A Consolation of Princes

Chapter 3: A Confluence of Contenders, Part 1

Morwen met Thengel in the entry hall the next day. A servant had just taken his coat. She held out her hands for him to take, giving his fingers a brief squeeze. Judging by the surprised look on his face, she might have squeezed harder than she intended.

"Thengel," she breathed once they were alone. "Thank goodness you're here early."

His eyebrows drooped into a dry expression, replacing the surprise. "Hello, Morwen. Your father's invitation did specify that he wanted to provide me with some brief instructions before the meal," he intoned. "I thought you might know something about that."

"Ah, yes…"

"He also instructed me to look my best." Thengel rocked back on his heels as he plucked at his linen tunic.

Morwen studied the fabric, looking puzzled. The garment had been dyed a deep gray with no embellishments or embroidery. The leather belt that rested over the fabric also lacked stamping, embossing, or braiding. And the buckle looked like brass instead of silver or gold. He wasn't putting on airs, certainly. Not the kind to catch the eye of a potential mate and to suggest he was a man of easy means. Thengel needed lessons from the princes of Belfalas, Morwen reflected…along with a few of their tassels and sweeping sleeves and pointed slippers. Someone had brushed his sturdy boots, at least. In this state, one could only accuse Thengel of being tidy and sensible.

"Is this your best tunic?" she asked.

"No, this is my third best," he drawled, "I refuse to dress like I'm about to be crowned, Morwen. It might give the Powers the wrong idea to hasten events."

That surprised Morwen into a laugh. "Oh."

"Now, tell me, since when does Lord Amarthor care about my mode of dress for an informal noon meal?"

Morwen hoped she looked singularly innocent as she said, "Who doesn't? The whole world is besotted with you, Thengel. Don't you know that?" She hoped that didn't sound like a confession.

Thengel crossed his arms, choosing not to indulge her habit of hyperbole. "One of these days your father's going to find out he's had a long and unusual correspondence with me."

Morwen gave him an urchin grin. "That will be both a surprise and a delight for him." Then she lowered her voice. "Now listen, Thengel, I've found you The One."

Thengel blinked at her. "The what?"

"The woman."

"You'll have to be more specific," he said, unsuccessfully masking some trepidation.

Morwen tamped down her annoyance at his obtuseness. "Your bride, of course. I've invited her to dine with us."

Húnil had dressed more to the point too in a beautiful green silk with only a few black cat hairs stuck to it. Morwen marveled at her new friend's luck in choosing the color of gown, given that she'd provided no hints that Thengel would be joining them. It seemed fated.

"Ah." Thengel stared down the passage toward the dining room looking vaguely pained. "You move quickly. I should have seen it coming." He looked back at her. "Who's the unfortunate soul you've chosen to saddle to me?"

Morwen glowered at him. "The fortunate soul, you mean. This is no time to be self-deprecating."

"A man's allowed a little gallows humor when he's unexpectedly paying court," Thengel droned, glancing down at his tunic again as if contemplated whether or not he should have worn his fourth best instead.

Morwen tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Unexpected? Why else do you think I…I mean, why else would Father invite you for dinner?" Then she touched his arm. "Now, there's a bit of a twist. It turns out you've already met the lady."

Thengel's blank expression indicated that this information hadn't narrowed down the field for him at all.

"Have I?"

Morwen nodded. "Yes. It's a bit of a surprise for me too."

Thengel stepped closer, reaching for her arms. "Morwen."

Morwen pressed a finger against his chest. "So, I want you to very carefully consider everything you think you may know about Lady Húnil and cast it to the wind. See her with fresh eyes." She gave him a toothy smile. "Like I do."

Thengel let go of her abruptly, stepping back. He gazed at her through half-lidded eyes. "Húnil."

"Yes. Lord Ecthelion's cousin."

"I know," he bit off.

Morwen ignored the slight charge to his tone. "I should warn you. She arrived even earlier than you."

"Oh no." Thengel cast his gaze down the passage again. "Do you know what you've unleashed?"

Morwen allowed her expression to show some of the overwhelm she'd felt for the last quarter of an hour. "I'm beginning to see it, yes. She and my father are discussing when to serve beaver at a feast hosted by Lord Eldacar."

"Is Lord Eldacar entertaining much these days?" Thengel asked, with only a slight upturn to his lips. "These are strange times."

Morwen glanced down, biting the inside of her lip for a moment while he enjoyed himself at her expense. "You know what I mean."

"You give me too much credit."

She held up her hands. "The material point, Thengel, is that Húnil wasn't supposed to arrive before you. Now Father's monopolizing the conversation and I'm losing control…don't you dare recite some long-dead general."

"Never occurred to me." Thengel shook his head. "Now tell me how you could allow Húnil to get pulled into one of your father's quagmires?"

"Well…" Morwen sighed. "I realized my mistake had occurred when I described Húnil as a cat lady to Father the evening before."

Thengel raised an eyebrow. "Béma."

"Yes, Béma," Morwen repeated. "Father must have developed notions in his head about what sort of woman that made her. He's had to adjust those notions in a hurry — but you know how he is."

Thengel nodded. "You mean instead of a subdued elderly woman with little conversation, you've presented your family with a lady who uses her voice like a foghorn to…"

"To describe several methods for stalking narnoryth, those southern cousins of the beaver that like to choke the streams in Lebennin," Morwen quoted in one long breath. "Yes. That's how the whole mess started. She mentioned hunting beavers with her cats and Father ran with it in the only manner he knows how."

Scholarly debate until a subject has been thoroughly flogged into the ground.

"He's gabbling over esoteric nonsense and scratching behind his ears again, is he?" Thengel guessed.

"As evidenced by the tufts of hair sticking out around his ears." A sign of nerves he tended to display whenever a situation required small talk. The likes of which Lady Gwereneth and Morwen could not subdue no matter the effort.

"Always a fashionable look," Thengel chuckled.

"The tufts make Father look like a buzzard," Morwen said sharply.

Thengel opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came. He blinked a few times, then shut his mouth again.

"She startled him out of his equanimity within the first five minutes of arriving and now he's trying to get his legs under him," Morwen continued. "Father and Lady Húnil are at this moment engaging in a brief debate as to whether narnoroth tails might or might not have historically classified the creatures as a type of fish."

"Fish." Thengel glanced at the ceiling and made several faces before asking, "But why?"

Morwen rubbed her forehead. "To decide with which course beaver would therefore have been served at the banquet held by King Eldacar, as I've said." When this didn't seem to help him, she added, "You know, the one to honor the Northmen who had helped him regain the throne following the Kin-Strife."

"Oh, that one." Thengel nodded sagely. "Well, that's a question that also keeps me up at night."

Morwen gave him a mildly sour frown. "I should have known that if Father had to speak, he would keep the conversation on his terms. A tactical error on my part, I admit."

"Big of you."

Morwen could see that Thengel refused to be a source of pity. And since she'd given her important instructions, she felt they had no other reason to remain in the hallway…except that something nudged her conscience, but she couldn't remember what. Oh well.

"We'd better go in before Father grows both nervous and hungry. Then he'll really get carried away," she told him. "Now that you're here, he can slip back into morose silence while you entertain Húnil."

"I live to serve." He sounded like he'd rather hang upside from his bootstraps.

Morwen held up a finger. "Remember, give the lady a chance. You promised to give me a fair shake."

"Coming to her rescue isn't enough for one meal?" Thengel asked as he allowed Morwen to thread her arm through his while they walked toward the dining room. Then he stopped. Morwen looked up at him. "Does Húnil know why she's here?"

Morwen thought Thengel's face had lost some of its color. It surprised her to find that he, a sword brother to the Captain of Gondor, might be nervous in the face of True Love.

"And risk scaring her off? Of course not."

"That's considerate of you." He tapped his chest. "What about scaring me off?"

"Before this moment I didn't think you feared anything." She reminded him, "Faint heart never won fair lady."

"Hm." Thengel studied her face. "Now who's quoting long-dead generals?"

"A king consort, actually." Morwen sniffed. "Hallacar who married Tar-Ancalimë…after a bit of trouble."

"That's right. Old Hallacar the sheep boy," he drawled. "Paragon of wedded bliss."

"Says the horse-master." Morwen blocked the door into the dining room. She gripped his forearm. "Listen Thengel, we're about to be overrun by aquatic rats. I need a knight in there. Are you going to come to the rescue or not?"

Thengel's expression turned solemn. "Who now thinks to turn from the warplay," he recited.

"Helm Hammerhand?" she asked.

He looked pleased. "You remembered."

Morwen let go of his arm, turning away to open the door. "Gaeron may have fallen asleep whenever you'd tell stories, but I remember every single one."

…

Rescue proved more difficult than Morwen had reckoned. Lord Amarthor sat entrenched, barely registering his new guest until Gwereneth pointed Thengel out to him with a sharp tone that could cut through chainmail. Lady Húnil greeted Thengel with the easeful good humor she displayed for everyone. And though Morwen made sure Thengel and Húnil were seated side by side, the lady allowed herself to be monopolized by Amarthor again as servants laid out the meal.

"But the question remains, did the ancients consider the beaver a fish in its entirety or merely the tail? The historical record is conflicted on that point," Amarthor continued, insensible to the cooling roast in front of him — happily not beaver. "If the latter, would serving the tail apart from the other meat require separate courses? It begs the question…"

"Lord Amarthor, you're assuming that they would serve the tail at all in a feast. They might have kept the fat like bone marrow, using it as an ingredient," Húnil offered.

Amarthor scratched behind his ear, blinking rapidly at this new culinary angle. "That is a point that must be considered. Yes. Certainly. Only it is regrettable — quite regrettable that receipts from that era are nearly useless to scholars."

"One assumes they were written for an audience who were already proficient in a lord's kitchen and needed only the barest instruction," Húnil opined. "It's the sort of thing I'd write out for my own household."

"You might consider adding a little more detail for posterity," Amarthor said techily, deeply affected for future scholars who'd have to muddle through Lady Húnil's commonplace books.

During this exchange, Thengel's eyes swept from Lord Amarthor to Húnil to Morwen who sat across from him. She chose initially to interpret the glance as gratitude for her efforts in bringing him together with Húnil rather than a sharp criticism of her ability to organize romantic encounters. It wasn't her fault, after all, that a respectable young woman only had so many choices of venue. However, she had to eventually concede that gratitude had nothing to do with the look in his eyes.

Lord Amarthor gripped his goblet like a man obsessed, returning to the material point. "But if the fat were used in a pie, for example, would it then become a fish pie regardless of what else it contained? Or did a certain ratio of ingredients need to be met? What, in fact, constitutes a fish pie?"

During this leg of her father's speech, Morwen cleared her throat. When that produced no effect on Thengel, she tried again. Still nothing. He seemed resolved to mince his meat as finely as possible rather than to listen for a cue from her.

"Morwen, take a sip of water if you have a frog in your throat," her mother muttered under her breath.

That wasn't the attention that Morwen had wanted. She sighed, sliding down a little in her chair before stretching her leg out to tap Thengel's shin. Gently, of course. She'd done it a hundred times to Gaeron without inflicting permanent damage.

Thengel made an odd face before glancing across the table at Morwen. She nodded toward her father and Húnil. Do something!

He set his knife down, taking his time laying his hands in his lap. Then he turned to the head of the table. "Couldn't it be served with the rodent course, my lord?"

The clinking and scraping of cutlery stopped at once. Gwereneth lifted a napkin to her lips. Morwen had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing.

Amarthor blinked at Thengel, a slight tremor in his cheek. "There is no such thing, young man. A rodent course? On a king's menu?"

"My grandfather, Folcwine, had a fondness for squirrel," Thengel explained as he resumed mincing his food, oblivious to the consternation he'd stirred up. "It's a specialty in the Westfold. Perhaps an acquired taste. The mountain squirrels tend toward leanness, but anything caught in Fangorn, for example, can be a little musty."

"Do you suppose their tails could be classified as something other than rodent?" Amarthor asked after a pause. "A bird, for example?"

"I believe not." Thengel short Morwen another look that seemed to say that he'd made his contribution and now she had better think of something to divert her father.

Morwen conceded that her father's monopolizing of the conversation did little to give her romantic charges the proper environment in which to bloom as lovers. Perhaps with a real robust affection, rodent tails would not prove an obstacle. But without that foundation already established, Morwen could see narnoryth choking the spark she had hoped to cultivate during the meal, not unlike the river Celos. She girded herself to enter the fray.

"Father, did not King Eldacar's sire marry a woman from the north?" she asked, looking into her wine glass. She glanced up and smiled at Húnil, but caught Thengel giving her a knowing frown that suggested he understood the broad hint.

"Yes, child, and it caused a civil war," Lord Amarthor replied stolidly. "A very foolish alliance by all accounts."

Morwen exhaled slowly, losing patience with her father for failing to cooperate in a project he knew nothing about. He must have a romantic bone somewhere in his body. After all, he had succeeded in marrying her mother. On reflection, that might explain its disappearance…

"The marriage caused a civil war?" Thengel asked with a hint of winter bite in his tone, "Or did it give those already inclined to strife a pretext for starting one?"

Amarthor steepled his fingers, looking oblivious to the undercurrent in Thengel's tone. "The inferiority of her blood threatened the strength of the future kings. What else could the barons do if their sovereign would not heed their advice?"

Morwen felt the romantic atmosphere corrode further. Honestly, fish-tailed rodents had been a better choice. Her father certainly presented a very damp cloth. And she felt that Thengel couldn't help but feel insulted. The Northmen were kin to the Rohirrim.

"I don't recall the descendants of Númenor complaining about inferior blood when they formed a pact with Eorl, a Northman," Thengel reflected. "Or when that blood spilled in the defense of the Poros crossing."

There. A spark — but entirely the wrong kind. Morwen recognized the casual tone from Gaeron's stories of Thengel. Gaeron had called it the calm before the storm. It promised to be quite a gale.

"I think it's romantic that Valacar chose to marry Vidumavi regardless of what people thought," Morwen broke in. "And it didn't have any effect on their offspring's vitality, after all."

Amarthor scoffed. "I don't suppose you would call getting murdered an effect on vitality," he pointed out, bringing her attention to Valacar's grandson who ultimately paid the price for the alliance.

"Well…"

"Morwen, it would have been better if Valacar had heeded his barons' advice, forgotten the lady, and found a suitable wife of good stock back at home." Amarthor added gravely, "It is the duty of a king to put his kingdom before his personal feelings."

Morwen felt herself blushing over her father's careless and insensitive and old-fashioned opinions over bloodlines. One glance at Lady Húnil, at least, showed that the woman listened to the exchange with amusement. Morwen couldn't say the same about Thengel, who had the countenance of a gathering storm.

"Perhaps Valacar could not behave so coolly," Thengel offered, staring into his wine glass as Morwen had done. "After all, he had lived for some time among the people of Rhovanion, growing to love them as he absorbed their language and culture."

Morwen gave him an encouraging smile when he did look up. But this line of thinking proved too much for Lord Amarthor's scholarly point of view. Still, her father did have the self-preserving instincts — eventually — not to argue too finely with the future Lord of the Mark. Morwen caught her father giving her mother a beseeching look across the table to help him crawl out of the ditch he'd dug.

"Perhaps," said Lady Gwereneth, giving everyone but Lady Húnil a reproving glare for bringing up Gondor's more sordid history when they had a new acquaintance in their midst. "Whatever this long-dead king's personal feelings might have been, they hardly warrant discussing murder and kin strife at the table. Forgive us, Lady Húnil."

"Pish, nothing like a little murder and intrigue to encourage digestion. You'd be very surprised what comes up in Ecthelion's dining room," Húnil replied with the cheer of an otter — a rodent that, like the beaver, was almost certainly a fish too. "I take Morwen's point of view of old Valacar. He knew what he wanted and didn't let a bunch of stuffy old bigots stop him."

Morwen buoyed under Húnil's support. Of course, a woman who could fearlessly clip a large cat's nails wouldn't be cowed by her parents or prove too delicate to discuss the less savory moments of Gondor's history. And perhaps Húnil had the good sense to take Thengel's short speech to heart.

AN:

Helm's borrowed quotation comes from The Battle of Maldon.

Hallacar's quote first appeared in the work entitled Adagia, a collection of Greek and Latin proverbs, compiled in the 1500s by Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus…according to the Internets, so take it with a grain of salt.

Medea!Sindarin lexicon (taken with a block of salt):
Narnoroth = big rat
Narnoryth = big rats