Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit, everything belongs to Tolkien, and this story is not for profit.
Chapter 6
After we had seen the dark men from Rohan, we traveled more quickly. Whenever we stopped for food and drink, they were there in the distance.
We began to travel even more swiftly. And yet, when we did, so did they, until eventually we were not traveling but running.
We ate while we rode, particularly when we had to slow our horses to a walk for their rest. Our breaks to sleep were shorter and shorter, until we were getting only a couple of hours of sleep.
I realized when I had to leave my home and become a fugitive that there were so many things that I took for granted when I was the governor of Lebinnin's daughter and I hadn't a care in the world.
But now, I realized there were even more important things than living in a large home and wearing nice clothes. Time to sleep, rest, and to live without constant fear of being caught like a mouse were things that no one should be without.
We had been running for three weeks, and following first the river, than the coast, and then the river again, when we finally came to the town of Linhir.
Aeiliel thought that it would be too dangerous to go through the town, but I thought that it would give us a chance to get some more supplies, and maybe learn a little more about the people who were chasing us.
We pulled our cloaks far over our heads and looked down as we led our horses under the gates of the city. Although Linhir was one of the largest cities of Lebennin, I had only been to the city a few times. When my father had business in this city, he more than often went alone. But by now the city would be under the control of my cousin Baldrick, although he was more than likely still in Pelargir.
Aeiliel decided that she should do most of the talking since there was a better chance of me being recognized.
The first thing that she did when we went though the town was she stopped and purchased some wine to color our hair red. I suggested that that would only make people notice us more, when people saw two young girls traveling with bad dyes meant for disguise, so we drank it instead.
After we drank the wine and ate the fish we purchased from a blind fisherman, we went to a different store to buy some more supplies. We had not used any of the gold castars that were in my saddle since we had set off, so we actually had quite a bit of money. We purchased a lot of food that would keep for a while, more wine, a ribbon to tie up my hair, because it was always blowing in my face when I rode, (Aeiliel's hair was too short for a ribbon), another knife, a small mirror because I was vain, and some ink, quills, and parchment.
"What did you get the writing stuff for?" Aeiliel asked me as we were walking down the street.
"I have an idea." I answered as we walked down into an inn. The innkeeper didn't seem to recognize us, but he did recognize that we had money, so we were able to procure a room for the night.
We had a room on the bottom floor, and I unloaded some of our stuff onto the bed before sitting on the floor of our room and taking out the writing things.
Laurwen shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably for a few moments before I noticed.
"What is it?" I asked her as I stirred some of the ink.
Wordlessly, she handed me a rolled up piece of parchment. I took it from her and slowly unrolled it, afraid of what I might find.
It was a poster offering a reward for my return. It had a well-drawn sketch of me on it, and gave information about me, and said that I might be traveling with a young blond woman.
I looked up at her; she was looking down at me. We said nothing for a moment. She took the poster out of my hand and put it into the fire, then came and sat down on the floor beside me.
"Are you writing to your brother?"
I had forgotten that she could not read.
"No, I am afraid that if I did it would be intercepted. This is just a little trick to give us a little more information, to be sent to the guards of the city."
At midnight, four men of Rohan arrived at the city gate of Linhir. They were stopped and taken into custody at the gate after receiving an anonymous letter saying that they were horse thieves. They were kept for a day and a night until the situation was cleared enough that they were deemed innocent.
We watched them go from an upper-story window in a building near the city prisons. Afterwards, Aeiliel went with one of my gold coins to the jailer, and learned all that she could about them.
"They are indeed from Rohan, like I told you they were," she said smugly when we were both safe back in the room of our inn.
"Yes, yes you are much smarter than I am. What else?" I asked her impatiently pacing up and down the length of our room while she sat on the bed.
"They told the magister that they were here on business from your cousin Baldrick. They were hired to bring you, alive, back to him. They are bounty hunters."
At this point that came as little surprise to me.
"They are good ones." I said worriedly. "They ride and follow us with great skill. We will have to be quick and careful if we are to make it to Calembel safely."
She looked up at me worriedly.
"Also, they know that we are headed that way. They said as much to the magister. You aren't going to like this, Laurwen, but I think that we may need to change our course."
I stopped my pacing abruptly and looked back at her, crossing my arms.
"What do you mean? We can't change our course! My brother is in Calembel. My remaining family is protected by the governor of the province of Lamedon. We cannot change our course!"
At this point I was shouting and she looked at me angrily, putting a finger to her lips.
When she spoke she was whispering and as angry as I was.
"I understand all that, but I don't think that we can make it to Calembel by ourselves. I think there will be even more spies of your cousin surrounding the area of the city looking for you. It will be too dangerous. We should go to Rohan. I have family there that could keep us safe until your brother is strong enough to overthrow your cousin."
"Rohan is where these devils are from!"
"These are but evil men of Rohan, hired by evil men of Gondor. Most of the people of Rohan are good, honest people. They will shelter us."
"I will not change my course. I mean to join my family. Your father sent you to help me get home, not to go on some tour of the world!"
She bowed her head quietly. "I think we should change our direction."
"We will go to Calembel, or we will die trying." With that I slammed the door and went down to saddle our horses.
…..
A month later we were standing with our horses on a hill over looking the city of Calembel, and below, we spotted a group of about ten horseman from Rohan in front of us, blocking the city.
It was a windy morning, and it was about to storm. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aeiliel turn to me, the wind blowing the hair into her face.
I looked at the similar groups of horsemen spread across the valley. The horsemen that were looking for us.
Without looking at her, I took the reigns and turned my horse around, and started heading north.
"We will go to Rohan."
…
Being banned from the training grounds, I decided to do something else today, something that I had wanted to do since I had woken up in this realm and realized that I once again had leisure time.
My first manner of business to continue was to retrieve my belongings. There had been some things in my pockets when I came to the forest, and I had just now realized that they were missing, because I needed some of them for my excursion today.
I asked around a little, and found out from Padhrion that they been confiscated when I had been found, and put in one of the locked storage chests in the cellars of the realm. He told me sheepishly that they were not to be touched but by the order of the king.
Understanding that it was not his fault, and not wanting to make it any more awkward for him then possible, I went about trying to find the King on my own.
In my brief time in King Thranduil's realm, I had learned a little of the surrounding outdoors and some of the halls that I was allowed to be escorted through, but most of these dark caverns that comprised most of his halls were still a mystery to me, and I had no idea how to set about finding the King. I asked the guards outside my door where I could find him, but they gruffly informed me that the King would be busy. I made a mental note to perhaps try and lighten them up a bit later.
I wandered all around the realm, which was much bigger than I had imagined it to be.
This land of elves gave off an overall calming and harmonious effect on my spirit and body, which I had been heard was often the case in lands where elves dwelt.
But when I had been walking through the King's dark halls for over an hour, and found myself in an empty series of chambers with doors that led to even more empty rooms, I began to recall an unpleasant memory from my childhood.
I had been six years old and there was a festival in Pelargir. It was a festival we had every spring, to give thanks for the rising water levels of the rivers and lakes. There were boat races, competitions to catch the biggest fish; there were river themed-costumes and decorations, booths that sold fried fish and pies made from the river-weed berry. My mother had given me some coins when I told her I wished to have my face painted like a catfish, and she had agreed, giving me a small coin and telling me to find my brother at the docks where the races were being watched nearby after I was done, while she joined my father for some important speech he was making, before walking away in her swan themed costume.
I had a good conversation with the face painter, who thought that it was swell of me to want to look like a catfish, a strong and tasty fish, he said, much smarter than the more popular goldfish that most of the children wanted to look like.
When he was done, I tried to find my brother, but one of his friends that I found told me he had left. I wandered around looking for him, and wandered far, until I realized that I was completely lost.
The thing about being lost is that you can either stay put, and maybe be found or not, or you can keep going, and possibly or find your way back, or just get more lost. In such a hopeless situation, crying seemed my best option, as I was too miserable to do anything else; I was too shy and young to ask for help, but too worried about getting more lost. My misery was compounded when I realized that by crying I had ruined my face paint.
It was late in the afternoon when the kind face painter found me crying in the corner outside of a tent. I'm surprised that he could understand what a six year old was trying to say at all, but he brought me back to my parents.
My mother was almost in tears as she scooped me up into her arms and told me how worried she had been. She thanked the face painter wholeheartedly, and my father tried to give him some money, which he refused. She allowed me to go back to his booth so he could repaint my face, and I saw that he had two young sons my age, which explained his understanding of my babble.
But to return to the point, I was very, very lost in the King's halls. That old helpless instinct to huddle on the ground and cry returned, although I forced myself not to, remembering that I was a woman grown and the governor of Lebinnin's sister. Now I would not have been too shy to ask for help, but there was no one around.
I continued to wander around until I walked down the dim lantern-lit halls and came to a door slightly ajar. When I opened it, I saw that this room was furnished. Furnished grandly, at that. I took a few hesitant steps in and saw that this was an elf's chambers, although it looked more like a laboratory. There were lots of strange objects, some of them wicked looking.
But what drew my eye was the portrait in the middle of the room. It was a grown elleth. She was beautiful, with silver-gold hair. She had aristocratic features, a long nose, full lips, and a knowing gaze that peered out of the wall in boredom.
I continued to stare at it, intrigued, when I got an odd feeling. A cold shiver rattled my bones and I got goose bumps down my arms. I turned sharply and saw that I was being watched.
The King's younger son, Coruven, was standing stiffly against the wall, watching me sharply.
"I beg your pardon, my prince, I was lost…" I stammered realizing that these must be his rooms.
He stepped closer. No words came from his mouth, but his eyes spoke for him, and they said that he was more suspicious and distrustful of me than any elf I had yet met, including the King himself.
"She is very beautiful." I said in a small voice, realizing with an unexplainable pang that the elleth on the wall must be the Prince's mother.
"She was, yes. Although the true extent of her wisdom and beauty is beyond the comprehension of a mortal." He replied.
I was too intrigued to acknowledge the slight.
"Did she leave… sail to the West, I mean?"
"No. She wanted to, but my father would not allow it. I believe he told her that if she loved him she would stay here by his side."
"What happened to her?"
"She went to fight at Gundabad, knowing almost certainly that she might die. But he let her go."
"Why would she do that?' I whispered.
"She had been visiting her friend, the lady Celebrian, wife of Elrond, in Rivendell. When they left that land to visit Celebrian's parents, Galadriel and Celeborn in Lothlorien, they were attacked and imprisoned by orcs. When they were rescued, having undergone more hardship and terror than almost any elf can handle, they both desired to leave for the West. Elrond granted his wife this, but my father would not. He is unnaturally strong-souled for an elf, and he could not understand why she would want to leave. He told her if she loved him she would not leave. She stayed begrudgingly, and was miserable, until she left to go fight."
I bowed my head at his sad tale. I felt sorry for the elf queen, but I could not help thinking, human that I was and accustomed to grief, that she should not have wished to leave her husband and sons. If there was any happiness left to her, surely it would be here with her family?
As if he could read my mind, this grim elf said to me, "It is beyond something that a mortal could understand."
I had a feeling that there was a reason he had told all this to me, a reason that would explain why his gaze whenever he looked at me was so sharp it could cut a diamond.
Whatever it meant was beyond my current knowledge, however, so I simply told him that I was lost. He bid me follow him, and we climbed up so many winding staircases that I had I had to carry Carotene up halfway because he became too tired to go on.
Coruven brought me to a closed wooden door on one of the upper levels, I turned to thank him but he had left soundlessly.
I opened the door to find the King and several other elves engaged in conversation. It appeared to be some sort of council meeting. I demanded the contents of my pockets returned to me, and was pleasantly surprised when he looked at an elf sitting at the table, Carfon, he called him, and told him to hand me the key to the chest they were in.
After journeying back down the realm to retrieve my things, I took my things and went out into the woods.
I took a knife I had swiped out of Coruven's room to help me shave down a long oak stick I found. When it was pleasantly smooth, I took the fishing line out of my pocket and tied it to a small hole cut out at the top and threaded a worm through the other end, and went fishing.
I found a nice spot to the south after a good ways walk. It was under a pretty stone bridge that looked brand new and stretched over the river running through the wood.
I sat on the mossy ground beside the bridge and laid my head against the stone while I watched the line disappear into the water, feeling more at home than I had been in a while.
I just sat like that for hour until I jumped up startled, hearing a voice behind me.
It was an elf maid, a young one I could tell, although she looked to be around my age.
"I'm sorry I did not mean to startle you m'lady! I forgot that it was hard for you to hear us."
"No, you're quite all right. But you needn't call me m'lady."
"My father said you were. He said the king told him you were a princess among the mortals."
"Well," I said, flattered the king had said such a thing, "I am not exactly the princess. My father was a governor of part of the realm of Gondor."
"So you are a lady."
Not anymore I thought. But I did not want to speak of this any longer. "Who is your father?"
"He is called Carfon, and he is second cousin to the King. My name is Esteldes."
"Well, hello. Would you like to come sit with me?"
"Yes." She came and sat next to me, and after a few minutes turned and asked, "What exactly are you doing?"
"Fishing." She was looking at me. "Surely you know what fishing is?"
"Yes of course! But we usually trade with the lake people for fish, we don't usually do so ourselves. The swift currents of our rivers and streams make fishing hard to do so, and I have never seen anyone try."
"Well I'm starting to believe that, I've been sitting here for hours and caught nothing. It might be better to try spear fishing sometime."
"That sounds like fun!" She said enthused.
"Well if you bring some next time we will give it a try. I don't think I will be allowed into the weapon vaults."
"I will!"
We agreed on a time, and discussed more trivial things for the rest of the afternoon.
…..
This evening when I was escorted to the King's table, I recognized several elves on the way there. I stopped and spoke with a few before a servant pulled out my chair for me, which was once again next to the King.
He looked at me curiously as I turned to him.
"I see you have been making the rounds." He nodded to the tables of elves scattered around the room, looking in particular at Esteldes, whom I had spoken with last.
Things were different now after our talk the night before. It was crazy, but the King was actually being kind and courteous to me, now that he need no longer try to find out who I was. It led one to the frightening conclusion that perhaps he was only cruel when it was necessary.
"I have indeed, now that I have been allowed to look around a little. I have met some wonderful people, these past few days."
When he spoke he looked out over the feasting hall at his subjects. "They like you very much. If you were ever wary of me, you needn't have been, for there are some here who would die for you even now." I saw his gaze had fallen on Padhrion the healer.
I blushed. "Your highness, I believe he thinks of me only as a foster daughter, in a protective sense, a result of his having cared for me for so long a month. And for the rest of your subjects, I might think that perhaps they speak to me so readily because you have told them of my noble blood."
He raised an eyebrow. "It is true I have told a few of your true identity, and that word travels fast in my realm, but their love for you came before then. They were all enchanted by the kind young mortal who was so different."
I bowed my head as a servant placed a plate full of meat and fine fruit in front of me. "The elves of your realm are kind, and easy to become friends with."
I looked up to find him gazing at me with a strange look on his face, a cross between a smile and surprise.
"What is it?" I asked blinking.
"Nothing." He paused. "That color, it suits you."
The warm glow that came over me and made my spirits rise so high more than made up for the embarrassing shade of red that covered my cheeks.
My dress, my maidservants had told me, was from Laketown. An elf who had traveled there recently had went to the trouble to have some gowns made for a mortal girl of my size. This one was gold, and my maids had told me it complemented the dark of my black hair and matched my golden eyes to the tee.
I started to stammer something back to the king, but my good feelings vanished as I was interrupted by Coruven, who was sitting on his father's other side.
He gazed at me icily. Something about the expression on his face made me believe that he had been listening the entire time, although I could not discern at the moment why this would upset him so.
"Let us have a story." He interrupted, and called for one of the elven minstrels.
I was disappointed to see the King turn from me to his son. "An excellent idea. Let us hear the story of Beren and Luthien, and of their noble quest to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth." The king surprised me and turned back to me, and spoke loud enough for all to hear, "would that be pleasing to you, my lady?"
"Oh, well, sure." He gazed at me, not convinced, so I went one. "It is just that I have heard it before, and it is not one of my favorites. It is very much an elven tale, and once one has heard it one need not hear it again."
"Why do you say "an elven tale" like it is a thing to be sorry about?"
"No, no, no, my king, it isn't a thing to be sorry about. It's just that, well you see, elven tales are a type of genre of their own, sometimes, and this story is one of those."
"Please explain what type of genre our tales are."
"Oh you know. Melodramatic. Moody. Flowery. Extravagant. Making things that are not that serious seem to be so."
"You are speaking of one of the great heroic and most tragic tales in the history of this world! Their heroism to steal one of the jewels from the Dark Lord's crown is one of the most impressive feats ever accomplished."
"I know, I know. I've heard the story. But how was it so heroic that their only priority was to steal his jewelry rather than try to defeat him, or whatever. I have always felt that elves, being so sensitive to evil, make heavy tales that are really light."
By now he was speaking through his white teeth. "And what tale would you have?"
"Oh, definitely a ballad of Turin, the son of Hurin, and his adventures. Now there's a real tragedy. Real heroism and sorrow that people really have to deal with. A good strong tale of a strong mortal hero."
"Insufferable girl." He said glaring angrily.
I smiled at him and raised my glass. "That would be Luthien."
