Erestor had a problem. They were running out of the rare beans normally imported as a luxury from the south, and he was not sure where they could find a supplier within normal reach of their trading agents.

Elrond’s fifth millennium was approaching, and the prospect had engendered in Elrond’s family and friends a desire for ambitiously large celebrations. Erestor needed to have plans well in hand to fulfil all their requirements, and an impending shortage of beans was a detail he wanted to remedy. Then again, a trip south might prove useful for other reasons. He mulled ideas over, while leafing through the documents before him, checking that they were signed and completed.

There was time to spare, and he grew more and more tempted. His informant’s report was securely locked away; he retrieved it, and reread it, making notes through the quiet of the afternoon. A trading delegation… There were items described here that were considered luxuries in the south, with which they could easily supply a lucrative train of goods, if Lord Elrond were only willing to fund the trip. He tapped his teeth with a fingernail. And the colts had been a good crop this year; maybe the stables would spare a couple, to add weight to their proposals if his other venture was approved. A breeding colt from Imladris… Few southern nobles, however arrogant, would despise such temptation, for the prestige of such ownership in the south would be immense. Even here, where Elrond traded freely in breeding lines for the improvement of all the Elven kingdoms’ herds, Imladris ancestry was prized and admired. More recently, since Asfaloth joined the equine population of the Vale, the effect was only enhanced.

He would have to persuade Elrond, and his Captain. He frowned, and shrugged. He could ask, at least.

He would need to assemble a willing party to manage livestock, wagons and supplies, and he would need a replacement to cover his leave of absence, if it was granted; in that moment he realized he firmly intended to go himself, if only he could persuade Elrond. Suddenly, passionately, he wanted to be allowed to go on this trip.

He sat back, squaring parchment sheets, lining up beribboned scrolls, laying his quill in its inky holder. He was mad. He would travel hundreds of leagues, ostensibly for a few small brown beans, because although Elrond never complained, it was common knowledge that he would long for more if they ever ran out. He permitted himself a small smile. If his plans worked out, he would come back after achieving far more than the purchase of a few beans.

If there had not been the tremendous rains of last year’s winter, the roads would have cleared of floods in time for spring, freeing trade to resume. They would be well-supplied in all manner of luxuries including the insignificant looking beans, and he would not be dreaming suddenly and longingly of travel, riding free day after day with the sun and the wind for company, and of personally responding to overtures he had entertained with increasing concern since their first receipt. Those floods and the consequent shortages provided the ideal excuse for the cover of a trading caravan.

The thought of leaving Imladris excited him as little had in millennia. Small mercies were often born of greater tragedies. But sometimes small mercies did not seem so small…

He sought those documents more soberly, wrote a note for the stable master, copying it for Elrond’s information, sent those off with a youngling attendant who otherwise painstakingly pursued his studies discreetly in the ante-room until Erestor had use for him, and then gave himself over to deciphering, yet again, the motives behind the approaches delicately broached in the letters spread out before him. Dangerous as they were to heed if a trap was planned, he had been tempted to burn them, but the cost of discovery for the writer if sincere was so high he had decided against; if he had taken such a risk, Erestor would honour it. If he were allowed.

The light faded and he didn’t notice, beyond absently striking light to some candles. The figure before his desk did not attract his attention. He leafed over the sheets of crackling vellum, priceless in the south and rare – he jotted that down as another item to add to their wagonloads – to refer to a point that had earlier eluded him, but now he thought he understood.

‘You must make no direct approach, but will be contacted if you come. The princes vie for supremacy and woe betide us all if the second of the heirs succeeds.’

That was all clear. But the next, had puzzled him.

‘Sanduistuin will make a sure ally in this venture, if he only comes to trust you.’

Who was that? Had there not been another comment, in his notes, by an agent years ago. Ah, here it was…

“Uhm – Erestor?”

He startled, and lifted his eyes. Oh, it was dark, beyond the three glass-shrouded candles gracing his work: the others in the outer offices had all left. Yet there was never any mistaking that voice nor the outline of that lounging figure. “Glorfindel?”

“The scribes said they could not rouse you from your studies when they left.”

He had missed their usual exchange, called from the door when they retired. Normally they at least exchanged farewells, if little more. Tonight, engrossed, he had not heard them.

Ever curious, Glorfindel pulled a missive toward him, never learning his lesson, no matter how many times Erestor took offence. “What keeps you so diligently in this dark? Won’t you come and eat with us?” He smiled, enjoying the game and moving his hand faster even than Erestor struck so that Erestor’s slap missed and hit the desk, quite hard.

Erestor winced, but rescued his letter, wondering how long he had been standing there, watching him. Erestor was aware Glorfindel often watched him, though oddly he did not feel uncomfortable about it. Anyone else would earn his cold withdrawal over such persistent intrusion; but Glorfindel, who remained a mystery to him, did not offend him. Teeth flashed white again, as Glorfindel smiled. He smiled a lot. Erestor smiled back. It had been a good day for Imladris when Glorfindel had returned. Elrond was fortunate, nay, blessed to have such an ally. Glorfindel might have his failings, endless curiosity being one, but he was easy to forgive…

“Erestor?”

“Oh, yes. I will eat, of course. If you don’t mind waiting while I put these away, I’ll come with you – or go if you want, you’ve been waiting a while?” He looked doubtfully at the intelligence and sensitive correspondence before him. Had Glorfindel in fact read the page he took? Had he scanned all of it, upside down, while he waited?

Erestor himself, always alert and not particularly scrupulous, routinely read anyone’s work if he visited their offices, just to keep in practice as much as actual curiosity. There was little of interest in the Steward’s latest figures, though he must admit, the love note among Elrond’s work had intrigued him. Celebrían was clearly missing her Lord and had touched on plans for their next meeting, that much was obvious before he averted his eyes, owing his lord at least a modicum of privacy. While Elrond did not employ him for shows of respect, he had grown attached to the lord he served: over the years dutiful form had deepened into an abiding admiration and liking, though he had never admitted it. Elrond remained wary of him; though Erestor hoped he had earned a degree of trust at least, by his years of service.

But Glorfindel, of them all, had never evinced coldness, fear or distant wariness. Sunny as the day, he had smiled as warmly on Erestor as on all the others he had greeted when Círdan introduced them, cheerily oblivious to Círdan’s glower resting on Erestor the whole time. Since then he had never given up on him, though at first Erestor had given it only hours before the others’ attitude influenced him, too.

“I’ll wait for you. There is no hurry.” Glorfindel eased himself into a nearby comfortable reading chair, to lounge luxuriously, feet stretched out, sighing in pleasure to be off his feet. Erestor eyed him as he carefully gathered up the various information he had accessed, set his notes in a separate bundle to lay alongside the rest, and locked the whole in a box. This he set in a small cupboard, similarly secured, well protected against prying eyes. No one knew about either box or cupboard, although he had warned Elrond to make sure to find his most private papers, hidden in this room, if anything untoward happened to him.

Elrond had raised his brows, as he so often did when talking to Erestor. “Should I not be privy to this store now?”

“Best not, my lord, although I will tell you what I have in keeping there.”

Elrond had fixed him with an unnervingly piercing look, taking his time about it, and then slowly nodded.

“Very well. Tell me.”

Erestor recalled himself to the present. Glorfindel was watching him again. Why didn’t he mind the Captain’s steady regard?

“You should not speak of this safe box,” said Erestor, “You understand that, do you not?”

Glorfindel nodded. “Be easy, my friend. You do not trespass in my affairs, why should I in yours?”

Erestor nodded, reassured, and then ran that by his brain a second time. He was about to interfere in Glorfindel’s responsibilities in a big way. He considered Elrond’s mainstay.

“My activities at times affect everyone’s purview, even yours, in Elrond’s interests. But I would resist any interference in my affairs by you. I do not know why I trust you as I do, but I would not wish any infringement in my arena. This is not to be revealed to any, Captain, nor investigated by you.”

Glorfindel cocked his head at the formal speech, surprised that Erestor, who so often kept quiet around him, would address him in such strict terms.

Erestor drew a false front across the door of the cupboard, until it clicked into place, along with the two shelves that formed part of the construct. He then laid his minor files on the bare open shelves with his other bits and pieces, leaving his desk clear, as was his habit. The desk drawers held his equipment, not his work. There were other cupboards where he ostensibly stored in secure safety all his scrolls, letters, notes, reports and the rest in their own locking cabinets. Only this one place was unknown publicly. He eyed his shelf, admiring its camouflage, ingenuity and workmanship.

A laugh sounded behind him. “You look like a proud parent, Erestor.”

“I suppose I feel like that. I made it, without anyone finding out. Elrond thinks the carpenter built these shelves, the carpenter thought one of his assistants had been assigned to them while he was putting up the new barn, and only two people know what it hides.”

He and I, thought Glorfindel. And I do wonder that he so readily trusted me. There was no need.

Tbc

Dinner was laid out in the hall, already cheerful with talk and the clatter of utensils when they took their places. Elrond greeted them, as did the others at table, and Erestor, as he always did, bent his head to spare them the awkwardness of his presence.

Glorfindel alone was easy beside him. Apparently utterly carefree, he promptly started up a spirited debate with Elrond on their current hot topic: how many to send to Thranduil as the princes’ escort.

“So many will burden their host, and be most rude of us.”

“Their safety is more important than such diffidence, Elrond.”

Erestor tuned out their constant bickering, aware that he enjoyed the back and forth argument beside him, left out though he was of such talk. He found it soothing to be around Glorfindel and hear him as he conversed with whomever took his attention. Erestor ate his meal, a little more than he wanted – Elrond had taken him to task about his intake early on, rejecting his notion of sufficient, and had given him strict orders. It had perforce become Erestor’s habit to check his platter, find its sparse contents sufficient, sigh and add more. Elrond, seeing his willingness, had spared him further comments at mealtimes, so long as he did not fall below a certain weight. Erestor did not really understand his concern – he always held his own, whether in training or whether in a real fight, which he had had in plenty, even in Elrond’s service.

Elrond sighed too, in delight, over the sweets spread among the other dishes, now that many had finished with the savouries. Erestor watched him take one of the dark ones, rich and fragrant, and bite into it. His mind wandered to his plans. Which of the horses could he take in addition to Meren? When would he approach Elrond? He froze, suddenly unable to eat the mouthful prepared on his fork. Yes, he had journeyed on Elrond’s behalf before, but would he be allowed to go so far? Would he be granted discretion to deal with his Southron contacts to best advantage? Would he be allowed beyond all Elven writ of authority? He closed his eyes, coward that he was, dismayed by the prospect of refusal and its humiliation. Elrond treated him as a free agent in so very many ways, and he had served here for so long, that he forgot at times the true circumscriptions of his life.

“Erestor?”

That was Glorfindel, his conversation naturally over for the time being by tacit assent of both parties. The two lords knew they would come to some agreement, and that Glorfindel would likely prevail for the most part. He was difficult to refuse, and Elrond held him in such esteem he found it hard to remember it was he who was Lord of Imladris where Glorfindel was involved. His natural inclination to defer to his Captain made him argumentative in trying to counter this weakness: their lively rows were part of life in Imladris. For now, they were apparently content that honour had been maintained on both sides and their concerns sufficiently aired. Erestor admired that in them which meant neither needed to win, nor to bully to get their way; both could leave a thing lie for consideration and come to it fresh with renewed vigour or conciliation depending only on their conviction, not their pride. It was very different than what he had once known.

Erestor himself must defer, when so ordered, which never failed to sting his pride. Even in his youth, he had surprised himself, that he had never lost the urge to maintain his opinions and persuade others to them, no matter the responses he received, tailored to discourage his independent mind. Even in his gratitude that Elrond was sparing with that prerogative, he felt humbled by the necessity of giving way; in this, he envied Glorfindel. He forced himself to turn his thoughts away from that thorny issue. Another reason he tended to keep his head bowed in Elrond’s presence. Obedience came hard to him, and it ever would, he feared, no matter how long he lived. He had learned to his cost it was a trait hard to hide. That too, was a thought he shied from, with all its attendant memories. He made sure to give no cause here for any such accusations.

“Forgive me, my lord, may I be excused?” he murmured to Elrond.

“You have not finished your meal,” observed Elrond narrow-eyed, rather than granting permission.

Erestor looked back at him out of strained features, imagining that face frowning just so, when he proposed his expedition. Damn Elrond, damn them all… He bent his head and answered the faint enquiry. "No, my lord. I find myself a little worried and my appetite has failed me." He made it a point never to lie to Elrond. That had been a decision he had made right from the first. White-faced, cursing that these thoughts must come to him tonight, when usually he was adept at keeping them at bay, he picked up his fork and stubbornly chewed the fine food that stuck like clay and ashes in his throat.


*** Imladris 2243 S.A. : Arrival ***

The night he had arrived, Elrond had ignored him at first, conferring earnestly with Galadriel and Círdan. Erestor sat exhausted with grief on his horse, awaiting orders. Always awaiting orders.

He had obeyed their commands along the way. It had been a long journey, but in Celeborn’s favour, when he had found the guards tormenting their charge, one who was unable to defend himself, he had put a stop to it instantly, not even bothering to let them finish voicing their excuses.

Witheringly he said, “It seems I shall have to be his custodian since you are lost to your own honour and to mine.” With that, he invited Erestor to sit with him for their meal, and from then until now, had kept him by his side, making sure he was provided reasonable comfort and rest.

Erestor watched them talk from atop his horse, bones aching for the relief of dismounting, with Elrond meanwhile no longer ignoring him, but glancing at him repeatedly, shaking his head at times. Blackly, Erestor laughed a little. Their plan – her plan, whatever it was – had just gone awry. Elrond’s consent seemed not to be forthcoming. Tiredly he wondered if she intended he go on, with Círdan and his Mithlond escort, while the Lórien inhabitants turned back. He had spent the journey wondering about his destination. Círdan was no friend of his. He averted his eyes from the cold look even now directed at him, as if Círdan read his thoughts.

“Ask him, Elrond. Ask him yourself. We must not lightly imprison him, nor waste his abilities. He may be one of the accursed by association and guilty by his actions, yet my decision stands. He shall not be consigned alongside the rest sent for safe-keeping. Others witnessed that he was the voice of caution in their councils, urging restraint, careful in the methods of their ventures. And so it proved when I examined him. He was of their number, but he fears the Valar and respects life, Elrond, innocent life he holds sacred… And who among us here has not fought with blade or bow?” Her gaze swept her peers, austerely demanding they acknowledge that in bloodletting, they had all taken a part, one way or another. Sometimes the green of Lórien surprised her, after silvered water displayed the cruelty of what might come to pass.


*** Lórien 2199 S.A. : Facing Galadriel ***

Galadriel had looked into the killer’s mind and found only coldness, no evil. He had killed and would kill again, but only ever with cause, others of his ilk – those whose work it was to fight, to defend, to attack; those trained to such duties as made them targets to kill or be killed in these wretched times of war. Never had he killed for pleasure, for personal gain, for less than imperative reason, and never an innocent. Strangely, she had found him one of the most trustworthy elves with whom she had ever entered into a connection.

He appeared so cold, but was guided by a rational honour in his dealings, confined to a personal code he would never break. In the moment when he had crawled away from her touch, released by the conclusion of her investigation, inevitably in pain and sick from her invasion and his surrender, she had made her decision.

“Celeborn, he is not to be harmed, nor deprived in any way. Let him not be isolated, nor reviled. Care for him. He shall not be abandoned in his guilt.” For guilty he was, there was no denying. Consequently he must now pay and be constrained in the aftermath of disruption, defiance and death. As for his prior service, once his lords had been determined on their course, Erestor had planned their campaigns alongside them, admittedly for the least loss of life, and interjecting his arguments along the way. He had not refused them, and he had helped them. He had pressed repeatedly the advantages of a change of their strategies, but nevertheless he had maintained his loyalties. She also now knew rumour for truth, in the aftermath of her investigation of his past and his heart: he had been their intimate, ever available to their requirements. Those memories she turned from, those she would not demand the full truth of. She knew only that he had lain with them, and had done so without fuss. She could only assume it was willingly.

“Erestor, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Lady.” He had bitten his forearm to help with the pain, lying on the floor on his back, where she had let him retreat into the corner of the room away from her terrible power and person.

“Erestor, you will not go free, but if I find you work, will you carry it out, faithfully?”

“I will do nothing against my own people, Lady,” he said cautiously.

“No, Erestor, that I will never ask, nor bind you to in the future on anyone’s orders. You will of course be required to give your word never to give aid to any acting against the King’s friends.”

“I might agree in that case.” Still so cautious. Her heart surprised her, looking down on him; how many of them were caught up in what were overwhelming trains of events? He was no exception, perhaps, and his quiet dignity impressed her. He seemed resigned, and curiously at peace.

He had no reason to think it would be other than the mines, the dwarf mines where that underground race had agreed to place the worst of the apprehended offenders, keeping them with whatever kindness was compatible with their fate, but using their labour to pay for their keepers’ vigilance. Whether they could live in such conditions and not fade, Galadriel was not quite sure. She had set free all those of the lower echelons of the rebel’s ranks, those who longed only to be allowed a home to work and raise their families. They had found certain safe holds for others, where their presence was known and monitored but where they could live out their lives in reasonable normality so long as they kept bounds set on them by their captors as condition for their release. Only the instigators of vile deeds had gone to the mines, those most notorious in the conflict with Gil-galad’s southern allies, vicious killers: those who, unrepentant and proud, still constituted a threat.

Erestor, however, was the anomaly. Some of those high in his cadre had died. Others had been killed, or apprehended. His rank, his role, his intelligence, each one alone made him potentially uniquely dangerous as well as accountable compared to others. And then there was the nature of his service in the First Age, the closeness he had maintained with the Fëanorian brothers. He was the prisoner Galadriel had left until last to pronounce upon, the one they had kept waiting in close confinement, until she had investigated the rest and decided their fates.

He lay on the floor turtle-like in a helpless sprawl on his back, tears in his eyes. She had come without ceremony, bidding those with her to remain outside, unafraid of him, though fearful for what his mind would force on her awareness. Instead it was compassion made her shiver, not revulsion, once she made enquiry of his union with Maedhros’ cause. His cold soul had been so loyal to those who failed to grace him with either appreciation or love. He was used, his service theirs to command by right and duty, which he gave without question, his scruples unfailingly voiced however often mocked; his affections starved in the course of that service in the early years of adulthood, withered into a hurt, reserved pocket of his heart, walled away for protection. Even his mother, when she had found it too dangerous to stay, had left without regret, barely saying good-bye, taking his brother with her. From that day to this he had not seen them again, nor heard from them. He was left without the comfort of visiting them, left in Maedhros’ service, serving a lord who grew more tense and more demanding as the years passed. Too strong a character to pine overly, Erestor had been transformed into what she had read in him today, honourable in his way, but closed to others, and ruthlessly hard on himself in carrying out his duties, which was all he knew to do to survive with dignity.

Erestor was alert even in his pain.

“Lady, I would ask a favour of you.”

She narrowed her eyes in the sudden hauteur that came so easily to one of her line.

“Aye, you think me impertinent. Wait only long enough to hear me before you forbid my asking. Have I not earned at least that much mercy?”

She nodded tightly. He had caused no trouble, even today, faced with questioning, and he had known what that meant. He had not even offered them discourtesies, even once, as others of his camp could not refrain from in their pride, shame or fear. She would let him speak, and then, sorry to see him beg, refuse whatever favour he thought he could earn by compliance.

“Punish me, take revenge on me on behalf of your dead, imprison me as you will. I will not revile you for it, but I beg you never pity me, now that you have entered my private thoughts and heart.”

She could not help it. Her eyes swept to his, her heart bleeding for him, and for his little pride that admitted all his hurt in the asking. “I will school my actions to your request, Erestor, and consider it a mercy that is only your due, but my heart must feel what it will. I hope that will suffice.” She bowed gracefully, and withdrew.

He lay there for a time, before crawling to his knees, and then to his feet, looking for the water they always left him plentifully. He drank deep and laughed. They had so often boasted of how they would never crawl to their enemies, yet after an hour with Galadriel he was reduced to his knees before her, sweating in pain and fear as she touched him relentlessly in communion with all his past, not sparing his least thought or feeling if it caught her attention. He thought she had trod lightly, despite the pain, for she had hesitated repeatedly, as if pausing to let him know her next intent of enquiry, and he had managed to grant wordless assent, opening his thoughts before she had to wrench them wide for inspection. He could not imagine what he would be feeling had he resisted her.

He drank some more, and then threw up. He rested his head on the rim of the bucket that afforded him the use of a privy when he needed between the outings they allowed him to wash and use facilities more sophisticated twice daily. It was empty, thank the Valar. He lasted until they let him out most days. Today, it meant he could throw up without an added stench or vile splash upwards, for which he was wearily grateful, while the metal rim cut into his forehead, since he was too tired to lift his head right then. After a few moments he forced himself to rinse out his mouth, to sip a little more water cautiously, and retreat to his blankets to rest in greater comfort than the hard floor. Gradually he let himself relax, relishing the peace that surrounded him. He eased his position, and slid into reverie.

End of Chapter Two
Tbc

Vocab - Sindarin
Meren Joyous

*** Arrival in Imladris (continued) 2243 S.A. ***

“At least meet him, Elrond.” Galadriel gestured to the guard, who at last bade Erestor to dismount, which he managed somewhat unsteadily after the long ride on top of years confined to the close environs of his allotted prison.

“Erestor, make your bow to the Master of Imladris,” a title she knew Elrond hated, but needing the formality to carry the day with both these strong-minded elves. “If he accepts, he shall be your Lord, from this day on.”

Erestor glanced around, and made his decision, going to one knee, head bent. He said nothing. This then was the one whom she had selected to direct his labours, of all she could have chosen. He need not have worried about her pitying him after all.

“Erestor, I said I would find you work. Now you must decide whether you be willing. Elrond?”

“Galadriel says I would most benefit from the use of you, Erestor,” said Elrond stiffly. “Of all of us who could safely house you, she says your talents would be valuable here, and that I will not regret your presence with the skills you bring.” That was as far as Elrond was willing to go.

Erestor meanwhile was in shock. Elrond, of them all, was the one who would welcome him least, even if he was himself not inimical to the lord. Why would Galadriel place him here of all choices? She had read him to the depths of his being and had said she would not waste him. Why then would she condemn him to work for Elrond? He could not bear this. Elrond, to whom Maedhros and everything he represented was anathema; Elrond, who had lost everything and been forced to live with his family’s destroyers as a child, would never let Erestor forget what he had been. Elrond had seen too much. This dismayed him as nothing else had. Círdan’s outright hostility was far preferable.

“My Lady, this will not be to the Lord’s liking,” he said.

Elrond’s mouth twisted in bitter agreement.

“But will you undertake his service?”

Erestor stared at the ground. Imladris, famed haven of renowned beauty and impeccable integrity, province of one counted among the most politically powerful of elves, subtle in his ways, fighter, healer, leader, war-chief: the High King’s Herald. He cast a look up, and found grey eyes on his, that offered no promises. Yet if Elrond agreed at all, he might spurn him forever, yet he would not scorn him, nor ill-treat him. Nor would he waste him. There would be work he could do here, useful work. “I will.” He added no honorific, no embellishment of assurance that would be meaningless to its recipient.

“Very well.” So simply did she accept his word as he gave it, each strangely sure of the other. Celeborn stood by, understanding Galadriel’s mind was made up and content to trust her decision, Círdan frowned displeased, and Elrond – Elrond laughed shortly.

“Get up,” he said. “Look at me when you address me.”

Erestor rose to face him. “I offer you my service, Master of Imladris,” he said again steadily, and met those grey eyes without outwardly flinching. This was an elf he could respect, and if he could not earn the same in return, he would never know unless he tried. It was not as though he had many choices in the matter. He had lived with worse. Even if Elrond could not abide the sight of him, he was unlikely to be so blind to good sense and honour as others Erestor had advised. He glanced aside at Galadriel. “Lady? Are you satisfied?”

“If Elrond will have you…”

Elrond frowned impartially at all of them, glanced at his own advisors, assembled in full at this influx in Imladris’ court of lords with so large a train of elves. They remained gathered in the court under the open sky, where despite their finery and the rain it felt oddly natural to consider Galadriel’s business, reminder of the aftermath of other battlefields without grace of shelter from wind, rain, or sun, whatever weather might be visiting the day. “The Lady would have it so. Celeborn agrees, or he would have said already. Círdan?”

“I hate him with a passion. You all know this. I will brook no dealings with him personally. But I will not hold it against you if you take him, Elrond. We have to do something with him. The Valar know we did not fight against his lords to become like them, so I find myself strangely glad to be overborne in this. And I trust Galadriel.” He nodded to her. “Too, I have thought of nothing better, though my heart insists he should be relegated to the mines alongside the rest of the coterie. Personally, I would rather he be set to labour under dwarven guard but if Galadriel says he is no danger…”

“So you consent to this?”

“I do. You would not suggest it, without good reason, Galadriel.” He bowed, gracefully, his feelings unchanged, but sincere in his concession and without resentment.

She nodded, satisfied.

Elrond sighed. “Then, Erestor, take your farewells. My steward will see you housed after your arduous journey.” The healer in him had not failed to note the Noldo’s halting step. “I shall talk with you another time than this. Welcome to Imladris. Honour her and she will gently take you in as she shelters us all. For my part – obey me, as a beginning.” His frown did not lift, but Erestor thought the words gracious enough in the circumstances. He bowed to the Imladris Lord, and regretted parting from Celeborn.

“My Lord.” And making his murmured farewells, thanking Celeborn, without saying for what – they both knew – he faded back among Elrond’s guard, who first eyed him askance and then, at Elrond’s flicked hand signal, led him away to quarters provided by the stiffly correct Steward.


*** Imladris 1498 T.A. ***

The food stuck in his dry throat. In millennia, that scene had never faded. He could still hear the shifting hooves, of horses waiting for their comfort, still feel the rain working its way into already damp leathers. It was a measure of Elrond’s dismay, far more than his manner, that he had held the conference there in the courtyard, keeping guests waiting for shelter and hospitality. Erestor washed down the bite of food, and made the next smaller. Elrond gave him little quarter once he bade him do a thing, and Erestor asked for none. On this occasion, Glorfindel took exception to the lord’s curt expectation that Erestor finish his meal.

“He’s not a child, Elrond.”

“He eats like one, unless under orders to take enough,” snapped Elrond, briefly angered that Glorfindel did not share his – enmity was not the word – disapprobation, toward his councillor. Mostly he was glad of that tempering influence, having found it ever difficult to soften toward one foisted on him for whatever good reasons to his grave discomfort. Even Gil-galad had shrugged, and suggested he make the best of it. For his hard work alone Erestor deserved better of him than he got, but still Elrond disliked his presence if not the elf himself; he hardly had got to know him, not bothering himself to counter the impressions gleaned so long ago. Erestor’s subsequent history only confirmed his disinclination to narrow the gulf between them after his arrival. On Erestor’s part, the Noldo offered no overtures. Sombre glances and a bent head were his usual offerings. Others followed their Lord’s lead, leaving Erestor outcast from their society, increasing Elrond’s vague unease with the situation. Glorfindel’s easy indifference to Elrond’s difficulties was a blessing, one that Elrond was normally grateful for, but not tonight.

Erestor concentrated on his food, flushed with shame from Elrond’s retort to Glorfindel and hiding it.

“What’s wrong with you?” Elrond said sharply. How he detested that habit of bowing his head, as if he cowed the elf by threats or ill-treatment. In calmer moments, he understood Erestor sensed his visceral unease perfectly and sought to minimize the impact of his presence by the evasion. In far rarer moments of honesty, Elrond admitted Erestor was justified. He would never have abided arrogance in his unwelcome charge, and would have rebuked him for it unhesitatingly were his clear-eyed gaze directed at Elrond in the characteristically perceptive scrutiny Erestor dealt out to others, his natural insight irrepressible.

“Tomorrow, my lord, I wanted to discuss a thing with you. I have realized my hopes are doubtful.” Absolute truth, no evasion.

Elrond, fully alert, could not fault him. At last he softened. “Go then, if it makes you easier.”

“I can meet with you tomorrow?”

Shameful, thought Glorfindel, that Elrond’s best advisor had to petition him to consult him. His heart went out to the unfortunate elf, without knowing the circumstances behind Erestor’s difficulties with Elrond. In the hundred years since his arrival he had not questioned either of them about what he observed, but their differences continued unabated. Elrond treated Erestor as if he were in some dire disgrace unameliorated by time, no matter how efficient and inspired the quality of his work.

“Of course. I will always talk with you, you know that,” he said impatiently. That, too, was true. Elrond, no more than Erestor, was not in the habit of lying.

“I’ll go with you,” said Glorfindel, getting up.

Elrond frowned, but let him go. It was not as though he could forbid another lord to leave the table if he chose.

He watched the pair leave. Erestor behaved oddly around Glorfindel. His own cheeks heated as he identified the change when Erestor glanced up at the taller elf beside him. The Captain gave him a broad smile, no different than Glorfindel offered everyone impartially, and Erestor smiled back, as if he could not help himself. The Gondolin warrior was the only elf in Imladris who treated Erestor in easy fashion, though Celeborn unfailingly offered him company when he visited, which Erestor always accepted, and Galadriel was ever gracious, as if his past could be paid for in full by his current service.

Disturbed by this train of thought, Elrond set his lips together. Erestor’s isolation was highlighted in that moment of relaxation, indicative of his relief as he saw who joined him. Close proximity to others provoked more usually a gathering of his deportment into something cool and distant, reserved and wholly formal, while remaining unfailingly courteous and correct.

Elrond sighed, annoyed. He composed himself to do what he had done from the beginning, accept the lesser of all evils, keep quiet about his feelings, do what justice he could to the elf in his unwelcome charge, and leave others to make their own choices.

An unbidden strand of conscience tugged naggingly. They don’t choose for themselves. They follow my lead. Unbidden, he recalled guilty glances the minstrels had cast him when Elrond found them in conversation with Erestor. The Noldo clearly had a love of music, and talked to the minstrels more than he did others in Imladris. Had he deterred them from closer friendships with Erestor? He sighed. For the ten-thousandth time he thought, if only Galadriel had not wanted him here. And the thought that came to him most frequently and which never failed to irritate him: If only he were not so skilled and did not have to work directly with me to get the best use of him.

He quashed the wishful thinking, and finished his meal, feeling somehow in the wrong, but not seeing why. Erestor had made his choices, flamboyant, corrupt, close as a brother to those bent on destruction, and at the last, defiant of the King’s law. The consequences were hardly Elrond’s fault; had he not seen him with his own eyes, rich colours draping the slender form, ever attendant on those Elrond abhorred? And Galadriel had pronounced him guilty in no uncertain terms under Gil-galad's writ over his later offences.

He watched as Glorfindel put a hand under Erestor’s elbow, and Erestor smiled at him. By Ea, he never smiled at Elrond. Not once. In all the years. For the first time, he took thought to how soberly Erestor conducted himself, when he possessed a blinding smile that lit up his features. Had he smiled like that all those years ago, in that camp? Thoughtfully, Elrond made his way to bed that night unable to dismiss his unease, and yet unable to identify any reasonable cause.

End of Chapter Three
Tbc

“Out of the question.”

“Yes, my lord. I wonder if you have considered the possible gains.” He fingered one of the letters from the southern lord, and once more summarized the tally of reasons to go. For him to go.

Glorfindel listened to the whole round of question and argument. Erestor on a horse was a lovely sight, and he found himself distracted by the thought of southern sun, and leisure to ride ahead of the wagons, looking for a camping ground for the night, with Erestor laughing beside him dared to a race. He blinked, and let himself watch the two of them.

“You have trusted me for years in my work for you,” said Erestor in a low voice, addressing the heart of it, and the core of his pain. Elrond had never granted him the respect he had once hoped to earn, even though he let Erestor work freely on his behalf, acknowledged with an occasional nod his effort and his achievements rather than belittling them, and listened closely to his advice. But soften toward him? No. Elrond had not given up his reservations, though Erestor saw his efforts to temper his manner, by and large successful.

“Erestor, frankly, you are a prisoner, assigned to labour. It is on Galadriel’s suggestion that I have you do what you are best at – indeed, what you are gifted at. That you are at liberty to live and work as if unconstrained is also thanks to Galadriel. You know this. You live here by her witness – but she is not here to approve such a departure. It has not been so very long since another rumour of trouble emerged involving your old compatriots. Had they all been rounded up when you were, I might find it harder to justify a refusal. But we know some of your brethren remain at large and unreconciled, and I will not be so derelict a custodian as to let you loose in the Southern wilds. Easy there to be approached and tempted to return to old loyalties. Out of my sight, I have no guarantees as to your choices. You might well rejoin your old comrades under cover of a trade and diplomatic mission of mine – Valar know how hard you fought to avoid apprehension – and who knows what they are involved in now. You know enough about Imladris to render you appallingly dangerous should you cast your lot in with your old friends, out of my sight among those who were never friends of the North.”

Every word of Elrond’s coldly clinical dissection of his proposition left Erestor in greater pain. Knowing this response was possible was not the same as being prepared for it. All these years he had let himself hope that with time he might be granted a place long denied him among his own brethren. Their limitations, their chosen fights, purposes and methods with which he had found himself so often odds, had limited mutual trust and regard. He had belonged among them and had worked with them, but that belonging had never offered what his heart had craved. What Elrond, too, withheld.

He had never been offered affection, never been able to relax, approved, appreciated, and wanted for himself, rather than for what they could take from him: his labour, his skills, the gratification his erstwhile lords had found in his body’s submission. Elrond, he admired. Elrond was honourable. Elrond’s trust he had wooed as steadfastly as any lover’s. He had never before tested Elrond’s opinions and attitude toward him as this idea did, only to learn by how tight a leash his appointed, unwilling master deemed him safely tethered. He stared at him, hopes fled, duty only left to him, cold comfort after far warmer ambitions nurtured in a secret corner of his atrophied heart. Precious ambitions, however forlorn, to earn a place, a home, and a fellowship he valued, to be valued in turn, laid waste in these few concisely, devastatingly delivered rejections.

“If I wanted to plot, I could do it from here,” he managed, which was obvious to him.

“I would see it in you,” answered Elrond, simply.

Of course. Erestor stared at patterns of grain in the old wood of the desk between them. All these years of blindly working for something he could never earn… He glanced around the room and down at his own person, clad in the finery Elrond provided. So. He was only ever to be Elrond’s advisor-captive, offered protection, a roof and the means to live graciously, and work he could do which was useful. It was more, far more, than he might have been granted. He was free to ride, to train, to listen to the minstrels’ music and attend all the other entertainments. No matter that he was not welcomed; they did not drive him out of their company either, neither bespoke him unkindly on social occasions, nor belittled him in official dealings. Tears rose unbidden, the first of his captivity since their long-ago defeat.

“Have I your leave to go? In case the venture has merit, I will prepare a contingency plan to be led by one of your own appointing.” He bowed hastily and retreated, desperate not to be delayed.

“Erestor?” Elrond called him back, startled by this unheard of lack of decorum, but Erestor fled as shameful, alien tears spilled over.

Glorfindel laid a hand on Elrond’s arm when he would have followed insistent on an answer and an explanation. “At least leave him the little dignity of departure and privacy, since you have crushed him so thoroughly. That I would see the day when you proved so mean-spirited, Elrond! Even if you needed to refuse him so absolutely, then all the more reason to have been gentle with him.”

Still staring at the door after the unprecedented departure, Glorfindel’s words percolated slowly. He stiffened at the censure, but the subtleties of their situation were not to be untangled by instant reactions of outraged offence. And there was something else that gave him pause. “Was he crying?”

“Yes. I have never seen that side of him. Have you?”

“No.” Elrond had never seen Erestor discomposed, not once. Even when he bowed in submission in the rain the night he arrived, it had not impressed Elrond, seeing his spirit stiffly proud regardless of his manner. Tonight – what was different about tonight?

As if he had read his mind, Glorfindel said, “I have not asked about his place here. I see how you treat him, as if he is a stranger on sufferance, and how the others copy you; the minstrels less so perhaps, bless their gentle hearts, though they seem to fear your censure. Even so, I am surprised by what I heard you say tonight.”

“I did not say it to taunt him, Glorfindel.”

“No. You just told him that once out of your immediate purview, he would abandon honour for treachery, that his word was worthless, and that his good service counts for nothing when it comes to trusting him. Moreover, the way you said all this made it plain that your view will never change, and that you cared nothing for his feelings in refusing his plan with a brutal exposition of your reasons – a carefully conceived plan that was all to your benefit – to all our benefits – mind you. Gondor maintains its guard but we cannot neglect what is happening in the South, Elrond. Who knows what might occur there? Men are frail; witness Arnor’s losses. Even in the line of Númenór, they are mortal and prone to human weaknesses, yet it is they who keep guard on Mordor.

“As for Erestor himself – I have been watching you, and wondering. Are you pleased? His hopes are destroyed, for today you reduced his prospects even in his further-most future to being a bound outcast, obedient to the will of a master who does not want him, who will never warm to him, serving a lord who sees him foremost as his enemy for all time. Do you know how surprised he looks every time, every time, mark you my lord, that I approach him in friendship, as if he wants to look around to see who I am smiling at?”

“But I could not... ”

“What you think you cannot do is rather my point, Elrond,” interrupted Glorfindel, silkily intolerant of Elrond’s justifications. According to Elrond, Erestor had Galadriel’s seal of approval. Erestor had never done the least harm in all his time here that Glorfindel had ever heard, not in the hundred years of his own tenure, nor in any of the preceding centuries. He glanced at the door. Just how long had Erestor been here? He seemed endlessly dutiful, mannerly to all (if cold), hard-working. Erestor’s service was unconditionally given and faultless. Glorfindel, disturbed by Elrond’s relentless lack of kindness toward one over whom he held absolute rights of command, would stay no longer in his company to argue with him. He was worried about Erestor.

End of Chapter Four
Tbc

He had never been here before, and had needed to ask the Steward where to find Erestor’s rooms; no-one chance met in the halls outside Elrond’s office had known. Pirrith had given him an odd look as he answered – almost reluctantly, thought Glorfindel, but why should he care if I visit one of Elrond’s councillors?

The knock at the door fell loudly in the quiet of the room – my prison, thought Erestor, indulging thoughts he rarely permitted himself. He was unwelcome in Imladris, he had known that, but bereft of the hope he had let linger quietly in his heart, stark reality took on a new brutality. Calling himself all manner of a fool, still he had permitted the little hope space, like a wild seedling tree that held promise, all the while risking the disapproving notice of a gardener who might rip it out by the roots at any time. Just so had Elrond put paid to his dream of earning a place here beyond the work he did and the cold, social amenities and formal courtesy he might find in the great hall.

Despite his yearning to relieve stark despair in a swift, abandoned ride with Meren under the stars, he had held it unwise this night to ride out, given the contretemps with Elrond and his manner of leaving. Best stay where he could be found. He had contented himself instead with naming the stars he could see. As wavering branches revealed in turn each silver gem, he rolled their Quenya names from his mouth in a poetic succession of lyric syllables. He missed the songs his mother had sung in the old language.

The soothing litany had nearly calmed him, when the summons sounded at his door. It was too soon. He could have resigned himself to composed endurance given only a little more time of quiet solitude contemplating the trees and the stars. He loved the trees outside his window: he took comfort in their company, for they willingly shared with him their rustling conversations with the winds and breezes which played along the valley in an endless dance between air and branch, flirting with the leaves kept nodding in agreement. He let them caress his mind when sleep was hard to come by, and could find tranquillity in gentle meditations once he relaxed in their soft song. Eased in mind, he could let his concerns, so petty compared with the beauties of Arda, seep away.

He stood up, uncertain. Had Elrond sent for him to reprimand him for his precipitate departure? Rarely did anyone come here, save the servant who swept the place and the messenger Elrond occasionally used to summon him at unexpected need. The steward had provided anything Erestor asked for – an extra blanket, a washstand – by the agency of the domestic servant. The carpenter had put up new shutters, when Erestor could no longer bear the draught, and finally asked that the gaps where the wood had warped be mended. Who but Elrond would have business with him here? He took a breath.

“Come in.”

Glorfindel ran his hand over the door while he took in what he saw. All was spotlessly clean in stark contrast to the general quality of provision he was faced with. Bare, shabby and heartless. Erestor’s two presses were the exception, being sound and solid, just as his clothes were rich and generous; Elrond would never suffer an advisor of his to be ill-kempt. A bench and a cot were the only other furniture. In the second room, where Erestor had been sitting, stood a chair and desk. Nothing occupied the desk’s surface, except a pot with small branches arranged beautifully in their simplicity, and a few stones polished by the river, blues and greens of minerals running amongst the white of quartz veins. His anger against Elrond mounted as he thought of the tapestries and hangings that filled Imladris when he saw not even a single bedside rug to warm the floor.

Glorfindel had yet to hear aught of Erestor’s history, bar Elrond’s cutting exposition that evening. He could not know it, but in truth these were the same rooms that were assigned to Erestor on his arrival. Elrond’s chief asset among his council lived in an astoundingly dingy quarter of the great house. The rooms all about were at most used as quarters in which to house a messenger for a hasty stopover, conveniently close to the stables, while yet set in the house proper where food and hot water could readily be provided. These rooms were fit to rest in briefly, a place where a courier who needed a few hours sleep could lie down undisturbed and private, or take a rapid wash and change in a hurry; they were never intended for over-night repose or permanent residence.

The Steward, hearing Galadriel’s account and all that was said that night, had felt no need to give the Noldo newcomer better on his arrival; he had left it to Elrond to assign him quarters as he saw fit. But Elrond gave the matter no thought, and Erestor had remained in the small-windowed rooms at the back of the house, near the guards’ entrance, in a corridor that held mostly storerooms alongside the handful of other such temporary accommodations. Erestor had added little, being without means. Elrond might cloth him nobly, by order to the tailors, who sent their lord the bills, but he paid Erestor nothing. Erestor had never handled coin of his own since his arrival.

Elrond fed him, clothed him, and housed a horse for his use, providing a new mount whenever his current riding animal aged into retirement. Any books he wanted he ordered and Elrond paid for, which Elrond had once offered early on, when they were considering the value of a catalogue of volumes following a scholar’s death, and the lord had seen the look in Erestor’s eye of destitute longing. The one kindness Elrond had ever extended to him had been when he told him to get anything else he saw that he judged worthwhile. The lore master whose library was renowned easily recognized the same book hunger he had felt all his life himself; in addition, he suspected Erestor was rather erudite and might spot finds that Elrond would be pleased to add to his collection. Erestor had done so avidly when opportunity arose, but brought none of the expensive tombs to these chambers, deeming it a liberty he would not take, and a luxury he refused to ask for: there was nothing to read in evidence in these rooms. Each precious and coveted new volume was added to Elrond’s library and its catalogue, there to remain. Erestor could often be seen in the halls of books, leafing over a page and dwelling on what he found.

Their tableau held for a moment, with Erestor on his feet, defensive. He made a good attempt at hiding it but did not manage to conceal his unease from Glorfindel’s perceptions; perceptions that had lately grown increasingly sharp where the finely-drawn elf standing at bay was concerned. Erestor could not mistake the Captain’s anger, but misconstrued its cause. Hitherto Glorfindel had always behaved an elf apart from the rest, friendly, gently warm, heartily alive and never withholding that energy from spilling over Erestor, welcome as summer rain on parched soil.

Erestor swallowed, and said dully, “I am ready. Is he in his study still?” He had thought that at least he could maintain his dignity, but today that too was to be stripped from him.

Glorfindel frowned.

“No? Elrond hasn’t summoned me back to apologize?”

The Captain was sent for something else in that case. To chastise him on Elrond’s behalf. Erestor lifted his head proudly and waited for his humiliation and hurt to be complete. That it would be Glorfindel to discipline him was a blow he had never imagined. Foolishly. He smiled slightly in derision at himself, and seemed almost feral in that instant of stark determination to face what came.

Glorfindel chose to let the tension slide around him without effect. “Elrond did not send me. I also walked out on him.” He grinned, enjoying the contemplation of their mutual irreverence. “He had no call to speak so brusquely, Erestor – and he shall get no apology from me for walking out.”

Erestor shook his head. “You don’t know. Or did they tell you? Did Círdan – ?”

“No. No-one has said much to me about you. I gather you have an interesting past?”

Erestor felt all the familiar warmth emanating tangibly from the large body leaning against his doorframe. Tears rose freshly to shame him, but Glorfindel neither made any comment, nor asked him anything further.

Head cocked, he said softly, “How would you like to come riding with me tonight, my friend? Come away from here, and race Asfaloth against your Meren under the trees and stars? There are few clouds this night to hide the sky’s jewels from us. They sail wide and far above and so could we beneath them. The horses will carry us gladly.”

Dumbly, Erestor stared at him, unable to comprehend he was not shunned now Glorfindel had been inaugurated into his true position here. “You understand what place I have been designated to hold here? You know why they set me here – what I am?” He forced his voice to project the last phrase steadily, aided by years of self-control. He would have gone on, painfully, to elucidate, but was over-taken by the other’s breezy response.

“No, I think I hardly know you at all,” said Glorfindel, cheerfully robust and ignoring his distress in a way Erestor found immeasurably comforting, “which rather adds to the fun of getting to know you. But I can tell I *like* you, Erestor.” Eyebrow in play, he deliberately let loose his Gondolian accent on the vowels of the declaration. The parody of suggestive, winsome overture was brought out by the rich, foreign taint that normally stayed hidden as the merest hint in Glorfindel’s speech.

Erestor laughed, painfully. Typical of Glorfindel to seize any opportunity for light-heartedness. It was always infectious, but could not quite work its magic today. “You like everyone!”

“Maybe,” Glorfindel tilted his head, a gesture Erestor still had not learned to read in him. “I’m not sure of that, actually, but I do tend to treat everyone in friendly fashion. I mean no deception by it. And I do like a lot of elves, it is true; though it need not stop me being at odds with their behaviour.” He frowned, reminded of his anger. He made a gesture of warding as if to banish ill-humour or deep concern.

“Come, Erestor. I am not friends with everyone I like.” He smiled winningly. “Come riding with me, and tell me as much as you feel you wish to reveal about yourself. Maybe if you think I know you a bit, you’ll better trust my liking for you.” He coaxed the other elf with teasing and smiles, pretending to lightness, when the hurt in this room was a tangible, living presence.

All his innate sense of justice was up in arms on the quiet councillor’s behalf, and he was puzzled and concerned over Elrond’s behaviour. He had only known the lord and his advisor a mere century, but he could see the effect Erestor’s presence had on Elrond, who adopted a formality devoid of warmth, with no humour save irony. Whatever bothered him about Erestor, such withdrawal of the lord’s usual liberal benignity must surely have a cause. Granted Erestor was hard to read, if not impossible, yet in him strangely Glorfindel could discern no vestige of animosity, nor resentment. And no apparent surprise.

I want to talk to Galadriel; I want to know just what was her appraisal of Erestor. She gave him into Elrond’s custody, and why was that? Erestor might tell me. She would not consign him to Elrond lightly, given how he feels. She does what’s needful, but she’s not cruel. Elrond would not have failed to tell her his reluctance to deal with him, and he, too, has his reasons, even if I disagree and disapprove of his behaviour. But their motives matter not. I sense no evil in him, and he is too heart-sore to leave alone any more.

He looked around. And I will have him out of these wretched quarters forthwith. Our fine Steward Pirrith – ay, and Elrond – will rue the day they left him here. Fiercely combative, he had plans for that confrontation, which might make his point very well. He would be looking forward to enjoying it thoroughly, were this neglect not so serious a matter.

“Erestor? Will you get your riding kit? And bring your night-things, too. You’re not coming back here this night.”

Erestor blanched.

Glorfindel was taken aback. Oho. A grave misstep indeed. Smoothly he carried on, “I’m thinking that you have spent a lot of time here, perhaps thinking on matters you would prefer to be different. Brooding alone is no good, especially not tonight, and honestly Erestor, I don’t want to be hard on you, but surely you should long since have got yourself better quarters, though I shouldn’t criticize your tastes.”

He knew perfectly well he spoke nonsense, but anything was better than letting Erestor maintain his misunderstanding. Glorfindel settled for distraction rather than opting for head-on reassurance: the denial of any kind of motive that warranted Erestor’s dismay would only raise the issue more pointedly.

It worked. Erestor stared at him, taken by surprise yet again in this conversation that at every turn took a different path whenever he thought he knew where Glorfindel was going with it.

“No, given what has happened tonight, it’s guest rooms for you, near my own quarters perhaps, and we shall drink some wine by a fire, and go to bed very late. You will sleep far easier than if you sit here in this quiet solitude, brooding.”

Guest rooms… near Glorfindel’s… wine before a fire. No. He would not risk what he instantly surmised as Glorfindel’s intent. Although none in this house had importuned him, knowing their lord too well for such misbehaviour, and in any case misliking any true closeness with one held by their lord in such poor grace, Erestor knew that in the past he had been considered a highly desirable bed companion. He had never fathomed the reason, yet if Glorfindel was of that opinion it explained everything. And Glorfindel held a special authority in Elrond’s eyes; he would not be held to account, like others. Stupid of him not to think of it before. How could he have let down his guard? Lulled by the standards Elrond set, safe in his place cold though it be, he had failed to see this coming. Lulled by Glorfindel’s personality. The opinions of others would never bother Glorfindel if he wanted a thing. Or an elf.

“I think not, my lord.” Cold as the Helcaraxë Wastes, despite the quiet of his speech, Erestor turned back to his chair and his window.

A strong hand on his wrist drew him to his feet will-he, nill-he, unless he made a fight of it. Such close proximity was the first, outside the training fields, he had had in centuries. His heart pounded. Fight Glorfindel? Would this golden elf bid him lie with him? He did not think so. He was not certain. Order him, pressurize him, use his station and his influence over him: in theory all these were possibilities, but Glorfindel? He looked at the hand on his wrist, seeing all its detail of line, bone, and veins. Tendons running between the joints, the long first finger curling aslant, just failing to greet the broad-backed thumb and complete the circle. Erestor stared at the skin on the back of the Captain’s hand, golden brown, still soft even after so many years of training and fighting out in all weather. That should be no surprise, in the way of elves, but still, he was mesmerized.

Unbidden, he felt desire course through his body. He could only stare at those invidious, elegant fingers, for all the world as if he were imitating the proverbial basilisk. He closed his eyes against an almost overwhelming inclination just to submit. He was very weary, and after all, it was nothing he had not been required to do before… and hadn’t Glorfindel always treated him kindly? At the thought self-disgust slammed into him, sickening him on many counts, not least of which was the heat that competed low in his belly with roiling contempt.

He chose utter stillness for protection, not against Glorfindel – against whom he thought himself defenceless, in more ways than one – but against a rising tide of emotion that might not, this time, be denied. Weariness, desire, soul-sick loneliness, desperate hurt, gratitude, self-loathing… Years – a lifetime – of self-control, of hiding behind impassivity to retain what dignity he could, did not mean he was devoid of feelings. Right now, he felt assaulted by their combined forces, and he was oh, so tired. He kept his eyes shut. His wrist felt branded by the heat of the hand holding him in place.

End of Chapter Five
Tbc

Chapter Six: Night Ride Imladris 1498 T.A.

Erestor’s frozen state quite unnerved the Captain, who was desperately trying to out-think his refusal.

Erestor, with his eyes closed, was oblivious to Glorfindel’s dismay. He concentrated on composing himself, telling himself firmly: /Such feelings are natural. After so many years, they are only natural./ He calmed himself, a habit of long practice, accepting his body’s instincts, as he had learned to do so many years ago when others had wanted him, and taken him, expecting him to offer compliant participation including his own response in kind.

The demanding grip had lessened somewhat once he was on his feet unresisting. When he opened his eyes, Glorfindel was looking at him concerned.

“I have upset you, but I still do not like to leave you here alone. Truly, would you not enjoy a ride? The horses would, on a night like this. It would do you good.”

His eternal good spirits did not abandon him, even faced with this awful suspicion of Erestor’s. That Erestor thought himself courted and found it a threat of such visceral magnitude, appalled the Captain. The depthless wells of those dark, dark eyes gave clear warning that this elf had a past that behove Glorfindel to tread lightly. The sheer stillness of him disturbed Glorfindel.

“And if I persuaded you to believe my proposal was just a change of rooms, to enjoy a fire and some wine over comfortable conversation, you would not be averse to that either, would you? Look at me a moment, and then consult your own mind, Erestor. I will let you go, when you are ready to answer me more calmly, but I will not let you indulge such unwarranted fear unchallenged.” Glorfindel let his fingers rest easily around the thin wrist, amazed as he had been before when he watched Erestor at practice, that such a slight frame supplied strength and stamina to match most of his partners in training. But Erestor did not test him to win free, despite his distaste for the invitation proffered. Glorfindel was not so blind as to take that as encouragement, but rather as cause for dismay.

Not once trying to move out of Glorfindel’s hold, Erestor looked away out the window, and caressed with a fingertip of his free hand the elegant fall of one of the branches of blossom overhanging the red glazed pot on his desk.

Glorfindel followed his gesture, and caught the sheen of the wood lovingly polished with wax, and felt his heart moved yet again by the dichotomies Erestor represented. Renowned among them for his coldness; humbly accepting year on year the disgraceful neglect and despite that in Imladris, famed for its rich beauty and prosperity, these quarters represented; intelligent to the extent of surpassing most other elves of Middle-Earth in his affinity for resolving matters of conflicting diplomacy behind the scenes: each of these were facets Glorfindel was coming to know were true of Erestor. And then there was this, that he kept his modest desk polished to a warm honeyed hue, appreciating and tending the grain of the wood with such painstaking care. He had brought out in full the natural lustre of the lines and spirals delicately folded season after season into the grain of living timber while the tree yet grew rooted deep in the earth. Glorfindel found his breath catching, eyes moving to take in the finger resting on one blossomed sprig and the lean-drawn profile turned away from him toward the stars.

Glorfindel had been wrong: these barren quarters were like a desert, that to the untutored eye held nothing of value nor of beauty, yet when looked at with attuned discernment, what Erestor had seen and cherished as precious came into focus. Delicate beauty and celebration of life were here on display everywhere it could be nurtured.

“What do you see, out of your window, my friend?”

He settled more comfortably on the edge of the lovely wood, and waited, maintaining his light hold, hoping Erestor’s tension might seep away. Now he was more in tune with his surroundings, he could smell subtle fragrant beeswax merging with a greener woody smell coming from the decorative sprigs Erestor was comforting himself by stroking, and Erestor too, smelled, of nutmeg and sandalwood, probably from soap or oil he used.

Another change of direction. Erestor gathered the words to answer, very willing to postpone uncomfortable choices, conscious that Glorfindel had given him respite from his question – his proposal – his lips tightened as he frowned at the long, powerful fingers that still encircled his wrist. He took another deep breath and let it out, forcing himself to maintain his hard-won balance.

To risk what he feared, or to reject apparent warmth and friendship? To give in to the hardness forming around his forlorn hopes in order to shut away the feelings Elrond had left him with, or choose to be vulnerable by accepting this overture and apparent offer of friendship? Glorfindel, in these circumstances, would hardly suffer for that, unlike others had who supplied him with his needs or with comfort in the past. Maedhros had very promptly suppressed all kindnesses that he himself did not choose to bestow on his young cousin. The eldest of Fëanor’s sons had wanted his aide firmly dependent on his own mercies, none other’s.

Erestor met Glorfindel’s eyes briefly while he contemplated the choices and issues that a simple invitation had provoked. Close as they stood together with his wrist still held – caressed as it felt to him – he found he did not mind standing before the leaning figure as if he had been dragged to his feet to face him like an errant youth. Glorfindel watched him, yes, and speculatively, but there was a faint questioning puzzlement in his eyes that spoke more of concern than insistent lust, and an air of patience about him. As well, the Captain’s characteristic warmth had not changed an iota. Erestor felt it as if it radiated from him in waves.

Erestor suddenly felt comfortable, despite everything, and smiled, because he loved the stars he watched and the trees that lithely swayed to reveal and hide them in turn according to the whims of the wind. This was Glorfindel – Glorfindel who soared like the stars themselves above such unimportant matters as old hurts and fears in his visionary love of Arda. He made it easy to respond to his surprising advances. It dawned on Erestor that he *liked* being surprised. His life held much that was routine in timing and attendance. Even if his work was demandingly changeable, social variety had been nonexistent. He welcomed this overwhelming presence, even with his wrist imprisoned. He had never truly been solitary by inclination, perhaps one of the reasons he had managed to comply and survive.

Glorfindel drowned in that smile, so unexpectedly offered, so – so full of grace, was the only word that seemed sufficient. And it was with grace that Erestor enumerated the names of the stars he could see, as he lifted his eyes once again to the small window above them, detailing too their ages and origins, revealing as he did the depth of his learning, and his love of Erú’s inspired creation. His face transformed as he let his disappointment fade from his awareness.

No wonder Galadriel had spoken for him, thought Glorfindel vehemently. He wondered if Erestor might tell him more about himself, and when. Elrond would do so, if he asked him, and would tell only the unbiased truth as he knew it; Glorfindel trusted him for that, but it did not suit the Captain to investigate behind his back what Erestor was not ready to reveal.

When Erestor’s exposition drew to a slow halt, which took a while, Glorfindel stirred, sliding his fingers along bones and muscle to cup the wrist he held. The pulse point startled – Erestor was disturbed again. He smiled. “And my answer? I still offer you a change of apartments. At least for tonight. We could find you rooms with the same view, if you’d like? And if you stayed there, we could always move the things you have tended here with such love and the most acute eye for beauty.”

Looking around while Erestor was speaking, he had seen more of the details that offered tentative demonstrations of an inherent love of nature. There were small carvings, made out in squares, adorning the foot of the bedstead. The posts at each corner bore spiralling vines, with birds worked in detail showing a peering head or a wing folded in rest. Under the bench in a wooden box, Glorfindel could just see scraps of wood and some tools, handles exposed and blades wrapped securely against accident and wear until wanted for use. Now he looked, he spotted a row of small animals, lined along the top of the presses.

Erestor looked about him, uncertain, tired, and overwhelmed by the visit. “I was thinking about a ride myself.”

Glorfindel let him go.

“We can pick some things up for you for the night later, if you prefer.”

Erestor fetched out his riding boots and a cloak, and changed into sturdier leggings than his house-wear. A loose shirt that did up securely for warmth at wrist and neck, and a tunic with slit skirts, completed his outfitting for a ride. He shrugged, and proceeded to gather also a clean nightshirt, and a casual set of lounging clothes to change into with soft leather slippers, and his preferred wash set with clean cloths, soap-oils, and creams.

Glorfindel smiled, as Erestor slipped these into a drawstring bag, and stood as if ready to leave, but Erestor, sliding him a sidelong look, saw no triumph or unseemly satisfaction, merely warm pleasure and approval.

Glorfindel walked easily beside him without talking, and took the bag from him at the stables, to hang on a hook in Asfaloth’s spacious stall. “No-one will touch it.”

He murmured a greeting to his horse, who evinced interest and increasing impatience at this late appearance – Asfaloth never tired of company and excursions.

Erestor breathed in the scent of the stables, and realized he had been wrong. Elrond’s second kindness had been to give him horses for his sole use, that he could consider ‘his’ even while they belonged to Elrond; his to befriend, his to get to know, his to enjoy as his own equine partner. This particular creature, Meren, was a lively seven year-old who retained all his youthful fire as if he were still a leggy two year-old colt. His enthusiastic character Erestor found to be a happy antidote to his own sober disposition when he emerged after being submerged in duties, confined to the house by work, if no other constraint, for days at a time.

He patted Meren, and murmured stupidities to him, and Meren whuffed in his ear agreeing to whatever inanities it pleased his rider to utter. In peaceful accord they communed, lost in the quiet of the evening until Glorfindel saw fit to recall them to his presence and Asfaloth’s. They waited in the generous aisle, pale stallion and golden lord, the horse impatient for a run, the lord amused at the picture the other two presented: dark hair merged with grey mane, Meren arching over Erestor’s head to reach his shoulders, lipping his hair and his ear, tickling Erestor who never complained, but reached a hand to rub a palm against the soft, eager nose. They were talking to each other, oblivious, elven murmur answered by breath and snort. Erestor leaned his forehead against the muscled grey neck as if he drew strength from the animal’s fëa. He probably did, reflected Glorfindel, remembering the loving, worshipful description of the stars and the gentle touch that caressed the budded twigs and shoots.

When Erestor emerged once more into the present moment, he found it none too dismaying. Glorfindel and Asfaloth were both ready, waiting on them questioningly. Erestor smiled suddenly – his smiles seemed always to appear suddenly out of the sombre, stark beauty that formed Erestor’s features. Glorfindel felt his heart thump. He smiled gently back.

They led Asfaloth and Meren outside to mount, the horses both more than willing to stretch their legs. Erestor felt his tension ease.

Elrond saw them go, and sighed. He had avoided busying himself. He had much to think on, disturbed anew by first one elf and then the other departing precipitately from both protocol and his presence, one distressed and one on the wings of righteous wrath. He could not remember when he had last been so rebuked.

End of Chapter Six
Tbc

The turmoil of the day, followed by the ride, left Erestor only too glad to wash and change, hungry at last and ready to share a meal. He went where Glorfindel led, suspecting his reasons for acquiescing were mixed and several. But there was indeed food, and wine and a fire, and the warmth was very welcome. The conversation turned lightly at first on minor matters – horses they had known, breeding Asfaloth, Meren’s endless fascination with chewing on leather. (Glorfindel had nearly lost a corner of his tunic to those voracious teeth, lingering to talk to Erestor while he settled Meren down for the night with a rub, and a pat, and a fresh bucket of water.) Glorfindel told Erestor about his acquisition of his stallion, and his naming after a long ago favourite of his father’s. Such pale grey in a young horse was rare; he had named the colt after his father’s racing prizewinner who had also displayed the rare silver white sheen that attracted so much admiration.

It had been inevitable that Glorfindel would eventually prompt Erestor on those matters Elrond had raised, enquiring with an open question what Erestor would care to tell.

Erestor eyed him over his wine thoughtfully, settled too comfortably by the fire to take his leave, and glad of the company. He let himself drift into memory, and out of the mire selected what was easiest to tell. His thoughts were far more detailed than he was willing to describe, but he could not stop the sorry history unfolding in his mind.


*** Maedhros’ Rule Maedhros’ Encampment 108 years before the End of the First Age ***

Erestor had been young when his mother had taken a new husband, and there followed in short order both a newborn child, and the death of this second father and husband. Weary of supporting an infant and a child on her own, and stricken with grief, she had sought out cousins of her husband for help. She had no family of her own.

Erestor had been asked his age by one of their new overlords, upon his mother’s welcome among her husband’s cousins. She and her family were taken in, distant though the connection through her husband’s family had been. Her second husband had a sister, and it was her husband that was blood-kin to the Fëanorians. Erestor’s answer was received with a touch that fell unexpectedly close and lingering. The amused look and knowing survey that accompanied it left him in no doubt of the thought the elven lord entertained, even though the caress avoided any overt sensuality. Erestor was thirty-eight.

Those touches did not cease in the years that passed, though they remained within ostensible bounds of what might be acceptable to an onlooker, since Maedhros had accepted them as family. Erestor knew better. Maglor’s eyes hid nothing. There was satisfaction and possessive acquisitiveness in those looks, and determination, as if a challenge was made to refuse, and be subjugated. Erestor hated it that nothing need be said on the matter. He need not even be told out loud, what would come to him. He learned to hate that silence, and the dark eyes that watched him. On his majority he would be claimed as of right, and he knew he would not say no. The natural changes that came upon him did not help. He learned to hide his feelings.

Maedhros knew his brother was conceived of a passionate desire for the incomer, and determined that the youth would at least be as indoctrinated as could be managed while he was young and impressionable. He was put to work – under the pretext of receiving an education – rather than being allowed to finish growing free under his mother’s roof. Even young as he was the high lord saw latent strength in this foreign youth, and warily prepared to indulge Maglor in his whim. Maglor was a strange being, utterly loyal, an unparalleled commander in the field, and normally demanded little, but he had fey moments, and was not to cross when he wanted something badly. And he wanted Erestor. So Maedhros made sure the mother was well treated, well provided for, and well off. Erestor was to be given powerful incentives to co-operate with both of the senior brothers, and just as effective reason to hesitate to rebel.

There was little Maedhros did not know about bringing pressure to bear, such that would render an elf malleable in his hands.

Finding Erestor was quick to learn, Maedhros gave him in fact the education he had offered, and Erestor took in all that was laid before him. Like recognized like, until Maedhros himself took him on, tutoring him rigorously or providing the best teachers; it was not easy on Erestor, but he barely noticed, absorbing an Age of knowledge his for the asking.

Maedhros made sure to keep Erestor a little on edge, a little uncertain, so that he would not become complacent, confident or arrogant, given that the strong interest his brother evinced showed no sign of waning. He gave his brother strictest orders not to spoil the youth. If Maglor did not change his mind, this stranger, no blood of theirs, would be too close to their affairs to trust lightly. Even the toron was no true blood relation, for the claim to cousinship was by marriage of the father’s sister. So their alien cousin must be bound tightly to them by other means, until such time as Maglor tired of him, if he ever did, for Erestor was very beautiful, very innocent, and wholly vulnerable, even while his penetrating intelligence missed nothing regarding the world about him. He watched them all, and Maglor would smile his smile. Erestor never failed to look away.

Caranthir and Curufin quickly caught on, and liked the game. As brilliant as Maedhros, but more idle, Caranthir was always ready for fresh sport. Curufin ever followed his lead. Unlike cool Maedhros, they enjoyed Erestor’s discomfort with a cruelty lacking in their elders, even Maglor, who was merely intent on his own ends. Wearied by wars that were no making of his, Maglor rarely put himself out, except in Maedhros’ service, where he gave without stint, wholly reliable. He watched the three of them, cynically amused, and let Erestor cope as he could, bearing in mind his brother’s orders not to spoil him.

When the two younger brothers joined in with the double-edged inclusion of Erestor among them, welcoming him yet keeping him in his place, always slightly unsure, with edged teasing and subtle put-downs, Erestor, though he might not like what transpired at their hands, had not been surprised. He had seen their like in his short life already, children his own age who liked to bully, adults with an edge of cruelty that showed too readily in times of upheaval and war. He turned to his studies, and time with his family, for what comfort he could find.

Maedhros’ machinations were assisted by Erestor’s affection for his mother, which never dimmed. Maedhros cynically encouraged frequent visits, though from the first, seeing where the wind lay, he had had Erestor fostered in own household. He had claimed that without his atar or his wife’s new husband to guide him, Erestor would only benefit by the arrangement, under-age though he was. Maedhros also made sure to bless the friendship with his brother once the infant grew old enough. Erestor adored his toron. He perforce settled into unquestioning allegiance, seeing his mother well and happy, as well as being brought up to compliance from before he was old enough to feel anything for himself about intimate matters.

Maglor had indeed taken him on the day of his majority; the younger brothers had followed a few years later, inveigling their elder to share after a decorous delay for his sole use of the virgin. While the three of them pleased their whims with him by night, and the younger brothers went on teasing him casually in idle moments by day, Maedhros insisted he give every bit of his skill to help his overlord. Erestor showed no signs of diminishing his obedient submission to the four of them. In turn, Maedhros grew used to his fine intelligence, and gave him a generous allowance, though he made sure never to let Erestor grow self-satisfied or confident.

As time passed, especially after Avernien, he came to take for granted that Erestor’s close presence among them was permanent – and trustworthy. Erestor proved so apt to the tasks allotted him, that Maedhros gave him increasing access to his secrets as the years passed, for Maedhros grew to want his opinion on any matter of moment.

Maglor, the cause of all this, at times was sorry for what he had done, realizing quite early what Maedhros intended when he saw Erestor bite his lip at some slight, doubt himself at another put-down, growing ever quieter as the years passed. Of course, he himself was not helping, and Caranthir had always been bad news. But he was not willing to give him up, and the fine-boned youth lost none of his pale good looks under Maedhros’ domineering control. His apparent frailty only enhanced his appeal when Caranthir started on his games, and Maglor, watching, guilty, was too beguiled to put a stop to it. He contented himself with comforting the youth when they were alone together, treating him kindly once once his own needs had been met.

He let his elder and his Heru have his way.

Indeed, what threatened Maedhros was ever in grave danger, and Maglor did not want that for Erestor. Best he learn his submission, and enjoy good treatment while keeping his place safely. Maglor even, moved by quick glances and blushing shyness, made sure that he gave as well as took pleasure, insisting on it even when the other was embarrassed by Maglor’s demands and inventive practices.

One further thing he did for Erestor. Thinking it would do his spirits good in a way Maedhros could not complain of, and that it would benefit Erestor to spend time outside, as well widening his acquaintance outside the brothers’ close-knit and far older circles, he put Erestor to train with a picked selection from among his fighters, chosen from among the most skilled but younger elves.

To his surprise, Erestor took to knife, sword and bow with a grim determination that made Maglor slightly uneasy; the dark-haired determined fighter Erestor became on the field bore little resemblance to the quiet-spoken, fair clad elf who graced his table and his bed with his beauty. Erestor seemingly never minded how many bruises he took in his pursuit of these fighting skills. His trainers, who chose at first to be entertained by their lord’s pretty companion, and were indulgently casual to begin with toward him, began to take seriously his desire to learn when Erestor landed his first blow, painfully hard, by breaking through a careless guard. He paid for it, with a sound set of bruises in response while he tried and failed to sustain his defence against a punitive counter-attack. He limped back to Maglor’s tent that night and regretted his success when Maglor laughed and took him anyway, amused by the story but not inclined to leave him in peace to rest his aches and pains.

Erestor went back the next day, and the commander of the training group took matters in hand, having no wish for their lord’s chosen companion to come to harm, young as he was. Erestor received plenty more bruises, but no longer in retaliation for his successes under the commander’s strict eye. Maedhros watched, from a distance, but did not interfere. Erestor was sixty, and had yet to come into his full strength in the way of elves below their first century.


*** Imladris 1498 T.A.***

To the accompaniment of hissing logs and fragrant spiced wine, Glorfindel was offered, hesitantly, and severely censored, the barest bones of this history, in fits and starts, with many lapses into long silence in which the fire kept them company and the two elves sat over their hot wine, occasionally replenishing it and reheating it with the poker. Glorfindel was making no attempt to seduce Erestor into drinking more than he wanted, which Erestor found slightly reassuring. When the silence went on so long that Glorfindel thought the other had finally come to the end of his confidences, Erestor would once more stir, look up briefly from the flames as if to assess his companion’s mood and reaction so far, and then as if almost hypnotised by the quiet regard would say on.

Though Erestor went into little detail, more could be guessed by his audience. No, this listener who had seen Beleriand fall into destruction by the sword and by madness, could read very fluently between the lines, especially since Fëanor and his sons had been known to him, notorious even before murder and theft cast them onto the path to ruin. Glorfindel picked up barely revealed clues, the younger brother, the lack of means, the premature interest evinced by Maglor. Glorfindel asked Erestor’s age when his mother turned to the Noldo for help, and saw his eyes flinch when he answered, the face quickly hidden by shadow as he looked away, even a rounding of his shoulders, as if to draw less attention and so be ignored.

The rest of the story, the unfolding tragedy of the years ahead, which in Erestor’s case had found their end under Elrond’s oversight, or at least what crumbs of clues Erestor might tentatively cast before him, must wait for another time. Glorfindel was under no illusion he had had the full tale.

They subsided into easier conversation, neither in a hurry to retire. Erestor draped his limbs at ease, curiously relaxed, a state Glorfindel had barely ever seen in him. Erestor was innocent entirely of the enhanced effect of his sprawl on his potent allure. Fully alive to the appeal of fine features absorbed in study of the leaping flames, lips parted to release a sigh of tired comfort, or at times forming a small smile which curved a mobile mouth more used to framing analyses and plans, Glorfindel doubted there was better to come in the further details. Erestor had come under the brothers’ influence early, and Galadriel would not have set him here without reason.

End of Chapter Seven
Tbc

*** Imladris 1498 T.A. ***

“Can you spare me a moment, Elrond?”

Imladris’ lord could not read Glorfindel’s expression; his speech was quiet and his greeting much as usual. He assessed the paperwork spread over his desk. Scrolls of accounts from the stables passed on from Erestor as urgent – how did horses get through so much hay? And where were they going to find a surplus to augment the dwindling stocks? Last year’s fall rains had started early and reduced the harvest substantially if not entirely ruined it. Why did he imagine he could feel ill influences over even the weather? Northwards the problem of Angmar was bad enough, and all that had been happening across Arnor; equal cause for concern rested in the more recent eastern menace, nebulous but on the rise, that none of them could yet identify. Why? So far away, and yet so potent. Unease filled him. He and Gandalf had discussed their concerns but not yet come to a consensus on what action to take. He wanted no delay yet Gandalf argued for temperate caution, thanks to Saruman.

He sighed, feeling all the weight of the responsibilities concomitant with bearing Vilya.

The horses’ feed was far easier to solve. They would just have to consider other staples. He had heard of a crop becoming popular in the west that they could try, reported as red in colour and with a high sugar content as well as roughage, that horses would eat in lieu of a grass bulk feed. He made a note to follow up the enquiry by sending someone out to acquire a sample for the stable master to experiment with. And Halflings had settled recently around Bree. He would make sure to take the opportunity to discover how Men were responding to the Periannath moving in around them. He made another note with greater enthusiasm; he had always been fond of the curiosities life on Arda offered. He revelled in such developments, fascinated by the richness of lives blessed with mortality.

He winced at the thought of mortality, sharply recalled to the waiting Elda and matters regarding Erestor he had no wish to discuss. He set down his quill, and pushed his notes aside, braced to meet calmly whatever Glorfindel chose to say.

“Sorry, Glorfindel. The hay is running out after the ruin of the harvest last year. We’ll have to trade with Bree, I think. This can wait.”

Glorfindel nodded with polite interest. He seemed oddly poised now he had Elrond’s attention, balanced as he would be going into a fight. The hairs on the back of Elrond’s neck pricked.

In the aftermath of their last meeting, two days ago, he did not quite know what to expect. He had never provoked his Captain’s anger until now and had been feeling unusually uncomfortable while waiting for their next encounter. Erestor was the last matter he had expected to cause a rift between him and the Elda. His centuries long compromise had seemed to work for himself and for Erestor, wherein he left his Councillor in peace to get on with his work, apart from making sure he ate – why did he never seem interested in eating at mealtimes? He was far too thin and it offended the healer in Elrond – while Elrond kept his feelings to himself. Considering the circumstances, they had worked well together; he had been surprised at how restful, undemanding and efficient Erestor had proved to be as a colleague.

Glorfindel was watching him with piercing eyes that had seen too much. His air of courteous attendance comforted Elrond not one whit.

Anger stirred in him. Glorfindel had arrived a century ago, after dying at Gondolin over five *thousand* years before… Glorfindel had lived long and seen much before he faced his death so nobly, but he had not had to endure the disasters of the Second Age, nor ridden in the Last Alliance. He had not witnessed all the glory of Lindon in its hey-day, nor lived through its demise. Elrond drew himself to his full height.

He was Lord of Imladris and did not have to account to Glorfindel. He had been charged by Galadriel with Erestor’s housing and oversight against his will, thanks to Gil-galad’s writ. He had argued against it, Galadriel had been adamant, Gil-galad told him to do as she decreed, and Elrond had given in. The Noldo was well, was occupied, and had free run of the Vale and its environs far afield. So long as Elrond knew where he was, he could virtually go where he willed and when. If Elrond did not seek friendly terms with him, well, there was nothing unusual in having no liking for someone, and he was surely entitled to exclude Erestor from the ranks of his friendships. He doubted it came as a surprise to Erestor.

Glorfindel gave up waiting for Elrond to show signs of emerging from his thoughts. He straightened, and turned to open the door. “Good. If you’ll come with me? We’ll pick up Pirrith in the hall. He should have got my message by now.” Elrond frowned.

***

Lords and Steward exchanged greetings. The Steward was deferential, which was no surprise. Together they trod the wide passages of the house, with Glorfindel leading the way. The other two gradually let their sporadic questions lapse in the face of Glorfindel’s persistent non-answer. “All will be made clear shortly,” was all he would say.

They turned into backways where the guards came and went, a hallway which would eventually emerge through wide outer doors to a court with a walkway, broad and paved, that in turn led to the far end of the stables and barracks compounds. This route raised no surprise in his companions, for the Captain’s business lay with the guards by and large, and the path and this corridor through the house had been designed specifically to grant quick and unobtrusive egress between house and guard quarters. Only when their escort turned into the side passage holding storerooms and meagre appointments for brief stopovers which couriers needed to make from time to time did Glorfindel first meet resistance.

Elrond, increasingly inclined to rebel against this unexplained tour, and resentful of the trail of dust his robe picked up on one undusted corner, was frowning, and about to protest, when Pirrith forestalled him. The Steward had begun to remember what he had done and never chosen to amend, when Elrond’s expected instructions regarding Erestor’s apartments did not materialize. He had merely appointed a servant to ‘See to the Advisor’s rooms,’ and approved rare requests as they were made, basic and infrequently delivered as those petitions were.

“My lord, surely if it is a domestic question, there is no need for Lord Elrond to attend us?” he essayed, nervously.

Glorfindel ignored him. He opened a door, as narrow as the rest in this little-frequented quarter of the house, and held it for them, so that with questioning glances they ushered themselves inside to see what it was he wanted. Glorfindel had established Erestor’s present whereabouts elsewhere, and had himself checked his chambers for neatness, ensuring nothing personal had been left out on display, before he approached Elrond.

He let them wait a short while, forcing them to take in their surroundings, before speaking to both impartially. “Tell me, what servant of Imladris would you house here?”

Elrond stared at him indignantly, taken aback and offended by the petty enquiry and the insult of it, that anyone would be housed here for more than a short stopover in haste. He knew perfectly well what this corridor was used for. They had been meaning to do something with this section but had not got around to it. The Steward dared not speak of his own volition, and devoutly – but faintly – hoped he would not be addressed directly.

“Elrond?”

“You’d best have some reason for this, Glorfindel.” He rarely became the high lord with his idol, but he needed some defence against Glorfindel’s predatory manner. Arrived at the site of his trap, the snare poised for the catch, the Captain was all hunter with his kill set up. Elrond was reminded of a warrior blended still and silent into background undergrowth, watching as orcs headed toward a pitfall. He bade himself be careful, until he knew what was happening here, and shook himself to dispel the ridiculous imagery.

“Steward?”

“Mostly such rooms are for messengers to rest for a brief stopover while their horses are fed and watered, before resuming their journey the same day.”

Glorfindel frowned at the evasion.

“Elrond, whom of your household would you have dwell here?”

This time, coldly, Elrond answered, “None, Lord Glorfindel, of course. Your reason for asking?”

Glorfindel looked at him. Words would not do, they would be too bitter, and not easily overcome between them afterwards. He instead opened the doors of the clothes presses, and then left the pair of them, saying merely, “Yet I think you will recognize these garments, my lord.” He said it quietly, without accusation, satisfied he had accomplished his intention, which was to face them with Erestor’s circumstances and make his point, which Elrond’s own remark achieved more than adequately.

He left them, shaky with the intensity of his feelings about what they had done and neglected to do. Clearly Pirrith had had some concern over their destination. But Elrond… Glorfindel would not let him continue as he had been, no matter what the cause. He could sense unease in him far surpassing any matter of petty domestic dispositions. Glorfindel would have it out with him, whatever it proved to be. With both of them.

Erestor might withdraw, might defer most thoroughly, work willingly and never complain, never show resentment, but he was not a doe-eyed victim without backbone. There was that in his eyes that gave warning of it, an acute, sharp awareness hinting of a strength of will that was daunting. When he looked at Glorfindel sometimes there was a measuring look in those eyes at odds with the emotional side of him that so readily tugged at the Captain’s heart. Here under Galadriel’s decree, serving Elrond by his own decision, keeping quiet in the presence of his lord – none of it meant Erestor was to be underestimated. Lonely, surely, and that with his dignity and his soul-stirring beauty had made him a magnet to the Elda. But weak? Far from it, decided Glorfindel noting that acuity.

Glorfindel was decided: Erestor must release himself from his perpetual deference. Apart from anything else, it was doing Elrond no favours. Elrond must reconsider his dispositions whatever his feelings and Glorfindel had every intention of making sure of it. In his last glance at the two of them before he left, he had not missed Elrond’s look of surprised dismay. Satisfied for the moment, he departed.

He strode away to the kitchens, eager for a change of scene and company, to seek out an old friend and cajole a few small titbits. He fetched away a light wine, stole two cups, and begged a few rolls as well, sweet and savoury, with forced fruit from the glassed gardens to go with them as a special treat. His smile won him what the cook hoarded jealously, for only the summer sun would bring forth the more prolific crops of soft fruit. These early samples were born on a low-yielding variety which only grew under glass. He reminded himself to pay special attention tomorrow to Thalion who was now training in the guard, to see how he was doing and let Galuauth know, hopefully, that all was well in that quarter. He thanked her sincerely with a bow and another smile and carried off his prizes in a borrowed basket.

Galuauth smiled after him. The Elda noble was a breath of fresh air in this place, and she was always glad to see him. He would come just to chat, often, and she did not mind the loss of the fruit. She grinned. She never tired of the sight of him; all that mass of golden hair reminded her of her courting days, and her beloved Taetho. No, it was always a pleasure, she reflected, watching him leave, unashamedly enjoying the fine lines of him, little disguised by those skin-fitting leggings as he walked away – clearly in high spirits. She’d give something to know who he was going to share that picnic with, but she refrained from teasing. She had seen him arrive disoriented in Imladris, not knowing a soul from his life five thousand years ago and her kind heart rejoiced for the sparkle of hope she now saw in his eyes.

Glorfindel had one last raid to make before his afternoon’s haul was complete.

***

“Come away from your inky perusing of pages, Erestor.” Well pleased with himself, and tired of worrying, Glorfindel let his whimsy have a free rein. “Come and eat outside. It’s a beautiful day.” He stood in the doorway, without explaining more.

Erestor, who was feeling slightly better this second day after his disappointment with Elrond, over the worst shock though still and he feared lastingly, duller of spirits, looked up at him. He had gone back to his own rooms last night. Glorfindel had stayed until dawn was near breaking the night before. After Erestor’s limited revelations ran dry, they had moved with ease to smaller matters. Neither had been in a hurry to part.

It had been strange to sleep amidst such finery. Flickering memories came to him of uncounted camps, of quarters found among friends or allies, of less willing hosts who had been pressed at urgent need for shelter for a wounded comrade…

At the end of the night, chairs drawn up to the chimneybreast, Glorfindel had looked at the room around him with satisfaction. The embroidered counterpane matched the design of a frieze of solstice celebrations that was carved around the fireplace; he thought it a delicate piece of work and possibly to Erestor’s taste. He asked, “Tell me, do you like this better than your own? Should you prefer different than this, given a choice?”

“It is a pleasant room,” Erestor admitted quietly, looking toward the wide west-facing balcony. He loved sunsets.

After Glorfindel left, he almost had not bothered to exchange armchair for pristine bed, but was not prone to slovenly habits, and so reluctantly abandoned the warm fire. The sheets were not altogether cold, for warming stones held a remnant of heat and the fire had warmed the air… He lay staring at the ceiling, the image of blond hair and an enigmatic smile lingering superimposed on fine plasterwork for a long time before he let reverie take him.

***

Erestor now considered the self-same elf in person, and his work, weighing up invitation over his planned tasks. They were not so urgent that he must refuse a meal. The sun was high, and he had arrived at his desk not long after dawn. Hours had passed in steady labour. He patted a pile of completed reports. It was satisfyingly thick. He called in the younger elf stationed outside.

“You may go, unless you have work of your own to complete. Come back later to carry any messages I have, but that is all you have to do today. You should complete that duty before the meal tonight if there are any – they will be on your desk. Otherwise your time is your own. You are free to go.”

“Thank you, sir,” the youth beamed with pleasure at the unexpected holiday afternoon. All the older minors took turns at this duty, and most did not mind, but far better on a sunny day to have a holiday while his fellows were with their tutors. He bounced out, whistling.

Glorfindel smiled with approval. Erestor squared his work and joined him. Neither said much.

Councillor followed Lord without demur, wondering where they would go. Not far as it turned out. Glorfindel traced a path around the house, curving around bay trees and sweet rosemary through the kitchen gardens, until they emerged onto a quiet plane of grass with the sound of a stream running in the distance. Erestor knew this place and glanced at the walls behind them. The stable block stretched to one side in the distance, and his own rooms lay facing these same trees. They shared the meal under those long-time friends of his, offered shade from the patchy overhead sun and shelter from spatters of rain that splashed down sporadically, teasing the thirsty grasses.

Erestor laughed to feel the raindrops, feeling illicitly hidden from the world in this out of the way meadow, and wondered at himself, so recently and so thoroughly shown his place, now laughing in the rain. Glorfindel had that effect on him; he could not help it.


*** Erestor’s Rooms Imladris 1498 T.A. ***

Elrond let the realization take substance of just whom these rooms belonged to, ignoring the Steward for the moment, who had actually started wringing his hands. This, together with Erestor’s rebuff the other day, had exercised Glorfindel beyond a simple request for better quarters for Erestor. A mere petition for new chambers was not why he had brought his Lord here.

Elrond thought carefully alongside his reflexive anger at being dragged without warning to be lessoned.

Glorfindel was genuinely angry on Erestor’s behalf. He had not thought words would suffice. His courtesy was legendary and he was never high-handed, no matter how much power he wielded by virtue of his office, his reputation, his strength of character, or his awe-inducing Valar-blessed life. No, Glorfindel had not thought Elrond would listen, or at least, not listen and take his point.

He looked around, remembering the tears that had betrayed Erestor the other day, and Glorfindel’s wrathful reproaches. Had he listened then? He had thought so, but standing here, realized he had shelved the issue, complacent in his reasoning. And had he not also quashed the uneasy voice that urged him to consider Erestor’s isolation on account of his own cool, unbending example? Never ill-treated, maybe, but neglected…

Looking round this room, seeing it through Glorfindel’s eyes, he began to understand his Captain’s shocked disappointment with him. He accused Erestor of being unworthy of his trust, yet Elrond had never tried to overcome his own distaste in order to get to know him well enough to judge for himself.

Childhood memories welled uninvited of fell warriors advancing on a city long-since dead, his mother fled to the sea, and two grim grey-eyed lords searching for their goal, only to find himself and Elros instead of their prize.


*** Avernien: The Havens of Sirion 52 years before the End of the First Age ***

At their heels had walked a third figure, sword in hand, in battle gear, blade trailing beside him just missing the floor, ready at the least need. His dark black eyes had rested penetratingly on Elrond, and Elrond looking back at him had thought he was Melkor himself.

Elrond was six years old, and he had never seen an elf with black eyes, nor one with such pale skin before, so luminously stark against the black hair. He appeared escorted by two Noldor commanders, to a backdrop of cries and flame, and had entered hard on the heels of Elwing’s flight. His beauty was shocking, and in the high company that surrounded him of officers and their warrior cohort he looked utterly untouched by time, tall and dark and terrible in his still contemplation of the scene.

Elrond was in shock over his mother’s retreat, distraught over her whispered words of warning to look after his brother. The echoes of her words in the room were only this moment dispelled by the clatter of boots and weapons and loud-creaking leather. He had stared at the black-eyed Fallen One who had come to doom them all, as he clutched Elros behind him, wholly indifferent to the two lords who stood much nearer.

He was only six, but he knew of Morgoth and the Wars, and the evil that followed in the Ainu’s wake. And was not the city attacked and his mother fled to the sea, shining and fey in her determination?

***

“They will not hurt you, child.” She had looked into his eyes, and tears rose in hers. “Elrond…” She pulled him close, tightly, fiercely embracing him. “I *have* to go. I have no choice. You must look after Elros. I swear the Sons of Fëanor will not harm you, else I’d never leave you alone to this fate.” She glanced back at the door, listening for a moment and her expression hardened. “Listen to me, Elrond. I know you’re scared, but I promise you will be alright – I have *seen* it. You will survive, Elrond, both of you, and you will become great leaders. You are strong, and one day you will be wise and powerful, do you hear me? Never forget it!” She said it in a fierce whisper, and kissed him on the forehead, both hands around his head caressing the small boy to her. “I love you, child, always believe it. So does your father. Tell Elros when he’s able to hear you.” She bent to the silent child, and stroked his hair too, and kissed his cheek more gently. When she strode away, she did not look back.

He had been six years old, and left to defend his brother against the Enemy! The old distress was too easy to recall along with the memory of that day, even now, five thousand years later.

***

Maedhros laughed shortly. “He looks to you, Erestor. See to them. Someone has to.” He swept out, and Maglor with him.

The Dark One sheathed his sword slowly – awful in his deliberation, in the eyes of the child – and advanced on them. He bent down, and only when he reached out to push back Elrond’s hair better to see the wild-eyed child’s face did Elrond scream. It was not a child’s whimper.

With all the force of his personality, fired by rage over the blood he had seen shed and his terror and fear for Elros, and the shock of his mother’s farewell, he had screamed out defiance and promises of vengeance and called down the wrath of Manwë on the Enemy. The long words uttered in furious, childish accents rang in the stone chamber. He had not known he knew all those words until he found himself a finger’s breadth away from his Doom. He would never forget the look that passed across that milk-pale face. More terrible than anger, or rage, the Noldo looked down at his hands and up again at Elrond with a coldness that chilled the boy to the bone. He had stood up abruptly and gone to the door. Elrond stepped back as far as he could, pushing Elros to safety between him and the wall, regretting his outburst and terrified.

“Who’s on duty? Who’s here who has children?” The beauty of the unintelligible syllables did nothing to lessen the dread engendered in Elrond.

A few names were called out by those Maglor had left stationed to guard Erestor and the boys.

“Send them up here.”

Erestor waited until four elves joined him. “You will care for these two. You will not hurt them, nor let the least harm come to them. You will treat them as if they were your own. These orders are as Maedhros’ own by right of his instruction to me to see to their care. See them fed and find servants they know, or at least some inhabitant here known to them. Keep them safe, and see them *comforted!*” The last words were heavy with an anger none of the Noldor faction had suspected Erestor was remotely capable of.

They stared at the two small boys, and back at Erestor.

“Quickly, my friends. For you the fighting is over, except in their defence.” Erestor put a hand on his hilt of his sword, took one last look with those cold, empty eyes at the boys, and said softly, “See it done, and done well. I will have them treated tenderly or you will assuredly answer to Maglor, by my own most serious personal petition. I trust you realize he *will* listen to me?”

At that moment they would not have cared to brook Erestor’s own wrath. These four guards had known Erestor well for forty-four years, being part of Maglor’s elite cohort, used in guarding Maedhros and the brothers, and for particularly dangerous tasks. They had been among those who taught Erestor in the years following his majority and they trained with him, knowing him to be deferential, never trading on his connections, assiduous in practice. They had never seen him thus quietly, intensely furious. He was as fey as Maglor at this moment, and they believed every word he said.

“Consider it done.”

Maglor might hold absolute sway over the youth he had taken for his melmendur, and might cause him sometimes to cry out in the night, sounds that would be abruptly cut off, as if in pained prevention, but Erestor was his. Everyone knew it. None but the brothers might treat him with anything but absolute respect.

In the early days after he moved into Maglor’s accommodations there had been some in the camp who thought the lord’s choice was target for joking and mockery. Bad had gone to worse after Erestor had been waylaid. His quiet, certain speech and steady eye were easy to confuse with arrogance when he did not defer to someone. Caranthir had come upon them, while Erestor was losing a fight against three older elves. That had been another killing, thanks to Caranthir’s personal interest, his family pride and his ill-governed temper. From then on, there was no-one in the whole of the camp who did not know just what Erestor’s place was – and how it would be upheld.

In any case, madness and bloodshed notwithstanding, Maglor did not keep monsters in his brother’s ranks. Saco and his fellows would have done their best for the children anyway.

Elrond had followed none of the strange lilting syllables of the invaders’ conference. He tensed when the Dark One moved, barely relieved when he saw him head for the stairs. He tightened his grip on Elros and stood listening. He heard the steps continue all the way down and could hear no sound of him returning. He found himself retching, and ran for a corner of the room, dragging his twin with him, and crouched there, ill and sobbing, feeling Elros at his side, who remained silent and staring throughout. When his brother began to be sick, Elros squatted on his haunches and put an arm around him, but never once did Elros take his eyes from the warriors in the doorway.

For a while dark, empty eyes and reaching hands haunted Elrond, until the sight of the elf dressed in finery at Maglor’s heels or in attendance upon Caranthir and his brother led him to understand his mistake. At first he thought him a high lord on account of his clothes and the company he kept, but as Elrond grew older, and saw more of the lordly brothers, he noticed Erestor’s deference to their wishes. He saw him drinking in Caranthir’s company, letting him touch him, even in public, in ways that both repelled and fascinated the young observer. And he saw him follow Maglor to his tent when the day was done…

That he had seen relatively little of the lords at first had been due to Maedhros – and Erestor. Maedhros had given Caranthir – and therefore Curufin – strictest orders to stay away from the children. With a sidelong look at Erestor, he had said, “You will leave them in peace, Tornyar, and you will not disobey me in this. Do you understand me?” He saw them nod, blinking in surprise, at the same time as he saw Erestor relax minutely. He waited until Erestor looked at him. Erestor flushed at finding himself under scrutiny, but Maedhros gave him a slow nod, and after a hesitation Erestor nodded back, the unspoken communication perfectly understood.

From the first, they had understood each other with very few words exchanged.


*** Maedhros’ Camp 108 years before the End of the First Age ***

It was Maedhros who had taken Erestor for his first visit to his mother’s new home, and had met him afterwards for the journey back to camp.

“Well, hína?”

“You have been generous, herunya.”

Their eyes had met, and no more had been said. But when Maglor sat beside him that evening at dinner Erestor found Maedhros’ eyes on him. Slowly Erestor ate his meal, all appetite fled, and was civil to Maglor’s teasing friendliness.

Maedhros had kept his word to their cousin’s kin that they would be taken in and cared for. Erestor’s amillë and his beloved pertoron were happy and untroubled. Erestor had made his bargain and went on to keep it. He did not see what other choice he had. In time he could imagine no other life. So he studied, and worked, and trained. He lay himself down for Maglor on the night of his majority, and when they marched on Avernien, he was with them, armed and capable.


*** Avernien: The Havens of Sirion 52 years before the End of the First Age ***

Maedhros knew not why Maglor had wanted Erestor with such determined, inconvenient passion, but in granting his brother’s wish and safeguarding their interests, he had taken no pleasure in what he had done to the youth. He had taught him as his pupil, appreciating the fine mind and ability to think on a knife-edge of reasoned complexities, theoretical or practical. He worked with him daily. Cool and ruthless, Maedhros was neither blind nor heartless. He had seen Erestor emerge from that tower in the Havens and seek a back wall, where like Elrond upstairs, he bent double and emptied his stomach of all its contents, and after his stomach was painfully empty, still heaved over and over, white-faced and shaking.

Erestor’s attentive duty did not lessen after that, nor did his work decrease in brilliance, but the shy, unassuming smile that had been so evident when encouraged disappeared; his blushing days were past. Caranthir gave up teasing him at a long look Erestor cast over him, rising to his feet, standing to see what came next, saying nothing, clearly prepared to meet a further challenge head on. Caranthir had looked sidelong at Maglor, and backed off.

From that moment the game between them changed. Erestor had won his day-time dignity, at the cost of Caranthir’s ruthless attentions that night. Breathing hard, Erestor knew that this use was unspoken punishment for his temerity. After the Havens, he did not care. He bore it almost silently, without regret for the confrontation, waiting for it to be over. He served Maedhros and belonged to Maglor, but he no longer played the naïve innocent for them after the Havens and what he had seen them do.

Maglor let Caranthir vent his temper, but warned him after that to leave Erestor alone, if he could not control himself. Caranthir only laughed.

“Of course, brother. Erestor.” He gave them a bow, and guarded his temper better from then on. He had no intention of giving up Erestor’s bed.

Avernien proved Erestor’s true Rites of Passage, bloodier by far than his majority night pains with Maglor, or any tantrums Caranthir visited on him. That it was not his blood shed at the Havens made no difference to Erestor; it left him older than his years.

From that day, Erestor’s arguments had begun, never in public, never before a third person, but sometimes audible beyond the private venue of Maedhros’ councils. He disagreed on some matter of strategy, or tactics, and Maedhros on that first occasion, surprised, had assumed he could be casually silenced as before. Not so. It was a bitter discussion, and ended with disciplinary action on Maedhros’ part when Erestor did not back down. Erestor would not be dissuaded from speaking his mind on behalf of moderation. It was the only time Maedhros ever laid a hand on him.

Next time, Maedhros was not taken by surprise, and let Erestor have his argument, for a while, before cutting him short. He did not lose his temper with him again; he understood his cousin was at heart a diplomat and not naturally suited to be an aide for an army bent on victory no matter who stood in the way. They reached a compromise where cold respect on Maedhros’ part along with limited patience was met by Erestor’s countering views vehemently stated, followed by obedience once Maedhros’ decision was made.

While the children were young, Erestor stayed away from Elrond, asking to be told when the twins were due to see Maedhros in the Commanders’ camp and making himself scarce. But with the passing of time he inevitably saw more of the boys about the camp, in the lords’ vicinity and once the twins were older, at table.

Erestor never met his eyes, nor ever spoke to him unless there was particular reason. He unfailingly walked away if was possible to avoid meeting, an unmistakable, brightly adorned figure who drew the eye like a lodestone.

Gradually, as Elrond grew accustomed to seeing Erestor about the camp, the terror of that dire moment when he thought Morgoth would take Elros faded. Ever watchful, Elrond observed Erestor as he deftly played his different roles: deferential aide to Maedhros, colourful servitor at the brothers’ beck and call, graceful companion to Maglor, who needed only to glance at Erestor to exact his instant attention. Elrond was not very old before he discerned the full nature of that service. Yet in the early days Erestor’s face stalked his dreams, and his were the empty, black eyes that haunted Elrond’s nightmares. Elrond would wake screaming just as the nightmare figure of Morgoth reached to tear Elros from him.

Every time Elrond saw Erestor, brightly decorative, at Maglor’s side, or listening to one of Caranthir’s jokes with Curufin beside him, taking his leisure in that company, he thought him corrupt, just like the fallen Ainu: so seeming fair. Even knowing what he was, Erestor never quite failed to remind him of fear and terror and loss. His responsibility for quiet Elros, the shock of the invasion of armed and armoured Noldor, his rage over his mother’s driven fate, all meant Elrond could never look on Erestor entirely dispassionately. The loss of his mother weighed heavily on Elrond – he could not abide Maedhros – and Erestor *chose* to serve the brothers in the ways he did. Erestor was rewarded for what he was. Beautiful, dark corruption. He despised him.

When Elros sailed, and then when he died, the dreams returned, and this time when Elrond awoke weeping in tearing grief, it was to a reality he could not deny and he would weep anew. That Erestor’s face had furnished his nightmares did nothing to reconcile Elrond with Erestor’s history.

End of Chapter Eight
Tbc

*** vocabulary lists ***

Sindarin:

Galuauth, Good Fortune
Thalion, Hero
Taetho, Committed (S. To tie, or to bind)

Quenya:
Tornyar, my brothers
Hína, child
Herunya, my lord
Melmendur, catamite (lit. love servant)
Amillë, mother
Pertoron, half-brother

***

*** Erestor’s rooms Imladris 1498 T.A. ***

His father had sailed. His mother had fled. His beautiful, magical childhood home of docks and spires on the fringes of the sea had been destroyed. Elros had first sailed and then died. The brothers had died – or disappeared. While Erestor – Erestor who could not have cleaved more closely to the destroyers, working at Maedhros’ side while warming Maglor’s bed – had lived through it all, only to go on to defy the King himself.
When Galadriel brought Erestor to Elrond, with Erestor offering – irony of ironies – his service, Elrond had given him useful work, provided for him – clothes, horses, books - as had been his duty. Domestic arrangements he had left to Pirrith.

He looked around, as Glorfindel had before him.

Why had no-one ever told him Erestor was housed so shamefully? Pirrith had taken his cue from Elrond and indeed he could not blame him: it had been for Elrond to determine his new advisor’s status. He should have ordered he be given a councillor’s rooms, or at the very least chambers sufficient to comfort hröa and fëa. He had not done so. Nor could he blame Erestor for any part in his neglect, despite his silent, unprotesting acceptance. He quashed the familiar contempt that attended the thought. Barely accorded more conversation from Elrond than was commensurate with their common work, Erestor had hardly been likely to bring up the matter of his rooms. Initially feared, soon despised, Maglor’s melmendur had never been someone Elrond had wanted to get to know.

And Celebrian? Why would Celebrían let all this pass, when it was so unlike her? She knew her mother had brought Erestor to Imladris. She was certainly aware of her husband’s disinclination to view Erestor with approval. She must have judged it unacceptable to her Lord for daughter as well as mother to involve herself in the matter – unless Galadriel herself had warned her not to interfere…

And his wretched Steward had not given Erestor even rugs to warm his feet. He sighed.

He did not miss those small touches feasible without money that Erestor had achieved. He had never given Erestor wages or even an allowance. He could not buy trinkets at Festival, nor purchase what he fancied from travelling craftworkers. He could not offer coin to thank visiting minstrels, nor buy presents for the staff of house and stables as was customary at the turn of the year.

“The Lord Glorfindel had good reason to bring us here. Did you mistake this for proper treatment? Did you imagine this would please me?”

Pirrith was listening unhappily.

Elrond chose his words with care. “Regardless of how much you wish to remain in accord with me, Pirrith, you must tell me of any matter in your purview that I have neglected. Be it so gross a neglect as this, or details more petty, I do desire that in future you call my attention to any and all such oversights.”

He spoke neutrally without spite or contempt, but Pirrith coloured to the roots of his hair at the weight of the words and nodded miserably. “Yes, my lord.”

“Very well. Imladris can do better than this for those in her charge; such is the measure of Imladris’ honour. You say Glorfindel moved Erestor to guest rooms the other night?”

“Aye, that he did.”

“Then we will assume the Councillor will likely move to those quarters.” He stifled the desire to say, other quarters perhaps but not what counted among the best guest rooms. Not for *him*. “Nevertheless, you will see what can be done with these. Get some ideas together for my approval. In fact, you may as well make plans for rebuilding the whole block, and bring them to me at the same time: we will start work on it as soon as may be.”

“Yes, sir.”

Already Pirrith had ideas swarming in his mind, dreaming of open archways, planning a change to the corridor, opening up rooms alongside into these, transforming the whole wing. There could be an area developed outside the windows, doors onto the grass before the woods began, and a garden – his imagination took flight. A fireplace, in green-veined granite, rooms made much larger; carved embrasures to hold lanterns, small chandeliers – easy to manage, but casting a soft light that would enhance the wooden pieces he imagined decorating the new layout. There was a reason he was Steward of Imladris, and he loved this house passionately. He made a note to meet with the builders and gardeners.

Elrond recalled him to his presence, satisfied from the rapt look on his face that he had engaged Pirrith’s pride as well as his obedience. “Then you have my thanks, Pirrith. I think we are done here.”

***

Alone with his thoughts, Elrond made his way back to his spacious, airy study without any intention of going back to work.

Moodily he frowned out of balconied windows, wholly disinterested in sun and a fine spring afternoon.

To challenge his attitude had been Glorfindel’s purpose, the Elda’s performance today no mere matter of achieving a change of quarters. Sub-standard rooms and the lack of a purse for spending money were easily addressed, yet neglect was not to be tolerated and its cause should be examined. The source of these neglects, his contempt, was far harder to resolve than a lack of adequate chambers, or pay, or even the reasonable companionship to which Erestor was entitled as one of Ilúvatar’s children. Those were like the fabled ice said to be seen floating in the northern seas: they constituted only the small visible portion of what were far larger, hidden concerns. Elrond did not care for Erestor. He had dealt with him as seemed right, and it had barely sufficed.

Long ago he had settled for compromise – large compromises on his part which he acknowledged had been returned in kind on Erestor’s by hard work and a dutiful manner. But Erestor was by no means innocent, blameless or innocuous.

Restlessly, Elrond paced his study, staring at riches. A clear glass bowl trailing hints of colour, a picture of the twins racing their ponies, looking behind and laughing, braids, tails and manes flying in the wind. Elrond reached for a wooden figurine, a harper in golden-grained mallorn, and recalled the etched detail of the bedstead in Erestor’s room. He fingered the graceful carvings arising from the wood’s natural turns, of delicate harp-stem and womanly leg and breast. He had not missed the tools Erestor had stored under a bench, nor the population of forest inhabitants which spoke of careful craft with chisel and knife. Elrond almost laughed, thinking back to Sirion where Erestor had wielded a very different blade, witness to other skills…

The sword Erestor had sheathed that day in the Havens had not needed to be cleaned: he had slid it home free of blood, holding it up to inspect it first out of sheer trained habit, doubtless ingrained by the buffets of reproach that any youth would earn for neglect of a weapon at the hands of his instructors. The sword had been pristine, a shining, gleaming arm’s length of edged metal. To a six year-old child it represented full-blown menace, yet that blade had not been used thus far in the attack.

Elrond had cared little to listen to Galadriel when she came to his door to deliver the Noldo into his care. His thoughts when faced with the weary prisoner had all been of the many-towered harbour city nestled in the Sirion delta brought to ruin and his six year-old life shredded beyond all peace of mind. Yet Erestor’s presence here in Imladris was nothing to do with what Maedhros did at the Mouths of Sirion. Later events were the reason for his remand, and plentiful reason to relegate the elf to more severe penalty in Elrond’s view, but Galadriel intended otherwise. She had carried the day, having Gil-galad’s endorsement for her dispositions.

Elrond had learned the lesson well in Avernien of loss and grief, reinforced by the passing of the years: what he loved he would lose. Eärendil a father barely known, Elwing a vague memory, his home. And then everyone he knew twice over; the soldiers who had sponsored him with their friendship in his formative years growing up in Maedhros’ encampments, lost to him when he was abandoned again for another wrenching start, and then his brother, which words could not encompass. Most recently, the loss of Gil-galad and, on the same day, of their hope for a final solution and peace from a struggle that had gone on too long and cost too much. That failure to destroy the ring had bound him by chains of responsibility to remain here on Arda until they could once more seek to end for all time the Enemy’s legacy of threat.

Once more only would he uproot himself. But that could not be yet. Not yet. Not for a long time to come, and only when he could call duty met in full.

At first he had resented Gil-galad, for being so right and good and ‘king-ish’. Elrond could smile at some of those memories, and the childish word his youthful resentment had cast up with such effrontery at the High King. He had been so very callow! He had felt inferior coming from the Noldor camp into a civilization that daunted him. Ignorant, proud and angry as he had been, he had settled in the end under the new guardianship. He had not been so ill-educated after all, as he discovered. Gil-galad had not faulted his upbringing, though sometimes, especially after a nightmare, he had pressed Elrond for information. The youth had never admitted to the content of those dreams, had never explained, but those arms about him had been some comfort. Shaking pridelessly in the aftermath of nightmare, his guts freshly ripped raw with griefs he pushed away by day – there in the blanketing dark of night he would cling tightly to Gil-galad the moment he appeared with opened arms to gather him in.

Whence Galadriel’s determination that Erestor reside with *him* of all people? She had refused to explain beyond saying how useful his skills would prove. That meant little to Elrond. There were many clever elves who could work for him.

She had held to the wisdom of her choice, and Elrond, without real reason to refuse his lord’s envoy in this matter, had given in. The bereft child had longed for those he could rely on and trust, such as Gil-galad; more adult habits of reason and respect had made it second nature to abide by the King’s order. Apparently he had still not lost that early childhood tendency to incline gratefully toward offered warmth and trustworthy authority. There was now Glorfindel, whom he struggled to command rather than defer to, who had all the appearance of infallibility. Kind, trustworthy and *large* - he smiled, sadly, remembering how comforting Gil-galad had been. Glorfindel, who could not be defeated by any enemy less than a Balrog, seemed a far safer harbour in which to take refuge than the Havens had been. In one short century he had come to value him enormously.

He frowned. Glorfindel and Erestor… And Galadriel and Glorfindel – both people whose judgement he would normally trust, both believing they saw in Erestor something he failed to see. With frustrated energy he cleared his desk of everything outstanding and when all was tidy forced himself to think.

He recalled that smile two days ago as Erestor left the room in Glorfindel’s company. In all the years they were camp followers of Maedhros together he had never seen Erestor smile as he had at the Elda: from the heart, shyly unreserved and friendly. He looked – different, smiling so. Elrond tried actively to recall what he had witnessed instead of the impressions of a child coloured by overriding emotion. He tried to bring an adult’s perceptions and understanding to bear.

He remembered most vividly Erestor’s clothes, bright contrast against the dark splendour of his noble companions, the lords who kept him so closely in their company. He recalled eyes of pooled shadow, hair black as midnight sky. His own dreams. Saco was the one whose face was easier to picture, Saco who had always comforted him as best he could, accompanied by the well-remembered smell of damp canvas, leather and wool on rainy nights. When Elrond woke, reaching for Elros and sobbing, having woken others all around, Saco would come, bleary-eyed, sloppily tunicked and hosed, sword cast out of habit over his shoulder in its belted sheath. It had been his care Elrond had first suffered angrily on behalf of himself and his brother, and then quickly come to rely upon in the vast camp of strangers.

What did he actually recall of Erestor himself?

He dredged up impressions of a flashing wit in conversation with his cousins that fast subsided into grave courtesy and quiet calm, odd ballast to the ethereal beauty and, in even stranger contrast, a demon’s determination on the practice field, the only time apart from battle itself that he had seen Erestor plainly dressed in those days. Black had been his choice, as Elrond recalled. Black leggings and black jerkin. He had often fought barefoot, and yes, he *had* smiled on those occasions when hard pressed: a strangely exalted expression as he raised his sword or dagger in some desperate defence against what had always appeared to be older and larger opponents.

And what had Erestor done, faced with cold shoulders all round, until Glorfindel arrived? Erestor had worked, apparently with a will, for Imladris’ Master, for Imladris’ good, for the Elven Kingdoms’ security against threats big and small, in return receiving small praise or thanks, nor the least little part of warmth or friendship. Horrified, Elrond had discouraged the twins from fellowship with Erestor when he saw them willing to befriend the Noldo, apparently thoroughly enjoying his company while arguing over the merits of the music being played in the Halls that night. How must Erestor have felt when he had put an abrupt stop to their conversation? He had not remotely cared.

He pondered those details that Erestor had clearly tended with patient dedication in his rooms. Small repairs that Elrond’s sharp inspection had detected in cracked furnishings, the resinous shine of even the legs of the desk and cot. The carvings Erestor had wrought in the bed head and foot. The trail of stones that wound around the desk and when he looked, other corners of the room. Such brightly veined river stones winding around that splash of red. There was no such colour in the clothes-presses; nothing lay folded on the shelves he had not himself ordered the tailor to provide. The lack of a single garment in any hue save the darker shades was evidence enough that Erestor had not felt at liberty to obtain clothes of his own choosing. Elrond had made arrangements for Erestor’s wardrobe with the tailor in an afterthought thrown over his shoulder during a fitting for himself. “Erestor, my new advisor, needs clothes. His wardrobe will need surveying twice a year. I will not have him shabby. See him provided with his needs. Sufficient changes for normal leisure, nightshirts, riding gear. Provide him as befits a councillor of mine but soberly and send me the account.” Such casual orders to keep him clothed in black and brown.

Would Erestor have clad himself so darkly by his own choice? Remembering the long-ago flamboyant attire, Elrond thought not. Red silk tunic worked with green and gold thread, sashed with gold satin over green leggings edged with red-on-gold embroidery might shock, but there was no doubt how well they had suited Erestor’s moonlit-night complexion. Erestor and fine clothes went together hand in glove: his councillor’s formal robes looked well enough, and suited his role, but he did not look like Erestor wearing them. He had not looked like Erestor since he had bent his knee to Elrond in the rain.

Rarely before Glorfindel’s arrival, had he glimpsed the elf that existed beneath his façade of duty, the Erestor who lounged in red silk exchanging lightening sharp wit and smiled ferally under attack in training. Perhaps Meren and his predecessors had allowed a glimpse. Elrond had grown used to Erestor going out to the stables at all hours of the evening and night, to ride far and fast until dawn saw his return. He had hesitated before allowing it the first time when Erestor had approached him with the request, half-foreseeing trouble, and certainly not expecting him to turn up for work on time in the morning. Elrond had kept a light touch of awareness on where he went, but Erestor merely circled the paths this side of the Bruinen with nothing more on his mind than his horse, the night wind and the stars overhead: those and his stifling need to escape the walls of the house. For that reason Elrond had let him go, despite his qualms. Erestor had appeared in the morning as demure as ever and before the appointed hour, but Elrond had not missed the flash of desperate gratitude on receiving his permission.

Impatient to have done with what he must confront, Elrond got to his feet, and checked Erestor’s desk. No-one in the scribes’ hall knew where he was, only that Glorfindel had born him off earlier.


*** The western meadows of Imadris 1498 T.A. ***

Erestor slept in the sun, unthinkably wasting the whole afternoon, and Glorfindel let him without the least compunction after the unpleasantness and stress of recent days.

Elrond found them eventually after a rather long search, and seeing Erestor sleeping, addressed his Captain quietly. “There are things I think you should be told, matters I wish to discuss with you. He hasn’t told you his history, has he? But I can tell you now the matter of his rooms was an oversight never intended and can be rectified without delay.”

Elrond waited. It proved enough. Shamed though he be, he had never thought Glorfindel would make him crawl.

Glorfindel cocked his head, and then nodded. “My thanks for bearing with me, Lord Elrond.”

Elrond smiled twistedly at the courtesy. “You were very right to bring it to my attention.”

“You are gracious, Lord of Imladris.” Glorfindel made him a little bow.

Elrond’s eyes flew to Glorfindel’s to find mockery or sarcasm, but there was none. Glorfindel was offering him the same warm smile he always had, and Elrond felt a compelling desire to tell him everything. “It has been very – difficult. In some things I know I have been wrong. But Erestor is not here without reason, Glorfindel, you must understand that. Galadriel is not arbitrary, and Erestor may have bided his duties here faithfully, but he was not always so helpful to our ends as you see him now. We must talk.

“You should know Pirrith has all in hand for making over that block of the house. Erestor can choose his own accommodations meanwhile and either work with the Steward to have suitable chambers prepared there during the course of the rebuilding, or settle permanently elsewhere in the house. It makes no difference what he chooses. Pirrith will see him about it. And I shall be awarding him a stipend.”

That oversight had been a deliberate one in the beginning, reckoned Glorfindel, perhaps a reasonable precaution in Erestor’s early tenure. As to the rest, he would suspend judgement, curiosity whetted to know more, until he dragged the details out of one of them; clearly Elrond was amenable, if still ambivalent about the elf asleep between them.

“Well, you *have* been wrong.” He did not hide his acerbic agreement, for Elrond had said it, not he. “How could you treat anyone like that, Elrond?”

Elrond laughed humourlessly, waking Erestor, but he could not help it. Glorfindel was uniquely himself. He had little doubt others would have hastened to assure him that he would put all right and it was very understandable in the circumstances. He was glad that Glorfindel was here with his astringent observations and under no illusions about his lord, especially when Elrond spotted confused apprehension on Erestor’s face on being woken to harsh laughter and his lord standing over him.

He looked at him, really *looked* at him. He saw an elf he did not know in the least, except for those familiar and intensely irritating mannerisms that sat so ill on Erestor’s elegant person, the flush under Elrond’s stare and the ever-deflected glance when Elrond looked at him directly.

“Erestor, I will not burden you while you are resting by saying much, but I think we should sit down together and talk. I will tell you that I regret certain of your treatment here among us. I will see to it that Imladris shall treat you rather better in future. The rest will keep, except to tell you that I intend to give further consideration to the plans you raised. I wish to hear what you have to propose, although you must be aware that any such excursion would involve certain conditions.

“I will want Glorfindel’s advice and there is much he does not know. We need to talk – of many things.”

Erestor stared at him, bemused more by Elrond’s manner than by being woken from sleep. Elrond maintained his usual austere distance, but the measured enquiry of his close inspection and the content of his speech both came as a surprise.

“Yes, my lord,” said Erestor.

“I am at your disosal, Elrond, whenever you wish,” Glorfindel agreed, wondering if he should offer to go in with him straightaway, but Elrond nodded.

“Very well.” He bowed slightly and went off somewhat lighter of heart than he had arrived, thanks to Glorfindel’s earthy honesty and straightforward reception, and almost, but not quite, finding Erestor’s gawping stare funny.

***

Glorfindel was pleased with his day’s work, hopeful for Erestor, and greatly relieved by Elrond’s reasonable responses. Such perilous callousness had alarmed the elf-lord more than he had cared to admit. He felt far more relaxed than at any time in the last few days.

He sprawled reaching across the fragrant grass, rooting for any dregs of wine or corners of sweet roll and polished all the napkins clean of their midday treats. There were indeed two fingers of the wine left in the bottle and he drank it all, washing down crumbs, before drawing Erestor close to him, which for a wonder the other elf did not resist, apparently nearly asleep again, just as glad to relinquish his questions and go back to sleep in the sun.

Never that interested in food – meal after meal served with Maglor’s edged looks and Caranthir’s pointed humour had early put Erestor off any healthy enjoyment of eating – he was too tired to share the leftovers, shaking his head sleepily, mulling over Elrond’s words. He sighed, feeling Glorfindel’s arm lie loosely curved across his breast. It felt too good, and he too tired, to question the golden elf’s motives or move away.

He merely made sure to say, “If I let you hold me like this, you know it doesn’t mean anything.”

Glorfindel went very still, and then kissed his hair, just once. “Erestor, it *means* that it feels good to lie here with you in the sun and that I am in a mellow mood: Elrond is brought back to something better than unwarranted behaviour, and you have an income, new chambers, and a journey to look forward to. I am entirely smug about my day’s work. But I have a confession. I showed him your rooms.”

“Oh. Well, I knew something had affected Elrond, obviously to do with me, and that you were instrumental. If it wasn’t a dream at least. My rooms, you say?”

“I made sure beforehand they were neat, and nothing left out private. I knew you might mind, and you may take me to task in any way that you feel fitting, but I had no better idea. I would not let Elrond continue as he was, and arguing would get me nowhere. Blind is blind. Quite apart from your welfare,” he dropped another small kiss, taking advantage of Erestor’s sleepy resignation over his enjoyment of Glorfindel’s touch, “it was no good for him to behave like that. No good for Imladris, and a very bad example. And if this Harad trip is as potentially useful as you suspect, counterproductive.”

“Mmm,” said Erestor, unwilling to bestir himself for any business of state, even if it touched so closely on his purpose in going to Harad. He had not realized how on edge he had been for so long. Living on the borders of social sufferance had taken a toll on his energies he had failed to appreciate, as had hoping for an acknowledgement from Elrond that might never come. Befriended, safe, encircled, he was bonelessly tired and cared for nothing. Duties were everlasting and could wait an afternoon. He luxuriated in the guilt of that thought and curled closer into Glorfindel’s heat along his legs and back. He put a hand on the heavy arm draped over his chest which had tightened when Erestor drew nearer, and rested his cheek on Glorfindel’s other forearm, conveniently flung just where it was comfortable to rest his head. He prepared to fall asleep once more.

On the brink of Irmo’s kingdom, he forced himself to say, “You know he’s right. There is much you do not know.”

Glorfindel hesitated. “More than the camp?”

Erestor opened his eyes again onto the green of the meadow and its dotted plethora of colours where flowers burgeoned, scenting the air. His expression hardened, hidden from the Captain since they lay Erestor’s back to Glorfindel’s front: Erestor considered his past.

“You are very quick to befriend an elf you do not know, and one for whom your lord does not vouch,” he observed evenly.

“Galadriel vouched for you.”

“Galadriel – Celeborn actually – was the one who *arrested* me, Lord Glorfindel. And brought me here.” Erestor rolled out of arm’s hold and sat up, better to contemplate the Captain. “You went to the Grey Havens when you first returned? Stayed with Círdan?”

“Aye, he made me right welcome. We got on well, and then he brought me here.”

“You should talk to him, you know. He could tell you much. Did you listen to what Elrond said two days ago?”

“You’ve served Elrond well, since then.”

“Aye, I have.” And then he added, “I had my reasons.” Indeed, he had not wanted to live and work in the mines for one thing, a motive Elrond attributed to him. There were others.

Glorfindel considered what he saw. The vulnerability and the eyes that had seen too much were unchanged, but Erestor displayed as well a hint of clarity, as if to suggest he would say – and do – that which he decided upon, sure of his purpose, come what may.

“The sun is high and we were comfortable, Erestor. I am still comfortable.” He grinned. “Right now I would prefer to continue our picnic than suffer a lesson in past history. Can I tempt you to join me once more? Or I will go inside with you and listen if you must unburden yourself.” He glanced around with regret, delighting in an afternoon off and the possibility of an armful of Erestor.

“Hardly, my lord,” his low husky voice came back in quiet answer.

There it was again, the honorific they had rarely used between them, as if Erestor was preparing for far less easy manners in future. He let it go. He guessed he would have to let many things pass unchallenged if he persisted in his determination to have Erestor accept him. He refused to believe his instincts wrong. Erestor could not put him off. “So? Can a little while longer under the auspices of Anor tempt you, Councillor? Might lingering under the adornments of this gold-lit tree appeal?” He delivered his word-play with deliberation and watched Erestor make up his mind.

Amused, Erestor eyed the large body, and looked around. The afternoon was laden with smells of rain, tree and flower, and the air moved about them in invitation to stay, stirring grasses and whisking off again to ripple the water of the brook where it fell over the stones and roots along its bed. The tathar above them was indeed lit up by golden touches among the leaves. They hung suspended from slender trailing branches which fell in interwoven tresses from above, feigning to source light themselves in their diffuse reflection of Anor’s slanting rays. He took a deep breath at the richness of the sight before dropping his gaze to the companion similarly adorned by golden glory.

He had neither wish nor need to talk further, and to retire for soul-stripping conferences inside was the last of his preferences. Silently, almost as if recalling long-gone days when pandering to such company was the norm, he rose and moved with haunting grace toward the elven lord. He lay down as before, facing away, and suffered the embrace to be renewed, falling lightly around him. Only the slightest of hesitations in relaxing betrayed his doubt that this was wise. He doubted he would ultimately follow where Glorfindel led.

He doubted he would follow anyone ever again.

End of Chapter Nine
Tbc

Quenya and Sindarin:

Hröa (Q) – body
Fëa (Q) – element of elven life made of spirit
Melmendur (Q) – catamite (lit. love servant)
Glorfindel (S) – (>golden light from the golden tree Laurelin

Quenya translation first scene:

‘Manen lertan móta núrolyanen, herunya?’ How can I serve you, my lord?
‘Á tulë. Máratulda.’ Come in. Welcome.
‘Máratulda, ná; é máratulda!’ Welcome indeed!
‘Herunya…’ My lord…
‘Ai, le mailëa – ar ta manwa nin?’ Ai, you are wanton – and so ready for me?
‘Á tulë, elyë morna Úsahtië.’ Come here, you dark Seducer.
‘Úsahtienya…’ My seducer…
‘Mótalenya ar alassenya, herunya,’ It is my pleasure to serve you, my lord.
‘Amaptarnya…’ My ravisher…
‘Ai, Erestor – áva quetë! Áva quetë sí…’ Ai, Erestor – hush! Enough of words…


Chapter Ten: Hopes and Plans Imladris 1498 T.A.

Erestor presented himself as he had been taught to his waiting seigneur. “Manen lertan móta núrolyanen, herunya?”

“Á tulë. Máratulda.” The familiar smile offered genuine warmth, while those perceptive eyes spoke of other feelings. Erestor caught his breath. He approached and made his obeisance.

A hand drew him closer. “Máratulda, ná; é máratulda!” A slow inspection benignly approved him.

Erestor’s lungs stuttered, hitching and restarting. “Herunya…”

“Ai, le mailëa – ar ta manwa nin?” The smiling lips curved upward, the hand ran up his arm to cup the back of his head. “Á tulë, elyë morna Úsahtië.” His voice dropped to a husky rasp that bespelled Erestor helplessly. “Úsahtienya…”

“Mótalenya ar alassenya, herunya,” Erestor murmured, sinking to his knees, feeling the warm weight of the hand resting in his hair in benediction. “Amaptarnya…” he added softly, hypnotized into speaking the thought aloud as the languid gaze transfixed him as surely as the hand that held him down.

The hand in his hair tightened its grip. “Ai, Erestor – áva quetë. Áva quetë sí…”

***

Erestor awoke in strange surroundings sweating his way out of nightmare among fine linen sheets to lie in blank distaste, arm across his face. A moment later he swung out of bed, finding his way to the washstand. Water from a large urn filled the wide bowl, falling unevenly from shaking hands. He buried his face with relief and rubbed the back of his neck, then stood cupping water to his face in calming handfuls.

At length, he straightened and dressed, wanting nothing more than to be out, to attempt to drive all thought from his mind, shedding memories in cool night air like leaves sloughed off in a breeze. Meren was willing and the two of them rode beneath the dwindling dark until all Erestor knew was muscles well-used, cold wind on his face and warm flanks moving between his legs. He leaned forward and murmured his thanks and his pleasure in one twitching ear, exorcised of the worst of his disturbance and content for the long-legged stride of the grey beneath him to fall gradually to a walk, taking them back to the great house and oppressive reality under the dawn-hued sky. Impatient with introspection, Erestor planned the day’s work ahead.

***

“Are you ready?”

Erestor looked at the documents he had laid out before him, as if checking all was there that he intended to present to Elrond. He diverted his attention as if it were sight alone that snared him, yet the rolling accents of a voice he listened to night after night at table and never tired of drew him inexorably. The memory of an arm about him and a whispered kiss in his hair betrayed him. He could look away, but still he felt the other’s imposing vitality across the room, still imagined the blue eyes resting on him in compelling enquiry – and invitation. “You’ve come to escort me?”

“He’s expecting me at some point today. I thought we could go together.” The light response gave no hint of Glorfindel’s careful appraisal; the Councillor behind his desk exuded tension – and something else. As Glorfindel pondered what had passed in the last few days, Erestor picked up the collection of notes and letters and skirted Glorfindel, taking care to avoid touching him in the doorway.

“Wait, Erestor.” Erestor slowed his step and looked back. Glorfindel found no further clues in the face turned back to him, upon which light fell aslant on high cheekbones. The slightly hollow cheeks caught shadows which gathered more deeply in the sockets of those black eyes, accentuating his reserved mood. “It concerns you that I will be there? I have plenty of business awaiting me; time enough to attend on Elrond after I’m done. Tell him if he asks I’ll follow later.”

Erestor’s eyes flickered. “As you choose.”

He moved away gracefully, hiding his disturbance over yesterday’s indulgence and last night’s dream alike. While he slept his fëa had not minded in the least that hair that should have draped straight and black over pillows had coiled instead golden-braided, curling free to frame soft-curved lips, lips whose smile blurred across time, confusing present friendship with a more intimate, questionable past. Awake, he found himself responding even now with all the old readiness. The Lord of the Vale awaited, for an interview Erestor did not relish and he was loathe to go to him contemplating venal matters, be it his Noldo liege-lord who haunted him, or Imladris’ present Captain. Yet abjure desire though he might, his body refused to forget what it recognized as overture, nor would it give up its clamour of reciprocated interest. He was left to shepherd his unruly thoughts carefully, ignore Glorfindel as best he could, and make his way alone to his conference.

***

When Erestor arrived in the small reception hall, it was to find Elrond looking over documents he had left with him pertaining to trade with Harad. He looked up, surveyed the empty doorway behind him questioningly, and said, “Erestor,” nodding a greeting. “Where is Glorfindel?”

“My lord.” Erestor made his bow. “He had some business at the practice grounds and said he will see you later.”

“I was expecting him. Did he say anything more?”

Erestor hesitated. “I believe he thought he would be extraneous to our meeting. Shall I send a runner for him?”

“Extraneous?” repeated Elrond, drily.

Erestor smiled slightly, quietly enjoying Elrond’s taste in sardonic humour, as was his wont. “That was not the word he used. He indicated he thought we might be better talking without him.”

What Elrond wanted with him this morning was unclear, the question underlined by the choice of chamber, with its rising stone-worked pillars, ivy and oak relief cascading down from their heights, and the tall windows surrounded by complimentary carvings of willow and heartease. Among the grandeur, the fireplace of gracious tile, unused in this clement weather, added a homely touch, decorated with a collection of pinecones, mallow and teasel. Presiding from above were scenes of Aman detailed on the vaulted ceiling by a fine hand: Manwë in a representation popular back in the Second Age, dressed in white, green and gold with unearthly amber eyes; silver Telperion and bright Laurelin, and Mandos’ throne set in slate-purple shadows. Around the edge, the Garden of Lórien bordered the whole in verdant greens.

Elrond’s habit was to honour gatherings of dignitaries in private session in this room, and though Erestor had sat in on such occasions numerous times, Elrond had only once before interviewed him here alone. Erestor vividly remembered his advent in Imladris, being shown into a brief, austere audience with his new lord one morning, and discovering to his relief that Elrond was not inclined to talk in any detail. On this occasion, Erestor was aware that Elrond’s choice of venue implied an entirely different encounter, far longer – and far more weighty – than their usual pragmatism, though Elrond opened with all his usual economy.

“Very well then,” he gave a slight shrug. “We will do without him for the time being. Please, sit down. Are those your plans for Harad?”

“Thank you, my lord. Yes, and I’ve brought my notes on the trading items I think most crucial. I want to know your thoughts on what you want to include and who you particularly want me to speak to. This is a list I have made of traders to approach to make up the caravan, and this, of those who will provide services we will need – muleteers, drovers for the horses, wagon-drivers, a smith – and here, of those elves I think will want to make the trip who would be of especial use.”

Spices and pearls – Elrond wanted a necklace for Celebrían, weavings from Bree (wool, fine western wool, would sell at a high price in the South, especially woven into the coloured rugs certain weavers of Bree produced. The garish depictions favoured by Men were popular with the Haradrim. They might not wear wool in Harad, but for decorative use on floors or walls it was valued as hard-wearing and sound-absorbent in their cool, stone halls.) A discussion of the stablemaster’s choices of the colts that could be spared, a generous load of miruvor to establish their credentials as bona-fide traders of means from Imladris, elven craft-work in filigree of gold and silver, jewels for trade and bribes, and monies for intelligence; they covered divers practicalities and ended by discussing briefly the safety of such wealth.

“Glorfindel should be here to discuss this.”

“Yes. We should wait on him for those decisions.” Elrond set aside his notes from their deliberations and sat back. For a moment he considered Erestor.

Here it comes, thought Erestor, unsurprised to see this signal for a change of tack. He prepared to weather the squall.

“And there is something else that will involve him. Both of you, in fact. I may as well tell you now that if you go at all, you travel by way of Lothlórien, in Glorfindel’s charge, to ask audience of Galadriel. You may make your excursion – should Galadriel consent.”

A heartbeat, and then another. “Yes, my lord.” Erestor’s heart pounded with dread, yet even so a counterpoint of excitement kept pace, for Galadriel would uncover no reason to stop him: his place in the caravan was assured.

“With her sanction you can continue from there.” Elrond paused, looking straitly at Erestor. “Without it you return here under guard – unless she retains you, which I shall ask her to do if she finds you suspect. I will appoint a second for the caravan itself, someone experienced and senior in such matters. Should Galadriel turn you back, the caravan would thus continue under other leadership on trading affairs alone.” It was an opportunity anyone would seize with both hands; there would be no problem filling the position with someone Elrond had full confidence in. “And Erestor,” Elrond frowned, aware of all his doubts, “If she finds you harbour ill-intent of any kind, or any thought of returning to your old haunts, you’d best hope she chooses to keep you with her – you will not want to face me if this is some game you are playing.” He let that sink in and then said more judiciously, “However, pass the Lady’s testing, and you will lead the expedition. Glorfindel will second you in the political business, and you’ll have my appointed assistant as aide for the caravan and trading affairs.”

Erestor answered in terms just as measured. “Lady Galadriel can find no cause to bar me from the venture. These matters concern us all in my opinion, and while Harad and the South stand on the edge she won’t be sorry if we manage to avoid the worst of eventualities there. I have brought you this to read through, and you will see the instabilities have increased dramatically in the fifty years since Gondor’s rule was ousted in Umbar by the White City’s rebels.” He passed the clandestine letter over.

“This is the letter from Sanduistin?” Elrond shot him a look from under his lowered brows. “Did you know of this person before they wrote?”

“No, my lord. Someone close to the Preceptor, I gather. Someone of the royal blood, and someone under threat, professing to amity with our ways, who was told I am here and might listen, presumably hoping I would approach yourself.”

“Told by whom?” said Elrond sharply.

Erestor shrugged slightly. “That there is no telling, though it has to be an elf, and it has to be someone who knows me. So…”

Elrond was frowning. “Any contact with those renegades and Glorfindel will have orders to put a stop to your doings. I *don’t* want you using any of your old compatriots for this work.”

Erestor looked at him expressionlessly. “And how exactly do you suggest I proceed without doing exactly that? Who else could possibly have told this Sanduistin to make such an approach to me, here, soliciting your interest?”

When Elrond made no immediate argument, he went on. “I *do* know that Gondor will suffer if this Haradic regime continues in its present trend… Gondor stands guard in the gateway to the whole of the North, and in the last two hundred years there have been increasing signs of hostile influence in the South – it bore fruit in the Umbar overthrow and grows apace. What news we have from Lothlórien and Gondor offers little reassurance.”

He paused to confirm Elrond was content to go on listening and found him nodding at both the letter and the points Erestor was making. Satisfied with his audience, Erestor tapped a map he had brought that delineated the wide borders of Harad and the Far South. “We need to support those favourable to our interests. While Gondor keeps watch on the black lands, Harad is the key to the rest of the South. Umbar’s downfall left a wide opportunity for expansion that Harad intends to take full advantage of; they are on the rise again.” Lost in thought, he stared at the map. Absently he smoothed a crease from a folded tear in the worn vellum, before setting one forefinger to the royal city. “It’s a bloodbath… purges carried out against any suspected of lack of loyalty to the King. Corruption, rebellion and suppression feeding on each other, voracious, impossible to satisfy…” He had seen it before, and could imagine it now. He glanced up. Elrond was not just bearing with him; he had his rapt attention. “The signs of rising chaos are evident, with more violence to come, and if worse evil is not already at work, it will find the most fertile soil in such a bed. The king’s reign will ultimately fail – it has to, given the current instabilities – and then what will replace it? My guess – my fear – is the most organized of their warlords, better resolved and equipped to quell opposition, and far more of a potential threat to their northern neighbours, with Umbar an easy target and Gondor weakened by civil war.”

“Just what do you propose to do about it?” Neither overtly encouraging nor hostile, Elrond knew he had not yet heard it all.

Slowly Erestor went on with his exposition. “Protect a line of rightful successors, those who would be our allies and Gondor’s, and we have a way toward restoring good order and stable politics in the whole region after a collapse occurs, to Gondor’s great benefit and all our good. Offer trade as a way of supporting the new leadership, and make sure it works in their favour, balancing profit with stability. There may come a time when Southern allies will make all the difference to our fortunes; so I believe. And if such larger plans prove impossible, we should at least take good care to be aware of all that passes from now on, which this journey could be used to accomplish, gone about in just the right way. Any provision we can make for future information will prove an invaluable investment.” There was nothing more for him to add. Elrond’s reaction was all that was left in question.

“You make a cogent case, Erestor, but for sheer gall you should earn a prize! One minute you calmly inform me you will in all probability need to work with your bloody-handed outlaw peers, and the next you claim to care for stability and right order?” There was no amusement now in the pointed tone; the arching brows were scathing with scepticism.

“You are not the only one who has seen two Ages end in bloodshed, Elrond, and you are not the only one who fought against evil.” Too late, Erestor heard the acerbity in his rejoinder. Yet he spoke no less than the truth. They had even fought side by side. Everyone able to fight had joined the muster of Gil-galad that had heralded the end of the Second Age. Elrond had taken time over his decision as to Erestor’s participation, but in the end had taken him along with his staff, so Erestor had stood to arms with the rest of the Imladris contingents, blood-covered and lethal, as were they all in those days among the fields of the dead.

Elrond’s eyes rested on him a moment before he shrugged slightly. “Galadriel, not I, shall vouch for you – and I will ask her to make very certain before she trusts you south of Lórien.” He spoke indifferently, the decision already made, little caring for Erestor’s apprehension, rather contemplating the ramifications of what Erestor had said about Harad, Umbar and Gondor. Disillusioned with Men, he was all too aware of the ill-fated fortunes of Arnor’s outlying provinces and was unwilling to see Gondor reduced to the same degenerate state. He was increasingly concerned over the uncertainties of what was developing east of the Anduin in the vast Greenwood, and the importance of maintaining the watch on Sauron’s erstwhile keep with unbroken vigilance after the enormous cost of taking it; a cost all too easily forgotten by short-lived men, even those of Gondor’s heritage. It made him uneasy to have that undertaking left in fragile men’s hands. “What else have you there that we have not covered?”

Erestor forced a steady answer that gave no hint of anger or trepidation. “These are notes about the relationships within the royal family, between the high officers of court, and speculation on their current fortunes: who we might approach regarding matters of trade, who might be in difficulties and who might need help in the future. Many of these details will have to be confirmed before we could safely act on them.”

They discussed the ramifications of Elven involvement in the South, and Elrond told him to take careful counsel with Celeborn, who would have information sourced from Gondor and beyond to add to their final decision-making. Erestor nodded assuredly, for ironically Celeborn was someone he could work well with and had confidence in. He felt a great easing of concern, hearing that Elrond would not hamper him from taking a leading part in the plans formulated, once more southerly and recent intelligence was at hand from the Lórien Lord.

Elrond sat back, obviously finished with political considerations and Erestor prepared to take his leave. “One moment, Erestor, we are not done here – I have other business with you. Sit you down and attend me.”

The Noldo shot him a quick look, rather regretting his braided hair, missing the concealment a loose style would have afforded. He ceased gathering his maps and notes, and did as he was bid, wondering how much more – and exactly what – Elrond wanted them to discuss. The skirt of his robe billowed out around him as he took his place again, and for the sake of a moment to prepare himself he schooled it flat around his legs. Nothing in Elrond’s manner reassured him, blandly waiting, all diplomat. “My lord?”

“Glorfindel made it plain he found the provision of your rooms inadequate; I agreed with him. Pirrith has rehoused you?”

“Thank you, yes.”

He had not been sure what to think of the upheaval into strange surroundings, elegant, rich and alien. Glorfindel had told him it was arranged, and Pirrith had first consulted him as to what he desired to take with him, and then accomplished the whole without involving Erestor. He had spent the evening after the move on his new balcony watching the sky darken through colours of richest dyed silk while carefully blanking his mind to the sharp hurt the change engendered. Easier to have stayed anonymously quartered than to have had Glorfindel judge his state as unfit, and have these gifted riches – as carelessly bestowed as denied – show him the neglect and indifference of centuries. He had never begrudged his quarters, nor given them thought except to do what pleased him in his rooms. Did Elrond – or Glorfindel for that matter – think he would be pleased to be graced with largesse and grateful, when for millennia Elrond had never cared to make enquiry?

In all that time, Erestor had never known it was not conscious decision on Elrond’s part to relegate him to the back of the house. Yet he had never considered he was owed better, and the precious privacy was a gift he valued above any luxury. In that personal sanctuary he had been at no-one’s beck and call. Elrond, never an arbitrary master, had outlined his duties and responsibilities; those met, his time had been his own. He had found a measure of tranquillity living there, and to find his quiet haven suddenly examined and despised, his state condemned as derelict, was more than pride could swallow without choking him. The utterance of his quiet thanks cost him much. Far easier, never to have learned it had been a piece of casual neglect, such as the more uncouth among Men might mete out to their dogs. He closed his eyes for a moment to set aside the resistance that welled in him against fulfilling what by given word and place he was obliged to offer his lord; courtesy, obedience, deference.

“I am granting you a stipend to provide whatever casual wants Imladris does not already encompass. In addition, I have allocated for your use a larger sum, intended as a consideration for the unremunerated time you have spent in my service.” He named a figure that raised Erestor’s brow in surprise. “Such an amount will not be given over to your keeping, but you can draw on it by sending bills to my offices.”

Again a fitting reply took a moment to formulate. Erestor refused to say he was grateful. Honoured, a word tritely in common use, could only be anathema between them in its falsity. “I shall be glad of the money, my lord. Thank you.”

Elrond nodded, seeing no need to answer him. He did not do it to please Erestor, but to satisfy his own sense of what was right, and he was all too aware that he had yet to honour his decision of the day before to make some kind of peace with himself and his feelings regarding the elf now waiting on his pleasure. Black eyes, faintly questioning, met grey. Elrond turned away to a sideboard where drinks were set out in their crystal decanters with glasses and cups to hand. His fingers rested on the engraved surface of precious glaze-frosted glass. “What will you take?”

“Wine, thank you. Red by preference.” Erestor came forward to accept the dark vintage.

Elrond turned from him to pour himself a glass. He did not sit down but stared out of one of the tall, narrow windows that looked down over the sweep of woods from Imladris’ height on the escarpment north of the river bluffs. Erestor stood quietly beside him.

Without heat Elrond voiced as questions the accusations he had carried for so long. “Why did you run from Gil-galad, when he put a stop to the Fëanorian forces after Maedhros died? You and those others? What have you to show for it except dead comrades, old injuries and disgrace? Why did you and the others not trust him and have done? And – why serve Maedhros at all? You were not of the oath-takers. You had no excuse to go down that road, yet you did, and in the end did not hold back. Was what they gave you worth so very much to you?” Quietly voiced, but intensely, his queries hung in the stillness demanding answers.

He asked, not really wanting to hear the reply, not really wanting to change, but this was why he had summoned Erestor: to understand. To understand himself a little better and draw a check-rein on his anger. Only Glorfindel’s disapproval sufficed to force Elrond, so very many years later, to rake over what had passed. Only the memory of Glorfindel’s face, walking out on him, too angry to answer him, was goad enough to stay him on his course of question and answer. He had chosen this room in the hope that its harmony and connotations of high diplomacy would influence him, imbuing calm and reflection.

He schooled himself to listen. He did not want to know.

By the look on Erestor’s face he had no more desire for this harking back than Elrond, but, give him credit, he answered. “Worth it? Yes it was,” he said uncompromisingly and without apology to questions that could not have been more direct nor hard-hitting. “Maedhros took in my amillë and pertoron both, and for that he obtained an undertaking from me that I would join his personal household.” Erestor used his wine cup to disguise the untold truths behind his curt admission. “As to your first questions, I had unfinished business the King would never have sanctioned: my family to find. And it was Maglor who knew where they would be.”

“Maglor? What nonsense is this?”

“Hardly nonsense. I found him…”

Elrond’s eyes narrowed at the fantastic story, opened his mouth to ask more, and thought better of it.

Erestor shrugged. “He told me where they had been taken, along with others, for safety and refuge – but when I got there – I did not find them.”

“And so you embarked on your own pleasure spree in the South, your own campaign of brigandage and petty overlordship.”

Erestor’s eyes sprang to meet his. “Hardly an accurate telling, my lord. I was told where I could find Maglor’s surviving guard-corps, and that some among them knew where my amillë might be. They had no more mind than me to accept Gil-galad’s offer.” His mouth twisted wryly. “With amnesty such a humbling prospect – well, we had no desire to face the King’s mercy, and saw no need to. We agreed I would travel with them, once I had found my family. After I saw them settled and safe, there was all the South to travel in, and work to be done – we thought we could do some good. Few others were trying and it was sorely needed.”

Elrond’s hackles went up at the casual refutation of fault, and the easy rejection of Gil-galad’s honour and Lindon’s law. “Good? You call that good? Taking what you wanted, and fighting those who stopped you?”

Erestor flushed and looked away. “It was not like that.” But among those who had declined the amnesty there had been some whose behaviour had undeniably earned such comments. How not, over such a long span of time, and soldiers with such a history?

“No? Yet you look away.”

Stung, Erestor defended himself. “I never agreed with all that was done.”

“Whether or no, that was the company you kept!”

“Such a conveniently neat summation hardly tells the full tale, though, does it? You saw what it was like in Lindon; the troubles they had down south were no less, and no High King, no Elven Realm, to establish any kind of order. We dealt with evil much the same as Gil-galad did in the north, hunting down what had fled Eriador. And yes, we took a reward for it. Why not? It was a living, and far preferable to being bound in Lindon to Gil-galad, as I have been here to you.”

“How dare you!” Elrond was more angered over the unflattering dismissal of Gil-galad’s amnesty (hotly argued on its conception until the King laid down the law), than he was at Erestor’s sarcasm and the reference to himself.

Erestor caught his breath, knowing he had gone too far. He repeated more calmly, “There was work to do in the South, my lord. Gil-galad held sway from coast to mountain, in the North, and had great responsibilities to care for, and you alongside him. Had I gone to him, he would have permitted me amnesty with the rest, but not I think let me far from his purview. I had no more relish for his apron strings than his mercy, and had my own necessities to pursue. Why should I be sorry we brought a little order to southern chaos in our own way while Gil-galad and Amdir would not look beyond their borders or past their own affairs? Did you – did anyone – of the Elven Realms know or care how many remained bereft of leadership elsewhere? They coped as they could, men short-lived and bewildered, and elves vulnerable too, with little of leadership to set their course, or organize their protection.” He waved one hand, remembering all that he had seen of wasted lands and ruined towns in those days, preyed upon by those servants of Morgoth escaped and fled South, amongst all the uncivilized aftermath of war and ruin.

“Why you should be sorry, Erestor, is because you and your cadre spread havoc even as Maedhros before you, not order! You fought against my brother’s people, *civilised* men, Lindon’s friends and the King’s allies, who could offer real law and proper aid, unlike your petty, haphazard ragtaggle. You arraigned yourselves persistently against Númenórean rule, and made yourselves agents of civil war.”

Erestor breathlessly half-laughed, shaking his head. “They invaded, and conquered, took land and lordship that belonged to others before they came. Why wouldn’t they meet resistance? And we, who had been there all along, should we have changed our allegiance and become the traitors you accuse us of? No, Elrond, we had fought side by side with generations of southern men for long years, running down Morgoth’s remnant pets, and in times of peace lived among them, paid as guards and hunters, helping to fight again when Barad-Dûr’s darkness began and spread beyond those fortressed borders to poison the lands beyond. And then came the Númenóreans… When they settled only empty land, all well and good, but when they started to encroach on what was already inhabited… If that’s your complaint, then I am indeed guilty.”

“You *killed* Erestor. Not just fighting Númenór, but Gil-galad’s appointed agents.” Elrond stared at him inimically, finding no mitigating argument that could excuse Erestor from failing to submit to the King’s edict, faced with elves bearing Royal writ.

Sombrely, Erestor answered that too. “That is the nature of war, Elrond. Should we have abandoned our contract because Gil-galad sent elves against us? Because it was Celeborn who came? I would not do that, and I don’t apologize for it. You did not see what Númenór did with those who opposed their incursions. How they ruled those they deemed lesser men than they, shorter lived and therefore treated more like animals than men by some, who justified it by virtue of their differences. But I was there to see what they did, and I fought against Númenór, and yes, Celeborn too. Does it not content you that we lost?”

That defeat had been inevitable, but still they had fought on. The memory of that decision never faded: looking at each other around the fire, their choices laid out, so limited. Break their word and flee again, and where to this time? Or surrender and face the King’s justice. By now it had been made known that Gil-galad’s proxy would deal with all captured elves – Galadriel it was rumoured, Celeborn’s lover, Royal Noldo of their own ilk. And fey… Her consort hunted them even as they debated, Celeborn, whose family had been murdered at Doriath. No, surrender held no appeal, the amnesty offered so long ago rejected unceremoniously and these fresh deaths between them too – they could hope for little from Celeborn and Galadriel under Gil-galad’s aegis. They went on fighting…

Elrond sourly recalled him to the gracious surroundings of the present. “Ever did trouble attend your like, as flies to rotten meat.”

“My lord, you ask me questions only to accuse me when I have already *been* judged.” He stopped for a moment and then did not back down, not over this, not once challenged. He would not deny the truth of what had been lived out in blood and strife and even hard-won peace, for a while. Those he had fought with deserved no less if he was their only witness. “We countered the ruin the First Age left in its wake. We encouraged what order we could after destruction and terror had run its course, leaving famine and horror and savagery behind. If we went where trouble was, it was not of our making.”

“You fought for your own gain and when you could have helped a new civilisation rise, a true society where wisdom could flower, you wanted none of it. Númenór had great gifts to offer, and all you did was oppose them, and when Gil-galad called a halt, you would not listen. Hard to believe you sit there, telling me that you are proud of what you did.”

Erestor broke the short ensuing silence to say, “I wanted to go after Maglor. I wanted to find my family. I am not ashamed of that. Gil-galad would never have let me go. The South was leaderless. That too was needful work for someone to do, and we did it.”

“Yet you rode with the same killers who came in the night at Sirion. The same who saw Doriath put to flight. Those were your chosen friends. Don’t ask me to understand that, nor think of them as a benign influence!”

“Who else would have helped me search?” Erestor shot back. “You? The King? They helped me, and in return I went with them, as they asked.” Yet he had found neither amillë nor pertoren in the end, only news of them. The irony of it had never faded, that it was Galadriel who had told him his mother was gone to Aman, and his brother, his joyous brother, gone with her. Grief found him that day. He had not minded the solitude of his time in Lothlórien. He had spent it mourning, remembering what he could, feeling, for the first time in his life, free.

He felt the same weary futility now, and a sense of suffocation in the face of righteousness. “I do not blame you, I suppose – as you say, our adversaries had been your brother’s people, though you know as well as I what they came to in the Dark years at the end. We had not come tame to Gil-galad’s hand which offended you and after what had gone before, you could not abide us, which I make no complaint over. You have asked me your questions, Elrond, and I have answered. What more is there to say?” He shrugged, quieter now, everything said that could be.

Elrond inhaled the heady aroma of the wine in his cup and drank, before he looked back at Erestor again. “Glorfindel is right in one thing at least. I cannot go on with you like this. I met you amidst the direst of circumstances, the worst moment of my life, save one other. When Galadriel brought you here and I was faced with you again the memories were – most vivid. They have not faded. The feelings of that day stayed with me, and your chosen path spoke little in your favour when I saw you around that camp afterwards. When I learned of your service in Maedhros’ cause, and later when your independent doings came to Lindon’s attention, I never had reason to think better of you.” He sighed, and almost gently, trying to understand something – anything – beyond his own abhorrence, asked, “Your mother and brother – what happened?”

Erestor told the bare bones of the story again. “They disappeared. Maglor told me they were moved somewhere safer. He wouldn’t tell me where, though I asked. I didn’t hear from them after that. Maedhros promised he would tell me, but events overtook us, and we were parted. After I finally caught up with Maglor, he told me where to look, but when I managed to get there they were gone. So I kept searching, as best I could. Asking for news.”

“That’s why you travelled around so much?”

“When I could, yes.” They both fell quiet again, remembering the days of the Second Age; Gil-galad’s efforts, Lindon’s glory, the Númenórean occupation and eventual corruption in the South, each looking back upon events from two very different vantages until the day Galadriel saw the disparate pair reluctantly united as partners in their awkward dance.

Elrond considered the years of Erestor’s service; he would think on what Erestor had said, but he was not quite done yet. There was another matter before he made an end. He asked a question first. “You say Maedhros took you all in? How old were you and your brother?”

The silence this time lasted far longer. Elrond sharpened his attention and reluctantly Erestor said, “Thirty-eight, and three.”

“And when was that?”

“Forty four years before we met.”

Elrond felt it as an almost physical shock. When he himself had been six years old and first laid eyes on the Noldo conqueror, Erestor had appeared untouched by time. No wonder… “And Maglor? When did he…”

“On my majority. It was – arranged.”

“But you lived with your mother until then?” The slow headshake answered questions Elrond had never before wondered. From the beginning, Erestor’s road had been one of alliance, compliance and partnership with those who had murdered Elrond’s kin, to the point of bearing arms alongside the Fëanorians, yet Elrond could not help reflecting that though Erestor’s early years had been spared the violent disruptions and bloody losses he and Elros had so traumatically endured, surely his history had proved far more sordid.

Conscious of Erestor’s discomfort no matter how composedly he took up his wine and sipped, Elrond contemplated those days from Erestor’s point of view. Elrond had never thought what it must be to belong in the enemy’s camp. He had never considered the choices a potential deserter would have to face, sacrifices of loyalty, of family, even the risk to life and liberty. Choices of where to go and the suspicion that would meet them. The danger to any close who were left behind, the likelihood that they would be questioned, accused, and penalized. An infant brother, and a mother dependent… The consequences if caught. Elrond frowned, remembering what Maedhros had been like.

Other memories intervened, bringing pity, contempt, disgust… Images that had played in Elrond’s mind since seeing Glorfindel entwined with Erestor in the meadow. Erestor on his knees, proffering wine, laughing up at some joke, rising into arms casually beckoning. Erestor willingly settling across Curufin’s knee, sharing the cup… Elrond could still remember the fall of silk, the blue-black of shadowed folds that fell to the ground about him, settling along lines of thigh and calf, reaching so decorously to his neck, where Curufin bent to kiss him. He had looked over his shoulder at the sight, with Saco pulling him away to return to their own quarters, fascinated by his own disgust and some other nebulous awareness that one day, he too might like to be kissed, just so.

And young as Erestor had been when his path was set for him, it did not obviate the potential pitfalls if trusted beyond his worth. In fact, if anything, the opposite was the case. Elrond had one last avenue to explore before he desisted.

“There is one other matter,” he said casually.

Erestor, undeceived, was aware that Elrond, far from satisfied after this round of question and answer, was regarding him with a most acute scrutiny.

“Glorfindel likes you.”

“Apparently,” Erestor acknowledged, cautiously.

“Have you been encouraging him? He is a most influential friend to be fighting your battles for you.” Elrond paused, taking in Erestor’s shock; seeing him wordless, he continued in a voice the more deadly for its calm, “Betray him, Erestor, use him or hurt him, and I will set the shackles on you myself and deliver you by my own hand to the mines, paying the sons of Aulë to take you. Am I sufficiently clear?”

Erestor stood up, whitely angered at this ambush of stilletto-point finesse applied to something intensely private and sensitive – precious, was his thought, as Glorfindel’s slow, lingering smile came forcibly to mind.

Elrond tilted his head, brows raised.

The insufferable arrogance was the last straw. He resented intensely the minute inspection, knowing just how good Elrond’s perceptions could be and just how deep they could reach, if Elrond willed. Elrond’s words scalded him with their implications, closely following as they did the reference to his service with Maglor. Already rendered off-balance by the Elda’s increasingly obvious interest in him, and the sick distaste of his dream’s confusion, control eluded Erestor utterly, perhaps for the first time since childhood. His low voice rounded into its full vibrancy as he answered with equal precision, “Discuss me as you choose with whomsoever it please you. And you are manifestly free to speak to me as you wish on any matter. You own my service, even my respect, Elrond, though I doubt you believe that or could value it, and will certainly never thank me for it, as I know to my cost. But when you raise my relationships with me in terms of such threats as these you only demean yourself and insult me. Forbid *him* if you can, instruct me as you please – make your decisions and make them known – yet I have done *nothing* to earn such a crass warning from you. You would do far better to take him to task for his poor taste, and put your tongue to use by dissuading him from his fantasies.” The words flowed with damning sincerity, and would not be stopped for any gesture or speech of Elrond’s, even after the lord rose forbiddingly to his feet.

Thus, the Noldo broke his pact with himself and his duty to Elrond without compunction. Deference fled, his will once more his own, he walked out.

End of Favourite Addiction Part One Chapter 10/12
Tbc

Vocabulary lists:

Sindarin - English:
Meren - Joyous

Quenya – English translations (lit. meanings below):

‘Manen lertan móta núrolyanen, herunya?’ How can I serve you, my lord?
‘Á tulë. Máratulda.’ Come in. Welcome.
‘Máratulda, ná; é máratulda!’ Welcome indeed!
‘Herunya…’ My lord…
‘Ai, le mailëa – ar ta manwa nin?’ Ai, you are wanton – and so ready for me?
‘Á tulë, elyë morna Úsahtië.’ Come here, you dark Seducer.
‘Úsahtienya…’ My seducer…
‘Mótalenya ar alassenya, herunya,’ It is my pleasure to serve you, my lord.
‘Amaptarnya…’ My ravisher…
‘Ai, Erestor – áva quetë! Áva quetë sí…’ Ai, Erestor – hush! Enough of words…

Literal Quenya translations:

How may I work as your servant, my lord?
Come. Welcome.
Welcome, yes; indeed welcome!
My lord…
Ai, you are wanton – and so ready for me?
Come, you dark Seducer.
My seducer.
My duty and my joy, my lord.
My ravisher…
Ai, Erestor – don’t speak! Don’t speak now…

amillë - mother
pertoron – half-brother
fëa – element of elven life made of spirit

*** vocab ends ***

End of post

Erestor left the meeting, left the room, abandoned his collection of fine parchment and vellum manuscripts and maps, and left his Lord, without the slightest pause when ordered to bide. The lines of his back, cased by falls of purple wool so dark it could have been brown, spoke of unyielding outrage. Elrond was almost impressed by the show of angry dignity, and felt inclined to let him go, having no desire to prolong the confrontation nor seeing any real purpose in doing so. Nevertheless, forcibly aware that he would have to account to Glorfindel for Erestor’s loss of countenance, he was bound to make a token attempt to halt the temperamental departure.

On his own account, he was somewhat unwilling to leave matters thus when his ostensible purpose had been to find means to allay, not incite, anger. Yet the past had proven to be no tamed beast to lie passive when stirred; rising up between them, showing its teeth, it had challenged a reaction from both of them, and Erestor paid not the least heed to his command. Elrond subsided in his chair, wondering what it might mean that the Noldo was truly angered by that last exchange as he had never seen him before, his fury no whit diminished by his tirade.

With rigidly regulated step Erestor returned to his new rooms, casting a disinterested glance around the finery all about him as he discarded every stitch he had on, scorning to retrieve the costly clothing from the floor, in favour of simple leggings and close-fitting tunic over a sleeveless vest. He combed his hair free of every braid, and fastened it back tightly. He had only to find plain footwear to complete his preparations and be gone.

On his way to the practice grounds he spoke to no-one. Black hair swinging at his back in its braided confines, dark eyes intent, white about the mouth, he made his way without regard for any he passed, indifferent to the side-long glances he attracted. His clothes did nothing to hide his figure, but he was too exercised with Elrond’s unexpected slash at his underbelly to pay any heed to stares, whether ambiguous or openly desirous.

***

“Glorfindel.”

Glorfindel looked up from his desk, where Thelinn, his second, was looking over reports with him. He made to smile and then decided against it as Erestor’s state registered. “Erestor?”

“Is there anyone you can pair me with, Captain?”

The husky voice that fell between petition and peremptory demand startled Glorfindel, coming from the habitually composed and somewhat deferential Councillor. The ease between them of the day before might never have been. Erestor looked like a stranger, hand clasped on the latch so that tendons stood proud, with a rare frown of anger pinching his brow. Glorfindel looked him up and down. He wore his severest training garb, though he was not scheduled there that day, his hair was drawn back painfully tight, and not once would Erestor meet his eyes. Taut as the spring of a trap, devoid of his customary collected demeanour, he stood awaiting his answer as if he had just witnessed a massacre.

“What has happened?”

Erestor made a sharp negating gesture, resisting the magic of the rich voice, anger over-spilling into every economic move he made. “I’ll be outside, when you’re free. I’ve interrupted you.” He made a short bow to Thelinn and went to wait in the fresh air.

***

Elrond was impossible. He was sick of – he dared not finish the thought. His treacherous mind would not comply. He was sick of obedience. Sick of not being his own person. Sick of being indoors. Sick of Elrond’s oversight. Sick of work and of constraints. Valar, how he longed for the early days of the Second Age, when he had been loose and at liberty… He was sick at heart over what Elrond had said, and appalled at the prospect of facing Galadriel once more. Far preferable to dwell in anger over the former than in dread at the latter. Anger easily predominated. White rage ate him as Elrond’s words rolled once more through his mind and he would not wait longer to find an outlet.

The weapons store stood open; he murmured a greeting to the others who were there, while ransacking the orderly pegs, bins and chests for what he wanted. Daggers, sword and heavy practice stave. He checked them over, knowing they would do. He had used each of these before, familiar with their heft and balance.

Once in his chosen arena, he shed sandals and tunic, and set aside the blades. The stave was heavy, and he began moving with it, eyes part shut, feeling the grass beneath him, listening to what sounds filtered through the trees all about. Patiently he warmed up, breathing his anger in and out. Damn Elrond. Damn Maglor. And damn Glorfindel and his overtures. How *dare* he make him an object of discussion for any who cared to comment. His breath caught. He waited until he recaptured his rhythm and speeded up, beginning to plan what needed to be done to prepare for Harad, refusing to think further about any of them.

Clothes for hot weather. Money and jewels. Quantify money in the kinds of coin and amounts that would be most useful, both small and large denominations, such as the Haradrim had use for, or that he could most easily change once there. Jewels Elrond would provide, for bribery, and for introductions. Ideas for augmenting the growing list of goods he planned to take for sale. Which of the weavers in Bree he would hope to woo with their planned foray, and failing that, arranging to buy their goods for Imladris to glean the profit. Meren would come and he would need another mount at least, if not two. He was familiar with the current batch of unclaimed four and five-year olds – he needed to see Elrond’s stable master regarding Elrond’s discussion with him concerning what colts he might spare for trade; easy enough to make his choice of a pair of fillies at the same time. At the end of the journey, Sanduistin to approach. Cautious advances, carefully avoiding attention of the wrong sort. Success would be precious, the danger acute. Elm and elf wove through the air. His body moved with the staff, sometimes driving, sometimes following its lead. He swung around and was brought up short. He breathed heavily, facing Glorfindel two steps away, whose hand clasping the wood firmly had forestalled his manoeuvre. Erestor stood eye to eye with him for a moment before relaxing his hold.

Glorfindel took the stave from him. “Maervegil should be able to give you a match. I called you but you did not hear.”

He gave a slight bow and greeting to a familiar partner. “My thanks. I’ll get my weapons.”

“What’s wrong, Erestor?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar,” said Glorfindel softly, deliberately provocative to elicit a response, but never had he intended to stir Erestor to real anger.

Erestor turned with his sword in hand to point the tip squarely a finger’s breadth from Glorfindel, unpardonable etiquette toward one unprepared and moreover carrying no blade. “Do not insult me, my lord. I’ve had enough of that for one morning. Declining to discuss private matters doesn’t make me a liar. Maervegil is waiting and you have work to do, that’s all. I am very sure our lord will freely tell you what he told me. No need for me to go into the sordid details.” Bitterly, he sidestepped Glorfindel without apology and met Maervegil in the centre of the greensward, blade raised in salute.

These two had fought often. While their skills were well-matched, his opponent was the stronger so he made an ideal partner to keep Erestor’s strokes honed and test his stamina, but today Erestor was fey; as if cast from the pits of Udûn itself, the Noldo never let up for a moment. Grim-faced concentration had him meet every strike with a return that not only defended but also challenged and Maervegil had his work cut out to hold his own. Only when time had worn the edge off Erestor’s onslaught could Maervegil press the attack, and eventually disarm him down in the warm turf, blade to his throat.

“That round falls to me, I believe,” he said lightly, catching his breath, kneeling astride. Erestor was very still under him, his eyes dark with an air of defeat unfamiliar to Maervegil. Erestor unbent with his fellows on the training grounds as he seldom did elsewhere, and had a reputation as a gracious loser. Often enough he lost, for Glorfindel rarely allowed him the luxury of a weaker opponent. Yet he looked peculiarly troubled by this surrender, as if ashamed. He made to get up, and Maervegil rolled aside.

“My thanks. A good round. Will you continue?” His back turned, Erestor picked up the daggers and swept the air.

“What maggot has infested you today, Councillor? You look dangerous.”

“Is that not why we practice, that we may be dangerous? Come, or shall I petition your Captain for another partner saying I have worn you out?”

The bleak expression faded somewhat from Erestor’s eyes as Maervegil expelled a breath of laughter and found his own paired weapons. “Never!” They squared off and Erestor balanced on the balls of his feet, feinted once and then again. Maervegil was ready for him, and there was no more time to think.

When they were done, Erestor had no wish to go back with him. Left alone, he stretched, checked his weapons and took up the stave to go through a last routine, more dance than combat practice, cooling down without stiffening up. The slow moves allowed him to become absorbed in the shift and swing of muscle, just as combat had. Only the feeling sometime later that he was being watched recalled him from his mesmerized steps. He slowed to a halt, opening his eyes, to see Glorfindel leaning against a tree, smiling in lazy approval, equipped with sword in hand. This time Erestor’s hackles did go up under his scrutiny; Glorfindel was not going to let his lapse with the sword pass, and was set to insist on answers he had no desire to give.

With deceptive lightness, Glorfindel said only, “Had enough?”

Erestor almost snarled at the challenge. Elrond’s captain, source of his shame, himself deemed unfit… He caught up his sword to match the one Glorfindel bore. Without warning or pause he moved fluidly in to attack, to be easily parried. Glorfindel was his better by far and they both knew it. Erestor could find much-desired release in the Gondolin fighter’s superiority, enabling him to attack and attack without fear or favour, only to be repulsed and driven back hard and panting, until Glorfindel relented and let him take the offensive once more. Breath came fast, muscles burned in fatigue, hair loosed around his eyes and clung to damp skin. Erestor would not give up. He would never give up. He employed one of his more underhand tricks and nearly broke through. Glorfindel’s eyes danced at the near success and he pressed him ruthlessly. Erestor did curl his lip now and ferociously, impossibly, tried to hold his own, investing all his tensions into the fight as if by winning against Glorfindel he could lay to rest his shame… and by the same damning token, by losing he was – nothing. He failed, almost sobbing in triggered catharsis, partly due to sheer exhaustion, this fight following so hard on the heels of his match with Maervegil. For the second time that afternoon, Erestor found himself on his back beneath the victor.

This one did not let him up so easily.

Glorfindel smiled quizzically. “You are fierce today, my friend.”

“It was a good match, my thanks. And Maervegil was a welcome partner, I appreciate you sparing him.”

His question remained unanswered. “Erestor? What happened that you would speak to me so or hold a sword to me when I was unarmed? What is wrong?”

“My Lord Elrond had certain comments to offer. They were not all – welcome. Let me up, Glorfindel.” He shifted uneasily. Glorfindel lifted his weight off him a little, but did not move away, nor release the one wrist he had fastened to the ground while his other hand had set whetted metal to his conquest’s neck, since carefully withdrawn.

Erestor stilled under the other’s crouching body, frowning at him.

“What did he say?”

“Will you let me up?”

Glorfindel didn’t move. “I like the view.”

Erestor’s wavering mood left him loathe to play the game. “Come, our match is over and we have work to do.”

This appeal met with near success, the Captain instinctively looking first for the sun’s position and then over his shoulder toward the path back to his offices. But instead of getting up, he looked down again at Erestor, still in his hold, still spread out on the grass beneath him. “Nothing that can’t wait a while.” Glorfindel decided not to press questions Erestor did not want to answer, willing to enjoy the moment and the company, in a good mood after a vigorous fight and a break from duties he must shortly resume with Thelinn.

Erestor heaved up, unwilling to remain splayed on the ground for the Elda’s amusement, however good-natured, but found that in spite of his brief but determined struggle, he could neither dislodge nor disconcert the other in the least by his efforts.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” his opponent said cheerfully.

Erestor gave up, averting his face rather than look up into Glorfindel’s satisfied and appreciative eyes. No question but Glorfindel was pleased with himself, a far cry from his own discomposure after Elrond’s warning and this pinioned defeat.

Only slowly did the nature of Erestor’s quiescent stillness percolate Glorfindel’s awareness, the taut forearm in his grasp speaking of stress, unrequited even by two bouts of strenuous sparring. Wondering all the more at Erestor’s disturbance that persisted so, he reluctantly gave up his bid for a little dalliance, let go of the captured wrist, and agilely kept his balance as he rocked back onto his heels and up. Erestor immediately rose to his feet and stood at a distance, pushing back his hair as he looked for his abandoned weapon.

“Don’t do that again.” The words sounded odd, lacking any emphasis or inflection; they could have been about the weather. He picked up the sword and his other weapons and turned for the path to the house. Over his shoulder he said, “He said I could go. You are to join me on the road to Lórien. And that with Galadriel’s sanction we continue from there to Harad.”

“Galadriel?” Glorfindel caught up to him with a few long strides.

“To assure Elrond of my good faith by right of examination.”

Glorfindel did not miss the strain in Erestor’s tight speech. “Is that what’s bothering you, then?”

Erestor swung to face him. “Apart from the fact that he flung your interest in me in my face, yes, that’s what’s bothering me. That and the unsurprising truth that he hates my past, hates me, and cannot wait to be rid of me. I swear, he’d be glad if I betrayed him no matter how grievously, for then he could win free of me. By Eru, do not think I am not tempted! Now are you satisfied with my answers? Leave me be! He does not wish a friendship between us and I don’t welcome this interrogation. Get you to your Lord for your answers. It’s not my part to tell you his mind.”

He made for the house alone, leaving Glorfindel stunned on the path behind him.

End of Favourite Addiction Part One Chaper 11/12
Tbc

Vocabulary:

Sindarin - English:
Meren - Joyous
Maervegil - good fighter - Good-sword
Thelinn - of loyal heart - Resolved-heart

*** vocab ends ***

Thelinn was waiting for him. Glorfindel looked down the path toward the house, but resolutely reversed his steps the other way. Only when they had gone over the rest of their rostas for the summer months, agreed a list of promotions to put forward to Elrond and settled on the escort for the next trade and message run to Arnor, was he at last free to head for the less routine meeting he had unwillingly deferred. As he strode toward the house, he let all semblance of courteous friendliness fall away. He felt neither polite nor friendly and had no intention of assuming the appearance of either one.

His destination achieved, he did not bother with preliminaries. Straight to the point and poised ready with reproaches, he demanded, “What did you say to him, Elrond?” He loomed in the archway of the open doors, judging his anger too consuming to advance further on his lord.

“Playing up, was he?” said Elrond, dourly. He had been waiting for this confrontation. “He walked out on me a second time. If he does it a third, I’ll not tolerate it. Warn him I said so.”

“What did you *say*?”

“I told him that I’d personally see him incarcerated in Khazad-Dûm if he caused you hurt or played you false.”

Glorfindel was speechless. Incoherent with surprise, anger and shock, he stared at Elrond who looked back at him flatly, showing no remorse.

After a moment of deadlock they both looked away, accustomed to arguing but never with this degree of emotion lying unappeased between them. Glorfindel came into the room fully, set aside his belted weaponry, poured Elrond a drink and then one for himself. He sat in his accustomed place. “Elrond, take this, sit down and talk to me. Tell me everything.”

Elrond took a moment to close a book that he had been reading, straighten up a stray scroll that lay half off the edge of the table and shed his heavy outer tunic in favour of the informal comfort of shirt and leggings. When there was no plausible delaying tactic remaining to him, he accepted the proffered wine and chose his favourite seat where he could gaze out of the windows onto the Vale. Without looking at the Elda, he began to talk.

***

At his desk, Erestor methodically dealt with petty matters that had come his way, until there was nothing left of minor import. He delivered what needed passing on to the messenger’s pile, and returned with more interest to writing to the farmers, merchants and traders of the surrounding countryside. On his return he had elected to wash outside under the pump in its deluge of cold water, and it had shocked him into a degree of self-possession. He stayed under the water for a long time, and emerged to don only the leggings that sufficed for decorum to return to his chambers. Once there, he hung up everything that was clean and dry, laid out the rest to air or for cleaning, and searched for the plainest working clothes he could find, settling for loose black leggings, a soft russet undervest and an unadorned black robe that fell to the floor. He fastened a sash around his waist to hang with braided ends down one side to dignify the outfit and finally drew on his boots.

Back in his office and working, he dedicated his whole attention to those matters immediately at hand. When it was time to eat, he left with reluctance, only to find himself at table in the absence of both lord and captain. He left early, returning to his work and continued into the evening until his muscles demanded a change of position.

It was very late. There was no light in the outer rooms to denote anyone still reading, nor any still at work. He doused his candles and the lamps, and made for the door along the familiar access between desks, wall and shelving, to emerge into the wider libraries and thence into the lit halls, hoping he might sleep after the night ride and today’s assorted fights.

“Erestor.”

He froze in place, surprised and wary at this summons out of the dark of the hall. Glorfindel stood up, a rising bulk of shadow from where he had been sitting in one of the windows, staring out at the night-blackened sky. He came closer, and then turned the other elf toward him with a hand on his shoulder. Erestor took a step back.

“Light,” Glorfindel muttered and moved away to strike a flame. Satisfied when he had set a few of the nearest stands of candles burning, he studied the other’s face, seeing eyes no lighter than the sky outside and no more informative. “Elrond has had a long talk with me. About you…”

Burning beeswax flickered, not from any impurities of casting but from drafts which took liberties around the high spaces of the hall, casually licking the flames into snaking tongues in their wake. Flame and air alike took no heed of tension, even while their scatterings of light enhanced the golden halo framing Glorfindel’s not-quite frowning face and the planes and hollows of Erestor’s contained features.

Erestor said nothing. Glorfindel seemed remote, closed and unfamiliar. He waited to hear what the other had to say. What point in asking? He had not waylaid him in the dark with a trapper’s patience to hold his peace.

“When all is ready, we go to Lórien, and thence to Harad, just as you said. Your preparations are in hand?”

Erestor nodded. This was Glorfindel as he had not seen him before. He came nearer. Erestor resisted the temptation to back away once more.

“You were hardly waiting here to ask me that.” The words were as ungiving as Glorfindel’s expression, tossed out as if in challenge, which they were. Erestor was girding himself for what counter Glorfindel returned for him to field.

Glorfindel eyed Erestor as if measuring him for the first time, trying to see in that loveliness – worthy even of an Avatar of the Maiar – evidence of the stories Elrond had told him. He saw nothing to reveal a bloody past in Maedhros’ service, rebellion against Gil-galad’s amnesty, alliance with unruly mercenaries, or a conspirator against Númenórean rule. “Elrond would not lie to me. Would you?”

Erestor looked away; he doubted he had been wholly open to anyone since his childhood. There were two alone who could ask what they willed and he would inevitably answer, no matter how reluctantly. But there were things he would not willingly reveal to any other. Pride bedevilled him after Elrond’s rough mauling, and coupled with being accosted out of black shadows, which had sent his heartbeat into a tattoo that was not yet fallen back to its accustomed steady beat, he was in no amenable mood to take this question from Glorfindel with humility.

“If I chose to, why not? Don’t we all when the need is upon us?” A clumsy retort and manifestly untrue, but good enough for want of better to bolster defence against imminent attack.

Glorfindel frowned openly at that. “Erestor, do not speak so. It hardly becomes you.”

Erestor’s startlement at the tone of this reproach betrayed him into a bark of laughter, no sooner permitted to pass his lips than cut off. “Very well. Elrond would not lie to you. So whatever he has said, is true. Why then do you question me?” His voice was cold, his stance planted squarely and his head tilted firmly up, but his eyes did not rest on Glorfindel’s face as he spoke, choosing instead to address the wavering candles.

Tone, manner and words disturbed Glorfindel, and angered him after their apparent beginnings of friendship. He was already deeply at a loss over what Elrond had told him. He reached out a hand to take Erestor by the arm, commanding him almost roughly, “Look at me.”

Erestor’s eyes jerked up to his. “Let me go, Glorfindel. You have no cause to question me.”

“Oh, but I do, and you know it. Have your vaunted wits gone begging? I have reason to question you five times over. I am charged with your escort, Erestor. I am committed to Elrond’s service. I have oversight of Imladris’ security, and I am charged by the Valar with my appointed duties.” He stared at Erestor’s ungiving expression. “Did you not *know* how much I liked you? And I have to find out from *Elrond* the extent of your involvement with Maedhros? And all that came after?” His grip tightened as he drew Erestor nearer. “Could you not have told me?”

Erestor tested his hold to see if he could draw away without a real struggle, wary of provoking a true fight, unsure of both their tempers. He had no experience at all of this aspect of the Elda. He doubted anyone in Imladris did.

Glorfindel maintained his grip about Erestor’s upper arm with a casual disregard for the half-hearted attempt to pull free. “You lay with them. You laid their plans for them. Tell me, Erestor, did you kill for them?”

Erestor felt every word as if they cut him to the quick, and had to draw on every reserve he had not to show it. The only refuge to be found was in the distraction of attack and he mustered a ready army of words to loose at his target. Glorfindel was awaiting an answer, apparently inviting one, rather than delivering the rhetorical reproaches Erestor had suspected of him. The blue eyes fastened on him had never been more intent, and Erestor let the silence work for him with exquisite precision for an unmeasured pause in time. Then he smiled, his third devastating arsenal, and struck much as Glorfindel had, straight and true. “What would that matter to you, my Lord Captain? Or does it spoil your fancy that what you had set your sights on is sullied by its history? For sure, if it’s tarnished it must be brass after all. I am sorry for your disappointment.”

Glorfindel stared in shock at the sharp sting of the serpent in his grasp, but he did not let go. Erestor laughed, low and sounding such that for the first time Imladris’ newest champion could plumb just how and why Elrond could dislike him so.

“What, so shocked? Not once but twice I thought you set on avoiding what I had to tell you. Do you seek to blame me now, for that?”

Not one word of denial among the vituperation. Glorfindel pulled him close, not sparing of the handful of muscle and bone that was enclosed by his determined hold, dragging him round so that the light passed between their bodies to fall full on Erestor’s face, both hands fixing him in place before his seeking inspection. “Tell me you did not kill for them. Tell me that Elrond is wrong. That he is mistaken, that he does not know the full story. Tell me *something*, Erestor.”

Erestor, breathing harder now, his arm hurting more than he would admit even to himself, gave little sign of that small inconvenience. Glorfindel was visibly refraining from shaking the truth out of him, little though he would welcome it: Erestor remembered all too well the feel of mithril-enhanced iron passing into flesh with the resistance and sudden give that presaged the worst of damage, the slide of blade on bone that guided the point fully home. He had no intention of denying it. “When I lie to you, Glorfindel, it will be for some better reason than to deny that truth. I told you already, why do you think Galadriel kept me so close, unlike so many others, once her huntsman had us in hand?”

“Yet some were sent to a worse fate than this,” said Glorfindel tossing his head vaguely at the wealth represented all about them, still thinking as best he could, coldly though shock’s after-waves redounded upon him, ebbing too slowly for his liking as he stared at the stranger’s face so close before him. Eyes that in the past seemed reticent, though with a softened edge that Glorfindel had been willing to believe indicated a return of his own interest, were now showing not the least weakness, nor any elven spirit whatever except a Fëanorian arrogance that gave no quarter and spared no room for discussion of any kind. With that haughty expression and incipient rage, their roles should be reversed, Erestor holding *him* captive.

He had not relaxed his grip and became mindful that he should but he was not ready for this confrontation to end quite yet. “Erestor?”

The Noldo nearly surrendered at the plaintive tone of that one word, in which all he had grown to value of gentle concern and amity reasserted themselves. His stomach twisted. Vast and overwhelming, the familiar warmth undid him, to the point where only a thread remained to contain the breach in his defences that he dreaded more than Glorfindel’s antipathy. He would rather have faced Galadriel at her most formidable.

He made a decisive effort to free his arms, without holding back any of his own not inconsiderable strength. Glorfindel might be stronger, but he would have to choose to hurt him to keep him in hold. He risked his last dignity on that one throw, wrenching shoulder and elbow joints almost from their sockets in his determined bid to end this torturous interrogation.

After an endless hiatus in which Glorfindel held on and Erestor did not desist, the vice-like fingers opened and Glorfindel dropped his hands, leaving Erestor free to turn for the door. Instinctively he made for his old rooms and their secluded embrace, closing both doors behind him. Shaken to the core, he took refuge in the familiar, still surroundings whose silence welcomed him. The tears he had resisted on the training grounds would not now be denied, and for the second time in two days he wept bitterly, cursing while he did: himself, Maglor, Maedhros, Elrond, the Valar – he cared little whom he reviled so long as the litany of words kept thought at bay and fended off the hurt he had known was coming. His arms hurt and he clutched them where bruises would soon form, and subsided to the floor, no longer even trying to stem the tide. He knew well he did not weep for Glorfindel, nor what had passed between them, or at least, not only for that. He had been avoiding these tears since Celeborn’s contingents had finally laid them by the heels. Relief was there amongst the outpouring of regrets, and Erestor let himself cry for as long as tears still came.

***

“Erestor’s missing.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I can’t find him. His quarters, his study, his old rooms, the great hall, your library – he’s nowhere to be found and Meren is in his stall – he’s not out riding.”

“What about the gardens?”

“In full dark? It’s possible I suppose.”

“Why do you want him anyway? You know if I search him out he’ll be aware of it. We didn’t part on good terms. He won’t like it. I’ll do it, but only as a last resort.”

“Neither did I part with him on good terms, Elrond. And I’ve never been unable to find him before unless he was out with Meren.”

They exchanged a silent glance, both thinking on what they had said that day, and what they might expect of Erestor. “You don’t seriously think he’s gone?”

Glorfindel shrugged uncomfortably. “You didn’t see him this afternoon. He said you’d be glad if he betrayed you… That you hated him, and could then at least be rid of him. And I – what you said bothered me more than I expected, so I waited to speak to him after he finished whatever it was he does for all those hours at his desk.”

“Getting ready to go to Harad, I expect,” murmured Elrond, knowing forwards and backwards how Erestor worked after all these years. “And clearing out of the way unfinished business so he can concentrate.”

“Yes, well, I waited for him and it was hours before he emerged; it was dark, and I’d just been sitting there, thinking. Elrond, you may not like it, but he matters to me, and after what you said – I accused him of kinslaying. He fled, when I let him go. Now I can’t find him.”

Elrond sighed. “You really are serious about him?”

Glorfindel did not answer but came to stand beside him where they could overlook the whole span of the southern valley from east to west. Black trees filled the horizon, while overhead the stars lit an unclouded sky: for a moment the conversation lapsed as the wondrous beauty of it caught them. “He loves the stars you know; I came upon him naming all he could see from his old rooms. I do intend to have him, if I can. He thought you’d oppose it.”

“I didn’t know that about him.” He hesitated. “Glorfindel - I know he is capable of taking great pleasure in much that Eä has to offer – books, horses, fine clothes, music, the gardens – all these, but that does not make him a suitable partner for you.”

Glorfindel listened sombrely.

When he neither interrupted, nor showed signs of restless protest, Elrond continued carefully, “You did not see him as I did. He was such a good match for them. He *belonged* with them and he did all they asked, took all they gave, the good and the bad, giving no sign at all as to which counted for which. With him, you’d never be sure.” He left unspoken, that he could not think of a more unsuitable match for the Captain of Imladris.

“My lord, I will not argue with you. Yet you were very young, and he – surely he has not served you so very ill that you would have him outcast forever? I don’t ask you to like him, but to count him as beyond the pale… Elrond, you will understand, if in this I have to judge for myself.”

Elrond nodded resignedly, expecting nothing less. “I hope you won’t regret it. I know it will be hard – for you both, I think. Today already proves that. Go and ask the guards if they saw him leave, and check again. If you cannot find him, come back and I will look for him.”

Elrond poured a drink and sat in the window, awaiting his return. Unlike Glorfindel, he had no fear that the Noldo had left. He had sensed many impressions that afternoon, many unwelcome to him, but there had been amongst them no contemplation of open flight. Some of what he had said had been to test the other’s intentions, designed to help him divine more of Erestor’s thoughts and motivations than the elf willingly revealed. He had not bargained for Erestor’s reactions – nor his own. Glorfindel would find him. If not, he could discover Erestor’s whereabouts himself, though he would not do so lightly.

He sat on in the dark and waited, pondering what Erestor had said about Harad, and Gandalf’s last missive about the presence in the south of the Greenwood, increasingly convinced that Erestor was right. They could ill afford to allow easy footholds from which remnant servants of Melkor or Sauron could wreak more havoc, as had been happening so disastrously in the north. Gondor must stand, or they all would pay the price. And the forest fastness must be investigated, no matter what messages Gandalf carried from Saruman. If Thranduil would agree, could they act without the wizards’ sanction? The idea shocked him but he could not shake his persistent unease.

***

Glorfindel made the rounds of the house once more, stopped for a word with Lindir to ask if Erestor had appeared in the hall, and stepped out to the brookside behind the wall of the barracks to see if he was there. The guards had not seen him. He checked the stables once more, asked the sleepy incumbents if they had seen sight or sound of the Noldo and, on drawing a blank, walked down to Meren’s stall as if the horse could tell him where to look. The dapple-grey stallion was still there, as he had expected, but not facing outwards at Glorfindel’s approach, and suddenly he knew he had run his quarry to earth.

He padded up to the dividing wall of the generous indoor provision. His silent footfalls had alerted the elf sitting in the straw, or perhaps Meren’s nicker had made known his approach. Glorfindel saw Erestor flinch and look away. Clearly he was not himself. He sat, hands between his knees, back against the board partition, black garb littered with straw and equine smudges. While Glorfindel watched, the colt nudged Erestor’s side and gave another low nicker. The Elda absently patted a greeting on the hot shoulder before pushing him aside. Meren resisted a moment before giving way. Glorfindel crouched down an arm’s-length distant from Erestor and waited, not looking at the elf but across the expanse of straw at the grey who took to lipping hay and snorting a little water, not truly thirsty, idly occupying himself before falling back into the somnolence rightfully his at this late hour.

Listlessly, Erestor spoke into the arching silence of the stables around them, “You’ve come to finish what you started? You are persistent, my lord. How shall I satisfy you?” He said no more, and nor did Glorfindel speak in answer to the half-hearted bitterness, relieved at the absence of the acerbic tones of their earlier interchange. He settled himself further into the straw bedding to get comfortable. After a while Erestor heaved a deep sigh. “I was missed then.”

“I looked for you and couldn’t find you anywhere. Elrond said he’d search you out only if I didn’t run you to earth. He rather thought you’d not welcome contact of that ilk.”

Erestor shuddered in reflex at the thought. “Then I am obliged to him. I went to my rooms for a while and then I came here. What do you want, Glorfindel?”

“I told Elrond I would not give up my interest in you. You were wrong about him putting a stop to it. He said nothing to prevent me, Erestor.”

Erestor laughed, an unhappy sound, and said mordantly, “No, he just plans to lock me up and throw away the key if he’s not happy with the way your romance works out for you.”

“He was concerned, Erestor. He’s very sceptical about you and he has a legacy of feelings from Sirion and after that is not to be cast aside. I gather you made a profound first impression? And certainly he doesn’t condone what you did in the years afterwards; he fundamentally opposes choices you made. As do I, for that matter.”

Erestor laughed, no less harshly, hands hanging loosely between his knees, and head tipped back against the planks. “You have a unique way of making your interest known.” He turned to look at Glorfindel at last. “So – you told Elrond your intentions.” The Captain had his head slightly tipped, his smile showing faint encouragement to talk if he wanted, eyes solemn. “You wouldn’t be the first to want me. Nor the first with the most appalling timing. What in all Arda do you think you’re doing?” There was no heat in the words, his voice was tired, but his eyes showed sharp attention, “Or was that little scene in the library staged to show me my place?”

“I have no idea what I am doing,” admitted Glorfindel, “but I’m sorry about earlier, not for asking, but for doing it in such a way, surprising you in the dark…” He didn’t finish the rest. He wanted to touch now as instinctively as he had then, though in rather different fashion. “I should have waited until tomorrow, after the day we had passed already.”

“Twice I began to tell you. Twice you put me off. You were most unfair,” Erestor observed dispassionately.

“I didn’t realize – I didn’t understand – Elrond had much to tell me. You’ve lived a – varied – life. Mine has been very different.”

In unbroken silence they contemplated for a while the realities of longevity in Erestor’s case, what he had done in the long unfolding of the years, and the contrast of Glorfindel’s truncated span with its very different griefs. Glorfindel stirred before he spoke once more. “What was it like for you, living with them?” There could be no mistaking to whom he referred.

“In what way?”

Glorfindel shrugged. “You were thirty eight. Did you spend much time with Maedhros? Even when I knew them, he was as intense as Fëanor.”

Erestor glanced at him warily. “He was very intelligent. His mind… I have never met any to equal him. He taught me himself, a great deal. I had tutors but where they stopped he took over. He was generous, in his way, and always kept his word. Quite mad, I suppose in hindsight, but at the time – he was systematic. Purposeful. A planner.” He spoke without feeling.

“And the others? You had a lot to do with them?”

“I don’t kiss and tell, Glorfindel,” he said drily and with finality.

Glorfindel looked sidelong at him, catching the dark humour, the deep reservations, and the wondering about possibilities, all revealed in the thoughtful eyes that rested on him. And then the sombre expression lightened, and the finely delineated mouth curled up.

“Is it the same, your hair?”

“The same?” Puzzled Glorfindel brought a lock forward to see it, as if it might have changed since he last dressed it.

“The same as it was in Gondolin?”

Glorfindel laughed. “Yes. Everything is the same, more or less. Erestor – you don’t kiss and tell, but – do you kiss at all?”

He sighed. “Not for a while. Not for a long while. You?”

“Here and there, nothing serious since I found myself returned. And not for some time lately.” Again they both relapsed into contemplation, in Erestor’s case of all the times he had felt Glorfindel’s interest in him, a steady presence and undemanding. Now he knew how that could change. His belly tightened at the memory of hard hands grasping his arms, and a bruising struggle. For all his hours of training, this would never be someone he could win free of, not unless it was granted freely. A familiar warmth spread in him. He remembered his dream, and tried to imagine giving this golden lord what he sought. An uneasy mixture of familiar, heated longing and churning repugnance at his desire overtook him.

“You can if you want.”

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

Erestor sounded casual, as if slightly curious. In Glorfindel the words stirred something he fought to rein in: not lust, although that too was raising its head robustly, but rather the desire Erestor had so aptly taunted him with, the temptation to believe what he chose, relinquishing better judgement in favour of fantasy. Yet of everything he understood about Erestor, the most certain was that appearances could deceive, and in this arena it was especially likely to be true – or so his instincts insisted, while his heart sang another song. His loins frankly didn’t care so long as he pursued what was offered, and his head was left to rule the whole cacophony. No, he did not trust this invitation as permissive or promissory. He was not taken in by its casual nature, nor the suggestion of willing partnership he would have been delighted to construe from those two short words had they come from any other elf.

“Come over here then.”

Erestor shifted over with his peculiar grace, which he retained even when hay-strewn in the straw and adorned with Meren’s grass-embedded slobber, only to pause uncertainly. Glorfindel lifted his arm and Erestor took the hint and settled at his side, heart thumping, wondering if he were mad, and why he was still here, and surely he had taken leave of every good sense he had ever possessed. And yet, the warmth at his side, where hips, ribs, shoulder and arm met in smooth junction and compromise of angle, reminded him of the peace of the afternoon by the river. Glorfindel now, as then, continued to play the flame to his moth. At that moment it did not seem so bad a fate to be consumed by fire. He reached out a hand to draw a handful of gold toward him. It felt as soft as it had the day before. Silk smooth. He let the strands run individually over the back of his hand and fall away. Laurelin-radiant indeed even in this light, though it smelled of flowers and not of their larger cousins. Idly he wondered what the Trees had looked like. “Did you ever see them?”

“Did I ever see who, Erestor?” Amused, Glorfindel was in no hurry, though he too was aware of the pulse of his heart and the lean contact of Erestor’s body beside him.

“Telperion and Laurelin.”

“Ah.” He smiled remembering the afternoon before. “Yes – the world was different then. They were incredibly beautiful…” For a moment he was quiet, vainly seeking words that could adequately paint a picture of those twin glories of the West in the Elder days. “There were songs sung in Gondolin about them that could have a whole tavern of soldiers fall quiet at the singing.”

“I would have liked to hear the music that could encompass such loveliness.” The words emerged softly and slowly, low in register, taking on a musical intonation of their own. The silence left in their wake merged with the spell already cast by the stillness of the stable about them. Idly Erestor twined a curl between his fingers.

Glorfindel’s scalp shivered at the scarcely felt tug, which caused a renewed frisson of desire to spread through his body. He turned to face Erestor a little more without moving the other elf, letting the arm he had dropped about him come to rest with his hand splayed between Erestor’s shoulders. With his other hand he smoothed back the tendrils of hair around Erestor’s face and set long fingers about the task of picking straw out from his black crown. Then he bent to kiss him. Erestor tipped his head to make it easier. Mouth slightly open, Glorfindel pressed his lips to Erestor’s and felt him tense and then allow it. Silken hair gave and slid under his palm where he held his willing subject in place; smooth lips met his own in the give and take of this virgin intimacy. He lingered over the kiss, wholly absorbed without needing to extend it into a prelude to passion.

Erestor seemed to meld into the space bounded by Glorfindel’s body, hands and lips, kissing him back, lips soft and parted, as if he were freely for the taking. Wary in spite of the lust that shook him, Glorfindel had no intention of acting on that impression. A glance revealed black depthless eyes watching him with a reserved intelligence at odds with the limber body he held, eyes that remained disengaged and untouched. A second shiver went through Glorfindel, of a very different kind. He could still feel Erestor’s body easy in his hold, pressed to him, giving all the signals that would encourage him to carry on, while those clinically curious eyes studied him as if to see what Glorfindel would do next without the least intention of Erestor involving himself.

Glorfindel had known those who had received unwelcome advances hard to put off. He had stood witness when others had suffered the bitterest of partings when one or both of a couple had thought themselves attached by love forever. He had seen friends through times of intense unhappiness with their chosen partner before their differences were reconciled. Whether in his role as superior officer, comrade in arms, head of household or simple friend, he had seen it all, and listened for hours, not always understanding, but willing to let friends or subordinates talk if they needed to. Yet even so he had no experience of anyone remotely with a past like Erestor’s. When he retreated he placed a second shorter kiss on the side of the still slightly parted lips before settling back against the wall, drawing Erestor close into his side with one arm.

Erestor allowed it, and himself sat back, following Glorfindel’s lead. Far from relaxed, he twined straw between his fingers. “It’s late.”

“Time to find our beds, you think?”

Erestor cast him a quick glance, relief writ transparent on his face before he went back to his handful of twisted stems. “High time.”

End of Chapter 12/12
End of Favourite Addiction Part One
To be continued in Part Two Southern Ventures

Vocabulary:

Sindarin - English:
Meren – Joyous
Thelinn – of loyal heart, Resolved Heart

*** vocab ends ***