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It was not like Bard to be late, and neither was it for Thorin to be patient. The freshly-crowned king should have been here well before Thorin, armed to the teeth, as was his wont, with parchments and quills that fit clumsily in the once-bargeman’s hands, more adept at oars. The only feathers his hands were used to, he’d admitted one day, scribbling down an addendum to a treaty, ended in arrowheads, not nibs.
Thorin paced the room, hands clasped at his back, pausing to glance out the window every time he reached the far corner and seek out Bard’s face. But Bard did not appear and the shadows lengthened, crossing the sidewalks and kissing the first steps of the nearest bridge.
Enough of this.
Thorin marched out of the room, leaving the wine and smoked freshwater mussels untouched. The guards at the door – one man, one dwarf – leapt to their feet at his approach, playing cards and die hastily pocketed. Thorin huffed angrily. Even they had gotten tired of waiting.
Curses started running through his head as he plodded down the stairs two at a time, his boots landing heavily on the wood. His steps were echoed by his guard struggling to catch up, but Thorin did not slow down. He barreled out of the house that served as their neutral ground and set his course towards Bard’s house. He was going to give that waterlogged reed of a man a piece of his mind – loudly, vehemently – when he found him.
The guards outside Bard’s house – for house it was, too comely by far for a king, but the man would accept no more – told Thorin that he was home. They made as if to stop him, but Thorin just shouldered past them – their frames and protests weak in the face of his rising anger – and bounded up the steps. The strength of Thorin’s fist shook the wooden door in its hinges. He barely let a breath pass before he redoubled his efforts, pounding on the door as if it were a particularly stubborn horseshoe under his smith’s hammer. “Bard! By my beard, if you don’t open this door I will tear it down.” He was just about to give the door a third beating when it swung away from his fist.
The look on Bard’s face froze the curse had been poised to fly from Thorin’s lips. “Stop it. Come inside if you must, but stop your racket.” Bard hardly glanced at Thorin, seeming distracted, and as soon as Thorin was inside, his guard stationed on the steps, Bard kicked the door shut. Without a word, he crossed the foyer and flew up the stairs, leaving Thorin to fume alone.
For want of any other ideas, Thorin followed Bard’s steps and found himself on the second floor landing. He had never been here, in the private corner of Bard’s life, though Bard had invited him into his home a handful of times for a drink by the fire. A murmur down the hall to his left guided Thorin’s steps to a half-open door. He heard a weak, high-pitched whine, as if from one of those dogs the men of Lake-town kept for pets, followed by Bard’s voice, too low to make out the words.
Hesitantly, Thorin pushed the door open further and took a step inside.
It was a bedroom – a child’s bedroom, with toys strewn over the floor and propped up by the windowsill. There was a chair in the corner laden with jackets and coats and a blanket that spilled to the floor. By the wall, beneath the window, was a narrow bed, the sheets kicked off and crumpled at the foot of the bed. Bard sat beside it, crouched on a low wooden chest, the sides ornately carved and inlaid with gold leaf. Thorin recognized his handiwork and shook his head at the sight of Bard’s rump so unceremoniously set on such a kingly gift.
All thought of the finer points of diplomacy flew out of his mind when Thorin spied two thin, knobbly-kneed legs on the bed. The legs tensed, toes flexed, and the room was filled with another high, aching whine.
“Papa.” The word stretched out into another whine of pain.
Bard’s hands fluttered helplessly over his child. “I’m here, little tiddler. [1]”
“Papa.” This time Thorin recognized the voice of Bard’s youngest.
“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Bard’s voice came out soft and calming, but Thorin recognized the tight control behind it, had forced his own voice to take on a similar reassuring steadiness, though sharp blades stuck at his heart and throat.
Thorin cast his eyes to the ground and waited as Bard coaxed Tilda into sleep. Bard sat beside her for a while longer, once her eyes had closed and her breath came steady, albeit with a harsh whistling, before turning his head to the doorway. Bard’s gaze rested on Thorin for a moment, his expression blank, as if he could not quite fathom what he was seeing. “Still here?”
Thorin merely ducked his head in a small nod and waited.
Bard turned back to his daughter, rubbing his face then pausing, watching Tilda sleep, his hands forgotten over his mouth. Gently, he reached for the pile of cloth at the foot of the bed and stretched the sheet out over her, folding it carefully over her shoulders. He kissed her on the forehead before standing and walking out of the room, one hand barely touching Thorin’s shoulder as he ushered the dwarf down the hallway.
Bard stopped at the top of the stairs, leaning his elbows on the railing and gazing down at the foyer. The door to Tilda’s room was open, and it was clear that Bard would not move out of earshot in case she called for him.
“I missed our meeting,” Bard said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I should have sent a messenger. I’m sorry.”
Thorin remembered his rage over Bard’s absence, how he’d pounded on the man’s front door, and wondered how loudly the noise must have echoed in this still house. “No matter,” he whispered back, and moved to stand beside Bard, forearms on the railing. He watched Bard, who still stared unseeing at the darkness below, out of the corner of his eye.
“How is she?” Thorin asked.
“In pain,” came Bard’s curt reply. “Fever aches, and her breath troubles her.” Bard wrung his hands over the railing and said nothing more for a time. Thorin did not prompt him.
Abruptly, Bard dropped his head between his arms. “Out with it, then,” he growled.
“Out with what?” Thorin turned to stare at him.
“The meeting. The – whatever it was we were to discuss. You came here to hound me about it, did you not?”
Thorin did not deny it, but was at a loss as to what to say.
Bard continued, his words taking on a tone of biting anger. “That’s all you’re here for, isn’t it? Never known you to be patient. You near broke down my door to talk business, so let’s talk business.” Never once did Bard raise his head, or turn to look at Thorin, but instead kept his face hidden between his arms as he leaned over the railing.
Thorin studied Bard, his ears catching the same tightness in the man’s voice he had heard before, in the child’s room. “Not now.”
Bard echoed him mockingly. “Not now? ‘Now’ is all you know.”
“Your child is sick, and you are –” Thorin cast about for the most diplomatic word he thought Balin might use. “You are distracted –”
“Distracted?” Bard turned to Thorin, glaring down at him. His eyes shimmered wetly in the dimness. “You think me distacted? You – you dwarves must in truth be made of stone, to care so little –”
Thorin cut him off, his voice a sharp whisper. “We are flesh, just as you are.” He took a step closer to Bard, head thrown back. The heat of anger rose in his chest, but he quashed it down, remembering the pain of ghost blades. “And children are just as dear to us as any race.” Bard seemed about ready to retort, but Thorin stopped him with a raised hand. “I know how you feel,” he said, all harshness gone from his voice.
“Do you, now?” Bard sneered. “You have no children.”
“If you believe that, then you do not know me at all.”
Bard blinked at him, his anger stopped in its tracks by the thought of two young dwarves, one golden haired, one black. “No,” he said, “I suppose I don’t.” He rubbed at his face again, as he had beside Tilda’s bed, heels of his hands digging into his eyes, and sighed. With his anger gone, it was easy to see the pain beneath.
And the exhaustion.
“Have you slept?”
Bard seemed startled by Thorin’s question. He shook his head and resumed his position over the railing.
“Eaten?”
“No.”
Your other children?”
“Staying with old Dreda – cloth merchant, one what does all the blue dying you’re so fond of.”
What a small town it was, thought Thorin. “My compliments.”
Bard shrugged. “She’s nice enough. Agreed to take in Sigrid and Bain for a few days, until Tilda’s out of the worst.”
“And you have been tending to Tilda alone, then?”
Bard bristled. “I know how to take care of – ”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Bard returned his gaze to the foyer far below. “Aye. The healer’s come round, but there’s naught much else she can do that I can’t.”
Thorin let Bard contemplate the floor while he gave him a shrewd once-over. He forgot, sometimes, that men were not as hardy as dwarves, but even he could see Bard was in poor shape.
“Let me tell you what is going to happen now,” Thorin said, his voice brokering no argument. Sure enough, Bard’s head swiveled to stare at him, but the man’s lips stayed pursed in a tight line. “You are going to eat, and you are going to sleep, and you are not going to be alone in this house. No,” he raised a finger, stopping Bard’s protest. “What you’re doing is the best way to guarantee you will fail in your watch. Throw blankets on the floor beside her bed if you must, but sleep. I’ll see to the food. You haven’t a cook, do you?”
Bard stared at him, gaping, until he caught up and the words made sense. “Um, no. No, I sent them all away. They were all…bowing.”
Thorin rolled his eyes. “It comes with being king. Never mind, I’ll fetch them, see that you’re fed. And your girl. Now go,” he said, pushing on Bard’s side. “Set up a cot.”
Bard stumbled away from Thorin’s push, eyebrows bunching together in confusion. “But – what – “
Thorin didn’t let him finish. “You’re worse than my sister,” he muttered, shoving Bard further down the hall. He glared at him until Bard finally turned and walked down the hall, disappearing into Tilda’s room. Thorin waited a moment longer until he heard the soft scrape of a chair being pushed back, then made his way downstairs.
He stopped by the front door, catching his guard and Bards’ at yet another game of cards, and barked an order out to one of them to go fetch the king’s servants.
“But – but he said –”
“Never mind what he said,” snapped Thorin. “He’s saying differently now.”
By the time he made his way back up the stairs to Tilda’s room, a cup of tea and a hard roll of bread hastily stuffed with cheese, Bard had laid out a spread of blankets on the floor and resumed his position on the wooden chest.
“Here.” Thorin shoved the plate under Bard’s nose. “Eat.”
Bard took the plate without looking at him, balancing it on his knees and mumbling out a “thank you”.
“Tea,” continued Thorin, holding out the cup. This time Bard said nothing as he took the cup from Thorin’s hand.
“You’ll have your staff back under your roof soon,” informed Thorin, adding, “They’ll be quiet.”
Bard nodded, head bowed, and chewed slowly on the bread. Tilda’s wheezing breaths filled the silence.
“She’ll recover,” Thorin assured Bard. “Three, four days – perhaps more, for Men – is the usual course of this disease.”
At this, Bard looked up at Thorin. His eyes were shining, brimming with tears that threatened to spill over. “Thank you.”
Thorin clapped him on the back. “Next time, send a messenger.”
[1] A small fish (especially a stickleback or minnow). Also a young or unusually small person or thing.