Nárello rallied his warriors toward the twin banners of Turgon and Fingon with a hoarse cry.  “Roqueni laurëalóti!”

Somewhere in the fray, his brother led part of Nárello’s gweth, yet since giving the younger Elf the order, Nárello had not seen Erunámo.  His eyes quickly flashed over the various troops who passed him or took positions at his left or right, seeking his brother by his golden hair.  An occasional glimpse of fair or silver-fair hair among the corpses, yet none wore the green and gold of his House and Nárello could only wonder where Erunámo’s gweth had gone.  

The enemy is too many, he thought, and I need you back, toronya.  Hallas and Artamir were at his right hand, Calion on his left with his banner.  The warriors of his gweth massed behind him, shields locked to hold the line, yet still it was not enough.  Gaps appeared in the arquen shieldwall, warriors falling under a barrage of spears, arrows and other missiles; there were not enough arqueni to take the places left by the wounded and slain.

"Roqueni laurëalóti!”  He saw Fingon’s banner topple, leaving only the red, gold and white of Turgon’s House, and Nárello’s rallying cry turned to one of desperation.  We cannot defeat such desolation, we cannot win.

His mount suddenly snorted and reared, and it was all he could do to remain in the saddle.  Something moved out of the corner of his eye.  Turning, instinctively bringing up his sword, Nárello’s gaze met the scalding slash of a Balrog’s whip.  Fiery tendrils lashed the helm from his head; the smoldering metal-and-leather cap spun out of his view.  An acrid smoke filled his nostrils; a half-second later he realized his hair was ablaze. 

He heard Calion’s far-off scream and the last thing he saw before the Balrog’s sword opened his throat was his banner, green and gold burning as it fell.

* * *

Notes: (All words in Quenya, unless otherwise noted)

Roqueni laurëalóti!: knights of the Golden Flower

roquen: a mounted knight

arquen: a warrior on foot.  Plural: arqueni.

gweth: (Sindarin) regiment, troop of able-bodied men.  Some of the Gondolindrim were Sindarin and that language would have been widely spoken in the Hidden City, perhaps more so than Quenya. 

toronya: my brother

The messenger arrived as expected, bearing an elaborate missive sealed with the colors of Turgon, High King of the Noldor.  After a brief wait in the foyer, he was waved into the central courtyard by the servants and instructed to wait.

Presently another servant, this one wearing the badge of a steward, emerged and received the messenger by one of the fountains.  “I am Ondollo, chief steward of the House,” he said.  “I am told you bear a message from the High King.”

“Aye, but my orders are to give it into the hands of the Lord Erunamó Elvanirion himself,” answered the messenger.

“Our household is in mourning for the Lord Nárello and Lord Erunámo has explicitly stated that he does not wish to receive any outside visitors,” said Ondollo.  “However, I will place the King’s message in his hand myself and bring back his answer, if it will suffice.”

* * *

Ondollo found his lord standing at the window of a dimly-lit chamber that directly overlooked the courtyard.  Though Erunámo’s back was to him, he bowed deeply as he closed the door.

He waited a moment for some acknowledgement that did not come; his lord did not turn to see who had entered.  Erunámo was slighter of build than Nárello had been, but the contours of his face were nearly the same, and the same golden hair, braided with dark ribbons for mourning, spilled down his back.  Were it not that Nárello never took such a pensive, brooding posture, Ondollo might well have believed it was he, that all news of his death was but some mistake or malicious rumor.

“There is a message for you from the King, herunya,” he said.  Erunámo was in a position to have seen his steward greet the messenger, but as Ondollo came closer he saw the far-off look in his lord’s eyes; Erunámo had not been paying attention to the activity outside his window. 

Erunámo turned slightly and shook his head in disinterest.  Such blankness was not uncommon in these times, and on his errands within the house and to the Great Market the steward saw many who walked about in a daze, numb with grief and shock at the losses of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. 

There were some, Ondollo knew, who faded upon hearing the news of the deaths of their loved ones.  Quietly he gave orders to the House physician and certain other trusted servants to watch their new lord closely for such signs, though the physician told him that if Erunámo had not faded by now he was not likely to do so.  Though he grieved, he was strong-willed and knew his duty; he would not yield so easily.

“I will leave the message on the table for you, herunya.”  Ondollo laid the missive beside the other, unopened correspondence that had come in the last few days.  The missive bearing the seal of the House of the Fountain was at least two days old, and there were others, some nearly two weeks old.  “Do you intend to open these?”

This time, Erunámo answered.  “If they are anything at all like the other messages that have come, then I do not see the need.  Much ink and parchment is wasted in the sending of condolences,” he said.  “Such niceties and rituals, they are all so…empty.”

“Lord Ecthelion sent his condolences some weeks before, if you will remember,” Ondollo pointed out.  He picked the letter up and turned it over in his hands.   “I do not think he is so absent-minded as to send you the same message twice.  And here, this one is from Lord Egalmoth, and he, too, sent his condolences many weeks ago.  Both were great friends of your brother.  I would not be surprised if their messages were of a more personal nature.”

Erunámo gestured with a half-hearted nod and sat down in the window seat, folding his hands in his lap.  He stared at the floor while Ondollo broke the seal of the House of the Fountain and read the contents.

It was exactly as the steward suspected.  Ecthelion desired to call upon Nárello’s brother and asked for the courtesy of a response even if Erunámo deemed it too early in his mourning to receive visitors.  The next letter, from the House of the Heavenly Arch, read the same. 

“Clearly they desire your friendship, pitya laurëlótënya,” said Ondollo.  “Once your grief eases somewhat, you will see this is not an offer to be refused.”

Erunámo arched an eyebrow at him.  “Should you be calling me that, steward?”

“I changed your small clothes as a babe more than a few times, and carried you across most of the Helcaraxë,” Ondollo answered.  “If anyone has a right to call you by a pet name, it is me.”  That his lord had enough energy or interest to engage him in such banter secretly delighted him, for it meant that he was beginning to rouse from his grief.

A moment later, Erunámo’s eyes returned to the window and his voice became distant.  “When my father died, I read some of the messages that came to the house.  Most bore the same sentiment, how death among the Firstborn is not forever, that those whom we love will be cleansed of their sorrows and live again in the light of Valinor.  But—”  He drew in a sharp breath and bit down on his lip to stifle what might have been the beginning of tears. 

“We will never see them again, those of us on this side of the Sundering Sea.  I do not know whether it is by some forgetfulness or some delusion that all is forgiven that we neglect to mention that the road back is forever barred, save for one.”

I should not have mentioned the Helcaraxë, Ondollo realized.  “The road through Mandos is not one any of us would willingly take, pityawë.”

“And yet Nárello has taken it, and atar and naneth before them.”  He took another deep breath, a pause before speaking again.  Erunámo was not one who was given to tears; he would choke them down rather than yield.  “Atar bore Finarfin great love and served him in Valinor, yet chose to follow Fingolfin across the Ice.  I know not why, for he never answered that question and Nárello has always said he did not know.  Why would he do such a thing and put a stain upon us all for which we shall have to answer in Mandos?”

“I know no more than you, laurëlótë,” answered Ondollo, “for your father never said aught to me of his reasons.  I do not even know if he explained them to your mother.  But I do not think the Valar are so single-minded that they would judge your brother as they would judge Fëanor or his sons.  Nárello was young, too young to have chosen to stay, and you were but a babe.  There is no stain upon either of you, pityawë.”

He had neglected to mention their parents, and knew Erunámo would catch the omission.  But long ago he had told both brothers that their mother’s heart had lain with her kin in Tirion and she had followed her husband unwillingly.  The road across the Helcaraxë had been one of regret, and once she saw her family safely in Nevrast not even love for her children could keep her.  She repented by giving herself to Mandos, and after that time she was not mentioned openly in Elvanir’s house. 

If Erunámo noticed the steward’s omission, he did not mention it.  Instead, he turned his eyes toward the table and the pile of missives yet unopened.  “Give me Ecthelion’s letter, and Egalmoth’s,” he said.  “Who else writes to me?”

“The King sends you a message, and I can tell you it is not one of condolence, for that he has already sent.  As for the others,” replied Ondollo, shuffling through the messages, “there is one from Lord Duilin, and here, one from the King’s nephew—”

“Anything Maeglin sends you may toss in the grate.”

“Is that wise?”

“Never had he a kind word for Nárello, and whatever courtesy comes from his lips is like the honey paper one uses to trap insects.  And there is something else, something…ill.”  Erunámo frowned, then shook his head as if to clear it.  “I cannot explain, herendur.  There is something about him I do not like.”

Ondollo rarely had occasion to see the King or any of the members of his household.  Maeglin had only come to the house once, some years earlier, but there was nothing overtly offensive in the prince’s manner that would alert him to any deception.  “As you will, herunya.”  

* * *

Notes: (All words in Quenya unless otherwise noted)

herunya: my lord

pitya laurëlótënya: my little golden flower

laurëlótë: golden flower

pityawë: my little one

herendur: steward (to a lord)

Erunámo knew without seeing how his steward shadowed him throughout the house.   As always, Ondollo fretted over him; before leaving for battle, the steward had spent far more time fussing over his plate and buckles than he had ever spent over Nárello’s, but then the lord of the House had his own squire to see to such matters.

“’Tis a good thing he is staying behind,” Nárello said afterward, “else he would trail you straight to the battlefield with his admonishments not to tear your cloak or muss your hair.”

“You are already doing a fine job of the latter, toronya.”

Chuckling, Nárello gave his younger brother’s hair a final tousle and tossed him his sword.  “He will be fit to shout when we return covered in the blood of our enemies, and they will hear him all the way to the Seventh Gate.”

Ondollo had shouted on their return, but it was for the blood and glazed look in Erunámo’s eyes, and the absence of Nárello, who should have been riding at the head of their column.  Back and forth he had gone among the ranks, searching among the wounded against all hope that Nárello was one of those few—too few—borne on one of the makeshift stretchers.  Seeing his frenzy, Erunámo got off his horse and stopped him, and when the steward saw Nárello’s battered sword at his belt, his face fell and he wept.

Erunámo did not weep with him, though tears were in his heart.  Such emotion he reserved for the small hours of the night, when the servants were asleep and he was alone in his bed.  He spent his days moving through the house, lingering among Nárello’s possessions.  A hand stroked the well-worn cover of a favorite book, fingers hovered over the strings of a lap harp yet were snatched back before they could draw forth any sound. 

Nárello had had a beautiful singing voice, and his skill upon the harp was such that he could and often did accompany Ecthelion’s flute.  Erunámo could sing and play well enough upon the lute, but he could not match his brother’s talent and wondered if there would ever again be such music in the house.

From a shelf he picked up a shell his brother had found on the beach below Vinyamar and held it to his ear.  Such gentle days those had been, their time in Nevrast before their father came and took them to the new city in the mountains; Erunámo remembered that his first impression of Gondolin was of a cold, forbidding and sterile place where there would never be any laughter.  Right away he wanted to go back to Vinyamar so he might race Nárello along the sand or go exploring among the willow-marshes.

Somewhere in the house, lying at the bottom of a chest was the wooden sword Nárello crafted for him that they might spar together on the beach and Erunamó would not feel so neglected when his brother went to the sparring yard and left him behind.

“Why can I not come with you, toronya?” he asked pleadingly.

“Because, pitya laurë findo,” laughed Nárello, “I am nearly a century old and you are still a child.  It would not be fair to draw true steel against someone so small.”

Erunámo sulked and made a face, ducking away from the hand that tried to tousle his hair.  “Everyone always says that.  I am too small to do anything or go anywhere, and always everyone says nay.”

“Would you rather they gave you leave to do things that would harm you?  Nay, when you are old enough we will ride and spar and hunt together, I promise you.”

Nárello was as good as his word, and even when Turgon barred passage from the vale of Tumladen he managed to find some remote location where they might ride and escape the confines of the city.  As a younger son, Erunámo had been spared much of the rigorous, stifling protocol that characterized Turgon’s court, but he could see how little Nárello liked it.

Erunámo carefully set down the shell.  And now he is gone, and the burden falls to me.  If only we had stayed in Vinyamar.  However, even he knew that was not possible.  One by one, the strongholds of the Eldar in Middle-earth were succumbing to the Shadow.  Vinyamar lay out in the open, vulnerable even behind stout walls.  Only in Gondolin, hidden within the high reaches of the Echoriath, was there any true security.

Unwillingly he began to attend to the duties of lord.  The High King required his presence, and that of the other newly made lords, two days hence in his hall to receive their oaths and confirm them in their titles.  Turgon was a ruler who set much weight upon ceremony, and his official summons was not to be refused.

The missive was no sooner given to Ondollo than did the steward hire tailors to outfit Erunámo in garb more suited to his rank.  He dreaded the hour when he would be paraded before the lords and captains of Gondolin, for he was not accustomed such close scrutiny.  Only twice in nearly five hundred years had Turgon spoken to him, once on the occasion of Lord Elvanir’s death, when he paused in speaking to Nárello to inquire if the young lord at Nárello’s side was a kinsman.  Erunámo’s embarrassment was such that he recalled little else of that encounter.

The second time, Turgon’s face appeared before him as an angry blur rising up out of the chaos of battle and smoke and blood.  Hands encased in cold mail dug into his arms, commands struck him like an angry wind until finally his brother’s still-smoldering sword was shoved at him.  The leather that wrapped the sword’s hilt was burned away, and the runes that had run its length had blurred in the Balrog’s heat like tears.  Erunámo’s gorge rose at the smell of burnt flesh and blood clinging to it; he would have vomited had the same hand that forced the sword at him not struck him.  The blow was enough to draw blood from his lip, but he scarcely felt it in the wake of the voice roaring at him to take command of his House.

My House, not Nárello’s.  The words rolled over him and turned his shock into a fury that he turned and vented upon the inrushing wave of Orcs.  He did not see what became of Turgon after that, not until Nárello’s haggard aide stumbled to his side to reiterate the call of retreat he apparently had not heard; another later told him that he had heard it but was unwilling to leave, even though there was nothing left of his brother’s body to safeguard from the Orcs and other foul creatures who would have defiled it.

After that, on the long, weary march back to Gondolin, he saw only the rear flank of the King’s company and not Turgon himself, though he and Ecthelion had been charged with guarding his retreat.  As foremost among the surviving captains, Ecthelion dealt directly with Turgon, when the King was approachable enough to receive a report or bark out orders. 

Ecthelion, though weary and begrimed with battle, was sympathetic to Nárello’s brother and gave him assistance wherever he could.  He was also accustomed to dealing with Turgon’s mercurial moods and acted as a buffer between the two, conveying messages to and from the King.  Erunámo had nothing to say, and from what Ecthelion said it seemed that on several occasions Turgon slipped and forgot Nárello was no longer in command of the House.

Even as a captain of Gondolin, I am a non-entity, Erunámo thought bitterly.  If anyone had asked him, he would have said he was content to remain so if it meant Nárello might return.  He had no particular desire to become one of the great lords of the Hidden City or to command armies.  Nárello had given him his own small gweth, and that had been sufficient to satisfy any such desire Erunámo might have had.

Certainly he took no particular joy in the lessons of statecraft Nárello insisted he master; he did it to please his brother and allay Nárello’s fears that the House would be left destitute and without suitable leadership should he die.  Erunámo only laughed, for their city was well protected and Nárello was not going anywhere, but when his brother looked on him with such stern eyes he could only choke back his laughing reluctance and obey.

Now it did not seem quite so amusing.

* * *

Notes: (All words are in Quenya unless otherwise noted)

pitya laurë findo: my little golden hair[ed one]

“So lovely a thing is this,” said Ondollo, laying the green silk over Erunámo’s lap.

“What is it?”  Erunámo had a vague idea what it was, for under the light, smooth folds he could see golden threads gleaming.  No, it was not his new livery, for the King’s own tailor had delivered that several days ago and he had specifically instructed the steward to put the finery away until he absolutely must wear it.  Ondollo knew he had no interest in jewels or silks, certainly not in the outrageously ostentatious garb he was expected to wear at Turgon’s court, and knew better than to try to lift his spirits thus.

The steward shook out the folds and, still holding one end, stepped back so the cloth spread wide.  A rayed golden flower set in a lozenge, picked out in metallic thread, its heart a gem like honey, glimmering in the strands of sunlight that fell through the window.  All along the edges of the lozenge, a repeating design in bold, glittering Tengwar, was the motto Laurëalótalië.

Erunámo looked at it in disinterest.  All along one edge, where Ondollo gripped the fabric, grommets pierced holes where a cord or metal rings might be run through for display.  “Banners we have,” he said.  “Why go to the expense of ordering a new one?”

Ondollo stepped toward him, gathering up the green silk as he went.  “All the Houses have ordered new banners to replace the ones lost during….  They have ordered replacements, herunya.  And it has always been the custom for a new lord to have his own—”

“There was nothing wrong with Nárello’s banner!” snapped Erunamó.  Except that it had been thrown down when Nárello fell under the Balrog’s sword, and was trampled and burnt beyond recovery; the warriors of the Golden Flower marched the sad road back to Gondolin without their banner or their lord’s body. 

Erunámo waited for the steward to remind him of this fact, but Ondollo did not speak.  “I suppose next you will tell me that it is the custom for the new Lord of the House to have a new sword made because his predecessor’s is not good enough.”  He instantly regretted the harshness of his tone; he had done nothing, it seemed, but snipe at Ondollo since his return to Gondolin.  You should put me in my place as you used to, herendur.  Lordship is not a license to abuse you so.

Turgon had already sent him a sword, one of the many gifts he had bestowed upon the surviving lords and captains of Gondolin.  The sword, of richly worked and bejeweled steel, lay at the bottom of a chest while Erunámo wore his brother’s battered and scored weapon; it was the only thing he had been able to take away from the battle that had been Nárello’s.

“Herunya,” Ondollo said calmly, “do you remember the elanor that grew on the green hill of Túna?”

“You know my memories of Valinor are very faint,” answered Erunámo, “and what has that to do with this thing you bring me?”

Ondollo gave him a tolerant look.  “When your father first came to Nevrast and chose his banner and you saw it waving in the sea breeze for the first time, do you remember how delighted you were?”

“That was nearly five hundred years ago.”  Erunámo reminded himself to speak more gently, but if his steward wished to allay his grief he could have chosen a better topic than his slain kin. 

“Herunya, if you would but look at the silk.  You are right, banners we have, and this one is not new.”

Erunámo had not noticed the threadbare edges, where the banner had been whipped by the breeze and begun to unravel.  Holding it to the sunlight, he saw the color was not the rich, deep green of his House, but was faded and blotched in places. “You used secondhand fabric,” he said irritably.

“No, pitya laurëlótënya.”  Ondollo cuffed him gently on the ear.  “This is Lord Elvanir’s own banner.  Nárello wanted his own banner, of course, so I packed it away with the thought that perhaps someday he might change his mind.  But ever stubborn was your brother, and he told me he did not wish to bear such things that would remind him of what his House had lost.”

The first part sounds like Nárello, thought Erunámo, but say rather that he did not want atar’s cast-offs and I would believe you.  Ondollo, however, would never be so undiplomatic as to ever say such a thing. 

Taking the fabric between his hands, he tried to glean some memory from it.  All he remembered was watching from the willow-marshes as his father’s gweth rode past, and their father’s dark hair streaming in the salty air as he led them; he did not even notice his sons watching from the reeds, else he would have stopped and demanded to know why Nárello brought his younger brother so far from the shelter of Vinyamar’s walls.

Nárello pointed out the fluttering banner, saying that it was new.  Their father had shown it to Nárello, explaining with much pride what the symbols and words meant, but Erunámo had not been present for the display.

“Atar no longer rides under Finarfin’s banner, pitya laurë findo,” Nárello explained, “and Lord Turgon has gathered many Houses under him, so we must have our own banner.”

“But why a golden flower?” Erunámo asked.

“Because atar’s naneth is one of the daughters of Finwë, and her emblem is a flower.  And we are descended on both sides from the Vanyar, so it is only fitting.”

Later, perhaps prompted by Nárello, Elvanir sent for his younger son and showed him the banner, letting him touch the soft yet sturdy silk and the golden threads that would blaze brightly in the sunlight.  They had never been close, Erunámo and his father, for in the years after they came to Nevrast and his wife faded, Elvanir left his sons in Ondollo’s care and went to supervise the building of the new city in the mountains.

For a time after they came to Gondolin, the family dwelt together again under one roof, yet the demands of Turgon’s court meant the Lord of the Golden Flower was often away on royal business.  Sometimes he took Nárello with him, but did not give the same attention to Erunámo; his manner suggested that he was for some reason blind to the fact that his younger son had grown in his absence.  

“One day he will notice, pityawë,” Ondollo assured him, “for you will be great among the lords of this city.  Your own mother said so to me when you were born, and whatever a mother sees in childbed is a gift of the Valar.  It was she who first called you laurëlótë, long before Lord Elvanir took that emblem for our House.”

Whatever amilesse tercenyë his mother gave him, it was no comfort; Erunámo had not known her well enough to find solace in such memories, and his father never spoke of her.  He knew only that he was ignored, dismissed, and in his moment of frustration his temper rose like bile.

“Perhaps,” he said sharply, “he would remember who I was if you and Nárello did not call me by so many pet names.”

Elvanir spent increasingly less time with his sons, acting as the king’s emissary to Fingolfin the High King.  He had fallen in an ambush on the road to Hithlum; Fingolfin’s men had not been able to recover the body, but Elvanir’s banner the High King sent back to Turgon with many rich gifts.   All these years, Erunámo assumed Nárello had borne their father’s banner; he now recalled a bolt of rich green silk that had been among Fingolfin’s gifts, and he realized to what purpose Nárello had put it.

Erunámo crumpled the silk in his hands and brought it to his face.  The cloth smelled of moth balls and the cedar wood chest in which it had been stored.  Beyond it, he smelled the willow-marshes of Nevrast and that indefinable thing called memory.  All that he ever was, or had, or lost was in that fabric, and it brought tears to his eyes.

“Oh, now, herunya,” Ondollo said behind him, “if you are going to weep, please, you will leave marks on the silk.”

* * *

Notes:  All terms are in Quenya unless otherwise noted.

Laurëalótalië:  People of the Golden Flower

amilesse tercenyë: a mother-name of insight.  The Eldar of Valinor often had two names, a father-name and a mother-name, the latter often given with some prophetic implications.  Additionally, a third name, an epessë, or use-name, might be acquired or chosen by the individual later in life.

In The Peoples of Middle-earth, “The Shibboleth of Fëanor,” Findis and Lalwen are named as the daughters of Finwë and Indis.   They are not mentioned anywhere else in Tolkien.  There has been some speculation that Glorfindel could have been descended from Lalwen, who followed Fingolfin into exile.  

pitya laurëlótënya:  my little golden flower.

“’Tis the most ridiculous garment I have ever worn, herendur.”

Erunámo studied his reflection in the full-length mirror.  Ondollo had ordered green and gold for the raiment he would wear on his first public appearance as Lord of the Golden Flower, but too late did Erunámo realize that aesthetic restraint was not something for which the steward was known.

“Look at this cloak,” he groaned, lifting the hem of a dark green velvet mantle stiff with fields of embroidered gold flowers.  “It must weigh twenty stone.”

Ondollo ignored the complaint and continued to arrange the folds of the cloak.  “Aye, but you look magnificent, herunya.  A true herulótë.”

I do not look like myself, he thought, studying the face that looked back at him from under the elaborate lord’s circlet.  In the cold glass he scarcely recognized what he saw.  The eyes were flat, the face with its thin-set lips and high cheekbones impassive; he did not much resemble the younger brother who came in to chide his sibling for dressing too ostentatiously.  Going again to pay court to the Lady Idril, brother?  Such beads and bells, you jingle more than your horse.

Nárello had glared at his brother through the glass.  Ai, go toss yourself in a fountain and leave me be, quáco. 

His words seemed to echo through the chamber, faint and as brittle and cold as the glass into which Erunámo looked, and Erunámo felt himself waver.  He saw his reflection chew his lower lip to hold back the momentary pain.  I would give much to hear him chide me so again.

I do not look like myself, but then I am no longer Erunámo of Gondolin, the child of Vinyamar, he told himself.  Erunámo died with Nárello at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.  He is not here, he will not weep.  I am Laurëfindo, Glorfindel of Gondolin, Lord of the Golden Flower, and I will be strong this day.  I will show nothing to the world.

On this day, he would put aside his father-name and take another.  Already he had given instructions to change his personal badges, evading Ondollo’s questions.  The steward did not understand his need to step away from himself, to take on a name that would be as a mask, a shield between his private self and the public persona he was by necessity forced to adopt.

“Herunya,” Ondollo protested, “you said you did not wish to be called by a pet name, and yet—”

“Do not argue with me, herendur.”  Already I am taking the tone of a lord with him, and I rue it.  But if he cannot see for himself the difference between what I am and what others expect to see, then how am I to explain it?  “I do not consider an epessë a pet name, as you call it.”

Ondollo adjusted the golden flower that pinned the cloak and stepped back, his brow knotted in consternation.  “Would you have taken such a name if Nárello had not called you thus?”

For a moment Erunámo let his mask slip.  “Then I would have taken something else,” he replied.  He wanted to explain, had already tried several times, but did not have the words for it.  If I cannot even articulate myself to mine own steward, how eloquent am I going to be when the King asks my counsel?  Perhaps he will forget I am there, as he has done before, and I shall be spared further embarrassment.

The silver peal of horns from the courtyard roused him and drew Ondollo to the window.  “Herunya,” he said, “the captains are come to escort you to the King.  They await you below.”

Erunámo appraised his reflection a final time before drawing his mask of lordly indifference into place.  He steadied himself with a breath and answered, “Go then, herendur, and tell Lord Ecthelion and Lord Egalmoth that I will join them presently.”

Turning, Ondollo noted the change in his tone, the air of formality and distance between them, and he bowed.  “As you will, pitya--forgive me, herunya—as you will, my Lord Glorfindel.”

* * *

Notes: All terms in Quenya unless otherwise noted.

The description of Glorfindel’s clothing is based on Tolkien’s own description, of a mantle so covered in golden flowers that it seemed like a field in spring.

quáco: crow, a noisy bird

herulótë: flower-lord

It has been suggested that Glorfindel is somehow related to Finarfin, although he does not appear in the family tree of the House of Finarfin and it is said by Tolkien that Finarfin and his descendants alone among Noldorin princes had golden hair.   The likeliest explanation for this statement is that at the time Tolkien had not fully worked out the kinks of Noldorin genetics, as one of Fëanor’s sons, Celegorm the Fair, was undoubtedly golden-haired.

Several individuals, including Michael Martinez, author of Visualizing Middle-earth, have speculated that Glorfindel was the product of the marriage between a Noldorin lord and Vanyarin lady.  Martinez also suggests that Glorfindel “probably could not have been an "elder" among the Noldor at the time of the rebellion,” as very few of the elder Noldor, such as Nerdanel and Mahtan, went into exile.

In Tolkien’s essay on Glorfindel, in The Peoples of Middle-earth, it is suggested that Glorfindel was an adult at the time of the rebellion of the Noldor and followed his people reluctantly.  However, this version is not set in stone as Tolkien himself did not publish this essay and I have chosen to make Glorfindel a child at the time of the Noldorin rebellion.  This is still in accordance with the reference from The Lord of the Rings that he is an Elda of Valinor, while absolving him of the guilt of the rebellion. 

Nowhere does Tolkien say that Turgon sent emissaries abroad from Gondolin, but as he does mention that Turgon closed the Hidden Way after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and allowed no one to travel to or from the vale of Tumladen after that time, and given that Fingolfin was Turgon’s father as well as his High King, it is reasonable to assume there must have been some carefully guarded traffic from Gondolin before the Unnumbered Tears.