This is getting too long again and this point seems a good break point to break.

To those who have commented thank you, especially those who do so as guests and who I cannot reply to in other ways, your reading and commenting is greatly appreciated.

I hope the formatting etc comes across OK, Im having technology problems. I think my laptop may have caught my christmas/new year flu.

BTW Happy New Year to all I haven't already said it to.

Meetings 3 – Yet more questions

"When you failed to manage that, failed to divide the Kings forces, when he thwarted your ambitions, was it then that you first decided that he, the king, must die. Or had that always been your intention?"

The words seemed to echo around the room like thunder in the mountains, the very air growing cold and heavy with the weight of them, and shadows seemed to spring up where a moment ago there had been none.

The charge was a chilling one and it lay at the heart of his concern, had she sought to weaken Mirkwood's defences by intent or by ignorance then? Had she sought to weaken it by the king's death when that had failed and an opportunity had presented itself? For weakened the forest realm would have been had Thranduil gone chasing spiders so close to the enemy's stronghold as she had asked His magic would not have been protection against the resident of that fell tower, nor would all his battle skills, for in that fortress dwelt a malice had nearly been too much for the Lady and an elven ring!

If she had killed him, or brought about his death in some other manner, then the Woodland Realm would be weaker for the loss of a great and wise king. For so many centuries Thranduil had resisted the enemy alone, keeping his kingdom secure, fighting the spreading darkness as best he might by his own power, his foresight, and the skills of his people. There had been no allies in this fight,no help, from neither south nor west, from neither elf nor man nor dwarf. Whilst those to the east were either enemies or looked to him for protection and the north had been rendered a barren waste by a dragon. How lonely it must have been. How impossible a task for one less determined or well versed in the ways of the enemy. One such as his son. Was that what she had sought to do? To remove the father, whose wisdom would not be swayed by her wide eyes and empty, if fine, words, and replace him with the son. The son who, brave and skilled in arms as he was, might be persuaded by heroic visions of errantry and valour and who therefore, in his ignorance, would rupture his land's defences and leave his people open to the invasion of the enemy's servants.

A terrible charge to make, but a terrible act if that was what she had sought to do. But had she? Or was she truly just a naïve innocent with foolish dreams of glory and a silly and most unelvish fancy for a bold young dwarf? That was what he had set himself to decide and therefore the charge must be made.

For a moment there was no response and his words seemed to echo on the silence of the room, she stared at him as if she no longer saw him, seeming frozen as if turned to stone. Gandalf puffed on his pipe and said nothing, letting the words hang heavy on the air and content to wait for her answer however long it might take to come. But he watched her closely as he waited, looking for the signs that would tell him if her shock were at the suggestion or at being caught out in her plans.

For the moment he was undecided. There was no sign of calculation that he could detect, no hint that she was planning a lie or recalling one already rehearsed; the blankness in her eyes seemed to reflect just that, a blankness, as if all thought and feeling had stopped. The tears continued to run down her cheeks and her hands twisted in her lap as if she no longer controlled them, her defensive guard, so obvious earlier in their conversation, appeared to be totally lost. Now was the time to trap her in deceit if deceitful she was.

Yet despite the cold, stern, gaze he fixed upon her, and harshness of his challenge, he did not feel either anger or hatred seeping from her. There was no hint of an evil trying to find a path to safety, nor any sense of hatred for her questioner. But there was something, as he watched her and let his mind drift closer to hers he could feel it, something was not as it should be, some shadow was there, a hint of some deep feeling long held vibrated within in her and had her in thrall. A feeling that came close to a yearning, something with the quality of hunger gnawed deep within her, a desire that came close to torment. It was certainly not grief for a lost and barely known dwarf for it was older than that and far deeper. It disturbed him but it did not feel like the bitterness or evil of the dark one, what then was it? Was this shadow, and its cause, that which Thranduil had hinted at when he had said there might be other reasons for her hatred?

Gandalf suddenly recalled his past visits to Thranduil's Halls and the picture came to him of the elf who had stood in the shadows and watched the Elvenking in silence. It had been this elf he remembered, and, in that recollection, for a moment, he felt that he was coming closer to what this hint of darkness in her might prove to be.

But then the moment was gone for suddenly her immobility was broken as she shook her head, slowly at first then more quickly.
"No!" the word came out on a strangled gasp. "No!"
She looked into his eyes and he was struck by the sudden impression that what ever the cause of that shadow she had long expected to be asked this question but hoped, until this moment, that the time had passed when she might be.

The wizard frowned at her
"No that was not the moment when you decided to kill the king, or, no that had not always been your intention?"
"Both!" Her hands writhed in her lap. "My Lord I never made any plan to kill the king, nor thought of it. Though I admit that I pointed an arrow at him the act was not planned in the way that you suggest."
Gandalf puffed on his pipe in silence for a moment, his eyes locked upon her face, and then he removed it and sighed, gesturing towards her with the pipe bowl.
"So you did not intend to fire that arrow at him? Your action was nothing more than a gesture of pique because he would not do as you demanded? How could that be, how could you, a guard, one who grew up in the king's house, have done such a thing? Then and there in the midst to battle against your most deadly foes, whose evil you could not have doubted, at a time when all around your people were fighting and dying? You had fought the shadow beside some of them who already lay dead or dying, yet you chose then for your for your show of temper. What respect did you show for them and their pains, those who had risked all with you in the past? What did you think would be the outcome of such a deed, of their king and commander being slaughtered by one of their own at such a time? You were a guard Tauriel were you not, with oaths and promises freely made, not least to the king? How then could you have done so foolish and childish a thing, how could that be?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head again and her voice was harsh with desperation.
"All this I know my lord and I know your doubts are fair and just and I make no excuse nor look for further forgiveness. But I did not plan to kill the king. I had no desire to see him dead, nor harmed in any way. He was my king too."
"That is not true is it? You had deserted his service, forsaken your post and quit your lands. Perhaps he had been your king once, but not then, for your own words make that clear, you had not repented of your actions at all when you met the king in Dale." He said softly.
There was no change in her expression and after a moment he sighed and shook his head speaking sadly and with regret.
"Those who heard the exchange say you acted with purpose and that your words betrayed both hatred and contempt for your king, and more than that, they spoke of your denial of his right and his worth. He who had sheltered you when you were alone and helpless. They say too that, as far as could be judged by the others present, your actions stemmed from that hatred as much as your fear for the dwarf, for I do not think that it was the fate of more than one that concerned you that day."

He paused, a thought hovering on the edge of his mind, a sense that he had just glimpsed something important for a moment, then the impression was lost and he continued once again, but in a colder and harsher tone.
"That is the reason that some in the Woodland Realm call you kinslayer, that most terrible of all charges to make against an elf. They do so because they consider that your intention was indeed to kill your king and for the reasons of hatred of him and the desire for your own gain. They say also that you showed no concern for those of your kin who would be sent into further danger, again thinking only of your own anger and wants "

She stared at him with renewed shock as if such sentiments were new and unknown to her, swallowing hard and running the tip of her tongue over her lips before she replied.
"Hatred, no I deny that is the case however it may have seemed. I wished only to prevail upon him to send aid to those on Ravenhill. As for gain my lord, how would I have gained by the act?"
Gandalf shrugged.
"If he fell to your arrow? That is clear enough, on his father's death you would have expected the son to take his place and you to protect you and declare your act something other than the treason it so clearly was to those who saw it. That son would be king and they, your people, would follow him. If you did not kill the father? Well by his death on Ravenhill perhaps, for your words suggested that you believed, indeed wished, that he would lead any elf forces he sent there himself. Knowing him as you did, one who would not expect his soldiers to enter danger that he shunned, knowing how many had already died, it seems probable that if he sent a force he would lead it, just as he had led the entry into the city."

'Did I think of that when I asked for his aid?' the thought popped up unbidden and he forced it back down into the darkener recess of his mind directing his attention back to the elf before him.
"But if it was not his death you looked for at that moment then perhaps the gain you sought was the pain for him at more soldiers lost. For it seems clear by your choice of words, at least as they were reported to me, that you desired, intended, to cause him pain. Why choose those words if you had any other purpose? Perhaps you expected him to be so wounded that he would sail west leaving Mirkwood unprotected. "
She continued to stare at him in silence and he felt another surge of anger as he recalled again what he had been told of that day, and he looked at her with narrowed eyes.
"Was I right in my first supposition, that Legolas was your gain, however his father died or departed? For with the king dead or sailed he would assume the crown and so become your pawn, for his desire to please you at all costs had been made very apparent."
She moved as if to protest but the wizard raised a hand to forestall her.
"All saw the degree to which the prince was willing to aid you, perhaps you believed that he would take up his father's crown in an instant and do your bidding."

She rose slightly in her seat at that.
"No! You think that I thought that? You think that I expected Legolas would come upon his father slain and would forgive his assassin and act as they wished? Why would I think such a thing, why would you think that I would?"
Gandalf spread his hands and indicated that she should resume her seat
"Why would I not? He was ready enough to interpret events in your favour when he came upon you only recently disarmed, perhaps you considered that you had distanced father and son sufficiently that he would?"
"No."
There was anguish in her voice and yet some other feeling too, the hint of that hunger, that shadow again, one that for the moment he still could not read.
"I would not have you think such a thing of the prince, it is not true. He only acted as he did because he thought me at risk of death and sought to defend me as one who has been as a sister to him."

Gandalf sat back and stared at her wide eyed in apparent amazement.
"Defend you, as a sister, from the one who has been father to you both. An odd interpretation of what I believe the prince saw. Your shattered bow at your feet, the fallen arrow, and the king's words must have told him what had occurred, even if he came too late to see it."
His tone was as cold as the wind that blasted the northern mountains in winter and she shuddered as she replied as if at the cold.
"No. I do not think he saw that. But I say again why should you, or any. think it, for even had he been willing to act as you suggest the king's guard would never have allowed it."

Gandalf inclined his head as if considering her words before he replied.
"Perhaps that is so. But maybe you knew otherwise, or had reason to expect it would be otherwise. Perhaps you thought they would admire your action. Was that it, you thought to call them to treachery too? For when you levelled the arrow you seemed confident enough that guard would not strike at you, why else would you have risked it? Why was that? Had you placed some form of enchantment upon them, had you placed such a bewitchment upon the prince?"

She shook her head again and closed her eyes, perhaps against the memory, the pictures he conjured, or simply so that he should not see her thoughts written in them. For the moment he could not tell only that the groundswell of fear in her had now driven out all sense of grief..
"My Lord, even if I wished to, and I did not, I have no such arts, at least none beyond those possessed by all my people. As you have said I am guard I know little of such matters and have no such skills."
"Not without help perhaps," he said softly, "but then as a guard you can have no healing skills either and yet it is said that you healed the dwarf. How then did you do that? I know how Thranduil trains his guards and I accept that as a warrior you will have some simple and common knowledge of the healing of elves, but as I have heard it your actions went far beyond that, and were done for a being of which you have no knowledge or experience."

Yet it was more than that was it not. The thought grew suddenly large in his mind. She was a guard not a healer so why had she thought to heal at all, much less a dwarf? Elf and dwarf shared no common line, dwarfs were not of the kindred of the music and Eru's thought for the nations of the dwarfs sprang from another origin entirely, so how had she managed to heal the dwarf with elvish healing, particularly when the injury sprang from a dark weapon? That was something that would challenge even Elrond, if indeed it could be done! How could there be an innocent explanation for such apparent absurdity? He looked at her sternly.
"It should not have been, so how was that accomplished except by some help from one more powerful than yourself? Who would provide such help?"

And that may yet prove to be true he realised, but it was also possible that she had no knowledge of it and was simply a tool, something used but unaware of the implications of her actions .Something else must lie behind this, but did she know what it was? Yet what possible gain could there be to the enemy in such an act? Perhaps her later gratitude, if her fascination with the dwarf continued. Particularly if she continued to hold sway over the prince. So again they came back to Thranduil's death or loss. Somehow all her actions led that way.

"No!" Now her eyes were wide again and dark with apparent horror. She hurried into speech.
"I do not know why it worked, and I admit that it was a desperate act from which I expected no outcome other than failure, but I had to try. I used the herb and a chant I learned at my mother's knee, nothing more than that. There was no dark help, no other was involved either in the healing, nor when I faced the king, and I had no motives other than those I have owned. I have never served the shadow nor would I do so. Tell me does the king think this of me, does Legolas?"

Gandalf shrugged.
"Legolas cannot explain your conduct any more than I or the king can, but he remains sure that you did not willingly serve the darkness. The king does not wish to believe it but he must consider the possibility given what came afterwards. You sought his death and he knows it, though he did not wish to think you more than angry and foolish now he must give consideration to other possibilities."
"But I sought only to help those on Ravenhill my lord, to warn them, was that so wrong?"
" Was that truly what you sought to do Tauriel? For if it was then you could have taken that warning yourself as no doubt the king has already noted. Yet you did not though you were free to do so. If you had asked he might have spared a couple of guards to assist you. But you did not, you made no move to offer that help yourself instead you sought to command him and threatened his life when he refused."

She drew a deep breath as if to push back her fear, and suddenly her manner changed. It was as if something occurred to her and a light of some suddenly perceived escape, some hope, brightened her eyes. In that moment her demeanour changed from fearful and subdued to something close to arrogance, and her next question was accompanied by a look of cold eyed unrepentant . She barely waited for him to finish speaking.
"Yes I wished to prevail upon him to give help to the dwarfs, why should I not have done so. What came after I cannot excuse, at least some part of it. But in asking for the king's help for the dwarves how did my actions differ from your own my lord? Did you not also demand he sent his soldiers to warn them yet made no move to assist them yourself? How was my request, my action, different? Or did you also want King Thranduil dead that day?"