[Anguirel]

"I know not which grandsire you mean, my lord. My mother's father is Ardamir, a fisherman. Of my father's sire, I knew him not at all, only that his name was Beren."

The old lord listened soberly to Vëandur's faltering, puzzled answer. At the last word, that short, evocative, high name, he made a firm, rapid, nod; but in words he did not reply for some further moments, as he turned away from the younger man, and began to look out upon the morning skyline. He stared into that part of the distance where the shine of the Anduin river was flowing, and seemed to murmur words addressed only to himself, or perhaps to an entity that heard with ears other than material ones. Almost, Vëandur and the guard would suspect in that moment, he was praying; not for something, surely, but for someone. But at last he turned again back to the sailor.

"I knew your grandsire - Beren - well enough," he said. "He was lost at sea, though I never heard any more exactly of the manner of his death. I hope he went peacefully to Osse's locker, and not by the harsher steel of some craven and misbegotten pirate."

He gave another of his brusque, business-like nods, this time to the guard, and abruptly remounted the mule. It seemed for far longer than an instant as if both were going to ride off (for the guard mounted his sturdy gelding too, now) and leave the seaman to wonder alone. But then the lord held up his wrinkled and slightly palsied, shaking hand in a halting gesture.

"Stay, my man. I must impart another word, after all, to the mariner."

It was with shining tears that threatened the timbre of his voice - that voice, too, on a sudden regaining the singsong Pelargir resonance - that he admitted to Vëandur, as if it cost him much, "He was my brother."

And he alighted to his feet again, and held out quivering arms in the most awkward looking of proffered embraces.