Sithirantiel paced furiously around the opulent suite with which Elrond had
furnished her after acquiescing to her ultimatum like she had known he
would. Her black eyes were smoldering, and her hands alternated between
clenching and unclenching and rubbing incessantly against the soft fabric
of her royal blue gown. This was a development she had not foreseen. She
was seething, furious at herself for being so careless. One lapse, one
stupid lapse, threatened to destroy the fruits of her hard-earned victory
over Elrond.
Six weeks had passed since the spineless little worm had collapsed under the weight of her implacable, insidious demands like a child's paper castle. Everything had been going splendidly. He had catered to her every whim, her every demand. The priceless tapestries and diamonds she asked for arrived within hours. When she had requested a more spacious, airier room, it was found and furnished that very afternoon. Even better than the material gains had been the emotional toll her constant demands and haranguing took on the dignified elf lord. Once charming and outgoing, he had become aloof and distant, often muttering to himself as he moved through the great halls of Imladris. More and more, he retreated into his private study, turning away all visitors except Celebrian.
She was certain Celebrian was suffering the effects of Lord Elrond's drastic change in demeanor. It was now not uncommon to see the little wench come out of his chambers with a pinched, worried expression on her thin face. She had heard from some of the less prudent sentries that there were oftentimes raised voices issuing from the formerly tranquil abode. All of this was music to Sithirantiel's ears. Elrond was doing a fine job of destroying things for himself. He was making her job considerably easier. Before long, everything he loved would be in ruins, and her revenge would be complete. The thought almost made her smile, but then her mind returned to the grave matter at hand, and she grew serious once more.
It was still hard to believe, even after a week of knowing. She nearly fainted when she heard the news. She had stared at the midwife as though she were some peculiar, alien being. Pregnant. The word was a foreign concept to her. Never, in all her planning over these long years, had this possibility entered into the picture. How could she have been so stupid? It wasn't as though she was naïve about the doings between men and women. Most Elflings understood coupling and its consequences long before they reached maturity. Sex was the most natural of all acts save birth to the elves, an act to be celebrated and rejoiced in. Though parents never deliberately made love in front of their children, there was no shame or embarrassment should the act be discovered. No, ignorance was not an excuse. She supposed the idea had never crossed her mind because she had always considered Elrond so weak and contemptible that his foul seed could neither create nor sustain a life. She had underestimated him. She gave a derisive snort at the thought and continued her fuming circuit around the room.
All of this introspection is quite lovely, the dry voice that had guided her through the planning and execution of her plan spoke up, but it hardly answers the more pertinent question of what you are going to do about it.
There was only one thing to do. Get rid of it. She had worked too long and too hard for the life of luxury she had at last achieved to have it all undone by some squalling, filthy, reeking little parasite that would leech the strength from her bones and the vigor from her spirit. She was meant to be pampered and catered to, not forced to be a handmaiden to some squawking, demanding, useless thing who contributed nothing to her happiness. The very thought of changing dirty swaddling or offering her breast to a thankless mouth disgusted her. She was determined that the life taking root inside her would not survive the week.
But how? The snuffing out of a life was not permitted under any interpretation of elven law. Even if it had been, there was no midwife in all the elves of Arda who would consent to such a deed. New life was a precious and rare commodity among the fairest of the races. Nearly all elves could and did bring forth new life, but very few were fortunate enough to sire more than two children. Dearth of offspring seemed to be the one price the elves paid for their immortality. Every child was welcomed with blessings and song because their presence was considered a miraculous privilege. She sniffed. Sentimental fools. Privilege? Burden. One she refused to shoulder.
She would have to go to the humans. They harbored no such silly sentimentality and would do anything for the right price. They cast out unwanted children like yesterday's garbage. They would have no compunction about ridding the world of this unwanted blight. A few extra coins would silence any wagging tongues. Yes, she would go to the humans. The closest settlement was in Rohan. She could be there in five days. They would take her money and scrape this child from her womb, whether by stick or draught, she knew not, but it really didn't matter. She just wanted the child gone.
With a decision made at last, she stopped her frenetic pacing and moved to sit at the polished oak table. From here, the sunlight streamed through the large bay window, dappling her face with its warm rays. She closed her eyes and tilted her face to meet its touch. Insanity had not yet robbed her of all Elvish thought, and she welcomed the sun with what passed for joy in her warped soul. She let her hand drift to the large silver fruit bowl in the center of the table, her fingers closing over a bunch of cool, red grapes. The uncertainty that had plagued her all week was gone, replaced by her customary satisfied arrogance.
Her plan was simple. She would tell Elrond to supply her with a horse and a pair of sentries to escort her. If she left at dawn tomorrow, she could be in Rohan before next week. An overnight stay was all she would need to recover from the procedure, and then she would return to Rivendell. She would be gone no more than twelve days, not nearly enough time for slow-witted Elrond to rediscover his masculinity and cause problems. Finding the money to finance this trek was of no concern. She would demand the sum from Elrond. If he had the temerity to ask her what it was for, she would slap his impertinent mouth. She smiled, a cold, bloodless grin that ceased the birdsong outside her window, and popped another succulent grape into her mouth.
Her hand was halfway to her mouth with another grape when an unwelcome thought struck her. What if he did summon the courage to move against her while she was away? It was unlikely, but not impossible. She hadn't expected to be with child, and yet, here she was with six weeks' worth of bastard in her belly. If he decided to refuse her re-entry into the realm upon her return from her pernicious errand, there would be little she could do. The child would be long gone, no doubt washed down some riverbed to rot among the grey suds left from washing day and the reeking offal left by careless fishermen. The bruises on her face and neck from his tirade upon learning of her treachery had long since faded into memory. If she tried to accuse him from outside the walls of Rivendell, he could dismiss her charges as the ravings of a lunatic. She herself would have washed the evidence away.
The momentary good humor she had been feeling imploded under a torrent of fresh rage, and she leaped to her feet with a snarl. Damn him! Even in my hour of triumph, he manages to make things difficult. She seized the heavy fruit bowl in both hands and threw it across the room. It crashed against the opposite wall with a reverberating clang, sending fruit flying in all directions. A ripe peach splattered against the wall and dribbled slowly to the floor, leaving a sticky trail of pulp in its wake.
"Bastard!" she screamed as she paced once more around the room, her hands in gnarled talons. "You won't ruin this for me! You won't!"
She stopped and bent down to grab the chamber pot containing her earlier bout with morning sickness. The sight and smell of it infuriated her even more, and she lobbed the pot against the door with shattering force. Shards of pottery and clots of congealed vomit flew outward like a volley of arrows, and she ducked to avoid being sprayed. A rogue shard of clay ricocheted off the ceiling and nicked her right cheek. She yelped at the sharp, stinging pain.
There was a furtive rustle of movement outsider her door, but no solicitous face appeared to investigate the cause of such a fracas. The palace staff had learned quickly and painfully not to intrude upon Lady Sithirantiel, as she liked to be called, unless duly summoned. A sweet- faced chambermaid had once poked her head inside the door to ask if her Ladyship required anything before the maid retired to her chambers. She was rewarded for her solicitude by a backhanded slap that had smashed her nose and dislodged two teeth. No one else had been so unwise as to interfere with her again.
She hurried to the gold-filigree, full-length mirror to survey the damage to her face. A thin scrape started just below her eye and tapered diagonally down her cheek in a pink slash. Two beads of blood oozed from the cut and dripped onto the bodice of her white dress. It was not deep and would leave no scar, but it drove her mad with fury.
"You filthy little scourge!" she shrieked, battering at her stomach, "look what you made me do! You have marred my matchless beauty and robbed me of my vitality. Your father seeks to protect you by ruining my plans to erase you from this earth, but he will not succeed. If I cannot find the means to do have you die by human hands, then you shall perish by mine." She dealt her stomach another hard blow.
She lunged around the room looking for anything that might serve in her quest to obliterate the fragile child developing in her womb. Her mind, long a resident on the threshold of insanity, stepped nimbly and unobtrusively over the invisible line, and Sithirantiel, now quite mad, continued muttering invective under her breath until she spotted the heavy broom handle tucked away in the corner beside the bed. Left there by some addle-brained handmaiden, no doubt. She grabbed it with eager hands. It was heavy and solid. It would do very well. She returned once more to the mirror.
"You thought I wouldn't have the courage to do it, didn't you?" she raved at her belly. She gripped the handle fiercely, positioning the rounded end just below her navel. "As stupid as your father. Go back to the Valar! I desire no gift."
She was just about to drive the handle deep and hard into her gut when a flicker of movement in the mirror caught her eye. She looked up, and a feral whine of fear sounded in her throat. Whatever tenuous grasp she may have retained on her sanity dwindled away, and she moaned helplessly at the mirror and the visage it held.
There was her face, which should have been there, white and horrified in the smooth glass. But there was something else, something that should not have been there in any sane world. Behind her pasty reflection stood her father, twenty years dead. He smiled his hard, sardonic smile at her, revealing black, fetid teeth. An arrow, the arrow that had killed him, was lodged in his throat. His hair hung off of his scalp like clotted blood.
"Hello, daughter," he said in a cold, grating voice, and a thin streamer of viscous black blood drooled from the hole in his throat.
She whirled around to face her father's ghost, but no one was there. The room was exactly as had been a few moments before. She was alone. She turned back to the mirror, unable to feel her body from the knees down. Her father was there, still grinning his implacable grin.
"Adar?" she squeaked. Urine ran down her leg in a warm, pungent stream.
"You don't seem happy to see me, daughter," he mused, and folded his arms across his chest.
"You're dead." The tear in the fabric of her reality widened.
"As astute as ever, I see," he snapped in the bellicose voice that had so often belittled her as a child.
"You cannot be here. You're dead." She was hyperventilating now.
"I told you when I died that I would never leave you, and now I have come to watch your destruction," he said gleefully.
"No," she whimpered, and curled into a protective ball. Her nose stung with the stench of urine, and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing the specter to go away. All of her life, she had lived in abject terror of him. Only his death had released her from the ever-present fear, and now he was back, back from the grave to make her pay for the things she had done. It wasn't fair.
"I'm not going to go away, so get up," he snarled. "If you don't, I have ways of making you obey. You remember them, don't you?" His voice was a mocking purr.
Then she heard a sound that had held sway in her nightmares in the years since her father's death. A low, sharp whickering sound, the sound of oiled leather whipping through the air. She screamed as the tridentine strap cracked against the smooth stone floor. This was impossible. Her father was not here; he was moldering in his tomb, but she heard it all the same. It was the sound of the whip that never failed to lash against the tender skin of her back, buttocks, or legs when she had displeased him.
"Adar, please," she sniveled.
"Then get up." His voice was harsh.
She sprang to her feet in an ecstasy of terror. She would do anything not to hear that gut-wrenching sound again. "W-what do you want?"
The figure in the mirror raised an eyebrow. "Want? I told you I don't want anything. I'm just here to watch you destroy yourself." Another malevolent smile crossed his lips.
"I don't know what you mean. I have everything under control," she said, her hands tugging nervously at her gown.
Her father snorted. "Is that what you call this?" He gestured around the decimated room with a pale, bony hand. You're stupider than I first believed. Mayhap I should have used the lash more liberally with you."
"As I remember, you used it none too sparingly as it was, you bastard. Any more and you would have flayed me alive," she snapped. She blanched and retreated a step when she realized what she had said.
"Little good it did. You're still as worthless as ever. I should have lashed the life from your body and saved my own. Would that I had been smart enough to use the broomstick on you." The lash flicked suggestively back and forth across his forearm like the tail of a curious cat.
"I was the best thing to ever come from you," she said, still wise enough in spite of her insanity to keep out of range of his ominous lash.
"If you are the pinnacle of my legacy, it would have been better for me to leave none at all. Useless imbecile! Too foolish to see that you hold the key to your success in your hands. You always were selfish and impetuous. Did you really think your silly little plan would work? You were far too ambitious this time, you base little wench, and I shall very much enjoy watching your ruin." He tilted his head back and laughed. It was the same derisive laugh he had always used to make her feel small and stupid. It had lost none of its potency with the passing of years.
"I hate you!" she screamed, and brought the broom handle crashing down into the mirror. The malignant visage of her dead father prismed for a moment before disintegrating amid the cheerful tinkle of shattering glass. She brought the handle down over and over again, grunting with effort. She wanted to obliterate him. She would make sure he never came back again.
When she had exhausted herself, she flopped down onto the floor, squashing a banana beneath her buttocks. She was trembling and bleeding from a dozen different cuts on her forearms, but she was exhilarated. I showed him, she thought, oh yes, I did. She began to giggle, softly at first, then with more intensity. Soon she was yodeling laughter, rocking back and forth and clapping her sweaty hands.
He was right about one thing, though, she thought as the laughing fit began to wane. She couldn't deny that, no matter how much she wished she could. She had been stupid not to see the priceless weapon she now held inside her body. Inconvenient though it was, the little bastard incubating in her womb was worth more alive than dead. Whether he believed the child was his or not, Elrond would never allow any harm to come to it. His pathetic conscience and overdeveloped sense of honor would demand that he do everything in his power to protect it. The strong shielding the weak. The altruistic moron would capitulate to anything for the good of the child. It could spend its life imprisoned in the wardrobe closet for all she cared. She would bring it before Elrond once a week to assure him that it yet lived, and then back in the wardrobe it would go. She could keep Elrond under her thumb for millennia. She couldn't wait to see his face when he found out about the result of their little liaison.
She got up and went to the door. "Handmaiden!" she called out, flinging open the door.
A white-faced young girl materialized before her. The young courtesan had heard every bit of the tempest going on in the room and had fervently hoped that the shifts would change before the Lady decided to summon anyone. Now, seeing the disheveled, bug-eyed harridan standing in the doorway, covered in blood, fruit pulp, and vomit, she begged for a hole to open up beneath her feet and swallow her up.
"Yes, Your Ladyship?" she quavered, curtseying on wobbly knees.
"Yes Your Ladyship," Sithirantiel mimicked with a sneer. "Get your worthless hide in there and clean up that mess! The job better be done by the time I get back, or you'll not be able to sit down for a week."
"Yes, Your Ladyship," said the girl. She stepped inside the room and gasped at what she saw.
Sithirantiel gave her a vigorous kick to the buttocks, sending her sprawling face first into the vomit and fruit pulp. "Enough gawking, you clumsy girl! Get to work!"
She stalked down the corridor toward Elrond's private enclave, oblivious to the stares and the wide berth afforded her by other elves. Her fevered, sinister mind was too busy conjuring up the expression on Elrond's face when he heard the news. I have you now, you traitorous fool. You'll pay for your moment of carelessness for the rest of your life. The thought brought a tight-lipped smile to her lips. She quickened her pace.
She burst into his private chambers to find him in conference with a pair of advisors. Celebrian was sitting at his side, hand resting on his knee. The look of stupefied confusion on their faces as she entered filled her with savage amusement.
"Lord Elrond, I need to speak with you bat once," she said, a smirk spreading over her face like a shadow moving to blot out the sun.
"Can you not see that we are in the middle of a very important-," began a counselor.
"I do not recall asking your input on the matter," she snapped. "I believe I was addressing Lord Elrond."
The counselor lapsed into silence while the other shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Elrond cleared his throat.
"Gentlemen, we will take up this matter at another time," he said, rising from his chair.
The counselors rose to take their leave, but Celebrian remained where she was. "My lord, if it please you, I would like to stay," she said quietly. She was looking at the frazzled Sithirantiel with an expression of acute disdain.
"Oh yes, what a splendid idea," Sithirantiel cooed, turning her crocodile smile to the other woman. "I'm certain you'll find it most enlightening." From the corner of her eye, she saw Elrond blanch to the color of whipped whey.
"Oh no, dear, I'd rather you didn't. You'd be bored to tears by these humdrum matters, I assure you. Why don't you go take a stroll in the gardens? I'll join you for dinner later," he said hurriedly, pulling her gently to her feet.
"I really much prefer to stay. Perhaps I can be of help. That is, if no one objects," Celebrian insisted.
"Oh no, I don't mind at all. Only a woman could understand that which plagues me," said Sithirantiel, black eyes round and innocent.
"Then it's settled, then," said Celebrian, moving to take her seat again.
"It most certainly is NOT settled," he barked, panic and frustration getting the better of him. "In case you've forgotten, I am still lord of this realm, and you are not yet its lady. Now do as I say and go. Why must you be forever at my heels?"
The effect his words had on Celebrian could not have been worse if he had reached out and slapped her. Her face fell and her shoulders pulled back until she looked like a shoulder standing at attention. Her eyes were shining with anger and bewilderment.
"As you wish, my lord," she said, giving him a stiff curtsy before retreating from the room with the frowning counselors in tow.
"Always cool when chaos reigns, I see," said Sithirantiel when they were gone.
"What is it that you want?" said Elrond wearily. "I am in no mood for your petulant demands today." He kneaded his temples with his fingers, trying to stave off the gnawing headache he felt building behind them.
"Your mood is of no consequence to me," she said airily. "Besides, I come today not to make demands, but to give you a gift."
He brought his head up quickly enough to make the tendons in his neck creak. "A gift?" he said suspiciously. He didn't want a gift of any sort from the likes of her, especially not when she looked so terrible. Her hair sat in greasy clots atop her head, and her gown sat twisted and wrinkled on her frame. There was a smudge of blood on her skirt and a smear of vomit over her left breast. Several shallow scrapes adorned her forearms. Maybe she had the mercy to try and put an end to herself, he thought, then dismissed the notion as too much to hope for.
"Are you alright?" he asked in spite of himself.
"Never better. I just had an unexpected meeting with an old friend." She tittered at this revelation, and Elrond's heart gave an uneasy lurch. Something had clearly unsettled her mind. "Sit down," she said, gesturing vaguely at his chair.
"I'll stand, thank you," he said, nettled. She may have him under her thumb for the time being, but he wasn't going to be ordered around his own chambers.
"Suit yourself," she said placidly. She looked at him, wanting to watch him squirm a bit longer. Then she said, "I am with child."
He sat. "Impossible," he said, steepling his fingers in front of his suddenly cold face. He took a shaky, deep breath, willing himself not to faint.
"Oh? If you doubt me, ask the midwife. Do you remember taking precautions to prevent the coming of a child that night? No, I thought not."
He said nothing. What could he say? He risked a furtive glance at her stomach. Sure enough, there was a slight swelling there, a swelling that could only mean one thing. He moaned softly into his hands. "Oh, Elbereth. What do you intend to do?"
"I had it in my mind to go to Rohan and find an old crone to do away with it discreetly," she said, intending no such thing but wanting to see his reaction.
"Out of the question," he said, sitting bolt upright behind his desk. "An innocent life shall not be destroyed, no matter what the circumstances of its conception."
"Such sentimental drivel," she laughed. "So you will claim it then?"
He fell silent. To claim the child would be to publicly admit his paternity. Celebrian would be disgraced, and his own reputation in shambles. Tongues would begin to wag, and his credibility would be undermined. His conscience screamed at him to do the right thing, but on this day, his cowardice was stronger. "We could send it away," he offered.
"Afraid to face consequences, m'lord?" she jeered. "I hardly think so. I have an idea of my own. I'll keep the child quiet and safe from harm so long as you do as I say. If you even consider refusing me, I'll bring forth the child. After it serves its purpose of ruining you, I'll break its neck and toss it to the vultures." To prove her point, she gave her stomach a brisk slap.
Elrond scrambled over the top of his desk and grabbed her hands, wrenching them violently away from her abdomen. "Do not harm that child," he hissed, nose wrinkling as the strong smell of urine struck his nose. He was seized by an overwhelming desire to break her murderous wrists.
"You're hurting me," she grunted through gritted teeth.
The commotion had attracted the two sentries posted to his door, who stood in the threshold watching their lord with sinking trepidation. Gone was the gentle sovereign that had guided them through the first uncertain years after Sauron's fall, and in his stead was a frightening madman gripping the delicate wrists of a Lady.
"Sir, is everything alright?" ventured one, a note of disapproval in his voice.
Elrond dropped his hands and moved away, a guilty flush creeping into his face. Elbereth knew how this must look. They were staring at him as though they didn't recognize him. Maybe they didn't. He didn't recognize himself anymore. I'm losing myself, he thought. It is as though someone else has crawled inside my skin. I am but a helpless spectator now. The thought chilled him, and he gave an involuntary shudder.
"I assure you all is well," he said, straightening up and putting his hands behind his back. He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.
The sentries looked wholly unconvinced. Their eyes darted between Elrond and Sithirantiel, who sat rubbing her chafed wrists. The halberds they held in their left hands clinked nervously, and they shuffled from foot to foot, as though waiting for something. Then Elrond realized that they were waiting for something. They were surreptitiously glancing at Sithirantiel, waiting for her to refute his assertion that all was as it should be. Their doubt wounded and angered him. Did they truly think him such a monster? Had he really changed so much over the past six weeks? If so, things were far worse than he had imagined.
"If I need anything, you will be summoned forthwith," he said, an unmistakable note of irritation in his voice. "Dismissed."
The pair lingered a moment longer, reluctant to leave. He wondered what he was going to do if they refused to obey his command. He wasn't about to lay unkind hands on them; that would only reinforce the notion that he had been corrupted by his power. That left him with few options. He supposed he could summon more guards to remove the first, but what if they refused to act? Then he would be faced with four disobedient, disapproving pairs of eyes instead of just two. He sighed. Sithirantiel had managed to complicate even the most mundane of matters.
Just as he was about to say something else, the sentries bowed and took their leave, though it was obvious from their slow departure that they still entertained grave misgivings about the situation. Sithirantiel opened her mouth, no doubt preparing to offer up another acid jibe about his moral ineptitude, but it never came. Instead, she froze eyes locked on something over his shoulder. Her chest began to hitch, and her hands flew to her face, long nails harrowing her face and leaving behind ugly red weals.
Elrond spun around, expecting to see a crazed, knife-wielding assassin looming behind him, but there was no one. The only occupants of the space behind him were his heavy, three-tiered bookshelf and a small silver wall mirror that Celebrian had gifted to him on his birthday the year past. He scanned the thin shadows in search of anything that could possibly merit such a reaction. Aside from the shifting mountains of dust that had piled up since he stopped allowing most people inside, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
Sithirantiel let out a howling wail of terror, prompting Elrond to return his attention to her. She sat in the chair, body rigid, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath her eyes. Her eyes were fixed on the wall mirror behind his head. What is wrong with her? What does she see? he thought. His heart was racing in his chest. Then came a less serious but no less distressing thought. This will surely bring my two great admirers in here on the run.
Indeed, the door exploded open, and the two sentries rushed in, halberds raised. It was clear from their posture that they expected to see their king engaged in the sordid business of murdering the helpless damsel in his chambers. He had to quash a violent bray of laughter when they skidded to a halt, heads cocked in comic perplexity as they took in the screaming figure hunched in the chair in front of his desk. She was pulling her hair out in fine tufts.
"What has come over her, sire?" said one, slowly lowering his upraised halberd.
"I do not know," he answered truthfully. "She was seized by a sudden fit of madness as we spoke."
"Plague me no more!" she screamed at the mirror. She jumped up and laid hold of a wooden dove sculpture sitting on his desk. "Damn you to Mordor!" she bellowed, and launched it at the mirror, shattering it into untold pieces. Elrond ducked, shielding his head from a fullisade of jagged, crystalline shards.
"I got him, I got him," she muttered softly to herself, her eyes dazed and uncomprehending. She began to titter to herself, a strained brittle sound in the otherwise silent room.
"Guards, please escort Lady Sithirantiel to her room. It is clear she is not well. I will be up to see to her shortly," he said.
"Yes, m'lord," they answered, snapping their heels together. They moved to either side of the chair in which Sithirantiel sat and grabbed her gently beneath the elbows. "Come, Your Ladyship, let us take you to rest," they whispered, pulling her to her feet.
"I got him," she said conversationally to the guards as they escorted her from the room.
"Indeed you did," answered one, as though her statement made perfect sense, and Elrond sent him a silent blessing.
When they had gone, he sank down into the chair behind his desk and rested his head on his hands. Now that everyone was gone, the full impact of what Sithirantiel had told him was crashing down on him. He rubbed absently at his face with his hands.
"Elbereth, what I am going to do?" he asked the empty room.
You don't have do anything, said the voice of reason inside his head. She's quite mad. Anyone can see that. Even if she does tell, no one will believe her now. The child she carries may not even be yours.
The voice offered false hope, and he dared not take it. The child was his. No amount of well-meaning denial would change that. If Sithirantiel had had another lover, she would have been parading him about by now, preening in cocksure triumph. She would no longer have had cause to torment him. The fact that she still exerted so much time and energy to make his life miserable dispelled any hope that the child belonged to another.
Well, at least no one will believe her accusations now, consoled the voice.
Ah, but what if they do? laughed the other voice that had so recently taken up residence inside his head. What if she tells everyone that your base cruelty drove her mad? That your callous rejection of the child she carried and your ill treatment of her made her the way she is? More people than you think will believe her. Your erratic behavior as of late has ensured that. The reaction of your own sentries earlier today proves that. Your people are beginning to fear you. And what if it is true? What if you did drive her mad? She has always been cruel, yes, but never mad. Not until you took her to bed, anyway.
What if she isn't even with child? countered his logical voice in desperation.
If you doubt, an answer is simple enough to come by. Ask the midwife.
Yes, he would do that. Sithirantiel herself had said he should. His eye fell on the decanter of mallorn wine on the table in the far corner of the room, and he was tempted to take a drink to steady his nerves. He decided against it. Wine had gotten him into enough trouble already. If the midwife confirmed the dark suspicions in his mind, he would come back here a drink. A big one.
He left his chambers, surprised to see that his two sentries had not yet returned. He hoped Sithirantiel had not done them any harm. If they had not returned by the time he finished with the midwife, he would go in search of them. His heart sank to see Celebrian waiting for him down the corridor. Not now. Please not now.
"Elrond, we need to talk," she said, grabbing his arm as he passed.
"Celebrian, please, not now," he said, pulling away from her.
"Yes, now," she insisted. "Why do you ignore me?"
He turned to face her. "I do not ignore you. I am simply very busy."
"Never before have you been so busy, not even when you were obsessed with building Rivendell. What ails you?"
"Nothing ails me, nothing I wish to discuss with you, at any rate. Not now."
"Elrond, please do not hide yourself from me," she pleaded, looking into his eyes.
"Where is it written that I must bare every secret corner of my soul to you? Leave me be. I have things to do," he snapped, instantly mortified with himself. "Celebrian, dear, I'm sorry. Meet me for dinner. We'll discuss it then."
"There will be no dinner tonight, nor for many nights to come, I think," she said stiffly. For the first time there was real anger in her voice, and if frightened him badly. It made him realize just how much Sithirantiel had affected him.
Before he could stammer out an apology, she turned and walked away, rapidly disappearing from view. You're pushing her away, you arrogant fool, crowed the malignant voice inside his head. Soon she will take her leave of you. How much more baseless anger do you think she will take from you before she hardens her heart? Less than you dare hope, I assure you. He pushed the voice away. It made him afraid because he knew it was telling the truth, a truth he did not wish to hear.
By the time he arrived at the midwife's parlor on the lowermost floor, he was seething with bitter remorse for his harsh words to Celebrian and hatred for the unsettling voice in his head.
"Why, hello, my lord," greeted the midwife when he entered. "Quite a surprise to see you here." She washed bloody linens as she talked. There had been a birth the hour before.
"Good afternoon, midwife," said Elrond, noting with quiet dismay that the new mother still lay sleeping on a pallet near the window. "A new citizen for Rivendell, I see."
The midwife laughed. "Yes, m'lord. A fine boy-child, born a little over an hour ago. The mother's first. A strapping lad, he was. Nearly eight pounds."
"Is the mother well?"
"Oh yes. Just exhausted. Her labor was quite intense. Eighteen hours. If you've come to assist, I'm afraid you're a bit late.
"Where is the child?" He craned his neck to search for the telltale bundle of swaddling.
"The proud father absconded with him not long ago. No doubt showing the little fellow off to all his friends. He'll catch quite the tongue lashing when he gets back."
"No doubt," agreed Elrond with a wry smile.
"But that isn't what you came down here for, is it?" she asked shrewdly.
"No, it isn't. Actually I have come to ask about Sithirantiel." He tried to sound casual, but the words sounded strange and forced in his ears. This was dangerous territory. "Has she come to you?"
The midwife's eyes narrowed. "Yes. She asked to be examined."
"And?"
"She is with child."
"Has she said who the father is?" His hands were balled into tight fists behind his back.
The midwife, who knew of only one reason a man would ask such questions, did not answer right away. She looked at Elrond with her ice blue eyes, taking in his pallor, his disheveled hair, his gaunt face, and his hollow eyes. This was a haunted man, and she thought she knew why.
"No," she finally answered.
Elrond turned to leave. The midwife caught him by the arm. He looked at her in weary inquiry.
"Sire, this conversation bears no memory for me," she said gently.
He gave her a small smile. "For that I am grateful."
He took his leave, and the midwife returned to her work. Once out of sight, Elrond sank heavily against the door. So it was true then. The invisible snare around his neck tightened a little more. He suddenly felt very claustrophobic, as though the very walls he stood between were collapsing in on him. He muttered a prayer for forgiveness under his breath and headed back to his chambers for the bottomless drink he had promised himself. He had never needed anything so badly in his life.
Six weeks had passed since the spineless little worm had collapsed under the weight of her implacable, insidious demands like a child's paper castle. Everything had been going splendidly. He had catered to her every whim, her every demand. The priceless tapestries and diamonds she asked for arrived within hours. When she had requested a more spacious, airier room, it was found and furnished that very afternoon. Even better than the material gains had been the emotional toll her constant demands and haranguing took on the dignified elf lord. Once charming and outgoing, he had become aloof and distant, often muttering to himself as he moved through the great halls of Imladris. More and more, he retreated into his private study, turning away all visitors except Celebrian.
She was certain Celebrian was suffering the effects of Lord Elrond's drastic change in demeanor. It was now not uncommon to see the little wench come out of his chambers with a pinched, worried expression on her thin face. She had heard from some of the less prudent sentries that there were oftentimes raised voices issuing from the formerly tranquil abode. All of this was music to Sithirantiel's ears. Elrond was doing a fine job of destroying things for himself. He was making her job considerably easier. Before long, everything he loved would be in ruins, and her revenge would be complete. The thought almost made her smile, but then her mind returned to the grave matter at hand, and she grew serious once more.
It was still hard to believe, even after a week of knowing. She nearly fainted when she heard the news. She had stared at the midwife as though she were some peculiar, alien being. Pregnant. The word was a foreign concept to her. Never, in all her planning over these long years, had this possibility entered into the picture. How could she have been so stupid? It wasn't as though she was naïve about the doings between men and women. Most Elflings understood coupling and its consequences long before they reached maturity. Sex was the most natural of all acts save birth to the elves, an act to be celebrated and rejoiced in. Though parents never deliberately made love in front of their children, there was no shame or embarrassment should the act be discovered. No, ignorance was not an excuse. She supposed the idea had never crossed her mind because she had always considered Elrond so weak and contemptible that his foul seed could neither create nor sustain a life. She had underestimated him. She gave a derisive snort at the thought and continued her fuming circuit around the room.
All of this introspection is quite lovely, the dry voice that had guided her through the planning and execution of her plan spoke up, but it hardly answers the more pertinent question of what you are going to do about it.
There was only one thing to do. Get rid of it. She had worked too long and too hard for the life of luxury she had at last achieved to have it all undone by some squalling, filthy, reeking little parasite that would leech the strength from her bones and the vigor from her spirit. She was meant to be pampered and catered to, not forced to be a handmaiden to some squawking, demanding, useless thing who contributed nothing to her happiness. The very thought of changing dirty swaddling or offering her breast to a thankless mouth disgusted her. She was determined that the life taking root inside her would not survive the week.
But how? The snuffing out of a life was not permitted under any interpretation of elven law. Even if it had been, there was no midwife in all the elves of Arda who would consent to such a deed. New life was a precious and rare commodity among the fairest of the races. Nearly all elves could and did bring forth new life, but very few were fortunate enough to sire more than two children. Dearth of offspring seemed to be the one price the elves paid for their immortality. Every child was welcomed with blessings and song because their presence was considered a miraculous privilege. She sniffed. Sentimental fools. Privilege? Burden. One she refused to shoulder.
She would have to go to the humans. They harbored no such silly sentimentality and would do anything for the right price. They cast out unwanted children like yesterday's garbage. They would have no compunction about ridding the world of this unwanted blight. A few extra coins would silence any wagging tongues. Yes, she would go to the humans. The closest settlement was in Rohan. She could be there in five days. They would take her money and scrape this child from her womb, whether by stick or draught, she knew not, but it really didn't matter. She just wanted the child gone.
With a decision made at last, she stopped her frenetic pacing and moved to sit at the polished oak table. From here, the sunlight streamed through the large bay window, dappling her face with its warm rays. She closed her eyes and tilted her face to meet its touch. Insanity had not yet robbed her of all Elvish thought, and she welcomed the sun with what passed for joy in her warped soul. She let her hand drift to the large silver fruit bowl in the center of the table, her fingers closing over a bunch of cool, red grapes. The uncertainty that had plagued her all week was gone, replaced by her customary satisfied arrogance.
Her plan was simple. She would tell Elrond to supply her with a horse and a pair of sentries to escort her. If she left at dawn tomorrow, she could be in Rohan before next week. An overnight stay was all she would need to recover from the procedure, and then she would return to Rivendell. She would be gone no more than twelve days, not nearly enough time for slow-witted Elrond to rediscover his masculinity and cause problems. Finding the money to finance this trek was of no concern. She would demand the sum from Elrond. If he had the temerity to ask her what it was for, she would slap his impertinent mouth. She smiled, a cold, bloodless grin that ceased the birdsong outside her window, and popped another succulent grape into her mouth.
Her hand was halfway to her mouth with another grape when an unwelcome thought struck her. What if he did summon the courage to move against her while she was away? It was unlikely, but not impossible. She hadn't expected to be with child, and yet, here she was with six weeks' worth of bastard in her belly. If he decided to refuse her re-entry into the realm upon her return from her pernicious errand, there would be little she could do. The child would be long gone, no doubt washed down some riverbed to rot among the grey suds left from washing day and the reeking offal left by careless fishermen. The bruises on her face and neck from his tirade upon learning of her treachery had long since faded into memory. If she tried to accuse him from outside the walls of Rivendell, he could dismiss her charges as the ravings of a lunatic. She herself would have washed the evidence away.
The momentary good humor she had been feeling imploded under a torrent of fresh rage, and she leaped to her feet with a snarl. Damn him! Even in my hour of triumph, he manages to make things difficult. She seized the heavy fruit bowl in both hands and threw it across the room. It crashed against the opposite wall with a reverberating clang, sending fruit flying in all directions. A ripe peach splattered against the wall and dribbled slowly to the floor, leaving a sticky trail of pulp in its wake.
"Bastard!" she screamed as she paced once more around the room, her hands in gnarled talons. "You won't ruin this for me! You won't!"
She stopped and bent down to grab the chamber pot containing her earlier bout with morning sickness. The sight and smell of it infuriated her even more, and she lobbed the pot against the door with shattering force. Shards of pottery and clots of congealed vomit flew outward like a volley of arrows, and she ducked to avoid being sprayed. A rogue shard of clay ricocheted off the ceiling and nicked her right cheek. She yelped at the sharp, stinging pain.
There was a furtive rustle of movement outsider her door, but no solicitous face appeared to investigate the cause of such a fracas. The palace staff had learned quickly and painfully not to intrude upon Lady Sithirantiel, as she liked to be called, unless duly summoned. A sweet- faced chambermaid had once poked her head inside the door to ask if her Ladyship required anything before the maid retired to her chambers. She was rewarded for her solicitude by a backhanded slap that had smashed her nose and dislodged two teeth. No one else had been so unwise as to interfere with her again.
She hurried to the gold-filigree, full-length mirror to survey the damage to her face. A thin scrape started just below her eye and tapered diagonally down her cheek in a pink slash. Two beads of blood oozed from the cut and dripped onto the bodice of her white dress. It was not deep and would leave no scar, but it drove her mad with fury.
"You filthy little scourge!" she shrieked, battering at her stomach, "look what you made me do! You have marred my matchless beauty and robbed me of my vitality. Your father seeks to protect you by ruining my plans to erase you from this earth, but he will not succeed. If I cannot find the means to do have you die by human hands, then you shall perish by mine." She dealt her stomach another hard blow.
She lunged around the room looking for anything that might serve in her quest to obliterate the fragile child developing in her womb. Her mind, long a resident on the threshold of insanity, stepped nimbly and unobtrusively over the invisible line, and Sithirantiel, now quite mad, continued muttering invective under her breath until she spotted the heavy broom handle tucked away in the corner beside the bed. Left there by some addle-brained handmaiden, no doubt. She grabbed it with eager hands. It was heavy and solid. It would do very well. She returned once more to the mirror.
"You thought I wouldn't have the courage to do it, didn't you?" she raved at her belly. She gripped the handle fiercely, positioning the rounded end just below her navel. "As stupid as your father. Go back to the Valar! I desire no gift."
She was just about to drive the handle deep and hard into her gut when a flicker of movement in the mirror caught her eye. She looked up, and a feral whine of fear sounded in her throat. Whatever tenuous grasp she may have retained on her sanity dwindled away, and she moaned helplessly at the mirror and the visage it held.
There was her face, which should have been there, white and horrified in the smooth glass. But there was something else, something that should not have been there in any sane world. Behind her pasty reflection stood her father, twenty years dead. He smiled his hard, sardonic smile at her, revealing black, fetid teeth. An arrow, the arrow that had killed him, was lodged in his throat. His hair hung off of his scalp like clotted blood.
"Hello, daughter," he said in a cold, grating voice, and a thin streamer of viscous black blood drooled from the hole in his throat.
She whirled around to face her father's ghost, but no one was there. The room was exactly as had been a few moments before. She was alone. She turned back to the mirror, unable to feel her body from the knees down. Her father was there, still grinning his implacable grin.
"Adar?" she squeaked. Urine ran down her leg in a warm, pungent stream.
"You don't seem happy to see me, daughter," he mused, and folded his arms across his chest.
"You're dead." The tear in the fabric of her reality widened.
"As astute as ever, I see," he snapped in the bellicose voice that had so often belittled her as a child.
"You cannot be here. You're dead." She was hyperventilating now.
"I told you when I died that I would never leave you, and now I have come to watch your destruction," he said gleefully.
"No," she whimpered, and curled into a protective ball. Her nose stung with the stench of urine, and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing the specter to go away. All of her life, she had lived in abject terror of him. Only his death had released her from the ever-present fear, and now he was back, back from the grave to make her pay for the things she had done. It wasn't fair.
"I'm not going to go away, so get up," he snarled. "If you don't, I have ways of making you obey. You remember them, don't you?" His voice was a mocking purr.
Then she heard a sound that had held sway in her nightmares in the years since her father's death. A low, sharp whickering sound, the sound of oiled leather whipping through the air. She screamed as the tridentine strap cracked against the smooth stone floor. This was impossible. Her father was not here; he was moldering in his tomb, but she heard it all the same. It was the sound of the whip that never failed to lash against the tender skin of her back, buttocks, or legs when she had displeased him.
"Adar, please," she sniveled.
"Then get up." His voice was harsh.
She sprang to her feet in an ecstasy of terror. She would do anything not to hear that gut-wrenching sound again. "W-what do you want?"
The figure in the mirror raised an eyebrow. "Want? I told you I don't want anything. I'm just here to watch you destroy yourself." Another malevolent smile crossed his lips.
"I don't know what you mean. I have everything under control," she said, her hands tugging nervously at her gown.
Her father snorted. "Is that what you call this?" He gestured around the decimated room with a pale, bony hand. You're stupider than I first believed. Mayhap I should have used the lash more liberally with you."
"As I remember, you used it none too sparingly as it was, you bastard. Any more and you would have flayed me alive," she snapped. She blanched and retreated a step when she realized what she had said.
"Little good it did. You're still as worthless as ever. I should have lashed the life from your body and saved my own. Would that I had been smart enough to use the broomstick on you." The lash flicked suggestively back and forth across his forearm like the tail of a curious cat.
"I was the best thing to ever come from you," she said, still wise enough in spite of her insanity to keep out of range of his ominous lash.
"If you are the pinnacle of my legacy, it would have been better for me to leave none at all. Useless imbecile! Too foolish to see that you hold the key to your success in your hands. You always were selfish and impetuous. Did you really think your silly little plan would work? You were far too ambitious this time, you base little wench, and I shall very much enjoy watching your ruin." He tilted his head back and laughed. It was the same derisive laugh he had always used to make her feel small and stupid. It had lost none of its potency with the passing of years.
"I hate you!" she screamed, and brought the broom handle crashing down into the mirror. The malignant visage of her dead father prismed for a moment before disintegrating amid the cheerful tinkle of shattering glass. She brought the handle down over and over again, grunting with effort. She wanted to obliterate him. She would make sure he never came back again.
When she had exhausted herself, she flopped down onto the floor, squashing a banana beneath her buttocks. She was trembling and bleeding from a dozen different cuts on her forearms, but she was exhilarated. I showed him, she thought, oh yes, I did. She began to giggle, softly at first, then with more intensity. Soon she was yodeling laughter, rocking back and forth and clapping her sweaty hands.
He was right about one thing, though, she thought as the laughing fit began to wane. She couldn't deny that, no matter how much she wished she could. She had been stupid not to see the priceless weapon she now held inside her body. Inconvenient though it was, the little bastard incubating in her womb was worth more alive than dead. Whether he believed the child was his or not, Elrond would never allow any harm to come to it. His pathetic conscience and overdeveloped sense of honor would demand that he do everything in his power to protect it. The strong shielding the weak. The altruistic moron would capitulate to anything for the good of the child. It could spend its life imprisoned in the wardrobe closet for all she cared. She would bring it before Elrond once a week to assure him that it yet lived, and then back in the wardrobe it would go. She could keep Elrond under her thumb for millennia. She couldn't wait to see his face when he found out about the result of their little liaison.
She got up and went to the door. "Handmaiden!" she called out, flinging open the door.
A white-faced young girl materialized before her. The young courtesan had heard every bit of the tempest going on in the room and had fervently hoped that the shifts would change before the Lady decided to summon anyone. Now, seeing the disheveled, bug-eyed harridan standing in the doorway, covered in blood, fruit pulp, and vomit, she begged for a hole to open up beneath her feet and swallow her up.
"Yes, Your Ladyship?" she quavered, curtseying on wobbly knees.
"Yes Your Ladyship," Sithirantiel mimicked with a sneer. "Get your worthless hide in there and clean up that mess! The job better be done by the time I get back, or you'll not be able to sit down for a week."
"Yes, Your Ladyship," said the girl. She stepped inside the room and gasped at what she saw.
Sithirantiel gave her a vigorous kick to the buttocks, sending her sprawling face first into the vomit and fruit pulp. "Enough gawking, you clumsy girl! Get to work!"
She stalked down the corridor toward Elrond's private enclave, oblivious to the stares and the wide berth afforded her by other elves. Her fevered, sinister mind was too busy conjuring up the expression on Elrond's face when he heard the news. I have you now, you traitorous fool. You'll pay for your moment of carelessness for the rest of your life. The thought brought a tight-lipped smile to her lips. She quickened her pace.
She burst into his private chambers to find him in conference with a pair of advisors. Celebrian was sitting at his side, hand resting on his knee. The look of stupefied confusion on their faces as she entered filled her with savage amusement.
"Lord Elrond, I need to speak with you bat once," she said, a smirk spreading over her face like a shadow moving to blot out the sun.
"Can you not see that we are in the middle of a very important-," began a counselor.
"I do not recall asking your input on the matter," she snapped. "I believe I was addressing Lord Elrond."
The counselor lapsed into silence while the other shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Elrond cleared his throat.
"Gentlemen, we will take up this matter at another time," he said, rising from his chair.
The counselors rose to take their leave, but Celebrian remained where she was. "My lord, if it please you, I would like to stay," she said quietly. She was looking at the frazzled Sithirantiel with an expression of acute disdain.
"Oh yes, what a splendid idea," Sithirantiel cooed, turning her crocodile smile to the other woman. "I'm certain you'll find it most enlightening." From the corner of her eye, she saw Elrond blanch to the color of whipped whey.
"Oh no, dear, I'd rather you didn't. You'd be bored to tears by these humdrum matters, I assure you. Why don't you go take a stroll in the gardens? I'll join you for dinner later," he said hurriedly, pulling her gently to her feet.
"I really much prefer to stay. Perhaps I can be of help. That is, if no one objects," Celebrian insisted.
"Oh no, I don't mind at all. Only a woman could understand that which plagues me," said Sithirantiel, black eyes round and innocent.
"Then it's settled, then," said Celebrian, moving to take her seat again.
"It most certainly is NOT settled," he barked, panic and frustration getting the better of him. "In case you've forgotten, I am still lord of this realm, and you are not yet its lady. Now do as I say and go. Why must you be forever at my heels?"
The effect his words had on Celebrian could not have been worse if he had reached out and slapped her. Her face fell and her shoulders pulled back until she looked like a shoulder standing at attention. Her eyes were shining with anger and bewilderment.
"As you wish, my lord," she said, giving him a stiff curtsy before retreating from the room with the frowning counselors in tow.
"Always cool when chaos reigns, I see," said Sithirantiel when they were gone.
"What is it that you want?" said Elrond wearily. "I am in no mood for your petulant demands today." He kneaded his temples with his fingers, trying to stave off the gnawing headache he felt building behind them.
"Your mood is of no consequence to me," she said airily. "Besides, I come today not to make demands, but to give you a gift."
He brought his head up quickly enough to make the tendons in his neck creak. "A gift?" he said suspiciously. He didn't want a gift of any sort from the likes of her, especially not when she looked so terrible. Her hair sat in greasy clots atop her head, and her gown sat twisted and wrinkled on her frame. There was a smudge of blood on her skirt and a smear of vomit over her left breast. Several shallow scrapes adorned her forearms. Maybe she had the mercy to try and put an end to herself, he thought, then dismissed the notion as too much to hope for.
"Are you alright?" he asked in spite of himself.
"Never better. I just had an unexpected meeting with an old friend." She tittered at this revelation, and Elrond's heart gave an uneasy lurch. Something had clearly unsettled her mind. "Sit down," she said, gesturing vaguely at his chair.
"I'll stand, thank you," he said, nettled. She may have him under her thumb for the time being, but he wasn't going to be ordered around his own chambers.
"Suit yourself," she said placidly. She looked at him, wanting to watch him squirm a bit longer. Then she said, "I am with child."
He sat. "Impossible," he said, steepling his fingers in front of his suddenly cold face. He took a shaky, deep breath, willing himself not to faint.
"Oh? If you doubt me, ask the midwife. Do you remember taking precautions to prevent the coming of a child that night? No, I thought not."
He said nothing. What could he say? He risked a furtive glance at her stomach. Sure enough, there was a slight swelling there, a swelling that could only mean one thing. He moaned softly into his hands. "Oh, Elbereth. What do you intend to do?"
"I had it in my mind to go to Rohan and find an old crone to do away with it discreetly," she said, intending no such thing but wanting to see his reaction.
"Out of the question," he said, sitting bolt upright behind his desk. "An innocent life shall not be destroyed, no matter what the circumstances of its conception."
"Such sentimental drivel," she laughed. "So you will claim it then?"
He fell silent. To claim the child would be to publicly admit his paternity. Celebrian would be disgraced, and his own reputation in shambles. Tongues would begin to wag, and his credibility would be undermined. His conscience screamed at him to do the right thing, but on this day, his cowardice was stronger. "We could send it away," he offered.
"Afraid to face consequences, m'lord?" she jeered. "I hardly think so. I have an idea of my own. I'll keep the child quiet and safe from harm so long as you do as I say. If you even consider refusing me, I'll bring forth the child. After it serves its purpose of ruining you, I'll break its neck and toss it to the vultures." To prove her point, she gave her stomach a brisk slap.
Elrond scrambled over the top of his desk and grabbed her hands, wrenching them violently away from her abdomen. "Do not harm that child," he hissed, nose wrinkling as the strong smell of urine struck his nose. He was seized by an overwhelming desire to break her murderous wrists.
"You're hurting me," she grunted through gritted teeth.
The commotion had attracted the two sentries posted to his door, who stood in the threshold watching their lord with sinking trepidation. Gone was the gentle sovereign that had guided them through the first uncertain years after Sauron's fall, and in his stead was a frightening madman gripping the delicate wrists of a Lady.
"Sir, is everything alright?" ventured one, a note of disapproval in his voice.
Elrond dropped his hands and moved away, a guilty flush creeping into his face. Elbereth knew how this must look. They were staring at him as though they didn't recognize him. Maybe they didn't. He didn't recognize himself anymore. I'm losing myself, he thought. It is as though someone else has crawled inside my skin. I am but a helpless spectator now. The thought chilled him, and he gave an involuntary shudder.
"I assure you all is well," he said, straightening up and putting his hands behind his back. He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.
The sentries looked wholly unconvinced. Their eyes darted between Elrond and Sithirantiel, who sat rubbing her chafed wrists. The halberds they held in their left hands clinked nervously, and they shuffled from foot to foot, as though waiting for something. Then Elrond realized that they were waiting for something. They were surreptitiously glancing at Sithirantiel, waiting for her to refute his assertion that all was as it should be. Their doubt wounded and angered him. Did they truly think him such a monster? Had he really changed so much over the past six weeks? If so, things were far worse than he had imagined.
"If I need anything, you will be summoned forthwith," he said, an unmistakable note of irritation in his voice. "Dismissed."
The pair lingered a moment longer, reluctant to leave. He wondered what he was going to do if they refused to obey his command. He wasn't about to lay unkind hands on them; that would only reinforce the notion that he had been corrupted by his power. That left him with few options. He supposed he could summon more guards to remove the first, but what if they refused to act? Then he would be faced with four disobedient, disapproving pairs of eyes instead of just two. He sighed. Sithirantiel had managed to complicate even the most mundane of matters.
Just as he was about to say something else, the sentries bowed and took their leave, though it was obvious from their slow departure that they still entertained grave misgivings about the situation. Sithirantiel opened her mouth, no doubt preparing to offer up another acid jibe about his moral ineptitude, but it never came. Instead, she froze eyes locked on something over his shoulder. Her chest began to hitch, and her hands flew to her face, long nails harrowing her face and leaving behind ugly red weals.
Elrond spun around, expecting to see a crazed, knife-wielding assassin looming behind him, but there was no one. The only occupants of the space behind him were his heavy, three-tiered bookshelf and a small silver wall mirror that Celebrian had gifted to him on his birthday the year past. He scanned the thin shadows in search of anything that could possibly merit such a reaction. Aside from the shifting mountains of dust that had piled up since he stopped allowing most people inside, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
Sithirantiel let out a howling wail of terror, prompting Elrond to return his attention to her. She sat in the chair, body rigid, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath her eyes. Her eyes were fixed on the wall mirror behind his head. What is wrong with her? What does she see? he thought. His heart was racing in his chest. Then came a less serious but no less distressing thought. This will surely bring my two great admirers in here on the run.
Indeed, the door exploded open, and the two sentries rushed in, halberds raised. It was clear from their posture that they expected to see their king engaged in the sordid business of murdering the helpless damsel in his chambers. He had to quash a violent bray of laughter when they skidded to a halt, heads cocked in comic perplexity as they took in the screaming figure hunched in the chair in front of his desk. She was pulling her hair out in fine tufts.
"What has come over her, sire?" said one, slowly lowering his upraised halberd.
"I do not know," he answered truthfully. "She was seized by a sudden fit of madness as we spoke."
"Plague me no more!" she screamed at the mirror. She jumped up and laid hold of a wooden dove sculpture sitting on his desk. "Damn you to Mordor!" she bellowed, and launched it at the mirror, shattering it into untold pieces. Elrond ducked, shielding his head from a fullisade of jagged, crystalline shards.
"I got him, I got him," she muttered softly to herself, her eyes dazed and uncomprehending. She began to titter to herself, a strained brittle sound in the otherwise silent room.
"Guards, please escort Lady Sithirantiel to her room. It is clear she is not well. I will be up to see to her shortly," he said.
"Yes, m'lord," they answered, snapping their heels together. They moved to either side of the chair in which Sithirantiel sat and grabbed her gently beneath the elbows. "Come, Your Ladyship, let us take you to rest," they whispered, pulling her to her feet.
"I got him," she said conversationally to the guards as they escorted her from the room.
"Indeed you did," answered one, as though her statement made perfect sense, and Elrond sent him a silent blessing.
When they had gone, he sank down into the chair behind his desk and rested his head on his hands. Now that everyone was gone, the full impact of what Sithirantiel had told him was crashing down on him. He rubbed absently at his face with his hands.
"Elbereth, what I am going to do?" he asked the empty room.
You don't have do anything, said the voice of reason inside his head. She's quite mad. Anyone can see that. Even if she does tell, no one will believe her now. The child she carries may not even be yours.
The voice offered false hope, and he dared not take it. The child was his. No amount of well-meaning denial would change that. If Sithirantiel had had another lover, she would have been parading him about by now, preening in cocksure triumph. She would no longer have had cause to torment him. The fact that she still exerted so much time and energy to make his life miserable dispelled any hope that the child belonged to another.
Well, at least no one will believe her accusations now, consoled the voice.
Ah, but what if they do? laughed the other voice that had so recently taken up residence inside his head. What if she tells everyone that your base cruelty drove her mad? That your callous rejection of the child she carried and your ill treatment of her made her the way she is? More people than you think will believe her. Your erratic behavior as of late has ensured that. The reaction of your own sentries earlier today proves that. Your people are beginning to fear you. And what if it is true? What if you did drive her mad? She has always been cruel, yes, but never mad. Not until you took her to bed, anyway.
What if she isn't even with child? countered his logical voice in desperation.
If you doubt, an answer is simple enough to come by. Ask the midwife.
Yes, he would do that. Sithirantiel herself had said he should. His eye fell on the decanter of mallorn wine on the table in the far corner of the room, and he was tempted to take a drink to steady his nerves. He decided against it. Wine had gotten him into enough trouble already. If the midwife confirmed the dark suspicions in his mind, he would come back here a drink. A big one.
He left his chambers, surprised to see that his two sentries had not yet returned. He hoped Sithirantiel had not done them any harm. If they had not returned by the time he finished with the midwife, he would go in search of them. His heart sank to see Celebrian waiting for him down the corridor. Not now. Please not now.
"Elrond, we need to talk," she said, grabbing his arm as he passed.
"Celebrian, please, not now," he said, pulling away from her.
"Yes, now," she insisted. "Why do you ignore me?"
He turned to face her. "I do not ignore you. I am simply very busy."
"Never before have you been so busy, not even when you were obsessed with building Rivendell. What ails you?"
"Nothing ails me, nothing I wish to discuss with you, at any rate. Not now."
"Elrond, please do not hide yourself from me," she pleaded, looking into his eyes.
"Where is it written that I must bare every secret corner of my soul to you? Leave me be. I have things to do," he snapped, instantly mortified with himself. "Celebrian, dear, I'm sorry. Meet me for dinner. We'll discuss it then."
"There will be no dinner tonight, nor for many nights to come, I think," she said stiffly. For the first time there was real anger in her voice, and if frightened him badly. It made him realize just how much Sithirantiel had affected him.
Before he could stammer out an apology, she turned and walked away, rapidly disappearing from view. You're pushing her away, you arrogant fool, crowed the malignant voice inside his head. Soon she will take her leave of you. How much more baseless anger do you think she will take from you before she hardens her heart? Less than you dare hope, I assure you. He pushed the voice away. It made him afraid because he knew it was telling the truth, a truth he did not wish to hear.
By the time he arrived at the midwife's parlor on the lowermost floor, he was seething with bitter remorse for his harsh words to Celebrian and hatred for the unsettling voice in his head.
"Why, hello, my lord," greeted the midwife when he entered. "Quite a surprise to see you here." She washed bloody linens as she talked. There had been a birth the hour before.
"Good afternoon, midwife," said Elrond, noting with quiet dismay that the new mother still lay sleeping on a pallet near the window. "A new citizen for Rivendell, I see."
The midwife laughed. "Yes, m'lord. A fine boy-child, born a little over an hour ago. The mother's first. A strapping lad, he was. Nearly eight pounds."
"Is the mother well?"
"Oh yes. Just exhausted. Her labor was quite intense. Eighteen hours. If you've come to assist, I'm afraid you're a bit late.
"Where is the child?" He craned his neck to search for the telltale bundle of swaddling.
"The proud father absconded with him not long ago. No doubt showing the little fellow off to all his friends. He'll catch quite the tongue lashing when he gets back."
"No doubt," agreed Elrond with a wry smile.
"But that isn't what you came down here for, is it?" she asked shrewdly.
"No, it isn't. Actually I have come to ask about Sithirantiel." He tried to sound casual, but the words sounded strange and forced in his ears. This was dangerous territory. "Has she come to you?"
The midwife's eyes narrowed. "Yes. She asked to be examined."
"And?"
"She is with child."
"Has she said who the father is?" His hands were balled into tight fists behind his back.
The midwife, who knew of only one reason a man would ask such questions, did not answer right away. She looked at Elrond with her ice blue eyes, taking in his pallor, his disheveled hair, his gaunt face, and his hollow eyes. This was a haunted man, and she thought she knew why.
"No," she finally answered.
Elrond turned to leave. The midwife caught him by the arm. He looked at her in weary inquiry.
"Sire, this conversation bears no memory for me," she said gently.
He gave her a small smile. "For that I am grateful."
He took his leave, and the midwife returned to her work. Once out of sight, Elrond sank heavily against the door. So it was true then. The invisible snare around his neck tightened a little more. He suddenly felt very claustrophobic, as though the very walls he stood between were collapsing in on him. He muttered a prayer for forgiveness under his breath and headed back to his chambers for the bottomless drink he had promised himself. He had never needed anything so badly in his life.