Revisionist History by Elleth

Chapter 1

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Instead of helping Indis from the tightly-laced bodice, Quentessë hovers, just visible to the side of the mirror, by the entrace to the private quarters and wrings her hands like trying to twist the necks of two fluttering birds at once. She is new to the palace, a girl barely past fifty, dragged here to serve what her mother called "her betters". The woman left Indis to stifle her indignation in a delicate sip of sweetened tea as she went on describing how her daughter had been caught skirt-up in their stables with the horse-trainer's girl, and the scandal that followed.

"Country nobles," said the woman. "Other families will prattle their mouths bloody unless you nip the scandal in the bud; me, I am much more practical." Indis had squeezed lemon into her tea and nodded, withholding comment. "The King and you are indeed noble to take your chances on her, Your Majesty. Now, of course it is not my place to make suggestions, but I daresay it were best she were not around other women for a while – at the least until she has found a husband. She is of course... soiled now, and will hardly attract suitors of appropriate station, so I am going to count myself lucky if she falls for a kitchen boy as long as he is of decent character and – well, male."

The afternoon stretched like knotted string until the woman had divulged enough of her opinions – regretfully ones that Finwë would not care to reproach even if he did not share them, so Indis resolved to tell him only the barest account that had led her to take on a new lady-in-waiting, found in an indelicate and unbefitting situation and thus in need of what Noldorin Quenya termed rehabilitation. She would keep silent also the regretful accident on the last step of the perron, owed to the volume of the woman's skirts, that sent Quentessë's mother sprawling face-first into the gravel of the courtyard and rattling off profuse apologies for her ungainliness.

When Indis surfaces from the recollections, Quentessë has inched a little closer, but still looks like a startled doe – her face and especially her dark eyes hold a certain quality like that, a doe unsure of a hunter in the long grass in the dark under the stars.

There had been a hunter, and her spear had flown a wide arc and shattered its flint tip on the frozen steppe floor; the doe had bolted. Indis would give the girl no such chance. Not that this was a hunt to begin with, quite the opposite.

"Quentessë, dear, I will need help with the bodice; please lend me a hand," she calls softly. "There is no need to be shy, you are among friends here."

Quentessë steps through the doorway finally, keeping herself straight and her breathing even, but there is a muscle twitching in her throat, Indis can see in the mirror when the girl hovers behind her and loosens the lacing with quick hands.

"Ah, so you have done this before as well," says Indis, intending to make light of the matter, at least a little. "So have I, but I cannot quite twist my arms in a way that will let me do it myself. Thank you."

"Does that mean," Quentessë says cautiously, "that you have... done this... for another woman?"

Indis laughs softly. "Bodices only for Queen Ilwë when I myself was serving as a lady-in-waiting for her and King Ingwë, but at Cuiviénen we did not yet have needles, at least not until Queen Míriel devised them, well before she was Queen, and most of our clothes were laced, braided or tied, and with those I do have experience. That is what I meant when I said friends. I certainly never met a man wearing woman's attire, although Findis tells me she that some do. Much less have I undressed any man except my husband or son."

"My... my..." that is how far the girl gets before a giggle, still a little nervous, bursts out. There, thinks Indis, answering with a smile. In the mirror, Quentessë's eyes are sparkling now, and her face is much prettier when it is relaxed, not the pinched-up likeness of her mother.

"I wasn't caught... skirt-up, as my mother put it," says Quentessë in a conspiratory whisper, leaning over Indis' shoulder, and her breath still holds the fragrance of the afternoon tea. "I was up Poicë's skirt. Not with my hands, but... I was. With - "

"I can imagine," Indis replies with a laugh. "There was a time when I would do the same. Cuiviénen was far cooler than it is here – not always unpleasant, especially not in the beginning, but being naked for any prolonged time would leave you chilled despite your... activity, so it was easier and warmer to do as you did. We discovered that very quickly in the latter years of our being there – it was autumn, and we had gone hunting in the plains north-west of the lake, where it was even colder than by the water – that lay in a cradle between the hills and our villages were all relatively sheltered, but above the air would flow from the glaciers in the north. After the first time she begged me we would either kindle a fire or find a way to keep wearing our clothes."

Quentessë laughs again, rich and happy. "I think I would have liked it there. My mother told me once that we are descended from Nurwen, who became one of the leaders of the Avari, and our ancestress was one of the handful of her people who made the Journey."

"I thought so – with your skin you would have to be one of the Lindâi walkers, we called them in my youth, and the legend that the Cuivienyarna chooses to ignore went that after the Awakening those with similarities flocked together – those with silver hair thought they were surely meant to be akin, so did those with fair voices, or – already – a certain philosophy of understanding the world, or golden hair, or darker shades of skin, and it was not long before they had settled into groups among the larger tribes, among the Lindâi the walkers were the most distinct - nomads, we would say nowadays, but the point is that it was more complex by far than merely picking and choosing those they stumbled over in the forest. How my grandmother would be laughing to hear that!"

"Lady Nerdanel's carved a statue that shows you in direct line of descent from Imin and Iminyë, is that a myth as well?" asks Quentessë.

"No, it is the truth. I never knew Imin – he was taken by the Rider before I was born, but I knew my grandmother. She went into the forest seeking him when I was very young, and never returned, and we do not know what became of her. Whether she fell prey to a beast or misfortune, or the Rider, any of these stories may be true. But we were talking about you, my dear. I knew Nûriwendê as well. She was formidable, perhaps still is - and I daresay she would welcome you as her descendant much rather than your mother. Which of her daughters are you descended from? By the time the Journey began it was impossible to know who came, and who remained."

"Does that make a difference?" In the mirror, Quentessë blinks at Indis' reflection.

"Taking into account that all three had different fathers, it might interest you."

"Are you saying...?" Quentessë's hands fly up to cover her mouth, wide open in the very picture of the sudden and startling discovery of the world being larger than one's expectations, and although she knows that it is unkind to laugh now, Indis cannot stifle at least a little chuckle before she turns, the laces of the bodice trailing open and forgotten behind her, and prises Quentessë's hands from her mouth, gently but against some resistance.

"It is fine, dear. Truly. There was no notion of Laws and Customs as we have them now at Cuiviénen – their beginning, perhaps, but our mores then were very different. For one thing, it was not an easy life compared to what we have here in Aman now, and I am grateful to have left that well behind me. Hunting is a sport now, rather than a necessity, we garden rather than forage, and need not fear to starve, or to be torn apart by wild beasts straying from the city on our own, and we have learned so much in the ways of medicine that we can mend nearly any wound or harm that may come to us here."

Quentessë is relaxing again slowly under Indis' hands, her fingers unclenching, her shoulders slumping a little even as she listens with apparent interest, and her eyes remain wide and round.

"It was not the same way among all the tribes, or even all the villages – no one I recall from my own village had more than one spouse, whereas others elsewhere had several, men and women – so did Nûriwendê; she took lovers from among her guard of women, and men to father her children, and others had none at all, at least not in our contemporary sense, even though they had awoken together and loved each other dearly. Not only was our history very different from the way it is taught today, it..."

Another voice echoes in the hallway, still far-off, but drifting closer accompanied by a patter of footsteps. "Ammë? Atar?"

"In my chambers, Findis! I will be with you in a moment, my love!" Indis glances to the windows, and the images of both Trees, fitted into the stained glass, stand faintly aglow with the Mingling of the Lights. "It is nearly time for dinner already," says Indis. "Have you ever served a table?"

"No, but our servants did, and I have seen often enough how it is done."

"That is fine; it never takes very long for a routine to settle – if you would like to stay as my handmaiden. I cannot make you many promises, but you are welcome with me, and will face no grief over what brought you here – perhaps we may even bring your Poicë here in time. For now, please hand me the violet dress, will you?" The dress nearly slips from Quentessë's fingers when she pulls it off its hanger, but that is eagerness rather than her fear from the beginning.

"I would like that very much. Under the condition that I may learn more."

Indis laughs as she slips from the unlaced bodice and into the loose-fitting dress, rolling her shoulders underneath the thin material. "That is a condition I will gladly grant. Did you know that the way I wear my hair was called bestâ-wei once, the bridal weave? I will tell you about it later."

She touches her hair, done up in a braid and three twists above her brow, and a faint shadow of sadness flickers over her features, just for a moment before she turns her face to the window and the treelight washes it out.

"Come now," Indis says and holds out a hand to Quentessë. "Walk with me."