Fountain, Flower, Sword by Kenaz

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Chapter 2 - Glorfindel

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“You’re late.”

Glorfindel levied his statement without judgment, without any insinuation beyond a brow arched in curiosity. He himself had been none the worse for wear when they had parted ways for the evening, so he could only wonder at Ecthelion’s arrival at the training grounds, tardy, red-eyed, and drawn. He tucked away the letter he had been holding to offer a hand in greeting, but Ecthelion didn’t take it. He installed himself at Glorfindel’s shoulder, arms akimbo, and appraised the field.

“What have I missed?”

Glorfindel recognized the throaty burr that accompanied a lack of sleep. “Little as yet,” he replied.

Neither cold nor snow stayed the army from their practices.  With each passing year, the hour of reckoning grew nearer and more inevitable. Thus, Gondolin’s archers bent their bows, her axemen and swordsmen sparred, and her spearmen assailed their targets from afar. Other companies drilled in formation, or simply worked at tasks of strength and endurance to keep mind and body keen. Most bore memories of the Helcaraxë, and scars of their encounters with Morgoth’s hordes at Lammoth under the first rising of the moon. Others had been born to the lands harried by dark creatures for centuries before the Noldor had returned: Sindar from Nevrast and Dor-lómin sworn to Turgon, who had come out of Valinor with wealth and weapons far greater than their own. Another generation of warriors, Noldor and Sindar alike, had been born to the blade on the Hither Shores, seasoning their hands at the Dagor Aglareb, or in countless smaller skirmishes. Evil did not rest; nor did they.

“Rôg’s men are at the smithy,” Glorfindel said, ticking off a list on his fingers. “The archers have all left for the lists, save for some Egalmoth held in reserve to assist the bowyers and fletchers. Laiqalassë and his men are ranging in the vale; he holds we lay too much stake in the inviolability of the gates and ought place more men in the foothills and the plains.”

“He is right.”

“Salgant declined to put in an appearance because,” he shrugged, “well, he’s Salgant.”

“And he’s an ass,” Ecthelion muttered under his breath.

“Yes,” Glorfindel agreed, “he’s that as well. Why he even feigns an interest in martial affairs is beyond me.”

“Oh, because he wants to write songs about them,” Ecthelion grumbled. “He wants to pen heroic anthems to make lads tremble and ladies swoon. Well, that, and he found that his odes lacked verisimilitude when he couldn’t tell the blade of a sword from its butt.”

Glorfindel laughed, but he well knew that the matter was no mere jape, not to Ecthelion, and thus, not to him. Ecthelion, after all, had been born in Tirion to the House of the Silver Flute, not the House of the Fountain, and his reluctant sword-arm had been forged out of necessity and despair. The House of the Fountain had risen in Gondolin, built on a foundation of vengeance, and the calling of a charge was now his song. Glorfindel missed the clarion sweetness of Ecthelion’s singing voice, but Ecthelion no longer sang for him, not as he had in Valinor, and so he no longer asked.

Remembering the letter he carried, Glorfindel pushed his mawkish thoughts aside. “I’ve another bit of news, should you like to hear it.” He thought of his encounter with the eager young lad and allowed the ghost of a smirk to curl up one side of his mouth. “When I arrived this morning, someone was searching for you. He had a message to deliver, and was quite insistent that it be presented to you directly.” He held it up for Ecthelion to see, displaying the unremarkable paper and the broken wax seal bearing no device. “I told him he would have to wait. The impudent pup told me that, in that case, I could give it to you.” He feigned umbrage, and gave Ecthelion his most put-upon expression. “As if I’d nothing better to do than play messenger boy for you.”

“Clearly you hadn’t anything better to do,” came Ecthelion’s riposte. “And, of course, you opened it.”

Glorfindel shrugged.  “If he was so concerned about privacy, he should have waited for you.”

Ecthelion returned a wry glance. “And if it had contained sensitive information?”

“What, a love letter?” Glorfindel snorted. “Everyone knows the heart of Ecthelion is as cold as ice. Only the quest for retribution heats his blood.”  The words were delivered in jest, but he knew as soon as he heard them ringing from his mouth that he had failed to disguise the old bitterness that colored them.

Ecthelion did not gainsay the assessment.  He reached for the letter, but Glorfindel snatched back his hand, cleared his throat, and shook it open in a decisive gesture.

“My lord Ecthelion: I present myself to you in the hopes that I may serve you in your defense of Gondolin.”

Ecthelion groaned. “Tyros and hero-worship!”

“I am not of noble birth. I will bring little to your coffers.”

“Well, now my curiosity is piqued,” he snorted. “Do go on.”

“Yet though I lack means, I believe I possess qualities that will bring honor to your House.”

“They always believe that,” Ecthelion sighed, looking out  toward the patchy grass where a number of young men were loitering, waiting for instruction or dismissal.

Many youths of the city’s great houses grew bored with their lives of leisure or wished to win a portion of glory for themselves. But these were summer’s sons for whom Morgoth and his din-horde lived only in stories and songs. Easy enough to shake an empty fist at the sky and curse ill-done deeds behind the safety of seven gates in a valley hidden from care. But men’s spirits were tested and tempered in times of war, not in times of peace, and a captain might not know until it was too late that a man was irresolute, and such revelations came at great cost. Fortunately, many would-be heroes rescinded their pursuits once visions of glory gave way to the aching muscles and broken bones of hard training. The young man who thrilled to gallop across the Tumladen with a spear aloft, shouting ‘Gurth an Glamhoth!’ might find the practice of riding boot-to-boot at a sitting a trot at the crack of dawn with winter winds buffeting their faces more tedious than heroic. In the main, these men returned to their crafts or their studies, having wasted only their captains’ time and a their fathers’ money.  Each year, the cycle began anew.

“Bad enough we’re putting blades in the hands of boys,” Ecthelion said with quiet dismay, “but that they run to their fates so eagerly...”

“Well, should you care to know, I’ve sized up your tyro and he’s not a bad prospect. Withy as a green tree, perhaps a bit underfed, but broad of shoulder for one built so slight. Agile enough. I would wager he hasn’t yet reached his full stature. Perhaps you should see him before you dismiss him out of hand.”  He nodded toward a cluster of young men grappling enthusiastically on sodden turf gone nearly bald from their raucous play, a disorderly lot fuelled by a surplus of undirected energy. ”He’s over there now, hoping to catch your eye. “Elemmakil,” he called.

The scrum of puppies broke and one of the lads disentangled himself from his fellows and trotted eagerly toward them, his exertion revealed in the steam that rose from his plain but well-made jerkin. The knees of his breeches were damp and stained with mud and grass. He nodded briskly to Glorfindel as he approached, but to Ecthelion, he bowed deep.

“My lord, thank you for allowing me to impose upon you this morning.”

His smile was utterly guileless; his face beamed with the confidence of the untried, for whom all things yet seemed possible. Glorfindel knew that look, had seen it directed at himself on occasion from young men who thought to impress—or to woo. The wide eyes and flushed face suggested the latter, and Glorfindel might have felt a pang of jealousy had Elemmakil not been so terribly callow.

“Thank Lord Glorfindel,” Ecthelion said sharply. Too sharply. “He has allowed you to impose upon me this morning.” The sleepless pallor of his face had blanched even further, and his eyes were fixed and unblinking. Elemmakil cast a glance at Glorfindel, perhaps wondering if he were being mocked, and Glorfindel, now completely confounded, wondered just what fresh hell he had just called down upon the morning.

“Your note says you wish to serve me, in defense of the realm.” The words fell like a volley of shots.

The boy’s shoulders lifted in an incipient shrug, which he seemed suddenly to reconsider in light of Ecthelion’s piercing stare. He lifted his chin and looked straight ahead, as if he were already standing at attention for his captain.  “I do, my lord.”

“Your name is not known to me. Who is your father?”

“He is a stonemason, my lord.”

“Yet you do not wish to follow his path.”

“No, my lord.”

“Why? Because you lack the skill? Or perhaps the patience? Do you imagine you will make a better name or fortune for yourself by serving a lord rather than doing honest labor?”

Glorfindel felt the sting of Ecthelion’s words and their curt delivery as acutely as if a slap had been delivered to his own face. He wondered at his friend’s ill temper, for it was unlike him to be cruel.

For his part, young Elemmakil held his ground, though the shine had come off his smile. “A mason’s work is good and honest, but it is not the life for me. I wish to take up arms, and to serve my kingdom. And no, my lord, since you have asked, I do not think I possess the innate skill to match my father’s work. He says it is no shame for a man to own his shortcomings.”

“Why not apply directly to the king, then, if you are so highly motivated and so eager to climb above your station?”

The boy failed to rise to the provocation. “The House of the Fountain is a great and noble house, and by serving its lord, I will be serving my king.”

Either he is exceptionally resilient, Glorfindel thought, or exceptionally foolish.

“Ossë is revered among my people,” Elemmakil continued, “as the master of the fountains, you also do him honor.”

Oh, well played! Glorfindel smiled into his fist. If nothing else, the boy had spirit.

"A mason's son would be more suited to the House of the Hammer of Wrath." Ecthelion had crossed his arms across his chest, more flustered than truculent. “Have you ever even held a sword before? Or anything sharper than a sledge, for that matter?”

“No, my lord, but I learn quickly, and I—"

“Elemmakil, was it?  Excuse us for a moment.”

He took Glorfindel by the elbow and drew him aside. “No. Absolutely not. I will not have him.”

“I hardly understand what the poor boy’s done to raise your ire. So he’s bold; you can hardly claim he’s entirely unsuitable for what he proposes.”

“He’s a child. I will not truck in the destruction of children.”

Glorfindel threw back his head in exasperation. “We’ve had squires younger than he by far!”

“Those are practically ceremonial positions!” Ecthelion shot back. “We are beset by the young sons of upstarts who wish to improve their own standing. We dress them up in livery, teach them how to oil a blade, then send them running about to carry our messages or fetch our horses. It’s not as if we’d take them onto the field of battle with us.”

Glorfindel glanced over his shoulder where Elemmakil watched them steadily, fingers restively flexing and curling at his sides.  “Dismiss him now for his youth, he’ll only come return next year with greater determination,” he warned, “and he’ll be another year further behind in his training. You and I took up sword when we were not much older.”

“And look of what came of that!” Ecthelion bit out the words with a venom barely repressed.Ah, Glorfindel thought. There it is. He reached out and laid a steadying hand on Ecthelion’s arm. He could feel the heat and strength of the man’s bicep even through thick layers of leather and wool. The nameless ache he ceaselessly nursed rose up within him, and his touch lingered longer than perhaps it should have. “We cannot go back, Ecthelion. We can only go forward.”

Ecthelion closed his eyes and, after a moment, sighed. “Yes, fine. But we can go forward without him.”

“If that is your will. I maintain that your concerns are unwarranted.” Feeling Ecthelion begin to pull away, he gave his arm a final squeeze and grinned. “When you find yourself short a swordsman and the city has begun sprouting leaning towers, I will know where to lay the blame.”

They returned to where Elemmakil stood, looking very much like a convicted man awaiting his sentence. Ecthelion was kind enough at least to deliver it quickly and cleanly.

“I have taken your interest under advisement, but I must decline. I must direct my attentions toward the skilled men already in my service; I cannot take on a youth without experience.”

Glorfindel had to credit the boy, his expression barely changed; but though his face remained resolute, he saw gutting disappointment in the barely perceptible sag of his shoulders, the slight deflation of his chest as he released his breath, the brief flicker of his eyes toward the ground.  

“Go back to your father’s house, Elemmakil.” Ecthelion’s voice was gentler now. “Learn his trade. If you truly hold me in esteem, you will consider my judgment: a mason’s life may not be an adventurous one, but it is a long one. Take it.”

Slowly, Elemmakil nodded. “Thank you, my lord, for your consideration.  It would have been a great honor to serve you.”  He bowed once more, then turned, squaring his shoulders as if by his carriage alone he could withdraw with pride intact.

“Elemmakil, wait.” Glorfindel couldn’t help himself; he was touched by the young man’s dignity. “Ecthelion speaks truly: you have little to recommend you, save sheer strength of will. Yet I will take you on in my service for one year.”  He turned to Ecthelion, whose face had gone stark white. “I will train him. If I deem him worthy, I will allow him to petition you again in a year’s time.  If you think he still does not suit, I will find a place for him in some capacity in my own House.”  He turned back to Elemmakil. “I make no promises; you must prove your worth, nor will you importune the Lord of the Fountains, nor seek his judgment without my endorsement. And I will not go easy on you.”

Elemmakil’s eyes widened, and for a moment he seemed lost for words. “I know I am not as highly bred as some of your men, Lord Glorfindel, but I learn quickly and I never tire.”

Glorfindel cocked an eyebrow. “Never tire? Bold words. That sounds distinctly like a challenge. As it happens, I am fond of challenges.”

The boy made no attempt to repress his grin then, and it flared across his face with all the brightness of a summer’s sun. “Thank you, my lord.”

Yet though he addressed Glorfindel, it was Echtelion’s gaze he sought, grey eyes twinkling with delight. “I will not disappoint you.”  Glorfindel knew for whom the words had been meant.

Having received his instructions, Elemmakil sprang off like a deer. Glorfindel watched his departure with a sense of goodwill, and a feeling of certainty that his instincts had not misled him in his actions.  So it came as a sobering shock when he noticed Ecthelion looking at him, utterly grim of face, his glaze cold and sharp as the peaks of the Crissaegrim.

And if Glorfindel found his expression distressing, his words were doubly so.

“Damn you, Glorfindel. Damn you.”