Still mourning the death of his father in combat, Fingon approaches the night before his coronation troubled and resentful. When he enters the hall and finds what should be a solmen vigil for his father instead tense with the scheming of the sons of Feanor, Fingon decides to shut their mouths and quash the their threats of sedition once and for all with a perilous offer: he will beat every single one of them at contests of their individual chosing. If he wins all six, they never complain about his right to the crown again; if he loses even once, the crown goes to the victor.
They take him up on it.
Mature.
Fingon/Maedhros, spotlight moments for Fingon's varied relationships with each of the sons of Feanor (minus Amrod, as this one is in the 'crispy Amrod timeline', or so fans called the version of the Silm in which Amrod is burned to death at Losgar). Less so in the original version and more so in the script version, both Maedhros' and Fingon's relationships with Maglor get some time.
Well, this is a fanfiction that the author later adapted into a stageplay for a black box with no intention of every performing it, so.
I Do; I Will
The towers of Barad Eithel were each constellations, their spiral arms of slit windows lit inside by glowing candelabras. The snow outside was as heavy as a death-shroud, whose lightest touch paralyzes that which lies underneath. The courts inside roared with blackened banks of hot coals and the long tables were laden with all good things to eat and drink. For the very last time, though none inside knew that it would be so, the House of Finwe was gathered, having come from each corner of Beleriand to observe the coronation of High King Fingon.
From his kingdom in the south, ever wondered at and never seen, came King Finrod and his niece Finduilas. Her father Orodreth remained in that Kingdom as seneschal; too grieved, or so Finrod claimed, eyes downcast and smile thin, by the losses of battle to come himself. From within the girdle and to everyone’s shock came Galadriel, wearing engagement-bands from someone whose name she never spoke. “He is not of our own people,” she would demure, and nothing more. Of Finarfin’s descendants, no more yet lived.
From the east came the sons of Feanor, and in number they fared better than the two other lines combined. Amras from Ossiriand, with dour face and rare voice, and when heard almost always carrying insult; Caranthir from his high mountain and with its ice still on his shoulders. Curufin and Celegorm both came with Finrod for their former princedom had met the flames of battle, and they slunk in like dogs, their hackles raised, too aware of what had become of them. Not with them was Curufin’s son, who had himself chosen to stay in Nargothrond, and none discussed this. Together also came Feanor’s eldest sons Maglor and Maedhros, except they did not come, because they had been in Barad Eithel already, a fact also not discussed as much as admitted.
Of Fingolfin’s line there was Fingon, who was the one to be crowned High King.
Fingon had waited many long months for Turgon and Aredhel. Everyone else had gathered and had been waiting for the coronation as the winter settled deep and the cold began to creep in even through the strong walls of the fortress. Many months had already passed since his father’s deaths and the seats those loved ones would take were still empty.
The date had been set, and now it had come. Finery had been made and fit, a feast had been cooked and eaten. The candles in their candelabras had burned almost completely down and the hour Fingon intended for the coronation—dawn, after a final all-night vigil—was approaching.
He did not expect his whole court to be brimming with delight after spending all night in mourning for the last king, skipping respite, waiting for the dawn. That had not been the point. It was not some mere grumbling that took his attention away from what was intended to be a memorial but grumbling that came from certain throats, a parcel of Noldor tied in a knot around one of the banks of coals. The sons of Feanor sat on fine cushioned chairs that had replaced the long tables, their hands wrapped around their tankards, complaining.
“Does something still displease my kinsmen?” he asked, loudly.
Talk ceased. Fingon, who stood nearly in the center of the great hall, had been heard from all corners. His cousins, now the focus of attention, did not react evenly to it.
Maedhros could have handled the entire situation, if he had only spoken up. He did not. From where he sat quite near the fire, its warmth on his right side, he merely raised his eyebrows at Fingon, doubtful enough of the choice he had just made that he decided not to save him from it. Maglor, at his side as ever, reacted superficially similarly, that is, with raised eyebrows and silence. Amras scoffed audibly, but clearly intended to leave it there. Out of the rest, any of the three of them could have been the one to say something.
As luck would have it, it was princely Caranthir who spoke, whose diplomatic reflexes has been quite honed among both dwarves and men. “There is nothing about your present hospitality to displease us,” he responded.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Fingon replied, looking at him and then sweeping his eyes over the rest of them. “Yet that seems an answer not fully fit to the question.”
“If there’s nothing wrong, why pry into the matter?” Caranthir replied alike.
“He thinks we carry some old grudge, rather,” spoke Celegorm, who picked up the thread Caranthir had extracted and spun it. “Since there is nothing wrong, as you said, with present circumstances.”
“It was precise phrasing,” Fingon replied.
“I would not like to be called an ungracious guest,” continued Celegorm. “Or to be accused over nursing some grudge in the corner like a brigand or hired blade. What makes you ask this?”
“Only that you were grumbling amongst yourselves,” said Fingon, walking a few steps toward the group so that he was not shouting across the hall. “But if you were only speaking of some personal matter, and there is no dissatisfaction, I will ask your pardon and speak no more of it.”
Amras, who was the youngest and briefest and have been an incarnate shortcut to trouble even before he had lost his twin and become what he was now, scoffed, “what would there be to be dissatisfied about?”
Fingon stopped walking.
“Is this a game,” he finally said, “and should I guess?”
He looked at Maedhros again, who succinctly conveyed with an eloquent glance that there were some tortures he would prefer reliving than to respond to that. If that was his opinion, Maglor would follow, and he did.
“What isn’t?” replied, unfortunately, Curufin, unsmiling. “Go ahead. Guess.”
“Very well! I’ve always been a hand at such games. I will make a guess,” Fingon replied, and looked quizzically up at the ceiling, as if hunting for answers between beam and rafter. “You grumble yet that I am unfit to be your King because your line is superior to mine and your pride does not permit subordination. How’s that?”
Several of them tensed. There was typically no need to say such things out loud; the topic was understood in implication, it was maneuvered around on the assumption that it certainly was there and a pass around it must be taken. In Fingon’s mind, however, there was no sense in taking a roundabout way on a day with such an important quest; the time had come to go direct.
“If we do?” said Curufin.
“Do you?” asked Fingon.
“What is this?” Maglor asked, taking Maedhros’ silence as circumspect disapproval. “Are we not here, and doing exactly as bid? Did we not all come to attend this coronation with good gifts and honors? Why bring up this ungainly thing that none had pointed out?”
“Hadn’t you? Or did you bring it up to all but me? Whispering such behind my back would make poor houseguests.”
“Stay,” Maglor said, shocked. “Now you are bandying accusations, and none have done so but you.”
“Here is a game I do not play!” Fingon responded. “Doing work in the shadows that I then deny in the light. Then deny it if you can, but do not evade it. Has there been no grumbling on the subject, no complaints at all? No clandestine conversation with key figures of my court to mention dissatisfactions and doubts? Never an attempt to undermine me, never a command followed only in word but in spirit defied?”
There was a short silence. Then, spoke Amras: “Well, I am no liar. I deny nothing; I have complained about you. When I think we could have better, I say so. And what about it?”
Maglor’s eyes fluttered shut. Curufin glared at Amras, but his eyes quickly snapped back away.
Fingon, between pleased and displeased, merely tilted his head. “Very well! And what of the rest of you? Can you say honestly that you have not complained about me in my house, that you have not suggested or implied that we could have a better option for our next king, and in fact that you could provide it.”
“I have not,” spoke up for the first time the gravely, fractured voice of Maedhros, and then he drank deeply from his cup of wine.
He spoke alone. The rest, like a pack of cats, stared up at him, silent and unmoving.
“Silent now!” Fingon said, but swallowed any more reproach. “What a strange time to hold your tongues. The hour selected for my coronation is approaching; shall you do anything about it, or not?”
Maglor’s shoulders tensed. He looked at Maedhros, and sat back in his chair. “No, what is this?” he asked, genuinely concerned. “Have you taken leave of your senses or buckled under the pressure of what lays ahead for you?”
How clever! To use even the tensest moment to skillfully imply Fingon was not prepared for kingship. “Buckled not, nor have I ever! But I have bent for a long time, under the direction of and with my great respect for my father. In tolerating you, yes, all of you, and the dissent you so regularly sowed against him, clawing fractures in the walls that hold the Enemy at bay and away from all Beleriand, simply because of your grudges, was a craft he undertook with skill, delicacy, and great virtue. I have some humility; I know I do not have all of those virtues. The patience he had to endure the scorn you routinely showed him as your High King is one that I do not share, though the love that drove him to such lengths is.”
Fingon began again to approach the place where the sons of Feanor sat gathered. They had turned to him fully; Celegorm and Curufin had both started to stand.
“I will not tolerate it,” Fingon continued. “I will make a mess of it if I do. I cannot and will not let you debase yourselves with whispers and schemes and plots against me and nor will I let the issue fester painfully unaddressed. I have not his subtlety either. Do you still feel like I am no fit king? Do you still feel one of you could do better? Prove it! The time has come!”
More sets of eyes than just Maglor’s looked desperately at Maedhros. Maedhros sat and listened, politely interested.
“I will fight every one of you,” Fingon said, standing right before them. “I will fight every single one of you, one after the other, and if in the end I have won and still stand on my own two feet then I will take the tongue of anyone who still speaks dissent after.”
“You,” said Maglor, “what?”
“I know that the one who cleaves minds through the ears is not deaf! I will fight every single one of you one after the other and anyone who beats me shall be king! Let everyone with ears to hear witness it; should any of you defeat me, with weapons of your choosing and indeed even with rules of your choosing, then you shall be High King of the Noldor!”
Maglor stared.
Curufin said, “One after the other?”
“Would you prefer all at once? You couldn’t be King all at once.”
“And whoever beats you—again, at a contest we can individually decide—will be High King of the Noldor?”
“If you can, you will. Surely whoever wins such a contest deserves the spoils.”
“Maedhros,” Maglor snapped.
Maedhros hummed, and sat up straight.
Celegorm glanced at Maedhros, but spoke before he could. “What jest is this?” He asked. “Surely you do not think you can overcome all six of us in succession; or are you betting on some abstaining out of love for you?”
“I think that I can!” Fingon said bluntly. “But I heed your point that some may decline to combat me out of affection or respect for our kinship or even—though you were too good to say so—accept the challenge for show but not in heart, and fight without investment. I will grant you surely against that with one conceit.”
“And what is that?”
“A light disrespect of the typical order,” Fingon replied. “Amras first. Maedhros last.”
At this a few of them raised their eyebrows or leaned back their heads. Celegorm whistled, slow and soft. Fingon’s reasons for the unorthodox ordering were multiple but clear. All the sons of Feanor were fine fighters, but the deadliest were commonly reckoned to be the eldest. Besides that, they all knew who he meant when he said ‘some’ might love him too much to fight with their whole heart. To put the eldest last meant Fingon had a greater chance of fighting more of them—and when he did get to those eldest sons, or if he did, they would have something quite recent to avenge and answer for on top of any older wrongs.
Amras dropped his tankard onto a little table by his side and stood to his feet. He swallowed, he tilted his head and popped the joints of his neck. Fingon glanced between him, looking ahead at nothing, and Maedhros, looking inscrutably up at his youngest brother.
Amras turned to face Fingon.
“Telufinwe Ambarussa,” Fingon addressed him. “Do you accept my challenge?”
“I do,” he said.
It would be a reoccurring problem in the course of the night that they were all too richly dressed for the altered itinerary. Fingon watched as Amras stripped himself of a good brocade coat and fine golden jewelry and handed it piece by piece to Curufin, who stood by and spoke to him, if Fingon was right, in their minds.
Whatever Curufin was saying to him, Amras wasn’t receiving it. He stared far ahead, his arms moving to disrobe down to his shirt but his eyes on something distant and unreal.
Fingon was younger than all of his half-cousins on account of the disparity between the ages of his father and his half-uncle, so even the pesky ‘little’ twins had always been older and stronger than him, established and grown for as long as he could remember, but not so grown that they were above teasing little cousins. There was no denying that the copper-headed and bright-smiling young trickster he remembered from his earliest days was not the scarred prince he saw now. Those who even looked into his fea shrank from it; he had been ripped in half, and time had not soothed the burnt edge of the wound.
Amras did not often speak, now, except within himself. Fingon did not know if he truly wanted a crown for himself, if he had accepted the challenge only so that his brothers would be emboldened to try for themselves, or if all he wanted was to fight.
Fingon stifled the pang of loss that briefly overtook his other feelings as the stripped-down half-twin finally turned to face him and with his pale eyes gave him a derisive look-over. Amras reached behind his head to gather up his red braid and pin it up on the back of his head as he spoke.
“When I am called prince at all,” he began, “It is in Ossiriand, by the rivers of the Gelion, among the Sindar and the secondborn where I have made my home. None of them think me their prince; they just know I am a prince of the Noldor, or at least of the royal house. Have you ever been to that country?”
“Only in passing,” Fingon regretted. “It is beautiful, but far from Hithlum.”
“And not much happens there, as opposed to here. So little that it is a great problem when the Enemy’s tainted creatures wind their way down to those green vales. Because of that the peoples there tend to live more in fear of each other than of orcs or dragons, and have adapted themselves to those fears. Get the greatsword,” he called in aside to one of his people. “Get two of them.”
She hurried away, presumably to the guest wing where the brothers had been boarded. “Brutal weapons,” Amras continued, without judgment. “Sized for men and meant to be used against them. It takes some work for an Elda to learn to use one.”
“Certainly.” Fingon was close with the Edain of Hador’s house; in fact there in the hall stood Lady Gloredhel with her husband Haldir and her brothers Galdor and Gundor, and Galdor’s young sons were with him also. Those Edain and their people watched the proceedings with interest and caution, some with full grasp of Sindarin and some partial, but none keen to interfere in this rare instance of Elda infighting.
Would it were more rare, Fingon lamented, or rather, that I was not from the singular branch of the tree that it is not.
“They can be a bit tricky to—but there she is,” Amras interrupted himself, smiling as he accepted from his servant a weapon as massive as he had implied it would be. The pommel needed the gasp of both elven hands; the blade was longer than a spine and tipped flat and roughly. It was the sides of the weapon that were cruelly sharp, and the weight in Fingon’s hand, once one was offered to him, was cold and considerable.
Despite what Amras seemed to think, Fingon had handled one of these before. Perhaps they were common to the men of Ossiriand, but they were not particular to them. Fingon still weighed the weapon, feeling for its personal eccentricities. “This is fit for slaying, not sparring,” he said bluntly.
“That is its purpose,” Amras admitted. “Is that not the purpose with any sword? Yet a swordsman with any skill should know how to use it deftly.”
“And how shall it be used today? What shall be the end of the contest?”
“We fight until a hand hits the ground. But again, have care, or you may slay me in the course of flooring me.”
“Oh, no, you’re really doing this,” came the lightly concerned call of one King of Nargothrond. Amras turned to the side and waited impatiently as his smallest and fairest cousin approached him, robed in vernal green and gold, like a sprouting daffodil confused by an early storm into thinking it was really spring. He kept his wine with him as he came. “Don’t do this, cousin; what point is there in replaying the grief of those kings who met their end by it?”
“Ask Fingon, it was his challenge.”
“So it was,” Finrod considered. Turning his face to Fingon, he rephrased: “Cousin; why.”
“I stated my reasoning, were you drinking through it?” Fingon asked. “The kings are dead, but the griefs are not. I do not wait for them to rise up when convenient to them but claw them from their graves to face me at my convenience.”
“This stirs up things that cause more grief,” Finrod replies, “as you just said yourself.”
“And letting them lie, or trying to, has only put more in their graves,” Fingon replied alike.
“Think of your father, who forgave all slights and ruled all as though they were his brothers. That made his kingdom mighty.”
“I do think of my father,” said Fingon, “He is dead.”
“You will hate me for saying it, but rash anger killed him.”
“I do not hate you for it, you are not right. I know exactly what killed him: despair. You will not see the same from me, nor the patient forgiveness that inured him to politely accept cut after cut until he deemed himself fit to be cut down. Back, cousin, unless you wish to draw.”
Finrod walked away, but he did not go far. Fingon assumed he meant to watch and intervene if he saw fit. He wished he wouldn’t but wouldn’t stop him.
“Then, cousin,” he said, that time to Amras.
Amras placed both his hands on the hilt of the greatsword and lifted it casually crossed over his chest. (Fingon noticed he had no trouble lifting it or holding its weight steady; they did not display like an Edain’s, but he had muscles like one.) “Take the first strike, son of Nolofinwe, and after that there will be no quarter until one of us is on the ground.”
He tried to resist, but for a single moment, Fingon, too, looked to Maedhros. Was this not the youngest of his brothers? But Maedhros revealed nothing in his face, nor did he connect their minds or even acknowledge Fingon with anything but a brief connection of their eyes.
Maedhros’ eyes were black. The blood with which they had both defiled their hands had not dimmed the treelight in their eyes, nor any double-crossing or lying or debasement, nor any of the crimes of any there had done anything to lessen that glow. But the years in Angband had stolen the silver from Maedhros’ eyes and pocketed it, leaving nothing. Even in such a moment as this, those lightless pits could too easily pull Fingon in.
He snapped his eyes back to Amras. He stood in position, waiting.
Fingon weighed the greatsword in his hands and considered him, his arms, his legs, his sides, more and less vulnerable; his neck.
Out of everyone standing in the hall, and there was no scanty crowd there, there was but one who had matched the might of a dragon and made it flee. The kinsmen who watched him, and the one who had already accepted his challenge, had surely considered that.
They better have.
With his right hand curled around the hilt and his left bracing it, open-palmed, Fingon swung the sword from above his head and down, to connect if it would at the point between Amras’ neck and shoulder. Amras was too skilled and too daring to waste time blocking; instead he ducked low and came with his own blade at Fingon’s opposite side.
Fingon kept turning to the right, dodging and sweeping to Amras’ right side. Amras realized that was a good move quickly and yet too late—Fingon was now in the place to swipe at him once, lightly, and slide further behind him.
Amras shielded himself by throwing his sword over his shoulder and using that momentum again to turn himself around. Fingon let him; he had to adjust himself to how heavy the blade was and trying too hard to overpower him immediately would be risky. He saw in the corner of his eye some people quickly backing up after witnessing how far those blades reached when swung wildly overhead.
Amras whipped the sword around in his hands and swung it up at Fingon from below and again at his side. Fingon adjusted it to block, and then instead of following the blade clean down turned again, into Amras’ other, more exposed side. He did not strike but rapidly wrenched the heavy blade through the air in front of Amras’ face so that it and he stood at his unguarded right side. Amras, knowing he did not have time to spare, temporarily held his sword in one hand and with the other reached out to push Fingon’s back.
It worked, which was impressive. Amras was bare-handed but grasped the blade and held it without even the slightest cut to himself. Still, he could not grip it without risk, so Fingon knew he was safe to jump onto his backfoot and out of reach, which he did. Amras re-readied his blade over his body and Fingon found himself very nearly at the same point in which he had started the fight, except that now his blood was awakened and his body felt light.
He laughed once, bright, sharp, and clear, like an icicle. No longer pretending he minded the weight he swung the great sword over his shoulder and down and so quickly at Amras that he did not quite dodge it. It bit his upper arm; he jerked to the side. Fingon came at him fully, flattening the blade so that its broad side was parallel to Amras’ throat. He thrust forward with flattened palms and it pushed into his neck. The flesh on either side puffed up responsively around it, but he was not pressing so hard that it cut.
Amras instinctively choked. He wrenched back, which set him off balance. Fingon was still coming forward; he had just enough momentum and just enough reach to find Amras’ foot below and kick it.
He stumbled, then buckled; he hit the ground with one hand and one knee.
Fingon was not sure if Amras would count that or not, so he corrected himself and jumped backward, at ready. But as Amras remained unmoving on the floor, staring at his planted hand, Fingon slowly lowered his sword.
The silence stretched. Fingon waited. Then, all at once, Amras stood to his feet and snapped around, turning his back to Fingon. Fingon merely watched as he stalked back to his chair, picked up his tankard, and drained it. On his exposed neck were two parallel red lines which were not quite cuts.
He smacked the tankard back down. “And why would it be my fate?” he said, addressing no one in particular. He grabbed his sword and his coat and left the room.
Fingon looked at Maedhros. Maedhros looked silently, stoically back.
After only a moment, Curufin stood to his feet. He opened his mouth, but Fingon held up his palm to halt him.
“I–”
“A minute of silence,” Fingon asked.
Curufin only had to think for a second about why they would hold a silence after Amras and before him, and then he closed his mouth again. He looked down, and, one by one, his brothers behind him did as well. One of Amras’ servants came up and took Fingon’s greatsword away, which he handed over freely.
After enough time had passed, Fingon nodded to Curufin. “Do you, then, accept my challenge, Curufinwe Atarince?”
With a metallic snap as he unhooked a heavy, dwarven-made necklace from his neck, Curufin cooly said, “I do.”
Amras’ people had left after him. Some other guests had slipped out also, either sensitive to the violence or feeling the need to alert others. Fingon saw that the delegation of Edain, far from retreating, were now seated and happily discussing what they had seen. Galdor had sat his boys down and was talking over the fight with them, asking questions and encouraging their responses. The elder, Hurin, was watching with great interest. In another corner, Finduilas had sought out her aunt Galadriel and the two were now conferring. Fingon found Finrod at his elbow and asked him for wine.
Curufin unclasped and unclipped earrings, brooches, bracelets, rings, and anklets and poured them into Caranthir’s hands, where they clattered against his own rings. As he pulled off his overcoat and tunic, Finrod placed a sturdy golden goblet into Fingon’s hand and then poured wine into it.
They were on presumed good terms, but no longer close enough to casually use osanwe with each other. Instead, Finrod spoke quietly. “That was well enough, and seems to have put him in his place, if that was your goal. But I cannot encourage you to keep it up.”
“No.”
“No. Amras was never going to challenge you if you had not invited it. Curufin is another matter.”
Fingon carefully did not look at that matter. “What makes you say so?”
Finrod seemed reluctant to say in particular. Curufin had been his guest since the terrible battle, but that had not been so long a time. What had he seen or foreseen?
“I think,” Finrod eventually said, “That as far as some of these are concerned, winning one battle will only win you more in the future, and when they are better prepared for it.” That was all. Resembling his wise mother and subtle father both, Finrod ended the conversation with that and returned to his place.
Fingon lifted the goblet and drank; not all of it. When he lowered the cup, he saw Curufin standing before him, now with his hair pulled into a quick, tight braid and his fore-arms bare under pinned-up sleeves. Those arms were a smith’s, and the only jewelry he now wore was a golden circlet woven into his braid.
“Well, cousin,” Fingon said. “My end of the bargain still applies; if you win the contest, I concede the crown. If I win, you mutter no more about it being mine. But what is the contest?”
Curufin made a sharp calling gesture with his hand, and one of his people approached with blades clutched in their arms. “No mannish blades for me; traditional swords instead, the same as we ever used.”
Fingon nodded. He pondered asking for his own sword, but decided against it. He had said that Curufin could pick the weapons, and he had clearly picked two. He extended out his hand as one was brought to him. Turning it over, he saw the makers’ mark on both scabbard and hilt and saw it was not just Curufin’s choice but his make as well.
He slid the blade just far enough out of its scabbard to examine an inch of steel, and saw how its folded steel veins glimmered like rivers seen from the eyes of an eagle. Its edge was as sharp as a hiss; even from holding it he could feel how straight and true it was.
Curufin grinned when Fingon stifled a gasp. Stifling his smile, he unsheathed his own blade and handed off the scabbard.
Fingon followed suit and asked, “What decides the contest?”
“Death,” Curufin said, examining the blade.
“Really,” Fingon replied, immediately and instinctually.
“Yes, really,” he insisted, with the same nonchalance.
Fingon hesitated, poised.
“If you won’t do it, then forfeit,” Curufin continued.
That was not a bad gamble. Fingon, though it was not to his benefit to say so, was completely unwilling to kill again. His blade had not seen Eldarin blood since his catastrophic mistake at Alqualonde, and he would not darken it again.
“And what am I supposed to tell your son, Curvo?” asked Celegorm from behind, exasperated.
Curufin’s suppressed smile bloomed into fullness. “How about, ‘Good news’?”
“I said the terms were yours and I will not take that back,” Fingon finally said. “But I will not mention it again or mock you if you reconsider them.”
“I won’t.”
Maglor, who had failed to get Maedhros to speak up once again, said, “Curvo, you can’t do this.”
Curufin looked over his shoulder at him. “Why, so that I can’t beat you to it? What a surprise, Maglor wants a second chance.”
Maglor did not hide a flash of annoyance. Fingon had always figured Curufin was an annoying younger brother to have. “I don’t want you dead, Curvo,” he said impatiently.
“Can you have some faith that I will not fail?” Curufin responded with patient discontent. “Can you even consider that I won’t?”
Maglor startled, but tried to hide it. His eyes, in a quick flicker, betrayed the fact that Maedhros had said something to him in osanwe. Fingon watched Maglor’s shoulders lower.
“Oh, go to it, then,” he muttered.
That appeared to be all the protest Curufin was going to get. Did they trust Fingon to not kill him? Tension aside, Fingon could not believe they were unbothered by the thought of him going through with it. Or did they all think Curufin would win? Did that not bother any of them either?
“Then begin,” Fingon said.
Curufin lowered his sword only incrementally. It was still held at his side, cavalier. “I have.”
Fingon also changed his grip on the sword he had been given, but only slightly. It was balanced like a bird on the slightest branch of a tree. He knew better smiths than Curufin, but few if any better swordsmiths. From the corner of his eye, Curufin was watching him handle it.
He lifted it before him and waited. Curufin smiled and stepped to the right. Fingon watched but did not move himself.
“Are you prepared for what happens if you do win this contest, Astaldo?” Curufin asked him.
“I wonder the same about you,” Fingon replied, keeping his place and his balance on the balls of his feet. “Do you want the crown for yourself so badly, or is it vengeance for your father that better appeals to you?” He had no doubt that Curufin still felt himself and his own house wronged by the falling-out between their fathers instead of the other way around.
“Oh, that’s not what I meant,” Curufin clarified, still approaching Fingon, slowly, from an angle that was bringing him to Fingon’s side. “Who among your own could bear to kill for you? They’re too good for it. But as for me…”
“What an odd thing to brag about,” Fingon said, keeping his eyes on his opponent, not his face but his feet, wrists, hips as he walked. “And what an odd way of winning the love of the people you desire to rule.”
“Why would they accept you in the first place?” Curufin continued, walking ever closer. “Kin-killer, dragon-slayer. Only because they are now afraid enough of death that they will consent to rule by the strongest, accepting whoever they think can protect them. They’ll accept the victor. You wouldn’t have proposed this contest if you thought our people were too good for it.”
It has just enough of a ring of truth from it, a siren call out of sleep, that some rigid line of hesitation must have shown in Fingon’s form. Curufin pounced like a cat.
Fingon could not think; the cuts and curves that Curufin poured onto him were like raindrops, splattering so fast they were hard to see, wavering silver shimmers flashing in his eyes. No heavy, slow weapons were these, and Fingon’s wrist began to ache with his heartbeats as the shock of the assault sunk back and the grim reality of being forced on his back foot again and again took its place. Curufin snapped at his head but whirled around and came low at his wrist in the next second; without ceasing he turned sides and turned around and came again. Fingon parried without thinking, and could not think, because he had to parry again, and again. In the lightning-bolt moments between strikes he saw the steel silver of Curufin’s eyes flashing.
Still, Fingon did parry. He evened his breath out and stepped not back but to the side. But Curufin had watched Fingon best Amras simply by continually turning around him, and so he snapped back to Fingon’s front as though stuck to him, and slashed up at his face as if to take off his nose. Fingon drove up under it, holding both their swords over his head for a split second; Curufin spat at him, and he blinked.
Then a line of fire was drawn through his skin. A cut opened from his collarbone to below his pectoral, through his shirt and into his skin. Not deep, but not shallow either. Curufin had taken first blood, and in a minute, it was going to hurt. Before then, Fingon had an opportunity. He took it by jabbing forward into the space Curufin had left between them, but he melted away from the point of Fingon’s sword.
Worse, on the upswing, with momentum on his side and blood easing the path of his sword, he managed to cut Fingon again, sliding shallowly through the skin of his forward thigh. Fingon clenched his right first firmly around the hilt of his sword and, since he was close enough, smashed it into Curufin’s nose.
Curufin flinched. His eyes blinked shut; Fingon turned his wrists so that the blade faced Curufin and, with very little room to maneuver, cut at his right arm. It bit; he was not sure how deep. He slid backward, re-bracing himself, checking Curufin’s ankles, wrists, hips for his next movement. One hand holding his face Curufin came forward and swiped at his side; Fingon dodged and turned.
“Thief!” Curufin spat furiously. His right arm had swung out to his side in the apex of his failed strike.
Fingon swung with overstrength to smack the flat of his blade onto Curufin’s knuckles. It was a dirty move and it worked. Curufin fumbled and dropped his sword, which clattered onto the ground.
“Keep a better hold on what’s yours!” Fingon retorted, and again swung the sword around in his grip so he was gripping the hilt to drive it at Curufin’s forehead and knock him to the ground.
Curufin, neither done nor outdone, grabbed his fist and held it. His forge-hardened grip froze Fingon’s strike as sure as if he had petrified him. He heard Curufin’s boot clatter onto the top of the fallen sword and then, in a display of dexterity Fingon could only call astonishing, Curufin had kicked it into the air and grabbed it, and now stood back, rearmed.
“But a poor thief,” Curufin mocked, “Deprived again as soon as he is enriched. Disappointing.”
He dove forward, and Fingon was forced to not parry but block by holding his blade like a shield in front of him for Curufin to clash against. Clash he did, and their swords skittered dangerously against each other, one coming almost to the edge of the other and being just grabbed again.
“If we had held it and had leave to strike instead of accepting the burden your father’s cowardly, diminishing seige—we would have defeated the Enemy and taken his stronghold—while you—” Curufin growled, interrupted only when Fingon finally broke free of the steel-edge stalemate and broke quickly to Curufin’s left side. He blocked him again, and strove to push him back, but Fingon stood strong.
“Is that so!” said Fingon. “If you have such power, it should be easy to best me now!”
Curufin broke again from the stalemate, slashing first at Fingon’s blade to knock it back and then at the hand holding the blade, serving as he had been served. Fingon took the hit and rolled with it, allowing two of his fingers to be cut, but not deep. He cut under Curufin’s sword and just missed his stomach. So close, he dove in again, low—
Curufin’s blade smacked on his ear, the flat against its entrance, and his head rang so badly that he staggered. He could see, though split into many, the sword being raised above him.
“So eager to settle your grudges that you’ll give up even the crown for it! You couldn’t even wait for the coronation to debase yourself. If we let you you’d be on the throne sucking—”
Curufin froze, and then jolted, as the whisper-thin blade of the sword he forged cut too deep into his stomach.
“Maedhros—” he said.
Fingon dropped his sword to the ground. Curufin collapsed forward, and Fingon caught him. He sank to one knee under his cousin’s weight, and let out a heavy breath as he adjusted.
Then, he sang.
Fingon’s voice bubbled up from the cobblestones of the fortress’ floor like a flood and then sprang up like a geyser. It gushed onto Curufin; his head dropped onto Fingon’s shoulder. He sang notes that wrapped in circles around Curufin’s stomach and squeezed tight. He felt a grip on his shoulder, like iron. He sang blood; he sang circles like blood coursing in its lattice loops around bone and sinew, high notes arching and low notes diving. The blood stopped pouring and rushed back to the heart it loved, to the race it longed to run, around, around.
Curufin spat and struggled, disoriented. Fingon saw that Celegorm had knelt behind him, and so he pushed Curufin back into his arms. Celegorm’s arms clamped around his younger brother; they searched for his wounds and found them closed.
The grip on Fingon’s shoulder was Maedhros’ left hand.
Fingon put his own on it, and looked up, over his shoulder. There he crouched, grim, looking down at Fingon without much warmth.
Fingon could not blame him. Had he heard any of his siblings gasp his own name like that, he would not feel warm.
Fingon gripped Maedhros’ hand. Maedhros exhaled, and then stood, and lumbered back to his place by the fire, where Maglor still sat, gripping the arm of his chair.
Fingon watched Celegorm stand to his feet, holding the now-shivering Curufin like he were a child having a nightmare. Fingon stood himself, feeling as he went every inch of the several cuts Curufin had made in him, as he had not healed himself.
Celegorm looked down at him derisively. “I thank you,” he said tersely. “Though I note this means you have gone back on your word. The contest did not end on the terms you agreed to.”
“Then note that I would rather break my word than be a kin-slayer,” Fingon replied him.
Celegorm’s half-placid look became as dark and dreadful as a storm on the sea. He gathered his brother to his chest. “Shut your mouth or I will! You are already both, kinsman, or it was something other than the blood of Teleri I remember splattered on your face at the shore, and smeared across the lips when you willingly received an unholy kiss. I am surprised to see how many have forgotten that,” he said, and that last word to all the room around him, as his voice had risen higher and higher as he spoke. “Too good for us now because you gave no oath to break! I will take my brother to bed to rest; wait for me, red-handed hypocrite, and I will return to repay him.”
So Celegorm left, carrying Curufin with him. Fingon watched his strong back retreating and felt the cuts on his chest and thigh and right hand. He swallowed.
“Finrod,” he said.
Finrod silently filled up Fingon’s cup of wine. As he did, Fingon searched the room until he saw the face of one he knew to be a fine hunter. “Take your bow and an arrow and go out,” he demanded, “and whatever animal you first find, be it a kitchen hen or a wild sparrow or a hare or a deer, whatever animal you see unless it is a horse slay it immediately and then bring the corpse to Curfin’s bed, wherever they lay him. Then give it to him and tell him that his contest is ended according to his request; with death.”
The hunter retrieved his bow and hurried off. Fingon turned around to see if Finrod had his wine ready and then accepted the goblet gratefully.
“Would you like to be bleeding less, cousin?” Finrod asked as Fingon drank.
He swallowed. “No.”
“Let none accuse you of not winning honestly?”
Fingon hummed, and returned to his cup.
Finrod sighed. Fingon finally looked at him, and was met with a lovely, composed expression of beatific derision.
“Kinsman,” Finrod said fondly. “If you survive this, it will indeed convince everyone that you have no equal and may as well be king.”
“How grateful I am to have your confidence,” said Fingon, with equal fondness. Finrod retrieved his cup and left.
“Speaking of,” sighed an even, dour voice. “I did love Tyelko’s assertion that he would be back to set Fingon straight. Surely there isn’t anyone he might be skipping over.”
Caranthir, gilt fingers still clutched around a gleaming crystal glass, stood staring unamused at the portal through which his brothers had disappeared. His long, black hair was tossed over his shoulder, studded with garnets throughout; a black, feathered robe pinned to his shoulders covered equally encrusted finery.
“I think he presumes you’ll abstain,” Fingon replied. They all knew Caranthir’s private and withdrawn personality, so Celegorm’s assumption was not entirely unreasonable. “To that I will say that I would accept abstention without comment.”
“I find it hard to ignore the exact terms of an agreement once they’re laid down,” Caranthir said, one nail tapping on his glass. “We were told to bring our grievances to force now if we have ever complained about your position as crown prince, and, well…” he trailed off with a sigh, splaying both palms, one still holding the crystal glass, clutched in two claw-like fingers. “I have.”
“Then,” Fingon said, “Morifinwe Carnistir, do you accept my challenge?”
“I do,” said Caranthir, “but you can change your clothes first.”
Fingon did change out of the cut-up clothing, much disappointing the tailor who had made the coronation outfit which had just been destroyed. He was thrown into plain clothes and told to get out. He still did not have his wounds healed, but he consented to have them bound.
When he returned, he saw that Finrod was now absent, but Finduilas and Galadriel were still in each other’s council. Quite happy to be so, he assumed, after so much time apart—or had they even met before? He was not sure. Of his own people some had left but more than them had gathered; those who had been in quieter halls and lonelier vigils through the final night of mourning had evidently heard there was something worth seeing in the main hall.
Of his cousins on Queen Miriel’s side, the eldest two had still not moved, seated by the now-smoldering fire. None of the three who had left had yet returned but Caranthir stood waiting, dressed down only as much as necessary—that it, he had handed his earrings to Maglor—and was holding two staves of wood, each not quite the length of a grown man, and was speaking it seemed with much interest to two young men that stood with rapt attention before him. These were Hurin and Huor, Galdor’s sons, who always encouraged his sons to learn freely from their allies among the Eldar, as his own father had.
That the boys were looking up at Caranthir with absolute awe was not a surprise. Edain children loved violence. That Caranthir was listening to their questions and returning answers with so much patience and consideration was more of a surprise. In Fingon’s memory, Feanor’s grimmest was as distrustful of other peoples as his own father had been.
Perhaps that had changed. He wouldn’t be the only one who had. As Fingon approached, Caranthir nodded at him, but turned back to Hurin, who was still speaking.
Caranthir answered a question that Fingon had only half-heard gravely: “No, though fain I am that it would be otherwise. But your patience, young prince; our host has returned.”
“No, they need not go, except far enough that they might not be accidentally injured, Fingon replied. “These are the sons of the house of Hador, and we count them among our own.”
“This I know,” Caranthir replied, “for they introduced themselves properly. But I knew before they did that through their mother they are of the house of Haleth, who are still under my protection, scattered as they now are.”
“So they are. I had nearly forgotten,” Fingon admitted. “Stay or go as you both will, men, as long as you please. Learn what you will of us, as long as it is not kin-strife you learn.”
“Do you think they will never have need of it? This is not the land of bliss we live in, and besides we both know that sometimes you must finish strife you did not begin. But I asked them to stay because they have lent us their training-staves.”
“Is that it?” said Fingon, and as he reached out he was handed one. It was just as it had looked, nothing but simple wood, smoothed and varnished over enough to be gripped safely. “Your choice, Caranthir?”
“What did my brother say? ‘No mannish weapons for me?’ Well, for me, no thirsty blades. If I become a king it will not be over your corpse,” he said matter-of-factly. His voice was dry, without sentimentality, but honest.
Fingon looked at his cousin, and then over to where Maglor and Maedhros sat. “Did you replace Caranthir while I was elsewhere?”
Maedhros huffed. Maglor replied, “I have wondered the same.”
A slight annoyance colored Caranthir’s face. “I admit to having spent little time with my kin as of late. I have been among the Haladin instead, and other peoples of the secondborn. The purpose of these,” he said, lifting up the staff he held to observe its simple curve, “is to teach mere children to fight, something which Eldar would never do. For men it is necessary; a man has only seventy or eighty years, and that if he is fortunate. They need even their children to know how to take arms and defend themselves, but you cannot simply attack a child with a blade. To train them safely, they make these.”
“I have seen the young men with them! I thought they were meant to sate the love of fighting inborn in their boys,” he said, with a teasing glance at Galdor’s sons.
Still at polite attention to the adults, and without looking at him, Huor smacked his brother on the side of his head. Hurin returned the strike, playfully, with a smile.
Casual fighting, even done with such fondness, would have been known among the children born to the Eldar in deathless Aman. Yet both Fingon and Caranthir smiled to see it.
“Back up some paces, then,” Fingon asked them. They did not go far; their father approached as Fingon and Caranthir returned their attention to each other, and out of the corner of his eye Fingon saw Galdor tousle Hurin’s hair.
It was hard for Fingon to think of even Galdor as anything but a smiling trouble-maker at Hador’s knee.
“When you live among men, you live two lifetimes in a hundred years,” Caranthir said, so quietly that only Fingon might hear it.
After a moment of surprise, Fingon said, “You spoke my thought.”
Caranthir hummed. He turned so that he was fully facing Fingon. “I will follow the same tradition that was taught to me by the ancestors of these boys, which is a practice better suited for leaving both combatants alive. These weapons cannot cut, so a glancing strike will not wound. We count to three strikes significant enough to leave a bruising mark, and whoever has three marks first has lost.”
This was of more concern to Fingon than the last challenge, as he had practically never noticed getting a bruise but would pay some attention to being skewered. Still, “Very well. We begin at your word.”
“Then we begin,” said Caranthir, and like a bird thrashing its wings he snapped the staff into his hands and held it across his body at arm’s length. “I don’t dislike you, cousin; I don’t like you in particular. Pretending I would gladly follow you as my king, however, would be dishonest. I have never been a good liar.”
With that, he approached Fingon, neither stalking nor leaping into the fray but stepping with quiet purpose the few quick strides it took to get close enough to Fingon to strike at him.
Caranthir moved the staff to one hand and swiped one end toward Fingon. Unsure what his goal was, Fingon stayed braced to defend; the staff was snapped into Caranthir’s other hand, and turned. Then, with a deftness so fast Fingon barely caught it, Caranthir let the shaft of the weapon run through the palm of his hand so that he suddenly had twice the reach. One blunt end cracked against the fingers that Curufin had already cut, so hard that Fingon nearly dropped his own weapon.
Then Caranthir stepped back. He turned his staff in his hand nearly lazily. “One,” he said, and stepped forward again.
He was right. That had certainly hurt enough to bruise and likely would. He had to take the time to brace himself again and was nearly unprepared when Caranthir came close to him again, now aiming low. Fingon blocked it once, twice, but the nature of the ‘harmless’ weapon Caranthir had chosen was that it was light and double-sided, and within half a second of one side striking, the other side could come around and strike again. Despite his efforts and just a second too slow, Fingon took a solid strike to his thigh, where the wound Curufin opened had just been bandaged.
Caranthir leapt nimbly back and, returning the staff to his back-hand, said, “two.”
Right again. That certainly would bruise, in fact it was already seeping blood into the fresh bandages again. Fingon breathed out his pain and prepared.
Caranthir’s grim face betrayed neither anxiety nor excitement. He turned the staff around in his hand once and then approached again.
Fingon watched his approach and saw that as he already had presumed, Caranthir could not resist swinging at the third wound his younger brother had dealt him. Indeed had left the most serious wound for last: the cut through his chest.
Fingon brought up his staff up from below to smack Caranthir’s in the air. He had not yet attacked him with serious force but did so now, and the move wrenched both of his arms into the air. Next, he rapidly smacked the blunt end of the weapon into Caranthir’s chest with the full strength of his arm, then again beneath it, and then again. The first thump had emptied Caranthir’s lungs and there was nothing he could do but stand there for the rest of them.
Fingon stepped back and said, “three.”
Caranthir made the sort of noise one makes when their lungs have been forcibly flattered and they need to fix that. He turned around and coughed into his hand. Then he turned back around, eyes downcast, and stiffly nodded. He gestured to Hurin, who approached after a moment of hesitation.
As Caranthir handed the staff back to its owner, Fingon said, “I don’t dislike you, cousin. I never did. I know you prefer privacy and I respect that. By my reckoning you always ruled your princedom well and I do not have any desire to intrude on that.”
“...I thank you,” Caranthir grumbled, clearly embarrassed.
Fingon would have been embarrassed to be defeated in ten seconds too (considering he nearly was). As Hurin approached him, he handed off his weapon as well. “Go then in peace.”
“I do prefer to,” Caranthir sighed.
As he turned and walked back to where his elder brothers sat, Fingon saw that while Caranthir had had his focus, Celegorm had returned. He stood with his back to the fire, his arms crossed, and his eyes on Fingon. He had taken the time to arm himself in a half-dozen different ways, which was his typical preference.
Maglor gently grabbed Caranthir’s forearm and squeezed it as he approached. Caranthir did not seem to react to it, but settled down into a chair across from him with a visible wince. Maglor stood up to fuss over him as Celegorm began his slow, lazy lope over to where Fingon stood.
Fingon took a quick glance at the Edain boys, but they had already backed off. He could not resist a look at Maedhros, who was watching Fingon himself. He had his carefully composed expression on his face, the one he wore when he felt that the reaction he was having to the situation around him did not quite fit it.
Celegorm stopped in front of Fingon.
“I believe it goes without asking,” Fingon said, “but do you accept my challenge, Turkafinwe Tyelkormo?”
Celegorm smiled. “I do.”
“Then let me have a drink,” Fingon replied, and, forgetting Finrod had left, began to ask for him again. He got a syllable in and jolted. Standing nearly at his elbow was Galadriel, who had approached with the grace and silence of a falling leaf, a golden goblet in her hand and an enigmatic smile on her lovely face.
“Here you are,” she said.
“My thanks,” Fingon replied. He lifted the goblet; Finrod had been pouring him red wine, but Galadriel had brought him golden mead. He watched it swirl in the golden mouth of the goblet for a second, distracted by the shimmer. “I do not know if I want to be mead-headed now.”
“You were already wine-drunk,” she teased (or admonished) him. “It seems to not have diminished you.”
“Light drunkenness is sometimes the best choice for the task at hand,” Fingon decided, and drank some of it. It was well-brewed and aged, sharper than sweet, with a taste of a spice he did not know in his undercurrent. “You brought this with you from Doriath,” he noted.
“I did.”
“And why did you not bring anything else from Doriath?” he asked. “We would all like to meet the one who gave you those rings.”
Galadriel smilingly retook the cup from him. “You do not.”
“Or he does not want to meet us! I will leave it. I see you chose to stay when your brother chose to leave, little cousin. Are we amusing you?”
“I couldn’t be amused by such a wanton display of violence.”
“Of course not. Are you keeping an eye on us instead, then?”
“Not to the things which I see now,” she said, a fog coming into her eyes as thes traced lower, slipping to the side. “But to the things they presage.”
“You have great foresight,” Fingon recalled, dropping his voice. “What do you see, Galadriel? I would know what is ahead for me, if I am indeed to become the protector of so many in this so vulnerable kingdom.”
“Have you no sight yourself?”
“That great gift prefers nissi. I have been called a nis before, but I certainly have not enjoyed all the benefits of it. Does your wisdom give us any advice for what to do?”
“I see a very dark night ahead,” Galadriel said frankly, “but a slow and star-white dawn at the end of it. No more will I say, for fear of risking that new day, not even if it would change your fate. I can say that Celegorm is growing impatient,” she said, casting her glance at the Elda that stood across from them.
“By your leave, Galadriel,” he responded to her.
“I take mine,” she laughed, and with her goblet of mead tripped back away to Finduilas.
Fingon did not know how to interpret her half-telling, but did not find any interpretation he could think of as comforting. It seemed he was in for a hard road whether he won the contest he had set for himself tonight or not. But then, he had not expected anything different.
For a moment, he missed his father so terribly. Then he swallowed his grief and faced his cousin.
Celegorm was smiling at him with a smile that could not have been more unlike Galadriel’s.
Fingon remembered some of his older cousins being at least young adults, still establishing themselves, but Fingon had grown up during Celegorm’s long apprenticeship to the great hunter, the Vala Orome, and had not even met him until that indenture ended. He looked then almost exactly as he did now, just as fair and as strong and as monumentally self-assured, only with fewer scars.
He had always been impressive. Fingon would hunt for a less grandiose word but that one applied perfectly well. The Elda who stood before him was one who could easily take down a skilled warrior with any one of the weapons he wore, and more now than ever carried the impression that he would on his broad shoulders.
“Very well,” Fingon addressed him, “how will this contest be decided?”
Celegorm put one hand on the hilt of his sword, but did not draw it. “Little kinsman! If only you were fresh to the fight. It does not please me to see you already battered and worn. Some might say my victory had been won by attrition and not purely my own merits.”
“Some might say so,” Fingon admitted. “I find that tongues wag no matter what one does.”
“Ha! Not that you have given them any reason to talk. I spent long tree-years perfecting my skills in both combat and the hunt; I can fight you with any weapon I wield or which could be procured for me. But while there are many I like, there is one I favor in particular. Which is it?”
“The bow. There is no one who does not know that; of all the followers Orome trained, you are perhaps the finest with a bow and the keenest hunter of wild game.”
A smile broke onto Celegorm’s face. “So I am! And all the better that you are not a poor shot yourself, and that victory will not depend on simply beating you down. I would like to give you the best chance you can have.” Then he turned to address some of his people, who stood not far away. “Retrieve three of the small tables, and on them place targets for archery! Make the targets very small, there are no amateurs here.”
Fingon nodded, and asked of one of his own, “My bow then, and my quiver.”
Preparations for the impromptu contest were made quickly. Three small hardwood tables were braced on their sides so that their surfaces faced the princes, and targets only a hand-span across, with a center point barely a fingernail in width, were drawn in the center of each.
“Three shots, then? One each?” Fingon asked.
“Just so. We will take turns at one target, then the next, then the last; highest score overall wins. Simple, yes, but then it should be simple for as practiced an archer as yourself.”
Fingon was a practiced archer, but Celegorm was still mocking him. Even an expert was beneath the knowledge and skill that Celegorm had had bestowed upon him by his divine teacher. Fingon braced his shoulders. “Shall you go first, or I?”
“You, and at your will,” Celegorm said. “Get all of you out of the way! Neither of us shall miss the targets, but you still do not want to catch an arrow nonetheless, nor will I forgive any who tries to interfere.”
The way was quickly cleared. Fingon put his quiver on his hip and took his bow in hand. Steadying his breathing, he asked, “And what is the appeal to you, while we’re at it? Are you more interested in gaining a crown for yourself or in removing one from me?”
“Ha! Both appeal. You are hardly a despicable prince, Fingon, better than many who have tried and failed to lead. But High King? I couldn’t take you seriously.”
“Why not? The difference in our ages?”
“You know why not.”
Fingon looked not at Celegorm, but at the target. He had not moved to pick an arrow yet. “Of all things. Saving him would have won me untold thanks and respect, I assume, if only I had not loved him.”
“That’s now how I would say it.”
“How would you say it?”
“You are like a little sister, Astaldo,” Celegorm teased unkindly.
“He’s your older brother, you should call me older sister,” Fingon griped, and drew his arrow to the sound of Celegorm’s laughter.
“No, I do not dislike you because of that, though like I said I cannot take you seriously. If you were a competent prince who minded your own business that would be one thing. But you think you deserve kingship, and better than I do. That I cannot stand.”
Fingon did not reply immediately. He drew back his bow; he let his mind fall open and the bright clear air rush in. He felt the feather of the eagle that graced the back of his arrow. He let out his breath and enjoined it to fly once more.
The arrow struck the target and nearly unbalanced it. It stuck nearly but not quite in the centerpoint; a second-best effort. For the size of the target that was still a mean feat, but Fingon worried it would not be good enough. “I would like to argue more stridently with that assumption,” he replied.
“But you can’t,” Celegorm said, walking forth. Fingon stood to the side and Celegorm took his place in front of the target. Fingon watched him brace both feet and draw an arrow more smoothly than the dancers of Nessa could lift their heels to spin. As he pulled the taught line of his bow back, he said, “We are exactly the same as kinslayers, but you are crown prince and I am dispossessed. Why would that be easy for me to accept?”
He let the arrow loose and it all but appeared in the board, nearly as perfect a bulls-eye as could be.
“Think on it,” Celegorm continued, his voice now suffused with the simmering resentment and malice that it had had when he carried Curufin out, upon which he had only placed a jovial cover. “If after we rejoined each other on this continent it had been decided that the elder line was still superior and yours was disowned for your actions, even though I had as much blood on my hands as you, would you accept that without complaint?”
He lowered his bow. He observed his perfect shot without a flicker of joy on his face, and stepped back to let Fingon take the next target. The murmurs of approval around him seemed to not reach his ears.
Fingon replied him, “I have wronged the Teleri as you have, and would certainly not expect to be crowned king by them. You and yours were dispossessed for betraying your own. You burnt the ships that I, as you mentioned, helped steal with you, and left me and mine stranded in the land where we were doomed by the very Powers. Of course one who betrays his own will not be their king.”
He stepped past Celegorm to take his place at the next target. “If my siblings had ever argued my position as crown prince, or Finarfin’s sons challenged me for it on grounds that my hands were too dirty to hold it, I would have taken them seriously and perhaps acquiesced. But they did not. I am even giving you your chance now, despite it being decided already that you are unfit, so tell me how I have wronged you.”
He drew back his second arrow to the sound of prickling silence. “And before you say that there is one of your own who did not participate in that betrayal, I recall, and so does he.”
He let that arrow go, and felt even in its departure that it was a fine hit. It hit the center, very near the center, inside the innermost line.
He breathed out. He heard some scattered applause around the room but did not let himself feel relief. He turned to Celegorm, who had the expression of a hunting wolf on his fine face.
Celegorm had always been impressive. Fingon did not remember him being this unsettling.
“In this,” he finally said, his voice as low as smoldering embers, “that circumstance and mere public opinion has put you high and laid me low, when all is the result of strife we put our hands in equally.”
“Do you think I did that?” Fingon asked him. “Am I the origin of these things? If I were you, I might consider another culprit.”
Celegorm began to approach him, and Fingon moved out of his way, mostly out of necessity but not entirely devoid of fear. Celegorm took his place, pulled an arrow, drew, and hit another bullseye so perfect it was as though he grew the arrow out of the target.
I may lose the crown through an archery contest, Fingon thought, and missed his father very badly.
Stifled shouts scattered around the room. He was not the only one who had just thought that. Celegorm said, his voice low, “striking these dead trees is as close as I could get to venting anger on such a culprit, long-dead. I am not stupid and I have not taken leave of my senses. I know that some who deserved retribution died without receiving it. But there is something to be said for correcting old wrongs. Like a superior line being supplanted.”
“You are a fantastic shot,” Fingon said.
“Ha. I know,” Celegorm smugly replied.
Fingon took a steadying breath that did not quite work. He resisted calling for a drink again. “I would not blame you for your father’s wrongs if you had not participated in them.”
“So fair! So kind. If Good King Nolofinwe demanded it of you, would you have refused? And if you had stood aside and your little brothers all taken up the torch, what next? Your reasoning on the matter may be sound, but it is not like having been there.”
The deeper they delved into the memory of the ships, the closer they got to the memory of Amrod’s death. Its proximity made his cousins somewhat unreasonable, and he couldn’t blame them for that. Part of the reason he and his father had been so unreasonable in the initial negotiations with Maglor in Hithlum was because they had just lost Argon.
Though the drift of Celegorm’s argument, if he understood it, was one that Maedhros had made to him many times: Fingon just did not and could not understand what being Feanor’s son was like. Slowly darkening decades in Formenos, each year more isolated from the world outside, as letters from former friends dwindled and his father’s panics and rages became more frequent. Even their mother fled back to her own father’s house and the very Valar were barred from entering the door, and the cold fortress was warmed by the unceasing roar of the forge, spawning weapons of war.
No, Fingon did not understand. He would argue, and vociferously, against anyone who said that his father had not been a good one (not that any would). For Maedhros, the argument was in himself, stuck and ever-cycling. “If your argument is that some are blessed by the Powers even at birth and some are denied those blessings, I cannot disagree. I have seen too many born to nothing but ill fate and punishment. Your very lineage dealt you punishment that I avoided simply by being born to an inferior line. Of course I did not deserve that, nor you.”
But even though Fingon had meant to sympathize, and even though Celegorm had nearly voiced it himself, the suggestion that being born to Feanor had been a curse and that Fingon controversy had been blessed was too much for him to take. His face blanked out and then was illuminated like the unholy glow of the eclipse of the sun.
“Take your third shot, son of Nolofinwe,” he said, with teeth behind his words. “And perhaps it will be your final shot as well.”
Fingon approached the place where he could shoot the third target with no small amount of fear. He heard the voices of his people, whispering around him, which he had blocked out before. The target stood across the hall; for him to win the contest, he would have to make a perfect shot and then Celegorm one significantly worse than his. That would be the only way his point total would be higher in the end.
He could not control how Celegorm shot. He would not even entertain the thought of sabotaging it. The only thing he could control was his own actions, and he had put the work of centuries into self-control. He took in a heavy breath, and held it, letting the air circle in his lungs, in his head. He felt its cycling course, and he felt the golden eagle feathers that lined the backs of his arrows. His fingers found one and he nocked it to his bow.
He pulled back the horsehair thread and opened his eyes. As he breathed out that heavy breath, he called, “Manwe Sulimo, guide my arrow,” and let go.
The arrow flew like the eagle that had given it its plumage. A bulls-eye, and a good one. He had done what he could.
He turned to Celegorm.
Celegorm was standing still. He was not looking at Fingon. His eyes were on the target, but he did not seem to be looking at that, either.
He did not say anything. Fingon backed away from the point where he could shoot, and still Celegorm did not say anything.
He watched Celegorm take the spot where he had just stood, but it was though Celegorm no longer saw or heard him. His eyes flickered, but at what? Fingon’s shot had been good, but no better than Celegorm’s would be, with his Vala-trained reflexes, still as strong and precise as they had ever been, even after he had forsworn–
A cold chill washed over Fingon. Not fear, now, but pity.
Celegorm licked his lips. He pulled an arrow and nocked it. He pulled his bowstring back. Fingon watched him open his mouth, and close it. He opened it again, and tried to speak. He tried again, his throat pulsing.
Fingon could not prove Manwe had just guided his own arrow, but the King of Valar had done the same for him before. It was known by all that Manwe favored Fingon, even beyond sense.
Celegorm’s right hand shook, almost imperceptibly. Then, in a sudden rush of movement, he snatched the arrow back off of his bow, returned it to the quiver, and returned his bow to his back. “You win,” he said.
“Kinsman–”
“You win,” Celegorm shouted, and stalked to Maedhros’ place by the fire. “Give me that,” Fingon heard him say, and then he picked up Maedhros’ drink and began to swill it.
Maedhros looked up at him with a look that Fingon could feel from where he stood. “Celegorm.”
Celegorm shuddered, swallowed, and set the cup down. He closed his eyes and crossed his arms. He stood in front of Maedhros, and Fingon could tell they were speaking in osanwe. Maedhros looked severe. Fingon saw Celegorm tighten his grip on his own arms. He doubted Maedhros was actually chastising him, but there were times that having a regular conversation with Maedhros could be just as bad.
Fingon had won, and the arrows were being pulled from the tables and the tables returned to their proper position. He did not feel pleased with his victory, as much as he was grateful for it.
He had not known that Celegorm could not call on Orome anymore, and he had not intended to expose that weakness.
This time, he felt it when Galadriel appeared at his arm. “A drink, then?” she asked lightly.
“Thank you,” Fingon said, accepting the cup. He drank once, and then said, quietly enough that only Galadriel might hear him, “that is a son of Feanor.”
“Are they not all?” she asked.
“They are. He would be proud of that one,” he said, and drank again. “Is he not being hosted by your brother?”
“He is, and Curufin as well.”
“Do you—”
“Which is where my brother is now,” she said, uncommonly interrupting him before he could ask a question, “looking over him. My brother has many strengths, but his weakness, I think, is his fear of loss. Not his compassion, as some might say, but that he refuses to let reason and resolve temper it, and placates troublemakers instead of confronting them, afraid to lose yet more.”
“...I feel that is an odd thing to say for me, unless you are simply tired of your brother and want to complain about him to someone,” Fingon noted.
Galadriel smiled. “He has been trying, but I consider that my fault for being, though unintentionally, another one to abandon him. How foolish we have been to do this everywhere we go, split kin from kin to rule isolated mountains behind stone walls. You might wonder if you could fall for the same traps my brother has, even with due warning.”
Fingon looked again at Maedhros, his starless eyes, his grim-set mouth. His grip on the goblet grew soft.
Galadriel took it back from him.
Her meaning had not been lost on him. He was not sure yet what to say, or if to say anything. But as he looked on at Maedhros he became aware that he was being looked back on.
He shifted his gaze only slightly to meet Maglor’s.
That son of Feanor still had the starlight in his eyes. Unlike his scarred elder, he still had a face like a maia and hair which rippled like a waterfall behind him as well. His ankles were crossed, and his chin rested not on but directly above his posed hand, which was dripping with glimmering rings.
When he caught Fingon’s eyes, he lowered that jewel-clad hand to the arm of his chair, and stood, fluid and feline as creeping mist.
“Good luck to you,” said Galadriel at Fingon’s side, a smile under her voice.
Fingon hummed.
“Before this point, you were dueling princes,” Galadriel continued. “But now…” and trailing off her speech, she walked away.
Maglor put one ankle behind the other, and stiffly bowed, not taking his glimmering eyes from Fingon’s face.
Fingon returned the bow, perhaps not as artfully. “Kanafinwe Makalaure,” he addressed him, “do you accept my challenge?”
In a voice that was quiet, but nonetheless slithered all around the room like the winding wander of a snake, he said, “I do.”
In general, though the host of people watching what had transpired so far had been attentive but quiet, Maglor’s announcement that he accepted Fingon’s proposition caused a ruckus. The tables and chairs that had been removed from the hall after dinner was over were being pulled back in for seating space, and voices that had been politely lowered before were rising.
The fact that Celegorm had given him a fight worthy of the prize already had people on edge. But Maglor was not a grumbling prince chafing at someone else’s ascension with quibbles about lineage and personal history. For a not insignificant number of Eldar in that room that day, Maglor had been their King, and when he abdicated it had not been to Fingon’s line. Fingon had long been aware that Maglor harbored some private resentment over the choice which he had been too polite (or perhaps too deft) to ever publicly voice.
It had been guilt that had kept Maglor from protesting much in the fraught days after Maedhros’ return. Fingon recalled very well the discussions he and Maglor had had over Maedhros’ exhausted, shivering body, while he had nightmares and shuddered and spoke twisted tongues. In those tear-stained conversations, the two had been the closest they had ever been. It had also been, he thought, the time he had most ardently loved Maglor, but he had always had a weakness for both guilt and grief. Some earned their greatest joys from nurture, and some from acclaim; Fingon had accepted he had been made for rescue, and was consequently drawn to traps, always hoping to find someone shut inside.
But guilt’s blades dulled with time, albeit slowly. Maedhros had been rescued and recovered and Maglor’s eyes did not hold silver tears now. Known for his eloquence, he stood and regarded Fingon silently, as the noise of the newly energized crowd rose and faded around them.
He curled the fingers of his right hand under his chin, then lifted it to look down. All voices sank and all eyes looked to him. With a simple clutch of his hand, Fingon was on Maglor’s stage now.
“I would have you restate the terms of this contest,” Maglor began.
For the dramatic effect, Fingon assumed. “I shall, and without change from how I stated them at first, unless it be in exact phrasing. If you can best me in a fight, with the conditions of both the contest and the victory being your choice, you will win the crown and position of High King of the Noldor.”
“And why would you make such an offer?” he asked.
“I shall restate as before. Because I know that you and your brothers have grumbled that I do not deserve the position, and that it should have remained with your line. I detest this grumbling because it is under-handed and seditious, dangerous to keeping our kingdom harmonious and prosperous. I would rather have it out and put these grievances to rest. I do not even ask that you accept me fully, only that you stop muttering about my position if you cannot fairly win it.”
“Why should I accept the terms of this arrangement?” Maglor wondered. “Why should I fight you for the crown when you could simply offer it back to me, and avoid the fighting?”
“Then I will state plainly: I was the declared successor of the last High King, my father Fingolfin. He was the declared successor of the one before him, King Maedhros, and he the declared successor of the one before him, which was you. The line of succession is thus whole and unbroken with me. Your acceptance of this challenge represents you going back on your word, freely given, and that is a position that you must defend. There is no need for me to accept it unquestioning. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.”
“Let me make sure I do understand one more thing rightly: you do want to be High King?”
“Yes,” replied Fingon, unhesitating.
Maglor’s eyebrows rose. Fingon could tell that was not precisely the response he had expected. Perhaps he had been hoping for uncertainty he could exploit. Fingon merely held his gaze.
“…You were ever power-hungry in your youth,” Maglor continued, his voice expanding into a darker dimension. “Your defenders claim that after your ‘mistake’ at Alqualonde, you learned humility and reformed, and now seek not glory for yourself but prosperity for our people. But I remember Fingon as he once was; blatantly divisive, driving wedges between kin and kin as he sought to debate and discredit what was then the line of succession chosen by High King Finwe himself, worming his way into the good graces of some and undermining others, seeking acclaim for himself and his line and deliberately against his more-favored uncle. You are no different now than you were then, except that in having achieved your goals, or nearly, you can afford to appear magnanimous. Were you still fairly challenged, you would have yet the same conniving and wickedness.”
With this speech Maglor had gotten closer to pricking at the needles that were truly stuck in Fingon’s heart than any of his brothers had, the whispers that sometimes crowded his ears at night. Because in the aftermath of Alqualonde and alone on the stinging ice of the Helcaraxe, surrounded by those who now saw his hunger for power and control revealed in bloodthirsty kinslaying, alone in the howling gale, he had seen himself plainly and hated him.
He had killed to defend his friend, yes, but he had been becoming a person who would do that his entire life. He had always resented his lack of power and inferior position. He had always secretly considered his line superior and felt that his good father deserved more acclaim than his mad uncle. He had wanted control and he had wanted respect and he had wanted everyone to shut up and listen to him. He had, in the end, been willing to kill for his convictions.
Such haunts could have, in some situations, pinched his tongue. Fortunately, Fingon was a little drunk. “You remember right, cousin, and just as I remember it,” he replied. “I regret who I was and many of the things I did. I regret the strife and the arguing, even the things I was partly right about, but I cannot and will not regret the— worming, as you so evocatively put it. I have loved each of you at least partly and some of you very well. Denounce that if you want.”
Maglor flushed with anger. “And this is who you have always been! A creature of lust, lust for power and lust of the most base kind, and unapologetic for it. I cannot endure it, I cannot be quiet anymore, even out of love. This is the worm that I myself saw take my brother as wife as if he were a nis after his rescue, indeed even as the wound of the hand he had cut from him was still sore, and who then convinced him to give up his claim on the crown. Yes, of course I have always known, and kept silent; I have loved you too and earnestly, for all it has won me. And earnestly did I accept the love you had for each other until it coincidentally cost Maedhros his crown, his pride, and his heart.”
The room was silent.
Fingon, at this point, did not think it a very well-kept secret. Among close kin, everyone knew. His household, the dear ones he kept with him, or course knew, and he would be shocked if all of Himring did not (considering the sort of conduct considered ‘average’ in Himring). It was perhaps less ‘secret’ among the sort of people gathered in this hall and more ‘unproven.’ But it was one thing to suspect and ignore that Fingon and his cousin Maedhros might have a passionate affection for each other. To hear it said in such a way was another.
Fingon grit his teeth, half-cooled his anger, and regrettably said, “You are truly too sentimental about your brother if you think that was my idea and not his.”
Maedhros, who was still seated in his comfortable armchair by his warm fire, and through all things before had acted completely unaffected, suddenly burst into laughter.
Fingon covered his mouth. He could not smile. Maedhros buckled forward so that his red hair fell over his face. His broken throat turned his raucous belly-laugh into bursts of crackled cackles. Riven through with pain, like the rest of him was, but still bursting with joy like a flock of birds leaping into the sky.
Fingon failed. He kept his mouth covered, but his smile, he knew, was glimmering in his eyes. Oh, he had to chastise Maedhros; if he didn’t, Maglor’s point was proven, for it was altogether too obvious that the princes of the sundered family branches had made deals that affected all of them over pillows and under bedsheets.
But he couldn’t. Maedhros’ laughter made him smile, and his heart fluttered. Besides, from someone who had approved clandestinely of the relationship for hundreds of years with circumspect avoidance of the topic and providing alibis when necessary, this sudden denunciation was rich.
As if Maglor were not between them, Fingon opened osanwe with Maedhros, saying, I told you it was too soon! I told you we should wait until you had at least stopped bleeding!! But no.
But I was going to die, Maedhros reminded him, fey and sing-song. Don’t you remember? I distinctly told you I would die if we did not make love.
The Valar alone know what world of peace and harmony we might all be living in now if you were less convincing, Fingon replied him, but that was how they often spoke to each other, so all Maedhros did was laugh some more.
Perhaps, if they had waited for him to stop laughing, Maedhros might have said something to Maglor to soothe him. Maglor did not wait for that. He raised one arm into the air and his other hand behind his back, and then with a snap untied and brought to bear the one weapon with which he was always armed: his harp.
“A contest of battle-song,” he said. “Whoever falters in his song first is the loser, and the one who still sings is the king.”
Fingon’s stifled chuckles extinguished and came out in a heavy sigh. “I did not think you would pick anything else! My harp, please, and perhaps I should have some water, loath as I am to admit it.”
Why would Maglor pick anything else? Yes, he was as good with a blade as anyone here, and half as good at archery too, but who could beat him in a battle of sharpened song? Perhaps only that lauded hero who had sung his way through the land of the Enemy to steal his prized captive.
He glanced at Maedhros. In good spirits, now, Maedhros had returned to his drinking and was not visibly paying attention to the contest about to begin. Fingon also put him out of his mind for the moment. He would need to focus on his very worthy opponent.
Maglor replied, “You cannot be made to feel shame! But in the act of song, no one can speak against his heart. I will at least hear you honest.”
“I have been honest all along; much to my own detriment, as has been proven continuously today.”
“So you will claim that it was genuine love, then, that inspired you to take every action you would have to take to disinherit my brother and put yourself in his place?”
“I have always claimed so, though shut my mouth against my will when anyone was too offended by the topic to hear it. Whether you believe me is up to you. You claim to have loved me as well; are you a liar yourself, or like to give your love to the sort of creature you accuse me of being?”
Maglor did not respond immediately. He put his hand to the strings of his harp and played a first testing, tuning arpeggio. “Perhaps both! It seems high time to let our hearts speak instead.”
Maglor’s face turned melancholy, and Fingon found himself even less willing to question him than when he had been sharp.
Fingon’s harp was brought, and he set to tuning it, but truly he was focused on retuning himself, setting his thoughts to the notes as he played them and compared them to each other.
Maglor had shaken him. He was trying not to show it, but his fea was ill at ease, uncomfortably squirming inside him. The court had always politely ignored his suspect closeness to Maedhros because it was very useful in keeping the peace. His father had always had enough to handle without the ever-crouching threat of Feanor’s sons revolting, but they would not as long as they respected Maedhros, and they knew the bond between Maedhros and Fingon could not be tested or twisted, and no one would grumble too much about it on one side or the other as long as they knew such talk would offend both of them, and all of this was fine as long as no one said anything about how effusive the affection between the crown prince and the lord of Himring was.
Equally, there were few things with the power to discontent him like remembering those dark days, those bitter-cold days on the Helcaraxe, before he was called Astaldo and after everyone who used to call him Kano lost the ability or willpower to look him in the eye. Colder than the biting wind was the withdrawal of everyone who once trusted him with their confidence, and colder even than that was the knowledge that everyone who had committed the crime with him had slammed the door shut on him behind them, and coldest of all being stuck with himself and who he really was. He was left with the cries of the Teleri in his ears and very little else.
Maglor was right that the truth came out in songs of power. If you tried to use your song to wound someone you didn’t really want to hurt, it would sink like a stone before it touched them. If you tried to heal but did not really will it, it would slip off of flesh like water. He had to sincerely prepare himself to fight Maglor, because if his heart was not in it, he would fail.
To that end he did not focus on Maglor’s convoluted ire but banished it from his head, and instead remembered the times he had been forgiven. Aredhel holding his face and saying she understood why he had done it, and even that she might have done the same. Finrod taking his freezing hands in his own and breathing in a deep breath and telling him that he knew Fingon was better than what he had done. Elenwe placing Idril in his arms, because she had missed her uncle, even though Elenwe was not yet herself comfortable around him again. Turgon telling him that he could not ignore it, but he could not ignore all the work he had done to put it right either. Above all others his father, who had never said a word but had put out his hand to pick him up, over and over, and twined their palms together even with the blood still on them. Who had asked Fingon’s forgiveness for driving him away, condemning his hot-bloodedness instead of working with him, who had told him before his final battle that he had never imagined anyone but Fingon would take after him and could not imagine who would better serve.
“I do not know anyone else so determined to do good for his people,” he had said, the thinness of death already coming into his voice, even before he rode away. “Very few even think about it. Perhaps you have to think about being good, but you do.”
To that end, he found he didn’t really care what Maglor thought; he was not getting any crown.
Fingon tugged the final string into place and confirmed its harmony with one more testing chord. “As you will, cousin,” he said.
Maglor was looking at him with only the residue of his earlier rage; he, too, had begun to work idle chords and arpeggios, and the pleasing notes were already taking more attention from him than his unhappiness. Maglor’s music had so much power, Fingon thought, because it and he were equally enamored of each other. When he began in earnest, for a second, Fingon was as enamored himself, and forgot himself.
Maglor’s music began with a strong, clear note that slowly meandered down, and around, and swooped; he sang a prologue, of the tips of spears in rows like stars, the stamping hooves of horses and the fluttering of banners, an army at wait, the hush of the near-dawn. He did not even sing power into his voice to begin with. There was only his own skill at music and wordplay, but it could still be said that he stirred impatience to fight into Fingon’s blood.
Maglor finished his prologue, which had been brief, only a single verse. Each of the few words had been well-picked and their combined effect left a lingering glissando shimmering in the air. Before the uncompleted chord he had ended on could fully dissolve, Fingon picked it up with a slightly strange transposition and responded. He matched him beat for beat, singing an opposing force, well-arrayed, their hounds at their side and their swords in their sheaths, prepared for battle but cool-headed, not likely to be taken by fury or bloodlust.
Maglor did not let a single beat pass before he responded, accepting Fingon’s new key and filling in his sparser melody with trills. He sang the noble warrior, strong-armed and keen-minded, with clear voice and hale spirit, undaunted by his foe, secure in the loyalty of his men. Still he did not put proper power into his voice, so Fingon did not go on the offensive either. He sang alike of the swift-thinking battle commander, calm and confident in the rightness of his cause, and the strong walls behind him to repel the onslaught of the enemy.
Then Maglor began to wind some power into his voice as he turned single notes into arpeggiated chords and sang the forward rush of marching men, the earth that shook as horses raced over it, and the call of the war-horn. His voice caused the floor beneath Fingon to tremble, and Fingon felt like he was holding himself back against a river pulling at his feet.
Fingon too breathed power into his voice, not with a will to harm Maglor (which he feared might fail) but with a will to stand firm against him. He sang of shields, shining in the sunlight, broad firm faces that did not crumble at the onslaught of spears. With quick plucks of his strings he made the sound of blades springing away from the solid shield-wall, and with each one felt firmer on his feet.
Snatching back the rhyme, Maglor switched it; what had been even he chopped into uneven beats, displacing him. He sang of hounds that jumped and bit with their jowls, of knives that pierced armor and peeled breastplates away, of clever blades that cleaved through steel and stone; of the breaking of battlements, the tumbling of towers. Then there was a power in Maglor’s voice that bit. Just as sure as Curufin’s blade had cut him, Maglor’s voice seared under Fingon’s skin. He had felt worse, but Maglor’s strength even in that initial attack was daunting.
Fingon put his fingers to the sharp strings and his voice to the task. He filled the room with praise of tough leather and stout stitches, the tightness and warmth of good armor, even good clothes made by a loving matron, sending aside the warrior’s blades. Against the baying of hounds that still snarled, echoing, at the feet gathered in the hall he sang the trills of birds diving down, hawks and eagles, sharp ending strikes that silenced Maglor’s lingering music.
Still, Maglor wasted no time in taking control back once Fingon’s verse was done. He sang not then of arms and armor but of the power of the earth to destroy, tidal forces that tore down towers, the crescendo cracking of the earth that crumbled cities, the surge of stormfronts that broke down trees and battered them into roads and roofs. Then there was violence in his voice. Each chord felt like a blow Fingon had to brace himself against. By the end of the verse he was more disoriented and sore than he had been even after fighting all of the rest of them. His tongue, for a moment, was stuck.
He tried his strings and changed the key again. He did not sing defense against the storm but resilience despite it, of cities that were rebuilt, and he named them too. Their golden names floated around the room, remembered by those who had remade them. He sang of perennials and evergreen trees, and of the kingdom that outlived its kings.
But Maglor replied once more with the power to destroy and Fingon was dizzied again, nearly buried under the power of his notes that built on each other like winding steps of a deep, deep dungeon. He accepted grimly that he would not win by defense and, snapping his fingers down on the strings, responded with an attack himself: lashing lightning, wrathful thunder. The windows of the great hall trembled in their panes when his voice struck them, a force that rolled around the hall.
Maglor, however, did not cower. Now that he had goaded Fingon into attacking he changed tactics. Against the thunder he sang exhaustion; against lightning, dissipation. He sang drought and cleared the sky and the air became as cold as ice. He sang the black night-sky, serene and cloudless, with the pendant moon hung on her breast; a lullaby that sighed that there was no need to fight.
Resolute, though wounded, Fingon sang of the sun rising, of the light that saw with clear penetration the deeds of the night, of the need to still strive, to be better, to fight. He sang resistance against the creeping cold, he sang the hearth-fire.
Maglor sang cold more bitter yet. Rivers frozen, the ground as hard as stone. In the hall Fingon could see the white fog streaming out of people’s lips as they breathed. He felt his own fingers on his harp growing stiff and numb.
Still he plucked strong notes, and focused on them, and made them spread like honey beneath him. He sang spring rain, and slow recovery, and patience, and hope.
Maglor, like a pillar in the thrashing air, though even his black hair whirled around him, sang of the end of all things, the white corpse, the caesura, the edge of the page. Between each of his words there was a terrible silence, and each made the next note sting in Fingon’s head, again, and again, and again. In the last line his vision went black, but still he stood, and still he could sing.
He sang about walking through even the valleys under the shadow of Angband and still seeing the light of the sky above him, of thin wisping hope. He could not find a way to make the music reach Maglor; it was all he could do to dissipate his power before Maglor sang again.
When he did he sang the carrion-crow, the vulture; the end even of the corpse, even of the things that had passed away.
Fingon again sang hope, but Maglor’s power stuck to his ankles, to his wrists.
Maglor sang all things slowing and fading, and Fingon sang hope. Maglor sang forgetting, and Fingon sang hope. He could not reach Maglor, and he saw his words could not wound him, but he could at least sing away his verse every time; his answer became a chorus unchanging.
Finally Maglor had no choice but to try to sing away hope as well, though even Fingon could hear in his voice that the thought made him pause. It had become Fingon’s last weapon, and it was clear that he could wield it forever; Maglor had no choice but to take it away.
He struck a miserable chord and began to sing to the end of hope. But he could not pronounce it. He reached the word, and made no noise at all.
He tried again. Fingon watched him try to say it. ‘Hope.’ First Sindarin, then Quenya, and the tongue of Edain; he couldn’t even say it.
Power rolled away from him, across the floor. His hands were on his harp, but frozen. Fingon thought he looked—confused. Like he had no idea that his voice would fail him and couldn’t imagine why it had.
Then it looked as though something dawned on him, something awful. He put one hand to his face, then pulled it back, and looked at the callouses on his fingers, born of a lifetime of being the Noldor’s greatest musician. He mouthed something, but Fingon could not quite tell what.
He turned wordlessly and walked back to Maedhros, who had stood. Maedhros put out his hand, and Maglor walked into it. Fingon watched Maedhros’ clutch his brother’s shoulders. They spoke for a minute, but between them, and silently.
Murmuring rose around the room, whispers and gasps. Fingon could not hear what anyone said, exactly. He put his harp down, but did not approach the place where Maedhros and Maglor were conferring. Hesitantly, Celegorm also walked up to Maglor, and when Maglor turned to him he swiped his rough hand across his face and brushed his tears away.
Finally, Maglor sank again into a chair, covering his face.
He had expected Maedhros to sit back down with him, but he didn’t. Maedhros remained standing. His eyes rose from Maglor, and wheeled slowly from below to meet Fingon’s. With the coals still glowing behind him, looking into Maedhros was looking into something dark and deep; ashes, or ink.
Maedhros remained standing, and looking at Fingon, and Fingon returned his stare. It took some time indeed for the realization of what he was looking at to dawn on him, and even then, for a moment, he really didn’t believe it.
“Maedhros,” he said.
Maedhros responded with a smile.
Fingon had to clear his rough, aching throat. Though Maglor had lost, the mental beating he had dealt left Fingon feeling frail and dizzy, as though he were about to faint. Disbelieving himself, he asked, “Do you accept my challenge?”
“I have,” said Maedhros. “I do; I will.”
Standing behind Maedhros, Celegorm and Caranthir looked as shocked as Fingon felt. For a second, it seemed like the room shrank to a point, the dark pit of Maedhros’ eyes.
Fingon took a steadying breath.
He did not know what Maedhros was doing, but he knew what he was not doing. Unless something had changed very seriously, very suddenly, Maedhros was not trying to take back his crown. Even anger over how his brothers had just been thrashed would not cause him to change his mind on such an important matter so completely. But as for what he was doing… Fingon would have to see.
“What is the contest, then?” he asked.
Maedhros, instead of responding, turned back around and walked to Maglor. He whispered to him, and Maglor shook his head.
“No,” Maedhros said, “I need you.”
Maglor stood. He wiped his face again, and Maedhros smoothed down his hair. He bade Caranthir and Celegorm to also come with him, and so they all trailed behind him as Maedhros walked up to Fingon, Maglor looking both red-eyed and stubbornly proud, and the younger two concerned and confused.
Maedhros approached Fingon and gave him his hand. Fingon took it, and felt its warmth, its calluses. The hand which had held his face and deftly unwound his braids; the hand which some thought made him unqualified to be a king, just because of how it had touched him. Maedhros gripped him for a moment, his thumb sliding over the joints of his forefinger, all three, slowly.
Fingon sighed against how his heart sped up. After such a harsh night, the familiar caress was even more compelling than it usually was. Maedhros said, “come with me,” and he did.
Maedhros led them a short ways across the room, and everyone who stood before them quickly peeled away. He sat down at a small table, and so Fingon sat across from him. Maglor sat beside Maedhros, closing his eyes and slumping forward as he did. The others stood behind him, wary and a little annoyed. Maedhros called for wine and glasses, and they were brought, and then he poured cups for Fingon and himself. (The others wouldn’t take any.)
Fingon drank; he knew he was at the shoreline of being drunk, but he was also swimming in the aftereffects of Maglor’s music, and the wine would be fortifying enough to be worthwhile. Then again, Maedhros had also been working through ale and wine all evening and might have been rather drunk himself. Who would know?
When he spoke, he did not speak loud enough for the hall to hear him as the rest had. He spoke as if he and Fingon were alone and having a conversation, and only those who began to cautiously crowd the table could hear.
“I liked Amras and Caranthir using the traditions of the Edain that live with them,” he began, his ground-up voice harsh on the ear as always. (He had told Fingon that his throat had been squeezed nearly shut by an iron band, as a punishment, and that band had been left on so long his throat never could fully heal.) “That is pleasant. Though you know why they did it?”
“Yes, they were hoping I wouldn’t be familiar with the weapons they were using,” Fingon said, matching the softness of his voice to Maedhros’.
“But you were.”
“Familiar enough.”
“Nor are you unfamiliar with any weapon than our own smiths make, or using any power of mind or body or fea to bring your full power to combat. You are a born warrior, with so many skills and such proficiency at them it feels almost foolish to fight you.”
“You certainly could,” Fingon responded frankly. He knew no one who fought like Maedhros. He could count several warriors with less noble names who fought as well as him, but none who fought like him. He did not favor his own chances against him, not drained as he was.
“As you say!... and even if someone were more skilled than you, by some objective caliber, I think you could still somehow defeat them in a fair fight. Perhaps I think that because I saw it two or three times this evening.”
“I have been called tenacious.”
“I have been thinking of what contests you would not know,” Maedhros continued, and took a long drink of his wine.
“If it is to be a drinking contest, that’s no good,” Fingon said with a little smile. “I’ve done plenty. I would welcome it, though!”
“Ha! That would be settling myself up for a loss, and I know it.”
“Too humble.”
“And how would either of us stand up for a coronation afterward?”
“I presumed staying upright would be the winning condition.”
“I thought I was setting the terms. Can you imagine, Fingon,” he said, his tone changing with the subject, “that even orcs in Angband play games with each other?”
He could imagine. Based on everything Maedhros had told him, they sang songs, albeit rude, had fashions and even a sense of vanity, made children and had bond-brothers, though those bonds were neither permanent nor dependable. They spoke their own tongue; Maedhros would use it on occasion. Fingon could handle that, because it had some similarities to tongues he knew, and besides it was much better to hear him snap in orcish than it was to truly forget himself and scream in Valarin, a language he learned a little of from his primary captor. That was unpleasant. “Now that you say it, I rather hope they would.”
“You do?”
“Not that I am fond of them, but I would rather they have something in the lives they must lead. Before I end it for them, that is.”
“From you, barely a boast. Yes, they will play with each other, but to their tastes. The most popular games were the simplest ones, and I believe the most popular of all was the very simplest: a game of pain. They would first trade knives, which I found interesting, and wield each other’s blades to stab themselves. The point would start on the tip of their skin, and they would sink it in slowly, with a rhythm that it seemed they all knew. The one who cried out or wrenched out the blade first was the loser. I would hear shouts, and then laughter.”
Fingon kept staring resolutely at Maedhros’ black eyes.
“But I think without a doubt I would win that contest,” Maedhros said, “In fact, I know that I would. And to me a contest with a sure victor is no contest at all.”
Maedhros then stifled a smile, which meant Fingon had not fully masked his exasperation. He already knew that Maedhros was not going to torture him in front of the entire court. He would, however, freely play such tricks as that one. “Capacity for pain is not a poor skill for a leader to have.”
“No, not a poor skill. But I ask who would follow a king who won a crown by such orcish means? All would be aware it made them orcs themselves. You have a proven capacity for pain anyway. Sometimes I would not hear such bestial sounds from the people of Morgoth, crouched in his reeking halls. I would hear simple conversation, each to each. Sometimes, they are bored. As I began to learn their words I could understand when they were simply complaining about their lot or discussing the deeds they would like to perform, to prisoners or freemen they capture. I won’t say what kind of aspirational plots I heard, except to say that the time came when I could understand what they were aspiring to even as they approached me. But sometimes their speech would become more vague and twisting, and though I knew the words aright I could not grasp the meaning; at length it occurred to me that they were playing riddle-games.”
Fingon quelled his first surge of genuine excitement since the evening began. Maedhros’ eyes did flicker to the slight tightening of his grip on his goblet. “I would not thank you either for setting up a contest that favors me,” Fingon replied evenly.
“But it doesn’t! Everyone knows you are quick in thought and in debate, yes, but I see you oft struggle to understand the position of men, as fond as you are of them. Even less will you understand the mind of the orc, in fact I believe you would be especially bad at it.”
“I have some sympathy for them.”
“Sympathy can be easily crafted without any understanding at hand. In fact that sometimes makes it easier. These are not riddles in the style of orc language or poetic conventions, which do, in a way, exist. These are orc riddles, and to answer them well you must think with their mind. I will present you three; three good answers win.”
Fingon could not be intimidated. Like a dog with a favored chewing-bone he had heard ‘riddle’ and latched on. “You are pampering me.”
“You have always had the oddest idea of pampering. These three questions, which came to me in the dungeon of Angband, were three that stayed on my mind and puzzled me. I think I should warn you I’m saving the hardest for last.”
“Hardest to you.”
Maedhros laughed once, a thunder-crackle that remained in his throat. “If you say so. Shall I begin?”
“By your leave.”
Maedhros took a long drink of wine. Fingon extracted himself from his eyes to look around him; indeed the area around the table was crowded now, with many people forgetting their fear to come close enough to hear. Maglor was no longer crying, but sitting despondently at Maedhros’ side, his eyes downcast, his chin on his jeweled hand. Caranthir and Celegorm still stood behind him, a pair of guards.
“They bite,” Maedhros said, “The hound-teeth, the forty-two points. In my hand, in my stomach, in my groin. They have set and I cannot pull them out. I could if she did not have so many; I could yet if I needed to. Instead I may just have to cut off her head. Who is she?”
Fingon looked at Maedhros for a moment, and then turned to his wine. He took a long drink, thinking.
“You are depending on my translation,” Maedhros mused. “But I think it is still understandable.”
“It is; let me think.”
Silence settled like snow. Fingon put his goblet down and balanced his fingers on the rim. A riddle about something personified, that was not uncommon even among Eldar. He tapped; was the number forty-two important? Did a hound have forty-two teeth? He did not know enough about orcish conventions to know if that was simply a poetic flourish or if the number was significant.
The hand, the stomach, the groin; that was surely significant. Three bites, and the places specified. Was it a disease, or a malady? What malady bit at hand, stomach, and groin? It might mean something different if ‘groin’ was a polite translation.
“I wonder if the poet said something other than ‘groin,’” Fingon murmured.
“Surely you would,” Maedhros responded.
Fingon tapped the rim of his goblet louder, with the flat of his nail. To pry into the details like this was his first impulse, but he admitted it did not seem like an orcish impulse. In every way they were about broad strokes. But another detail: ‘she’. A ‘hound’ at first, but ‘she’ when referred to.
What did the she-dog do, overall? Bit the body of the poet so hard he could not extract her, but in three points. At once, specifically. In three places at once, and firmly entrenched, as though the ‘dog’ had three mouths. The speaker would divest her but, it seemed, would not; he knew he would have to cut her off to fully get rid of her. A malady that had ruined a limb? Necrosis or even venom?
Indeed, it may be venom, which came from a bite. But why mention those three exact places? Some particular serpent or scorpion that infested Angband’s halls and whose sting affected those parts? But Maedhros would not trick him with an answer so specific he could not possibly know it.
He focused on the facts again: the hound that bit thrice and sunk in. He could extract her if only she were not entrenched in so many places. He still could, but in his excuses seemed reluctant.
But he must think more like an orc. Maedhros had given him extra assistance in saying so. The answer, most likely, would be something an orc would find malicious or burdensome, which Fingon might not. Not necessarily a thing he would find unwholesome, but attached to the body with locked jaw to hand, to stomach, to…
“Ah,” Fingon said. “The answer is ‘a wife’; the speaker complains of her but still hesitates to cut her away because of how she had become entangled in him. I see why you thought I might not think of it, either, you dog.”
Maedhros huffed, pleased, and then turned to Caranthir who stood behind his shoulder. “What think you? Is that a good answer?”
Caranthir was surprised to be asked. He stared quizzically down at Maedhros, but he responded. “In truth I think it is a good answer. Not that it pleases, but it fits the riddle.”
“Then it is decided! You have won the first round, and we are on to the next,” Maedhros addressed Fingon.
Fingon raised his eyebrows, but kept himself otherwise composed. Of course Maedhros would not actually answer the riddles. He should not have been surprised. Letting a judge decide if Fingon’s answer was good enough, though, could pose a danger to him.
He brought over three brothers, Fingon realized, and is asking three riddles. Balrog-fire.
Celegorm and Maglor looked like they felt the same way about what must have been similar realizations. Maedhros went on, undeterred. “The second. This came to me while I was hung from chains, and I ruminated on it for a while, uncertain of the meaning. It goes: ‘It clawed out of my cavern; I vomited it out. From me it came but it gives me only shame, brought back to me whenever it sins.’”
Fingon stared, for a moment, at Maedhros, waiting for him to continue. But that was all of the riddle.
Fingon had him repeat that one. He had not been ready for it. He listened again, liking it even less.
What could it mean? The ‘thing’ had come out of the poet, with a violent expulsion. The poet recognizes it as of himself, but it acts on its own, doing deeds that bring the poet more shame.
His words, Fingon thought, but the answer came too easily. He hesitated. It would fit, in fact it fit just about perfectly. It was vomited out; he said it but is now ashamed of it. That hasty word was then pointed out again and again, brought up against him.
Were orcs ever ashamed of what they said? Fingon did not know if they had honor to be offended or not. The problem rather, he thought, was that they did not seem to have introspection, the ability to learn, adapt, and change, to dislike who they were and want to become better. He could not see an orc regretting their words. The thing that came from the speaker was of himself, but was it not fully himself? they could be ashamed, he imagined, of things they were convinced were not really themselves.
Fingon thought of maladies again, the conceit of the riddle. Something expelled, coming from the body, but not truly of the body. Like an oyster with its pearl or the bumps of sores. Orcs always did seem to have odd lumps and sores. But again, that seemed too specific for Maedhros to pick it as his riddle. He briefly entertained the answer being even more vile, but he couldn’t think of a process that fully made sense with the words of the riddle. Any unwholesome expulsions did not have the power to come back.
And then Fingon leaned back in his chair and grasped his forehead, feeling foolish. Not foolish, exactly, but dense; indeed, an Elda would be the sort of person who struggled most with this riddle. “Was the speaker a woman?” he asked.
“How should I know?” asked Maedhros.
“She was, and the answer to her riddle is ‘a son.’ To a mind like an orc has, a person who grows up to speak and think in its own manner instead of cowering and obeying is a vile thing indeed. Nor do I imagine birth and rearing are pleasing processes as they are for us.”
“How would you know? Well, Celegorm,” Maedhros asked, turning to his other side, “Is that a good answer?”
Celegorm was silent for several long moments. He crossed and uncrossed his arms. He looked down at Fingon, his expression unhappy, but inscrutable beyond that.
“I thought of a different answer myself,” he said stiffly.
“Is Fingon’s answer a good answer?” Maedhros asked again.
Celegorm made a noise in his throat. “It is,” he admitted.
“Well, then! You win round two as well,” Maedhros smiled.
“Was that the answer to the riddle?” Fingon asked.
“I never heard the answer. They walked away and I remained hanging. As I said, I had to ruminate on it for a while. Are you ready for the third one?”
“A moment,” Fingon said, and drained his cup of wine. “I thought you would test me in earnest.”
“I am in earnest. The hardest question is last.”
“As you said. And what is it?”
“Why did I give the crown to your father, Fingon?”
Feeling drained first from Fingon’s fingertips, and then his face. He looked at Maedhros with stupefied disbelief.
Maedhros only smiled back at him.
Maglor’s wrists tensed on the table as his hands curled around each other. He saw Celegorm’s eyes widen. A deadly hush hung over the gathered crowd, pregnant with anticipation.
Fingon did know the answer to this question. It was a riddle not in that it was hard for him to give an answer, but that it was hard for him to accept it. He could hardly believe that Maedhros wanted him to share the truth he had entrusted him with now, after all of this time.
That truth had been whispered to him in bed, in the soft hush after they laid with each other. Maedhros’ abdication might have seemed abrupt to the crowd, but it had already been discussed and decided in secret beforehand, as Maedhros had taken the time to convince both Fingon and Fingolfin to accept it as a bridegroom might bargain with a bride’s father and mother before even proposing. There were reasons why that proposal had accepted which were made public and known to all, but none of them were the reason, the answer which Maedhros asked returned now.
Fingon did not want to tell everyone the reason. He did not want the pity. Pity for him, and distrust for Maedhros and his other cousins, dear despite everything, who had thrown themselves into the defense of Beleriand despite everything.
He ceased his observation around the room, and focused again on Maedhros.
He wanted to ask him something. But enough people would be able to tell if he opened osanwe, and they would think he was cheating. He looked at Maedhros and saw he was certain of this course, and in thinking, a few of Maedhros’ reasons why he might do this came to him.
Fingon said, “Because you foresaw that the day would come that the King of the Noldor, and indeed all the people of the Noldor, were at irreconcilable odds with the sons of Feanor, even that the quest for the Silmarils would bring you into enmity with all the good peoples of Beleriand. None could grasp the crown in one hand and a Silmaril in the other; to defend one would be to forswear the other.
“So determined were you to be loyal to your father and to the Oath that you swore to him that you knew you could not take the crown or make any promise to your people that you would defend them. The day would come that you would break that promise and betray them, of that you were certain. Instead in my father you saw no conflict. Only one who would serve as he swore, even against you and yours and your Oath, if need be. And in me,” he said, and left off.
Maedhros’ eyes crinkled. The smile on his face was beatific, infused, visibly, with love. He lifted his hand from the table, and extended it, and Fingon’s palms itched to hold it. But it went instead to Maglor, who was looking down at the table, and was gently laid under his chin.
“Well,” he said to him, “was that a good answer?”
Maglor did not move or respond.
“Look at me, Lauro.”
Maglor’s brow furrowed with pain. Slowly, he lifted up his eyes to meet Maedhros, slowly and exhausted, an expression of utter hopelessness sunk in them.
“Was that a good answer, Lauro?”
“Yes,” Maglor whispered.
Fingon looked away from them. Around him were standing his people, captains and guards, staunch followers who had not been parted from him in leaving Aman and he knew they would not be now. He asked himself if he should not be fully content with these brave people when the day came again that resolve collapsed and kin fought against kin again, or even the harrowing day Maedhros predicted in which the people of the Noldor, his people, would need to be defended against him. He knew he would be content, and he knew it for two reasons: first, because he loved also his people, not just close kin but all of them, his beautiful people, the people who had forgiven him. Second, because he had proven time and time again that he could handle living without excess joy.
He looked back as Maedhros addressed him. “Well, then, you have won the third round, and indeed the whole night. There are none left to challenge you, unless anyone wants to stand up now with a claim.”
Proving that he could have been doing so the entire time, Maedhros projected his question loud enough for the hall to hear. But there was no response, nothing but silence.
Maedhros nodded to himself, and once more in a low, quiet voice, turned to his brothers who were still with him and said, “And if I hear any of you grumbling about your High King again or even hear from another that you have, you will have such a haranguing from me you will wish you did not have ears.”
Fingon saw both Caranthir and Celegorm mentally resolve to never live with their eldest brother again. Maglor bitterly, pathetically flipped the fingers of one hand in recognition of the point.
Then Maedhros stood, and standing extended his arm to Fingon. “Rise, High King of the Noldor.”
Fingon accepted Maedhros’ outstretched hand and rose. He looked hard at Maedhros, and like always as though he would not have the good fortune to look at him again. The trenches riven into his face, the lightless eyes, the hard-set expression that was grim as winter and so felt like the softest spring whenever he smiled.
Maedhros lifted Fingon’s hand to his mouth, and kissed it.
Then Fingon retrieved it, and found himself struggling to take his breath for only a few moments. When he did regain it, he turned to look around the hall, the gathered forces of the Noldor.
He saw that they had waited the night. Dawn was breaking outside, the lamp of Arien just resting above the horizon of the distant west, and searing with white light the barren snow-covered fields outside. He gathered his courage and he spoke.
“Do you think you deserve better?” Fingon asked the gathered peoples of the Noldor, split by allegiances and family lines, some mixed (as he was) with other peoples of the Eldar and now touched by the traditions and styles of the peoples of Beleriand under the stars. “Some have said so, and some, I have no doubt, have that question hidden in their hearts.
“To any who ask, I readily agree. You do deserve better, as well you know. Many of you can remember as I do the blissful rule of King Finwe, who led his people across the water to undying Aman and ruled over peace and prosperity for years uncounted. You remember his patience, his compassion, the unshakable temperance of his nature which was never tipped to show undue favor to one or another. How unsteady and unhappy these modern times feel to those old days, as I too remember.
“Many of you remember keenly following my uncle Feanor and those of his line, and each of their unbent steel wills and readiness to chase down the Enemy to the very last of his hiding-holes and assault him there, not directing from the van but racing in the fore like lightning. With them you outpaced thunder. How brittle and pathetic this modern age of siege and endurance and losing ground feels to those quicker times, as I too well know.
“And all here remember the better days of my father the High King who was ever guided by his great wisdom and consideration, and who made out of impossible mazes a straight way, and could not be called on except that he found a fair and even-handed solution for everyone in any crisis. In his court there was no victor or loser; each was treated as kin as he deserved, and his mind was ever bent to the perfect protection of all that dwelled behind his walls.
“What is Fingon to any of these great kings? Too well was I known as a hot-headed youth and often a disreputable one as that, feeling the weight of lineage as a burden to be shouldered off, a barrier in the way of my freedom. Too well can you remember my passions and mistakes, how it seems that to hand me something delicate is to expect it to be broken. Do you not deserve better than the ill sound of ‘King Fingon?’ Having been prince Fingon all my life, I expect that you do. To look at me is to see the kings that I am not. Do you think I have never looked in a mirror?
“Why should you accept this? Merely because there are no better options? Merely because I can dominate my rivals as when wolves, squabbling over the boundaries of their territories, finally succumb to whichever one presses the others to submit? Some may say that this is a good enough reason. The Enemy of all good people has pressed us back again and again, seizing territory and beheading our best. Perhaps we would be wise to follow the strongest wolf ourselves, the most skilled in domination. Perhaps we should consider ourselves best led by whomever is most likely to behead our enemies and endure his governance as part of the bargain we pay for survival.
“But the counterargument is honest and cuts like a knife: why content ourselves to a ruler that is in effect hand-selected by our Enemy to be what a people ruled by that Enemy would want? Ruled by the fear he breathes like the forge belches heat, beaten by his hammering into the same shape as him, a people who thinks of all life in terms of battle: domination, submitting, borders, territories, sieges, endurance, steel, resolve, and dueling, and each conversation and friendship and relationship slowly devolving from a dance to a duel. This life of grinding that breaks limbs and features off of carven statues until they are again mere stone, and leaves every one of us asking anew after every compounding attrition where our families are.
“I was born in Aman but made for this. There is no denying it. The hot blood that made me too often a problem in peace has instead been revealed a weapon for war that I was born with. So things seem equal, in a grim way, as the belly is full enough after devouring one’s own; we have been altered to accept life on the Enemy’s terms, and Fingon is fashioned to drag us through it.
“Don’t you think you deserve better? Haven’t your neighbors and cousins and daughters, sometimes in a few, sometimes together in flight, deserted to live under Thingol instead, or to disappear to the East where it is dark but unharried, or to the coast where it is safe and one can hear the sound of lapping waves? But you remain, and you ask yourself, and I blame you not for it, should you? Is this what you came to Beleriand for? Freedom, we said, and kingdoms of our own. Can anyone be free under the crushing hand of the Enemy? Is Fingon’s kingdom the one we wanted?
“There are things I cannot fix: we cannot return, and the Enemy is greatly powerful, not even easy to resist, let alone end. The weight of how we have fallen cannot be shouldered and I chafe under it myself. Can we defeat him? Can we free ourselves from under his yoke? Can we endure? Is this wolfish King enough to oppose the King of dragons in the north?
“I have been accused of being too quick to anger and too passionate in battle all my life, and will never deny that it is true. If these unsightly facets on the sides of myself can be of use to my people, let them be used now. But there is another thing I have always been accused of and harshly, and I present it now not as a flaw but as my most glimmering feature, the capstone of myself: as I have hated overmuch, I have always loved overmuch, and to the point of embarrassment. I have always loved you, all of you, whether I should or I shouldn’t, and certainly in excess, and sometimes horrifically, and without ceasing, even if I hated at the same time. I have always loved you, everyone here, each of my people, and could not stop it if I tried. And I was censured and complained at, and sighed about and punished, and begged and bargained to be different somehow or at the very least quieter, but no difference was ever made, no substitution or subtraction. In the end I love you all as I have always loved you.
“In wiser men love wavers when betrayal sinks in or horrors abound, when blood is spilt and soaks the hands, when repellent acts are committed in desperation. But I am made, or bent, or flawed, or blessed in such a way that there is nothing that makes my love waver. I have been ashamed of it before but I bear it openly now.
“Love alone does not make me fit to rule. I have no doubt that we shall all see me break the delicate things handed to me and all be embarrassed again. Love will not be enough, but to the end of the line and to the last syllable love will be. I am no jealous husband; if you do not want it, go. But stay and you shall have it; I cannot even help it. I love you all and I will do for you what I can.”
Was it that the dark days they had been living in had broken the people enough for them to accept it, meager as it was? Was it that they truly longed for it, or that they were wrongly tempted by it? No one could know what would come of it, but in response to Fingon’s speech his people called out to him, and they loved him in return. Nothing could be heard over the chaos of their voices; Fingon accepted Maedhros’ kiss on one cheek, and down the other fell a tear.
They went outside into the biting-cold dawn and Fingon was crowned High King. Just as it had been for his father before him, his cousin Maedhros placed the crown on his head and first called him by his new name. Bells rang in the towers of Barad Eithel and across the wastelands of the north and fields of the south, and in response came the sound of ice-covered rivers cracking open.
--
Original Note:
“I do; I will.”
The title of this piece is from a scene that absolutely haunted me the entire time I was writing. The scene in the middle of Act 2 scene 4 in Shakespeare’s Henry IV part 1, one of the historical plays and kind of an odd one. The protagonist is Prince Hal, crown prince of England, a two-faced prince who spends half of his time involved in serious official affairs of politics, statecraft, and kingship at court with his father, and the other half of his time getting drunk with his low-class friends in cheap taverns. One of the core conflicts of the play is that it becomes increasingly impossible for Hal to occupy both worlds, much as he wants to, drawn to a point where he must finally choose one.
Depending on how you interpret a single, short line of dialogue, he may make that choice in the aforementioned Act 2 scene 4. The leader of Hal’s band of trashy drunken revelers is an aging barfly named Falstaff who has always considered the Prince his good friend. In this scene, they conduct a two-man play within the play, in which they act out how they believe the king, Hal’s father, would handle the issue of Hal spending his time with Faltaff and the other ne’er-do-wells. They take turns acting out the king's response. Falstaff does so jokingly, playing a jolly king who likes Falstaff’s fun-loving attitude and thinks he must be a good influence on the serious Prince.
Hal, who knows his own father much better, isn’t sold. “Dost thou speak like a king?” he asks, implying that Falstaff does not. “Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my father.”
Falstaff responds, I believe with good humor, “Depose me?” But Hal does, and they switch positions. Now Hal is acting as the king, and Falstaff is Prince Hal. Instead of praising Falstaff, Hal, playing the king, denounces all of Falstaff’s vices in a long list, and calls him a bad influence and a devil in disguise. I can’t help but read Falstaff as shocked and a little offended when he responds, while pretending to be Hal, with the argument that none of Falstaff’s vices are unusual. In fact, everyone has them. He pleads, “ banish not him thy [son]’s company. Banish plump [Falstaff], and banish all the world.”
To which ‘King’ Hal replies, “I do; I will.”
Then the stage is interrupted and the play-within-a-play ends. Hal does not explain that line, it is up to the actor to decide how to play it and the reader to interpret it. Delightfully, it is the grammar that is damning; first present, then future tense. He does, and he will. You could read that as Hal simply saying what he thinks his father will say, or what he is afraid his father will say. You could see it as him trying out being the king, or perhaps what he thinks a king should be. You could read it as a warning, a sudden confession, him admitting to Falstaff that he is already premeditating banishing him and his ilk from the kingdom and that the time will come when he deems it necessary. If so, is that done lovingly, or regretfully, or coldly, or cruelly?
I have been thinking about that line on occasion for years. It seems like such a natural line to give to Prince Fingon–by which I mean Prince Maedhros. Right. I gave that line to Maedhros.
--
CARIN; CARUVAN
A play in one act
For the black box theater
Based on the events of the coronation of Findekano Astaldo Noldoran
Written by Oialaica 2025 CE
—
I QUENION NEMIE
SPEAKING ROLES:
CROWN PRINCE FINGON: The hero. Next in line to be High King of the Noldor after the recent death of his father Fingolfin in battle. A repented murderer. Played by a short actor with great presence. Strong singing voice required. Combat experience preferred. Ideally a transgender man or a female actor in a trouser role.
AMRAS: Youngest of Fingon’s cousins. A murderer. Played by a broad actor who does ‘grim and silent’ in an interesting way.
CURUFIN: Second-Youngest of Fingon’s cousins. A murderer. Played by an actor with physical combat training who does a good ‘stage villain’ without being a ham.
CARANTHIR: Third-Youngest of Fingon’s cousins. A murderer. Played by an actor with natural gravitas, willing to hold back (especially in scenes that aren’t theirs).
CELEGORM: Third-Eldest of Fingon’s Cousins. A murderer. Played by your scariest actor. Pay their bond if you must.
MAGLOR: Second-Eldest of Fingon’s cousins. A murderer. Maglor’s deep psychological disturbance demands a subtle actor who knows how to play a dramatic and highly vocal role without embarrassing themself. Strong singing voice required. May be served well by being another trouser role though it would be ideal if you happened to have a castrato around.
MAEDHROS: The villain. Eldest of Fingon’s cousins and his lover. A murderer. Played by your best actor.
KING FINROD and PRINCESS GALADRIEL: Fingon’s cousins by his other uncle. Played by one actor who can convincingly switch the roles. Needs to be able to play a sweet fool and a smart player with a difference of wigs. Ideally you would hire a drag queen, it’s alright if she’s new to this kind of theater as the role of Galadriel is meant to be slightly uncanny because of her supernatural abilities.
CHORUS (all silent):
PRINCESS FINDUILAS: Distant relative of Fingon. Silent role played by a young actor.
HURIN and HUOR: Sons of Fingon’s human ally. Silent role played by child actors.
TWO ELVES: Subjects of Fingon’s rule that stand in as ‘voices of the people’ and act out the reactions of commoners to the events of the play. Silent roles played by veteran actors.
For all roles, the word ‘actor’ is used in its neutral sense. Even where I make suggestions about the sex of the actor, the consideration of their aptness should supersede all else.
—
I NÓMEO
All is done in spartan black box fashion. A small, rectangular table with at least three chairs is available on one end of the stage, some chairs in the back, some boxes and standing blocks on the other side, all featureless and painted black. Any props should be painted black as well, except for Finrod/Galadriel’s golden goblet, the silver crown (inherited from Fingon’s deceased father), and all weapons, painted white.
Costuming is black for all chorus roles (and crew), gold for Finrod/Galadriel, white for all of Fingon’s murderer cousins, and black as well for Fingon (with some silver in trim and jewelry).
The urge to make the color of the weapons and the dress of the murderers red instead is understandable, but the actions of the play and the murderers will speak for themselves; painting them literally red would be garish and pandering. White both retains some of the dramatic suspense about the moral nature of some characters (as the eye is trained by dominant culture to perceive white as pure and good, and thus the audience must use their brains to interpret the words on the stage instead of letting the lazy eye color-code morality for them, whereas red would ‘give away the game’) and will be harsher and more striking against the black standard of the black box context than even red could be.
—
I CALARON
Lighting should always be fit to the needs of the theater and the whims of the director, especially in such (poignantly) cramped spaces as a black box. My only and humble advice is that this play being in premodern times and set at night, accurate lighting would be dim and suggestive of gentle flickering firelight; therefore I suggest considering making the lighting stark and unforgiving instead. The audience should be aware this is a play; the discomfort of the acts on stage should begin with the acute discomfort of seeing strangers fight in public, but if done right the story will overcome their resistance and gift them the rare experience of being transported.
—
I LÁMARON
There are suggestions in the text for sound effects in a few instances where the divine intrudes upon the play. Otherwise I suggest keeping things minimal as the play is so tightly plotted that lights and sounds may actually distract and diminish, considering the sparseness of setting and real-time pacing, and considering that the few instances with live singing/music should stand out. As noted in the Quenion Nemie, the actors for Fingon and Maglor will be singing live. Sound production should be focused on making the instances of song both unique and high-quality. Whether the actors actually play some variety of stringed instruments live is up to the skill of the actors though it would be preferred.
—
I YULMEO
I highly recommend the audience is served ale, mead, or wine before and during the show. Of course allow exit and entrance to a restroom; if they miss something good, they miss it.
—
I QUETTI
[Begin with lights on. Do not silence the audience. Maedhros should be seated at a chair in the back of the stage, not looking at anyone, from the very start (have him seated at least half an hour before the play begins, he should be there before the audience ideally). The crown is set on a mantle above Maedhros’ head, weapons are hidden; behind set pieces ideally, backstage if necessary, but most actors should remain on set at all times. Exceptions will be noted.
[Chorus begins to enter stage at actual start time, talking in hushed voices. Finrod arrives with his golden goblet, speaking to Finduilas. He is cheerful (though not boisterous), all others are subdued. They become nervous as the other murderers enter stage, in age order: Maglor, Celegorm, ect. to Amras. Each murderer takes a place in the cluster of chairs in the back where Maedhros is already sitting. They grumble with each other.
[Fingon enters last. He goes to individual guests (not murderers), greeting them by name. His voice is loud, and carries. He avoids his cousins in the back at first but keeps glancing at him. Then, once he has greeted all other guests and crossed the stage, he takes a long look at his cousins.]
FINGON: [Loud enough to silence audience noise, if there is any] Does something still displease my kinsmen?
[A short silence, with murderers glancing at each other. In this silence and in all following, at least one murderer looks to Maedhros for guidance but he does not acknowledge it.]
CARANTHIR: There is nothing in your hospitality this eve that displeases us.
[Treat each of Fingon’s first use of names as a greeting, he indicates or inclines.]
FINGON: Gracious Caranthir! How glad I am to hear this! You are guests in my house tonight, a welcome host to honored halls—mine, now, with my father’s passing, an inheritance that no one can dispute. Yet that answer seems to me not fully fit to the question.
CARANTHIR: If fit enough, why pry into it?
CELEGORM [interrupting Fingon’s retort]: Our little cousin rather thinks we yet carry some old dissatisfaction, since, as you say, there is nothing that displeases us this eve.
FINGON: Keen Celegorm. Yes, it was precise phrasing.
CELEGORM: I would not like to be accused of being an ungracious guest, like a dazzle-eyed peasant at the foot-table of a genteel gathering, nor accused of mulling on some malcontent in the corner like a bitter hired blade.
FINGON: I know already what you find distasteful.
CELEGORM: Undue questioning.
FINGON [walking closer]: I was only concerned when I saw my cousins, gallant men born to their great father, who was king before mine, grumbling among themselves on such a night as this. Our purpose here affects us all, and I dislike to see my kinsmen and bondsmen so removed from it. But if you were only speaking of some personal matter, some difficulty with no relation to our rites, I will ask your pardon for interrupting and speak no more.
AMRAS: What difficulty with no relation is there?
FINGON [halting]: Bold Amras. Is this a game? Should I guess?
[As directed above, several of the murderers glance at Maedhros, who provides no acknowledgement or instruction. Remember to continue this through the play.]
CURUFIN: What isn’t? Go on. Guess.
FINGON: Then I shall! You know, Clever Curufin, that I have always been skilled in such trivialities as these party games. I make my guess: You grumble yet that I am unfit to be crowned your king, to follow in my worthy father’s fading wake, though he named me his heir in full view of all our people here ere he marched to his final battle, because you still feel that your line is in truth superior to mine, descended from the eldest son of the ancient King, our grandfather, as you all are, and your pride does not submit subordination to my grossly mixed blood. How’s that?
CURUFIN: If we do?
FINGON: Do you? Oh, is it not to me to ask questions in this?
MAGLOR: What is this?
FINGON: Dear Maglor. I’m not sure; I’m trying to figure out the rules.
MAGLOR: Are we not here, doing just as you bid? Did we not travel far to honor your father with this vigil before we observe your coronation in the morning? Did we not bring great gifts and pledge our vassalage? Why display this ungainly thing that no one had pointed out?
FINGON: Has it not been?
MAGLOR: As I—
FINGON [interrupting]: Or did you point it out to all but me, whispering behind my back, making up tales to discredit me or twisting the reports of my deeds to turn friend and ally against me?
MAGLOR: Stay! Now you are bandying accusations, and none have done so except you.
FINGON [Dropping pretense]: Here is a game I do not play, doing work in parlors and kitchens and bedrooms that I then deny in the Hall. Refute it if you can, but do not evade; I know you all too well to not see the guilt on your faces. Has there been no grumbling on the subject of my ascension, no complaints at all? No clandestine conversations with key vassals in my court to whisper your dissatisfactions and doubts? Never an attempt to undermine me, never a command followed only in word but in spirit defied? Behind the tapestry, in gardens, on balconies; you have been loyal in the little rooms as well?
AMRAS: I am no liar. I deny nothing. I have complained about you. When I think we could have better, I say so. And what about it?
FINGON: Very well! Amras, the youngest, has his seventh share of honor. And what of the rest of you? Can all of you say without gagging on your words that you have not complained about me in my house, that you have not suggested or said that we could have a better king than Fingon, that you could yourself provide one?
MAEDHROS: I have not.
[A silence.]
FINGON: Silent now! What a time to hold your tongues. The hour selected for my coronation is approaching; shall you do anything about it, or not?
MAGLOR [startled]: No, what is this? Have you taken leave of your senses? Or buckled or bent under the pressure of what lays ahead for you?
FINGON: Buckled not, nor have I ever! But I have bent for a long time, under the direction of and with my great respect for my father. In tolerating you, yes, all of you, and the dissent you so regularly rent against him, tearing rifts in the walls that hold the Enemy at bay and away from all Beleriand simply to vent your grumbling and frustration through them, was a craft he undertook with skill, delicacy, and great good sense. I have some humility; I know I do not have all of those virtues. The patience he had to endure the scorn you routinely showed him as your High King is one that I do not share, though the love that drove him to such lengths is.
[Fingon begins to approach again and some of the murderers begin to stand. The Chorus backs away from the murderers, congregating on Fingon’s side of the stage.] I will not tolerate it. I will make a mess of it if I do. I cannot and will not let you debase yourselves with whispers and schemes and plots against me and nor will I let the issue fester painfully unaddressed. I have not his subtlety either. Do you still feel like I am no fit king? Do you still feel one of you could do better? Prove it! The time has come!
I will fight every one of you. I will fight every single one of you, one after the other, and if in the end I have won and still stand on my own two feet then I will take the tongue of anyone who still speaks dissent after.
MAGLOR: What?
FINGON: I know that the one who cleaves the minds of men through their ears is not deaf! I will fight every single one of you, one after the other, and anyone who beats me shall be king!
[Addressing Chorus] Let everyone with ears to hear witness it; should any of you defeat me, with weapons of your choosing and indeed even with rules of your choosing, then you shall be High King of the Noldor!
CURUFIN: One after the other?
FINGON: Would you prefer all at once? You couldn’t be king all at once.
CARANTHIR: And whoever beats you—again, at a contest we can individually decide—will be High King of the Noldor?
FINGON: If you can, you will. Surely whoever wins such a contest deserves the spoils.
MAGLOR: Maedhros.
[Maedhros acknowledges but does not speak.]
CELEGORM: Is this a jest? Surely you do not think you can overcome all six of us in succession. Or are you betting on some abstaining out of love for you?
FINGON: I think that I can! But I heed your unspoken complaint that some may decline to combat me out of affection or respect for our kinship or even—though you were too good to say so—accept the challenge for show but not in heart and fight without investment. I will grant you surely against that with one conceit.
CELEGORM: And what is that?
FINGON: A light disrespect of the typical order. As we all know, by natural law the eldest goes first in all things and younger brothers follow; today, I reverse this natural order. Amras first. Maedhros last.
[When none respond]: Ah, not enough? Who do you think will not put his heart into besting me, I wonder?—Should not a valiant older brother become more ready to bring his hatred to force after watching the pain of his inferiors?—Are not the eldest sons of Feanor reckoned the mightiest? Should they not go last instead of getting an uneven chance?
Amras, wouldn’t you like a chance?
[Amras stands. He drains a cup, then drops it.]
FINGON: Do you accept my challenge?
AMRAS: I do accept.
MAGLOR: No, thou dost not.
AMRAS: Wait thy turn, honored elder brother.
CELEGORM: Ha. Amras, don’t kill him.
AMRAS: Advise thyself, honored elder brother.
CARANTHIR: This brawling does not befit princes.
AMRAS: Princes? Of whom dost thou speakest? I had a brother who was a prince; my twin. He is dead; caught like a rabbit, foot in a trap.
FINGON: Valar keep him.
AMRAS [predatory]: Oh, here’s one.
FINGON: Have you spotted a rabbit?
AMRAS: A prince.
FINGON: You know who it was that made the choice to relinquish your title and inheritance, and that of all your brothers except the one who had departed ere the dispossession. It was not I nor my thought.
AMRAS: When I am called a prince at all, it is in Ossiriand, by the rivers of the Gelion, among the Sindar and the secondborn where I have made my home. None of them think me their prince, they know only that I am a prince of the Noldor, or at least of the royal house. Have you ever been to that country?
FINGON: On the back of my horse. It is beautiful, but far from Hithlum.
AMRAS: And not much happens there, as opposed to here. So little that it is rare that the Enemy’s tainted creatures wind their way down to those green vales. Because of that, the peoples there tend to live more in fear of each other than of orcs or dragons, and have adapted themselves to those fears. [To a Chorus member] Fetch my greatsword; fetch two.
[The Chorus member retrieves the swords and walks to Amras.] Brutal weapons, sized to human hands and meant to be used against them. It takes some work for an elf to learn how to hold one.
[They approach Fingon with the other sword.]
FINGON: Certainly it does. Many humans are our allies here in Hithlum, I have wondered at their arts. [To the Chorus member, briefly clasping their hand] I thank thee. But this weapon is made for slaying, not sparring.
AMRAS: That is its purpose. Is that not the purpose of any sword?
FINGON: All.
AMRAS: Yet a swordsman of skill should know how to use it deftly.
FINGON: And how shall it be used today? What shall be the end of the contest?
AMRAS: We fight until a hand hits the ground. But again, have care, or you may slay me in the course of flooring me.
FINROD [Taking notice]: Oh, you’re really doing this. [He hurries to Amras.] Don’t do this, cousin; what point is there in replaying the grief of those kings who met their end by it?
AMRAS: Ask Fingon, it was his challenge.
FINROD: So it was. [He hurries to Fingon, the rest is an aside.] Cousin; why.
FINGON: I stated my reasoning, were you drinking through it? The kings are dead but the griefs are not. I do not wait for them to rise up when convenient to them but claw them from their graves to face me at my convenience.
FINROD: This rash actions stirs up things that cause more grief.
FINGON: And letting them lie, or trying to, has only put more in their graves.
FINROD: Think of your father, who forgave all slights and ruled all men as though they were his brothers. That made his kingdom mighty.
FINGON: I do think of my father. He is dead.
FINROD: You will hate me for saying it, but rash anger killed him.
FINGON: I do not hate you for it, you are not right. I know exactly what killed him: despair. You will not see the same from me, nor the patient forgiveness that inured him to politely accept cut after cut until he deemed himself fit to be cut down. Back, cousin, unless you wish to draw.
[Finrod bows and removes himself to the Chorus. Fingon returns to facing Amras.]
FINGON: Then, cousin.
AMRAS [Readying his blade]: Take the first strike, son of Fingolfin, and after that there will be no quarter until one of us is on the ground.
[They judge each other. Fingon takes the first strike with a conservative, testing blow. They fight briefly, a few brutal strikes. At first Fingon feigns finding the weapon unwieldy, but after seeing an opening, he pounces and forces Amras to the ground. Amras is briefly shocked; the Chorus watches quietly and the murderers mutter.]
AMRAS [Standing again]: And why would it be my fate?
[Amras exits. The actor may return after changing as a member of the Chorus.]
CURUFIN: Then—
FINGON: A moment of silence.
[A moment of silence follows, a memorial for Prince Amrod. Fingon’s greatsword is removed and hidden from sight by Chorus. Again, Fingon clasps their hand or shoulder as they pass; repeat such interactions between Fingon and Chorus members.]
FINGON: Do you accept my challenge, Curufin?
CURUFIN: I do accept.
[Finrod, distressed, begins to walk up to Fingon again.]
FINGON: What terms do you set?
FINROD: No, thou must not. [He stands between them. He attempts to hand Fingon his goblet again but Fingon does not take it.]
FINGON: I can’t, when I’ve already started?
CURUFIN: I believe our cousin means me.
FINROD: Thou livest as my guest, dear cousin—
CURUFIN: I believe I live as thy vassal.
FINROD: As my honored kinsman—
CURUFIN: Because a guest, my Lord, a hosted foreigner has not lands, title, armies; he is a man alone, at the mercy of his landlord. I believe I still have all those things as a vassal. Do I not?
FINGON: Does he? In your kingdom?
FINROD [to Fingon]: Well, they came from Himlad with him—
FINGON: How many hosts dwell in your kingdom? Our records did not indicate that mount of men and horse—and certainly not that much in taxes and your grain allotments—
FINROD: May I have a word?
FINGON: With the way this is going, I may ask for ‘your majesty’ on the end of that.
FINROD: Cousin.
[Fingon and Finrod move up the stage for another aside. Curufin watches intently.]
FINGON: Is this man running his own kingdom from your house? Why haven’t we had tribute? How many men does he have?
FINROD: It isn’t like that. Fingon, you can’t keep this up.
FINGON: I can’t?
FINROD: You shouldn’t. Our cousins were never going to challenge you, not unless you invited it.
FINGON: Amras surely would not have. I wonder if Curufin is another matter. Or Celegorm?
FINROD: You must give them more credit.
FINGON: Not as much as you have. Have they paid any taxes, or have you paid it all for them? No, your payments have not gone up. So they’ve simply not—
FINROD: They eat at my table, Fingon, do you want the heels of their loaves?
FINGON: ‘Your majesty.’
FINROD: Not yet, you’re not. Not at all, if you keep to this course.
FINGON: Well! [He begins to return to Curufin.] You may have a turn after the rest of them, Finrod, if you want it!
FINROD [Distressed]: I am warning you—
FINGON: I heed it! Return in peace to your own kingdom, cousin, after you have sworn your fealty, and paid your dues; I do not presume your allegiance to my father carries over to me without sureties on both sides.
[Now to Curufin] Now, cousin; my terms have not changed: If you win this contest, I concede the crown. If I win, you mutter no more about it being mine. But what is the contest?
[Curufin gestures to the Chorus, they retrieve four elven swords and carry them to the combatants, two each.]
CURUFIN: No mannish blades for me; traditional swords instead, the same as we ever used.
FINGON: Just the same. [To Chorus] I thank thee. [To Curufin] These are your make.
CURUFIN: They are.
FINGON: And fine, as your work ever was. Were they made before, or after?
CURUFIN: Before or after what?
FINGON: The question evaded is answered. And what decides this contest?
CURUFIN: Death.
FINGON: Really.
CURUFIN: Yes, really.
FINGON: …I will not taste the blood of kin again.
CURUFIN: If you won’t do it, then forfeit.
FINGON [aside]: It’s not a bad strategy; he’s willing, I’m not. He demands the impossible to push me to forfeit. I must become willing. The crown on his head is a heavier disaster than his body on the floor. One on my hands is thousands in his. I would like to speak better of him, but I consider myself honest.
CELEGORM: And what am I supposed to tell thy son, Curvo?
CURUFIN: Tell him, ‘Good news.’
FINGON: I said the terms were yours to set, and I am a man of my word. But I will not mock you or mark you a coward if you go back on yours.
CURUFIN: I, also, am a man of my word.
MAGLOR [from the back]: Curvo, cease.
CURUFIN: Why, so I cannot beat thee to the end? But I will respect the proper order. The crown will go from my hands to the head of my honored elder brother once I retrieve it from the usurper.
MAGLOR: I don’t wish thee dead, brother.
CURUFIN: Canst thou not have faith that I will not fail? Canst thou not even consider that I will not?
MAGLOR [after receiving no help from Maedhros]: Oh, go to it; thou hast worked to die for years, despite that we give to thee anything a man could want, anything thou askest for, let thee cry into any shoulder thou dost wrench, every wrist thou dost twist, helping thee through every scrape and fix no matter how thou dost deserve it; and I know we can trust valiant Fingon to help one with whatever bloody business one cannot compel one’s own hand to do.
FINGON: Have a drink, Maglor.
MAGLOR: Have a heart.
FINGON: Find a spine. Curufin; begin.
CURUFIN: I have.
[Fingon realizes Curufin has gone into position while he was distracted with Maglor. The battle begins as a test of awareness and patience.]
CURUFIN: Are you prepared for what happens if you do win this contest, Astaldo?
FINGON: I wonder the same about you. Do you want a crown for yourself so badly, or is it vengeance for your father and his dispossessed line that better appeals to you? I have no doubt you still think he stole the crown that Maedhros placed into each of his hands, palm to palm.
CURUFIN: Oh, that’s not what I meant.
FINGON: No?
CURUFIN: Who among your own could bear to kill for you? They’re too good for it. But as for me…
FINGON: I would not brag of having men willing to do such things for me. Nor would I commit such acts as a way to earn their devotion, like a cat bringing mice.
CURUFIN: Why would they accept you in the first place? Kin-killer, dragon-slayer. Only because they are now afraid enough of death that they will consent to rule by the strongest, accepting whoever they think can protect them. They’ll submit to the victor. You wouldn’t have proposed this contest if you thought our people were too good for it.
FINGON: I demand it not from them, but they know I will do it for them if I must.
CURUFIN: Yes. They know.
[Curufin sees weakness in Fingon’s face and pounces. This fight is much longer than the last one, and quick, taken onto tables, over chairs. Curufin is a fast, mean, tricky fighter. He can spit, strike with sword or hand, use props around him. He uses cruel words as weapons as well. Actor can improv lines. Fingon is injured over the course of the fight; he also throws himself before a Chorus member not quick enough to get away.]
CURUFIN [While fighting]: You are tiring, sweet little cousin! You will lose.
FINGON: I hold.
CURUFIN: Less, year by year, as the Enemy chews and swallows more bites of your territory. If we had held it and could strike instead of accepting the burden of your father’s cowardly, diminishing siege—we would have defeated the Enemy and taken his stronghold—while you would remain the brainless, useful vassal you were meant to be.
FINGON: If that is so, it should be easy to defeat me now.
CURUFIN: Your father kept you behind his throne as a threat to Sindar and Avari allies, and his own discontented Lords. They know your hands are stained. They know you’d kill for him as he sat back and commanded with clean palms. And that is your place. He never would have—
FINGON: To kill as my father commands? Curufinwe Atarince—
CURUFIN: You can’t win! I see you panting. You’re so eager to settle the score with us, or put the threat we pose to you away, that you’ll lose the crown for it. You couldn’t even wait for the coronation to debase your honor and stain your hands with kin’s blood. If we let you, you’d be on the throne, sucking—
[Fingon finds an opportunity and stabs him.]
CURUFIN: Maedhros—
[Fingon catches his body as he collapses forward, going to the ground with him. At least Maedhros and Celegorm stand up and hurry toward them. Before they can even reach him, Fingon begins to sing a healing charm. As he sings, Maedhros sits behind Fingon and grips his shoulder tightly; Curufin, whose writhing stabilizes as the charm goes on, is transferred to Celegorm’s arms.]
FINGON:
Nuhta núre neni a Sulimo Valatar
Yulda matetyásse a Soronion Atar
I lisse linque si melitseo melitsenyaron,
Caita paltyar celusse nwalmeryaron.
CELEGORM [Holding Curufin, now standing]: I thank you, though I note that this means you have gone back on your word. This contest did not end on the terms to which you swore.
FINGON: Then note that I would rather go back on my word sworn than to become a kinslayer.
CELEGORM [menacing]: Shut your mouth or I will! You are already both, kinsman, or it was something other than the blood of Teleri I remember splattered on your face at the shore, and smeared across the lips when you willingly received an unholy kiss. I am surprised to see how many have forgotten that.
FINGON: They have not. They have forgiven.
CELEGORM: Too good for us now because you have broken no oath. You never gave one! I will take my brother to bed to rest; wait for me, red-handed hypocrite, and I will return to repay him.
[Celegorm leaves with Curufin. Curufin may change and return as Chorus. Fingon looks up to Maedhros; Maedhros wordlessly returns to his seat. Fingon stands.]
FINGON: Finrod. Cousin.
[Finrod returns to Fingon and gives him the goblet again. Fingon drinks deeply.]
FINGON: Take your bow and an arrow and go out, and whatever animal you first find, be it kitchen hen or wild sparrow or hare or deer, whatever animal you see unless it is a horse slay it immediately and then bring the corpse to Curufin’s bed, wherever they lay him. Then give it to him and tell him that his contest is ended according to his request: with death.
FINROD: Even I must shed blood today.
FINGON: Or command a servant, Finrod. Heavens above us, I’ll do it without you. But I don’t like my chances.
FINROD: You, too, should be healed.
FINGON: No.
FINROD: You don’t have a chance of winning by yourself.
FINGON: Against our Enemy? No. If my father did not, then none does. But to win the night? To become king? That is the duty of one man, taken on by him alone.
FINROD: You want to be sure no one can accuse you of having an advantage.
FINGON: I will win honestly. I did not start this for blood. I do not want any. I would strip their doubts and reclothe them with loyalty. Such actions take work, such work must be honest. I will only accomplish my ends if the fight is fair beyond complaint.
FINROD: Six to one—
FINGON [Interrupting]: Seven. Seven.
FINROD [Not pausing for the interruption]: –surely the fairest fight I have ever seen. Kinsman; If you survive this, it will indeed convince everyone that you have no equal and may as well be the king.
FINGON: How grateful I am to have your confidence.
FINROD: And my loyalty, which you will know when your head is cleared. I take my leave; don’t die.
[Finrod exits, to return later as Galadriel.]
CARANTHIR [from the back]: Speaking of confidence; how I appreciate Tyelko’s assertion that he would be back to set Fingon straight. Surely there isn’t anyone he might be skipping over.
FINGON: I think he presumes you’ll abstain. To that I will say that I would accept abstention without a word to your honor, a virtue which I have always believed is served by peaceful conduct.
CARANTHIR [approaching]: I find it hard to ignore the exact terms of an agreement once they are spoken. You commanded us to bring our grievances to force now if we have ever complained about your position as crown prince. I have.
FINGON: Then, Caranthir, do you accept my challenge?
CARANTHIR: I do accept.
FINGON: Then state the terms.
CARANTHIR: I will, but they take some explanation.
FINGON: None have ever conversed with you without needing one.
CARANTHIR: As such, I have developed the skill. Boys—heirs of the house of Haleth, to me.
[The Chorus members representing two young humans approach. It is clear they know Caranthir already. They are not wary enough.]
CARANTHIR: Young princes—these are the sons of Galdor, the elder Hurin, the younger Huor.
FINGON: I know, for I knew Hador well. He was a commander under my father.
CARANTHIR: That is so. On both sides is their lineage great; their height, not yet. Boys, fetch for me your staves, those that you use to train. Yes, go.
FINGON: You are familiar with these children.
CARANTHIR: They are sons of Haleth, all of whose house and vassalage are under my sworn protection. I go through many pains to convince their daughters to not leave it and they go to marry the men under your father’s banner.
FINGON: Why is that?
CARANTHIR: The lesser benefits.
FINGON: We don’t try to keep them in the jewel-case as you do, cousin.
CARANTHIR: But I let them have the pick of the hoard.
FINGON: Us, of the armory.
CARANTHIR: And the graveyard. [The boys come with two staves; they are young, but the weapons are sized for men.] I thank you, young princes. No, you need not go again, except far enough that you might not be injured. Learn what you will of our trials today.
FINGON: As long as it is not kin-strife they learn. [To Chorus] I thank thee also.
CARANTHIR: Do you think they will never have need of it? This is not the land of bliss we live in, and besides we both know that sometimes you must finish strife you did not begin.
FINGON: May it rest in peace after us.
CARANTHIR: May it be so. But I ask them to stay because they seek to learn the art of war as their fathers and mothers have, and if they must then I would that they did well. It is tradition that they wish to learn. And besides, we borrow their weapons.
FINGON: And these are your choice, Caranthir? Training staves?
CARANTHIR: What did my brother say? [Let the impression be very good.] ‘No mannish weapons for me?’ Well, no thirsty blades for me. If I become a king it will not be over your corpse.
FINGON [To Maedhros and Maglor, who still sit in the back] Did you two replace Caranthir while I was elsewhere?
MAGLOR: I have wondered the same.
CARANTHIR: I admit to having spent little time with my kin as of late. I have been among the Haladin instead, and other peoples of the secondborn. The purpose of these is indeed to teach mere children to fight, something which our kind would never do. For humans it is necessary; a man has only seventy or eighty years, and that if he is fortunate. When you live among men, you live two lifetimes in a hundred years.
FINGON: You speak my thought.
CARANTHIR: But still they wish their children no harm, so they use these blunt tools. I will follow the same practice that was taught to me by the ancestors of these boys, which is a practice better suited for leaving both combatants alive. These weapons cannot cut, so a glancing strike will not wound. We count to three strikes significant enough to leave a bruising mark. Whoever has three marks first has lost.
FINGON: It pleases me. We begin at your word.
CARANTHIR: Then we begin. [He readies his weapon.] I don’t dislike you, cousin; I don’t like you in particular. Pretending I would gladly follow you as my king, however, would be dishonest. I have never been a good liar.
[Both fight honorably. It is a short and succinct fight. Caranthir strikes Fingon twice, but then Fingon strikes thrice rapidly. They count as they go. Caranthir retreats with a sign of surrender.]
[While they fight, Celegorm reenters from the back, now armed with several weapons, not drawing attention to himself.]
FINGON: I don’t dislike you, cousin. I never did. I know you prefer privacy and I respect that. By my reckoning you always ruled your princedom well and I do not have any desire to intrude on that.
CARANTHIR: I thank you, your majesty.
FINGON: Go then in peace.
CARANTHIR: I do prefer to.
[Caranthir returns to the back. Maglor fusses over his injuries, Maedhros continues to not move. Celegorm then approaches Fingon; as he does, other actors back up. Celegorm moves like a wolf. He is armed with several weapons, one of which is a bow and quiver.]
[Celegorm and Fingon face off.]
FINGON: I believe, Celegorm, that you accept my challenge.
CELEGORM: I do accept.
FINGON: Then let me have another drink.
FINGON: Finrod— [He turns and is surprised by Galadriel instead, who has the same golden goblet.] Galadriel!
GALADRIEL: Here I am.
FINGON: My thanks. [He accepts the goblet, then looks into it.] You have made your own selection.
GALADRIEL: My preference.
FINGON: I think that I should not be mead-headed right now.
GALADRIEL: You are already wine-drunk.
FINGON: Your brother’s work.
GALADRIEL: It seems to have not diminished you.
FINGON: Light drunkenness is sometimes the best choice for the task at hand. [He drinks.] You brought this with you from Doriath.
GALADRIEL: I did.
FINGON: And why did you not bring anything else from Doriath? We would all like to meet the one who gave you those bands and bracelets.
GALADRIEL: You do not.
FINGON: Or he does not want to meet us? I will leave it. I see you chose to stay when your brother chose to leave, little cousin. Are we amusing you?
GALADRIEL: I couldn’t be amused by such a wanton display of violence.
FINGON: Of course not. Are you keeping an eye on us instead, then?
GALADRIEL: Not to the things which I see now but to the things they presage.
FINGON: You were born with great foresight, and the gloaming ways we tread have sharpened your perception of things in the dark. What do you see, Galadriel? I would know what is ahead for me, if I am indeed to become the protector of so many in this so vulnerable kingdom.
GALADRIEL: Have you no sight yourself?
FINGON: In bright day, and of things behind us.
GALADRIEL: But not of things ahead.
FINGON: That great gift prefers women. I have been called a woman often enough, when those slow in mind wish to insult me, but I have not been properly employed by that company or enjoyed the benefits of the position. Let me a glimpse. Does your wisdom give me any advice for what to do?
GALADRIEL: I see a very dark night ahead, but a slow and star-white dawn at the end of it. No more will I say, for fear of risking that new day, not even if it would change your fate. I can say that Celegorm is growing impatient.
FINGON: By your leave, Galadriel.
GALADRIEL: I take mine.
[She walks to the Chorus. Fingon watches her go.]
FINGON [Aside]: Father. My father. Will I manage it? Will I see which way we must walk through this ice of wandering? For it feels that there is one safe path, and a thousand which lead into the bitter, black sea.
[He swallows his grief and faces Celegorm.]
FINGON: Then, Celegorm; you have waited patiently for your turn.
[Celegorm steps forward. Do this subtly, but make sure the Chorus stays a little further away from him than they do the other murderers.]
CELEGORM: I am a hunter. The first lesson of my great master Orome was patience.
FINGON: You learned it well.
CELEGORM: I feign it well.
FINGON: What shall the contest be?
CELEGORM: If only you were fresh to the fight. It does not please me to see you already battered and weary. Some might say my victory had been won by attrition and not by my skill.
FINGON: Some might say so. I find that tongues wag no matter what one does.
CELEGORM: Not that you have given them any reason to talk, gentle kinsman. I spent long tree-years perfecting my skills in both combat and the hunt; I can fight you with any weapon I wield or which could be procured for me. But while there are many I like, there is one I favor in particular. Which is it?
FINGON: The bow. There is no one who does not know that. Of all the followers Orome trained, you are perhaps the finest with a bow and the keenest hunter of wild game.
CELEGORM: So I am! And all the better that you are not a poor shot yourself, and that victory will not depend on simply beating you down. I would like to give you the best chance you can have. [To Chorus] Retrieve three of the small tables, and on them place targets for archery! Make the targets very small, there are no amateurs here.
FINGON [to Chorus]: My bow then, and my quiver.
[Despite Celegorm saying so, nothing on the set is moved. Chorus may shuffle around but the set remains as it was. If your actors wish to actually shoot it could be done, but miming the shots may be wiser. Depending on which institution you bailed them from, giving Celegorm’s actor a projectile weapon may be fantastic for maintaining the menace that is supposed to pervade the character.]
FINGON: [To Chorus] I thank thee. [To Celegorm] Three shots each, then?
CELEGORM: Just so. We will take turns at one target, then the next, then the last; highest score overall wins. Simple, yes, but then it should be simple for as practiced an archer as yourself.
FINGON: You could speak as sharply as you shoot, cousin; you are mocking me.
CELEGORM: But you are a fair shot.
FINGON [Aside]: Fair, in a contest against the fairest in all the land. [To Celegorm]: Shall you go first, or I?
CELEGORM: You, and at your will. [To Chorus, who are already staying far away from him]: Get all of you out of the way! Neither of us shall miss the targets, but you do not want to catch an arrow nonetheless, nor will I forgive any who tries to interfere.
FINGON: And when have you ever forgiven anyone?
[Celegorm does not reply. Fingon readies his bow and begins lining up his shot.]
FINGON [low]: While we stand so close together, cousin, let me ask; what is the appeal of the crown to you? Are you more interested in winning it for yourself or removing it from me?
CELEGORM: Both appeal! You are hardly a despicable prince, Fingon, better than many who have tried and failed to lead. But High King? Fingon Noldoran? I couldn’t take you seriously.
FINGON: Why not? The difference in our ages?
CELEGORM: You know why not.
FINGON: Of all things. Saving him would have won me untold thanks and respect, I assume, if only I had not loved him.
CELEGORM: That’s now how I would say it.
FINGON: How would you say it?
CELEGORM: You are like a little sister, Astaldo.
FINGON: He’s your older brother, you should call me older sister.
CELEGORM [laughing]: No, I do not dislike you because of that, though as I said I cannot take you seriously. If you were a competent prince who minded your own that would be one thing, because you can mind a company or a hall quite well. But you think you deserve kingship, and better than I do. That I cannot stand.
[Fingon takes his first shot. The Chorus and watching murderers react as if it is a quite good shot, but not astonishing.]
FINGON: I would like to argue more stridently with that assumption.
CELEGORM [Walking up and readying his arrow]: But you can’t. We are exactly the same as kinslayers, but you are crown prince and I am dispossessed. Why would that be easy for me to accept?
[Celegorm takes his first shot. All act as if it is an incredible shot. Celegorm, however, does not smile or react. His false cheer has disappeared, he is now grim and murderous.]
CELEGORM [suddenly sinister]: Think on it. If after we rejoined each other on this continent it had been decided that the elder line was still superior and yours was disowned for your actions, perhaps for the cowardice of the sons of Fingolfin and Finarfin at the first battle, even though you had as much blood on your hands as I, would you accept that without complaint?
[He steps back to let Fingon take the next target.]
FINGON [Readying bow and arrow]: I have wronged the Teleri as you have and would certainly not expect to be crowned king by them. You and yours were dispossessed for betraying your own. You set aflame the ships that I, as you mentioned, helped steal with you, and left me and mine stranded in the land where we were doomed by the very Powers. Of course one who betrays his own will not be their king. If my siblings had ever argued my position as crown prince, or Finarfin’s sons challenged me for it on grounds that my hands were unclean, I would have taken them seriously and perhaps acquiesced. But they did not. I am even giving you your chance now, despite it being decided already that you are unfit, so tell me how I have wronged you. And before you say that there is one of your own who did not participate in that betrayal, I recall, and so does he.
[Fingon lets his second arrow fly. All react as if it is a very good shot, but there is a nervousness that mutes their reactions.]
CELEGORM: In this; that circumstance and mere public opinion have put you high and laid me low, when all is the result of strife we put our hands in equally.
FINGON: Do you think I did that? Am I the origin of these things? If I were you, I might consider another culprit.
[Celegorm starts intimidatingly forward as he approaches the second target. Fingon flinches out of the way. He tries to disguise it, but the startle betrays the fact that he is frightened of Celegorm.
[Celegorm takes his second shot quickly and wordlessly. All act as if this is an unbelievable shot. Some shout. Fear starts to spread among them.]
CELEGORM: Striking these dead trees is as close as I can come to venting anger on such a culprit, long-dead. I am not stupid and I have not taken leave of my senses. I know that some who deserved retribution died without receiving it. But there is something to be said for correcting old wrongs. Like a superior line being supplanted.
FINGON: I would not blame you for your father’s crimes if you had not participated in them.
CELEGORM: So noble! So kind. If Good King Fingolfin demanded it of you, would you have refused? And if you had stood aside and your little brothers all taken up the torch, what next? Your reasoning on the matter may be sound, but no reasoning straightens out experience, not after the moment and even less inside of it.
FINGON: I am both proud and humbled to say that I have never had to face such a command.
CELEGORM: I have and did. Your good fortune does not make you superior to me, as a hale and untested man is not superior to the battle-wounded veteran.
FINGON: If your argument is that some are blessed by the Powers and some are denied those blessings, I cannot disagree. I have seen too many born to nothing but ill fate and punishment. Your very lineage dealt you punishment that I avoided simply by being born to an inferior line. Of course I did not deserve that, nor you. None of you deserved what he did to you.
CELEGORM [murderous]: Take your third shot, son of Fingolfin, and perhaps it will be your last.
[Fingon approaches the third target, forced to master fear with each step. Once he is prepared, with an arrow drawn, he closes his eyes and meditates for several breaths.]
FINGON: Manwe Sulimo, guide my arrow.
[Fingon shoots, as a burst of light from above or the cry of an eagle (or some other use of theatrical magic as you will) makes it clear the plea was heeded. Celegorm starts and looks to the sky, as if hiding from a bird. The Chorus acts as if this is the best shot anyone has ever taken.
[Fingon steps back. Celegorm looks to the third target. He approaches it reluctantly. He is grim as he readies his third arrow. He sets it and pulls. There is hissing behind him from the Chorus, embolden by Fingon’s shot and Manwe’s brief presence.
[The lighting dims, turns green. As with the cry of the eagle, the distant sound of a horn. Celegorm alone reacts like he hears. He looks about; his throat works. He visibly struggles to say something, but, after several attempts, he cannot.
[After great effort and then a snarl of rage, Celegorm wrenches bow and arrow apart and turns his back.]
CELEGORM: You win.
FINGON: Kinsman—
CELEGORM [shouted]: You win.
[Celegorm stalks to the back, where the other murderers sit. He goes for a drink.]
MAEDHROS: Celegorm.
[Celegorm flinches, then kneels in front of Maedhros. To indicate osanwe, Maedhros extends a hand to Celegorm and threads it into his hair. Celegorm shudders through the silent conversation. Fingon watches, unmoving, until Galadriel approaches him again with the goblet.]
GALADRIEL: A drink, then?
FINGON [accepting it]: Thank you. [Aside, to her] That is a son of Feanor.
GALADRIEL: Are they not all?
FINGON: He would be proud of that one.
GALADRIEL: Proud, after what he just said about him?
FINGON: Avoided saying about him. Even more so. Celegorm says with his voice that his father bade him to do brutal acts, claims his will was and is against it, and then with his arms he does those brutal acts. His father is dead, but he remains his, and broken from Orome, who is immortal. That slavish loyalty would be to the dead king as incense to the Valar. I have no doubt Celegorm’s despairing, revenant vassalage is sweeter to his senses than it would be if it were loving and blind.
GALADRIEL: Nothing is sweet to the senses of Namo’s guests, who feel aught. All that is left are the acts.
FINGON: Is he not being hosted by your brother?
GALADRIEL: He is, and Curufin as well.
FINGON: Finrod—he—Well, I worry—
GALADRIEL [interrupting]: Which is where my brother is now, looking over him as he heals, now that he has given him the blood sacrifice you commanded. My brother has many strengths, but his weakness, I think, is his fear of loss. Not his compassion, as some might say, but that he refuses to let reason and resolve temper it, and placates troublemakers instead of confronting them, afraid to lose yet more. His attachment to mortals I think is a quest for healing; he seeks to snatch at what they have, their acceptance of death, fluttering greedily around their brief candleflames.
FINGON: I feel that is an odd thing to say for me, unless you are simply tired of your brother and want to complain about him to someone.
GALADRIEL: He has been trying, but I consider that my fault for being, though unintentionally, another one to abandon him. How foolish we have been to do this everywhere we go, split kin from kin to rule isolated mountains behind stone walls. You might wonder if you could fall for the same traps my brother has, even with due warning.
FINGON: What traps are those? Of what do you warn me, far-seer?
[Celegorm makes a noise of pain, then jumps up. Fingon starts and looks over. Fingon and Maedhros, who finally looks forward, catch each other’s eyes. Fingon stands still and stares. He does not notice at first when Galadriel takes the goblet back away from him, then startles when she taps her fingernails on it and he sees his own empty hand.]
FINGON [aside, to her]: It does no good to warn me of that.
GALADRIEL: It does no good to ask a far-seer for a warning she said she would not give you.
FINGON: Oh, Artanis.
GALADRIEL: Look again.
[Fingon looks to the back again, but this time, Maglor gets his attention. Once he has it, Maglor fluidly stands from his seat.]
GALADRIEL: Good luck to you. Before this point, you were dueling princes. Now…
[Galadriel exits. She can return as Chorus for the end.
[Maglor bows, not taking his eyes from Fingon’s face.]
FINGON: Maglor.
MAGLOR: Fingon.
FINGON: Do you accept my challenge?
MAGLOR: I do accept.
[Fingon bows deeply in return. They both straighten and take places across the stage. Maglor moves deliberately and fluidly; he is a performer and used to being on stage, no need to obsess over being ‘natural’.]
MAGLOR: I would have you restate the terms of the contest.
FINGON: I shall, and without change from how I stated them at first, unless it is in exact phrasing. If you can best me in a fight, with the conditions of both the contest and the victory being your choice, you will win the crown and position of High King of the Noldor. If I best you, you accept me instead as your High King.
MAGLOR: And why wouldst thou makest such an offer?
FINGON: Again I say just as I did before: because I know that thee and thy brothers have grumbled that I do not deserve the position and that it should have remained with the elder line. I detest this grumbling because it is dishonorable and seditious, dangerous to keeping our kingdom harmonious and prosperous. I would rather have it out and put these grievances to rest. I do not even ask thee to accept me fully, only that thou mutterest not about my position if thou canst not win it fairly.
MAGLOR: Why should I accept the terms of this arrangement? Why should I fight thee for the crown when thou couldst simply offer it back to me? Then the passage of the crown would be harmonious once again, and then the reign of a king would begin again in grace and in beauty.
FINGON: Then I will state plainly: I was the declared successor of the last High King, my father Fingolfin. He was the declared successor of the king before him, King Maedhros, and he the declared successor of the king before him, which was thee. The line of succession is thus whole and unbroken with me. Thy acceptance of this challenge constitutes thee withdrawing thy word, freely given, and that is a position that thou must defend. There is no need for me to accept it unquestioning. The burden of proving a claim rests upon he who stakes it.
MAGLOR: I would ensure that I do understand one more thing rightly: thou dost desire to be High King?
FINGON: I do.
MAGLOR: You were ever power-hungry in your youth. Your defenders claim that after your ‘mistake’ at Alqualonde, you represented and reformed, learned humility through penitence, and now seek not glory for yourself but prosperity for our people. But I remember Fingon as he once was: blatantly divisive, self-centered and power-hungry, driving wedges between kin and kin as he sought to debate and discredit what was then the line of succession chosen by High King Finwe himself, worming his way into the good graces of some and undermining others, seeking acclaim for himself and his line and deliberately against his more-favored kin. You are no different now than you were then, except that in having achieved your goals, or nearly, you can afford to appear magnanimous. Were you still fairly challenged you would have yet the same conniving and wickedness.
FINGON: You remember right, cousin, and just as I remember it. I regret who I was and what I did. I regret the strife and the arguing, even the things of which later it was proven that I had it right, but I cannot and will not regret the— worming, as you so evocatively put it. I have loved each of you at least partly and some of you very well. Denounce that if you want.
MAGLOR: And this is who you have always been! A creature of lust, lust for power and lust of the most base kind, and unapologetic for it. I cannot endure it, I cannot be quiet anymore, even out of love. This is the worm that I myself saw take my brother as wife, as if he were a woman, after he rescued him from the tortures of Angband, indeed even as the wound of the hand he had cut from him was still sore, and who then convinced him to give up his claim on the crown. Yes, of course I have always known, and kept silent; I have loved you too and earnestly, for all it has won me. And earnestly did I accept the love you had for each other until it coincidentally cost Maedhros his crown, his pride, and his heart.
FINGON: You—
MAGLOR: What, you?
FINGON You are truly too sentimental about your brother if you think that was my idea and not his.
[From his chair, Maedhros suddenly roars with laughter. After surprise, Fingon tries to fight his own laughter back, but cannot.
[Then turning his back to Maglor, who fumes, Fingon walks to the back of the stage and bends at the waist to Maedhros. He grasps Maedhros’ head, somewhat roughly, to signify osanwe. The next lines are spoken aloud but all others act as if they cannot hear it. If possible in your theater, have the lighting focused on the conversing lovers here. While the audience focuses on this, get Maglor his harp.]
FINGON: I told thee it was too soon! I told thee that thou must at least wait until thy wounds had stopped bleeding!
MAEDHROS: But I was going to die. Dost thou not recall? I told thee that I would die if we did not make love.
FINGON: Thy brother heard!
MAEDHROS: My brother heard because of thine animal noise.
FINGON: He heard thee, and thy bestial throat.
MAEDHROS: He heard me brag and gloat. How funny little Lauro is, pretending this disturbs him now when he has been aiding our meetings and making excuses for our absences these four centuries.
FINGON [fond, a little aroused]: The Valar alone know what world of peace and harmony we would live in today if thou wert less convincing.
[Fingon removes his hand from Maedhros hair. Maedhros watches him go with a pointed and visible glance at his ass. Fingon faces Maglor and the lighting and the scene returns to normal.]
MAGLOR [bringing his harp to bear]: A contest of battle-song. Whoever falters first in his song is the loser, and the one who still sings is the king.
FINGON [losing his cheer]: I did not think you would pick anything else! My harp, please, and perhaps I should have some water, loath as I am to admit it.
[He is brought both, and thanks the Chorus members who bring them. The actor has been speaking, and now they must sing, so do actually bring them water. If they have real harps, the combatants tune them; if props, they mime. To have both combatants actually play and sing would be the ideal effect but this is much to ask; having a harpist off-stage or a recording playing while the actors sing is well enough.]
MAGLOR: You cannot be made to feel shame! But in the act of song, no one can speak against his heart. I will at least hear you honest.
FINGON: I have been honest all along; much to my own detriment, as has been proven continuously today.
MAGLOR: So you will claim that it was genuine love, then, that inspired you to take every action you would have to take to disinherit my brother and put yourself in his place?
FINGON: I have always claimed so, though shut my mouth against my will when anyone was too offended by the topic to hear it. Whether you believe me is up to you. You claim to have loved me as well; are you a liar yourself, or like to give your love to the sort of creature you accuse me of being?
MAGLOR [turning melancholy]: Perhaps both. It seems time to let our hearts speak, thee and I. I have loved thee; like the hart that runs through the trees from the hounds I find more loves wherever I flee, and whatever they demand of me. Fingon, to have had thy quick mind, thy bright eyes, thine easy embrace in the dark days without Maedhros; but I too took up the torch when my king and father asked it of me.
FINGON: Maglor, I hope to the Lord that thou are doing this thing for thyself and not thy brother or thy father or whoever else wrenches the strings in thy heart out of tune.
MAGLOR: For me—for thee, thou dawn-born fool. The crown will slip down to thy throat and strangle thee.
FINGON: Maglor.
MAGLOR: Dost thou not recall its pure starlight shine on thy father’s dark head? That bright silver river-light, like the waters of awakening? Dost thou not remember his warm and gentle hands? Thee and I both have kinslaying hands. The crown shall not abide thee or me. I have worn it. I have felt it clenching on me, pressing into my bone to prise at the soft things beneath. The brain. The blood. Splattered on the ground. On thy lips.
FINGON: How can I not remember? But do not let it turn thee in circles.
MAGLOR: When thou shalt dream of holding a throat of a man in your grasp and his head in the water, and of how his hair fans in the tides of the harbor, and how the starlight shines over those snaking silver tresses, when thou dost wake, how shalt thou move thine arms to lift up the crown?
FINGON: I have avowed it. I have forsworn it.
MAGLOR: How dost thou sleep?
FINGON: Well.
MAGLOR: Impossible.
FINGON: I will tell thee when I did not sleep: as the howling of the ice-wind on the Helcaraxe rang in my ears day and night for thirty years, as I walked the sundering sea alone because kin and kith alike could no longer look me in the eyes. None called me Kano again, none called me Astaldo yet; they said ‘him’. I stumbled leaving a trail of blood behind me and all fled my steps. Their white eyes flinched if accidentally they looked at me. Cold was the hatred of those who had loved me, colder was the rejection of those who had committed the crime with me and abandoned me, coldest of all was being left with myself and who I really am. Only the ice-wind, screaming.
[One of the Chorus representing commoners comes to his side, comforting, and Fingon accepts their hand.]
I did not sleep then. How could anyone, thirty years in the waters of Alqualonde before a hand reached down to pull him out? But they forgave me. My sister came to me and told me she had reckoned with my reasons and admitted she understood. Finrod took my hand in freezing hand and told me that he knew I was better than what I had done, and because he is a greater man than I he continues to extend that hand again and again. Elenwe put little Idril in my arms. Turgon came to tell me that he could not ignore that which I had done, but neither could he ignore all that which I did to put it right. And my father asked my forgiveness, Maglor. He came to me, my father, and asked me to forgive him for having rejected me, for not having understood, for not having realized that his strife with his kin had caused me such pain. He told me ere he rode to do battle alone with the Enemy that I was the only king he could imagine, I the true heir. Why? Because he knew none other so determined to do good for his people. ‘Perhaps you have to think about being good,’ he said to me, ‘but you do.’
And what for you, Maglor? What for you? What forgiveness? What sleep, and what dreams? What hope? To what end will you bring our people, confident that as king you can only go mad and die? What people? Or did you forget they were here?
MAGLOR [furious]: I will cleave you through your ears.
[The Chorus retreats again. The battle of song begins. Use theatre magic, sounds, lights, projections as you will, but without overwhelming the actual performance. The translation of their song is at the end of this book so that you may know what imagery and symbols are being evoked. If your actors won’t sing a foreign language, get new actors.]
MAGLOR:
Ela i rimbe, i nehte-letinwesse
Cendi elenion silie cemenesse
Siryie tulwi lia i súre
Hwarwe antollon ohtarion túre.
FINGON:
Ohtarion túre ar verye lirin
Sundor tacer n’Anar alfírin
Arate orni tarir apa súre norne
Valde quettar vilir mitta neri sorne.
[In the next two verses, Maglor attacks and Fingon defends. Neither is giving it everything they’re got yet but there should be more aggression.]
MAGLOR:
Neri sorne roccossen ve soron
N’oronte nortante avar i coron
Úvanter, mahtie macilintar;
Rómar ramar ve armar lantar.
FINGON:
Ve armar lantar i cotto atalta
Ve calima malta in áre calta
I sandar ohtarion, ortante táre
I cendeli aksio ep’ ambassi máre.
[Maglor’s attack in this verse is cutting and fierce, Fingon should look like it hurts him physically.]
MAGLOR:
Ambassi máre racir nu celume,
I ehtele ehtenerion turuva illume.
Mindonellon ar ostollon illi rucir,
Tumnoressen ondonta ruxir.
[Fingon’s verse is defensive. Maglor listens sharply, but he is not at all hurt.]
FINGON:
Ondonta ruxir mal ostor entuluvar
Essi are qualir mal cardar peluvar
Sená quelme race rúcine nori; narello
Ostor ceu; ceu coivie yára noréllo.
[Maglor’s next verse is violent. Fingon looks like someone is beating him with something blunt, but he bears it without losing his footing.]
MAGLOR:
Yára noréllo sára saucaryi; falmar nwalce Earello;
Ma nér pole care? Qualme mene Ambarello.
[Fingon struggles to start his next verse, but he does.]
FINGON:
Mene Ambarello manna laisi; ambaróne russa,
Ceure coire; alcar ferya qualmenen insa.
MAGLOR:
Qualmenen insa cemen; loicor nirir more mutenna,
Ter tumbali carni latyas ar illi tuluvar yelloryanna.
[Fingon can no longer defend; in the next verse he goes on the attack. Maglor does not cower though he does appear to feel it.]
FINGON:
Yelloryanna tulir i seldi vangweo, limb’ iti lumbossen
Hyaltante i cemen, hirinte sarte súli sapseryassen.
[Now that Fingon has attacked, Maglor is smug and triumphant; he sings a soothing song that insists there is no need to fight. He has tired Fingon out and thinks he can lull him into complacency.]
MAGLOR:
Sapseryassen sortor i seldi undómeo, sére tupe telumi,
Hlare lomelírya; ve míse míre Isil linga t’i lence lissi lúmi.
[Fingon does not fall for that trap.]
FINGON:
Lissi lúmi laureo! Oryá ar tercirá i cardar Lómeo!
Cuitá, orcuitá, ilya fúmildar! Mahtá i metta sínomeo!
[Maglor’s next half-verse is especially rude, referencing pains he never suffered but Fingon did; though Fingon should be weary by this point it would not be wrong for him to look offended nonetheless.]
MAGLOR:
Sínomeo ringa; Nómeo amba ringa lirin, helca
Or helca; hrív’umbar i tupe ya tiríte hya tyelca.
FINGON:
Hya tyelca hya lenca hya linda tule in ulo, tulis;
Er rosse race i helce, estel undu lauya, yulis.
[Maglor’s next verse, about death, is brutal, and Fingon looks like he will faint for a moment.]
MAGLOR:
Yulis, matis, nuhtas allume, i nat naira tereva ninque,
Usque quele, i rini picir a’ picir; talilyat min’ unque.
FINGON:
Unquínen lumbaron pólen cene Menel n’Angamando,
Huinennen lirélya polin cene estel haila si rondo.
MAGLOR:
Haila si rondo, inte fifirúvar, i eleni or sunde hroalvar,
Foa vinta oa; qualilve, Findekano, soa 'pe coalvar.
[Fingon’s next line is failing music. Rhythm falls apart; after this, he cannot say much.]
FINGON:
Epe coalvar polilve tare, Kanafinwe, cé otarilve. Estel termare.
[Maglor refuses to start his next verse with the last words of Fingon’s verse, which has been the standard until now.]
MAGLOR:
Mana termare? Ma unqui uin etenyier leperyar intesse?
Mana nóre termare nurta? Mana lóte úppina tyasse?
[Fingon is losing his abilities, but clings to his final refrain. Maglor is tried as well, but could clearly keep going.]
FINGON:
Tyasse. Tyasse. Á cená mecin. Estel termare.
[Maglor’s last two verses are less artful than his standard; while he is not physically tired, an emotional strain is building.]
MAGLOR:
Mana nat laisur’ uin? I palasari late parni naire,
Ar naira nar i yulmi, maltantar váner ve váne laire.
FINGON:
Laure. Laire, Lairi—Meldonya. Estel termare.
MAGLOR:
Mana ‘meldo?’ Man? Masse i nildo naite? Néress’ uin
I hón sinten. Cenin allan’ úviryin, allan’ úharin.
FINGON:
Estel termare.
[Maglor realizes that Fingon can sing this refrain (‘hope endures’) forever. He moves to sing away hope. Maedhros stands.]
MAGLOR: Es. E. Es. Esss. sss. sss. st.
[At first, Maglor looks confused. Then something horrible dawns upon him. Slowly, he drifts back. Maedhros lifts up an arm and Maglor walks to it. They embrace, though Maedhros is rigid and unhappy. Celegorm, too, comes up and hesitantly comforts Maglor, wiping tears away. Finally, Maglor slumps down into his chair again, crying silently.
[Maedhros, however, remains standing. He and Fingon stare at each other. This should go on long enough that the audience’s attention shifts naturally from Maglor’s despair to the lovers staring at each other, so the realization that dawns on Fingon and leaves him staring and numb must be slow indeed.]
FINGON: Maedhros.
MAEDHROS: Dear heart.
FINGON: Dost thou accept?
MAEDHROS: I have.
FINGON: Dost thou accept my challenge?
MAEDHROS: I do; I will.
FINGON: What is the contest, then?
[Maedhros walks to Maglor and rouses him. Maglor tries to refuse.]
MAEDHROS: No. I have need of thee.
[Maglor stands. Maedhros reaches above his head and retrieves Fingolfin’s crown, which has been above him all this time. The others act astonished, like they had not yet noticed it was there. Maedhros hands the crown to Maglor, who accepts it without looking at it.
[Maedhros then beckons to Caranthir and Celegorm, who follow him, confused, to the center of the stage, in front of Fingon.
[At all points Maedhros must command the stage. It should be clear why everyone has been longing for his attention and approval until this point. Everyone stands closer to him than they did the others, they stare with wide eyes; his movements are slow, precise, hypnotic. The audience should want to see what he does next.
[Maedhros gestures to the Chorus.]
MAEDHROS: Come. Yes, even you. I need your help.
[Previously, the plain tables and boxes and chairs of the set were treated as if they were an imaginary lavish hall. Now Maedhros has them moved as if they are the tables and boxes and chairs of a black box theater. To do this, he wordlessly orders the Chorus to move things to his specifications. He instructs them to set up a table and chairs in the front-middle of the stage, closer to the audience than the actors have been before now. Then he dismisses them to the back.]
MAEDHROS [Holding out a hand to Fingon]: Please.
FINGON [Accepting his hand]: Please what?
[Maedhros lifts the hand to hip lips and kisses it.]
MAEDHROS: Come with me.
[Fingon follows him.
[Now you must break the rules of theater. Arrange the actors around the table thus: Maglor sits at one end of the table, slumped and holding his head, having set the crown in the middle of the table. Fingon sits across the table from the audience, on the highest chair, so he is very visible. Celegorm and Caranthir stand diagonally behind his shoulders. Maedhros, however, sits at the nearest side of the table to the audience and with his back to them. His face is not visible, from any angle. The audience must strain to hear him (consider micing him and having him whisper into the mic, as he should be hard to hear but not inaudible) and his reactions and expressions cannot be seen. The audience can only see the other actors reacting to him.]
MAEDHROS: [To Chorus] Drinks for us, please. [To Fingon] It pleased me to see the little ones using the traditions of the Edain, learned living among them. Dost thou know why they did this?
FINGON: Yes. They hoped I would not be familiar with their weapons.
MAEDHROS: But thou art.
FINGON: Familiar enough.
MAEDHROS: Nor art thou unfamiliar with any weapon than our own smiths make, or bringing any power of mind or body or soul to thy full command in combat. Thou wert born a warrior, with so many skills and such proficiency at them it feels nearly foolish to fight thee.
FINGON: Thou couldst. Thou hast, and beat me.
MAEDHROS: Oh, long ago, long ago… and even if someone were more skilled than thee, mightier in art or more skillful in mind, I think that thou couldst still somehow defeat them in fair fight. Perhaps I think this because I have seen it thrice this eve.
FINGON: I have been called tenacious.
MAEDHROS: I have been asking myself what contests thou wouldst not know.
FINGON: If it is to be a drinking contest, that’s no good. I’ve done and won plenty. Though I would welcome it!
MAEDHROS: That would mean myself setting myself up for a loss.
FINGON: Too humble. Besides, I’ve started ahead of thee.
MAEDHROS: And how would either of us stand up for a coronation afterward?
FINGON: Staying upright would be the winning condition.
MAEDHROS: Thou saidst that I would set the terms. [With a lowering of his tone] Canst thou imagine, Fingon, that even orcs in Angband play games with each other?
FINGON: Now that thou sayst it, I rather hope they would.
MAEDHROS: Dost thou?
FINGON: Not that I am fond of them, but I would rather they have something in the lives they must lead. Before I end it for them, that is.
MAEDHROS: From thee, that is barely a boast. [Slowly leaning closer to Fingon.] Yes, they will play with each other, but to their tastes. The most popular games were the simplest ones, and I believe the most popular of all was the very simplest: a game of pain. They would first trade knives, which I found interesting, and wield each other’s blades to stab themselves. An exchange, in the interest of fair play. Trust, even. The point would start on the tip of their skin, and they would sink it in slowly, with a rhythm that it seemed they all knew. The one who cried out or wrenched out the blade first was the loser. I would hear shouts, and then laughter.
[Maedhros is now quite close to Fingon, who watches him.]
MAEDHROS: But I think I would win that contest. [Leaning back again] In fact, I know that I would. And to me a contest with a sure victor is no contest at all.
[Fingon cannot fully disguise his exasperation, which makes Maedhros chuckle.]
FINGON: I knew thou wouldst not torture me in the great hall.
MAEDHROS: Not in the hall, no.
FINGON: Though I would not shrink from it as thou might thinkest I would. Capacity for pain is not a poor skill for a leader to have.
MAEDHROS: No, ‘tis not. But I ask who would follow a king who won a crown by such orcish means? All would be aware it made them orcs themselves. Thou hast a proven capacity for pain anyway.
Sometimes I would not hear such bestial sounds from the people of Morgoth, crouched in his reeking halls. I would hear simple conversation, each to each. Sometimes, they grow bored. As I began to learn their words I could understand when they were complaining about their lot or discussing the deeds they would like to perform, to prisoners or freemen they capture. I won’t say what kind of aspirational plots I heard, except to say that the time came when I could understand what they were aspiring to even as they approached me. But sometimes their speech would become more vague and twisting, and though I knew the words aright I could not grasp the meaning; at length it occurred to me that they were playing riddle-games.
FINGON: I would not thank thee for setting up a contest that favors me.
MAEDHROS: But it doesn’t! All know that thou art quick in thought and in debate, yes, but I see thee oft struggle to understand the position of men, as fond as thou art of them. Even less wilt thou understand the mind of the orc, in fact I believe thou shalt fall especially short there.
FINGON: I have some sympathy for them.
MAEDHROS: Sympathy can be easily crafted without any understanding at hand. In fact, that sometimes makes it easier. These are not riddles in the style of orc language or poetic conventions, which do, in their way, exist. These are orc riddles, and to answer them well thou must think with their mind. I will present thee three; three good answers win.
FINGON: Thou art pampering me.
MAEDHROS: Thou hadst always the oddest idea of pampering. These three questions, which came to me in the dungeon of Angband, were three that stayed on my mind and puzzled me. I should warn thee that I shall save the hardest of them for the last.
FINGON: Hardest to thee.
MAEDHROS: As thou sayst. Shall we begin?
FINGON: As thou wilt.
MAEDHROS: [After drinking]: They bite, the hound-teeth, the forty-two points. In my hand, in my stomach, in my groin. They have set and I cannot pull them out. I could if she did not have so many; I could yet if I needed to. Instead I may just have to cut off her head. Who is she? [After a pause] Thou must depend on my translation of the orcish, but I believe it still serves.
FINGON: It does. Hold thine own tongue a space.
MAEDHROS: In what space?
FINGON: A time, Russo.
MAEDHROS: How long?
FINGON: Impossible.
MAEDHROS: Already? Thou must endure longer than this, I have three planned.
FINGON: Must I hold thy tongue for thee?
MAEDHROS: Such a sharp mind, to have rooted out my plots; but apply it to the test.
FINGON: Thou wilt drive me mad and I will have no power left for puzzling. Forty-two; I have no idea how many teeth a hound has, and thou wouldst not glamour me with details. Thou hast always some point, the design is dressing on it.
MAEDHROS: And thou shalt always find that point beneath.
FINGON: I wonder if the speaker said a word other than ‘groin?’
MAEDHROS: Thou wouldst.
[Celegorm and Caranthir are enduring this well. Maglor was in despair to begin with.]
FINGON: But ‘she’—’she’ thou wouldst not include for no reason. Thou never chose a bitch when thou couldst choose a hound.
MAEDHROS: I like to hunt.
FINGON: As do I; I’m no hind.
MAEDHROS: Ah, no hind art thou—
FINGON: Whatever implication thou now stoopeth to pluck, it is beneath thee.
MAEDHROS: Under me, perhaps.
FINGON: This drivel is meant to distract me, or disarm, but I remain on the chase. I cannot think like an orc, or so thou claimest—would that that were true. What is the orc except a hunter, and of his fellow children of Eru? I have hunted as fair a quarry.
MAEDHROS: I am proven right; thou art too high-minded. The orc is the hound, not the hunter, and he is born to the muzzle. Never hast thou been mastered. Thou canst not know.
FINGON: Thou hast never before won this debate and will not today either. It is thy desire that I be purer than thee and thou more marred that me, so that thou might torture thyself with thy familiar devices, but the truth remains that our hands were red together. [He realizes something.] Oh, the hound, the bitch—a wife. The answer to the riddle is ‘a wife’. The speaker complains of her, but still he hesitates to cut her away because she had become entangled in him. And I see why thou thought I would not think of it, cur.
MAEDHROS [Turning to Caranthir}: What thinkst thou? Is this a good answer?
CARANTHIR [Startled]: In truth I think it is. Not that it pleases, but it fits the riddle.
MAEDHROS: Then it is decided! [To Fingon] Thou hast won the first round, and we go to the next.
[Fingon’s eyes widen, he looks to Celegorm. They accidentally lock eyes and then quickly look away. Maglor, too, stirs out of his misery with concern.]
MAGLOR: Maedhros…
MAEDHROS [Addressing Fingon]: The second. This came to me while I was hung from chains, and I ruminated on it for a while, uncertain of the meaning. It goes: It clawed out of my cavern; I vomited it out. From me it came but it gives me only shame, brought back to me whenever it sins.
FINGON: That is all of it?
MAEDHROS: It is.
FINGON: Repeat it.
MAEDHROS: It clawed out of my cavern; I vomited it out. From me it came but it gives me only shame, brought back to me whenever it sins.
FINGON [after drinking]: Too easily.
MAEDHROS: Done?
FINGON: No. An answer came to me far too easily. I’m sure a thoughtless response won’t be to Celegorm’s discerning taste.
MAEDHROS: Do not worry about Celegorm’s taste.
FINGON: That is the first thing I must worry about; thou hast brought three brothers and ask them three riddles.
MAEDHROS: Thee.
FINGON: No, them. They get to answer.
MAEDHROS: They must agree with thee. Their concordance with thy word is required. Is that not the point of this evening?
FINGON: To be certain—
MAEDHROS: The point was certainly not to put thy fists to them for thy pleasure. I presume.
FINGON: Thou knowst. I shall not insult thee. I did decide to offer these contests before this eve. But I ceded the right to decide the manner of the contest for a reason. Every one who asked to bring their bitterness to arms made the request themselves. I asked for my weapon after they theirs each time.
CELEGORM [to Maedhros]: This game was not thy conceit?
[Maedhros laughs. Fingon glares briefly at Celegorm.]
FINGON: I am not corrupt. Many have wished I were a little moreso. I mentioned nothing to Maedhros. He watches me oft; I take no offense and make no censure of it. When he watches, he learns. If he knew he put together the body of his knowledge without my tongue.
CELEGORM: Balls, you little ass, I had been assuming he did the thinking. You really planned all this yourself?
FINGON: I had time to think in my year of grief.
CELEGORM: We must endeavor to assure you never have the time again.
MAEDHROS: We, whom, Tyelko?
CELEGORM [Immediately wilts back]: Ah.
FINGON: Do not command him back like that.
MAEDHROS: I made no command.
FINGON: Thou needest not. Thy glance is obeyed. Russandol, I want no one to say that thou hast put the coins in my pile; do not arrange things in my favor.
MAEDHROS: That is a command hard to obey.
FINGON: Not right now.
MAEDHROS: —That tone less so.
FINGON: It is no game at all; not thine, and not mine, because it is no game. I fight, but the fight is not the point. This is about the kingdom of our grandfather and its survival. Dost thou want a kingdom? A home? A wall and a bed and a hearth? I know thou dost. Where we crumble, the Enemy advances. Where there are separate kingdoms, his armies seep between and widen the rifts until we cannot traverse the roads. I want thy men not under my heel but my banner. But I need to know they will stay there.
MAEDHROS: Peaceful submission remains so. Like our young cousins, I warn thee; there is no way to make submission soft enough for my brothers that they do not squirm upon it.
FINGON: That was an impossible task to begin with. ‘Little cousin’, ‘maiden prince’; I won’t ever have their respect. Rather, we are allied, and they submit to thee. This agreement has worked well for some centuries.
MAEDHROS: But thou sayst that I should not now command them.
FINGON: Vexing man.
MAEDHROS: Nor contrive that they submit to thee.
FINGON: I will win this honestly.
MADHEROS: Each contest, and the crown.
FINGON: Yes.
MAEDHORS: I know that thou wilt.
FINGON: Thou shouldst not know. It is not—should not be thy choice. Thy hands pick up the crown, pluck it as if from a tree; set it down upon the pate thou desirest to adorn or plant it as thou wilt for the fruits that thou wouldst see grow. No one here now is mistaken on the matter where it stands: the crown was never taken from thee. Discarded, it went back to thy hand, like a ripe apple fallen down. But I will not return it once given now. There will be no changing of position, shifting power and permission and command for pleasure or convenience. There will be no question about who is king. I will lead, and thou shalt follow. I shall not depart from it until my death.
MAEDHROS: May it be far from this day.
FINGON: If the desire to fight is in thee, let it out.
MAEDHROS: Am I commanded?
FINGON: Even more than all others I do not want thee to reach the other side of this night still doubting. For thee, I am asking. If the knife has been stuck in thy gut, bear it; let the wound open and heal. I would fight thee in truth if it is thy will.
MAEDHROS: I fight in truth as we speak.
FINGON: How, when all thou dost is riddle, and speak gently, and flatter?
MAEDHROS: Have thy hardest tests, beloved, come from those who bore blades against thee?
FINGON: No. From those who gave them to me.
MAEDHROS: I seek to give thee much more. The test will match the gift.
FINGON: What is thy mind?
MAEDHROS: Thy tool.
FINGON: As my hand, or as my sword?
MAEDHROS: Like both, of war; I take issue with the disregard thou showest for my tactics.
FINGON: And what are they?
MAEDHROS: We yet do battle. I will not say.
FINGON: Thy demand is trust. This I will give freely.
MAEDHROS: Wilt thou?
FINGON: As have I ever. And as thou hast. I cannot doubt thee. To try is to doubt my hand.
MAEDHROS: Thou hast it always.
FINGON: And another thing I give thee.
MAEDHROS: And what is that?
FINGON: ‘A son.’
MAEDHROS [flustered]: What?
FINGON: I answer thy riddle. ‘A son.’ I thought as thou spokest and planned as thou didst; taste on thy winding tongue thy medicine.
MAEDHROS: Conniving—should thou complain that thou hast won unfairly—then the answer goes to thee, Celegorm.
CELEGORM: Keep it.
MAEDHROS: Charitable of thee. Dost thou deem it a fit answer?
CELEGORM: I thought of another one myself.
MAEDHROS: Come, little one. Fingon tailored the answer to thee. Dost thou not accept it?
CELEGORM: I saw its custom cut. A sinner, a father’s shame. What does he know? He has no sons.
MAEDHROS: What, hast thou?
CELEGORM: Fine. It fits.
MAEDHROS [returning his attention to Fingon]: Then! Thou hast the second round as well.
FINGON: I wonder, what is the true answer?
MAEDHROS: I don’t know. It was an orc’s riddle. I heard them speaking as they passed my prison; they left my body in its rack and passed out of my hearing before the answer came. But art thou ready for the third question?
FINGON: A moment. [He drains his cup.] I recall thy warning that the third question was the hardest of them.
MAEDHROS: It is.
FINGON: I hope so.
MAEDHROS: Thou dost hope. I know.
FINGON: A fine summary. Keep knowing for me, I shall keep hoping for thee.
MAEDHROS: I’ll swoon.
FINGON: Ask the damned question.
MAEDHROS: Why did I give thy father the crown?
[Utter silence follows. Most stand shocked still as Fingon visibly debates the merits of honesty about what he clearly feels is an awful answer. He does not look to Maglor; he has forgotten to tailor the answer to him. Maglor himself has lifted out of his stupor, but is now full of hesitance and fear, looking back and forth between hero and villain.]
FINGON: For this reason; thy will to obey the command of thy father was set. In vision, or I hope in madness, thou hast foreseen the day that the binding of thy hands to thine oath will lead them to spill the blood of kin again, and this time closer kin, of thin own Noldor. Thou didst deem it impossible that one soul could serve both the Oath of Feanor and the people of the Noldoran. It was instead thy task to give them a King that would put them first in everything and defend them against anyone. In my father did thou see the wall of defense that keep our people safe from thee. And in me.
[Maedhros leans forward. Fingon tenses. Slow, Maedhros extends a hand, and then reaches it to Maglor. It goes under Maglor’s chin. Maglor cries, if your actor can do it on command. Maedhros turns his face to him.]
MAEDHROS: Was that a good answer? [After silence] Look at me.
[Maglor lifts his eyes slowly to Maedhros.]
MAEDHROS: Was that a good answer?
MAGLOR: Yes.
[Fingon looks away, for a moment disgusted. He lifts his eyes to the Chorus instead as Maedhros lets Maglor down gently. Then, Maedhros returns his attention to Fingon.]
MAEDHROS: Then thou hast won the third riddle and indeed the night. There are none now to challenge you, unless anyone else wants to rise now with a claim.
[A silence. Then, after a swift nod, Maedhros finally stands, taking the crown with him. He turns to the side so that the audience can finally see his face. He fixes his brothers with grim fury.]
MAEDHROS: And if I hear any of you grumbling about your High King again or even hear from another that you have, you will have such a haranguing from me you will wish you did not have ears.
[They silently concede. Maedhros walks past them and to Fingon’s other side. The Chorus parts way for him. Maedhros extends a hand, which Fingon looks upon.]
MAEDHROS: Now, rise, High King of the Noldor.
[Fingon takes his hand. Maedhros takes a knee and kisses his knuckles. Fingon stands, retrieves his hand, and puts it on Maedhros’ cheek. Maedhros rises. Fingon removes his hands, then himself, walking to the Chorus and center stage.
[If you used lighting earlier in the play, or have any lighting capacities at all, have the sun rise behind Fingon during his soliloquy, as popular legend insists the all-night vigil and contest ended just at dawn. All actors should fan around him, listening; Fingon is the singular point of focus for the audience for the rest of the play. Maedhros kneels again, looking modestly downcast, bearing the crown on his palms.]
FINGON: Do you think you deserve better? You see now six who have brought the claim that the Noldor can do better than Findekano Astoldo, and each has been silenced. But despite the silencing of the cry I shout agreement to its resounding accusation. You do deserve better.
Many of you can remember as I do the blissful rule of King Finwe, who led his people across the water to undying Aman and ruled over peace and prosperity for years uncounted. You remember his patience, his compassion, the unshakable temperance of his nature which was never tipped to show undue favor to one or another. How unsteady and unhappy these modern times feel to those old days, as I too remember.
Many of you remember keenly following his son Feanor and those of his line, and each of their unbent steel wills and readiness to chase down the Enemy to the very last of His hiding-holes and assault Him there, not directing from the van but racing in the fore like lightning. With them you outpaced thunder. How brittle and pathetic this modern age of siege and endurance and losing ground feels to those quicker times, as I too well know.
And all here remember the better days of my father the High King who was ever guided by his great wisdom and consideration, and who made out of impossible mazes a straight way, and could not be called on except that he found a fair and even-handed solution for everyone in any crisis. In his court there was no victor or loser; each was treated as kin as he deserved, and his mind was ever bent to the perfect protection of all that dwelled behind his walls.
What is Fingon to any of these great kings? Too well was I known as a hot-headed and direputable youth, feeling the weight of lineage as a burden to be shouldered off, a barrier in the way of my freedom. Too well can you remember my passions and mistakes, how it seems that to hand me something delicate is to expect it to be broken. Do you not deserve better than the ill sound of ‘King Fingon?’ Having been prince Fingon all my life, I expect that you do. To look at me is to see the kings that I am not. Do you think I have never looked in a mirror?
Why should you accept this? Merely because there are no better options? Merely because I can dominate my rivals as when wolves, squabbling over the boundaries of their territories, finally succumb to whichever one presses the others to submit? Some may say that this is a good enough reason. The Enemy of all good people has pressed us back again and again, seizing territory and beheading our best. Perhaps we would be wise to follow the strongest wolf ourselves, the most skilled in domination. Perhaps we should consider ourselves best led by whomever is most likely to behead our enemies and endure his governance as part of the bargain we pay for survival.
But the counterargument is honest and cuts like a knife: why content ourselves to a ruler that is in effect hand-selected by our Enemy to be what a people ruled by that Enemy would want? Ruled by the fear He breathes like the forge belches heat, beaten by His hammering into the same shape as Him, a people who thinks of all life in terms of battle: domination, submitting, borders, territories, sieges, endurance, steel, resolve, and fighting, and each conversation and friendship and relationship slowly devolving from a dance to a duel. This life of grinding that breaks limbs and features off of carven statues until they are again mere stone, and leaves every one of us asking anew after every compounding attrition where our families are.
I was born in Aman but made for this. There is no denying it. The hot blood that made me too often a problem in peace has instead been revealed a weapon for war that I was born with. So things seem equal, in a grim way, as the belly is full enough after devouring one’s own; we have been altered to accept life on the Enemy’s terms, and Fingon is fashioned to drag us through it.
Don’t you think you deserve better? Haven’t your neighbors and cousins and daughters, sometimes in a few, sometimes together in flight, deserted to live under Thingol instead, or to disappear to the East where it is dark but unharried, or to the coast where it is safe and one can hear the sound of lapping waves? But you remain, and you ask yourself, and I blame you not for it, should you? Is this what you came to Beleriand for? Freedom, we said, and kingdoms of our own. Can anyone be free under the crushing hand of the Enemy? Is Fingon’s kingdom the one we wanted?
There are things I cannot fix: we cannot return, and the Enemy is greatly powerful, not even easy to resist, let alone end. The weight of how we have fallen cannot be shouldered and I chafe under it myself. Can we defeat Him? Can we free ourselves from under His yoke? Can we endure? Is this wolfish King enough to oppose the King of dragons in the north?
I have been accused of being too quick to anger and too passionate in battle all my life, and will never deny that it is true. If these unsightly facets on the sides of myself can be of use to my people, let them be used now. But there is another thing I have always been accused of and harshly, and I present it now not as a flaw but as my most glimmering feature, the capstone of myself: as I have hated overmuch, I have always loved overmuch, and to the point of embarrassment. I have always loved you, all of you, whether I should or I shouldn’t, and certainly in excess, and sometimes horrifically, and without ceasing, even if I hated at the same time. I have always loved you, everyone here, each of my people, and could not stop it if I tried. And I was censured and complained at, and sighed about and punished, and begged and bargained to be different somehow or at the very least quieter, but no difference was ever made, no substitution or subtraction. In the end I love you all as I have always loved you.
In wiser men love wavers when betrayal sinks in or horrors abound, when blood is spilt and soaks the hands, when repellent acts are committed in desperation. But I am made, or bent, or flawed, or blessed in such a way that there is nothing that makes my love waver. I have been ashamed of it before but I bear it openly now.
Love alone does not make me fit to rule. I have no doubt that we shall all see me break the delicate things handed to me and all be embarrassed again. Love will not be enough, but to the end of the line and to the last syllable love will be. I am no jealous husband; if you do not want it, go. But stay and you shall have it; I cannot even help it. I love you all and I will do for you what I can.
[Fingon goes to Maedhros, and again touches him and compels him to rise. Maedhros does, though he remains looking modestly down, as though suddenly a maiden. It is with this subservience, which should appear completely natural, unforced, that he crowns Fingon, who watches with an expression much more mixed.
[They kiss. The Fingon goes to the people behind him, and in joy and acceptance receives kisses and embraces from them as well. They lead him out, one among them, except for being the one crowned; Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, and Caranthir remain on stage.
[After a few moments, Maedhros sharply gestures at his brothers, then the ground, turning his back. They hurry to pick up all of the weapons which have been left around the stage. Once this is done, Maedhros gestures them all back out. Caranthir exits, then Celegorm; Maglor stops on the threshold and looks sullenly back.]
MAEDHROS: Get going.
MAGLOR: Do you command me?
MAEDHROS: I do.
[Maglor exits, then Maedhros.
[The play ends.]
—
I CELUMION AR I LAMBEO SI NYÁRENO
Minyar Celumi
There are several extant accounts of the events of the evening of Fingon Noldoran’s coronation, though sadly none go into the minute-by-minute detail I have constructed here. At every point in which a contemporary account does exist I both do not contradict it and do not exclude anything it includes (as you see I was beholden to include the admiration of Crown Prince Fingon’s posterior by Queen Galadriel’s account below); where there is no account of events but yet there certainly were events I endeavor to fit the missing moments into the structure that those accounts provide us.
We know that six duels took place for the crown, all of which ended in Fingon’s victory. Caranthir Disinherited (whose records were kept by an unnamed man who served under him and came eventually to Numenor where they were transcribed and preserved) listed the forms of each duel laconically thus:
Amras. With human swords, incorrectly assuming Fingon was not familiar with them.
Amrod. Absent.
Curufin. With his own crescent blades and his wit, incorrectly assuming Fingon was not prepared to match it. He thought he would fight Fingon ‘to the death’ and Fingon humored his juvenile machismo by slaying and healing him. Won’t learn.
Myself, with staves provided by young masters Hurin and Huor (ages fifteen and twelve) sons of Galdor and Hareth with great lineage on both sides. Incorrectly assumed Fingon might be tired after the previous bouts. Intended for the record to return crown to Maedhros should I have won that contest, though I now of course realize he would have slapped my mouth shut and given it to Fingon.
Celegorm. Archery contest. Incorrectly assumed Fingon would be cowed by intimidation. Fingon showed him by making it a test of piety instead. Won’t learn.
Maglor. With song. Incorrectly assumed exposing Fingon’s marriage would daunt him and was shown. Nearly beat him, but flinched at the end, as is his way.
Maedhros. Cruel test of riddles. Correctly assumed he could corner Fingon into exposing his secrets and all of us into de facto confirming Fingon as king. Without Maedhros, no kingdom; with him as king, no kingdoms at all. Queen Maedhros rules incontested and incontestable. I will never live with him again.
Queen Galadriel has provided more details in both her contemporary journal entry about the evening and in further recorded conversations and reminiscences over time, though Her Majesty tends to focus on such details as interest her (this is how we have some details about the banter between cousins though the details oft are vague, as she of course will not give gross details about the deceased). It is from her contemporary journal that we have the detail ‘[The] entire evening was in defiance of Uncle Thingol’s ban’, meaning that the proceedings took place in Quenya from King Fingon’s first sharp accusation (even a certain archaic form of the language).
As such I have rendered all songs in Quenya (their translations are provided below for the benefit of the actor). I have also included some Quenya language conventions in the text, especially the use of formal and informal ‘you’, as for some reason Queen Galadriel diverts often in her journals into noting who used formal ‘lye’ or informal ‘tye’ with each other when recounting engagements she attended (though never noting which she used herself). Her contemporary notes for the evening in question run as follows:
Fingon’s coronation; two days, morning to morning to morning, of pageantry and politics. DISMAL. Insisted on an all-night vigil for his father (who has been dead for a year) which of course was just an elaborate set-up for his dramatics. In interest of fairness cannot blame him for wanting to fight Maglor Ect just disagree with making everyone else watch. Informed him he was hurtling toward his completely avoidable death and he agreed. Won’t try to stop him, very invested in Stars. Wonderful conversation with Orodreth’s girl who is also skipping toward grim and avoidable death but she is so passionate about getting fatal dick how could I possibly stop her. Minimal food as it was a vigil (DISMAL). Good red and a nice variety of it however (still drinking v. heavily). Entire evening was in defiance of Uncle Thingol’s ban & ended in reviving fully dead Tirion Palace dialect. Fingon & Maedhros ‘tye’ as always, supplanted by occasional use of the actual dual and generous stares at each other’s posteriors (cannot blame either of them esp. Maedhros who has plenty to look at), him and the rest of the brood back to ‘lye’ (with my brother as well?) excepting only Maglor with whom he is still doing That.
Looking back to prior occasions, we learn that “That” is:
He [Maglor] does something even worse with Astaldo where they switch between t/lye about every other sentence, changing from formal to informal and back again. Maglor leads and Astaldo follows, a break in his typical pattern of asserting authority at every opportunity. One of my primary motivations in life is to not learn anything about what’s going on there but from what I have been forced to gather Maglor is just splitting his nails trying to cling to a cover of familial rivalry and personal hatred which he is barely using to cover the fact that sometime long ago, when his first little cousin was born, Maglor’s heart decided Fingon was another baby brother. Maglor, sensing a cuckoo, longs to push Fingon from the nest but already succumbed to nurturing long ago. You; thee. I shall endeavor to learn no more about the matter.
Queen Galadriel has given other accounts of the night in later years, which I drew upon for details but will not print in full here as later accounts are both lengthier and less focused, usually pieced together from longer recorded conversations or interviews. For anyone who wants to read her collected accounts, I must, like all historians of the First Age, reluctantly point the reader to Her Majesty’s Quante Quenti Quendelion; good luck.
—
‘Care’ hya ‘Cave’
I have not included but would be remiss to not note certain words that have come down in historical record from the event and unto which, being enamored by them, I have given the title: “Carin, Caruvan.” This comes not from the journals of kings and queens but from a note in a later history, which may be apocryphal, as Ninquesse’s Mara Quenyo is meant as a Quenya primer, not as a historical text. She notes:
The verb ‘car-’ is one of the most versatile in Quenya, meaning ‘do’, ‘use’, ‘make’; it can serve as a generic if a specific does not exist or is not necessary. ‘Car’ in front of an object means the subject did the most logical thing to do with that object. If you ‘car—’ a pen, you write with it. If you ‘car—’ a command, you follow it. If you ‘car–’ a virtue or a vice, you commit it. But take care in overusing ‘car—’ if you have forgotten a more specific verb, as moving a conversation from the specific to the general can imply that you are avoiding the specific.
As legend has it, during the coronation of Noldoran Astaldo, before which he dueled each of his cousins for the crown, all except the last replied to the Noldoran’s question “Ma cavilye tyastanya?” (“Do you accept my challenge?”) with an echo; using the same verb, ‘cav—‘; they all replied “ Cavin”, “I accept”/”I do accept”, excepting only the eldest, who replied instead with the evasive “ Carin; Caruvan,” typically translated “I do; I will”. ‘Carin’ surely means the same thing as ‘cavin’ here, that he does accept the challenge. But why not use the specific verb, especially as it had just been provided to him? Why shift from the specific ‘accept’ to the general ‘do’? It makes one suspect that he implies he will do, but is unwilling to confirm except with the suggestion of context what the thing he will do is. It is an evasive reply.
—
I Quenyarini Líri
Finally, what follows are the translations of the songs sung in this play. There is no record of the lyrics of these songs as it was not done to write down songs of power at that time; it was accepted that putting them to text leeched their ability. The Quenya songs in this play are as such my invention, which is why they have no power to lose.
—
In Envinyatila Líri Findekano
Nuhta núre neni a Sulimo Valatar
Yulda matetyásse a Soronion Atar
I lisse linque si melitseo melitsenyaron,
Caita paltyar i celusse nwalmeryaron.
Stop these deep waters, oh Wind-Lord Valar-King,
Cup them in thy hands, oh Father of Eagles,
The sweet liquor of this dear one of my dear ones,
Lay thy palms upon the spring of his sufferings.
(Note: ‘celusse’, freshet/spring, should really be ‘celussesse’ here, ‘upon the freshet.’ ‘Celusse’ is just the noun and normally the locative ending would be added here to imply the motion ‘upon/onto’, but since the last syllable of the noun and the locative ending are here identical, in poetic Quenya such a thing would be elided/reduced for euphony. Similar reducing was done to 'paltyatyar', thy hands; the informal 'tya' is implied by just the 't' (this is enough to distinguish it from formal 'lya') and euphony is preserved.)
—
I Mehta Makalaureo ar Findekano
MAGLOR:
Ela i rimbe, i nehte-letinwesse
Cendi elenion silie cemenesse
Siryie tulwi lia i súre
Hwarwe antollon ohtarion túre.
Behold the host, the spearhead constellation
Points of stars shining upon the earth
Flowing banners twine the wind
Rough winds that blow from the mouths of warriors mighty.
(Note: some archaic Quenya words, like ‘letinwesse’, are used in Maglor and Fingon’s battle. The two are said to have lapsed to a particularly archaic Quenya. I will not be pointing out these archaic words from here on out but note there are some the casual reader of Quenya may have to look up.
(There is a consistent rhyme scheme and much use of alliteration in this battle; a strong sense of meter or rhythm, however, is lacking, and must be constructed through the arrangement of the ‘lyrics’ to music. The reason for this is that I am not so good at consistent meters and trying would have driven me insane.
(Additionally, most verbs in this battle are in aorist form, the Quenya ‘timeless’ verb tense. A verb in aorist is not past or future and not quite present, ‘lia’ here, ‘twine’, states that the banners do twine without claiming when. The aorist implies a constant state or else a moment that is not particularly embedded in time and is as such well-used in this battle which refers to the archetypes or ideal forms of imaginary things, called up in their most intense form to be verbally weaponized. Occasional uses of past, future, or present tenses are seen, especially nearer to the end of the battle when the combatants are weary.)
FINGON:
Ohtarion túre ar verye lirin
Sundor tacer n’Anar alfírin
Arate orni tarir apa súre norne
Valde quettar vilir mitta neri sorne.
Of warriors mighty and bold I sing
Roots fastened under the undying sun
Noble trees stand against firm wind
Wild words fly between steadfast men.
MAGLOR:
Neri sorne roccossen ve soron
N’oronte nortante avar i coron
Úvanter, mahtie macilintar;
Rómar ramar ve armar lantar.
Steadfast men on horses like an eagle
Under the sunrise they ride down the mound
They draw nigh, wielding their swords;
Horns blow like sun-rays fall.
FINGON:
Ve armar lantar i cotto atalta
Ve calima malta in áre calta
I sandar ohtarion, ortante táre
I cendeli aksio ep’ ambassi máre.
Like sun-rays fall the enemy falls down
Like bright gold the sunlight kindles
The shields of the warriors, they lift high
Those steel visages before good breastplates.
MAGLOR:
Ambassi máre racir nu celume,
I ehtele ehtenerion turuva illume.
Mindonellon ar ostollon illi rucir,
Tumnoressen ondonta ruxir.
Good breastplates break under a flood,
The spring of spearmen will always conquer
From towers and from cities all flee,
Into low places their stones crumble.
FINGON:
Ondonta ruxir mal ostor entuluvar
Essi are qualir mal cardar peluvar
Sená quelme race rúcine nori; narello
Ostor ceu; ceu coivie yára noréllo.
Their stones crumble but cities will return
Great names die but deeds will circle around
Let utter ruin break ruined nations; from fire
Cities new; new life from old land.
(Note: ‘quelme’ here is earlier ‘qelme’ (ruin, utter end) adjusted to contemporary pronunciation. Noréllo provides another example of poetic Quenya pronunciation, where the emphasis that is typically on a vowel in the root word here moves to the ending to preserve Quenya’s natural flow.)
MAGLOR:
Yára noréllo sára saucaryi; falmar nwalce Earello;
Ma nér pole care? Qualme mene Ambarello.
From old lands bitter evildoings; from the sea cruel waves;
What can a man do? Death comes from all Creation.
FINGON:
Mene Ambarello manna laisi; ambaróne russa,
Ceure coire; alcar ferya qualmenen insa.
From all creation comes blessed new life; first red dawn,
Early-renewed spring; glory is made with death itself.
(Note: A few Quenya words are hard to translate here as single words in English. ‘Laisi’ is an archaic Quenya word meaning ‘new life’ or in some contexts ‘youth’. ‘Ambarone’ is ‘dawn’ but specifically ‘uprising’, literally ‘upwards-eastern’, this ‘early dawn’, ‘coire’ is not just spring but ‘early spring’, the very start of the season, and ‘ceure’ is an adjective meaning ‘renewed’, thus ‘ceure coire’ being rendered ‘early-renewed spring’ though a more literal version may be ‘renewed earliest spring.’ ‘Ferya’ is a specific ‘to make’ verb that implies ‘made readily, promptly.’ Fingon is using both very archaic and very specific words in this verse.)
MAGLOR:
Qualmenen insa cemen; loicor nirir more mutenna,
Ter tumbali carni latyas ar illi tuluvar yelloryanna.
Made with death itself is the earth; corpses press into black dirt,
Through red valleys she opens and all will come to her call.
FINGON:
Yelloryanna tulir i seldi vangweo, limb’ iti lumbossen
Hyaltante i cemen, hirinte sarte súli sapseryassen.
To her call come the daughters of the storm, swift glints in dark clouds
They make the earth ring, find steady breaths in her graves.
MAGLOR:
Sapseryassen sortor i seldi undómeo, sére tupe telumi,
Hlare lomelírya; ve míse míre Isil linga t’i lence lissi lúmi.
In her graves settle the daughters of dark twilight, tranquility covers roofs,
Hear her lullaby; like a white-gray jewel the Moon hangs above the slow, sweet hours.
(Note: ‘lomelirya’, ‘her lullaby’, is lóme, night/dusk, líre, song, and -rya, her. The second syllable of ‘líre’ is dropped once the words are combined for euphony. ‘Hlare’ here is actually an imperative, not aorist, but Maglor uses the most gentle form of the imperative (contrast to the commanding imperative Fingon will return with in his next response) to semantically suggest rather than command.)
FINGON:
Lissi lúmi laureo! Oryá ar tercirá i cardar Lómeo!
Cuitá, orcuitá, ilya fúmildar! Mahtá i metta sínomeo!
Sweet hours of golden light! Rise and cut through the deeds of night!
Wake, wake up, all sleeping ones! Fight the end of this place!
(The ‘commanding’ imperatives noted above are such verbs as ‘oryá’, ‘tercirá’, and so forth. Fingon uses the most commanding, even rude form of the imperative. Neither Fingon nor Maglor use the normal form, which would be ‘á hlare,’ ‘á orya.’ Fingon’s version, which puts the imperative participle at the end of the word, even sounds rude; it drags out the final vowel in a shout and interrupts the flow of speech.)
MAGLOR:
Sínomeo ringa; Nómeo amba ringa lirin, helca
Or helca; hrív’umbar i tupe ya tiríte hya tyelca.
Of this place cold; of a place even colder I sing, ice
Upon ice, winter-doom which covers that which is watchful or quick.
FINGON:
Hya tyelca hya lenca hya linda tule in ulo, tulis;
Er rosse race i helce, estel undu lauya, yulis.
Or quick or slow or soft comes the rain, it comes;
Mere dew breaks the ice, hope underneath grows green, it drinks.
MAGLOR:
Yulis, matis, nuhtas allume, i nat naira tereva ninque,
Usque quele, i rini picir a’ picir; talilyat min’ unque.
It drinks, it eats, it halts never, the dreadful, shrill, white thing,
Dim light fades, a circle(/year) dwindling and dwindling, by your two feet into a hollow.
(Note: Unfortunately, since I wrote these lines, I cannot get away with remarking that ‘it is unclear what Maglor is referring to in this rather opaque verse.’ Maglor’s verses in the second half of the battle are cruel, mocking Fingon’s experiences on the dreadful Helcaraxe, despairing an inevitable end of the kingdom and potentially the earth, using ugly language to convey a harsh picture of death. This verse with its awful white thing and feet in hollows explores the subjects of corpses and graves in an evasive, poetic manner, as Maglor tests the waters he will soon dive into. Maglor’s equation of the pallid elven corpse and the cave-grown, white-fleshed orc will perhaps clarify the imagery here.)
FINGON:
Unquínen lumbaron pólen cene Menel n’Angamando,
Huinennen lirélya polin cene estel haila si rondo.
Through holes of dark clouds could I see the Heavens over Angband;
Through the gloom of your song can I see the hope far beyond this hall.
MAGLOR:
Haila si rondo, inte fifirúvar, i eleni or sunde hroalvar,
Foa vinta oa; qualilve, Findekano, soa 'pe coalvar.
Far beyond this hall, even they will fade, the stars above our base bodies
Breath blows away, We die, Fingon, filth in front of our houses.
(Translation note: this verb ‘qual’, which both combatants have used several times, is a verb which depending on context means ‘die violently’ or ‘die like a human’; it is contrasted with ‘fir’, which may mean ‘die naturally’, ‘fade’, or ‘die like an elf’. The claim is that to ‘qual’ like a mortal is incorrect for an elf, who have another kind of death like their other kinds of souls. Here Maglor is emphasizing it to say ‘we die like mortals, becoming corpses/filth before our own homes.’ ‘We die like flies’ would not be an inappropriate translation. Incidentally, Maglor has also used a rougher verb for ‘fade’ than ‘fir’ as well, the related ‘quel.’
(It is also something to note that Maglor uses the inclusive ‘we’ (-lve rather than -lma) in this half-verse, meaning he is deliberately including Fingon every time he says ‘we’ or ‘our’ despite the harshness of his words, and in using the inclusive ‘we’ in his last word he requires Fingon to start his next failed half-verse in the same way.)
FINGON:
Epe coalvar polilve tare, Kanafinwe, cé otarilve. Estel termare.
Before our houses we can stand, Maglor, if we stand together. Hope remains.
(Note: ‘o-’ as a prefix adds ‘together’ to the verb, ‘tare’, ‘stand.’ Fingon does continue the use of ‘-lve’, the inclusive ‘we’, and uses Maglor’s less-preferred father-name to draw attention to the similarity of their names, drawn from the same royal source.)
MAGLOR:
Mana termare? Ma unqui uin etenyier leperyar intesse?
Mana nóre termare nurta? Mana lóte úppina tyasse?
What remains? What holes have not felt His fingers inside even themselves?
What place is left to hide? What flower untouched (is left) in thee?
(Note: As mentioned in the script, because it is that important, Maglor is the first to fully break form. He refuses to start the half-verse as Fingon ended his previous broken verse, with ‘estel termare’, betraying already what the audience will not know until the contest ends: that he cannot or will not say ‘estel’. ‘Estel’ is, of course, the Quenya word meaning ‘hope, faith.’
(Perhaps Maglor’s unsettling imagery in this verse should also be remarked upon. Elves of the First Age would swear by the ‘Pits’, that is, the pits of imprisonment and labor around Angband, into which elves went to die and out of which orcs came just born. While those have to be the real-world source of the imagery of the ‘holes’ touched by ‘His fingers’ Maglor describes evocatively in this poem, the language is undeniably gross above and beyond that allusion. Seeing Fingon’s growing weakness, Maglor becomes yet more forceful, base, and cruel in his imagery, intending to end the battle. Of course, this leads to his defeat when he goes so far that he makes himself flinch.
Nonetheless the theme (or threat) of sexual violation in this verse is undeniable. It is unlikely that Maglor has suddenly forgotten he tried to use Fingon’s homosexual behavior against him mere minutes ago, or that Maedhros, waiting behind him, is the only person here who knows the ‘Him’ of this verse personally.)
FINGON:
Tyasse. Tyasse. Á cená mecin. Estel termare.
In thee. In thee. Please, look. Hope remains.
MAGLOR:
Mana nat laisur’ uin? I palasari late parni naire,
Ar naira nar i yulmi, maltantar váner ve váne laire.
What thing is not forgotten? The great tables lay empty, bare,
And empty are the cups, their gold departed like departed summer.
FINGON:
Laure. Laire, Lairi—Meldonya. Estel termare.
Maglor. Summer/poem, summers/poems—My friend. Hope endures.
(Note: ‘Laure’ is one of several family-use nicknames for Maglor, whose Quenya name was Makalaure, the ‘laure’ from ‘laurea’, an adjective meaning ‘golden of color.’ Maglor’s last verse ended with ‘laire’, summer, so it seems that Fingon here trips on trying to repeat ‘Laire’ and says ‘Laure’ instead. It should be noted also that the word for ‘poem’ in Quenya is spelled the same, ‘laire.’ Thus the plural ‘lairi’ could be ‘summers’ or ‘poems’. It’s as such not fully clear which words Fingon is using here, though ‘meldonya’, ‘my dear friend’, is quite clear. ‘Meldo’, by the way, being a word for close friend/beloved rather than the more distant ‘nildo’, friend. Fingon has resorted to begging.)
MAGLOR:
Mana ‘meldo?’ Man? Masse i nildo naite? Néress’ uin
I hón sinten. Cenin allan’ úviryin, allan’ úharin.
What friend? Who? Where is the true friend? In no man is
The heart I knew. I see nothing unchanged, nothing unmarred.
(Note: But that said, this, also, is the most artless of Maglor’s verses. He is not far above begging himself. Perhaps applicable is the claim from Queen Galadriel above that Maglor might have seen Fingon as another younger sibling, even a dependant, when he was young; it would not be wrong to start putting some fear or shame into Maglor’s performance now that Fingon is so beaten down. In one way of seeing things, it is Maglor who treats Fingon appropriately (or who would like to treat him appropriately) as a younger kinsman, and Maedhros who has crossed an abominable line.)
FINGON:
Estel termare.
Hope remains.
(After this, Maglor attempts to pronounce ‘estel’, and either fails or does not permit himself to complete the word. The final word, then, remains Fingon's; ‘termare’, a verb that translates to ‘remains’ or ‘endures’.)
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ORIGINAL NOTE
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At some point I should have abandoned either the conceit that this play was written by a modern person for a black box theatre or else the conceit that this play was written in the Third Age by someone who knows about and potentially is a subject of Queen Galadriel, but I just kept both anyway, and as such I have accomplished something that doesn’t make internal sense and couldn’t fit anywhere. I thought about that and realized those things weren’t a problem.
As for the Quenya, feel free to debate grammar with me; I was mostly having fun but also trying to stick to correct use of the language as we know it. There are poetic elisions and some old or controversial vocabulary used here or there so it is inevitably not Quenya as Professor Tolkien wrote it. It’s obviously Quenya as Mouse wrote it (no word for Mouse in Quenya :/ The nom de plume on this one, Oialaica, is a neoquenya term of my invention that combines ‘oiale’, everlasting, and ‘laica’, green, into ‘evergreen’, an easy portmanteau).
I initially envisioned rewriting the entire thing in Quenya but soon realized it would have to be a more total rewrite than I wanted. Quenya not being a complete language, sometimes there really aren’t words for something you want to say. But I had already logged who called who you (lye) and thou (tye) when, and was unwilling to get rid of that, either, so I went IN on the thee/thou. I did my utmost to edit my use of the pronoun and the verbs declined by it to semantic correctness with again some elisions for euphony here or there. Thou is du, tu, a familiar address that only recently fell out of English while remaining in essentially every other closely related language. ‘Tye’ puts this right back into Quenya and to put it back into English I need only retrieve a word so recently embedded in the language (and still extant in some dialects) that a robust written record of its use can be referenced and all modern verbs can be conjugated just by looking up their use in that record.
While we’re at it, there is at least one place where a dual Quenya pronoun would have been used here: when Fingon shouts to Maedhros and Maglor, “ Did you two replace Caranthir while I was elsewhere?”, he would use ‘tyet’; ‘you two’ (informal), addressed as if a pair. The dual is not just used for any two things, but for sets of things; a person’s two hands, married couples, twins, the two trees.
Other changes were made and lines added to make this into a stageplay, something that could be comprehensible to a person watching rather than reading, hence there being more names said aloud, canon facts stated, feelings explained rather than narrated, ect. Still, the content is not too different. Most of the different feel here comes from the same words being presented not from Fingon’s POV but from a historian striving to be accurate/impartial and to the brutal gaze of the imaginary audience.
At this point it should actually function as a play. Don’t perform this play, though. As the person who wrote it I can promise you this story comes with some kind of accompanying neurotoxin. Please never think about all of this as much as I have. Good night, sleep well.