Chapter Four
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death, Romeo and Juliet (Act III, Scene II), William Shakespeare
That murder'd me: I would forget it fain;
But, O, it presses to my memory,
Like damnèd guilty feeds to sinners' minds.
The forest road was long, longer than Matlar remembered it ever being before. Beside him Orophim's face grew paler with each step his horse took, his shoulders hunched over to the left instead of his usual spear straight posture. They needed to stop and let him rest, but pride and the dangers of the forest forced them on.
Matlar had enough faith in his rangers not to need to pay attention to every squeak that came from the forest. Instead he listened to Orophim's laboured breathing and gasps as the incline of the path changed and his body was jostled in a new direction. Matlar had begged him to stay in Lórien, their first port of call after the battle. Rúmil had done his best to keep his younger brother there as well, their cousin Leoa had added her voice but nothing could argue with Orophim's logic, as painful as it was. If the lingering poison was to kill him, he wanted to be with Matlar when it did. That thought tore at Matlar's heart as if the spear had entered his own chest. He had no choice but to go home and so Orophim refused to be left behind.
Every four hoof beats or so he would look over and meet Leoa's eye and they would share a concerned frown before looking back down at the path ahead or at Orophim.
The road did not lead to his Father's halls, nor did it lead anywhere at all. It simply petered out slowly into overgrown forest. The moment came when they had to turn north and follow the indistinct trails through the trees. Their pace slowed as they were forced to ride single file, making each of them vulnerable on the flanks. Twenty riders stretched out in one snaking column, their sense as alert as their fatigue would allow. On the road Matlar was willing to stop, he knew the forest well and could find safety. The closer they got to the Halls however, the more hostile their surroundings became and not from spiders or orcs. Matlar had seen elven swords face him on a battlefield and the instinctive trust in his own people had been shot down along with his brother.
Try as he might he could not stop thinking of Hestlean as that. He told himself that a traitor had no kin and that Hestlean was nothing to him, but he felt the confusing hole there had been when Orision fell. Matlar had no black clothes on him, only the brown and green of a ranger, and he had already made up his mind not to change into mourning when he had the chance. The court and his father could think what they liked, he had been the one to face Hestlean's army and he would not show any sadness for the loss of a traitor.
They did not stop at nightfall despite Orophim beginning to cough. Matlar stopped looking over at him, knowing that if he did he would call a halt. The rest of the wounded had been left behind in Lórien to heal, they were slowed only by Orophim. He judged they were still a several hours away from the Halls, they would reach them by dawn at the earliest.
A ranger at the forefront whistled a warning: unknown figures up ahead. Silently their weapons were unsheathed. Matlar beckoned for Leoa to move forwards slightly, as the least well-trained of the company she and a wounded Orophim were the weak spots. In the tightness of the trees riders were at a disadvantage, even with bows and swords drawn. They could not manoeuvre as they could in open terrain.
An answering whistle came back, high pitched and long. The Halls' guards. Still they did not sheath their weapons.
Kin, Matlar thought, but not necessarily friends. He dismounted and moved carefully to the front of their party.
"What Captain leads you?" he asked the figures he could make out in the darkness ahead. Blond hair could be mistaken for moonbeams, auburn for autumn leaves.
"Calen and the forest guard," came the familiar reply. "The King sent us to accompany you home, your Highness." Matlar nodded to his rangers to put away their weapons. Calen was not a Sindar politician. Matlar hoped at least that he could trust his father's guards. He kept his hand on his sword hilt anyway.
Calen emerged from the trees, his red hair hidden by a helmet. Matlar must have looked mistrustful, too tired and worn to keep a cold face for Calen quickly removed it and bowed.
"We were told there would be many wounded," he said as he looked down the ranks.
"Most stayed in Lothlórien, they will return with the rest of the company when they have healed." Matlar turned around sharply and remounted. "The forest is dangerous, Captain, let us make haste." Calen melted into the trees and his guards began to move ahead, surrounding them. Matlar's rangers had their hands close to their quivers as they rode on and even in the confines of the trees they grouped together protectively around Orophim.
The sun never rose in the forest, not with the sudden shining brilliance it did over the plains. Instead it was gradual; a slow seeping light that melted the shadows into their only barely smaller daytime shapes. The night birds dove for cover as the larks and blackbirds began to sing, heralding the arrival of day above the trees.
They were singing when Matlar heard the low whistle of a guard and they came at last to the clearing in front of the gates. The rock face gave no sign of being anything but, until he rode forward. It did not part, or show that it parted until they had passed through, forwards it was nothing more than a rock face, as he turned back to look at Orophim he could see the great doors rising high into the mountain, covered in runes and reliefs.
Calen and the guards turned back into the forest with a bow to Matlar, their task done. Slowly the company dismounted, Matlar and Leoa supporting Orophim. He dismissed his rangers who filed away towards the stables, taking the three royals' horses as well.
"Father can wait," Matlar murmured and they made their way to his chambers. Outside two healers were already waiting.
"Go," came the quiet voice once they had him in bed and bandaged up. On the white sheets even Orophim's hair lacked any colour. Matlar cupped his cheek gently, with no desire to leave. How could he, when his entire world was lying deathly pale with poison at the hands of his own brother?
"Matlar?" Feuil's voice was harsh in the doorway. It had been but a moment since Leoa and the healers left them in peace.
"Go," Orophim told him again, his voice a crack above a whisper. "I will be here." Perhaps it was childish to believe him but Matlar stood and faced his younger brother.
"Why are you in black?" he asked at once. "There is no one to mourn." Feuil blinked, looking taken aback.
"Clearly you have not yet seen father." Matlar cast one last glance at Orophim's now closed eyes and shooed Feuil into the corridor.
"Go and change, and get whoever else is in mourning out of it," he snapped. Feuil had the privilege of being the only person Matlar dared snap at. Not his older brothers and certainly not one of the girls. Feuil stood at the bottom of the pecking order and so could be relied upon to do firmly as he was told. Matlar wondered if that had helped shield him from ever meeting their father's wrath.
"Our brother is dead." Matlar looked away for a second, a trick Erestor had shown him to make it seem as if he was tired and pensive when it gave him time not to lash out.
"Did Yarna mourn when her father was lost?" he asked Feuil sharply. "Hestlean was a traitor, just like Saruman." There was no conclusive proof that the wizard was dead. When it came Yarna would never show the slightest hint of grief to anyone.
Feuil had outgrown his immediate older brother by a good two inches, making his pout lack any impact when viewed from below.
"He is in mother's gardens," Feuil answered sourly and turned with all the graceful poise he could muster. Matlar felt his stomach tighten slightly. Had their father been in a council chamber, or even his own rooms then he would have the courage to go to him at once. In the Queen's gardens however, Matlar shrank from the idea of meeting him there, of seeing him in the place that left him vulnerable.
Go he did, nonetheless. Through the hushed hallways, returning the bows that greeted him with stiff nods. The Queen's gardens took up a small section of the surface level, above the chambers where Legolas and Yarna pretended to live when they pretended they could settle for more than a decade in any one place, and surrounded on one side by the nursery, on the other by the rooms that had until recently been Orision's and Hestlean's. At that time of year the gardens had few flowers in, the colours came from leaves and heathers. Yarna had planted a bed of golden flowers, Matlar could not bring their name to mind, that never wilted or lost their petals. Enduring.
The Elvenking sat among the sleeping roses, deep red robes making up for the absence of red buds on the stalks.
"Matlar," Thranduil stated in a dull, uninterested voice.
"Adar." Sitting on the edge of the low stone wall that separated the roses from the lawn, Matlar was opposite the bench on which his father sat.
"Your brother does not come." Legolas stayed in Ithilien, as Matlar had advised. There was barely concealed pain in that statement. "Instead he sends her." Yarna. Matlar could have laughed at his brother's lack of tact. In the moment when their father was grieving for a lost son Legolas chose to send the one elf who could frustrate and annoy the king the most. It was not however overly laughable.
"He does not want-"
"I can see why he does it," Thranduil cut his son off brusquely. "Go, a council will be called and you shall have to take Legolas' place." Matlar of course did not merit a place of his own, only one in his brother's absence. "They will deal with the results of this, treachery." The word sounded bitter, a word used for Noldor, dwarves or Men not their own people. "Go." There was a fundamental difference in the way he said it to how Orophim had whispered the word. Thranduil ordered, sharply, as you wave away a fly. Matlar knew which one he would prefer to hear.
A tiny face looked out from the nursery window at him and his face softened. Lilleila tilted her head owlishly as she surveyed him. He inclined his head towards her, receiving an exuberant wave. It had been nearly a year since the elfling had seen her parents, a year since her father had said farewell to leave for Imladris and the unknown. Even longer since her mother had been there. Someone must have called her away inside, with one final wave her face disappeared from the window and Matlar realised suddenly that his father had left the gardens as well.
Somewhere, deep at the back of his mind he remembered a summer's day when he had first lost a brother. Barely as high as his father's waist he could recall the scene as vividly as a portrait. Legolas and himself running down the Queen's gallery, each with a handful of bedraggled wild flowers clasped tight, determined to be the first to give them to their mother as she sat with her ladies and handmaidens in the garden. Matlar had come shooting out of the doorway first, skidding around the bushes when Legolas simply bounded over them. There was a large age gap between then yet they were close to looking like twins as Matlar grew quickly before he stopped altogether to be the smallest his brothers. He had reached the company first, bowing breathlessly to his mother as he held out the flowers, their petals scattered to the winds along the gallery. She had accepted them with a smile he barely saw, having turned in triumph to Legolas. Legolas who was staring at the dark haired girl holding a harp. Matlar had felt something give, a familiar constellation was suddenly missing from the sky. He had watched as Legolas held out the flowers to the girl, claiming them to be a welcoming gift to the daughter of the West.
Matlar found himself standing in the same spot, staring at the tree Yarna had been sitting under. She had told Legolas haughtily that his flowers were not particularly well preserved from their journey and he had told her she looked worn out from travelling so far as well. The laughter had broken the moment and only Matlar had seen her take the flowers and place them carefully in between the pages of the music book she had been playing from.
He hastened from the gardens, winding his way back below ground to his chambers and Orophim. His father was right, a council would be called and he would have to serve. There he was with what remained of his family and his people, but he was alone apart from Orophim who could do nothing but comfort him, and Feuil, who after all was little more than a child.