Minas Nirnaeth
Grieving Beleg looked upon him; for Gwindor was now but a bent and fearful shadow of his former shape and mood, when in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad that lord of Nargothrond rode with rash courage to the very doors of Angband, and there was taken.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
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The candlewick disappeared into an orange tongue of flame, and a little light swelled around it as it caught. Finduilas withdrew the lit candle from the fire and cupped her hand over it, guarding the tiny flame. In the half-light, she started up the stairs.
All along the stairway, five hundred little flames identical to her own flickered somberly through the darkness of the tower, atop candles of every possible size, shape, and color. There were others here with her, other visitors, some above and some below on the steep, spiraling stairs. But they did not speak to one another, and kept their heads bowed. Their soft footsteps echoed on the circular walls.
She had reached the top of the spiraling flight. There was a Sindarin inscription carved in the topmost stair, illuminated briefly by Finduilas's candle:
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MINAS NIRNAETH
This Tower was Erected in Honor
Of Elves of Nargothrond Dead or Lost
In Battles of Beleriand in the Years of Sun
No song nor tale may contain our grief.
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Dead or lost. Finduilas walked over to the narrow window at the top of the tower and set her candle down on the sill, where it illuminated her reflection in the glass. Bright blue eyes looked out over the smooth, even terraces of the city.
Fifteen years.
The candles burned, each a tiny monument to wasted life, to regret, to questions that would remain forever unanswered. Not a single man from Gwindor's company had returned from Angband. King Fingon had been unable to reach them at all, and hitherto their fates were unknown. They said that Morgoth seldom killed the lords of the Noldor, but rather enslaved them for their skill in mining, as he had poor Gelmir.
Lost. Every day for the first year after he was lost, Finduilas had climbed the tallest spire in the castle to look northeast toward the head of Amon Rudh. But she never saw a traveler on the still and empty horizon, and no one ever came back to Nargothrond from the direction of the Plains of Angfauilith, nor were tidings ever sent of those who were taken.
The liquid wax pooled at the base of the wick, and the flame reared and danced. Was it really only the fifteenth candle she had brought to this window? It seemed like an eternity since he had been gone.
All they had ever found of Gwindor was his pale blue banner, the same one he had cast on the ground in fury at Barad Eithel before he charged the Plains. This was returned to her, dirty and torn, but Finduilas had never washed it. She had placed it atop her pillow, and rested her cheek against it those nights she lay awake, turning and turning in the middle of the impossible void he left behind.
A delicate shuffle, soft footsteps approaching through the dusk below. Someone else was coming up the stairs. Finduilas shifted aside to make room for the other visitor and waited for her to pass. Instead, the footsteps stopped, and a woman's voice asked, "Is that you, Finduilas?"
Finduilas started. She knew that voice. Only one person would be brazen enough to address the princess in the middle of her mourning.
Sure enough, Víressë's face appeared through the darkness, her brown skin aglow in the light of her own candle.
"Well met, Víressë," said Finduilas. She felt oddly embarrassed, intruded upon.
The two women regarded each other.
"Did you- I mean, have you come to…"
"Yes," said Víressë with her usual bluntness, "My brother. In the Bragollach."
Dagor Bragollach. "Sudden Flame". The devastating battle in which Morgoth had broken the Siege of Angband; a battle that would have no rival in its devastation until the Nirnaeth Arnoediad a few short years later.
Finduilas bowed her head, and offered in reply one of her mother's old Sindarin sayings. "May he awaken in a fairer world than ours."
Víressë shoved her candle roughly into an alcove on the wall, glaring.
"He almost made it out alive, too," said Víressë, "But on the last day, he rode into the fire after his captain. Neither of them ever came back. That stupid boy."
Finduilas was alarmed to see tears in her dark brown eyes. As far as she knew, no one had ever seen Víressë cry.
"I'm so sorry," she said anxiously, "What… what was your brother like?"
Víressë stared at her, and for a moment, Finduilas wondered if her words had intruded, had offended. But Víressë shrugged and sat down at the top of the stairs, and tilted her head toward the space next to her, indicating Finduilas should sit down beside her. Finduilas gathered her skirt around her and took the seat proffered her.
"He was nothing like me," said Víressë in answer to her question, "He was always smiling. I used to tell him he smiled too much. He used to dream up these elaborate pranks. Once he managed to replace my mother's furs with a live animal for each garment. You should have seen her face when she opened her closet, and out ran a whole mess of minks, raccoons, and rabbits! He would always rope me into these little schemes somehow. It used to be us against the world: our parents, our schoolmasters, everyone. Our father tried to talk some sense into him as he grew up, told him to take on a man's responsibilities."
She paused to roll her dark brown eyes.
"But he could never keep himself out of trouble. And he could never leave a companion behind. Look where it got him."
Finduilas had never heard Víressë talk so openly before. At the time, they knew very little about one another, and had not exchanged more than a handful of words.
"I wish I could have met him," said Finduilas, "I think I would have liked him."
"You would have," said Víressë with a sad little smirk, "Everyone did."
They sat in silence, watching the candles shrink as they burned.
Then Víressë looked pointedly at Finduilas and said: "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Well, what about Gwindor?"
Finduilas smiled in spite of herself. Víressë cared nothing for manners or propriety. Yet heretofore Finduilas had confided in no one about Gwindor, but felt oddly comfortable speaking of him to Víressë. She, too, had lost someone after all.
Finduilas sighed, gathering in her mind the right words to say about the man who was no longer there, struggling to comprehend how even to begin. Víressë did not harry her, but waited wordlessly, hands folded against the dark fabric of her gown.
"He loved me, Víressë," said Finduilas at last, "He loved me more than any girl has ever been loved. He didn't say it often, except when it counted, but I always saw it in his eyes."
Víressë said nothing, waiting for her to go on.
"There was a thunderstorm once," Finduilas went on, "A torrential rain. The river Narog flooded its banks; you probably remember. The horses were terrified. They broke out of their stables and tried to leap over the pasture gates. They all failed, and many of them broke their legs. All but my Malorant. He cleared the gates, though his back hooves struck the rail with a mighty ringing, and he galloped down the gorge, leaping down the terraces, driven mad with terror. When the thunder roared, he lost his footing and tumbled into the teeming river.
Before anyone could stop him, Gwindor threw his coat to the ground and ran outside into the drenching rain, headed straight for the river. No one dared follow. The trees were falling, and high winds screeching all around. We feared he would be gravely hurt or worse- I was a weeping wreck; my father had to hold me down. But in the middle of the night, after the storm died down, a familiar bugling neigh rang through the gorge. Malorant trotted up the littered bank and Gwindor rode on his back, his fingers carelessly tangled in the horse's wet mane, shivering but smiling. Both of them were thoroughly waterlogged.
My father was furious. He said, 'If you're to marry my daughter, Gwindor, you can't endanger yourself this way, not even for a treasure like Malorant. Fine horses can be replaced, but men's lives cannot.' But Gwindor only laughed and replied, 'I didn't save Malorant because he was valuable, I saved him because Finduilas loves him. And I would do it again.'
Well, Gwindor's voice was hoarse for a week after that, and he had a deep gash on his arm that they had to sew up with thread. But thereafter, he and Malorant were great friends. He said it was nothing. He said he could swim the length of the sea if he knew I was waiting for him on the other side. And I believed him. Even if he was taken to the end of the earth, he'd always return to me."
As the story ended, Finduilas's thoughts returned gradually to the present. The stark, gray walls of reality materialized around her and she was back in Minas Nirnaeth, where Gwindor's name was but an inscription in stone.
"I thought surely he would return, no matter what, as he promised. But Gwindor went blind when he saw what they did to Gelmir, Víressë, he lost all of his sense and bearing, and just like he threw himself into the river after Malorant, in his rashness and fury he rode to Morgoth's door and threw his life away."
She had resolutely held back her tears, but they came streaming out now.
"Fifteen years. I don't think he's ever coming back."
Víressë said nothing. She threw her arms around Finduilas. They cried, the first of many nights they would do so in the years to come. Other mourners came and left. The two of them held one another on the topmost stair, lost to the world. Each wept like a girl for what was gone from her forever, and what the other, too, had lost.
The candles had burned down to stumps now now, and their light was growing dim. Finduilas wiped her nose one last time. Her face stung, but her eyes were dry. She had run out of tears at last.
"I'm starving," she said, "Let's go home."
Víressë smiled wryly and replied: "What about a drink first?"
She rose, and held out her hand, and Finduilas took it, pulling herself up. They climbed back down the staircase and out of the narrow door. It was still light outside, and Finduilas felt a weight lifted from her shoulders as the sunlight touched her face, and she and Víressë walked on, leaving their old, painful memories in the tower.
Malorant was waiting for them outside. He tossed his head as they came near.
"Get on," said Finduilas, climbing nimbly onto the golden horse's back, "He'll carry us both."
So Víressë climbed into the saddle after Finduilas, holding her waist from behind. Malorant waited patiently until they were well seated, nickered, and moved his golden legs in his high-stepping walk, turned back homeward. His hooves beat out a rhythmic, sure rhythm over the stone terraces, precluding the need for idle conversation.
So along the way, they were quiet, until Víressë asked: "Have there been others, Finduilas? Anyone at all?"
Finduilas pursed her lips thoughtfully.
"A few," she said, "I tried, for my father's sake, but my heart wasn't in it. Every time I thought I had fallen in love again, I realized I only wished I had. It never felt right when I put my lips on theirs. They were good men, Víressë, but only served to remind me there was only one who ever really had me. There was just nothing I could do to feel, the way Gwindor made me feel."
At the sound of Gwindor's name, Malorant's ears pricked up. He whinnied softly, and lowered his head and tail in grief. Finduilas leaned forward in the saddle and wrapped her arms around his warm neck, burying her face in his mane.
"Don't cry," she said to Malorant, "Though I miss him too. We still have each other, my pretty darling. And I'll never let you go, do you hear me? Never."
And Malorant snorted sadly in reply as he walked on.
Later that evening, after they had stabled Malorant, they brought a bottle of wine up to Finduilas's bedroom. Víressë poured out two glasses. Finduilas took one by the stem and swirled it around, staring into its rich, crimson depths.
"You know, Víressë, I've always wondered why-" she hesitated. "Why you've been so kind to me. I know what the others say when they think I'm not listening. And yet, though we haven't been friends before now, I know you defended me every time."
She expected Víressë to deny having made such an exception for her. Instead, Víressë nodded briskly in confession.
"Yes. I defended you. I always knew they were wrong about you. You see, I wasn't born in Nargothrond, Finduilas. My brother and I grew up far away from here. We grew up in the Northwestern sector."
Víressë's eyes glimmered darkly as she waited for Finduilas to realize the significance of these words. When Finduilas raised her brows in sudden understanding, she went on. "Yes, that's right. We lived near the carrot farm where Malorant was born. We all heard the story of how you saved the little yellow runt who turned out to be true gold. We celebrated when the tidings came of how he routed the blue-bloods in the yearling races. And when Siege broke, my brother proudly took up the banner of Finarfin and marched with your father in the Bragollach. Well, you know the rest."
She rolled her eyes.
"Due to the 'particularly noble' way in which he died, our parents were handsomely compensated, and I was invited to live for as long as I liked in the city, in your father's castle. That's how I came to Nargothrond."
Finduilas studied Víressë's lips as she spoke, dark and full against the brown of her face. She had never thought to ask how Víressë had come to Nargothrond. She had never even given it the slightest thought- it seemed like Víressë had simply appeared one day as the natural leader of the kept, lily-skinned women of the court, had always belonged there with her biting wit and her painted, ruthless dark eyes. How very little she had known of the truth. How very little she knew about anyone.
Finduilas raised her glass.
"To your brother."
"And to Gwindor," said Víressë.
They drank.
Happy December to everyone! Stay warm! Thanks so much for reading.