The Sweet and the Bitter

The night was deep, dark, and soft, as only a summer night of Bree-land could be. A chorus of crickets were chirping just beyond the window, and now and then from further away, the croak of a frog joined in. The air was yet warm, the hour not past midnight, the world still savoring the last traces of heat from the previous evening. She drew in a slow breath and began to stretch languidly.

Something wasn’t right.

She was used to the lush scent of the flowers that grew snug against the side of the Boarding House and cast their perfume through the open windowpane. Instead, her nostrils were filled with something sharp and musky. The bed was stiff and full of lumps beneath her. She shifted sleepily, mumbling behind closed lips. What was blocking her from rolling over? Had she dumped a pile of laundry onto the bed and fallen asleep without folding and sorting it?

Reluctant eyelids trembled open, allowing a tiny slit of vision through. The wall and window beside the bed were not familiar. A portion of her view was obscured by an object. Something massive and solid and warm beside her. Sleepy eyes blinked. And then blinked again.

Tairy’s face was there, only a few inches from her nose. He was laying on his back, with his head turned towards her. She lifted her own head to glance around the darkened room, struggling to ignore the sudden clamoring of her pulse. What was the hour? She peered through the smudged glass of the nearest window. The moon hadn’t risen yet. The air was stuffy and close; the coolness of late-night had not arrived. Dawn was yet a long way off. Her drumming heart felt a tiny measure of relief.

How had they fallen asleep like this? How could they have been so careless! One moment, they were talking, and then...then…

He meant to work on the cottage. She was going to assist him as well as she could. Her gammy leg did not reduce the strength of her back and the sturdiness of her shoulders, after all. It was late afternoon when they arrived, and the little shanty seemed to be bathed in an aura of magic, with its lush, overgrown ivy, and the dappled sunbeams dancing and shifting over the eaves. But as soon as they walked inside and he turned around and smiled…

It was such a haze now, in her sleep-addled brain. Only little snatches of conversation remained, mingled with images and sensations. He stood behind her and held her. Their talk wandered towards things that made their voices drop low, and her face flush with warmth. He sat on the bed, drawing her gently with him, and again held her there, sitting behind her. She had never been embraced so. There was something inexplicably delicious about feeling his strong bulk against her spine and his thick arms locked around her. She felt small. Tiny. Fragile. Safe. As if she could close her eyes and drift away without any care for any harm in all the world.

How had they gone from sitting to reclining? Oh, yes. That particular question she asked him. How infuriatingly and charmingly he’d danced around it! Captured in the tense, breathless space between reassurance and jealousy, her temper gently flared, and he took pity on her.

She had never seen his face so closely while he slept, as she saw it now. His lips were slightly parted, the lower cheek wrinkled ever so faintly against the pillow beneath it. The weight of his hand was suddenly noticed afresh, settled onto her hip as his arm was still looped around her. His other hand rested upon his belly. She touched it with a fingertip, hoping not to disturb him. The single, tiny pad of flesh drew a slow path over his knuckles, tracing the lines of the thick veins that criss-crossed the back of his hand, tickling over the dark, wiry hairs that began near his wrist. There, she felt a small ridge that stuck out from the rest of his skin. Her mind fled unwittingly away from the sweetness of the moment, rushing back to the old, unanswered riddle; who had hurt him? When, and where, and why?

A sweet, bitter pain arose behind her ribcage. The same sort of indignant grief as when she looked upon Tumunir’s missing eye, or Maurr’s missing hand. Someone dared to bring hurt to one that she loved. Whether they deserved it in some measure was immaterial. Her heart did not, and could not, care if the wounds were deserved.

How peacefully he slumbered on! The strong, sharp angles of his forehead and nose were free from tension. His eyebrows, often drawn slightly down when he looked at her or stood close, and the air prickled between them, were high and relaxed on their perches. His breath puffed out at her in warm, rhythmic bursts, bathing her cheek.

She gazed down at the face of this road-weary man, flung so far from his home, and felt something swelling in her breast that she had never sensed before. Who was she, that he should deign to place himself at her side, and let her perform her clumsy attempts to be his companion, to soothe the wounds of his body and mind? She could no more track down those who had scarred his flesh and pay them back in kind, than she could fly to the moon. He belonged in a grand city somewhere, striding boldly along streets that she couldn’t hope to envision with any accuracy, his head high and proud, people hailing him as he passed, his armor shining in the sun as he walked beside the fabled sea. Shouldn’t there be a fair Gondorian lady at his side, too? This southern swan would be tall and slender, smiling and dignified, complementing him as no lame farm-woman ever could.

Her vision was growing blurry as she mused on these things, but her gaze never wavered from his sleeping visage. Trying to blink away the mist from her eyes, she smiled wryly. “Nay,” she whispered. “You’re here. With me.” Her fingers drew once more over the lumpy scar around his wrist. “I’ll do my best, Tairy…” Her throat tightened, and she forcefully swallowed back a little sob, leaning in close to brush her lips over his brow. Closing her eyes, she stayed there, allowing her forehead to rest against his. She spread her hand wide and covered the scarred wrist with her palm, as if she could gently ease the mark away with the earnestness of her affection.

She knew the hour was growing later and later with every passing breath. She was needed back at the Boarding House. Tumunir would worry if he came home in the middle of the night and she was gone.

Not yet, her heart whispered. Just another minute...just one more...

_____________________________________________________________________


A great roaring filled her ears. It grew loud, crescendoed, and then quieted, only to return again a moment later. The room was tipping and tilting. She could not keep her feet, and so sat down heavily. Her hands rested against wooden planks that were cool and damp, and a smell of something wet and foreign was in her nostrils.

She was in some kind of small, windowless chamber. A ladder rose nearby and vanished through a hatch in the ceiling. The roar continued, a whisper of a thousand voices together, and with each swell of its sound, the room pitched from one side to the other. Mingled in the noise were the cries of some sort of creature that was beyond her sight. High-pitched and yammering, like a pack of small dogs.

A light flashed through the trap-door above, and tiny beams crept through the places where the planks were not perfectly knit. Thunder boomed, trembling the timbers beneath her. Carried on the sound was the shout of a man. The thunder rolled over the voice and swallowed it into silence.

Tairy.

Her eyes pinned to the open hatch, and she struggled to stand. Her feet were gained, she stood for a moment, wobbling, hands out to her sides for balance. But the room heaved anew and she was thrown down again. She heard other voices now, from somewhere above, bellowing angrily.

Crawling on all fours, she reached the ladder and took hold of it, pulling herself up. Lightning lit up the square opening, blinding her, making her squint. She could hear the rain now, lashing outside in violent sheets.

Suddenly, she had ascended. She was standing on the wide deck of what seemed a great ship, though she had never seen a ship with her own eyes. The sky was pitch-dark, without moon nor stars. Yellow light seeped from swaying lanterns that held out the driving rain. The cold drops blasted against her hair and face. Her feet were planted wide, for the surface under her shoes was still tipping in slow, nauseating rolls. But she did not fall down.

Lightning split the scene, and illuminated a group of figures, huddled, wet, their clothes and skin shining in the darkness. To a thick, circular wooden post, a man was bound with ropes about his wrists, crouched down upon his knees. His torso was bare, and his head bent low so that she could not see his face. She could not see any of their faces. Three men stood over him, hollering things that she did not understand amid the loud clamor of the storm.

“Tairy!” Her voice burst from her throat, clear and strong. One of the standing men raised a hand as if to strike. “Tairy!” she cried again, and ran forward.

But not a single step was achieved. Her left foot lunged, but the right was held fast. Alarmed, she looked down to see a thick rope wound about her leg. “Nay!” she cried, reaching down to fumble at the binding fetter.

Across the deck, a man shouted out in pain.

“Tairy!” she screamed, her own voice racing high and shrill with panic and fury. She flailed against the strangling rope, her body spasming from head to toe in frantic desperation. “Nay! Tairy!!”

The thunder rolled. The ship swayed. The rain beat against her eyes, blinding her.