It had been three hundred and sixty-five days since Findekáno's disappearance, and Nolofinwë Finwion had felt every one of them like a knife to his heart. His people had not been idle, building homes and barns, and trading with the Sindar for seed; he had been needed, in all his capacity as King. And yet the grief lay heavy on his shoulders. He could not be sure his eldest son was dead - he doubted he would ever know the full truth, in fact - but he feared it, and his fear had only grown as the weeks passed.
At first there had not been time to grieve. The days had grown shorter and the world had turned cold, the leaves falling from the trees and the lake freezing over into ice. His people had feared that the Helcaraxë had somehow followed them, or that the whole of Arda would go dark and frightful forever, and he and his children and his brother's children had been too busy building shelters and stoking fires and easing hearts to acknowledge their own sorrow. But after many a long night when the only warmth came from vague and barely-formed hopes, the air grew warmer, and the snows melted, and the trees burst into blossom and the woods filled with birdsong again, and when it became apparent that they were not going to freeze again, his people attacked the problem of their new home with all the vigor and determination he had seen in Valannor before the Darkening. They built lean-tos, and reinforced tents, and set to making their encampment something more permanent than a jumbled mess of frightened people; there was a single bath house now, and a crude forge, and even neat rows of tilled earth for crops.
The great house he lived in was still the only dwelling that could be truly considered a proper home; its walls were plaster and its floors were wood, and there was glass in some of the windows. He had tried to convince the few artisans who had come with him rather than his brother that their talents would be better spent in aiding the people at large, but his requests had been rebuffed by the whole of his host. He and his family had brought them through ice and darkness and great loss; this was, more or less, their reward. The kitchens and stable and forge and armory that had to be built to sustain it would be used for all, and Nolofinwë did take some comfort in that.
And he did like having a study of his own again, even if all he had used it for in these past weeks was sitting and mourning.
It seemed as if all he had done, in the days leading up to now, was mourn.
Findekáno would be declared dead, in the morning, with the rising of the Sun. His children had begged him to wait, and yet he knew he had waited long enough. Any more time and he was merely delaying the inevitable, hoping for something that would not come. His father was dead, and Arakáno was dead, and now his eldest has joined them. The whole of the family had set to work preparing for the funeral, with Írissë offering to sing his elegy and Turukáno making the shroud for his empty coffin, and as they mourned so did his people, embroidering their loss on everything they wore and making music of their own to tell of their grief. But all was in readiness, with nothing left to do but wait; Nolofinwë was left to sit alone in his study, watching the stars through a window and musing on what he would say to his gathered host.
"Your Majesty?"
The words were dim and distant, almost like they were coming through water. Once, on the Ice, he had fallen and nearly drowned; the frantic voices of his children had been much like these thin and reedy sounds. His eyes were fixed on the blue-and-silver of his robes, on the thick black embroidery that had swallowed up one of his few remaining Valannorean garments. It would be picked out over the next weeks, thread by thread; when there was no trace of it, his formal mourning would be complete. I never thought I would have to do this again, he thought, and the bile rose in his throat and his heart hardened even more. Even in my darkest dreams, I never thought I would lose someone else to Moringotto.
"Your Majesty!"
"What?" he demanded irritably, drawn forcibly out of himself and away from his thoughts. Behind him, Alcarinquar cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly as if to apologize, and then straightened up.
"There's… there's something coming down out of the North," he said.
Nolofinwë froze, cold fear creeping steadily toward his heart; he forced himself to ignore it and turned to look at his watch-captain.
"What do you mean by 'something'?" he asked with a frown.
"A bird, or something in bird-shape," Alcarinquar replied, and brushed a thick sprig of golden hair back from his face. "If we were still in Valannor, your Majesty, I would say…"
"You would say what?" Nolofinwë snapped. "I tire of this, Alcarinquar. Speak plainly."
"I would say it was one of Manwë's Eagles, my King."
The terror in Nolofinwë's chest turned to deep, bone-grating dread.
"It is still some minutes hence," the other nér said. "What would you have us do?"
He steeled himself, mentally tallying his odds of being granted some new curse, and took a deep breath before rising from his seat.
"Have a place cleared for this messenger of the Herunúmen to land," he ordered. "The bare earth in front of this house ought to be sufficient, if it is emptied of everything between my doors and the shores of the lake. If today's hunt yielded anything substantial - a deer, or a boar - have it brought here. And water, as well." He forced an expression that was almost akin to a smile onto his face. "I shall come and speak with them, and hear whatever it is that will be said."
"And if it - if we are twice doomed?" Alcarinquar asked.
Nolofinwë nearly lost his composure, but he willed his hand to reach out and rest on his watch-captain's shoulder.
"If we are twice-doomed, surely we are still less guilty than our Fëanárian cousins," he said, making a poor attempt at a joke. "Now go - I would not receive the word of the Valar without the emblems of my office. I had not thought to wear the crown and brooch until the funeral, but I suppose even the best-laid plans go awry."
Alcarinquar nodded, turned on his heel as his King released him, and moved down the hallway back toward the doors.
The first thing Nolofinwë thought as he emerged onto his front steps was that it was an unusually bright night, or else the presence of so many nervous faces made it seem brighter. True to his orders, the entire yard between the doors of his family's house and the shores of the lake had been cleared of cart and barrel and stone; two freshly-killed deer and a trough of water normally used for brewing beer had been placed near the edge of the ring of torches that marked the edge of pale earth and sand and the beginning of grass or paving-stone. Artanís and Findaráto and Artaresto stood near the lake, at the front of a crowd of deadly silent people; his own children were nowhere to be found. He supposed Írissë and Itarillë were resting; Turukáno was probably still at work on his brother's shroud. No, he told himself. I will not think of that. The funeral is tomorrow; there is no need to cloud my mind with grief when it is so desperately needed.
Everyone could see the shape now, and could see that Alcarinquar's instincts had been correct and it was one of Manwë's beloved birds. Nolofinwë watched as his people gaped and gasped and grew pale at its approach; he wondered how many of them had ever seen one of the Valar's messengers this close. The Eagle made two passes over their poor excuse for a town, each lower than before, and finally drew up sharply over the bare earth to land. Each beat of its wings was nearly deafening, and the gusts of air it pushed downward were enough to make windows creak and clothes stream outward from their owners. He could see a pale chemise break free from its place on a line out of the corner of his eye; he hoped it didn't land in the mud and cost its owner hours of work. But the air passed soon enough, and when the Eagle's talons buried themselves in the dirt there was a tremble underfoot that he felt even through the stone steps.
Hail, Nolofinwë, the Eagle said mind-to-mind, second son of Finwë Noldorán, who calls himself High King of the Noldor East of the Sea .
Nolofinwë wondered if he ought to be insulted, and then realized from the indignant grumbles of his people that the Eagle spoke to all of them and not merely to him.
"Hail, Eagle," he said, and he knew that the torchlight was catching the crown and the brooch so all could see he bore his emblems of office. "Hail, messenger of the Valar. What brings you to our door at such a late hour?"
The Eagle shook its head, ruffled its feathers, and folded its wings against its sides. Suddenly, Nolofinwë could see that there was something on its back - where it gleamed red-brown in the firelight and starlight and moonlight, whatever it bore was black and opaque and -
- and moving.
"There's someone on its back!" a voice cried, mirroring his own thought, and suddenly what semblance of order had been present was lost as five, ten, fifteen, a hundred people darted for the Eagle's side. Nolofinwë could not say what wild hope had seized them, though his own heart leapt within him as the silhouette they stared at shifted and divided in half. Suddenly he could see quite clearly - a figure lying prone between the bird's wings, wrapped in a cloak or a blanket, and a second figure sitting beside it, head down, clearly scanning the ground as if looking for a place to slide off. He took a few tentative steps away from his doors, leaving the stone of his house behind him and standing on the edge of the newly-formed crowd.
"I am going to pass him down to you!" the second figure cried. "But take care - he is grievously wounded - he may yet die - someone rouse a healer!"
Nolofinwë froze, the sound of that impossibly familiar voice rooting him to the ground as surely as if it had fixed him there with a spike. He watched, barely comprehending, as the first figure was lifted from the Eagle's back and passed down into six or eight waiting hands and borne back into the torchlight. Someone from that knot of men gave a cry of shock, or grief; he ignored it. The second figure motioned for the others who still remained to stand back, and when they obeyed it - he - slid down the Eagle's feathered side to land on the earth with a faint groan. Slowly, shakily, he righted himself, brushing sand and dust from what could now be seen to be a filthy and bloodstained and much-abused tunic; he glanced from side to side and nodded at the people who stared at him in shock.
"Tell me," he began, "where is - ?"
But the rest of his question faded and blurred, for Nolofinwë had begun to walk almost without realizing it. He shoved his way through the press of people, scarcely caring for decorum, moving faster and faster; when he at last pushed through the crowd he broke into a true run and did not stop until he had wrapped his arms around his eldest son.
Findekáno returned the embrace, his hands and arms shaking, and when at last they broke apart there were tears in his eyes.
"You're alive," he said, voice thick with what sounded like relief. His face was unnaturally pale, and his expression was frantic as he glanced around at the crowds that were growing thinner by the second. "All of you - you're - you didn't freeze, you're alive…"
" We are alive?" Nolofinwë asked incredulously. He had stepped back, but his arms were still on his son's shoulders, as if he feared that letting go would cause his son to vanish. He wondered what Findekáno had meant by freezing, and then dismissed it; there would be time for answers when they had both rested and this did not seem like a dream. "We… we thought you dead, yonya. "
Findekáno paled even further, his eyes flicking over his father and registering for the first time that he was looking at a man in mourning robes. He flinched back out of the hands on his shoulders, wincing and shifting all his weight onto his right leg. Nolofinwë realized for the first time that his left ankle was at an unnatural angle and was bound up in bloodstained cloth.
"I... you… you were going to - ?" he began, but his father interrupted him before he could go further.
"To mourn you? To hold a proper funeral?" Nolofinwë asked sharply. "Yes. Yes, we were - tomorrow, in point of fact; Írissë was going to sing your elegy." He was not truly angry, and yet he could not help but be frustrated; now that he knew his son was not dead, it was easy to let the months of tense worry and sleepless nights creep back into immediate memory.
Findekáno's face grew almost as white as the burial shroud Turukáno was maybe even now still embroidering, and the gold wire that framed his braids was cast into stark relief. From far away he had seemed hale and whole, but here in the torchlight, Nolofinwë could see that his son had not returned unscathed. He was thinner - they had all nearly starved on the Ice, but he was skin and bones as if he had never left the haunted darkness - and grimmer, the airy and easy light in his eyes replaced with something that ached and smoldered and refused to meet his father's gaze head-on. He favored his left arm as if it pained him, though it was not bound as his ankle was. His face was covered with bruises and his nose was bloody and twice-broken. He looked rather like he'd hit a stone wall while running at full speed.
The anger that had been rising in Nolofinwë's chest turned cold and died. His son was shaking, staring at the ground, eyes flicking up briefly to catch quick glimpses of what surrounded him before returning to earth. He's afraid, the king realized. Afraid I shall chastise him here and now, afraid I shall punish him. And I very nearly did.
"Findekáno…" he began, but his voice failed him. Without harshness or frustration, he was not sure what he meant to say - what happened to you? where have you been? do you know how you have frightened us? - and instead he watched as his eldest son still refused to meet his gaze.
"There is no easy way to do what I have done, Atar," he said, shoulders shaking, looking every inch the repentant vassal, "and yet I have done it all the same."
"And what is it you have done?"
Findekáno winced. "I have abandoned my King," he said, "my people, my family, my position, and if - if you seek to exact justice for the wrongs I have done you, I accept it, but - !" His voice broke, and a sob that had surely been long-suppressed fought its way out from his lips. "But let me sit by his bedside, until I know if he shall live or die, please ."
"What?" Nolofinwë asked. "Who do - ?"
But then, drawn up out of dim memory with all the shock of a sudden blow to the head, he remembered that there had been another figure on the back of the great bird. An unconscious elda , who was even now being borne up into the house and to the healers' quarters.
Suddenly, he realized what exactly his eldest child had done.
When Findekáno had first vanished, they had all feared treachery, but after weeks of carefully worded diplomatic missives back and forth with the encampment across the lake he had arrived to the conclusion that if they had slain his son they surely would have boasted of the deed. Eight weeks passed with no news, and at last Írissë had come to him and told him that she feared her brother had journeyed north to Angamando, alone and without telling anyone. This had sparked a suspicion in him, a fear that perhaps Findekáno had not been entirely truthful and some part of the tale of his nephews' woes was left untold. A discreet letter to Carnistir - not their leader, but easily the most taciturn and the least likely to gossip - gained him a single sheet of parchment confirming all the shreds of rumor and whispered fears. Maitimo's demise was not certain, only his captivity. And he had known then what had happened: Findekáno had learned of his cousin's dreadful fate, and had set out to save him by any means necessary.
And, somehow, beyond all hope and beyond all sane expectation, he had succeeded.
Nolofinwë's mouth fell open in shock.
"I - you - you found him?"
Findekáno nodded, his eyes darting up briefly and catching the torchlight. They were still filled with tears, and he quickly dropped his gaze back to the packed earth before his father could see them streaming down his face.
"I found him," he said, "and I freed him, and even if he lives I wonder if he will ever forgive me."
Nolofinwë pulled his son into another embrace, and Findekáno lay his head on his father's shoulder and sobbed. Around them, the crowd of people dissipated - the Eagle had snapped up the deer it had been offered in one frightful pecking motion that set the ground rumbling where its beak hit the earth, and with this done it seemed to eye the skies in anticipation for takeoff - and they were given a semblance of privacy for a few seconds. Soon, though, they were joined by a bright-eyed and fiercely alive Artanís, with Findaráto and Artaresto beside her.
"So you live, then," she said to Findekáno, and he laughed despite his tears.
"I do live," he admitted, "though I am somewhat the worse for wear after my flight."
"Perhaps it is you we ought to name High-Climber," Artaresto said with a faint smile. "The name never suited me, in truth."
"You sell yourself short, cousin," Findekáno said. "I am sure you will rise high enough in your time."
"I do hope not," the younger nér said with a brisk laugh. "I am quite content to stay here on the ground, like all sane eldar ."
They were all suddenly silenced as the Eagle sprang into the air, nearly flattening them with the pressure of its wings. It drew itself up and flapped once, twice, thrice, before turning and speeding north across the dark lake, and it left only the churned-up earth in its wake to prove it had ever been there at all.
"Speaking of flight," Artanís said, turning back to Findekáno, "what exactly happened to you?"
Findekáno sighed, and ran a hand over his bruised and bloody face.
"It is a long tale," he said, "and one that will weigh heavily upon me in the telling. But I suppose I do owe the lot of you an explanation."
"Yes," his father said pointedly, "you do. After one of the healers has seen to that ankle, and to your shoulder and wrist."
Findekáno's expression fell into sharp dismay. "But Atya - !"
"We have healers enough for - for our guest," Nolofinwë countered, glancing again at his son and his many injuries. "One of them, surely, can be spared to see to our Crown Prince."
Findekáno groaned and looked skyward as if to pray for the Eagle to return, wincing as he did so, but said nothing. Nolofinwë frowned - it was, unfortunately, just like his son to be stubborn, and yet this seemed… deeper. He had changed on the Ice - they all had - but there was something more to this resistance. Where there had been a confident, bright-eyed, nearly effervescent youth, he saw now a man shadowed by some weight he would not share.
Well, Nolofinwë thought, we are family, and therefore if he refuses to divide his burden between us I shall take all of it by force. He will not be alone, not so long as I at least have breath in my hröa .
"Artanís," he said, glancing at his niece, "would you sing his nose back into place?"
"I do not - !" Findekáno began, but fell silent at a pointed look from his father.
"It looks more than a little painful," Nolofinwë said gently. If he wishes to fight me, I will prove I am quite safe. "And it is easy enough to heal."
"No," Findekáno said, and there was a hint of weak panic this time. "No, Atya, I do not need this, please."
"Why not?" Findaráto asked, and Nolofinwë was grateful for it. "Why suffer needlessly? It is an easy song, and one I have heard more than once."
"Only because you refuse to behave with care and caution," his sister retorted, and Findekáno almost smiled for the first time since his return to their encampment, and Nolofinwë's heart grew a little lighter.
"Sister mine," Findaráto said lightly, an earnest grin sliding over his face, "I promise you, my ending will not come from recklessness."
"If the two of you do not mind," Nolofinwë interrupted, "I would like to get to bed some time before the rising of the Sun." He was reluctant to interrupt their chattering, which seemed to lift his son's spirits at least a little, but he was growing wearier by the minute.
Artanís nodded, and grabbed Findekáno's chin in one of her hands before he could duck out of her way. He flinched, and tried to turn his head. She held on.
"Stop fighting me, you ass," she said, "and it will be over soon."
His son's face was a mess of warring emotions, until at last panic won out. A thought unbidden sprang to the forefront of Nolofinwë's mind - was he, too, captured? Is that why he took so long to return to us? Is that why he dodges my gaze and answers my care with sullen defiance? Eru, mark me, if Moringotto has laid a hand on my son I shall tear down the walls of Thangorodrim stone by stone, I swear I will - and he watched with mounting horror as Findekáno shivered and kept from writhing out of his cousin's grip with what was evidently great effort.
"Findekáno?" Nolofinwë asked softly, willing his voice to be firm and flat. "Are you well?"
"Well enough," Findekáno grunted, at last mastering himself and forcing his face back into its earlier emotionless mask.
"If I am not harming you, then hold still! " Artanís said.
At last, Findekáno relented, closing his eyes and tensing for the song. Her work was as easy as Nolofinwë had predicted. It took only a few measures of the most basic mending chant to reposition the smashed cartilage and return his face to something closer to its original shape. When she was finished, the cuts and bruises dotting his cheekbones were also lessened, and despite his discomfort it was clear that he was relieved.
"Was it very hard for you?" Nolofinwë asked, heart pounding, and his son tried very hard not to make an exasperated face.
"I suppose not," he acquiesced. "Now may I go sit down? If I am to take up the attentions of a healer and draw them away from Russandol, I would like it to be over quickly."
When Nolofinwë nodded nervously, he turned on his right heel and began to hobble up the steps into the house.
"He's hiding something," Artanís said once he was out of earshot. She was speaking to her brother and her nephew, but Nolofinwë knew that she would have been silent if she did not want him to overhear. "I do not know what - he would not let me at his thoughts, he kept them locked up like they were more precious than - well."
"Perhaps it was only the horror of the journey, and of finding M - our guest in such a terrible state," Findaráto answered, also not looking at his atarháno.
"Perhaps," Artanís replied with a calculatedly carefree shrug, and pitched her voice up. "It matters not to me."
Nolofinwë knew that this, at least, was a lie, though he doubted she was as unnerved as him at this proof of deception. There was much, of course, that Findekáno was not saying, and much that he would not say unless it was drawn half-unwillingly from taciturn lips; however, he could not dispute the truth of his son's age and stature as a prince of their people. He was not one of Fëanáro's children. He had some right to privacy, as far as his father and mother were concerned.
I do not care if he has secrets, the High King told himself, only if he is in danger, or if he has harmed our people in folly or in anger. It was only partly a lie. But he will not talk to me.
He will not talk to me, and - and what if he was captured? What if he was harmed? What if Moringotto -
- no. No, this will not help me, he thought, and forced the nebulous images of Findekáno bound and chained and beaten out of his mind. Until he is clear that this has happened to him, I shall assume it has not. But he will not talk to me, and this cannot go on. I am his father, I am his King - he owes me an explanation for his absence. I cannot - I will not - force him to give an account of himself, not unless it becomes clear nothing else will work.
I must find someone - anyone - who he might speak to.
"Amdis, please," Findekáno said, and his tone was bordering on exasperated panic. "Please. It was only my ankle." He was back in his own room and had stripped out of tunic, boots, and stockings, and was sitting on the edge of his bed wearing only his badly-mended leather breeches while Amdis knelt at his feet to look at his injuries.
"And your wrist," the apprentice healer said matter-of-factly, "and most of your fingernails are shredded, and what in Arda did you do to your face ?"
"Does it matter?" he asked, hands gripping the foot of the bed where he sat as she examined him.
"It matters if you want me to be able to repair even half of this damage. Frankly, you will be lucky if you walk without a limp. We haven't quite figured out how to manage healing outside of Aman yet, if it's not done with a song."
"And are you going to sing for me, then?"
Amdis raised an eyebrow and almost smirked at him. "You'd like that, I imagine. Get it over with quickly. But no, I'm going to wrap your ankle in plaster and let it set. I'll speak to the master healers about getting you a crutch."
Findekáno groaned, resisting the urge to shrug his shoulders exaggeratedly. "This is ridiculous! I - at least let me go to him, let me sit with him! If he dies, I must - !"
"If he dies, you will be alive, and that is what matters," Amdis said flatly. "My tutors and masters will see to him. You forget, the other side might have gotten all the craftsmen, but we have the healing expertise. I wonder, frankly, how they've managed to survive at all without someone to sing their burns away."
"But I am parted from him!" he cried, and then when she looked up at him sharply he paled and swallowed hard and tried again, forcing his eyes to fix on a spot on the floor. I must be more subtle. "I - I might help," he explained lamely. "I might calm him, if he thrashes or fights back. We were very close, before."
Amdis glanced skyward as if in silent appeal to Nienna and Estë, and then returned her attention to her prince. "I got a good look at Haryon - excuse me, Condo - Maitimo, and he might as well be dead to the world, haryon-nînya ."
"What do you mean?" Findekáno asked, trying to keep the panic from his voice. Amdis was trying to catch his eye, and instead he focused on the large wooden tub that had been brought into his room. It was filled with water and soaps and bath salts; he could smell it from where he sat.
"He was insensate and deep in dream," Amdis explained, at last giving up on making eye contact. "He did not so much as whimper when he was placed in the large tub in our bath house. Even when the soap and water reached the deep cut on his hip, he was silent."
Findekáno bit back a deep and frightened groan, unable to shake the thought of Russandol weak and helpless and floating in the bath surrounded only by strangers. His eyes were drawn down to his hands, folded in his lap; he began to shiver.
Amdis put a solid, comforting hand on his knee. "I can promise you that going to him would not calm him," she said. "Rouse him? Perhaps - !"
"Then let me rouse him. Let me - let the healers hear his voice, assess his health."
"Rouse him, and then he would be in agony as his bones are reset and your slapdash amputation is repaired," the apprentice healer finished. "No, haryon-nînya. Let him sleep, and let me see to you."
Findekáno shook his head miserably. Tears pricked at the edges of his eyes, and he willed himself not to cry; it was not successful.
"I tried so hard to free him," he said. "I had to do - I cut - there was so much blood, I feared he might die then and there."
"It was a noble thing you did," Amdis said, "not a foul one." She frowned, reaching out with both hands and feeling a swollen place at the top of his right foot. "Even though it's your left ankle that's broken," she continued, "your right did not escape all damage. But it should heal on its own, if you're careful and do nothing foolish."
"Will he die?" Findekáno asked quietly. He had not flinched at her touch.
Amdis stopped, and sighed. "I do not know, haryon-nînya, " she said. "I know that I have never seen someone so mangled who lived." Findekáno grew even paler, and she kept speaking, as if to reassure him. "But I also know that this is not the Ice, and Condo Maitimo is not any common elda to be felled by malady or by misfortune."
"He is not any common elda, no," Findekáno admitted, still staring at the floor but glancing briefly at her in gratitude. "He rather means the world to me."
"I can see that," Amdis answered, and they fell into silence as she continued looking him over and he returned to thoughts of what might happen to his fledgling marriage now.
Finally, Amdis finished her cursory examination of his injuries and rose to her feet, brushing her hands off on a battered and much-abused apron.
"I am going to prepare something for your hands," she said, "and find wraps for your ankle and your wrist. And you, haryon-nînya, will bathe, if it pleases you."
"What?"
"The filth of Angamando and of many weeks' traveling will certainly not aid your many cuts and bruises in healing. If they fester and grow foul, you will probably not die, but you will spend many a day in misery." She pointed to the large tub. "The water ought to be warm still - there are heated stones from the fire that were placed into it. Bathe, and see to your hair, and by the time you have finished I will be ready for you."
Findekáno almost laughed. She sounded very much like his mother, when he was far younger, far more prone to messy misadventures, and quite averse to bath time.
"I understand," he said, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of his uninjured wrist, and trying to smile. "I think I can undress myself, Mistress Amdis."
"Good," she said, and began to back toward the door. "I will let you, then. Take as long as you need in the bath - I will tell you when I am ready but it will not be for some time." She bowed slightly at the waist, turned on her heel, and left him alone.
As the door shut behind her, Findekáno stripped out of his breeches and gingerly limped to the bath. He rested his uninjured hand against it as he weighed the logistics of getting in and out - he could take all his weight on his broken ankle if he had to, and lifting his right leg first meant that he could lean on it for most of his efforts to climb over the side. This, then, seemed like the best option; he made a face as he balanced on his injured side and got awkwardly into the tub.
The warm water was a shock and a relief. Findekáno sank into the low bench built into the side of the wooden frame and let out a faint moan of pleasure as every muscle in his body instantly relaxed. He was quickly able to settle himself with his injured leg stretched out in front of him and his arm draped against his side and resting on his thigh.
"Thank Eru," he murmured softly to no one in particular. "I have needed this."
Tears came unbidden to his eyes again, and now, in the privacy of his own room, he found he could keep them back no longer. After so long being stoic and unshakeable, he was utterly exhausted. He wept openly, his whole body trembling. Each time he closed his eyes, he was back on that dreadful mountain-peak, Russandol beside him and beneath him, the knife in his hand, and the blood pouring out, so much blood -
- he cried until his eyes were red and burning and his breath came in ragged gasps. I almost lost him, he thought, shoulders shaking. I almost lost him, and I had to - oh, Eru, á ercat , hessanta - ercamando , I cut his hand off!
He was shaking violently now, a low keening whine building in his throat. He had not stopped to think, or feel, for even a moment since he first spotted Russandol dangling from the walls of Angamando. And now he could not keep back the flood.
Findekáno moaned and sank underneath the surface of the water. Am I a lovesick fool? he asked himself. It has been so long since we last saw one another. How do I know he still loves me? How do I know he cares anything for me at all? Damn it all, I don't think I can cry like this. And even if I could, is it worth crying in bathwater that smells like roses?
Yes. Yes, it absolutely is.
Oh Iron Hells, I am meant to be cleaning myself!
He sat up quickly, shivering at the cool air of his room, and wildly glanced around for any sign of something he might use to better accomplish that end. After a few moments of confusion, he spotted a small cup to his right, built into the side of the tub. Inside it were two bottles; once he moved closer he could also see a flat bar of soap and a bag about the size of his hand. Findekáno picked up the bag, pulled open the drawstring, and was greeted immediately with the scent of lavender. Scouring sand, he realized. Good. I shall need it. I am positively caked in grime.
It was a more serious effort than he had anticipated to clean himself. His skin had seemed relatively clean to him, but soaking and scrubbing and soap lather revealed layer after layer of ground-in dust and dirt and more than a little blood. Findekáno grimaced at the thought that his father had embraced him in such a state, and Artanís had gone one step further and touched his face. I have never been this filthy in all my life, he thought, and - oh, Valar, this does not even cover my hair…
Findekáno did not consider himself a particularly vain prince - certainly not as vain as Tyelkormo or any of those who bore the name Curufinwë, or even Aikanáro with his painstakingly styled spikes - and yet the idea of his hair being as coated with filth as the rest of him made him shiver. "I shall have to take out every braid," he groaned. "Every braid, and every gold wire, and I shall have to do them each over again once I have properly washed. I might as well cut all of it off and save myself the trouble." But even saying that in jest was enough to make him wince.
"There is nothing for it," he murmured. "My hair will be loose for the first time in a yén ."
Findekáno reached up to the first of many braids, unwound the wire that kept it together, and began to undo the complicated twining strands of hair. It was slow work, and as he went he found grit and dust and small pieces of leaf. He realized with a jolt of revulsion that he had failed to properly wash his hair since his departure from Aman - he had bathed in a river upon their arrival by the lake, but there had been no soap, and it had been before his journey north.
"I am disgusting, " he groaned. "I shall be here for hours."
He was; the water had gone quite cold by the time the final wire was laid out by the soaps and scouring sand. His hair had exploded out behind him, fanning over his shoulders and falling into the water. He could feel a knot at the base of his skull that was roughly the size of a walnut, and he knew there were undoubtedly more beyond that scattered throughout the curling strands.
"I need a comb," he sighed. "Or a brush. And I am naked, in a bathtub, and my ankle is broken, and my brush is all the way on the other side of the room." For a moment he considered clambering out of the tub to fetch it, but the effort would leave his bedclothes soaked, and by the time he reached the brush he had no certainty that his ankle would stand a return journey. Instead, Findekáno groaned again and slid back under the water, ignoring the cold and letting it permeate through the mess of his hair.
Damn me for ever leaving Aman and its argan oil, he thought. He sent several curses in Fëanáro's direction before remembering that Fëanáro was dead; he proceeded to curse at Námo instead for not permitting the source of all his woes to return to life and face due castigation.
There was a dim sound like a sharp pounding, and then a muffled voice. "Findekáno?"
He sat up suddenly, water dripping from the ends of his curls, and glanced at the door.
"Hello?" he called. If I am lucky, perhaps it is Amdis come to tell me that she will not set my ankle if I am soaked.
"Findekáno, are you all right?" a voice asked through the door.
"What?" he called back, and wrung the water from the hair nearest his ears.
"This is hopeless." the voice said, and suddenly he recognized it.
"I'm… Lalwendë ?"
The door opened, and his atarnésa stuck her head into his room. "Hopefully you are not me," she said. "But Amdis asked me to look in on you. You've been here for the better part of an hour, are you well?"
"More or less," he said with a grimace, and gestured to his hair. Lalwendë winced sympathetically.
"Do you want help?" she asked. "Since you've been dead, we managed to find some decent hair oil. Nothing as good as what we had, but it might be worth something."
"Oh, thank Eru," Findekáno said, and then froze and looked down at himself. "Do you mind that I'm - ?"
"You are not the first naked man I've seen, and you probably will not be the last," Lalwendë said, and came in and shut the door behind her.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Can't a woman have her secrets?" she asked, and crossed to his bedside table to retrieve a wide-toothed bone comb that rested there. "This place is covered in dust, by the way."
"I was gone for a long time, Lalwendë," he said as she walked back from the table to the tub.
"You were a fool," she said, but the smirk on her face faded into shock when she looked down at the water. "Findekáno!"
"What?"
"You are sitting in a pool of sludge!"
"I am not! " he protested, and then glanced down at himself and realized that in fact, he was. The vigorous scrub he had given himself had turned the water grey and black from grime and ash and blood. "Oh, Eru," he moaned, "I wet my hair in that."
"All right, then," Lalwendë said. "Get up. Get out. We can wrap you in a dry cloth, and we will bring in fresh water, and then you can get back in the tub and Amdis can set your wrist while I work on your hair, and then we shall see to your ankle and your other cuts and bruises."
"But I - !" Findekáno protested. Lalwendë fixed him with a look that was so like his grandfather it frightened him, and he fell silent.
"Good," she said. "Come on, then. No use waiting any longer."
Once he managed to clamber out of the tub and sit on the bed, wrapped from the waist down in a dark towel, his atarnésa went to work. In a matter of minutes, the tub had been emptied by dumping it out of the large window next to his bed, rinsed out, and then refilled with several kettles' worth of hot water from the kitchens; he felt terrible for rousing so many servants from their beds but he could see in their faces that they were glad he was back and in one piece. Once that was done, Lalwendë helped him into this new bath and ordered him to wash himself again in the clean water while she fetched whatever was needed for his hair, and when she returned Amdis trailed behind her with a bowl of white plaster and a roll of fine porous cloth for bandages.
"You are far cleaner than you were," the apprentice healer said, and smiled. "I shall actually be able to bandage you without fear of infection."
"I feel more myself," Findekáno admitted. "Less like a half-wild beast and more like a prince again."
"Good!" Lalwendë said. "Now put that hand up on the side of the tub for Amdis to work on. But first, give your hair a good dunk under the water."
Findekáno obliged; when he rose up to a sitting position again his atarnésa had spread out a large number of things on the bed behind him. He spotted two different combs, a jar of something that looked like lard, and various bottles made of an odd dark glass he had never seen before.
"I am going to try and clean your hair first," Lalwendë said. "While Mistress Amdis gets your wrist wrapped. You shall have to stay still for the both of us. Once that's done, I've got a jar of some monstrously foul-smelling pork fat concoction that Írissë devised - it's got other things in it, herbs and spices, but it is horrible even if it works wonders - for softness and detangling. And then flaxseed oil for the braids."
"Flaxseed oil?" he asked her, propping his elbow on the edge of the tub so his wrist was upright. Amdis stood beside him and began to wrap his wrist and forearm and fingers in her cloth.
"It is not argan oil, but it will do. We can grow flax here, for linen and for food, and until our fields are useful we can barter with the Sindar."
"Did you say pork fat, earlier? We have hogs now?"
"I did, and we do not. Artaresto bartered for it somehow, though I did not know the Sindar knew what a hog was."
"Hm," Findekáno said, and flinched as Amdis's fingers found a particularly deep bruise.
"Hold still, haryon-nînya, " Amdis said, and gripped his forearm more tightly. "If I do not wrap this well, it will not set."
Findekáno nodded, and set his teeth and winced his way through the apprentice healer's ministrations. She hummed a low song as she worked, and he felt it settle into his skin; by the time she had used a pot of resin to fasten the bandage into place he was in far less pain.
"Thank you," he said, surprised, and she smiled at him.
"I will admit that I was testing myself more than anything - as I said, we have very few ideas of how well we can heal here on these eastern shores," she said. "But if you are aided by the song, that is encouraging. Now if you please, hold still - my plaster is at just the right consistency for me to coat the bandages in it."
"Do you need me to move?" Lalwendë asked. She had been sitting on a low stool behind Findekáno's head, working a soap that smelled of sharp herbs into his hair as Amdis had wrapped his wrist.
"No," the healer said, "you should be all right. And if any of this falls into the water, it will only destabilize."
"How lovely," Findekáno said drolly. "Plaster in my bathwater."
"You have no room to talk, o Lord of Sludge," Lalwendë remarked, and Amdis tried desperately to cover up a bark of surprised laughter.
"That was uncalled for," Findekáno remarked. "You'll make Amdis upend her entire bowl if you aren't careful."
"I have better nerves than that," the healer said, and started smearing the thick paste over her tightly-wrapped bandages. Lalwendë paused in her ministrations to the tangle of curls in her hands, and Findekáno grew silent and still so she could work. Amdis was fast, though he supposed she had to be to keep the plaster from hardening before she could finish; soon enough his arm was coated in white from fingertip to elbow.
"Do not get this wet, or it will all dissolve and we shall have to do it over again," she said, rising to her feet. "And once you're done in your bath, I will see to your ankle."
Findekáno groaned. "If you must," he said.
"I must," Amdis replied. "Your father ordered it."
"Then we will make all haste here," Lalwendë said. It was a dismissal, and the healer knew it. She bowed deeply at the waist, her bowl of plaster held to her chest, and left the room. Once the door shut behind her, Findekáno sighed and leaned back against the tub as Lalwendë resumed her work on his hair.
"Finally," he murmured. "Maybe I can talk her out of wrapping my ankle. Once I get out of this tub I just want to go to - I want to see Russo."
"I cannot say I blame you," Lalwendë said, her hands very near his head now. "How long have the two of you been married?"
Findekáno had been bracing his uninjured leg at an angle so he could recline with more or less his entire body into the water. At his atarnésa's question, though, he started so violently that his foot slipped. His body slid forward, his head slammed against the wood and iron that rimmed the tub, and he would have dropped his newly-plastered wrist into the bathwater if Lalwendë hadn't seized him by the upper arm and by the hair and hauled him upright.
"How - ?" he gasped, and coughed up water. "How did you - ?"
"How did I know?" his atarnésa asked.
"Yes!" he demanded indignantly. "We - I, at least - have been so very careful!"
Lalwendë burst into low laughter and resumed her work on his hair once she was satisfied his wrist was dry. "Careful? You have transformed from a bright, easy youth into a frightfully skittish thing that flinches at eye contact and jumps at shadows. Maitimo has never been one for looking at anyone in the face, but you?"
"Oh," Findekáno said. He was blushing fiercely.
"Even those of us who have not married are not fools," Lalwendë continued. "Your father is especially not a fool."
"My father knows ?" Findekáno said, sitting up and splashing water and yanking his hair out of Lalwendë's hands.
"He will if you keep shouting about it," she replied. "Get back over here or you'll be dealing with mats for the next yén. "
"Fine," Findekáno moaned, and returned to his former position. "Are - are you going - ?"
"You are a grown nér ," Lalwendë told him matter-of-factly. "It is no one's business who you marry save your own."
"But I am a Crown Prince of the Noldor!" he said, looking up at her. "I am answerable to my people and my family and my King!"
She raised a thick eyebrow. "Considering how our former Crown Prince behaved…"
Findekáno winced. "You have a point," he admitted. "But frankly I would rather not imitate Fëanáro."
"I would say you are succeeding. After all, it is not your half-brother who was pierced by your sword."
" Lalwendë !" he cried, but she was laughing at him.
"You assume that just because I am unmarried I am an innocent, nephew. This is most certainly not the case."
"But - you - !"
"Oh, all right," she said, and her fingers were massaging his scalp. "I will not jest about this if you are so affronted."
"I am," he answered, and the hurt in his voice was evident. "It - I - I only want -"
"You want your father to know, and your family to celebrate, and your people to rejoice with you," she said softly. "You wish for us all to take joy in this moment."
"It is not something to jest about," he said.
"Tell that to your mother and her reams of absolutely filthy blank verse dedicated to your father."
"I am going to pretend I did not hear that."
"I think that very well might be the best decision you ever made."
"But. But no, it - we were - what we had was special. Sacred, almost."
"Sacred?"
"You will think I am a fool, perhaps, but - but in the darkness, with his arms around me? I… I was drowning in love, from all sides. I came closer than I ever have to glimpsing the heart of the Allfather. And now - !"
"Now I am making bawdy jokes about the best thing that ever happened to you?" Lalwendë asked gently.
"Yes."
His atarnésa bent down to press a gentle kiss to his forehead, as she had when he was very young and staying at his grandfather's great house.
"Poor Findekáno," she said, and he could tell she meant it. "You have a long and hard road ahead of you, I fear. I've finished with the soap, by the way - give your head a good dunking and I will see what I can do with this concoction that Írissë swears by."
He obeyed her, closing his eyes and propping his arm up on the rim of the tub; once he was out of the water and the soap ran in rivulets down over his shoulders, she guided his head back once more and started to attack the knots and mats in it with a comb and good handfuls of the lard-and-herb smelling detangler.
"What am I going to do, Lalwendë?" he asked.
"Do? Why, nothing, at least for right now," she answered. "Your father knows you are hiding something, though he thinks you were taken captive yourself and managed to escape with Maitimo."
"What?"
"He sent me in to find out if you had indeed been made a thrall," she said. "He is very worried for you."
"I am not a thrall, I promise."
"Well, no, that much is clear by looking at you. And I will tell him so. What you do after that is your own choice. But truthfully, Findekáno? I would do nothing. Be your old self, as much as you can. Guard your thoughts, and keep them close, and those who see your eyes will know you are wedded but will not know to whom."
"And what good does that do me?"
Lalwendë fixed him with a stare. "You were absent for months, and believed dead, and returned out of the north from Angamando with many injuries. Rumors will fly that you were indeed enslaved, and - !"
"And they will assume that my marriage is a product of my imprisonment," he realized.
"Exactly."
"And they will not ask questions, for fear of offending me or opening a wound."
"You see my aim clearly," she said, and he bit back a yelp as a particularly stubborn knot finally yielded to his comb. "I wouldn't go looking at everyone you meet? As Crown Prince you can certainly avoid gawking at the other lords and the common folk. But family will either guess at the truth or will politely abstain from speculating in your presence. And it would not hurt to drop a few hints, either."
"This is a good idea," Findekáno told her, and she smirked.
"I know. All my ideas are good. Now hold still and let me work."
Nearly an hour later, Findekáno was out of the bath, his hair wrapped in a towel and his body wrapped in a blanket, and Amdis was putting the finishing touches on a second plaster-and-bandage cast for his shattered ankle.
"You will want a crutch," she said, "but in the morning I am sure one of our craftsmen will make you one. For now, you need a cup of - !"
"If you say ' tea, '" Findekáno said, "I will scream."
"Scream away, haryon-nînya, for you need ránelet tea in you, and quickly."
Findekáno made a face, and winced, and groaned, but at last acquiesced. "To the kitchens it is, then," he said, and it was not a pleasant prospect to be suddenly in the midst of the bustling activity that he himself had caused. "Damn."
"You are not walking anywhere on that ankle," Amdis said sharply. "You are getting into bed, and doing your best to relax, and I will fetch your tea for you and then, Estë-willing, I will get some sleep myself."
Suddenly, Findekáno was incredibly guilty - he had roused his whole household out of slumber, and for nothing that could not have waited until morning, and he had the gall to be annoyed by their attentions. He looked at Amdis, shamefaced and humbled.
"Thank you," he said earnestly. "Truly."
"You are welcome," she said, and smiled at him faintly. "It… it is good to know you are safe, and know you have not perished." She straightened up, and bowed at the waist, and made her way to the door. The latch turned easily, and bright torchlight poured into the room from outside.
"Leave the door open?" he asked, and she nodded to him as she stepped into the hall.
"I will," she said. "Do try and avoid doing anything foolish until I have returned?"
Findekáno smiled faintly. "I shall do my best," he answered. "Or I shall attempt it, anyway."
"That is all I ask," Amdis said, and stepped back into the hall, only to collide with another dark-haired elf, a nér clad in loose-fitting shirt and trousers of undyed linen who had been walking with great purpose.
"Excuse me!" he said sharply, and Findekáno's heart leapt in his chest at the sound. It was his younger brother, Turukáno, bleary-eyed and rough-voiced.
"Oh!" Amdis cried, flinching. She turned and bowed very quickly, and straightened again. "I am very sorry, my lord, I - !"
"What in the Halls is going on?" Turukáno demanded. "There is a funeral at sunrise, and some of us are attempting to get at least a little rest before we are expected to hold vigil all day."
"But my lord Turukáno - !" Amdis answered, only to be interrupted again.
"I meant to tell my father that the shroud I have spent the last week embroidering is finished, only to find every lamp in this place lit and half the household darting about like headless hens! Did we all agree without me to forego any sense of somber mourning, or must I drag us back to grief single-handedly?"
"Oh, will you leave poor Amdis alone?" Findekáno snapped. "It is not her fault that you were so disturbed, it was mine - if you must blame anyone at all, blame your brother!"
But Turukáno did not blame him. Indeed, Turukáno did not say anything at all, instead staring at him as the blood drained from his face and left him unnaturally pale.
"Finno?" he asked at last, as if he barely believed his own eyes. "Is… is it really…?"
"Yes," Findekáno said, and he realized he was on the edge of shedding yet more tears. "It is really me."
Turukáno gave a pained cry, and he stumbled forward into the bedroom and threw his arms about his brother. They were both weeping now, clinging to one another despite Amdis's admonishments to be careful of ankle and wrist.
"I…" he said at last, drawing away from Findekáno and blinking back his own tears, "I am so sorry , onoro-nînya! "
"Sorry?" Findekáno said. "Whatever for?"
"For sending you to your death!" his brother said. "For my anger and my misplaced rage! Surely - surely it was my words that pushed you to such a rash decision!"
Findekáno shook his head, dismay rising in him. "No, Turvo," he said, and found himself wiping away the younger nér 's tears as if they were children again. "No, I would have gone even if you had been as kind as Ammë."
He could tell that Turukáno did not believe him, and yet his brother did not argue, instead pulling him into another tight embrace.
"I cannot believe it," he said at last. "I cannot. You - you are alive, you are here, I - how?!"
Findekáno laughed softly, drawing back from his brother and wincing at the weight his ankle was forced to bear.
"I can hardly believe it either," he admitted, and found he was crying once again.