Chapter 151

A Long-Awaited Party

Thráin was rather withdrawn for about a week. We tried to make sure that he was not alone too often, but it seemed that he craved solitude, for although we were many, he managed to give us the slip every single time. According to Flói this was a habit borne of many years of practise in eluding the things he did not want to do. Usually this took the shape of running off to someplace remote to avoid responsibility, but that wasn't the case now. I'm fairly sure that he preferred to grieve alone and that perhaps he did not want anyone else to see when he wept. I cannot of course be certain of this, since I barely saw him at all during that period.

I found this all very vexing. I'm not exactly a big advocate of "talking about it" in order to feel better or at the very least less depressed. I know that. Still, if I felt like crap, I usually had my family to turn to.

Thráin turned away. After that initial outburst – the one that had taken me completely by surprise – he didn't show emotion again. His grief was turned inwards. Other might reach out to their nearest and dearest for consolation and support, but that was not his way. Vexing though it was to revert to the guessing game with him, it seemed to work for him.

Well, he appeared normal enough at any rate. After a week of avoiding everyone's company he showed up to Aragorn's wedding and coronation dressed nicely and with his hair done in a more elaborate style. He smiled and laughed and really showed no signs of grief whatsoever and, strangest of all, at least to me, there didn't seem to be any guile in his cheerfulness. It was all genuine. He could not dissemble to save his life – no dwarf worth his beard is any good at it – so this was a sincere sentiment.

I think I'm going to have to accept the fact that I am just never going to get the measure of him. But although privately I might accept that, that was hardly going to stop me from cornering him at the party…

Beth

It had taken a few months, but at last the massive party that had been long in coming was here. Now the people took to the streets, food in one hand, a drink in the other. Musical instruments had been unearthed from wherever they had been hidden for the duration of the war and they were being put to good use. Admittedly, most players had the enthusiasm if not entirely the skill after going so long without practising, but once you were a few drinks in, you'd barely notice the discordant notes at all.

Beth was proud to say that she had made it through the official bit without making a fool of herself, an accomplishment that was mainly achieved through standing still and not saying a word. Now that Aragorn was safely wed and had a crown placed on his head, the solemn occasion quickly dissolved in the street party of the century. She suspected it would be a fair bet to say that everyone would be waking up with a hangover tomorrow, but at least there was plenty of food to soak up all the alcohol.

'Would you care for a dance, Miss Beth?' Pippin asked, materialising next to her with a tankard of something alcoholic in one hand and cake in the other.

'I can't dance,' Beth objected. She'd never learned and even if she had, well, the local dances were still somewhat unknown to her. Another thing to work on perhaps. She rather suspected it was expected of the Steward's wife. There was so much to learn.

Pippin was not to be deterred. 'Neither can I, or so Merry claims.' He shoved the last bit of cake between his teeth and used his free hand to drag her in the direction of the dancefloor. 'Come on.'

She cast a look at the other dancers and, somewhat to her surprise, found Thráin there, leading her mother in a dance. Yet another thing he appeared to excel at, although she supposed it was easier to excel at so many things when you had roughly three times the life expectancy of a man.

'Very well,' she said.

She didn't know the steps, but then, neither did many of the other dancers. Everyone appeared to do something different, as though they were all just making it up as they went along. And perhaps they were. Gondor had been at war for so long that perhaps its people had forgotten how to leap for joy. They were too busy fighting for their lives. This might have been the first true party in a century.

With that in mind, her worries about dancing and her lack of skill in that area vanished. The few glasses of wine – was it just her imagination or was this stuff a little stronger than what she was used to? – helped with that as well. Someone had dragged up a drum somewhere, dictating rhythm to both musicians and dancers, making it easy to be swept along with everyone else.

Once she had joined, there was no leaving. She danced with her friends, she danced with elves, she danced with complete strangers. She did not know the steps, but her feet appeared to know them. She leaped and twirled and moved.

It is over.

The realisation smacked her in the face as she twirled from the arms of her current partner to the arms of the next, who happened to belong to her brother-in-law. She'd known that the fighting was over for a while now. She knew that Sauron was gone and that he was never coming back. And yet it had not felt as though it was peace. There had been nothing to formally mark the end of the war, not in the way she had liked to envision anyway. Of course it wouldn't have made sense to have a party then, not when so many were wounded and the city was half in ruins and everyone, herself included, was just too exhausted.

But not anymore. The festive mood had at long last found its way to Minas Tirith. It had unpacked its bags and made itself comfortable for the foreseeable future. And if she needed confirmation of that, she could see it in Faramir's face, who wore a grin so wide that it lit up his entire face. So long as the war had been going on – and in the immediate aftermath – he'd been nothing but serious and solemn.

'Enjoying yourself?' she asked. All this dancing had made her a little short of breath.

'Very much so. And you?'

'Enormously.'

That was all the conversation she had time for, because the rules of this dance apparently dictated a partner switch every five seconds or so. She didn't know her next partner or the one after that – although they all seemed to have a marvellous time as well – but she did know the one that came after that.

'Master Almárean, what a pleasant surprise!' Beth exclaimed.

Up close – closer than the last time at any rate – the scars on him were hard to miss. A ragged line maimed his face from cheek to cheek. His nose had come off rather worse. It wasn't cut off, but the lower half was… well, there was just a little less of it, although some elvish healer had clearly done his best to contain the damage. She had certainly missed it the first time.

'I trust that you are well,' he said when he had returned the greeting.

'Certainly,' Beth replied. 'I trust you are too.'

Almárean had just time to answer in the affirmative before the dance demanded she change partners again. She danced with Peter, with numerous folk she had never met before, then with Gandalf for five fairly awkward seconds, Gimli, then more strangers until at last she found herself partnered with Thráin.

'Hello to you,' she said for lack of anything better to say.

The music stopped. Well, thank goodness for that. Her feet ached.

'Let's leave,' Thráin suggested. He pointed out a table filled with beverages which were sure to be alcoholic in nature, but since everyone was going to end up absolutely hammered, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.

'Good idea.'

They managed to extract themselves from the throng before the musicians could decide on the next tune and made it to the drinks table in one piece. None of their other friends and relatives were in evidence, though Beth fancied that she caught a glance of her brother's curls before he disappeared again.

Thráin pushed a tankard into her hand. 'I've no notion of what's in it,' he warned.

Beth shrugged. 'Who cares?' She took a sip. 'Beer of some sort.' She took another. 'So, enjoying yourself?'

Ugh, really, that's the best you've got?

To her surprise he nodded, not an ounce of guile about it. 'I am.' He looked out over the celebrating crowd.

'And… ehm… about…' Well, eloquence had clearly gone for a stroll along with her sobriety.

He seemed to get the gist of it. 'Jack was gone before I ever knew of it.' The words and tone were brusque, though she guessed that the sentiment behind them was anything but. 'He is at peace.'

O… kay.

'I think it's different where you're from,' he continued and yes, he certainly did have that bit right. 'But we know. In times of war we know that not all who go out to fight return to their homes when the fighting is done. Jack knew this. He didn't seek his death at the end, and there's comfort to be found in that.'

She wondered if he actually meant to tell her all of that, but she didn't say it or ask any further. He'd never talked much about his brother, but he had mentioned that his youngest brother was often troubled. Death in battle or death by battle was the question he posed to Elvaethor that day, the query asked in a tone that suggested that he dreaded the answer.

None of your business, she reminded herself. It wasn't her job to pry any longer.

'You have my condolences,' she said and then changed the subject before he could wave her sympathy away. 'By the way, would you happen to know something about Lord Elrond's most curious behaviour?'

He lifted an eyebrow. 'Curious?' he asked. 'How so?' The fact that he did not quite meet her eyes suggested that he knew exactly what she was on about.

'Would you be at all surprised if I were to tell you that Elrond came to find my parents and I yesterday to talk to us?'

'About?'

'His actions, if you would believe it.'

Beth herself had been a little suspicious about the whole thing. Some things just did not add up. Oh, Elrond had been eloquent enough when he said that he regretted the pain they surely must have suffered these past months. When he then went on to explain in some detail why his actions were nevertheless necessary, she knew there was a reason for this that the elf himself entirely failed to mention.

She wondered why.

Her parents were held back by no such consideration. As far as they were concerned, Elrond had just lined himself up for target practice. A few choice words had been spoken. A fist had been involved. Some spit too.

Thráin still said nothing, so she carried on: 'Have you noticed perhaps that Elrond's nose is a bit… bent?' Her father had broken it quite thoroughly. No doubt it would be so straight you could slide a boat down it soon enough, but for now… Well, Beth would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy it just a little. She might have enjoyed it more if they had taken Elrohir down a peg or two. 'And I'm sure he needed a wash after my mother was done spitting in his eye.'

A grin tugged at his lips. 'Very good.'

'So, did you or did you not have a hand in this?' She crossed her arms over her chest.

He took another gulp of the thing-that-tasted-like-beer-but-probably-wasn't and then gave her story: 'Aye, I did. Lord Elrond came to me some days ago, to offer his friendship.'

He would be an idiot not to try and get Durin the Seventh on his side, so this bit made sense. The fact that he had tried to make friends when Thráin was freshly in mourning did not, but when did elves ever bother with being sensible anyway?

'And?'

'I made his apologising condition of my friendship.' He took another gulp, probably to hide the satisfied smile that crossed his face. 'Or, if he found that he could not in good conscience offer his apologies for his actions, I would be content if he did justify himself to you and your family's full satisfaction. Has he done so?'

Devious little so-and-so. It was nicely done, she had to admit that. 'Yes, I think he did.' One thing puzzled her, though. 'I just thought that you would take a more proactive role in all of these proceedings.'

The smile slid from his face. 'I cannot.'

'The joys of being king?' Beth guessed.

Thráin snorted. 'I am no king.'

'Yet.'

Now it was his turn to cross his arms over his chest. 'Have you been in conference with our elf?' he demanded. 'It appears he too finds it hard not to mention it at least twice a day.'

'I'm only on my first of the day and since I've hardly seen you at all recently I can't be anywhere near as annoying as Legolas.' Not that he was as annoying as he had been when they all set out from Rivendell. It felt as though a lifetime had passed, when it was not even six months ago.

That brought her up short. Her life had changed so much in only a few months. She looked back now and hardly recognised the woman who had been stranded in Rivendell. It's not even been six months since we set out.

But this was not a day for melancholy thoughts, so she turned her mind to more pleasant matters. 'Which reminds me, I am to extend an invitation to you, on my mother's behalf.'

'What invitation is this?'

'Christmas dinner, at my sister's place this year.' When this was met with nothing but utter bewilderment, she clarified: 'It's a holiday, where I'm from. It involves a massive dinner, good company, gift-giving and games, which my brother will cheat at. It's a time for family get-togethers, so naturally my mother's invited everyone who even remotely qualifies, which includes your side of the family tree.' Goodness knew how they were going to fit everyone in Mary's house, but they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. 'Elvaethor's already accepted,' she added just to sweeten the deal.

'I warn you that I have a quite extensive family.'

It wasn't a no. It was almost a yes.

'We'll shove a few tables together, then.' And, because there was no such thing as overegging the pudding in cases such as these: 'My Uncle Archie's got pictures of your mother when she was young. They've been stored in boxes in his attics for ages. We thought that you might want to have them. They could be your Christmas present.'

This made him laugh. 'You are not as subtle as you think.'

'I didn't mean to be subtle,' Beth protested, although she had meant to be just a little. Most of her finer social skills were probably having a wander with her sobriety somewhere that was… not here at any rate. Probably keeping her eloquence good company too. They must be having a party of their own. And the fact that she was entertaining fanciful notions such as this meant that she was getting probably a little too drunk.

He regarded her quite thoughtfully for someone who had a considerable amount of alcohol sloshing around inside. 'No, I should think not,' he agreed. 'None of my kin ever is.'

She waved her finger around with less accuracy than she had enjoyed in the morning. 'I am not actually a dwarf, you know.'

'And I am not a man, and yet we are related.' Thráin shrugged. 'Have you yet packed your belongings? We are to leave the day after tomorrow.'

'Not much to pack,' Beth pointed out. Oh, she definitely would appreciate more changes of clothes, but everyone else was travelling relatively light so that they could make more speed and be back again before winter set in, so as a consequence, so was Beth, little though she liked it. 'You ready to go home?'

He nodded. 'Aye, it's been too long.'

'Even for a wanderer such as yourself?' He was never home much in the first place, was he?

'Now you sound like my youngest sister,' he observed. Beth suspected this was not exactly a compliment either.

'Is that a bad thing?' she asked for good measure.

'Not at all.' He smiled. 'No, not at all.'

Cathy

Sacal seemed diminished since last she saw him, Cathy observed from her safe position on the other side of the bars. Of course the lack of food would have seen to that. They were hardly going to feed him as well as they fed their own, not when it was a struggle to feed all the good souls under the Mountain already.

But it was more than just the loss of weight that made him seem less in her eyes. It was as though the fight had gone out of him. He no longer held his head high, he no longer breathed defiance. Of course he knew that the war had ended. There was nothing the Free Folk could possibly need him for. He had nothing left to bargain with.

And he knew it.

Would that the man in the cell beside him knew it too, because general Móbaz was as proud and unbending as ever he was. He stood when he saw Thoren and Cathy approach, back straight and head held high, looking down his nose at them, as though their fate was in his hands rather than the other way around.

'I presume you've come to tell me that my life is at an end,' Móbaz said.

'You presume wrong.' Thoren might still need the aid of a stick to walk, but he stood as straight as his opponent. 'We are not men that we would resort to killing when we are not on the battlefield.' He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

Cathy tried very hard not to think about what she and hers had done to Cilmion, but failed. Then again, he had it coming and it had been self-defence at the last. At the very least there were mitigating circumstances there.

'What then has brought you here?' the erstwhile general demanded.

'We've come to set you at liberty,' Thoren said, which at least shut Móbaz up for a bit. 'We've no use for you and you eat food that is better given elsewhere. Today you shall be escorted from the Mountain. My people will accompany you some of the way to the southeast and there let you go. From there you are free to go wherever you will, but you are forbidden from returning here. The lands of Dale and Erebor, of the Woodland Realm and the Long Lake are forbidden to you. To you and all of your kin. Venture there at your own peril.'

For a moment Cathy could have sworn that she saw Sacal's eyes light up as he took this as the challenge that it was not.

'We will have you shot on sight,' she said, rather more sharply than she intended, but the very notion of this man returning to wreak more havoc set her teeth on edge. She didn't want him anywhere near her loved ones. 'And you may think on this as well, should you still entertain such ideas as slipping past our people: there is nothing there to feed you. The orcs stripped the land bare.'

The beginnings of a smirk disappeared as quickly as they had come.

'Am I to understand that we will be sent on our way without provisions?' Móbaz asked. This evidently alarmed him.

'Indeed,' said Thoren. 'You are not one of mine. I am under no obligation to feed you. There is no peace between our people. Your people made war on me and mine and fled when they could not succeed in that endeavour. Indeed we are still formally at war. I think it would serve you well to remember that.'

The general crossed his arms over his chest. 'So it is a death sentence all the same.'

It might be. It wasn't unlike turning out their traitors, only they'd been sent off in the midst of winter, at wartime. It was almost summer now and the weather had been warm and sunny for days. It's not the same.

'Only if you do not find your people soon,' Thoren said, who wasn't moved to pity in the slightest. 'I suggest you make haste.'

There was nothing more to be said, so they left. Sacal hadn't spoken a word throughout the entire exchange, but where once that would have set Cathy's teeth on edge, she now didn't mind. Best that he didn't speak actually. He had no more tricks up his sleeve. They both knew that.

She didn't fear him now.

'Well, that's two problems less than we had yesterday,' she said when they left the dungeons behind.

'Just so,' her brother agreed. By now he was struggling to keep up and yet he tried to go on and match her pace for pace.

'Oh, just sit down, will you?' It was maddening how he would always try to push himself further than his body was prepared to go. In a way he reminded her of Jack, whose sole ambition it had always been to run himself into the ground as fast as he could go. Must there always be one of her brothers trying to make his own life that much more difficult than it really had to be?

'My leg will not let me down for some time yet,' he protested.

'And then it will hurt and you'll be off your feet all of tomorrow.' In this she knew herself to be the more sensible of the two of them. And not just in this matter either, come to think of it. 'Just sit.'

'You remind me of Duria,' he grumbled.

She let it slide only because he did allow her to guide him to the side of the road.

'There's no shame in your injury,' she said. And if folk were telling him otherwise, there would need to be some choice words in the not too distant future. Thoren had done his bit – and quite a bit more, all things told – and that he bore the scars of that was no source of shame, as he made it out to be.

'I did not say that there was.'

But he looked tired and old beyond his years all the same. It kept rubbing her the wrong way. He was the defiant King who went up against the might of Sauron and won. If life was fair he'd come out of the ordeal alive and whole, not old and greying and tired and marked for life. The limp was here to stay and so were the streaks of grey at his temples.

'Isn't that why you're going to give the crown to Thráin?' she demanded.

He sighed and shook his head. 'I will give the crown to Thráin, because it is his by right.' When he saw that this was only incensing her further, he carried on, voice ever so slightly raised: 'No, listen, Cathy, listen to me. My leg will not be what it was ever again. Not all the Lady Galadriel's healing skill could make it so. I cannot lead troops into battle again. A King must be able to defend his people.'

He was being a fool about this and she told him so: 'You have led troops into battle. You have defended our people. It's why you were hurt in the first place. Folks' memories aren't as short as all that to forget it.' She would not allow it. 'You could be King even if you had to be wheeled around in one of Víli and Nes's contraptions for the rest of your days. It's an excuse and you know it.'

'Even if that were true,' he began and then carried on talking before she could make her thoughts on his phrasing clear, 'I am to wed Tauriel. I am myself but half a dwarf. Should we be blessed enough to have children, they would have even less dwarvish blood. It would cause many a trouble in later years, Cathy, and I will not have it.' He took a breath and looked away from her. 'And I am tired, Cathy, I shan't deny it. I should like to place down this burden and relearn how to simply be.'

The worst thing was that she understood. Worse still, in her time of filling in for him she had not even come close to carrying all the burdens of a King. She'd had but little to do with military matters and she had not even attempted to try and juggle her own craft at the same time, as she knew Thoren did. It had tired her out. It pleased her more than words could express to give these responsibilities back to the one who should bear them.

Not that he wanted to bear them, but quite honestly, that was of no concern, because: 'You don't get a choice in that,' she said with more force than she intended. 'I know you see the crown as a burden rather than an honour and that is as it should be.' She recalled Ingor, who'd worn his leadership with pride and look at the end result of that. No one who wanted power should be in command. 'You were born to be King, Thráin was not. He…' She struggled to put this into words. 'He wouldn't know what to do with a crown. He's got no sense of responsibility. He's run from it all his life! What makes you think he would even want it?'

'He won't.'

She pressed her point: 'Then why make him do something he does not want to do? Why force this on him when we both know you would serve us much better than he ever could?'

Thoren studied her, frown etched into his forehead. 'I believed that you looked on Thráin as your favourite brother,' he said. 'I thought you cared for him.'

'I did! I do,' she amended, because her regard for Thráin had not waned. It was just that she didn't think he was the right dwarf to take on the mantle of King.

Oh, she knew that he had likely changed since the last time she had clapped eyes on him. He'd after all undertaken to destroy the One Ring and he'd succeeded. But going on a quest where his knowledge of the road and the wilds served him well was something else entirely. Why couldn't Thoren see that?

Perhaps because he does not wish to see it.

Fortunately for him, Cathy was here to dispense clarity and good common sense, even when he did not want to hear it. 'You risked your life as much as he did and you're the better ruler out of the two of you. Even if Thráin was minded to do so, I don't think you should let him wrest the crown out of your hands because some prophecy and an elven lady say that he is Durin the Seventh.'

Somehow this made him laugh. 'He does not need to wrest anything from me. I shan't give him anything that is not his by rights.'

'It would have been his by rights only if you had died.' His arguments weren't making any sense at all. 'Which you have not. You're alive and well…. Well, getting better by the day. Look, if I were convinced that this was the best for our people, I wouldn't stand in your way.' Perhaps she might, but she might not kick up as much of a fuss as she was doing now. 'But I think,' and so did Duria, 'that you're doing it for all the wrong reasons.'

He frowned at her; an unspoken request for her to elaborate.

So she did: 'You want to lay down your burdens and rest, because you're exhausted.' It wasn't like her to measure her words – that was always more Duria's area of expertise – but this was important, so she put the effort in. 'You'd be doing it more because you want rid of the responsibility and Thráin is the easiest excuse you've got to hand.'

Thoren opened his mouth to protest and then thought better of it. She must have struck a chord somewhere.

'It's not that I am against Thráin.' He was her brother; she could never be against him. 'It's that I am against you doing something foolish you ought to regret already. And you would have, if you had enough sleep to be thinking straight.'

She knew that the pain of his wounds often kept him up at night. A more sensible soul might have accepted the potions Aunt Thora was keen to pour down his throat that would dull his aches and ease him into sleep, but Thoren was of the opinion that this was a weakness he could not show, so he declined. And because he was such a stubborn fool, he couldn't think straight and he got all sorts of fanciful notions.

He did not deny this either. Cathy was reasonably sure that she had her foot in the door now, so she carried on before he could summon up a decent argument. 'Look, I'm not saying that Thráin isn't supposed to do all sorts of extraordinary things.' Just look at the evidence of last year alone. 'But if he must be King, let him be King of something else. Not Erebor. You were crowned its King and you were the one who defended it in its darkest hour.'

Thoren shook his head. 'What should he be King of?' He made a wide arm gesture. 'Our people do not have many places left to call our own.'

She couldn't say where the thought came from, only that in that one moment it all became clear as glass. 'Khazad-dûm!' she blurted out.

Of course! It made sense, did it not? Was that not where Thráin had seen his crown, as Durin the Deathless had before him? That wretched crown of stars crowned him king of Khazad-dûm, not Erebor. Of course that kingdom had been lost long ago, but it stood to reason that with the orcs so greatly reduced and weakened, a determined dwarf could have a proper chance at taking back what belonged to them.

'You're meant for Erebor, he's meant for Khazad-dûm,' she said, still somewhat stunned by her own revelation.

Thoren shook his head. 'Now which one of us is not thinking straight? Khazad-dûm is lost, Cathy.'

'It is now.'

He was determined to poke holes in her bright idea. 'I thought you didn't agree to the notion of Thráin being King of anything. Did you not just say that he had no sense of responsibility?'

Well, yes, she had. 'He's just going to have to learn then.' Then, with some difficulty, she added: 'He might have changed while he was away. We're none of us as we were a year ago. And after what Thráin has done…'

'Do you think that this thought had not yet occurred to me?' he asked, not unkindly. 'I did not take this decision lightly, nor am I so fatigued that I no longer know my own mind. It's Thráin our people need now.' When she made to protest yet again, he raised his voice ever so slightly: 'Our people deserve a King who can stand and fight when the need arises. We both know that I can no longer do so. It is the price I paid.' He rose to his feet to signal that this conversation was at an end. 'I won't argue about this. My mind has been made up.'

He did not truly pull rank on her, but she heard his message loud and clear. Since she had no wish to get into a fight with him, she shut up about it. For now. There were more ways to skin a cat and someone had to stop Thoren from doing something foolish.

Next time: Thráin punches someone deserving of the honour. Duria sets about rearranging the world in accordance with her wishes.

Thank you so much for reading. Apologies for the delay; my job and some personal unnecessary drama have been keeping me much occupied.

Until next week!