Si la mar fuera de leche by Chestnut_pod

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Chapter 4

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Midsummer came in a rush of enoughness. Half the orchards fruited for the first time. The figs swelled and darkened and the cherries burned almost blue. The sardines swam in shallow waters in lightning-shot masses, the goats kidded and gave milk, and the young barley burnished the ridgetop fields in green. None went hungry. 

 

Zamîn insisted they make thanksgiving. Elros never forgot, precisely, that she was devout -- calling Vardamir’s name every day would have reminded him in any case -- but he rarely felt that his spirit sang along with hers. Perhaps having known an Ainu or three in person diminished one’s sense of natural awe, or perhaps a god-touched family did. Watching Tindómiel and Vardamir’s cheeks fill out and the farmers sing as they sowed the second chickpea crop, though --  there was a kind of awe that sprang up from the breast and belly in bubbles like joy. A thanksgiving they must have. 

 

 In the very early days, Elros had sent expeditions to scout the island thoroughly, climbing ridges and fording new-made rivers, before the dwindling supplies on the ships and the miles upon miles of bare rock constrained them all to the East-Haven of Rómenna, where there was fresh water and fish. Elros remembered the scouts’ reports of a flat-topped prominence like a table, charged with a silence that set hearts racing and filled the ears with the hum of one’s own blood. It did not take a priest to know a holy place. It took food and people strong enough to make the climb to honor one, alas; yet the great pillar of the Meneltarma dreamed quietly in the background of all their years of effort, growing greener before their eyes as seabirds, wind, and grace quickened the rock. 

 

Elros, trying to remember he had a secretary now, sent Adûnabêl through the dirt streets of the toddling town to bid come all those who could spare six days and travel over pathless land to the tor. More came than he had dared hope, with net-and-wood carriers for those adults who could not walk the distance, and children on shoulders and in slings. 

 

They walked in a column under the sunshine. Zamîn sent the young people to the rear to keep them from rushing forward out of sight, and Elros picked the more solemn among them to walk the sides and bring water and dried fish to those struck by the heat. Elros walked at the front and, at times, it felt so much like the war that he expected Elrond and Gil-Galad to appear around the next outcropping or sapling; while at other times, he felt like the leader of a great dance, and would fill up his lungs and sing whatever came to mind -- hymns or marching songs or the wordless tunes to folk dances -- and behind him his people sang along. 

 

They passed out of the cultivated lands within the day, yet Elenna was filled with blossom-stars the same. The terrain was rough and stony, but no longer altogether bare, and little vales where soil had been carried by the rain overflowed with foliage. The children ran about the meads and rushed back to the column to ask what was this leaf, or this flower, or this small insect. Parents and siblings laughed and said, oh, that was a mint of Brethil-that-was, or a stem of tamarisk like they had known as children, or that they did not know! Tindómiel brought Elros a great hank of twining groundcover with white flowers, bright crinkled leaves, and a sweet scent that seemed to relax walking-sore muscles. Adûnabêl thought it was a rockfoil, and was cozened into a heated argument with one of Zamîn’s spinning ladies that only succeeded in determining that it was yet another new discovery, brought from who knew where. 

 

The fresh, healthful smell of it tingled all through Elros, and he told Tindómiel it was his favorite flower, though it had not yet told him its name. Tindómiel squealed with excitement and dashed into the brush again, returning with practically a whole bush of it, roots still clinging to soil. Elros chided her a little for disturbing the new topsoil and the plant, but he could not bear to see her cheer diminished today, and called out for the nimblest hands to come and make garlands with it. He walked for a while thereafter in a cloud of teenagers making flower chains, who all at once started shooting him surreptitious glances and giggling. A smile tugged at his mouth as he walked on, feigning obliviousness, and when they all came rushing forward to toss their necklaces and swags of flowers over him, he struck a grand pose like a statue he had seen once in the ruins of Hithlum and let them cover him in greenery. One alnerwen of perhaps sixteen boosted up their little sister to settle a coronet of flowers around his brow, and the plant’s perfume dizzied him deliciously.

 

Zamîn’s argumentative spinning lady asked Adûnabêl what he thought that strange plant in front of them was, and Adûnabêl, not missing a beat, replied that it was clearly kingsfoil. The lady swatted him on the arm, then shouted the joke back to the walkers behind her, until the column groaned with laughter. Adûnabêl swore he would make a record of every new plant they found on the journey, and though kingsfoil would be the first, the thorniest he would name after the cruelest plant-sage of his acquaintance.

 

They slept under the sky and felt only the warmer for it, and the stars gleamed ever-more bright as they climbed the foothills towards the center of the island. 

 

They met the third day at the base of the Meneltarma. A hush came across them as they switchbacked up, and up, and farther up -- a hush of something more than breathlessness. Elros felt it too. The air ought to be thin at this height, but it coated the tongue like wine and seemed to fill the lungs with something more than vapor. 

 

One by one, people began to drop away. They sat in clusters, or alone on boulders, or stood and looked across the land to the encircling sea; the diminishing line of walkers passing them without speech. The mountain stretched ever upwards, and the grass thinned with each step. 

 

All at once, it ended. Elros took a step, and found that the ground almost fell away beneath him. Panting, he raised his head. 

 

He stood alone, all of Númenor sweeping down from his feet. Before him was a shallow, grassy bowl of earth, spangled with more of Tindómiel’s white flowers. The hollow resounded with silence. 

 

A footstep behind him seemed to echo like a snapping sail. Zamîn summited, Vardamir clinging to her hand, Tindómiel riding on her back. Zamîn looked at him, then out to the whitecapped sea, and smiled with such dazzling joy that Elros felt his heart squeeze in his chest. She did not speak, only nodded, and sat at the edge of the dip. Vardamir stood next to her, eyes wide, and even Tindómiel was quiet and still, running her hands through the grass. 

 

Elros stepped towards the center of the flat peak, half expecting resistance. None met him, so he walked through the shushing grass until he stood in the exact middle of the bowl, the sky arching endless above him, pulse beating in his ears. He was small, yet vital, as if the lynchpin of a great wheel, the world turning and turning about him, some minute portion of a great gyre of attention laid gently to rest on his shoulders. He drew in a breath, let it go. 

 

To utter even one word was terrifying, yet he was compelled to speak. He had to shape in some way the emotion bursting forth from his every limb: from every memory of Vardamir hungry and Tindómiel laughing, from the lingering taste of the dried apricots from the first harvest he had eaten that morning... Perhaps this once, he could speak to the listening world without fear his words would Doom him. 

 

“A blessing,” he said, and the hallow absorbed the words as dry ground did the rain.

 

“A blessing,” he said again, “That we are alive, that we are sustained, and that we have arrived to this season.” 

 

A shadow wheeled across the meadow and, looking up, he found three great eagles circling through the upper airs, curving and soaring ever westward. The attentiveness of the world lingered a moment, then Elros felt as though a cloud had passed from before the sun, and he simply stood upon a mountain, beautiful, but alone. 

 

He lingered a moment, gazing out to where little Rómenna smudged the coast; where the ocean sparkled in the sunlight; and to where, beyond his sight, lay the tattered shoreline of his brother’s new-made home. Then he turned, and walked back to Zamîn, and his children, and his people. 

 

--

 

As summer stretched on, Elros took again to sending scouts out into the hinterland. The pilgrimage to the Meneltarma had demonstrated that the land could support a light traveler or two for a few days, even far inland. Adûnabêl fell so in love with the novel plants they brought back -- examining them under a cherished reading stone, illustrating them on precious paper -- that Elros felt cruel insisting on employing him in tallying legume stores and organizing crop rotations. 

 

“You should name him your first loremaster,” Zamîn said from her loom. “Set him to determining which plants are useful, as food or medicine.” 

 

“My commonsense lady, he already is half a loremaster,” Elros replied, waving a lazy hand through the stultifying air. Even on the bedroom terrace, hardly a breeze swept in to ease the close heat. Zamîn wove from their experimental new crop of flax, for she said even looking at dog wool or goat hair caused her to sweat. 

 

“Well, then!” 

 

“Would you believe I have already thought of his replacement?” he inquired. “That Pharâzindil is keen as a spear. She has ambitions, and I would fain she try them within my house. What is more, she still leads all the spinners in Rómenna in their projects, and I know how you yearn to bring them under your wing.” He grinned. “Do you not think Losseth would be proud of me when she hears me politicking so?” 

 

Zamîn snorted. “Proud as a peacock. You do well to think of the fabric stock, too! Think you that young Adûnabêl will survive until Aeglosbes returns, or will he shrivel into a husk like one of his specimens?”

 

“We will endeavor to change his water frequently, and he will do well enough. Aeglosbes will return soon, for winter comes faster in the far north,” Elros said. The air pressed even closer, and he swallowed against a dry throat. “Zamîn…” 

 

The gentle thump of the loom halted. Zamîn looked at him quizzically. “What unease do I hear in your voice?” 

 

He swallowed again. “I thought-- that is, just before Aeglosbes’ last visit--” 

 

Elros pressed his lips together and let out a breath through his nose. 

 

“I think we ought to open relations with the Lady of Adsirion.”

 

Zamîn laid her shuttle down. “Your mother.”  

 

Elros made a sharp gesture of the arms. “Elwing Dioriel, yes. Her aid has been invaluable, these ten years, and I feel --”

 

“Elros.” 

 

That was the tone Zamîn used with Vardamir, sometimes, when he fretted too much to sleep. Elros watched her rise from the loom and walk out onto the terrace, feeling almost clammy despite the heat. 

 

“I know how she has helped,” she said, sitting down across from him. “The first solid food my son ate came from her hand, though at a distance.” 

 

She looked at him, her dark eyes steady, brow furrowed. “Númenor may well have failed without her gifts. I would have sent her the hair from my head in thanks. This question of, of diplomatic relations seemed a trifle. Yet you…” She trailed off, lips twisting. 

 

Meeting her eyes was too much. Zamîn was blunt and clever, and he felt he would be able to read from her face what she would not say aloud. He knew what he wished to say, yet saying it felt impossible in the face of Zamîn’s incisive attention. He spoke to the sea. 

 

“Do you not feel that all of this, the food, the soil, the doctors -- do you not feel that these are merely reparations? Gifts of a guilty conscience?” 

 

It was not what he had meant to say, yet he meant it. He chanced a look at Zamîn. She frowned. 

 

“And if they were? It would have been our duty to accept them all the same, for aid came from no other quarter.” 

 

Elros bit his tongue. His voice wanted to pitch and yaw, as if his throat and mouth were not his own. “Yet why now and not before? Elrond and I --” he faltered, and went on with an effort of will. “We were children in the warcamp of enemies, and then we were soldiers in a crushing war. What was she doing then?” 

 

He turned to look fully at Zamîn again, feeling the scowl thunderous on his brow. She had sat with her head cocked but straightened, eyebrows raised, at his words.

 

“I believe she was redeeming an entire continent — yourselves included — before the Powers, and convincing family she had never met to lend substantial military aid to their ancient murderers, who had also destroyed her own home and family.” 

 

The heat seemed to press in and then flash to ice, and back to heat, like a fever. Did Zamîn not hear him? 

 

“And when she had seen off the fleet of the Valar?” he bit off. “Where then?” 

 

Zamîn huffed impatiently, and Elros flashed hot again, but she was speaking -- “Doomed to never set foot again in Middle Earth, for breaking taboo, as the songs all say!” 

 

“The songs are hearsay,” Elros snarled, feeling his control fray. 

 

“Aeglosbes confirmed when I asked,” Zamîn retorted. 

 

Every sinew in Elros’ body tightened. “How dare you ask her such a thing?” 

 

It was a mistake; he knew as soon as the words were out. Zamîn pressed her lips together so tightly the dark plum color bled out of them. She sucked a breath in through her nostrils and let it out slowly through her mouth.

 

“Simply because,” she said, measured, “this is an unutterable question between us, does not mean I may not ask it of others.”

 

“I would you had not.”

 

“Would you? My people’s lives, my children’s lives, hung on the kindness of a woman you would not even speak about, much less speak with. I am their queen and their mother, and I have led among Men since before you and Gil-Galad swept us up into an army.”

 

Elros kept his voice level with great effort. “I feel it is a question of care.”

 

“Do I not care about you? Of course I do. I am your queen. But a queen thinks of her people first.” 

 

She stood, sharply, and turned to gaze out over the town. In profile, Elros saw her jaw clench and release, as though she was forcing herself to relax muscle by muscle. He made to take his chance to speak, but he was too late; she rode over him. 

 

“Hear me, Elros Tar-Minyatur,” she said, words clipped. “In the face of two Dooms not her own, your mother held the final asylum in all Beleriand against utmost Evil, alone. She sacrificed her husband on a fierce hope, and he let her do it. I do not know her mind. I do not know what she thought when your foster-fathers came to slaughter refugees and the last hope of a continent with them.” 

 

Zamîn slapped the banister with an open palm and whirled to face him. Even as his heart hammered in his throat and the blood rose to his face, Elros saw her as he had at the first, with a sawn-off spear guarding her clan against a whole army of Elves come out of the dying forest.  

 

“I do know,” Zamîn said, voice wavering-firm like a harpstring about to snap, eyes burning, “that if I thought I had hidden Vardamir and Tindómiel safely away, with allies hasting to their aid, and my presence meant the ruin of the last haven of my all my kindreds -- the people to whom I was sworn in rulership -- I would jump too.”

 

Elros leapt to his own feet, heart clogging his throat, unsure if the thought of Zamîn plummeting over the banister -- right there!-- or her defense of Elwing’s choices, or some summer madness stirred him. He towered over Zamîn, who stood like a doe at bay. 

 

Some noise from the town wafted on the hot air, and the obligation to see what was toward restrained whatever terrible, childish retort struggled at the back of his tongue. He took a breath, perhaps to say something merely terrible, but Zamîn’s eyes darted over his shoulder and widened. The clamor increased, and footsteps sounded upon the stairs. 

 

Elros shoved the argument aside and turned, keeping Zamîn behind him, but before he could call out to Losseth, or anyone, a young girl burst through the curtain door. It was only Meril, one of his scouts, sent out westwards -- what could be the matter? A pack of people gaggled behind her, breathless, and when the girl fell to her knees before the two of them, he noted that her dusty face was streaked with tears, her breathing ragged with more than her run. 

 

“What is it?” he asked, glad, almost, for a new target for the angry race of his heart.

 

Meril gulped another breath, then looked up at him and said, “Dragon! A dragon on Armenelos!” 

 

The breath froze in his lungs. What worm of Morgoth had braved his isle? How? And how was he to fight it, without the weapons of his father? 

 

Yet Meril stared up from the floor with hope behind her fear, and his people behind her clutched spears and bows, and from behind him, Zamîn said in a steady voice, “Go.”