AF-MAHD-DANAKH- Green Blessings Month (Sixth Month of the Year)
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The first day of the sixth month had brought many a petitioner to the presence chambers, disputing pay, requesting aid, reporting all manner of malfunctions and small kinks to work out in the forges and other places of industry- which required quick action and quicker funding, it seemed. Meisar sat early in the presence chamber with Thorin and his council, receiving the female petitioners, from the dwarf women jewelers and weavers to the fish-wives and brew-house wenches of Dale who were impatient for their needles, hooks, steel barrels and nails to arrive. Her 'afana had ended in the morning and the rich warm mineral comfort of the baths was still on her skin, less pleasantly greeted by the cooler air sweeping in, but it was no longer's winter dry, bitter breath.
A Blacklock in red armor entered and handed him a message rolled into a tight scroll, coming and departing without a word. Thorin seemed pleased by the message, whatever it was. Reading it brought a light in his eyes that was good to see first in the morning.
"Fair news?" Balin inquired.
"My cousin Thorin Stonehelm in the Iron Hills is eager to bring a delegation for an official visit. October seems fit."
"We will convey a message by raven later, when it can be confirmed," Thorin said, rising from his seat. "If one will convey a message to the rookery at once, write to my cousin of my exuberance for this proposal. I shall want to meet him very soon."
"October?" Meisar repeated.
"Aye, it seems about right. I expect a most mirthful meeting of our kin. The delegation that attended the coronation spoke very highly of you, my love," Thorin relayed affectionately. "For all that the young lord Stonehelm is to me, I am certain he will be eager to meet my queen also."
"Then I am obliged to reward his curiosity," Meisar answered, summoning what geniality could be feigned convincingly.
If they cannot be honest, even to their king and kin, why should I be? Why should I when it will only hurt?
Mid-morning the council was granted reprieve, except for Thorin and Balin, who remained to take care of the last petitioners. Orders for work and amenities were coming to Meisar's desk in her own chambers from dwarves newly arrived in Erebor. She focused her mind on the lists for soaps and combs, blankets, new mattocks and hammers for their work. Bofur and Brynja had given shelter to a small kinship group from the East of the Ironfist tribe, who had arrived with nothing, and she had begged that the queen's household spare something for their succor.
She never could deny Brynja. Sometimes her kindness, her naive optimism was enviable.
"They're not as cheery as we Broadbeams or as fond of camaraderie, but I think they shall learn. I hope," Brynja had said, buoyantly.
Emli blustered in after her, in her intent mood again. "I have heard news of the Iron Hills envoy returning in the autumn. Will they spend Durin's Day here? It'll be quite an expense if they do."
"October, Thorin thinks. A raven only came this morning. News travels fast I see," Meisar answered, tight-mouthed.
"On the Iron Hills visit then, I've a plan you might be of assistance to me with, my queen," chirped Emli, though pointedly. "Gloin and I have discussed the news at length breaking out fast, and have agreed, that one matter is of the utmost diplomatic importance should this meeting come to be."
"Stonehelm's inheritance?" Meisar intoned.
"Inheritance? What inheritance?" Emli all but squawked.
"Is he not named successor?" Meisar questioned, her tone causing Dis to look up form her embroidery, a great tapestry that she and Aroin had set themselves to making.
"It is your firstborn that shall be heir," Emli insisted righteously. "When it comes. Stonehelm's position is but a formality I assure you."
A supreme confidence about Emli had put Meisar moderately at ease in the moment.
"The niece by marriage of the late Dain Ironfoot, is sixty-eight years of age and famed for her maidenly qualities. Her refinement is said to be… uncommon, for the Iron Hills. I am told she cuts the meat from the bone with a fork and rarely belches. Imagine! She will accompany the young lord and his mother with their retinue," Emli continued.
"I have heard so much of this Stonehelm lad and now I have a beautiful young cousin to contend with also?" Meisar said defensively.
"It's not to do with you, majesty. I am sorry to have offended indeed. It is only that, if Gimli were to be encouraged, or placed intentionally say, into her company, it may be of good service to the kingdom."
"Gimli is far too young to marry," Aroin blustered an interjection.
"Marriage? Of course not. Well, not now anyway. Forty-odd years he'll be ripe for it. Mayhap twenty even. It would not hurt to encourage initial acquaintance though, now would it?"
"I suppose not," Meisar shrugged, too tired to protest. Aroin glared daggers at her, plunging needle into the taut banner and tugging it sharply up again in tightening her stitch.
Emli made a small sound of satisfaction for the lack of discouragement the queen offered. "We must consider the diplomacy at hand. It is a craft like any other. The Iron Hills will be very important in the years to come whatever the future may bring, and our relations must rest on a solid foundation. What is more solid than marriage? Gloin and I bring noble lineage to the table in addition to our other talents; it is a chess piece like any other to procure a future for it."
"Perhaps Aroin could be offered as a bride then," Dis smirked.
Aroin scowled. "Offered? I am no sack of wheat or pack animal!"
"Nay, but we could trade you for one of those," Emli quipped.
"A marriage cannot be brokered as such. No dwarf would ever consent to such an arrangement were it not wholly desired," Meisar reminded them before Aroin's choked, wordless retort could form itself into a full-blown bout of the two pecking at each other with small insults.
"But to encourage it would be no foul. The welcoming banquet... see to it that they are seated in each other's vicinity. For starters, that might-"
"There may be no chemistry between them at all for all you know," Meisar suggested harshly, which caused Aroin to sit back into her seat and fold her arms smugly toward Emli, who was silenced disagreeably.
"Good gracious, Meisar. I have seen that poor solemn lady fade away so under this mountain, and now that hardened shepherdess, she returns with such a vengeance," Emli complained.
"Nothing can be forced, Emli. Not even in the interest of love," Meisar said forlornly.
"And what are you so forlorn so, my queen?"
"I think it is only my 'afana. It leaves me sore sometimes."
"Is it at an end? We only just took to the baths," Eda piped up. "I could fix you some herbs to ease the last vises."
The comment was followed by the door flinging open and Freyda rushing in creating such a wind that it was no longer stuffy, at least for a moment. The dogs leaped from Brynja's lap with such force her skirts were flung up over her knee. Dis's own pup curled, blanching, into the princess's lap, grumbling.
Freyda rushed past their jumping and yowling at her. "Siv's betrothed! Flauntin' her braid to a crowd down in the bottom-cellar market!"
"Mahal keep my beard!" Eda gasped.
"Well, that is happy news," Dis said. Freyda all but scrunched her face disdainfully in her direction. "Is it not?"
Gyda pushed close to Dis and whispered something into her ear. In turn Dis's brows curved up, newly wise. She tried to concentrate again on the tapestry. Soon enough the door came open again and there was more fuss in the chamber as Siv swept in, a flurry of pink and swirling skirts, the center of her back dominated by a long elaborate plait, which she turned to show each of the dwarrowdams with wordless exuberance, her face aglow, the other peaks of hair still perfectly in place.
"Many blessings, cousin. It is an honorable woman who marries," Eda offered through her teeth. A mortar and pestel were set on her lap and she was hard at work on some potion or another.
"A date and time decided yet? Soon? Ye gon' to be swelled up in the belly before long?" Freyda asked pointedly.
"Nay. What kind o' lass you think I am?" Siv slid across the room and plunked herself atop the desk, plume of skirts obscuring Meisar's parchments and mess of scrolls. "Wouldn't do none to dishonor my queen as a lady of her household."
Meisar studied the small of Siv's back and the elaborate plait Nori had made, clasped in a fire-stone and silver engraved bead just above the rump where it tailed off.
"You have my blessing and ardent congratulations, Siv, of course," she offered.
"I'll be a very happy bride made. As happy as you are, m'queen," Siv gushed in response. "And I'll not be gettin' a big belly before then, I promise."
Eda sat in the midst of the commotion at the table, intently mixing her herbs still. Freyda lumbered and sank down beside her in the adjacent chair.
"Whatcha doin'?"
Eda smiled out of the corner of her mouth. "Stirring a potion for Dori. A bit of the sedative kind. He's going to need it."
"Well spare a bit for the likes o' me," grumbled Freyda.
Bertha entered the chamber with a quick knock. "There's a dwarf at the door asking for Siv. Got hair like hers," the maidservant reported.
"Well then, I suppose we're off to tell him now," winked Siv, tucking the potion into her bodice. "Poor Dori. He'll have fits for days even wi' a good sleeping-milk."
"Many blessings to ye, Siv," Freyda murmured despondently. "And the best o' luck to old Dori."
Siv looked back graciously and dipped a dainty curtsy to her. "Praise Mahal you'll be the next. Mayhap we even have a double weddin'."
Freyda threw her shoe at the door in anguish when she was finally out. "Betrothed before me! The likes o' her? Oh, will I never know it?!" Her wail was deep and self-pitying.
"She's impulsive," Eda assured. "They're both impatient sorts. It's none to do with the quality of the love. Not that I deny they are quite content with each other, just that-"
"Might I be excused Meisar? I'd like to go to my forge and pummel at something for a few hours," Freyda requested dismally.
Eda sat her back down consolingly. "Freyda, you need be patient, love. He is more stubborn even than the typical dwarf, bone-headed in the matters of women," Eda counseled again. "A few months scarcely to this day he knocked you cold out thinking you desired a game of knocks like he plays with that old brother of his, rather than a touch of affection."
"I'm afraid ye don't know as much as you're wont to think, Eda."
"Of his ways with ye, or that you need to be patient? The latter I know I am right about," Eda replied, chuffed. "The former is your business I suppose."
"It is spring above the mountain," Dis remarked quietly from the corner in the midst of the girls' saccharine gathering about Freyda.
"On the first day of spring when I was very small, my father took us to the marketplace at Dale," smiled Dis over the sudden silence of her compatriots, all blinking at her in bemusement. "It was a notion of my mother's that he carried on, in spite of my grandmother's objections."
"Highness?" Aroin repeated, confused.
Dis put aside her embroidery needles, tucking the pincushion neatly away. "She believed it healthy for Thorin and Frerin and I to be exposed to the fresh air, I suppose. Father trusted her wisdom. She died of course when I was a babe, but my father saw it fit to carry on her wishes."
Dis had barely left her rooms for months. But her fits had stopped and so had the ale. A small portly dog sat upon her knee, the eyes large and dull-witted and expressive, one of the black-and-tan ones the dwarrowdams were schlepping about the city now festooned in jeweled collars and bows. Thorin had brought it to her as a gift the month past.
"Let us go the marketplace of Dale, my ladies," Dis stood in a whoosh of black skirts. "Is there not enough of this lamenting under the mountain? Freyda, accompany us. Don't hole yourself up in your forge."
Her dog made a long snuffling sound, whether in agreement it could not be known. The creature sat on her lap all day in a most resplendent dotage. She called then for Griet to bring her extant garments from her chambers, declining gloves or her winter cloak. Griet brought a gray springtime cloak with a high ruffled collar and large billowing sleeves sewn into the underlining. The exterior was embroidered from shoulder to shoulder in gold filigree, extending downward so that it appeared she donned great wings on her back.
"Can we?" Brynja questioned in earnest. "I do mean, it is the queen's household. Will we take the ponies? Will they let us have a guard? Can we leave soon?"
"We shall go to my brother the king then directly and settle the matter. Come now," Dis encouraged, eagerly.
Meisar sighed, a grayness settling in her belly, not quite anxiety or dread but something between or maybe beyond their reckoning. But Dis looked too anticipatory, too cheerful, to deny.
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The dwarrowdams appeared in the council chambers all at once in a flock, to Balin's surprise, and then delight. Thorin smirked, uncertainly, at the request that Dis put to him. Her eyes were no longer sunken in around the skull sockets, her skin a bit rosy even. "Though I cannot fathom your need I would not deny it," he said.
"I need only Oliada," Meisar assured him. "Spare a sentry for the others if they wish."
"It is granted, if you will return by night. You know I have missed you so," Thorin acquiesced with a subtle smile. "I would not deny my queen the opportunity to visit the place of her birth, of course."
Her eyes dropped a bit.
"If it is her wish," Thorin ducked his head to try and gauge the sudden drop of her face.
"The princess wishes it even more so," she whispered, embracing him in thanks.
"Aye," he said, peaceably. "If that is your plan, then I shall have a brief rest." He looked at Dwalin. "Perhaps you would like to accompany your lady."
"M'king?"
Thorin read the want in his eyes sharply. The duty and the desire dueling.
"You do not keep watch over me as I sleep, nadad. Go now. There are greater treasures in this world to be found than to linger at my side."
Balin stepped up and moved between them cheerily. "Dwalin and I need a few furnishings for our quarters. Do you forget we were to endeavor such a trip, brother? I don't know why we've put off the task so long." He nudged a scowling Dwalin. "If we have settled what matters we can for the morning, nay, the day, then I would beg your pardon to do so, my king."
"That is a wonderful idea, Balin," Freyda agreed cheerily, taking his arm.
"Then I think it also a good plan. Are we not all in need of some leisure, some rest?" He gathered Meisar's hands into his and kissed them on the tense knuckles. At the end of her 'afana, her stomach was still tender in some points. The brisk air did some good though, as they departed on their way. Her hair was still damp to the roots from the baths, stiffly braided. The women were excited as they made their way across the city foyer and toward the gates, a cool breeze coming through, damp and fragrant with wet earth, a sense of life renewed in the greater world.
Balin sought Freyda's company in walking. Dwalin was more intent on skulking ahead, keeping watch that the dwarrowdams were guarded, even in their own realm, though two sentries were present.
"What errands do ye do today, Mister Balin? Are they urgent?"
"Truth be known, my dear, Dwalin is need of a real bed, and I have not been able to urge him to Dale to put in a order to the woodcarvers for one. He has slept on a pallet since we arrived. He'll have a back too sore for much labor if he doesn't find a proper one soon."
"A soft bed? For Dwalin?" Freyda smirked. "Well… I don't suppose he prefers sleepin' on the hard ground even if he's used to it by now."
"Scarcely could I pick him up from the bare stone floor for months," Balin sighed. "Without Thorin, he… he…"
"Mister Balin?"
"He was not well is all I can truly reveal. His mind was unfit to procure even the most basic of amenities. So we have a bit of catching up still, even now."
Freyda gazed dismally at the ground.
"You see, one may be inclined to see strength on the outside. He would have risen with a soldier's quickness to cut the throat of an orc at any time, even then. But a dwarf's heart is as fragile as any, given the most difficult of circumstances. And my brother, well, life in him has been twice renewed," Balin forced himself to smile at a concerned Freyda.
"Oh Balin," she sighed. "Perhaps I am wrong about so many things, so pig-headed it makes me shamed."
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The city of Dale was alive, if it had a different look to it from the outside. Dour-looking edifices constructed of plain gray stone, timbered roofs along the smaller dwellings and taverns that were lowest to the ground that lined the narrower streets and avenues beyond the gates. But in the shadow of such walls were people going to and fro, men and dwarves lugging and tugging carts along the cobbled streets. Their offerings were bountiful and colorful. A dwarven merchant passed with a cart draped in bright fabrics, samples fluttering in the wind, bolts bouncing along with the cart over the uneven pavement of the street. An excited troupe of Dale-women swarmed around them toward said cart, their perfumes and fine dresses trailing.
Meisar looked back toward the snow-capped peaks atop the Lonely Mountain, a world that had once seemed foreign and simultaneously welcoming, and in her queenship, some the same. She looked up at the powdery sky and blinked. "It is but a return to a world I scarcely knew," Meisar sighed toward Dis. "It is a city but a stone's throw from the place where I am now queen. I don't know why I never think of it. Perhaps it is too painful, sister."
"That may be so, but we are also very occupied in the keeping of our kingdom. Well, you are, anyhow. An afternoon sojourn for the likes of leisure would not hurt once in awhile," Dis assured.
"It is good to see you with a spark of life in you again, Dis." She looked earnestly at the princess, her taking of the clean air and the color in her face, fuller now.
"It comes and it goes. I will take advantage of it where it does," Dis smiled self-deprecatingly toward her. "Perhaps you care to take your mind off something also?"
"I do not-"
Dis yelped suddenly and sharply as horses two abreast and six in number cut a hasty path along the street behind them, shooing tall-folk aside swiftly enough, leaving the two dwarf women in the path reeling quickly from the whinnying and clopping of hooves, the irritated neighs of the animals when the bits were tugged suddenly backward to avoid them. Oliada stood stolidly in their path, hissing, putting her spear up and threatening the horses's ankles. They nickered at her viciously and not even a glowering rider brandishing a coiled whip toward her put her out of standing defensively between queen and princess, and the men on horse.
"Watch yourselves, little ladies, or you'll be trampled. 'Tis not so hard to do when you dwarves are always underfoot," the horseman taunted when the hooves stopped beating.
"Fool!" a voice spat in scolding. Bard rode a stocky shire horse to the forefront, shoving the others aside. "I greet the queen of Erebor and the Princess with all due respect, and apologies," he said, flustered. He glared back toward Percy and his men and they twittered back, on their horses, the hooves falling skittishly on the stone.
"Do I wear a crown that your men may recognize me so easily, my lord? It is forgiven," Meisar said graciously through tight lips, glaring up at the horseman, Bard's own Percy, the prickly innkeeper. In her arms, Dis's little dog was churling a swift bark at him.
"I am grateful for the queen's forbearance," Bard said. "But if I may inquire, do I see you come to Dale alone and without a proper guard?"
"I trust your men keep the city safe enough for a few dwarf women to wander your marketplaces un-threatened," Meisar answered. "Alas, I have Oliada here."
Bard met the Blacklock woman's eyes and swiftly looked away. She shook her spear at his horse and it flinched. "Well that I greet you before I depart then, my queen. Had I anticipated your arrival, I may have invited you to sup with us in our house."
"It was a spur of the moment excursion, my lord. No apology is needed," Meisar assured him.
"On some occasion we shall I anticipate then," he replied. "My queen?"
"I lived here once, my lord," she said abruptly. "Right here." She could sense Bard following her eyes toward the half-standing stone to the side of them, the remains of an ancient pale wall, rubble mostly cleared. A timber tavern had sprung up along the side of the street, serving drink and warm soup in the open air from its window. Leek soup and winter lager. She tried to remember the smell of spices and couldn't.
Bard adjusted himself on his horse. "This was once the old quarter of the city, the dwarven quarter, in the days of Girion, my forefather."
"At the restoration of the city, the areas too damaged by the dragon's wrath were simply demolished. I'm afraid this district sustained it quite heavily. Thus, it is as you see. But it is on schedule to be rebuilt come summertime, when the materials can arrive in proper."
"I suppose then you found the ruins as they were, with their occupants undisturbed after so many years too?"
"Many dozens of dwarves here, aye," Bard admitted heavily. "Buried amid the rubble. Only bones, alas. By their size we could identify the dwarven kind and return as many to the tombs of Erebor."
"A kind gesture, my lord," Meisar said quickly. A dismal knowledge pervaded her.
"Milord, we must away," Percy, on his horse said impatiently. "The boats are awaiting us down the slope, and won't wait long. 'Tis still a lengthy ride."
"i will let you be about your business, my lord, whatever it is," Meisar stepped politely out of the path of the horses. Percy's whipped its long dark tail against she and Dis, tickling their faces at the brow, the smell of horse fresh and heavy in the air.
Bard smiled, a taciturn grimness that had once made him seem older than his years leaving his countenance. "I go to Laketown. My son is wise beyond his years, but a father's counsel is ever welcome."
"Perhaps someday I will know, if a mother's is as welcome."
"Aye, perhaps," he answered, the grimness briefly returning, imitating hers.
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"This was the old marketplace," Meisar said with hushed astonishment when they had walked on toward the city center. "It is exactly as I remember." The color of the walls and the shapes of the shadows cast by the edifices about them had changed. In the center a tangled twist of half-melted metal stood blackened. The metal skeletons and blackened hollows of carved ponies and goats and elk, their real-horn antlers melted into something grotesque and cruel to look upon.
"They cleared the bodies out, of course. But Bard wanted the totems of the old marketplace left. As a reminder," explained Balin.
"Sister, are you well?" Dis's hand on her shoulder caused her to inhale sharply.
"I remember this place. It was the last I saw of this city before the fire."
"What a dreadful time for us to have been children," Dis soothed her pet silently, a smile toward its flat snuffling face soothing a darker thought inside it seemed, taking comfort where she could. Had their paths crossed, she wondered? She would have been a girl, so young she was still carried in the arms of her elders, and Thorin but a little prince in those times. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the sound of trumpets or the officious clank of the sentries' armor in the marketplace, the hushed excitement of the folk to see the royals of the great House of Durin. But when she tried all she could hear was the roar of a distant wind, coming closer, then the smell of ash.
"You are a survivor, like me. Like Thorin." Dis put her dog up against her shoulder like rocking a babe. It grunted and whined and settled into her shoulder.
"I last saw my family here. My brother Taras took me into the marketplace to fetch a few things for mother. He let me ride the ponies on this very perambulating thing. I held onto her gilded rains as the fire started in the sky."
"I was with my nursemaid," Dis recalled succinctly. "The sentry burst through and swept me from the floor and ran. It is all I remember I'm afraid, for the best though. And when I entered Erebor the first I felt much the same. It was as if I had never known it at all. It was a strange world. But memories are stubborn. I knew my way about as if I had never left." Dis was reassured though, gazing upon the marketplace that lay past the arched gates they stood to the side of, letting the throngs pass. "But look, the marketplace is bustling again. Surely it is a good sign."
There was bread on the air, the rich warmth of the yeast though coupled with the biting scent of fish, brought from the smokehouses of Dale. Farmers from the lands just east were scattered thinly and selling leeks, turnips, winter squash, which sat uncomfortably on the dwarven palate but were easily enough stomached by men. At the retreat of winter, the bakers still dominated the foodstuffs market. There were balls of sweet dough stirred in boiling pots of oil with long paddles and laid in rows on warm towels, the confectionery aroma that could have made Urdlaug with her tarts green with jealousy. Rhubarb pies and bread of every shape were aggressively hawked from every stand, the baker-wives warming themselves by the fires that were lit underneath their trays, keeping everything warm and sending the scent of it afloat with every breath of wind. They seemed merry and well-fed, the bakers and their wives and daughters, in head kerchiefs and with their clothes and hands powdered white.
Others traded sacks of grain and yeast and barley en masse, dwarves unloading carts of metal in exchange- needles packed into boxes, steel pans, bags of nails, pikes, grilles and gates that took three men to lift. Hops for beer went quickly with both dwarves and men.
There was no saffron, no curry, no corrindor, no summer sun baking the beige stone, turning a northern city into an exotic warm paradise from May to the dog days of September, like the tales of the East and South they used to imagine. Maybe better Meisar thought, remembering the fates of Oliada's kin. The sentry kept a tight eye behind her, the spear gripped in her hand so tight the knuckles were growing pale.
The first day of spring had brought many out, in droves that were dwarvish and mannish alike, families and travelers alone or in packs, especially the dwarves, but the men were equally adamant of leisure. On a side street a group of dwarves in red robes and tunics huddled in the doorway of an inn, their dark faces taciturn, creased, with black brows that met in the center, thickly, imbued with a knowledge of hardship, but different than Thorin's, even Dwalin's. The single dwarrowdam amongst them shrunk back, her veiled face turning black almond eyes to the ground. "More come from East, lodge in city," said Oliada quietly.
"Some have arrived already in Erebor. They lodge with one of my ladies."
"More will come," the sentry said.
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Past the foodstuffs marketplace the smell of bread and smoked fish gave way to the sharp green fragrance of wood- cedar and pine, even ash, oak and beech. Men brought wood on huge sleds and wagons, maneuvering up the narrow alleyways that led to the lumber market, coaxing skittish animals through. The planks and beams and blocks were set upon by the dwarves, who were making furniture on the spot- bed frames, tables, shelves, chests of drawers and chairs, carved in every manner by dwarven artisans from the swirling and luxuriant to the severe if sturdy designs favored equally by dwarves and more un-embellished sorts of men.
"Ah, here we are," Balin said with relief. "You'll have to have one made to order. You're tall for a dwarf, brother."
"We make in widths for the dwarf who beds alone, or for the marital purposes," the lumber merchant explained. He got out his measuring tape and stood on his toes to ascertain Dwalin's size, Dwalin rigid and standoffish with the dwarf so close, taking height and width and seeming to dare not inquire as to weight.
"The single width," Dwalin answered, swiftly enough it seemed his mind had already been set upon it long before.
Balin pursed his lips. Inexplicably miffed, he drew closer to Freyda and leaned in, more affably. "Some of our folk took up woodworking when there was scarce metal-smithing to be done, in exile. These carve the most elegant furniture you will ever behold," he contended, holding her hand, which was tense in his own.
"I did not break me fast this morning. I think I will go to the bakers' market and buy myself some bread," she said, dolefully.
"Thank you kindly," Balin said to the bed-carver and tugged Dwalin's arm impatiently. Dwalin looked behind him and Freyda was no longer there.
"Where are we going?" Dwalin asked, irritably.
"I am not going anywhere. But you are off to the marketplace of fobs and fripperies. I think you ought pick a pretty thing out for the lady."
"A pretty thing?" he repeated, suspiciously.
"The longer you question me standing here, the more you shall kick yourself in the knees. Brother, you have much to learn still."
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Balin caught up to her in the crowd, following the warm yeast smell of the bakers' stands. She hugged her arms around herself defensively when she realized he had followed her, tucked them into her sides and pulled her cloak in.
"Siv's betrothed to Nori today, ye know," Freyda reported to him without meeting his eyes. They walked together, abreast, her eyes sharp and straight ahead. The sentry had not followed. Men twice her height swirled around her, some parting to let her pass, others all but shoving her aside on their way.
"Ah, a happy thing indeed. She is a spirited girl, and he, possessed of a good heart for all his faults. Shall they wed soon?" Balin inquired.
"Dunno," Freyda answered sorely.
"Do I sense that the news displeases you in some way?"
"Nay. It is not that now. I've been so impatient with him in my heart, Balin. I should have known I'm not the only person his heart has ever ached for," Freyda admitted. "Siv's a stupid girl anyway. Could give a rat's tail for her betrothal."
"Know that my brother will not love another as he does you, and let it give you the peace you desire," Balin said cheekily. "I know what you desire in true, alas. I do not blame you, in honest. Sometimes we are envious sorts, we dwarves. It is fine."
"How can one hurt so much and live? S'pose I'm… well, mayhap I do know. 'Cept my own brother dinna come back. Me da could not tear me from the ground where we put him under. Dirt, not stone. I laid there and wept. I shoulda known. Dwalin... he..." she let a guilty hiccup flit.
"We have all lost somebody, usually someone so close that they feel as if they are an extension of our own body and spirit. Thus, I think it is a lesson we learn. To keep the ones we have ever closer. To love each day with them."
"Your wisdom has never failed, Balin. I would be glad to have ye as kin someday," Freyda smiled.
"He's more afraid of being alone than he lets on," Balin said as he patted Freyda's hand. "Far more afraid than you know."
.
"The Ironfists that board with Bofur and Brynja have several small ones amongst them. Perhaps we ought send some kind token in addition to their sustenance. She says they are rather solemn," Meisar suggested to Dis when they went off alone, shadowed by Oliada. They wandered into the merrier throngs of the toy market. Mannish children streamed about them ahead of parents, well-dressed but many still gaunt in the face and limbs with the leanness that came from years of the hard-won succor and hungry winters they had been born to. Half were taller than the two dwarrowdams, who attracted little attention. Dwarf wagons and carts selling dolls, trinkets, attracted their more pressing attention. Parents tugged eager little hands away and left faces sour. Others were bright with gratitude, clutching some frivolity or another, a flapping metal bird or toy ax or poppet.
"It was called a great wonder of the north when I was a girl, the toy market of Dale," Dis sighed nostalgically. "To come here was a tremendous gift."
Meisar closed her eyes for a moment and was looking over someone's shoulder, pressed so close against it she could smell the sharp if light male sweat of it, the dark tunic, the long red hair. A tray of mirrors and chimes below her. She could see her face reflected a dozen times over, the perfect blue sky behind.
A green and red painted wagon sold poppets of varying colors and races, dwarves, men, what appeared a hobbit with short curled hair and oversized feet. The merchant pattered over, eager for a sale, then eyes going wide. The bulbous nose of the dwarf bore the unmistakable scar on its end, from crossing the tangled low-hanging branches deep in Mirkwood too fast on the seat of his cart.
"Meisar the Beard... Shepherdess... er, my queen," the dwarf said with disbelief. "At your service."
"A toy-maker of Ered Luin, most famed. He came on my first caravan East," Meisar told Dis. "Many a dwarf-girl child, even a hobbit girl, enjoyed his wares so, in the West."
"Ah, yes, I suppose, if you say," the merchant puffed up, glowing with pride. "To see you smile is a very wonderful thing, my queen. Is for any reason that you visit the toy market? Perhaps..." he turned away eagerly to search his stand, and selected a poppet for her. "For the heir that may come to Erebor for us, if it is a female child that is first."
The brow furrowed and straightened strictly, hiding some anxious woebegone prickle or another. Dis studied out of the corner of her eye, noting, making an empathetic noise so low it seemed meant for Meisar alone. She knew that look too well, the source of it.
"I had one like this when I was a girl," Meisar said, wistfully. "But of sackcloth rather than this fine satin, and her hair was more twine than yarn. It is a beautiful craft, truly." Smeared in ash and tears, the poor rag. How close she had clutched her nonetheless.
She realized that Oliada was staring at her with sad and inquisitive eyes.
"No baby?" the sentry said. It seemed a question but Meisar got the sense she already knew.
"No baby," Meisar placed the poppet back on the dwarf-merchant's cart, glumly. The merchant gave her a pitied gaze, a look that she knew, and tried to deflect with a confident smile. "It would be presumptuous and perhaps ill fate to dare so now, master dwarf," Meisar relented. She stroked the silken face of the little poppet, her golden yarn hair. "But when that time comes, be assured I shall return to your very station, and avail my girl of as many as she desires."
Her mind raced with the complaints of fishwives and nail-makers, Siv's giddiness and Freyda's childish woe, Emli's scheming, and a fallen tower and a noble lord's gesture confirming what she thought she already knew, and the dull ache in her stomach reminding her of her emptiness, six months on (and let it not be empty in October, oh Mahal in your mercy). It had been enough to think on for one day.
.
The covered gardens beneath the guard tower were a pleasant interruption in the grayness of the fortified city, though they were barren on the outskirts of winter still. Small green stalks and vines struggled low to the cold-hardened ground. Freyda sat on a stone bench against the bare wall. The daughters of men, lissome, in jewel-toned dresses with sleeves fluttering, passed through and some stared at her with bemused politeness. They were not used to seeing dwarf women alone, she supposed. But their eyes never lingered long. She knew what her eyes must have conveyed to them.
Somehow, he found her. She looked up as the last of a long trail of women passed by and Dwalin was standing off to her side following them. He handed her a pair of heavy quilted gloves of the sturdiest wool with a linen lining, plain, practical, strong. His eyes went to the ground, not quite irritably, but with a bit of self-loathing nerve about them.
"Fer you, lass," he said finally. His mouth set itself in a nervous line as Freyda examined the mitts. "See ye handle yer wares with them rags down in the forge. Thought ye might prefer real gloves. Won't slip so easily."
"Ah, Dwalin, I dinna realize how much I needed something o' this sort, but now... I do. Thank you." He cares for my hands and whether they shall blister. She gazed at the hands that had given her the gift, their scars and burns. Protect me from the baneful heat alas how ye keep me warm, my poor love.
"Balin asked that I bring ye a pretty thing, a brooch or such. Thought ye might prefer these better. I know ye like that forge much," he rambled in short, nervous bursts.
"Aye, I do. Thank you. Not so partial to jewels, ye are right."
"Ya harmu 'addad," he muttered. The unsettled look that had permeated Freyda since leaving the mountain was wiped away, a charmed look in those storm-tossed eyes of hers. When she was kind she was so kind he mused. She tucked the forging mitts awkwardly into her armpit, twisting the fragrant bundle in her own hands.
"And fer you," she offered and unwrapped the fried dough-balls onto his palm. "Found 'em in the marketplace. Bakers' market day. Not the biscuits ye like the usual way, but-"
"It'll do lass," he half-grunted, scarfing one and then the other in hurried succession, making the notable satisfied sound that came with a warm treat. "It'll do very well, lass. Very good."
Freyda watched him eat with amusement. He did so with a certain enthusiasm, letting the crumbs cling in his beard before raking them out with a ham-handed stroke.
"Was hungry, lass. Ye read me well."
Freyda looked up at the clear aquamarine sky and sighed. "Do ye ever get hungry for the old ways of things too? The fightin' and such?"
"M'not starved for killin'," he swiped his hand slower through his crumb-dusted beard. "War is wearisome, lass. Truth be, I'd prefer a day like this, over another kind," he murmured, as awkwardly. "Being here, with ye. 'Tis a fair day."
He settled back beside her and joined her in staring at the sky.
"Aye, and fairer ones to come," she sighed, hopefully.
Dwalin picked the head from a dandelion sprouting out from between the stones, flung it into the wind. "It is the first day of spring," he said. "Summer comes and mayhap ye'll wear a dress that shows yer arms. Good strong arms, lass. Strong arms, shoulders. I've always been akin to 'em." He slid hid hands in past the cover of her green cloak, massaged the brawny upper arms whose muscles he could feel flexing and tightening against his touch through her woven tunic with the dainty embroidery at the cuffs, almost too soft for her. But she was a lady alas...
"Ye admire me strength so? Ye'd think we were to be at wrestling or the like."
"No time or patience for a lass who can't hold her own," he sniffed. "But... I'll promise to guard ye as one would the greatest treasure he knew. Can't say I wouldn't."
"As well as Thorin?"
"Aye," he replied, staunchly. "He needn't me watchin' him sleep while he takes a long nap."
She studied him too intimately for his liking. "Yer alike but you're not. I see his stubbornness in ye. To love. But ye have his strength to, also."
"None are mirrors o' each other, lass, not wholly."
"Aye, but I seen his eyes when he looks at Meisar, even back when. Unmistakable. Mayhap so much grief is had in one person's life, ye can't do none but the opposite, in order to survive at all."
Dwalin turned quietly toward her, daunted. "And look in mine, lass. What do ye see?"
"Yer hard to read, Dwalin."
"As ought be," he said, and all but lunged to kiss her. "How do ye make me so... glad, lass?" He backed and pressed her to the damp stone wall to kiss more forcefully at her mouth. "So... glad of life."
A bare pallet she thought. His massive frame crumpled on a floor. Poor Balin's eyes must have been woebegone so deep to see it. After everything else. She threw her arms around his shoulders and anchored close. "Ye make me glad also. However it 'tis we shall be."
She took in the scent of him, burying her face into the thick longish beard that sprouted from his chin, the redolent sweet scent of it, uncanny for him. She liked the way the wiriness of it felt on the tip of her nose and the bare part of her cheek.
Shoulders rolled back and the force of it tugged open the top laces of her tunic, the garment too small for her, she had realized in the morning, but had not bothered to change. Her bodice contracted underneath and from it was flung the boar snout. Dwalin caught it on his sternum, pressing it over with the palm of one hand.
"Lass?"
"Dwalin!" she said with a start, her cheeks flushed. He held the snout in his forefinger and thumb and let the warmth of it penetrate the callouses and scars. She looked as if she would snatch it back, but Dwalin was smiling, and the sight stilled her movement entirely.
"Keep it by my heart where it belongs," she shrugged. "I'll protect it there. Same place I'll protect you."
"As if I need it," he guffawed.
"I think ye do, more than ye let on," Freyda suggested, hesitantly enough.
His sigh was relenting. He took her hand again and squeezed it tight. "Perhaps I do, lass. Perhaps I do."
.
Ya harmu 'addad- You're Welcome