How unseasonably warm it was. Bright October sun split the moist air, its shallowness betraying the season only because Deredan knew the lateness of the morning. The hens were busy around their coop, their industrious little lives so full beneath the canopy of leaves that made Neyaa’s garden so clement. Full lives, as his own seemed full; the business of his days was concluded impatiently now, for all that he enjoyed and valued his training and patrols, for all the intangible, incomparable rewards of the hours he spent teaching the rudiments of written language to the orphans and urchins of Bree. Joy and eagerness filled his heart as he put those things behind him and hurried to the home he made with Neyaa and Branston, the small cozy rituals of nesting and feeding so like the scratching and pecking of the hens. Who should have thought that a man of his background would find such contentment as this, in such a simple life, shared with an Eorling woman in Eriador, two exiles in a simple country cottage like the one whose door, as welcoming as a mother’s arms, stood open behind him?
He did not forget that he had tasks unfulfilled here in the North, neglected tasks, whose needfulness pricked at his conscience and his sense of filial duty; nor did the scars on his hands cease to remind him of the turbulence of his relationship to his lover. But as he turned back to the doorway, all his thought was on the place he was in, and on the whole quiet day he would spend there with Neyaa and his adopted son.
He stood, his bare feet cool in the grass and grit between the flags, and climbed the steps to the house. Inside all was quiet: Branston must be sleeping. The boy had risen with the sun, and had been in a state of excitement all morning, having both his parents in the house, with nothing better to do than to play with him; it was at least an hour shy of noon, Deredan guessed. A bright fire played in the hearth, the kettle warming in the ashes; it was dim inside, after the sunlight.
Neyaa was in the bedroom, sitting on the floor beside Branston’s crib with her legs tucked under her. The little leather-bound book she called his journal was open on her lap; there, she and many of those she loved or respected had written words of advice for the boy to read when he was able. Deredan had written his own words there, on the death of the lad’s natural father; Neyaa was not writing today, however, but reading, turning the pages and letting her eyes drift over the hoard of words within. Deredan looked in on the boy; his face was angelic in repose, his chest rising and falling with the vigour of one who has earned his sleep.
Deredan sank to the floor beside her; she looked up, their eyes met, and a smile passed from his lips to hers.
‘You are reviewing the treasury of wisdom you have set aside for Branston,’ he observed.
A small shrug lifted her shoulders. ‘I am… remembering. All the times that those I love have written their thoughts here…’
They both wore simple work clothes, the garb of peasants, though neither had want of fine clothes, or of funds to buy them. Neither was shod, or their head covered. Deredan touched Neyaa's calf, resting his hand there as though she were a part of himself. The tall cupboard by Branston’s crib stood open, some books on a low shelf within.
‘What are these?’ asked Deredan, reaching for one. ‘They are very finely bound.’
Neyaa glanced up, then looked quickly away. ‘They are books,’ she told him shortly.
Deredan pursed his lips. ‘Elven books, I would guess.’ He opened the volume in his hands and riffled through the pages; they were of the lightest, finest vellum, and fell softly, laying flat as pages will when the binding is expertly stitched. He scanned the tengwar characters that filled them, neatly entered in an uncial hand; from a few passages he identified the text.
Neyaa looked into Branston’s journal with studied disinterest. ‘Of what does this book tell?’ Deredan asked her.
‘Hm? Oh, I do not know. I have not looked at it since I bought it.’
‘Oh. I think it is the Lay of Lúthien; but pray, why is it not with the other Elvish books that sit on a shelf in the hall? I did not know you possessed this volume, and it is a very fine one.’
Neyaa’s chest rose and fell, as though with exasperation, and she met his gaze. ‘Deredan, will you pester me with unimportant things all this day we have together? I am reading in Branston’s journal, then I thought we might walk a little beneath the trees, if it pleases you.’
‘It would please me very much. I do not mean to pester you, but I am curious. Whence did you come by these books? They are of very fine workmanship, and I am surprised you did not show them to me, since I can read them and you can not.’
Neyaa snapped the journal shut. ‘I bought them in Duillond when we fared to the Blue Mountains, Deredan. Why are you so excessively interested in these trivial matters?’
Deredan raised his hands, palm upwards. ‘I am not; but it seems you are quite averse to discussing them. I was with you all the time we were in the Ered Luin, and I do not recall that we saw a bookseller there; only the library in the Scholar’s Enclave, where there are many books of a similar type and quality to these.’
Neyaa seized the Lay of Lúthien from Deredan’s hands and flung it into the corner of the room, fixing him with a glare.
‘I saw an elf near there and offered him coin for them, for these two books, and brought them back here. I had thought to give them to you as a surprise gift, but now I will not.’
Neyaa stood, replaced Branston’s journal on the low shelf, slammed the door of the cupboard, and stamped out into the hall. Deredan watched her go, a smile on his lips, but a furrow darkening his brow. The cheap cloth of her trews clung to her. He stood to follow.
Neyaa had continued out through the open door, and was busying herself by the chicken coop, tidying unnecessarily.
‘Neyaa…’ he began.
‘What is it?’ she demanded, not looking at him.
‘Did you steal those books?’
Neyaa spun towards him, her face flushing dark.
‘Who are you, Deredan, that you think you can… dare to ask such a thing of me? Are you my father? Are you my lord?’
Her voice rose as she continued.
‘I am who I am! I do as I do! I have never claimed to be any other than I am, and I got those books fairly! Do you want me to be someone else? Do you want me to be like lovely Dernwynn, or precious, simpering little Aanya?’
The last trace of his smile vanished from Deredan’s lips.
‘We were guests in Duillond, Neyaa, guests! Do the laws of hospitality mean nothing to you?’
‘Don’t you preach to me, lordling. I warn you, you will regret your words if you dare to judge me.’
‘I judge you not at all, as well you know.’ Deredan’s voice rose to match Neyaa’s. ‘Have I admonished you for your actions in the past? Even once? But you are a woman of property now, a prosperous merchant, and you have no need to take what is not yours. These books must be returned to their rightful owners!’
Neyaa balled her hands into fists and her brows knit together in a frown, like an arrowhead directed at her nose. Deredan held up his hands to show her his scars.
‘Oh, what now? Will you fling more horseshoes at my head? You know I speak the truth, and you know just as well that you hid those books from me that I would not insist you return them.’
‘Don’t call me a liar!’
Neyaa threw a punch at his face, an obvious roundhouse that he caught easily in his open hand, returning her glare now with real and obvious anger.
‘Neyaa! Stop this now, please.’
Neyaa snarled, raised her other hand, and dropped it.
‘Why do you have to do this now?’ she demanded. ‘When we have a fine day before us with our son, when I need… when I need you not to do this… when… damn you! Damn you!’
Tears started in her eyes, and she shook her head angrily to clear them. Deredan looked at her, puzzled.
‘What is it? What do you mean?’
‘Nothing! I don’t mean anything!’ Her voice cracked. ‘I just feel… today… I feel so… empty… and I don’t want you to do this!’
‘Empty? How so?’
Deredan’s voice softened, concern wiping the darkness from his brows.
‘I don’t know, it’s a feeling… don’t you feel that way sometimes? Just a feeling…’
Neyaa was clearly trying to stay angry, but something was fighting her, and tears began to flow down her cheeks. Deredan released her hand, and took her in his arms.
‘Hush, love, hush,’ he told her; ‘I am sorry, we will speak no more of this today. Today we will enjoy each other and Branston; we will eat, and walk beneath the trees, and drink of good wine, and think of no hurtful things. Hush, my sweet.’
He felt the anger leave her frame, felt her shake with sobs. She clung to him, and said no more.
‘Oh Ney, come, there is something that pains you. Will you not tell me what it is?’
She shook her head, hiding her face against his shoulder.
‘No,’ she said, ‘there is nothing. Just… it should be such a fine day for us together… and I am… well, sometimes we women have our moods, with the changing of the moon, you know this.’
Her sobs subsided and she quietened. Deredan pressed his lips to her brow, puzzled still, but knowing now not to press her. Perhaps all was as she said, but if there was more to her mood, she would tell him when the time was ripe, if ever. A yellowhammer perched on a fencepost and began its insistent song, ‘a little bit of bread, and no cheese’, over and over.
All that day they were together. Neyaa did not tell Deredan of the child she had lost, in blood and weeping; but Branston’s half-brother or -sister was with them nevertheless, in the brittle edge of her joy, and the fierce need of her embraces. Deredan quietly moved the books to the shelf in the hall, where they could be displayed with the other volumes in Neyaa's collection.
