4: The Sword on the Wall, the Raven at the Gate
They had hung Orcrist, in its scabbard, on the wall so that Thorin could see it from his pillows. For several days he tried to avoid looking at it: its lethal grace – so typically Elven – mocked his helplessness. The physical pain he could endure, but he hated the routine indignities of enforced dependence, and grief shadowed his mind.
At least Óin and that Iron Hills lad, Högni Helgi's-son, seemed convinced he would recover. Earlier that morning, Högni had removed his sutures. The fresh scars ridged his torso: thick red lines and knots rising above the dark expanses of bruising. Dís was applying ointment to soothe them. He lay uncomfortably on his side as she first tended his back, where a spear's exit and Orc blades had torn the muscles of his shoulders. Her touch was gentle, but still the salve stung the lacerations that could not be stitched.
She should not have had to see him like this, he thought: not after her sons; not after everyone else they had lost. Bad enough that she had dressed his and their father's wounds in the camp at Azanulbizar, after Frerin had died in her arms. And, long before, the burning halls of Erebor, and that baggage-cart on the rain-lashed road…
Grotesque images haunted him, but whether they were his last sight of her sons, or merely conjurings of guilt and grief, he was unsure. Reality and delirium, past and present bled into each other. Azanulbizar coloured his memory of the Field of Dale. The clash of weapons on shield and armour. His gilded byrnie – the coronation armour of Durin the Deathless – flaming in the sunset. Rallying his men with the old war-cry: "Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!" He thought he heard Fíli and Kíli (or was it Frerin? They were so alike) yelling "Another for Thorin!" The dying screams of warriors and beasts. The stench of battle: blood, sweat, ordure… He had lost consciousness at last, cradled against the pungent warmth of a bear. He was warm now, too, although the bedclothes were not particularly heavy, and the fire appeared to have gone out.
"Have I been much fevered?" he asked.
"No. The poultices cleaned your wounds well."
"It's still hot in here…"
"Dáin sent a score of his men to repair the hypocaust. The earth-heat's circulating again," she said.
"He's doing something useful?"
"Well, he hates his food going cold. When you've healed up a bit more, you can have a steam bath."
It had been one of their grandfather's greatest achievements, to use the heat from deep in the mines and from the forges to warm the rock-hewn houses of the city he had restored. They had nothing of that kind in the Iron Hills.
His sister continued: "We're keeping our dear cousin as busy as we can. So long as he believes he's important, he's manageable. Balin keeps a close eye on him."
"As he should. Dáin was always for himself, not for Durin…What else is my council doing?"
"The dead from the burning are buried now. We had them gathered up from the halls, and made a charnel-house of one of the low chambers near the royal tombs."
"Sealed with the proper rites?"
"Yes. I made the offerings myself."
"That is well…"
It was a healthy sign, thought Dís, that he was beginning to take an interest in the business of the council of regency. He needed to keep his mind occupied, even if his body was much weakened.
"And the inventory of the treasure?" he asked.
"Slow work. There is so much of it – and oh, it is a wondrous sight! Living light of sun and moon, drawn from the rock!"
He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "All our past is in it. Each hammer-stroke, each casting-mark – so many generations of our people's skill. All that we are… But the Tall Folk can't see it; they don't feel it as we do…"
"Gems sorted by kind, artefacts by metal, nation and form. It'll take months, Glóin says – perhaps the better part of a year."
"We need more of our folk here from Ered Luin, to help."
"I'll send out word. After all, at the very least, Signy and Groa need to know that Gróin's sons are safe. But it may be spring before we can get all here, given the length of journey and provisioning. But I've told Glóin that if he finds any larger mithril byrnies in the hoard, he should set them aside for you, not for some Hobbit runt!"
"Mithril's for children or cowards! Besides, I'll not see battle again."
"You will. You have Orcrist back, now: it's a fine blade – for Elvish work. Mind, it was from our kind that they learned the smith's art!"
"What good is it to me when my arms have no strength?"
"Not yet. Óin wants to move you to a couch or chair soon: you'll feel better out of bed, once you can walk a little."
The king glared. Walk a little… He thought of the miles he had covered, many on foot, to get here: now crossing the bedroom seemed as ambitious as crossing the Misty Mountains.
"It will take time," she said, helping him to turn.
She started to smooth the salve on to his chest and flanks. The scars were extensive, carved deep into once-powerful muscles. The tattooed geometric patterns that had marked his coming of age and then his succession had been disrupted, all but destroyed in places.
"I know you have patience – all the years it took to bring us home. You'll be fit enough for crowning before the ravens nest again, you'll see!"
"A fine coronation – without the Arkenstone and with Durin's golden byrnie in pieces!" He shook his head.
"Oh, we'll have the stone by then. And the byrnie's with the armourers for repair and re-gilding. Högni Helgi's-son even gave them the links he dug out of your flesh. I daresay it scarce mattered to Durin the Deathless that it rends so easily! Still, you looked magnificent."
He smiled faintly. "That was the point."
"– But not to come back?"
"Fíli Kali's-son Kol's-son would have made a noble king."
She held her finger to his lips. "No, Thorin. No. My boys were my life and my heart, but before you set out, they swore to defend you with their lives. They kept their oath; they kept their honour, and they would not have had it otherwise."
He closed his eyes for a moment. She noticed how sunken they had become, with dark shadows beneath.
She said: "And with our kingdom as it is, with the Tall Folk about us, and the Heart of the Mountain in their hands, it's not a game for untried boys!"
"– Nor for a madman."
"Don't even think that!"
"I know what they were saying of me: Men, Elves, Tharkûn Grey-Wizard…"
"And they were wrong, and they are wrong."
"Lying here, sometimes I dream of Father. He used to say after Azanulbizar – being lamed, as well as half-blind – that a maimed king can never be a true king."
"You're not going to be maimed." She could feel the irregularity of breathing left by the lung wound, but still… "You've never feared anything or anyone. You mustn't fear that."
"And what befell him in the wilds… Tharkûn speaks of tainted blood: a dragon-curse or sickness. Madness."
"It was sorrow! That's not a curse, though it oftimes seems like it… We've all been forced to suffer too much, for too long. Grandfather, Father… It was Frerin's death that broke Father – the last blow… And you – you've cared for our family, for all our people, all these years, and braved so many dangers these past months! And when you thought yourself home at last, to be betr–" She stopped herself. "You know how it is with a harp: if the keys are turned too tight, the strings –"
"But you don't break."
"Someone has to hold this family together," she said.
"What's left of it."
"Durin's line will endure. And these hurts will fade, like all your other scars." She shifted his plaits out of the way of the ointment: "You've got more grey hair now, though."
"So have you."
"Are you surprised?"
"No." He managed a weary smile. "I feel old, Dís … Old and spent. And there is so much to be done. What kind of king can I be now?"
"Our finest. You owe us that much – my sons and me. Spring will come."
"But first we must weather the winter."
Bilbo looked out from the rampart of the Front Gate, and took several deep breaths in the bright, frosty air. Since the hypocaust had been repaired, he found his rooms in Erebor stuffy, but the physical atmosphere was not all that he found oppressive.
Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen, some change or news. There had been no official announcement on King Thorin's health since he had been carried home after the battle. He remained within the Great Forge House, tended by his kin (if he still lived), without visitors. The council of regency attended to state affairs. Envoys – Human and Elf – came and went from their respective encampments in the ruins of Dale. Even Gandalf did not seem to know what was really going on, or, if he did, he was keeping the Hobbit even more in the dark than usual.
I might as well still be wearing that invisibility ring for all the notice anyone takes of me, he thought.
The wind blew about the gate. The ravens coursed its currents, watching everything. Thorin had threatened to throw him from here, when he learned what he had done with the Arkenstone. Bilbo was relieved that he had retracted the threat when he was wounded, but still he wondered what he might have in mind for him if he recovered. The stone was, after all, still in Bard's hands. And it was a long, long way down…
A large raven, plump and sleek as all its kind had been since the battle, alighted on the masonry at the farther end of the rampart, past the guard, who stood silently to attention. Bilbo noticed a black-cloaked figure, somewhat taller than himself, stretch out a hand to it. The bird cocked its head to one side. The hand was bone-white, with several rings on each finger: a woman's. She stroked the bird's back (the feathers not dull black, but gleaming like oils on water – purple, green, blue) as a mother strokes her child's hair. He almost thought he heard a voice, too gentle, too far away for its words to be clear. Then the bird chuckled and again took wing.
It unnerved him.
The dark figure slipped back into the shadows, through the archway that led to the stairs – but not before Bilbo had observed the guard bow.
The Lady Dís, he thought. Something has happened, after all. She's given a message to the ravens…
He determined to follow her.
With small, quick steps she descended the twisting stair from the rampart. At first he thought she was heading for the passageways that led to the Forge House.
But no: further down she went, down the rock-hewn steps that spiralled towards the tombs… He pattered after her, softly as a mouse, his bare feet silent in the wake of the click-click of her metal-tipped boots.
In the gloom of the great burial chamber, mica-paned lanterns flickered before the recent tombs, and made the minerals and metals in the walls glisten.
He saw her kneel down by the grave of her sons. Her body rocked back and forth. She was sobbing, he realised, as she had not done at the funeral: sobbing and singing. He could not understand much of it, but what he did sounded rather like:
The ravens are in the pine trees,
The pine trees, the pine trees;
The ravens are in the pine trees,
And those I love under cold stone.
The deer are on the mountainside,
The mountainside, the mountainside;
The deer are on the mountainside,
And those I love under cold stone.
And Bilbo felt chilled, because it seemed to him that this meant that Thorin, too, was dead. The king's words to him in the tent in Dale were all that shielded him from punishment over the Arkenstone's theft…
"She comes here quite often," whispered a familiar voice. "But this is the first time I've seen her like this."
The Hobbit looked up. "What does this mean, Gandalf? Is the king…?"
The wizard shook his head. "It means the king is out of danger."
"Then why –?"
"She could not weep for her sons until she was sure of her brother's life. Had the king passed, their deaths would have been in vain."
Bilbo sighed. "But it couldn't be helped, could it? I mean, it wasn't my –"
"You shouldn't reproach yourself. The outcome has not been such a bad one."
"Not such a –? Those boys are dead – and Thorin almost!"
Gandalf motioned to his companion to keep his voice down. "I have some concern there. Thorin may still be… difficult."
"Frankly, I'm not entirely sure I'd blame him! The Arkenstone –"
"– Is no longer your concern."
"But Bard still has it."
Gandalf nodded slowly. Then he stepped back into the shadows as he realised that Dís had seen them, and was walking towards them.
Red-rimmed eyes in a small, pale face. "You followed me?" she asked softly.
"I–I wanted to pay my respects to your sons," Bilbo replied.
She gave a nod. "As well you might."
"Fíli and Kíli were my friends."
"So was my brother." A moment's pause. "Tell me, do you enjoy the view from the Front Gate?"
Gandalf interjected: "What were you doing there?"
"Now, now, Tharkûn! He saw me talking with Roäc Carc's-son there, that's all. – And do you like feeding birds, Bilbo Bungo's-son?"
"Why – erm – yes, I have a bird-table at home: I put out seeds and nuts for them. Ham Gamgee – he's my gardener – thinks that it's making them a nuisance, although he's glad of them when the thrushes smash the snails…"
She smiled. "Since you are my brother's guest, I'm sorry to say it would be unseemly for you to feed ours."
Her bejewelled hand made a small gesture as she drew her cloak about her. Then she was gone, up the stairs and into the corridors towards the Forge House. The clicking of her boots echoed around the tombs in her wake.
Gandalf grimaced. "These Dwarven ladies can be worse than their men!"
"What did she do with her hand?" asked the Hobbit. "Was it part of their sign-language?"
"Not exactly: more of a sign against the Evil Eye."
"Against me?"
"Take care, Bilbo. Please – take care."
And then Gandalf, too, was gone into the gloom. Bilbo, at last, approached the tomb of the princes. Leaning on the covering slab, he tried to remember them as they had been in life: young, vital, funny… But all he could think of was their corpses lying stiff and cold in their armour, at the funeral. What was it the holy man had said?
Beasts die, kindred die,
You yourself die the same:
One thing I know that never dies:
The winning of glorious name.
He did not believe it for a moment: it was not a Hobbit way of thinking. And yet… And yet… He realised suddenly that his eyes were streaming.
Balin was waiting for Dís at the entrance of the Forge House. Outwardly, he was smiling in his usual avuncular manner, watching Bofur teaching Bombur to juggle, Bifur carving a wooden toy, and Ori calmly and quietly beating Nori at King's-Table. Inwardly, he was anxious, but it showed only in the way he fingered the curled ends of his beard.
"Where have you been, lass?"
"Visiting my children. And sending word to Ered Luin."
"Is something amiss?"
"No more than usual. The ravens aren't the only scavengers hereabouts."
"Indeed they're not: one of them seeks an audience." He showed her a broad-letter, bearing a seal.
Dís glanced at the document: Elvish parchment, but in a Man's hand. "Worded as a demand, I see."
"Again."
"It's not possible. Thorin's still much too weak," she said. "He tires easily, and frankly, we can't let them see him in the state …"
"But he does need to know."
She nodded. "Shall you tell him, or I?"
"Better still – both of us."
They went up to the bedchamber. Óin and Dori were earnestly (and loudly, given Óin's deafness) comparing recipes for herbal teas: whether or not whole leaves and flowers were more effectual than ones crushed in a mortar in the cases of both kingsfoil and chamomile. The king pretended to sleep, trying to ignore them.
Balin spoke. "Sire? Thorin?"
He opened his eyes. "What is it?"
"Bard of Laketown. Or Bard Dragon's-Bane, King of Dale, as he now styles himself."
"Hm!" He winced as he dragged himself up the pillows. Dís reached out to help him, but he waved her aside. "Let me see."
"Don't let it distress you," she said, as Balin showed the letter.
He frowned at it. "He can demand all he likes of me. He would do better if he were to request an audience."
"As we agreed before: I'll speak with him," Dís said. "He's Tall Folk, but he's still a man. I could always try feminine wiles…"
"You?" Her brother teased.
"I wouldn't count on them working anyway," said Balin. "He's probably the most morose fellow I've ever met, next to…" He gestured in the king's direction.
Thorin agreed, with a wry smile. "He makes me look charming."
"He makes you look downright frivolous!"
"Now that," said Dís, "I really must see!"
To Be Continued
Notes:
"The ravens are in the pine trees…" is based on the traditional Gaelic song Tha na Fèidh am Bràigh Ùige (The Deer are on the Braes of Uig).