Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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Pelargir

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They had not even set foot on the bustling docks of the colony when a man, who walked under a delicately embroidered parasol under the vigilant gaze of a considerable armed escort, hailed them and asked leave to “be admitted to their presence.” Bemused, Isildur gave him a long look before returning his attention to the docking manoeuvres and leaving Anárion to deal with the situation.

As always, the younger son of Elendil was successful at keeping his composure despite the ridiculousness of the circumstances. He had the gangway set before the lower sails were even rolled so the man, his parasol-bearer and four of his guards could come in, and he conversed with him over the shouts of the sailors, somehow managing not to raise his voice enough for the curious to overhear. After what appeared to Isildur to be a very lengthy conversation, their guest bowed very low and refused to be accompanied back to the docks, though Anárion politely insisted.

“Who was that man?” Isildur asked, once that he and his entourage had disappeared among the crowd of sailors, merchants and vendors going about their business in the harbour of Pelargir. His brother had been following them with his glance until then, but now he looked away.

“An esteemed associate of the Magistrate of Pelargir, here to invite us to the Magistrate’s house for dinner.”

“What? I cannot believe that those bastards knew we were coming! We have not even left the ship yet!”

Anárion shrugged.

“The Merchant Princes and their net of associates have their ways. Father always says that we would do better not to underestimate them. Not to mention that, according to Irimë…”

“I hope you did not accept the invitation”, Isildur interrupted him before he could start waxing poetical about his bride’s wise advice and penetrating insights. “We are supposed to be here as particulars, and our mission demands that we remain unremarked.”

“We are not unremarked anymore, Isildur”, Anárion replied simply. “Our new goal is to behave as if we have nothing to hide.”

“Should we… leave, then?” a man, visibly uncomfortable, interrupted their conversation from the side. It was Fíriel’s uncle, the man who had raised her until his foolih son got caught trying to assassinate the Prince, and most of the family decided to leave the Island before things could get any worse for them. “We do not wish to make things difficult.”

Isildur shook his head fiercely.

“Stop talking nonsense. You have nowhere to go yet. And I very much doubt they were here because of you.”

He had not asked Anárion for an opinion on this, but his younger brother gave it anyway.

“I mentioned to the merchant that we intended to stay in Abanazer’s house while we were in Pelargir, and that we had brought his kin from the Island. Now that we have been – detained by the circumstances, we can still send them to his house with a message from us, explaining the reason for our delay. Not even the Merchant Princes could object to that.”

The man looked lost.

“With all my respects, my lord, who is Abanazer?”

Anárion’s glance became fixed on him.

“As of today, your kinsman.”

And if he happens to have a young son, perhaps his soon-to-be kin by marriage, Malik snorted, gazing towards Fíriel’s exuberant cousin, who was leaning on the ship’s railing in a way that left her breasts in rather conspicuous display. It had been hard work for her mother to keep a shipful of sailors away from her for three weeks, and Isildur had heard loud fights coming from their place in the hold almost every day. Now, as she took in her first impressions of the exotic mainland, it seemed to be dawning on her that she stood before an exciting realm of endless possibility.

“Well, we should all be getting ready for our respective meetings”, Anárion was saying now, still looking at the other man but, in fact, addressing his words to Isildur.  Or at least, Isildur assumed that a family of peasants from Rómenna did not have audience clothes carefully packed in by their mother on the ship’s hold.

“Too much ceremony for a man who did not even give us time to dock before he had his associates board our ship”, Isildur grumbled, turning away from them and heading towards the stairs.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Pelargir had changed much since the last time Isildur set foot on the colony. Back then, though it already owed allegiance to Ar Pharazôn’s Sceptre, the city had still been Tar Palantir’s city, almost like an animated display of the beautiful crystal model that the old King used to keep in a chamber of the Palace. Now, those grand stone buildings, the last joint venture between different kindreds, loomed behind the long river harbour as imposing monuments of a past time, but in the streets that lay under their shadow everything was different.

That difference, Isildur soon understood, had a very clear source, evident enough for anyone who had known the city in earlier times. The Merchant Princes of Gadir, who had lost control of the Bay for a time after their city burned and trade routes were wrested away from them, had slowly but surely regained their footing in a changing world. As exiles, they had humbly asked for permission to establish their households in Pelargir, and the naïve council of settlers who had still been in power during Isildur’s first visit had granted it. They had been seduced by the newcomers’ good disposition, their helpful advice and the advantages of their wide net of contacts among the native nobility and the chieftains of the tribes. At some point after their prodigal son took the Sceptre, however, their masks had started to slip away, and when the King reorganized the city’s government and gave them a representative in the Council of the realm, they had made a bid for power.

According to Elendil, who was governor of Arne back then, it had been his fault that things had come to this. He had been defending the interests of Arne, which was understandable, but in the process he had forgotten to make sure that the interests of Pelargir did not suffer in the process. All of a sudden, the most flourishing trading colony of the realm had seen its lucrative deals with the Arnian elite vanish in smoke through the efforts of its own countryman, who appeared more concerned about the welfare of a bunch of backwater barbarians. Discontent and crisis had set in, and it had struck the Faithful who kept ties with the house of Andúnië much harder than the Merchant Princes of Gadir, whose underhanded means and superior knowledge of how to conduct business under a governor’s nose had been grabbed as a lifeline by struggling investors, while their rivals were left to suffer mistrust and ruin. Isildur had never cared much for politics, and even less for business, but he was still struck by Elendil’s haunted look on the day that the Merchant Princes gained the Magistracy and the Council seat.

This, however, had all belonged to the time before Sauron, those struggling years that now appeared almost like a golden age to those who looked back on them. Since then the issue of religion, which had never been a problem in Pelargir before, for all cults and beliefs were equally welcome within its walls, had grown too important in the world outside to remain ignored for long. Ar Pharazôn had granted Pelargir the same status as Rómenna, turning it into a haven where the Faithful could engage in their religious practices without fear of retribution. But what might seem at first sight to be a concession, wrung out from him by his better judgement because the Faithful were the majority of the citizens of Pelargir, could have had a more insidious intent hidden underneath. Like Rómenna, Pelargir had been overrun by alarmed Faithful from many corners of the Númenórean empire, most of them without the means to thrive or even survive in this rich city unless they depended on the charity of others. Some of the better natured, or more observant Faithful merchants –like Abanazer, younger son of the late Adûnazer who had lived in Arne with their father- had helped the newcomers, but this had not prevented the city’s streets from being filled with unsightly beggars, who in their desperation took to illegal dealings, even to petty crime. Meanwhile, the Merchant Princes and their associates grew richer and richer, and those who wished to prosper under their rule were careful to keep anything that could connect them in any way to those crooks under lock and key, if they bothered to keep it at all. This seemed to have had the effect of turning Pelargir into a city of ghost Faithful. Their temples had been gradually abandoned and fallen into disrepair, the strange but moving statues they had learned to carve during their first exile had disappeared from crossroads and front yards, and a rich temple of Melkor had been built in a large square by the Magistrate’s house. According to Anárion, human sacrifices were offered in there at least once a year, as the merchants paid good money to have captives delivered from Umbar. Isildur could only imagine how unpleasant it would be for the most cowardly Faithful to stand there, watching the flesh of the victims burn and pretending before their friends that they found it holy and edifying. But whatever they might claim about their personal circumstances, he felt no sympathy for their plight.

As it was, the only minor comfort he derived from the sights offered before him was the realization that the Merchant Princes were not as secure in their power as they pretended to be. This became obvious as they reached the area where their rich mansions stood in greater number, and he saw the high walls that surrounded them, crowned with spikes, and the many armed guards standing watch on them. The Magistrate’s house was the most heavily guarded of all, with what amounted to a small army, wearing the city’s colours but looking mostly like barbarians, assembled before its gates.

“Is this man using the city’s money to buy slaves for his own protection?” Isildur asked, astonished by this level of effrontery.

“No, he is using it to recruit skilled warriors from every corner of the world and paying them a fortune”, Anárion replied, with a shrug. “As far as he is concerned, slaves and Faithful pose the same kind of danger to his neck.”

“Isn’t he secure enough under the divine protection of the Face of Melkor?” While they exchanged those words, their names were announced and a powerfully built man, with features he could not relate to any part of the world that he knew, gestured at him to present his weapons for inspection. Anárion, who had already let them carry away his sword without as much as a second look in its direction, shook his head.

“The Face of Melkor is looking for an excuse to intervene in the city and destroy the dens of the Baalim-worshippers. I think the Magistrate does not particularly fancy becoming this excuse.”

“And yet he professes to believe in the doctrine of sacrifice.” Isildur did not know if those men even spoke their language, but he did not care for who overheard him. Reluctantly, he took out his sword, his dagger, and even his knife, though Malik did not agree with the last one. His friend did not trust Anárion’s instincts in the slightest, but when it came to dinners in fancy houses Isildur himself had nothing better to contribute, so he might as well follow his brother’s lead.

Once they had passed through the barrier of the gate guards, they came to a grand, stately porch, larger than the one they had in Rómenna, and entirely covered in gold-rimmed mosaics and gleaming tiles. There, they were ushered in by a host of young slaves of great beauty, who had them sit on a purple-covered couch, offered them wines of many different kinds and washed their feet, assuring them that the Magistrate would be with them as soon as his weighty obligations allowed.

“This is great”, Isildur grumbled, as the second cup of wine was pressed into his hand. Anárion was gazing inside his own cup thoughtfully without drinking a sip, a telltale gesture which made Isildur suspect that he was a little nervous.

“You should drink, it helps”, he advised. Anárion ignored him.

“Do you think the King would intervene if we were murdered here?” Isildur insisted, determined to wring a reaction.

Before the question had a chance to be answered, however, the Magistrate himself showed up in person to greet them. He was a chubby, genial looking man, of those whose cheeks grew flushed at the slightest show of emotion. He spoke and laughed equally loudly, and received them with the same enthusiasm with which he set to eat marinated oysters from a silver dish. He used to know their father, even Isildur himself, he claimed, though of course back then he would have been too lowly for the Governor’s son to notice his presence. Just a humble merchant, struggling to bring his family business back to its former prosperity, he finished, with a proud look at his surroundings that subtly reminded his noble guest of who was in charge now.

Isildur ate and drank mostly in silence, leaving Anárion to do the talking. The Magistrate repelled him more in person than he had merely by word of his reputation and deeds. Even the most twisted and pitiless of villains could prove to be an interesting man, but it was not the case with this one. Isildur had seen many others like him before, here and in Arne and in Armenelos and in Sor: upstarts who believed that the world belonged to them and yet affected modesty, who hid their cunning behind a good-natured façade, and made frequent displays of piety though they believed in nothing.

At some point after the eleventh course, they finally came to the subject of business. Anárion felt quite comfortable with his role in this farce, just as he had in the Governor of Sor’s court, and when he pretended to be an unexperienced young man led by enticing rumours of riches in the North, the Magistrate appeared flattered enough to share some morsels of his wisdom, free of charge.

“Many other enterprising young men have gone that way in the past, seduced by such nonsense. I can see you are adventurous, as those of your noble blood often are, and you have probably grown listening to tales of how your ancestors explored, conquered and struck deals all over the map. But your elders, who have invested good money in this venture, might have different views”, he nodded sententiously. “It is simply not worth it, I tell you. Wealth and trade are like migratory birds; they have their timeless routes and patterns, and you cannot ignore them. And if you wish to explore new territory, you need more than just a few ships. You need advance explorers, you need knowledge, and most of all, you need the might of the Sceptre to pave the way for your endeavours. If the King is not interested in that area, it is unlikely that you will make much headway with the savages there. Unless you think that you do not need the Sceptre.” For a moment, his grandfatherly expression gave way and his eyes became shrewd as he set them on Anárion, who withstood his glance with a serene look. “That is why noblemen do not make very good merchants.”

“Our ancestors were the first to open a trade route in the mainland. They showed the rest of the Island the way, including your own ancestors, my lord magistrate”, Isildur intervened. Their host shifted his attention towards him, for the first time since they had exchanged empty pleasantries about the circumstances of their previous encounter. As he did so, his lips curved in a smile which had no trace of real warmth underneath.

“Indeed, my lord, indeed! You are justly proud of your forebears. And yet, the Middle-Earth of that heroic age has little to do with the one we live in now.”

“That is right. Back then, we only had to fight external enemies, not the machinations of our fellow Númenóreans.”

This time, the resulting silence was much harder to fill. For the first time since they sat there, Isildur drank from his cup heartily, and revelled in the uncomfortableness that followed. You know that if you survive this visit, you might not survive Anárion, Malik snorted, close to his ear.

“We will take your advice to heart, my lord Magistrate”, Isildur’s brother spoke, as if he had remained oblivious to their confrontation. “You have been in the trade for a long time, and you must know many people. I was wondering if you could point us towards old merchant families that have ventured North from the Middle Havens in the past, or to those who may know stories of the lands that lie beyond. We would much appreciate any information you could help us gather.”

This seemed to mollify the merchant a little, and the incident was closed. For the next half hour or so, as night fell over the porch and barbarian musicians played the flute and the harp in their vicinity, the man pretended to rack his brains for any little piece of knowledge which might be of use to them. There was no one that went that way anymore, he claimed, when there was so much profit to be made in other areas of the world. Perhaps Aharbal’s aged uncle, now, that man had been up to many crazy stunts in his youth, but Anárion had to be careful not to believe half of what he said. And of course there was his associate’s son in the garrison of the Middle-Havens, the Magistrate would give them a note for him. It was through him that the city council regularly got notice of wild tribes who tried to burn and pillage their way down South. Those Forest People were rather bothersome, and rumour had also reached his ears of other foes joining hands with them, perhaps those elusive Elves, who were too cowardly to fight the Númenóreans in the open.

Isildur had just opened his mouth to say it was interesting to hear an accusation of cowardice from a man who lived in a fenced house and spent great quantities of money in his own protection, but Anárion saw the look in his eye and managed to intervene just in time.

“That was very helpful! We will be sure to speak to those people while we are here and in the Middle Havens, my lord magistrate. But now, I am afraid that it is getting late, and I would not want to keep our host awake, waiting for our arrival. Nor would we wish to keep you, my lord, from your many duties as a businessman and a ruler.”

“My duties are many, indeed, and most of them very onerous. In spite of this, I will always find time for an illustrious guest who comes all the way from the Island seeking fortune or adventure”, the Magistrate answered graciously. He called for his servants to bring in rosewater to clean their hands, and escorted them personally to the gates, where he ordered his hired warriors to return their weapons to them. By the time Isildur and Anárion managed to rejoin their comparatively minor escort, Isildur calculated that his brother and that man must have exhausted every empty pleasantry to be devised by the Adûnaic language.

“That was a dinner I would rather not repeat”, Isildur remarked as they walked through the square, now much emptier than before. At their left side, the large bulk of the Temple of Melkor, with its dome imitating those of Sor and Armenelos, hung ominously over their heads. One of the men made an instinctive gesture in its direction, as if to ward off evil, and another scolded him for his imprudence. It appeared that everyone was on edge since they had landed here.

“I would rather not repeat it in your company”, Anárion retorted. “You got abominably drunk and put our mission at risk. Irimë already warned me that your death wish might become a problem at some point.”

“With all my respects to your betrothed, she knows as much about this as she does about most of the issues she sees fit to interfere in”, Isildur replied angrily. “And I am not drunk, nor did I put anything at risk. As you said yourself back on the docks, the Magistrate already has us under his eye, and he will not like us any better no matter how much you fawn over him.”

“I am so grateful for your shrewd political insight, Isildur.” So he had a sense of humour now, too, didn’t he? “He is our enemy, so let us insult him, the highest appointed Númenórean authority, in his own house. He already suspects us of being up to something, so let us reveal our full purpose to him.”

“I was not going to reveal our full purpose to him.”

“You implied that we would have to fight his machinations! Now, why would we do that, if what we are seeking is in no way contrary to his interests? Not to mention everything that you would have said if I had not stopped you! We had to convince him that all we wanted was a chance to earn renown and have a little adventure by retracing our ancestors’ footsteps in an area he does not…”

“Silence!”

“Wh-?” Anárion’s instinctive protest died on his lips when he saw him tense. Then, however, as he saw him reach for his sword, alone among seven armed men, he arched an eyebrow in incredulity. “What are you doing?”

“Have your weapons at the ready”, Isildur hissed, nodding at Malik’s frantic signals from the end of the narrow street they had taken. Studying his surroundings with the long experience of a warrior, he counted two alleys, but none of them with an exit. That was no good. “We need to retrace our steps, now.”

“I hear nothing”, Anárion protested. “Perhaps the drink…”

“Drunk or not, if I say that you should have your sword at the ready, you do it!” Isildur cut him sharply. Just then, an unmistakeable clang of metal reached their ears from the distance, as the men who had set the ambush heard the telltale sounds which revealed that they had been discovered. His brother’s face changed at once from contentious to alarmed, and he took out his sword together with all the others. Following Isildur’s lead, they retraced their steps and took another street, but they were not citizens of Pelargir and so did not know the terrain well. It was only a matter of time until they got caught.

“Our best hope is to reach a street full of people.” The feeling of having already lived through this threatened to disrupt his clarity, so Isildur pulled it out before it could fester. “They will not harm us before many witnesses.”

“I hear voices coming from that direction!” one of the men cried, pointing towards the South, where there was a dim light over the sky. Unfortunately, no street seemed to go straight there, and the enemy was gaining on them.

They were ten, and probably very good at what they did, considering that they all belonged to the Magistrate’s prized corps. Though they did not bear any recognizable arms, Isildur had memorized their faces at the gate, and even if he had not, their bulk was unmistakeable.

Nothing for it, then. Fleeing any further was useless: they were caught in the trap, and all that remained to them was the chance to fight them off.

“I am Isildur, the heir of Elendil of Andúnië! If you think I am an easy kill, come here so you can realize your mistake!” he shouted at them. Though they knew little Adûnaic, they seemed to understand the challenge well enough, identifying him as the chief target. The other men closed ranks around him; even Anárion stood his ground, though he was not used to fighting.

But Isildur had no intention to keep to that formation. Instead, he threw himself at the enemy, and for a moment the feeling was so joyful, so pure, so liberating after so many years of paralyzing inaction that he even forgot about all that was at stake.

The barbarians had not expected this daring move, and he came in so fast that one of them did not even have time to protect himself against the onslaught, collapsing with a howl of pain. Strong they may be, Isildur soon realized, but their agility left to be desired. As both groups of fighters became enmeshed in a fierce struggle, his mind wandered towards a crazy stunt that Malik had pulled in the past, one that almost cost him his life, but also bought them victory in a desperate situation.

Once he found an opening to extricate himself from the fray, he turned away from his enemy, and ran. Soon, he heard a voice barking orders, and looking back, he saw a sizeable number of their enemies leave the fight to follow after his footsteps. Just as he had imagined, they were not as fast as he was, so now and then he took care to slow his stride. This way, they would not feel tempted to give up on the chase, and his forces would remain as intact as possible.

At some point, they reached the riverside, a set of smaller docks where some fishermen were getting ready to sail away for their night trips. As soon as they saw the armed men, they shouted and crouched behind their boats, away from the reach of their blades. Again, Isildur pretended to falter, gathering his forces for the final stretch.

Now! Malik hissed, just when they were upon him. Isildur took a sharp breath, and ran as fast as he could. His closest pursuer yelled in frustration as his hand closed on empty air.

This sudden acceleration brought an unbearable strain to the lines of his enemies, who began to lag behind, each of them at their own pace. Following Malik’s indications, Isildur stopped dead, dug in his heels, and turned around to attack the first of his pursuers. The man was alone, exhausted, and had not expected him to turn the tables like this, so he crumpled to the floor like a tree felled by lightning. The second was already more alert than the first, but he had also tired himself out, and the speed of his reaction was below his usual rate. Like this, he successfully killed three of them, until the fourth was upon him before he had managed to retrieve his sword from the body of the last, and he had no time to repeat the manoeuvre. Without a moment of hesitation, he left it there, ran towards the river, and jumped into it. He heard only one splash after his- apparently, the fifth warrior did not know how to swim.

To know how to swim, however, was far from enough to race Isildur in an element he had dominated since he was a child. While his enemy was still halfway through, he had already crossed to the other side and climbed up the rugged stone of the old docks. Struggling to his feet, he disappeared through one of the streets of that quarter. Only after he had turned four times and he could not hear anyone following him, he allowed himself to relax.

The river thing was a good touch, Malik nodded in grudging approval.

Checking that he looked more or less presentable –he had only received a few scratches, and the blood that survived the water was not very visible in the darkness- Isildur sought a passing reveller, and asked him for Abanazer’s address. The man stared at him in obvious mistrust, but his fear of this dangerous stranger eventually won out and he reluctantly complied.

When at last he stood before the threshold of the house, he did not even have to knock. Someone pointed at him from the window with a cry, and all of a sudden the doors were open, and people surrounded him to check him for wounds and rush him inside. To his immense relief, so great that it even took him by surprise, Anárion was there, holding a bandaged arm.

“Isildur!” he exclaimed, his features flushed in a way that his elder brother had never seen before. “What sort of madness…?”

“You are welcome, Anárion. I merely took half of our enemies off your back so you could have a chance against those that remained” he shrugged. “Did I say enemies? I should have said, your dear friend the Magistrate’s men.”

Anárion did not usually lost his temper, but in this new world those rules seemed no longer to apply.

“You-you are the most annoying… infuriating… insane…. is that blood?”

“What? Oh, this.” Isildur gazed with indifference at a gash on his arm, which had ruined his audience clothes. At least it did not seem like he would be needing them anymore. “You are right, I hadn’t even noticed it.” To his own surprise, he felt better than he had been in a very, very long time. “How is that arm?”

“Only two of us made it through”, Anárion informed him, and this effectively sobered him up.

“What? So few?”

His brother’s ashen frown was set on him with such intensity that he felt the temptation to flinch.

“All of us do not have your experience as a killing machine in Harad and the Vale. And all of us do not find this entertaining, or funny.”

“I do not find dinners with scheming bastards entertaining or funny, either. Perhaps you should have listened to me from the beginning and refused the invitation, though I’m sure you will claim that it was a necessary evil to play the Merchant Princes’ game. Well, so was this!” Isildur argued, bothered by that tone which seemed to imply that everything was somehow his fault. “And this is still Pelargir; the farther we go North, the less civilized it will get. So you either hire a good number of killing machines, or you might as well face the possibility that we may die.”

Anárion fixed his glance on the floor, looking as if he had been struck. Just when Isildur was going to open his mouth again, he nodded slowly.

“You may be right.”

Today was a day of firsts, or so it appeared. But of course it is, you idiot, Malik spat, it is the first time your brother has killed a man. And the first time he has been about to die. And he also thought that you were dead. And –well, you get the picture.

Anárion had never been the sort to inspire brotherly feelings, especially of the kind that an older brother held for the younger. Since he was a child, he had always made crystal clear that he could manage everything on his own, and much better than anyone else. Isildur could not be blamed for staying away from this as much as he could. And yet, as we have established, this is a day of firsts, isn’t it?

He took a sharp breath.

“It gets better after a while”, he said, trying not to feel embarrassed under his friend’s amused gaze. “Really, it does. And if it doesn’t, that is what the drink is for.”

Anárion stared at him with the most soulfully unreadable look that Isildur had ever seen in his eyes. For a moment, there was no way to even tell if he was going to utter some angry retort or start crying. Isildur cringed; he did not want to imagine Anárion crying. That would be too much.

“Thank you”, he said, instead, in such a low voice that it was almost impossible to make out the words. And then, before Isildur could say anything to this, he turned his back on him and left.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“To… to sa… sail… to… Va-val… vali…Valinor when… you… will…, and… to… re…ret… return… when… you… when you p- please… to… you, no, your… ho-mes. That…ca… can-not… be. No…can… the…Va…Va-lar…”

“Nor can the Valar”, Lalwendë corrected gently. Fíriel retraced her tentative steps across what looked to her like a hellishly steep path, doing her best not to slip and fall in the process. She had a sudden image of herself flapping her arms to keep her balance, looking as stupid as Gimilzagar back when he had been learning to walk on rocks.

“Nor can the Valar”, she repeated, though she had absolutely no idea of what this could mean. The letters told her the sounds that her mouth should make, but to her they were just a strange babble that did not make sense. “What is ‘nor’? Shouldn’t it be ‘no’, or ‘not’?”

“It is a word that we use to join a sentence to a previous one, when both have a negative meaning”, Ilmarë explained, an exasperated edge to her tone. “By all the Valar, girl, you told us that you had been taught to read!”

“I have!” Fíriel’s temper was also not buried very far underneath her skin today. “I know how to read, I was reading just now! I am sorry if I never had a lot of chances to practice! Books do not grow from the earth, and they are not fished from the water!”

“And that is exactly why we are here!” Lalwendë gave her a slightly too bright smile. “So you can hone your reading skills.”

Fíriel might not have achieved too much in that department, so far, but at least she had done better when it came to reading Ilmarë’s emotions. Most of the time that she seemed angry at her, deep down, she was actually angry at herself. Right now, she must be thinking that if she had not let the Queen trick her, Fíriel would be reading this text as if it was a piece of cake, and in tengwar, too. That it was her own fault that Fíriel was a stupid peasant. As if being able to read all that meaningless nonsense had been of much avail to her, the young woman thought, rebelliously. Knowing the difference between ‘not’ and ‘nor’ had not helped Ilmarë against the Queen, and Fíriel could not see how it could help her, either, unless there were instructions in there telling her how to become invisible.

“Why is this so important, anyway?” she could not refrain from asking, doing a great effort to keep the hostility and the frustration at bay. Gimilzagar had never said an ugly word about the things she had been good at, even though he had sucked at them. Why did she feel so negatively about something that she could not do?

“If everybody in Númenor had been able to read the ancient wisdom from the books of our elders, the Blasphemous King would never have been able to bring the worship of Melkor to the Island”, Ilmarë explained, as if she was trying to teach something obvious to a child. “Those who cannot read are easily made to believe in lies and fall to evil, because they cannot access the truth by themselves.”

This managed to touch a nerve inside Fíriel, in spite of her better resolutions.

“My family never read any books, and yet they did not believe in lies or fell to evil!”

“That is because the common folk tend to follow their lords, and those, thankfully, could read.”

Aghast, the girl turned towards the source of the voice, and realized that Lady Irimë must have been in the room for at least part of the argument. She was the absolute opposite from the easy-going Lady Lalwendë, and had no reason to see Fíriel as an equal, so this outburst had probably given her abundant reason to form a negative opinion on her.

“I see that you remain intent in your project of civilising this girl, Lady Lalwendë, Lady Ilmarë” the lady said, approaching the table where the three of them were sitting. “That is very dutiful of you, though I am afraid it might be a little too late for education to be entirely effective. Only young saplings can be straightened; older trees remain bent.”

“We appreciate your opinion, Lady Irimë, but this is none of your business”, Ilmarë replied, with such a gelid tone of voice that even Fíriel was taken aback. Courtesy was another part of her “education”, and they had also been trying to convince her of the importance of it, but as it turned out they did not always follow their own rules.

Even worse, Fíriel thought, Anárion’s betrothed was looking from her to Ilmarë, and from Ilmarë to her in a way that struck her as strangely - alert. Perhaps it was a trick of her overactive imagination, but for a second she wondered if Irimë’s hawkish, penetrant eyes could have discovered the truth. Fíriel would not put it past her.

“I apologize if I have offended you, my lady”, she replied, to the girl’s surprise. From the image Fíriel had been building of this woman in her head, apologizing was not something that she would do on a daily basis. Maybe she was just better at this courtesy thing than either Fíriel or her mother, and wanted to rub it in. “But I must confess to some personal interest in what you are doing here. When my sister Irissë was young, the brunt of the difficult task of raising her into a lady of a noble house fell to me. I was much younger than I am now, myself, and though it pains me to admit it, there was much trial and much error involved.” She was once young and made mistakes, it figured, Fíriel thought ironically, but she did not even dare look in her mother’s direction, afraid of implicating her in her not very courteous thoughts. “It occurred to me that perhaps you could find an use for some of the insights I gained in the process. Though I can appreciate that the circumstances are different, of course.”

Fíriel would have loved to ask if those “different circumstances” referred to her being one half peasant, one quarter barbarian, or just not an airheaded twat like Lady Irissë. But this time, Lady Lalwendë spoke before either Ilmarë or Fíriel could even think of opening their mouths.

“That is very generous of you. You are indeed welcome to share your advice with us as soon as we are finished here, Lady Irimë, and we will be grateful for it.”

In other words, do as you wish, but not now, for Fíriel was here before you, and she is not to be talked about as if she was not present. So this was the proper use of courtesy: to tell someone to fuck off while taking away their right to feel angry and lash back. For the first time in that day, Fíriel could see a point in any of the teachings they had been trying to impart to her. She would learn that one, she thought.

“I will do that, my lady.” Lady Irimë bowed herself away, with a regal nod of her proud head. Once that she and her servants had departed, Ilmarë’s barely neutral gaze became one of intense dislike.

“Yes, you certainly will”, she spat after her. Lady Lalwendë shook her head.

“Do not be so hasty to judge, Ilmarë. I know that she might seem… abrasive sometimes, but I have the feeling that she means well.”

“Aside from implying that Fíriel is a halfwit and that you and I have no idea of what we are doing?”

Lady Lalwendë sighed softly, and gazed at Fíriel with an apologetic look.

“Yes, aside from that. She does love Anárion sincerely.”

“And how does that excuse her behaviour? I know that you are his mother, but the rest of us are not Anárion, and we are not the ones marrying her!”

Fíriel was surprised to hear them argue so openly in front of her. She realized that she did not mind at all, for this, more than anything they had said or done before now, made her feel as if she was standing among her peers – her own kin.

“That is where you are wrong, my daughter. To her, we are all Anárion, in a sense.”

“What?” The girl could not help but agree heartily with that assessment.

“We are Anárion’s family, and she wants Anárion’s family to thrive and excel in every possible way. That is why she has set herself to solve all our problems, whether they are political, economic or personal in nature, perfect our characters and prevent us from falling into anarchy or decadence.” For a moment, it looked as if Lalwendë herself would roll her eyes, but she did not. “Where she comes from, the actions of proud and foolish men and the inaction of silly women destroyed everything she had once taken for granted: their lordship, their seat in the Council, their wealth, even the lives of their loved ones. From what I have gathered, she seems to believe that she could have prevented it if anyone had listened to her. And perhaps she would have, for she is talented, even if she will have to realize one day that she cannot control everything. Not even her own sister”, she remarked with a brief smile, a concession to gossip among all the serious talk. Fíriel gazed at the threshold through which the woman had disappeared a while ago, thoughtful.

“So, she is interested in…perfecting my character, just because I am Anárion’s family?” Whether she knew that she was Ilmarë’s secret love daughter, or she believed the official story that the Lord of Andúnië had shamed himself with some village girl after his wife’s death. To Lady Irimë this must have seemed the height of anarchy and decadence, Fíriel thought wryly. At least she had not suggested that they shipped her off to the mainland.

“If she is, I would not want to be in Anárion’s shoes”, Ilmarë snorted, then frowned thoughtfully, as if she had read part of Fíriel’s own thoughts. “She already must not think too highly of Grandfather, both for the Fíriel affair and for his hand in the events that had us exiled here. And she probably thinks that Father defers to him too much. If it gets into her head that Anárion is the last hope of the house of Andúnië, she will drive him so hard that he will collapse, not that he would ever think of complaining. And in any case, “she turned to Fíriel again, “I will never let her do that to you.”

She did not know what on Earth possessed her to shrug.

“Do not worry. I can take care of myself.”

Ilmarë stared in disbelief, but Lalwendë smiled.

“Oh, we know that.  Now, if only you would learn to fend her off delicately instead of hitting her across the face like you did the Prince, your future perspectives might improve.”

That, again. “The Prince told me to hit him.”

Her mother’s eyes widened.

“An admirable disposition, but not very common. Even among those of us who are not princes.”

“Do I still need to read, then?” Fíriel asked, not too hopeful. Ilmarë sized her up in apparent disapproval, but there was a new, playful spark in her glance which had been absent until now. All of a sudden, it struck Fíriel how very beautiful she was, and how much of a dream princess she would have appeared to her father when they were both growing up in Andúnië. Her sullen moods often did not leave room for realizations of this kind.

“I am afraid you do. One way or another, we will straighten this crooked tree, even if it pelts our heads with rotten fruit for our efforts” she announced, in such a good impression of Lady Irimë’s voice that Lady Lalwendë shook her head in half-hearted reproach.

Fíriel laughed.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“Move right! No, right! What are you… damn!” Pain exploded on his right arm, and as his knees hit the hard earth, he could not prevent himself from crying out. He fought hard not to let go of his sword, knowing that Father would be angrier if he did, but there wasn’t much he could do with it at this point except curling against it so it would not be wrested away from him. And that, of course, was also the wrong thing to do.

“The sword is there to protect your body, not the other way around!” Abdazer scolded him, in a harsher tone than the one he normally used, whenever Gimilzagar’s father was not there to stress him out. Though the man’s rational mind should know well enough that his pupil was not forgetting his teachings on purpose, and that today his fighting form was just as bad as any other day, a part of him still wanted to blame the Prince for making him look bad in front of the King. As if Gimilzagar did not have anything else to worry about than Lord Abdazer’s Court standing.

“That was disgraceful!” Ar Pharazôn declared from the veranda, his voice still hoarse from the shouting. Sometimes, he tended to get a little carried away when watching his son make a fool of himself.

“A-at least I was not disarmed this time”, Gimilzagar tried to argue, though he immediately saw disapproval staring back at him from the faces of both men.

“Oh, that is true. You would have made a gallant corpse on the battlefield, hugging your sword to your chest”, his father nodded, sarcastically. “People would tell stories about the prince of Númenor who died for a piece of metal that he did not know how to use.”

Slowly, gritting his teeth, Gimilzagar struggled back to his feet. His knee felt wet, and he winced, certain that it had to be oozing blood. He hated blood. As much as he hated this whole, pointless charade, how he was trained every day and admonished as if he was going to be dropped off in the middle of a raging battlefield with only his skill and his courage to keep him alive. They all knew that his father would never do this, so what was the point in pretending? Was it just the vindictive pleasure he derived from torturing him?

“I am sorry to say I am not making much headway with the Prince in combat, my lord King, but he does excel at other disciplines which are better suited for a general, such as military strategy”, Abdazer was saying now, as if he, too, was bothered by this contradiction. “In fact, the other day he defeated me at…”

“Bullshit”, Gimilzagar’s father cut him before he could even finish the sentence. “Those are mere children’s games. That a boy ends the game with more captured tokens than you does not make him a general.” Gimilzagar opened his mouth to intervene, but he closed it again when Ar Pharazôn stared him down. “Do you think that an army is like a board full of tokens, that they will stay where you put them, and go where you send them while you sit comfortably in your tent? I do not care how clever you are, you need to be in the middle of it, to see how it is by yourself. You may have a great imagination, powers of foresight, of perception, or whatever it is that you have inherited from your mother, but how can you possibly know what a man feels when he is faced by a charging enemy, when he is surrounded by a superior force, when he is standing his ground against an unexpected attack, if you have never been there? How do you know how they will react, whether they will defend their position or throw the board at your face?”

Gimilzagar would never know what gave him the courage to say what came to his mind then.

“I know how I would feel, my lord King. I would be frightened, and I would flee. I do not need to be there to know it.”

For a moment, Ar Pharazôn was speechless, as if unable to decide what response would be appropriate for this insolence. To Gimilzagar’s surprise, however, he did not yell at him.

“At least you are not frightened to tell me that to my face. I will consider it an improvement”, he declared. Then, he turned towards the Prince’s instructor. “Give me your sword, Abdazer.”

Gimilzagar’s blood left his face when it dawned on him what the King planned to do. Instinctively, he stepped back.

“I...”

“Is this how far your courage will go? You just talked back to me, why not keep it there for a little longer?” As fast as he could, the Prince blocked a thrust, but his feet were not firmly planted on the ground like Abdazer had told him many times they should. Just before he lost his balance, he managed to jump backwards. When he moved to pull his sword with him, the King disengaged his own weapon first and struck his unguarded left flank. Gimilzagar did not fall, but he doubled over with a smothered groan. “How do you think that the soldiers of Númenor would feel if they saw this, Gimilzagar? Would they follow you to the end of the world? Would they die for you?”

Gimilzagar had parried two more thrusts with a shaky pulse, still smarting from the pain of the recent attack and the previous ones. When the King asked this question, however, he lost his grip, and allowed himself to be disarmed with a thunderous clatter. His vision was hazy, and not just from exhaustion.

“Does anyone have a say about that?” he asked, in a low voice. Behind him, Abdazer gasped. Pharazôn kicked the sword away, and pressed the point of his own blade against Gimilzagar’s throat as matter-of-factly as if he had done it a hundred times before. Because of course, he had.

“Soldiers are not barbarians or criminals, Gimilzagar. They are there because they chose to, and if they do not like you, they will do their duty and nothing more. And if they do their duty and nothing more, the Númenórean empire will fall.” The Prince stayed perfectly still, even though he knew that the sword was not sharpened. The memory of his father pressing a similar blade against the pulsating throat of one of those unfortunate peasants in the temple of Sor was so vivid in his mind that he felt paralyzed. “Long before I was King, long before I conquered Mordor and the vast lands beyond it, I sailed to the mainland to live with the soldiers as one of them. I slept with them, ate with them, fought with them, was ambushed and survived desperate situations with them. Only after I knew them well, I became able to lead them successfully.”

The blade was removed from his throat, and Gimilzagar could breathe freely at last.

“You will remain by my side at all times, because if I sent you to do as I did, you would not survive the experience. But that is not what Númenor truly needs. Do you understand what I am saying, Gimilzagar? What Númenor needs is for the heir to the Sceptre to be as good a general as his father, so he can keep his conquests intact and subdue all rebellions, and keep the wealth and tribute flowing.”

“And I am not that general”, Gimilzagar concluded; to his surprise, there was no bitterness in his voice. “Still, in spite of my… limitations, I should try my hardest to prevent the soldiers and the people from ever finding out how inadequate I am. I must somehow pretend to be that general, or Númenor will fall into ruin. Is that it, Father?”

Ar Pharazôn gave a step, then two, in his direction, and extended a hand to help pull Gimilzagar to his feet.

“Yes”, he said. “That was indeed my point.”

In other words, the Prince thought, walking towards his sword to pick it up, it had never been anything personal. If Ar Pharazôn had been Eshmounazer, the merchant from Sor, he would probably have been happy enough to have him as a son, dismissing his quirks and weaknesses with a fond smile.

But he was Gimilzagar, the Prince of the West. And any world where his father did not hold the Sceptre, and he was allowed to spend his summers by the seaside with the girl he loved without horrible things happening was a mere fantasy, a fantasy he should learn to say goodbye to.

“Then, I shall try my best”, he bowed, trying not to be distracted by the inconvenient thought that this, too, would be just another fantasy rising to take the place of the old. If he detected this hesitation, however, Ar Pharazôn gave no signs of it when he nodded back at his son.

“I am glad that we understand each other” he said, handing back the sword to the still thunderstruck Abdazer. “You can go back to your practice now.”