Ionnath Estel
Part 11
Posted: November 9, 2007
Title: Ionnath-Estel (The Sons of Hope)
Author: Kenaz
*****
"Intriguing, truly." Lord Gelmir crossed his ankle over his knee and leaned forward in his chair. "And what of the Men of Esgaroth? Has your father established trade with them as well?"
Haldir shifted in his seat, feigning fascination with the patterns carved into the bowl of his mazer. This was not the first evening he had spent as a silent spectator lingering at the edges of the conversations. It gave him the same feeling of frustration as he had felt as a child, dipping his fretful foot into the pond, his father and Orophin calling and cajoling him to step into the water. Eventually, his reticence would bore them, and they would turn away, leaving him at the banks to simmer impotently over his inability to join them.
Though the feast had marked the pinnacle of events surrounding the coming of age of Elrond’s sons, the valley’s denizens were happy to host smaller, less formal festivities for as long as their guests wished to stay. The Dwarves and the men of Arnor had departed, but the gathered Elves remained, pleased for the celebration. The last time the realms had been united was on the battlefields of Mordor, and there had been naught to celebrate then. Even victory had offered no joy, bought, as it was, too dear for levity. But here and now there were fine dinners which, if lacking the grandeur of Elrond’s feast, made up for it in intimacy. Old friendships were rekindled and new acquaintances forged over fireside discussions and many bottles of wine.
Each night, Haldir had received an invitation from Elladan to accompany him to dine at Glorfindel’s house, or with Gildor’s men, or with the loremaster, Erestor. While he had quickly come to relish the company Gildor's warriors with their ebullience and earthy humor, he had initially been intimidated by Elrond’s councilor, and even moreso by his father, Gelmir, an emissary of Círdan’s court and former advisor to the High King, Gil-Galad. He was stony-faced and taciturn, and when he spoke, it was with great gravity. But Glorfindel had long been a companion to Erestor, and in his presence, Erestor seemed less stern than his father, and could be goaded into the admission of various youthful foibles, to the great amusement of the twins and the begrudging indulgence of his father.
At these dinners, Haldir was always seated at Elladan’s right hand, but not a night passed that Legolas did not inevitably sit at his left. The air between them had not warmed, but they behaved amicably enough. That Legolas should remain so stiff left no doubt in Haldir’s mind that if friendship alone was all that had arisen between Legolas and Elladan, it was not for lack of interest on Legolas’ part. This weighed heavily on Haldir’s mind, though at any given moment, his feeling might have been gratefulness that Elladan wished his companionship in spite of his low birth, satisfaction that their childhood bond had resisted the lure of another, wild jealousy in imagining what might have occurred before he came to Imladris, and despair that Elladan would eventually see how foolish it was to align himself with an untitled Galadhel border guard when a fair Sinda prince could be his for the asking. Tonight, having watched Legolas speak with ease and erudition to Gelmir about King Thranduil’s trading policies with Dale and Esgaroth, it was the latter.
Legolas was nodding. "The trade lines with Esgaroth were established in my Grandsire's time. It is all very direct: Our fruit for their fish; our wine and arrows for silver and hides. We use the river to move our goods. Each year we review the terms. This year, in fact, I was sent with the council as my father's proxy, so that I might learn to manage the negotiations next year."
"That speaks well of you, Prince. Your father has faith in your abilities. But tell me, is it true the city is built on stilts and sits atop the lake?"
Legolas laughed. "Yes, it is true. You yourself live at the edge of the Great Sea; I would think that a town built upon the water might hold some charm for you."
"Oh, no," Gelmir shook his head, grinning. "When I first came to the Havens after the Dagor Bragollach, I imagined that it would be grand-- soothing, even-- to live on the water, but I soon learned the effort required to sustain the docks and quays. The sea-tide ever pushes and pulls the pilings; the water and brine soften the wood; the sand erodes all. No, we are better off watching her currents from well ashore. Then again, I suppose living atop a lake is no stranger than living in a tree."
The rapid descent of silence over the room was roughly diverted by the raucous clatter of Erestor's chair grunting roughly across the stone floor as he flew to his feet. "More wine, anyone?" He bustled purposefully from mazer to mazer. "Glorfindel, bring some more oil for the lamps. I fear we will be sitting in darkness soon."
Glorfindel rooted about in Erestor's cabinets and returned carrying the lamp oil. Haldir felt the edge of Elladan's foot pressing up solidly against his own in an invisible gesture of solidarity. Elladan had already opened his mouth in rebuttal, but Glorfindel cut him off directly, looking straight at Haldir.
"What say you, Haldir?"
His voice held the same edge as when he cheerfully eviscerated the fools in the courtyard at their first meeting. Haldir watched him deflect a pointed glance from Erestor, and saw that centuries of companionship had forged a friendship so true that a single glance was all that required to convey a message from the latter all but begging Glorfindel not to let the gathering devolve into a diplomatic disaster.
"Do you find life in the telain to be strange?"
The twinkle in Glorfindel's eye and his encouraging nod bolstered Haldir to speak. "My lord," he addressed Erestor's stately father, "I was born on a talan and took my first steps high above the forest floor. For those of us raised in the boughs, it seems not at all strange, though I wager a newcomer might require time to adapt. Our telain are sturdy and spacious, and the trees generously offer us their shelter from the elements. The Galadhrim are the stewards of the Golden Wood; it seems to us only good and right that we should live among those whose futurity is ours to safeguard; To live in the telain is more than some fanciful choice, it is a Galadhel's pleasure, and it is his duty."
He looked up when he had finished, afraid that he might see a room full of censorious faces, but Glorfindel, leaning hard on the back of Erestor's chair and looming above him like an eagle in his aerie, smiled victoriously. Elladan gave his knee a surreptitious squeeze.
"Hmmm," Lord Gelmir canted his head. "I seem to have underestimated the...affinity...of the Silvans for their forest."
Much to the relief of all, a far merrier conversation soon ensued. After a time, Elladan rose and excused himself, saying he wished to stop back at his rooms before joining his father and the others in the Hall of Fire, as had become their routine of late. In standing, he gave Haldir's shoulder a quick, hard press: come find me, the silent message bade him. Haldir looked down at his feet.
There had been little opportunity to see Elladan privately since their initial meeting—the newly anointed heir of Imladris and his second seemed to be in even greater demand than in the days before their ascension—but they scavenged what few moments they could, strolling through the gardens or drilling together in the training salles and on the archery lists. They reveled in their renewed companionship, chaste though it was. Thoughts of their reunion, those first heady kisses, played hot in his mind and tormented him in the depths of night, but he had not dared reenact that scene; there were too many eyes and ears about for his comfort. Three times he had declined Elladan's invitation to take a room in Elrond's house near his own; after the third time, Elladan did not ask again. Legolas may have promised his silence, but there were far too many others who would delight in speculation, and far too many ways for malicious gossip to reach Lorien.
So when the party drew to its natural close, all the guests readying for their migration to the Last Homely House, Haldir lingered behind to wait for Elladan, stalking in the dark just beyond the hedgerows that enclosed Erestor's house, feeling vaguely foolish for hiding himself away like some mooning maiden secretly courting a forbidden lad. He was thrown into a deeper darkness as the lamps within the house were extinguished, and he heard the click of a latch as Erestor closed the door. Soon after, Gelmir's voice filtered through the hedges.
"I notice that Elladan often seeks the Silvan's company."
"Yes. They have been fast friends since they were very young."
"He seems...overfond."
"I surmise Elladan wishes more of him than friendship," Erestor chuckled wryly, "if that is what you are trying to imply."
"Even if the Galadhel returned his interest-- which would be both utterly foolish of him and highly unlikely--I cannot imagine Elrond advocates the attachment," Gelmir murmured with surprise. "Elladan is his firstborn and the heir to Imladris. Does his father not have plans to wed him to someone of more suitable status?"
"Elrond does not broker marriages, nor will see his offspring wed for any less than their heart's charge."
"Then he is a more lenient father than I. Were you of an age closer to theirs than their father's, I would have encouraged you ply a suit yourself."
Erestor cleared his throat conspicuously.
Gelmir carried on, unmindful of his son's displeasure. "Thranduil is dangling his get before Imladris like a gilded promise, and Elrond is a fool if he does not press Elladan to pursue that treasure. Legolas of the Greenwood is as keen as he is fair, and the whole of Elvendom on Arda could be united under one banner with such a match, yet Elladan would throw in his lot with a savage. Does the wisdom of the House Eärendil extend to alchemy, then, that we will see the son of Elrond attempt to turn base into gold?"
"Atto!" Erestor's voice was sharp and cold. "Have the Elves of Mithlond become so narrowed in their thinking since my youth? If so, I am glad now to call Imladris my home! Speak such callous words in my lord's hearing or his son's and I will have you packed off back to the Havens before first light myself! Do not forget that Prince Legolas, your own vaunted lord Círdan, and the Galadhrim are all descended from a common tribe."
"And we Noldor must claim Fëanor as our own, yet that does not mean that we are all full of bloodlust and rebellion. Círdan's folk and the Sindar of Doriath from whom Legolas' line is sprung are not so far removed from the Deep Elves in their customs, but the Tawarwaith seem to me to be in closer kinship to the Avari than to the Eldar. Light of Elbereth, Erestor! They arrived on the Dagorlad in boiled leather and carrying yew-spears with not a dozen swords between them!"
Erestor gave an exasperated sigh. "Then their efforts were all the more valiant for their bravery in the face of certain death. I was there, Atto, and far closer to the front lines than you; I need no help to remember their faces as the stinking fen claimed them."
Neither Elf spoke for a moment, and then Erestor began again. "What of Elrohir's suitor? Is an itinerant warrior so much higher in your esteem?"
"Gildor is no common soldier and well you know it. He claims kinship to one of the greatest and most ancient of houses. Can the Galadhel claim the same of his line? I think not."
Haldir turned away in mortification. Erestor and his father had begun their leisurely amble toward the Hall of Fire, and the hum of blood rushing through his head muted Erestor's reply beyond hearing. Not that Haldir wished to hear anything further; he had already heard more than enough. He thought of his grandsire, whom he had never known, struck down in a fetid marsh, imagined his father bloodied and weeping. Yet what had the bravery of the Galadhrim bought them but disdain? A savage, Gelmir had called him, and yet how could he with any honesty say differently when the sound of that word had made his head thrum with a wish to do savage violence? The sickening heat of humiliation returned to him as he reconsidered the gaudy bantams of his first days in Imladris: Gelmir was far from alone in his convictions. How long could Elladan's respect hold against a chorus of whispers naming him simple and boorish? And how long could his own convictions hold against a symphony of screams denouncing him as unnatural and base?
He waited there in the darkness, breathing down his anger and discouragement, and then stepped out onto the path with the intent to backtrack toward Elladan's apartments in the far wing of Elrond's house. Yet as he gave up his concealment, he found that he was not alone. Legolas was there. Worse, he was staring off in the direction in which Erestor and his father had passed, leaving no doubt that he had heard every word they had spoken. Down the darkened path, nearing the lights glinting beyond in the windows of the Hall of Fire, Gelmir and Erestor were no more than gently swaying shadows. Haldir briefly reconsidered his route, but the thought that Legolas might see him slinking off shamefacedly in the darkness, both an eavesdropper and a craven, only compounded his mortification. He held to his course.
Legolas turned at the sound of his footfalls, his face impassive. Haldir thought that if Legolas grinned or laughed, he would be hard-pressed not to strike him.
"Best you hear it now, for it is just a taste of things to come."
His voice was quiet and measured, and Haldir strained to uncover any hint of cruelty or derision in it, but to his surprise found none.
"Did you imagine the mouths of the High Elves would stand idle as the choicest and most eligible of their kind yokes himself to a common Wood-elf? They will gossip like fishwives over it, and in words far less kind than Gelmir's."
"You need not remind me of my station, Prince. I ken it well."
"I do not speak of it to insult you, nor to mock. I care nothing for titles and formality, despite what you think of me. I speak of it to warn you: if you ally yourself to Elladan, you will have worse to endure than dubious envoys. And all this--" he gestured widely before him "--is to say nothing of how you will fare in Lorien. Do you plan to let your affairs be known among the Galadhrim? Do you imagine they will welcome your suit any more fulsomely than the Noldor?"
Haldir's back stiffened, his jaw locking once more with the impotent rage which had afflicted him time and again in Imladris. Yet he could hardly make Legolas the target for his fury: the question was sound, even if the prince had no right to ask it of him. Indeed, had he not just ruminated on that very issue? Still, he had come to no conclusion. To be exiled was unfathomable, yet to turn aside from Elladan was impossible.
"Can you stand firm in the face of condemnation? Already I have said to Elladan that were it me, I would not have the heart to face my people's censure, to be put out from my home. But perhaps you are made of sterner stuff than I."
When Haldir did not readily answer him, he stepped closer, and Haldir scanned his fair face for guile, but again, saw nothing but probity in his features, though that revelation did not endear the Sinda prince to him.
"Elladan deserves better than to be hidden away.You would conceal his light that you might have both him, and the regard of your kin. Were your places reversed, would you stand to be treated like a shameful secret? I would not. Yet this is what you would ask of him."
Haldir turned his head, but Legolas stepped to his side, forcing Haldir to address him. "And if you are called upon to make a choice, what then? Choose your family over Elladan, and break a loyal heart. Choose Elladan, and your family will turn their backs to you, and your detractors will bandy their insults with glee."
Narrowed eyes at last betrayed Haldir's anger. "Of course you would say this," he growled. "You have your own designs on him. It would serve you well if I were to quit him. I imagine you would be all too happy to succor his grief."
Legolas did not so much as blink. "I do not deny that I care much for him. I came here to offer friendship to the brethren at my father's behest, yet for Elladan my heart has come to harbor a greater affection than mere friendship, and only out of respect for him do I now set that aside. But I know beyond all doubt that were you to turn from him, he would seek me, and find in me his equal."
The admission, though Haldir had already intuited as much, baned him like a blade twisting in his ribs. It was one thing to fear that another might compete with him for Elladan's regard, quite another to find that another had all but made his claim.
"I depart in a day's time," Legolas continued, "and then you will own his attention wholly. I imagine you are impatient for that, and perhaps your time with him will bolster your resolve. But know this, Haldir: if you find that you cannot give yourself to him fully, I will. And when he can no longer abide your demands for secrecy and evasion, he will come to me, and I will be waiting gladly."
It was no threat; it was a promise.
And when at last the son of Thranduil departed for his woodland home, Haldir saw that Elladan was sorry for their parting and his jealousy flared anew, though he kept it well concealed. He joined the twins to escort Legolas to the great gate, and after offering a brusque handclasp to Haldir and warmly embracing Elladan and his brother, Legolas mounted up and wheeled his horse around to face the hillside pass. Just before riding out, he gave Haldir one final glance.
"May the trees have you ever in their keeping, Haldir of Lorien."
Once more Haldir was caught unawares by the sound of his mother tongue spoken in the smooth and unaccented mouth of a Sinda. His nostrils flared before he bowed his head with the small and sour bit of grace he could muster. With a squeeze to his horse's sides, Legolas was away.
"What did he say?" Elrohir asked. Few, if any, in the valley knew anything of the Wood-elves' tongue.
"It was an old Silvan benediction," came Haldir's terse reply.
Elladan smiled, a bit too wistfully for Haldir's taste, at Legolas' retreating figure. "He is a good friend, our Legolas."
Haldir's expression went unnoticed, and it was just as well, for it was more grimace than grin. He understood fully what Elladan had not: the parting words were a parting blow. Even as he bade his rival farewell, he was reminding Haldir that he was a Galadhel, that he was not made for Elladan's love, and that Elladan's love was not made for him.
****************
Atto = Father (Quenya)
Talan, Telain (pl) = The tree houses of the Galadhrim
Deep Elves = a rather archaic term for the Noldor (Golodhrim in Sindarin)
Tawarwaith = "Forest people;" a synonym for Silvan Elves
*****
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