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She did not know how her brothers died. Nobody did.
When she was a girl, when the horror and relief of her salvation was still fresh, she thought that perhaps they had escaped too. The Nandor told that the birds and beasts of the forest had led them to safety. Maybe they were at Círdan’s Havens, where that Noldorin King had been raised until he was fit to rule. She would stand long hours upon the cliffs, looking out to sea, hoping for a boat, a bird, a message in a bottle. She dropped letters of her own in any container she could steal until the kitchens ran short of decanters and made her stop. She did not complain too much; she had grown enough by then to realise there would be no reply.
They had not escaped. Of course not, that was a child’s fantasy. But they might live yet! When a letter did come at last, bearing an eight pointed star pressed into the red sealing wax, hope fluttered like a bird within her breast and she thought, foolishly, desperately, that it might be a ransom demand.
To the Lady Elwing Dioriel of Sirion, it read. The paper was crude but the Tengwar elegant and flowing. I hope this letter finds you in good health. For the unpleasantness at Doriath I offer my sincerest apologies and my hopes that it will not be allowed to poison any future interactions between our people. With the growing power of Morgoth Bauglir, it is more important than ever those few bastions of free peoples remaining in Beleriand band together and make common cause.
As weregild and a gesture of good faith, I offer you some few of our father’s jewels that remain to us, though they cannot match in value that of ours which you already hold.
My followers are numerous still and our swords are ever sharp. I offer an alliance between our folk, one I believe would be of great benefit to you.
Yours in friendship
Maedhros Fëanorian
There was indeed a coffer. Elwing made no move to open it.
“Your answer, Lady?” said the messenger, a ragged woman in a cloak that must once have been red.
“Where are my brothers?” she said.
The woman was a warrior of the Noldor and so did not look away in shame but nor did she offer any answer.
“Did you serve Celegorm?” Elwing asked. You have killed my people, surely, but did you murder my brothers?
“Those men are dead. My lord saw to it himself. If you want their heads we might arrange it.”
Elwing dug her nails into her palms. “What would I do with heads? I want my brothers. I want my mother and father. I want Menegroth unspoilt. ”
“Your losses grieve us, Lady. We would return all to you if we could. It is my lord’s dearest wish that the tragedy of Doriath need never be repeated.”
“If that is what he wishes, it is within his power,” Elwing snapped. “It is very easy not to murder kin. I am restraining myself as we speak.”
The messenger smiled slightly. “Would that it were so simple. Lady, what is your answer?”
Never. But while Elwing the daughter of a murdered king might rage and spit poison, Elwing the ruler must say; “I will think on it. This is not a decision to be made lightly or without the council of my people.”
The messenger bowed - not low for she was Noldor. “Think hard, my lady. There is much good we could do you.” ‘And much ill,’ went unspoken though surely they both thought it.
She dreamt of Doriath that night. Not, for once, of the fear upon her mother’s face, of wolves with red cloaks and redder swords, of corpses piled like dolls outside the nursery. She dreamt of her brothers. A forest glade, quiet but for the song of nightingales. A cradle of roots, lined with plush green moss and wildflowers. The twins lay in each other’s arms, naked bones curled about each other as they had once lain in life. The flowers grew over them so that their hollow ribs were filled with bluebells and anemones wept from their empty eye sockets. It was beautiful and more horrible than all her dreams of war.
She woke quietly - with her husband out to sea she slept alone but still the habit lingered - and stared up at the dark ceiling, painted with wheeling birds. In Menegroth she had always looked up to her brothers, toddling in their wake, but she was older now than they had ever been. Her sons would soon be older.
She slipped from her bed and picked her way over to the nursery, bare feet silent upon the tiled floor. Her sons slept in the same bed, in the same way as their uncles once had, hands intertwined, hair spilling across each other’s faces. She looked down at them and thought her heart would tear to pieces with love and fear and ancient grief.
When they had been born she had searched their features for any trace of Eluréd and Elurín but found none. Her brothers had been noisy, boisterous children with dark, Sindar eyes while her sons had inherited their father’s Noldorin grey. They were quiet and sober, were her boys; stubborn Elros and serious Elrond.
She would kill for them, she knew. Or die for them. Would she give up the silmaril too? Even knowing what it meant for their people? Even knowing that her grandparents had suffered for it, her brothers, her mother, her father had died for it?
Elwing the mother would in a single heartbeat. Elwing the queen did not have that luxury.
***
The council came to session early the next morning. Elwing expected disagreement between them - those that had not escaped the sack of Doriath with her had fled the fall of Gondolin, and all knew well what they risked in turning their enemies away. The letter passed from hand to hand and every face, even that of bright Lady Calaeril was grim and drawn.
“Speak your minds, my lords, my ladies,” said Elwing, seated at the head of the table in her crown of pearls and silver. “I know what my own heart says.” Never. For my mother and my father and my brothers. For murdered Thingol and the suffering of my grandparents. For the blessing of my sons. Never. Never. Never.
“We are not deciding if we ally with them. We all know what they really want, even if this letter-” Lady Gonnel held it up between two fingers, nose wrinkled as though it were a dead rat “-talks around it. This is about the silmaril.”
“And I say no,” said Lord Ravonor. “Even if they had offered sincere friendship and not veiled threats, nothing they can give us is worth the jewel.”
“How many more ships would we lose without its blessing?” said Calaeril, who was harbourmaster. “How much poorer would our catches be?”
“They may come for it,” Elwing warned. “When my father would not give it up, they came.”
Leithianon the loremaster tapped his fingers to his lips. “Celegorm and Curufin were the cruelest of them, or so the stories go, and they died at your father’s hand. The two eldest have some little honour left to them they say. We can reason with them.”
“They were a ragged lot when they attacked Doriath and it was only the element of surprise that gave them their victory,” said Gonnel. “They are not even what they were then, while our walls are strong and our swords are just as sharp as theirs.”
“Let them come,” said scarred Lady Tarien. “They killed my husband. They killed my sons and daughters. Let them come.”
There were nods about the table. The silmaril was their light and their hope, and not a one of them was inclined to deal with murderers.
“We are all agreed then?” Elwing said.
For good or ill they were.
***
“We do not accept your offer of alliance,” she told the messenger, sat tall upon her throne. “Nor can your bloody gold pay for your crimes.” At her gesture, her steward tipped out the coffer at the woman’s feet.
The messenger knelt to gather up the spilt riches, fine filigree chains running through her fingers. “It will please my lord to hear that you have little liking for Fëanor’s treasures.” Still on her knees, the messenger’s smile was a blade unsheathed.
“I care nothing for what is Fëanor’s. The silmaril was cut from Morgoth’s crown by my grandfather’s hand and so it came to me. If your master desires the silmarils then the Enemy wears two yet. Let him go seek them there and trouble me no more.”
“As you say, Lady. I will see you again.” She turned upon her heel, military-precise despite her ragged garb, and marched from Elwing’s hall.
***
The messenger spoke true. The letters did not cease.
We never wanted...
…I tried to find…
...can still avoid…
…have no claim to it, your father was a thief and he died as all thieves will, as you will die if you do not return what is ours…
Do not make us do this. Please.
Think of your children.
That one gave her pause, as none of the pleading or the threats had done before. She had not forgotten her brothers and she should have known, should have expected no better for all they said that this brother was less monstrous. Less monstrous counted for very little when the comparison was with a child killer and would be rapist.
She looked to Elrond and Elros, playing upon the the steps up to the dias, and then up to the silmaril where it sat above her throne that all might see it. Colours spiraled in its depths, the green of leaves in the forest of her childhood, the silver of her sons’ eyes, the blue of her grandmother’s raiment. It was hers. It was her sons’. She was of the line of Luthíen who had faced gods and death itself to win this jewel. How could she be less brave?
“Come with me,” she told the messenger - Tuluspen as Elwing now knew - and walked out onto her balcony, pausing to ruffle the boys’ hair. Elrond was too engrossed in the block city he was building but Elros looked up at her and smiled.
From the plaza beneath her tower a glad cry went up as she stepped out into view. A host had gathered; not the entire population of the settlement but very nearly. There were her lords and ladies, captains of the fleet, merchants and fisherfolk and and those that worked the land. She had made sure to place her soldiers front and center so that Tuluspen would see her strength; they wore mail that shone as bright as a fish’s scales and in every hand was a spear, bright tipped and fell.
“People of Sirion!” Elwing called to them, voice ringing out like a gull’s cry. There was a sword she could not use strapped to her hip and she wore a shining breastplate inlaid with silver. “You have heard rumours and now I tell you truly. The wolves that ravaged Doriath are circling again, demanding what was my grandparents’, my father’s, what is now ours . They mean for us to give up the Light of the Havens or they will come, they threaten, and take it from us by force. Should we surrender it to them? Should we give them our hope?”
The crowd roared its disapproval to an Elf. On every face she saw reflected her own anger and resolution. Every upraised hand and shaken first confirmed that she was doing what was right. Not a frightened girl now, no, but her father’s daughter.
“Do you see?” she said to Tuluspen, stepping back from the balcony.
“A pretty pageantry,” the woman said. “There was a time when we thought appearances mattered also.” Her own armour was dull and spotted with repair work - well done but the joins were clear to those that looked.
“We shall not yield,” said Elwing.
“You are your father’s daughter,” said the soldier. “You won’t see me again. Well, perhaps once more.” She bowed, mockingly low and made to leave.
“Wait.” Elwing did not mean to speak, was not quite sure she had until the messenger turned with what might be hope kindling in her awful, fiery eyes. “Why do you follow them? You know what they are. You know where they will lead you.”
Tuluspen looked discomforted for the first time. She ran a hand over her tightly braided hair. “I did not swear to find the jewels, Lady, but I swore fealty to the House of Fëanor and so am near as bound. I killed for my lord’s father at Alqualondë and share in the Doom of all my people. I was steward of Himring and held the siege against the Enemy for five hundred years of the Sun. I fought for them when we still thought this war could be won and then, when we knew that it could not, I fought on anyway. The silmaril is the only hope left to us.”
“The silmaril is our hope. Would you take that from us?”
Tuluspen smiled her wolfish smile. “These are dark times, Lady. There is not much hope to go around. As I said, this is the last message I shall bring. Pray that you do not see me again.”
***
“This is our last chance,” Elwing told her council. The silmaril lay in the center of the table, its light pulsing like the beat of some great heart. “They will not ask again.”
“I was enjoying the letters,” said Leithianorn. “Despite the content, the handwriting is lovely. Do you think he writes them himself or just dictates?”
“He’s a cripple. Of course he dictates,” said Lady Tarien.
“I wish I’d thought to ask his messenger,” Elwing said. “But enough of jokes. How do the evacuations progress?”
“Very few of our civilians - even those injured or with children - have agreed to go. It is the jewel, I think. They know that they are safest when they are near to it.”
Elwing looked back at the silmaril or, rather, realised she had never looked away. In its swirling pattern she saw the black of winter branches and the red of surcoats and blood upon the snow. For a moment she knew doubt. But only for a moment. This was for her people. This was their hope and, without hope, what were they?
“Double the watch upon the walls. Ensure that there are always birds ready to send to Círdan. Ready the-”
A horn sounded, shrill and urgent.
The council looked at each other, familiar faces made near unrecognisable with fear.
“It’s only been an hour since we ran off their messenger,” said Leithianorn quietly. “They must have been waiting.”
“To arms,” said Elwing. “You all know what you must do.”
They rose, not a one of them pausing to bow. Elwing pulled Calaeril aside. “Is the Ýridhren ready to sail?”
“Of course, Lady Elwing.”
“I want you to see my sons aboard personally.”
“It will be done.” She bobbed her head and sprinted after the others.
Elwing the mother would race after her to the nursery. She would clutch her children to her breast and never, never let them go. Elwing the queen called for her generals and went to see to Sirion’s defence.
***
It was not like Doriath. It was worse, a thousand times worse because she was not a child to be hidden and protected but a woman whose every order, every failure saw the deaths of those she loved.
She’d thought they were prepared; their walls were strong and their soldiers well equipped and they had never lost a skirmish with the Enemy’s orcs. But she was all of thirty five while her foes had been at war six hundred years. She was not ready.
Her people fought though, with all the hope the jewel had brought them and all the hatred of those that remembered Luthíen, Dior the Fair and ruined Menegroth. Three of the kinslayers had died there, one at her father’s hand, and if Elwing was not a warrior herself, she was his daughter yet. The silmaril burnt upon her breast, and all her troops were bolstered by its light.
But their foes burnt with an inner flame, the light of the Trees long eaten. They were stronger than her people, faster, and they hardly seemed to feel the wounds they took.
Elwing had placed their field command in the temple of Ulmo, though they had had to chase the rats out first. She was not sure if the Fëanorian soldiers had been sent to loot it or defile it but the result was much the same; the statue of Ulmo’s sapphire eyes had been gouged out and the nacre scraped from his raiment. Elwing bowed her head and muttered a prayer for the comfort of ritual rather than any real hope of answer.
The extermination had left corpses upon the floor, some in her blue and some in Fëanorian red. One of them had copper hair spilling from beneath his crushed helm but, when she checked, he still had both his hands. The smell of death revolted her and she stepped back, wiping her hands clean upon her cloak. “Is the evacuation finished?”
“Not all our ships got out before they took the docks - they must have thought you’d try to flee with the jewel by sea,” said Tarien, leaning heavily upon her sword.
Elrond. Elros. “We must draw them off then,” she declared. “They are dogs, not men, and they will follow the jewel. We ride out, as many of us as can still be mounted.”
***
The fighting in the streets was worse than ever. Houses burnt and their horses picked their way between the dead. There was no pretense at military order; all had broken down into street fights and skirmishes. Unarmoured civilians hurled cobblestones at soldiers and were cut down only for other red cloaked Fëanorians to turn upon the killers and murder them in turn. It amazed her she could still be shocked by their degeneracy.
As she and her retinue raced past, all turned to look at the jewel that shone upon her breast, her people crying out for relief while her enemies cursed her for a thief. Arrows clattered on the streets about their horses’ feet and struck her soldiers from their saddles. Horses reared and screamed and a snarling man leapt up to seize her bridle but Elwing rode him down, rode on through the tumult and out of the city with the wolves all howling in her wake.
I’ve failed, her horse’s hooves beat out, I’ve failed, I’ve failed them all.
They shot her mount out from under her and brought her to bay at last upon the cliffs where she had once waited for her brothers and her husband lost at sea. As places went to die, it was very beautiful. Beneath her, the gulls wailed and the slate grey waters sucked at the jagged rocks. If she leapt it would be quick.
She’d thought she would know Maedhros; by the hair, the height, her brothers’ blood upon his hand and the hatred in his eyes. She had looked for a monster but here was a man who looked more tired than fierce. His hair was hidden beneath a helmet and he seemed no taller than any of the soldiers stood behind him. There was blood though, splashed across his surcoat and dripping from his sword.
“I’m sorry that it’s come to this,” he said, stepping over Tarien’s corpse. The worst part was, he truly did sound sorry.
She clutched the jewel tighter. “You have no claim to it.”
Maedhros smiled thinly, his eyes never leaving the silmaril. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. What I have are swords and soldiers and your sons in my custody.”
“No.” Liar, liar, all Fëanorians were liars, he did not have her sons and if he had then they were dead already, dead as her brothers, oh mother, father, how had it come to this?
“Do you wish to see them?” He snapped a word in his own tongue and two of his soldiers turned and cantered off, back down the cliff. “They will fetch them. I will not be forsworn, Lady Elwing.”
“Monster,” she spat, inching back towards the drop. She’d escaped them once. She could again.
“I shan’t deny it. Give me the silmaril.” He was still looking at the jewel in her hand, like a dog waiting for a ball to be thrown. In other circumstances it might have been funny.
“Please,” said Tuluspen from where she stood beside her master, face distorted by the same awful hunger. “Let it end.” She held out her hand.
Elwing the ruler might yet treat with them.
Elwing the mother would die beside her sons.
Elwing the woman clasped the silmaril to her breast and thought of birds and messages in bottles.
She leapt.