Too Long a Winter by clotho123

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Chapter 1

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Himring is not a good place for old men.  Often I think of riding south again, to the Estolad where there are fewer cold winds to piece my aching bones and no long stone stairs to climb.  Yet to leave would mean never again to see the morning sun on silver stone, or turn a corner at night to see a solitary lamp shine on the carved street before me, or watch the magic the Strangers work as they coax flowers to grow on rock itself. 

 

It does help me having lodgings in the summit halls.  Himring is steep: in the town that lies beneath the peak a paved courtyard will prove to be the roof of the house below, nor is it rare to walk down long stairs and find yourself upon a deep balcony.  All space is used for dwellings, although all dwellings will be filled only at the height of siege.  Himring was built as a place of refuge as well as a stronghold; it has been full enough these last years.  It is fortunate my duties can be discharged with goodwill on the summit where the High Hall rises in the silver rock.  My mind goes often to the past now, recalling more clearly than for many years, the wonder I felt to see how so much if the city had been cut from the rock as it stood, the very contours of the stone summit kept alive.  Yet Himring is no hidden city, it stands proud as an eagle upon a crag, keeping watch on the lands below. 

 

The Midwinter festival would have been well attended even in the better times before the peace was broken; now the High Hall will be full indeed.  It is one thing they have learned from us, the great feast of fire at the year’s darkest point, and they celebrate it much as we do, even if some of the older ones like to recall the days when there were no seasons.  We have no tales even of that time, so such stories mark more deeply how much they differ.

 

 The green boughs are another of traditions they have borrowed although I recall from my gathering days that they practice it differently, each bough chosen with care, seldom more than two from one tree or bush and from some none at all.  “Trees,” one said to me once, “ can spare a limb if chosen right, indeed are often the better for it, but why would anyone wish to leave a tree limbless?”  The gathered braches look strangely fitting in the High Hall, for the rock-cut columns are carved as tree trunks, not all alike but trees of all kinds: oak and birch, beech, ash and pine.  With the evergreen boughs in place it will be a strange kind of forest in which we sit to feast. 

 

As I turned to leave the half-prepared hall I heard my name spoken sharply.  A little too sharply in truth, my sight is thankfully still good enough, but not so my hearing and I guessed I must have failed to hear at least one call.  That is not fortunate with this speaker.

 

 “Lord Makalaurë,” I greeted him.  He insists on being addressed by the High form of his name, although everyone calls him Maglor outside his hearing. 

 

“Headman Hallach.”  I still hold the title of Headman for the Edain of Himring although Berach my nephew leads them in war.  He was out of the citadel of course; with fighting so constant he is rarely here.  “We have had word my brothers in the south will not be joining us for the feasting,” Lord Maglor continued, “so that will lessen the amount of accommodation that you will need to find.” 

 

“We could have housed them,” I said, “but it is better to know beforehand.”  Our word ‘inhuman’ is an old one, from the times before we came to these lands, it carries a meaning of something that is uncanny, disturbing.  It is held impolite to use it of Elves but it is seldom far from my mind when speaking to this one.  Like most of his kind he is handsome with black hair and winged brows that highlight the mobility of his features; still he is unsettling, even to one like myself who has lived amongst the Strangers for most of my life.  I cannot put it better than to say it is as though he is constantly listening to a tune that only he can hear, and thinks the less of others for being deaf to it.  In fairness, these days I unsettle him too, for he is one of those who are disturbed to the point of disgust by mortal aging although he would feel it beneath him to lessen his courtesy.  

 

“Do you know when my brother is expected back?” he asked.

 

 “No more than you, although I am sure he will be in time for the feasting.”

 

 “Of course,” he said.  “But I would wish to see him earlier.  Erestor does not know when he will return either.  It is inconsiderate.”  It was an unfair complaint, as he must have known.  A survey of territories, half visit, half scouting expedition, could not be completed to set times and his brother never dawdled not even with snow falling every day upon the hills.  We would always vary those chosen to ride with the lord of Himring, for no-one was expect to make two such exhausting rides in succession.  Knowing it unlikely that Lord Maglor’s temper would improve during the feasting time I found myself regretting we would not be joined by the twin lords who would have provided some leavening.  The absence of Lord Caranthir was less regrettable as no-one would count on his presence to prevent family arguments. 

 

We parted politely.  With so much else lost it is petty to regret that the great reverse has led to Lord Maglor being permanently at Himring, but it does nothing to make the mood easier. 

 

~~~ 

 

The Feast was much needed.  Enough time has passed since the great reverse that the remembrance is no longer a dark cloud on the spirits, at least for mortals; but still the presence of war seems nearer, the mood at Himring darker, than in the days when I first came here from the south.  Perhaps that is only an old man talking, but certainly both peoples thronged to the gathering, eager to forget the wars awhile.

 

The Strangers are masters of light, although I have never known one who feared the dark, and the light in the High Hall was rich and golden.  Mead and wines from the south flowed freely, although some of my kindred preferred their ale, and there was no shortage of meat and pastry.  Their feasts, however, are not for the belly alone; there was much song and music, dancing, laughter and re-telling of tales.  A hall full Elves singing in harmony is not to be forgotten, it almost makes me understand that odd tale that the world was created by a song.  By long custom the songs and tales at the Midwinter feast are of good cheer, it is a time to look forward and to hope.

 

 It was the third evening when Lord Maglor took the harp.  No, in fact he had taken it on the first two evenings also, but only for a brief light song, the third evening was the time that mattered.  I had heard him sing many times, and what they say of him is not too great praise, indeed it falls short as all words must.  A singer to draw the stars from the skies and turn back the moon in its course, a singer to make stones dance and streams stand still, despair laugh for joy and gladness weep like rain.  Not that he unleashed his full power every time he sang, that third night was the first time that Midwinter.

 

He sang in the High Tongue, as he always does which makes his power to move Men the more remarkable.  Few of us have mastered more of that tongue than a few words and commonly used phrases, such as war cries, and in that I am no different.  Yet what he sang was a lament as plainly as the night is dark.  The grief wailed in the strings and wept in words beyond my understanding, and through my tears I saw the whole hall was weeping, Men and Elves alike, weeping silently, some with faces hidden by a cloak fold, or buried in their hands or arms.  Erestor, the castellan, seemed completely overwhelmed, nor was he the only one among the elf kind.  Recalling the scene now it seems to me that the ones we call Flame-eyed, who have dwelt in the West, made up the greatest part of those who had abandoned themselves completely to grief, yet in light of how deeply moved my own senses were I cannot swear my memory is true.

 

After the song ended, as the nameless mourning at last released its spell, my eyes cleared enough to see the only one who seemed unmoved.  Maedhros sat upright and tearless in his accustomed place at the high table, only his face was locked in an intense stillness which showed to one who had dwelt in Himring many years how hard he had bitten down to hide all feeling.  He sat with his right elbow resting on the table, forearm upraised so the light fell on the marvellously worked copper sheath that covered it almost entirely.  With the copper circlet on his russet hair he looked every bit the King of the West March his followers call him.

 

 “Remarkable as always,” he said in the cool even tone that spoke of steel control.  “Could do with a little taughtening in the central section still, you are capable of better rhythms.”

 

Maglor’s expression hardened and as they met each other’s eyes it seemed the winter outside entered the room.  In that moment they looked very much alike, and no fool would have mistaken either of them for young.

 

“You take a pride in it, brother, do you not,” Maglor said at last in a tone smooth as gold.  “You think you are the better that old loyalties, true duties, have been ripped from you and burned to cinders.”

 

Maedhros’s voice was cold as snow upon the high peaks, “If to spellcraft tears at time of festival is loyalty, Maglor, then I will not disagree.”  Spellcraft was close to being insult, the word was not used of things natural.  “Well, tears it must be for this night.  Bron, give us a song of your people.”

 

The young harper thus commanded was one of the followers of Bor only lately taken service with Lord Maglor.  It seemed to me hard to give him such a command and I wondered if he would be able to obey, but it seemed he took it with pride, as a young brave might accept the most dangerous post in battle.  I doubt if any in the hall paid much heed to his song though.

 

The next day I cornered Castellan Erestor.  Although he is one of the Flame-eyed who have dwelt in the West he seems less far removed from our kind than many Elves.

 

“What,” I said “was that about?  What was that song?”

 

“The song?”  said Erestor.  He seemed to consider for a long time.  I waited.  Elves cannot be rushed.  “The song was a lament for their father.  For Fëanor.”

 

“For Fëanor?”  I had heard tales, but only fragments.  Fëanor was dead before the first Men came to Beleriand from the east.  Maedhros speaks of him very rarely, and then in the calm tone he might use for a passing acquaintance, dead long ago.  “A lament was a poor choice for a feast, but is that all?”

 

“No,” said Erestor.  “The lament praised his skill, and his courage against the creatures of Morgoth, but it praised also his steadfastness in upholding what was due to him, his intolerance of weakness or those that followed with half a heart.”

 

“I begin to see, I think.  That could seem reproach to his brother, for letting the kingship pass from their house.”  I knew that much of their history. 

 

“It was a more than reproach, and not for the first time.  Lord Maglor has seldom agreed with his brother’s choices.”

 

“Yet he remains at Himring.”

 

“Whilst Lothlann is in enemy hands he will remain, I think.”  A mortal would probably have sighed at this point.  “You do not need to be told it makes matters difficult, Hallach.  At least when all the brothers are present Maglor and Celegorm spend half their time quarrelling with one another.”

 

After we had parted I spent some time thinking over this, and all the other things known of the king and his next brother.  I had come to Himring, following the tradition of my house, with a head full of tales.  Not all were reliable, or true at all, and of those which were true I knew only a small part.  But I had heard truly that Maglor the Singer was of all the East lords the most likely to be found riding or fighting with his brother Maedhros Left-hand.  I had thought that meant they must be close friends; it is more like the old saying ‘keep your enemy close in sight.’

 

True, that is not entirely fair, but the years have shown me Elves are not as unlike us as the first meetings make all Men think, so it should not have surprised me that where brothers are closest in age the divisions are bitterest.  So it is with myself and my nearest brother, although we are brothers still and would not hesitate to unite against any outside challenge.  How far this ran true with the Elf lords is hard to say, certainly the divisions between them made my own with my brother seem nothing at all.  I knew at least that Lord Maglor did not spend time with his brother Maedhros for the pleasure of shared company.

 

~~~

 

Two days later they walked in while I was listing the new recruits from my southern kindred in one of the summit chambers, one with walls painted so you seem to look out on scenes of moonlight.  It was still being made when I first came here, and I recall my surprise to see the Lord of Himring himself working on one of the painted scenes, completing the figure of an owl with the lightest of brush strokes.  He laughed at my expression and told me, “The need to create is never far from any Noldo.  I cannot claim my skill is remarkable, but it suffices.” 

 

Between the work and my hardness of hearing I was not aware of their approach until they had already entered.  As a young man I would have been abashed and slipped away, but being no longer young stayed at the table.  Since they were arguing in the High Tongue it was impossible to tell what they were saying in any case.

 

Lord Maglor does not shout.  Family meetings have been known to make the castle walls shake, but most of the yelling is done by Celegorm and Caranthir, although Maedhros can raise his voice loud enough when he wishes.  Maglor makes his arguments with level quiet.  It does not do him any good: he never wins.  Although there is nothing at all amusing about the lord of Lothlann in his moods of cold attack, he does make me think at times at times of a pair of young dogs I once owned.  The smaller of the two would attack the other over and over, without any warning; he never won the battles but he kept it up in the constant hope that one day he would win after all.

 

Whilst my mind had been running on that as my mind often runs on these days, the quarrel seemed to be reaching some kind of high point.  I have seen Maglor in battle and his face as he skewered the orcs of the enemy had not seemed any less pleasant.  I could not understand the words he was using, but took their meaning as clearly as the meaning of his lament in the great hall.  Maedhros’s answer was short and very ugly.  Again I could not understand the words, nor I am sure did Maglor, but that was unneeded. 

 

Elves do not have curse words.  The need for them is something they seem to have discovered only in these lands.  Most of those who feel that need use words they have learned from us.  I have heard Lord Curufin use the dwarf tongue at times, although with that speech it is possible that what sounds like a curse may be merely ‘Good Morning.’  I have never heard Maedhros use mannish curse words, nor have I ever known him lose control.  He had not used the Black Speech lightly.

 

I looked at Maglor and felt sure he had been shaken although he tried to cover it.  Maedhros took advantage to follow through with two or three short, cold sentences in the High Tongue.  Maglor’s reply was sharp, but he sounded wrong-footed, and after a brief, savage final exchange he flung out of the room.

 

Maedhros did not attempt to ignore my presence, instead he took a flagon and poured half a cup of wine for me and some into a second cup for himself.

 

“I would not have chosen for you to hear that, Hallach, but I do not suppose it surprised you.”

 

“I cannot say I understood what passed, my lord,”

 

“You may not have known the words, but you understood enough.”

 

Even Elves, even the Flame-eyed, have been known to speak of something unsettling about the presence of Maedhros of the East March.  It is not the same quality possessed by his brother; perhaps it is not so much any quality that differs from others of his kind as that he possesses their qualities more intensely, or that there is in him less of a barrier between the world and the thing Elves call the spirit.  There is a force about most of the Flame-eyed like a high wind or a river in spate, but with Maedhros it is like facing into the wind directly instead of being in the lee of a wall, or seeing a flame that is naked rather than one held in a horn lantern. 

 

I have served him most of my life and followed him into battle even when none thought that we could win.  And the old, I have learned, do not feel awe easily “He has never forgiven you for yielding the kingdom,” I said.

 

“That is part of it, although we were not on the most easy of terms before.”  His tone was matter-of-fact.  “Maglor would not even like to be king.  He is like our father in that way, the duties of kingship would take time from the works where his heart truly lies, and he would resent that.  No, the injury is to his pride and there is small healing there.”

 

He drained the cup.  “There was a time,” he said, “when fighting with my brothers was invigorating.  Like a day’s hard riding or a successful skirmish.  Now it grows wearisome, the more so because I fear for them.  They may lose us the war yet.”

We are used to thinking of the Strangers as changeless, and as my limbs ache more and more and my hearing fails I cannot but envy them, ever young as they are, forever straight of back and free in movement.  It does not do to dwell on the envy, some of my kin have been eaten up with bitterness as they grow older and that does no good to anyone.  I have looked at them and have seen only the constants, now for the first time I wondered if there have been changes.  Lord Maglor was never on friendly terms with his brother; I could not say if there have been changes beyond what would be expected from his being so continually at Himring.  Maedhros the king, has he changed?  Am I right to think there are more times of cold control, such as he showed his brother in the hall?

 “Perhaps we should retake Lothlann before Thargelion,” I said.  The plans for recapture of the lost lands are still in an early stage and known only to a few, it had not been settled which lands to retake first. 

 

Maedhros laughed, with genuine amusement.  “No, strategy had better not be determined by which of my brothers is most annoying at present, tempting though it is.  Which is taken first must depend on the Naugrim; we will need their aid to retake Thargelion.  If I cannot convince them to give it until we can show them victories then we must retake Lothlann first, but it would be easier to take Lothlann if we already have Thargelion.”  His voice took on a wry tone as he added, “Whichever we take first Maglor and Caranthir will quarrel violently.”

 

Whichever we took would be a hard campaign, with Dorthonion in enemy hands.  He spoke as if there was no doubt of victory, but it is the task of a leader to show confidence. 

 

“It must be soon, with or without the Naugrim” he went on “We cannot afford to leave Morgoth with the upper hand for long.  I will go to Belegost.”  Although he still spoke calmly I recalled that we cannot expect Angband to rest quiet now the Siege is broken.  Himring is strong, but Angband is stronger and the alliance among the elf-kind is vulnerable.  For the first time I was glad of my mortal age, and the thought that I would most likely not see what lay ahead.  He would see it.

 

“I will fetch the latest maps, and Castellan Erestor if he can be found,” I said, “we can work on possible plans for a while.”  Inwardly I resigned myself to loss of sleep, no elf ever remembers how much more of it we need.

 

The maps are kept in a chamber painted as a glade in springtime.  I lingered for a while after I had found the ones wanted, and hoped that when spring came indeed it would bring promise of the victories that all within these walls would need.

 

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Chapter End Notes

Just to say there is canon evidence (admittedly slight) for Maedhros being styled king, and also for the retaking of Lothlann and Thargelion