Pavane for a Horned Queen by Himring

Pavane for a Horned Queen

Read Pavane for a Horned Queen

It was quite a pleasant day in the meadows on the banks of the sea of Rhun. A mild breeze, not too many flies. The grass was fresh and green. The kine of Araw—or rather this particular small herd—had been moving slowly and steadily along, munching their way in leisurely fashion, when one of the heifers decided she need a mouthful of water to go with it. The waters of the Rhun were brackish, but there was a small fresh stream flowing into it just there, amid a few small bushes, and Gacha picked her way to that nice drinking spot she knew.

But suddenly she backed away, snorting with alarm. There was someone already there, crouching under the bushes, motionless, not drinking. A stranger, an unfamiliar being, but although it had some kind of stick in its hand, it was not, she felt, a hunter and it seemed quite alone. Her alarm subsided. Curiously, Gacha edged forward again.

*

How Daeron had fetched up here, he could not have said. He only knew he had been singing to the waters of the beauty of Luthien and the loss of Luthien for hours, when it occurred to him that the waters totally did not care. He could not have said either why that sudden realization had struck him dumb, because he did not think he had believed that the waters had been avidly listening for news of Luthien before. Or had he? It was all very confusing, as was looking up and unexpectedly coming face to face with a gigantic cow.

‘Nice cow,’ he said hesitantly.

He did not know a great deal about cattle. There had been none in Menegroth or Neldoreth and, although he must have passed many on the road since, it seemed he had not been paying a great deal of attention. The expression in those large brown eyes did not look particularly threatening, but she was very, very large. He had nothing but his flute and a faint memory, growing stronger, of the times before, when he had played and been in tune with all of them and they with him, the birds, the beasts, the trees, and she had been there…

The cow lowered her head, still not obviously threatening, but that pair of horns was really impressive and stopped Daeron’s thoughts from wandering off. She breathed loudly, like a sigh, and Daeron felt some response was demanded of him. So, unable to think of anything else to do, he lifted the flute to his lips and began to play.

The effect was extraordinary. Daeron did not think he could have put much power into it, if any, but the large eyes seemed to go even wider in surprise and then, on that patch of grass between the stream and the waters of Rhun, the cow began—there was no other word for it—to dance. She stamped her hooves to the sound of his flute, she waved her tufted tail, and as Daeron got into the spirit of things and improvised a suitable rhythm, she turned and turned about, huge and strong and dignified in a stately pavane like a queen under her horned crown.

It was amazing. It was thrilling.

It was so like Luthien and so completely unlike Luthien that, when the comparison forced itself on Daeron, a wild laughter broke from him. He forgot about playing and about possible danger and laughed and laughed until he wept bitterly, curled up on the ground.

*

The sound the being made on the stick had been wonderful—almost like that feeling the time Gacha had eaten too many fermented crab-apples, but much stronger and more meaningful and so not really like that time at all. It had taught her unimagined things.

It was disturbing when the wonderful sound suddenly broke off and the being that had taught her those things started making noises that sounded more like a distressed calf. As it continued to lie there, making those noises, Gacha wondered whether maybe the being was a calf among its kind. Maybe it needed care. Cautiously, she came nearer, careful not to step on it. The being did not react and Gacha gave it a tentative lick and then another one.

*

Daeron lay sobbing exhaustedly, when suddenly a very wet, very rough tongue swiped his brow. Withdrawn as he was, the strong smell of cow breath and the saliva and warmth of the touch on his skin where impossible to ignore, especially when it came again. The cow, the cow that he had somehow managed to completely forget about!

He sat up, staring. She gazed at him, unmistakably pleased and expectant.

Something had broken inside him, he thought. Maybe it was something that had needed breaking.

‘All right! You would like me to play again, would you?’

---

Chapter End Notes

"Gacha" is a Gnomish (that is, early and dubiously canonical Elvish) word for "cow".

Written for Day 5 of Tolkien Ekphrasis Week, for the prompt "music" and for the optional prompt "unusual point of view". (It would also have fitted the prompt "dance".)

Simultaneously a fill for the tolkienshortfanworks prompt for June: "cattle" and related optional prompts.

The piece is partly inspired by the following stanza of one of Bilbo's songs:

They also keep a horned cow
as proud as any queen;
But music turns her head like ale,
And makes her wave her tufted tail
and dance upon the green.

Compare also the linked image of a cow licking a calf in a manuscript illumination (British Library).