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Bauglir should build a better guardhouse.
Gothmog is hardly particular about these things; in his first term as an overseer, down in swampy Georgia, he had a shack that crawled with snakes and things sometimes worse than snakes. But here in the west, their fortress is blasted out of rock. With Utumno burned, with retreat a matter of necessity, he and his men must become familiar with the underground as they wait to resume their work. They must grow used to chips of stone and wisping dust falling overhead, not to mention the discovery of unexpected water sources springing up under bedrolls and behind barrels of pork.
Then, too, were it not for their oil lamps and tin-framed lanterns, it would be pitch-dark.
The pay Gothmog takes—enough gold to keep him more than comfortable, in liquor and women and anything else he desires—goes a long way toward making the dank quarters palatable. What's more, it's a temporary state of affairs.
Still, Bauglir has acquired plenty of slaves. He should use them.
If circumstances were more favorable, Gothmog would use the boy at his feet—not as a slave, but as a bargaining chip. Thanks to his own impatient bullet, however, the boy can only be a peace-offering.
Morning is breaking at last, by the telling of Gothmog's pocket watch if by nothing else. He's been waiting, not because Bauglir sleeps—for all Gothmog knows, he doesn't—but because the man has business at night, with pale plants and foul vapors, with creatures that remind Gothmog of the south and of nothing he has ever seen.
Gothmog will not disturb him at this. Now, he prods the toe of his boots against the boy's ribs. This elicits not even a groan.
Whatever elixir Bauglir makes to knock men flat works wonders.
“Ho,” Gothmog says, wondering if sound will stir him. “You there.”
Nothing.
The Irishman’s eldest. He can’t be much past twenty, with lips chapped by nervous chewing and a girl’s long lashes curling against his freckled cheeks.
Gothmog stirs, rising to his feet, pushing aside the trencher of cornmeal he left unfinished half an hour ago.
Time to face Bauglir, and pay up, in copper tresses rather than in gold.
You’re on orders to take me alive, Feanorian had said. He was right.
“Murphy!” Gothmog roars. “Get in here—” But when the man comes to the door he scuttles , breathing a little hard, and he says,
“Sir, Master Bauglir is here—”
But then Murphy is shoved aside by a long, pale hand and Gothmog folds his arms over his chest, ready. Bauglir fills the doorway, with shoulders as wide as Gothmog’s own, though Bauglir stands a few inches taller.
“Cosomoco.” Bauglir calls him by his given name, one he hasn’t used in years. Gothmog won’t let the man’s smile creep under his skin. Not when he has work to do.
“Bauglir.”
“You have something for me, I hear.” Morgoth does not carry a lantern, but his face is very white, and Gothmog can see it shift, elastic in expression and amusement and swift-striking rage.
“I do.” Gothmog steps aside, so that the boy slumped on the rough floor is revealed to Bauglir, in what little light filters in around them.
Bauglir inhales softly, almost in wonderment.
“I thought of hanging you from the front gates,” he murmurs, “For taking Feanor’s beating heart out of my hands. Now… I am almost inclined to forgive you.”
Gothmog has a gun in his belt, if it comes to that, but he doesn’t think it will come to that. “Where do you want him? I’ll have my men drag him upstairs or down.”
“No—” Bauglir shakes his head, lips pursed. “No, no. I’ll take him myself.” He steps forward, and he looks down for a long, savoring moment.
Then he stoops, and lifts the boy in his arms.
Feanor’s son is long-limbed, thin but strong. Gothmog saw him fighting Mairon with all the ferocity of a cornered animal. Gothmog half-admires a man who will fight for his life, even if it is not much of a life.
And yet—Bauglir carries him as if he weighs nothing at all. He turns in the doorway, shifting the body. Knees and neck hang limp; the bright hair sweeps over his ever-black sleeve. “Cosomoco, my good fellow,” he says. “Are you coming?”
It is a long climb to Bauglir’s stronghold. Gothmog sneers in private distaste at the gleaming frames bedecking the hollow halls, at the pelt furs that serve as lush, dead rugs underfoot.
The most impressively finished portion of Angband—that is what Bauglir calls it, with his love of naming—is the study that is cratered in the surface of the mountain itself. The windows are plated with heavy glass carted from the East. Gothmog wonders how it survived the journey; he does not care to ask.
Here, too, is Bauglir’s massive desk, and little else—but for a chair that does not fit the room at all. It is rough wood, fitted with leather straps. Gothmog has seen its like before, though he has had not had much use for such intricate contraptions.
A whipping post and a length of chain are quite enough for his ends.
Bauglir does not release his charge, though. Nor does he bind him to the chair that must have been brought up for that very purpose. Instead he stands for a long moment, gazing down as a father might at a child fallen asleep.
(Gothmog must remember this, how strong Bauglir is under those starched collars and long coattails.)
“Tell me about him,” Bauglir commands, his voice still too gentle, too calm.
“He’s a fighter,” Gothmog answers. It is the first point that comes to mind: this boy-man, pinning Mairon the wild hunter, into the mire, with the force of his hands and knees alone.
“No.” Bauglir shakes his head. He walks slowly, heavily to the chair and lays the body down in it at last, arranging arms and legs like a doll’s. Then his pale strong hands turn the boy’s face up towards him, and Gothmog watches, heavy-lidded, as Bauglir’s cold fingers (always cold, Gothmog knows without touching them) trace the slack, faint-flushed cheeks.
“No?”
“He’s only a child,” Bauglir says. He sounds satisfied. “A child.”
“He almost killed Mairon.” Gothmog decides that he’s not about to be murdered, and takes the opportunity to slip a wad of tobacco under his lip. “Had that little bastard down and out.”
I wouldn’t have been sorry to see him finished off, neither.
“Good heavens,” Bauglir murmurs, smiling again. “A little fire in him, to match this hair?” He runs both hands through the clean, gleaming mane, twining it back from cheek and ear on one side. “A little fire, and a good deal of blood. Since you killed his father.”
Gothmog sucks at his chew.
“Do you see that pretty trophy on my desk?”
On Bauglir’s desk is a crystal pitcher, an endless mess of papers, and a skull. Gothmog blinks.
“Cosomoco.” Bauglir sounds almost giddy. Giddy, from a man as large and black-eyed as he, leaves a rather skin-crawling sensation. Gothmog wants to slap away mosquitos, but he knows there are none to be had. “Do you know whose skull that is?”
It takes Gothmog about a minute, to puzzle it out.
“Christ,” he mutters, at last. “You dug him up and lopped it off?”
“That is the general idea.” Bauglir lets go of his captive’s hair and lifts one slim hand instead, flexing the knuckles and tracing his fingers along the lines of the palm. “Oh, this is not like Feanor’s hand at all. Though I imagine it to be a favorite among ladies.”
“I’d wager all of him’s a favorite among ladies.” Gothmog needs to spit, but he’s still on good manners. Peace offering, and all. “With a face like that.”
Bauglir chuckles. “You have the rights of it. See here!” And he beckons over, his crooking finger tape-worm white, and Gothmog stumps across the floor until he stands behind the chair’s high back.
Half tenderly, Bauglir pushes aside the locks of hair that straggle, still damp, against the boy’s neck. There, on smooth skin, is a puckered scar wider than the pad of Gothmog’s thumb. It healed ragged, in a manner that suggests—
Teeth.
“Hell,” Gothmog shifts the chew to the other side of his jaw. “Who done that to him?”
“Thuringwethil.”
Gothmog isn’t surprised, by that.
Bauglir taps a fingertip against the ugly mark, and explains, “Feanor was always dreadfully afraid of every shadow. It was one of the things I hoped to enjoy myself, in time—but let us not quarrel over the past. He sent his eldest son to learn the difference between sinners and saints, and how do you think he accomplished it?” He pauses, not quite long enough for Gothmog to propose an answer, and continues, “By taking pleasure with every whore he could find. Women are useful for information, if little else.”
“And Thuringwethil?”
“Was more than his bargain, though she said he gave her no trouble. Perhaps he wanted a little comeuppance. A Catholic, you know.” Bauglir lets go, and the copper head lolls forward. “Old habits die hard.”
Gothmog is growing bored. He half-expected Bauglir to wake the prisoner with another of his skilled concoctions, but he seems content to prattle and examine. Gothmog does not feel pity, but he would rather let the boy fight. It would be more enjoyable to watch.
“I did not bring you Feanor, though you have his head,” he says abruptly. “Will the son serve?”
“Always to the point, since you understand little else.” Bauglir sounds fond, but fond, with him, can quickly turn deadly. “Yes. The son will serve. Maedhros is his name, you know. I think it very important, that he comes here with a name.”
Gothmog cares not for names. He prefers numbers, branded somewhere clearly visible. They keep the chattel in check.
He clears his throat, and Bauglir, catching his meaning, waves a spindling hand. “Go on, you lout. He’ll be awake soon, and we must be ready.”
“We?” Gothmog pauses on the turn of his heel.
Bauglir—Melkor—nods. “His father and I.”