[TAURIEL]
She had been at the window since the eighth bell.
The window of the upper room faced east, over the long inner courtyard of the keep and the small line of the outer wall and the long slow curve of the country to the east where, by the small careful private inner reading she had been doing in the winter, the dawn came at the seventh bell in the deep months and the eighth in the light. It was, by her count this morning, three weeks past the long-night; the dawn came at the seventh bell and a half. She had been at the window since the eighth.
She had not lit the lamp at the small inner table.
The chamber was at the small steady careful set of the long winter morning — the fire in the corner grate at the small low draught that the chamber steward had set at the second hour of the night and which she had not, on rising, built up; the long inner shutters at the half-close to keep the cold of the night-glass from the bed where Aldric was still in the half-sleep of the seventh and eighth bells; the small inner shelf where the carved horse sat at the south alcove with the small wooden tally-stick Cael had set against it last night before bed.
She had been at the window without speaking.
She had been at the window without — by the small careful steady inner work she had been doing for the better part of three months — finding what she had been at the window to find.
The question was still in the room.
She had brought it back from the long bench under the window of the autumn at the second bell of the afternoon three months ago; she had set it down at the long bench beside Aldric; he had set his hand under hers and had said the carrying is ours. She had taken the question to the practice yard at four mornings since then. She had taken it to the petition wing at six afternoons. She had taken it to the long fur in the family quarters at twelve dusk hours. She had not — by the small careful inward inventory of those visits — found the small careful steady inner place she had been at the question to find.
She had been told, by herself, that she would know by the end of some seasons.
The seasons were going on.
The knowing had not, by the seasons' going, arrived.
She had been at the small inner window at the eighth bell of the morning, in the small careful steady inner pattern of the past three weeks since the long-night, looking for the small careful steady inner place — not the answer, not the choice — the place she could stand with the question, that would let her go on with the day.
She had not, on the third week of looking, found the place.
She thought, this morning, that she would not find it by looking.
She thought it in the small slow careful inner Sindar of her own.
She thought: The place is not a place I will find at the window. The place is — by the long careful inner work of seven hundred years — a place I will find when I have set down the looking and gone on with the day. The place is at the day. The place is at the petition wing. The place is at the long fur with the children. The place is — by the small flat private inner reading — at the bench under the window with the man who has, at every long bench under every window in this country, set his hand under mine and let me carry it.
She did not, on the thinking, find the place.
She did, on the thinking, find that the looking was not the work the morning was for.
She turned from the window.
She crossed the chamber.
She built the fire up.
She did not light the lamp. She did not pull the long inner shutters open. She crossed back to the long bench and sat on it at the proper distance from the bed, where the chamber steward had set the long bench three years ago to be at the proper distance for a husband still in the half-sleep to register a wife's presence without waking. She sat. She set her hands at her knees.
She watched him sleep.
She watched him in the small careful steady inner way she had been watching him sleep for fifteen years — not in the long looking of a vigil, not in the small careful watching of a worry, but in the small steady inner registering of a fact she had been registering at the long benches under the long windows for the count of all her years in this country. He was a man. He had the small slow careful grey at the temple that was wider now than it had been at the binding and which would be wider yet, by the small careful steady reading of any Mannish body, in another five years and in another ten. He had the small steady careful breathing of a man at the half-sleep. He had a small line at the corner of his mouth that he did not, by the small careful inner reading of his own day, register as a line — the small line had appeared, by her count of the years, at about the year of Cael's birth, and had deepened, by the small slow careful daily working of fatherhood, half a finger's width in six years.
She watched the line.
She watched it for some minutes.
She thought, in the small slow careful inner Sindar: The line is the small careful steady inner mark of his fatherhood. The line will be deeper next year. The line will be deeper the year after. The line will — by the small careful steady working of the years — be there until the end of him. The line is — at this morning — perhaps two-thirds of what it will, at the long end, be.
She did not, on the thinking, weep.
She had not, since she had been at Elrond's long table at the third evening of her visit, wept.
She had thought, at the third evening, that she might weep at some morning in the small slow careful inner work of the months following the visit. She had thought she would, by the small careful steady inner work of the body, weep at some afternoon at the practice yard or at some dusk hour at the long fur with the children or at some bell of the night at the long bench under the window. She had not. The body, by the small careful steady inner registering, had not been at the work of weeping. The body had been at the work of sitting with the question.
The body was — she registered this morning, with the small flat inward private acknowledgment — going to sit with the question for some seasons more, and then the body would, by its own slow careful inner work, be done.
The body did not yet know what done would be.
The body — she sat with this for some minutes at the long bench — would know.
She was not at the work of knowing. She was at the work of not yet knowing. The work of not yet knowing was — she registered, with the small slow careful inner Sindar — its own work. The work was real. The work was — by the small careful steady inner working of seven hundred years of Elven mind — not the work of grief. It was the work of carrying. The grief would come at the end of the carrying. The grief was — by Elrond's quiet account at the long table — not the kind of grief that did not recover from the carrying; it was the kind of grief that came after the carrying, when the carrying had set the choice down at the end of its working.
She could carry.
She had been carrying things for seven hundred and twenty-five years.
She could carry this.
Aldric woke at the ninth bell.
He did not, on waking, immediately move.
She had been at the long bench for the better part of an hour. She had been registering, in the small careful steady inner reading at his half-sleep, the small slow careful shift in his breathing at the seventh and a half and again at the eighth and a quarter and again at the eighth and three-quarters; she had been waiting for the small steady set of his shoulder under the blanket that was the small signal he was at the surface.
The signal came.
She turned her head a small fraction.
She met his eyes across the chamber.
He inclined his head a fraction.
He did not ask whether she had been at the window. He did not ask what hour she had risen. He did not, by any small careful steady movement of his hand on the blanket, ask the small careful steady inward question of the morning.
He sat up.
He set his feet on the floor.
He crossed the chamber, in the small steady careful way of a man at the half-cold of a winter morning, and he sat on the long bench beside her at the proper distance.
He did not, on sitting, immediately speak.
He set his hand on the long bench beside hers, the small flat palm on the wood, at the small careful steady gesture he had been making at long benches under long windows for fifteen years.
She did not, on the setting, take his hand.
She set her hand at the side of his — the small flat palm-to-palm rest, not the closing — and she set the small steady careful inner breath she had been holding for the better part of the morning.
She said, in the small low voice she had been holding the words at: "Aldric."
"Tauriel."
"I have not decided. I am not, at this morning, going to set the decision."
"All right."
"I know which way I am leaning."
A pause.
He did not — by her small careful steady inner reading at his shoulder — react.
He set the small steady careful inner inventory of the morning the way he had been setting the small steady careful inner inventory of the morning at the long benches for fifteen years.
He said, in the small low voice: "All right."
She drew the slow breath that had been waiting under her ribs for some weeks.
She did not, on the drawing, set out the leaning.
He did not, by any small careful steady gesture of his hand, ask for it.
He set his palm flat against the long bench beside hers in the small careful steady patient rest he had been setting for fifteen years, and the chamber held the long winter morning, and the fire in the corner grate did the small steady careful work of warming the chamber at the half-bell of the ninth, and Cael at the south alcove would, by the small careful steady inner reading of the morning's pattern, wake at the half of the tenth bell, and Lúthien at her own small careful steady pattern would wake at the eleventh.
She set her head against his shoulder.
He let his hand close at the small careful steady inner moment of her setting, against hers on the long bench.
She did not, on the closing, comment.
She had not been at the window to find a place to stand.
She had been at the long bench to find the place where the carrying was, between two people who had been at long benches for fifteen years, the small careful steady inner shape of two people carrying a thing together.
She had found the place.
She held.
⚜ ━━━━ ROYAL PROCLAMATION ━━━━ ⚜
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