The sun slowly rose from the east. Sunlight danced on the thatched roof of Meduseld like it was made of gold. The Golden Hall was set upon a green terrace high above the other straw roofs of wooden houses encircled by a mighty wall. Edoras was built on a hill in a valley of the White Mountains which lay under the great mountain Starkhorn. White flowers grew on the mounds north of the city where the past rulers of Rohan were buried.
The heavy canvas curtain on the doorway was partly opened, allowing some light from the corridor to enter the small, dark guest room in the basement of the tavern where Delioron and Radawen slept side by side on a shabby double-bed. The old dwarf slept in the neighboring room with the curtain closed. Back in Amon Hen the dwarf had confessed to them, suddenly in tears, that he was not Thráin at all and that his real name was Krarli. His story had excited Radawen but depressed Delioron.
Krarli had told them about his youth in a dwarven settlement called Gondamon in Ered Luin, where his best friend since childhood had been called Glunri. Glunri had been of royal blood, and Krarli had worshiped the ground beneath his feet. Krarli was very ashamed of it now, but Glunri had managed to talk him into committing a treason, a foul betrayal against all dwarves. Krarli had agreed to betray King Thráin II of the Durin’s Folk, to steal his Ring of Power and to bring the ring to Glunri.
Krarli could not remember how exactly Glunri had convinced him to agree to it nor the rationalizations he had used to justify the treason to himself anymore. So many years had passed and Krarli had long forgotten the young and foolish dwarf he had once been, but he could still remember what happened.
In the year 2841 Krarli had moved to Noglond to join King Thráin’s expedition to the Lonely Mountain. The party had suffered many hardships and misadventures on their way to Rhovanion, and the journey had taken longer than anyone had expected. A few years later, one night at the eaves of Mirkwood, Krarli had woken up to a filthy orc hand clasped over his mouth. The orc had whispered into his ear that he should go wake up Thráin – quietly, not to awaken anyone else – and lure him deeper into the woods. There the orcs would capture Thráin and give Krarli the ring, the prize of his treason.
Krarli did as he was bid, but he had never seen the promised ring. Instead they had both been captured and dragged into the pits of Dol Guldur. He never saw Thráin again after that night and did not know what happened to him.
Krarli did not know how long he was imprisoned in Dol Guldur, for time lost all meaning where the sun never shone. Certainly many years, decades even. Then one night a group of orcs came and dragged him away from the dungeon. He was put in a cage on a wagon and brought to a dismal, hideous land in the south – Mordor. There Krarli was put in another prison, where he was told that he was not Krarli at all but Thráin II, the King of the Longbeards. They told him how he had been captured in Mirkwood and imprisoned in Dol Guldur until a tall, white-bearded old man in a blue pointy hat and a long grey cloak had come to visit him and torture him until he had given away the ring his father Thrór had given him. This story was repeated to him over and over during the coming years and decades of imprisonment and thralldom in Mordor. If he did not accept the story, if he did not remember all the details they wanted him to remember, he was punished. He was also punished if he called himself Krarli or imagined himself to be a Broadbeam. As the decades slowly passed Krarli sometimes believed himself to actually be Thráin as the memories that were fed to his mind merged with his real memories. And then, one day a Black Númenórean called Tarîkbên had taken him away from his cell and told him that his imprisonment, the imprisonment of King Thráin II of the Longbeards, would soon be over.
The story of the old dwarf seemed to end the purpose of their being in Amon Hen for all of them. Deli had departed the group there, for he preferred to travel to Zigil-jâbal through the Mouths of Entwash. Egelferth had escorted the rest of the group to Walstow, where he had returned home, satisfied with the answers he had finally gotten. Delioron, Radawen, Krarli and Tarîkbên had continued on to Edoras, Tarîkbên tied up and lying on the back of Delioron’s horse and Krarli riding on lore-master Gulim’s pony. In Edoras Delioron and Radawen had been summoned to Meduseld to explain their presence to the King of Rohan. King Théoden had already heard of the murder of a young woman in Walstow and a suspicious man of Gondor camping in the ruins of Amon Hen, and he had sent a delegation to Minas Tirith to demand an explanation from Denethor.
Delioron had told Théoden he was an envoy from Gondor and that Tarîkbên was his prisoner, a dangerous spy from Mordor. He had revealed the King as much as he could of his purpose, and Théoden seemed content with it. He had welcomed Delioron and Radawen to stay within Edoras as long as they needed and offered to house Tarîkbên in its prison as long as Delioron picked him up before leaving.
Today was the second morning he woke up next to Radawen in Edoras, and something had happened to Delioron. Something cold and sharp within him had melted away. There were still moments when he would fall into one of his silences, but Delioron had fallen in love with Radawen. It was insane but true.
He kissed Radawen in the mouth and held her in the hollow of his body and arms. He warmed her with his body and felt how the warmth of their embrace slowly seeped into the frozen depths of his body. Radawen tried to say something, but he shut her mouth with his hand. Delioron hated words. Words covered up all that was real with their artifice and deceitfulness. Words always lied, their purpose was always to deceive, even when they were spoken with sincere intent. The truth was in silence and touch, not in words.
”What do we do now?” Radawen finally asked. There were many ways to answer the question.
”We ride to Minas Tirith”, Delioron opted to say.
Delioron did not look at Radawen. He was staring at a stain on the wall that was different from all the other stains. He stared at the stain for so long that he could not see it anymore. It was a trick of solitary travelers and prisoners to fall into a trance to avoid the loneliness of time passing by. His cold eyes did not see anything as his cold voice fell between them, flat and monotonous:
”I am going to set the dwarf free.”
”What? You cannot just let him go! He’s a traitor! He betrayed King Thráin, conspired with the enemy!”
Delioron turned to look at Radawen. They were naked. Radawen’s body was slender and unmarred by scars, his own was grey and full of scars. Radawen’s face was soft in the candlelight. Her reddish brown hair highlighted the paleness of her face. Radawen looked so young that it made him feel really old in comparison. Radawen’s green eyes looked at him boldly, without aversion. He touched her hair clumsily, unaccustomed to intimacy.
”Radawen, he’s been a prisoner of Mordor for most of his life. He has paid for his crime with the highest price I can imagine. If you would ask him to jump, he would ask you how high. He’s not a threat to anyone anymore, and he has not many years left of his life. He has no place he can call home. Do you know what they would do to him in Minas Tirith? Do you not believe in mercy? Perhaps he can find some peace in some faraway dwarven settlement like Erebor under a false name for the years he has left.”
”But I cannot corroborate his story without him!” Radawen protested. ”Nobody in the Houses of Lore will believe me without Krarli’s testimony, the story is too incredible!”
”He’s just a piece of history that got washed up on the shore of Nen Hithoel one day”, Delioron said. ”We can forget about him.”
”I cannot.” Radawen pulled away from his embrace and stared at the wall opposite to him. ”Why did you sleep with that woman in Walstow?”
He looked at Radawen’s back and smiled at her gently. There was a mischievous look in his grey eyes. ”Because I was tired. Because I wanted to feel warm.”
”She did not love you. Not like I do. You never needed anyone else.”
Delioron said nothing.
”Damn you!” Radawen said, eyes sparkling with anger. ”What moves you? What stirs any emotions in you? What makes you cry or get angry or feel anything at all?”
”You do.”
”What?”
”I love you, Radawen”, he said for the first time. They both knew instantly that they had been waiting for this moment and that those four words had bound them into some uncertain future.
Radawen reached out for him then, held his face in her soft hands and kissed him softly. They pressed their bodies against each other and embraced each other in the darkness.
”I would do anything for you”, she said. He knew it to be true and it frightened him.
”What are you going to do?” Radawen asked.
”I am going to quit. Retire for good. Let Parthadan and Denethor find someone else to do their dirty work for them!”
”Before you said you could not quit. That they would never let you quit because you knew too much.”
”I am going to make them let me go. Parthadan owes me that much. I have given the best years of my life to Gondor. The best part of my humanity. I am through.”
”How are you going to make them?”
”For starters, you cannot tell Krarli’s story to the scholars in the Houses of Lore. You cannot write this in any chronicles of history.”
”And why not?”
”Because then we would not be left alone”, Delioron said. ”And like you said, without Krarli nobody would believe you anyway.”
”I am a historian”, Radawen said. ”I am not a damn spy for the throne. I am not going to cover up things for the convenience of the Steward or…”
”You are what people think you are”, Delioron said gently. ”Once upon a time I was a scholar and a historian too, just like you. And believe me, you do not want the people I have served to become interested in you.”
”I would do anything for you”, Radawen said. ”I would lie and steal and even kill for you.”
”I love you”, Delioron said again in a strangely gentle voice. His tone was just as flat and monotonous as ever, and yet he spoke like a child trying to express some wonderful experience who does not quite know how to put it in words. Radawen touched him, and when she reached out to kiss him he touched her hair and held her head in his hands and said her name.
Later Radawen slept by his side again, head buried in a dirty pillow. She slept like a baby, deep and trusting sleep. He sat on the bed for a long time watching her sleep in the candlelight.
Ever since his years in Rhûn Delioron had kept his own survival as the sole goal of his life. In almost twenty years there had been a thousand shabby guest rooms in a thousand shady taverns like this one. He had kept himself apart from the world and its attachments. He had chosen the part of a stranger because it was the only way to stay alive.
The time of survival was now over for him. What was the point of staying alive if there was no reason to stay alive for? Delioron realized he was afraid of Radawen because she had offered herself to him for the second time, and if he had rejected her again it would have been all over for him. Strange fate had given him another chance and he had instinctively seized it until he could not leave her again.
But what would happen a month from now or a year from now, when she had lived with him and found out that he was not enough? He was afraid of that too. But he had lived in fear before with no other reward than mere survival. This was something bigger.
