|
"Oh, I am used to waiting," Gausen whispered, something that might have been a smile in happier days crossing the proud curvature of her mouth. "An expert, you might say, my lord. But bother with me no longer...it seems the most important guests are at your gates..."
***
She was not wrong. All around the area of the Hall's front entrance, the petty nobles seemed frozen in motion, making tentative movements forward and back, as if unsure whether to approach in fascination or recoil in fear. A loud, haughty voice sounded all about in the newly crystallised-silence, as Lachrandir curtly thanked the guards who stood aside for him and his squire.
The dust of the township's streets had adhered to the Elves' finely woven cloaks, but this baptismal brownness, which almost absorbed them into the rugged surrounding hall of Men, was banished when the leading envoy swept back his cloak to make clear that omnipresent, gleaming star of Fëanor at his tunic, its brightness like an ever-vigilant eye.
An awkwardness descended, as if the envoy was uncertain who, among the crowding huscarls and nobility, he ought to address first. There was a hint of desperation in his large, shining eyes as he cast his glance around for some means of polite social contact with the Ulfings. None of the sons of Ulfang were close enough; his Elven vision located Uldor in speech with one of the few women; Ulfast with another (evidently in promiscuity as in all else, the sons of Ulfangs led by example), and what looked to be her father or brother; Ulwarth nowhere he could glimpse, and certainly not the senile old Chieftain himself.
Then, by some stroke of chance, Lachrandir spotted the man he had earlier asked for directions, in company with his wife, quite nearby. "Good sir! I thank you for the service you rendered us earlier this eve," he ventured...
|