Disclaimer:  I borrow characters and settings from Tolkien but they belong to him.  I gain no profit from their use other than the enriched imaginative life that I assume he intended me to gain.

Many thanks to Nilmandra for beta reading this chapter.

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3. Lost

“Maybe they are lost,” Annael worried.

Legolas was beginning to feel rather desperate. “We cannot look any longer. Eilian will come and get us if we do not go now.”

“Maybe we should tell him,” Turgon suggested. “He might help us look.”

Legolas shook his head. “A maiden is visiting him. He will not want to help us now, and he will be unhappy to be interrupted.” He had seen his brother with maidens often enough to know that gaining any part of Eilian’s attention would be difficult. “We can leave the door shut and look again tonight when we are supposed to be sleeping.”

Turgon rose from where he had been searching the fireplace and rubbed his filthy hands on his tunic. “Very well,” he said. “Maybe while we are gone, they will come back to get the food we left.” Annael brightened at that suggestion, and Legolas felt a little better too. He did not like the idea of their pets being lost. When he had been smaller, he had once lost track of his father and brothers when they were in the forest with some Elves he did not know because they came from a settlement, and he knew how scary it was to find yourself unexpectedly alone with no one to take care of you. He hoped that Blue-y was not frightened.

He opened the door to his room to make a narrow space they each squeezed quickly through, and then he shut it again and led the way to the sitting room. As he had expected, Eilian sat on the padded bench near the fireplace with his arm around a maiden who sat very close to him. Legolas eyed the maiden skeptically. He had never seen Eilian with her before. She looked annoyed, Legolas thought, and Eilian looked as if he thought they were interrupting. No, this would not be a good time to ask him to help look for the mice.

“Amelith, do you know my brother Legolas and his friends Turgon and Annael?” Eilian asked. Amelith smiled at Legolas, but he did not think she was really glad to see him. He decided he did not like her.

“Listen now,” Eilian admonished the three of them, “I am going to give you your first clue. When you have the thing you think I am asking for, bring it back here.” A sudden thought struck Legolas. Maybe they could go back to his room and continue looking for the mice.  As if reading his mind, Eilian frowned at him. “If you take too long, I will come looking for you,” he warned. Legolas doubted that, but you never knew. He sighed. They would look tonight, as he had suggested earlier.

“Here is the clue,” Eilian said:

“Go down to the place that tickles your nose,
and down to the place where barrels rest;
bring up a skin of liquid fruit,
and you will have passed your opening test.”

Legolas frowned in concentration. A riddle. He liked riddles and was usually good at them.

Amelith suddenly laughed. “Did you make that up? That is clever. I hope you elflings hurry.”

Legolas wrinkled his nose. He was irritated that Amelith had guessed the riddle before he had, and he did not like the way she laughed. But Eilian smiled at her and then turned to Legolas. “Go,” he ordered.

“We are going! You do not have to be so bossy,” Legolas declared and marched out of the room, ignoring the frown that Eilian threw his way.

“A place that tickles your nose,” Annael said thoughtfully, as they gathered in the hallway. “It must be a place that smells good.”

“Or smells bad,” Turgon said.

“Tickling is good,” Annael insisted.

“And we have to go down,” Legolas mused. An idea suddenly struck him. “I know! We should go to the kitchens. They are downstairs and they smell good.”

“Good idea!” Annael cried. “How do we get there? I have never been to the kitchen here.”

Legolas led them quickly out the door of the royal family’s quarters and down another short hallway to cross the antechamber in front of the Great Hall. They could hear Elves singing in the Hall. Sometimes when his family was busy in the evenings, Legolas liked to read on a bench in the Hall and listen to the singing. He was not allowed out of the palace at night without an adult, but he was allowed to go places in the palace, as long as he kept out of trouble. After all, guards and servants were everywhere and they kept an eye on him, he knew. He led his friends across the antechamber to a corridor that led to other branching corridors and eventually to the stairway down to the kitchens. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, they knew that they had indeed found a place that smelled good. The aroma of baking apples drifted up the stairwell.

***

Ithilden stood next to his father’s chair in one of the small reception rooms.  The door opened and the guard escorted three Men into the room. They each dropped a knee to the floor. All of them wore blue tunics with the symbol of the lake over the left breast, and Ithilden recognized the one in front as a captain in Esgaroth’s guard. He had met the Man several years before when thieves had attacked one of the rafts bearing goods from Esgaroth to Thranduil’s stronghold. He groped for the Man’s name. Hiran: that was it.

Thranduil waved them to their feet. “You have sought an audience with us?”

“Aye, my lord,” Hiran said. “We have come to tell you of something that has befallen us and to ask for whatever help you might be willing to render us.” Ithilden studied the Man. He was pale and grimmer looking than Ithilden remembered him being.

Thranduil raised an eyebrow. “You may continue,” he said coolly. Hiran’s face hardened a little, and while Ithilden kept his own face neutral, he could not help regretting his father’s tone. He knew that Thranduil would never wish evil on the Men of the lake but was disinclined to become involved in their affairs. And the Men probably knew that too, Ithilden thought, which meant that whatever had happened must have been serious indeed to drive them to ask for Thranduil’s help.

Hiran took up his tale. “Two days ago, three of our people entered the woods to clear fallen trees in accord with the agreement reached between our Master and you, my lord.” He paused and Thranduil nodded. As Ithilden recalled, Thranduil had traded the right to gather the timber for shipments of grain. Hiran took a deep breath. “They have not returned, although one of the draft horses they took with them did. When the horse came back without them, we went in search of them and found traces of spider webs in the area where they were supposed to be working.”

Ithilden stiffened. The area Hiran was talking about was in the territory of the eastern border patrol, and Ithilden had had no reports of spider activity from them. He needed to send them word to find out just what they thought they were doing and to make sure they cleared the creatures away from inhabited areas.

Hiran looked from Thranduil to Ithilden and back again, with something resembling pleading in his face. “Have you heard anything of Men being found in the woods, my lords?”

Thranduil flicked a glance at Ithilden, who shook his head. “We have heard nothing,” Thranduil told Hiran.

Hiran drew a deep breath, as if to steady himself. Then he pulled a parchment out of his belt and handed it to Thranduil. “I also bring a message from the Master of Laketown. He wishes to know what measures you will take to protect our people when they are in your woods by your permission.” His tone was controlled but Ithilden could hear the anger under the surface. He glanced at his father, whose eyes were glittering dangerously at the implied criticism in the Master’s message.

“We will answer the Master’s message with all speed,” Thranduil said coolly. “If you will wait, you may carry our reply back to him.”

“I beg you to excuse us from this duty, my lord,” Hiran said. “We wish to continue searching.”

Thranduil nodded. “We too will send patrols out to search for your missing people.” Hiran blinked. He had obviously not expected Thranduil to take this action, and Ithilden could not help smiling to himself. His father was not always an easy neighbor to the Men, but surely they should know by now that he would not allow anyone to suffer if he could prevent it. “See to it, Ithilden,” Thranduil ordered.

Ithilden put his hand over his heart and bowed. “Yes, my lord. With your leave, I will go at once.” Thranduil nodded.

“With your permission, we too will leave now,” Hiran said. Again Thranduil nodded, and the Men bowed and followed Ithilden out of the room and down the hall toward Great Doors, which stood open in the soft spring evening.

At the top of the steps leading out of the palace, Ithilden paused and turned to Hiran. “I assure you we will do everything in our power to find your missing people, Captain,” he said, although privately he thought it unlikely that any of the missing Men would be found alive.

“Thank you, my lord,” Hiran said. “I would be grateful for your help in any case, but I confess that this hunt is particularly important to me because one of those missing is my brother.” His voice was steady, but Ithilden could hear the tightness that fear gave it.

“We will start searching immediately,” Ithilden assured him. Hiran nodded and the Men went down the steps to where their horses waited on the green. They mounted and rode off into the night, apparently unwilling to cease their efforts even when the woods were most likely to be astir with danger.

Ithilden started down the path that led to his headquarters. He needed to send a message to the border patrol and start some of the Home Guard searching to the east. As he walked, he thought about Hiran’s story. A brother missing. A horse returned alone. Ah yes. Ithilden knew about the terror that could come from those things. He remembered that afternoon when Eilian’s horse had come home riderless -- the afternoon before the day on which Legolas had been born in fact, nineteen years ago this very day.

~*~*~

Nineteen years and about five hours earlier

“My lord?”

Ithilden looked up from the papers on his desk to find his aide standing in the doorway with his face unreadable. “Yes, Calith?”

“Deler is here with a report I think you should hear right away.”

Ithilden’s pulse quickened a little. If the captain of the Home Guard had a report that pressing, then something was the matter. “Send him in.” Calith withdrew, and Deler came striding into the room and saluted.

“What is it?” Ithilden asked, wasting no time on niceties.

“My lord, a warrior from one of my patrols rode in a few minutes ago leading a horse. He and his companions had found the animal about two leagues west of here, evidently on its way home.” Deler paused, grimacing slightly, and Ithilden braced himself.

“Out with it,” he demanded.

“The horse is Lord Eilian’s,” Deler said, and for a second, Ithilden’s heart stopped. He had been expecting word of Eilian’s arrival all afternoon. Their new brother was to be born the next day, and Eilian had been given special leave to be present for the occasion. What could have happened that his horse came home without him?

“Send warriors to search the route Eilian is likely to have been taking,” he ordered, hearing how breathless his own voice sounded. “Send everyone you can spare.”

“I have already done so,” Deler said.

“Maltanaur would have been with him. Was his horse found? Were there wounds or marks of any kind on Eilian’s horse?”

“No, my lord. The patrol found only the one horse, and it is unharmed.”

Ithilden drew a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Thank you, Deler. Let me know as soon as you hear anything. And one other thing, Deler.”  The Home Guard captain looked at him inquiringly. “Try to keep word of the search confined to those involved. The king and queen have enough on their minds with the baby’s arrival. They do not need to be alarmed about Eilian too.”

“Yes, my lord.” Looking sympathetic, Deler went to coordinate the search.

Ithilden sat for a moment, gripping the arms of his chair. Had he been right to decide to keep the news from his parents? He was not sure. But he was sure that his mother’s state of mind would affect her labor, and he intended to shelter her as much as he could at least until the baby was born.

He stared at the papers on his desk. He should finish the duty rosters for the next two days so that he would be free on the morrow in case his parents needed him. And if Eilian did not reach home by morning, they would be looking for his assurance that his brother was all right. He felt a sudden despair. What was he going to tell them? He had no way to assure Eilian’s safety, and now there would be this new baby too. It was another son, his parents had told him. Another brother to send off to face the Shadow, Ithilden thought bitterly, and I will not be able to assure his safety either. For a moment, his breast boiled with anger at his parents for putting him in this position again.

He closed his eyes and deliberately relaxed his muscles. He had to complete his work, and then he had to go home and act unconcerned about Eilian in front of his parents. Wasting his energy on useless emotions would not help him to do either thing. He opened his eyes and bent to his tasks, and at the proper time, he rose, donned his cloak, and bid good evening to his sympathetic looking aide. “Send me word at the palace if you hear anything,” he instructed, and Calith nodded.

He found his parents sitting on the padded bench near the fire in the family’s sitting room. His mother leaned back against his father, evidently seeking a position that would ease the discomfort stemming from her unaccustomed bulk. Her face brightened on seeing him, and he bent to kiss her forehead. “How are you, Naneth?”

“I am so eager for this child to make his appearance that I can hardly stand it,” she laughed. “Surely I have been pregnant for at least a yen.”  He forced himself to laugh at her joke. “Is Eilian here yet?” she asked.

“No, but I am sure he will be here soon,” Ithilden said steadily, turning his back on her and Thranduil and pouring himself some wine. He turned back to find his father regarding him with slightly narrowed eyes, and he smiled as reassuringly as he could. Thranduil’s look did not change, but he said nothing.

Lorellin chatted gaily, apparently oblivious to the undercurrent. “All day today, I have been remembering your birth, Ithilden. Eilian’s too, but yours even more. I do not suppose any parent ever experiences anything like the birth of a first child. We were so excited, but we did not really know what to expect, and then, there you were, crying and waving your little fists. You were the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, and my heart has not been the same since.” She smiled at him, and suddenly his eyes stung.

“And of course,” she went on, “like this little one, you were born in a time of danger. I was afraid for you, I confess, but although it is perhaps selfish of me, and although I might wish your life were easier, Ithilden, I have never for a second regretted having you.”

He stared at her. Perhaps she was not as oblivious to undercurrents as he had thought. He looked at his father, who smiled faintly and tightened his arm around the contented-looking Lorellin.

~*~*~

Ithilden walked into the Home Guard headquarters, and Deler turned in surprise from where he was conferring with his lieutenant. “My lord! Did you want something?”

“Yes. Two days ago, three Men went missing in the eastern part of the forest. I want you to send as many warriors as you can to look for them.”

Deler blinked. “Of course, my lord. Exactly where were they last seen?”

Ithilden walked over to the map on the wall, and together, he and Deler began planning the search for the lost Men.

***

With his friends right behind him, Legolas skipped lightly down the stairs to emerge in the cavernous space where the cooks prepared the food for everyone who lived or worked in the palace. Three huge fireplaces lined one wall, with spits large enough to hold a roasting deer or wild boar. Pots and pans and other cooking utensils hung from hooks and stood in racks on the tables that ran down the middle of the room. And even now, in the evening, cooks were at work. One leaned over a fire, stirring a stew that was presumably intended to feed the guards and other workers on night duty. But what caught Legolas’s attention was the sight of the head cook setting out rows of apple tarts to cool on racks.

“Are those for morning meal?” he asked eagerly.

Cook looked up from his task and smiled. “Legolas! How nice to see you! Yes, these are for your morning meal, but perhaps you and your friends would each like one now, just as an early begetting day celebration?”

“Yes, please,” the three of them chorused and ran to climb on stools that were ranged around the table.

Cook reached for three plates, put a tart on each, and then set them in front of them. “Let them cool for a minute, or you will burn yourself,” he admonished. Legolas drew his hand back from the tart for which he had been reaching. Cook eyed Turgon’s filthy hands and then reached for a wet rag and began wiping them. “What are you doing down here?” Cook asked.

“We are on a treasure hunt,” Legolas said. “Eilian gave us a clue, and we have to find something and take it back to him.”

“Did Eilian hide anything here?” Turgon asked. Legolas gave him a reproving look. They were supposed to solve the riddle. It seemed like cheating to just ask if Eilian had hidden something.

“I have not seen Lord Eilian at all this evening,” Cook said, much to Legolas’s disappointment. They would have to think of some other good-smelling place. “The tarts are probably cool enough to eat now,” Cook said and laughed when they all immediately grabbed at the pastry.  “Why do you not tell me the clue your brother gave you, and I will see if I can help you decipher it?” Cook invited, seating himself on another stool.

Legolas recited the clue:

“Go down to the place that tickles your nose
and down to the place where barrels rest;
bring up a skin of liquid fruit,
and you will have passed your opening test.”

He looked hopefully at Cook. This did not seem like cheating because they were still trying to solve the clue. Cook looked at them with a wry expression on his face, and the under-cook who was stirring the stew laughed out loud. “You should give them a skin of cider to take to Lord Eilian, Cook,” he said.

Cook laughed too. “He would not like that much, would he?”

“Do you know what it means?” Turgon asked, snaking his hand toward the rack of tarts.

“Yes, I do,” Cook said, moving the rack to the other end of the table. “We did not see Lord Eilian hiding anything because what he is asking for is not hidden. I believe he wants you to go down the next set of steps to the cellar and get him a skin of wine.”

Legolas blinked. Of course! He had occasionally accompanied Nimloth to the store rooms below, and he had seen the barrels of wine and other goods brought up the river from Esgaroth. “Come,” he cried, jumping off his stool and starting for the cellar steps.

“Wait,” Cook said. “My assistant will get the skin for you. I do not like the idea of you three running around in the storerooms.”  The under-cook smiled at Legolas and went off to fetch the wine.

Suddenly, Turgon gasped. “Red-y!” Legolas whirled to look where Turgon was pointing and saw a mouse with a red ribbon standing on top of one of the apple tarts still cooling on the rack. Cook gaped at the creature, and then, with a roar, jumped off his stool. Red-y scrambled off the table and scurried toward the other end of the room with Cook in pursuit, brandishing a broom he had snatched up.

Legolas had been frozen in surprise by the unexpected sight of Red-y outside of his bedroom. But now he ran after Cook, followed closely by Turgon and Annael. “Do not hurt him!” cried Annael.

Red-y darted between stacks of pans stored on a low shelf, and Cook swiped at them with his broom, sending them crashing to one side and revealing the cowering Red-y, who squeaked and then ran madly off the edge of the shelf and through the cracked-open door of what was probably a cupboard. Turgon flung himself against the door, slamming it shut, and then turned to face Cook with his arms spread wide to defend it. The assistant burst into the room, panting from having run up the stairs from the store rooms. He froze, wine skin in hand, at the sight of Cook apparently threatening Turgon with a broom. “What happened?” he asked.

“There is a mouse in the cupboard,” Cook snapped. “It was on the table and all over the tarts.”

“I think you imagined that mouse,” Turgon declared.

Cook stared at him, open-mouthed. “I most certainly did not! There was a mouse!” His eyes narrowed. “And it had a red ribbon tied to its tail.” The assistant laughed out loud but stopped when Cook glared at him. “Do you three know anything about this mouse?”

“He is our pet,” Annael said. Legolas thought Annael might be going to cry, so he moved to stand very close to his friend.

Cook looked from Turgon to them and lowered his broom. “You cannot have a mouse for a pet,” he said, more gently. “Mice are very good at getting through the smallest of openings, and then they get into the food. I am going to have to throw those tarts away and make more if you are to have any for morning meal. I do not think you would want to eat the ones the mouse was on, would you?”

Legolas bit his lip. “No,” he admitted. He looked pleadingly at Cook. “But you will not hurt him, will you?”

Cook smiled slightly. “No. I will just put it back outside.”

“But that is my special mouse!” Turgon cried.

“Come, Turgon,” Legolas urged, going to pluck at Turgon’s tunic. “We can talk about this later.” Turgon scowled but allowed himself to be led toward the stairs. Legolas stopped in front of the assistant, who still looked inclined to laugh. “May I please have the wine skin to take to Eilian?” Legolas asked.

The assistant handed it to him. “Come and visit us again some time,” he said. Cook gave a short laugh.

Legolas ran up the stairs with Turgon and Annael right behind. He paused at the top. “We still have the other three mice, Turgon,” he murmured comfortingly. “You can have Brown-y as your special mouse.”

“I liked Red-y,” Turgon mourned. He sighed. “But Brown-y is nice too, and maybe Red-y will like it better outside.”

“Come,” Legolas said. “We have the treasure for Eilian. He will be waiting for us, and then he can give us our next clue.” They started back toward the sitting room.