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It was Makalaurë’s idea, and I was glad for it. He is soft-spoken and soft-hearted, but all the sons of Fëanáro save one are jealous. Makalaurë knows as well as I do that if we do not slip away quietly, in the silver-gold of dawn, we will have to take every last one of my cousins with us.
Maitimo blinks heavily, when wrested from sleep. “Why so early? What desperate task awaits?”
Makalaurë’s lip curls in the scoff even he reserves for his brothers. “What stole your sleep from you, that you are so sluggish now? A maiden?”
Maitimo laughs, slow and easy. “Never just one.”
We all laugh, beneath our breath, for even the walls have ears in my cousins’ house and Aunt Nerdanel still believes her youngest sons are in danger of corruption by idle jest. She would get on well with my father, in this respect, if they met more often. My father shares Uncle Fëanáro’s dark, wry humor, but not his occasional bawdiness. Uncle Fëanáro, when in his cups, is a sight to behold.
“Hush, and come along,” Makalaurë urges. His hair is twisted in an elaborate knot at the base of his neck, ready for riding. “Findekáno was good enough to saddle your horse.”
Two hours later, our victory is complete. We have escaped the possibility of Tyelkormo, with whom I would surely waste the day bickering, or of the twins, who are still quite as childish as Arakáno.
I am not usually so hard-hearted. It is only that being the eldest takes a great deal of patience, which I value, and a great deal of bitten-back disappointment, which not even the best of us love.
I am grateful, I mean to say, for a chance at freedom.
“Here,” Maitimo says at last. Once he dragged his bright eyes free of sleep, halfway through our ride, he took the lead. Now, we have reached a cliff’s edge, overlooking a glen so green my heart aches.
We lie beside the pool that bubbles above the thundering falls—I with my harp tucked against my chest, Makalaurë flat on his stomach, studying the dark soil and fresh growing things, Maitimo staring at the sky.
We talk first of nothing, and then of eating, and from eating follows hunting, and from hunting follows death.
I do not like to think of death. Perhaps I am nearer to it than my bright cousins; perhaps I fear it more than they do, though I know it less. They are hunters and swordsmiths and their father’s mother walks no longer among the living.
I am a pampered prince, whose kin all remain.
“Tyelko never misses his mark,” Makalaurë says, “Yet Moryo did that day. The stag groaned, and it was like a song—a fell song, and one I would not commit to music.” He shudders, but his eyes glint grey like my uncle’s eyes, and I know that he is fascinated by what he fears. “I wonder what it would be like to die.”
I half-hope that Maitimo will tease him away from such a thought, but instead a smile crosses my eldest cousin’s face. A smile—sharp and almost fey. “I have wondered that for years.”
“I should hate worst of all to die by fire,” Makalaurë muses, his nimble fingers twisting braids into the grass. “To think of skin and flesh blackened, melting from bone…”
“Ah, but it would be over quickly.” Maitimo rolls on his side and the fall of his hair is like a wave of flame itself. No wonder he dreads it not. “Nay, I think it would be worse to die slowly—or not to die at all, but to starve to desiccation. A grasping near-death, and all alone.”
“Yes,” Makalaurë agrees. “It would be worst, to die alone.”
My tongue is heavy in my mouth. I have nothing to say. I feel rather than see Maitimo’s gaze flick towards me, and he sits up. “You are so heavy-hearted, Káno,” he says, ever confusing the two of us by calling out the same name, and then quickly his hand dips into the pool and splashes Makalaurë full in the face.
Makalaurë roars, more warlike than I have seen him since boyhood. I am helpless with laughter, but I manage to roll away from them and what is sure to be the ensuing melee, lest I be crushed.
Makalaurë is no match for Maitimo in height or strength, but he scrambles to his feet and throws his full weight against his brother. Backwards they topple, into the bubbling pool, and I am afraid once more—I, Findekáno the Valiant, so often afraid.
I fear that they will be dragged by the current, locked in each other’s arms, over the lip of the cliff.
I fear that they will fall.
But Maitimo is strong and Makalaurë is clever and they pull themselves out of the water unharmed, except that they are both now drenched from head to foot.
Makalaurë’s hair hangs like pond weeds, but Maitimo’s is smooth and dark as blood. He even looks princely like this, with his tunic plastered against him and his boots squelching as he walks.
It is no wonder that we all worship him as we do.
“Sometimes,” Makalaurë says, when he has spat out a mouthful of water, “You are as much a child as our little brothers.”
“They learned all their tricks from me,” Maitimo answers slyly. I do not think I have seen anyone surer of his own light—and I would think it undimmed ever, but for the few times he has told me of his doubts.
Doubts of his fitness as a brother, as a leader.
As a son.
In Laurelin’s light, mingling with his, those doubts seem as faded and inconsequential as cobwebs. My cousins sit down with me, and Maitimo grins.
“You escaped our fate, Káno,” he says, to me this time. “Shall we toss you in for good measure?”
“I have done nothing to deserve it,” I answer, “And I hold my harp, as you see.”
“We would not risk hurt to your harp,” Makalaurë hastens to assure me, always the soonest to be serious. Yet, I like him better than the rest of his brothers—save, of course, the eldest. “Would we, Nelyo?”
“Far be it from me,” Maitimo answers carelessly, flinging himself on the soft grass again, “to destroy such a beautiful thing. But let us imagine I am in danger of forgetting its beauty. Will you not play, Káno?”
“Which one?” Makalaurë sounds irritated; he has his harp too.
“Whichever one of you is not busy with the honor of plaiting my hair.”
“Such vanity,” Makalaurë murmurs, but he shifts to sit behind Maitimo’s head, lifting the heavy wet strands into his lap. I take this as my cue and cradle my harp. I have not Makalaurë’s skill—no one does—but I am revered among my own people, whose desire to see the house of Fëanáro bested at every turn sometimes overmatches the accuracy of their judgment.
I play and sing, and I do not sing of death but of home—laughter and good drink, hearth-fires that are as red as Maitimo’s hair. Russandol have I called him, since my youth—and I am young still, but old enough to know that it was I who named him such, not Tyelkormo.
Makalaurë’s hands move in silent song, twisting and braiding locks of hair that brighten as they dry. Maitimo shuts his eyes, content, and I could stay here forever, with the two friends I love best.
We are Noldor, I remind myself, the thought stitched deep beneath my song. We will never die.
I am Findekáno, and though I am not always Valiant, I have nothing to fear.