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Across the town square, my sister is sitting in the sun.
I have never been distrustful, but now I imagine a vengeful villager—one of our mother’s own people—running her through with a fishing pike. I quicken my pace, and call her name, before my doubts have gnawed through me like worms through an apple.
“What?” she snaps, as if she has realized—too late—that following us in secret, without our parents or our parents’ permission, has led her only to pain. “I am waiting for Aredhel.”
We have barely been able to convince one of the innkeepers to take us in. Only when my aunt Anaire fainted did a mustachioed proprietor relent.
Artanis sits outside that very inn, now. “You should stay inside,” I chide, taking her hands in mine. “We must be careful.”
“I do not look like them,” she answers, perceiving my fears. My sister is sharp-eyed as well as sometimes sharp-tongued, for all she is fifteen. “You do not look like them. And our grandfather is the mayor. Why have you not met with him?”
I have tried. For three days, now, I have tried—but all without mentioning our family connection. I would not bring dishonor on the life he has made here, though I assume many of the Teleri know the truth already.
“I hope to meet with him today,” I answer.
She looks over my shoulder, as if she sees far. “I think you shall.”
Turning, I catch sight of constable uniforms. But as they approach, they do not unholster their guns, and another knot of doubt loosens itself in my chest.
“Finrod Felagund?”
“Yes.” Though I do not expect trouble, I shield Artanis with my body all the same. If I had been there, at the bridge—
But no. I am not my cousins.
“The mayor has agreed to speak with you.”
The men are skeptical. For once, I do not think it is of the way I wear my hair or the fringed leather of my boots and coat. I do not supply them with further information while I follow them, and they ask me no questions. I look over my shoulder only to make certain that Artanis has left her perch and returned to the safety of the inn.
Mayor Olwe—my mother’s father—sits behind a desk with a bottle of wine at his left elbow. It is early in the day for drinking, but my knees are weak enough that I would welcome it.
I take the seat he offers.
When the door is shut, he says, “Finrod. It has been many years.”
It has been eleven. I was still a boy when last we met. No doubt he does not recognize that pale wisp of a thing, so eager to be loved, in the sunburned man before him.
(Of course, sometimes I barely feel like a man. Sometimes the wisp overtakes me, and only the mirror lies.)
I say, a little haltingly, “Thank you for meeting me.”
“I wish we met on a happier account,” he murmurs, and sighs very deeply, as though knowledge of his world weighs heavily on his shoulders.
I can understand that.
I learned, these past few days, that you can cross an entire continent and still know very little of other men’s hearts.
“Well?” he asks. “Of what should we speak, in privacy?”
“Grandfather,” I say, thinking for once not of Finwe, but of this near-stranger, “Uncle Fingolfin knew nothing of this plan. Nothing! He even”—and I am glad to be alone, unshadowed by my uncle’s gaze, for I do not wish to bring further shame on him—“sent much of his own gold, all of which is now gone.”
“I do not doubt,” Olwe says, hook-scarred hands flat against his desk—“that they are like only in face. But how am I to convince my people? Fourteen men, Finrod. A dozen families, fatherless, brotherless, or both.”
I am not Fingon. I settle nothing with fists. But bile burns hot in my throat anyway, and I think of how I gazed wearily, weeping with joy, upon the western sea, and felt no pain.
I would have shared it with anyone.
My own kin would rather kill than do the same.
“Their crimes are very numerous,” I say, “and may yet be punished.” I force myself not to think of Maedhros—Maglor—with nooses around their necks. Maybe they would ask for a firing squad. Maybe—I shudder, disgusted by the calculus my uncle would doubtless urge on them to the bitter end. What, he would have them ask, is the proudest death?
“You are Earwen’s boy,” Olwe says gently. He must see past my rugged gear and think me weak and young. And I am both those things—this I know all the better from my travels. “Ask what you will, and I will grant what I will.”
“Permit us,” I manage, “to exchange the coaches for the wagons, as agreed.”
He nods. “That may be possible, with my word to vouch for you.”
It will not help his popularity with his people. I bite my tongue to hold back stutters of gratitude, and add, as calmly as I can, “I would ask also that we are allowed to remain and earn enough money to buy supplies. There is a long journey ahead of us.”
But Olwe is shaking his head. “That is harder,” he says. “The wagons, you see, guarantee your leaving.”
I feel my face flush. How we must seem, to this bereaved town—salt in their fresh wounds! I saw this hatred on the faces of some of the natives whom I encountered—men, women, and children who had been thrust from their homes, forced away from lands they cherished, shamed into survival instead of life.
And not all of them survived.
Fourteen men.
“The wagons, then,” I say, and I stand, and I bow, because my grandfather is a just and generous man, and I am young. “I thank you, sir. I am sure my uncle will agree to leave as soon as may be arranged.”
“You will have to go farther North,” Olwe answers. “And ford by barge. Ulmo’s Bridge was the only one of its kind.” His jaw tightens with grief. I can do nothing for him.
“We are at the Alqualonde Inn.” I bow again. “If you need to send word.”
Word is sent to my uncle instead of to me, and for this, too, I am grateful. My grandfather honors my uncle by treating with him directly. Fingon and I accompany him to the wagon yard, though I do not know what sort of impression my cousin will make. His face is still black and blue.
Uncle Fingolfin reviews the wainright’s work soberly, describing the carriages and making plans for where they will be left.
Fingon and I hang back. I look at the sturdy lengths of pale timber and imagine them trees again. How I should love the soft canopy of a forest overhead!
“They must have come here,” Fingon says, in a strange, choked voice.
I forget the thought of forests and realize what he means. Yes, the Feanorians must have scoped out what they would take before they took it. It pains me, too.
“I am sorry,” I say—not because it is my sin, but because I know that Fingon is suffering.
His shoulders slump, his chin tucked almost against his chest. “He gave me his word,” he mutters.
“He has…perhaps…” I can think of no explanation that excuses their conduct. His conduct—our eldest cousin, our fondest friend. “I never saw him break it,” I say, as if such a contrast will lighten the mood. I try for levity again. “Not even when he lost his trousers in a game of cards.”
Fingon was studying for his exams at that time. His head snaps up. My trick has worked: he is momentarily diverted. “What?”
“Oh, yes. He had deuced luck, almost always, but that night—” I shake my head. “He handed them over with a flourish, and I begged an extra gown off the daughter of the house—”
“Women were present?”
Fingon is so easily scandalized.
“It was…their parents were abroad. The governess was ill. You know. Are you going to let me finish the story?” Across the yard, I see my uncle shake Losgar’s hand.
Fingon huffs.
“So there we were, with a gown instead of breeches.”
“And he wore it home?”
“No.” I laugh. “He took my breeches, and I took the gown.”
Fingon grins. It is like a ray of sun, and I am giddy with victory for having parted the clouds. But then the sun is gone. “Because it was Maedhros,” he says. “And you’d do anything for him.”
Our eyes meet.
“Yes,” I say, for I am my father’s son as well as my mother’s, and I know the hurts of our family well. “I’d even be a fool.”