Chapter Five
"Princess?" Estela looked up, distracted from her memories.
She blinked and then smiled. "There was never any need to call me that I gave up that title a long time ago."
"That's what many people still call you," Vorondo said dryly. He came in and closed the door. "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing," Estela answered automatically. Vorondo raised his eyebrow. "You are in a library- a room full of books." He said gently. Yet even though you seem disturbed, there is not a single open book in sight, so it can't have been something you have read."
Estela sighed. "Memories are hard to stifle. I was just coming here to find out as much on Númenor as I can. Ar-Gimilzôr as well, and all his weaknesses."
The ploy to change the subject worked. Vorondo pressed his lips together. "And still our 'source' remains undiscovered?"
"Thankfully, yes." Estela replied. "And before you ask, I do not doubt her heart in the least. Not even Ar-Gimilzôr is clever and cunning enough to go to such great lengths as to gain our trust to destroy us from within- using someone within his inner circle."
Vorondo frowned. But before he could question further, Estela shook her head. "They have risked enough as it is. Besides, I must speak with her soon enough." Vorondo nodded and looked grim.
A Sindarin minstrel, Vorondo once lived in woods, but soon enough, his home was sacked by orcs and olog-hai or trolls. Barely managing to survive long enough, Estela and her followers had saved him, treated him and rescued any other survivors. He insisted on coming with them to 'pay my debt' but Estela had refused, several times over with the warning that he would not wish to be near if he knew all. Vorondo persisted and kept following them for years until Estela, pitying him and admiring his spirit, allowed him to join. But it was only a little while later that she had admitted her blood to him. It didn't sway his loyalty despite his Sindarin heritage.
Estela watched him go and once again took out a mirror before retreating to her chambers. Murmuring words in Quenya, her cradle-tongue, the mirror misted and soon showed a face.
It was a human's face, but regal and noble, with nutmeg-brown eyes and chestnut hair, Inzilbêth queen of Númenor, wife of Ar-Gimilzôr the king, stared back at her.
"Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo," the queen of Númenor murmured. A Star shines in the hour of our meeting.
Estela smiled sadly. "Be careful, my friend. It is treason to speak the tongue of elves in your land."
The queen sighed. "I care not. My husband is away at the present."
"But what of his 'eyes' and 'ears'?" Estela asked. "Can you be sure that they are not near you?"
"They are not," Inzilbêth assured her. "I have convinced my husband enough to trust me. Thankfully he is not overly paranoid."
Estela felt her shoulders slump in relief. "That is good to hear."
"Do not worry about me for the present," the queen warned. "Ar-Gimilzôr is not foolish enough to attack the elven realms now, but he is building up in strength. He has ordered five-hundred ships to be built, although I expect their number to double soon enough, and the forges here in Númenor ring constantly, day and night, with the sound of hammering metal- mounted crossbows for great distances, battering rams, siege engines as well as smaller bows, swords, shields, spears. He is planning it all, and stockpiling on food. Umbar has been settled in, and not only Umbar, but lands to the east. Local populations have been quickly subdued and brutally conquered they are appointing tyrants- puppets serving my husband, amongst the locals and they serve my husband loyally as long as they get something out of it. The Easterling tribes are slowly falling under the influence of the King's Men. The Haradrim are expected to follow. The Variags of Khand too. Anyone who protests is brutally put to death. And we all know the Men of Harad may be poor in many places, and thus are easily manipulated. Their giant Mûmakil are being further bred to take on the realms of Middle-Earth, not just the elves, but the dwarves, the ents and other human races. Many lands are settled in daily and subjugation is swiftly delivered or else terrible death, to anyone who dares to stand against them. You will be, in fact, outnumbered and over-powered if Ar-Gimilzôr gets his way."
Despair flooded across Estela along with terrible dread. What in Arda were they going to do?
"You must tell Gil-Galad," the queen insisted. "And all the other elven kings, the dwarves, the humans that remain and the Elendili that are exiled in Middle-Earth. For soon I fear we shall all be under Ar-Gimilzôr's whip."
Note: Inzilbêth was the wife of Ar-Gimilzôr, the twenty-third King of Númenor. Although the time of his reign was exceptionally hard for any elves there and for the Elendili, the Elf-friends, who were terribly persecuted and were eventually forced to flee, Inzilbêth was secretly among their number and taught her eldest son, who later became Tar-Palantir King of Númenor, to be better than his father, although her second son, Gimilkhâd, followed his father and the 'King's Men'.