Of Mithril and Misrule
by perhallas
Fourth Age Gondor. Súldil is haunted by memories of war…and his landlord's demands for rent. In the market, he collides with a girl fleeing kidnappers and foolishly decides to stage a rescue.
Then the girl's uncle hires Súldil to investigate a theft from the royal treasury, and Súldil uncovers a treasonous conspiracy to overthrow King Aragorn. The case leads him from the alleys of Minas Tirith to the mithril mines of Eriador. (Not exactly his idea of a fun holiday.) Worst of all, Aragorn's eldest daughter has taken a special interest in provoking Súldil at every opportunity.
An irreverent story of courtly politics, unconventional princesses, overbearing parents, enemies, lovers…and enemies-to-lovers.
CHAPTER ONE.
In which Súldil rescues a damsel in distress.
When the girl came rushing up the steps, I decided she was wearing far too many clothes.
It was late summer. Minas Tirith sizzled like a pancake on a griddle plate. People unlaced their shoes but had to keep them on; not even an oliphaunt could cross the streets unshod. People drooped on stools in shadowed doorways, bare knees apart, naked to the waist—and in the backstreets of the Second Level where I lived, that was just the women.
I was standing in the King's Market on the Fourth Level. She was running. She looked overdressed and dangerously hot, but sunstroke or suffocation had not yet finished her off. She was shining and sticky as a glazed pastry plait, and when she hurtled up the steps of the merchants' guildhall, straight towards me, I made no attempt to move aside. She missed me, just. Some men are born lucky; others are called Súldil Daervenion.
Close at hand, I still thought she would be better off without so many tunics. Though, don't misunderstand me. I like my women in a few wisps of drapery: then I can hope for a chance to remove the wisps. If they start out with nothing, I tend to get depressed because either they have just stripped off for someone else or, in my line of work, they are usually dead. This one was vibrantly alive.
Perhaps in a fine villa with marble veneers, fountains, garden courtyards deep in shade, a leisured young lady might keep cool, even swaddled in embroidered finery with jet and amber bangles from her elbow to her wrist. Yet if she ran out in a hurry, she would instantly regret it. The heat haze would melt her. Those light robes would stick to all the lines of her slim figure. That clear hair would cling in tantalizing tendrils against her neck. Her feet would slip against the wet soles of her sandals, runnels of sweat dash down her warm throat into interesting crevices under all that fancy bodice work…
"Excuse me," she gasped.
"Excuse me!"
She veered around me; I sidestepped politely. She dodged; I dodged. I had come to the Fourth Level to visit my banker and discuss my (empty) accounts; I felt glum. I greeted this smoldering feminine apparition with the keenness of a man who needs troubles taken off his mind.
She was a slight thing. I liked them tall, but I was prepared to compromise. She was wickedly young. At that time, I still lusted after older women, but this one would grow up, and I could certainly wait. While we sashayed on the steps of the guildhall, she glanced back, panic-struck. I admired her shapely shoulder, then squinted over it to the marketplace beyond. Then I had a shock.
There were two of them. Two ugly lumps of jail-fodder, jelly-brained and broad as they were high, were pushing through the crowds towards her, just ten paces off. The little lass was obviously terrified.
"Get out of my way!" she pleaded.
I wondered what to do. "Manners," I chided thoughtfully, as the jelly-brains came within five paces of us.
"Get out of my way, sir!" she roared. She was perfect.
It was the usual scene in the King's Market. We had the records office, with the Citadel looming hard above us on the left; to the right the magistracy courts in the Fifth Level, and the marble moneylenders' exchange further down the way. Opposite, beyond the plaza, the city's lower levels dripped down Mindolluin's stony flanks like so much lard evaporating in the summer's heat. All the porticos were crammed with butchers and bankers, all the open spaces filled with sweaty crowds, mainly men. The marketplace rang with the curses of strings of vendors and shoppers, criss-crossing like a badly organized military display. The air simmered with the reek of garlic and hair pomade.
The girl pranced to one side; I slid the same way.
"Need directions, young lady?" I asked helpfully.
She was too desperate to pretend. "I need a magistrate." The jelly-brains were now three paces distant: options were fast running out. Her face changed. "Oh, help me!"
"My pleasure," I said, and took charge. I hooked her away by one arm as the first of the jelly-brains lunged. Close up, they looked even larger, and the King's Market was not an area of the city where I could count on any support. I planted the sole of my boot on the first thug's breastbone, then vigorously straightened my knee. I felt the leg crunch, but the ruffian staggered into his evil-looking friend so they both teetered backwards like faltering acrobats. I looked around frantically for a diversion to cause.
The guildhall steps were crowded with the usual illegal touts and overpriced market stalls. I considered upending some melons, but smashed fruit meant a diminished income for their market gardener. I had a diminished income myself, so I settled on the tasteful copperware arrayed on a low table. Tilting it with my shoulder, I keeled over a complete stall. The vendor's thin cry was lost as bouncing flagons, ewers, and urns sped at a denting pace down the guildhall's steps, followed by their despairing owner and any number of righteous passers-by—all hoping to stroll home with a nice new fluted fruit bowl under one arm.
I grabbed the girl and hurried up the steps. Scarcely pausing to admire the dignified beauty of the marble porch, I pulled her through the six columns and into the vestibule. She squeaked; I kept going at speed. It was cool enough to make us shiver and dark enough to make me sweat. The smell of Gondor's latest grain harvest and any number of imported spices tickled my nostrils. Our footsteps rang fast and sharp on the ancient stone floor.
"Are we allowed in here?" she hissed.
"Look industrious," I murmured as we passed a trio of ink-stained scribes.
"But we can't get out!"
If you know anything about Gondorian architecture, you will realize that most official buildings have a single imposing entrance at the front, while the back huddles up against the Hill of Guard like a chastised wife. If you know anything about government drones, you will have noticed they usually have a discreet little door for themselves which feeds into a dim alley. The extravagant council-house of the merchants' guild did not disappoint us.
I brought her out on the north side, made for the Fourth Gate, and set off down the ramps to the Third Level. The poor girl had wriggled out of danger and straight into a quagmire. I cantered her through dark alleys and pungent back doubles to home ground.
"Wherever are we?" she asked after some minutes' travel.
"Minas Tirith, Second Level, District of Hammoril, heading south along the wall." My comment was as reassuring as a shark's grin to a flounder. She would have been warned about places like this. If her doting nursemaids knew their business, she would have been warned about fellows like me.
I slowed down after we turned onto a dead-end lane that butted up against the mountain's root, partly because I was on secure home ground, but also because the girl was ready to expire.
"Where are we going?"
"My office."
She looked relieved. Not for long: my office was two rooms on the sixth floor of a dank tenement where only the dirt and dead bedbugs were cementing together the walls. Before any of my neighbors could price up the girl's clothing, I wheeled her off the dirt track that passed for a lane and into Loeneth's distinctly low-class laundry.
Hearing the voice of Thostor, my landlord, we wheeled smartly back out.
#
Fortunately, Thostor was leaving. I stowed the girl in a basket weaver's sagging portico while I crouched down and fiddled with the straps of my left boot.
"Who is it?" she whispered.
"Just a blotch of local slime," I told her. I spared her my customary speech about property magnates as parasites on the poor, but she took the point.
"He's your landlord, isn't he?" Smart girl.
"He's gone?" I asked, some moments later.
She confirmed it. Taking no chances, I asked, "Five or six skinny boxers at his heels?"
"All black eyes and dirty bandages."
"Come on, then!" We pushed through the wet garments Loeneth was allowing to dry out in the lane, turning our faces away as they flapped back at us, then went in.
Loeneth's laundry. Steam billowed out to flatten us. Washerboys stamped the clothes, sploshing up to their cracked little knees in the hot tubs. There was a great deal of noise: slapping of wet linen, thumping and pounding, clanging cauldrons, all in a close, echoing atmosphere. The laundry took up the whole ground floor, spilling out into the dingy courtyard at the back.
We were greeted with derision by the slipshod proprietress. Loeneth was probably younger than me, but she looked forty, with a gaunt face and a slack stomach that rolled over the edge of the basket she was carrying. Wisps of frizzled dark hair escaped from a colorless ribbon around her head. She cackled with throaty laughter when she saw my honeycake.
"Súldil! Does your mother let you play with little girls?"
"Ornamental, isn't she?" I adopted what I believed to be a suave expression. "Bargain I picked up in the King's Market."
"Don't chip her pretty glaze!" Loeneth scoffed. "Thostor left a hint: pay up, or his boys will be poking their staves up your delicate parts."
"If he wants to wring out the dredges of my purse, he should render a written account. Tell him—"
"Tell him yourself." Loeneth, whose instinct must have been to take my side, was wise to keep well clear of my tussle with the landlord. Thostor paid her certain attentions, which at present she was resisting because she liked her independence, but as a good businesswoman she kept her options open. He was foul—I thought Loeneth was mad. Some time ago, I had told her what I thought about her amorous prospects with our landlord; she had told me whose business I should mind.
Her restless gaze flickered again towards my companion.
"New client," I boasted.
"Really? She paying you for the experience, or you paying her for the treat?"
We both turned to survey my young lady.
She wore a fine white undertunic fixed along the sleeves with blue enamel clasps, and over it was a sleeveless gown so generous in length it was bunched up over her girdle of woven gold thread. Even without considering the wide bands of patterned embroidery at her neck and hem, I could tell from the narrowing of Loeneth's watery eyes we were admiring a quality cut of cloth. My infant enchantress had wire hoops threaded with tiny glass beads in each neat little ear, a couple of chain necklaces, three bracelets on her left arm, four on her right, and various finger rings in the form of knots, serpents, or birds with crossed beaks. We could have sold her girlish finery for more than I earned last year. It was best not to consider how much a brothel keeper might pay us for the pretty wench.
She was blond. Well, she was blond that month, and since she was hardly from the the Eastfold or the Wilderland south of Eryn Lasgalen, dye must have helped. It was cleverly done. I would never have known, but Loeneth informed me afterwards.
Her hair had been curled into three soft, fat ringlets tied together with a ribbon at the nape of her neck. The temptation to untie that ribbon niggled me like a hornet bite. She painted her face, of course. All of my sisters turned themselves out spanking with color like newly gilt statutes, so I was used to that. My sisters are amazing—but blatant—works of art. This was much more subtle, invisibly achieved, except that running in the heat had left one eye very faintly smudged. Her eyes were brown, set wide apart, and sweetly without guile.
Loeneth tired of looking at her long before I did.
"Cradle snatcher!" she told me frankly. "Tinkle in the bucket before you take her up."
This was not a request for a medical sample because my cradle snatching made Loeneth suspect I was unwell; it was a straight hospitable offer, with business overtones.
#
I shall have to explain about the bucket and the bleach vat.
A long time afterwards, I described all this to someone I knew well, and we discussed what Gondorian launderers use for whitening cloth.
"Distilled wood ash," my companion suggested doubtfully.
They do use ash. They also use carbonate of soda, fuller's earth, and pipe clay for the brilliant ceremonial robes of King Elessar's richest courtiers. But the pristine everyday tunics, surcoats, and pantaloons of our magnificent city are effectively bleached with urine, obtained from the public latrines. Elessar, never slow to light on brisk new ways of squeezing cash from the common folk, had slapped a tax on this ancient trade in human waste. Loeneth paid the tax, although on principle she increased her supply for nothing whenever she could.
The woman I had been telling this story to commented, in her cool way, "I suppose in salad season, when everyone's been eating beetroot, half the robes in the Hall of the White Tower are a delicate hue of pink? Do they rinse it out?" she enquired.
I shrugged in a deliberately vague way.
I would have skipped all of this unsavory detail, but as it turned out eventually, Loeneth's bleach vat is critical to the tale.
#
Since I lived six floors up in a block that was no better equipped than any other slum in Minas Tirith, Loeneth's bucket had long been my welcome friend.
Loeneth offered my visitor the same courtesy, not unkindly: "Girlies go behind the carding rails, dear."
"Loeneth, don't embarrass my dainty client!" I was blushing on her behalf.
"Actually, I left home rather suddenly." Dainty but desperate, my prospective client shot behind the rods where the dried clothes were hung on poles through the shoulders to be scratched down with teasels to bring up the nap. While I waited, I topped up my usual bucket and talked to Loeneth about the weather. As one does.
After five minutes, I ran out of weather.
"Get lost, Súldil!" a carding-girl greeted me as I peered around the carding rails. No sign of my client.
Had she been less attractive, I might have let her go. But she was extremely attractive, and I saw no reason to part with that sort of innocence to anybody else. Cursing now, I barged past the giant screw clothes-presses and out to the laundry yard.
There was a furnace heating the well water used in the wash. There were garments spread over wicker frames above braziers of burning sulfur, which through some mysterious chemistry smoked in additional whiteness to the cloth. There were several youths scoffing at my fury, and there was a dreadful smell. There was no client. I hopped over a handcart and set off fast down the lane.
She had scampered past the dyer's lampblack ovens, braved the midden, and was halfway along the poultry cages where some footsore geese rested for market the next day. As I approached, she pulled up short, her way blocked by a ropemaker who was unbuckling his belt from his eighteen-stone girth—all the better to ease the task of raping her with that casual brutality which passed in these parts for appreciation of the female form. I politely thanked the ropemaker for looking after her, then before either of them could haggle, I brought her back to my tenement.
Evidently, this was one client whose contract would need to be enforced by tying her to my wrist with a long piece of string.
Author's note re: surnames in the Reunited Kingdom:
Most people of Middle-earth do not use "last names" in the way English speakers do today. Instead, they have a single name followed by "son/daughter of" and their father's name ("Beregond son of Baranor," "Frodo son of Drogo," etc.). In this story, I have chosen to use the Sindarin -ion/-ien suffixes as Tolkien did in the unpublished epilogue to The Lord of the Rings:
" '[The letter] is written in Elvish and in Plain Language,' said Sam. 'And it says: Elessar Aragorn Arathornsson, the Elfstone King of Gondor and Lord of the Westlands will approach the Bridge of Baranduin on the first day of Spring…' [in Sindarin] Aragorn Arathornion Edelharn, aran Gondor ar Hîr i Mbair Annui, anglennatha i Varanduiniant erin dolothen Ethuil… " — from The History of Middle Earth, Vol. IX: Sauron Defeated, "The End of the Third Age," XI. The Epilogue
So, my main character Súldil could either be "Súldil son of Daerven" or "Súldil Daervenion," or even "Súldil Daervensson" if you're feeling Icelandic. But it's not a modern surname, and Súldil wouldn't be called "Mr. Daervenion" in the (unlikely) event someone wanted to speak respectfully to him, and his children won't be called John Daervenion and Jane Daervenien.