After the men had left Radawen closed the door and slid the wooden bar across it. Some security! She noticed once again that the bar had started to rot, and the door itself was thin and fragile. In the Sage’s Tier most residents were fellow scholars; the sense of safety came from shared purpose and the watch of the City Guard.
She pushed the chair in front of the door. She fetched the wood-ash soap and linen rags from the cabinet and scrubbed the vomit off the rug. Then she set an iron pot full of water on the hearth and lit the fireplace. When the water was warm she poured it into a wide basin. She dipped a cloth and wiped her hands. Later she knelt and rinsed her hair with careful tilts of the pitcher. She thought about Delioron as the water pooled on the stone floor before seeping into the drain channel.
They had no past and no future, Delioron had said to her once.
”Delioron.”
She had promised herself not to say his name aloud. She could not control her dreams, but she could take care of her waking hours. She would not think about him anymore.
Later she sat on a chair with a goblet of wine in hand, thinking about him.
Why had he slipped from his guardians? Why had he gone to Pelargir?
The assassins. Mudon had said that they were still hunting him. They would never give up. Perhaps they were hunting her as well. They would kill her after she had led them to Delioron.
She leaned forward to look out of the window. There was nothing happening on the street outside her apartment. She got up to leave the apartment but stopped, hand on the wooden bar. She had friends whom she could go visit even in midnight, but what would she say to them? I am scared. Two ruffians broke into my apartment and beat me up. They told me they served the throne and that they wanted to protect me.
Radawen smiled and took a sip of wine.
But she would not go to bed yet. Or blow out the candles. She opened the window.
She stretched. Her ribs ached.
She thought about Delioron. They had first met in Imloth Melui. Radawen had wanted to uncover the secrets of the mysterious old man who called himself Romenstar and had settled into the Hall of the Gentle Hand, healing people of diseases and deformities with a touch. Delioron had wanted to uncover the blue-robed old man’s secrets too, but for different reasons. Delioron had claimed to be a retired lore-master from the Houses of Lore. He had used Radawen to get to Romenstar’s secrets. Radawen had trusted him and fallen in love with him. When she found out who he really was she had hated him, but then he had casually saved her life as if it was his day job. But then he had said it would never work out between them, that the work he did for the throne of Gondor would make it impossible. Something like that. Radawen missed him so much.
She went to a closet, took out a white woolen gown, took off her clothes and slipped into the gown.
She had thought it was over. The nightmare in Amon Hen last winter and everything before it. Delioron was in the past and so was the stange world he inhabited. Radawen had decided to take some time off to go see her mother in Ost Anglebed. She was not young anymore and Radawen was all she had left.
Now she would have to wait. Delioron might need her.
She curled up on the chair that was blocking the door and wrapped her long fingers around the stem of the goblet.
About a year ago Radawen had bumped into Delioron again in Amon Hen by accident. It had been a curious case concerning dwarves and the rumored return of Thráin, a legendary dwarven King. ’Thráin’ had turned out to be an impostor, but they had uncovered a scheme of a traitorous dwarf in league with Sauron living in a dwarven settlement called Zigil-jâbal. Afterwards Delioron had quit his work for the throne and Radawen had left Minas Tirith with him. They had never intended to return. They were finally free.
But there is no such thing as freedom.
Two assassins from Rohan. And then they had realized that only by returning to his old life he could guarantee their safety. That he would have to leave Radawen again.
Half a year had passed since the assassins from Rohan had come and shattered the dream. She put the goblet on the table.
Delioron.
