It was still fairly early when Calla arrived for the festivities on the following evening. Honored though she was by Lord Faramir's invitation, she was also very conscious that she would probably be the only woman a table full of soldiers who had distinguished themselves in their services to Gondor, and she felt that she would stand out quite enough as it was, without showing up late on top of it all. She looked around, nervously smoothing the skirt of her blue silk. Maybe in her effort not to be late, she'd come a bit too early. Hardly anyone else was here, just a few people here and there in little clumps. Two of these, fortunately were at the second table, where she would be sitting. Calla took a deep breath and moved to sit down, pretending she didn't notice as people glanced at her sidelong.
"Uh… miss?" The two soldiers seated a little down the way from Calla were looking at her skeptically.
"No, it's—it's all right. I'm supposed to be here," Calla reassured them with a smile. The two soldiers glanced at each other and turned towards her again, their expressions rather patronizing.
"Little lady—" one of them began, but Calla cut him off, coolly.
"I am the daughter of Cadan, who fell at Osgiliath, willingly slain by an arrow so that the Lord Boromir might be spared from it. I am the sister of Callain, who rode to his death in that last, futile attempt to retake Osgiliath from which none but Lord Faramir ever returned. Lord Faramir himself has asked me to sit here tonight in their stead to honor their memory; please, do not 'little lady' me." The expressions of the soldiers changed as she was speaking. The nearer one leaned forward.
"Cadan was my captain. He died as you say, to save Lord Boromir. You—you are his daughter?" The soldier bowed his head, and the momentary indignation that had flared up in Calla was completely extinguished. She dropped her hand over his and squeezed it gently, and they smiled at each other.
"I remember your father, one night…" And the reminiscences started. The three of them fell to talking, and eventually, in twos and threes, the table began to fill up and the air was filled with voices—conversation, laughter. Where Calla sat, at the second table, both were more melancholy than at other tables. Calla felt her heart swelling inside her, as she listened to the men around her talking, not about themselves and their own deeds—though she knew, by the fact that they were there at that table, that they all had stories to boast about—but about those of their fallen friends.
Trumpets sounded, and everyone stood as the party of the high table entered—the King, with the Lady Arwen on his arm, and behind them the four, strange little Halflings , and Eomer, the new king of Rohan, and his sister Eowyn, and, Gimli, the brave Dwarven companion of the King, and… and… and…
Calla did not see the rest of the party. She had gone suddenly and selectively blind. All at once, the entire world existed in a golden head, a proud, beautiful Elven face, bright eyes, pale and piercing. The movement of the stars in the heavens was nothing to the movement of his neck as he turned his head. Calla felt that she would choke or burn up if she did not look away, but she also felt that to burn up watching him was a better fate than letting him out of her sight for one instant longer than she had to. Somewhere, faintly, beneath the overwhelming brightness of her dazzled brain, a little bit of her stood apart, looking on critically and wondering that the mere sight of someone—albeit an Elf—should affect her so deeply.
It was not until she realized that Lord Faramir was coming to sit at the head of the second table that she managed to shake herself out of her reverie and raise her glass to the King and the Lady Arwen with the others. Then they all sat again, and the feast began in earnest, and the talk began again in a growing rumble. Calla, only a few places away from the head of the table, was close enough to Lord Faramir that, when their plates were nearly empty and they were all on their third or fourth glass of wine, he was able to lean over to her and ask about her peculiar necklace. Calla fingered the thick, unadorned chain around her neck.
"It is made from the chain mail of my father's armor. Before his burial, I had these links removed to remember him by." She paused. "Please, Lord Faramir, tell me—before my brother died—did he say anything? Was he…did he know that he would not come back?"
"Yes, he knew," said Faramir, bowing his head. "Your brother never deceived himself about his chances in any battle, and least of all, in that. He was," Faramir smiled, "the most cheerful pessimist I have ever known. He always counted on the worst happening—expected the greatest host of enemies, the most devious cunning of the enemy—and the worse he calculated the danger to be, the more light-heartedly he went to meet it. When he was most certain of his death, he would joke, and charge the enemy with such a grim and reckless laugh. Yes, he counted on his death that day that we rode to the massacre at Osgiliath." He looked at her. "On that day, there was no dark corner of fear in Callain's heart."
Calla gave him a watery smile, holding her head high, and fighting back tears as she felt something inside of her relax. Since her father's death, companions who had been there with him had told her about his last day; but of those who had fought with her brother, only Faramir remained. The thought that he would have known of her, much less spoken to her—and that she would ever have the same comfort that she had had for her father's death—had never crossed her mind. All she had had of her brother to bury was his severed head that had been catapulted over the wall by the orcs of Mordor, and that was all she had expected to have.
"Thank you," she whispered, trying to force down the lump in her throat. In the end, she found felt that perhaps the wine left in her goblet would do the job best, and she took a few gulps of it to clear her head.
The dinner went on, and gradually the tables grew a little emptier, as men and women got up to dance (and some who had had a bit more than enough to drink were carried of home by their friends) and to mingle and talk and sing. Soldiers on either side of Calla vacated their seats, and Calla was just thinking that she might go and find Shiriel and Cadfael, when a wonderful, terrible, impossible thing happened.
He came over and sat down right next to Faramir, two places to Calla's left. She was suddenly completely incapable of movement. Shiriel was driven utterly from her mind. Calla stared very hard at her plate; with all her might she willed him to look at her, and at the same time she was terrified that he would.
He didn't. He and Lord Faramir seemed to be carrying on a conversation that they had begun earlier, one about the poets of Gondor. Calla sat quietly and listened, gradually becoming absorbed in the conversation. She would have loved to be in it; she was quite a reader herself, and an opinionated one, and she wanted the Elf to notice her, but her tongue seemed too thick and heavy to make any words. She wondered if Shiriel was watching, and had guessed, and what she would say when she found out that Calla had been three feet away from the Elf and not even had the courage to catch his eye. She sighed quietly and returned to eavesdropping, as she pushed the last meat juice around her plate with a heel of bread.
"…but consider, by contrast, the works of Mardil the Younger, written when Gondor was in the midst of a long and peaceful era." That was Lord Faramir talking. Calla nodded silently, but was caught short at what she heard next.
"No, the more I read Mardil, the more I find he does not bear rereading. His work grows stale with familiarity."
"Philistine!" Calla said it with a smile, but inside she was writhing, unable to believe that it was she who had said it.
"I'm sorry?" Oh, he was looking right at her now. For one moment of cold insanity, she felt that she would was going to get up and run away, back home, to her books and her loom and a life where her stomach didn't turn to ice, but then, just as she was about to stutter something and excuse herself, when the thought flashed across her mind that since she was this far along to making a fool of herself, and she might as well be in it to the hilt. And at least this way she wouldn't regret not taking a chance.
"I said 'Philistine'. And anyone who can say that Mardil the Younger's works can get stale deserves it!" She was laughing as she said it and he smiled, and the cold lump in her chest melted suddenly and relief flooded her.
"And why is that?"
"Because his poems are, as Lord Faramir says, the products of a happier time, when the world was brighter, in the height of Gondor's glory, when it was young, and strong, and—and before the laughter had gone out of it. And it shows in absolutely every aspect of his writing. His meter, completely different from anyone else's before or since, the lilt within each line and the overall, slower, grander crescendo, like a drum roll, and the like waves on the sand, ebbing and flowing. It's so full of life and joy; it's like a young sun laughing as it rises for the first time, and that, sir Elf, is why I call you a philistine. Anyone who can read Mardil and not be moved… well, how can he say he loves poetry?" She paused for breath, and felt that she was flushed with exhilaration. But her fear was gone, now that she had got going on something she cared about.
"Well said, Calla!" Lord Faramir grinned at her, and the Elf held up his hands in mock surrender.
"I fine defense, miss, and one which I cannot entirely disagree with. In fact, you name the very things which made me love his poetry when I first read it. But perhaps my feelings on Mardil are the result of my long life; when I read his poetry now, I feel as though I have outgrown it."
"If it is possible to outgrow first love, then I count myself blessed to have the short life of a mortal."
"First love?"
"Absolutely! Mardil's works set fire to my heart long before anything—or anyone—else did. I remember my father reading them aloud to my brother and me when we were very young. There's a bit halfway through the third book (but I forget which lines) about the Young King as he appears at the gate, holding the enemy's head by the hair, when everyone had thought him dead, that's so beautiful I used to lie awake at night saying it to myself over and over and just aching because it was so beautiful. If that isn't love, what is?"
"What indeed?" He smiled at her in earnest now, and all at once she remembered her awe of him as shivers raced up and down her spine. She wondered if his keen Elvish senses picked up on things like that. If they do, he's extremely diplomatic about it. But maybe Elves are used to humans going all goopy over them.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I did not quite catch your name earlier. I am Legolas, son of Thranduil, of the Woodland Relm."
"And I am Calla, daughter of Cadan, woman of Gondor."
"Cadan? Is he of one of the noble houses of Gondor? His name is not familiar to me."
"No, my lord. He was a common soldier who worked his way up through the ranks, as was my brother. For my part, I am a weaver. Not very grand at all, I'm afraid," she said with a smile.
"The pursuits of peace have a grandeur of there own, which does not rely on bloodlines or legendary deeds." Legolas was quiet for a moment, and seemed to look far away. "It was to preserve that simple grandeur that we went to war. If anyone doubts it, he should look a young Sam, the Halfling companion of the Ringbearer."
"Oh?" Calla cocked her head inquisitively.
"Yes, before he left his home, his was a gardener known only to his friends and family, unheard of outside his own small village. And, I believe, that if he had not loved peace and gardening and a quiet life so much, he would not have had the will to fight for them so hard."
Calla looked at the high table, where a plump, shy-looking Halfling sat quietly beside the Ringbearer. Everyone, of course, knew about the Ringbearer, and everyone knew that he had had a faithful companion in his long trial, but few people actually knew much about that second Halfling. Yet, at any rate. After all, everyone expected that his deeds, his part in the tale of the One Ring, was already being set down by countless bards. Calla wondered briefly how much they really knew about him, and how many of them would get things wrong. She was just about to ask Legolas how he knew the Halfling so well, when he shifted and rose to his feet.
"If you will excuse me. It has been a pleasure meeting you. I hope you will not think me too barbaric for my opinion of Mardil. If ever you wish to continue our discussion…" He trailed off, bowed politely, and was gone, back to the high table. Back to people more worthy of his company.
Calla sat frozen for a full thirty seconds, as though she had had the breath knocked out of her. Then, gasping a (probably inadequate) thank you to Lord Faramir for the honor of including her there at the table, she rushed off to find Shiriel.
"Shiriel, Shiriel! Sorry, Cadfael," Calla panted, dragging her friend away from the middle of a dance, and leaving poor Cadfael bewildered.
"What is it, Calla? Good heavens, you look like you have a fever, are you all right? Cadfael!" She whirled back to her fiancé. "I'm taking Calla home right now, I'll see you tomorrow." She held Calla around the waist and began to shepherd her through the crowds. "Now my dear, are you well? You're very flushed, and I can actually feel your heart hammering, and I just knew that that table you were at tonight would be draughty, and I'll bet anything you caught something from one of those soldiers—they're always carrying sicknesses around, getting them from one another, being as they're apt to be in such close quarters so much of the time. I have to watch Cadfael's health like a hawk."
"It's not that, Shiriel. I've just been talking to—well, to him." Shiriel gasped deeply.
"Oh, Calla, not that fair-haired one, the one who sits right up with the King himself?" Calla nodded. "Oh, dear Elbereth, you do know how to pick them, don't you. I saw the three of you talking—that is, the two of you and Lord Faramir—but you looked so comfortable I didn't think for a minute that that was him, or he, or—oh, this is much too exciting for grammar!" She paused to take a breath. "Actually, I was looking at you, and I don't think I've seen you so talkative with anyone in years. Oh, Calla, does this mean you got on well? Oh, don't tell me here in the street, come home, and we'll sit on your bed and tuck up our feet and you can tell me everything."
A/N: Okay, sorry this chapter took a little longer than the others. I've been traveling and then jetlagged for the past few days, but I should be back to (relatively) normal now. As promised, Calla has met Legolas. Hope it was a bit of an atypical (for a Legomance) meeting, and that you'll like the way their relationship continues to unfold. In this chapter, yes, all that stuff about the poet they were discussing was entirely made up by me, so don't go looking for it. I'm not exactly what you would call an expert on the history of Gondor, so things have been kept deliberately vague, but I think (hope) the exchange worked anyway. Thoughts? I think of Calla as very pretty (Actually, I have a specific girl in mind from the movies for this character-- any of you struck by the pretty Gondorian girl standing to the side of the rode when Faramir rides off to die? I'll have a look at my DVD to see if I can't pinpoint her more exactly, but she's wearing blue-grey if memory serves, and has very dark brown/black hair pulled back in what appears from the front to be a sort of bun, maybe, with the hair rolled on the sides of her head. Anyone know who I'm talking about? Anyone?) but I don't want Legolas to be too smitten with her looks, since he is, after all, an Elf. Thank you again, one and all, for your reviews. More are always welcome!