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Tucked away behind a public garden, the market district in Andúnië was a labyrinth of narrow cobblestone streets and alleys. The outer edges were bursting with small shops selling a variety of wares–from carpets to spices, sculptures, pottery, hanging lanterns and more.
Passing through an arched gateway into the market’s interior, the stores were bigger, and the items on sale were pricier, many of them brought to Númenor from distant shores by wealthy, travelling merchants.
Thirteen-year-old Anárion squatted outside one of the larger textile shops and observed the crowded street wilting under a sweltering summer morning. Buyers and sellers haggled over price in loud, heated voices; men sat idle on the kerb with their smoking pipes; women gathered under the awnings for their Sunday gossip, out of the sun’s scorching gaze. Children ran up and down the cobbled path playing, nary a care for the world, their shrill laughs adding to the cacophony of voices permeating the market district.
Anárion wanted to join the others in the fun, more than anything. He had at least a dozen suggestions swimming in his head that were better than playing catch on a packed street. The adults did little to hide their annoyance every time one of the running children accidentally knocked into them. But, he promised his parents that he would behave.
Looking over his shoulder, Anárion saw his mother still browsing scarves inside the shop while his father leaned over the counter next to her.
He sighed, hoping at least his brother was having a better morning than him.
Isildur had dashed out of the house as soon as breakfast ended, making up a story about having a full-day apprenticeship down by the docks. Before Anárion could retreat and bury himself in his growing collections of books—courtesy of his grandfather—his parents had cornered him. “Anor, you spend too much time immersed in your books,” his mother said, combing back his fringes with her hand. “Come my dear, your father and I are going to the market to pick a gift for your cousin’s coming-of-age ceremony. Some sun and fresh air will do you good.” Stealing a fleeting glance at his father, who hovered behind her, Anárion knew the request was no longer optional.
“Liar,” Anárion cursed Isildur under his breath. “You are not doing any apprenticeship, you are probably—”
Voices nearby captured his attention. From across the narrow street, Anárion noticed a girl his age in conversation with a merchant outside a store selling exotic wooden carvings. The man’s grey hair, crinkly eyes and paunchy belly piled the years on him as he spoke to her in his soft, honeyed voice, a broad smile on his face. “This is a fine choice, young lady,” he said, holding up a carved wooden horse with copper embellishments and shell inlay. “Crafted by a great carver from the Great Lands. Arrived yesterday on board one of the ships that returned to port.”
The girl traced her dry, bony fingers, with brittle uneven nails, over the horse’s smooth polished surface and let out an uneasy laugh, as if suddenly second-guessing her presence at the market. Her frumpy, oversized clothes made her stick out on a street overflowing with opulence.
“I would normally ask for three gold coins, but I will give it to you for one,” the man said.
For a moment, her expression was unreadable until, without a word, she returned the carving to the man. Anárion observed as her face morphed into palpable disappointment, shoulders slumped as she walked away from the shopfront. A short distance down the street, she slumped onto the kerb next to a man smoking his pipe—likely her father—hugging her knees to her chest.
“Anor?”
Rising to his feet, Anárion greeted his parents. From the brown paper-wrapped package in his mother’s hands, they had finally made their purchase after going into the store more than an hour earlier.
“You’ve been such a patient young man today, my little sunshine. I think you have earned yourself a present,” his mother said, beaming and planting a kiss on the top of his head. The sudden brightness of her smile raised his spirits as she gestured around the crowded vicinity. “Your choice, anything you would like.”
Taking her hand, Anárion guided his mother to the other side of the street and pointed to the wooden horse displayed outside the store’s entrance. The old merchant sauntered out to greet them with the same affable smile across his worn and weary face. Unlike the shoppers who haggled for a better price, his father paid the three gold coins without protest. Not even an offhand remark about how overpriced or overrated the imported wares from the Great Lands were—something his grandfather often said to Anárion in the privacy of his company.
As soon as his father paid, Anárion snatched the horse from the display stand and raced over to where the girl still sat with her father, an idle picture of uninhibited dejection and virulent frustration.
“This is for you,” he said and held the horse in front of her.
The girl’s eyes narrowed. Scrambling to her feet, she scrutinised the object in Anárion’s hands with knitted brows, trying to interpret his true intentions. From his spot on the kerb, the girl’s father observed them through plumes of pipe smoke that deepened the dark creases on his forehead, accentuated the folds in the corner of his eyes that bore vestiges of a life Anárion had only read about in his books—the endurance of those who clung to their unshaken faith under the tyranny of the kings in their ivory palace far away in the east.
Once, his grandfather had sung to him on a balmy evening when the last traces of summer coalesced into the rich hues of autumn; it was a lament for the Faithfuls, quiet and sombre in tone; Anárion understood only half the lines, but he felt the years of regret and sorrow crammed in between the quick compression of time and verse.
Doubt clouded her features, hesitation weighed on her thin frame. When she took a step back, Anárion shook his head and held out the horse between them. “You wanted it earlier, I saw you. So, take it, it is a stunning horse.”
“Why?” The girl whispered, her voice drowning the racket as more crowds filtered into the market, arriving from different corners of the city and beyond. Curiosity won her over. She took the carving, holding it in an uncertain grip as she examined the intricate woodwork over and over again—as if studying to be a connoisseur. Her expression lit up the more she processed what was happening, bright as the stars blinking over the horizon on a clear cloudless night sky, and the corners of her lips curled up.
The embarrassment on Anárion's face was awkward and transparent, born out of always rushing head-first into a decision without much of a pause to consider the consequences. “My grandfather always says our island can do with more kindness and compassion,” he said, turning crimson. The excuse was flimsy, the delivery, flimsier, while the truth was far more delicate—even at his age, Anárion observed the vast precipice between the haves and have-nots in Andúnië.
Friends who wore lush, extravagant clothes and lived in towering cliffside mansions inhabited a different world from those cramped into smaller houses in the city's lower terrain, who toiled daily under the sun's harsh, unforgiving glare, their lives slow and languid, and wholly unbothered by the island's shifting tides. More than once Anárion had overheard his grandfather and his father in their hushed voices, speaking about a shadow of an ominous, and violent, past that lurked between trees, in empty threadbare houses and behind vacant expressions of men and women the city had forgotten.
Anárion shifted his weight from one foot to another. “So–umm–remember that, and he always says to pay it forward, all right? Good. Bye!” He sprinted away to rejoin his parents, failing to notice the small, grateful smile on the girl’s face.
***
Elendil was putting away his purse when his wife pinched his arm.
“My love, look!” Her voice rose with excitement as she tapped his back with a sense of growing urgency to get his attention.
He followed her gaze until his eyes rested on Anárion in conversation with a girl who looked about his age. Elendil’s eyes widened when his son gave the horse to her. Next to him, his wife let out a rather undignified squeal. Even the merchant appeared amused by the progression of events.
“Oh, Eru,” his wife exclaimed, grabbing onto his arm. “He will grow up to be a natural charmer, just like you.”
Elendil laughed. “I keep telling you, my dear, that boy is far more mature than his brother, or even me when I was his age. Anárion will be just fine,” he said, giving her a half-smile.
His wife rested her head on his shoulder and let out a content sigh. “I hope you are right.” Pursing her lips, her expression hardened. “Given everything that has happened, and with the new king trying to fix what his forefathers so carelessly broke, I pray to Eru every night that life will be kind to our boys.”
He nodded.
“Anor and Isil deserve a better future than the one we grew up with,” Elendil said, watching Anárion run back towards them.
FIN