The Blue Boar Inn by oshun

20 August 1485, Leicester, England

At an extortionate cost, Maedhros and Maglor had secured a small room at a clean inn, one street over from the Blue Boar Inn where the king was staying. The room was hardly bigger than a garderobe, but it contained a large bed and a straight-backed chair. After eating a light supper of meat pies washed down with their own wine, Maedhros had stretched out upon the bed, while Maglor, occupying the chair, fiddled absently on his handheld harp, humming to himself.

“Tomorrow, ah, tomorrow,” Maedhros drawled. “Or, at the latest, the day after, he will win himself a lasting peace, or it will all be over and we will have to flee and start again. I badly want to see a victory. He’s a decent man, if a harried one. Change is inevitable. No matter what happens, I think, it is the end of an era. But I also believe he might have the intelligence and persistence to overcome the old ways of doing things and his lack of courtly wiles. Given the chance, of course.”

“Harrumph,” Maglor grunted with impatience. “The chance is good. Better than good!” Maedhros loved his lack of interest in the intricacies of politics. Maglor might worry too little, but he worried far too much.

“Alas, we’ve heard that before,” Maedhros sighed. They both returned to their own thoughts, the silence broken only by Maglor’s random fiddling with his harp, seeking elusive tones that only he could imagine.

A sharp rap on the door and the cheeky voice of the owner’s son interrupted their reverie. “My lords! It’s King Richard’s Lord Chamberlain to see you!”

Maedhros jumped up and opened the door, “Sir Francis! Please come in.”

“Please forgive me. I hate to bother you so late, but I was wondering if the two of you might accompany me to king’s rooms, very close by here. Your company and a few songs from your brother would be most welcome.”

The king’s suite was spacious, but not much more elegant than the brothers’ room. The finest things on display by far consisted of Richard’s exquisite armor propped in one corner. The king himself sat on the edge of his bed. A reserved smile and faint blush when they entered his bedchamber, gave him an apologetic air.

Although Richard could look careworn at times, there was still a boyish aspect to him at thirty-two. It might have been due to his size, diminutive despite being of near average height, or his complexion, skin as flawless as one of the Quendi. In too few years, Maedhros thought, if he does not find a little respite, he will have deep creases between his eyes. But that night those pale grey eyes flamed with energy and optimism.

“Ah, Francis found you! I am blessed tonight. I presume he told you that I could not rest?”

“It’s not from any lack of confidence,” Francis Lovell hastened to add, conscious of trying to keep everyone’s spirits high. “It’s only his back.”

Richard laughed and grinned at his dearest friend. “Easy for him--back straight as a rule and shoulders broad as beam--to say, ‘only his back’. When he told me you had joined our company, along with your brother . . .” The king nodded in recognition of Maedhros. “I said that I wished I’d have known you were here, then I’d have kept you close at hand. He apparently took that remark as an order to track you down.”

“We are delighted to have been found, your Grace,” said Maglor. “How may we be of service, Sire?”

“Do you have any songs of victory in battle?” Richard asked with a teasing smile.

“Two or three maybe. But they are far from my best work.” Everyone laughed. They were all familiar with the vanity of musicians and bards.

Maedhros was certain that he need not stand on courtly formality, alone with only Richard and Francis. “Forgive me, Your Grace, I cannot resist pointing out that like all great minstrels my brother loves to rip the listener’s heart out and stomp it into the ground.”

“Indeed.” Richard laughed. “They traffic in the hearts of men. The spotless hero winning victory after victory arouses skepticism or envy. But heads held high in defeat, courage facing insurmountable odds, the noble hero with the tragic flaw, all of those incite sympathy and love.”

“Exactly,” said Francis. “They lift our hearts, by making us weep.”

“Well, I have a veritable treasure trove of the very finest of those, Sire. If I must say so myself.”

“Let us all make ourselves comfortable,” said Richard, sloughing off a velvet tunic, revealing a fine cream-colored linen shirt. Then, please, I would very much like to hear what you consider one of your best. Francis? Will you please ask for another chair and some wine for these gentlemen?”

After a bit of shuffling about, Maglor was settled on the most comfortable chair. Richard had propped himself against the head of the bed, with a light shawl draped around his shoulders, and Maedhros, having refused the other chair, lounged against a bolster on the floor in front of the windows, with plenty of room for his long legs. Francis Lovell removed his boots and settled into a cross-legged sitting position next to Richard on the bed.

“So, Master Nightingale,” asked Richard, “what song will you play and sing for us?”

“I know precisely the one. It’s the song of a king, valiant and true, who never gave less than all of his heart to any endeavor. Part of a much longer saga of the history of an ancient race, lost in the mists of time, of course. I call it, ‘Unnumbered Tears.’”