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Twilight Tales - The Captain's Guerdon	By : MPB Category: -Multi-Age > General Views: 8528 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Lord of the Rings (and associated) book series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Chapter IX

Yavië TA 2978

“Elladan, look yonder.”

The older of Elrond’s sons glanced to the east, following the direction of his brother’s gaze. He reined in his ebony-hued steed when he espied a party of horsemen swiftly traversing the plain between them and the Misty Mountains. One glimpse of the colors and markings on their raiment told the twins whence they hailed.

With a nod at Elrohir, Elladan pointed his warhorse toward the approaching riders and urged it into a brisk trot. The brethren rode to meet the troop of Imladrin Elves.

They had had just ended a three-year watch in a strange country called the Shire. At Gandalf the Grey’s behest, the Dúnedain of the north now guarded the borders of the little folk who called themselves Hobbits and Elladan and Elrohir oft joined them in their vigils. Why the Wizard thought it necessary and urgently so he would not say. Not when he was till uncertain as to the nature of the thing that needed guarding.

The twins in conjunction with their foster brother Aragorn already knew something of Gandalf’s concerns. What they did not know, they guessed. But they did not press the Wizard for more information. Gandalf would reveal all when he deemed the moment right and Elrond’s sons trusted him completely. Saruman may have been appointed head of the order of the Istari but in the twins’ opinion, Mithrandir would have been the better choice.

Their turn at watch done, the brethren thought to join Aragorn in Gondor where last they heard he served the Steward Ecthelion as one mysterious Thorongil. They had ridden across Eriador with Aragorn’s cousin Halbarad and his men, parting from them only when the Rangers decided to cross over the mountains and head east. The twins had been about to turn back and seek the Greenway and thence proceed to the Gap of Rohan and on to the Southern Kingdom when they caught sight of the Imladrin Elves.

The troop was now near enough for them to distinguish faces. Elladan drew a sharp breath when he recognized their leader. His golden hair brightly gleaming in the morning sun, there was no mistaking Rivendell’s valorous captain for another. Elladan fought to steady the sudden erratic beat of his heart.

It was nigh five and twenty years since he’d exchanged more than cursory greetings with Glorfindel. Five and twenty years since their relationship or whatever it was that passed for one had come undone. And not merely because of a single act of faithlessness but also due to the careless breaking of a vow. That was not surprising and had Elladan been of a mind to heed reason, he would have realized this from the first.

Powerful oaths had brought the Noldor back to Middle-earth in the First Age. Had led Fëanor and his sons to commit treachery and genocide and other atrocities. Had held Fingolfin’s people to the road into banishment even through the horror of the Helcaraxë. Had sustained the Exiles through five centuries of continued strife and sorrow and unimaginable loss.

An oath of fealty from vassal to king in particular had ensured the survival of the one who had won salvation for Middle-earth in that dark time just before the Great Battle. That oath had demanded the highest price of all – a life for a life. The Lord of the House of the Golden Flower had paid that price in full that a child of destiny might live.

Elladan shuddered inwardly as he recalled from long ago Glorfindel’s words of caution when he had declared his love to the captain and sworn to its upholding. If there were any who would hold such vows implacably sacrosanct and inviolate, it would be he who had kept his own even unto a gruesome death and renewed life. The older twin wished with all his heart that he had remembered this ere he committed his error.

“‘Twas not all your doing, tôren.”—my brother.

The Elf-warrior looked at his twin. Elrohir returned his gaze knowingly.

“You were heart-sick. Distraught,” the younger Peredhel quietly said. “And Glorfindel had offered you little to stave off your fears.”

“There is no defending my actions,” Elladan bleakly retorted.

“Your actions, no,” Elrohir agreed. “But the reason for it is not beyond understanding. Or compassion.”

“I do not care to go over this again,” the older twin protested.

“Yet I will repeat it as oft as I must,” Elrohir countered. “Until you stop berating yourself and know some peace.”

“What peace?” Elladan snorted bitterly. “There is no rest for the foresworn.”

“Only if they remain unredeemed,” the Elf-knight pointed out. He paused then proceeded with caution. “If you would but approach him anew—”

“And what, Elrohir?” Elladan interjected. “So that I may look into his eyes and see in them aught but the regard I once knew? To perforce brave the chill of his voice or the distance in his manner?” He shook his head. “I cannot do it, gwanneth.”—younger twin. “I have not the strength to fight for his esteem once more.”

“Elladan—”

But the older twin spurred his horse into a gallop, signaling his desire to end the conversation. Elrohir sighed and did likewise.

Glorfindel hailed them easily enough. There was no stiffness in his demeanor or unease in his voice. To any who did not know him, he seemed warm and welcoming with both brethren. But the twins knew him all too well and neither failed to notice the slightly cooler hue his eyes took on when they alighted on the older twin. Though stung, Elladan somehow took it in stride.

“Whence have you come, captain?” he asked with all due propriety.

“From Lothlórien,” Glorfindel replied. “Your sister desired to visit the Golden Wood and it fell to me to ensure her safety.”

“And how does Lórien fare?” Elrohir ventured.

“Hale and whole,” the captain said. “The Galadhrim do not suffer any to do harm to their forest.”

There was no need to speak out loud of the true power that held evil at bay in that realm. Few knew what the Lady of the Wood wielded to secure her people’s safety. Best to keep matters that way.

“Arwen is well, I presume?” Elladan queried.

“She is well though she seldom smiles these days,” Glorfindel gravely answered. “But she asked me to convey to you her love should I meet you and that she misses you. Your grandparents, too, have marked your long absence from their woods.” He hesitated then and his manner turned distinctly more aloof. “And certain of the Geledhil asked after you,” he continued, “and expressed their hopes that you would grace Lothlórien with your presence soonest.”

Elladan paled at this last statement. Glorfindel’s tone told him that ‘twas no intended gibe the captain had cast at him. He had delivered the messages exactly as they had been put to him however distasteful he may have found his charge to be.

Valar! Elrohir thought with vexation upon noting his twin’s sudden pallor. What had possessed Rúmil to dare so obvious an affront? A moment later, he acknowledged to himself that the reason was no great mystery.

Rúmil could not have failed to notice Elladan’s obvious cooling toward him in the wake of their ill-founded affair. That would have been a most injurious blow to the young warden’s pride. What better way to salve it than to throw in Glorfindel’s face the fact that, brief though it had been, he had lured the captain’s supposedly exclusive lover into his bed. The only Elf to have succeeded since before the beginning of Elladan’s liaison with the legendary warrior. A part of Elrohir wanted to ride at once to the Golden Wood and personally throttle Haldir’s brother for his loose tongue. But the other more reasonable part could not truly think evil of the guard for he knew there was no malice involved but only hurt feelings and dented pride.

Nevertheless, more damage had been inflicted on the already brittle connection that still lingered between his brother and the captain. More than ever, Elladan would be reluctant to make a move in this encounter to effect reconciliation with Glorfindel. If he had not already been disheartened by previous rebuffs, this latest addition to the imbroglio would take care of accomplishing it in full.

“Do you travel elsewhere?” Glorfindel was asking. “Or will you return to Imladris for a time? Your father misses you terribly.”

Elrohir looked at Elladan – he would leave it to his brother to decide their course. He would have liked to return to the vale and spend a season with their father but he deferred to Elladan knowing how discomfited he was by the speculation surrounding him and Glorfindel.

Elrond knew of the break between his older son and the golden Elf-lord. Indeed, all Rivendell was aware of it. But astonishingly, none knew the cause behind it. Glorfindel had kept his silence and such was his warriors’ loyalty to him that the few who had brought the news of Elladan’s affair to him had kept it to themselves, refusing to share it even with their fellows. But such secrecy naturally spurred curiosity. And so long had their liaison lasted that, even after a quarter century, the interest in its sudden ending had not waned.

Elladan felt his brother’s eyes on him and knew what Elrohir longed for but would not insist upon for his sake. He came to a decision.

“We will ride back with you,” he informed Glorfindel.

**********

Less than two days later, Elladan rescinded his decision.

They had been riding amidst the other warriors when he suddenly turned his steed and moved to the rear of the troop. Gesturing to Glorfindel not to halt, Elrohir followed him.

“Gwaniuar”—older twin—“what is wrong?” he asked as soon as he came alongside his brother.

Elladan sighed. “I feel under siege,” he said. He indicated the Elven warriors with a tilt of his head. “Among them are those who informed Glorfindel of my folly and I can sense their disdain for me behind their respectful demeanors. They blame me for our rift and I cannot fault them. Anymore than I can fault him for keeping his distance from me.”

“Ignore them,” Elrohir urged him.

“I try but ‘tis useless,” Elladan said. “Not when he treats me with such cool civility before them. If he would only show me some warmth, I could bear the contempt even of all Imladris, but he does not, Elrohir. He still holds me from him in all ways.” He drew a shaky breath. “I wish to leave,” he announced.

Elrohir stared at him in dismay. “But what of Ada?”—Papa?—he said. “You heard Glorfindel – he misses us. And I miss him, Elladan. As do you.” He reached out and grasped his brother’s hand. “Take heart, we will be home soon and you will no longer feel their scorn.”

“But I will know his,” Elladan disconsolately said. “At council and meals or a chance encounter in one of the passageways or in the evenings in the Hall of Fire. I cannot, muindor”—brother—he murmured. “I cannot go back and endure his cold courtesy day after day.”

Elrohir sighed. It had been too much to hope for after all. “What do you wish to do then?” he gently queried.

“To go as we had planned,” Elladan replied. “Estel will welcome our company.”

Elrohir lifted his gaze to the north – to where Rivendell lay and Elrond patiently awaited their return. He noted his brother’s averted eyes and swiftly lowered his. “Very well, let us inform Glorfindel of this.”

Elladan shook his head. “Nay, you see to it, Elrohir,” he requested. “I have no stomach for another frigid exchange with him.”

Elrohir frowned. “What would you have me tell him? That we shall leave at once?”

Elladan looked about him as if noticing his surroundings for the first time. The sun was riding low in the sky – it would be dusk soon. The Elves were already seeking a suitable place to set up camp.

“We will stay for the night,” he decided. “But I would we be off at first light tomorrow.”

Elrohir regarded him solemnly for a long while. Finally, he nodded and guided his grey steed toward Glorfindel. He came up beside the captain and at once told him of their change of plans. When he was in a less than affable mood, Elrohir could be very abrupt indeed. Glorfindel regarded him with surprise.

“Leave? But what of your wish to visit your father?” he said.

Elrohir glanced over his shoulder at his twin. Glorfindel followed suit. “Circumstances dictate otherwise,” the Elf-knight murmured.

Glorfindel regarded him somberly. “‘Tis Elladan who wants this,” he said. The Elf-knight affirmed this with a slight incline of his head. “Why, Elrohir?”

The younger twin looked at him sadly. “Can you not guess?” he asked.

Faint color stained the captain’s cheeks. Noting this, Elrohir felt the slenderest of hope surge within him. Perhaps all was not lost, he considered.

“He loves you,” he said suddenly, bluntly.

That caught Glorfindel off guard. He stared reprovingly at his companion. “He broke his word,” he replied tersely.

“Aye, he did,” Elrohir agreed. “And he has paid for it, Glorfindel. Or are you so blinded by your umbrage that you do not see the steady dwindling of his spirit?” He saw the slight tightening of the captain’s mouth. Encouraged, he stated: “‘Twas not out of lack of love for you that he took Rúmil to his bed.”

Glorfindel’s lips straightened to a grim line at the mere mention of the Galadhel’s name. A telling response. Elrohir pressed on. “He was enraged. He thought himself duped. But had he known of your previous brush with betrayal, he would not have chosen that means to vent his ire. Aye, he told me what you said to him,” Elrohir added when Glorfindel turned a questioning look on him. “And had he realized what you had endured then, he would not have done as she did. I thought at the time that ‘twas retribution he sought. But now I understand ‘twas no more than a means of buttressing his sense of his own worth. You did not seem to cherish what he offered you and so he turned to one who did. He believed it would not matter to you for you seldom if ever displayed a desire for his – exclusive regard. But it does matter – doesn’t it?”

Glorfindel’s eyes hardened. But Elrohir had known him long enough to discern the difference between true spite and pained anger.

“You defend what he did?” the captain challenged.

The Elf-knight shook his head. “There is no excuse for oath-breaking if the oath was uttered willingly. But I would like to think that there is room for forgiveness,” he softly said.

There. The clenching of the captain’s hand on Asfaloth’s snowy mane was a dead giveaway.

“You were ever in his thoughts even when he was with Rúmil,” Elrohir added, suspecting the belief otherwise had hurt the Noldorin Elf far more deeply than he let on. He rammed his point home. “Yours is still the only sword he has ever sheathed, captain.”

Glorfindel’s face did not change but he could not conceal the sudden gleam that flared in his eyes. Elrohir recognized that light and stifled a triumphant smile. There was no mistaking the relief he’d glimpsed in the captain’s eyes. Relief that could only have stemmed from deep-seated jealousy. Elladan had told his twin enough for Elrohir to know what this revelation would mean to Glorfindel.

It was no trivial thing to the proud Noldo that a soldier should yield to another, even among the fierce female warriors who served under his command. Upon the battlefield, one depended on one’s comrades in ways few non-combatants comprehended. This sense of kinship was rooted in absolute trust and so ingrained was it in the finest warriors that it oft spilled into their personal lives. Baldly put, to allow another into one’s body bespoke wholly entrusting one’s self to another.

In his first life, he had known this with only a scant handful of ellyn, noble soldiers all. In his second existence, only Elladan had gained his surrender. Elrohir suspected that his brother’s refusal to yield to any save Glorfindel had as much to do with the captain’s capitulation as his desire to succor his lover when he’d had dire need of it. For Glorfindel to have thought that Elladan had bestowed upon another this self-same gesture of utmost trust – Elrohir imagined the captain’s pain must have been threefold that which he had known with the unknown Elf-maid who had won his heart in Gondolin and shattered it so utterly that Glorfindel still bore the wounds unhealed to this day. For Elladan was alike to the captain in ways that she could not have been being not only an ellon of highest birth but also a warrior of fearsome repute. For Elladan to have broken faith knowing what that would do to Glorfindel’s growing yet still fragile confidence in him was a betrayal not easily forgotten or pardoned.

The clenched hand loosened its hold then tightened once more. Glorfindel of a sudden trained his gaze on the Elf-knight. Elrohir managed to meet it unflinchingly but it took all his resolve to do so. Small wonder his foes waver before his charge, he thought. His stare is enough to unman them.

“There could be room,” the captain slowly said. “If the grounds are – sufficient.”

His quick temper flaring as brightly as his hope, Elrohir narrowed his eyes. “Very well then, if his love is not enough reason, I can think of others,” he snapped. “What of his abject misery or his flaying remorse? Or that I have not seen his smile or heard his laughter these many years? Or his utter disregard for his safety even unto the brink of death?”

Glorfindel looked hard at him. “What do you mean?” he sharply asked.

Elrohir’s belligerence subsided, fear for his brother overtaking his ire. “He has ceased to value his life,” he mournfully recounted. “He throws himself into battle with little thought for defense. I can no longer recall how many times I have thought him lost to us. Did we not ride with the Dúnedain so often I warrant he would have run on his ruin long afore. They know enough to guard his back as I have since we rode away when you—” He stopped, swallowing with difficulty when memory of that doleful day shadowed his thoughts.

In a hushed voice he stated: “If we go now, I fear that next we return to Imladris, ‘twill only be I who will still draw breath.”

He could no longer meet Glorfindel’s piercing gaze when his eyes blurred with hard-fought tears. The dread of losing his brother to a senseless death waxed greater than ever before. He felt a hand grip his shoulder and he turned his head to find the captain regarding him with pained eyes.

“You will not lose him, Elrohir,” Glorfindel quietly declared. “I will not allow it.”

Elrohir took a deep breath, forcing calm upon himself. “Pity will not save him,” he replied.

Glorfindel shook his head. “Nor will I offer it,” he said. “But I will speak with him. And if he is truly mine, he will hearken to me.”

The Elf-knight felt his heart swell with more than slender hope. “He will hearken to you,” he staunchly stated.

*********************************

Glossary:

Yavië – Quenya for early autumn, roughly August and September

Geledhil (sing. Galadhel) – Tree-elves

ellyn (sing. ellon) – male Elves

To be continued…
- 9
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- 11
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Twilight Tales - The Captain's Guerdon