Chapter Ten

"Valandil?" she asked quietly, peering around the doorway into his room. With Rinbereth gone she had no clear directions not to approach the boy.

"Yarna!" For once he seemed genuinely happy to see her, jumping down from his seat immediately. "I thought you had forgotten about me."

"Your Naneth did not want me to come. Are you upset?" Valandil was dressed all in black, as everyone had been when she arrived.

"Not really." He offered her the seat next to his and she climbed up to see the table. Automatically she began to help him sort the jigsaw pieces out into a pile of edge pieces and the mass of middle sections. "Mother thought I ought to be, and I was. But I don't think I am now. I mean, how can you miss someone you've never met. It's no different to just hearing stories about him all the time." She frowned at him. "Your parents are dead, aren't they? I know, because you never say much about them. I might not talk about my father now, if that's what you're meant to do when someone dies."

"My Naneth is gone," she answered quietly.

"But you met her, didn't you? You remember her." She nodded. She could remember a hundred bedtime tales and splashing her Naneth's face with her bath water, hiding her socks and presenting the finger paintings she had done with Galdor to her as a surprise. She remembered the day the ranks of elves left Mithlond, banners flying high like a pageant except no one was laughing. She did not like to remember the day some of them returned. "What was she like?"

"She laughed a lot, even when others looked grim she always smiled at us. She was very kind." Yarna felt her throat tighten and she concentrated on the jigsaw.

"Do you think my father would have been like that?" Suddenly Valandil seemed very small next to her, even if he was bigger. She had never felt like an older sibling, always the youngest, but just then she did feel that sort of responsibility to say the right thing.

"Yes. I think he must have been very kind and a very good king." Valandil smiled sadly.

"I think so too. My mother has gone to Arnor to get things ready for me to be king. My brothers should be king, but they're dead now too. I never met them either, not that I can remember." That made her sad. Without being able to see her Ada, she could not see her brother or sister again for they were with him. She wondered why her Ada did not think they were ghosts as well. "I don't think I want to be king, Yarna. I can't even write the answers to Master Erestor's questions correctly. And I'm not a warrior. Edweniel's better than me, even you can beat me and you're tiny. Could I ask someone else to do it instead? I still have a cousin, he's already king of Gondor, he could be king of Arnor too like my father was."

"You would have to ask your Naneth. I think you can choose not to be king. Elrond did." Rinbereth did not strike her as someone who would let Valandil get away with not doing his duty however. "I think you might have to be though."

"I don't want to leave here. Not now. I know I've been horrible, but you did mean things too. Lindir pushed me into the river and Edweniel salted my breakfast. I don't want to go though, I won't know anyone if I'm king. I'll have Mother and that's it. Could I take you with me, if I have to go?" She shook her head vigorously. As much as she thought she might miss Valandil, she did not want to leave her uncles or Lindir and Edweniel. Nowhere could be as beautiful as Imladris, even Arnor. "Oh. Well, I suppose it is your home."

They filled the jigsaw in silently for a while, the picture of a blue dragon slowly taking shape.

"Will your uncle find who killed my father and brothers?" Valandil asked once they had put the last piece in.

"Yes. He will find them and he will make sure they are very sorry. He killed a balrog, I think he might kill them too. Then he will come back."

"I think I would like to know they are dead as well. Sauron killed my grandfather, so my father killed him." She sighed, pushing the jigsaw into the box.

"Sauron killed my Naneth too, so what do I do?" Valandil had no answer, only frowning with his childishly fat face.

"Elves don't kill people as much," he said at last, as way of explanation. "If I have to go, I'll come back all the time. When I grow up, I don't think Mother will be able to stop me if I want to come back." She jumped down, sitting on the rug by the fireplace.

"You might be more sensible and cleverer when you grow up," she told him. It was hard to imagine Valandil and herself as adults, looking down on things and having important conversations. She did want to be taller though and not have to be picked up just to see things.

"As long as I can go where I wish to and come here whenever I want." He had sat down next to her, each with a toy soldier in their hand to add to the line of miniature Men marching along the hearth. "I think I'm sad now. Because I don't want to go anywhere, and I want to see him." She patted his shoulder a little awkwardly, unsure if he was about to cry or not. Never seeing someone, and never getting the chance was incomprehensible to her. One day she would see her Naneth again, and anyone else she wished to. She could see her uncle Maltion who had died in Gondolin centuries before she was born if she found him. Valandil could not, and that concept puzzled her. They lined their soldiers up in silence, all in perfect formation but did nothing else, adding slowly to their column until the entire box of wooden figures was depleted. Fully arrayed they were a magnificent sight, infantry and cavalry, three wooden ships to one side and dozens of archers, all lined up behind the tiny banners made of silk that fluttered if they blew them. There was no enemy for them to fight however and the wooden soldiers simply stood there, staring at the wall. Neither could think of what to do next, they did not know military maneuvers and did not have the heart to find some enemy to attack. When the bell rang for dinner they left their army lined up, ready to march. They were still there when they returned, Yarna having slipped away from her uncles unnoticed or perhaps merely unchallenged.

"We should line them up around the bed," Valandil said suddenly. "Then they can guard me and I'll be safe until Mother comes back."

"You will be safe here anyway." It seemed to her to be a daft thing to do. "There is still one of my uncles here, and the whole guard."

"Will you help me anyway? They are made to look like my father's soldiers." So they moved their army and carried it piece by piece into Valandil's bed chamber. There they lined them up on every surface, around the window and door and along the headboard until he was surrounded by them and deemed himself protected like a king. "I'm going to have an army as big as this," he told her. "Bigger than anyone else's so no one can hurt me, or Mother, or you." She simply nodded, letting him be.

"What do we do now?" Valandil shrugged, sitting on his bed as he surveyed his army.

"We should tell them a story. Real soldiers like stories, Glorfindel always listens to them, so do the other guards." She climbed up next to him and looked at the tiny wooden faces. Each one was different, carved by the same hand but with a different expression. She thought they should name them all, since every soldier had a name, except that there was no way she and Valandil could remember them all.

"I could tell them about Gondolin. Naneth used to tell us about it. Would they like that?" Valandil nodded eagerly. "First, Turgon had a dream, sent by Ulmo, lord of the waters. His cousin, Finrod had a similar dream. Ulmo told them to make safe havens ready and told them where to find the best places to build them. Finrod went to Nagothrond and Turgon found the hidden valley of Gondolin." Valandil listened intently for it was his history too and she remembered how Curunír's voice changed when he told her stories and tried to copy it. She got all the way to Ecthelion's fall before Erestor appeared to usher her away to bed.