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It was his birthday—just about four o-clock on the evening of his birthday, he guessed, though he did not trouble to check his watch—and the high street Maedhros emerged onto after a long day of serving as Grandfather Finwe’s adjutant was bustling with folk hurrying home for supper. Briefly, he considered hailing a carriage, but after only the barest hesitation he decided he would walk home too, today, to take some of the fresh air.
Or, not quite fresh air, but the nearest thing to it one could find in the city. Despite his weariness, Maedhros found that he felt eager to stretch his legs somewhat, and to work out the stiffness from sitting so long in stuffy, closed rooms. To ride in a carriage was always at least vaguely uncomfortable at best, anyway, as cabs were not built to easily accommodate men of his prodigious height. Maedhros already had an aching back from sitting all day, and an aching wrist from busily taking notes. He did not wish to add a stiff neck or cramped knees to his collection of pains.
Now that he was left to his own devices, Maedhros meant to spend the remainder of his birthday happily: which was to say, he meant to spend it with the decanter. Ever since he came to live in the city, birthdays meant inescapable longing for home: for his brothers crowded rowdily around the kitchen table, and his mother’s careful preparation of one of her precious soda-leavened cakes, and even a morning gallop or fishing trip with Athair, if he was lucky. When he first left home for his education he had still been a child, really. In the years since, Maedhros had learned to adapt to this new environment and mode of living. He had even learned to enjoy it, in many aspects, and it was certainly some point of private pride that he no longer seemed to advertise himself a country bumpkin in every classroom and cafe this side of the Hudson. When Celegorm came to visit for a week—a disastrous week, if Fingon were the one telling it—one could practically smell the stables on him, and see the brown dirt ringed stubbornly beneath his fingernails, deep down where skin met blood. He had been, to Maglor, an embarrassment.
Maedhros had spent the week being constantly startled by the pangs of smelling Formenos’ hayloft in his brother’s hair, and seeing Formenos’ fresh sunlight in the ruddy color of his brother’s skin.
This was, of course, one of his most secret shames: that he was not a child any longer, and that he knew how to find enjoyment in the streets and byways of New York, but he had never mastered Maglor’s trick of learning to love it.
So: Maedhros carried into the brisk late April sunshine a promise to meet Grandfather and his wife for a celebratory dinner on the morrow, but his social calendar was left quite clear until then, to be filled with what he knew would best take his mind off his boyish fantasizing for home: a quiet evening in the glowing parlor, with the crystal whiskey decanter for company and—if even this be not enough to assuage his loneliness—a scandalous addition of Mlle Madeira or Port to enliven the proceedings.
God, Maedhros thought to himself wretchedly, blinking in the narrow, late sunlight as he tried to get his bearings: what a fine sort of fellow I have grown up to be.
It had been an over-affectionate and overbearing winter, very loath to leave, and reluctantly dragging its snowy feet so that the springtime flowers had only just begun to raise their tentative, budding heads out of the muddy earth. Maglor had dared to speak hopefully of crocuses and tulips on Sunday, and thus winter had capriciously returned the next day with one last spiteful frost to kill all the new flowers before they had the chance to bloom. Maedhros shivered as he searched in his coat pocket for his gloves, setting off down the damp, cold pavement towards Valinor Place. In his haste he made the error of walking with his head down, as he pulled his gloves on over cold fingers, and thus he very nearly barreled into a man walking the opposite direction, avoiding cracking his chin on the figure’s tousled dark head by only the narrowest grace of God.
“Beg pardon,” he began, fumbling his gloves in his alarm and mortification, but:
“Jesus Christ, Maitimo,” the figure spluttered, thumping him on the chest with a gloved hand of its own, “didn’t you hear me calling? I thought you would be out half an hour ago.”
“Maglor?”
“That is typical, you see,” Maglor continued, his nose very red over the top of his muffling scarf. “I stand here waiting to surprise you for forty minutes, and then the instant I step away to check on the others you have to come tearing out of that building like a steam locomotive and be the one to surprise me. Honestly, Maitimo.”
It was difficult to see if Maglor was smiling, behind his scarf, but he hooked Maedhros’ left arm with his right and began merrily dragging him up along the street, and did seem generally pleased with himself despite his near miss at being run over by a steam locomotive.
Maedhros peered down at him, trying to make sense of what was happening.
“But your rehearsal,” he began, stupidly. “I thought—“
“Yes, I know what I told you,” Maglor cut him off with impatient glee, steering them around a lamp post. “But I arranged to leave early. Don’t look so alarmed, it was only Chopin. I should kill myself if I needed a full four hours to go over Chopin.”
“Oh, no,” Maedhros gasped, trying to be sensible despite the overwhelming, giddy glow that had begun to warm him the instant he realized Maglor was here. “Macalaure, you really shouldn’t have—“
He went silent abruptly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk so suddenly Maglor was jerked to a halt. He turned around quizzically.
“I dropped my glove,” Maedhros explained, half-amused and half-anxious over the loss. “When you ran into me. I just realized I don’t have—We should go back—“
Maglor’s own amusement was clear to read this time, as he arched one very Feanorian brow and tightened his hold on Maedhros’ arm.
“Leave it,” he laughed, ushering them towards a familiar cafe on the corner ahead. “You don’t really need it, anyway.”
The cafe was almost unbearably stuffy after the crisp air out of doors, but it smelled deliciously of cinnamon and coffee and chocolate. Maglor ushered Maedhros towards their usual table, but Maedhros did not need Maglor’s guidance to know where they were going, for there was Finrod, animatedly gesturing across the table with a long handled spoon, and there across from him was Fingon, looking very smart in his best blue jacket. He was first to notice Maedhros’ approach, and sprang from his seat with a cheer.
“Here they are! Hurrah, hurrah! Happy birthday, Maitimo!”
“Oh, indeed?” Finrod exclaimed, leaning around in his chair. He waved the spoon again, at Maedhros this time, as though threatening him with a knighthood. “Well, speak of the devil! Happy birthday, my dear fellow. How are you holding up, being so very old?”
“Better now,” Maedhros grinned, folding himself into the seat beside Finrod. “And careful with just how ancient you make me, considering you are yourself not so far behind.”
“Nonsense,” laughed Finrod, shaking back his bright hair: “I shall never be old.”
“Athair says age is only a frame of mind,” Maglor said, as he took the chair opposite, next to Fingon. “It is one’s thoughts and attitudes—the mind that ages the body, you see; we do not lose our youth as is commonly believed, but actually give it up through our choices.”
“Your Athair is a philosopher,” Finrod said, wryly. But Maedhros, seeing Fingon’s expression and being mindful of Uncle Fingolfin’s greying hair, hastily changed the topic of conversation.
“No, thank you, I wish to preserve my appetite,” said Finrod, when Maedhros asked him if he should like to order a cake or two. “You are inviting us to your place for dinner after this, and I know how excellent your cook is. No, no, I’m not asking! Maglor already has it all arranged. It was a grand thought on your part, Maedhros, to host a private dinner party for us four. Very grown-up of you.”
“Father gave me special permission,” Fingon chimed in, looking up from his silver chocolate pot. “He said to pass along his regards, Maitimo.”
“I shall have to remember to thank him this Sunday,” Maedhros said, giving himself up to his apparent fate as the evening’s host. And at a dinner to be held in their own house! He half-wondered if this was yet another cunning plot on behalf of Maglor and Fingon, who together made frequent projects of his health, whether that meant urging him to sleep more, cajoling him to eat more, or dragging him out for exercise and sunlight. He knew he had not been eating well, lately. He had not in fact planned on eating at all this evening, having no appetite. He eyed Maglor suspiciously, but Maglor met his gaze guilelessly, as he delicately raised his teacup to his lips.
“You shall enjoy the menu, I promise,” Maglor said, and took a sip.
“You shall certainly enjoy Fingon’s contribution to the spread,” Finrod agreed, poking at Fingon’s arm across the table. “Go on, Fingon, show him your gift.”
“You bought me a gift?” Asked Maedhros, surprised. Fingon made the funny expression that meant he was pleased and embarrassed about being pleased, and hopped up to go fish in his coat pocket where it hung on a peg by the cafe door.
“Finrod and I bought it together, really,” he said, as he passed a gold-wrapped parcel into Maedhros’ waiting hand. “There is a new French bakery that my mother likes to visit when we go walking, it isn’t so very far from my house. They have wonderful breads and pastries and things and you must come with me sometime so I can show you. But there is a sweet shop next door that makes the best sort of candies, and sometimes they get in imports from Europe and such, and recently they have begun to sell—“
“Oh,” Maedhros said, delightedly, for out of the paper and onto the tabletop fell a solid bar of chocolate, the largest he had ever seen.
“They’ve started to make blocks of chocolate for eating, out in England,” Fingon explained, glowing with delight at the success of his surprise. “I knew you would love it! I had to wrap it up in two handkerchiefs to keep it from melting in my pocket, I was that anxious over it. Lucky it’s a cold day.”
“The most impressive gift is how Fingon has had a whole bar of chocolate in his possession for a week now, and has not sampled even a corner of it,” Finrod remarked. Maglor laughed.
“Now you are being mean,” Fingon protested, flushing again. “Maitimo, you know they are only having a joke to vex me. I would never steal from you, on my honor. You know I wouldn’t!”
“And that is why I shall share it with you,” Maedhros smiled, conspiratorially, “while those two scoundrels shall have to watch us and regret their wicked ways.”
At last Maglor loudly announced he was famished, pushing aside his cup and saucer, and the four cousins bundled their way back into their winter things and out into the deepening evening. The sun had sunk low enough for shadows to completely envelop the streets, making what had already been cold even colder. Maglor and Finrod tucked their chins deeper into their scarves and set off at a rapid pace down the street towards Athair’s house—which was to say, towards Maedhros’ house. Maedhros lingered to keep Fingon company as Fingon hurriedly pulled on his own mittens, puffing a little with the chill. To his own surprise, Maedhros did not feel as frozen as he had earlier, doubtless still warmed by the drink he had in the cafe. His only real discomfort was in his gloveless hand, which cramped and needled as he stood by waiting for Fingon to finish, stamping his feet a little on the pavement.
“There,” Fingon announced, having now arrayed himself to his satisfaction, “I am ready. Goodness, it is darker now than I had expected! We must have been some time in the cafe. What time is it now?”
“Oh,” Maedhros said, shrugging, “round about supper time, I think. We should have enough light to get home with, anyway. Come along, let’s catch the others.”
He turned about to begin pursuing the rapidly receding shapes of Maglor and Finrod, but stopped at Fingon’s sudden cry.
“Oh, Maitimo! Your poor hand.”
“Never mind it,” said Maedhros, shoving his prickling-cold fingers into his coat pocket. He turned back to give Fingon a reassuring smile, and to hold out his gloved hand to take his little cousin’s mittened one. “I’m perfectly all right. Now quickly, after them, before they have enough of a head start to begin the fun without us.”
“Did I, or did I not cater perfectly to your tastes?” Maglor said triumphantly, as he coiled up happily on the sofa. It was after dinner; having grown a little raucous, the cousins had agreed to move the remainder of their revelries to the parlor, and to take their dessert and coffee in comfort, sprawled about the cozy room. Maedhros, who had begun setting up a chessboard for a match with Finrod, paused to favor his brother with a grateful smile.
“It was just the ticket, Maglor,” he said. “Thank you. I confess myself amazed by my own apparent skill at playing host.”
“Of course! You are a man of the house now. You have a reputation to build.”
Maedhros had still not been hungry, really, but in the flow of cheerful conversation with good company he supposed he had ended up actually eating a good deal. Maglor had taken great care to ensure that all his favourite foods were present, even managing to acquire some early strawberries from somewhere, which were perfectly palatable when sprinkled with sugar. Fingon had been thoroughly impressed by the quality of the meat, and by the loaves of bread, white and soft and salted even without butter.
“These are like the ones I had at your home in Formenos!” Fingon had exclaimed, excited, while Maedhros sat there stupidly with a lump in his throat.
“Yes,” Maglor had answered, but he had been watching Maedhros, not Fingon. “I wrote home last month to ask mother for the recipe, so that I might share it with the kitchen staff. Do you like it, Maitimo?”
This last added anxiously, after Maedhros’ long silence. He had cleared his throat, and nodded.
The bread was not exactly like mamaí’s, of course, but—it was very close.
Once Mary had brought in the coffee service, and once Maedhros had shared out the handsome little silver cups and arranged for more pastries and sweets to be sent up for his guests, he finally settled into his customary armchair with a sigh, reaching lazily for the crystal decanter he kept on the handsome side table. It had been his mother’s sewing table, once upon a time, but Maedhros did not generally have much use for sewing.
“I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” Finrod remarked with a shudder, sipping at his coffee. “Wine is all very well and good, but whiskey!”
“That’s the Englishman in you,” drawled Maglor, who himself never touched the decanter either. Maedhros, his high spirits rising yet higher as he finished his first glass, made a show of pouring his second.
“I used to spend evenings with Grandfather this way,” he reminisced fondly. “He is very fond of this stuff. It never dulled his chess game, either, which I used to think very unfair. Your move, Finrod.”
Maedhros won the first game. Then he won the second. After that they moved on to checkers, with Fingon joining in this time and surprising them all by thoroughly trouncing Maglor.
“Good show, cano,” Maedhros cried, which seemed to leave Maglor somewhat miffed.
“I cannot focus,” he said, waspishly. “I’ve had such a long day. Here, Maitimo, why don’t you go against him next? Defend the family honor.”
“We are all family here,” Finrod pointed out, nibbling at a biscuit. But Maedhros only laughed, and arranged himself a little more properly in the armchair.
“Go on then,” he said, “toss me the score card.”
Maglor did.
It arced perfectly across the table, and struck Maedhros squarely in the back of his hand where it rested motionless upon his knee.
“Good catch,” said Maglor, laughing. “Lord, Maitimo, you did not even try!”
Maedhros stared at the little paper notepad, now crumpled on the carpet at his feet.
“I forgot,” he said.
“Forgot what?” Asked Finrod, selecting another biscuit from the platter. “How bad a throw Maglor is?”
Maglor opened his mouth, ready to be outraged again, but Maedhros shook his head.
“Never mind,” he muttered, reaching down to pick up the fallen paper. “I’ve had a long day too, birthday or not. Pass the pencil too, Maglor, but properly this time, if you please. I would rather not risk losing an eye.”
Finrod had removed his shoes shortly after settling into the parlor. Now he had begun to recline further and further by degrees, his head propped at a slant upon his arm, which was itself propped upon the arm of the sofa. He had put his feet up upon Fingon’s lap, as a tease, but Fingon had in short order shoved them back onto the floor. His resultant pose was not particularly dignified, but he did not seem to care, as he thumbed idly through a sailor’s travelogue which he had pulled from its shelf after his second loss at chess.
“Listen, Maitimo,” he announced suddenly, his voice only a little sleepy: “I’ve half a notion to go down to the docks one of these days and to buy myself a pipe. You know the ones I mean, carved up to look like anything, all out of whalebone and sharksteeth and things; spicewood from the Indies and so on?
“Scrimshaw,” Maedhros supplied.
“That’s the one! I think I should look dashing with one of those between my teeth. What do you think?”
“I think it is your decision, really. But for myself, I cannot abide the smell,” Maedhros said, toying with his empty glass as he considered helping himself to another. “It gives me a headache. Vile stuff, tobacco.”
“Grandfather Finwe smokes, and you never complain about him,” Finrod pointed out. Maedhros reached for the decanter again.
“Grandfather is different,” he said.
Finrod looked at him strangely.
“Different?” He asked. “Different from what?”
Maedhros did not remember suddenly, as he poured out the whiskey, just how many glasses he had had. He had thought no more than three, surely, but he could not now remember actually drinking them. His head really was beginning to throb a little.
“Oh let’s leave that alone,” he said wearily, leaning back with his glass now refilled. “I am getting a headache just thinking about it, now. If you do choose to squander your money on a handsome scrimshaw piece I suppose that is your affair, Finrod. Just do not expect me to ever stand within ten feet of you again, if you insist upon using it!”
Maglor, catching only the end of this conversation, laughed. Finrod, though he smiled slightly, did not.
“I didn’t know you felt so strongly on the subject, Maedhros,” said Finrod, slowly. Maedhros swallowed. When a knock came gently at the closed parlor door, he did not look to see who was there.
“Oh, excellent!” Exclaimed Fingon, cheering from his own undignified position half supine across the settee: “Custard tarts! Do please set them just there, Mary—or, here, let me take them from you, so you needn’t reach. Thank you very much. Here, Maitimo, you pick first, as it is your birthday. Make sure to choose the very best.”
It felt much later, much deeper into the night, when the party’s energy finally dwindled down towards sleep. One by one, each of the boys fell quiet, the board games long abandoned. Finrod was still turning the pages of the travelogue, though he seemed now more interested in the rhythm of the movement than in reading. Fingon had snuggled up next to him, at first to join in the reading, but now he was falling asleep, leaned comfortably against Finrod’s shoulder. Maglor really was asleep, despite how he always insisted he hated sleeping anywhere that was not his own bed. His mouth hung open slightly in a very unpoetic manner.
Maedhros had begun to feel his weariness again, filtered through the haze of many glasses of whiskey, warm and muzzy and amber-glowing. He liked this armchair in particular because it was large enough for him to curl up in comfortably, even with his legs as long as they were. From that most satisfying position he regarded the frankly astonishing mess that they would have to clean in the morning, which for now was only the happy relics of a birthday well spent: the chessboard, and the checkers, and the dishes and remnants of the food. He regarded his cousins, too, and his brother.
I feel almost as though I must be dreaming, he thought, watching them. There was gold in Finrod’s fine hair, and mahogany in Maglor’s, and some undefinable brightness running through Fingon’s, too, which was black and yet lit brightly all the same. The candlelight and the dimness, combined with the haze of the whiskey, leant the entire scene a rich, painterly quality. The sense of irreality was absolute, except that they were here, all these painted boys: breathing and laughing and loving and very much themselves.
They were not Formenos. They were not Celegorm, and Caranthir, and little Curufin, and Ambarussa with their lisping milkteeth and baby affections. They were not mamaí, and they were not Athair, no matter how Maglor’s nose sometimes recalled Feanor’s, when he turned at just the correct angle.
But Maedhros would miss them, too. These cousins, and this brother, and this cozy parlor with the ancient rugs and piles of lace pillows. He would miss them, too, when they were gone.
“What are you nattering on about now, Maedhros?”
That was Finrod. He was watching with his chin propped up lazily on one hand, his stocking feet tucked beneath him on the sofa cushion.
“What? Oh, mercy,” Maedhros sighed, shaking his head. “I had not realized I was speaking aloud.”
“You weren’t,” said Finrod. When Maedhros looked at him, confused, he smiled faintly, and shrugged one shoulder.
“You have a look you get,” he said, “when you are all filled up with thinking. What were you thinking about? What did you want to say?”
Deeply ensconced in his own armchair, Maglor stirred in his sleep, then quieted. Maedhros looked at him—looked at Fingon, nodding off with his empty coffee cup still held loosely in his fingers—looked at Finrod, who looked back at him, waiting.
Maedhros opened his mouth.
“I love you,” he said. It was such a relief to say the words. “I love you all. I love you so . . . So very much.”
“Even me?” Asked Fingon, sleepily.
Maedhros laughed.
“Of course you.”
“Oh,” Fingon said. “Oh. That is a relief.”
It was an odd response. Maedhros made the effort to turn his head, to see if he seemed as though he were joking, but when he looked Fingon had fallen fully asleep at last, his cup dropped silently to the rug.
“Dear me,” tutted Finrod, but he got up to retrieve the cup and place it safely upon the tray. Maedhros watched him, and the graceful way his hands moved in the firelight, and was suddenly blinking back tears. He did get maudlin, sometimes, when he was drunk. The mood crept up upon him the way sleep did, as an inexorable, merciless release.
“I don’t want this to end,” he mumbled, his tongue slow in his mouth. But Finrod heard him, and raised the coffee cup in a tiny salute before replacing it on the table.
“Of course you don’t,” he agreed, settling back against the arm of the sofa with a sigh. “No one really does, when it’s their birthday. But still time goes on. How old are you, anyway?”
Finrod’s gaze was suddenly alert, as he looked across the table to meet Maedhros’ gaze.
In the quiet, the mantel clock ticked.
The sound of Fingon’s breathing was very soft, and so very dear.
“Don’t,” Maedhros whispered. “Not tonight. Just for tonight, let—Let everything stay like this.”
After a pause, Finrod chuckled, and closed his eyes.
“The things you say when you have been drinking,” he mumbled, with fond good humor. “Remind me to tease you about it tomorrow, won’t you? It shan’t be your birthday then; I shall have no mercy.”
The mantel clock ticked.
In the morning, Maedhros did not remember what he had dreamed.