The King's Peace by Idrils Scribe

Chapter 1

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Fëanáro’s sons did celebrate Turuhalmë, in that strange year of woes.

 

Findekáno’s spectacular reappearance -- sat astride Manwë’s Eagle bearing a writhing, emaciated creature that, beneath a coat of grime, proved to be to Maitimo -- had taken place during Hithlum’s humid, mosquito-laden summer.

 

On the festival day, snow was thick on the ground. Any Elf in search of salmon from lake Mithrim would be far better served by felted boots and a sturdy saw than a boat, pillaged or otherwise.

 

The scything winds of winter could not enter the royal pavilion. The palatial tent was made of gold-embroidered felt dyed a deep, bloody crimson. In happier days it had been Fëanáro’s hunting pavillion, when he took his sons to chase hart and boar in the wild hill-lands around Formenos. Then the side panels had been open to the wind and stars, but today found them tied securely. A set of decorative braziers filled with black coal mined from the Ered Lomin raised the temperature inside to be comfortable enough for Maitimo. Carnistir had to keep himself from recoiling at the gust of hot air to his face when the door flap was thrown open to receive him.

 

“The High Prince Carnistir Fëanorion!”

 

Even the chamberlain’s solemn announcement appeared to hold some festive cheer. Carnistir had been dispatched by Macalaurë to escort Maitimo to what was to be his first public appearance since his ordeal. The sight of his eldest brother left him awash with relief: dressed for the public eye, Maitimo looked far better than Carnistir had dared to hope.

 

The returned High King of the Noldor was arrayed with all the considerable wealth at his family’s disposal. Every part of Maitimo not covered by his splendid fur cloak -- sable and white ermine from the pine forests of Dorthonion --  was bedecked in finely wrought gold and red rubies: his wrists, his neck, and even his ears, which the most skilled among the healers had somehow pieced back together.

 

Soon after their father’s death Curufinwë had bathed the royal crown -- once Finwë’s -- in angry, impotent tears as he adjusted it to fit his eldest brother as seamlessly as if it had originally been made for him. He could not bring himself to undo Fëanàro’s unfortunate adjustment: three empty settings laden with sinister symbolism still stared from the lacy golden filigree like dulled eyes on Maitimo’s brow.  

 

Neither Curufinwë’s skill nor the opulent splendour of a bygone Tirion heaped upon Maitimo by his guilt-ridden brothers could entirely fool the attentive observer. Maitimo’s face was no longer skull-like, but still as gaunt as if he, too had reached Mithrim in hunger and deprivation across the Helcaraxë. Angry red lines of fresh scars stood out with shocking starkness against his pale skin. His movements were stiff and calculated, as if his body had somehow forgotten how to walk, talk and smile, and now painstakingly had to relearn.

 

And underneath those padded layers of fur and cloth-of-gold and fine linen…

Carnistir had seen the scars. Macalaurë, frenzied with wrath and guilt both, had made all his brothers look at what Melkor did to Maitimo so they would never forget, never forgive, and keep always their Oath. The sheer horror of it was still fresh, after mere months. The memory sent a fine shiver running down Carnistir’s back. He pitied Maitimo’s healers and his manservant their inevitable daily confrontation with the wrenching sight.

 

When he finally ventured outside, Maitimo’s steps suddenly faltered. Carnistir was glad of the privacy afforded by the palisade ringing the royal enclosure, where their crippled king could find his feet before braving the eager eyes of his gathered people. It took him a moment of bewilderment to realize that Maitimo had never stood on snow before. He did spend several of these new, shockingly brief sun-years exposed to the flesh-eating cold of the Far North, but his purpose at the time had been to hang and suffer, not walk. Having to keep his balance with what remained of his right arm strapped to his body in the leather and steel contraption Curufinwë designed to support his ruined shoulder joint would not help matters.

 

Carnistir knew better by now than to offer Maitimo his arm to lean on as he struggled to find his footing atop the snow. The High King of the Noldor would walk upright and unsupported, or he would not join his people at all. Maitimo’s mind was walled like a besieged fortress. A far cry from the charismatic, outgoing courtier who was taken by a fallen Vala and broken in every possible way. Carnistir’s gentle mental touch slid off as if Maitimo’s mind was made of mirrors and adamant.

 

“Stop it.”   

 

Maitimo’s voice was hoarse, a paralysed vocal cord courtesy of some orc with a garrotte. The ugly scar circling his throat was well concealed by a stiff, gold-embroidered collar dotted with Valinorean garnets like small specks of living flame. The torn nerve might heal, the healers had hedged noncommittally, but then it might not. Such an exquisitely painful loss to a king, politician, and brilliant orator like Maitimo. He seemed not even aware of it, or else he had lost so many things that his voice was but a drop in the sea.  

 

“I only mean to ease…”

 

Maitimo’s hoarse rasp became softer, reminding Carnistir of the Elf who once carried each one of his little brothers up thousands of steps to show them the views from the Mindon Eldalieva.

 

“I know you mean well, Carnistir. Ósanwe will not ease me, not after Him.”

 

Carnistir shivered. Several of Maitimo’s attendants had slowed their pace, their eager and curious eyes resting on the king and his brother. This was neither the time nor the company to elaborate on Maitimo’s injuries: a distraction was in order.

 

“All has been set up for you to preside over the joust. Macalaurë has prepared a few words. There is no need for you to speak…”

 

Maitimo doggedly shook his head.

 

“Send word to to Macalaurë that I am perfectly capable of addressing the Noldor myself.”

 

The look in Maitimo’s eyes sent a messenger jogging towards the emerald-green tents of Macalaurë’s retinue.

 

Maitimo fully straightened himself, and the sight astounded Carnistir. In spite of all that had been done to him his brother was still the tall, imposing presence that once bedazzled the court of Tirion, fierce and proud like a lion of red and gold that only Fëanàro might tame, at times. Perhaps there was a fleeting hint of a smile.

 

“Come, Carnistir. It is Turuhalmë, and in our father’s memory I would see the jousts.”

 

A handful of liveried retainers attended Maitimo’s slow progress across the courtyard like bejewelled pilot fishes about a battered shark, but none dared lift a hand to support him. His temper was unpredictable these days, and woe betide the hapless fool who confronted the High King with the true extent of his inabilities.  

   

Maitimo had not set foot outside the royal enclosure since his return six months ago, but now he walked beneath the arch of veined marble Curufinwë had built to separate it from the rest of the Fëanorian encampment. The view from this lofty vantage point was nothing short of majestic. Hithlum was a bowl between the arms of the Ered Lómin, and the host of Fëanor were camped upon its foothills.

 

At Maitimo’s feet stretched an uninterrupted vista of perfect, glittering white sloping down towards the frozen expanse of lake Mithrim. Beyond it the Mountains of Shadow, clad in that same winter white, rose clean and bright against a cloudless sky of cornflower blue, peak after peak until they were lost in hazy distance a hundred miles to the south. Above their snow-clad heads wheeled the great Eagles. The untamed vastness of this land made the masters of the sky appear tiny as mayflies. The forbidding ranges were all the dearer to Carnistir for the knowledge that they blocked the blight that was Thangorodrim from Maitimo’s view.

 

Snow had been a wonder to the Fëanorim, a discovery wholly unknown in sunkissed Tirion where the streets were lined with mango trees and ever-blooming jacaranda. Even in Formenos the air had always been mild enough. In spite of the horrors that awaited them in Ennorë, the sight of their new land’s dazzling winter raiment never failed to inspire awe and a great deal of song.

 

Maitimo’s eyes did not linger upon the mountains’ beauty for even a moment. A pavilion had been erected nearby, canopied with red silk stamped with the eight-pointed star. It had a fine view of what was to be the tiltyard while taking best advantage of the broad vistas. The royal tribune held a finely carved armchair draped in wolf-pelts, surrounded by seven slightly less imposing seats.

 

Young Telperinquar was already fidgeting in his chair beside his father, eyes wide with wonder, though this was but a pale imitation of the great tournaments held in Tirion at the time of Turuhalmë. Tulkas himself used to attend, to cheer on his disciples in their ceaseless rivalry against Oromë’s folk. Carnistir caught himself wondering whether Arafinwë would now be presiding over some watered-down event in Finwë’s stead, or if their half-uncle had done away with the tradition entirely, with so few contestants remaining.  

 

He was soon distracted from this morose line of thinking.

 

“Carnistir! Where are the other seats?”

 

Maitimo sounded positively alarmed, and a spike of panic lanced at Carnistir’s throat. There was no kind or gentle way to put this.

 

“Our cousins will not be attending. Neither will Nolofinwë and Aunt Irimë.”

 

This produced a look of shocked disbelief.

 

“Do you mean to tell me that between the six of you no-one thought to send a runner across the lake to invite them?”

 

For an agonizing instant Carnistir could only stare at Maitimo’s face as the absurdity left his mouth. Surely Macalaurë had taken it upon himself to explain to Maitimo, in some gentle way, why Ennorë’s first ever joust had no need of royal stands large enough to accommodate the side branches of their family?   

 

But no- Macalaurë had expected, or perhaps blindly clung to an irrational hope, that so soon after his escape from Angband Maitimo would be dazzled enough by the splendour of the event to simply not notice. Carnistir wished Macalaurë were here so he might shake some sense into him. Had he truly believed Maitimo would not miss his dearest Finno? Either way, he had left it until now, saddling Carnistir with delivering the sad news. Curse Càno for the lily-livered fool he was!

 

Maitimo, the seasoned courtier, was suspicious and foreseeing by nature to a degree his artistic brother could scarcely comprehend. Especially now- since Angband it was hardly possible to overestimate the extent of this new Maitimo’s paranoia.

 

The brother they once knew would have bothered to compliment Canissë, the chief of his household knights, on the splendid tilting ground she created where once was nothing but frozen mud. Today’s Maitimo was well above making a scene on his first public appearance as the resurrected High King, but he would have his answers without delay. All Canissë received for her troubles was an appreciative nod.

 

“Carnistir! Give me your arm, brother. I wish to walk with you.”

 

Carnistir found himself led inexorably towards the edge of the field, to look out across the vast snowfields towards the tents of animal skins that served the Nolofinwëans for shelter.

 

Maitimo’s voice was deceptively calm when he turned to address his train of hovering attendants.

 

“Leave us.”

 

Lindalië, their master healer, briefly opened her mouth in protest at the sight of sweat beading on Maitimo’s brow, but even she knew better than to defy her king when he used that particular tone.

 

“Out with it, Carnistir.”

 

Carnistir kept his eyes on Lindalië’s retreating back, and held his tongue. Better to let Maitimo ask specific questions, and hold back as much as might be salvaged.

 

“Melkor’s balls, Moryo, stop being coy! Something is amiss, and you are all hoping I left enough of my wits behind in Angband to overlook it. I have not seen Findekàno or received as much as a note from him since he carried me into my tent like a sack of bones. Even from up here I can tell that our half-cousins must be living in squalor, if they lack as much as a bale of silk to make proper banners. This unsubtle excuse for a tournament makes it abundantly clear that none of them will be joining us for Turuhalmë. What in the name of the nethermost hell have you done to them?”

 

“Nothing more than what you witnessed yourself! We had no more dealings with them after leaving Araman.”

 

“Moryo!”

 

Maitimo’s eyes were truly terrifying. Some remnant of the Hells of Iron had come among the Elves in the depth of that that terrible gaze, and Carnistir found he could not bear to feel it resting on him.

 

“All else is purely self-inflicted.”

 

“Surely you know better than to split hairs with me. I will rephrase: what did you make themdo?”

 

Yet another repetition of so unjust an accusation, this time from Maitimo’s lips, finally sufficed to spike Carnistir’s righteous anger.

 

“In Araman, Uncle Nolofinwë somehow conceived of the witless idea that the northern ice-shoals might serve him for a footbridge to Ennorë. Once he left dry land behind, the fool found exactly what you are imagining. Sadly, his wounded pride drowned out his common sense. He lost a quarter of his people and most of his baggage train, and came close to starving the rest. They laid the consequences of Nolofinwë’s idiocy at our door the very moment they set eyes on us. Turukàno, especially is beside himself. Macalaurë tried to offer him our condolences for the loss of Elenwë. He got a broken nose for his trouble.”     

 

The news gave Maitimo pause, but it was not long before he applied his practical nature to the problem.

 

“Then why have you not offered them any reparations? They must be in dire need of supplies. By the looks of it they do not have a single horse left!”

 

Carnistir turned to the distant plumes of smoke rising over the Nolofinwëan encampment, its dwellings brown and almost Sindar-drab compared to the many-coloured splendour the sons of Fëanor had loaded onto their ships. Even what small wisps of smoke blew across the lake made his nose hurt with their foul, acrid tang. By the smell of things, they were burning bone and dung again for lack of wood.  

 

“Believe me, Maitimo, we tried. They will have nothing to do with us. I offered Aunt Irimë a very fine tent and coals for her brazier and she spat at me!”

 

This, more than anything else Carnistir had said, drove the reality of it home to Maitimo. His expression was wide-eyed with incredulity.

 

“Aunt Irimë spat. At you.”

 

Sheer misery froze Carnistir’s tongue. He was not proud of provoking senseless rage in their restrained, scholarly aunt, who would have led the Lambengolmor if not for Fëanor’s adamant insistence he be counted foremost among both them and the jewel-smiths.

 

“I imagine this is why I have seen nor heard word of Findekàno?”

 

Of course. Count on Maitimo to consider this secret, semi-incestuous affair of his the principal problem in this situation. Astonishing, how even after Angband he was still thinking with his...

  

“A horse!”

 

Maitimo’s hoarse rasp resounded across the empty arena.

 

Several of his attendants sprang to their feet to fulfill the request. The first horse they got hold of was Macalaurë’s impressive chestnut stallion, already saddled and armoured in emerald-inlaid green tack for him to take part in the joust.

 

Before Carnistir could gather his courage to try to forbid it, someone had already given Maitimo a leg-up. He landed in the saddle slumped and breathing heavily for an instant before sitting up straight, spinning the stallion around to face the growing throng of spectators, and raising his balled left fist. A cheer went up, thin at first but waxing unstoppably, like an avalanche.  

 

“Behold! The King has returned!”

 

A forlorn figure in full armour, red-plumed helmet under his arm, hastily jogged towards them from a grouping of tents across the field. From the indulgent smile on his face, Macalaurë was still labouring under the delusion he was in charge of the situation.

 

“Maitimo, it is good to see you so... energetic, but surely you do not intend to joust? Think of your health!”

 

Maitimo’s face could have scorched a forest to smoking embers.

 

“No, Macalaurë. I am going to visit our half-uncle, and set right this feud once and for all.”

 

Macalaurë deflated like a punctured waterskin.

 

“Do you believe I have not already tried? Our cousins are taken by madness, all of them! Even now that the King has returned they persist in their senseless grudge. Nothing you could offer will make them see reason!”

 

Maitimo laughed bitterly.

 

“I do believe I have an offer they will hear, one beyond your power to make. As you have remarked so astutely -- The King has returned. And I will have peace.”

 

Without another word Maitimo cantered down the snowy slope towards the Nolofinwëan encampment, leaving behind only astonishment and hoofprints slowly filling with windblown snow.   

 

 

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Chapter End Notes

Turuhalmë or log-drawing is an Elvish wintertime holiday from the Book of Lost Tales. It consisted of 'sports in the snow' and gathering logs for fireside tale-telling in the evening. I have taken the liberty of choosing jousting as the Fëanorians' sport of choice.

Hearing back from readers makes me a very happy Scribe!