"You didn't say in your letter that you had been betrayed." Emeldir frowned.
"No." Beren agreed unhappily. "I didn't want to confide such words to paper. My only evidence is a dream, but I am sure it was a True Dream. Poor Gorlim did fail us for Eilinel's sake."
His mother shook her head. "He knew she was dead."
"No he did not." Adanel corrected. "A handful of burnt bones that could have belonged to anyone. He couldn't be sure."
"And that uncertainty was the weakness that broke him." Beren shivered. "How could he abandon her to torment and death? I don't know what I would have done in his place."
Luthien placed a gentle hand on her husband's head, as it leant against her knee. "You would do what was right."
"I hope so, but I know now how hard the choice would be." he looked up at Emeldir. "Mother, must I tell this to Baranor and Aelind?"
"Baranor already knows." Emeldir said quietly.(1) "But I see no reason to distress Aelind. Few Men could have withstood such a trial - and he died repentant. It would be an evil thing to poison a sister's memory of her only brother."
Beren let out a sigh of relief. "That's how I feel. He was a brave Man and a good companion, I would not have that forgotten because of one moment of weakness, however terrible the consequences." his brother and sister nodded their agreement.
The family of Barahir sat in Emeldir's chamber talking as the rest of the household slept; the Men in the hall, the Women in the withdrawing room and the children of the house in the smaller chambers that flanked it. Emeldir had one of the two large solars above the withdrawing room. Her windows looked west and south and were open to the night air. Two lamps gave light to the room, one silvered and the other gilded, both wrought in the shape of trees with intricately interlacing branches enclosing globes of crystal. Their workmanship was easily the equal of anything in Menegroth and yet there was something very un-Elvish about them, a deliberate roughness of finish and angularity that was alien to Luthien's people. They were the work of Men's hands, as was the brilliantly colored tapestry upon the wall. Elaborate knot-work bordures enclosed stylized images of dark haired Men and Women rousing from sleep to gaze in wonder at a golden haired Elf playing a harp. A sword hung in a well worn scabbard above the wide bed, and a table stood in a corner beyond it between two windows. Three shelves lined with books hung above it, their spines lettered in both Tengwar and a form of Cirth Luthien didn't recognize.
Emeldir had one of the chamber's two chairs, and Luthien had been given the other. Beren had chosen to sit on rug at her feet but his brother and sister shared a bench under the nearest window.
"You are sure all were killed?" Adanel asked of Beren.
He nodded. "Very sure, sister, I buried their bodies." Luthien, who had seen the remains of too many Orcish victims, shuddered at the thought.
"There was enough left for you to identify them all?" Adanel asked with a calm that sent chills down her new sister's spine.
"Yes, Dani, there can be no doubt Dagnir is dead. I am sorry." Reaching behind his neck Beren untied a thong and pulled a small pouch from beneath his shirt, opened it and extracted a ring which he held out to his sister. "I kept this, I knew he'd want you to have it back."
Luthien saw a matching band, silver overlaid with a pattern in delicate gold wire, on the hand Adanel extended to take the ring and realized it must have been her husband's plight troth. Tears glittered the pale grey eyes, so like Beren's, and beaded the long dark lashes. "I am more fortunate than Gorlim. I know my beloved is free."
The word struck Luthien oddly. The slain were not 'free' but doomed to weary years of imprisonment in Mandos' dark halls, or worse to wander bodiless unable to see or touch or speak, beneath the Shadow. Yet clearly neither Beren nor the rest of his family found anything strange in the remark.
"After that I carried on as best I could alone." her husband was saying.
Emeldir smiled faintly. "Your best was very good indeed, if the songs are to be believed."
Beren sighed. "I still don't understand about those songs, I didn't make them and I'm quite sure the Orcs didn't!"
"But are they true?" Bregon wanted to know.
Beren smiled wryly. "Well, there were never quite that many Orcs or Wargs or Trolls - at least not all at the same time - and I certainly never walked into any Orcish stronghold to issue a challenge to it's commander! But otherwise, yes, they're true."
Bregon's eyes shone and Luthien smiled at him. "It was the Lindar who made the songs, and they heard of your brother's deeds from the birds and the beasts." She looked down at her husband. "I don't know why you find that so hard to believe. Weren't they your spies and allies?"
"What I find hard to believe is that they'd bother to pass tales of a Man, even one they'd befriended, to their distant kin." Beren explained. Luthien shrugged. "You impressed them."
...
1. Emeldir means that Baranor, Gorlim's mother, is dead herself and doubtless has already met with her son in the Halls or beyond the Circles of the World. Of course the story does eventually become known, but not until after Gorlim's sister and her children have also passed to the Halls. And the songs are not unkind to Gorlim, pitying rather than condemning.