Fortunately for Faerveren, Hanben had not been much delayed with Healer Maereth and had hurried straight to the Palace Office to provide moral support for his husband's grandson. He had not been there long when Melion swept through the outer door, nodded curtly, and addressed his son.

'You said we needed to meet, Faerveren?'

'Yes, Master Melion.'

Faerveren rose to his feet, casting a glance at Hanben, who nodded reassurance.

He straightened himself up. It was unfortunate that Daerada was still busy, probably with Uncle Canadion, but it was all right. Daerada Hanben was here, and, really, it was just a letter…

And the matter of not being told about Daernaneth, of course…

'Yes,' he repeated. 'There has been a formal communication for you, under the Grand Seal of the king…'

'Oh, why that messenger did not just hand it over on the road…!

'We had to formally acknowledge its delivery, Master Melion. You know the protocols. Besides which, there were other letters than yours in the package. Well, if you would like to step into my office, I have your letter there under lock and key.'

'This is all very mysterious…'

'Our king must have his reasons. Master Hanben, I will be a moment if anyone should need me.'

'Of course, Master Faerveren.'

Having agreed with Daerada that it might be best not to mention the matter of Grandma's sailing until after Ada had his letter, Faerveren tried hard not to seem as if anything was amiss. He unlocked his desk drawer and passed Melion the letter with a bow. His own letters were in there, too, so he relocked the drawer… while he did not mistrust his father, still, every good King's Elf took no risks with sensitive information..

'The seal is intact, as you can see.'

'Well, why would it be otherwise?' Melion said, taking a seat at Faerveren's desk without thinking. Faerveren opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, shook his head. It wold be Melion's desk soon enough.

'I will leave you to your letter, then, Master Melion,' he said. 'We will be waiting in the outer office, when you are ready. There is something else I need to mention to you, but see to your correspondence first.'

He left, not quite closing the door, but sagging at the shoulders. Hanben waved him over, so he took the liberty of perching on the edge of the desk.

'Well done, penneth,' Hanben said.

The endearment made Faerveren smile. In fact, there was not that much difference in their ages, when one came to consider it, but Hanben was his honour-grandfather…

Merenor inserted himself into the room, smiling warmly at his spouse and his grandson.

'Well, I take it the letter is given?' he said softly. 'Did Master Melion receive it well?'

'I left him to read in private; I must confess to feeling a little anxious,' Faerveren said. 'There are two ways Ada could take this news, and as I know only the general matter of the letter and not all the content… Did you find Uncle Canadion?'

Merenor hesitated, nodded. Truth to tell, Canadion had been surprisingly distressed at the news. Well, perhaps it was not so surprising; of all his sons, Canadion was the gentlest of heart, the most ready to forgive, arguably the most loving…

'He'll be joining us at supper, not before, I don't think. He and Thiriston wanted some time.'

Faerveren nodded. His uncle's kind-heartedness was well known to him.

Abruptly, Faerveren's office door burst open and Melion strode out, glaring at a letter in his hand.

'Would you believe it? That ungrateful, scheming, manipulative wretch Parvon! All along it was, "I do not want your job, Master Melion, I am content to serve the King, Master Melion," and now this…! I am deposed, if you please, and Parvon, no doubt, will be back in charge by now…! Faerveren, did you know about this?'

'I have to confess, Master Melion,' Faerveren replied, stressing the title, 'I am surprised to hear you talk in such terms of Master Parvon…'

'Well, you are easily gulled, Faerveren, you are too eager to believe the good in people.'

Faerveren shook his head. 'In my opinion, to believe well of people encourages them to behave so. I am at a loss, though, to understand why a letter under the king's Grand Seal should contain nothing but what seems to be a snip of palace gossip…'

'Oh, that is not all, I am to… well, now, don't take this badly, Faerveren, I am sure you have done your best here, considering, but I am to take charge of the Palace Office. We will have to expand, I think, so many of us here… which is your desk?'

'In fact, you have been using it today,' Faerveren replied. 'What's more, that much of your news I did know. But we will not be too cramped…' He glanced at Merenor and Hanben and thought about ghosting them a wink. 'Since Masters Merenor and Hanben are recalled to the Old Palace to serve there.'

'Oh, well, that makes sense, I suppose… well, if I am taking over, then we will need to reorganise; no doubt you have not modified your systems…'

'There is no need, no point,' Faerveren said. 'They systems in place here are specifically tailored to the needs of the New Palace. However, we are closing down, if you remember. Yours is really just a… a…' He fumbled for a suitably mild, yet scathing retort. 'A caretaker Elf-in-Charge position. I, too, am recalled to the Old Palace Office. And the reason I do not think Master Parvon has engineered this so that he can return to running the Palace by himself is that I am to serve as Joint-Elf-in-Charge with him.'

'Wha…?' Melion shook his head. 'All of you recalled? Who will be here, then?'

'You will, Master Melion,' Hanben said. 'Don't worry, you will be fine…'

'But… what possible justification could there be for his majesty to recall all three of you? And to replace you with me, when I have so much on hand…?'

Merenor cleared his throat.

'Oh, I wouldn't really like to guess,' he said. 'But if pressed, I might wonder if it's so that the rest of the family all have a chance to bid farewell to your mother before she sails…'

His voice hardened on the last few words, but Melion did not seem to notice.

'No, it is much more likely that my status as official representative to the Imladris elves means my presence here will be far more important than the needs of the King's Off…'

He trailed off to see his father shaking his head.

'Penneth,' Merenor said softly. 'That was your chance to say, "Oh, yes, I forgot to mention another reason I am here is to say, Naneth is sailing," and for us all to talk about it nicely…'

'It was a family matter; there was no place for it in the despatches, I have had to stress very strongly that personal communications are not for the King's Office documents pouch, Master Parvon was forever taking advantage of it… I had to lead by example. Besides, I did not think it something you could neglect your duty for, so I did not say. She could have contacted you herself, had she wished.'

'But, Adar,' Faerveren said, 'you could have mentioned it when you spoke of the other elves who were sailing, for you did append a list. So now I wonder if you left her name off the list to deliberately hide the news?'

'I really did not see it was my duty to tell you…'

'But you made it your duty to tell me of all the others!'

'Now, that is just picking hairs!'

'You left her name off the list completely! Nor did you mention it to Daerada, that is worse, I think…'

'Ada and Naneth have had their disagreements, I did not think he would want to know. Besides, I had other things to organise.'

'Melion! Of course you should have told Faerveren, and of course I would have wanted to know. For all your mother and I disagreed, I will always be grateful to her for my sons and grandchildren.' Merenor's tone was no louder than usual, but a wealth of disapproval was in his voice. 'Mostly,' he added. 'This is not how I brought you up!'

'Indeed? The way I remember it, you did not bring me up at all – you left all that to Mother!'

'Enough, please!' Faerveren rose to his feet. 'This is the New Palace Office, all of us here represent our king and such personal comments must be left for outside!'

He glared at his father and grandfather, peripherally aware that Merenor was trying not to grin while Melion had turned an unbecoming shade of puce; a colouring which put Faerveren very much in mind of his grandmother's annoyed face…

'Perhaps it was remiss of me not to protest raising such a personal matter into the office,' he went on more softly. 'In which case, I need to take responsibility for this current mood of anger and distress. I apologise, and once more remind myself, and us all, of our positions of authority. Very well; we are now appraised of the full list of elves who are sailing. His majesty is known to be keen that anyone wishing to say a last farewell to their kin and friends must be given the opportunity to do so. I do believe the timing of our recall is connected with this, and, naturally, it occurred to our king that to separate a married couple needlessly could be considered unkind, thus Master Hanben's recall has taken place at the same time. Master Melion, we will begin your orientation tomorrow, the hour before the formal breakfast in the dining hall, so that you have the rest of the morning to escort the Imladris elves to the place where their friend died, and where he lies; we are both expected to attend in support of Commander Triwathon and from respect,' he added, seeing Melion draw breath to interject. 'After which, I will spend such free time as I have reorganising my office for when you take over. Meanwhile, I will have a desk brought into the outer office for you to start with.'

'Faerveren! You cannot talk to me like that, I am your father!'

'You are my trainee, at the moment, Adar. Yes, I know it is odd. But it will only be for a few days.'

Merenor cleared his throat.

'Is there anything else you need me for at the moment, Master Faerveren?' he asked.

'I don't think so, thank you. If you have other duties…?'

'Not as such. I was just thinking, it'd be nice to for a bit of a walk with my lad here.' Merenor put his arm around Melion's shoulders; his son tried to pull away but found himself held, clasped unrelentingly close to Merenor's side. 'There's at least two hours before dinner, I think it will do us both good.'

'But, no,' Melion said, struggling again against his father's grip. 'It is dark, it is cold, I have been travelling all day and…'

'We'll get you a nice, dry cloak on the way out. Son,' Merenor said, in a voice as dangerous as dragons. 'It's this, or I shut you up in a room with Canadion. Out of all of you, he seems to love his mother the most, Valar know why… but he's very upset he didn't find out sooner… as, I might add, is his Thiriston… you do remember Thiriston? Very, very big elf, extremely protective of his husband…?'

Melion tossed his head.

'I… will talk to my brother later. Yes, perhaps a little fresh air will do me good, after all.'