On the Starlit Sea by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 23: Game Night

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Elrohir’s bandage is not clean. 

Glorfindel is a brave man, but at the sight of the rust-red blotches, cold fear closes over his heart. Three entire days of meticulous care since Elrohir was injured, and still the cream-white muslin comes away bloodstained. 

Falver is silent, her face grave as she unwraps Elrohir’s sliced-open hand. She does not meet Glorfindel’s eyes. 

A wild hope springs up - perhaps this is normal. Is healing not always slow for those with Mortal blood? Glorfindel knows little about the inner workings of Mannish bodies. Surely Elrohir’s strange slowness to mend is some Peredhel quirk.

For a moment Glorfindel allows himself the fancy, but soon he remembers, and his heart sinks anew: Elrond heals like an Elf. Glorfindel has seen ample proof of it over two war-filled ages. 

Elrohir has more Elvish blood than his father, and yet this knife-wound, shallow enough that by now it should be only a pink ridge where the flesh knitted itself back together, is still bleeding. 

Falver shakes her head, and now her ancient eyes find his. It is not because he is Peredhel. It is because he is fading.  

Elrohir has his face turned away from the sight of his own marred flesh, and so he does not see the blood drain from Glorfindel’s face. The arm that rests on the surgeon’s table is wiry and underfed still, and Glorfindel imagines the pale skin a mere veil, barely containing the light of his fading fëa. 

Elrohir makes no sound, but when Falver’s tincture touches the wound his arm twitches. His eyes remain tightly closed. From the open vial wafts the scent of athelas, the golden fields of Valimar in bloom. Elrohir’s breath hitches.

“Almost done,” Glorfindel mutters, his voice all tenderness, and sprawls his own hand, wide and well-muscled, over Elrohir’s wrist in a gentle touch of comfort. By the time Elrohir turns his head, Glorfindel has arranged his face into a smile. 

From his bed, Calear watches them in silence. 

 

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“Let me take you outside. You have not seen the sky for days!” Glorfindel pleads as if Elrohir is about to starve. Elves cannot bear the dark. 

Calear has been whisked upstairs already. Elrohir, too, is expected on deck, but he has no desire to make a spectacle of himself. He can barely stand upright without his cough-wracked lungs wheezing like a bellows, and he much prefers to lick his wounds in hiding.

That, and he dreads the Sea. The rush and sigh of the waves against the ship’s hull are a constant reminder of the abyss that yawns beneath. The sound fills his head with fearful relivings of cold water rushing down his throat, of being a mere speck in the vast blue depths lurking beneath sunlit waves. 

“You will not fall in again.” Glorfindel has this Elvish way of looking into Elrohir’s eyes and seeing his heart. 

Blood rushes to Elrohir’s cheeks at being seen unmanned by mere salt water. He lowers his eyes, away from that Elvish gaze that pierces like light. The floor is of some pale Northern wood, every straight and even plank sanded to whiteness. 

Glorfindel is silent for a moment. “Do you know how to swim?” he asks, softly. 

Elrohir only shakes his head, too ashamed to point out that the Great Southern Desert holds precious little to swim in .  

“Ai, Elrohir...” Glorfindel’s voice holds no scorn. “Forgive me. I should have spared you all this.” He falls silent, and from the corner of his eye Elrohir sees him make a sweeping gesture at the sick bay, or perhaps the sea beyond its wooden walls.

He swallows, then lays a hand on Elrohir’s shoulder. “When your wound is healed, I will teach you.”

At that, Elrohir’s head jerks up to send Glorfindel a look of unmasked horror. “If I never touch saltwater again it will be too soon,” he says, from the bottom of his heart. 

Glorfindel smiles that golden smile, all fondness. “We shall start with a sheltered beach. You will find it easier without the chainmail,” he laughs with such deep and honest eagerness to see Elrohir laugh along with him.

Elrohir manages a wan little smile. 

Glorfindel shines like a sunrise at the sight. “Come,” he says, rising from his bedside chair and lifting a grey woollen sailors’ cloak off the back. “Leave the shadows down here, and sit in the sun for a while.” 

Elrohir knows that tone: Glorfindel will not let this go. The Elf will be a cheerfully stubborn, single-minded bastard about it until Elrohir is sitting on deck, whether he grumbles about it or not. 

Some things cannot be helped. 

Even so, Elrohir draws the line at being carried. He lets himself be wrapped in the cloak and shepherded upstairs slowly so he can catch his breath between steps.

Up on deck there is sunlight and a sailing wind that bears the scent of salt. The sea glitters like rippling glass, and foam flies snow-white before the Nemir’s swan-shaped stern.  

It is indeed beautiful, a balm to the soul. An Elvish thought, perhaps, but a true one. 

The Elves have set up an awning of sailcloth beneath the mizzenmast for their wounded. Glorfindel helps Elrohir down on a blanket beside Calear. 

The Elf is comfortably installed, his splinted hands propped up on folded blankets, a cup of watered wine nearby. In the light of day, his injuries are somehow less horrific. A white bandage covers his severed ear, but it is almost hidden beneath the dark fall of his hair, washed and braided with a string of seed pearls. His nose has been set, his eyes are open and his bruises have bleached to yellow and green. 

“Well met, Elrohir!” Calear says with a wide smile that is only slightly lopsided. “I am glad to make your proper acquaintance at last.” Another smile, bright amidst the bruises. The Umbarians thoroughly worked the poor man over, but somehow he still has his front teeth. “We were a tad rushed, the first time.”

He speaks Adûnaic, with the Umbarian drawl of the coastal working folk. Perfect, accentless, indistinguishable from the real thing. 

For a moment Elrohir sits stunned with wonder at hearing words in a language so familiar falling from an Elf’s mouth. Prince Bawbuthôr was right about one thing: Calear is a spy indeed, and a good one, too. 

Then he lays a hand on his heart and makes a strange half-bow as best he can while sitting, deep enough that his forehead almost touches the grey blanket covering the deck planks underfoot. 

“Sir, I owe you my life,” he says, battling another coughing fit as he straightens himself. “If there is aught you would have of me in repayment, name it and it is yours.”

Calear smiles once more. “There is one small thing,” he replies, giving Elrohir a clever look, “if you are feeling especially grateful.”

“Anything!” Elrohir blurts out. 

Calear’s gaze is sharp as it rests on him. “You come from the eastern desert, yes?” 

“I do,” Elrohir nods without meeting Calear’s eyes, wary of what the sharp mind behind them might perceive.

“Do you play Tâb?” Calear’s tone is casual. 

“Of course.” This is no great revelation - everyone does, in Harad.

“Splendid!” Calear smiles like a contented cat. “Brought your board?”

Elrohir nods.

“I left mine in Pellardur.” Calear says with a wry grin. “No chance to pack.”

“It is yours!” Elrohir blurts out, hiding his dismay. The battered wooden game holds glad memories. He will mourn the loss, but it is a small repayment for Calear’s suffering, and Elrohir prefers his debts settled. 

“Valar, no!” Calear laughs at once. “All I want is a few friendly matches to pass the time! The Haradrim are said to be fiends for Tâb.” He raises an eyebrow at Elrohir, an unspoken challenge. Despite his bruised face it looks merry, somehow. “Prove the rumours true.”

The game has languished at the bottom of Elrohir’s saddlebag for months. It must still be on the floor of Glorfindel’s cabin where he left it when he stepped out to watch the Shâkhalzôr’s approach. But a few steps down the aftercastle stair, and yet utterly beyond reach. 

Standing up has him wheezing, and then he is wracked by a coughing fit that brings tears to his eyes. When he blinks them away Falver is before him, her hands on his shoulders holding him up. 

“Calm now, lad. Deep breaths, one at a time.” She leads him back to his seat, and he has not the strength to protest.  

Behind her back, Glorfindel emerges from the stairway carrying the saddlebag. 

Elrohir digs his Tâb game from the very bottom, where it sat unused since the Ringwraith tightened its noose around the Haradrim. His mood darkens further at the thought, but Calear is eyeing him with such honest and cheerful anticipation that he cannot bring himself to spoil the poor fellow’s fun. 

And so he lays out the board and the wooden dice and cowrie shell pieces. 

“Now,” says Calear, sounding positively cheerful. “What shall we stake?”

Elrohir watches him, hesitating. Players normally bring their own money to the table, but Calear came off the Shakalzôr naked, without even a shirt on his back.  What, then, does he mean to bet with? 

“Use my shells,” Elrohir says quickly. His purse is fat enough for them both. One advantage of play cut short after a winning streak. 

“No, my friend!” Calear laughs, sounding as if they are old mates meeting over a jug of beer. “I am not playing you for your own coin!”

Elrohir has lived a soldier’s life. “Half tonight’s ration?” he asks, the standard arrangement for such matters. 

“Ai, no!” Calear laughs and eyes the galley in mock terror. “The cook will have my head if I come between you and your dinner!”

“What would you have then?”

“Sing with me.” Calear says, and leans back against his pillow. “The winner picks the song.”

Ah, the Elvish obsession with song. The Nemir is never silent. The crew fill their days with it, and even at night the voices of the watch ring silver between the sails, weaving threads of song back and forth between them until the very air thrums with the star-sharp beauty of it. 

“Join us!” the crew cajoled each time Elrohir set foot on deck, “teach us a song of Harad!” Elrohir never did. He has not sung since Hamalan’s burial dirge. 

“I am not much of a singer,” he manages demurely, his eyes lowered to where he is counting out piles of white shells and black ones. It is not wholly a lie. Not compared to the current company.

“Are you not?” Calear asks with well-played astonishment. “Your saddle had a bard’s tassel, when you came to Pellardur?”

Shit.

Glorfindel’s head shoots up from his conversation with Galdor. He is doing his all to not be caught staring, and being an Elf he manages it well, but it is abundantly clear that he is watching the proceedings with interest.

Elrohir arranges his face while swearing inwardly. No point in denying: the saddle with its tell-tale tassel of red wool is sitting in Glorfindel’s cabin. He should have cut the thing off and bagged it before riding into Pellardur. Glorfindel was none the wiser - he loves all things colourful, no questions asked - but Calear knows its meaning. 

“You are the guest of the Lindar, and we have not shared a song together,” he makes it sound like an outrage. “We should make amends.” 

Caught . Calear is a clever bastard, but Elrohir can hardly refuse him - his debts are piled high indeed. “It will be as you say, Calear,” he says solemnly, and bows again. 

Elrohir picks up the long dice, meaning to hand them to Calear for the opening throw. Instead of Calear’s palm his gaze meets a shapeless bulk of splints and bandages. Ai, fool! His cheeks grow hot. Calear will not be moving his own pieces. The poor fellow cannot even go to the head without help.

Calear lets it go. “Throw,” he says simply, and Elrohir does.

Calear must have done much of his spywork in Pellardur’s wine-houses, because he plays a deviously clever game. 

All Elrohir’s world narrows to the battered wooden board and his opponent beyond, to Calear’s face as he sallies forth into Elrohir’s half with a near-suicidal boldness that may or may not be bluster. Elrohir shores up his battered defences, and thinks no more of the sea’s churning waves, only of the click of the dice and the rattle of shells moving up and down the rows.

Elrohir is losing ground fast. He is out of practice - it has been months since he last had a mind for play. Back then he had a different name, and his opponent was a human being. 

Calear’s eyes narrow. “Black to the fourth row,” he orders dryly when Elrohir commits yet another folly. 

Elrohir does, and surveys the wreckage of his defence. 

“I concede!” He deftly picks a handful of shells from the board, and offers them to Calear on his open palm, hoping the man might forget all about songs at the prospect of money.

Calear does not pick them up, and then Elrohir remembers that he cannot. His heart sinks. 

“Do you know ‘Flower of the Western Sea’?” Calear asks, kindly and without a trace of smugness.

Elrohir nods. A wistful Númenórean folk song, full of bittersweet longing for lost paradise. It loosens tears and tips from bear-soaked crowds at any singalong from Harondor to the Far Harad.   

Calear smiles, leans back against his pillow and softly sings in a silver-limned Elvish voice,

 

There lingering lights do golden lie

On grass more green than in gardens here,

On trees more tall that touch the sky

With silver leaves a-swinging clear

 

Elrohir finds it hard at first to breathe in, fill his unwilling lungs, shape the words and force them past the ball of grief stuck in his windpipe, but a debt is a debt and a promise a promise. 

 

There draws no dusk of evening near,

Where voices move in veiled choir.

Or shrill in sudden singing clear.

And the woods are filled with wandering fire.

 

His voice comes out rough and strange to his own ears, but Calear seems content, because suddenly there is a brightness to his battered face. He takes up the counterpoint, smooth and effortless like a seabird in flight, and so they weave the music back and forth between them, tears and joy in equal measure like a web spun of sweetly ringing silver light. Each line of Song hangs shining in the sea-air for a single heartbeat before fading and being remade, bright and wondrous and somehow more real than the world around them.  

When the song ends, Elrohir feels strangely tired. Empty in a wholesome way, as if he has run or danced all day, and he can breathe more freely. 

He looks up and finds that the daylight has shifted to gold. The sun is a ball of fire low on the western horizon. 

Glorfindel crouches beneath the awning. His eyes rest first on Elrohir, and for the first time that day, his smile reaches his eyes. When his gaze meets Calear’s, he makes a gesture between a nod and a small bow. 

Calear smiles, and nods in return, as well as he might without using his hands. “My pleasure, general.” He gives Elrohir another lopsided grin. “I bid you good evening, son of Elrond. I hope you will play me again tomorrow?”