He had been dreaming again, of empty halls. The fireflies on the ceiling turned to a thousand blinking lights, red as blood. All through Thror's Hall the blood-red rain of rubies fell and fell. They filled his nose and his throat and the last he heard was a woman's pitiful weeping deep, deep, in the dark.
"Arah!" Thorin woke with a start as something clamped onto his toe and shook it violently.
"What in Durin's name?" he flung his damp sleep-tangled hair back. Something small and compact wriggled ferociously beneath the blanket at his feet.
His frantic motions woke Meisar, who pawed tiredly at the covers, finally uncovering and setting down the piglet on the floor. He trotted dutifully to the corner bed by the fire where Redcoat and Raincloud were still sleeping, and curled up beside them.
"Was that Stonehelm's pig? How did it get up here?"
"My pig, and never mind that." When Thorin had fallen asleep, the piglet whined madly into the night until she had taken him up and tucked him close to her. The gift had been a comforting one, at the least.
Thorin made a sound of protest that was calmed with her resting the back of her hand against his cheek. He flinched.
"You are drenched, adyum," Meisar's hand slicked along Thorin's neck, clammy to the touch. "Is it-?"
"Only a dream," Thorin murmured, gruffly.
A stubborn dry chill had blanketed the room but he was soaked to the skin, his blue sleep-shirt stained a shade darker all over. On the pillow he left a damp circle.
"Only a dream, but they are terrible ones, no?" she soothed, bringing a soaked towel from the bedside basin to the back of his neck, which made him sigh. He peeled his shirt off, grimacing, and she sponged then at his shoulders and the sheen of sweat gathered between the wings of his backbones.
"Once I comforted you," she sighed. "Now you comfort me when I cry in the night."
He had, until the wounded sobs had ebbed. His warm engulfing embrace was the only remedy to it. And he had made love to her and her desire was the hot milk of wounded pride and her fierce love together. Taking him, wringing every drop of him to possess deep within her own body, was her act of vengeance. I have planted a tree upon your grounds, Lady Alfhilde, and it will grow and root, even if it bears no fruit.
"She will be censured should she could into my halls with such a tongue on her again, that I promise," Thorin half-growled. "Her and her pithy circle."
"Their tongues can clack until they fall off," Meisar grumbled. "It does not change a thing."
Her eyes drifted across the chamber to the desk where her parchment was signed and sealed, but un-addressed still. She did not know where to send it. The notion was already making her queasy, and she liked that least when Thorin's arms were around her.
"But would you anger with me if I asked you to do something for my sake?" Thorin proposed.
She nodded wanly and vaguely.
"Forgive her. For me, for Stonehelm, who adores you, and he is all that matters. Alfhilde though loves her son more than she loves her own life, and it... expresses itself tactlessly, if cruelly. Even Dain used to say as much. She is so blinded by her love of him as a mother is, that she would forsake her friendships and all vestiges of good nature," Thorin explained. "Stonehelm will need our love as much as he needs luck on his side in this world we are in."
"And if he has our luck, minus that she remains his mother? I think he will be fine," Meisar surmised.
"As I once told Master Baggins, we make our own luck. I believe it still," Thorin said.
"Aye, as do I."
"Something is on your mind," Thorin murmured.
"Binnadan. Bintarg. Is that what they will call me when I am long gone? What sort of legacy is that?" She faced Thorin solemnly. "When I married you I came without fortune, without youth, without even a beard. I would bring but one thing to this marriage, one useful trade, for all that you have brought me in this world. I would give you an heir, a son to be his father's image. Or even a daughter. I would be blessed by either. But I have none."
She wanted to bury her head in her hands or wrap herself like armor into his embrace again and weep until there was no breath for her emptiness as much as Alfhilde's naming of it, but she could not. Her body wouldn't even let her now.
"I took you as my queen with my eyes open to all of these things. It does not change. That besides, you have brought me a greater gift than fortune or youth from another might: happiness. A true happiness. It is what motivates me above all things to make this kingdom greater."
"I am not going to have a child. Without help, anyway." She turned to him again, her big solemn eyes betraying some unyielding despair.
"What help is there? It is Yavanna's choice, whether she will give fruit to her daughters or not. Trust in her wisdom," Thorin urged. He hated her eyes when they grew so.
"Yavanna's wisdom holds dear, but Aule rewards boldness where it is needed also," she said in turn. Her eyes flicked with determination, the solemnity turning sharp.
"I think he has not brought you to me for the purpose of leaving us both bereft," Thorin counseled gently.
"Bereft? What a word, a perfect one. It is what I am, when you are not with me. I am cursed with an unyielding need of you beside me," she managed a smile at the thought. "I never imagined... anyone. How fiercely I could love..."
"Cursed? Then I share that curse, and it is a far gentler one than dragon-sickness," Thorin grinned, tossing aside the stained pillow and lying back again.
"Far gentler? Sometimes," Meisar said, drawing the curtains about the bed again. "Sometimes a bit rougher than that."
.
Dis awaited her in her chambers. They broke their fast on fried bread and quail's eggs after Thorin had gone.
"I should have seen after you last night, my dear," Dis conceded. "You looked as if you would be ill. I have heard things."
"That I am insulted within my own halls? In older days, I might have been used to the notion. But as a queen, I abide less so," Meisar breathed angrily. "It is a knife, Dis, where I most feel the bite." She drew her hands tightly over the midsection of herself, fisting the fur trim of her robe hard. "That others think to twist it..."
"Alfhilde is none to worry for," Dis assured. "She is an old shrew inflicted with that very dwarven curse of jealousy. I think she sees herself in you more than she will ever admit."
"She has a red shade of hair, or used to anyway. Other than that I can see nothing that joins us in any commonality," Meisar all but guffawed. "And besides, she has a son and he is heir apparent to this kingdom as it stands. What is there to envy?"
"You have a king that loves you more than life itself, and heir apparent is not heir."
"A king that I shall disappoint. He has returned as if from death, and sentenced his line to die when he married me. My body will not give a child. Though it cries out for it, as if I were young and... fertile as a field on a good year. I am not young, but..."
Women had whispered that they "dried up" when they were no longer spring-maids, of their fertility and of their desire, but she was soaking for him, dripping heat and yen. Even now. Mahal why do you slicken my channels for him so and make this path, only that it ends unfulfilled? Why?
Dis put down her morning tea and smiled, wizened in her way. The lines on her face were deepening but for once in many days, she looked serene. "But you kindle still a lusty flame for your marital duties? And your moon-cycles come as regularly as any woman far younger than you, no?"
"True, yes."
Dis folded her hands daintily in her lap. "I do not suspect it is your body at all."
"Then what is it?"
"Alfhilde was right about one thing. Some dark energy, some dark magic. It lurks too close," Dis said, warily. "Do you not sense it, Meisar?"
"Beneath this mountain? I'm afraid I can no longer sense it in the world beyond as I used to, much less here," Meisar shrugged. "I have thought of magic though, more broadly speaking, sister. I am sending a raven to Gandalf wherever-"
"Why would you send for Gandalf?" Dis asked suddenly and sharply, snapping her head back around enough to set the beads in her hair to rattling.
"I thought he might be able to help... me, with... my situation. Some spell or charm..."
"A wizard's magic is somewhat different than that," Dis attested more gently. "If that's what you're thinking. It deals with a larger world, much larger, and a wizard's way regards the exclusive needs of female sex very seldom, if at all."
Dis sat across from her again, quietly. "But we are pawns. We are moved about a great chessboard in this world, and I do think the wizards amongst us push the pieces on the board more cleverly than most suspect," Meisar countered.
"We are dwarves. We are not moved so easily, remember. Not even by our own." Dis's entire formed seemed to tighten.
"Gandalf managed to move Thorin for a greater purpose when he proposed he reclaim this mountain. I want to see where I will move. I dare to have some say in it."
"You do what you must, Meisar," Dis conceded, kissing her cheek. Her lips were cold. "I will aid you if I can."
"How?"
Dis rose and crossed the room to her desk. "Gandalf lodges at Rivendell now. He left Bilbo Baggins in The Shire a fortnight past."
"How do you know?" Know? I should have known. How oft he kept to her chambers when he was here. Their little meetings that Thorin was rarely privy to. But over what? She eyed Dis trying not to betray her curiosity, a curiosity that felt so much more like suspicion deep inside her than anything.
Dis took her hand. "You are not the only one who seeks a certain sort of wisdom, sister. If you send word to him, tell him that my errand too is sped."
.
Balin was waiting for Thorin on the belvedere.
"I'm afraid we're obliged to walk a distance this day. The Brotherhood of Stone has summoned us and the realtors, something about inspections or the like. They are to be complete within the week, and the housing committee wish to see us regarding their sale and lease. Maybe even a lottery shall be held. They are bickering about it too," Balin lamented.
The housing committee were already on their feet jabbing fingers toward each other and shouting over each other's protests in the chamber when they arrived. Their silence fell like a stone when Thorin entered and they were seated again, though still glaring at each other across the table.
"What seems to be the quarrel here?" Thorin demanded.
"How will any of us turn a profit as realtors if a lottery is held with fixed prices for all?" the realtor's presiding head whined.
"You'll still benefit, but more fairly!" the housing committee chairman shot back.
"Fairly you say!? Of all the coin and toil that has gone into this matter, I disagree! We should be able to turn what profit any can pay! And dwarves can pay under this mountain, mind you. There are enough willing with wealth to dispose of."
"Into your pockets! And what of the rest? It should be a lottery, at least partially! That is the fair and noble way."
"Aye, my pockets. They shall be well-lined but none shall be left in the cold is all I know, either way! But one way and I am far poorer for my efforts. Lottery- what a blasted concept!" the realtor shouted back.
"Master dwarf!" Thorin interjected firmly. "Greed will do you no good. It makes monsters out of good souls."
The two dwarves looked at their feet, awkwardly.
"I will leave you to set your own fares and to profit fairly for the efforts you have put into this project. But there will be no price-gouging. That is my final decree on this matter."
"How can I set my own when I am constantly besieged by these bureaucrats?" whined the realtor.
"Let us speak alone and settle this now. I will preside. In here now, good masters," Thorin ordered, impatiently, gesturing to the next room.
They spoke alone and Dwalin waited outside with the Niddiban and the apprentices of the realtors' offices- young dwarves, friends to Gimli as could be recognized from enough gatherings, and undoubtedly sons of Gloin's administrators in the treasury too.
"These are fine quarters you have furnished here I am certain, my good masters," Balin offered genially. "Any dwarf shall be very fortunate to make a home in any one of them. I am eager to see the completed project myself."
"Aye, and you will, Mister Balin, as soon as we can settle this matter and inspections arranged. Pray the king will take them off and scold them into cooperation today," the head of the Brotherhood of Stone sighed. They could hear the leasing and the realtors' offices chattering in angry successions behind the door, Thorin punctuating them with admonishments loud enough for their privacy to render useless.
"They are new and very fine, all the amenities provided within. They shall be in very high demand. Are you in the market?" one young arrogant-looking apprentice asked Balin.
"Nay, I am satisfied with my quarters at current. Alas, housing is scarce and cramped where available elsewhere in the mountain. You ought consider, Dwalin," Balin tut-tutted. "Strike while the iron is hot, brother. You will have a wife soon, perhaps a family thereafter."
Dwalin's surliness was more furtive than not. Balin sighed against his brother's silence.
"I would not dwaddle in your making of a home as you dwaddled in your courtship and betrothal. It is your duty to provide it," Balin scolded.
"Aye, and I will, with or without yer nattering. Without is better," Dwalin grumbled back.
.
As a group they took dinner again in Tania's Hall, light of fare but aplenty with chatter and good health. After the Iron Hills delegation and their banqueting night after night it was a welcome reprieve and intimate.
Dwalin was late, and Freyda too, though she all but tumbled into the hall several moments after he did, equally harried. Freyda, green with some worry, took her seat beside Dwalin and uttered no word to him or to the queen.
Ales came first and she placed her hand on top of Dwalin's and rubbed her forefinger again and again over the ridges of his knuckles, her hands moving without the consent of her eyes it seemed, and her eyes were sicker then a shade of greenish blue, like algae blooming still diaphanous over a pristine pond. She didn't touch her ale and declined an offering of beef-marrow fritters that were passed about the table.
Whispers were exchanged between them, and they moved their seats as conspicuously from the rest.
Before the main supper of bream and darioles came around, she and Dwalin were departed of the table and soon the hall, quite swiftly and hand in hand, the closing of the door letting it a biting wind even from so far above the city from Tania's Hall, where the cold was settling swiftly over the land.
"Their plates will go cold," Thorin observed, when time had passed and the food had gone lumpen on their plates.
"Shall I have one of the stewards put them over the fire to warm?" Meisar inquired.
"No," Gyda answered quickly in a voice that rang uncannily high with certainty of the worrisome kind. Poor Gyda looked as ill as Freyda did. "They will not be back, I don't think."
.
II
"Dwalin did not return to our quarters until very late, indeed, well past the midnight hour," Balin confided when he and Thorin were alone early the following morning in Thorin's antechamber. "It is not like him at all. More, he would not say what reason kept him. I think it is Freyda. I think he worries for some reason, over her. Just a guess."
"I will try and see the truth of it I can," Thorin assured. Outside a dwarf with an empty cart appeared at the door of the antechamber not long after, and Meisar greeted him with thanks and a bag of coin, allowing her ladies, who had all come, dressed in their cloaks for an outing, to pile armload after armload of woven baskets filled with squares of hide and dried meats, breads and tallow candles and jugs of ale.
"Our charitable givings," Meisar explained proudly. "First for the dwarves on the outskirts of Dale. Winter is coming, after all."
"Come my queen," Thorin said, proffering his arm. "I shall walk you to the gate."
They walked behind Balin and in front of the women, who tailed them, escorting the cart.
"Keep an eye on Freyda if you would be kind enough," Thorin whispered. "Dwalin is worried for her I think. Balin tells me he thinks so anyway."
"Worried?"
Freyda's abruptness in the evening had lingered in her mind with the weight of a stone, hardly overburdening but irritably present nonetheless. She could interrogate Gyda, she supposed. But Gyda was as skittish as a horse under normal circumstances. When pressed, she might well faint, Meisar thought dismally.
Could it be?
She had scolded her in no uncertain terms about it, as a mother might a wandering child. Freyda had never been one to disregard her, strong-willed as she was. But she had seen the color of her cheeks and the flare of her eyes when Dwalin pulled her close to dance. Their rhythm together was a practiced one.
And with enough practice...
Her resolve steeled inside, understanding the implication. If it was, she thought, then I must make haste myself. My own luck. It is not my body or this mountain or...
They had reached the gate before she could complete the thought- a thought that made her insides twist with angst and joy and a hope that she had forbid herself too long.
She would dispatch Oliada to the rookery at once when they returned. And we shall see both our errands sped, whatever they may be.
.
The dwarrowdams left the gates on the backs of ponies with the cart following, and Oliada on her goat, spear at hand. Smoke rose from the cookfires of the small ring of stone huts as they drew near; cold air scented in crisped fish and potatoes. The sentries that accompanied them heralded their arrival and the dwarves sprung up and were as glad for their coming, it seemed.
A bushy-bearded dwarf stepped forward to help Meisar from her mount. Several dwarflings sprang forth and put their arms up toward her in greeting, pawing at her skirts.
"Away, children!" a broad dwarrowdam came waving her arms at them. "It's the queen! You'll get hand-prints on her dress, and a fine-" The dwarrowdam surveyed her garments with some relief that stopped her from scolding the children momentarily- a cloak of dark wool and a heavy matching over-skirt; winter was coming sooner than they suspected. She could smell it on the air.
The dwarrowdam curtsied giddily for her stony, no-nonsense face. "What brings our good queen to us here now?"
"We come to bring you good tidings, and offerings," Meisar announced. "To your... place here."
They were a modest settlement of no more than twenty in the shadow of the gates of Dale, three of them dwarflings of a young age. There were two women amongst them, a crone, and the squat, staid dwarrowdam to whom all three of the children belonged. The dwarflings ducked behind the broad expanse of her brown woolen skirts.
Freyda lingered behind, lugging a basket in her arms before her, dragging her feet.
"We came to sup at the last banquet before they went back to the Iron Hills. You were resplendent, my queen," the dwarrowdam commented wryly. "And here you stand in wool, plain as the fisher-folk down-river."
"But for my crown," Meisar said quietly.
"Aye, but for your crown," the dwarrowdam repeated. "Meisar the Shepherdess. In Ered Luin they sometimes called you Meisar Bintarg."
"I remember," Meisar murmured.
The dwarrowdam placed her hands on her broad hips and shooed the children off. "Were that they were here to eat their words, my lady. Perhaps I would have even made that wretched Alfhilde eat hers along with her teeth too, the way this one eats his fish," the dwarrowdam let out an enthusiastic snort, slapping the dwarf by the fire upside his head so that his fish slipped out of his hands and into the cold parched grass. The dwarflings laughed.
"News travels I see," Meisar sighed.
A third dwarf was eating another juicy fat trout off the bone, still steaming from the pot. A stooped elderly dwarrowdam sat beside him, leaning on a stick. The dwarf skinned and boned a trout for her, cut it into small pieces and placed her fork into her hand.
The crone's blind white eyes raised up in Meisar's direction as she began to eat, gnawing with toothless gums at her supper. "Come, will you sit beside me, my queen, and let me have the honor of it?" the dwarrowdam asked.
The dwarrowdam crone's hand extended and gently traced Meisar's face. She ran a finger along her chin and smiled. "Meisar Bintarg. It is true then. I had my sight not long ago. I remember you in Ered Luin, in the marketplace, offering your services to dwarves going east. You prospered from it well. But you were the most solemn creature in all the world still," she observed pointedly. Even her blind eyes seemed to look into the very heart of her.
The dwarf beside her rose suddenly and Meisar turned about to see Freyda swooning.
"My lady?" gasped the dwarf.
"I'm feeling ill, m'queen. May I go back to the mountain and lie and rest?" Freyda pleaded, her breath hitching.
"Of course," Meisar answered. She excused herself and placed her hand on Freyda's shoulder to reassure her, Freyda pale and wan. "Gyda, go with her."
The young gawky dwarrowdam ducked her head obediently, took Freyda's arm and rode with her on the pony back, steadying her from behind. Meisar could see Siv's mouth starting to twist in a smirk and silenced her with a cutting glare.
"Woozy is all. Maybe too much ale at breakfast," Meisar explained in a mutter to the dwarves who were watching them go curiously. The mother-dwarf plucked a trout off the fire for one of the children.
"News travels you say, my queen?" she went on. "Oh aye, aplenty. From here and from Dale. We are privy to it all. And whilst Alfhilde might insult you in your own halls, in Dale the dwarves and the men call you Meisar the Gate-Keeper, Meisar the Bridge-Maker. You opened the gates of Erebor to the lord's children when they were in peril. He opens the gates to our merchants, my son's wares. My kinsman's arrowheads grace the shafts of his longbows. I think it is for your goodwill, Queen Meisar, that he offers us the same," the dwarrowdam chortled.
The other dwarf, Skolf, leaned in. "I even hear he buys Mad Hegi's powders by the keg. What he'll do with it, now that's a fine question."
"I do not know, but defenses are crucial in these times," Meisar shrugged again. She turned to the old crone and placed her hand over her gnarled one. "My lady, I would arrange for you good lodgings in the mountain if you choose it. In your white-beard age should you not have a comfortable bed, a warm hearth?"
"Nay, I think I would decline, politely, my queen," the old dwarrowdam answered, grimly.
"The harridan of the hills had one thing in mind when she came last: keeping her son away from this mountain," the Skolf, her son, continued, sitting beside his mother again.
"Why is that?"
"Same reason we've stayed out here. There's something fearful in it. We're putting up a permanent village here, if the king will approve it. We have petitioned already. We'll do smithing work for the menfolk too if we need. I make arrow-heads. Grolf here is a fletcher. And Bard the Dragonslayer is always after more arrows."
"Perhaps I should not have taken you for paupers then," Meisar said regretfully.
"Still kind of you for the offerings. Can't turn down food, specially not the sort that keeps," the dwarf Grolf laughed easily. "The queen is a good woman. She knows her priorities."
"We all must eat. I know that much is true," Meisar smiled.
"Aye, well, we're not going hungry these days. My home's got a hearth for the coming winter, and there's work aplenty to keep us," Grolf the fletcher said. "Bard's a fair lord to his kind, and doesn't give us much harrying. Be more concerned about him putting up his walls further out though. He's inching closer to our plot. What's he building so much for?"
Protection. Kingship. A shadow that grows. Either or all. She could smell Hegi's work even at the ground level- lead and acridity like lightning bolts left on the air. They were mounted up upon the ramparts along the gates, slender cannons, loaded in that peculiar powder of hers. She had seen Hegi in the foyer of the city, with a new sleek cart for her shine barrels and a pair of luxurious boots, wolf-skin, with silver caps at the toes. Bard kept his promise then, and Thorin too. It is a start. A bridge.
"I don't know," Meisar fibbed, quickly. "Perhaps the burgeoning population."
.
"I pray, good masters, that you have come to your senses," Thorin said warily to the dwarves of the housing council and the realtors' offices when next they met. "I do not wish another one of these meetings. I am tired of presiding over your nattering."
"We have," the realtor head conceded, against the satisfied looks of the leasers' office. "Agreed to is a lottery for a third of the units, open to any and all for sale or rent, regardless of personal prosperity. Two-thirds shall be prices set as the dwarf can pay, with the larger and more furnished to those who can pay more coin. Priority shall be allotted for those with the daft or slow-witted, the maimed or the elderly of us, or a dwarrowdam with child, in their households. Their applications shall be considered first above all. After all, my king, are we not obliged to care for our own, and our most needy first?"
Dwalin's ears perked but he said no word, stood stonily beside Thorin but for that alerted twitch of ear.
"Indeed we are," Thorin agreed. "And our growing families also."
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Dwalin's face pinch at the lips tightly.
Thorin stood, satisfied. "Then shall we proceed to inspections? I should like to see this new neighborhood of stone myself."
They walked the line of units carved in perfect symmetry to each other against the stone walls of the old mine. Rows of doors with three-sided arches above their heads, numbered and polished at their frames. They were stacked atop each other five deep and four-score in a row, with stairways zig-zagging up and across between them, and two lifts at the ready.
The dwarf babbled on. "The Brotherhood of Stone have appropriated the spaces in the most efficient manner possible, allowing of course for-"
"What about these then?" Dwalin asked, pointing up. "Are they large units?"
"Units for the single dwarf, appropriately. Smaller of course, but very comfortable," the realtor, called Yoel, answered. He head of the Brotherhood of Stone nodded in agreement next to him.
"This way you will find units for the dwarf family," Yoel the realtor directed. Down a separate hall with high arched ceilings were more lines of doors, but further apart than the ones upon the walls outside.
"Are these ones different at this side?" Dwalin asked. The doors on the opposite side of the corridor were closer together.
Yoel stepped in front of the door of the second unit along the hall that Dwalin was pointing toward. "These are family units with the needs of dwarflings in mind, as opposed to grown kin lodging together." Hie smile grew, eagerly. "Ah, this one, Mister Dwalin, has its own privy and its own bath, as do all along this side of the corridor."
"Any other... perks?" Dwalin asked, his tongue fumbling over the last.
"They have spaces for preparing food and eating, as might be needed for a mother-dwarf with mouths to feed throughout the day. There are several rooms for sleeping too. The units along this hall here are the same, except for the first and last on each side. They have their own privy but lack a bath."
"He couldn't even be bothered to consider it last week, and now he talks a mile a minute of a home," Balin grumbled toward Thorin.
"And how far are the common baths?" Dwalin inquired further. Balin's gaze grew more intent.
"Only a short walk, and set closer upon the springs than the ones above. You shall never lack for hot water that is certain, whatever you choose, common or built-in."
"What gives now, brother? Your eagerness for one of these units is very... new, dare I say. Why, gentleman, last week, I could barely pull him from bed to even consider!" Balin chuckled, edgily eyeing Dwalin.
"Ye beleaguer me like a swarm o' gnats, brother. Say no more of it," Dwalin snapped back at him.
"Brother-" Balin said, exasperated.
Dwalin ignored him and turned quickly on his heel back to Yoel. "I would like t'speak with ye if I might about... buying. One of them," Dwalin blurted out suddenly as they started to exit.
"Indeed?" the realtor's eye lit up. "What sort of space are you in search of, Mister Dwalin?"
"Err... a living space best for the types to be tumblin' about all rambunctious. Could expect that o' sons," Dwalin laughed uneasily. He rubbed the back of his neck hard with one hand. "I'm to be married ye see."
"Is the wedding soon at hand?" inquired the realtor.
Dwalin shrugged a tacit yes under Balin's inquisitive side-gaze. "Go with Thorin, Balin. Yer old knees need keep up, if ye wish to make council chambers in time," Dwalin groused at him tartly.
"Soon or no," the realtor interjected eagerly before Balin relented to leave. "You best reserve your quarters now. There are several for family life I think would suit your needs, if I may inquire as to those needs, specifically."
"Who is to say there will be- Dwalin what is the meaning of-" Balin began to choke out.
"Go now, Balin! It's-" Dwalin huffed loudly.
Yoel shunted between them discreetly. "Come to see me at the realtors' chambers, tomorrow. We shall speak of an arrangement, perhaps more privately."
"Aye," Dwalin agreed swiftly. "Privately, yes."
.
Thorin met Dwalin when he asked him to come, and sworn not to mention it to Balin, he did not, excusing himself from Balin's council a few moments early, so not to arouse his suspicion.
The door of the apartment was opened and Dwalin still diligently lugging the boxes and parcels inside when he appeared. Thorin helped him carry the last into the door from the hall. They were set upon a table, a good sturdy table with thick legs in the alcove of the room that was purposed for meals, Dwalin explained. The larger room was for living as it was generally known, with broad comfortable chairs upholstered in dark leather or suede, some with fur to be as coverlets or back rests. A large rug of a bearskin was laid across the floor close to the hearth, and there was a wide steel basket to hold wood or coal near-side it.
"May I ask why so swiftly you make this home?" Thorin prodded carefully.
Dwalin's shoulders made a motion to tense but he eased and shrugged instead. "Balin was right. Most were claimed by the first day of the matter. I shan't like a hovel in the stone if... well, ye know, family and such and-"
Dwalin regained himself and turned to open the box upon the table. It revealed a cache of wares for the kitchen- pots and a iron skillet, glazed dishes from the potters of Dale and silverware from their own guilds. "Important wares first," Dwalin laughed, with a tinge of nerves that he thought was hiding but never quite did so well.
Dwalin showed him a carved metal tub for washing dishes, or garments. A rack for drying either was beside it. He was proud of this, Dwalin, a domestic consideration that would have been an afterthought if it even entered his mind before Freyda. Balin had always been the one to furnish their homes, he reminded Thorin.
"I think it is a very fine home. Spacious and well-lit, and furnished in a manner already I think will please your bride," Thorin concluded.
"Aye," Dwalin's smile seemed pleased, if momentarily relieved. "So... anything ye see to recommend? Ye are now yourself married."
"My sister helped me to prepare my chambers before the wedding. I would say a few tapestries to warm the walls couldn't hurt. And good light. Sconces and braziers and candles are never too many."
"I'll do then," Dwalin nodded proudly.
"Alas," Thorin said, patting his shoulder. "You have a far better domestic capability than even I, and for that, I applaud you."
Dwalin beamed but the sound of the door creaking on its hinges made him grimace again and his shoulder tense under Thorin's hand.
"Ah," a voice came from outside as the door closed in the next room. "In so little time and what a home you have arranged. I am proud, brother." Balin stepped into the room where Thorin and Dwalin were standing and beamed. Dwalin did not in return.
"Balin, what are ye doin' here? I dinna invite ye down," Dwalin growled. Balin's smile officiously ceased.
"I've come to see the home you've made for your wife-to-be. I am, after all, the one who needs approve it and give permission for the wedding to go on," Balin lectured. "You never answered anyway. Is is soon at hand, your wedding?"
"Well now that ye are here, brother, you must approve it then, my home. Our home," Dwalin asserted, ignoring the other question.
"Approve? I will approve it if it is suitable for a family," Balin retorted. "I'll have a look about first if you don't mind."
Balin opened the door to room next to them, to Dwalin's disapproving grunt. Balin smiled at the sight of broad sleigh bed that was close to the ground and made with heavy oak in the bedroom that would be theirs. Furs were piled atop it, raccoon to be certain. "Well you have a bed now, finally. That is a start. What about a pair of bedside tables? Basins? You'll need those."
Balin stepped over the threshold into the room and Dwalin tensed. "I'll go to market and find some then. Furniture wares are sold in Dale's markets until the snows come. I'll go tomorrow-"
"Chests of drawers, good, good," Balin went on, ignoring Dwalin's efforts to impede his way. "You could use more candles. Are there more in-?"
"Just approve it, Balin! I'll get the things ye say! Make a bloody list for me if ye like!" Dwalin barked. Thorin took a step back. Dwalin's veins were standing on the side of his neck and sweat was beginning to bead on the nape.
Balin balked at his brother's umbrage. "I will give my approval, brother, when it an appropriate home for you to share with your wife. You've never lived with a woman before and-"
"Ye have to or surely I will die!" Dwalin exclaimed suddenly.
"Die? And why is that?"
"Brother, ye just... must!" Dwalin threw his arms in the air in frantic frustration.
"Don't be so dramatic," Balin waved off his hysterics. "As to candles, are they in-"
Balin opened the low door to a storage space tucked against the far wall of the room and drew back suddenly. Dwalin had sprung up to halt him but when he saw his brother's face his own grew green.
"Dwalin, what have you done?" Balin all but gasped, with his hands up to his beard fisting the white forks of it.
Thorin peered over his shoulder to the low closet. Candles were packed tightly in and around a cradle that matched the oak of the bed, its carvings and all. Thorin looked back toward Dwalin and his eyes seemed to concede something, plain with fear.
"Halls within halls within halls," Dwalin muttered too low to hear, backing away, sitting and slumping on the bed.
"What now? Speak up, brother," Balin demanded.
"Halls within halls! Ye said it yourself!" he barked suddenly. He took a deep inhale and let it out, calming. "We have our places."
"We? Freyda and you? Places for what?" Balin demanded.
"Places we go and… and…" he made confused motions with his hands against his brother's plainly-worn bemusement. "Well ye know!"
"Well, no I don't know, seeing as I am... if you are implying what I think you are, then I tell you, brother, you should have waited," Balin crossed his arms in disappointment. "But now you have, and what now, is she... Mahal, don't tell me it is so."
Balin looked back at the cradle below him and swayed so Thorin put his arms out lest he fall backward.
"Don't have to tell ye nothin'," Dwalin spat back cagily.
"I see, my friend," Thorin said calmly, sitting on the bed next to him. Dwalin's hands were clasped and shaking.
"Aye, do ye?" The shaking seemed to stop a bit.
"I do," Thorin continued, placing a hand on Dwalin's shoulder. "It would seem we have a wedding to plan, and precious little time to spare."
.
Binnadin- Without Child
Bintarg- Without Beard