“Well? Were you able to find him?” asked Sogadan.
Parnard shook his head. “Pour out the wine.”
The Vintner of Imladris was a sleek little elf, and knowing well the tastes of his clientele, poured out a tall glass of Dorwinion Red, and pushed it across the polished marble table.
“I wandered down the garden path, and looked in the windows of his chambers, but I could not see anything. But I am not done yet! I shall go out into the highways and hedges to look next.”
“And do what, exactly? You have already saved him from himself, what more can you do?”
“Why, apologize, of course! Lord Estarfin is very angry with me for what I said, and must feel exposed at the attack I laid on his character. How, then, could I keep him from being punished, for that which we shall not mention. So I might have said a few things that made him angry; and yet, why should he be angry with me for showing everyone the state of his mind and the causes of that mischief – but we will speak no more of that matter,” Parnard hastily added. “Surely he could not wish to have been exiled, or have his career in the Hammer destroyed? And now you see how he has been tasked to train the recruits? I cannot help but think I had some small part in his new promotion."
“Is it a promotion, or punishment?”
“Instead of being angry with me,” persisted Parnard, “he ought to have the opposite feeling; for of what service can error and nonsense be to anyone? Why should he be angry with me?”
“I have pointed out why,” Sogadan said, sharper than he meant, but he did not like Lord Estarfin. “You told him the truth, and this has never made anyone happier. The way, friend Parnard, to keep folk happy is not to tell them that which they do not like to hear. Until you stop doing this, all the good intentions in the world, said with all the eloquence in the world, will never change this fact.”
“I would rather give up my position, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, some dark cave perhaps; and hide there, than to think that I have lost the esteem and regard of my friend!”
“Very eloquent,” said Sogadan, “but I rather think you would grow tired of the dampness.”
“Caves are very damp,” Parnard agreed, taking another sip of wine, and dabbed at his lips with the corner of his sleeve.
“Dark, too. And, there is no wine in caves to be had – not usually.”
“I shall not leave!” declared Parnard, all of a sudden. “Had I not been called to Higher Service as Ambassador of Bar-en-Vanimar,” he said, enunciating his words with the meticulous care owed to this glorified position, “I should have joined the Army.” He added – “As an officer, of course.”
“Of course! But, did you not tell me that once you served in the Golden Host?”
“At present,” Parnard continued, ignoring the question, “I am far too much wedded to my position in the House which has been entrusted to my special keeping. There is the tourney to be arranged yet – I myself am sorely tempted to test my skill with the rest of them – but I think it would indeed be a backward step.”
Sogadan raised his eyebrows. “A backward step, becoming Lord Anglachelm’s bodyguard?”
“No, getting skewered in the guts.”
The elves nodded solemnly and drank their wine in silence for a time.
“You are a true friend, Sogadan, if you are nothing else. I will say that for you,” Parnard said, taking up the wine bottle.
“Let that grim-faced Estarfin be. I know what I know, and what no one else does not know, only me: and I do not like it.”
Parnard shifted uncomfortably in his chair. For an elf who had long been a dweller of the House of Elrond and accustomed to the company of the gossiping Vintner, he was strangely ill at ease, and, instead of encouraging his conversation, sat staring at the day’s broad light drifting through the glazed windows, and cursed the sunshine.
