WinterDragon (cause I have to assume the guest who left the last review is indeed you): you're very welcome, do keep commenting! It's always a pleasure to know my writing's keeping someone else on their toes, for a change ;)

This is the chapter of the Mitharlan saga set before the very last, before our hero gets to head back home and see Mehreen again...or does he?

Happy reading!

Chapter 46

August 19th, TA 3020

The grease sizzled as it dripped from the skinned carcass and into the flames. The smoke rose dark and upright in the windless summer air, well above the thatched rooves of Mitharlan and the feathery summits of the pines and spruce trees warding the valley. Anyone with eyes would see it from miles away, if the mouth-watering scent of roasted boar did not lure the inhabitants from their homes well before that happened.

Which was exactly what Elladan was counting on.

"Is this what the high and mighty elven lords teach you, in your healing schools?" Siggun groused beside him, her arms crossed in a foreboding manner that heralded before even she opened her mouth what she thought of his idea.

She was scowling at Annahad and Amdirfel, who busied themselves with the makeshift roaster they had assembled steps away from the solitary stone in the village square, while trying to keep her flock about her despite Sofie and Halim's every effort to escape. Though the family had been wary of stepping outside at first, the children had warmed up to the freedom and the fresh air within the first few minutes, so that Elladan had assigned both Taniel and Bruiven to watch them lest they scattered like dandelion fluff. Even now, the unlikely duo was pleading for the children to stay in one place – a plea that fell on deaf ears – while glaring at each other in open rivalry.

"No, Madam," Elladan countered cheerfully, letting the 'high and mighty' part slide, unwilling as he was to explain that he did, in fact, count amongst one of those. "This is a tailored approach of my own device. If I cannot reach my patients, then I must convince them to reach me, instead."

This was not entirely true, of course, but he doubted that Siggun would be interested to hear the story of their unlikely game of hide-and-seek with Déordred; if anything, she would deem him as utterly senseless as she had feared which, in turn, would foil Elladan's plan. He wondered what Mehreen would make of his decision to apply her own technique in the middle of Mitharlan. As childlike as it may seem, however, the inhabitants' hunger was not to be underestimated. If, like Siggun and her children, they had been living on their stocks of grain and flour for over a month, then the scent of cooking boar would not fail, at the very least, to elicit their curiosity.

"Hmph."

Unconvinced, Siggun shifted on her feet, uneasy, her hand slipping time and time again to the knife at her belt despite her attempts at appearing unafraid. Though Elladan had told her she need not worry, since Faineth was perched upon the roof of the old stables, her bow at the ready and her eyes as sharp as an owl's, he suspected that the widow had been left to fend for herself for too long to trust anyone with her life and that of her little ones.

"It'll never work. You may think us backward country folk, but you'll see, we're not that easily fooled."

"Oh, I see it quite clearly," Elladan drawled as he watched, over her shoulder, the door of one of the houses crack open, a round face peering out to squint at them.

Upon seeing that the noise came from a source as harmless as it was endearing, and smelling the scent of boar meat that was reaching the end of its cooking, the family dared step into the sunlight. The father came first, armed with what appeared to be the broken-off leg from a stool, followed by the mother and their three children, which they bid follow once they had recognized Siggun standing beside the fire.

Once they had crossed the bridge, however, they hesitated upon noticing Elladan and the others.

"Siggun, who are these people?" the woman called out, a hand upon her husband's shoulder, her blue eyes wide with apprehension and hunger darting between the roasting carcass and those turning it over the fire. She was struggling to contain her restive offspring, who peered out of the folds of her skirts, more curious than afraid.

"Eh, it's alright, Tarmon, Mundwen," Siggun called out, her voice terse upon seeing the man's attempt at intimidation. "They're elves from Bar-Lasbelin. They won't hurt you, so lower that club, will you, before you do so to yourself."

The man sulked but obeyed. "How's I to know that?" he complained, slanting a distrustful glance in Elladan's direction. "Strangers in our village. 'Ave you invited them? I sure 'aven't, and…."

"Oh, shut it. They've got food, which is more than you or I can say at the moment."

In the meanwhile, Mundwen had edged towards the fire, eyeing Amdirfel's tall form with evident appreciation before receiving into her hands a rutabaga leaf upon which lay a steaming slice of meat. "Children," she called in a quivering voice, "come eat!"

"Siggun is right," Elladan declared in a tone as trustworthy as he could manage, opening his arms to show that though he was armed, his intentions were anything but hostile. "We have received word of sickness in the village, and have come to offer our aid…whichever it may be."

"Oh." Her hands slick with meat juice, Mundwen covered her mouth as she hurried to swallow before joining in. "That'd be Baeron's wife. She's been ailing with rashes and sores for over a week now, and seeing Feniel for help, but the oatmeal baths she's prescribed didn't help her any." She licked her fingers, blushing at her own greediness. "I haven't seen her since."

Now that was interesting. Rashes, sores and a dislike for daylight. If one added Baeron's aggressiveness as a symptom….

"Where does she live?" Elladan asked, and received his answer in the form of a finger pointed at one of the houses downstream, its shuttered windows returning his questioning stare.

The village seemed to come alive around them. More and more people had begun to wonder what the excitement was about, drawn out by the smell and convinced to come closer by seeing their neighbor's faces amidst the company. Upon Elladan's signal, the Hopeful Three had begun to sift through the newcomers, checking them for signs of infection and coming back empty-handed, save for a few runny noses.

Halim had been right; there was no plague in Mitharlan.

And while it should have come as a relief to Elladan, all it led to was him wondering what it was that Halim's family had died for.

Elladan looked to the sky, where the sun had begun its descent into a front of low, dark clouds drifting in from the East. There was no time to waste. Leaving Faineth and Amdirfel to supervise the folk and ward off any hostile intruders, and Bruiven to keep an eye on Gaerlin, who sat on a stone bench in the square, pestered by children like a bear by flies, he rounded the two remaining members of the Hopeful Three to make his way down the narrow stone quay that ran along the Dogstail and connected the backdoors of those houses standing by the stream. By the time they reached the house Mundwen had indicated, it was the only one whose inhabitants had not yet given a sign of life, if only in the form of blinds being cracked open to check if the end of the world had come at last.

Trying out the door, Elladan found it to be unlocked, unlike Siggun's had been. Baeron's wife, it seemed, did not fear her husband as much as the others did; or perhaps had she no longer the strength to do anything about it.

"Wait here," Elladan commanded before he stepped into the darkness, ducking when he remembered the last time he had done so, his bow at the ready. Yet no blade came to tickle his throat, and no voice rose to protest at the intrusion.

The house stood as still and silent as a grave.

It smelled likewise, as well. Everywhere Elladan looked were strewn pans and jars, emptied of their contents and left to feed the vermin; a mouse dashed from one of the toppled pots to flee down the table leg and into a hole in the wall. The remains of a broiled chicken lay on floorboards that were in dire need of a scrubbing, bones scattered under the chairs. The cabinets had been opened as if in search of something more to eat; the curtains hung, grey and limp, gathering the same stale dust and grime that permeated the air. Steeling himself against what was yet to come, Elladan pricked his ears, but no sound other than the scuttling of roaches reached him.

"Come," he bid the apprentices, "and stay behind me."

Ignoring Taniel's huff of disgust, he lost no time in creeping up the stairs that led to the upper story, an arrow notched in case of an unpleasant encounter. With every step, it seemed to him that a gust of air escaped from under the treads….

…Until he reached the top and understood that it was no draft at all, but the laboring breath of an ailing woman.

The rash had almost faded from her pallid skin – though not from bathing in oatmeal – as she lay prostrate on filthy sheets, one arm hanging from the bed. Her eyes were closed, rolling with feverish dreams behind her eyelids as her thinned-out hair clung to her sweaty brow. Elladan needed little more to make a diagnosis, yet he set his satchel to the floor and, kneeling beside the bed, proceeded to feel the woman's neck.

"My Lord," Annahad asked uncertainly in his back, "is it…?"

"It is no plague," Elladan bit out, "though it is a blight in its own way. Get me the mold extract, if you will. Dilute it tenfold in clear water, but in no vessel that comes from this house."

As Taniel hurried to search the contents of his bag for the required vial and down the stairs, Elladan suppressed a sigh. A plague indeed. This was a sickness encountered more often in the pleasure houses of Minas Tirith and Dol Amroth than in the home of a respectable housewife. The only good news was that the woman had not yet reached the last, often fatal, stage of the illness, and could thus certainly be saved with constant care and medication.

"Is it…the great pox?" Annahad had come to inspect the woman, though he dared not touch her. His eyes slid up her pockmarked arm and to her lips, where a remaining sore still cried its oozing tears.

"None other."

"But she is…was a mother. A wife."

"And as entitled to her secrets as anyone else. Or did you think that women are born and die without their own desires?"

Though Elladan suspected that the poor woman may have played no other role in contracting the disease than the performance of her wifely duty. He tasted bile in his mouth at the thought of her losing her child because of her husband's appetites, and even blaming herself for it. And since Siggun had mentioned having known Baeron as more than just a neighbor, he made a mental note to examine her as well, though he suspected she would not like it in the least.

A rattle of footsteps informed him that Taniel had returned, carrying a clean cup filled with a murky liquid. Easing the woman's head up with the help of a hand behind her neck Elladan made her drink, her parched lips a proof it was the first gulp of water she had had in days.

Baeron had been less diligent in visiting his sick wife than the wives of others, it seemed.

"You three stay here," he instructed the two as he lay the woman back down upon the sweat-stained pillow. "Change the sheets…burn them if you must. Keep her hydrated and warm, and give her the same potion to drink every dusk and dawn until she is strong enough to eat. I shall send Bruiven in with food."

Outside, the sky was souring from a bright blue to an orange as dull and dirty as the crockery in the kitchen below. Elladan rose, brushing the dust off his knees with a hand as resolute as it was angry, before heading towards the stairs.

"And you, my Lord?" Annahad called after him, the scar on his cheek standing out in the twilight. "Where will you go?"

"To find Baeron. And have him answer for everything he has done."

oOoOoOo

Would be unfitting of a healer to put an arrow through a man's heart?

Though Elladan already held the answer to such a question, the itch to do just that would remain unscratched until he happened upon Baeron and brought him to justice for the murder of Andir and Halim's parents. Men's justice, in the form of a trial under Faramir's authority as the Steward of Ithilien. It pained him to admit that the man was sick, and that he may not be held responsible for his actions. For one with an addled brain, he certainly had a methodical approach to culling his enemies.

Only belatedly did it dawn on Elladan that she may have known of her husband's infidelity, and chosen to close her eyes. Or worse – that with nowhere else to go and no-one to turn to, she had had no other choice but to accept it. How many women had endured, were enduring or were yet to endure a similar fate? How many would be blamed for their husband's actions, whether they remained silent or spoke up against it? How many, amongst the women he knew and had treated, had a similar story to tell?

That Mehreen would not be one of them came as but a small relief.

Thus mused Elladan as he stalked down the empty streets of Mitharlan, the grip of his bow creaking softly under his helpless fury, heading for the same spot Faineth had claimed during the day. The crabgrass crunched under his boots, dried out by the summer sun; the Dogstail gurgled away, the pungent scent of silt and weed that rose from its banks thrown about by the whimsical gusts of a growing wind. The abandoned stable smelled of hay and still faintly of horse, though Elladan would have wagered that not a single hoof had graced its stalls for some time already.

Climbing up with ease by means of the joists and battens, Elladan lay on his stomach on the course of reeds, wincing as loose ends poked him in the stomach. His bow came to rest at arm's reach, balanced upon a pin that jutted from beneath layers of thatch. From his new vantage point, the village looked much like it had upon their arrival: devoid of life, though Elladan now knew to search for the flickering light of lamps and candles lit beyond the shutter slits.

Somewhere to his right, beyond the first row of houses after the bridge, stood Siggun's home, where Sofie and Halim were no doubt being ushered into their beds with many a grumble. It had come as only half a surprise to Elladan when Gaerlin had bid to go with them, his stance no less abated than that of the man who had walked over that same bridge, almost two days ago, but with a resolve in his eyes that Elladan had not seen for a long, long time. More of a shock had been Siggun's willingness to accept Gaerlin's company, though perhaps was she counting on his presence to enjoy a first, true restful night since over a month.

Wichity-wichity-wichity.

A yellowthroat's trill broke the quietude of the evening as Faineth signaled her position from one of the alleys. Amdirfel answered at once from the other side of the settlement, his cry an ordinary mating call between two lovebirds – a pretense much closer to the truth than one might think, which explained Elladan's reluctance to enter the song in turn. Still, he whistled shrilly to signal where he was and that all was well.

No sign of Baeron so far, but the night was still young.

After concertation with the rangers, he had decided to establish a patrol along the perimeter of Mitharlan. Should either the man himself or one of his two accomplices – the one named Rídor, for instance – set a foot into one of the streets, either Faineth or Amdirfel would spot them. Elladan had given them leave to shoot, hoping that if it came to it, they would do so to incapacitate rather than to kill.

The Hopeful Three he had left to tend to Baeron's unfortunate wife since Elladan, scalded by his failure to save Andir, had vowed to keep her alive at all costs.

As for himself, he would keep watch on the village from above, in the company of his own thoughts and the chirping of crickets in the clumps of reed nearby. As often, lately, his thoughts turned to his brother, wondering what Elrohir would have thought of his current adventure, which had more in common with their long years of hunting orcs across and about the Hithaeglir than with their present roles as Chief Healers of Imladris and Bar-Lasbelin. Roles soon to be made redundant by times of peace, though Elrohir would likely not stay in Middle-Earth long enough to see it.

And he, Elladan, what – or whom – would he turn to?

He shifted his position, reaching out beneath him to tear out a rebellious stem and toss it to the ground below, where a couple of chickens pounced upon it with many a squawk. After deeming the reed unfit of their attention, they wandered off to find a roost for the night and, with nothing better to watch after yet another survey of the slumbering village, Elladan turned his eyes to the sky.

Some invisible hand had draped over it what looked like a blanket of lumpy, grey wool. The clouds hung in the air, heavy with rain and ripe with the scent of lightening. The wind had picked up, scattering the day's harvest in warmth and tugging at Elladan's hair as if to warn him that before long, his perch would become an uncomfortable place.

Wonderful.

Another storm; the Valar had a wicked sense of humor indeed.

As though having overheard his thoughts, a first droplet landed on the thatch beside Elladan's right hand, and then another, on his left shoulder. Soon, he would have to endure the downpour or seek shelter under the rafters, forsaking his viewpoint. The pitter-patter of the rain would disguise the footsteps of the men hunting Siggun and her family, and being hunted in turn without yet knowing it. The gale would steal away their scent, just as it had done for Déordred.

Wichity-wichity-wichity.

Faineth must have harbored the same gloomy thoughts, for her cry had lost its cheerfulness, shrill and urgent to Elladan's ears. As he was about to add his own cry to the roll Faineth was calling, his shoulders hunched against the rain that now danced a jig atop his skull, Elladan's nose caught a whiff of something that would have been inconspicuous in any village but Mitharlan.

Smoke.

Down by the ground, so far upstream that it was almost hidden by fir branches, a fire had been lit. It shone red and brazen in the night, as if mocking the villagers' secretiveness and all too soon, the scent of burning wood mingled with that of rainwater.

Grasping his bow, Elladan leapt to his feet, balancing himself on the ridge as he whistled out the two-toned signal indicating the direction – twice a high whistle for South, and once, lower, for East – and slid down the roof, landing into a puddle that had formed amidst patches of rotting straw. His muscles, far from stiff after the long wait, demanded to be used; his pulse raced quick and steady at the thought of danger – an old, wordless chant akin to drums of war.

Notch, aim, release.

Reminding himself to show mercy, Elladan raced along the empty streets, between rickety fences and honeysuckle shrubs beaten by the downpour. The worry in his heart subsided, leaving space to an ever-growing ire against those who had forced him to take up arms once more; for if healing was the path he had chosen, this was what he had been born for, no matter how he had strived to forget it.

Notch, aim, release.

Baeron and his men had returned, and this time, they would not find the village as defenseless as before.