Marchwarden: Son Of Guilin 14

Marchwarden: Son Of Guilin

Part 14

Posted: November 4, 2005
Title: Marchwarden: Son of Guilin
Author: Kenaz

*****

Haldir felt as though he were swimming through mud. The effort of pushing through the haze of pain toward consciousness was nigh impossible at times. Trapped in a twilight realm of vision and dream, he strained to understand distant echoes and make his voice heard. This dreamscape was often terrifying and strange and always beyond his comprehension. A flickering scene played out across closed eyelids again and again, and in it, he had plunged into the frigid Celebrant, was sped away toward the confluence of the Anduin where the mighty river would pull his body out to sea. Each breath filled his lungs with icy water and he struggled against the sharp, stabbing pain. He screamed for Elemmakil, and the Marchwarden turned, looked about, but never seemed to see him. As the cold overtook him, he would cry out again, but Elemmakil was now a mere pinpoint in the distance and could not save him. Another voice came to him then, soft yet resonant, the sound of comfort and safety. He could never make out the words, but the cold would subside and the rushing waters would vanish, leaving him in the black folds of soft, dreamless sleep.

After many days, his nightmares abated, voices became louder and more distinct, and the darkness was no longer an impenetrable wall. He became more aware of the constant throb and ache in his chest. Slowly, he understood he had been injured, that he was not asleep so much as entranced, his body requiring the stillness of this stupor to heal. He resisted the urge to force wakefulness, to rebel against the call of sleep, for although his body demanded requiescence, his mind was restless.

When at last he stumbled back into consciousness, first one eye and then the other opened slowly and cautiously blinked. Even dim candlelight was harsh for one grown accustomed to total darkness. His limbs felt heavy and unwieldy, and an experimental attempt to move them required far more effort than he could muster. His chest still radiated pain from the inside out. Despite unknown days locked in torpor, he remained weak, and exhaustion greater than any he had ever known bore down on him with the inexorable weight of a sea-wave.

He turned his head on his stiff neck and focused on the long line of an extended leg. His eyes traveled its length to regard its owner, asleep and contorted uncomfortably in a straight-backed chair. Flexing a wrist and stretching tired fingers, the very tips connected with the sleeper's knee. Even at that forceless touch, Galion's eyes flew wide, his body immediately alert and crouching at Haldir's side.

"Oh blessed Eru, you are awake!"

Haldir grunted groggily. "I feel like I have been run through on a spit." His voice was little more than a rasp.

Galion stroked his hair frenetically, overbright eyes beaming down with fondness that warmed him to his core. What ill feelings the healer had borne vanished in the wake of Haldir's injury, supplanted by solemn oaths that he would cherish Haldir's union with the Marchwarden if the Valar would see fit to make Haldir once again hale enough to enjoy it. "Not a spit but an arrow," he laughed, his voice thick with emotion. "We feared losing you... I know not what I would have done..." His words choked off and he laid a spate of kisses across the warden's brow before rushing into the hall to dispatch an apprentice for Orophin and Rúmil.

"Your brothers sat with you every day they were not on watch. Rúmil especially feared for you. Do you remember what happened?"

Concentration pinched Haldir's face and he slowly shook his head. "Not in full. I recall that he and I accompanied Elemmakil to confront some men. There was a wounded boy... I recall naught else."

Galion detailed the story in full, and watched a wave of coldness break over Haldir's features. He had fought side by side with Elendil's warriors and had always dealt fairly with the men he met on his travels, but these men had chosen not to deal fairly with him. They were a race of cruel cowards if they could so readily commit rape and murder for such paltry gain as a few horses and coins. He tacitly vowed that the next men he met would not receive the benefit of his doubt.

But vows could be put aside for another day. Struggling against tide pulling at his lids, he succumbed again to sleep ere even his brothers arrived to celebrate his waking. But long into the night, they sat at his side and praised the Valar, who saw fit to keep their eldest brother safe in the Golden Wood.

Dawn came, and with it the telltale growl of a stomach too long empty. Strength, however, would require more time, as would stamina, Haldir discovered much to his chagrin. Muscles that had lain dormant while his wounds healed trembled in exertion simply holding a full bowl of broth. In frustration, he abandoned his spoon and brought the rim of the bowl to his lips, so bold were his body's cries for nourishment.

When his attentive friend mopped a trickle of broth from his chin, he peered up sheepishly, unhappy with such nursing. A crooked grin, then, from Galion: "You will have your strength again soon, gwador."

"Not soon enough for my liking." Haldir's eyes continued to dart eagerly to the empty doorway, but the form he sought did not fill its frame. Finally, unable to bear it, he asked.

"Did he come?"

The healer stalled. "He ...had to return to the borders, but..."

"Galion."

Eyes and mouth closed, the healer's face tense.

"You are a poor liar, friend. Tell me: did he come?"

Galion's eyes were soft on his, radiating pity and concern. "Once."

Haldir nodded and was silent, his disappointment too great for words.

Haldir's recovery was not complete for some time more, but upon waking each morn, he found more of his old strength returned. Still, Elemmakil did not come to him. At long last, Galion pronounced him fit to return to his home, and shortly thereafter, to return to duty. Yet no grey-eyed, red-cloaked visitor came to call. Each day of this abandonment alternately infuriated and devastated him; one minute, he found himself silently railing against such base treatment, the next stilling the quivering chin that threatened to give way to shameful tears. Finally, he could stand the silence no longer, and at nightfall, he set out for the Marchwarden's talan.

A long pause met his knock. Haldir's stomach dropped. Unto the very last, he had hoped that he had somehow been mistaken, that he had misread his lover's absence; had the door been thrown wide at that moment, revealing a face of avid concern or even repentant sorrow, he would have accepted it—even embraced it—without question. But the uneager greeting was simply another blow to be borne.

The candlelight cast a bronze halo around the Marchwarden's hair and occasionally reflected silver as it glinted on the coin in his fingers. He rubbed it absently, the pad of his thumb idly caressing the face, and Haldir remembered its heft in his hand, and how he had unwittingly provoked his lover's ire when he had once dared touch it, that sacred, shining relic of a realm that seemed more mythic than real. There was something in Elemmakil's face this night, some expression, some emotion, that Haldir could not identify. A palpable frost separated them, like the unexpected chill that blackens and withers early blossoms overnight.

The Marchwarden's cloak hung on its peg behind the door. He sat at his desk in loose breeches and a simple linen tunic, wishing the mantle of duty could be shed and hung up so readily as a uniform. But it clung to him as a skin, a part of him he could no more take off and set aside than his own limbs. He gestured for Haldir to sit, and they stared at one another in awkward silence that stretched far too long.

"I have been cleared for duty by the healers. I had hoped I might depart with the next patrol. I have been too long idle."

The Marchwarden frowned and shook his head. "That is but two days hence. I would not have you tax yourself so soon. Tathalion will lead out a group in a fortnight and you will go with him."

A heartbeat... two...

"I would rather follow you."

Elemmakil's jaw twitched. "Is Tathalion any less worthy of your allegiance than I?"

Abashed, Haldir shook his head, but his anger returned then, and with it the twisting ache of betrayal and disappointment.

"Why did you not come?"

Elemmakil looked away. He knew his absence could never be justified. He knew it had been cruel, that Haldir had done nothing, ever, to merit such shabby treatment, but he knew as well that to touch that insensate face, to run his hands over grey flesh that was alternately fever-hot and cold as a tomb would have shattered him.

He had not known a moment's peace since Haldir's injury. Ecthelion visited him nightly in his dreams, fierce and silent, staring at him with grim disapprobation, shattered arms hanging in obscene angles, sodden hair plastered like living shadow over the planes of his face. And then the visage of one beloved would shift and stir, hair blanching to pale ivory, grey eyes turning blue, turning blind, rolling backward, and became another beloved then, buckling at the knees with his head thrown back as if to beseech the sky: Why? Why? Every night he would run to one lover or the other, but never could he reach either one. Again and again, Haldir died in Elemmakil's dreams, died waiting for Elemmakil to save him when he could not. Each night he would awake in twisted, sweat-soaked sheets and silence, the scream of horror strangled in his throat, the taste of Haldir's blood so fresh and metallic in his mouth that he feared he would retch from it.

After the dream, sleep was lost to him, and he would pace the length of his talan in restless misery, as if the momentum of his slow strides was all that kept the flame of his fea alight.

I did not come because I could not; my heart would have broken.

"There were many demands on my time and I could not. You slept and healed. You would not have noticed my presence even had I come." Oh, but those words sounded cruel and false!

Haldir's eyes narrowed, his still gaunt face coloring with hurt and umbrage. His stiff limbs longed to hold his absent lover and thrash him in equal measure.

"And once I awoke? I would have noticed your presence then, would I not?" His tone was hurt, bitter. "Still you did not come."

Elemmakil did not answer.

"What have I done, Elemmakil? If you find me lacking, why not say so? If there is something I fail to give you, some fashion in which I do not please you, pray tell it and I will see it rectified." There was pleading in his voice, naked desperation that shamed Elemmakil to hear as much as it did Haldir to give it voice.

"No, Haldir. You have done nothing," he sighed. You have done nothing but show me that my regard for you will be my end, his inner voice screamed. You have done nothing but show me that all I feared shall come to pass, and I will be as powerless to save you as I was to save him.

Haldir approached the Marchwarden with a trepidation he had not felt since their first harried coupling now many years gone. His stomach revolted, shuddered, caught and twisted in battling tides of rage and despair.

"If I have done nothing, then why do you forsake me?"

Elemmakil pinched the bridge of his nose wearily, resignation settling on his brow. Fortifying his resolve as best he could, he spoke his bitter words plainly and firmly.

"I cannot give you what it is you desire, Haldir." He fixed his gaze solidly on the stunned face of his paramour. "It is beyond my measure." He rose and crossed to the window, the landscape of branch, lantern and telain providing ephemeral respite from Haldir's anguished features.

"When I donned the red cloak, I made an oath to my King, my people, that I would protect them by every means at my disposal unto my very life. I made an oath to my men that I would lead them into battle and, Valar willing, out of it." He turned back to Haldir, maintaining the distance between them. "With that oath came responsibilities and sacrifices. By assuming my position, I bound myself to my duty only, forswearing a bond with any other." He took a breath. "I have allowed too many liberties between us.

"We are soldiers. We have chosen to serve, and with service comes the possibility... no, the probability...of battle, and injury, and death. When we are assailed, it is I who bear responsibility for those who would sacrifice themselves for this realm. Each elf who would forfeit his life is as precious as the next, and I am derelict in my duties if I weigh my lover's life more heavily than the life of another. Yet how can I not? I am placed in an untenable position!"

He governed himself, knowing that his excited delivery only served to inflame Haldir and worsen the situation. "Haldir, I cannot afford to worry about you in the heat of battle. You are a distraction, and that makes you a danger."

Unspoken lay the crux of his fear: that should Haldir fall, a slow death from grief would be his guerdon But beyond that, in the tenebrous corners of his weary soul, another fear lingered, indistinct and immaterial as a wraith, a spectre of guilt and treason subtle as fog and bitter as gall: to allow one into his heart would be to force another out of it, to lose that final, tenuous connection. To unlock that door and give another entry to that darkened cloister he had guarded for so long would be to feel Ecthelion die again, and this time by his own hand. The silver coin warmed slowly against his palm and his fingers tightened around it. He leaned against the expanse of trunk that formed the inner wall of his talan searching for guidance in a source older and larger and stronger than he.

"I watched you take a lethal wound, and in that instant, all I could think of was you. Not myself, not Rúmil, not the rest of my patrol... I thought of you alone. Could you have forgiven me if your brother had died through my negligence, because I wept over your body and did not tend to my duty? It is unthinkable." He sighed, tired and heart-sore. "Love is duty's bane, Haldir. I told you long ago that ere all else, we were brothers-in-arms. This is all we must be."

"Cannot love abide with duty?" Haldir gently entreated, crossing to Elemmakil. "In all these years have we not managed it?" His broad hand rested above Elemmakil's heart, which ached to the point of breaking in his chest. They had never, in all their years, spoken of love. Some words were as sharp as any sword and as barbed as any arrow.

"I fear they cannot, and I have not the fortitude to test it."

Haldir pulled away, paced the floor with one hand raking roughly through his pale hair. "My father loved my mother. I daresay my brothers and I are fair proof of that! Would you tell me now that my father was derelict in his duties for his marital bond?" He had found his footing now, and used his words to gain momentum. "When he fell on the Dagorlad, did you find him remiss for his love of family?"

"You test my patience, Guilinion," the Marchwarden growled. "You know I would never dishonor your father. But as you have called him forth, think on this: where is your mother that he so loved? She walks no more on Arda; for all the love they bore one another, the loss of him diminished her and drove her out of her very home. Even your love was not enough to keep here."

The words fell cruel as a blow, but still Elemmakil pressed on. "Do not forget it was I who bore your father's body from the field when he fell and I who endured the sound of your grief in my heart for years to follow. Do you not recall the depth of your mourning? Have you forgotten how many nights I held you while you howled that your heart was breaking?" His voice tightened, broke. He turned away. "For me, those memories are all too plain."

He drew up his resolve and squared himself to Haldir, assuming the posture of a captain, not of a conflicted lover.

"Iluvatar gifts us with a life eternal, and there are but two ways that gift can be taken from us. I will risk death in battle as it is my sworn duty, but I will not gamble with a death from grief when I have the option not to, nor should you. We have dallied together for too long, you and I."

Haldir's face registered shock, then fury. "Was that all this has been, then? A dalliance?" He was almost blind in his ire, spitting out the words that burned like fire on his tongue. "Was I no more to you than a mere bed-treat?"

"No! I do not deny more has passed between us, but you have known from the start that I offered neither exclusivity nor permanence. You have ever been free to treat with any you wished."

Haldir's lip curled in disgust. How easily he was dismissed! "In all these years I have taken few others to my bed, and then only at your behest. I want no others, and would not seek them had you not all but pushed me into their arms!" Emboldened, he stepped close, the warmth of his body radiating, passing through Elemmakil's shirt, the familiar scent of his skin filling Elemmakil's nostrils. The Marchwarden's hands involuntarily twitched, treacherous fingers desperate to grab, to stroke.

"Though you speak of sending me to other beds, I know you to be constant," the younger quietly rebutted. "You may have treated with others in my absence, but I know full well I have been the only one to warm your bed since my return. If you do not share my feelings, why is it you no longer seek out others yourself?"

Haldir had, of course, stumbled upon the truth: no, he had not taken others to his bed for many years, likely longer than even Haldir knew, finding himself well satisfied by and with his younger lover. And though he had sought companionship in the long years of Haldir's travels, hoping the taste of another in his mouth would quench his thirst for this galadhel, that the violent plunge into tight heat—that singular pleasure he had denied them both—would prove more potent than the less intimate pleasures of hands and mouths. But other bodies, however strong or hot or tight or willing, did not rouse his hunger. They served only to sharpen the taste of Haldir in his memory.

"If you do not share my feelings, why did you not oppose me when I returned to you?" The warden's voice was barely more than a whisper now, his mouth so close...too close...moist breath buffeted warmly against his cheek. "Say it, Elemmakil... Say that your feelings for me run true."

Nay, Haldir... do not press this...I know what you would say and I beg of you, do not say it! Still your lips before they break me!

Taking a moment to steady himself, Haldir sought his voice and gathered up the remnants of his pride. He spoke plain and clear. "I love you, Elemmakil. Can you tell me my love is not returned?"

The Marchwarden swallowed hard. "I can no longer allow myself to be distracted from my responsibilities, Haldir..." He was silenced by Haldir's desperate cry.

"You evade my question!"

Oh, would that you knew my heart, lovely one!

Silence hung like a fog between them, impenetrable and grey. Haldir had spoken the words aloud, and his heart ceased to beat in the long moment that he awaited Elemmakil's response.

The Marchwarden stood down. For all his fearlessness in battle, for all his prowess with sword and bow, he could not muster the courage to give Haldir the truth of it. Yet honor forbade an expedient denial; speech and silence damned him equally. He turned away from his erstwhile lover, no longer able to bear his probing gaze.

For the first time, Elemmakil, Marchwarden of Lorien, saw himself cloaked in the black mantle of cowardice. Thus he spoke his defeat:

"Go now, Haldir. Please."

Haldir's face contorted with the effort to hold back tears. He could no longer tell if the sharp, stabbing pain he felt was from his wound or from his heart rending itself in his tightening chest.

He let out a sharp, barking laugh. "Brothers-in-arms?" Eyes alight with gutting misery, he glared hard at Elemmakil. "You are cold, my Captain."

He slammed the door behind him, the draft extinguishing the guttering candles as if to punctuate his departure. The reverberations shook the very floor of the talan and loosed from his eyes the tears Elemmakil had himself struggled to withhold. In the silence of his darkened room, alone at last, he spoke softly into the void.

Yes, Haldir... I love you.

When Haldir returned to his home late that evening, he wasted no time but took a wineskin and retreated to his room, eager to let its contents sooth him. He refused all visitors and did not emerge the next morning, nor did he see his brothers off when their patrol departed on the second day. Disbelief warred with anger, which in turn became shame and a desire to avenge his ravaged pride. Finally, he would simmer in drunken self-pity awaiting the virulent pendulum of his emotions to swing back to anger.

Yet as that second day wore on, he found himself wishing for companionship, tired as he was of his own dismal company. He thought of Galion, myriad images turning over in his mind. He had turned his concerned friend away the previous night, unwilling to speak to anyone at all, rebuffing even his brothers, but certainly his dear healer would comfort him now.

He moved to stand, head spinning, to find that the wine had affected him more than he realized. He steadied himself with a hand on the bedpost before striding out the door and down the long, winding stairway.

No light shone in Galion's windows, so Haldir tracked back toward the infirmary and it was on this path dotted with flickering torches that the two elves met. Galion was shocked by Haldir's appearance, unkempt and red-eyed, his complexion sallow in the aftermath of too much wine and too little food or sleep. His body had too recently recovered from its trauma to be so ill-used.

"Come and let me feed you, unhappy one, and then you must sleep," the healer sighed with vague exasperation. "You will do yourself harm if you continue in this fashion. Time and rest are far better elixirs for wounds of the spirit than drink."

Haldir's mouth curled lazily in a smile. "You are always so good to me, meldir." As his arm slipped around the healer's waist, the smile ripened into a leer. "So good...I know you have wanted more from me. Has time diminished your desire?"

Galion stiffened. "The wine speaks for you, methinks."

"The wine but loosens my tongue. Did you not say once that you would hold my heart and treasure it?"

"I daresay it is not your heart that seeks holding and treasuring tonight!" Indignant now, Galion struggled against the uncomfortable embrace. "I will not lower myself to be balm to wounds another has wrought. I am no surrogate, Haldir. You do not seek me for myself, you seek only to assuage your own pain."

"I seek the comfort of my boon companion! I would know the healing touch of your hands again, Galion."

Galion jerked out of Haldir's clutches and tried to move away, but the warden clamped down hard on his wrist. "There are some wounds it is not my duty to heal." He felt the bones shifting painfully under Haldir's stalwart grip. "Unhand me, Haldir. I will not ask you again."

"You were eager to feel my hands in Imladris, wherefore do you refuse them now?" Haldir's fingers tightened and, no longer fit for subtleties, he pulled Galion toward him with brute force. He did not see the fist as it flew, only felt the rattling of his teeth as his head snapped back and to the right from the blow, his vision turning all to white the moment it connected with his jaw. Releasing Galion, both hands flew up instinctively to guard his face and the healer leaped away.

Galion's face reflected rage and disgust, even pity. But his eyes, grey as storm clouds, glittered with pure hurt.

"You dishonor me. You dishonor us." He turned on his heel and strode away as quickly as his frayed dignity would allow, leaving Haldir with his sensibilities returned by a ringing blow, in pain and horrified by his actions, alone on the shadowed path.

"Wait, Galion!"

Stumbling forward, hand to his jaw, he managed but a few strides when he collided with an unyielding form.

"Let him go."

It was Taurnil, but gone was the ever-present grin, lopsided and charming. Tonight he wore a face of cold displeasure. In that instant, Haldir felt as if all the wine had dissipated in his veins leaving him utterly sober and viciously aware of the full impact of his indiscretion.

"Ah, blessed Eru... Taurnil...I have sorely erred!"

The look on his old friend's face turned his innards to water. Never had he seen him so wroth. A wave of shame rolled over him so strong that for a moment he thought he would be sick. Taurnil pulled him roughly to his feet.

"You disgrace yourself. Let us get you home ere more damage is done."

Haldir said not a word and let Taurnil push him roughly towards his talan. Once inside, he sank to his bed with his face in his hands, mortified beyond anything he had ever known. When he raised his swimming head, he was met with his friend's furious face.

"Your grievance lies with the Marchwarden yet you do injury to the one who holds you closest in his heart." Haldir opened his mouth to speak but words faltered on his lips. Taurnil's eyes warned against further interruptions. "You are many things, friend, but I never knew you cruel.

"He contents himself to remain ever second in your regard and you humiliate him by using his love for you against him. You would have done less harm had you put him to your sword!"

"I know," Haldir whispered, his voice ragged. "It was unworthy. I have no excuse. I know his pain full well."

Moonlight filtered through the windows, projecting the outline of branches across his wall. It seemed to him as if hundreds of bark-scaled, knotted fingers wagged furiously at him, even the trees scourging him with silent disdain. They flashed angry shadows over Taurnil, who stood as tall and firm as a Mallorn in the darkened room.

"Mark me, Haldir, touch him again unbidden and you will taste my wrath, sworn brother or no."

Haldir knew the elf had never been more grave about anything in his life. His stomach roiled dismally as he mustered a nod, knowing his word had been deemed worthless. The muffled sound of Taurnil's cloak snapping around his ankles cut the silence in the brief moment before the floor boards shuddered under a slammed door. It seemed an age before the sound of footsteps on winding stairs diminished into a low tap.

He sat in sullen silence for the duration of the night. He could not bring himself to move.

Long strides dispelled anger, control regained with every step. Taurnil listened to the song of the breeze and let it cool his heated skin. Down the path below, a light still burned in Galion's window, and the low voice beyond the door bidding him enter bore no trace of sleep. Taurnil said nothing as he crossed the threshold and moved to an empty chair, eyes sighting first the sorrowful face and then the tapered fingers gingerly rubbing swollen knuckles. Galion watched him enter and smiled balefully from his seat beneath the window.

"Never in my life have I laid a hand on another in anger, and the first time I do, it must be him."

"You gave him fair warning, which is more than I would have done. And I likely would not have stopped at a single blow."

"Yes, you would have. It is not in your nature to injure your friends, even when they have angered you. Haldir is not himself. He is drunk. He is in thrall to his emotions."

"He would have you on your knees like a common whore for the sake of his emotions! Breath of Manwë, Galion! He would take you against your will and still you defend him!" Taurnil cried out in frustration.

Galion merely shook his head. "He was distraught. He would have done me no harm."

A vase filled with asphodel jumped and rattled as the warden slammed his fist on the table. "No harm? Why then did he not unhand you when you asked? Whence the necessity to strike him if he would have done you no harm? Answer me that, Galion?"

The healer met his eyes ruefully but said nothing. What could he say? Taurnil looked hurt. When he spoke again, his voice was low and mournful.

"Why, Galion?"

"I cannot explain it. He holds my heart. Whether he wills it or no, he holds my heart."

Taurnil looked away, then nodded. After a moment, he stood to leave.

"Will you not heal yourself?"

"I will. I thought I should savor the ache a while longer as I do not intend to feel its kind again. It feels like penance."

"If you have need of anything..."

"...Thank you. You are a good friend to me, Taurnil."

The sadness in the warden's smile went unseen in the dark as he departed.

"I know."

*****

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