A Partial Smoothing by Himring

A Partial Smoothing

Read A Partial Smoothing

His wife has been distraught all day. She has not touched her harp, not once. Now she is tearing up rags to boil in the laundry kettle. Clearly, she is thinking of the need for clean bandages. By the look in her eyes, she is not ready to talk about things yet.

Oderen supposes he is not ready either. He has his own problem to deal with, there, and he cannot discuss it with her yet. He will act first and tell her later.

*

Cirdan looks up and, with some surprise, sees the usually reticent woodworker hovering in the doorway. On this day of all days...?

‘You would like to speak to me?’

Oderen approaches him, hesitates.

‘My lord. We heard the news. What happened with…Doriath.’

Cirdan nods, sighs.

‘You know we—my wife and I—spent some time in Himring, during the Battle of Sudden Flame and after. I have told you this. When we left, the princes gave me this as a…, as a parting gift.’

Oderen brings out whatever it was he was holding half-concealed behind his back. Cirdan sees it is a carpenter’s hand plane, a plain but skilfully crafted tool.

‘It is of Noldorin make, my lord. I think it may be from Valinor. I think you should have it, now, my lord.’ Oderen cannot help his voice rising slightly at the end, as if in a question. ‘They killed your kin.’

Cirdan looks at Oderen’s face, at the way he is holding the plane, so carefully, and recognizes a sacrifice being made. It is not that Oderen cannot bear to keep the tool; he is trying to meet an obligation.

‘If anybody owes me weregild for slain kin, it is not you, Oderen. Keep that plane, it is yours,’ he says mildly.

‘It is of Feanorian make, given by the sons of Feanor,’ Oderen insists, shamefaced at the relief he cannot help feeling.

‘Then it should be used in the service of the survivors of Doriath, certainly, but it should be used by you,’ answers Cirdan firmly.

He adds: ‘And one more thing, Oderen! If you feel tempted to tell them where you got that tool—do not do so! It is enough that you told me.’

*

At the Havens of Sirion, Oderen cuts and polishes timber: posts for doors and windows, boards for shutters, tables, chair seats, bedheads, all for the refugees of Doriath. His carpenter’s plane glides easily over the wood; thin shavings curl and fall. All splinters and jagged edges are removed, any roughness that might catch at hand or skin. The surface is left feeling almost like silk. Oderen cannot smooth any other roughness—the painfully jagged feelings of the survivors of the Second Kinslaying—but he can do that.