rulers make bad lovers by Chestnut_pod

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Chapter 17: Anairë

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Even the most glorious tableau could not endure forever. Anairë was glad when, slowly and reluctantly, Eärendil had peeled himself away from Elwing and turned to Eärwen, whose grasp on Anairë’s hand belied her mask of serene benevolence.

Her eyes thirsted for his face, where Turukáno's smile hovered around his lips and her husband’s brow crowned unfamiliar eyes.

Yet how strange he was! Elwing was not an Elf — any who saw her knew that — but she was clearly enough some other creature, with her skin-changing and her witching eyes. Her husband was something else again. He was princely, to be sure, even beneath the soil of his adventures, and almost despite the finery with which Eönwë had arrayed him, but he seemed a lord of some other realm, where the Sun shone fiercer and the inhabitants burned brighter and faster to meet it.

Next to Eönwë, he looked wrenchingly out of place, though entirely at his ease. Elwing, who had been so aloof and skittish, except when playing her games with Eärwen, clung to his arm.

He opened his mouth to speak, and Anairë flinched in anticipation of what, or who, she might hear.

Smoothly as a gliding swan, Eärwen cut him off.

“You are welcome in Alqualondë, Eärendil Ardamírë of the House of Finwë,” she proclaimed. Elwing’s eyes flashed, and Anairë let go of Eärwen's hand. She had her reasons, surely — Anairë wanted none of them.

“Hail also, bright Eönwë Splendent-Winged, and our humble thanks for the safe delivery of one dear to my meleseldë, the most holy Anairë, priestess of Nessa Who Protects the Fawns.”

Anairë hastily made the appropriate bow, raising an internal eyebrow at the various hierarchies of relation implied in that expression of thanks. If Eönwë was at all discomfited by any of the sly ruses Eärwen had slipped into her sentence, his shining face did not show it. In fact, it was so lit with joy that Anairë, well-accustomed to the most powerful orders of Maiar, still found it difficult to look upon.

“Hail!” Eönwë responded, in his aviary of a voice, triumphant hawks and peacocks shrieking behind something not unlike an Elf’s speech. “Hail, Eärwen Swan-Maiden, new-acclaimed Queen of Alqualondë, and tidings from the Ring of Doom!”

The other main characteristic of Eönwë’s speech, thought Anairë, ears ringing slightly, was its overabundance of exclamations.

Eärwen made a respectful, if shallow, acknowledgement, and Eönwë, gesturing emphatically towards Eärendil — who, if Anairë could read his face at all, wore an expression of slight long-suffering — went on.

“Eärendil the Mariner pled his case before the Powers, splendor in his supplication! For mercy and justice he applied, prince of two kindreds, clement and wise!”

“And what did they say?” Elwing interjected.

Anairë was impressed at her gumption. Eönwë, too, seemed delighted, and turned his radiant exultation upon Elwing, whose eyes were very wide, but whose stance was firm and unbending.

“Hail Elwing, of heralds the queenliest, of queens the most bold! O sea-eagle of Men and Elves, O kindly one, my cousin. I knew your father’s mother’s mother. For her sake above all I wished to say: your suit is heard. The Valar march to war.”

What Anairë felt, she could not say; only that it burned in her eyes and roared in her ears such that she could not see how Elwing reacted, nor hear how Eärwen replied. She only felt Eärwen reaching back once again to take her hand, before the eyes of Eönwë and Alqualondë, and Elwing too, if she cared to look.

– –

Glory and urgent proclamations and Eärwen’s games all, eventually, came down to this: Eärendil was filthy with travel, and Eärwen’s house had a bath.

Anairë, who was entirely aware that the muffled turnings-over of her brain would eventually spit out some emotion or understanding that would bring her down to her knees, set about drawing one for him.

Outside, Eärwen dealt with the whole spectacle of divine messengers, terrene messengers, and curious audiences besotted with them both. Abdicated from such duties, Anairë trailed from linen cupboard to tub, setting out her own hair oils and soaps, so her great-grandson could care for his golden locs.

She sat down hard on the edge of the tub. Itarillë, Itarillinkë, who had been too small to walk, and so had been carried across the deathly ice-span to Endórë: her son stood full-grown before Anairë and was a stranger.

For perhaps an hour, she turned Eärendil over in her head, counting the peculiarities of his being. When the Man himself entered the room, his incongruity struck her anew, as though it would surprise her every time to feel parts of herself within this offcomer, whose meteoric life she could feel only from his presence in the room: bounded and swift.

Elwing pressed close to his brawny arm, stirring surprise in Anairë’s belly. With Eärwen, and even with herself, Elwing was positively catlike, darting in to enjoy a caress, almost greedy for touch, then stiffening and circling away. With Eärendil, she seemed to cleave to him as though they would never be parted.

To Anairë’s surprise, though she did not let go of Eärendil, Elwing reached out a tentative hand and gently brushed Anairë’s knee.

“Thank you for the bath,” she said. “It helped me too.”

In, of all things, a Tirion accent, Eärendil spoke his first words to her: “I thank you as well. A star shines on the hour of our meeting. Elwing has told me who you are.”

“Use the waterfall-shower before you enter the bath, so you do not have to sit in your travel dust,” Anairë blurted, then closed her eyes in horror.

“You are very like your grandfather,” she tried again, and then, feeling as though she might fly entirely to pieces, she stood, bowed, and fled to Eärwen’s bedroom.

Miracle of miracles, Eärwen was there, pacing and intent upon her thoughts, but she turned and held out her arms as Anairë entered.

Anairë clung to her. The cool, heavy wave of Eärwen’s mind poured down around her, and she threw herself upon its swell. Eärwen pulled her down to sit upon the sweet-smelling mats and draped one of her gorgeous, excessive sleeves over her, the silk warming quickly to blood-temperature.

For a while, Anairë only breathed roughly into Eärwen’s shoulder, assembling herself once again.

“It is good to know that people still love one another that way,” she said eventually, sliding onto her back so her head rested in Eärwen’s crossed legs. Embroidered trumpeter swans took flight across each of her thighs, winging away from the edges of Anairë’s vision.

Eärwen made one of her characteristic little hums. This one, Anairë interpreted as rueful acknowledgement.

“We were once so in love, the two of us,” she replied.

“We still are,” rejoined Anairë, reaching up and twining her arms around Eärwen’s neck so she had to lean down, her nose almost touching Anairë’s.

“It is another thing to be young and in love. So: the princess and the kindhearted dancer.”

Sighing, Anairë let her arms drop. “Then, the two queens — the swan queen and the emergency reserve.”

Eärwen frowned at her, but Anairë knew her compliments of old and shook her head, wrinkling the silken swans. “Well, you are the queen in truth now, while I am not a queen any longer, of any kind. In fact, perhaps I have been influenced by your little queen and her councils and city officials chosen by lot; I now believe the monarchy is a boil on the nose of society. Would you still follow me out of a marsh?”

From below, Eärwen’s consternated expression pulled together to a point, her eyes oddly upside-down. Anairë sighed and closed her eyes, only for them to fly open once more when Eärwen bent double and kissed her, awkward, her top lip catching her chin.

Pulling back far enough that her own jaw no longer imperiled Anairë’s nose, she said. “When you were queen, you did more than your duty. You did the duty your husband and your children and the whole woeful lot of Exiles left behind. You were all that was constant and true.”

One of Eärwen’s ornaments, shaken loose from her hair, fell heavily to the floor. Anairë cast about for it, but Eärwen tapped her shoulder smartly.

“Attend! I do not say these things as often as I ought; it is your part to listen when I do.” She picked up the ornament, an abalone comb, and set it out of Anairë’s sight. “When you were Tirion’s beloved priestess-consort, you gave aid to all those who sought it, regardless of kindred or station. You raised your children kindly and with strength, and you treated mine with respect and affection.”

Anairë squeezed her eyes closed again. A single tear in her right eye threatened the silk of Eärwen’s robe. Cool, soft fingers wiped it away.

“Before then, you found me eating marsh-worms raw because I did not like dressing up and going to parties for Alqualondë’s sake, and still thought I was worth all you had to give, which was little enough to be everything.”

Anairë sniffed inelegantly, eyes still closed. If she opened them, she would see Eärwen’s even, solemn face, dear as pearls.

“If you are queen of one thing still, it is myself. Perhaps I should be concerned — a boil on society.”

Anairë sniffed again. Such a speech from Eärwen might come once a century, if that; a hidden question of that sort arrived even less frequently. She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow.

Eärwen’s face was indeed smooth and sober, but the angle of her ears was oblique and the corners of her eyes held the faintest tension. Anairë reached out and smoothed her fingers over Eärwen’s cheekbones, wiping away the strain.

“If I was at all constant or true, your example sustained me,” she murmured. “All your politicking — you had, and have, your reasons. I have loved the princess, and the princess-regent, long and well. How should I forget the queen?”

Eärwen caught her hand and pressed it to her face. With a hitch in her voice that would have been outright tears in another, she said: “My experience suggests that those seeking queenship leave others behind.”

A pang passed through Anairë, echoing in her nails. And so, she thought. Eärwen had wrapped Elwing in one of Artanis’ short jackets in the small hours, and so garbed had she stood beside her husband come home.

“You did your flying away long ago,” she said, brushing her fingers across the swans laid across Eärwen’s lap.

Eärwen’s eyes followed her hand.

“I told you once,” Anairë continued. “You are only a girl. A woman, now. You have your lofty aims and your grounded duties. If I see you getting feathery — if I think you are at all at risk of marsh worms — I will tell you again.”

Eärwen raised her eyes to Anairë’s, and all at once she sighed gustily. Leaning forward, she drew Anairë once more to her lap.

“Hark at you comforting me,” she said chidingly. “You are but a woman too — and perhaps for the first time, for we were young when we first loved. If you feel the lack of lofty goals and solemn responsibility, think to your own desires, for they are not lowly.”

Softly, she stroked Anairë’s cheek and neck. Anairë closed her eyes once again, nuzzling into Eärwen’s belly. She did not reply.

She did, however, stay there, wrinkling Eärwen’s robes of state, drifting between memory and brief flashes of what she might do, once Elwing had flown, and Eärwen had landed at last in her city, to which she held so tightly.