“Talk of the Walk”.
The Inn’s name consistently popped up when Cutch, Teahesto, and Ardanion inquired about a good place to eat near the Dol Amroth docks. Cutch didn’t recognize the name; it must have opened sometime after he’d last been in the city over twenty years ago. Then, he had been young crewman on a trading ship under the flag of the House of the Golden Crescent, and the only business at that time on Inzebel’s Walk was a gambling hall and brothel, known only by word of mouth as the Wolf’s Den.
As the trio climbed the broad stone stairway up from the docks, Cutch quietly wondered if the Inn now occupied the sight of the Den. His thoughts returned to the Madam, and the intrigue that had changed both their lives.
During the time when Cutch, Ardanion, and Teahesto visited Dol Amroth, it was an exotic treasure to have an Elf in the party, for as they entered the Inn, which indeed was the building that had once housed the Den, the greeter looked up in surprise and pleasure at the tall, beautiful Teahesto. “Yes! Yes! Welcome!”, the greeter, a young woman, exclaimed loud enough to turn all eyes towards them. Teahesto replied with a cool, polite nod, giving her time to assess the party she’d presumed he led. She quickly turned to locate a prominent table for them in the center of the dining room. Cutch recalled the days of the Den, when this room had been a large greeting and gambling parlor, garishly decorated to subtly mock the plush privileged lives of those who partook of the primal pleasures here.
Cutch listened as Teahesto and Ardanion discussed the boundaries of their collective knowledge of Dol Amroth, and he nodded in absent agreement when either of them glanced his way; memories of his youthful time here pushed up to the foreground of his thoughts. His relationship with the Madam had been complicated, but beneficial in ways he could have never predicted.
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Her name was Gwendannen, though Cutch thought she bore it as a stage name to obscure her identity. It rolled sweetly off the tongue and complimented her undeniably beauty. She was not young, but not old, in that span of Mortal years that spoke of both vitality and prowess. Amongst the Den’s stable of practitioners, her attentions were most frequently sought yet least availed, only given over to the most well positioned of the city’s nobles, officers, and businessmen. Her network of influence in Dol Amroth quietly grew, as did her considerable affluence.
Pure happenstance had brought Cutch to the Den. A simple pastry, one he’d learned from Michel Delving hobbits during a short stay, found its reputation carried by shipmates to the Den and Gwendannen’s notice. Among the pleasures the Den offered was an excellent meal, and some came simply for the food, although the scintillation of being in such a decadent place added to a table’s whispered conversation. The Madam was always on the prowl for interesting dishes and talented kitchen staff. She tried for a year to tempt Cutch away from his sailing duties, and it was not until he neared his twentieth spring that he finally relented. The ship had suffered a very close call with corsairs, barely making it back to Dol Amroth, and it would be many months before repairs could be completed. Captain Khurad encouraged her crew to seek employment elsewhere, giving them all good references and an invitation to rejoin when the ship was fit to sail. Cutch decided to take up Gwendannen’s offer, thinking to sail again when the ship was ready.
In Cutch, the Madam saw someone innocent in many of the ways of the world. His romantic inexperience was almost insistently obvious, like a belled buoy clanging in rough water. He was not, nor ever would be, beautiful in face or form. He was, however, loveable in his unassuming and sweet demeanor. A particularly heartless calamity in Gwendannen’s past encouraged her to assume a protective role with him, like a she-wolf over her cub. She warned the rest of the ladies in the Den to leave him be, and they kindly agreed. Thus did Cutch join the Wolf Den’s kitchen, a favored baker and enthusiastic student of high society cuisine.
Within weeks Cutch became the Den’s chief provisioner. His acute senses and farm upbringing equipped him to find the best of fruits, grains, vegetables, and meats. He knew that the finest ingredients made for the most memorable of feasts. As his reputation grew amongst the city’s shop keepers, so did a legitimate reputation for the Den that employed him. Before long, Gwendannen would accompany her adopted cub during his shopping chores to not only protect her valuable baker from being hired away, but to also expand the legitimacy of her own reputation. Cutch sensed she was on some sort of long-term mission in the latter, but the shocking details of that wouldn’t be revealed for several months, in the still of a late night.
She’d had Cutch, with a batch of his pastries, accompany her to the Court of the Prince, under the stars of a clear night. They halted near one of the fountains and she stepped close to speak quietly.
“This may well be your last night in the city”, she murmured, reaching for the ornate pastry basket. “Shortly I will meet the fellow whose treachery led me into this life. He’s a Swan Knight captain to whom I was once betrothed when he was a dashing young officer and I was a youthful maid, heir to a prosperous country estate. His duties brought him to Dol Amroth, where he discovered another opportunity for a ‘better’ mate, one that would more greatly enhance his career than would some country girl. But he had to find a way to break the betrothal while preserving his honor.”
Her face became hard, her grip on the basket handle tightened until it squeaked in protest, and her voice took on a wolfish growl. She went on to detail how her betrothed arranged for his brutal cohorts to despoil her, and then invent the rumor that she was not the victim but was instead the instigator of a wild night of wanton debauchery. The story ruined her reputation and freed her fiancé to take another, while leaving his honor intact and sympathy for him wickedly gained. She disappeared, but secretly followed him, assuming another name. As Gwendannen, disguised with makeup, hair dye, and a wardrobe that deliberately distracted from the face, she acquired the building to be known as the Wolf’s Den and patiently waited for the opportunity to exact her revenge. The ensuing years helped to replace the youthful beauty of the maiden he’d ruined with the more worldly glisten of a Madam.
She sneered, a canine grin hungrily taking in a slow breath, as if savoring the scent of prey. “They have no children, and his wife has become one of our most frequent customers.” Cutch was shocked by the prominent name that she uttered. “But that is only glaze for the roast. Tonight, I feed. Tonight, the captain meets me here thinking to begin an arrangement with a prospective concubine. He brings the dessert wine, which will be outrageously expensive, and I bring the treats, which I have poisoned. I will drink and smile seductively. He will eat and die.”
Cutch stepped back, repulsed by her confessed plan and her predatory mien. She snatched him by the wrist. “Before you go, you must take this.” Setting the basket down, she retrieved a sizeable pouch straining with coin from a pocket in her voluminous skirts. “The stablemaster at the Harper’s Court has a horse for you. Take it to the Den and pack your things. Share this coin amongst the Den’s staff. Warn them that if I fail in this, the Knights will attack, and our people must not be there. Then Cutch, flee the city. Do not come back.”
Cutch moved towards her, worry for her suddenly welling up. “But my lady…” he began to plead, a hand reaching for hers. She pushed the pouch into that hand, and with her other she tenderly stroked his cheek. Through a softened face graced with a whimsical smile she whispered. “The saddest words are … ‘If only’ …”. Her posture stiffened as, in the distance, the sounds of a knight’s heavy boots strode closer across the decorative paving stones. “Go. Now.”
He did exactly all she’d bid, and moments after he’d galloped out of the city, alarm horns sounded, portcullises clanged shut, and city gates scraped closed. He reined up on a hillock a few hundred yards from the shut city. Looking back, he saw smoke rising from where the Den would be standing. He faintly heard shouts and galloping hooves echoing inside the city walls. And thus did Cutch leave Dol Amroth regretting that he couldn’t think of some way to save her.
As he continued his wanderings further into Gondor, Cutch picked up bits and pieces of news about that night in Dol Amroth. An assassination attempt on a Knight’s officer had failed, mostly, leaving him alive but a mindless cripple, waiting ever so slowly under the loving care of his devoted fellow Knights for the end of his mortal misery. The assassin’s den had been raided, but no one was ever arrested, and never did he hear his own name associated with the crime. For a time, however, he doubted that he should ever return to the city and Captain Khurard’s ship.
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“Ada?”
Ardanion’s voice interrupted Cutch’s musings and he looked up at his son’s inquisitive expression, then over to Teahesto, whose Elven features were also lined with curiosity. Sliding up into an attentive posture, Cutch returned his focus to the moment. “Yes? What?”
Ardanion pointed at Cutch’s bread plate. “It’s a house specialty they call a Swan Tart, but it looks like an Aunt Cider treat.”
Cutch looked down and softly chuckled. The pastry was an excellent approximation of the hobbit-inspired recipe that had, in his youth, brought him to the Den.
After his return at journey’s end to the Lair, Cutch would decide then how much of this story he’d share with the House.
