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Chapter Text

Spring came cautiously in the Ephel Dúath; the long years of Sauron’s overshadowing were not swiftly or easily forgotten. Still, even so little as ten years after the Return of the King and the Coming of the Queen, a sparse fuzz of green showed upon the stony hillside as the winter rains receded. Mablung the ranger noted it happily, as his small patrol made its wary way along a narrow gully on the eastern side of the hills. The green came earlier and spread further each year, slowly but with determination; this year there were even a few catkins on the tough, stunted willows growing by the little winterbourne that ran down the gully. The bourne would not run dry until the full heat of summer; year by year it flowed a little more strongly and endured a little later. Now its waters rustled gently among the pebbles, glittering silver in the slanting light of late afternoon.

The rangers went with their old care, slipping quietly along the rough walls of the defile. Sauron was fallen, but orc-nests remained here and there, and the great spiders still wove their nets in the hills. Those at least were fewer these days, for the Wood-Elves of Ithilien had been happy to share their knowledge of the creatures with the Rangers. The Elves held the north, up to the deathly lands of the Morannon; no incursion from Rhun or beyond would pass their guard. But Faramir and Eowyn’s men were yet Rangers, and Ithilien was yet theirs to ward.

A thrush whistled, and the men were still, grey-clad shadows against the grey rock. The scouts above had seen something to be wary of. Mablung’s fingers flickered his orders; arrows were set to bow, blades were drawn, very quietly. Mablung himself and two others came up to support Díriel at point. Eight men moved forward again, slowly.

There were spiderwebs ahead, trailing deceptively among the willow branches. Closer inspection showed them to be tattered and empty, but not old. It was Díriel who found the signs by the water, where the thin, sandy soil was a little softer. Spiders, his fingers signalled. One here, belong web. One there, sneaking. Mablung looked at the spoor, reading the tale that it told. The web-spinner had itself been very big. Perhaps the size of one of the tall hunting hounds, that stood four or five feet at the shoulder. A considerable opponent to an unwary man or several. Yet it had been ambushed on its own territory, snatched unawares out of its web in one great springing leap. Taken like a hatchling from the nest, and with as little struggle. Mablung paced out the size of the second spoor, and drew in a slow, deep breath.

All Minas Tirith knew the tale of the destruction of the Ring. The rangers had heard the story of the passage of Cirith Ungol from Master Samwise’s own lips, at dinner in their barracks one evening with Lord Faramir and Lady Eowyn. The halfling had been cheerful and loquacious, especially after hot roast beef and several mugs of beer. But the gusto with which he told his tale had not hidden its horror, even for the rangers, hardened as they were. And his warning had been very serious.

She was hurt, sure enough. Enough to drive her back into her hole for a while, I reckon. But not forever. You’ll need to watch out, sirs. She’s been there a long time, I don’t doubt the hills are full of her holes. Strider, that is, the King, says you’ll be patrolling the Mountains of Shadow now, my lord? You be careful, sir. She’ll be hungry when she comes out.

The second track returned upon itself, slightly but noticeably deeper. It headed south-east and into a narrow ravine, hardly more than a cleft in the rock, that gave on to the main defile at right angles. There was no trace of a meal anywhere; the web-spinner had been taken away whole, for later consumption.

Mablung drew his sword (not an Elven-blade out of lost Gondolin, but still a good sword, an old sword, handed down in his family, it was said, from the early years of the Kings themselves). He whistled like a blackbird twice, to the scouts invisible on the slopes above. Forward with utmost care. The sun was still with them, its rays slanting down the length of the gully. But the shoulder of the hill cut the light off beyond the turn into the side cleft, and the shadows seemed suddenly darker there than they should be.

The rangers scavenged enough dry twigs from the willows to contrive rough torches, lit from the firepot that they carried with them. She was afraid of the light, Master Samwise had said. It would announce their coming clear as a shout, of course, but they had no other useful defence. Common fire was not the light of Eärendil, but it would have to do, Mablung thought sourly. And what use, Captain, is a scout who doesn’t come back? Two men held the rear and the rest went forward.

Around the corner it was unpleasantly dim, though the spoor continued visible to the Rangers’ practiced eyes. The way was dry and stony. Nothing grew there, not even the tenacious thorn-bushes that clung to the rock throughout the hills. As they went the walls closed in steeply on either side, until no more than two men could comfortably walk abreast. The cleft twisted several times more, always sloping downwards between rising cliffs of sheer rock. An urgent whistle came from above and behind. Terrain impassable. They had no cover from above. Mablung, in the lead, lifted a hand to halt them, remembering the great spiders’ power to leap. He signalled for Díriel and himself to go on, torches held high and swords ready, and found himself wishing for some armour for his neck.

It was Díriel, in the lead once more, who found the next hazard. He raised his torch suddenly in warning, and the rangers stopped mid-step. Mablung leaned past his shoulder, his own flame at the ready, and saw the glitter of thread across the way. Not the great nets meant to catch and hold, but slender, almost-invisible lines that would not impede any careless comer, strung in a careful tangle at ankle-height and above for many yards ahead. Tripwires. Mablung peered into the gloom ahead. Ahead the cleft narrowed yet further, until it ended at an apparently unbreached rockface, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards beyond the first turn as the crow flew. Shadows lay on the stones, thicker than his eyes could pierce.

Chapter Text

“And that was when you finally decided that it was time to retreat.”

The Princess of Ithilien frowned down her nose at the Captain of her Rangers, who gazed back, stolid as a brick. Standing at attention upon Mablung’s left hand, Captain Beregond looked straight ahead and preserved his gravity. The Princess’ secretary Madam Hildis bent industriously over her note-tablets, fooling no-one.

“Yes, my lady. Having taken into consideration your own word, my lady, that there is no point to a scout who does not return with his report, my lady.”

Eówyn tapped her fingers absently on her desk. Her large and tidy office was pleasantly cool in the summer heat, but tended to be chilly in spring. She stood, stretching her back, and paced towards the arched windows that looked East and North, and West towards the City. In polite response, Mablung managed to straighten into something resembling a parade rest.

“How big was this creature, Captain?”

Mablung thought about the size of the tracks. “Big enough to lift a halfling with ease, my lady. Or another spider the size of the great wolfhounds. As big as a horse. A big horse.”

The Lady looked thoughtful. Mablung recalled the Witch-King and his mount, and the tale of Scatha the Worm, killed by a Lord of the Northmen, and was grateful that his mistress’ monster-slaying days were, hopefully, behind her. Looking up, Madam Hildis caught his eye, and let one eyelid droop in a brief, friendly wink.

Under the morning sun, the grassy, flower-strewn hills around the fortress fairly glowed. Before Eówyn’s gaze, the scarp dropped steeply down under the white walls of the Prince’s House, to the broad, shining ribbon of the River and Minas Tirith on its mountainside beyond. Emyn Arnen was a stronghold both sturdy and handsome, planted solidly upon the rocky outcrop that guarded the eastern approach to the City. Since coming there with Faramir ten years ago, the Lady had had gardens laid out on the south-eastern slope beneath the walls; flowers and herbs and fruit, all beautiful and useful. Some were native to Gondor, some came from her homeland, some from the distant Shire; and there were a few, strange and wonderful, that were gifts from the Folk of the Wood. Birdsong rang loud in tree and thicket throughout the day, and at night the nightingales sang. In the green glory of Ithilien in the springtime, even the thought of ancient Darkness seemed blasphemy.

The Princess of Ithilien looked north and west, where the White City shone under the morning sun. The King was away in the South, engaged in the traditional Gondorian custom of besieging Umbar. To no-one’s surprise, the peace between Gondor and the Corsairs had lasted barely a handful of years; it had not taken long after the fall of the Dark Tower for the indefatigable pirates to recover from the shock and resume their ancient hostility. Their raids along the coast had increased with each season, until His Majesty had decided that it was time to deal with them once and for all. So he and the Army were off fighting merely-mortal mortal enemies (a nice change for everyone) while Queen Arwen held the realm secure at home, ably assisted by Eowyn’s own lord. Both of whom needed to know about this development.

The Lady spoke without looking round. “Mablung.”

“My lady.”

“Ride for the City and report to my lord. Remain at his command. Keep me informed of his commands. He will probably wish to see Her Majesty. Díriel shall remain and write the formal report.”

Mablung twitched in response.

“Yes’m.” He appreciated the reprieve. Paperwork was inevitable in Gondor, but rarely enjoyable to produce. The Rangers had observed with sympathy their Lady’s ongoing struggle to deal with the Mundbergish need to write everything down.

“Beregond.”

“Ma’am.” The Captain of the White Company came smartly to attention. He got along perfectly well with Mablung, and Rangers were Rangers, but standards were standards too.

“Send word to the garrisons at Cirith Ungol and Morgul Vale. Let them keep guard as in war, and watch the ways near the Tower and the passes. I want a report from them on the state of the old tunnels. Adjust the duty roster at your discretion and keep the Company in readiness.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” He saluted, pleased at the prospect of action. The White Company went where the Prince of Ithilien went, which had unfortunately not been to Umbar, this time round. Beregond was now quite reconciled to the situation. What were mere corsairs against the chance to fight giant, evil spider-monsters out of legend?

“Hildis.”

“Lady.” The secretary looked expectant. Madam Hildis was a lady from the White Mountains, of partially Rohirric descent. While considering herself beyond the age of wishing to emulate her distinguished mistress, she was not entirely immune to the lure of even vicarious monster-slaying.

“A letter on my behalf to Master Legolas, informing him of the situation and requesting the help of his people. We will need to know how far she is ranging, and how often.”

“Yes, Lady.” She bent to her task.

Eówyn paused. That was something else to which she had had to become accustomed, this dealing with the elf-kind as if they were no more than ordinary, friendly neighbours and allies. Her husband, the wizard’s fosterling, could speak to the Eldar as an equal, and she had learned to at least pretend to do so, but it was always an effort. And, she remembered, the Wood-elves were not the only strange folk with whom she had to deal.

“Beregond, a word also to the southern watch. All traders coming up from Pelargir are to be directed towards the river road. I don’t want any of them eaten on the way. If they ask why, say that it has been a bad winter and the eastern road is in poor condition.”

There had been a slow trickle of settlers into Ithilien in the past few years, descendants of its original folk returning to their old lands. The olive groves and orchards and vineyards by the River were slowly being restored, though the woods east and north were now held by Legolas’ folk. There was some commerce with them, and more quotidian trade was slowly being restored as well, with Pelargir down-river, and Near Harad beyond (leaving aside Umbar, until the King could persuade the corsairs of the virtues of “trade not raid”), and little by little with the lands to the East. This, too, was within the Lady’s watch and ward.

Her staff acknowledged her orders in their several ways and bowed themselves out to do her will. Left alone, Eówyn leaned against the window sill, the better to look out across her small, lovely realm. After long years of nightmare, the workaday world was returning to Ithilien, in peace beneath the Sun. She and Faramir had met and fought monsters enough. She would not let this one threaten their land either, or their children.

Chapter Text

When Faramir came into the Midsummer Room of the King’s House, all of the Privy Council of Minas Tirith were already present. These were the chief ministers of the King and Queen, rather than the great lords and princes of the realm; he was their Chair, in normal times, but today was different.

In the Midsummer Room, tall windows were placed to frame the Sun at Her rising and Her setting on Midsummer’s Day; the walls and ceiling were painted to represent the colours of the sky throughout the day. The council sat around a long table of polished ashwood; two chairs stood at the eastern end facing the sunset window. Faramir went to his own single chair at the western end, but did not sit. His colleagues rose and bowed with him as the Queen entered, robed in dark green and crowned with the Regent’s silver-winged circlet, and seated herself in the King’s chair.

It had never been the custom for the Queens of Númenor to sit in their husbands’ councils. None of the lords of Gondor had ventured to protest, however, when Arwen Undómiel first took her seat in the council chamber at her husband’s side. The Queen’s courtesy and beauty did not hide her knowledge and thought and ancient strength, and many among them had already discovered how hard it could be to meet her deep gaze.

To the very few who had cavilled in private (before meeting her), the Steward had pointed out gently but firmly that (a) Her Majesty as the Daughter of Elrond was effectively the heiress of both Master Elrond and the Lady Galadriel (and seen in all of them the faint shiver of awe at the Lady’s mere memory); (b) since their departure over Sea she was also the eldest member in mortal realms (Rivendell not being a mortal realm, her brothers did not count for this purpose) of the entire Lineage of Eärendil - that reminder of her true age and seniority didn’t hurt either -, and therefore (c) was properly to be regarded as at the very least herself a Ruling Queen in her own right and no mere consort. Faramir did not regret the hours he had spent consulting the Lady Archivist and the Lady Justiciar on these points before the King’s wedding.

The Queen said without preamble,

“Greetings, my lords, my ladies. I thank you for the courtesy of your presence, and will not keep you from your duties longer than I must. Let us now speak of Shelob the Spider.”

She glanced at the Lady Rhian, the Archivist, who looked up from the neat stack of papers before her, her grey gaze both cool and intent. She was a tall woman, a distant cousin of the Stewards’ line, and the blood of the West was strong in her. There had been whispers once upon a time about her and Boromir, though to the utmost of Faramir’s knowledge she had never shown more than the courtesy of kin towards his brother. But she remained unwedded.

“Your service is our duty, my Lady, and our pleasure, always. My Lady, gentles, in this land the Spider has been a name and a rumour of fear since the beginning of the realm; since before the coming of Elendil and the building of the cities. But the truth of her was long lost, until we received the testimony of Master Samwise. While the watch was still kept upon Mordor, we knew that there was a danger dwelling in Cirith Ungol, and from the name of that place, our forebears had at least some inkling of its nature. The tunnels there were ever opened and re-opened by what we know now was her agency, though we blocked them with stone and scoured them with fire over and over through the years. But Shelob herself we never found, or those finding her did not live to tell of it in any manner that the Archives have recorded, beyond tales to frighten children. And even that was forgotten when the watch on Mordor was abandoned.”

“Is she truly so great a danger, Your Grace? “

Master Halgund the Secretary was old, by the standards of the South. A sturdy, greying man who had endured the long years of battle and watch, and lived to see the dawn of the new Age. He was gentle and earnest, kindly of temper, with nonetheless a streak of unyielding stubbornness that had let him survive and even prosper under Denethor’s demanding rule.

“Surely she cannot be so perilous, if even the halflings escaped her unscathed?”

“Not so, sir,” the Queen said. Gently, as always, with all the weight of her years and her power behind it.

“To escape Shelob living was in itself a mighty deed, my lords and ladies. Had Master Frodo and Master Samwise not achieved yet greater thereafter, that alone

would have been enough for their names to be remembered in story and song. In three Ages of the world few mortals have matched them in this, and among those was my twice-great-grandfather, Beren Elf-friend, son of Barahir.”

A shiver ran along Faramir’s skin, uncomfortably reminiscent of that never-forgotten moment in Henneth Annun when he had realised what it was that the Halflings carried. And from the look of his colleagues, he was not the only one facing (again) the realisation that legend was also history, and present reality, and that their Queen was a creature of all three.

Since the Secretary appeared to have been struck speechless, the Steward cleared his throat and said, “Madam, what had Master Elrond’s wisdom to say of the Spider?”

The Queen bent her warm, dazzling gaze upon him. It was less remote than her grandmother’s (Faramir also would never forget the joy and terror of the Lady Galadriel’s presence), but no less piercing. He bore it as best he could, trusting her, and was rewarded by her smile.

“Before he sailed, my father and I took much counsel together. He warned me of many perils that yet remain in Middle-earth, and having heard the halflings’ account of their passage of Cirith Ungol, Shelob was one of the chief dangers of which he spoke. Since the Princess of Ithilien has sent word of her resurgence, I shall also seek counsel of my kindred in Rivendell and Lothlorien. For there dwell yet the lord Glorfindel that was of Gondolin, and Celeborn my grandfather, that was a Prince in Doriath, and yet others that dwelt in Beleriand in the Elder Days, and remember the dreadful vale of Nan Dungortheb, where Shelob herself was hatched before the Sun was made.”

It took real effort for Faramir to shake himself free of the tangles of time and knowledge opening up before him with her every word. Lady Rhian said, her usual cool tones tinged with unease.

“The tales are true, then, Lady? This is no earthly beast?”

The Queen shook her head.

“She is no beast, but an evil thing in spider form. Sauron was not her maker or her master, and his fall will not have touched her. We dare not let her roam unmolested, for now that she has left Torech Ungol, as it appears, she is a danger to all who dwell in the shadow of the Ephel Dúath. I shall send also to the King, for he must know what stirs here. He will give his counsel, but in his absence the main task is ours.”

. . . . .

Having set all in motion, for Faramir it was a matter of waiting for his Queen’s web to be fully spun; the hard patience of a ruler was not so different from being a Captain in the field, waiting for his scouts to return. Little by little, the reach of his knowledge increased. From the Queen, sitting in far-ranging thought in the White Tower, came hasty-copies of ancient documents from the Archives, all that had been known or guessed about the Spider in ages past. From his Rangers and the keen eyes of the Wood-Elves, detailed information about tracks and times, all marked upon the great map that was now permanently unrolled in his study (and, he knew, on its twin in the war-room of Emyn Arnen). From the garrisons in the Morgul Vale and the Tower of Cirith Ungol came reports of the watch kept on the hills about the pass. From his own Lady, complaints from the traders, and reports of nervousness among the settlers (a giant spider-monster was not the kind of news that could be kept a secret for long).

Poring over the latest dispatch from the Archives, Faramir gained a new understanding of Lady Rhian’s pride in her charge. Despite the horrors of the Siege and the vast disruption of the Fall of Sauron and the Return of the King, the loremasters had adhered with heroic determination to procedures dating back to the time of the kings. Every member of the Fellowship (including, Faramir saw with appreciation, His Majesty himself) had been politely but thoroughly interviewed; the passage of Cirith Ungol had been recorded in unnerving detail, and properly cross-referenced to the surviving records of the previous Gondorian garrison there. One of the junior archivists had even managed to write a note in her spare time on the gastronomical capacities of young Periannath, based on the amount of food required to keep them happy and talking; even after having met them, Faramir might not have believed her findings, had she not appended the Archives’ internal invoices for the comestibles involved.

Thanks to the records, the Queen decided that there was no need to disturb the Mayor of the Shire.

“Master Samwise has done more than enough for us,” Faramir said, agreeing. “And undoubtedly he would feel obligated to be involved in the actual fight, which I would not at all wish for him.”

The Dwarven smiths and artisans remaking the Great Gate were invited to call upon the Queen; a fresh bargain was agreed, (at a good rate, the artisans in question having also been involved in the original cleansing of the tunnels just after the Fall of Sauron), and they turned for a time to different work. The Queen had her own ways of bespeaking her kin in the North, which let her inform Faramir, not more than a day or two after their conversation on that topic, that their concerns about Master Samwise’s involvement had been forestalled. The Mayor of the Shire happened to have been visiting Rivendell when the Queen’s thought reached Lord Glorfindel, and he would, of course, be accompanying the latter south.

Chapter Text

Since there was never just one orc, when Faramir returned to his office for a meeting with the Captain of the White Tower, his secretary presented him with an urgent request for an appointment at unusually short notice, from the Ambassador of Far Harad.

“His Ex always gives at least a fortnight’s notice of anything that he wants to discuss with us,” the Captain (he was a Belfalas-born gentleman of respectable Númenorean descent, but affected a distinctly demotic style purely to irritate his City-born colleagues), remarked. “If he wants to see you tomorrow, it’s something important.”

With some difficulty, Faramir tore his mind away from supernatural monsters and excessively intrepid hobbits, and considered the current international situation as far as Gondor was aware of it. There were no unusual outstanding trade issues that he could recall. The Nurnish Republic was in the throes of its annual magistral election (none of the factions was unfriendly to Gondor, so the result was a matter of indifference to the High Kingdom). The major tribes of the Confederacy of Far Harad were feuding as usual (none of them was friendly to Gondor, so the outcome was a matter of indifference to the High Kingdom). The new Khandish Emperor had successfully suppressed a rebellion by his half-brother supported by their father’s Variag mercenaries (the pretender had been blinded and imprisoned in a house of religion – Faramir made a note to the Captain to enquire further into the details, it wouldn’t do to have Sauron-worship re-establish itself - and the Variags had been summarily slaughtered and replaced by new Variags from their snowy kingdom in the far north-east). There was unrest in the petty principalities that had sprung up in the last decade around the Sea of Rhun, and the King of Dorwinion had successfully repelled some minor incursions from that direction. The King Under The Mountain and his counterpart of Dale wanted to discuss tariffs. The King of Rohan had some nice horses for sale, at what he insisted was a reasonable rate, with which his sister disagreed. The siege of Umbar was wearing on. All was normal in the world...ah.

“The Regent of Near Harad,” he said out loud.

“Poorly but hanging on, the last that I heard,” the Captain said. “But apart from Umbar itself, if anyone has better intelligence than we do about what’s happening over there, it’s Far Harad.”

“I think it had better be lunch tomorrow,” Faramir said.

. . . . .

The garden of the King’s House had a nice fretwork pavilion next to a small lily-pond, well suited to a discreet and informal luncheon for a small number of guests. The Ambassador was alone, and barely waited until the food (wheat-flour buns, chunks of grilled lamb marinated in a mixture of herbs and fruit sauce, lightly braised spring vegetables) had been served to come to the point.

“The Chief Queen of Near Harad died six days ago,” he said, having made the barest minimum of polite chat, and swallowed his first mouthful of lamb.

Faramir wondered, not for the first time, exactly how the Ambassador managed to get information so impossibly fast. He put the matter aside for the Captain’s later attention. The news, assuming that it was accurate (and the Ambassador’s reputation among Gondor’s intelligencers was excellent), had unsettling implications.

“The Regent? Who has succeeded her?” the Captain asked bluntly.

The Ambassador fiddled with his asparagus. “The matter is unclear,” he said. “As you know, my lord, the Prince-heir has begun to, ah, grow hair, and is therefore considered to have reached the age of manhood.” Always considerate of the sensibilities of his hosts, he did not mention that it was the growth of pubic hair that was considered the signal of manhood in Near Harad.

“Yes,” Faramir said. “We were expecting the Chief Queen to raise him to the Kingship at the next inundation of the river.”

“So were we,” the Ambassador said. “However, there is the matter of the Northern Palace Queen.”

Faramir frowned, mentally untangling the complex relationships involved. The dynasties of Near Harad practiced polygamy and sibling marriage, both abominations to the Gondorians, but not something they could do much about at the moment. The Queen of the Northern Palace was, if he remembered correctly, both the full sister of the Chief Queen and the half-sister of the late King. Succession in Near Harad was a meritocratic affair in its own way: once a King was dead, he would be succeeded by the last prince left standing among his sons. The new King would then formally marry all of his father’s queens and consorts (except his own mother, even Near Harad didn’t go that far), and also one of his sisters or half-sisters born of the previous Chief Queen, who would then become Chief Queen in her turn, thus ensuring that the royal line remained pure. This meant that succession took a while, except when a particularly skilful inhabitant of the inner palace arranged the King’s assassination herself, thus controlling the timing to favour her own candidate.

“The Prince-Heir is young, untried, and has been....much indulged.” The Ambassador, a man barely thirty who nonetheless comported himself with an austere dignity that even Denethor II might have striven to equal, managed to convey a world of disapproval in the words. “Whereas the Northern Palace Queen is a lady of mature years and proven wisdom. She has the support of the army, the priesthood and, most important of all, the merchants. Unlike the Chief Queen, she also has a daughter, not yet nubile, born of the late King.”

Faramir chewed his nicely tender lamb and thought about the possibilities. The obvious one was that the Northern Palace Queen would marry her daughter to the Prince-Heir, and have them consecrated King and Chief Queen; the new Chief Queen would bear an heir or two, and then the King would die young. Possibly the Chief Queen as well, if she and her mother fell out. So far, so normal for Near Harad. But if that were all, the Ambassador would not have stirred himself like this. So....

“Is the Northern Palace Queen trying for the throne herself?” the Captain asked, having followed the same train of thought as his master.

The Ambassador washed down a spoonful of new peas with a sip of tea and nodded.

“Your own forebears had Ruling Queens, Captain. The late Chief Queen was weak. She had the title of Regent, but it is the Northern Palace Queen who has been the true power in the River Kingdom for the last twenty years.” In other words, since well before the late King and all his adult sons fell at the Battle of the Morannon. “Now we hear that she tires of ruling from behind the curtain, and would sit the Phoenix Throne in her own right. Near Harad has been ...uneasy since the fall of the Tower, and the people are accustomed to her strong hand, and the peace that it has brought them. She might well succeed.”

“And the Prince-Heir...”

Faramir could tell from the Captain’s tone of voice that his dismay was shared.

The Ambassador ate some more lamb and praised the skill of the kitchen.

“The Prince-Heir,” he said after that, “who has at least a few supporters who are not fools, has disappeared from the Great House of the River. He is believed to be heading...”

A blind man could see this one coming. “North,” Faramir said. “He’s coming here, isn’t he?”

“It appears so,” the Ambassador said, politely hiding his relief at the fact. The intrusion of a Near Haradren succession dispute into the already fractious and bloody clan politics of the far South was a nightmare that he was grateful not to have to think about. He had given a friendly warning, shown that he had resources that Gondor lacked, gained some credit, and the Gondorians could deal with the problem now. As a gesture of his appreciation for this, he even offered them some of his thoughts on the other likely consequences of the Northern Palace Queen’s probably successful seizure of the River Kingdom and its Phoenix Throne. When dessert arrived, he started on the candied quince tarts with a carefree enthusiasm not completely shared by his hosts.

“And you realise, Sir,” the Captain said crossly afterwards, “that the wretched boy is going to come through Nurnen, and with our luck will get himself eaten while trying to cross the Ephel Dúath!”

Faramir suppressed the unkind but accurate remark that this would solve one problem at least.

“I will write to the Princess,” he said. “Start thinking about what we’re going to do with him if we catch him before Shelob does.”

Chapter Text

Early one morning some three weeks after Captain Mablung made his report to the Lady Eówyn, and not long after the Great Gate opened at Dawn, a man in a long coat of good, dark grey broadcloth walked up the final stretch of road to the Kings’ Gate and asked to see the Queen. He was lean, broad-shouldered and very tall, dark of hair and pale of skin; his eyes as he drew nearer could be seen to be grey and uncomfortably bright. The Guards of the Citadel on duty had been watching him as he came towards them, and they had already realised what, if not who, he was. Fortunately, since the Return of the King and its concomitant events, there were appropriate procedures for unannounced Elves, Dwarves and other visitors of consequence who might or might not be cognisant of Gondorian protocol.

“Sir,” the senior Guard said politely, “If you would care to rest here for a space, we will send to Her Majesty, and let you know the soonest time at which she will be able to receive you.” The Guards still being forbidden to leave their posts while on duty, the Captain of the White Tower had also increased the number of messengers posted on duty with them, so as to avoid any more embarrassing incidents with future mad Stewards.

“Thank you,” the visitor said in archaic but perfectly comprehensible Sindarin, accepting a cup of tea from the attendant on duty in the austere but handsome waiting-room outside the gate. His voice was deep and sweet, golden-dark as the honey of Mindolluin. The Guard, of good Númenórean stock and therefore somewhat more resistant to such things, nevertheless blanched slightly as its power (already tightly reined in, though he did not know it) rolled over him. “I can wait as long as required. You may name me to her as Master Káno.”

Information about Prince Faramir’s unbreakable tea-set having made the rounds within the Tower, only long years’ training in total impassivity kept the Guard from showing on his face the mixture of startlement, terror and excitement that the name elicited.

When the messenger from the Kings’ Gate guard-post arrived, the Queen was already at work, getting a post-breakfast briefing about the prospective situation in Near Harad. Her equerry, waiting in the anteroom of the King’s Study, intercepted the message, raised an eyebrow, and knocked on the door immediately. Her Majesty’s personal secretary poked her head out, took the message and read it, raised both eyebrows, and vanished behind the door. A few moments later she emerged and handed a note straight to the messenger, who took off at speed.

“Full honours?” the equerry inquired. The secretary nodded.

“She’ll receive him in here and bring him in herself. We’ll be in attendance here, but not inside. She’ll brief us and the Prince afterwards.”

It was a little disappointing, but both having read Translations from the Elvish, they understood that discretion was probably the better part of valour when it came to this particular kinsman of the Queen’s (according to the genealogies set out in the Translations, he was her first cousin twice and three times removed, on her mother’s and father’s side, respectively; and also foster-father of her father, Master Elrond; not to mention all the other… stuff about him). And when the guest arrived, the sweetness of the smile he offered both of them as he followed the Queen into the inner chamber more than made up for it.

. . . . .

“Greetings, and welcome to my house, Cousin,” she said, in full sight and hearing of her mortal followers (he had read Translations From The Elvish too, and had done his best to soothe their nervous curiosity with calming mental emanations).

“It has been a while since last we met, kinswoman,” he said, when the door was closed and they were settled in two comfortably-cushioned chairs beside the window. The room was not particularly large or rich, its appointments fine but plain; a working office more than a chamber of formal audience, and doubtless open to very few. “You were very young and might not remember.”

It had been on one of his very few visits to Rivendell, and she had been a child of less than fifty. Not yet full grown, unlike her father at the same age; he had thought it due to her lesser share of mortal blood. Of all Elrond’s children, he had not expected that she would be the one to choose Middle-earth.

“You sang for us,” she said simply, pouring him a cup of lemon water from a simple but elegant stoneware jug. “That is not something to forget.”

Considering the varied origins and histories of Elrond’s folk (some of whose friends and relatives had not survived meeting him, back in the old days), he had been careful to sing them only songs of Valinor, from the too-short ages of its joy: merry songs of festival, sweet, simple songs for children. And at the end, the songs of praise and love for the Two Trees in Their splendour. His audience had been weeping when his fingers left the harpstrings, Calaquendi and Moriquendi alike, their hearts dazzled by the lost glory that he had called from memory and shared with them.

The jug was from Lang’s Pottery, quite new; made after he took it over from its original, eponymous owner. He said, amused, “I thank Your Grace for the patronage of the King’s House.”

Arwen laughed, a quiet little chuckle like water rippling over pebbles. “I had thought to invite you to visit, once you were fully settled. I was not sure if you would wish it.”

He answered as gently, “Gladly. Elrond asked me to …spend a few years here. So that you might not be wholly alone among Men if you did not wish to be.”

He saw that strike her, though he had not intended a blow, and in courtesy turned his attention elsewhere. The view from the wide, low-silled window was agreeable, a garden one floor below, with a pond full of newly-emerging lotus buds and the white flowers of a small cherry tree reflected in its still waters. Beds of great blue irises bloomed around it, anticipating the twilight sky of summer. Beyond, a whitewashed wall undulated along the edge of the garden, topped with tiles glazed a gleaming blue-green. The angle didn’t allow a view of the City, but he could see in the distance the fields of the Pelennor as they sloped downwards to meet Sun-silvered Anduin.

After a moment she said, “That was kind in him, and in you. I thank you, cousin, and I am glad also, for of your presence here. Did you…were you at the Havens, when he sailed?”

“No. I met him in Rivendell, in the summer of the year after Barad-dûr fell. We… spoke for some time. I wrote out the last Canto of the Noldolantë for him. Twice.”

Her laugh this time was almost, but not quite a sigh.

“Did you know, he began having his library copied from the day that my mother left Middle-earth. Everyone in the West of the world who sailed thereafter had to carry some of the originals with them over Sea, year by year. But in the last letter that he wrote to me, just before he rode for the Havens, he said that he himself would bear your letters with him. And the last Canto also. One day, might you sing it for me?”

“Of course,” he said. “Perhaps after this matter of Ungoliant’s get is settled.”

There was a brief but marked silence.

“News travels fast, it appears,” the Queen observed. Not quite asking.

He answered anyway, since it was her right to know, “There are still some among the folk of the Wood who remember …other days, and knew that this would be a matter that concerned me.”

Among the Laiquendi of old, many had had little love for Thingol, who had withdrawn into his goddess-queen’s fastness and abandoned them to Morgoth’s mercy. It had been the bloodstained Sons of Féanor who had fought with them and for them, in the end, to the end. And they had all known the story of the Trees and the Jewels, and the Spider.

“Ah. I see. Yes. It would.”

And Arwen four-times-royal, Queen of Gondor and Arnor, last daughter in Middle-earth of the mightiest lines of the Eldar, bent her high head to her elder kinsman, acknowledgment of his right to this battle.

Master Káno’s smile was like a sword-blade, glittering in the light of a burning city.

“Daughter of Elrond, if you will accept my aid in this fight, you have it.”

. . . . .

Aunt Adili’s Haradren Chocolate and Confectionery Shop occupied an unobtrusive, but in its way choice spot right by the steep flank of Mindolluin, a handsome structure of several courtyards that had once been the home, warehouse and place of business of a well-to-do merchant family, dwindled to extinction in the days of Gondor’s decline. Fittingly for the new Age, it now housed the most successful exotic-foodstuffs business in the City.

The Captain of the White Tower was tolerably certain that its proprietress provided intelligence to the quarrelsome clans of the Confederation of Far Harad, and possibly other powers as well; but, as he had pointed out to Faramir when the Ambassador of Far Harad first sought permission to bring Southron merchants to the City, “Better the spy that we know about, Sir, than the ones His Ex will bring in without asking us if we say no.” Faramir had agreed in the end, and in the next several years Mistress Innin the Easterling became a leading light of the City’s mercantile community. The King’s House itself bought drinking chocolate, confectionery and spices from her, and she had even been admitted to membership of the Minas Tirith Chamber of Commerce.

Master Káno, strolling down through the City after his audience with the Queen, paused at the junction, and then turned down what was already being called Confectioners’ Street. His goal was not hard to find; the large, round, black-painted signboard near the end of the street captured his attention at once.

“Aunt Adili’s Haradren Chocolate and Confectionery Shop”, it said, written in white around the edges in Westron and Sindarin using both Feanorian letters and Dwarven runes, and then, spiralling inwards, in Riverine, Far Haradic and Rhunish, all in the appropriate scripts. However, the innermost section, swirling elegantly around a familiar device of three white trumpet-flowers, said Enter in peace and leave safely, in a language so long dead that he was tolerably sure that only two people in Middle-earth could still read it. He contemplated that message. It had been a long, long time, and they had not parted on the best of terms. But she had never lied to him, and if she truly wanted him dead… he probably would be.

The doors were open and the double half-curtains hung in the doorway, showing that the shop was open for business. He parted them and walked in; since it had been built for Númenoreans, he didn’t even have to bend his head. The room inside was cool, spacious and well-lit, with wide, low-silled windows in the thick back wall that looked out onto a paved courtyard. Through an open side door he could see that the courtyard joined the street through a covered passage between the shop and the next building. Complex smells filled the air, some sweet, some not. Neat racks lined the walls, holding bottles, jars, canisters and boxes, all tidily labelled. Low, marble-topped counters stood before them, bearing scales, double-boilers, cutters, and other equipment. There were Gondorian customers there, being served by slim, brown-skinned, black-haired women in neat coats and divided skirts of dark green, all with the three flowers embroidered in white at the left shoulder. An older woman of the same kind sat at the payment desk to one side; her uniform was the same, but the flowers were golden-yellow, and she was clearly the authority. As he entered, she looked towards him, a quick, summarising glance; her eyes widened as she realised what he was, and she came quickly to her feet, bowing in the Haradren style with her right hand above her heart.

“Lord. How may we serve you?”

He knew how to deal with the Men of these days.

“No lord of yours, child,” pitching his voice to gentleness. “I am called Master Káno here. I seek your Mistress, the Lady Innin.”

The woman smiled, the faint lines of age on her face deepening pleasantly. “She’s above, sir. If you would come with me…”

She brought him across the passage outside to a small, sunny sitting-room in the adjoining building, obviously somewhere to receive important visitors to the business, and left him with a cup of warm honey-and-lemon water and the promise of her quick return. Instead of sitting, Master Káno picked up the cup and went over to the back window, to watch the busy goings-on in the courtyard. Several handcarts, the only kind allowed in the City without special leave, were being unloaded by Men in the same dark green livery. There was a spring-fed fountain in one corner, and across the courtyard, what looked like a mixture of storerooms, workshops and kitchens, presumably where the various products of the shop were kept, brewed, decocted, bottled or packaged. From the sounds nearby, the rooms adjoining this one served as offices for clerks and book-keepers. It looked like a tidy, well-organised operation, entirely typical of its mistress.

After not too long, the woman from the shop came back, and led him up a narrow flight of stairs to the first floor, and then along a balustraded gallery, where she left him before a single closed door at the end. There were no enchantments on it that he could sense. After a moment, he lifted a hand and knocked.

“Come in,” a woman’s low voice answered in archaic Sindarin identical to his own. He opened the door and walked in. It was a pleasant room, furnished in the Near Harad style of woven rush floor-mats, slender-legged desk, chairs, small low tables and a single-ended couch by the wall; all the furniture had feet carved in the form of cats’ paws. The stone walls were lined with wooden shelves bearing an assortment of codices, scroll-boxes, neatly-stacked note-tablets, waterlily pottery jars from Near Harad, lidded lacquer bowls from Khand, and corked glass bottles in different sizes, shapes and colours, their contents oddly obscure even to Master Káno’s keen sight (surely that could not be a poached egg in that fat, green bottle?). Light flowed through the open shutters of two wide, net-screened windows, one looking onto the street, and the other onto the back courtyard. It was both strange and utterly familiar. He had been in similar rooms all over the East of Middle-earth, for the greater part of two Ages of the world.

“Hello, Káno,” said Mistress Innin, who was as he had feared and hoped to find her: Innin Adili, the Grandmother of the East, who had been a Servant of Morgoth in lost Beleriand, and a Queen, the Queen, in the equally lost realms of the Sunrise Sea (there had been more than one Great Wave born of the Fall of Numenor, and every coast of Middle-Earth had suffered their scouring). Her smile was her real one, thin and cold, and the battle-readiness in him eased.

“How lovely to see you again. You’re just in time for lunch.”

. . . . .

Prince Faramir’s copy of Translations From The Elvish had been a wedding-gift from the King’s Grace, a beautiful copy transcribed and illuminated by the King’s Writing Office directly from the copy brought by Her Majesty from Rivendell. Since the episode of the unbreakable tea-set, a slip of reed-paper had lived permanently in the first volume, marking the section entitled “The Doom of the Noldor”.

. . . . .

Chapter Text

In the very old days, a ship would have sailed from Pelargir west to Lond Daer, and a messenger could have passed up the Greyflood to Tharbad and thence West swiftly across Eriador to the Baranduin and up into the Shire. But Eriador was still largely empty, and while a small village had grown up in the ruins of Tharbad, there was only an equally small garrison there (engineers and surveyors, mostly, there for the rebuilding of the great bridge). The King’s hand lay yet lightly on the Western Lands, though his messengers rode once more upon the old roads to the North Kingdom.

Considering the season, with the passes across the Misty Mountains still blocked by late snow, the Lord Glorfindel and Master Samwise nonetheless arrived in Minas Tirith quite unreasonably fast.

“We took a boat!”

Master Samwise, fresh from a nice, hot bath after his long journey across Rohan and Anorien, was having a cup of tea with the Prince and Princess of Ithilien in the Steward’s House, before they all went over to the King’s House to dine with Their Majesties and the Lord Glorfindel. He had been offered a suite in the Royal Guest-House, of course but had much preferred the Lady Eówyn’s suggestion that he stay in the Steward’s House with Faramir and herself instead. A guard escort, an equerry and pages to assist him would be assigned in any case, appropriate to the dignity of the most honoured and honourable Master Samwise Gamgee, Ringbearer, Mayor of the Shire, Hero of Gondor, second in protocol rank only to Their Majesties themselves etc etc.

The Princess had crossed the River especially to join her husband in receiving Master Samwise upon his arrival in the City. She would be spending the next few days in conference about the Spider campaign, shopping for supplies for Emyn Arnen, and visiting with the Ambassador of Far Harad, with whom she was friendly, horse-lady to horse-lord (the desert breed of the South was famous, and the Princess was working on the Haradrim to agree to at least an exchange of stallions; she knew that mares were out of the question).

“The High Pass was still snowbound,” Master Samwise was saying, “so Lord Glorfindel and I, we rode out of Rivendell and down the river, and first pool below the Ford, there was these boats waiting for us, two big elf-boats straight out of the Golden Wood! Turns out there’re a few of Lord Celeborn’s folk visiting in Rivendell, and the Lord Elladan, the Son of Elrond, who looks after things there now, he had them building a few boats for the Rivendell-folk to use on the Bruinen, for when there’s traffic to Tharbad again. They came with us, the boatwrights, I mean, to take the boats back to Rivendell, and to make sure we were safe. Those elven-boats, they’re a marvel, but tricksy if the mood is on them. But with their makers on hand, we just put up the sail and came down the river, horses and all, fast as a fried egg and slick as butter, for all the Bruinen is so rough, I wouldn’t trust it on any other boat, sir, let me tell you!”

The Bruinen, known in the vernacular as the Loudwater, was marked in the old records as unnavigable. Faramir made a mental note to have that assessment revised to “by mortals”, and regarded his guest with (as usual) wonder. Hobbits never ceased to be utterly unexpected, and Master Samwise, to all appearances utterly and ineluctably prosaic, most of all. He looked well, Faramir thought. The gaunt, exhausted Hobbit of Cormallen Field was sturdy and strong again, his tanned and ruddy face amused and at ease as he recounted his latest adventures.

“It was a real surprise to your people in Tharbad when we popped up in the mist in the morning!”

Faramir imagined his practical, hard-bitten combat engineers waking up to find elven-ships out of legend landing on their shore, carrying the Ringbearer, elven-steeds and an actual elf-lord of the Elder Days, and had to agree.

Fortunately, the new heliograph system had been working, word had reached the City at the speed of Sunlight, and there had been plenty of time for a suitable welcome to be organised, including for the four elven-steeds accompanying the visitors (the authors of the heliograph code had thought to include both “elf” and “hobbit” in the glossary, as well as “dwarf”, “ent”, “orc”, “flying-beast” and, for completeness’ sake, “dragon”). Accommodations had been prepared in the VIP mounts’ section of the great stable outside the gate; the Master of the City Stables had overseen everything himself, in a ferment of terror and delight (he had been the Deputy Master at the Return of the King and the Coming of the Queen).

. . . . .

Master Samwise was keen to help, mostly by checking the accuracy of the Archives’ notes about Shelob’s habits, strengths and weaknesses, but to everyone’s relief he was also perfectly happy not to take part in the actual fight.

“Once was enough, my lords,” he said cheerfully. “And now you have mighty elf-lords, and great warriors of Gondor ready to deal with her; you don’t need a Hobbit running about for you to trip over. But anyone that wants to borrow my Sting, they’re welcome.”

Master Samwise apparently never left the bounds of the Shire without a full kit, including a length of rope from Lothlórien and the mithril coat and Gondolin-blade that had been Master Frodo’s, and were now his, “you never know what you’ll need,” being his inarguable point.

Lord Glorfindel actually took him up on the offer. “I have my own blade,” he said gravely, “But I would be greatly honoured, Master Samwise, to also wield your Sting in this fight. Its maker was my friend, long ago, and when he and I meet again in Valinor someday, he will rejoice to know of the use to which you and Master Frodo put his work.”

Even the introduction of…Master Káno into the picture went reasonably well, in Faramir’s estimation. Bilbo Baggins had come through again; a quick consultation of Translations From The Elvish had confirmed that the Hero of Gondolin and the Kinslayer had not had any particular personal encounters, Lord Glorfindel having been long dead by the time of the massacre at the mouth of Sirion. Nonetheless, Faramir had decided that having their first meetings in the Midsummer Room, beneath the nervously fascinated gaze of the Privy Council and the stern eye of the Queen, was probably the safest way to do things.

Master Samwise had been no problem, of course, greeting Master Káno with nothing but enthusiasm (as far as anyone could tell), and a request to visit the Pottery, “once you’ve sorted out this Spider business”. Faramir took note of that, since he knew for certain that Master Samwise had read Translations From the Elvish; it was not his first reminder of the Mayor’s hidden depths.

The ancient elf-lords having each been carefully briefed beforehand, so as not to spring any nasty surprises on anyone, they greeted each other with chilly civility, and confined their conversation to practical discussion of the matter at hand.

“It has been some years since last I rode under arms,” the Queen said thoughtfully, “but I do not think that I have forgotten the art...”

“No, Your Grace!” Faramir pre-empted the council’s collective yelp of horror.

“We have no doubt of Your Grace’s martial skill, but Madam, please recall that until you and the King’s Grace are blessed with a child, Gondor has no heir except Your Grace, as the eldest kin of Elros now dwelling in mortal realms.”

The Queen’s prowess on the training field with bow, sword and halberd had driven the Guards into an alarming frenzy of devoted emulation; there had even been some minor jealousy that her Ladies-in-Waiting received her personal instruction in the use of dagger and empty hand (fortunately the Lady Eówyn’s instruction in advanced horsewomanship and cavalry-drill had been sufficiently strenuous to keep them occupied; it was now considered something of a privilege to be rotated to Emyn Arnen for training).

“And, Ma’am,” Master Samwise said diffidently, “You have healing arts. Just in case of accidents…”

The plan of campaign had been taking shape slowly, adjusted little by little to take account of the resources becoming available from the Dwarves, the Elves, the Shire, and the Men of Gondor. And not only they, as it turned out, for the Captain of the White Tower had news.

“Ma’am, I was approached yesterday by His Excellency the Ambassador of Far Harad,” he said to Queen and Council. “He is offering his Embassy’s help with, ah, “killing the spider-monster”.”

There had been some attempt at discretion, for the avoidance of panic, but obviously the news had spread like a sneeze not long after Captain Mablung first arrived in Minas Tirith to make his report to his lord. The Rangers and the Tower Guard had been turning away numerous would-be heroes, both in the City and at Emyn Arnen; the Lady Eówyn had observed trenchantly of most of them that “we’d just be delivering her meals to her.”

The diplomats of Far Harad were another side of the shield altogether. All of them, even the Ambassador himself, had fought at the Morannon, and when the Embassy was established, the Prefect of the City had at their request (and with the Their Majesties’ permission) arranged for them to have the use of an old practice ground near the river to exercise their horses. It was now a normal sight of the City, going out at dawn to watch them ride, and train with their preferred weapons of spear and bow and weighted cords (lessons in the last was how the Princess of Ithilien and the Ambassador first made their acquaintance).

“The Haradrim would be an asset,” Faramir said in support. “And it would be a good thing, to be able to fight beside them instead of against them.” That had been the Captain’s opinion too, leaving aside the potential Diplomatic Incident if anything happened to the Ambassador. Although from everything that they knew of Far Harad, “He fell in glorious battle against an evil spider-monster of legend, and his name will be honoured forever!” would probably be reasonably well-received.

“Very well,” the Queen said. “The Ambassador of Far Harad is young, but not lacking in judgement. He and his Men shall have their share of this enterprise.”

. . . . .

Chapter Text

The Steward had the right of entry into the King’s and Queen’s rooms at any time, but Faramir had not previously been in the Queen’s own study; she met him commonly in her private receiving-room, or when she was Regent, in the King’s study. The day before his return to Emyn Arnen, however, when he came for their regular morning meeting, her equerry led him to the airy, white-walled room on an upper terrace of the King’s House. It was sparsely furnished, with little more than a desk for the Queen, and a sideboard and presses along the far wall, next to the glass-paned doors that opened onto a little private garden. The stonework was plain, though the parquet floor was handsomely patterned; wide, woven and embroidered hangings were its only ornament.

They seemed simple in design, but Faramir checked on the threshold, caught for a moment by their spell. A long lake, under stars; a white and many-towered city on a hill that rose from a green plain, ringed with mountains; swans on a stream in a forest of tall trees leafed with gold; a mountain rising sheer from a shining sea. They blazed before his eyes, dazzling as the light of the Sun in Her youth; looking upon them, it was as if he stood on the brink of other lands, at once unimaginably distant and as close as his next breath. He wavered, as if his next step would send him plunging into a world terrifying and lovely beyond his deepest dreams.

“Kinsman.” A strong hand caught his elbow, steadying him. He looked up into the starry heights of the Queen’s eyes, and for a moment it was as if he were some child of Men in the youth of the world, standing in wonder for the first time before the Elder Kindred in their glory. He could not have said who he was, or she, or whether they stood together in the ordinary daylight of Gondor or in some lost and mighty city of the Elder Days.

“Faramir.”

The deep gaze caught him as he fell, and held him, and returned him to himself. Faramir shook his head, though his mind seemed not clouded, but ringingly clear. All the common things about him, and the very day outside, seemed strange and splendid, each in itself a wonder of the world.

A lifetime’s training let him manage a bow, and a vague gesture at the walls.

“Forgive me, Madam, for my distraction...”,

The Queen smiled, not unkindly.

“I knew that you had clear sight, kinsman, but I had not realised that you saw so deeply. Come, sit and drink a cup with me, for you have travelled far in these last moments.”

The cup of chased silver that she offered him smelled faintly of spring flowers. The light honey mead was cool and soothing and he drank gratefully, still shaken by that sudden widening and deepening of the world. The Queen seated herself behind her desk and waited with every appearance of ease.

Awe let loose his guard upon his tongue.

“Madam, are those webs your work?”

“They are.”

She must have seen the curiosity in his face.

“You will know, I think, that among my... among the Eldar, those gifted in song may create a waking dream with words and music, so that it seems to those who hear that they stand within the tale as it unfolds.”

He nodded, his silence an invitation for her to continue.

“It came to me to attempt a similar feat, but in the medium of my own chosen Arts of warp and weft, thread and needle. And I succeeded, though few are the Men who can bear to look closely enough to perceive it. You are a rare creature, my friend.”

Faramir blinked, making a connection ten years old.

“The King’s banner...”

The smile deepened in her eyes.

“Indeed.”

Faramir looked at the tapestries again, carefully sidelong. The lake seemed the safest, but even so, he could almost feel the tree-shadow rise round him and the chill of starlight on his skin.

“Do you yet make such works, Lady?”

The Queen shook her head.

“The first and least of these,” she nodded towards the tapestry of the city, “was a Great Year and more in the making. I have not the time, in the press of my duties here.”

In the face of her tranquillity, he would not shame himself or her by showing the sudden sorrow that pierced him. Instead, he set the cup upon the desk and asked with heartfelt sincerity,

“How may I serve you, Lady?”

The Queen rose and went to one of the presses, gesturing to him to remain seated. From it she took a long bundle, wound about with a cloth patterned with green and golden leaves. She laid it on her desk and unwrapped the cloth. Faramir came to his feet to see, and drew in a slow, deep breath at what was revealed.

“This is Dagorlind,” the Queen said softly. “The Battle Singer, the sword of the Lady of the Golden Wood, forged in Nargothrond in the Elder Days, by the hand of Finrod Felagund himself. It is in my keeping now, for its mistress has gone beyond the need for such things.”

She lifted it and laid it in Faramir’s wondering hands. It was a straight, double-edged blade, made for a High-elf’s towering height; its sheath was of dark green leather, worked with a delicate, gilded pattern that might have been flames or flowers or both. At the Queen’s nod, Faramir took two steps back and drew. The blade came from the scabbard with a clear, ringing whisper, balanced in his hand as delicately as a living thing. Even in the shade of the room, light rippled upon it like water.

“There are runes of keenness and speed and strength written upon it, and it is a bane of evil. Wield it in this fight, and may it serve you well.”

. . . . .

The diplomats of Far Harad had become more or less accustomed to the sight of the Other Kindreds (not to be called ‘demons’ in public, the Ambassador had reminded them sternly) who could be seen now and again upon the streets of Minas Tirith. There were Elves strolling in the streets and Hobbits honoured at court (and their sayings, fashions and food all immensely popular in the City). Dwarves worked on mysterious projects down by the Great Gate, and were now helping to equip the Ambassador and his men for this latest adventure (that had been...a really interesting and actually enjoyable meeting). The Ambassador met the Queen quite often in the course of his diplomatic duties and got regular intelligence reports from his people’s legendary Witch of the East (he didn’t deceive himself that she wasn’t getting information back from him too, whether by his own will or not). He had volunteered himself and his men to fight beside the Gondorians against an evil spider-monster out of legend, and had no reason to doubt their sincerity in welcoming him and sharing their knowledge with him, as was only sensible, among allies.

Nonetheless, some things were still rather difficult for practical, mundane men to accept at face value.

The Ambassador and his staff had dutifully read (and then re-read) the information note that the White Tower had sent ahead of the breakfast and briefing to which they had been invited that morning. They had conscientiously checked (and re-checked) Translations From The Elvish for explanations of Gondolin, balrog, and Elves returning from the dead .

His Deputy had asked with genuine bafflement, “Are they really expecting us to believe all of this, sir?”

Spider-monsters were one thing. Captain Mablung and one of the Wood-Elves had shown them the corpse of a ‘regular’ Giant Spider; even shrivelled in death it had been as big as one of the Gondorians’ tall hunting-dogs, so an even bigger one was certainly thinkable. And the Wood-Elf, a brisk, terrifying creature bristling with more knives than the Ambassador was actually used to seeing on anyone, had been a woman, but definitely not a Man. But the Ambassador had still harboured doubts. The note on the Elf-Lord Glorfindel had simply been too extraordinary to just accept as within the normal range of Things That Happened In Minas Tirith (extraordinary as those already were).

Then, as he and his people were being escorted into the precincts of the White Tower by a pair of young Guardsmen, they heard the clash and slither of blade on blade, and saw below them in the main training yard two tall figures in full armour of unfamiliar style, engaged against each other with a speed and ferocity that the Ambassador had never even imagined was possible. One, with long golden hair loose beneath his helmet, was presumably the Lord Glorfindel. The other…

“Sir,” his Deputy whispered, “Is that…is that the Queen?”

The Ambassador and his staff were all, of necessity, more than competent in the arts of war, the hunt and the trek. The Sons and occasional Daughters of the Wind, neutral mediators among the Clans, were supposed to be sacrosanct of person and property, but accidents could happen, tempers could get out of hand, treachery was not unknown; it was useful and sometimes vital (literally) to be able to defend oneself, and if necessary, feed oneself while making a hasty departure when one’s welcome suddenly wore out. Young though he was, the Ambassador knew excellence when he saw it, in the soldiers of Gondor and the Riders of Rohan (not least in the Lady Éowyn herself), in the Rangers and the Guards of the White Tower. What he was seeing now was something so far beyond mortal excellence that Translations From The Elvish abruptly made sense in ways that it never had before. He could well believe that such warriors had dared to fight gods.

. . . . .

Maglor had been enjoying being Master Káno of Lang’s Pottery and Chestnut Ford on the Pelennor, master potter and pottery-master, respectable businessman and master artisan of Gondor. Running a business, especially with Men, was new to him, and he had been relieved and pleased to find that he was apparently capable of doing it successfully. He was used to lives and livelihoods depending on him of course, but the detail of his duties at this level was fascinating. He could see now why Caranthir had enjoyed trade with the Dwarves so much. It had been an unexpected wrench to the tranquillity of his recent years to suddenly be seen again as Maglor the Mighty, Lord of the Gap, Son of Fëanor, Kinslayer, Scourge of Beleriand etc etc. Though for now at least, in Gondor only two people knew what else he had been doing while the Elves would have had him lamenting endlessly along the shores of Middle-earth (he had done that, for a while, and then tired of it, as years, boredom and the deeds of Men gave him some perspective on himself).

Not that the other one was demanding anything of him at all in her present guise, but their history had its own weight, for both of them.

“I wanted to ask,” he said to Innin Adili, Grandmother of the East of Easterling legend, Aunt Adili of Haradren fairy-tales, now Mistress Innin the Easterling, respectable businesswoman of Minas Tirith, over cups of some sort of lemony herbal tea, and very good goats’ cheese and basil sandwiches, “Is the Ambassador of Far Harad one of yours?”

She smirked at him. “Well spotted! He is. Maternal line 67, via Khand and parts East. When did you meet him?”

He smirked back. “He and his folk will join us to fight against the Spider.”

’Us’, he said, and meant it; at least while Arwen lived.

“Ah.”

Mistress Innin sipped her tea, very deliberately, her pale, unlined, unchanged face eased into the same lack of expression as in the old days, whenever they had been alone together with no need for either to wear the masks of mortal communication. He had made the teacup and indeed the whole set for her then (in royal white, with a design of green leaves and white trumpet-flowers, poisonous and lovely). She could not have destroyed it, of course, but their parting had not been particularly friendly; he was not quite sure what to think about the fact that she had kept it (and with care, too; the leather carrying case had been new and sound, of good albeit Mannish workmanship).

She said at last, with just the smallest crease between her dark brows, “If I tried to keep track of all my descendants, I would never have time to do anything else.”

He had spent much of the Third Age of the world trying to look after Elrond and his children, and yes, it had been rather a time-consuming task and not always successful. And yes, one foster-son was not quite the same as the Grandmother’s historically unique (or so he hoped anyway) situation. It had been a shock, when first he accepted her offer of…employment, all those long leagues and longer years ago. He knew that Men did not necessarily wed as Elves did, but it had still appalled him to discover that at irregular intervals she chose a Mannish lover to father twin children, a boy and a girl, who were then simply abandoned to random families in her realm shortly after their birth. Even knowing that foundlings in her lands were called ‘children of the Queen’, and customarily treated as well as might be (just in case) had never entirely reconciled him to that ruthless, Yavannildi logic - “Lúthien’s line may last while the world lasts, but I have no guarantees about mine; I do what I can to improve the odds.”. And still less so, after the wreckage that the Great Wave had left of their realm meant that even that tenuous assurance of the children’s well-being was no longer there. Not to mention using herself as breeding-stock, though since she had done much the same with her subjects, he could not complain about her consistency there.

“But you know this one personally.” Even in a purely practical conversation about the weapons that the Haradrim used most commonly, and how they might best be deployed against Shelob, he had perceived her influence all over the young Ambassador. And that was… unusual.

“I spent time in the far South, a few years ago, befriending some of his forebears.” She had rallied, and the smirk was back. “A very profitable connection, even now. They found me…exotic, too.”

He had been surprised at first, to find her still clad in the style of the Uttermost East, rather than the manner of Gondor, though a moment’s thought had told him why. The loose trousers of thin charcoal-grey silk, and the flame-gold overtunic that fell to her knees, still after all these years bore traces of the ancient fashions of Tirion, as he had remembered them. She had (probably) not been expecting to see him, so the fact that they were Maedhros’ old colours had to have been a coincidence.

She went on without waiting for him to respond, “Nor do I wish to draw more attention to myself than you have already done.”

“A bit late for that, my apologies.” In the shock of suddenly sensing a familiar presence, he had not thought that the White Tower would certainly have had him followed from the King’s House that first time. Careless, to assume that he was safe just because it was Arwen’s City… “If your people place a large order with my pottery, it will be easy enough to account for, I should think.” He had noticed the teahouse attached to Aunt Adili’s Haradren Chocolate and Confectionery Shop.

“Hmph.” But he had obviously found a harmonic, because she said, while refilling his teacup, “I have no quarrel with Ungoliant’s get, and no reason to do her harm.”

There was nothing he could say to that. He had chosen to associate with a…differently-moralled being Ages ago, and he couldn’t reasonably be upset about it now. He drank his tea and had another sandwich. The basil had an interesting flavour.

After a while, she hissed crossly, and said, “Start thinking about the size of the permanent discount you’re going to offer me,” then stood up and stalked off into her rooms (they were having a light lunch on the balcony above the garden, to enjoy the spring weather and avoid the lingering winter-dampness of the grass). After a while, she came back with something that she set on the table in front of him. “Be careful.”

It was a straight, single-edged blade, resembling nothing so much as an ordinary kitchen-knife in form. He remembered it well, and did not need to draw it from its rather unusual sheath of grey metal, the same metal as the blade, which was the only way the blade could be sheathed at all, short of cumbersome arrangements with clamps (Curufin had complained about that, in the knife’s first incarnation, before it had been broken and in those days it had only been able to cut iron like wood). It was…more help than he had hoped for.

“Twenty-five percent,” he said.

She bared her teeth at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. Fifty.”

“Thirty.”

“Thirty-five and as much of her leg chitin as you can get when you dismember her for burning, and you give me an unbreakable chafing-dish for my stillroom. I’m being kind here, and not asking for her venom-sacs.”

A fair point.

“Done. May I have some more tea, please? It’s very good.”

A second pot of tea later, he left with the knife that could cut iron like cream cheese in his pocket (since Telchar’s daughter re-forged it just before the Drowning of Beleriand, it had borne no name beyond “my kitchen-knife”. Curufin would have been furious; Maglor found it highly amusing). Glorfindel could have Master Samwise’ Sting for his off-hand blade. Maglor would be content with a kitchen-knife. On his way back up the circles to the Royal Guesthouse where he was currently lodging, he started thinking about ceramic as a material for knives.

. . . . .

Chapter Text

As the preparations were made and plans were devised, only one problem remained. The Gondorians had skilled hunters, warriors, weapons and other gear in plenty, which both the Queen and Lord Glorfindel assessed would be sufficient for the task of killing the Spider. There were plans and contingency plans, for how to actually do it. What they did not have was the means to track their quarry and bring her to bay long enough to be killed.

“We have some idea of where she was,” Faramir said, not letting his frustration show, “even if incompletely. We have not been able to find a pattern that will tell us where she is or where she will be.”

Even the Elves had not been able to track her reliably. They were accustomed to hunting the giant spiders in the Greenwood, where both they and their enemies were above-ground in the forest. But Shelob dwelt in darkness, and had lurked among and beneath the Ephel Duath since before the Fall of Númenor. Even though her chiefest lair in Cirith Ungol had been scoured clean by Dwarven fire (and there was a schedule, followed to the day, for regular maintenance burning), her tunnels ran everywhere in the mountains. Both Elves and Rangers had begun mapping the likely exits that they found, but it would be an impossible task to find them all, let alone block them.

“I’m thinking that we’ll have to lure her out,” Mistress Sigellas the Wood-Elf said.

The chieftains of the Hunt were met in the White Tower once more: The Queen, the Prince and Princess of Ithilien, Captain Mablung, the Captain of the White Tower, the Ambassador of Far Harad, Lord Glorfindel, Master Káno, Mistress Sigellas, the chief of the Wood-Elves whom Legolas had sent to aid the Hunt, and Master Bruni, Chief Engineer of the Dwarf-team working on the new Great Gate and now the armourer of the Hunt.

Mistress Sigellas was a tall, sombre woman, courteously brisk, with the faded hints of ancient scars on her pale skin, and dark hair cropped short to her shoulders; she carried the most knives that Faramir had ever seen borne openly by a single person (he counted more than a dozen visible, and was sure that there were more that he couldn’t see). Her eyes were a bright blue-grey, but without the light of Valinor, and to Faramir’s keen ear her accent in the Elven-tongue was closer to Master Elrond’s and the Queen’s than to that of Master Legolas. Faramir’s polite enquiries elicited the information that she had been of the legendary Green Elves of Ossiriand; he was hoping that she would accept his hints that the Loremasters would very much appreciate a word later. When this Spider business was out of the way. And, yes, he could and did fully appreciate the luxury of being able to think of a battle against an also-legendary monster (The Last Daughter of Ungoliant!) as simply another task on his schedule, challenging but not at all impossible, not an ultimately fruitless battle against inevitable doom. He found Master Samwise’ prosaic approach to heroism very attractive, even if he could not quite achieve that level of matter-of-factness yet.

The Lady Eówyn asked, “What would lure her? Beasts will be driven by desire for food and water and mates, and by fear of the hunter. But this creature is not a true beast.”

The Captain of the White Tower said, “For Men, add greed and love and hatred.” As Gondor’s intelligence chief, he had no illusions about Mannish nature, any more than did his colleague the Prefect of the Watch.

“For all thinking creatures,” Master Káno said dreamily, odd undertones humming in his voice.

“Love will not move her, and she would not fear us. But hunger and hatred, the desire for vengeance….. Your Rangers and Mistress Sigellas’ folk have been stopping up her holes, and harrying her tracks through the hills; she has been inconvenienced, but she is not starving. She can wait as long as she must, until the years pass and she is forgotten again. Hunger will not lure her out.”

He smiled, cool and remote. It had been rather unnerving for the Men of Gondor, watching the slow metamorphosis over days and weeks and months of Master Káno the amiable Elvish artisan, always happy to chat about the intricacies of his work, into something ancient and fearsome, unaccountable to Men and powerful beyond their ken. Whatever he insisted on calling himself, there was no doubting that it was Maglor the Mighty, the Son of Fëanor, who sat at their council-table now.

“Hatred, the desire for vengeance for a hurt…oh yes. She will come for that.”

. . . . .

Master Samwise of course volunteered to be bait in whatever manner Her Majesty thought fit to deploy him. How he had found out about it all was something of a mystery (the Captain of the White Tower observed to the Steward that perhaps recruiting Hobbits as intelligencers might be a good idea, given their propensity for tripping into ancient and deadly secrets), but his valiant offer was equally as a matter of course unanimously rejected. Gondor would sooner let the Spider lurk for the next hundred years than risk Master Samwise (Ringbearer, Hero of the Fellowship of the Ring, Conqueror of Sauron, Mayor of the Shire, etc etc) getting so much as a stubbed toe in this venture. Though the alternative that Faramir was offered shortly thereafter was unpalatable in a completely different way.

“This is an Art of the Enemy,” Lord Glorfindel growled as he stalked into Faramir’s office with Master Káno on his heels and the Captain of the White Tower trailing a cautious few paces behind. The sun was at mid-day, so the Steward’s office was in shadow, which emphasised the blaze of indignation in the Elf-lord’s eyes.

“It is likelier to work than anything else that we can do,” said Master Káno, in a tone of insulting indifference, but with the suffocating pressure of pure power underlying every word.

Faramir’s office in Minas Tirith was a pleasant room, airy, tidy and bright, well able to accommodate quite a large group of visitors without seeming cluttered or crowded. With a mere two High Elves, both in a state of some emotion, it felt full of an imminent thunderstorm. Faramir swallowed and his ears popped. He glanced at the Captain of the Tower, who was braced as if he were facing a gale on the ramparts of Dol Amroth, then rose politely to his feet and said, “My lords, thank you for coming to see me. This clearly needs discussion.”

The Captain said in a slightly strangled tone, “I have requested some refreshments, my lord…”

As if summoned by the words, the door opened, admitting the formidable Chief Clerk of the Steward’s Office herself (a grizzled veteran of Ecthelion II’s reign) escorting a battalion of staff from the Duty Kitchen, bearing a round folding table, chairs, plates of Shire-style pastries, and in pride of place, the Steward’s own Tea-set of Doom. In what seemed an eyeblink, and without regard to the louring atmosphere, the table and chairs were unfolded, a linen cloth cast over the table, the napkins, crockery and cutlery laid out, and the tea poured.

“My lords, your refreshment.”

The Chief Clerk swept a single, cool, encompassing glance over Steward, Elf-lords and Captain, conveying without a further word that she had certain expectations of their conduct and would be gravely disappointed if these were not fulfilled; then she bowed herself and her troops out, leaving behind an atmosphere noticeably less heated, and indeed, positively chilly.

The Captain, who could always be depended upon to rise to the occasion, shook off the paralysis that the Chief Clerk’s rare personal interventions tended to produce in younger officials. “Jam tarts, splendid! Something else for which to thank the Shire!”

“And not by using the Ringbearer for dark sorcery!” snapped Glorfindel, sticking to his point (he was familiar with Hobbit cookery, from Bilbo Baggin’s years in Rivendell). But the interruption had served its purpose; when Faramir and the Captain sat down, both Elf-lords glared at each other, but did the same.

Faramir took a sip of tea and a bite of jam tart (cherry) to set the correct example, and raised an eyebrow at the Captain, sitting opposite him. Lord Glorfindel was on his left, and Master Káno was on his right, and hopefully, no-one was going to engage in attempted kinslaying over the table. The Chief Clerk had even managed a small glass bowl of hot water in the middle, in which a few fresh leaves of athelas (now cultivated everywhere in the High Kingdom that it could be persuaded to grow; pots of it were all over the Citadel itself) were steeping, filling the air with their calming, wholesome scent.

“My lord, Master Káno has proposed a method by which the Spider may be lured out to a place and time of our choosing,” the Captain said. From the complete neutrality of this expression, he had some qualms as well.

“It won’t hurt him,” Master Káno gave the tarts the respectful attention that they deserved, and chose one with apricot jam. “I just need some of his blood. Not too much.”

That sounded extremely like an Art of the Enemy. It did not escape Faramir’s notice in the brisk discussion that followed, that Master Káno at no point denied that dark sorcery was in fact involved.

. . . . .

In the end Faramir did the logical thing and went to see the Queen, ruthlessly displacing the unfortunate functionary who had held that appointment slot. He described what Master Káno had proposed, and handed her the document that Master Káno had written for him in an exact, exquisite hand, setting out the entire procedure and the…spells that would be used at every stage, from the initial blood-drawing to the final creation of the…device that would let Master Káno, if all went well, call the Spider to, hopefully, her doom. He also gave a complete and accurate account of Lord Glorfindel’s entirely reasonable and proper objections, with which Faramir in fact agreed in every particular, except for the final decision about whether or not to do it anyway.

“There is also,” he said, tapping the relevant volume of Translations From The Elvish, which he had brought with him, “the matter of the Doom of the Noldor. We assessed that it was worth the risk when Master Kano first offered his assistance, but if arts of the Enemy are involved…”

The earlier discussion had actually concluded that there was no way that anyone in Gondor, even the Queen, could make a Son of Fëanor stand aside from a fight against a Daughter of Ungoliant. So whether or not the Doom was still operative did not matter, and if it was, they would just have to cope with it.

“The exact nature of the Doom has long been a matter of some contention among the Eldar,” the Queen said.

“If it is as you fear, then whatever the manner of Master Káno’s involvement it will already be effective upon us. If it is, as my father believed, merely a warning of the dangers that would face the Noldor if they continued upon the path of evil-doing, then the question is whether this proposal should be considered evil-doing.”

“Master Káno has stated his absolute confidence that Master Samwise will not be harmed in any way by this, er, procedure, except for the loss of approximately one tablespoon’s worth of blood, and that only with his knowing consent.” Faramir considered whether or not to reveal the next thing and decided that there was no point in omitting anything. “He also said that regardless, he could heal such a minor hurt without difficulty, and even if he could not, Your Majesty certainly could.”

Even Arwen blinked at this degree of brass-necked cheek, before her face smoothed back into the tranquil mask of the Queen.

“By all accounts, including my father’s, his House has never lacked for effrontery,” she said evenly. “But I had never heard that they practiced the Arts of the Enemy, whether the greater or the lesser.”

She looked at the papers laid out before her, tracing the letters with one long finger. “This is not my Art, but if I read this correctly,” a delicate frown crossed her features, “there is no compulsion here. It calls, no more.”

Faramir considered this. “Bilbo Baggins states that Maglor the Mighty Singer is held one of the three greatest singers of the Eldar; a mere call from him might be of somewhat more account than ordinary... ”

“Indeed,” the Queen said thoughtfully. “My grandmother and he were never friends, but she did not quarrel with his standing as a singer among our… her people, and she knew Daeron of Doriath and Timpando Starbeard, who are the other two. And I agree that this matter of blood is not a minor matter…I think that we need to speak further with our Master Káno. Where is he now?”

Trailing equerries and guards, the Queen and Faramir found Master Káno and Master Samwise having lunch in the buttery of the White Tower, with a number of off-duty guards crowding round them on the benches. The table bore the remains of loaves, butter, the ubiquitous stew, cakes made with dried lemon peel and several mugs and teapots, indicating that proper hospitality had been offered to the Ringbearer. They were singing.

“Look, she's crawling up the wall,” sang Master Samwise in a loud, cheerful tenor,

Black and hairy, not that small,

Now she's up above my head,

Hanging by her sticky thread…”

“Shelob the spider…” sang Master Káno in a menacing bass rumble,

“Shelob the spider…”

“Now she's dropped on to the floor,

Running for the tunnel door,

Maybe she's as scared as me,

Where's she gone now? I can't see…”

“Shelob the spider…

Shelob the spider…”

"

“Creepy, crawly, creepy, crawly,” sang the guards of the White Tower in a chorus of hissing whispers, with appropriate wiggly finger gestures,

Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly

Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly

Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly

Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly…"

Faramir straightened his face with some effort, avoided the Queen’s eye, and stepped into the room. “All rise for Her Majesty?” he suggested politely.

There was a frantic scramble and the crash of benches overturning as everyone who had to come to attention leapt to their feet and came to attention. “Ma’am!” barked the most senior guard present. “Sir!”

“At ease, sirs,” the Queen said, smiling reassuringly around the room. “We sought Master Káno, and since haply we find you here too, Master Samwise, I would trouble you for a word also…”

. . . . .

“Find the place,” Maglor, Son of Fëanor said in the old Northern Sindarin of Eastern Beleriand to Sigellas of the Laiquendi, as they strolled together under the stars, “And Master Samwise and I will bring you the Spider.” He had gone back to Chestnut Ford from the City to make certain preparations, and she had accompanied him.

“Well enough,” she answered in the same tongue, her own Ossiriandic accent barely changed by the intervening Ages, “It’ll be a whole pack of us waiting to bring her down, though, Men, Dwarves, Eldar, all falling over our own feet. She may simply die of laughing.”

“That would certainly make the task easier!” It was a fair point; he had been concerned as well about the motley force that would ride to this Hunt. He understood the thought behind it, Arwen was Elrond’s daughter and pupil in more than healing, but still… well, most of them were seasoned warriors and the Haradrim boys were at least skilled. It could be worse.

“They trust the Prince,” he said at last. “Let him marshal them. I believe Arwen considers it a useful bonding activity.”

She laughed, a high, wild sound that echoed in the quiet night around them. It was past midnight, and the villagers of Chestnut Ford and the workers in Lang’s Pottery (Maglor had kept the name after Master Lang’s retirement to Belfalas) were all peacefully in their beds. She had been much amused to learn of his current pursuits when she first came to Ithilien after Elrond sailed; he had given her an unbreakable mug, which had impressed her even as she laughed at him (“You Noldor!”).

“She seeks to foster friendship between you and Glorfindel? Or with my own lordling of fair Ithilien, young Legolas?”

“And the Men with each other, and Eldar and Dwarves with Men. It is the Age of Men now, and the Wood and the Mountain must be on good terms with the City. While their realms endure.”

It would not be long, he thought

. The few years of Arwen’s mortal reign would end the Elder Days, though gloriously, and then there would be only the long dwindling. He hoped that the Hobbits at least would survive, being closest kin to Men. “For how long more will you stay on this side of the Sea, my sister?”

In Beleriand, Sigellas of the Silent Strike had been the Commander of Amon Ereb, his brother Caranthir’s dearest friend and ally. They had married after the Dagor Bragollach, and she had stayed with the Sons of Fëanor to the end, through the Nirnaeth, and Doriath, and Sirion, until the final failure in Eonwë’s camp. She had gone to Celebrimbor and Eregion then, and afterwards to Elrond and Rivendell, and now at last had come to the gentle woods of Ithilien. Maglor wondered briefly if Legolas knew that Sigellas Kinslayer dwelt among his people now.

“We do not speak of the past,” she answered his unhidden thought. “Thranduil knew that the last of the kinslayers followed Elrond, though the children of Doriath do not like to remember that Laiquendi were among them, or why…. he was never a fool, and neither is his son, and every blade against the Darkness counted. As for staying on this side of the Sea…what is there for me, in your Aman? Will the Belain ever release him from their prison of the dead?”

“I do not know. I should hope that Celebrimbor at least is Returned by now. But Elrond will be there, and Celebrían, and they will be glad of your coming, as I would be of your going. I would not see you fade, Sigellas.” He laughed in his turn. “And if Caranthir is not yet free….why then, go to Nerdanel my mother and Nariel my marriage sister, and claim your place as a princess of the house of Fëanor!”

“What?” She checked in her path, her lightless eyes nonetheless bright with reflected starlight as she looked at him with amused astonishment. “I, to rule among the Noldor?”

“I recall no complaints about your leadership, Commander of Amon Ereb! But you need not fear, I doubt if Finarfin or the Valar would let any of us rule anything or anyone. Though our sister Nariel was with the Host of the Valar in Beleriand, and her folk bore our banner with hers, so something of our House yet remains, I hope.”

“Mmm. She came late to the War of Wrath, I remember,” Sigellas said. “Celebrimbor told me that they met not too long before the end. She was not happy that he chose to stay, when she could not. Her weapons …she was their maker and their keeper, she had to go back, to ensure that those not used in Beleriand were safely bestowed. That was afterwards in Lindon, before we all went off across the Ered Luin to build our new world…”

After decades of grinding warfare against the hordes of Angband, with the ranks of the Eldar thinning year by year in exchange for every inch of ground gained, the fall of Morgoth had been sudden and swift. Even the Sons of Fëanor and their remaining followers, far away holding the Eastern front with their Dwarven allies, had seen and felt the effects. Fire in the sky like a second Sunrise, the earth split and shaking, lightning kindled to strike down mountains, the hosts of the Enemy withering as if the air itself burned. They had believed the destruction to be the work of the Valar, finally entering the field against Their brother. Maglor had only learned long afterwards in Rivendell that the Art that had broken Beleriand at the last had been Nariel’s, Curufin’s wife and Celebrimbor’s mother.

They walked on for a space. The night air was cool and sweet, the growing cornfields rustled with the small life at their roots, and a hunting owl swooped silently across their path. Above their heads the summer stars shone in a clear sky. Dawn was only a few hours away.

“What of you?” she asked. “Aman was your home. When will you return?”

His answer was carefully controlled. “I do not know. Galadriel received her quittance when Sauron fell. I did not, so far as I know. Elrond asked me to sail with him, when I bade him farewell that last summer. But he could not say whether or not it was permitted, and …I preferred not to endanger him or the Ringbearers with my company.”

“Hmph. Well, I see no sign of you fading, at least. And your pottery-work is nice.” He had to laugh at that. Sigellas’ Laiquendi pragmatism had sorted easily with Carnistir’s straightforwardness, and her ruthless equanimity had calmed his uneasy temper. It would be amusing, to have that unsparing clear-sightedness in Tirion. It had been a surprise to some among the other Houses of the Noldor, when Caranthir had set a Laiquendë above Noldor in Amon Ereb, but not to anyone who had depended on their skills as scouts and quiet killers, in the long years holding East Beleriand.

By unspoken accord, they turned back towards the pottery workshop, walking without haste. After a while she said, “I will consider what you say. For now, I would see Elrond’s daughter fare well with this Man she has chosen, and this new land of ours is also fair, in its fashion. And I remember that there was a haven of our people in the south once; that would be worth seeing, I think.”

She left him at the gates of the pottery, where he had his apartments in the main building, above the shop and the offices. He said, “I still think that you should go. But in truth, I would be glad to have your company for a while.”

“After we slay your Spider, eh?”

“After we have slain the Spider.”

. . . . .