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Dinner with the head of the White Council was an affair full of banal conversation fraught with frustrating evasion. They sat at one end of a long table set with the finest dinnerware she'd seen outside elven courts. And she noted that that was because it was some latter-day copy incorporating elements thereof in a somewhat thoughtless manner. Gondorian, she supposed. They had lost the subtlety of their Numenorean forebears. Still, the silversmith made up for some of the lack in sophistication of design with solid craftsmanship. Rhavanielle's reverie on silverware was broken by their host's ringing of a small bell. Servants appeared and cleared the debris of their meal. The dwarves had gone through two servings of boar flank and cup after cup of ale while the scholar and Saruman had dined on modest portions of squab. Neither of them had gone past their first cup of wine. Which annoyed Rhavanielle considerably as she yearned to go through a bottle or two from the Wizard's storied cellars.
The three had gotten a grand tour of Isengard. Rhavanielle had visited several times in the past but quietly followed along for the benefit of her friends. Afterward they had been afforded private hot baths and assigned rooms with spectacular views of the valley looking south toward the White Mountains which gleamed under the westering sun. By now the dwarves were nodding at the table. The exertions of the past days of hard marching and the sudden flood of luxuries had brought them to the limit of their endurance. A second night in a comfortable down bed beckoned and as the dishes were cleared, Saruman's voice dropped in timbre.
“Rhavanielle, my friend. Perhaps I can show you some books I've acquired? I'm sure these stout fellows are deserving a good night's sleep and I promise I won't take much of your time...”
The elf swalled the last tiny sip of the wine. A flavor redolent of the last days of youth's finest summer washed over her tongue all too briefly. And then it was gone. She rose at one with the gaunt and whiskered Curunir.
“I shall be delighted, but you are right. We should not tarry overlong,” she said.
Gorm spoke up, aching his back and stretching. “I'm eager to get to Gondor. We can't take ship for the Havens soon enough.” Sfeithi only stood and bowed, offering thanks to Saruman.
“We humbly thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “I had no hope of doing ought but trudging my way from danger to danger, hoping to make it to Rivendell alive. We've gone quite far out of our way, but our friend Rhavanielle has seen us through. Whole and safe.”
“Perhaps,” Saruman said, stroking his whiskers, “you might all go north along the old Greenway? The folk of Dunland I have some influence with. They could see you as far as Hollin.”
Rhavanielle interjected. “The sea route will be safer, I feel. And more direct. And afford us travel along a civilized road. We're weary of tramping through the wild. There are inns all along the road to Minas Tirish, after all.”
Saruman could only dip his head, deferring to the elf's firm tone. “As you will, m'Lady. It was only a thought.”
Rhavanielle bade good night to her travel companions and followed in Saruman's wake up the long stairway to the wizard's study. They had been shewn the room briefly during the tour, but Saruman had hastened them along to the tower's summit. The dwarves had little interest in the occult impedimentia and Rhavanielle had seen it before more or less.
“That was not altogether fair,” Rhavanielle said flatly. Saruman raised a snowy brow in feigned bafflement. The woman giggled and shook her head.
“Making them sleepy like that! Dwarves can eat and drink ale all night.”
Saruman shrugged and sat behind a desk weighted with books and parchments. He sighed wearily, ignoring her attempt at engaging in more pleasant conversation.
“I know you intend to take your leave on the morrow.” He fixed the elf with a peculiar look and straight away her eyes narrowed. Mind strove with mind in a split second of electric silence. She sensed a great power within him, but his palpable impatience and her own strength had undercut his effort to look into her heart. A flash of anger crossed his brow, the faintest rumbling rumor of a distant storm. The air in the chamber became leaden.
“I had hoped for more time. Time to discuss the craft you had asked me of when last you visited me here.” Saruman took up a thin volume bound in cracked leather that had once been tinted blue. “I found this book in Hollin,” he went on briskly. “Or rather people in my employ did. The Council keeps me busier and busier of late, so I must have helpers in my work. You may be able to assist.”
“What work do you require help with?” Rhavanielle asked, sitting in another chair nearby. Her eyes roamed over the pile of books. She got the impression that either her host was singularly obsessed or had arranged the stack of tomes for her benefit. Or both.
“I knew the names of all the Gwaith-i-Mírdain save one. Now that I have found this book of records, I have filled in the gaps in my knowledge.” The Wizard paused and studied her reaction. Of which there was none discernable. “You arrived at a very fortuitous moment. For I hoped you might have some memory of Oirilma.”
Rhavanielle felt an unaccountable sinking in her core. She felt fortunate that she had little to tell in this case. “I worked closely with him in Eregion, but after the war, he disappeared. Many count him among the lost.”
Saruman leaned forward slightly. She felt trapped by one she had thought she could trust.
“And do you so count him?” he asked quietly.
“I don't know if he is in Middle Earth, or has gone West, or waits upon Mandos, or digs ore for Sauron in Nurn,” she retorted with far more ice in her tone than she had wished. He had lured her out and now she was caught. But why?
The Wizard sat back as though flung by a blow, arms up in exaggerated supplication. “My friend! Why such suspicion amongst friends? I only want to know if the last known link between Celebrimbor's circle and Sauron's craft can lend his aid in our cause. It would be a great help if you could help us find him.”
Saruman rose, the elf following suit. The tense audience was at an end.
“I am afraid I will be unable to see you off in the morning,” said the Wizard. His voice had suddenly taken on a distant and formal air. “I entreat you to help if you can. I urge you send word to me directly if you should find Oirilma.”
She nodded in vague agreement. “It's a big world,” she said by way of answer.
Saruman merely turned and led her into the passages outside. “Not big enough,” he said.
The Passage East
If Rhavanielle had hoped Saruman would provide them horses, she was mistaken. The Dunlandish servants' attitudes had also changed like the weather on Caradhras. At first friendly and bored, they were now alert and brusque. The trio passed out of the Ring of Isengard with the gate guards' silent nod.
“What a difference a day makes,” Rhavanielle offered by way of explanation to the dwarves questioning frowns. “I was given a letter with his seal upon it declaring us friends of Saruman the White and bidding the Rohirrim to give us unhindered passage. It also bears the seal of some court official in Edoras. Grima. An unlovely name, don't you think?”
Sfeithi shrugged as he stumped along. “Unlovely to our ears maybe. The people of Rohan have their own standard of lovely, I suppose. Perhaps they think it a grand and noble appellation?”
Rhavanielle made no answer but a mildly skeptical grunt and the three walked long the Isen, which ran along a stony and wide course. The river was deceptively deep, but she had been provided with a good map which noted the best place to ford. The road was old and well maintained in this portion, for Curunir had set many laborers to work restoring the Gondorian highway and the pair strode easily to the ford, where they had some luck finding a ferry to get them across without getting their feet wet.
The ferryman was a swaggering ugly brute with gimlet eyes and a large boil on his forehead that Rhavanielle had a hard time ignoring during the negotiation for price. He had two crewmen who likely doubled as porters and she guessed they were his sons, for they alike had a similar cast of face. Low heavy brows and broad faces. The assistants rudely eyed her with open leering interest, but this was something she had often encountered in the lands of Men. Her haughty mien usually protected her and when that had not, her skill with a blade and bow had proved adequate.
Sfeithi told her as they wandered away on the far bank that he had noticed her obvious disdain straight away and was convinced that this was the reason for the hefty sum they paid for passage.
“Nonsense, friend. He's got to be used to being stared at all day,” she laughed. “Those loutish crewmen of his surely didn't mind staring at me and no one has accused me of being ugly.”
Gormr gently chuckled, looking over his shoulder at the ferryman as they reached a low rise overlooking the riverbed.
Rhavanielle grinned impishly. “That fellow was ugly as half an orc,” she laughed. “and just about as dumb as a full one.”
Sfeithi looked back. The figure of the ferryman was now far off. As a speck in the distance his vaguely sinister air no longer affected him. “I wonder...”
Rhavanielle stopped and looked back. “Wonder what?”
“I've travelled once in Rohan. Neither the Rohirrim nor the Dunlending folk look anything like those three.”
“I've been through Calenardhen too, Sfeithi Longshanks and it's like anywhere Men live. Some are just infamously ugly. What are you suggesting?”
Sfeithi stroked his beard and sucked on his teeth loudly, muttering under his breath. “Nothing,” he said starting out eastward once again.
The elf caught his shoulder. “Wait. I value your thoughts. I am sorry. Let's hear it.”
Sfeithi allowed himself to be coaxed easily enough. “I'm thinking it's strange you did not see it yourself. I think they may have been half-an orc. Half an orc each,” he said.
Rhavanielle looked down at the distant figures now loafing on their ferry raft. “Those three?” she asked rhetorically, disbelief coloring her tone.
“It sounds queer to be sure. But the mountain people have long told fearful tales of what happens to maidens who stray too far from the villages...”
Rhavanielle's face seemed to stretch out in every direction with horror. “What are you saying?”
“That the orcs can mix with men,” Sfeithi said flatly. “The old stories of the elven folk say that the orcs were made by corrupting elves caught by Morgoth in elder times. But the dwarves know much of the ways of orcs and I am not letting out any secrets by telling you that we have it that the Dark Lord of old took whatever material was to hand and twisted it.”
Rhavanielle looked ready to protest, but Gorm broke in, “He's right. You elves always have it that the elder time was all about your people. But mark my words! The dwarves were with you right from the beginning.”
The elf began to feel outnumbered and a subtle anger born of pride colored her fair features. But Sfeithi struck a conciliatory note. “We do not, of course mean to insult. Our stories mark all things by the doings of the dwarves. We reckon time by the awakening of the first Dwarf-Fathers. But I know that with other folk it is otherwise. But I think our stories are right on this point. Orcs can breed with men or elves or dwarves as well as their own miserable kind. They are the darkness in all of us made flesh.”
Rhavanielle began to walk forward briskly toward the darkness faroff in the east where the approaching night was deepest. “It's hard to contemplate, my friends. But I think you are right. I, too, have heard these tales. I have contemplated many mysteries, but the manner of reproduction used by the orcs is not anything I've cared to look into.”
“That is understandable! They are a horror enough on their own,” said Gorm, spitting on the ground at the thought of orcs. “Death take them all. And may the void swallow up their maker.”
Sfeithi and Gorm quickly marched on after their friend. Sfeithi felt suddenly sorry for speaking to a woman so plainly about such matters. The elf was a quandary to him. One moment earthy as a sailor and the next an innocent, blushing maiden. It was frustrating anticipating which face she would show on any given occasion. Hopefully they should find cheerier welcome among the Rohan men. After the uncomfortable night in Isengard, however, the dwarf felt at a loss to predict anything. Nothing was as it used to be, he thought. And it seemed it never would be again.
