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
Author's Chapter Notes:
Summary: Glorfindel somewhat overwhelms Erestor at close quarters.