A Consolation of Princes, Part II: A Revolt of Kings
Chapter 1: A Gallery of Gossips
"Good lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I,
And I am sunburnt…" Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing
Lossarnach
Morwen glanced surreptitiously through the window at the meadows beyond her father's house and wished to be…a bee.
The solstice had come and gone. The sun had toasted everything, including herself, a nice golden color. Per the almanac, the season had passed reasonably dry so far. Perhaps best of all, wildflowers and roses choked every fertile inch of ground that hadn't been vigorously defended by the farmers for their crops or kine. It was a lush time for creatures who shifted out of doors and Morwen envied them.
For creatures who shifted indoors, Morwen could only say that she felt as choked as the flowerbeds. Outside her window, the bees flew happily from one blossom to the next without a care except to get as dusty with pollen as possible. And unlike herself…they moved about freely without an audience.
"Morwen." Her mother's sharp voice yanked her attention back into the hall.
No less than six pairs of inquiring eyes fixed on her in a worrisome way. They belonged in the heads of her mother and five other women who had assembled in the old cushioned benches positioned around a low table near the cold hearth in the manor hall. Morwen had been subjected to similar galleries for nearly four weeks. Granted, the eyes and the faces had altered with the day. She found it hard to believe that there were any more women left in the valley of Imloth Melui and its environs to supply any more curious visitors who wanted to gape for half an hour at a future queen.
Forget bees. She felt like a butterfly in a bell jar.
Two kindly neighbors, Eglanor and Gwereneth's particular friend Hithuiel, had given Morwen a brief respite by sympathizing with her mother over the overwhelming tide of ugly fabric from the disgraced clothmonger, whose iniquities had now been wildly published and greatly exaggerated. Morwen had allowed her attention — nay needed her attention to wander during this exchange. But the subject of textiles and virtueless vendors had run dry.
"Forgive me. What was that?" Morwen asked.
Gwereneth gestured toward the woman on her left. "Nathal asked you a question."
Morwen glanced at Nathal. She was known in the valley for her soft cheeses. And for generously sharing them with her neighbors…after letting her goats browse unchecked in their garden beds. She brought a large cheese with fresh basil for Gwereneth.
Nathal's daughter Nenniel sat beside her. As one of their closest neighbors, Morwen had spent much of her childhood playing with Nenniel whenever Gaeron had grown tired of her. The two young women hadn't spoken much since Morwen's return from Minas Tirith. Nenniel, who was a few years older than Morwen, had also become recently engaged to the son of the man who owned a lucrative foundry and forge in Bridgeton which lay half way between Imloth Melui and Arnach. But news of Morwen's future marriage had eclipsed Nenniel's, even if it was only a nominal engagement without the official negotiation. It appeared to be a sore point if Nenniel's perpetual stoney silence meant anything.
"I only wanted to know, dear, if you've heard from your young…er," Nathal blushed.
Nathal wasn't the first of their neighbors to stumble over what to call Thengel. To them, he was certainly a young man…until they took in the fact of Morwen who, in contrast, they regarded as some tall species of infant. Morwen had four red crescent-shaped welts on both of her palms as a result of digging in her nails to keep a tally of every reference to age made by their guests.
"That is to say…your…eh… recently betrothed. You must be pining by now." Nathal exhaled and relaxed now that she had properly mangled her inquiry and could give up.
Morwen had heard from Thengel. As to pining, she couldn't say…no one had given her enough peace since her return to Lossarnach to feel anything beyond a dull background ache. If visitors weren't hanging on the bell, then her mother tyrannized her with tailor's tape and opinions about dried versus hothouse flowers. The latter were all they could depend upon for a wedding at the end of the year and Gwereneth had no precedence to fall back on.
Even though they had an engagement in name only, that hadn't stopped Gwereneth from hiring an astrologer to fix a date. Winter weddings in Lossarnach with its flowering vales were unheard of, but that had been the earliest date given. That provided another favorite topic amongst the women of Imloth Melui. Only one neighbor had asked why the bride and groom couldn't wait until next spring for a proper valley wedding. The rest stopped short of suggesting a reason for the haste beyond ardent affection and the groom's need for an heir.
An heir who was certainly not imminent…as far as they could tell by squinting.
"We expect Lord Thengel to arrive any day now," Gwereneth replied for Morwen.
Morwen blinked at her mother who knew very well that "any day" was today. And if their guests learned as much, they would invite themselves to linger at the manor house to view her reunion with Thengel like spectators at a pantomime. She could imagine them passing around bags of roasted pecans to one another while critiquing the performance.
Never mind that Thengel had been the family's regular visitor at the manor every summer since he had met Gaeron. Nobody had paid him much heed back then. To the valley, he had been Ecthelion's hired sword and little more.
Marriage must have reminded them that he had a throne somewhere over the mountain to get back to one day. A wooden throne, mark you. Nothing like the dignified stone of the Steward's chair.
Or else the valley folk decided Thengel had earned the epithet Thrice Renowned for having the courage to choose Morwen the Unsteady, Daughter of the Scourge of Imloth Melui. Such a man — or lunatic — must be worth seeing. Morwen honestly couldn't tell if Thengel had given her consequence or the other way around.
But since Thengel had yet to put in an appearance, they'd contented themselves to stare at Morwen. And even though Gwereneth thought it necessary to turn her daughter into a carnival attraction for their neighbors, at least she didn't mind fibbing to keep their neighbors from encroaching further than could be done while eating caraway shortbread and drinking strawberry wine.
But the afternoon's swift approach crimped any relief that Gwereneth's little falsehood had given Morwen. If she didn't leave soon, she'd miss her opportunity to catch Thengel alone before he arrived at the manor. But all of the methods of escape that she could think of involved offending the neighbors and embarrassing her mother. So she stayed put and envied the bees.
"We look forward to meeting him again. I must say, Gwereneth, it was clever of you to keep Lord Thengel around long enough to fall in love with little Morwen," Pedril remarked. "You always were farsighted."
Morwen dug her nails into her palms. Pedril had married the village blacksmith the same year that Gwereneth had married Amarthor. Her husband was famous in the valley for making very sharp nails. Pedril was famous for behaving like one of them.
"Thank you," Gwereneth replied.
Morwen stared at her mother. Gwereneth glanced at her and pursed her lips slightly as if to say, "What's the point of correcting them? They'll believe what they like regardless."
But Morwen didn't like the insinuation. "Gaeron always made sure Thengel had somewhere welcoming to stay on his leave," Morwen told them.
Pedril grinned. "How nice of you to continue the tradition."
"Gaeron must be so pleased to have his particular friend in the family," Eglanor observed with a much kinder smile…and total ignorance of the facts. "They would fish for hours, you know, on the stream at the bottom of my garden near the place where my late husband laid a log bridge when we were first married. Morwen would play on it no matter how rotten with moss it'd grown. I don't know why the boys liked that spot so much. I recall they never seemed to catch anything but little Morwen half the time. I began to keep towels near the back door for them."
Morwen blushed. That had been a long time ago. Gaeron had made her learn to swim so he wouldn't have to keep getting wet going in after her. She liked being fished out, so it had ruined the fun.
Pedril reached for the last biscuit on the tray. "Is it true that Gaeron's completing his honeymoon in Minas Tirith?" she asked as she snapped the shortbread in half and scattered crumbs over the table. "We've been longing to meet Tathren."
Morwen almost drooped with boredom as Pedril chewed delicately on the broken end of the biscuit. She and Gwereneth had fielded these same questions for four weeks. But to the women around their coffee table, this was a fresh avenue of conversation to help prolong their visit.
Instead of answering Pedril, Gwereneth leaned forward to slide the refreshments tray along the table toward Morwen. "Perhaps you'd bring us some more biscuits."
Morwen recognized the coded language immediately. Gwereneth had a reputation for economy in the valley and she had earned that reputation by keeping to strict quantities for meals and refreshments. Her portions were always generous but if anybody wanted seconds, they'd have to come back the next day. So Morwen rose without a word, taking the tray and the opportunity to escape.
As she passed over the threshold, she heard Hithuiel ask her mother, "Have you heard yet if King Fengel will be present at the wedding?"
Morwen tamped down her immediate response to that. Only sheer willpower allowed her to leave her mother alone to answer that Thengel's estranged father would not be present under any circumstances. She felt confident that Fengel wouldn't bestir himself, even if they did invite him. But their neighbors didn't need a primer on the minutiae of Thengel's familial strife. So she left Gwereneth to give whatever vague remark came to her mind.
When the door closed behind her, Morwen set the tray on a table in the foyer. She was about to walk out the front door when she heard through the open windows the crunch of several pairs of shoes over gravel. She stifled a groan and picked up the tray again.
This time she retreated in the opposite direction down the passage toward the back of the house to avoid more gaping neighbors coming in by the front doors. She abandoned the tray on the chest positioned under one of the large windows that overlooked the rose garden behind the house. The table legs protested against the stone floor as she shoved it down along the wall a little. She only needed a tad more room beneath the window.
The latch stuck a little but she jimmied it up and then pushed the pane open. It swung wide on creaking hinges. Morwen froze, biting her lip. She listened for any sign that she'd been heard and that someone might be coming to investigate. A door shutting somewhere in the house startled her. She turned, glancing down both sides of the passage before leaning against the wall. No one appeared.
Hands planted on the sill, she hoisted herself backward onto the stone ledge like she'd done a hundred times before to escape nurses and tutors…and her mother. Her legs were longer now and so were her dresses, which made the next part more difficult. She had to turn on the ledge and then swing her legs over the sill. Morwen tried scooting over to one side to make more room for her knees to clear the space. Someone, it seemed, had been bricking in this particular window over the years because she distinctly remembered maneuvering her escapes with greater ease.
She had just gotten one leg up when one of her slippers fell off inside the house and the other threatened to join it. Morwen stared stupidly at her bare left foot. Another door opened while she debated hopping down again to retrieve the fallen footwear from the floor. This time she could hear approaching footsteps. Her heart lodged in her throat. She stopped fighting to keep the final slipper and kicked it off. After that, it only took removing the better part of the skin on both her knees against the casement and jamming a few toes to swing her legs over to the other side of the wall. She sank rather than hopped down among the rose bushes.
Morwen exhaled once she gained her footing and then laughed at herself. Would it surprise any of her neighbors to learn that she would be the kind of queen to sneak out of windows? Not even a little bit. She hoped Rohan was as uncouth as Thengel made it out to be. She'd fit right in.
After shutting the window as much as she could from the outside, Morwen crept along the back of the house. She moved carefully to avoid the wing where the hall windows overlooked the fields even though it meant going out of her way. There was a heart-racing moment where she had to expose herself to the dooryard while she dashed toward the outbuildings. One glance showed that two more neighbors were just entering the house through the front doors.
Gathering her skirts to speed her escape, Morwen cut behind the barns. There she picked up a retinue of curious kittens who had been snoozing in the sun. They followed her through the west hayfield that hadn't yet been cut. That presented some challenges, but the kittens were intrepid. The unusual expedition passed into the south pasture where sheep grazed. Morwen missed her slippers as she tried to tread carefully. The long undocked tails that characterized the sheep of Lossarnach momentarily dazzled the kittens by their pendulum nature.
At last, the road came into view as the sun began to feel truly oppressive overhead. She would pay for this private meeting with Thengel with a red face later. Morwen walked barefoot along the verge under the cover of chestnut trees but the damage had been done. The convoy of kittens trailed behind her.
She stopped and waited for Thengel along the roadside shy of a league from home, feeling she had done her due diligence to get as far away from civilization as possible. A mossy milestone provided a cool seat for her while the kittens mewed and pounced at anything from flies to blades of wild rye. Watching them helped the time pass pleasantly while she waited for Thengel's silhouette to appear down the road.
One moment of unease presented itself when a hawk took interest in her retinue. Loose rocks littered the roadside and Morwen had good aim with more than just apples. After a few decent throws, the hawk decided to search the meadows for prey easier to pluck. Morwen relaxed then…at least, as much as impatience would allow her to do so.
The kittens lay asleep at her feet when she, at last, became sensible to the faint drum of hooves on the packed dirt road. She smiled to herself as her heart lifted. She glanced up, waiting for the first sight of Thengel. The road bent a little in the distance as it meandered around the nearest village south of Amarthor's manor. The curve along with the sentinel trees impeded her view. She quarreled with herself about whether this really could be Thengel yet or another rider until the unmistakable hulk of Baranroch appeared around the bend. No one in Imloth Melui had or needed a destrier. The draft horses they did need moved far less nimbly on their feet.
The rider wore a light hood against the sun, but he cast it back when she rose from the stone. He had golden hair which caused the last tendril of Morwen's doubt to evaporate into delicious anticipation.
Morwen waved while he was too far away to speak. Thengel raised a hand in answer and Baranroch picked up speed, she saw with satisfaction. Morwen shook off the kittens that had fallen asleep on her skirts so she could step onto the road to meet him. If she had been at all sensible, she might have wondered why he traveled without witnesses to the negotiation.