It was a rainy morning in Imladris. Gwathrandir rang the bell at the front door of Cugusaelon’s elegant house. The raven-haired elf opened the door slowly and stood beside the doorway to let Gwathrandir enter. The large oak door closed behind them almost soundlessly.
Gwathrandir waited in the foyer for Cugusaelon to lead him across the hall. It was a large house with many rooms and three floors. The old elf had lived there alone since Imladris had been found.
”Let’s go to the drawing room”, Cugusaelon said, leading Gwathrandir down a dark corridor to a locked door. The sturdy oak door was decorated with beautiful ithildin inlays. Cugusaelon took a key from a pocket of his flowered tunic and pushed the door open. Gwathrandir thought it was strange that Cugusaelon felt the need to keep his doors locked in Imladris, but then again, everything about the old elf seemed strange to Gwathrandir.
There was a wooden table in the windowless room. Stacks of books, vellum and writing utensils were piled upon the table. Gwathrandir knew that Cugusaelon enjoyed listening to idle gossip in the Last Homely House and about the valley, and much of what he heard he would write down in letters he would later send to Lórien via a messenger. Gwathrandir had served many years as Parthadan’s informal courier, picking up Cugusaelon’s letters on his visits to Lórien and taking them to Parthadan’s messengers in Gondor. It was one of Gwathrandir’s and Cugusaelon’s private little secrets in Imladris. Gwathrandir’s real identity was another.
”Sit down, Maglor”, Cugusaelon said, using Gwathrandir’s real name for the first time since his arrival in the valley. A smile formed on his thin, bloodless lips. ”What I have learned concerns Laureanis. And you.”
Gwathrandir sat down and waited. Cugusaelon’s hair was fine and raven-black. His eyes were brittle gray, his face small and daintily formed. He had been in Anfauglith during Nírnaeth Arnoediad, serving as Gwathrandir’s bannerman during the war. Gwathrandir had respected Cugusaelon greatly back then. Now the ridiculous old elf with his fussy manners and high-pitched voice only bored him.
”I have received some information”, Cugusaelon said, placing the tips of his long fingers against each other. ”From a reliable source.”
”And?” Gwathrandir urged. ”What do your sources tell you?” He felt tired of the old elf, tired of his fussy manners and his aura of self-importance.
”Laureanis has grown very close to Elrond during the past year. Elrond has often summoned Laureanis to private discussions with him into the east porch of his house. Nobody else has been allowed to attend to those meetings, and nobody knows what those two talk about, but Laureanis is known to leave Imladris at times. She just takes a horse and rides out into the wild. Nobody knows where she goes or what she does there, she just disappears from the valley for days. Then she returns like nothing happened. She does not talk to anyone about her journeys, except maybe to Elrond. I have a source outside of Imladris who has seen Laureanis crossing the river Bruinen and riding into Trollshaws, but my source has not divulged her destination there.”
Gwathrandir thought about the time early this month when Laureanis had suddenly disappeared for a couple of days. Gwathrandir had asked her about it, but Laureanis had only said that there were times she just wanted to be left alone. Gwathrandir had not pressed her about it further, but now he was beginning to wonder if Laureanis had a secret she did not want to share with him.
”Have you noticed this, Maglor? That she sometimes disappears for days?”
”Perhaps she just wants to be alone sometimes. I can understand that. She has been alone for so long.”
Cugusaelon stared at the empty sheet of vellum in front of him for a long time before he spoke: ”Has she given any indication that she might suspect your reason of being here? That your return to her, now, was not an accident?”
Gwathrandir shook his head. ”Once… last month, she asked me why I returned to her. I thought…”
”You thought she meant to ask if you have returned to cause her pain again”, Cugusaelon said.
Gwathrandir said nothing to that. He realized that Cugusaelon understood. Perhaps he had always understood.
”Maybe it’s all she meant after all.” Cugusaelon shrugged. ”What do you want to do?”
”Why hasn’t your source told you where Laureanis goes in Trollshaws? Or don’t they know it?”
”I don’t know. My source is a woman of many secrets. Perhaps this is a secret she does not want to share with me yet.”
”Or perhaps your mysterious source hasn’t even seen Laureanis”, Gwathrandir said. ”For all I know she could be making up stories to fool you for any number of reasons.”
”She has never lied to me before”, Cugusaelon said coldly. ”For all the years I have known her, her information has always been solid. She just doesn’t always share all she knows with me. Like I said, she is a woman of many secrets.”
Gwathrandir frowned. ”What do you want from me? If Laureanis suspects I’m not here by accident, what does it mean to me?”
”Maybe it puts you in danger, maybe not”, Cugusaelon said. ”I have warned you in any case.”
”You have told me nothing.”
”I have warned you.”
”You have told me that I might be in some kind of danger without telling me what makes you think so or what the danger might be. You have suggested that Laureanis might suspect my coming here is not an accident, or that she might not. You have told me about a mysterious, anonymous source who has seen Laureanis crossing the Bruinen river and going into Trollshaws, which I pretty much knew already.”
Cugusaelon was about to speak, but Gwathrandir raised a warning hand. His eyes had become darker and his face had grown pale with rage. It was a rare emotion Cugusaelon had never seen in Gwathrandir’s face before.
”I have lived in an exile for thousands of years; an exile I have imposed upon myself. I have served that little clerk in Gondor as his courier because I thought it was the small thing I could do to help against the growing shadow of Mordor. Because a war is coming again; you know it as much as I do, Cugusaelon. But I’m damned if I’m going to be a part of your little network of busybodies and rumormongers, just so that you can feel important again. You’re old, Cugusaelon; your time has passed. You just can’t accept it.”
”I am doing my part to rebuild the old alliance between elves and men”, Cugusaelon said. ”Granted, I am working behind Elrond’s back. But as you yourself said, Maglor, the shadow of Mordor is rising again, and we must do all we can to…”
”Your time has passed, Cugusaelon. You live in your memories. You are pitiful.”
”I don’t want your pity”, Cugusaelon said. His voice was icy and brittle like a frozen pond in early spring. ”Look who’s talking about pitiful, Maglor. It was you who abandoned Laureanis in the first place, remember? It was you who failed her. She had been Morgoth’s prisoner in Angband. They had tormented and tortured her there, subjected her to unimaginable pain and horror. And then, somehow she managed to escape. Maybe they let her escape. What did you do, Maglor? You would not even speak to her, out of fear that her mind had been corrupted and twisted by Morgoth. You turned your back on her and followed your brother in your futile effort to reclaim the Silmarils. And how did that end, Maglor? Does that scar in your palm ache still? Did you come back to her after that? No, you left her alone, shunned and cast out by her own kin, her own husband. You abandoned her, you failed her and then you forgot her. Just so you could wander the shores of Middle-Earth alone for all eternity, feeling sorry for yourself. And now, after six thousand years, you have the nerve to come back and talk to me about pitiful.”
Gwathrandir struck him then. Cugusaelon reeled across the room and slammed against the wall. A thin line of blood trickled out of a corner of Cugusaelon’s mouth. Gwathrandir stood perfectly still. His knuckles stung.
”She still has no close friends here”, Cugusaelon said. ”She has lived in Imladris almost from the beginning, yet she is still shunned. Everyone is cordial and polite, nobody talks about the events from the First Age. Nobody uses the word ’thrall’, though some of the old ones might still think it. Yet they still feel uncomfortable around her, barring perhaps Elrond himself. And me, but Laureanis and I have never been close. She is still alone, Maglor.”
”Don’t tell me these things”, Gwathrandir said dully.
”But you know I’m telling you the truth.” Clotting blood rimmed Cugusaelon’s mouth, but the old elf still did not acknowledge the impact of the blow. The blood dripped on his embroidered tunic, staining the flowers with different kind of red.
Gwathrandir felt terribly tired. He knew Cugusaelon was telling him the truth. Everything in Imladris had reminded him of Eithel Sirion and those early, blissful and happy years after meeting Laureanis for the first time and falling in love with her. All his years after the War of Wrath had been gray, but this spring in Imladris with Laureanis had reminded him of the colors of his youth. Life and death had seemed meaningless during the countless years of his self-imposed exile, until he had seen Laureanis again. And now he realized that it was only Laureanis’ life that mattered to him. He had failed her once, but perhaps he could still save her.
”There is nothing you can do about it”, Cugusaelon said in a gentle voice. He had not even touched the red blood staining his upper lip. ”There is nothing you can do but keep on doing what you came to do here in the first place. To find out her secrets. And to betray her again.”
Gwathrandir stared at him for a long time. ”No”, he finally said. ”Not this time. I just realized something, Cugusaelon. I don’t care about Gondor, I don’t care about Imladris, I don’t care about Elrond, the upcoming war or the future of the Middle-Earth. I only care about Laureanis, and this time I will not fail her. I will take her away from this place, and together we shall find a place where we can live in peace, as man and wife. Just the two of us, as it was meant to be. The Middle-Earth can burn for all I care. I have done my part for this world, and so has Laureanis. No more!”
