THE LINDEN TREE
Chapter 20
The following morning, the lady Helmwyn walked down to the great smithy that stood in Edoras; and the lord Thorin came with her, for he was curious to see the best smiths of the Mark at work. Helmwyn had commissioned a suit of armour of her own, though she had long held out, thinking it an unnecessary extravagance. But as the menace of the Orcs would not abate, but grew steadily worse, and it looked increasingly likely that she would need it, she had asked the master smiths for armour after the fashion of the Mark, but as light as they could make it; for she did not wish to trade her wretched second-hand hauberk for something twice as heavy.
Outside it was a bright day, but inside the forge it was ever dim. "Good morrow, Masters!" Helmwyn called as she entered the forge. "How is my fair new gown coming along?"
"Good morrow, my lady!" answered one of the smiths, a huge fellow with red hair and a bristling beard. "We heard of your coming, and have assembled everything. With any luck, this should be the final fitting"
"This is glad news, Master Weyland,' said she; "and indeed I look forward to seeing it finished!"
The master smith showed her to a workbench where the various elements of the armour lay. And there was also a quilted gambeson, onto which gussets of bright mail had been sewn at the throat and armpits; for though the lady wanted no unnecessary weight, and refused a hauberk, she was also prudent, and strengthened the points where she herself would strike. The gambeson had a high collar, and on it would be sewn metal plates, for she was wary of Orc-arrows to the throat.
She removed her riding-coat, and tried on the gambeson over her shirt; and it was tight-fitting, but she could move well in it. Next, the smiths held the elements of the breastplate around her, for it was made up of several overlapping sections; and it seemed that whatever changes they had made were satisfactory, and so it was decided that the breastplate was ready to be embossed, inlaid with leather, gilded, and assembled. Helmwyn laughed, and said she could do without the gilding; but the smiths took pride in their craft, and answered that they would make her armour as well as they could. "But are you sure you want it so adjusted, my lady?" asked Njarl, the older smith. "You might yet listen to me and start eating properly!" and she smiled, for at every fitting he told her off for being too thin.
The great red-haired smith left his colleagues to see to the lady's spaulders and went to salute the lord Thorin.
"I am called Weyland, my lord. They say that you too are a smith?"
"Aye, that I am," answered Thorin; "and I am glad to meet you at last, for I have seen fair armour and weapons here in the Mark, and should like to see you work!"
"Well, my lord, I would be honoured to show you what we can do, but these days we are chiefly busy turning out simple weapons for the troops. The lady's armour was one interesting commission, but that is almost finished now."
"It does look excellently made," said Thorin, and meant it.
He looked around the forge, and his eyes rested on some flat steel plates; and a sudden notion came to him. "Tell me, Master Weyland, how do you feel about pattern-welding? I have a mind to try my hand at a project that might interest you," Thorin said; and he turned and looked pointedly at the lady, who was trying on her vambraces, and asking Njarl whether it might be possible to affix a knife on the inside.
The great smith took the hint. "Aye, it does interest me," answered Weyland. "Well, my lord, if you are around for a few days, you are welcome in this forge. I daresay you shall teach us a thing or two, for the skill of Dwarves at metalwork is said to be very great." And the two smiths exchanged a conspiratorial look.
The others were holding together the various elements of the lady's helm for a final fitting before assembly. She heard Thorin and Weyland talking; and she caught snatches of conversation about different qualities of steel, and fire, and billets, whatever those may be, and she smiled to herself, for they seemed to be getting along famously.
Next she tried on a skirt of leather and bronze scales. This worried her, for it was still unfinished, and would doubtless be heavy; but it was necessary, for Riders were vulnerable to leg-wounds, and she was cautious about her hamstrings. At least it would help her to remain grounded, she thought.
When Helmwyn had tried everything on, she also took off the gambeson, for it was getting hot in the forge. Thorin too had taken off his coat, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and was already heating something in the fire, and watched it intently while Weyland worked the bellows. But in that moment Helmwyn turned around, and beheld the lord Thorin, and she saw that his eyes shone in the light of the forge. And all of a sudden Helmwyn felt flushed, and could not breathe; and she excused herself, and stepped outside for some air.
She went to bathe her face in a barrel of rainwater, and tried to cool her burning cheeks.
"Are you not well, my lady?" asked Njarl, who had come after her, concerned.
She held on to the barrel, for her knees were weak.
"Thank you, Njarl; it is nothing. It must be the heat."
But it was not the heat, for her heart was racing and her hands shook; and now she understood that she loved the lord Thorin, and the realisation had winded her like a blow to the stomach.
She splashed some more cold water on her face and tried to pull herself together. "Maybe you are right, Njarl. Maybe I should take your advice and eat something," said she, as reassuringly as she could.
She went back inside to retrieve her coat, and wish them all a good day, and tried to escape as quickly as possible; and she saw that Thorin was now holding the red-hot billet, and was about to start hammering it out. But as she was leaving, he looked up at her from under his black brows, and smiled.
Helmwyn strode back to Meduseld with as much apparent calm as she could muster, though her stomach was churning and she felt as though her knees would give under her. It was all she could do not to race the length of the seemingly endless hall, until at last she came to her chamber, and shut the door, and sat down in a corner of the floor, hugging her knees. She closed her eyes, and listened to her ragged breaths, and felt her heart hammering against her ribs.
In her mind's eye she saw him, standing quiet and masterful in the light of the forge, and her heart tightened in an acute pang of love. She thought back through all the time they had spent together, and tried to pinpoint the moment when this could have started. As she thought about it, it seemed to her, as it always does in such cases, that she had loved him from the moment her eyes had first met his; only she had not known it then. All this time, she had not known. She, who knew all the songs, but did not believe them. She, who thought that tales of love were merely peddled to young girls in order to keep them quiet until they were married off.
Of course, she knew the deep, steady love of kin and friends and country; but not this, nothing like this. This hurt. Her heart burned as hot as the forge. And she did not think there was anything to be done with this knowledge, except to bear it.
Helmwyn was dismayed. She mourned the trust and the closeness she had shared with the lord Thorin; for now that she understood how she felt, how was she ever to regain her free and easy manner with him? How, when her heart quaked at the very thought of him?
She allowed herself to weep a little, but not much; for she could not face remaining idle, and brooding on this. Instead she dried her tears, got up, composed herself, and went down into the vaults to make an inventory of what was left of Scatha's hoard.