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Elenwe thought of each unknown like a stitch. Knitting was easier than embroidery, though her mother always encouraged her to direct her energies towards the latter. In a way, it suited; Elenwe had hair like yellow thread, and skin as white as silk (and as soft, said Turgon, turning white to rosy pink). She understood the goodness of the art, and its frailty.
But knitting was serviceable, and that seemed like something a girl should care for, too.
Turgon wore the muffler she had made him like a badge of honor. It was blue, like his eyes. This was the web of their future, stretching out ahead—intertwined and certain and serviceable enough to carry her through gossamer dreams.
Each one a stitch then: here, the simple wedding; there, the news to Mother and Father, who would surely be too pleased by the match to question the haste of it. The next stitch—a whole series of stitches, in truth—was Turgon’s family.
She had known them most of her life: Fingon was solemn and often away from home. Aredhel was frightening. Argon was like a little squirrel, soft and tucked in hidden places with his secrets.
She hoped they liked her.
(I shall marry you, you know, Turgon said, still breathing quickly. She felt small but important beside him.
Shall you?
He turned to look at her. His face and chest were flushed. Elenwe almost averted her eyes, and then remembered there was no longer a reason to. Instead, she reached out one of her white-silk hands and laid it, softly, over his heart.
He said, lifting her hand to his lips, Upon my honor.)
The stitches dropped one after another. The fault was not Turgon’s...for Elenwe would not cast blame on him for something that was hers to bear, too. And anyway, neither of them could have predicted that staid Fingolfin, son of Finwe the late councilor, would decide to leave nearly all he had and follow gold and glory west.
Several of his associates and several of his former servants would go, also.
Elenwe’s father would not.
She wept at night, and grew faint and ill.
Upon my honor, Turgon had said, but now he was busy with putting the family affairs in order. There was no ring on Elenwe’s finger. It was April, and then it was May.
Her father and mother were—content. Elenwe’s heart outraced theirs. Her father had found other work; a position in the governor’s office.
I am…I am bound to another. But she could not tell them that. She could not tell them what she and Turgon Finwean had become, loving one another in darkness.
In May—in almost-June, she waited for Turgon to return to her. He sent letters that did not satisfy her. She tried to knit; the yarn spooled in her hands.
“I wish,” her mother said, “That you had taken up embroidery.”
She wanted to answer, I did.
“I wanted to see you sooner.” His hair is a little mussed. His side-whiskers bristle. Elenwe lets him take her hands. She thought she would have words for him; thought she would have words for both of them.
Now she stands, silent and small, waiting for him to keep making promises.
(I do not want to hurt you.
Hurt me? I do not think you could.)
“We are married,” Turgon says grandly. “We are man and wife.”
(But this is later.)
Elenwe is afraid, and has dropped all her stitches. She has never been a great reader. She does not, therefore, know the story of a girl unwinding a thread of hope and salvation, for a boy who could give her the world if only he chose to.
She does not know what happened to that girl; a very unhappy thing, if the old tales are true.
“I—I haven’t been well.”
“What do you mean?”
She flushes. “I haven’t…bled. My stomach is queer and my head is very light—” She is not supposed to know what that means. Mother would be—horrified, and saddened, to know that she knew. How much more, to know what she has done?
She can see this, now. She can understand that no amount of joy will heal the haste.
It frightens her. Dreadfully, utterly…but Turgon takes her in his arms. “You mean,” he says, his voice shaking even as he tries, very hard, to be brave, “You mean that you…”
Elenwe cries.
They are married at an altar that is lit only by the red-tinted afternoon. Elenwe did not know that he already had the rings with him. That is comforting. Their witness is a young priest who narrows his eyes at them. The priest who marries them is older, kinder.
Turgon kisses her afterwards, under the edge of her bonnet. She clings to his collar. They are on the steps of the church.
“Were we—very wrong?” she whispers. The noise of the street keeps them safe.
He tucks her hand around his arm and holds it fast with his. “That does not matter now, dearest.”
“Married?” Fingolfin asks, incredulous, and Elenwe swallows very hard. Fingon is shocked—his mouth has fallen open. Aredhel and Argon do not look as friendly as they used to…or perhaps she is imagining?
(No more stitches.)
“Yes,” Turgon answers grandly, as if he has never been afraid at all. “We shall need one of the wagons, Father, when we reach Ulmo’s Bridge—if it can be arranged.”
“Turgon, this is all very sudden,” his mother cries. Then there is a flurry of voices, in which there is no space for Elenwe’s at all.
Her belly twists and turns. Turgon does not request a wagon to assert some unjust right; he knows, as well as she does, that they shall need one.
Elenwe thought of each unknown as something to be counted, discovered, kept. She was a simple girl; she sees that now. She knew that a lady would not let a man see her, and touch her, as she allowed…
But he wasn’t any man. He was Turgon.
Upon her honor, she will not hurt him.