Atandil by Eilinel's Ghost  

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22. All of Gold Woven

Had they not promised as much already? Were these not the words of his own soul on the battlements of the Cened Beraid, caught in the other’s arms behind a shroud of rain? His eyes drifted from the joined hands to find Balan’s face. I pledge to you fealty of my heart…

Midsummer in Estolad. Baran and Balan address their conflict, games are somewhat fraught, and the vistors join in the celebrations for Baran's wedding.


312th YEAR OF THE SUN, SUMMER
Estolad

He woke slowly, blinking as sleep ebbed, and gathered the blanket in some half-thought reflex that his grip on the wool would hold oblivion too from slipping away. His fingers felt thick and clumsy. There was a sharp ache in the small of his back, a throbbing that had settled somewhere behind his right eye, like a taut band strung between one temple and the other. He groaned and turned his face into the straw mattress.

Sunlight was pouring from the window along the eastern wall. Gods all, why had it been cut there? Three other walls they had, yet they placed it here where the light’s blade would pierce most keenly. In the fog of waking, he felt a moment’s certainty that Baran had done so deliberately and was now taking a smug satisfaction to see his work come to fruition at last.

Baran.

Apprehension rose with the nausea in his gut and he rolled back, opening his eyes with an effort. This was not dawn’s pale light, but the bright warmth of mid-morning. How late had he slept? They would not have let him drift through the celebrations, surely? Nay, Belen would have seen to it. Nóm too would not have let him be forgotten. Unless, Balan pondered dubiously, he had been equally afflicted with the night’s consequences and lay abed yet in this same wretchedness.

He pushed up from the bed and promptly swore, leaning his elbows against his knees and dropping his face into his hands as the room tilted dangerously. What had possessed him? Age had no business playing at youth’s folly—and heavily had he dipped from that well in the night. Nausea rose again as the memory of his argument with Baran pressed through the fog and he groaned, drawing his hands slowly along his face and willing the room to steady. They had struck at each other with adolescent pettiness, each jibe more vicious than the last, and the recollection of it left fresh weals along his spirit, the pain in his son’s voice biting like barbs upon the lash. 

Balan stood with an effort and shuffled the short distance to the wash basin. Had he washed when he returned in the night? He must have, he reflected in bemusement, for the basin was filled already, the ewer beside it half-empty. His balance swayed and he gripped the edges of the table, the motion sending ripples through the water and his jaw tightened against the nausea in response. This was no more than he deserved—reason had warned him well enough at the time but he shrugged it aside, amused and confident in the arms of tradition. He dipped his hands into the basin with a snort and lifted a handful of water to douse his face. Tradition’s embrace was fickle.

He drew a second handful and let it linger against his brow. It was cool upon his eyes, soothing the ache even as it had the liquor’s giddy blaze in the small hours of the night. How it burns in the veins. The echo of Nóm’s laugh trickled through the air behind him. Fire itself would course more kindly.

Oh gods all. That memory too materialized from the haze and he laughed in disbelief, bitter and hoarse. Fool! He plunged his head beneath the water in full now, sloshing it over his neck while his fingers scrabbled against his scalp to clear the muddle. Had he spent two years in hopeless longing only to turn him away at the crisis? A flicker of vindication kindled in some quiet, bruised corner of himself, and he tugged the shirt from his shoulders, toweling his face roughly then casting it aside. Good. Nóm too should know the sting of denial.

The lethargy had eased somewhat with the water’s chill and he began dressing methodically, chewing sprigs of lemon balm to settle his stomach as he bound first braies, then breeches, then slipped his arms through a loose linen shirt. It was grounding, the ritual of these simple tasks. They drew him back to himself, each piece lifted from the haze and brought again to the whole, and by the time he worked cedarwood oil through his beard, he knew himself once more.

Balan rubbed the excess oil into his forearms, then bent to retrieve his sash. It lay in a jumble, still coiled on the packed earth where Nóm had let it fall, and for a moment he lingered, passing the cloth through his fingers and letting the shiver burn once more along his spine. What if he had not thrust him away? His rebuff had been from anger after all, not prudence—at least in that first reflex. What if he had yielded? If beyond hope he had awakened at his side? The touch of the other’s hands lingered still at his waist, fingers brushing over the skin when they gathered the cloth away.

His breath drew in with a hiss and he rose, shaking free of the memory as he wound the sash and cinched it tightly. Yielding would have gained nothing. He would have awakened at Nóm’s side, to be sure—but awakened too to the sight of remorse spooling like ink through the other’s eyes, spreading outward till the whole was stained with its shadow. The image was as vivid as the flaking daub before his eyes, the cold panic of the other’s soul as tangible as the rough-hewn door boards against his palms. 

What I want is the whole of thee. He paused with one hand on the lintel, one on the stile just above the latch, while Nóm’s words circled through him as they had since the waters of spring.

 Nay, Balan’s heart had ever countered, what I want is anything of thee. 

But this new certainty weighed heavy, settled and sure in his bones and as true of his own soul now as it was of the other’s. He too would never be satisfied by anything less than the whole.

Long he lingered, forehead resting against the timbers and allowing despair a moment’s confluence with the exhaustion in his veins, till at last he collected himself, then took a breath and eased the door open. The sun pierced into the hut like a blade and he flinched, lifting a hand to shade his eyes and swearing as he shuffled into the mid-morning light. 

His son was there. 

He sat perched atop a low rock wall, arms propped against his knees and turning a cup in his hands while he watched a group of chickadees pluck seeds from the path. He looked up at the sound of the latch and Balan faltered as shame scraped against his spirit, their previous night’s quarrel once more fresh in his mind. But Baran’s gaze was mild and he straightened, holding out the cup like a peace offering and his father moved tentatively to cross the distance between them.

“I thought you’d have need of it.” 

Balan took the drink with a grimace, the scent of vinegar and eel wafting through the air. “Your aunt’s brew?”

“Aye.”

He snorted. “That will please her.”

“Aye.” A ghost of amusement passed over Baran’s lips. “Though she’s no notion I meant it for you. I asked for double and she seemed to think my own state dire enough.”

Balan’s lips twitched in turn and he drained the mixture, then returned the cup with a shudder. “Gods all, it’s vile, isn’t it?” A pouch of willow bark was offered next and he shook a quantity onto his palm with murmured thanks, then hoisted himself onto the wall while his son resumed fiddling with the empty cup. 

“I spoke unfairly in the night.” Baran’s voice was quiet, and he held his gaze on the birds who had fluttered back to continue their gleaning.

“Nay, lad, it’s I who should—”

“I spoke unfairly and I am sorry for it.”

“And I.” It was with an effort that Balan held back the urge to contradict him, to insist that any blame should be set on his own shoulders instead. But he knew it needed only a hair’s weight to shift the momentary balance into conflict, and so he bit back the reflex and shook his head. “You were not wrong,” he added instead. “Or rather you were, but I would that you were not, which amounts near enough to the same.”

“A fine thing to hear from one’s father,” Baran muttered dryly, then the implication struck him and his surge of indignation was nearly palpable. “Does he think you beneath him?”

The anger in his son’s voice spread like a balm along his soul. It was the first time since their parting that his ire had been summoned in defense and not reprimand—and Balan felt a nearly irresistible urge to reply in kind. His own bitterness was ever just beneath the surface and it would take little to stoke that wound into flame and give vent to his lingering sense of injury, that through a shared offense he might hold this camaraderie with his boy for a few moments longer. But as he hesitated, his mind drifted to the image of Nóm beside the fire in their old hut, laughing as he and Baran traded jests through the winter; or the proud affection in his voice when he told Balan the night before how glad he was to see Baran’s skill flourish. “No,” he said at last, knowing he could not willingly set them at odds, even if it was in service of his own reconciliation, “don’t think poorly of him in this. That’s not the reason.” He passed his hands along his face, then shrugged with a dry laugh. “Though to speak truly, it would be simpler were it so.”

“If he’s scorned you, I’ll think poorly of him whatever the reason.”

Balan felt the corners of his mouth twitch with warmth at his son’s continued defense and he shook his head. “Not scorned exactly. It’s more that—I mean he believes that it would…that it isn’t…” He trailed awkwardly into silence and grimaced, regretting the words almost at once. How could he possibly explain the maze of Nóm’s principles or make sense to another of this precarious balance they had found? Baran, practical and determined, would have little patience for that circuitous labyrinth. Already, he noted, his sons’ lips had pressed into a thin line and the crease between his brows was deepening. And no wonder—it was laughable to find oneself in this bind; it must be mortifying to find one’s father so. He swore and shifted on the wall as the silence drew out uncomfortably between them.

“Belen told me about the goblins.” 

“Belen?” The question was nearly an exclamation and Balan looked toward his son in surprise.

“Gildor let it slip to him yestereve when the game was done,” Baran explained, amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth, and he chuckled. “Poor Gildor. Nóm should have given him a better warning before letting him join in.”

“And Bel reported back to you.”

“Of course he did. My father was very nearly our first casualty of the Nómin’s wars. It was his duty to do so—his duty both in love and fealty.” Baran’s voice was carefully measured, but sharp nonetheless with suppressed feeling. “You should have told us.”

“And handed you a further grudge against the both of us?”

“You nearly died.”

“I didn’t.”

“And if you had?”

“He made sure I did not.”

“Vatta…”

Balan looked back toward his son and in an instant his heart was pierced with guilt. It was the same face still, lips pressed together and fear held stubbornly at bay, the same boy who had huddled at the fire beside him each long night following Esrid’s death, and whose grief he had not known even then how to comfort. He felt the same knot catch in his throat and, when he regained his voice, shook his head in concession. “I’m sorry,” he managed at last, avoiding the other’s eye. “I didn’t want you to know. I’ve no good reason for it.”

Baran was quiet for a time, then at length he nodded and the silence stretched more easily between them, long minutes rolling each into the other as insects buzzed in the summer grasses and the sounds of the village drifted along the breeze. Balan filled his lungs with the rich, green scent and found himself longing, not for the last time, that he had come home to stay.

”Are you happy?”

The question was almost contemplative, and Balan turned in surprise at the earnestness in his son’s voice. Baran’s gaze had returned to the chickadees and he was no longer fidgeting with the empty cup, but held it clasped within his hands. 

“It isn’t a trap,” he added when he saw the other fumbling for a reply. “I mean it sincerely.”

Balan tried to chuckle at this, but all he achieved was a rasping snort. “Difficult to say when I don’t know the answer myself.” Again he drew his hands along his face, searching for words that might knit another span across this rift, but his mind was leaden still with the lingering fog. Here at last was the answer to his prayer beneath the ash tree—and perhaps after all there was something of Fon’s impishness to the goddess, for her blessing came only now while he was too muddled yet to find his way through the pitfalls of reconciliation. He bit back a curse and shook his head. “Do you remember how we would sit on the old cart when you were a lad? You’d wake when the first light brushed the horizon and come find me—every morning, as though you knew somehow by instinct the dawn was nearing—and we’d sit together with our feet propped like this against the wheels and watch the new day rise from the lands we’d left.”

“I remember.” Baran looked back at the cup in his hands and a grin tugged at his mouth. “I thought men didn’t sleep when they were grown. You were always there already, no matter how early I woke. I don’t know how you managed all this on so little sleep.”

“Mmph,” Balan snorted with a wry twist of his brow. “Well, I didn’t manage it well.” A second flight of chickadees swooped through the clearing and he watched as they soared on over the heart of the village. “It wasn’t flattery, you know,” he added after a moment. “I’ve no idea how you’ve done it all in a year’s span, but it truly is a marvel.”

There was only a noncommittal grunt in reply and Balan watched his son’s knuckles whiten about the carved cup in his hands.

He fell quiet again, but the lingering question weighed all the more insistently in the silence, till at length he rested his hands against the wall beneath him and drew an unsteady breath. “Am I happy?” he repeated with reluctance, gripping the stone till it bit into his palms. “No.” But as soon as he had forced the admission from his mouth he knew it for a lie, and shook his head. “And yes. I don’t know. I sleep,” he added with a dry chuckle, “which is more than I could say of the years gone before, so there must be some measure of peace, I suppose. But happiness?” He pressed his lips together for a long moment in an unconscious mirror of his son, then shook his head once more. “Not since I lost your mother have I loved—leastwise, not like this—and then too I loved in hopelessness.” 

Baran glanced over in query and his father’s lips twitched with self-deprecation. 

“Have I not told you that before? It wasn’t till you were a babe in arms that I knew she thought of me as aught more than a necessary task.”

“Aye, you’ve told me. I’d forgotten it.”

“And not till Bel that I believed her.” A little shower of dirt cascaded down the stones as he shifted again to sit more comfortably. “That is one of my greatest regrets: I should have told her what she was to me from the beginning—as you’ve done.”

There was another long silence and Balan tried not to think of that far hillside with its rolling waves of grass where Esrid’s bones rested beneath the soil. Or of her laugh when she had traced a hand along his cheek, eyes dancing in amusement as she took in his earnest surprise. Sometimes you’re dense as stone, Bal. I’d have relied on charity a hundred times over sooner than wed you if I didn’t wish it. Or of that nearer laugh, the holy spring chuckling while Nóm’s tears had dropped onto his cheeks, the feel of his face cupped within the other’s palms. Let me remember thee ever as this, here in the light and the water’s music, here with the words still half-upon thy tongue.

“Sabil is a good woman,” he said, coming back to himself with an effort and managing a faint smile. “I’m glad to find you’re a braver man than I.”

A faint grin tugged at Baran’s mouth, tinged with the same self-deprecation as his father’s. “You know damn well I’m nothing of the kind.”

“No?” Balan chuckled and glanced fondly at his son. “Well, whoever’s work it was, I’m glad of it.”

“Aye.” The other’s smile warmed and he rolled the cup along his palm once again. “It was she who convinced me to come find you this morning—and in no uncertain terms. So you’ve her to thank for that as well, I suppose. She was right, of course,” he added with grudging acquiescence, “but I’d not have done it without her bidding.”

“Then I’m deep in her debt.” Sabil had been quick to greet him on that uneasy first evening. She was seated on the far side of her father, halfway along the row of high tables, and slipped down as soon as she saw him meander out with Belen onto the main floor of the hall. Goodness go with you, dára. Her arms had been crossed formally as she spoke the usual greeting, but then she stepped forward with a smile and kissed him on each cheek. I am glad to see you home again—Baran and I both, for all he’s a stubborn mule about it.

His son sat on in silence till at length he slid from the wall, then brushed the dirt from his legs and moved away with a nod toward the path. But he had only managed a few paces before he slowed and turned, lingering uncertainly and scuffing little furrows into the dirt. “Vatta, will you stand as my witness?” he asked at last, eyes faltering when he tried to meet his father’s gaze. “I asked it already, but you knew well enough that was only obligation.”

“Aye, lad, if it’s what you wish. I’ll do it gladly, obligation or no.”

Baran nodded and turned over another furrow with his toe. “I’ve not forgiven you, mind,” he added quietly as he kicked the dirt flat once again, “nor am I certain that I mean to. But I can’t bear to break with you either.”

A knot of emotion tangled in Balan’s throat, muddled between grief and hope, and it was a long moment before he was able to speak. “It’s kind of you to say it. I did not look for even that much.”

“Nor I.”

“Baran.” His son turned back again as he reached the path and it was Balan now who could not bring himself to meet the other’s eye. “I’ll stay if it will do aught to set it aright between us.”

Baran watched him for a time in silence, then shook his head with an effort. “No,” he said at last. “No, it’s too far gone for that.”

❈ ❈ ❈

His mother had first passed on the tale when he was too young to remember it, small and round-cheeked and wrapped in a sheepskin upon her lap. He would watch from the bundle with wide serious eyes as she chanted, and frown and move his lips as though trying to mimic the patterns of hers. Or so she had told him. His own memory was of himself at Fina’s age, or Avina’s, sitting beside the winter hearth and prodding at the embers in time with his mother’s voice.

Luftu the Great One is the goddess of wind, 
the goddess of wind is the breath of all life. 
The brother of Luftu is Vris the Fell, 
the spirit of winter, the god of cold. 

When Men were young yet in the land of their making, 
and the clay of their flesh still soft from Melishk’s hand, 
Vris grew jealous of the dwelling they were given, 
and his anger burned toward the Great Ones. 

For Vris had been forbidden from entering the world, 
lest the ice of his presence cause life to fail 
or wither the bounty that grew from the land. 
So he looked with envy on the bright earth beneath him, 
and brooded and thought much on what he was denied.

And lo! when Iuthap leapt in dance through the firmament, 
and Luftu and Satheweis sang in the air; 
when Melishk and Guënid drew life from the loam, 
Vris gathered the Dark of the timeless about him 
and slipped down thus shrouded like a cloud through the sky. 

As he passed, Iuthap’s light was darkened at midday, 
obscured like a stain o’er the midst of the sun. 
Day turned to night as he ran laughing onward. 
Clay cracked and hardened, water slowed into ice.

Men fled before him, the fruit of earth withering. 
They cried out in fear for the gods to come to their aid, 
that the warmth of Fon’s presence might save them from dying. 

And Fon hearkened at first to the prayers of his people 
when they offered oblations of felled trees and branches, 
of dried grass and tinder spread on the ground. 
Gladly he passed from one hearth to another, 
melting the frost and holding the winter at bay. 

But fire is fickle and beholden to no master—
save Guënid alone, who lay chained by the ice—
and easily swayed is the bent of his thought. 
Thus ere long he grew restless 
and flickered and tested his bounds. 
He lept from the hearthstones and chased after Luftu 
whenever her breath in the air passed him by, 
eating the forests instead of the offerings. 

Then Men despaired and to Iuthap turned in their terror 
with prayers for the warmth of her light to preserve them. 
Long it was ere their voices wound through the darkness,
but at last to the goddess’ ears they ascended
and her heart was moved to pity at the sound of their suffering. 

She could not herself descend to deliver them, 
for the earth would burn should she dare tread so near. 
Thus down from the firmament she sent five of her maidens 
and one by one they bore their spears in Vris’ path. 

The first to reach him was beaten back with laughter 
and bound beside Guënid in the frozen streams. 

The next struck a blow and drew a howl from the spirit, 
cleaving one finger from each of his hands. 
But she too was driven back and chained with her sister, 
for heavy was the dark gathered still ‘round their foe.

The third and the fourth fared better, 
hewing each at his hold on the shadows, 
till they too were overcome and bound in the ice. 
But Vris’ grip had been loosened 
and the darkness pulled free of him. 
It raced through the firmament till it could hide 
once more behind Iuthap and preserve 
its tender clouds from the brilliance of her face. 

Naked now, Vris cried out as the fifth set upon him 
and he was matched blow for blow upon the withered grass. 
For his strength till then had been in the shroud of the shadows 
where his opponents swung blind and he struck without risk. 

Swiftly she fought him and swiftly she triumphed, 
swiftly he was bound and flung on his face. 
Swiftly too was the—

Pain shot along Balan’s fingers and he stumbled, swearing as his opponent’s staff slid over his own and drove his spear to the ground. 

“Your skill’s lapsed, old man.” Hathus called from the edge of crowd gathered around the green, his lips turned in amusement as he watched Balan stagger back from the blow. “You’re out of practice.”

He twisted to the side and managed to take the follow-up thrust in the thigh instead of the gut. “I’m practiced enough,” he retorted, short-winded as he abandoned the center and drew out of range, “only you’ve pitted me against a menace. You know I’ve not bested him since he was a lad. Besides,” he added with a snort, “winter isn’t meant to be the victor.”

“No.” Sunlight glinted from the beaten copper as Baran lifted the mask and wiped sweat from his brow, grinning. “But he is meant to put up a fight.”

“Gaitch.” Balan glanced down at his left thigh. A bright line of red madder marked the cloth above his knee and the skin beneath it smarted from the impact. “Vris never had to raise spear with a headful of hrögemetheilit. Nay, I’m bested,” he cried with a laugh, pulling back when Baran dropped his spear into the attack once more, “leave off!”

“One leg marked is hardly bested, vatta.” 

“Near enough at my age.” He cast a quick glare over his shoulder at Estreth’s bark of laughter. “Oh, aye? Then come stand in my place if you think you’d fare better.”

“Much better. But then it’s far more more amusing to watch you flail than to be your deliverer.”

Balan swung his own spear into position and there was a resounding crack as the two staves met. Quickly, he shifted his over the other to break the bind, but his son’s staff fell away beneath him and wheeled around, the butt striking his shoulder and the ball of madder-dipped cloth arcing over to rest just below his jaw. 

There was a moment’s pause before Baran tapped the cloth lightly against his father’s throat. “Now you’re bested,” he said, mirth once more softening the set of his features; then he grinned in full as his gaze drifted beyond Balan’s shoulder. “Nóm,” he called, and there was an unreadable flicker in his eye as he beckoned toward the king, “you’ll stand as his champion, won’t you? I’ve kept him three bouts beyond his wish and I fear I’m well nigh losing his love.”

A surge of discomfort rushed through Balan’s veins at the realization that the king had joined the crowd without his notice, and he felt his color rise as Nóm stepped from behind Sídhon and into the periphery of his vision. Gods all in Iuthap’s mercy, he implored silently, let him have been lurking there through the earlier bouts as well, when he had at least parried his son’s blows and held his own in the dance awhile.

“Gladly.” 

The king’s voice was blithe as he moved to stand at his side, and Balan glanced at him in thinly veiled irritation. The Elf had been singing garbled melodies and dancing over hearth benches last he set eyes on him—Nóm had no business being any less cropsick than he.

“The rules are the same as at Thalos?”

“Aye. Though we tip the ends with madder when we have it so there’s no bickering over hits scored.” Baran dipped the knotted cloth in a nearby pot and held it up in demonstration. “You should mind your shirt,” he added in warning as Finrod moved to take the sparring staff from Balan’s hand, “it’ll stain the cloth.”

The king mirrored his example, dousing the blunt end in the dye, then glanced toward him with amused confidence. “Only if I permit you a strike.” 

“I scored three at Thalos,” Baran retorted and shifted his grip on the pole with a grin.

Finrod laughed, then shrugged with the air of one humoring another’s whim and returned the spear to Balan, reached back, and drew the tunic over his head. “I was only defending my own honor then,” he quipped with a thin smile, but Balan heard the perilous note that had crept into his voice.

“As are you now, lord,” he interjected. His own tone was carefully wry, but the glance toward the king was sharp in warning as he took the shirt from his hands and stepped back toward the edge of the green. “Mine has fled the game long since and needs no tending.” While he spoke, he saw his son’s eyes drift to the scar stretching over the king’s shoulder, where the mottled red and pink had left an eloquent tale scrawled across the pale flesh. There was a brief tightening of Baran’s jaw as its origin dawned on him and Balan felt an unaccountable discomfort at the other’s revelation. The scars begotten in that skirmish had grown sacred somehow, intimate in his memory—the wound whose blood had soaked through his own tunic in the close press of the other’s embrace, the faint white line lingering across the back of his own hand where one cord had cut deep, where Nóm had unbound the linen wrapping and cradled the hand within his palm…

“I’ll wager a garnet hilt-ring on your lad still.” Hathus’ voice brought him back to himself with a jolt, and for a moment Balan blinked in confusion before managing a snort in response.

“What, and have me take odds against my own son?” He bent to retrieve a cloth from the grass and began scrubbing ineffectually at the various dye marks. 

“You would swift enough if it wasn’t a sure loss.” Hathus chuckled and leaned against his sparring pole. “He’s bested me twice already, to say nothing of the bloodbath you’ve just left. And Nóm doesn’t look full fit.”

“Rot.” 

“So you say, but you’ll not defend him with a wager? A tin-bladed vassal you make.”

This won a laugh as Balan gave up his attempt to remove the madder and retrieved his shirt instead. “Go haggle your wares at a less-fraught market,” he retorted when his head emerged from the tunic, matching Hathus’ grin with one his own. “I’m not buying.”

A series of cracks echoed abruptly from the green and Balan turned sharply. They had begun while he was distracted with the cloth and were now circling—lunging and dodging with dizzying speed as each gained, then forfeited control of the center. His heart caught in his throat. He had assumed this would mirror their bouts in the foothills by Thalos, when Nóm had marked that first midsummer beside them and joined good-naturedly in each custom. He had been a merry opponent then, laughing as he sparred, merry in victory or defeat, his motions more akin to dance than to combat. But the contest before him now was fierce. Nóm moved with the same catlike speed he recalled from the ravine in Dorthonion and Balan was amazed to see his son keep pace, each strike met and parried or dodged and forced anew. 

“My king has told me these games are to recall winter’s defeat at the hand of your sun goddess.” Sídhon nudged the conversation into neutrality with a smile. He had shifted unobtrusively to Balan’s side as they spoke and observed the proceedings with curiosity. “But if exile was his reward, how then do your histories account for the yearly cold?”

“Rather simply: Vris was indeed bound and dragged before Iuthap, but the tale has it that he held four of her handmaidens captive—and Guënid too still caught in the ice.” Balan’s breath caught with a hiss as the blunted spear-end struck Baran’s arm and he watched in apprehension as his son drew back from the blow. Nay, it was only a thin line of dye, he noted with relief, a glancing blow that would not be counted toward an end. “The Great Ones consented to let Vris join them, as was his wish, in order to purchase the others’ freedom. But it was decreed that it could only be for a small portion of each year, lest Men be destroyed and all the work of the Great Ones be for naught.” Balan flinched as his son twisted to the side, once more dodging what seemed to be a certain hit. “He is allowed to run through the earth each winter, holding his temporary dominion—each midwinter we mark that his reign is bounded, and we chase him from our homes each spring with alder branches and dancing.”

Nóm’s blows were relentless. He had driven Baran back to the far edge of the crowd and the clatter of pole-strikes was a swift percussion over the green. 

Or no, it was Baran gaining now. He had nearly scored a hit to the king’s leg, but Nóm shifted faster than sight and Baran stumbled below the other’s spear with the force of his miss. That sudden dip brought him out of range, however, and in the brief respite it gained he snatched the mask from his face and cast it to the side, freeing the full range of his vision.

“What does the game represent, then? It was the maidens who defeated the spirit, if my lord recounted the tale aright, but the guise seems to be the sun herself.”

“Aye, it’s a game, not a direct retelling. The victor of the bout wins the mask and faces the next comer. And so on until they remain unchallenged. It’s played every midsummer.”

An uneasy weight pressed at the bottom of Balan’s stomach as he watched them circle. The uncertainty stood out in Baran’s eyes now that the mask had been drawn away, and Balan found himself unaccountably anxious at the thought of either outcome. The contest between them had been a draw in Thalos—Nóm claiming the first bout, Baran the second—and only now did Balan understand what he should have seen at the time; that Baran had won his round because it was a celebration, because Nóm saw what pride the lad held in his skill and chose to leave it intact. Balan watched this new onslaught with awe and trepidation mingling in his gut, and found it a marvel that Baran could manage to hold the other at bay.

He took a deep breath. If Nóm had spared dignity for the sake of festivity, then surely he would relent here too in deference to the day. Baran’s marriage was a greater call for goodwill than a yearly festival had been. Was it not? Balan brushed a tentative query against the king’s thought, then pulled back at once as though he had touched hot iron. The ordered quiet he was accustomed to find was churning instead, the world sharp and dissonant in the other’s perception, and every motion reverberated at a volume that set his teeth on edge. Perhaps after all, Balan noted with a twinge of vindication, Nóm had not escaped wholly unscathed from the hrögemetheilit. 

The hrögemetheilit. Clarity struck with the thought of the previous night and he nearly swore aloud. Nóm knew naught of the morning’s conversation. He had leapt into the contest with all the earnest fury of one of Sídhon’s hounds, determined somehow to level the scale and soothe the sting of Balan’s shame. Oblivious, thrice-beloved idiot! Did he think wounding Baran’s pride in recompense would do anything to set it aright? Hastily, Balan reached out again, pressing restraint into the other’s thought and gritting his teeth against the cacophony—it was jagged still with anger and spilling over with a piercing sensitivity to every detail about him. Birdsong on the far side of the village. An insect crawling. The scrape of metal within the Hall where food was stirred in iron pots. A blade of grass whistling in the wind. Gods all, he thought with a shudder, a throbbing head and nausea were far preferable.

Baran was beginning to falter. He still managed to block most of the king’s strikes, but there were telltale lines of madder dye showing along each arm now, one particularly ugly mark brushing the outside of his chest. And no wonder—he had fought seven bouts before Balan joined the games, to say nothing of the five he held against his father when no others would challenge him. He was weary and it was growing increasingly clear that he could not hold the pace, but Nóm did not relent. If anything, the volley had quickened and Baran was driven back again to the far side of the green.

Anger began to seep through Balan’s chest and he let it trickle into the space where his thought touched the king’s. There was answering twinge, defensive and righteous, a hot roar of indignation, focus. Balan thrust back against it in exasperation. He did not need a champion. He did not need Nóm to fight his battles for him. He did not want a guard dog.

He felt the other’s fury blench in the face of his own and saw the slight fumble as Finrod blocked the incoming stave, then leapt back to slow the bout. 

“You look anxious as a mother wren.” Sídhon glanced down at him in amusement, chuckling at Balan’s responding snort. “Be easy. My lord is no fool—watch.”

The shift was barely perceptible, a slight easing by degrees that Balan would have missed were it not for the new tone in the other’s thought, or for the months of watching him spar in practice with Edrahil and the Guard. To all others it seemed that Baran had found a new store of strength in the face of the onslaught and now he was driving the king back in turn, his own determination blazing with all the heat of Nóm’s tethered vengeance. 

They were only a few strides from him now. Baran ducked beneath the strike, Finrod leapt a hair’s breadth beyond the return. Baran’s staff turned like a wheel, swinging again before the king could raise his own beyond defense and the staves struck, caught in a bind. 

Then the brush of Nóm’s thought moved like a quick smile, bright and brief and nigh impish in its concession, and Balan nearly cried out as he watched the drop and strike that should have knocked Baran’s spear to the side. It came up short. There was a clatter of poles, a turn, a blur of motion. Nóm’s head snapped backward with the blow and he staggered to the side, only just holding his balance as Baran’s spear came to rest with the cloth point against his chest.

Finrod glanced down as though in surprise, then he laughed. “Yours was sound advice after all.”

“Aye.” Baran drew the spear away and lifted it to rest on the ground, allowing himself a grin as he caught his breath. “So it seems.” The madder had left a dark smear just above the other’s heart and dye was beginning to trickle down over his ribs. There was another bright thread trailing from the king’s lip and Baran swore as his eyes fell upon it. “That last struck you in earnest, lord, forgive me.”

“A pardon granted in full.” Finrod dipped an exaggerated bow before moving back toward the others, the line of blood crinkling as his lips twitched toward a smile. “I concede the sun’s victory.”

“Better his lip than yours,” Estreth remarked as Baran joined them, then retrieved the sun-mask from the ground and passed it back to his keeping. “I gave Sabil my word I’d deliver you whole.”

“Good luck to you,” Balan chuckled, lifting an eyebrow toward her as his son snorted in protest.

“A split lip never put off a wedding.”

“Aye, but it might put off a wife.”

“Gaitch.” Baran passed the spear to Sichar and retrieved his shirt and tunic from the ground. He let his eye drift briefly to the king, then turned toward his father with an arch grin. “Do you think so?”

“I think you are overdue for a wash,” Balan retorted with a surge of color along his ears. “At least if you intend to make your way to the rites soon enough for it to be a question.”

Baran shrugged, lighthearted still in the rush of victory, then caught sight of Nóm attempting to scrub away the madder and laughed aloud. “Nay, lord, you’ll make no progress with cloth and water. You need lard.”

“Or vinegar preferably,” Balan added. “If you’ve some to spare.”

“Aye, there’s a barrel or two of sour mead ‘round the far side of the Hall.”

Balan nodded, then collected Finrod’s shirt from the ground and started across the green, waving it after him in summons. “Come along then, my liege,” he beckoned with dry amusement, “let’s see to your wounds.”

“See to your own ere you dictate another’s,” the king rejoined, but he laughed as he trailed obediently in the other’s wake. 

“What was thine aim?” Balan chuckled when they neared the Hall, shifting to the other’s tongue from some instinct of privacy. “Flatten the lad to the green for besting me in a fair match?”

“For the price of horses,” Finrod retorted hotly. “And for taunting thee in his victories—it was needless humiliation, and deliberate.” He broke off as they rounded the corner and glanced down at Balan in belated chagrin. His voice softened, even as his eyes gauged the other in concern.“I’ve vexed thee.”

“Not overmuch.” 

“Scant reassurance in that.” 

Balan snorted. “Didst thou think it would placate him to be humiliated in return? Before half his people, on his wedding day?” He drew up before a pair of barrels and turned with one brow raised, the hint of a grin tugging at his lips. “We should have dubbed thee nórja instead of Nóm,” he added with amusement, lifting the lid from the nearest, “for all the forethought brought to this.” He filled a horn cup he had retrieved from the collection beside the well, then nodded toward the second barrel and Finrod moved around him to perch atop it. 

“He should not have goaded thee.”

“The child who will not his sire obey, marks himself the ghomennin’s prey…” Balan took the cloth from the other’s hand and dipped it into the cup of vinegar. “As unsparing as Estreth’s rhymes thou art—poor Baran.” Finrod twisted toward him in protest and Balan gripped him by the shoulder with a grin, turning him firmly where he could reach the stain once more. “Stay still, ghomenno, it takes scrubbing.” He returned his attention to the dye, working the vinegar into the skin and rubbing it away by degrees. It seemed indecent somehow, the flawlessness of that flesh, silken and pale as cream beneath his fingers. Even the sun’s light seemed to brush a caress as she reached over the shadow of the Hall to drape across his chest. Balan wiped away the mead and dipped the cloth again, dabbing it over each bit of pigment. “We’ve spoken,” he said after a time, the edge gone from his words and his tone gentler now, warm. “He was waiting when I left the hut this morning—with an apology, if thou wilt believe it.” Balan chuckled and glanced briefly at the king. “Sabil’s doing, of course, but he seemed in fair sincerity.” He turned the cloth and scrubbed again, more forcibly now, until the skin grew pink from the scouring and only a slight tint of dye remained. “My son and I can fight our own battles, Nóm.”

Finrod met his eye in silence for a long moment, then at last he nodded. “Pride would have me protest the interference was to own my part in the rift, but too well dost thou know my heart for such pretense.” He reached out to brush a stray strand of hair from Balan’s face and tucked it behind his ear with a smile. “I’ll not do it again.” Then he fell quiet once more, watching thoughtfully as Balan wiped away the remaining vinegar and folded the rag, then dipped a fresh corner into the cup. “I fear I too owe thee an apology for my conduct in the night.”

This was dismissed with a snort.

“I do. I should have taken thought first of how—“ 

Balan passed the cloth over Finrod’s lips, silencing him in an instant as he caught the other’s chin within his palm. “Leave it be,” he said, gently wiping the dried blood and dirt from the split edge of his lip. “There’s naught between us that needs mending.” He rewetted the fabric and dabbed it carefully onto the remaining blood, then slowly he drew it down and back along the king’s lip till the wound was cleaned thrice over. Still he lingered, turning the cloth to dry the skin, passing it down to wipe a drop of vinegar that had trickled onto the collarbone. 

Then at last he set the cloth aside and lowered his hands to rest atop the other’s knees. They were warm in the afternoon sun, the dark hose soaked in the noon hour’s rays and grown hot to the touch. 

Summer bugs were buzzing in the tall grass behind him. 

The air was still, heavy, draped about him like a blanket; and before he was aware of his own movements, Balan was shifting in, his palms sliding from knees to thighs as he found Nóm’s lips and kissed him with the same unhurried precision that had tended the dye and blood. A shiver ran through the other’s limbs, but this time he did not pull away and Balan kissed him again, and again after that, drawing the lower lip in between his own.

Finrod flinched, yet still he did not draw back and leaned his forehead in against the other’s. “That hurts,” he murmured with feigned petulance, and Balan chuckled.

“Serves you right,” he said, then kissed him carefully on the uninjured corner of his mouth and stepped back as the sound of children neared the corner of the Hall.

❈ ❈ ❈

“Earth and water, mark the making.” Balan’s voice drifted over the green, warm and resonant in the evening air. He held his son’s hand cradled within his own and drew a thick line of clay from wrist to knuckles along the palm, then collected more red ochre on his thumb and added two smaller lines crossing over the middle. “Fire and light, meet and kindle; wind and song, sustain our breath.” 

It had begun in the late-afternoon. Two small tents were erected at the east and west ends of the settlement—fashioned, Balan had grumbled as he fought with the unwieldy anchors, after those his people used in the first days of their wanderings—and Baran and Sabil had each retired to these for the customary preparations while the rest of the town continued on in the midsummer celebrations. Finrod had wandered then, Balan having followed his son into the western tent, and passed slowly through the huts and pastures, visiting old haunts, joining in the children’s dances along the green, sitting patiently while Meyla wove calendula blossoms into his hair and reprimanded him for cutting away the length. A fine pattern it would have held had he left it whole, she chided, whereas now she could only make do with the semblance of a crown. He had laughed and teased in return that he wished all crowns could be so pleasant. 

And so the hours passed as he meandered, until at last, as the sun began her descent toward the horizon, the sound of cheers and of light drums could be heard moving toward them along the main path, interspersed with laughter and voices raised in song. It was a little group, no more than six or seven, and Balan walked at their head as his son’s chief witness for the rites, Belen behind him, then Sichar and several others. A small crowd had gathered behind them as they walked and Finrod joined these as they moved toward the eastern end of the village. They passed a second procession moving westward as they crossed over the green—Sabil’s sister leading a mirrored group of women toward the west. This was the beginning of the rites, he discovered as he trailed in the mens’ wake: each witness processing with the kunitha, the kin or friends deemed near as kin, to call the intended spouse from their tent to the communal gathering.

When they reached the far shelter, Balan had continued a few steps beyond the others. He had raised the clay lamp in his hand and called out three times, and Finrod felt the whole meadow grow resonant with the cadence of his voice: summoning Sabil to the path untrodden, to the wanderer who waited to learn his way. He had made an august figure in the strip of golden sunset, his embroidered tunic a fine deep blue, a bronze armband gleaming above his elbow and the calendula blazing out like fire from the midnight of his hair.

Finrod had first seen him so at Thalos, all throughout the midsummer's festival as he led the rites at the head of his people and called out the iuthan bida in the last of the light. He had been clad simply then—plain linen rather than this finely decorated tunic—and the golden flowers had been his only ornamentation. But even so, then as now, Finrod had been unable to shift his gaze from the other’s face; and as he watched Balan call out these new rites in the darkening meadow, it seemed that the two moments had bent in upon each other, weaving with the golden light as though they encircled the intervening years in a close embrace.

The blossoms shone with that same fire as they stood gathered now on the green and Balan traced the ceremonial clay upon his child’s palm. Sabil’s sister had since done the same and they brought the two hands together, matching clay to clay, palm to palm, life to life.

“Here marked with clay wrought of earth and of water,” Baran’s voice was quiet as he began the the oath, and although there was a rough edge to every word, he held it steady and did not quaver, “I pledge to you fealty of my heart. I pledge to you fidelity of my body, sworn in faithfulness to you and to you alone till my days’ ending.”

Finrod’s pulse was beating in triplet and he felt his chest grow hollow with the ever-present ache. He could taste the words upon his own tongue. His palm was warm with the thought of Balan’s clasped tight against it, prickling as it would with the slight abrasion of clay. Had they not promised as much already? Were these not the words of his own soul on the battlements of the Cened Beraid, caught in the other’s arms behind a shroud of rain? His eyes drifted from the joined hands to find Balan’s face. I pledge to you fealty of my heart…

“This is my word and my vow.” Sabil finished her own recitation of the oath and Finrod drew his attention back to the current rites with an effort. Each witness was marking a new line of clay around the outside of the hands—a line unending binding them, as Balan had explained on the road from Tol Sirion, within the eye of Melishk and of Guënid and naming them as one clay till they were returned to the soil. 

They were a striking sight in the last glow of midsummer, Baran and Sabil both clad in madder red—the only of their people to don it during these rites—and the light danced from the twisted bronze decorating the hems and clustered designs. There was bronze too on Sabil’s skin, powdered and painted along the outside of her ears, in patterns across her cheekbones and chin; and resting below her neck was a small medallion with the chieftain’s labyrinth raised across its surface.

Belen moved forward and placed a clay vessel into his father’s hand. Then he stepped aside as a barrel of new mead was opened and Baran filled a cup from this, pouring it carefully into the little pot, which was then passed to Sabil’s sister and the process repeated. What was it Balan had said? The libation to Melishk, the first drink of the celebrations offered to the earth in token of the bond—the paths of each mingled inseparably as the mead that runs down through the soil—and in prayer that she would grant to them long life and fertility in the union.

The mouth of the vessel was plugged with clay as he watched, it was passed to Sabil. 

She paused, holding Baran’s eye for a long moment, then raised it in the air between them and called out over the growing cheers, “Melishkan mathár!”

“Melishkan mathár!” the crowd repeated, and Sabil hurled the vessel to the ground where it shattered, the mead pouring out into the earth at her feet.

“Melishkan mathár!” Baran shouted in turn, then the people rushed in, encircling them as a barrage of drums and the deep, bellowing calls of ox horns filled the air. It was a cacophony, laughter and cheering and music all clamoring together over the green as the throng scrambled to join hands and form a series of circles around the pair. It was like watching a flight of starlings shift to reveal a murmuration, Finrod thought as it unfolded before him: chaos one moment, and then by the next they were moving in concert, interlocking wheels sweeping in opposite directions—three steps, one back and across, three more and another backstep—faster and faster as the music too whirled into cohesion and Baran caught Sabil in his arms, kissing her at the center of the whirlwind.

Balan was in the first ring, Belen at his left and Estreth at his right pulling him forward as they careened around the circle. Gildor was there as well, Finrod observed with a smile. Belen must have dragged him in when the crowd converged on the green and he was caught in the midst of it now, sprinting in time with the others and laughing as he began to master the steps.

Then with a shout it was over as swiftly as it had come about—a clamor of voices, a crescendo—and both people and instruments fell away until only Baran remained at the center, dancing as the drums rolled a swift tattoo through the night air. It was the same dance Finrod recalled from the midwinter revelries, a pattern of steps beating eight points on an unmarked square, and Baran turned easily through the sequence. Gradually a handful of others began to move in from the edges of the crowd, each bearing a decorated hazel branch, and one by one they took turns darting in and attempting to strike his legs while he danced. They were Sabil’s brothers, Finrod realized with amusement; or rather more than that—her brothers, her father, her uncles—and they were laughing as Baran grinned and leapt nimbly around their switches, not missing a step. 

It reminded him of a game they had played as children. They would form a circle on the shoreline and swing stalks of kelp criss-crossed between them, slippery and luminescent in the twilight, while each took a turn in the center, skipping between the strands as they sang.

One the vessel
Two the sails
Three the wind of Ossë’s gale
Four bright lanterns
Five at the rails
Six beyond to—

A shout sounded from the far side of the crowd and Finrod’s attention snapped back to the present. Two lines had begun moving onto the green, each facing outward and chanting in time as they slammed every fourth step against the earth. Sabil danced at the head of the right column, Balan led the left, and together they continued forward until they cut between Baran and the hazel branches and drew him seamlessly into their number, merging him into the dance at the end of Sabil’s line.

And then the whole crowd surged out, drums thundering as a wild melody leapt from the musicians: bone flutes, rattles, a collection of single-stringed instruments—the luvan tagl—at each corner of the gathering. Finrod was drawn forward with the rest of the throng, caught up in the jostling merriment, and he laughed as he stumbled along in their midst. They were dancing, they were all of them dancing now, their laughter mingled with his own and his heart swelling as though it would burst. Ai Valar, how he had missed being amongst them! He closed his eyes as they whirled about him, and let the weight of their souls brush against his own, deep and earthen and filled with all the hope of spring. They broke over him like sunlight and he nearly sang aloud from the joy of it.

“Nóm!”

He came to with a start and found Balan there before him, laughter in his eyes and a roguish grin upon his lips. 

“Do you mean to dance, then, or only to contemplate it?”

Finrod laughed and flung his arms open toward the gathering. “If the soul dances, shall not the feet soon follow?”

“Aye, provided you’ve not been trampled first by those who lead with feet instead.”

He laughed again and felt the exultation pounding through his veins as Balan lingered before him, smiling. His hair was bound back in a small knot at the base of his head, as it had been since the afternoon’s sparring, and the calendula wove through it like embers in the dark. How bright and fierce was that spirit against his own, burning swift as daybreak. How steady the hold of his heart, the warmth of his smile.

Oh Manwë, Varda, and all the holy…how he loved him.

“Show me, then,” he managed after a moment and held out his hand, “that soul and feet might dance as one.”

It was Balan who laughed now and caught the king’s hand within his own. “Nay, you’ll manage as we all did,” he called over his shoulder as he dragged him forward into the fray. “You find your own step or go under!” 

They ducked beneath arms and twisted out of the paths of other dancers till the movement engulfed them and drew them into its current. It was swift and percussive, a mixture of footfalls and clapping palms—this too was earthen in some way, Finrod thought, and found himself falling into its measure with ease, first one foot and then the other slammed against the soil alongside the downbeat. Balan was before him; Balan was on the far side of the group; Balan was turning with the rhythm and grinning as he dodged beneath another set of arms, nearly colliding with Hathus before they both swung back into step. Balan was beside him again, each motion a near mirror of his own, and his heart spilled over in laughter to feel so near, bound in the current of the melody, in the pulse of the drums.

But almost at once the crowd was parting, an aisle unfurling down the center of the green as cheering rippled back from each edge. Balan had him by the hand again in an instant and hauled him forward till they reached the front of the crowd, just in time to see Baran and Sabil come careening down the length of the clearing. It was an iteration of the same dance, only now they flew through it at a sprint till they came up at the end of the lines, laughing and dizzy, and stumbling to one side.

Sichar and his wife came next, then Hathus and Gelvira, Eimet and the weaver’s son, Belen with little Fina giggling as he swung her by the arms. Each pair raced down the green as the cheers followed them, and each line inched upward as the foremost took their place. Estreth and Hûl now, Meyla’s sister and her wife, Esa and Avina. 

Balan was at the head of the line before Finrod had half taken in the pattern of steps, and suddenly they were in the center of the green, hands clasped and cheers rising from those about them.

“Find your step,” Balan called again over the melody, the mischief glinting from his smile once more, “or go under!”

Then they were racing along the grass, circling and dipping beneath each other’s arms, their feet drumming out the rhythm as they flew past blurred faces on either side. Finrod’s heart was pounding. His breast was alight with giddy fire, every vein kindled and a press of joy rushing in like the tide, nearly stopping his breath. He caught Balan’s hand, he wheeled beneath the wrist. Balan clasped his other hand in turn and mirrored him; next the clapping—three sets of two—the patterned steps, the quick double-turn, the—

“Too precise!” Balan shouted as he swung past his ear. “It’s not meant to be beautiful, Nóm, it’s meant to be loud.”

“And meant to be taught,” Finrod retorted, feeling his hair lift straight outwards with his speed as he threw himself into the turn. The steps that followed were a muddle—hurled against the earth, loose and fumbling—but Balan was grinning when they reached the edge of the green.

“Better,” he laughed as the king stumbled through the final sequence and caught him by the arm. “You’re nigh a match for Fina now, I’d reckon,” he added with a wink, then pulled Finrod aside as the next pair came rushing down the gap. “Again!”

Time ran on without measure after that; looping up and back along the shifting lines, flitting through their breath as they ran like children through the night. The last light faded into the horizon and Estreth turned a whirling dance in the midst of the gathering—a custom that she and her sister had carried on in remembrance of their people. There was a wedding loaf, sweetened with honey and kétheinan fruit and fine spices, and with it blessings were exchanged after the manner of the Longest Night. Balan spoke a litany of well wishing over the newly joined pair. Belen taught Gildor something called the dance of the bear, a lumbering set of steps that drew laughter from all the Nargothrondrim as they watched, then Sídhon and Gelmir led the Guard onto the green to dance as they had at Tol Sirion, the king this time among their number.

It was a joyous havoc—as were all these celebrations of the Atani, Finrod mused as he withdrew at last to the edge of the green—imbued with the same bright, burning intensity that colored all their days. He wove his way through the crowd till he reached the well and filled a cup from the bucket.

“Keeping to water tonight, then?” Estreth was perched atop the wellhead a few steps away and watched with amusement as he drew a second cupful.

Finrod laughed. “Hard-learned is the path of prudence,” he replied, then raised the draught toward her in salute and drained the cup. “I find the lord of waters smiles more kindly upon his children.”

“Whereas Fon’s blessing is as fickle as his brew?” Estreth chuckled and shifted to make room as he leaned against the stones beside her. “Aye, true enough.”

They rested in silence then, watching the others move through various forms of game or dance; listening, quiet as laughter and song drifted through the firelight. Children scampered in and out of the crowd, and amid these darted another mottled pack—Sídhon’s hounds, who had befriended their shaggy kin among the Atani and were now chasing after one other between the huts, as though they too had been caught up in the spirit of revelry. 

“I’ve seen dozens of these in the years I’ve spent with Balan’s people.” Estreth broke their silence, pensive as her gaze followed Baran and Belen through the crowd. “And yet each still puts me in mind of Esrid. Of her first marriage, that is,” she corrected in afterthought. “There was naught of this at the second. That was a practical arrangement.”

The king found his own eyes drifting to Balan at the far edge of the green. He was laughing as he danced, one of twelve in a square that folded in and back upon itself with the rhythm, and a wash of melancholy shrouded Finrod’s mirth. Balan should have had a feast like this. He should have had dance and laughter to mark his own joy as well, not some perfunctory rite, quiet and restrained in the shadow of another’s loss. He should have that still, conviction whispered, and again guilt’s knife stabbed deep.

“It is strange,” Estreth murmured again, her eyes still following the group as they broke apart and stumbled laughing and out of breath toward the waiting mead barrels, “to remember she has been gone for more years now than she was not.”

Finrod nodded and felt a tangled knot constrict his throat. “It is truly a grievous wound,” he managed at last, “to outlive those we love.”

She gave only a noncommittal grunt in answer, and again a long silence fell between them before she spoke further. “There was a woman among the Haladin, a few years before we crossed the mountains. I nearly stayed behind when Balan gathered the herds, but in the end I told her I couldn’t bring myself to leave Baran and Bel—or Balan either, then. They were all I had left of kin.” Her voice had grown thick, as though the words forced themselves out against her will. “It was not a lie, but the truth was all I could think of was Esrid’s cry when they carried Geberic back from the field; or the memory of Balan numb and shaking when we lost her.” She clenched her hands and shuddered despite the summer’s warmth. “Love is loss—and I couldn’t face it.”

Balan was walking toward them now, a carved horn cup in each hand and a few trailing calendula blossoms still clinging to his hair. “Love is also choosing,” Finrod replied with an effort, and was surprised by the hoarseness in his own voice. “And oft is wisdom’s purchase the dearer price.” 

“Aye, so I thought.” Estreth was quiet for a long moment as Balan drew nearer, then she looked over and met Finrod’s eye pointedly. “And I’ve never regretted any decision more.” 

“Yarrow and lavender!” 

Finrod jumped as Balan’s voice sounded beside him and turned sharply to find the other a few steps away, holding out one of the cups with a grin.

“Just as I promised. I may be a year late in its delivery, but I’ve not been proven false.” He passed the drink to Finrod’s hand and leaned against the well frame between them, lifting his own to his lips. “Sán gahail, wingildi.”

For a moment Finrod blinked at him in confusion, then the aroma of honey reached his nose and summer’s sunlight washed through his memory, the sound of water, the fragrance of a snowdrop blossom suspended in the air between them. “Like wildflowers in mead,” he murmured with a smile and lifted his cup in turn. “Sán gahail.” Balan’s arm was resting lightly against his own, just as it had in the meadow beside the Celon, and Finrod felt the touch like light, spreading through his spirit in the same way the taste of summer mead spread over his tongue. “You were right.”

Balan chuckled and leaned his head back against the squared timber. “Of course I was right.”

“Of course he was right,” Finrod parroted with a grin, then took another sip.

“Melishkan mathár,” Estreth muttered, and from the corner of his eye Finrod saw Balan jab his elbow sharply against her side. But before any further retort could be made, the clamor on the green grew suddenly hushed; then the music too fell away until only a single drum remained, tapping out a slow pulse as Baran and Sabil stood alone in the center of the gathering, arms raised before them, elbows bent upwards with the backs of their hands turned toward the other. It went on until it reached discomfort—the breath held beyond bearing—and Finrod filled his lungs reflexively when a solitary luvan tagl lifted its song through the air.

“Thradu Samana Staiga,” Balan murmured, leaning nearer to keep his voice from carrying beyond the other’s ear. “The Woven Way. It’s held over from an old legend, one form of the tale of Melishk and Guënid.” His son reached out to draw a line with one finger along Sabil’s left forearm. “This is the water. And this,” he breathed as Baran cupped her elbow within his palm, “is the sure foundation of the earth beneath us.”

Sabil reached out in a mirrored gesture, her right hand tracing along Baran’s left, slipping beneath his elbow.

“Each is now the other’s right hand; and still each hand seeks for the other.” 

Their right arms bent to meet in the middle, palms meeting, fingers twined. They turned with the fluid melody of the luvan tagl, toes dragging through the dirt to form interlocking arcs as their path moved forward, back, around to the starting point and on again. 

“They move as the water moves over the earth, as Guënid’s tendrils pass through the soil. The current of each is set by the movement of the other, the movement of each drawn by other’s current.”

Finrod found himself mesmerized by the looping steps, lulled by the warmth of Balan’s arm resting firmly now against his own, by the rhythm of the other’s voice passing over his ear. How much longer could he carry on in this breathless flight against his own beckoning current? He was tiring. He felt it through every fiber of his body, it ached in every crevice of his soul. 

Balan was so near. The scent of him washed like wine through his senses, the loose strands of his hair tickled against Finrod’s chin and he shivered at the touch. Eru, merciful and almighty, his heart cried out the unremitting prayer, why have you sundered your children? He leaned in as though listening more closely to Balan’s explanation and let his eyes fall shut, his lips rest against the other’s scalp. 

“They are each the clay from which the other has been formed, we say. Molded together in the first dance of Melishk and Guënid and returned to each other here by the grace of time’s whim.”

“And if time’s whim was to cruelty?” He had not meant to speak, but he heard his voice trickle in a hoarse whisper through the other’s hair. 

“If?” Balan shifted and a wry smile tugged at his lips. “Time’s whim is always cruel to my kind. But we glean our joy nonetheless,” he added, drawing his fingers lightly along Nóm’s forearm in the shadows between them. “Even if it is in small measures.”

❈ ❈ ❈

It was quiet in the meadow alongside the shoreline. The revels had dwindled as the night grew old, until now there was only the sound of water against the stones, or the buzzing trills of bugs gathered in the reeds, the chorus of chirping frogs. 

Balan lingered with his feet ankle-deep in the shallows and drew the night air in like a draught of water. Gods all, he had missed this place. All the months he was gone from it he had pressed down the feeling, but in truth Belen’s intuition had been his as well—this was their home, here the earth welcomed them and called them by name.

It was this, perhaps, that had brought on his long-lapsed piety; returning to this peace, to a sense of the land’s benevolence settling in his bones with every step of his return…it had raised an image of Melishk in his heart that defied his agnosticism. He bent to retrieve a clay lamp from the bank and cupped it thoughtfully within his palm. Was this piety, in truth? Or was it a far simpler thing—he was weary, he was homesick and heartsick and clinging to the rituals of his childhood that he might believe himself whole.

He rested a barley cake over the mouth of the bowl, careful not to snuff the wick, then crouched down and set it gently afloat in the current. “O great waters,” he breathed into the night, “life-blood of all, may you welcome this offering in your embrace. Holy Guënid, sustainer of life, may my petition find favor—let your blessing rest upon my son. Spare him from my own griefs, grant him a double portion of my joys. O great one, may it please you to look kindly upon the hopes of his heart.”

The lamp bobbed in the water, flickering as it was drawn out from the shore, and Balan watched its progress with breath held. It would be a sluggish journey at this pace to reach the heart of the river—a good thing, he reminded himself as the flame guttered, then righted itself. It was more likely to gain the open flow if it was not jostled and hurried along. Carefully, he rose to his feet and filled his lungs as he looked out over the Celon. Fireflies were blinking their unhurried patterns along the shoreline and the lamp’s light seemed to echo these as it glinted across the ripples, filling the night with warmth.

“Do many reach the center?” Nóm was perched on a rock along the bank, legs drawn up under him like a tall, nested water bird, and his eyes too followed the little flame as it ventured into the current. He wore the calendula still, and as the night breeze rose off the water they too seemed to flicker and dance about his head like the fireflies drifting through the meadow. Lamp, flowers, fireflies, hair—each lit with an inexplicable light, and all of gold woven.

“Some,” Balan replied, shifting back toward the shore. “Of my own offerings, perhaps five? Seven? If it finds its way to the main current, your petition is heard. If your gift is accepted, the water takes it under once it’s there. Most scuttle before they’ve made it an arm’s length from the shore.” He chuckled as he turned back to watch the lamp dwindling toward the middle stream. “It couldn’t be too easily attainable, I suppose, or we’d count every plea granted.”

Nóm rose from the bank and crossed to stand behind him, his gaze still held by the drifting flame. It tottered and for a moment he feared it would sink, then it gave a sudden lurch and was swept into the flow, turning merrily with the current until it toppled and was drawn under. “Eight now,” he murmured, and rested his hands on Balan’s shoulders. “The river finds you persuasive.”

“Mm.” Balan leaned into the touch and the old self-deprecation wove itself once more between his words. “For the moment.”

Nóm wound his arms around him and drew him in, reseting his chin gently within the dark waves. “My mother’s people say that water is as the heart: changeable in its passion, turning in eddies when you think it smooth. Whereas stone is as the will: a sure mooring, immovable and bound to Arda’s foundations.” 

“And yet your caverns were carved by water,” Balan countered, mischief in his voice as he settled in against the other’s chest. “And water may wear the sharpest boulders smooth.”

“So it does.” He fell quiet for a long moment, and Balan felt the other’s breath pass like a breeze through his hair. “And thus the saying continues—earth is where we find the meeting of the twain, where stone has been shaped to beauty by the water’s passage, softened by the life of Yavanna’s creations. It is where each has shaped the other that there is life.”

“In stillness, in earth Man’s flesh is grown,” Balan murmured, the childhood rhyme falling without thought from his tongue. “In movement, in water his truth is known.”

There was a quiet rumble against his back, laughter rippling through the other’s embrace. “Shall I confess twas not till the Celon that I knew the truth of my own heart?”

“Aye, you dense creature,” Balan chuckled in turn and leaned his head back against the king’s shoulder, “I’d worked that out long before now.”

Nóm buried his face against Balan’s neck in feigned chagrin. “As ever, thou hast seen my heart with greater clarity than I.” Then his arms tightened impulsively about the other and a sigh escaped his lips, some hoarse sound between laughter and vexation. “It was right of thee to stop me,” he murmured at last, “but ai…in my weakness how I wish thou hadst not.”

Balan tipped his head to the side, resting his nose teasingly against the other’s for a moment, and the roguish grin tugged once more at his lips. “I could be weak now…” 

Finrod laughed aloud, then brushed his lips against Balan’s neck, lingering in a kiss just below his jawline. “Dance with me,” he breathed in his ear a long moment later, then turned Balan to face him in the shallows and raised his arms, bent at the elbows with the backs of his hands shining in the moonlight. “I have not yet had my fill.”

Balan watched him in silence at first, then slowly he lifted his own arms in the mirrored gesture, he reached out and traced a line along the king’s left forearm, he clasped the other’s palm against his own and turned with the movement of the water as the Celon drew them into his steps.

Chapter End Notes

TRANSLATIONS
Q = Quenya, S = Sindarin T = Telerin
wingildi: [Q] foam-fay, see A Heady Fragrance of Honey for its context within Atandil

TALISKA INVENTIONS
For the most part, all faux-Taliska is loosely inspired by or modeled on Germanic-Gothic
gaitch: swine
vatta: father
nórja: rashness
iuthan bida: sun’s blessing/sun’s prayer
Melishkan mathár: Melishk bear witness
luvan tagl: “singing hair” (lit: singing hair-strand)
Melishkan mathár: (second use) Melishk bear witness as in footnote [x] above. In this context the phrase would serve as a quip similar to the modern “get a room”

MISC NOTES
- cropsick: archaic term for hungover

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