The Elendilmir by pandemonium_213

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Chapter 9: The Horse Sacrifice

Sámaril must deal with a terrible accident on the moor, and news arrives from Amon Sûl.

Warning to the squeamish for a gruesome scene.

Many thanks to the various reptiles of The Lizard Council for their excellent feedback. Samaril is honored that Thranduil, Galion, Magorion and their men granted their approval for a nod to their bravery at the Morannon (please see Jael's fabulous Nightfall). Thanks to Rhapsody for feedback pertaining to the hounds of Middle-earth. Our discussion was a lot of fun, and greatly inspired by her muse, Celegorm.

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Feathers exploded high over the moor, and the duck dropped like a stone. Galfaron whistled, sharp as a hawk. His brown and white bird dog sped away through tufts of grass and bracken to intercept the teal that tumbled through the air toward the heath, followed by the streak of grey and white: Fâniel the peregrine. We urged our horses forward along the trail, keeping an eye on the dog and falcon.

“A third duck! That’s marvelous! Your Fâniel is a strong hunter, my lady queen,” Galfaron said.

Isilmë beamed with pride. “Indeed she is, Master Galfaron. She’s equally capable of grouse-hunting. I don’t suppose you might consider...”

“Oh, yes! I most certainly will consider hunting grouse with your bird!” Galfaron effused, so taken with the falcon that he interrupted the queen, but she took no offense.

“Your enthusiasm is duly noted!” The queen laughed in appreciation at our chief hunter’s eager response. “We shall go grouse-hunting together then.” She squinted to look at the dog bounding ahead. “Will he approach Fâniel with care?”

“Yes. He knows exactly what to do.”

We approached the spot where the falcon had landed with her prey. Galfaron, the queen and I dismounted and picked our way through the shrubs and moor grass while the ladies Vórwen and Irimë remained astride their horses on the trail. A tuft of iridescent green feathers fluttered in the wind and caught in a bilberry bush. I picked the feathers from the grey twigs and stuffed them into my belt pouch.

The dog trembled but remained rooted in place, his feathered tail held stiff, and watched the falcon while she ripped the feathers from the dead drake. Isilmë reached into the oiled leather sack strapped to her belt and extracted raw meat dipped in honey, a grisly concoction that Astaron provided for her without the blink of an eye. She chirruped to the falcon. Fâniel raised her head, obsidian eyes alight when she spotted the offering. She forsook the drake in favor of the sweetened meat, lighting on Isilmë’s extended left hand. The falcon wolfed the treat down while the dog retrieved the drake and brought it back to Galfaron. The bells on the falcon’s ankles jingled when she adjusted her balance on Isilmë’s arm. The queen gave her another honeyed, bloody treat, cooing sweetly to the bird, while she untied the bewits. Fâniel preened and bobbed her head, keen eyes now half-lidded.

Galfaron slid a thick leather glove over his hand and coaxed the falcon to step over to him, allowing Isilmë to swing up onto the curved saddle. She leaned over, and the hunter of Imladris transferred the hunter of the skies back to her regal human friend.

The falcon would rest now at the conclusion of a spring outing long planned. Isilmë had chafed within the confines of the House of Elrond and had declared after the first thaw of coirë that she intended to go duck hunting on the moors. Galfaron –- something of a traditionalist -- had been reluctant at first, believing that hunting was the province of men, but with my persuasion, he had agreed to take Isilmë and her ladies hunting.

In the distance, flocks of teal flew along their sky-road that brought them over the high moors. Although the moor still slept under winter’s dun colors, the ducks’ migration was the first sign of spring. The brisk wind carried the most subtle of green scents, its essence stirring both Galfaron and me to laugh a little louder and even to sing, much to the delight of the queen and her ladies.

“We have tales of the elfin hunt! I never thought I’d be part of one,” said the Lady Vórwen, her cheeks pink from the wind.

“This is but a faint echo of the great hunts of the past,” said Galfaron, his voice taking on a remote quality as his thoughts walked on the paths of distant memory. “My lord Turkafinwë -- Celegorm -- led us in pursuit of the boars and stags of Beleriand. The peal of his silver horn, his great hounds baying! Oh, how glorious that was!”

The queen and her ladies shifted in their saddles and glanced at one another when the elven-hunter recalled events remote in the time of mortals but a vivid part of his past. Galfaron then returned to the present, his eyes sharp and focused once more, and the women visibly relaxed when he flashed his winsome smile at them. “I’ll make sure that you ladies join us in the autumn when we hunt the red stag. Then we will have hounds, horses and horns –- a true wild hunt!”

“We would be delighted to take part in such a hunt! But until then, I would ride a bit further,” Isilmë said, looking out over the high moor. “It is so good to be out here in the open at last. Come, ladies!”

The queen urged her sleek dapple-grey gelding along the trail that made its way toward the Ford of the Bruinen, some twenty miles distant. The sun, fitfully bursting through the flying clouds, glinted off the silver streaks in Isilmë’s hair, now loosened from its restraining plait and flowing behind her.

Since their arrival in Imladris, the queen and her women had dedicated themselves to supporting their men as they readied themselves for war and had taken no time for their own pleasure. With the preparations for war no longer burdening them, the women’s embrace of their freedom could not have been more apparent or so joyful to behold.

“There go Haleth and her warriors,” said Galfaron chuckled while he watched the riders recede across the moorland. “I expect you ought to follow the ladies. I will take care of the teals.”

“Thank you, yes, I’d best catch up with them. They’re safe enough, but still, if Master Elrond were here, he would have our hides if one of us didn’t escort them.”

“The master is present even in his absence,” said Galfaron, gazing toward the mountains, as if to see through the solidity of the massifs and on to the battlefields of the south and east. “I can only hope that all fares well for them.”

“I share your hopes. Perhaps we will receive news soon through Amon Sûl.”

“One would hope so. Queen Isilmë must be anxious to hear of her lord and her sons.”

“That she is. Today’s hunt was a welcome distraction for her and her ladies. She has been eager to get out on the moors for quite some time. They put their cares behind them for a little while at least. I thank you for that.”

“It is my pleasure, Istyar. She and her ladies seem to have enjoyed themselves. They are fine riders, too. I look forward to hunting with them again.” He swung up on to his mount and whistled to his dog.

“Say, Galfaron! Please ask your wife to preserve the feathers and save some for me.”

“I will, but I think Duineth would have done so anyway. I’ll make sure that she sets them aside for you. Do you have something specific in mind for them?” Galfaron asked, no doubt wondering why a smith wanted feathers from a wild duck.

“I do, but who knows when and if I will ever get around to the project.”

“Feathers for a jaunty hat perhaps?” He laughed merrily, knowing that was the least likely fate for the duck feathers in my hands. He chirruped to his horse and was off to return to the valley, his bird dog tearing alongside through the heather.

I mounted my horse and urged him along the packed earthen trail, much less soggy that the lands around it which had soaked up the snowmelt from the recent thaw. Isilmë and her ladies rode well ahead, but Tuilin, a swift horse and well bonded to my wishes, closed the distance steadily.

The queen had led her ladies and their mounts up a low rise to a granite tor near an upland bog. Turning Tuilin off the trail, I joined them.

She surveyed the moor that rolled away toward the south and west, its low hills clad in heather, gorse, moor grass, bilberry and bracken. Dark brown bogs lay like blankets over the other vegetation, and granite outcroppings punctuated the swells of the landscape. The queen inhaled the fresh air deep into her lungs.

“This rolling land calls to mind the sea,” she said. “Don’t you agree, Istyar?”

“Perhaps, my lady queen. I have only seen and heard the ocean in my dreams.”

She looked at me incredulously. “In all your long years on this earth you have never gazed on the waves of the ocean?”

“Not yet.”

“When we flew before those monstrous waves and the great winds, I thought I would never wish to see the ocean again. But now that I am confined away from its shores, ever I crave the song of the surf and the scent of the spray.”

She was silent for a while, looking out over the heath. I, too, swept my eyes over the land that in a few weeks time would blossom and would be filled with life as birds sang and nested. At the edge of my vision, movement flickered. The specks at the edge of land and sky resolved into three figures on horses. Reflexively, I set my hand to the hilt of my long knife.

“Riders approach. I suggest we make our way back to the trail.”

“Stay a moment, Sámaril.” The queen shaded her eyes, squinting at the riders as they moved along the trail. “They are Dúnedain. Messengers from Amon Sûl.”

We did not wait long before the three riders approached us. Instead of the silver-trimmed sable livery of Elendil’s soldiers, they wore deep green tunics, tanned buckskin trousers and grey cloaks, blending in with the colors of heath and forest. From her perch on Isilmë’s hand, the falcon chattered, as if greeting them.

“Hail, my queen!” said the foremost rider, a dark-haired Man whose tall stature was evident even while sitting on his steed.

“Hail, Lord Vórondil, queen’s man. Do you bear news?”

“Yes,” he said, his expression grave. He held aloft a leather tube. “I carry dispatch scrolls for you and for Gildor Inglorion.”

“What news of my lord Elendil?”

He hesitated, his blue eyes regarding me with circumspection.

“You may speak, Vórondil. This is Istyar Sámaril, the Master of the Forge of Imladris. He has the trust of Masters Elrond and Gildor, and he is my friend.”

Vórondil then cried out, his voice ringing above the wind’s lonesome song.

“Long live the king!”

Isilmë’s squared shoulders slumped with relief. Lady Irimë urged her horse forward alongside Isilmë.

“And what news of my husband?”

“Prince Elendur fares well, too, my lady, but I think it best if we take counsel in Imladris. Though some tidings are good, not all are.”

“Then let us be off.” Isilmë lifted her arm, releasing Fâniel who flew to the sky above. She wheeled her horse around to follow the trail.

Isilmë urged Hîthrem to a gallop. The gelding leapt forward and pounded on the trail, the queen's mantle and hair flying behind her. We surged to follow. In her haste, she guided her horse cross-country to cut short a meandering loop of the trail. Hîthrem –- given his head and relishing his freedom –- leapt over heather and stone through the moorland. The queen rode expertly, at one with her horse as he cleared obstacles. My initial misgivings of her choice of route dissipated. I prepared to follow her.

It happened in an instant. At one moment, the grey horse was in flight and the next, he crumpled, flinging Isilmë into the air. The falcon spun above the calamity, crying out in frantic alarm. Leaving our steeds on the trail, Vórondil and I crashed through scrub and bracken, sprinting to the queen’s side, followed shortly by the other men and her ladies.

“Stop fussing! I am not hurt!” Isilmë waved us off and attempted to push herself up.

“Please, my queen. Do not rise just yet. Can you move your legs?” Vórondil ignored his liege’s protests, kneeling by her with his arm across her shoulders, preventing her from standing.

“Yes, of course, I can!” She kicked her booted feet with vigor. “I am merely scratched, bruised maybe, but no worse.” With Vórwen and Vórondil’s assistance, she rose to her feet, brushing at the mud and debris that clung to her trousers and riding jacket. Then she saw her horse, and her face fell. “But I fear Hîthrem has suffered far more than I.”

The horse stood rigid amidst the heather, his eyes wide and glazed. He favored his right foreleg. Then I saw the terrible injury: jagged bone jutted from torn skin between knee and fetlock. Looking back, I spotted the hole in what otherwise appeared to be solid soil but softened from below by a hidden spring –- the cause of this freakish and terrible accident.

My heart sank. I met Vórondil’s eyes, silent understanding passing between us. Isilmë looked at our faces and knew our thought.

“You cannot consider that! Surely the skills of your stable master can be applied to him? Can’t you make a splint and guide him back to the valley?”

“This is an injury beyond the skill of Elves or Men to heal, my lady queen,” I said.

One of the other Dúnedain, a burly, broad-shouldered man with a trim grizzled beard, stepped forward, loosening the war-ax from his belt.

“No. There is another way,” I said. “I will take care of this. My lady queen, I suggest that you return to the valley. You may ride my horse. I will walk back to the house.”

“I would remain with him, Istyar, until the end,” said Isilmë. “Hîthrem came with me from Annúminas and has served me well.”

“I would not recommend staying here.”

“I will remain,” she said, the timbre of her voice affirming there was to be no argument. “Caladan and Sador, take the ladies Vórwen and Irimë ahead. Lord Vórondil and I will follow.”

The other women’s faces were drawn and blanched. Between the impending news –- good and ill –- from the Alliance and now the horse’s grievous injury, they were not eager to witness what was to come so they mounted their horses with no protest. The two Dúnedain led them away from the scene, following the trail through the heath back to the valley.

I stripped off my tunic, draped it over a shrub and tightened my belt around my hips.  Isilmë approached the horse, but the animal snorted and rolled his eyes with fear.

Walking forward -- step by cautious step –- I chanted to the beast, not quite singing but my voice suffused with low melody. The horse calmed, and his eyes became clear again. I reached out to stroke his neck while he nickered, still in pain but no longer fearful.

“You may say good-bye to him now.”

Isilmë stepped forward almost as softly as I had. Tears streamed over the scratches on her cheeks; she pressed her face against her horse’s head, stroking his muzzle, and then kissed him, murmuring the words of final farewell in my mother tongue.

“Please make it swift,” she said, and she returned to Vórondil who stood silent as stone.

The horse remained quiet while my fingers searched for the jugular grooves on either side of his neck. While I slid my keen-edged knife out of its scabbard, I sang of Nahar -- the steed of Oromë -- and the horses of his herd thundering across the green plains of Valinor. Hîthrem breathed evenly, and his expressive brown eyes became soft with a faraway look as if he already hearkened to Nahar’s trumpeting.

With all my strength behind one swift, inerrant motion, I arced my knife through the underside of the animal’s neck, severing esophagus, trachea and the great vessels that ran to his brain. I leapt away from jets of blood as the animal collapsed to the ground. The horse shuddered once and then lay still against the heath. The wind wept, and the falcon cried in the airs above us.

My forearms and bare chest were bathed with blood from the severed arteries’ fountains. Stepping away from the carcass, I turned back to the queen and Vórondil. Isilmë gasped.

“Forgive me, my lady queen, but I did warn you...”

However, I saw that it was not mere squeamishness that distressed her. Although her eyes looked at me, she was in another place and time, focused on something -– maybe someone –- else. The black vines of the unnamed fear gripped her, and she barely breathed, rigid as her injured steed had been.

My queen! Are you well?” Vórondil laid his hand on her shoulder, a protective gesture of surprising familiarity, and one that I vaguely envied.

She shook her head, the wisps of her hair floating around her in the wind. The dark fear loosened its hold from her visage but she averted her eyes from mine, turning instead to Vórondil.

“Yes, I am well, just dazed for a moment.” She patted the man’s hand in reassurance.

“Please go on, Lord Vórondil,” I said. “Tuilin will bear the queen back to Imladris.”

The queen, now composed with her mouth set firm, mounted my horse, but before she turned to follow Vórondil, she looked back at me, her eyes haunted. The queen and the queen’s man, as she had called the Dúnadan, rode the horses along the trail and disappeared over the low rise to the north.

Once I no longer saw the queen and her escort, I wiped my hands on a patch of moss and returned to the horse’s carcass. With one flick of my blade, I cut a hank of long black hair from the animal’s limp tail. After rolling the strands into a coil and stuffing it into my belt pouch, I hiked through the heath until I reached a stream, its swollen waters coursing through the bracken. I pulled off my boots and stripped away the rest of my clothing, tossing them to drier ground. Naked, I stepped into the stream and lowered myself into water marginally warmer than ice. The churning white foam turned pink from the blood washed from my skin, blood that was carried away by the swift freshet. I closed my eyes and submerged my head beneath the icy flow -- my hair unbound and writhing in the current -- where I willed the cold water to purify me, the death-giver.

~*~

By the time I walked down the path into the valley in the twilight, the howls of the wolves that hunted on the high moor joined with the dirge of the wind soughing through the heather and around the tors. The horse’s carcass would provide them with a grim feast. Similarly grim was the shrouded silence that greeted me when I entered the front door of the House of Elrond.

The time of the evening meal was past, but I heard no song from the Hall of Fire. Instead, muffled weeping filtered to my ears from many parts of the House. I froze in the entryway, afraid of hearing the news. A numb vise, far colder than the icy stream that had washed away the blood, closed around my heart.

“Sámaril! Here you are at last! I have been awaiting your return. I heard what happened on the moor.”

Elerína had emerged from the corridor that led to the kitchens and came to my side. “I am sorry you had to put Hîthrem down. I know that it was difficult for Isilmë, but it must have been hard for you, too.”

“Inflicting death is never easy, even if it is necessary,” I said. “How fares Queen Isilmë? She was distraught when she left with Lord Vórondil.”

“She grieves as do we all, but her backbone is iron. There have been tremendous losses for the Alliance. Thankfully, my lord husband and my sons have been spared, but there were many others who met their death.” Her voice wavered from a moment, and then I saw the pity in her eyes and further, that she had been weeping. Grievous news would reach me that night, I knew. I steeled myself in preparation for what would come, but the numbing cold lessened thanks to Elerína’s presence and the knowledge that she had been awaiting my return.

“You look pale, Sámaril. Perhaps you are chilled. Come to the warmth of the kitchens with me and let Maidhel fetch you some hot broth.”

Not wishing to gainsay her solicitousness by stating that I had endured colder weather and was capable of withstanding worse, I obediently followed Elerína. She pushed aside the swinging double doors beneath the archway to the kitchen. The soft glow of candlelight and the dim radiance from the hearths illuminated the large room. The homely fragrance of baking bread provided the welcoming olfactory equivalent of the warm light, causing my mouth to water. Only Maidhel and two of her assistants were present, kneading dough in uncharacteristic silence. Maidhel raised her face when we entered. Tracks of tears ran through the flour on her smooth cheeks; the atmosphere of the kitchen became somber rather than cosseting. She wiped her hands on her apron and went into the hearth room, emerging with a slice of still-hot bread and a bowl of steaming broth, which she set on the long oaken table.

Elerína sat across from me. I picked up the bowl and drank the hot broth to its last drop and wolfed down the bread.

“My thanks for your concern, my lady queen,” I said.

She smiled, but said nothing, perceiving that I welcomed her presence but was not inclined to speak at length. A quiet strength flowed from Elerína, and I drank it in, knowing that I would no doubt need to draw on it later.

Taking comfort in the warmth of the kitchen, I remembered what I had jammed into my belt pouch. I extracted the coil of horsehair and several small carved agate beads that had been rattling around in the pouch along with other odds and ends I had haphazardly deposited in its depths. Twisting around to straddle the bench upon which I sat, I began to braid the long black hairs.

“What are you doing?” Elerína leaned over the table to glimpse my hands and their swift work.

“I’m making a token for Queen Isilmë. A remembrance of Hîthrem.”

I twined the coarse hairs while Elerína watched. I slid the last bead over the plait and wove the ends together.

“I am glad to hear that your lord and your sons have suffered no harm.” I said after I placed the bracelet in my belt pouch and turned to face my friend. “But the sound of grief fills this house. Many others must have fallen, and I fear among them are those I know.”

Elerína focused on her hands, locking her fingers together. She then raised those blue eyes, red-rimmed, and opened her mouth to speak but at that moment, Gildor appeared in the kitchen, his face grave and worn. With a silent gesture, he commanded me to come with him. I excused myself from Elerína and rose to follow.

After several twists and turns through the circuitous corridors, we entered an empty parlor, the fire in its hearth flickering low. He sat upon one of the leather settees and beckoned me to join him.

It was there that I learned of the outcome of the battle that had raged during the waning of the year: Sauron’s forces had at last been routed at the Dagorlad and forced to retreat to the stronghold of Barad-dûr. A standoff had been achieved, and one that did not have a foreseen conclusion. Although the commanders of the Alliance took heart that dark armies were driven to seek the protection of his fortress, the victory over Sauron’s militia came with a heavy price.

The Tawarwaith’s forces had been devastated. King Oropher, a courageous but fiercely independent man, had led his army in an ill-timed charge, contrary to the command of Ereinion and Elendil. He paid for his impetuous bravery with his life and those of two-thirds of his soldiers. His son, Thranduil, had assumed the kingship, and had pulled together a select cadre to execute a brilliant -- and dangerous -- maneuver: they had disguised themselves as orc-soldiers, positioning themselves near the Morannon and picking off the slaves that worked the great mechanisms of the gates. The Morannon could not be closed, thanks to Thranduil and his men’s strategy, which had allowed Gil-galad, Elendil and the Dwarven militias to take the field, but the loss of so many had been terrible.

“Our Silvan kin -- to a man and woman –- here in the House of Elrond have suffered loss of loved ones. I am afraid the Noldor were not spared either.” His serene voice cracked. “Cuivendil and his sons are dead.”

My heart sank into icy water. My friend - Lairiel’s husband - and his sons – all gone.

“That is not all, Sámaril. A band of orcs attacked the smithy wagons. Côldring was killed defending the armory. I am sorry.” He took my hand in his. We sat in silence for a while, surrounded by grief and the snapping of the fire in the dim room. At length, he released my hand and placed his on my shoulder.

“I must take my leave, Istyar. Will you be. . .”

“Yes, you may go. I need to absorb all this. Thank you for telling me – for your consideration.”

He nodded and left me in the parlor. For a while, I stared into the fire. I rose from the settee and stirred the embers, placing another log in the hearth. Then I went to the maple-wood cabinet against the wall, opened its doors and extracted a crystal glass, blown into the graceful shape of a harebell blossom. I ran my fingers over the glass, tears welling in my eyes. Wiping them away with my sleeve, I then filled the glass with brandy from the cut-glass decanter. Returning to the settee, I sipped the liquor in silence, swallowing my sorrow. I would seek Lairiel tomorrow and offer what I could to console her, but that night, I descended into dark contemplation.

That could have been me. I had been so eager to join Ereinion’s forces. Would I have survived or would I have been slain, my hröa’s life cut short and my fëa sent to who knows where? Had Côldring’s spirit answered the call to Mandos? I knew what I had been taught – what I was supposed to believe: the Judge summoned our fëar upon our bodies’ death, but it was our choice to heed or refuse it. Those who accepted the summons then lingered in the Halls of the Judged, in reflection, it was said.

I often wondered if the fëar of my wife, sister and parents dwelled in that netherworld and if I should dare hope that they might be whole again, there to greet me if I should be allowed to follow the Straight Road, a path which held little certainty for me. What of my son, barely formed when his life was cut short with his mother’s death? Would my child – innocent of any transgression – be allowed to form bodily life within his mother again?

I considered that I had more faith in Hîthrem running with the herd of Nahar than I did in the fate of my own people’s spirits. Burdened by so many troubling but unanswered questions and uncertainties, I focused on the fire in the brandy and the one leaping and crackling in the hearth, and sought the reality –- however painful and sad -– of my immediate surroundings.

“Istyar? May I join you?”

Queen Isilmë’s voice snapped me out of my troubled reverie. She stood at the door of the parlor – alone.

“Of course, but if you should wish to find the ladies Vórwen and Yavien, I will wait. . .”

“Propriety be damned, Sámaril!” she said, her voice exasperated but weary. “I wish to speak with you alone. Be assured no one will question this.”

She then sat in the carved chair near the fireplace, arranging the brocaded cushions to her comfort and smoothing her deep blue gown over long legs. She accepted the glass of brandy that I offered to her. She sipped it, wincing slightly at its strength, and sighed.

“Gildor told me that you lost one of your colleagues. I am sorry.”

“Côldring was a skilled craftsman and a most affable co-worker. He will be sorely missed.”

“I also understand that you lost a good friend – Cuivendil.”

“Yes. We had known one another in Ost-in-Edhil. We became close in Imladris. He is –- was -– the master glass artisan of Imladris. You hold one of his works in your hand.” I wiped my hands over my face, a gesture of weariness, but also to rub the welling of tears from my eyes.

“Please accept my condolences, Sámaril. But do you not have the surety that you will meet them again? It is said that the spirits of your people do not leave the circles of the world –- that you are bound to it until the very end -– and because of this, you may return to your rejuvenated bodies even after their death.”

“That is what we are taught, my lady queen, and what we are expected to believe. But to my mind and to many others here in Middle-earth, that is far from a surety.”

“You have the proof that at least one of your kind has been re-embodied and returned among the living.”

“Lord Glorfindel? Yes, but he is –- well, he is exceptional. He is also not at all forthcoming about his experience or that of others in the Blessed Lands.”

As I had discovered many years ago, even the hint of the subject brought a guarded look to Laurëfin’s otherwise keen eyes and open countenance. His terse, oblique answers that included words like “horrific” and “bizarre” quelled my inquisitiveness so I, like others, respected his privacy on this matter.

I shuddered at this wholly alien concept and gulped down more brandy. The teachings from the Blessed Land said it was possible for any fëa of the departed Firstborn in Mandos –- save one -- to choose re-embodiment, but that certain conditions must be met. Depending on which loremaster opined, these conditions were an ever-shifting target.

Isilmë swirled the amber liquor in the glass, contemplating its vortex. “Many of your people believe this, your friend Lairiel included. Elerína says that she mourns like any widow. Yet she told Elerína that she takes hope that her husband and sons will be alive in the Blessed Lands some day, and that when she sails the grey ship to Elvenhome, she will be reunited with them.”

“May it be that Lairiel’s hope is realized.”

“Do you not hold out such hope to be reunited with your loved ones?”

“Sometimes I do, but my grip on such faith is slippery. I’m uncertain that I will even be allowed to take the Straight Road to the Lonely Isle, let alone having faith that my wife and family will await me at the quays.”

“Why would you not be able to follow the road of your people and seek the fate that is closed to my kin? You were born here in Middle-earth, were you not? You are innocent of rebellion against the gods and of the kinslaying.”

“I am no innocent.” I opened my hands and turned them over, examining them in the firelight, expecting at any moment to be betrayed by bloodstains that could never be washed away by a moorland freshet. “By my choices and actions, by my ambition and pride, I brought suffering to Men and Elves. I believe the loss of my family was one of my punishments.”

“Or their deaths may have been unfortunate happenstance – being in the wrong place at the wrong time, rather than punishment or the weaving of the threads of fate.”

“Perhaps, but it does not change the fact that they are lost to me.”

“But perhaps not forever.”

“I am not sure what ‘forever’ means,” I said, turning away from the fire to meet the queen’s eyes. “Do you not hold out hope, my lady queen, for the dead? That you, too, will be reunited with your loved ones? I have read the Athrabeth Andreth ah Finrod many times. It is said that your people’s fëar are not bound to this world. That it is the gift of Ilúvatar for you to be freed of it. I – along with many of my people – envy you that gift.”

The queen smiled gently. “I am as uncertain as you are, Sámaril. Sometimes I think that both our kindred are bound to this earth. We simply take different paths to the same end. I can only turn to faith that our spirits leave the circles of the world. But if they do not, then I think I should live a good life here: to love my family and friends and to take care of those in need. That is what I strive to do.”

For a time we sat together in silence, the only sounds the crackling logs in the hearth and the wind moaning around the eaves of the house.

“I wish to thank you for what you did this afternoon – on the moor. Hîthrem did not suffer?”

“He did not. I’m certain of that.”

“That is not the first time I have seen a horse slain like that.”

“The knife brings swift and humane death when wielded properly. That is how the husbandmen of Eregion felled sheep and kine. I would expect others use this method.”

“When I first saw a horse killed in such a manner, it was at an altar in Armenelos, and it was the Deceiver who wielded the knife, just like you did. On the moor today, when you turned toward me – after you had cut Hîthrem’s throat – I saw him.”

Again the apparition of fear writhed behind her eyes as she looked at me. I averted my face, focusing on the brandy in my glass. Opening my hands again I saw wraiths of blood sliding through my fingers. I had not slit another man’s throat or spilled his entrails with keen-edged steel like the desperate and enflamed Noldor had at Alqualondë, but indirectly, I may as well have struck a fatal blow. Kinslayer, I named myself with accusation. I imagined all the fear wrought and the lives ruined due to my eager collaboration with Sauron. Surely Tyelperinquar had felt much the same way, but his punishment had been his death. I had survived, but why?

I stared into the fire again. No longer comforting, the flames became sinister, ready to leap out of their confines and devour me. Had Isilmë seen the darkness he had implanted? The shredded remnants of memory –- that of the monstrosity that had nearly consumed me that night in Tharbad -- remained embedded in my mind like splinters of an arrow left under a scar.

---

Chapter End Notes

Galfaron - Noldo, chief hunter of Imladris.
Astaron (was Apsaner) - Noldo; master of the kitchen.
Duineth (was Gwauneth) – Sinda, mistress of the flocks (domestic geese, ducks, chickens).
Lairiel (was Lanyawen) – Noldo; master weaver of Imladris.
Cuivendil – Noldo; master glassblower, Lairiel’s husband.
Côldring – Noldo, master smith.

Vórondil – Dúnadan; chief of the Queen’s Men.
Vórwen (was Vórawen) - Isilmë’s sr. lady-in-waiting.
Irimë – lady-in-waiting; wife of Elendur, Isildur’s eldest son.

coirë - the season of "stirring" (early spring) in the Elven solar year.

In hawking, the use of sweetened meat is used to lure the falcon or hawk from the game bird.

Galfaron's hunting dog is very much akin to the Dutch partridge dog. A tip o' the ha to Rhapsody for her suggestion.

Like "The Holly and the Ivy, I have injected hints of Northern European mythology in the story, e.g., the "elfin hunt" and "wild hunt." The title of this chapter gives a nod to the proto-Indo-European (PIE) practice of the horse sacrifice although the meaning and motivations here to Sámaril and the queen are different than they were to the queens and kings of the PIE cultures.