Manadhlaer heard a familiar step, a neat and exact tread, not louder than was needful. A soldier's step. Not unlike hir Branalph's, but Branalph was away. She did not turn.
"Golvagor," she said, and saying the name, at last turned from her work and smiled.
He came further into the room, robed in flowing white -- by which Manadhlaer guessed Golvagor had not come directly from the forges. Gently smiling, Golvagor bowed -- a gesture not of subservience, but almost of merriment, despite his military bearing.
Manadhlaer slipped immediately into the familiar mode of address, heedless -- as any of the Eldalië might be -- of the passage of time. "Thou comest to me as a snowdrop in the wood," she said, "at the beginning of coirë. Perhaps it is thy coming that was foretold, for it is a boon indeed."
Golvagor's smile grew. He did not yet ask what she meant by "foretold." "Aye, lady. I have come to see if there is work for me to do."
Manadhlaer could not resist any opportunity to make a sweeping gesture. "These walls are thine," she said. "The roof also. The gardens, the very fish in the stream. Where yet the Lósengriol bloom, there is room for thee." Again she pointed, vaguely behind them. "And a hot forge whereon to do thy work, which cometh exactly when needed."
"I have brought my hammer," Golvagor said. Manadhlaer knew which one he meant, a smithing-tool that seemed to have its own story to tell, if only it could talk.
"And the wine," she said. "That, that will flow for thee. I will have my cellar opened."
Golvagor laughed, a sound like bells of song forged by the craft of the Ñoldor.
