The northern side of the courtyard of the Hall of the Gentle Hand was dominated by a majestic fountain, while the southern section closed around an equally exalted reflecting pool. Both water features were surrounded by about eight benches each, but only a few people were sitting on the benches. Most people in the courtyard were standing or loitering about, chatting or listening to a solitary flutist playing her instrument. There were no birds swimming in the reflecting pool and the clear green water glimmered unbroken. Aside from Delioron there were only two people sitting on the benches around the reflecting pool, both of them men.
The crimson sun was half an hour away from touching the horizon. Delioron waited, like he had been waiting yesterday, for the sun to set until the darkness had sent everyone home and he had realized that she would not come today.
Six days ago he had trailed Radawen to Imloth Melui. For six days he had been waiting and watching and studying his mark with endless patience, stalking her like a cat at a mousehole. He measured his every move and feint against each other, weighing the consequences of success and failure. In all his actions his only goal was staying alive, because he had decided long ago that only an utter fool gives their life for any cause.
The game was always the same. It consisted of patience, waiting, setting a trap deep into the forest, baiting the lair and then waiting and more waiting, collecting chaotic impressions and trying to catalogue and order them in his mind.
The pretty young flutist began to play again after a short break. Instantly the music changed the mood of the dying afternoon, hinting at darker moments past and yet to come. As the sun began to set the flutist’s playing got faster and fiercer, like she was playing for herself alone.
Delioron closed his eyes. All these days he had been watching Radawen through her daily routines. He had watched her walking down to the riverbank to enjoy her solitary evening walks. He had spotted the gray-cloaked stranger who was also shadowing her. Who was he and what was his game? Radawen had tried to get into the Hall of the Gentle Hand four times in three days, and she had succeeded twice. There were at least a dozen locations he could have chosen as the place of contact, but he had chosen this one.
This music. He had never heard it before, and still it felt like such an integral part of his past from the first moment he had heard it. It was like he had felt it his whole life. Perhaps he was only trying to delay the inevitable, making contact with Radawen and starting the game, so he could be alone for a few moments more, listening to the music and watching the setting sun. And remembering Rhûn once again, because that’s what the music had reminded him of. Rhûn was the only thing that had ever touched him, and now this music, though it was unlike any music played in Rhûn, drew him back to the days of his distant youth.
Back in those days Delioron had wanted to believe that there was some higher cause in serving Gondor. He had left to Rhûn on a personal mission to find the truth, and how naive it now sounded in hindsight. He had found the truth. He had peeled layers and layers of lies from the arrogant and dishonest courtiers in King Seddîd’s court, he had sifted through the smooth lies of the townsfolk of Kravod and he had found small grains of truth that the spies of Tiglin, Ulurth and Ogadei working in the streets of Kravod had been trying to hide. Finally he had heard the truth from the Jhangovarian nomads hunching in their yurts. They had told him the plain truth as it was, without lies or deception. The truth he had found had been horrifying enough to change him forever.
He remembered that day eighteen years ago when he had been summoned to the office of the man who had been the Warden of the Green before Parthadan. Back in those days he had been a young, brilliant, cock-sure historian and lore-master in the Houses of Lore, specializing in the history and culture of Rhûn. He had been summoned because Denethor had decided that they needed to send an emissary to the former Gondorian province of Dor-Rhûnen, now ruled by King Seddîd of the Jhangovar tribe. King Seddîd’s relationship with the Great Khanate – and by extension, Sauron – had become strained, and Denethor had seen it as a good opportunity to send somebody there to offer Gondor’s help and friendship and perhaps even gain a new friend or ally against Sauron’s growing might. Delioron had been chosen because he knew the language and had extensive knowledge of the area and it’s peoples. At least better than anyone else in Minas Tirith.
And so the young lore-master had pushed aside his books and lectures to investigate how little he really knew of that world he had been studying for so many years from the pages of dusty old tomes. It was a living world, ha had told himself, and the kind of knowledge he was seeking could not be found from any books or folktales. And he would be serving Gondor as well, doing his part in the struggle to resist Sauron’s growing shadow.
All his beliefs in the glory of Gondor and noble wars had ended soon after the bloody coup as Hûz III, supported by the Lôke-Khan and his kazars, had seized the power in Kravod and executed Seddîd, his family and as most of his supporters in the town square. Delioron had been among the few who had survived and fled the city. They had organized a rebellious movement in the mountain villages around Kravod. Delioron had joined the rebels and for three or four years he had fought with them to resist Sauron’s allies in Rhûn.
There had been no aid from Gondor, despite his early attempts to send word to Minas Tirith. Later he had found out that his word had never reached Gondor, but if it had, would it have made any difference? Delioron did not think so anymore. Gondor could not afford to risk an open war with Sauron then no more than it did today. Not to help an insignificant tribe of savages who were fighting a losing battle to gain power over a region that should have belonged to Gondor in the first place. Gondor needed all it’s forces at home.
But Delioron had remained, at first to fight Sauron and later because they were all in it together. He had been accepted as a full member of the Jhangovar tribe and the rebels had become his brothers and sisters. In the end he had become one of them. Over the course of the next few years he had watched how Sauron’s forces had crushed the rebellion piece by piece, cruelly and effectively, until all the leaders of the rebellion had been wiped out. Only Delioron had managed to escape and return to Minas Tirith. By then he had lost all faith in Gondor and the war they could never win. He had seen too much to believe in victory anymore.
Five years had passed and the old Warden of the Green had died. His replacement, Parthadan, had been surprised to hear Delioron’s story, because everyone who knew about the plot had assumed that Delioron had died in Kravod almost four years earlier with Seddîd and his supporters. They did not know what to do with the man who had come back from the dead and who knew about the failed plot, the plot Denethor had decided to cover up not to risk retaliation from Sauron. So they had awarded him with a prestigious house in the Cape of Belfalas and a lifetime of bondage in the service of a kingdom he had no faith left in.
Delioron’s hair was prematurely gray, as it had been for at least ten years now. He was a few years over forty but kept himself in a good shape. His face was pale, drawn and cross-hatched with lines of pain and worry. His eyes were detached and calm, cold, relentless and gray as the Ice-Bay of Forochel.
The flute music escalated into a frenzy that spread onto the courtyard like poison, infecting all who heard it. The sun was now far, far away, it was disappearing much too quickly. Magnificent red light filled the sky across the clouds.
It was time to leave. Delioron stood up and turned just as Radawen appeared and sat on the nearby bench.
He had made contacts like this hundreds of times before, but suddenly he did not know what to say. He decided to smile and say: ”You look like a scholar.”
Radawen froze. She was tall, not much shorter than Delioron, who was not a short man. Her long red hair shimmered as the rays of the setting sun played on it. Her green eyes were deep but not clear, like flawed emeralds. Delioron thought she was lovely.
”I don’t know you”, she said coldly. ”Who are you?”
”Delioron.” He sat back on the bench next to Radawen, still smiling, adjusting his smile by the shifting expressions on Radawen’s face. ”Let me guess. You are here because of Romenstar.”
She looked startled at first, then irritated. ”Who are you?” she asked again, sounding almost angry.
”Just a fellow scholar.” Radawen didn’t respond to his smile so he turned it off like a lamp. She turned his back on him and was about to stand up and leave. ”I used to be a lore-master. In the Houses of Lore.”
”I have never heard of a lore-master called Delioron in the Houses of Lore.”
He smiled again. ”It was a long time ago. Long before your time.”
”Is that so?” Radawen’s voice was even, a little bored, a little challenging.
This is where the trouble would begin. So far he had not directly lied to Radawen. In his trade Delioron was accustomed to use lies the same way a burglar uses his tools, picking secrets instead of locks. Now he would have to begin lying to Radawen, to use her to find out her secrets. But he could see that she was used to lies and easily saw through them. He would have to make his lies so easy to swallow that she would not even want to see through them.
”How did you know I was a scholar? How did you know about Romenstar?”
”I have seen enough scholars to know one when I see one. There has been rumors circulating the streets that there is a wizard staying in the Hall of the Gentle Hand, a wizard who cures illnesses with his magic staff. A wizard dressed all in blue. You are not the only one who has read those passages about Morinehtar and Romenstar in the Houses of Lore, so the rumors piqued my interest immediately. I heard someone call the wizard ’Romenstar’ and that’s when I was sure. Is it really true?”
”And have you really been a lore-master in the Houses of Lore?” Radawen asked, ignoring his question.
”I have”, Delioron said. ”But I left the Houses of Lore eighteen years ago.”
This was the part of the story that was true, because it had to be true. If Radawen wanted to confirm his story – and he was fairly certain that she would – she would find records of a lore-master called Delioron in the Houses of Lore.
”To do what?” Radawen queried.
”I have been something of a wandering scholar for the past thirteen years”, Delioron explained. ”Eighteen years ago I was offered a chance to be sent off to Rhûn as an emissary of Gondor in a mission of peace, and I took it.” That much Radawen could find out from the records in the Houses of Lore. All mentions of lore-master Delioron would end there. ”I was there for a few years, and things got a bit… hairy. When I got out, I was sick of the whole thing… Rhûn, Minas Tirith, Sauron, the ’Glory of Gondor’… all that. So I never went back to lecturing. I have a house in Western Gondor, but I have spent most of my days traveling. I’ve been to Rohan, Eriador, all over the Middle-Earth.”
Delioron smiled again, and there was a hint of sadness in his smile. He wasn’t thinking of the lie he was building now, but the truth that the lie contained – the loneliness of his existence. ”Winter is coming, so I just decided to come here where it’s warm.” No way, that part needed to be adjusted a bit more to make it more believable. ”When I was a child my family came here on vacations during wintertime. To smell the flowers and to bath in the purifying waters of the Hall of the Gentle Hand.”
”You sound wistful”, Radawen commented.
”That’s right, wistful”, Delioron agreed, surprised by the compassion he heard in Radawen’s voice. ”There’s no home to go back to anymore, but you can always go visit the places of your childhood. To see if the magic’s still there.”
”Well, is it?”
Delioron thought about his troubled childhood in Pelargir. In his experience the streets of Pelargir had been always hostile, always violent, always dangerous. There had been no rich parents or idyllic vacations to Imloth Melui. Yet at that moment Delioron almost believed his own lies.
”No. The magic’s all gone. Everything’s different.”
They smiled at each other disarmingly. The discussion was working out, even though they understood it from different perspectives. After a while they were having a friendly, unrestrained, free-flowing conversation about this and that. The sun disappeared behind the horizon and darkness encapsulated them.
”You are right about Romenstar”, Radawen suddenly said. ”I’ve been trying to see him for six days and it’s proven to be the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do!”
”The Warden of the Houses of Lore sent you here for a mission, huh?”
Radawen looked at the hands on her lap. ”At this moment I am like you, Delioron. A wandering scholar with no masters. I got into a quarrel with the Warden, so I have quit in the Houses of Lore.”
There was nothing he could say to that.
”Never mind!” Radawen said, shaking herself off her melancholy. ”What were you doing in Rhûn?” She sounded genuinely curious.
”All kinds of things. I was sent to the region we call Dor-Rhûnen here, because that’s what it was called when it was a province of Gondor. The locals called it Narimanush. I lived in the court of King Seddîd.”
”That sounds very interesting”, Radawen said dreamily. ”That’s what I want to do in my future life. A diplomat to distant lands!”
Delioron looked at Radawen, who at this point was sitting by his side without a trace of her earlier restraint, completely relaxed and trusting. She had large earrings and a light blue dress with a simple round neckline. She crossed her legs, and a sandal dangled from her toes as she waved it back and forth. Her whole carefree posture reflected a kind of delicate class, which was pleasing to Delioron. Suddenly he was feeling very comfortable around her.
She is just a job, he reminded himself.
”What will happen with Romenstar?” Delioron asked.
Radawen looked at him for a moment. ”I don’t know. But there has to be something about him. Some kind of a secret.”
”Why?”
”Because the Rangers kept him in their custody for two weeks before dumping him here. And now he’s being held in the custody of the healers of the Hall of the Gentle Hand. They wouldn’t even let me in there. I have had to sneak in with the crowd looking for a cure for their ailments. And lately the crowd has been getting bigger.”
”What do you think they want from him?”
”I don’t know, but it’s worth investigating. And if I can’t find it out, I will go back to Linhir to see if Tancestel will take me back under his wing. He is a historian in Linhir. I worked for him as a scribe before I moved to Minas Tirith to study in the Houses of Lore.”
”So you really burned your bridges to the Warden of the Houses of Lore?”
”Aranuir? Yes.” Radawen looked suddenly regretful. ”I suppose I did”, she sighed.
”Why?”
”Because he didn’t want me to come here to pursue Romenstar.”
”Why is it so important to you? I mean”, Delioron added, ”obviously it is a big deal if the man in the Hall of the Gentle Hand really is Romenstar, and not a part of some kind of a complicated hoax. But not many people in Gondor have ever even heard about Morinehtar and Romenstar. They have been forgotten by all but a handful of scholars and historians. So why throw away your whole career over it?”
”I have my reasons.”
Delioron waited for Radawen to say more, pressuring her with his silence.
”My father”, she said after a while. ”A long time ago my father served in the Council of Gondor under Steward Ecthelion. I don’t need to tell you everything, but he was forced to resign. I mean, he was not a traitor but there were some… oh well.” She paused. ”But he never grew embittered over how he was treated. He always said…” Radawen glanced at Delioron shyly, wondering if he would understand.
”He always said that Gondor was the greatest kingdom in all the world. That it had been a great honor to be allowed to serve Gondor and Ecthelion. Even after he was… even after what was done to him.”
”And what does that have to do with Romenstar?”
”My father”, Radawen said, averting her eyes from Delioron. ”And my brother. I couldn’t…”
Delioron undestood that Radawen could not go on with her story. Not now, not yet. But she did have a story to tell.
”I just need to know, that’s all”, she said, glaring at Delioron stubbornly.
”I hope it will be worth it.” Delioron smiled disarmingly. ”May I offer you a supper?”
Radawen looked at him sharply. ”No”, she said. Radawen stood up and turned to leave. ”No thank you.”
”Not here. There is a good tavern on the other side of the Lord’s Arm, called the Garland. The food there is excellent.”
Radawen stood quietly for a few moments more, looking down at Delioron. Suddenly it seemed like she had decided something about him. ”Are you alone here?”
”Alone. You bet. What do you say?”
Radawen stared at him for a while more with an impassive face, then she shrugged. ”Alright then.”
Delioron stood up and took her arm. They walked out of the courtyard and down the path leading to a strong bridge called the Lord’s Arm that spanned the river. They didn’t say anything during their half-mile walk to the tavern on a hill overlooking the Erui. In the tavern they chose a windowfront table on the hall with marbled stone walls and marble floors. It was almost empty this time of the evening. They ordered perch fillets and a jug of wine. They ate slowly, enjoying the excellent meal and conversation in the soft candlelight. Radawen talked about her life to Delioron, who listened keenly, memorizing everything and interrupting only rarely to ask probing questions when it was appropriate.
Radawen examined Delioron’s wintry face and the hard lines criss-crossing his dry, pale skin like long abandoned dirt roads. When she had first seen Delioron, she had thought he was much older because of the lines and the gray hair. Soon she had realized he was not nearly as old as she thought, though he was still much older than Radawen. Maybe ten, fifteen years older. Delioron was good-looking in an unconventional way. Radawen got the impression that he might have been less good-looking as a young man, but his face had accumulated character with age. At least he was taller than Radawen, which was always a plus.
”What about you?” she said after a while. ”Here we have been talking about me the whole evening, but I know next to nothing about you. Where are you from?”
”Pelargir”, Delioron said. That part of his story was the truth. What he told her about his childhood before moving into Minas Tirith and becoming a scholar was mostly lies.
”And you went to Rhûn?” Radawen’s eyes shimmered with excitement. ”As an emissary from Gondor?”
”I did. I felt like I knew so much about that region I had read from old tomes that I had to see with my own eyes if my knowledge was truthful.”
”What happened?”
”Bad things happened.” Delioron talked slowly, staring at the wine in his goblet. ”Very bad things. Turned out I knew nothing after all.”
He looked up and smiled at Radawen. She had charmed him, her quiet voice and sincere words. Once again Delioron had to remind himself that it was all a game and he was merely scheming a simple scam to trick her.
And still.
Radawen’s company warmed him. He had liked her from the moment she had sat down on the bench next to him in the dying afternoon. She had broken down his callous reserve and melted the frost that had frozen all of his remorse, emotions and passions since he could remember. And now he could see from her eyes how trustfully she was waiting for the trap he was leading her into. It was heartbreaking to see.
”Was there war?” Radawen asked compassionately.
”Yes”, Delioron said, with a hint of bitterness in his voice. ”King Seddîd opposed the Great Kha… well, he opposed Sauron’s side, and I was sent there to offer Gondor’s aid and friendship to them. But when Seddîd and his family was slain by Sauron’s supporters, when his people were hunted down and exterminated by Sauron’s forces, no help came from Gondor.”
”Sauron must have most of Rhûn, Khand and Harad under his sway now”, Radawen said. ”My father always said that Sauron will take control of those lands first and then turn his attention towards Gondor. My brother…”
”What about your brother?”
Radawen looked away. So she had a secret after all, Delioron realized, a secret she had almost revealed to him.
”What about your brother?” he asked again.
”Nothing! We were talking about wars. Pour me more wine!”
Delioron poured Radawen the rest of the wine. She drank it slowly and color returned to her cheeks as a velvety cloud veiled her green eyes.
”Don’t you think a war can be just sometimes?” Radawen asked suddenly. ”The war against Sauron, so the world will not fall under the shadow?”
Delioron stared into the night behind the windows. He saw only unspeakable memories there.
”Survival”, he said. ”Nothing else matters.”
”Survival? But for what purpose?”
”Well.” Delioron looked at her, suddenly confused. ”That’s a good question. I only know that survival is a victory, but I don’t know why. Maybe because the survivors write the rules of the game afterwards and decide who won and who lost.”
”But what if you didn’t take part in the game? What if you didn’t want to play it in the first place?”
But Delioron wasn’t sure anymore. He was lost.
”What about after this?” Radawen asked. ”Where are you going to go after Imloth Melui?”
”I don’t know.” Delioron shrugged. ”Home, maybe.”
”And where is home?”
”I have a house in the Cape of Belfalas, by the sea. You should come see me there some time.” He had barely said it when he realized he had lied once again. Once he had used Radawen and she had figured it out their friendship would be over.
”Are you going to stay long?” Radawen blushed. That had been a bit too revealing a question.
”I don’t know. I am retired, I have money and all the time in the world.” Delioron smiled. ”I probably would have left already if I hadn’t met you.”
Radawen looked shocked.
”As a friend, Radawen!” he said. ”I can be a friend without ulterior motives. I just wanted to talk to someone. And I didn’t want to dine alone.”
”Then thank you for an excellent supper!”
”It’s time for some mulled wine now”, Delioron said. The waitress came and they ordered it.
”I might get drunk”, Radawen objected, faintly.
”There are worse things than that.”
”But I must wake up early.”
”To go see Romenstar”, Delioron said. He smiled, but his smile was not pleasant anymore. His expression had turned cold again. Radawen did not understand it, but she touched his hand because she wanted to melt the coldness in him. Delioron’s hand was big and broad, his fingers flat and not very long.
”Maybe I didn’t want to dine alone either”, she said shyly.
She told Delioron about the times she had managed to get into the Hall of the Gentle Hand with the crowd of sick people who went there every morning to be cured by the blue wizard. The crowd was getting bigger each day, the word was spreading around. Now there were people coming from Arnach and Minas Tirith as well. And it was getting easier for Radawen to sneak inside with the crowd.
”There is an emissary from Isengard there. He does not look pleased when Romenstar uses his powers to heal all those people, but he doesn’t try to interfere. He just watches, looking sour. I don’t understand it.”
Delioron did not say anything, but he did not understand it either.
”Romenstar knows that I’m there, but he’s so confused… he seems lost, and a little awkward. I don’t know what I should do, but I will try to get close to him.”
”Perhaps you should try to approach the emissary from Isengard instead”, Delioron suggested slowly.
”Why? He would only reject me…”
”Make him reject you. Make him lie to you.”
”Why?”
”To see that he lies.”
”I don’t understand that.”
”You think this Romenstar has come here for some secret purpose? Perhaps Saruman thinks the same.”
”What does that mean?”
”Exactly. What does that mean?”
They fell silent for a while, deep in thought.
”It has been nice”, Radawen said after a while. ”Sometimes it’s easier to talk to strangers than friends.”
”It has been nice”, Delioron agreed. ”Perhaps we could see tomorrow?” He looked down at his empty goblet, feigning shyness. ”I know I’m pressuring you. I spend long times in my own company in my house in the Cape of Belfalas. I sometimes sit for hours just looking at the ships and the sea. I like the sea. And then there are times when I want to talk. When I need to talk. I want to spend time with you.”
Radawen’s green eyes were shining darkly. ”Yes”, she finally said, and Delioron touched her hand.
There was nothing more to say. The trap had been set. Now it was up to Radawen to either fall in it or reject it.
Trust me, Delioron thought. Trust me.
”It would be nice to see you tomorrow, but you don’t need to buy me dinner. We could just see each other.”
”Good”, Delioron said.
”Then we can feed lies to each other”, Radawen smirked.
Delioron startled, but his face remained impassive. Had Radawen seen through his lies? She made him feel insecure, and not for the first time. Delioron had started the game and written the rules, but to his shock he realized he had fallen victim to his own rules. That had not been supposed to happen.
They walked out of the tavern and down to the riverbank of Erui. Crisp wind was blowing from behind them. Silence brought them together, whereas words would have driven them apart. When they separated they didn’t try to kiss or embrace each other.
Later at night in his room at the inn Delioron lied on his bed, trying to fall asleep. He had drank more wine and walked down the path of his memories, and now he could see Radawen’s face before him like she had looked in the soft candlelight of the tavern, looking at him and smiling across the table, as if she understood the games and the rules and all the lies they entailed.
And who knows. Maybe she did.
