Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [118]
‘He has gone again, then, and left her,’ said Núneth.
‘Then why has she not sent news?’ said Beregar. ‘Or why has she not come home?’
‘She has sent news enough,’ said Núneth. ‘For she has dismissed the Elven-birds, and that was ill done. It bodes no good. Why, why, my daughter? Surely you knew what you must face? But let her alone, Beregar, wherever she may be. This is her home no longer, and she will not be healed here. He will come back. And then may the Valar send her wisdom – or guile, at the least!’
When the second year after Aldarion’s sailing came in, by the King’s wish Erendis ordered the house in Armenelos to be arrayed and made ready; but she herself made no preparation for return. To the King she sent answer saying: ‘I will come if you command me, atar aranya. But have I a duty now to hasten? Will it not be time enough when his sail is seen in the East?’ And to herself she said: ‘Will the King have me wait upon the quays like a sailor’s lass? Would that I were, but I am so no longer. I have played that part to the full.’
But that year passed, and no sail was seen; and the next year came, and waned to autumn. Then Erendis grew hard and silent. She ordered that the house in Armenelos be shut, and she went never more than a few hours’ journey from her house in Emerië. Such love as she had was all given to her daughter, and she clung to her, and would not have Ancalimë leave her side, not even to visit Núneth and her kin in the Westlands. All Ancalimë’s teaching was from her mother; and she learned well to write and to read, and to speak the Elven-tongue with Erendis, after the manner in which high men of Númenor used it. For in the Westlands it was a daily speech in such houses as Beregar’s, and Erendis seldom used the Númenórean tongue, which Aldarion loved the better. Much Ancalimë also learned of Númenor and the ancient days in such books and scrolls as were in the house which she could understand; and lore of other kinds, of the people and the land, she heard at times from the women of the household, though of this Erendis knew nothing. But the women were chary of their speech to the child, fearing their mistress; and there was little enough of laughter for Ancalimë in the white house in Emerië. It was hushed and without music, as if one had died there not long since; for in Númenor in those days it was the part of men to play upon instruments, and the music that Ancalimë heard in childhood was the singing of women at work, out of doors, and away from the hearing of the White Lady of Emerië. But now Ancalimë was seven years old, and as often as she could get leave she would go out of the house and on to the wide downs where she could run free; and at times she would go with a shepherdess, tending the sheep, and eating under the sky.
One day in the summer of that year a young boy, but older than herself, came to the house on an errand from one of the distant farms; and Ancalimë came upon him munching bread and drinking milk in the farm-courtyard at the rear of the house. He looked at her without deference, and went on drinking. Then he set down his mug.
‘Stare, if you must, great eyes!’ he said. ‘You’re a pretty girl, but too thin. Will you eat?’ He took a loaf out of his bag.
‘Be off,Îbal!’ cried an old woman, coming from the dairy-door. ‘And use your long legs, or you’ll forget the message I gave you for your mother before you get home!’
‘No need for a watch-dog where you are, mother Zamîn!’ cried the boy, and with a bark and a shout he leapt over the gate and went off at a run down the