Chapter 5: Sins of the Father (Angharad)
c/w: Human/humanoid trafficking – not sexual. Author's note at end about this topic if you need more information.
(~***~)
Eaben Masterson was not a rich man, but he fancied himself a scholar. Long ago his ancestors had been the masters of a prosperous city called Lake Town, until a dragon destroyed it. (Or so it was said.) His people had migrated over generations south along the Anduin River until some had settled permanently in the lands between Anfalas and Andrast, as they had been known at the time. Others took work in the capital Minas Tirith.
Eaben had great pride in this lineage, considering himself to be an important person. He was the head manservant in the house of this town's Lord, where he ruled the other servants with an iron fist, insisting that they follow arcane customs of etiquette. Eaben would be the first to tell you that his ancestors had once known both dwarves and elves, considering both to be equal trading partners. He studied the old tongues and scrolls carefully, for he loved to end a petty argument between peasants by quoting something profound in the ancient elven language Quenya.
When the boy arrived at his master's house with a message that a strange child had been found on an island off the coast and requesting his urgent consultation, Eaben was filled with haughty glee.
"Oh, I suppose I could come and see if I could help," he simpered. Leaving his charges with strict orders not to botch anything without his oversight, Eaben tried to hide his eagerness as he took a servant's horse from the stables and rode to the peasant's house where he had been called.
(~***~)
Angharad had no idea what was going on. The woman had bathed her, then dressed her in an itchy dress with a thick sash tied around her waist. She'd combed Angharad's hair into a tight braid that pulled at her skin. But then she had given her food. Glorious food! Angharad had never eaten anything like it. It was a small, round loaf of bread stuffed with a fishy tasting paste. She loved it. She would have eaten ten if she could. But as naïve as Angharad was about the world, she had been taught how to be a gracious guest in another's home, and she did not try to ask for more.
The woman had begun chopping some vegetables and fish and had tried to show Angharad how to help, but the elf child was clueless. She had herded the girl into a small courtyard, given her a fabric pouch full of brightly painted ceramic balls, and left her. Angharad rolled the balls around her hands but didn't know what they were for. She wondered how the woman could shout so much and somehow still sound friendly.
So many sounds were flowing over the walls to Angharad's sensitive ears. She could tell there were a lot of people, animals, things on wheels… She wished she'd been paying attention when the woman brought her into town, but she had felt so awful she'd just lain down in the back of the cart and stared at the sky moving overhead.
The courtyard also opened to the sky. A single thin tree in a large pot stood in one corner beside a pillar holding up a thatched roof. Angharad thought the tree looked lonely inside a building all by itself. She went over and stroked its bark, saying kind words to the sad tree. Looking up at the roof she wondered… without a second thought she was shimmying up the tree trunk, pulling herself over the lip of the roof.
She straddled the ridge line, looking down on the town below. It was a dusty, plain looking place to her. But so busy! Humans of all shapes and sizes strolled through the street. Some talked to each other, laughing or arguing. A boy chased a herd of goats through some stalls, causing several adults to shout at him. Chickens scratched in the dirt, fighting over bugs or scraps of food. Fascinated, she lost track of time as she watched life unfold in this utterly novel place.
(~***~)
Eaben was gratified by the respect the fisherwoman and her husband showed him as they welcomed him into their pathetic little hut. Trying to ignore the reek of fish, he sat at their rough-hewn table and listened to the woman describe her discovery. Hushing the husband's surly apologies for his superstitious wife's hysterics, Eaben explained to them that, in fact, elves, dwarves, and other creatures were indeed real, although they were now hardly ever seen by humans. In his professional opinion, the child sounded like an elf. They could be dangerous folk, yes. The woman had been wise to call him.
The nervous couple gladly accepted his offer to intervene, letting him into the courtyard with the door shut firmly behind him. When Eaben walked into courtyard he could not see the child anywhere. He wondered if it had run away.
"It was probably just some silly orphan," he consoled himself, pretending he wasn't disappointed. But then a soft rustling started on the thatch above him, and he turned around in time to see the child dismount the roof, landing in front of him as gracefully as a cat. (Despite the hideous dress he noticed they had clothed her in.) She tilted her head and looked at him quizzically. Her pointed ears showed clearly against the rough braid the stupid peasant had given her. Definitely an elf.
Eaben bowed (far too low considering she was a child) and addressed the elf in Quenya, feeling impressed with himself.
"Greetings, lady, and well met. What brings you to these lands, when all the elves have gone to the far shore?"
Angharad was surprised to hear the man speaking in elvish. She wished very badly that she had been paying better attention during Elrond's Quenya lessons. But they had been so boring, and it was usually nice outside. Who needed to know such an ancient language anyway? Or so she had thought.
The man reminded her of a fox with his thatch of red-brown hair and pointy nose. His cloth was finer than the woman's had been, but to Angharad he still looked uglier than she. She determined to be courteous to him still, for as her mother said, no one gets to choose their face.
Angharad curtsied to the fox man, saying, "How you know Quenya? Very old and good tongue." She tried adding in her native Sindarin, "If you speak elvish, do you know Sindarin as well?"
Eaben was annoyed. Of course, she was only a child. Unlike him, she must not yet have had the opportunity to have a proper education. Unfortunately, he hadn't studied as much Sindarin. He'd always considered it to be the inferior and common elven language. Still, who else could speak with this pitiful creature at all, he reasoned with himself. He imagined taking her under his tutelage, his renown growing as word spread that Eaben Masterson, descendant of the rulers of Lake Town, had an elf child under his care.
He decided to stick with his preferred Quenya. She should probably learn it anyway. "I am a student of the old ways, small one," he said to her. "Who are your family? Why is it that you are not in the Blessed Lands, where all the elves have gone?"
Tricky, Angharad thought to herself as she listened to the fox man's butchered Quenya. His accent didn't sound elegant like Elrond's at all. She had got 'who are your family,' though, so she answered that.
Reciting in clunky Quenya, she said, "My father is Legolas. My grandfather is Thranduil. My mother is Lossrilleth. My grandmother is Celebrian."
"Thranduil?" Eaben blurted out in surprise. The elf girl looked delighted and nodded – he knew her grandfather! 'Father of my father'… her grandfather was the Elvenking of Mirkwood?" he thought to himself, amazed. What luck was this? His own ancestors had had a trading partnership with this child's grandfather.
Then a thought occurred to Eaben and a shadow passed over his heart. After the death of Smaug, it was said his ancestor had approached Thranduil seeking assistance in reclaiming lordship over Dale, which was being rebuilt by the Lake Town refugees under the leadership of Bard the Dragon Slayer. But the Elvenking had refused to intervene in such human squabbles. If it hadn't been for her grandfather's neglect, Eaben's family might still be in their rightful place as rulers. He wouldn't be stuck as a manservant with no opportunities for his natural talents for cleverness and strategy to shine…
"So," he thought to himself. "If the Elvenking has consigned my family to generations of servitude, why should I not do the same?"
Smiling sweetly at the girl child, Eaben said, "My own family knew your grandfather well. They were allies in the old days. It is only right that I assist you, dear child."
She got enough of that – his family knew her grandfather, and he would help her! "What luck!" she thought, raising her heart in prayer to thank the Valar for their protection and help. He offered her his hand and she gladly took it, ignoring the small, uncomfortable feeling in her heart when he looked at her.
"He didn't decide to be ugly," she reminded herself again.
Eaben led the child back through the peasant's residence, where the family was now eating the evening meal. Angharad looked at the food wistfully, still feeling famished. Even more she felt sadness wash over her as she watched the family sitting together, comfortable and close. She would give anything to be home in the Silvan Quarter, safe in her parents' arms, or sitting on her grandfather's lap, or trying to sneak up on Elrohir (who was a good sport with naughty children).
Angharad pulled away from Eaben for a moment, hugging the fisherwoman again and sending her gratitude. As a last thought, she held out a hand to the woman's face and sent a blessing of healing to the place that seemed to be causing her pain. All were in shock as they saw the girl's hand glow slightly and the woman felt the sore tooth she had been sure she would have to pull suddenly cool with relief. The woman took the girl's hand and squeezed it, smiling at the child in awe.
"Take good care of her," she told the scholar.
"Oh, I shall, I shall," Eaben promised sincerely. "Now do you have the clothing she wore when you found her? It is an artifact of the Blessed Lands, it should be returned to her. And perhaps you should not speak overmuch about this healing you've been given – the gifts of the elves can easily be taken back."
The woman handed him the salt-encrusted garment and watched them go in silence. She wondered if he'd remember to return her daughter's only spare dress she'd let the elf child borrow… (He would not.)
In the Lord's manor, Eaben kept Angharad's presence a closely-guarded secret among the servants, convincing them that nobles would only seek to use the girl. He told the girl that she should not bother the Lord, who he warned had a hot temper and did not like children. He kept her neatly confined to the servants' quarters, keeping her restlessness in check by apprenticing her temporarily to the master gardener. She was quiet enough if she spent most of the day outside, tending to plants and running around the grounds.
To keep her compliant, he treated her sweetly. He lied to the child and all the servants who came to dote on the little sprite in the weeks she spent among them, saying that he was sending out letters to other students of the old tales to find a way to help the girl get home.
He did send a letter, but it was not to any scholar. Instead, he wrote to one he had heard of but never met, relying on the many underground contacts that he had long used to sell black market goods pilfered from the Lord's storerooms. The Collector was known for finding markets to capitalize on the reputations of the now-rare creatures of old. He would pay dearly for a young elf. A servant who would never die, passing from one master to the next was a very valuable commodity. There were ways to ensure the indenture was never fulfilled.
Eaben did his research well, finding references to the death of Aredhel inspirational. He traded with thieves and murderers to find what he needed. The Collector returned his letter and a date was set for the exchange.
On that night, dark with clouds, Eaben slipped a strong tincture of opium poppies into Angharad's evening meal and waited. She fell into unconsciousness as her body fought the poison he had given her. Eaben spirited the sleeping child out of the manor and down to the harbor, where a large ship that none had seen before had come to moor for the night.
He walked away from the harbor with a satchel of gems in his hands and a horse stolen from the Lord's stables. With them, he disappeared forever from the lands known as Anfalas, starting his life over as a wealthy and cunning merchant on the Long Lake, where his people had once lived. At long last, the Mastersons had had their due from the house of the Elvenking.
(~***~)
Angharad woke to the sound of wood creaking all around her. It was dark, and smelled of salt, fish, and something pungent she didn't recognize. Her head felt like someone was hitting it with a hammer over and over. She could hear breathing all around her.
"H-hello?" she tried in the New Westron she'd started to pick up. She felt around her in the dark, finding cold metal bars surrounding her. "Where is this? Where is Eaben?"
A gruff voice to her left replied, saying "He sold your debt, girl. We're being shipped off to the Eastern lands to serve humans who think having other races serve in their households will increase their prestige."
Angharad started crying. "No, he was my friend. He was going to help me find my parents. His ancestors knew my grandfather…"
A bitter laugh erupted on her right. "Did they now?" said the voice. "I wonder what your grandfather did to his people to give him this idea."
The poor child curled up on the ground and sobbed, losing water she could hardly afford as her body burned to dispel the poison still inside her.
"Stop crying, elf," the voice on her left barked. "You're no worse off than the rest of us."
They had no choice but to live with her tears, though, for she could not stop herself from weeping. Finally, she let unconsciousness take her again, relieved to be free from this bleak world for even one night.
(~***~)
(~***~)
Author's Note:
Content warning: The human(oid) trafficking is going to be an ongoing storyline for Angharad – it is by far the most challenging issue in this entire story I have planned. I'm not going to get graphic or have any extreme cruelty, but some people will be held against their will, which is both very shitty and, unfortunately, consistent with the time period I'm loosely portraying. If this is going to be too upsetting, I totally get it – take care, I wish you well.
On languages: In general I'm going to put any elven language in non-italics since the elves are the stars of this story. I use a little bit of Sindarin here and there for flavor more than anything – that is italicized in-line just to make it easier to read. It's just little things like 'ion nin' instead of son, romantic endearments…
Any human language dialogue will be shown in italics so you can distinguish it.
