by Adam Roberts
‘Think,’ said Belend, his voice faint, ‘think I’ve got the exsanguination under control.’
‘Look,’ said the Pig. ‘I really am sorry about the, you know, eating your hand and everything. It’s just that . . .’
‘Will you listen to me, Pig?’ asked Belend, getting to his feet. ‘Will you hear me out?’ And he was much paler than he had been before.
And the Pig replied, ‘Alright, I suppose that’s only fair. But, just so’s you know, after that I will have to eat you. They won’t give me any more food until I do, and, well. You know. Pig’s gotta eat, after all.’
‘Listen to me, Pig,’ said Belend, looking woozy, as if he were about to pass out. ‘I possess the power to free you from this pit, and carry you far away from Moider!, into the wide forests of the north.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes,’ said Belend. ‘Forests absolutely stuffed with truffles, just lying there under the topsoil, waiting for your snout to uncover them.’
‘Oo!’ went the Pig, going all dreamy-faced. If you’ve never seen a pig’s face go all dreamy then you have missed something remarkable, believe me.
‘But you have to promise not to eat us,’ said Belend. ‘And you have to agree to come with us to the Court of Queen Eve before you get the free run of the forest. Deal?’
‘Deal!’ said the Pig. ‘Abso-pigging-lutely. Get out of here? Truffles for life? No question.’
So, with Lüthwoman’s help, Belend climbed up onto the hog’s back. And Lüthwoman climbed up to sit in a position in front of him, and she clutched onto the Pig’s ears; and Belend hooked his stumpy arm around Lüthwoman’s waist. And with his good arm he brought out, from his pocket, the small rectangle of parchment, upon which was written ‘Get ye Gone fro Gaol’.
‘Here,’ he called. ‘I play this card!’ And he cast it on the floor.
And they were released from their prison; the Pig of Doom rising into the air before the astonished and angry Orks, and floating past the tall tower of Sharon like something from a nineteen-seventies album cover. And Sharon’s rage was immense and terrible, but impotent; for there was nothing he could do. The Pig of Doom flew north, carrying its two passengers with it.
And the Pig said, ‘Wheeeeeeh!’ But not in a shrieking terrified piglet sort of way, more in a delighted, isn’t-this-fun manner.
They flew over the wasted lands of the south, where floodwaters still lay in great stretches; and over the swollen torrent of the River Raver; and they flew over the southern boundaries of the great wood Taur-ea-dorpants, until they came to Elftonjon.
And the Elves were astonished to see this Pig flying through the air, and more astonished to see it coming down to land on a stretch of turf before the margin of the forest, on the outskirts of Elfton. And they were even more astonished than this to see Lüthwoman, their princess, clamber down from the Pig’s back, helping the injured Belend after her.
Messengers ran to fetch the Queen, and she was carried forth on a silver litter, and placed before the Pig; and the nobles of Elfton gathered around these ragged and wounded travellers. Yet, despite their disdain, the fabled hospitality of the Elves was not abandoned; and the new arrivals were refreshed with elf-bread, elf-honey and elf-tea. Finally the Queen spoke.
‘I sent you, Belend of the tribes of Men, on a quest to retrieve the Sellmi, and I see you took my only daughter with you into this hideous peril. Is this your love for her, that you would risk her life?’
‘My love for her,’ said Belend, somewhat refreshed by the elf-tea, but still weak and pale, ‘is such that I cannot be parted from her.’
‘Have you brought the Sellmi? I do not see it.’
‘Indeed I have brought the Sellmi, your majesty. It is inside the belly of this Pig of Doom.’
Gasps ran through the crowd; for they were amazed and disbelieving. But the Pig, sensing that his moment had come, spoke up. ‘It’s true. Sharon had me imprisoned in a pit, and fed me the Sellmi, to keep it – as he thought – safe and hidden. But this Elf and this Man discovered his secret, and freed me.’
‘I asked you to bring me the Sellmi,’ said the Queen, angrily. ‘And instead you have brought me a talking pig?’
‘Not instead of, your majesty,’ said Belend, proudly. ‘In addition to. You did not specify that I was to bring you only the Sellmi and nothing else. And so I have brought you the Sellmi and a pig.’
‘But how am I supposed to get it out of the pig?’
‘With respect, your majesty,’ said Belend, ‘that also was not something specified in your instructions when you sent me on the quest. I have fulfilled my part of the bargain, and I ask that you now fulfil yours.’ And Lüthwoman did embrace him happily, and the two of them beamed smiles at the assembled Elves.
But Queen Eve was not pleased, and glowered. ‘It is true,’ she said, speaking slowly, ‘that I said to you “bring me the Sellmi, that treasure of Emu and you shall have the hand of my daughter in marriage”. And I must be true to my word. But I also swore that you would never marry my daughter – for, you are not one jot or tittle less obnoxious to me now than you were before you went away. The thought of you and my daughter together, of you living in the same house, of you starting a family – this cannot be endured.’
And she pondered for a while; for the oath of a monarch is not lightly to be cast aside. And finally she spoke.
‘I have decided: I shall keep both my oaths. Do you come to me to palter with me over the terms and conditions of the quest on which I sent you, Belend, son of Prorn? Then hearken.’ And her face grew dark as a stormcloud. ‘Belend the Onehanded, you yourself teach me the way I must go to preserve my oaths. You shall have the hand of my daughter in marriage, but the rest of her shall stay in Elfton with her own people.’ And she called for an axeman.
And tall elf guards tore the screaming Lüthwoman away from Belend; and he was too weakened by exertion and loss of blood to fight them away. And he collapsed to the ground, sobbing in frustration and agony.
So it was that Queen Eve ordered the cutting off of the hand of her own daughter. The axeman severed her left hand with a single blow of his silver axe, and elf healers hurried to bind the wound and staunch its hurt. And Lüthwoman fell into a swoon, and was lifted aboard the Queen’s litter and carried inside the town; and the crowd dispersed. And soon Belend was alone and weeping in the dirt.
And the Pig of Doom coughed discreetly, and after a while said, ‘So, am I done here? Only, I thought I might wander into the – you know, the forest and have a look for truffles.’ And he received no reply from Belend save his sobs, and so he departed into the depths of Taur-ea-dorpants.
And after a short space a messenger came from Queen Eve, and stood before the prone son of Prorn. ‘Belend,’ he said. ‘I carry two things from the Queen. One is this object.’
And he threw the severed hand of Lüthwoman upon the dirt before Belend.
‘The other,’ he continued, ‘is this speech. The Queen says she has fulfilled her obligations to you, and kept her oath. She orders you to leave this land, and never to return. You are a proscribed person. If any Elf sees you within these lands, they are to kill you on the spot. If you are still found here tomorrow at dawn the soldiers of the Queen will hunt you down and carry your severed head to the Queen. Begone – you are banished.’
Belend quietened his own tears, for he did not wish to cry before the insolent messenger of the Queen. And he picked up the hand of his beloved, rose to his feet, and departed from those lands.
The Seventh and Final Part of the Tale of Belend and Lüthwoman
Belend made his melancholy way north, eating mushrooms from the forest floor, and honey from beehives; and though the bees stung him in their miniature, multiple fury, yet he was heedless of that. He carried Lüthwoman’s severed hand with him at all times, tucked into his shirt.
He did not return to Manly town, for his grief was too great. Instead he made his way to the great amber lake of Lothlomondwisky, and dwelt in the
land of Pebles for a certain time, living with himself and with his sorrow only. And when men came to fish in the lake, Belend did not make himself known to them, but instead crossed the River Optik where it empties into the lake and crossed the stony land of Pebbles beyond. For he could not bear the company of others.
Winter came; and the wind became peevish and cold, and found the holes in Belend’s clothes. And a small, chill rain fell upon him. He clad himself in the skins of rabbits he trapped, working the pelts with flints and curing them in the waters of the Loth. And he ate the flesh raw, for he could start no fire in the constant drizzle. And at all times he kept the hand of his loved woman about him: and this, being elf-flesh, did not degrade or decay, but stayed pure and white, as if carved from ivory.
And one day, when winter had lasted so long that he had almost forgotten what it was to be warm, or see flowers bloom, Belend had wandered so far as to chance upon the Standing Stones that are truly called the Dragon’s Claws. For these monoliths, though they appear to sight and touch nothing more than great stones arranged in a circle, are in fact something else. The Dragon of the North, so the legend has it, carved the great Mount Ezumasrevenge with his own claws; and so mighty is this mountain that it broke the fingernails of even so vast a creature as the dragon. And the Dragon of the North shed his claws, and grew a new set; and the claws fell from on high and embedded themselves in the turf far north of Taur-en-Ferno.
Belend came to this place, and sat inside the circle. And he could sense the powerful magic of the place, for Dragons distil the greatest creative magic of any living beings. They made much of the world, and then they seeded the rocks and the mountains with life (and life that followed a complex pattern of developmental metamorphosis, I might add).
And in this place it occurred to Belend to bury the hand of Lüthwoman in the exact centre of the circle. And that night he slept over the burial site, and wept at having lost his love.
But in the morning he awoke to something strange and wondrous; for from the planted hand had grown a new Lüthwoman, whole. She was lying naked on top of the grass, with her hand tucked into the ground. And when Belend pulled her hand free of the dirt it was cold and dead as ever it had been; but the rest of this new-grown Lüthwoman was warm and quick with life.
His joy was so great it threatened to snap his own grip on life, making his heart stumble in its frantic beating, and a red mist passed before his eyes; and he embraced and embraced her, and wept, and howled his happiness to the winter sky.
It was not long, however, before he understood that although this creature possessed the physical form of his love, yet her mind was blank and her head empty: she had no speech, and made no sign of understanding. And Belend’s heart fell again. It seemed to him a mockery of the fates that his Lüthwoman should be taken from him, and this empty shell given in her place.
Still he took her with him, and dressed her in rabbit skins; and she ate hungrily as a child when he gave her food, but otherwise she sat silent and pliant, or walked when he pushed her, or stopped when he stopped. And they made their way south down the western edges of Taur-en-Ferno. Hope remained in Belend’s heart that this wraith might grow slowly to awareness, but many months passed and she was as blank as she had been at the beginning.
And on the west coast of Upper Middle Earth, Belend tarried. For he had decided what to do, but was uncertain whether he would be able to maintain the resolve to do what must be done. And he sat for long hours staring at the sea, with the mute simulacrum of Lüthwoman by his side. And he watched the sun setting, casting a sheen over the calm waters like a dew; and as the sun’s rim kissed the edge of the horizon, and red spilt over the rippled surface of the ocean, he was resolved.
He trapped deer in the sparse woodlands of the west with snares made of creepers and the boughs of trees; and for a rude iron blade he traded the carcasses of these with fishermen who lived on the coast. This blade he sharpened on the flat stones of a coastal stream, all the time with the simulacrum of Lüthwoman watching him non-comprehending.
Then he sat beside her, and spoke to her long, explaining what he must do, and saying how sorry he was, and how he would be as kind in his cruelty as he could; but she understood nothing. And then he took his blade, and took her left arm, and cut the hand from the arm.
She cried with pain and fought him, but he held her and dressed the wound with mosses and skins. And very soon the fit passed from her, and she seemed to have forgotten the pain utterly, for she became as blank and pliable as before.
Now Belend made his way east. And his time in the wilderness, trapping animals and avoiding company, had made him cunning in the ways of the wood, expert at disguise, skilled at moving undetected. And so he led the simulacrum of Lüthwoman through the trees of Taur-ea-dorpants; and one night he crept into Elftonjon. Although discovery would have been death, yet he evaded detection, and crept about the town with the silent copy of Lüthwoman beside him.
And he made his way to the royal palace, at the heart of the town. Here, in the shadow of an eave, he left the simulacrum of Lüthwoman sitting. And he climbed the flank of the royal palace, and slipped through a casement, and stealthily returned to the side gate, opening it from the inside. And he drew the simulacrum of Lüthwoman in through the gate and brought her upstairs.
This night there was a feast in the central hall, and although servants came and went, to fetch and carry, yet were the corridors and rooms of the palace mostly empty; and Belend was able to mount the stairs unobserved, and finally he came to the door of Lüthwoman’s chamber.
Here he put his hand in at the lock and opened it, and crept inside. Lüthwoman was asleep on her bed, but woke to hear his tread, and almost called out.
‘Hush,’ he said. ‘It is I.’
And she wept to see him, and they embraced. ‘But,’ she said, ‘it ith madneth for you to come here, for you will be killed on thight. And,’ she added, fingering his shirt, ‘what’th thith? Rabbit? That’th tho latht theathon.’
‘I have come to take you with me,’ said Belend.
‘I have dethired nothing elthe for long monthth,’ wept Lüthwoman. ‘But it cannot be! My mother would never retht until I wath returned to her. It would mean war between Elveth and Men, and an army of elvith warriorth would comb the landth of Upper Middle Earth until I wath retrieved – and you would thurely die in the protheth.’
‘Got that pretty much all,’ said Belend, nodding, ‘except for the last word. But it doesn’t matter. I have a plan.’
And he went out of the room and returned with the simulacrum of Lüthwoman. And the real Lüthwoman was amazed, and examined her double in great detail.
And Belend stood looking admiringly at the two versions of the beautiful Lüthwoman standing close to one another; and he meditated on the various possibilities it presented him. But there was no time to be lost with such idle fancies; they could be discovered at any time; and so he led the simulacrum of Lüthwoman to the bed, and made her lie down; and soon she was asleep.
And Belend and Lüthwoman crept out of the palace, and out of Elfton, and fled through the woods, and never again returned to that place.
Later that night the Queen sent a messenger to summon her daughter down to the feast. And the simulacrum of Lüthwoman was brought downstairs and sat at table and ate heartily; but she would answer no question, and make no comment. And the Queen, knowing something was wrong, ended the feast in confusion, dismissing her guests, and called the finest elf doctors to the palace. They examined the simulacrum of Lüthwoman, but they did not comprehend that it was but a simulacrum, and took it for the real individual. And so they told the Queen that her daughter had lost her mind, most likely with grief at losing her lover. ‘It may be, your Majesty,’ they said, ‘that she has lost all powers of speech, or of rational thought.’
And the Queen was greatly grieved, but try as she might she could not restore her daughter to her faculties. Over the months that followed, she tried herbs, and magic char
ms; she tried imploring her daughter, and hypnotising her after the manner of the Elves, but Lüthwoman remained as blank as ever. And the Queen said, ‘The glory has departed from the house of Bleary, a cursed house, for now my only daughter has lost her mind in the madness of love for a mere mortal.’
Of the real Lüthwoman, one-handed, with her one-handed lover Belend, this story does not tell much more. They fled together to the north, to the pleasant meadows and copses of the land south of the River Optik; and here Belend did build a house, and Lüthwoman did decorate it after her heart’s desire. And they traded occasionally with the Men of that area, and became known to them, although not by their birth-names. And they were married, and some say they had children, but others say not.
But Queen Eve had sworn that Belend would never marry Lüthwoman, and had said also that her own life would wither and die before her word was broken. And, though unbeknownst to her, yet Belend and Lüthwoman married after all; and she did sicken and grow thin. Though an Elf and not fated for death, yet did she grow closer and closer to death.
And eventually she died: a rare fate for an Elf, to die otherwise than in battle. And she was mourned by the Elves, for she was the inheritor of the line of Bleary. But amongst the Men she was not mourned, for her story had spread through the land, and mortals called her ‘Eve the Cruel’ for the manner in which she had upheld her oaths.
Some amongst the Elves did say ‘We should crown her daughter Queen, for she is the only remaining inheritor of the line of Bleary’. But others did say, ‘Her mind has gone, and her soul lost utterly; she can never rule the Elves.’ And so the Elves fell into division and confusion, and one party separated from another party.
So ends the tale of Belend and Lüthwoman.
19 I don’t mean a lady with, you know, a moustache or anything like that. I mean a human woman. But you had already worked that out, hadn’t you?