The fire burned and the stars twinkled like diamonds in the black, winter sky. The moon made a brief appearance above the southern hills before sinking low behind them, and beyond the light of their campfire, the land was all deep shadow and darkness. There was no sound. No bird or insect broke the night with its living voice. To the dwarves, even the rock beneath their feet felt dead under the blanket of snow, and the stone that they camped under was the marker of a tomb.
It was late in the night. The company had long ago finished their meal and put away their bowls, but the dwarves and their guide continued to sit up, silent and watchful, not yet ready for sleep. Inside the stone hollow, tomb-like as it was, the air was warm and comfortable; the curved walls and ceiling held in the heat of the fire, but what might have been a cheerful evening was hung heavy with doubt and apprehension, and the sense that this would be the last quiet night they had together.
Kili sat with his legs crossed under him, sharpening his arrows and humming to himself, but he was thinking hard on how best to tease his brother now that he had been denied the chance to tease him for loving their guide. Across from him, Fili tended the fire, unaware of his brother's scheming. He weighed in his mind the food in their packs and their chances of finding more; neither prospect was good. He wished that they had spied animals rather than trees down the south side of the hill.
The hollow grew warmer, and Betta sighed. She pushed back her hood and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. She had made little progress in sorting through her tangled feelings for her companions; it was easy to be friends with a dwarf when the honesty was all on one side, but Fili's candid speech had served to sharpen the guilt that she already felt when she thought of all that that she had not told him. Untangling her hair was a simpler task, she thought.
But it was not so simple. Many days of dirt and neglect had tied the locks into knots and ropes that refused to be undone. Frustrated, she pulled at her hair, her fingers breaking strands. She muttered a curse under her breath and pulled until it hurt, but there was no progress to be made through the mess. Her hair was shorter than it might have been, shorter than most women's, and perhaps even shorter than Fili's long, blond mane if they were to measure it out. It fell only a hand's span past her shoulders but had been much longer – and much thicker – before she set out for the north. Even short it was still as fine and dark as shadows.
Her mother had treasured her daughter's long hair; it was one of the few feminine marks that Betta had been willing to carry. She had kept it long throughout her journey to hide her face, but also in memory of her mother. Even now when it was a tangled and knotted burden against the back of her neck, she was reluctant to cut it off again. Elwen used to spend hours washing and combing and braiding her daughter's hair; she would spend whole nights with a comb in her hand after her husband died. It was the only way to calm her midnight tremors.
There was not much opportunity for washing anything in the north country. Even their clothes that had been scrubbed clean of blood after the wolves' attack had frozen solid before the wet could dry. Until recently, they had not been able to burn the fire long enough to dry their clothes over it. At least the dwarves had it easier than Betta. As soon as they found enough wood that they could burn a fire without worry, they had set up a large pot of hot water. With a teasing familiarity, they had washed and combed and braided their hair and beards, each brother helping the other with what he could not manage on his own.
Betta had refused any help with her stubborn locks and had only washed her hair and not combed it, knowing that she would not win any battle against the snarls with only one arm to use. She had been reluctant to let any hand touch her hair but her own. Even now, she was reluctant.
Kili watched their guide struggle and curse in words he did not know. He made sure to file them away for later use, but paid little attention to her beyond that. She had often pulled at her hair and had a sharp reply for either brother if they dared suggest a comb. He glanced at Fili, who was still lost in his own thoughts, and realized that here was an amusement that would well pass the time.
Betta was pulling at a particularly tight knot and wondering whether it would be worth the work of taking out her comb from her pack when Kili looked over and smiled at her. "You might ask my brother to practice his pretty braids on you," he said. "His fine hair is the talk of all the women of Ered Luin, and not just among the dwarf women."
Betta stared at him and did not reply, but Fili heard his brother's words and his cheeks flushed red. He turned redder still when he realized that it had been Kili's plan all along to start him blushing like a shy lass at her first harvest dance. He threw a short log onto the fire and poked about in it, determined to do nothing that might feed Kili's mischievous spirit, but his brother was not to be deterred. He smiled at Betta openly and waited for an answer.
"I do not need braids," she said, finally, with a sharp shake of her head. She took her hand from her hair and pulled up her hood, shielding her face, but not before Kili saw her cast an anxious glance toward Fili.
He guessed what she was so eager to hide from his brother and, though he had not thought about it since that night long ago at the inn, he decided that it was high time their guide gave up whatever secret she hid under her tangled mess of hair. If his brother refused to give him the entertainment that he wished for, at least Betta might satisfy his curiosity on one point.
"Have we not moved beyond that by now?" he asked her. "I should think that any scar or mark upon your body that embarrasses you so badly would mean next to nothing to my brother and I." She frowned and said nothing. "Come now," he insisted, "we are all friends here. You laughed at Fili for keeping his secret so long. Are you worried that we shall laugh at you, too?"
Fili finally looked up from the fire. "What secret is this?" he asked. "I want no more secrets here."
Kili made a motion as if turning a key between his lips and said, "I shall not speak out of turn this time. Ask your friend if she will answer you, but if she will not, then neither shall I."
Fili looked at Betta, but she was frowning and her head was bent low. He knew that she expected him to demand answers from her, and so he was determined not to do it. "I will not order you to speak," he said, "but if you are willing, I should like to know what it is that my brother thinks you hide. If you are unwilling to tell it, then Kili will keep his teasing to himself," he gave his brother a look, "for he has no right to joke when his own beard is as tattered and tangled as the frayed end of a rope."
Kili made a face at him, but Betta sighed and bowed her head even lower. Fili thought that it was a refusal, but after only a moment, she raised her head once more and her expression was one of determination and resolve.
"I will tell you then," she said, "and you will say that I have held this back for longer than was wise, but know that I had good reason to be wary. I hope that once you know the truth, then you will also say that I was right to be so." She smiled at the brothers' confusion, and especially at Kili's startled face. He had not expected so solemn an answer.
"Your brother has sharper eyes than you, Fili," she went on, reaching with her left hand to pull back the hair from her right temple. "He has already seen this, though you have been nearer to it more often in the last few days as you put bandages on my arm. Kili, however, did not guess what it was."
Fili glanced at his brother, but Kili only shrugged and both of them moved closer, kneeling down beside her to look at what she showed. In the flickering firelight they could see thin, dark lines drawn upon her scalp that were all but obscured beneath her knotted hair.
"You are wrong," Kili said, sitting back on his heels. "I did guess a tattoo, but I thought it better to say nothing since you obviously wished to hide the mark and my brother was not nearly as friendly then as he is now."
"I have done much to keep this hidden, and been alone longer than I would have wished because of it, but I suppose that it no longer matters now." She let go of her hair and it fell to cover the mark again. "Too much travel and too little food have exposed the design against my wishes. I did not realize how it could be seen until you made mention of it at the start of our quest."
Kili had sat back from her once he saw the mark, but Fili still knelt close by. He reached out and with a gentle hand, pushed back her hair and turned her face so that the light of the fire fell more clearly upon it. Only a few short strokes of the design could be seen where her hairline was thin, but he combed back the strands with his fingers until he could see those lines more clearly.
Betta sat still with her hands clasped together in her lap. It took all her strength not to pull away from his touch and hide the mark that branded her. Fili knelt so close that she could feel his breath warm upon her cheek, and she watched him out of the corner of her eye not knowing which was making her more uncomfortable, his touch or the grim frown upon his face.
Fili stared at the mark, but he could make no meaning of the design. Most of it was still hidden by her hair, but of what he could see, he thought that the method was similar to the art of the dwarves of the Iron Hills. The ink under Betta's skin was more blue and less black than what was used on his cousin Dwalin's arms and bare head, but the means of applying the permanent lines with a needle or small blade must be the same. It must have been a long and painful trial to endure.
It was a trial of Fili's strength to keep his face a mask while his anger boiled over at the thought of any man's hand causing pain to his guide and marring the soft skin that lay under his hand. He kept his face firm, knowing that Betta watched him, and after seeing all that he might see, he took his hand away and let her hair fall back limp upon her shoulder.
Betta sighed with relief, but she was still anxious. She knew that Fili had been born with more than his fair share of prejudice – the better part of which seemed to have been handed down by his uncle – and it was no far stretch to think that he would have a hard opinion of a tattooed woman. She had seen how her inked sisters were treated in other lands.
Kili returned to his side of the fire and smirked at his brother's expression of bewilderment. It was not lost on him that Fili held his hand with exaggerated care, and that it was the hand that had touched their guide so intimately, but Kili turned to Betta instead and left Fili to collect himself.
"What is the design, then?" he asked. "It must have been a great battle indeed that you would mark yourself to commemorate it, and yet keep that mark hidden." He leaned back and made himself comfortable for what he hoped would be an interesting tale.
Betta's face was sad, and she shook her head. "The design came to me from my father," she said, "and it was he who hired the Easterling woman to mark my skin. It was his decision and not mine to leave me with more than a box to remember him."
Kili frowned, and Fili clenched his fist in anger. "Your father gave you this… this tattoo? Was it part of his northern heritage, then?" There was a sneer in his voice and Betta heard it.
"The design came down through the same family line as the box, but I do not know whether they are related beyond that. The drawing of it was traditionally taught to the sons of my father's family but never put permanently upon cloth or parchment. My brothers learned the design when they were very young, and almost from the day that they were able to hold pen in hand, they could draw it in the dust on the floor.
"After my brothers were gone, my father put off teaching the design to me until it was too late and he had no more time. I could not even tell you how it looks, for it has been years since I saw it, and I never learned it by heart. He refused to commit the design to a page that might be lost or stolen and so made up his mind to draw it upon my skin where it might never be lost. Hidden in plain sight, he said."
Kili had sat up and was listening intently, but Fili stared into the fire with his fists clenched and a strange look upon his face. Betta saw him scowl, and she hung her head. "I guess from your look that dwarf-women do not generally wear tattoos," she said.
"They do not," Fili said.
"The Broadbeams wear them," Kili reminded him, "and some families among the Blacklocks."
"Their men do."
"Also some of their women."
Fili looked up in surprise, and Kili smiled. "Dwalin's wife wears tattoos, though she keeps them better hidden than our guide's mark there."
"Frei? How do you know that?" Fili demanded, and Kili laughed.
"I know because I was once a very young and foolish dwarf, and I asked her whether she was marked like her husband." he shrugged. "I would not recommend asking such a question now. If she showed them to you, our cousin might not take it so well. He boxed my ears when he found out, and I was just a lad."
"However it may be with dwarves," Betta said, "a woman of my race who is marked with ink is either descended from the refugees of Near Harad that dwelt in tribes along the coasts of Anfalas, or she is one of the women of Dunland and is in a very specific line of work. Neither of these women would be well-respected in any land that I have found in Middle-earth. The tattooed women of the Easterlings are thought magical and are feared even by their own families."
She signed and looked into the fire. "If it is different among dwarves, then I would gladly change my race for yours. It was long before my hair grew back to cover the mark, and those days were not easy live, being seen by all men as a broken thing."
Fili's frown returned. "Then your father gave you this mark knowing how you would be seen by your race? He did this without your consent?"
"I gave as much consent as any daughter would to the last request of her father when she knew that he would accept no refusal. I did not refuse his will."
Fili seemed surprised by that, but she smiled and shook her head. "You think that I was then as you know me now, stubborn and eager for a fight? No, I was timid and weak-willed. My brothers, my protectors, were stolen away from me, and my parents and I were living as strangers in a foreign land… but that is a much longer tale to tell. There was no refusing my father's choice once he made up his mind to damage me. He had already decided that I was too old to be married, and so what was the harm in it?"
"If he were yet alive today," Fili said, "I might teach him what harm was there."
"You would not be alone in your revenge, brother," Kili agreed.
It was Betta's turn to be astonished. "I am glad that this does not seem to have changed your opinion of me," she said, only half-convinced, "but you must understand that I had reason enough to hide it from you. Should I have gone wandering through the wild showing off a tattoo to strange men and dwarves in every town that I passed? I would have had more trouble than I already did being a woman alone who walked into the forges of dwarves and hired them with coin from her own purse."
"You had reason enough for secrecy when we first met," Fili agreed, "but my brother and I are not strangers to you now…"
"Strange dwarves, perhaps, but not strangers," Kili added.
Fili rolled his eyes at his brother and pressed on. "If we had any distaste for tattooed skin, our cousin would have long ago taught us better. Dwalin has many tattoos and each one tells a tale well worth the hearing. I would be glad to hear the story that lies behind yours, if you are willing to tell it."
Betta looked at Fili whose anger had cooled somewhat as he accepted that he would not be able to get his hands on the man who had injured their guide, not in this life anyway. She was glad that he had not judged her harshly for what she could not change, and it was a little thing to pay back the brothers for their trust in her.
"I will tell you all that I can," she said, "but not only the short story of how I came by this mark; most of that you have already heard. No, you asked before why there was so little love lost between me and my father, why I say that I do not make this journey for him. That is the tale that I shall tell you. It is not only because of this mark – which would have been reason enough. I will tell you of my father, what sort of man was he and how he left this world more honorably than he lived in it, but I warn you that you might not think so well of me once you know the man whose blood I share."
"Who your father was will not change our feelings for you," Fili told her.
"I hope not." She looked at him with shining eyes then turned her gaze to the fire, thinking back on all the sorrow that she had struggled to forget. Two years in the lonely wilderness was not long enough to scour the grief from her heart, but it was a story that she had never told to anyone before.
"You know that my father called me Anbeth," she began, "and that he thought me less useful than another son would have been, but he should have been glad. All his sons have failed in his plans for them, and I am all there is left…"
I'm sure you're all shocked to find another series of story-telling chapters, and long chapters, too! I hope that you will enjoy Betta's story. She is not so hard and cold as some of you have been led to believe ;-)
-Paint