Chapter 3

Peace did not reign for long.

Thranduil's study was spacious and his ceiling high and vaulted. He was already waiting for us, uncrowned but watchful. Just by looking at him, I knew a long day lay before me.

A set of chairs stood arranged before the hearth and they were low and cushioned. The silk was a challenging shade of green, like fresh birch leaves ere midsummer. To these he showed us and we sat, but he still held his chin high. And he wasted no time.

"What is it that brings you here, Elrond?"

Pale light flowed into the room from a far-off corner but I would have liked more; there was no way of knowing if the sun was shining and we were to debate dark things.

"It can be no great mystery to you," I began. "There is unceasing battle and strife in the south. Ever some new wave of foes comes to the thresholds of those lands. I have spoken with Mithrandir who has journeyed far and wide. He is quite certain that the true Enemy is stirring."

To this, Thranduil said nothing though the gleam in his eyes was sharp.

"Imladris is yet free of any such influence," I went on, unwilling to allude as to why this was so. "But news comes to us from over the Mountains and Círdan sends us such tidings as he thinks will interest us from the the Grey Havens. The Dúnedain, as well, serve us in this matter."

"That ragged line of wild men?" Thranduil snorted. "It is a tattered hope they cling to. Ever I thought you too generous, Elrond, to open your arms and halls to them."

"I am not come here to discuss Imladris' dealings with the Dúnedain," I told him, and beside me Glorfindel shifted in his seat.

"You should." Thranduil's lips curved in distaste. "For I perceive in you a desire to speak of allegiances and by your willingness to devote yourself to that tribe you are putting your faith in Men. Have Men not always disappointed us?"

"As we have abandoned them, and shunned them."

The twist of his lips broke into a cold smile. "We are not alike."

"We are children of the same source," I said tersely, and I could not have said how the conversation had spun out of my control so quickly.

"Aye." He inclined his head. "Yet are we not the Firstborn?"

"Little does that seem to matter to the Enemy," said Glorfindel, and his voice held an edge. He sat up straighter. "Given the chance, He will slay us all, Elf and Man alike."

Thranduil stretched his legs out and lifted one to cross the other. His robe looked light and it shimmered of a silvery-green as it fell around him.

"Speak plainly, then," he told me. "Present your plan."

"There is no plan," I admitted, striving to keep the weariness from my voice. Where my heart sat in my breast, I felt only a deep echoing ache. "But there is great need for us to stay united and close our hearts and minds to the fell whisperings and the deceit of the Darkness. We have been ruined before by treachery."

"United you say… Elves and Men…" His eyes narrowed. "No doubt you would see us ally with the Naugrim too?"

"They are not the Enemy."

Again, he snorted. "No doubt you would have preferred to see the dwarves still kings of the Misty Mountains? Perhaps you think they would have held the Shadow at bay?"

I shook my head. "Khazad-dûm is long abandoned, and why precisely, we do not know. That is an old debate."

"Perhaps not abandoned. It is true that the trickle of gems and mithril out of the Mountains has slowed almost to a stop, but does that prove the dwindling power of the dwarves?" Suspicion was leaking into his eyes, even as he spoke. "Perhaps they are digging and delving deeper and deeper into the roots of the rock, multiplying as they dig, growing in numbers. What is to say that they have not foreseen the threat and have already formed an alliance with the Enemy. No need then to trade your goods with elves and men."

Glorfindel's – and I saw his temper in his eyes, on a leash ready to burst – voice was tight:

"The dwarves are in no conspiracy with the goblins. This is folly, Thranduil."

"Goblins or worse."

"Dwarves have fled the Mountains as elves fled Lothlórien," said Glorfindel, blue eyes uncompromising. "What does that tell you? You are lucky that Celeborn and Galadriel took up rule there when no one else would and brought peace to that land."

But Thranduil sat forward. "The Lord and Lady of the Golden Wood are lost in dreams in their newfound realm. I am a pragmatic. I fight the servants of the Enemy while Celeborn and Galadriel swim in their webs of visions and whispers."

And Glorfindel stood, the light from the far-off corner seemingly collecting to explode in his eyes.

"As well you should! These are your lands, Thranduil. Your responsibility."

Too late I was in rising. Thranduil was already on his feet, his sudden ire like the razor-sharp slash of a winter rain:

"Think you truly that I know not this? Think you that I rejoice at the black wound which festers in my own wood and which devours those who would seek to destroy it?"

I stepped forward then and placed myself between them to break apart the tension if I could.

"Have you looked into this darkness?" I asked, as calmly as possible. I kept my back to Glorfindel.

When Thranduil's eyes settled om me, they were burning with a cold fire.

"We have not," he said, and his voice sounded clipped. "We have not looked into its core but I know its purpose. You seek allegiances, Elrond. I would tell you that Lothlórien would be wise to support me."

Glorfindel was stepping around me and there was a harshness along his jawline that reduced his voice to a hiss:

"You speak of the Lord and Lady of Lothlórien with revulsion, Thranduil. And yet clamour for their aid. But which greatness have you achieved yourself since the War of the Last Alliance when anyone outside your own kingdom last saw you with a blade in hand?" A dangerous glimmer was in his eyes. "You retreated here, to your halls, and left the fate of Middle-earth in the hands of others."

And in Thranduil's shoulders now showed his disgust with the accusation and rage smouldered around him. "We fight the wretched spawn the Darkness spews forth!"

"We hunt. We fight!" spat Glorfindel. "Since they were born the sons of Elrond have drenched their blades in more black Orc blood than you have ever seen!"

"Glorfindel!"

My voice cut like a whip through the chamber. The sound of it rang through us all.

I could see his jaw working, as if he was actively biting back his defence or further accusations, but then he gave a curt nod at me and I found that I could draw another breath. I let it out slowly.

"We must work together," I said. "There is no other option. If there is to be a war…"

Thranduil, too, seemed to have restrained his ire but he grimaced. "War is upon us already, Elrond, whether you see it or not. There is no true peace in these parts of Middle-earth."

I shook my head. "War, Thranduil, bears a different face."

"Does it?" Again, his piercing gaze locked with mine. "Does it? How can you tell, safe as you are behind the Hithaeglir?"

And I felt – just as I felt a deep weariness shift through me – a new twinge of frustration, and I said:

"Need I remind you that fell creatures are returning to Cirith Forn en Andrath? The Pass is now beset with shadow, and on my doorstep. But while," I raised my hand to stave off another argument before it could take shape, "while we work together we also look to our borders. My sons patrol among my soldiers and they keep no truths from me. Look to yours, Thranduil."

At my words, something drew over his face and though it was fleeting, like a sudden gust of wind, it changed something in him. It was a moment of a nature I could not name. When he again spoke, there was a strange quality to his voice:

"My borders or my sons, Elrond?"

"Both, I suggest."

"As you have observed already, my lord," Thranduil inclined his head to Glorfindel and succeeded in making it look almost as a show of deference, though his eyes told a different tale and there was a venomous bite to his voice, "I look to little else."

There was little reason to continue that day, I knew, and so we left it there. Thranduil stood with his back to us as we exited and the door was closed behind us. In silence we made for my chambers and only when we were alone did I turn to my Captain.

There were lines of anger still in his face and a marble-like coldness about him. But he did not shy away from me.

"Forgive me," I began, "for speaking harshly to you in front of him. Yet there was not…"

But he shook his head and the anger passed from his face. There was even a pale trace of a smile on his lips as he crossed my floor and lowered himself to sit on a reclining couch.

"Only you, Elrond…" He pulled at the string at his throat, parting the leather of his tunic a little. "Only you would apologise for disciplining a soldier who spoke out of turn."

It was true that I had taken no pleasure in chastising him in front of another and so utterly without the barest trace of humour, but I was also relieved that I had managed to silence him. By the simplest comparison I was a ruling Lord and he was not. And yet that did not make it easier.

"You are more than a soldier to me," I told him gently.

"Even so." He looked up. "You were right to do so. Forgive me. I did not seek to quarrel with Thranduil."

I raised an eyebrow at him and now the twist of his mouth truly came to resemble a smile.

"Well, not so soon," he admitted.

"Listen," I said, perhaps too easily sliding into seriousness at his flippancy. "We both know his temper and his position. You shall come to know even more of his opinions in the days to come – much more. If you do not stay your anger–"

"I will stay my anger when Thranduil exercises some intelligence."

"We must unite, Glorfindel."

"Aye…" He sighed. "And you will unite us, Elrond. Of that I have little doubt."

But I was less confident. For though it seemed to me that the world was slowly closing in around us and that we had been naïve during the years of the Watchful Peace and should never have allowed ourselves to be lulled into passiveness, I could find no fire in my heart to guide me. The desire to fight, I feared, had long since left me.

"Do you ever wonder," asked Glorfindel, his voice scattering my thoughts, "at the irony of this?" With a hand he indicated something I should see.

I tried to focus. "What irony is that?"

"How he can be so consumed with his hatred for the Dwarves and yet choose to live as they do, in these underground caverns?" And now there was a hint of humour, too, in his face. "I wonder if someone has ever asked him about that."

And suddenly I found that he had tricked me into a smile. "Well, you shall not."

He raised one fine, golden eyebrow at me and there was a dangerous smirk building on his lips. "Not today."

TBC