The Sentiment of Steel by Kenaz

“Shall we?”

Ecthelion knew that particular gleam of mischief in Glorfindel’s eye, and it rarely boded well. “What, here?”

“Of course, here! The wind in our faces, the sun in our eyes—”

“—the looks of absolute horror from unarmed women taking their postprandial strolls.” Ecthelion shook his head, but the insistent tattoo of Glorfindel’s fingers against the grip of his sword suggested that the decision, however ill-advised, had been made. “The salle would have been more appropriate.”

“The salle from which we have just come?” Glorfindel grinned. “Ah, yes. But I drew Gílarth’s name this evening, and you didn’t lift a blade at all; you were too busy grappling with Aphadon. Besides, there are too many pandering novices in the salle.”

“Mm. Like Aphadon, you mean?”

Glorfindel chuckled. “You noticed?”

Ecthelion had more than noticed. Always first to hand Glorfindel his sword, first to fetch him water, first to offer to rub him down afterward, the young man’s eyes glazed over every time Glorfindel stepped into his line of vision. Ecthelion had used far more force than was strictly necessary to pin him in their bout today. He’d felt a nip of compunction for it afterward, but not so much that he would refrain from offering a similar pummeling in the future, if the opportunity presented itself.

“You oughtn’t encourage his attentions,” Ecthelion warned.

Glorfindel waved away his concern. “I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss him. Give him a few years, he’ll be a valuable swordsman.

“Oh, they’re all still feeling their oats, that lot,” he added, referring to the rabble recently come of age and taking tutelage with Turgon’s captains.

“Our swordsmen are brasher creatures than Duilin’s archers, or Galdor’s clubmen. The sword disinclines them toward patience and makes them overeager for glory.”

“As were we, once,” Glorfindel reminded him. “As we are now, if we’re honest, my friend.” He chucked Ecthelion’s shoulder. “They’re also likely to put coin on any match between you and I. Or hadn’t you noticed that speculating on our relative strengths is a popular pastime in the changing room? I don’t feel like performing for a crowd tonight, nor for lightening anyone’s purse.”

Ecthelion laughed. “You assume you’ll win?”

“I didn’t say who’s purses would come away lighter,” he said with a grin, swatting Ecthelion’s backside with the flat of his sword. “What say you then? Here. Just you and I.”

“Just you and I? We’re in the middle of the Great Market!”

“Come, it’s evening, and the stalls have been shuttered. Or perhaps you don’t fancy a public drubbing...”

They had danced this dance for as long as Ecthelion could remember, and it rarely took more than the simplest of goading to engage him. He had drawn his sword before Glorfindel had even finished his salvo, for as much as he feigned resistance, Ecthelion had never doubted he would find himself in exactly the position he did now.

The song of their blades startled the flock of birds who had been pecking at crumbs in front of a baker’s stall, and the ring and clang of steel was briefly muted by a great flapping of wings. They advanced and retreated, each man knowing the other’s gambits as well as his own, both the attacks on the blade and the taking of steel, as they crossed the market square once, twice, thrice, ceding ground and taking it back. Now and then, a passer-by stopped to gawp, but as the dinner hour was upon them, the market was largely deserted, and most continued on their way after a moment or two and left them to it.

A charge, a feint. Ecthelion’s arm was a steel spring, coiled for the explosive thrust. Glorfindel’s expression was rapt as he parried; his predatory focus struck terror in his foes, but here it merely brought Ecthelion’s eagerness: what stratagem would he employ? What new maneuver might he introduce? Neither cared a whit who claimed the victory, only that each could continue to surprise the other with their speed and ingenuity. Disengage-attack. Ceding-parry: a bend and twist of the hand at the wrist, a contra-tierce so smooth he knew even Glorfindel could scarcely recover. A feint followed by a quickening of his rhythm and a swift change of engagement, and Glorfindel’s glinting eyes were looking up the edge of Ecthelion’s blade.

“Well done.” He raised his own blade in salute before sliding it home in its scabbard.

Ecthelion, glowing with his success, sheathed his own sword with a flourish. A flourish which gave Glorfindel just enough time to duck in under his guard and dive toward him, landing them both with a grunt. Ecthelion cried foul, but too late: Glorfindel had already gotten him on his knees and pulled his arm up behind him, leaving Echthelion little choice but to grab a handful of the feckless bastard’s trouser leg to pull him off balance. Like so many of their dances, what was begun in grace and dignity had taken a turn for the ridiculous.

Cackling until he coughed, Glorfindel swiveled and caught Ecthelion up in a headlock. Ecthelion responded by pinching Glorfindel’s thigh above the knee in the hope of making it buckle. An unorthodox tactic, but one which showed great promise one until an indignant outcry stalled their amusement.

“Oh. Good evening, Salgant.” Glorfindel delivered the greeting so blandly that had one not been looking, one would never have imagined he stood gripping another man’s head in a choke-hold. Ecthelion would have laughed if he could have breathed.

The harpist stood with his squat hands on his squat hips, wearing a masterful expression of distaste which Ecthelion found ironic, considering the man clearly had never tasted anything he disliked.

“Does the king know his two most vaunted captains are causing a ruckus with live steel in the marketplace?” He wielded the word like a cudgel, as if he might beat them with his offended sensibility.

“Perhaps you should inform him in song. Ecthelion, what rhymes with ruckus?”

Ecthelion choked on his laughter.

“Oh, that does rhyme, doesn’t it! Positively epic and overtly obscene. Your adoring throngs will weep.”

“My adoring throngs expect more of me than cheap titillation and vulgarity. Which is more than can be said of you, humping each others’ legs like dogs in the middle of the square.”

Glorfindel lightened his grip and allowed Ecthelion to stand. “Ecthelion, what rhymes with ‘humping dogs’?”

“Er...jumping frogs?”

“Delightfully bestial.”

Salgant rolled his eyes and pursed his lips. “Well, I, for one, shall sleep more soundly tonight knowing our city is in such sagacious and qualified hands. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an engagement.”

“Oh, an engagement! Splendid! We shan’t keep you, then.” He waved Salgant away with a flippant gesture while Ecthelion buried his mirth in his sleeve. It didn’t do to laugh directly at Salgant, unless one didn’t mind finding oneself the subject of a scathing verse shortly thereafter. Glorfindel was already the subject of at least four; he appeared to count it as some sort of backwards honor.

Salgant made a noise of a man put-upon. "I’m certain I will regret mentioning this, but I will be hosting a night of my new compositions a few weeks hence. I shall be inviting the Lady Idril and other members of the court.”

“I suppose,” he sighed, “it would behoove me to have all of Gondolin’s great houses represented. Perhaps you could even play for us, Ecthelion. During the intermission.”

Ecthelion coughed, and Glorfindel clapped him on the back.

“I'll have my man deliver formal invitations if you promise to wash first.” He looked Ecthelion up and down. “You're rank."

And as Salgant no doubt intended, Ecthelion bristled. "A man who has never broken an honest sweat in his life has little business remarking on those us who grow ‘rank’ training to defend it.”

“Not all of us must make our living with brawn.” His round shoulders rose and fell in an elegant shrug. “Some of us require only our wit.”

"He's digging his grave with his mouth, that one," Ecthelion grumbled as the man strode out of earshot.

"Yes, though one wonders: will it be what he puts into his mouth that does him in, or what comes out of it?"

Their bout decidedly a draw, they fell in side by side, ambling through the city as twilight deepened into evening, their forms painting lithe shadows on the white stones as they took the most indirect path to their homes. Their matched strides brought them so close together that now and again their arms or hips would brush against one another, and perhaps there would be the catch—ah!— of breath.

This, too, was a dance they had danced for as long as Ecthelion could remember.

But where courage and stamina never failed him on the field or before a foe, his valor in this was not equal to the task. Filial duty and an ill-conceived promise took on the shape of cowardice, much as a shadow might cast simple tree-limbs into sinister forms. Arms brushed, breaths caught, they danced their dance as nimbly as they fenced with their steel… but nothing more.

The moment passed, it always did, and careless conversation made safe the dangerous gaps.

"Rôg's shorn himself again."

"I'd noticed." It would have been impossible not to notice the tight crops of the smith and his men in a court tangled with a surfeit of gleaming tresses. The House of the Hammer of Wrath presented an arresting, if menacing, aspect.

"I asked him about it. He gave me that strange, gimlet look of his and said, 'In the mines, you'd want nothing for Him to grab.' His words unnerved me so, I had half a mind to follow suit!"

Glorfindel’s shining mane played as merrily with moonlight as it did with sun or torch; Ecthelion resisted the urge to wend his fingers through it. "Yet I see vanity won out over practicality."

"Yes, well..."

Ecthelion hadn’t noticed they had reached his door. Glorfindel lingered beside him at the threshold, looking somehow discomposed.

“I’ll be rather alone tomorrow, by the by, and I wondered—” He stopped, gave a deprecatory chuckle, and began anew. “I’ve given the household leave to attend the spring festival. I thought perhaps, if you were inclined, we might dine together.”

Yes, he knew this dance of theirs all too well. But then, Glorfindel didn’t usually dismiss his household prior to extending him an invitation. When he said nothing, Glorfindel, with a mere shade of his usual aplomb, tumbled further into the breach. “If you’d like, that is. If it is convenient. My cooking may not impress, but you know my cellars.” He smiled, disarmingly. Glorfindel’s smiles always disarmed.

“I… well, yes. Of course I would.”

“Very well, then. Until then.”

As he closed the door on Glorfindel’s brilliant grin, he couldn’t help but feel that he had just made either a portentous decision, or an enormous mistake. 

A storm had begun to gather. The dark menace lingered at the northeastern ridge of the Echoriath, the sort whose violent path one could trace by degree across the level plains until the clouds burst over the city. A hint of ozone hummed pungently in the air, and the birds had all gone silent. In the aftermath, they would reconvene and sing of the rains while the city’s stones gave off a warm, wet scent presaging Summer.

Ecthelion deliberated over what to wear with the furious indecision of a maid before a ball. Not even Salgant, he grumbled aloud, would devote this much attention to his trousers. Nothing too fussy or formal, something that looked considered, but not too considered. And nothing that would show a stain. An exercise in absurdity when he considered Glorfindel had already seen him in every piece of clothing he possessed, to say nothing of seeing him fouled with dirt, stained with blood, and ripe with sweat.

Manners dictated that he abort his first attempt at departure; he had forgotten to bring wine. Not that they often made gifts to each other, formalities between them had years ago been eschewed, but this was not an ordinary invitation, and he did not wish to treat it as such. And while he well knew what treasures stocked Glorfindel’s cellars, his own were impressive in their own right, and if they lacked in scope, they compensated in the desirability of his vintages. He returned home, chose a red he had brought from Nevrast and had been saving for some unspecified celebration, and with a last adjudicating glimpse of himself in the looking glass in the front hall, set out once more. A neat card bearing an illuminated harp sat poised on a salver by his door. If paper could look either eager or pompous, Salgant’s invitation looked both. Well, a reply would wait; he rather liked making Salgant wait.

He stood for a moment inside the damascened gates of the grand house before raising his hand to knock on its immense and graven door. His knuckles had barely grazed the wood before it swung open.

Evidently, he had not been alone in taking great pains with his wardrobe: Glorfindel appeared in the doorway in an ivory shirt with a carmine tunic embroidered in gold, and cross-gartered trousers to set off the musculature of his legs to their best possible advantage. His unbound hair, washed and oiled, gave off a living glow like Glingal’s leaves.

“Welcome,” he said, gesturing Ecthelion inside and accepting his bottle. Ecthelion wished he had chosen a white; his throat was parched, his chest was tight, and he didn’t think either of them would had the patience to allow the current bottle to decant. They made desultory conversation while they waited, and once a glass was offered, Ecthelion was quick to drink it.

Dinner was a rather more impressive affair than Ecthelion had expected; Glorfindel had outdone himself with the bird, and selected a delicious array of fruits and cheeses. The wine, at long last, began to do its work in earnest, and conversation resumed a comfortable flow. Over dessert— a fruit tart from the very baker in front of whose stall they had lately caused such a ruckus—they removed to the sitting room and indulged in brandy and idle gossip.

“I hear Celír the saddler has affianced himself,” Ecthelion mentioned casually. “I think his lady drew a line in the sand, and he determined to seize the opportunity before he lost it.”

“Ah, marriage. Ecthelion’s favorite topic.” Glorfindel’s expression had an avidity about it that made Ecthelion feel like hare in the gaze of a hound. “And yet, you do not so often speak of it now.”

“I suppose I don’t, no.”

“Nor have I ever known you to actually court any ladies. Is there none who catches your eye, then?”

A dangerous question. Had Glorfindel phrased it differently, he would have answered readily, for he could have said in honesty no woman had caught his eye.

"When I think of marriage,” he began carefully, “I think of my father. Of his devastation-- and my own-- when my mother and brother perished crossing of Helcaraxë. Or else I recall the bitter parting of my grandsire and his wife when she announced she would sooner be estranged from him than rebel against the Valar. Such things do not make the institution appealing. And yet my father wished me married soonest, all the same."

Glorfindel, fingers steepled against his lips, nodded.

He traced the rim of his glass with his fingers, and the glass sang a clear, reverberating note. His father had taught him that trick when he was a child, when the flute had ruled his heart, and not the sword, and when he had favored the making of music over the making of dynasties. After their treacherous crossing, he had not played his flute again, nor sang, nor ever laughed with joy. Ecthelion lifted his finger; the note trailed away.

He knew it best not to ask, not to propel the conversation further down its current path, but the silence tormented him, needling him with its emptiness. “What of you, then?”

Ecthelion did not have to see Glorfindel step toward him to feel the vibrations of his presence, as if the storm fomenting in the mountains had penetrated the walls. Glorfindel’s glass rattled when he set it down, the slightest tremor in his hand, the hand that was then upon his cheek.

“Can you not guess?”

His breath was sweet; Ecthelion could smell the cloves beneath the wine. Of course Glorfindel would be mindful of even the smallest of details. He could hear the thundering of a heart but could not discern whether or not it was his own. All he had to do was let his eyes fall closed and let his breath catch—ah!— and the dance would irrevocably change.

“Ah…”

Glorfindel’s mouth was hot as fire, by turns demanding and yielding. It should not have surprised him that they were as well matched in this as they were in their swords. They matched each other strength for strength, each anticipating the other, each advancing and retreating, disarming with an unexpected touch, or a whimper of satisfaction. Only the most necessary words were spoken now.

“Have you—?” Glorfindel’s breath was a gentle wind in his ear, promising wonders.

“Once.”

“Come.”

They stumbled up the stairs, laughing when they fell together and clambered again to their feet long enough to propel themselves into Glorfindel’s suite, leaving a trail of discarded clothing in their path, the detritus of the oncoming storm.

A lamp flickered on the bedside table, illuminating the golden embroidery on the coverlet, warming the smooth, dark curves of the mahogany bedstead. The mattress gave under his weight when Glorfindel pressed him backward. That gleaming gaze, both predatory and adoring, held him motionless, like the swordsman who finds himself pinned at the throat by his opponent’s perfect strike. Ecthelion watched the last of Glorfindel’s clothing fall away, and took in the full measure of him, naked and glorious. And yet, he did not approach. Even now, he left Ecthelion an avenue of escape. The swordsman’s invitation, Ecthelion thought: deliberately exposing himself to his opponent to induce the attack.

Inexperience did not stay him, nor lack of desire. What restrained him now was the knowledge that he would find himself forsworn. But in the end, need overwhelmed him, and he extended his hand.

Their bodies fit as if they had been made for such a purpose, legs twining, dark hair tangling into gold. He could hear the rasp of changing breath when he took Glorfindel in hand, could feel the shift of muscle beneath the skin, and then he was caught in Glorfindel’s restless grip, and all thought and reason fell away.

Afterward, Ecthelion did not sleep.

The guttering lamp gave off just enough light to see the lines and angles of Glorfindel’s body on the bed beside him. Softened and vulnerable in sleep, curled on his side, one arm dangling limp over the bed. He slept, Ecthelion thought, the sleep of the well-loved and well-wearied, the sleep of a man who has gone to his rest knowing he possessed everything he might wish for. The realization landed like a blow. He had imagined, had hoped, that if he gave vent to this longing, he might find himself satiated, and could then move on to the proper order of things, to the obligation that bound him. But, no. It had simply driven the desire deeper.

Precariously poised on the bleeding edge of manhood, he had been invited to perform at a festival of musicians in Tirion. He had taken a prize for a composition he had written and played on his flute. Moreover, he had caught the eye of a man from Avallónë, the very sort of minstrel maturity and common sense would have warned him against. But possessing little of either quality at that age, Ecthelion found him completely irresistible. He had plied Ecthelion with unwatered wine and taught him far more than sea-songs of the Lonely Island. He had woken in the night to find the man gone, and his own purse with him, and could not even afford to settle the bill for his lodgings. He had given his flute to the innkeeper for collateral and sent word to his brother, begging for both assistance and secrecy. His brother had arrived the next morning, paid the innkeeper, and retrieved Ecthelion’s flute. Upon hearing the tale in full, he had laughed himself puce and remarked it was a good thing Ecthelion was the second son, and not to worry, he’d happily breed enough heirs for them both.

But his brother had not lived to bring forth his promised fruits; he floated forever with their beloved mother in the black and lightless waters beneath the Grinding Ice.

A follower of Finwë in Valinor, his grandsire then pledged his sword to Fingolfin and took his entire family— save his unwilling wife— across the ice in his service. He had died as he had lived, the High King’s man: the Glorious Battle had not been glorious for all. It followed, then, that his own father would serve Fingolfin's son, and in time he grew high in Fingon’s esteem and numbered in the elite ranks of his personal guard. But the grief of loss had opened a fissure between father and son as impassable as fracturing ice, and for all his efforts to prove his own worth, never did they regain the closeness Ecthelion had so treasured as a carefree child in Valinor. And so he sought freedom from his anguish through the only egress open to him, by leaving Fingon’s service, one younger son offering his sword to another.

Ecthelion's father had tolerated his defection, but not before extracting the price of their parting in a promise. Now, in the dark, Ecthelion could hear his voice: “Go thou, then, with Turgon, if thou wouldst, knowing we two may not meet again. Pledge him thy sword and thy fealty. But you alone of our kin must be as the roots to the family tree, for you alone survived to do so. Establish thine own house, and by this all shall know now and ever after, our blood has served the descendants of the righteous line of Finwë, and not the tainted line of Feanor!”

I will, he had answered. I swear it. The short-sighted eyes of youth failed to fathom how the echo of his words would come to weigh upon him like a millstone. Thus always the Noldor, he thought, are held for ransom by unwise oaths.

“You have regrets.”

He had not realized Glorfindel had been awake, but of course he was. His hand perched light as a bird on Ecthelion’s hip.

“We should not have...I should not have...”

Glorfindel sat up and pulled up the sheets around his hips. “What?” he asked warily. “Say what you would.”

Ecthelion’s limbs had become leaden, his skin too taut across his chest. “I erred,” he said thickly. “I made a vow to marry and establish our family here. That was the cost of following Turgon, of following you. My father asked it of me, and I gave him my word.”

“You might have mentioned this before.”

“You knew. You have always known.”

“Yet you just said you were not considering marriage. You said this tonight, knowing what I wished of you. Unless you plan to feign ignorance.”

Ecthelion shook his head, morose. “No. Of course not.”

“And yet,” Glorfindel continued, “this vow did not stop you before we reached my bed. But now that I have made a fool of myself, you have decided quite suddenly to consider it again. Or is it that having tasted what I offer, you desire it no more?”

Ecthelion still said nothing. Wracked with shame, he kept silent, and damned himself further. The temperature in the room had dropped precipitously.

“Ah.” Glorfindel turned away and swung his legs off the bed. “I see.” He hunched forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs. His hair hung long and tangled, curtaining off his face from view. “Well, then. I am sorry to have offended you. I had not intended to endanger your oath.”

“I am sorry, Glorfindel. I should have thought my actions through.” Lunge and thrust.

Glorfindel’s back rose and fell as he drew in a breath and deflated. “I think it would be best if you left.”

Ecthelion picked out his clothing from Glorfindel’s, following the trail of discarded shirts and trousers out of the bedroom and into the rooms beyond. The absurdity of it might have been humorous, if it hadn’t been so humiliating. He dressed hurriedly and departed like a thief.

Crossing the plaza in the dark reminded him once more, and with stinging clarity, of the assignation with the minstrel in his youth and all the shame he had felt in its wake. With one important difference: then, he had been ashamed because he had been played for a fool. Now, it was he who had played another false, whether he had intended it or no.

The rain that had threatened all evening was upon him before he reached home.

Ecthelion had behaved badly; of that, he was all too well aware. But for all his skills and knowledge, he hadn’t the slightest idea how to mend the damage he had inflicted: years spent keeping free from entanglements, of evading and parrying, had left him without any useful skills in this arena. He’d gone once to Glorfindel’s house to make a formal apology, but had been so brusquely informed that the master of the house was not in that he wondered if Glorfindel’s staff had been tasked with delivering a kind and comfortable lie in order to spare both of them the awkwardness of a meeting. He avoided the training salles until Galdor took him to task for his absence, and then he arrived as late as possible, avoiding the fencing arena entirely, only to watch Glorfindel depart with Aphadon quick at his heels.

Aphadon, even in flight, had looked rather too satisfied.

Meanwhile, a simple word dropped in the right ear lead to a deluge of invitations, and to the lords and ladies of Turgon’s court assailing him with an endless parade of eligible daughters. Unmarried women of age, audacity, and means took matters into their own hands and called on him themselves, toting their married friends along to chaperone. Some were pert and charming, others were lovely yet facile, but no woman’s virtue was ever imperiled in his company: their pliance and softness simply served to remind him of their opposite.

Yet while he had seen little of Glorfindel himself, the man clearly hadn’t been licking his wounds behind closed doors. Not that Ecthelion would have imagined such a bold creature cloistering himself away.

"For a man who single-mindedly dedicates himself to the martial arts, he is now giving his suitors the same zealous attention!" Elemmakil remarked after one of Glorfindel’s swift withdrawals from the salle, "Particularly Aphadon, there. I hadn’t known his interest lay in that direction."

Ecthelion had excused himself from the conversation, not wishing to hear anything more on the matter.

But Salgant's party, and Glorfindel’s presence there, could not be avoided. He had long since lost interest in attending, but he had given his word— proving once again that a promise given tended always to end badly. Many hints had been dropped in the week prior by a number of his new feminine acquaintances mentioning ever-so-casually that they wished to attend, but lacked a proper escort. Ecthelion alternately feigned deafness and ignorance, then went to the party alone.

He arrived too late for fashion, but not so late as would give offense. The entertainment— a clever musical farce both written by and featuring the host, of course— was already well underway, sparing him any pointed remarks about his tardiness.

His stomach clenched and his heart constricted the moment he entered Salgant’s great hall. Glorfindel shone like the sun, his radiance making all else in the room appear colorless and dull. He wore his richest tunic, a jeweled dagger hung from a finely-tooled belt and rested at his hip. His height and broad shoulders gave him the presence of an ancient hero.

Aphadon was close at his side, the young blossom yearning toward the sun and greedy for its radiance. Ecthelion noted how often the young man touched him when he laughed, or at any other occasion he could. He had even garlanded his dark hair with celandine, which Ecthelion felt was a particularly egregious bit of foppery. He rolled back his shoulders and forced himself to loosen his fingers before they became fists.

He spotted Rôg and his shaved pate standing apart by a table of meats and cheeses and took root there.

“This corner is my territory,” Rôg said by way of greeting. He popped a piece of cheese in his mouth.

“I feel hard pressed to mingle this evening. I hope you don’t mind company. I promise not to talk much.”

Rôg chuckled and gestured at a platter of fruit. “Be my guest. Who are you avoiding? If it’s Salgant, don’t worry: he’s preoccupied with his fawning admirers.”

Ecthelion sighed. “Salgant is the least of my concerns.”

But Rôg, canny as he was strange, followed the line of his gaze and surmised all. “Ah. Glorfindel and his tart.”

Ecthelion frowned at him, but Rôg just shrugged and turned back to the cheese. But though he tried, Ecthelion could not keep himself from following the pair as they made their circuit of the room.

Once the entertainments ceased, Glorfindel and Aphadon scuttled out one of the side doors, and though he loathed himself for it, Ecthelion followed. Their path was not difficult to discern; Glorfindel had not bothered to hide it. He found them cloistered together in an alcove in the hallway leading toward Salgant’s garden. Glorfindel’s arm was looped around the young man’s waist, and the stars in the boy’s eyes could have lit up the night sky.

He had no right to his anger, and even less to his jealousy. And yet he was both. Miserably so.

Glorfindel must have known full well he had followed. He brushed Aphadon’s hair back from his shoulder, and Aphadon canted his head to reveal the arch of his neck. Ecthelion’s heart climbed into his throat. He forced himself to remain silent, though every nerve in his body wished to roar. Glorfindel’s gaze flicked up and locked with Ecthelion’s. His expression betrayed nothing— neither guilt nor guile, and certainly not surprise. Nor, however, did he make any further movement toward Aphadon.

Ecthelion cleared his throat and Aphadon startled, his cheeks reddening.

"Leave us."

Ecthelion's eyes were fixed on Glorfindel, but his tone left no question as to whom he addressed. Aphadon looked to Glorfindel for direction, but none was forthcoming. He attempted and failed a look of defiance; once the sun had turned away, Ecthelion mused unkindly, the little flower had fallen into shadow.

"Now," he snapped, and Aphadon retreated.

“You trespass, Ecthelion.” Despite his golden demeanor, his voice was all ice.

“And you certainly recovered your spirits swiftly enough.”

Glorfindel’s laugh was as sharp and brittle as a shard of broken glass. "It is none of your concern. You made your interest— or, rather, your lack thereof—ineluctably clear.”

The rumble and clack of a closing door made both of them turn. There stood Rôg, looking somehow both irritable and amused.

“Fight or fuck, lads,” he grunted. “I don’t care which, but whatever it is between you, sort it soonest. Glorfindel, that tart of yours is running his mouth about a duel between the two of you over his honor. I needn’t warn you what will happen if Salgant catches wind of it, except to say that it will probably rhyme. I daresay Turgon won’t be pleased to hear of it, either.”

Ecthelion blew out a breath of exasperation. “You would wield my promise as a cudgel!” He snapped through gritted teeth, trying to ignore Rôg’s sardonic expression. “I have tried to apologize, but you have avoided me at every turn, and you parade your little paramour in my face to punish me for remaining faithful to my word." His anger and frustration rose with his voice. "Do you feel better now? For I know I don’t!”

“Say what you will of him, at least he didn’t squander his youth in honorable chastity." Glorfindel gave him a hard-edged smile that stopped short of his eyes. "There’s a great deal to be said for experience and an inventive spirit. Your poor bride, whoever she may be, will very well find herself wishing for as much.”

The surge of blood to Ecthelion’s head was swift and unabating, and the echo of it pounded in his ears. Before courtesy or common sense or anything else could stop him, Ecthelion drew back and let loose with a punch that connected squarely with Glorfindel’s jaw and sent him reeling and sliding down the polished marble of the hall.

Glorfindel, ever the warrior, recovered in an instant, leaping up from the floor and lunging toward him, a fierce perversion of their usual playful tussles, but Rôg jumped between them and held them apart. He alone, perhaps, possessed strength enough to keep them from ripping each other limb from limb, but it was less his might that kept their fists at bay than his presence alone, an inescapable reminder to both of them that their unseemly behavior had been witnessed.

Rôg eyed at each of them with disdain. “Had enough?”

Ecthelion shook him off and put up his hands, storming down the hall without looking back.

Turgon’s summons came early the next morning. Ecthelion’s head and belly reeled with the effect of too much wine, and his fist throbbed with the effect of Glorfindel’s hard head. He rushed through perfunctory ablutions and put on his surcoat blazoned with the sigil of the Great Fountain. If he was to receive a dressing down for his unbecoming behavior, he preferred to do it looking as respectable as possible.

To his surprise, he found all of Turgon’s captains and advisors had been summoned, but relief was short-lived and displaced by a growing sense of unease.

Glorfindel stood at a distance, his face turned away. A dark bruise shadowed the squared line of his jaw. The heat of embarrassment suffused Ecthelion's cheeks, and he looked to the floor.

Turgon, rigid in his great-chair, was staring at something he alone could see and tapping a small scroll absently its arm. Only when the last of his footmen backed out of the room and shut the door did he look up, and then his gaze fell on none of them in particular.

“I have had word from my brother.”

He held out the scroll to his nephew, who passed it to Egalmoth without looking at it. The tensing of his jaw in an otherwise shuttered expression suggested he knew already the story it held. Egalmoth’s sharp intake of breath, however, gave away as much as Maeglin's inscrutabilty withheld. Glorfindel scanned it quickly, then looked up at him, his expression gentle, considering. That alone was enough to send a tendril of dread creeping through Ecthelion's veins. As the scroll passed from hand to hand, he set his mind to imagining what it might contain. In the end, the few short sentences proved even worse than he had feared: the Union of Maedhros was marching to war, and with them went Fingon’s army.

And with Fingon’s army went his father.

"Ten thousand men I will bring to my brother’s aid. Our armies, and those of our allies, have been greatly weakened. Yet I fear this will be our final chance to fight Morgoth far from our own lands.” His eyes unfocused once more. “My heart tells me that if we do not take the battle to him, he will soon bring it to us.”

Glorfindel cleared his throat. “Sire. Ten thousand men. We cannot possibly move an army without exposing our position.”

Turgon nodded. “Yes. I fear Gondolin cannot long remain hidden. And yet, still we shall go. Maeglin, you have agreed to marshall a portion of my troops.”

Maeglin dipped his dark head. “Yes, Uncle.”

Propelled on a tide of helpless desperation, Ecthelion stepped forward. “Sire, I ask leave to come with you. My father guards your brother’s life; I will fight for him as well as for my king.”

Turgon looked at him sharply but did not answer. The silence bore down on the room like a blanket of lead.

“My liege, I, too, would serve you in this.” Glorfindel stepped forward, and though he kept his gaze averted, he added, “Ecthelion and I have trained for years together, and have fought side by side. We know each others’ ways in battle.”

Turgon shifted his weight to lean back in his chair, looking first to one of them, then the other. “It is well you have offered, for this service is what I would have of you.

"Galdor, Duilin, Egalmoth, I leave the city in your hands. Take counsel with my daughter, for she knows my mind and my will in all things. Maeglin, Glorfindel, and Ecthelion shall captain my troops."

Once dismissed, the men filtered quickly from the room. Glorfindel fell in behind him as they moved toward the door.

“Glorfindel, a moment.”

Ecthelion grimaced and paused, one hand on the door.

Glorfindel stopped short, and cautiously turned. “My Lord?”

“Your face.”

With Turgon, one could never tell what reached his ears and what did not. Ecthelion was prepared to own himself guilty for his part in the affair. He opened his mouth to speak, but Glorfindel cut him off with an explanation of his own.

“A grappling match gone awry, my lord.”

“Indeed.” Turgon sighed and pinched his brow. Glorfindel stood silent and unflinching in his lie. Ecthelion felt as foolish as a child.

“Ecthelion, please take care that Glorfindel’s future...grappling matches... are held to the rules of the salle. And take place within the salle, for that matter.”

And to that Ecthelion could utter nothing more than,“Yes, Sire.”

Preparations for battle left little time for mundane matters; in light of the desperate march to come, the petty foibles of individual lives did not signify. Men drilled hard all the day through, and nights were given over to packing and fitful sleep. Even Aphadon, when Ecthelion encountered him, was subdued and deferential, and after watching him practise his forms with precision and discipline, Ecthelion had to admit Glorfindel was right: he would be a fine swordsman. If he survived this treacherous campaign, he would find his skills honed to a deadly edge. This gave him a portion of empathy for the young man. He had been scant years younger when he'd found his own skills first tested, and in recalling the shrill terror and utter chaos of his first battle, he found his mood softening toward the callow youth who'd done nothing more than make himself available when Ecthelion would not

He sought out Glorfindel time and again in order to make an apology, however lame and wanting the man might find it. He did want them to depart the city still estranged. But time was not in their favor, and the needs of two men were meaningless weighed against the needs of the the ten thousand about to march to war.

The battle was already pitched when they arrived at the Pass of Sirion, but Turgon ordered them to hold there, and bide their time. Ecthelion felt the eager itch beneath his skin, the tingle of fingers yearning to grip a sword, the growing appetite for violence. The smell of smoke and death came to them on the wind, a scent marking the failing strength of the host of Hithlum.

On the fifth day, Turgon called them to arms. The banners of Gondolin snapped in the acrid air. Ecthelion took his place before his men, a shining river of silver and steel. Just once he caught Glorfindel’s eye, though they were too far apart to speak. He lifted his sword in salute. Glorfindel returned it sharply, and then respectfully inclined his head. A simple gesture, swordsman to swordsman. Behind him, a few men of his house played marching songs on their flutes, and Ecthelion’s heart was lightened. If his father hear their tunes, he would know him there.

The triumphal shrill of the horns broke through the stagnant dawn fug, and Gondolin’s host streamed forward toward Fingon’s struggling forces. Their initial bombast gave way soon enough: they were quickly surrounded and assailed by a tide of foes thrice their number. Angband had been emptied, and Morgoth, in a surge of strength, sent out wolves and Balrogs and a force of dragons led by Glaurung, progenitor of them all. Even the doughtiest of Men and Elves and shrank back before the horror of that infernal creature, and the armies of Fingon and Maedhros were scattered.

Ecthelion sought always to keep Glorfindel in sight, a flash of blood-red and sun-gold slashing and hacking his way through the enemy throng, gore bright on his blade. He saw the familiar look of adamant concentration on his brow, the fearlessness written there above his grim and screaming mouth.

He sought also his father, and found him close at Fingon’s side, the bright rays of Fingon’s device on his surcoat besmirched with ichor and foulness. He fought tirelessly and valiantly, and Ecthelion was struck with sorrow at the manner of their parting, at the years that had passed, and the wounds that remained unhealed. But enemy's sword did not pause for regret, nor falter for remorse. He turned his eyes and mind back to the task at hand. His sword sang in his hand.

An unearthly roar split the air, rattling the ground beneath his feet. Ecthelion turned, and what filled his vision turned his blood to ice in his veins, and drove the last of his hope from his heart. The Balrog Gothmog, with Angband steel and a whip of flame, sliced a path through the field, cleaving body after body in his murderous path and opening a river of death between Fingon’s men and Turgon’s.

Ecthelion and his company were beaten back toward the Fen of Serech, but he fought, hopelessly, to hold their lines. All the while, Gothmog pressed on, the horrible crack of his flame sending bodies flying in its wake. This was the fire of Angband personified, the manifestation of all hatred and cunning, a thing which knew neither pity nor mercy, but only rage.

"Retreat!" 

The order was perhaps not unexpected, but no less devastating for all that. Silver horns, no longer exultant, cried the order: Desert the field. The day is lost.

But Ecthelion, transfixed before Gothmog’s lethal progress, watched with horror as the Balrog reached the last of Fingon’s guard: his father.

Even at a distance, he could see that most beloved face was haggard and pale. And resigned. More than anything, he wanted to call his father’s name, but he would not distract him from his final task. And there was no longer any doubt it would be his final task.

Huor’s voice bellowed above the tumult. “Retreat to the Fens! We will guard the rear! Go!”

Ecthelion’s men stopped, but did not yet flee. Still Ecthelion lingered. He could not now turn away.

He did not hear the screams of the men when the lash of fire caught his father around the neck. He did not hear the clatter of his father’s blade as his hand released it, only saw its shining edges catch the sun as it fell to the ground. He did not hear his own ragged roar of grief when his father clutched uselessly at the black blade that pierced his heart and came out his back. He felt his soul being dragged from him, ripped out through his mouth, despair like a rope around his entrails at the look of shock and pain on his father’s face before his hands fell away, dark and shining with his own heart’s blood.

Senseless beyond his grief and fury, he hurled himself toward the beast, sword aloft and keen for slaughter. Two hands gripped him, and he fought them, fought against a weight as strong as his own determined to keep him from his vengeance. He struck out, flailing with his arms, heard the grunt as his gauntleted hand hit flesh and bone.

“Ecthelion, No!”

Still he struggled, fought the arms dragging him back.

"Damn your eyes, you bloody fool! Your men, Captain! See to your men!"

And that directive, that voice, brought him back to himself, pulled the red scales from his vision and returned him to the horror of reality. And to his duty. His men would follow him despite the general order. They would go with him into death. Even Aphadon. For this alone they deserved better than a ignominious end to sate one man's private wish for retribution.

“Retreat!” he called, and his men, who had been caught between their King’s order and their captain’s call, found their feet, and the host of Gondolin fled the field in defeat.

Ecthelion moved like a wraith among his men, seeing to his wounded and burying his dead, stopping only when Turgon’s herald forced him to have the gash on his forehead sutured. He took the physician’s offered dram before the needle pierced his flesh and wished he hadn’t; the scald of it down his throat reminded him of fire, of which he had seen too much, and did little to stem the pain in any case. Day yielded to night, and there was nothing left to be done. He grimly made his own retreat.

He sat at the edge of his cot, staring down blankly at his bloody boots. His squire had taken his armor and sat, a silent and unobtrusive shape in the corner of the tent, scrubbing at the blood with handfuls of sand. Neither man looked up when Glorfindel entered without warning or leave.

“May I come in?” he asked, too late.

Always brash, Ecthelion thought, looking up. Always brash, and always Glorfindel. He took in the blood-soaked bandages around arm and thigh. The bruise on his jaw had been joined by a black ring around his eye. “You are—” He did not sound like himself. He cleared his parched throat. “You are hurt.”

Glorfindel shook his head. “Nothing that won’t heal.” His voice, too, was hoarse, strange from smoke and shouting.

Ecthelion nodded vaguely. He stood, but did not speak. He had used all his words for his men and now had nothing left. His mind overlayed his father’s face on his Glorfindel's form in the darkness. He imagined the widening eyes, the blood, the end.

Glorfindel read something in his face and asked the squire to leave them. That the young man did so without seeking Ecthelion’s leave suggested that he, too, took heed of the desperation and misery straining behind the taut restraints of canvas and mail, and did not wish to witness his captain’s undoing.

“Ecthelion, look at me.”

Glorfindel stepped further into the tent, into the wavering torchlight, and then Ecthelion thought he saw the flame of the Balrog’s lash wrapping around his neck.

“No,” he whispered, and his knees buckled beneath him.

Glorfindel caught him, held him, and they sank to the ground together. The grip of his arms was unyielding. His hands caught up in Ecthelion’s hair. Ecthelion felt himself breaking apart into a thousand little pieces.

“Oh, my heart, my dearest heart.” Glorfindel’s breath was warm in his ear, sweet when it should have been fetid. “I am so sorry.”

He let himself be held together. If Glorfindel would hold him just so, he thought, he could pull himself together. This was but a momentary bit of weakness.

Glorfindel drew back, took Ecthelion’s face in his hands. “I am so sorry. Ecthelion, I am so sorry.” He brushed Ecthelion’s hair away from his face, and Ecthelion winced as the callused hand caught against his stitches.

“Oh!” Glorfindel whispered. “Forgive me; I am ungentle.” He leaned in and kissed the wound. The brief sound Ecthelion made was not one of pain.

“Damn me for a stubborn ass; I should have found you earlier, before we left Gondolin. Had you fallen and I not told you—”

“I love you.” As the words left his lips, he knew he had never been more sure of anything in his life, and nothing in the world would have stayed him from this admission.

Glorfindel looked at him, bewildered. “I—What?”

“Just that, nothing more. I love you. I need you to know this.”

Glorfindel stared for a moment, and then enfolded him in his arms once more. “And I you. Take a wife if you must. Sire a child, a passel of children, I care not; it cannot touch this.”

Ecthelion allowed himself to be comforted. “There will be no wife, Glorfindel. No children. Not for me. My promise perished with my father, and if I am called to account for it some day, then so be it.” He inhaled deeply, and let pass a deep breath. “But I do not think I shall be.”

He pulled out of Glorfindel’s embrace so he could take Glorfindel’s face between his palms. “My heart,” he whispered, and kissed him, for his mouth had no more words. Fiercer desires would have to wait; the enemy was still too near, the cot too narrow, and the men were exhausted in body and mind. But it was enough on this bleak, black night: to hold and to be held, to kiss, and to be kissed. To whisper promises of the future when any future at all was far from certain.

“I’m sorry I hit you again,” Ecthelion said, later.

“It was unearned this time. Though still well-aimed.”

“I did not know what I was doing.”

“I know. I'll take it out of your hide later, if you'll let me.”

“Let you?" a weary chuckle. "I'll demand it of you."

Glorfindel's smile was still bright, if a bit subdued. "I should return to my own camp. People will talk.”

"No. Stay here. Just you and I."

"Just you and I? We're in the middle of the camp."

Ecthelion felt his heart lighten. He imagined them japing and sparring together in the market square once more. “I care not. Let them talk. Let Salgant make sarcastic odes. Poorly rhymed ones, even. I care not, I tell you.” but he turned solemn then. “Now we have come forth from Gondolin, I fear Turgon spoke rightly: our land will not remain secret. We have not seen the end of battle, nor the final defeat. In my heart, I feel our time draws near.”

Again, a flash of flame seemed to wrap around Glorfindel’s throat, and Ecthelion shut his eyes to blot it out, but Glorfindel shook him gently, and he opened them once more. He told himself the lantern light had tricked him, that the torch’s flame had played strangely on Glorfindel’s gorget. Glorfindel, though, was studying him ardently, as if to burn an image into his memory.

“Whatever time is left to us, let it be you and I together.”

“Ecthelion, my beloved, my treasure.”

“If it is within my power, I will have vengeance for my father.” Perhaps then he could be forgiven him for not giving him heirs. Perhaps then he could pronounce the wounds between them healed, even if they were never to meet again. “I will slay Gothmog as Gothmog slew him. This I swear, dear heart, with you as my witness.”

Glorfindel shook his head. “No, not this night. Please. There will be time enough for blood-oaths. I wish tonight to think on brighter days. Lay down your sword, Ecthelion. Tonight, the battle is over”

And so Ecthelion kissed him again, slowly and deeply, and felt, for a moment, peace. The swordsmen of Gondolin had taken their own small victory in the midst of defeat. Ecthelion, sealing his new promise deep in his heart, knew both satisfaction and resolve. For with Glorfindel at his side, he thought, perhaps not every promise must end badly.