Book Two - THE BOY ARAGORN
Chapter One: The Quiet Child that Eats no Meat
Estel sat motionless between two great rocks, watching as a small hare picked its way along the riverbank. The house of Elrond lay far below in the valley, and the child's brevity was such that the creature, usually wary, was quite oblivious to his presence. Only the hare seemed to move in the wide picture, and the trickling waters of the brook. A nibble here, a snuffle there, as the white flash from under the tail moved along up towards the spring.
Sharp gray eyes followed the animal until it rounded a boulder and was gone. The child had no other intent than to extend the reach of his sight and his fine registry of detail. Not consciously, to be certain; he simply did because he did, because this is what he does, always now.
He allowed his vision to travel over the pretty streamside spot, then focused sharply on the flow itself. The transparent absence of bulk and color were no impediment for Estel to follow the water. Its pace was slow and lazy, and in any case his sharp eyes easily picked out whatever fragile bubble was traveling on the stream, and followed it for the space between two eyelid-blinks.
But there was more, Elrohir had said. A twig or a leaf or a bubble are not water, and to see water one must set on it and no other. The same as everything, mused Estel to himself in the warming sunshine. Look at the bird, not the leaves… not the branch, not the sky above or the ground far below. The little yellow bird, at first, easy, and in time the speckled brown ones, harder. The tenth ant in the column, the scrap of gray cloud moving against the white, three little stars together in the sparkling fields of Elbereth. He watched them all, and learned the true nature of stillness: never quite so, always something moving, however small and subtle.
And yes, there. In the huge still picture of the valley, a tiny flash came once and again, then once and again, and once and again. Estel drew back between the boulders and collected his gear, checking the contents of his little pack and securing his sturdy stick at the base of the great rock, under the loose little rocks and pebbles.
"You will wait for me here," he whispered to the stick as he covered it lightly. "Now I must run down, not climb up. I will return, and need you again. Goodbye." The boy wriggled out behind the rocks and set his bearing towards the flash below. There was no path, nor did he require one. His slim little body barely made a mark on soil or sand, and scarce whispers where he passed among shrubs and grasses.
As the small domed roof of the twin's high chamber came into sight, he glanced round without slowing his sharp descent, and finding the tight nook above the path made the flying leap and landed running, but now with more restraint. After all, his tall cousins would be awaiting him at the door of the chamber, and he must trot up to them in a staid gait, not in agitated panting, and certainly not slow. Brisk, Elladan had said some days ago. Your trot must be brisk, to not tire you and yet carry you in the briefest time to your destination.
Estel rounded the final bend in the path and saw, as he expected, the two tall elves awaiting his arrival. His breath was steadied, though his face was still flushed and his eyes sparkling.
"I see the stream in his eyes," Elohir said aside to his brother.
Elladan grinned in agreement. "He must have come down the mountain fleeter than the deer itself. Or was it a hare?"
They each held out an arm as he approached them, and hooked the others together as he let himself fly in a leap onto the structure of their arms, chests and shoulders. The two stepped once back to absorb the force of the child's impetus, then swung their fastened arms back and forth while Estel balanced for the length of two deep breaths.
He finally collapsed with a shout and caught himself on the shoulder of one tall twin, while the other grabbed him by the ankles and held him high. "Only in exhilaration of his mountain run does the quiet child let loose such a bellow," laughed Elladan. "Will you fly, little Estel?"
"Yes!" gasped the child, then gathered himself as Elladan swung him forward, and straightened himself in the air once released. He landed in a neat half-crouch, solid and unwavering, then leaped up again. The three applauded their feat, and Elrohir tousled Estel's hair.
"You are a strong boy and fearless," he said. "And you grow quickly."
The lad smiled shyly and then changed the subject. "Up there," he said, "at the spring I was watching."
"What were you watching?" asked Elrohir seriously.
"A young hare, then the water," the child answered with equal gravity. These were lessons, he knew, now in the phase of his own independent practice.
The other twin gestured him into the chamber. "Now let us see your hoard. What have you brought from the mountain?" The three entered and each took his familiar seat around the short-legged worktable they had enabled for Estel.
The boy slipped off his pack and placed it on the table. "Everything packed safe and firm," he said, "so not to break or mess." He took a small parcel from the pack and held it in his hands. "One empty nest, I did not touch because the birds come again, maybe. Took out shards of egg. Will you see?" he asked one and the other of his mentors.
"We will," said Elrohir. "Show us your wrappings."
Estel unwound a length of soft cloth and revealed the still-curved bits of eggshell, took each piece and laid it out neatly. "All from one nest in a tree-hole high up. Brown-speckled, the eggs," he said, holding the largest piece up for examination. The twins observed the sample and nodded.
"Do you know this bird, cousin Estel?" asked Elladan.
"Gray back, red breast, black line here," he answered, tracing a line from the corner of his eye across his ear to the nape of his neck. "Pretty song..." He sat up and framed his lips around a stream of sweet warbling. The twins nodded again, but did not say the name of the little songbird. There was time enough, they had long agreed, for the boy to learn names and families; now it was sufficient for him to register, register all that his bright mind could grasp. Images, both pictures and sounds. Information to his touch, sensations up his flaring little nostrils. The names, when he would ask.
"What more have there?" asked Elladan again, as the boy unwrapped another sample.
"This leaf, three forms at once," said Estel. "A big tree, the one with flowers like this," he held up a lavender-colored stone; "for Vaneta," he interposed in explanation, and set it aside, "but none now, only leaves but so many, and some very small," he pointed to a bud, "some like a leaf in shape but little," he indicated a tender, well-formed leaf, "and other big leaves, full-grown." He held up the last leaf and then put it down next to the others.
"And this, my kinsmen, and this other." He partially unwound one packet and took out a fang, as long as his index finger curved, and further removed the wrapping to reveal finally a slender iron arrowhead. "I put them together because I found them together. Near one to the other," he added.
Elrohir took the arrowhead to the window and examined it closely in the bright sunlight. His brother and Estel both waited for his conclusion, although for different reasons: Estel, always curious; Elladan, alert and almost fierce.
"It is not an orc arrow, or at least not one I have seen," he said finally. "And the fang, my brother? What do you make of it?"
"A wolf, a large one," replied Elladan. "See here, Estel? The fang is serrated along its back, for the tearing of flesh. But this is an earthly wolf, not a devilish warg."
"Where did you find them, little cousin?" asked Elrohir.
The boy went out to the terrace along the front of the chamber and looked up at the mountain. "There," he said, pointing, "the trees of the sticky sap, thick together, go down to the spring valley. Up the farthest, by a great two-trunk tree."
"We will find the spot, Estel, with your good picture," said Elrohir. "But you will go down now, will you not?"
"Yes," the boy grinned, "I must take her pretty stone to Vaneta. Also the seeds... but you have not seen them..." He looked at the twins forlornly.
Elrohir hid a smile, and Elladan said, "Take the seeds to Vaneta, Estel, and ask her for a bite to eat. You have earned it. And she will show us the seeds later."
The boy jumped up, spirits instantly raised, and bounded down the steep path, took the fork towards the kitchen wing, and disappeared from the twins' sight. They turned then to go in the other direction, up the mountain Estel had just now come down, and the smiles were gone from their faces.
They would find the spot and read what was lacking in the story. That a wolf had torn an arrow from his own flesh, and yet lived, presumably... but when? And more so, who had let fly the shot? And, where? How far had the wounded animal come, and why to the domains guarded from evil by Elrond's power? This they would know, then come to recount to their father. Even the smallest comings and goings were important, in the delicate balance that was ever the matter of Elrond's labours.
Estel skidded to a stop at the steps leading up to the kitchen balcony. He whistled up a happy bar and took the stairs two at a leap. Vaneta's voice called out in answer, trilling bits of words tied together cleverly. The boy stopped at the doorway and took in the sight and smell of the wonderful lair of wholesome delights, as Momo calls it.
"My sweet boy, welcome ever," Vaneta took his hand and twirled him three times, then planted a kiss on the top of his head. Which was not so far down, now, her fleeting thought as she waved him to his favourite seat at the table. "Will you eat a plate with me, of this and that?"
"I will, oh yes," said the boy with relish. He watched her as she filled his bowl with fragrant portions from this pot and that, though not from the biggest. She added a plump roll of bread and his special spoon, and set it before him.
"A fresh jug of honey-water to sweep it all down, yes?" The boy nodded, his mouth full and eyes shining. "And I will have a cup with you," she added, "and tell you a story."
"Of Beren," he said earnestly. "More of Beren."
"More?" protested Vaneta in jest. "I have told you all that I know... haven't I?"
"You know more," said Estel wisely, "you know very much more."
"This is true, my boy," she said, sadly now, "there is so much to tell, big things and little. Some that you cannot know as yet, that will be told to you in coming days." In her mind they were days, the handful of years that were left still for completing the education of the little king. "My little king," she whispered, stroking his wild black hair. She watched him devour the contents of his plate, and reached a covered basket over to him. "For your last bit of hunger, my Estel, a handful of nut-meats... forgive me, not meats..." his eye flashed at her, "just plain and ordinary nuts. But good! Will you have some?"
The boy looked in the basket and sniffed suspiciously, then smiled and reached in. He took out a goodly portion of nuts and set himself to shelling and eating. The elf-lady did her part and the piles grew, the one of broken husks and the one of juicy kernels, of which she popped one into her mouth every so often.
She smiled to herself at her blunder with the word. Silly of me, she thought, as I know his keenness with detail. And who should be more aware than me, being as it is my foremost concern to feed him well in spite of his renouncement of eating the flesh of the kelvar?
Her thoughts went back to the day that Estel said to her judiciously, If we think of all the nuts that one deer will eat, or one boar, in all his life... and the berries, and the green things, and the root-foods, and we eat him in one day, or two. But all the nuts and roots and berries and greens he ate, we could not eat them in one day or two.
She had marvelled then, and told him of Beren, his long forefather, and how he had lived alone in the wild as an outlaw at war with the Shadow. Estel never spoke aloud of it, but she knew that he had lived the sorrows of Beren at the loss of his father; and understood that he haunted the land and sowed terror in the hearts of his enemies, although Estel was, by nature, a gentle soul. It is said, she told him, that Beren ate no flesh nor slew any living thing not in the service of the Dark Lord, for the children of Yavanna were his family and friends.
Vaneta was brought back to the present by Estel tugging at her finger. "Beren," he said. "Tell me more."
She rose and took a kettle of water from the fire. "We shall make a brew and drink as we sing. Pick an herb from the basket." Estel went to the herb-holder and studied its contents, then finally picked a tiny bunch of dark-green leaves and took it back to put in the pot. "Athelas?" Vaneta wondered, then, "well yes, why not..." She poured the boiling water into the earthen vessel and covered it to let it steep. She returned to her seat and so did Estel, and they looked into each other's eyes and sang together softly: "His comrades were the beech and oak who failed him not, and many things with fur and fell and feathered wings and many spirits, that in stone, in mountains old and wastes alone do dwell and wander, were his friends..."
They were silent for a moment, then Vaneta went on, "There was a hound born and bred in the Blessed Realm, Huan was his name. He hunted at the side of the Vala Oromë, and came to the Hither Lands with Fëanor and his sons, in the dark days after the Kinsl-" Vaneta caught herself and veered away from that passage of the history of the Elder Days, unsuitable as yet for Estel's ears. "This hound, Huan," she continued, "encountered the lady Luthien-"
"Luthien!" cried Estel, jumping up.
"...in the forest while the brothers were hunting," Vaneta went on, "and he took her to them in innocence, never dreaming they would betray the trust and their honor." She watched the emotions succeeding one and another over his candid features, and thus picked her words carefully. "The brothers promised to help her seek for Beren, but their actions belied their words. Huan perceived this, and was troubled." Estel was quiet, intent on her words. She pushed the forgotten brew towards him. "Drink, my boy. I, too, will wet my throat." She sipped and swallowed, then continued, "Luthien was detained in the fortress of Nargothrond, and only then learned that Beren had been there before her, and that King Finrod himself and ten brave elf-lords had gone with him on his hopeless errand. For the love of his love, and for the sake of his father Barahir, who had saved Finrod's life long before. Luthien was very sad, and wept." She watched the water come to his eyes, and stepped up the pace cheerfully.
"But Huan took Luthien from her prison and set her on his back to gallop north in search of Beren, and Finrod. They ran and ran, hardly stopping even to sleep a bit."
"Luthien was riding on Huan like I ride on Rogarin?" Estel was amazed, measuring in his mind the hounds he knew.
"Yes, Huan was very big. He was a wolfhound, and wolfhounds are the biggest of all dogs."
"A wolfhound?" She nodded, and he reflected further, "I found today a fang of a wolf up the mountain. And the pointy head of an arrow. I gave them to my kinsmen the brothers." He was quiet for a moment. "The fang was big, and Elladan said it was a big wolf. Much about wolves, today..." he trailed off and was silent.
Vaneta studied the child and rose to continue her chores. At length Estel thanked her and went out the balcony way. He followed the train of his thoughts to the stone bridge leading to the stables, and stood for a while watching the torrent of the stream passing below. Softly he began to sing, "Wolf-pup running in the wood, come to me, come to me, come and play…"
So wrapped in his memory-reflection he was, that he heard not the quiet footsteps of the tall twins. They stopped and listened for a bit, then of a mind quietly turned and sought the chambers of Elrond.
Author's Note- Dear fellow Elves, Rangers, et al.: After long, harsh journeys through worse-than-Mordor, we're finally back! Thanks for waiting, and I hope you won't be disappointed. As you can see, several years have passed and our Estel isn't the same buoyant "toddler" as in Book One: Little Aragorn proper; here in Book Two: the Boy Aragorn, Estel is five going on six, and he has grown both in mind and body. Other changes? Surely, we'll see in the days to come...
Namárië!