Liegeman by Lferion

Liegeman

'Here do I swear, by mouth and hands, fealty….'

Words. And what words. But words of what use?

'To speak and to be silent, to do and to let be….'

What purpose? When one did not have a Lord one cared enough for to swear to. Or did, and they were not in the world to swear to and reply.

Words. The Speaking Peoples speak, sing, write, read, listen, converse. What did it mean? What purpose did it serve? Why was communication, connection, storytelling so integral to peopleness that people did it thoughtlessly, instinctively, ceaselessly. That not being spoken to, listened to, was considered a dire punishment, that vows of silence were thought to be onerous and difficult, and people who enjoyed silence and solitude were odd, strange, and possibly dangerous.

Ilverin Littleheart was such a person, well aware of his oddity. It was not his only one. There were not many survivors of both Gondolin and Sirion. Fewer still who survived the War of Wrath as well. And none at all, other than himself, who had been honored and trusted with responsibility of a post on the royal guard, not just in Gondolin, of Idril and Tuor, and then Earendil, but again in Sirion, of Elwing, and the small princes. And there were few enough twins of any kind, among the Eldar or Sindar. He was one himself: another strangeness.

(He and his twin, while they looked like two peas on one pod, one fea in two indistinguishable hroar, were not at all alike in spirit, mind or heart. Their names were no help at all — Ilverin and Ilfrin, essentially the same name, the same meaning. One would easily think their parents had assumed them one until they were born.)

The Fëanorians had not killed him, at the slaughter at the Havens of Sirion, though there were times Ilverin almost wished they had. Instead, wounded, he had killed one, who seemed strangely grateful, as if Littleheart had done him a service with that blow. One of the red-heads. One of the twins.

He had known of course that Ambarussa were twins. Everyone knew that, even the ones who believed that one of them had been burnt alive with the ships at Losgar before the Moon or Sun arose. No one at the Havens of Sirion had known that Ilverin was a twin, even those who had known him in Gondolin, even the ones who knew Ilfrin to be his brother, who had sailed with their father Voronwe, crew for Tuor and Idril in their quest to bring the plight of Middle Earth to the ears of the Valar. It had been a relief, to be only himself, odd perhaps, but not a poor copy of a more admirable, or at least more comprehensible person.

If pressed, Ilverin would speak of Gondolin, of Idril's bravery and resolve, of Tuor's kindness and strength. He tried to speak factually (inasmuch as facts were known) of Maeglin and the results and consequences of his actions. (Ilverin was certain there was more to that story than he knew, then could be known from any but the ellon himself, or worse, only from the Enemy. Ilverin had known thralls. Had witnessed the lasting effects of the Enemy's tender mercies. But he also knew that that part of the story was a thing few if any listeners cared to hear. Just as few cared to know that the Feanorion who had died on his blade had thanked him for it. Thanked him! as if his life had become a burden that could not be bourn, a horror from which death was a release and a mercy. Ilverin did not speak of Sirion.

But from that moment, Ilverin had not been able to dismiss the Feanorions — or their followers — as merely kinslayers, oath-bound and of the enemy. Certainly they had done evil, but no longer could he forget they were people, Speakers, Elves like him, even as to the kinslaying — for had not the twin, the Ambarussa (he did not know which one it was, and it grieved him) he had slain become as a brother to him in that moment of awful intimacy? (More a brother, more alike than his own twin. How odd and wrong was that?) Was he not kin, even without that battle-wrought connection, and Ilverin now a kinslayer himself?

He had Sailed in part in hope of someday meeting him, them, properly, but as yet Mandos held them still. Them and all their brothers but the Singer. (Mandos was a better place than the Outer Darkness. He tried to take some comfort from that, and hoped that they would be released back to life some day, freed of the Oath, and not condemned to the Void. Why should they be so condemned, and not those of no less willingness to fight, to follow, to take part willingly in going into Exile?)

Tuor he met again, which was a gladness, and his father, though they had, another oddness, little in common. By rights, Ilverin should have been a mariner, a staunch follower of Turgon and those most beloved of Ulmo, but he was not. It was his brother who sailed with their father, with Tuor, and later Earendil, even unto the uttermost West. Ilverin found his heart turned to the thought of misty places, lakes, not oceans, and found his lord in Fingon, Turgon's brother, though in his first life he had only once seen him.

High King Fingon, seen from the distance on the disastrous battlefield of the Fifth Battle. King Fingon who had shone with purpose and valor and the will to lead, to face the Enemy head on, and not only within high walls and a hidden stronghold. Gondolin had been beautiful, and the people freer to live, have families, pursue craft and art and making, but it had not advanced the defeat of the Enemy as it might have. Ilverin had gone with Turgon's host with relief at doing something, and it had been a right thing to do, whatever the grief that resulted. He could not have lived with himself to have stayed behind.

From the vanguard of Lord Turgon's forces, Ilverin had seen Fingon, the first light glinting on the gold in his braids, the brightness of his spirit catching at Ilverin's own spirit, and knew him to be the lord of his choosing, that he would follow him to whatever end, should that be given him to do. But that was not to be. He returned to Gondolin with Turgon's diminished force, advanced in station to the royal guard, and served Fingon's brother the more resolutely for the connection.

Gondolin and Turgon fell, but Ilverin did not. Idril and Tuor were who he looked to then, staunch and silent. Then Earendil, Elwing, and the bright sparks that were the small twin princes, Elrond and Elros. Brighter than Queen Elwing's necklace, they.

After the Havens fell, Ilverin was silently (shamefully) glad that the remaining Feanorions had taken in — rescued in truth — the boys. If he himself had not been wounded and rescued by a terrified remnant of the palace staff, he might have been tempted to seek out that camp. But that would have been folly, and all too likely fatal. He fought to the end of the war, for what else was there to do but fight?

But once the war was won, he could not stay. The land of mists, the green hill, the shore he knew were all foundered under the sea. So after seeing that those who chose to stay were settled, he asked leave of Lord Elrond (who near as Ilverin could tell was the holder of what tenuous thing he might call his fealty), and freely given it, he Sailed.

But Ilverin did not take up Turgon's invitation to hold a position in New Ondolinde, after Turgon's Return, soon after Ilverin arrived on Tol Eressea. Nor did he choose to live in Tirion, among others he had known in Gondolin and Sirion. Tol Eressea suited him, liminal and undemanding of her residents. There he could wait, serving as gong-warden, bell-maker, bronze-smith, until the Lord he stubbornly held his, unclaimed, unsworn, unspoken, might give him reason to do otherwise.

(Gong-warden was something useful to do, an odd job for an odd person, that provided a ready and unassailable reason to escape company that was prone to become too much in short order. And his sense of time-passing was acute and accurate.)

It was long before Fingon was Returned — much longer than it had been for Turgon, or any number of other lords and liegemen of the long defeat. And it was not until Fingon was in the world again that Ilverin left that isle, and the post of gong-warden in the city on the hill of that land.

When word came to Tol Eressea that Fingon was Returned, Ilverin left the isle, feeling the tug of the thread of fealty he had never sworn. He knew not if Fingon would see him, speak to him, feel in return any connection or reciprocation — the West needed little in the way of kings, and was over-supplied with them even with several still in Mandos. Fingon was a king whether or not he used the title. He was a king because people chose to follow him, people who were lords themselves, with their own liegefolk. And the model for lordship at that level among the Noldor was kingship. Ilverin could not put in words the need he felt, and was just as glad no one asked, though he had prepared an answer approaching truth, if not encompassing it.

Go to Fingon he must. And thus he went. To whatever end. Even to the world's end.

Chapter End Notes

Littleheart has a great many possible spellings of his name, especially seeing as how he's only in the Book of Lost Tales I & II. I picked the one (two) I liked the best.