Chapter Twenty-two: Estel's School in the Woods
Gilraen traced idly on the scroll of parchment before her, gyrating her stylus subtly to thicken the line, curve it and then thin it out into mere dots. She sighed and lifted her gaze to the balcony sunlight, considering an exchange of activities: put away papers, go out for a romp. On the one hand, she thought, there are fewer and fewer sunny days left in this autumn; on the other, I have a pact with these fine sheets and ink and colors. And a promise to my boy, though he knows nothing of it, as yet.
But perhaps there were enough engraved parchments stacked in the wooden box, laid therein carefully by her hand upon completing, each leaf covered with neat, small strokes of surprising clarity, interspersed with tiny bits of images grafted from her memory to the solid paper for the story in the telling. She looked in the box and blew a small kiss at the sheaf of parchments. They have seen enough of my tears flowing, she reflected, faithful confidants of this sorrow I may not show.
"But for the best!" she exclaimed aloud, shutting the box and rising from her low seat at the balcony threshold. Not for naught had her uncle, wisest of the wise, instructed her to restrain her sorrow before company, especially Estel, while endowing her with the great task of recording her history, their history, on paper... in words... drawings... full well knowing that in the task's required solitude she would weep freely as she worked, converting her pain to fine art. And true record.
Indeed, she thought as she closed her chamber door and sauntered down the hall to the garden door, there is much to be enjoyed in solitude. I had never, perhaps, found myself alone. Always Mother, and Father, and my darling brethren. Then, later, my love forever. Even when he was away, weeks at a time, his huge presence was as a solid body at my side, always. Never before have I been, as so I am now, undemanded and dispossessed of duties.
Well, not entirely, she amended. The sensitive work she had just set to rest in the fine box was fully her duty, hers and hers alone. If she did not carry it out, the entire story would fade and pass with her. Estel would be, in years to come, deprived of this testimonial and simply patch over the great abyss in his heart, where a loving father would have been.
Not that he will be bereft of the engendering essence of male, she added quickly to herself as she trod the path to the stables. Though not mortal, these elf-lords of Imladris are most assuredly male. "And there they be!" she said aloud, as she espied Elrond and his sons descending from the gallery with Estel leap-and-laughing all the way down to the bridge.
"Momo, Momo!" he cried as he spotted her climbing towards them. He bounded into her embrace and covered her face with little kisses. "We are off to the forest, Momo... Ada and Elladan and Elrohir and Estel! We will sleep in the forest, Momo!" He let himself down from her arms and took up his position between the twins. Suddenly, he looked back at her and asked, a bit worried, "Where are you going, Momo?"
Gilraen laughed at the little man's hint of encroachment on her freedom. "You are going to the forest with Ada and Elladan and Elrohir," she said, "and I am going for a long, lovely ride on Rogarin. Is that a good plan?" She tousled her son's hair and bowed gaily to the three, then turned and skipped across the bridge to the stable-path while the four watched her in silence.
"She will be fine, Estel," Elrohir patted the boy's shoulder. "You know Rogarin will carry her safely."
"It is most heartening to see her in good spirits, Ada," said Elladan, "and moving about on her own. Despite the sisters, perhaps," he added with a smile.
"They have watched over her night and day, mindful of her state," Elrond mused.
Elrohir shaded his eyes and gazed at the distant building. "There she goes, into the stable," he said. "We must fear nothing, Ada. She is a horsewoman from infancy, and there is no better mount for her than Rogarin."
"I do not fear," said Elrond, "but I wonder if she should ride alone..."
"There is one who never lets Gilraen out of his sight, Ada," whispered Elladan, with a wink to his brother. "Let us climb to the eagle rock and you will see."
The twins each took one of Estel's hands and swung him high, bringing shouts of laughter from the plucky child. They turned off the wide stone-paved path and followed a narrow track steeply up the valley, winding among great rocks. At a final turn, Elrond and Elladan leaped to the flat top of an outcropping boulder, and turned their view again to the stables far below.
"She emerges, leading her faithful mount," observed Elladan, "and now she will straddle him easily... yes... and off she goes." He turned to his father with a little grin. "Hold, a moment more."
Gilraen was not yet out of sight up the trail across the valley, when they saw another figure emerge from the stables, leading a large dapple-gray stallion. Elrond took note. "Glorfindel's gray Savoron... it is he, my son, if my eyes deceive me not."
"They never do," laughed Elladan, "and this is not the first time we spot our kinsman following the lady, especially when she walks alone."
"He has not made me party to the secrets of his heart," Elrond anticipated. "I know nothing of this matter."
"I believe there is nothing to know, Ada," said Elladan as they jumped back down to the track. "Ever the love of the Eldar for an Atani beauty, not easily kept hidden for the lady's brief lifetime." He sighed. "This I, too, have known, Ada."
"In this case, even more so. She will be a widow for her entire life, which will be far shorter than the extended years allotted to the Dúnedain from my brother Elros' line," Elrond reflected, "and Glorfindel bore great love for Arathorn. For that, also, he looks out for the lady. And this is good."
They caught up with Estel and Elrohir, stepping carefully along the trail. Before they could speak, the child held a warning finger to his lips. The two fell in with the game, which they knew was also a lesson. With Estel, everything was. They all proceeded in this silent manner until the forest closed in all around them. Elrohir made finger-signs to Estel, indicating that there was a clearing ahead where they could stop.
The tall elf stepped out into the wide space roofed by overhanging branches of ancient trees, and gestured for the others to follow. Although they were no longer playing the quiet game, each seemed loth to break into the silence, which, as they waited, became less silent and more like a patchwork of tiny forest sounds.
"We were practicing our silent forest-walk, Ada," whispered Estel.
"Yes, my boy. It went well," Elrond replied, also in a whisper. "But I believe we can speak freely now."
They hardly did, however. Each of the four drifted into the wealth of forest sounds. Elrond, standing still as a tree in the very center of the clearing, seemed to converse through his mind with old wood and young leaf alike. The child, as he was wont, one instant had his ear to the grassy floor and a moment later was crawling up a gnarled tree trunk. The twins took turns following Estel with a subtle eye, and otherwise set to devising riddles and questions to further lead the boy into their longtime woodcraft.
Elladan encouraged him to climb the trees. He made the child stretch and strain and utter no sound meanwhile, pull himself up unaided, then balance on high branches without a thought, seemingly, for the long drop to the forest floor. His hand barely brushed Estel's shoulder, but the child's feet did in fact step precisely where they had to and seemed to cling to the branch like a tree-frog's.
Their high spot set them in a green-and-gray mezzanine that seemed to go on forever into a forest sea above and below them. "See the little yellow bird, Estel," whispered the elf. The child nodded. "Follow with your eyes, his hops, his preening, his sudden flight... Perhaps his nest is nearby. Perhaps we can see it from here."
The pair watched, unmoving, for many minutes. Elladan observed with satisfaction that the boy could fix on a far object, that his eyes were sharp and his attention span strong. He wondered, also, that the fidgety child could stand so still.
A three-note whistle from below called them out of their surveillance. They came down from the tree as sailors from a great ship, happy to tread once more on solid earth. Elrohir took Estel's hand and led him to a spot where sun and shadow spoke by turns and drew fleeting images on all creatures alike. "This, too, one can sit and watch for many hours, and find good things, but we will not do so on this day." He smiled at the child's relieved expression. "There are, here, some bits of green for you to see. Come, sit with me for a moment."
There was a length of cloth extended on the ground, with a sampler of perhaps twenty different leaves, flower petals, bits of bark, fungi, and a little red bug trapped in a tiny inverted glass jar. Estel took his seat next to Elrohir and examined each item closely.
"This one I know," he said finally, "and this one, and this. This, maybe." He looked up at his cousin. "And the little red buzz-buzz?" he asked.
"You may take her back to her people. But first you must find where they are." The child looked around. "Here, in this clearing. Search carefully, and when you find them you may put the little red buzz-buzz back with them. Go." Elrohir barely suppressed a smile at the fierce determined look on Estel's face.
The boy shook the red bug carefully out of the glass onto his palm and examined it keenly, impressed with the brilliance of its scarlet shell. He further scrutinized the pointy little head and its long, thick feelers waving in question, then turned the bug on its back and verified that the belly and the six legs, like the head and feelers, were black. A bit annoyed, the bug tried to buzz its way into flight, but the quick child closed his hand loosely around it. He set himself to examine the ground all along the nearest edge of the clearing. The twins watched, while Elrond continued his silent sharing with the lively forest.
"To have found the flock, he will have seen all these others, I venture," Elrohir said to his twin. "Then he can tell us where each one was taken."
"It will take time, brother," Elladan gazed at the zenith, calculating hours of light still remaining, "and the boy is a fierce hunger."
"I believe he will finish his task first," said Elrohir. "He cannot eat with pleasure until all is done. The Lord Arathorn was so. I remember."
"Ha!" A little shout of triumph from across the clearing, Estel waving his arm and pointing to his closed fist. Elrohir signed him to proceed, and the happy child bent to release the red bug back with its kin, a mass of red bugs caked all along the southern face of a juicy young saddus. He skipped over to the twins, full of the story, but his teacher held up his hand.
"Not finished, yet," the elf said seriously. "Tell me: did you see the bush from where I took this leaf?" He pointed out a long, pointed leaf mottled with purple and yellow.
"I did, my cousin. It is here." He ran to the north side of the dell, and pointed to a small leafy bush. With the proper ceremony, Elrohir picked up the sample and took it to compare with the source. Elladan followed.
The twins agreed solemnly that the bush was, indeed, that from which the leaf had been taken. They nodded confirmation to Estel, hopping happily from foot to foot. A bright light flashed suddenly in his gray eyes, and he ran back to the sampler. He took up three more leaves, carefully, and another three flower petals, and waved the twins to come with him on the round of recognition.
With each successful finding, his actions grew more and more serious. All the bits were identified save one, a rough round nut. "Look up," whispered Elladan. The boy scrutinized the leafy ceiling branch by branch, until he espied a cluster of like nuts half-hidden among large, stiff leaves, and then many clusters more, here and there among the limbs of a great old tree.
"This!" he cried joyfully. "Now, all done." He sighed in deep satisfaction, then looked up suddenly. "I'm hungry," he said as if in discovery.
The twins exchanged a knowing look, and Elladan took a small packet from his belt. He opened it carefully and took out a brown strip of dried stuff. He sniffed it with relish, but Estel took it uncertainly and sank a thumbnail into one end. "Eat," said the elf, and proceeded with his own. Elrohir took a strip, and munched with gusto.
The boy looked from one to the other. The wonderful twins had never led him astray, he decided, so the strange brown thing must be good to eat. He was so hungry, at any rate, that it was surely worth a try. He took a big bite and chewed. And chewed and chewed and chewed, salivating copiously and marvelling at the vigour spreading quickly along his arms and legs.
"No fire in the daytime, Estel," Elladan confided to the child. "We eat our food as it is, and perhaps take something from the forest. Later, with Ada, we will look for a tasty treat." The boy suddenly remembered the elf-lord, and turned to seek him out.
It amazed him that Elrond was unmoving, in the same place since they first came into the clearing. He turned wide, questioning eyes on one and the other twin, silently signing What?
"He is speaking with the trees," whispered Elladan.
"But no words," insisted the child in the same low tones.
Elrohir touched his shoulder and turned his attention again to the sun-and-shadow pictures now on a huge tree trunk. "It begins there, for you," he said. "You will learn silent speech in stillness, though never so deep as Ada."
The child digested this in silence, and turned his attention to Elrond once more. Such was his intensity that the elf-lord seemed to come awake in answer to the call. He shook himself with great pleasure, loosening every joint and tendon, and rejoined the three with light step and wide, sunny smile.
"Old friends, always willing to share a moment," he said contentedly. "The year is coming to a fine end. We have time enough to gather all that we need, but none to waste. As always," he amended with a bit of song.
"Now, Ada?" asked Estel with a shadow of worry. "Must we hurry in the forest?"
"The trees speak of days to come, when Isil has gone around one more time." Elrond patted the boy's head playfully, then pecked with the middle finger. "I am a wood-carving drummer bird, searching for tiny feedlings in this tousled young tree!"
"A wild tree! A wild tree!" The child fell easily into the game. "Great winds whoosh blow, wild tree back and fro..." His little body bent side to side, arms outstretched, mouth and eyes wide. "Oooohhh! Oooohhh!" He grasped Elladan's hand and swerved nearly to the ground. The twins, too, were caught into the play, becoming one the wind and the other thunder and lightning. "And the drummer-bird, the drummer-bird!" cried Estel. "Where has he gone? The storm took him, perhaps..."
"Here, here is the clever bird," called Elrond perched on a low branch. "Safe from the storm, quick to find shelter. Have no sorrow for him, little wild tree!"
The four took their leave affectionately from the happy clearing and moved on into the thick of the forest. They took up again their forest-walk, as Estel called it, and moved through the brush with barely a sound. Many times they stopped and listened, hands outstretched, and then Elrohir would change their direction.
As the afternoon was waning, they came to a small hill among an evergreen copse. A section was dug up and uncovered, the topsoil removed and a solid gray-brown mass revealed. "Clay," whispered Elladan to the boy. "We will take a little, for you." He led the child to the quarry and they knelt before the exposed substance. "Ask them to let you have some."
"Ask who, Elladan?" the child whispered back.
"The guardians of the forest, Estel," said Elrond. "You cannot see them, but they see you. If you listen for a while, very still, perhaps you can hear their voices. But they are here, even if you do not perceive them as yet."
Elladan signed to the boy, Soon. He produced a light cloth pouch and opened wide its mouth, holding it out towards Estel. The child understood quickly, and carefully took one gray-brown chunk and then another, placing them in the bag. A little more, his mentor indicated, and he collected enough to fill the pouch and satisfy Elladan. The boy lifted it, feeling the weight, and then put it into his pack without a word.
The elves and the child turned their steps toward the setting sun, and with the last light arrived at a sheltered spot under an outcropping of moss-covered rock. "Here we will stay the night," said Elrohir, "and Estel will sleep; not at this moment!" he added quickly, as the child opened his mouth to protest. "We will prepare places of rest for each of us, and listen as it softly changes from day-forest to night-forest."
Elladan selected a spot for the child. In all his movements Estel sought to follow the twins, reworking his pack, preparing a hollow in the ground, lining therein his fine gray coverlet, and finally admiring a quickly-woven canopy that Elrohir made for him from the long, hanging branches of a slender tree. "Not cut, see? Just borrowed for this evening. Tomorrow, we un-weave and let the branches return to their good tree-life. We thank them, and go as friends."
"Thank you, Elrohir. Thank you, good tree." The boy smiled at the generous tree, and for several seconds was miraculously still. The twins watched their little kinsman as he absorbed the experience, his face shining with a dreamy expression. He finally reached out for a feathery branch-end and brushed it over his face, then kissed it softly and released it. He jumped then to his feet and asked keenly, "Will we play?"
"I have a gift for you, Estel," said Elladan, a bit mysteriously.
"A gift?" the child breathed.
The elf took an object from his pack, long as his hand could measure and thick as two thumbs, wrapped in a soft brown cloth. He handed it to the boy, and gestured for him to unravel it. Estel cleared a spot on the ground in front of him, lay the packet down, and then began to roll it open carefully while holding the outer end of the cloth to the ground. There finally appeared a small fettling knife, with a wooden handle carved in swirling shapes. The soft, pliant blade was shiny and its edge not sharp but rather narrow and without marks or cleaving.
"Knife..." Estel sat back in surprise. He looked up at Elladan and said again, "Knife."
"Not a common knife, Estel," the elf said seriously. "Your knife. For you. For you to learn and make things. Here, with this." He reached into the boy's pack and pulled out the pouch full of clay. Estel watched his every move as he took a handful of this new material and added to it a few drops of water and a small chip he learned much later was none other than animal fat.
Elladan kneaded the clay for several minutes, then broke it in two and gave one piece to Estel. The child followed all the elf's movements as best he could, quite well in fact, shaping the clay into basic forms and then squashing them back into a ball. He noticed than the mass was slowly becoming softer and smoother.
"Thus," said Elladan, "the clay is ready. So now we make a shape. What shape will you choose, little cousin?" He smiled at Estel darting his eyes in all directions.
"A tree," the boy said finally.
"A tree is good," the elf approved. "So follow. We will make one tree, you, and one, me. Observe: from the inside, out." The boy copied some of his teacher's movements, but at times was enthralled into his own in search of the secrets hidden in the clay. Each made a clay tree-trunk, and adhered to it thick clay branches and smaller ones. When Elladan saw that Estel had embarked on a myriad of tiny clay leaves, he took the fettling knife and laid it before the boy.
"Now we take our knife and make leaves for the tree, so." He attached a small lump of clay on a branch and applied the knife to it, pressing and shaping, and finally engraving little lines. He handed the tool back to Estel. "Work slowly, we have time enough. Make the handle fit into your palm, thus."
The boy was absorbed in his work for many minutes, and the twins noticed with great interest that he used either hand at random. Elrond joined them as the exercise came to an end, and admired with his sons the first work in clay from Estel's hands.
"Knife, Ada," the boy said happily, "for clay trees..."
"Now," said Elladan, "we will clean our tools and put them away, and our material, and Elrohir will make fire. A small one."
"A small one why?" asked the boy as he carefully cleaned his new knife and wrapped it again in its brown cloth.
"Because we need not a bigger one, you will see. This one will give us warmth enough with our gray cloaks over our shoulders. A small fire does not cause alarm among our brethren the kelvar and the olvar, as a great crackling one would. And," Elladan said with a flourish, "because we need a small heat to dry our clay trees! Look at mine, that Elrohir finished." He cupped his hands around the two trees and lifted them gently. His brother had already set up a flat stone on the edge of the fire, and there the clay trees stood to take their fire-bath and become strong, solid shapes.
Estel lay on the ground with his eye at their level and gazed at them against the dancing flames. "Telperion, and Laurelin," he whispered. His eyelids drooped a bit and he seemed to drift off. That, in any case, was what his three elders believed could be the reason for his laying so still.