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“Master Fingon!”
“What is it?” I ask, setting aside my hat and coat. A light rain was falling as I walked, and the shoulder-cape is specked with water. I shake more droplets from my hair, and do not demand that our housekeeper call me by another title. Millicent has called me Master Fingon since I was eleven years old; she did not elevate me to sir or Mister when I reached adulthood, and so I ought not expect that she would take notice of my entry into the study of medicine, and the accordant maturity that I hope comes with it.
“You have a visitor. In the parlor.”
A visitor—for me—is rare enough. Had I gone abroad to Cambridge as some (my father) said I should, I might be entertaining other students. Perhaps I might even have as guests some young ladies whose heads are turned by a doctor-in-training. But after a few terms of lectures , during which we could only observe from our seats, I found myself dissatisfied, and my hands useless. I wished to be a doctor who was, in fact, trained. For some time, therefore, I have spent as little time as I can at lectures, and as much time as I can shadowing the learned footsteps of Dr. Olórin. I see little of polished society.
Dr. Olórin is a curious fellow. He is, without a doubt, the most skilled and progressive surgeon in all the city. I would follow him anywhere, I think—but there are several people in this world of whom I would say the same. As I only near completing my twentieth year, I think it better not to swear with certainty on what I will and will not do with the rest of my life.
I enter the parlor; I shut the door behind me. I see a gold-headed cane leaning against the sofa, and the impossibly long legs of my cousin, clad in impeccably tailored trousers, stretched out upon it.
“Maedhros,” I say. I am glad to see him, even while my head aches, and every inch of me seems to smell of camphor. Olórin still holds stock in the stuff, though he has nearly come to blows with the other physicians of his former guild over the subject of bloodletting. Olórin insists it has no merit; it is based on faulty science. Yet camphor we will have, he says, until the end of days. As I said, he is curious.
“Fingon, welcome!” my cousin answers, in that rich voice of his that is only lazy when it is also dangerous. I wonder what the danger is now; something aimed more at himself than me, I imagine, for that is how it has been for years. That is how it was before our fathers nearly came to deadly blows, and there has been little time for comfort after. “You’re home late. Were there so many at death’s door?”
“If one day you need my aid, I might refuse it,” I say, without meaning it. “I’ll have you know I never wish to see a bottle of liniment again, but an old man’s joints are happier for it. So must I be.”
I take the chair opposite the sofa. From it, I can see the dueling pistols hanging above the mantel. My father would not have them removed, even when one of them was raised against him by a man he still calls brother.
Maedhros, by lying on the sofa, has positioned himself so that he cannot see them at all. He considers me from beneath the sweep of his radiant hair, which he wears a little too long for fashion. When you are as flawlessly composed as he, I suppose, you need not care for the whims of the public. He looks like a perfect dandy at the moment, as he always does when in town, but I know that he and all my cousins will stump about in thick boots and worn breeches when they return to their country home upstate for the summer.
“Doctoring must be exhausting.”
“It is,” I agree.
“You ought to have studied law.” He stifles a yawn elegantly with the back of his hand. I do not like to see him lounge so, as if he has no cares in the world. I know he has. I know such cares must have brought him here, at half-past ten.
“You ought to have studied law.”
“I’m far too preoccupied.”
Preoccupied, of course, with the indefinable, unattainable business of being his father’s son.
“Of course,” I say, for I never quarrel with him if I can help it. I lace camphor-soaked fingers together and wait for him to say what he means to. What he came here to say.
“Have you seen Finrod?”
The question surprises me. “Yes.” My golden-haired cousin has grown up in his years away—he is a rugged mountain-man now, Mama says. I was overjoyed to see him, to hear of his strange and daring exploits, far beyond the rivers we have mapped, over ranges and plains. “He came to call a week ago.”
“He had dinner with us last night.” Maedhros twists a lock of hair around one finger. “Maglor’s invitation, of course. Eager to have fodder for a new song.”
“You must have been glad to see him.”
“Indeed.”
“And he you.”
“He certainly had much to say,” Maedhros answers, smiling too charmingly. “He spoke of the riches of the west. A land of plenty.” The smile wars with something in his eyes.
My heart still beats. It beat when my father stared down the barrel of a gun. It beat when our brave, outspoken grandfather was shot on the steps of his home.
Finwe. A warrior on the streets of Philadelphia and then New York, but a wearied peacekeeper in his own house—for he married an Englishwoman, my grandmother, and earned his first, full-blooded Irish son’s eternal scorn.
And how much are the sons of sons to blame? Yet I know, and have known in my heart for years, that my uncle will never be happy in a city that strives to grind his people into dust. While Irish blood runs and suffers, he will not rest, the carefully protected wealth of his own father notwithstanding.
I understand, now, why Maedhros came tonight. “You will go west?”
(My heart still beats.)
“I believe we shall. My father has been—seeking, tirelessly, to learn all that Finrod could tell him and more.”
“And is it a secret?” I ask, “To make you come like a thief in the night?”
He blinks almost innocently. Almost. “I’m telling you.”
“With permission?”
“Fingon.”
“With permission, then.” It must always be so. Where my uncle’s ambition is at stake, every one of his sons performs his choreographed moves perfectly. I have seen my cousins dance; I have no doubt of their talent.
I wish I had no cause to doubt their trustworthiness, at such times—least of all the trustworthiness of the eldest, my dearest friend.
“My father cannot bear to stay here forever,” Maedhros says softly. He is staring upwards, but I know not at what. My cousins have eyes that capture both shadow and light; even when they are trapped in velvet-draped rooms, I have seen them gaze afar and call to mind the sky.
“Since Grandfather’s death,” I say carefully, my thoughts of a moment ago running like water. I could say, since he was nearly brought up on charges of attempted murder, but I do not, though my eyes flicker towards the dueling pistols on the wall.
“He will need…” Maedhros corrects himself. “He will appreciate your father’s assistance.”
He will admit to neither need nor appreciation, I think. So he sends you.
“What manner of assistance?”
“A lack of legal interference. Assurance to any—interested authorities that my father does not need to be watched. Followed.”
Governor Manwe, I know, distrusts Feanor. It might seem strange to the old man whose joints I rubbed today that the governor has any care at all for the inner workings of one family, but Finwe was among the most respected leaders of the city council—certainly the only Irishman in such a position—and his death, followed by unrest between his sons, caught our benevolent governor’s eagle eye.
My father does think him benevolent.
The descriptor would never leave my uncle’s mouth, nor any of my cousins’, unless in bitter jest.
“You wish me to speak to my father.”
“Yes.” Maedhros has not moved during the whole of this conversation, except to yawn, and to slip one arm behind his head. How he can lie so without creasing his silk waistcoat, I do not know. “Yes, I wish to convey my father’s hope, that all his…kin will let him go.”
My eyes fall to his pocket-watch: an eight-pointed star, Celtic in intricacy. My uncle’s make.
“What riches,” I ask, very quietly, “Does your father believe the west will bring him?”
Maedhros’s eyes meet mine. He answers, just as quietly, “Gold.”