The Sentiment of Steel by Kenaz

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Assault

Assault: A fencing bout (generally at an exhibition) performed without keeping score; friendly combat between two fencers.

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“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.