Chapter Text
Aredhel watches her father tuck his spectacles in his breast pocket and waits patiently, with her arms folded across her white linen shirt—one of Turgon’s white linen shirts, actually, with the cuffs rolled back twice to keep her hands free. She had thought he would have said something by now, as she stole it from his trunk two weeks ago, but he hasn’t so much as scowled in her direction. Turgon has been superbly distracted ever since they departed from the Teleri, but that is a separate scandal from Aredhel’s new state of dress. Compared to Turgon and Elenwe’s surprise announcement, perhaps no one in the family has any shock to spare for the sight of Aredhel dressed in man’s clothing.
No one except Mama, that is, who had instantly protested the first time Aredhel climbed up into her wagon to bring her supper, but even she had restrained herself to only a mournful sigh of Oh, Aredhel—four syllables made eminently eloquent by the look upon her pallid face.
“I promise I shall put the skirts back on when we are in town again,” Aredhel had reassured her mother, fiddling with the waistband of her equally stolen trousers. She had become quite a motley scarecrow of all three of her brothers: Turgon’s shirt, Fingon’s trousers, Argon’s braces. Of them all only Argon had donated his clothing willingly, which is one of the benefits of having a younger sibling. Impending fatherhood has made Turgon daft, and Fingon—
It is likely that all four horsemen of the apocalypse could blow their dread horns before Fingon would notice anything at all amiss, these days.
Anyway, Aredhel does mean to keep her word to her mother and return to proper lady’s attire whenever they next reach a settlement. But that will not be for weeks yet, and in the meantime, Aredhel cannot help feeling that her current freedom is, at least, some small silver lining to her family’s present circumstances.
It is selfish of her, she knows. But she does not think it is a sin.
“Now then,” says Father, stooping to pick up his gun. He holds it in two hands, the way he would a rolled newspaper. Aredhel wears a holster at her hip, like Turgon and Finrod, but Papa does not like having his weapon always so near, and keeps it stowed in the trunk where he keeps all his and Mama’s private articles, however few they now be. Aredhel has not protested this habit, but she had been surprised when he had agreed to her half-jesting suggestion they have a spot of shooting practice today, once the camp was struck and the wagons secured. She had watched him emerge from Mama’s wagon—stooping, as he always must, nearly double, for Papa is very tall and the canvas doorway is not—with an uncommon mix of both nervousness and fondness.
Papa has never disapproved of her learning to shoot, but she is not certain he knows just how thorough her education has been, in that respect, either. Still; her good eye and steady hand has done well for them thus far, on this unexpected road. Finrod was most admiring of her on the hunt, three days ago.
“Now then,” says Father, looking to her. “Where is our mark, daughter?”
Aredhel points.
“There. See the little paper square?”
She had saved the greasepaper from the hard, salty cheese they finished yesterday morning, and tacked it to the bole of a sturdy beech tree within shouting distance from the wagons. Papa squints at it, frowning, but it is not a displeased frown. He is thinking.
“You may flatter me in your estimation my marksmanship, Irisse,” he remarks, “but very well. Shall I make the first try?”
They have allotted six bullets each for the practice, from what is still a very healthy supply for a wagon train on its way to the Mississippi crossing. No matter how Papa dissembles, he loads his revolver confidently, spinning the barrel with his thumb and sliding the bullets neatly into the chambers. He must force the ramrod with both hands, for the gun is already some years old, and the mechanisms stick. Aredhel has never seen him fire the piece, even though he purchased it before Grandfather Finwe was killed.
She tries not to think wistfully of the revolver Celegorm had used to let her practice with, the one his father made, bright-polished and beautiful and effortless to handle, sleek as hot spread butter. He had promised her she might have it as her own once they reunited at Ulmo’s Bridge, for he would have a new revolver of his own, by then.
I’ve had the making of it, so it is to be mine, he had written to her in his last letter, his hand as hasty as it ever was, scampering to cover all the sheet like an excited hound pup running. Though in truth it’s Maitimo who has done most the work, and Curufin with him. I’m no dab hand at the smithing, as you know. But Athair likes to think we have all fashioned our own, even the twins, though at least he allows them help with the hammer, and the casting. Anyway, I’ll be the one cutting my name in the stock once we have all the job done, and I’m finishing it with wood-amber I foraged, and with brass. I’ve a notion to etch out a pattern of leaves on the grip for texture—oak and beech and aspen, all mottled together, can’t you just see it? It will be a braw dandy gun, Irisse. You’ll have never seen its like. I might even let you hold it, if you ask nicely.
“Have you had a play at marksmanship with your brothers too?” Papa asks, passing Aredhel the tarnished little powder flask and hefting the loaded gun experimentally in his hand. He draws aim, draws again, and rolls his shoulder.
Aredhel carefully sets to tipping the precious black powder grains into her own pistol’s first empty chamber. Her bullets have grown as warm as skin in the palm of her left hand, and she slips them into the gun very gently.
“Not yet. They’re . . . Distracted.”
“We are all distracted, my dear.” Papa glances at her sidelong, tipping his small smile toward her like something to catch. “You should ask Fingon, tomorrow. I think he would appreciate it.”
“Perhaps,” Aredhel concedes, doubtfully. She knows all too well who taught Fingon to shoot, and she cannot think the reminder quite the solution to his black mood. Aredhel does not like to look at her own circumstances directly, and prefers to instead turn her emotions over and over in the back of her mind—like the soothing motion of absently flipping a coin in one’s pocket, when one is preoccupied. Anger and pain, hurt and confusion, over and over again. There is her favourite cousin, safely stowed in her pocket until she has had time enough to decide what to do with him.
Fingon, however, stares into his memories the way any other man might stare into a mirror after waking from a nightmare.
Aredhel does not see her father take his first shot. She is still stowing the powder flask when she hears the report of the gun, and smells the bitter, hot-steel smell of the gunsmoke as it blurs across her vision. She looks up, blinking, and sees her father has lowered his arm to cover his mouth with his wrist, blinking back at her.
“Gracious,” Papa says, coughing slightly, “it must have been a good many years since I last fired a gun. I had quite forgotten that smell.”
The paper target is untouched.
“I went high.” Papa does not seem troubled by his error, indeed he nearly seems pleased. “I thought I was compensating too much for the distance, but couldn’t help make a test of it anyway. Ah, well. I am rusty.”
“It is the gun which is rusty,” Aredhel says, taking her own aim. Shoulders square, elbow firm, just the way she was taught.
When Papa fired, a rush of startled pigeons rose up, calling in querulous alarm, from deeper in the trees. Nothing moves in response to Aredhel’s shot except the little square of white paper, which flinches as her bullet just nicks it, so far to the left she nearly missed it entirely.
“Oh! Good shot,” Papa exclaims. Aredhel lowers her weapon, piqued. She knows it was not; she knows Celegorm would have scoffed at her in the way he did whenever he felt she was not living up to her potential. It was one of his only mannerisms that reminded her at all of Uncle Feanor, though she never told him so.
Papa’s second shot goes wide, as does his third, which buries itself in the bole of the tree a little below the paper target. By this time, when Aredhel looks back towards the wagons, she can see not a few of the men have left off their work to watch from a distance, loitering near the built fire. She is certain she sees Turgon’s tall, sturdy shape like a black paper cutting against the white canvas of her mother’s wagon, and it is with a little ache in her throat that she turns back to the tree to take her own fourth shot.
It is difficult to mark the target now, for her previous two bullets left the white paper pocked with holes. When she switches the hot gun to her left hand, to sniff and wipe the gunsmoke sting from her eyes with her shirtsleeve, she clears her throat with a manful sort of cough, and flexes her fingers to work out the cramp from the grip. Holy Mother of God, Aredhel thinks; I am more out of practice than I feared. It does not seem fair that hours of perforce needlepoint did nothing to strengthen her hand for shooting.
“Another hit,” Papa announces, and he sounds so quietly proud. “I did not fully realize your talent before, Irisse; I shall beg your forgiveness, on that count.”
“Oh, don’t do that! It is not as if I had much opportunity to show you, back home.” Aredhel sighs, and shifts her weapon back to her right hand. Papa shakes his head.
“I suppose not. You shall have to show me how to improve my own marksmanship, daughter. I’ve yet to hit the target at all.”
“It helps to imagine the target is someone you despise,” Aredhel jokes, archly—and then promptly feels ill.
In the silence, she coughs again, nervously. “Like I said before,” she tries, deliberately bright, “it is your gun, not you. We ought to buy you a new one—that ought to be our first order of business, when we reach the Mississippi.”
“Hm,” Papa says, but that is all. He considers the gun in his hands, turning it over.
“Papa,” Aredhel presses on, allowing herself only the barest moment of hesitation. “What are we do do about Elenwe? Do you think we might stay a while in town, once we get to the river? Fingon is worried to have her traveling in her condition, and the road isn’t a proper place for a birth, nor for raising a newborn. Not if we might find somewhere hospitable to stay, with an apothecary.”
“Fingon told you this?”
“Not those words, exactly. But I know what he was thinking. And Turgon’s scared stiff.” Aredhel sighs, reconsidering. “Elenwe’s scared too, but she’s being braver about it. I never knew her much before all this, but she’s a splendid woman, truly. A little foolish, to go marrying Turgon, but she’s splendid despite that. She could have stayed behind, at Ulmo’s Bridge, but she chose to go on anyway. I like her enormously.”
Papa nods.
“Yes. I am also grown fond of her, these last weeks; and I have been concerned for her health as well. And it is true that it is unfair to force the full responsibility of her care upon your brother, when he might have help at a settlement. Fingon has not complained, and Turgon, I think, is afraid to, given present circumstances. But you are quite correct. I have yet to discuss the matter fully with your mother, and I shall need to speak with Elenwe myself, too—or perhaps you might ask her for her opinion, in my stead. But if we continue at this pace we should reach the Mississippi in time for her confinement, and Finrod says the town there was already well established when last he came this way. We should be able to find lodgings, and work to pay for food and board, I hope. I am not . . . quite so young as I was, when last I did work with my hands.”
“Turgon can work,” Aredhel points out, instantly. “I’m sure Fingon could offer his medical services, too, as they likely won’t have seen an actual trained physician in a long time. And even Argon is old enough now to run errands or help with any odd jobs needing doing. Why, I could help, too; I should be happy to!”
“Help in what way, daughter?” Papa asks politely, but with a little smile of the sort that brightens his eyes. “Shall you make a show of your marksmanship, to entertain the townsfolk? You could challenge their best to a competition of skill; we could take wagers.”
“Papa!” Aredhel laughs. “I do not think Mama would consider that appropriate ladylike behavior! And I did promise her I shall behave, once we are in town.”
“A terrible pity.” Papa is still smiling, as he looks down at the gun in his hands, rolls his shoulder back, and adjusts his grip.
“When I was your age,” he begins, “I actually was a fair shot myself. I spent most summers out in the country with my brother; we passed the time fishing, and hunting, and going on long expeditions in the woods, or across the fields. We camped beneath the stars on multiple occasions, and I fancied myself quite the outdoorsman, at the time. A veritable rustic gentleman! Which is of course nonsense. When one has the funds and security, one may enjoy playing at a life of privation. I did not understand that, then. I was not nearly as wise as you are, daughter.”
Aredhel knows, of course, that her father is speaking of his boyhood spent with Uncle Finarfin. Even before Ulmo’s Bridge, he never called Feanor my brother. And Feanor himself . . .
Half-brother, he had spat, that terrible day in Grandfather’s house, with all the family there, everyone there to see the gun he raised in hand. His hand had been shaking—it is the only time Aredhel can remember seeing her famous uncle’s hand unsteady. She had focused on that, in the shock before understanding; she cannot even remember what expression had been upon his face. She can remember the long barrel of the pistol, and the shaking hand, and the taste of the tea she had been drinking, on her tongue, in her mouth, frozen.
So it is as I guessed, and you seek supplant me! You would turn my father against me in this as in all things! Say on, if you dare; speak again of temperance; of forgiveness; of Christian charity. To hear you preach of Christian virtue—You who were nursed by an Anglican, and who consorts even now with devils like Bauglir and his kin, and conspires with them to bring about my ruin! See, half-brother! Dare but one word more, and this will silence you, if nothing else will.
At the sound of the shot, she jumps.
“Aha!” Papa exclaims, lowering his hand with a full smile. “A hit at last, Aredhel, you see? I am perhaps not entirely without hope, then.”
Aredhel’s heart is beating very fast still, as she smiles back. “I knew you needed only a little practice, Papa.”
“Well. We have bullets remaining, but I think I shall consider that a fitting end to practice for now. I ought to return to your mother, and be sure she is not in need of anything. Will you walk back with me?”
“I’ll be just a moment,” Aredhel answers, but impulsively she throws her arms about her father’s neck, and kisses him upon the cheek.
“Thank you,” she whispers in his ear, “for taking such good care of us. I know I am ungrateful, by nature. I never stop long enough to think. But I really am thankful.”
Her father carefully returns her embrace, with one arm, so he might keep his pistol still pointed safely away from her. When he returns the kiss, he presses it lightly to the widow’s peak of her hair, and then releases her, and she steps back.
“Give me your rusty pistol, then,” she says, holding out her hand. “I’ll make certain both pieces are safe and secure, and then follow along. Tell Argon to make me up a plate, and if he hasn’t left any supper for me I’ll bite him.”
“I shall make sure there is food waiting for you,” Papa says, ignoring the threat. As he heads back up towards the camp she settles down upon the grass, laying aside her own pistol as she carefully spins the chamber of the gun, latches it, and returns it to holster. Once finished, she does the same to her own, and then just kneels there a moment, smelling the sweet-forest smell returning to the air as the gun smoke dissipates, and feeling the cooler evening breeze caress her hair and the back of her neck with its welcome touch. She did not feel hungry, earlier, but now she is famished. Gathering up the guns, she pushes to her feet, stretching to work out a cramp in her shoulders.
“Aredhel!”
It would be difficult to make out the approaching figure, as it charges towards her, but Galadriel’s bright hair is easily visible anywhere, even in the dimming evening light. She, too, has taken to wearing man’s clothing when she can manage it, and she has not promised anyone she shall return to skirts in town. Barefooted and breathless she skids to a halt, her face flushed.
“Dear brother Finrod has had me under close watch, hanging out the linens and serving up the supper; I’ve only just managed to get away. Don’t tell me you’ve done with shooting already!”
“You’ve just missed me, I’m afraid. I was starting back now, and anyway the light’s getting too dim for target shooting. What is for supper?”
“Oh! Bother the supper. You know what it must be, same as every day the last week. Mightn’t I have one shot, at least? I can still see the paper, it’s so white. I shan’t miss.”
“Hush, Galadriel,” Aredhel chides, and she fondly links her cousin’s arm in her own, elbowing her gently. “I’m hungry; walk back with me, won’t you? There will be time enough for shooting later.”