him—and Finrod, too, if I can! Will you help me? You know the game trails of Neldoreth and Region better than anyone.”

“Of course I will guide you,” Nellas said. How could she not? Lúthien was not the only one who cared for Beren—though she was perhaps the only one who could save him. “And more—have you no food or drink? You will be of no use to anyone if you faint from hunger ere you ever reach Sirion!”

Nellas guided Lúthien through a tangle of paths, the pair of them passing silent and fleet-footed as deer, until the mists and enchanted shadows of Melian’s Girdle began to appear around them, ready to confuse and ensnare any evil thing that tried to enter Doriath. There Nellas stopped, and Lúthien embraced her before slipping away, vanishing almost immediately thanks to her shadow-cloak. Nellas did not linger before turning back toward home.

She did not reach her talan until midday, when the Sun was high and the mists burned away, and there she found Daeron pacing the ground below, face ashen-grey and hands shaking. “Nellas!” he cried when she approached, “Nellas, where have you been?”

“Here and there,” Nellas said. “I fancied a race with the morning breezes. Daeron, whatever is the matter?”

“It is Lúthien! She is gone!” he wailed, and buried his face in his hands. “She asked of me a small loom, that she might have something to do to pass the hours, and so I made her one, though when I asked what she intended to weave she answered in riddles—and then this morning I came out to see a dark rope dangling from the house over her guards, and they were all sound asleep and I could not wake them! And when they were finally roused and we went up to see—she was gone! Have you seen her, Nellas? Do you know where she thinks she is going? She cannot leave Doriath, she cannot—”

“I think Lúthien can do whatever she likes,” Nellas said sharply. “For Elbereth’s sake, Daeron, you’re as bad as the King, talking about her as though she’s some precious gem or piece of gold to be hoarded away.” His mouth snapped shut, and he stared at her, looking rather like a startled deer. “I can’t tell you where Lúthien’s gone or what paths she’s taken, but if I were to guess, I’d say she’s gone to search for Beren.”

“But she—she can’t go alone,” he said plaintively.

“Maybe she wouldn’t be alone if you’d agreed to help her before, instead of betraying her to the King.” Daeron flinched, as though struck. Nellas didn’t wait for him to respond, but turned on her heel and stalked away. He didn’t follow.

It was nearing sunset when Nellas finally stopped walking—and that only because she came to a glade filled with wildflowers, where the Queen stood, hands outstretched so that nightingales could alight on her palms and her arms. She was smiling, soft and a little sad, as she turned toward Nellas. “Well met, Nellas Tinnion’s daughter,” she said in a voice beautiful as the purpling twilit sky.

“My lady,” Nellas said. “I am sorry, I did not intend to disturb you—”

“You have not disturbed me. It is to see you that I have come tonight.” Melian murmured something to the birds on her arms, and they flew off, all bursting into song like a chorus. Nellas remained still as Melian approached, her stomach twisting into knots. Surely she’d come to demand to know where Lúthien had gone, or why Nellas had helped her, or perhaps she would drag her back to Menegroth to face judgment—

Instead Melian cupped Nellas’ face in her soft hands and smiled. “You have keen eyes and a good heart, Nellas,” she said. “Your deeds will never be recalled in song, but through them you make it possible for other, far greater, deeds to be done. All I ask is that you continue to aid whoever you find lost in the forest. I fear there will be others in need of your kindness before the end, Nellas.”

“The end, my lady? But surely—”

“The doom of Doriath is passing beyond my power. But whether we come to great Joy or Grief, or both, I cannot see. But you, Nellas, I think, will find both and more.”

And then she was gone, and Nellas was alone in the glade except for the stars blazing overhead, and the nightingales singing all around her.