Flower in a Guarded City by Zdenka  

When Maeglin first heard the rumor spreading through Gondolin that the Eagles had brought another lost mortal to the city, he intended to firmly ignore it. He had never liked Húrin and Huor, and he disliked how the laws of Gondolin were bent for them when those same laws were inflexible for others. But now those feelings were tangled up with Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the long days and nights of blood and battle and terror and grief, and the moment when Turgon had accepted Húrin and Huor’s solemn salutes and walked away from them. Those mortal boys, those brats once a thorn in Maeglin’s side, had stayed behind to guard their retreat and almost certainly died for it. In the dark of night, waking from troubled dreams, Maeglin admitted to himself that he might not have done the same, if it came down to it.

No, it was easier not to think about mortals and their ways. And this one had nothing to do with him. But then Idril came to him and asked him for help.

“She doesn’t want to talk to us,” she said, troubled. Maeglin had not even known the new mortal was a woman. “She has told me almost nothing but her name. She barely eats, and she spends her time staring at the wall or looking out the window. What can I do to make her feel at home here, or to lighten her sorrow?”

Maeglin nearly snapped ‘how should I know?’ but he didn’t truly want to upset Idril. He swung his booted foot back and forth. “I don’t know much about mortals,” he said cautiously. “I never spoke much with—with them, when they were here. And the mortals I knew before were Dwarves, not men.”

“Come with me to visit her?” Idril asked hopefully. “Perhaps she might be more willing to speak with you.”

Maeglin didn’t especially want to, but somehow he found himself agreeing.

The mortal woman had been placed in a higher chamber full of sunlight. When they entered, she was sitting on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her knees. Her green gown was too long on her, the skirts spreading around her like moss; someone must have lent it to her after she arrived. It made her seem even smaller. Her head was turned away from them to stare out the window, leaving Maeglin with only a view of tangled dark hair and a sliver of pale skin at her neck.

“Rían?” Idril said gently. She must have heard, by the way her body tensed, but she didn’t turn to look at them. “I’ve brought food,” Idril continued. She nodded to Maeglin, who set the tray he was carrying down on the table. Again, the mortal woman gave no response.

“My cousin came with me this time.” Did Maeglin imagine the slight softening of her shoulders? “Maeglin, this is Rían, who the Eagles brought to Gondolin. Rían, this is my cousin Maeglin, prince of Gondolin, Lord of the House of the Mole.”

Slowly, Rían uncurled herself and turned to face them. “I did not ask to be brought here,” she said softly. There was still tension in her body, like an arrow drawn back on the bowstring.

“I know it,” Idril said earnestly. “But is it not better? Otherwise, I fear you might have perished in the wilderness.”

“Then would I be with those I love.” Her eyes were cold.

Maeglin was uncertain what to say, faced with her frozen grief. “Lady,” he said tentatively, “I fear the King will not release you. But perhaps we can bring you something that you would like. What do you miss most from home, or what did you hold dear?”

Rían looked away again. “Flowers,” she said very quietly.

Maeglin was both relieved and disappointed at her answer. He had thought perhaps she might want something that he could provide, and then he could do it and make Idril happy. Idril had a kind and generous heart, and he had no doubt she would bring a bounty of flowers from the city’s greenhouses to the mortal’s sickbed. But flowers weren’t something you could make in a forge.

And yet . . . he had the beginnings of an idea. He gave half-distracted answers and nods in response to Idril, as they went down the winding stairs and back out into the streets of Gondolin, lined with marble buildings on every side. And once Idril left him, he spent the rest of the day going back and forth, talking with craftsmen from the House of the Arch. When Idril went on her next visit to the mortal, he trailed along in her wake, clutching a wooden box to his chest, careful not to let its fragile contents suffer the least bump.

Once they were in Rían’s room again, Maeglin was beginning to doubt himself. He had asked for these on a whim, perhaps a foolish one. The mortal woman had been rescued from the wilderness; what would she care for these trinkets? But Idril was looking at him expectantly; he couldn’t draw back now. Carefully, very carefully, he unpacked what he had brought with him and arranged the pieces over the window frame to catch the sun’s rays at the best angles.

And when Rían sat up, her eyes widened and she gasped. Glass flowers of different kinds, in many different colors, were strung on silver wire. They swung and spun with a gentle motion, casting rainbows on the floor, the table, her coverlet. She held her hand out as if to catch the light, and her somber face was lit for the briefest moment with a small smile.

Maeglin found his heart beating faster. He suddenly thought it would be interesting to spend more time at this mortal woman’s side and see if he could make her smile again.

Maeglin wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but somehow he became the one visiting Rían at least half the time and showing her around the city. Idril was inexplicably busy, or she would say things like, “She seems comfortable with you!” He did not think that Rían was comfortable with him, or with anyone, but he somehow wanted to do his best for her.

When Rían was no longer quite so bowed down by grief, when she was willing to speak to them, she told them that she was the wife—the widow—of Huor of Dor-lómin. Maeglin had seen Huor and his brother on the battlefield, and he knew they were grown men. But in his memory they were still barely more than children, Huor a tall silent figure following wherever his brother went. It did not seem possible that he was old enough to have a wife. Perhaps that was why it troubled Maeglin to think of it, or perhaps it was that Rían grieved for him and he did not wish her to grieve. He tried harder to distract her, to find things he thought she would like.

Rían said she liked trees, and so he brought her to the square before Turgon’s palace, where the Two Trees of Gondolin shone in all their glory: images in precious metal of the lost Trees of Valinor which Maeglin had never seen. They were a masterwork, each leaf and branch delicately wrought, one with fruits of gold and the other with flowers of silver.

He had thought Rían would like them, but she stood before the trees in silence for a very long time, frowning slightly. “They are very beautiful,” she said, but it did not entirely seem like a compliment.

“You don’t like them?” he asked hesitantly.

Rían slowly shook her head. “They must have taken great skill to make,” she said carefully. “I truly do find them beautiful. But they aren’t living. They aren’t real. Everything about them is perfect and perfectly even, although a real tree would have some crooked branches or broken boughs, or different numbers of leaves in each cluster. Their leaves don’t grow, and their flowers have no scent. To me, they cannot compare to a single bough of a living tree.”

Maeglin felt a wild rush of some emotion he couldn’t name, combined with a strange relief. “You’re the first person I have met since I came here,” he said, “who disliked anything about Gondolin, or would admit to it.”

She looked uncertain. “I meant no offense.”

Maeglin shook his head almost savagely. “This—” he gestured down the long avenue flanked by marble buildings, rising to graceful towers. “It’s supposed to be like Tirion upon Túna in Valinor. It’s supposed to be beautiful and good because it’s like Tirion. Whenever someone proposes building something new in a new style, the King says there was nothing like it in Tirion and forbids it. Even if it would be useful. Even if the lay of the hill or the rock strata or the climate are entirely different here. But I’ve never seen Tirion. Most likely, I never will. I don’t care what there was in Tirion. I want to build something good with what we have, in the place we are now.” He broke off, a little shocked at his own rebelliousness.

Rían was smiling a little. “Then show me,” she said. “I have seen enough of the fine and beautiful places of this city. Lead me to all the places you don’t like in Gondolin!”

Maeglin felt an oddly pleasant curling in his stomach. It seemed to him that for the first time since he came here, he was allowed to think that Gondolin might not be perfect.

Although Rían grew less reserved, she was still reluctant to speak of herself or of her past before Gondolin, especially the things that seemed closest to her heart. She had been in the city three months before she mentioned that she had a child. She stood very straight and stiff-backed before King Turgon and formally asked for his leave to depart, in order to seek her son.

Turgon frowned. “It is forbidden, by the law of this city.” He said many other things after that, in fine and courteous words, but they all added up to “no.” Rían heard him out, bowed formally, and went out again, her back very straight.

Maeglin found her later, weeping by her favorite fountain, her hand pressed over her mouth to muffle her sobs. He was glad of Turgon’s refusal, and he felt guilty for being glad. He didn’t know what to do or say, and so he only sat with her until her tears ended.

When Rían was done weeping, she sat up straighter and fiercely wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. She said, “I once thought I would like nothing more than to find a place that was safe and beautiful, away from all wars.” She was not looking at Maeglin, but at the fountain’s water that flew up and fell back down again in the same place. “But now the beauty of this place seems hollow to me. No one will speak of what is happening outside. The King will not hear me; he closes his ears to the suffering of those outside his city. And there are still people I love outside of Gondolin.”

Maeglin dipped his handkerchief in the fountain and silently offered it to her. He waited while she wiped her face, until she began twisting the cloth between her fingers. Then he asked, as he had not dared to before, “How was it that you and your son were separated?”

Rían fixed her gaze on the fountain again.  “When I left Dor-lómin,” she said, “I had one single goal in mind. I would find what had happened to Huor. And then, when I found it—I lost my will to move all at once, like a spent arrow. I didn’t care what became of me; I had reached the end. And I knew my child was safe with the Elves of Mithrim, who would love him and cherish him as their own. Everything was tied up neatly, without loose ends.”

“And then the Eagles saved you.” Maeglin wanted to tell her how glad of it he was, but the words seemed caught on his tongue.

“And then the Eagles saved me,” Rían agreed. “And after a time—the heavy weight lifted from my heart at least a little, and I could see and hear again when before my mind was clouded. It was never that I did not love those I left behind, only that I had lost all hope. And I cannot be happy living in bliss, while they are still in danger.”

Maeglin stiffened. “You speak lightly of the danger,” he said, suddenly angry. “There are armies of Orcs out there, and worse. I was in that battle too. Would you truly run back into the midst of it, if you could?”

Rían met his eyes defiantly. “I walked into Anfauglith to find what had become of my husband. Do you think I would do less for my son?”

Maeglin looked away. The waters of the fountain were leaping and falling, circling around and around, but for all their motion, they always returned to the same place. He wished that he could do something great and brave and heroic, that he could lead Rían out through the gates of Gondolin and find her son for her. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I should not have spoken so.”

Rían shook her head. “It is not your fault,” she said wearily. “I know you are a prisoner here as much as I.”

Maeglin gave her a startled look. He did not think of himself as a prisoner (only that he could not leave, whispered a treacherous voice in his mind) because there was no use in thinking of it. Such thoughts only led to the Caragdûr, to a high drop and a cruel end. He was content enough. But somehow it felt different, when Rían was the one distressed by Turgon’s law.

The months passed. Maeglin walked with Rían through every street of the city, took her to his forge, sat at her feet and listened to her songs. He watched Rían feed crumbs to the sparrows on her balcony, coaxing them to her until they would even hop up to her and eat from her hand. And each time, she would smile and let them flutter away again. He almost asked her how she did it, letting them go every time. She loved them, he could see it. He thought she would be happy to keep them with her as pets, for her own. But she smiled as she watched them fly away, and he never dared suggest it.

And all the while he waged a quiet battle in his own mind. When he opened the door of Rían’s house, and heard her singing inside, when she gave him a small smile and accepted some ornament he had made for her to wear in her hair, when he walked with her through the green spaces of the city, he wanted it so much that he could almost imagine locking her in a treasure vault in order to keep her. Having Rían here made him happy, he thought stubbornly; why then should he lose her? And yet—and yet she was not happy here herself. And he could hear a dark scornful voice in the back of his mind: Let the bird go back to the cage, where soon she will sicken again.

In the end, it was Rían’s unknown child who tipped the scales. If he had not even the memories of his mother, as that child would not, if Rían was not released to seek for him . . . And if his mother still lived, anywhere in the world, he thought he would cross mountains and seas to see her again.

When Rían had been in Gondolin a year, Maeglin said quietly, “I think I know how the King may be persuaded to let you depart. If that is truly what you want.” She looked up at him with newly awakened hope, and he told himself that it would be enough.

Rían came once more before the King in the square before the King’s Tower, where the gold and silver trees glinted in the sunlight. For the second time, she asked to be allowed to depart. “There is much that is dear to me in Gondolin,” Rían said, “and I would not leave without pain. And yet, for both duty and love, I must go.”

Turgon frowned. “What is your counsel, my lords of Gondolin?”

Maeglin rose in his place. “My lord and uncle.” He swallowed. “I have known Rían of Dor-lómin for a year’s time. She does not lie. I have trust in her word and her oath.” He took a deep breath. “The King granted his leave once before. At the time I spoke against it, but I—I have learned better now.” His voice cracked a little, and he quickly steadied it. “The King knows, we all know, the faith of the Men of Dor-lómin. Huor did not break his word, even unto his death. He did not reveal the location of Gondolin even to his wife. I have faith that her honor and courage are equal to his.”

The matter was debated back and forth, but Maeglin and Idril both spoke on Rían’s behalf. And every person who was there owned either their own lives or the lives of their dearest kin to the last stand of the Men of Dor-lómin. In the end, the King gave way and Rían’s wish was granted.

When Maeglin met Rían later on the balcony of her house, her entire face lit up, and she threw her arms around him. Maeglin froze, not knowing what to do, and she let go again before he could react.

“Thank you,” she said, looking truly happy for the first time since he had seen her.

“You owe me no thanks.” His tongue felt clumsy in his mouth. “It is only what you have earned.”

“You could leave also.” Rían was looking out into the far distance, to those unknown lands where she would soon be wandering once again. “There is so much more to the world than you have seen.” She half-turned to face him. “You could come with me.”

Maeglin looked down. Their hands were close together on the balcony railing, only a few inches apart. And yet it might have well been miles. “I can’t,” he said miserably. “My uncle—it would seem ungrateful. He made me a prince of Gondolin, a Lord of Gondolin with my own House. And he—he likes to keep people safe. To keep his family safe, where he can see them. He might let you go, but after what happened with my mother, he would never let me go. Not while the walls of Gondolin stand.”

He did not dare to look at her, to see what expression might be on her face. Her hand slid over towards his, rested on top of it for the briefest moment. He felt a light pressure of her fingers, and then she drew back. He stayed where he was, his shoulders hunched in, and did not watch her go.

He watched later, from a distance: her small form passing through the seven gates of Gondolin, one by one, as they opened and closed behind her. As the great Eagle swooped down for her and rose again in the air with beats of its mighty wings, carrying her away to freedom.

~~~

It seemed like countless Ages and yet no time at all, before the day came when the trumpets sounded to summon Maeglin to the Tower of the King.  Maeglin stood at the King’s right hand, Idril at the King’s left, while three people were brought before them. One was an Elf, and one was a mortal Man, but Maeglin barely looked at them, because the third was Rían.

Rían opened her lips and spoke, her voice thrumming with a strange deep resonance: “Hear now the message of the Lord of Waters, the word that he sends to Gondolin.”

Turgon heard out her words and the words of her son Tuor with clear displeasure. At last he said he would consider Ulmo’s counsel. In the meantime, Voronwë was forgiven for having brought strangers to Gondolin, and Rían and Tuor were made welcome. There were many others who wished to speak before the King and be heard, but Maeglin remained silent. He glanced at Rían as often as he could without being conspicuous. She had changed, in that strange swift way of mortals, but she was still recognizably herself. And she was surely still beautiful.

It was hours more before the two of them were finally alone, on the balcony of the house newly given to Rían to stay in. There were too many words crowding on the tip of Maeglin’s tongue. Will you stay this time? and Will you ask me again to leave with you? and Did you think of me as often as I thought of you? And then Rían reached out and took his hand, gripping it tightly in her smaller one, and he thought perhaps he did not need words after all.

They sat in silence for a long time, while the moon rose and a faint breeze stirred loose strands of Rían’s hair. Finally Maeglin asked, “Do you truly think Gondolin will fall?”

Rían nodded gravely. “I saw the Lord of Waters rise out of the sea,” she said. “I heard his voice, in my ears and in my heart. The people of Gondolin must leave this city, or there is no safety.”

To leave the shelter of Gondolin for an unknown place seemed as terrifying as jumping off the walls and hoping you would land safely. By himself, he could never have the courage. But if Rían led them, if Rían put her hand in his, he thought perhaps he would.

Chapter End Notes

The fic title is adapted from a description of Finduilas of Dol Amroth, in The Lord of the Rings Appendix A.

Let the bird go back to the cage, where soon she will sicken again. - Words spoken by Eöl about Aredhel, in the Silmarillion chapter “Of Maeglin”.

Maeglin doesn't really have good role models for how to treat loved ones, but he's trying.

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