CHAPTER 33:  REST AND RESTLESSNESS

Seven pairs of eyes at the luncheon table were fixed on Gimli, as he embellished the end of his story with hands that were animated as the earnest expressions on his face and the rise and fall of his gruff voice.

“…and Fimbar was so taken with the brilliance of the stone, he never noticed he was on the edge of the pool. He stepped back just a wee bit too far – like Gollum, if you recall –except he was much bigger than the slinker, so you can imagine the splash the laddie sent up. Ai, but it rose five feet in the air! Anyone standing near him saved themselves from bathing for a week, they did!”

“Not including you, surely?” Faramir asked teasingly amidst the laughter from the rapt audience.

“Oh no, not me!” Gimli insisted. “I knew to leap well out of the way soon as he started wavering on one foot. Too fast for him to get me wet!”

The dwarf reveled in the confused expressions of his listeners as the laughter tapered off and they tried to work out whether his answer meant he did or did not bathe for a week. He found Aragorn and Legolas shaking their heads and giving him knowing smiles before bursting into loud infectious chuckles himself, causing everyone else to join him. The dwarf puffed out his chest even more, enjoying the effect his stories were having on the two kings, the queen, the Steward and his wife, Hamille of Ithilien and of course his dear friend the elf prince. They were all in a relaxed mood after a hearty, well-cooked meal and generous helpings of some of the best wine the City’s cellars had to offer, and had listened to more than one of the numerous tales the Lord of the Glittering Caves seemed to store in abundance.

“You must lead a fascinating life in those caverns, Gimli,” Eowyn remarked, beaming at him.

“Indeed we do,” the dwarf affirmed, thoroughly enjoying his role as narrator, “and there are plenty more tales, if anyone would care to hear them.”

“I am sure many would care,” Aragorn said generously, rising from his seat and looking around at his guests. “Perhaps it would be more comfortable for you to do so in the parlor, where you are welcome to more wine – or a smoke?”

Comfortable in his familiarity with his mortal companions, Legolas groaned outwardly at the mention of the strange habit that he had never learnt to appreciate. The elf king, who was not as unreserved, raised an eyebrow at his son’s apparent indiscretion, but Arwen threw the younger elf a sympathetic smile. In contrast to his friend’s reaction, Gimli’s eyes lit up at once.

“Ah, a smoke!” the dwarf responded with delight, as he followed his host’s lead out of the dining room. “If it is Longbottom Leaf you offer, Aragorn, it would be most welcome indeed, for I have a pipe in my pocket that is beginning to feel lonely; it sorely misses the companionship of some good pipeweed. The Southfarthing leaf will serve very well to loosen my tongue – all the more needed for a good round of story-telling...”

There were small laughs from the others at Gimli’s ceaseless chattering as they made their way to the parlor. Aragorn excused himself, saying he would join them as soon as he had taken care of an urgent matter in his office. He pressed his wife’s hand to his lips and clapped Gimli on the shoulder as he withdrew from them. But his parting gesture to Legolas perplexed the elf: the king grasped his shoulder warmly, yet gave him a grim smile – one that warned of forthcoming questions demanding answers – before striding off with a guard in tow.

Knitting his brows, Legolas watched the king disappear around a corner, wondering at the meaning behind the gesture. Whatever it was that concerned Aragorn, the elf hoped that his friend would not be too quickly overwhelmed with his duties again, for he felt that the man needed some time off from them. Indeed, Legolas and Aragorn had hardly had three welcome days of rest after their return from the Table before court duties reclaimed Aragorn’s time and attention.

For Legolas, however, the period of healing had gone on. The king’s physicians had given the elf prince more herbal tea to remove the remainder of Sarambaq’s poison from his body, and applied healing poultices to his numerous wounds. In facing the urgent demands of the battle with the Sarambaq, his body had borne great stress and torture to the limits of its endurance, but now that the demands on it were gone, the elf felt the exhaustion. Thus, to the relief of his watchful father and an adamant Aragorn, the elf had – for one of the rare times in his life – readily followed the healers’ orders to spend much of the first few days in healing sleep.

Gimli had arrived two days after the Windlord had borne Legolas back to the City. The dwarf had learnt about the threat to his elven friend from the messengers Aragorn had first sent to Mirkwood, for those riders had taken the route through Rohan, and upon reaching Mirkwood to find King Thranduil already departed from his home, they had returned to Minas Tirith more slowly by the same route, this time being joined by an irate Gimli. The dwarf had of course been quite annoyed that he could not have gone with Aragorn to the rescue of his dear friend, but was greatly relieved to find both his human and elven friends safely returned. He had insisted on staying till the elf was on his feet again and had in fact spent most of his time chatting with Legolas when he was not examining the stonework in the City or frightening the palace cooks by visiting the kitchens at odd times of the day and night, and annoying them by making off with pastries just out of the oven.

Today, however, Gimli abandoned all thought of craft or food sampling for another of his loves: story-telling. The group around him was thoroughly amused by his tales, and they let him ramble on, for he clearly enjoyed the narration. Even Thranduil, who was least acquainted with the dwarf, indulged him with his attention as they fell in step on their way to the parlor.

“Your tales of the Glittering Caves are so magnificent, Master Dwarf, that they seem to me to threaten to outshine the caves themselves!” he observed with a polite smile.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that, milord,” the dwarf replied seriously, though he was secretly pleased that the elven king found his stories worth his interest. “The caves are spectacular beyond compare. You must come and visit them some day.”

At that claim, King Thranduil raised his eyebrows and sent his son a quick glance. The elf prince grinned, understanding his father’s surprise that the dwarf would dare to declare his caves better than the palatial ones in the elven realm of North Greenwood, in which Thranduil resided.

“They are different from the ones at home, Adar, but they do have a beauty of their own,” Legolas said judiciously, certain that Gimli heard him as well. “If you are not opposed to returning home through Rohan, we could stop there, for I have not visited them for almost three years, and it would be pleasant to see Eomer again.”

To Legolas’ surprise, his father seemed agreeable to that proposal. Perhaps the idea appealed to him because he had been hardly been out of his own kingdom in the past sixty or seventy years, save to reclaim or restore the Greenwood, or to conduct trade talks with the men of Dale. Or, perhaps his father was doing it for his sake, Legolas guessed, since the king knew the depth of his friendship with the dwarf. But whatever the reason was, he noted with pleasure that his father and his good friend – whose races had had a long history of animosity – now sat next to each other and began to engage in affable conversation, comparing the two cave systems they lived in.  

The elf prince chose a seat at the bay windows, away from the smoke that began to issue from Gimli’s pipe, and grinned as Gimli captured everyone’s attention again with yet another episode of the adventures he seemed to have each day in the Caves. It warmed his heart to see the peaceful looks on the faces of his father and friends: Gimli was almost surrounded by his willing audience, his expressive eyes and voice matching the excited gestures of his hands. Thranduil seemed to be listening intently, the patience of the old adorning his dignified features. Hamille stood behind him, a faithful sentinel, always alert and sensitive, but a smile played on his lips now. Faramir sat on the arm of a sturdy chair in which his wife was seated, a hand placed lightly around her shoulders; she retained the pride of the White Lady of Rohan that Legolas had first seen during the Quest, but it was now tempered with an easy contentment. Both laughed at something Gimli said, and shared a whispered exchange before turning back to the dwarf. Arwen looked just as blissful, radiant with the rosiness of an expectant mother; she had revealed the news of a second child to Aragorn when Eldarion had first recovered after the king’s return, but it was only after Legolas’ safe return that they had announced the news to everyone else, much to their joy for the couple.

The elf’s thoughts lingered next on Aragorn, although he was still absent from the gathering.

A king’s work is never done, the elf thought in sympathy, glancing at his father as well. But at least Elessar was safe again within the walls of his City, surrounded by the people he loved and who loved him back.

Just two weeks ago, all the people gathered here had suffered several days – eight in all from the time he first rode out from Ithilien – of worry, uncertainty and fear for someone in this room: first him, then Aragorn as well, and finally, all three of them when his father entered the scene of conflict. How much anguish and turmoil one vengeful man’s desire had caused, he recalled with some sorrow.

Breathing a small sigh, he turned his eyes away from the group, absently fingering the front of his shirt beneath which the scars lay. He looked out of the bay windows at the gardens that he and his kin had designed for Aragorn and Arwen in the first year of the king’s reign.

Have ten years gone so swiftly by? the elf wondered. His perception of Time had indeed altered since he immersed himself more and more in the world of mortals, he realized. There were occasions when he found himself looking at Time as Gimli or Aragorn would: a precious commodity that would run out for them, and therefore it became precious to him too.

In fact, elven existence itself had changed because of its alliances and conflicts with Men, dwarves and hobbits. Much good had come of their acquaintance, and much had he learnt from them – lessons and insights that he felt enriched his life.

But there had been unpleasantness as well. And pain.

Too much pain.

The voices of the others in the room receded slowly, slowly, from his consciousness, becoming as dull, garbled noises heard through water, as he wandered without thinking down the path of the past two weeks. Unwelcome memories pushed past the sentinels of his mind; clear as crystal they seemed, yet wreathed in curling grey mists so that they seeped through the recesses of the barriers he had tried to erect against the past. They conjured up unwanted visions, they echoed dreadful sounds he would rather forget, and they laughed at his helplessness to stem their assault on him.

Legolas suddenly recoiled.

For, out of the grey mists, forming before his eyes, came the image of Sarambaq’s face, contorted with hate. It hovered like an apparition that would not leave, as if the spirit of the man were on the other side of the window, disrupting the peace of the gardens, darkening the sky that a moment ago had been a cloudless blue. The lips parted first in a wicked sneer, then began moving noiselessly, mouthing a silent chant which turned into mocking laughter. Legolas saw menacing hands holding a wicked blade reaching towards him, raising the blade upwards and bringing it down ferociously at an angle, and up again in the other direction…

The elf clutched at his chest, felt his breath hitch, and he gasped amid an explosion of sound.

His head whipped towards the group in the room and realized that they had burst out in a loud guffaw at something Gimli had said, completely unaware of the strange agony that had gripped him.

Legolas released his relief in a deep breath.

But he suddenly felt stifled, distressingly hemmed in by the stone walls of the spacious room, cloaked in gloom despite the sunshine streaming in through the glass panes, and the need to be outside overwhelmed him. Aware that he was breathing too quickly, he took a moment to slow it, before standing and moving towards the group in deliberate steps. With a conscious effort, he suppressed the tide of emotions threatening to spill forth and forced a smile from his lips.

“Adar, I feel the need to go outside. This smoke tickles my throat,” he said in a steady voice, managing to throw a teasing grin in Gimli’s direction and eliciting a grunt from the dwarf.

“Shall I – ” Thranduil began, rising from his seat, and Hamille took a step forward at the same time. But Legolas stopped them both with a raised hand.

“Nay, Adar, please stay,” the younger elf urged. “I will be fine, I will not be long. And I do not want my illustrious friend to lose his most ardent listener.”  

Gimli gave another grunt and teased his friend in return: “Don’t get lost again, Elf. It was hard enough for them to retrieve you the first time, and there are some caves to visit.”

Suddenly feeling uncertain about what he had just uttered, the dwarf cast a sidelong glance at Thranduil to see if he had overstepped the boundary by callously dredging up the painful memories of the past two weeks, but the king’s happiness at having his son safe again – augmented by the recently consumed wine – would not be so easily dampened; the elf monarch smiled in amusement at both his son and the dwarf before turning back to the latter. Hamille alone cast Legolas a small doubtful glance, noticing the almost imperceptible paling of his prince’s already fair complexion, but the tactful elf reserved his observations and dutifully kept his place behind the king.

Legolas walked out of the parlor in as nonchalant and cheerful a manner as he could assume, but as soon as he was out of sight of the doors to the room, his smile fled his face, he let out a deep sigh, and his shoulders sagged.

The elven feet trekked an urgent path along the hallways leading out of the citadel, his footsteps leaving no trace of sight or sound as he passed as swiftly and silently as a wood sprite in an enchanted forest. It was thus that he passed unseen and unheard across the open door of the office in which Aragorn sat finishing a letter, his fleeting presence unnoticed by both the king and a messenger waiting attentively a few feet away.

As Legolas descended the long stairs leading out of the citadel, trying to shut his mind against the dreadful images that had just assailed it, the wisp of a song came to him. Softly, it wafted towards him, riding on the air, and he halted. Legolas lifted his head to listen, for it began to beckon to him, its haunting strains tugging at his heart, coming from within and from without, reaching him from nowhere and everywhere.

And then the ache came.

Legolas gasped and bent over, hugging his chest. The next instant, he found himself walking urgently again, heading straight for a spot in the woody part of the castle grounds of which he was particularly fond – a place of green solace in the Stone City.

King Elessar was handing over the missive to the messenger when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, an unexpected sight: an elf – long golden hair billowing in the wind – walking briskly in the direction of the gardens. Moved by a sudden feeling of alarm, the king took one long stride to the window and trained his eyes on the figure to confirm what he had seen. Something in the manner in which the elf’s head was bowed and in the way his arms were clasped about himself called out to the observer, stirring uneasiness in his heart.

Ai, Legolas, Aragorn lamented, his mind going back to what he had been told this morning. Why do you hide? I am here for you, my friend. Why do you run?

Aragorn turned back to the messenger, a crease of deep concern lining his forehead.

“Deliver this immediately to Pelargir,” he instructed. “The Mayor will be waiting.”

Before the messenger could even finish bowing, the king had swept out of his office, all but running in pursuit of the fleeing elf.