Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [120]
Riding hard they came to Emerië at nightfall of the next day, and men and horses were weary. Cold and white looked the house on the hill in a last gleam of sunset under cloud. He blew a horn-call as soon as he saw it from afar.
As he leapt from his horse in the forecourt he saw Erendis: clad in white she stood upon the steps that went up to the pillars before the door. She held herself high, but as he drew near he saw that she was pale and her eyes over-bright.
‘You come late, my lord,’ she said. ‘I had long ceased to expect you. I fear that there is no such welcome prepared for you as I had made when you were due.’
‘Mariners are not hard to please,’ he said.
‘That is well,’ she said; and she turned back into the house and left him. Then two women came forward, and an old crone who went down the steps. As Aldarion went in she said to the men in a loud voice so that he could hear her: ‘There is no lodging for you here. Go down to the homestead at the hill’s foot!’
‘No, Zamîn,’ said Ulbar. ‘I’ll not stay. I am for home, by the Lord Aldarion’s leave. Is all well there?’
‘Well enough,’ said she. ‘Your son has eaten himself out of your memory. But go, and find your own answers! You’ll be warmer there than your Captain.’
Erendis did not come to the table at his late evening-meal, and Aldarion was served by women in a room apart. But before he was done she entered, and said before the women: ‘You will be weary, my lord, after such haste. A guest-room is made ready for you, when you will. My women will wait on you. If you are cold, call for fire.’
Aldarion made no answer. He went early to the bed-chamber, and being now weary indeed he cast himself on the bed and forgot soon the shadows of Middle-earth and of Númenor in a heavy sleep. But at cockcrow he awoke to a great disquiet and anger. He rose at once, and thought to go without noise from the house: he would find his man Henderch and the horses, and ride to his kinsman Hallatan, the sheep-lord of Hyarastorni. Later he would summon Erendis to bring his daughter to Armenelos, and not have dealings with her upon her own ground. But as he went out towards the doors Erendis came forward. She had not lain in bed that night, and she stood before him on the threshold.
‘You leave more promptly than you came, my lord,’ she said. ‘I hope that (being a mariner) you have not found this house of women irksome already, to go thus before your business is done. Indeed, what business brought you hither? May I learn it before you leave?’
‘I was told in Armenelos that my wife was here, and had removed my daughter hither,’ he answered. ‘As to the wife I am mistaken, it seems, but have I not a daughter?’
‘You had one some years ago,’ she said. ‘But my daughter has not yet risen.’
‘Then let her rise, while I go for my horse,’ said Aldarion.
Erendis would have withheld Ancalimë from meeting him at that time; but she feared to go so far as to lose the King’s favour, and the Council 23 had long shown their displeasure at the upbringing of the child in the country. Therefore when Aldarion rode back, with Henderch beside him, Ancalimë stood beside her mother on the threshold. She stood erect and stiff as her mother, and made him no courtesy as he dismounted and came up the steps towards her. ‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘And why do you bid me to rise so early, before the house is stirring?’
Aldarion looked at her keenly, and though his face was stern he smiled within: for he saw there a child of his own, rather than of Erendis, for all her schooling.
‘You knew me once, Lady Ancalimë,’ he said, ‘but no matter. Today I am but a messenger from Armenelos, to remind you that you are the daughter of the King’s Heir; and (so far as I can now see) you shall be his Heir in your turn. You will not always dwell here. But go back to your bed now, my lady, until your maidservant wakes,