Mornings felt like home already. A peaceful subterranean home that rang lightly far, far below with the sounds of hammers and the bellowing of furnaces. Sleep had eluded her once in this place underground, even in Thorin's bed.
I am home she told herself once when she woke in the dark, thinking herself back in some cave or forest-clad hovel on a crawling summer night. I am home, and in several days hence I will be a queen anointed.
.
When she woke again still half-dreaming of a forest at dawn, her eye curved open and squinted toward the floor. A canopy of stone that no light could penetrate hovered above, but like the forest itself, flashed with the slow-undulating light of the scones high upon on the wall, like sun moving through wind-blown trees. Their clothes, which had once been so alike in their dwarvish heaviness and travel-wear, were scattered haphazard over the chamber floor- his fur cloak and mail and sturdy blue tunic and trousers, her brocade skirts and petticoats and bodice in shades of rose and cream and pale green, and her chemise with its Lake-Town lace trim. Abed they gone unclothed entirely but for a few chaotic twists of bedding in the afterglow. In the morning the covers enveloped them more solidly for the fire's going to ash in the night, but he had not stirred from his molding tight against her, their warmth to each other a potent armor.
"Does the day call us yet?" she grumbled, partway lifted from a stubborn sleep. He kissed the twitching, beardless cheek, the rosy skin growing creamier each day. He lingered, knowing it pleased her to feel his beard on the un-shielded skin. How eagerly she welcomed his touch, her wordless quaking begging for more.
"It is too early still," Thorin murmured.
"Early? I can't even tell anymore." The cycles of day and night which had determined her time for years upon years, were out of sight, and out of mind. She rolled to her side on the pillow with her back to him and could feel his eyes looking down at her with a wolf's hungry predation. The proud swell of hips and lush, heavy thighs. She felt the dense weight of his hand on the small of her back through the sheet, his coarse chest brushing along her back, and setting the covering away giving each globe a thorough squeeze and light smack of calloused palm. Her tiny gasp of surprise made kindled a wonderful amusement.
"Thorin, what has possessed you?"
"Mahal has blessed me with a voluptuous bride to worship. There is no sorcery in your beauty. But magic…" He draped his arm loosely over her and pulled her to lay close to him once more. His mouth found the bronze-clad point of her ear, taking the metallic tinge on his tongue. "Oh there is magic."
Kisses fell swift against the nape of her neck once he had flung her loose braid up over the pillows and left it bare against his pursuit. Her bottom undulated lazily into the hard, furred expanse of his torso and in a single animal motion her hips were floored into the bed face-down by the press of his weight on her from behind, the clink of the bead fastening his temple braid falling over her shoulder. The plait moved over her skin, silken and serpentine over skin as he lay an arc of kisses across her shoulders and up and down the exposed nape of her neck. The kisses came swift, even clumsy in their rhythm with the unseen maneuvering of him under the covers that found his hand drawing itself close over a plump globe and downward still to curve from its underside into the crevice hidden beneath. A finger found the bud within its apex first. She drew her knee up toward her chest to widen herself to him, and await the thicker digit to find its rightful sheathe.
No sooner had he closed his thumb and forefinger lightly around the small pink button and rubbed it between the callused digits did the first timid rap at the door flutter through.
"The dogs only my love," she circled her hips upward against his weight, letting him enter the warm sheathe of her with a deep rumble of a sigh that indicated his pleasure, her own absorbed by the pillows.
The second, more impertinent knock wrung a disgruntled sigh from him and a reluctant withdrawal that left him briefly wincing in the most utter discomfort.
"It is your sister, Thorin. Balin is here to see you," the voice came through the door, unapologetic, so officious it was almost self-mocking. Thorin tossed his robe and loose trousers on crossly.
In the antechamber, Dis, in black, cut a severe figure for the knowing smile she wore. "Indeed, good morning, Thorin."
"At this hour, it best be worth hearing," Thorin grumbled, holding the bed-robe over the lower half of himself, his tunic backward, hair disheveled.
"Better I to disrupt you than another to face your wrath," Dis ribbed. She swept out of the room with the black train of her skirts trailing. A widow in her weeds, he lamented to himself, hoping the coronation might bring out a merrier shade to her clothing. When she was gone Balin strode in.
"The bearer of unfortunate news I'm afraid I am," Balin began apologetically. "The snow falls to the East quite fiercely. The envoy from the Iron Hills was stranded, their wagons too damaged to press on. Thorin Stonehelm and his mother have been forced to turn around and make for home. A small contingent riding leagues ahead continues though."
"A shame," said Thorin, offering Balin morning ale and cheese. "I would have been pleased to meet my cousin's son."
"Thorin? Is it ill tidings?"
Spying Balin sitting across the antechamber, Meisar closed the bed robe over her nightgown with a sudden flush of embarrassment. Balin, ever the diplomat, pretended not to notice.
"Only from the Iron Hills. It seems Thorin Stonehelm and his mother will not be attending the coronation. We never were much for driving in the snow," Balin laughed. "Not least until the Blue Mountains. What dreadful slopes they were!"
"Lamentable indeed. I would have also liked to look upon the son of a fine lord and brave warrior," Meisar hastened to remark. Tales of Dain Ironfoot had always been of a raucous quality amongst their kin, but the boy he left lingered on the back of her conscience like a stray hair that refused to lie down. She knew his position too well to say more on it without betraying her uncertainty.
"By the law of Durin's Folk, the boy is Thorin's heir," Balin placed his arm congenially over Meisar's, as if he could read her mind. "Until the queen is delivered of her own son, of course. He is a fine lad I am hearing."
"As I well understand, Balin. There is no need to apologize," she forced a smile in return. "It shall be an honor, Balin, to feast and confer your new title upon you upon the morrow's eve. It has been well-earned."
"Ugshar," said Balin, modesty pursing his lips under his beard. "Indeed. I suppose old age has its benefits."
"Come my sister. Our robes are completed for fitting," Dis said, returning. She took Meisar's hand and led her out of the chamber with some urgent if wizened intent.
"I should not much like the idea of Meisar regulated to queen dowager whilst Stonehelm's mother stands beside the throne and pulls the strings. I have heard she is as reasonable as Dain and only half as pleasant," Thorin lamented to Balin privately.
Balin placed the unfinished parchment in his hand. "The deed of regency. There is a clause. On the role of the queen, be it in the event of your passing, or even during your lifetime, should you choose it... or it become necessary. Your grandmother did not take much advantage of it, nor did your mother have the chance. As king, it is your right to invoke it though."
"Meisar, she is..."
"A woman very much plucked from the wilderness, who shall be queen in several days hence, and of one of the most powerful kingdoms in all these lands. Time will tell whether the duty will become her."
"I trust in her, Balin."
"As do I, lad." Balin slid the parchment across to Thorin. "She is your greatest treasure, Thorin. Do what you must to protect her."
.
In the evening Thorin did not return from the council hall, not even to join her at supper. By night the doors to the hall were still sealed and guarded. Meisar and Dis played dice until the hour of sleep came and went, another hour over and then another. Griet and Bertha unlaced her stays and hung her clothes in the armoire for her, let her hair out of its braids and went about their usual squabbles over who would comb it for her. She sat blankly at the vanity and watched for the movement of the door in the mirror. Thorin loved to comb her hair before bed. He would unpin the braids and kneel behind her to un-plait them, then one strand at a time comb the orange hair that was below her knees. And she would in return do the same and spread the natural oils from scalp to tip with his own bristled instrument and finish with the jeweled comb, until the tingle in his scalp from the thorough massage made him sigh and wish to retire altogether.
The maidservants left when they had completed her night braid, their efforts rewarded with several good coins each from her own purse. They might with it buy a pair of shoes or a new mantle, a brooch even.
Thror had rewarded the lowliest of his servants so, in coin and jewel and praises, enough that his madness could not steal their love away from him.
She went to bed alone that night and let the candles and the fire burn out on their own. When at last the door opened and light flooded from the antechamber in dim slivers through the bed curtains she sat up quietly in bed and put a candle to the dark from her bedside.
The curtains drew back and setting the candle aside so swiftly she almost dropped it Meisar threw her arms indelicately around Thorin's shoulders. His frigid fingertips brushed at the back of her neck holding her steady to him there to kiss. She nestled back into the sheets as he undressed, slipped quietly into his sleep-shirt and then into bed.
"You are so cold." She wove her fingers into his and kissed him about the knuckles. "Have you been outside the mountain?"
He did not answer.
"I must go to Dale on the morrow," he said finally as she was drifting quietly to sleep.
.
He began to stir and thrash in the wee hours, a set of motions ever so subtle in their violence that nonetheless never failed to wake the dwarrowdam sleeping at his side. She squeezed her palm into his elbow to calm the tremor of his sword-arm, following the path of forearm when it did not cease and clutching her fingers into his at the end. Resting her head behind his, on a pillow of his chaotically fanned hair, she let soft breath trickle over the peak of his ear, a sleep-garbled murmur of some comfort or another.
Thorin's breath stuttered and wrenched him awake.
As soon as she had draped her arm over him from behind his hand closed around hers so hard the bones tweaked, a hand he opened his fingers for only to swiftly press to his heart. The sheen of sweat at his chest slickened the coarse hair against her palm. She let down her head from where she had supported it on a bent wrist to rest against his own to rest atop his own, pressing his cheek down to the pillow.
"Gundabad filth that have slain my kin!" he growled into the pillow so hard the velvet trembled.
"They are gone, the foul creatures. Vengeance has been done," she soothed.
"I dearly wish not to be haunted by such things when I must rise at break of day," he grumbled, calming reluctantly.
"And what summons you ere break of day?"
A sullen heave of breath left him. "Bard. Those arriving for the coronation have overwhelmed his city. It seems Dale is stuffed to its gills in dwarves and cannot provide for half of them." A soft, low chuckle rumbled in the dark from his chest. "I care not if the bargeman is tearing his hair out. But for the sake of our own, I will wrangle a solution to the matter. I must."
She could feel his lips curve up against her skin, pensively, and settle again in a straight line against the ridge of her shoulder bone. "I would not leave when there is as much to see to here as anywhere."
"And why do they not simply come to the mountain immediately? It is their home, not Dale."
"It was your home once," Thorin murmured.
Meisar turned and lay on her stomach with the pillow hugged under her head and shoulders, neck laid sideways to face him.
"I do not have an answer for that, I'm afraid," he admitted finally. "It is not quite as the grand occasions of old were, it seems. Alas, were I to return to this kingdom and rule the world my grandfather ruled, much would be different, perhaps not for the better." He skidded the tip of his nose over the scar between her eyes, catching the edge of one brow, its touch coarse but light. "Still, I must do as I duty calls me. And sleep a bit before I do, one hopes."
Laying a pillow over her bosom for his head to rest more comfortably upon urged him silently to rest there. Drawing fingertips across his shoulder blades until he slept again she sat awake and measured the beats of his heart as they slowed through his skin, even when it settled with him releasing her fingers from his the clasp of his own.
"Izlif," she said, more a command than a soothing reminder. "I am here with you. And you will rule a better kingdom than has ever been seen."
.
"It curls a little at the ends you know," Meisar observed in the morning, swiping the comb through the end of a single lock of Thorin's hair, watching the end bounce back and coil in the slightest. He had slept soundly the rest of the night, to her relief.
Gathering the hair back so it poured lustrous and dark over his shoulders she surveyed it briefly before selecting a thick strand from which to make his braid anew from its fraying state.
Thorin dressed quickly in a lighter coat of mail than would befit battle but heavier than a meeting of allies might call for. Across the foyer of the city they went briskly toward the gates, together, past masons still hard at work building sections of long tables, one piece at a time carrying them into the Great Chamber of Thror where the coronation feast would be celebrated.
"More tables! Fifty chairs more! A dozen for the arses of men to sit! More wood!" their voices bellowed. Merchants on small wheeled carts moved among them, serving food and drink. When Thorin stopped to briefly observe upon the scene from the stair, in his eyes swelled a gaze of unbridled pride. We take care of our own.
Dozens of dwarves in as many groups were entering through the tall, arched gate ahead of them, red-nosed from the cold, carrying themselves proudly in their finest extant garments, cloaks of velvet and fine furs, thick loops of gold and jeweled chains about their shoulders fastening mantles of vair and mink. The smell of pine and oak rang a sharp, fresh aroma on the air, a huge sled of fresh lumber drawn by a team of a six horses large enough for men to ride pausing at the gate, set upon by the woodcutters and carpenters in a great rush. They halted their work as Thorin appeared on the balcony overlooking the foyer, bowing on bent knee each and hailing him in a rain of voices that echoed from the stone walls above the front gate and bounced, thundering like falling rocks in echo from the highest point of the ceiling itself.
At the head of the stair, he lifted her chin with the tips of his fingers, all the lightness of his touch still as commanding. "I shall miss every moment I am away from my queen." With it he kissed her, assuredly in each of their sights, lingering in the warmth of her mouth. "Let them see, my darling, how great and true the love is I bear you." A light swoop delivered another kiss to her mouth. "I shall lay with you tonight, should the matter be resolved swiftly."
She stood on the belvedere and watched the modest train depart over the bridge below, their ponies armored even for the briefest of journeys. Already the beacons above the gates of Dale were being lit in anticipation of their arrival. Thorin rode a black pony whose flanks gleamed like shined boots, Dwalin beside him. Both ponies wore light armor along with their riders, several kings-guard following behind and to their flanks also mounted and girded, bearing the royal standard of the Line of Durin.
Over on the edges of Dale the ground seemed to stir with the movement of a thousand or more dwarves, wagons and camps clustering. They moved in and out of the city gates freely. Like the days of old. It was winter but she could almost smell the parched hot air and sun-baked tiles of the summer dog days, when dwarves moved as freely between each city. She moved closer to Dis, who had come to join her in watching the envoy make its way toward the city of men. In rubies and a calotte that curved upward from her hairline in a rounded wire frame she looked half a shadow, in raised silk of a deep rich umber but a breadth lighter than the onyx of her fur over-gown and sleeves several layers deep over the muted under-sleeves of burnished sandstone. The movement of the fabric on the biting wind gave her the look of a darker, more ether-natural figure, than the princess whose gentle maternal smile fell upon her again.
"So many dwarves. Bard may be rightful in concern," Meisar remarked toward her, squinting against the city of her birth. It might as well have lain a thousand leagues away.
"You know, they come to see you as much as the king himself," Dis said. "Words of great curiosity float throughout this city."
"I would think it a greater curiosity that Thorin has returned from a proverbial grave to be king again."
"To tell you the truth," Dis replied, prudently. "I think the people desire a queen as much as a king. At least those who remember the last king under the mountain."
.
"Are the beacons lit? The gates open? Do you see anybody coming out?" Meisar asked. Her eyes had gone soft from being under the mountain so long, but Oliada's were still like a hawk's. The wind flicked at them both from the south, blowing their cloaks back. Oliada's spear tinkled ominously at its decorated tip. Meisar shivered but Oliada as always stood stiff as a board.
"He should be returning by now," she confided to the sentry, not bothering to hide her need or her disappointment.
"None," the sentry replied, and squinting to her side turned and bowed with a shy smile toward a Blacklock in lacquered armor coming toward them.
"Raven. Message for queen." He had a stilted quality to his Khuzdul and common tongue alike, like Oliada. The coming dark and the spill of shadows over them from the spurs that flanked the front of the gate rendered her as good as blind.
Oliada read aloud to her. "King lodge in Esgaroth until morrow breaks. Bain, the Master of Laketown, summon him urgent. Same influx cause burden to men. King ask that Meisar queen proceed with banquet for Mister Balin. He send apology to each." She rolled the scroll back up inside-out, handed it back to the other Blacklock. "Does queen have message?"
"Tell the king I shall uphold his wishes of course," Meisar offered the sentry. "And please, do take the same you have brought here to Balin." He absorbed wordlessly, made for the guard-post against the shadows of the evening sun, swiftly, sending a separate sentry efficiently to Balin's stead.
"Keep rookery at Ravenhill," Oliada explained, watching after the black-haired dwarf with the flinted eyes and tattooed face like hers. "My kin he is, swift and smart like the birds he tend."
"And what of your kin besides?"
"Gone," Oliada replied, almost tersely. "Two guards at Ravenhill who keep watch my tribe but not brother or cousin to me. Kin still?"
"Kin is what we define it as. Some say all dwarves are kin to each other, regardless of tribe," Meisar pontificated quietly. With Oliada beside her, she crossed the foyer ahead of a group of dwarves coming through the gate, Broadbeams, in their sturdy dark wool cloaks and beards heavy with plain metal adornments, the un-ostentatious dignity of the Blue Mountains' nobler circle, which memory of an older time still served.
"And what of kin to my queen?" Oliada's brows perked sharply toward her.
"They dwelt in Dale once," Meisar answered. "As did I, as a very young girl."
"I see," said Oliada, knowing.
"It is not the city I was born into," she continued when the silence became unbearable. "It was full of jewels and spices and bright colors. What I can remember at least."
"Black and hard like bowman Bard the city now. Dwarves call it so."
"Gray," she countered quietly. "Gray like after the fire." She closed her eyes and could see the umber stone as austere as Dis's dresses.
"M'queen?"
Meisar turned her head away from the view from the wide gate, still open and guarded on either side, the sun going down behind the shadows of Dale and night spilling into the mountain.
"Ash is ash, and fire takes a long while to rise from it again," she concluded, hopeful, her own words feeling too cryptic on her tongue, but Oliada seemed to understand, and she said none further. Merchants dipped their heads and issued "athune" as she passed each by, clad as simply as any of the merchant-wives in a plain cloak. The dwarves newly arrived were drawn like flies to the nearest carts to inquire, as their eyes turned clandestine and disbelieving toward the back of her head.
"Thorin's bride, the queen, that shall be upon the coronation day," she heard one merchant reply. The merchants had seemed to develop a genuine if slow-won affection for her, oft as she and Dis visited their stalls and carts, but the tone he now shared with the other dwarves was a reluctant lament, a more or less open secret constantly bracing itself to be revealed, again and again.
"Bless my beard. For she has none," one elderly Broadbeam said aloud, a tone that carried more lamenting than spiteful.
"What sorcery is this?" the single dwarrowdam amongst their cadre whispered to another, strings of jewels woven into a beard that reached her belly. "Is the king still mad?"
Yet they acknowledged her with polite bows and civil words of greeting as she passed, and Meisar summoned a dignity however desperately it wished to bury itself in shame, to offer them welcome one by one, in spite of the stubborn bile of hurt lodged in her throat. They seemed to appraise her, as a merchant looking to purchase a beast of burden for their carts might ascertain its quality and strength. Whether they found it she could not easily read in their faces, a bit of dwarvish reticence even amongst their own.
"M'lady is queen. Good queen. Soon they see," Oliada assured, edged with a quiet indignity.
"The only queens this mountain has ever known were not really known at all. They hid themselves away. Was that the definition of a good queen? Is it still?"
"They see good queen or blind they are. Good queen may Durin bless with beard," Oliada repeated. "Good enough without still."
.
Balin greeted her cheerily at the door of his home when she arrived with Oliada.
"I dispatched a sentry with the message but I thought it best to come here myself. I am sorry," she said to Balin. "It seems fitting he should be there but..."
He bent over and kissed her hand, quieting her protest. "A king's duties will keep him. It is of no insult to me."
"Thorin has sent me in his stead to confer the honor," Meisar offered, still chafed that Thorin was kept by his duty, from her as well as Balin. Her affection for the old dwarf had kindled with a depth that rendered Thorin's absence half an insult to her as well. His serene smile soothed her worries and the crease at her brow relaxed.
"I shall be as honored as if were the king himself, my lady. My queen."
.
In Tania's Hall, where Thorin and Meisar had celebrated their wedding feast, a celebratory time came again and lit the rivulets of sapphire upon the wall in flickering light that made them undulate and flow like tiny rivers. In places where everything, from tapestry to the carvings into the stone itself had a sharp, concise geometry to it the sapphire swirls were chaos. A beautiful chaos, pure and unfiltered. Like the bride last feted here had been.
Balin on the other hand donned maroon with borders edged in small, sharp chains of silvery embroidery, formal but not too formal. Meisar ceded the seat of honor to him, against his protests. She would have rather sat by Dis anyway. The princess's eyes were bleary again from ale and tears. A plate of fresh goat cheese and grape had revived her a bit, but Meisar still urged the young steward away from offering her any ale until the pork pies were served. Each of the dwarves that arrived offered her their graces, her staid, dignified countenance never failing her in their presence. The thirteen that had endeavored the quest to reclaim Erebor came with their kin and four more dwarves that she had not seen before- Floi, Frar, Nali and Loni they were called- conferred familiarly with Balin for a long while before they were seated.
The first round of ales had been poured by the time the door flew open to the surprise of all, and Dwalin entered the hall still in his outer cloak and mail.
"Thorin sent me, to be here with ye," Dwalin shrugged off his cloak, half-flinging it at the steward that was standing closest to him. He bowed his head politely to Meisar. "Is Freyda...?"
"I expect her, Dwalin. She'll be along soon with any luck," Meisar assured. Dis switched her seat to Meisar's opposite side so Dwalin could sit beside his brother, and left a seat empty between herself and Dwalin.
The sound of the door opening again made Dwalin's head turn up with an eager gaze. The gaze dropped back to his hands, clasped on the table before him, when he saw it was only Bombur, in his wheeling pre-ambulater, pushed by a red-cheeked Donbur and assisted by four exhausted stewards. Wheeled over with all the swiftness they could muster, he greeted Meisar with an engulfing embrace.
"You've come, Bombur. I did not think you would."
"All the company who've taken this mountain back are welcomed. Though my cousin is nowhere to be seen, Bofur's brought his flute and myself the drum. We've come to play a tune or two in Mister Balin's honor. And to eat of course!"
Thick slices of pork pie with onions, carrots and a crust so hot and flaky it melted on the tongue were brought first, with winter ales and a light soup of leeks and broth to cleanse the palette.
With intent slowness, Dwalin nursed the soup, the ale with greater diligence. The doors opened thrice to a look of unbridled anticipation, welcoming Nori, then two pairs of Bombur's girls. Freyda, inelegant and sweat-drenched the last he had beheld her, was dressed in lightly-patterned silk damask of a minty shade, with the borders of a rose-pink chemise visible across her neckline and at the dainty cuffs of her inner sleeves, braid worn slung over her right shoulder.
In the sight of all the dwarves Dwalin rose and proffered her his forearm at the door, Freyda's own, for its savage strength beneath the silk, looking very much dainty in the crook of Dwalin's elbow. Only when they were seated did she slide her arm downward and link fingers into his, under the table. He brought her hand to rest on his knee and placed his on top. Freyda's braided hair and carefully-tended beard as always were her pride second to her forge. Ori sat sketching her across the table, only a little portraiture on a spared piece of parchment. Nori without Siv returned to teasing him relentlessly, Dori offering hovering encouragement to the minuter details of his work, swatting Nori over the head when he dusted under Ori's nose with a white dove's-feather he pulled from out of his coat.
Bira finally made her way up to the hall, a single grandchild rambling about her feet, Nifur's son, who had been married so long ago on a sticky summer night. Meisar had only been the size of the dwarfling then, barefoot and itchy in a borrowed dress.
"Poor Lagert's laid up with a bit o' the gout," Bira lamented. "All the more to enjoy my time with this little one." The dwarfling put his arms up toward her to be held.
"He reminds me of you. You used to wave your arms and jump about just like he does, when you wanted to be held. You made such a funny sound, like a cricket your voice was so high for a little dwarf's. And now that solemn little child that warmed herself by our bread-ovens shall be the queen we bend our knee to," chirped Bira, proudly. The dwarfling reached for Bira's elaborate coiffure and Bombur lifted him away, roping the great braided beard over the child in a lasso, making him laugh.
"Oh Bombur, I would sincerely wish you not to try. Your leg must pain you still," Meisar urged him.
Bombur's shoulders rose up and plunked down, along with his chins. "Well worth the effort, Meisar. I tell you, so long as I have a good war story or two, I may be comfortable resting upon my laurels. And indeed crushing them to bits."
"They crush the dried ones to make soaps in Dale. Now there is a business venture for you, Bombur," giggled Brynja.
"A fine idea indeed, though I pity the sod who will have to pluck them from under me," Bombur chuckled and then sighed. "A rest is good enough for me now. In my robuster days I mustered enough anger to charge into battle over missing my breakfast. As for the king… well, I suppose you know by now. There is enough in him to be angry about that is certain," Bombur summoned a second slice of pork pie from the serving-girl. "But tempered with a bit of happiness, maybe it shan't rule him. He has my little runt now for that. And I pray you are as happy as he."
"I am happy," Meisar beamed, her head tilted downward in the stubbornly shy way. "We have all of us come a long way from the Blue Mountains." She squeezed Bombur's hand, twice the size of her own easily, and looked down the length of the table, at the dwarves lining up to offer Balin their good wishes.
"The ceremony is to begin. Would you care to say a few words, Meisar? In Balin's honor?" Dis whispered to her, her hand heavy on hers. Her cup was empty again.
Her lips were still moving with the half-formed ideas of her words, when she rapped her knife against the side of her goblet and called the raucous hall into silence. When she rose the dwarves dipped their heads in unison, Bombur's winking at her and Bira's kind glance easing her nerves.
"In the stead of my husband the king, I, Meisar, have the honor to present Balin, son of Fundin, with the title of Ugshar, for the great service he has done unto this kingdom, unto his people. Upon the road that led us home I made a friend of this dwarf, a wise friend... a..." The eyes of all gathered there in the hall stared unblinking at her when she stumbled over her words. "A... wise councilor in matters of a breadth I did not expect. His lips have never uttered an unwise word I dare say. Nor an untruth. Balin, I give you this ring so that your honor shall be known to all dwarves."
The steward presented the carved box on a velvet pillow toward her. Meisar slid the ring inside onto Balin's forefinger. Tears welled in the old dwarf's eyes as the hall erupted in cheers and hoots. When he looked at Dwalin, his younger brother's eyes were smiling, and his hand was rested on top of Freyda's on the tabletop. A tear dropped into his beard and formed a tiny rivulet and Meisar requested the attention of the dwarves again, holding onto Balin's hand.
"It is given, this title, by decree of the king," she concluded. "To Balin, son of Fundin. May Durin bless your beard."
When they were seated again Balin rested his hand kindly, if heavily, upon hers. "I am as honored that Thorin would grant me the pleasure of your company this evening, my lady. After all, what greater honor is there than for a dwarf to share what is precious to him above all things with the closest of his kin? It is an honor beyond all honors."
"I still think it should have been postponed. When the business of the coronation is done and the attentions could be entirely for your sake. You deserve it and more," she said quietly.
"Duties will keep us from many of the pleasures we desire most, even the company of old friends on occasion. The dwarves that crowd about Dale and in Esgaroth, Durin's Folk or not, are in Thorin's care. He is the father of all of our people. And fathers rarely choose the path of sacrifice, but make it nonetheless."
"And what of queens?"
Balin sipped his ale thoughtfully. "As the king is the father, so is the queen the mother of the people. And though many are prone to regard the father as the bearer of wisdom, it is often the mother's instincts that work better in the service of governance." He put down his cup and sighed. "Especially when the king has erred in his wisdom before. A firm hand beside him is of no ill consequence."
"I will do all that I am-"
"In a few days' time, Meisar, you will be crowned as the queen consort of Erebor. In truth, you shall be his equal, a queen under this mountain, a sovereign in your own. It is Thorin's wish," Balin interjected quietly.
"His wish? But... how?"
"Because you are the only thing that makes him unafraid."
"And what if I too am afraid, Balin?"
Before he could answer the drum beat in a clumsy echo from the other end of the table. Bofur unpacked his flute beside his brother. Bifur was nowhere to be found but a single flute and a hearty drum were merry enough music on their own. Nifur's son swatted the bull-hide drum that Bombur lodged under his arm.
"Play music!" they began to call.
"Well now, I'll need at least some soup and bread in me before I exert myself on the drum. A wheel of cheese too, lad!" he requested to the passing steward. "For Donbur and I to divide between us of course," he laughed at Bofur and Brynja's disbelieving eyes as the steward heaved the wheel up upon the table before them.
"Alright then," boomed Bombur. "Save a bit for your old pa," he patted Donbur's head over the wheel of cheese. Four stewards struggled to lift him upright into his pre-ambulator and wheel him around the table to join Bofur in song.
The flute and drum beat rich with merriment from the walls and guided the first dance between Emli and Gloin, her skirts swirling, Gloin leading with a firm, proud hand, and Freyda, gazing over Balin's shoulder as they danced at Dwalin, his own eyes running over as uncannily as had ever been seen with affection. Gimli sat, bored, drinking what ale was left in his parents' cups, calling the steward to refill each including his own and repeating. Dis watched and sipped her ale and when her hand found Meisar's to pat she jumped a foot, disrupted from a jumbled train of thought.
"You've that troubled contemplation upon your face again, my dear," Dis counseled.
"He means to have me as his equal," she confided, quietly. "In the matter of ruling, that is. Thorin."
"He will need you. Thorin has rushed from one duty to the next, sunup to sundown and still there is ever more to do."
"You knew?"
"Of sorts," Dis replied cryptically.
"You should have told me. I know nothing of ruling, governing."
"But you know what is to lead. It is the same, really," assured Dis, her smile making the enigmatic commas at the corners of her mouth again.
"The queens of old did naught but hide themselves away. How would any know what is to be a queen in her own? And if they scorn me, my people, then what? Already I have heard whispers from dwarves come far and wide that some sorcery has possessed my husband to marry me. Even my own dark charms. They think him mad still. Where would that leave me, if..." she stopped, the thought too grim, too large, to speak of plainly.
"Some dwarves have no great trust in new things without a bit of time to get used to it. They'll have to. It is necessary and it is good. Why gracious, Thorin barely has time to think. But when he does, tell me, how does he… cope? He was never a sound sleeper."
"If you are asking what I think you are asking, and if I am to be put on such equal footing because it is thought to be so, then I think it a greater affront to his dignity than to my own," she said plainly.
Dis's slight, enigmatic smile turned itself half away from Meisar. "Thorin will have all of us at his side to advise him, to gently admonish him. As will you. Myself, Balin, Gloin, even Dwalin. I think even he has come around to you," Dis laughed laconically, scooting charmed eyes toward Dwalin. "So rarely has Dwalin ever left my brother's side. It was a crushing thing to him to think he would not be there ever again. Just how crushed he was I think he will never say. Not even to his lady. Nor would I utter it to her," Dis subtly nodded her fork in the direction of Dwalin and Freyda, seated across from each other, their expressions indicating the friction of feet pressing at each other under the table.
"My sister, I beg an answer only," Meisar pleaded, concealing a dark impatience.
"A game of footsie. Never would I have dreamed such a sight would bring me such gladness to look upon," Dis smiled. "It is good for him to love Freyda just as it has done Thorin well to have found you. One without its opposite is nothing. There is your answer."
"Then where does that leave you?"
"I don't know. But you will create a better world than has been, you and Thorin. A king and a queen together. And surely that is worth living for."
.
II
"Up! Up and awake my queen!"
Meisar threw the pillow she was wrapped around across the bed, all four of her limbs tangled about the cushion. At the foot of the bed stood Emli, efficiently drawing back the curtains from the cord there, manuevering as swiftly to her side to do the same with her covers. Griet and Bertha were relighting the fire on the other side of the room. The cold that rushed at her made her grimace.
"You'd rather myself than Aroin come to rouse you," Emli scolded, pulling the fur back that Meisar recovered herself with.
"Is she here?" Meisar yawned, dreading an affirmative.
"With the lady princess. Doing much the same, and having an even worse time of it."
Meisar paused, the knowledge cold like the air outside of her bed. "Let her sleep then," she commanded. Griet and Bertha together went on their way to inform Aroin, each with a look of dread, arguing with cold glares which one would utter it.
Emli prattled on, her movement efficient and constant. "A raven sends a message on the dawn-hour. The agreement has been reached by the king and the Lord of Dale and his son the Master of Laketown far over, that enough dwarves shall come into the mountain and shelter to alleviate the burdens upon their steads. And come they will, my queen. Droves upon droves! Come now, you must up and dress," Emli urged.
The chambermaids hastily helped her to ready as Emli outlined the duties of the day. "It is your task now Meisar to see to this influx and make certain of their comfort and provision. But I of course will be there to advise, gently."
"You led us home once. Now lead them. It is a shorter road, my lady, and free of orc-kind."
"It is our own that I am most afraid of, Emli."
.
A steady stream of dwarves came through the gates of Erebor in a long queue that stretched almost to the gates of Dale and beyond waiting to enter, paying the dwarrowdams above little heed despite the royal standard that was borne by the two sentries standing on either side of them. Meisar hugged against her the embossed extant coat of deep teal with a mantle of sable, her throat and wrists each bare of jewels (against Emli's protestations).
"Where will they go?" Meisar turned helplessly to Balin as the dwarves kept coming. The foyer was fast filling behind them.
"One of the lower halls perhaps," Gloin suggested.
"No," Meisar said immediately. "No, the lower halls are too cold and too far to carry their burdens, I think. Gror's Hall. It has many fireplaces. It will fit five hundred comfortably. And it is near the kitchens."
"An obscure manse, my lady," remarked Emli.
"Will it do?" Meisar's eyes flashed a dark gleam of uncertainty at her.
"It will be warm, well-lit and close to food and ale at all times. It is a curiosity why we do not utilize that hall more often," Emli beamed. "You are learning fast."
A ready army of guards and stewards went about their task in directing the flow of the newly arrived toward Gror's Hall. Meisar leaned over the railing and closed her eyes against the wind. Her eyes were still closed when she began to speak.
"Summon the heads of the great kitchens and of the stewards, the keepers of the cellars and the senior sentries. Summon them to the council hall. Tell them... Thorin's wife wishes to see them imminently."
.
In the council hall the fifty-odd bearded faces waited in reverent, if terse, silence, for her to speak. She did not sit in Thorin's chair but stood behind it. It still did not feel right, or real.
"Keep the fires burning at all hours in the hall," she instructed finally. "Make sure it is warm for all of them. Double up in the kitchens if you must. They will not go hungry. I will require twenty strong stewards to clear the storage vaults in the lower levels of all blankets, pallets, wash basins and cakes of soap for their use. My ladies and I will join in the distribution. The comforts of home are important. We shall show them how we take of our own."
.
"Seems an odd task for a queen. Or her ladies. Shouldn't the stewards be handling the liftin' and such?" Siv protested. Her eyebrows were drawn so tautly back in plaits that linked them to her hairline she wore a look of perpetual surprise almost constantly now.
"You did not join my court to sit upon your kakhaf and cover yourself in jewels, did you?" Meisar retorted, her edges seeming to gleam out.
"Fine. Can I at least cover myself in jewels though?" Siv pouted.
"Cover your shoulders, that'll do enough for today," Meisar threw her heavy coat over Siv's dress that dipped leaving shoulders to the swell of bosom nearly bare. "It is not a game today, Siv. I am to be queen and here I am, beardless and plucked from the wild, as they say. They even say I have seduced the king by sorcery. You must bear with me, I beg it of you."
"Fine. What ye want me to carry?" Siv relented.
"Soaps and picks for the hair and teeth here. Smoke for their pipes." She fixed the baskets to Siv's arms. "Try not to bend over too far."
.
The chaos in the hall ran loud enough to rattle the stone above. Meisar steadied herself against the railing high above, wavering forward and back.
"You alright?" Freyda offered a hand of support at her elbow.
"I am afraid for them not to love me," she confided in a voice that was only partly above a whisper. "Dis thinks they await a queen as eagerly as they do Thorin. But I think they shall be disappointed with what they see." If she shouted they would hear to the far end. She sucked in a long breath and plunged headlong, if warily, toward her duty.
"Kinfolk! Hear me!"
Her heart seemed to wrench to a standstill for a moment as the chaotic cadre of dwarves all turned toward the echo of her voice above the hall. "If it is… that you require provisions, of food, or blankets, or any of the comforts of home you may require, come forth here to me. They shall be provided, with our hospitality. Gladly see myself or my ladies. We shall come amongst you hence."
It is only right she assured herself, girded by her ladies, Oliada in her red armor and spear trailing behind them. If I am to be equal to the king my husband I will care for them equally, my people. My people...
Hurmul, it is in my deeds, not my naked jaw. Hurmul. Mahal preserve it. Mahal give me strength.
It took fifty or more sentries to haul what pallets and blankets could be found up to Gror's Hall and try to distribute them with some semblance of organization. The dwarves made camps in kinship groups small and large, some alone. The sentries lit the hearths one by one and the lanterns and sconces were lit, illuminating the hall that had been dark an hour ago warmly. Siv, Freyda, Brynja and Gyda walked behind Meisar with their baskets of provisions. Brynja was especially proud to dole toys from her own, Bofur's crafts, to the dwarflings, however few of them were amongst the crowds.
Meisar carried a tray of tall mugs filled with hot wine and cider, offering a drink to each she passed. Queen Lotte might have shut herself in her chambers. Dis may now even. But I am not Queen Lotte. And Thorin is not his grandfather.
Dwarves in the hall studied and stared and appraised carefully over their cups, some with greater reverence than distrust, others with a sort of unyielding disbelief, that the dwarrowdam who came among them, diminutive, pink-cheeked and beardless was their queen, trailed by ladies who were at least a bit more ostentatious in their dress. Her own, beneath the luxuriant sur-coat, was of plain make except for the contrasting sleeves of rosewood-and-cobalt damask. She stooped with a certain humble uncertainty with the weight of the tray, but it lightened quickly as one cup of hot mulled wine after the next was doled out. Time again it was refilled by the kitchen-wenches running about until she reached the end of the hall, her feet already sore, sharp with blisters under her pointed shoes.
A old dwarf half-blind leveraged himself on a walking stick to rise and meet the women bearing provisions, but Meisar placed a firm hand on his shoulder and bid him not burden his legs to stand, settling on her knees to see that he did not spill his cup on himself.
"A kind gesture, mistress dwarf And who might you be?" the old dwarf said.
"I am Thorin's wife."
"So the rumor is true then," the dwarf replied, un-seeing eyes widening, seeming to see enough to scope the beardless quality of her face.
"That the king has married?"
"News of his marriage was sent out by Erebor's own ravens, so to that, yes. But rumor had it the queen had no beard, and I did not believe that. I suppose I must believe it now. Here you are."
"I am what you behold, master dwarf."
"Well, being mostly blind I see little, but see I do you have beautiful red hair my lady if indeed you are beardless. It is lucky you know," the dwarf replied after a long considerate silence, managing a toothless smile. He took a long sip and smiled as the warmth settled in his stomach. "Your generosity is much appreciated in any case. Your majesty."
.
Hurmul- Honor
Ugshar- Title of Respect Given to Older Dwarf With Much Experience in Lore, War or Craftsmanship
Izlif- Sleep