Chapter 21 : Acculturation
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When Eudes and Robert saw their younger brother after so many months without news, they did not recognise him at first... They had to wait until the horseman stopped at their door and so that they could see his face up close.
"By God ! Is that you, Belin ?" asked Eudes.
"Yes, that's me," replied Belin, looking down.
The squire had taken an extra day off to visit his brothers at the mill, deep in the valley outside the walls.
"That grey 'ors, he is well nice ! Is he yours ?"
"Yes, Lord Glorfindel gave him to me when he hired me."
"Glorfindel... Isn't he the elf that commands the armies of the citee ?"
"It is indeed him."
"Come in, come in. "
They invited him to sit down at the large table in front of the fireplace, and gave him food and drink.
"You look good and proud !" said Eudes.
"Where did you got thos nice clath ?" Robert asked.
"They are the clothes of the people of my House", replied Belin.
"Your 'us ?"
"The House of the Fountain, which Ecthelion, the elf lord whose esquire I am, runs."
He talks a bit oddly at times, thought Robert.
"So you're an esquire now !"
"Yes, I look after my lord's horse, I carry his shield at jousts and festivals, and accompany him on his travels. "
Eudes had been looking at his brother's hair for some time. He no longer resisted and touched it with his fingertips. Under the intricate braids fixed above his head, it fell smooth and soft as silk on either side of his face.
"What happened to your 'aer ?"
"It's Lord Ecthelion who does my braids. I can't do it alone. "
"And your skin ? It's all soft too."
"It's those elven soaps. They put oils in them, from different plants. "
"And your teth ? They're all white !"
"My lord Ecthelion gave me a little brush to scrub them with. I'll shows it to you !"
He opened his bag and took out a toothbrush with an elaborately carved wooden handle.
"Oh..." said the brothers, looking at the object with amazement.
"He also taught me the elven alphabet, so that soon I can read books."
"Read books ? What for ?"
"My lord Ecthelion says you can learn things from them, and read about warlike exploits."
Mylord Ecthelion here, Mylord Ecthelion there... That's all he ever says, the two brothers thought jealously, fearing that the elf lord would take away their brother's affection.
"Belin, you offended us by leavin'," stated Eudes.
"Why ?" replied the teenager, hiding his face behind his bowl of soup.
"We were told that you pretended at the citee that our father Eric left you no enheritaunce, and that we can not aforth to live... As if the two of us were two villains who would have thrown you out ! But our father had decided that all three of us should stay at the mille, without one havin' an advantage over the other two. "
"It was my cat who advised me to say that," Belin defended himself. "He said I'd have a better chance of bein' hired."
"A catt talks not, Belin," replied the elder. "So don't try to fool us. You wanted to live among them so badly that you were prepared to lie about us. That felony. "
"No, I..."
"What's wrong with this mille ?" Robert asked. "We're not good enough for you. When we look at you, you don't look like a man, but an elf !"
"And your Lor' Ecthelion, he does not accept you as you are !"
"You shave your chinn to look like an elf, but you're not one ! And I'm sure they will accept you not !"
Belin looked down sadly.
"I does not want..." he began.
"You're not meant to live amon' those fairies who don't die," Robert cut him off. "You're just a man."
"Besides, how come your lor' hired you ? His former esquire might not have died of old age."
"He died fightin'," muttered Belin.
His two brothers looked at each other.
"How ?"
"It was an evil orc who slashed him in the got with a sword."
Eudes and Robert turned pale and looked at each other again, their eyes wide.
"You have to come back here !" they said in unison.
The rest of Belin's stay was spent trying to convince him to give up his position as a squire and return to the mill. Eudes and Robert managed to get him to confess everything : that he was living with his master, an angry and violent young elf, because he had been hazed in the barracks dormitory. That he was regularly insulted, called an ape, a dog, an inferior creature, when they didn't point out a supposed resemblance to the dwarf race.
"They're not all like that," he said. "Most of them are good and wise to me... Like the King, who is great and kind elf."
But the details that Eudes and Robert had learned had sufficiently reinforced the uneasiness they had felt when they saw their brother come back changed. They were afraid that they would never see him again, that he would eventually turn away from them, that something bad would happen to him, and they also felt hurt in their self-esteem as humans and simple millers. And they talked to him so much and so well and turned his mind that he ended up wondering if they were right, if he didn't belong among them, the humans, because elves would never consider him as a peer.
On the evening of the second day of his leave, they showed him a letter of resignation that they had dictated to one of their Sindar neighbours. As Belin could now write his name, he signed.
Ecthelion waited for him until late at night. But neither that night nor the next day did Belin show up in Gondolin.
To be continued...
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