*** Second Age After the Fall of Eregion ***
The sun rises,
The sun sets
And the earth turns
While love is found
And lost
And found again.
But you I will love eternally.
***
Chapter Five
With Erestor gone up the valley, and Lindir expecting family and more to descend on them, Imladris was a furore of activity. In the midst of this was one quiet haven, Elrond’s study, currently hosting a more personal confrontation than the arrangement of guest rooms that was occupying harassed household staff.
“Well?”
Lindir had seldom felt so wrong-footed. Ignoring his dour father’s demands while maintaining the due filial courtesies had worked in the past. His musical skill had given him occupation, respect and an income, as well as a sense of belonging. He was not sure how things had spiralled out of control so very fast. “My lord, what exactly do wish me to answer to in particular?”
Elrond refrained from sighing, also from exploding. With a patience born of extensive experience of musicians – he often found them to be headstrong, blind, obsessive and selfish – he asked measuredly, “You are marrying this elleth?”
“My father has arranged it. I – think I will have to tell her it is my father’s doing and not my own. I think – not marry her.” Lindir looked rather shame-faced, as well he might. Two elves upset and ill done by in short succession. Even for a musician it seemed excessive.
“They have come from Lindon. All this way. At some expense, and even risk. And you did not think to break this news sooner?”
“When I got the letter, I thought perhaps, go along with it…”
Elrond looked incredulous. “You’d get married because your father nagged you? And then make a play for my assistant - who is no longer my assistant, I trust you have noticed?” Clearly an upright posture and noble look did not quite make for strength of character in Lindir’s case.
Lindir looked uncomfortable. “He never lets up, once he has an idea. I thought maybe it was my duty to marry. Have children.” He moved his hand a little, vague indication of his own, different, preferences.
Unimpressed, Elrond made no effort to ameliorate his next words or their tone. “I suggest you impose some order on your thinking, make a decision, and then inform us all of your intentions. That will be all.”
Elrond had a most expressive face, to Lindir’s present regret. This particular cast of features, with brow askance and mouth set firmly, seemed most likely to translate as, ‘I am not sure why you are still standing there, but I am no longer remotely interested in retaining your company.’
***
The corridor seemed endless, his rooms too far away. He caught up his harp and slung it over his shoulder, before wasting no time in heading for the river and climbing the woods of the watercourse. Without noticing, his uneasy strides took him further than he had gone before. He slowed his steps when a rise in the terrain opened unheralded into a wide span of valley bottom where glass-clear water filled a lake fringed by willows and reed beds. Behind him water fell noisily down into the busy river. Before him lay tranquillity. Lindir felt an easing of his soul at the sight.
The sight of a reed bunting climbing up and down a stem had him reaching instinctively for his harp. He played softly at first, simple notes that echoed what he saw and heard. Tinkling notes for geese spattering the water as they barrel-rolled, pluck, pluck, pluck on a single string for the moorhen’s call, and an exuberant trill for the kingfisher’s flight…
Gradually his fingers quieted and then stopped altogether. It was too easy to play and forget. He sat until the stillness of the valley seeped into his very bones. Music was Ulmo’s gift, and if he had indulged in his calling while neglecting his responsibilities it smacked of abuse for which he owed restitution. Elrond was right. He must decide, and he must face the others with his decisions. His father. Lorillien. Elrond, as his lord. Erestor above all.
Did he imagine a smiling face hovering in the sun-lit plane of water? Eyes, understanding and kind, yet hinting of disappointment, in darkly shifting greens and blues, greys and black, just like the ocean’s ever changing colours? He shivered, prescient with an insight he had lacked hitherto. This marriage would be very wrong, for Lorillien as much as himself. Lorillien was born into circles he had elected to leave and she was not made to live the life of a minstrel’s bonded. She belonged where she could dance and talk and politic, living a life of her own choosing, not tied to an elf obsessed with music, and one, moreover, despatched abroad. And not married to one who did not love her, who could not get thoughts of a certain dark-haired ellon out of his mind. For himself, to owe her all the duty, care and respect of marriage could only be a burden, one that would feel heavier as the years passed, stifling to the inner joy that was the well-spring of his compositions.
The peace of certainty came upon him. He made his way back knowing what he must do.
***
Elrond received him somewhat more pleasantly with his decision made, along with a commitment to make all clear to the others. Then he had to wait until the party’s arrival and see them all welcomed, settled, and made comfortable.
Were it not for his guilty conscience, it would not have been so hard, thanks to his ready address and long practice, to make all the appropriate noises of greeting and enquiry as to the journey, to thank the formidable escort his father had brought, and to pay his respects to Lorillien and her attendants, asking to speak with her later once he had shown her to her rooms. It was his father he sought out first for a private interview.
How many times had he faced his parent in some confrontation? He should be used to it, but always his stomach sank, defences rising in the face of the subtle attacks his father could mount with a single look alone. Noble Sinda, cool, aloof and cold as the moonlight that gave its colour to heavy falls of sternly disciplined hair - they were so alike in appearance, his father and he, and yet so different. Music had not touched his father’s soul and nothing Lindir had ever managed to say had moved his father to forgiveness for taking up such a demeaning professional course. Councillor to Gil-galad, his father’s peerless status was also Lindir’s destiny, thus ran his father’s ambitions.
“You will not do this to me, Lindir.” Arvellon spoke nigh threateningly. Nothing subtle today in their dealings; the anger that was barely hidden was a force to be reckoned with.
“But I will, and this time you will not misrepresent me. I will make it clear to all, personally, together with due apologies. But none to you, whom I told from the first how I felt.” Lindir struggled to speak quietly and definitely.
“I have arranged it. You will be guided by me and this marriage will go ahead, do you hear me? You are my son and for once, you will do your duty just as you said to me. In Imladris. And here we are.” The overbearing words permitted no refusal.
Lindir looked into inimical green eyes, mirror to his own. His father had made his childhood home a cold place, had left him tense and anxious over his musical aspirations, and by his opposition had separated Lindir too early from his mother. Lindir’s insistence on studying music generated argument after argument and he had soon taken refuge under his aunt’s sponsorship, mostly only paying lip-service attendance in his own home. Lindir had no doubt his mother was far happier in Valinor, though he missed her since she sailed. She had been an ethereal grace-note in an otherwise grim household.
“An unworthy piece of flippancy, for which I intend amends in full. I hesitated too long when your letter arrived on account of this argument about my duty to you. My answer is no. Although I would prefer to please you better than I have, I will not make a wrong decision for your sake. My duty is first to the King, and then Lord Elrond. After that, my conscience. Lorillien shall have none of me, father. It is best so. Have done.”
Arvellon shook his head slowly. “Understand me, Lindir. You were indulged in pursuing your music professionally. You have had your time playing at being harper. So be it. But there can be no objection to this marriage. Lorillien is eminently suitable, you like her, she is of high station and you will deal very well together. Gil-galad will not exile you here forever. And when you return you can keep your hobby and take your rightful place.” He spoke almost persuasively, with a hint of need faced with the prospect of great loss. Not of the son that was his, but of the dream of the son he had wanted and all the hopes he had invested in that fantasy.
Lindir did not know whether to feel weary, frustrated or angry. Compassion also stirred him and he tried to make himself understood. “It is not that I ever wanted to disoblige you, father. I just know I would be wrong to marry her and wrong to give up the gift I have been given.”
Arvellon shook his head again, no longer pleading. “You insist on making a fiasco of all who have come here.”
“And for that we are both to blame – you *knew* I was never serious when I said you would have to come here for the wedding to take place. When you acted on my word, it was because you wanted to get your own way. That you have tried this piece of manipulation I leave to your own conscience to reconcile. That I almost went along with it is – a weakness I will try and rectify in future.”
His green eyes were as cool as his father’s. There was nothing Arvellon could do. Both of them knew it.
“For all the son you have ever been to me, you might just as well not have been mine. You should be taking your rightful place in court, gaining honour and respect, a son to be proud of, instead of playing pipes and singing songs of lovers and the dead past. And now this.” The words were delivered heavily, to punish, and Lindir felt the weight of them but refused to show his hurt. Or his anger.
“Father – even if I will not do as you wish, can you not find it in you to wish me well?”
The silence stretched while they stared at one another, Lindir hoping, as he had hoped all his life, for some sign of acceptance or good will from his father that was not tied to him doing what he wanted.
Lindir shrugged. “If that is all, then I should go.”
“All? It is enough, certainly.” Arvellon frowned at him broodingly, as if looking at a stranger.
An uneasy paradox that such fine looks could appear so cold and inflexible, thought Lindir, and suddenly felt all the rightness of this most awkward decision. It could have been himself and Lorillien looking at one another like strangers after years of marriage had he gone ahead with his father’s dear ambition and made this loveless match.
***
Lorillien let him in, and bade him be seated. Briefly she towered over him, tall and dark-haired, before she, too, took a chair. They would have made a most striking couple. Lindir wondered if that had been part of his father’s thinking, to parade them at court, making a good impression. She neither interrupted nor protested, her rather long, clever face composed while she listened. He trailed through his explanations, managing somehow to stumble through to the foolish end.
“You’re sure of your decision?”
“Yes…” He cleared his throat. “I did not realize he would be so determined when he knew my preferences. Of course I should have informed you personally. I should have contacted you as soon as my father let me know he had pursued the matter. And when he said you were on the way with the marriage agreed – I have no excuse. I thought, maybe go along with him, which was gravely wrong of me, as I see now. I have no desire to be wed, Lorillien. I cannot give you the life you deserve.”
She took in his sheepish expression and spoke slowly. Thoughtfully. And damningly. “Perhaps it’s for the best, Lindir. You know what they say, like father like son. And if you prove as selfish as he is, which by all appearances you are set to do, I am better out of it I do believe.” She regarded him clinically out of clear, hazel eyes. “Perhaps some kind of reparation is in order however, for the clothes readied, the journey, the embarrassment, and the broken contract?”
He flushed deeply and they set about discussing financial matters. Apparently she intended some sort of useful gift for each member of her own party who had made the futile journey, more than seeking reparations on her own account. For herself, she proposed he pay for half her trousseau and with that she would be content.
With a deep sigh of relief he finally left her chambers and for the rest of her stay was inordinately polite and attentive before seeing her off with good will and respect, profoundly grateful for her pragmatic restraint. His father barely managed further speech with him at all, and Lindir doubted that the relationship would ever see improvement after this. He tried to grieve over it when he bade Arvellon farewell along with the other departing guests, and failed. Nor did guilt quite take root over that failure of proper feeling. Relief predominated, and it was with a far lighter heart that he watched the last horse disappear along the roadway’s first bend.
Parmasambe
Library of Imladris
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