“Tell me about Gondolin.”
Thrangorn gave Erestor a sideways glance. “You were there. What can I tell you that you do not already know?”
“I only know what I saw; I am sure that you saw things I never knew about. And, you lived there long before I did. Were you in Nevrast?”
Thrangorn nodded and picked up a plate that Erestor had just washed. “I was born in Nevrast. I was very young when we traveled to Gondolin.”
“Tell me what that was like.” There was very little to do beyond cleaning, eating, and sleeping. There was a chess game and a few books, brought by Aphasus on the third day that the elves were in the house. The following day, an embroidered, quilted bag full of half-finished needlepoint and patches meant for a quilt arrived for Eliel. There was also a desk with paper, ink, and brushes – quills were not something they were trusted with.
The game was taken immediately by Saeldan, and the books were distributed somewhat unevenly, with Ardinir taking the majority of them. The desk was in a common area, but Erestor found there was nothing he wanted to write about or draw. That left nothing but quiet thought and conversation, and quiet thought left him depressed and despondent. Thrangorn, Anglin, and Eliel had observed this, and purposely took turns making sure that one of them was with him throughout the day to keep him talking or listening.
Thrangorn, though not a particularly experienced speaker, did his best. “It was rather boring, really. I mean, when you are a child and everyone is telling you to go out and play so that they can pack and move things and not to go too far so they do not lose you, it is rather boring. I suppose that it was exciting for everyone else.” Thrangorn placed the dish atop a pile and picked up a spoon, expertly drying and polishing it. “I do recall how excited Lady Aredhel was compared to everyone else. She was practically dancing through the streets. To her, it was not a march as we moved, it was a parade. If only she would have known that Gondolin was to be a prison to keep her safe.”
“It is too bad what happened to her.” Erestor picked up another stack of dirty dishes and lowered them into the soapy water. “It was too bad about all of them. I remember so many of them when they were children.” Tears created ripples in the water. “I held Turgon the day he was born.”
The rag used to dry the dishes was held out to Erestor. “Why not let me finish up while you—“
Erestor closed his eyes, shook his head, and kept scrubbing the remnants of their morning meal from saucers and plates. “I remember so many of the growing up in Valinor, trampling parts of my gardens, or sneaking apples from the orchards. I may not have always agreed with Turgon, but he was... he was always such a determined little boy. Once he became king, it just seemed as if nothing was ever going to stop him. I remember how different he was from Ecthelion and Thranduil,” recalled Erestor. After the final bowl was rinsed of residue and placed upon the counter for Thrangorn, he retrieved another towel. It was first used to dry the tears that had not slipped down his throat to disappear behind the leather collar, and then to assist Thrangorn with his task. “Manwe help me if anything ever happens to Thranduil.”
“Is he the only one who remains from those days in Valinor?” asked Thrangorn.
With a sad shake of his head, Erestor replied, “There are others, scattered far across these lands. Thranduil, though, was the closest I ever had to a brother, and the closest I ever will have. His sons I would protect as if they were my own. His entire family is very dear to me.” Again, his chin trembled, but he held his composure. “He and Ecthelion were the best of friends when they were growing up. When Laiqalasse joined us here, Ecthelion welcomed him like a member of the family. Ecthelion was always so strong, and he has always had that playful side to him, but once he was grown, no one could argue his kindness or his benevolence. He could have been a king if he had wanted.”
“Everyone thought the best of Ecthelion – even servants in his house did, and that is not always the case. Did you know that I once worked in the House of the Fountain?” Thrangorn smiled at the curious look he received from Erestor. “Yes. That was where I learned my trade – I apprenticed there. I was just a lesser servant in those days; a companion.”
“A companion? To whom? Not to Ecthelion,” guessed Erestor.
“Oh, no. Not to Ecthelion,” Thrangorn confirmed. “To his young ward, though, I was not to treat the boy as such. It was to be assumed he was as old as he said. Those closest to him knew different, of course.”
“And this boy... I assume he had a name?” Erestor found his hands slowing, his work plodding along now.
Thrangorn nodded, picking up a bowl to dry as he reminisced. “That he did.”
- - -
“Glorfindel? Glorfindel?” Thrangorn methodically looked through the house, hunting for his young charge. He practically stumbled over him in the sitting room. “Glorfindel, what is the matter? What are you doing here?” Thrangorn knelt down and gently shook Glorfindel’s shoulder. “Is something wrong?” he asked when Glorfindel stirred.
“Mmm? No... it is?” Glorfindel rubbed his eyes and blinked as he looked around, blond curls bouncing about. “What is going on?”
“I might ask you the same question. Thrangorn helped Glorfindel to his feet. “What were you doing in here?”
“Sleeping,” answered Glorfindel innocently. “Does Lord Ecthelion need me for something?”
“Need you for... goodness, no, he is still away for the day. What were you doing down there?”
Glorfindel looked at the floor, where a pillow taken from the couch still was. “Down there?” he parroted.
“Yes, down there. Where else? What were you doing sleeping on the floor?” asked Thrangorn. He was trying to stay patient, but his patience was obviously wearing thin.
“I was tired.” Glorfindel bent down and picked up the pillow. “I did not want to wrinkle the cushions on the couch in case Lord Ecthelion brought guests home.”
“So you thought it would be more appropriate to have them enter and find a pristine couch with someone sleeping on the floor in the middle of the room? Why did you not go up to your bed?”
“I did, actually, but the maid had already made the bed. I would have felt dreadful to have ruined her work.”
“Did you not get enough sleep last night that you felt you needed to take a nap so early in the day?” asked Thrangorn
“Nay,” replied Glorfindel. “It was just that I woke up from such a wonderful dream, and I wanted to see if I might be able to continue it to the end.”
Thrangorn sighed. “What am I to do with you?”
Glorfindel shrugged.
"What would you like to do today?" asked Thrangorn.
"Uhmm..." Glorfindel's face took on an expression of extreme thought. "Uhmm..."
"Shall we go and visit Lord Galdor? He has expressed interest in having you come and see what you might like to borrow from his library."
"Oh... uh, I just read some books yesterday. Three or four of them, all in a row, right before bed."
Thrangorn highly doubted what he was being told, but said nothing regarding it. "Perhaps you might be more interested in doing something outside? Something that would consist of some physical activity of some sort?"
"Maybe we could take the chariot out. If you think that Ecthelion would let us."
"Have you been practicing much lately?" asked Thrangorn.
Glorfindel shook his head. "I have spent much more time learning combat fighting as of late. I would really love to have a chance to ride one of the horses or race the chariots."
Thrangorn bowed his head. "As you wish. I will see to it that the chariot is ready for us by noon. We should be able to take it along the western roads."
"Excellent!" Glorfindel gathered up his stockings and boots and, after Thrangorn was not looking, snatched up the tiny rag doll he often carried in his pocket from where he had been sleeping on the floor.
As promised, they ate lunch quickly and headed right out to the stables. Two of the chariots were hitched with horses, and the stablehands waited patiently for Thrangorn and Glorfindel to slowly stroll across the field to reach them. "Which do you prefer?" asked Thrangorn when they finally did reach the horses.
"I do not care. You choose," offered Glorfindel, though his eye was on the chariot that had one white and one cream horse hitched to it. Thrangorn chose the other, and climbed onto the back platform, his chosen creatures a pair of brown and tan speckled steeds. Glorfindel happily took up his position on the other chariot, and the two eased their loyal assistants away from the stables and towards the roads.
"I think we should practice your turns," said Thrangorn once they were on the main road that crossed from north to south on the western side of Gondolin. "You appeared to be a bit shaky last time, and practice makes perfect, young master."
"That seems like a good idea to me," agreed Glorfindel. He pulled back on the reigns, and coaxed his horses behind Thrangorn so that they would follow him back and forth and around the roads. The exercise was very beneficial for Glorfindel, who had not had very much luck previously making the turns, especially when Ecthelion was riding with him. He listened carefully to all advice that Thrangorn gave to him, and found that midday was not a time when there was much traffic, thereby making it easier to travel about on the roads. "Do you think we might move to an area that is a little more populated?" he asked after an hour or so of perfecting the technique.
"I see no harm in that." Thrangorn led him back into the city, where the streets were more heavily trafficked, and some crossways had guards monitoring them. "Let us try here," Thrangorn suggested.
In these places, there was a little more care to be taken. Judgment had to be made when to turn and when to wait, with so many people going every which way. Sometimes, it meant that Glorfindel was left behind, and it seemed he was further and further behind each time.
His turns going right were perfect; his left turns were in need of some improvement. Glorfindel groaned to himself when he saw Thrangorn execute a precise turn to the left, just before two mule-drawn carts and a rider on horseback came through in the opposite direction. He dreaded having to repeat the move, now that the markets were closing and people were on their way home or on their way to a market quickly before it closed. He sighed and pulled up on the reigns, letting the horses know to wait until the road was clear.
Uncountable carts, chariots, carriages, and riders went past. Some were hasty; others took their time moving along. Glorfindel carefully watched, keeping an eye not on who was going past, but on who was yet to come along. A gap appeared to be in sight, with someone herding goats quite a distance back. Glorfindel clicked his tongue to get the attention of the horses, who were beginning to doubt that they would be making any turns at all. “Ready, boys,” he said, and the horses slowly moved forward. As the final rider rushed past, Glorfindel shook the reigns, and the horses clip-clopped forward.
Only a few moments later, Glorfindel happened to look to his right, and practically fell off his platform in shock. The herd he had seen was now quite a bit closer than he had thought them to be. He slapped the reigns down hard as the lead goats began to charge, heads bent down. Without any ability to control the situation, Glorfindel let go of the reigns and in one move cut the ropes that tethered the horses. Without the ropes, the horses kept going, bewildered at their lightened load.
The impact was hard, and it happened all at once as six or seven of the goats hit the side of the chariot at the same time. Glorfindel had moved to the far end of it, so when they crushed the wooden barrier, it did not cause him harm. The chariot was forced sideways more than it was built to be, and the wheels tore off and snapped. The loss of the horses left it teetering a bit, and Glorfindel, shaken up and now unexplainably on the ground next to the chariot, blinked in confusion and did not move or stand until a passerby ran up to him and tugged on his arm. “Sir! Sir! You need to get up, and get out of the way!”
Glorfindel stumbled off to the side, and looked back in a daze. “I need to find Thrangorn,” he said. “He needs to find the horses. I let the horses go.”
“We need to find you a healer,” said a soldier who was on patrol in the area. “Unless Thrangorn is a healer, you probably will not have much need for him at the moment!”
“I need to find the horses...” Glorfindel saw a woman off to the side, surrounded by the goats that had charged him. She was crying, and he managed to make his way over to her. “Are you alright?” he asked as he felt the side of his cheek. It was warm, and he saw now that there was blood on his hand when he pulled it away.
“This is your fault! Oh, how am I to get them to market on time!” She continued to carry on and Glorfindel was soon whisked away by a second soldier who appeared on the scene.
The soldier made some notations in a book that he had, and then asked, “What were you doing with Lord Ecthelion’s horses and equipment?”
“I borrowed them. He allowed me to,” explained Glorfindel.
“I see.” The soldier continued to write. “How often have you used this chariot?”
“Probably only a few times. I was waiting to go, and I saw that the path was cleared, but when I turned the goats came upon me much too quickly,” he explained. He found that his ear, jaw, and chest were beginning to hurt, not to mention his knee. “I thought – I know I had time to clear the way, but they began to run and they had been walking.”
“Are you aware of the fact that she still had the right to cross before you did?” questioned the soldier.
“Well, yes,” said Glorfindel, “But I still thought I could make it in time.”
The soldier looked up over his book, his narrowed eyes otherwise expressionless. “If there is any damage to her livestock or to her, you will be responsible for it.”
“I know. I am sorry, but I thought—“
“Sorry does not pay the fine.” The soldier tore a sheet of paper from his booklet and handed it to Glorfindel. “You have one month to pay the fee. The details are found on there.”
“Do... do you know how much it is?” asked Glorfindel nervously without looking at the sheet.
The soldier nodded toward the piece of paper that Glorfindel held. “All of the details are on there.”
Glorfindel turned and watched as a group of elves moved the chariot out of the way and onto a grassy area. He cringed when he saw Thrangorn dismounting from the chariot. As the older elf approached, Glorfindel hung his head. “We should have gone to that library you told me about,” he said. “Now, I have a fine, I have ruined Ecthelion’s chariot, I do not know where the horses are, some lady is going to want me to buy her whole herd as retribution—“
“Calm down a moment, young master,” begged Thrangorn. “Rest assured; Ecthelion is able to buy another chariot. That one was fifteen years old, and never managed to win a race for him. The horses are safe. They came trotting right up to me, which alerted me that something was wrong. Be thankful you are as well as you are,” said Thrangorn.
With a small smile, Glorfindel nodded. “I suppose you are right.”
“Oh my...” Thrangorn paled a bit. “Has anyone called for a healer?”
“Someone... mentioned... Thrangorn, what is it?”
“You have a cut on your face, and probably some on your head as well. There are spots of red in your hair.” Thrangorn motioned that Glorfindel should bow his head, and he did so. “We need to have someone take a look at you.”
“Is it bad?”
“You have blood in your hair. I am no healer, but I cannot imagine that to be a good thing.”
Glorfindel winced as Thrangorn pressed in a few places on his scalp. “Maybe you are right.”
“This way, young master,” insisted Thrangorn. “I know of someone nearby who can help.”
- - -
“Was he alright?” questioned Erestor. He had long since finished drying the dishes, and was now leaned back against the basin while Thrangorn finished putting the silverware away.
Thrangorn gave Erestor an incredulous look as he set a teaspoon into its place. “Of course he was.”
“I meant, was it anything serious?” Erestor closed the door of the cabinet where the plates and bowls were kept once Thrangorn set the sixth and final saucer onto the pile.
“Nothing that the healer was not able to fix,” Thrangorn assured him. The dishes now put away, he set to drying the counters while Erestor began to sweep the room, corners and edges to the center. “The blood on his face was dried by the time we did finally make it to see a healer, so they decided not to sew it up. The cuts on his head were mostly superficial, but it still scared me to see his blond mane stained crimson.”
“Did it take him long to get back into the saddle – figuratively speaking, I mean. I know I was not the most enthusiastic to mount a horse again after my first misadventure,” admitted Erestor.
“Actually, he probably would have foregone any further use of horses if I had not pressured him gently to do so. He was very put off by the idea, in part because he did not wish to see the horses harmed,” explained Thrangorn. “He was extremely worried about that, though, I am sure that his own wellbeing was on his mind as well. He spent the remainder of the day worrying about what Lord Ecthelion would say. Lord Ecthelion, well, he was so concerned about Glorfindel and cared very little about the chariot.”
“Yes, I can imagine that,” said Erestor.
Thrangorn sat down at the table and watched Erestor scoop up the dust from the floor. “The next day, Glorfindel rested, and spent much of the time on the couch he did not want to wrinkle. On the day after that, I started the day with a suggestion that we go to see the horses, so that he could see that they were fine. Once we were in the stables, I suggested he stand upon one of the chariots, just to keep his bearings with it and such. This continued, until finally I had him back out on the streets after dark, when I knew that the roads would be mostly clear.”
“How did he do?”
“He was fine. A little uncertain, but as well as could be expected.” Thrangorn rubbed the back of his neck and fiddled with his collar. “Lord Ecthelion was concerned that if he did not get back to it, he would avoid it whenever possible. It was imperative that he continue his training.”
With their chores finished, Erestor joined Thrangorn at the table. “I hope things went smoothly from then on.”
“Hardly. Less than a month later, he had another scare.”
“Not another accident,” said Erestor.
Thrangorn nodded sadly. “He was out on his own, just on his horse, on his way to see Lord Galdor. A doe darted out in front of him.”
“My word! Did the horse rear up and throw him?”
“The horse never saw the deer – I never asked if the stallion was wearing blinders or what the reason might have been. In any case, Glorfindel did see the animal. It was early in the morning, and she was standing still at the side of the road. He did not expect her to move as he approached, but she ran right out in front of him the moment he was passing,” recounted Thrangorn.
Erestor moved the placemats on the table around to different spots in order to have them arranged to his liking. “Was the horse injured?”
“Yes, and badly, though it was not put down. His legs were fine, and that is always of greatest concern. Glorfindel nursed him back to health, and eventually the stallion was able to be ridden again. The deer was trampled over, but hobbled off into the woods on three good legs. No one ever saw her again, as far as we knew, though Lord Ecthelion himself went off to hunt for her.”
“And Glorfindel?”
“He stopped using that road. The two accidents happened within sight of each other.”
“Oh, my. I can not blame him for that.”
Thrangorn nodded. He looked out one of the large windows, and observed the activity of the orcs. “Losing Gondolin has been difficult for me, too. Losing everyone I knew and everyone I cared about. Aiding Master Salgant when he took his own life is a moment I will never shake from my memory. But I am trying not to dwell on those moments. I know it is harder for you, having known everyone for so much longer, but there must be many happy memories of them,” said Thrangorn.
Erestor nodded. “I can recall many.”
“Then recall those times, Erestor. Do not dwell on the haunting memories of this year, but on the times you once had. I think it might help.”
Still melancholy from his earlier thoughts, Erestor attempted a small smile. “I will do my best to try that,” he promised.
Unforgivable by Zhie