The trial being concluded, I approached Lord Estarfin to congratulate him on his victory, but he only shook his head at me and gave me quite a cold answer. I perceive that he takes very ill with me, and thinks me a faithless friend, when I insist that I did all I could to help him. It is likely that he owes his position in the Hammer Order, which he kept, to my judicious efforts, so Lord Anglachelm must think him sound enough of mind, or it may be that Lord Veryacano has some special plan for him. Either way, I shall never know the minds of the Lords, or their reasoning for his judgment; therefore I shall have no way to prove this to Lord Estarfin, or prove that I am not the most faithless of friends that ever walked the earth. Yet a faithless person is only for his own interest, and I did not stand to profit by any of this; but it does seem as if I have deserted a friend in need, and betrayed his private faith and confidence.
I can have my opinions, and they can be absurd or ridiculous, as Sogadan is wont to tell me, but it was not my intent to start a quarrel or dispute. Did I ever say that Lord Estarfin was a fool, or madman, in so many words, at the public hearing? Perhaps I pass for one, by pretending to know Lord Estarfin better than he does himself. Yet if I had not appealed to the lords in this way, by exposing these faults of his mind, I do not think he would have had a fair trial. He thinks it hard that, from all appearances, I have turned on him, and speak disparagingly of him - does not he himself see that it was a matter of necessity? Well, I think it is as clear as the Sun at Noon-day, but I perceive that Lord Estarfin does not, and I must think how I can reconcile myself to him.
As to what I said, I have considered it already, many times, and I do not see how I could have done it any better, but it seems to me that the main fault is that my discourse was too clear. I will seek him out, and tell him what I think, and let him talk what he will, and when he has said what he can, I will tell him he is mistaken in that which I think is the clearest thing in the world to see. It may be he does not like to hear it, and I hope he should happen to keep his temper, but I shall tell him I did not design any such thing to embarrass or hurt his reputation, but only did this to help him. Really it is not a pleasant thing to see Lord Estarfin growl and bluster, because he is a little ridiculed, when he might have saved us all a deal of trouble, and not have burned down the village of the low Dun-Men in the first place! But now I must go further with Lord Estarfin, and tell him it was all to no purpose, except that it got Nirhen expelled from the Hammer Order, and himself and Naergon censured. I must say that Lord Estarfin might have spared his pains, and spared the House the trouble of seeing his private matters aired publically, and spared folk from falling out, and hating one another, and endangering the public peace, and I call such actions silly reasons to fall out about, and that there is no good ground for elves running into strangers’ villages and setting them afire, and either my brains, or Lord Estarfin’s brains do not lie right, if there is any evidence that speaks to the contrary.
