The Loneliness of the Fishermouse by Clodia

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Galleon

Once again, many thanks to my patient beta, Ignoble Bard!

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~ galleon ~

A drink, a drink, and then another. From anyone else, Erestor would not have taken it. But he was awash with the dark and old blood and the shimmer of pearls in the black of her hair, and when Glorfindel poured him brandy, he drank it. He had done the same for Glorfindel often enough, he or Melinna, keeping the glasses full as the evening lengthened, talking or dancing or flying on the wings of the nightingale harp. Then the forests of beech and elm had grown again, and the stone groves been sculpted, and Gondolin’s white towers raised up to the moon and the stars. The old fights had been fought again, and laid aside. All those long nights.

There was light everywhere. His head was swimming. “This won’t work,” he said, or meant to say, but the words came out wrong. He had to shake his head, which did not help, and try again. “It won’t help.”

“Wrong,” said Glorfindel, who stood by the window with the sun blazing round him and a glass in his hand. It burned when he lifted it to his mouth. “I never knew it not to.”

“I should’ve stayed with her. You should’ve let me.”

“No.”

Erestor tried to get up, and failed. The room spun dizzily and so did he, spilling his drink and almost dropping the glass. He fell back into the chair. “I should –”

“Stay there,” said Glorfindel. “I’ll get you another drink.”

When he turned, the light around him blurred and shifted. It was impossible to see his face. A golden glaze filled the room. “No,” Erestor said. “No, don’t.”

Only the ripples of Glorfindel’s shrug reached him. “All right. Then I’ll get me another drink.”

He heard the bottle chime, and Glorfindel’s muttered curse, and the glass being set down slightly harder than necessary. It was cracked. Glorfindel went to get another. He had been matching Erestor drink for drink, Erestor realised, and his voice was steadier than his hands. He came back with it and stood there looking down on Erestor, only his blue eyes clear through all the shifting, blurring brightness. His knuckles were white around his glass.

He had put the pearls back into her hair. It came to Erestor suddenly: Glorfindel with her head on his knees, combing out her hair, braiding it and pinning it back up a pearl at a time. The mountain red behind him and still icy. “When you found it –” he said.

Glorfindel drank and turned away, deliberately. “Not now,” he said over his shoulder. “Another day.”

Her hair in his hands. He must have washed it. Her hair and her head. Erestor sat forwards. “Did you –”

“Not now, I said.”

“The pearls –”

Glorfindel swung back, spilling brandy. “Shut up!” he said angrily. “Just stop asking! Just stop!”

Erestor stared at him. Glorfindel’s bright eyes glistened.

“All right,” he said, after a long moment.

It was impossible to think clearly. His head was full of brandy and black hair and the bloodied edge of her smile. All of it hurt and every question hurt and he was going to ask anyway, he wanted to ask now, to cut himself with questions until he bled too. Glorfindel was already bleeding. Glorfindel, who had gathered up her pearls.

The room was still spinning. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

When he opened them, it was dark, other than a bit of starlight. He was slumped in the chair, his head to one side and his legs askew, stiff and aching. A blanket brushed his chin. He blinked and blinked again, and saw her head rolling on the floor in a stained grey shroud. Then the dim edges of Glorfindel, just visible sitting on the carpet beneath the window, his forearms resting on his knees and a bottle and a glass set between his feet. His head was bowed.

In the distance, the sound that had woken Erestor came faintly again. Then much closer and much louder: a woman screaming. It startled Erestor out of the chair. He stood there swaying in the dark.

“Celebrían. And Roswen.”

Glorfindel spoke so softly Erestor almost failed to hear him. He rubbed his face, looking down. Glorfindel was turning his glass thoughtfully, so that what little of the liquor remained it in rolled in the bottom like oil. “What?”

“They’ve been screaming every night since we found them. They set each other off. When they sleep... when they wake up...”

He shuddered all over and picked up the bottle. “More?”

Erestor sat down shakily.

“Yes,” he replied, looking around for his glass. “Yes, I will.”

It was miruvor. “I finished the brandy,” Glorfindel said. He wasn’t slurring, quite, but his hands were not steady and his voice was rough too. “Pity. It’s better for this. They know how to drink, those mortals. They know – must be because their time’s so short, they burn so briefly. Things matter more. Sometimes I think nothing’s mattered since the old days...”

He broke off. “She had her head,” he added in the same odd tone. “Celebrían. She wouldn’t let go. We had to – Elrond had to calm her down. The things down there... They found it, the twins, but it was a fort, a trap – they had to wait – we cleared it out. Those caves. There were bones scattered – and things – I looked for her hairpins. Found as many as I could. I thought you’d want them.”

The words thank you stuck in Erestor’s throat. He drank his miruvor. It tasted of flowers and summer. Through the window, the stars were shining. It was a moonless night.

Glorfindel set down his glass and put his head in his hands. “I loved her, you know,” he said, not very clearly. “Her and you. I don’t – you understand, both of you. No one here does. So young. They’re all so young. They ask what was it like, what – in the old days, the glorious days – I know you’ll laugh. But it was. It was glorious. You don’t think so, but in its way... but you don’t need to hear that. You don’t need to be told. You know what it was like. In the old days.”

Blood and smoke and fire and grief. And before that, long before the first dawn, diving for pearls in the warm waters around the Isle of Balar.

Tears were rolling down between Glorfindel’s fingers. “It shouldn’t have happened,” he said, the words muffled. “It should never have happened like this.”

Erestor leaned down and put his own glass on the carpet, very carefully.

“What’s it like?” he asked. “Being dead.”

Glorfindel gave an odd, harsh laugh and leaned back against the wall, his face glistening in the dark. “I don’t remember. Easier than living and knowing I’d failed Gondolin. I can’t tell you. You know that. I don’t remember.”

He moved a foot and knocked the bottle over. Only a dribble of miruvor spilled out. Glorfindel exhaled another breath of humourless laughter and kicked the bottle away. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’ve had enough?” he demanded, sounding suddenly angry. “Melinna would.”

A flood of bitter, dizzying rage rushed up through Erestor and roared behind his eyes, so that he had to bite his teeth to keep it in. He held onto the arms of his chair until the dark room paled. “Have you ever killed another Elf, Glorfindel?”

“What?” He was passing a hand back over his hair. “Not all Exiles –”

“I have. Several. In the old days. It was easy. Don’t tempt me.”

Glorfindel stared up with his mouth open, the starlight shining on his wet face.

“We’ve both had enough,” he said at last. He thrust himself to his feet and steadied himself against the wall. “I’m going to bed.”

He staggered away. Erestor forced himself to let go of the chair’s wooden arms and thought about going to his own rooms, his own bed. Instead he closed his eyes again and let himself slip back into the dark.

 

*

He woke a little past dawn. Someone was shaking him. He shook his head muzzily and discovered it was Arwen, who looked as though she had got about as much sleep as him, if not less. She rocked back on her heels and peered up at him with shadowed eyes. “I went to your rooms, but you weren’t there,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

A sullen, pulsing headache was just beginning in the back of Erestor’s skull. He winced and struggled to sit up. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I was looking for you. Elladan told me about – I was worried.” She glanced around. “Were you drinking all night? And he scolded me for letting you stay in the hall!”

The bottle was still there on its side, and both empty glasses. “Did he?”

Arwen made an angry sound. “You need sleep. And to wash. And clean clothes. Not that mortal stuff!”

A shadow fell over both of them. Glorfindel stood in the doorway to his bedroom, leaning heavily against the doorframe, as if he would have fallen without its support. “Miruvor too,” he told her. “Brandy’s better. Clears the head. How’s your mother?”

“There’s nothing clear about your head!” Arwen said fiercely and made a point of turning her back on him to look at Erestor. “I know you’ve seen her. Lindir said the Hall of Fire was open. He said the doors were open and someone left the key in the lock. And Glorfindel took it when he rode out. So you can go and sleep in a proper bed now.”

Glorfindel cleared his throat roughly. “I said –”

“She’s fine! She’ll be fine! We’ll make her better!”

Erestor put his cold hands to his aching temples. “Don’t shout.”

She almost softened. “I’m not shouting,” she said, and gave Glorfindel a resentful look. “We will. Are you going to stay sitting here looking ill or come and get some rest?”

 

*

He slept for longer than he would have expected. He did not remember his dreams afterwards, but none of them were good. Sometimes the screaming almost woke him, but only almost. It wasn’t Melinna. She wouldn’t scream.

At some point, Glorfindel came in. He had a bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other and he wanted to talk about her body because, he said, no one else would. He sat on the bed and poured out wine for both of them and asked what they had done with the dead in Doriath. The Noldor had built cairns when they could. He spoke conversationally, as though asking Erestor’s opinion on a line of verse or where to set lookouts, although the careful evenness of his voice betrayed him. It was a long time since anyone had died at Imladris.

Erestor drank wine in the dark and remembered Doriath. “Threw them into the river.”

Glorfindel started back. “What?”

“From the bridge. It was full of blood. And bodies. We swam – I made her swim...”

“Don’t talk about it,” Glorfindel said, after a moment. He put his hand to his mouth and unselfconsciously licked away a splash of wine. “I liked it better it when you wouldn’t. I used to admire Fëanor’s sons.”

Erestor thrust the glass away, although there was still wine in it and he did not see or care where it went. He pushed his hands into his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. “I made her swim,” he said again, distantly, remembering it. “Celeborn went first, and Oropher. I pushed her off the bridge and made her swim. I saw – Ivaeron was there, he fell in the caves, I saw his face. The current took him. It was very fast. There was snow. There was –”

He felt Glorfindel grasp his arm. “Stop it.”

“Blood. There was blood. It was very cold. There were so many of us in the river, so many people I'd known. We never found out what happened to Dior and Nimloth. Their bodies, I mean. We were there when they were killed.”

“Please. Don’t do this.”

He spoke gently, for him. Erestor drew in a long, shuddering breath.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know what to do. We – I don’t remember any deaths from when we were children, from the mountains. It was so long ago.”

“The others are going to be buried. They chose one of the gardens.”

“Do that. She won’t care.”

Glorfindel nodded and looked around for the abandoned glass. “Her clothes – what she’s wearing...”

Erestor rubbed his face.

“No,” he said, thinking of what remained of her in the Hall of Fire, or trying to. He found it impossible to think of her as that. His memory rebelled. She was lying in the dark in her dark shroud, the pearls in her hair and her hair on her shoulders, her mail shirt gleaming silver where the leather had been slashed open. Almost asleep, like the others. That was all. “I think – I don’t think – I’ll go down...”

He pushed back the covers. Glorfindel got up too, although he was frowning. “You needn’t. Let me.”

“No. I will.”

There was a ewer of washing water on the table beside a pile of neatly folded drying-cloths. Arwen or someone else must have brought it all at some point. Erestor staggered over to it and splashed cold water over his head and face, while Glorfindel went out to wait in the long, airy chamber with the desk and the harp and the loom. It was almost night again. The light from the open door was grey.

“Erestor,” came Glorfindel’s voice from the other room. “Your harp –”

He was standing by it, one hand resting on the silver wings, which were in shadow and did not shine. Erestor leaned against the door. Glorfindel stood in shadow too, although his hair was still the brightest thing in the room. The broken strings curled and twisted at his feet. “What happened to it?” he asked. “How did this happen?”

His quietness was as much grief as shock. Erestor shook his head and tried to remember. It seemed very long ago.

“I did it,” he said eventually. “I... it was...”

He let the words fade. Glorfindel was looking at him steadily. “You haven’t asked me about Celebrían.”

Erestor said nothing. After a moment, Glorfindel gave a slight sigh and glanced down at the stringless harp again, frowning. “Her injuries are improving,” he said. “Roswen, too. Elrond says they’ll both heal. Eventually. So that’s something. Ready?”

By now the hearth had been rekindled in the Hall of Fire. One or two other people were there, but no one spoke. It was warm and dim and the smell of blood was fading into rust. Erestor regretted not finishing the wine suddenly. He followed Glorfindel between the carved wooden pillars to where she lay. It was no easier to draw back the shroud knowing what he would find there. He did it anyway. Then he stared down at her and waited for the sickness to pass.

“The pearls,” he said, when he could. “And her mail.”

They slid the leather-covered jacket gingerly from her body. Erestor laid her body back down in the black folds of the shroud and set her head straight while Glorfindel checked over the slashed mail shirt. “Erestor,” he said, sounding surprised, and held it up to catch the firelight. The mail itself was unscratched, although the leather would need mending. “Is this mithril?”

“Mm.”

He began to unpin her hair. It was possible to concentrate on how her hair felt in his hands, the silk and the blackness of it, and the varying colours of the ancient pearls, rather than on how her damaged face stretched open. Glorfindel set the jacket down and stared at him. “Where’d you get it?”

“Hadhodrond. Years ago, before they woke that thing. They wanted a favour.”

“I thought you didn’t get on with Dwarves. I mean – Doriath...”

“So did they. That’s why they paid so highly.” He extricated the last hairpin and tried not to think how many had been lost. She had had more, he was sure. He certainly did. “We fought those Dwarves at Sarn Athrad. It was a slaughter. We took you to Hadhodrond to commission jewellery for Elrond once. Remember?”

“I remember,” said Glorfindel, so quietly that the words were almost inaudible.

She wore nothing else that could not be buried with her. Erestor replaced the shroud over her face and body and gathered up the pearl hairpins. He had to steady himself against the pillar as he got to his feet. Glorfindel stood up too, holding the mithril mail shirt over one arm. “It’s funny,” he said inconsequentially. “How they took – what they took, and they left this. It must be priceless. They didn’t recognise it. That does explain why they – about her head. It was the only way to kill her. Or the easiest.”

The hall was starting to blur. “Just – stop talking,” Erestor said. “Just shut up.”

He thrust himself away from the pillar and stalked off.

She was buried by the waterfall. Elrond had suggested it, Glorfindel said. The others had been buried in one of the higher gardens. Elrond was there too, although he said very little and looked tired and deep in thought. Arwen held his hand. “My grandparents are coming,” she told Erestor afterwards. “Did Glorfindel –? Well, they are. It’ll help my mother. I want them to bring niphredil to plant on the graves.”

Erestor looked down at the naked earth. It had covered the shroud very fast. The thought of lying down with her struck him suddenly: of curling up on the exposed soil and thrusting his hands into it and breathing its freshness. It was very black and very rich. He could just stay there with her. Just for a while.

He nodded instead and walked away. It was too bright now anyway. Maybe when twilight fell and the stars were out.

He was mostly left alone after that. He was glad of this. Sometimes he did leave his rooms, but only at night, in the gentle quiet of the stars and the shadows. Or he lay in the nest of nightingale cushions with his work and the stringless harp and her loom and the fading tapestry. It was harder to see how the colours had paled in the dark. Once it had always been dark, always twilight, lit only by the brilliant unfading stars. Once they had wandered in a twilit world and met with colour, true colour, only in the halls of the Falathrim or the Dwarves or under the gold lamps of Menegroth...

The cloth on the loom was blue wool. She had spun the thread herself. It was very fine and very closely woven and Erestor had unravelled several inches unthinkingly in a restless, angry moment before he thought how annoyed she would be. He was sitting helplessly on the weaving stool with double handfuls of tangled wool and no idea what to do with it when the door opened.

It was Celebrían. She looked half-faded herself: she was as pale as her hair and almost translucent, her bones like bruises under her skin. Erestor thrust away the wool and the stool, which clattered backwards onto the floor. He stared at her.

“They’re asleep,” she said. She took a faltering step into the room, and then another, as though the effort exhausted her. The door fell shut behind her. “They wouldn’t let me come out. I waited... I needed to talk to you.”

“You shouldn’t,” said Erestor, recovering the power of speech more violently than he intended. “Go back. Rest.”

She looked around dreamily. “I wanted to be there,” she told him. “When you buried her. When she went under the earth. They wouldn’t let me. They said I wasn’t well enough. They said you weren’t well enough...”

Her voice was as pale as the rest of her, little more than a silvery whisper. Erestor picked up the weaving stool and set it upright. “They were right. Go back to your bed.”

“She said to tell you,” Celebrían whispered. “I had to.”

“Tell me what?”

She crossed the room in a sudden, silent rush, then stood wavering before him, so unsteady on her bare white feet that Erestor had to catch her before she fell. She was very light. He eased her onto Melinna’s weaving stool. She clutched his arm and the stool and looked fixedly at the carpet, breathing in quick, shallow breaths. “We didn’t expect it,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Her head fell back. He stared down at himself reflected in her bright, unfocused eyes and felt the shadows slipping. “It was so sudden –”

– one moment picnicking within sight of the pass, all laughter and play; the next alive with fright, everyone panicking, the clear mountain air full of cries. Such confusion. It was so blue. The sky was so blue and the mountain so red, all the old trees bent over by the force of the wind. They came from under the bowed trees. They came in a wave, roaring like beasts, their armour ringing. Celebrían leapt up from her meal in alarm, seeing everyone scattering and shrieking, trampling the food into the blankets and grass.

Chaos swirled. The horses and the men were everywhere and nowhere. Celebrían stood frozen in the shadow of Caradhras. The attackers were hideous. Everyone was fleeing or fighting. Carandol rolled on the ground, covered in blood – a woman was screaming – horses thundered wildly away, panicked by the sudden attack and the smell and the fear –

They were heading for her. Four or five of their attackers, some on stolen horses, others following after. She saw no one who could help her. She caught up her skirts and ran breathlessly into clear blue sky.

The way up to the Redhorn Pass was rough and pitted, although Celebrían always thought of it as the broad, smooth road it had once been. She could hear her pursuers and the roar of the waterfall beyond the pass, growing louder as her heartbeat quickened, fear hammering in her ears. A horse thundered up behind her. “Celebrían!” Melinna called over the waterfall and her horse’s hooves. She was leaning sideways in the saddle, one hand outstretched. “Here, to me!”

The jolt of being dragged up onto the horse was matched by that of seeing the way back cut off. They were Men or Orcs, and Celebrían had never seen a Man so ugly. Melinna threw one look over her shoulder and urged the horse on towards the pass. The road was steep, but they reached the top and found the Dimrill Stair stretching clear all the way down to the long green dale. Mist hung around the waterfall and the unbroken waters of the Mirrormere lay dark and deep below them. “Hang on!” said Melinna in Celebrían’s ear and sent the horse galloping headlong down the Dimrill Stair.

It was a nightmare ride. The wind hissed past and the waterfall’s spray lashed Celebrían’s face; she clung on for her life, terrified of the horse taking a fall on the ruined road. They careened between the high banks of the Dimrill Stair down towards the peaceful dale. Behind them, far too close for comfort, their pursuers yelled as they came over Redhorn Pass.

At the foot of the Stair, the road was no better. “We’ll fall!” Celebrían cried, seeing the broken flagstones. Melinna reined in and skewed round to catch a backwards glance over Celebrían’s shoulder, then hissed what must have been a curse. “Are they –?”

Melinna thrust the reins into Celebrían’s hands and kissed her cheek. “You can outrun them alone,” she said and swung down from the saddle, drawing a knife from her belt. The wind caught her hair and whipped it into her shining eyes. “Tell him I love him, but this time I’m staying. Ride for Lórien.” She slapped the horse’s flank before Celebrían could protest. “Go!”

The horse took off. Celebrían hung on as the world blurred –

– and blinked. Her nails dug into Erestor’s wrist.

Erestor blinked too and broke free. But he was dizzy and had to lean against the fading tapestry for support, then feel his way carefully along the wall to the desk and his chair. He dropped into it and clutched his head. The dark was spinning. He could just make out the translucent pallor of Celebrían’s bare feet.

“They had her head in the caves,” whispered Celebrían’s faded voice. “They made me, made us – I wouldn’t let her go, I wouldn’t – she tried – I had to tell you what she –”

“Don’t!”

It burst out of him. He felt the anger rising again. He looked up and found Celebrían staring at him, her mouth a little open, her bitten lips bloodless and almost glassy. She was silent. “Don’t tell me anything!” he said. “Go away! I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to talk to you!”

Celebrían closed her mouth, then opened it again. “I thought you’d want to know.”

“Well, you were wrong.”

He rose as he spoke, since the dizziness had passed. Now only anger remained. He took a few hasty steps around the room, then went back to the window, which was full of starlight. He threw it open, set his elbows on the windowsill and leaned out into the clear, calm night.

“She tried to save me,” said Celebrían behind him. “She slowed them down. It was heroic –”

“It was stupid and bloody and pointless!” Erestor swung back into the room again, abandoning the stars to their silence. His hands were shaking. He was aware of it only distantly and too angry to care. “She shouldn’t have done it! It didn’t need to happen! It shouldn’t have happened! It didn’t make any difference!”

Celebrían clung to the weaving stool as though frightened of falling. “She did. She didn’t have any choice. They would have caught both of us –”

“Of course she had a choice. She could have run! I would have done!”

“You don’t mean that,” said Celebrían, very quietly. “I know you don’t.”

He stared at her. Celebrían’s gaze was unwavering, her eyes huge and feverishly bright in her haggard face. Her hair was uncombed. Erestor remembered her as a child in Ost-in-Edhil, scampering after her parents with all those pale curls bouncing on her shoulders in the sun. How merry Celebrían had been.

“You’re wrong,” he said flatly. “I do mean that. I very much do. It was stupid of her. It didn’t help anything. It didn’t help you. She should have run and hidden on the dale. Or she shouldn’t have followed you to start with. She shouldn’t have let herself get caught like that. She knew better. She knew those mountains, she could have gone after you afterwards and helped you better then. She knew that! You got her killed, but she didn’t stay to save you. That wasn’t the way to do it. She chose to stay and fight and die. She chose it.”

“So would you. I know you would.”

“No! I wouldn’t! And if I’d been there, nor would she!”

Celebrían flinched. She opened her mouth to say something, but the door swung open before she could. Arwen stood there, all wild black hair and shadows, blinking sleepily. It made her look oddly small, although she was as tall as her brothers these days. “Mother!” she said and went straight to Celebrían, who looked up at her dreamily and did not speak. “What are you doing out of bed? Why are you here? You should have woken me.” She gave Erestor a distrustful look. “What’s the shouting about?”

Her mother set her bare feet on the carpet, one at a time, with great care.

“Take me to Elrond,” she whispered to Arwen, who bent to put an arm round her mother at once. Celebrían laid her head on her daughter’s shoulder and closed her bruised eyes. Her movements were slow and tentative, as if she was not quite convinced that Arwen or Erestor or anything else was really there. “I need him.”

Arwen nodded and helped Celebrían to her feet. “Go to sleep,” she told Erestor and led her mother away.