♦
The long trip south towards Dunland with her grandfather gave Lheuwen ample time to realise that his intentions were genuine, his apology sincere. One evening, she was in a bad mood when they made camp for the night, somewhere in Minhiriath – tired from travelling under the dry sun, missing Arved, and berating herself for leaving him without saying a proper farewell.
Cunvawr poked the fire with a stick, throwing up sparks, and causing her to jump. He chuckled softly.
“Still worrying about your Northern man-friend?”
His tone wasn't mocking or dismissive. Even so, Lheuwen picked up on the subliminal message of disapproval. As a rule, the folk of Dunland did not marry outside the Tribes – seldom even outside their own locality.
It had been a sufficiently irritable day, and the jibe had become sufficiently regular, that Lheuwen didn't let it slide this time.
“So what if I was?”
Cunvawr picked up on her brittle tone, and hastily wound back his flippancy.
“I am sure – from what you have told me – he will wait for your return,” he redirected diplomatically.
“That's not what I meant. And it's not what you meant. Why are you trying to interfere with my choice? Did you learn nothing from what happened to my mother?”
Cunvawr flinched, but by the flickering firelight, Lheuwen could pretend not to see. She felt a twinge of guilt, a shadow of the pain she had caused him, and then a strange pride in knowing she deserved it. Cunvawr's daughter – Lheuwen's mother – had been a pure-blooded Dunlending, but she had married a man of mixed Rohirrim and Dunlending blood from the Stonedeans, in Western Rohan – Lheuwen's father – and even moved there to live with him. Their relationship had never fully recovered, until Lheuwen's mother's death.
“Lheuwen...”
She felt his eyes on her, and after some time, raised her own to meet his.
Twin storm-tossed seas, bright with pain. His voice trembled with suppressed emotion.
“I never forgave myself for – what happened between your mother and me. It took me a long time to realise my mistake... and by the time I did, it was too late. One morning, several years ago now, I woke up, and resolved to send for you all to come and live with the clan in Carreglyn. That was the very same day we received word of the fire.”
Lheuwen stared at him. He held her gaze.
“If I had been a little less prideful – a little less stuck in our traditions – I could have prevented all of this. I should have. I shall never forgive myself for that.”
Lheuwen dropped her gaze back to the fire, unable to bear the intensity of the pain in his eyes. It had been a long day.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
Cunvawr sighed. After a moment, he added on a lighter note:
“Anyway to return to the point. You do not need – and neither would you pay any notice anyway – to my approval or advice as to whom you should to marry – whether they be of the Ox-clan, another of the Tribes, Duvodiad, Forgoil, man or woman. I hope only that they make you happy. And whoever you choose, they will always be welcome in my cartref.”
Lheuwen processed this for a few moments. Then she rose, and came around the fire to sit beside him, and leant against him.
“Thank you. And I am sorry.”
Cunvawr placed a large brown calloused hand over her smaller hand, amber in the firelight.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. You were a child. I should have been there for you, and I let you down. I just... just want to try and make things right. If it is not too late.”
Lheuwen had always thought of her mother's father as being huge and powerful – a tower of strength; over six foot, very tall for a man of Dunland, well built and muscular, even at three-score years. But now she was sitting beside him, for the first time Lheuwen suddenly had a fleeting impression of his frailty – a vision of, perhaps, the child hidden within the powerful persona Cunvawr had built around himself.
She put her arm around her grandfather, and felt him lean against her, ever so slightly.
“It's not too late,” she murmured.
♦
