I sat bolt upright in bed. Where were my curved daggers? My boot knife – my boots? My knife that I kept… oh. Oh. Quite a few weapons of various types lay neatly arranged on a bedside table, and my beloved bow leaned, thoughtfully unstrung, against the wall.
The Lady Manadhlaer must have heard my gasp, for she floated in just then and informed me of quite a few things. Not least was that I was a lucky nis to be alive and not, as she put it, “having tea with Mandos,” for the yrch near Vindurhal had been known to use weapon-poison. Her eyes glistened and I saw in them a melancholy sea, and bowed my head. Of course – her betrothed had been mortally wounded in just such a way, very near where the filthy little archer had pierced the meat of my leg.
The Lady hauled me to my feet and helped me walk about; I had no choice in this matter, I felt, though the muscle twitched horribly with every step. She assured me that Glorfingwë’s immediate aid had been tidily done, as she expected, and that before I knew it, the leg would be as new. And yet in her long, long speech there were some barbs: that I already took a dreadful risk in plighting my troth with a warrior, and now I was flinging myself about with a recklessness that did not suit my people, the Gondothlim. Did I not wish to live through my own marriage?
I winced, but held my tongue, for I knew wherefore she spoke so sharply. Everyone knew, though it was almost never discussed. But there were some differences in this matter. “Herinya,” I said, “the flower. It survived its unlikely journey – unearthed by Master Ulvoin with a pick-axe, nestled among the countless items in Glorfingwë’s pack. It lives, does it not? The mission succeeded.”
“I have many flowers, but few survivors of the Swallow,” the Lady told me. Yet her tone was not unkind, and letting go her arm – for we had returned to that overly-soft but blessed bed – I placed my fist over my heart.
“Is that not the very one over there?” I then waved in the direction of a table high and long, now graced with a rude clay pot. Therein bloomed a flower of woody stem; I guessed it would make a fine shrub someday, if it and I survived this foolish winter.
“So it is,” said the Lady, with a tilt of her silver head. “Have you always been fond of such things?”
“Not at all, herinya. Only the ones I knew by sight to be survival herbs – asëa aranion, for instance. Only something about this flower…” I played with the ends of my hair, loosed from its braid. I could not hide what I felt in the Lady’s presence. “I dreamed of it not long after I was brought in.”
The Lady picked up her cat, which had our whole hall and grounds to play in, and placed it in my lap. This was Pica, named for the great spots of colour all over her. I stroked her automatically, without thought. “Tell me of your dream,” the Lady said.
Not without being glad that the Lady enforced my rest with the House’s cat rather than her obnoxious dog, I obeyed. “There was not much to it,” I began, feeling that I confessed something momentous nonetheless. “I carried just such a flower, although a bit bigger, and violent pink like the dress of some fine lady. I carried it in my two hands, as I longed to do above Vindurhal.”
The Lady nodded. “Go on.”
I hesitated, then kept going. “I was not in the snowy field where we found the thing, but in a fire, as great as the sack of the White City. Greater, maybe. But I held the flower before me, like a precious gem that gave light – not one of those gems, but one that was not made by any craftsman. And I walked on through the flames, yet I was not burned. It is a strange thing, herinya, but I felt quite at peace.”
Long did the Lady Manadhlaer sit beside my bed, feet tucked under her in a tall chair, receiving my words in silence. “It may be that Lirisseya is right,” she said at last. “There is something at work here that I cannot see, some message that is not yet clear to me even by moon-light. I have brought out many of our books of herb-lore, and while you rest with our purring friend to guard you, I shall read.”
“Thank you, herinya. I have not even told this to Branalph yet. He is –“ I hesitated.
“Wroth with me for sending you upon this journey,” she finished. “And I will not say he is wholly wrong. Our tactics must adapt to the situation. Olriandis said the members of the party were widely separated.”
“It is hard to maintain a close formation with winter-tusks about,” I ventured. “Ulvoin seemed to know them, and know that we must not go near the bull of the herd.”
The Lady laughed, causing Pica to raise her sleek head in alarm. “If the way to grow this flower is to feed it on mammoth droppings, we are in a bit of trouble. But it was not the mammoths that really drew your attention.”
“No indeed, herinya. Something compelled me to look where I did, and thus I fell.”
“Well, the weapon-poison antidote will go in everyone’s kit from now on, if I have to run the stills day and night. You, however, will rest, in between visits from your lord and love, who is itching to help in any way he can. And he shall – for walking will help you heal, and keep the bow-string inside you from going loose.”
I nodded. To have Branalph – such a great lord, to look at me, let alone place the silver betrothal-ring on my finger – to lean on would be a fine distraction. “Hir Glorfingwë gave me some sort of cordial. Was it truly from across the Sea?”
“It would be very like him to carry miruvor, and to give it to you in time of need.” Lady Manadhlaer nodded too, and smiled. “Pica, stay with Arradril, there’s a love, and you’ll get some tasty bits of fish for it. And you, Arradril, thanks to your comrade of the bow, have orders. Well, one order.”
I straightened, as much as I could with the cat on me, and awaited my fate.
“Olriandis told me a few things. Never again shall you refer to yourself as ‘just a scout’ or replaceable. Few enough of our folk remain this side of the Sea, and fewer still at Imladris. I need each of you, and I need each of you intact. Do you hear my words?”
I knew that, like the rasp of the cat’s tongue, this was kindness in rough guise. “I hear and obey, herinya.” Yet even as I spoke the words, I let myself lie back on the pillows – too many, but I did not feel moved to complain. The Lady stood, and stood over me, tall and pale in the dim afternoon.
“We will solve the mystery later, Arradril. Food and tea later, hm?”
I could only nod yet again. The flower seemed so bright, and the cat’s purr rose over everything.
