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“It is a rough sketch,” she said, “But I have done my best to scale it. These marks…I made them without thinking. Forgive me.”
Russandol asked, “What do they mean?”
“They are how my father annotated distance. Concerning sea rather than land, at first, but he corrected it in time. I use his system for numbering. How I shade the difference in height and other patterns, I also learned from him.” That was an understatement, of course; she had learned everything from him. Clinging to his left elbow while he worked with his right hand, smelling the salt air mingled with sweat and soap both—that had been a good deal of her childhood.
Such as it was. Lost as it was.
(Though her skin was naturally darker than his—a legacy of her mother—they had both been very browned by the sun. She remembered the sight of her small hand safe in the crook of his arm.)
“So it was his own formula,” Russandol said. “Good. Curufin will like that. He writes enough in—in secret symbols.”
“I will make certain that these are not secret to anybody who needs them,” Estrela said. It had not been his secrets that drew interested parties to her father’s door; it had been his skill. In this way, she could honor him still.
(I believe that you looked for me, Father.)
Russandol, who lately laid claim to no skill save the power to look long and painfully at what could hurt or change him, said nothing. He stared at her sketch for a long while, and Estrela dared not inquire what else he saw beyond ink and paper. The furrow between his brows must give his answer for him.
In the end, she made her excuses and left the map with him. He would be more comfortable without having to perform polite interest in her. That was the state of things.
Since Christmas night, a change had worked itself over Russandol. The change might surprise those who had not spent all the hours of battle with him, trapped in a windowless room. Estrela, of course, had been there with him. Not for the first time, she had seen him break.
The room, so new to her, was thus already shrouded in unhappiness. Yet, despite its haunting nature—or perhaps because of it, since Estrela was half-blind to the world and thus had more to see with her mind and memories—she had returned to the map-room afterwards. Maglor had accompanied her. The room was always locked, it seemed, but Maglor had the key.
“What do you want in there?” he asked, more curious than suspicious, when she made her request. She was as shocked as anybody to hear herself asking. A favor from a stranger, except that Maglor—blown-glass, brilliant Maglor—was not much of a stranger, now.
“I know you have been talking of the land in these parts,” she said. She did not say, the Mountain. “It may not be beautiful, but I thought I might be able to reproduce and enlarge such portions of the wall-maps as would tell you…all of you…what you most wish to know.”
It had become increasingly clear that Maglor would do anything that might be of comfort or help to Russandol. When Estrela had thus explained her purpose, no matter how veiled, Maglor had acceded. There was one condition: she must let him accompany her. She accepted that readily. Whatever dwelt in the map-room, beyond grief and cutting truths and quiet history, Estrela knew not and cared less.
She had made all the notes and first outlines she could in the quiet there. Memory was ready to supply shades of what she had seen when she was last cornered between desk and door. The idea of drawing again had half-formed while she watched Russandol shiver miserably, the children his bulwark against memories of his own. Estrela had been rent by the pain of it all, and yet, through the shreds of her spirit the drift of ink-stains and murmured words in her own tongue had come to give her strength.
An idea could be a bulwark itself. It could be rooted both in horror and hope; in safety and in the agonizing hour spent staring at walls and the boy-man trapped by them.
Most of all, perhaps, she had wanted to offer some help to him. She would not let him dive into darkness alone. It was shame, not healing, which drove him, she was sure of it. His sudden, awful willingness to speak of the Mountain and what lay there, directly following the attack, was no accident.
Estrela, having fallen from Bauglir’s favor so long ago that he no longer knew whether she lived or died, had not seen the world from the Mountain’s peak. Nor had she seen within its caverns. Gwindor’s accounts, and Russandol’s, would have to suffice on that front.
Nonetheless, whoever had drawn the beautiful ridges and river that hung in red and black on these walls had been a master. The maps had much to teach her.
Maglor did not show much interest as she worked. His own endeavors with pen and paper were certainly beyond Estrela’s ken, but his hands lay idle. He paced the room in silence. She sketched quickly. At length she said,
“I am glad that you were all unhurt.”
“Eh?” he said. “What—oh, yes. Yes.”
“You and all your brothers.”
“We cannot afford…” He stopped. “Do you think it will really do him any good, to see the mountain like that?”
She was surprised (ever surprised, despite his and his brothers’ tentative trust) that he credited her ability to do Russandol good. She was also stung by her own certainty that his question had no satisfactory answer.
“Since he has begun to volunteer particulars,” she said, “I think it best to give him what will be useful.”
“Usefulness is a terribly cold metric,” said Maglor. She had nothing to say to that, and the conversation waned.
Russandol seemed quite pleased with the map. He thanked her in his bright, brittle way, and she did her best to enfold his gratitude in hers, rather than suffering over it.
Gwindor was troubled. She knew his every mood, which was not only a natural consequence of a necessary alliance. She could own to the sentiments more freely now, even in her private thoughts. She loved him like the brother she’d never had; she knew he loved Russandol rather like the brother he had had.
Gwindor rarely spoke of that long-ago brother, still.
Estrela took the bench across from him at table, the noon light raking the room with pale fingers, and said, “You’re not eating as much as you should.”
“Winter rations,” he answered, plucking at his bread.
She could scold him, or she could return to the sickroom and pretend to make herself useful there. Russandol had briefly had need of her work. The glow of that, and its accordant pain and confusion, had followed her in the days and hours since.
Her head ached a little, now. Over Gwindor’s shoulder, the fire crackled. Frog was playing with the kittens on the hearth. Though there were still cots laid out, invalids resting upon them, Frog’s games were unabated, and had even begun to take on a more social aspect. He would draw out Beren, Aredhel, even Fingolfin, as the mood took him.
He was not afraid of the wounded. Perhaps he was no longer afraid at all—a good thought, but not yet a true one. Estrela had seen and heard his child-terror, in the waiting hours. She had, almost for the first time, been unable to give him comfort. Not completely. Not when he wanted—
“Russandol,” said Gwindor. “Lord, I’ve my tail between my legs these days. It’s all wrong, Bel—Estrela. I’ve not the head for this sort of conundrum.”
“I do not think he is angry with you.”
“I don’t know what he is. Not right in the head, at least.” He ate a scrap of bread almost savagely. “There. Now I’ve been unfair. But…you’ve seen it, haven’t you? That awful light shining out of him.”
“He’s very frightened,” said Estrela. “He…he was so sure that it would be them, knocking down the doors.”
“If I thought t’would do him any good, I’d show him the heap of bodies. Vanquished, the lot of them, while we were safe and snug.” He swallowed, coughed a little, and hid behind his cup. Then he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, “I oughtn’t to have said that. About his hand. He was sore already, always sore. If I’d thought to be gentler…”
She was quiet.
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head and smiling one of his awful, animal grins. Teeth bared in pain and understanding that more pain was ahead. She’d seen it too many times, in the old life. “Had to put him down, didn’t I? Had to keep him there. And I did.”
“Gwindor,” she said, but he was going, pushing himself up and taking only half his bread with him.
Estrela returned to the sickroom.
“If we are to have the interior drawn from…memory, I suppose somebody must speak with Turgon,” Russandol said. When he hung his head in thought or concentration, peering down at the map, his hair curled against his high cheekbones. “Though for the life of me I don’t know who.”
Estrela was careful not to lean too close, as she gestured to the new additions she had made. “Fingon?” she suggested, since his observation seemed to began an answer. “They are brothers.”
“Aye, they are, but it’s mighty unjust of me to pass a favor that way.” He did not say why. “Not to mention I’d rather be strapped to a chair again then describe it all to Turgon, most days. Ach, never mind. We’re still at the topside. You’ve added a crevice there…from Rumil’s map?”
“Pardon?”
“Oh.” He stopped, his hand furling and his eyes meeting hers with nervous intensity. “I’d forgotten. You wouldn’t know Rumil.”
Estrela didn’t. “He made the maps?”
“He made the fort.” Russandol smiled wryly. “Well, him and my father, though you don’t hear the men o’Mithrim praising him overmuch.”
He was almost cheerful. It was not the sort of good humor that sat well with Estrela’s stomach, but she reminded herself to take what gifts she could.
Is it a gift?
“Will you tell me about Rumil?” she asked. She could not ask him to speak of Feanor. Feanor must remain a ghost.
The lines of his throat contracted as he swallowed. He was still so thin that his muscles and bones and tendons moved too visibly under his skin, like fish swimming in shallow waters. “God,” he said. “It’s almost the worst tale I know.”
“Ah,” she said, unsure how his words could be true, but embarrassed for having drawn them out of him. “Beg pardon.”
He dragged his grooved thumbnail along the crevice she had drawn. “I say so because he is dead. He died here…doubtless it was soon after I…” He shut his eyes, then, but not in repose or peace. “Rumil was a mapmaker above all, I understand,” he said, and opened his eyes to look at her again. “And Bauglir enslaved him, long ago.”
The old twist of her heart. The old fear. “I understand.”
“Kept him close…that was his undoing.” He did not say if he meant Bauglir, or Rumil. “Twenty years ago, they met my father. My father was a blacksmith, Estrela, but tenfold—a hundredfold—better than any common lout shoeing horses. He was…” He shuddered.
“And he met Rumil when Rumil was still enslaved?” It was hurting him to speak of it, she was sure, but she could see also that he wanted to speak of it.
Oh, Russandol. Do not drive yourself to pain and madness, over this.
“My father freed him. Bauglir had locked a collar around his throat—a vicious thing.” He smiled with one side of his chapped mouth. “I saw the scars it made. And Ath—my father struck it off, and gave him a horse and as much money as he could spare, and sent him west.”
Freedom, of course, was a better gift than any a smith could forge. “It was very good of him.”
“They were both good men. Rumil settled here, and made it a home and fortress both. He gave his companions and anyone who came to him a measure of peace and security, for a time. And I…it is a dark grief, that he is gone. Caranthir told me of it weeks ago, and the rest have confirmed it, though they say very little for fear of riling the invalid.” He said the last word with loathing. Then: “He was very unwell when I…when last I saw him. It should not surprise me that he did not survive.”
“But it hurts nonetheless.” She was imagining this Rumil, this faceless sufferer with the clever hands, with a like plight to hers.
To both of theirs.
“It hurts like a brand,” he said dryly. “It is, at any rate, a great pity you could not know him. I am sure that he would have been delighted by a fellow cartographer.”
She wished she could steal her map away from him, if only so that she could avoid the sight of her uncertain lines as he offered even glancing praise. “I have forgotten so much,” she said. “But I thank you.”
“You needn’t thank me,” he said, as she had expected. “You need only tell me what you mean by this notation.”
And so the hour passed.
Was it pride that had kept her from wondering whether there were others? Others whom he had found and kept close for their talents or allure, then cast aside?
No…she had been a frightened, ruined girl. She had had no time for pride, after he found her.
She wished, nonetheless, that she could have known Rumil. Russandol seemed to think fondly of him.
But then, Russandol thought fondly of his father, too.
“That Feanor must have been the worst kind of bastard,” muttered Gwindor. “I’ll speak ill of the dead, I will. And I’d speak louder, if it wouldn’t hurt another to hear.”
Estrela pushed her hair back from her brow—it came springing down again. “I don’t know enough,” she said, cautiously. She was not sure what had brought on this latest storm of bad humour, except that Gwindor had been mulling over so much of Russandol and all that put him together, these past few days.
“You’ve heard what he did. To Fingolfin. And Russandol…there’s hurts there that go deeper than Bauglir’s.” Gwindor shook his head. “My father was a drunkard, before he was nothing at all. I know a little of it.”
Estrela had once asked Russandol if he was free, as a boy.
He had been unable to answer her.
She had done all she could, with her map of the mountain. There were no high-water lines, but there were concentric shapes closing in on each other like dry waves rising over a dry shore. She had refined Rumil’s understanding of the Mountain road, even if she could not improve upon his skill. There was no scent of salt in the air, but a little pricked her eye, memory bringing tears.
It is finished.
She went looking for Russandol, emboldening herself just enough to believe that she had a right to show him anything, but he was not there.
Fingon told her that his brothers had taken him away.