House of the Golden Flower

I woke early, a vague feeling of dread in my belly. Turgon slept still, his head rested on the flat of my lower back where my buttocks flattened out into my waist. It was just before dawn, the light drifting in through the windows yet dim.

I did my best to dispel the fear and unease I had woken with, cuddling against Turgon and deeper into the bedding. His arms tightened around my hips, and I managed to snuggle back into sleep’s promising warmth.

The second time I woke it was to the door being thrown wide, and I was up on my elbows and looking toward the door just as Turgon’s head left his pillow of my flesh and we both looked to see a startled servant in the doorway.

"What is it?" Turgon demanded.
"My lord, it is Aredhel! She has returned!" The servant babbled at us.
I felt Turgon go still. "Aredhel! Aredhel? My sister!" He said suddenly, and clambered over my legs, forgetting about everything completely in his haste to dress. The blushing servant left as I sat up and waved him out, getting up to help Turgon find his clothes.

He fluttered about, stressing, while I attempted to help him dress and finally gave up and rushed myself into fresh clothes, for I was in the habit of keeping a spare set or two in his quarters.
He was out the door before I could even pull on my leggings, and I sighed and prayed he wasn’t in too much of a disarray. It would be bad enough for him to run down with his hair unkempt, but worse to go down in my clothes or missing items of clothing required for decency. Well, he was a grown man; far older than I, if he ran out half naked it was his own fault.

I stifled my giggles at the image of his pants falling off as he stood from his throne to greet his sister formally, and went downstairs after him.

I found him in the King’s Hall, already asking Ecthelion and Idril to be seated at his right and left, and I entered and he saw to it that I sat to Idril’s left; after all I was a nobleman and guest of his house. Then he sat, and commanded that Aredhel and Meaglin be brought before him.

They came, and He welcomed them both warmly, then Aredhel his sister told the tale of all that had befallen her, and Turgon smiled on them both, enchanted with the princely son of his sister, and spoke.

"I rejoice that Ar-Feiniel has returned to Gondolin, and now more fair again shall my city seem than in the days when I deemed her lost. And Meaglin shall have the highest honor in my realm." Turgon announced proudly, his joy in his sister’s return granting his speech eloquence.

I looked in awe and wonder at Aredhel and her son Meaglin standing before us. Ecthelion was sitting on the other side of Turgon, and I could swear that if it hadn’t been improper, Turgon would have leapt up and embraced his sister. As it was, he held himself restrained and I couldn’t help but catch on to his glee and stifle my own grin.

Aredhel was indeed lovely, dressed in white with her long waviair air shining in the midsummer sunlight. Meaglin beside her stood tall and dark, his face expressionlessly forbidding. He had looked at Turgon with wonder when he entered, and I saw that he might have designs on him, perhaps to achieve the throne by way of his bed, but even as he had met Turgon’s eyes he had seen the truth, and his dark gaze had fallen on me.

I met his black eyes evenly, doing my best to reveal nothing. I saw there my equal in sly cunning, and knew that I would have to employ the long-dormant clever, tricky part of my intelligence to stay one step ahead of this one. He meant no good for me, and when he looked at Idril, I saw her tense out of the corner of my eye. Yet to Turgon he was all kindness, and to his mother ever deceptive, and Idril and I held our tongues until the time would come that we could say our piece.

Meaglin bowed low before Turgon and took him for Lord and King, vowing his loyalty, and I saw that Turgon was pleased indeed, despite the troubling words of Aredhel’s tale of her life since she had left Gondolin. And even as he stood erect at Turgon’s word, a messenger entered the Hall, and Turgon turned to him.

"Lord, the Guard have taken captive one that came by stealth to DarkDark Gate. Eol he names himself, and he is a tall elf, dark and grim, of the kindred of the Sindar; yet he claims the Lady Aredhel as his wife, and demands to be brought before you. His wrath is great and he is hard to restrain; but we have not slain him as your law commands." The messenger stated briskly.

All eyes in the Hall then turned to Aredhel, and she went pale in fear and shame, and said to Meaglin "Alas! Eol has followed us, even as I feared." Then she faced her brother, and took a step toward him entreatingly. "But with great stealth it was done; for we saw and heard no pursuit as we entered the Hidden Way."

She turned then to the messenger in a sweeping, graceful motion. "He speaks but the truth. He is Eol, and I am his wife, and he is the father of my son. Slay him not, but lead him hither to the King’s judgment, if the King so wills." I was struck in that moment, of how in Turgon’s tale of her she had been haughty and proud, but now she was humbled, and I wondered if it pained Turgon to see, glancing at him. If he was, he showed no sign of it.

He granted her request, and the messenger was dispatched back to the Gate, and Turgon gave the Lady Aredhel Ar-Feiniel the seat Ecthelion had occupied in a gesture of restoration, and Ecthelion went to stand with those gathered about the walls of the Hall, a silent audience. I was removed from the seat beside Idril, and the seat brought that Meaglin might sit in it beside his mother.

Thus when all was arranged and right, as it should be, Eol was brought in to stand before Turgon, haughty and sneering even as he was awed by the majesty of the city. Tall and proud, his skin as light and hair as dark as his son’s, Eol smoldered with anger, and hatefully refused to look at Aredhel.

Turgon rose and took his right hand in his own, honoring him, saying "Welcome, kinsman, for so I hold you. Here you shall dwell at your pleasure, save only that you must here abide and depart not from my kingdom; for it is my law that none who finds the way hither shall depart." Eol’s dark eyes blazed with hate and he jerked his hand free as if burned.

"I acknowledge not law law." He sneered into Turgon’s face, his words striking as effectually as if he had slapped the King. "No right have you or any of your kin in this land to seize realms or set bounds, either here or there. This is the land of the Teleri, to which you bring war and all unquiet, dealing ever proudly and unjustly. I care nothing for your secrets and I came not to spy upon you, but to claim my own: my wife and my son. Yet if in Aredhel your sister you have some claim, then let her remain; let the bird go back to the cage, where she will soon sicken again, as she sickened before. But not so Meaglin. My son you shall not withhold from me. Come, Meaglin son of Eol! Your father commands you. Leave the house of his enemies and the slayers of his kin, or be accursed!"

I glanced at Meaglin to see him tight-lipped and unemotional, looking at his father expressionlessly. Stiff with anger, Turgon stepped back and sat back in his throne, taking up his scepter. I waited for his wrath to fall, pitying Eol in the slightest. The man had no idea what he’d just done, truly. Could anyone be such a fool to act so knowingly?

"I will not debate with you, Dark Elf. By the swords of the Noldor are your sunless woods defended. Your freedom to wander there wild you owe to my kin; and but for them long since you would have labored in thralldom in the pits of Angband. And here I am King; and whether you will it or will it not, my doom is law. This choice only is given to you: to abide here, or to die here; and so also for your son." Turgon announced in a low voice, reining in his anger to serve his purposes.

Eol looked at Turgon challengingly, and both remained motionless and silent for a long time, their eyes in wordless duel. From the corner of my eye I could see Aredhel beginning to shake from the strained silence in the air, but Meaglin was passive as ever. Idril too, was silent, watching the combatants warily. Ecthelion beside me did not move, but I knew from the tenseness of him behind me that the silence held much to be watched over and possibly acted upon.

Suddenly his hand flew beneath his robes and flung a short spear at his son, even as he shouted "The second choice I take and for my son also! You shall not hold what is mine!" None of us moved swiftly enough to save Meaglin but for his mother, and Aredhel took the wound in the shoulder. Ecthelion and I fell upon Eol, the guards with us, and we dragged the enraged dark elf out. At the door I paused and glanced up to see Aredhel standing, and took that for a good sign. Turgon spoke coldly to us then, saying "Bring him tomorrow, that he may hear my judgment." And we took him to the dungeon where a room could hold him.

I sought out Turgon, and found him in the room appointed to his sister, where she sat in the bed with her wound bound, Idril at her side, arguing with Turgon, pleading for Eol. I waited in the doorway, silently watching. They argued until evening, and then Turgon wovedoved to mercy for the sake of his sister, agreeing to her terms that she might rest, for her head was aching and she was feverish but refused to rest until she saw to Turgon’s agreement.

He left then, and I with him, while Idril stayed with her aunt.

When we reached his rooms I paused to close the door and he fell across the bed, his arm over his eyes. He was tired, and I knew it. I removed his boots, outer robe and shirt, then rolled him onto his belly, seating myself on his buttocks and rubbing his back with his favorite bath oil. He relaxed into my touch, and was nearly asleep when a knock came at the door, scarce two hours later.

It was one of Idril’s handmaidens, breathless from running. I opened the door and she babbled out the message that Aredhel had fallen very ill suddenly, and could not be roused from her sleep. Turgon was at the door, drawing his outer robe shut as he ran to Aredhel’s rooms, dispensing with proper dress in fear for his sister. I went after him, leaving our room the same mess it had been all day, and the maiden closed the door and gavase,ase, trailing us through the halls.

When I arrived he was on one knee beside the bed, Aredhel’s hand in his own as he brushed wisps of hair from her face. She was as still as death, and Idril sat in a chair beside the bed, watching the healer hover over her aunt. I went and sat beside her, taking her hands in mine, and I caught sight of Meaglin on the other side of the room, watching dispassionately. His seeming indifference was undermined by his red-rimmed eyes and the silvery tear tracks down his lean face. He was glaring at me, resenting my touch with both Turgon and Idril.

I felt sorrowed for him, and would liked to have stood by his side in wordless comfort, but he likely would not have appreciated, allowed or endured that. Aredhel passed in her sleep, and I only knew it had happened when the healer left the room in sad resignment and Turgon wept over his sister’s hand. No one spoke a word. Meaglin bowed his head and seemed to vanish in the room’s shadowed corner, and I pulled Idril into my arms and let her weep on my chest. I too wept, not only because Aredhel was not only a wonderful woman and the sister of my beloved, but also that I hadn’t known her, and that was something I regretted of chance.

Near dawn I picked Idril up in my arms and carried her, sleeping, to her quarters, leaving her in the capable and comforting hands of her handmaidens.

I returned and stood over Turgon a moment before bending to kiss Aredhel’s cold brow, the only final blessing I could give her, besides my comfort to her brother. I took his hand gently from hers, and picked him up, limp and unresisting. He leaned on me and numbly walked back to our rooms. I didn’t see Meaglin as I left the serving women to their duties to care for Aredhel’s body.

Once in our rooms I put him on the bed and rubbed his cold bare feet, wrapped him in the passion-tangled blankets that were now a sad memory of our previous joy, and removed my own boots and robes before crawling in beside him and taking him in my arms.

He wept for hours, and I stroked his hair and hummed soothingly to him until he slept, and I followed him into the warm darkness of sleep, sorrow forgotten for but a little time.
Such a short time.