Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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Their departure had been scheduled to take place early in the morning, so they would reach Retired General Minulzîr’s house before the night fell. When they were getting ready to go, however, the High Priest came to Gimilzagar’s rooms looking rather flustered, and begged him to wait for a little longer. As it turned out, the High Priestess was gone from the compound, and she absolutely had to be present in his official farewell. She and her women were on a pilgrimage to a sacred fountain located somewhere upriver, whose exact location could not be known by men. It was a ritual she would follow every time she officiated at the Cave, and it involved bathing and praying until the Goddess magically restored her virginity.

Gimilzagar had come this far to give the sanctuary of the Cave its due, for the first time since the King and the Queen had joined their bodies in the darkness of the Cave before he was born, so he accepted the delay with good grace. Wistfully, he thought that he might like to bathe in the fountain, too, if that would make him forget the powerful strangeness of his experience in that secluded place. To him, the Lady of the Seas had always been a mother –his mother, whose inhumanly perfect features gazed at him from every statue in the Island. Before his father took the Sceptre, his ancestors had crawled through the steps of the Cave seeking the favour of the Goddess, but Ar Pharazôn the Golden had taken her to his Palace of Armenelos to rule by his side. So the whispers of the superstitious went, at any rate, which Gimilzagar had not paid much heed to until he found himself kneeling before the statue, and her voice had whispered to him in the darkness. And then, he had felt the need to penetrate the mind to its last recesses just to make sure that she was a mere woman, a servant of the Temple, born in a village North of the Hyarnustar and elevated to her current position through divine favour and the secret lust of an old man who was long buried in his grave.

During the wait, Fíriel and the woman known as the Pearl of the North went together on a walk through the High Priest’s gardens. Fíriel had been rather tense since they arrived to this place, and this had helped to bring her closer to the barbarian. Gimilzagar hoped that their budding friendship would survive the moment of truth when the Pearl would be able to speak her mind and ask her own questions. He knew that Fíriel was beset by the same concern, and that every day that passed it was beginning to matter more and more. The future of this specific development was unknown to him, despite his powers, though a vision he had before he decided to embark them all on this journey showed Fíriel standing on a hill, her hair flapping in the sea breeze, and smiling. It was a short vision, like a flash of lightning, and it remained impervious to his attempts to decipher it, but it was vivid and powerful, and he knew that she would find some cause to be happy before the end.

Finally, as the sun was nearing the zenith of the sky, the High Priestess returned from her excursion at the head of a procession of white-clad women. She stood regally by the High Priest, and gazed at the Prince of the West in polite interest before she bowed to him, as if they had only just met. And perhaps they had, Gimilzagar thought. Under broad daylight, her features did not resemble either the Queen or the Goddess at all, and there was something too humanly voluptuous in the curve of her smile and the soft balance of her hips, which was enough to anchor any wild imaginations conceived in the darkness of the sanctuary.

“I wish you a pleasant journey and fair weather, my lord prince” the High Priest’s voice interrupted his musings. He believed Gimilzagar’s befuddlement to be an effect of the sacred spring’s power, which had turned she who bathed in it into a different woman from the one he had lain with on the previous night. The Prince was too uncertain of the intricacies of what had taken place, and of his reactions to it, to disabuse him of that notion, so he simply stayed silent and went on his way.

The retired general was to be their companion and guide for the journey ahead. Old as he was, he took great pride in being able to ride as well as he did when he was a young soldier, and even if he would have preferred more comfortable means of transport himself, Gimilzagar humoured him by riding by his side. After a while, he was almost regretting his decision, for the man turned out to be especially talkative. He spent the first stretch of the way complaining about the High Priest’s airs, and how he was so full of himself and so vindictive for what he perceived as the Sceptre’s slights that he had arranged the whole incident with the High Priestess so the Prince of the West would be delayed and inconvenienced. Then, it was the turn of the Governor of Andúnië, a mediocre man who had got his current posting through abject flattery and knew no more about governing a large territory than he did of oil painting, though he pretended to be an expert in both. Even back in the mainland, his mismanagement of his troops had already been notorious, but somehow he had a knack for finding those who would change their reports to accommodate him.

By the time the sun began to decline visibly, Gimilzagar already had a clear idea of what drove that man: envy for those who had been more fortunate than him. With this knowledge in mind, he opted for measuring his words carefully, letting Minulzîr take him for an infatuated young man whose only care in the world was to please his bride, and whose friendship could be easily cultivated as long as he was given what he wanted.

It was already late in the night when they arrived to the retired general’s impressive villa by the seaside. At this hour, there was little point in trying to accomplish anything, except allowing themselves to be ushered into the lavish sleeping quarters reserved for guests of honour. There, a legion of slaves stood by, waiting to undress them, bathe them, and prepare their beds. Gimilzagar was already looking forward to getting some sleep -  but, just as he was getting ready for it, disaster struck.

The first sign that something was amiss was the sound of shouting, coming from a nearby room. Then, as he emerged from his chambers in confusion, he saw people running through the corridors. A woman he stopped and interrogated confirmed his fears: the Pearl had run away, and the servants of the house had just gone outside to chase after her. He looked for Fíriel in dismay, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Difficult bride, huh?” Minulzîr asked, in a half-sympathetic, half-amused tone. Gimilzagar’s peaceful disposition had always been a disappointment to his father; now, he could not help but think that even the King might be impressed to know the things he briefly fantasized with doing to this man. “If nothing else, those barbarians had spirit. That was why most were deemed too savage to be of use, at least for us simple mortals, and we let the Great God have them. But I do have to admit that some of their women were good looking, and this one was fair enough to catch the eye of the King himself. Back then, I warned him that the most beautiful horse is useless if it proves too hard to tame. Do you know what his answer was, my lord prince? He said that he had full confidence in your horse-taming abilities.”

“She saw you, did she not?” Gimilzagar asked, ignoring the man’s words. The retired general blinked, surprised.

“I… well, yes, I suppose she did.” His eyes narrowed defensively. “I am your host, and I have an obligation to make sure that your needs are being met! I went to check on the Lady Fíriel to inquire after your er, preferred sleeping arrangements, it must have been then that she saw me. But I do not believe…”

“I would prefer that she did not see you again” the Prince of the West cut him, his voice colder than it had ever been. “Not until I have been able to talk to her, and then only if she wants to. Is that clear?”

The man looked outraged, and ready to argue, but he must have seen something in Gimilzagar’s eyes that dissuaded him from complaining. Instead, he gave him a curt bow.

“As you wish, my lord prince. I will call upon your quarters tomorrow with the man you are seeking.”

“Thank you”, Gimilzagar nodded.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Fíriel was looking rather windswept when Gimilzagar found her. Her dishevelled hair was full of twigs, her dress sported large mud stains, and she seemed quite angry.

“She is back in our rooms now. What is that interpreter waiting for?”

“He will be brought to me tomorrow morning”, Gimilzagar explained. “It is too late already, it would be better if we were…”

“I have no time for your explanations” she interrupted him crossly. “Unless you want her to bolt off again, I have to go back to her. I will only say this to you, Gimilzagar: if that wretched man comes into our rooms again, I will revert to the ferocity of my barbarian ancestors and slit his throat myself. Am I making myself clear?”

“He will not, I promise”, the Prince assured her. “We already spoke about this.”

“Good”, she hissed, as if it was an expletive rather than an expression of approval. He sought for her eyes, and found them just a moment before she turned away.

“Thank you, Fíriel.”

The young woman mumbled something as she departed, but Gimilzagar was unable to catch the words.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The next morning, just as he had promised, General Minulzîr called on the Prince’s quarters as soon as he heard that Gimilzagar was awake and ready. He was smiling, as if enormously pleased with himself, and the residual resentment from the previous night seemed to be gone. Trailing his steps was a rather short man, stout and straw-haired like the Pearl, who knelt on the floor and bowed very low the moment they came into his presence.

“Is this the man?”

Minulzîr nodded.

“In that case, he would do better to rise and look at me. I wish to make myself understood to him.”

“Do as the Prince says” the old man ordered. Slowly, the interpreter struggled to his feet, though he still kept his gaze religiously fixed on the floor. “And look at him! Are you doing it on purpose, to give the Prince the impression that you do not understand the language of Númenor?”

That was not the man’s intention; from what Gimilzagar could perceive in his rather disorderly thoughts, he was suffering from an almost paralyzing terror of making a mistake. He sighed inwardly. If he wanted to get to the Pearl, now he would have to get to this man first. All those barriers, he thought, separating them from their fellow Men until war and conquest seemed like the only remaining solution.

“I have heard many good things about your skills, and I need you to render me an important service” he said, in a kind voice. “What is your name?”

“We call him Hazin”, Minulzîr answered for him. “He also has a barbarian name, but I do not think we would be able to pronounce it.”

Gimilzagar gave him a look that made the smile die on his lips, and his overbearing mood faltered.

“I see.” Quickly, he racked his brain, searching for other options to establish a rapport with that man. Perhaps sincerity was the best strategy, after all, he thought. “I have a problem, Hazin. I need to communicate with a woman from your people. She does not speak our language, so she believes herself to be in danger. Well, I suppose you must have heard the ruckus last night, so you already know” he added, with a rueful look. “Would you help me to convince her that this is not true, and put her mind at ease?”

“I am at your service for anything you may require of me”, Hazin declared, bowing low once again. It was the first words that he spoke, and his Adûnaic seemed good, touched only by the slightest hint of an accent.

“Excellent! Follow me, then. Expect us for the noon meal, General”, he added, before Minulzîr could make an attempt to follow them, too.

As they walked through the gallery that separated Gimilzagar’s quarters from those occupied by the women, Hazin remained as silent as a statue. The Prince of the West could feel some more of his agitated thoughts, rapidly shifting between fear at the possibility of failure, and the small, yet oddly persistent hope of his fate changing for the better somehow.

“If you can speak to this woman, I will have further need for your services” Gimilzagar remarked, picking up on this. “I would need you in the Palace of Armenelos, so I can continue to speak to my wife. And you could also teach her the language of Númenor. Do you think you could do that for me?”

At those words, both things grew stronger at the same time: the fear of failure, and the hope. The Prince, however, decided against pressing him any further, as proving that he was aware of his thoughts might scare the man even more than he already was.

While they were announced to the women, Gimilzagar paused in his tracks, and took a moment to steel himself for the confrontation that awaited him beyond that threshold. Until now, he had been fleeing the Pearl and shamelessly hiding behind Fíriel, though the barbarian woman was his responsibility and not hers. Her terror had cut him too deep, left too little space for him to react in any other way. Since the very first time they had met, moreover, it appeared evident that there was more to her rejection of him than there was to her rejection of other Númenóreans, with the possible exception of their current host. This had led him to guess that the dark legends about him must have reached her ears at some point, and that she was afraid of horrors that went beyond mere death. Under those circumstances, subjecting her to his presence would have been nothing but pointless cruelty, which would do neither of them any good. It was better to leave Fíriel to it: she was as sympathetic for the woman’s plight as he was, and would do a much better job of looking after her.

Still, none of those considerations had entirely erased Gimilzagar’s bad conscience, or his knowledge that, sooner or later, he would have to face her himself. That was how his father had wanted it, and like most things his father wanted, it would happen.

“Good morning, Pearl”, he said with a tight smile, bracing himself for the inevitable onslaught. “I have a surprise for you.”

Just as he had expected, the barbarian woman’s eyes widened, and she immediately ran to hide behind Fíriel, who was looking rather apprehensive. Gimilzagar had been intending to ask her to leave, but now he realized how inadvisable this would be.

“Translate everything I say” he told Hazin, who was looking at the scene with an apparent blank expression that hid a growing bewilderment. “And translate everything she says to me, as well. I am Gimilzagar, the Prince of Númenor. My father had you brought to the Island to be my wife against your will, and for this I am deeply sorry. I have no intention of harming you, nor of letting others do so. You are safe.” Hazin was quick on the uptake: from the way he wove his own discourse, only seconds away from his own words, Gimilzagar could see that the man must have had a lengthy experience as a translator on the mainland.

After he fell silent, the Pearl stood completely still. Her eyes were wide open, and she stared at the man who had suddenly come into the room speaking her language as if he had just fallen from the sky as an emissary from one of her strange deities. Belatedly, the Prince realized that this shock might not have allowed her to register the meaning of his words.

“Repeat it once more”, he ordered Hazin. The interpreter did not even need to be reminded of the message: he also seemed to have an excellent memory. For all his disparaging remarks about their savagery, that old bastard had chosen his servants well.

The second time she heard it, the Pearl looked little less flabbergasted than the first. Only when the man was finished, she seemed to emerge from her stupor, and she began shaking her head, letting go of a torrent of words in a high-pitched voice. Hazin gazed at the floor, saying nothing.

“Translate” Gimilzagar said, believing at first that the man had somehow forgotten what he was here to do.  When he perceived his turmoil, however, he grew aware of the truth. “Do not fear, Hazin. Tell me what she is saying, word by word, and I promise I will not hold you accountable for it.”

Those words brought relief, though there was still apprehension in his countenance as he opened his mouth to speak.

“She… thinks that you are trying to make her… lower her guard. Then, once that she is in your…” A blush spread across his rather pale cheeks. “In your bed, you will suck her spirit away, a-and leave an empty husk behind.”

Check, he thought, looking at Fíriel and exchanging a wry look with her. Unfortunately, the Pearl saw this exchange, and walked away from Fíriel to search for a new safe place at the other side of the large bed. So much for that.

“Wait, Pearl… or whatever your name is!”, Fíriel called after her. “I have kept you safe for all this time, you can trust me! I have guarded your sleep, and nobody has taken your spirit on my watch.” Hazin looked at Gimilzagar in renewed confusion, and the Prince realized that he had to issue new instructions on how to deal with this.

“Translate the Lady Fíriel’s words as well”, he ordered. The interpreter obeyed with a bow. He and the Pearl seemed to have a brief yet intense exchange.

“She is Rinitisipamushi, daughter of Molmak the Grey Wolf” he finally said, turning towards Gimilzagar again. “She says that she is not afraid of death, but she is very afraid of losing her spirit. That you are a- a demon, not a man. I am deeply sorry, those were the Lady Rini’s words, not mine.”

Gimilzagar shrugged the apology away.

“I swear I will never enter her bed or steal her spirit. Ask her what do I need to do for her to believe me.”

If Hazin was surprised at this, he did not give evidence of it. He told this to the Pearl –Rini-whatever the rest was-,  who said something terse in response.

“She says she will only believe that you do not want her spirit if you let her kill herself.”

The Prince sighed.

“Ask her for an answer that does not involve anyone dying.”

There was no need for a translator to understand her response: she shook her head vehemently. Pulling her composure together again after the barbarian’s rejection, Fíriel started walking towards the bed. Rini bared her teeth at her, but her hands were trembling.

“Your people have it wrong. The Prince is good. It is his father who is at fault for all this.” Gimilzagar shrugged at Hazin, who translated this very hesitantly, almost as if he expected a bolt of lightning to strike him as soon as the words crossed his lips. “He did not want your people to die, or you to suffer. And neither do I! When you were taken to us, we were so sorry for you that we travelled all the way here only to find someone who could speak your language. Now, do you really think we would have needed to do that if we just wanted to steal your spirit?”

“I can show you the truth of my intentions, if you would let me” Gimilzagar intervened, taking advantage of the brief lowering of the woman’s guard. “I have the ability to reveal my spirit to you, so you can see it for yourself and realize there is no evil intent in it. Please, let me show it to you. It will only be a moment, and you can stay over there, for we do not even need to be close.”

“She does not trust this. She says that you want to trick her. That she will never let you touch her spirit in any way.”

“But it is my spirit what…” His voice trailed away, and he needed a great effort not to surrender to frustration. How could he explain this to her so she would trust him? He needed much more than a mere interpreter for this, no matter how proficient. For a moment, the temptation to just ignore her superstitious terror and do it was almost overpowering – after all, it was not as if she could do anything to prevent it. It might be painful at first, but once she saw it, it would make everything better.

“No! Wait!” Fíriel had perceived his intentions, and she did not seem to appreciate them in the slightest, though back in Armenelos she had been the one urging him to penetrate her mind. “Let me try to convince her, Gimilzagar. I am sure that I can! Please.”

The Prince of the West pondered this. As he did so, a feeling of dismay took hold of him, and he hissed a curse between his teeth. No, no, no, not again. He had been letting Fíriel carry this burden by herself for all these days, and now they had made it this far, how could he just surrender again and leave all the unpleasant business to her? How could he live with himself?

“Fíriel…” he began, but just then a knock reached his ears, momentarily distracting him from his purpose. “Who is it? This is a private conversation!”

The door slid open an inch, and he could hear the voice of their host in conversation with someone that his eyes could not see. He was about to tell the nosy old man to leave, when the door opened wide for two people that Gimilzagar had never met before. One was an elderly woman; the other, a rather young man – almost a boy- with a cherry red, sunburnt face.

Both of them were straw-haired barbarians.

The Prince of the West opened his mouth, but before he could manage to come up with the first question, a great storm of emotions erupted around him. Rini gave a sharp cry, and ran around the bed to pull the old woman in an embrace. There was a quick exchange of words in their language, and suddenly she started sobbing loudly, her face buried in the hollow of the newcomer’s neck. The old barbarian’s wrinkled cheeks also looked wet, but she cried in silence.

“What are they saying? What is this, and who are those people?” he asked, out of sorts.

Retired General Minulzîr chose that moment to stride in, his features creased in the most irritating grin of triumph.

“Just some captives I still keep around from that campaign, my lord prince. I thought your bride might be acquainted with these two, and it occurred to me that seeing them again could soften her mood, so here they are.”

“Oh.” This time, Gimilzagar did not know what to say. “Are they – her kin, or something?” He turned his inquiring look towards Hazin, and the interpreter immediately bowed.

“I am sorry, my lord prince.” He addressed some words to the young man, who frowned for a while before answering something. “She is Lady Rini’s –wetnurse. He is her… I apologize, I do not know the Númenórean word for it. His… brother used to be her husband.”

So she had been married. Fíriel looked quite chagrined upon hearing this, but there was no time for pity right now.

“What else are they saying?”

“They were telling her that if she stays alive they will stay alive, too.”

“What?” Angry again, he turned towards Minulzîr, who shrugged apologetically.

“I am only trying to help, my lord prince.”

“That is not the kind of help I need! Hazin, tell her…”

“Yes, my lord prince?” The interpreter stared at him, waiting, but Gimilzagar did not know how to end the phrase. All of a sudden, he grew uncomfortably aware that the fate of those barbarians was not his to decide: it was in the hands of the man he had been antagonizing almost since he arrived to this house. Breathing deeply, he did his best to swallow his frustration.

“I only want her to be happy. If these people are beloved to her, I will give anything to the general here to persuade him to part with them.”

“Nonsense! I will take no payment from the heir to the Sceptre of Númenor!”

“I insist, General.” If Minulzîr refused to take fair payment, Gimilzagar would be beholden to him, and he was not the kind of man to let such a golden opportunity go to waste. He probably saw himself as Governor of Andúnië already, the Prince thought ruefully.

If only he was in a better position to bargain. But Rini was still crying her eyes out, now in the boy’s embrace, and Fíriel was fixing him with a rather conspicuous frown.

“And I have to refuse upon my honour as a soldier”, Minulzîr retorted in a firm voice. “The greatest reward I require is to be of service to you, my lord prince.”

Gimilzagar sighed.

“Very well”, he surrendered. Then, he gestured to Hazin again. “Tell her that they will both come with us to the Palace, to help make her life more bearable.”

“And so will you”, the old man intervened. The interpreter did a double take, though he managed to hide his turmoil well enough. “The three of you will be my wedding present to the Prince.”

“But make it very clear that they are in no danger whatsoever, from me or anyone else. Though I hope she will come to change her mind about the desirability of death, I will not force her to live by threatening others.” Hazin nodded, and even if he would never be bold enough to show this openly, Gimilzagar could perceive that the barbarian found his attitude more and more puzzling with each passing minute. Deep inside, he was debating whether the Prince of the West was just a well-meaning fool who had no idea of how things were done, or, as his people believed, a clever fiend with a sinister purpose in mind. Could he also believe in spirit-stealing demons? But, if that was the case –how terrible should his life be, for him to be secretly glad that the demon was taking him away, too? Gimilzagar found this mind-numbing to contemplate.

While he pondered this, he watched in silence as the interpreter walked towards the group of barbarians to relay the message to them. Rini frowned, and for a moment she looked beyond him to steal an agitated look in Gimilzagar’s direction. Then, she gazed down, at the fingers she had crossed over her lap so they would stop trembling. The old woman spoke to her, in a curious singsong tone that the Prince would never have associated with their harsh barbarian language. Rini shook her head left and right in slow, repetitive movements. Finally, she appeared to mumble something, which Gimilzagar would not have been able to catch even if he could understand the words.

“So?” he asked the interpreter. The barbarian looked relieved.

“They begged her to live, and accept her fate. She has agreed.” At least until she suspected him again of trying to trick her soul out of her. Gimilzagar made a mental note to keep both sharp objects, ropes, and things that could be easily turned into either away from her until he was wholly sure, and to keep all three barbarians under vigilance. Now, he could even recruit Hazin’s help for this.

“Good”, he said. “You did well. Now, wait by the door, in case they need you for anything. Allow them their privacy, but remain within their sight so the Lady Rini can summon you if she wants to. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord prince, I understand”, the barbarian nodded with a low bow.

“Do not hesitate to call for me if something is –amiss”, Gimilzagar added, as if it was an afterthought. The bow became lower still.

“Far be it from my mind to criticise your actions, my lord prince, but your ways are crooked indeed!” Minulzîr remarked, as they walked down the corridor towards the dining hall. “You love this woman, but you do not bed her. Instead, you come all the way here to find an interpreter so you can open your heart to her, but you would have let her have the last word and pile all sorts of abuse upon you if I had not arrived with my reinforcements. And now, you do not want her to kill herself, but you refuse to make sure that she won’t do it in the most effective way that you have at your disposition.”

And what is worse than all that: you want to hit this man on the face, but instead you humour him and listen politely to him when he speaks, he could hear Fíriel thinking at him. Her hostility warmed his heart a little.

“Perhaps you are right” he conceded. “But sometimes the crooked way turns out to be surer and faster than the straight one. Especially when it comes to women, who are crooked beings in their own right.” Fíriel glared at him, but Minulzîr laughed.

“Now, that is something I cannot deny!”

Still, for the next hours, as he nibbled at one elaborate dish after another of his host’s ostentatious version of a morning meal, trying to deflect questions about Council meetings and appointments, Gimilzagar’s thoughts remained on the nearby room, where Hazin watched Rini trade stories with her fellow tribespeople with a mixture of boredom and alert vigilance.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“I am sorry.” He said those words to Fíriel later in the day, as both watched the view of the Sea from the old general’s terrace, cradling cups of sweet and spiced wine on their laps. Rini was eating in her rooms with her people, still under Hazin’s watchful eye, and Minulzîr had just asked for his leave to deal with some unforeseen complication regarding his estate. There was a spring to his step as he left, which told Gimilzagar that he was feeling exultant about the advances he had made today. “I wish it had not turned out like this. You deserve more than cold mistrust, after all you have done for her.”

Fíriel shook her head. She had spoken little during the meal, partly because her loathing for their host had grown too ardent to be successfully hidden from her countenance and her voice, and partly because she had been too engrossed in her own thoughts. Minulzîr had found nothing amiss with that, as he probably had not even expected her to participate in the conversation, but Gimilzagar had remained acutely aware of her silence.

“What I deserve is not the point here, Gimilzagar” she said. She was frowning, as if she was wondering how to put a complicated thought into words. Even after all those years, she still thought that she needed to.

“Her fears about you stealing her soul are- not the most unfounded I have come across. Even I was made to… wonder about this once, remember? “Yes, Gimilzagar thought with a shiver, he remembered that ghastly episode well enough. Damn Zigûr to the darkest abyss of the world. “I can imagine what it must feel like to be in her position. To be expected to trust your word against the thousands who told her that you were a demon – against the terrible deeds of your people, which she has seen with her own eyes. Back in the Cave, when I still did not know any of this, I wondered if I might be projecting too many of my feelings on her. But now that I have heard it with my own ears, I no longer wonder, I know. And I pity her all the more for it.”

Gimilzagar sighed.

“I do not expect her to trust my word, but my actions. For this, time is necessary, and I intend to buy as much of it as possible. And if this means letting a petty old general get one over me, or three, I could not care less.”

“I know.” Fíriel’s eyes became lost in the slight undulation of the liquid in the cup she was cradling. “I will try not to give you a hard time about it.”

“Oh, do not worry. If there is something I know after thirty years, Fíriel, it is that wherever my father has been involved, it will be impossible for me to have anything but a hard time. I will scramble behind him, frantically trying to clean the mess as well as I can while others hate me, scorn me, or try to take advantage of my weakness.” Gimilzagar stood up, and slowly walked towards the balustrade, where he leaned to watch the Sea. “Because he wants it to be so.”

“But I do not understand!” She shook her head in frustration. “Why would he want such a thing? What does he hope to gain by dumping those women on you, knowing that you will feel responsible for their fate, and having you humiliate yourself like this? Whatever grand projects he has for the future, in the here and now you are his heir, to take the Sceptre and rule Númenor after him.”

Whether he wins or loses, there will be no more kings in Númenor. As usual, his mother’s words brought a heavy weight to his chest, which he had to spend a while trying to force out of his system.

“My father has not seen me as much of an heir since we came back from Middle Earth.” He smiled, a smile as false as the ones he had given Minulzîr. “As for what he hopes to gain – I do not know, I suppose it may just be his way of having revenge. After all, I failed him.” The real truth, of course, was that he had not been allowed to read his father’s mind in eight years now. Ar Pharazôn had rarely been in Armenelos since then, and even when he did stay in the Palace, Gimilzagar had not been allowed to see him in private. “Or perhaps I am mistaken to believe I am still that important, and it is revenge against the lord of Andúnië he is after. Or both. He certainly has a way of hitting many with the same strike. I suppose it has to do with his long experience as a military strategist.”

“If that is so, then he is pettier than General Minulzîr. You did not choose to be who you are.”

“All generals are petty, Fíriel. Didn’t you know that? They might act grand and magnanimous when they win, but when they lose, even if it is just a small skirmish against a backwater tribe of the mainland, all they can think about is retaliation. That is the only way through which their inner balance is restored, and they can feel in control again. The King has lost just as many battles as our friend Minulzîr here, he has merely done a much better job of hiding his defeats from the world.” He pulled himself up, and looked around them for signs of their host returning. “But enough of treasonous conversations for today, at least in this house. Like most soldiers of Númenor, Minulzîr is fanatically loyal to my father.”

“Even after he was disappointed in his aspirations?”

“Oh, but he thinks it was the Queen who made that appointment. That is what they always think when something does not turn out the way they want to. And now that the King is so busy with his own projects, it has become all the more plausible. That is why our General is going to such lengths to earn my gratitude.”

“How so?”

“Few in Númenor think I am able to influence my father. My mother, however, is another matter. The more her power increases in the Island, the more her beloved son becomes worthy of consideration. Now, you know I am as likely to change her mind on something she has decided to do as that barbarian Minulzîr pulled out from his fields and dressed at all haste to present to Rini as a grand gesture of goodwill. But they do not know that. She is a woman, after all, so there must be a man who can tell her what to do, and if my father is not there, it might as well be me.”

“Oh” Fíriel drank a sip from her cup, then grimaced, as if the taste was suddenly bitter. “So this is why the General is being so obsequious to us. He thinks you can make her change her mind about the appointment.”

“Yes. Thanks to her, I am still at least half of an heir to the Sceptre –which is already half more of what I would otherwise be.”

“I suppose being half an heir is still not enough to tell that man to go to hell with all his airs, his underserved aspirations and his overbearing favours” she joked mirthlessly. He shrugged.

“Not even to spare you an afternoon tea with him.” Fíriel followed his glance for a moment, only to see the object of their discussion cross the terrace doors, arguing animatedly with some administrator, who looked rather put-upon. “I am sorry.”

His lover forced a smile into her features.

“You are so lucky I always forgive you, Gimilzagar.”

 

*     *     *     *     *     *

 

They could not find a pretext to leave the retired general’s villa until the following day, which as far as Fíriel was concerned was already much longer than she had wished to stay. As they were finally allowed to depart, she returned to her proper place beside Gimilzagar in his cart, to continue the journey by his side. He no longer had to ride a horse beside some talkative old man, and she no longer had to keep the Pearl –Lady Rini- company, as there were now four barbarians in their party, one of them tasked with keeping watch over her, and relaying her wishes to the Númenórean servants. This meant there was no use for Fíriel’s presence in the woman’s life, and if she felt a pang of loss in her chest whenever she contemplated this, she forced herself to remember that whatever she had lost was Rini’s gain, and therefore a cause for happiness.

For the greatest part of the day, they advanced slowly through a winding road that followed the line of the coast, with the Great Sea falling to their left. In their earlier journey from Armenelos, they had often caught glimpses of townspeople and peasants leaving their houses and fields and standing by the road to gaze at them, but after they reached the Western regions the landscape had changed abruptly. Here, wherever they turned, there was nothing but vast cultivated fields, stretching beyond their line of sight. No townspeople or peasants came to meet them, and the only people they saw were slaves, hapless barbarians toiling under the sun by the hundreds, and driven so harshly that they did not dare stop their work for even an instant.

Fíriel was appalled. Back when she was hesitant to embark in this journey, she had not been sure of what she would find in the land of her birth, but to be honest she had never expected this. She saw nothing, recognized nothing that felt even vaguely familiar. Her few childhood memories had threatening priests, burning fields and broken furniture in them, but they also had villages, free peasants who cultivated the small parcels of land they had inherited from their fathers, and whose children played by the beach together. There had been work, but also rest, and festivals, and a sense of community which did not fracture even under the High Priest’s increasingly harsh demands.

“Stop”, Gimilzagar ordered the driver at some point. The shadows had been growing longer for a while now, and as he threw the curtain open, Fíriel could see the sun floating over the waves like a ball of red fire. She gave him an inquiring glance.

“Come with me”, he said simply, leaving the cart and offering her a hand from the ground. Growing more and more bewildered, she took it. “Look around you. Do you recognize this?”

Fíriel turned around, taking in their surroundings. The road had been going upwards for a while, and now they were nearing the highest point of a hill, whose slope fell gently on their side. On top of this hill, she could see vestiges of old buildings which must have been destroyed long ago, and then abandoned to the wrath of the elements. She saw rotten wooden beams, and stones covered in moss, some of them still held together to form figments of walls, others just scattered across the ground. When she was about to register her surprise that all this had been left there, instead of taken out stone by stone to plant crops in it, she heard the chime of bells, and climbed what was left of the hill to see the answer to her unasked question. A large flock of sheep was grazing nearby, probably the property of one of those wealthy landowners who had taken residence there.

“What is this?” she asked, her voice terse. Somehow, what she was seeing made her sad, though she did not know very well why. She attributed it to her general mood since they had left the General’s house and the new Western landscape had unravelled before her eyes: everything she saw had evoked a sense of loss, which she could not manage to shake off.

Gimilzagar sobered.

“Nothing.” He took her hand again. “Let us go back.”

She remained in place.

“What is this, Gimilzagar?”

The Prince of the West looked pained.

“I have made a mistake. In my vision – but I must have interpreted it wrongly.”

“What vision?” She was feeling more out of sorts at every passing minute, but she could not simply let it go as he wanted her to. “What is all this, Gimilzagar? I will not go until you tell me.”

He sighed and took a very deep breath, as if steeling himself for something.

“This is your former home, Fíriel. The house where you used to live when you were a child.” His cheeks reddened. “Please, forgive me. It was never my intention to upset you. I-I had a vision where you stood in this place, and you smiled, and were happy. Apparently, I was misled.”

The young woman’s first reaction was to laugh derisively at this nonsense. How could this be her home? He had no idea of where it was, as it was the first time he came here. And she, who had known it well, could not recognize this as the landscape of any of her memories.

“You are wrong, Gimilzagar. This is not the place. My home was close to a cliff. We children used to climb down the rocks to swim in the Sea and catch shellfish. The land surrounding it was flat, and there was no grass, a- and the road was much farther away.”

“There is a cliff on the other side of the hill. And this stretch of the road is new, some rich landowner rebuilt it at his own expense because he did not want travellers to pass through his property.” Gimilzagar did not sound argumentative, but Fíriel was growing angry at what appeared to her as a show of pointless stubbornness.

“I said, this is not the place, Gimilzagar! How dare you think I would not recognize my own home!” Had he read her mind during their journey, and perceived that she could not feel sure of anything anymore? Was he taking advantage of her confusion to show her what he believed to be a likely spot, and force on her his twisted ideas about healing?

“No, Fíriel, no! Please, let us go back. I was wrong to come here.”

She did not move.

“This is not my home.”

“You are right. It is not.” His look was beseeching. “Please, come with me.”

Even after she finally surrendered her hand to him, however, and let him guide her back towards the road where the carts were waiting, she could still feel that strange, irrational anger inside her.