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“I am sorry I could not be at dinner tonight,” Maedhros says, before he has even laid aside his caped coat and gold-headed cane.
“I’m sure Grandfather was grateful for your company with the Council,” Maglor replies, rather languidly, and he does not lift his head from his sheet music.
“Did I miss anything very important?”
“At Fingolfin’s?” Sometimes Maglor is as dry as their father. “No. Well—except that Fingon is dying.”
Maedhros freezes with one hand still ungloved.
“Fingon is not dying,” Finrod proclaims, sitting up from where he was draped, looking rather dead himself, over the back of Feanor’s finest moire-covered sofa. His face is very flushed.
Maedhros looks more relieved at the news than shocked at the sudden appearance of his cousin.
“Oh...” Maglor glances at them both, frowning. “Of course. I meant metaphorically.”
“Well, fuck,” Maedhros snaps, throwing both gloves at Maglor’s head. The kitchen-maid chooses that moment to enter with tea, and she colors rosily.
“I beg your pardon, Sallie,” Maedhros murmurs, smooth as silk. Her blush only deepens.
Finrod observes mildly, when she goes out again, “I do hope, cousin, that you’re begging no more than her pardon.”
“Don’t be vile,” Maglor sniffs, while Maedhros laughs. “Good God, Finrod. Why are you still here?”
“I’m partial to your sofas.” Finrod taps his cheeks with long, graceful fingers. His usually sleek hair is tousled like fine golden straw. “There. I’ve done enough.” For the benefit of Maedhros, he adds, “I’m trying a new experiment—letting blood rush to the head for intermittent intervals of about five minutes apiece. It’s supposed to cleanse the mind.”
“Wine will make your blood rush, and cleanse your mind twice over,” Maedhros counters. “At least I’ve found it so.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” Finrod grins. “I just feel dizzy, to be honest.”
“Mm. Wine does that too.” Maedhros slips out of his coat, leaving only his snug waistcoat and billowing shirtsleeves, and sits down beside his fair-haired cousin. “Now, Mags. Buck up—what’s the matter with Fingon?”
“Tut, tut,” Finrod interjects, before Maglor can answer. “You shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Now he has to.” Maedhros can be stubborn when he wants to be.
“Oh, hell.” Maglor sighs dramatically. “Fingon’s lovesick, that’s all.”
“And he didn’t...”
“Tell you? No—and consider yourself lucky. There’s no poetry in it, Maitimo. Neither verse nor couplet.”
“There is a little poetry,” Finrod muses, “In every kind of love.”
Maglor ignores him. “You weren’t there, so I was obliged to listen over our uncle’s searing bitter coffee. Egads!”
“No Irish steeping for our poor lover of teas.” Finrod’s voice is warm with affection. “Maedhros, Fingon didn’t tell you because he’s afraid of what you will think. That’s all.”
“Afraid?” Maedhros blinks. “Of me?”
“Hardly, cousin. But you know Fin. Did he tell you he was destined for the holy cloth a hundred years ago or something of that ilk?”
Maedhros arches a brow in the dawn of realization. “Yes, actually. Exactly that.”
Finrod snaps his fingers; Maglor rolls his eyes. “Well, there you have it,” Finrod says. “He thinks he’s broken some eternal vow—you know the Fingolfians and their word.”
Maedhros does, and he smiles. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Father’s going to speak to Dr. Curunir.” Fingon seems on the verge of skipping down the sidewalk, before remembering with each new step that he must maintain a semblance of dignity. The result is a rather stilted gait.
Maedhros stifles a laugh. “Do you think he shall listen?”
“Oh, everyone listens to Father,” Fingon says, gleeful. “I mean—” He stops rather awkwardly, and Maedhros waves a hand.
“I’m sure it is a settled thing, even now.” They are nearly at their favorite tearoom—well, Maglor’s favorite tearoom, which has become something of a cousinly stamping ground. “Fingon, I—”
“What is it?” Fingon stares at him, instantly concerned. “Are you well?”
It stings Maedhros a bit, that Fingon knows enough to ask that, but he quickly shakes his head. “I’m perfectly sound. No doubt you can see that just from looking at me.” He preens a little, for effect, and then is serious again. “No, I wanted ask if you were well—if there was something troubling your mind. You know you can tell me anything, don’t you?”
Fingon, in answer, turns an alarming shade of scarlet.
“Oh, dear,” Maedhros says. “Never mind. You needn’t—”
“I knew Maglor would tell you.” Fingon shuffles his feet like a small boy. “I should have been man enough to, but I just—it’s all a joy to me, except when I remember what a betrayal it is to God. And to you, because I confided in you, and so—”
“Fingon, you didn’t make a vow. You were twelve.”
“Saint Tarcisius—”
“I’ll make a vow here and now to pull my own ears off if I hear another mention of Saint Tarcisius.”
Fingon cracks a smirk. “Alright. So you don’t think—”
“No, of course not!” Maedhros slings an arm around his shoulder so that they can rollick like drunken sailors. “Tell me all about her.”
“She’s dull.”
“Fingon told you that?”
“No, I met her and discovered that.” Maedhros drags his hand over his face. “Finrod, don’t taunt me.”
“I never taunt,” Finrod says kindly, placing a plate of biscuits at Maedhros’s elbow. “You met her at a dance?”
“It was damnably difficult, too. I couldn’t dance with her, lest she think I take an interest, but I had to talk with her—and I don’t understand it. I truly don’t.”
“What about her—”
“So buttoned up I couldn’t get a good look. But Fingon doesn’t care about that.”
“I wasn’t asking about that,” Finrod chides. “But what of her accomplishments and pursuits? Is she musical?”
“She is pretty but unremarkable, doesn’t sing, doesn’t dance well, surrounded by friends as insipid is she is…what can he see in her?”
“Oh, you know Fingon,” Maglor says, stalking into the room with his dressing gown draped over his shoulders. “He probably saw her in church, and light beamed through the stained glass and fell across her hair.” He stops, fingers to lips, as if inspired.
“That is going in a poem,” Finrod whispers.
“Jesus,” Maedhros groans, and when horrified gasps greet him, he adds, “…have mercy on us.”
“Her name is Hester?”
Fingon nods.
Maedhros has played many a part. He can play this one. “And when did you first… know?”
“I saw her at Mass,” Fingon says wistfully. “And you won’t believe it, Maitimo, but a ray of sunlight came through the glass—”