On the Starlit Sea by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 21: Anger Born of Worry/Stumbling

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Night covers the Great Sea when Galdor at last climbs over the Shakhalzôr’s gunwale, down to the tender that will return him to the Nemir . He had a long work setting things right aboard the captured Umbarian. 

The freed slaves fought bravely, but pitting unarmed men against mail-clad marines has left a carnage’s worth of wounded. Falver’s staff have turned half the Shakhalzôr’s deck into an improvised field hospital. Rows of straw mattresses line up under sail cloth tarps. White-smocked Elves move between them, tending the wounded and comforting those beyond aid as they pass out of Arda. 

Galdor has allowed none of the Mortals aboard the Nemir . His mission to retrieve Elrohir came a hair’s breadth from failure, and now that he is secure Galdor will risk no strange Men anywhere near him.  

He salutes the prize crew, all doughty volunteers from the Nemir’s complement. They are to sail the Shakhalzôr to Gondor, where a captured Umbarian man-of-war will bring a rich reward. A perilous proposition: keeping the former galley slaves from slaughtering the Umbarians locked in the slave hold will be no small feat. 

For now, the twin miracles of Glorfindel’s breaking of their chains and Elrohir and Calear’s rising from the deep have the Mortals stunned with wonder. Most are up on deck beneath the open sky, praying or singing hymns to the Valar together with the Elvish crew. Morgoth’s altar stone is long smashed, its bloodstained rubble tossed overboard. Galdor straightens himself, rubbing a smear of stone dust from his sleeve. 

A runnel of moonlight cuts across the still surface of the Sea. Ossë has tempered his wrath. He offers them a placid night to regain their bearings, like a repentant child brings a handful of wildflowers after some petty mischief. 

Tomorrow this moonlit idyll will end. The Men will remember their differences, and violence may erupt despite the promise of prize money. Already there are struggles and altercations among them. Southrons against Haradrim, Gondorians against Dunlendings, and some who no longer remember what or who they were before they were chained to the oar. 

Galdor has taken advantage of the distraction to remove the stores of rum from the Shakhalzôr’s hold. Things are volatile enough without soaking the Mortals in liquor. 

He joins the barrels in the sloop being rowed to the Nemir . The casks are branded with both the Eye of Sauron and the striking viper of the Prince of Pellardur. The liquid sloshing inside is strong, bitter alcohol, meant to numb the prince’s men against the misery of their circumstances. The marines, that is. The slaves would not get even that small mercy. 

The Nemir’s swan-white hull towers over them as they approach. Galdor is the first to climb the grey rope ladder.

On deck, all seems in order. The watch is doubled, but most of the crew feel no need for sleep tonight. They sit under the stars, talking or singing softly. No celebration yet, not with two of their own still hanging in the balance, but there is a distinct lightness in the air. 

Galdor dives down the stairs into the aftercastle. Inside the sick bay the lamps are turned down to a gentle golden twilight. Falver stands over Calear’s bed, a soft song of mending on her lips. Her ancient face is all sharp focus as she applies splints to the broken hands splayed out atop the blanket. Galdor is no stranger to bloodshed, but his stomach twists and he must avert his eyes from the shattered ruin of Calear’s fingers, swollen and blue-black like those of a waterlogged corpse. 

Calear lies insensate under her ministrations. Beneath the bruises his face is white and sunken. His eyes are closed. Only the slow rise and fall of his chest shows that he lives still. 

Grief closes over Galdor’s heart. Have torture and maiming turned Calear’s spirit to Mandos?

At his concerned glance, Falver looks up from her grisly task. “Drugged to the gills, sir,” she whispers. “He will live.”

Galdor nods, and notes that she does not say whether Calear will ever use his hands again. Elrohir’s rescue came at a terrible price. 

Across the cabin the lad is asleep. Real sleep. That unnatural pallor of the dying has lifted. His cheeks have colour, and there is no trace of blue on his lips. Galdor lays a hand against his forehead, and finds it warm. 

Glorfindel slumps in a chair at the bedside, long limbs folded so he might lean across to rest one hand on Elrohir’s head. The hand stroking his hair is almost transparent with white light. 

When Glorfindel looks up at Galdor he is pale and drawn, his eyes unfocused with exhaustion. All his golden well of Maia-like power is drained into Elrohir like wine poured from a cup. 

Galdor feels some of that soul-deep weariness in himself. Nothing leeches strength from the spirit like taking life, and the battle has sapped him. There was a price, for prying the blackened husk of the prince’s fëa from its desperate clutch on this world. For Glorfindel, the fight was but the lesser of his labours.

Even so, Glorfindel’s smile is the widest, most perfect expression of joy Galdor has seen from him since the fall of Barad-dûr. 

“He woke up, and spoke with me.” Glorfindel tries to rise, but he is pushing himself up against the bed’s edge as if his legs cannot hold him. “The fever broke an hour ago, and he is breathing better!”

“Careful,” Galdor says, and steadies his staggering friend. 

“Give me a moment, and I will be well.” Glorfindel sinks back down into the chair. Blue shadows pool beneath his eyes, and he closes them for a moment, but never raises his hand from where it rests on Elrohir’s salt-caked hair.  

Galdor does not argue, but pulls up a chair and sends for a drink. His own Lindon whisky, not the Mortal rotgut. Much to be said, and they might as well do it here. The wounded are out cold, and Falver will tell no tales. 

When the flask arrives he pours generously - both of them have more than earned a stiff drink. 

The liquor returns some colour to Glorfindel’s face. Galdor takes the glass from him, and pours him another two fingers unasked. 

“What is Ossë’s message?” Galdor asks after his first smoky sip.

“The old hothead would have sunk the Shakhalzôr . Elrohir had the fright of his life pleading for the poor souls.” Glorfindel shakes his head, outraged on his ward’s behalf. “Ossë wants you to thank him.”

“Of course he does.” Galdor sighs, and knocks back some more. “I suppose he has earned it. I happen to have found him a perfect gift.”

Glorfindel raises an eyebrow. 

“You will see. He will love it. With luck, it will make him forget about the Shakhalzôr long enough for her to get away.”

“Where to?” Glorfindel asks at once. Clearly he still has his wits about him, even in this state. 

Unstoppable . Galdor smiles. 

“Pelargir,” he says with conviction. He spent the evening thinking about his next move, and his mind is made up. “We will split up as soon as we are safely in Gondorian waters. The Shakhalzôr is to be delivered to the Royal Navy. They will deal fairly with the freedmen, and pay them their share of the prize.”

Glorfindel nods, relief open in his gaze. Deep down he is a tender soul, and the horrors of an Umbarian rowing deck have him rattled. 

“The Nemir will head to Mithlond without delay,” Galdor continues. “I have no desire to learn what trouble Elrohir might get into in a foreign port. Ossë willing, we will be home before midsummer.”

Ossë will prove willing indeed, for this. Glorfindel is silent, but his agreement is clear. For a moment they sit in quiet companionship, their eyes on Elrohir’s sleeping face, and let the reality of it sink in. 

“We did it,” Glorfindel says at last. “He is going home.”

“If he does not throw himself off a yard again before we make port.” Galdor replies dryly. He sends Glorfindel a sharp look. “I will keep a closer eye on him, from now on.”

“Do not be harsh,” Glorfindel says.

Galdor has dreaded this talk, knowing how his friend treasures this child, but hard truths must be spoken. “Harshness is called for,” he replies, his earlier anger stirring anew. “I told him to stay put .” 

When Elrohir wakes he should hear a stern lecture about insubordination and following orders and how he behaved like a suicidal idiot. In Elrond’s absence Galdor will gladly deliver it, as a safety measure.

Glorfindel shakes his head, determined. “He is not one of your crew.”

Galdor scoffs. “He should have obeyed the captain nonetheless.” He sends Glorfindel a sharp look. “Overindulgence does children a poor service.” Raising two headstrong daughters taught him that lesson. Glorfindel is wise, but in this matter Galdor considers his own wisdom the greater.

The painful truth sits unspoken between them: Galdor is a father while Glorfindel is not, and will never be. 

Glorfindel’s gaze is a cool reproach. “Elrohir expects you to give him the lash. Do you not see why he defied you anyway?”

For a moment Galdor is baffled. The next, his cheeks heat with the anger of insult. The very notion is absurd - the Nemir carries no such despicable thing. He would have to send to the Shakhalzôr for a whip, and his own crew would clap him in chains before he could lay a single stroke.

“Does he think me some crude Mortal!?” he fumes. “He is young and brash. I have seen too many lives lost to recklessness. Condoning it will do him no favours.” 

A sharp sound rises from Falver’s corner, and when Galdor turns to look, her ancient eyes pierce him to his core. 

“I rowed the tender that picked them up from the beach,” she says quietly, while bandaging Calear’s shattered hand. “When that boy laid eyes on us, he was terrified . Scared enough to run straight back into Umbar.” 

She glances at him, her head held at an angle, almost bird-like. “Glorfindel had to gentle him into the boat like a spooked colt. All Elvendom meant nothing to him. Glorfindel is his only friend in the world, all he knows of his home. He saw Glorfindel walk to his death, and so he saved him. By any means necessary.”

Galdor recalls the boy’s look of wide-eyed terror as he first came over the gunwale that strange night. The sobering realisation hits: Elrohir is alone among strangers, and Glorfindel is indeed his only friend in all the world. A friend he would not lose. 

“Sorrow is heavy on him,” Glorfindel says softly. “He might break under it if he finds that we have turned against him. He should not wake to reproach. Forget your dented pride, my friend. Show him kindness. He has received so little of it.”

Galdor rubs his eyes. “Valar,” he sighs, and empties his glass. The fiery tang of whisky burns down his throat. “He will do Elrond proud, one day. A lion’s heart he has in him.”

“And all the common sense of a kitten,” Glorfindel adds with a small, apologetic smile.

Galdor laughs, glad of his friend’s great heart. “You will train it into him, eventually.”

Elrohir stirs, caught in some dark dream. A shadow of fear twists his sleeping face. 

Glorfindel moves at once. “Sleep, Elrohir. All is well.” He passes a hand over Elrohir’s eyes.

Galdor watches Glorfindel scrabble for the final, desperate dregs of his strength. He drains himself until Elrohir settles once more, his mind lapping with the placid ebb and flood of dreamless sleep.

As Galdor looks on, Glorfindel's eyes droop, then fall closed where he sits. Galdor rises in silence and lifts a blanket from an unused bed to drape it over Glorfindel’s slack form. 

Elrohir lies very still, his face calm. Irmo’s blessing settles upon them both, deep and wholesome, the best of healers.