Pirin - Book II - Hairam the Queen

Chapter 2

A day later, Helewen had already prepared his hunting party, summoning his holdstead's hunters, then to embark his canoe, following the rivercourse down to the place where the dragon had last been sighted.

At a certain moment, Helewen's pupils were captured by a sudden glimmer upon the water surface, which he had caught from the corner of his eye. The Pirin's reflexes, like their sixth sense, are much quicker than most men, since they train them since a very young age. Therefore, Helewen was the only one on the boat noticing how the dragon, hiding in the reedbed, had just dipped into water, silent and curvy as a snake. Below the water surface, the dragon's wings, membrane-bound in their skin, acted as flippers, while their tail was used to steer. The beast's narrow nostrils were shut, its eyes covered by a semi-transparent veil, protecting them underwater. The large reptile thus became like a fish, feeling at home on that murky riverbed. The sand disturbed by the beating of its great wings made the water so muddy it was impossible to see the beast moving down there.

Helewen, though, had noticed the dragon. It only took that sudden glimmer of scales beaten by a ray of the sun.

Now the King's focus was even more impenetrable. Nothing could distract him. By resting a finger upon his lips, he commanded the other hunters to shut up and stop rowing. The quietness of that cold morning was ironclad. If he had been able to have it so, Helewen would also have ordered the crows resting upon the taller branches of the nearby trees to take a break from their crackling, since their shrill voices defied the silence's authority, as much as the teams of squawking ducks, a little way afar down the river. The King's fingers more firmly clasped the icy wood of the javelin, while the other hunters also got their weapons: daggers and knives, as much as keen-edged axes. Abruptly, though, the watchful hunters were all caught off guard: a sudden wave, and the canoe was thrown off upon its side, so much it was capsized, overturned, and broken! The dragon had come out of the water from below the boat in its devastating fury, soon to shut its frightening jaws upon the unfortunate people who had come to hunt it down. Its pointed claws had already seized the shoulder of one of Helewen's men, when the King tried to harpoon the mighty beast by the point of his javelin, but, alas, he missed the target, and the dragon snapped the dart, waving it hither and thither, before tossing it aside.

The piercing eyes of the monstrous winged lizard for a moment were stuck into the golden, bright eyes of Helewen, who was now seriously afraid to end up as a tasteful meal for the hungry beast. It was then that, unexpectedly and providentially, an arrow, who knows from where shot, hissed through the chilly air of that winter morning, making its way through the fading haze, eventually to stick itself, with lethal precision, in the middle of the dragon's forehead. The beast's pierced head, after a little while writhing, fell beside Helewen's shoulder, who witnessed the scene as paralyzed, unable to understand what had just happened. Finally sighing for relief, the King turned toward the shore, but there was nobody there to see.

“It was I saving you, Milord!”, a voice was heard, both timid and proud, shouting, from the shores, thick with dark trunks covered in musk and other climbers. It was the young Nhalfòrdon-Domenir. Helewen looked closer in that direction, and he actually recognized the profile of the wheelchaired boy, accompanied by trusted Dhaldèrien. He also saw Domenir had raised his arm, in order to show the bow he was carrying.

Seeing Domenir puzzled the white-haired, shaken King. How could he be the one shooting that arrow? How could he kill a dragon, piercing its head with such precision from so long afar?

“I told you to keep safe, within the estate walls! Why did you disobey my commands?”, the old Pirin shouted to his beloved foster-son. “And what about you, Dhaldèrien? I am talking to you! Why did you bring him here? It could have been dangerous”, he then told the young servant.

“But I have just saved your life!”, Domenir shouted in reply. “How can you even think about my disobedience in such a moment?”

Helewen was silent for a while, unable to speak. It all had happened too fast. He swam in order to regain the shore, alongside the rest of his men. Then, as soon as he had come out of the water, he came close to the couple, still shaking from the risk he had taken as well as from the unexpected cold shower, giving him shivers.

Some servants had meanwhile hastened to bring their Lord warm blankets and dry clothes to wear, and all were looking at the King's skin, worried he might lose blood, the shining, copper-coloured blood, mixed with divine ichor, running through the Pirin's veins. Luckily, except for a few scratches, the King was fine and well, totally unwounded. “Succour the others!”, Helewen exhorted them, also urging them to fish out the dragon's corpse, now floating upon the river surface as a lifeless puppet, soon to be brought away West alongside the quite currents. The dragon would be stuffed and exposed as a trophy in Magnolias Estate, while its precious organs would be made into medicines of great power...

Eventually, as his guts gradually warmed up once more, after drinking a few sips from the smoking infusion promptly prepared by his servants, Helewen came close to Domenir and replied: “You are right, lad, but I was worried for you. I ignored that...” He could not finish his sentence before being interrupted by Domenir: “That I could hold a bow? Yes. My mother taught me”.

Helewen smiled. “I forgot. Your mother was...” He stopped. After all, there was no telling she was dead. On the contrary, he still hoped in his heart of hearts she was still alive and well. He corrected himself: “I forgot your mother is the best archer Gaimat ever saw! Thanks, lad, you saved my life”.

That evening, beside the crackling fire of a great fireplace where Helewen and Domenir loved to stay up late and sort things out, the lad asked the old sovereign: “Milord, it has been a while since you last dictated to me your memoirs. I know well you were busy lately, and yet I cannot pretend I am not curious to learn how the tale goes on. Please, tell me what happened after you became the King of Lothriel!”

Helewen smiled and took a deep breath. “You are right, lad. It is past time we resumed the tale from where we had left it”. And, having said so, he clapped his hands in order to call for a waiting Dwarf, lingering on the threshold, and have him satisfy any of his requests. “Please”, asked Helewen, always proving very courteous toward servants, “fetch Nhalfòrdon-Domenir his pen and notes”.

The Dwarf, very much satisfied to have a chance to be useful, but mostly eager to hear himself the continuation of Helewen's tale, ran away and did as he was bid, swiftly moving his short legs and his pointed slippers. He came back soon thereafter, proudly flaunting the long handwriter's pen, and barely managing to hold the heavy paperwork, so much so that, as he had to bend in order to pass it to young Domenir, I shall be blessed if he did not lose his balance!

“Here, Milord!”, he confidently announced.

The lad released the Dwarf from his heavy burden, thanking him. He passed one hand over the cover's leather, almost caressing it as one could a beloved person, or a pet. Meanwhile, the valet had slinked below a shelf upon which an inkwell was found, but the height of the Gottilsi did not help him, therefore he looked around, searching for a stool that could ease his task. Helewen goodheartedly urged him not to bother: “Do not worry, little Dhurhar! I can do it myself. After all, I am fresh as a daisy, compared to my two hundred and forty years. And this very morning I hunted down a dragon!”

Thus, smiling, he got up, took the inkwell, and put it upon the little wooden tablet fixed to Domenir's chair's armrests. “Here, lad. Nothing can now stop me from resuming my tale, nor you from writing what you hear. Therefore, I shall begin to tell you what happened in the years following my coronation...”

She had left

CHAPTER II

There follows the account of the years following Helewen's coronation, as told by the latter and written by Nhalfòrdon-Domenir:

I still recall, as though it was today, one day as I stood on the wide balcony towering from the royal palace over the huge garden enclosed within the court. Such a thriving theatre of shapes and colours disclosed itself before my eyes, composed of majestic tree-tops, luxuriant ornamental shrubs, flowerbeds overflowing with corollas. In that garden, the most wonderful, rarest varieties of plants in the known world grow, blossom, and bear fruits, and one may listen to the songs of a thousand birds, ranging from the colourful parrots and paradise birds to the daring peacocks... An enchanting experience, capable of indulging one's senses so much that only a few others may compare. And yet, on that day, my disposition would not allow me to enjoy those pleasures... My spirit was elsewhere.

The sky looked like a jewelled canopy of embroidered silk, in changing hues of blue, decorated with fine tapestries of clouds. In the West, the celestial vault was still clear, but a stormy greyness, although yet unseen, was threateningly thickening on the Eastern side. Ominous roars of thunder were heard from afar, as swifts, busy in their frantic hunt for flies and gnats, were now flying low. The wind was not strong yet, but its occasional gusts foretold rain, temporarily awakening from their slumber the white banners cascading from the porches of the palace above the garden. Reanimated by those flutters of breeze, they would flaunt their brief flapping, not unlike the sound of sails billowing among quays in a dock, shortly after to return to their sleep.

My eye was caught by those flags, looking like dying fish on the hull of a fishing-boat, and the sky about to bring the storm, still without a single dark stain. In my heart, instead, darkness had already seized control over my whole soul, tearing me apart with a sadness almost catching my breath. Hairam, my best friend, had left. She had left the Kingdom before I could ask her to be my wife and queen. Before I could tell her I loved her...

When a year had passed since my coronation, she had asked me to follow her. She wanted to leave with me in search of the anvil which we might use to reforge the Crown of Sibereht from its shards, thus honouring the promise we had made to each other before the death of my father. And yet, when the time had come, I had flinched.

How could I, after all, have given her a different reply? Fate had brought me to Lothriel. I could never serve two crowns, I tried to explain to her.

“But what we have been given, Helewen, is the most important of all crowns! How can you ignore that?” she insisted. “And one of its halves was given by the Queen of Hagardtyh to you! To you, Helewen, in your very hands! Have you already forgotten? Did you also forget my grandmother Rirhos' journal, and the tale concerning the way the second half was found, preserved, and kept hidden? Were you not with me as we found out about this, committing ourselves to the task of carrying out what the others started a long time ago in the first place?” Her voice at times bounced about in its fierce, confident overtones, at times it would come down to a fragile, desperate, almost sickened wailing.