A Night There Was When Winter Died (Gilwen) {February 3008}

"Just Fael."

Gilwen still had not gotten it to the man’s liking, and her heart pattered quicker for a moment, and she watched the sparkle of his grey eye to be sure he was not cross. He did not look to be, though she did not know him as well as she did her father. She did not like to disappoint; she wanted to make people happy. But sometimes, even she needed to be corrected.

Faeldor, if he was unhappy, was quickly distracted by her refusal to pick a treat. Gilwen’s pale cheek flushed, and she dropped her eyes to her toes. The lady baker was also eyeing her curiously. Gilwen did not know how to explain she had no extra coin. Indeed, when rent was due for her humble abode on the first tier, she would have just enough to have obtain the vegetables and meats for her family’s table until the next wage day next month.

She could not spend it on the delicacies of this bakery—however much her mouth watered just smelling them.

“We will just take it with us. The brisk air tonight will bring hunger again later, I'm certain. Indeed, that's a fine idea. We'll picnic once we rest the horses. And how about that...The candied ginger. A piece for each of us.”

Gilwen heard the man continue to order anyway, and her heart leapt into her throat. “But I have no—oh.”

Faeldor was pulling out his own coin purse to pay for the food he had ordered, and Gilwen stared for a moment wide-eyed. His father, Faelon, had often brought her lunches when he had been the stable master. He had always told her that it made him happier to have company to eat. While it had taken a long while for Gilwen to grow used to the idea of his charity, the woman knew he was not doing such thing from disdain. Master Faelon had certainly known her station, and never once commented on the state of her dress or made her feel somehow inadequate.

Perhaps his son was the same.

Lady Herthril was extending a candy to her, and Gilwen for a moment hesitated. Eyes were on her, and unease was, for a moment, winning over. Still, she was hungry, and Faeldor had spent his hard-earned wage procuring her that small candied square. It was rude, she figured, to not accept it. “Thank you, my lady,” she murmured to the baker.

“Go ahead, try it.”

She watched Faeldor take a small bite from the corner to be sure she knew how the candy was meant to be enjoyed, and mimicked the motion herself.

Gilwen had never had anything like this.

It was sweet, and it was spiced all at once. She gasped, looking to the candy with wide, doe-like eyes. She realized quickly the display she was giving seemed rude, so she hurriedly looked between the two others and gave Lady Herthril a quick curtsy. “I’ve never had anything like this. It’s…very good.”

Once more she put the corner of the candy to her mouth, letting the ginger and the sugar mingle upon her tongue. Gilwen’s lips turned upward in smile, and she thoughtfully looked back down to the square. “May I…may I please have a small paper?” She wished to wrap half of it. Her mother would be so excited to try this as well, she knew it. “I want to save part of it…if I can…”

“Oh, you don't have to, Gilwen.”

Gilwen’s eyes flew back to Faeldor, wondering if perhaps she had said something that was not right. Perhaps it was rude to ask a baker to save one of the ginger candies. She had not thought about etiquette for such things, as she had never once stepped foot inside. Her servant’s mind, though, sounded loud alarums in her head, and she looked back to Lady Herthril with pinched lips and apology in her eyes.

The young woman was surprised to see the baker look equally as confused.

“Since you like it, we'll take some home to our families, hm? Two of the bags?”

“Two bags?” Gilwen felt her head spin, and she gripped tighter on her ginger candy to prevent the square from falling to the floor. She was not certain what Master Faeldor was thinking, and her heart began to race. “Oh. Oh, no, it’s all right. I can share…” Herthril, though, was already readying the candies, and Faeldor was already placing his payment upon the counter. While her protests stilled, Gilwen looked increasingly in awe, and her eyes looked bright in their depths.

She could share them with her mother; and perhaps a few for her father, so he would have a treat for when he came home. Though, Gilwen was unsure how long the ginger squares would keep. They were sweet, which might mean attracting bugs should they sit too long in the house.

This was a dream. It had to be. She had managed to get home, and was already tucked under her covers. The man beside her…he was not truly there, and the candy she was dreaming of had not cost a single person a coin.

She looked up to Faeldor, now certain that he was but a figment of imagination, daring to show her brown eyes thankful and eager. “Mama will love them. Thank you, Master—I mean. Fael.”

There was no harm in tossing aside formality. Not if all of this was happening merely in the scape of her dream.

“We should be going. Before the night comes on us, and we miss the sunset.”

A few words flit between the stable master and baker, though Gilwen was looking instead toward the door. The plains. She was going to leave the city walls. Even if this was a dream…

Well, she had never made such a fine one before. She wondered where it had come from, and why she had put Faeldor in it. Sheepishly she glanced to him as he bid farewell to the baker. Not that he was a poor fit for it, she reasoned. His smile was handsome, and his demeanor cheerful.

“Goodnight. Thank you, my lady,” Gilwen piped with curtsy quietly before she followed Faeldor out the door and back to the white-stoned streets of Minas Tirith. The night was cool and crisp, and once more she marveled at the warmth of the cloak Faeldor had lent her.

“Can you eat and ride?”

“I don’t know,” Gilwen admitted. “I’ve never had to try before. …Is it hard?”

Faeldor had come to lift her into the saddle, and with his hands and strength, she was easily able to find herself back in the saddle, and her hand had not lost its grip of the candy. Immediately she put the corner back into her mouth, giggling.

Faeldor chuckled at her words again, and Gilwen wondered for a moment if he thought her simpleminded. It would not be the first time someone thought so, and if the man knew an entire other language, he was certainly well schooled. Despite his laughing tone, though, his words were kind and spoke nearly in excitement for the coming approach to the plain.

The man returned to Thissel, and Lumiel’s ears perked forward. Gilwen could feel the quiet readiness the horse beneath her was emanating, and as soon as Faeldor was mounted and guiding Thissel away down the street, Lumiel eagerly began to step after.

Winding and weaving, they finished trekking over the third tier streets, then, after darkness and torches, the second. These homes were closer together than the ones above, smaller, and fuller. Gilwen could never tell if it was the fact the tier itself was bigger that the streets seemed fuller, or if it was because there were far more poor than wealthy. Still they wound, and the closer they came to the tunnel that dove into the mountain and then returned to the open air the more Gilwen felt uncomfortable in her seat.

It was not that the saddle itself was uncomfortable. In fact, though it had been years since Gilwen herself had ridden, she recalled the saddle Herion used to be far stiffer. It was, however, the proximity to the first tier, to the familiar, everyday faces she saw from her tiny sliver of a home that began to worry her. Reasonably, she knew her father was not going to see her. He was gone, a day’s march by now from the front gate toward Ithilien. Somewhere the enemy was, or rumored to be. But if word got back, if one of the neighbors saw her, recognized her…

There were many who would know whose daughter she was, and drank freely enough or gabbed enough to mention they saw Gilwen riding off with a man. Perhaps they would mean it kindly, though they did not know Gilwen was not supposed to do such things. Her father had told her that men were not to be trusted, but he had not met Faelon. He had not met his son; surely not all men were vile, for her father himself was a man.

Faeldor she had known about for many years. Faelon used to speak of him often, and his voice was bright in song and whistles wherever he tread among the stables. Faelon always felt kind and safe. Perhaps like a father, though such a thought she would not admit to herself. She had a Papa, a good one, and one that cared for her greatly. And yet, he was often gone. Faelon had been there daily there in the stable, and had even taken to feeding her. A friend.

Surely it was all right to have friends, Gilwen reasoned. They were so hard to come by, where she lived and where she worked.

Still, Papa was going to be cross that she went upon the field, if nothing else. He was worried for her, she knew. He wanted to keep her safe, and there was nothing safer than within the walls; even the Rammas Echor was penetrable if one was crafty enough.

Her brown eyes cast nervously one way, and then another, dropping them to eye the reins and the cobbles ahead as Gilwen’s heart began to hum and flutter as a bird’s wing in her chest. The first tier was dilapidated, and more full of life than there was coin enough to support it. The black wall rose tall, guarding those who would wish the city and her people ill, and there, in its shadow, the lowest people of Minas Tirith lived.

There were only a few spaces that were not devoted to housing, though the cracked, tainted stones were primarily narrow houses crammed with too many people to live comfortably. Alleys stretched into the shadows, women of the night already prowling like hungry wolves beneath the eaves. Gilwen nearly held her breath, and not for the relative foulness of the air down on this level. That she was nearly numb to. No, it was the various recognizable faces around, the familiar call of words into the air in tones she knew belonged to certain busybodies of Minas Tirith.

There was the home her mother was in at that very moment, tending to the ailing woman, candle and hearth alight inside and making a friendly orange glow into the otherwise barren looking home.

Then there was her door.

The one with the tiny shutters over a tiny door, a fault in the stone along the side of the house where Miss Mouse had first come inside. Gilwen wondered if she were hungry, if perhaps she should halt Faeldor to run inside and see about getting her some crumbs, but with a glance about she thought better of it. Surely that would draw attention, and she could not explain it, precisely, but she did not want to tell Faeldor she was one who lived on the first tier. Faelon had never been fond of the fact she lived so far from the Steward’s palace. She wondered if it had been a concern for her safety, having to walk so far to get to work and then home, or if it was her wealth that concerned him. His wage was certainly higher than anything she would ever hope to make.

Soon though, they were passing through the gate, and her thoughts quieted. Her breath was still held, now, though, in anticipation. As soon as she was passed beneath the archway, the woman gasped.

“Is it what you hoped to see?”

There were farmlands as far as she could see. And though for winter there were very few blooms upon the land, she wind pulled through the tall grasses, billowing and waving them as if in greeting to her coming. She could not see the Rammas Echor at all, though she had thought the wall built large; how far away was it? She could see the silver streak of the Anduin from the top of the precipice, but there, on the ground, all she could see was land. No tree families, just farm. The bleating of goats and sheep carried on the breeze in faint wafts, and her eyes passed over the landscape slowly, a giddiness bubbling up inside her.

“It’s so big,” she marveled breathlessly. The world went on endlessly, she was certain now. There was no end to maps, places to see.

Gilwen nearly bounced in the saddle as she turned to look to Faeldor, brown eyes bright and cheery. “Have you seen it all, Fael?” She asked.

The Pelennor did look much smaller from the top of the city. There was so much to see, so much beyond the walls of the White City; Gilwen felt something tingle through her blood: a sense of longing, a tug of desire.

The wind swept by her hair, the whistling and hum almost like some sort of language she could not fathom, but the feeling she could almost make out. Adventure. Freedom. Exploration.

“I've seen what I can from every roadway that cuts through the Pelennor, and some of the smaller paths and trails. This straightaway leads out to the causeway, toward Osgiliath.”

Gilwen’s attention was drawn back to her riding companion, and hanging upon every word she listened. It seemed the man knew well the ways of the Pelennor, of all of Gondor! Perhaps he had even traveled beyond; she could not fathom what such places looked like. She knew there was a land where they worshipped horses. Horse Lords, or some such thing. Her Papa had always said that Rohan was too far away for her to think about. But she wondered how smart their horses were, if they were the ones who ruled the country.

Perhaps Faeldor had been there. He was certainly well traveled. And if there was one thing Gilwen knew for certain now, it was that she, too, wished to travel. She wished to see new places. Her heart pattered in excitement.

“Onward, before we lose the light. You'll want to see the river, and the trees!”

“You’ve seen so much!” Gilwen murmured in awe. “I want to see it, too.” She did. More than anything. For a moment, not even her father’s voice whispered to her that such adventures were not suited for a lady like herself.

Faeldor rode on ahead, offering a whistle to help remind Lumiel to follow. Gilwen felt her cheeks flush in slight embarrassment, for she had not realized she had been negligent of riding until Lumiel once more began to move forward. Gilwen, though, was too captivated by the outside to hold onto her mortification for long. The billowing grasses, the quiet of the plain as opposed to her first tier street…

Gilwen’s head was as if upon a hinge, and she looked first one way, then another, mouth wide and eyes bright and round. Gondor, she was certain, was the most magnificent place in all of Arda; surely there was no beauty like this elsewhere. Wide, open spaces, fresh air, gentle winds. The cold did not bother her, even as it stung against her cheeks. She was too excited, and far too enthralled to be bothered through the borrowed cloak.

“We're coming upon the Ulloth, darling. Lumiel fears not to cross. She has done so many times.”

Gilwen’s dark eyes flew back to Faeldor. His pleasant, smiling silver expression glimmered to her pleasantly, though as her eyes followed his prompting to the Ulloth, she felt her stomach clench. She had never seen so much water in one place.

“Lumiel…can swim?” She asked quietly, the sound not carrying far enough for Faeldor to note it. The horse had no hands, though. How did she swim? Gilwen could not swim, and she had hands. Two of them.

“Fael, I’m not…” Gilwen finally pried her eyes from the falling, laughing stream, and up toward the stable master. He was, however, already crossed, looking back at her. The icy waters seemed to run now through her veins and she chewed her bottom lip and nervously looked to the water.

“The snows are melting above, but she won't find any trouble in it.”

“Melting? I…I can’t…” She looked up to the man once more. She could not swim. Was this something he needed her to know how to do? Thissel had cleared the other side without Gilwen’s eye upon her; she did not know how shallow the stream was, for the light was upon it in such a way that she could not tell. “Master Faeldor?” She called to him, her timid voice reaching to the opposite bank. “I…I’ve never…” She had never seen a river, much less tried to cross one. She shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, and Lumiel shook her head, sensing her rider’s discomfort. "I've only ridden the corral," she reminded instead.