Bee-Elves by darthfingon

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Bee-Elves 3

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"What are the odds of finding a Sindarin Reeve-King this far in the east who speaks fluent Quenya?" I asked Canamírë once we were alone again.

"Impossible," Canamírë snorted.  He seemed to have forgotten his earlier unruliness, and had reverted back to his usual sceptical personality.

"No, not impossible.  Here we have Reeve Oropher."

"Probability is so small that I'm convinced we died in the mountains.  We died, and we are now in Mandos, and this is some Mandos-illusion meant to teach us something.  Or teach me something?  Maybe only I died.  Maybe I died in prison.  You could be a Mandos-apparition sent to teach me patience!"

"We are not an apparition, Canamírë," I said.  "And, frankly, we are displeased that you would think such a thing."

He muttered something that sounded rather like 'apparition', though his back was turned and I could not hear for certain.  He walked ahead of me through the town.

Sometime in the confusion of the last few hours with the log field and Reeve Oropher, we had lost our porters.  Canamírë blamed me for their absence, arguing that as expedition leader, it was my responsibility to hold the party together, but I could not bring myself to agree.  I paid very little attention to the porters, and so could not be expected to remember exactly when they had gone missing. It took us a good long while of wandering around town before we found the pony tied up outside a stone and log building of the sort that appeared to be sunken into the ground.  Inside, we found our missing companions.  They appeared to be sunken into their chairs after consuming a shameful amount of Sindarin liquor.  They were thus completely useless at porting and had to be left where we found them.

Canamírë and I took the pony and our packs down the road Oropher told us to take, which led, by his directions, to his palace.  By 'palace' he naturally meant the unfinished log house built atop the great hill on the eastern side of Galadhost.  The second floor had only a third of a roof, he warned, and the dining hall was nothing more than a cleared and flattened rectangle of dirt, but there were bedrooms.  And in those bedrooms were real beds.

Never before had a lumpy straw mattress looked so inviting.  The last time I had slept in a real bed had been in the home of King Gil-galad on Balar.  So wonderful was the prospect that I did not even mind being made to share a room with Canamírë, who sometimes snored.  I gladly washed with the basin of cold water provided by Oropher's steward, and even more joyfully unpacked the nightshirt that had remained folded at the bottom of my clothing sack for the entire journey.  I had sorely missed the simple civility of not sleeping fully dressed.  I climbed into bed, pulling real, if somewhat rough, sheets up to my chin, and arranged the quilted blankets and fur coverlet over my body.  It was a glorious sensation.

The one thing marring the experience was that, as soon as I rested my head on the pillow, a song became stuck in my ear.  No matter what I tried, nor how much I tried to concentrate on the sound of Canamírë's snoring, I could not rid myself of it.  It bounced from ear to ear all night in endless repetition.  Reeve Oropher's absurd Quenya song:

She has freckles on her bum;
She is nice.

~

I awoke to the sound of Canamírë stomping about the bedroom and generally being a loud nuisance.  "Merciful stars, Canamírë," I said to him.  "Must one clatter and drop things so?"

"Yes, one must," he answered tersely.  "I've been trying to wake you for well on an hour."

"Whatever for?  We have need of sleep yet."

"It's noon, Your Highness."

"Noon?"  Yawning, I rose from the bed and stuck my head out the window, which naturally was devoid of glass.  The sun hovered directly overhead.  "Good heavens."  It was indeed noon.

"While you were sleeping like a drunken bear," said Canamírë, "I had the opportunity to speak with some of King Oropher's counsellors and ask a few questions about this place."

"King Oropher?" I asked.  "Not Reeve Oropher?"

"Well, there seemed to be a small disagreement on that point."

"Ridiculous.  How can there be a disagreement about whether he is Reeve or King?  This is a very straightforward problem.  He is either one or the other.  Somebody must know for certain."

"Several somebodies knew for certain.  And they all certainly knew different things."

"We will have to speak to him about this."

"And that brings us to the first point," Canamírë continued.  "Several of the counsellors firmly agree that the speaking of Quenya is unacceptable."

"Even more ridiculous!" I said.  "Why is it unacceptable?"

"If you don't already know, then it would take me far too long to explain.  Suffice it to say that they prefer Sindarin."

"Several of the counsellors think this?  What of the rest?"

Canamírë shifted impatiently from foot to foot.  "You expect them to agree?  No.  An equally numbered several think the exact opposite: that Quenya is perfectly acceptable-"

"Much more reasonable!"

"-because it proves that Noldorin Kings are too stupid to learn Sindarin."

"What?!"  The nerve of them!

"Also," he added, "they like being able to discuss you behind your back, knowing that you can't understand."

"Canamírë, this is absolutely outrageous!" I said.  "We demand an apology at once!"

"I will convey your royal highness' grievances," he replied, though he did so in a voice that held every indication he was only humouring me.  "Now, moving on.  The counsellors were able to agree on a two things.  First: most important.  Do not ask the King about his wife."

"His wife?" I asked.  "He is married?"  It had been easy to note, due to his absence of clothing, that Oropher wore no wedding ring.

"What part of 'do not ask' do you not understand?  Do not ask.  That means you say nothing about his wife, children, or marital state in any way.  I do not know what the situation is.  I, following directions, did not ask.  NEXT," he said loudly, speaking up right as I had opened my mouth to protest, "everyone agrees that the King is a little... creative.  But they also agree he's a genius.  You're instructed to politely pretend nothing is out of the ordinary when he wanders around naked, pretends to be somebody else, sings nonsense songs, talks to ghosts, or does anything else that makes you think he's out of his mind."

I allowed myself a little snort.  "'Creative'!  That sounds rather like a diplomatic way of saying 'insane'."

"I don't think he's insane," Canamírë replied, shaking his head.  "He's not stupid, and he's aware of a lot more than he lets on.  I think his fooling is an act he puts on to unnerve his opponents and trick them into underestimating him.  Nobody wants to argue with a lunatic."

"Now why would he do such a thing?  He will drive away all foreign diplomats!"

"You've just answered your own question, there."

This Eryn Galen place with its Reeve-King was steadily growing more absurd.  It was nearly enough to make me sorry I had come.  "Oh, never mind," I said to Canamírë.  "We still must speak to him, insane or not.  Any other necessary protocols with which we must be familiar?"

"No.  The counsellors were only able to discuss those few things.  After that, the meeting fell apart and everyone started insulting each other and making outlandish threats."

"Very well."  I pulled my best, if somewhat wrinkled, pieces of clothing from the travelling pack and dressed myself, then combed and plaited my hair in a style I thought appropriate to speaking with the eccentric King of Eryn Galen.  "Now.  We are ready.  Show us the way to the King, Canamírë."

~

I had anticipated an opportunity to further speak to Oropher about the importance of relocating to Valinor, but before I even had a chance to explain my position, he announced that our time would be better spent on a tour of the town.  I reluctantly agreed, and followed him outside.  He chattered non-stop as we walked down the hill from the palace.  Eventually, I hoped, he would run out of things to say, and then I would be able to resume our original discussion.

"You see," Oropher was saying, "Galadhost is the best city in the world.  Nowhere else is like this.  It has some very nice things."

"Yes, it is very nice," I said.  "The fountain reminds us of a place in Tirion, which-"

Oropher did not accept the switch of topic.  "There's one thing I don't like," he interrupted.  "One thing about the city isn't good."

"What's that?"

"Its name.  Galadhost.  How bad is that?"

The name, which even I with my poor understanding of Sindarin knew to mean 'Tree City', seemed hardly offensive or improper in any way.  "How is it bad?" I asked.  "We would say it is very apt.  The city is, after all, full of trees."

"It's too..."  Frowning, Oropher wiggled his hands around his ears, as if he might pluck a satisfactory adjective right out of the air.  "Too thingy," he decided.  "Not very... uh..."

"Original?" I offered.

He stared at me with the blank face of one who had no idea what I just said.  This was when it first occurred to me that, despite his fine grasp of Quenya grammar, Oropher's vocabulary may have been lacking.

"I wanted to name it something very good like... Black Dragonclaw Town or Fortress of Fire Eagles.  But everyone said that was too hard to remember.  So, Tree City.  How stupid!"

"You know, in Valinor, you could name your settlement whatever you-"

"And then the forest!" he interrupted again, clearly taking none of my advice.  "Greenwood.  Oh yes, that will make us sound very... what was that word?"

"Original?"

"Yes, very oring-i-al and dangerous!  Ha!  Nobody will shake with fear at a name like Greenwood.  Boring!  I wanted to call it Arrowskill Forest, but!  The boring-heads called it Eryn Galen, and that stayed."

I nodded, trying to look sympathetic.  "We believe there are still some unnamed forests in Valinor, if you wish to try another-"

"Anyhow," he said loudly, interrupting yet again, "Please tell me about your own city."

"Our..."  I was momentarily taken aback by his request, mind falling blank.  After all of the interruptions, I had started to think that he was deliberately trying to prevent me from doing exactly this.  "You truly want to hear about Tirion?"

"Yes," he said, and sat down on a nearby stump.  There were an abundance of stumps in Galadhost; as far as I could tell, they served as a sort of haphazard public seating.  "Tell me every single thing about Tirion."

I sat down on another stump, facing him, and began what I hoped would be a long and uninterrupted story.  "Well," I said.  "In Tirion..."

Amazingly, he remained silent.  Whether or not he was paying attention was debatable, since he spent much of the time staring at the ground, but said nothing and did nothing to hinder my speech.  I told him of Tirion's majestic beauty in gleaming white stone, of the grand stairways that climbed the hill of Túna, of the star-bright and dizzyingly tall Mindon Eldaliéva, and of the great Pelóri and Taniquetil, mountain home of Manwë Himself.  I told him of the silver bells that chimed the hours from the roof of the royal palace, and of the Floating Gardens that, while not truly floating in the most literal sense of the word, at least appeared to float weightless in the air by the illusion of several storeys of vine-covered pillars.  I explained that in Tirion, we had sturdy houses built of stone, with glass of all colours for windows.  People wore proper clothing, and the only time one was naked was when one was in the bath.  And even then some folks wore little bathing costumes for decency, as one might wear at the seaside.

I spoke for nearly two hours, telling him everything I could think of about Tirion, from the opulent temples and palaces to the rat catchers.  Who, incidentally, were very thorough and kept the rats from the opulent temples and palaces.  I was proud to say that in all my years in Tirion, I had only ever seen one live rat.  Then, when I had exhausted everything I could think of to say about Tirion, I spoke of Valmar and Alqualondë and all the lands surrounding, from the Tower of Bronze on the edge of the Western Desert to the Tower of Pearl in the Twilit Isles.

"And you are the King?" he asked, once I had finished describing where each region and city was in relation to the others.

"We are the King of the Noldor," I specified: "the King of Tirion.  There are other kings as well.  "Olwë rules Alqualondë, his son Olquináro rules Tol Eressëa, and Ingwë rules Valmar.  Of course, Ingwë is also the High King of all Valinor, so we must all answer to him."

"But you are the King of the Noldor."

"Yes," I replied, wondering where he was going with this.

He stood up from his stump, crossed his arms over his chest in a thoughtful manner, and then started to sing.  This song, like the freckle song, had neither melody nor rhythm.

Arafinwë is the King,
The King is Arafinwë.

He looked at me expectantly.

"Er...  What?"

Grinning, he repeated the song, this time with a little wiggle of a dance.

Arafinwë is the King,
The King is Arafinwë.

"Well, yes," I said, "That is correct, but..."  I could not think of an adequate 'but'.  Why did he keep singing?

Arafinwë is the King,
The King is Arafinwë.
Comes from far across the sea,
Wearing something red and gold.
Looks like it will rain tonight.
What's for dinner?
Let's go eat some fruit!

Still singing nonsense, he started back up the road to the palace.  I followed with a sigh.  The Tirion conversation was very clearly over.

~

Reeve-King Oropher's song turned out to be less nonsensical than I originally thought.  We returned to the palace just in time to make ourselves ready for a royal banquet, of which, naturally, nobody had thought to warn me.  I had no time to properly bathe or wash my hair, and, since I was already wearing my best outfit, I could not even change my clothing.  So it was that I attended my first royal banquet in Eryn Galen with limp, dull hair verging on oily, wearing the same rumpled gown and robe I had donned at noon.  I blamed Oropher for the fact that I was seen by his entire court in such a condition.  Surely, he would have known that the banquet was planned, and when it started.  If Canamírë were right, and Oropher's foolery was a deliberate act put in place to unnerve foreigners, then I could easily believe that he kept me talking about Tirion for so long on purpose.  He wanted to leave me no time to prepare.  He wanted to rush me to supper, giving me no choice but to make a poor impression of Noldorin kingliness on his council.  Canamírë had been right: he was far from stupid, and by no means unobservant.  As I took my seat at his table, on a raised dais in full view of the entire assembled court, I mentally scourged myself for being so easily gulled.

The steward placed me at the right-hand side of Oropher's empty throne.  I noted, with considerable annoyance, that the baldachin was exactly narrow enough that it stopped at the edge of my chair.  The annoyance was compounded further as bits of wood shaving from the half-finished palace roof blew down on a strong gust of wind and hit the top of my head.  Not only was I forced to dine in the open air of a banquet hall that did not yet exist except as a roughly marked rectangle on the bare ground, but I was forced to do so in the shadow of a construction zone.  The builders did not stop for supper.  Nor did they seem to make any effort to keep quiet.

The throne on my left stayed empty as the rest of the table filled with Oropher's counsellors.  They were all dressed very finely in some sort of cloth that had a silver sheen to it, no matter its colour.   The man on my right was silver-blue with a brilliant orange sash and a considerable amount of mother-of-pearl decorations, and the man next to him wore a silver-red over a silver-yellow tunic, with more of the same mother-of-pearl ornaments.  I silently swore at Oropher.  This was his doing; I had no doubts that he had purposefully instructed his court to wear their best clothing at my expense.

Oropher, when he arrived, looked like he was attired for a wedding in a pale silver-green outfit reminiscent of some fashions I had seen among Gil-galad's men.  He stood in place before the throne at my side, every inch a king, and smiled down at the adoring faces that watched his every movement.  When he spoke to them, it was in the sonorous, regal voice he had used briefly at the fountain the previous day.  All traces of his lunatic act had vanished.  His bee-words were impressive even without understanding what they meant.

It was only a brief speech, possibly a blessing or thanksgiving for the meal.  Then he sat, and as soon as his royal bottom touched the throne, a line of servers filed up onto the dais behind us to present plates already filled with food.  My stomach knotted even before I received my meal.  The smell alone was enough to tell me what we were eating: roast boar, and a large amount of it at that.  The plate that was set before me contained a meagre scattering of odd-looking vegetables arranged around a slab of fatty meat the size of my hand with fingers outstretched.

"Oh good!" Oropher said in bee-Sindarin.  More words followed, but they buzzed too quickly for me to understand.  He grinned at me as he spoke: the stupid, fooling grin.

I ignored him.  Now that I knew to be wary at all times, I could guess well enough that he had some unpleasant game in mind, and I would be no part of it.  I stared squarely at my plate and resolved to focus on eating.  No matter how deeply I hated pigs and everything to do with them.

As a child in Tirion, my mother had made it her business to brand the importance of proper table manners forever into my head.  A prince of the royal household is under scrutiny at all times, and at banquets he is on display before the entire court.  He cannot eat so much as a parsley leaf without being watched and discussed.  Therefore, he must eat with perfect grace.  Unfortunately, 'perfect grace' involves finishing everything on one's plate without question, and appearing to enjoy it.

I stole little glances down the table to my left and right to gain an understanding of how people in Eryn Galen ate.  The correct protocol appeared to be: cut chunk of meat, stab meat with knife, eat directly from knife-point, follow with swig of wine.  This could be done easily enough.  In Tirion we ate with knife, spoon, and fork, but in Alqualondë one used knife, spoon, and sticks, and in Valmar one used only a spoon.  I was accustomed to varying collections of cutlery, so managing with nothing but a knife would be new, but not difficult.  I carefully cut my meat into small pieces, doing my best not to breathe through my nose so as to avoid the vile pork-smell, and lifted each bite to my mouth with the flat side of the knife.  If I cut the pieces small enough, I could eat almost without chewing.  If I ate without chewing, the probability of gagging at the taste and texture of pig fat between my teeth was greatly reduced.

After three bites, thinking I was performing quite admirably, I took a sip of wine.  The first thought I had, as I inhaled its scent a fraction of a second before the liquid hit my lips, was, This is not wine.  The second thought, as I tasted it, was, Sweet Eru, what in the world is this?!  It filled my mouth with the feeling of cold fire and the taste of fermented evergreens.  I could not help but gag as it hit the back of my throat; I had never before in my life consumed anything so vile, and I had lived through numerous Telerin 'delicacies' inflicted by my father-in-law, including sea cucumber gelatine and steamed whale penis.  Both of those, however, were thankfully bland and only disturbing in texture and appearance.  This liquor, whatever it might have been, was close to accomplishing what no other food or drink had ever done to me before.  I wanted to vomit.

I forced myself to swallow and took a deep breath to clear away the lingering taste.  That did nothing.  As quickly as was polite, I scooped up a mouthful of the mystery vegetables and had a thorough chew.  Even that was inadequate to dislodge the taste of the drink.  In desperation I ate several more bites of meat, rolling each one on my tongue and swallowing slowly.  That only served to make my mouth taste of pork and liquor.  The combination was nearly unbearable.

"How do you like it?" Oropher asked slowly, in Sindarin.  That seemed to be his game for the night.  He would say nothing in Quenya.

"Good," I answered, using one of the few words I knew.  "Good good."

He smiled, lifting his cup, and motioned for me to do the same.  We both took brotherly sips of the horrible liquor.  Or, he took a sip, and I pretended to while keeping my lips tightly closed.  Even that was bad enough.  The smell alone nearly made me want to vomit all over again.

I pretended to drink throughout the rest of the meal.  With any luck, nobody who mattered would check my cup to see how much remained.  The greasiness of the meat made me thirsty, but I would not risk so much as a tiny sip of that poison.  I ate everything on my plate, all the while longing for a refreshing cup of wine or ale or even river water.  Between my thirst and the nauseating taste of the fatty pork, each bite brought me closer to wishing I were dead.  I set down my knife at the end of it all with a feeling of great relief.

At my side, Oropher was still eating.  As I looked at his plate, I noticed that what had appeared to be a solid piece of meat from the corner of my eye was, in fact, a mushy pile of half-chewed fat.  I watched in disgust as he scooped up a piece of meat, chewed it, and spat a slimy fat-gob back out on top of the pile in the middle of his plate.  He must have noticed I was watching, because on the next bite he turned to grin stupidly at me, keeping eye contact all the while he chewed and then spat out the fat like some overgrown, spoilt child.  I forced myself to look away and keep my face neutral and my eyes on my hands.  He was doing this on purpose.  He was trying to upset me with his atrocious table manners.  I would give him no such satisfaction.

We were served a dessert of dried fruits in uncomplementary mint sauce, followed by very strong and very bitter tea, which I nonetheless drank happily because it was a liquid that was not the repulsive evergreen liquor.  As we all left the banquet 'hall', I could not help but think to myself that Oropher looked a little disappointed.   I had behaved as a perfect gentleman at supper.  If he had been trying to elicit some undignified response over the food or the drink or his manners or the insistence on Sindarin, he had failed.