Chapter 24
July 6th, TA 3020
If her first week in the Houses of Healing had seemed to Mehreen to last a month, the few hours that now separated her from her discussion with Lord Legolas had stretched into an eternity, to the point where she wondered how she'd find the patience to wait out the 'days to come' without losing her sanity.
The time spent working flew by as quickly as it always did, but as soon as she stopped, be it to carry the linens up and down the stairs or grab a bite for lunch in Ahlam's company, her mind started to reel with the odds of Lord Legolas sending her back to Jufayrah. Mehreen hadn't told Ahlam the outcome of their discussion, unwilling as she was to worry her or force her to choose between staying or going, stating only that it went well – the intact skin of her back and the dryness of her eyes were proof enough of that. Yet as the evening neared, it dawned upon her it could well be her last in Bar-Lasbelin, and that some goodbyes were in order, just in case.
An apple stashed into her pocket at lunchtime served as a farewell gift to Elladan, who had learnt to recognize her steps upon the packed earth of the gate room, turning his floppy ears in her direction as soon as she passed through the door.
"How do you do it?" his driver wondered, scratching his head when he saw the donkey eat from the palm of her hand without as much as a snap. "He's a right mean beast to me."
"Here," Mehreen said on a whim, an apple quarter proffered towards him. "To let you come closer." Demonstrating her words, she let the animal gobble up the piece of fruit, stepping up to pet its coat while it was busy chewing. "He's very partial to having his back scratched. You do that, and he'll love you in no time."
Leaving the man to test out her counsel for himself, his fingers buried into the thick, grey fur as Elladan cleverly remained still, Mehreen made her way back onto the gallery. There was one last thing she must do before she paid Saehild a last visit, keeping her promise to help with Lord Elladan's gift.
The library stood deserted, but it was not to say it had been abandoned in Mehreen's short absence. The shelves had been wiped clean by some caring hand which, under different circumstances, could've been hers, instilling a shimmer into the grain of the wood. New books had been added, the color of their backs popping out from the overall somber mass of leather covers dulled by time and dust. It was a bittersweet thought – that she may not find the time to read them.
Perhaps would she become yet another Lalla Zahra, finding a measure of consolation in being useful in her own small way?
The table still stood where Mehreen had left it in her hurry, the chair standing neatly beneath. Much to Mehreen's relief, the Haradric book still lay upon it, along with the translation, seemingly untouched and complete. She hurried over to pick it up before pulling the chair back, expecting to see the painting of a mountain on a page well-worn by her own loving hands.
Her mother's book was gone.
Dismayed, Mehreen looked around, searching the surrounding shelves for a familiar cover. Had someone both well-meaning and misguided stacked it away by mistake? Yet her silent call remained unanswered, and the more she paced along the walls, hoping she'd missed it the first time, the more her dismay grew.
Someone had taken it. But who? And to what purpose?
As she carried the translated book down the corridor to set it upon the stone step leading to Lord Elladan's study, Mehreen fought to contain the wave of homesickness that rose inside her chest, welling inside her throat and prickling her eyes.
The only token of her mother's love was gone, and there was nothing she could do about it.
oOoOoOo
"I'm allowed to leave!" Saehild all but sang upon seeing Mehreen appear in the doorway of the Women's Ward, brandishing the freshly changed cast like a banner. "Tomorrow, can you believe it?"
What chagrin still lay upon Mehreen's heart thawed at the sight of her smile, and she found herself grinning back as she sat at the foot of the girl's bed. "And not a day too soon!" Reaching inside her pocket, she produced a small package, carefully wrapped in a piece of silk salvaged from one of the clothes Deor and his men had torn to shreds in their greedy haste. "What a happy coincidence it should be that I've just finished our little…project."
"You have?"
Saehild's hands trembled, her fingertips caressing the fabric in awe. "It's so smooth," she cooed, blushing, "I've never touched anything silk before."
"Keep it." Mehreen chuckled at the slack-jawed wonder her words had provoked, glad that what could well be their last meeting would, at the very least, leave Saehild with a fond memory of her. "You never know. Someone else might yet want a bracelet made by you."
She'd not expected Saehild to turn a deeper even shade of crimson. "Gárdred has come to see me," she confided, torn between embarrassment and delight, sneaking glances of Mehreen's reaction from beneath lowered lashes. "He's brought me flowers."
"Oh." Mehreen tilted her head as she examined the valiant little bouquet sticking out of a jug upon the nightstand, where long, hairy stems capped with puny white flowers fought a losing battle against the prickles of what looked like a blossoming tangle of thorny weeds.
"Isn't it lovely?"
Mehreen couldn't have made herself smile any wider. "So it is. Absolutely adorable."
"You really think so?"
"Of course. Should I assume that you've forgiven Gárdred his less-than-commendable behavior?" Mehreen inquired, not knowing whether she should laugh or cry. At the very least, she mused, trying to see the bright side, Saehild's new suitor seemed to lack the courage for anything too forward. Without ever knowing it, Lord Elladan had been forgotten, if only until Gárdred's next blunder which, Mehreen hoped, would prove less painful for both Saehild's body and her pride.
A commotion in the corridor robbed her of Saehild's reply.
"Where is he?" a woman was yelling over the soothing murmurs of the healers, "where is my son?"
Mehreen knew that voice. With an apologetic glance towards Saehild, she pushed herself off the bed and strode towards the doors, laying a hand upon the sculpted pane as she peered outside. The boy's mother stood in the middle of the gallery, dressed in nothing but a nightshift, her flaming hair flying wildly around her as she swatted away their solicitous hands.
"Where is my son? Let me go, you fools." She whirled around, her fury renewed as soon as she spotted Mehreen. "You!" she snarled, her face contorting into a mask of contempt. The heat of her anger reached Mehreen despite the distance, like a slap to the face. "If not for you, none of this would've happened. Déordred wouldn't be gone, and…oh!"
Her voice broke, as though the evocation of his name had summoned the feeling of his absence, like a hole in the fabric of the world, gaping for no-one to see but her. The woman sank to her knees; the healers let her, gathering in a prudent circle as she clawed at the chipped tiles with unfeeling hands. Someone urged for Redhriel to be called. Someone else replied she was already on her way.
No-one moved to help the mother off the floor.
The absence. Mehreen could see it gripping the woman's shoulders with bony hands as much as she felt it by her own side, linking its arm with hers like long-time friends. It walked beside her, its steps falling short of hers so as to make the ground seem unsteady without the loved one's presence. It turned its head in time with hers, watching whatever she did and whispering that something was missing.
Before she even knew it Mehreen was rushing towards the woman, pushing past the healers and crouching to wrap her arms around her shoulders, replacing absence with warmth. "I'm sorry," she croaked, "I'm so, so sorry. I never wanted this. I never wanted to hurt anyone."
The woman fought her help, feebly, half-heartedly, while leaning on Mehreen to stand once more. Mehreen hadn't expected her to be so light, her bones rolling under her fingers, as though her fight against grief had consumed all but the love she bore her child.
"My son," the woman sobbed, shivering as goosebumps erupted on her bare skin. No longer did she care that it was Mehreen who supported her, as long as she could walk. "I have to find my son."
"And where will you go?"
Redhriel had made her appearance, encompassing the scene with her usual, probing stare. "Lord Legolas is at the dormitory as we speak, tracking Déordred's footsteps," she said not unkindly. "Lord Elladan and his people are searching the riverbanks. Everyone, everywhere, is looking for your son. You would do well to stay where we can bring him to you, once he is found." She glowered at the dallying crowd. "The rest of you, have you nothing to do? Either return to your duties or join the search. The Houses of Healing are no place for idleness."
All lamps had been lit, illuminating the gallery and calling into light every crack, every crevice between the stones and scattering the spiders that dwelt there. Someone handed Mehreen a blanket and she pulled it around the woman, her own embrace closing it over her fragile form lest it slipped in the mother's carelessness for all things that were not her child. Together they whiled the hours away, pacing at times and standing still at others, Mehreen's feet growing numb under the woman's weight as she refused to go anywhere but in search of her son, and only with great effort did both Mehreen and Redhriel persuade her to stay.
It must've been past midnight when, at last, the sound of purposeful footsteps reached their ears. Booted feet pounded the flooring as their owners approached the gathering: Lord Elladan from one end of the corridor, Lord Legolas from the other. Their eyes met over the woman's bowed head. Lord Legolas shook his in silent defeat.
"Just a while longer," Mehreen murmured into the woman's ear, her own forces depleted through despair alone. "Just a little while." Anything to cover their voices, though Mehreen herself strained to hear what they had to say.
"No trace of him by the river," Lord Elladan breathed out, running one of his long, pale hands through his dark hair. Even at a distance he smelled faintly of silt, the skin of his chiseled cheekbones still damp with the mists of the Anduin and, as he turned further away to divulge the rest of his news to Lord Legolas, his words were lost to Mehreen. Behind him, Bruiven and the tawny-haired elf shuffled on their feet, as though shamed by their empty-handedness.
Mehreen rubbed the woman's shoulders over the blanket, striving to keep her warm as herself was shuddering, having forgotten her shawl in her room.
"…Swears she has seen him before she left," she caught Lord Legolas saying as he closing a fist in helpless alarm. "Now would have been the time for one of Eredhwen's fabled rains! The ground beneath his window is as hard as stone."
"We have looked and called his name throughout the settlement," another elf, who had come accompanying Lord Legolas, added, "but the children's footprints are everywhere, and so is their scent."
The three of them glanced over at where Mehreen stood. If anyone was surprised to see her at the mother's side, not one of them showed it. "She ought to rest," Lord Legolas muttered, the lines around his mouth deepening in sorrow. "There is naught for her here but needless worry."
"Dúnwen will not sleep until her son is returned."
Mehreen craned her neck, trying to discern Lord Legolas' reply, but he'd turned towards the nameless elf so that his orders were lost in the darkness. His jaw was set, muscles tightening under the skin of his cheek; only when his gaze fell upon the mother once more did his eyes soften into something akin to pity.
"What will you tell her?" Mehreen heard him say.
Lord Elladan, who had been watching him give out orders with an expression of sullen resolve, sighed. "The truth."
Mehreen quivered, her spirits plummeting though she did her best not to let the mother know. "Come, let us walk," she whispered, her eyes fixed upon the men as she pulled her down the corridor with trembling hands. Anything to stay that moment she knew was as inevitable as it would be heart-wrenching. Lalla Raeha's hoarse wails still filled her ears, along with the memory of her struggling against the women who held her back from running in search of little Marwan, the strength of her small, lithe body increased tenfold by anguish.
"Please don't," she begged as Lord Elladan caught up with them, coming to stand in her way.
"Mehreen."
"Please! Not yet, not now…you're still searching, aren't you? Aren't you?"
"Mehreen, stop," Lord Elladan commanded in a hollow voice, his arms raised in a gesture of appeasement. Whirling around, she saw that Redhriel had come to cut them off on the other side, flanked by two other women.
Mehreen whimpered, now clinging to the mother as much as she clung to her. The whispers of a group of healers standing by the staircase entrance reached her ears, their stares both avid and strangely indifferent.
"…So small. Even a stream could be deadly for one as young as he…."
"…Could've hit his head…."
"There must be something else," Mehreen beseeched Lord Elladan, certain that he alone would listen.
"We are already doing everything we can," he said, searching out her gaze as if to prove he meant it. "Dúnwen must know that though Déordred is still missing, we are not giving up."
Upon hearing her name, the woman raised her head, clawing her way up Mehreen's arm as she straightened her shoulders. "I want to help," she declared in a quiet voice. She pushed Mehreen away, swaying on her feet…but standing, unlike Mehreen herself who faltered as the strength summoned to hold the woman – Dúnwen – abandoned her. Out of instinct rather than gratitude, she found herself grasping Lord Elladan's proffered arm. "You cannot stop me from looking for my son."
"That I cannot," he agreed. "But you are in no state of combing through the woods in the middle of the night."
Mehreen shivered as the heat of his body seeped into her hands through the fabric of his sleeve, the muscles beneath as hard as unyielding as Lord Elladan himself could be. He turned to face her, then, to look at her without the disapproval he was in right to feel regarding her stubbornness. There was a thin, narrow scar over his left eyelid, Mehreen noted dimly, so small it was almost imperceptible, and only a few missing lashes betrayed its presence. His silvery eyes appeared the more striking in contrast, widening in concern.
Mehreen's heart lurched inside her chest. It was but yesterday she'd been in those very arms, yet it seemed a lifetime for the difference it made.
She staggered as Lord Elladan raised her back to her feet, the sudden absence leaving her cold and bewildered. Chalking off her weakness to nerves, Mehreen hurried after him as he attempted to usher Dúnwen back to her room.
"There is something she can do," she pleaded, struck by an idea that anyone else would've deemed ridiculous.
First her mother, then Lilith. Lalla Nafiyah. Hanaa. Tareq. So many names that Mehreen kept adding to her list over the years, empty spaces big and small, like threads pulled out of a tapestry. Some didn't change the picture unless one looked very closely, others took entire pieces with them. Now Dúnwen's own weave was hanging by a single thread, and its name was Dé the One, in his magnanimity, knew what was going to happen, why had he sent Mehreen to Ithilien, if not for this? People remember deeds, Lalla Laila liked to say, and if there was one last thing Mehreen could accomplish before being sent back to Harad, then she best make it count.
A silence had fallen upon the gallery. Dúnwen stilled, stiffening against the gentle support of her caretakers. "You can help me find my son?"
"Dúnwen has done enough for tonight."
Redhriel's upturned nose wrinkled with scorn as she stepped between them, yet it was not her that Mehreen suddenly yearned to convince. Over the Steward's shoulder, her eyes met the limpid grey of Lord Elladan's gaze.
"Let her speak."
Heaving a sigh of relief, Mehreen did her best not to waver under the weight of his trust. "Your son loves you." Ignoring Redhriel's doubts and smothering her own, Mehreen took a tentative step towards her. "If anyone can find him, it's you."