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Ancalimë was raised in a house of women, in a house of silence. Though she had grown accustomed to men and to a great excess of noise (a fact of life no matter where she dwelled, if it was not the white house in Emerië), she had never become truly comfortable with either. Noise gave her headaches all too easily, and as for men… Well, the only man Ancalimë had ever truly liked was her paternal grandfather, and even he had been a bit grating at times—more to the point, Tar-Meneldur was now dead, and however splendid a tomb he might possess, it was no substitute for the man himself. She found nothing in the rest worth trusting.
There was a knocking at her door. With some reluctance, Ancalimë got up from bed and stood straight, and let the only sign of her discomfort be her clenched fists. “You may enter,” she called, with all the poise she had learned in Armenelos. Let the visitor think what they wanted of the fact that the blinds were drawn shut and there was no light in the lamps. And if it was Hallacar, well, it would hardly grieve Ancalimë for that liar to know she was unhappy in his family’s house.
“Princess?” a rich, decidedly feminine voice asked from the other side of the door. The door was pushed open, and as light spilled in from the hallway and the distant clamor of noise from the main hall, sending another spike of pain through Ancalimë’s skull, she recognized Nessanië, who blinked in confusion at the sight before her. “It’s so dark…”
“Shut the door,” Ancalimë said tersely.
Nessanië braced her hand on the door frame. “Princess, what—“
“Shut the door, Nessanië.”
With a faint look of uncertainty, Nessanië did as she was told, dousing them both in shadow. The pain in Ancalimë’s head lessened slightly, but she did not relax. She folded her arms across her chest, digging her fingernails into her arms—a keen pain, even through the stiff fabric of her robes. “What was it you wanted, Nessanië?” she asked stiffly.
Ancalimë could not read Nessanië’s expression in the darkness. However, the note of disquiet in her voice was unmistakable (Ancalimë’s skin prickled uncomfortably). “I wondered why you had left the festivities in the main hall so early. Are you ill?”
Ancalimë did not answer her right away. She never knew whether to credit concern. Hallacar’s, when she had known him as Mámandil, must have been self-serving, as was every kind gesture he had made to earn her trust. Her mother clung to her pitifully, so any displays of concern for Ancalimë (on the rare occasion she saw her at all) were likely engineered to keep Ancalimë from leaving her for good, as her father had. Even if her father expressed concern, nothing ever came of it. It was in the best interest of servants, courtiers and court officials to appear as though they cared for Ancalimë’s well-being, so who knew if it was ever genuine?
Nessanië… Nessanië was an unknown quantity. She had stayed secluded in her father’s house in Hyarastorni, and had never been to court. Few in Armenelos knew her; her name had rarely come up in gossip, and never in any substantial way. She was Hallacar’s older sister, which did nothing to recommend her. Ancalimë had met her only a few days ago, and knew virtually nothing about her. It was difficult to guess what to expect from her.
“My head pains me,” Ancalimë told her, frowning. It was the truth, if not the whole truth, and harmless enough to relay. A headache was a common excuse given when one wished to absent themselves from the company of others; it implied nothing about anything.
“I… see.” Ancalimë heard, rather than saw, Nessanië take a step forward, the crinkled silk of her dress rustling as she did so. Ancalimë thought, involuntarily, that it sounded like the tall grass in Emerië at the height of summer, when heat dried the grass and it made a hollow sound in the wind. “We have remedies for headaches, Princess. Would you like me to bring one to you?”
“No.” Belatedly, Ancalimë added, “Thank you, Nessanië.”
Instead of leaving, Nessanië swept past Ancalimë, expertly avoiding any furniture in her path. She went to kneel by the far corner of the room, at the opposite side from the bed. Ancalimë didn’t know why she’d gone there, of all places—all that was there was an odd, multi-colored glass vase. “I had hoped we could talk,” Nessanië remarked. “I won’t stay long, but we are family now; I thought it best we get to know each other.”
Ancalimë raised an eyebrow. This was much more forward from Nessanië than what she’d seen over the past few days. Outside, she’d done nothing more than exchange pleasantries, and then let her father and brother talk over her. She never sought out Ancalimë for conversation, even when her parents wouldn’t leave their new daughter-in-law alone. She might have been one of those people who became bolder in private, and if so, Ancalimë didn’t think her opinion of her sister-in-law was likely to improve—she had always found something distinctly duplicitous about that sort of person.
But this was probably the best chance Ancalimë would have to get the measure of Nessanië. She already knew, too well, that Hallacar was going to be trouble once she was Queen, and probably start being trouble long before then. What about Nessanië? “Perhaps so,” she murmured, trying to push the pain away—it had always been a distraction, when dealing with other people.
“Good.” Ancalimë heard Nessanië rifling through a pocket for something, and stiffened. A moment later, there was a hard scratching sound, and Ancalimë blinked against the light of a lit match. Nessanië slid the match down into the vase, and it lit up, shining speckled orange, yellow, reddish-purple. Not a vase, then, but a lamp. Ancalimë quickly schooled her face to hide any sense of surprise, all the while thinking that it would be like Hallacar to withhold that bit of information from her. Nothing important, just whatever was necessary to keep her off-balance.
Nessanië drew to her feet, her dark pink dress rustling disturbingly again. Her copper-gold hair gleamed in the lamplight. She smiled welcomingly (or, at least, what she must have thought was a welcoming smile; Ancalimë could take no comfort in it), exposing a thin strip of teeth. “We haven’t really had a chance to talk.”
“No,” Ancalimë agreed, “we haven’t.” After a moment’s deliberation, she asked, “What was it you wished to ask me?”
At that, Nessanië hesitated, opening and shutting her mouth. Gone was her confidence of just a moment ago. “I… I was rather surprised when I first heard that you had accepted my brother’s suit.”
Ancalimë could hardly hold back a sneer. “Were you? And what was so surprising about it?”
“I had been under the impression that things had cooled between you…”
‘Cooled.’ That was an interesting word for it. Ancalimë paced the room, avoiding Nessanië’s gaze. “Deception is not something I take lightly, and not something to be forgiven easily. I married him for the good of the realm; nothing more, nothing less.” The Council had pushed for it, and Soronto was pressing in like a wolf at the door, dropping hints in ears that if the Scepter passed to her, the Line of Kings would be broken, for the proud princess would not wed, caring more for her own pleasure than for the succession of Númenor. Hallacar was the only one of her suitors Ancalimë really had the measure of, the only one she was confident she could out-maneuver, if need be.
But Númenor at large was not aware that relations between Ancalimë and Hallacar had ‘cooled’, even before their wedding. Indeed, they were not aware that the two had known each other before their wedding at all. Ancalimë’s parents knew, but they had not divulged the information to anyone else. Ancalimë peered suspiciously at Nessanië. “What did he tell you?”
Nessanië fiddled with the belt of her dress, her mouth pressed in a grimace. “When he came home, he boasted of how a ‘simple shepherd’ had won the love of a proud daughter of the House of Elros.”
Ancalimë laughed scornfully. In Mámandil, she had found that boasting bent of his charming, even if she had enjoyed joking about it at his expense. In Hallacar, it took a loathsome turn; far too certain of safety was he to ever curb his tongue. “And I suppose he simply neglected to mention that ‘proud daughter’s’ reaction when he revealed his deception.”
Nessanië winced slightly, the heavy shadows making the lines of her face look harsher than in proper light. “I couldn’t imagine you were pleased,” she said flatly. “Even if he hadn’t spoken thus to me, I would have gathered there was trouble between you when we were asked to set aside separate chambers here for each of you.”
The laugh that came this time was quieter, though its bitterness redoubled. The throbbing in Ancalimë’s head, meanwhile, became impossible to ignore. She stopped her pacing, and stared piercingly at Nessanië, her lips twisting in a severe smile. “And why did you wish to speak to me of this, Nessanië? Why speak of things you obviously already know?”
All told, this was remarkably similar to the days of Ancalimë’s childhood. When she had done something wrong, her mother would make her recount, in excruciating detail, what she had done, where she had gone wrong, asking questions just like this. How different it was when Ancalimë asked the questions, instead of having to answer them. (Somehow, it didn’t bring her quite as much pleasure as she had expected it would.)
The face Nessanië wore was not the one Ancalimë had worn when Erendis chastised her. If there was embarrassment, it was not on her own behalf—Nessanië’s expression bore none of the defensiveness Ancalimë would have anticipated, in that case. She half-seemed to melt in the shadows, her face gone dull with embarrassment and what Ancalimë recognized a moment later as sympathy.
“I have heard much about you worth admiring,” Nessanië said quietly. She shrugged her shoulders, her full mouth twisting. “And even if I had not, I would still feel for someone who had been deceived as you had. What I wanted to tell you…” She paused and sighed tiredly, then smiled oddly, her dark eyes gleaming. “…What I wanted to tell you was that even if you could not count your husband as your friend, I am willing to be your friend in his place.”
Without another word, Nessanië bowed her head and swept from the room. Ancalimë did not stop her. She did not say a word. She stared at the place where Nessanië had been, and in her mind, confusion reigned. Since when did anyone—
Ancalimë shook her head sharply, and blew out the light in the lamp. In darkness, she thought, her heart pounding, that it might not be such a bad thing, to take Nessanië back to Armenelos with her, when she went home.