Chapter 4: Strategies and Prophecies

Another week passed; the royal family was sitting in the music room after dinner with their closest circle, but the music was overlaid by heated talk in every corner, discussing the dwarves and their fate. In one corner the discussion was especially unhappy.

"Legolas," his mother importuned him; she, for one, had not eaten. "Adar is allowing the dwarves to be taken by the spiders! And he is forbidding our people to offer them food! They have been starving now for two days!"

"Naneth, forgive me. You wish me to persuade Adar to deal with them differently, but you know why this decision was taken."

"Yes, I wish you to do so, most desperately! His reasoning was sound as a strategy, but I cannot bear to see it being implemented! At least they should be offered water!" Her hands ran distractedly through the folds of her gown.

"Naneth, we have guards surrounding the dwarves constantly. The moment they are enwrapped and stung, we will cut them down and bring them here to safety."

"I have heard this. And how in the meanwhile, you cannot show yourselves bearing water because then you will have seemed to have allowed the attack. But there must be some way to leave waterskins for them to find!"

"Truly, Naneth, your wisdom and judgment have always been a light to me. Let them not fail now, when we have so many lives to save."

"The dwarves also have lives."

"We are not endangering them."

"The spider's venom is sometimes fatal, and even when not, leaving them stunned for fifteen weeks will surely cause them damage!"

"It will not be a full fifteen weeks. And we have successfully restored people even after four seasons. You were involved in those healings yourself."

"Those were elves. We do not know the recuperative power of dwarves, or a perian….."

The curtains to the chamber were suddenly pushed aside. Three guards entered, flushed with haste.

"Your majesty!" the youngest began.

"Tauriel," Legolas stood up and addressed her softly. "Let your elders speak."

"Your majesty," the eldest guard took over. "We have lured the dwarves off the path, as you directed, and the spiders are at work, but Thorin has escaped them. He is asleep enchanted in one of our glades and will soon awake. What shall we do with him?"

"Your majesty!" the youngest elleth interrupted again. "I left the forest later than the others and have rushed here because there is further news. The other dwarves are escaping from the spiders! I do not know how they are managing it, but the perian must have been less poisoned than the rest, and he seems to slip in and out of sight, and has been attacking the spiders unseen. The dwarves are sure to be completely free by now. What then should we do?"

Thranduil stood up, his face clouded with urgent attention. He looked unseeing for a long space, weighing his choices, before he spoke. "Our plans are all disarrayed," he said, with a deep thunder. "The dwarves must come here or they will die of hunger, but we cannot treat them as welcome guests. We will have to invent charges against them with which to lock them in our dungeons. I will have to challenge Thorin with such a demand that he will refuse to treat with me even at the risk of overstaying his Durin's Day!"

"And then how will you befriend him later?" the queen challenged.

"I do not know. In befriending him and influencing him I may utterly fail. But he must not reach the mountain on the day appointed, and his company cannot remain in the forest any longer. There is not time to devise a better plan."

"Guards, bring Thorin to me in chains, without his companions. It will be easier to put on a show of anger against one than against a pitiful many. Then find the rest and bring them here by morning. And keep an eye on the slippery perian!"

The guards flew to their task.

"My lord," the queen's voice was broken with reproach. "You plan to do an injustice to the dwarves to rescue those of Laketown."

"It is not an injustice to prevent a person from doing harm."

"Yet, you will not give Thorin a chance to present his claim, his aims, his intentions. He will be charged falsely with no chance to defend himself. Is there yet no chance that he may have altered his plans since our scouts reported their intelligence? Or if not, must there be no way to discuss his quest rationally and treat him with honor and respect?"

"Nothing I know of dwarves gives foundation to any of your wishes. And nothing we have heard of these dwarves shows them different from their race. Respect and honor are precious things and I cherish you for your desire to uphold them. But the reality does not allow us to fulfill our highest wishes. The risk is too great. And not only to Laketown. Do you think the dragon incapable of burning swaths of the forest?"

"So you will not try to discuss, explain or entreat?"

"Absolutely not."

"You are aware of the extent to which this lowers you as an Elf – the extent to which it reduces your own honor?"

"I am. And I will suffer it for the sake of those I must protect."

"Legolas," she turned to him. "Does this make sufficient sense to you? Can you also see our king abasing his honor so, in the eyes of strangers?"

"My father and king are not subject to my opinion, my lady!"

"So your father will go down in history as willful, unjust, greedy, prejudiced and short-sighted!"

"My lady, I may hope that this incident will be small enough never to be recorded in history."

The queen stood and turned in a circle. "Does no one here have any foresight? Do you not see where this will lead?" she cried.

Thranduil stood back with crossed arms, looking at her with a mixture of admiration, intransigence and pity. Legolas knelt at her side. "Naneth, nothing will happen. Adar will see to it."

"My son," she leaned toward him. "You are keen-eyed beyond all others, but not toward the future. These dwarves have some fortune driving them. They have reached our halls hale beyond all expectations, and the perian has some magic to him that we do not understand. They will escape our dungeons, wake the dragon, and bring about a devastation that will only be repairable with the help of their regained treasure, which they will not relinquish after being so mistreated. The people of Dale will challenge them, we will have to uphold our alliance with them, and before winter, there will be battle in the foothills of Erebor. Your father's harshness, so well-meant, will result in the slaying of Elves and Men, and the Shadow in the south will laugh at how he has brought low the noblest Elvenking in Middle Earth!"

"Naneth, you are overexciting yourself. Surely, such a small band of foolish dwarves will not move events on such a scale. Whatever befalls, we will be able to handle it as it arises. What do you wish? That we leave the dwarves in the forest? That we give them free passage to Erebor? You know there is not time to devise a better plan. Adar has experience of such confrontations going back to the beginning of the Second Age. Leave him to deal as he knows best and trust to estel that the outcome will bring good for Middle Earth."

The queen straightened and looked her husband in the eye. "My dearest king, you must do as you know best, that is plain. Perhaps there is no better course. Perhaps all this is fore-ordained. But I will not stay here to witness your abasing your nobility, your justice, your kindness and your prudence. Nor will I witness the abasement of a noble dwarf-lord, however irrational he might turn out to be, were he given a chance to present his claims. These dwarves will be here for at least two months, if their escape be not truly foreseen. By your leave, I will spend this time traveling and will return when the damage is undone."

Thranduil looked at his queen in astonishment, with love, pity and admiration mixed in his gaze. "My dearest queen, you may travel to wherever you wish, and I will send a proper entourage to escort you. But where do you think to go?"

"I do not know. I plan to think about it."