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Finduilas sat silently, hands upon her knees, back straight, her eyes placid as she gazed over the Hall.
They did not attempt to conceal their disdain now. The king’s seat had been removed and her father placed on a plain chair between the brothers, timid as a fawn who has seen the hunter strike. In that at least, she found she was more inclined to pity than to blame. He had never wanted a crown. And indeed the silver filigree seemed to wrap itself about his brow in mockery—a further ridicule as he sat flanked by wolves at his own high table, their laughter passing over him as his silence grew deeper with each passing day.
Her eyes drifted across the cavern till they found the table where young Gildor had joined the feast. He was clad, as was his wont since arriving with all the fury of a gale from the Havens, in meticulous Telerin regalia, the alpatancula1 glinting in challenge from each shoulder beneath the festal lights. Tonight, Finduilas noted, he had donned the king’s own robes, a loose-draped sea of blue and pale green, and the eight-crested wave of Olwë’s house stood out conspicuously at his throat. He met her eye and the brief touch of his thought brushed like a nod against her own.
Good. The wine was running low and Celegorm would soon beckon for the steward. It would take them an hour at least to undo the reversed lock without damage to the door—Gildor was a clever craftsman when the mood was upon him—and by then the revelers would have begun to grow restless. She had heard the grumbling already after the scant meal of the previous night. Felagund was never so tight-fisted. A fool to be sure, but his board at least was never preferential. The gathered lords knew nothing, of course, of the mad scramble in the kitchens when it was found that half the pork had been salted nearly to winter’s preservation. The chief table was already served by the time it was discovered and the brothers well into their meal before the rationed remainder had been distributed to the others gathered within the Hall. “My father and I will forego,” Finduilas had said, holding out her untouched plate to the anxious steward who brought the news. “Please take our portions to another.”
She had seen Curufin’s eyes flash in the periphery, heard the imprecations hissed under his breath, but his wife had laughed aloud. Self-righteous little shrew. Etillië had reached out in defiance to draw another serving to her own plate. If a performance of piety would sway their hearts, they’d have belonged to Felagund yet.
It was Finduilas whose lips twitched now, grim and determined. Let them sneer. It would not make their triumph rest more easily. She would see to it. The mislaid documents, the ruined pork, the severed bell-wire in the council chamber, the wine they could not reach, the murmurs traveling along the shadows and corners…She had scampered as a child amid these caverns and learned mischief in the labyrinth of their winding ways.
Let the revelers pour their wine. Let them feast and let them crush their shame.
She and Gildor would set a fire beneath their feet, prick a thousand little stings that would turn their prize to a burden. And in the quiet of the empty halls, when torches flared amid the feasting and all made merry deep into the night, she would slip like a shade by ways that none might see—and in the soft, keen ears of their turncoat hound would plant the whisper of a hidden door.