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Arien hung low in the sky, casting her rays upon the rolling landscape of the inner home of Valinor. Here foothills climbed slowly to the heights of the Pelóri, and Taniquetil presided over all from a very great distance. Out toward Ekkaia the land was mostly flat, and the sunset's colors rolled up the plains to the hills, coming to a sudden and confused halt at the rise of the mountains, just as once they had sheltered the coastline from most Treelight.
Amrod had not grown at all accustomed to that shattering sight in the months since his return to life. He was comfortable in the saddle as before, and his horse pulled slightly at the bit, eager to turn and rejoin the group. But he remained still on her back, staring down the hills at the sunset, not a little nauseous at it – or else torn. The view was familiar and wrong. He had never seen this vista lit by the sun before, and the difference of the quality of the light shocked him. Amras, he thought, would have enjoyed it. Amras would have been sliding from the saddle, sketchbook already in hand, to note down the impression of shadow across the hills and plains, and planning to re-paint old works in consideration of the new light...
Amrod was not that sort of artist, though he had done some metalwork on nature themes, on occasion. Briefly now he considered a work on the new shadow and light on the hills – he had made armbands in the silhouette of the Pelóri from this side once, as a gift for his mother – but dismissed the idea in little time. He felt no sense of inspiration, now or indeed since his return, or rather since the Oath's tightening upon them all, before and after Menegroth. Indeed the tools for smithwork gifted to him on return, by his mother and maternal grandfather, were not yet used.
Amras had not returned with Amrod. Amras in Mandos awaited his wife, Beinastoril, still alive in Middle-Earth in that new kingdom of Lindon that he and his brother would never see. He lingered to accompany their father, and some other relations, of their family and of his wife's Nandorin cousins. He awaited, also, two of his children yet living in Exile. Of the others, Amrod had promised he would seek Narechuil and Narchúdir in Aman and tell them what they already knew, that their father loved them and missed them. Narechuil had died after them, in the War of Wrath, and had already heard in Mandos, but not yet recently. Narchúdir, however, had died and been returned before Sirion, and the rest of his raising had been a duty passed to their living family. These tasks, Amrod had discharged. He had found on his return that Narchúdir was now a man grown, content in his work and trained by Grandfather Mahtan as Amrod had been, and Narechuil, who had come already to her craft before her death, now married among those of his family's followers congregated in the Aulenduri-governed city of Formenos. It had not been hard to seek them, nor reassure himself to their safety, nor convey to them their father's love; and so Amrod was left floundering again.
His horse pulled at the reins once more. Amrod came back to himself, sitting on the gold-painted hillside, and sighed. He turned off, and called his leave to the hunting party now straggling down the far side of the hill. He was glad to have seen Celegorm, but unnerved, too, and he found now he had little appetite to continue in the company of other elves, nor for the chase itself. He was comfortably enough outfitted to spend a few days alone in the woods on his return. Aman's climate was milder than Beleriand, its forests safer, and the roads marked regularly with staffed and stocked waypoints. There was no danger in the wilderness, alone – not really. The danger in Aman all lay in the cities and towns; and particularly at the many and varied courts.
It was indeed good to wander where he would, learning better the horse, who had been also a gift for his return, from Celegorm. This was to say she was a gift from Lord Oromë, for Celegorm had returned to his old master and lover and had nothing of his own property to give. Amrod had not hesitated to accept that gift, despite and because he had felt the tenuous balance of the Years of the Trees settle upon him at that very moment. To be near Celegorm required Amrod not falter in his own apparent devotion, yet never seem so committed that he would be invited to vow to Lord Oromë himself, and have to refuse. Whatever her meaning, the mare was beautiful, gray and of nigh perfect conformation, sensitive to the slightest touch and eager to be out.
Amrod hadn't named her yet. He wanted to think a while longer, and for that he had much time, as he slowly wandered back, northeast into the foothills, climbing to the road and pass from this side of the Pelóri up to the mining settlement. He tried out names as they went: Mountain-Smoke, Star-Hoof, Oak-Leaf, Squirrel-Daughter. Nothing quite stuck in his mind, and too, continuously summoned were small memories of Celegorm over the past two weeks. He was completely unable to settle on any particular moment or conclusion. There had been Celegorm, grinning at another of the Oromendili as he drew back his bow, eyes alight in what seemed to be genuine pleasure; then there had been his odd quiet, rarely speaking to the hunters who ranged around him at their center as he once might have; then a time Amrod had woken in the night and seen Celegorm sitting up, staring at the stars above, with an expression that did not look like his brother at all, but was like nothing he had ever seen. And, too, when Amrod had tried to return the invitation to ask him to visit Formenos, Celegorm had said, simple and definitive – and absolute, "I can't."
Amrod wasn't precisely wondering; there was nothing left to wonder that he did not know and could not guess. Was there then any point in dwelling on the matter further? Could he live with himself if he did not? Caranthir apparently did not – but that was unfair.
On the third day after leaving the hunt, Amrod came across the hills to the road, near the site of a waystation. He turned his horse to the gates with some apprehension. He could manage without resupply, but he would like it. He hadn't brought much cooking salt with him.
Across the boundary, a day or so ahead, Amrod would be in Fëanorian country – in practice if not by law – and could expect to be celebrated anywhere. In fact, he had been already celebrated to a degree jarring and unhappy to him since his return; since the events in which he had died, at Sirion. Here, however, in the vast interior of Aman, he did not know exactly who would be staffing the waypoint, or what the people there might think. When he dismounted and handed over his horse to the hostler, he introduced himself – deceptive but not dishonest – as Pityo. This, the short form of his father-name, was a common enough nickname. Despite the general prominence of father-names, he and Amras had never really been known by them to the public. He saw no recognition in the hostler's face, even when the name was combined with his red hair. Amrod thanked her for caring for his horse and went on in, having received directions to the kitchens to deliver the field-dressed deer with him, in repayment for their hospitality.
No one seemed to know him there, either. Of course, Amrod bore no royal rank symbols – had been warned against claiming them, for Arafinwë's likely reaction – and his public image had always been very caught up with Amras. They had hardly ever been far apart for long, and even their deaths had been mere moments separated, cut down by the mutineers in their bodyguard. People imagined them both as one of a set: Ambarussa. Yet when Amrod came into the main hall to introduce himself again as Pityo, it stung him bitter, and still he felt the bite deeply as he found a place to sit between a traveling Sindarin family and a party of miners.
There was, too, a messenger of the king in the hall, anxiously waited on by one of the staff and given a wide berth by the others. Amrod had placed himself out of the messenger's line of sight without thought, which realization brought his thoughts lower still.
Truly the Valar had won. Amrod was dishonored utterly, as all his family, and he could not act to reclaim that honor, nor defend his reputation. The centuries of watch, the diplomatic compromises, the losses from their people and their children to the work of the siege, the fact that the Sindar would have fallen utterly without their arrival with a fresh army just in time – all past, all damned for nothing. Amrod could not even dispute it. He remembered well raising his sword against Sirion's half-armed militia. He remembered, too, the relief, the terrible unmistakable release, of knowing he was killed and could be enjoined by the Oath no more. What honor did he have now to defend?
Yet had Arafinwë not now done more evil, to a greater number? Aman's innocence from mass bloodshed was no more. At least Amrod and his brothers had acted under Oath, and that Oath fastened and redoubled by the Doom of Mandos. The royal army had now been brought against heretics – though it was said Mandos had been furious at this, hilariously – and Amrod had heard that their own loyal officers in Tirion had caught paid instigators of the notorious anti-Fëanorian riots, and had had confessions out of them in public, to Arafinwë's profound embarrassment.
All of that was years past. Caranthir did not want to provoke the High King – Caranthir, it was plain, found the knowledge of what his brothers had done after his death profoundly horrific – and Amrod was too loyal to dispute policy with the King of the House of Fëanor... No matter how Caranthir arguing with Tegillían, Maglor's daughter, grated on Amrod. Tegillían was meant to be their king after Maedhros.
Amrod had already been around and over it many times, in the past months. One more time wasn't going to resolve anything. Determinedly he picked his head up and entered into conversation, by which he learned that one of the Sindarin family's carthorses had thrown a shoe on the road, and that the waypoint staff had no regular farrier nor blacksmith but were waiting for one on rotation. Swiftly he found himself volunteering his own aid – he was carrying no supplies for blacksmithing, but if they had them here...
Unavoidably he had to say where he had been trained, and that was in in Grandfather Mahtan's own workshops. But Mahtan as Lord Aulë’s foremost priest and representative among the Eldar had trained many, and it was apparently not enough to reveal him for Mahtan's grandson. Amrod instead was talked into staying overnight, and then a day or two longer. There were others whose horses needed shoeing, stocks of nails and harness rings and more to replenish, small bits of smith work generally; and Amrod had arrived with a token of devotion to Lord Oromë on him, visible, and could so be politely asked if he would offer devotions to the waypoints that kept the roads usable. He was willing enough. He had nowhere to go but home, and the atmosphere there in recent months was suffocating.
To be an anonymous Noldorin smith was easy, by comparison. Amrod shoed horses, hammered out nails, and accepted only ordinary gratitude from the waypoint's staff and visitors for his assistance at ordinary specialist work. He played with the children and conversed with the adults on the condition of the roads, the availability of work or hunting in various places, and – cautiously, only under cover of privacy or louder nights in the hall – Arafinwë's laws and policies. Amrod thought about lingering a while longer. No one was expecting him, particularly, anywhere. Of course, the longer he lingered under a half-false name, pretending not to be who he was, the more certain it was someone would catch him.
Indeed, on the third day, someone did.
Padravoth had been in Amrod's bodyguard at the end, and Amrod remembered the details of his guards' lives easily enough. Padravoth was Noldorin, but born in Exile, in Ossiriand, to farmers. He had joined the army willingly enough as his trade, done well, and spent his time guarding and responding to casual raiding from their Nandorin and Avarin neighbors, who thought little enough of kinslaying as a concept, fought each other regularly, and often saw Noldorin wealth as a temptation when they were not in alliance. The Nirnaeth would have been his first major battle. He had been promoted to the bodyguard in the aftermath of the casualties therein, and gone so to Doriath, and to Sirion.
Amrod saw him from across the yard of the waypoint, where he was cleaning up after shoeing another traveler’s horse. Padravoth hadn't spotted him yet. He was speaking to the hostler, handing over a chestnut horse with shallow hocks. It was evening, and they were singing in the hall, so Amrod overheard just a snatch of conversation in a moment of quiet:
"...Yes, to Formenos. I have business with one of the Fëanorian princes there, and I suppose I shall see what I find." The hostler was nodding, frowning, and Amrod perceived neither alarm nor particular sympathy in her heart. Amrod turned away himself, back to the borrowed tools he had half-stowed. Inside the hall, the singing picked up, and he heard not the rest.
It would have been kinder to meet Padravoth somewhere private, or else to quietly take his horse out and leave, for the weather was fine and night riding with a rested horse no trouble. But Amrod was loathe to further his feeling of dishonor by taking off as a criminal would, and trying to corner Padravoth privately seemed an unlikely task in such a small space. So in the end, he walked into the hall just as yesterday – and watched Padravoth lift his head, wide-eyed.
From this angle Padravoth looked terrible: hollow-eyed, spirit-wracked. For a moment Amrod was confused. He knew the sight of someone tormented by Oath, for he had seen it often in his own reflection, and much more so his brothers' faces. He thought that he knew of no Oath Padravoth might have taken – and then he corrected himself. Padravoth had sworn service to him, and to Amras; and Amrod had been killed too quickly to know the identities of the mutineers.
Padravoth rose from the table, and came quickly to Amrod, who knew then that the moment was coming. Beckoning Padravoth, Amrod left the hall and went out to the yard before he turned.
Padravoth looked at him a moment, and then he fell to his knees. What strength had brought him thus far – had fought the Oath to begin with – seemed to desert him. "My lord."
"Padravoth," said Amrod, quietly, and extended his hand. Padravoth seized it, and kissed the back, and Amrod felt some stirring of alarm in his own heart.
"My lord," said Padravoth again. "We sought only to serve you. We had to serve you. We knew the Oath had taken you by force – that the lords we loved would not..."
"Would not have sacked a refugee settlement with wooden walls and no real defenses," said Amrod, and heavy the memory settled upon him: smoke, shouting, the smell of blood and carnage. Maedhros's siege-breaking enchanters were professional and fast. They'd been in Sirion in very little time, once the final refusal to negotiate came through.
Sirion had not been undefended. Much of the carnage had happened precisely because it was fought – from balconies and rooftops of private houses, with thrown stones and slop buckets and hot coals seized from braziers; and from the streets by enthusiastic but untrained men. The fires had spread quickly, set by their people and Sirion's. There had been no breakdown of discipline as at Menegroth, but even by the time Amrod had died, a substantial part of the city had been destroyed anyway.
"You were right," said Amrod, eyes closed. "We did want to be free of it."
Padravoth sighed. When Amrod opened his eyes, he found the man still clenching his jaw, still nervous of something.
Since returning from death, Amrod had been aimless, purposeless. Caranthir wouldn't give him anything to do, and to sit in the fights between him and Tegillían, the intended king, and their mother, who had never known Beleriand, trying to mediate unsuccessfully, was unbearable. But Amrod found his own self familiar once more, with one of his soldiers kneeling before him. He was not sure that self-recognition was pleasant.
"Tell me," said Amrod.
"I killed you, my lord," said Padravoth, and Amrod found himself, too, unsurprised. "I – from behind – I was assigned the duty by the mutiny..."
Padravoth sounded near tears. "It's all right," said Amrod, and was surprised at the instinctive gentleness in his voice. He spoke as if to a shying horse, or an apprentice in the forge, about to explode in frustration with the hammer in hand. "No, I didn't know it was you, but I knew someone had. Tell me," said Amrod, in curiosity or frustration or some distant anger, "How was the mutiny arranged? It hardly matters now."
Padravoth stammered out explanations: secret staff meetings, a vote, the agreement on what circumstances would trigger the mutiny; and throughout, the debate over the terms of those very service oaths. Amrod probed himself for some emotion at it all and felt only weariness. None of this had needed to happen. But it had. It had happened, and now, here they all were, alive again. Amrod had just shoed a horse belonging to a resident – a victim – of Sirion.
"And you killed me," said Amrod, finally. "I had wondered which of you it was."
Padravoth swallowed. "My lord, though I do not deserve it, I ask release from my oaths of service. I am... unworthy, at the least of it."
"Dear Padravoth," said Amrod, softly. He was aware then of the hostler eavesdropping, and the public nature of the space, and the steadily dropping noise in the hall. But the moment had turned to glass, transparent and still, filled with an odd light or lightness. Amrod did not, at the moment, care who heard. "You did serve us, and you were right. When I knew I had been killed I was relieved. I didn't know it was you – I never saw your face." His most loyal – most beloved – servants never had. Well he remembered Tavniel screaming in anguish, standing over him as he died with her sword before her, as though it would make a difference then. They had believed what he said, even as he spoke under some duress; under delusion.
"I thank you for it," said Amrod, "But if release you seek, I will grant it," and he raised Padravoth up and kissed his forehead, and spoke then in the most archaic register of formulaic vows: "My fealty be returned; I thank thee for thy service, and release thee," he said, and felt the Oath between them, spirit to spirit and servant to master, whither and gently die. Gently, too, Amrod loosened his grasp on Padravoth's hands, and let him go, tears on his cheeks, into the hall.
The hostler leaned out the stable door. "Pityo, is it?" she said.
"Short for my father-name," said Amrod, and grinned at her. Above the stable roof, he saw now, had come Gil-Estel, risen in the sky; and he didn't care at all.