Chapter 48

August 20th, TA 3020

Like any other place in Middle-Earth, Bar-Lasbelin had its secrets, shared from one insider to another, from the apple tree that bore the lowest and sweetest fruit to the shallowest part of the Anduin, where the currents were lenient enough to wade far into the water without risking one's life. But by all accounts, the most coveted and best kept secret remained the well-hidden – yet much sought-after – patches of blood moss. Those women who knew where it grew the most abundant only seldom shared their wisdom and even so, only with their sisters, daughters and closest friends.

Mehreen, who wasn't in the know, had no other choice but to resort to more rudimentary means, forced to wash her strips of linen once a month and leave them to dry upon a stone by the stream; she dared not imagine how she'd manage once the summer was over.

As she sat upon the bank, her back against a tree and her legs tucked beneath her, she both tried – and tried not to – remember her first encounter with Elladan, in that same place. Best not think about the way water had trickled down his naked chest, carving its way between the wan landscape of his muscles which, now that Mehreen thought of it, seemed far too hard and lean for a healer. Or of the guttural cry that had spilled from his lips, his back arced against the cold, his face transformed by abandon. Of course, Mehreen sighed, there was no risk of him barging in on her as he'd done then, since he'd left two days ago to the One knew where, along with a small group of healers of which Bruiven was also a part of.

What Mehreen did know, was that she wasn't supposed to want him to.

Her lower belly churned in a way that had little to do with cramps and she drew her legs to her chest, hoping to find some comfort in his unspoken promise. Whatever would she do with so much time on her hands?

It was then that she'd heard it – a distant keening sound, like a whimper being muffled against a sleeve. Mehreen hesitated. Her linens weren't yet dry, and to leave them here would mean tempting any other woman into claiming them as hers. Yet as the wail sounded once more, she knew she couldn't just sit there and listen, for the voice seemed as young as it was filled with pain.

Picking up a handful of pebbles from the stream, Mehreen set them one by one over the strips of cloth before picking her way down the bank, as silently as she could, between the shaggy fir boughs and stony outcrops covered in moss – unfortunately of the wrong variety. She needn't go far. Here the stream looped around a crooked linden sprouting from a crack in the stone; side-stepping the its fanned-out boughs, Mehreen came upon a dismal yet familiar sight. Familiar, because the weeping girl was the very one she'd met by the well in the basement, and hadn't seen since. Dismal, because it was she who was weeping. Sitting on a rock, bending forward so that her knees shielded her stomach with her arms wrapped under her knees, she was rocking back and forth so that small, pitiful whimpers escaped her lips with every move.

Mehreen had intruded upon a sight she shouldn't have witnessed, yet once again she couldn't hold her tongue and turn away.

"Are you alright?" And then, as it dawned upon her: "Of course you aren't, poor thing."

If anything, the bundle of blood-stained linens that floated at the water edge where she'd left them, half-washed, should've been a clue as to what was bothering the girl, who lifted her bleary-eyed face upon hearing Mehreen speak. "Oh," she mumbled. "It's you."

It made little doubt she would've preferred someone else, or anyone, really. Where was her mother?

"Is it the first time you…?" The girl shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut against the onset of tears. "It's alright," Mehreen tried to console her, "there's no shame in crying, in moments such as these."

"Easy for you to say," the girl grumbled through clenched teeth. "No-one's expecting anything from you."

"I see. Well, I shall leave you, then, since you're all grown up and brave."

Mehreen turned on her heels, the tightening in her guts now that of anger, striving to ignore the sniffles of anguish that rose in her back. Her testiness had felt good on the spur of the moment, vindicating and so very sweet; but the one she'd lashed out against was but a child.

She stopped in her tracks.

A forlorn and suffering child, much like Mehreen had been when she'd first bled, with no mother by her side to comfort her. Mehreen sighed. "Give me your hand." She marched up to the girl, ignoring her widened eyes and the way she recoiled when Mehreen came to kneel beside her, infused with newfound determination. "Don't fuss. Just do what I say."

And, seizing a listless hand in hers, proceeded to work her fingers into the flesh of the girl's clammy palm, from the juncture between thumb and index down to every single finger, much in the manner she'd done for Saehild. She kneaded the muscles and the nerves beneath without a word until the girl relaxed, unfolding from her mussel-like position to stare in wonder at what Mehreen was doing.

"Better?"

The girl hastily nodded. "H-how did you do it?" And then, with greater awe still: "Is it dark magic?"

"I wish," Mehreen chuckled. "Sadly, it's nothing of the sort." She massaged the base of the girl's thumb with hers. "It's quite easy, actually, when you know where to rub. Would you like me to show you?"

As the girl nodded once more, her pain and apprehension forgotten, Mehreen proceeded to do just that, punctuating her lesson with explanations so that the girl would be able to reproduce her gestures when that time of the month came again.

"What's your name?" she asked eventually, hoping to use their budding trust to coax it out of her.

"Folchild." A harsh name for a soft girl on the brink of womanhood, her plump, rosy cheeks heralding the inevitable ripening of her coltish body into a more rounded figure.

"My name is Mehreen, though perhaps you've already heard of me." As a fierce blush crept up the girl's cheeks to match the bright shade of her hair, she knew this was indeed the case.

"My mother said…." Folchild halted, darting a frightened glance at Mehreen's face, fearing no doubt she'd revoke her offer of teaching her how to manage her aches should she say anything that would displease her.

"Go on," Mehreen encouraged her, steeling herself against the worst. "I won't be offended. I've heard worse, I think."

"M-my mother said you were a Southron broodmare with hay between your ears."

Maybe not.

Sucking in a sharp breath, Mehreen willed her hands to remain gentle despite the blood that rushed hot and bitter in her veins. After all this time, and in spite of her efforts, this was what they still thought of her. That all she was good for was to spread her legs and wallow in self-pity. Lalla Laila's contempt was one thing, easily supported by Mehreen's indolence and inadequacy, backed up by Lalla Zahra's complaints and her own daughter's interests. Here, she'd harbored some hope that with time, she'd force these women to see her in another light.

Not time enough, apparently.

Had Elladan not told her he meant what he'd said, that rainy night – that she was meant for more than what her birth had destined her for – she would've crumbled, but the memory of his faith had kept her going.

"Well, now you can tell your mother the broodmare knows things she may not." As Folchild blanched at the thought, chewing on her lip and thinking, perhaps, how to sugarcoat Mehreen's words when the moment came, she took pity on the girl. "You don't really have to tell her that." She offered Folchild a small, contrite smile. "She seems like a tough woman, your mother."

Leaving you alone to hurt and bleed….

In Jufayrah, for all the cruelty that could be found inside the harem, the women thus afflicted were treated with the utmost care and consideration, and provided everything that could relieve their discomfort, from their favorite sweets and foods – once, they'd eaten nothing but tabouleh for an entire week since its freshness was all that Lalla Tasnim could stand – to similar massages and treatments that helped relieve a bloated belly and lift one's spirits.

Folchild shrugged. "I don't think she's ever had a choice and, besides, she's mostly alright. After my father died in Théoden King's service, she can't have had an easy life, raising my brothers and me all by herself. And after my uncle Grimmund's lost an arm and a leg to the war, she's had to care after my aunt and her little ones, so…."

"A strong woman." Mehreen breathed out, patting her hand while lost in thought. She was trying to decide whether Lalla Zahra, who'd 'lost' her husband for a fault she hadn't even known she'd committed, had had it easier, or harder. She, at least, had a brother who'd taken her in, providing her with food and clothing and life of plenty; but said life came at the implied price of humiliation and servitude. Had Lalla Zahra been given the choice, what would she have chosen? A comfortable drudgery, or hard-earned freedom? "You're right to be proud of her."

She relinquished Folchild's hands so that the girl could try the technique our for herself. They fell into her lap, as limp and lifeless as if Mehreen had ground the bones into dust.

"It's so hard, sometimes…being as strong as she needs me to be. I mean, with all those people dead in the war or ailing in the Houses, I'm lucky to be hale enough to be feeling anything at all, even if it's pain…."

"That, too, will be over before you know it," Mehreen murmured and, feeling the needles of numbness sting her legs, abandoned her station in front of Folchild in favor of a more relaxed position at her feet, upon a cushion of sun-warmed moss. "And even when you feel like you're letting some people down, there are always others who still believe in you. Redhriel, for instance. I'm sure she wouldn't have entrusted you with such tasks such as yours, had she not believed in your hardiness."

"You think so?"

"Absolutely. And, now that you're armed against the next onset of monthly aches, I'll leave you to be, lest your mother scolds you for keeping me company." Mehreen pushed herself up, hoping that her linens would still be where she'd left them.

"Mehreen?"

"Yes?" She turned around, already half-way along the narrow path that separated her from the other side of the meander, a linden branch in one hand and her skirts in the other.

"I think my mother was wrong about you," Folchild piped up from her seat of stone, her heart-shaped face as grave as if she'd just betrayed her own flesh and blood.

"Then perhaps you can tell her that, instead."

oOoOoOo

The One's Eye watch over you.

Bending over, Mehreen touched her forehead to her fingers splayed out against the floorboards. Though simple, this was one of her favorite litanies, rather than the more rousing prayers that spoke of wrath and vengeance and punishment, and that'd never failed to scare her into sobs as a child. While Lalla Nafiyah had reveled in those parts of the scriptures recounting the cruelty the One was capable of, Mehreen had chosen to believe the Unjust thus punished had deserved it, and that the One was loving, above all else.

The One's Wisdom guide you.

Sitting back on her heels, she performed the motion once more, muttering the sacred words in her mother tongue, reminded of the prayer hall back in the harem, covered in lush, deep-piled carpets meant to protect their knees from both the hardness and coolness of the marble floors. The setting sun had filtered through the high windows of glass backed with gold leaf, so that the room appeared to have been filled with the light of the One Himself.

The One's Order surround you.

The murmur of joined voices had reverberated inside Mehreen's chest, thrumming inside her as though they were all but one being…as though she'd never again be alone. Yet here she was, praying in the silence of her small room while listening to the boisterous shrieks of children down the corridor – some order that was! – and the sounds of harp wafting through the open window from the nearby Great Hall. Ahlam had said she'd like to hear it, and had bid her goodnight in case she came back after Mehreen was asleep.

Briefly wondering whether she'd take the time to pray before she went to bed, Mehreen muttered the last words of her invocation, beseeching Him to bless Ahlam as well. A knock upon the door came as she was rising with the intention to change into her shift and read something before she fell asleep. Mehreen threw open the door, thinking it was Ahlam who'd forgotten her shawl and hadn't wanted to interrupt her prayer, and came face to face with none other than Maerwena.

"Oh," was all that she found to say before mustering her courage. "Good evening." This was the woman who'd chased her out of the washery, spewing profanities and hurling soaked towels at her back.

"Good evening," Maerwena replied, her eyes sliding up and down Mehreen's form, as if to check whether her throws had inflicted any damage.

"Ahlam isn't in, she's…."

"I didn't come for Ahlam."

The woman's tone brooked no argument as she held Mehreen's gaze, firmly planted upon the threshold. Unable to stop another pitiful "Oh!" from escaping her lips, Mehreen swallowed and stepped aside, all the while knowing she had little choice in the matter. "Would you like to come in?"

She didn't have to ask twice. Maerwena strode into the room with the confidence of a Mother and circled the room, studying the tapestry that hung from the wall and the nine pebbles aligned upon the windowsill, but if the fingers of her clasped hands twitched, she didn't dare touch them.

"If you're expecting me to apologize, you'll be disappointed."

Taken aback, Mehreen crossed her arms to ward off the accusation. "I'm not expecting anything."

"Really?" An arched, sandy eyebrow rose in challenge. "My daughter Folchild was under the impression you were hoping for me to change my mind about you."

Oh. So, this was Folchild's courageous mother. "Hoping has never hurt anyone."

"So you say. In my opinion, hoping's for children and fools. Us women should know better than to entrust our fate to the unknown." She retraced her steps to inspect the tapestry with hawk-like attention, her hooked nose giving her the very appearance of the bird of prey. "My daughter says I've been wrong about you. That you're not as vain and senseless as you may seem."

The gall of the woman! To come all this way only to insult her…!

All but gasping in outrage, Mehreen curled the fingers of her left hand into a fist, hoping to keep her face straight. It's not like she could do anything but bear the affront; had Bar-Lasbelin been a kingdom, Maerwena would've claimed the throne a long time ago – not by force, but by simply sitting on it.

Unimpressed by her efforts, Maerwena continued: "I know my daughter, and I also happen to have ears inside the Houses…this is why I'm inclined to believe she may be right." Mehreen gaped, prompting a shrug on her part. "You helped her in a moment of need – however small your assistance – and for that you have my gratitude, as well as for what you did for Dúnwen."

"You know Dúnwen?"

"I know everybody here, and everybody knows me. Saehild too has vouched for you, did you know?" She huffed a short, derisive breath. "It was a smart move, befriending her."

"She was alone, and in need of a friend. Us women, as you say, should help each other instead of squabbling over what can't be changed."

"On this, at least, we're in agreement." Maerwena came to stand before her, tilting her head to study Mehween as though she'd been yet another curiosity. "Perhaps have you truly changed, or perhaps have you merely wizened in the ways of the world. Either way, you're one of us, now, and I'd like to welcome you back."

"The same way you've welcomed me in the first place?" Mehreen hissed, taking an involuntary step back.

Maerwena grinned, her eyes crinkling in a manner that softened her features from rapacious to homely. "Perhaps with less…venom." She paused, listening to the children's subsiding squeals as their mothers wrestled them into their beds. "Ahlam speaks fondly of you," she declared in a mellowed voice, "and that alone could've led me to reconsider. But one is luck, and two a coincidence, now three…." She turned and traipsed to the door, her gait suddenly as weary as her voice. "Come with us to the stream, tomorrow," she bid Mehreen upon the doorstep. "We'll wash, and gossip, and do all the things men cannot fathom us doing, such as speaking our minds and doing whatever we please. We may even share our hopes for the future, for you see, not everyone here's as old and bitter as I am. Come," she repeated. "Ahlam and Saehild will be happy to have you there."

"I'll think about it," Mehreen ground out, astounded.

"You do that." With one last look towards the windowsill, Maerwena dipped her head. "May His wisdom guide you."

And left Mehreen with the impossible task of understanding what had just happened.