Chapter Eight: Three Wise Ladies
Gilraen walked blindly at Lynael's side, leaning her head on the beloved shoulder, until they came to a door half-opened. They entered a wide, high chamber with double doors leading to a balcony. One of the elf ladies, Milia, hurried across to close them, while the other stirred up the fire and checked the contents of a large kettle. As she lifted the lid, a sweet fragrance spread through the room.
Lynael led Gilraen to a long oval tub half-filled with a warm milky liquid. "Is the floral brew ready, Larat?" she asked. "Pour it in, and more boiling water if you feel it needs so…" She removed Gilraen's cloak and tossed it aside. "Let me take this dress off, my dear," she spoke soothingly to the stricken woman as she unlaced the ribbons. "Some deep part of you longs for this bath, I know…" she smiled in loving concern.
"Yes," said Gilraen. "I would it could all be washed off. All of it, and none of this ever happened." Tears began to flow again.
"Now, now," said Lynael, "no sad speeches until we are ready. Here, my lady, you step into this delicious bath—" she checked the water with her hand, "and let your body sink into restfulness." Gilraen let herself be led, and sighed a long sigh as she lowered herself into the steaming, fragrant liquid. Lynael and Larat cushioned her neck with thick towels tucked around the rim of the tub, while Milia took a small harp and settled herself on a stool near the foot.
"I would play for you, and sing perhaps, my lady," she said. "Will you bear with me?"
"If you wish," murmured Gilraen, "a lay of things long past…" She moaned softly as Lynael kneaded her left hand and forearm, and Larat the right, then the feet, left and right, and the calves of her legs. The sweet staves and rippling harp notes seemed to flow through the pores of her skin into her strained and knotted muscles, until little by little she, too, seemed to float into the fields and seashores of the song. "I had forgotten the elven minstrels' magic," she breathed, "that swirls one away into the stream of their story…"
Milia paused in her singing and plucked an intricate melody on her instrument, letting the notes lead one after the other into unknown shadows, then suddenly broke into the elves' song to Elbereth that everybody knows. She turned the phrases, however, with a tone and color of her own, at once soothing and haunted. "You are wonderful," whispered Gilraen from the depths of her detached, floating state.
When the vapors were thinning out and the bath beginning to cool, Lynael leaned forward and broke the spell. "Come, lady," she said quietly. They took Gilraen's hands and raised her, holding her steady. She stepped out of the tub onto a soft mat and the three women dried her body quickly with thick, warm towels. Lynael took note of the enlarged and darkened nipples, and shook her head imperceptibly as she deftly wiped a drop of blood that had run down the leg. The elf-women clothed her in a matching tunic and robe, light but warm enough, spun from the finest silk.
"This is lovely," murmured Gilraen sleepily as they packed her into a bed of amazing softness and clinging warmth.
"One moment more, Gilraen," said Lynael. "Drink this, and then you may sleep, free from dreams, through the night." She brought a vessel to the half-sleeping lady, and held her while she swallowed it all, dram by dram. "Very good," she whispered, "now, into the deepest sleep ever, my little girl…" She stroked the forehead, waited, then reached for a smaller towel and folded it into an oblong pad. "Help me, my sisters," she said quietly.
The three barely moved the sleeping woman as they secured the pad between her legs and tucked the covers around her. "This is not good," said Larat sadly. "There is a child that will never be."
"Yes, that is what she wanted to tell us," said Lynael, "but it was hardly needful. One look at a woman, even fully dressed, and I can see well enough that she carries a tiny life. But this promise to Gilraen has been broken, along with the one of everlasting love…" She sighed. "My lord Arathorn would have dangled from the smallest finger of this little girl. Now both are gone forever, to where mortal kind go by the will of Eru, and we must help this lass find life and laughter without them."
"But there is the boy," said Milia. "She will build a new life around him."
"Surely she would want to," said Larat, "but there are more hands involved in guiding this little prince to manhood. I know Master Elrond's thoughts on this matter." She busied herself with the damp towels, making a bundle together with Gilraen's cast-off garments. "These we should burn, that she never see them again and remember."
"Burn!" cried out Gilraen suddenly in her sleep. The three turned to her anxiously, and Lynael searched her sleeping face. She breathed heavily, muttered bits of words, and then whispered clearly, "They are burning it… they think I don't see, but I do… I see the arrow… black arrow…" The elf-women clutched each others' hands and moved their lips in silent prayer. "…pierced the life of my love, curse you… twisted our road… sent us into darkness…" She began to pant in agitation, and Lynael stretched out next to her, holding her body close, while Larat flew to her basket of herbs and picked out a fresh shoot, then another. She rubbed them together between her palms as she came back to Gilraen and held them to her nose and mouth.
"You, sing," she said to Milia. "The holy name of Elbereth, and call for the pity of Nienna to ward off evil thoughts and wishes…" The songstress crawled onto the foot of the bed and began to hum softly, as her fingers plucked watery sounds from the harp-strings. Lynael still held the anguished sleeper closely, blowing long and softly on her face, neck and hands, and Larat went back to the herb basket. "This will do, I believe, Lynael," she said, setting a small pot on a burner with live coals. "The water will boil in a moment, and I will steep a mixture."
Whether it was the song, or the herbs, or the warm current flowing from Lynael's body to hers, or all three together, Gilraen was slowly released into a deep, dreamless sleep. "Now she will rest," said Lynael softly as they rose from the bedside with a last caress to the sleeping girl's cheek. "Come, let us sit by the fire and speak in whispers. We cannot help but suppose that some troubled part of her mind can hear us."
"The herb mist will soothe her. I will place it here, close by." Larat arranged the burner and pot to her satisfaction, and joined her companions by the fire. "Her spirit is split by fright and sorrow," she said. "That is why she saw the—" she broke off and mouthed silently arrow burning, "and she heard me speak a word that set off her agitation. We must help her regain her oneness," she finished.
"Of that we were speaking when she burst out," said Milia. "Of what she will have in her life to love and cherish… to be the center of her caring and dreaming…"
"The wiser and more gifted of mortal kind are not daunted by the Gift of Iluvatar to his Second-born," said Lynael. "Even so, when the moment comes they are often unprepared… Death they seem to accept, but more easily when it comes at the end of a long life, or as relief from a grievous malady. This death that strikes off a flower in its full bloom is always disastrous to them… although in this I believe we can feel as they do: our kind can be stricken suddenly as well, and a beloved face and presence be ripped savagely away from one moment to the next."
"So as we live we compile generations of lost loves," reflected Milia, "we who cherish our mortal kin, the Dúnedain…"
"Indeed," said Lynael, "many of us keep a face, a touch, in our hearts from even a full age past. And you know," she smiled, "sometimes the face returns and lives again for a little while, with another name, another step…"
"Another tone to his music…" laughed Milia softly. "Oh, yes, they do return, these mortal men with their unending waves of offspring, like the sea itself, taking and returning in an endless circle." She leaned towards the fire and placed a slender log carefully. "But her case is not so. She will love only once in her brief lifetime, which will surely now be even shorter. There will not be another man in her bed, in her arms… for there is one in her heart forever, in secret and in sorrow."
"In sorrow, yes… but why say you in secret?" asked Larat.
"You said before that Master Elrond has a design for the child's rearing," said Milia. "Vital to this plan is a veil of secrecy over the name, origin and destiny of his foster-son. Even among us, it will not be spoken until the season is done."
"And what part must Gilraen carry out?" asked Lynael worriedly. "She has been a good mother and fine teacher to the boy these two years. She must find the strength to carry on her part, which will be different perhaps from what has been."
"First, and foremost," reflected Larat, "we must nurse her back to health. I believe she will sink into a lethargy rooted in her heart but branching into her body. And the loss of the child, and the blood, will weaken her further…"
"A new home, a new life. No duties, beyond recovering her health and spirits." Lynael nodded slowly. "When she wakes from this deep sleep, it will be a kind of rebirth, as in another world. Although of course she does know Rivendell from previous visits…
"Music, Milia, must be present in her every waking hour. In time she must herself be taking up an instrument… you may help her find the right one…and then perhaps she will give words to her feelings, words in song and verse that will help her heal."
"I seem to recall that both she and her mother are gifted in music," said Milia. "It may help us now. I believe I will bring her a small, sweet flute, and perhaps she may be persuaded to explore its birdlike twitterings. Singing will take much longer…"
Larat rose and went to Gilraen. A butterfly-soft touch was enough to sense her body's balance of cool and warm, and her steady, deep breathing. The wise-woman returned to the fire. "The counterpart, water," she said. "Running water. She must bathe in pools, dangle her feet in streams, stand in the spray of waterfalls, pour out buckets and pitchers, even run about in the rain… Water flowing will wash away her pain, bit by bit."
"Perhaps a little while in the rain, then into her hot tub," laughed Lynael. "We must be so careful with her this autumn and winter. She will be without appetite, now when her body will be needing life-essence to heal itself. It will be a struggle, but we will have to bring her from soups to nuts and meats. Best would be if she herself took interest in concocting healthful dishes."
"I have it!" Milia straightened up brightly. "She will do it for the child, if not for her own health or pleasure."
"That is crafty and clever, dear sister," laughed Larat. "I believe she may be brought to this task shortly, and warned that she must not weep over her boy's food: it may not spoil directly, but it will carry seeds of sadness into his body. She will refrain."
"And even the little bits she takes to her mouth to test flavor and done-ness will bring about her own deadened appetite," mused Lynael. "Some nourishment her body will absorb, and for the rest we can trust the good soup. Strengthened with all the herbs in your basket, in the garden, and the forest, Larat."
"That we can bring her to, as well," ventured Larat. "To study the form of each leaf and stem, to come to know the secrets they hold for us. Walking in the valley with me, learning to pick a plant for medicine… another healing art in itself."
"These are all good thoughts, and my mind is more at ease," Lynael sighed. "I would that we rest here with her now, taking turns to watch. Later we must check the pad," she said sadly. "We can only hope that it all happens while she sleeps, and that it will not be more than another bad dream, not a memory."
The elf-ladies fell silent. One gazed into the fire, another at Varda's stars through a window lattice, another at the fine features of the sleeping lady's face. Each read something, and put it into her heart for safekeeping and further thought, until the night was spent.