A Lecture on Food and Folly

Captain Sáranassë of the Order of the Arrow was many things, as she stood in Lady Manadhlaer’s office. She was tall, and fair in her austere way, and armored. She was a daughter of the Noldor, a creature of stealth and odd habits. She was a hardened warrior and a keeper of secrets. The one thing Sáranassë was not, by any means, was amused.

“Are you well, healer?” Sáranassë did not actually tap her temple. Her tone carried her meaning: she was asking, in the most restrained way possible, whether the Lady of the Pillar had gone utterly mad.

“There were four of us, Captain,” Manadhlaer said reasonably, “and one of our guests was a Perian.”

“And two were Men. Olriandis told me all about it.”

“Yes, and while she wore a dress, I have no doubt there were weapons on and about her person with which she could have held off a dozen attackers long enough for the rest of us to flee.” Manadhlaer’s vowels lengthened slightly, sounding more Telerin as she explained herself. The accent made Sáranassë deeply uncomfortable.

“So you trusted your safety, and that of Eilanneth the scone-baker and Lady Norliriel, to just one of my scouts. Olriandis is highly competent, but she was the only—“

“By all the seas! The Perian nearly sold his fëa to a ginger Dwarf for the sake of a ring he could not afford, to impress some Shire-lass who has no intention of marrying him. They were all like a band of lost children. I thought they deserved refreshments – an offer I had already extended to the Man.” Manadhlaer hastily switched her emphasis to the snacks and drinks. No dweller in Imladris wanted to linger on the subject of rings and bad bargains.

Sáranassë just stared for a long moment, her face unreadable. “After all that has happened this year, after Captain Himwen and I personally made sure of your safety, at least until your sudden plunge down the river…”

Manadhlaer spoke dryly, as she often did when acknowledging her own folly. “Captain Himwen shares your opinion of my riding out to meet the girl. She has made that abundantly clear. At one point in all the yelling, she even threatened not to make me any more toy frogs.” She paused. “But she did acknowledge that her good husband leads this House from the front lines. And he has not died of it. Would our Lord fail to display courage in the same circumstances?”

Sáranassë’s eyelids fluttered briefly. A lesser warrior might have taken a step back, or lost her temper entirely and started yelling about the fine line between courage and stupidity. “Lord Tindir is a veteran soldier. You are a healer and a scholar. While I am sure you learned much from Themodir—“

“That reminds me—I need to take Daegond for a walk.” Sáranassë knew, of course, that the Pillar Lady meant the tiny hound, not the slain Hound, but hearing the name still jarred her.

“Please do not change the subject. After all that has happened, you invite strange Men into this hall? With Lothilind’s cairn in plain sight? Your charge into the arms of the enemy could have led you into the arms of Mandos, and now you socialize with Men?”

Manadhlaer pushed her chair back with exquisite deliberateness, and stood up, coming eye to eye with Sáranassë. Her gaze did not waver. “To the first point, Vanimar leaves no one behind. You may quibble with my methods, and I have certainly thought over and over what I might have done differently, but I achieved results. Everyone came home safely. And… his hammer and swan.” Manadhlaer paused, suddenly unable to say the name a second time. She bit her lip. “And the cairn you refer to now bears the other stolen swan-badge. The enemy did not keep those trophies.”

“But you didn’t actually know two of these Men, did you?”

“A halfling! One of them was a halfling. The other walked with a peculiar hunch, and indeed it turned out he had some terrible wound that he would not let me see, despite repeated entreaties.” Manadhlaer’s sea-grey eyes rolled briefly. “A bit like Tolmen’s former attitude, in fact. And they were all so impossibly young.”

“Yes, and so is the one who killed the Sergeant.” Sáranassë never wasted time candy-coating brutal facts. “Is the act of handing out sweets worth your life?”

Manadhlaer fiddled with the plain gold ring she still wore and would always wear. “If we cannot, in a group including one of your scouts, pass a pleasant evening with some guests of the Vale, then what have all the sacrifices been for? Your Order, and the Fountain, and the Hammer have all sacrificed so that Eilanneth can bake her cakes and pour her tea in relative peace.”

For a fleeting moment, something like admiration flickered on Sáranassë’s stony face. It was rare that she found any other as stubborn as she was, and accordingly she gave a single inch of ground. “I suppose Olriandis could have thrown the Perian out the window if it came to that.”

“Please. The glazier has only just got done replacing Norliriel’s window, after the golf incident.”

“I wish you had informed me.” Sáranassë’s tone was still clipped. Very few would have suspected that she concealed anxiety beneath her many barriers—at least as many as Gondolin had had.

“You were on patrol. I did the next best thing, and found someone you have been training. Should I have sent birds to the other fighting Orders?” The thought of messenger birds made Manadhlaer really frown for the first time, thinking of Sorontar.

“Perhaps. Now, when they think of us, they will think we are harmless.”

“I am harmless, Captain. Mostly harmless, like this world.”

Sáranassë permitted herself a small sigh. “I wish I shared your optimism.”

“Optimism? No, I am resigned to it. The Hammer have been crying for blood for a full turn of the seasons and another half-turn, and even I have felt this. Yet I could not bring myself to raise Themodir’s sword and strike the girl’s head off, if it were left to me to carry out justice.”

“That is a conversation for another time.”

Manadhlaer turned her head abruptly, looking out the window to the lawn, and the old pillars, and the cairn. “How did you get in here? I seem to remember locking the doors after Sarmëtecil went out.”

“That, too, is a conversation for another time.” Sáranassë’s face relaxed slightly, in what Manadhlaer interpreted as a near-smile. “We ought to talk about the security of this hall, sooner than later.”

“If you will refrain from picking my locks, or sliding in through the chimney, or whatever it is that you did, I promise to be less rash with my hospitality.”

“Good.” Sáranassë nodded once, and turned crisply. Opening the heavy office door again with eerie silence, she paused for the briefest of moments. “Or bring the dog too. He likes Norliriel.”

“He is not good with strangers, however.” This was a tremendous understatement: Daegond, the second of his name, had attacked a postal courier earlier in the year.

“Good,” Sáranassë said again, and seemed to vanish into shadow.