A/N:
I want to thank Erika Rexen for the wonderful reviews. I am so glad you are enjoying my little story here. Welcome to the wonderful world of fan-fiction my friend!
Second a shout-out to Stahly93 my most bestest FF buddy for recommending my story on her LOTR fic The Swan and the Horse Master. If you are an Eomer person (or just a Tolkien person in general), you must read it.
.
Today. Surely today. The raven had said so, and a wizard was never late, only precise.
A pale, low winter sun struggled through an opaque sky. The sun was beginning to set on its edges. There was coal on the air, and wood for an instant. Not yet had the snows come but when they did, there would be a black ring around Dale from the chimneys. She hugged her shapeless cloak around her body closer, fighting off the bone-chill on the air.
I should not have asked him to come in winter, but...
Anticipation made her shake more than the winter air. She held the scroll underneath her cloak tight in her hand. Oliada had hand-delivered the raven in its cage, the message on a string at his foot.
On the distance, the gates of Dale opened and a lone rider emerged, and set along the road that linked Dale to the gates of Erebor.
At Erebor by afternoon one to several days hence, the weather holding. Gandalf the Gray.
It was afternoon, a pale-skied afternoon just starting to go dark; the time was correct. He had said nothing of making a detour into Dale but then again, he said so little anyway, and concealed so much more.
"Is it the wizard?" Oliada asked. The wind made her blink back tears.
As he came closer on his steed Meisar could see the pointed hat at last and sighed in relief. Gandalf was attired for winter so heavily he appeared more round than his lanky figure beneath, bundled in a cloak of thick white wool over his robes and fur heaped upon his shoulders. On the back of an enormous shire horse he raised his staff and halted at the gate.
His tall hat was taken by a gust of wind from his head. He chased it after dismounting sloppily, mumbling under his breath, and stooping, found it where it had landed, in the hands of the dwarf queen.
"Meisar, my good lady," acclaimed, hand on his heart, still stooping. Less than regal, this cloaked woman, she had surprised him clad in such austere shades and such a shapeless cloak, he thought. But long had she been this peculiar work in progress. Only the line of her hair showed, a last flame of autumn in a pale and deepening winter. She handed the hat back to him.
"Much thanks, my queen."
The cries of mannish children nearby on the frozen pond made him whirl about for their volume. From afar, he realized they were only at play, wobbling on wooden skates. When he turned back to the queen he found her round face solemn as any lady he had ever known, save for the princess when he handed her the hair clips and talisman. The shouts and pitched laughter of the children went on, echoing from the spur of the mountain down onto them. She swiped her face with the back of her hand and pulled her cloak 'round her tighter.
She smiled under the cover of her cloak. "Come into the mountain. You'll freeze to death out here."
.
"I am grateful, Gandalf, that you found my plea for your assistance worth your while," Meisar said, setting in front of him a tea tray with milk, honey, apple-cakes and wine. Holding his hands toward the fire, he acknowledged her graciously. "I do not know if you can help me, but I feel I am at the end of my means."
"You, my queen? Here I was to believe I was summoned with some urgency by the Princess Dis," Gandalf said, bemused.
"In any case," Meisar answered, not quite as bemused as suddenly chagrined. "We are glad you have come."
"Is Thorin afoot?" Gandalf inquired.
"He knows you are to come. I would prefer speak with you on my own for a time, if you are willing."
"Of course. And what is it that you are seeking aid for, my lady?"
"We have been married a year, Thorin and I, and I have no child still," Meisar elucidated sadly. "There is nothing lacking for either of us, I do not think, that it could not come to be. But it is... it is so."
"I see."
"You are a wise figure, Gandalf. You are familiar with many magics, and... powers in this world."
The door opened and Thorin entered. He squinted at the tall figure crouched by his fireside, adjusting to the sight, finally realizing, and offering little in the way of salutations as warm or as enthusiastic as his wife. He took his seat by the fire and held Meisar's hand.
"I have been summoned, by both your queen and your sister, it seems. For the same purposes, or do I mistake it?" Gandalf questioned.
"Dis? She did not mention it," Thorin remarked, curiously.
Gandalf looked between them awkwardly.
"In that case, I should fetch her, if it was such an urgent request," Thorin continued through tight lips. "Griet, good lass, summon my sister to my rooms, if you would."
The maidservant filled Gandalf's tea again as well as his wine before departing. "Indeed," Gandalf went on. "I am sure that there is a reasonable answer to this matter. I will do as I am capable of doing."
"Thank you," Meisar muttered. Behind them the door flew open. Dis greeted Gandalf with an effusive embrace, despite having to stand upon a stool to do so. Her hair was undone and un-combed, a bed-robe thrown on over her kirtle. Plum wine in the air between them. He bid her sit; she was wobbling.
"My sister is childless, Gandalf, as you can see. The question is why. Maybe you can answer that," Dis said when they had settled. "It is with some urgency I too wish your presence here, Gandalf. My dear sister's heart is heavy."
"As best I can," Gandalf promised, warily. "As best I can, and we may lighten the burdens of all in time."
.
"You are very quiet, mizimel. I suppose it has been a long day," Thorin rubbed Meisar's shoulder from behind. She put down her comb, gazed up at him in the mirror. He stroked careful fingers through her newly-combed hair, catching, taking up her comb again with an apologetic smile to fix the snarl.
"I did not ask his help for selfish cause. It is larger than us," Meisar finally made reply.
Putting down her comb, he knelt and kissed her hands. "I trust you."
"You seem unsure of that," Meisar sighed.
"Gandalf has a will of his own; he will not hesitate to impose it. I would caution you against trusting in his brand of wisdom before knowing where his own motives lie," Thorin cautioned.
"Do you think he would not want me to have a child?" Meisar's eyes widened at him, like a child's in stark anticipation of being disappointed.
"He may manipulate your trust. Even if he thinks it for the better, I would not see your heart so wounded should he be working toward his own end, and not yours."
"My hopes for that are cautious at best," she managed a weak smile. "But it is more than my... predicament. I am not asking for the power of magic, some incantation to put a child in me. I need advice. I need… answers."
"I will agree to this then, on one condition. Before we oblige the use of any... wizardly charms, in this matter, please, let Eda have a close look at you. Let us be sure there is nothing... natural, that is causing this ill."
"Obliged."
.
"She is a perfectly healthy lady," Emli bleated, her arms crossed stodgily. "No dwarrowdam as beloved as she is ought be without a child by now. You will see she may be right after all, my king. There is something going on here, and I for one, like it not."
"I do not deny that she is in good form. I would know, Emli," Thorin prickled in annoyance back at her.
They sat all together in the king's antechamber and awkwardly, while Eda was about her business with Meisar in the bedchamber. Griet and Bertha served ciders strong for mid-morning but everyone drank.
"The healer is a knowledgeable woman?" Gandalf broke the long silence.
"She knows all too much," Siv quipped across the room. "My kinswoman."
"She knows where you itch," Gyda issued low under her breath.
"Ah, I see," Gandalf considered the garish dwarrowdam and the earthy healer that had arrived cheerily after him and sequestered herself alone with the queen. "Well then, we shall have some insight into the matter soon I imagine."
Thorin sighed. "Is it possible? Could my queen be barren for natural cause that simply is beyond explanation? Past the age of childbearing perhaps?"
"She is certainly not too old," Balin assured. "If you recall, my own mother was a sage as white as I with Dwalin in her belly. A dwarf woman's window of time seems to be much longer than those of other mortal races, though I cannot confirm for myself."
"Aule gives us more time to accomplish these matters for the sake o' our stubbornness," Dwalin chuckled. Freyda leaned forward to wrap her arms around her stomach. Dwalin gave a hint of a smile. "Sometimes..."
"I will take your word for it," Thorin managed a gracious quirk of his lips toward Dwalin.
"And it is as possible that she is neither of things," Balin added.
"Indeed," Dis agreed. Balin twitched his lips toward her nervously as she gazed at him over her embroidery. Gandalf barely caught the glare that Thorin shot her, her defiant stare back. The silence was so tense it could have been blown with a single spark through the roof of the mountain.
Dwalin and Freyda at on the settee across from them, silently. The stark paleness that Freyda had acquired had given way to a subtle flush at the cheeks. Under her bulky green dress her condition was unrecognizable still. She rolled her ankles under her skirt and winced, furtively.
"Tell me then, have other dwarrowdams of this kingdom complained of a lack of childbearing? Could the barrenness have a natural cause, perhaps the air, the water...?" Gandalf prattled.
"That Brynja and Bofur have none still might wager well in the direction of a greater strangeness afoot. But Dwalin and Freyda are expecting as we speak. So I think not, at least entirely," Emli blurted out. Freyda shot an abashed look at her.
"Is this true?" Gandalf's eyes and Dwalin's simultaneously narrowed at each other in defense.
"Aye," Dwalin mumbled.
"We've only just been married," Freyda hastened to add. "Mighty blessed."
"Only just," Siv followed, concealing a smirk.
"So I see," Gandalf said, studying hard Freyda's discomfiture. "So I see."
.
"Ooh!" Meisar gasped. She lay on her back with her knees up and covered in a sheet, on the edge of the bed with Eda sat on a stool before her, one hand on her stomach, the other prodding.
Eda pulled back from her and apologized. "I am sorry. A healer's touch tries its best to gentle."
Examining her inner passage, she simultaneously palpitated her stomach. "See here, this is the womb," she pressed two fingers into the base of her stomach and circled. "I have found that if it is afflicted with lumps or bumps of a rather malignant kind, or if it is misshapen, has caused the infertility of women dwarven and human alike. I feel nothing so far of the like. Nor in the ducts that connect to it, from the outside at least."
"Ducts?"
"The womb is flanked by a pair of them. I do not know their precise function but they seem to work in tandem with all the other womanly parts."
"How do you know?" Meisar craned her head up curiously.
"I opened up a dead woman once, a dwarrowdam. I made careful notes and sketches of her innards in a book of mine I saved. After the dragon... I thought it might help a new generations of healers," Eda explained sadly.
"I'm sorry," Meisar muttered. Eda prodded on. "Anything at all, that you can see or feel?"
Eda withdrew and rinsed her hands in a bowl of water. "None. I think you are remarkably healthy in fact. Your functions are in order. Now tell me in confidence, are you sure it's not Thorin? He is not young either."
Meisar shrugged her shoulders against the bed. "I am certain of nothing."
Eda put the bell-shaped scope to her chest and listened. The old healer smiled. "You've got a strong heartbeat. A strong heart."
"A heart does carry a child," Meisar grumbled.
"Yes it does."
.
II
Dis had invited her for tea in the afternoon but did not appear, not even Elsa to offer another one of her rain-checks. From down the corridor on the way to her rooms she could hear the muffled, angry voices. Up close they became even more disagreeable. Meisar pressed her ear to the outer door in absolute silence.
"It is not that I do not find merit in what you are saying, my lady," Gandalf was going on. "But is there is more I do not know, and which I require time to find out. Can you be patient for me at the very least, before you do something rash?"
"I will try," Dis replied. "I will do what I must for my family though."
Asudden, the door was flung open and Meisar backed off as quickly as she could. Dis all but shoved past her out the chamber door on the verge of tears. Meisar looked up at Gandalf as he shrugged, helplessly.
She balled her fists as Dis's wild gaze turned on her, and unclenched in inexplicable shame and loathing. She wanted to put her to bed, feed her enough plum wine to make her sleep until this wretchedness passed. She had asked for his help in her own desperation and Dis was testing his patience already. Steering his attentions from the cause. Dis swayed and set her body ramrod straight again before them, leaving the chambers once more in stiff indignation. This time, she thought it better not to follow, and her eyes told Gandalf the same.
.
Dis was already in the council chamber partaking of the Dale white-wine the stewards had brought in preparation for dinner when next Meisar managed to track her down, internally cowed toward doing so for mere curiosity if nothing else. None of the sentries or merchants had reported sight of her all afternoon, which made Thorin all the more irritable. Now her shabby appearance of late had been nobly replaced with a gown of hazel-wood velvet, its apricot silk lining turned out in the long hanging sleeves and embroidered fore-part. Her black hair was pomaded and jeweled, apples of her cheeks blushed with rosewater.
Something is afoot, if not the oddity that renders me barren.
"You're early," Dis remarked, shunting away her goblet. She kissed Meisar on her cheeks, headily.
"You asked Gandalf's presence? For your own matter?" Meisar questioned.
"On your behalf, sister," Dis replied. "On your behalf. We are all here to help with this dilemma of yours. We may have different notions of how to go about solving it; a wizard's wisdom is welcome in any case."
"But you are surly with him? He was quite exasperated, enough to request a second glass of wine," Meisar intoned. "I was hoping that his head might be clear of... drama."
"He is cagey with me," Dis answered in half a snap. "We disagree on this matter, Meisar, and he is as stubborn as a dwarf in acknowledging that there is any merit to my advice. He thinks he knows the nature of evil and despair; he does not see what I see."
"What advice would that be? You've been acting strangely you know."
Dis grimaced hard but smiled in her odd, placid way. "We will discuss it, sister. See now, here they come."
Dis put on her most regal smile and greeted each with kind words as they streamed into the hall for supper, Thorin and Meisar seated last at the head of the table. The stewards carried in a chair with the legs sawed three fourths of the way off, so that Gandalf could sit without his knees ringing against the underside of the table. Dwalin summoned the female stewardess over, and she returned a few moments later with a pitcher of goat's milk which she poured for Freyda. Dwalin grew abashed and then shot a surly glare at Gandalf when he realized the wizard was watching him with a charmed twinkle of sorts.
"The king's lieutenant must be quite overjoyed at this news, and his wife," Gandalf commented.
Freyda passed her free hand sheepishly over her stomach and looked down. "M'most happy for it."
"Oh aye," Dwalin agreed. "Much joy for it." In the presence of others he offered her the gentlest, most fumbling approbations. He held and rubbed his thumb over her hand nervously atop the table.
"I can only imagine," chuckled Gandalf. Meisar avoided his side-glance through the cloud of his pipe-smoke. He was like the falcons she used to see the men hunting with in the wilderlands, the patient way their eyes studied every movement of their prey, waiting for a breakthrough.
"So what do you say, Gandalf? Your thoughts are welcome on the matter. After all, that is why you are here," Thorin interposed.
"Dwarves are oft not spring chickens when it comes to marriage, and aplenty they are fruitful is my understanding," Gandalf answered. "Alas, your problem appears to be this: a year now your majesties have been married and no baby has come."
Thorin and Meisar nodded together in melancholic affirmation.
"This in spite of all natural efforts?" he fumbled over a cloud of smoke.
Thorin cleared his throat against the inquisitive stares of several of the dwarves and the downcast eyes of the rest. "Aye."
There was silence in the hall except for the clank of cups for a long while before he spoke again. "If I may, majesties, question the absolute need of an heir by your own issue? The succession is a settled matter after all."
"You must truly be ignorant, Gandalf," Thorin retorted. "What king is not in need of his line to continue?"
"A king whose forebears have known such misfortunes are your own," Gandalf replied stoutly.
"That again," growled Thorin. "Is that all you have-"
"I was not finished," Gandalf interjected grumpily. "I have seen the nature of this curse up close. In you no less."
"Why bring me back to this life then, Gandalf? For your own amusement?"
"I would hardly call you amusing under any circumstances," Gandalf riposted.
Thorin set his hands on his chair to stand and depart. "But," he sat stolidly again as Gandalf raised a hand in pleading. "But, Thorin, I have been relieved of some fears in any case. The lust for gold I feared would return has not. Then again, I did not expect you to have such a buffer to it."
"Was the death of my sons not a lesson learned?" Dis asked them both acridly.
"Indeed?" Thorin's voice dripped with barely concealed venom.
"A lesson learned through grief or no, you now have the most powerful antidote against that curse. You are in love, and that is more powerful than any force, even darkness. There is no magic in what is the true defender against evil. It is precisely that: love. Goodness above rancor, kindnesses above spite, and small deeds done with righteous intent. That, Thorin, is what has saved you and will continue to work good things through you, not my meddling."
"That is precisely-"
"Evil's greatest foe is love. Against sickness and corruption it is indispensable. I see you, Thorin, drink from a gold goblet as if it were no more than tin. You has what is necessary to avoid the legacy of that curse now. He has you," he acknowledged Meisar. "Most gracious queen, all this kingdom has need of you."
"I have needs as well, Gandalf," Meisar answered quietly. "I have a duty."
"Is a king in need or a queen heartsick? That is what I ask." Gandalf reached and placed his hand over Meisar's but she recoiled with daggers in her eyes. "To see the joy of others, it is not a knife in you, my queen? Does it not make it all the more urgent to you? Perhaps an urgency of the heart more than the head."
Freyda looked as if she might grow sick and Dwalin was already glaring at Gandalf with enough force that the wizard looked ready to spring from the table if Dwalin did first.
"I would be a great fool if my heart were not in it," Meisar answered through gritted teeth.
"A greater fool if your heart is consumed by your desire. Perhaps your Creator has decided this for you. For both of you."
"You said you would help me," she whispered, indignantly.
"And I will. I wish only to be assured of certain things first," Gandalf answered, gazing warily toward Dis from the corner of his eye.
.
The kingdom did not stop for their dilemmas, their heartaches. Thorin ran late at councils, while Meisar buried herself in managing the requests of the healers' guild- more bandages, and linen for them came from Dale. Their funds were short- they would need a loan from the crown. She sent the request with a purse from her own coffers, sealed the requests up in parchment for the courier to run to Dale. A bundle of parchments had been brought and all were filled, except one. She let Siv to do her shopping for more fripperies and fobs and took up the quill herself once she was gone.
I must make my own luck then, however it may be made.
Oliada let the courier in and the lad bowed politely. She smiled at this young dwarf, blonde and carefully groomed, a determined, eager look about him, in want of coming up in the world, she imagined. He had been back and forth to Dale all day if the frozen remnants of his nasal cavity gathered at the rims of his reddened nose and his chapped hands were any indication. "My lad, see to it that this one goes directly the Lord of Dale, and with some haste." She pressed her own seal into the hot wax for reassurance, and an extra shilling for the lad.
.
"Do you think you're a bit out of focus, my queen?" Emli peered over her lorgnette with hawk-eyes, over the small-council chamber's narrow table. Meisar was watching the door with flinting eyes.
"Did you expect anything else?" she turned toward Emli over her shoulder.
Bard entered the hall to the surprise of each, mistrusting sentries waiting for Thorin's confirmation.
"My king," he addressed Thorin. "My queen."
"My lord," Thorin and Meisar said together. The sentries departed from the hall.
Bard, in a frock coat of deep chestnut suede to set shockingly against his black boots and breeches, the colors austere on others perhaps, but all had been so used to him in black wool it came off almost merry.
"Good to see you dressed for dinner, my lord," Thorin quipped. "Won't you sit and avail yourself of our wine and roast?"
Bard took a seat while the stewards scrambled for a second mannish proportioned chair. He sipped the cup of wine that was poured for him by the serving maid. "A Dale white; I know our vineyards," Bard remarked, admiringly. "I did not know you partook of wines under the mountain so."
"Our appetites for such things are voracious, or haven't you heard?" Thorin swiped a glare toward Dis and met Bard's stodgy gaze once more. "You are here, my lord, for what cause?"
Meisar stood abruptly as Bard shrunk back a little, shadowing him protectively. "I have summoned Bard of my own volition to show you that is not the sickness of my desires," she looked at Gandalf. "Bard has suspected rightfully what darker forces lie at our door. Orcs nearly claimed the lives of his children. He was the one to suggest a tracking expedition, which we were a part of."
"I fear the afflictions of Durin's descendants more than you know," Bard assured. "But I cannot wish the king and queen's childlessness for my sake; it is the quadrant of this world that makes the difference. There is something ill at ease at large, and it will not be remedied I fear, by spreading the powers of the Iron Hills so thinly, should Dain's kin come to rule in Erebor after the king and queen."
"Ill at ease you say?" Gandalf's brows knitted nervously.
"Would you know anything of this, Gandalf?" Meisar questioned pointedly.
Gandalf squirmed. "There are things I have sought, answers on that matter, which I have not found yet, but may very well, and will keep you informed. But I assure you as I assure any, there are powerful forces for good that guard this world, and do ever now."
"The king under the mountain and I may have our disagreements. I even feel he is very pigheaded, if truth be known. But my people may expect icier relations with kin of his whose father I stood fast against beside a particular elven-king, should he come to rule Erebor."
"What are you saying?"
"Thorin Stonehelm and what heirs come of him belong in the Iron Hills. He is a strong force needed to buffer the east. Erebor needs it own."
"You come to speak of us of what dwarves need?" Thorin intoned caustically. "As if we did not know."
"Do you?" Bard questioned directly to him.
Thorin's lip wrinkled in indignation, quietly. He raised Meisar's hand to his lips to kiss, never breaking eye contact with Bard. "I am certain I do."
"I desire the same as you desire- peace and prosperity. I can admit to my senses being misguided at the onset of this... reunion we have endeavored over the months. Perhaps I might help convince Gandalf here that your queen may be right about something, if you yourself cannot, my king."
"Careful, my lord," Thorin growled.
"I once wished-" Bard interjected quickly. "A regrettable curse upon your queen, for her to remain childless in fact. I do no longer wish that."
Just as Thorin's gaze seemed to soften toward him Gandalf moved in between. "This expedition you say? Tell me of it."
"We rode out to the west at the conclusion of summer. Orcs were traced back to Mount Gundabad, and in peculiar company. Their tracks were found alongside those of chariots, from what I could tell," Meisar replied.
"Chariots? I have only ever heard of Easterlings utilizing those sorts of wains. They have troubled Gondor before, with some force," Gandalf conceded.
"Cruel slavers, slayers of my people in East," Oliada murmured. She drew her breath sharply with an apologetic glance at Meisar as if her speaking had been out of turn, but Meisar gave her a calm look of concurrence.
"We once traded strongly with Easterling and Haradrim tribes. They brought spices, furniture, exotic weapons and bone jewels. As of late we have seen them not at all in our midst. They do not answer the calls of our ravens inquiring as to whether our merchants may travel to their lands. Even the ravens do not return," Thorin pointed out.
"Now we have evidence they commiserate with orcs. I am certain it is not for trading jewels or spices, unless the orcs have wives with more refined tastes. Who's to say there is not a more sinister alliance occurring?" Meisar continued.
"Perhaps it is not the outside world that is the source of our troubles, past or future," Dis suggested quietly, but all the table turned to her, and her mouth quirked, anticipatory, eager, only so good at hiding it.
Gandalf's face darkened to a look near sick.
"If these evils draw near to our lands, why it is that? Gondor has not given word of troubles, nor Rohan, nor the Elven holds. But this valley... it is here. Maybe something is drawing it in."
Dis pattered 'round the table intently. "The outside world is rarely the concern of dwarves. Other evils continue though, and at our gates nonetheless. It is right here, what drives it. Meisar cannot have a child, and there is no good explanation for it. Her body is healthy. My brother is-"
"Enough," Thorin muttered impatiently.
"What is drawing and keeping this… misfortune, in our midst? I think you know, Gandalf."
"Dis!" Thorin snapped.
"The scholars of old brought it to grandfather's council. They begged him at his feet. It was the heart of this mountain and we tore it from its own body. There will never be peace until it is returned."
Out of breath, exhausted physically, Dis took her seat again and sunk into the chair, her eyes still wild and racing. The steward poured her more water but she asked for wine instead and gulped it in a single pass. "I think you know so much," she heaved a breath toward Gandalf.
"I question," Gandalf tapped Dis's empty cup upon the table with the tip of his staff. "Whether my lady is in the correct frame of mind to make such a bold proclamation. It is…"
"How dare you," Dis whispered. Her shoulders squared in defiance. She pushed back her chair from the table with such force it squealed across the stone in a mighty screech.
"You were skulking about the old chambers of records last you were here. Was it because you also sought the answer to the question I put to you then, and put to you now?"
"My lady-" Gandalf choked.
"For Meisar's sake, for my brother's sake, maybe you should say," Dis went on, accusingly. "And not be so keen to dismiss me for my means of controlling my grief. We have all lost, Gandalf, some more than others." With that she stormed from the room.
Thorin looked to her with helpless eyes that grew in irritation by the nanosecond she lingered at the table. She arose and all but sprinted from the chamber after her, but by the time she came out into the hall, Dis was gone. She might as well have disappeared into the wind. She trotted up and down the length of the hall, calling over and down winding stairs and over the edges of landings and mezzanines, the length of her legs winding her in no time at all. Hopelessly, she caught her breath before she intended to start back toward the council chamber. A coming fit of anguish began to push and build in her chest, tears and a lack of breath and the numbness of her fingers and toes. She wanted no more than to collapse to the ground but she made herself walk.
"My queen, wait," Bard called from behind as she picked up her long heavy skirts and began to trot.
"Have you found the lady princess? Is she unwell? These poor ramblings, I am-"
"I do not know what she is even talking about," Meisar bristled.
"Do you think her afflicted with some madness?" Bard asked carefully. "As you have known before?"
"You love your children, my lord, more than anything in the world. Hers are dead. Place yourself in her predicament, and think on it. You may come to understand, though I hope you will never have to," Meisar said impatiently.
"Aye, is has driven her into such a state I do not know... but I see."
"What do you see?" Meisar asked. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.
Bard crouched on one knee to address her. "You may very well be the mortar holding the pillars of this kingdom up, my lady. Without you they will both crumble. You know that. She is out of her mind."
"Mortar? I am not sand and lime. I am… a living being! You place me on such a pedestal when you know nothing! You know nothing of my husband, my sister by law, our ways! Our loss," Meisar admonished. "And you know less of me than you want to think you do."
"A pedestal? Best get used to standing upon one. You are a queen now. I hope it does not crumble beneath your feet."
"I'll show you a pedestal!" She tried to step up onto the base of the statue but it was too high; she almost kneed herself in the face trying to accomplish a task that must have been downright farcical to the man that was twice her height and then some.
"You! You! Oh!" she croaked. She huffed and pulled herself with her dwarven limbs up onto the level with all the bluster and blubber of a seal hauling from the sea to a patching of rocks. She stood and rushed her hands over her wrinkled skirts, brushing the dust from it toward Bard aggressively. "How dare you, dragon-slayer!" she hissed. "A bargeman turned lord, a wildling turned queen. You may think we are on the same page, but my lord, we are not."
"I came here to aid you and this is how you treat me? I must say, you are acquiring some of your husband's charm," Bard shot back. "You would do well to remember that I am doing you a favor and you would do better to thank me for taking your side toward Gandalf, coming when you bid me, my queen. He is wary of much in this world, dwarves not the least."
"A favor? Lords do not do each other favors, not for the goodness of their own hearts. Everything has a price and a purpose. You should know that by now."
"It does, and the ways of the world, my queen are such, but we are not lords, not by nature, and yet I think we have both come to a swift understanding of things, much the same," Bard went on, un-rattled. "I respect you, as sincerely I fear you will succumb just as they have. Weakened by your own desires. I see it already. They drive you mad, and after you Thorin."
"I am not ignorant the great burden I will carry the rest of my life, for the sake of this kingdom. But I will not bear this weight upon my shoulders simply because you asked, my lord. I cannot. I am barely holding myself aloft, if you haven't noticed."
Bard lowered his head apologetically. "I haven't. I'm sorry."
"Sorry, sorry. It does no good," Meisar replied amicably enough, but with a deep-wrung weariness.
"I want to see this land strong, and well-defended. I also wish for your well-being, my queen, even your happiness. Mine may very well depend on it."
"My happiness? What use have you of my happiness, Bard the Slayer? Or are you merely buttering me up for what purpose only Mahal knows?" Meisar crossed her arms.
"I know what would bring your happiness. My children have brought me all of my own, and the kindness you have treated them with bodes well for what your own could expect of you. I know you will be as loving as my own lady wife was in her time."
"Yes," Meisar confirmed tautly. "It would... make all things. My own happiness not the least."
Bard's pained smile strained and he swallowed hard. "My good queen, how I do fear it. I will never forget the look in your husband's eyes when I dangled that stone before him. A lust and hatred all bundled up. It is a sickness, a terrible, terrible ailing. Promise me you will never let this madness return. I do ask that."
"You are treading close to imprudence, my lord."
"It will drive you mad if you are surely barren, my queen," Bard pushed on, defiantly. "A madness not its own. Only mutated. What a tragedy that would be. Now promise me, or you may see my trust withdrawn."
"We know enough of tragedy, my lord. What else?" Meisar bristled. "For what it's worth, I promise. A dwarf's word is an honorable thing still, sometimes."
"I will plead with Gandalf to help your cause then," Bard said.
"Why? Why are you helping me?"
"Because we will all need our strength in the times to come," Bard answered. "Yours belongs here."
.
Elsa had bewailed Dis's absence once night had fallen and she had not come to her chambers. Thorin sent the guards out to search for her, any that could be spared. Into the morning the better population of the sentries were in a tizzy scouring the mountain for her. Ravens were even dispatched to Dale and the villages beyond lest she try and ride in the night out of her mind.
Meisar took to her chambers, alone, to deal with the stacks that had built up, alone. The laundresses need their pay straightened out, the healers their linen, the guild of needle-makers behind on the rent for their hall. Gandalf might sleep in through the morning and just as well; he had been awake into the wee hours joining at Thorin's efforts to chase his sister down. It had all fallen apart into this terrible imbroglio, of what exactly she didn't even know. If it was about me, she ought have the nerve to say just how. Maybe Bard was right; she was mad, not with the lust of gold but intoxicating drink and grief together making a monster just as it did in humans or any others. I should not be angry with her. I should not be-
"My queen?" a voice offered cautiously across the chamber.
Oliada must have let him in. He entered contritely to her antechamber, removing his hat. He had entered so quietly, so stealthily, she did not even hear the creak of the door, his tall shadow across the floor. She realized the candles were going too low for her to see the shadow, and her mind, perhaps to occupied in some other place to hear him. Lighting a sconce again, she welcomed him with sad eyes, silently if acquiesced to his presence.
He sat by the fire and she joined him in the opposite seat. "It seems a very poor theatrical production, all of this," she murmured. "I wished we would have spoken alone at some point."
"Well here we are," Gandalf said, reaching for the leftover wine.
"I do not know. I do not know what ends serve her own needs or mine. Maybe both. But she will never say exactly what she's thinking," Meisar complained.
"I think she may. She speaks of curses beneath this mountain, of a certain reluctance of King Thror to heed the advice of those who warned him of it."
"You yourself said that the gold-sickness was defeated in my husband. By the power of love. My love alone. And that my love is the only thing which holds it at bay, and thus, this kingdom. Did you not say so?"
"It is not a matter of gold, my lady," Gandalf said cautiously. "Not in the matter of what the Lady Princess is getting about."
"Then what is it? What does that have to do with me? My childlessness? Do you think whatever she is babbling about may be a cause to it?" If she will not tell me, perhaps he will do me the courtesy.
"I would like to stay and find out," Gandalf said.
Her eyes filled with scalding tears. "It hurts me enough on my own. And to be humiliated by my husband's own kin, in my own stead..." her fists balled in fury. "I summoned you for that reason. It was the last I could take."
"You are right to think it is much larger than your own desire. You are a queen after all. But it is a desire nonetheless, and a noble one. I know it cannot be easy for you to see your lady there so joyous to be with child."
"I am glad for her. You may not believe it but I am. Though it breaks me inside. I never imagined I would come to desire such a thing, or have true hope of it. But now... I am married, and to a king no less. It makes it all the more urgent, you see," Meisar choked back her emotion.
"I understand," Gandalf placed a sympathetic hand upon her elbow.
She held the wizard's hand against the crook of her elbow with her opposite. "Thorin once told me that others warned his grandfather of the perils of gold, and that he ignored this, and thus came the dragon."
"Thus was slain that dragon, which can no longer be put to the use of far more evil forces."
"How much more evil?" Meisar asked pointedly.
"Easterling chariots, let us assume for a moment. I have rarely known orcs to be so... akin to any, even the most troublesome of tribes, such as the Haradrim, the south and the east... what lies there and beyond."
"Cannot men be wicked?" Meisar questioned.
"Much so," Gandalf said quietly. "Much so."
Her determination lingered in stubborn lines at the corners of her mouth. "A return to Gundabad on the part of the orcs? I do not think any would be surprised if they desire as such; it is their wretched hive. And then what?"
"You may trust in the diligence of the White Council to keep much evil in this world at bay, and the greater of them all, more so," Gandalf assured. "I meant what I said on the nature of love and goodness. It is the only thing that stands between us and darkness. You must keep it strong beneath this mountain. You."
"It is a weight I do not know that I can bear alone. Especially if I am destined to be driven mad, so others think."
"That may be so, and I am afraid of it. You make your case enough to sway my fears of a cursed line, somewhat."
"You cannot help me with this? Or will you not?" Meisar braced herself quietly.
"I am not certain that the answer lies with me," Gandalf sighed. "In fact, I do not believe I have any great insight into your dilemma my queen. But I think I know another who may be able to help."