His uncle might doubt Maitimo's brothers, but Maitimo knew them better. The two Ambarussa, Curufinwë and his son arrived to see him that evening, so quickly that it was clear they must have set out immediately they had received the message, and ridden hard.
It was fortunate, Maitimo thought, that Fingolfin had thought to send out well-briefed watchers to meet anyone approaching from the southern side of the lake, or there might have been an unfortunate incident.
They left again once Maitimo had satisfied them that he was indeed alive, had everything he needed, was not in any state to ride back with them immediately, and needed sleep more than their company.
Tyelkormo and Carnistir arrived the next day and asked most of the same questions, though rather more loudly.
Makalaurë did not come the next day, or for eight days after that.
He rode into his uncle's camp at last on the eleventh day, in company with an escort of his people, elaborately casual, looking relaxed and cheerful. He enquired politely after his uncle and his cousins, and chatted with the guards outside for a little while before he went to speak to his brother. It was a dry day at last, and there was even blue sky visible in the south and west across the lake.
Findaráto had just left, having come to sing a song of healing, and stayed for a short while to chat. Consequently, Maitimo was feeling better than he had for what seemed an impossibly long time. He had been practicing writing with his left hand, with a notepad balanced on a chair-arm. The right arm was almost without pain just now, although his shoulder ached. The lack of pain in most of his body was a bright thing in itself, an almost-forgotten joy.
"Oh, there you are," Maitimo said, seeing his brother approach the open door. He was sitting in a chair well-padded with thick furry sheepskins to protect his fragile frame. "It's taken you long enough. I was starting to think I was going to have to send Tyelkormo to hunt you down and drag you here. Busy, were you?"
Makalaurë came in, closed the door and stood leaning with his back against it, without replying. From the expression on his face, he might have been facing a wild beast or an angry relative.
"No words?" Maitimo asked, a little sharply. "You seemed to have enough to say to strangers, out there just now."
Makalaurë glanced at him and looked away again. "You look awful," he said.
"You should have seen me when I got here," Maitimo said. "My hair had things nesting in it. I looked spectacularly appalling. Like something that had been rotting on a mountainside for years. You don't really get the full effect any more. I've even had a bath."
"I had to tell Morgoth's messenger that we wouldn't trade for you," Makalaurë said very quietly, eyes on the window. "I had to. I had no choice. The Oath..."
"Yes."
"He wouldn't have returned you anyway, no matter what I promised."
"Probably not, no."
"I should have done what Fingon did." Makalaurë's voice was barely more than a whisper.
"But you aren't Fingon, to call an Eagle to your aid," Maitimo said reasonably. His voice sounded harsh as a crow after his brother's. "Do you think Tyelkormo would have made a good regent when you were taken too?"
Makalaurë laughed uncomfortably. "I'm not sure he could have been worse than me."
"You didn't run, you didn't lose your nerve or fall for Morgoth's tricks, you didn't fight our uncle, or get yourself killed or captured. You could have done much worse. I did."
Makalaurë gave another brief huff of humourless laughter. He came over and folded himself onto the floor next to Maitimo, and leant against the side of the chair, still not quite looking at him. Maitimo put his remaining hand briefly on his brother's shoulder, and Makalaurë leant his head against it for a moment.
"Are you all right?" Makalaurë asked, and interrupted himself. "No, that's a foolish question. Nobody here is all right, you least of all. What can I do to help? That's a better question."
"You want to help now, do you?" Maitimo asked. It was a little cruel, probably, but his ideas of cruelty had changed.
"Of course," Makalaurë said miserably. "But at Losgar, it was either you or Father." Makalaurë had refused to defy his father, even for his older brother. And when Makalaurë would not, nor would any of the rest.
"At Losgar, it was me or Father," Maitimo agreed now. "And I was right, and you knew it."
Makalaurë let out a long sigh. "Yes. Do you think Father has fallen into the everlasting darkness?"
"I don't know." Maitimo said a little sternly. "That's not a useful line of thought, Makalaurë."
"No. I'm starting to think the whole oath thing may have been a mistake," Makalaurë said with an unhappy smile.
Maitimo gave him a rueful smile in return before he looked away again. "A thought I've had myself. But it's too late now. We have to make the best of it. I still harbour a great desire for revenge upon our enemy. Even greater than before, if that's possible."
Makalaurë looked up at him from his position next to the chair. "I can see why," he said. Then he recoiled a little. "There's flame and shadow in your eyes." he said. He unfolded onto his knees and looked hard into his brother's face. "And something looking back at me."
"Well of course there is," Maitimo said. "I'm still in here, fool! I can't get rid of flame and shadow that Morgoth forced on me. But I can use it against him. Everything he did to me, I shall turn back on him."
Makalaurë grimaced, and then nodded and sat back down. "All right. What do you want me to do?"
"I need you to help restrain our brothers. I'm going to waive the claim of our House to the kingship."
Makalaurë came to his feet in one swift outraged motion. " What? But Father would..."
Maitimo interrupted him. "Father left us his Oath to fulfil. We have no hope of fulfilling it if we try to cling to anything we don't need. We don't need the kingship. We need the Silmarils, and revenge. To get that, we must have unity. The Noldor won't unite behind a king that left most of them in Araman. I need guards, here, to protect me from my own people."
Makalaurë thought about that, looking at the window again. "I see your point. But who will be king? You aren't suggesting..."
"There's an argument that Findaráto would be the best choice. He's not a kinslayer or an oathtaker, he's everyone's friend and cousin, and he's very competent. But that would mean passing over our uncle and his family, and I don't think that's feasible. It has to be our uncle. The Noldor will unite behind him — our people included, if we make them — and the local Sindar like him already. We'll need them too."
"Our uncle. Right," Makalaurë said, making an unimpressed face.
"He isn't seeking it. He even called me king! He has the talent. And, you know, he has been very kind. All these days that you have been busy finding guilty reasons not to come and face me, he has found time to come here to say words of healing, make courteous, matter of fact conversation and leave before it became awkward. Not bad for someone we abandoned in a frozen wasteland as a traitor."
Makalaurë looked away unhappily. "That we abandoned. You didn't."
"Yes. I'll expect you to make up for that. Our uncle has taken a new name in Sindarin. Fingolfin."
Makalaurë looked back at him, visibly incredulous, and laughed. " Fingolfin ? He's insisting on Finwëñolofinwë? He didn't have enough Finwë already?"
"Apparently not," Maitimo tried not to smile and found that it was harder than it should have been. "Stop laughing! Nobody must laugh at this. Not you, not Curvo, not any of our people. We are going to be absolutely serious about it. You will make songs using the name, and there will be no sly jokes or rhymes. Not even a smile. I expect you to jump on anyone who makes fun of our uncle and make their life a misery until they learn better. I'm not going to ban jokes about it: that won't work. You are going to make those jokes unfunny. Our uncle must be known as the kind wise king that everybody loves. It should be all the easier because I think that really is who he would like to be, if we let him."
"I'll see what I can do," Makalaurë said unenthusiastically.
Maitimo gave him a sceptical look. "Do it well," he said firmly. He could not manage to put much authority into his words yet, but he should not need much, not for Makalaurë. "You asked what you could do. This is it. Or part of it, you have to fight as well. But all of us can do that."
"All right," Makalaurë said, straightening dutifully. "Orders heard and understood. I'll make it happen. We should use Sindarin names ourselves. It will make the idea seem less remarkable."
"Very well then. Canafin. Or Maglor?"
Makalaurë winced. "Canafin is the ugliest word! Maglor. I preferred Makalaurë, but I can live with Maglor."
"I'm definitely not being called... what would Nelyafinwë be in Sindarin, Nailfin ? Your Sindarin must be better than mine; I've not had much chance to practice. Anyway, if our uncle has given himself two Finwës, I had best not go around calling myself the third Finwë. There must be limits to even your ability to control an obvious joke like that. But Maitimo seems a ridiculous name now in any language: I am not well-formed and very definitely not skilful! But then I'm not very copper-topped, either, so anything from Russandol is just as wrong. Perhaps I'll just take something new. Haldor maybe. I'm still tall. Though perhaps Úmarth for ill-fortune would be more descriptive."
Maglor stepped behind the chair, and looked down at hair that, Maitimo knew, was thin, short and bleached colourlessly pale by starvation and weather. At least it was clean now.
"Oh, don't. It will come back," Maglor said. He could not possibly know that it would, but he sounded very sure, and although it should have been the very least of his worries, Maitimo found himself grateful for that.
"With luck," he said lightly. "Hair, like kingship, is another thing I don't really need to do the task at hand."
"It will come back," Maglor said again. " Maedhros. That is well-formed, skilled and copper-topped as well, and you will have all three back, given a little more time.
Maedhros laughed. "I take it you are trying to make up for telling me that I look awful, are you, horrible little brother? Maedhros. Well, it doesn't sound as bad as Nailfin, I'll give it that. Would you tell the others? I'll have to tell Fingolfin, but I don't have the energy yet to argue it out with Curufinwë. Curufin, rather. He won't give up his Finwë easily."
"He is third youngest," Maglor said, wandering across the room to the harp that Findaráto had left behind, and fiddling with it. "There shouldn't be any harm in him keeping it. All right, I'll tell them. As you pointed out, I do owe you."
"You do. But you don't get to pay it back that way," Maedhros told him firmly. Brothers could be as slippery as eels, and Maglor was the worst of the lot. "That's just following orders. You're supposed to do that anyway!"
"Pah! And I hoped you wouldn't notice!" Maglor said. "Very well then. Can I play for you for a little, as a start?"
"Not too busy?" Maedhros asked. "Oh, don't look so upset. I was only joking. Play. I'd like that. I'm going to lie down. Conversations are hard work, and I'm out of practice." He was cold too. It was hard to stay warm, being so thin, though the cold here was nothing like the bitter piercing chill of the open mountain-side.
When Fingon came to visit, some time later when the day was beginning to fade, he found Maedhros asleep under a mound of furs and sheepskins, and his brother still playing very quietly, singing under his breath, with an expression of absolute concentration.
And where the last light of the sun came in through the small glass window in the western wall and lit upon the bed, it caught and glinted on short, shining curls that shone with the brilliance of polished copper.
