Chapter Text
On the third day since Morwen’s arrival, Anorher and other scouts returned to report that no orcs had been seen within the watchful perimeter surrounding Ecthelion’s base. With this news to ease their minds, she and Thengel decided to set out the next morning.
Morwen felt glad to leave. A niggling awareness had grown in her mind, a sense of Thengel’s father creeping toward Minas Tirith in advance of them if they didn’t hurry. The time had arrived to face the next chapter in her story with Thengel and it was high time she met the king.
Early on the morning of their departure, Gaeron and Thengel conferred after breakfast, hunched over Captain Ecthelion’s maps which lay strewn across Thengel’s table. Morwen divided the provisions given to them for the journey while trying to keep up with the conversation as they discussed names of landmarks and rendezvous points she didn’t recognize.
When the discussion at the table dipped into low murmurs, Morwen sensed that one of them didn’t want to be overheard. Taking the hint, she strapped Herugrin to her side and left the tent to make her farewells to Thengel’s cousins.
The four fair-haired men and Thengel’s esquire were seated by the fire pit with mugs in their hands. Remains of breakfast and cutlery lay scattered at their feet. A low fire burned the nearly spent fuel while they sipped coffee from earthenware mugs. It was one of the few luxuries Ecthelion insisted upon in the wilderness. He seemed to be generous with it, nonetheless.
“You’ll watch out for Gaeron, won’t you?” Morwen asked Ælfsige when she joined him and his brothers.
Ælfsige nodded solemnly before scooting over on the bench to make room for her. “And you, shield Thengel.”
Morwen blinked, wondering how much help she could provide in an orc encounter without any experience. “I’ll try…”
“Not here.” Ælfsige waved at the trees to broadly indicate Ithilien. Then he snorted. “Here you are orc fodder.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled as she sat beside him.
Æþelwine offered her coffee, which she accepted gratefully. It made her heart race and the flavor left a bitter taste in her mouth. But after three days of drinking the brew, she somehow felt she needed it.
Ælfsige stared gloomily into the coals. “When the king comes, he will be like wormwood. Bitter,” he counseled. “That is when Thengel will need you.”
“Oh.” That made more sense. It heartened her. The task better suited a busybody than thrashing orcs.
“Fengel King will dismiss you because youth and beauty are soft things,” he added, which dimmed some of her satisfaction. “Become like steel, lady. Become stielscíene. Counter the king from the high ground granted to you.”
Morwen glanced around the small circle of Rohirrim. “What high ground?”
“As a subject of Stoningland, the king must lend you special graces, lady.”
“For now,” Æþelwine added when his brother hesitated in thought. “Fengel King cannot hobble a Stonelander on her home ground.”
Ælfsige nodded. “The Steward will make him careful.”
That did nothing to assuage Morwen’s feelings. She existed in a liminal space. Where she belonged seemed to change continually like the colors of the sea, depending on whose opinion was on offer.
“What is stielscíene?” she asked.
“It’s you.” Ælfsige snorted, looking down at the contents of his mug. “If you can dig deep enough to find it.”
Ælfsige didn’t sound hopeful, but then, Morwen found him difficult to read. She drank her coffee in silence, mulling over the word he had given her until her pack materialized at her feet with a thump. Gaeron had set it down.
“Is your council ended?” She rose and hugged him goodbye. Then he made her turn around so he could help her slip the pack onto her shoulders.
“Yes. Be led by Thengel on the way and you should be safe,” Gaeron advised to the back of her head. When Morwen turned to face him again, he gave one last admonishment. “I trust you to be mindful of our family’s reputation while you’re on the road together.”
“I promise to be as mindful of it as you were with the village girls,” Morwen replied, finding his advice both overbearing and hypocritical.
Gaeron winced before catching himself. “Mora, listen, when you return to Minas Tirith, assumptions will be made.”
“Oh, stars!” Morwen laughed. “Would it hurt for the gossips to be right for a change? Think of their feelings.”
Thengel’s fingers brushed her arm as Gaeron began to look stormy. “Be easy, Gaeron,” he assured her brother. “I’ve given you my word.”
Whatever word Thengel meant, Morwen didn’t like the sound of it!
“Well. That’s all then.” Gaeron blessed them, “Valar guide your road to a good ending.”
“Yours too,” she replied. “Wipe out the rest of the orcs in record fashion and hasten to Minas Tirith. We’ll hold off the wedding as long as we can.”
Gaeron glanced at Thengel who looked studiously blank. “I wouldn’t count on it, Mora, but I’ll try.”
“That’s a promise, then,” she said stubbornly.
Thengel’s leavetaking of his cousins sounded comparatively terse or so their words in their tongue seemed to her ears. But Ecthelion’s presence just then might have curtailed any long speeches. He wished them a safe and swift journey before reminding Morwen of her promise to one day play roundball with his family.
“I had better practice,” Morwen murmured to Thengel as they set out.
“Ecthelion doesn’t know what he’s asking,” Thengel muttered. “He’d be better off recruiting you for artillery.”
The wide forest lay before them, shimmering with a deceptive golden tranquility. It brimmed with songbirds, wildflowers, and green leaves that caught the sunlight on their dewy tips. The last idyllic leg of summer graced Ithilien as richly now as it had from its beginning. Morwen felt there was no room for shadows here — Fengel’s or goblins’.
Thengel led her directly south, paralleling the Ephel Duath rather than by the path she and Gaeron had cut diagonally across Ithilien. This meant they would remain in the uplands the entirety of the day before the land and their course would sink west toward the Anduin.
Since she couldn’t show Thengel where she and Gaeron had camped before being discovered, Morwen described Gaeron’s tree markings to announce their presence to the rangers. It still surprised her that his idea had worked.
“Anorher knew all about me somehow,” she mused. “He called me Thengel’s lady.”
Thengel reached for her hand. “I may have engaged in some boasting when I first arrived.”
Morwen would have been flattered by that, but she still felt a little odd following her conversation with his cousins. “I don’t think Ælfsige approves of me.”
Thengel’s brow furrowed. “Besides my sisters, Ælfsige is our chief supporter. He greatly influenced the king’s council, including Huna. What makes you say so?”
“He doesn’t think I’m stern enough to be your queen.” Morwen refrained from adding that his cousin would be happier if Thengel married her mother instead, the so-called Iron Lady.
“Ælfsige knows what you’re up against,” Thengel replied unhappily. “He praised the portrait you made for his wife. I’ve never heard him utter a word against you.”
Maybe Ælfsige knew better than to speak his mind when Thengel seemed happy with his choice. She couldn’t help feeling that Ælfsige wanted more out of her without much hope that she could deliver.
“What does stielscíene mean?” she asked.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Ælfsige called me stielscíene.”
While Thengel ruminated over the word, Morwen listened to a pair of wood doves flirting with one another in the trees overhead. She liked them. Wood doves were the unhurried and unbothered brethren among birds. They reminded her of home. But some crows flying over the canopy began punctuating the coos and ruined the mood.
“It could mean a number of things,” Thengel reflected. “You should recognize the first element of the kenning easily enough: steel as in the alloy.”
“Like in your sword’s name, Stielbíte.” She pointed to the weapon on his back.
“Just so. Scíene or sheen can refer to beauty or things of a bright and shining quality, but also to gear of war like a helm or sword or a shield. Anything fair or gleaming.”
Morwen didn’t see much loveliness in war gear. Craftmanship, certainly. But to use the term interchangeably to describe a beautiful object and, say, a spear seemed telling of the Rohirrim’s values.
“What do you make of the elements together?” she asked.
“I would say, overall, it’s complementary. An epesse even. It’s not unusual for the king’s family to receive an honorific.” Thengel smiled at her. “Morwen Steelsheen.”
Morwen wrinkled her nose. “It doesn’t have quite the same ring as Helm Hammerhand. One knows what to expect with that title.”
“But Morwen Applehand lacks something, don’t you think?” said Thengel, grinning.
“Nathal’s goats might say otherwise.”
“Ælfsige could have been referring to your dark hair,” he added with more hope than conviction. “It has a shining quality like steel.”
Morwen knew better. She hadn’t given Thengel the context, and his wishful thinking and protectiveness likely made an alternative interpretation unpalatable. If Thengel’s interpretations were accurate, then Ælfsige believed she needed to become a weapon for Thengel’s defense against his father. Ælfsige had said that plainly, even if he failed to adequately expound on it. Sterner than steel. She had to become like Herugrim.
…
As the sun climbed to its zenith, they followed along a stream that plunged toward the Anduin in a series of broad steps. The shallow falls fanned the water over mossy boulders, washing their ears with music. Morwen felt they could be hillwalking in Imloth Melui. The enchantment of the stream made it easy to forget that they traveled through disputed territory where foul creatures might lurk.
Thengel held back a branch for her as they reached the bottom of the waterfall. It ended in a dense green thicket where birds and squirrels scattered before them. Thengel slipped ahead and drove a path through the growth.
“What do you think of Ithilien?” he asked.
Ithilien had been blessed with beauty and cursed with turbulence in equal measure so that only those who made a career of war could enjoy the fief, provided they were prepared to die for it. Though she appreciated the dryad loveliness around her, she didn’t love it like Gaeron did. Just as well. He could be a ranger, but she could only trespass.
Morwen decided to sum up and settled for, “It’s nice.”
“Nice!” Thengel exclaimed. He lowered his voice, after glancing around the forest. “Is that all you have to say for the Garden of Gondor?”
“I meant sublime,” Morwen amended as she pushed her way between shrubs that crowded the riverbank. “But it isn’t Lossarnach, the other garden of Gondor.”
A better-manicured garden, she thought as she stumbled over a root.
“Did you try for a moment to be objective?”
“Goodness.” Morwen wrinkled her nose. “Why would I? Have you seen a single rose other than briar?”
Thengel pointed at a patch of yellow cress choking the bank. The blossoms sparkled in the sunlight with droplets from the falls. “Just every other flower.”
“Common,” Morwen sniffed. She caught him giving her an odd look. “What?”
He shrugged. “I never took you for a snob before. You became a grand lady after I went away.”
Morwen squinted at the back of him. “If that were true, would I drag myself through the wilderness like this? You know, I found a piece of moss in my teeth one morning.”
The skin around Thengel’s eyes crinkled as he looked back and smiled. “You didn’t.”
“I did!”
“Well. So long as you didn’t swallow it.” As if unable to help himself, Thengel stopped and asked, “Still thinking of becoming a marshal or a ranger?”
Morwen shuddered. “Not even a little.”
Thengel ducked his head, laughing silently at her dispassion. “If Ithilien has cured you of that aspiration, I can be grateful for something.”
Morwen stood before him. “It wasn’t much of an aspiration,” she admitted. “I like the way you turn green when I mention it.”
“It’s possible we know each other too well.”
“Don’t say that.” Morwen stroked his beard, giving the end under his chin a little tug. “I’m sure I can find more ways to surprise you.”
Thengel concentrated on the end of her nose. “A consolation or a threat?” he asked.
She smiled and leaned closer. “That’s for you to decide.”
Thengel swallowed before turning away from her with some effort. Morwen tamped down a little frisson of triumph as she affected him. Instead of kissing her as she hoped, he turned his attention to the stream. Climbing down the short bank, he tested a stone that peeked up from the cress with his boot. It was the first in a series of gray lumps that protruded above the water’s rippling surface.
“We’ll cross here. I want to keep our route southerly yet. The stream will force us west if we continue along this bank.”
Morwen scanned the natural bridge skeptically. It ended in a high bank crowned with a hedge of brambles. But she followed Thengel down the the water’s edge. To her discomfort, he gestured for her to cross first.
“Are you sure?”
He held out his hand for her to grip while they changed places on the bank. “If you lose your footing — on purpose or otherwise — I can catch you. Like old times.”
Morwen laughed, reminded of the occasions when she had fallen into the Erui so that Gaeron or Thengel had to fish her out. She tested the first boulder as Thengel had done. “Is the stream deep?”
“No, perhaps only hip level in the middle.”
“That’s enough for a drenching.” She didn’t care about her clothes, but if the food got spoiled it would be a miserable walk to Minas Tirith.
“Mind how you go then.”
Releasing a breath, Morwen took the first step. Her boot squeaked on the stone but the tread kept its grip. Then the second and a third stone. The water weeds rippled benignly in the current of the shallow water. Morwen relaxed. The first few boulders were spaced close together and she felt her confidence rise. But toward the middle of the stream, the water became darker and the boulders spread out from one another so that she nearly had to hop between them.
Thengel helped her across an especially slippery boulder that sat low in the water when she laughed suddenly.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Remember how nervous I was when we snuck past my family’s townhouse on the way to our picnic?”
“Yes. I almost doubted we’d make it to the Gates before your conscience got the better of you.”
Morwen extended her arms, trying to balance before taking the next step. “How far do you think we are from my mother now?”
“I’d say some eighteen leagues as the crow flies.”
Morwen lost her footing on the next stone slab when it shifted under her weight. Thengel caught her by the bulk of her pack before the river could claim her.
“Steady.”
“Eighteen leagues,” Morwen breathed. “Do you suppose this represents a moral backslide?”
“If it does, you have only yourself to blame. I told you to stay home.”
Morwen found her footing and pushed away from him. “I thought we agreed to blame the king.”
“My father has no idea how impulsive you are,” Thengel remarked. “And how little encouragement you would need to break the law.”
Morwen scoffed as his left foot almost slipped off the same stone that had tried to tip her off its back. “I’m not impulsive. There wasn’t any time.”
“You are impulsive. This may be the only instance where Father might be innocent.” Thengel’s frown suggested that he didn’t relish the thought.
Morwen wanted to ask Thengel more about his father as she reached the opposite bank. They hadn’t spoken of what would happen when Thengel met his father again. Ælfsige had been unhelpfully cryptic. She and Thengel could flirt their way through Ithilien but it wouldn’t alter what lay at journey’s end.
She squelched up the incline through reeds before climbing into the bramble patch. There she had to wait for Thengel. He cut a path until they could pick up a deer track. Along the way, they startled pheasants and more rabbits than Morwen could count.
In the afternoon long past the first rumblings in Morwen’s stomach, they stopped for a meal within the circle of an ancient settlement. Morwen fancied they sat in an old, overgrown dooryard that had returned to a meadow state. The barest outlines of old stone foundations peeked through the grassy turf. Indentations of old post holes served as reminders of what had since decayed. She wondered while she ate who had lived in this clearing once and which of the old wars and invasions had chased the household away.
Hunger abated, Morwen settled in to enjoy their respite. Once her hands were free from holding food or the waterskin, she fished out her book and pencils from among her gear just as Thengel finished stowing the food bags with his.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Morwen turned to a fresh page. “I want to draw this meadow.”
Thengel’s brows dipped low. “We have to move on.”
The sound of her pencil scratching over the surface of the paper mingled with the bird chatter and the hum of insects enjoying the sunlight.
“But we’ve barely rested.”
Thengel stood over her with his arms crossed. “You encountered goblins in the middle of North Ithilien and you ask me why we can’t linger?” he countered. “We need to cover as many miles as possible while drawing as little attention as we can. Rest while you walk.”
Thengel’s grasp of the Common Speech seemed to fail him again. Or. “You’re a tyrant.”
“I am. Didn’t Gaeron warn you?”
Her brother had. But aside from Thengel’s displeasure at her trespass, Morwen hadn’t thought his sell-sword ways would apply to her outside of Ecthelion’s camp. It seemed she still had a few things to learn about Thengel too.
Morwen got up, but she didn’t put her supplies away. She sketched while they crossed the meadow, plodding along until Thengel got ahead of her. He finally realized once he entered the shade of wild cherry trees at the forest’s margin.
“Did Gaeron allow this?” He gestured toward the sketchbook.
Morwen shook her head. “I didn’t try. I was in a hurry to see you again.”
“We’re still in a hurry. You ought to be in a hurry.”
“I am,” Morwen insisted, finally looking up. “But I’ve been thinking. This may be the first and the last time you and I have an adventure — just the two of us in the middle of nowhere! We should enjoy ourselves.” She waved her book. “It’s unlikely anyone in our family will have an experience like this. I want to record it.”
“By experience, you mean slinking toward the river for their lives?”
“I mean lovers in Ithilien, horse-master.”
Thengel’s expression turned vague and worried as she caught up to him in the shade of the forest eaves.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m contemplating the miles of possible doom between us and the Anduin while you’re sketching yellow wort and fancying yourself on a promenade.”
Morwen pointed to the meadow choked with wildflowers behind them. A wing of butterflies hovered and flitted over the blossoms in the sunlight. “Yes, Thengel. So much doom.”
Thengel pressed his lips together and breathed in through his nose for a long moment before saying, “There are butterflies, yes, but there are goblins, too. Have you forgotten?”
She flinched. “Someone won’t let me forget.”
Thengel ignored the criticism. “I promise that you and I will have plenty of — safer — adventures after we leave this land behind us. For now, let us hurry.”
Morwen handed over her book and pencils for Thengel to stow in her pack. “What kind of adventures?”
“Any your heart desires.” He stepped around her and offered his hand.
Morwen gripped his fingers. They were scratched from holding the brambles back for her earlier. “It won’t be the same.”
“Why not?” he asked as he pulled her along.
“It won’t just be you and me. Who’s going to allow us to slip away alone once we reach civilization again?” Morwen tried to envision such a thing. “It’ll have to be you and me and all your cousins. And honor guards. And a dozen children—”
“A dozen!”
Morwen shrugged. “Just making sure you were listening.”
“Oh. You startled me.” He rubbed his jaw.
Morwen’s lips curled impishly. “Why? Don’t you have it in you to raise a dozen children?” she teased.
Thengel grimaced. “If I had started ten years ago, maybe.”
Morwen squinted in the comparative gloom of the forest canopy after being out under the full sun. “It can’t be harder than crushing corsairs or ruling a realm.”
“It could be if they’re our flesh and blood. Don’t forget I can barely keep up with you unless you’re distracted by paper and pencil.”
Morwen smirked. “That’s because you resist me when you should be led by me.”
Thengel pursed his lips as he glanced at her sidelong. Then he turned suddenly away as something in the forest snatched his attention. “Do you hear that?”
“What is it?” she asked.
Thengel slewed around seconds before she heard a susurration deeper in the woods. The noise increased as they listened. It seemed like the large waves she had seen as a child in Dol Amroth. They began as low, wide ripples barely discernible far out on the horizon before turning into massive crests as they approached the beaches. The susurration grew into rustling, then into crashing.
As the crashing grew louder and closer, the birdsong around them began to change and grow shrill. Thengel drew his sword.
Morwen felt lightheaded like her spirit meant to leave her body through her forehead. “Is it orcs?” she whispered.
Thengel glanced up at the sky through the boughs. Full sun and barely a cloud. “Unlikely.” He sized her up with a look. “Can you still climb trees?”
Morwen glanced around. They had wandered into an ancient beech grove that ringed the meadow. These weren’t the apple trees back home. The lowest branches had to be over a story above her head.
“If I sprout wings.”
“You may wish to.”
Tentatively, Morwen’s fingers brushed over the sword hilt at her side.
“Don’t dream of it,” he murmured.
Morwen dropped her hand. “Well. What are we going to do?”
Thengel only half listened to her as he inspected the forest. Then he pointed, “That way. The forest floor rises in that direction and I want the high ground.”
“What’s making all that noise?” she asked as they hurried along. If not orcs, then something huge and equally terrible, she imagined. Oliphants?
“Deer, if I’m any judge.”
Morwen stumbled to a stop and glared at Thengel with his sword drawn like they were about to face Nahtar and a dozen of his brothers. “Is that all? Stars and ships, Thengel! You frightened me.”
“Now you know what it’s like,” Thengel chided as he tugged her along. “Getting trampled by a rangale of deer isn’t my idea of a walking holiday. Nor do we know what’s behind them.”
“Behind them?”
“Giving chase. Something startled a herd.”
Morwen felt her pulse spike again. In Imloth Melui, the principal beast of prey that deer had to fear was Gaeron. She had a feeling that wouldn’t be the case in Ithilien. She slipped her hand into a pocket and found a stone as she hurried after Thengel. The ground began to rise into a proper hill with thin patches of dirt revealing bedrock.
“What should we do if the herd overruns us?” she asked.
Thengel pointed to the clumps of hellebore and rocky outcrops surrounding them. “They’ll stick to the low ground, I hope. If not, hide behind something and try not to get kicked.”
Simple.
They had almost crested the hill when a bevy of roe deer leaped into view around the base. Morwen had never seen so many in one herd, not even in Lord Fulcard’s deer park in Arnach. She was accustomed to the half-domesticated deer of Imloth Melui moving silently through the briar patches in the valley or one or two intrepid specimens attempting to break into the kitchen garden. But these trampled and bound full tilt through layers of dead leaves, filling Morwen’s ears with a crackling cacophony.
A buck followed the does, plunging between trees with its head up and antlers tucked low over his spotted back. He leaped almost as high as Morwen’s head over a fallen log. Arrested by the sight, Morwen forgot to consider what had caused the herd’s flight until a young doe shambled behind on a lame leg, struggling to keep up in the bracken.
She caught sight of the deer just as a dun blur leaped onto its back. Her gasp mingled with the deer’s bawl. Morwen noticed the telltale ears and tail of a lynx as the deer crashed to its knees. Faster than thought, she stepped forward and released the stone in her hand, aiming just below the cat’s ears. When the stone cracked against its skull, the cat slid off the deer’s back, stunned. It lay on the ground in a confused reclining heap while the doe bound gracelessly away. Morwen could hear its ears flapping as it shook its head.
Morwen reached for another stone to make the cat think twice about pursuing the herd again, but Thengel lifted her off the ground before tugging her away.
“What are you doing?” she yelped as he lugged her, pack and all, down the other side of the hill. “That lynx might still—”
“Better the deer than you,” he rasped.
“But it’s smaller than Nahtar —”
“That doesn’t make it friendly! A lynx shouldn’t be coming down from the Ephel Duath at this time of year. I don’t want to know what’s driven it out.” He set her down and turned ice-chip eyes on her. “Haven’t you been hunted by enough cats for one year?”
“It wants the deer, not me,” she snapped, feeling ungrateful to be reminded of Nahtar now. “The poor thing didn’t stand a chance.”
“It has a bad leg, Morwen,” he told her gently as he looked over his shoulder to see if they were being pursued. “It’s unlikely you’ve prolonged the doe’s life for long.”
Morwen knew that, but she still felt a strong instinct to intervene. But as she had promised Gaeron to be guided by Thengel, she tucked the second stone away and tried to swallow back the pity along with her genius for trouble.
“At least it wasn’t orcs.”
Thengel squeezed her shoulder. “At least it wasn’t orcs.”
…
Morwen limped beneath a colossal tree that Thengel had chosen to stand under in contemplation. He gazed up into the canopy, shielding one side of his face from the long, low rays of the setting sun. Now that she had some experience of Ithilien, she knew what he might be looking for. A platform and its ladder. Morwen slipped off her pack. She scanned the area for a likely hiding spot. When she found it, she marched away.
“Where are you going?”
“To find the sticks.” She waved her hand to illustrate her general direction.
When Morwen marched back again with the set of sticks fully assembled into a pole, Thengel had taken off his pack and stood waiting for her with his arms crossed.
“Here.”
Thengel accepted the pole, stabbing it upward as she had seen Gaeron do. Nothing happened. Frowning, Thengel tried again.
“Do you need help?” she asked.
“No.”
Morwen stepped further back to watch. The muscles across Thengel’s shoulders strained the fabric of his tunic as he attempted to catch the ladder again. Not bad as far as views went. Suddenly, she remembered the kiss he hadn’t given her that morning. The better spirits of her nature fled.
“Let me help you,” she ordered.
Thengel tried to move out of her way, but she ducked between his raised arms. Her hands folded around his so that they held the stick together.
He cleared his throat. “Is this necessary?”
Morwen insisted it was. “Won’t it be easier to hold up the pole if we both grip it?”
Thengel didn’t answer. She guided his hands so that the pronged end scudded along the sides of the hatch cut into the platform overhead. She could see where the rope had been threaded through holes and knotted to keep it in place. The rope curved over the edge of the hole after the last inhabitants had tossed it back up.
“Gaeron made it look easy,” she complained. “Maybe the ladder is stuck on something.”
“Hm.”
Morwen peeked at Thengel’s profile up through her lashes. He watched her pensively instead of focusing on the platform. She followed his line of sight. Down. The collar of her tunic had gaped open.
Biting down a smirk, Morwen took a step back. The outsole of her boot squeaked against his as she bumped against his chest.
“Sorry,” she murmured without feeling the least bit repentant.
Morwen rose on tiptoe, sliding upward against his body before jabbing for the ladder again. Thengel let go of the pole all of a sudden, causing her to drop it.
“Oops.” When Morwen bent over to pick it up, Thengel danced away from her.
With the stick in hand, Morwen stood upright again. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said shortly as he circled around her to approach the tree’s lowest branch. “This isn’t working. I’ll climb to the platform, then throw the ladder down.”
The lowest branch hovered nearly two feet above Thengel’s head. He backed up. With a running leap, he caught the lowest limb by his fingers and swung in the air for a moment while they turned white before getting a better grip. Morwen moved over a step for a better view while he pulled his chest up and over the bough. She wondered what he would do if she poked him in the backside with the stick. Probably he would stand on his dignity and remind her that he would be a king one day. She felt tempted to test her assumption. But then he swung his leg over the branch and straddled it like one of the hobby horses she had sewn.
“How safe is this platform if you can climb up to it?” she asked.
After a long pause and a lot of time staring at the underside of the platform, he finally admitted, “I can’t.”
“I’m not surprised.” There were no other branches nearby and the hatch remained out of reach. Clearly Thengel’s plan had been formed in haste and with little thought. Quite uncharacteristic of him.
Thengel held out his hand. “Give me the stick. I may be able to get a better angle from here.”
Morwen did so. Thengel stabbed it through the hatch. After a lot of jostling, she had to scamper out of the way when finally the rope ladder came flying down toward her head. Doubling back, she grabbed the swinging ropes to still them. She tested the bottom rung with her boot. It creaked painfully under her weight but held strong.
“Aren’t you coming down?” she asked Thengel, who remained seated on the branch.
“Go on up. I’ll follow.”
“Suit yourself.” Morwen pulled her pack over her shoulders once more and began to climb. The forest around them filled with the sawing and groaning of the ladder, broadcasting their presence far and wide. She wondered when this platform had last been in use.
Only when Morwen reached the top did she hear the thud of Thengel’s feet hitting the forest floor. While she waited for him, she inspected their evening accommodations.
“I found the source of our trouble,” she called down.
Thengel glanced up through the hatch. He squatted in front of his pack on the ground drinking from a waterskin.
“One of the planks came up. The wood’s all rotted around the nail.”
“That explains it then.”
Morwen pressed the warped plank with her boot. “There’s another problem,” she said over the sound of ropes sawing when Thengel began to climb. “It’s not a platform, it’s a catwalk.”
No wonder rangers hadn’t used it for some time. The wooden structure encircled the trunk instead of spreading out over protruding boughs as the other platform had. Brackets supported it instead, limiting how wide it could be.
“What?” Thengel tossed his pack up through the hole in the floor. Morwen grabbed for it so he could climb through. Hers already lay against the trunk, taking up what seemed like a lot of floor space.
“It’s half the size of the treehouse where Gaeron and I stayed. What made you choose it?”
“I didn’t.” Thengel brushed himself off. “Gaeron suggested this location. He said we would be comfortable here.”
“Comfortable?” The ledge couldn’t extend more than three feet from the trunk. If they lay their bedrolls side by side, one of them would wake up on the ground. Was that deliberate?
Morwen cast her gaze up into the canopy as she sensed a conspiracy. She felt for the stone in her pocket and promised to save it for Gaeron the next time they met.
“You should know better than to take my brother’s advice for overnight accommodations, horse-master.”
Thengel looked at her wryly. “Better to follow his advice than have him send a goblin after me.”
Morwen paced the small platform. There was only enough room on either side for one grown man to lie down. “It’s officious prudery.”
“Gaeron —”
She circled around the other side of the trunk. Her hand skimmed over the rough bark as she went. “Gaeron bullied you about me when you were alone this morning. Didn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t say he bullied me…”
“Then why won’t you touch me?”
Thengel hesitated. “I’ve touched you.”
Morwen rounded back, standing before him. “Kiss me then.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. She thought she had at least set him wrestling with himself.
“Gaeron expressed his concern for your honor this morning, as you know…”
“Yes, and I called him out for the hypocrite that he is. So?”
Morwen placed her hands on his chest, leaning toward him. He kissed her forehead, then gently steered her aside.
“I’m hungry.” Thengel crouched by his pack. “What do you want for supper?”
Morwen gaped at him after being outright refused. She wasn’t about to discuss dinner arrangements after that. She watched him while her cheeks turned red.
Thengel began pulling out linen bags containing their food. He piled them beside his boot. Then he paused and scratched his head.
“Listen. Gaeron meant well. He’s sacrificing for both of us, so it’s only fair to give him peace of mind that you won’t be subjected to any…coarse treatment before we return to Minas Tirith.”
“How much can you subject me to once we get there?” she inquired.
When Thengel glowered up at her, she smiled benignly and fluttered her lashes.
“That’s not what I meant,” he replied. “And you know it.”
“Stars.” Morwen gathered her pack and began to round the tree to the other side of the platform where she dumped her bedroll unceremoniously down in a heap like a nest.
“Gaeron’s a patronizing, overbearing hypocrite.” After all the times her brother had used her to help him sneak out of the house with girls in the village. “What right does he have to impose on us? Doesn’t he trust you at all?”
“You’ve got it backward,” Thengel corrected her. “Gaeron appealed to me this morning because he didn’t believe you would listen.”
Morwen walked around again so she could blink at Thengel. “Oh.” Then she grinned. “He’s right!”
Thengel rubbed his forehead. “I know.”
Slowly, it dawned on Morwen that Thengel meant to keep her at arm’s length for whatever remained of the eighteen leagues of their journey, just as Gaeron wished. “You truly won’t kiss me until we return to the White City?”
“We should be prudent,” he said flatly. “And avoid reproach. Let’s not make it harder for ourselves.”
It seemed to Morwen that following her brother’s course of action would do just that. “Then I hope it’s cold on your side of the tree tonight,” she teased.
Thengel stared into the depths of his pack. “Evenings in Ithilien should be mild yet.”
“Ugh.” Morwen shook her head at Thengel’s steadiness as she returned to her side of the tree. “I could have had Serion.”
“What’s that?”
Morwen kicked her bedroll into a nest before dropping into it. “I could carry on,” she covered. “But I won’t.”
Just when she thought she had gotten away with her last jab, Thengel murmured, “Serion doesn’t appreciate your floral arrangements as I do.”
Morwen’s eyes grew wide as her belly flopped. That seemed to put the final punctuation on their debate. Thengel said no more and her mind couldn’t settle on a rebuttal while it spiraled with questions about how much appreciation he felt. If only he would show it!
She fumbled with her pack as a distraction. The food bags stowed her belongings held the waybread, wild nuts, and hard cheese. Thengel had all the waterskins, the dried venison, and most everything else that had been made for them by Ecthelion’s provisioner. A scraping sound interrupted scrounging. Morwen turned in her nest. Thengel had pushed a tin full of food around to her side.
“We can’t eat together?” she asked.
“Are you going to continue offering me temptation?”
Morwen held up three fingers in a promise even though he couldn’t see them. “Yes.”
A waterskin appeared next to the tin. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
…
After the meal, Morwen pushed the waterskin and the empty tin around to the other side of the tree. She meant to show Thengel that she had accepted his offering and that he could clean up too since he had settled on the side of the platform with the hatch.
“Hand over any food bags,” he called.
“Why?” Morwen felt a spike of possessiveness or possibly suspicion. If he thought starvation would put an end to the seduction…he was probably right.
“So I can hang them a safe distance away.”
Morwen had forgotten about the practice since arriving in Ecthelion’s camp. She pushed the bags around to the other side. She had her fill of dangerous wildlife for the day. Then she heard the ladder tumble down once more.
“Pull the ladder up after me.”
Wasn’t he worried she wouldn’t let it down again? “Are you going far?”
“Far enough to hang the food, then scout around to see if we have undesirable neighbors this evening.”
Morwen waited until the creaking stopped. Then she scooted over to the hatch. Beyond it, Thengel’s pack and bedroll stood neatly against the trunk in sharp contrast to her nest. He had left one full waterskin behind. She caught a glimpse of Thengel on the ground through the hole. The nearly empty skin hung from his belt. He cinched the food bags with a small noose he had made in a long rope that hung around his arm. It reminded her of the knot Gaeron had used to tie her to Thengel’s tree, which incited fresh irritation toward her brother and Thengel. Morwen hated to be hobbled. She had an idea to pay Thengel out.
Returning to the other side of the tree, Morwen found what she wanted in the bottom of her bag. Creases marred the delicate white fabric of the nightgown. She shook out the sleeveless garment. It hadn’t been worn since…the Grey Inn?
Up in a tree in the middle of a deep forest, the nightgown looked flimsy and impractical except, perhaps, as an instrument of torture. Morwen held it up to the dying sunlight. The hazy impression of treebark could be seen through it. Perfect.
After she changed out of her clothes and into the gown, Morwen pulled the drawstring tight, cinching the fabric over her breasts. Her fingers made short work of her braid before running through her long hair. She fanned the black waves over her shoulders like a cloak while traversing to Thengel’s side of the platform to help herself to the waterskin. Splashing some of the water into her hands, she cleaned her face and smoothed down the flyaways that had been encouraged by the heat and humidity of the day.
Morwen retrieved her sketchbook and pencils as she returned to her nest. There she sat on the edge of the platform. The hem bunched up at her knees while her feet dangled in the air. She had taken off her boots to let her toes enjoy some freedom. While the light lasted, she cleaned up her rough sketches from the meadow as best she could from memory.
It promised to be a warm evening, as Thengel had said. The wind came up from the south. She reflected that it was no bad thing to end the night under the stars at summer’s end. It felt much safer on the platform and she forgot about orcs.
When bats started to swoop between the trees, she had to consider the possibility that she might spend the evening entirely alone. Twilight had melted into dusk and Thengel still had not come back. She stopped pretending not to be on the lookout for him, squinting into the growing darkness for signs of his return.
Unable to draw, equally from darkness and growing anxiety, Morwen stowed her notebook and pencils away, determining at that moment to let down the ladder to search for him. In the brief time it took to seal up her pack and push it aside, her gaze fell downward and she recognized his bright hair drifting toward her through the deep shadows beneath the trees.
Morwen scrambled up and rounded the trunk to the other side of the platform in relief, almost tripping over her hem in her haste to let down the ladder. Then she sat back on her heels as she dropped it through the hatch. The sound of it tumbling against the tree seemed to echo in the dark loudly enough to be heard in Anórien. Morwen winced. She should have let it down carefully.
As Thengel climbed up, Morwen crept back to make room. She tried to appear unruffled by his long absence. Thengel tossed up the brimming waterskin first before pulling himself through the hatch.
Morwen began to haul up the ladder after him. “Did you find anything alarming?”
“Huh?”
Morwen glanced up and caught him staring. She tamped down a smirk. “I asked if you found anything.”
Thengel blinked slowly. “I — no. All’s quiet.”
“Good.” With nothing else to do, she moved the waterskin out of the way and sat quietly on her heels.
“We may get away without setting a watch tonight,” he added, looking in any direction but where she sat.
“Alright.”
Thengel sat cross-legged on the opposite side of the hatch with his hands resting on his knees. He stared at the boards. Morwen waited for him to collect his thoughts.
“Have you worn that gown every night of your journey?” he asked.
Morwen smoothed the nightgown over her thighs. “I don’t see why you’re suddenly interested in my wardrobe,” she evaded.
“I only wish to know what to expect.” Thengel rubbed his face. “Morwen, listen. Gaeron and I are treading a new path where you’re concerned,” he preambled. “Your brother feels a strong sense of responsibility for you.”
Morwen squared her shoulders. A number of responses occurred to her, but she settled on one question. “What about my feelings?”
Thengel’s fingers began worrying the cinched fabric around his knee. “It’s difficult to please both of you. I seem to be caught between a — ”
“A tree and a ledge?”
Thengel sighed. “Yes.”
Morwen could sense his struggle. Maybe the gown wasn’t fair. But then, his choice to pander to Gaeron wasn’t fair either. She had already decided to forgive him, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t help him feel plenty of regret.
“May I offer you some friendly advice, Thengel?”
Thengel’s eyes fixed on her face, his jaw squared with determination. “If you wish.”
“I’d worry more about pleasing me from now on.”
He glanced down quickly and seemed to be biting the inside of his cheek. “Mm-hm.”
Morwen rose so that she stood over him. “You see, I’m the one who can push you over this ledge if you don’t.”
Thengel nodded. He looked like he might wish for her to try just to put him out of his misery.
Morwen began to turn away to tread back to her nest. She glanced down at Thengel one more time when she heard him murmur her name.
“We only need to be patient,” Thengel assured her. “Just two more days until we reach the river if we maintain today’s pace. Anórien will be nothing after that.”
Just as well for him. Morwen swore to make it feel like an eternity.
…
They prepared for bed under the natural awning provided by the tree. Morwen braided her hair again before she slipped into her bedroll and bunched her cloak into a pillow. Stretching out, she had to curve with the tree to keep all of her limbs on the platform. Only a few feet of empty planks separated her from Thengel now and they could see each other around the trunk. She watched surreptitiously as he rolled out his bedding. She had never seen him in bed before…of any kind. In Ecthelion’s camp, he had given his pavilion to her and Gaeron to share and had gone to roost with his cousins.
When he settled in, Morwen rolled onto her stomach, then scooted to the edge of her side and reached across the space. “I know you’re allowed to hold my hand.”
Wordlessly, Thengel extended his hand and clasped hers.
“That’s better,” she said.
“Until our arms fall asleep.”
In Morwen’s opinion, if Thengel didn’t like pins and needles, then he shouldn’t have allowed Gaeron to influence his behavior. “No one said romance is easy. Some people make it harder than it has to be.”
Thengel snorted.
Morwen rattled off the first thing that came to mind. “In the old stories of the great heroes, they make romance look downright perilous.” She blinked in the dark. “Not to mention horrible and uncomfortable. Do you suppose we’re doing it wrong?”
“We aren’t cut from the same cloth as the old heroes from the North.”
Perhaps not. “If we were in a poem, I should be dancing under the stars or something. Only I don’t much feel like it after running away from wild animals this afternoon.” She added, “And we have bats instead of nightingales.”
“You’re not much of an elf princess and I’m no great hero of men,” Thengel reasoned. “I’d like to keep both my hands, for one thing.” Then more seriously, he continued, “Our fight is with the scraps left behind by the previous dark lord rather than the dark lord himself. So we may as well go to sleep like sensible, ordinary people.”
Morwen squinted at Thengel through the gloom. He looked innocent and serene with his head resting on his arm. The stars reflected in his eyes as he gazed up through the break in the branches.
“Don’t discount yourself.” Morwen squeezed his hand. “You can be my hero. I believe in you, even if I sometimes want to crown you with my sketchbook.”
He snorted softly. “Good night, Morwen.”
“We will just say that I danced in my nightgown.” Morwen nodded to herself. “No one will question it.”
“That’s settled. Good night.”
The heavy shape of an owl passed overhead, temporarily slipping beneath the moon.
“Still. It feels like a lost opportunity,” Morwen reflected. “My second cousin twice removed, Nimruzîr…you know the one…he always had great big sleeves…”
“Yes,” Thengel sighed.
“He speculated that Imrazôr and Mithrellas met under a full moon in Dor-en-Ernil. He also claimed that Mithrellas had lost all of her clothes in whatever altercation had separated her from Nimrodel’s retinue. He thought she wandered through the forest naked as a moonbeam with only her hair to cover….”
Thengel squeezed her fingers. “My own one, the elderly of the group wish to rest.”
Morwen glanced at Thengel’s face through the gloom. It seemed a little pinched. She smirked.
“You don’t want to hear about my skyclad ancestress?”
“Not tonight,” he said hoarsely.
Morwen took pity on Thengel. Letting go of his hand, she turned onto her back and burrowed into the bedroll, trying to ignore the hard platform under her bones and the ledge too near her elbow. Somewhere, a fox wheezed and barked for its mate in the way of its kind. Morwen lay in the dark, trying to ignore its uncanny call.