Hypothesis, Conclusion

Six years ago:

“I want a wife who understands what it is I do and is more than a housekeeper.  Tinuvist… please say yes.”

She twisted her hands uncertainly in her lap.  ”I’ve got to concentrate on my master’s work, Derrek.”

“Oh, of course!  I as well.  That’s why this will be such a wise arrangement, even if you won’t marry me now.  You know I’m near defending, and then you can help me meet the right people and secure a good posting.  By then, you’ll be ready for your turn at the master’s bench, and I’ll be able to help you.  I understand you because I want what you want.  We’ll share a house and pool our stipends to keep a maid, so we can concentrate and advance.  We’re both neo-Cennanists, so it will work.  I’m not Finubar, you know.  He was a Gondorian pig.”

She gave him a sharp look.  ”Not all Gondorians are like that.  Be fair.”

“It just wasn’t right, what he did, telling everyone about what ought to be personal.  If you wish to take a lover, it ought to be your choice, same as anyone.  But I’m different.  We’re friends.  You know me.  You know I don’t think you’re a whore because you did as all the other mastery candidates do when nature makes its demands.”

She didn’t like that word.  Even with him denying she fit its definition, it still was in his vocabulary.  But she was tired of fighting, tired of arguing, and tired of her parents giving her worried looks and discussing personal responsibility.  ”You have to court me first.  And I won’t marry you until we’re both masters.  Equality, or nothing.”

He said earnestly, “I’d have it no other way.  It’s the way of order and harmony, Ja?  But it will settle talk if you’re known to be my betrothed, even if we just say it.”

“All right.”  She looked back to him.  ”That’s rational.  We have to work within the rules even as we advance a more enlightened world.”

He grinned and took her hands.  ”We do.”

Her heart skipped a beat, and she began to breathe again.  Some men could be trusted.  Some men understood.  The world would be fair, and she could be both person and scholar.

*********

Two years ago:

She walked into the rooms they’d decorated together.  She hooked her stiff, new robes over the hook by his.  And what should have been a day of triumph turned to ash in her mouth as she saw him at his desk, and not delayed by some perfectly reasonable errand.

“Derrek?”

“Ah, Tinuvist.  Good, you’re in time.  I’ve invited a few of the faculty here for supper.”

Her spirits rose a little.  ”Oh!  For the defense.  That’s kind of you.”

He turned, blinking.  ”Wait… no.  Was that today?”  He looked dismayed.  He always looked dismayed.  He’d looked dismayed when she’d taken the summer to gather samples, and he’d looked dismayed when she’d said she was too busy for children right now, and he’d looked dismayed when she reminded him that he’d scheduled yet another dinner during her award banquet.  She was always dismaying him by behaving exactly as she’d said she would.  ”Oh twinkle-star, I’m sorry!  I should have been there.  Was it very awful?”

“Not really.  They just want me to add a table to illustrate my controls.”

He was quiet.  It was an angry quiet.  ”You passed?” he asked finally.

“Aye.  I did.”  She understood, really.  He hadn’t passed his first round, and wouldn’t have even if he hadn’t been sloppy with his counter-arguments.  His committee had a sour member, and that’s beyond anyone’s control.  She’d listened to him cry and held him into the night.  She’d encouraged him to try again and spent hours reading drafts and suggesting changes.  He’d called her his treasure.  His clever little dragon.  She’d watched him defend again and baked a cake when he succeeded.  And so … no, she didn’t understand why he was looking at her with anger and resentment.  Or rather, she did.  And she couldn’t ignore the data that presented itself.  In the seam holding them together some last thread broke, and her future began to unravel from his.

Heedless, he said, “You slept with Master Thurion, didn’t you?”

Another stitch came undone.  Threads gapped between them.  She felt herself going calm.  ”Why on Arda would you say that, Derrek?”

“He was telling everyone your methods lacked refinement only weeks ago.  So you must have done something.”

“You don’t own my body.  I may use it as I see fit.  If I choose to use it for professional advancement, it’s better than using it for sating lust alone.”

“I was drunk!  You forgave me!”

“I said no.  You heard me say it.”

“This again?  Come on, Tinuvist.  We’re betrothed.  We’ve been lovers for years now.  But this!  I never was false to you, at least.”

“I did not say I had been, nor have I given myself to any of the others you’ve cornered and given threat to.  Oh, you didn’t know I knew you’d been waving your fist at my colleagues?  I know.  They blame me, and then they stop discussing work with me.”  She drew in a breath.  Stay on topic.  Stay on topic while you carefully dissolve four years of carefully constructed life.  ”Has it occurred to you that I may have convinced him on the merits of my work alone?  That all of these men are simply colleagues with whom I argue and engage in scholarly process?”

He calmed, still sulking as he said, “It’s only that you’re so beautiful.  It makes me jealous, seeing how they look at you.”  He drew in a breath, then another.  ”I’m sorry.  That was my cultural conditioning.  Of course you own yourself and are not oathbound to me.  I haven’t a right to hold you.  And of course your work is good.  I… bah.  I forgot what day it was.  Honest, Tinuvist, I did!  I’m happy for you.  Now we can marry, and it’s even better.  We’ll settle all this arguing and get on with our lives.  We ought to be having children and hosting dinners as we get on with our lives.”

“And teaching and conducting research.”

“We’ve been doing that already.  This was the plan, wasn’t it?  And look how well it’s worked for you.  You’re a master!  That’s wonderful.”

It was the same tone he used when the cat brought him a bird.  ”So had we not been partners, I’d not have attained mastery?”

He reddened.  ”I didn’t mean that!  Why do you always do that and twist my words up?”

“You’re a linguist.  You should take responsibility for your statements.”

“And you should be rational.  Our connection saved your reputation, you know.  People overlook it if a betrothed woman gives her future husband favors.  I made you seem less threatening to the traditional elements in the faculty, and I kept the house going when you went off on your little jaunts to the wastelands.  And it works both ways, because you reassured the hiring committee that I needed my stipend raised to support a family.  Don’t dismiss everything we’ve done for each other in the name of principle.”

The last stitch slipped.  He was making sense, in a way, but as she looked at him, she didn’t see the man she used to see.  So she prodded it again to be sure the connection was well and truly severed.  ”If I publish more than you?”

The red ears said more than the words he found. “Then I’ll be happy for you.”

“If I must travel for a year to collect samples away from the Lake?”

“Before the children come?  I suppose you may.”

“And after?”

“Will you abandon them for some rocks?  We have rocks right here in Erebor!”

“So my work comes secondary to my role as a mother.”

“We’ve been over this, Tinuvist!  We’ll share duties and run a rational, equal home.  You’re just angry about the defense and you’ve a right to be.  I made a mistake.  I lost track of time.”

She let her eyes go to the calender and the note posted in red ink reminding him of the day.  She looked back to his red face.  And she said what she felt, for the first time in a long time. “Enough.  I have done enough, and had enough.  Your words and your actions fail to match.”

He slammed a hand into his desk.  ”Have you no heart, woman?  I said I was sorry!”

“You said.  But if you truly believed I was your equal, you would have been there to watch. You wouldn’t constantly see me as someone whose primary purpose is bedplay and baby making.  You wouldn’t obsess about whom I may or may not be playing in bed with, and you would instead obsess about how much time I’ve spent climbing walls and collecting samples.  You would obsess about how worried I was that the committee member who rejects an old-Arda model would toss my work out because of our differing beliefs.  You might have found a way to include me in your conversations at the faculty boating trip last week other than waxing eloquent about my baking.  You wouldn’t have referred to my application to the junior position in the natural sciences as ‘brave for a woman.’  You look at me, and you see a walking, talking womb.  I will not marry you.”

He stood, fuming.  ”What, now?  Now, when we have guests?  Now you want to walk away?  Who is he?  Who are you seeing?  Is it Master Fletcher?”

The thread was pulled.  The union dissolved, like limestone in acid.  ”You are a master of philosophy and language.  Read yourself for once, and read yourself carefully.”  She turned, took her new robes, and left.  Her parents lived at the other end of the university hill, and it was raining. When her father came for her books, he found them dumped on the doorstep.

*********

One year ago:

We regret to inform you that another candidate has been chosen for the permanent lectureship in Natural Sciences.  Although your work is promising and your peer evaluations positive, we feel that you are not as good a fit for our needs at this time.  We encourage you to apply again, and meanwhile we will, of course, continue to pay you for your service courses to the community….

She looked up and saw Master Thurion watching.  He came over to speak to her in public as few would these days, and said ruefully, “I tried.  You were a strong candidate, and you made excellent suggestions in your interview.”

She bit back tears.  She wouldn’t let them see her hurting.  She would not let them see her crying like a girl.  ”They say it was an issue fit with the departmental culture.”

He nodded.  ”The dean removed you from the list of finalists, if you want to know.”

“Derrek’s friend the dean.  Of course.”  She hated how much she sounded like a bitter, discarded lover.  Even now, a year later, Derrek found ways to force her into feminine cliches.

“That dean, yes.  He said you would detract from the dignity of the faculty.”  Master Thurion showed emotion enough for her.  ”That little weasel has been busier knocking at you than doing his own work.  Not that it’s a loss.  Funny how poor his essays have gotten since you left him.”

She nodded, and tried hard to focus on the positive.  Master Thurion saw how she’d gotten to this pass, so surely others did too.   Or perhaps they simply bought the stories and drooled after the next salacious detail from the secret life of Tinuvist: heartless strumpet.  Every one of her most private eccentricities, confidences whispered into the night, lovers who existed only in Derrek’s imagination, even affairs with students were now bread and butter gossip at the faculty tables.  Men who had slept with every female student to step into their lecture halls looked at her like a cheap piece and tried to arrange evening assignations.  Had she been inclined to whore herself, she could be rich by now.

She did not want to be a whore.  She was not rich.  Bitterness made her words brittle as she spoke to the man who had remained her ally and her bright light of hope for the male sex, “I make them nervous.  No matter how much I try, they see a woman before they see a scholar.”

He nodded.  ”It would be easier if you swore off men or married one.  Even the ones who prattle about equality of the minds would find that less disturbing.”  He admitted sheepishly, “I would have been among them at one time.”

“But you aren’t.” She said it fiercely.  ”Thurion, I know we disagree on much.  And I value that more than I can say.”

He looked at her evenly, then nodded.  ”I’m not perfect, dear.  But…”  He pulled a thick envelope from his jacket.  ”I know this is beneath you.  It’s not a university posting, and it’s not the sort of thing that brings prestige per se.  But I’ve called in on some old favors with a few trusted colleagues.  Bree is near enough to the Beleriand rift, and it’s got a young group of scholars producing quality work in the natural sciences.  Nallo the Ethnographer is there, as well as my old classmate Erlina.  It’s near Kapheim, and you know the dwarves will be fair to you.  Rumor has it Celeveren of Menegroth has directed a mastery piece in recent months, even, so you may manage to find better patronage there than I can provide.  They’ll give you a stipend and support your research.  I want you to go and be better than that pipsqueak candidate they picked.”

She regarded the man who’d begun their acquaintance by asking whose wife she was and what she was doing at a junior faculty meeting.  Over the years, he had ripped holes in her work, tasked her every scholarly failing, and given her sleepless nights that her male counterparts had never suffered at his hands.  He had declared, once, that to hire a woman to a permanent position was to court disaster when she left to have a family.  And this past year, he had read her every manuscript and threatened to quit if she wasn’t chosen to oversee the seniors working at their first thesis.  She took the envelope and said, “I suddenly find myself very interested in the Beleriand rift.”

He said, gruffly, “That’s my girl.  I’ll pay your travel – no argument now.  I’ve got money and my son won’t spend it so well as you.  Your parents will see it my way.”

She nodded, swallowing.  That was the worst of it, having her parents shamed because she dared act on the principle that female desire was just as natural as male.  They never blamed her, but… it hurt her father.  It hurt them both.  They had wed, after all, and she had not.  And thank goodness for it, or she would have no options now but poison in the soup.  ”It’s for the best.  I cede the field.  Derrek Hendriksson wins.”

“He only wins this round, Master Tinuvist.  Life is long, and you have the better mind.  Use it, or I’ll come after you myself.”

Reputation be damned, she hugged him, and he patted her head like her grandfather used to do.  Bree it was.  On to Bree.

The Talk

“There comes a time in a man’s life where hair starts growing in odd places and he gets these strange urges…”

“MA!  Eww, no.  I’m married.  Just stop.”

Frithvail carried on scrubbing the floor.  The house needed cleaned.  Things to do.  Oh yes, things to do.  ”We’re having the talk and you’re going to put down the cat and have it with me.”

“Ma, I know how to make babies.”

She lifted her brows, skewering him with a look.  ”Oh?  Because I’ve been here a week and… oh my, what’s that?  No babies!  You have that weird man in your spare room and a yard full of pets and Brooke, but babies?  Where’s the babies, then?  You’ve been married for years and nothing to show for it but a whole lot of sweaters.  But maybe I missed him.  Maybe he’s in a cupboard somewhere.  You just get your baby, hand him right over here, and this stops right now.”

“Ugh!”  He started feeling the growl bubble up.  It had dozed snug as a limp-sleeping kitten for months and now, it wanted to get out and … do indecent things.  Things involving hair and claws and the sort of things animals did to other animals that… yeah.  ”We… do what married folk do to make babies, all right?  I know about hair and … bedding and courses.  That’s right, courses.  Those weren’t bandages, Ma, and you didn’t keep cutting yourself every month.”

She looked amused.  ”Oh, so you wanted me to explain that when you were five and sniffing things that weren’t your business?”

He sulked.  ”No.”

“Fine.”  With a sigh that didn’t sound like her sigh, she said, “Your father would have been the one to have this chat with you.  I’m really not the one…”

“Then don’t.”  And there he was hovering with tea.  What was it with these people and tea?  She wasn’t thirsty.  She’d left her heart at the bottom of a lake, that’s what.  You don’t fix it with tea.

“No.  It’s almost time that you need to know.  I don’t want you waking up some day and… having the changes there, and nobody to explain.”

“Ma.  I got hair.  The mustache?  That’s everywhere.  We’ll make you a grandchild when we make it, so just… simmer down and clean something.”

“Oh nice.  Very nice.  Shut up and listen before I tie you to a chair.  And don’t think you’re too big for it, Broddi-o, or I’ll just show you.”

The growl was ranging now and his throat hurt from holding it.  ”Fine.  Just… say whatever you’ve got to to make this stop.”

She sat back, then said, plain as day, “You know your Da’s a Beorning, like his Ma Berys.”

He suddenly got quiet.  And she knew she was too late.

“Well.  Then stop asking stupid questions about hair and urges.  Have you woken up a bear yet?”

He boggled.  ”You knew?  You knew and you didn’t warn me?  Why, Ma?  What a stupid thing to…”

She snapped him off right there.  ”You ran off.  Now, I know why you went, and it turned out with you alive and breathing, but you ran off before you were old enough for the talk, so don’t you go putting that shit on me.  No way, no how.”

“Ma… you said…”

“Shit, yes.  I can also say sod, fuck, wank, bob, lubsucker…”

He pressed his hands over his ears and said, “STOP IT, stop it, STOP IT!”

She lifted her brows and prepared to sign.  He sighed and put his hands down.  ”Shut your trap and listen for once.  Right.  So you’ve figured out by now that you’ve got a skin-change.  Don’t mean you’re a real bear.  If any of the other bears ask you to mate or get into some stupid dominance fight, don’t you give in to peer pressure.”

“… I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”  He felt himself turning red.

“You just play submissive and you get away from the other bears.  Stick to the unpopular streams.  Mating season’s coming up and I don’t want you doing anything you may regret later.  When you smell a female in heat, just tell yourself ‘I’ve got a wife’ and go home.  Use it.”

His blush drained to white as he asked, “Mother… why were we all born in Midwinter?”

“Well thank Fate and the Boatman, you can count.  Now, you’ll have a few days after you sniff a female in heat to come to your senses.  Lady bears like to be courted first, so make sure you don’t stay Bearskin too long in the Spring.  You smell that smell, head right on home.  Promise me?”

“Make it stop.”

“Promise me.”

He said, muttering, “Promise, Ma.”

“Now, you’ll come out of hibernation earlier than the other bears, and this will cause some social problems.  Let ‘em be until summer hits.  Your wife doesn’t want you coming back from ‘fishing’ with half a face.”

“Ma!  … oh Fuck, did Da…”

“Watch your language, young man.”

“You don’t.”

“You’re my son and you’ll watch it.  Now.  Your father was faithful because he was a smart Beorning…”

“He was … a real Beorning?”

“Of course he was.”

“You knew?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t say?”

She gave him a hard stare.  ”It was bad enough with you lot spreading your dinky family legends.  You’ll know when you have your own children that it’s bad news for little ones to know you’ve got a second skin until they can handle it.  You tell them when they’re old enough to keep their trap shut.  Preferably before they run away.”

He winced.  Chastened, he muttered, “Fine.  Just get this over with.”

“Well.  There’s more, but this is the important thing.  Don’t Bear up around civilized folk.”

“… seriously?  NO!  I had no idea.”

“Watch your smart mouth or I’ll watch it for you.  I mean it.  No marking, no scratching trees, not even to scare off robbers or pirates.  No bear.  Your father did it once and he almost killed one of his men.  Lucky it was dark and the man didn’t see enough to remember.  You save it for when it’s safe.  Be smart.  Be responsible.  Having a change of skin is not a toy, or some fun way to impress women, or ….”

“Ma!  I’m married!”

“And about that.  She’ll need to eat more and she might have some oddness if she’s got bear-kin growing in her belly.  Only one of mine that wasn’t like that was Wynne, thank goodness.”

“Oh my Smaug…“

“Dafydd made it just long enough to have his first furry year.  He wasn’t your kind of gentle either.  Real dominant bear was your brother… don’t know if it makes it easier or harder for a boy to handle, but he kept getting into bar fights when the bear hit him hard and he couldn’t let it out.  And what he got up to in the woods was just revolting.  You know your Da was just like you?  Not just in the Beorning sense, but in that loathing for violence.”

“… stop having a go.”

She made sure her voice was steady and her eyes were dry.  ”Just like.  His Da made him go fight because he was sure the goblins would be back any day and wanted a Beorning working for the King.  He told the King about it, and your Da could never leave.  Never ever.  ”Too dangerous” is what they said.  ”Strategic asset.”  That’s why they let Wynnelet in, really.  After Dafydd, they didn’t believe us saying our children were normal.  Though we don’t tell her that.  Anyhow, your Da should never have joined up, because that man was the sweetest, gentlest soul ever to walk Arda.  Until he got stuck into a life where the people giving orders didn’t know a thinking, feeling bear from a battleaxe.  So.  When I say he understood eventually, I meant it.  And when he said the Lake needed you and not just any lad, that’s what he meant.  So.  Shut up and listen.  If Ceceil’s babes take after you, she’ll carry them a month short of normal and she’ll eat like a horse.  So make damn sure you think about that.  And if you go with a bear lady, nobody knows what you might make so don’t.  do.  it.”

“Ugh, Ma, no!”

“Don’t.  Also, don’t try to bed your wife when you’re a bear.”

“Ma!”

“It’s rude and people get hurt.”

Horror moved in to stay on his face.

She continued, scrubbing the boards ruthlessly with her cloth-wrapped brick, “And you better tell her.  She seems decent, and she’ll understand eventually.  She’s no shrinking pansy-arse minnow.”

“Uh, Ma.  She knows.”

His mother glances up long enough to lift her brows thoughtfully.  ”Well.  That’s convenient.  I’m glad we had this little chat.  I think you should go away for a while and eat some salmon.”

He made a strangled noise and fled.  In the empty house, for the first time in forever, Frithvail Cook managed a decent laugh.  She could still laugh.  And alone, she could cry.

Adrift

My son has a house.  A wife.  A cat.  Of course he has a cat.  It’s all too much good news to fit into this part of a tale.  This part of the tale is the part where I drift through adventures far from home.  Or it could be that I’ve come to the part where my ship’s anchored at the Dead Islands and all these people are ghosts.  It’s close enough to that, seeing what the years have done to my sweet, scrawny boy.

He talks like his father.  He walks like his father.  He’s got that cheese-eating grin his father used to have before war sailed off with it and death came for his sons.  He does that air-sniffing thing his father did too, and that bit where he’s having to slither into clothes real quick in the middle of the day while his wife’s baking buns in the real oven.  Told Gregor that boy was Beorning-born.  I was right.  I win.  Three cheers for me.

It’s like stepping back in time to look at those two lovebirds.  He likes ‘em big.  Good for him.  She seems sweet with steel in her spine.  He holds her like Gregor used to hold me, with his nose stuffed down her neck.  There’s fish.  I can make pie with that, if he’ll just let me touch his pots.  That’s what I’ll do today.  I’ll make a fish pie.  Fish pies don’t happen in a ghost-house.  Then I’ll go see Wynnelet, once I’ve got myself back and I won’t blubber.  She’s my baby.  We don’t blubber.  I just need to wash up and get settled and then we see.  What in the rocky depths is she doing shacked up with a Gondorian?  I’ll have to get good and focused on that.  He’d better not be noble.  I bet he’s noble.  That’d be just like her.  She’d better not have found him rescuing him from a dragon or some such nonsense.  If he mucks up her career so help me I’ll make him wish he’d sunk with his ancestors’ island.  Assuming she’s got a career.  Broddi says she can fight again.  I’ll believe it when I see it.

Maybe a Gondorian’s not so bad, if he keeps her home and gives her a family to anchor her down, keep her away from the storm forming over the Lake.  They can’t possibly expect her back.  She had a medical writ, for Smaug’s sake!  She had a frikking sword through her liver!  She’s supposed to be dead!  Nobody would say a single word if she just stayed out of it and used that second chance to make herself a real life.

No way she’ll do it, no matter how shiny that Gondorian’s armour is.  She’s my girl.  If she’s better, she’ll march herself back and hold to the strictest letter of that oath.  That’s just what she’ll do.  And next time, we won’t be getting her back breathing.  Bollocks.  Bollocks.  I can’t think straight.  I’ll fix that problem later.  Fish pie.  I can handle a fish pie while I stay here with my nice, normal son and his nice, normal wife.  Easy.  Too easy.

I keep waiting to see the other shoe off.  Maybe he’s got some hunter after his pelt, or the house has got some daft mortgage he hasn’t figured on paying, or there’ll be a drop in jobs, or he’ll turn out to be a dodgy contractor.  I’ve gotten so used to my children coming home on planks, it doesn’t feel normal to have one turn out… happy.  Normal.  Normal for a Beorning.

I knew when he was three and came home with a raw fish in his mouth for me.  I knew when he kept getting his hand stuck in the honey jar, and when the only time he’d take naps was in the winter.  All the other boys would be skating, and he’d be snoring in a corner somewhere come noon.  I knew when he brought home that half-drowned kitten and swore he’d heard her ask him to feed her.  I knew when he told me the bird said his Da’s ship was coming to dock.  Gregor said no.  Blood’s too thin, and it’s all nonsense, and he’ll be better without it, trust him, he knows.  Gregor should’ve run off when his Da made him sign his life over to the King’s service.  I’d have told him so, if I’d been his wife back when.

Well.  Broddi will talk when he wants to.  It’s his life.  He made it.  I raised a boy who did what he felt right with no matter what folk said, and he made it.  I was right.  I win.  We win, for once in our lives.  Can you see, Gregor-mine?  Or are you frozen with your ship in the lake-bottom’s stony grip?

Justice

“This!  This is the work of the Ring-forges!” the voice carried over the balmy white shores as the crowd come to see the ship dock turned to hear what was said.  They had time.  There was nothing but time here.  ”See how they come maimed in fea and hroa both to our shores on the white ships!  See how they pour like a tide into the Halls of Mandos!”

“Come away, Ada.”  Sidbron was hovering again.  He was always hovering now.

Borasvar shrugged him off, muttering, “Bother your other Adar.  Surely he’s doing something much more interesting right now.”

“Than sitting on a beach trying to make flying machines?  I don’t think so.”

The wind blew the voice over again.  ”Celebrimor knew he erred!  He knew, but instead he grasped at power!  Like his grandfather before him, he burned after it.  But he had help!  Not all the evil wrought in Eregion was made of metal.  The worst was not steel, but venom beyond that which Eru gave to the snakes and biting things for their defense.  Some of you know what it is to die to Black Mallow.  To Lung-freeze.  To the madness of Lock-limb.  Still more of you have suffered the burning fire sparked from the powder, or slow torture on the racks.   Remember!  And join with me to bring all the criminals of Eregion’s wise to Máhanaxar!  Do not stop at rings when you think on Eregion’s folly!  Are you blind, or can you not see that Annatar – nay Sauron was friend to more than Celebrimor?  Put them to the question!  Punish them, as they have punished you in their mad rush to rival the Valar in pride and power!”

The two elves stood back from the crowd, grim.  Sidbron asked, “Every day now?”

Borasvar nodded.  ”Every day.  And more in Tirion.  There are pamphlets.”  He said it in the same tone others used to speak of excrement.

“Have they mentioned Naneth?”

“In all but name.  I try to tell her, but… your Naneth hears what she can stand to hear, and no more.”

Sidbron’s jaw clenched a little.  ”I know you wish to believe…”

“I do not wish to believe.  It is.  I have seen her.  She is alone there in her pain while they tear at her here.”

The younger elf put his arm around the elder.  ”Máhanaxar will surely not condemn her.  This is all smoke and noise.”

“But her people will if they listen to this piss.  She’ll finally sail, only to return to a nightmare that will never end in a land where there are no wars or crises in which she can redeem herself.  Celebrimor deserves what he gets.  Celeveren…”  He trailed off, choked.

“Adar.  She did ignore your warnings.  You said so yourself, and said it often for quite some time.”

He glared, more sharply than he had in centuries now.  ”Not for power.  She wanted to cure mortals.  She cried for every last one of them.  You saw how it was with Cei?  It was that every time.  And every time, we lost a little of her.”

Sidbron grimaced.  ”And you still think I shouldn’t have left.  Despite all the reasons we had to think the Darkness passed, you still blame me.”

“You were her son.”

“I was wed.  My body was broken beyond repair.  She told me to go!”

“And you went.”  It was baldly stated, lapsing to silence.

The speaker was warming up, saying, “Why wait, when all the witnesses are here, waiting for justice?  Don’t force them to wait become their tormentors remain at large.  Delunethril twist-herb will linger on for millennia yet, hiding from our faces and justice in Arda marred – marred!  Marred, like her…”

Borasvar pushed through the crowd, Sibron tugging at him.  ”Ada, no.  It won’t help.  Just let him…”

“You know nothing of it, you little Vanyarin fart!”  There were gasps from the crowd.

“I don’t know you, sir, but I know your type.”

“And what type is that?”

“Eregion apologists.  Sympathizers.   You’ll tell me they didn’t mean it, and that it was about knowledge, not power, and that they shouldn’t be held responsible for what others did with their work.”

“You don’t invalidate an argument by repeating it in a sarcastic tone.  You’re a pissant third-ager.  Who are you to lecture us about Eregion?  Who is next on your list?  The apprentices who worked the bellows?  The cart-men who transported mithril and gold?  How are you any better than the army of orcs who already have paid the elves of Eregion in full?  You speak of victims – what of the mortals who had extra years and strength because scholars like Celeveren of Menegroth cared that they lived their few years well?”

“Delunethril is her true name, and nothing of joy belongs in it.  Who over her thousand victims would say their pain is lessened by a few mortal’s unnatural cures?”

“I, Borasvar of the Green, bear such witness.  Look.  Me.  Up.  If you can find an archive.”  He felt his sword arm twitch as it hadn’t since… his death.  Kinslaying had never felt so tempting.  Very tempting.

The crowd was dead silent.  The waves too seemed to listen.  Whoever-the-shadow this fellow was, killing him wouldn’t solve things.  Soul’s fire burned through his veins and he felt firmly, irrevocably present as he faced down this young Valinorian squirt.  An elf who had never faced an orc, or seen fire, or felt the breath of dragons.  Softly, but audibly, Borasvar said, “Child, go find something better to do with your life.  More misery… you do not want more misery in this world.”

He turned on his heel and went back to his wing-foils.  Ulmo would not stop him from escaping this dull, insipid prison full of spoiled, whining babies.

Twinkle

It was past her bedtime, but she wasn’t about to point it out.  Nights without bedtimes were the most interesting.

“Six degrees… and time.”  Father’s voice to her was just father’s voice.  Other people said he had a Gondorian accent.  His heavy robes fluttered in the high observatory breeze as he adjusted the armature on the astrolabe.

“One.  Two.  Three.  Four.”  Mother’s voice counted the drops from the waterclock.  She trusted it for small times over the newer Erebor clockwork.  Her stylus wore grooves into the mesh-cut grid of her waxed tablet.

“Mark.  Retrograde one degree.”

“Five drops.  Assuming an Arda-centric model.”  They exchanged a smile over the old joke.

“What else would it be?  An elipse?”

“There is nothing wrong with an elipse.”

“Besides imperfection.”

Tinuvist spoke up from her corner by the sand-table, “It isn’t imperfect.  Numbers rule it, and numbers are perfect.”

“Trust her to find a middle way.”  Mother’s smile was a serene thing, passing briefly as she looked back to her work.

Father shook his head, sounding proud as he said, “Come here, daughter.  Up on the box.  Sight on Earendil, measure the azimuth and altitude.”

She proudly worked the small brass disk-arm, having to squint hard to see the fine lines marking the rim.  ”Thirty-two degrees, seven degree altitude.  Mark…”

********

“One.  Two.  Three.  Four.”  The Breeland boy shivered in his triple-coat layers atop the archive roof.  It was all boys in this class, the recent achievements of Miss Taylor notwithstanding.  Same everywhere.

“Mark!” Squeaked the plump fellow operating the astrolabe. “One degree, four seconds.  Ah…?  Miss Tinuvist?”

She didn’t correct him, though it had been Master for a good three years now.  ”Retrograde.”

His expression cleared.  ”Retrograde.”

“Does it hasten or slow?  How can we tell?”

They still giggled when her ‘we’ came out ‘vee’.  They were children.  Giggling kept them warmer.  The shy one with the stutter got out, “H…hasten.  Yesterday, it w…was five seconds.”

“And so?”

“The e…epicycle?  Epicycle nears midpoint.”  As the lad spoke, she drew it on her large slate.  At night, she used white chalk with mica to catch the eye.  She had her spectacles strapped firmly to her face.  They’d gotten bored of laughing at those.

“So, tomorrow, you will come and tell me where Earendil will be, and how fast he will sail.”

“Miss?”

“Yes, Merril?”

“Why does Earendil sail in circles?”

“Because he’s an elf and got distracted!” One bold fellow suggested.

“Or because of waves on the ocean!” Another put in.

She smiled serenely and said, “You assume he is an elf in a ship.”

They gasped and looked worried, and she knelt.  ”Perhaps he is a story to help you imagine reality.  If I say a sandstone layer is like pastry-layers, I’m not lying, am I?  I’m explaining.  So.  When we say Earendil is a ship, we begin to explain to ourselves why he wanders the sky unlike other stars.  He is sailing somewhere.  Like a ship, he seems to turn and weave.    But what that is up there?  The bare eye cannot see, though in Dale, there is a new invention that makes him appear bigger, and he seems to be a blue disc.  But we know where he is, and where he will be, and that he always goes in the same path.  This means there are rules, even for stars, even if the star seems to break the rules.  Rules for the stars.  Rules for the land.  Nature is nothing but motion and rules, all perfectly balanced as it is made.  Now, we can ask, “Are we another ship, or are we the land?”  That is what we do next week, once you have all shown you understand how to calculate planetary motion with an astrolabe.“

They nodded and put what they didn’t want to hear away… for now.  It was fine.  They would ask questions later.

“Tomorrow, you will each bring me your slate with this problem, and a rock from your house with your best guess as to what sort of rock it is.  To your beds, now.”

“Thank you, Miss Tinuvist,” came the chorus, then they scampered off.  It was not so bad.  Other masters would be insulted to have the elementary class in natural philosophy, and perhaps she should too.  But where was the point?  So she taught children the same basic things over and over.  But she also taught them that people named ‘Miss’ could explain the stars.  Perhaps it was better than giving them this ‘Master’ word that could be used to put her into a smaller box, easily stacked away.

Soon, the holiday.  Soon, a week climbing the bluffs and collecting samples.  The stars didn’t care if people thought they moved around Arda and not the sun, or the other way around.  She would not care if her students saw her imperfectly.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Bells pealed over Wulfmunt Keep to celebrate the birth of the new heir.  In case there was any doubt about his existence, his proud father made appearances at the windows and high table with the small boy whose hair was a telling shade of dark blonde matching the graying mop his proud father sported.  Those who served the Keep halls made sure everyone knew that the former Lord was conscientiously chaperoned at all times.  That’s all they needed to say.

“He’s early,” said his mother, still pale from childbed and paler still from the ‘women’s troubles’ that had kept her sequestered.  He was awfully big for a seven-month child, and his chubby pink face bawled loudly and often for his supper.

“Lord Wulfgar, heir of Wulfmunt and your future lord!”  boomed the voice of Lord Feleogeld.  ”My firstborn!  Let us cease to mourn our dead and embrace a new, brighter future!”  

Althilda’s eyes strayed more often on the hall-fire burning her dead betrothed’s beloved Gondorian philosophers than to her bawling infant in his nurse’s ample arms.

*********

Wind whipped chill, but free now of the misting sleet that was beginning to form in the valleys of the mountains.  With a grin fueled by nerves and hope he called over to his companion, “One day more till we taste the mead of the Nihtseld!”

“Steady on, Wulfmunt!  Talk any more and you’ll let all the heat out.”

“Then I’ll race you, if your Trumgard nag can manage this flat excuse for a road!”

Banners snapped and tugged in the wind as two young lords indulged in reckless speed ahead of an honor guard that flew behind them in a human banner of crimson and sable.

*********

Every year the cozy Snowflood house grew a little more crowded as Yule pressed in.  Her sister sang and skipped hanging evergreen with her daughter and her daughter’s dog trailing behind, one to help, the other to ‘help.’  When had that dog been allowed inside?  She lost track.  Belion gave orders that nobody heeded, pointing out that the bows weren’t symmetrical.  ”Symmetrical” was his new word.  He was right, but today was a good day.  She called back from her careful stacking of mathom-gifts, “It’s more lucky if they aren’t, Sprout.”

“Luck isn’t real, Mama.”

“Oh yes it is.  Because I have you, and your sister, and Aunt Luned, and your Ada, and Uncle Leafcutter and….”

A knock sounded on the door and in blew Uncle Nallo with a heavy-stacked gift.  ”They’re in!”

Helvia squealed, “My volume!  Go get your Ada, Sprout.  SHOES!  For the love of Varda, silly little man, we wear shoes when there’s snow on the ground!  Lu, come see!  It’s my book!”

Chaos forgotten, she snuggled into her chair to celebrate the new arrival of three complimentary copies of ‘Mercury: New Methods in Detection, Elimination, and Prevention, by W. Hawthorne, H. Leafcutter-Smith, and tables drawn by K. Carter.  The cat and the dog chased each other around the table, and the dog was not wearing his booties.  

There will be prints on the floor.  You should clean up the mud before the baby licks them or Luned slips or Guradan…

“Oh shut up!” she told the air.  She had a book!.  Family oohed, aahed, and went about their business without her fussing after them.  She wrapped one copy for shipping off to Thorin’s Hall, and the other she made up prettily to make the cross-town trip to Keddric’s family.  On the flyleaf she wrote:

The first of many.  Don’t let anyone handle it without washing their hands.  With warm regards and warmer thanks, Master Smith.

*********

In her mind, they lazed together in a bed, either huddled away from Lakeland snows or with windows open to Minas TIrith flowers, or better yet rocking in a cabin tossed on the salt seas.  

“The whales sing,” his lips formed words around the smile that bloomed in private for her, and his hand would press hers against the hull to feel the strange, unimaginable cadence older than Dale or Gondor.

“Perhaps they’re just back from Numenor.  Do they tell you of it?  Or do they sing only of Whale love and Whale war and Wale cities?”

He would laugh at that.  With her, he laughed often and easily.  With her, he wasn’t a Numenorian disappointment or a people’s salvation.  With her, he was enough.  And with him, she was home.

The whistling Forochel winds sang against the icy walls with little fits and shudders.  Perhaps whale-song would be the same when they were free to sail off to hear it.

*********

“I can’t sneak you bits from the feast, but they didn’t say anything about smells.”

“Oh?  And where are the smells, Gifu?”

“I stood by the oven all day.  Just pull me close and take a noseful.”

She wrestled him for it, playfully though.  If she really wanted away, she could bolt easily.  His crutch was a room away.  ”Mind the arrows, now.”

“Oh?  You think I’m so big I’ll crunch them?”  Her tone sharpened, and he stopped, tilting her chin to meet his eyes.

“Breathe a little, love.  Don’t go picking fights when we’ve only got a bit.  Now… look where you are.  Look where the arrows are.  And move them over a foot.”

Her annoyance gave way after the flash of rage passed her by.  She nudged the floor-space free, then squealed as he pounced, rolling her over to give her a good, proper kiss as he murmured into her little ear nested in soft, butter-smelling curls, “You’re just the right kind of armful for me, and you smell better’n supper.  I’ll just have a handful of you this Midwinter.”

Before she could ask what he meant by that, a slamming door heralded the changing of what was left of the guard.  Up she popped and off she ran, though everyone knew just what she was doing there besides bringing the Quartermaster his noon rations.

*********

Servants laughed and laughed as they swanned around in their former lords’ clothes.  ”Silk?  This is silk?  What a lot of fuss – it’s hardly tissue.  No wonder they all had such tiny nuts, all cold like that.”

“What did the Lord mean, ‘cut it into livery’?  It’s got rubies all over it.  And fur.  And whatnot.”

The head of the seamstresses said crisply, “Don’t be daft.  We use the standard patterns and make something tasteful.  You expect someone who wears the same coat day after day to know what makes decent livery?  Ha!  We’ll put the silk in the lining where skin’s there to appreciate it, and a nice sturdy linen atop so we don’t panic every time there’s a spill.”

“What about all the gold and jewels and fur?”

She paused, then said, “Something nice for Ranforth… Thane Ranforth, and his lady.  We make that lot look like a real thane should, that’s what.  By the time the Lord’s back with his bride, we’ll make him proud to show us off to her, and her proud to be our new Lady, that’s what.  This is our chance, girls.  Let’s make sure Wulfmunt never forgets that Sturmheit was first to back him.”

Blind Edusa ran her plectrum over the zither as she sang whatever ballad she liked and needles flew.  Bonuses!  The very notion!  If he’d pay to have livery by Fallowmath, what would they get if they made it by Yule?  The new year came with hope for the first time in a long time.

Mail Order Bride part 2

To Lady Birghiva of the Nihtseld Lord Iestyn of Wulfmunt, now seated in Sturmheit, sends greetings.

I hope this finds you and yours safe and in good spirits.  I required speed for this journey and so regret that my man does not come bearing more than a few hams of salt pork, but expect more to bolster your larders anon.  I cannot estimate amounts, but I have plans afoot that should go some way toward returning material gratitude for the hospitality and support shown me and mine during the past few months.  Sturmheit now breathes freedom due to your generosity and goodwill, and we of the mountains have long memories.

I am reasonably assured that this line of communication is secure, and Lambin (who bears you this letter) can carry back a reply.  For the purposes of this letter I will presume upon your willingness to arrange my marriage, though of course I know not if you have agreed to do so.  I will bear such a refusal with no ill-will.  But if you do think it can be managed, I thought it best to inquire whether it might be possible to meet the lady at the Nihtseld in three weeks’ time?  I know it presses you with grave inconvenience, but time is of the essence.  I can have my affairs here in order long enough to risk a brief absence, and I fear Morcaer will suffer a fit of apoplexy if he remains heir to an unwed lord for much longer.

With the passing of time and reflection, I recall a few sentiments expressed in my first letter that now trouble me for their harshness.  I was not in the best of minds when composing that draft, and may have left you with the impression that I desire perfection and have no interest in the lady’s feelings or comfort.  Neither of those is true.  I wish only a willing, intelligent woman who is kind and fair and will endeavor, as I do, to learn daily what it is our people need from us.  While I dare not give her the full measure of public affection my parents enjoyed, I wish her to be happy and hope we shall be friends as well as partners in duty.  My attachments elsewhere have been set aside, and for the best.  Pardon me for being frank: though the Lady Lefthryth yet haunts my dreams, I begin to see I am a better man for having known her, and an even better man without the distraction of courting a mismatched heart.

As regards the woman I will wed and bring as a stranger into difficult circumstances, I have hopes of mutual affection and every intention of consulting her feelings.  Should she see Sturmheit and find herself cold to the task, I will call off the wedding and send her homewards with my blessing.  Should she and I see hope for a meeting of the minds, I will do all that is proper to ease her inevitable loneliness in this harsh and rugged land.  I know I now offer only the future hope that she will sit as the Lady of Wulfmunt, and I am currently more wealthy in difficult problems with no easy solution than I am in creature comforts.  However, if she is willing to take a risk and wishes to have a greater ability to help heal the sickness that oppresses the Mark, there is no better opportunity than this for her to be needed and valued for more than her face or her ability to bear children.   I will not lie by claiming that heirs are not needed, but this is only one of many reasons I seek to marry.  And I have ever found the plainest of faces made radiant by a good heart.  I will endeavor that my own be worthy of such a woman’s respect.

Our accommodations here will be modest, but comfortable.  She should bring warm, practical clothing.  The former Thane and his family left behind an extensive wardrobe, but we cannot ever be seen wearing it.  Nor should we, for every magpie in the Mark will descend upon us to make off with the glitter, and we, burdened by the weight of padded embroidery and gold-cloth, will be unable to run.  I have enclosed some funds with this to cover any expenses she may incur.

If three weeks is not too soon and you find this duty an agreeable one, I and a small party will again descend upon your hall, but this time we shall bear our own provision.  My cousin, the Lady Adellufu, and her foster-mother Hilda, wife of the new Thane Ranforth, will be there as well as Lord Raedwalt, whom you know, and his associates.  Morcaer will remain behind in Sturmheit, but of course he sends his warmest greetings (that is to say, he grunted in affable fashion).  It will be most agreeable to see you and your kin once more.