Chapter Text
Celegorm opened his eyes to see the bright white stream of dust-motes, traveling down sundry beams of light that fanned like fingers through the stable rafters. He remembered where he was, pleasantly; then he remembered why he had come there to sleep, less pleasantly.
He had spent the night in an empty stall.
It was May, and though the days were summer-warm, the nights were stiff and occasionally frosty. Cold enough, even, to bury oneself in last year’s hay. He shook himself, sneezed violently a few times, and got up.
Huan was already awake beside him—bright-eyed and thumping his tail against the floorboards. The instant Celegorm was on his feet, he sprang up too, sniffing the air.
Outside, a rooster crowed. Celegorm could hear the horses breathing, and no doubt, if he were to pace the distance to the larger barn, he would hear the cows amiably chewing their cud.
They would have already been fed and milked, before daybreak. Celegorm had slept late because, when night first set in, he was in no mood for sleep at all.
Sure enough, when he stepped outside the stable, Maedhros was coming from the direction of the barn with a covered pail in each hand. His hair was wild and his trousers pulled over his nightshirt. Celegorm, unable to revel in his own disheveled state as he usually would because of the curious twist in his belly, plucked a bit of hay from his hair and waited for his brother to see him.
“Morning,” Maedhros said briefly, spotting him.
“Morning,” said Celegorm. Huan darted forward and ran a loop around Maedhros, before prancing back to Celegorm in a manner that made him seem like a puppy again, despite his size.
“You stayed out all night?” Maedhros asked.
“Seemed the thing.” Celegorm had no wish to recount his reasoning—and there was, in truth, no need. When he’d returned from a long and joyful hunt (the fruits of which were hanging from one of the maples), he’d heard the dreadful, well-known chorus of raised voices and shattering crockery. As such, he did not go inside.
But Maedhros had been inside, and no doubt was better versed in what had caused the trouble. Only—
Celegorm didn’t want to know.
“How did the milking go?”
“Not badly. Grainne’s nearly dry.” Maedhros blinked rapidly, then, which meant he was thinking hard. “Celegorm, you were gone all day yesterday.”
The strange feeling in Celegorm’s stomach tightened to a true knot. “I was hunting,” he said. “S’not a crime to hunt, is it?”
“No, of course not. It’s just—” Maedhros had closed the distance between them, on his way to the kitchen, and now Celegorm fell into stride beside him. “A good deal happened, yesterday.”
Celegorm was conscious of a great black wave, like none he’d ever seen at the seashore, rising over the verdant fields. If he refused to acknowledge it, it might not break.
So, instead of asking a more obvious question, he said rather woodenly,
“Did you sleep last night?”
“No,” said Maedhros.
Celegorm glanced down at the pails. “It’s Maglor’s turn to milk.”
“Those who can sleep, should,” Maedhros said, a flicker of a smile appearing at Celegorm’s habit of criticizing the brother between them no matter the occasion. “Are you coming in?”
“Suppose I must at some point,” Celegorm answered, though he felt the words to be nearly a falsehood. Hadn’t he been thinking, just yesterday, that it was time to go? To take Huan and a bundle of things (and Maedhros, oh, if only Maedhros would agree and never, never go to the vicious city again) and set up permanent station in a forest outside of Athair’s view and reach? Celegorm hadn’t even needed the excuse of an immediate turmoil. He had been plotting for weeks, and had solidified some ideas with the benefit of many hours to himself.
But it didn’t seem the right moment to speak of it to Maedhros. He offered to take one of the pails, was denied—
“They’re not heavy—”
He followed his brother into the kitchen with his hands in his pockets.
There was no fire in the stove. More than that, half the breakfast dishes were gone from their place on the hutch. It was unlike them to make things tidy after a fight. Celegorm puzzled over the grim mystery, then realized the likeliest solution: Maedhros had swept it all away before milking, making yet more work for his sleepless morning.
“Will you light the stove?” Maedhros asked. He was attending to the milk, which had to be poured into jars and then put away to cool.
Celegorm lit the stove, and lit something else too: the little ember ever-present in his breast which, after a storm, sat cold and lumpish with childish fear before flaring into wrath that was not childlike at all.
“How are we to lay the table?” he muttered, after a moment. “Nothing to lay it with.”
“I don’t think that we’ll be sharing breakfast,” Maedhros said. Conversation halted as he carried the jars two-by-two to rest among the ice blocks in the cellar.
Celegorm sniffed again in his absence, his nose still irritated by the hay. Huan had not come in with them, preferring to sun himself on the front steps, as if Formenos was a respectable home and everybody within its walls as happy as could be. Again, the ember grew in heat, while Celegorm strove manfully against any other display of his feeling save a darkly furrowed brow.
Maedhros, finishing his courier duty at last, observed it.
“What can I say to cheer you?” he asked, in his sweetest way.
For the life of him, Celegorm could not think of an answer. Then there was no time. The kitchen door banged open and Athair entered. He was rumpled and sooty and red-eyed, rather like Hephaestus, to whom Maglor had once wittily compared him, just out of earshot.
Celegorm’s own forge-heart blazed all the more, but he said nothing. Maedhros, however, had stiffened like an arrow, before forcing himself to relax into a pitiful show of solicitude.
“Athair,” he said, “Good morning. I was just about to boil water for tea or coffee—whichever would suit?”
Athair ignored him for an instant, as if Celegorm’s silent rebellion of spirit was the more magnetic force. Celegorm dropped his eyes so that Athair couldn’t seek them, and listened without watching as Athair said,
“Tea.”
“In a jiffy,” Maedhros said. “It will be done by the time you’ve washed up.”
“And where do you propose I should find a fresh set of clothes?” Athair asked, soft but dangerous. “Everything I own is in your mother’s room.”
Celegorm was still staring at the floor, but Maedhros’ stocking feet were in his sight, and he could see them shift nervously, almost as if Maedhros was readying himself for a dance. Which, in a way, he was.
“Never mind that, then,” Maedhros said. “Celegorm, would you toast some—”
“You were absent yesterday,” Athair said. The danger was more than the softness, now
Celegorm did not respond, though he knew the words were addressed to him.
The whip snapped.
“Look at me when I speak to you, sir.”
For Maedhros, and Maedhros only, Celegorm lifted his eyes.
Athair said, “You are, therefore, unaware of our family scheme.”
“Does it concern me?” Celegorm asked, knowing he was being rash and not caring.
Athair’s look would have melted lead. Unfortunately for him, Celegorm already had a fire in his belly.
“Apparently not,” said Athair, and stalked out of the room.
Silence reigned. Maedhros rarely offered any reprimand at times such as this. He stood chewing his lip, the kettle swinging in his hand, and then he filled it with water anyway, though Athair was not there to drink it, and lit the stove. Celegorm found the rest of yesterday’s bread, sliced it, and began to toast it with ruthless attention.
When it was finished, he handed a piece to Maedhros.
“Oh,” Maedhros said, the word little more than a puff of air, “I’m not hungry.”
Celegorm didn’t back down. Finally, Maedhros accepted defeat, and nibbled the crust obligingly.
Athair did not return. In a little while, a cautious ruckus began—the sound of the twins and Curufin and Caranthir creeping downstairs, like rabbits poking twitching noses out of their burrows to see if the foxes were gone.
No sign of Mother; no sign of Maglor. Maedhros had to go and look for them.
And still, Celegorm knew nothing.
He took the twins to see the ducks. It was a favorite pastime of theirs, but they were quieter than usual. Nervous. Wondering if he was angry, perhaps. Celegorm was in a more cautious mood, however, under the benevolent sun.
Huan ran on ahead of him, frightening the plump waterfowl. He never hurt them, but he could not help himself when he saw their sleek, waddling bodies: he had to give chase.
Celegorm had sold the ducks back to Orome at a tidy profit (Orome insisted on the sum; he said that Celegorm had saved him the trouble of raising the original ducklings, and had grown the flock three-fold). The money was locked in a box of Curufin’s making, kept under Celegorm’s bed. He still hadn’t decided what he was going to do with it.
“I’ll miss it,” said Amrod. He was looking at the pond, which stretched blue-green before them, unrippled because there was no breeze.
Amras said, “So will I,” and Celegorm’s heart, which had burned out with weariness sometime after he escaped the house, twisted painfully in his chest.
I’ll miss it.
He had never been permitted to stray far from Formenos, and he had convinced himself that his father’s illogical and smothering mandates were indistinguishable from his own wishes. He did not want to be educated in the City, after all, or to attend Grandfather Finwe’s dull meetings.
He wanted to live in the woods. He could learn all there was about freedom, in the confines of home, and when the time was right, he would retreat a little further, a little further, until—
Until there was peace in his heart, he supposed, imagining Maedhros happy and his little brothers satisfied before he imagined anything else. If he could give them a refuge—near enough to home to be useful—that would be escape enough.
But Amrod’s words meant something else.
Amrod’s words meant—
“We’re leaving?” he asked. His voice in his own ears sounded like he was the younger brother, asking wisdom from the elder. But of course, he hadn’t asked Maitimo when he had the chance.
He hadn’t wanted to know what he felt already. Everything was about to change.
“Athair says we’re going west,” Amrod said. “All of us.” And he swept one thin arm in a great curve, as if to capture the world.
“I slept in your bed last night,” Curufin said, waspishly. “Since you weren’t in it.”
Celegorm knew that Curufin was angry at being left alone while the shouting and breaking went on down below. Even the twins hadn’t come to comfort him; Maedhros was home to coddle them himself.
Otherwise, they might have gone to Celegorm, the eldest left. It had happened before. Though Curufin liked to scoff at them for doing so, he would not order them away.
“I’m sorry,” Celegorm muttered now, taking stock of his squashed pillows and tangled blankets. He crouched, digging under his bed for the money-box. He had never cared about it much before. Now it seemed a necessary thing, to measure all the wealth he had in the world.
“We’re going west,” Curufin said, confidentially. Celegorm could have stabbed him through and through just then by saying, I heard it all from the twins. Instead, he listened.
Curufin went on,
“Athair says to California territory, maybe. That’s—that’s thousands of miles away. Haven’t you always wanted to go west, Celegorm?”
Celegorm had found it: he clasped his hands around the cool, solid lid of the box.
He hadn’t spoken to Maedhros since their meagre shared breakfast. He hadn’t seen Mother; she wouldn’t come downstairs.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t care.”
Two days passed in tense, curious silence. Athair was forever dashing off on errands that he would not speak of, and Mother rarely left her room. There were unshared meals, cobbled together by Maedhros or Caranthir. Maglor did not cook, and Celegorm considered his contributions of fish and game sufficient, when the garden was not yet bearing much.
Caranthir’s cooking was usually quite edible, though Celegorm would never say so aloud, but for two days it was reliably lumpy and underdone—or dry and burnt.
Athair was scathing about it. Maedhros tried to take the blame, but it did no good.
This does not bode well for our bright future, Athair snapped, pushing away his plate one supper.
A bright future. At the idea of it, and the memory of his initial ignorance, Celegorm felt outright hatred. It was frightening, and unaimable, for there was no safe target. It was as if he had been turned on his head.
That evening, when Maedhros came in from the stables, Celegorm smelled whiskey.
Celegorm wondered if it would be best to hate himself.
“What ought I to do?”
This, in the doorway of Mother’s workroom, where Maedhros stood leaning against the post. “Whatever you deem best, mamaí,” he murmured, so low that even Celegorm’s sharp ears, a few silent paces away, could scarcely hear him. “He will not go without you.”
“You do not think so? Come now, Maitimo. You remember ten years ago as well as I do.”
“But he did not mean to stay away, then,” Maedhros coaxed. “He came back.” The pause that followed seemed louder than the words. “I will not step between you,” Maedhros continued. “I—it is not my place. But if you talked to him, I know he would listen. This matter is heavy on him. It is…”
“You take his part?” Mother’s voice sharpened.
Maedhros said, “I take our family’s part.”
“You are as diplomatic as your grandfather ever was,” Mother said, sighing. “Advise me, then, eldest. Tell me what pretty words I should use to make things right with your pigheaded father.”
Maedhros cleared his throat. “I think Grandfather is at the root of it.”
There was a change in Mother’s tone. “The root?”
“He did not…the plan ought not to have been secret,” Maedhros said. Celegorm strained, listening. “It was unfair for you to learn about it at the same time as Uncle Fingolfin. But the root of it, the heart of Athair’s idea—you’ve known it for years. So have I. He wants to be free of the—the corruption that infects this place. He—he knows he can never fulfill Grandfather’s wishes, or do real good, in the City. Lord knows he tried, with me.”
Mother answered quickly, “That was not your fault, my dear. You were too young.”
“I am not too young to be very wicked and wheedling,” Maedhros said, sighing. “I am wheedling you now. Forgive me, Mother-mine. I said it wasn’t my place, and then I forced my way forward anyway.”
Celegorm slipped away. For the first time since the twins told him the news, he knew it was really true.
They were leaving home for good.
He poured the coins into Mother’s apron. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her workroom, bundling away her best paints and crafting tools.
She had agreed to Athair’s plan.
“What is this, my love?” she asked, almost as surprised as she used to be when Celegorm would bring her toads and small turtles and once, a chipmunk with an injured leg, depositing them just so. She did not like such things in her lap, but she had grown used to it, having a son like him.
He sometimes felt that he was that son no longer.
There was too much that had changed between them.
Still, she was the only one he trusted with his purpose.
“It’s from the ducks,” he said. “I’d like it to—to help.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Mother said, looking up at him with Maedhros’ searching squint, and Maedhros’ hair, but Caranthir’s square features.
“It’s not for everyone,” Celegorm muttered, keeping careful hold of the cruelty in his heart. The ember of anger; the arrow of hatred. “I want you to give some to Maitimo, and use the rest for the twins.”
The days dawned brighter. All was harmony again, with Mother compliant. Curufin and twins were as merry as if they had not a single care for the only home they’d ever known. Maglor was morose, and Caranthir rather solemn, but Celegorm could find solace with neither. He took Huan on fewer hunts, but more long walks across the fields that would be kept—perhaps forever—by farmers he’d never truly cared for.
In a few dark moments, he pondered what might happen if he refused to go along at all.
In the end, he tried to set his own weathervane by Maedhros. For Maedhros, once the first storm was over, and the broken dishes as distant as Uncle Fingolfin’s carriage wheels, was happy. He had taken the money as a belated birthday gift, and spent most of it on fresh saddle girths. Still, Celegorm could not help but be satisfied by the purchase his brother had made for himself.
Yes, Maedhros had made good with his unwitting use of Orome’s duck-money. He had bought a coat, long and swinging, cut of russet-colored leather that somehow set off his hair to greater advantage, rather than competing with it. The coat would have looked ridiculous and out-of-place on someone shorter. Someone without his bearing.
It made him look like a seasoned westerner, thought Celegorm, though he’d only seen such things depicted in imaginatively colored woodcuts printed on the back of magazines and papers.
The coat, and what it portended, let Celegorm chase away the black doom he’d felt descending, in those last days, much as Huan was wont to chase waterfowl.
On the evening that it arrived, bundled up separately from the other leather-goods, Maedhros tried it on for all of them. Then he danced a two-hand jig with Mother on the worn kitchen floorboards, which creaked a comforting song beneath their feet quite fit to accompany Athair’s fiddling.
For you, thought Celegorm, watching the light and shadows dance with the figures of those he loved and used to love.
Only for you.