Queen's Gambit by Grundy

Indis took a deep breath.

She was ready. She could do this. If she was going to dwell in Tirion again – as she very much wanted to do – she had to.

Her former rooms had been turned into unofficial storage after the Darkening. She couldn’t begrudge Findë that decision, not when she understood her daughter’s reasoning only too well.

With her father in Mandos and her mother halfway there, the child left picking up the pieces here had needed somewhere to put all the things the girls hadn’t felt themselves equal to dealing with on a daily basis. Storing them properly hadn’t been on anyone’s mind, much less a priority. And once out of sight, they had been out of mind.

But now that Indis was feeling more herself, or at least as much herself as she could under the circumstances, she was not minded to remain in Valimar any longer. Her brother and law-sister had done all they could for her. She wanted to be with the family that was left to her.

She had briefly considered asking if she might dwell in Alqualondë, before remembering that while she might not have unpleasant memories of the city of the Lindar, her presence would doubtless be a reminder to them of what her children and grandchildren had done.

The choice of where to live was less which of her past homes she should inhabit than which part of her past should haunt her. She preferred the place where there had been greater happiness, and that meant Tirion.

She just had to clear out her rooms. She should have asked about the state of them before she arrived – if she had, Findis would surely have tasked someone else to do it. Her remaining children were nothing if not concerned for her well-being.  But Indis hadn’t realized it was necessary, only discovering on her arrival yesterday how the space had been repurposed.

She had used Írimë’s rooms for the night, thinking perhaps that might be a solution that would allow her to work on her own rooms at her own pace, bothering no one. But inhabiting her daughter’s space only sharpened the absences.

She couldn’t face that a second night. She wanted to be in her own space, even if it would mean she was alone. It wasn’t as if she were the only one.

So. Tidying.

She pushed the door open, and immediately discovered two things.

First, the task was not quite as daunting as the girls had made it sound yesterday. She had expected the room to be packed and chaotic. But it was actually quite orderly, and less cluttered than the boys’ rooms had been in their adolescent years. (Granted, she had to move carefully for reasons of space, but she had no fears about walking across the room, something she could not have said with any honesty about Naro or Nolo’s rooms between the ages of twenty and forty.)

Second, while it might not be the chaos she’d expected, there had been no apparent rhyme nor reason to how things had been stored. One of Nolo’s journeyman pieces leant slightly askew against one wall, directly below a finger painting Curvo had done when he was six. Írimë’s second favorite festival dress hung on a movable rail next to the robes Kano had worn for his last premiere before the sword incident. One of Aiko’s paintings peeked out from under a dustcloth at the foot of her bed, which was stacked high with clothing, the majority of it neatly folded.

Well, she had best make a start.

“If you want help, Ammë…?”

Ara sounded slightly hesitant, as he did about so much these days. After all those years trying to stay out of his brothers’ quarrels, he’d finally had to pick a side. To everyone’s surprise, he’d picked Findë.

Unfortunately, he’d left the decision a bit late. Findë had been more than a little cross that she was the one stuck with a crown she’d never wanted in the first place because it had taken her youngest brother too long to make up his mind. (Or ‘find a spine’, as Anairë told her Findis had put it when he first returned.)

Neither his older sister nor his wife had been best pleased with him. The ensuing arguments had not made it any easier for the boy to bring up the things that were plainly weighing on his mind. Her youngest son, usually outgoing and cheerful to all, had become quiet and withdrawn. He disappeared for days on end, Findë said. No one knew where he went or what he did.

It wasn’t just her rooms that needed her attention.

“Of course, my darling,” she smiled. “I would be happy to have you. Come in.”

He brightened, and left his uncertain position in the doorway to give her a hug.

“We’ve missed you, Ammë.”

More than just her, but now was not the time to poke at that wound. It had barely scabbed over.

“And I you, my Ingoldo.”

She looked around, keeping an arm around her son.

“I suppose we’d better decide on a plan of action. It’s a lot to deal with in one day.”

“Do we need to deal with it all today?” Ara asked in surprise.

“A good question,” she sighed. “I suppose it would suffice to clear enough that I can get from the door to the bed, use the bed, and reach the bathing room.”

She paused as a new thought occurred to her.

“They didn’t turn that into storage also, did they?”

“I don’t think so,” Ara chuckled. “But I can’t say that I looked, either.”

He remedied that oversight now.

“Well, it’s not as bad as the bedroom,” he said, shaking his head. “But it does look like it became a holding area for quite a few things.”

“Please assure me they didn’t put anything that would decompose in there,” Indis sighed, having visions of some of the things Tyelko, Ingo, or Irissë had been known to stash in their bathing rooms.

“I don’t think so. Though some of those bottles might need to be disposed of without opening. Findë said your rooms hadn’t been touched for a long-year.”

Indis wrinkled her nose. ‘Bottles’ could cover anything from bath oils to ‘experiments’. Thankfully, experiments should be less experimental than they had been when her grandchildren were small, but there was still the potential that Tyelpë or Rillë had left something interesting behind.

“I’ll settle for the bedroom today, darling,” she said. “I can worry about the bathing room and sitting room once this has been set back in order.”

She looked around again.

“I suppose it would be sensible to sort by whose things are,” she said slowly. “Then we can think about where to store it all.”

“I’ll take all my children’s things back to my house, unless you wanted to keep them here.”

“Some of them, I’m sure,” Indis told him, ruffling his hair fondly. “They marched off to Beleriand. They didn’t disappear for all time.”

“Did they not?” Ara asked softly.

Indis set her jaw.

“Lord Namo did not say they would never return,” she said firmly.

And if he intended it so, she would have words for him – the sort he wasn’t used to hearing from her. There was only so much meddling a person could stand.

Ara nodded, but with a stiffness to his manner that meant he did not wholly agree.

“I’ll start by the door and work my way in,” he said with a false brightness in his voice she was not used to hearing from him. “If you start at the bed and work your way out, we’ll be sure you’ll at least have a place to sleep tonight and a safe path to it.”

Indis snuck glances at him as he set to his task. Her youngest son had always been the child with the warmest disposition and readiest smile. There was a sorrow to him now, and an edge of anger she was more accustomed to seeing in his older brothers.

He also didn’t sing anymore, she realized with a pang. Ara in the days before the Darkening would have had a tune to hand as he worked at something like this. Even if he didn’t sing, he’d hum or whistle. Now he worked in determined silence.

She decided not to push him too soon, and reluctantly turned to her own task.

She made herself set aside the memories that went with the clothing she was sorting. Artë’s athletics costume, which she’d taken the honors for the races in the last Spring Games. Irissë’s favorite (and slightly scandalous, but really what that she wore wasn’t?) outfit for the festival of Vana. The formal court tunics she’d made for Ambarussa, similar but not identical so that people outside their immediate family might recognize Prince Pityafinwë from Prince Telufinwë – though she’d had to reprimand them several times for switching.

It was impossible to her mind that those four scamps could have been separated, even by death. But that was exactly what they have been told, that Telufinwë was the first of her grandchildren to die. They had no news of the other three, so she clung to the hope that they lived and supported each other yet.

Nor was Telvo the only one among those whose clothing was stacked on her bed who now resided in Mandos. Several things belonging to Elenwë were also mixed in among the rest, not to mention one of Naro’s craft aprons.

She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at that one. It had been folded noticeably more carelessly than the rest, and looked to have been flung against the headboard with some force. Indis folded it properly with pursed lips, and set it to one side. It could be carried out to the forge, where there was doubtless a more appropriate place to store it.

Mercifully, there was very little of Finwë. He had not been careless or absent-minded with his possessions, so it was rare to find them out of place. Most of them would be either in the room he had taken as his own when they had been at odds toward the end, or in his library. She was not ready to confront the absence of her mate just yet. Sleeping alone was more than enough. That she’d grown accustomed to in the nearly three long-years since his removal to Formenos and murder.

Or more accurately, re-accustomed. It wasn’t as though that had been the first time.

“Ammë?”

She looked up to discover Ara had the oddest expression on his face.

“I’m not quite sure what to do with this,” he said.

He had pulled the dust-cloth off a sizable portrait that was leaning up the table by the fireplace. (That table was not really hers, but it had been in her room since she had first come to Tirion. She’d never explained to any of the children.)

Indis suppressed a sigh and stepped over to see whose portrait it was.

Her breath caught when she saw it.

“Oh!”

She hadn’t even known where that portrait was. Finwë had put it away before she moved in, finding it too painful to look at. Indis had been present when it was painted, and still remembered how tough a time the hapless artist had with the subject, who was not much given to sitting still.

Míriel Þerindë gazed out at the viewer, proud and undaunted, her personality as vivid as the day she had sat for it. The ornate frame that had once held it was missing, leaving only the canvas. But the portrait was otherwise just as Indis had last seen it, not long before Naro’s birth.

Oh, my love, if only you were here…

The robes she wore were her own make, deliberately plainer than the Noldor expected for their Queen, even then. The embroidery on them might appear elegantly understated to modern eyes, but at the time, thread of silver and thread of gold had been new and rare. Only the most skilled of needleworkers would have even dared attempt them. They were the only embellishment on the otherwise simple gown. The sleeves alone were testament to her skill; the collar with its web of silver and pearl – gifts from Olwë and Súyelírë of Alqualondë – were recognizable as showing off only if one knew Míriel.

It was certainly fancier than she had been wont to dress, even before considering her hair and jewelry.

Her beautiful silver hair was set in an intricate arrangement not unlike the one that Indis had sometimes done Artë’s hair in for athletics events – that luxuriant crown of braids made any other crown or circlet redundant, though Míriel wore one for the portrait. The crown and earrings, and the necklace that went with them, were the work of Finwë’s hands, studded with the rubies that had been the one gemstone Míriel was truly fond of, the reason Naro had later chosen red as his color.

The lack of necklace in the portrait was another deliberate choice. Míriel had been determined that her portrait, if she must have one done, should reflect her – all of her. So the matching necklace was intentionally absent, a silent commentary that became pointed when combined with the golden orchid she was embroidering. The thread of gold she held in one hand might have been for her sleeve, or for edging the orchid – it was plainly the same thread used for both.

The orchid was one of the ones Indis had developed in her time working with Yavanna and her handmaidens, a lucky cross that had resulted not in the vivid red she had expected, but a rich gold that varied with the treelight. Míriel had captured it as it appeared at Telperion’s fullness.

To anyone who had known Míriel, Indis, and Finwë before the completion of the Journey, the portrait practically shouted the truth they were forbidden to speak.

They had never told the children. She had hinted at it to Tyelko, who wild as he might have been in many ways, had been the grandson most given to listening to her. As a youth, he’d listen to her for hours. But she doubted very much that he had ever tried to raise the subject with Naro, much less with his aunts or uncles.

“I’m sorry, Ammë, I don’t know why that would be in here. I’ll move it elsewhere immediately,” Ara said fretfully. “I’m sure there will be a porter or two who can help me with it.”

“No, that won’t be necessary, darling,” she said firmly. “I want it to stay in here. In fact, I should like to have it hung where I can see if from my bed. And perhaps we can find a portrait of your father to hang next to it.”

If they could not be here with her, she would have to make do with what she could. And no one could tell her she might not have their portraits hung together! Let any Vala try.

Míriel would be pleased, no doubt. Perhaps Indis should have been less yielding. Would more of Míriel’s fire have served them better? Could honesty, even defiance, have prevented the tragedy that ripped their family apart?

She was already picking out where on the walls they would go when she realized Ara was gaping at her.

“Ammë,” he said weakly. “You don’t need to be that kind. Naro isn’t here to see or hear it anymore. And no one could possibly expect…”

“I think, my darling, it is time and past it I explained a thing or two to you,” Indis said slowly. “Findë should hear it as well. It touches all of you.”

And Elemmírë too, come to that. Though if the Valar had relented on one point of their strictures about elven marriage, perhaps they might be brought to see reason on another point?

Arafinwë frowned, but she could hear him silently requesting his sister join them.

It was not only Findë, but all the girls who came piling into the room.

Anairë looked nervous, Findë curious, Eärwen, torn – she dithered between taking her place with the others and going to Ara. All was not lost there, if Ara could but gather his courage.

Nerdanel was indifferent, as well she might be. Nothing that might be revealed here could hurt her any worse than she had already been. Elemmírë was not particularly concerned, but braced to support Findë come what may.

Indis fretted for a moment that she didn’t have adequate space cleared for all of them to sit, then with a glance at the still laden bed, swept all the clothes off of it into a heap and motioned for the girls to seat themselves, ignoring Ara’s worried “Ammë!” and Anairë’s gasp.

“If I am going to set matters straight, my darlings, I should like to tell it the once, and you might as well be comfortable for it,” she said firmly.

Ara hesitated for a moment, then cleared the chair nearest the fireplace and dragged it closer to the bed. Nerdanel sprang up to help him, sweeping items out of the way with a magnificent disregard for whose they were and whether or not they might be breakable.

The girls found places on the newly empty bed. Eärwen was at the foot, closest to Ara in his chair.

Indis waited until they had all settled in before she tried to find the way to begin, gazing into the portrait’s eyes – the painter had captured them so well, the spark and warmth – as if they were the real thing.

You would be delighted that we’re finally doing things our own way, she thought.

“As you see,” she began, “in tidying up, we found a portrait I thought lost. I hadn’t seen it since Fëanáro was newly born.”

She watched their eyes swivel to the portrait, taking it in with varying degrees of interest – sharpest from Elemmírë and Nerdanel, consternation from Findis, mild curiosity on Eärwen’s part, and what looked to be utter indifference from Anairë.

“I can’t think how it got in here, Ammë,” Findë said, unknowingly echoing her younger brother. “I hope it hasn’t upset you.”

“It has not,” Indis said firmly. “Quite the contrary. It has heartened me, and your brother was surprised to hear I wished it to remain in my room, and to be hung properly.”

Now they all looked lost – save for Elemmírë, whose expression had transformed from mere interest to something approaching smug

“You were all mates, then?” Elemmírë burst out. “My conclusion was correct?”

The other children looked at her in shock. Anairë’s jaw actually dropped open, as well it might, for she’d been begotten too late to have heard even whispers.

“My dear, for someone raised Vanyar, you are very Noldorin in your outlook,” Indis sighed. “Though I thank you for bringing us to the point so quickly – I would have built up to it gradually, but now the heart of it is out.”

“Your conclusion?” Findis sputtered, looking at her betrothed in shock.

Elemmírë looked a trifle wounded.

“You read the book,” she protested. “You missed that part?”

“I do not recall anything about my parents in it!” Findis retorted.

“Nor I,” Anairë said, “and unlike Findis, I read the galleys. The closest you came to the subject was hinting that sets of mates involving more than just two had existed before the completion of the Journey, and that…”

She trailed off, the expression she had so often worn when she realized too late what mischief Irissë intended making a rare reappearance.

“You were not plain about it,” Anairë said crossly. “You only hinted that such relationships were not unheard of, even among prominent elves. You didn’t say who.”

“I could hardly say flat out that the royal couple of the Noldor were properly a trio, and separated themselves only at the command of the Valar, could I?” Elemmírë demanded indignantly. “Not only were the few people who would speak to me on the subject unwilling to corroborate it openly, I had trouble enough printing that watered-down version. No one would have touched such heresy, not even in Alqualondë!”

“I wouldn’t say no one,” Eärwen said slowly. “Not by the time you were looking to publish. People had had time to think things over by then. And there’s more than a few there who remember life before the Journey.”

Indis looked at her in surprise. That sounded suspiciously as though Olwë or Súyelírë were angry with more than just Naro and those who had followed him.

“In fact,” Eärwen continued. “Now that you’re talking to an eyewitness who can confirm, if you wanted to issue a revised version, I believe I know a few others who might be willing to help you correct the record. And a press who would take it on if your usual printer declines.”

“I don’t think her usual printer will decline,” Anairë said, her voice silk and steel. “In fact, I think he’d be pleased to bring out a revised edition. Or an entirely new volume, if you prefer.”

“That’s all very marvelous,” Nerdanel put in. “But have you stopped to consider how different everything might have been had we known?”

Naro was the unspoken but shared thought.

“Why did you agree to it at all?” Anairë asked. “Why not just remain on the far side of the Sea if coming here meant splitting up?”

Indis laughed grimly.

“Valarin definitions of marriage and mates were not discussed when Finwë, Ingwë, and Olwë first visited. They returned to us impressed by what they had seen and experienced, and eager to return, though all for slightly different reasons. Ingwë had fallen in love with the Trees and Finwë told us privately he had to be convinced to return to share his view with the rest of our people.”

“I’m surprised they succeeded,” Elemmírë murmured. “He can be adamant when he’s set on something.”

“Finwë convinced him that if all three of them didn’t return, they’d never get the rest of us to agree to the journey,” Indis smiled. “Mind there’s no repeating that, my dears – that was shared in confidence, and only because I would appreciate how silly my brother was being!”

There were a few nervous giggles and a round of nods.

“Meanwhile, Finwë had been impressed by all that the Noldor could learn from the ainur – and with that inducement, it wasn’t difficult convincing most of them.”

“And Uncle Elu?” Eärwen asked curiously. “His reasons can’t be very strong if he went wandering off into the woods.”

“We don’t know what became of Elu,” Indis said sadly. “But he saw safety for his people here, a land where the Rider and his creatures could no longer prey on the Eldar.”

“Perhaps not the Rider,” Ara said resentfully. “But we were still prey to Morgoth, Naro most of all.”

“I trust they have seen the error of their ways as touches their kinsman,” Indis said with some asperity. “Though I hope Elu did not fall prey to anything. His brothers agreed between them who would stay to continue the search for him, and who would lead their people West.”

She looked at Eärwen.

“I can’t tell you how they decided, for we’ve never wished to press Olu on such a painful matter. But we were all relieved when your parents and people arrived – so many were afraid until they were finally here that they might change their minds and wait until Elu was found.”

“Some did change their minds when they reached the shores,” Eärwen said softly. “My mother’s brother among them.”

“I know,” Indis said sadly. “Perhaps they will join us one day.”

“And then what?” Nerdanel asked. “You got here and the Valar announced it was male-female pairs only from now on?”

“More or less,” Indis sniffed. “They dressed it up in kinder words. After all, they were ‘instructing’ us. But there was great dismay, given how many mates suddenly and unexpectedly had to part from each other. We were far from the only ones. But we were so prominent there was no dodging it – we couldn’t simply have one of us pretend to be a ‘family friend’ or ‘craft partner’. And with three, the arrangement some came to where a pair of mated neri would find a pair of mated nissi  and pretend that they were two couples in accordance with these new ‘laws’ wasn’t workable for us either.”

“They wouldn’t have let you get away with that, surely,” Elemmírë snorted. “As you said, you three were too prominent. If there’s anything the Noldor love more than craft, it’s gossip – tongues would have wagged non-stop about the King and Queen of the Noldor and sister of the King of the Vanyar.”

“Even the Noldor can hold their tongues when need be,” Indis pointed out gently. “I’ll wager you had a difficult time tracking down any of the pairs or quartets who simply appeared to comply.”

The consternation on Elemmírë’s face told her she had struck true.

“Then, of course, once they had declared the way things were to be, the Valar also strongly discouraged anyone talking about the way things had been before. With so many trying to work around these new laws and stay out of trouble, there was incentive to go along with them and not speak of it lest the younger generation start asking questions.”

“Sorry,” Elemmírë chuckled.

“You aren’t sorry in the least, and I don’t know that you should be,” Indis sighed.

“But you couldn’t at least hint to Fëanáro?” Nerdanel asked. “Or his siblings?”

“Given the strictures on the matter, and the concern that it would not be only ourselves we would be making trouble for, we tried not to speak of it in front of the children,” Indis sighed. “Finwë did correct Naro on occasion when he began speaking so pointedly of half-siblings. He was adamant that all of you were siblings, no half about it.”

She gathered up her courage, meeting the portrait’s eyes again before continuing.

“If you must blame someone, blame me – for it was my counsel that we not tell Fëanáro all even as an adult. I feared what might happen if we told him the whole truth. He was not one for secrets, and you know as well as I do he would not have kept silent. We had no idea what the reaction of the Valar would have been to us breaking their ruling.”

She paused.

“There was still Míriel to think of, as well.”

“But she’s not allowed to return,” Ara said in confusion.

“That didn’t mean she couldn’t be punished in other ways,” Indis said quietly. “Particularly as they were already unhappy with her for refusing to return. They did not understand it in the least – they only saw that she was not behaving as they thought she should. She saw it as equal parts protest and doing right by me. Especially as she did very much mean it about not bearing another child, and knew Finwë and I both hoped for more.”

“That’s another thing I still don’t understand,” Nerdanel said thoughtfully. “What happened to her in the first place? Fëanáro is – was – perfectly normal.”

All heads in the room turned to her in a spectrum of raised eyebrows at that statement.

“Oh, you know what I meant!” she snapped impatiently, reddening slightly. “Despite all those nasty rumors when we were young, it was clearly not his fault Míriel was so exhausted by bearing him. And I had no trouble with any of his children.”

“Obviously,” Eärwen muttered, only to flush as Ara looked at her with reproachful eyes.

Her youngest son might take anything she cared to dish out to him, but he’d still defend others. Perhaps, Indis reflected, he needed to stand up for himself as well.

She sighed.

“None of you ever knew Míriel. If you had, you would know she was a perfectionist. It showed primarily in her craft, but her public speaking, her public presentation – she was very determined to have things as she deemed they should be. Rather like the Valar, in her own way. That attitude could not harm her when it came to needlework, but it was not the best approach to childbearing.”

All the girls who had begotten children looked horrified as the implication sunk in.

“You mean to say…” Nerdanel whispered.

“She gave too much of her own spirit, thought, and inner fire, with insufficient support,” Indis said crisply.

If she had been there as she ought to have been, maybe it might have been enough. At the very least, she might have been able to talk sense into Míri. One did not create a child the same way one created a tunic or a tapestry!

But there was no way to know now. She had stayed away, obeying the ruling that a marriage was only two, male and female. She had visited as often as they had judged would not make trouble on that front, but that was not often enough or long enough. She had not been brave enough when bravery had been called for, or at least not soon enough. She and her youngest son had that in common.

“Míriel approached the gestation of her child as she would the making of one of her craft projects. But in doing so, she put herself under enormous pressure. With a child, there is no pulling it apart to rework if it does not turn out as intended.”

“Fortunately for Naro,” Anairë snorted. “Else I’d have tried it. With or without input from Queen Míriel.”

“I would not have allowed it,” Indis said firmly. “Kindly remember he is my son also.”

She might have failed him nearly as badly as Míriel and Finwë had, but there was no guidance on parenthood, even for ‘normal’ situations. For theirs… they had done their best with what felt like an impossible position.

“I’d say Lord Namo is doing the pulling apart and putting back together,” Findë said drily. “And protective as you may be, Ammë, it may do him good to finally deal with someone with authority who won’t hold back on telling him he’s out of line and been an ass to boot. And that’s before the murder and betrayal.”

There was a quiet ‘hear, hear’ from Eärwen’s direction – though she seemed to be scooching subtly closer to Ara.

“I think you underestimate his stubbornness,” Ara said, sounding for the first time in some years like the son she remembered, keeping his cool no matter how ridiculous his brothers were being. “I’d say we should probably wish Namo luck. He’ll need it.”

“Indeed. I’d say it will be quite a while before we see Fëanáro again,” Nerdanel said flatly.

Given how immovable Míriel had been when convinced she was in the right…

“All well and good, but he’s not the point,” Anairë said impatiently. “Now we know that there were three of them – if Míriel comes back, does that mean we have two Queen Mothers? Can she come back now? Seeing as Finwë is dead? I can’t see you trying to persuade her to bear again…”

Indis nearly laughed at the last.

“No, as we’ve grandchildren and great-grandchildren by now, the time of begetting children ourselves is firmly in the past. As to whether she can come back – I really have no idea. Only the Valar could answer that.”

“Possibly only Namo,” Ara added, looking to Findë.

“I will ask,” Findë said resolutely. “After what we’ve just heard, I think we’re owed a few answers. And as it’s already agreed that the elves will now order their personal affairs as elves see fit, I think it’s also fair to demand their statue about Atto and… it’s blasted odd to keep calling her Míriel now we know all this!”

Eärwen tittered, but stifled the laughter at once when Findë glared at her – which set Ara glaring in return.

“I suppose Amya would work?” Indis suggested. “We never got as far as discussing what Naro should call her. She was so unwell and already speaking of Lórien before he was old enough for first words.”

“Right,” Findë said, speaking firmly and slightly quicker than normal to pre-empt her younger brother. “They should rescind the ruling about Atto and Amya, allowing the possibility that all three of you could be alive and here.”

Amya had come out slightly awkward, but it was a good attempt. Indis appreciated the children being so willing to try. There had been so much friction between them Naro over her...

“Well,” Anairë said, something of her usual briskness returning. “That’s settled. Now we’re all here, I suppose we might as well pitch in with the tidying. And see about hanging that portrait up. It’s too nice to be leaning against a table like that. And too big. It’s meant to be viewed from slightly further away.”

“I think I know where there’s a frame that would fit it,” Eärwen offered. “It’s rather plain, but at least we could hang it up right away rather than wait to have one made to fit?”

They turned toward Findis, clearly expecting her to chime in.

“But…” Findë started to protest.

“There isn’t a blessed thing on your agenda that can’t wait a day or two,” Nerdanel told her bluntly. “Besides, even if you feel like you should go work, can you honestly say you’d be able to focus for thinking on this?”

“No,” Findë admitted. “But I might make a start on the letter to the Máhanaxar.”

“Leave that for tomorrow, when you’ve a cooler head,” Elemmírë suggested gently before Indis could do the same. “You’re rather angry with them at the moment, my heart. That doesn’t lead to a cool, logical case they can’t ignore.”

“But…” Findë tried again.

“Don’t you want to spend time with the rest of us, darling?” Indis asked. “We’d be so happy to have you. And I doubt Míriel’s portrait will be the only thing that has us trotting out stories.”