Tianwen·Magweth Pengolodh

, listening to them squeak and rattle, and thinking they could at least come and go freely. "

"One day, I was so hungry and tired and miserable that I was delirious. My eyes followed the tracks of the beetles. I could have sworn they were coming to me with that stupid buzzing and darting back and forth. Show me a way out. Maybe I'm crazy. I'm no doubt hungry enough to slip from my chains. I stagger into the dark, follow the beetles, listen to their chirping, feel the tune Better than any bird could sing. Those beetles, they didn't lead astray. They came and went through a crack in the mountain. I was so skinny I was able to squeeze my way out like a beetle. One leg was dead though , I still insisted on coming here.” After Rumir finished speaking, he looked at me sharply, “Do you think I’m crazy?”

When I finally spoke, I looked away from him and stared at my feet: "Sometimes my father talked to the birds and my mother to the hounds. I guess the native beetles don't talk?"

"Ah, they say too. Pengolod, that's a clever way of not answering questions. You say that, if I'm mad, you don't insult me, and if I'm not mad, and really assisting Turgon, you don't." Not insulting me. And you asked a good question. I'm sure everyone who's trying not to stare at me wants to ask the same question."

The steward had come out again, and while I spoke to Rumir he had to stand and wait, seemingly enduring a great inconvenience.Rumil called him over and asked me as if I were someone worth talking to: "Does this letter satisfy you?" I read the lines and said I was satisfied.

"Then give it to me, I want to add something." Rumir took out a sharpened charcoal pencil from his pocket, and unfolded the letter on the bench.He added a few smooth lines beneath my father's careful handwriting and the steward's illegible scribbled reply. "What do you think of my notes? Does it satisfy you? If you are not satisfied, the charcoal writing can be erased."

Rumir wrote, in the most formal and polite terms, asking my father if he would allow his son Pengolod to serve as Rumir's apprentice to Lord Vinyamaturgon's court.I crumpled the paper as I read the fine print: how I would serve (the menial errand described as "helping", the customary duty of an apprentice); what I would learn - language and song, history and wisdom , the making of books and scrolls, the fine calligraphy; and what he wanted me to make--assistant, teacher, scholar.

I have never imagined such a luxury.To do what I love most, to spend my days with books and knowledgeable grown-up elves, of which I will be a part.However, I can only do this by relying on this formidable stranger Rumir.His ugliness is frightening, as is his uncanny intelligence—he sees through any evasion.I looked up at him sooner than he expected and found him serious and sad.He was startled, and readjusted the expression on his ugly face to mocking indifference.I came back to my senses and said, "I hope to bring back my father's permission tonight."

Rumir smiled.When he smiled, despite his scarred face and thinning hair, he was genuinely an elf. "Tomorrow morning will be fine."

This proposal softened the disappointment of the general manager's unremarkable news and solved many problems in my family.In this way, Hingo Thiel's fiancé can officially become my father's apprentice.Hingo Thiel himself made my dress out of the dowry stuff.After a lot of fuss, I didn't really realize what I had promised until I stood in Roumil's studio with my belongings in a hempen backpack.

"Ready?" Rumir didn't wait for my answer, "I'm going to give you your first assignment as an apprentice. No matter where you go, work is the same thing, and you're already an experienced messenger. Rumir lit a small candle, and sealed a letter that had already been written and placed on the table with wax.He handed it to me and asked, "Have you heard of the lord of the Harp family?"

I was speechless, but nodded, because I was in awe—Rumir, by virtue of his knowledge, had won the honorable position of delivering letters to the lords of the knight families under Turgon's command.

"Send this letter and wait for his reply. He will be quite annoyed when he reads it. For I am going to decline his proposal to take his son Sargant as an apprentice. If he asks you who took his son's place , tell him that it is you. Can you do that?" Rumir asked.

Still speechless (this time from shock), I nodded again.

"It's hard. And it's human politics." Rumil sighed. "Like my learning, that's my job. I'm glad you seem to be able to handle it. I knew you could."

"But, my lord, why did you take me, when you could have taken a lord's son?" I asked, "just to annoy him?"

Rumil laughed: "I don't deny that there is this factor. At that time, since the child recommended to me was not satisfactory, I had to find someone else to accept it as soon as possible. A suitable person, I had to be able to say: 'No, I've got a candidate.' I found a bunch of kids who weren't suitable, and I happened to meet you, and you were defending your father's letter. Not the worst way to get acquainted with someone. You Think the written letter is more important than the steward. Your eyes light up when you read what you can be. You know what it means to work hard. And, you can look at me without flinching, while the other That child can't." Rumir waved his hand, "Go, you'll be back before evening."

I went.I've done my job.I managed to deal with the displeasure of the lord of the Harp family, at least with outward dignity when I left his timber-built residence with his handwritten letter.Rumir nodded when he read the reply. I never knew what the lord of the Harp family wrote, but I can guess.On the way to and from the mansion of the lord of the Harp family, I thought a lot.

Rumir tore the reply letter into three pieces and immediately threw them into the fire.The paper curled in the flames, and he said, "Now you and I have a match. Welcome to Vinyamar."

Thus began my apprenticeship.

****

By the time Pengolod finished his story, the belated evening of summer was turning to night.Summer days are long, which means it's getting late.The three of them said good night and went to rest.Pengolod lay alone on the bench that served as a bed, breathing in a sigh of relief.He'd done something somewhat similar to it before -- hanging out with strangers, voraciously learning a new language and the kind of life that gave it meaning.Pengolod wondered if they all saw themselves in the story.The stories are all true.Possibly, he thought.It was the remnants of the past that made him appreciate Alfwine and this interesting place to live.

His last waking thoughts were disturbing before slipping into the memory-woven dream of elf sleep.Accompanied by Elfwine, he temporarily stayed in Númenor, and he felt that this was as natural as being an apprentice to Rumir back then.But it was certainly not for nothing that the elven captain of the ship he left would give a warning.

days in romena

The next day, when the summer sun had just risen, Alfwine got up.Pengolod woke up too, listening to his irregular footsteps descending the narrow stairs.He didn't know the rules of the house yet, so he waited until someone knocked on the door.It was the boy Ah Tang who came, and said in a hoarse voice, "My lord, this is the water for washing your face." Pengolod opened the door and saw a porcelain jar full of water and a linen towel standing at the door, but shyly Ah Tang had already run away, clattering down the stairs.Pengolod took a serious shower, because he had already planned what he would do that day.He planned to have breakfast, then go out to spend some time in Romenna, and then do some writing work for Alfwine in the evening.He made up his mind and went downstairs too.

As soon as he got downstairs, he found that the store had changed.Alfwine is already at work.He wore a linen apron over his yellow jacket, with his blue sleeves rolled up, and sat drawing precise straight lines on a stack of paper.Alfwine first confirmed that Pengolod slept soundly and was satisfied with the room, and then explained: "We have a huge project here. They are building a big ship and need maps and logbooks. This kind of project is usually done by the larger transcribing shops, but the biggest shop has a fever epidemic, and it is said that the disease will attach to the leather and cloth, and they definitely don't want a little disease on the new ship. Gas. Like all good projects, this job came in late, but delivery was due in a week. I should have done a little more yesterday, but, oh, who could miss meeting an elf!"

When Pengolod saw the pen and the parchment, he was fascinated.He asked some questions about the logbook and the map, and how much Alfwine might be paid, before thinking about breakfast.Alf Weiner said: "On weekdays, we will have a formal dinner, but because I am not married yet, we will deal with it like a laborer for breakfast and lunch. There will be vendors coming to the door and selling in the morning The muffin woman, there's the pie cart and the fruit seller in the afternoon. But if you don't