Chapter Text
It is already past noon when Pharazôn sends for her. Miriel knows it must be because the sun is streaming through the windows of her rooms on the south side of the palace. She can make out very little in the way of shapes or colours these days but she can still identify direct sunlight.
You’re losing your touch, cousin, she thinks when she hears the heavy boots on the stairs. She had expected Elendil’s flight to be discovered several hours ago and half expected to find herself in chains by now. She is sitting in her private parlour when the guards arrive to fetch her and she rises to her feet before they can say a word. Her stomach clenches in fear but she is determined to master it. She raises her chin in what she hopes is an expression of defiance.
“My Lady," one of the guards starts to say but she will not give him the satisfaction and cuts him off mid-sentence –
“Yes. I know who has sent you, and why. Take me to him.” It is a small, almost petty thing, to ask to be taken to the King before they can tell her she is summoned, but it gives her some semblance of control. She does not merely have to acquiesce. She can still command.
As she is led across the courtyard of Nimloth she can hear a commotion in the city below. Voices are shouting or crying out, horses are whinnying, there is a clanging of bells. She feels something soft touch her face and knows with utter certainty that the petals of the white tree are falling once again.
“What is happening?” she asks the guards.
“You shall find out soon enough” one says.
They take her to the council chamber. It feels like such a little time to Miriel since she stood in this very chamber with Galadriel and Halbrand the Southlander, planning out their voyage to Middle Earth. Do not go, her father had told her. All that awaited her there was darkness.
“Leave us.” It is Pharazôn’s voice. Miriel hears the guards withdraw and the door closes with a heavy thud behind them. Her heart hammers in her chest.
Since her blinding, her cousin has tended to offer her his arm when she enters a room but not this time. He leaves her standing where the guards have deposited her, unable to judge where in the room she is. She supposes that keeping her disorientated is all part of his design.
Pharazôn wastes no time getting to the point. “Where is Elendil, Miriel?”
Miriel thought she had mastered herself but the sound of his name almost undoes all her good intentions straight away. Elendil, who has been her eyes since she lost her sight. Elendil, who was her one support after her father died. Elendil, who is so loyal to her that he was willing to lay down his life for it. Elendil, who not twelve hours ago was taking her apart with his mouth and his calloused fingers. Elendil, who is gone.
The idea that she would ever give him up is preposterous. She takes a steadying breath and, keeping her voice low and level, says only “Gone. I know not whither.”
“I warn you cousin” – Pharazôn's tone is measured but there is a quiet menace beneath it – “this girlish infatuation will bring you nothing but sorrow.”
“If that is what you choose to call gratitude to a loyal subject of Numenor, so be it” she says.
A sharp exhale. She can picture his look of displeasure at her obstinacy. Her cousin can be careful, patient, strategic when he needs to be… but he does not like to be trifled with.
“You are determined not to heed my warning, I see. So be it indeed” Pharazôn repeats, in a voice that makes Miriel’s stomach curdle with fear.
“We have received information on how you bewitched the sea and survived the worm.” This time it is Belzagar who speaks and it makes Miriel start. She had not realised anyone but herself and the King was present. She collects herself quickly, but his words puzzle her.
“Then truly you know more than I," she answers, “for I cannot tell you what happened when I was beneath the waves” —
“Enough!” Pharazôn cuts her off, his temper showing at last. “Enough of this Miriel. Do not play the innocent with me. Do you take me for a fool? I know that Sauron the Abhorred was your collaborator.”
Miriel is bewildered. Collaborate with Sauron? It is absurd. She can scarcely comprehend the meaning of his words.
“I do not know of what you speak,” she says, her own voice rising. “Would you mock me thus, cousin, to suggest such a thing?” If this is a rumour that the King and Belzagar have cooked up to discredit her, then it is cruel indeed.
There is silence for a long moment. Then Pharazôn says, as if musing to himself, “hmmnnn, if not his collaborator then perhaps his dupe.”
Before she can ask what he means, he continues, voice cold and cruel – “Your so-called Faithful are being rounded up as we speak.”
So that was the meaning of the fracas she had heard from the courtyard. How has it already come to this? Miriel wonders.
“What will you do to them?” she asks and hates how her voice quivers.
“Their leaders will be imprisoned, but fear not, they shall not be ill-treated. We are a civilised people. The common folk will be released if they are willing to swear fealty to their King.”
“And if they are not?”
“Then they shall be put to work.”
“As slaves?!” Miriel blanches in horror.
“I would not use that word,” Pharazôn says. The faux-amiable tone is back. Miriel thinks she prefers his wrath. “As servants of Numenor.”
“And what will you do to me?” she asks.
“You shall remain in the palace as my guest”
“As your prisoner you mean.”
“As you please” he says. “But you must understand, cousin, that you are too dangerous to exile. I cannot have you in Rómenna or Andunië stirring up a rebellion against me. Here in the palace I can keep an eye on your more…” – he chooses his words with care – “reactionary tendencies”
“Why do you not simply have me put to death?” she asks him bluntly.
“Now cousin, what do you take me for!?” he replies. “I do not wish to harm you.”
Maybe he does not want to risk making a martyr out of her, Miriel thinks. Or perhaps her survival in the sea trial really has shaken him, even with this latest show of strength. Perhaps he has concocted the rumour that she is allied with Sauron as much to convince himself as others. For all Pharazôn’s bluster about Numenor’s past and its future, she knows her cousin still believes in the power of the Valar. As children they had spent many a long summer’s evening playing at being explorers. Pharazôn would always play Eärendil, father of Elros Tar-Minyatur, waxing lyrical about the splendour of the Undying Lands and the halls of Valimar, where the greatest of all mariners had stood before the throne of Manwë and prayed in aid of Middle Earth. Even as a girl Miriel would find herself bewitched by the romance of it all. She suspects Pharazôn was too. Now, her childish wonder has grown into a quiet steady faith and his has curdled into fear and resentment. Oh yes, Pharazôn believes in the power of the Valar alright, and he hates them for it.
****
Upon returning to her chambers, Miriel finds they have been ransacked. She almost trips over some heavy object lying on the floor when she enters. Nothing is where she left it. No doubt the guards were instructed to search the place while she was with the King for anything that might offer a clue to Elendil’s whereabouts. Her personal effects are strewn about haphazardly and her carefully curated system for locating what she needs without sight is altogether spoiled. She gropes to find a chair and sinks into it, her head in her hands. She feels suddenly utterly alone.
At length she feels a gentle hand on her shoulder. “My Lady,” it is the voice of her maid Zamîn. “Let me help you tidy up a bit. Perhaps I can describe things to you and you can tell me where they are meant to go.”
Miriel feels a rush of gratitude towards the young woman by her side. She clasps the hand on her shoulder in both her own.
“Whatever chance it was that led you to serve me Zamîn, I am truly grateful for it,” she tells her and then, quieter and more earnest, “thank you.”
They work together for several hours, exchanging only such words as are needed to restore Miriel’s rooms to some semblance of order. It soothes her, both the methodical process of tidying her belongings away, and the unlooked-for kindness from her young attendant. When at last she retires, Miriel dreams of the Wave, and of Elendil in the bow of a great ship with a white jewel upon his brow.
****
The weeks grow tedious indeed, confined to her rooms. She plays the harp, mostly for something to do. So many pastimes are lost to her now without her sight. She has not played since before she became Queen Regent, but she finds that the melodies of her youth come back to her with a little practice. The songs are as beautiful to her as they are sad. Sometimes she sings to herself too – of Valinor before the light of the Two Trees was dimmed, of the terrible oath of Feanor and the loss of the great Silmarils, of Luthien Tinuviel and Beren One-Hand, and the fall of Nargothrond and Gondolin.
She knows she should be making plans, resisting her fate, doing something … but she feels so very powerless. Zamîn is her main consolation. She sometimes sits with Miriel for hours at a time, long after her work is done, just to keep her company. She describes her favourite gowns to her as she helps her dress, even though no one but Zamîn herself, and perhaps an occasional guard, will see her in them. She reads to her – books of Numenorian history, botany, and astronomy. Miriel drinks in the words like they are water and she is dying of thirst.
One evening, as they sit together after the fire has burnt down in the grate and the parlour has grown chilly, Zamîn says, somewhat haltingly, “My Lady, I have a brother in Rómenna.”
Miriel thinks she sounds almost nervous. She wonders at first why Zamîn is telling her this at all, but the girl has been a dear companion and she realises with a small stab of shame that she knows precious little about her, so she replies “tell me about him.”
Zamîn tells her about her brother, four years her senior. They are close. She goes to visit him when she has leave of absence from her duties. He works at the docks... Slowly a suspicion starts to dawn on Miriel why Zamîn might have mentioned him. It is confirmed when the young woman lowers her voice to a whisper and says “My Lady, he could help to get a message to the Captain.”
Miriel’s heart stutters, hope and fear warring within her. It would be a terrible risk, but oh how desperately she wishes to get word to Elendil. She aches with it.
“Your brother, he is… faithful?” she whispers back to Zamîn.
“Yes my Lady.”
It could all be a trap of course. Zamîn has been kind to her for sure, but she does not know who else might have leaned on the girl for information. But something in her voice, and especially the way she had given Elendil his proper rank, persuades Miriel to trust her.
“We would have to be careful…” she muses. And then, “would you go to my chamber? There is a book on the shelf above the fireplace bound in red leather. It contains all the Tengwar characters and shows how they correspond with characters in the common script. I used to use it for my lessons long ago, but it will serve us well now.”
Zamîn fetches the book. It is a slow and painstaking process but, keeping her voice as low as she can, Miriel carefully dictates a letter. She has to go character by character, for Zamîn is unfamiliar with the Tengwar script and does not speak or read the ancient tongue. At length, however, the letter is complete. It is short and to the point. She is imprisoned but has not been harmed. Pharazôn is aware of his flight but does not yet know whither he is gone. She does not mention the imprisonment of the faithful, nor the strange rumour of her supposed collaboration with Sauron. It would take very little, she thinks, to bring him back to her side once more and thence to certain death.
She signs the letter with a blessing and a wish for his good fortune. I Melain berio le. Ná Elbereth veria le.
Until we meet again, she does not add.
Miriel tells Zamîn she may have a week’s leave of absence. After all she has done for her, the least she can do is to allow her attendant to spend some time with her brother.
She promises herself silently this will be the only letter. She will not risk another.