In Silence And In Song by Idrils Scribe

When twenty years of the Sun had passed, Fingolfin King of the Noldor made a great feast; and it was held in the spring near to the pools of Ivrin, whence the swift river Narog rose, for there the lands were green and fair at the feet of the Mountains of Shadow that shielded them from the north. The joy of that feast was long remembered in later days of sorrow; and it was called Mereth Aderthad, the Feast of Reuniting. 

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, XIII - Of the return of the Noldor

Ivrin in spring was a land of birds and water. Tranquil silver pools lay bordered by garlands of sky-blue flag lilies and a yellow riot of fragrant kingcup. Herons waded, solemn as little lords, and bejewelled kingfishers darted for minnow in the shallows. 

The angled light of sunrise glittering off the waters held a unique enchantment, a grace reminding of lost Valinor. Ulmo’s blessing was not easily captured in ink and paper, but today’s attempt was a promising one.

“Mother!” Glorfindel seemed strangely breathless, as if he had come running. “Would you please attend the king? A delegation - no, a message has arrived. ”

Lalwen failed to hide her annoyance when she looked up from the nesting pair of cranes she had been sketching. Another interruption and this dratted Ennorëan oak-gall ink would dry out beyond salvaging. 

“Which is it?” she asked, “And why does Fingolfin send for me, with Fingon already in attendance?”

Glorfindel had become a clever courtier under Fingolfin’s tutelage, and he chose his words with care. “The king did not send for you, as such. But perhaps it is for the better if you attend this … arrival. Whatever it should be called.”

Only now did Lalwen notice how pale her son seemed, his face waxen beneath the golden halo of his half-braided hair. The movement was subtle, but she could see his hand shake as he took a white-knuckled grip on the back of her easel. 

“Stars and Powers, child! You look as if Morgoth himself sent a delegation!”

Glorfindel shook his head. “No. But Elu Thingol did.”

“The Iathrim have arrived? Why did they not announce themselves? The camp is silent as the Ice, where are the musicians?! Is the reception hall set in order?”

“We did not use the reception hall.” Glorfindel answered, carefully. “To do so seemed … unwise.”

Lalwen froze. “Why is that?”

Glorfindel brought his ill tidings with the candid gentleness of a healer tending an amputee. “There are only two of them.”

At first Lalwen was baffled. “Is this a Sindarin custom? Who of his House did Elu send, with only one retainer? Surely not Lúthien! Is it that kinsman of his, Celeborn?”

Glorfindel took a deep breath, folded his long-fingered swordsman’s hands together before delivering the blow. “Mother, I regret to inform you that the King of Doriath saw fit to be represented here by his harpist and the captain of his guard.”

Thither came many of the chieftains and people of Fingolfin and Finrod; and of the sons of Fëanor Maedhros and Maglor, with warriors of the eastern March; and there came also great numbers of the Grey-elves, wanderers of the woods of Beleriand and folk of the Havens, with Círdan their lord. There came even Green-elves from Ossiriand, the Land of Seven Rivers, far off under the walls of the Blue Mountains; but out of Doriath there came but two messengers, Mablung and Daeron, bearing greetings from the King.

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, XIII - Of the return of the Noldor

There had been nothing for it but to receive Elu’s servants with all the honours a High King of the Noldor might bestow on another monarch’s representatives. 

From inside her tent Lalwen could hear the ring of silver trumpets and the marching feet of Fingolfin’s saluting honour guard as she hastily changed out of her ink-stained tunic to be laced into a court gown of richly dyed saffron silk.  

Lalwen ran her fingers over the cloth as her esquire tied and buttoned. Even in the dim sunlight filtering through the canvas roof, the work of Tirion’s master weavers rippled like waves upon a sea of molten gold, smooth and cool as water to the touch. This luxurious fabric had crossed the Sea in the hold of a stolen swan-ship, and the Fëanorian weregild sat heavily on her shoulders. The exiled Noldor had not yet found mulberry trees east of the Sea. Lalwen no longer spoke of Tirion since the Grinding Ice, but she could not keep herself from wondering if she would ever wear silk again, once this dress fell prey to Middle-earth’s inescapable decay.

Fingolfin’s royal pavilion was a palatial tent of gold-embroidered felt dyed a deep, bloody crimson. It was once Fëanor’s own hunting lodge, when he took his sons to chase hart and boar in the wild hill-lands around Formenos. Like Lalwen’s silk, the tent had become blood money, part of the hoard of riches Fëanor’s sons had offered in compensation for the Elvish lives lost upon the ice.

Inside she found the High King of the Noldor pacing the length of the lavish main chamber, his eyes and mind incandescent with rage. Fingon’s bruised pride smouldering at his father’s shoulder only served to inflame Fingolfin further. 

“Be reasonable, brother.” Lalwen said with dry exasperation as she slid into her seat at the privy council. “Surely you did not expect Elu Thingol himself! He asked our oaths of fealty in exchange for Hithlum. The Noldor have made it clear that we will not take him for our liege. After that slight he could hardly acknowledge you by appearing here.” 

“Elu did not grant me Hithlum, because Hithlum was never his to give!” Fingolfin retorted. He paced to stand in the patch of golden light the open tent flap cast across the rich tapestries beneath his feet. A playful breeze showered him in white petals from the wild cherries that blossomed around the royal enclosure. For a fleeting instant Lalwen’s eyes saw her brother outlined against driving snow, and she shivered despite the balmy weather.

Fingolfin in his anger remained blind to the offending trees. “What did we find in Hithlum, sister? Scattered bands of Grey Elves, little more than savages who battled the Orcs with blades of flint! Elu Thingol is no more my liege than Morgoth is!”

Lalwen took a deep breath and managed to sound poised to her own ears. “Elu proves unwilling to have this explained to him in person,” she remarked dryly.  “He is one of the Elder Kings, wedded to a great Maia. Would bending your knee to him have been such hardship?” 

Fingolfin scoffed. “How many knees does Elu wish to see bent? Would you have our entire House swear fealty to … to a Dark Elf?”

“Am I counselling High King Fingolfin or some Fëanorian warmonger?” Lalwen riposted. “Either way it is done. Elu will not meet you, and neither will he send any of his House. The question before us is how we shall handle his servants.”       

Maedhros sipped wine from a heavy gold chalice without any visible reaction to Lalwen’s provocation. Like a great falcon he perched in his corner, as if he had every right to attend the king’s council, his pale face a delicate play of light and shadow above a tunic of heavy oxblood velvet. Fingon had invited the Fëanorian -- yet another of his upwellings of ill-directed charity. 

With a sting of annoyance Lalwen noticed the empty sheath at Maedhros’ hip. At least Fingolfin’s door guard had confiscated his dagger. The kinslayer had gall, to strut around court boasting his new left-handed prowess. If only Morgoth had had the sense to use two manacles: Fingon’s efforts would have prevented further bloodshed once and for all. Many here would feel safer for it.

Cold dread struck Fingolfin at the sight of Maedhros “Unless this snub is a punishment. Do the Iathrim know ?”

“How would they?” That shameless Fëanorian answered without flinching, utterly calm and composed. “Not from any of my folk.” 

Maedhros shot a pointed glance across the table, where Finrod glittered in his seat. His robe of heavy gold brocade was stitched with opals and topped with a carcanet of Valinórean sapphires the exact hue of his eyes. A flat-cut diamond the size of a dove’s egg sat on his brow in an intricate circlet of mithril. Any other would have looked like a walking magpie’s hoard, but Finrod made it seem regal.

With great varicoloured glimmer he stood to address Fingolfin. “Uncle, once more I ask you to end this deceit. All of my House have kept our silence, as agreed upon, but no secrecy can hold forever. You have the unity of all Elves in Middle-earth riding on the loose lips of a single drunk stablemaid. Let us be the ones to speak of Alqualondë before others do.”

Fingolfin blanched, and almost physically recoiled at those words. Lalwen watched her brother’s suffering with a stab of raw anger. She knew the source of that bleak look of terror. 

The confusing orgy of of bloodshed that was Alqualondë left Fingolfin’s beloved son with hands as bloody as any Fëanorian’s, and that shared guilt loomed over the High King like a web of shadow. Whatever punishment Elu Thingol might pronounce against the Sons of Fëanor once he learned of the kinslaying would fall on Fingon equally. 

Protecting the kinslayers had made liars and deceivers of the Noldor. Oh, they had considered coming clean! She and Fingolfin had analysed the problem from every angle - uncounted sleepless nights of long and anxious counsels over too much wine and abandoned games of chess. 

The dishonour did not matter. They would both gladly kneel to beg clemency from this enigmatic Dark Elf and his Maiarin queen. In the end it always came back to one simple, inexorable fact: Fingolfin loved Fingon. He could not abandon his son to whatever cruelty the Sindar might inflict on a foreigner who slew their kin. Lalwen imagined Glorfindel in her nephew’s stead, and found she could not fault Fingolfin. No parent should face such choices. 

The High King of the Noldor stood frozen, his back to his counsellors, seemingly contemplating the drifting cherry petals outside as they whirled through bars of golden light falling through the lacework of budding trees. Lalwen could hear him swallow loudly. Somewhere beyond the royal enclosure some master harpist, likely Maglor, strummed a merry galliard from Tirion. The notes darted through the air like a breath of pure happiness, playful and sweet and wildly inappropriate. Fingolfin’s shoulders hardened in his struggle to keep his composure. 

It fell upon Lalwen to safeguard the High King’s dignity. “Peace, nephew!” she implored Finrod. “You would destroy our alliance before it has begun.”

Finrod shook his head, wholly unimpressed. “Would this be a harper’s alliance, or one of petty officers? Neither kings nor princes seem involved!” 

Fingon leant forward in his seat and took a deep breath, as if steeling himself before addressing the tense square of his father’s turned back. “Sire, I say we end this charade. Let us come clean with the Sindar, and face whatever consequences the truth may bring.” 

Lalwen eyed her nephew with a new respect. Fingon might be cursed with poor taste in friends, but he was valiant. 

“None of us can afford the consequences, my son,” Fingolfin stated as he turned to face his council, eyes bone-dry and kingly mask firmly in place. “I will not surrender any subject of mine to Sindar retributions. Alqualondë is past, and no vengeance Elu Thingol might inflict will undo it. Instead let us be pragmatic. If Elu will not come himself, we shall have to deal with his retainers.”

Fingolfin stepped closer to Fingon to lay a hand on his son’s shoulder. 

“You should sit with this Mablung tonight. He commands Elu’s troops, and surely there is an interesting tale to be had about Doriath’s strength.” His eyes darted to Maedhros. “Seat the harper beside Maglor. They should entertain one another.”

Fingolfin stood and clapped as the song’s final chord rang across the green, his face radiant in the mingled gold and silver glow of lanterns strung between the branches overhead like as many blazing stars. Fingon and Mablung both rose from their seats at the high table to join the king’s standing ovation, their cheeks rosy and cups in hand with that unsteady flourish of men having a wine-soaked whale of a time. 

Lalwen almost sagged with relief at the sight of the unhoped-for conviviality, and their show of genuine appreciation. It would not do to insult the Laiquendi with a half-hearted applause for their bard’s efforts. Lalwen herself was newly returned from a mud-soaked, mosquito-laden expedition into the great forests of East Beleriand in search of the reclusive forest-dwellers. She had to figure out their strangely formal, archaïc language before she could even begin the diplomatic labors of convincing them to attend. This night her efforts bore fruit.

If the Laiquendi singer looked somewhat alien with her leaf-shaped tattoos and sculpted bone fragments driven through nose and ears, she still had an excellent voice. The images she had conjured before her listeners’ eyes were as vivid as any Noldorin bard’s, and her song well chosen: all gathered here were avid hunters. Whether in Aman or Middle-earth, the wild joy of chasing deer was universal.

Lalwen rose to embrace the chieftainess and present her guest-gift: a gem-encrusted harp of mithril with metal strings. Maglor’s creation would tarnish nor lose its pitch even when dragged through a humid forest. Bewilderment flashed in the strange bard’s eyes before she bowed in polite thanks. 

When Lalwen returned to her seat she allowed herself a draught of wine and a long look around. Despite their cares the evening was a delight. A balmy spring night of cloudless sky, a perfect dome of stars with the full moon a pearl of purest silver. The lush meadow was studded with elanor and the air smelled of clear water and the living blossom of trees. 

Everywhere she looked were smiling faces, the glitter of white gems, bright flashes of colour from wreaths braided into dark and golden hair alike. She watched Fingon recount some tall tale to a raptly listening Mablung, and recognized the first shoots of a budding friendship. Hope blossomed hot in her chest. Perhaps all was not lost.

Fingolfin rose once more, and stepped into the performers’ space before the high table.

“Master Daeron, we are greatly pleased to welcome you at our table!” he announced. “It is our fondest hope that this feast might prove the first of many joyful reunions between our sundered peoples!” 

Fingolfin was all eager joviality, and his Sindarin had improved by leaps and bounds. “We have heard your skill with harp and voice praised by many. Will you do us the honour and pleasure of a song?”  

Daeron stood, the sweep of his half-braided hair a cloud of midnight around a slender, fine-boned face. Delicate as a nightingale he seemed, this fabled singer. A son of the Sindar indeed.   

“A most hospitable welcome you have bid me, O King of the Noldor, and many words of league and friendship. For these I thank you in the name of King Elu Thingol, who receives them with a good will!” 

Enthusiastic applause went up from all sides, and calls of “Hear! hear!” in both Quenya and Sindarin. 

Fingolfin beamed as he poured a fragrant, yellow wine into his own goblet -- Fëanorian crystal shimmering like mother-of-pearl — to offer it to Daeron. Elu’s harper took a deep draught before handing it back to the king with a bow. 

He turned around to where Maglor sat beside him. Both minstrels had been deep in converse all evening beneath Fingolfin’s approving eye. 

“If the king permits it I would ask the Lord Maglor to join me. Our peoples once shared the same songs under the stars of Cuivienen. Let us bring them back to memory so the kindreds of Finwë and Elwë might once more be reunited in song!”

Lalwen caught a look of concern from Finrod, as if he saw some threat in what was surely a friendly collaboration. Artanis, too, had turned pale beneath the golden crown of her hair. Clearly something about this foreign harper had escaped Fingolfin’s notice. 

Daeron moved to the performer’s dais, lithe and elegant as a linden tree. His robes were that fresh, tender green of new beech leaves in spring, and around his neck shone a white gem on an artful lacework of silver threads. He looked both austere and dignified beside Maglor in his costly Fëanorian finery. Deep-seeing eyes flitted to every lord and lady seated in the company, and all the Noldor sat still and silent before that regard.

Daeron’s voice was a refined tenor, lifting in a rill of playful notes that washed over the glade like the merry babble of water over stones. A sprightly little brook murmured and wound beneath the unmarred dome of Varda’s blazing stars, remote and holy. Even Lalwen felt tears prick her eyes at the pure, exultant joy of it. 

The Song soared and carried her on its wings, up and up until she floated, light as a breeze above a vast lake that shimmered beneath the heaven’s splendour. For a single brilliant, weightless moment she could not tell sky from mirror in the crystalline brightness of  starlight shivering on the waves of Cuivienen. Daeron’s harp became the mingled song of water and Elvish voices, all bliss and innocent delight.

There came a lull, a breathing pause in the ebb and flow of Daeron’s voice, and Maglor stood to answer. His robust baritone Sang of the Two Trees flowering, gold and silver light mingling in splendid radiance that was more than each apart. A single, exquisitely perfect phrase soared to the heavens, jubilating, and all saw before their eyes the pure glimmer of Oiolossë the ever-white, limned in light against the star-strewn skies. 

Mablung gasped in awe.

Daeron’s response was of a tender, almost painful delight in the loveliness of marred Middle-earth. The Sindar loved every brook and dell, the vast, tumbled majesty of each mountain range, the shadows pooling like clouds in the valleys. A great beech soared to the sky, pulsing with rich, complicated life from the secret stream of sap in the bole to the miniature cities of crawling creatures beneath its fallen leaves. Forest lakes reflected a web of trees and stars like the finest bejewelled lace. Through all this wound the spirit of Elu’s people, every last blade of grass and grain of sand known and beloved by far-seeing Elvish eyes. All the world lay open, revealed to their gaze.

With a sickening jolt Lalwen realized that this Daeron was more than a harper. Here stood a loremaster of her own stature, and all his art and skill was in this Singing. Song was governed by its own laws. It could trick the eye, yet no Singer could change his true nature. The raven may wear a guise, but can never make itself a nightingale.

Maglor’s theme wound and reflected, and for a moment it seemed he would build the iridescent beauty of Tirion on Tuna, all green and white and gold. The next, disaster struck: a small intangible dissonant, elusive as a fleeting wind. Jewels gleamed in flickering lamplight behind a door of iron.

Maglor was a performer of unmatched experience. He mastered himself, seemingly unfazed, and sang of a splendid court gathered in a vast hall of crystal and marble. For an instant the Song bloomed as it should, but then a man’s fist closed on a sword-hilt set with rubies.

Daeron looked at Maglor with eyes dark and sharp like a clever daw. He Sang of the Sea. Grey waves sighed beneath quays of pearl gleaming in starlight. Reeling with shock Lalwen realized this could not be Alqualondë, but Brithombar or Eglarest. The Telerin cities on either shore bore an unsettling resemblance.

This particular theme Maglor could not match. His attempt called forth a white ship, but the sleek curve of its carved bow was wreathed in slithering shadow. 

Maglor abruptly fell silent. He was as pale as Finrod. 

Daeron’s clever eyes flitted from face to face. Mablung sat still in his seat of honour at Fingon’s side. A silent understanding seemed to be reached between both Sindar.

Daeron turned to Fingolfin and bowed politely before taking his seat once more. “You are very right, sire. There is much we must yet learn from one another.” 

And on a time Melian said: 'There is some woe that lies upon you and your kin. That I can see in you, but all else is hidden from me; for by no vision or thought can I perceive anything that passed or passes in the West: a shadow lies over all the land of Aman, and reaches far out over the sea. Why will you not tell me more?'

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, XV - Of the Noldor in Beleriand

Chapter End Notes

This year I was going to finally manage it. A cheerful, feel-good holiday story about a bunch of merry Elves throwing a party. Well ... in my own defense, I did try to keep the doom to a bare minimum ;-) 

Happy holidays everyone!