Chapter Twenty Three
The infirmary stretched out and curved around the outside of the second floor, large airy windows ran along the wall, overlooking the river. It would have been peaceful had they not been open to the roar of the waterfall directly outside. Glorfindel found the noise comforting after the silence that crept through the valley as the dead were counted.
Hesten was one of the few sitting up, looking around impatiently. His face, an unsightly grey sheen rather than cheerful brown as usual lit up somewhat as Glorfindel and Gilotor approached.
"You look worse than I do, and I have been staring at my reflection in the window since midnight." Glorfindel sat beside him on the chair that each bed had assigned to it. The beds were wide and deep, white sheets and brown covers made them uniform but cosy.
"I shall have to ask them to discharge you, you appear to have quite recovered your sense of humour." Hesten raised a hand to touch his face and Glorfindel held it to his cheek gently. It was warm if a little shaky and gladly received.
"You cannot get rid of me that easily. I will be here to cause you headaches for a while yet." He smiled and would happily have taken all the teasing in the world to keep Hesten with him.
"What happens now?" Glorfindel asked eventually, looking around for Elrond. He was still busy at another bed, changing dark stained bandages with a grim face.
"There is not exactly much precedent for this situation. Maethor was our second Captain of the Guard. That can hardly tell us what is average." Hesten began to pick at the wrappings around his wound until he had his hands taken firmly away to be held by Glorfindel. "Stop fussing over me."
"Then stop being a nuisance." A soft weary chuckle came from behind them and they turned to find Elrond and Gilotor watching them with amused expressions. Elrond's fell away first.
"We need an explanation for this," he said sadly. "To console the bereaved and keep this from happening again. Our numbers should have been sufficient."
"Those mountains are crawling with orcs," Hesten answered. "An army."
"They were more than mere war bands," Cûinath agreed, materialising out of nowhere. She wore a sombre expression and did not seem to have benefitted much from sleep. Glorfindel could see her father's face in hers, a mirror image but harder than the cook's.
"No army could hope to reach the valley," she continued. "So they cut us to pieces when we venture out."
"Or they are massing for some other purpose," murmured Gilotor. "Another attack on Eregion?"
"I do not see how the mountains can sustain them for much longer. They must have a lowland place from which they are spawning." Cûinath had begun to pace slowly between Hesten's bed and the next as she spoke.
"Underestimation of the enemy was not the only mistake we made," Hesten added. "We abandoned the only defensible position in favour of a pitched battle in the passes."
It took a long time for everyone to look uncomfortably at each of the others. Eventually Glorfindel felt Elrond's strong gaze on him. It was Turgon's stare, even if his face was more that of Eärendil or Tuor. Glorfindel found he could not hold it.
"Laiken is gathering the votes," Elrond said at last. "By midday all should be awake and able to choose." Hesten shot a grin in Glorfindel's direction. "I you will excuse me." Elrond left them to tend to a blond ellon in the process of waking disorientated up with his neck braced.
"Fate plays a cruel hand," Cûinath murmured as she turned on her heel by Hesten's head. As a general observation Glorfindel agreed with her, however he looked up quizzically for the exact reasoning behind her remark. "Pay me no heed, I listen at keyholes." With that she went out on silent feet, seeming to vanish before she had reached the door as she slipped between the healers.
"Her sister is dead," Glorfindel told Hesten after a moment.
"She is an eavesdropper, a spider we used to call her when we were children. Always climbing into places and half hearing ominous words. Ignorance is bliss, a little knowledge is terrifying." Hesten lay back and closed his eyes. "You are welcome to hide here until your sister drags you out." It hurt Glorfindel that he no longer knew how likely his sister was to do that. The most he ever remembered her doing was dragging him into her cushion fort.
"I do not want to," he said at last. "I do not want the position."
"Then say so." Hesten shrugged dismissively. "You could drown us all if you put your mind to it, no one here can force you to do anything."
That was a novel idea. To not have to do follow orders. For a moment he liked the feeling before he decided it terrified him. He had only once made a choice completely free from instruction and following Turgon had gotten himself and most of his family killed.
"Are you awake?" asked Laiken. "And able to cast a vote?" Hesten pushed himself up a little, grinning.
"I am in possession of what little intelligence I have ever had. Do you want me to write it down or are you ticking names?" Laiken handed them both scraps of paper. Democracy had never made its way out of the guard and into the lords.
Glorfindel paused for a moment, looking at Hesten. The dark elf had given back his paper within seconds. Somehow he could not put the same faith in him as in Ecthelion or Duilin, both jokers but more trustworthy. That left Cûinath or Isowen.
"Hannon le." Laiken walked off with their votes.
Glorfindel stayed put, listening to the infirmary and the rest of the house waking up. From the training ground a soft bell tolled for the horses to be watered, rousing the last of the grooms and somewhere a blackbird began to sing.
"May I suggest you left, Glorfindel?" Elrond said gently. Hesten's eyes flickered open and he winced. "The more you rest," he added to Hesten. "The quicker you will be up."
"I did barely sleep with half my leg missing, you shall have to go out and report back in a few hours what is going on. Tell me who to bow to." Glorfindel stood, fussing with the pillow for a moment to annoy him. Whether Elrond was naturally positive around his patients he had yet to see but he took comfort in the overall lack of gloom around concerning Hesten's leg. It would be salvageable at the least. He took his leave of them, hesitantly venturing back into the main house.
He had barely made it halfway to the Hall of Fire before Isowen cornered him.
"Have you cast your vote?" she asked, linking her arm in his. He nodded as she steered him towards the gardens. "Good. There was a time when we voted on everything, when the world first sank. Then we settled on Ereinion as King. Things are easier this way."
"For each to have their say seems a better system than entrusting untested heirs to rule." She laughed quietly at him. "It is true! Had our people chosen a leader from any among us perhaps things would not have turned so sharply for the worse."
"Be careful, Glor. Revolutionary ideas only upset people." She stopped to smell the bluebells. "Do you remember my flower? The last one that grew before the wastes? It survived the ice, warm in my pocket. It did not survive the fire." She moved away from the flowers suddenly. "Do you suppose Maltion still looks like me?" It caught him off guard. Of course he dwelled upon his brother, yet Maltion was firmly shut in the same place as Ecthelion and the Isowen he knew.
"I would imagine so. Perhaps only slightly different, you have father's nose whilst he had mother's." She had led them towards the well-kept woods by the river, melting into the bark in her brown tunic. He wondered if he could keep track of her were they playing at woodcraft.
"We will have grown up separately, so different. Even you used to find telling us apart difficult. I did not think about it so much before you came." Her words dug deep. He was the constant reminder of an old scar. "Perhaps he has not grown to maturity. You do not appear changed, not in age." A Man would say youth never left the Eldar yet they could tell among themselves who had seen more passing winters. Sometimes it mattered, often it did not. For Glorfindel he could see each one in his sister's eyes and yet when he looked into the mirror he saw only as many as the last night in Gondolin.
"Where is Erestor?" Glorfindel asked to avoid having to answer her philosophical and disheartening questions further. From Isowen there was a steely silence and hard amber eyes glared at him.
"Of course." She turned on her heel, snapping into a course that led her away from him so quickly he barely had time to think. Bemused he stared after her until a caterpillar dropped onto him and he had to find it a new home under a leaf.