made for service and no more by hobbitwrangler  

'Tar-Atanamir the Great

He was born in the year 1800, and ruled for 192 years, until 2221, which was the year of his death. Much is said of this King in the Annals, such as now survive the Downfall. For he was like his father proud and greedy of wealth, and the Númenóreans in his service exacted heavy tribute from the men of the coasts of Middle-earth. In his time the Shadow fell upon Númenor; and the King, and those that followed his lore, spoke openly against the ban of the Valar, and their hearts were turned against the Valar and the Eldar; but wisdom they still kept, and they feared the Lords of the West, and did not defy them. Atanamir is called also the Unwilling, for he was the first of the Kings to refuse to lay down his life, or to renounce the sceptre; and he lived until death took him perforce in dotage.'

Unfinished Tales, 'The Line of Elros: Kings of Númenor'

'King David was old and advanced in years, and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. So his servants said to him, "Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that my lord the king may be warm." So they searched for a beautiful young woman throughout all the territory of Israel and found Abishag the Shunammite and brought her to the king. The young woman was very beautiful. She became the king's attendant and served him, but the king did not know her sexually.'

The Bible, 1 Kings 1:1-4

'The one was the spouse of Mandos, and is known to all as Fui Nienna by reason of her glooms, and she is fain of mourning and tears. Many other names has she that are spoken seldom and all are grievous, for she is Núri who sighs and Heskil who breedeth winter, and all must bow before her as Qalmë-Tári the mistress of death.' 

The Book of Lost Tales: Part One, 'The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor'

Orawen must not pray that the King would die. That would be blasphemy. The King had been chosen by the gods across the sea, after all. And yet, watching the King eye the eagles of the Lord of the Air, he did not appear to want to be chosen. Orawen could understand that. She had not particularly wanted to be chosen either.

The King observed the eagles, two great golden-brown shapes perched high upon the carved corbels of the great hall of Armenelos. They watched him too, looking down upon the assembled gathering with eyes that gleamed like flame in the gloom. Orawen half expected them to speak, to chide the King for his long absence from the Meneltarma, to demand why they were no longer being fed (at least officially; Orawen was certain that they still received gifts from some servants, whether at the Queen’s orders or their own compulsion). But they only observed the proceedings, all below them shifting uncomfortably, glancing up through the smoke and flickering shadows to see if those searching eyes had found them. Orawen was surprised that the King had noticed them; he was little conscious of what passed about himself, and pulling Orawen closer with every withdrawal.

Back when she first came to Armenelos, she had not been present for gatherings such as this. Then she had been required to stand below the dais, then on it. Now she sat at the King’s feet, his knee digging into her shoulder and his cold fingers resting on her shoulder, where white silk met skin, already pebbling with sweat in the clammy air of the palace.

There was no one who could boast of being closer to Tar-Atanamir than Orawen. And yet no one envied her her place. The clue lay in her title, or rather the fact that no one could agree on one. Back when she first arrived, she had overheard debates over what to call her. ‘Concubine’ was entirely too heathen and, so the King’s advisors insisted, inaccurate. ‘Bed warmer’ had been considered, and then cast aside when met by snickers and knowing looks. Eventually they settled on ‘handmaiden to the King’, but even that was met with disapproving looks from delegations of the Andustar, so they resolved the problem by not acknowledging her at all.

Yet what people really called her was ‘the virgin’, wellspring of youth and vigour, moisture and warmth, and all other things that old age and infirmity stole from old men.

The irony of course being that it was the least accurate title of all.

She had been a virgin, of course. They had checked most thoroughly, both in a rigorous interview which had left her red-faced and flustered and in a physical exam which they had only begrudgingly allowed her grandmother to attend. 

Upon her arrival she remained a virgin for a while, when the King had confined himself touching and stroking her, thin, cold, corpse fingers tracing her breasts like a spider perching there, threatening to bite, running through her hair in a manner so like her grandfather that she had been paralysed, barely breathing for fear that she would be unable to hold back the urge to vomit, prowling her upper thighs like a wolf pack tracing across her skin, familiarising himself with the terrain before he gained the courage to strike. She wondered later whether he was not lulling her into a fit state of immobilisation before he went in for the kill. Not soothing her, but slowly, with every touch of his hand, massaging a cold, stilling fear into her skin, letting it seep down through her muscles and into her bones, so that by the time he moved to push her thighs apart they did not resist, only let themselves be moved, doll-like, out of the way. 

In truth she did not know whether it was fear or acceptance which kept her still, smothering the urge to run, to scratch, to flinch, beneath a smothering, silence. Is this how a rabbit feels in a trap, she wondered. A metal barb in its flesh, unmoving, waiting for it all to be over.

Except that a rabbit, of course, would only have to endure the waiting once.

She had sought out the Queen after he deflowered her. She shook just thinking that word, panic overwhelming her so that she spent hours at a time curled up in a dark corner of the King’s wardrobe, crying and rocking and whispering to herself that it could not have happened, it could not have happened. It could not have happened to her, good and gentle and obedient daughter of Nísimaldar, who had never done anything wrong (unless one counted stealing sweets and surely, surely, the Valar would not count that against her. …). 

And the King could not have done that, the seed of Tar-Minyatur, blessed by the gods to rule Andor and revered by his people as their guide, revered by the small people of the East as a god. 

And she could not have let him, she could not have done nothing. It must all be some terrible dream and yet and yet it had happened. She remembered it, felt it still in the clammy sweat that now possessed her, running down her back as tears streaked her face, felt it in the pain between her legs, in the throbbing in her head that ached from weeping. And yet if it had happened—and it had, living nightmare, it had—then where did that leave her? No better than some common harlot, daughter of delinquency and ill-repute, the sort of woman that would have her mother wrinkle her nose and gesture her father to the other side of the street. 

No, no, it could not be so, she could not believe it was so, or else she would die of shame and weeping. Surely Tar-Serciril, unwavering guardian of all that was right and true, revered throughout her homeland of Andustar for using her place as the King’s wife to steer against the ill counsel which poisoned the King against the Valar, would help her. Even Mother, who believed that it had been wrong of Tar-Serciril to tempt the King into marrying again, praised her for that.

She stole away when the King was in conference with his children, only to find the door to the Queen’s quarters firmly closed and guarded by a tall, burly man from Andúnië. It was said that all the Queen’s servants—or as near as she could manage—were from Orawen’s homeland. She had so badly wished to be in the Queen’s household then, to be surrounded by familiar accents amid the heavy grandeur of Armenelos. Yet the guard refused to be swayed by her pleas to see the Queen. She waited a long time in that corridor, and in the grand silence Orawen began to doubt.

The Queen would surely blame her. Orawen meant to accuse the King of a crime that she could not even name. And yet was it truly a crime? Orawen had not tried to stop him, to cry out for help. Even if the Queen did somehow believe it of the King of the blessed people, she would surely be angry that Orawen had tempted her husband into sin. Yet how could Orawen help it? It had not been her choice to lie in bed with him every night.

Maybe you should have said something when he first began to touch you? And yet what would she have said? No, she would never have been able to force the words out, to accuse him thus, the sickness in her stomach at the memory of those dead man’s fingers crawling over her unable to pass a throat suddenly constricted by daylight’s realities. It was like a bad dream, a demon that prowled the night, leaving her sick and wordless in the daylight. What would I have said? Who would believe me? To be chosen by those closest to the King, to be given a post in his household, to eat the food at the King’s table, and then to turn about and accuse him of so lowly a crime … Her father had called it an honour, when the King’s servant came. How would the fire kindle in his eyes when he heard how his daughter had tarnished this honour?

And then the heavy door to the Queen’s quarters creaked open.

All Orawen’s life, she had heard of Tar-Serciril, an example of the Andustar’s beautiful womenfolk, favoured by the royal line for their high lineage and their wisdom. Yet the woman who had emerged from the darkness of the woman’s quarters was not at all how Orawen had envisioned her, beautiful and tall and a little like the paintings of Morwen Eledhwen that she had seen. The Queen emerged like an apparition, swathed in heavy, jewel-sewn fabrics of deep red, her hair veiled in black. Even her face and hands were painted, after the manner of the Andustar so outmoded that the only person that Orawen had seen wear it was her grandmother (and her grandfather once, although Orawen would never dream of mentioning that). White that robbed her face of every line so that her nose seemed to emerge knife-sharp from a face flattened and mask-like, red crescent-marking hollow cheeks and bleeding up white fingers, rimming the eyes and making them only appear more bloodshot. Indeed, her eyes were the only part of her that was unclothed, but the dull grey disks gave away naught but vague disdain. She made no sound as she moved, save the hushing of her robes. Orawen never actually saw any evidence of feet; the joke among the maids was that her capacious robes were to cover the fact that she had eight legs like a spider.

“What is it that the King’s flesh-hearth would ask of me?” The Queen’s voice was flat and unwelcoming, her eyes passing over Orawen with the dismissive air of one who finds nothing worth remarking on.

Orawen’s heart stuttered, and she suddenly knew that she did not dare. And yet what then? You will go back and pretend it did not happen? Pretend that you will wake up in your own bed at home and that it will all have been a dream? Oh, she wished that she could wake up, that this would all be over.

The Queen turned to move away, and Orawen’s panic became greater than her fear. “I am no longer …” She could not finish. Her words had come out almost a shout, horribly loud in the silence, and the fear returned. She could not move, could not say it, could not force the word past her lips. For then it will be real, then it will be known, then I fall into the abyss—

“An unplucked flower,” the Queen supplied. She turned, the movement sudden and jerky, and Orawen stumbled back a step as she advanced upon her, that stiff white mask looming out of the darkness. “Is your stem a little bruised?” A long, red finger jabbed at Orawen’s abdomen. Orawen did not move, did not even flinch at the attack, paralysed by that same hunted fear that had overwhelmed her when the King had first entered her. “He took longer than I thought,” the Queen continued. “Clearly your sweet young flesh does not quicken his blood as effectively as they hoped.”

The world seemed to tilt, the ground suddenly unstable beneath Orawen’s feet, the darkness of the corridor devouring every anchor save that white face. “Wh-what do you mean?” Orawen asked, feeling as though she would vomit if there were anything in her guts. (And yet there is something in your womb. Not all of it leaked out. Some of it is in there. There is something foreign in you, you are not as you were—)

Tar-Serciril’s stare was impenetrable. "Do you not think it strange? A man taking a girl into his bed only to not make use of her?"

"It is a little strange, but the wise men—"

"A contradiction in terms if ever there was one," said the Queen. Then, when Orawen did nothing but stare at her, breaths rapid and heart clawing at her ribcage, "Don't you see. It's the only way this works. He needs a girl that he's not fucking so that he can fuck. Otherwise we are just as the savage chieftains of the Old World."

I am going to be sick. This is a bad dream. This cannot be real. Orawen wanted to cry, to tear apart the veil of madness which shrouded her, to push aside the steel hands squeezing her throat so that no air could pass through. "You're saying that he always wanted to ..."

"You have a spark of life in you,” said the Queen, and Orawen felt then that her eyes were more red than grey, malice bleeding from her to thicken the air ‘til it was unbreathable. “Most young girls do. And he wanted that. There is one tried and tested method of a man taking that."

"But he is not doing what the healers said to do,” said Orawen, each word forced out through an ever-thinning throat. “What he prom-prom-promised my father."

“Some empty promises are necessary to get your hands on fresh produce,” said the Queen. “No man wants something old and used, with the marks of man’s pawing and time’s cruelty. Virgins are unmarked. Unsullied. It is like when you see freshly fallen snow and all you want to do is mar it.” As she spoke, she reached to push up the sleeve of Orawen’s gown, rubbing at the smooth, pale skin there. Then she turned, pinching Orawen’s skin between blunt fingernails, pressing viciously for a long, long moment. So great was the pain that Orawen would have cried out, and yet she did not, only stood in silent anguish after the Queen released her, watching a brown bruise begin to stain her.

“Virgins are better,” said the Queen, as the world blurred in darkness and withheld tears. A compliment, delivered like a blow to Orawen’s pelvis.

“For what?” Orawen asked, voice shaking.

“What do you think, little bird?”

“That makes no sense!” Orawen cried. And yet even her raised voice was thin, suffocated by a throat empty of any air. “I don’t know what I’m doing!”

“Do you think that you are involved?” the Queen scoffed. The white paint creased as she smiled, and it was a rictus expression, glee glittering in red-rimmed eyes at the chance to twist the knife that her husband had planted in Orawen’s flesh. “The only difference between him fucking you and his own hand is that he doesn’t have to bother using his imagination. Or getting a wrist ache.”

This was worse than Orawen had ever imagined. “I will tell someone,” she whispered, unable to speak any louder, each word a victory against tears.

"You will not tell anyone.”

"But it's the truth!"

"It does not fit.”

"But he's lying!” Orawen gasped, tears beginning to spill from her eyes at how thin and frail her voice was. “You're all lying!"

"He is not lying,” said the Queen. She stepped closer, and Orawen cowered at how tall she stood. “He is the King. He would not do something so base as to lie."

"But he is doing that! And more! He is doing far worse!"

"No,” said the Queen, every word chill and certain. “Because he is the King. He would never do such a thing."

"He is!"

Bony fingers grasped at Orawen’s face, dragging her close so that she could not but look into Tar-Serciril’s cold eyes. "It does. Not. Fit."

"I'll say something,” Orawen whispered. “I'll tell people."

The Queen released her, staring down at her from a height that did not seem possible. "Tell me, little bird. When one of the choir sings off key, a shrill, unpleasant note, completely at odds with the beautiful melody of her fellows, do they all follow her lead?"

A chill came over Orawen. "No, my lady.”

"Do the tales not tell of the perils of one who believes their own discordant shrilling to be worth more than the collective beauty of all?"

"Are you comparing me to Morgoth Bauglir?" Orawen asked. A black tide rose within her, waiting to overwhelm her with something too dark and terrible for her to fathom. A terrible dream. How does it grow more terrible at every moment?

"I am telling you to watch your step."

"Why should I be the evil one? He is the one who does not respect the rules!" You said that of the King, how would you—

The Queen was already turning away, bored, that flat face unmoved. "Rules are not meant to be respected. Rules are a mummer's game. All that is good and pure is but a skin that is soon shed. You will lose yours soon enough."

The door to the Queen’s quarters slammed shut behind gleaming red cloth. It never opened to Orawen again.

Orawen settled into the nightmare like a bog, slowly rising to claim her, soft and wet and groping as it swallowed her up, claiming the breath from her body. One morning, she woke up with that clammy, foggy-headed exhaustion that follows a bad night’s sleep in a too-warm room. It never left. No matter how much she slept—and she had many opportunities to sleep; the King spent ever more of his life in bed—she could not escape the endless tiredness. Indeed, the more she slept, the worse it became, accompanied by a feeling of sweat-slick bleariness that made thinking hurt.

If she had felt dirty before, now she felt maimed also. Her woman's place, to which she had never given much thought, felt suddenly like a gaping wound. She felt as if everyone must be able to see, and she had many dreams when she would wander the palace and people would look on in horror, disgust and dismay as she bled through the gash between her legs, soiling her white robes and smearing the floor beneath her. Even worse were the dreams when she took her bleeding home, and her mother slammed the door in her face.

They would be right to hate her. All her life, her mother had faithfully raised her to be an upright woman, pure of heart and soul and body. She was to be given to her husband a virgin, clean and well cared-for. And now what had become of her? She certainly did not feel pure anymore. She would spend overlong in her baths, scrubbing her skin red in an attempt to replace the king's pinching, prying fingers with the harshness of the bristles, the milky water cooling around her until she was pulled from it by the insistent hands of his servants. 

And yet she had been despoiled in honour of the King. Should that not count in her favour? All of this was within the King's service so did that make it good? The King was older and wiser than anyone else, blessed with the wisdom and foresight of the gods—or at least he had been—so did that not make it a good service? Or did it make it as if it did not happen at all? Would she go home and they all welcome her with open arms and pretend that it had not happened? For some reason, the idea filled her with rage. She imagined attempting to speak of what he had done to her to her mother and grandmother and them refusing to hear it, telling her that it had not happened, and found herself pacing the King’s chambers, gnawing at her nailbeds until they bled. But not blood. A sour, sickly fluid like the juice of a diseased pear.

If he were another man, it would have been an evil thing to do to her. Her father would have had the right to demand justice for the harm done to her. And yet her father had given her away—had he known? no, surely not, he could not have, he would not have let her go if so ... And yet he had given her away. Did that mean he had given her up, passed her on to brighter, holier climes where she would belong to another? That surely meant that the King was her proprietor now, and thus within his right. And her mother had told her that men were strange creatures, possessing appetites that a woman must be careful not to awaken out of turn. Yet how am I meant to avoid doing so when I sleep in his bed? And if that is so, why do we call ourselves different from other Men? Are they worse, in Middle Earth? Or is this a will of the Valar that I do not understand?

Yet why her? She had never felt herself to be possessing any exceptional characteristics, either good or evil. She saw nothing of brilliant, elegant Varda or handsome, righteous Tar-Telperiën or beautiful, dancing Lúthien within herself. She felt nervous and awkward, always attempting to sit and talk and smile and laugh and eat as her mother and her grandmother and her older cousins did, obsessing over her flat chest and then relieved when her breasts started to come in, always feeling stupid before her boy cousins' knowledge of law and politics and the wide world beyond Elenna and clumsy before her mother's graceful smile and perfect words.

The most perfect woman she could think of had been her brother's wife, Glóredhel. Beautiful, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, with shining hair and bright eyes, a mouth that parted in a kind smile when she departed her husband and joined the other women in conversation after their evening meal. Orawen, too young and shy and awed to properly speak to her, would sit on the edge of her conversations with her mother and her cousins, drinking in her every move, her every word, every inch of her, with greedy fascination. 

No, Orawen could not understand what had made her special before, and certainly could not understand what was special of what was left of her. Before she had been young and clumsy and uncertain, and now she was dirty also. (And yet was a king's touch sanctified? Was her uncleanliness only within her own mind? Would they think her mad to say so?)

Even now she wished so badly to ask the watching eagles. Surely they, the birds of the holy ones beyond the sea, would be able to tell her if it was she or the King who was dirty? Or would they peck out her eyes for daring to suggest such a thing? She would not have thought it of the grand, solemn birds, and yet she would not have thought it of the King before she was swallowed into the halls of Armenelos.

One of the birds took flight, great wings loud in the tense silence of the hall, and Orawen felt the King’s fingers tighten as he watched it cross the room, coming to land on carven stone opposite, flaring its wings before folding them close against its body again. Looking up at the King, Orawen wondered what he was thinking. He was so old, his face naught but dry, wrinkled skin, like the great southern deserts that her brother spoke of, his eyes small and filmy beneath fragile lids. His nose was reddened with veins, skin hanging loose from his jaw as if it wished to slough off him. Orawen struggled to guess at his thoughts, but she understood his impulses well enough. The darkness conjured his fear, the eagles conjured his malice, Orawen brought him some degree of pleasure, and she could tell all such responses apart by the degree of force his cold fingers applied to her skin. It was envy, she decided, that had his eyes tracing the eagle, his free hand flexing shakily where it rested on the arm of his chair. Envy at that creature’s lofty perch, its all-seeing eye, its vital power, in every easy flap of those great wings.

Power slid from him more every day. Only occasionally was he able to summon the energy to make use of her and, judging by his very apparent frustration, it was less than he would like. He would leave fingerprints on her arms and thighs those nights, and she could never tell whether it was out of malice at her failure to draw him to action or merely frustration at yet another ill-functioning tool. Either way, she would see brown marks upon her skin come morning, like the bruises on an apple, that everyone else either did not notice or ignored.

He would fall asleep after, his head resting against her breast, like a nursing babe lulled to sleep by its mother's warmth. Orawen would lie awake for hours, unmoving, his every wheezing breath scraping against her skin.

During the day she did not mind him. He would have her play chess with him, demand that she read books so old that she had never heard of them, for his eyes grew dim and his hands shook. Sometimes, when he felt more energetic, he had her accompany him on walks in the gardens, and Orawen would almost weep then, torn between the joy of rain-greened life about her, flowers reaching toward her with a gentle touch, trees crooning reassuringly above her head and the heavy hand grasping at her elbow. She would stand beneath the ancient trees as the King caught his breath and imagine transforming into a bird, as Elwing had, flying up into the grey sky and ... where would she go? Would she fly to the Blessed Realm to demand that Manwë explain whether this was meant to be an honour or a torment? Would she take wing to Middle Earth, to hide among its wild woods and sing to the savage peoples? She could not bear to imagine remaining on Elenna, for fear that the King would find her.

And yet the peace of the days only made the nights worse. For during the day she saw him with his granddaughters, giggling girls who pestered him with tales of their governesses and begged him to overrule their parents. She would go back to his rooms to cry herself hoarse, possessed by the memory of flitting about her own grandfather, wrangling sweets and stories and trips to the market from him. She did not know what was worse, that the sullen old man of daylight should be possessed by a prying creature of shadow, or that they should be so effortlessly one.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the thud of a door opening and the rustling sound of many people craning their necks to see who had arrived, whether it was the brave captain. Instead General Alcaraindir prowled into the throne room, hackles raised and stride stiff, his staff striking the stone floor with such military precision that it made Orawen’s teeth rattle. He always made for a spot either near the Queen or opposite her, and today it was the latter, almost exactly across from where Tar-Serciril stood, bracketed by silent handmaidens just as the King was hemmed in by his councillors. The courtier nearest him stepped back when he arrived, cringing toward the man beside her for protection. The General ignore her, long used to such a response. Orawen too had flinched the first time she saw him.

She could never tell whether she had truly enjoyed herself that evening. For a little while she was free of her duties to the King—she could not remember why, whether it had been a meeting, involvement in the spring festival, a consultation with his healers, the Queen accosting him for her own private reasons—and a small, malicious, starved little creature inside Orawen had stretched and scuttled to life. (Is that why I was cursed to decay—that evil little defiance? Or did the decay plant it there? Who is to blame, me or him, me or him?) Armenelos had been alive with music and chatter, spiced meat and wine, dance and laughter, an overwhelming barrage of noise and sensation that washed aside every other thought beneath its blazing extravagance. Orawen felt lost, blank, too overwhelmed to think, and she was going to ensure that it stayed that way.

So when a servant offered her a goblet of wine, she drank it, despite not liking the taste. And then another. And another. And then she grabbed a girl by the arm and declared that she wanted to have a full glass for the rest of the evening. Her father had always preached against overindulgence—in wine, in dance, in the attentions of others—but her father had given her away to be ruined and she did not see how she could possibly make it worse. So she drank, until the world blurred and tilted and she could no longer dance or even stand, and when someone offered her a carven white pipe to smoke, she took it without question. Yet even within the haze of golden blurriness that enveloped her, feeling as though she were about to float out of her body (and oh would that not be a blessing, oh if only she could—), the sight of the General had made her stiffen and sit up.

He was a tall man, his posture rigid and strained, draped in the gold and blue of a soldier. The mask that hid the left side of his face was gold also, shaped after the manner of a wolf’s snarling head, the animal’s fanged aggression a great deal livelier than the stiff, statue-like solemnity of the unmarred side of his face. 

There were many stories of how General Alcaraindir came to be disfigured. Some said that the savages of Middle Earth had branded him when they held him captive, jealous of the beauty of the High Men. Some said that a chieftain’s daughter had marked him thus in revenge for taking her virtue. Some said that he had done it to himself, sacrificing his beauty in the hopes that the gods would spare him the punishment for his deeds in the shadows of the continent. 

Whatever the true reason might be, there was something jagged about General Alcaraindir, like broken glass on the floor, that had one walking gingerly about him. An air of violence, barely leashed and uncaring of its target, something foreign and hostile within him that was too large to be contained by his fine clothes and polished manners. Maybe the Orawen before the King would not have noticed, but the King’s handmaiden knew the moment that she saw him that General Alcaraindir was a man to be feared.

He must have sensed her gaze, for Orawen felt his good eye latch onto her. She saw him take her in, and yet she could not divine his thoughts. Neither pity nor disgust, satisfaction nor disappointment could she make out. She was only certain that he knew what she was, that he could tell that she was dirty, whether by divine judgement or divine providence. 

She did not notice him walking toward her. Maybe she blinked. Maybe she fell asleep for a few minutes. Either way, she opened her eyes and he stood before her, his hand upon the glass of wine in her hand. She had spilled it upon her dress she realised, wet red circles soaking into the soft, diaphanous white like blood into frost. She laughed at the sight, imagining that it were her blood. Oh, if only. Maybe if she were to bleed they would see. Maybe the smell of blood would wake her up.

“She should not be drinking.” She realised that the General spoke to whoever she was with, and when she attempted to wrench the goblet from his grasp he held it firm, scarred hand not so much as shifting.

“Do not worry,” came a slurred voice to her side. “No one would dare touch her.”

Her mother’s word swum up from the murk. “That is your father’s responsibility. To keep you safe, sweetheart. Just as it will be your husband’s later. He is there to guard you from all evil impulses, any men who may wish to harm you.” And now my father is gone and I shall never have a husband. Only the King and his evil impulses.

It occurred to her then that maybe the reason the advisors had chosen her was because the Queen had finally absorbed all of the ill that she could from within the King. Maybe Orawen was simply meant as a rag, to absorb all the base impulses and decay that infested his stiffening body.

It was an unwelcome thought, and Orawen yanked the goblet from the General’s slackening grip, spilling wine everywhere. She reached for the pipe, already feeling the servant reach over to pass her more wine, and the roar of celebration swallowed her.

When she woke up, she thought she had slipped into a beautiful dream, a memory of childhood, her father carrying her home from a late dinner with the neighbours, her parents whispering to each other so that they would not wake her.

“… great wickedness,” said General Alcaraindir. It was he who was carrying her, Orawen realised, motionless between fear and relief. “To do such a thing to a daughter of Elenna.”

“We could hardly get a girl from anywhere else.” The Queen. “Imagine. One of those animals from the continent with their vacant eyes and beastly manners.”

“Have you ever met any of them?” the general asked. There was an edge to his voice, one that Orawen could not place. And now she was becoming awake, the uncertainty of where that edge might cut stiffening her muscles and quickening her breaths. Helpless anger flooded her chest, that those seconds of deluded peace had been so swiftly shattered.

The Queen did not say anything, and Orawen could only surmise that she was making some disapproving face at him. Or maybe they spoke mind-to-mind, as the high folk sometimes did. Maybe they have realised that you are awake.

Do not stiffen. Do not stiffen. Lie still. It is just like with the King. Lie still.

She doubted that the Queen could be bothered killing her, but Orawen did not trust that General Alcaraindir was so ambivalent. It would be a perfect excuse. The drunk, drugged little fool took a tumble in the dark. Of course she broke her little neck.

She could not help but think that the General snapping her neck might be a kinder fate than the decay festering inside her.

Orawen forced herself back into memories of her childhood, remembering how to pretend to be asleep so that her father would carry her all the way to bed, limp-limbed and heavy.

“They interest me not at all,” said the Queen. “We should never have left this isle, as well you know. What can those desolate lands give us that cannot be found here?”

“Dominion,” growled the general, and his tread was heavy on the polished floor. “A dog to kick.”

“I suppose we do need that.”

“Mm. If we do not get it elsewhere ...”

Orawen fancied that she could feel the general’s eye on her, and did her best not to flinch.

“This one’s not even worth kicking,” said the Queen.

“Then why are you accompanying me?” As the General asked the question, Orawen felt a tug, steering them to the left, and realised that the Queen grasped his arm. She wondered if those thin, puppet-master fingers sought to strengthen her grasp on him or whether she was simply supporting him in the absence of his staff.

“It would not do to leave you alone with her.” It took Orawen a moment to understand, and cold fear churned in her gut. But a man of Númenor would never be so barbarous. (Except that Grandfather had warned that now many wondered if some evil Men had not been part of the host that departed the continent. Except that she wondered if General Alcaraindir was less a man of Númenor than a man of War. Except that many truths had revealed themselves to be lies.)

Except, came a shrill, thin voice in the back of her head, if he does, he will see. Something told her that if anyone could see her cankerous flesh it would be the General’s cold eyes.

“You insult me.”

“You have been in Middle Earth a long while, Glamron. It cannot hurt to remind you that here we have laws.”

General Alcaraindir laughed, and the sound skittered along the corridor like some furtive, bright-eyed plague rat. It was not a sound of amusement, rather the dark satisfaction of a fevered man, revelling in a terrible phantasm that would have once terrified his waking mind. She wondered if he had caught the fever in the palace or back in Middle Earth. “Believe me, Lurloth, of the both of us you are the one who struggles most not to indulge in her bad habits.” And then softly, as if a lover’s invitation, “You know I have a bag of it in my left pocket. A little favour and you’ll be catatonic for a week.” 

Suddenly the General was jerked to a halt and there was the sound of metal scraping against flesh, followed by crack of a slap, echoing in the empty corridor. “Remember,” hissed the Queen. “A word from my lips and your diseased head is cut from your mad dog’s body.” She struck his ruined flesh. Orawen felt no sympathy for him. At least his deformity is seen. At least he gets to be a dog instead of a doll.

They deposited her back in the King’s bed and even in sleep his hand reach to snarl itself in her hair. She heard them linger, looming over the bed. “Just think,” said the General. “That used to be you.” And he chuckled to himself, a discordant sound which made Orawen suddenly realise that he was not sober.

“That will never be you,” said the Queen. “You will have torn out your own guts before you get to succumb to delusion in the arms of a pretty girl.”

“As if you will not choke on poppy seeds on the day that he makes you a widow. After all, what is the point of life without the realm at your feet and rubies dripping from you like blood?”

All were now gathered. In still silence, the court of the King appeared beautiful. The King arrayed in his grandeur upon the dais, his advisors about him, modest only in that their resplendence was a little below that of their ruler. The Queen and the General gleaming red and gold within the sea of perfumed, preening courtiers. They had all had the time to prepare for this congregation, to array themselves in layers of silk and jewellery, to cloak their doubt and treachery in silver and blush. Orawen had no such a costume, and she felt naked and exposed, clad in nothing but a shimmering white silk slip, as though she were a droplet of snow, already beginning to melt away. And yet nakedness was not right either, for if she were naked, they would see. Or maybe not. The maids do not. Or pretend they do not. 

Orawen had a feeling that, even were a great wind out of the West to strip her shift from her, were she to rise and stand naked before the eyes of all the court—and she cringed at the thought, flush rising in shame—they would, as one many-headed creature, avert their eyes from what she would have them see.

She knew that it was purposeful, to set her apart as clean and sweet and untarnished by adornment or vanity, performance or guile. For they knew what Orawen had learned. What set a virgin apart was the miracle of the thing, something beautiful and yet unspoiled. Orawen wondered if the fascination came from the fact that none of them were either of those things anymore: the King a walking corpse, the Queen vacillating between the madness of wakefulness and the madness of sleeping draughts, General Alcaraindir’s once-handsome face branded by the fires of Middle Earth’s wars. And yet even the most perfect apple will spoil upon the shelf; and Orawen could feel the rot climbing up from between her legs. 

She tried not to think about it, tried to pretend that it was not there, as if by force of will she could see as the others did. And yet it did not work. She could feel it, even now, soft silk catching on ruined skin, the itch to tear off her shift, her skin, to rip her very soul free of the rancid carcass in which it was trapped.

And then the door creaked open and the subject of the gathering entered. Tall and bold he seemed, head held high and strides long. But then were not all adventurers so? He bowed before the King, proclaiming his name, his lineage, his obeisance, bragging of his travels in the south of Middle Earth and all he had seen and won. Orawen did not listen, let his voice wash over her. Talk had little interest for her anymore. Instead her gaze drifted to the large object which his men carried in behind him. It was heavy, that she could tell by the multiple straining men carrying it, and the size of a small coffin. Treasure, doubtless. She had seen the jewellery of Middle Earth. Crude, without the finery and craftsmanship of Elenna, but proof that these lands were rich in resources ready to be put to use by more skilled hands and higher minds. 

The captain droned on and on and Orawen felt herself growing tired. She had been woken from sleep—shallow and disturbed by black dreams but sleep nonetheless—and could feel it rising to claim her again. Looking up at the King she could see that he fared no better, his eyes dull and glassy, fixed at some distant point upon the horizon. He dreamed awake as well as asleep now, frequently confused as to where he was and who was with him. She could see nervous glances being exchanged by his advisors, their attention drifting from the rambling captain as they whispered out of the corners of their mouths, no doubt concerned about the consequences of the King being taken by his ever-increasing delusions so publicly.

She did not see the signal given but she saw the captain hastily, and somewhat disgruntledly, conclude his verbal wanderings. “I bring a gift, my lord king,” he proclaimed, gesturing his men to bring forth the treasure chest. “Your scholars grow ever greater in their craft and knowledge of Middle Earth. Our study of her peoples advances apace, although hampered by their brief lives. Yet, as you shall see, we have means to make this easier.”

And they set the box down, yet not flat upon the earth but upright, like a short pillar, and the cloth covering it fell away.

Lemon-yellow liquid filled a glass-panelled pillar. And in that liquid floated a child.

No, not a child. The proportions were wrong. A savage, the whisper rippled through the courtiers, craning forward. Orawen had never seen one of the savages and she leant forward in spite of herself, the King’s fingers dragging at her shoulder. 

Nothing remarkable. Short, puny-looking, a body whose every measurement spoke of unrealised potential. A plain, unintelligent face. And yet she appeared peaceful, as if she slept serenely in her summer-yellow water, uncaring of the countless eyes gazing upon her naked form.

Maybe she’s even a virgin, Orawen thought bitterly. Surely they would not show the King a soiled specimen.

Looking up at the King, he stared at the girl with a startling degree of focus, bleary grey eyes transfixed. For a moment she was confused, unable to see what appeal lay in that crude imitation of the Dúnedain. 

We need a dog to kick.

And there it is. A trophy of our skill and their lowliness.

Maybe that was why he looked upon the dead girl with such fascination, maybe that was why Orawen sometimes thought she could see hate in his eyes when he looked at her. One to make him feel great, another to make him feel old.

Wondering what Tar-Serciril thought, Orawen turned to find the Queen’s eyes fixed upon the dead girl, and yet Orawen felt that she did not see her, or rather saw something else in her than others did, and something more terrible. Maybe she is taken by a vision.

Maybe she is taken by poppy seed.

Ever more often the Queen wore that look, eyes dull and sightless as her foresight did battle with poppy and prophecy melted into psychosis. Orawen could not make out her pallor beneath the white paste covering her skin, but she could see the hollowness around her eyes, could make out the shape of her shoulder bones. She had heard one of Tar-Serciril’s handmaids discussing at what point one should begin force-feeding a queen. Orawen knew how she felt; every day she became more afraid that she would smell her dinner through the degrading walls of her pelvis.

General Alcaraindir stared at the girl with a set jaw, his eye fixed on her in the manner of a man who cannot afford to look away. Orawen wondered if she resembled any of the girls he had savaged in Middle Earth. I cannot think what would have moved him to such an act. She is not beautiful. Not even pretty.

We need a dog to kick.

The captain spoke on, but Orawen had ceased listening, only staring at the girl, rancour coiling in her gut. At least the girl got to be preserved, floating behind clean glass as one sleeping, dead and clean and safe from any decay. Orawen envied her that, envied her stillness that came from quiet death and an end to use rather than an attempt to avoid straining flesh riddled with corruption.

Orawen no longer dared look at her stomach. She did not know when it had begun. After the King first ruined her, she had not wanted to look, spending most of her time wishing she could cut herself free from her dirtied lower half. It was only when washing that she happened to notice small brown indentations dotting the skin of her lower abdomen. She at first thought them lint or dirt but they did not scrub off, instead drawing sharp pain when scraped. And yet no blood came forth, only a thin, brown fluid, sickly sweet and sticky.

She watched, over the next few weeks, as the spots grew larger. Brown indents darkened to black lesions that spread into ever-larger circles that were hard and tender in flesh grown so soft and pliant that when Orawen applied pressure it caved in beneath her finger, the skin straining as it threatened to break, releasing whatever lurked beneath its decaying surface. Once, in a fit of fear, Orawen dug her nail into the largest lesion, just a finger’s length down from her navel. As she did so, she felt the circles of decay radiating out beneath her thumb, and the image of a worm lurking underneath her skin had her retching and digging her nail in, squeezing with her other hand. All that came out was pain and that putrid brown liquid, like rotting fruit.

It was as though she were eight years old again. Standing in the apple orchard with her grandfather as he picked up an apple from the leaf-strewn ground. She remembered sweat slipping down her back as he showed it to her, pointing out the blackening circles that had almost completely consumed its red skin. “See. It is diseased. And if we cut it open,”—a flick of his wrist and he was showing her the inside, brown softness ploughing inward to dominate what little was left of the good flesh. “See, the canker has spread within. Now it is nothing but a carrier of contagion.”

“The others look alright,” said Orawen, looking up at the shining apples, hazy in the humid summer air. She did not like how upset Grandfather sounded.

He shook his head sorrowfully. “No. They may look good but they are only waiting until they drop to show their disease. That is the most insidious thing; they appear fair and wholesome but within they carry the seed of rot, waiting to come forth.” He stared up at the tree branches, his gaze drifting to the rain-washed blue sky. “There was a time when no disease plagued this land.”

There were many things like that, Orawen had noticed even at that age. All her life it seemed her parents had been talking about how things were not as they used to be. Girls did not used to comport themselves so brazenly. There was a time when women were not gossips and temptresses, bored now that their husbands were away at sea. Once the laws of familial harmony and good living had been respected rather than mocked.

Her grandfather shook his head. “They will all go to the garbage. Apart from this one. I will keep it so you can see what happens when rot creeps in.”

Orawen squeezed and squeezed until she was holding back shrieks of pain and her abdomen was a sticky mess of congealed fluid. No blood would come forth. Hunched over like a crone, weeping silently, she wiped off as much as she could on a spare sheet and cast it into the corner for the servants to find. Surely they will wonder. They are so obsessed with any sign of the King’s health deteriorating, they will ask me.

Yet no one said anything. The servants who supervised her bathing seemed to look straight through them as they dried her, their towels catching on the lesions and making Orawen flinch in pain.

Maybe you are dreaming. Maybe it is all in your head. Maybe it was another symptom, like her heavy head and her sluggish thoughts and her constant clammy sense of fever, of whatever illness had possessed her since Armenelos first began to digest her. Maybe it was not enough that she should suffer the loss of her purity, be degraded so as to never again be worthy of her father’s house. Maybe she must suffer this also, her flesh infected by the evil that the King had planted within her that first night. Maybe she was not only to give the King her warmth and moisture, but she must take from him his decay. The seed of life, women spoke of, and yet he had given her a seed of death, and it ate greedily of a body yet living.

Maybe it is all your fault. Maybe you were always diseased, somewhere on the inside, and it was only waiting for the right time to come out. That thought had her tearing open every single lesion until her hands were slick with brown fluid and soft, too-pink flesh rimmed her nails. But they only returned, darkness rising up out of tortured, crusted skin with renewed ferocity.

She did not know, and her head ached from fever and pointless tears. All she knew was that the lesions multiplied and expanded, eating up her softening, leaking flesh, and that she alone bore witness to her rot. No one else saw. No one else would let themselves see. They pantomimed on, their finery ever brighter to distract from creeping age and uncertainty. 

I am the only real person here, Orawen thought suddenly. General Alcaraindir, an expressionless statue decked out in a warrior’s triumphal glamour; the Queen, staring hollow-eyed and vacant after being dosed just enough to stop her from fidgeting; the King, his grasp on the moment growing ever slacker, habit and the weight of the wealth with which they heaped him binding him to his chair like great golden manacles; the council, faceless replications of the same man, a thin layer of grandeur corroding beneath sycophantic smiles. They are all theatre-ghouls, old actors with ugly masks playing terrible roles in a terrible play. Maybe that was what happened when one lived that long; one began performing one’s life rather than living it.

And yet am I truly real anymore? No one had called her by her name in months. ‘Little bird’ to the Queen. ‘The girl’, to General Alcaraindir, accompanied by a shake of the head that was half sympathetic, half disgusted. ‘The virgin’ passed with a knowing look among the palace servants. In the morning light she was Milyawen, the wife who had died bringing the most whorish of his daughters into the world. In the afternoon, she was whichever daughter he missed most. In the evenings, when the sun set in red despair, she was Serciril. In the darkness of night when he awoke afraid, she was Izrêth, the wetnurse who had shown him a mother’s care. She did not have a name when he lay with her.

Maybe this would not be happening if you had accepted that you were nothing sooner. Maybe the rot had infected her because, in foolish pride, she had stayed alive too long. Maybe, starved of nourishment in bodies held together by naught but delusion and blood tar-thick from tinctures and potions and stimulants and preservatives, it had latched onto her living flesh. Maybe if you had not struggled, you would have been left to live a cold, dry un-life like the rest of them.

She had tried to find a way out. She had summoned General Alcaraindir, pretending that the King needed him, and had received him in a corner of the King’s quarters. Shaking, she had shut them into the small, silent room and had wasted no time. “General Alcaraindir.” He stood, silent and unmoving, his mask gleaming in the light from a brazier, one scarred hand clasping the other scarred hand at the wrist. They said he was equally skilled in killing with both. Throat dry, Orawen said, “I beg you, with all that I am, to spare me my torment and kill me.”

That cold eye stared at her. He did not move. “No.”

“Kill me,” said Orawen, stepping forward suddenly. If she were braver, if he terrified her less, she would have grabbed his arm. “I beg you to kill me. I beg you to kill me, Avalazgar.”

“Even were I the King’s executioner, you have done no wrong deserving of death.”

Orawen wanted to scream. She would have, if only it would not have woken the King, only two doors away. She curled in upon herself, hunched in a corner, as far away from the warmth of the brazier as she could get, hands clamped over her face to block out the relentless burden of wakefulness. “I do not even want my honour restored, I only wish to not be alive any longer. I understand that death is a gift now. I do. Was that my purpose? Was I to understand for him? I understand, now let me partake in it.”

“You are mad,” she heard the General say. “Grief drives you mad.”

He thinks I grieve the King. What was there to grieve? Not kindness, not wisdom, not even power, naught but a sightless, mindless shadow which grasped at half-remembered wants and cringed from fears it no longer understood. “I have not the room for grief, my lord. I have room for nothing. Kill me, kill me, kill me.” She repeated it over and over, a toddler’s desperate pleading, groan slurred and thick with tears.

She heard the General pull off his mask and when she looked up through her fingers fire-warped skin gleaming in the light of the brazier, and he knelt down opposite her, that distorted, melted, monstrous face, half kindly man, half ruined beast. So close were they, she could smell something on his breath, heavy and green, and she did not know if it were drink or drug, whether he or the Queen had sedated him.  “I am not going to kill you. You are only a girl.”

Rage came over her, overwhelming flesh too weak and humid to be of any use. “Kill me,” she hissed. “Kill me, like you killed all those girls you soiled in Middle Earth.”

“That did not—”

“It did not happen! What did not happen! Nothing! Nothing happened! It is all dreams and delusion and no one is ever awake and nothing happened but I can feel it, something happened!” Her thoughts writhed and heaved, she was coming apart, she was still alive, why was she still alive—“Maybe you did not kill them and they had to beg some other man to free them. Do your duty and kill me!”

“None of that happened,” said the General. He sounded as though he believed it. Maybe it was all rumour. He had never hurt her, always bowed beneath the Queen’s slaps and insults. And yet if a man will speak as he does to Tar-Serciril, the greatest woman in all the world, what will he do to a girl in Middle Earth where there are no rules and no eyes to see. His belief meant nothing. Maybe he had forgotten, maybe he told himself it was a bad dream, maybe, as the Queen said, it simply did not fit. 

“Nothing happened,” Orawen moaned. “You will kill women and children and dogs who do not want it, who do not deserve it, but you will not kill me. I deserve it, I want it!”

“No sane being wants death.” He sounded like her father, when she was throwing a childish tantrum.

“It is better than the alternative,” said Orawen, and for the first time it occurred to her that maybe Tar-Minyatur had been fleeing exactly this. Maybe it was all a lie. Maybe the Eldar were not truly young and fair and happy. Maybe they were simply the final successful product for which the King and his court were striving, bodies preserved beyond death and age and decay, smiling masks, eyes bright as gems in wet sockets of painted flesh, blood black with poppy seed.

It was a heretical thought, and Orawen felt eyes upon her immediately. Slowly, she raised her heavy, aching head.

One of the eagles watched her. Orawen shivered, feeling a ray of cold clarity pierce the stifling fog of her mind. She wondered what it perceived, whether something other than a grand bird stared out of those golden eyes or whether it simply smelled that she had gone rancid. She wondered which girl displeased the Valar most: the sterilised dead savage or the warm, rotting once-virgin. Then it turned away, great wings flapping in the silence as it made for the open sky. Orawen felt her stomach sink, that familiar feeling of disappointment as a potentially sympathetic face turned away. 

Maybe that was what made it unbearable. Maybe it was the summer night, abnormally hot, and made into a furnace by the King’s demand for a blazing hearth and blankets heaped upon him to combat the cold that wracked his bony body. Maybe it was the girl, serene and grotesque at once, her still, childish face haunting Orawen. Maybe it was the eagle’s rejection, leaving her to suffer the King’s cold fingers pinching and prying her open to take in yet more of his disease. 

They had all turned their backs on her then. Her father. The Queen. The General. And now even the Valar, turning their eyes away and deciding not to see. Who did that leave?

She knew plenty of prayers to Yavanna for fruitful fields, fruitful wombs, rain to water the crops and warm summer skies to make the wheat grow tall. No one on Andor prayed for the coming of death and winter.

“And yet our ancestors used to,” her grandfather had told her one winter evening. “It is said that, in our days of darkness, we devoted altars to Heskil, the goddess of cold death and winter. They say that she was the sister-wife of the Corpse King, who feeds on rot and ruin and fallen honour, and that in her cold fastness in the north of the world she reaches out cold fingers seeking to make barren what is fruitful, cold what is warm, hostile what was once welcoming.”

It was mad, to turn away from the light of the Valar, to reach back into the darkness and depravity from which her ancestors had fled. And yet does the King not do the same? Who else do I have left to call upon?

No, it was not reason that made her call up the phantom of Middle Earth’s winters. It was simply too much. The light of the fires relentless, the heat beating against her like physical blows, each of the King’s sawing breaths another reminder that this was not over, every inch of dry skin making her twitch with a helpless impulse to push him away, his ribs cold bars digging into her cheek, his seed likely feeding the rot where it was smeared on her inner thigh. She could not stand it and she spoke, hands over the King’s ears in case he should hear, whispering desperate pleas into the crackle of the flames. 

"Heskil. Heskil, please hear me. Let winter come upon me. Make my womb barren and cold. Make my veins as rivers of ice and my flesh as frozen ground. I do not wish to be warm and wet; make me cold and dry. If I am to give up all myself to him, make me nothing."

There was no flash of light, no great voice, either out of the West to proclaim her a heretic, or out of the East to welcome her back to the depravity of her ancestors. Only the wind rippled through the curtains, sighing softly.

She dreamed that night, and yet she was not sure that it was a dream, of a cold figure standing in the corner shadows, watching her with dull, distant eyes. Orawen tried to address her, and yet each time her words caught in her throat. Unable to move, she drifted between sleep and wakefulness, unsure which was which, unable to shake that flat, uncaring stare. When she woke in the morning she was shivering, cold sweat drenching her body and every limb cramping ferociously. When she tried to recall anything of those endless dreams, all she could summon was murky eyes in a bone-white face and red-painted fingers reaching toward her.

It was certainly not a dream.

It began in Orawen’s fingers, then her toes. Then creeping up her wrists and her ankles. They became numb and stiff, cold and clumsy. She struggled to hold food, could no longer grasp the edge of the bath to pull herself out or hold the towel to dry herself. Movement became difficult and slow, her hands and feet unresponsive and every time she woke it became harder to move her limbs. Sometimes, when she woke during the night, her fingers appeared white and shining, the joints bony, like the porcelain fingers of doll, like the frost-jewelled hand of a mummified corpse. 

The King complained of a draught. No matter how hot the fire blazed or how many heavy curtains and tapestries and rugs and blankets and pillows cushioned his quarters, he still felt that draught, nipping at his neck. He ordered every window in the palace sealed shut and extra braziers to be brought in, so that a fire burned in every corner, so that every corridor rippled with golden flames. Heat rose, stifling, the cloying scent of animal warmth giving the hallowed halls of Armenelos the close, heavy air of a barn in winter. Red-faced, sweat-beaded courtiers slathered on perfume to compensate and the air became only thicker, more acrid on the tongue as Orawen attempted to breathe through the warring scents of sweat and smoke, ash and flowers. General Alcaraindir joked, quietly, that the King intended to make a pyre of Armenelos and take them all to ashes with him. The Queen’s makeup dripped from her cheeks, red tears sliding down the pale, disintegrating face of a revivified corpse, and she did not laugh. And still the King complained of a draught.

He clung to Orawen fiercely in his sleep, like a fretful child wielding his toy against the terrors of the dark. Orawen would lie, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep as she felt droplets of sweat prickle along her forehead and slide down her face. She watched the frost creep from behind the heavy red curtains, lacing its way across the stone in slow, swirling ferns and, just as when her monthly bleeding had ceased, she did not wonder.

The year turned and the Queen was banished from the King’s quarters. No one knew how it happened. Supposedly they had quarrelled. It could have happened, although Orawen struggled to imagine the Queen mustering the energy, or the King the presence of mind. Supposedly the Queen had stormed from his chambers in red fury and the King had declared that she was not be allowed to return. That was what the servants said, at least when questioned. Orawen did not know; she had been in the bath, staring at her abdomen, wondering when the water would begin to seep into her flesh, why she had not thought of acquiring a hot poker and cutting the canker out when it was still young, whether even now she was polluting the water around her, invisible spores teaming about her, looking for another way in. The Queen claimed that no such argument had occurred. Her memories were addled by lack of sleep, or absent beneath the haze of poppy paste. The King did not remember an argument either. He remembered little of anything now.

So the order hung, without origin, uncertainty made law, and the Queen was banished from the King’s chambers. She could roam the rest of the palace as she wished, and the King might speak to her when he willed. But the King seldom left his chambers now, and when he asked, wet-eyed and impatient, for Serciril, they gave him Orawen. She did not know which was worse, when blindly accepted her as his wife, or when she could see in his eyes—that mingled hurt, confusion and anger emerging from the murk—that he knew they meant to deceive him.

Panic set in then, as the world grew ever narrower and darker and more airless, without windows or light or green life, only the fires roaring in every corner, driving the black shadows to the ceiling where they lurked, thickening and clotting where dark smoke now stained the painted ceilings of the King’s quarters, sweat stinging the lesions that had now crept up her stomach, her navel transformed into a dark pit which she imagined as a black finger reaching into her flesh, working tendrils deeper and deeper, hollowing her out into soft, wasted tissue crawling with festering decay. 

She did not wish to wash, terrified that the water would permeate her savaged skin, but they forced her into the tub, ignoring her sobbing pleas and feeble attempts to push away their hands, and she cried silently as they washed her, keeping her eyes fixed on the ceiling to not see how far it had advanced in her sleep, desperate to close her legs and curl in upon herself. So that you will be warm and safe and welcoming for the rot to spread further. 

And she wished to scream then, to tear herself apart, except that if she screamed they would give her something, or something more than they were already giving her, and then she would be awake even less and the rot would creep on faster and the smoke would thicken in her lungs and the cold would fuse her rib-bones together in one shining white flank against which her corroded black lungs would become bruised and blood-bloated and—maybe if you give up maybe if you fall asleep, maybe it will be …

Better? She laughed, and the servants ignored her. There is no better. You will suffer and then you will die. Or maybe they will keep you, suspended in a jar, half porcelain, half putrid carcass, a tortured heart holding it all together so that little girls will know what happens to the unclean.

Let it be over. Let it be over. Let it be over. She realised that she was saying it aloud, her jaw stiff, her teeth cold and dry, tongue slowed by what she did not dare contemplate. 

“Ssssh,” one of the servants hushed her. “It’ll be over soon. You’re almost clean.”

I’ll never be clean.

And she screamed, the sound thin and weak, a new-born babe’s plaintive cry, and she struggled, attempting to smash her head against the rim of the tub.

They did give her something then, held down against the cold tiles, except for her head, cradled in a warm lap, soapy hands at her temples, tugging at her jaw, pinching her nose so that she coughed and opened her mouth so that more fingers could cram into her mouth, dashing a bitter fluid down her throat.

The darkness came, damp and hot as a rotting carcass.

Orawen gave up. On thought. On worry. On fear. There was no way out.

She slept and she woke and there was little to distinguish the two, for all was hot and sweat-slick and too bright, save the cold stiffness creeping up her limbs, racing the rot to see which would claim her heart first. She dreamed of Heskil or maybe the Queen, and begged neither for rescue. She understood now. She was a sacrifice, absorbing whatever canker was pressed into her welcoming flesh, and her fate had been decided in that long ago time when her father and the King’s messenger had shaken hands. 

Orawen gave up and lay still and waited to die.

The King was less accepting. He was unable to go to council meetings, even just to sit there and calm himself with the illusion of rule, and it agitated him, sensing the kingdom spinning out of his stiff, clumsy fingers. He would pace the room, muttering to himself, speaking of people long dead or replaced in their posts, while Orawen lay still in his bed and prayed—to whom she no longer knew—that he would not notice her breathing. She no longer knew what displeased him most: what she was or who she was not. Whether he hated her for being young and beautiful and warm. Whether he hated for not being all the women he called for who were dead or banished or dismissed or who pretended not to be able to come because they could not bear to see what he had become. Tar-Atanamir’s kingdom had shrunk down to his chambers, the walls growing closer with every day, and as his powers waned, he grew ever crueller to the only subject remaining to him.

He is no longer a man, Orawen thought one day, watching him.

And you are no longer a girl.

What does that leave? A mad child playing with his broken toy?

She closed her eyes, staring at the redness behind her eyelids, and breathed in the smoke-filled air.

It felt like less than a moment before the King’s bony elbow was nudging her awake.

He was tossing, unable to sleep, and as he moved again his knee struck Orawen’s lower thigh. The skin there had long gone numb, and Orawen felt only a dull echo of what should have been pain. Yet the feeling of flesh on flesh still grated on her and she pulled away, almost as clumsy as he, and buried her pounding head in her arm. Her skin was cool against her eyelids, a moment of relief in the clamminess of the King’s bed, and she heaved a breath—

He coughed. He coughed and he kept coughing, the sound scratching at Orawen’s ears and making the pounding spiral behind her eyes, doubling and twisting and clawing at her eyeballs until she turned over, prying open gummy eyes.

He lay just next to her, somewhat curled in upon himself, body shaking with the power of his discomfort until finally, right when Orawen was sure her head was about to split open, he reached for his water glass, perched upon a nearby table. He was too far away, his body trembling too much. He nudged her, his words swallowed by hacking and wheezing, and Orawen rose. As if in a trance, she stood up from the bed and slowly, clumsily, rounded the bed to pick up the glass. She stood, looking down at him, and in the firelight he appeared a thin, bent, warped creature, spasming in his sheets like a worm in mud. He reached a shaking, bony hand toward the water, anticipating her offering it to him. 

Orawen did not move. It was as if that terrible silence that had possessed her when he first soiled her came upon her again, and she could not move. Just hold still. Hold still until he is done.

She could not identify the voice. A little of herself. A little of Tar-Serciril. A little of something else.

A vague frown came across his features, confused and frustrated, the worn, melting mask creasing and furrowing over his skull. He managed, just, thin and gargling through his coughs, to gasp give, give me.

I have never given you anything. A stone on the road cannot give, cannot move unless you kick it.

give. give me.

"Do you need a healer, my lord?" Orawen asked. Her voice was hoarse from lack of use.

He nodded violently, claws still reaching, the frantic repeated motion of a fish beached upon the sand, unable to move or breathe, jerking pointlessly.

Orawen set down the water. "Are you cold, my lord?"

The frown deepened, leathery skin at the edges of his eyes wet with tears of pain as his thin coughs and wheezes croaked on. Confused, disoriented, afraid.

Orawen stepped closer to the bed. "Are you in need of comfort, my lord?"

He made a weak, pointed gargling sound, thin fingers drumming at his pillow. Anger burned in his eyes, but it was not the anger of great kings. It was the anger of the confused and the sick and the dog that is racked with fever.

"I will look after you, my lord," said Orawen, sliding back under the covers. He attempted to resist as she pulled him against her, the notches of his spine digging into her chest as she held him fast, and yet his movements were as the struggles of a week-old babe. When had he grown so weak? Orawen made soft hushing sounds as she held him tight, securing her hold across his trembling chest. His hands attempted to grab at her arm, but against numbed, leaden skin they were like the beating of a garden bird's wings. "Do not be troubled, my lord," said Orawen. "I am here to help you rest."

It took an eternity for Tar-Atanamir to die, far longer than it had taken him to spill inside her that first time. 

She knew that he had finally died because, as the King heaved his last tortured breath, she heard another breath, a great sigh that rippled throughout the room, the fires gone suddenly silent.

There was a moment of complete silence, even Orawen’s thudding heart going faint.

Then winter entered the room, the air cold and clear, the fires flickering and dying down to black ash. Ice ran through Orawen, each breath sharp and painful. She coughed, and her breaths came in deep, stinging gasps. She felt as if her eyes were wide, straining, a fog lifted after months of darkness. Suddenly everything hurt. Her bones ached. Her muscles ached. Cuts that she had until now not been aware of cracked and bled, raw red bursting from her elbows and her knees. Her stomach hurt, blood blooming against the sweat-clinging white of her shift, and Orawen ripped it off, kicking the scraps into the corner, where frost was beginning to grow. 

Winter has come. The cold is here. All is as it should be.

Orawen shoved away Tar-Atanamir’s corpse and wept, letting the cold silence enfold her in its embrace and cool her blood. Death had entered the palace and now she prowled through the smoke-fogged corridors and through Orawen’s sluggish veins, consuming all that had been withheld from her grasp. For the first time in months, Orawen could hear her own breaths, could feel her heart forcing her to live. She watched the lesions transform into bleeding wounds, weeping pus, and felt relief mingled with pain. Maybe she would die, maybe they would pretend that her ruined womb and corroded perfection were not the King’s fault, maybe she would agree with them, but she would not be denied the right to bleed.

“I am real,” she whispered through her tears, and she almost started at how loud her words sounded in the winter air. “And you are not. Orawen wasn’t either. All of this is but smoke and shadows and phantasms of tormented minds.”

With every breath of cold air her head became clearer, her limbs aching back into movement. Leaving bloody smears upon the King’s bedding she sat down upon the floor. She considered the gulf that lay before her; her life seemed suddenly a jumble of unordered flashes of colour and feeling, insubstantial and best shoved into a cupboard. The King was dead, and she had killed him. 

You were supposed to keep him alive.

He was supposed to surrender his life. He was supposed to meet death as a Man. I was supposed to become beautiful like Glóredhel. 

But he did not. And I shall not. Now naught is right and we both partake in his degradation.

So she sat, leaning her head against the edge of the bed where both Orawen the virgin and Tar-Atanamir the Great had died, and thought of her grandfather. She thought of how her first memory was him taking her for a walk in the lush green valley by their home, pointing out every worm and beetle and scurrying forest creature. She thought of how he used to sit her in his lap and tell her tales by the fire until she fell asleep, her head against his shoulder. She thought of how he would let her come to his room when she was upset, let release all her anger and then hand her a book to enjoy tucked away on his window seat. 

She thought of how he would never look at her with love again, how his kind eyes would harden with anger and disappointment at the diseased, grimy thing that had once been his favourite grandchild, how they would melt as he wept for how far she had fallen, how they would slide away from her, unseeing, deciding that his memories of her were better. She thought of how no one would understand. She thought of how she would never be able to tell anyone. She thought of how she would never be able to forget. She thought about how she would never be clean again, how she would never get to be Glóredhel.

It was not hard to weep, thinking of all that. By the time she called for the guards, she was nigh hysterical, choking on tears and snot and the very violence of her sobs. So loud were her gargled, hiccoughing cries that she was chivvied from the room. The door slammed shut, jarring and final, and a girl who looked a little like Orawen was released into the cold, silent halls of a palace claimed by winter. Sullied. Sorrowful. Surely doomed. But no one was touching her.

Voices rose and fell behind the King’s door and Orawen stood without, breathing through her tears. Soon the news would spread and the palace would begin its performance of grief, all taken up with mourning a man that none of them had liked and few of them had known. And you …

I shall see the sun rise, she resolved, and I shall see it rise alone.

So she set off down the cold, silent corridors, leaving footprints of bloodstained frost in her wake.

Chapter End Notes

Concerning the title:

The title comes from the poem ‘Abishag’ by Gordon Bottomley.

Concerning the story:

Very interested to see what everyone made of Orawen’s ‘infection’, which was based on bitter rot of apple for obvious reasons, whether you think it’s to do with her being magically bonded to Tar-Atanamir, being cursed by Lorindis/Tar-Serciril, a side effect of whatever they’re giving her to stop her period or just a symptom of her declining mental health.

Also in case anyone was in doubt, Orawen absolutely had a massive crush on her sister-in-law.

Concerning names:

Alcaraindir – ‘shining one’ (S).

Avalazgar – ‘war-god’ (A). Alcaraindir’s Adûnaic epithet that he earned over the course of his military career.

Glamron – ‘din-maker’ (S). Due to the root ‘glam’ being heavily associated with hatred and barbarity and orcs, this is Lorindis’ way of calling Alcaraindir an orc-man.

Lorindis – ‘dreamer’ (S). Tar-Serciril’s birth name, not mentioned in the fic but it’s what I call her.

Lurloth – ‘poppy’/’flower of sleep’ (S). Basically Alcaraindir calling Lorindis a drug addict.

Orawen – ‘warming maiden’ (S). Needless to say she does not keep it after this.

Serciril – ‘ruby’/’blood-glitter’ (Q). The official Quenya name that Lorindis took when she married Atanamir.

Concerning biblical inspiration:

Interestingly there is debate among biblical scholars as to what position Abishag held and what degree of power she exercised, with some scholars pointing to the use of the word ‘sokenet’ to describe her, meaning ‘steward’ or ‘administrator’. 

Obviously Orawen is not lucky enough to secure such a position for her troubles but I am kind of tempted to explore the implications of such a position at court and I could see the Númenóreans completely ignoring the omens of winter and death and the obviously physically, sexually and emotionally traumatised girl and being like yeah we’ll make a tradition of using young women to ward off death and decay. So yes, I may revisit this at a later occasion, but I promise next time it’ll be from a political rather than a horror lens.

Also David and Abishag by James Tissot went a long way to inspiring the initial scene of Orawen and Tar-Atanamir. Something about the way Abishag is sitting at David’s feet with her hunched posture just really spoke to me.

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