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Chapter 21: Judgement
"I had provocation."
The room, which had been abuzz with conversation, fell deadly silent. A few Elves glanced at Bregolien; most turned to Thranduil to gauge his reaction to the prisoner's statement.
"Provocation?" Ellaurë asked quietly. "Do you expect us to believe that you had just cause for murder?"
"What happened to the queen was a tragic accident, one which I regret greatly. I would not have harmed her if she had not tried to keep me from Legolas. My king, it grieves me to have to be the one to tell you this, but your son –"
"Enough!" Thorontur snapped. "We all know what you have done, Bregolien, and we all know Legolas. I am aware that you and he have frequently been at odds, and there is probably blame on both sides, but I refuse to believe that he did anything to justify what you did to him. We are not here to listen to your lies!"
"I demand to face Legolas," Bregolien said. "You accuse me on the strength of what he said while he was barely even conscious –"
"He told me nothing of what you did," Thranduil snarled, speaking for the first time. "There was no time. The trees have spoken against you, Bregolien – they have told us both what you did and how you managed to coerce them into concealing your activities. There is no need for you to face Legolas."
"My king, you do not understand! He has seditious ideas –"
"That will do." Thranduil's voice was barely audible above the angry muttering from the crowd. "If this is all you wish to say, I suggest you remain silent instead."
"My king, if you will only listen to me…"
Thranduil would have replied, probably to order Bregolien thrown into the dungeons, but Arbellason's hand on his arm stopped him.
"This is getting unruly," he murmured, indicating the gathered Elves with an unobtrusive gesture. "We cannot go on like this, mellon nîn. Most of them adored Lindariel, and they are fond of Legolas. If Bregolien continues to speak like this, they will kill him before we can do anything. We will have to close the trial to all except the families of the victims and those who must give evidence."
"We will have a riot on our hands if we do that," Thranduil said softly.
"We will have a worse one if we do not. Look at them, Thranduil… If the crowd becomes violent there will be nothing we can do about it. Do you want to have to order your own subjects to be subdued by force – and in order to defend him?"
Thranduil sighed and nodded.
"Do it. And call an end to it for today… We can go on in the morning."
"More for you to read, Elfling," Elrohir said as he came into the room. He carried a stack of books so high that only the top of his head was visible over it. "Erestor seems determined to have his vengeance for all the times you escaped his attempts to teach you history and political science."
"I cannot go out?" Legolas asked, trying to hide his disappointment.
"I did not say that." Laughing at Legolas' sudden, delighted smile, Elrohir perched himself on the edge of the bed. "If you drink all your potions without making a fuss, and if you let the healer change your bandages without attempting to persuade him that you are fine, I will take you outdoors for an hour." Then, with a half-hearted attempt at a stern expression, he added, "But you will let me help you up and down the stairs, you will not try to run, you will not try to climb trees, you will not exert yourself in any other way, you will return when I ask you to, and in all other ways you will do precisely as you are told."
"Lord Elrond has consented?"
"He is not happy about it, but Nana has persuaded him that it will do more harm than good to keep a little wood-sprite from the trees."
Legolas flung his arms around Elrohir in a gleeful hug. Elrohir, chuckling, hugged him back.
"I know you are pleased, Elfling. Now see if you can behave yourself for an hour so that Ada has no excuse to rescind his permission."
"Are you ready for this?" Thorontur asked, glancing at Thranduil.
The Elven-king shrugged.
"If it must be done…"
"Courage, mellon nîn," Arbellason murmured. "Only think… The sooner we do this, the sooner we will be finished with him."
Thranduil nodded and reached for the door handle. Instead of opening the door, though, he paused and turned to Thorontur.
"Is there any news of Legolas?"
Thorontur's instinctive response was to tell Thranduil the truth: it was terrible to see the misery and doubt in his friend's eyes. But an urgent gesture from Arbellason stopped him.
"Elrond says he is healing unusually slowly – but that is only to be expected. He is strong, Thranduil. I am certain he will live." The despair on Thranduil's face deepened. Thorontur, with a small smile, went on, "You must be strong as well. I cannot imagine how you must feel now, but… He needs you. Elrond can only heal his body, not his spirit."
"Come," Arbellason said gently, pushing open the door. "It is time."
Legolas quickly discovered why Elrond had been so nonchalant about the possibility of his disobeying orders. He did not have the strength to do otherwise. He was still not fully healed. While it felt wonderful to be out of bed and walking, every step sent pain shooting through his ribs.
He tried not to show it, but he could not keep himself from grimacing slightly. When Elrohir slipped a supporting arm around him long before they reached the stairs, he leaned gratefully into it.
"Not much farther, Elfling," Elladan murmured. "We are only going to the back garden."
They came to the stairs. With Elladan and Elrohir holding his arms and taking most of his weight, Legolas managed to get himself down them. Elrohir looked as proud as if Legolas had just discovered a way to fly, and Elladan scarcely less so. With a broad grin, the older twin patted his friend's back.
"Here we are," Elrohir said as they emerged into the sunlit garden. "Where do you want to sit?"
"I recommend the tree outside your room," Elladan said. "It is nearby. Moreover, you might be able to persuade it to stop attacking Ada."
Legolas' grin was acquiescence enough.
Elrohir helped him to the tree. With some help from his friends, Legolas managed to lower himself to the ground with his back to it. He laughed, inexplicably happy at being outdoors, under the trees. It had been so long…
Elfling!
Legolas patted the tree trunk, smiling up into strong branches that were practically trembling with pleasure.
I am pleased to see you.
I thought you had forgotten me, the tree said accusingly, making Elrohir, who was near enough to understand, stifle a chortle. For days – days, Elfling! – I have been demanding to see you, but the Master of Imladris has his own ideas. This is what comes of listening to the Noldor!
We are Noldor, Elrohir protested.
You are fools, the tree replied serenely. If you are nearly as bad as Eärendilion and the Balrog-slayer despite your mother's beneficial influence, I shudder to imagine what you would have been like without it. The tree seemed to shudder in truth: Legolas felt the trunk vibrate beneath him. Now let me talk to the Elfling in peace.
Elrohir made a face at the tree and lowered himself to the ground beside Legolas. Elladan sat some distance away, eyeing the tree with suspicion.
"It dropped some acorns on Elladan yesterday," Elrohir whispered.
The Elf deserved it. He called me a daisy! Several acorns dropped from the tree, but Elladan had seated himself well out of the way. Me, one of the tallest, mightiest trees in Imladris! It is an insult not to be borne!
"… But I demand that you listen to me! I had good reason for what I did – Legolas gave me a reason. This is not justice!" Bregolien looked around the room with a mixture of defiance and desperation. He was met by flat stares from the twelve members of Thranduil's Council and a cold glare from the Elven-king.
"We are not interested in hearing your lies," Thranduil ground out.
"How do you know they are lies when you do not even know what I intend to say?" Bregolien countered. "You let your love for your son blind you, my king."
After a long moment of silence, Thranduil said, "Very well. Speak."
Bregolien drew a deep breath and looked around at the assembled Elves.
"I admit I had ill intent," he said quietly. "In the beginning, when I went to Imladris, I planned to kill Legolas and the queen. But… I cannot explain what happened. Somewhere, on the road from Elrond's house to the High Pass, I began to repent of my earlier actions. Perhaps it was the sight of Legolas and his mother, and the bond between them: I knew that my own actions had deprived me of the gift of her presence for countless centuries, perhaps forever. That was when I confessed my plans to Legolas…"
"I failed her," Legolas whispered. "I failed them all."
Elladan and Elrohir, who had been about to leave the room, stopped short and turned back. They crossed the room with quick strides and sat on either side of Legolas.
"You did not fail anybody, gwador nîn," Elrohir said softly. "You know that."
"If I had not let him catch me…"
"You were trying to lure him away from her," Elladan pointed out. "That was an act of great courage, penneth. It was not your fault that he caught up with you. You were injured."
"Besides," Elrohir said, "if you truly want to worry about what might have been, if we had acted on our instincts and refused to let you leave with Bregolien, none of this would have happened. Elladan and I are to blame for that, and for being too slow to come to the rescue – we knew what had happened, but we could not follow your trail quickly enough."
Legolas looked appalled.
"I did not mean that! It was not your fault – you could not have known what he planned."
"And you, Elfling, could not have stopped him," Elladan said, smiling slightly. "He is an experienced warrior, Legolas, and an accomplished swordsman. You are good, but you are not yet that good."
"One day you will be," Elrohir promised, laying one hand carefully on Legolas' shoulder. "You will be good enough to defeat him or any other opponent. But you must give yourself time…" He bent closer to Legolas. "A time will come when you will sit on your father's war council, you will probably command his archers, you will be an experienced warrior yourself. At that time, if you are unable to evade capture, it will probably be because of carelessness or recklessness."
"Neither of which I would put past you," Elladan contributed, earning a smile from Legolas.
"And when that happens," Elrohir went on, "as it undoubtedly will, we will tell you that you are a young fool and lecture you about your responsibilities."
"Although you will not be any less our friend," Elladan said, giving Legolas a light squeeze.
"But today, Elfling, it is not your fault. We are proud of you."
"… And Legolas – I do not blame him entirely; he may have been resentful of what many see as over-protectiveness – said that he wanted to do it. I tried to dissuade him, but –"
Bregolien cut himself off. Thranduil had pushed back his chair and risen to his feet, eyes sparkling with barely-contained rage. He stepped away from the long table. Bregolien took several involuntary steps back, not stopping until he felt the unyielding hardness of the wall behind him.
"You have killed my wife," Thranduil said menacingly. "You have killed many of my people, including your own mother. You are guilty of murder, kinslaying and treason. Nobody would blame me if I killed you now, or had you taken back to the Hithaeglir and flung from the highest peak in sight. The only thing preventing me from doing that is the knowledge that in a few weeks Legolas will return, and I do not want to do anything that I would be ashamed to admit to my son." The menace sharpened. "Continue to slander him in this ridiculous attempt to extenuate yourself, and you will find that my restraint does not last."
He turned and stalked out of the room, but stopped in the doorway when he heard Bregolien laugh behind him.
He turned. Bregolien stood now with all pretensions gone, eyes malicious and mocking, head cocked in unconscious arrogance.
"How you dote upon that foolish child," he said softly. "I was far too gentle with him. There might have been more interesting gifts for you than that bow… Perhaps there will still be time. It would be so much more satisfying to make you watch your son die, to make you beg for his life so that I might have the pleasure of refusing."
Thranduil's hands clenched into fists.
"Exile," he hissed through gritted teeth. "Death is too good for you. You will be taken into the forest and left there. The forest knows what you have done. You may be able to persuade the trees to let you go, or you may not. I do not know. But if you are seen in this realm after seven days have passed, your life is forfeit."
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