A Tuesday offering - Chapter Two of 'The Gift'

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, a tribute to the Lord of the Rings.  I acknowledge I have no rights of ownership to the characters or the settings and that I only own my original content and interpretations.

Chapter Two: Kovalia

I staggered back in shock, trying to make sense of this, to understand the implications; the High King of Gondor and the West was an Elf-Friend; he was married to a great elven lady and if it were to get out that I had a captive elf in my bed the night before the documents were to be signed…

Really, though, that didn’t matter at the moment; what mattered was this poor, collared creature hiding and cowering away from me. What had they done to him, before they brought him here? How much had he already suffered?

‘I do not want to hurt you,’ I said, trying to keep my voice gentle and reassuring. ‘I only wish to see you. Are you injured?’

Perhaps my tone was kind enough to lessen his fear, for he turned his head back and opened his eyes. Oh, such eyes as they were! A clear, silver blue, so old and so wise, but there was something else there, too.

There were tears.

He tried to speak, but I didn’t understand him. I didn’t think he’d understood me, either; we have our own tongue here, and I had never needed any other. I knew no Westron or Elvish and only a few words of the Rohirrim language from a chance encounter in happier days.

I reached for the covers again to slide them a little further, seeking only for any injuries, but he grabbed at the edge of the sheets across his chest and spoke again, rapidly and softly, his tone pleading.

‘How may I help you when you will not let me near you?’ I asked, but, of course, he didn’t understand. I huffed out my breath. This ‘gift’ was, indeed, a distraction, but it was not at all the sort of distraction I had expected tonight. ‘Are you hungry, are you thirsty?’

I took a few steps away from the bed to find those glorious eyes on me.  I tried a mime, putting my fingers to my mouth and pretending to eat something. He hesitated before nodding, so I crossed to the fruit bowl and selected a bunch of grapes for him, taking them over and placing them near where his long fingers gripped tight the sheets.

Giving him privacy to eat, I gave my attention back to the fruit bowl.  Amongst the apples and pears there was a kovalia, too. They were delicious, but hard work, for they were protected from the harsh local conditions with a rigid outer casing, and I picked up the serrated knife accompanying it to slice through the tough skin and expose the soft, aromatic flesh of the fruit within.

A knife…

The Desert Sprits knew I wanted no unwilling bed-friend, so I carried the knife across with the sliced fruit.  The grapes were gone, and I saw the elf lick his fingers, his lips.  The pit of my stomach fell away as desire growled in my belly in a most unladylike manner. He inclined his head towards me, still cautious, and said a few words, ‘thank you,’ perhaps.  I hoped it was ‘thank you,’ anyway.

‘This is kovalia,’ I said, and broke a piece of the soft flesh in half, handing him some while preparing to eat the other section myself. I hoped sharing food with him would show him I would not hurt him, not after we’d eaten together.

‘Kovalia,’ he repeated, lowering his eyes and inclining his head. Pointing his fingers at his chest, he said: ‘Lindir. Kovalia… Lindir…’

‘Oh. No, it’s not my name!’  I protested, but he was nodding now, and the slight curve of his lips suggested how breath-taking he would be if he really smiled. ‘You’re Lindir? Your name is Lindir?’

‘Lindir.’

‘I’m Mesri, Pleased to meet you, Lindir. I wish it were under different circumstances.’ I gestured towards myself. ‘Mesri,’ I repeated.  ‘Are we friends now?’

‘Kovalia?’ he asked, following this with a string of words I couldn’t make any sense of.

But the language sounded as lovely as the gentle eyes and beautiful face of the elf and just listening to it filled my heart with joy.

‘Let’s get you out of that collar,’ I said, and, unthinking, reached towards him with the knife.

‘Avo!’ he cried out. ‘Avo, Kovalia!’

He had pushed himself back automatically as he shouted, his arms trying to come up to protect his throat, and I cursed myself for a fool and then cried out myself as I saw that his wrists were cuffed with leather and a bright steel chain ran from them to somewhere beneath the bedding.

‘Lindir, it’s all right! Oh, forgive me, I am so sorry…’ I made placating gestures and backed away.  ‘I did not think, my only intention was to free you…’

I turned the knife in my hand so that the blade was on my palm and the handle towards him, and I offered it to him with a bow of my head. He could do what he wanted with the damn knife, he could kill me if he wanted, at that moment I really didn’t care. My death would, after all, ensure the future security of my people.

He whispered something softly, stretching his hand out over the knife.  His fingers trembled and then his hand closed over mine for an instant, the touch of his skin hot and waking all the nerves in my body with the fire of the contact. 

All this was rapidly becoming too much for me; Lindir’s intense beauty and the great sorrow I felt for him, my own yearning desires and the upsurge of my loneliness threatened to overwhelm me, and I went to sit at the foot of the bed with my back to him.  Let him kill me. Let him stick that silly little knife in the side of my neck and let me bleed my life out in penance for his capture. He wouldn’t know I had nothing to do with him being here.

I heard clinking, rattling sounds and felt the bed move as Lindir changed position.  I steeled myself.

But all that happened was a gentle hand found my shoulder and Lindir’s voice came from beside my ear.

‘Kovalia, le fael,’ he said, clearly and slowly, gently pulling me round to look at him.  He gave me that look again, the closed eyes, the bow of the head, a hand to his chest. ‘Le fael.’

I could see a red weal on Lindir’s wrist where the leather of the cuff had chafed his perfect skin, and I guessed his other wrist had suffered similarly. When he lifted his head, too, I saw his throat was marked and I reached out automatically towards him. He took my hand between his own and he smiled sadly, beautifully. He didn’t want me touching his throat. 

‘Let me see if I have anything for that,’ I said, reluctantly retrieving my hand and going over to my cosmetics table. I rarely used cosmetics, but there was a salve I used to soothe my skin from too much sun, and I found it and offered it to Lindir.  He took off the lid and sniffed the contents, while I mimed rubbing something into my wrists.

He nodded and tipped his head to one side to apply some of the salve to his neck. The movement exposed his throat and I watched, fascinated, wishing I were the one smoothing salve on his skin. The bedding slid down, exposing his torso.  Not a warrior’s body, but still, there was nothing slack about his wonderfully-sculpted chest and flat stomach.

I tried, but failed, to keep my eyes on his face.

Finished with his throat and wrists, he extended a foot out from the bedding and I realised there had been ankle cuffs as well; I could only be grateful they had been leather, and easy to cut away – presumably, Briot had realised I would object to sleeping with someone in metal shackles.  The other ankle followed and then, after a minute’s hesitation, he handed me the pot with a few words and then turned his back, lowering the bedding so that I could see another red weal, just above his hips; it moved me greatly that he was prepared to let me to help.

I dipped my fingers into the salve and spread it softly across the raised, red skin. It was a crime to spoil his beautiful body like this, and if I found out who had so confined and harmed him…

No. I already knew who had done this: Briot. I would not let this pass.

I finished soothing the salve to his lower back and his sides, realised that the injury would have continued all around his body and that moving the bedding to attend to the front of his body would leave him very exposed.  And while I had previously wondered and hungered for the sight of him, now it seemed wrong, disrespectful.

Handing him back the little pot, I got up from the bed and walked deliberately to the table where a decanter of wine and a glass waited for me. Hmm.  Previously, when Briot had arranged for a man in my bed, there had been two glasses.  It was another sign that Lindir was a captive, and I hated it.

Suddenly I really needed a drink.

I unstoppered the decanter and poured the deep red wine into the glass, lifting it to twirl the stem between my fingers and watch as the liquid slurred around the inside.

‘Avo! Kovalia, avo!’ Lindir was at my side and knocked the glass out of my hands even as I went to lift it to my lips. Red liquid sprayed everywhere, the glass bouncing and rolling on the thick brown rug on the floor.  I stared at Lindir, stunned. He let out a stream of words, none of which made any sense to me, pointing at the decanter and the glass and the spray of red across the floor from the spillage.

‘What?’ What’s up?’

He took my hands in his and looked into my eyes. ‘Avo!’ he repeated, and released me to cautiously pick up the glass. He pointed into it, turned it to the light and I saw a film of something clouding the interior surface.

‘The wine was drugged?’ I sniffed at the decanter gingerly.  I wasn’t sure, but I thought it smelled odd, off somehow. It wouldn’t have been poison, of course, but a sleeping draught would have kept my nicely away from the morning council session. Nor did it escape my attention that there had been just enough wine for one full glass – a carefully measured dose, then.

Lindir took the almost-empty decanter from me and put it down. ‘Avo’, he repeated, and led me away from the wine.

And it was then that I realised that, in his haste to stop me from drinking drugged wine, Lindir had lost his covering of bedding and was completely, temptingly naked.

I turned and fled into my adjacent dressing room.

Avo! – Don’t!

Le fael – thank you (literally: you are generous)