Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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The Women's Court

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“Mother, look!”

Eluzîni leaned on the railing, gazing ahead towards the spot where her daughter was pointing in excitement. Since they had departed from Pelargir that morning, the river had kept changing before their eyes. It had grown narrower than it had been in its lower course, and its banks gradually covered in a wild and abundant vegetation, which made it difficult to see anything of the land they were crossing. Now and then, a fragile wood structure that vaguely resembled a landing would come into view, teeming with the small boats of the river folk, and once or twice they had even caught sight of a Middle-Earth barbarian, staring at their ornate barge in shocked surprise. The speed at which they were travelling, however, did not leave them the chance to explore any of those things at leisure, and their curiosity had remained largely unsatisfied.

Now, at last, it seemed that this was about to change. What Ilmarë had seen upriver was a large pier, too large to be a mere boat landing, though still smaller than a Númenórean harbour. Rows of barges, some of them as long as their own, lay anchored there, and the docks were crowded with people. As they approached further, they could also distinguish what looked like a bustling port city, built on the slope of a hill that commanded what should be an impressive view of the Anduin from its topmost height.

“So, they have towns here! I was beginning to wonder”, Eluzîni remarked. “It seems that we will not have to live in tents, after all.”

“I would have liked to live on a tent”, Ilmarë sighed, looking for a moment as if she was truly disappointed. Only an instant later, however, her expression brightened again. “Look at all those people! They must be the barbarians, but oh my, what are they wearing? Is the fashion in Arne to take your gaudiest clothes, mix them up and wear them all at once? How funny! May I borrow your red robe to wear it over my green dress when we land?”

“No, you may not. You already look gaudy enough for a Numenórean lady, which is what you are. Oh, there is your father!”

It was not too difficult to spot him, even from a distance, as he always stood the tallest among the crowd, whether he was surrounded by Númenóreans or Arnians. Eluzîni sought his features with her glance, almost hungrily, leaning on the railing as much as she could without transgressing on the norms of propriety. It was over two years now since they had seen each other last, a short span of time in the life of a Númenórean from the line of Indilzar, and yet, to her, those years had been as long as they might appear to the short-lived folk who inhabited this land. In fact, it might have been her imagination, but even from that distance he looked different to her eyes, as if he had been dwelling in Middle-Earth for twenty years instead of two. His gaze seemed clearer, his features sharper, and something in his pose as he stood there, talking to this man or the other, told her that his old clumsiness, that endearing inability to know what to do with his impossibly long limbs whenever he was not practicing with a sword, was not there anymore.

So, that was all that it took, she thought, for a moment unable to know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. An entire kingdom of eyes fixed on you for two years.

Now, those same eyes would all be fixed on her as well, and on her daughter, who appeared more than eager to take up that challenge. As the barge was manoeuvring in the waters of the pier, she was already basking in the universal attention, smiling, waving at this or that man from the crowd that she remembered from Andúnië. She reminded Eluzîni so much of herself in her youth, that she did not have the heart to tell her to stop that undignified behaviour. After all, she had never stopped when they told her to, either, so what would be the point?

The plank too so much time to be properly set, that there was a point when even she was infected by Ilmarë’s impatience, and started pondering what would happen if they should just jump away from this floating prison. After she expressed her displeasure, however, the rhythm of the proceedings grew faster, and finally she and her daughter could step away from the barge and greet the party that stood ashore.

“Welcome to Arne, my ladies”, an old man -probably the Lord Bodashtart of her husband’s letters- greeted them with an obsequious bow. She smiled at him, hiding her disorientation at the onslaught of new sights, sounds and smells behind a flawless courtesy. Almost all the men who stood close were from Númenor, and many of them she knew, but as soon as her gaze wandered even slightly, he saw unfamiliar features crowding around them, trying to catch a glimpse of her, of men and women who were shorter and slighter of build than any she had ever seen. As Ilmarë had pointed out, their clothes were impossibly gaudy, especially those of the women, who wore colourful veils in spite of the heat. The men, too, wore what looked like formal clothes, too long and heavy for the weather, and the pungent smell of human sweat assaulted her nostrils the closer they drew to her.

Trying to ignore the unpleasantness with the dignity of a scion of Númenórean royalty, Eluzîni walked over to her husband. As she did so, the air was filled with whispers in several languages, some of which she could understand, some of which were nothing but gibberish to her ears.

“My husband, it has been a long time, but finally the kindness of the King and the Queen has allowed us to be reunited” she spoke formally. “May the Valar bless them in their Palace of Armenelos, and may they also bless our new life in Arne with peace and prosperity.”

Elendil smiled - something which she had not expected.

“My wife, I have been blessed already by your presence.” Ilmarë approached them, and Eluzîni held her back by discreetly grabbing her arm, afraid that she might do something impulsive in front of all those people. “And my daughter is here too, so now my blessings are complete. I thank the Valar, the King and the Queen from the depths of my heart.”

Both the Númenóreans and the barbarians who stood around them looked suitably impressed. Some of them nodded in agreement at their words, while others sought the eyes of their companions to exchange knowing glances. As for the women, many of them looked touched -one or two to the point of tears-, though others appeared more interested in dissecting her appearance with their gazes, especially three who wore strange, translucent veils over their faces, and dresses which were embroidered with gold thread. The famous Women’s Court, she thought, more curious than intimidated.

“I am very glad to see you, Father”, Ilmarë spoke, laying her doubts about her ability to step up to the occasion at rest. She carried herself with perfect dignity, standing tall among all those strangers and keeping her emotions at bay. Eluzîni could only detect a small current of uneasiness bubbling below the surface of her composure, and when she saw the shift in her glance, as if searching for something around them, she suddenly understood why. But this was not the time or the place for either questions or personal conversations, so she forced her mind to discard the thought, and allowed herself to be led away from the riverside.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The journey to the stronghold of Arne proved to be the one of the cruellest tortures ever devised. For the Arnian people, their progress through their lands seemed to be a most momentous occasion, and they came forth from their villages and houses to catch a glimpse of their party, crowding fields, roads, and even the steep, stone-paved streets of the capital city, as if the Queen herself had arrived from beyond the Sea. From her litter, Eluzîni could not help but feel a little flattered at the spectacle, for not even in her better years at the Court had she ever managed to command this level of attention. This pride, however, was soon overshadowed by frustration for her inability to find a single personal moment with her husband. After they arrived to the Palace -a smaller and far less impressive building than the Palace of Armenelos on the outside, but surprisingly meandering and labyrinthic in the inside,  where every single inch of space seemed to be covered in statues, paintings, mosaics, fountains, embroidered silks and every other kind of luxurious item that existed in the world-, she was taken to meet many people, who all bowed obsequiously at her. Then, both she and Ilmarë were taken down more meandering corridors to their new quarters, in the centre of the women’s wing of the Palace, where they were introduced to many women who would live there with them, and whose only mission in life, they claimed, was to serve them in everything that they wished. Eluzîni nodded gratefully at this, as she was expected to, though she was too well acquainted with the Court of Armenelos as to be anything but sceptical.

Then, the women began piling gaudy dresses upon gaudier veils before them, and told them that they had to get ready for the feast in their honour. As well as she could, Eluzîni restrained her daughter from openly showing her disgust at the clothes, and expressed her wish to be clad in the finery she had brought with her from the Island. Her request was met with general disapproval, shown here and there in the subtlest possible ways. Above all the other things, the face veil became the cause of a virulent show of passive resistance by an elderly woman whose Adûnaic rolled off her tongue in a particularly disagreeable manner. To wear it when outside the women’s quarters was a mark of status that distinguished the ladies from the Women’s Court from their less fortunate counterparts, who had no access to the Royal Palace. Ilmarë laughed as if this was the funniest thing she had ever heard, and asked if they would mistake her for a peasant if she did not wear it. Eluzîni, more mindful of diplomacy, rebuked her for this, but she still told the woman, in no uncertain terms, that she would not wear anything but the Númenórean clothing she had brought with her, and that this included the veil. As they were escorted towards the ceremony, she suspected that she had managed to acquire quite a few enemies in only one afternoon.

Once at the feast, it still remained as difficult to speak with Elendil as it had been for the rest of the day. At least, he managed to tell her between toasts, they had been able to sit together, something which the rules of the former Court of Arne would have considered unacceptable. Back when the royal family was still alive, the Queen had used to preside over the women’s feast, and the King over the men’s feast; fortunately, the fact that neither of them were a King or a Queen, and that almost half of the guests were Númenórean, had been a valid excuse to do away with those strange protocols. Still, Eluzîni could see that the Arnian women sat apart from them, in their own side of the hall, and spoke only to each other in low voices, refusing to do as much as look at the other guests.

“One of them almost exploded this afternoon when we refused to wear that useless veil” she whispered back at him, wistfully. He shook his head, managing to show his concern in his eyes even while he smiled and made a sign to someone at the other side of the room.

“The Women’s Court has led a separate existence from the rest of the palace since long before I came here. I am ashamed to say that I have barely had any dealings with it in years.”

“Do not be ashamed.” She imitated his smile. “In fact, I am rather relieved to hear that.”

Back when they were young lovers, in Armenelos, he would have been flustered at her words. Now, he drank calmly from his cup, greeted an Arnian with a ridiculous beard, and turned back towards her.

“My point is that they are used to doing everything their own way, and there is no telling how they might react if you try to change that state of things. This place may be smaller than the Palace of Armenelos, but it is far more vicious. Perhaps you should have…”

“… stayed in Númenor”, she finished for him, in a rather good imitation of his voice. “You might as well stop saying that now, for I am here, and I am not going back until you do. And I am not afraid of those women. I may not be the Queen of Arne, but I am still the highest authority in the Women’s Court, even above those petulant old ladies and that concubine of the late halfwit King, who seems to believe herself the fairest woman in the world. Oh, do not worry!” She laughed; though not flustered, he definitely seemed wary now. “They are just women, not Orcs. Unlike you, I know how women think, and I will use this knowledge to advance my own purposes. But, enough of this for the time being! I know that the man who is walking across the table is going to approach you about something terribly important, and before that happens, I only have about ten seconds to ask you this. Where are Isildur and Malik?”

Elendil stared briefly at his plate, then back at her. Suddenly, he looked apologetic.

“They are away, securing an alliance with the tribes of the Vale. I hoped that they would have returned by now, but it seems that your reunion will have to wait for a little longer. Lord Amaris, I am so glad to see you here! Please, come and meet my wife, the Lady Lalwendë.”

Eluzîni swallowed a small knot in her throat, forcing herself to smile at the Arnian noble, who looked uncomfortable at the idea of consorting with a barefaced female. If she had been in a playful mood, she would have turned her charm on, and done her best to make him feel even more uncomfortable. But all she could feel at this moment was the sting of worry in her stomach.

The tribes of the Vale. She remembered peering through the blinds of her litter on their way here, and seeing the chain of dark mountains which hung above Arne like giant stormclouds. Mordor, she had thought, trying not to think of the foul creatures which hid there, waiting for a signal from their dark master to prey upon Men. The same creatures who had taken her cousin Vorondil, tortured him until he died, and put his head on a spike. Back then, her eyes had fallen upon the giant rift, where the mountains were parted slightly to create a deep vale, and she had wondered if this was the path through which the dark armies had advanced to conquer Arne years ago, ignorant of the fact that her own son was there even as she gazed upon it.

“Excuse me, my lords”, she spoke, standing from her seat. Everybody in the hall, both men and women, paused in their conversations to look at her. “I am very tired from the long journey, and I find myself in desperate need of rest. I wish I could enjoy this feast more, but every ounce of my strength has been spent, and I cannot even force myself to eat another bite.”

As she walked away from the hall, there was a great commotion. The men dropped what they were doing to bow at her departing form, and all the women stood up as one to follow her, leaving an entire side of the hall empty. Even in her current state, Eluzîni could not help but blink in amazement at the ripples that such a simple action had caused.

“Mother, did you see that?” Ilmarë’s voice spoke behind her back as they walked down the corridor, followed by what looked like a thousand women. “Amazing!”

Eluzîni sighed in frustration. To say the truth, she was tired, and yet she was also certain that there was no way on Earth that she could make herself fall asleep. She had intended Elendil to follow shortly after her, but after seeing the reactions to her own departure, she was not too optimistic on that front. She could also share her worries with her daughter, but she did not wish to concern her needlessly. All she could do was pretend that she needed some quiet, get all those women to leave her alone, and hope for the best.

Hail the all-powerful Queen of Arne, she thought sarcastically, becoming aware of her plight: alone, and standing in the middle of a barbarian crowd who stared at her with half-expectant, half-wary glances.

“I am going to bed”, she declared.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

As she had predicted, she lay awake for a long time in the enormous bed they had prepared for her, her tossing and turning mercifully hidden behind drapes of silk that hung from the ceiling, for the women had not left the room as she had told them. Even now, two of them were still standing close to the door, waiting in case that she needed them, something which contributed even further to her uneasiness. Finally, at some point in the night Elendil came in, and she struggled into a sitting position, trying to smooth her dishevelled strands of hair with her hand.

“Did they let you in?” she asked, her brow creased in pretended shock. “I am surprised.”

“No more than I am, myself”, he retorted, turning back for a moment and looking over his shoulder, as if he was afraid that they might still be standing behind him. Apparently, however, even the ladies of the Women’s Court were aware of the meaning of privacy in a few, carefully restricted contexts. Satisfied that there was no one else, at least in this chamber, he made as if to sit beside her.

What happened next was nothing at all like what Eluzîni had intended to happen. For hours, she had been focusing on her anger and worry at the news about Isildur, and coming up with a number of choice words designed to make him feel as guilty as he deserved for letting her son risk his life in such a dangerous place. When she saw him approach her, however, her mind went blank, and she forgot everything that she wanted to say. Suddenly, all that she could remember was how much she had missed him, and how she needed him to make love to her until every single woman in that wretched palace had been awoken by the noise.

In her years at the Court of Armenelos, Eluzîni was aware of having acquired a certain reputation, and yet she never remembered being so unable to control herself. As they made love and she writhed over the mattress, there were no thoughts in her mind, no words in her mouth, nothing she could do except surrender to the overpowering urge of her instincts.

Later, she did not know if minutes, hours or days, as they lay side by side, she noticed that the traitorous curtains had been open all the time. She knew that she should feel embarrassed at this, but instead, she laughed. He stared at her with a frown of puzzlement, which also seemed strangely out of place, as if he was trying to go through the motions of his old emotions and yet could not get them wholly right.

“I w-wonder what they must be thinking now”, she muttered, gasping for air but unable to stop laughing. He turned away from her, and his eyes widened as he grew aware of the opening.

“Oh. Well.” He made some further attempts at a serious expression, then gave up, and laughed with her. “Should I close them?”

She struggled to her knees, and grabbed his face so he would have to look at her again. That was all that mattered, she suddenly realized. Everything else was a distraction, a useless, pointless distraction, and she would not have it.

“No” she whispered into his ear.

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

The night, however, was long, at least if one chose to sacrifice sleep. Once that their desire had finally been exhausted, they still had the time to talk, and talk, until dawn dissipated the shadows of the room, its pale light bringing out the bright sheen of sweat over their naked limbs and faces. Eluzîni remembered her concern for Isildur, but she could not remember her anger anymore, and once that Elendil informed her of her son’s feats against the marauding Orcs, and how both the Númenóreans and the Arnians looked up to him as a great warrior, she was even brought to admit grudgingly that perhaps he was right, and she should no longer think of Isildur as a child. He also told her other things, about Arne and his ongoing struggle to change its outdated political system and unify the tribes, with the backdrop of the fight against Mordor. But for the most part, he wanted her to do the talking, asking her a thousand questions about his mother, his father, their son who had been left behind in Armenelos, and the situation in the Island.

On a conscious level, Eluzîni had been aware that her husband had been cut off from Númenor all this time, and that letters were not a reliable method of communication to discuss delicate political issues. Until now, however, she did not realize to what extent he had been starved for information, and how much self-discipline he had needed to prevent his imagination from supplying distorted versions of the things he was not certain of. Determined to rise to the occasion, she told him everything that she knew, from the fateful Council session after Tar Palantir’s death to Ar Pharazôn and Ar Zimraphel’s bizarre accession ceremony, omitting no details. She told him how someone in the Palace Guards had informed Hiram of the King’s death and the Princess of the West’s marriage, how he had left the capital with their kinsman Lord Iqbal, and how they had risen in rebellion against the Sceptre. She tried to keep away the bitterness from her voice as she told him of Lord Amandil’s decision to support the incestuous couple, and how this had led to the annihilation of the house of the Northern lords, to the colonies of retired soldiers flourishing across Forostar and drawing ever closer to Andúnië, to her own father’s accession as puppet Lord of Hyarnustar, and his young successor’s sad plight. She told him about all the major changes in the Island: the permanent garrisons of soldiers in Sor and Armenelos, the lavish quantities of money spent on the sanctuaries, festivities and temples of the old gods by the will of the Sceptre, and the downfall of the Palace Guards, who had been dissolved in favour of a new body of guardians chosen among the veterans from Umbar, including, to the shock of many, a number of half-breeds and barbarians. Elendil said nothing of this, though she knew of the ties which had joined him to the Guards since his childhood. When she mentioned the King’s project of a large temple dedicated to the Lord of Battles in Armenelos, however, he looked worried.

“How did the High Priest react to this?” he asked. Just like his father, she thought, always concerned for that man.

“Not very well. According to him, the Lord of Battles has no place in the Island; it is an advocation which presides over warfare, and as such it should be restricted to the mainland.” She shrugged. “The King does not seem to care very much for what the old priest thinks, though. If he did, he would have had him murdered already.”

“I cannot believe he would go around murdering people in the Island.”

She chuckled mirthlessly. Even after all that time, she still felt strongly about it.

“Were you not listening? Hiram, Valacar… Vorondil, perhaps, don’t you think that his capture by the Enemy was too convenient to be an accident? And what of the former Queen? She disappeared shortly after the late King’s passing, According to our new Queen, she was so taken by grief that she refused to see anyone or eat her meals, and so she passed away. But there are rumours that she had been dead long before that. No one was allowed to see her corpse before she passed under the Meneltarma.”

“And you think Ar Pharazôn is responsible for all this?” For a moment, she thought that he would laugh at her theories, but he merely shook his head, his brow creased in a thoughtful frown. “I do not know, Eluzîni. I believe he would be capable of many things against those who stood in his path, but he is also capable of being a good ruler. I have been in the mainland with him, and his men would have died for him many times over. He had an ability to make the right decisions, under the greatest duress that you can imagine, and his instincts about whom to trust and whom to appoint for each task were remarkable.”

“Like when he appointed you as governor of Arne?” she could not help but ask.  He ignored this question, as if he had been too absorbed in his own musings to hear it.

“And then, my father trusts him. At least enough to keep his oath about our people, as he once trusted him to keep his oath about me. I cannot lie and pretend that I did not perceive a… certain potential for darkness in him during the events in Pelargir, but personal feelings should not blind me to the larger picture. And, Eluzîni, this should also extend to what happened to your kinsmen, though I am aware that it is a painful subject, hard to ignore and even harder to forget. But they did rebel against the Sceptre, and as long as we do not receive definite confirmation of a murder which had nothing to do with the aftermath of a rebellion, I will follow my father’s lead, and trust the King.”

“Do as you wish.” Eluzîni set two pillows against the bedstead, and gingerly sat against them. “As for me, the farthest I am from Armenelos, the King and the Queen, the happier I will be.”

“Oh.” His eyes widened, and at first she thought that he was upset about something, until she realized he was pretending. “Is this why you came all the way to Arne? And I thought that you were here because of me.”

“That is right” she replied in kind. “I came here because I wished for some peace and quiet, away from the intrigues of Armenelos, and what do I find? An entire Women’s Court following my every movement, and you keeping me awake all night.”

He shrugged.

“I hope you can forgive me one day.”

“Perhaps someday.” Remembering something, she slowly struggled to her knees and crawled out of the bed, trying to keep herself from wincing at her soreness. As she was about to emerge from the curtain, however, he remembered about those damned women, and unable to fish back the remains of her glorious, lust-induced fearlessness of the previous night, she grabbed one of the sheets and wrapped herself in it. “Perhaps that day, I will even give you this.”

“What is it?” he asked, curious in spite of himself. She walked towards the neighbouring room, a large storeroom where the women had brought all her luggage the previous day. Among the robes, dresses, elaborate fabrics and jewels, she sought for the locked box, and for the key that went with it. Just as she was picking it up to open it, one of the Arnian ladies bowed before her.

“Do you need help, my lady?”

“No” she replied, refusing to feel ashamed at the fact that she was standing there naked, wrapped only on a bedsheet. With all the dignity she could muster, she walked past her and the other woman who was bowing by the door, praying that the clumsy knot she had made would not give away at the worst possible moment. Fortunately enough, it lasted until she was back in the safety of the bedstead, and this time she made sure that the curtains were drawn after her.

“Here.” Carefully, she extracted a dark, silk bag from the box, and from it she produced a black stone, just large enough to be grabbed between her two hands. As always, whenever she touched it she could feel a strange warmth spreading across her body, though the surface of the stone remained cold. Elendil’s eyes widened at the sight.

“You brought the Seeing Stone? But…”

“Not the Seeing Stone. Rather, a Seeing Stone” she interrupted him. “Your grandfather, Lord Númendil, brought back a number of them from Lindon, and now we have one of them in Arne with us. Can you see what this means?”

Elendil nodded, growing excited as it dawned upon him.

“We can communicate with Andúnië from here!” His hand touched the surface of the stone, and as he did so, its colour suddenly changed from dull black to pearly grey. She stared at him, surprised.

“This was your grandfather’s stone for many years. Apparently, it can recognize you!”

He frowned, looking at it with a mixture of surprise and concentration. After a while, he finally raised his eyes to meet hers again.

“Thank you for bringing this. And thank you for coming, Eluzîni. I cannot tell you how much I have missed you.”

She smiled sweetly.

“I would never have been able to guess.”

“How many women are waiting outside this room to ambush me?”

Eluzîni pretended to be deep in thought.

“Hm… there were two at the storeroom, which is a very small place. I guess there must be around twenty on the hallway. Perhaps you should just give up and stay here all day.”

“Now, that is a tempting thought.” He, too, pretended to be considering it. “If only I did not have a Council meeting today…”

“If you leave me alone for too long, I will start reorganizing the Women’s Court, and it may end in war” she threatened. He did not reply, busy as he was finding his clothes and trying, in vain, to smooth wrinkles which would never pass unnoticed to the piercing eyes of the gossipmongers. As he finished doing his best to look decent, he deposited the stone in her hands.

“If you wish, I will tell them that you need more rest.”

“More rest?” she snorted. He ignored this.

“As soon as Isildur returns to Arne, I will let you know” he promised, closing the curtain behind his back. For a moment, her glance became lost in the patterns of the colourful fabric; then, as if waking up from a daydream, she grabbed his pillow in her arms and lay back on the bed, a pensive frown upon her face.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Sometime later, an insistent voice jerked her away from the path of dreams. The sun was already high up in the sky, and she realized that she must have fallen asleep for hours.

“Mother. Mother! Wake up, Mother!”

Bleary eyes sought blindly for the source of the disturbance, blinking back tears at the onslaught of brightness. Her hand, however, was grabbed in a merciless grip before she could use it to bury her head under the covers, and she was forced to acknowledge Ilmarë’s presence.

“What is it?” Remembrances from the previous day and night swam through her mind: the journey, Elendil, Arne, the Women’s Court… the women… “If they are with you, tell them to wait outside until I am… until I feel more…”

But her daughter did not let her finish the sentence.

“Isildur, Mother. He is back. They were ambushed down in the Vale, and… and Malik…”

“What?” For a moment, only the words “Isildur” and “ambush” registered in her brain, and she sat abruptly, suddenly possessed by a frenzy of activity. Ilmarë laid a hand on her shoulder and said some reassuring words, but it was trembling.

“Here, put this on. The women are here to dress you. I will be… I will be… I will see you there.” Her daughter’s voice broke down, and she disappeared abruptly, leaving nothing but a flutter of curtains in her wake. As Eluzîni wrapped the robe she had brought around her naked body, she could hear voices in the room, some low and monotonous, which should belong to the barbarians, and Ilmarë’s stronger tones, which seemed to be arguing with them. Then, she left.

The dressing process went unbearably slowly for Eluzîni’s current state of mind. She tried to rush it as she could, moving here and there with angry words, but the women did not react to them, and, if possible, their movements became even slower. Perhaps they were having their revenge, she thought dazedly.

At long last, she was ready, and though a part of her mind recognized what she was wearing as Arnian clothes, she ignored it, simply refusing the veil that they were trying to pin to their head. Without betraying their disappointment, they organized themselves in rows to follow her out of the chamber, in such a fast and efficient manner that they did not even seem the same people who had fumbled with differently coloured shoes for half an hour.

Definitely revenge.

It was the old lady who had been with them before the feast who guided her through the labyrinth of corridors and hallways. Finally, they hurried through a gallery that ended in what looked like the most elaborate inner gate that Eluzîni had ever seen, inlaid with ivory and with a gemstone-incrusted arch. As she crossed it, she realized that the old lady was the only one following her: the rest stopped in her tracks as one, and remained behind it.

Free of her retinue at last, she sought for a familiar face, until she found some Númenórean soldiers talking among themselves, under the portico of a large courtyard that she remembered seeing the previous day after she left the feast. As soon as they recognized her, they bowed at her and offered to take her to her daughter.

“You, stay here” she ordered the old lady, who did not seem happy with the arrangement.

On the way, her guides detected her turmoil, and immediately set to allay it: Isildur had not only emerged from a difficult situation without any serious injury; he had even been deemed fit enough to be reporting to the Arnian council at this moment. At first, Eluzîni found this difficult to believe, as she could not reconcile it with her daughter’s agitated state. Then, however, they ushered her through a dark corridor and into a small room, and the mystery was explained.

“Ilmarë” she whispered, reluctant to disturb the silence.

Her daughter acknowledged her with a nod. She was sitting by the bedside, trying to force a cup of some liquid down the throat of the man who lay there, and though Eluzîni’s eyes could not see much more in the dark, she knew who it was.

“How is he?” she asked, feeling a small pang to her chest. “What happened?”

“He took a-an arrow to his right side” Ilmarë explained. “Not poisoned, thank the Valar, though they say it was… very difficult to get it out.”

Eluzîni’s breath caught in her throat, in horror. Still nervous after her rush to get there, she hurried to the bedside and sat next to her daughter, where she could have a better view of the damage. To her surprise, she saw that Malik was awake: his eyes had been following her movements, and they blinked in recognition when he realized that she was looking at him too. Large beads of sweat covered his face, and his dishevelled hair was ridden with pieces of caked blood, but the dirty clothes had been removed, and the bandages, which covered his entire upper body from his stomach to his chest, looked relatively new. In spite of this, she could distinguish traces of fresh blood staining the linen in several places.

“Oh, Malik”, she winced in sympathy. Since Ashad’s son had been a child, she could not remember a time when he and Isildur had not been together, playing at being heroes and seeking adventures in Andúnië, Armenelos, and even as far as Middle-Earth itself. Now, as it appeared, one of those adventures had finally become too real, too close to the ultimate disaster for comfort.

“Th…thanks… for….” he managed to utter before Ilmarë covered his mouth with her hand and stared at him reproachfully.

“Ssssh. Not a word. The wound will reopen.”

He could not talk, but even without a voice, Malik was still Malik. With his chin, he pointed at the bandages, where the shadow of new blood had grown slightly since Eluzîni first laid eyes on it, and then rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I know it is not closed yet, but that supports my argument, not yours!” Ilmarë shook her head petulantly, and her mother allowed herself a moment to ponder again how similar she was to her at her age. “I will not let you do anything stupid again. In fact, I will stay here until you have recovered, and I will make sure that you stay where you are and do not move.”

Then again, she thought, sobering up, perhaps not so similar.

At last, her hand was raised from Malik’s mouth, but he did not seem about to speak again. Instead, he gazed at her with such warmth that Eluzîni thought that he had to be feverish. In all his life, and she had been present for a large part of it, the young man would never have been caught staring at anyone like that, much less in the presence of their mother.

Lost in bittersweet musings, she almost did not hear the footsteps behind them.

“Well”, a voice broke the long silence. “Thanks to this idiot, it seems I will never be able to convince you that border patrols are safe anymore.”

“Isildur!” Eluzîni jumped from her seat, and rushed to embrace her son as a drowning man would grab a lifeline. Only when she felt the body stiffen against hers, she remembered that he might also have suffered some injury, and immediately pulled back, ashamed at her impulsive behaviour. If he was in pain or discomfort, however, his countenance had grown even more adept at hiding it than it used to be back in Númenor. As she stepped back to check on him, he merely smiled in fond exasperation.

“I am fine, Mother. Though let me tell you that your embrace is fiercer than that of a wrestling Orc. Did you have a good journey?”

“Who cares about my journey? What happened out there, Isildur?” There was a gash in the side of his face, which had only recently stopped bleeding; its closeness to his right ear alarmed her. “They say that you were ambushed…”

“Yes, it seems that we overestimated the wish of certain tribes to be allies with Númenor. They sent us a false plea for help, and then the Orcs were waiting for us. I always feared that they could not be trusted,  but…”

“And, if you knew that, how could you let this happen?” It was Ilmarë who had spoken; there was a strange, hard edge to her voice. “Oh, I know you, Isildur. You probably thought that it did not matter, that all the Orcs of Mordor would not be a match for you. Well, look at the result!”

Isildur seemed as stunned at this sudden virulence as Eluzîni herself. It took him some time to even put the words together to counter her attack.

“What on Earth are you talking about? Do you know more about the situation than the council, now? According to them, what I thought or did not think of my abilities had no bearing on the results of the expedition. I did not let anything happen, it happened!”

“Do not mind Ilmarë, she is just upset”, Eluzîni intervened fast, before the situation could escalate into a full-fledged argument. She did not like the fire that gleamed in her daughter’s eyes, and she did not trust it to be capable of fairness at this moment.

In the ensuing, tenuous silence, a ragged whisper reached her ears from the bed.

 “…not his fault.”

At this, Ilmarë’s attention was successfully diverted from both Isildur and her. Muttering something between clenched teeth, she swept on Malik to hush him before he could speak again.

“Always covering for each other”, she spat, in a low, hoarse voice which Isildur, fortunately, could not hear from where he was.

“How is he?” he asked, in a more even tone. Ilmarë did not answer, so Eluzîni hurried to fill the void before the bitterness could start anew.

“He is still bleeding. But not too much” she added, so he would not get the wrong impression. “He has not lost his spirit and keeps trying to talk, even though he knows that he should not.”

“So, in other words, nothing new.” Slowly, he walked towards the other side of the bed, and knelt to look at his friend. He had grown better at hiding his feelings from others, and there were years, and experiences, which irrevocably set him apart from Ilmarë’s still too innocent sincerity. And yet, as Eluzîni gazed at him here and now, she was able to see every single thing that he was hiding.

“My sister fancies herself an expert in things she has no idea about, but she does have a basic knowledge of healing. So, do as she says, will you? I am still not finished answering questions and filling paperwork. The council is done with me, but now I have to meet with Father and Adûnazer and Bodashtart to discuss future actions in the Vale. I do not know how long it will take, but I will be here as soon as it is over.”

“H-have fun” Malik snorted -a snort which ended, rather undignifiedly, in a grimace of pain when something inside him snapped at the effort. Both Isildur and Ilmarë looked equally furious, though not at each other this time. Eluzîni wondered if that could have been his intent all along.

 “If you say another word, I will knock you unconscious” Ilmarë hissed. “The wound is nowhere near your head, so do not think for a moment that I will not do it.”

Malik smiled weakly at her.