Setting a Precedent by Elwin Fortuna

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Chapter 1

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“My King?”

Arafinwë turned away from his view of the sunset. It hadn’t been long enough yet for him to get used to the vision of the Sun setting in glorious flame, so different from the Mingling of the Lights, so different from the starlit dark that covered the lands after the Trees were gone. He suspected it would be a good while before the Sun became something he would fail to marvel at.

“What is it?” he asked. One of the palace servants stopped a respectful distance away, her face sober, and bowed.

“There has been a…problem. An incident at the market.”

“Oh?” Arafinwë cocked his head, feeling puzzled. There had been several reports of minor disturbances from time to time recently, but nothing that needed his personal intervention. Life under the Sun was neither the gracious secure harmonic flow it had mainly been in the years under the Trees nor the chaotic fumbling nightmare it had been in the Darkness. It was something new altogether, the reality of life as sometimes faulty, sometimes messy. Elvendom at large was still getting used to it.

“An argument between two of the traders over which of their stalls should take the more prominent place. The debate grew heated, and one of the women ending up threatening to kill the other.”

Arafinwë’s eyes went wide. “Threatening to kill?” He felt breathless and dizzy for a moment, thrown back in memory to a day under Tree-light when Fëanáro pointed a sword at Nolofinwë’s breast and threatened to use it. The consequences of that day had been ill indeed, and he had hoped he would never have to hear the like again. “I must speak with them. Have them brought before me, both the threatened and threatener, and the closest witnesses to this. I will meet them tomorrow in the Great Room of Finwë.”

The servant bowed, and was about to turn away, when Arafinwë spoke again. “Who was it who brought the report of this?”

“My Lord, it was Ringeleno. He happened to be in the market at the time and overheard the disturbance.”

Arafinwë nodded. Ringeleno was a member of his council and an altogether well-respected Noldo, who was cautious by nature and not prone to taking sides. “I would speak with him first. Bring him to me in my private chambers as soon as you may.”

Not for the first time in his kingship, Arafinwë wished for the counsel of his wife. But they had parted bitterly and now she was in Alqualondë with Anairë and Nerdanel, aiding in its rebuilding. He was beginning to grow used to the idea that she might never return to him, that they might never be as they once were, but his heart still wrenched painfully at the thought of it.

Ringeleno entered quietly. Arafinwë greeted him, bade him take a seat and sat down across from him. The firelight on the hearth flickered brightly, for the night was cool. A lamp sat on the table between them, but Ringeleno’s face was still in shadow. Arafinwë leaned forward in his chair.

“Tell me what happened.”

Ringeleno gathered his thoughts. “I do not know how it began, but I heard raised voices as I was walking through the square, and made my way over. The market was just beginning to be set up and two traders, Panyare, who repairs small broken items, and Elquasse, who sells quills, were quarrelling bitterly over the first stall-place, just beyond the entrance to the market. The stalls are allocated in order of who arrives first, but they had arrived at the same time, from opposite ends of the square, as I understand it, and both wanted that place.”

He took a deep breath, and looked up at Arafinwë. “They did not touch each other, but their voices were loud and gestures emphatic. They began to insult each other, based on an apparently long history of disagreeing about market stalls. I honestly did not catch all that they said to each other, but my senses alerted when Panyare stepped forward, jabbing her finger at Elquasse, and said, her voice low and determined, ‘Take the place that thou deservest, or by all my strength I shall end thee! Mayhap Mandos shalt teach thee better manners!’” Remembered shock was clearly visible on his face.

Arafinwë covered his mouth with his hand and sat back abruptly, lowering his head. His head was whirling. It was so trivial an argument to cause such ill feeling, and yet it had. The memory of Fëanáro’s threat towards Nolofinwë was also strong in Panyare’s recollection, clearly, and this threat might never have happened, had Fëanáro’s threat not taken place first.

“What happened then?” he asked gently.

“Elquasse stepped back. For a moment she held still, but then, her face white, she turned and ran from the square, abandoning her goods in the wagon she had been pulling. Panyare stood still, watching Elquasse go, then turned back to her own barrow to begin unloading her tools, but stopped. Her face, too, was pale and she was shaking. At this point I approached her.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked why she said that. She shook her head and did not look me in the eye, and after a moment said she did not know, she was angry, that Elquasse always seemed to make her furious in one way or another, and it had been going on for hundreds of years, and there did not seem any cure for it. I then said that I would have to tell you, and and she looked ashamed and began to cry. Neither of them got that place at the market today, for she too went home, taking her things with her. I sat down on one of the benches nearby, and though it was a beautiful day, my heart delighted not in the light of the Sun, nor the play of sweet summer breezes in the trees, nor the lively chatter of those in the marketplace.”

Arafinwë nodded. “Will you be present tomorrow when I speak with them both?”

“Yes, if that is your will, my Lord,” Ringeleno answered.

After Ringeleno left, Arafinwë sat silent in the dark for a while, with the lamp shut off and the fire burning down to ash. It almost seemed easier that Fëanáro, upon threatening his brother, had been taken into custody by the Valar and judged by them. He did not feel adequate to judging this, and yet the decisions he had made himself only recently — to go, to return, to take up the crown of his father that had been abandoned by his brothers — seemed to make it utterly necessary. Instead of battling gods and monsters, he was ruling a little closed-in land under the oversight of the Valar, a king in name only.

With a start he shook his head. That was Fëanáro’s rhetoric he heard, not his own. The Valar were not likely to intervene in this case; in truth it was because of who Fëanáro was that the former situation was judged to be beyond Finwë’s purview. Panyare and Elquasse were not royalty, no relations of his, and their quarrel was notable merely for the height it had reached and the precedent it would set.

These were the sorts of cases he was likely to be presiding over in the years to come. He needed to make the right decision here. But what was the right decision?

Once again, he missed Eärwen’s steady presence. She would have laughed. In all likelihood, the fishmongers and pearl divers in the markets of Alqualondë engaged in these sorts of imbroglios all the time and no one cared if it did not escalate to violence. From the memories of his time spent there in youth, he had heard more than one fishers’ quarrel, if never any involving death threats. But Tirion was not Alqualondë, and the Noldor were not Teleri.

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The Great Room of Finwë was the closest the Noldor had to a formal throne room. Two highly decorated golden chairs sat at one end of the room for Finwë and Indis. The rest of the room was open, and could be roped off to make aisles, or arranged with chairs and tables for formal banquets. Today there were two chairs near the front, one for Panyare, one for Elquasse, and three rows of further chairs arranged behind for witnesses.

That room made Arafinwë uncomfortable, reminding him as it did of childhood days spent standing next to his mother with Nolofinwë beside him, watching as the Noldor came to pledge their loyalty to his father and mother. Nolofinwë always managed to smile charmingly at the women and give firm nods of approbation to the men, whereas Arafinwë was always just flat out bored.

It felt too strange to sit in Finwë’s chair with Indis’ empty beside him, so he asked the servants to remove hers.

After some time, people began to file in, accompanied by the messengers who had brought them. Elquasse was one of the first, her eyes red from weeping. Ringeleno showed up alone, frowning, and took a seat at the back. Panyare was one of the last to come in, and she avoided everyone’s gaze, taking her seat at the front where she was guided by the messenger and burying her face in her hands.

Once everyone was gathered, and the doors to the room had been closed, Arafinwë stood, looking around at the dozen or so people in the large room. For a moment he regretted choosing this room, but knew it could be no other to give the circumstances and the judgment the weight they needed.

He began to speak, slowly and firmly, relieved almost at once that he sounded nothing like his father. “I have called you all here together because I have been told of a incident at the market yesterday which invoked much distress. You are all witnesses to it.” He glanced over at Elqausse. “You have been the victim of it.” And at Panyare. “And you are the person responsible for it. This is my understanding, but I would like to hear what each and every one of you has to say, before I judge if there are to be consequences and what they shall be. I ask Ringeleno to begin.” He gave Ringeleno a nod and sat back down.

Ringeleno told the tale almost exactly as he had reported it to Arafinwë the night before. Elquasse and Panyare both listened carefully, Panyare raising her head up but still unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes.

After Ringeleno spoke, three market stall holders who had been nearby spoke in turn, then six passersby gave brief accounts of what they had heard and seen. In most respects, their stories all matched, with one passerby specifically noting that he had seen Elquasse move Panyare’s barrow away from the stall just before the quarrel began.

Finally all the witnesses had spoken. The last witness to speak was a young child brought by her mother. The day before, the mother had stopped to speak with a friend at the entrance to the market and the child had run inside, heard the two women having an altercation, and run back out in tears.

Arafinwë rose, thanking the witnesses and permitting the mother and child to depart. He then turned to Elquasse. “Please rise and tell me not only what occurred yesterday but what you feel to be the origin of this animosity between you and Panyare.”

Elquasse stood up. Her voice was shaky to as she began. “My Lord, growing up Panyare and I were neighbours and near age-mates. We attended school at the same time and our houses were across the road from each other. Back then, we were friends. We both eventually married and bore children, and then lived in different parts of the city and so hardly ever met save by chance-meeting at market or in the squares.”

She paused for breath, steadied herself and went on. “When the Darkness covered our land, my husband departed with the hosts, and so too did my children, who were long grown up by then, of course. I was left with little resource and had to find some useful skill. I raise ducks and geese, you see, and my husband had once been the quill-maker, but over the years I learned it too, enough that I could make a fair pen when I needed to. I began to sell them at the market once the Sun rose and the art of writing began to be prized again. And it was there I once again encountered Panyare.”

For the first time, she looked over at Panyare. “At first it was with pleasure that I met her, for I remembered her fondly. But she had changed over the years and was not the girl I knew. She had grown hard and bitter, hating that her husband left to follow Fëanáro when she honoured the Valar. One child remained to her, the youngest, but was married to one of the Vanyar and no longer lived in Tirion. So I learned over many meetings. Oftentimes we had stalls next to each other and would chat when things were quiet.”

She frowned, then, and turned to look at Arafinwë. “Last year, some of the buildings in the square in which the market is held needed repair, which is still going on. Part of it had to be shut off, so there were fewer spaces for stalls, and not everyone who needed a space could get one. We complained but nothing was done, for those who owned the buildings needing repair have nothing to do with the market and did not consider it to be their problem. By tradition the market has always been held in that square, and moving it was thought to be impossible. Besides, there is no other square which has the space we need. The day before, I hadn’t been able to get a space at all, so I thought if I arrived early, I would get one. I was surprised to find that the best space of all was available, so I went over and arrived at about the same time as Panyare. I thought I was first, so I pushed her barrow out of the way to get to the stall. She began to shout at me and the rest is what you have heard.”

Panyare raised her head at this, looking across at Elquasse, but did not say anything. Arafinwë frowned, puzzled.

“Did none of our witnesses see the two of them arrive?” he asked. Many shook their heads, but one market trader stood.

“I did not see it, exactly, but I heard them both set down their barrows. One was a moment after the other, but I don’t know which.”

The passerby who had seen Elquasse move Panyare’s barrow stood up. “I did not see them arrive either. I was walking through, looking at a bird flying over the square. It landed on a railing near the stall, or I would not have seen that woman move the other woman’s wagon. But I definitely did see that.”

Arafinwë sighed. “Very well. The question of who arrived first is a minor one. Elquasse, you may sit down. Panyare, please tell your tale.”

Panyare stood. She was a tall, strongly-built woman, but she seemed to have shrunk in on herself. She was pale, and her hands shook in distress. Nevertheless, after a moment, she began to speak, turning first to Elquasse.

“I never should have said what I did.” She shook her head. “I deserve every punishment our King can give me, even to exile. I am no better than Fëanáro, for you were once like a sister to me. It has been a bitter lesson to learn, for I held no sword, and yet my thoughts were filled with violence. I scorned my husband for following him, and now I have done the same as that which I condemned.”

She turned to look at Arafinwë. “Elquasse tells the truth, save that I believe I arrived first. I still do believe that. I should never have reacted the way I did, however. My words went amiss long before the conclusion of our quarrel.”

Arafinwë raised his hand. “That is well-spoken and true. Speak on. Explain what was in your mind at the time.”

Panyare fumbled for words. “I’m still not sure. I was angry and afraid.”

“What were you afraid of?”

Panyare looked down. “When my husband left, he took the greater part of our goods with him. Our horse, nearly all our food and tools, all our money. He left me destitute, and I have been struggling ever since. I have a small chest of tools he overlooked and I have a talent for fixing things. Having that space in the market yesterday would guarantee that I could eat that day, today, and for a few days more. I have no food, I did not eat yesterday or today, and I do not know what is going to happen to me.” She dropped back into the chair, burying her face in her hands again, and sobbed aloud.

“Why did you not say?” Elquasse exclaimed suddenly. “I have enough, I would have given you food if I had known! I would have let you have the space if I had known.”

Panyare swallowed. “I did not want you to know,” she said, lifting her head. Her face was tear-stained, her eyes watery. “I was ashamed, and now I am even more ashamed.”

Arafinwë was speechless, ashamed himself. No one in Aman should be in want of food or basic needs. He had plenty, a great palace, an army of servants, food enough for a banquet if he wanted it, and she had been struggling to earn enough to get by.

But that still did not excuse her words. He took a long breath, gathering himself up, and spoke.

“I have heard what you all have said, and now I am ready to pronounce judgment. Elquasse, I do not believe that you arrived first, for you had to move Panyare’s barrow to get to the stall. Therefore the stall should have been Panyare’s for that day.” There were nods from some of the witnesses at that.

“However, Panyare, your words were unacceptable. You may not threaten another’s life in the land of Aman, much less in Tirion. There must be consequences. I take into account what you have said about your situation, which fills me with grief and shame. It is my failure as King that you have suffered in this way, and I will do my best to ensure that it is put right, not only for you, but for all in a like situation.”

He stood up tall, took another deep breath, and continued. “This is my sentence: that for a year of the Sun you may not enter Tirion’s marketplace, neither to buy nor to sell. And so that you may eat and have work for your hands, I myself will take you into employ, for I have many broken things, and no one to fix them.” He gave her a half-smile, and she returned it, tearful but less pale.

“Elquasse, I have taken note of your words about the building work in the square. It seems to me that the market is somewhat chaotically run. I therefore appoint you, along with those market traders who wish to join you, to a Market Council who will have the power to negotiate with building owners and the right to set opening and closing times, along with other details of how the markets run, and change them as need be.” There was applause from the market traders present at that, and a beaming smile from Elquasse.

“Panyare and Elquasse,” he went on, “we now live in a new era. The old ways of the days under the Trees are gone. The chaos of the Darkness is past. We live under the Sun, in an Aman marred by loss and grief. It is my duty as your King to heal that marring where I can. Your friendship has been sundered, but it can be rebuilt. I ask only that you try.”

He stepped back as Elquasse rose, quickly crossing the short distance between her chair and Panyare’s. Panyare stood, her eyes wary, but Elquasse held out her hand. “I am sorry for my part in this,” she said.

Panyare took her hand but then threw herself forward into Elquasse’s arms. “I am sorry for mine,” she replied, sobbing.

That was the end of that.

In the days afterward, Arafinwë discovered that Panyare’s skills were needed and welcomed not only in the palace, but at the houses of the Royal Council, and in various businesses. She never needed to go back to the markets to find work.

Elquasse became one of the most highly sought-after quill-makers in Aman. Her husband, who died crossing the Ice, returned years later to find that she was now far more proficient in the art than he was. She was also head of the Market Council for hundreds of years, and guided it so well that it became a force to reckon with in Tirion.

Panyare and Elquasse rebuilt their friendship, and when Panyare grew prosperous enough, she bought a house across the road from Elquasse’s, so that their story ended as it began: with them as neighbours.