Truth to tell by clotho123

Truth to tell

Read Truth to tell

Well, you know, I don’t believe you.  I don’t believe you really want to know.  Just come to curse, like the others.  You wouldn’t believe it anyway, people don’t.  Except for Námo, but then Námo doesn’t need to believe.  He just knows.

It’s why I’ve never gone back.  I could, Námo’s told me.  Does that surprise you?  Or maybe you don’t believe that either.  Yes, I could go back.  But it would have to be Valinor.  And what good is Valinor to me?  A chance to be Maeglin the traitor until the end of Arda?  At least here Námo believes me.

Turgon was glad to believe it, I think.  He never liked me.  The favour he showed was because he didn’t like me, he bent over backwards to compensate.  Because he thought he should, because I was his kin, perhaps even because he felt guilt.  Let me be honest, and say I didn’t like him either.  Oh, I didn’t hate him, I just didn’t like him.  Of course I played the loyal subject, what other choice was there?  But I think in the end, or rather after the end since we were both dead, I think he was glad of a reason to repudiate.

And the rest of Gondolin, well, it was all too easy.  Maeglin the Dark Elf, the flaw in their perfect city, the reminder of things they would rather forget.  Who better to blame?  Of course they wished to blame someone!

I never felt they had such great reason to pride themselves.  Our people, my people, Sindar and Noldor both, they have laws against the taking of life for any cause.  But Turgon counted it lawful to take life at will.  Because he called himself King he could give the choice between remaining in his city forever or violent death.  I was there when he told my father his will was lawful because within these walls he was the law. 

My fair cousin counted me perverse for loving her, although among my father’s people there is no law against first cousins wedding.  None called Turgon perverse for threatening death in the same breath he spoke of kinship.  But I was perverse in their eyes for not defending my father, although he had sought to slay me and had not a word of remorse for my mother’s death.  Yet had I spoken for him, would I not have been thought just as perverse for defending her murderer?

I couldn’t win, you see.  They knew that something bad and bitter had happened in the heart of their paradise.  But it was me they viewed askance, not their king.

Idril was as bad as the rest, but so fair, so very fair.  No-one ever said that love was wise.  So very fair, I could dream if she touched me then I would be the Dark Elf no longer.  Yet what folly!  Idril was as bad as the rest.  But I would never have harmed her.

I did dislike Tuor, most cordially.  With cause enough, although I too was unfair in that, for it was not his fault.  It was Turgon, again displaying his superiority to the Law, his right to make and break it as he would.  Turgon breaking the law for the mortal youths that he would not bend for the one he called his kin.  Without his laws my mother would still be living, but who was going to tell him that?  Not I!  Well, he was requited for it in the end.

Yes, I disliked Tuor, but I had no need to plot his death.  He was mortal, was that not curse enough?  Mortal bound to Elf, condemned to grow old and frail and ugly, I had only to wait to witness his end.  And who knew but the pain to which she had bound herself might give a better understanding to Idril’s unyielding heart?  No, I did not hope, not truly, but dreams die hard.  At all events I could endure her infatuation for the mortal, knowing time was on my side.

It’s really all very ironic.

Did no-one ever ask how any could know that I betrayed Gondolin to Morgoth?  Was I supposed to have told the tale?  Who would I tell?  Or did Morgoth spread the story, and if so who should believe the Father of Lies?  But I did leave Gondolin at times, so much was true, and no doubt afterwards it was known and some remembered perhaps a longer absence than usual.  No doubt it was easy to blame me.  No doubt they needed someone to blame. 

I don’t know how he found Gondolin.  But he had spies in the air; even with the eagles to guard it could have been done without treachery.

And the Fall?  I knew about Idril’s secret way.  I made it my business to know things in Gondolin.  That last day I saw there was no hope for the city, all we could do was save what we could.  My only thought was to get Idril away.  The child I would have taken with us, he was her child too.  I only wanted to keep her alive, see her to Balar, or somewhere safe.  She insisted she would not leave without Tuor, and I thought for sure he was dead, or as good as.  Was I so wrong to try to force her away?

Can I in honesty blame Tuor if he misunderstood?

Yes.  Would he have thought what he did of Glorfindel or Ecthelion or Egalmoth?  But I was Maeglin the Dark Elf.  Like all the rest Tuor chose to believe the worst.  I like to think Idril believed it also, that in the thick of it she did not understand what I intended.  I prefer to think that than that she let me be slandered knowingly.  I can’t ask, of course, she never came here.

Even knowing them all as I did, I hadn’t expected no-one would believe me, even here.  I truly think that they prefer to curse.

Perhaps you understand why I will not go back?  But no, of course, you don’t believe me either.

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Chapter End Notes

This is a 'what if' story not connected with any of my others, and prompted by considering what parts of the Silmarillion might be unreliable if viewed as a collection of histories.  Could anyone really know Maeglin betrayed Gondolin.  What if he didn't?

Tolkien did in fact write an alternative explanation for how Morgoth found Gondolin, namely that Húrin gave the location away accidentally.  Of course if you view the Silmarillion as a collection of histories that could not have been known by others either.