Sorry this took so long to post, i'm in my final year at uni and life is seriously hectic right now. I'm actually posting this in a lecture *cough*.
Sorry if i haven't replied to any reviews, getting round to it is a bit of a problem right now. I shall try to get round to it as soon as possible.
GaiaCaecilia
Wrath's Recompense 2
Unsure of what to do, Eönwë nodded at the woman before holding up one finger and going to the doorway, in which many curious Elves stood.
"Go now, I will deal with this. Someone go and tell the Camp Master to prepare accommodation near mine for a woman and child." The soldiers seemed startled for a moment before following his orders. Once they were gone, Eönwë turned back into the room where the woman and child still sat on the bed, eyes fixed on him.
He bowed and greeted them formally. The look on the woman's face implied that she had also realised the problem and after a moment's hesitation, put the boy down on the bed and moved closer to Eönwë. She touched her chest and said a single word, then point to the boy and said another, and then looked back at Eönwë. She tilted her head as he tried to comprehend what she was trying to say. She repeated the actions and words.
"Riona, Daffyd." Suddenly it dawned on him – she was telling him their names. He touched his chest and stated his own name before pointing to each of them in turn and stating their names. Riona's face lit up a little and she moved to the table across the room. When she came back she was holding what he realised was a wax tablet and a metal device to write in the wax.
After a moment's thought she began carving a picture in the wax before handing the tablet to him. After a few moments of examining the crude line drawings, he worked out what she was trying to say – or so he thought. The boy, Daffyd, was her nephew through a brother.
Not being able to work out how to draw it, he tried a pantomime to ask her how they got there. Riona proved quick in getting what he was asking, but her frown betrayed the difficulty she had with the answer. As she thought about it, she knelt by the fire, melting the wax and smoothing it back into place. Eventually, she turned back to him, lip bitten and with a combination of face and an expressive shrug, she indicated she did not know. He wasn't sure if that was she didn't know how she'd got to be prisoner or how to answer him.
He gave up on information for the moment and through another painful pantomime of both actions and drawing, he asked her to come back with him to the main camp. She nodded and then held up her hand in the same action he had earlier to indicate that he needed a short time to do something else.
To his surprise she then pulled a heavy trunk out from under the bed and removed cloaks from it. He could see that it also contain a change of clothes for each of them. As she looked at the clothing, she looked unsurely back at Eönwë. He tried to indicate that she should take the clothing – they would probably need it, he thought. She pulled a blanket from the bed and managed to make a large pouch to hold the extra clothing, as well as her wax tablet and writing implement. She gathered one or two other items that she had obviously hidden around the room, probably from her captors. Some of the hiding places were ingenious.
Once she had gathered everything she wanted from the room, she gathered her nephew on her hip and buried him under her cloak protectively. She nodded at Eönwë, who took the hint and led her out. She stayed close to him, seeming as wary of his soldiers still swarming the underground fortress as they were of her. At one point, he stopped to tell the men to clear out her room of everything useful that could be found.
Outside and in the camp, it was worse and Eönwë turned slightly as he heard a slight whimper. It was the first noise Daffyd had made and it was not a good one. He then noticed both were squinting and realised it had probably been a long time since either of them had even seen natural light. The room they had been kept in had only been fairly dimly lit by candles and a same fire in a small hearth.
A small part of him also noticed that in the light, Riona's hair was a more brilliant shade of red than he had previously seen in that dark room and she did stick out like a sore thumb in this crowd of blond and brown to black-haired males. Daffyd's hair was a more normal shade of chestnut-brown. Sensing their discomfort, he pulled them closer as he led them through to his own tent at the centre of the encampment.
They seemed to relax more when in the safety of his large tent, one with fabric partitions for a sleeping chamber and one to work in. He sat them down and offered them some fruit from the bowl that had been left in the tent to refresh those working there when necessary. Both accepted the food without hesitation and it was gone remarkably quickly. It suddenly occurred to the Maia that they could well have not eaten in days if they had been abandoned in that room for as long as he expected. The food he ordered to be brought to them was devoured as quickly, confirming his suspicions of their hunger. It was not long after that that the boy fell asleep on his aunt's shoulder.
XXX
The two continued to eat with Eönwë, partly because few in the camp trusted them. It was nothing either of the pair did, but more what they did not do. Riona could only communicate through the painful medium of mime and drawing and when Daffyd did speak it was purely to his aunt.
People wondered who the strange pair were to be kept prisoner as such – and it had got round the camp that they had been kept comfortably as well. The rumours concerning them running round the camp were wild and frequently totally improbable. The general thrust of the theories was that they were some type of weapon. Some said that the enemy had left their hold in such haste as to not be able to bring a woman and child; some said that they had deliberately been left there locked up so they would take her in where she could be the most effective within their grasp.
Riona did nothing either way to these rumours. She simply stayed within her tent or Eönwë's tent – though she seemed to ensure that her waking hours were supervised, usually by Eönwë himself. In the few spare moment available to them, he attempted to teach them a little of his language. Daffyd seemed to pick up what words he could think of how to explain to them quickly – probably because of his young age, the age at which he was still learning to speak any language.
Eönwë looked up from the table where he and some of his generals were planning out their next moves as he heard gentle humming from the corner of the large tent. He smiled over at Riona, who had Daffyd on her lap as she combed his hair with her fingers and hummed a strange tune.
It had caused some argument, letting them in the tent while they planned, but after a few short discussions on their language skills or lack thereof the other generals had given up – especially when it had been pointed out that she was always guarded – if unofficially – and would hardly be able to pass on information to anyone.
Once Daffyd had settled again, she picked up her sewing and carried on mending the shirt. It vaguely amused Eönwë to see her mending his shirts, but she had asked for something to do and so he had shown her his damaged clothing and provided her with the wherewithal to mend them. Between tending Daffyd, she happily did so.
His generals quietened down as they considered the information they had and slowly began to notice the music themselves and turned to the absently humming lady sitting in the corner. Riona's eyes flickered up and a pink blush stained her cheeks as she noticed the scrutiny. With a smile, the Maia indicated to her to sing up. They could all do with a bit of music in this dark time. The blush deepened significantly as she complied with him.
The song she sung was lovely but it was not hard to hear the longing touch in her voice. Eönwë's eyes flickered back to the hardened generals beside him. All were silent, watching her with strange looks in their eyes, many seemed to long after something. As her tone took on the catch of wistfulness that Eönwë associated with those people talking about homes they had been away from too long, he saw answering bursts of home-sickness in every other eye in the room.
Suddenly, he was refraining from grinning. Without anyone realising it, she found a language more elemental than word to communicate in and found an odd power. The power of music was not that of magic any more than the language of music was one of words, but it was one she wielded excellently – and apparently without a clue. Did she realise she had a lovely voice or the capability to fill it with emotions that passed the ears and went straight to the heart?
When she stopped singing and they went back to their work, he noted that everyone seemed calmer and everything seemed to go more productively – he would have to ask Riona to sing to them again if this was the effect.
XXX
The dark-haired Maia knocked on the side of the tent as much as one could on a tent and heard a comment in Riona's language that, from the tone, sounded like come in. After a moment's hesitation he entered the tent to find Riona sat on an improvised stall, while Daffyd slept on the joint bedroll they shared.
Eönwë knelt by Riona, who raised an expressive eyebrow at him, asking in a way that needed no translation, to what she owed this visit late into the evening. With a friendly smile, he handed her the bag he held.
With a quizzical frown, she took it from him and opened the bag, only to let out a noise of delight. Apparently she appreciated the present. Out of the bag she drew out a lute – or whatever it was. Eönwë has asked around about if there were any instruments around, after hearing her sing he had been curious about what her reaction to an instrument and had found this one.
As she gave him a look that asked where he had got it from, she absently tuned the instrument showing she had some familiarity with at least that type of instrument, even if not that specific one. Eönwë was very glad for the language barrier. He suspected that she would not appreciate knowing that the instrument had belonged to a soldier who was now dead. The soldier who'd handed it over had said the old bard had no family left, but it hadn't seemed right just to leave his things. The soldier had been of the opinion that the previous owner would much prefer that someone had and played the instrument than it be left in the rubbish or his grave – the man had apparently loved the thing. The look on Riona's face implied she would love it as much.
She played a simple tune on it, as if to see whether she'd tuned it well and then put it to one side for a moment. To Eönwë's complete surprise, he suddenly had arms full of joyous woman. Unsure what to do, but not wanting to make her unhappy, he wrapped his arms round her and drew her closer. It had apparently been the right thing to do, for she snuggled closer into his chest with a soft, delighted sound. She rested there a few moments before kissing his cheek and going back to her stall and instrument. She began to play the thing as if she had not just shown him more affection than anyone Eönwë could ever remember showing him.
As he watched her happy, affectionate expression as she played, he suddenly empathised with his men complaining about never understanding women.