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A moment ago, the room had smelled of pipe-smoke from her pipe, and of cinnamon and lemon from her afternoon tea. Now it smelled of road-filth, horseflesh, and nervous sweat.
“Cease your fidgeting,” said Anne, finishing her dozenth signature and shaking pounce out to blot it. Afternoon tea was followed by daily correspondence. “There’s few things worse than a chattering man, and a fidgeting man is one of them.”
“I did not want to interrupt your work,” said young Glaurung. He had stilled his fine (dirty) boots on her carpet, but his hands—bruised about the knuckles, were still twisting. “I only came with…news.”
“Ill news?” she asked.
Her canary shrilled in its cage, and his fine-tuned voice, now strained with effort, was not far from matching its tone when he said,
“I am afraid so, madame.”
“Ill news,” she repeated. Then— “Of a sort that would concern our forge-work?”
“The patterns of gun-making are still at the vineyard,” he said. “Along with several models, and every supply you sent that is not already used. We have armed—"
“But your skilled little smith, I take it, is not at the vineyard. Nor is he with you, or with anyone you care to know.” The weight of this summation having been dropped like a leaden anvil, she grinned at him. She was not a lady—she had never been demure. Old age had made her more like a baron among men than a crone among women. “You deserve a beating, Glaurung, but I’ll not beat around the bush. Cosomoco Gothmog wrote me a letter. Short, but to the point. He informed me that you had fallen upon hard times. Something to do with a lady?”
He flushed. “I nearly had several of Mithrim’s most valuable inhabitants in my custody,” he said. “But it was a task for more than one man.”
“For more than you, at least.” She leaned her hard chin on one of her hard hands, letting this slight sink in for a moment. At last, she relieved him. “Don’t be so glum, lad. It’s as you said. We have all we need.”
His pale eyes widened, as if he was surprised by her forbearance. He needn’t have been. She wasn’t kind to anyone, least of all to an upstart dandy.
“Since you came so far to tell me how you’ve failed,” she said, returning the pounce to its pot, “I hope you will consider doing me the smallest of favors.”
His smile looked a little worse for wear. Gothmog had been sparing in details, but Anne could see for herself how Mithrim had rattled this one. Those who kept their heads out of that fort found that they kept them altogether. The fascination with a handful of self-sufficing rebels, she would never understand.
“Anything,” he said. “I am honored by your continued good—”
“Call at this address,” she interrupted, “And tell him I sent you. He’s a man to be minded, you understand, and I think he would appreciate a little youthful company. You are both new to the city.”
She had sent him, of course, to see Melkor Bauglir.