Chapter Text
At the mouth of the Valley they stood arrayed in splendor, the armament of Imladris, liveried in the blue of final dusk and emblazoned upon the breast with the mithril and white gems of the House of the Mariner. Their spear-tips burned beneath the eye of the sun like the high white spire of Caradhras. Their great grey destriers stood black in the mane and bold in the eye; they steamed and blew smoking breaths and packed the snow beneath their dark, feathered feet and waited, trembling, as if for war.
Princely at the vanguard rode the Master's radiant, mirrored sons. No helms they wore, but diadems of sapphire, and their armor was bright and burnished, and one in heraldry bore the standard of the Guard stood in his stirrup, and one carried slung beneath his arm an ivory horn set round with bands of silver.
Between them was Glorfindel, Glorfindel wreathed in gold, Glorfindel with the sunlight springing from his mail and warm upon the white drape of his cloak, West-illumined Glorfindel, Glorfindel with his eyes alit and jewel-fired as the snow, Glorfindel all but thrumming like a plucked string in the clear midwinter slant of Anor's rays.
Glorfindel with his head back, laughing.
It was this sound ringing down the river and not the clarion call of the horns that welcomed the High King of Arnor as he came across the Ford.
Valandil he was, Isildur's son, and long had he ruled in wisdom and in peace, and at last the hand of Time had come to thread his hair with silver, though it had not begun to stoop his back. Ever kind to his fathers, so it had been to him, and once again he rode in strength on the eve of Mettarë to feast in the house of his friend, and the friend of his father, Elrond Halfelven.
But as the King shipped into view up the bank of the Bruinen on his own high-headed steed, Glorfindel's laugh faded. He traded a quick look with the knight at his right hand, for the one upon the left was too pleased with his own jesting and with Glorfindel's answering merriment to have kept watch for whom they waited upon. Yet even he read quickly the change in bearing and when Glorfindel with a bare brush of his spur sent his stallion leaping for the river, his tandem consorts were a mere beat behind.
The Elves drove to a halt before the High King of Arnor, the feet of their horses spitting snow.
"Hail Valandil, Lord of the North!" rang out the clear voice of Glorfindel in the high tongue of the Elves and of the faithful men of Númenor. "With joy we have awaited your coming, but if you have met with trouble let us ride with you to allay it. Where now are your courtesans?"
With a wry twist of his brow Valandil glanced over his shoulder, not at all the princes and retainers of Annúminas, not at ladies splendid in their trimmings and furs, not at the burgeoning breadth of his entire joyous household spread out behind him beneath the banners of the King, come together as they did each year to join the Elves of Imladris in their Midwinter revelry.
Instead, as if he were no higher than a hamlet lord, the King of the North led only loyal Ronyondur his guard and footman, and a squire with a line of coursers at one hand and a string of hounds at the other, and at his near flank a stripling boy astride a neat bay palfrey, the King's own goshawk jessed and hooded upon his arm.
Valandil turned back to the Elves and smiled in the eyes and answered, "Peace, lord. No trouble with our party. Forgive me that I sent no word beforehand; I have indulged an old man's whims and wrecked a long tradition. We shall not flood the House with revelers this year. But still, I would that you would have us, if only for the hunt."
"More feasting to go round," laughed Glorfindel, now in unceremonious Sindarin, and swung down as the King did and met him and embraced him like a brother.
"Hail, my lords," the King said then to the sons of Elrond. A grin broke over his grave and noble face. "You look all kitted up for a good scrap."
"Always a merrier scrap alongside the Men of the West," returned the younger with a grin of his own. The elder gripped the proffered arm and smiled and said nothing, but his eyes were narrow with laughter unloosed.
"Ronyondur you know," the King said next, as the Man behind him dipped his head in stately greeting, "who would not let an old fool wander on his own in the woods. Tiuco is his good squire."
"And this one," said Glorfindel, from where he had crossed to stand at the shoulder of the bay mare. He lay his gauntleted hand upon her black mane at the withers, the youngster astride her somewhat wide in the eye. "A wild man you found in the woods somewhere?"
"Arantar's boy," the King said, and his voice had warmed and lowered with love. "At last we have him again, up from Osgiliath. Tarcil, my lad. Here is Glorfindel, General of Imladris, and the lords Elladan and Elrohir, Elrond's sons. Greet them: they are my friends and stoutest allies, and may the One be kind, they shall be yours as well."
"Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo," murmured the boy, and then beamed like a lighthouse when the lord of grander ages reached up to clasp his forearm as if he were a man grown.