Fair Winds and Following Seas by bunn

Gulls were crying over the green rolling waves and the long white shores that lay before Alqualondë.  The day was fading,and the shadow of the mountains stretched long and blue across the town and out onto the white beaches, though the sky above was still bright.

In a great arc reaching from the north of Alqualondë and far to the south, white tents were arrayed in long rows.  Serious-faced Noldor in groups of eleven were heading up to the tents, armed and armoured, while behind them, the sea was filled with small boats, Teleri at the oars, ferrying the Vanyar host back to land.   The Vanyar were singing as they crossed the water, but the Noldor were silent. 

The High King of the Noldor entered his tent and removed his high helm as his armour-bearer began removing his greaves. 

“Not bad at all,” Finrod said to him, arms on the table, the only person within sight who was not wearing armour.  “That was the fastest yet.” 

“Unloading the ships into the small boats went very smoothly this time,” his father said, looking thoughtfully out at the great white ships anchored in the deep water, their masts still shining golden in the late afternoon light.  “Even if the shore is held against us, I think we will be in good enough order to fight our way ashore.” 

Finrod came over and began to help the armour-bearer by undoing his father’s sword-belt.  “I hope and believe that you won’t have to,” he said. “Morgoth never showed any interest in attacking from the sea, and I can’t recall a single battle where he tried to hold a coastline.”

“Still, if we must, then we’re ready.  Eönwë has said that the next tide...”

Finrod made an unhappy face as he put the sword into its place. “Are you sure you won’t let me...”

His father shook his head. “Finrod. We have discussed this. I need you in Tirion. The Valar have forbidden it anyway.  And your mother...” 

“Your mother has lost too many of her children,” Eärwen’s clear voice said, as she came into the tent and put her arms around her eldest son. “Arafinwë must go, I can’t change that.  But you... You went with them, and are returned beyond hope. Let me have something left here in the west. Don’t go charging out to die all over again, Finrod, please!”

Finrod looked down into her wide grey eyes and shrugged helplessly. “Sorry, Mother. It just feels terribly wrong, somehow, to...” 

“To be the one left behind, when your people go out to war?” his father said wryly.  “Yes, I agree. But sometimes it is necessary. You’ll survive it. I did.”

Finrod grimaced, and then nodded, giving his father a quick smile. 

His mother let go of him. “Go on,” she said.   “Go, say your farewells to Amárië. She should be back ashore by now.”

Finrod nodded, turning the gesture into half a bow. “Her turn to go; mine to stay, I suppose.”  He turned to go and then swung back. “ Father, is there anything more that I can do to help?  I’ve just been through the plans again.”

Arafinwë shook his head. “Go,” he said, and made a shooing gesture with one hand. His armour-bearer took it as a command addressed to both of them, and retreated with the king’s armour. 

As Finrod left, Eärwen came to stand beside Arafinwë. “Do you think he’ll vanish, and reappear across the Sea?” 

Arafinwë sighed.  “I don’t think so. If he does, then I can’t stop him. I won’t try. He’s not a child to be forbidden his own choices.  I know that, even if the Valar haven’t realised it yet. If he chooses to be on board one of the ships tomorrow...”

“Then I will have lost my last son, again.” Tears were running from the corners of her eyes, but her small face was resolute. 

You could come with us , Arafinwë thought, but carefully did not say, or let her see the thought. To let her see it would tear open all the old wounds again, would break the marriage that they had carefully put back together, these last few hundred Years of the Sun. She was letting him go without recrimination, and that should be enough. Was enough.  

“He knows that.”  

 “Mmm,” Eärwen said.  “Perhaps. You have to let them grow up and away, Anairë keeps saying, but then, all her children and her husband are dead already, and there’s no word of their return.” 

“Poor Anairë.”

“Yes.  Poor Anairë,” Eärwen repeated, reflectively. She looked up at him, frowning, but the corners of her mouth were pulled taut. “If he comes out to battle, will you face him too?  The Enemy, I mean?” 

“I’m not my brother.  Neither of them,” Arafinwë told her gently.  “I am the third and most junior commander of this host. I shall follow Eönwë and the commands of the Valar...”

“You mean yes,” she said furiously, and took him fiercely by the arms for a moment and shook them, before she let him go. “Don’t die , Arafinwë!”

“I’ll try not to,” he said, “I really will.” He opened his arms to receive her as she wept.

Chapter End Notes

The idea that the Host of the Valar needed to rehearse their arrival in Middle-earth is inspired by the D-Day landings, which were rehearsed on the British coast several times over before the army landed in Normandy.

In the dim distance, far in the East, the sails were moving away.  

To Men, they would be quite invisible now: to Bëor, or to Beren, or to Andreth, who he had long ago called Saelind,  there would be nothing to see but the waves. But Men would never stand upon this shore, and anyway, all the Men that Finrod had known were dead by now, and probably their children too. Some of their grandchildren might still live, and be free, though more likely they were slaves in Angband by now.  For all they knew, Galadriel might be, too. Now his father was gone at last into the dark East, and Finrod hoped very much that the Valar knew what they were doing, and had not sent another High King of the Noldor out to die. And then, there was Amárië, tall and golden with her spear that had never yet had blood on it.

He carefully unclenched his fists and laid his hands flat upon the harbour-wall. 

Even Finrod could barely see the ships now.  The light was almost gone, and there was no sound but the relentless, unceasing music of the Sea. 

A light touch on his shoulder. “Time for a drink?” Edrahil enquired. 

Finrod took a deep breath.  “Yes,” he said emphatically. Then he thought again, looking over at the lamps that glimmered before the Hall of Olwe.  “Or perhaps, not here.”  

His grandfather Olwë was away captaining one of the great ships, as were his Teleri uncles and his mother.  So at least there would be no comments from them about Middle-earth. But he was in no mood to sit silent while anyone else in Alqualondë praised Olwë’s wisdom yet again. Olwë had forbidden all his people to go ashore, or to take any part in the war other than to sail the ships, and he had only agreed to that because Elwing had begged him. 

Edrahil followed his eyes to the great Hall of the Teleri.  “No,” he agreed. “Not here. But you can trust me to have planned things better than that.  If we go a little way up the hill towards Tirion, we’ll be able to see further into the east... and  I’ve left a number of bottles up there, thinking that we might want them this evening.” 

“Whatever would I do without you?” Finrod said lightly.  

“Walk home and find your own wine, very likely,” Edrahil said with a smile. “But since you were busy with preparations for the host, I thought I might as well make myself useful.”  

“I’m glad you’re here,”  Finrod said, hitching a companionable arm over his shoulder. 

“I’ve followed you to worse places.  Come on, let’s go and find those bottles.” 

****

The Moon was well up, making a long silver trail across the Sea, but even in moonlight, the ships were out of sight now.  They had found the bottles that Edrahil had left hidden by the shimmering heads of a great tuft of star-oats, and had emptied several of them, sitting sprawled on the short turf beside the road that led up to the pass, and to the city of Tirion. 

“Do you think they’re going to win?” Edrahil asked, suddenly, after a while.  “The Valar, I mean. Or Eönwë, anyway.”

“Oh,” Finrod said softly. “Terribly treasonous talk that, Edrahil, to suggest that the Enemy could possibly be mightier than the Valar.  You can get away with it, I should think. No doubt it’s just my rebellious influence that has led you to entertain such thoughts. I wonder if I can though...  Shall we see?” 

“They forgave you, surely?”

“So I was told.  And yet, Námo said of Eärendil and Elwing: neither shall the rebellious Noldor return, or however it was he put it, exactly.”

“Manwë overruled him though.”

“He did.  I should hope so, too. Neither of them were born when we rebelled, and there is no conceivable argument that I can see by which they could be held to blame.” 

“Truth undeniable,” Edrahil agreed solemnly, and lifted his cup in salute in the moonlight. 

“But Turgon sued for help.  He sent ships after ships begging for aid! Círdan built the ships, and Turgon sent the messengers, and all of them were lost... You know, if Turgon and Círdan, of all people, are rebels, then surely so am I.  Turgon was following his father, but I... I led all my people across the Ice, after Father turned back.  I was the leader of my house in Beleriand: how then am I forgiven?” He prodded fiercely at the turf with one finger.  “Why am I here ?”

“You aren’t going to ask Námo?” Edrahil asked, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. 

“No!” The suggestion struck Finrod as somehow ludicrous, and so he laughed. “What if he said:  ‘Dear me, Finrod, that’s a good point! Back to the Halls with you!’ Can’t risk that, can I? I’m supposed to be regent of the Noldor.  Well, the handful who are still here, anyway.” 

Edrahil lay back on the grass in the moonlight and laughed.  “You do a fine rendition of Námo’s voice.” 

“But apparently not a good recreation of his reasoning processes.”  Finrod refilled his cup and took a generous swig. “And if I can’t even guess at that, how can I guess if they will win the war swiftly, slowly, or not at all?”

“We’ll just have to wait and see. Not a bad place to wait, this. It’s light and airy and we aren't chained to anything...” 

“And no werewolves. That’s definitely a fine thing!” Finrod said, and lifted his cup. “A toast!  To a complete absence of werewolves!” 

Edrahil rolled over and held up his own cup. “To a lack of werewolves.  I’ll drink to that.”

Finrod went down to Alqualondë a few days later to greet his grandfather, his mother and the returning Teleri fleet.  By that time, he had almost entirely resolved that his grandfather’s decision was, if not the one he would have made himself, at least a reasonable and justifiable one. 

He waited patiently for his mother and her crew to stow the sails and sweep the decks and greeted her warmly with a hug when she finally disembarked. 

“Are you staying with Grandfather tonight, or coming back to Tirion?”

She gave him a long look, clear blue eyes almost uncomfortably penetrating. “I’ll accompany you back to Tirion, I think.  I have news to tell you on the way.”

“Oh?” Finrod gave her his most cheerful and unrevealing smile. 

She frowned. “If you were planning to lecture me on how I should have stayed there...” 

“No!” he said, turned to her and took her hand. “I’m glad you are here and safe, honestly I am.  I would have gone back, if I’d had the choice, but I’m under no illusions about the danger.”

She sighed and squeezed his hand before she let it go. “Anairë didn’t lecture me either. I’m starting to wish someone would, so that I could argue with them.”  

“It’s rather unusual for you, of all people, to go looking for arguments.” 

She looked up at him and her brow crinkled quizzically. “If I argued about it, perhaps I could convince myself.  I left your sister behind in Middle-earth.”

“She’s well then, and free?”  Finrod felt as if a great weight had fallen from his shoulders. “I was afraid...”

She frowned, puzzled. “But we knew she was still alive.  If she had come to Mandos, we would certainly have been informed.” 

“I was afraid she might be in Angband,” Finrod admitted in a low voice. “The Enemy seeks out the Noldor as thralls. To work in his mines and furnaces.” 

Eärwen’s eyes went wide with shock. “You didn’t mention that before.” 

“I’m fairly sure I did, you know,” Finrod objected. “Perhaps not in quite those words, but I distinctly remember talking quite a bit about the Enemy and his Noldor slaves, and general unpleasantness.  I went and spoke to the Valar about it with Father and Aunt Nerdanel, if you recall.”

“I suppose you did,” Eärwen agreed slowly.  “I just hadn’t thought that Nerwen...” She shook her head in distress. 

“But she’s well, you say?”  He waved to a stable-hand, who led out the horse he had ridden down from Tirion, and the palfrey that was Eärwen’s favorite. 

“Yes, I think so. She met Anairë on the battlefield, and Anairë brought her to see me before we sailed. She sent you her love. ”  They mounted and rode up towards the Tirion road. “She goes by the name Galadriel, now, did you know?”

“She did mention it, last time I saw her. The name was a gift to her from Celeborn, I believe.” 

Eärwen rubbed absently at her palfrey’s neck as they turned onto the wide sweep of turf that led up to the city of the Noldor “We didn’t have long to talk,but she told me a little about Celeborn.  I wish I could have met him.” 

“I think you’d like him,” Finrod told her.  “He’s a sensible type. Not as wild as she is, but he really is absolutely besotted with her, of course.” 

“Is he?” She laughed, but not happily. “She thinks he’s wonderful, too. And of course, he’s entirely committed to Beleriand, and to the War, and that means so is she.  She wouldn’t consider coming home with me.”

Sometimes it was astonishing the things that Mother, with her keen eyes, managed not to see. “Did you really, honestly expect her to agree to come home? She, of all people, has always longed for new worlds to explore, you must remember that about her.”

She frowned. “Yes, of course I do, Finrod!  But still, my daughter, my little golden Nerwen, going out to war with the Enemy.  I hope this Celeborn will look after her.” 

“More likely she’ll look after him.  And Father is there, after all, not to mention his host and practically all the Vanyar.”

“But not me,” Eärwen said, and sighed.  “Not me, not her grandfather, not her uncles. There she stood, tall and strong in armour with a sword at her side, and I longed to see her happy beside her love, instead of grim-faced and ready for battle. And so, I do wish someone would tell me I should have stayed, so that I could argue with them, and remember all the reasons why I thought I should leave her behind, and come home.” 

“We’ll make a Noldo of you yet,” Finrod said bracingly.  “This sudden desire for an argument is terribly promising.”

Eärwen laughed wryly. “May the Valar turn such a fate aside!” she said. “Come.  My head is all of a whirl. Let us have a gallop, and perhaps the wild wind will blow my worries away.

Kingship was far from new to Finrod. As King of Nargothrond he had commanded wider lands than any other of the princes of the Noldor. But acting as his father’s regent in Tirion was nothing like that.

For one thing, this was Tirion; the city of, if not his childhood, then at least his youth. There was a small part of Finrod that still expected his grandfather to be its king, for Fëanor and Fingolfin to be in command of their respective Quarters. Perhaps he always would.

But more jarringly, this was Tirion emptied of most of its people; the diamond-dusted streets quiet, the workshops devoid of both the sounds of work and of singing.

When he had come back into Tirion, returned to life, it had seemed quiet enough, but now that his father had led out every one of his people able and willing to fight, it was nearly deserted. The few people left in the city were the parents of young children, a handful of people deemed for various reasons unfit to fight, or who had chosen, against their king’s command, not to go to war.  And then there were Finrod, Edrahil, Eärwen, and Finrod’s Aunt Nerdanel.

It was a city built for tens of thousands, now occupied by a few hundred. Most of Finrod’s work was not so much ruling it, as maintaining it. Ensuring that food, water and essentials such as fuel and clothing were available to those who needed it, until the King and his host should return.

News of the war came irregularly, carried by Eagles returning from the distant East, or occasionally by visiting Maiar, to whom the journey from Middle-earth was inconvenience rather than obstacle.

One morning, when the sun was just struggling out of the distant mists along the eastern horizon, Finrod was looking out from the old garden behind the House of Finwë into the east. He was wondering if he was imagining a faint line across the horizon, when the dark shape of the Eagle cut across his line of sight. Rather to Finrod’s surprise, it was heading for him, which probably meant there was a message. He still found it a little startling, Eagles carrying messages for Elves. Usually they considered themselves above such matters, but the War had changed all that.

The letter was written on fine white paper that had been made in Tirion, but the confident letters in black ink that marked it could only have been written by Galadriel.

“Well?” Edrahil asked, after the Eagle had taken flight again, winging its way on up towards the snowy peak of Taniquetil, presumably carrying news for Manwë himself. “Aren’t you going to read it?”

Finrod, distracted from the whirl of thought that had caught him up at the sight of the hand-writing, blinked. “Yes, of course. I’ll read it aloud. I expect you want to hear the latest too.”

Edrahil nodded. He put down his bag of tools, sat down on a convenient bench and raised an expectant eyebrow.

“‘Finrod,
Strange to be writing to you, knowing that you are safe and well in Aman, when I am barely done mourning you. Though perhaps not as strange as to see Father arrive upon these shores with a host behind him; I never expected to live long enough to see that! Not after all the great kingdoms fell, one after another.

“I suppose that dying is one way to cross the Sea, but you could have sent help sooner. No, that’s unfair.'” Finrod broke off reading “It certainly is! Does she think Death is a postal service?”

“Well, you did go to the Valar almost as soon as you returned to life,” Edrahil said with a smile. “If she had thought that, I can see why.”

“Bah! You’re always on her side,” Finrod said and grinned.“Anyway: she says; ‘I know you have done all you could to ask the Valar to send help to the Aftercomers, Exiles and our kin upon this shore. Father has done his best too, he tells me, though I never doubted it.

‘But to come to the point, I must tell you that I was not in Doriath when Beren came there. I was away travelling. Celeborn and I had followed the Dwarf-road into the East, as I told you when I wrote.. as I wrote to you in my last letter. Strange to think of this as merely resuming our correspondence.

‘At any rate, when the peace was broken by Dagor Bragollach, we were far away, too far to bring any help. I knew there was something wrong, but — it took us a long time to find our way back to Doriath, and by that time it was all over; Angrod and Aegnor... and you, too. All three gone.

‘But I promise you that I would not have let your friend’s son go alone to such a task without help, if I had been there to offer it.’”

Finrod put the letter down and stared at it blankly. “I thought she must have been away from Doriath,” he said after a moment’s silence.

“I don’t think Beren ever mentioned her, did he?”

“No. I wonder if it would have changed anything, if she had been there when Beren came?”

“You knew Thingol better than I did,” Edrahil said rather carefully.

Finrod snorted. “You mean ‘no’. Though the notion of Thingol and Galadriel squaring off for their different notions of family honour is a truly marvellous image in its own way.”

Edrahil smiled. “My money would be on Galadriel,” he said seriously.

“Ha! I think mine would be too. Though she always had a terribly soft spot for him; she used to say how much he was like Grandfather Olwë.”

“I remember.”

Finrod turned away from the letter and frowned at him thoughtfully. “Are you well, Edrahil? You seem very quiet. And you look...I don’t know. Not pale, exactly, but... perhaps the right word is worn.”

Edrahil gave this question due consideration. “I think I always was quiet. Though I could turn it around, and say you talk enough for three.”

“That sounds more like you,” Finrod told him encouragingly.

“Is it? I should be the same as before, if Námo has done his work well.”

“But are you, do you think? I feel like the same old Finrod, I’m pretty clear about that. Not young Ingoldo, not Findaráto, but at least Finrod, and I am content with that. But forget about ‘should’; do you feel the same?”

Edrahil’s dark brows drew down into a frown as he thought it through. “No,” he said eventually. “No, I don’t think I do.”

Finrod said nothing, but looked at him enquiringly, and after a moment or two, he went on.

“We crossed the sea, built a city, fought a battle or two, then we went out to fulfil your oath, and... not an easy death.”

“No,” Finrod said, and was silent again.

“My family are dead, save for a couple of cousins, and they are with the Host in Beleriand.”

“Yes. I was sorry to hear it.”

Edrahil leant back against the wall in silence for a while, rubbing at his shoulder, down his arm, and across his gut where the wolf had torn him. The flesh was entirely whole now, and yet his fingers traced precisely where each tooth had bitten agonisingly deep.

Finally, he spoke again. “I could have stayed in death, but I followed you from Námo’s Halls. I suppose following you has become a habit.”

Finrod nodded, and said nothing.

Edrahil looked out east, towards the Sea, and beyond it, the Darkness and the War. “Why,” he said, and stopped.

“Why?”

“If you could break those chains and kill the wolf,” Edrahil said with quiet precision. “Why did you wait until it had taken all of us but Beren, before you did it? That is the question that has troubled me, if you insist on hearing it asked.”

Finrod regarded him unhappily. “I honestly didn’t know I could, until I did,” he said. “That probably seems like a very poor excuse, but it’s all I have to give you. It’s not a precise matter, the force of the mind, any more than the force of the body is. Edrahil, I’m more grateful than I can say that you came to help me, even though we lost. if I could have saved you, or Nargothrond, I would have done. ”

“Of course you would,” Edrahil said, suddenly emphatic. “A foolish question. I don’t know why I said it.”

“You asked because it was troubling you. Trust broken, even involuntarily, leaves a scar. I can see that might change things. People, even.”

“No. I’m not giving Sauron or his wolves that satisfaction. I may not be quite who I was, but I will be.” Edrahil’s voice was low but strong. “Give me a little more time. I’ll work on it.”

“If that’s what you want,” Finrod said, trying not to let his relief show in his voice, because that would be unfair, and also because he was not quite sure that in this mood, relief would not have carried a note of power with it. Finrod had never been one to call his followers after him as Fëanor and Fingolfin had done, and even if he had, he should never take that path with Edrahil.

Edrahil should have his choice, even if he chose to think that Finrod could have saved him, but had not.

But, “I’ll work on it,” Edrahil repeated. “Come on. Read the rest of the letter.”

Oh yes, the letter. Finrod reclaimed it from the wall where he had set it down, a wall set with pale gems that were now beginning to glitter a little in the morning light.

“‘Father tells me that our brothers are not yet returned from the Halls of Mandos, and that you think that Aegnor will not choose to return. That is bitter news. I know that Andreth Saelind was dear to both of you, but if you can return and mourn her beneath the leaves of Aman, it grieves me that he cannot. But I don’t suppose you want to dwell on that grief.’”

Edrahil made a face, and Finrod shrugged helplessly.

“‘Let me instead tell you something of my travels beyond the mountains.’ Ah! Excellent! I still regret that we never had the chance to cross into the lands where Men and Elves first awoke, don’t you, Edrahil? Another thing to blame upon the Enemy. So, she goes on;

‘We followed the road through the mountains, past the dwarf-strongholds of Belegost and Nogrod, and out beyond the Ered Luin. It was late summer when we went that way, and so we came down into a wide misty land of rivers and forests, where the golden light of sunrise dyes the river-mists red and gold.

‘Dwarves often travel across this land on the eastern road, which is straight and well-made, with the trees cut back from it in the Dwarvish manner. We met people of Nogrod on the road, and they told us tales of the Dwarf-strongholds, hundreds of leagues away in the East. They were not going so far themselves. In the North is a holy mountain, sacred to Aulë, where their First Dwarf awoke; they were on their way to visit it, bringing gifts of beer and red gems for a festival. But very likely you know much of this from your friends.’

Finrod looked up from the letter. “I think that must be the mountain they used to call Gundabad, don’t you? I didn’t know they took red gems there though. I wonder what they do with them...?” He looked down. “But apparently Galadriel did not wonder about that; she says; ‘Celeborn was more interested to explore the realms of Men and the lands the first Eldar crossed on their journey into the West. And so we turned south, and ventured into the deep forests that stretch for league upon league south and east of Beleriand.

‘There we met a handful of Nandor, Lenwë’s people who long ago turned aside from the Great Journey to dwell among the trees. They had kinsfolk in Beleriand, and had recent news from them. During the Long Peace, the people of Ossiriand used to travel east again, now and then, to visit them. I don’t know how things are going in Ossiriand now. It’s under the Enemy’s hand still, like all of East Beleriand. Perhaps the Green-elves of that land have moved east again now to re-join their lost kin: I hope so.

‘They were eager to hear of their more distant kin in Doriath and Nargothrond, but had no desire to join them. A good choice, in the end. We stayed with them until spring, and taught them some of Melian’s songs for nut and fruit. You will laugh, no doubt; I scraped my memory for the Valinorean preservation customs, since they were not able to keep eggs through the winter...’”

Finrod did laugh, and so did Edrahil. Galadriel, in her youth in Aman, had been vocally of the opinion that she did not wish to learn the arts of what she called ‘dreary domesticity’.

“I’m surprised she knows how to pickle an egg,” Edrahil commented, his mouth quirking.

“I’m used to being astonished by the things that Galadriel somehow knows. But apparently not everything, not any more! For she goes on: ‘In return they taught us a great deal about the peculiar habits of wolves and bears in this land, which was most useful to us later.’ Hmm. Galadriel has had her own encounter with wolves. It went better than ours, it seems. ‘Celeborn and I both gained fine new wolf-skin cloaks with that knowledge. I think of you when I wear mine, and how you devised those ridiculous-looking garments from seal-skin on the Ice, and made us laugh and kept us warm.’ She’s never going to forget those sealskin tunics, is she? I’m glad she remembers them somewhat fondly.”

“I think we all remember them fondly,” Edrahil said.”While at the same time being very glad not to have to wear them any more.”

“Too true,” Finrod said, and shuddered delicately, running a hand across the fine linen of his sleeve. “I can still recall all too vividly that fearful smell, once we came south a little, when the Sun rose and they started to warm up. So does Galadriel, it seems, for she says here: ‘The wolf-skins were tanned for us by some Men that we encountered living in the great forest some way east of the Nandor. They had been having some difficulty with the wolves taking their pigs, which was resolved to the satisfaction of all of us, save the wolves. It is a good deal colder so far inland in the winter than it is in Beleriand, so the cloaks were very useful.

‘The Men told stories of the Nandor, but we were the first Elves they had encountered in person for several life-times. They were much impressed with us, as indeed we were with them.' How interesting! I wonder when the Nandor first encountered them?" Finrod exclaimed.

“Some of the Nandor are bound to turn up in Aman eventually,” Edrahil suggested. “They were always on their way here, after all.”

Finrod laughed. “I suppose they were! But very definitely in no hurry about it. A good thought: at some point I shall find someone who is of the Nandor, and ask about it. But here, she says more about these Men. ‘They trade fur and nuts from the forest with the Dwarves for metal tools. But once a tool is worn or broken, it is never thrown away, but is reworked into new and most dramatic forms, to be worn as kind of decorative jewellery for the dances that they hold on their holy days. I wished you could have met them. They called themselves the People of the Hazel, and venerated the hazel tree for her gifts of nuts and twigs for weaving.

‘I think they may have been distant kin of the House of Bëor - something about the eyes that reminded me of Saelind and her people, though the People of the Hazel were shorter and stockier, and not one of them had fair hair. But if it was so, they had forgotten them. They remembered people who had set off into the South, or the North, or the East, but nobody who had tried to reach the Sea.’

Hmm. I wonder if Bëor’s people went north first, or if they and the people of the Hazel parted ways at an earlier time? Oh, look, she has sent some sketches of them and their jewellery, here...”

They pored over the sketches for some time, until Edrahil asked if Galadriel had sent any news about the War.

“Instead of Nandor lost in the woods beyond the Blue Mountains, and Men tangled yet deeper within them?” Finrod smiled. “You’re very patient.”

“I’ve learned I have to be,” Edrahil said, a little tartly, and he might almost have been himself in Nargothrond, before Angrod and Aegnor died, before Finrod’s oath, and Beren, and the wolf.

Finrod grinned at him. “Surely she must have done, to have sent this message with one of Manwë’s own Eagles. Let me see... Yes: ‘The Vanyar host have set off north and east, heading for Nargothrond.’ Well, we knew that, but... ‘Eönwë and his Maiar are with them, and Círdan too. We hear that they have fought several battles already, to retake Círdan’s cities on the coast.’” Finrod paused and looked east, thinking of Amárië, who had never before known war or want.

“She would have said at once if Amárië had been hurt,” Edrahil said comfortingly, and that was true enough as far as it went.

“I suppose so. So she goes on: ‘Father’s host and what is left of us, the Noldor of Beleriand, have joined forces, though Father means to keep the young king Ereinion Gil-galad away from the worst of the fighting if he can. I wish him good luck with that: I think Ereinion may have his own ideas about it.' The boy has grown up as pig-headed as the rest of us, apparently. I suppose that was inevitable.

‘I have taken up with Aunt Anairë, who is swiftly becoming a very able commander. I was surprised to discover how skilled she is with a sword: if courage and a sword alone could cut a way through to Angband, she could save us single-handed. I thought I might have a trick or two to show her, having been working on my skills all this time, but I think she must have been polishing her own abilities in Tirion. If she had kept all the orc-heads she has lopped off, she would already have an impressive pile, and she has the way of using Vanyar skills with light that I am quite sure Grandmother Indis never showed to us.

‘Father is well, and hopeful that we will soon reach the Westbank of Sirion. So far we have had an easier time of it than the Vanyar host have. I, Gil-galad and Celebrimbor have told Father all we know about the deceits of the Enemy, and he is resolved to advance with caution. Oh, yes, Celebrimbor is still very much alive, and still free from Oath and Enemy. So are a number of your people from Nargothrond who survived the rout when poor Orodreth was killed; they followed Celebrimbor, for lack of any other prince, and he got them away to the Isle of Balar. I enclose a list of names.’”

Finrod leaped to his feet in delight. “More good news! I feared that Celebrimbor had fallen. Sad to see that there are so few people remaining from Nargothrond, but still, here they are!”

“We’re a hardy breed,” Edrahil said, twitching the list from Finrod’s fingers to look at it properly. “Ornil is among them, look! That old gloom-face was probably too sour for even Glaurung’s appetite.”

“Tough as an old boot, Ornil,” Finrod agreed. “And look! Young Gildor! I shall shake Celebrimbor’s hand for that, if ever I see him again.” He glanced at the last few lines of the letter. “She says nothing about your cousins, though I fear, Edrahil.”

Edrahil laughed. “One is a cook, and the other is responsible for ensuring the tents are kept in repair. I doubt they are in terrible danger.”

“You were always the adventurer of the family.”

“I was. Not now though. Another change.”

“Perhaps, after all, we have had enough adventures, for a little while,” Finrod said, and his voice was wistful, but his hand went to his neck, where the wolf had torn his flesh before he killed it.

“Perhaps we have,” Edrahil agreed. “And yet today we must check the weaving sheds.”

Finrod nodded. “There’s no-one else to do it, after all. Let’s go.”