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“And what have you been up to, while I’ve been away?” Gwindor asked loudly, stooping through the doorway. Belle and Russandol both looked up, she blushing a little and he still too pale, no matter how he was finally sitting up on his own. Russandol tracked Gwindor through the room with his eyes, like a wary animal might, without turning his head. It was not many days since he woke properly from his fever, and though Russandol insisted he felt better by the day, he always took terrible care to hold himself still when Belle came to change the bandages.
The filthy cotton, peeled away from the gouge in his side, was laid aside in the dust beside where Belle sat. There was still some blood on it, like a dark blossom, but it was not saturated as it had been the first few days after his beating. Belle was holding a new scrap of cloth to the wound, bright with new blood as she cleaned out the healing flesh, but even from his distance Gwindor could tell it was not as bad as it had been. Russandol was clutching the side of the bedframe, his fingers white with the strength of his grip. Still, when he saw Gwindor, he smiled, breathing sharply through his clenched teeth.
“Missing me, lad?” Gwindor asked as he limped forward, nodding to the boy’s death-grip on the bedframe. Russandol’s smile twitched still sharper a moment as he stiffly shook his head.
“Not at all,” he gasped, licking his lips and nodding towards Belle. “Belle has been distracting me. With lessons.”
“Lessons?”
“Sticks told Russandol I speak Portuguese,” Belle said, still a little flushed. “He asked if I would teach him some words.”
“All our friendship and you never taught me any foreign talk,” Gwindor remarked with mock outrage, kneeling beside the bed. He held out his hand unasked for and Russandol’s own fingers lunged for it immediately, clinging tight.
“Why don’t you ask Russandol to teach you some of what he has learned, then? Russandol, tell Gwindor something useful while I’m busy.”
“Ah,” said Russandol. His grip flinched tighter, as Belle began dabbing at the wound again, and his brow furrowed.
“I don’t—Ah. —Bom dia. Gwindor.”
“What’s that mean then?”
“Good morning, I—I think?”
“That’s right,” Belle affirmed, with a small smile. Russandol swallowed, shutting his eyes as Belle bent closer over her work, one of the medicine vials Bauglir had provided balanced in her left hand.
Gwindor, seeing that spasm, tsked exaggeratedly.
“There you go talking nonsense again. Ain’t morning anymore, Russandol.”
Belle tipped out a little of the antiseptic into a clean rag, which she balanced upon her knee as she restoppered the vial. Then, she began to dab the liquid carefully over the worst of the burns covering Russandol’s neck and shoulders. Despite her care, his healing skin crackled and shifted, the peeling edges making Gwindor itch sympathetically just looking at them.
“Try again and teach me good evening, Russandol, go on,” Gwindor teased, timing the distraction for just as Belle, having reapplied antiseptic to the cloth, pressed it to the open wound in Russandol’s side.
Russandol did not tell Gwindor good evening. Instead, his odd Eastern accent far more pronounced than was usual, he swore at him.
That surprised all three of them. Russandol’s bright eyes startled open, mortified, and more than a little frightened. Belle snatched her hand back, looking frightened herself.
But Gwindor only laughed. Russandol flinched again—at the noise, this time—but then he smiled once more, tentatively, and he breathed out slowly, as Belle finally set the rags aside.
“That’s more useful than teaching him polite parlor talk, Belle,” Gwindor said. “How do I curse, in Portuguese?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Belle said calmly, but with a grotesque twitch of her lips that meant she was smiling now, too. “Why do you think I would know how to—“
“Merda,” said Russandol, as Belle pressed a new compress to the wound. She froze, eyebrows rising. Russandol licked his lips again, and looked torn between apology and amusement.
“I knew some sailors—once. It was easy to remember, because it was so near the French.”
Gwindor shook his head, fighting back laughter. He leaned in to help the boy sit higher so Belle could begin winding bandages around his torso again, the exhausting process nearly done.
“So near the French,” he repeated, snorting. “Well pardon your French, Russandol, and right in front of a lady, no less.”
“It’s all right,” Belle said, a little strangely, as she bent her head to pin the bandaging closed. “I knew some sailors, too.”
“Does it hurt badly, lad?” Gwindor asked as he helped Russandol lie prone again, easing the blanket out from behind his back. He was watching the boy narrowly, but Russandol was damn good at hiding what he felt, when it was inconvenient. “I can beg more spirits from the mess, if you think—“
“Does your shoulder hurt badly?” Russandol asked back, slightly breathless, “with having to do twice your share of the work without me?”
“Of course not,” Gwindor immediately answered, very gruff—and then scowled, seeing the sly, pleased look on the boy’s face.
“So that’s how it is, is it,” he growled. Russandol did not answer; he only turned his head against the cot and closed his eyes, still keeping hold of Gwindor’s hand. Belle unrolled the blanket he had been leaning against, laid it across the threadbare sheet already covering him, and busied herself with clearing away the soiled bandages. When Gwindor tried to move to help her, she shook her head firmly.
“You sit,” she ordered, getting stiffly to her feet. “I’ll be back to take a look at your shoulder too, so don’t you go anywhere and make me have to hunt you down, Gwindor. You know I’ll do it.”
He sat there, sulking and immobile with his hand trapped in Russandol’s sleeping grasp, until Belle returned. Her brats tried to skulk in with her, crowding at the doorway, but when Gwindor pantomimed frantically that the invalid was asleep, Belle hastily shooed them out with whispered explanation, closing the door on their outrage.
Gwindor tried not to look smug as she crossed the room to the cot, reaching for his shoulder. Belle, despite all her practicality, had a woman’s irrational fondness for small children, even wild and violent children. It was not generally so easy to persuade her to tell them no.
He winced as she began probing at the bad joint, massaging gently with her thumbs.
“You are getting to be good friends,” Belle whispered, only a little teasing. “You and Russandol.”
Gwindor scoffed, looking at the sorry mess of copper curls and sunburn upon the cot. “Nonsense,” he grumbled. He rolled his bad arm slightly, so as not to disturb Russandol’s hand, and winced.
He didn’t know what Belle was looking at, but her hands moved slowly, thoughtfully, against the ache in his shoulder.
“I’m glad,” she said.
It isn’t until Gwindor shifts his weight to ease the growing cramp in his shoulder, readjusting his grip on the knife in his clammy hand, that he remembers the stars.
Celegorm’s throwing stars, forgotten in his pocket, and digging now against his hip where he leaned up against the map-room’s stone wall. Even through the protective felt packet Celegorm had wrapped them in, they prick evilly against his skin, and he straightens hurriedly, pulling them out of his pocket with his free hand.
You can learn to throw with the other arm, can’t you? Celegorm had asked.
Gwindor hefts the weight of them in his palm, and huffs quietly. He could likely learn to fling them well enough, given some time, but when he had promised Celegorm as much he had been thinking of considerably more time than a couple hours.
Less than two hours since they were all gathered in the firelit hall, exchanging gifts, celebrating Christmas! The whole world can fall apart that quickly, that absolutely.
(No—that’s wrong. Gwindor has had his whole world fall apart before, and it happened a hell of a lot quicker than that. This is—not that. It isn’t going to be.)
“Gwindor.”
Russandol’s voice is hoarse. It makes his name into an ugly, harsh sound.
Gwindor looks up, from his palm to Russandol’s drawn, white face.
“Gwindor,” Russandol rasps, “what is that, in your hand?”
Gwindor closes his fingers. Behind him, around him, on the other side of the stones, the gunfire cracks; the shaking roar of the mines hasn’t sounded in maybe twenty minutes now. Could be they’ve all been tripped; Gwindor doesn’t know how many there were.
If the fighting has spilled indoors, if it’s come too close for the mines to trigger—
(No. He hasn’t heard anything in the hall. The defenses are holding.)
“It’s my Christmas present,” Gwindor answers, mirthlessly, but then he does try to grin, to seem relaxed, because he does not like the look on Russandol’s face. “From your brother, in fact. How he knew I could use a knife tonight of all nights is beyond me—you would tell me if Celegorm is a fortune teller, wouldn’t you? He doesn’t seem the type to me but I’m not particularly learned in that sort of thing.”
Russandol does not smile back.
“Not the knife,” he says. “What you took from your pocket.”
He is still looking up with wide, dilated eyes, and the children clinging to him are looking up too, their eyes just the same. Frog is still pressed against Russandol’s chest and rib cage, and Sticks is nestled up against his side, the sleeve of his shirt caught perhaps subconsciously in her hand. Gwindor wonders suddenly if this is what they looked like, in the woods, before Gwindor failed to save them.
The thought is sickening. He can’t look straight at it.
So he answers: “Throwing stars,” before he can catch himself, and then he feels worse.
Because: “Give me one,” Russandol says immediately, fool that he is.
“And me,” Sticks whispers, her sharp child-voice so unlike its usual brashness Gwindor almost doesn’t catch it. He glowers at her.
“Now look what you’ve done, Red,” Gwindor snaps, shoving the damned stars back in his pocket. The hallway is still tomb-silent. It’s his own heartbeat thumping in his ears, not the sound of bullets. “Sit quiet, for God’s sake. You’re riling up the brats.”
“Who’s a brat?” Sticks begins more loudly, her peaky girl’s face suddenly flushed very pink and angry indeed, but Russandol’s narrow, blazing focus does not seem to remember she is even there. He does not waver.
“Those were Celegorm’s too,” he says, speaking over her. “Weren’t they? I know they were. I was the one who told him to give them to you.”
Well, that was one mystery solved, anyway. Gwindor scowls.
“So you were the seer all along, eh? Could use a less cryptic warning next time, Red.”
For some reason, that is what Russandol blanches at. Then he sets his jaw, and holds out his hand.
“Give them to me, Gwindor. I’ve a right—“
“Nonsense. You can’t so much as stand unaided, from where you are, and I’m not leaving the door. Hush up, and let me—“
“If they break through,” Russandol says, sounding winded, “it can’t only be you with a blade.”
“No one is breaking through. I told you, didn’t I? Your cousin has things sorted, and your uncle—“
He didn’t mean to raise his voice. Frog whimpers, and shrinks further against Russandol’s ribs. Russandol would look ridiculous—scarecrow thin on the floor in clothing at once both too big and too small for him, insisting on being given an instrument of war while a child cuddles close in his arms—except that he’s himself. And Gwindor knows what kind of fear wants a blade in hand, when battle rages on the other side of a locked door.
He does not want to think Russandol could harm the children, but he has thought himself, so many times, that before he let them take Gelmir he should have—
“Give me the blades,” Russandol gasps, harshly.
Gwindor looks helplessly to Estrela, who has crossed the room to kneel beside Russandol. The empty socket of her left eye is filled with the room’s shadows, but her right eye is very bright as she looks back, and then she reaches out, hesitant but gentle, to put one hand soothingly on Sticks’ heaving shoulder and one on Russandol’s. He shivers beneath her touch like a nervous animal. He was shivering already, but that spasm is something different.
“Russandol,” she tries, but he shakes her off, his face ghastly pale.
“Don’t touch me,” he snaps, not looking at her. Sticks makes a soft, hissing sound, but Estrela says nothing at all.
Russandol’s outstretched hand is shaking slightly with the effort of holding his arm aloft so long. He has lost so much strength, in that wretched sickroom, strength and so much else that he can’t get back but slowly. He leans forward, heedless of the child still cowering beneath his maimed arm, of the other child still clutching his arm, of Estrela’s wounded face. The normal grey of his eyes almost full-black.
“Give me the fucking blades, Gwindor,” he says, his own voice rising now: “I can fight, I was the one who taught Celegorm to throw, to shoot, it was I who taught them all—“
And Gwindor, looking his boy squarely in those panic-blown eyes, knowing some things are unforgivable, says:
“With your left hand?”
In the sudden, utter silence, Maedhros looks as though he has been slapped. Estrela’s expression is similar, but she does not try to touch him again. She only says “Russandol, please.”
His shaking hand drops, folds. He is a guttering candle, is this Maedhros. He flares and burns and the slightest breath is enough to snuff him out.
“Goddamn it,” Gwindor mutters, hating himself, but the truth has done its work. Russandol sits quiet. Earlier, he hid his face in his sleeve, and then in Frog’s ink-dark hair. He does not hide now, but all that fey and rising desperation has been blown out, leaving only misery behind.
“Russandol,” Gwindor says, gently as he can into the quiet. “I told your brother I’d be able to use those damn things in time, and I believe the same of you. Truly I do. But it isn’t that time yet, you hear? You have to wait, and you have to trust us. You have to trust me.”
Russandol swallows. He licks his dry lips, as though trying to work his way to speaking, but no words will come.
The quiet rings the way the explosions rang.
Finally, Russandol whispers, in a voice that breaks twice: “I’m always too late.”
And then, looking at Estrela with tears in his eyes: “I am—sorry—“
Before she can reply, there is a crash against the door.
They all jump. Gwindor almost drops the knife. Frog shrieks.
“Gwindor!” Shouts a voice—a familiar voice—not familiar from there, thank God, but from here, from Mithrim, from the hall at Christmas.
“It’s me, Gwindor. Celegorm. Open up, it’s over. Hey, Maitimo, you holding up in there?”
Shakily, Gwindor unlocks the door and pulls it open. It isn’t only Celegorm in the doorway; Maglor is there beside him, both of them blood-spattered and sweaty but not, seemingly, injured. Celegorm is blazing, hot with high spirits and battle-joy, his teeth white in the dim light. Maglor, in contrast, looks half a ghost.
“There you are!” Celegorm cries, as he strides into the room towards his brother. He pauses to survey the scene only a moment, and shakes his head, grinning. “Christ, look at you. Worried about me, were you?”
“Fingon,” Russandol gasps, struggling to get to his feet. It is an impossible task; Frog is hugging him tightly, face pressed against his collar, trapping him on the floor. Estrela, seeing this, reaches to prise Frog away, no matter how the child protests. Celegorm watches with raised brow, as Maglor drops to his knees beside his elder brother and flings his arms about Russandol’s neck in turn. His lips move as though he whispers something, but whatever it is, Gwindor can’t make it out.
“Fingon?” Celegorm repeats, wryly. “Is that all? Not even a hello?”
Russandol brings up his left hand instinctively to embrace Maglor back, but he is still tense and trembling.
“Where—where is Fingon?”
“With the wounded, I’ll wager, playing saint like usual. No—I don’t mean he is wounded, Maitimo, don’t give me that look, Jesus Christ. He’s all right—we’re all of us all right, except for Turgon. Looked like he messed up his arm a little, but if they have to cut it off that’s only fair play, I reckon.” He laughs, harsh and giddy, and stoops down, offering his brother his hand.
“Maglor, catch his other arm, won’t you? Let’s get you back to bed, Maitimo, one, two—“
Russandol allows them to help him to his feet, his face set. He moves his injured leg stiffly, gritting his teeth, and sets his foot gingerly on the floor, testing it.
“Are there many injured?” Gwindor asks, struggling to bring up names in the midst of his relief. “Beren, or—Davy—“
“Oh, there’s a good few, but most aren’t ours. Mainly Mithrim’s folk, or Fingolfin’s. They’re counting up the dead now but it’ll be the same ratio, I shouldn’t wonder. Maitimo, d’you think you can walk the full way back to your room, or do you want us to set you down part-way and go for a stretcher? They’ve made up plenty to carry the bodies in, should be easy to nick one from the hall.”
Russandol, who had been catching his breath after the exertion of standing, shakes his head.
“Fingon,” he says, stubbornly. “I need to see Fingon.”
“He will come hunting for you as soon as he’s free,” Celegorm protests, more openly irritated now, but Russandol is unmoved. There is that candlewick lit again, in his eyes; in all his trembling frame, brighter even than Celegorm’s warrior-fire. It is the same desperate fear that sought a weapon from Gwindor’s hands, but now what it seeks is a cousin unscathed, a cousin he begged not to go.
Russandol stands very tall, and fixes Maglor with a look that reminds Gwindor, oddly, of Curufin.
“Take me to the hall,” he orders, and Gwindor does not know Maglor very well, yet, but he does know that Maedhros’ sensitive, sweet-voiced brother can never tell him no.
Celegorm leaves them Huan. The massive wolfhound, stinking of blood and gunpowder, is somehow a comfort to the children despite its ghoulish appearance. It settles calmly near them on the floor, dropping down with a huff that is almost a human sigh of weariness, and grins as Estrela coaxes Frog to reach out and pet one of the cleaner patches of its shaggy grey coat.
That wide dog-grin, sharp-toothed and joyful, is somehow reminiscent of its master’s.
Gwindor supposes he ought to follow to the main hall, to help in whatever way he can, but he does not want to follow Russandol—not yet. The lad did not look at him, as he left the room supported by his two brothers, but the weight of the stars in Gwindor’s coat pocket feels horribly heavy. As the exhaustion of the night suddenly washes over him, cold with relief and guilt together, he feels as though he could sleep for ten years, though dawn can only be a few hours away. It is his hands, now, that tremble.
“Here,” he tells Estrela, as she gathers up the discarded blankets to prepare to move the children back to their room. His shoulder and back will be hell for a week, after all he put them through tonight, but there’s naught to do for that now, as he thrusts the little felt packet into her hands. She looks silently from the packet to his face, searching.
“You practice with those,” he says gruffly, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder with his left hand. “A knife is plenty enough, for me, and you’ve two good arms.”
She sets the blankets down on the table, and cautiously unwraps the dark felt. The silver stars, razor sharp and shining, wink up at them from her palm.
Estrela’s scarred mouth is set firmly, as she looks at them, and then she picks one up and carefully hands it back to him.
“We shall all practice,” she says, gently. “Because we shall all protect each other.”