Chapter Twenty-three: The Love of Elves and Mortals
Glorfindel reined in his gray at the crest of a steep hill. He let his gaze travel over the valley below, seeking what was not hidden but nonetheless a treasure. He greeted the stream twinkling along the basin floor, and sharpened his scrutiny of its margins. "Ah, Rogarin," he said, his eye drawn by the restless stallion's bobbing head. "She shall be close by."
He knew this sheltered valley to be favoured by the three sisters, Rivendell's healers, so it was surely by their instruction that the Dúnedain Lady had made her way down into its red-and-gold ripples. Yet she was not in sight. "She must be nearby," he said again to himself, "for her wise mount does not indicate otherwise." He swung off his own horse and began his descent into the valley.
There was no path, but the downhill terrain was friendly enough. The elf-lord set his bearings towards the large tree in whose shadow Rogarin stood by his own choice, bridle off, untethered, munching as he watched his lady.
For there she was. Glorfindel stopped suddenly and took a step back. Gilraen stood on a large flat rock on the riverbank, bathing her pale rosy body in caresses falling from the burning zenith sun. Her arms raised, she turned slightly to one side and then the other, her head back, eyes shut, thick tresses unbound down her naked back.
The elf-lord could not help but watch. Thousands of years he had walked this Middle Earth, and still his heart took to its wings at the sight of such beauty as was this mortal girl by the autumn river. He did not wish to disrupt the curative ritual, however, so he made his way back to the tree where Rogarin and Savoron ignored each other cordially.
He smiled to himself as he settled into a hollow between two thick roots. He was hard put to remember that there had once been a time when he would have ravished the nymph without thinking twice. Or asking much of anything. It is a true blessing from the love and wisdom of Eru, he thought, that we elves have been given time enough to understand these things of passion and desire. It has taken me this long, to come to behold undisturbed the round, firm pink buttocks of- "Stop!" he cried aloud, pushing away the vision.
At the riverside, Gilraen stirred from her sun-communion. "Master Glorfindel, are you there?" she called unworriedly. "I am bathing. Will you wait?" She lowered her arms and took a seat on the rock, then jumped up to snatch a cool handful from the stream and freshen the hot spot. "Or will you join me?" she added, unthinking.
"I will wait," he said. "Take no mind of me." Join her, indeed. He would never hear the end of it. He shuddered, picturing the twins as they ran him into the ground amid silly jesting songs and verses. And yet she was lovely...
A bout of splashing and sing-song sputtering told of Gilraen's revelling in the cool and rocky stream. While Glorfindel closed in on himself and seemed to sleep, chin on his chest, the girl drew deeper and farther into the running water. She found a whirling pool, and with a whoop dived headlong into its depths. Even among the varicoloured rounded rocks on the river-bottom, the golden sun pierced through flesh and water alike as she spun her body lazily, blowing bubble by bubble the air hoarded in her lungs. Gilraen had no fear of water.
The elf-lord, however, seemed to keep count of the time elapsed in silence. Much too much for her little lungs, he thought, and stirred himself. Rogarin still showed no worry, but he was, after all, just a grazing horse and perhaps distracted. He turned his steps decisively to the riverside, where his worst fears seemed to materialize. She was nowhere to be seen.
His great shout caught itself in time, as she sprouted from the depths of the pool in midstream like a plump pink otter, blowing and laughing and gasping. She swam easily to the riverbank and climbed out onto her hot stone. Glorfindel was caught, and must sit with her... or what?
"I feared for your safety, my lady," he said, his gaze drifting back to the stream. "I should have remembered you are a fine swimmer, as are all the Dúnedain."
"As a child I swam in the dark waters of Evendim," she said. "Mother believed that our kind should never again perish by water, and showed us how to give our bodies in understanding to the cleansing tides of Ulmo. The lady Lynael sent me to this blessed stream, to bathe in its currents of life-energy." She smiled at his face turned away. "My own choice was to give myself to Arien, first. Only a bit, then the waters." She paused, and reached over to touch his hand. "I sense you are disturbed, Master."
"I am disturbed, my lady, by the bareness of your body. I have never seen you so."
"But you have!" she cried. "As a child, in the wonderful summer when Mother and Father brought me to visit Imladris! You know, Master Glorfindel, that always we share the waters in the bareness of our bodies. The elves do not?"
"I can hardly say. Perhaps some," he muttered in embarrassment.
"My ladies, the three sisters, do," Gilraen said earnestly.
"Do they?" said Glorfindel uneasily. "I never knew."
"Perhaps you should ask them, Master, to take you with them... come summer," she said, not devoid of mischief.
"I will give some thought to the matter," he said with finality. "And you, my lady, are you done with bathing?"
"Not quite," she said, running her hands over her limbs. "I am wet still, and would have a final measure of sun-warmth. Wait with me for a moment. Let us give some time to idle chatter, as one never does in the house of Elrond."
He gave no answer, but finally managed to look at her and keep quiet any signs of agitation. "Idle?" he said. "Is there room in your mind for thoughts unrelated to the greatness of events fallen to our lot?"
"My ladies tell me that I must let my mind wander, nay, send it wandering far and long past, not dwell on the immediate and what is to come. I'm sure that means into the story of your kind, Master Glorfindel, which is so closely tied to the story of Middle Earth itself." She shook out her still-streaming hair, and turned her body to another angle into the pouring sun.
"I have not the mind for stories," he said. "I would speak rather of this very instant, of these feelings aroused in me by the contemplation of you in all your true and natural beauty, in the bareness of your soft skin, so like to a warm autumn sunrise as the one we have been blessed with on this day." He reached out and stroked her hair softly, searching her eyes.
"Feelings, my lord?" she said. Now it was Gilraen who dropped her eyes to avoid the piercing gray stare.
"I will ask you, Gilraen, about that which causes arousal in a woman. But I will say first that both men and elves are kindled by sight, by an image. Such as yourself, your bare body open to Arien's rays."
The girl considered the idea for a while, then answered, "I believe that for women, both elven and mortal, it is the ear more than the eye. A song, a whisper, a well-chosen word. It is these that awaken our desire."
The elf-lord sat in pondering, and finally smiled at his young charge. "I thank you for this intelligence, my lady," he said. "You have given me a wide and wonderful avenue for thought. And I still must reward you with a story of old. Though not today," he said with finality. "Are you dry enough to dress now?"
"I am," she said, picking her way back to the tree. He followed her slowly, feasting his eyes for one last time on the undulating movements of her haunches. She took up her dress and dropped it over her arms and head, and the vision was gone.
Glorfindel sighed and picked up Rogarin's bridle. He handed it to her and turned to see to his own loitering gray. She placed the bit and buckled the straps, then led her mount to a stump. In an instant she was settled and ready, and joined the elf already on his way up the valley.
"I remember you had a great white horse," she called to him. "I have not seen him these days in the stables, and always you have been riding the gray."
"Asfaloth," he said fondly, "my brother-horse. I sent him to Lothlorien with the most precious of charges. Arwen Undómiel would abide with her mother's kin for a time, and Elrond her father was troubled about the journey."
"I recall the story of how Lady Celebrían was taken by an orc-band on that very road," said Gilraen. "Long ago, but Uncle surely has never forgotten."
"So I sent her on Asfaloth, who she knows well and loves her. Nary will an orc or bandit lay a hand on that merry bell-tinkling rein, but Asfaloth will squash it in a wink. And he will thrive in the garden of the Lady Galadriel for a time," he finished thoughtfully.
"I have heard whispers of the Golden Wood," said Gilraen. "Mortals shun its very borders, even my people, for fear of being taken and lost forever in the forest depths. This I have heard, Master, but is it so?"
"Only the Dúnadan, among all mortals, has ever been welcome in the Lady's court," said Glorfindel carefully. "Even we Eldar must await summoning by her, before venturing into her realm."
"The Dúnadan, you say?" She was instantly alert, her face drawn and pale. "My own lord, my Arathorn...?"
"Indeed, my lady," he said softly. "The son of Arador journeyed with me to that place on one time, shortly before your son was born. The Lady had asked to see him, so the twins and I took him."
"He said naught to me of such a journey!" she cried, reining in her mount. "How could this be?"
Glorfindel pulled his own horse around and drew close to hers. "He was bound by silence, my lady. Also, I believe now that he was deeply troubled by something she must have said."
"Could it be she saw...?" Gilraen's chin trembled, her eyes filling with tears.
"Perhaps," said Glorfindel sadly. "She sees much of what is to be, though seldom does she tell. To what end, she says. But she was much pleased by the Lord Arathorn and comforted by the news he brought of the child to come. Not at this time, or in the few seasons to come, but in due course she, too, will take part in the higher education of young Estel, my lady. Perhaps he will be summoned for a time to the Golden Wood. Perhaps."
"My only son, the only child I shall ever bear, and he not mine," she smiled bitterly. "Always his great destiny before us... mine was to bring him to light, and then go my way alone."
"Not alone, my lady," said the elf-lord. "We love you, each and all of us. Every day in your gracious company is a hundred years' worth... we will be with you always... as long as you want us," he finished lamely.
"I foresee it will be quite brief by your measure, my lord. The long Dúnedain years will scarcely be my lot. And I do not desire them." The girl dug her heels into the sides of Rogarin, and he, surprised, leaped forward and galloped down the path they had taken out of the valley of Rivendell.
Glorfindel let her go, watching her fine seat and oneness with her mount. Her heart, he knew, was taken by feelings in conflict. She was angry, she was sad. Perhaps she was frightened, a little, and just a bit jealous. "Gilraen is still a girl," he reflected, "barely a woman, and her fate has been an intense lifetime's worth in just a few years. Much too soon has she lived, by our standards, and much too quickly. The love of her son will be for always, but almost she is as much a child as he."
He sighed and turned Savoron toward another, higher, path. He would not return at once to the house, but he knew Gilraen was safely on her way. Having come this far, it was well to make the rounds of the territory. "At least once before the snows come," he thought. "If there are signs of marauding creatures, we are still in time to hunt them down." The brilliant autumn afternoon swallowed the horse and rider happily.