Records of an Inquiry Into Unlawful Conduct in Angband Division C-134-B by kimikocha  

From: Sam Park <lilsparky@hotmail.com>
Sent: August 26, 2001, 1:43 PM
To: Len Toller <len.toller@yahoo.com>; Samantha Park <spark3@jacaranda.edu>
Subject: Sakalkhôr’s papers

Hey sweetie!

I was looking through some more of the papers from the first incarnation of mine you married (and you know how much it still thrills me to share in the memories of millennia you hold — though UGH I cannot believe I never ONCE managed to incarnate in the Roman Empire! HOW am I supposed to engage with that entire bit of history without any experiential data whatsoever???? by using normal investigative techniques like some sort of person born in the 80s???¿¿¿ utterly unfair) and I came across something rather topical.

You know I’ve been coping with the clusterfuck that has been the whole process of trying to deal with the police and get some sort of justice for what happened to me by obsessively comparing attitudes and approaches to sexual assault in all the eras that strike my fancy. This particular bit of correspondence, which appears to contain previously unknown portions of records from Angband, contains a discussion between Sakalkhôr and what appears to be another historian about those records. The only problem is, the records were definitely incomplete — both those from Angband and Sakalkhôr’s notes themselves. I have the feeling he hadn’t met you yet because he doesn’t mention you, even in passing through a comment about marrying someone almost as old as the sun, but did he ever talk to you about any of this?

…And on a very different note, did you have any special requests for souvenirs? My aunt and uncle wanted to visit one of the museums before I leave, and I’m supposed to break the tie between the Met and the Museum of Natural History. The problem is, I like both of them, so now you get to break the tie by telling me which place you’d rather get a knickknack from. Or maybe a tie. You look very cute in ties.

<33333 Miss you lots and lots. Next time I’m afraid I’m going to have to make you come with me — turns out I still have a horrible time sleeping alone. My cousin and all of the dogs have been sharing the bed with me to make sure I feel safe, but it calms me down the most when it’s you.

~*~

17 Cermië, SA 3264

My very dear friend—

The excavation of Angband has sadly ground to a halt once more, as the lead safety officer has again deemed it unsafe for entry. Of course I have tried to make it known to him that the materials inside may be fragile and swift action may need to be taken in order to preserve them for future generations, but he was unmoved. Enforced downtime has, however, come with the benefit of permitting me time to look over some of the records we have restored more carefully, including those sent along with this letter, which I entrust to your care. I imagine that given certain prior discussions regarding the excesses of our late usurper, you may find them to be of interest — I must admit that I myself found a certain morbid interest in comparing the two, as in some ways this hell of legend seems less inclined to permit certain profligacies in its gentry than some forces within our own nation’s court, though one sees many ways in which their procedures might frustrate the cause of the innocent.

I shall write more soon. Forgive me for not writing to you at greater length — I have more records to review, and I trust you understand how little I find myself able to focus on other matters.

Ever yours,

Êphalakzîr

~*~

AJ 519, Ulubhân 44
Statement of the witness Ozûtalai, a sempster of division C-134-B, offered on interrogation to Ilûkhobh, a military investigator of the third rank.

Yes, I know the seamstress Nárelótë, and I believe I know something of the matter you are investigating. I am assigned to station C-134-B-6D, which is next to her station. Draumâkil and I showed her the ways of bathing and where to eat. We have let her sleep beside us, though she often is not there. Lady Thuringwethil began to visit shortly after she arrived, though at first I did not know who she was. She asked Nárelótë if she was married, and Nárelótë said no. Lady Thuringwethil said that was good and asked Nárelótë if she thought she, meaning Lady Thuringwethil, was beautiful. Nárelótë said yes. Then Lady Thuringwethil asked if Nárelótë wanted her, and Nárelótë said no.

At that, the Lady smiled. She said that she intended to woo Nárelótë before long. I heard Nárelótë’s heart begin to race, and I could smell her sweat. She said then that she would die, or that she would die first, or perhaps that someone would kill her; I am not entirely fluent in the language they spoke, and am not certain of the nuances. Regardless, Lady Thuringwethil said that such a thing would certainly not happen.

Nárelótë was denied rations that evening, but I believe it was because she did not meet her quota for the day, not an order from the Lady Thuringwethil. There were multiple days before that when the same thing happened. Draumâkil and I tried to help her, but at first she was very much an apķe, she did not want to work. We did not share our food with her when she refused to work, but we did when she was too slow. Everyone told her this is a very good post, the work is very light, but most of the time she did not want to hear us. I think several people disliked her because of that, because who among us has not had someone who needed lighter work before they could get it, a cousin, or even an honored father or mother? Who among us has not gone hungry, not because we were too slow, but because all Angband was on short rations and the little ones needed more?

But others said, do not judge her too harshly. The land of her ancestors burns.

After that, Lady Thuringwethil began to visit almost every day. On one of those days she untied Nárelótë’s kerchief and took it away with her, which seemed to make Nárelótë very upset; she cried for perhaps an hour afterward and knelt under the table, covering her head with her arms, stinking of anxious sweat. I cannot say I understood what the trouble was, but she calmed down and got back to work after I made her a new head-covering from fabric scraps.

The next day, the Lady came to see me. Nárelótë was there, but Lady Thuringwethil ignored her. She made me stand in the center of the room and watched as several of her attendants fed on me, which they did until I fainted. I remember that their teeth made strange high-pitched grinding sounds, and that I could not hear heartbeats from any of them, not even when they were right next to me.

When I awoke, they were gone, and some others were gathered around me. Nárelótë was not there. I did not know where she was, but I saw the kerchief I had made for her lying on her desk when the others helped me back to mine. I was covered in blood. My throat burned. There was a strange, acrid scent in my nose and mouth, the sort of scent that becomes a taste; it took weeks for it to fully disappear. The attendants’ bite marks ached and continued to bleed whenever I shifted my head or my neck. It was, we all know what this is like, normally any blood left on the skin darkens and dries swiftly, but this was different. This blood remained red and fresh for a long time, and smelled strange.

My captain sent me to the infirmary when he returned. Several of the others helped me there. The healers told me I could have bled to death had the swelling in my neck not effectively pressed the bite wounds shut, for there was a poison in the fangs of Lady Thuringwethil and her folk that prevented clotting in the blood. I am not aware of committing any crimes, certainly none warranting death, and the Lady informed me of none when she set her attendants on me. Assurakûn, a healer, made a report of unjust punishment, and I made a complaint of the same through my captain. I do not know of anything being done, and the Lady Thuringwethil’s visits continued — see new quire.

[Note — I believe this interview continues in folio LV-464, where it is found alongside similar sworn declarations from Draumâkil and others in division C-134-B. Documents in this period seem to be far less organized than those which are older. Possibly reflecting a rise in strain on internal services following the absorption of Gondolin? I am beginning to wonder whether this victory was felt as one within Angband; the number of officials and servants within its upper levels of leadership so far seems to remain static over time despite the empire’s continuous expansion. Hope to discuss with you later, E.]

From Folio LV-464.

[Note — a portion of this page is missing; the text begins mid-statement. I believe this may represent the continuation of the sempster Ozûtalai’s statement from LV-463 — E.]

…and so I will tell what I know of the day I was bitten, since you ask where the seamstress went. I do not know. I was on the floor. But I have thought on it many times since. Before that day, whenever the Lady asked her, Nárelótë said no. I heard her say it; it is a word I know in her tongue. After that day I did not hear her say it again. Her kerchief was on her desk, and she does not leave it anywhere of her own will. I think she went with them so that they would stop.

She has never said so to me. When I came back from the infirmary I could not turn my head to see my work, and I was slow. Each evening my count was met. I did not meet it. I sat between the ones who did.

—Asked whether the seamstress told him why she partook in this, the witness stated that she did not, and that when he thanked her she said something in her own language which he did not understand and which did not sound kind.

It is known what is owed to one who keeps you from joining your ancestors before your time. I have told my mother and my mother’s brothers that I owe this to her, and they agree it is so. I do not think she knows it is owed. I do not think she would want it. That does not change that it is owed.

After that she was not denied rations again, though there were days her station stood empty from the first bell to the last. I will say what is true: I thought she had found a patron, and I was sour about it. Draumâkil said so aloud. She came back smelling of meat cooked in honey, and of a fruit I do not know, and of witch-hazel, always. One evening I asked her what the Lady asked of her for the food. She did not answer. Her heart went like a hare’s. Then I understood it was the thing we do not do, and I was ashamed, because I had envied her for it.

—Asked where his captain was on the day he was bitten, the witness stated that he did not know; that the captain left the workroom a short time before the Lady came and returned a short time after she had gone. Asked whether the captain was commonly absent when the Lady visited, the witness was silent for some time, and then stated that he was. Asked to whom he had given his complaint of unjust punishment, the witness stated: to his captain. Asked to whom the others of his division had given theirs, the witness stated: the same.

The Lady took the second kerchief also, and the third. After that we all made them. There are eleven of us and there are always scraps. We keep them in the basket under my table, and when one is taken she has another before the Lady has reached the stair. It is a small thing. It is what we had.

—Asked to number and describe the Lady’s attendants, that they might be summoned, the witness stated that he could not. He stated that he had tried to count them and that he would count four, and look again and count six, and again and count three. He stated that their teeth make the sound he has described but their feet make none on the floor, and that when one passed close beside the lamp the flame did not lean. He stated that they have no scent of any kind. He stated that when they were upon him he felt teeth in many places but smelled only one mouth, and that it smelled of witch-hazel. Asked what he meant by this, the witness stated that he did not know what he meant, only that it was so.

There was a night she was sent for after the last bell. The place is two halls from where we sleep, and the stone there carries sound. I heard

[Note — about a hand’s breadth is lost to water here — E.]

…did not sleep. In the morning she was at her station before any of us, and would not be spoken to.

—Asked what he observed on the night before Grazhân 68, the witness stated…

[Note — water damage spreading from the right corner, made notes on what I think I can decipher —E.]

…as awake. I am often awake now. I know her heart as well as my mother’s; I would know it through any wall in this mountain. It was quick, as it always is when she comes back, and then it was slow, and then it

…[n]ot like a heart that is resti[ng?]…

…âkil by the arm, and she was u…

…the corridor, and the floor…

…o dark to see, but I could hear it leaving her, in beats, as her hear[t]…

…sed with b[oth] hands and would not let m[e]…

…ll the way down, and under Draumâkil’s…

…hea…

—Asked whether he bears hatred toward the Lady Thuringwethil, the witness stated: Yes. She set them on me when I had done nothing, and what she does to the seamstress is a thing for which the ancestors turn their faces away. I hate her. But I have told you what I heard and what I smelled, and nothing besides.

—Asked whether he wished to add anything, the witness asked whether the seamstress would have her ration while this matter is looked into, whether she meets her count or not. The question was noted.

This statement was read back to the witness, who affirmed it and made his mark. He was admonished to secrecy by order of the Lieutenant’s Office. The witness’s heart was steady throughout, save at the questions concerning his captain.

—

AJ 519, Ulubhân 45
Statement of the witness Draumâkil, a seamstress of division C-134-B, offered on interrogation to Ilûkhobh, a military investigator of the third rank.

I am Draumâkil. I have sewn in this division nineteen years, and my station is across the table from the elf’s. You will have had Ozûtalai in here before me, and he will have told you she is not so bad. He says that of everyone. I will tell you now that I did not like her when she came and I am not sure I like her yet, so you may weigh what I say with that in the pan.

She would not take food from our hands at first. When she did take it she wiped the bowl where we had touched it. She would not lie near us to sleep until the cold made her. She had a word for us in her own tongue, and I have none of her tongue, but I know what that kind of word sounds like. My sister waited six winters for light work with a hand the mine had crushed, and joined the ancestors before a place was found. This one was handed a needle on her first day and wept over it.

I fed her anyway when she was slow. Not when she refused. That is the custom, and liking does not come into it.

—Asked what she observed of the Lady Thuringwethil’s first visit, the witness stated that she could not follow what was said. She stated that the Lady spoke softly and the seamstress answered in few words, and that she has heard hunters speak so to an animal already in the snare.

On the day Ozûtalai was bitten I was at my station, and I did not faint, so I can tell you what he cannot. The captain went out. A little after, the cold came, and then the Lady. She had Ozûtalai stand in the middle of the floor. She did not look at the elf once. She watched him, and her creatures were on him, and when he fell they did not stop.

There are eleven of us. None of us moved. I have thought about that a good deal.

The elf stood up. She untied the kerchief he had made her. She folded it, breathing hard, and she set it on her desk. I do not know why she took it off. I do not know why she folded it. Then she walked to the Lady and said one word, and the Lady held out her hand, and the creatures were gone between one blink and the next. The two of them went out together. It was the apķe who moved, and not one of us.

The captain came back a little after that. He sent Ozûtalai to the infirmary and had the rest of us scrub the floor, and told us the day’s count was still owed.

—Asked to whom she made complaint of this, the witness stated: to her captain. Asked whether she now believed that complaint was carried further, the witness laughed and did not otherwise answer.

When Ozûtalai came back he could not see his work. I sat on his one side and she sat on his other, and his count was met.

After that she ate better than any of us, and I said to her face that she had found a patron and sold herself cheap. I said it. I would take it back if words came back. It was some days later that Ozûtalai told me what he had asked her and what her heart did, and by then she had stopped eating altogether, the Lady’s food and ours alike. When she fell at her station I carried her to the healer. She weighed what a bundle of kindling weighs. I told him she had not eaten, because she would not have told him herself.

—Asked whether she had at any time misled the Lady or her attendants as to the seamstress’s whereabouts, the witness stated that she had. She stated that the seamstress had fallen asleep beneath the table, and that when one of the attendants came to fetch her, the witness told it she was at the infirmary. She stated that it looked at her for a long time, and that she knew then it was not the thing itself that was looking.

The next day I was called before the Lady. She did not have me bitten, and she did not have me whipped. She showed me my sister.

[Note — Attached a transcription of what I thought I was able to make out from this water damaged portion. Let me know if you see something different — E.]

…her hand as it was, and she…

…turned her face from me, and the others behind her did the same, back and back, more than I could…

…have been told since by my grandmother that the dead do not come at that one’s whistle, and that it was a made thing and a lie. I believe my grandmother. But what was I to show the healer? There is no mark on me.

We went to the captain then, all eleven, and used the word for it. The division’s count was doubled for ten days after. The captain gave the order, but he did not say whose it was.

The attendant came another time when the seamstress was truly gone. The attendant approached me, not anyone else, and asked me where she, meaning the seamstress, had gone. I said I did not know; this was false. The seamstress was in the infirmary. At the time I believed a lie so small and common would pass unremarked, as has usually been my experience, but the next day the Lady came to the workroom herself. She said I had lied to an officer’s servant, which is insubordination, and that she judged it worthy of the highest degree. She did not ask whether it was so. The captain was made to give the forty himself, there at the cutting table, with the division stood along the wall. His hand was not steady; I will give him that. The elf was made to stand beside the Lady and watch, with the Lady’s hand resting on her bare head. I did not need to be tied. I want that written.

When it was done the Lady’s creatures were at my back, as they had been at Ozûtalai’s throat. That is when I cried out, and not before. The healer will tell you the stripes ran nine days and would not close. He made a report of it, and you will know better than I what that cost him.

It was while I lay on my face in the infirmary that the elf came to me. She had more of our speech by then. She said there was to be no more of it: no lies for her, no action against the Lady, nothing. She said she went to the Lady because she chose to, and that she was content.

She forgets what we can hear and scent. Or she knows, and hopes we are kind enough to pretend.

We argued it for many nights. I asked my grandmother. She said what I knew she would say: it is for the one wronged to say what is done about the wrong, even when what she says is foolish. So we did as she asked. That was four winters ago, and it has not sat easy with any of us for one day of them.

—Asked what the division did in that time, the witness stated: what was left to us.

[Note — Section is water damaged. I think I can make out “accuses” and “no one”? — E.]

There are mornings she comes back and

[Note — approximately two lines lost to foxing — E.]

…and on those days we do not ask.

[Note — water damage again — E.]

…woke me with his hand over my [m]outh, so I would not wake the li…

…I have heard the healer say it to his helpers many times: you press with the whole weight of you, and you do not let up for anything, not fo[r]… t… th…

…did not l… f… a…

…[s]tair… d…

…on my hands un… nt…

…ree days before I cou…

…I did not tie a knot for that night. I did not know what kind of knot it would be.

—The witness then produced from her clothing a length of grey cord, closely knotted. She stated that she cannot write, and that she had tied one knot for each time the seamstress was fetched, beginning the night the seamstress asked them to keep silent. The cord was counted in the witness’s presence and found to bear nine hundred and four knots. It is entered with this statement.

[Note — There is some gray fibrous matter adhered to the bottom of the scroll tube which could potentially be the cord. I have not attempted to retrieve it as I fear trying to pull it out will damage it and the only other means of accessing it would involve disassembling the tube — E.]

This past autumn a counting-clerk I did not know came asking about our cloth. I had given my word, so I told him nothing. I showed him which shelf the ledgers were on.

—Asked to number and describe the Lady’s attendants, the witness stated that she had not tried to count them. She stated that she had counted their shadows, and that the lamp cast only one, and it was the Lady’s.

—Asked whether she was aware that failure to report unlawful conduct is contrary to the Codes, the witness stated that she was. She stated that she had reported it once and seen her division go hungry, and had lied once and been shown her dead, then lied again and been beaten, and had then kept silent four years because the seamstress asked it. She stated that she would take what was owed for that. This matter has been reported to Chief Investigator Lakjašalli for guidance.

[Note — Two pieces of free parchment were fastened over this portion of the scroll with a clip. The first one bore the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office and indicated that upon examination of the witness and review of the matter concerning non-report of rape, by order of Lord Mairon as transmitted through Halkiran, secretary first rank, there will be no adjudication of guilt for the offense entered, nor punishment assigned. No further explanation is given as to why the decision was made. Perhaps something to look out for in further excavations of the administrative complex? The second one bore the same seal and indicated that the seamstress Draumâkil of Division C-134-B was to receive double the usual pickled herring ration for a term of one year. —E.]

—Asked whether she bears hatred toward the Lady Thuringwethil, the witness stated that she does, but that she does not make this declaration out of malice.

—Asked whether she wished to add anything, the witness stated: You came to me. I did not come to you, and I will tell her so. And I want it written that we did not raise the cry because she asked us not to, and for no other reason.

This statement was read back to the witness, who affirmed it and made her mark. She was admonished to secrecy by order of the Lieutenant’s Office. The witness’s heart was quick throughout, which the investigator judges to be temper.

[Note — I believe there are additional witness statements from this division following, but the quire’s pages are stuck together and I’m concerned that separation may damage them. Will have to consider how to proceed —E.]

—

AJ 519, Ulubhân 46
Statement of the witness Assurakûn, a healer of infirmary CL-23, offered on report to Ilûkhobh, a military investigator of the third rank.

I am Assurakûn, a healer of the third degree assigned to infirmary CL-23. I have held this position for seventeen years and have been a healer for twenty-two, and at all times have conducted myself with honor. Before the Lady Thuringwethil took notice of me, my disciplinary record was limited to two incidents of insubordination towards my division commander, for which I reported myself and required no restraint for punishment. Since Lady Thuringwethil’s involvement in division C-134, I have been disciplined multiple times for insubordination towards her. She often does not offer details as to the offense committed, only stating that it occurred and that she deems it worthy of the highest degree of punishment. The lashes delivered have scarred my back and once impaired my ability to perform my duties for an extended period, when the wounds festered. At that time, I took sick with a fever that lasted four days, during which I was abed.

—Asked the number of prescribed lashes, the witness indicated that he believes it was usually forty, but was never told the prescribed number beyond Thuringwethil’s declaration that the unspecified offense warranted the highest degree of punishment, and found it difficult to count in the moment as the timing of the strokes was irregular and they were often accompanied by what he would only describe as “strange and very disturbing hallucinations.” Forty is his rounded estimate based on the counts he did make and what the healers who saw to him afterward were able to count. Added that most of these lashings were carried out by her attendants and were performed either in his quarters or, on one occasion, in a supply room, outside the presence of an independent healer. The last time it happened, it was done in the corridor, the number was fifty, and his commander was ordered to carry it out, which she did.

—Asked who was aware of these disciplinary incidents, the witness indicated that everyone in the area would have known about the last; other than that he recalls talking to his commanding officer, two friends, and a cousin about it, and that he assumes his colleagues knew but cannot recall a specific conversation.

—Asked if complaints of unjust punishment were made, the witness stated that they were made through his commanding officer.

I first became acquainted with the Lady Thuringwethil’s relevant activities when the sempster Ozûtalai was brought to my infirmary for treatment. That incident was described in the very first report I made concerning unjust punishment. My first acquaintance with the seamstress Nárelótë occurred

[text partially illegible]

…carried her to the infirmary, saying that she had fainted. While I did not observe any acute injuries on her at that time, I did observe symptoms of dehydration and discovered through inquiry that she was not believed to have eaten for several days. Draumâkil offered this information; she did not offer it herself. Indeed, she expressed an unusual lack of interest in eating. I treated her as I have always been taught to treat apķe with this sort of adjustment difficulty — that is, I gave her water and a hard biscuit and talked with her about how the time to join her ancestors will come, but surely they do not want her to join them now. It is hard, yes, it is very hard, but you are not mâlistanza, you are not alone. These people who bring you here, who share with you their food, they do this not because they must, but because they want to. They will be your family if you let them. Life here will be much better if you let them.

She said then that her difficulty did not lie in finding herself too alone. I asked what she meant by that, and at first she refused to explain; but after a time she admitted, albeit with circumspection, that she was unhappy at being made to share her nights with someone, and that at first she had wanted to live but now that she’d survived, she found this mode of living so shameful that she was not glad of it.

Understanding that she was telling me that someone was raping her, I told her there is no shame in wanting to live. Then I asked if she would tell me who it was, and she said it was the Lady Thuringwethil. I asked if she would have me raise the hue and cry on her behalf, and she refused. At the time I assumed these rapes were of a fairly typical sort, that is, some creature without honor goes to someone wretched, and rather than freely offering what they have in excess, demands that person lie with them in exchange for it. I do not always report these rapes if their victims ask me not to, though I try to handle things in other ways.

—Asked if he was aware that failure to report unlawful conduct is contrary to the Codes of Angband, the witness stated that he was, but that he believed it could at times make things worse for the victim if he reported it against their will. He stated that he was willing to suffer punishment for this failure, but said that he would not swear not to do it again. This matter has been reported to Chief Investigator Lakjašalli for guidance.

[Note — One piece of parchment was fastened over this portion of the scroll with a clip. As with the first supplemental parchment found clipped to Draumâkil’s statement, this one indicates that by order of Lord Mairon as transmitted through Halkiran, secretary first rank, there will be no adjudication of guilt for the offense entered, nor punishment assigned. I did not see any other parchments, but I did observe a fair amount of debris around the clip —E.]

—Asked whether the seamstress showed signs of injury at the hands [of] the Lady [Thuringwethil]

[Note — Large section partially missing, illegible; the top half of the name ‘Thuringwethil’ is preserved above — E.]

…clear to me…

…a…d

…ec…

…iate…

…permitted me to examine her only as far as the shoulder. I did not press for more. I have never…

…visits. She… (predominantly, for the most part) not-injure [Note — I can read the negation and the word for ‘hurt’ or ‘injured’ but I’m not sure of the tense or directionality — E.] [E — Never got the chance to ask someone about this, sorry, will look for an opportunity in my travels — S.] [Dearest husband— I don’t see anything indicating that he actually did ask someone, but in another letter he mentions that he was planning to go to Lindon. Did he end up asking you? &If he didn’t, I’m asking — can you decipher anything from this? <3 Sam.]

…not hungry. Within a season she was better fed than I [Note — Water damage, then an unrecoverable portion from a hole in the page, followed by an unfamiliar word that Bâruzimir thinks may be a variant spelling of the term for being without a clan in proximity to what I think is ‘Lady’, but could possibly be ‘Lord’; the final portion of the word is too smeared to be certain —E.]

…hours or even days at a time. Yet…

…wh…

…th…

[The] Lady is sometimes sent out of the mountain on the Lieutenant’s business; my people in the halls know when she goes and when she returns. In the seasons she was away, the seamstress slept, and ate, and the cuts on her fingers closed as they should. When the Lady returned, all of it reversed. The investigator may…

…abr… liga… uisi…g to… inter…

…reported. This seems to have displeased La[d]y Thuringwethil, who…

…what the infirmary i…

…day the Lady came to the ward herself. In all the time before, she had never once crossed my door. An attendant had come asking after the seamstress, and once she had punished another for lying about the seamstress being with me, but she herself had never come. She said she required the seamstress on a matter of military necessity. I asked her to state the necessity.

She did not, so I stated the difficulties myself. The seamstress does not march; she has no pass to leave the mountain. If it was a tent the Lady needed, there are a hundred hands in that division that could stitch one. If the seamstress was due some punishment, the Lady could have her when I discharged her, as the Codes provide, and I would not discharge her until she was fit. The Lady said I was insubordinate and that she judged it worthy of the highest degree.

She did not take me to my quarters or to the supply room. She meant to do it there, in the ward, among the beds. There were nine others in my custody that day, from six divisions. A soldier with one hand, waiting for the stump to close, sat up and said, Not here. She did not look at him.

My commander Bakharma came at the noise. First she recited what the Codes say of custody, by section. The Lady said the Codes did not concern her in this. Then Bakharma said she would take the punishment in my st…

[Note — Unable to decipher the next portion, except for possibly the phrase “seven times”? — E.]

…without disch[arge?]…

…betw… k… t

…bled for two… s… st…

…se… v… unt… ll…

[Note — Unable to make anything out on these next several pages except possibly the letter ‘u’ — E.]

…above us ever heard it.

—Asked whether he bears hatred toward the Lady Thuringwethil, the witness stated that he does. He stated that he has treated many whom he hates, and that it does not change what he sees on a body.

—Asked whether he wished to add anything, the witness stated: I ask that it be written that the seamstress never asked for any complaint against the Lady, and never consented to one, and that whatever she thinks of these proceedings, they are not her doing. If she is angry, let her be angry with me.

This statement was read back to the witness, who affirmed it. Copies of his case reports concerning the seamstress, the sempster Ozûtalai, the seamstress Draumâkil, the hauler Gûrzalam, and his commander Bakharma were likewise read back to him in full. He attested to each as his own and as true, and signed in his own name for the whole. He was admonished to secrecy by order of the Lieutenant’s Office. The witness’s heart was steady throughout, save when he spoke of his commander.

—

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 515, Grazhân 51
Patient: Ozûtalai, sempster, C-134-B-6D.
Brought by: Four of his division, carrying him.
Presented: Unconscious on arrival. Woke within the hour.
Found: Punctures to neck and shoulders, both sides. I count nineteen pairs, all of one size and one spacing. All bleeding. The blood stays red and wet long past the time it should darken, and smells acrid. Swelling of the neck has pressed the deeper wounds shut and is likely why he lives. Pale, cold. Heart fast and thin.
Done: Pressure. Cold cloths. Blood-broth by the spoon. Kept lying with feet raised. Swelling not reduced; it is holding him together.
Disposition: Kept three days. Discharged to light work. Neck not to be turned for ten days.
For the commander’s notice: Patient states this was given as punishment by the Lady Thuringwethil, with no offense named. Report of unjust and irregular punishment made separately. There is a poison in this bite that prevents clotting, and healers should be told of it. Patient and his division speak of many attendants. I report what I counted.
Forwarded: Grazhân 52.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 515, Ulubhân 12
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B. Taken at Gondolin. First year.
Brought by: Draumâkil, of her division, carrying her.
Presented: Fainted at her station.
Found: Dry. Has not eaten for some days, by her division’s account. Two small punctures at the left shoulder beneath the collar line, a day old or less, already closed. Faint trace of the venom described in the case of Ozûtalai, but far less. Scent of witch-hazel on hair and clothing. Examined to the shoulder only, as the patient permitted.
Done: Water. Plain food. Rest.
Disposition: Kept overnight.
For the commander’s notice: The bite is of the same size and spacing as in the case of Ozûtalai, C-134-B, Grazhân 51. See that report.
Forwarded: Ulubhân 13.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 516, Zaghân 9
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Draumâkil.
Presented: Vomiting. Cramping of the belly.
Found: Bathed. Hair oiled and dressed; nails pared and buffed. Better kept than any officer I have treated. Stomach disordered by rich food: honey, fruit, and meats not served in the common hall. Two pairs of punctures, beneath the collar line and at the inner arm above the elbow where a sleeve covers; one pair fresh, one some days old. Scent of witch-hazel in the hair to the root and on the skin of the neck and hands, as from long and close keeping, not from washing. Heart quick. Fingers cold. Examined to the shoulder only, as permitted.
Done: Plain broth. Rest.
Disposition: Kept one night.
For the commander’s notice: Patient is fed foods not drawn from any hall I know. Source not stated.
Forwarded: Zaghân 10.

[Margin, second hand: 9 days. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 516, Rûzhân 18
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Ozûtalai and Draumâkil.
Presented: Fainted. Has not slept, by her division’s account, for many nights.
Found: Thinner than at last admission, although well fed. Hands and feet cold in a warm ward. Needle-cut to the finger, four days unclosed; in her people this should close within the day. Does not rest. Eyes open and unfixed through the night, not as elves rest. Beneath aromatics, oils, and dye, hair dull and coming out in the comb. Punctures as before, two pairs. Heart quickens without evident cause.
Done: Warmth. Food from the infirmary allowance, plainer than she is used to; she kept it down. Witch-hazel withdrawn from her bedside on the second day, after her heart was observed to rise when the jar was opened. Heart quieter after.
Disposition: Kept six days.
For the commander’s notice: None that I can name.
Forwarded: Rûzhân 25.

[Margin, second hand: 4 days. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 516, Rûzhân 21
Patient: Draumâkil, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Her division, walking her.
Presented: Forty stripes to the back, given this morning at the cutting table.
Found: The stripes are of the ordinary kind, but they are also bitten along their length. Same poison as in the case of Ozûtalai, same size and spacing of punctures. The stripes will not close. Patient walked in and asked to be put on her face.
Done: Pressure, cold cloths, changed often. Clan brought food daily.
Disposition: Stripes ran nine days before closing. Kept twelve days.
For the commander’s notice: Patient states the punishment was ordered by the Lady Thuringwethil for lying to her servant, and given by the captain of C-134-B on her order. Lying to an officer’s servant is not an offense warranting such severity, and as in a prior case involving a worker from C-134-B, the Codes make no provision for disciplinary bites or envenomation. Report of unjust punishment made separately. A seamstress of the same division (see report of Rûzhân 18) was in the ward when the patient was brought in.
Forwarded: Rûzhân 22.

[Margin, second hand: 7 days. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 516, Mughân 30
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Ozûtalai.
Presented: Fainted.
Found: Abrasions at both wrists, superficial, consistent with binding. Two bruises to the upper arm, the breadth of fingers. Punctures as before, three pairs. Bathed, oiled, kept. Scent of witch-hazel. Heart quick. Weight down.
Done: Salve to wrists. Rest.
Disposition: Kept two days.
For the commander’s notice: Binding marks. History not given. The bite is as before.
Forwarded: Mughân 33.

[Margin, second hand: 5 days. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 516, Bashân 6
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Hithriel, cutter, of her division.
Presented: Burn from the pressing iron, back of the left hand.
Found: Burn shallow. Closed within the day. Patient slept the night through. Weight up since Rûzhân. Hair improved. No punctures. No scent of witch-hazel. Heart even.
Done: Dressing.
Disposition: Kept one night.
For the commander’s notice: None.
Forwarded: Bashân 7.

[Note — No mark beside this one. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 517, Zaghân 19
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Draumâkil.
Presented: Fainted.
Found: The gains noted in Bashân are lost. Weight down. Cold. Does not rest. Needle-cuts unclosed. Punctures, two pairs, beneath the collar line. Scent of witch-hazel. Heart quick.
Done: Warmth, plain food, rest.
Disposition: Kept three days.
For the commander’s notice: My people in the halls tell me the Lady Thuringwethil returned to the mountain in the last days of Ulubhân.
Forwarded: Zaghân 22.

[Margin, second hand: 6 days. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 517, Rûzhân 11
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Ozûtalai.
Presented: Fainted.
Found: A fresh-healed line across the left cheek, from the ear nearly to the mouth. By its edges it is self-made, and three days old. Healed clean; it will leave no mark. It is cut across the face with no pattern; it is no clan’s mark and tells no story. Punctures as before. Scent of witch-hazel. Weight down.
Done: Nothing for the cheek; nothing is needed. Rest.
Disposition: Kept two days.
For the commander’s notice: Self-made. I do not believe she meant it to heal.
Forwarded: Rûzhân 13.

[Margin, second hand: 8 days. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 517, Mughân 2
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Draumâkil and Hithriel, carrying her.
Presented: Faint on standing. Pale.
Found: Punctures, four pairs, of different ages. More venom than in any prior report on this patient; the freshest pair bled most of a day. Blood loss greater than before, though far less than in the case of Ozûtalai. All wounds placed beneath the collar line or where a sleeve covers. No other marks. Bathed, oiled, kept. Heart fast and thin.
Done: Pressure. Blood-broth. Kept lying with feet raised.
Disposition: Kept four days.
For the commander’s notice: The loss is larger than before, but the wounds are still placed where cloth covers. The one who did this was angry, and still careful.
Forwarded: Mughân 6.

[Margin, second hand: 3 days. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 517, Bashân 1
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Her division, carrying her.
Presented: Self-made wound.

[Note — The particulars of this report are lost; a band of water damage runs across the page here, as though it had been folded and the fold had lain in wet. What remains is below. —E.]

…deeper than in Rûzhân…

…meant…

Bashân 1: Fever by evening. Taken into custody until fit.
Bashân 2: Fever high.
Bashân 3: Fever breaking. Patient took broth.
Bashân 4: The Lady Thuringwethil came to the ward and demanded the patient on a matter of military necessity, which she did not state. Custody was asserted. The patient left the ward with the Lady, without discharge.
Disposition: Left custody undischarged. Not fit.
For the commander’s notice: You were there.
Forwarded: Bashân 6.

[Margin, second hand: not a numeral this time but a single word. I believe it is the first-person pronoun. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 517, Bashân 4
Patient: Bakharma, chief medical officer, CL-23.
Brought by: Walked in, after finishing her rounds.
Presented: Atypical punishment, received in the ward this day.
Found: Punctures to the neck, shoulders, and arms; many. All of one size and spacing, the same as in the cases of Ozûtalai and Draumâkil. Venom heavy. Bleeding from all. Pale. Heart fast.
Done: Pressure. Cold cloths. Blood-broth. The patient refused to lie down until her rounds were complete.
Disposition: Bled two days. Returned to duty on Bashân 9, against advice.
For the commander’s notice: Punishment was given within the ward, upon the undersigned’s refusal to release a patient from custody without cause stated. It was received by the patient in substitution for the undersigned, as is her right, though the manner of punishment was none prescribed in the Codes. Reports of unjust and irregular punishment and of violation of custody made separately. The patient is my commander and will read this. She should have lain down.
Forwarded: Bashân 6.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 517, Bashân 4
Patient: Gûrzalam, hauler, D-71-A. Left hand lost at the wrist; admitted Mughân 48.
Found: Stump reopened along its lower edge after being nearly closed. Patient sat up and stood against orders during the events in the ward this day. Agitated through the night. Would not eat.
Done: Stump re-dressed. Patient kept lying.
Disposition: Discharge put back eleven days.
For the commander’s notice: This patient and eight others in custody witnessed punishment given within the ward. Several have since asked me whether the infirmary is still the infirmary. I did not know how to answer them.
Forwarded: Bashân 6.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 517, Grazhân 40
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Draumâkil and Ozûtalai.
Presented: Brought to the door. Patient awake. Declined admission.
Found, as observed from the door: Thin. Head covered. Stands without help. Scent of witch-hazel reached me where I stood. Heart quick.
Done: Nothing. Patient is awake and of sound mind, and cannot be compelled.
Disposition: Patient declined.
For the commander’s notice: None I can act on.
Forwarded: Grazhân 42.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 518, Rûzhân 15
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Ozûtalai.
Presented: Fainted.
Found: Punctures, two pairs, beneath the collar line. Bathed, oiled, kept. Scent of witch-hazel. Hands cold. Needle-cuts unclosed. Weight down since Bashân. Heart quick. Examined to the shoulder only, as permitted.
Done: Warmth. Plain food. Rest.
Disposition: Kept two days.
For the commander’s notice: Bite as before.
Forwarded: Rûzhân 17.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 518, Mughân 20
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Draumâkil.
Presented: Fainted.
Found: Punctures, four pairs, of four different ages: beneath the collar line, at the inner arm, and one at the inside of the left wrist. Bruising to both upper arms, of several ages. Binding marks at both wrists. Inner eyelids pale. Scent of witch-hazel. Heart quick. Weight down. Examined to the shoulder and the wrist only, as permitted.
Done: Warmth. Plain food. Rest.
Disposition: Kept two days.
For the commander’s notice: Four pairs of four ages; she is fed on more often than before. The bite at the wrist is where her sleeve rides up when she works. Her division will have seen it.
Forwarded: Mughân 22.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 518, Bashân 31
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Ozûtalai and Draumâkil. Blood on her skirt.
Presented: Faint on standing. Bleeding from the leg.
Found: Punctures at the back of the right knee, still bleeding, though slowly; dark blood, not pulsing. More venom than at the collar. Older punctures beneath the collar line, at the inner arm, and at the wrist. Binding marks at both wrists, and for the first time at both ankles. Inner eyelids pale. Breathless on the stair. The patient permitted examination of the leg, the bleeding requiring it; this is the first time she has permitted me past the shoulder.
Done: Pressure. Cold cloths. Blood-broth. Kept lying with feet raised. Bleeding stopped by evening.
Disposition: Kept three days.
For the commander’s notice: She is not given time to make back what is taken.
Forwarded: Bashân 34.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 518, Grazhân 59
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Hithriel.
Presented: Faint on standing. Bruising at the neck, noticed by her division.
Found: A single pair of punctures at the side of the neck, low, beneath the edge of the kerchief, over the great vein and not the pulse. Two days old. It bled little, but no pressure was held on it, and the bruise has spread and tracked downward to the collarbone, where her collar hides it. Older bites at the arm, wrist, and knee, healing. Binding marks at wrists and ankles. Nails pale and splitting. Inner eyelids pale. Heart quick. Weight down.
Done: Warmth. Plain food. Rest. Iron filings steeped in wine, as a tonic, on the advice of an elven colleague of CL-4. More prepared to send with her at discharge.
Disposition: Kept two days.
For the commander’s notice: The first bite I have seen at her throat.
Forwarded: Grazhân 61.

[Margin, second hand: 12 days. —E.]

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 519, Rûzhân 65
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Draumâkil and Ozûtalai, supporting her. She walked part of the way.
Presented: Faint. Bleeding from the leg.
Found: A whole bite, the mark of all the teeth and not only the two, high on the inside of the left thigh, over the great vein. Dark blood, steady, not pulsing. Venom heavy. Bled through the day and into the night, and needed pressure by hand for some hours. Older bites at the collar, arm, wrist, neck, and knee, of many ages. Binding marks at wrists and ankles. Thinner than in Rûzhân of last year. Nails pale and splitting. She asks for ice from the cold store and chews it. Breathless at rest. Heart quick at rest and has not been even, her division tells me, since the turn of the year. The patient permitted examination of the leg, the bleeding requiring it.
Done: Pressure by hand, two healers in turn. Blood-broth. Kept lying with feet raised. The tonic again, and a double measure sent home with her division, with liver from the cold store and instructions that she is to have both.
Disposition: Kept five days.
For the commander’s notice: In Mughân of the year before last I wrote that the one who did this was angry, and still careful. There is less care in each report since. The bite is still placed over the vein.
Forwarded: Rûzhân 70.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 519, Bashân 22
Patient: Lûghakh, four winters, son of Hithriel, cutter, C-134-B.
Brought by: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B, carrying him.
Presented: Fell on the stair. Cut above the left brow.
Found: Cut clean, the length of a thumb joint. Bled freely, as cuts to the head do. Child frightened but steady. No other injury.
Done: Cleaned. Two stitches. The seamstress held him on her knee throughout and talked to him the whole while in our speech, badly, and made him laugh twice. He did not cry for the needle.
Disposition: Sent home with the seamstress.
For the commander’s notice: The seamstress was not my patient and I did not examine her, but I record what I saw. She is well. Weight up. Color good. Heart even. No scent of witch-hazel. She stayed briefly to hold a dressing for the next patient and would not be thanked. My people in the halls tell me the Lady Thuringwethil has been out of the mountain since the last days of Mughân. I have not been able to write the seamstress well before, and I wished to.
Forwarded: Bashân 22.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 519, Grazhân 68
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B.
Brought by: Draumâkil and Ozûtalai, carrying her. Unconscious. Draumâkil held pressure with both hands the whole way, as she had once seen me do.
Presented: Found by her division in the corridor outside the workroom before the first bell. Ozûtalai heard her heart through the wall, and heard it falter.
Found: All gains noted in Bashân are lost. A whole bite at the innermost thigh, in the fold of the groin, over the pulse and not the vein. Bright blood, rising with each beat of her heart. Venom heavier than in any prior report on this patient. Pale, cold. For a time I could barely hear her heart. Older bites at the wrist and neck, fresh since the Lady’s return. Binding marks at wrists and ankles.
Done: Pressure by hand through the night, three healers in turn, the full weight of the body behind it. Blood-broth by the spoon when she woke near the second bell. Kept lying with feet raised. Toward morning the bleeding at the wound slowed, but bruising has risen at the left flank and the small of the back, where no hand can press. She is bleeding where I cannot reach. When she can keep it down, the tonic again.
Disposition: Kept. Not fit.
For the commander’s notice: Every bite I have recorded on her in four years was placed over a vein. In Grazhân of last year I wrote that the one who did this knows the difference. This one was placed over the pulse. She has nothing left to lose and would not survive another like it. My people in the halls tell me the Lady Thuringwethil returned to the mountain on Grazhân 55.
Forwarded: Grazhân 69, while she is still in my custody.

[Margin, second hand: 1 day. —E.]

—

AJ 519, Ulubhân 47
Statement of the witness Bakharma, a healer of the second degree and chief medical officer of infirmary CL-23, offered on report to Ilûkhobh, a military investigator of the third rank.

I am called Bakharma. I have been chief medical officer of CL-23 for eleven years. Before that I was a field surgeon for forty-one years, with the armies on the march. I served in the fens, at the crossing of the Sirion, and on the plain in the year it burned, and I came home when my hands began to shake in the cold. My disciplinary record reflects some follies of my youth, but at all times I have sought to conduct myself with honor, and have no disciplinary incidents pertaining to dishonesty.

Before going further I will declare what I owe. In the year the plain burned, my unit was pinned in a gully below the river with the elves’ archers on both lips of it and no way out but up into them. The Lady Thuringwethil came over the ridge, and the elves saw something in the sky that I did not see, and they broke and ran. Forty-three of us walked out of that gully. I am one of them; I owe her my life, and have never pretended otherwise.

The Codes say that no loyalty owed to any person stands above the duty owed to the Lord of All. I know this. I have tried to keep it. I tell you about the debt so that you can weigh what I say with it known.

—Asked what she knew of the case of the seamstress Nárelótë, the witness stated as follows.

I know what my healer told me, and what is in his case reports. I read every one of them before I forwarded it, as I read every report that leaves my infirmary. I sealed them and sent them up to the Warden of Infirmaries for the western halls. I kept a copy of each. In the army we copied everything we sent, because dispatches get lost on the march. The habit stayed with me when I came home. I am glad of it now.

I will tell you plainly that when the seamstress first came to us I did not care for her. She was taken at Gondolin. I am not ashamed of what I felt about that city, and I will not dress it up for you. But a case report is a case report, and I forwarded every one.

—Asked about the marks in the margins of her copies, the witness stated that they are hers.

In AJ 516 my healer was punished four times in one year, for insubordination toward the Lady, always to the highest degree, never with the offense named. He is not afraid to speak his mind, but apart from those two old matters he reported on himself, he is not insubordinate. So I laid his disciplinary record beside my copies of his case reports. Every punishment came within ten days of a report on the seamstress going up. I wrote the number of days in the margin of each. I kept writing them for as long as there was anything to write.

After the Lady came into the ward, the marks stopped for a long time. Then there was one more, twelve days after a report rather than ten or fewer. I thought about that one a good deal. I believe it took her twelve days because she no longer cared what we wrote.

—Asked whether she made complaint up her chain, the witness stated that she did, each time a report of unjust punishment came to her, and each time forwarded it under her own seal with her endorsement. She stated that nothing came back down. Not a refusal, not a summons, not a rebuke. Asked whether this was usual, she stated: No.

On the fourth day of Bashân, AJ 517, I was in the next ward when I heard my healer’s voice raised. He does not raise his voice. When I came in, the Lady was standing among the beds and he was standing between her and the seamstress’s bed. I recited to the Lady the provisions of the Codes on custody, section by section, because I thought that if she heard them said aloud by someone of rank she might remember herself. She said the Codes did not concern her in this. Then I said I would take his punishment, by right, as his commander.

I will say why. I am old, and he is not. I have been bitten before, by things in the fens, and lived. And I owed her, so if it had to be someone, I thought it had better be the one who owed.

The Lady looked at me for some time, and then she smiled, and she seemed glad of it. I have thought since that she was glad because it was more than she had come for.

I did not kneel; there was no need. I stood where I was, between the end of the seamstress’s bed and the next, and the cold came into the ward the way it does when she is near. Then her creatures were there. I could not have told you how many. Ozûtalai’s report says he could never count them twice the same, and I could not either. I felt teeth at the side of my neck first, then at both shoulders, then at the inside of my arms. That is the grinding sound the sempster speaks of, and I will not describe it further, except to say that I have been bitten by things in the fens that sounded more like living creatures than these did.

The venom burns going in. Then the burning goes cold, and the blood does not stop. I knew what was happening, because I had read my healer’s reports and treated the sempster myself. I counted my own heartbeats to keep my head, as we teach the young ones in the field. I got to somewhere past two hundred before my knees went, and I was on the floor of my own infirmary, on my side, looking along the boards under the beds.

From there I heard the soldier with one hand shouting, and my healer trying to reach me, and something between him and me that kept him off. I heard the Lady say, in a voice meant for someone other than us, that the healer had already paid for her seven times, and she wondered how many more the commander had in her.

And then the seamstress stood up. I saw her feet come down off the bed, and the hem of her shift, and the bandage on her, and then I lost sight of her above the knee. I heard her cross to my healer, and I heard her stand there a long time without his saying anything. Then she walked to the Lady, and the cold went out of the room all at once, and the teeth were gone, and I was alone on the floor with my own blood running out of me, as my healer has written, into the cracks between the boards.

When it was over I finished my rounds. My healer has written that I should have lain down. He is right, and I would do the same again. There were nine people in that ward who had just watched a thing done in the infirmary that is never done there. They needed to see that the rounds still happen.

—Asked whether her debt to the Lady still stood after that day, the witness was silent for some time. Then she stated: A debt is owed to the one who saved you. I do not know who it was that came into my ward. I do not think it was the same person who came over the ridge. If it was, I think she has forgotten.

—Asked what occurred in Grazhân of this year, the witness stated as follows.

The seamstress was brought in before the first bell on Grazhân 68. I saw her that night. In forty-one years I have seen many people bleed like that, and very few lived. My healer and I and Yarûkh, who is fourth degree and very steady, held pressure in turns until morning. Then the bruising came up at the flank, and I knew she was bleeding inside, where we could not reach.

That morning I went up to the Warden myself. I did not send a report. I told him, in those words, that she will die. I told him the one who did it would do it again, and that she would not survive the next one. He heard me out. He said he would see it handled. He would not tell me how, and I did not press him, because I believed him.

On Grazhân 70 the Lady came to the infirmary again. She did not come into the ward. She stood in the doorway and called my healer and me out into the corridor, and we came. She did not look past us into the ward. I do not think she knew which bed was the seamstress’s, and I do not think she cared. That was not what she had come for.

She said that the healers of CL-23 had been carrying tales above their station, and she said she would teach us where we stood. She then ordered me to produce my cat, which I could not. I have not carried one on my person since I held my command on the march beyond these walls. When matters of discipline arise, I handle them officially, as one handles such things here; I have never had need to conduct a sentence on the spot. In response the Lady held a cat out to me, which appeared to be a regulation instrument, though I know not how she came by it. She said I was to give my healer fifty strokes, there in the corridor, and she would count.

I asked if I might take them in his place.

She said: “And have him strike a superior officer? No.”

I did not argue again. I had seen in my own ward what came of arguing with her. If I refused, I knew who would do it instead, and with what. With the lash, at least, I could choose where every stroke fell. So I chose.

He took off his robe and stood at the wall. The Lady’s attendants restrained his wrists above his head before a single stroke fell; he had made no move to resist. I laid the stripes as the officers of punishment are taught: across the shoulders and the upper back, nothing low, nothing near the spine, nothing at the kidneys, the strokes kept even so that no one place took more than its share. I counted aloud, as an officer would. So did she, a little behind me, so that the two counts never quite matched. I believe she meant them not to.

All the doors along the corridor were open, and no one came out. I want that understood: no one failed us. They had heard what the Lady said, and they knew she was standing there. They stayed where they were, as I would have told them to. But they heard every stroke, and every number in both counts.

The skin broke by the ninth. After that I was laying strokes on opened back, and I kept them as even as I could, so that nothing went deep and no one place carried what another could share. He did not cry out. He breathed hard through his teeth, and twice he put his forehead against the wall, and once his knees bent and he straightened them himself before I had to stop. By the thirtieth the blood had run down to his belt and was dripping onto the floor at his heels, and my arm had begun to feel it. I have not used my arm that way since I was young.

At forty I stopped. Forty is the highest degree; my hand stopped on its own. The Lady said, “Fifty,” and nothing else, and I went on.

At fifty she said that was correct, though by her count it was forty-eight, and by mine it was fifty. She took the cat back from me and wiped it on his robe where it lay folded on the floor, and handed nothing back, and went away down the corridor without looking into the ward once.

When she had gone I took him into the dressing room and washed his back with brine and dressed it with honey and linen myself. I did not let Yarûkh do it. By the next morning there was heat at the edges of three of the stripes. I have been changing the dressings twice a day since, and it is closing. He was at the bedsides by the second bell the next morning, sitting forward on his stool so as not to lean back. I did not order him to rest. I knew he would not.

The seamstress was in the ward the whole time, on the far side of that door. Yarûkh tells me she woke at the count, tried to get up, and fainted, and that he held her down until it was over. I have not asked her about it. She has not asked me.

—Asked whether she was aware that she had administered a punishment exceeding the highest degree, given without an offense named, without an officer of punishment, and without a healer present who was not herself the one giving it, the witness stated: Yes. To all of it. Asked why she did not report it, she stated that she did report it: it is in her own case report on her healer, dated Grazhân 70, a copy of which she has produced. This matter has been reported to Chief Investigator Lakjašalli.

[Note — One piece of free parchment fastened over this section with a clip, bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office. It indicates that by personal order of Lord Mairon, there will be no adjudication of guilt nor punishment assigned for Chief Medical Officer Bakharma of CL-23 for her conduct towards her subordinate Assurakûn, healer third rank, on the date of Grazhân 70. —E.]

—Asked about the last mark in the margins of her copies, the witness stated: I wrote it that night. I had kept the count for two years. I was not going to stop because the hand was mine.

—Asked as to the present condition of the seamstress, the witness stated that she remains in the custody of CL-23. She has stopped bleeding inside, but is far from mended. She cannot stand without help for long, her left leg gives way beneath her without warning, and she is breathless on any exertion. She is not fit to climb stairs, much less to work. The witness stated that she will continue to certify her not fit for as long as that is true, and that it will be true for some time.

—Asked whether any other officer had sought her records concerning the seamstress, the witness stated that in Bashân of this year accountants had come asking for the custody register of CL-23 as it concerned C-134-B. She stated that he wanted to know which days the seamstress had eaten from the infirmary’s allowance, and that she gave him copies. Asked whether she knew his purpose, she stated: No. He did not say, and I did not ask. A man who wants to know which days a patient ate is usually asking the right question.

—Asked whether she bears hatred toward the Lady Thuringwethil, the witness stated: I owed her my life. I would have paid it gladly. She asked me instead to pay with his back. I do not know what to call what I bear her now.

—Asked whether she wished to add anything, the witness stated: An officer I served under on the march used to say that what is done to the least of his soldiers is done to him. He meant it. He is gone, and I will not say his name in a room like this. But I have tried to keep my infirmary as if he might walk through the door. Write that I tried. And write that my healer had offered no resistance when she restrained him. He willingly submitted. She did not need to restrain him.

This statement and was read back to the witness, who affirmed it. Copies of her forwarding records, her copies of the case reports of the healer Assurakûn, and her own case report on that healer dated Grazhân 70 were entered as exhibits after being read back to her and affirmed. The witness signed for the whole and was admonished to secrecy by order of the Lieutenant’s Office. The witness’s heart was steady throughout, save when she spoke of the corridor.

—

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 516, Mughân 38
Patient: Assurakûn, healer third degree, CL-23.
Brought by: Yarûkh, healer, who found him in his quarters at the second bell when he did not come to the ward.
Presented: Stripes to the back, given last night in his quarters by the attendants of the Lady Thuringwethil, for insubordination to her, offense not named. Number uncertain; he believes forty. He reports that he could not keep the count, for the strokes came irregularly and were accompanied by things he would not describe to me.
Found: Stripes across the back from the shoulders to the waist, some low, some crossing the spine, unevenly laid. Bitten along their length, of the same size and spacing as in the cases of Ozûtalai and Draumâkil, C-134-B. Venom present. The stripes will not close. I count thirty-eight stripes clearly and cannot be certain of the rest.
Done: Washed with brine. Honey and linen. Pressure where bleeding was worst.
Mughân 40: Heat and swelling along eleven of the stripes. Pus at the crossings. Fever by evening. I forbade him the ward, and for once he obeyed me.
Mughân 41–43: Fever high. Abed. Did not know Yarûkh on the second night. Wounds opened, cleaned, and packed twice daily.
Mughân 44: Fever broken. Took broth.
Disposition: Kept abed six days in all. Returned to light duty Mughân 47, against advice. He will scar.
For the Warden’s notice: This is the fourth such punishment of this healer this year, each for insubordination to the Lady Thuringwethil, none with an offense named, each to the highest degree, none before an officer of punishment or an independent healer, and several with other irregularities. I have laid his disciplinary record beside the case reports he forwards on the seamstress Nárelótë, C-134-B. Each punishment falls within ten days of such a report going up. I ask the Warden to look at the dates. Report of unjust punishment made separately, under my seal.
Forwarded: Mughân 39, with follow-up Mughân 47.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT
AJ 519, Grazhân 70
Patient: Assurakûn, healer third rank, CL-23.
Brought by: Walked, with the undersigned.
Presented: Fifty stripes to the back, given this morning in the corridor outside the ward of CL-23 by the undersigned, on the order of the Lady Thuringwethil, who held the count. Offense stated by the Lady: carrying tales above our station. No such offense is in the Codes.
Found: Fifty stripes across the shoulders and the upper back, laid evenly. None low, none near the spine, none at the kidneys. Skin broken from the ninth. Bleeding from all, but no venom; the blood darkens and stops as it should. Bruising at both wrists where he was held by the Lady’s attendants. He offered no resistance before or during.
Done: Washed with brine. Honey and linen.
Grazhân 71: Heat at the edges of three stripes. No fever. Dressings changed twice daily. He was at the bedsides by the second bell, sitting forward so as not to lean back.
Disposition: Returned to duty on Grazhân 71, at his own insistence. Not abed.
For the Warden’s notice: The punishment exceeded the highest degree. It was given for no offense in the Codes, before no officer of punishment, with no healer present but the one laying the strokes. I asked to take it in his place and was refused. I laid the strokes, and I report it. Report of unjust punishment made separately, under my seal, against the Lady Thuringwethil and against myself. I went to the Warden in person yesterday concerning the seamstress Nárelótë, C-134-B. I set that date beside this one for the Warden’s attention.
Forwarded: Grazhân 70.

CL-23 — CASE REPORT, CONTINUED CUSTODY
AJ 519, from Grazhân 68
Patient: Nárelótë, seamstress, C-134-B. In custody of CL-23 since Grazhân 68; see the report of Assurakûn, healer third rank, of that date.
Attending: The undersigned, from Grazhân 70.
Grazhân 70: Woke at the count in the corridor. Tried to rise and fainted. Held by Yarûkh until it was over. Grey. Pulse fast and thin. Thirst. Confused on waking; knew her own name but not the day.
Grazhân 71: Bleeding within has stopped; the venom is spent. Bruising risen across the left flank, the groin, and the left thigh. Deep ache in the flank and back. Left leg weak; she cannot lift it from the bed. The front and inside of the thigh are numb to the touch. Low fever, as when the body takes back what it has spilled. Faints if raised to sitting. Clearer of mind.
Ulubhân 4: Sits with support. Takes broth, liver, the tonic. Fever gone. Bruising yellowing. Leg still weak; numbness unchanged. Wakes often at night. Starts at the sound of footsteps in the corridor.
Ulubhân 16: Stands with two to hold her. Left knee gives without warning. Breathless and heart racing after a few steps. Pale at the inner eyelids, nails, and lips. 
Ulubhân 36: Walks the length of the ward with a stick and a hand at her elbow, limping. Cannot manage the step down into the dressing room. Firm, tender swelling still deep in the groin. Thigh numbness lessening at the edges. Sleeps a little better. Still pale. Eats what she is given.
Disposition: Not fit. Custody continued. Certified by the undersigned as chief medical officer for thirty days from this date, to be renewed for as long as it remains true.
For the Warden’s notice: The ward door is kept by one of us at all hours. She has had no visitors but her division. They come every evening and sing at the door, a hunters’ call; it is not against any rule and I have not stopped it. She does not ask for anything. I record that she is alive.
Forwarded: Ulubhân 36.

—

AJ 519, Ulubhân 40
Second statement of the witness Surkimâghan, an accountant second rank, offered on report to Sírval, a military investigator, [Note — this text is partially illegible; I think this word is ‘first’, as in first rank? The rest is badly smeared. — E.]

…I have kept the accounts of the C divisions for nine years, in the counting-house of the western stores, and at all times have conducted myself with honor. In Bashân of this year I began a routine reconciliation of the records for the C-134 section, which was drawn by lot. I set the ration distribution for all workers against the counts credited to each station, and noted that in C-134-B there was one worker, a Nárelótë, who received nothing for runs of days: three days, five, once eleven. Yet the count at this worker’s station was met on every one of the days she was present. A worker who does not eat cannot sew a full count for eleven days. Either the count was false, or someone was feeding her who is not in the ledgers.

At this stage I considered three theories: First, that these were accounting errors on the part of the disbursers — it seemed unlikely to me as this was the only worker in the section whose records appeared this way, but was possible. I summoned the captain of SD-22 for questioning, and was satisfied from his answers that the records were accurate, and that his own division had noticed the same thing and considered it odd, but did not pursue further action as they felt it was not for them to flag an instance of someone receiving less than they should, instead of more.

The second theory was that perhaps she was fed by her friends or clan, which I considered improbable for a number of reasons. First, this worker was an apķe, taken in Gondolin, and these runs of days began within three weeks of her arrival, which seemed very swift for an adoption; second, she met her count every day she was present, which qualified her to receive rations on those days. Even if she were being fed, why would she not collect what was due to her? Routine adjustment difficulties might account for missing one, two, or even as many as three days, but I have never seen as many as eleven, nor had anyone else I asked in my division. I put this theory aside.

My next theory was that perhaps she was in the infirmary. It would be an odd pattern for infirmary visits, for her to be there for multiple days in a row yet still present at her station to meet her count, but it would explain where she was eating. So I sent my junior to CL-23 to ask the chief medical officer to present her custody register as it pertained to C-134-B. My junior said that she provided copies without asking why. When I set her days against the missed disbursements, the infirmary accounted for fewer than one in three disbursements missed, and on most of those days the seamstress’s count was excused, as one would expect. The other days still had no explanation.

And there was another matter. Three times in two years, C-134-B drew fine cloth from the stores against no order: dyed silk, and a lawn so fine I was unfamiliar with its name and had to send it to the weavers to learn it. No garment of that cloth went to any store in this mountain. When I came to the division asking about it, workers would tell me nothing, but one of them showed me which shelf the division’s own books were on. The cutter’s cloth-book there shows each length going to the station of the seamstress Nárelótë, and beside each, in the cutter’s hand, a mark I was told meant it was “for the Lady.” Which lady? They all bent their heads and hesitated. I know some in my place would have threatened them at that time, and even I might have done so when I first started nine years ago, but my mentor in the counting-house has taught me that one learns far more from workers at ease than those who are wary, so I tried to reassure them that it was not my desire to sentence anyone to the lash, but they all stayed quiet, and I let it go.

Then I summoned the captain of the division, Assupilik, to the counting-house to explain the discrepancies. I did this in the informal way, serving him good food and wine, in an audience room where he sat against the wall and I sat nearest the door with the table between us. He said first that his division was diligent, and that in her first year the seamstress Nárelótë had been slow and the others had helped her. I asked about the eleven days. He said she must have eaten with her clan. I asked him which clan, and he said he did not know. I asked about the cloth.

To the cloth, and to the other inconsistencies, the captain stated it was by the command of the Lady Thuringwethil. Having grown at ease in my presence and seeming proud of the position he had attained, he admitted that while anyone could make reports about his conduct, they would no sooner do so than it would be found out by her, and that she would immediately redress such behavior towards him. I asked him what he meant, but I think the manner of my asking made him wary. He would not explain, but he said that by her graces he would remain secure in his position for as long as she favored the charms of this woman Nárelótë, and that in this matter the Lady’s interest had not waned for several years.

Given his admissions, I graded the accounts of C-134-B as Referred for Inquiry and made a report of corruption and of suspected rape and prostitution of a subordinate to my commanding officer. He made a report of the same to his own commanding officers, who appeared to take it seriously at the time but took no action on it of which I am aware. At the time, this struck both of us as abnormal. I had never before seen such a case, but my commanding officer had seen two, and he said that in both instances inquiries were opened within a day of his report. At a minimum we thought that the seamstress must not be left under the command of one who had made admissions of prostituting her. My commander made repeated inquiries and was eventually told that at the moment the situation was not dire, as the seamstress was in the infirmary’s custody and was expected to remain so for some time, and thus was not currently subject to her captain’s orders. This he found very strange and unsatisfying, as he did not feel it addressed the problem at all.

During this time, I personally went to CL-23 with my junior and asked the chief medical officer whether any reports had gone up from her infirmary concerning the seamstress’s division. She showed me her forwarding records: two years of case reports and reports of unjust and atypical punishment, sent under her seal to the Warden of Infirmaries, and nothing come back down. I learned from the infirmary and from the other workers in the seamstress’s division, who were now far more willing to talk, that numerous other individuals had attempted to make reports of the same conduct, with the only apparent result being the Lady’s retributions against them.

I came to believe that the purpose of these retributions was to conceal her conduct from those who outranked her, so I sought audience with Lord Mairon to report this conduct to him personally. My commanding officer supported me in these efforts, but even so I was initially unsuccessful, as I feared that disclosing the purpose of my mission would lead to retribution against myself, my clan, and my commander, and the secretaries would not hear a request for audience without hearing the reason for it.

After making my pleas several times, one of the secretaries finally asked if I would prove my earnestness by submitting myself to the torture. I said that I would, and he made as if to lead me down to the torture chambers, bringing us down several flights of stairs before stopping abruptly and telling me that I must disclose the substance of my matter and that it would be treated with the utmost discretion. Again I refused, and he shook his head and said that if I troubled the secretaries again with the same matter without being willing to disclose its substance, I would be declared insubordinate. Then he walked away.

It was as I was walking back to my quarters that I first encountered the Lady Thuringwethil herself. The hall looked and sounded empty, as it often was at that hour, with nary a heartbeat to fill the silence. It felt unusually cold, and there was an odd faint scent of witch-hazel, but no scent of life. I believe now that Lady Thuringwethil had concealed herself within an alcove, for after I passed her voice sounded behind me, asking why I did not kneel and offer obeisance. Very startled to hear a voice where I was certain no one was present, I turned and saw the Lady with several of her attendants stood behind me in the corridor. None of them seemed to be alive, I could hear no heartbeats nor digestion nor any other sign of life, but suddenly my nostrils were choked with the scent of blood.

Again the Lady Thuringwethil asked why I did not kneel. In form she looked much like an elvish woman, but her skin was strange, stretched over bones, and her eyes appeared like clotted blood, entirely black. Her attendants milled about her, grinning hideously and making strange sounds like rending metal. One clutched at the ceiling with spider-like hands and crept towards me, head turned the wrong way, eyes staring at me. The terror of this broke my stupor; I turned and ran, thinking I heard my ancestors calling me, the Lady and her attendants’ ghastly laughter and strange scrabbling noises on my heels. For the next two days I hid in my commander’s rooms, thinking I heard their voices, fearing they would find me if I ventured out.

On the third day I left and made my way to the section of large halls that were as close as I could get to the throne room, where I encountered a wondrous stroke of luck. I heard the uncanny vibration in the ears that comes with being around the aklash-hai, then saw Lord Mairon making his way towards me and quickly threw myself in his path, pleading with him for an audience. What response he might first have had I cannot imagine, for I made my first entreaties to his feet and to the hem of his robes, which I was clutching, but he did not rebuke me. Instead after a few moments he bid me rise and accompany him, and said that he would hear my concerns after he had finished attending the Lord of All, in whose presence he was presently due.

When we reached the throne room, he bid me wait outside with the secretary until his audience was complete. While I was waiting, I saw what I believed was one of the Lady Thuringwethil’s attendants observing me from the shadow of a column, and became frightened enough that the unworthy thought passed my mind of hiding myself within the throne room; but the secretary restrained me and made a sign that I should not enter, and the moment passed. After perhaps an hour or a little less, Lord Mairon exited the throne room and caused me to be conducted to his office above the secretaries, where he appeared several minutes later and bade me explain the substance of my concerns.

To these concerns he seemed to listen with great gravity, asking a number of questions. He then had the substance of my statement transcribed for me and then read back, asking if it was correct, which I said it was, and I signed it. He then advised me that I was to maintain secrecy around this discussion henceforth unless ordered otherwise personally by himself or his chief secretary, which I have done until this very moment, offering this additional statement as he has ordered for these proceedings.

Chapter End Notes

"Apķe", lit. "louse" (borrowed from Hurrian), is a moderately derogatory Orcish slang term for 1st generation thralls in Angband/Utumno, especially those who are perceived as lazy, entitled, or not wanting to work, with a secondary implication of lacking family or clan ties.

"Mâlistanza", lit. "dead-soul" (compound of neo-Orcish "mâl" [dead] + Hittite "istanza" [soul]), is one of several terms used to refer to the state of being without a clan. Originally referring to individuals cast out of their clan as the most extreme version of a sanction for misbehavior. In later years under Angband & Utumno's influence, this word came to encompass individuals whose clans were wiped out, and sometimes was applied to thralls who escaped Angband alone, leaving all the members of their clan behind.

Angband, a regime under which everyone below Melkor is considered a thrall and everyone above working age is handed a work assignment, does not recognize consensual sex work. The laws of Angband, codified in a form known as the Lieutenant's Codes, recognize the circumstance in which an individual is provided with lifesaving aid in exchange for sexual favors as rape, and define the crime of prostitution not as the provision of sexual favors in exchange for goods and services, but as the selling of another person for one's own profit.

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[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

In the city of Angband, on the thirty-seventh day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, having examined information received by himself and his Office against Assupilik, captain, division C-134-B, son of Madharkiš, of the clan of Gundešha, for the crimes of corruption, abuse of office, prostitution, and other offenses—

Orders that the said Assupilik be removed from his command and confined in holding cells; that his property be seized, and its relevant items arranged for his accusation; that the clan of Gundešha be furnished with notice that their kinsman is held, this notice to include the location where subsistence shall be provided for him; and that should the accused’s clan declare that he is dead in their sight, the accused shall be kept in the usual style determined by the governor of prisons.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

In the city of Angband, on the thirty-seventh day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, having examined information received by himself and his Office against Thuringwethil, herald, for the crimes of rape, corruption, attempted murder, and other offenses—

Orders that the the said Thuringwethil be provisionally stripped of rank and confined in the secret prison prepared for this inquiry, where folk of the late Prince’s Guard shall be assigned to keep watch; that her property be seized, and its relevant items be arranged for her accusation; that in her confinement she receive nothing from any hand, nor be spoken to by any person; and that if at any time during her confinement she or her attendants be seen walking free in these halls, that she not be approached and he, the Lord Lieutenant, be made immediately aware, regardless of the time or circumstance.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

In the city of Angband, on the thirty-seventh day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, hereby orders on his own authority:

That Nárelótë, seamstress, formerly of Gondolin, be removed from her assignment to division C-134-B and reassigned to division S-2, the secretarial division, as a secretary ninth rank, junior;

That the same Nárelótë remain in custody of infirmary CL-23 until such time as she is determined by its chief medical officer to have become fit for duty;

That until further notice, no changes may be made to the worker assignments for infirmary CL-23 without the express written approval of the Lieutenant’s Office;

That the remaining workers currently assigned to C-134-B be kept ready to testify at the Lieutenant’s pleasure;

That Surkimâghan, accountant second rank of division S-9, be maintained in secret at the Lieutenant’s expense until such time as sentences are pronounced or other resolution reached in the cases in which he is a witness;

That Maktušakhar, chief accounting officer of division S-9, be presented with the opportunity for the same secret maintenance; and that if accepted, his command shall be preserved until such time as he is able to resume his post.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

In the city of Angband, on the fiftieth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, hereby orders on his own authority:

That a full accounting be made of the actions and inactions undertaken by those officials who have been in receipt of reports pertaining to unjust punishment, atypical punishment, prostitution, rape, and other offenses committed against individuals assigned to divisions C-134-B or CL-23, for the period of time beginning on the first day of Rûzhân and the five-hundred and fifteenth year of the Jewels through the present.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A small sheet, folded twice, bearing the seal of the enforcers for the division of internal matters.]

To the Lord Lieutenant, from Tornamukhaí, enforcement officer, second rank, internal matters.

I received the order of the Lord Lieutenant concerning Assupilik, captain of division C-134-B, at the evening bell of the thirty-seventh day of Ulubhân, and put it in execution the same night. With two officers of my division, I went to the quarters of the captains of section C-134 at the second bell after the evening meal. We found the said Assupilik at table with two other captains, dicing.

I asked him to stand apart from the others, which he did. I read him the order. He asked by whose word. I showed him the seal, and he looked at it a long while. Then he said that this would be the elf’s lies, and that he had always known she would bring the division to grief. He asked that word be sent to the Lady Thuringwethil. I told him I had no order to carry messages for him, and he did not ask again.

He went without restraint, and offered no resistance.

His quarters were sealed and searched in his presence, and the following found and taken in charge for the accusation: a flask of the wine of the south, half full; a ring of gold set with a garnet, in a box under the bed; two lengths of fine silk, blue, folded, in the same box; tallies for rations, seven, of division C-134-B, not issued to him. All other property is sealed in place.

The two captains at table with him were told that they had seen nothing, and were reminded of their oath.

Tornamukhaí, enforcement officer, second rank

—

[A copied page from a bound register.]

Register of the holding cells, lower ward.

On the thirty-seventh day of Ulubhân, at the fourth bell of the night, received from Tornamukhaí, officer of arrest: Assupilik, son of Madharkiš, of the clan of Gundešha, lately captain of division C-134-B, by order of the Lord Lieutenant. Placed in cell nine. Allowed nothing contrary to the instructions of the governor of prisons.

Found upon his person: shirt and breeches; a coat of a captain’s cut, with the cord of rank, which was removed and set aside; boots, one pair; a belt with a knife, which was taken; a pendant of division C-134-B; a comb.

He asked when he might send for his clan. He was told that notice has been sent by the Lieutenant’s order. He asked nothing else.

Hokhešha, keeper of the lower ward

—

[A sheet bearing the seal of the division of internal matters.]

Record of the execution of the order of the Lord Lieutenant concerning Thuringwethil, herald, made by me, Nênšelardi, recorder, internal matters, first rank, who was present at the Lieutenant’s direction for this purpose and no other.

On the thirty-seventh day of Ulubhân, at the third bell of the night, the Lord Lieutenant went to the chambers of the Lady Thuringwethil. With him were six wardens of the late Prince’s Guard and myself. The Lieutenant had told me beforehand what I might see, and directed me to write it as I saw it and not as I feared it. I have tried to do so.

Šalmiškallái, warden of the Prince’s Guard, knocked three times. The Lieutenant stood behind him and to one side, where anyone opening the door would see him. Before the door opened, the corridor turned cold, and there was a scent of witch-hazel.

The Lady opened the door herself. Behind her the room was full of figures. I could not count them, and the lamp did not touch them. Their teeth made the sound the witnesses describe. Then she saw the Lieutenant, and they were gone, as a lamp goes out. She did not look at the warden again.

The warden read the order aloud, in full. She heard it without speaking. When he had finished, she said to the Lieutenant, by his name and without his title: “Is this his word, or yours?”

The Lieutenant did not answer. The Lieutenant did not speak at any time during the arrest.

[Note — a line here has been burnt, such that a fine hole remains in the page. Nothing can be recovered. —E.]

She laughed once, not loudly. She held out her wrists to the warden. No restraint was put on her; it would not have served. She went between the wardens of her own accord and did not look back at her rooms. The Lieutenant followed at a distance of some ten paces, and I followed him.

We came to the place prepared. The Lieutenant went in alone with her and two of the wardens. I was not permitted to follow, and I did not see how the door was made fast. He came out after somewhat less than a bell. The wardens of the first watch took up their posts, and the Lieutenant gave them their orders in my hearing: she is to receive nothing, be spoken to by no one, and be reported to him at once if seen walking free.

The Lieutenant then returned to her chambers, where the inventory was taken in his presence. That inventory is entered separately.

Read over by the Lord Lieutenant, and approved, with the one line struck by his hand.

Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank

—

[Copies of several ledger pages, ruled in columns, bound with cord.]

Inventory of the chambers of Thuringwethil, herald of the Lieutenant, made on the night of the thirty-seventh day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, by order of the Lord Lieutenant, he being present; the wardens of the late Prince’s Guard being present; the clerk Mîragniš, of stores, third rank, writing.

Items marked S are set aside for the accusation. Items unmarked are sealed in place.

The outer room.

1. Couch, long, of carved wood, heaped with cushions of silk and velvet, in all twenty-two. Unmarked.
2. Table, low, of black wood inlaid with silver, set for one: one plate of silver, one cup of crystal, one spoon of silver, one knife for fruit. The plate has been used. Unmarked.
3. Honey, in the comb and run, imported, in crocks, eleven crocks. Nine full. S
4. Figs, apricots, and dates, southern imports, dried, in jars, fourteen jars. S
5. Caribou and salmon, smoked, hung in the cold-press. A quantity. S
6. Wine, of the south, in skins and jars. A quantity. Unmarked.
7. Witch-hazel water, distilled, in stoppered jars of green glass, six jars, two of them half used. S
8. Ointment of witch-hazel in wax, strong-scented, in pots of white clay, four pots, one much used. S

The bedchamber.

9. Bed, of four posts, of dark wood carved with wings, very fine. Hung with curtains of silk damask, dark red. Made up with sheets of the finest lawn, a coverlet of silk damask, and pillows of eider down, nine. Unmarked; sealed in place.
10. Cords of silk, braided, dark red, four. Found tied, one to each of the four posts of the bed. Cut down by the clerk at the Lieutenant’s direction. S
11. Collar, of soft leather lined with silk, with a ring of silver. S
12. Lead, of braided silk, fastened to the ring of the said collar. S
13. Whip of many short tails, of soft leather, not of the regulation pattern. Too light, by the clerk’s judgment, to serve as an instrument of punishment. Its purpose is not known to the clerk. S, set aside by the Lieutenant’s own hand.
14. Cat, of the regulation pattern, nine tails. Cleaned, but not well. S
15. Gown, of dyed silk, blue, lined with lawn, finely made. Made to a measure smaller than the Lady’s in the bust and hip. S
16. Shifts, of lawn, six, made to the same measure as the said gown. S
17. Slippers, of silk, two pair, made to the same measure. S
18. Comb of ivory; brushes, three; pins for the hair, of silver, a quantity. Long dark hairs caught in the comb and brushes. S

The press in the bedchamber.

19. Press, of black wood, two doors, five shelves. Unmarked.
20. Sheets, of the finest lawn, folded, eight pair. Unmarked.
21. Pillow-cases, of the same, fourteen. Unmarked.
22. Towels, of linen, a quantity. Unmarked.
23. Gowns of the Lady’s own, of silk and velvet, black and dark red, five. Unmarked.
24. Sheet, of the same lawn as the bed, folded small and pushed to the back of the lowest shelf behind the said towels. Stiff with old blood through every fold. S

A chest at the foot of the bed, locked; opened at the Lieutenant’s direction.

25. Kerchiefs, of rough cloth, pieced from scraps of many colors and kinds. One hundred and sixty-three. Folded and laid in rows. S
26. Gown, of the fashion worn by the elves of Gondolin, of fine wool once blue, torn at the hem and one sleeve. Stiff with mud, soot, and ash. Never washed. S
27. Shoes, of an elvish fashion, one pair, worn through at both soles. Caked with the same. S
28. Veil or head-cloth, of fine white linen, of an elvish fashion, grey with ash. S
29. Locks of hair, each tied with a thread, in a small casket of silver. Seven. By the clerk’s judgment, from seven different heads, of several colors. S

A stand by the wall.

30. A cloak, or a hide, or a pair of wings, of very great size, of dark skin and hair, as of a bat. The clerk could not approach it. When any came within a pace of it, a sound came out of it like voices screaming. It was taken down by a warden of the Prince’s Guard, folded at the Lieutenant’s direction, and bagged in sacking. S, kept apart.

A box of small things on the table by the bed.

31. Brooch, of gold, worked as a pair of wings. Of very fine work. Marked on the back with the sign of the Eye. Taken up by the Lieutenant. Not entered for the accusation.
32. Rings, of gold and silver, nine; a necklace of garnets; earrings, three pair. Unmarked.

Note of the clerk

No quarters, bedding, rations, pendants, or possessions were found anywhere in these chambers for any attendant of the Lady. The clerk could find no place where the Lady’s attendants sleep, eat, or keep their things.

All the above was entered in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant, who read it over and approved it.

Mîragniš, clerk of stores, third rank

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A small sheet bearing the seal of the division of internal matters.]

On the forty-ninth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, in the infirmary CL-23, at the bedside of Nárelótë, secretary ninth rank, junior, lately seamstress of division C-134-B; present Ilûkhobh, investigator, third rank; Bakharma, chief medical officer of CL-23; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank.

The articles numbered 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26, 27, and 28 in the inventory of the chambers of Thuringwethil, lately herald, were shown to the said Nárelótë one by one, and she was asked whether she knew them.

She stated that she recognized them.

[Note — Remainder of the sheet badly crumpled and stuck together with some sticky substance — made an attempt to unstick and gave up for fear of damaging the records. —E.]

—

[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

In the city of Angband, on the fiftieth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, orders on the authority bestowed on him by the Master of the Fates of Arda the following Instructions for the conduct of the present inquiry into matters concerning divisions C-134-B and CL-23.

Whereas the offenses alleged are grave, touching the honor of the Codes and the bodies of those who live under them;

And whereas one of those accused holds office by the Lieutenant’s own appointment, and was of his household;

And whereas such an event is without precedent and unanticipated in the Codes, the Lieutenant being the highest judge beneath the Lord of All, and there being no other to whom the matter may be given;

So that judgment in this inquiry may be just, and be seen to be just by all who live under the Codes, the Lieutenant orders:

I. That these Instructions shall govern the present inquiry and no other, and shall bind every person accused, called as witness, or appointed to office in it.

II. That three assessors shall be appointed by commission to sit with the Lieutenant throughout the inquiry. No assessor shall be a witness in it, nor of the clan of any person accused, nor hold any office by appointment of a person accused, nor owe any person accused a debt of life or service.

III. That the assessors shall attend the audiences, examine the record, and, with the Lieutenant’s leave, put questions to any person appearing. Before any sentence is pronounced, each assessor shall give an opinion, which shall be entered in the record in the assessor’s own words, whether the assessors agree or not.

IV. That the opinions of the assessors shall advise and shall not bind. No sentence shall be pronounced, nor any proceeding had, save by the Lieutenant, who alone shall judge.

V. That the assessors shall speak plainly, and shall say to the Lieutenant what they judge to be true, whether or not it is what he wishes to hear. No assessor shall suffer in rank, assignment, person, or clan for any opinion given in this inquiry.

VI. That each person accused, after the accusation has been presented and answered, shall be offered a choice between two advocates named by the Lieutenant’s Office. The advocate shall swear to defend the accused faithfully, so far as the Codes allow; to tell the accused plainly if the cause cannot be defended; and to keep secret all that passes. The advocate shall speak with the accused only in the presence of the recorder.

VII. That the elders of the clan of any person accused may ask to be heard once before sentence, and if they ask, they shall be heard, and their words entered in the record.

VIII. That those persons offended against, as well as the elders of their clans, may ask to be heard once before sentence, and if they ask, they shall be heard, and their words entered in the record.

IX. That the Lieutenant may admit observers to any audience. Observers shall be sworn to secrecy, and shall not speak unless asked.

X. That every audience shall be recorded in full by the secretary and the recorder appointed, and that the record shall be read over and attested at the close of each audience.

XI. That all persons appointed or admitted under these Instructions shall be sworn to secrecy, upon the same terms as witnesses.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, to Urukišha, lately Arbiter of the Clans, now elder of the clan of Zíšelardi, greeting.

The office of Arbiter of the Clans being at present held provisionally, pending the assent of the clans; and the Lieutenant reposing especial trust in your wisdom, your knowledge of the clans and their law, your long and faithful service, and your readiness to speak plainly before any person:

The Lieutenant by these presents appoints you assessor in the inquiry into matters concerning divisions C-134-B and CL-23, to sit with him throughout, according to the Instructions given on the fiftieth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels. He charges you to attend the audiences, to examine the record, to give your opinion before any sentence, and to say to him what you judge to be true.

Given in the city of Angband, on the fiftieth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, to Šunilukkái, warden of the late Prince’s Guard, greeting.

The Lieutenant reposing especial trust in your courage, your steadfastness, your fidelity, and the fairness you have shown to those beneath you in rank:

The Lieutenant by these presents appoints you assessor in the inquiry into matters concerning divisions C-134-B and CL-23, to sit with him throughout, according to the Instructions given on the fiftieth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels. He charges you to attend the audiences, to examine the record, to give your opinion before any sentence, and to say to him what you judge to be true.

Given in the city of Angband, on the fiftieth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, to Lakjašalli, Chief Investigator, internal matters, greeting.

The Lieutenant reposing especial trust in your learning in the Codes, your exactness, your integrity, and the counsel you have already given in this inquiry:

The Lieutenant by these presents appoints you assessor in the inquiry into matters concerning divisions C-134-B and CL-23, to sit with him throughout, according to the Instructions given on the fiftieth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels. He charges you to attend the audiences, to examine the record, to give your opinion before any sentence, and to say to him what you judge to be true.

Given in the city of Angband, on the fiftieth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

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—First Audience—

In the Hall of Bears, on the fifty-second day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, before any prisoner was brought, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; present also Mírlach, secretary, first rank, and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The Lieutenant ordered that the Instructions given on the fiftieth day of this month be read aloud in full, which was done. He then ordered the assessors named in his commissions to come forward and be sworn.

Urukišha, lately Arbiter of the Clans, elder of the clan of Zíšelardi, was carried forward in her chair by two of her kin. The Lieutenant gave her leave to swear seated, which she did, swearing first by the Lord of All, and secondly by her ancestors and the ancestors of her clan, in the following form:

That she would attend the audiences of this inquiry and hear all that passed in them; that she would give her opinion before any sentence, and give it truly, by what she knew and what she judged, and not by fear or favor, nor for any debt, nor for any hatred; that she would say to the Lieutenant what she judged to be true, whether or not he wished to hear it; and that she would keep secret all that passed.

Asked whether she had any bond with any person accused, any witness, or any person offended against, she stated that she did not, save that she had known many captains in her time and had liked few of them. The Lieutenant directed that this be written.

Šunilukkái, warden of the late Prince’s Guard, came forward in a form fitting the hall. He swore first by the Lord of All, and secondly by the Prince whom he had served, in the same form.

Asked whether he had any bond with any person accused, he stated that he had fought in the same campaigns as the Lady Thuringwethil and had seen her work in the field, but that he owed her no debt of life or service, and that she owed him none. The Lieutenant accepted this.

Lakjašalli, Chief Investigator, internal matters, swore first by the Lord of All, and secondly by the Codes, in the same form.

Asked whether she had any bond with any person accused, she stated that she did not. She stated further that the evidence in this inquiry was gathered by investigators under her command, and that she declared this so that it might be weighed. Urukišha then asked, with the Lieutenant’s leave, whether the Chief Investigator would be judging her own people’s work. Lakjašalli answered that she would be judging the evidence, as she always did, and that if she found any fault in it she would say so first. The Lieutenant directed that both the question and the answer be written.

The Lieutenant then admitted as observer Hašmetarai, Arbiter of the Clans, provisional, at the request of the assessor Urukišha. She was sworn to secrecy and to silence unless asked, and took her place behind the assessor’s chair.

The Lieutenant then declared the assessors seated, and ordered that the accused Assupilik be brought from the holding cells. This being done, the accused was sworn, first by the Lord of All and secondly by his ancestors, to tell the truth promptly and entire, concealing nothing, and to keep secret all that he should see, hear, or learn in these proceedings and all that should befall him.

He was told that he would be asked to give an account in his own words, that he would not be interrupted while giving it, and that he should take what time he needed. He was given leave to sit.

Asked his name, clan, position, and service, he answered that he is Assupilik, son of Madharkiš, of the clan of Gundešha; that he was captain of division C-134-B for sixteen years, and before that a stitcher in the same section for thirty-one; and that in all that time he conducted himself with honor.

Asked his disciplinary history, he answered that he was given five strokes in his first year as captain, for a count misreported, which he reported himself; and that he has received no other punishment.

Asked whether he knows the Codes, he answered that he does, having kept them sixteen years as captain. He was then asked to recite the provisions concerning punishment given by an officer on his own authority, the duty to report offenses, the taking of favors, and the giving of subordinates; and he recited them as follows:

That the offense shall be named to the offender before any punishment is given; that the punishment shall be entered in the division’s register, with the offense, the degree, and the name of the officer who gave it; that the degree shall fit the offense; and that no officer shall give more than twelve strokes on his own authority without a healer present who has declared the offender fit.

That any person who knows of an offense against the Codes shall report it; and that an officer who receives such a report shall carry it to his superior without delay.

That no officer shall take any gift or favor for permitting an offense, nor for failing to report one.

That no officer shall give, lend, or suffer any person under his command to be taken by another for the use of their body, or for any other purpose against their honor, in return for any benefit to himself; and that this offense shall not be judged by any officer, but shall be brought before the Lieutenant’s court.

He recited these correctly and in full. The Chief Investigator, being asked by the Lieutenant, confirmed that he had.

He was then admonished to recollect himself and to confess freely and in full whatever he had done, said, or seen which might be offensive to the Lord of All, concealing nothing either concerning himself or any other person, and bearing false witness against no one; submitting himself entirely to the Giver of Freedom, under whose hand he and all things are held. He was told that one who confesses freely completes the cycle of offense and expiation, and goes out from it with a clean slate, and that one who does not cannot.

Asked whether he knows or conjectures why he is held, he answered that he does not know, but supposes it is because of lies told by his subordinates, who dislike him because he holds them to their counts.

Asked to give a full account of his division and its work, from the time the seamstress Nárelótë was assigned to it until the present, he stated as follows:

That the seamstress came to the division in the winter after the elves were brought from Gondolin, with many others. That from the first she would not work, and wept at her station, and would not eat with the others, and spoke to them in her own tongue in a manner he understood to be contemptuous. That he was soft with her, because she was new to the ways of Angband, and did not report her for refusing her count, but let her go without rations as the custom is.

That after some time she began to work a little, but then took to telling the other workers outlandish stories of her life before Angband, of fountains and gardens and towers of white stone, and of lying about all day doing nothing; and that this made the others discontented and slow, and that the division has been worse ever since she came.

That she stole food, and induced others to steal for her, chiefly the sempster Ozûtalai, who has stolen from the hall on several occasions for her sake.

That Draumâkil often takes breaks without leave, for which he has disciplined her.

That after some time the seamstress took to abandoning her station for more than a day at a time, without leave and without report. That he bore this for a long time out of pity. That at last he felt he had no choice but to lash her for abandoning her post. That even then he was merciful, giving the strokes himself and as lightly as he could, and not entering them in the register, so that it should not count against her.

Asked whether he knew where the seamstress went when she left her station, he answered that he did not, and supposed she went to sulk, or to the infirmary, where she was often to be found complaining of one thing and another.

Asked what he knew of the seamstress being brought to the infirmary, he answered that he supposed she had lately met with some accident and been in custody of the infirmary for some weeks, but knew nothing further.

Asked what he knew of the sempster Ozûtalai being brought to the infirmary bleeding, he answered that he was not in the workroom that day, being at the stores on the division’s business. That when he returned, the sempster was on the floor and the others about him. That he sent him at once to the infirmary. That he did not know how the sempster came to be hurt, and supposed he had quarreled with someone over food.

Asked what he knew of the seamstress Draumâkil being lashed in the workroom, he answered that she was disciplined for lying to an officer, and that he gave the strokes himself.

Asked by what officer’s order, he answered that it was his own order.

Asked how many strokes, he answered: forty.

Asked whether lying is an offense of the highest degree, he answered that it was a grave lie, and that he judged it so.

Asked to give a full account of his acquaintance with the Lady Thuringwethil, he stated as follows:

That he knows the Lady as everyone does, as the Lieutenant’s herald, and has seen her at the great feasts. That she came to the division on occasion, as officers of rank sometimes do, and took an interest in the quality of its work, and spoke with him about the sewing. That she was always gracious to him. That he did not know her well, and could not say more.

Asked when he first spoke with her, he answered that he could not remember exactly, but that it was some years ago, perhaps in the winter the elves came from Gondolin.

Asked how often she came to the division, he answered: not often. Asked how often was not often, he answered: some few times in a season. Asked whom she spoke to when she came, he answered that she spoke to him, and sometimes looked at the workers’ stitching.

Asked whether she had ever given him anything, he answered that she had not.

Asked whether he had ever asked any person to carry word to her on his behalf, he answered that he had not.

Asked where the fine cloth drawn by the division from the stores was used, he answered that it went to the orders it was drawn against, as all cloth does.

The Lieutenant then directed that the accused be asked again, from the beginning, how the seamstress came to be absent from her station. He answered that she would go off for a day or two at a time, without leave, and that he did not know where. Asked how long the longest absence was, he answered that it might have been three days. Asked again whether he had lashed her for it, he answered that he had. Asked how many strokes, he answered: ten, or perhaps twelve. Asked where this was done, he answered: in the workroom, before the division. Asked again who was present, he answered that he could not now remember who was at their stations that day.

The account was then read back to the accused in full, and he affirmed it to be true and correctly recorded.

The Lieutenant then gave the assessors leave to question the accused upon his account.

The assessor Urukišha asked whether the seamstress Nárelótë would eat with the others of the division. The accused answered that she would not, as he had said.

Asked whether the sempster Ozûtalai stole food for her sake, he answered that he did, as he had said.

Asked for whom the sempster stole food, if the seamstress would not eat it, he answered that she ate it later, by herself.

Asked whether the sempster stole the food, or gave the seamstress his own, he answered that he did not know which.

Asked whether a worker who gives his own food to one who is slow, among the people of the clans, is called a thief, the accused did not answer.

Urukišha asked whether the workers of his division dislike him. He answered that some do, because he holds them to their counts.

Asked whether he is soft with them, he answered that he is, as he had said.

Asked whether workers commonly dislike a captain who is soft with them, he answered that workers will dislike any captain.

The assessor Lakjašalli asked whether the seamstress abandoned her station without leave on many occasions. He answered that she did.

Asked whether he reported this, he answered that he did not, out of pity.

Asked whether he had recited, at the opening of this audience, that any person who knows of an offense against the Codes shall report it, he answered that he had.

Asked whether abandoning one’s station without leave is an offense against the Codes, he answered that it is.

Lakjašalli asked how many strokes he gave the seamstress. He answered: ten, or twelve.

Asked whether twelve is the greatest number an officer may give on his own authority without a healer present, he answered that it is.

Asked whether, by his own recitation, a punishment given must be entered in the register with the offense, the degree, and the name of the officer who gave it, he answered that it must.

Asked whether he entered it, he answered that he did not, as he had said, out of mercy.

Asked why he would consider this to be mercy, he answered that he has heard it said that some captains hold the disciplinary records of their subordinates against them, and that if she were reassigned he would not wish her to have so many offenses on her record, as it might prejudice other captains against her.

Asked who was present when the strokes were given, he answered that the division was present, but that he could not remember which workers were at their stations.

Asked whether, in a division of eleven, any one of them was absent that day, he answered that he could not remember.

Lakjašalli asked whether the sempster Ozûtalai was found on the floor of the workroom, bleeding. He answered that he was, as he had said.

Asked whether the accused believed the sempster had been hurt in a quarrel, he answered that he did.

Asked whether a quarrel in which one worker is left bleeding on the floor is an offense contrary to the Codes, he answered that it is.

Asked to whom he reported it, he answered that he did not report it, since he did not know who had done it.

Asked whether the Codes require that an offense be reported only when the offender is known, he answered that they do not.

Lakjašalli asked whether his register has ever been faulted. He answered that it has not.

Asked whether his division has been worse since the seamstress came, as he had said, he answered that it has.

Asked whether the counts of the division recorded in his register have been worse since she came, he did not answer at once. Then he said that his workers had made up the count between them.

The Lieutenant then questioned the accused himself.

Asked whether he is a compassionate captain, the accused answered that he tries to be.

Asked whether he knows his workers and their troubles, he answered that he does.

Asked whether he makes efforts to learn when his workers meet with troubles that are not known to him, he answered that he does.

Asked whether he takes their troubles into account, he answered that he does, as far as the Codes allow, and stated that the lieutenant was very gracious.

Asked to recount how long the seamstress Nárelótë has been in the infirmary, he answered that she has been there for some weeks, as he said.

Asked if there has been another occasion where one of his workers has been in the infirmary for such a length of time, he answered that there has not.

Asked the longest length of time he has had a worker absent in the infirmary, he answered that he did not know, but apart from Nárelótë’s absence, perhaps one or two weeks.

Asked if he would contest if told that twelve days had been the longest, he answered that he would not.

Asked if he would contest that the seamstress Nárelótë entered custody of the infirmary on the sixty-eighth day of Grazhân, he answered that he would not.

Asked if he agrees that fifty-six days have passed since the sixty-eighth day of Grazhân, he answered that he could not make this figure in his head, but would take it on belief.

Asked if he agrees that fifty-six days is longer than twelve days, he answered that it was.

Asked if during any of those fifty-six days he had made efforts to visit his worker in the infirmary, he answered that he had not.

Asked if during any of those days he had sent food to her, he answered that he had not.

Asked if during any of those days he had sent blankets to her, he answered that he had not.

Asked if during any of those days he had sent broth to her, he answered that he had not.

Asked what accident the seamstress Nárelótë had met with, which has kept her some weeks in the infirmary, he answered that he did not know.

Asked whether he had asked, he answered that he had not, his duties not allowing it.

The Lieutenant directed that the accused’s last answer be read back to him, which was done. He affirmed it. The accused then said, without being asked, that the seamstress was always in and out of the infirmary, and that he had supposed it was the same as the other times; and that he had a division to keep.

Asked whether he keeps the Codes as carefully as he recited them, he answered that he does.

Asked how many strokes the seamstress Draumâkil was given, he answered: forty.

Asked for what offense, he answered: for lying to an officer.

Asked whether she lied to him, he answered that she lied to an officer.

Asked to which officer, he answered that he could not remember.

Asked on whose order she was lashed, he answered: on his own.

Asked whether he ordered forty strokes for a lie told to an officer whose name he could not remember, he did not answer.

Asked whether forty is more than the twelve he recited, he answered that it is.

Asked whether a healer was present who had declared her fit, he answered that there was not.

The assessor Šunilukkái then asked, with the Lieutenant’s leave, why an officer of the Lady Thuringwethil’s rank, whose work is in the field, would come some few times in a season, for some years, to look at the stitching of a sewing division. The accused answered that he did not know; that she took an interest.

Asked whether he knows well an officer who has come to his workroom some few times each season for some years, and spoken with him every time, he answered that he did not know her well, as he had said.

The Lieutenant then asked the accused to consider the following, and to answer as he judged.

Asked what the Codes would require if a captain gave forty strokes without a healer present, for an offense he could not name, he answered that such a captain should be brought before his superior, and that if the captain were proven to have done what was accused, by his guilt he would be owed the same forty strokes; or twice that if the worker were aged or young, or suffered permanent harm by his conduct.

Asked what he would conclude of a captain who recited the Codes correctly and in full, and then, by his own account, failed to report what he was bound to report, gave strokes he did not enter, and gave more strokes than he might lawfully give, he answered that such a captain had been careless.

Asked whether he would believe such a captain if he said he had done no wrong, he did not answer.

He was then admonished to recollect himself and to confess freely and in full, concealing nothing either concerning himself or any other person; submitting himself entirely to the Giver of Freedom, so that his offenses might be paid for and the stain of them taken from him, and he go out with a clean slate. He answered that he had nothing more to say.

The assessor Urukišha then asked the Lieutenant’s leave to tell the accused a thing from the old days. Leave being given, the Lieutenant directed that it be written as she spoke it. She said:

“In the year of the long winter, there was a captain of the eastern dyeworks who had in his charge a young worker with no clan. A guest of rank came to the dyeworks, and took a liking to the worker. The guest brought the captain gifts, and the captain took them. When the guest sent for the worker, the captain sent her, and when he saw the guest coming, he found that he had business elsewhere. The others of the dyeworks came to him and said what was being done, and he told them it was nothing, and gave them more work so they would have no breath to say it again. The worker grew thin. The others sang her home at night. The captain said she was slow.”

She asked the accused what that captain deserved.

The accused answered that such a captain was without honor, and that his clan ought to turn their faces from him; that he was dead in their sight.

Urukišha said that she would remember that he had said so.

He was again admonished to recollect himself and to declare the truth, and was returned to the holding cells.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—Second Audience—

In the Hall of Bears, on the fifty-third day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The Lieutenant ordered that the accused Assupilik be brought from the holding cells, which being done, he was reminded of the oath he had sworn.

Asked whether he remembered anything relating to his affair which he was bound by that oath to declare, he answered that he had nothing more to say at present.

He was then reminded that in the previous audience he had been admonished to recollect himself and to confess freely and in full, concealing nothing either concerning himself or any other person, and bearing false witness against no one; submitting himself entirely to the Giver of Freedom, under whose hand he and all things are held, so that his offenses might be paid for and the stain of them taken from him, and he go out with a clean slate; and that one who does not confess cannot. He was admonished again in the same form.

He answered that he had nothing more to say.

He then asked, without being asked, what accident the seamstress Nárelótë had met with.

He was told that he would be answered in due course.

He was again admonished to recollect himself and to declare the truth, and was returned to the holding cells.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—Third Audience—

In the Hall of Bears, on the fifty-fourth day of Ulubhân and the five-hundred and nineteenth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The Lieutenant ordered that the accused Assupilik be brought from the holding cells, which being done, he was reminded of the oath he had sworn.

Asked whether he remembered anything relating to his affair which he was bound by that oath to declare, he answered that he had nothing more to say.

He was then reminded that in the two previous audiences he had been admonished to recollect himself and to confess freely and in full, submitting himself entirely to the Giver of Freedom, so that his offenses might be paid for and the stain of them taken from him. He was informed that Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank, had an accusation to bring against him; that he would do well to declare the whole truth before it was brought, since one who confesses before the accusation finds more mercy than one who confesses after it; and that otherwise the accusation would be brought, and justice done.

The accused was silent for some time. Then he stated as follows:

That the seamstress Draumâkil was given forty strokes by the order of the Lady Thuringwethil, and not by his own; that the Lady said Draumâkil had lied to her servant; that he does not know what the lie was, nor what any of it concerned; that he believed then, and believes now, that the Lady would not have given such an order without just cause; that he did wrong in giving forty strokes without a healer present, and in not entering the punishment as he ought; that he deserves forty strokes for it, or twice that, or three times that, as the Lieutenant may judge; and that he knows nothing of any other matter, and had no part in any other matter.

The assessor Lakjašalli asked, with the Lieutenant’s leave, whether in the first audience he had sworn twice that the strokes were given by his own order. He answered that he had.

Asked whether that answer was true, he answered that it was not.

Asked whether he was present in the workroom when the Lady came on that day, he answered that he was, since he gave the strokes.

Asked whether the Lady named the offense before the strokes were given, he answered that she did.

Asked what she named it, he answered: lying to her servant.

Asked whether, in the first audience, he had said that he could not remember to which officer the seamstress had lied, he answered that he had.

Asked whether the division was present when the offense was named, he answered that they were standing along the wall.

Asked whether all of them were present, he answered that he believed so.

Asked whether he protested the order, he answered that he did not.

Asked whether he was threatened, he answered that he was not; that the Lady is gracious, and that he would not wish it written that she threatened him.

Asked whether he reported the punishment afterward to his superior, he answered that he did not.

Asked under whose name it was entered in his register, he answered: his own.

The assessor Šunilukkái then asked, with the Lieutenant’s leave, whom the Lady’s servant had come to the workroom looking for. The accused answered that he did not know.

The assessor Urukišha then asked the Lieutenant’s leave to speak, which being given, the Lieutenant directed that it be written as she spoke it. She said:

“When I sat as Arbiter, I learned that those who offer to pay three times over for a small debt are always the ones who owe a large one. A worker who has stolen a crust offers a crust. It is the one who has stolen a vault of gold who offers to pay three times for the crust.”

The Lieutenant then asked the accused whether what he had now declared was all that he had to confess. He answered that it was.

Asked whether it was the whole truth, he answered that it was.

He was then admonished that a confession which hides any part of the truth completes nothing, and that the stain of an offense not confessed cannot be taken from one who conceals it; and that he would do well, even now, to declare the whole.

He answered that he had nothing more to say.

Straightway appeared Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank, who presented the accusation, signed in his own hand, and swore that he did not bring it out of malice, but solely that justice might be done. The accusation was as follows:

ACCUSATION.

I, Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank, appear before the Lieutenant of the Lord of All, and accuse Assupilik, son of Madharkiš, of the clan of Gundešha, lately captain of division C-134-B, held in the holding cells of the lower ward and now present; in that the said Assupilik, being an officer sworn to keep the Codes, and enjoying the trust which his office bestows, has committed offenses against the Codes and against those under his command, in the following manner:

1. That he took gifts and favors from the Lady Thuringwethil, herald of the Lieutenant, for permitting offenses and for failing to report them.
2. That he gave the seamstress Nárelótë, a worker under his command, to the said Lady, for the use of her body, in return for the benefits aforesaid.
3. That he arranged to be absent from his workroom when the said Lady came to it, and was so absent on the day the sempster Ozûtalai was injured there.
4. That he failed to report offenses known to him, as the Codes require.
5. That he received the complaints of the workers of his division and did not carry them to his superior, as the Codes require.
6. That he gave the seamstress Draumâkil forty strokes, upon an order he knew to be unlawful, without a healer present and without a true entry in his register; and that he afterward doubled the count of his division, the workers having complained to him about this and about the Lady’s use of the seamstress.
7. That, being sworn, he lied in the first audience before the Lieutenant’s court.
8. That it is to be presumed he has committed further offenses of the same kind, and knows of offenses committed by others, all of which he has concealed; and that, having been admonished three times to declare the truth, he has not done so.

For these reasons I ask that the Lieutenant receive this accusation as true, or so much of it as shall suffice for justice; that he declare the said Assupilik guilty of the offenses aforesaid, and impose upon him the gravest punishment the Codes allow, for an expiation to himself and an example to others; and that, if it be found necessary, he be put to the question, until he declare the whole truth of himself and of others.

And I swear that I do not bring this accusation out of malice, but solely that justice may be done.

Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank

The accusation having been read, the accused was sworn to answer it truly, article by article. It was read again, article by article, and he answered as follows:

To the heading, he answered that he is the Assupilik accused.

To the first article, he answered that it is not true; that the Lady never gave him anything.

To the second article, he asked that it be read again. It was read again. He answered that it is not true, and that he did not know of any such thing.

To the third article, he answered that it is not true; that he was at the stores on the division’s business, as he had said.

To the fourth article, he answered that he failed to report the absences of the seamstress out of pity, as he had said, and knew of no other offense.

To the fifth article, he answered that it is not true; that he received no such complaints.

To the sixth article, he answered that it is true that he gave the forty strokes, upon the Lady’s order, as he had now declared; and he asked again to be punished for it as the Lieutenant should judge, forty strokes, or twice, or three times that. To the doubling of the count, he answered that the division was behind.

To the seventh article, he answered that he had already confessed it.

To the eighth article, he answered that it is not true, and that even if he were put to the question he could say nothing more.

The above being read back to him, he affirmed it to be true and correctly recorded.

The Lieutenant ordered that the investigator’s request concerning the question be reserved.

The Lieutenant then ordered that the accused be given a copy of the accusation, and informed him that, under the Instructions governing this inquiry, he might choose one of two advocates named by the Lieutenant’s Office, to defend him so far as the Codes allow: namely, Tarhunzaš, advocate of internal matters, second rank; and Garmešha, lately captain of division D-41-A, now elder of the clan of Harraši.

The accused asked whether he might have both. He was told that he might have one.

He chose Garmešha. The Lieutenant ordered that he be summoned.

The accused was admonished to recollect himself and to declare the truth, and was returned to the holding cells.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—Fourth Audience—

In the Hall of Bears, on the first day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The Lieutenant ordered that the accused Assupilik be brought from the holding cells, which being done, he was reminded of the oath he had sworn.

Asked whether he remembered anything relating to his affair which he was bound by that oath to declare, he answered that he had nothing more to say.

The accused was then informed that Garmešha, lately captain of division D-41-A, now elder of the clan of Harraši, whom he had chosen for his advocate, was present, and that he might confer with him and arrange his defense.

Garmešha was then sworn, first by the Lord of All and secondly by his ancestors and the ancestors of his clan: to defend the accused faithfully and well, so far as the Codes allow; to tell him plainly if his cause could not be defended; to do all that a good advocate is bound to do; and to keep secret all that should pass.

Asked whether he had any bond with the accused, he stated that he had known him slightly when both were captains, and had drunk with him once or twice at the feasts, but no more than that, and owed him nothing.

The record of the three previous audiences was then read to the advocate in full: the account of the accused, his answers to the questions put to him, his declaration in the third audience, the accusation, and his answers to it.

The advocate then conferred with the accused in the presence of the recorder, as the Instructions require, and the substance of what passed was entered as follows:

The advocate told the accused that the articles he had confessed would be punished, namely the forty strokes given without a healer, the false entry in his register, and the lie he had told under oath in the first audience; and that the lie in particular would make it harder for the court to believe him in other things. He told him further that the gravest articles of the accusation, namely the gifts, the giving of the seamstress, and the arranging of his absences, rested on proof that neither of them had yet seen, and that nothing in the record read to him proved them.

He told the accused that if he was guilty of more than he had confessed, it would go better with him to confess it now than to have it proven against him later; that a man who confesses and submits to his punishment may be taken back by his clan, and that a man proven guilty while he denies it may not.

The accused answered that he had confessed all that he had done, and was guilty of nothing else.

The advocate then asked him which persons bore him ill will, and might have spoken against him out of malice. The accused named first the seamstress Nárelótë, who he said had borne him ill will ever since he lashed her for abandoning her post. Asked by the advocate whether this was the same seamstress to whom he had been soft, out of pity, he answered that it was, and that she was ungrateful. He named also the seamstress Draumâkil, the sempster Ozûtalai, and the cutter Hithriel, all of his division; and an accountant of the stores who had come to him some months ago asking questions about the division’s cloth, and had been insolent to him.

The advocate then asked him which persons would speak to his character. The accused named the elders of his clan, Gundešha; and two captains of his section, Namlukkái of division C-134-D and Murijan of division C-134-F.

The accused named also the Lady Thuringwethil, who he said had always been gracious to him and would speak well of him. The advocate told him that the Lady was named in the accusation, and that to call her might do him more harm than good. The accused answered that she would speak for him.

The advocate then stated to the court, on behalf of the accused:

That the accused denies the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and eighth articles of the accusation, and asks to be acquitted of them;

That as to the sixth article, the accused does not deny that he knew the Codes forbade the strokes, having recited them himself; but he asks the court to consider that the order was given by an officer of far higher rank than his own, namely the herald of the Lieutenant; that a captain so ordered has no true choice, whether any threat is spoken or not; and that the advocate, in all his years as captain, never knew a captain who would think to refuse such an officer;

That he asks that the testimony against the accused be published, so that the defense may answer it;

That he asks leave, when the testimony is published, to present the names of those who bear the accused ill will, and of those who will speak to his character, and to have the latter examined upon questions he will put in writing;

And that he asks, at the accused’s wish, that the Lady Thuringwethil be examined as to the character of the accused.

The Lieutenant granted the publication of the testimony, and leave to present the names of enemies and of witnesses to character at that time. As to the examination of the Lady Thuringwethil, he ordered that the request be noted and reserved.

Straightway appeared Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank, who stated that he held to his accusation and to the declarations of the accused, and asked that the testimony already taken in this inquiry be ratified in form by the witnesses who gave it, and afterward published.

The Lieutenant ordered that the cause proceed to proof, and that each party bring its proofs.

The accused was admonished to recollect himself and to declare the truth, and was returned to the holding cells.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—

[A small sheet bearing the seal of the division of internal matters.]

RATIFICATION.

In the infirmary CL-23, on the second day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, before Ilûkhobh, investigator, third rank, by commission of the Lieutenant, appeared at her bedside Nárelótë, secretary, ninth rank, junior, lately seamstress of division C-134-B, and swore by the Lord of All and by those powers her own people hold sacred, to declare the truth; in the presence of Yarûkh, healer, fourth rank, of CL-23, and Namešha, secretary, sixth rank, senior, of division S-2, honest persons, who swore to observe secrecy. She was given leave to remain in her bed.

Asked whether she remembered having made depositions against any persons, she answered that she did, and that they were taken from her in this place, by the same investigator.

She was then informed that the investigator Uzhumâghan presents her as a witness in the cause he has brought against Assupilik, lately captain of division C-134-B. She was ordered to attend while her deposition was read, and if she found anything in it to alter or add, to say so, so that the whole truth might be declared.

Her deposition was then read to her word for word, and rendered into her own tongue where she asked it by the secretary Namešha, who has the speech of her people.

Having heard and understood it, she declared that it was her testimony and was correctly recorded, and that she had nothing to alter or add.

She declared further that she did not give it out of malice. She asked that it be written also that this was not the same as saying she bore him none.

She was again enjoined to secrecy, which she promised, and signed in the letters of her own people, which the investigator could not read; the secretary Namešha attested that it was her name.

Ilûkhobh, investigator, third rank

In the presence of—

Yarûkh, healer, fourth rank

Namešha, secretary, sixth rank, senior

[Note — The deposition this ratifies is not in the bundle. It is the statement listed in what I can reconstruct of the index as taken “of the secretary, junior, formerly of C-134-B,” which I have not been able to find. Thus far only its ratification survives. —E.]

—Fifth Audience—

In the Hall of Bears, on the sixth day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Garmešha, advocate for the accused; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The Lieutenant ordered that the accused Assupilik be brought from the holding cells, which being done, he was reminded of the oath he had sworn.

Asked whether he remembered anything relating to his affair which he was bound by that oath to declare, he answered that he had nothing more to say.

He was informed that the investigator Uzhumâghan had asked that the testimony against him be published; that before it was published he would do well to declare the whole truth, since it would go better with him to confess it than to have it shown to him; and that otherwise the publication would be made.

He answered that he had nothing more to say.

Straightaway appeared Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank, who stated that the witnesses in this cause had ratified their testimony in form, and asked that it be published. The Lieutenant ordered the publication to be made, the names of the witnesses and all other circumstances by which they might be known being withheld, according to the Instructions governing this inquiry; and that the accused answer each part, being sworn to answer truly. This was done as follows:

PUBLICATION OF THE TESTIMONY.

I. A certain witness, sworn and qualified in the proper time and manner, declares that the pendant of the seamstress Nárelótë drew no rations at the hall for runs of days, of three days, of five, and once of eleven; and that on every one of those days on which she came to her station, the count of her station was met.

He answered that the seamstress was fed by others of the division, as he had said.

II. The same witness declares that the custody register of the infirmary serving the division accounts for fewer than one in three of those days.

He answered that he did not know where she ate on the other days.

III. The same witness declares that the division drew fine cloth from the stores three times in two years against no order, which went to no store in this mountain; and that the division’s own cloth-book shows each length given to the station of the seamstress Nárelótë, and marked for the Lady. It was further published that two lengths of fine blue silk were found in a box beneath the bed of the accused at his arrest.

He answered that the cloth-book was kept by the cutter, whom he had named as one who bears him ill will. To the silk, he answered that it was a remnant, and that he did not remember how he came by it.

IV. It was further published that there were found in the quarters of the accused at his arrest a ring of gold set with a garnet, a flask of the wine of the south, and seven tallies for rations of division C-134-B, not issued to him.

To the ring, he answered that it was his mother’s. To the wine, that he had won it at dice. To the tallies, that he did not know how they came there.

V. A certain witness of the stores declares that the accused, being called to the counting-house to explain the discrepancies of his division, and being served food and wine, said that the cloth and the other irregularities were by the command of the Lady Thuringwethil; that any report against him would be known to her as soon as it was made, and she would redress it; and that by her graces he would remain secure in his position for as long as she favored the charms of this woman Nárelótë, and that the Lady’s interest in that matter had not waned for several years.

He answered that he had been drinking, and that he did not remember saying it; and that if he had said it, it was a boast and meant nothing. The advocate asked that it be noted that the accused had named an accountant of the stores among those who bear him ill will. The Lieutenant directed that it be noted.

VI. A certain witness of the division declares that the accused would leave the workroom a short time before the Lady came to it, and return a short time after she had gone; that this was so on the day the sempster Ozûtalai was bitten and left bleeding on the floor of the workroom; that the Lady’s attendants came often to the workroom to fetch the seamstress Nárelótë; and that the witness believes the seamstress went with them, the first time, so that they would stop.

He answered that he was at the stores on the division’s business, as he had said, and knew nothing of any attendants.

VII. Another witness of the division declares that on the day the seamstress Draumâkil was lashed, the Lady named the offense before the whole division standing along the wall: that Draumâkil had lied to her servant, the servant having come looking for the seamstress Nárelótë, who was then in the infirmary. The same witness declares that the whole division came to the accused and told him what was being done to the seamstress, and used the word for it; that he said he would carry it up; and that the count of the division was doubled for ten days after.

With this testimony was entered a length of grey cord, closely knotted, tied by the witness one knot for each time the seamstress was fetched, beginning on the night the seamstress asked the division to keep silent. It was counted before the accused, and found to bear nine hundred and four knots.

He answered that he did not know what the servant had come for. To the complaint, he answered that it was not true. To the cord, he did not answer.

VIII. Another witness declares that the accused never lashed her, nor gave her any punishment with his own hand, nor ordered her to report to the officers of enforcement to be lashed by them, at any time while she was of his division.

He was asked whether he had named, among those who bear him ill will, a seamstress who had borne it ever since he lashed her for abandoning her post.

He answered that he had.

He was asked whether he still says that he lashed her.

He did not answer. The advocate asked leave to confer with the accused, which was given, and they conferred in the presence of the recorder; the accused afterward answered that he had nothing to say to it.

The same witness declares further that whenever the Lady or her attendants came to the workroom to fetch her, the accused greeted them, and ordered her to go with them; that at times he told her she was permitted to leave her station, but grew angry if she attempted to refuse, and ordered her in a strong voice; and that at times he told her that she was fortunate to be so summoned.

He answered that when an officer of rank sends for a worker, a captain sends the worker.

Asked whether he had told her that she was fortunate, he did not answer.

IX. The case reports of a certain healer, forwarded under seal and ratified in form, were then read in their order, from the first, of Ulubhân in the five-hundred and fifteenth year, to the last, of Grazhân in the five-hundred and nineteenth. The last was read in full, the names of persons being withheld; the substance of it is entered here as follows:

Brought by her division, carrying her. Unconscious. Found in the corridor outside the workroom before the first bell. A whole bite at the innermost thigh, over the pulse and not the vein. Bright blood, rising with each beat of her heart. Venom heavier than in any prior report. Pressure by hand through the night, three healers in turn. Toward morning the bleeding at the wound slowed, but bruising has risen at the flank and the small of the back, where no hand can press. She is bleeding where I cannot reach. She would not survive another like it.

The Lieutenant then said to the accused: “In the second audience you asked what accident the seamstress Nárelótë had met with. You were told that you would be answered in due course. That is your answer.”

The accused did not answer.

The Lieutenant continued to question the accused.

Asked if he recalls stating in the first audience that he tries to be compassionate, the accused did not answer.

Asked if he recalls agreeing in the first audience that he knows his workers and their troubles, the accused did not answer.

Asked if he recalls agreeing that he makes efforts to learn when his workers meet with trouble not already known to him, the accused did not answer.

Asked if he recalls agreeing that he takes his workers’ troubles into account, as far as the Codes allow, the accused did not answer.

Asked if he recalls agreeing that he keeps the Codes as carefully as he recited them, the accused did not answer.

The advocate then asked whether the court had yet determined the request, made at the wish of the accused, that the Lady Thuringwethil be examined as to his character.

The Lieutenant answered that the Lady Thuringwethil has been held in confinement by his order since the night the accused himself was arrested, and that she will not be examined on his behalf.

The accused asked that this be said again. It was said again.

The assessor Šunilukkái then asked, with the Lieutenant’s leave, a single question: whether the accused had known.

The accused did not answer.

The Lieutenant ordered that the accused and his advocate be given a copy of the publication, that they might prepare the defense, and present the names of those who bear the accused ill will and of the witnesses to his character, as leave had been given.

The accused was admonished to recollect himself and to declare the truth, and was returned to the holding cells.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—

[A copied page from a bound register.]

Register of the holding cells, lower ward.

On the sixth day of Zaghân, at the third bell of the night, the prisoner Assupilik, in cell nine, asked that word be carried to the Lieutenant’s court that he wished to be heard. He asked nothing else.

Hokhešha, keeper of the lower ward

—Sixth Audience, at the Request of the Accused—

In the Hall of Bears, on the seventh day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Garmešha, advocate for the accused; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The Lieutenant ordered that the accused Assupilik be brought from the holding cells, he having asked to be heard. This being done, he was reminded of the oath he had sworn.

Asked why he had asked to be heard, he answered that he wished to declare the truth.

He was admonished to declare it whole, concealing nothing either concerning himself or any other person, and bearing false witness against no one; submitting himself entirely to the Giver of Freedom, so that his offenses might be paid for and the stain of them taken from him. He stated as follows:

That in the winter after the elves were brought from Gondolin, the Lady Thuringwethil came to his workroom, and looked at the new workers, and asked him the name of the seamstress Nárelótë, and whether she had a clan, and whether she had been married. That he told her the seamstress had no clan.

That the Lady came again, and spoke to the seamstress, and afterward told him that she would be grateful to a captain who did not stand in her way. That the next day she sent him a flask of the wine of the south.

That on the day the sempster Ozûtalai was bitten, the Lady sent word in the morning that he should have business elsewhere when she came; and that he went to the stores, though he had no business there; and that when he came back, the sempster was on the floor. That he knew then what the Lady was, and what she wanted, and that the seamstress had gone with her.

That after that, whenever the Lady or her attendants came for the seamstress, he sent her; and that when she tried to refuse, he ordered her; and that he told her she was fortunate, because he wished her to go quietly.

That he knew what was being done to the seamstress. That he knew it from the first, and that the division told him, and used the word for it, which is rape.

That he did not carry the division’s complaint to his superior, but told the Lady of it; and that the Lady told him to double the count, so that they would have no breath to say it again; and he did so.

That the Lady gave him, over these years, wine of the south many times; the ring set with a garnet; the silk; and ration tallies of his own division, which he used to draw extra for himself and his kin. That the ring was not his mother’s, and he did not win the wine at dice.

That the Lady told him that as long as he served her in this, no report against him would reach anyone who could act upon it, and that he would keep his place. That he believed her, because it was so.

That he gave the seamstress Draumâkil forty strokes on the Lady’s order, knowing it unlawful; that the lie for which they were given was that Draumâkil had told the Lady’s servant that she did not know where the seamstress was, when the seamstress was in the infirmary; and that he knew this when he gave them, and when he said in the third audience that he did not.

That he never lashed the seamstress Nárelótë; that he said so in the first audience so that, if she spoke against him, she might be thought to speak from malice.

That he lied under oath in every audience until this one.

The assessor Šunilukkái then asked, with the Lieutenant’s leave, the question he had asked in the previous audience: whether the accused had known.

The accused answered that he had known.

The assessor Lakjašalli asked whether he knew of the Lady doing the like to any other worker, in his division or any other. He answered that in his own division there was no other. He stated further that, some years before the seamstress came, he had heard talk among the captains of his section that the Lady had taken a liking to a worker in another section, and that the worker did not last; and that he did not ask what was meant, and did not wish to know. He stated further that he had likewise heard talk from some who had served in the army about the Lady being possessed of strange appetites, but that he did not know at the time or now whether this referred to

[Note — More water damage — E.]

Asked who else knew of what was done to the seamstress, he answered that the captains Namlukkái and Murijan knew that he had a patron of rank, and drank her wine with him, but that he did not tell them what she was paid for, and he did not believe they knew.

The assessor Urukišha asked whether he remembered what he had said, in the first audience, that the captain of the dyeworks deserved.

He answered that he remembered.

She said nothing further.

The Lieutenant then asked the accused whether what he had now declared was the whole truth, concealing nothing either of himself or of any other person.

He answered that it was.

Asked whether he had anything further to declare, he answered that he asked to be punished for all of it, and that he submitted himself to the Giver of Freedom.

The above being read back to him in full, he affirmed it to be true and correctly recorded.

He was returned to the holding cells.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—

[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

In the city of Angband, on the seventh day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, hereby orders on his own authority:

That every captain now serving in division C, and every elder who has retired from a captaincy in that division within the last thirty years, be questioned as to their knowledge of the affairs of Thuringwethil, lately herald, especially as they pertain to workers she has taken notice of, sent for, or taken from their stations, by herself or by her attendants;

That the accused Assupilik be asked to name those who served in the armies from whom he heard talk of the said Thuringwethil’s appetites, and that each so named be questioned;

That the rolls of the armies be searched, for the campaigns in which the said Thuringwethil served within the same thirty years, for any prisoner or captive given into her keeping, and what became of them; and that the officers recorded as having given such persons into her keeping, or received them from it, be questioned as to her conduct toward them, and toward any other person in her keeping or in her power;

That, besides these, twelve officers who served in the same campaigns be chosen by lot from the rolls and questioned likewise, so that it may be known whether the search has missed anything;

That each person questioned be asked in particular whether they know, or have heard spoken of, any person who was sent for by her or taken by her, and who afterward died, was hurt, was taken into the custody of an infirmary, was reassigned at her request, or was no longer seen; and what they know of any such person’s name, division or unit, and fate;

That each be asked from whom they heard what they report, so that the speaker may be questioned in turn;

That those questioned not be told the cause of their questioning, nor the name of any person accused, and that each be sworn to secrecy, upon the same terms as witnesses;

That the rolls of division C, and the custody registers of the infirmaries serving it, be searched for the same thirty years, for any worker recorded as dead without a healer’s report, reassigned at the request of an officer outside the division’s chain, or struck from the rolls without cause entered;

That the case reports of every infirmary of this mountain, and of the field infirmaries of the campaigns aforesaid, be searched for the same thirty years for any wound of the same character as those described in the case report of infirmary CL-23 dated the fifty-first day of Grazhân in the five-hundred and fifteenth year of the Jewels: namely, punctures of one size and one spacing, bleeding that would not stop, blood that stayed red and wet past its time, and an acrid scent; and that every healer who wrote such a report, if living, be questioned as to the patient, and what became of them;

That the assessors sitting in the present inquiry be exempt from this questioning, according to the Instructions governing it;

That if what is found warrants it, the Lieutenant will order the questioning widened;

And that the findings be brought to the Lieutenant, and to no other.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A small sheet bearing the seal of the division of internal matters.]

EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES TO CHARACTER, PRODUCED BY THE DEFENSE.

On the ninth day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, before Ilûkhobh, investigator, third rank, by commission of the Lieutenant; in the presence of Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, and Uzhunahhan, secretary, fourth rank, of division S-2, honest persons, who swore to observe secrecy. The witnesses were examined upon the questions put in writing by Garmešha, advocate for the accused, and upon such further questions as the investigator saw fit to put. None was told the matters of which the accused stands accused.

Ushmarai, eldest mother of the clan of Gundešha, being sworn first by the Lord of All and secondly by her ancestors, and being carried in her chair:

To the first question, how long she has known the accused: all his life, since she held him at his naming.

To the second, whether he is honest and keeps his word: that he has always kept his word to his kin, and that she has never known him to break it.

To the third, how he deals with those in his charge: that he has been a captain for sixteen years and the clan has heard no complaint of him, and that captains are complained of more than most.

To the fourth, whether he has dealt generously with his kin: that he has always done so, and more than ever in these last years; that he has brought wine of the south to the clan’s feasts, which they had never tasted before he brought it; and that the clan honors him for it.

To the fifth, whether he has ever been accused of any wrong before: that he has not, save the misreported count in his first year as captain, which he reported himself, and which the clan remembers to his credit.

Asked by the investigator since when the accused has brought such wine: that it was some years ago now; that she remembers it was first served at the feast of the winter after the elves were brought from Gondolin, because the clan spoke of it all that season.

Asked whether she had anything to add, she answered that she did not know what her kinsman is held for, and asked whether she might be told. She was told that she might not. She said that the clan of Gundešha waits.

The above being read to her, she affirmed it, and the investigator signed for her, she not writing.

Namlukkái, captain of division C-134-D, being sworn first by the Lord of All and secondly by his ancestors:

To the first question, how long he has known the accused: some twenty years, as a fellow captain of the section.

To the second, whether the accused is honest and keeps his word: that he is a fair captain and keeps his word, so far as he knows.

To the third, whether he has ever known the accused to take what was not his: that he never saw him do so, nor heard that he did.

To the fourth, whether the accused is generous with his fellows: that he is; that he has often shared his drink with the captains of the section at dice.

Asked by the investigator what they drank: wine of the south, mostly, which the accused provided.

Asked by the investigator whether he knew how the accused came by it: that the accused said he had a friend of rank, and that he did not ask further, since it is not courteous to ask a man where his luck comes from.

The above being read to him, he affirmed it and signed.

Murijan, captain of division C-134-F, being sworn first by the Lord of All and secondly by his ancestors:

To the first question, how long he has known the accused: some twelve years.

To the second, whether the accused is honest: that he has never known him to lie at dice, which is more than he can say of most captains.

To the third, how the accused keeps his division: that his division always met its count, even when others in the section did not, and that he envied him for it.

To the fourth, whether the accused is generous with his fellows: that he is, as the captain Namlukkái has said.

Asked by the investigator whether the accused ever spoke of the friend of rank: that he did, once, when he had drunk a good deal; that he said the Lady Thuringwethil favored him, and that while she did, no one could touch him; and that the witness took it for a boast, and laughed.

Asked by the investigator whether the accused said why the Lady favored him: that he did not; that he only smiled and said it was a matter of sewing.

The above being read to him, he affirmed it and signed.

Ilûkhobh, investigator, third rank

In the presence of—

Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank

Uzhunahhan, secretary, second rank

—Hearing of Those Offended Against—

In the Hall of Bears, on the tenth day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Garmešha, advocate for the accused; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The Lieutenant ordered that the accused Assupilik be brought from the holding cells, which being done, he was informed that under the Instructions governing this inquiry, those offended against, and the elders of their clans, had asked to be heard before sentence, and would now be heard.

The statement of Nárelótë, secretary, ninth rank, junior, of division S-2, formerly seamstress of division C-134-B, written in her own hand in the letters of her people and rendered by the secretary Namešha, who has the speech of her people, was read aloud before the court.

[Note — The statement itself is not with this record. Significant water damage over what I assume was the rendering read before the court —E.]

…t… ai… ord…

…th [?]… o…

…Thuringw…

[continued on the next sheet]

…And he told me I was fortunate. Ask him if he still thinks it now.

The accused was asked whether he had anything to say to it. He said that he did not think that she was fortunate, nor did he truly believe it when he said it; but that he said it because he wished for her to go quietly, so that he would continue to benefit from the Lady’s favor.

Draumâkil, seamstress, of division C-134-B, came forward and was sworn first by the Lord of All and secondly by her ancestors. She stated that she had nothing to add to her testimony, save this: that she had said, in her testimony, that the captain’s hand was not steady when he gave her the forty strokes, and that she had given him that; and that she gives him nothing else.

She asked further that when the court has done with the cord she tied, it be given to the seamstress; that it is the seamstress’s, and not hers.

The Lieutenant directed that the request be entered.

Ozûtalai, sempster, of division C-134-B, came forward and was sworn first by the Lord of All and secondly by his ancestors. He stated that he asks nothing of the court for himself. He asked that it be written that the seamstress kept him from going to his ancestors before his time; that he owes her his life, and his clan owes it with him; and that his mother and his mother’s brothers have agreed that it is so.

The Lieutenant directed that it be written.

Zuwapiya, eldest mother of the clan of Draumâkil, came forward, being carried in her chair, and was sworn first by the Lord of All and secondly by her ancestors. She stated that her granddaughter was lashed for a lie told to keep one who had no clan from harm, and that her clan asks the restitution that is due for it, as the Codes and the custom of the clans allow.

The Lieutenant directed that the request be entered, and laid before the assessors.

The accused was admonished to recollect himself, and was returned to the holding cells.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—Opinions of the Assessors, Given Before Sentence—

In the Hall of Bears, on the eleventh day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience for the determination of causes, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters; the accused not being present.

The Lieutenant, having caused the record of the cause against Assupilik, lately captain of division C-134-B, to be read in full, asked each assessor for an opinion before sentence, according to the Instructions governing this inquiry. The opinions were given as follows, and entered in the words of each.

The opinion of Lakjašalli, Chief Investigator, internal matters:

That the accused is guilty, by the evidence and by his own confession, of every article of the accusation.

That he gave punishment without entering it, and entered falsely the punishment he did give, against the provision he himself recited.

That he gave forty strokes to the seamstress Draumâkil on an order he knew to be unlawful, without a healer present; and that the mitigation argued by his advocate, that he was ordered by an officer far above him, is a true mitigation, and may lessen what is owed for it.

That he failed to report what he was bound to report, and carried the complaints of his division not to his superior but to the one complained of.

That he took gifts and favors for permitting offenses and for failing to report them.

That he gave the seamstress Nárelótë, then under his command, to another for the use of her body, in return for benefit to himself; that this offense is reserved by the Codes to the Lieutenant’s court; and that the Codes permit for it the gravest penalty, it having continued for some years, and the one harmed having been brought near to death, and harmed lastingly.

That he lied under oath in every audience but the last.

That he confessed only after the testimony was published, and so has earned less mercy than one who confesses freely before; but that his confession, when it came, was whole and not diminished, so that the cycle of offense and expiation remains open to him.

That as to restitution, the Codes set amounts for harms that can be counted: for strokes unlawfully given, for days in the custody of an infirmary, for rations withheld; and that for lasting harm they leave the measure to the Lieutenant.

That the Codes permit the gravest penalty. What the Lieutenant chooses is the Lieutenant’s.

The opinion of Urukišha, lately Arbiter of the Clans:

“In the first audience I asked this man what a captain deserved who did what the captain of the dyeworks did. He told me. He said such a captain was without honor, and that his clan ought to turn their faces from him. I said I would remember it, and I have. But that is for Gundešha to say, not for this court, and I will not say it for them.

“He told this court something else in that audience, which the court may say. He said that a captain who gave forty strokes unlawfully was owed the same forty, or twice that if the one he harmed suffered lasting harm. The seamstress walks with a stick. He named his own measure. Let him be held to it.

“I would have him live. A dead man pays nothing. Let him live, and pay, and carry it, so that the clans he wronged can close their grievance and be done.

“As to restitution: the tables in the Codes were written for a crust stolen or a blow struck. They were not written for four years of a life, nor for a walk that will not come back. When I sat as Arbiter, we did not read such a debt from a table. We measured it by what was taken. I ask the Lieutenant to measure it so.

“Let it come from the share of Gundešha if they keep him, and from his own hands if they do not; and never so much that his kin go hungry for it, for that pays no one.

“The seamstress has no clan. In this matter, this court has stood where her clan would stand. Let what is owed to her be held in her name, until she says what is to be done with it.”

The opinion of Šunilukkái, warden of the late Prince’s Guard:

“A captain is the shield of those beneath him. He sold and betrayed those he was bound to protect. I have nothing else to say.”

The opinions being entered, the Lieutenant ordered that the accused be brought to hear his sentence.

—Sentence—

In the Hall of Bears, on the same day, at the same audience, the accused Assupilik being brought from the holding cells and present, and his advocate Garmešha present, the Lieutenant, having examined the proceedings of the cause, and having heard the opinions of the assessors, pronounced sentence as follows:

That the said Assupilik, son of Madharkiš, of the clan of Gundešha, lately captain of division C-134-B, is guilty of all the articles of the accusation.

That for the giving of Nárelótë, secretary, ninth rank, junior, of division S-2, formerly seamstress of division C-134-B, into the hands of another for the use of her body, he is owed one stroke for each time she was taken, as the record proves it: nine hundred and four, by the count of the cord, and two more, the first and the last; in all, nine hundred and six. The Lieutenant entered further that by his own reckoning, the true number was nearer a thousand, perhaps one thousand ten or one thousand forty; but that the court judges by what is proven.

That for the forty strokes given unlawfully to the seamstress Draumâkil, the mitigation argued by his advocate being accepted, he is owed ten.

In all, nine hundred and sixteen strokes.

That the accused having confessed fully, though late, and the assessor Urukišha having spoken for his life, the Lieutenant commutes the said sentence to three hundred and twelve strokes: one for every three times the said Nárelótë was taken, and the ten.

That these be given in portions of no more than forty; before each portion, a healer shall be present who has declared him fit, and who may halt it at any time; no portion shall be laid upon stripes not yet closed; and the strokes shall be laid by the officers of punishment, and by no other.

That the cord of his rank be cut before the assembled division of C-134-B, and burned; the secretary Nárelótë, formerly of that division, to be present if her healers allow it and she wishes it; and that the first portion of his stripes shall be given before this same assembly, that those he has offended may see that their offense is paid, and hold no debt of blood against his people or person.

That he be removed from all command, and never hold command again; and that he be assigned to the furnaces of the lower forges.

That he make restitution, as follows:

[Note — This part of the sheet is written in the format of some sort of table, tightly condensed, possibly written in some kind of clerical script or shorthand which I’ve seen in other documents but haven’t the faintest how to decipher. Can you ask around the elves and see if any of them are familiar with it, maybe? —E.]

[Following after the table:]

And that when the strokes are given and the restitution paid, his offense shall be expiated, and he shall go forth from it with the stain no longer upon him.

The sentence being pronounced, the accused was asked whether he had anything to say. He answered that he submitted himself to the Giver of Freedom, and asked whether his clan had been told what he had done. He was told that they would be. He asked nothing further.

He was then asked whether, while held, he had seen or heard anything done against the Codes by those who kept him; whether any prisoner had spoken with another, or carried word to any outside; and whether the keeper of the lower ward had done her duty. He answered that he had seen nothing done against the Codes; that he had spoken with no one; and that the keeper had done her duty.

He was commanded, by the oath he had sworn, to keep secret all that had befallen him in these proceedings, and all that he had seen and heard while held; which he promised. He was then delivered to the officers of punishment, to be held until the first portion of his sentence.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

Chapter End Notes

Trial forms borrowed from the Barcelona trials covered in White's Records of the Spanish Inquisition.

Borrowed, and not returned. Mairon owns the Spanish Inquisition now. Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci; ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris. Amen.

Rambling thoughts—

Angband's justice system is built heavily on the ethos of the Inquisition and the political system in which it flourished. Ostensibly, the law flows downward from Melkor, the Lord of All and the Giver of Freedom, but it does not bind him, as the laws of the Church bind the worshipers and not the worshiped. But logistically, Melkor is too easily bored to write a functional legal system. He leaves that to people who do have the patience to do that, and that leaves room for a lot of practical concerns to seep in. Like whether you'll make a habit of flogging productive workers to death.

Gothmog was the Crown Prince of Angband — literally Melkor's child from before Melkor met Mairon. Melkor had no others. Gothmog was Mairon's best friend, and is very much missed.

When Melkor came back from Valinor, he wasn't right in the head. That causes unique challenges in an absolute monarchy ruled by a god.

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[A small book bound in plain leather, its pages ruled into columns for the date, the bell, the warden of the watch, and what was observed.]

WATCH KEPT OVER THURINGWETHIL, LATELY HERALD, IN THE PLACE PREPARED BY THE LIEUTENANT, BY WARDENS OF THE LATE PRINCE’S GUARD, BY HIS ORDER.

By order of the Lieutenant: she is to receive nothing from any hand, and be spoken to by no one. If she or her attendants are seen walking free, she is not to be approached, and the Lieutenant is to be told at once.

Ulubhân 37, fourth bell of the night. Received from the Lieutenant. He made the door fast with his own hand. Watch set. —Karnûzabâr

Ulubhân 37, fifth bell. She speaks to the walls. —Karnûzabâr

Ulubhân 37, sixth bell. She is silent. —Karnûzabâr

Ulubhân 38, first bell. She asks for the Lieutenant by name. Not answered, per the order. —Šurrapinu

Ulubhân 38, third bell. She asks for him again. Not answered. —Šurrapinu

Ulubhân 39, second bell. Cold in the passage. Shapes along the walls. We know what they are. We did not look at them long. They went. —Karnûzabâr

Ulubhân 41, fourth bell. She asks whether the seamstress is dead. Not answered, per the order. —Šurrapinu

[Note — Several pages follow on which nothing is recorded but the date, the bell, the name of the warden, and the word ‘Nothing’ —E.]

Ulubhân 50, sixth bell of the night. Her shape is not as it was. The Lieutenant informed, per his order. —Karnûzabâr

Ulubhân 50, seventh bell. The Lieutenant came. He went in alone. He came out at the end of the bell. Her shape is as it was. —Karnûzabâr

[Note — Some pages wet, sticking together —E.]

Zaghân 19, first bell. The Lieutenant came with the recorder. We brought her up to the Hall of Bears, as ordered. —Karnûzabâr

—First Audience—

In the Hall of Bears, on the nineteenth day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The accused Thuringwethil was brought from the place prepared for her by the wardens of the late Prince’s Guard who keep watch over her, the Lieutenant and the recorder going down with them.

The accused was sworn to tell the truth promptly and entire, concealing nothing, and to keep secret all that she should see, hear, or learn in these proceedings and all that should befall her. She swore by the Lord of All, and by no other. Asked whether she would swear secondly by anything she held sacred, she answered that she had just done so.

She was told that she would be asked to give an account in her own words, that she would not be interrupted while giving it, and that she should take what time she needed. She was given leave to sit, and sat.

Asked her name and office, she answered: Thuringwethil, herald of the Lieutenant. The secretary, being directed, entered: lately herald.

Asked her clan, she answered that she has none. Asked her ancestors, she answered that she is older than the ancestors of every person in this hall, and asked whether the court wished her to name them.

The assessor Urukišha said that it did not.

Asked her disciplinary history, she answered that she has none, the Lieutenant having always been gracious to her.

Asked whether she knows the Codes, she answered that she does. She was asked to recite the provisions concerning punishment given by an officer on his own authority, the custody of the infirmaries, the taking of persons against their will for the use of their bodies, and the duty to report offenses; and she recited them correctly and in full. The Chief Investigator, being asked by the Lieutenant, confirmed that she had. The accused added that she knows them well, having watched the Lieutenant write them; and that she has watched, besides, how they are kept.

She was then admonished to recollect herself and to confess freely and in full whatever she had done, said, or seen which might be offensive to the Lord of All, concealing nothing either concerning herself or any other person, and bearing false witness against no one; submitting herself entirely to the Giver of Freedom, under whose hand she and all things are held. She was told that one who confesses freely completes the cycle of offense and expiation, and goes out from it with a clean slate, and that one who does not cannot.

She answered that she has submitted herself to the Giver of Freedom in all things, always, and has never yet been told she did it wrongly.

Asked whether she knows or conjectures why she is held, she answered: “Because you are angry with me, Mairon.”

The Lieutenant directed that the answer be written.

The hall then grew cold, and there were figures among the pillars and along the walls, more than could be counted, and the lamps did not touch them; and there was a sound in the hall as of teeth. The Lieutenant let them stand for some time. Then he raised his hand, and they were not, and the cold went out of the hall.

The assessor Urukišha asked what the others had been looking at. The Lieutenant indicated that it was not an urgent matter, and that he would explain in full after conclusion of the audience.

Asked to give a full account of her dealings with the seamstress Nárelótë, from the time the seamstress came to division C-134-B until the present, the accused answered that she would give it to the Lieutenant alone, and asked that the hall be cleared.

She was told that what she has to say she may say before the court, or not at all.

She asked: “Do you want to hear it, Mairon?”

She was told that the court did.

She then stated that she saw the seamstress in the workroom of division C-134-B in the winter after the elves were brought from Gondolin; that she wanted her, and took her, as she was entitled to; that she kept her better than anyone in this mountain has kept anything; that she fed her, and dressed her, and gave her a gown of silk; and that she has nothing else to tell the court about it.

Asked whether that was the whole of her account, she answered that it was the whole of what the court would understand.

Asked what the court would not understand, she answered that she took the seamstress because she could, and because no one would stop her; and that she had good reason to believe that no one would.

Asked what reason, she answered: “You know why, Mairon.”

The Lieutenant directed that the answer be written.

Asked whether she had sent her attendants to fetch the seamstress from her station, she answered that she has whatever attendants she needs, and that the Lieutenant knows what they are better than anyone in the hall.

The assessor Urukišha asked, with leave, whether the seamstress had asked for any of the things she was given. The accused answered that she had not needed to ask.

Asked by the same assessor whether the seamstress was hers, the accused answered that she was.

Asked how the seamstress came to be hers, she answered: “The same way anything in this mountain comes to be anyone’s. Ask Mairon.”

The Lieutenant directed that the answer be written.

She was again admonished to recollect herself and to declare the truth, and was returned to the place prepared for her by the wardens of the watch, the Lieutenant and the recorder going down with them.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—Second Audience—

In the Hall of Bears, on the twentieth day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The accused Thuringwethil was brought from the place prepared for her by the wardens of the watch, the Lieutenant and the recorder going down with them. She was reminded of the oath she had sworn.

Asked whether she remembered anything relating to her affair which she was bound by that oath to declare, she answered that she had only this to declare: that she has been held since the thirty-seventh day of Ulubhân, and has not yet been told her offense, as the Codes require.

She was told that the Codes require an offense to be named before punishment is given; that she has not been punished; and that the time given her is given so that she may recollect herself and declare the truth of her own accord, she having stated in the previous audience that she knows why she is held.

Asked again whether she remembered anything she was bound to declare, she answered that she had nothing more to say.

She was then reminded that in the previous audience she had been admonished to recollect herself and to confess freely and in full, submitting herself entirely to the Giver of Freedom, so that her offenses might be paid for and the stain of them taken from her. She was admonished again in the same form.

The hall then grew cold, and there was a stirring along the walls; and before any shape could be made out, the Lieutenant raised his hand, and the cold went out of the hall.

Asked whether, in the previous audience, she had stated that she saw the seamstress Nárelótë in the workroom of division C-134-B, she answered that she had.

Asked whether the workroom was the first place she saw the seamstress, she answered that it was.

Asked whether she had stated that she took the seamstress as she was entitled to, she answered that she had.

The assessor Lakjašalli asked, with leave, by what provision of the Codes she held that entitlement, and asked her to recite it. The accused answered that she could recite every provision of the Codes, and that there is none such in them; that the Codes are not the only law in this mountain; and that the Lieutenant knows this better than anyone.

Asked what other law she meant, she answered that the court should ask the one who wrote the Codes what law stands over them.

The Lieutenant directed that the answer be written.

Asked whether she held that the matter was one for this court, she answered that it was not; that it was a matter between herself and the Lieutenant, and no one else in the hall; that what she had done to the seamstress, she had done as those above have always done to those beneath them; and that the fault the Lieutenant found in her was not that she had done it, but that she had done it where he could see.

The assessor Urukišha asked, with leave, who spoke for the seamstress, she having no clan.

The accused answered: “I did. She was mine.”

Asked by the same assessor whether the seamstress had ever asked her to speak for her, she did not answer.

She was again admonished to recollect herself and to declare the truth, and was returned to the place prepared for her by the wardens of the watch, the Lieutenant and the recorder going down with them.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—Third Audience—

In the Hall of Bears, on the twenty-first day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The accused Thuringwethil was brought from the place prepared for her by the wardens of the watch, the Lieutenant and the recorder going down with them. She was reminded of the oath she had sworn.

Asked whether she remembered anything relating to her affair which she was bound by that oath to declare, she answered that she had nothing more to say.

She was then reminded that in the two previous audiences she had been admonished to recollect herself and to confess freely and in full, submitting herself entirely to the Giver of Freedom, so that her offenses might be paid for and the stain of them taken from her. She was informed that the investigator Uzhumâghan had an accusation to bring against her; that she would do well to declare the whole truth before it was brought, since one who confesses before the accusation finds more mercy than one who confesses after it; and that otherwise the accusation would be brought, and justice done.

The hall turned cold, and then did not.

She answered that she had nothing more to say.

Straightway appeared Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank, who presented the accusation, signed in his own hand, and swore that he did not bring it out of malice, but solely that justice might be done. The accusation was as follows:

ACCUSATION.

I, Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank, appear before the Lieutenant of the Lord of All, and accuse Thuringwethil, lately herald of the Lieutenant, held in the place prepared by the Lieutenant and now present; in that the said Thuringwethil, being an officer of high rank, and bound to keep the Codes as all are bound who live beneath the Lord of All, has committed offenses under the Codes and against those beneath her, in the following manner:

1. That she took Nárelótë, now secretary, ninth rank, junior, of division S-2, and formerly seamstress of division C-134-B, against her will, for the use of her body; and did so on many occasions, from the winter after the elves were brought from Gondolin until the sixty-eighth day of Grazhân of the five-hundred and nineteenth year; and that she bound her.
2. That over the same years she fed upon the blood of the said Nárelótë, against her will and on many occasions, by bites to the shoulder, the arm, the wrist, the neck, the knee, and the thigh, with venom such that the blood was slow to stop; by which the said Nárelótë was many times brought fainting to the infirmary serving her division, and wasted, as the case reports of that infirmary show.
3. That on or about the sixty-eighth day of Grazhân of the five-hundred and nineteenth year, she bit the said Nárelótë over the pulse of the thigh, with venom such that the blood would not stop, and left her so, bleeding, in the corridor outside her workroom; by which the said Nárelótë was brought near to death.
4. That she caused punishments to be given that the Codes do not allow: the sempster Ozûtalai, fed upon by her attendants until he fell, with no offense named; the seamstress Draumâkil, shown her dead by means the Codes do not know, and given forty strokes by her order for an offense not of the highest degree, with no healer present; the healer Assurakûn, punished eight times to the highest degree with no offense named and no healer present, and lastly given fifty strokes by the hand of his own commander, by her order; and the chief medical officer Bakharma, fed upon in her own infirmary.
5. That on the fourth day of Bashân of the five-hundred and seventeenth year, she broke the custody of infirmary CL-23, and took the said Nárelótë from it undischarged and unfit.
6. That she gave gifts and favors to Assupilik, captain of division C-134-B, so that he would give the said Nárelótë into her hands and conceal what was done.
7. That she punished those who reported or complained of her conduct, so that it would not reach those above her.
8. That it is to be presumed she has committed further offenses of the same kind against other persons, whose names are not yet known; and that, having been admonished three times to declare the truth, she has not done so.

For these reasons I ask that the Lieutenant receive this accusation as true, or so much of it as shall suffice for justice; that he declare the said Thuringwethil guilty of the offenses aforesaid, and impose upon her the gravest punishment the Codes allow, for an expiation to herself and an example to others; and that, if it be found necessary, she be put to the torture, until she declare the whole truth of herself and of others.

And I swear that I do not bring this accusation out of malice, but solely that justice may be done.

Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank

The accusation having been read, the accused laughed, and asked who in this mountain could put her to the torture.

She was told that, if it should come to that, the Lieutenant would do it himself.

She asked: “Is that a threat, Mairon?”

She was told that it was a warning.

She was then informed that, under the Instructions governing this inquiry, she might choose one of two advocates named by the Lieutenant’s Office, to defend her so far as the Codes allow: namely, Tarhunzaš, advocate of internal matters, second rank; and Halpašuli, lately officer of the armies, now elder of the clan of Kurruhi.

She answered that she would have neither; that she has always spoken for herself.

She was then sworn to answer the accusation truly, article by article. It was read again, article by article, and she answered as follows:

To the heading, she answered that she is the Thuringwethil accused, herald of the Lieutenant. The secretary, being directed, entered: lately herald.

To the first article, she answered that she took the seamstress, as she had said, and kept her; and that the seamstress came when she was sent for. She said further that she did not know the seamstress had been made a secretary, and asked whether the Lieutenant meant to keep her for himself.

She was directed to answer the article.

She answered that she had.

Asked whether Nárelótë came willingly, she answered that she came, and was not carried.

To the second article, she answered that she fed upon the seamstress, as she had fed upon others.

Asked whether she has need of blood, she answered that she has not.

To the third article, she answered that the seamstress lived.

Asked whether, when she left Nárelótë, Nárelótë was bleeding, she answered that she was.

Asked whether she sent for a healer, she answered that she did not.

Asked who found Nárelótë, she answered that she did not know.

Asked whether she knew that Nárelótë could die of such a wound, she answered again that the seamstress lived. She said further that there are those in this mountain who have been hurt worse than the seamstress, and mended by the one who hurt them, and—

The assessor Šunilukkái stood. The accused did not finish.

Asked whether she had mended Nárelótë, she did not answer.

The assessor Šunilukkái sat.

To the fourth article, she answered that the punishments were hers to give, and were given for insolence; and that the Codes require an offense to be named, but that there are some in this mountain who have been punished without being told why, and that no one has brought anyone before this court for it.

She was directed to answer the article.

She answered that the punishments were hers to give.

To the fifth article, she answered that custody has not always stopped— and then stopped, and asked whether the court wished her to finish.

She was directed to answer the article.

She answered that she needed the seamstress, and took her.

To the sixth article, she answered that the captain was paid for his trouble, as captains are.

To the seventh article, she answered that she punished insolence, as any officer may.

To the eighth article, she answered that the court would find what it finds.

The above being read back to her, she affirmed it to be correctly recorded.

The Lieutenant ordered that the request of the investigator Uzhumâghan concerning the torture be reserved; that the accused be given a copy of the accusation; and that the testimony against her be published at the next audience.

She was again admonished to recollect herself and to declare the truth, and was returned to the place prepared for her by the wardens of the watch, the Lieutenant and the recorder going down with them.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—Fourth Audience—

In the Hall of Bears, on the twenty-second day of Zaghân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, at the morning audience, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, presiding sole; the assessors Urukišha, Šunilukkái, and Lakjašalli being seated; present also the observer Hašmetarai; Mírlach, secretary, first rank; and Nênšelardi, recorder, first rank, internal matters.

The accused Thuringwethil was brought from the place prepared for her by the wardens of the watch, the Lieutenant and the recorder going down with them. She was reminded of the oath she had sworn.

Asked whether she remembered anything relating to her affair which she was bound by that oath to declare, she answered that she had nothing more to say.

She was informed that the investigator Uzhumâghan had asked that the testimony against her be published; that before it was published she would do well to declare the whole truth, since it would go better with her to confess it than to have it shown to her; and that otherwise the publication would be made.

She answered that she had nothing more to say.

Straightaway appeared Uzhumâghan, investigator of internal matters, first rank, who stated that the witnesses in this cause had ratified their testimony in form, and asked that it be published. The Lieutenant ordered the publication to be made, the names of the witnesses and all other circumstances by which they might be known being withheld, according to the Instructions governing this inquiry; and that the accused answer each part, being sworn to answer truly. This was done as follows:

PUBLICATION OF THE TESTIMONY.

I. A certain captain declares that the accused came to his workroom in the winter after the elves were brought from Gondolin, and asked the name of the seamstress, and whether she had a clan; that the accused afterward sent him gifts, namely wine of the south, a ring set with a garnet, fine silk, and ration tallies of his own division; that whenever the accused or her attendants came for the seamstress, he sent her; that by the accused’s word he was absent from his workroom on the day the sempster Ozûtalai was bitten; that the complaints of his division he carried not to his superior but to the accused; and that by the accused’s order he doubled the count of his division, so that they would have no breath to complain again.

She answered that the captain was useful, and was paid.

II. A certain witness of the stores declares that the ration-tag of the said Nárelótë drew no rations at the hall for runs of days, while her count was met; and that fine cloth was drawn by her division against no order, and marked in the division’s cloth-book for the Lady.

She answered that the seamstress ate at her table, and that the cloth was for her gown.

III. It was further published that there were found in the chambers of the accused, among other things: a gown, shifts, and slippers made to the measure of the said Nárelótë; kerchiefs of rough cloth, one hundred and sixty-three; and, in a locked chest, a gown of the fashion of Gondolin, shoes, and a head-cloth, never washed, stiff with the mud and ash of the road.

Asked whether, in the second audience, she had stated that the workroom of division C-134-B was the first place she saw the said Nárelótë, she answered that she had.

Asked how she came to have the clothes the said Nárelótë wore when she came through the gates of this mountain, which are taken from all who come at their first bathing, she answered that she liked to remember how the seamstress looked when she came.

Asked whether she was at the gates when the said Nárelótë came, she answered that she was at the gates when all of them came.

Asked whether, then, the workroom was the first place she saw her, she answered that it was not, and asked why it mattered whether she first saw the seamstress in this place or that place.

She was told that it mattered because she had sworn it. The Lieutenant directed that it be entered that the answer she gave on this matter in the second audience was, by her own admission, false.

To the kerchiefs, she answered that the seamstress always had another.

It was further published that there was found in the same chest a small casket of silver, holding seven locks of hair, each tied with a thread, from seven different heads.

Asked whose hair was in the casket, she answered: “Would you like me to tell you, Mairon? Or would you rather not know?”

She was asked again, in the same words, whose hair was in the casket. She answered: “Ask me as if you wanted to know.”

The question was entered as unanswered. The Lieutenant directed that it be entered also that the request of the investigator concerning the torture remains reserved.

The accused then asked the Lieutenant whether, if she were put to the torture and bore it, that would pay for it, in his eyes.

She was told that the Codes say what pays for an offense, and what does not.

She said that she had not asked the Codes.

The question was entered as unanswered.

IV. A certain witness of the division declares that the captain would leave the workroom a short time before the accused came to it, and return a short time after she had gone; that the accused’s attendants came often to the workroom to fetch the said Nárelótë; and that the witness believes she went with them, the first time, so that they would stop.

She answered that the seamstress came, and never was dragged or carried into her presence.

V. Another witness of the division declares that the accused named the offense of the seamstress Draumâkil before the whole division standing along the wall; that the division told their captain what was being done, and used the word for it, which is rape.

With this testimony was entered a length of grey cord, closely knotted, tied by a witness one knot for each time the said Nárelótë was fetched. It was counted before the accused, and found to bear nine hundred and four knots.

With a very small smile, she said: “They counted.”

The assessor Urukišha asked, with leave, whether the said Nárelótë had any kin who might have counted for her. The accused answered that she had none. The assessor Urukišha said that she had.

VI. Another witness declares that she asked, at times, to be let be, saying that she was sick, or sore, or weary, and was not let be; that she asked for mercy, and was refused; that she was bound at such times as she could not keep still; and that she was told that she belonged to the accused until the ending of the world.

She answered that she had said so, and that it was true.

VII. The case reports of a certain healer, forwarded under seal and ratified in form, were then read in their order, from the first, of Ulubhân in the five-hundred and fifteenth year, to the last, of Grazhân in the five-hundred and nineteenth. The last was read in full, the names of persons being withheld; the substance of it is entered here as follows:

Brought by her division, carrying her. Unconscious. Found in the corridor outside the workroom before the first bell. A whole bite at the innermost thigh, over the pulse and not the vein. Bright blood, rising with each beat of her heart. Venom heavier than in any prior report. Pressure by hand through the night, three healers in turn. Toward morning the bleeding at the wound slowed, but bruising has risen at the flank and the small of the back, where no hand can press. She is bleeding where I cannot reach. She would not survive another like it.

She said that the seamstress was given everything, and was grateful for none of it.

She said further that the seamstress never raised the hue and cry; that she never complained to her captain, nor to her healer, nor to anyone; that she asked her own division to keep silent; that she came when she was sent for, and said that she was content; and that if this was force, then there are others in this mountain who come when they are called, and do not complain, and say that they are content, and—

The assessor Šunilukkái spoke without leave, and said: “One who does not complain has learned what complaining costs. That is all it proves.”

The Lieutenant did not rebuke him.

The accused then stated that the seamstress consented; that she said yes.

Asked what she would have done had the seamstress said no, she answered that the seamstress did say no, before.

Asked what was done then, she did not answer.

The Lieutenant then answered the accused, which he had not done before. He said: “A yes given to keep another from your teeth is no yes. It is so written in the Codes. I wrote it.”

The accused answered: “Then the Codes are not kept by all, Mairon. I have seen it done. I thought the law had been set aside.”

Here the audience was suspended, the Lieutenant being summoned immediately to attend the Lord of All.

In my presence—

Mírlach, Secretary, First Rank

Recorded and attested—

Nênšelardi, Recorder, First Rank

—

[Note — Where are the disposition records? Possibly to be found out of order in the stack of documents which lie below the next one, or possibly elsewhere, or possibly nowhere — I hope not the latter. These three were on the top of a stack of perhaps two hundred sheets, all bundled together, all standing in water from a seep in the lower wall of the chamber where we found them, which is a small one just off what I believe to have been the main chamber of the secretariat. There are several such chambers along that wall, all alike: very thick walls, nearly a forearm through; a drain set into the middle of each floor; and iron fittings let into the stone at about the height of a man’s shoulder. I take them to have been strongrooms for the most valuable records, with the drains to keep them dry, and the fittings for shelving long since rotted away. If so, the drain in this one failed us badly. The bottom of the stack is pulp. The middle may not be. We have stopped excavating that corner until I can learn how the elves of Lindon dry wet parchment without destroying it, if they do. I have written to three of them. I will write again when I know more. I hope the remainder can be salvaged. —E.]

—

[A parchment bearing the Grand Seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

In the city of Angband, on the twelfth day of Mughân and the five-hundred and twentieth year of the Jewels, Lord Mairon, Lieutenant of the Lord of All, hereby orders on his own authority:

That what has been found by the questioning and the searches ordered on the seventh day of Zaghân warrants further action; and that the questioning be widened accordingly, as follows:

That the rolls of every division of this mountain, and not of division C alone, be searched for the last fifty years for any worker reassigned at the request of the household of Thuringwethil, or struck from the rolls without cause entered;

That the rolls of the armies be searched for the same fifty years, for every campaign in which the said Thuringwethil served, for any prisoner or captive given into her keeping, and what became of them; and that twelve more officers of those campaigns be chosen by lot and questioned;

That the case reports of every infirmary of this mountain, and of every field infirmary of those campaigns, be searched for the same fifty years, as before;

That the reports of the scouts of every march be searched for the same fifty years, for any account of persons taken, or found dead, in the manner described in the case report of infirmary CL-23 dated the fifty-first day of Grazhân of the five-hundred and fifteenth year;

That notice be given to the kin of every person found, where there are kin to give it to; and that it be given in such words as do them no further harm;

That restitution be made to the kin of every person found, or to the person themselves where they live, from the stores of the Lieutenant’s own household, the one who did this having been of it;

And that the findings be brought to the Lieutenant, and to no other.

In my presence—

Halkiran, Secretary, First Rank

—

[A sheet in the hand of the division of internal matters, ruled in columns.]

FINDINGS OF THE QUESTIONING AND SEARCHES ORDERED ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF ZAGHÂN, AS THEY STAND ON THE TENTH DAY OF MUGHÂN. FIRST SHEET.

Of the seven locks of hair found in the chambers of Thuringwethil: one is the secretary Nárelótë’s. Three are matched, by those who knew them, to persons entered below. Three are not yet matched.

Persons found, to this day: [Note — This number was repeatedly crossed out and blotted, and the paper itself is foxed; I am unsure what it says — E.]

1. Kuwaliya, spinner, of division C-118. Reassigned at the request of the household of Thuringwethil in the four-hundred and ninety-seventh year; struck from the rolls of her division in the same year, without cause entered. Her ration-tag not presented at the hall after that month. Those who worked beside her, being questioned, believed she had been taken into the Lady’s service, and envied her. No death entered. Of the clan of Hapallu, of which one elder lives, dwelling with the clan of Plashavar. Her hair matched to one of the seven by a woman of her division. Notice given.

2. A captive, an elf, name not entered, taken in the campaign of the Sudden Flame, and given into the keeping of Thuringwethil by order of an officer of the third army. No record of return. No kin known. Her hair matched to one of the seven by the officer who gave her into that keeping, who remembered its color.

3. Hûrkalaš, soldier, of the third army, sent with a message to the tent of Thuringwethil in the same campaign. Case report of the field infirmary: punctures of one size and one spacing, at the throat; blood that would not stop. Died on the second day. The healer who wrote the report lives, and was questioned; she stated that she sent word of it to her commander, and heard nothing after. Of the clan of Arnukhanda. Notice given.

4. A worker of the mines of division M-31, reassigned at the request of the household of Thuringwethil in the five-hundred and third year, and returned to her division in the same year. Lives. Being questioned, confirmed that she was taken into that household, and asked that her name not be written further. Her hair matched to one of the seven by herself. The Lieutenant, being told, directed that her name be struck from this sheet, and that restitution be made to her in her own hand, and that she not be questioned again.

5. [Note — This is where the water line appears on the document. What follows is what I think I can make out — E.] …report of the scouts of the eastern march… a pale thing, winged, at night… 

—

[A small sheet, folded, bearing the seal of the Lieutenant’s Office.]

To Annawanni, eldest mother of the clan of Hapallu, dwelling with the clan of Plashavar.

By order of the Lieutenant of the Lord of All, notice is given that your kinswoman Kuwaliya, spinner of division C-118, struck from the rolls of that division in the four-hundred and ninety-seventh year of the Jewels without cause entered, is now known to have died in the keeping of one who has since been held to account.

Those who worked beside her, being questioned, remember that she was quick with her spindle and quicker with her tongue, and that she sang at her work when the captain was out of hearing.

The Lieutenant regrets that this was not known to you sooner, and that it was not known to him.

Restitution is owed to your clan, and will be made from the stores of the Lieutenant’s own household, the one who did this having been of it.

Her name has been entered in the record of this matter, so that it is known.

[On the back, in a different hand:]

Carried by the assessor Urukišha, of the clan of Zíšelardi, at her own asking; and spoken by her to the said elder from memory, the said elder being blind.

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3 Yavannië, SA 3264

Dearest E—

The records you sent are, indeed, fascinating. I daresay you can run through certain aspects of the conversation we might have about it in your mind; perhaps we might speak those words in person not too long from now.

I must apologize for my continued tardiness from attending the excavation, while also expressing my wonder at receiving such a bounty of sources that the gods unearthing the troves of ancient Angband could call for anything less than immediate attendance. It must strike you with some irony that one who has devoted so much of his life to record-keeping might be so taken with fallible memory — and perhaps it is a sort of madness! But how sweet a madness it is to hear of ancient unimaginable histories from the lips of ones who witnessed them, to ask one’s questions and hear answers which would otherwise lay beyond reach of scrutiny.

It was in search of such answers that I lately approached the lord Sauron, also called Annatar, whom as we now know is wed to the elven lord Celebrimbor, who rules Eregion and counts himself the grandson of the mythical Fëanáro(!!), though he refuses to entertain further discussion of his forebears. Still, he and his husband have suffered a great deal of questioning with rather more forbearance than I imagined they might given the circumstances of our acquaintance — yes, of course I have included a copy of my notes — which perhaps led me to broach the subject of the records you sent me with less sensitivity than might have been called for. I did not intend at that time to request additional details regarding Miss N herself, only further information on the laws of Angband and the manner of conducting inquiries into matters such as hers, but in my brief outline of the matter it became clear to me from Sauron’s reaction that he recalled his personal acquaintance with it. It was as if his face had turned to stone. When I pointed out that he seemed to know of what I spoke, it was as if his entire body stiffened, and he said very coldly, “Get out. Tyelpë, if you want him to live, get him out of here this instant.”

Alas. Without a word, the lord Celebrimbor rose, put a hand on my shoulder, and gently but quite firmly escorted me out. I perhaps compounded the situation somewhat by impulsively making an appeal to the lord Sauron regarding what responsibilities an author might have toward their unfinished texts; his reply was a very definitive “None whatsoever.” Which he then followed up with, “If I have to hear another word from him, I’m going to remove his tongue.” So unfortunately I am not currently welcome in their presence. In hopes that a little space and time for their displeasure to cool will recommend me back, I have quit Ost-in-Edhil and make now for greater Lindon, where I am told there is a great kingdom of very ancient and hospitable elves who may prove willing to share their tales with me. Before I left I entrusted a letter of apology and a small gift to one of the friends I made during my time among the Mírdain, who has promised to deliver it to those I offended once a suitable length of time has passed.

This is not the end of my tale in Eregion, however. For as I was leaving, I found myself waylaid by a lovely elven lady dressed in the manner I have learned to associate with the Noldor, in long robes with a light veil covering her hair, with a slight limp that she compensated for with a walking stick, who asked me to tarry with her at a nearby teahouse. I must confess that initially I mistook her aim and attempted to flirt with her, which she reciprocated at first but eventually laughed and shook her head, saying that she did not seek me out for company.

“What did you seek?” I asked curiously. She seemed to war with herself for a moment, then looked straight into my eyes and said that she desired to tell her story.

22 Úrimë, SA 3264

First statement of the witness Nárelótë, a bookbinder of Eregion, offered freely to Sakalkhôr, a scholar of the Historians’ College in Númenor

I was born in Beleriand before the Unnumbered Tears and spent the latter part of my life in Gondolin before I was taken prisoner. There is much I could say about all of it, but not right now, under these circumstances — you are a mayfly, you live for an instant, but for me these things are not ancient history, I recall them as clearly as if they happened yesterday. Since you are leaving for Lindon, you might speak perhaps to Pengolodh, whom I knew as Lendalwed in Gondolin; I understand he has intentionally sought to compile a history of sorts of our people, and may be more inclined to tell of these events.

Yes, yes, my own story, of course. Where to start?

The march to Angband was awful — so many of us were women and children, and we weren’t dressed for the weather, or for travel at all. Some didn’t even have shoes. There was almost no food. They drove us like chattel, with whips and shouting, but half the time even they didn’t seem to know what was going on. People asked for food and were told there would be something, but nothing would appear, or maybe just a single loaf of bread. One loaf of bread for thousands of people. They warned us that if we tried to escape, we might be killed. I think a lot of people still tried, and maybe some of them got away, I don’t know. I saw people being whipped for trying to escape, but I didn’t see anyone being killed.

The only lord of Gondolin I saw was Salakanto, the poor man, he couldn’t even walk. I only saw him when they came around putting people who couldn’t keep going into a cart. They took all of them away, and I never saw them again. Salakanto was the only one who stayed with us. I know some of our lords died fighting in the streets and I have no hardness of heart for them, but some of them ran, and I will never forgive them for it. Lendalwed was one of the ones who ran, but he was not a lord and he was not skilled in battle, so I don’t hate him so much. The other ones, though, the ones who ran away and left us to terrible suffering and death and worse, I have nothing but contempt in my heart for them. The fact that he treats them like heroes and our people call him ‘loremaster’ for it is the hardest for me to swallow, out of everything. Yes, I suppose I am furious with him too.

I think most of the people who died on the journey died in the Echoriath. The mountains were not as high there, yes, but that is like telling a man who is drowning at the bottom of the lake that the ocean is much deeper. Many people fell as they were driven, and many people chose to jump. I know they chose because they would jump with their families, hold their babies and jump together. I can still hear the sounds of their bodies breaking far below. The Orcs would sometimes try to stop them if they saw, but sometimes they would look away. As for me, there was no thought in my mind but survival. Maybe that is what ensured I would never die, even after that woman. After what she made me do. Our people say we will die if we are… forced in that manner, so if one does not die, it cannot be said they were wholly unwilling. So perhaps…

I don’t know. Forgive me, I didn’t think I would be so…

It’s been a long time. Many times longer than the amount of time I spent in that hell. And for a very long time, I didn’t think about it at all. It used to be — if people knew you had been to Angband, they would drive you out into the wilderness. Even if they had known you before you went, a lot of people wouldn’t let you return, or they’d grumble and stare if you were allowed back. There were people there in Angband who’d escaped before, and ended up coming back because their own parents and brothers and sisters shut their doors to them. I met someone who had a scar on her forehead, not because of an accident or because Morgoth’s creatures struck her, but because when she tried to go home her own sons threw rocks at her to drive her out, and one struck her in the face. Her own children, whom she nurtured with her life’s essence.

Ah, you are very kind, but what is past is past. Things are very different here. They say you can leave your past behind you, and I suppose if that clemency extends all the way to that monster Sauron, it must extend to me too.

[Interviewer’s note: She laughed wryly as she said this. Though the things she related were bleak and horrible, I often noticed how quick she was to smile and laugh. Never once did she weep, though once or twice I saw tears in her eyes.]

Though I cannot imagine what I would do if instead of him, it were the Lady Thuringwethil. Her name alone still makes me shiver. Those years when she visited — I found myself wishing she would do more of things I never could have imagined wanting, just so I wouldn’t have to…

[Interviewer’s note: She made a gesture and picked up her tea, sipping it in silence for a minute or two. I let her be. It did not seem right to interrupt.]

I appreciate your patience. This is still very difficult to speak about. I suppose it might be difficult for someone like you to understand…

[Interviewer’s note: At this point she made inquiries regarding certain details of my own life, which I answered. In the interest of professionalism, these irrelevancies have been omitted.]

Yes, the journey. I think by the time we reached those terrible gates, the number of captives was reduced by at least a third. Many of those who were left were hurt. I think many of the injuries happened in the mountains. They would come and get you if you collapsed or if you couldn’t move fast enough, and we never saw those people again. They said those people were being carried or riding or something like that, but no one believed it. All of us were covered in filth; we never got the chance to wash. There wasn’t any water, so we gathered up the snow and ate it as we marched. Those of us who were stronger took turns carrying the children who were too little to keep up. I did see an orc carrying a boy whose parents were both dead on his back a few times, but I don’t know what eventually became of him.

By the time we reached Angband’s gates, we were all so wretched that I think few of us had anything left to cry or resist. There were also more soldiers that appeared as we approached the peaks. Different soldiers, I think they were fresh, some of them astride huge wolves, and balrogs carrying fiery whips so large I thought one strike from one would break your back. Some people did start to cry out as we got closer, but I don’t think I saw more resistance than that. What would it have done? We were unarmed, surrounded — they would have just killed us all. Maybe we should have died, maybe it would have been better and we wouldn’t have had people looking askance at us for surviving, but everyone there wanted to live.

Inside the gates — oh, right, I forgot. There was one woman who went out of her mind and tried to run. The orcs grabbed her and brought her back, and I heard her being warned that if she tried again, she could end up branded with the symbol of the Black Hand, but I never saw them do it. I think they might have done it if you got caught trying to escape, but I don’t think it happened to anyone who came back on their own, and maybe it was just a threat. Then inside they had these pools in the floor filled with steaming water where we were told to bathe — they said we had five minutes but they made us get back in if they didn’t think we were clean enough, so it took forever.

—I suppose it was a little patronizing, but I think we were mostly just glad they were letting us finish bathing. We were all disgusting when we arrived, and five minutes wasn’t even close to enough time to get through all the layers of dirt and mud and soot, and volcanic ash — do you have any idea what it’s like to try and get volcanic ash out of your hair? I was just relieved to be sent back.

After a while they started taking groups of people who were waiting off to bathe in other parts of the fortress, but it still took a long time. We had to surrender the clothes we came with, and when we got out they handed us new ones. I heard one of them say ‘you’re one of us now’ or something like that, and all I could think was they were out of their minds. After everything they did to us, how could they call us fellows? But after a while, I hated them less and started to pity them. Even…I don’t know. Most of them didn’t know anything better. Perhaps Námo will redeem them after death.

The intake process, yes. It took forever. Each person was assigned one blanket. People carrying children were given two. Then you got in line again for work assignments, which was the first time I saw Sauron’s secretaries. They all wore the same uniform, black robes with the crest of the lidless eye embroidered in red on the chest. I later learned that you could tell their rank from the way the robes were trimmed — the more red you could see, the higher their rank. They asked your profession and how long you had practiced it, and sometimes a few other questions like what they specialized in or what other skills they had, and then they gave you a small metal pendant with your assignment engraved on it and sent you off to stand with other people assigned to the same section. Then every once in a while, someone would come and lead the group off. I saw many artists assigned to physical labor, even to the mines — I suppose they didn’t see the value in art. I was assigned to work as a seamstress under division C-134-B.

Then finally, finally, we were given something to eat. The food was passed out in this large hall like a cafeteria where you had to present the pendant with your assignment to get your food — or not. If you didn’t work fast enough, if you didn’t meet your quotas, they wouldn’t give you anything. They did let us eat on the first day, but not after that. If you were only a little behind and your captain was willing to wait, you might still be able to get something from the kitchens, but that depended on your captain, and mine was a hideous little toad. I loathed him. He was this odious creature, always scuttling from the room a few minutes before that bitch showed up, or smiling and greeting whatever thing she sent to retrieve me and then ordering me to go with them. Sometimes he said I was ‘permitted’ to leave my station, or that I was lucky to be summoned — as if what she did was—

If Námo redeems them, I hope he hangs that one up by his toes and flays him every night until the breaking of the world. It would probably take that much to redeem him.

Everyone else hated him, too. They and the healers were the kindest anyone was to me. I still have one of their marks on my upper arm, which says one of them is family to me, and more on my thigh, the one that bitch decided to take a bite out of. If there’s anything I regret, it’s that I don’t know what happened to them. Probably they all died. I hope Námo showed them kindness.

That woman. I hadn’t even been there long when she came to me, but I didn’t see her for the first… I don’t know, several weeks? Later on they showed me my clothes, the ones I came in, just as filthy as they were when they had us take them off to bathe, and I just — choked. Over that, of all things. Why that? I don’t know.

I thought that when — when she came to me, I had thought the worst was already over. Nothing could be as hideous as being driven as a slave from my home as it burned. Wretched as I felt, I thought now was the time to lament, for they had taken everything. Everything that mattered. They could take nothing more from me. That’s what I thought.

I had no word for it. I thought I would die. That first time, when I went with her — I thought I was giving my life for his. It would be a horrid death, and he was an orc, but he had been kind — I couldn’t watch him die for me. And when I didn’t die, I thought we were wed. The healer said it wasn’t true, but what would he know? He wasn’t of our people. I was terrified, for years, that we were wed. And she seemed to know what I was thinking — she whispered it to me, that I was hers, that until the ending of the world I would never, never—

Forgive me.

[Interviewer’s note: Adjourned for a time.]

—

23 Úrimë, SA 3264

Second statement of the witness Nárelótë, a bookbinder of Eregion, offered freely to Sakalkhôr, a scholar of the Historians’ College in Númenor

[Interviewer’s note: It has been agreed not to discuss certain particulars of what was done to her.]

Ah, yes. The inquiry. The one Sauron held, as if it weren’t half his fault I was there in the first place. Oh, yes, take me as a slave, burn my home, slaughter everyone I love, and I’ll forgive all of it because you draw the line at rape? Nine hundred and four rapes, which you let go on and on and on until the last one nearly killed me? Please.

Yes, he made me a secretary. The very lowest rank on the ladder, because we couldn’t have me get too above my station, could we? So it was under his auspices that I actually did end up lashed — once because his standards were exacting and his grip of Quenya idiosyncratic, and the rest of the time because, one could not make this up, the madman himself decided that I needed lessons. Lessons in responding to pain in a manner appropriate to the culture of Angband. I told you one could not make this up.

Halkiran did it for about two days, then complained that I was a poor pupil and he could not teach me. Then Uzhunahhan did it for two weeks, and did the same. Finally they assigned Namešha, Secretary Sixth Rank Senior, who told a lot of stupid jokes and poked fun at just about everything, even Sauron himself, though he got very nervous and clapped his hand over my mouth and shook his head when I called Morgoth by the name he deserved — and I decided I liked him enough to put up with it. I didn’t think I was going to get anyone I liked better, anyway. He was what they call a child of two worlds, his mother was an orc and his father an elf, and I left Angband at the same time he did, with Ozûtalai’s clan and his. We all got separated in the floods — at least, I hope we were only separated. I hope they didn’t die then. It would be nice for them to have lived free.

—Why the lessons? Oh, allegedly because Morgoth had this delightful idea to hold a feast on the anniversary of the fall of Gondolin, and the even more delightful idea to gather a bunch of the slaves he’d taken in Gondolin together and whip them. And there was some complication to it, like something unpleasant he was going to do to the first one who required restraint or something. If you think that makes it a kindness for Sauron to have ordered me to have lessons in how to be whipped right because apparently I did that wrong, consider the role he had in putting me there in the first place.

If I had never been enslaved, if I’d lived out the First Age in Gondolin — for all King Turukáno’s faults, would he ever have done such a thing? Would I ever have had to learn the word for rape, something I learned for the first time in an Orcish tongue, because I’d only ever heard this thing spoken of in fearful whispers and euphemisms of ‘force’? Besides, was it not Sauron’s own government, the one in which he held more power than any other soul but one, that was the first one to decide that my body was not my own?

So, no. That monster will not have my forgiveness. He gets plenty of it from Tyelperinquar and others. He has no need of mine.

—What happened? Ah — yes, that’s right. I had completely forgotten the inquiry was suspended. I wasn’t there for most of it; I was limping to the latrine with my stick — the same one I have now, actually. The healers requisitioned it and Ozûtalai’s cousin in the carpentry division carved it.

As you can see, I never quite lost the limp. Assurakûn told me it made me look lovelier — wiser, more dignified among his people, which made me laugh and lifted my spirits. Can you imagine? He was very kind, they all were, and by the end I quite adored them. One cannot find oneself needing someone’s help with the latrine and not come away either deeply appreciating them or unable to look at them, you see.

But when Sauron was holding his audiences, I was mostly busy being grateful to be able to handle those matters on my own, and holding out little hope that it would go anywhere. I did learn of the audiences being suspended because for several hours the healers grew very concerned and had someone stand at the door keeping watch, but within a few hours they resumed. What I understand happened was, Morgoth summoned Sauron to the throne room and demanded an accounting of why his lieutenant was wasting time and effort on trifles. Sauron replied however he replied, and the whole thing became an inquiry for treason — then, you see, Thuringwethil’s crime became not raping and nearly murdering me, but arrogating a privilege which belonged to Morgoth alone. Ha! It was all a bit of a farce — everyone knew what the crime was. But now Morgoth was involved. I understand Thuringwethil tried to flee, and for that of all things, I don’t blame her. I would not have chosen the sentence he passed. Nor will I talk about what it was, as I don’t wish to think about it. It was nightmarish. It was the sort of thing which compels pity, and I don’t wish to feel pity for her. Not after what she did to me.

I do not believe she is dead, no. I will not speak further as to her; suffice it to say that she is not here. My life in this city is good. I have a very small bookshop, doubling as my workshop, with a little space above where I may sleep. I am married, truly this time, to an agreeable elf who thinks me more remarkable than I am, though this elf is also quite Sindar and refuses to cover their hair. There are some times when I jump at shadows — I still loathe the scent of witch-hazel, and there are some voices or fabrics which fill me with disgust, and sometimes I cannot abide being around lovers who feed each other sweets. But for the most part, I am content. My nights are warm and still, and the worst thing I fear is what follows when my husband retires after eating too much cheese. I do adore him, more than anything in the world, and he's been very good for me. I do not imagine that woman has ever had anything so good in her life. As far I can tell, she seems to be gone; whereas I am alive, and loved.

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24 Úrimë, SA 3264
Excerpts from the third statement of the witness Nárelótë, a bookbinder of Eregion, offered freely to Sakalkhôr, a scholar of the Historians’ College in Númenor — yes, E., darling, I know, I swear I will finish copying all of my notes for you as soon as I have the opportunity. There is just so much for me to write!

[Interviewer’s note: We met again the next day to talk more about the people she had gotten to know in Angband. She said it felt good to be able to speak of them freely, and reflected that perhaps the reason she didn’t begrudge Sauron his forgiveness — despite bearing him all hatred herself — was that since he and that friend of his that she forgives even less were accepted, she finds herself less anxious in telling others about her past. Because if that monster and that bastard who killed Ecthelion can have a place here, clearly no one else has any business giving her any trouble about hers. And I do notice that she seems less and less hesitant about admitting to feeling anything positive about anything associated with Angband around me. Especially after I told her about the Queen’s Guard of Númenor, whom everyone rather suspects are orcs, and no one with an opinion worth hearing makes a fuss about it.

Oh, how fondly I recall the muscled thighs of Oronyéni! The glory of her shoulders — the way they flexed as she lifted me above her head one-handed! If any of your team are headed back to Armenelos, kindly tell them to tell her that Sakalkhôr remembers her well.

And yes, yes, yes, E., I will finish transcribing the full version as swiftly as I may — I was writing with a new style of pen that has a different type of ink, and did it so fast my own handwriting is hard to read, and there are so many notes I have to copy overall — really, dearest, I’m trying my best, but I only have two hands! —S.]

On Ozûtalai, and the Fëanorian of his clan.

The first thing I noticed about him was that he spoke some Quenya. Badly. But the funny thing was, you could tell exactly where he learned it. Because he had the ridiculous Fëanorian lisp, and he had a lot of swear words — except the funny thing was, he never swore in Orcish. Later I found out for certain that I was right, because he introduced me to the one who taught it to him — his brother’s husband, who was a former soldier under Makalaurë captured in that very first battle where Fëanáro was killed, and had the absolute gall to tell me I spoke Quenya wrong. Ughhhhh!

[Interviewer’s note: She uttered the last sound at length and with an air of great frustration, waving her hands excitedly.]

I was so sick to death of people with the nerve to tell me I spoke my own native language wrong! First that monster Sauron with his articles and his tenses that not a real person alive actually uses the way he used them, and now this? I told him that he could go seat himself upon a distaff and spin, and that I’d use his innards to knit a scarf. He stared at me and then burst out laughing, saying that was the best response he’d gotten. Then he asked if he could use it in a song, ooh, I could have killed him! Though it turned out to be rather catchy. He was no great bard, but he had a hobby of writing filthy comic songs that sounded unobjectionable if you weren’t listening to the words. And he was one of my people, that is, of the Noldor, and I appreciated that, even if he practically never covered his head and was of the kind that Þpoke our language like thiÞ.

We ended up talking a lot about what had happened since he was captured — he knew some of it, but not all, and very little of Gondolin. We wept. He spoke reverently and wistfully of Lord Maitimo and his husband, King Findekáno the Valiant, who rescued him — somehow everyone knew the story, even though technically no one was allowed to talk about it. Even the Orcs respected Lord Maitimo, and they had a name for King Findekáno that basically translated to “short-thing-that-makes-the-incessant-noise-of-ringing,” which I truly, truly hope someone in Mandos has been good enough to tell him. Those two were the stuff of legends, all the way across Angband, and there were those who would ask if you’d ever seen them once they found out you were of the same people, and some who’d be excited for even my paltry offer, which was that I had seen King Findekáno once from a great distance across a crowd. I shudder to think how it would have hurt them to learn what Maitimo did later. I know it shocked me when I learned, though I had not been raised to view him as a legend, and had only acquired the habit trapped in Angband as I was.

Ah, but what to say of Ozûtalai? He was kind, and he was steady, and he tried to befriend me when no one else could stand me. If I don’t speak of him as often as I might, it is only because I still…

[Interviewer’s note: Tears filled her eyes. I refilled her cup and offered her a handkerchief, which she declined, already having one of her own.]

Thank you. I know he must be dead now; his people don’t live so long. But I wish we hadn’t been separated. He saved my life when the floods came, threw me up into the limbs of a tree before the waters caught us, and he was gone. I screamed at the trees to catch him, and then I screamed for Ulmo or Ossë or whoever it was to let him go — and oddly enough, the waters calmed, but I couldn’t find him. I looked, for as long as I could, and I found the stick he’d had made for me, but not him. Not anyone.

And the ground was moving, and I couldn’t keep — I had to keep moving because things were falling down the slope from above. I felt so guilty about it. And I begged my gods to save him, I swore at them that if they would hear only one of my prayers, hear this. They never answered when — when I was with her, but I like to think they answered me with this. I don’t know if I believe it, but I hope. I did shout at them very loudly, and I cursed at them a little too. I met a priest of Ossë once who said he thought he’d have appreciated it.

I still have the marks of his clan on my upper arm, and across my chest, I didn’t mention that part. The way this works is, it doesn’t matter if you recognize someone or not — if they have the same marks as you, you are family. I keep hoping that I might see the same ones, one day.

[Interviewer's note: She stopped for a moment, then offered a wan smile.]

…After all, the rest of my family is dead. So my husband is in desperate need of in-laws.

On Hithriel and her son, Lûghakh.

Hithriel was born there! Can you imagine? I told her she was a slave, and she looked at me as if I’d told her the soup was wet. She had never even seen the sky. She thought the stars were something in a song. Elentári! Of course I had to show her. I made her sneak outside with me one night when I knew Morgoth’s clouds were supposed to be thin, and she stared at them, entranced, for an hour. Every elf loves the stars, you know. We were born under them. Seeing them is as comforting as hearing a spouse’s heartbeat.

Her little one, Lûghakh, I taught him a song Sorokendo wrote about a goose that is extremely rude if you know Quenya, and he sang it for the whole workroom, and only I knew. Hithriel found out years later. She has still not forgiven me.

[Interviewer’s note: Sorokendo was the name of Ozûtalai’s elven brother-in-law.]

On Draumâkil.

Ooh, she hated me at first. I could tell. And the feeling was mutual. I had just lost everything — no, scratch that, everything had been taken from me, my home, my family, even my own clothes, and this creature of Morgoth’s had the nerve to look at me sideways for being upset about it? She didn’t speak a word of Quenya and so I spoke to her in a very thick Gondolindhrim dialect, very slangy, and said very unkind things that she didn’t understand and no one could translate. Even though she didn’t understand what I was saying, she knew.

And still she lied for me, and was punished for it. And she counted. Every single time that bitch took me, for years. I lived it, I knew how often she made me… but I’d never done the arithmetic. I’d lost track of time, really. It felt like it had been going on forever, and like it would never end.

Nine hundred and four — that’s almost a thousand. I had to turn and stare at the wall in the infirmary for a while. That number still doesn’t seem completely real.

—I did learn later on that Sauron’s estimate was even higher, yes. As much as it pains me to give him any credit whatsoever, he’s almost certainly correct — he wasn’t in the habit of getting things wrong, and I know there were periods she left out. But nine hundred and four is the first number I learned. It was given to me by a woman I started out calling names I shall never repeat, who still chose to do everything she did for me, and it is the one I choose to remember.

I never lost the cord. I have no idea what “grey fibrous matter” you found, but that’s not it. I still have it here, well-preserved and tucked away in a box.

Later on, she bullied me into acquiring a taste for pickled herring. She did this because she thought I was too thin, a determination she made on the basis of a highly technical method that involved pinching my arm until I squawked. I still eat it sometimes at home. This is my revenge on my husband for his cheese habit.

On Halkiran.

He was exactly the sort of person you expect to be Sauron’s chief secretary. No sense of humor whatsoever, utterly insufferable, wrote procedures for everything — I could imagine him drafting a treatise on the proper way to use the latrine. Tell your searchers to inform me if they ever find such a treatise. I shall laugh. He did draft a very long and very serious treatise on the proper way to be whipped in Angband, of which he kept the original and gave me a copy when Sauron ordered him to give me lessons.

The way I found out about the lessons was, he called me into one of the quiet rooms and read out the order, then gave me a copy of it, then informed me that He Would Now Proceed to the Reading of the Treatise, and gave me a copy of that, then handed me a slate and told me I Should Make Such Notations As Would Assist Me. And then, because I was crying — no one had whipped me since that woman, and I could see the whip on his belt, and it was worse by far than hers — he handed me a handkerchief and reiterated that This Was To Be Done Not For the Purpose of Punishment, But For the Purpose of My Welfare Alone. And that No Strokes Would Be Delivered On the First Day, Which Would Be Devoted Only to the Reading of the Treatise, That I Might Make Myself Ready for the Commencement of the Lessons. And that While the Presence of a Healer Was Not Required, the Purpose Not Being Punishment, One Would Be Provided Straightway If I Desired It.

I was not consoled. I cried most of the way through The Reading Of The Treatise, and took no notes whatsoever. I’m sure the hideous thing still exists somewhere in the archives, though whether it’s in any state to be read is an entirely different question. There was a correct posture — leaning against the wall with your forehead resting on your crossed wrists — and a whole slew of techniques you could use to overcome the pain, none of which I was in a fit state to hear. And probably other things that I missed. I never read the whole thing. When Halkiran was done, he said that I could take whatever time in the quiet room I needed and that the next lesson would begin at the same time tomorrow, and left me alone.

I did try to read The Treatise, but I couldn’t. I got as far as the direction that you strip to the waist and felt like I was going to faint. I fled to the washroom with my paperwork and threw up in the toilet, and then I couldn’t bring myself to open the door. I was terrified. It felt like everything would be real if I opened the door, and I couldn’t face it — I stayed on the floor and cried and just sat there, everything swirling around my head. I stayed there all night. I didn’t sleep.

The next day Halkiran came to the door, and he had a healer with him. I was dizzy and sick with fear — I thought I would faint. I begged him not to make me take my clothes off. He looked deeply uncomfortable and said that no one takes their clothes off; they only strip to the waist. The healer, who was an elf of my people with her head covered, said that a reinforced apron may be provided which covers the front of the chest at the request of the one being whipped, and that no one would be looking at me lasciviously — it is like it is in the baths, she said, everyone bathes together and no one looks, it simply isn’t thought of that way. And she also said that Halkiran, who looked very constipated by then, was a very honorable fellow, and would never contemplate harming anyone in that way.

I was not very consoled. But my hysteria lessened enough that I was able to stand and follow him with the healer to the quiet room, where he did in fact turn and pointedly stare at the unfinished manuscripts while I readied myself. It still felt horrid, that skin-prickling feeling all down my back, though the apron does in fact cover the entire chest and also the sides — I understand its primary purpose was to keep the tails away from the rest of the torso, though under the law there was to be no question asked about why someone desired it and I’m sure some used it for modesty.

Then I leaned against the wall, and started to cry after a few moments. I felt so sick. He tried having me practice some of the techniques he’d written down, and I even tried, but I just couldn’t. All I could think about was what was going to happen. Finally I told him to just get it over with, just do it, and when he hit me I screamed and fell to the ground.

The healer said, “Stop.” You can’t beat someone who’s on the ground.

He replied, “Obviously.” And then he said he didn’t know what to do, and he wasn’t sure he was the right person to do this, and that he was going to go talk to Sauron. Which terrified me, because I thought that meant Sauron was going to end up supervising or even whipping me himself, and everyone knows Sauron’s reputation. What would Sauron do if I couldn’t take it? How much worse would it all be?

So I said that he didn’t have to, that I was fine, and that I would do better, and I got up, even though I was sick and dizzy and my back still hurt and I couldn’t imagine a way in the world for me to take this and hold still. To which he said I was a poor liar, and reached for my elbow — I recall feeling terror because I thought, I don’t know what I thought, I think I thought he was going to restrain me for punishment or something, and then I fainted.

I woke on the floor. Someone had put me onto my back. I could hear people talking in low voices as if from far away, coming closer. Everything was grey. It had been a long time since I’d last fainted, and I heartily disapproved of it. I felt so, so nauseous, and my heart was racing. I turned over and retched; then I felt even worse, like I didn’t even have the strength to push myself up enough to lie back down. Someone did it for me and then lifted my feet back up onto what I later realized was a footstool with a cushion on it, then put a cold cloth on my face.

I said I was cold. Someone — it took a minute or two for me to realize it was the healer — said they were getting a blanket for me, and then someone put something over me that I later realized was a quilt Halkiran kept in his office and slept under when he worked late.

At first it didn’t help, but as my head came back, it started to. Halkiran was standing in the corner looking even more humorless than usual, and then he went outside to talk to Sauron. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could hear their voices. I tried to get up, but the healer wouldn’t let me. She told me that she would help prop me up on some cushions and that I could drink sips of water, but that I wasn’t to get up until she deemed it safe. And then she asked what had me so worried.

I had been cheered because she was of my people, but in that moment I thought she was hopeless. How could she possibly not know?

I didn’t answer her. What could I have said?

She didn’t ask again. She only said, “Whoever it was, they aren’t in this room,” and gave me the water. I don’t know what she knew. I’ve wondered since. Sauron did not seem to register to her as a matter of concern at all.

Halkiran came back in a while later. He told me, in his usual style, that The Lessons Would Continue, But Under Different Instruction, and that I Was To Rest For the Remainder of the Day. Then he looked at his quilt, and at me under it, and apparently decided it was beneath his dignity to ask for it back. I kept it three days. He never mentioned it.

I found his report later. Four pages, of course, because why say something in three sentences when you could say it in ten? It did not actually say that I was a poor pupil. It said the method was unsuited to the subject, that the fault lay with the instructor and not with the one instructed, and that he recommended someone she did not fear.

I was furious. I’d spent years disliking him for something he didn’t actually say. I had to start all over.

Yes, I still tell people that he complained I was a poor pupil. I think that is entirely my prerogative, as this is my story, and not his.

On Uzhunahhan.

Uzhunahhan was the next one they found to give me lessons, and he was even worse. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘kill someone with kindness’? That was the essence of Uzhunahhan, who to my great misfortune was terribly, terribly kind. Imagine having all your entrails pulled out of you slowly with kindness. That was his method in its entirety.

The first thing he did was very gently sit me down and let me know, in a very solemn voice, that Halkiran had spoken truly when he said this was for my welfare, but that he hadn’t told the whole of it: which was that a suggestion had been floated from Morgoth, one which Sauron was very concerned about, to hold a grand feast celebrating the fall of my city, where some of its captives would be brought before him, and that it would go better for anyone who could bear what was done to them without being noticed.

If I had feared before that my doom was upon me, I was certain of it now. I didn’t throw up this time, but I hid in a quiet corner of the archives with a pot in case I did. I sat on the floor, put my head on my knees, and tried to breathe, feeling very dizzy.

Someone showed up and put Halkiran’s quilt on me. I don’t know who it was.

I didn’t sleep that day. Or eat. The next day, someone came and brought me to the infirmary. I went with them, but I scarcely knew what I was doing. Everything felt numb. I sat on the bed and stared into space, still wrapped in that same quilt.

Assurakûn came to see me there. He asked my troubles, and I told him. He held my hands and said very, very quietly that there was nothing to be done against an order which came from Morgoth, but that I had long since proven the measure of my strength, and that he was certain I could do this and would make my ancestors proud. And then he must have spread the word, because everyone else came to see me too. They sang to me, and fed me all manner of broth and meat, and offered me suggestions which were completely unhelpful, like “Don’t think about it.”

I will note that it was universally agreed that I had well proven my mettle in the way I had suffered that woman, and that some of them found it both baffling and amusing that I should be so frightened of the lash after that. I was, in fact, teased a little about it. I won’t even pretend that I didn’t appreciate it. It made me laugh. It made everything feel much less frightening, in the moment.

I have a strong suspicion that the word was leaked further, because I later heard a couple of things about other Gondolindhrim putting themselves through ordeals in order to practice… That might have something to do with why the idea never came to fruition. I got the feeling that Morgoth didn’t like it as much when people were prepared for what he did to them.

When I was well enough to go back, Uzhunahhan began the lessons again, very slowly. The first day, I only stood at the wall. The second, he showed me the cat and let me hold it. The third, he touched it to my back without striking. Every step announced in advance, with great gravity, so I had all night to lie awake dreading it.

On the fourth day of the second week, he decided the trouble was that I didn’t understand how small a thing a single stroke was. So he had the healer give him one, there in front of me, to show me. I begged him not to. He told me, very patiently, that it was nothing; that he’d had a hundred in his life and never thought of one of them after. And then he took off his shirt and leaned against the wall and the healer laid one across his back, and he didn’t so much as move, and thanked her.

I was sick on his shoes. He was very gracious about it.

A few days later he went to his superiors and told them he was making it worse, and he didn’t know how to make it better. I didn’t find that out until long after. Nor that it was Sauron himself who eventually broke the tie and gave the order for Namešha, after what I gather was a long and rather heated argument, and a vote that became a stalemate. I have added it to the list of things I hold against him, on principle.

On Namešha.

Namešha was a secretary of the sixth rank, senior, and should have been far higher. He was better at the work than anyone I ever met there, his hand was beautiful, and he could take down a conversation in three languages faster than it was spoken. The trouble was that he could not keep from making jokes about everyone above him, and some of them were very funny, and some of them were heard.

He kept a little box by his desk full of disciplinary orders, already written out in his best hand, with blanks for the offense and the number. When his superior gave him a certain look, he’d take one out and ask, very cheerfully, whether he should just send himself down. Most of the time they told him to put it away. Sometimes they told him to go ahead, and he’d fill it in himself and they’d stamp it. Once in a great while they said, “Bring that here,” and he’d stop smiling, and bring it, and then act apologetic for maybe a day or two. He told me the sorrier he was, the prettier the handwriting. I never saw one that wasn’t beautiful, but there were some that had the most elaborate calligraphic script I’d ever seen, more flourish than words. Those, from what I saw, were mostly reserved for the times he offended Mírlach, who was if possible even more humorless than Halkiran, and twice as stern.

Namešha made fun of everyone. Halkiran, the archivists, the healers, Sauron himself, behind his back, with an impression of him I won’t describe because I can’t do it justice. There was only one name he wouldn’t joke about. The first time I said it in front of him, he clapped his hand over my mouth so fast I didn’t see it move, and shook his head at me, and didn’t say anything at all. Then he took his hand away and asked if I minded that he’d done it. I said I did. He said he was sorry, and that he’d do it again.

The first thing he ever asked me, when he’d read my papers, was whether I was really an interpreter.

I said of course I was. I was very capable of interpreting. I spoke Quenya and Sindarin and the speech of Gondolin and some Telerin and the… elvish artist’s approximation of Valarin, and by then a good deal of Orcish, mostly rude. He said yes, but was I really an interpreter, and looked at me, and waited.

So I told him. I was a singer. I had been a singer in Gondolin; I’d sung at the Place of the Fountain, and once on the steps of Gar Ainion, for the feast of the Gates of Summer. I’d studied under the lord Salakanto, whom everyone thought of as a great bore and the greatest composer in the city, which he was, both, and who stayed with us all the way north when he could have run.

He asked me to sing something.

I said, like what? And then I realized I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sung anything properly. I’d hummed, of course; we all do; I’d sung to myself over the cloth when I thought nobody was listening, and with the division sometimes, when they sang. But not properly. Not with my whole chest, as if it mattered. It had been years. I hadn’t noticed. That was the strangest part.

I should explain about my voice, because you won’t understand anything about those lessons if I don’t, and because I am not going to be modest about it.

I don’t sing like the singers in the old songs, the ones who could enchant the birds out of the trees. I am not that kind of singer. My voice is low, and very strong, and it carries. Salakanto used to say that some singers make a room fall silent, and some make it stand up, and that I was the second kind. I don’t sing to make people weep quietly into their cups. I sing to make them stand and shout. It’s work, real singing; it’s the whole body, the breath from the bottom of you, every muscle. People think it’s all in the throat. They’re wrong.

And I don’t sing with a dozen voices at once, like a choir in one throat. I never could. I have exactly one voice, and it’s mine, and whatever power I have comes through it or not at all. Some stodgy elders think that makes my voice lack Elegance and Refinement. I think that makes them lack good taste.

So I stood up, there in the secretariat, and sang him the song we used to sing coming home over the mountains, when you came out of the pass and saw the white city down there across the valley, all its towers catching the light. It’s a walking song. It rocks, like a horse under you. Anyone can sing it. I sang it the way it’s meant to be sung, which not everyone can, and by the second verse half the secretariat had stopped work to listen, and by the last refrain, someone was tapping the time on a desk.

When I finished, Namešha said, “Well. That changes things.”

He didn’t start the next day. He made me wait three days, which I thought at the time was cruelty, and which I understand now was to let me eat and sleep and stop shaking. Then he took me down to one of the quiet rooms, with the same healer who’d been there with Halkiran, and shut the door.

I asked him once, later, why the quiet rooms were so quiet. You could shout yourself hoarse in there and nobody in the next room would hear a thing. He said it was because they used to be the torture chambers, a long time ago, and that the Lieutenant had built them so nobody could hear anybody else. And then he said that nowadays it’s where they do the quarterly accounts, so in a sense, not much has changed. I didn’t know whether to laugh or be sick. I did both, a little. Then I sang, as loud as I liked, because nobody could hear.

But that was later. The first day, he didn’t say anything about the room. He just told me how it was going to go.

He said that he had read Halkiran’s treatise, all of it, twice, and that he was going to ignore most of it. He said nothing would happen until I started singing. If I wanted it to stop, I could put up my hand, and it would stop, and it would start again when I put my hand down and sang. He said I could curse at him as much as I liked, in any language I liked, as long as I picked the song back up afterward. He said he wasn’t trying to make me quiet. He was trying to make me keep going.

And he said one more thing: that he’d go as far as ten in a day, and no further, and that this wasn’t about what I could take. It was about what he was willing to do with his own arm. I said that seemed very convenient for him. He agreed that it was.

Then he asked me how I stood when I sang.

Nobody had ever asked me that. Halkiran had wanted me with my forehead on my wrists against the wall, hunched over like a beaten dog, which is no way to breathe, let alone sing. I showed Namešha: feet apart, shoulders down, head up, the breath low in the belly. He looked at me for a while, and then he said I could put my palms flat against the wall, so I wouldn’t fall forward, but that I was to keep my head up. And I did, and for the first time since that wretched treatise, I could breathe.

The song was my choice. I picked a stonecutters’ song from the quarries above the city, the kind the masons sang to keep their hammers together. It goes in pairs: one voice calls the line, and everyone answers it, and the hammers fall on the answer. Namešha learned the answer in about a breath and a half. He has a good voice, I’ll grant him that, low and warm; if he’d been born in Gondolin, they’d have put him in a choir and he’d have spent the whole time making faces at the conductor.

So he called, and I answered, and on the third call, the first stroke came, right where the hammer falls.

I didn’t fall down. I expect you to write that down somewhere. No, write it so I can actually read it: I didn’t fall down. [Interviewer’s note: I did it. Yes, I know, very unprofessional of me, shush — S.] I said a word I won’t repeat, and then I said several more, in Orcish, at length. Orcish is a wonderful swearing language; you can really do so much with the consonants. He waited until I’d run out. Then he called the line again, as if nothing had happened, and I answered, a little late and very flat, and we kept going.

I got through three that day. On the third, I put up my hand, and it stopped, just as he’d said. I stood there with my hand up and my back on fire, breathing, and nobody moved, and nobody said anything, and nothing happened. That was the strangest part. Nothing happened, because I’d said so.

After a while, I put my hand down and sang the last verse by myself. He didn’t strike me again that day. He said three was a fine number, and that the masons only needed three good blows to split a stone.

I told him that was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. He said yes, he’d made it up just then. I laughed. I hadn’t laughed in that room before. I hadn’t known that I could.

We went on like that for a while. Three, then four, then five, on the good days. Some days I put my hand up after one and stood there and shook, and he’d wait, and talk about something else, and then I’d sing again. Some days I didn’t sing again, and he’d say that was fine, and we’d go and get something to eat.

It was somewhere in there that he mentioned the apron.

He did it in the middle of a story about the archivist who’d sat on a pot of glue. Halfway through, without changing his voice at all, he said that if there ever was a feast, nobody there was going to be handing out aprons. He said he wasn’t going to ask me to take mine off. It was mine to wear for as long as I liked. He said what I did about it was up to me, and he wouldn’t mention it again. And then he went back to the archivist and the glue, and I laughed in the right places, and didn’t hear a word.

The next lesson, he came in, said good morning to the healer, and took off his shirt.

He was wearing, on the outside of his trousers, a pair of drawers. Drawers! Over his trousers! And they were covered — I mean covered, every inch — in embroidered forget-me-nots, blue, with little yellow centers, so close together you couldn’t see the cloth between them.

I stared at him. The healer stared at him. He looked down at himself as if he hadn’t noticed anything unusual and said that his grandmother had made them, and they were lucky, and that luck didn’t work if nobody could see it. He said if anyone was going to be looked at in that room, it was going to be him.

I laughed so hard I had to sit down on the floor. The healer had to sit down too. She put her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook, and when she finally looked up, she said, very seriously, that she’d need to examine the drawers later, for medical reasons. He said they were at her disposal.

He wore them every lesson after that. I never asked whether his grandmother had really made them. I’m still not sure I want to know.

That was the first time I saw his back.

It was scarred, all of it, from the shoulders down to the waist, old scars, white and raised and crossing over each other in a way I’d never seen on anyone, not even in the infirmary. I’d seen backs after forty. This wasn’t that.

I thought of the little box beside his desk, and all those beautiful slips, and said something about how many of those it must have taken.

He laughed. He said no, no, those were nothing; they hardly ever leave a mark, and when they do, it fades. He said this was from a bit of foolishness, a long time ago. And then he went back to telling me about the archivist, and the glue, and how they’d had to cut him free of the chair, and I didn’t ask.

I took the apron off a week later. I didn’t decide to, exactly. I came in that morning and took it off with my shirt and put them both on the bench, and stood at the wall with my palms flat and my head up, and waited for my heart to stop pounding. It took a while. Nobody said anything. Namešha was in the middle of a story about Halkiran and the Lieutenant’s inkwell, which he’d been promising me for days and refusing to finish, and he kept right on telling it.

When my heart had slowed down, I started to sing.

He never mentioned the apron again. Neither did I. I did, eventually, get the end of the story about the inkwell. It was worth the wait.

Over all those weeks, I sang him every work song I knew. Rowing songs, reaping songs, a song for fulling cloth that I’d learned from my grandmother, which has thirty-one verses and gets ruder with every one. He learned all of them. He was a terrible audience; he laughed in the wrong places on purpose.

Then, one day, he asked if he could teach me one of his.

It was an orcish song, very old, older than Angband, he said; his mother’s people had sung it in the far north to call the herds home across the snow. It’s built on a drone, one long low note that goes on underneath everything, like wind over the ice, and over that, a melody, high and thin, like a voice calling from very far away. You can’t sing it alone. Or rather, orcs can; a good singer can do both at once, the drone and the call, out of one throat. I’ve heard it. It’s uncanny.

I can’t. I could sing the call, though, and he could hold the drone, and so we sang it together, he underneath and me on top, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d heard in Angband. I made him sing it with me four times in a row.

Then I insisted on trying the drone.

I’d rather not describe the noise I made. I will tell you that Namešha laughed until he had to sit down on the floor, and the healer laughed until she had to leave the room, and that I kept trying for three more lessons, out of pure stubbornness, and never got any closer. He said I sounded like a reindeer with a cold. I said he’d never seen a reindeer. He said he didn’t need to.

The day I sang him one of Salakanto’s, I didn’t plan it. It just came out.

You have to understand what Salakanto was to me. When I came to him, I was young, and loud, and I sang everything my own way, and half the masters in the city had told me to stop it. All right, one, but he was argumentative enough for half, and I could feel the disappointment radiating from the rest when the quality of my overtones never matched the quality of my one voice, on its own. They had all spent forever and a half trying to fix it.

Salakanto never did. He’d listen to me take some old piece and turn it inside out, and nod, and say, “Yes, that’s yours now,” and then, very mildly, ask me whether I’d been resting my voice, because he worried I’d ruin it pushing so hard. He was always worrying about that. And one spring he handed me an aria he’d written, about a girl who will dance to nobody’s tune but her own, and said it was made for singing however I liked, and that I was to look after my voice while I did it.

I sang it at the Gates of Summer, the year before the end. I was very good.

I sang it to Namešha in that ugly little room, with my palms flat on the wall and the healer watching, and I didn’t take it down a step, and on the last note, I held it until the lamp flame shivered. He didn’t strike me during it at all. I didn’t notice that until afterward. When I asked him why, he said some things you don’t interrupt.

He paid me in stories, too. He knew everybody’s secrets, all of them embarrassing. Get through a verse without stopping, and he’d tell me what Mírlach did at the midwinter feast. Get through two, and I’d hear about Halkiran and the treatise on the proper means and methods for cleaning the privies, which, yes, exists, and is exactly as bad as your most wondrous imaginings, so I very much hope you find it. I’d have done a great deal more for those stories than I’d ever admit, and he knew it, and used it shamelessly.

It was around then I found out he’d been laying them on lighter for me than he would for anyone else. One of the other secretaries let it slip; he’d seen Namešha practicing, and he could hit a great deal harder than that when he wanted to. I was stung, I’ll admit it. I marched up to him and told him that if he was going to teach me, he could do it properly, and not coddle me like a child.

He said it was his arm, and he’d lay them on however he liked with it.

I couldn’t argue with that, which made me angrier. I sulked for a day. I whined to Assurakûn about it, and he listened with mild sympathy and then matter-of-factly said a number of things, like that he should certainly hope I wasn’t being taught by the sort of person who’d lay the strokes as hard as they could. And a number of annoying facts about my build and the musculature in my shoulders, which somehow led into an admonition to eat more pickled herring, which I liked, and blood pudding, which I vehemently did not, and to do more exercises of my upper body, which I was wholly uninterested in.

So I let it go, because both of them were right, and because Namešha had started telling me about the time Sauron’s ink was mixed with something that made it smell of fish for a week, and I wanted to know how that ended.

And then he started asking me to sing more quietly.

Everyone thinks soft singing is easy. It isn’t. It’s the hardest thing there is. Any fool can make a loud noise; to sing quietly, and keep the note true, and the tone full, and the breath steady, so that it carries to the back of the room on nothing but a thread, that takes everything you’ve got. Salakanto used to make me sing whole pieces at a whisper until I wanted to throw the music at him.

So it was a challenge, and I love a challenge. Quieter, then quieter, then under my breath, so the healer couldn’t hear, and then so that Namešha couldn’t either, and then not out loud at all.

I kept singing. Nobody could hear it but me.

The day I got through all ten without making a sound, I didn’t notice it was over until he put the cat down. I’d been somewhere in the middle of the third verse, thinking about whether there’d be fish at supper.

He said, “That’s ten.” And I turned around and looked at him, and he was grinning like a fool, and the healer was grinning, and I realized what I’d done.

A few weeks before, I’d spent a whole night on the washroom floor because of a page of instructions. And now I’d stood there for ten and thought about fish.

I pulled my shirt back on — I’d got used to being without it, but not THAT used! — and I flung the door open, and I sang the rest of the song out loud, the whole thing, as loud as I could, all the way down the corridor and into the secretariat. Half of them got up to see what the noise was. Namešha told them I’d just been promoted. I hadn’t. But I felt as if I had.

After that, Namešha said the lessons were mine.

He said ten was what he’d promised to teach me, and I’d learned it, and from here, whether we went on at all was up to me. He’d keep coming to the quiet room as long as I wanted him there. He’d stop the day I told him to. And he said that if I wanted to go on, there was something I ought to know first, and he wasn’t going to dress it up.

He said that if the Lord of Angband ever took it into his head to do the thing the Lieutenant was afraid of, there would be no ten. No healer. No putting up your hand. He said there was nothing either of us could do in that room that would make it bearable, and that anyone who told me otherwise was lying to me. What he could teach me was how to keep myself, while it happened. That was all. It wasn’t nothing. But it wasn’t everything, and he wanted me to know the difference.

I asked him how he knew.

He was quiet for a moment, which for Namešha was a very long time. Then he said, quite cheerfully, as if he were telling me about the archivist and the glue, that a long time ago, before he came to the secretariat, he had done something very foolish involving a song, and it had come to the wrong ears. And he was told that since he found himself so amusing, he could go on singing for as long as it lasted, and that if he stopped, it would be taken as the truth of his heart, and he would pay the price accordingly.

So he sang.

I asked him how long it lasted.

He said, “It stopped at sixty-three.” And then, after a moment: “It wasn’t meant to. Stop, I mean.”

I asked him who stopped it. He smiled at me, and said that was a very good question, and that there was a new girl in the copying room who had spilled a whole jar of sand into the Lieutenant’s correspondence that morning and had to pick it out grain by grain, and did I want to hear about that, and I understood that this was the end of the conversation.

I did want to hear about the sand. But I didn’t laugh as much as I should have.

I thought about it for a long time afterward. All those lessons: the singing, the picking up the next line, the keeping going. He hadn’t invented any of it for me. He’d learned it the hard way, alone, all at once, with no one to tell him what to do, and then he had spent weeks in a drill hall with a straw dummy so that he could teach it to me gently.

I kept going to the quiet room after that. Not every day. Once a week, then once a month, then whenever I felt I was getting rusty, which he said was like a musician practicing scales, and which I said was the most ridiculous comparison I’d ever heard, and which was, I have to admit, exactly right.

The feast never came. The time for it passed, and nobody said anything, and then a year went by, and then another. You know what I suspect is the reason it never happened. I don’t know if that’s true. But it did come in handy, the time Sauron corrected my grammar and I told him how right he wasn’t and what he could do with his corrections.

He stared at me for a good long time — and not even with his own eyes! Because I’d said it to his back, and he didn’t even turn around. He just conjured one of those creepy fiery eyes of his about three feet from my face to stare at me. And then finally he told me to hand him a blank half-sheet.

Before I even handed it to him, he did something with his hand and the words appeared in fire, burning themselves into the parchment in an offensively beautiful script along with the sign of the Eye. And then he simply went on walking out, steady as you please, only stopping to say something to Halkiran, who — I will give him this — looked alarmed.

I looked at the order. Insolence to the Lieutenant. Ten. A whole bunch of flowery language citing the exact provision of the Codes. And the Eye, still smoking a little.

I didn’t think about it. I got up and walked out after him, right on his heels; I couldn’t have been more than a few steps behind. The corridor was empty. There’s only the one way out of that end of the secretariat, as far as I know, and it’s a long corridor, and he was nowhere in it. Creepy bastard. I swear he amuses himself doing things like that.

Namešha caught up with me halfway to the disciplinary office. He’d run, I think; he was out of breath. He didn’t try to stop me or slow me down. He just walked beside me and talked: that I knew how to do this, that I’d done it a hundred times, that the officer on duty was a friend of his and a decent sort, and that I should sing something good. I told him I knew what I was going to sing. He said of course I did.

The officer on duty was an enormous old orc named Tapašu, with a voice like gravel rolling down a hill, and when he saw Namešha he groaned and asked how many slips it was this time. Namešha said it wasn’t him; it was me. Tapašu looked at me, and at the Eye on the order, and then at me again, and said, very respectfully, “What did you say to him?”

I told him. He laughed so hard he had to hold onto the doorframe.

The healer on duty was a stranger to me. But just as I was taking off my shirt, the door opened, and in came my healer, Maiwendë, the one from the quiet rooms, a little out of breath herself, and said she’d traded shifts. I don’t know when she found the time. I didn’t ask.

So I put my palms flat on the wall, and I put my head up, and I sang Salakanto’s aria, the one about the girl who dances to nobody’s tune but her own. Not out loud. Nobody heard a note of it. I didn’t move, and I didn’t make a sound, and when Tapašu said, “That’s ten,” I was in the middle of the last verse, and I finished it before I turned around.

He said Namešha had never once managed it that quietly. Namešha, who was waiting outside, said through the door that he’d heard that.

It didn’t even break the skin. I’m not ashamed to say I was a little disappointed.

When I came out, Halkiran was standing in the corridor, holding a ledger, as if he’d been passing by on the way to somewhere else. There’s nowhere else down there. Uzhunahhan was behind him, and two of the archivists, and a copyist I barely knew. Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Halkiran looked at me, and said, “Satisfactory,” and walked away with his ledger in the wrong direction. Uzhunahhan told me, very solemnly, that my ancestors would be proud. I didn’t have the heart to explain to him how elves feel about such things. I said thank you.

When we got back to the secretariat, nobody had done any work. I could tell. The ink had dried on half the pens, and one of the copyists had been staring at the same page so long he’d copied the first line three times.

And Namešha went to his desk, and took the box of slips, and took out a stack of them, all written in his most beautiful hand, the one with all the flourishes, and presented them to me, very solemnly, with a bow. He said that the student had surpassed the master: in all his years, he had never once told the Lieutenant what to do with his corrections. He said I would be needing these.

I never used a single one. I have the feeling it was because Halkiran’s attempt to teach me had frightened him so badly that he never dared send me down himself, and everyone below him was unwilling to risk his evil eye by doing it for him. I’m quite sure I earned one or two, though when I complained about it Halkiran gave me a look, sat back in his chair, and proceeded to drone me to death about all the provisions of the Codes which taken in their entirety supposedly said I hadn’t for some obscure technical reason. Namešha still used his slips, and claimed it was good for his circulation and besides, what would the discipline officers do without his visits to brighten their daily drudgery? And then he winked and said it was good to save them up for a special occasion, something that would really go down in history.

I never found the occasion, but I kept the slips all the same. All the way up until I left, and when I did, I took one for good luck. I still have it. It now hangs from one of the rafters, folded up very small and tucked into a silk envelope I sewed and embroidered myself. Yes, it is a charm to keep away evil spirits, threatening them with the things I will say to them if they dare to cross our threshold.

It was only later, lying awake, that I thought about the number. Ten. He could have written anything. He wrote ten.

Here in Ost-in-Edhil, a respectable length of time after he returned from Númenor, I tracked him down and asked him why. He said, “Use what meager reserves of intelligence have been allocated to you.” I told him that he’s gotten a lot ruder since Angband, which he has. He told me I’d gotten uglier. I asked him if he regretted it. He said, “Not in the slightest.”

He is, as I’ve said, utterly intolerable.

I asked Namešha once why he was so loyal to Sauron, when he made fun of him all day long. He only smiled at me. I asked the others. Nobody would tell me. I have my suspicions. I refuse to entertain them.

When the end came, and the hosts of the West broke the mountain open, Namešha didn’t stay. He came with me, and with Ozûtalai’s clan, south through all that fire and ice. He walked beside me, and talked, the whole way. I think it was the only thing that kept some of us going. You can’t despair properly when someone is telling you about the time Mírlach sat on a pot of ink.

Then the floods came, and I’ve told you how that ended. I looked for him, too, as long as I could. I didn’t find him.

He was half-elven, half-elf and half-orc, and nobody knew how long that would let him live. I like to think it’s a long time. I know Elrond is still alive, after all. I like to think he’s out there somewhere, still talking, and that some poor stranger by a fire is hearing about the archivist and the glue, and having someone laugh at their stories in all the wrong places.

On Calarastor, her husband.

Their meeting.

I met him on the road south, after the floods. I had one shoe that worked and one that didn’t, and a stick, and nothing else. He was one of Gil-galad’s soldiers, rounding up stragglers like me to take to Lindon before something worse found us. He was enormous. He was built like a door. He has not stopped talking from that day to this one.

I decided at once that he was a fool, and I told him so, at length, in Orcish, because I thought nobody there would know it. He listened to all of it with great interest and asked what language that was. I told him it was old Gondolindrin. Very old. Very rude. He seemed delighted. Then he looked at my shoe and said, “That’s not going to make it to Lindon,” and sat down in the road and fixed it. I told him he’d done it badly. He had not done it badly.

He asked before he touched anything. Before he handed me a cup, before he took my arm on a bad slope, before he lifted me down from a horse: “I’m going to put my hands here, unless you say otherwise.” It reminded me of Namešha, but unlike with him, it drove me mad. I asked him why he was asking all these questions. He asked, with great sincerity, if I wanted him to stop. I realized right then that I didn’t, which I refused to admit because it was ridiculous, so I took a page from Sauron’s book and went off on a tirade about his grammar. To which he shot back, wasn’t my use of that one Quenya article just a little bit, just slightly irregular?

Oooh! You can imagine how I felt about that! I wanted to thump him with my stick, but that would’ve meant I lost. So instead, I told him at great length about the difference between Quenya from books and Quenya as real live elves with real actual tongues speak it. He listened with evident fascination and then asked me to tell him more, which was not the point, but I told him anyway.

The Sindar.

The Sindar are completely mad. Let me tell you what they are like. There was a human in that company, a man from Dor-lómin, and on the fourth morning he stood up on the far side of the clearing and bellowed across it, “CALARASTOR! HAVE YOU GOT ANY RAGS? MINE’S COME ON EARLY!” And my husband, who was not my husband yet, bellowed back, “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” And the man shouted, “MY BLEEDING! MY MONTHLY! YOU KNOW!” And Calarastor shouted, “I DON’T BLEED! WE DON’T DO THAT!” And the human shouted, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU DON’T DO THAT? YOU’VE GOT A—”

I won’t repeat the rest. They had the entire conversation from opposite ends of the clearing, with every word you can imagine, in front of the whole company and all of us refugees. Everyone else went on eating breakfast as if this were perfectly ordinary, except for one or two others who were of my people and also turned red as ripe cherries. I knew what they were talking about, I’d been in Angband for years, but I’d never heard anyone discuss it quite so… loudly. I pulled my cloak over my head and nearly died of mortification.

In the end, the human said elves were very lucky and it wasn’t fair, and Calarastor agreed that it wasn’t, and went and found him some clean linen. Then he came back and asked me what I was doing and why I looked like that and if I was all right. I said I had no idea what he meant.

Refugees from Angband.

One night a woman from Nevrast, who had lost everyone, said that anyone who came out of Angband alive had bought their life with someone else’s, and ought to be turned away at Lindon’s gate, or worse. Calarastor told her she should be ashamed of herself, and that whoever came out of that place had earned a bed and a meal and nobody’s questions. Everyone went quiet. I kept my sleeves down. I thought: it’s easy to say that about people you’ve never met.

There was a river, I don’t remember its name, in flood like everything else that year, and one bridge still standing over it for a day’s walk in either direction. We came to it at dusk. So did a clan of orcs coming down from the other side of the valley, perhaps forty of them, with their old people and their children and everything they owned on their backs.

You’ve never seen anything like the two sides of that bridge. Our captain had his soldiers in a line with their swords half drawn. Their young ones had spears up and were shouting the sort of thing young ones shout. Someone behind me said orcs were all the same and there was only one way to deal with them. Everyone was hungry, everyone was tired, everyone had lost someone, and every one of them was sure the other side had come to kill them. And the bridge was only wide enough for one people at a time to cross.

I looked at them, and I saw that they were carrying their elders. That’s what decided me. Carrying your elders is not what you do on a raid.

So I walked out onto the bridge. Calarastor grabbed for my arm, the first time he ever did that without asking first, and I told him exactly where he could put his hand, and kept walking. I stopped in the middle, put back my sleeve so they could see the marks on my arm, and gave the greeting you give to a clan you aren’t feuding with. It’s sung, partly. I’m a very good singer — by elven standards. I trained under the great masters in Gondolin. I sang at the Place of the Fountain and even on the steps of Gar Ainion. But in Angband, I had a very hard time singing the parts that included the deep rumbling sounds orcs can make in the throat. It’s not an anatomical matter; Sorokendo could do it, and he tried to teach me, but I never quite mastered it. It didn’t matter; I could sing it well enough to be recognized. I knew what it would cost me, with everyone watching. I did it anyway.

Everything went quiet. Then their eldest mother had herself carried out to meet me, a tiny old woman named Tešmuwa with no teeth and the sharpest eyes I’ve ever seen, and she looked at my marks and asked whose they were. I told her. She said she knew that clan; they’d shared a hunting ground once, three generations back, and quarreled over it. I said I hoped she wouldn’t hold that against me. She laughed until she coughed.

We sorted it out between us, standing on that bridge, while both sides glared at us. They see in the dark better than we do, so they would cross by night and we by day. We had some grain; they had dried meat and knew where there was a ford two days south. We traded. One of her grandsons, a big angry boy with a spear, kept telling her elves couldn’t be trusted, and she hit him with her stick and told him that she’d trust a woman wearing those marks before she’d trust him with a cooking pot.

I asked her if she’d seen any of my clan. She hadn’t. She said she would ask after them, wherever she went. I believe she did. I told her where I was headed so that if she ever found them, she could tell them where to find me.

When we were done, she looked at me a long time and said I could come with them, if I liked. She said a woman with those marks would never go hungry in her clan while anyone had food. And I stood there and thought about it. I want you to understand that. I thought about it. On one side, people who’d take me in because of the marks. On the other, people who’d seen them, and might not.

I thanked her, and I walked back.

Nobody said anything for a long time. The woman from Nevrast was staring at me. Some of the refugees stepped back from me as I passed. Our captain looked at me as if I’d grown another head. I thought: well, there it is.

Then Calarastor came and stood next to me. He looked across the bridge at the clan, and back at me, and said, “Old Gondolindrin, huh?”

I said yes. Very old. Very rude.

He said I’d just walked out between two lines of drawn weapons and talked forty people out of a war over a bridge, in a language nobody else here could speak, and that if anyone in this company had a problem with where I’d learned it, they could take it up with him. He said it loudly. Then he asked me whether I’d teach him the greeting.

Finally, he asked what I’d said to her. I told him I’d said he was my idiot, and that she wasn’t to mind him.

He said, “I’m your idiot?”

I said that was the part he was taking from all this?

He said yes. It was the only part he’d understood.

Other matters.

I told him, eventually. Not everything. Enough. I told him I was afraid that I was bound to her, the way my people say you are bound to the first one you lie with, and that if I was, I couldn’t give myself to anyone else, and I would rather die than be hers.

He went very quiet, which for him is a thing so rare you notice it. Then he sat down in front of me, so I was looking down at him and not up, and said, “It doesn’t work like that.”

He said a bond is made by two people, both of them reaching for each other, and that nobody can make one by taking. He said what she did was rape, every time, and that rape doesn’t bind anyone to anything, because there was nothing of me in it to bind. He said if I’d been bound to her, I’d know it, the way you know your own hand.

It was comforting for a moment or two. But then I thought — not a day goes by that’s not informed by what she’s done. I once stepped on a nail and thought I’d faint from fright, and she never even bit the soles of my feet. I have an irrational dislike of women who look like her. I hear a voice in the crowd and start to sweat. Somehow it got worse after I left Angband, which makes no sense at all, but there you go. There were days when I’d look at my body and see only a map of everything she did to it. And wasn’t that—

Wasn’t that an awful lot like what they say marriage is like? That when they’re not there you still feel them on your skin, their taste in your mouth; that your thoughts pull toward them like a weight seeks the center; that all your thoughts are of them, them, them?

He listened to all of it and then, with a wry little smile, said, “By that reckoning, I’m married to the Nirnaeth.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that before. I had to think on it for a while.

Later on, he asked if I could feel her answering when I thought of her. I shuddered and said, “I should certainly hope not!” To which he said, with immense confidence, that it couldn’t be her, because she would have answered. It was the wound she had made, not the woman herself.

Which was a dreadful thing to say, because immediately I thought: ai-ya, what if she starts talking! I told him it was not consoling at all, and asked him what he knew of it anyway, being unmarried himself.

He said that if I ever asked him, I could let him know mind-to-mind if he was wrong.

I told him that was the worst proposal I’d ever heard. He said it wasn’t a proposal. To which I said, with great offense, “It’s not?!”

So I married him. My only regret is that I am forced to admit, mind-to-mind, that he was right.

Married life.

He collects my insults. Sometimes he comments on them, in my head, while I’m coming up with them. He always has a favorite, which changes every three to five years. He enjoys a good argument, though he’s quieter about it than I am. He thinks I am brave and clever and even somewhat formidable. I think he is ridiculous. I love him more than anything in the world.

I told you how he talks. He has never once in his life been quiet when he could be talking. Now that we are married, he talks to me from the next room, or when he’s on the walls with the guard, or three streets away, about the weather and the birds and what the other soldiers had for lunch and whether I think it will rain. When he was sent to the coast on an assignment, he talked to me from the coast. I would be sitting at my press, trying to set a line of gilding, and suddenly there he’d be, telling me about a crab.

When he was gone, he chattered me to sleep. Which, of course, means I can’t even complain about it properly anymore!

I feel some of his questions before he even asks them, and answer him faster than words. When we’re out and there’s a woman who looks too like her, or sounds too like her, or a shadow between the houses looks like it might sprout teeth — he is there, asking if I want him to act like a door. He has never stopped asking, and I have never asked him to stop. Then faster than a tongue can utter the word ‘yes’, he’s there at my shoulder, built like a door, always willing to stand between me and the world.

And then he starts talking about cheese. Or the price of onions, which in fairness are a scandal.

…And yes, I told him he was built like a door. He was absolutely delighted. He calls himself my door now. I told you that he’s absurd.

Sometimes, when things are bad and he’s not there, he asks if I want something else of his instead. And he’ll send me what’s in front of him: the feel of his own hands on the blanket; the sound of the rain on the roof; the cold of the floor under his feet. Something that is here, and now, and not there. He never sends it without asking. I’ve never once said no.

I don’t know how he knew to do that. I asked him once. He said he didn’t know either; he just thought that if I was somewhere bad, I might want to know where he was.

When we first came to Ost-in-Edhil and took the house, I came home one evening and found he’d carved my clan’s marks into the lintel over our door. I asked him what he thought he was doing. He said that if any of them ever came looking, they ought to be able to find me, and that a house with those marks was a house where they were family.

[Interviewer’s note: She stopped for a moment, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Then she took a sip of her tea.]

His own father died in the Second Kinslaying. His mother died in the Third. His sister went with the host of the Valar to Valinórë. He has one cousin left that we know of, who has come to visit a couple of times from the Greenwood. So you see, he really is in desperate need of in-laws.

I taught him the greetings, as well as I could. The one for clans that aren’t feuding. The one for kin met on the road. And the one you sing when your own family comes home. He sings that one every time he walks through the door.

He can’t do the low parts. He has decided this is a matter of practice, and so he practices, in the garden, at dawn. The neighbors’ dogs have started joining in. One of the neighbors once came to ask if he was all right. I told them he was just fine.

Between you and me, he’s getting better. Don’t tell him I said that.

The rest is ours.

On Gothmog.

I never met him in Angband, because we were all under the impression that he was dead. Good riddance, I thought.

But you couldn’t escape him there. He was everywhere, the way the dead are in a house where they were loved. Bakharma, who never smiled at anyone, went soft about the eyes when she spoke of him. Orcs who’d served under him would tell you he knew their names; not their unit, their names. The old soldier in the ward told me the Prince once sat on an upturned bucket in the rain for an hour listening to him complain about his boots, and then had his boots replaced. I said that was ridiculous. He said yes, that was the Prince.

They told me he would take another’s punishment on himself if he thought it unjust. A prince! Taking a lashing meant for some soldier he’d never met! I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

And they told me something else, more than once, in different words. That if the Prince had been alive, what happened to me would have ended in a week. Someone would have gone to him, and he would have listened, and that would have been that.

I asked Sauron once, here, whether that was true. He said, “Yes.” Nothing else. Not a word.

You must understand what he was to us. He led the host that came over the mountains to burn my city. He killed King Findekáno in the Nirnaeth; in Angband they spoke of that as a great and noble duel, and honored the King for it, which I suppose was something. He commanded every army that ever marched out of that mountain. He was its prince. And at the Fountain, in the last hour of my city, he fought Ecthelion, and Ecthelion died. We sang of Ecthelion. We will always sing of Ecthelion. And the one who killed him is in every one of those songs.

So, yes. Good riddance.

Then, while Sauron was off sulking in Mordor, Gothmog walked into Ost-in-Edhil, very much not dead. He mentioned in passing that Annatar was Sauron, as if everyone knew. He seemed genuinely surprised to learn that some people hadn’t. Sauron is not nearly as subtle as he thinks he is. I hear he sulks if you tell him so.

I went to find him. The Prince, I mean. I told him all of it, every word. I shouted some of it. He listened to the whole thing without interrupting, sitting down so I wasn’t looking up at him, which I also resented. And then I asked him things, and he answered them.

Did he lead the host against Gondolin? Yes. Did he know what would be done with the captives? Most of it. Did he think it was wrong?

He said that, at the time, he did not. He said that he had understood his father as one lord among several, ruling those beneath him as he saw fit, and the lords of the West as no different at their base, only perhaps more fortunate in their numbers and wealth.

I told him that was blasphemy, and a lie besides, and several other things I won’t repeat. He didn’t argue. He said he understood why I would see it so, and that he didn’t expect me to see it any other way.

He didn’t tell me he’d had no choice. He didn’t tell me he’d secretly thought otherwise. He didn’t tell me anything to make himself look better. I kept waiting for it, and it didn’t come.

He said that he was sorry he hadn’t been there. He said he understood that I would never forgive him for Ecthelion, nor for any of the rest, and that he would not ask me to.

Some people say it’s all an act. I don’t think so. Everyone in Angband said this was exactly what he was like.

I did learn one other thing, but only by accident. I’d been thinking about that wretched treatise, and I asked him, out of pure spite, who had decided that forty was the most strokes anyone could be given at once, and why not thirty-nine, or fifty. He said Sauron had written it into the Codes, and that he himself had argued before his father for it. I asked him why forty. He said, “Because my father thought a few hundred was reasonable, or a hundred and twenty with the knout. I saw what that did, and Mairon had data on it. We had to argue him down.” Then he went back to his tea, as if he’d told me what time it was.

I actually felt better after talking to him, and have never forgiven him for that either.

On Assurakûn.

The first thing Assurakûn ever gave me was a biscuit, very hard, and the first thing he ever told me was that my ancestors didn’t want me yet. I wanted to throw the biscuit at him. I didn’t, because my hunger was starting to overcome me, and because I suspected, correctly, that he’d only give me another.

He made a tonic for me, later, when I’d lost too much blood: iron filings steeped in wine. It tastes exactly like licking a sword. No, I have not actually licked any swords. You be quiet. He’d stand by the bed until I drank all of it, and he’d stand there as long as it took, and he had more patience than I did. He kept it in a brown bottle he’d labeled, in his beautiful neat hand, For the Gondolin One, Twice Daily, No Arguments. I argued anyway. It made no difference.

But what you really need to know about Assurakûn is the stones.

There’s an orcish game, played on a board scratched into a plank, with black stones and white, where you try to trap your opponent’s chief before he can reach the edge. Assurakûn played it with the long-term patients, to pass the time, and one evening he asked if I wanted to learn. I said I supposed so. He beat me in about forty moves, very kindly, and explained where I’d gone wrong.

That was his mistake.

I beat him four days later. He was so surprised that he made me play again immediately, and beat me, and then I beat him, and by the end of the week, the whole ward had stopped pretending to sleep so they could watch.

He kept a tally on the wall beside the medicine shelf, in two columns, his and mine, one mark for every game. Bakharma said it was a disgrace to a clinical environment. She said that every week, for years. She never once made him wash it off.

The columns stayed neck and neck the whole time I was in Angband. Whenever I pulled ahead, he’d come back with some dreadful new opening he’d been working on in his head all week, and whenever he pulled ahead, I’d go away and think about nothing else until I’d found the answer. Patients who’d been discharged would come back on their days off to see who was winning. Draumâkil kept a side wager going in the division. By the time I left, both columns had reached the floor and started up again in a second row underneath.

Officially, I was one behind.

I want it recorded that the last game was interrupted before it could be finished, and that I was winning it.

[Interviewer’s note: She was very firm about this. I have recorded it. —S.]

On Bakharma.

Bakharma frightened me more than anyone in that infirmary. She never smiled. She called me “the Gondolin one” for a year. She also knitted.

I don’t knit. I never learned; in Gondolin I sewed, and I embroidered, and I sang, and that was more than enough to be going on with. But I know cloth, and I know handwork, and I can tell you without any knitting at all that Bakharma’s socks were the ugliest things I have ever seen. Lumpy. Uneven. Heels that sat halfway up your ankle. Holes where there should have been stitches, and stitches where there should have been holes. She made them by the dozen and handed them out to every patient in the infirmary, without a word, as if they were bandages, and every one of us wore them, because the infirmary was cold, and they were warm.

I couldn’t stand it. But I wasn’t fool enough to tell her so.

So I asked Draumâkil to come and visit me, the next time I was in, and to bring her knitting. Draumâkil could knit like the Valar themselves had taught her. She sat by my bed and made a sock, a perfect one, smooth as cream, while Bakharma did her rounds. Bakharma went past four times. The fifth time, she stopped, and stood there, and finally asked, very gruffly, what in the name of anyone’s ancestors Draumâkil thought she was doing with that heel.

Draumâkil told her she’d been doing hers wrong for years.

I thought one of them would kill the other. Instead, Bakharma pulled up a stool and sat down, and they argued about heels for an hour, very loudly, in the middle of the ward, while all the patients pretended to be asleep and listened to every word. Draumâkil came back the next week. And the week after. Neither of them ever called it a lesson.

The socks got better. Not beautiful; Bakharma’s socks were never going to be beautiful. But the heels sat where heels should, and the holes went away. And one day, months later, Draumâkil came to visit me wearing a pair of lumpy grey socks I didn’t recognize, and when I asked her about them, she said they were payment, and told me to mind my own business.

She wore them until they fell apart.

I found out, much later, who taught Bakharma to knit in the first place. Someone she’d served with, long ago, by the fires on campaign. I’ve met him since. He’s even worse at it than she was.

On Yarûkh.

Yarûkh was a healer of the fourth rank, and I don’t think I heard him say a hundred words in four years. Not because he was unfriendly. He simply never said anything that didn’t need saying. He’d come and look at your stitches, and nod, and go away, and somehow you’d feel better.

Patients told him everything. I think it was because he never interrupted. Old soldiers would tell him about their battles, and their wives, and their dreadful feet, and he’d sit there and listen, and change their bandages, and say, “Hm.” I once saw a sergeant confess to him, in tears, that he’d been secretly afraid of the dark since childhood. Yarûkh said, “Hm,” and left a lamp burning by his bed every night after that. Nobody ever knew who’d put it there but me.

There was a running wager in the ward about whether he’d taken some kind of vow. Draumâkil said he was saving his words up for something. Assurakûn said he simply didn’t like most of us, which I think was a joke. Bakharma said he was the best healer she’d ever trained, and that if the rest of us talked half as little, we’d get twice as much done, and nobody argued with her.

He said one funny thing in all the time I knew him. One. It was during one of Bakharma and Draumâkil’s arguments about heels, at the very height of it, with the whole ward pretending to sleep. Yarûkh walked past with a basin, and stopped, and said one sentence, very quietly, and walked on.

The ward went completely silent. Then Draumâkil fell off her stool. Bakharma had to go and stand in the corridor. One of the patients laughed so hard he tore his stitches, and Yarûkh came back, without a word, and stitched them up again.

It is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m not going to tell you what it was. You had to be there, and you weren’t.

[Interviewer’s note: I asked her three times. She would not tell me. —S.]

On Gûrzalam.

Gûrzalam was an old soldier in the bed by the wall, with a wound in his side that wouldn’t close and more stories than anyone I’ve ever met. All of them were dreadful. I mean that in every sense: badly told, much too long, frequently obscene, and almost certainly untrue. He told the one about the troll and the wheelbarrow at least once a week for a year, and it was different every time.

He called me “little needle.” I told him not to. He kept doing it.

He also cheated at knucklebones, openly and without shame. If you caught him, he’d say his ancestors had nudged the bones for him, and that it was very rude of me to argue with the dead. I caught him every single time. He never stopped. I think, by the end, the game wasn’t really the point, for either of us.

Sometime in my second year, he decided I was his granddaughter.

He didn’t ask me. He simply started introducing me that way to anyone who came by. “This is my granddaughter, the little needle.” To his visitors, to the other patients, to Assurakûn, to Bakharma, who had known me a great deal longer than he had and said so. He said that didn’t signify; he’d decided, and that was that. When his real grandchildren came to visit, he introduced me to them as their cousin. They took it very well. One of them actually did look part-elvish. And one of them brought me a tiny seed-cake.

So I started calling him Grandfather. In Orcish, properly, the way you’re meant to say it to your mother’s father. The first time I did it, in front of the whole ward, he was so surprised he forgot to cheat, and lost.

When Sauron called me into his office and frostily asked if I wished to give input on the disposal of the items that woman had used on me, or if I would prefer he burn them all, I took the gown, and unpicked every seam of it, and made it into things for the little ones, Gûrzalam’s real grandchildren among them. I have never used a seam ripper with more relish. And out of the last scraps, I made Grandfather a little silk pouch for his knucklebones, so that his ancestors would have somewhere comfortable to sit while they cheated for him. He kept it until the end.

He told me, too, about the Prince: how the Prince had once sat on an upturned bucket in the rain for an hour, listening to him complain about his boots, and had his boots replaced. I’ve told you that one already. It’s the only one of his stories I ever believed. It was the only one that never changed.

And he was there the day she came into the ward. He stood up. He wasn’t supposed to; his wound wasn’t closed, and Assurakûn had told him a hundred times to stay lying down. He stood up anyway, by the wall, and stayed standing the whole time, and I didn’t understand why until long after, when I read the records and found his name.

I asked him about it once. He said he’d only stood up because his back hurt from lying down, and then told me about the troll and the wheelbarrow again.

That time, there were three trolls.

On Surkimâghan.

There was an accountant who saved my life by being annoyed about cloth.

His name was Surkimâghan, and he worked in the stores, and he noticed that my division was drawing fine cloth against no order, and that my ration-tag wasn’t being presented at the hall for days at a time, while my count was being met. Most people would have shrugged. He couldn’t. Numbers that didn’t add up offended him personally. So he kept asking questions, of more and more important people, until one of them was Sauron.

I met him, later, when I was a secretary. He was the most tiresome person I have ever known. He corrected the way I ruled my columns. He corrected the way I wrote my sevens. He once returned a ledger to me with a note pointing out that I’d blotted a single line, and that while it hadn’t affected the figures, it had affected his peace of mind. It’s not hard to see why Sauron listened to him — they both were afflicted by that sort of lunacy.

I thanked him once. Properly, I mean; I went to his desk and told him that I knew what he’d done, and that I owed him my life. He looked at me as if I’d misfiled something, and said that he had only reported a discrepancy. And then he corrected the way I was standing, which was apparently blocking his light.

I read the records, of course, as soon as I could. He didn’t only report a discrepancy. When the Lady found out what he was doing, she caught him in a corridor, and he had to hide for two days before he could get to the Lieutenant. Two days. That fussy little man with his sevens. I never told him I knew. I don’t think he’d have liked it.

Here’s the other thing I know about Surkimâghan, and I’m only telling you because it’s been three thousand years and he can’t possibly mind now. Once, looking for a ruler, I opened the wrong drawer of his desk, and found a book of love poetry. Very old, very worn, and very, very romantic. Full of his notes in the margins.

He came back while I was holding it. I have never seen anyone, orc or elf, turn quite that color.

I put it back, and said I hadn’t seen anything, and he said there was nothing to see. And I never mentioned it again, until now. But afterward, he stopped correcting my sevens.

On Urukišha.

After the captain was sentenced, and before the Lady’s hearings began, I had a visitor in the infirmary I’d never seen before.

She was very old, older than anyone I’d met in Angband, and blind, and carried in a chair by two great-grandsons who looked terrified of her and with good reason. She wore hides with a great ruff of fur at the collar, and glass beads worked into old patterns, and she carried an iron staff that she used mostly to poke the great-grandsons when they went the wrong way. They set her down beside my bed, and she sent them out, and they went so fast they collided in the doorway.

She asked if she could touch my face. I don’t know why I let her. I suppose because she asked. Her hands were very dry and very light. When she was done, she said, “So that’s what you look like,” as if it confirmed something.

She told me she had sat in judgment on the captain, and that while the court sat, it had stood where my clan would have stood, since I had none, and that she had seen to it. I didn’t understand what that meant, then. I understood it later, when I read what she’d said.

Then she asked me what we ate in Gondolin.

I told her. I may have gone on a little. I told her about bread, and honey cakes for the feast of the Gates of Summer, and roasted chestnuts, and pears in wine, and little fried fish from the river with lemon, and I was halfway through describing the cheese when she held up one hand and said that it all sounded very thin.

And then she called one of the great-grandsons back in, and he was carrying a little clay jar, sealed with wax, and holding it at arm’s length.

She told me that her clan had kept the same brine since before any orc was born under a roof. That every generation added to it and drew from it, and that her great-grandmother’s great-grandmother had carried it out of the north, and that there was nothing in it that was not also a little bit of her ancestors. That they put fish in it in the autumn and took them out in the spring. And that she had brought me one, because I was owed a clan’s care, and I didn’t have one yet.

Then she broke the seal.

I don’t know how to describe the smell. The great-grandson had his face buried in his sleeve, and he’s an orc; orcs can smell a cooking fire two valleys away. The patient in the next bed got up and left. And she held it out to me, in her two dry hands, very gravely, and waited.

So I ate it. What else could I do? It was an honor. It was compassion. Her ancestors were in it.

I’m not going to describe that either.

She asked me how I liked it. I said it was unlike anything I’d ever eaten in my life, which was true. She was very pleased. She said that was what everybody said.

Then she asked me to sing something, so I did, and when I’d finished, she said I was much too loud, and to sing it again. So I did. And again. By the third time, she’d fallen asleep in her chair, and the great-grandsons had to come in on tiptoe and carry her out without waking her.

She came back twice more before I was discharged. She brought the jar both times.

On Šunilukkái.

There were balrogs in Angband. You’ve heard the stories, I expect, and most of them are true: they’re enormous, and they burn, and the air goes hot and strange around them, and the first time I saw one in a corridor, I flattened myself against the wall and stopped breathing.

It stepped aside for me.

I nearly dropped my scrolls. Balrogs don’t step aside for anyone. They don’t have to. But this one stopped, and moved to the other side of the corridor, and waited until I’d passed, and only then went on. I found out later his name was Šunilukkái, and that he’d been warden of the Prince’s Guard, and that he’d served the Prince since before the sun. I have thought about that corridor more than I should.

But what I really want to tell you about is the cats.

The secretariat kept cats, for the mice; there’s nothing a mouse likes better than an archive. Yes, I know about granaries, be quiet. They were working cats, and they went where they pleased, and they had all the dignity and none of the manners of a lord of the Noldor. And cats love warmth. And a balrog is among the warmest things in the world.

So the cats loved Šunilukkái.

He’d come to the secretariat sometimes, on some business of the Guard’s, and stand in the doorway while he waited for whatever he’d come for. And the cats would come from every corner of the room. One would climb his leg. One would settle on his shoulder. One, the fat grey one who ran the archive, would drape itself over his other shoulder like a fur collar. And there he’d stand, this great terrible creature of shadow and flame, perfectly still, so as not to disturb them.

Once, he stood in that doorway for an hour after his business was done. Three cats were asleep on him, and he wouldn’t move them, and nobody else had the authority to. Mírlach came past twice and pretended not to see. Namešha laughed so hard he had to go and stand in the corridor. Halkiran very carefully wrote something down; I’d give a great deal to know what.

I don’t know whether balrogs can look embarrassed. If that one could, he most certainly didn’t. Between you and me, I think he liked it.

I’m not sure if the same is true for Sauron, who walked in that day and sneezed. The expression of disgust that followed is the closest thing I saw to a spontaneous expression of emotion from him ever, in all my years in Angband.

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From: Sam Park <lilsparky@hotmail.com>
Sent: August 29, 2001, 1:54 AM
To: Len Toller <len.toller@yahoo.com>; Samantha Park <spark3@jacaranda.edu>
Subject: Ter conata loqui ter destitit

Len sweetheart,

I know you felt all of it earlier. I’m sorry. I couldn’t make it into words then, and I didn’t want to keep pouring it into the bond the way I was, so I’m trying to make it into words now, which is apparently the only thing I know how to do. I’ve started this at least three times. If it’s incoherent, that’s why.

The DA’s office finally called back. They’re not moving forward with the charges.

The deputy DA, the one I met with twice, the one who told me across her desk that she believed me, called to say they’d “reviewed the case thoroughly” and decided they “couldn’t meet the burden.” I asked what that meant. She said a jury would have questions. She said I accepted a ride from him. She said I’d had a drink at dinner, earlier, hours earlier, ONE drink, which I told them because they asked and because I was trying so hard to be honest about everything. And she said I admitted — she used the exact word, admitted — that I let him sleep on the couch. OUR couch, in OUR HOME, because he came back and said he was more tired than he thought and didn’t trust himself to drive, and you know how I feel about people driving when they shouldn’t — and what was I supposed to do, make him sleep in his car? Hostis ut hospes init penetralia Collatini: comiter excipitur. So I made up the couch for him and showed him where the guest bathroom was and made sure he knew where to find the stuff for tea and coffee if he wanted it, and then I went to our room and crawled into bed.

And apparently all of that is the reason they can’t prove it wasn’t consensual. She said a defense attorney would make it look like I cheated on you and then lied so you wouldn’t be angry with me. I told her our marriage isn’t like that, you’re not like that, and she said it didn’t matter. Consolantur aegram animi avertendo noxam ab coacta in auctorem delicti: mentem peccare, non corpus, et unde consilium afuerit culpam abesse… I guess no one in the DA’s office ever read Livy.

She said there was “just not enough physical evidence of force.” Quid faciat? Pugnet? Vincetur femina pugnans. Clamet? At in dextra, qui vetet, ensis erat. Effugiat? Positis urgentur pectora palmis, tunc primum externa pectora tacta manu!

She told me I called him ‘darling’ and ‘dear’ in emails. I told her that’s just how I talk. I say that to literally EVERYONE. Sakalkhôr did it too! Most of his correspondence is like that, including with his colleagues! I told her to look at the rest of my emails and she’d see how often I do it, or ask literally anyone, and she told me it wouldn’t help.

She said she was very sorry. She said she believed me, personally. She said that twice, like it was supposed to help.

I asked if I could appeal. She said it doesn’t work like that. It’s their decision, and it’s made.

So that’s it. That’s the whole thing. The report, the exam, the hours of interviews, telling it again and again to people who wrote it down and looked at me like I was some sort of space alien, and the answer is that none of it was enough to even try.

And he gets to just go on. The university won’t do anything, because it happened off campus. I pointed out that students see him alone, and they said they had to respect his rights. So he gets to keep his job, working right over there in poli sci, and I’m supposed to move my office and change my schedule and take a leave of absence if I can’t handle it. He doesn’t even have to stay away from me at work. He only has to stay away from our house. And he still has friends who are my friends, or were, or who haven’t decided yet, which is somehow worse.

‘Per tibi ego hunc iuro fortem castumque cruorem, perque tuos manes, qui mihi numen erunt, Tarquinium profuga poenas cum stirpe daturum. Iam satis est virtus dissimulata diu.’

I keep thinking: I thought I did everything I was supposed to do. As soon as he left, I called 911. I didn’t shower. The police came, and I talked to them. I went to the hospital, and let them do everything. I answered every question, even the ones that made me want to crawl out of my skin. And it still comes out like this.

He gets to live his life, and I get to live with the consequences of his actions. As do you — I know how hard this has been on you, and seeing it breaks my heart. I hate how much of it you had to feel. And I’ll keep on saying this for as long as it takes: None of it was your fault. Not for being away at a conference, not for being unable to reach our 911 dispatch before he was gone, nothing. You don’t control the 911 system, and it’s not designed to take calls from other jurisdictions. You are not the reason no one came; you are the reason I wasn’t alone. And I am not the only victim of what he did that night. I love you more than words can say.

Okay. I’m going to stop, because if I keep going I’ll start crying again, and I can’t type when I’m crying.

So here’s the other thing, because you know this is how I cope, and right now I need very badly to think about something that happened a very long time ago to somebody else.

I finished the pages from the box. The last bundle, the ones in Sakalkhôr’s hand that aren’t in any catalog. Len, these aren’t in ANYTHING. I’ve been through every index of the College material I can get my hands on, and every reference in the secondary literature, and these interviews are nowhere. He never filed them. He kept them. And then you kept them, for three thousand years, and never once mentioned them to me in any of my lives, which I am choosing to find mysterious rather than annoying, but only barely.

As sources, they’re a nightmare. An oral account, given late at night, over (by Sakalkhôr’s own admission) a second bottle of wine, about events three thousand years before. If a student brought me this I’d tell them to be very, very careful.

But the details are good. She describes the secretariat with the senior secretaries seated by the door, and that’s a detail nobody would invent; it’s too boring. And her description of Melkor, in those last years: the foot, the burned hands, the gloves. It matches the traditions, but she isn’t describing a figure out of legend. She’s describing someone she saw in a doorway, wearing his clothes wrong. I don’t think there’s another eyewitness account like it anywhere.

And then there’s the name. Everywhere else, she calls him “Sauron,” and she clearly means it as an insult. In two of these accounts, and only these two, she calls him “Mairon.” Neither she nor Sakalkhôr remarks on it. I’ve read it ten times now. It isn’t an accident; she was much too careful a speaker for that.

The lullaby I can’t stop thinking about. She was a trained singer, and she’s describing an Ainu singing in many voices at once, and she clearly understood exactly what she was hearing. She says it was the most beautiful thing she ever heard. Then Sakalkhôr asks if she ever tried to sing it, and she says no. She doesn’t think she could. She’s never tried. As a historian, I want to know everything about that song. As a person, I think she was right.

I have so many questions for you. Sakalkhôr says you wept when you saw her. You’ve never told me about her, not once, in any of my lives, as far as I can remember. Which, okay, is kind of limited, but still. Will you tell me now? Did Sakalkhôr ever tell you why he didn’t file these? You don’t have to answer any of it. But I’m going to ask anyway, because I’m me.

OKAY. Something nice. I promised myself I’d end on something nice.

I got you the tie. Natural History won, sorry, Met. It’s dark blue, with tiny dinosaur skeletons on it, and if you look closely, one of them is a stegosaurus wearing a little hat. Nobody at the gift shop knew why it was wearing a hat. You’re going to wear it to every conference this year. I’ve decided.

I can’t wait to fly home tomorrow. I have never wanted to come home so badly in my life. All I’ll be thinking about is getting off that plane and seeing you at the gate.

<3333 I love you. Stay up with me if you can. I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight anyway.

Your Sam.

~*~

A document written in the cipher of the historians of Númenor. The longhand form used to transcribe notes into a complete text, not the shorthand cipher used to take the notes. I don’t see a fully decoded form anywhere in the bundle, but I can read this one just fine, and it seems very complete.

I am so tempted to publish a paper one of these days explaining how to decode the ciphers — or at least, some of them. Gods, can you imagine what it would be like for the world to finally be able to read the archives of Númenor, in their true and complete form? It would change so much of what the historical community understands about SO MANY THINGS that happened after the reign of Ar-Gimilzôr. Not to mention that it would finally get that contingent that insists it’s all dummy text just because they can’t crack it to shut up. The only problem would be the methods section — what am I supposed to say? ‘My ancient husband always shares his memories of Sakalkhôr teaching it to him if I ask and not only did it work, it actually jogged my own memory, and anyway here’s what you can do to crack it’?

I guess I could try to get someone (ahem) to publish it after I’m dead (again). Or release the code anonymously on the internet — although, selfishly, I have to admit that I’m really reluctant to give up something like this without getting credit. Especially since it looks an awful lot like I’m going to have to get another job.

…Is it horrible of me to sort of wish he’d hurt me worse? I keep thinking, maybe they would’ve tried if he’d hurt me worse. Maybe then what he did to me would’ve mattered.

I’m sorry. I was trying so hard not to think about it.

The problem with publishing the ciphers is that alongside the archives, you have documents like this. I mean, obviously I’m not about to try and publish this one, I just want you to tell me all about it. That’s different from telling it to the entire world. It’s one thing when I’m writing about some cavalry officer at Vindolanda begging his commander to send more beer, or how the Brittunculi (vae victis to all my British friends, who now have a new nickname) don’t mount in order to throw javelins; it feels different when it’s dealing with the vulnerability of people some part of me can actually half-remember.

<3 Your Sam.

32 Quellë, SA 3267 — conversation with Nárelótë of Eregion.

Stayed up late talking last night (today is the thirty-third of Quellë). She informed my husband that she likes me more than she likes him, then laughed and relented and put a blanket round his shoulders. I am glad the two of them have made up. My husband, the darling sweet fellow with terrible opinions on history, wept when he saw her — he truly thought every one of those who did not make it through the hidden passage was dead. Nárelótë let him know in no uncertain terms how absurd she found this notion — by what stroke of lunacy, she demanded, would a conqueror slaughter every one of those he conquered to a man, leaving none from which to extract labor, or tribute, or taxes, or ransom? No one, she declared with immense confidence, would do such a thing.

No one, indeed.

I refrained from disagreeing with her. It was their time to speak about the fall of the city they once called home, and I did not wish to overshadow it by speaking of the orders I saw Pharazôn give, or the things I saw him do.

But after my husband went to bed, Nárë and I got to talking. We stayed up late into the night, speaking of all manner of strange subjects over two bottles of Dorwinion.

I haven’t figured out what to do with the records of what we talked about. I will not be sharing these, or sending them to the archives.

S.

The senior secretaries sat by the door. I thought it was strange when I first came: Halkiran and Mírlach and the others of the first rank, at their desks right inside the entrance, so that anyone who came in had to go past them first, like doorkeepers. In Gondolin the important people sat furthest from the draught. I supposed it was some old custom. I didn’t think about it again.

The door they sat beside, at the far end of that row of desks, was Sauron’s.

You hardly ever saw him. You heard him. His voice would come through that door, perfectly level, saying somebody’s name, and whoever it was would get up and go, and the door would open for them before they reached it. I never once saw him touch the handle. I’m not sure he knew where it was. Sometimes he didn’t bother with his voice at all, and one of those eyes of his would simply appear in the air, the fiery ones, and hang there over somebody’s desk, looking, until they noticed. You’d be ruling a ledger, and you’d feel it, and you’d look up, and there it would be. You got used to it. You never got used to it.

The lamps in the secretariat never needed oil. Nobody filled them; nobody trimmed them; they just burned. Half the pens wrote by themselves, if he wanted them to. And there was a little black side table, about knee-high, that held his inks and his spare pens and his sand, and it walked. On chicken feet. Scaly, yellow, three toes in front and one behind. It followed him from room to room, and when he wasn’t there, it wandered, and the cats hunted it. You would be working, and a side table would go past at a dead run, with the fat grey archive cat after it, and everyone would go on working as if nothing had happened. If anyone was ever bold enough to ask the Lieutenant about it, and I promise you no one was, the official position was that the table did all of that entirely of its own accord.

[She laughed for some time at this. It was the last time she laughed that night. S.]

The first time I went into his office, I wasn’t sent for. Halkiran gave me a stack of papers to bring him, and I knocked, because I was raised properly. The door didn’t open. Instead, one of the eyes appeared, right in front of my face, at about the height of my nose, and stared at me.

I stared back. I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve thought since of all the things I might have said to it. In the end I explained my business, to an eye, in the air, like a fool, and it listened, I swear it listened, and then it was gone, and the door swung open on its own.

After that, I was sent for. He needed letters written in Quenya, in a proper hand, by someone who wrote it as it ought to look; that was why he wanted me, and not one of the others. He’d send an eye. It would come and hang beside my desk, and I’d sigh and put down my pen and go.

They were letters to the Havens of Sirion, where whoever had escaped my city had gone. I didn’t know, then, who had. I still didn’t know, for a long time after. They offered ransom for captives from Gondolin, by name. He’d dictate, walking back and forth, and I’d write, and the names were people I’d known. A cousin of a friend. A man who sold pears in the market below the Tower of the King. Once, my own teacher’s name. I wrote every one of them in my best hand.

He dictated in Quenya the way you’d find it in a grammar, and when I wrote it the way real people say it, he corrected me. The first time, I argued. He went to a shelf and took down a book, and opened it to the page, and showed me. It was Rúmil. I told him Rúmil was wrong too. He looked at me for a long moment and then dictated the sentence again, his way, and I wrote it his way, and it was wrong. When we finished, he read it over and said, “Adequate.” That was early in my first year in the secretariat, before the lessons. I still wrote things his way, then. I’d learn.

I found those letters, years later, when I was going through the archives. They’d never been sent. They were filed away, every one, sealed, in my handwriting. I don’t know why. I’ve never known.

But I was telling you about the office.

You have to understand that it was the most beautiful room I have ever been in, and I have been in the halls of the King of Gondolin. Every wall was wood, inlaid, from the floor to the ceiling: dark woods and pale woods, ebony and walnut and pear and something almost white, fitted together so closely you couldn’t find the seams. And it was all pictures, and all of them lies. Cupboards stood half open, with books inside, and an hourglass, and a lute with a broken string, and rolled maps tied with ribbon, and none of it was there. The edges were shaded, the way an object is shaded by the light, so they seemed to stand out from the wall; I learned later that you do that by scorching the little pieces in hot sand before you set them. The first time I went in, I reached for one of the books, and my fingers met flat wood. He saw me do it. He didn’t say a word, and I am certain he enjoyed it.

There was one inlaid cat, curled asleep in one of the false cupboards. The real cats hissed at it.

His desk was dark wood, very plain, very fine, and it stood on long legs like a heron’s, grey and jointed. When it was still, it folded them underneath itself, the way a heron does, and sat. When he wanted it somewhere else, it stood up and walked there. His ink was red, a dark red, the color of old blood, and when the light caught it, it shimmered a little. Nobody was allowed to mention that. On a shelf beside the desk were jars of tea, labeled in his hand, and an iron kettle with no fire under it and no hearth anywhere in the room. I wondered about that kettle. I didn’t find out for a long time.

And there were books. A great many books. Among them, more grammars of my own language than I had ever seen in one place, which explained a great deal.

The light came from nowhere. There were no lamps that I could see. It was simply light, warm and even, the way it is on a cloudy day.

There was one more thing.

In the far corner, at an angle so that you couldn’t see it from where he sat, there was an alcove, and in it, a bed.

I noticed it the first time, and every time after. It was the only plain thing in that room. The wood was good, and the joinery was perfect, but it was a little paler than the rest, as if it had been there less long, and there was nothing in it. No pictures. No false cupboards. No cats. Nothing that walked. It was just a bed, a bed fit for a king, with a black coverlet, and the linen turned down beneath it.

The linen still had the creases from the press. It always did. Every time I saw it.

I used to think nobody ever slept there.

[She was quiet for a long while here. S.]

We had rules for if the king ever came. I’d been told them my first week. If you’re not in his way you stand, at once, and bow your head, and you do not raise it until he’s gone. If you’re in his way, you get out of it, and get down on your knees if it looks like he might pass within a desk’s length of you. Closer, your forehead touches the floor. If he addresses you, you prostrate yourself: your body flat on the floor, forehead to the ground, arms extended before you with your hands palms up. The same was true if you addressed him, but it was also understood that you were never under any circumstances supposed to do such a thing. If he sends for you, you don’t go to him; you go and find the Lieutenant first. I learned them the way you learn what to do if there’s a fire. I never thought I’d need them. He hadn’t left the throne room in years, everyone said. He kept his guards around him day and night.

He came alone.

It was an ordinary afternoon. I was ruling a ledger. I didn’t hear him come in; nobody did. I only knew because the room changed. The lamps seemed to go dim, and then everything was lit from the doorway, with a light that wasn’t lamplight, cold and white and gold all at once, and every shadow in the room swung around to point away from it.

I knew who he was immediately. Everyone did. I don’t know how to explain that. You simply knew.

He was very tall. His robe was black velvet, silk velvet, the deepest black I’ve ever seen, the kind that drinks the light, and that was a fortune in dye alone. It was lined with cloth of gold, and the lining showed where it shouldn’t, because it was fastened wrong. Hooks and eyes, all the way down the front, and every one of them caught in the wrong place, so the whole robe hung crooked, pulled tight across him on one side and gaping on the other. I noticed that first. Isn’t that strange? I’ve thought since that I noticed it first because I couldn’t bear to notice anything else.

He wore a mantle over it, lined with sable, and it was slipping off one shoulder, and he didn’t seem to know that either. He had a boot on one foot. On the other, the foot he’d been wounded in long ago, there was only a stocking, black silk, and he walked on that foot as though he’d never once allowed himself a stick. His hands were wrong too. On one, the glove, fine black leather, hung half off his fingers, as if he’d started to pull it off and forgotten. The other was bare; I never saw where its glove had gone. Both hands were burned black, and he didn’t seem to know.

And on his head was the crown.

I won’t describe it. I’ll tell you only that it was iron, and that the light came from it, and that I didn’t look at it, not once, not directly. You understand why. Every one of us who came from my city understood why.

By the door, the senior secretaries were already on their knees, foreheads to the floor. The rest of us stood. I didn’t. My stick was against the wall, out of reach, and I froze in my chair. Namešha hauled me up by the arm and hissed, “Head down,” and I put my head down, and then he didn’t let go. He held on to my arm the whole time, so hard I had bruises the next day, though he knew perfectly well I could stand. I’d stood at a wall for him a hundred times.

Morgoth said, “Where is he?”

He meant Mairon.

Nobody knew whether he’d spoken to us. Nobody moved.

So I saw it all from there. The floor. The hem of my own robes. Feet. Shadows, all of them pointing away from the entrance. I heard more than I saw.

Halkiran was on a ladder. He’d been fetching ledgers from the high shelves, an armful of them, and he was trying to get down. You could hear him trying, the ladder creaking, the books shifting, too slowly. You cannot get down a ladder quickly with your arms full and your head bowed.

The king said, “Stop writing.” Nobody was writing. Every pen in the room had stopped. “Who are you writing to?”

Then he was at the ladder. I saw his shadow move across the floor toward it, very fast. I heard it go over. I heard the ledgers hit the floor, all of them at once, and Halkiran with them, and something in him cracked when he landed. I heard that, too.

He tried to get up. That’s what I remember most. Not to get away; to kneel. I could see the edge of his sleeve from where I stood, and his hand, pressed flat against the floor, trying to push himself up onto his knees so that he could put his forehead to the stone, the way you were supposed to. He never managed it.

The king’s shadow went up the wall, and came down, and went up again. I heard every time it came down. Halkiran didn’t cry out. He made sounds, but not that. Ink had spilled from somewhere, one of the pots on Halkiran’s desk, knocked over when the ladder fell, and it ran across the floor in a thin black line until it reached the edge of what I could see, and stopped there, and after a while there was something else in it that wasn’t ink.

It came and went, in bursts, the way a storm comes and goes. He’d stop, and the room would hold its breath, and he’d say, to nobody, “He always comes when I call. Why hasn’t he come?” Once he said, “It’s too loud in here.” There wasn’t a sound in that room but him. And then it would start again.

Then Mírlach moved.

She was the most senior of us after Halkiran, and the least fond of people. She never smiled; she corrected everyone’s ruling, mine more than anyone’s. She went forward from beside her desk on her knees, not quickly, and I saw her robes go past the edge of what I could see, and then I saw her go all the way down, her body flat on the floor, her face against the stone, her arms stretched out in front of her with the palms open. She was lying between him and Halkiran.

She said, “Lord of All, your servant begs leave to send for the Lieutenant.”

Her voice came up off the stone, a little muffled, and it was exactly the same as when she read out the minutes.

He said, “Send for him? You know where he is.” And then, quieter: “He’s mine.”

I heard the blow. I saw her slide across the floor, into the leg of a desk.

And then I watched her get back up onto her knees, and go back to the same place, and lie down flat against the stone again, between them. And she said it again, word for word, and her voice was thick, and it was perfectly steady. “Lord of All, your servant begs leave to send for the Lieutenant.”

That was when Orndae went.

She was the newest of us, a copyist, the one who’d spilled the sand into the Lieutenant’s correspondence. Part elf and part orc, and so small you could lose her behind a stack of paper. I saw her out of the corner of my eye. She went along the wall, behind him, close enough to touch his cloak, and out of the door, and I don’t think anyone breathed until she was through it.

I’ve thought about that a great deal. She had to go nearer to him to go past him. Nobody told her to. She just went.

It felt like an hour. Namešha told me later it was less time than it takes to sing a verse.

Mairon was there before Orndae was.

I don’t know how. I’ve never known. I heard no footsteps in the corridor, and Orndae can’t have reached the quiet rooms and come back in the time it took. But the light in the room changed again, and there was a second light in it now, warmer, the color of a forge, and at the edge of what I could see, there were his boots. The Lieutenant’s boots. Orndae came in a long moment afterward, so out of breath she had to hold the doorframe, and went down on her knees where she was.

He said, “My lord.”

That was all, at first. His voice was perfectly ordinary. It was the voice he used to read out the day’s orders.

Then he said, “That is my secretary, my lord. What has he done?”

The king stopped. I heard him stop. Everything stopped. And then, I think, he forgot that there was anyone else in the room. I couldn’t see his face. But I could see his shadow, and it had turned, all of it, toward the Lieutenant, and it didn’t move again.

Mairon didn’t ask a second time.

He went to him. I heard him cross the floor, past Mírlach where she lay, past Halkiran. And when he spoke again, it was a voice I had never heard him use, and never heard again. It was very soft.

“Look at you,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

The king said nothing.

“You could have called for me.”

I raised my head then. Not far. As far as I dared, which was not very far at all, and Namešha’s hand tightened on my arm until I thought the bone would bend. But I saw.

He took the king’s hand, the one with the glove hanging half off it, and drew the glove back up over the fingers, carefully, one at a time, the way you’d dress a child’s hand on a cold morning.

Then he took the other hand, the bare one, in both of his, and lifted it.

The skin was black, all of it, dry and hard as old leather, and it had cracked across the knuckles where the fingers bent, and the cracks were red. It must have hurt him terribly. He hadn’t seemed to feel it at all, the whole time. Not until Mairon touched it. Then the fingers closed, very slowly, around Mairon’s.

Mairon bent his head and kissed it.

Then he said, very low, “Come. It’s quieter in my rooms.” And he led him across the room, past all of us, to the door of his office. The king went with him the way a sleepwalker goes. The light went with them. The door closed.

Nobody moved for a long time after that. Then everybody moved at once.

Someone ran for the healers. Someone else knelt by Halkiran and didn’t touch him, because nobody knew where it was safe to touch him. Namešha let go of my arm at last, and I found I couldn’t feel my fingers.

They carried Halkiran out on a board, and he didn’t wake.

Mírlach would not be carried. She got up off the floor by herself, with her nose broken and her lip split and blood all down the front of her robe, and stood there swaying a little until she was sure of her feet. Two of the third rank tried to take her arms, and she looked at them until they let go. Then she walked out of the secretariat on her own feet, holding a handkerchief to her face, and on the way past the copyists’ desks, she stopped, and pointed at somebody’s ledger, and told him his ruling had gone crooked in the third column. Then she went to the infirmary.

Later that afternoon, the Lieutenant’s door opened.

Only a little. Only wide enough. Nobody went near it. And out came the side table, on its chicken feet, very carefully, carrying the iron kettle from his office, with steam coming out of the spout, and a jar of tea.

It went to Uzhunahhan, who was the most senior of the upper ranks left in the room, and stood in front of him until he took the kettle and the jar. Then it turned and went across the room to the door, where Orndae was still sitting on the floor where she’d fallen, and stood in front of her, and opened its drawer.

There was a piece of black nougat in it, wrapped in paper. The good kind, with almonds, from the south.

Orndae just stared at it. She told me afterward she was afraid to touch it. So the table took a step closer. Then another. Then it nudged her knee with the open drawer, quite firmly, the way a dog does when it wants you to throw something. She took the nougat. The drawer shut itself. And the table turned around and trotted back into the office, and the door closed behind it.

I never got so much as a crumb from that table, and I’m still a little bitter about it.

Uzhunahhan made tea for all of us, there in the secretariat, from a kettle with no fire under it that had come out of a room with no hearth. I didn’t think about that, then. I was too glad of the tea. It was a long time before I learned how that kettle was heated, and understood that he’d heated it that afternoon, in there, with the king beside him, and sent it out to us.

The door stayed closed until morning. When it opened, the Lieutenant was at his desk as if nothing had happened. My arm was purple where Namešha had held it.

I went to the infirmary that evening, to bring Halkiran his quilt.

He was awake. And the Lieutenant was there, sitting beside the bed, holding a cup of tea so that Halkiran could drink without lifting his head. I stopped in the doorway. Neither of them saw me. I heard the Lieutenant say one word to him, very quietly. He said, “Good.” I never heard him say it to anyone else, before or after.

Then he got up and went, and passed me in the doorway without a glance, as if I weren’t there. Perhaps I wasn’t, to him, just then.

I put the quilt over Halkiran’s feet. He looked at it, and at me, and didn’t say anything. Neither did I.

Mírlach was back at her desk four days later, long before the healers wanted her there. Her nose was never quite straight again. She never mentioned it, and nobody ever dared to.

And I finally understood why the senior secretaries sat by the door.

The next time the Lieutenant sent for me, I looked at the alcove. I couldn’t help it. The bed was made, the coverlet smooth, and the linen still had the creases from the press.

It always did.

[She did not say anything more about that day, and I did not ask. S.]

—

There was another time. When the war in the West was truly starting to turn, and everyone knew how it was going, and nobody said so.

An eye came for me one morning, the way they always did, and hung beside my desk until I sighed and put down my pen. When I went in, the writing desk came trotting out of its corner to meet me. Did I tell you about that? He kept a little desk in his office for whoever was taking dictation, so we wouldn’t have to write on our knees. It had chicken feet, like the side table. It came when you came in, and settled in front of your stool, and folded its feet under itself like a hen on a nest. I was never sure whether we were meant to find that charming. I did, a little. I never told him so.

He was walking up and down while he waited for me, the way he did when he dictated. And I should tell you how he dressed, because you won’t understand any of the rest if I don’t.

He wore black, always. Not the black of our robes in the secretariat, which was good enough, but went a little brown in strong light, the way cheap black does. His was the true black, the kind that drinks the light. The robe was fitted close through the body and crossed over at the breast, right over left, and at the collar you could see the edges of everything he wore beneath it, one inside the other, like the leaves of a closed book: a band of black velvet, a band of black damask, and innermost, a narrow line of white linen, worked all along its edge in tiny black stitches, squares and knots and little stars. I asked a merchant of the Edain about that embroidery once, years later, here. He’d never seen anything like it.

The velvet was cut in a pattern, so that when he turned, the light caught some places and not others, and you saw flowers you hadn’t known were there. At the waist, a belt, buckled like a man’s sword belt, with a pen case of tooled leather hanging from it, and a little inkhorn. From the waist down, the robe fell in pleats, a great many pleats, to about the middle of his calf, with trousers and boots beneath. Riding clothes, really. Walking clothes. He could have taken the stairs three at a time in them, and I suspect he often did, when nobody was looking.

His forearms were bound in cuffs of black leather from the wrist almost to the elbow, lacquered until they shone, and closed with a row of small black buttons, so his sleeves would never touch the ink.

And the pleats. I counted them once. Forty-four. And every one of them, on the inside, where you couldn’t see it, was dyed red. Not a bright red. The red of his ink, the color of old blood. When he stood still, he was black from his collar to his boots. When he walked, the pleats opened, and the red showed in the depths of them, a flicker at every step, and closed again.

He was walking that morning. I remember the red.

He was writing to the host that had come out of the West. I didn’t know, then, what the letter was for. It wasn’t a demand. It wasn’t a threat. It was very careful, and very courteous, and it was addressed to the captains of that host by their titles, in proper Quenya, and some of those titles I knew. I wrote it as he said it, and he walked, and the red came and went, and I think he had got as far as the third page when he stopped.

He stopped in the middle of a word. My pen was still above the page.

Nobody had come in. There had been no knock, no messenger, no sound at all. He stood there in the middle of the room, quite still, with his head a little turned, as if he were listening. And then he said, very quietly, to no one in the room, “I’m coming.”

The heron desk folded its legs and sat down. My little desk backed away from me, into its corner, and tucked its feet under itself. The cats were already gone; I hadn’t seen them go. And the light in the room went dimmer. I’m almost sure of that.

He went out. The door opened for him. It stayed open until I left, then closed behind me.

He was gone three days.

The door stayed shut all that time, and no eyes came. The side table waited outside his door, and wouldn’t move from it, not for anyone; the archive cat came and sat down in front of it and stared at it for most of an afternoon, and it didn’t so much as twitch a toe. And the senior secretaries drank their tea cold. I noticed that, and didn’t understand it. Three days of cold tea, and not one of them complained, and not one of them explained.

On the fourth morning, the door was open, and he was at his desk.

He didn’t send an eye for me. He sent the side table, with a note in its drawer, in that red ink: my name, and nothing else.

When I went in, he was sitting at the heron desk, and he didn’t get up, and he didn’t walk. He was dressed differently. His robe went all the way to the floor, and there was more of it: layer over layer, damask over velvet over silk, and over all of it a long, loose outer robe of black velvet that fell straight from his shoulders and hid the shape of him entirely. His collar was fastened up to the throat, a high, stiff band, closed with two small buttons under the chin. He always came back from the throne room fastened to the throat; we’d all noticed that, years before. That was nothing. But he wasn’t wearing the cuffs. His sleeves were long, and loose, and they fell over his hands, and his hands lay in his lap, and he never lifted them.

He didn’t move at all. Not once, in all the time I was there. So there was no red.

The light was dimmer. I remember the walls most. All those false cupboards, the books and the lute and the sleeping cat: they need good light, you understand, to look real, because it’s the shading that does it, and in that dim light they had all gone flat. You could see that they were only wood.

The pens wrote by themselves the whole time. I’d seen him do that a hundred times, to show off. That day, I don’t think it was showing off. The side table poured him a cup of tea, and set it beside him. He didn’t touch it. It was still there, cold, when I left.

He dictated a notice about winter rations for the elvish thralls in the lower forges. In short sentences, and quietly; his voice was very soft. And I wrote it the way it ought to be written, the way it’s spoken, and waited for him to correct me, and he didn’t. Not once. I wrote the whole thing my way, and he read it over, without lifting it, and said, “Adequate,” and let it stand.

Two days later, an eye appeared over Orndae’s desk, and she jumped so hard she knocked over her sand. And somewhere behind me, I heard Namešha let out a breath.

He never went back to the letter to the host of the West. I found it in the archives, in the last years, when I was going through them for something else. Three pages, in my own hand. It stops in the middle of a word.

So did a great many things, those last years.

[She poured herself more wine here, and then, after a moment, poured more for me. S.]

—

I saw Morgoth one more time.

It was at the very end. The host from the West was at the gates, or near enough; you could feel it in the stone, a shudder now and then that came up through your feet, and dust sifting down from the ceiling onto the ledgers. Half the secretariat had been sent elsewhere, to the forges or the walls or the stores, and the rest of us were copying what we were told to copy or helping to seal things up in the archives, and nobody talked.

Sometimes, when the Lieutenant was in the throne room, one of the senior secretaries went up and waited outside the door. I’d known that for years. I’d never asked why.

That day it was Mírlach. A runner came down from her in the afternoon, a boy from the guard, out of breath, with a message: a blanket, and quickly. There was only one blanket in the secretariat, and that was Halkiran’s quilt, and Halkiran had gone down to the lower archives that morning and not come back. Everyone else was elbow-deep in something. I was the only one with my hands free.

So I took the quilt off the back of his chair and folded it over my arm, and went.

I had never been that far up. Nobody went that far unless they had to. The corridors got wider as you climbed, and higher, and colder, and emptier. There used to be guards on every landing, everyone said. There were none now. Once, the whole mountain shook, and I stopped with one hand on the wall and waited for it to pass, and when it had, I could hear something very far above me, like a great many people shouting, or like the sea.

The last stair opened into a hall so wide that I couldn’t see its sides. There was no one in it.

At the far end were the doors.

On either side of them, the mountain had been carved into a beast. Each was a bull, taller than three men, with great folded wings and a man’s face, bearded, crowned, looking straight ahead. They had been cut from the rock of the walls and never separated from it. From the front, each stood on two legs, square and still. From the side, it was striding, and had four more. I counted five legs, from where I stood.

Between them, the doors were wood, black, and bound across with bands of iron, one above the other from the floor to far above my head, and every band was a picture. Armies marching, in ranks, every soldier the same. Towers, and ladders against them, and men falling from the ladders. Lines of captives, roped at the neck, walking. Peoples bringing gifts: horses, cloth, bowls heaped with something, a bear on a chain. And at the center of the doors, larger than any of it, the king, climbing a mountain, with the bodies of his enemies under his feet and the stars above the peak. There were three bright stones set into his crown.

The right-hand door hung from a single hinge. Its top corner had come away from the frame and dropped, so that the whole leaf leaned inward, and the king on it leaned with it, his mountain tilted, his stars askew. The frame beside it was split from top to bottom.

Through the gap, just inside, in the shadow of a column, there was a faint light, standing very still. It was Mírlach. She saw me, and came forward a little, out of the shadow, and the light from inside the room caught her face, and the little crook in her nose that had been there ever since.

I went in. Only a few steps. It felt very strange.

She held out her arms for the quilt, and I gave it to her. And while she was taking it from me, I looked.

The floor was black stone, polished until it was like water, so that everything in the room stood on its own reflection. Channels had been cut into it, running the length of the hall in straight lines, and fire ran in them, low and steady, without smoke. It was the coldest room I have ever been in. My breath showed.

The columns were black, and each one was many-sided, like the cells of a honeycomb stood on end, and they stood in ranks, close together, the way they grow in the rock; I learned later that they do grow that way, in fire-mountains, and that someone had only to cut the mountain away from them. They went up, and up, past the reach of the light, and I couldn’t see where they ended. I couldn’t see a roof at all.

Along the walls, cut into the rock, another procession was walking toward the far end of the hall, people after people, each in their own dress, carrying gifts. Between the columns hung tapestries, very old and very fine, in gold and red and black, too far and too dim for me to make out. Except one.

It lay on the floor. It had come down from its hooks, and nobody had put it back, and it lay in a long heap between two columns, half unrolled. What I could see of it was a great pillar of light, falling, and fire beneath it, and the sky behind it torn. Around the border were beasts. I don’t know what they were. Lizards, I’d have said, but as big as houses, some with crests along their backs, some with long necks like swans, some with feathers. They were running from the fire. One was looking back at it.

One of the columns, near the fallen tapestry, was cracked, a single black line running down it from higher than I could see to the floor.

At the far end of the hall, steps rose to a dais, a great many of them, and on the steps were furs: black and brown and white. Above the steps, very high, was the throne. It was the mountain: it came up out of the rock behind it, the same rock, the same black, as if it had always been there and someone had found it. Behind it hung a cloth of black velvet, worked in gold. Nobody was sitting on it.

The light in that room didn’t come from the throne, or from the fire. It came from the floor, at the foot of the steps, and it was white, and it threw the shadows of the columns upward.

There was someone singing.

I had been hearing it, I think, since I came through the door, the way you hear water in a house and don’t know you’re hearing it until you stop to listen. It was very soft. It filled the whole room anyway; the stone carried it, up the columns and out into the dark where the roof should have been, and back down again.

It had no words. Not in any language I know, and I know a good many. I’m not convinced there were words in it at all, maybe only sounds, the kind you sing to a child who’s too young for words, over and over, rising and falling. A lullaby. You’d know it for one anywhere, in any tongue. Every people has them, and they’re all the same shape.

And it was sung in more voices than I could count.

You have to understand what that means, to someone like me. The great singers of my people sing that way: three voices from one throat, four, the best of them five, woven together so that you hear a whole choir in one singer. It takes centuries to learn, and most never do. I never could. I’ve told you that. I have one voice. So I know, better than most, what I was hearing. Every one of those voices was moving on its own, and every one was true, and they came together and parted and came together again without ever once losing each other. There was no strain in any of it. No reaching. And every one of those voices was gentle, every one, all the way down to the lowest, which I felt in the floor more than I heard.

It was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.

At the foot of the steps, on the bare stone, the crown was standing upright. The light came out of it. Beside it were the two of them.

Mairon was sitting on the floor, with his back half against the lowest step, below the furs. His hair was down and tangled across his shoulders and his face. He had a loose robe of black velvet pulled close around him, over his chest. One bare foot showed below its hem, on the stone, with a sliver of his ankle above it. A little way off, on the floor, one of his boots was standing by itself, quite upright, as if he’d stepped out of it and gone somewhere. I didn’t see the other. There was a shadow along his jaw, half under his hair, that might have been the light. His eyes were closed. He looked tired.

The king was kneeling in front of him, bowed down over him, the whole great length of him folded, with his face pressed against Mairon’s breast and his arms around him, holding on. He held on the way a child holds on to its mother. His hair spread out over both of them and over the stone. His hands were bare. I could see them where they gripped the back of the velvet, black, and cracked across the knuckles.

Mairon had one hand on the king’s back, at his shoulder. The other was in his hair, moving through it, slowly.

He was the one singing.

Mírlach turned, with the quilt over her arms, and went toward them across the black floor, and the faint light of her went with her. She didn’t look back at me. She didn’t need to.

I turned around and went out through the broken door, past the king on his tilted mountain, and down the stairs. I didn’t run. You don’t. But I went down a great deal faster than I’d come up, and the singing came down with me for a long way, fainter and fainter, the stone carrying it, until I couldn’t tell any more whether I was hearing it or remembering it.

When I got back to the secretariat, I sat down at my desk and copied what I was told to copy.

Halkiran asked me the next day where his quilt was. I told him Mírlach had it. He looked at me for a moment, and didn’t ask again. I went and brought him an extra quilt I’d made from scraps a long time ago, when I was a seamstress, because the rows were cold and we were only issued the one blanket. I never asked for it back.

[I asked her whether she had ever tried to sing the song she heard. S.]

No.

I don’t think I could. One voice of it, perhaps, if I tried. Not the rest.

I’ve never tried.

Chapter End Notes

Sam’s Latin quotations come from two classical accounts of the rape of Lucretia by the king's son Tarquin, the story that Roman tradition held led to the overthrow of Rome’s kings and the founding of the Republic. Most are from Ovid’s poem Fasti (Book 2) (English; Latin); one is from the historian Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita (Book 1) (English; Latin). The Ovid in particular I find has a way of staying with me.

• Subject line (Ovid, Fasti 2.823): Ter conata loqui ter destitit. "Three times she tried to speak, three times she stopped."
• On the couch (Ovid, Fasti 2.787–8): Hostis ut hospes init penetralia Collatini: comiter excipitur. "He enters the home of Collatinus, an enemy in the guise of a guest: he is graciously received."
• On consent (Livy 1.58.9): Consolantur aegram animi avertendo noxam ab coacta in auctorem delicti: mentem peccare, non corpus, et unde consilium afuerit culpam abesse. "They attempt to console her, distracted as she was in mind, by turning away the guilt from her, who was forced, onto the perpetrator of the crime; that it is the mind sins, not the body; and that where there was no intent, there is no guilt."
• On “physical evidence of force” (Ovid, Fasti 2.801–4): Quid faciat? Pugnet? Vincetur femina pugnans. Clamet? At in dextra, qui vetet, ensis erat. Effugiat? Positis urgentur pectora palmis, tunc primum externa pectora tacta manu!" "What can she do? Fight? A woman fighting will only be overcome. Cry out? But in his right hand he held a sword to silence her. Flee? Her chest is held fast by his pressing hands—the first time a stranger’s hand had ever touched her breast." (The exclamation point in the Latin is Sam's editorial addition.)
• On the actions taken and not taken (Ovid, Fasti 2.841–4): Per tibi ego hunc iuro fortem castumque cruorem, perque tuos manes, qui mihi numen erunt, Tarquinium profuga poenas cum stirpe daturum. Iam satis est virtus dissimulata diu. "By this brave and pure blood—I swear it—and by your departed spirit, which shall henceforth be a divine power to me, I vow that Tarquin, along with his entire lineage, shall pay the penalty. Too long has my true mettle remained concealed." The oath sworn by Brutus to revenge Lucretia's rape.

(The author cobbled these translations together from various English editions and Google translate, as the author has no Latin. The author begs the gentle reader's forgiveness for any unintended errors.)

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52 Quellë, SA 3267

Sakalkhôr of Númenor, historian, to his darling Nárelótë of Eregion, who will never let him hear the end of it if he doesn’t use this antiquated form of address, even though he is a modern man of the isles and is not, unlike her, PRACTICALLY OLDER THAN THE SUN, all greetings and good will—

No, seriously, do I still have to do this? It was more fun when I was writing letters to my schoolmates, who didn’t write back and CORRECT MY GRAMMAR. Yes, of course I speak Quenya like it’s from books! It’s a dead language in Númenor! There hasn’t been an elf on the isle in… technically only five years, fine, but before that it had been a full hundred and sixty! That’s a long time for humans! And Tyelpë was only there for what, an hour? Two? Exactly as long as it took him to show up, demand his husband, and leave with him, during most of which, I understand, he addressed everyone not in Quenya but in Adûnaic, and fluently enough to leave the court quite flustered. And even if he had spoken Quenya, I have PERSONALLY heard you say that his barely counts as a proper sample, þince he þoundþ like thiþ! Þo there!

And yes, I am going to call him Tyelpë when I am speaking Quenya, because he has told me twice that “Tyelperinquar” makes him feel like he’s talking to his father. And no, I am not currently calling him “Lord,” because he has asked me not to, and has done so more recently than the last time his husband threatened me with death for failing to address him by his title. You, dearest friend, may be in charge of ensuring I do not offend Tar-Mairon/Annatar/Whatever his name is today any more than one must by simply existing in his vicinity, but I am still in charge of keeping myself in the good graces of Celebrimbor, and I am doing my best to keep him happy. (And why am I not allowed to write to you in Sindarin? You’re married to a Sinda! And my Sindarin is factually more in need of practice than my Quenya, no matter what you think!)

But all of that is neither here nor there.

I have the feeling this letter will reach you long after the news it brings, which means I am writing it almost entirely to insist that you tell me all about your reaction. Within my lifetime, Nárë darling. I will be absolutely furious if you forget to tell me until after I am dead. I assure you that I will haunt you, and there is no disciplinary slip in the world that can stop me. Consider this your strongly worded encouragement to tell me promptly. Why not as soon as you receive this? You could start right now!

But on the off chance that my courier is faster than the subject of my tidings, and because she is not leaving until tomorrow morning (if she can, given the floods), and because I know how you feel about being given only half a story, dear talkative magpie, I shall tell you about the most fascinating chance encounter my husband and I had on the road last night.

You will recall that we left you in high spirits and a light drizzle, my husband on his good grey mare and I on that piebald monster the stable in Ost-in-Edhil insisted was “placid,” which it is, in the same way a sack of rocks is placid, until you need it to move. The drizzle lasted two days. On the third it became rain, and on the fourth it became the sort of rain that makes one reconsider every decision that led one out of doors, and by the time we came down out of the hills toward Tharbad, the whole sky had settled onto the land like a wet cat onto a lap and refused to leave.

Have you ever been to Tharbad, Nárë? I suspect not; I suspect you have more sense. Let me describe it to you anyway, because I have been sitting in it for a day and a half now and I must have SOMETHING to show for it.

You come down off the last of the hills and the land simply gives up. It goes flat and brown and wet, all at once, reeds and sedge and standing water as far as the eye can see, with little islands of willow and alder sticking up out of it like the heads of swimmers. It is not, I am told, supposed to look like this. The old woman who runs the ferry house (I shall come to her; she deserves her own paragraph, possibly her own volume) informs me that her grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother remembered when the hills were forest from here to the mountains, oak and beech so thick you could walk a day without seeing the sky, and that it was my people who cut them down for our ships, and that this is why the rain now runs straight off the hills and into her kitchen. She told me this while handing me a bowl of soup. I said I was very sorry. She said it was a bit late for that, and gave me more soup. I have been thinking about it ever since.

Through all this marsh runs a road. A causeway, rather, raised up above the wet on great blocks of dressed stone, wide enough for two carts to pass, perfectly straight, and very obviously built by someone from home: it has the look of every Númenórean harbor wall I ever leaned on as a boy, as if the stones themselves were faintly offended by their surroundings. It runs on for miles across the fens, with the water lapping at both sides, and at the end of it, on a hump of higher ground that is the only dry place for a league in any direction, sits the ferry house. And beyond the ferry house is the river.

I have seen a great many rivers, darling. I have never seen one this angry. The Greyflood was not grey when we came to it; it was the brown of strong tea, and it was moving faster than a horse could gallop, and it was carrying things. Branches. Whole trees, roots and all, turning over and over like a child’s toys in a bath. Once, a hen house. (Empty, I hope.) The noise of it was everywhere, a great endless roar under everything, so that you felt it in your teeth. My husband, who of course hears none of it, said he could feel it in the ground through his boots, and that he did not like it, and for once in my exceedingly contrary life I did not argue.

The ferry is a great flat barge, broad as a barn floor, which in sensible weather is hauled back and forth across the water on a cable as thick as my arm. In this weather, it sits on the near bank, chained to an enormous post, with the cable drawn up out of the water and coiled like a sleeping serpent, and the ferrymen sit in the ferry house and refuse to move it for anyone. We were told this by a young man of about fourteen with tremendous eyebrows, who informed us that his uncles had taken the last crossing at noon and nearly lost the barge doing it, and that his grandmother had then said a word to them which he was not permitted to repeat, and that there would be no more crossings until the river said otherwise. I asked when that might be. He looked at the river, and then at me, with deep pity, as if I had asked when the sun might be persuaded to rise in the west.

So we stayed.

The ferry house itself is built of stone below and timber above, very old, very thick, and very low, as if it is crouching against the weather, which I suppose it is. The roof is reed thatch, heavy and dark with rain and furred green at the eaves, with a hole at the peak where the smoke goes out, or is meant to. Inside it is all one long hall. A hearth runs down the middle of the floor, a long trench of stone with a fire burning along half its length, and above it, from the rafters, hang fish, and sausages, and bunches of herbs, and a great many wet cloaks steaming gently, so that the whole place smells of peat smoke and wet wool and drying fish and thyme. Along both walls are wide sleeping platforms, piled with sheepskins and straw-filled mattresses, and above them a loft for the family. At the far end, behind a wattle screen, are the animals: the family’s cow, two goats, our horses, and some chickens who have opinions about the horses. You eat at a long table by the fire, and you sleep in a row with strangers, and nobody minds, because outside is the river.

It is dark, and it is crowded, and it is smoky enough to cure a ham, but it is still better by far than some accommodations I’ve had.

We were not the only ones caught, of course. The river had been rising for two days, and the ferry house had been filling up the way a net fills with fish, and by the time we arrived it held a small and peculiar congregation.

There was my courier, Gellín, whom you will meet when she hands you this letter, and who is a young woman of the Edain from somewhere near the Baranduin with a face like a closed door and a seat on a horse like she was born on one. She had ridden down with us so as to carry my letters north from here, which at the time seemed an efficient arrangement, and now means that she has spent a day and a half watching me write, which I do not think was in her contract. She is playing knucklebones with the boy with the eyebrows. She is winning. I believe she is cheating. I have decided not to look into it.

There was a priest of Ossë. I want you to imagine him, darling, because he is a delight: a tall, weathered, tremendously bearded man from somewhere on the southern coast, in robes that were once sea-blue and are now the color of the bottom of a harbor, with little shells and bits of sea-glass braided into his beard, so that he clicks faintly when he walks. He has been traveling the rivers for twenty years, he says, blessing the crossings, because Ossë takes an interest in all the water that ends up in his sea, whatever Ulmo might say about it. He spent most of yesterday afternoon standing on the bank in the pouring rain, shouting at the river. Not praying. Shouting. He told it, among other things, that it was a disgrace to its father, that it was showing off, and that if it did not calm down he would personally see that Ossë heard about it. The river paid him no attention whatsoever. He came in soaked to the skin, very cheerful, and said it had been a good conversation, and that rivers in flood are like young men in love: there’s no reasoning with them, but they like to be told. I thought of you. I think you would get along.

And there were two Dwarves, out of Khazad-dûm, going south with four ponies and a great many very heavy, very well-lashed crates which they would not discuss. One of them is broad and silent and has, as far as I can tell, not stopped mending a single harness strap since we arrived. The other is younger, and talks, mostly to my husband, which surprised me until I understood why. The Dwarves have a language of the hands, it seems, a secret one, and he had noticed my husband signing to me across the table, and could not leave it alone. He wanted to know where it came from, and what it was for, and whether my husband had learned it or been born to it, and whether it was the same among all the Elves. My husband told him all of this very patiently, in the way he tells everything, and then asked, very politely, whether he might see a little of theirs in return. The young Dwarf went red to the roots of his beard. The old one put down his harness strap and looked at him. And that, so far as I can tell, was the end of that.

My husband says he is going to find out anyway. He says he has been told no about a great many things over a great many years, and that very few of the things he’s been told no about have stayed secret. I believe him. I also believe the old Dwarf knows exactly what he’s thinking, and I am very much enjoying watching the two of them not look at each other.

So that was the company, as the light went out of the second day: the ferry family about their business; my courier fleecing a child at knucklebones; the priest, steaming gently by the fire with his beard clicking; two Dwarves with their mysterious crates; my husband plotting; and me, at the end of the table with a candle and my ink, writing to you.

And then the door opened, and the rain came in, and something behind it groaned like a ship’s timbers in a gale.

It was, as it turned out, a camel.

I did not know that at first. At first I knew only that the door had blown open, and that a great deal of rain and darkness had come in through it, and that out of the darkness came a noise I can only describe as what you would get if you poured a sack of gravel down a well and the well objected. It went on for some time. Every head in the hall turned. The cow, behind her screen, said something I refuse to try and render in Quenya because I would do so in the style of my native language and you, my dearest, would undoubtedly correct me on it. One of the chickens fell off its perch.

Then a figure came in out of the rain, ducking under the lintel, and then another, and another, and I realized they were orcs: five travelers in long cloaks of grey felt, so heavy with water they hung like wet sails, hoods pulled low, with a great shaggy dog pushing in between their legs and shaking itself all over the priest. The last of them came in leading on a rope the source of the noise, or rather its head, which was all that would fit through the door.

You will have seen camels, perhaps? I had, or thought I had. There are camels at Umbar, and a pair of them used to live in the menagerie at Armenelos when I was a boy: tall, haughty, one-humped creatures with legs like a heron’s and the expression of a duchess at a bad party. This was not that. This was a camel the way a bear is a dog. It was enormous, and shaggy, and dark brown, with a coat as thick as a sheepskin rug hanging off its neck and its forelegs in great matted ropes, and on its back, when they finally coaxed it in sideways through the stable door at the far end, were TWO humps. Two! Like a pair of hills! I was so astonished that I said so, aloud, to the room, and the largest of the orcs, a very tall, very broad, very quiet person who was leading it, looked at me for a long moment and then said, in excellent Westron, “Yes.”

There were three of them, it turned out: the big two-humped one, a smaller one of the same sort, and a third that was something in between, with one long lumpy hump like a badly packed bedroll and the temper of a tax collector. I asked the quiet orc whether it was a different kind. He said it was a cross. I asked between what. He said, between a camel with one hump and a camel with two. I said I had not known that was possible. He looked at the camel, and the camel looked at him, and I had the distinct impression that they had both been asked this question before and had come to an understanding about how to answer it, and that the understanding was: as briefly as possible.

I asked what they kept in the humps, and whether the two humps kept different things, and he said, “Fat,” which I thought was rather disappointing, honestly. I had been hoping for water. He said everyone hopes for water.

Now. The noise. The camels did not stop making it. Not the whole evening. They made it while being unloaded, and while being rubbed down, and while being fed, and while being looked at, and, as far as I can tell, while thinking about any of these things. It is a long, groaning, gargling roar that seems to come up from somewhere around their knees, and it is LOUD, Nárë. It is so loud. And I am ashamed to say that the first time, before I had thought about it at all, I was so astonished that I simply sent it across to my husband, whole, the way you might grab someone’s arm and say “listen to THAT.”

He went very still. Then he turned and looked at the camel for a long time. Then he turned to me, and signed, slowly and with tremendous dignity: Perhaps there are advantages.

I laughed so hard I had to put my head down on the table. The quiet orc looked at the two of us and, very nearly, smiled.

Their coats, by the way, come out in handfuls. They are shedding, it seems, or beginning to, or the rain makes it worse. Underneath the coarse outer hair there is a down as fine and soft as anything I have ever touched, softer than lambswool, softer than the best you showed me in your workroom. I asked whether I might have some. The quiet orc took a fistful out of the smallest camel’s shoulder, as easily as picking a flower, and handed it to me. You will find it folded into this letter. I am told it can be spun. I am also told, by the quiet orc, that you will know what to do with it, which at the time I thought was a strange thing to say, because I had not yet told him anything about you.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

It took the better part of an hour for the hall to rearrange itself around them. The camels had to be fitted in behind the screen, which the cow regarded as a personal betrayal; the ponies had to be moved; the chickens had to be found. The orcs’ cloaks were hung from the rafters with the rest, where they dripped steadily onto the hearthstones and steamed like a row of small kettles. And then there were five more people to feed, and only one pot.

The old woman of the ferry house looked them over, all five, from one end of the line to the other, with her arms folded. She had opinions about orcs, it turned out, which she aired at some length and in some detail, in a dialect I could only half follow, though I caught the words for “thieves,” “my sister’s goats,” and “three summers ago.” The orcs stood and listened to all of it with perfect courtesy. When she had finished, she sniffed, and went to the pot, and filled five bowls to the brim, and banged them down on the table in front of them, and told them to eat before it got cold. So I gather that’s settled.

The Dwarves were another matter. When the orcs came in, the old Dwarf put his harness strap down, and did not pick it up again, and the young one stopped talking. Nobody said anything. The orcs took the other end of the table. For a while the hall was very quiet, except for the camels, who did not care. I don’t know the whole of what lies between those peoples, Nárë; I suspect you know more of it than I do. But I know what it looks like when two sets of people sit at either end of one table and each decides how much of the past they intend to bring to supper.

It was the dog that broke it, in the end. It went straight down the bench to the old Dwarf, laid its great wet head in his lap, and sighed. He looked at it for a long moment. Then he put his hand on its head. A little later, the young Dwarf passed the salt down the table without being asked, and one of the orcs, the youngest, a girl, passed back a twist of something dried and dark and fragrant to put in the soup, and by the end of the meal they were arguing about the best road south of the Gap. I would not call it friendship. But it was supper.

I asked the camels’ names, around then. There were none. The camels were “the big one,” “the little one,” and “that one.” I was so appalled that I said so, and the quiet orc, very gravely, invited me to remedy it. So the big one is now Vëantur, after the first of our captains to sail back to Middle-Earth, because it is enormous and looks as though it has crossed an ocean. The little one is Erendis, because she is beautiful and clearly does not want to be here. And the cross-bred one, with the temper and the single hump, I have named Gimilzôr, after the king who burned the books, purged the literati, and banned the Elves from Númenor, because it is ill-natured and spits. My husband says this is petty. My husband is correct, and I regret nothing.

My husband, meanwhile, had made a discovery. He had been sitting at the end of the bench, reading the room the way he does, watching mouths by the light of the fire, and missing a good deal of it in all that smoke, when one of the orcs, the older woman who seemed to be in charge of them, said something across the table to the youngest, without speaking. With her hands.

He sat up like a hound. And then he signed something to her, in the Elvish way, and she looked at him, very surprised, and signed something back, and he answered, and before I knew it the two of them were deep in conversation, in whatever strange, half-borrowed tongue of the hands they had worked out between them in the space of a few minutes, while the rest of us looked on. They had hunting signs, she told him later, through me, for when you must speak and must not be heard. And another sort, older, from the mountain, which her grandmother had taught her, for when you must speak in a room where someone dangerous is listening. My husband asked her what mountain. She looked at him for a moment and said, “The old one,” and he did not ask again.

I watched the two of them for a long time. I have not often seen him so happy among strangers.

And it was then, while the plates were being cleared and the fire was being built up for the night, that the youngest of them, the girl who had passed the herbs, began, very softly, under her breath, to sing.

I should tell you, before I go on, that the dog does have a name. It is Ari. I asked. I was told at once, by all five of them, in a tone that suggested I had asked something very obvious, and I gather that Ari is a person of considerable standing in their household, which the camels are not. Ari is at present asleep across my feet, and has been for an hour, and I am becoming afraid to move.

But the singing.

It was very quiet at first. She was sitting by the fire with her knees drawn up, mending a strap, and singing under her breath the way you do when you’ve been practicing something for so long it has started to practice itself. And I wasn’t listening, not really, until something in it caught at me, the way a smell can catch at you and you turn your head before you know why.

It went up, and up, in a long climbing call, the way the elvish songs do, and then it dropped, and dropped, into a sound I can only call a growl, low and rolling and tremendous, so low you felt it in your chest. And then it climbed again.

And I KNEW it, Nárë. I knew it. I have heard that song before. I have heard it sung at the door of your house by your large and enthusiastic husband, with his arms full of onions, while every dog on your street joined in. He cannot do the low parts. He does them anyway. It is not the only time I have ever seen you look at him as though you wanted to put a pillow over his face and kiss him at the same time, but it is among the most dramatic of these looks.

It’s the homecoming one, isn’t it? The one you sing when your family comes home. She had the low parts, of course. She had them easily, the way he never will.

I sat there with my pen in my hand, dripping ink onto my page, and I thought: it’s a common song. It must be. Every clan must have one like it. There must be thousands of orcs who know it. It means nothing.

And then the woman who’d been signing with my husband put up her hands to say something else to him, and her sleeve fell back, and on the inside of her forearm, in a band from the wrist almost to the elbow, were marks.

I have seen those marks, too. I have seen them carved into the lintel over your door, which I walked under no more than ten days ago. I have seen them on your arm, when you pushed back your sleeve to show me, very proudly, as if you were showing me a medal.

I am a historian. I know what coincidence is. I sat very still and told myself so.

And then the last of them, who had been sitting a little apart from the others by the fire with his feet stretched out to dry, turned to the young Dwarf, who had asked him something I didn’t catch. A compact fellow, shorter than his companions and not nearly so broad, though no Elf would call him slight, with a long dark braid over one shoulder and the sort of face that seems to be on the verge of a smile even when it isn’t. He said, in a voice like warm honey: “Oh, that reminds me. Have I ever told you about the archivist and the pot of glue?”

Nárë, I stood up. I stood up so fast I knocked over the ink. Ari woke and barked. Everyone in the hall looked at me, the Dwarves and the orcs and the priest and the old woman and my courier, and my husband, who had felt the whole of it go through me like a bolt and was staring at me with his hands half raised.

And I said, out loud, to a stranger, in front of everyone, in a voice I am told was rather high: “Are you Namešha?”

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he smiled. And he said, very pleasantly, “That depends entirely on who’s asking, and what they’ve heard.”

So I told him who was asking. I told him my name, and that I was a historian of Númenor, and that I had spent a great many evenings in Ost-in-Edhil in the company of a bookbinder of my acquaintance, who had told me, among a very great many other things, about a box of disciplinary slips written in the most beautiful hand she had ever seen, and a pair of drawers embroidered all over with forget-me-nots, and an archivist, and a pot of glue, and how they had to cut him free of the chair.

He did not say anything for a moment. He did not smile, either, which I had not yet seen him fail to do. He only looked at me, very steadily, across the fire.

Then he said, quite quietly: “Is she well?”

I said that you were. I said that you were alive, and well, and as rude as ever, and that you had a house in Ost-in-Edhil, and a husband built like a door, and a press, and a great many opinions about everyone’s grammar, mine particularly. And as I went on he put his hand over his mouth, the way a person does when they are trying very hard to keep something in, and I stopped.

After a while he took his hand away and said, in a perfectly ordinary voice, “Does she still swear in Orcish?”

I said that you did, constantly, and that I had learned a good deal of it from you that I had subsequently been asked not to repeat at dinner.

He laughed then. It was not quite steady. He said, “I looked for her. After the earth shook. As long as I could. I looked for all of them.” And then, before I could answer that, he turned and said something to the others, very quickly, in their own tongue, and every one of them was suddenly looking at me.

The woman who had been signing with my husband was the one who spoke. Her name is Kelušena. She leads this little party, and she does so like a captain on a deck. She looked at me as if I were a horse she had been told was sound and suspected was not, and said, in Westron, that a great many people in the world had heard stories, and that I would forgive her for wanting more than a story.

So I asked for something to draw with. There was nothing at hand but my spilled ink, which by this time had run across half the table, so I dipped my finger in it and drew, on the boards, the marks from over your door, as near as I could remember them.

She looked at it for a long time. Then she pushed back her sleeve and laid her arm beside it on the table, so the two lay side by side. They were the same. I am a little proud of how close I got.

She did not say anything after that. She sat down. But I noticed, later, that she had found a cloth and wiped the table clean all around my drawing, and left the drawing.

And then they told me why they had come.

Nárë, I don’t know how to write this next part to you except plainly, so I will. He lived.

Ozûtalai lived. The water took him, and it did not keep him. It threw him up on a hillside a long way south of where it took him, half drowned and with a broken arm, and he lived. And when he could walk, he went back to look for you.

They have a song about him. They have a great many songs, I gather, about a great many ancestors, and this is his: the song of Ozûtalai, who was steady of heart. Ninatta sang me some of it, in their tongue, with Namešha putting it into Westron beside her a line behind, and I will not pretend I have it right, but this is the shape of it.

It begins in the mountain, with a young man of their clan who could hear the heart of anything that lived, through any wall, and who said of everyone he met that they were not so bad. Even the ones who did not deserve it. Even, the song says, the captive Elf who would not eat from their hands, and called them names in her own tongue, and wept over the needle she was given. He fed her when she was slow. He made her a kerchief from scraps when hers was taken. He told her what her heart was saying when she would not say it herself. (A hare, Nárë. A hare that has decided to fight the hound. They have kept that line, for three thousand years.)

And then there came the one whose heart did not beat. That is what they call the Lady. They say he never once heard a heart in her, nor in any of the things that came with her, and that it was the most terrible thing he ever knew. She set her creatures on him for no fault at all, and he stood, and did not cry out, until he fell. And the Elf who had called him names, the song says, had been so moved by his goodness all that time, though she had refused to admit it, that she folded the kerchief he made her, and set it down, and offered herself to the one whose heart did not beat so that he would live.

He went to his mother, and to his mother’s brothers, and told them that he owed her his life. They said it was so. And from then on, the song says, she was his sister. He said that she should bear the marks, and she received them from his mother, who became her mother; and from his elders, who were now her elders. She took off her kerchief among them, and only among them. She learned their songs, and sang them as well as she could, though she could only sing in one voice. She braided his hair in the fashion of her city, and he braided hers in the manner taught him by his grandmother, and she wept and kissed his hands. She kissed the hands of his elders, who were now her own, and brought her wealth back to them as would any virtuous daughter.

And at the end of the old world, when the water came, he threw her up into the branches of a tree in hopes of saving her life; and the water took him.

And then he lived, and went back. He searched the hills where the water had been for as long as he could, calling the greeting into the wreck of the world. And in all that time he found one thing: a kerchief of scraps, one of the basket ones, caught in the branches of a drowned tree a mile from where he’d lost you. He thought it meant you were dead. He kept it anyway.

Years later, a toothless old woman of another clan, who had been asking after his people everywhere she went, found him. She told him that an Elf with his marks on her arm had sung the greeting on a bridge in the flood year, and gone west toward the Elves’ last country by the sea. And before she went, the old woman said, the Elf had declared that she owed a debt of life to her brother whom she loved, and that if he or his kin ever came her way, they would be welcomed as family. And he went. He went west, across all of Eriador, in those years after the end, when an orc on those roads was killed on sight. He did not get through. The song does not say how close he came. Only that he was turned back, and turned back, and came home at last with the kerchief still in his shirt.

He lived a long time after that. He had children, and his sister had children, and he told them about you every winter by the fire, and taught them the greeting you sang so badly. And he died an old, old man, still with the kerchief. And there the song stops. Not ends, Kelušena says. Stops. Every time. And her grandmother, who is the eldest of the clan now, said when she heard the rumors brought by Namešha, who is very old even if he doesn’t act like it, that if there was any chance at all of giving it an ending, then someone of his line should go and see. So they made plans for several of them to make the journey, at a time when they had a load of soda to sell, to see if they could find you.

When Ninatta had finished, Kelušena went to her pack, and took out a small box, wrapped in oiled cloth, and set it on the table in front of me, and opened it.

It is very small, darling. Smaller than my hand. Faded almost to nothing, the colors gone to browns and dusty pinks and a sort of yellowed white, and pieced from scraps no bigger than my thumbnail, with tiny stitches, so many stitches. Where it has worn through, someone has mended it, many times, over many lifetimes, with different threads. Kelušena says the dry of their country keeps it. He carried it until he died, she says, and since then, whenever one of his line goes very far from home, they carry it for him.

I did not touch it. But I told them, then, that you had found his stick. That you found it in the wreckage, and kept it, and have it still, and that I have seen it in a corner of your workroom, polished smooth where your hand goes.

Nobody said anything for a while. Then Tehiptilla, who had not spoken since the camels, made a sound I cannot describe and then went back to see to the animals.

Kelušena closed the box, and held it in her lap, and did not put it away again for the rest of the evening.

I asked Namešha, later, how he had come to hear of you at all, so far away. He said it was very simple. He keeps a stall in the market at the foot of the great stair in the city, these days, under an awning, and writes letters for people who cannot write them themselves: to sons in the army, and to creditors, and to sweethearts, and to the tax office, which he says is the same as writing to a sweetheart, only with more flattery. And a salt trader, back from the north in the spring, had dictated a letter to his brother, and in the middle of complaining about the price of everything in the Elf country, had mentioned that there was a house in Ost-in-Edhil with an orcish clan’s marks cut over the door, bold as you please, and that the woman who lived there had sung at some festival or other so loud that his mule bolted.

Namešha says he wrote the rest of the letter without hearing a word of it. He says it is the only letter he has ever written badly. He says he charged the man half price, out of guilt.

Then Ninatta, who had, I think, been bursting to ask this since she came in out of the rain, wanted to know: does she really sing with only one voice?

I said that you did. I said that it was the strongest voice I had ever heard come out of anyone. And I said that your husband sings the homecoming greeting to you at your own front door, every single time he comes home, with all the dogs of the street joining in, and that he cannot do the low parts, and practices them in the garden at dawn, and that the neighbors have begun to come round and ask whether he is quite well.

They laughed at that, all of them, even Kelušena, a little, though she tried not to. Namešha laughed until he had to wipe his eyes. Ninatta asked whether she might teach him. I said I was sure he would be overjoyed, and that the neighbors would probably pay her.

My husband, who had been watching all of this with the particular stillness he has when he is following everything and saying nothing, got up then and fetched one of my spoiled pages, and turned it over, and drew them a map. A careful one, as he does everything: the road north from here to the Glanduin, and the way up into Eregion, and the city, and the street, and your door, with the marks drawn over it, small and exact. He put in the best places to water the camels. He put in the name of a stable that would not refuse them. He signed to Kelušena what each of the marks on the map meant, and she signed back, and asked him questions, and he answered, and when they were done she folded it very small and put it inside her shirt, next to the box.

I tried to give them a letter for you, too, to carry. Kelušena looked at me, and then at my courier, who was at that moment relieving the boy with the eyebrows of what appeared to be his entire supply of buttons, and said that they would very likely be faster. I said that I had been thinking the same thing. So I have kept this, and written it all out instead, and if Gellín beats them to your door after all, then at least you will have had some warning, and can put the kettle on.

And then, Nárë, I am afraid I did what you would expect me to do, which is that I got out a fresh page, and a fresh pen, and sat down across the fire from Namešha, and did not let him go to bed until the fire was nearly out.

You must understand my position. Here was a man who had been a secretary in the Lieutenant’s own office, in Angband itself, in the years of its greatest power. Who had walked its halls, and read its papers, and written them, and knew its people, and had been there when it fell, and remembered all of it, and was sitting across from me in a ferry house eating soup. Imagine, darling, if you had spent your whole life reading about a city in fragments, in ash-stained scraps, in the reports of its enemies, and then someone sat down beside you at an inn and said, “Oh, yes, I used to work there. What would you like to know?” I have colleagues who would sell their grandmothers for an hour of it. I have colleagues who would sell MY grandmother. …I even have to admit that I probably WOULD sell my own grandmother.

So I asked him everything. And he answered everything, in the worst possible order.

I would ask him about the administration of the Lieutenant’s office, its ranks and its procedures, and he would tell me about a copyist who once tried to smuggle a cat into the archive in a document case, and how it got out in the middle of the quarterly accounts. I would ask him about the Codes, and how they were drafted, and by whom, and he would tell me about the year someone put salt in the Lieutenant’s tea, and how nobody ever found out who, and that he would take the secret to his grave, and then wink at me. I asked him about the fall, and he told me about the archivist and the glue. Twice. It is a very good story. I see why you liked it.

But in among all of that, Nárë, if you are patient and keep your pen moving, there are things. I asked him what Ozûtalai was like, not in the song, but as a man, and he went quiet for a while, and then said that he had walked beside him all the way south from the mountain, in that terrible year, and that Ozûtalai had carried his own grandmother on his back for most of it, and a stranger’s child for some of it, and never once complained, and talked to the grandmother the whole way so she wouldn’t be frightened, and told her she was lighter than a sack of feathers, which she was not. He said that Ozûtalai sang the whole way too, very badly, and that between the two of them, they kept a good many people walking who would otherwise have sat down by the road. He said that when the water came he was still trying to get through the area of the landslide. He said he looked for him, too.

I asked him about the treatise on the cleaning of the privies. He said that it absolutely exists, that he has read it, that it is forty-one pages long, with diagrams, and that the diagrams are the best part. I asked if he knew where it might be. He said that if it is anywhere, it is in the archives under the mountain, and that if the people digging there find it, they are to send him a copy at once, as he has always wanted to read the appendix. There is an appendix, darling.

I asked about the drawers. The forget-me-nots. I asked whether his grandmother really made them.

He looked at me for a long moment, very solemnly, and said, “Did she ever ask?”

I said that you never had.

He said, “Then I’m not telling you.”

I asked about the scars on his back. I am a historian, Nárë; I could not help it. He smiled at me, and said, “Oh, now, that’s a very good question,” and then told me about a copyist who once spilled an entire jar of sand into the Lieutenant’s correspondence and had to pick it out grain by grain. I knew then that I was not going to get anything further, and so I let it go, and I am a little ashamed of having asked, but only a little. You told me that story, too, about the sand. I didn’t understand it until I watched him do it.

He asked me questions too, in return, the whole time, about you. What your house was like, and your husband, and what you sang now, and whether you still ate pickled herring, and whether you were happy. I told him everything I knew. He listened to all of it with his chin in his hand. When I told him you had a disciplinary slip hanging in a silk envelope from your rafters, to frighten off evil spirits, he laughed so hard he nearly fell off the bench, and then went very quiet, and then asked me which one.

I said I didn’t know. He said it didn’t matter. He said he knew which one.

It was very late by then. The fire was down to coals. The priest was snoring with his beard clicking faintly every time he breathed out. Gellín had won every button in the house. My husband had fallen asleep against my shoulder some time ago, with his hand still half-curled in a sign he hadn’t finished making. And I had filled eleven pages, both sides, in shorthand, in the smallest hand I own, and I would have filled eleven more if Namešha hadn’t looked at the coals, and then at me, and said, very kindly, that he was an old man and needed his sleep, which is the most transparent lie I have ever been told, and I spent many years listening to every word spoken by the late usurper in the royal court of Númenor.

And so here we all still are.

It is the afternoon now, and raining, and the river has not gone down so much as a finger’s breadth. The boy with the eyebrows reports that his grandmother says it will turn tonight. His grandmother says this, I am told, every night. Kelušena walks out to the end of the causeway every hour to look at the water, and comes back, and says nothing, and sits down with the box in her lap. Ninatta is practicing the greeting by the fire, very quietly, over and over, the low parts and the high, and I have caught Tehiptilla, out by the camels, practicing it too, under his breath, when he thought nobody could hear. Gimilzôr spat at the priest this morning. The priest says he forgives it, and that it was a good spit, and that Ossë would have approved.

My husband and Kelušena have been signing at each other since breakfast, and I have not understood a word of it, and I do not think I am meant to. The young Dwarf has been watching them, with an expression of the most terrible longing, and the old Dwarf has been watching him. I think my husband is going to get his secret after all, darling. Not today. But someday.

Namešha has borrowed my second-best pen, and some of my paper, and I have not seen either again. He is sitting in the corner with his back to the wall, writing something, and smiling at it, and covering it with his arm every time I go past.

They will go north as soon as the water leaves the causeway, and Gellín will go north at first light tomorrow whether it has or not, as she has informed me she is a better swimmer than a camel. I do not know who will reach you first. I find I do not much care. Either you will have this letter in your hand when they knock, and know who it is, or you will open the door on them with no warning at all, and then I shall have missed both, and I shall never forgive the world for it.

Because we cannot come, Nárë. I want you to know that I wanted to. I sat up half the night arguing it with my husband, both through the bond and in signs, in the dark, so as not to wake the house, which is the only way I have ever won an argument with him, and I did not win this one. We are promised south. You know to whom, and you know what he is to my husband, and what my husband owes him, which is everything. My husband says that we gave our word, and that we will see your face when we come back north, and that if I am very lucky, you will have told me all of it already in a letter, at length, with all the grammar corrected. He is right. I hate it when he is right. I wanted to see your face.

So you must tell me, instead. All of it. What you said when you opened the door, and what they said, and whether you sang the greeting, and whether your husband did, and whether the dogs joined in, and what you did when she showed you the box. Within my lifetime, Nárë, darling, dearest. I am counting on you.

Your devoted friend, who will be counting the days, and who is NOT practically older than the sun, and is getting more practically mortal by the minute,

Sakalkhôr

P.S. The camel down is in the folded page. Do not let your husband use it to polish anything.

P.P.S. Namešha has just handed me what he has been writing, and asked me to fold it in with mine, and I have done so without reading it, which you must understand is the single most difficult thing I have ever done in the service of friendship. There is a slip of paper with it, too, in a silk envelope he apparently had on him the whole time. I did not open that either. He says it is for a special occasion.

—

[Enclosed, in a beautiful hand:]

Nárelótë,

I hear you have a husband, and a house, and a press, and a disciplinary slip in your rafters. I hear you are still rude. I am glad.

I looked for you. I thought you would like to know that.

I am bringing some people who have been looking for you a great deal longer than I have. Be kind to them. Be rude to me, I have missed it.

I saved the best one. You’ll see.

N.

—

[Enclosed, a disciplinary slip, written in a hand with more flourish than words:]

Offense: Being alive, for three thousand years, without informing the undersigned.

Number: Ten.

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