"So, he just—just showed up at night at your door?"
"You sound shocked, Shiriel. Did you think the Haradrim use the window?"
"That's not what I mean. I mean going to the house of an unmarried girl late at night. You don't think that shows a certain lack of properfeeling?
It was two weeks after the wedding and Calla had had the happy couple over for dinner. Shiriel and Calla were in the kitchen doing the washing up and Cadfael was outside on the front step smoking a pipe. Calla had been waiting for his absence to tell her friend about Pador's surprise visit. Cadfael, she knew, was the sort of warm-hearted man who found it easy and agreeable to embrace his friends' friends as his own friends, and for his dearest's dearest he felt something like kinship. At any rate, he was protective of her in a brotherly way, and Calla suspected that if he heard the story he was likely to go storming off to find Pador and, at the very least, demand explanations at a volume that would a dozen soldiers running to see what was the matter.
She sighed as she scrubbed out a bowl.
"Perhaps, but not necessarily. It could just show a lack of proper training. We don't know how they do things in Harad."
"Well," sniffed Shiriel. "If young men behave like that away down there, I'm not the least bit surprised that they're a bunch of evil-minded barbarians." Calla bit her lip and wondered whether she should even try to explain to her friend the horrendous fallacy in her reasoning. Shiriel saw her expression and misinterpreted it. "Not that I don't think Pador's very nice. He is. And he's half-Gondorian, of course, so I expect he's all right, really. But go on, tell me what happened. You let him in?"
"Well, yes. I was too surprised to do anything else. He stepped inside and said he'd just come to see how I was and to ask me to offer you and Cadfael his congratulations. And then I don't know. Maybe it dawned on him that visiting girls at night isn't quite the done thing, because he got a bit awkward and shuffled a bit and said he didn't mean to intrude and he'd be off. And then he was." Calla leaned against the table and began to dry the dishes.
"How utterly strange. He didn't even sit down?"
"No, I offered him a chair, but that's when he sort of flushed and said he ought to be going."
"Well, you're probably right. The poor boy has picked up a lot of nasty bad habits by spending time with those Haradrim. Calla, you will tell him off, won't you, if he does it again? For his own good. I mean, we know he's all right, but suppose he goes barging into someone else's house at night?"
"You know, I doubt he makes a habit of it. I think he's just lonely. I don't think he knows many people, socially, here in Minas Tirith."
"Mm," said Shiriel, beginning to lose interest. "Yes, well, maybe we should all get together for another meal. Now. Calla. I want the latest."
"The latest…?"
"News about you and you-know-who, of course! So he gave you these books. And? Have you seen him since?"
"Well, no. I really haven't had any time. I've been run ragged at work these past couple of weeks. Nadial's replacement, a woman named Hwineth, is skilled but maddeningly disorganized. Of course, she's tried to ruin me fewer times, so I like her better but I have to admit, Nadial ran things more smoothly. Crises cling to Hwineth like mold to a bachelor's socks.
"Oh stop looking so disappointed." She grinned. "I may not have seen Legolas, but I have written to him. Not a note this time, either, but a long letter. I've been reading the books he gave me and I wrote him all my first impressions. And I, well, I teased him. I mean, actually he's right, and Ingannel's poetry is better than Mardil's. But I took the patriotic line, and—oh, pretended that Mardil was better on every point. I was being very absurd, and I'm sure he could see that I love Ingannel's poetry, but… I don't know. I just wanted to make him laugh. And I think I did, because he sent me a note teasing me back and saying that he'd would show me the error of my ways."
"Well let's see it! Why didn't you say that earlier, do you enjoy watching me suffer?"
"Shiriel!" Cadfael poked his head in through the door. "My dear, we ought to be going home. It's late."
"It is not late. You're just restless because you've finished your pipe and you don't want to sit inside and listen to a couple of gossiping girls!"
"Too right," said Cadfael, grinning. "And while it may not be late now, I recognize that eager, giggly tone, and it means that if we stay another minute, we stay three hours. Am I right?"
"Shiriel, he is right," said Calla with a smile.
"Calla! My husband is clearly being oppressive, don't tell me you're against me, too?"
"More fool you, you married an observant man. Even if you have three hours to spend I have to be up early to get to work tomorrow."
Shiriel sighed a long-suffering sigh as Cadfael wrapped her up in a shawl.
"I don't really need this, you know," she fussed. "Not on the first really warm night of the year."
"Yes, well, I don't really need my socks pressed," said Cadfael as he ushered her out into the street.
Smiling, Calla bade the happily bickering couple farewell.
O
Calla sat serenely at her loom the following morning.
Since the advent of Hwineth and her wake of chaos, she had begun to feel that for the first time her work was giving her more anxiety than pleasure. Between that, Chanda's persistent unfriendliness, and the rumors that had dogged her since her brief incarceration, she had been begun to feel, in the mornings, the first faint stirrings of resentment. She had tried scolding herself about it—how many girls in the city would give their limbs for a job like this?—but to no avail. She had been determined, however, to rid herself of this sourness. She had always taken pride and pleasure in her craft and she was a mumak's uncle if she was going to let a few unpleasant circumstances take that away from her.
So she had set about rediscovering the pleasure weaving had always given her. First, she arrived extra-early in the morning, just a few minutes, to ensure herself time to check the warp threads and go over what she had accomplished in the previous days, and to just sit and look at her loom. She found it helpful if she thought of it as her teammate, not just her tool. Then she took a few minutes to think of all the things that were bothering her and to let them go. And when she began weaving, she took care to think of the people she loved, and, with each pass of the shuttle to think of how she could continue to weave them more fully into her life.
The results were wonderful. She enjoyed weaving again. She could go on and on for hours, sunk in pleasant reverie, without getting tired or impatient. She was sure the quality of the work itself was better. She could be pleasant to Chanda and shrug off her unpleasantness. And Hwineth declared that she was a marvelously calming influence.
Calla took some deep breaths and went through her new morning routine. She smiled and Chanda when she walked in and worked rhythmically away as the sun climbed higher in the sky. Now and then Hwineth gusted in with little calamities eddying around her and Calla helped her sort them out. Lunch came and went and the afternoon wore on peacefully. Hwineth ran out of problems and settled down. The sun sank and the room darkened. Chanda got up and left for the night and sometime later so did Hwineth. Calla smiled goodbye and them. Alone, she began to say under her breath some of the things she was saying in her head. Now and then she hummed a snatch of song.
At last the room became too dark for her to go on and Calla reluctantly stopped and stretched and rubbed her neck. She probably ought not to work quite so late, at least not without a candle, or she'd risk making a mistake she'd have to unravel in the morning. The stars must be coming out by now. She looked over at the window and let out a sharp gasp.
Smiling, Legolas got up from his seat on the windowsill.
"My lord! I didn't notice you come in!"
"No, I gathered not," he said drawing nearer. Calla felt her heart give a dreadful lurch. "Forgive me. I should have said something. But you were so happily absorbed I did not want to interrupt you."
"No, no, my fault. I stay late, you see, because I enjoy being able to work alone since I…" She trailed off and felt herself go pink, remembering that she had been muttering aloud for the past half hour. Silently, she rejoiced that she'd been thinking about her brother that whole time and not about him. In the dim light she saw his smile widen.
"And may I ask about what you were mumbling?"
"Oh, um, yes…" She might as well tell him, but nothing in the world could make her look at him while she did it. She busied herself tidying up her loom. "Well, what with one thing and another, I'd begun to feel a bit disagreeable and started griping about my work. And then I thought what a shame that was, because, you see, I've always really loved weaving. So in order to help myself enjoy it again, I—I started a sort of a game. When I'm weaving, I concentrate on the people I love and I think about… about how I can weave them more tightly into my life." She said the last part very quickly. Her cheeks were on fire. For a moment she blessed the darkness, then remembered that Elves could see well in the dark and cursed her luck. "I know all that sounds very childish."
She couldn't really fiddle with her loom any longer without making herself absurd. Calla braced herself and turned to look at him. He was still smiling, but it wasn't at all a mocking smile. Or even—were the darkness and her hopes fooling her? Let them!—an indulgent one.
"On the contrary," he said softly. Then his eyes filled with mirth. "In fact I'd willing to take full responsibility for this early maturity of mind. I am pleased to see that keeping company with Elves is having such a positive effect on you."
"Keeping company! My lord, I hardly see how you can claim the credit when I have not had the wholesome influence of your company in more than a month."
"Oh, I didn't want you to be overwhelmed. I thought I'd give you the first dose or two of tonic and then leave you to absorb them, but it seems I underestimated my patient's constitution."
"Well your patient hopes you'll increase the dosage. After all, you have still not told me everything about the Ents. And I have a scrillion things to say about Ingannel, if you can stand to hear them all."
"Oh yes," he grinned. "I haven't yet told you off for your unpardonable letter. You badly need to be educated about real poetry. Here, come outside so we can be under the sky."
"All right." They went out together and sat down on a low wall. He was less than an arm's length away from her and even in the darkness she could see every detail of his face. It occurred to her that she was going to miss what he said because she'd spend every ounce of her mind on memorizing the way the starlight looked on his skin. She was trying to decide whether she would his forehead or his chin by heart first when he started to talk about Ingannel. He recounted everything—how and when he had first run across the poems in his father's house when he was still quite young, and how the poetry of an Elf who had served Finrod Felagund and then Orodreth faithfully though not illustriously and eventually fallen in the defence of Nargothrond had inspired him. How in his homeland's darkest hours he had thought about the life of that long-ago poet and taken a sort of comfort.
"But this is all just background. Some time ago, after I had not read his poems for a long while, I picked them up again. When I first read them I knew comparatively little of poetry. I was moved by them then, by their power and beauty, and by the beauty of the life of the Elf who had written them. But when I reread them, with more knowledge and years of reading behind me, the beauty of the mechanics struck me as it never had before."
"Yes," said Calla happily. "The beauty and the innovation. I've never read anything like them at all. The brevity of each poem surprised me at first, but then I paid closer attention—and it's exquisite!"
"Each word perfect—exact, succinct and beautiful."
"Not a foot that doesn't enhance the meaning of its line."
"His Third Lament!"
"The Love Song of Nargothrond!"
"The Song of Grandeur and Weakness!"
"I haven't read that one yet."
"Ah! Infuriating girl! Go back to your house immediately and read it!"
"Actually…" Calla glanced up at the night sky and shivered. The stars had swung across the sky and she realized that some of her lightheadedness was to do with her hunger and not the Elf beside her. She stood up. Her limbs were surprisingly stiff. Just how long had they been sitting out here? "I ought to go. I have another busy day tomorrow." She wasn't sure but she thought she might have just seen a flicker of regret cross his face. But then again, it could have been the poor light.
"We'll continue this some other time, then. Let me know when you have read all the poems."
"I will"
"Have I, I hope, rid you of your silly notion that Ingannel is Mardil's inferior in composition?"
"Oh." Calla smiled playfully. "He's pretty good, I suppose. But you forget one of Mardil's greatest merits, my lord." Legolas raised an eyebrow inquisitively. Calla drew herself up. "Mardil was a man of Gondor." She turned as if to stalk away, but then laughed at herself, turned and waved.
"Goodnight!" she called, and ran down the steps.
"Good night!" came his voice from up above her.
She floated through the streets as though walking on clouds and when she reached her house she affronted the stray cat on her doorstep by swinging it into her arms and burying her face in its neck. The cat, though offended, did not resist. After all, Calla had got into the habit of giving him a bowl of milk at dinner time.
A/N: All right. I lied. It was many months between updates. And then I updated with a not-very-long chapter. Anyone who is still reading this story may begin throwing stones and rotten vegetable matter at me. My only excuse is that life does unexpected things to you, like eat up all your time. This time I'm not going to make any promises about my update schedule, except that it really will be as soon as I can manage it. I am not abandoning this story. I will write it to the very end. I enjoy doing it and I hope that there may still be some people out there who enjoy reading it. To all you blessed, wonderful people who have reviewed, you have my thanks. If you've read this far... leave me another review? This chapter, like so many before it, is un-beta'ed. Feel free to beat me over the head with misspelt words and shove me through plotholes.
Also, it has come to my attention that the title of this fic is terrible and no longer even fits with where the story was originally going to go. I will be changing it in the near future.
Also again, as with Mardil, there is no poet Ingannel (unless by freakish coincidence). As far as I know, I made him up, so you won't find him in LotR canon.