Chapter Four: Wanderers and Warriors
As soon as they crossed the Celebrant, the rain ceased.
A waxing gibbous moon floated above the trees in a sky without a hint of cloud. An old sky. A memory of moon. A familiar shiver coursed over Elrohir's skin. He staggered as they clambered up the bank, unbalanced as a mariner stepping ashore. He had not set foot in Egladil in many a long year. The wood had reclaimed some of the old trails and threaded new ones through once-impenetrable thickets of oak. Lanterns glimmered amid their branches, still full-leaved and fruited as if summer lingered though autumn encroached the land without.
Here, in the heart of Lórien, the only darkness was of day's ending.
The Wandering Company hailed their arrival with jovial cheers and not-a-few good-natured japes. Their august leader, Gildor Inglorion himself, embraced them and tugged their damp cloaks from their shoulders, turfing two of his own out of their pride of place nearest the braziers. Such ready hospitality—to say nothing of the mazers brimming with mulled wine pressed into their hands—went a long way to mollifying any lingering ill feeling from their earlier reception.
"Hail the hunters, home from the hills." Gildor lifted his cup in their direction. "Now. To more serious business. Rammas here claims she extracted a promise of entertainment in exchange for your keeping."
Elladan, only too ready to oblige, launched into recounting their errantry in the fastness of Mirkwood under the auspices of Thranduil and his folk.
Gildor seated himself on Elrohir's right hand. "And how do you fare, Elrohirya?" he murmured.
"The better for laying eyes on you, old friend." The wine, redolent with clove, breathed steam against his cheek and warmed him all the way down. "I had not thought to meet you here, of all places."
Centuries of leading a company of folk who had traded garth and garden for the roaming life and their true name for an epessë had instilled in Gildor a penchant for ironclad discretion, which, along with his courtly sense of chivalry and warm goodwill, much endeared him to all who knew him. He did not press for details.
"We have come to prevail on my kinswoman's hospitality and lay waste to her larder."
"I would fear more for the buttery and the virtue of the maidens with you and your lot about," Elrohir teased, the last of his ire melting away in the glow of the wine and Gildor's answering laugh. No gloom lingered long in his presence.
"Well. I am glad to welcome you two out of the cold." The elf-lord refilled Elrohir's mazer and his own, watching the firelit faces of his companions. "We will winter here, I think—this will be no season for roaming. And the roads we once traveled unmolested are not as safe as once they were."
"I can scarce imagine anyone or anything causing you much concern, Gildor." There were few, indeed, who would challenge an elven company led by a knight of Nargothrond, no less, and he said as much.
"You have been away, my boy."
He would say no more, and they lapsed into listening, but Elrohir's mind drifted from the tales and songs. He had warmed himself with hope, that his concession to this venture would be rewarded. The face he most sought was not among their fellowship, and for all their apparent ease and good humor, the faces of Gildor's men evinced a certain taut restlessness, a tension they masked with wine and tales and too-loud laughter.
At length, pleading weariness, not altogether untruthfully, Elrohir begged off and left Elladan to square whatever remained of their debt.
Dropping his sodden packs unceremoniously beside a bunk at the far end of the lodge, he peeled out of his tunic and shirt and spread them to dry then sat and unlaced his wet and muddy boots. He went over every inch of his kit. The habits of a soldier were not easily set aside even within the inviolable bounds of Lórien, and of all Haldir's lessons he had discarded over the years, that was not one of them.
Though his sword had not seen use since their crossing the Great River, he dried and oiled it anyway, the rhythm soothing his nerves. Then, when his gear was repacked, his weapons tended, his body washed and as clean as he was likely to get any time soon (and cleaner than he had been in a fortnight), when there was nothing else with which to occupy his hands and unruly thoughts, he reached down into the very bottom of his pack and pulled out the small, leather pouch.
Six thaind spilled across his palm. A hole had been drilled into the corner of each, wide enough for a leather string. He fingered them one-by-one, the chased cirth gleaming up at him, painful in their clarity, though much handling had blackened the bronze the color of fresh bruises.
Belegorn. Alagos. Rusgion, Emlin. Feredir. Nimdal.
A familiar litany, now, almost soothing in its own way: repetition had made a nepenthe of recollection and taken the sting out of it the way a dose of spirits eased the shock of a broken bone.
Six. For such small things, they were heavy, all together. He only ever took them out now when Elladan was elsewhere, unable to intone, not for the first time, how thrashing over the past served no good purpose. But Elrohir would not do them the disservice of allowing himself to forget. He furled his fingers closed one by one and squeezed until the metal corners dug into his flesh.
"The care a knight takes with his weapons is the care he takes with his life."
Elrohir slipped the thaind hurriedly back into their pouch and cinched the drawstring tight. "So it has been said."
The Noldor woman who had rescued them from a night in the guardhouse stood at the foot of his bunk, cradling a steaming bowl between her hands. She held it out in offering. "I imagine, in all tonight's excitement, you had not had the chance yet to break your fast. Your brother has made good on our debt and more than paid your portion. Though I have come to warn you he looks to lighten your purse."
Dice rattled on the table beside the brazier amid a chorus of cheers and groans.
"He has ever willingly played the part of goodfellow. Certainly more than I." Elrohir's stomach reminded him viscerally he had not eaten since morning. "Ware though. We squandered our last on the Beorning's tolls, and he's a terrible cheat when he's short of coin. Best eye him lest your purses come away the lighter."
"Are you not a good fellow then?" she said, seating herself on the bunk across from him. "Preferring one's own company is no discourtesy. Of course, then I prevail on you when least you wish it, I daresay."
He faltered under her eyes, her proximity. A woman's flattery, though not uncommon, always wrong-footed him and required swifter calculations than he felt capable of tonight. How best to divert her advances without giving offense? The readiest phrases had appeased many a serving-woman or cathouse matron, but this…For a wild moment, he considered accepting what she seemed to offer, the desire to be kind, to spare her blushes, overwhelming him. But such labors bore only rotten fruit.
The wine was muddling him. He shook his head to clear it. "I fear the sword has too long been my master, good lady. Hands hardened to battle are not readily softened for gentler pursuits. My own...company is all I'm fit for."
"You are not the first man so inclined I have known." She braced her elbows on her knees, leaning towards him. "But that is not my intent."
"Ah."
"Inglorion speaks very highly of you and your companion. The brethren who overcame the din-horde in Calenardhon and saved the life of the Northmen king; who razed the evil stones of Fornost to the ground and cleared the East-West Road of wolf-heads from Archet to Tharbad. And those are merely the latest and least of your deeds."
After weeks of dried and salted rations, the stew proved a welcome respite. Elrohir licked the spoon, allowing himself a private smile at Elladan being referred to as his 'companion,' but he knew better than to be gulled by praise. "Inglorion is a fishwife with a good bloodline to recommend him. I am acquainted with most faces in the Company…"
"'Rammas' is what they call me here," she supplied.
For a woman schooled in the High Tongue it was not what he had expected. "And what do they call you otherwhere?"
She interlaced her fingers between her knees. "Your arrival is most timely."
"Timing had little to do with it. My brother was most insistent—either I came of my own volition, or he would truss me hand and foot and heave me over the saddle horn."
"It is no mistake, your arrival here." That strange, unearthly light in her eyes that had held him on the borders held him now. "All roads now lead into Darkness. Things Above and Below are stirring. The Wise fear worse to come. Your sword arm is needed here."
Her words unsettled him, a ring of prescience in her urgency.
"Let the Wise look to their affairs. I have my own troubles."
Her head cocked to one side. "You are a knight of the Eldar. Sworn to defend the lands of your birth and your fostering. Yet for long years now, you have been adrift in the wild. Upon errantry. Or is it recreancy?"
He bristled at that. "A man long on perilous roads has earned a respite now and then. I do not need to explain myself to you. My choices are my own, and there is enough evil in the Wild to warrant my attention to it."
She raised her hands, her empty palms toward him. "I do not mean to give offense. Inglorion oft reminds me my tongue has a tendency to ride roughshod over my better sense."
"You are not the first I have known to do so."
He had taken her for a woman more comfortable with weapons than words: from her carriage to the blade at her side, worn even in the lodge. Closer inspection only confirmed it. Her hands were callused in all the proper places, and at her throat, a thin brown scar crooked its way under her jaw into the depths of her tunic. To conceal it, she wore a medallion of beaten copper, the edges of its runes catching the light of the candles.
"You fought on the Dagorlad," he said as much for a change of subject as curiosity.
Few and far between sported that particular token these days (only one Elrohir knew of on this side of the River). Those who displayed it did so with fierce pride and trenchant sorrow, remembering ever the other shields—clamped between jaws or twined in cold fingers—they had been forced to leave behind in the marshes.
Rammas brushed the thand with her fingers. "Many of the Wandering Companies did. I was running with Inglorion's band more often than not in those days, and when the call to arms went up, I joined with him on the march South under the banner of Ereinion Gil-galad. You seem rather young for that field."
"My brother and I were born in the century after the Barad-dûr's fall. Our captain fought under Amdir and Amroth, after."
"A forlorn hope then. So we called those lads who walked out of the bog after Amdir's fall. What few of them were left."
"I had not heard that."
Haldir had seldom spoken of his time away at war: only on regimental nights when brandy and tongue ran too freely. Rear echelon swarn, he would scoff in a carrying tone when some high-ranking officer sauntered past, cape in danger of unraveling under the weight of campaign medals. Such did not invite disclosure.
"Who is your captain? He must be a fellow worth knowing."
"He and I have not spoken in some years." He hoped his tone suggested an end to the subject of inquiry. During their last encounter on this side of the river, Elrohir had preferred to let the point of his sword speak for him.
"Yet you are here now. To what purpose, if not to stay and help your sworn brothers?"
Elrohir pressed his lips tight together. "Gildor had the right of it. Are you always this inquisitive?"
"It is one of my better qualities."
"One we have long missed has made his way back to the north. I believe here he is called the Dúnadan." Even here, amidst the Wandering Company the habit of secrecy had become ingrained.
Her brow furrowed then cleared. "Ah! I know of whom you speak. He is a good sort, the Dúnadan. He regaled us many a night with tales of your ranging."
Her warm report of Aragorn softened his irritation somewhat. "He is prone to exaggeration."
"I'm afraid I have not seen him for some days. He does not tell us of his comings and goings. But if you linger here a time, he will turn up. I am always glad to reach the Golden Wood when the company ventures this way. The air here feels younger somehow. A taste of old, sweet days."
"My mother came here, a refugee of Eregion. Amroth's high seat was not yet raised, and the little stream that flowed into Celebrant had no name. She loved the mellyrn best. She even brought a seedling all the way back to her husband's house in Imladris, but the climes proved unfavorable." He set aside his half-finished meal. A slurry of congealed potato lined the bowl. "The high seat is deserted now. Amroth is gone. And so is she. What good is memory of ancient days if it only reminds us of our grief?"
"Grief is not an evil thing, roquen," she said, pity in her eyes. "It may be painful, but if the grief is great then so was the love. To grieve for what is gone is to love something or someone completely. That is the greatest gift we can give."
"It is also the only thing, other than weapons or war, that can slay us," Elrohir returned. "Or would you call that a gift, too?"
She did not linger long after that but bid him a restful night.
The room was too warm, too full of laughter and loud talk, and though he lay down, he found sleep hard to find. The doughiest of Elladan's challengers had long surrendered their coin before it finally took him.
Language Notes
Elrohirya (Quenya) - '-ya' added to the end of a name makes it an endearment
Source: Parf Edhellen: an elvish dictionary, .com
epessë (Quenya) - a nickname, mostly given as a title of admiration or honor. For instance, "Gil-galad" or "Cúthalion."
Source: Parf Edhellen: an elvish dictionary, .com
thand (Sindarin) - shield; plural: thaind
Source: Parf Edhellen: an elvish dictionary, .com
cirth (Sindarin) - runes
Source: Lord of the Rings, Appendix E, II: Writing
swarn (Nandorin) - a perverse or difficult person
Source: Parf Edhellen: an elvish dictionary, .com
Past Series References / Canon Quotes
"The brethren who overcame the din-horde in Calenardhon and saved the life of the Northmen king."
Source: Peoples of Middle Earth, Appendix A: "In the forefront of the charge they saw two great horseman clad in grey, unlike all the others, and the Orcs fled before them; but when the battle was won they could not be found, and none knew whence they came or whither they went. But in Rivendell, it was recorded that these were the sons of Elrond, Elladan and Elrohir."
"who razed the evil stones of Fornost to the ground"
Source: The reason for that is told in Dwimmerlaik.