Chapter Ten: Seeking Starlight
Days passed, and the Elvenking still prevaricated.
Every morning Celeborn would enter the king's study, and every afternoon he would emerge stone-faced and Legolas would slip in and take his place. No one knew what they discussed.
It was understandable, Eärfin kept saying, that the king's only son – indeed, his only family member, as far as they could tell – would want daily updates on the progress of the talks. But Cadhríen and Amrohil continued to suspect that the prince was bending his father's ear, and not to their advantage.
As time went on, Cadhríen found herself beginning to long for home, particularly at night, when the bedchamber was black as pitch and the weight of the rock and stone above her seemed to press down on her mind. Their party had little cause to leave the Elvenking's Halls, save for hunts, on which only Haldir really proved useful. The rest of them occasionally took walks in the forest, but they were cautioned to stay within earshot of the river. Thranduil claimed the wolves and spiders and other foul things that roamed beneath Mirkwood's eaves had been growing bolder in recent months.
She felt cooped up; claustrophobic.
It was during their fifth night at the halls that her desire for some fresh air and a glimpse of the stars – just one glimpse – overwhelmed her and spurred her to act.
She had been shifting and turning under her fur-trimmed blanket for hours, listening to Menedhel's slow, steady breathing and thinking of the breeze wafting in through the open arches of her bedchamber at home. But sleep simply would not come, and the night seemed endless. It must have been well past midnight, perhaps two or three hours or so, when she finally threw off her cover and got quietly to her feet, her elven eyes just managing to pick out the shapes of the room's furniture in the darkness.
She shrugged a warm cloak on over her nightdress and stepped into the pair of soft boots she'd left standing at the foot of her bed. Then she stole out of the chamber and into the silent, high-ceilinged passageway beyond, where only a few torches had been left burning. Shadows pooled at intervals along the hallways. She heard no footsteps; no whispered voices. Indeed, she saw no one until she reached the great front doors to the halls. Guards stood stationed either side of them, their spears held perfectly upright, their eyes bright behind their burnished helmets.
They looked at her in puzzlement, then darted quick glances at each other.
"You are one of our guests from the Golden Wood," the one to her left observed, shifting his grip on his spear slightly. "Have you lost your way?"
She hadn't anticipated this – that she might not be allowed out this late at night.
"No," she said, tugging her cloak tighter around her and lifting her chin. "I just… can't sleep, and I need a little fresh air. Just a few minutes out on the bridge, that's all." She smiled at them. No reason why she shouldn't tell them the truth of it.
The guards' gazes met again. They were uneasy.
"We do not open the doors at night as a rule," the one on her right said. "Not in these dark days. Only by order of…" He trailed off, studying her intently through his visor.
"Of…?" she prompted lightly, keeping her expression pleasant.
"Well, of the king," the guard said. "Or his son."
Cadhríen almost laughed at the thought of waking Thranduil or Legolas up this late to ask permission to take a night-time stroll.
"Never mind," she said. She was tired and miserable; she had no interest in standing here in the cold to plead her case. She made to turn away.
"Wait," the other guard put in, shifting his spear again. He had swivelled his helmeted head to catch his companion's eye. "Given one of our number is abroad this night and due to return before dawn, will we not be opening the doors soon anyway? What does one guest stepping out for some air matter?" He looked back at Cadhríen sternly. "As long you do keep to the bridge."
The guard to her right raised an eyebrow, then shrugged lightly. His armour creaked. "Very well. But on your head be it, Beredir."
Cadhríen nodded gratefully. Perhaps, she thought, as they heaved the doors open just enough to allow her through, the Mirkwood Elves had been cautioned to deal delicately with their visitors, just as Celeborn had asked his party to be on their best behaviour with their hosts. In any case, she was to be granted her starlight – and for that she was grateful.
The night air was cool and fresh, and she was faintly surprised to see puddles of rainwater on the bridge. The leaves of the trees clustered on the opposite side of the gully glinted wetly in the moonlight. As the doors closed behind her, she took a few tentative steps forward; it was no longer raining, at least. Far below her, the Forest River, imbued with relentless energy by the spring melt off the mountains, rushed and tumbled and crashed, drowning out all other sound.
She felt damp moss squelch under her booted feet as she walked to the centre of the narrow bridge. Immediately, she felt lighter, more restored, being out here in the open. She tipped her head back and was rewarded by the sight of the navy-black, cloud-scudded sky, stretching over her in a wide strip between the canopy to the west and the jagged rock wall behind her. Amidst the clouds were swirls and clusters of mithril-bright stars.
She traced them with her eyes. At last.
She tried to remember, standing there, how long it had been since she'd last seen them, but she couldn't quite work it out. Their party had been under-hill in the king's halls for five days, but before that, how long had they toiled through the stuffy, shadowed wood that now lay all about her? She lowered her gaze to the treeline ahead. The path wound from the edge of the bridge off into darkness. Nothing moved upon it, but she shivered slightly all the same.
The king's warning came back to her: Wolves and spiders and other foul things…
Were they close by now, waiting in the stillness, hoping to come upon some unwary victim that wandered too far from the halls?
Something about that deep darkness called to her, though. Sent a little thrill through her. The guards had said to keep to the bridge, but surely it wouldn't hurt to wander just a few paces up the path? Stretch her legs and feel the smooth bark of the trees under her fingers? She was thoroughly sick of rock and stone.
She'd stay close to the river, of course. But she longed, now, to hear the chirp of nightbirds and the rustling of animals in the undergrowth; the creak of branches moving in the breeze. All the familiar sounds of a forest – the ones she was used to at home. Standing here, the booming of the river-water blocked all that out.
Cadhríen pulled her cloak around her and walked slowly, steadily, across the bridge to the opposite bank. There, she stood and stared into the black wood, straining to spot any movement; any sign that something wasn't right. There was nothing.
She started up the path, her keen eyes picking out the trunks and spindly branches either side of her. The sound of the river gradually receded, but she did not go far enough that it was muffled entirely. Among the roots and bushes near the ground, bright pinpricks appeared and blinked at her curiously. When she approached them, they vanished in a rustle of foliage, unseen mouths chirruping in alarm.
When she had ventured as far from the river as she dared, she stopped and leant against the mossy bole of a large tree. But rather than comforting her, it merely made her chilly and damp, and the unfamiliar feel of it, the slightly slimy ridges against her back and palms, only made her pine for the mellyrn she had left behind at home. Tipping her head up, she tried to make out the stars again, but the tangled canopy was too thick, the grasping branches and creepers too intertwined above her.
She closed her eyes; breathed in the scent of the recent rain. And then she heard it: a footfall nearby, and the faint yet unmistakeable crackle of a torch.
Her eyes snapped open. That was too close – how had she not detected it until now? She saw an orange glow appear on the path not ten paces west of her. Whoever or whatever it was must have come suddenly out from between the trees. Springing away from the vine-choked trunk, she barely had time to pull her silver dagger from her belt before the figure with the torch came upon her. And she realised then, with a jolt of understanding, why she hadn't heard the approach from a hundred yards off.
It was a fellow Elf. The Elf-prince himself, in fact, a long knife held in one hand and the steadily-burning torch in the other.
They stood a few metres apart, watching each other warily in the darkness. The light of the torch formed a golden pool around them; Cadhríen felt adrift in a sea of creeping black.
"Hail," Legolas said at last, lowering his knife.
She nodded in reply, slowly returning her own blade to its sheath. His blue eyes followed it. "I thought you might have been something sinister," she said by way of explanation, and his lips quirked slightly, though he didn't quite smile.
Perhaps he was remembering her cold reception of him at that first dinner; her narrowed eyes in the main hall on his return from the patrol. Celeborn's voice sounded in the back of her mind: I must ask all of you to display the utmost graciousness in your dealings with our hosts. A wrong move now could throw everything off…
Unless it was already too late, she thought darkly, and the prince had succeeded in persuading his father that their interests were not best served by Galadriel's proposed accord.
She fixed a polite, though somewhat distant, expression on her face as she regarded him in the torchlight. "The guards did say someone would be returning before first light. Have you been on patrol?"
His own countenance flattened, mirroring hers. "Nay." In one quick movement, he twirled his knife up and over his shoulder, sheathing it high up on his back. "Merely wandering. I find I miss the stars after a while below ground. Over yonder –" he gestured to the east "– the trees thin out around the river, and the sky there opens up."
She couldn't stop the ripple of surprise that she knew flitted over her face.
He looked at her curiously, taking in her thick cloak; the mud and leaf litter that clung to her leather boots. "And you? Did not the guards warn you against straying too far from the river at night?"
"They did," she replied, perhaps a little too haughtily, "but I am not far, and would have gone no further." She decided not to tell him that the guards had told her to stay on the bridge.
"As to your other question," she continued, "I… I am out here for the same reason as you, as it happens." She folded her arms against the damp chill. "I could not sleep, and longed for a glimpse of the stars."
He fixed her with the same searching gaze that had made her so uncomfortable in the parlour a few nights previously, when she had spoken so passionately of the Golden Wood. The firelight danced and leapt on his fine-boned face, and his dark brows lowered slightly, shading his eyes.
"You miss your home," he observed.
Cadhríen did not respond, but dipped her own gaze to the shadowed path and to the tiny, blinking eyes that had appeared again among the ferns and thickets lining it.
Legolas cleared his throat. "May I say something?" he ventured, taking a light step towards her and shifting his torch to his other hand.
She glanced up at him warily, feeling her features tighten and her expression grow cool. She pulled her cloak around her, as much to keep off the awkwardness she felt as to block the chill of the night air.
"I rather think we have started off on the wrong foot," he said abruptly. "If I – or certain others – have said or done something to offend you, I apologise. On my part, at least, it was not intended to be taken so."
She watched him in the wavering torchlight, her brow quirked slightly in suspicion. "You allude to your friend. The guard captain."
Legolas looked exasperated, and dug the toe of one of his knee-high boots into the mud. "You should pay no mind to Feren's bluster. He is proud, yes, but at heart he is a trustworthy and loyal subject of my father. He has a good heart, unlikely though that may seem to strangers." His gaze rose to meet hers. "I think his needling is borne from unfamiliarity, and perhaps no small amount of insecurity. I think perhaps he feels… threatened."
"And you do not?" she asked lightly, thinking of his words in the throne room; his visits to the Elvenking's study. I would speak with you, Father.
His eyes raked her face for a moment, his expression difficult to read. For a split second, she thought puzzlement had flickered there. Then it was as if a shutter had lowered; his eyes glinted, steel-like, and the line of his jaw twitched.
To her surprise, he gave a short, huffed laugh, shook his head imperceptibly, and gestured to the great doors that lay across the bridge.
"It is late, and I am needed on patrol tomorrow." His voice was clipped; frost-tinged. "If your… business here is concluded, allow me to light both our paths back."
It was her turn, now, to look curiously at him. But he did not linger. At her curt nod, he was off, striding down the path towards the bridge, his booted feet hardly making a sound on the cracked and puddle-strewn stone.
She hurried after him, her mood decidedly blackened, and once the guards had responded to his unnecessarily forceful knock by tugging open the heavy doors, she fell back behind him in the winding, cavernous passage, taking a longer and more convoluted route back to her chamber to avoid catching up to him or running into him again in the darkness.
Slumber took far too long to come, and once it did eventually begin to steal over her, she could tell it was nearly morning, for Menedhel had started to shift under her fur blanket and the faint sounds of voices and footsteps could be heard far off in the passages and halls.
But her night-time wanderings, and the hours she had lain awake, had left her tired enough to ignore them, and she eventually slipped into a restless sleep, her dreams full of stars and flaring torchlight and a pair of wary, ice-blue eyes.
Note: I wanted to say another big thank you for reading, and for the lovely reviews. And thank you, too, for being patient with our rather flawed heroine. I always intended this story to chart the development of her character as well as her relationships with Legolas and others; and it won't be too long now before she begins to learn some valuable lessons. :)