An Honourable Assassin

Strike Two

"If you have any sense at all you'll stay well away from him," Lindir warned, voice low as his eyes darted about the conservatory as if someone would be likely to try and eavesdrop on the conversation. The Twins shared an amused look and then did the same, quite willing to play along with the singer's abrupt tendency to paranoia. Lindir knew they were teasing but didn't care. Once they were apprised of the facts they would be just as jumpy as everyone else in the house was.

"Why?" demanded twin one on the minstrel's left; he never could tell one from the other.

"Isn't it obvious? He's Erestor's."

"What do you mean?" queried twin two on the right. "We took careful note of the absence of any rings on either one's fingers."

"Doesn't matter. His people don't believe in rings. Symbols of bondage or some such thing. Haven't you seen them together? Erestor is verily glued to him."

"Well who in Mordor is he?" they asked together.

"One Legolas of Greenwood."

"You mean Mirkwood," snorted the one on the right. Ai Valar, a Wood Elf.

"Better not call it that in his hearing," warned Lindir.

"Fine, we'll call it Greenwood though it hasn't been for more than an Age," grumped the one on the left. He brightened noticeably and smiled to his brother. Aye, a Wood Elf, muindor, lovely and unsophisticated.

"And don't make any of those tasteless jokes about the woodland folk being mixed with dwarvish bloodlines," continued Lindir, "just because their King dwells underground. The tale told is that a man from Dale uttered that insult and our guest responded by ensuring the poor human will never reproduce."

"Ai!" The twins exclaimed and flinched in unison. "We would never repeat such a slur," they insisted.

"Now what is he doing here? Is he some sort of diplomat or a spy or what? We've never had any sylvan folk in the valley before," asked the one on the right.

"He's apparently on holiday. As to what he is, he's Thranduil's youngest son is what," intoned the singer with proper dramatic emphasis, pleased when this gave the brothers a severe shock. Lindir smirked. "Aye, not someone to toy with, I assure you."

"Toy with?"

"What makes you think we would toy with him?"

"We're interested and intrigued, certainly, but that hardly means we plan to treat him badly."

"Aye, he might enjoy our interest and attention, you know."

"You did."

Now it was Lindir's turn to wince and he also turned red about the ears, made another sweep of the room through nervous eyes and then turned them in imploring misery upon the brothers. "Please don't bring that up. It was long ago and I was going through a terrible ordeal at the time. Your father doesn't know and he'd be so disappointed in me if he found out, carrying on that way with his sons under his very roof."

"Oh, well thank you very much," the one on the right straightened up, bristly and defencive. "We all had a lot of fun and you weren't complaining as I remember it."

"And Ada certainly knows. During one particularly festive Yule several centuries ago, I had too much to drink and it slipped out," admitted the one on the left, a sheepish shrug answering the minstrel's expression of stricken horror.

Lindir buried his face in his hands. "I am ruined. No wonder Elrond has been suggesting I might like a trip to Mithlond."

"Don't be silly; he isn't mad at you and rather thinks you were seduced against your better judgement. We endured a lengthy and scathing lecture about misusing the trust of friends."

"Well, I was seduced against my better judgement," Lindir rose, angry and humiliated. "I don't know how I'll be able to face him. You two are just rotten!" He stalked out of the music room in a black mood.

The brothers stared after him in exasperation.

"What brought that on?"

"Don't know, but he's always been high strung."

"Aye, that was a challenging affair indeed. All the consoling and reassuring and flattery we had to generate."

"Not to mention the gifts."

"And the secrecy." There features reordered into identical grins. "That bit was great fun."

"Indeed! Now, what about this Wood Elf prince? Are we still in accord? Might prove disappointing in the long run."

"Aye, his conversational skills are sure to be lacking. He won't know anything about philosophy, art, or politics."

"Ugh! Lots of talk about trees and flowers and hunting deer."

"And he probably doesn't know how to play any strategy games."

"True, but as long as he's willing to play the Naughty Stable Boy I don't care." They exchanged randy smirks and lurid giggles.

"I doubt he'll like the sort of literature we're used to."

"Probably doesn't read at all," they snickered in unison.

"So what, I'm willing to overlook it; he's stunning. The physical attributes compensate for what he lacks in mental acuity. I say we proceed."

"Agreed, but this is King Thranduil's Precious, his Golden Warrior Son. That puts a different shoe on it."

"Aye, no wonder Erestor is hiding him from Elrond. That messy love triangle nearly brought the two realms to war."

"It behoves us to remove this troublesome source of conflict from interaction with our naive seneschal."

"Yes, we'd be doing a noble deed. Poor old Erestor's in over his head again, heart turned right-side-out by a pretty face and a tight arse."

"Sneaky sylvan seducer! Holiday? Pah! Thranduil obviously sent him here to dally with Erestor and make him fall in love with him."

"Now that's cold-blooded revenge, sending his son in to finish off his old flame like this."

"Poor old Erestor."

The brothers fell silent as they considered the situation. Why the Elven King would choose to do such a thing was troubling them, for they couldn't conjure a single logical reason for it. At last they decided that a spurned and broken heart was not capable of rational thinking and let it go at that. Their imperative was clear: to save Erestor and salvage the dignity of their realm by bedding the sinister Prince of Mirkwood and bedding him so well that he was disinclined to do anything else with anybody else for the duration of his stay in Rivendell.

"All right, then: strategy? Lindir didn't tell us much about him."

"We know enough; he's a Wood Elf." The twins shared a contemptuous sneer.

"So, we find out which suite he's in and go from there. Wild flowers instead of orchids and roses…"

"Hunting and riding invitations instead of music and poetry…"

"Sparring and archery contests instead of strategy games and intellectual discussions…"

"And no mention of inbreeding, miscegenation, or the Last Alliance. Ugh. He'd better be as good as he looks."

"Don't be an idiot; you saw him naked. Besides, we're doing this for Erestor and Imladris." That they were doing it for sport and because they were bored neither cared to acknowledge. Theirs were the sort of scruples which couldn't bear too keen a scrutiny.

All in all it was a good plan and the brothers had ample experience with various Galadhrim ellyn which attested to the positive results such a plot tended to produce. They quickly discovered a variety of obstacles impeding its execution, however, along with an uncharacteristic degree of cautious and tight-lipped discretion among the household staff. Nobody would tell them where Legolas was rooming, emphatically certain it was not in Lord Elrond's mansion. Many expressed surprise and incredulity over his presence in the valley. Most exhibited the same trepidation and vague paranoia Lindir presented and simply refused to say anything, not even Faelon, Erestor's personal secretary. The Twins were stymied in a way never before encountered and stomped from the Last Homely House in exasperated frustration.

They retired to the training fields and revised the scheme over an exhausting sparring match. There was no option but to track Erestor's movements, clandestinely of course, and pounce on their prey right before the seneschal's eyes. A daring and risky move, yes, but little else seemed plausible. The brothers refused to be reduced to juvenile tactics like lurking about the spa in hopes of running into the couple again, or hanging about the stables in order to casually encounter them whilst readying their mounts for a morning ride in the country. They were Lords. They were warriors. They were the famed Orc-slayers of Imladris, for menel's sake. No Mirkwood pseudo-prince of dubious bloodlines, royal in only the loosest interpretation of that term, would elude their attack and escape their clutches.

One thought plagued their combined consciences: what if their interference hurt Erestor more than a quick affair with the Wood Elf would? Perhaps the Assassin of Sirion was more than able to manage his emotions and turn the tables on his old nemesis in love, sending the little golden sprite home to his Ada with a badly bruised faer and a blistered heart? The moral dilemma ended when they decided it was best not to permit this contention to reawaken and put both realms at peril, or at least a heightened state of enmity. Thus, the Twins successfully and definitively rationalised the cunning designs of their 'lesser brains' and set forth with renewed resolve.



Shadowing Erestor proved a more difficult proposition than trailing hordes of stupid, though perilous, Orcs. The seneschal, usually an ellon meticulous in his daily routines, seemed suddenly to have developed a cavalier attitude toward his duties as well as the knack of instantaneous disappearance. The brothers would wait in the antechamber to his office every morning only to hear his voice murmuring instructions to Faelon on the opposite side of the door, the office side, but when they entered found him absent. 'Oh, he's just left,' Faelon would drawl, motioning in a heedless manner in the direction of the balcony, and would leave them there staring at the banistered upper-story porch in bafflement.

Where, exactly, could one get to from an enclosed balcony on the third floor? A thorough inspection of the small space produced no clues at all. Either Erestor had grown wings and flown away, leaped to the ground below, climbed up the side of the house onto the roof, or jumped from the rails onto the balcony next door. A scrutiny of the sky revealed no great eagles winging away toward the horizon. No howls of pain emanated from the lawn, along with no image of Erestor sprawled amid the flowers with a broken leg. The exterior stucco displayed no scuffing or marring from boots scrambling over its surface, and thus the brothers deduced the last option must be the correct one. Next door to the seneschal's study was the book copying chamber. It was empty except for numerous desks at which sat numerous scribes, all intently and carefully transcribing the contents of numerous books. 'Oh, you've just missed him,' one answered to the question put to the room in general, that being 'Where is Erestor?', and pointed with his quill to the open balcony.

This little scene was re-enacted three times before the Twins gave up the idea of letting Erestor lead them to the Wood Elf, certain that he was somehow aware of their efforts and would lead them only on a wild goose chase. Furious but also strangely excited and invigorated by the challenge, they retreated once more to the training fields to work off their excess energy. It was while duelling with deadly long knives that they arrived at the perfect solution.

"As the sons of the ruling Lord of Imladris, and Lords of the Land ourselves, we must host a State Ball in honour of our esteemed guest from Greenwood."

"Yes, Adar is so wrapped up in his work he's neglected the proper forms of courtesy and decorum. We must not let the reputation of our House be tarnished by his lax attitude."

"Aye, and for all we know this Legolas feels unduly insulted and will report the slight to his father. We can't permit Ada's unintentional indifference to place a burden of such magnitude upon Imladris."

Sharing gleeful thoughts over their combined cleverness, for Erestor could not ignore an official invitation nor refuse to tender the same to his guest, the Twins cleaned themselves up, commandeered one of the scribes, sent for a paper maker, and had the documents drawn up on lovely pale green, rough-edged sheets of leaf-shaped parchment. Of course, all the important folk of the valley had to be included and so the scribe enlisted two helpers to complete the two-hundred seventeen invitations in time to be delivered the next day. Because Elrond's sons had commanded the work, not one of those involved imagined their Lord knew nothing of the venture.


TBC

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