Work Text:
May 16, 18—
(Translated from Tengwar code)
Dear Rumil,
For ten years you have corresponded with me faithfully, though my promises became falser with each passing day.
I thank you for your patience—and more for your secrecy.
As you know, watchful eyes have surrounded me more than hands of friendship. There was a time—before my loss of last year, which I wrote you of once, and will not write again—when shackles good and ill seemed to bind me to the East forever.
Let this letter renew those promises in good faith.
You remember Finarfin, my father's third son? His eldest child, Finrod, seemed a foppish boy until, two years ago, he set out on an exploratory venture that, if better-planned, might have rivaled my own. Finrod met and befriended native peoples and settlers alike. He eventually reached your coast, Rumil, and there he found a growing craze for gold. I have plied him for tales, and in between his flights of romantic fancy, I have learned much. This, I add to what I knew already.
‘Our’ governor speaks close to the ears of Washington. My father, to his ruin, spoke closely with the governor. But, in using this closeness for the good, I have struck a blow against the self-same shackles such entanglements forged. Through my father's second son I have confirmed that signed deeds—to quite innocuous land—may be procured for those who are willing, so long as they have never taken up arms against the state. Irony, Rumil, is sometimes the stuff of bullets just as much as lead.
Regardless, much of the land made available to him—and to me—is in the territories you know well. My father’s second son has vouched for me. I and my wife and sons will leave at the end of this month and reach Ulmo's Bridge, which crosses the Mississippi south, by early July—if we travel lightly. There, with the aid of the Teleri craftsman, we shall prepare wagons and supplies. Our company will be ourselves, those of our neighbors who will accompany us, and the families of my half-brothers. Fingolfin—the second son, as you know—has been persuaded, and he and his wife and children join us to go west by the first of August. Finarfin has not yet agreed, but I have no doubt that Finrod will be eager to achieve what he sees as the result of his own influence.
My own wife has needed days of my most skillful reasoning before she would quit the farm we built together. Even now, she argues. I am mindful of her grief, while urging her to consider the future of our family. It is a future that demands too much of this sickly state! My sons must have freedom before they can have greatness.
Now, you may wonder, why a seeming alliance springs up between me and my father’s other children, at such a time. Never before was it so, but now, they have at least seen how naught but corruption exists in the cities my father attempted to make our home.
Rumil, your cursed former master has returned. He was not imprisoned for his crimes, as he should have been. He was not implicated in the events of last year. Instead, he speaks soft words and apologies, and the weakling governor, though hard upon the treatment of kin by kin in families not his own, heeds him. Now he has been appointed to orchestrate a westward crawl of metal and progress. He will cover the wide hills and plains with his greed and cruelty, just as he did these cities—these people.
His hatred of me has not abated, I am sure, though he took from me him whom I most loved. Even, I suspect, he has laid his hands upon the gift I brought back. I cannot find it in my father’s house.
While I live and breathe, I will not let him overtake all the free land in this nation, stealing in a like manner. I will stake my claim first, now that I may use the guise of numbers to keep our secret—yours and mine—safe.
When this reaches you, we shall have departed. And before long, I will stand before you, and there, my promises will be kept.
To this end,
Feanor