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Mid-morning. Gwindor slumps against the wall at last, his knees breaking forward, legs trembling. Everyone in Mithrim has been on their feet since Homer sent word up from the lake. Gwindor wasn’t of much help, then—not that he didn’t want to be, not that he didn’t run, but Fingon and Caranthir and Amras rightly claimed the duty of carrying Maedhros in. Finrod came after them, Maglor leaning on him.
Maglor was shaky, but he could walk.
After that, time blurred. You could carry water or lay bricks in the fire to warm. You could stand about whispering, if you were the sort to prefer gossip to good will. It had been an hour since they found him; maybe two.
Gwindor carried water from the kitchen to the bedchamber, steeling himself against the pain in his shoulder. Estrela should have told him to be easy on it—but she was preoccupied herself.
At last, Fingolfin came to him, his thick hair falling at odd angles as if he had been raking it wildly with his fingers, and asked if he would stand guard at Maedhros’ door.
“Stand guard?” Gwindor had asked, bemused. His mind was slower when he was in pain.
It quickened with anger soon enough, though, when Fingolfin told him what truly happened at the lake.
“We’re keeping Maglor with him, for now,” Fingolfin said quietly. “We must be discreet.”
Gwindor thought, but did not say, that he would be glad to discreetly throttle Maglor until he did not need cold water to steal the air from his lungs.
Maedhros’ door is shut, of course. Gwindor prefers to stand guard this side of it, at least until he can collect himself. He only enters when his legs have steadied; when he is confident that he will not strike Maglor at the least provocation.
As if it were any other morning, Fingon is grinding something with his pestle, his pale face set in doctorly concentration. Amras is in one of the chairs, his knees drawn to his chest. Huan, a rescuer most humble in triumph, is stretched out at his feet—but his master is nowhere to be seen. To be sure, Gwindor has not been out of doors since the rescue—but if Celegorm had returned from wherever he was off to, surely he would have made himself known.
Maglor, wretch that he is, kneels at the bedside, face pressed against the blankets. He is little more than a heap of coats and a damp tangle of hair.
Gwindor looks away from him. He nods to Fingon, takes his usual place in the corner, and is silent.
Fingolfin asked him to guard, and he won’t disrespect the man, but beyond worrying and grudge-holding and the occasional blunt word, there’s no use for old Gwindor. They’ve crippled better men than him. One just there, practically invisible beneath a heap of blankets, steam hazing the air about him. Fingon has ordered every vessel in the place filled with boiling water. Caranthir is presiding over the business like a madman. Some of the pots and bowls are placed on the floor and sills and doctor’s table to warm the air; others are used for making tea and broth ready for when Maedhros is near enough himself again to drink. He is still too pale, too vacant. He didn’t open his eyes much, save for when they laid him on the bed, and that was an hour ago—maybe two.
How many times will he have to watch the boy die? Drowning or being drowned, his body burned or frozen beyond breathing.
We must be discreet, Fingolfin said, and Gwindor knows why. It is like the fort has gone mad, this New Year’s Day, when a boy too broken to be anyone’s leader was dragged up from the mud. But it won’t be allies or gossips or even friends who cause a ruckus. It will be his brothers, when they know the truth.
Celegorm will want blood.
Gwindor doesn’t much blame him.
Remember: Maglor didn’t see him at the river. Maglor—
Whatever Maglor knows or does not know, he is selfish, and too easily within reach to elicit much mercy. The lure of boxing his ears at the very least is strong, but Gwindor stands his ground, dipping his chin to his chest. He can’t offer much, but he won’t look at them when he can’t do so kindly. He doesn’t need to catch Russandol’s bleary eye with a glare.
Brother. Russandol’s their brother. Doesn’t matter how right or wrong or tomfool they are.
“Maglor,” Fingon says, low yet distinct. “Help me. He needs to drink this.”
Gwindor’s curiosity is such that he flicks his gaze up, studying Fingon. Fingon is still pale: his jaw is tightly clenched.
He’s angry, too.
A little satisfying, to have such an ally. But Fingon is above most men: certainly above Gwindor. He is angry, but not eager for bloodshed. His slim, square hands lift a tin cup to Russandol’s lips while Maglor rise and creeps forward to support his brother’s shoulders. Russandol opens his eyes before he drinks, and Gwindor’s blur.
Russandol mutters something, too low for Gwindor to hear. Fingon and Maglor stumble over each other to answer him.
For an instant, Gwindor remembers the forge. A brotherless world, except that they had each other. The boy chained to the bench each night: his voice a marvel for its strength, seeing how it could compel you to walk through fire by little more than a whisper.
Fire, water. The hollow darkness of the ash-strewn cave. The lake rippled only by the wind. The forest closing like a fist.
They forget so quickly what they take.
This boy has survived, has died again, and survived again. His family wants each other’s blood. His friends and admirers here are more than gladness at a Christmas feast. They are fit to choke the corridor outside his room.
And Fingon?
Fingon will hold his anger to his heart, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the latest to curse his cousin-friend’s future, if only because it is what Russandol would want.
How ordinary or extraordinary is this? How long will it keep Russandol alive?
Gwindor does not know what to make of it. He is often reminded how much he unlearned of being human. He can feel animal feelings, certainly: loyalty, fear. But what else? Maybe grief is the most manlike thing left to him. Maybe it is the last remnant he will hold, when the world has taken what he’s gained anew.
“And you,” Fingon says, again to Maglor. “You should drink, too.” He reaches for another cup; another vial of dark liquid.
“What is it?” Maglor mumbles.
“A tonic,” Fingon answers, not brooking argument, and Maglor drinks.
From his chair, Amras sighs. He has his arms folded atop his knees, half his face hidden behind them. The shock of red hair and the pale brow creased with worry are too familiar.
“Gwindor,” says Russandol, from the bed.
Gwindor stirs, peering through his grief to see his friend again. “Aye, lad.”
“Did the children see?”
Fingon says, “Maedhros,” with so much feeling that it is almost severe.
That is all the check Gwindor needs for his own temper. “No, they didn't. Your cousin Aredhel was playing with them in the kitchen yard before breakfast. They’ve been underfoot, since then, but…but nothing more.”
“Good,” Russandol answers. Maglor—faithless wretch—has laid his head against his brother's knee once more, and Russandol reaches out to stroke his hair. “I feel better,” he says meekly, seemingly to Fingon—but perhaps it is for Maglor's benefit.
“Your fever has not abated,” Fingon says. “Lie still.”
“I know. I can see them.”
Gwindor's empty stomach--he, like most of the fort, forgot breakfast--churns. Maglor's hands, twisted among the blankets, twitch.
“Them?” Fingon asks, because no one else will.
“Behind Ambarussa,” Russandol says. “But it’s all right, Fingon. It really is.” His tone is strangely placating—frailly peaceful in a way that Gwindor cannot trust at all. “They are shades; they have not arrived yet. We are in the time before.”
“Oh, Maitimo,” cries Maglor, lifting his head to exclaim in anguish before throwing it down again.
“Maitimo, you’re not yourself,” Fingon urges. Gwindor shifts uneasily. At present, he wishes he could get Amras away from this scene—but the boy won’t listen to him. Why would he? Why did Gwindor—or Fingolfin, or anyone—think that Gwindor was fit enough to stand guard, much less give orders?
“I am…I am tired, that is all,” Russandol says. “My head is fairly clear. It is only my sight that is muddled. Truly, Fingon. I know what is there and what is not.”
“Would it be easier if the room…”
“No.” Russandol anticipates the offer. “Maglor stays.”
A shudder, perhaps of thanks, from Maglor. Gwindor’s lip curls in disgust despite himself, despite his fear.
Softly, Russandol says, “You’re angry at him.”
Gwindor stiffens. Even in his near delirium, Russandol is keen. He would have had to be—he made weapons fit to bring down a roof and half the men beneath it, when he was barely standing. He can sense disdain for the brother he clings to from ten paces away, no matter how his fever rises.
Neither Fingon nor Amras break the silence that follows, so Gwindor squares his shoulders and makes his answer.
“No—no. I’m not angry at him. He’s only the reason you’re half-alive.” Not so much as a flinch, from Maglor. But why should he flinch? He doesn’t need Gwindor’s good approval—barely speaks to him, really, unless there’s something he wants. Gwindor can feel heat rising to his face. His fever isn’t one of sickness, but of the very rage he just denied. He goes on. Foolishly, yes, he goes on. “Only the reason we dragged you out of a frozen pond in the middle o’winter. He’s only crippling you as much as that break in your damn leg.”
Here, Fingon would ordinarily interject, but he is staring at the floor.
“He’s the reason I’m alive altogether,” Russandol snaps, his fingers stilled in Maglor’s hair. “The thought of him, Gwindor. I lived, there, for the thought of him.” His lips work strangely: a disappointed child’s twitch, nearing tears. “So. You can’t hate him.”
“Can’t—” Gwindor snaps his jaws shut. Nothing for it, unless he wants to storm at an invalid. If he lets slip another word in the vein he’s following, he’ll be shouting. He waits, then says, “I’m going to see if there’s a cup of cold water left in the place.”
“You could try the lake,” Russandol ventures, through his chattering teeth.
Gwindor stops short in the doorway, sucks his own teeth for a long moment, and then goes out. He does not slam the door behind him.
Fingon’s voice rises and falls in his absence.
Gwindor passes Caranthir, laden with a steaming tray of fresh poultices. The sharp, herby smell sears Gwindor’s nose. A good many of other faces look on him in vague curiosity, but he does not stop until he has burst forth from the kitchen door, crossed the yard—still milling with bystanders, busy or no—and stands alone by the garden, staring down into the lower field.
Their father is buried there; dastardly man. No doubt this recent trouble is owing to him. They took Russandol to visit him only a day ago. This is what’s come of it.
The fresh air on his face was supposed to cool his blood. It isn’t enough.
Gwindor shuts his eyes.
“All right, Gelmir,” he whispers. “Look down and favor your ornery cuss of a brother with a little wisdom.”
Silence from the blue heavens, as unbreakable as death. The only sound not coming from the fort at his back rises with a flock of scrub jays, wheeling at the wooded boundaries of the field. Blue-winged things, though less blue than the sky. Scrappy and swift and altogether ignorant of the suffering of men—of things that once were men.
“I don’t want to believe it of him. Selfish of me, I know. Damned selfish, to wish him freer than I’d ever want to be.” He clears his throat. “You’re gone. I’ve not forgotten. It’s only that you were worth loving, boy, and…”
And Maglor isn’t?
It isn’t Gelmir’s voice, because Gelmir is dead. But it might as well be his question—a younger brother’s question. Who asks for worth when a babe is laid in your arms, holding you as much as you hold him by rapt, unblinking love?
Gwindor covers his face in his hands. Feels the pain in his shoulder: the deep, ruined, unhealed ache. Then he turns and returns along the edge of the dull-leafed garden. Estrela, Wachiwi, and Beren are speaking in low voices by the corner of the fort. He considers joining them, but only for an instant. Better to slip by and return quietly to Russandol’s side. He’ll even say he’s sorry for scolding.
“Gwindor.”
Where Celegorm came from, Gwindor doesn’t know. It doesn’t much matter; he’s here now, with the sun flaming in his hair, a streak of red earth like dried blood on his jaw. Or maybe it is blood, though Gwindor sees no wound.
“Celegorm. How goes it?” A fool’s question, of course, but he wasn’t expecting this.
“My brother is dying,” Celegorm says, curiously flat. For the first time in their brief yet marked acquaintance, Gwindor sees the resemblance between this lion-wild lad and his dark, sharp-eyed brother. Curufin and Celegorm had always seemed so ill-matched, before.
What changed?
“He’s not dying,” Gwindor answers, more cautious than ever—more cautious than he was in denigrating Maglor before Russandol. “He’s running a fever because he caught a chill and swallowed some dank water. That’s all.”
Celegorm’s eyes are greener than Russandol’s. They shine like sea-glass in this unforgiving light. “Is that all?”
“You’ve not seen him?”
“I’m not needed. There’s nothing I can do.”
“It’s a messy business,” Gwindor concedes. Celegorm is giving him nothing. “But he’ll want you by his side, in time.”
“You were a slave for almost as long as you were a man, weren’t you?” Celegorm rocks back on his heels, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his coat. “You want peace. I don’t.”
“So, what then?” There is a possibility that Celegorm does not yet know the truth, but a vanishing possibility. The quiet violence of his careless words is proof of knowledge, if nothing else. “You’ll kill Maglor, since he couldn’t finish killing himself?”
Celegorm tilts his head. Again, Curufin. Again, a chasm widening in a bond that Gwindor hadn’t truly known was between them. “You’re a good man, Gwindor.” He says man now like he said slave an instant ago.
“What of it? Like you said, I was a slave longer.”
“You think you should put aside your own woes to help Maedhros. Admirable, I grant you, and that’s why I’ll say what I’m about to, to you. I’m not killing Maglor. I know when I’m cornered.” The set of his teeth says he’s an animal when cornered. “He lives while Maedhros lives. My family’s the death of itself, you see? And good will, good men, can’t withstand it. Can’t change it.”
“You talk a lot of destiny,” Gwindor mutters. “Same as R—as Maedhros.”
“That name doesn’t belong to you.”
The snap of a whip, in those words. “I know. It belongs to you.”
“I am no doctor,” Celegorm says, low and rough. “No hanger-on, no whore, no ally. I want none of this, do you hear me? None of what you call peace.”
He’s not talking sense. Or he is, and Gwindor is slow to parse it. He casts a glance behind him; Estrela and Beren are still standing near the fort, watching. There are other strangers too—half-put-together, as everyone is in Mithrim these days. One is named Davy, a man Gwindor likes well enough, the bandage on his head a conspicuous white flag. They are gathered like sheep watching a dog that may turn wolf.
Celegorm sees them too, and sneers. “They all think I’ll storm in and cry out for blood. They’ll have guards by him. Brother against brother. Did they send you to look for me, Gwindor? To remind me that I must forgive? Don’t trouble yourself. Maglor has nothing to fear from me. He can live forever, for all I care.”
Gwindor nods. “All right.”
He almost said, yes, sir. Doesn’t want to parse that.
“It’s the rest of you,” Celegorm says, already turning away. “Good men with prying hands. I don’t take kindly to ‘em. Never have.”
Gwindor lets him go.
Inside the sickroom again, Russandol is still buried under a mountain of covers, his upturned face the only part of him visible. There seem to be twice as many blankets as there were before. Amras’ chair is empty; so is the space before it where Huan lay. Fingon is sitting beside the window, sketching in his small black book. The leather covers have frilled and curled like lichen. Beside him, Caranthir’s poultices languish in their tray.
Fingon looks up, and says, too brightly, “Hot and dry compresses only. Just a misunderstanding.”
Gwindor stares at him, uncomprehending. He’d never have thought to ask after the poultices. Then he realizes that Maglor, too, is gone.
“Where—”
“He’s sleeping,” Russandol says, shifting his gaze as if to gesture.
Of course. Maglor is tucked into the bed beside him. It will just do for added warmth, Gwindor supposes, though it is far more comfort than Maglor deserves—and strange, too, that he should sleep so easily, with such a guilty conscience. Gwindor’s expression must present a more pressing question than poultices, for Fingon rises, puts his little book away, and says,
“I gave him a sleeping draught.”
“Without his knowledge,” murmurs Russandol.
“Without his knowledge,” echoes Fingon.
Gwindor says, “Ah,” and takes Amras’ chair. To Russandol, he says, “I’ve seen Celegorm.”
Fingon says, “We needn’t speak of that now,” but Gwindor shakes his head.
“He said he intended no violence against Maglor. That’s all.”
Russandol’s glassy eyes hold Gwindor’s gaze: rapt, unblinking. “That’s all?”
“Yes, lad. That’s all.”
Fingon says, “Everything will settle. It always does.”
“Cano is being Uncle Fingolfin at present,” Russandol murmurs. “As you see.”
Cano is, to Gwindor’s eye, still very angry. The fact that Fingon can gather the shreds of his father’s calm around him like a cloak is a testament to his formidable will—and nothing else. Russandol should not provoke him, but then, Russandol should not do a great many things that he pursues doggedly.
Gwindor runs both hands through his hair, tucking the loose strands behind his ears. Then he says, “Russandol, you ought to take the same draught.”
“I can’t.”
“It would do you good.”
Russandol turns his face away, hiding in his brother’s blanketed shoulder. “I don’t want it.”
“No matter,” Fingon says, level, bright, angry. “I’ll not force a drug on him. That wouldn’t be doctoring.”
Gwindor refrains from pointing out that Fingon did the same to Maglor within the last half-hour. He studies Fingon through his eyelashes, waiting for him to carry on the conversation, or press Russandol for another answer, but Fingon returns to scratching at the pages of his book.
Gwindor sits and broods. Caranthir when he arrives, takes no notice of him. Instead, he staggers under the weight of freshly heated bricks, and asks Fingon whether there has been improvement.
“Yes,” Fingon says. “We’ll keep him warm for the rest of the day, but the worst has passed.”
He’s lying. It’s in the way he is twisting his pen in is fingers. There’s something else on his mind, some dread, some duty. Gwindor doesn’t know which.
Gwindor is past hunger; the day is past noon. When the smell of bread and meat wafts in, it only nauseates him.
Nobody else tries to come in. Celegorm is as good as his word, and perhaps the rest of Mithrim has already moved on. A tableau of failure, familiar and short-lived.
“Can you stay, a little while?” Fingon asks. He is on his feet, his book under his arm, and there is something in his face that looks, at last, like the verge of tears.
“Yes,” Gwindor says. Russandol hasn’t spoken in a long time. He must be sleeping too, draught or no draught.
Fingon approaches the bed, lays a hand on Russandol’s forehead, and says, almost curtly, “Fever’s broken.” Then he goes away.
Gwindor taps his fingers against his knees. He is, he thinks, too tired to be angry now. Half-finished pictures of an old life move through his mind. Russandol is in so many of them, now, but a year ago, he didn’t even know the boy.
“Gwindor.”
“You’re still awake, then?” Gwindor asks, swiping the back of his hand across his tired eyes.
“And sweating,” Russandol says. “Fever’s gone.”
“Better you feel too warm than too cold.”
Russandol regards him through a tangle of hair. “You’ll be jibing me till the end of time with that one, I suppose?”
“It’s not particularly funny,” says Gwindor darkly.
Beneath his blankets, Russandol twitches and shifts until his left arm escapes. He sets his hand against his throat, his thumb absently stroking the stretched tendons. “I’ll make you the same offer I did in the slave-quarters,” he says. “You’re free to wreak your vengeance. I just need a little more time.”
Gwindor has no quick retort. He has to think of one. He says, after a moment, “I’ll do us both the kindness of assuming you’re talking to some nasty vision, and not me.”
“You’re hopping mad,” says Russandol. “You have been, since Christmas.”
“You’re more addled than I thought, if you believe half of what you’ve spouted.” Gwindor shakes a finger at him, even though he swore to himself he wouldn’t scold again. “What do you want me to say? I’ve told you afore, I’m not clever enough to keep pace with you.”
“I’m afraid of myself,” Russandol says, soft and cold as snowfall. “You all saved something you shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t blame you—I’d have done the same.”
“You did do the same.”
“What?”
“You saved a whole lot of sorry souls, and we thank you for it. Why are you any worse than the rest of ‘em?” Gwindor can’t resist, and jerks a thumb at Maglor. “Than him?”
Russandol laughs at that, a faint rattle in his chest. “If you’d known him when he was small,” he says, unknowingly reading Gwindor’s field-edge thoughts, “You’d love him too.”
Gelmir…
Blue-winged boy wheeling up and crying out in a field of blood—
“Tell me about him,” Gwindor says. The rattle in his chest is just his heartbeat. “Tell me about the little runt.”
“Born in autumn. I don’t remember much. I wasn’t yet two. I’d been a scrawny little thing—they used to say delicate, to be polite—but he was a dumpling. I used to carry him in my arms, and fall beneath his weight.”
Not much has changed.
“I was trained young,” Russandol goes on, his hand still at his throat. “My—my father had met the devil, you see. It changed him. Made him…hungry for readiness.”
Gwindor knows that that means afraid, if you dig through the bower of Russandol’s flowery talk.
“What do you mean, trained?”
“Not to make a sound,” says Russandol. “A useful skill, though I…lost hold of it, from time to time. There. Rather fitting, you know. Lost hold.”
“So your father tortured you?” Now, that was a thought to keep within, but Gwindor’s shock overwhelms what little tact he has.
“Yes,” Russandol says simply. “Only not enough, it seems. But you were asking about Maglor.”
“I—”
“Maglor wasn’t trained like that. I’m damn glad of it, too. You can’t treat all sons the same. When you meet the devil, you have to choose what he can touch. And I was the eldest, and Athair chose me. It’s a hard choice, Gwindor, and I don’t expect you or anyone to understand it. But I understand it. And I’m not done protecting Maglor. I may have failed along the way—I have failed, or we wouldn’t have been in deep water this morning. But there’s still a chance. A chance to keep him close.”
Gwindor is struck dumb.
Russandol’s chin juts forward, above his clasping fingers. “That chance is all I have. Otherwise I go down, into fire or water or whatever will take me first. You all saved something you shouldn’t have, and yes, I’d have done the same, but—but you’ve saved a shield and called it a sword. Saved a whore and called him a hero.”
Gwindor mutters, “I’ve told you not to call yourself that.”
“Have you? Well, it’s true. Every slur sticks, and for good reason. You can’t wash blood from hands that were made to spill it. You have to do what Fingon did, and cut them off. Then what are you left with? Something that can’t even keep sinning against itself.”
“You’re right,” Gwindor says, which shocks the damnable fool into silence, at least. “I don’t understand. No matter how many ways you say it, Red, I don’t understand.”
“I don’t want to live. That’s why Bauglir and Mairon made a slow run of it. I asked Fingon to kill me, but he wouldn’t. So now here I am, living, with little power left to do anything about it—and little right earned, for that matter. I know I have to live, now. I’m past the natural point of dying. The only way to keep from going mad like this is Maglor. The rest of my brothers, too, but we all must lay a first stone. Maglor is my first brother. I have to go back, or go nowhere at all.”
Gwindor’s slow, animal mind can’t do much with this but reach for human grief. “So. You want us to go easy on him.”
“Christ, yes.” Russandol sighs, deep and broken. “I want you to go easy on him.” He shuts his eyes. “And at present I want to sleep, if only so that I can see whoever’s choking me and let them finish their work.”
“You’re choking yourself.”
Russandol’s eyes slit open, the slant of his gaze rich with disdain. “No, I’m reminding myself that there’s nothing really there. Only way I can keep up my end of the conversation.”
Tears sting under Gwindor’s eyelids. “Sleep,” he says. “I’ll be quiet.”
“But not angry.”
“No, not angry. Not with you.”
“Even without it,” Russandol whispers, “Without your anger—you’re very real.”
“Very well, then. We’ve an arrangement. I’ll hate the world but not you, and you can warm your hands by the fire of my wrath, and pretend it belongs to you.”
“Hands?”
Gwindor clenches his jaw. “Russandol, I’ll—”
Russandol smiles, close-lipped.
Gwindor takes that as a good sign. His heart is broken, but it’s always broken. He inches his chair forward, and says,
“I’ve still two myself, if you want to lay yours between them.”
Russandol lifts his hand from his throat.