Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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Dusk

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Year 3256 of the Second Age -Year 1 of the reign of Ar Zimraphel and Ar Pharazôn

 

“Please, my lord, give it to me. I will take care of it while you go inside.” The woman carried a large belly, clear evidence that she was with child, but this did not seem to faze her as she grabbed the reins of his horse. Amandil stopped in his tracks, unsure of whether he should let her do this, for his mount was always ill at ease among unknown people. She, however, advanced towards it with her gaze firmly set on its elusive black eyes, making strange sounds with her mouth. When it finally submitted to her touch, she scratched its forehead with a smile, and called for her son to bring something to eat.

Of course, he thought wryly, berating himself for his moment of doubt. She is Ashad’s daughter, after all.

The house, from the porch outside to the hearth within, was so crowded with people that it did not seem as if it would be possible to accommodate one more, or even negotiate a path through that throng. Briefly peeking through one of the windows, he saw that some of those who stood inside were family, as far as he could tell between his memory and his instinct to recognize tell-tale traces of mixed ancestry. Others appeared to be their wives and husbands from the village, but at least as many more had to be villagers with secondary or no kinship ties with the man who lay there. They spoke in low voices, unwilling to disturb the sickbed, but as he walked around the house from the back, he was able to hear part of their conversation.

“He is still so young!”

“No, he is not! Among his people, he would be a very old man. Did you see how old he looked? Last time I saw him, he could not even walk anymore!”

“But he has been living here for all his life! When our ancestors sailed across the Great Sea and settled in the Land of Gift, their lives were extended upon setting foot on its blessed shores. Why not his?”

“That is not the same! He was born of a kind who has always lived under the shadow of Mordor. Have you ever seen a barbarian in the capital? They all remain short lived, too!”

“How dare you call him a barbarian! You are in his house, receiving the hospitality of his family!”

“Sssshhhh!” a man’s voice, also familiar to Amandil but whose owner he could not distinguish, hissed at them. “Will you keep your voices down? If he is asleep, you will wake him up!”

At this, everybody fell silent again, and he almost felt embarrassed for having to speak aloud, but it could not be avoided anymore. He had reached the porch outside the main entrance while they argued, and no one had noticed his arrival yet.

“I am here to visit Ashad.”

An elderly woman who held a cup of warm wine between her fingers was the first to turn her head in his direction, then the man who sat by her side, and then a young woman tugged at the elbow of a young man who stood beside her. Soon enough, everyone was staring at him, and little afterwards those who had been sitting were struggling to their feet, while those who remained standing tried to bow, but in such a cramped space such manoeuvring was trickier than getting a warfleet up the Agathurush. People stepped on each other’s toes and pushed, chairs made noise as they were dragged through the floor, and Amandil winced.

“Stay where you are, all of you! I only need to pass through.”

“Thank you for coming, my lord.” The owner of the voice he had heard before, Ashad’s eldest son, beckoned him from where he stood, next to the door of Ashad’s sleeping chamber. “I will take you to him, but first, may I ask you to come to the kitchen with me?”

Assuming that Ashad would be asleep, and that this was just a polite way of denying him entrance, Amandil nodded and walked across the room, greeting people, holding hands and smiling back with an effortless ease he had perfected through the years.

The house’s kitchen was perhaps the most chaotic place he had seen in his life. Dirty dishes, trays, and above all, glasses, were piled upon one another, covering almost all the available space. A wooden table at the opposite corner of the room was entirely occupied by clay jars filled with mixed wine, which exuded a strong smell of spice, and four or five women of different ages were sitting in a circle around it. The moment they saw them enter, their talk ceased abruptly, and the youngest among them dropped the cup she was holding.

“What are you doing, you foolish girl? You look like you just saw a ghost enter the kitchen! That is the lord Amandil, not the Dark Lord Sauron!” an older woman berated her. “Oh, excuse her, my lord. Do you want some wine?”

“Is there any cold wine?” Amandil asked hopefully. He had been riding for the best part of the day, and he had to admit that he was feeling quite thirsty.

“Thanks, my dear”, Ashad’s son nodded at her with a brief smile, as the woman stood up and went to find a clean cup. Then, however, he turned to face Amandil again. “My lord, I am very grateful that you are taking time away from your many important duties to travel this far to our humble abode. In behalf of our father, I… no, we all wish to thank you for your kindness. For all these years, he has always spoken so often and so highly of you, that even now, I feel as if I know you as well as I know my own grandfather. Not that I wish to imply that I… well, that you…”

“I understand what you mean”, Amandil reassured him before the thread of his speech became lost over this point. “Please, go on.”

Ashad’s eldest son fell silent. Doing his best not to drink the cup in a single gulp, the lord of Andúnië swallowed about half of it while he scrutinized the man before him. He was still nervous, he noticed.

“Well, the thing is… that it has been very hard, especially in this last month. Not because of the frailty in his body, because there are more than enough of us to take care of all his needs and ease his passing, but… there is his mind, too.”

His mind. Unexpectedly, Amandil had to push unpleasant memories of Magon the Elder away from his mind, during that terrible year he had spent in the makeshift fort among the ruins of Pelargir.

“He is not… deranged, or mad, or anything, my lord. But he has forgotten many things. He has forgotten the faces of all the people he does not see every day, and most of his own life. When he speaks, it is usually about his childhood. Even things… people… that he had never mentioned to any of us before, not even to Mother.”

“I see.” This was no idle expression of assent; and as such, it was not spoken light-heartedly. Amandil felt that he could even guess part of what he had not been told, of what was inspiring this degree of discomfort in his interlocutor’s mood. “Listen to me. If you believe that seeing me will not do him good, I will be content to gaze at him while he is asleep, and ride back to Andúnië.”

The shifty gaze became an incredulous stare.

“That is out of the question! My lord, you came all the way here…”

Then, what is your point? he would have asked, if the man’s father had not been agonizing in a nearby bed. He drank again.

“Precisely. What purpose would there be in coming all the way here only to make a dying man even more uncomfortable? What kind of servant of the Enemy would do that?”

“As I see it, there are two options.” The woman had approached them again, with the excuse of refilling his now empty cup, but she did not seem embarrassed for having overheard their conversation, not even for interrupting it now. “He could be happy to see you, and then your journey would not have been in vain. Or he could also be upset by your presence, and then you would leave, and he would fall asleep again, and forget that you were ever here. He would probably think that he had dreamed it, poor man. I believe that what my husband is trying to do is to prevent you from being uncomfortable, my lord.”

“Well, in that case, I will see him.” Amandil was fast, before the man could relapse into his former indecision. “As soon as he is ready.”

The gaze was lowered, until it became thoughtfully fixed on a piece of broken clay that the girl had forgotten to collect when she mopped up her mess.

“As you wish, my lord.”

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The room was warm and smelled of closed space, with a slightly pungent tinge of herb. Less evident, but also present, was another scent which was difficult to define, one he had also detected in Magon’s room years ago, and in his own mother’s deathbed. The scent of decay, he thought, wistfully.

What he could perceive with his nose, however, was not the most unsettling thing that awaited him behind that door. He had seen Ashad grow old for many years, but this had not prepared him for the sight that was offered to his eyes now. Ever since his childhood, the Haradric boy had been shorter and slighter of build than most Númenóreans, but his arms and legs had been sinewy and strong. Now, he had lost all his muscle, and little else but skin and bones remained. His face, too, looked thinner and longer, which made his dark eyes appear much larger by contrast, almost as if they were protruding from their sockets. He was leaning against his wife for the support that he needed to remain in anything other than a prone position, and somehow, in spite of the fact that old age had caught up with him much earlier and that she, unlike him, retained her youthful looks, the sight reminded Amandil of a mother holding her child.

As if from a distant place, memories of his mother came to him, lying on that bed under the eerie moonlight of Rómenna. Long life, short life…they were all sides of the same coin, he mused darkly, for in the end, it all boiled down to this. And if the Land of Gift gave different lifespans to its inhabitants, that gift was nothing but a curse, as much as the blood that flowed through his own veins, keeping him young even as his own wife was fated to pass away and crumble to dust.

“Ashad”, he spoke, tentatively. The man in the sickbed stared at him, his face growing livid, and he began shaking in alarm, in spite of Amal’s reassuring whispers.

“They are here”, he said in a hoarse, broken voice. “The N… the Númenóreans. Mother, they are here. Mother, you have to hide.”

“I am sorry, my lord” he heard behind his back, though he could not bring himself to pay much attention. “I was afraid it would be like this… he means nothing by it…”

Amal did not even look at him, as trying to calm Ashad down required most of her attention.

“Ssssh. We are safe here. We are safe, I promise. No Númenóreans will harm us. Ssshhh.”

Amandil swallowed the knot in his throat. Memories of Magon, even of his dying mother, were something that he could withstand; they might bring contempt or they might bring sadness, but always for others, and he was merely a spectator, standing outside of the circle to gaze into it.

“Ashad”, he tried again, advancing two, three careful steps until he was by the edge of the bed. The old man’s fear would not go away; instead, it was quickly growing into full terror. This was especially poignant because, even as a child, Amandil could not remember Ashad acting like this in front of others. That fateful night, amid the smoke and the scattered corpses, he had not seen his hand tremble once. All of a sudden, Amandil realized that those memories he had never revisited held details that he thought he had forgotten, like how a child of five, six at the most, had charged at a Númenórean soldier with a knife. Or how, if the blade had not rebounded against the kneecap, this attack could have left the man lame for the rest of his life.

“Curse you, bastard sons of mangy dogs, may El bring you the plague and rot you from the inside out!” he yelled in his own dialect, with an admirable command of its most colourful turns, which was not even affected by being pinned to the ground.

“Do we kill him?”

“No, leave him alone. He is too young to be a threat.”

“Oh, is he, now? My leg is still bleeding!” The angry soldier crouched until the child’s face was inches away from his. “Who taught you to do that, you little monster?”

“My father”, the child replied, in mangled Adûnaic this time. “He kill two times six Númenórean warmen.” Then, without prior warning, he spat on the man’s face.

Amandil shivered, forcing himself to return to the present. In the small, foul smelling bedroom of a village house, to the West of the Great Sea, Ashad’s agitation did not give signs of subsiding. All the emotions that he had kept tightly in check back then seemed to have been brought forth to the surface, at long last.

The gifts given to Men were too bountiful to count, the lord of Andúnië thought, in bitter sarcasm. Diverging lifespans to make them ultimately alien to each other, death, which hung like a dark cloud, waiting to take loved ones away to a place from where they could never return, and the greatest of all, old age, to rob a man of every drop of dignity he had always tried to keep despite the most terrible circumstances. Since he was but a child, Ashad had strived to ensure that no one saw him like this, no, that no one even knew about this – and now, his efforts had all proved vain.

Then again, a tiny, conscientious voice that sounded suspiciously like his father whispered inside him, isn’t there, perhaps, something good in this naked truth, too? For dignity belonged to the world of appearances, like yet another layer of armour designed to keep their soft flesh from exposure. But, after all was said and done, men also needed the truth, as painful as it might be sometimes. They may not like it, they may not want it, but they still needed it.

“Ashad”, he spoke more firmly, edging closer to the old man, and repeating the motions that he remembered. “I am not armed. We have laid down our weapons, as we swore in our treaty. Remember the treaty?”

For the first time, Ashad’s countenance showed some emotion other than fear. His brow creased in momentary puzzlement, like a boy who had forgotten his lessons. Seizing this opening, Amal kissed his forehead, and whispered something in his ear.

“I…” he began. “I swore…”

“Yes, you swore it, and I did, too”, Amandil insisted. The woman caressed a strand of matted white hair away from her husband’s eye and looked at him in curiosity, though he could not tell if it was real, or feigned for Ashad’s benefit.

“What did you swear, my love?”

“That he would not bear arms against Númenor, whether they be a sword, a bow, a spear, or a kitchen knife. Or a stone, I believe that was part of the oath too.” Amandil recalled, slowly. The child had taken it as seriously as if he had been an adult. “Yes, I am sure of that, because you frowned for days, and looked miserable, and yet you could not find a loophole.”

“A stone.” Ashad repeated. Then, all of a sudden, he shook his head ruefully, as if he could remember something. “No.”

“The oath also said that you would be well-behaved and courteous and not spit in anyone’s face.”

“And, did you fulfil it, dear?”

“I do. I always do.” There it was, the scowl he had not seen for so many decades. “But not them.”

“I know.” Aware that he could press his advantage, Amandil sat even closer, and held his hand in his. It weighted so little that he wanted to weep. “It was… it is their fault. You have nothing to fear, Ashad. I swore that you would be safe as an ally of Númenor. And you will. Until the day you…until they day you die.”

He could barely manage to finish the sentence without his voice breaking. When Ashad nodded at his words, as solemnly as only a child would, he forced himself to withstand his glance, until the fear was banished at last.

This instant of peace and recognition, however, lasted but briefly. Mere instants later, the old man’s eyelids began to droop, and Amal let his head rest on the pillows. Even after he had fallen asleep, her caresses did not stop, as if she was trying to touch him as much as she could, to feel his body, his skin, before it all vanished from her grasp.

“Do not think too ill of me”, he spoke, after a long silence. “The Haradrim… all of them, but most of all those who have long-standing alliances with Mordor, are fierce and cruel enemies. Sometimes, it is not possible to keep the warriors apart from the common folk, because even their common folk are warriors. Even their women, more often than not… “His voice trailed away for a moment, as he became aware that he was rambling, in a way that did not become the dignity of a lord of Andúnië. The words, however, would not stop coming. “In the Middle Havens, there was a woman I knew. From the North. She was like a second mother to him, and she wanted him to stay with her when I was called back to the Island, but he refused. He stole my horse and tried to board my ship on his own because he was so determined to come to Númenor.”

“He was determined to follow you.” By this point, he did not even expect her to reply, so he was surprised by the sound of her voice. “He could not care less about Númenor, my lord. He hates ships, and he hates islands, which are nothing but bigger ships to him. He used to say that we had to be insane to settle in a place where water surrounded us on all sides. Do you know that, even after eighty years of living here, he still remains convinced that we are drifting away across the Great Sea with the current?”

He nodded, with a tentative smile. Apparently, he was not the only one who wanted to talk.

“He has been happy here. We have loved each other dearly, and together we had all those children and grandchildren, who were the joy of our lives. He gained the admiration and respect of the entire village, look at them crowding our doorstep now! And though it seems brief to me, for the standards of his people he has lived a long and productive life. If he had stayed in Harad, how could he have met me? How could he have met all these people? Who knows at what age he might have died, what perils would have awaited him in the mainland?”

You might have still met him once he was older, if he had been taken to Armenelos for execution, Amandil mused. This train of thought, however, did not provide as much comfort as might have been expected.

“I see your point. But trying to convince myself that I did a good deed because I prevented something worse from happening does not raise my spirit to a higher plane of righteousness”, he confessed. “The man who raised me used to say that bad deeds were bad deeds, and good deeds were good deeds, regardless of the consequences that may be derived from them.”

And this was far from being the only instance in which he had trampled on the teachings of the priest, he thought guiltily, his mind clouded by more recent visions of Hiram’s accusing stare, Valacar’s corpse, the King and the Queen mating in the shadows of the Cave under the fervorous chants of the multitude.

“I am sure that your noble father is full of wisdom.” He did not correct her mistake. “But I have been happy, and so has he, and we owe it to you, my lord.”

“And you do not regret it, even now?” He did not know what had possessed him to ask this question, but she seemed neither upset nor offended.

“No.” Slowly, and very careful not to wake him, she kissed the wrinkles in the old man’s forehead. “Not even now.”

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

When Amandil left the room, he was feeling as drained as if he had just crossed a desert with the enemy at his heels. His long years of training barely managed to come the rescue as he was surrounded by people who came to pay his respects, ask questions and express concerns, and who seemed bent in preventing him from ever leaving the place. He was offered hospitality in about a dozen houses, and though he was aware that the only alternative was to either spend the night under a tree in the field, or in one of Ar Adunakhôr’s abandoned roadside inns, he declined all the invitations, and finally extricated himself from their company long enough to find his way to the field at the back of the house.

His horse, which had been tethered there after he left, was busy grazing at the weeds that grew around the area. As he approached it, however, he realized that a second horse was grazing next to it, a grey mare which had not been there before. Startled, he looked around, wondering how tired he had to be to be taken by surprise as easily as this.

Then, he saw him.

“Father! What on Earth are you doing here?”

“If by ‘here’ you mean Ashad’s house, I was told that this is where I could find you, and I had a feeling that it would not be easy for you to face what lay inside”, Númendil replied. He was wearing a travelling cloak, whose folds billowed in the late afternoon breeze. “If you mean Númenor, we laid anchor in the harbour of Andúnië this very morning, and narrowly missed you.”

“We?” Amandil felt his temper rise, as it often did when he found himself face to face with this exasperatingly calm man. “What do you mean, we? I told you that you should not bring any of your esteemed friends to the Island anymore!” Even though nobody who could betray them was listening, prudence was an ingrained habit of his past which had returned in full force after the last year. “Things have changed now, you know that, and I cannot be responsible for their safety! My dear neighbour, the High Priest of the Forbidden Bay, is waiting for an opening to introduce dissension between Andúnië and Armenelos, and I would not put it past him to have spies around the place. Not to speak of the fact that the North cape, which you doubled on your way here, is teeming with the King’s soldiers now. It would merely take one slip, one accident, for their lives to be on my conscience, and I cannot…”

Since he had claimed the Sceptre by marrying his cousin, the King had been keener than ever to demonize Elves and anything connected to them. He and his party claimed, with varied degrees of success, that extending incest to first cousins was an Elvish custom which had contaminated Númenor, while remaining largely unknown to the Men of Middle-Earth. Associating with Elves had been considered treasonous since the time of Ar Adunakhôr, and though Tar Palantir had abolished those decrees, now they had been restored anew.

“I am sorry. It will not happen again”, Númendil cut his tirade serenely. “But they had a very important cargo to deliver, and they needed to see to its safety in person.”

“Important cargo? What is so important?”

“First of all, me. I have come to Númenor to stay, for I am done with the duty that the Former King entrusted to me, and if I stayed in Lindon any longer, it would be merely out of selfishness.” Amandil made as if to open his mouth, but his father had not finished. “And they also brought seven Seeing Stones.”

“Seven…?” He had heard of the Palantíri before, and he had some vague idea that Andúnië used to have one, which his father took to Middle-Earth to him, but that was the farthest that his knowledge extended. “Why so many?”

“I only had one Stone to bring back home”, Númendil set to the task of untethering one horse, then the other, as if it was something that he did every day. “The Elves, however, have more at their disposition, and they were gracious enough to offer the rest to me as a present in these dark times. With them, we can speak to each other without fear of being intercepted or overheard, no matter how far apart we are. From the West of the Andustar to the East of Arne, we will not have to disguise our words or look for spies.”

“Oh.” Amandil thought of Elendil, of how his letters had suddenly become like dispatches sent by a stranger, as if his son was suspicious of a danger that he could not put into words. “Thanks, Father. But you did not have to come back. You…” He wondered how to put it without being misunderstood, then remembered who it was who stood before him. Not his wife, not his grandchildren, not his daughter-in-law or any of his people, but the only man who could see inside him and never blame him for anything that he saw. “You have suffered enough here. I can deal with this situation on my own, and you had every right to be selfish for once and follow nothing but the wishes of your heart.”

“My heart told me to return to your side and lend you my aid, to the best of my ability.” Númendil handed him the reins of his horse. Amandil looked away, touched and exasperated at the same time.

“It is difficult enough to wake every morning wondering if I made the right choice to protect my wife, my son and my grandchildren, to have to add my father to the list.”

“You made the right choice.” Númendil’s grey eyes stared deeply into his, without blinking. If not for the intensity of his gaze, Amandil thought, he could have been mistaken for an old statue, of those that lay scattered about the gardens of Andúnië. “Darkness is coming for Númenor, but you have protected us from it, for the time being.”

Amandil felt a chill cross his spine, which was not entirely caused by the declining sunrays.

“Your foresight is an ominous brand of comfort, Father. I do not know if I wish to believe in it.”

“I envy your ability to choose whether to believe in it or not. And most of all, I envy your son for not being cursed with it. Only those like him can achieve true greatness.”

“Like the King of Númenor, then.”

“Perhaps. Then again, the Queen sees many things, more than even the Elves do, and he is aware of some of them. Theirs is a formidable alliance.”

“And yet you think that I made the right choice by helping deliver the Sceptre to him.”

“It would have been useless folly to oppose him. Folly, and treason. The will of Ilúvatar put him in your path when you were a boy for a reason. Such a fated friendship as you two share should not be lightly thrown aside.”

Fate. Friendship. Two things he believed in less now than he ever had in his life. As he saw it, the only way for his father’s words to come true was that, somehow, Pharazôn could still believe in them more than he did, like back when Amandil forced him to swear by gods that he himself thought to be false. But he was aware that it was too much to expect.

“You are not the first person today to tell me that my actions were good because of their consequences. Back then, as well as now, I cannot help but remember the priest who taught me that actions were good or bad by themselves, regardless of what happened afterwards.”

“But actions do not stand by themselves, my son, even if you should take away their consequences. They are reactions to other actions, and perhaps if we had the immortal mind of the Ainur, we would be able to trace the chain all the way to the Marring of Arda. The people of the Island wanted a warrior to take the Sceptre and scorned a woman’s birthright, because they are bent on conquest and dominion, and because they wished to return to the fold of their outlandish gods. But this way of thinking goes back to the reign of a man who won a war against our ancestors by becoming the earthly embodiment of the corrupted Vala Melkor, who was already worshipped by the wild men of the mainland when none of us was yet born. And as for the other issue tormenting you, it is no different. Our people has been conquering and colonizing the mainland for centuries, and this made the natives hate us and wage war on us. When the Dark Lord came, promising them victory, they were eager to join hands with him. But you were not there when the first Númenórean killed the first tribesman and left him dead upon the soil of Harad, or when they struck deals with Mordor and attacked Númenórean outposts and caravans. You did not even sail to the mainland by your own choice, but by the machinations of those who saw our family as a threat and plotted to kill you. In the middle of this, however, you performed one action which was entirely your own: you took pity on this child, and raised him, and brought him to Númenor with you.”

“My own? How can you be sure it was not a higher fate which threw him in my path, like Pharazôn in the temple villa?” Amandil used sarcasm to cover his inner turmoil. “Couldn’t he have been predestined to marry Amal, and bring the blood of the Haradrim into Númenor? Perhaps one day, a great king or a great hero will be born to their lineage, and they will save something or someone.”

Númendil did not seem affected by his mockery. In fact, for a moment, it seemed to Amandil that he had been distracted by some sort of realization, because his eyes widened and he briefly looked down, as if pondering something.

“What did you see now?” he asked, feigning nonchalance. Númendil shook his head.

“Nothing. I was… remembering the history of Númenor, and of our own bloodline. The first King to hold the Sceptre in this Island, Elros Tar Minyatur, also survived a sack as a child, and he was taken to be raised by the enemy. If he had not, he would never have grown to adulthood, and then Númenor and its royal line would not exist, and neither you nor I would be standing here over three thousand years later. It seems such a great enormity to us, that we would not even be able to imagine the world if this had not happened, and yet back then, it would have been nothing but a choice like any other, for the people involved.”

He recalled that story vaguely, one of the later episodes of the convoluted War of the Jewels in the First Age.

“I guess so. But, wouldn’t the same have been achieved if the sack had not taken place?”

“Only then the Silmaril would never have reached Valinor, and Morgoth might still rule over Middle-Earth.”

“Then, at least we might have been spared his worshippers.” Amandil shrugged flippantly. He was not in the mood to discuss old lore, especially when it was so obvious to him that his father was using it as a smokescreen to hide his true thoughts. “If we leave now, we will have time to reach one of the roadside inns before we cannot see an inch further from our noses. Unless you prefer to stay here and do the honours to this people’s hospitality.”

Númendil shook his head. There was a strange, rueful look in his eye.

“I believe that we should depart. They will be busy with the funeral tomorrow, and we will only get in the way.”

“But Ashad was still alive when I…” The words became stuck in Amandil’s throat, and he froze. He felt his father’s hand, shaking a little as it was laid against his shoulder, and all of a sudden he knew, though he did not know how or why, that Ashad had closed his eyes for the last time before he departed, that his father had seen it in one of his visions, and that this was the only reason why he had ridden into the middle of nowhere to be by his side at this moment. Slowly but surely the anger, the frustration, began to seep off him, leaving nothing but a melancholy sadness in its wake.

Beyond the roofs of the village houses, there where the Western Sea lay invisible to their eyes, the setting sun had turned into a ball of red fire.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Zimraphel allowed her forehead to rest against the ivory lattice of the window, feeling relief as its coolness was pressed against the pulsating heat of her skin. Focus. She needed to focus, and the chatter of the miserable beings who crowded around her all day, the tarnished mosaic of their broken thoughts, their sad hopes and ambitions and their dull fates did not help. As Queen, she could send them away with a word, but sooner or later they would return, and then it would always begin anew.

Mother. That voice was driving her to madness above all the others, and she could not send it away. She tried to silence it, but weak and miserable though it was, she could still hear it.

Be silent. You are dead.

“Zimraphel.”

The Queen did not move, not even to acknowledge the presence behind her.

“Zimraphel, I just came back from Forostar, and I heard that you were not feeling well…”

Her brow creased in fury.

“Were you listening to people’s gossip about me? And pray, what did they tell you that I could not have told you myself?”

“I am sorry.”

Reluctantly, she turned to face him. She did not want to see the love in his eyes. It was the last thing that she needed right now.

She needed her anger. Anger made things easier.

“You look ill. I can see it even with the eyes on my face.”

“What do you expect?” she hissed. “All those councilmen and their aides surrounding me, smothering me with their anger, their contempt, their petty frustrations! I hate them all!”

Pharazôn sighed, laying a hand on each side of her face to make her look at him.

“I know that it cannot be easy for you. But if you could grow used to the people who are around you in the Palace, I am sure that you will grow used to them, too. They are merely a little… louder.”

“They hate me.”

“Of course not.” His eyes, however, told a different story, and he was not so good at this as he believed himself to be.

“They have complained about me. To you.”

Now, he tried to kiss her, but she turned her face away. He cursed between his teeth.

“If you know about that, then I am sure you also know where I told them they could stick their complaints.”

“But you agree with them.”

She had not seen this, but the guilty expression in his face told her that her guess had been not far off the mark. Eager to seize an excuse to channel her displeasure, she snorted, slipping away from his arms and storming away to sit on the bed.

“Listen to me, Zimraphel. You grew up learning how to pretend, around your father, your…” He did not feel like he could safely say the word “mother”, not yet, “your nurse, your ladies, your first husband even. This is merely one more challenge. They say that you sit there but that you pay no attention to their words, and that you approve or deny their requests on a whim, without giving any reasons. If you engaged them a little more…”

“Do you want me to give them my reasons?” Her voice was so low that it should be impossible to hear across the room, but she knew that, in spite of that, it would carry across the distance and reach him. “Excuse me if I seem distracted, lord governor, I have just seen forty-seven men drowned in a shipwreck because this idiot that you want to promote was determined to send the reinforcements to the Middle Havens during the storm season three years from now. They have been washed upon the shore of Rómenna after ten days, their eyes eaten by fish.”

He did not answer; instead, he walked towards the bed to sit next to her. For a while, the room was plunged in silence, and the voice that she had been seeking to drown seized the opportunity to redouble its pitiful cries.

Mother. Mother.

Silence, she ordered. Silence.

“Perhaps you could invent different reasons.”

“Or perhaps I could tell them the truth” she retorted. “Why not? The common people are in awe of me because I look like the Queen of the Seas, and they do not question my authority. If the lords of the Council were in awe of me, they would not question my authority, either.”

“Perhaps.” He did not sound very convinced, and all of a sudden, she felt angry.

“Why is it appropriate for you to inspire fear, while I have to force myself to appear harmless before men who feel nothing but contempt for me? Am I the Queen, or not?”

“Being or not being the Queen has nothing to do with it!” Pharazôn exclaimed, as if outraged at her assumption. “But war and intrigue… those are things that everybody can understand, Zimraphel. The lords in the Council can think that, as long as they do not invoke my displeasure, all will be well, and this leads to peace in the Island. Your power, however, would inspire nothing but mindless terror, for it is not subject to any of the laws of men. For the common people, you are a goddess, but for them, you would be… they might start seeing you as…”

“A monster”, she finished for him. He had not intended to utter the word, but it had been there, in the very centre of his conscious mind. “Is that what you think, too?”

That last thing had been unfair, because she knew that it was not true, and she had only said it to wound him. When he embraced her, however, whispering things in her ear, she felt as if she was miles away from him, as if the roaring chasm of the Great Sea stood between them and she could not feel him against her nor hear his voice.

Suddenly, she saw herself standing in the crest of a large wave, an instant before it crashed against the peak of the snow-covered mountain. The world turned around her, and she stood up, disengaging herself from Pharazôn just in time before she vomited on the basin under the bed.

“You said it yourself. I am ill”, she shot back at his inquiring glance, in a strange, hoarse voice that did not seem like her own. Shaking, she forced her hands to steady.

“Zimraphel… are you…?”

“No.” Her tone was colder than the snow of her vision. “I am not.”

Mother.

“Are you sure?” he insisted, undeterred. The hope in his voice burned her horribly, and all that she wanted to do was to curl in a dark place, away from it. “I heard a story that the… former Princess of the West did not know she was with child, until my mother told her. What if…?”

It was the first time that her mother had been mentioned in her presence for a year, even under the disguise of a title.

“My mother was a foolish woman, and she was blind to many things. If you, knowing me as you do, can possibly think that I would not be aware of something like this, then I guess I am safe from being considered a monster, for the lords of the Council will never believe a single claim that comes from my mouth.” Somewhat dizzily, she struggled to her feet, searching for the towel to wipe her face.

He handed it to her.

“Perhaps you do know, and yet you wish to keep it from me.” As he set his accusing gaze on hers, his mind swirled with memories of that dead child that a dirty Palace rumour had attributed to her, back when she was still married to Vorondil. Faced with the confirmation that he had never believed her as fully as he had claimed, her anger rose again.

“If I have ever kept anything from you, it has never been with evil intent” she declared, her fists balled under her sleeves. “I may be a monster, but I love you. If you only knew… if you could only see…”

“Know what?” he asked, disconcerted. But her voice was broken, and the traitorous tears would not stop flowing. Unable to face him in this state, she turned away, and stormed away from the room.

The men in the Council were right. High Priest Yehimelkor was right. She was a monster, who could not even carry a child to term. It would have to take a greater monster than herself to help her succeed in this task – but for all those who had perished, it would be too late.

Three days later, the voice fell silent.