The Embalmer's Apprentice by Lyra

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Chapter 5

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Master Târik did not tire for months of telling us how happy he was – though it hardly needed telling. He was constantly smiling and very often humming or even singing under his breath. Kârathôn once observed that perhaps he should now grow all sober and melancholy, as Master Târik had stolen his part as the cheerful one.

Master Târik had laughed at that. "Yes, perhaps you should! Though I doubt we'd be able to bear the sight of your melancholy face for long. Perhaps Azruhâr and I should send our wives to yours, and they'll talk her into returning to you?"

Kârathôn did indeed grow serious then. "That will not be possible, I am afraid," he said, his voice unconvincingly even. "I am told that she has remarried."

We all sobered at that. It was not common for un-widowed people to remarry unless there were no children, or their marriage had formally been annulled. The way Kârathôn said it, it didn't sound as though he had agreed to an annulment.

"Oh, Kârathôn," Master Târik said. "I am so sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up."

"Ah, well," Kârathon said with a forced smile. "It's not like keeping it silent will make it better." He shrugged. "No, don't pity me, I don't care for that. Just don't go match-making for me, all right?" He looked at us, and a spark of his usual mischievousness returned to his eyes. "Now Mîkul, on the other hand… perhaps you can find a nice wife for him?"

Mîkul spoke with his usual cheer when he answered. "Thank you, but that won't be necessary."

"What!" Kârathôn exclaimed, steering away from the topic of his own failed marriage with determination. "You already have one, and never told us?"

"I have none," Mîkul said, still cheerfully, "and neither do I want a wife." He stressed the last word just the tiniest bit, and Kârathôn groaned and turned to Master Târik. "Now we've both made fools of ourselves," he said. "Quick, let's to work before we drag the young men along in our folly."

But work though we might, we still did not achieve anything of note, except perhaps that I grew ever less repulsed of the dead. Eventually I even began to develop a certain fondness for them, poor unloved things that even their own kin abandoned to our care, forgotten and hidden underneath the citadel.  

 

My kin, on the other hand, grew prosperous as the months passed. When I brought my sister's family back to Rómenna, my brother-in-law asked me for silver. I gave it to him so he could buy a boat, henceforth employing his own crew and earning far better, as a captain, than he had before (though it was several years before he could repay me). Amraphel advised him to buy a cart also, as soon as he could, to take his catch into Arminalêth to sell it there. Most fishers in Rómenna sold their fish where they caught it, either for use or to traders who then took the fish inland, where people paid more money for it. So Amraphel judged that Barakhôn could improve his earnings substantially by selling his fish on the market in Arminalêth.

Apparently she was right. Thus I came to see my sister more often, and when she came for more than one market-day, she would stay at my house despite its distance to the market.

 For my own part I bought the plot of land that bordered on ours, which enabled us to add two rooms to our house and enlargen the garden. We no longer had to sleep in the smoke and smells of the kitchen – although, once the walls were painted and the floor tiled with patterned and glazed tiles, even that grew into a handsome place. Our house came to be the best in the neighbourhood (although that was admittedly not hard to achieve).

Indeed my colleagues asked why I did not leave that dirty neighbourhood altogether, joining them in one of the better quarters. But I no longer had any desire to do that. "My father built that house with his own hands," I explained, "and always dreamed of one day adding a bedroom, or painting the walls. Well, he did not live to see that day, but there's nothing to keep me from continuing his work."

The others had exchanged bemused glances, but they stopped pressing me. 

 

Unfortunately they did not remain the only ones who questioned my residence there. I did not personally hear any of the murmuring, being away most of the day, but Amraphel told me that many of our neighbours were complaining that we stole the room of poor families who needed it, and that we did not belong there anymore.

"I was born and bred here," I said, frowning. "Why should I not belong here?"

She gave me a strained smile that suggested I was missing something. "Love, other people live here because they can afford no better. Someone who could pay housing anywhere in the city and still chooses to stay here after years confuses them. And because people do not like to be confused, they'll come up with all kinds of explanations – like that you hate the poor, whom you keep from living there. Or that you are here to spy on them."

"I, a spy?" I had to laugh at such a silly assumption.

"Yes, love, a spy. You dine with the King regularly, after all…"

I snorted. "I do not dine with the King. I report to the King about the progress of my work, as do the other Keepers and the Raisers."

"And return with a full stomach."

"Well, obviously we do these reports in the evening, when his Majesty happens to be dining, and he is kind enough not to leave us standing around to watch him eat. But it's not like he invites us with no purpose but dinner in mind. It's just part of our work."

 

I suppose it sounds very glamorous that we regularly sat at the King's table, and perhaps in a way it was. But if you think that those dinners were splendid affairs, I must sadly disappoint you. There were no banquets of many courses, no roast beast in rich gravy, no heaps of sweetmeats. Instead we got to witness first-hand the healers' attempts at prolonging the King's life, which very often had to do with his dietary habits. So far none of their ideas had born fruit. Thus his majesty's diet was changed often. At one point the dishes were luke-warm and almost tasteless, since the healers insisted that hot or cold food took too much strength out of the body, not to mention the strain put upon a stomach forced to digest salt or spices. Then a while later the meals were so spicy that I for my part could hardly stomach them - apparently that was the way the Elves of Eressëa ate their food, and they, after all, lived forever. For a while there were only nuts and raw vegetables, because the freshness of the food was supposed to flow into the eater; at other times everything was puréed because drinking instead of eating was surely the key. Drinking in general was another matter of experiment: Sometimes the healers said pure water was best, then suddenly red wine was preferable above all; there were various teas and infusions, not all of them palatable; there was sour milk for a month, and after that warm beer.

If any of these measures had met with success, I would not have minded. But as it was, I couldn't help but inwardly groan and curse the healers whenever they came up with another supposed cure. Of course my fellow Keepers and I were no more successful than they; but at least our victims were dead in the first place! I wasn't surprised that the Queen was never present at those dinners, preferring to dine at her son's house. If our topics of conversation weren't enough to turn their stomachs, some of the dishes would certainly have been. We endured them for the King's sake, who was ever hopeful that one day his dinner would serve to rejuvenate him; but sometimes it wasn't easy.

Only once I protested (with sufficient reason, as I think), when there were three months in which there was nothing but cabbage, like on a beggar's table. "You see, cabbage grows and thrives and remains green even in winter," a dutiful healer eventually explained to us. "Therefore it must clearly contain something that counteracts winter, and surely this will also help counteract the winter of age in a man."

I couldn't help but doubt. "My family lived on little but cabbage for years," I pointed out, "and yet old age took my grandfather at the age of a hundred and thirty-one."

I do not know what that healer told his colleagues, not to mention the King, but when we next reported of our progress two weeks later, there was no more cabbage on the table, and its constant smell had been replaced by that of garlic.

Still, I could hardly tell all that to the people in the streets. I could hardly even complain to Amraphel; it was, after all, what the King wished for himself. I guess it was a great honour, even so. Yet it wasn't done to put us above our fellow men, but only so the King was always informed of our progress (or rather lack thereof). There was nothing exciting about it. 

 

Nonetheless, Amraphel raised her eyebrows. "But you are aware that this is not exactly normal procedure, I hope?"

"I am," I said emphatically. "I know that the King honours us – more than we deserve, with the poor fruits our work is yielding. But still, why should that make me a spy? They know about my field of work, don't they? Isn't that explanation enough? Why would I want to spy on my neighbours anyway? What should the King want to know about them?"

Amraphel sat down with a sigh. "I know that you pay little attention to the mood in the streets, but you must be aware that the elf-friends are getting increasingly anxious. And there are quite some elf-friends among our neighbours. They see that the King is turning away from certain traditions, and find that those who protest are sometimes treated with unwarranted harshness -- "

"Unwarranted harshness? Some of them have demanded that his Majesty give up his life – how does that not deserve a harsh answer?"

"Azruhâr," Amraphel said, sighing again. "Not all elf-friends are so unreasonable – no more unreasonable, at any rate, than any other person. And those that live around us certainly demanded nothing of the sort, yet are nonetheless encountering hostility. They are nervous. And you are very famously a King's Man --"

"Indeed, and proud of it," interjected I.

"You are very famously a King's Man, and in direct line of communication with his Majesty himself, so they suspect that you are staying here because the King commanded it – to spy on them. Don't tell me it's preposterous; it's a very real fear out there."

Despite the warmth of the evening, I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I tried to play it down. "Well, they hate me anyway for working with dead people. I suppose one more reason does not matter much."

Amraphel grimaced. "Not, I suppose, for the moment. I just worry what happens when they decide that they hate you too much to put up with us any longer."

I stared at her. "You mean they might try to harm us?"

"I do not know. But I think it is possible. You are a Keeper, and they are superstitious; you are a King's Man, and they are afraid; and you are wealthy, and they are jealous. At the moment, there is nothing but talk and glares, and their children forbidden to play with poor Azruphel; but I wonder how long it'll stay at that. It's a dangerous build-up at any rate."

I felt a headache coming on. "Can you not somehow appease them?" I asked, rubbing the bridge of my nose with my fingers. "Give coins to the poor, have feasts for the children, something of that sort?"

"At this point I'm afraid that would only make them more suspicious."

I sighed. "And poor Azruphel is caught in the middle of all this. You say their children are no longer playing with her?"

"There have never been many, but now the last two are gone," Amraphel said.

"Well, I don't want their stupid children to play with my precious daughter anyway," I said, hotly, and felt like an idiot the moment I said it. I grimaced ruefully. "Now I sound like your father, don't I?"

"A little," she said.

"I didn't mean it. I'm just angry that they hurt our little daughter with their stupidity."

"I know," said Amraphel, stroking my face. Then she smiled. "Well, if she finds no playmates outside, I suppose it'll be our task to provide someone to keep her company, hm?"

 

Amraphel was indeed pregnant again before autumn came. It had been a while since I had last thought I almost died or I almost would not have seen this, but now these thoughts returned with full force.

"I'd never have seen this child born," I said when Amraphel told me the news, and my initial excitement wore off, "if the King had not taken mercy on me back then."

Amraphel raised an eyebrow. "If he hadn't - if you had been killed back then, this child would never even have been begotten."

"True," I said in wonder, though it did not take a genius to figure that much out. "Yet it feels like yesterday." I sighed. "How little I have achieved in all that time."

I received a stern look for that. "You have achieved quite a lot. Look at us – look at the house!" I obeyed, and of course I had to admit that Amraphel was right. There had been no carpet on the floor, no embroidered quilt on the bed, no reassuring padding between my ribs and my skin when I had gone off to steal money from some rich Venturer. If Lôbar were still alive, I thought, he might be tempted to come and steal money from me!

"How many ifs there are in our lives," I said aloud.

"If you are going to think about all those ancestors that might have died and never conceived  the next generation, you're just going to give yourself a headache," Amraphel said drily.

"My goodness," said I. "Imagine if our great-grandfathers—"

"Exactly," Amraphel said, resting her head on my chest, which tore me out of my thoughts. "It's a miracle we exist at all. Yet they all lived; and so do you." She smiled, batting her eyes at me. "And so will the child, Eru willing. Imagine that. Another little Azruhâr."

"Or a little Amraphel," said I. And then I sat up. "But if it turns out to be a boy, I would like to name him after the King."

My wife, pushed from her comfortable resting-place, gave me an amused look. "Ancalimon? Truly?"

I winced a little when I heard the name spoken like that, carelessly, without honorifics attached. Perhaps it was not such a good idea after all.

"I owe everything to him," I said, embarrassed at myself. "I cannot repay him. I cannot prolong his life, and the way things are, I cannot even hope to preserve his body in a decent manner. I can at least keep his name alive."

Amraphel still looked amused; but she shrugged. "Well, I suppose you can ask him, when next you dine in the palace, whether he would appreciate that." 

 

It took a while before I did ask. Under normal circumstances, I don't think I would ever have dared it, but on one otherwise dreary winter day we finally had news of success. Checking the results of our experiments from a few months earlier, we found that two of the samples had been preserved very well, indeed much better than we had seen flesh preserved before. At that time we had dissolved various salts in water and bathed the dead in the resulting brine, and while many of the samples had gone rotten or funny, a hand that we had kept in corrosive sublimate looked still very much like it had on the day we had preserved it, though the skin had unfortunately turned somewhat yellowish. Even better was a foot lathered with the watery solution of some dark green salt, for it had lost neither colour nor texture. 

The King would, no doubt, have preferred reports of success from the Raisers. Still, he praised our efforts when he saw the samples – unlike the Raisers, Tar-Ancalimon showed no distaste whatsoever at the results of our work, holding the severed, cold limbs without the slightest shudder. Some of the others were not even able to watch.

"This is most intriguing," he King said, looking at the fair-skinned, fully-fleshed foot. "What did you say you used on it?"

"A metallic salt, your Majesty," Master Târik said. "It is dark green and was found in a mine in eastern Endorë (1). We dissolved it in water and used the solution as we normally use whitewash."

"A salt? Well, that is some powerful salt," said the King. "Do you have more of it?"

"Only a very little, your Highness, but I am sure more of it can be found once the miners start looking for it in earnest. So far they only brought a small amount, as a curiosity, not knowing whether it was of use."

"We shall command the search for this mysterious green salt first thing tomorrow. Perhaps the healers should look at it, too. This is promising, Târik. We are very well pleased."

Master Târik bowed his head, but before he did so he glanced sideways at me, smiling for the first time that day. 

 

We were invited to stay longer than usual, sitting around the King's hearth with goblets of sweet wine and two flutists playing tunes in the background. After dinner the Queen and the Crown Prince and his wife joined us, and our conversation thus was harmless, concerning only our respective families and the bygone joys of summer. Master Târik was very silent once the business part of the evening was over, which I found strange. He almost matched the Crown Prince, who sat in moody silence and warmed up only once, when one of the Raisers told a funny hunting tale. I secretly thought that it was no wonder that the Raisers had no success with their work if they wasted their time hunting, and was tempted to say something to that effect; but the King did not berate the man, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

Our work was mentioned again only briefly when the King called on his treasurer to bring rings for Master Târik, Kârathôn, Mîkul and me. Perhaps that was his way of reminding the Raisers where their focus should be. Whereas they deserved the dampener, I did not feel that we deserved such precious gifts, for even I could see that the rings were of Elvish make, the kind that were normally reserved for the King's lords and councillors.

I first thought that mine was made of gold and copper, but I later learned that the red metal was a kind of gold also, which did not become tarnished as time passed. The two metals were woven into an intricate wreath of narrow leaves, with small clear gems set in-between. I thought it marvellous, although the treasurer said that it was made only by 'some lesser Noldorin smith' - whatever that was supposed to mean. Master Târik's ring, he said, had been made by Celebrimbor himself.

 

Servants kept re-filling our goblets, and slightly drunk with delight and the sweet wine, I finally dared to ask permission to name my child after the King, should it be a son.  The silence that followed my question was enough to make me sober again. I tried to learn from the King's expression whether he was displeased or merely thoughtful, but I could not read his face. His eyes were narrowed often now, whether he was angry or not. Quentangolë had told us in secret that his Majesty's sight was getting worse (though when asked about it, the King would snort derisively, pointing at far-away tapestries and listing in astonishing detail what he could see there) and that he was squinting in order to see better. The wrinkles likewise made it hard to be certain whether he was frowning or not. But I was convinced that I had offended him. Surely a commoner like I should not aspire to such a name – surely only the noble could name their children after kings with impunity.

I felt foolish and tactless. Bowing my head low, I apologised. "I assure your Highness that I meant no insult – indeed, nothing could be further from my intentions. It was meant as a tribute to your Majesty, nothing else."

"We realise that," the King said. "We are touched."

I breathed a sigh of relief, and cautiously looked up again. He was still not smiling when he continued to speak. "You are, of course, free to name your child in whichever manner you wish," he said. "But your kind is not fettered by foolish traditions, as we are. If you do ask our opinion, we would advise you to give your child a decent Adûnaic name. If you must name him after us, you can name him Nimnimirôn (2)."

I felt my face flush. "Well," I said, doubtfully, "that does seem a somewhat presumptive name for a commoner's child." The King laughed, and some of the others joined in. "More presumptive than choosing the name of your King? It means the same thing, Azruhâr." He gave me a wry look. His eyes were still bright then (though no longer so sharp, as if age had softened them). My face grew darker yet.

"But not everybody understands the Elvish, your Majesty," I said carefully, "while everybody will understand Nimnimirôn."

The King shrugged. "Well, you need not listen to us. If you do care for our opinion, you know it now."

The Crown Prince gave me a look that made me crumble for good, his eyes full of disdainful dislike. I looked down, and for the rest of the evening was as taciturn as Master Târik. 

 

Kârathôn was still poking fun at me, the next day, though I doubted he would have known the Elvish himself. Master Târik, too, mocked me a little; but he grew earnest again soon.

"What is wrong?" I asked, worried. "Do you think that I overstepped my bonds, and that something bad will come of it?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I doubt it. Surely his Highness knows how eager to please you are. No, that is not it."

"What is it, then?" I asked, frowning at his unwarranted harshness.

Master Târik sighed. "Lômenil has been feeling very ill for a couple of weeks now."

"Oh," said I, and felt ashamed for thinking only of myself. "But surely it is nothing serious – only a cold, or something of the sort! That is not so unusual in this season. Surely she'll get better soon!"

"We've been thinking that for weeks," he said in a strained voice, "and indeed she feels better as the day progresses; but every new morning the illness returns."

"I am sorry," I said softly. "I truly am."  

 

I told Amraphel of Lômenil's illness that evening, and she, too, was sorry to hear of it. "Have they sent for a healer?" she asked. "If it has been going on for weeks, they should."

"Master Târik did not mention anything about a healer," I said.

"Oh, you men!" Amraphel said, exasperated. "It might be something serious, and you just wait and worry! There are capable healers enough in this city if you can afford them – I'm sure if you mentioned it to the King he would send one of his own, just to please his precious Keepers – that might be able to find out what ails her, and come up with some remedy."

"I do not trust the healers," I said. "They have so far found no remedy for his Majesty's ailment."

Amraphel rolled her eyes, but did not comment. "Well, never mind," she said instead. "I'll go and speak with her tomorrow; and then I will decide whether a healer should be called upon." 

 

But when she returned from her visit to Lômenil the next day, she appeared amused rather than sorrowful.

"Is Lômenil feeling better, then?" I asked, feeling confused; for earlier Master Târik had reported that she had been very sick indeed when he left the house.

"I daresay!" Amraphel said with a snort.

"Then she is not seriously ill after all?"

Amraphel gave me a wry glance. "No indeed – no more ill than I."

"But that is different," I pointed out with a frown. "You are only sick because you are pregnant, and--" here I stopped myself, realisation dawning, and Amraphel clapped her hands.

"Now you've got it," she said. "It seems that Lômenil's mother taught her ill, and she did not know how to read the signs."

"My goodness," I said. "And Master Târik was so unhappy."

"Folly must be punished," Amraphel said mercilessly. "Honestly, they have been married for three years, and yet are caught by surprise when the woman gets pregnant?"

"It is not their fault if they have been ill taught," I said defensively, feeling sorry for them both. "They shouldn't suffer for it."

"Oh, don't you worry," said Amraphel. "I told Lômenil, and she'll doubtlessly tell Târik, and that's the end to their suffering. To their worry-induced suffering, that is. They will, of course, have to go through all the insecurities and pains entailed in this like everybody else."

I grimaced as she mentioned pain, for I had in all honesty forgotten how dreadful the birthing of Azruphel had been, and now I felt ashamed for putting Amraphel through all this again. I told her so.

"I think I cannot clearly remember how bad it was," said Amraphel. "At any rate, don't go blaming yourself now. If I hadn't wanted another child, you of all people would've noticed." 

 

- - - 

 

The second ring on my hand brought an interesting change to the people in the street. Back when they had learned that I was an embalmer, their cheerful disdain had changed to wary disdain. They wanted my money, so they could not entirely avoid me, but they never made a secret of their dislike for my profession. Now that I was wearing a councillor's ring, my frequent visits to the King were no longer a matter of rumour but of fact (very likely, Amraphel said, overblown in their imaginations). The disdain disappeared and was replaced by very respectful behaviour (though Amraphel judged that it was more likely fear than any kind of genuine respect). Sometimes it did feel genuine, but most of the time it reminded me of Amrazôr's false friendliness on that far-away Eruhantalë day.

Nonetheless I can't deny that it was pleasant to be honoured instead of scorned for a change, whatever the motivation. People bowed to me, and sometimes called me 'sir' or even 'lord' though I was none. Merchants would ignore other customers to serve me first; and when I paid them too much, they no longer pocketed the money in silence but thanked me profusely, and very often added some gifts to the things I had bought. This in turn made me popular with the street urchins, to whom I gifted the sausage or apple or cinnamon sticks or whatever it was that I did not need. One of them actually kissed my hand. I suppose he was disappointed when I made a fist, and thus ensured that I would walk away with both the King's ring and my wedding band still on my fingers. I had not entirely forgotten what it was like to be a street urchin. 

 

It turned out that we had only partly earned our rings, anyway. The well-preserved foot of all things was completely spoiled mere weeks later: The skin turned white and flaky like the dried whitewash on our conventional corpses, and then it fell off like ash, revealing the weavings of muscle and sinew and the pillars of bone underneath. Those were still unspoilt - but worthless to our purpose.

Master Târik then remembered that our own hands had been reddened as if burned for a few days, after we had experimented with the green salt, and wondered aloud whether there was any connection.

"But that was because we were clumsy when we heated the water, don't you think?" said I.

"I wonder," said Master Târik. "We are not usually too clumsy to boil water without injuring ourselves, are we? Perhaps the green salt has some burning properties."

I did not think that likely. "But it's a salt," I said. "And salts are like stone. Stone cannot burn flesh, can it?"

"Some can, especially when you dissolve them in water – think of acids or lye!"

"Well, all right," I said. "But we tested whether it was an acid before we used it, and it wasn't."

"The Silmarils could burn flesh," Mîkul pointed out. "Perhaps it is something like that."

I snorted. "The Silmarils were exceptional. That was the whole point, was it not?"

"Well, if they could be blessed to burn unclean flesh, perhaps other stones can be so blessed or cursed, too," Master Târik said thoughtfully, looking at the now useless foot. 

There was only one way of finding out. We had a very small portion of the salt left, and I prepared the solution again, taking great care when I heated the water and leaving the solution to cool completely before handling it. I felt no immediate effect, but a day later my hands began to itch, and afterwards turned red and stung like sunburned for a week. (3)

"Well," Master Târik said while massaging marigold oil into my sore fingers, "it's a good thing we haven't sent that stuff to the healers yet."

I grimaced, not because of the pain but for the idea that this burning stuff might have been used to make a medicine for the King, or anyone else for that matter.

"We'll have to inform his Majesty," I said.

"Indeed. There's no need to send miners searching for the stuff anymore."

I nodded glumly.

He smiled at me. "Don't worry, Azruhâr. There's still the sublimate. I doubt the King's going to punish us for this."

And he didn’t punish us. He didn't even take the rings back, or cut our pay. I was all the more ashamed - which perhaps was punishment enough.

Master Khôrazîr of the Raisers, on the other hand, was delighted. We were only a small step ahead of them now, and we all knew that when they finally succeeded – in those days we still believed that they'd succeed – their accomplishment would be by far greater than anything we could hope to achieve. I thought it strange that Master Khôrazîr, knowing this, still took pleasure in our failure. One should think that we were working towards a common goal, so it did not ultimately matter who made more headway. I for my part could not stand the healers, but if they had found a cure for the King's deterioration, I would have been delighted nonetheless. We were, after all, not racing against each other – we were racing against time. 

 

I was almost relieved when my second child turned out to be a daughter. After all, that meant I would not have to decide whether to use the King's name, or its equivalent, or something else entirely. Or so I thought at first, until Amraphel pointed out that we might well name the baby Nimnimirel. It seemed that the decision was with me after all. But I was uncertain, and for a week our poor daughter was in fact nameless.

Then I learned from Quentangolë that at the palace they were already speaking of my child as ‘little Ancalimë', and that Quentangolë had in fact already noted her down in the books of citizens (4) as Nimnimirel. "I do apologise," he said when he saw my flustered face, "but somehow I was convinced that you would stick with the name."

I must have been gaping like a fool to think that they were speaking of my child at the palace at all. Absurd images appeared in my brain of the King speaking of my family over his tea, or of the Queen knitting tiny socks as Lômenil's mother did. I blushed.

"I wasn't certain if it was appropriate," I explained. "I have done little enough to deserve such an honour."

Quentangolë actually laughed. "Dozens of people name their children after kings or warriors or heroes without for a moment wondering whether it is an honour, or whether they deserve it if it is. As his Majesty pointed out, you can name your child in whatever way you wish." He sobered. "I should, of course, have waited until I heard from you what name you had decided on, but I was so certain you'd take the name you had asked for..."

"Well, I would have," I said, embarrassed. "It just seemed so… presumptuous."

"I can change it in the books, of course," Quentangolë said. "Though of course that may lead to the question why you chose not to use the King's name after all."

I grimaced in dismay. It seemed that whatever I did, I would cause offense. "No, that is not necessary," I said. "If you are certain that his Highness won't think me an upstart for choosing such a noble name…"

"I am," said Quentangolë. He leaned in, and in a lower voice added, "In fact, I think that he is secretly happy. Talk on the street is not overly favourable of him, so it does him good to think that some men, at least, hold him in reverence still."

I had not thought about it that way. "Truly?" I said.

"Truly," Quentangolë said, grinning at my surprised expression. "If fear of offending is your only reason to keep from naming your daughter Nimnimirel, fear no longer. Besides, there was a Queen Ancalimë once, so you could always claim you'd chosen her name."

So our second daughter got her name after all; but Azruphel found such a long word hard to pronounce. She called her little sister Nimmirel instead, and soon enough Amraphel and I copied her. 

 

As soon as Quentangolë had left, Master Târik approached me. "Lômenil and I wondered whether you would allow us to name our child after you."

I must admit that I did not react kindly. "It is no laughing matter to me," I said a little stiffly. "There is no need for ridicule."

Master Târik looked taken aback. "Ridicule? What about my question makes you think that I am ridiculing you?"

"You know I've been discussing the matter of naming with the King, and with Quentangolë just now."

He gave me an exasperated look. "And just because you had the idea, you think I'm making fun of you? I am not. I was asking in earnest."

I stared at him. "Why would you do that?"

Raising an eyebrow, Master Târik said, "If not for you, Lômenil and I would never have met, and thus we'd never have had a child. Is it so strange that I am grateful to you, then? I'd think you of all people would understand!"

He made sense, I suppose; but I was nonetheless nonplussed. "That is really not necessary," was all I could think of saying.

Master Târik studied me. "Not necessary, or not to your liking?" He made it sound as though it mattered.

I was forced to think about his request. It seemed very strange to me. Yes, I had planned to name my child after another – but that other was the King, and it was only proper that his name should live on. There was nothing noble about my name, so I would have thought that the only one who might care to pass it on would be I myself. And now this.

Quentangolë, I suppose, had a point. It was a delightful idea that I was loved so well that somebody wanted to name their child after me. My insides turned warm with joy, and my smile was probably so broad that it surely looked silly.

"I would be honoured," I said. "But what will you do if you have daughter, too?"

"Then she shall be Lôminzil," Master Târik said. It seemed that Lômenil and he had thought about this better than I.  

 

But Lômenil gave birth to a boy, a day before Erulaitalë day. This was somewhat embarrassing, as we had planned to have a joint celebration of our children's birth once little Azruhâr (or Lôminzil) was born – but we also had an invitation to the holiday feast at the palace that had come to replace the old festivities upon and around the Holy Mountain.

In all honesty I was almost grateful for the excuse, for I always felt uncomfortable around the nobility that attended the King's feast. The people in the street might treat me with wary respect, but the nobles and courtiers had no reason to fear me and my conversations with the King, and accordingly they let us Keepers feel quite clearly that we were out of place. On the other hand I was afraid that the King might feel insulted when I missed the celebrations. It was Master Târik who sent messengers to the palace, asking the King's pardon. Said pardon was granted. 

 

Thus instead of joining the noble crowd at the palace, we celebrated in Master Târik's grand house, which had changed greatly now that it had a lady. Lômenil had added furniture to the austere rooms, taking away that feeling of emptiness. She had also employed a gardener and an additional servant, and the former wilderness around the house had turned into a beautifully tamed garden.

We had meant to have our celebrations in said garden, but like most days of that summer, even the high holiday was cool and rainy. Indeed there had already been voices suggesting that the extraordinarily wet summer was a sure sign of Eru's displeasure at the King's refusal to do the proper rites upon the Mountain.

I did not think that likely, unless the All-father was slow on the uptake: After all, his Majesty had not ascended the Mînultârik in several years, and yet the past summers had been perfectly fine. As Amraphel told me while some of our more rebellious neighbours were listening, we must not forget that even the Land of Gift is located within Arda Marred. But not many were rational enough to remember that fact, and again there was unrest in the streets - though in those wet but long summer days the unrest was manageable, and only in winter did it turn dangerous.

But I am running ahead of my tale. Meanwhile, it was summer, and if the rain kept us from feasting underneath the wisterias in Lômenil's garden, there was nothing to hinder us from feasting in the hall. 

 

The hall, too, had changed under Lômenil's influence. There were tapestries now, mirroring the sea-life scenes from the floor mosaic. The simple table that I remembered had received the attentions of enthusiastic craftsmen, rendering the once plain tabletop into a chequered field framed with stilised leaf shapes and geometric patterns. There were also smaller tables with similar inlays, and little cupboards. I wondered how one family should need so much furniture; but then (as Amraphel later pointed out) I had never acquired a rich man's taste.

What I admired most was a harp, made of some reddish wood and inlayed with brass; but when we asked to hear something played on it, we were disappointed.

"Târik has no time to learn it," Lômenil said, "and I don't have the patience for lessons. But I thought it would be nice to have it, all the same."

"May I play it?" Azruphel asked. She had explored every aspect of the great house and now stared, wide-eyed, at the beautiful instrument. Lômenil nodded her permission, and Azruphel walked closer, studying the strings with solemn attention. Then she slowly extended her hand and gave one string an experimental pluck. A low tone reverberated, first loud, then losing strength until it stopped altogether.

Azruphel turned back to us. "How do I play a melody?"

"Oh, my," Amraphel said. "I haven't played in years; I doubt I remember anything." But she handed Nimnimirel to me, and sat on the stool behind the harp. "I'll play something simple so you can see how it is done," she told Azruphel, and then her fingers slid and jumped over the strings in a cheerful jig. Maybe it was indeed 'something simple' - I did not then know much about music – but I thought it pretty nonetheless. I had heard Amraphel play the harp only once, on the one occasion that I had been invited to serve at a dinner in her father's house. Having no brothers, Amraphel had played for their important guests, but I, too, had been there to listen. No doubt that had been better music than the simple thing she played now, but it had been rather overshadowed by what came after. But I digress. Right then, I thought that she played very well, and Master Târik and the others said the same.

Amraphel, on the other hand, grimaced. "I lost whatever skill I had," she said. "Besides, the poor thing is dreadfully out of tune. Lômenil, do you have a tuning key somewhere?" 

 

I got to hold Nimnimirel for the most part of the evening while Amraphel tuned the harp, explaining to Azruphel how it was done and how one had to hold one's hands in order to play. Lômenil was more than a little displeased; she had after all expected to have Amraphel to talk to. I, on the other hand, had hoped that I would be able to use the time to discuss necessary improvements to our work with Master Târik and Kârathôn and Mîkul – the sublimate still left a lot to be desired, requiring regular re-applications that would hardly be possible with a whole body, moreover one laid to rest in the Noirinan. With nobody to distract the lady of the house from such an undelectable topic, we had to keep to harmless things instead, discussing nothing more unpleasant than the weather. Only when Nimnimirel began to squall did Amraphel abandon the harp in order to feed her.  

 

She apologised for her impoliteness afterwards, saying that she had not realised how much she missed playing until now.
"Well, you are of course welcome to visit and play it whenever you like," Lômenil said somewhat stiffly, "though of course that's a bit of a walk over something so trivial."

"It is indeed," Amraphel said with an apologetic smile. "Still, thank you."

"Of course it would be so much easier if you finally moved into a more appropriate neighbourhood," Lômenil continued. "I really do not understand why you keep living at the foot of the hill."

"I have lived there all my life," I said as I had said before. "Why should I not continue to live there?"

Lômenil raised her eyebrows as though I was being absurd. "I used to live there until recently, and I was only too happy to leave," she pointed out. "Everybody who had a chance to get out of there did so, as soon as possible – everybody but you, and you can doubtlessly afford the change better than many others who left that quarter."

I cast a helpless look at Master Târik before remembering that he, too, had put that question to me, and while he had apparently accepted my explanation then, he shook his head slightly now, signaling that he was keeping out of the discussion. I suppose I had to be content that he did not take his wife's side against me.

But as ever I could rely on Amraphel. She simply smiled, saying, "Azruhâr is most attached to the house of his father, and thus we make it our task to improve it instead of fleeing it."  

 

To my great shame I must admit that I had, so far, always taken for granted that she shared my desire to keep our small house. I began to wonder now. Amraphel had, after all, grown up in a great house much like this; perhaps she longed to return to such a place? I would not know how to fill and use all those rooms, but Lômenil had obviously been at no loss, so apparently it was possible. I tried to tell myself that Amraphel – who after all managed our money and thus new better than I what we could afford – would surely have spoken up, if she had been discontent; but I couldn't entirely calm my conscience. I would ask her on the way home, I vowed; I'd leave her the choice. Now, however, was not the right moment. 

"Improve it!" Lômenil said, eyebrows still raised in an expression of doubt. "Improve that hovel! How much can you hope to improve it – you have what, one room? Two?"

"Three, in fact," I said tersely. "Four if you count the kitchen. And then there's the stables, of course. And we have doubled the garden."

Of course I could not expect that to impress Lômenil, lady of this estate. I just hadn't expected her to be quite so scornful. "Four rooms, and twice the garden!" she exclaimed. "But what a waste of money and effort!"

"I count neither wasted," I said, frowning.

"But you can't deny that it is a waste – it'd probably have come you cheaper to buy a whole new house with more rooms and more garden than to add to that little hut!"

"Perhaps so," Amraphel said when I was too daunted to say more, "but then some might say that it is also a waste to buy a harp if one has no intention of learning to play it."

Lômenil's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Why, aren't you so very superior! Of course you---" 

 

Here fortunately her raised voice woke my little namesake, who started crying and thus interrupted Lômenil before she could say something insulting. We exchanged embarrassed glances, and Mîkul told a bawdy story, raising our moods.

When baby Azruhâr was taken care of and Lômenil returned to the table, Master Târik asked that we remain at peace."This is meant to be a feast, not a fight," he pointed out. "So let us not spoil the day with pointless arguments. Come, be friends now, and let us drink to our children. You don't want their first memory to be a petty disagreement, do you?"

We did not. Thus Lômenil and Amraphel smiled at each other and declared themselves reconciled, and we raised our glasses and waited for Master Târik as the eldest to propose a toast.

 

To my great surprise he spoke in the Elvish tongue, so I did not understand the words, although I heard Ancalimë, which I now knew to be the Elvish way of saying my new daughter's name. I did not hear my own – Master Târik's son's – name, though surely he mentioned it, disguised in foreign words.

I couldn't hide my astonishment, and after we had drunk, I admitted, "I find it strange that you of all people should speak Elvish."

"Do you?" Master Târik said with a smile. "Forget not that I was once a nobleman's retainer, before I came to this, and besides other things learned the Elvish tongues."

Indeed I had almost forgotten about that. We had never spoken much about our past lives, being after all quite busy with the present.

"I still love their sound," Master Târik went on, "and I think for a blessing Quenya is far better suited than our Mannish tongue."

I shrugged. I had never found our language unsuitable for anything so far.

Kârathôn noticed my doubt, and said, winking, "Azruhâr is unconvinced, I see."

"That's not it," I said. "I'm just finding it strange that Master Târik, whom I always took to be a loyal man of the King, turns out to be a secret Elf-friend."

My face grew hot. I was doubtlessly giving birth to the next argument.

But Master Târik merely leaned back with a wry smile, and said, "I should hope that a man can yet be both.”

---

Chapter End Notes

(1)Endorë: Quenya for "Middle-earth". We are not given an Adûnaic term for Middle-earth, so I have assumed that (at the time, anyway) they would go with the Quenya name. Most Númenorean place names are never given in Adûnaic, either... 

(2) Nimnimirôn: This is entirely based on guesswork, as we are not given an official Adûnaic version of Tar-Ancalimon's name. The Quenya (meaning, simply, "the brightest", as in aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima) is easy enough, but unfortunately the Adûnaic lexicon is rather small and sure enough there is no word for "bright" in it.

 There is, however, a word "shine", nimir. Problem: This word is also used for an elf (a "shining one"?), so it may have been ideologically difficult. Still, "shining" is close enough to "bright", so it'll have to do. (Perhaps Adûnaic was simply not a very creative language; that would at any rate go nicely with the "The making of words was slow" line from MR, and it would also in a way concur with observations made in comparing the Quenyan and Adûnaic names of the kings.) So we have nimir, "shining", with an affixed ôn to make it look less like an elf and more like a name; that would be something like "Calimon" in Quenya.

There is also no example (in the corpus known to me) of an Adûnaic comparative or, more interestingly in this case, superlative. We do, however, have an example of emphatic repetition in êphal êphalak îdôn hi-Akallabêth, "far far away…" I have applied this to form a superlative form of Nimir(ôn) here, "bright bright one" = "brightest one" (there are some real human languages that do that, so I don’t feel entirely unjustified ;)).

As you can see I didn't use the whole thing – that would've given us Nimirnimirôn, which just looks weird – but only reduplicated the first syllable (maybe the second just got lost at some point in language history?), which brings us to Nimnimirôn, which still looks slightly silly but not irredeemably so. (I wondered, for a while, whether perhaps the –mn wouldn't get assimilated to –mm, but eventually decided against it- in writing, at any rate.)

 

(3) Azruhâr and his colleagues are unwittingly discovering radioactivity. The mysterious green salt is a halide of uranium.  Its toxic and radioactive properties are great for keeping bacteria and other decaying factors at bay - unfortunately they're not exactly healthy for living organisms (or even dead flesh), either.

Corrosive sublimate (which is not radioactive) isn’t entirely harmless either, though. It’s an obsolete name for mercuric chloride, which was used for the preservation of biological specimens as late as the early 20th century. It is also rather toxic (which is why it's no longer used today) and was used as a supposed cure for syphilis (possibly killing more patients than the actual disease did), but that's a different story... 

 

(4) The "books of citizens" are another assumption of my own; canon only informs us that there are "scrolls of kings". Whether or not the Númenoreans also kept a register for commoners is up to conjecture. I decided to assume that there was one. On a relatively small island it is not too hard to keep such records, and considering the fairly limited gene-pool, it's generally a good idea to enable people to check just how closely related they are before reproducing…