Chapter Text
Darius arrived at Turgon’s chophouse, and looked around curiously. It was, as promised, very much of Gondor: starkly decorated, with black and white prints on the wall, and heavy brocade curtains in dark red, with dark hardwood tables and chairs.
Thorongil waved from his seat, and then stood. “Ho! Darius!”
Darius grinned at Thorongil. “Thorongil!”
They bowed to each other, and both sat. Darius waited. “You are not going to do the looking and bowing at Elf Home?” he said eventually in a quiet voice. He had been taught this was the custom.
Thorongil shook his head. “No. Only the Ambassador and my father-in-law do that. My parents never bothered. Idis doesn’t bother at home. She—well, she actually thinks it’s a little silly?”
Darius smiled. “This is very interesting.” Then he placed a silk wrapped gift on the table. “Here, honoured brother!”
“Why thank you!” said Thorongil. “What did I do to deserve this honour, my brother?”
“I promised myself and Captain Radnor that if you managed to become Lady Idis’s damat, I would give you a gift of café for the entertainment,” said Darius, grinning. “And so!” He waved his hand at the gift.
Thorongil unwrapped the gift, then sniffed the linen bag, and closed his eyes, and took another deep, appreciative breath. “O, this smells wonderful, Darius. Thank you so very much!”
“It is good,” said Darius. “It is from my father’s estate.”
The waiter arrived, gave them menus and took their wine orders. The menu, as far as Darius could see, featured meat, meat and more meat. He was fascinated, and tried to remember the details for Cyaxares Khan.
“This is the kind of place my Papa likes,” said Thorongil. “I had the lamb with him last time I came here.”
“There is no rice, or salad,” said Darius.
“No. Have potatoes instead,” said Thorongil.
The waiter poured their wine, and Thorongil ordered several small dishes to start.
Darius sipped the wine appreciatively. “Delicious. And how is married life treating you?”
It was as if Thorongil’s face had suddenly been lit by a lantern from within. Darius felt a sudden pang of envy. “Very well, thank you, Darius.”
“Arahaelon did not seem happy, I thought,” said Darius.
Thorongil’s face fell, and he looked into the wine glass. “Well. Er. No. He is not very happy with anything he’s discovered since he got back: the mess with the Khandians, Idis and me—”
Darius made the Haradric gesture that was somewhere in between nodding and shaking one’s head. “Surely he can understand that of course you would wed the Lady Idis, once you had gained her interest?”
“It is a big adjustment, I suppose. It all happened very quickly, without me communicating any of it to him or to many people, really, but I suspect he is a bit cross with me,” said Thorongil, looking exceedingly guilty. “And then of course we’re all upset by the business with the Khandians and … other things … associated with that—”
The waiter came back with the entrees. “Salmon croquettes, little steaks, crab cakes,” he said, pointing at each dish.
Darius tried the crab cake. It was very different to a Haradric crab cake: far less spicy, but he liked it. “This is good,” he said.
Thorongil smiled. “Excellent.”
“We heard Gadrion killed himself.” Darius did not see the point of pretending that they did not know. “He had some honour left, then?”
Thorongil smiled with some difficulty. “You see it like Idis does. In this: she is more like a Rohir.”
“They are quite different to people of Gondor then?” said Darius.
Thorongil laughed. “Very! They went insane at our wedding: dancing and shouting!”
“They sound like fun!” said Darius, savouring the steak. Beef was not a common meat in Harad, and this version had little dollops of garlic butter on it. “And—they like horses, do they not? I am inclined to like them.”
“I did not know you liked horses?” said Thorongil. “Had I known, I would have gotten Idis to talk to you about it. All of her family are obsessed by horses. She is, in fact, looking forward to seeing Haradric horses—”
Darius leaned forward. “She is? Well! Our horses are finer and more delicate than these horses of the North. She will enjoy them.”
Thorongil beamed. “I cannot wait to tell her. Actually, knowing her, she can probably recite the pedigree of every horse in Harad or something ridiculous like that.”
“I should like to go to Rohan one day,” said Darius, thoughtfully.
“You should,” said Thorongil. “I mean to go too. Idis is teaching me the language. They say they will look after me well and hold a feast for me. As long as I can avoid getting tattooed, all shall be well.”
Darius stared at Thorongil and made a writing gesture. “Tattooed? Like … how people are marking the sheep or the goats?”
“This is what my second brother said too when he heard,” said Thorongil.
They ate for a while in silence, and then Darius said, “I will have to go back and visit my family soon too I suppose.”
“Are you close to your family?” said Thorongil.
“No,” said Darius. “I try to avoid them as much as possible.”
Thorongil sat silently, as the waiter cleared the plates and brought the menu back.
“Pork is pig, is it not?” said Darius, inspecting the options.
“Yes, so don’t have it,” said Thorongil.
“I’m not as uptight as a Southerner about it—but I didn’t like it much when I had it once,” said Darius. “Too rich.”
“Would Cyaxares Khan eat it?” said Thorongil.
“Cyaxares Khan eats most things at least once,” said Darius. “I predict, now that he hears of your wife’s role, that he is going to demand a corresponding role, and then demand that he tries all the foods of Gondor. Which reminds me, I must get some caramels.”
Thorongil stared at him. “Caramels?”
“You can’t get them in Harad, and the office is obsessed by them,” said Darius.
Thorongil ordered steak and Darius ordered lamb for the main meal.
“We eat lots of meat in kebabs, but there would also be pastries and rice,” he noted. “Why do people not eat goat here?”
“They do in some parts of the country, just not in Minas Tirith.” Thorongil’s eyes lit up. “If Cyaxares Khan is doing a food tour, he needs to go to Dol Amroth. You would, of course, have been to Dol Amroth—?”
Darius lowered his eyes. “I might.”
“I met your aunt,” said Thorongil. “She’s exceptionally excited about us going to Beyazim. I believe she may be intending to write a letter to your sister.”
“Ah,” said Darius.
“So,” said Thorongil. “It’s a little like the Gadrion situation: you knew he’d hanged himself out of guilt for being a Khandian spy; we know who you are. I don’t see the point in pretending.”
Darius did the half-shake of the head, half-nod gesture again. “Yes. Well. I may speak to my sister when I go home. Can I tell her of the various dramas which have made Lord Arahaelon so upset?”
Thorongil smiled. “I expect you’ve written to the Emperor about those dramas anyway, but I guess you’d prefer to give her the non-diplomatic version in person?”
Darius cut into his lamb. It was quite different to Haradric lamb. “I do not actually know her that well. She was put into the Emperor’s harem when I was but a boy. As I said earlier, we are not a close family.”
“Most of my family is close: I’m the strange one for going to the City and then going to another realm,” said Thorongil. “I think my parents are still upset about it. They tried to persuade Idis that we should stay here, but there’s no more chance of that than a snowball surviving in the Cracks of Doom.”
Darius mouthed, ‘no more chance than a snowball surviving in the Cracks of Doom’: he loved Westron idioms, and collected them whenever possible. They ate for a while in silence. This Westron lamb was a little bland, but he would never confess it to Thorongil.
Then he asked, “Is Lady Idis not close to her family, then? I thought they were all very close.”
“O, she’s exceptionally close to them, but she has always wanted to go to Harad. Always!” Thorongil turned a little pink. “That’s one reason why we had to get married when we did—she thought she might be very unhappy without me—and she really did not want to wait until my next rotation.”
“How very sweet!” said Darius.
“You should put that mint sauce there on the lamb,” said Thorongil. “That’s the traditional flavour.”
“Ah!” said Darius, and slathered it on. The lamb was actually much better with the mint sauce: more piquant. “This is good! I am eating the real Gondor food!”
“You are,” said Thorongil. “I presume you have a proper Haradric cook in your Embassy?”
“Of course,” said Darius with confusion.
“We have some poor Haradrim cooks who have been told to cook food without spice,” said Thorongil. “Our Ambassador does not like spice.”
Darius stared at Thorongil. “What is wrong with him?”
“His stomach is delicate,” said Thorongil, diplomatically. “But it does mean that our food is unfortunately ordinary.”
“You could go to street stalls?” suggested Darius.
“I tried that and got Harad Belly,” sighed Thorongil.
“People can get Gondor Belly too!” said Darius.
“Of course they can,” said Thorongil. “Idis’s brother got very sick as a result of octopus balls here in Minas Tirith, apparently. Lady Éowyn regards this as vindication of her views of eating octopus.”
Darius blinked. “What is wrong with eating octopus?”
“She feels about it the same way some Haradrim feel about eating pork: that it is utterly disgusting,” said Thorongil. “Rohan is inland, if you ever go there. Idis tried to horrify me with baby octopus and rice on our honeymoon in Dol Amroth, but as someone who’s had to have ‘mountain oysters’ in Khand, it’s hard to shock me.”
“I would like to compare what you have eaten with Cyaxares Khan,” said Darius.
“No competition,” said Thorongil. “He will beat me in any eating competition.”
“They do say he was once very thin and handsome, when he was young,” said Darius.
Thorongil squinted. “I can see that. My oldest brother was once thin, but that all changed once he became a judge. He also likes his food. In fact, I think he should be pitted against Cyaxares Khan. His wife likes to get their cook to prepare strange fashionable food, and so I expect he’s eaten all kinds of odd things—”
“I should probably get back to work,” said Darius. “But I am thanking you: this has been most pleasant.”
“Yes, it’s been exceptionally pleasant, honoured brother,” said Thorongil. “Thank you so much for the café.”
“I like it here,” said Darius. “I don’t want to go back home. If we were both in Harad there is no way we could have lunch like this. There is being a freedom here. I understand why the weavers do what they do—”
“We make sure they don’t label their products ‘Haradric silk’,” said Thorongil, defensively. “It must be labeled ‘Silk made in Gondor by Haradric weavers’!”
Darius laughed as they got to the door of the Salon, having split the bill between them. “As I say, I understand what they do. And married life suits you. You seem—more settled?”
“I am,” said Thorongil, smiling shyly. “I did not think I’d ever be this content. O, Idis says hullo by the way. And do talk to her about horses, before you go.”
They kissed each other on both cheeks in farewell, in the Haradric fashion of brothers. Then Darius watched Thorongil walk up the hill for a while, and thought.
For the last several years, since Emperor Artabanus had died, he had been drifting along, not making a fuss. He did not want to attract the interest of his father; in fact, he wanted to avoid Baba at all costs. Baba was an insufferable camel of a man, and neither he nor Amaya, the Empress-Mother, had gotten along with him particularly well. “As far as I can see, Umma is the only person he really cares about other than himself,” Amaya had said, last time he had visited her in the Imperial Palace. “And that is only because Umma devotes every fibre of her being to making sure she does exactly what he wants.”
Darius had shrugged. “That is what keeps Umma happy.”
“Happy?” Amaya had said, with narrowed, grey eyes, disturbingly like his own. “What is happy? I do not understand that concept. I understand being alive. I understand power.”
Darius had shivered slightly. His sister had been changed by the harem. His vague memories of her from before had not been like this. But they had all changed, because of the things which had had to happen. He did not like to think of those things, although he agreed with his father that it had been necessary. It was probably the only time everyone in his family had agreed on something.
Darius now wondered if he needed to take control of his life. Thorongil had grown up in the last few months. Perhaps it was time for him to stop being a boy too, and take responsibility. Could he, at least, hope for some modicum of happiness?