Chapter Text
October 20
As Asfaloth started down the steep path to the valley, Glorfindel watched the rest of the party approach the house ahead of him. A group of his own people waited in front of the doors, not a cheerful gathering to greet guests, but a grim one to learn what doom awaited them. Elrond approached the party first, followed by Mithrandir. Glorfindel’s relief at seeing his friend was immense, and yet, he knew in his heart that there would still be a great battle to come if Maura was to survive. And, as there was no foresight about the child that rode in front of him, he feared she would be forgotten, left to be his charge alone.
Many of the watchers went with their lord and the wizard, but a handful stayed there as Glorfindel rode down to the house. He was offered assistance the moment he commanded Asfaloth to stop, hands offering to take the horse or to help him with the girl. He handed the reins over and dismounted, sliding Rochondín’s body down carefully. “Come, now,” he said softly to her, in case she could still hear and understand. “This is the end of our journey.”
She did not respond or try to stand, so he moved her to lie on his arms. Her eyelids fluttered, but they did not open. Her breaths were shallow, and her lips were growing blue with cold.
A woman strode towards them from the door of the house: Laerin, a healer, who was never counted among those of great power but was very capable nonetheless. Most of her battlefield experience was in the war against the Witch-King and Angmar, so she was familiar with the devices of the enemy. Fortunately, she was also the type of person who would be good at handling Rochondín’s moods. He could not have been more relieved to see her. Elrond had not forgotten that he had a second patient after all.
Rochondín’s gelding, who had followed them along the path and across the bridge, snorted in concern and nudged Rochondín with his nose. “Rest,” Glorfindel told him. “You have earned it. Go with Asfaloth, and I will take care of your rider.”
The horse allowed one of the stablehands to take his reins, and Glorfindel turned to Laerin.
“My lord,” she said, a cursory sign of respect. Her eyes remained focused on the body in his arms. “I was told she could still ride.”
“She could, when I sent word,” he said. “The end of her journey has been the most difficult. I fear she has no strength left.”
Laerin touched the back of her fingers to Rochondín’s cheek, feeling the chill there. “Can you hear me, my love?” she asked in Westron.
The girl moved slightly towards the warmth, but she did not make any obvious attempt to respond. “I believe she cannot,” said Glorfindel. “Though if she could, it would not matter what language you used.”
“My name is Laerin, love,” she murmured, still speaking Westron. Then, to Glorfindel, she said, “Let me see her eyes.”
He turned Rochondín’s head towards the healer. She lifted the girl’s eyelid and moved a finger across her vision, but her eye did not focus or move to track it. She closed Rochondín’s eye again and touched the pulse at the side of her neck with two fingers.
She lowered her hand, her face deeply troubled. “Come with me. What is her name?”
They set off towards the house. Though Laerin was a great deal shorter than Glorfindel was, she walked swiftly and kept up with his longer strides. He was grateful she had not asked to take the child herself. He feared what might happen if he let go of her. “She would not tell me at first, so I named her Rochondín. She later said it was Mellori, but it seems I mispronounce that.”
They stepped inside, and Laerin pointed the way. “Rochondín, then. Tell me about her.”
“I found her seven days ago,” he began. “Two of the Nine followed her, but her hands were already cold as if she had met them before, and she was very ill by the time I came upon her. She regained enough strength to ride, and we have traveled hard since then. She barely speaks, except to her horse, and that is in a language I do not know. At first, she understood everything I said, no matter what the language, but whatever power gave her that knowledge is fading as well, for she understands less every day. She has episodes that I understand to be daelin, once or twice a day before today. This has been the greatest matter of contention between us: she does not wish for others to witness her in that state, and I would not let her fall behind, for she would not be able to catch up.” They reached the main staircase and started up, which forced Glorfindel to slow down. “She accepts assistance only grudgingly. Both Aragorn and I have tended to her, but she hardly improves. It may be that she does not have enough desire to.”
“I may need Master Elrond to assist, then,” said Laerin, but the set of her jaw said that she did not intend to lose any patient to depression, whether or not Elrond could come. They reached the top of the stairs and turned down the hall. “Continue.”
“Last night, she called out to me, I believe from a dream,” he continued. “She has been especially anxious today, and I cannot tell why. Then, the Nine rode past us after the halfling. She was not with us during the battle, so I do not know what she saw, but she was still shaking when I came to her afterwards. We crossed the Ford when she was able. As we rode along the path, she began to have another episode, but as it began to resolve, it suddenly worsened again, and then again. She fell from her horse, and vomited, and wept, which she has not done in all this time. She has slipped farther from me since, and I fear that I am now the only thing holding her to this world.”
They reached the room. It was warm and well-lit, smelling of athelas and other herbs, and there was another healer, Nethril, waiting for them. She looked at the unconscious girl with surprise and concern.
“I fear the same,” said Laerin. “But you must lay her down so that we may care for her.”
Glorfindel placed the girl gently on the bed but kept his hand on her head, afraid to let go. She looked very small and dirty against the clean white sheets, and her skin was cold.
“Wash her hands with warm water,” Laerin instructed Nethril. Then, she placed her hand on the center of the girl’s chest and began to sing. Glorfindel joined her, cradling Rochondín’s head between his hands and lending his power to the healing. They went on for some time, but the color began to come back to her face, and she was breathing more deeply by the end of the song, as if she were merely asleep.
“Thank you for your voice,” said Laerin, finally looking up at him. “And for bringing her all this way to me. But she is stronger now, and you will want to speak to Master Elrond. I relieve you. Go. I will send a messenger when there is news.”
“I thank you as well,” he said, stepping back. He would not be a help to them now, and, as Laerin said, he had other responsibilities. “I will visit later, if I may.”
She nodded, so he slipped out of the room. It did not take him long to learn where Maura was to be housed. There were several advisors and healers standing outside of the room when he found it, anxiously waiting for instructions. But they let him through without a word.
Elrond and Mithrandir sat on either side of the bed. Elrond was fully focused on Maura, who was deathly pale and hardly breathing. The terrible knife-hilt lay on the table beside Elrond. Bilba sat in a chair in the corner, and Ban and Aragorn stood on either side of him.
“I thought that they would be able to cure him here,” said Ban when he saw Glorfindel, terror evident in his voice.
Glorfindel looked at Mithrandir. Had a judgement already been made that he was lost?
“Don’t give up hope,” said the wizard gruffly. “I am glad to see you, Glorfindel.”
“Are you, indeed?” Glorfindel laughed. “After you left me to do your job?”
Mithrandir scoffed. “As if I have never done your job before!”
“I cannot remember any such occurrence! But now is not the time to enlighten me. What news?”
“He lives,” said Elrond without looking up from his patient. “More, I cannot say.”
“We may have stayed the progress, at least for a while,” said Mithrandir. “But we cannot reverse it yet.”
Glorfindel walked to the corner and put his hand on Bilba’s shoulder. The perian was shaking. “He is strong,” he said. “You must trust his strength.”
“How is Malori?” asked Aragorn.
“Yes,” said Ban, making an effort to take his eyes off his master and look up again. “We worried when you stopped, Mr. Glorfindel, sir.”
Ban was going to be a favorite in Imladris if he went on talking like that, Glorfindel thought, using familiar pronouns and calling everyone mister and sir. His speech was even more strange than Bilba’s. Still, the point of his question must have been to be able to make a better guess of whether Maura’s condition would improve. “She is very much worse, I am afraid,” said Glorfindel. “But she is being cared for, and I believe she will recover.”
That caught Elrond’s attention, though he still did not look up. “What happened?” he asked softly.
“She took the sight of the Ringwraiths poorly,” he said. He could share the details later.
“I might have been able to help,” said Aragorn.
“You might have,” Glorfindel agreed. “But once I realized how bad matters were, I only thought to come here as quickly as possible. I took her with me on Asfaloth, and she did not protest or argue, which was the worst sign of all.”
“Aragorn said that she does not speak,” said Mithrandir.
Glorfindel smiled. “She does not, but she is perfectly well able to let me know when she is displeased.”
“She must be terrible indeed if she irritates you,” the wizard replied.
Glorfindel laughed. “I believe many people feel the same way about you, Mithrandir.”
“She was nearly as sick as Maura, most of the time, wasn’t she?” said Ban. The halfling’s thoughts ever returned to his master. “The Black Riders must be terribly powerful to do that to him with such a small wound, and to her without any wound at all.”
“She was ill long before she met the Riders, I think,” said Glorfindel, banishing the smile from his face. “And she was alone, with no friends and nobody to speak to except the horse she rode. Also, she is still quite young. Had she been wounded, she would not likely have held on more than a few days. Maura will not give in so easily. Besides, he is here now, with Lord Elrond and Mithrandir. He could not have anyone better to take care of him.”
“And you must take care of yourselves,” said Elrond, lifting his head at last.
“I haven’t been traveling,” said Bilba. “I’ve had plenty of sleep.”
Elrond raised his eyebrows at him, but he did not object. Bilba could not stay awake all night at his age, but he would not mind falling asleep in his chair if he needed to.
Banshook his head. “I can’t leave him. Begging your pardon Master Elrond, and you too, Mr. Bilbo, but he needs me. Besides, I won’t be able to sleep at all if I don’t know he’s all right.”
“I will go,” said Glorfindel. He had not closed his eyes to sleep in eleven nights, and while he knew that he could go on that way for many more nights, it was not his preference. He put a hand on Aragorn’s arm. “Come with me. Elrond and Mithrandir can manage without us for a few hours.”
Aragorn looked at the halflings.
“Oh, go on,” said Bilba. “I’ll be all right.”
“I will return when I wake,” said Aragorn. He followed Glorfindel out into the hallway.
“Perhaps not quite when you wake,” said Glorfindel, smiling, as they walked. “You might be able to see Lady Arwen in the morning.”
“Stop it,” said Aragorn, but Glorfindel could not help but notice that he smiled a little at the thought.
“I will not!” said Glorfindel. “You had best clean yourself up as well: she will not appreciate the smell of the road.”
“Now is not the time –”
“There is always time. Now, go and sleep. You need it.”
October 21
Laerin stayed by Rochondín’s side all night. She and Nethril had changed her into a shift, treated her bruises and saddle sores, and washed her body as well as they could manage with a cloth. Since it looked like it would be difficult to handle, they had not done anything with her hair except to check it for lice: they did not know where she had slept, and while the inns in the Bree-lands kept their beds clean, not all farmhouses did. She had taken a few mouthfuls of medicine, though not as much as Laerin would have liked. She was no longer cold, but her sleep had become restless and unsettled.
Elrond had sent them the only apprentice healer in the valley, Elanna, since she seemed to be unable to stay in the same room as the wounded halfling for one reason or another (one never knew, with Elanna). Laerin was glad to have a messenger: she could not risk sending Nethril for medicine or food when she might need her help with the patient at any moment.
They had eaten breakfast, and Elanna was finishing the leftovers – sitting on the windowsill with her head behind the curtain so she could look outside – when there came a soft knock at the door. Nethril set aside the dress she was altering to fit Rochondín and rose to answer it.
In the hallway stood Elrond, dressed in a simple, unadorned tunic and looking like an ordinary healer, not a lord. His face was somber, so Laerin guessed that there was no good news from his patient. “Come in, my lord,” murmured Nethril, bowing slightly and stepping to the side to invite him in.
He crossed the room and knelt next to Laerin’s chair at the head of the bed. Nethril sat down but did not pick up the dress again. “How is she?” he whispered.
“She is improving,” Laerin told him. “But I still have to turn her mind away from dark dreams. How does the perian fare?”
“Maura may be beyond our help,” Elrond replied gravely. “Mithrandir believes there may be a fragment of Morgul-blade in his wound, but I cannot find it.”
Laerin shuddered at the thought. The girl stirred in her sleep and began talking again in her strange language. Elrond stood to respond, but first, he waited and listened for a moment. Then, he bent over Rochondín and whispered in her ear until she settled again.
“Lord Glorfindel said that she may not have enough desire to heal,” said Laerin. “I will have her sleep for as long as she is able to, but it cannot be forever, and if her mind continues to reach for dark places…” She did not finish. Elrond had seen that result more times than she had.
“She is here now, and that will help,” replied Elrond. “She will, of course, need rest and time. It will be best that when she does wake, it is during the day, when it is warm and bright. But if she seems to be faring poorly when the time comes, do not have her go back to sleep. Send for me instead. If I cannot come, Mithrandir may be able to, or Glorfindel, though it sounds as if they do not get along.”
Laerin frowned at that. She remembered that he had referred to contention between them, but he clearly cared very much for her.
“Is she otherwise well?”
“Yes. There are only the minor injuries that are typical for someone who has been traveling. Glorfindel told me that she vomited yesterday, but I see no reason that should happen again. Of course, that means she has not properly eaten anything since that morning, but if she takes enough water and medicine, we can try to give her some broth instead. She does have an interesting scar, though.” She pointed to the spot where it would be on her own arm. “It is certainly surgical, and I think she might have broken that bone once. Perhaps a chip of it needed to be removed?”
Elrond, as both a healer and a scholar, was endlessly curious about such things. He stood and took the girl’s arm, whispering of sleep. His eyes widened in surprise as he felt along the length of the scar.
“There is metal alongside the bone,” he said, stepping back so his voice would not disturb her. “More likely the pieces were fastened back together.”
“How is that possible?”
“I could not do that,” he replied. “No matter how long I had to perform the surgery, I could not.”
Laerin frowned again. Until that moment, she would have said that Elrond was the best surgeon in all of Middle Earth. But there were some breaks that would never fully heal in a mortal body no matter how well the patient was treated, and it seemed that one such injury had been cured in this girl.
“Another mystery, then,” said Elrond thoughtfully.
“There is more, my lord,” said Nethril, who had astonishingly managed to hold back from entering the conversation so far.
They both looked at her, and then Elrond turned to Laerin, who swallowed nervously. “There is,” she said. “When we unpacked her belongings, we found a broken dagger, which is unsurprising, but we also found an object wrapped up in cloth. We do not know what it is, as both of us felt fear at the thought of undoing the wraps, and Elanna will not touch it at all.”
At the mention of her name, Elanna ducked behind the curtain entirely. Elrond was silent for a moment, his face sober. “Do you believe it is dangerous?” he asked at last.
“I do, as Nethril and I are not usually given to foresight. But it will be manageable as long as it will give us warning as to its danger.”
Elrond nodded, and a shadow passed over his face. Then he looked up, his eyes clear again. “I think you had best leave it wrapped and hidden until she wakes. This may, at least, answer the question of what drew the Nine to her.”
Laerin nodded in agreement.
He glanced over at the curtain, where Elanna’s shape was clearly visible. “And her?” he asked.
“If you wish to know whether she had recovered from whatever happened in the other room, you will have to ask her; frankly, I cannot tell the difference. But when it comes to this item, she seems not to mind as long as she cannot directly see it. And she does what I ask of her.”
He nodded and went over to the window. He put his own head behind the curtain, careful not to let too much light in since the patient was sleeping, and asked Elanna a few whispered questions. Then, he walked back over to Laerin. “Do you mind if she brings a book here to study?”
“She can do that,” said Laerin, though she wondered whether there were any texts on herb-lore and healing that Elanna had not already read: given the lack of patients these days, she was never short of time, and with experience lacking, she seemed determined to learn everything she could through books.
“Good,” he said. “I will take my leave of you now. I intend to look through my records and histories to see what I can find to help with Maura’s case.”
Elrond had been writing books and records for as long as Laerin had been alive, but the more people who left Imladris for the Undying Lands, the more he became fixated on preserving their memories in order to keep their knowledge in Middle Earth. Laerin doubted that there was anything about the War of the Last Alliance or any other battle against the Ringwraiths that Elrond did not already know, but even Elvish memories were not flawless, as facts that seemed unimportant could become buried. “It sounds as if you will need my help,” she said with a small smile.
Elrond laughed softly. “I have all the healers of Imladris to assist me. I would prefer to know that my other patient is safe with you.” He put his hand on Laerin’s shoulder. “Be sure to rest when you can. Send word to us often. Glorfindel will be quite anxious, I expect.”
“I will,” said Laerin.
He nodded and left, closing the door quietly behind him. Elanna slid back out from behind the curtain, her plate empty. Nethril sighed. “Ill tidings about the perian,” she said quietly. “And less advice than I would have liked.”
“He was helpful enough,” she replied. “Elanna, take the dishes back to the kitchen, and get yourself a book.”
“Kitchen, book,” she said in confirmation.
“Yes. Nethril, help me give her more medicine.”