"I can not believe it."
These were Bard's first words, when Hannes Monrose told him what had happened. A Greenwood elf had arrived in Dale to deliver Roswehn's message.
Hannes had read the letter twice to be able to fully realize the situation.
On that piece of raw paper it was written that his daughter had chosen to live in Mirkwood and ... she had ... fallen in love with Thranduil.
But the most extraordinary thing was that the mighty Elf King seemed to have returned the feeling: he had kept the girl with him in his realm, as a new companion.
Hannes was shocked. His daughter.
His Roswehn, who had stealthily left the house one morning in May, to begin a journey that was supposed to have Mirkwood as a first stop, and which had ended up there.
"Bard, we have to go there and get her back." he said, as he walked up and down through the great hall of the Royal Palace of Dale, where the king received emissaries from other territories and gathered the city councils. Monrose was upset and furious.
"I knew ... I knew it would have happened, I told Elrond, he convinced me that I was exaggerating ... it's my fault, I had to follow my instinct ... I shouldn't let her go!" he seemed devastated by guilt. "What will they do to her...those elves...those cursed beings!" he shouted to the ceiling.
"She won't come back ... my poor Roswehn is lost forever ..." Yohlande whimpered, sitting with her hands on her face. She had done nothing but shed tears, after having received the news.
"Calm down, she wrote that she was happy, I think, that should mean something." Bard tried to say, without actually believing his own words. That situation was weird, to say the least.
"Did you stumble this morning and hit your head, Bard?" Hannes snarled, forgetting for a moment that he was in the presence of his sovereign. "Damn...how can you tell us to be quiet? How can you just think that my daughter is really happy in that place ... in that ... forest!" Hannes put his hands on his hips, unable to stop. He was so agitated that Bard feared to see him fall victim to a heart attack. Hannes was old, and those sudden emotions could be fatal for him. "They kidnapped her! They kidnapped her ... Thranduil ... I knew that, that liar, he wants to fool us as he fooled my brother ..."
"Let me read the letter again, please." Bard said calmly. Yohlande handed it to him, afflicted. "She could not have written by herself, they gave her something, some potion to make her stupid ... My daughter can not be so crazy!" the woman complained.
The king again read the words written in black ink on the yellowish parchment. Roswehn's linear and clean calligraphy, however, did not suggest that the girl was in a state of confusion while she was writing.
Dear Mom, dear Dad,
it is difficult for me to write you this new letter. I curse myself for the agitation in which I will push you both with my words, but it is time you know the truth.
I left home to start a journey, you know. We talked about it a lot, you agreed. Greenwood (which I will no longer call "Mirkwood" because my beloved hates that name) was to be my first destination. It has become my second home instead. Here I found life, love, I discovered sensations unknown to me and of which I can no longer do without.
Here I found new friends, a new culture, and many wonders.
I wish I could describe the fantastic world in which I woke up, but not even in a thousand letters could I do it. This is my world now, and I do not want to leave it.
King Thranduil and I love each other. I know you will struggle to believe it, but it is so. I think he was waiting for me to come back to life, as I was waiting for him to start living. We met in the darkness, and we came back to light together. I'm happy, believe me. More than happy.
I hope I can come and see you soon, if he will allow me. For now I send you a hug, I know that an elf from Thranduil's escort will give you the message.
I'm fine, really, I hope the same for you. My best regards to Bard, his kids and Edith ... ah, please tell Edith that somehow she helped me in these months.
Also tell Sigrid that the blue dress is now her property. Tell her to be happy.
See you soon,
Roswehn
"Now tell me if this is the message of a lucid person, Bard ..." Hannes said "Look in my eyes and tell me that you really believe it!"
Bard could not lie to him. He knew Roswehn very well. Heck, she had grown up with his kids, basically! Ever since she was a child she had shown a lively intelligence and great logical sense. Sometimes, he was amazed by some of her reasoning, which showed a maturity much higher than that of other children. The person who sent that message was not Roswehn. It was an altered version of Roswehn, as Yohlande said.
Bard knew well that she had fallen in love with Thranduil, he had read about her infatuation for the Elven King on that sort of booklet she had in her room, that secret diary that the girl kept and that Sigrid had found. He had thought it was a simple crush, the silly fantasy of a young woman who had always been fascinated by magical creatures, who had never managed to have real friends in Laketown, and not even in Dale. A solitary person who was a little too inclined to get lost in dreams. Was it possible that something shocking had happened in the last few months in Roswehn's life, something that had confused her, upset her?
That Wizard, Gandalf, had visited Dale shortly before the Greenwood soldier arrived with the missive. He had confirmed that the girl was with the Wood Elves and that she was very happy. But Bard had the unpleasant suspicion that this was not the whole truth. He had read a strange embarrassment in the old man's eyes, as if there was a part of the story he was keeping for himself. He had long talked with him, in Dale one year before, in those terrible days of the battle of the five armies: Bard remembered the obstinacy with which Gandalf had warned him and Thranduil not to underestimate the orcs , and the frankness with which he addressed himself to the elf king. There was something he had not wanted to talk about, Bard was ready to bet on it.
On Thranduil, Bard had a clearer opinion. He had known him and had, in general, the impression that the Elf was noble and brave, however haughty and not very patient. Nothing had seen in him that had suggested some malevolent intent. Bard did not share Hannes's fears; he did not think, like Roswehn's father, that the king of the Elves could threaten Dale and its people. Hannes had been thinking for years that Thranduil was looking for a way to enlarge his personal treasure: moved by the frustration of not having a Ring, he constantly tried to fill his baskets with gold and silver, in an attempt to compensate. Of course, the kingdom of Dale had been enriched in the last year, and quite a lot. They had gold, silver and even diamonds in large quantities. But he could not believe that Thranduil could be so mean to kidnap the girl for getting a ransom, or something like that.
The Elf King had fallen in love with her.
That was the least plausible of the facts, according to Bard. He remembered the stubbornness of the Elf in wanting to get back the gems of Lasgalen, the damn necklace that belonged to his wife and that Thror had hidden in Erebor. Two thousand Elven soldiers were dragged to Erebor the winter of the year before, for that necklace. A conjugal love that had resisted over the millennia, a devotion to his Queen deeper than the ocean ... all finished? For Roswehn, for ...a human?
Bard watched Yohlande's desperation. And then, why was the girl doing that to her mother and Hannes? She loved her parents very much. Bard could not understand why she had not at least returned to Dale to talk to them, explain the situation by looking them in the eye. That was strange too.
Roswehn, however, was his subject, and until proven otherwise he was responsible for her.
"I'll go to that wood, I want to see what's going on." he announced to the Monroses.
"I will come with you, my daughter will not remain alone with those creatures, I swear it on my name!" Hannes said impetuously. "If she had written that she had fallen in love with a man, I could have accepted it, but not with an Elf ... not with him."
"For the moment I only want to know if she's alright, if she's fully convinced of this decision ... I do not want to interfere in her personal matters ..." Bard added, looking out the window.
"Personal matters ..." Hannes repeated with annoyance "...please! My daughter is not there by her choice, or I do not know Roswehn anymore!"
"He's going to hurt her, you believe?" Yohlande asked in a feeble voice. "D'you think he has seduced her ...?"
"Shut up, please I do not even want to think about it." Hannes said. His mind simply rejected that eventuality. "But if he did, his days on this Earth will end soon."
"We do not have to go there with warlike intent, Hannes, for now we have nothing but this letter, in which she says she is fine. There is no evidence that something happened to her. " Bard tried to calm him down. "Thranduil has recently given orders to re-start commercial trades with us, I do not want to make him angry. They told me he is paying our goods a higher price, I did not ask him anything, maybe it was your daughter who convinced him."
"Bard, if I had not known you for forty years I would say you lost your brain." Hannes answered. "You are my king, I should show you respect, but I'm stunned ... Do you even consider whom you are dealing with? A selfish Elf who has been thinking about himself and his precious realm over the centuries ... and his father was worse than him! Was not Oropher the one who rebelled against Galadriel and Celeborn? They are an elven lineage poisoned by presumptuousness and greed. An accursed branch of the Grey elves' family. Thranduil can not even leave for Valinor, did you know this? The gods of the Elves, the Valar, banish him from the Undying Lands." he said, angry. "And my daughter should stay with him? No, not while I'm alive."
"My only daughter ..." Yohlande whispered again, in her now incessant chant. "What are they doing to her ..."
Bard understood that he had to solve the problem himself. The two Monroses were emotionally fragile and if Hannes had gone with him to Mirkwood he would have faced Thranduil in a way that would have cost him at least a long stay in elven prisons. Or worse.
"I'm going to go alone, Hannes, and I do not want to hear protests." He said.
"NO! I'm coming with you, I will not sit here while my daughter is..." Roswehn's father exclaimed.
"I am your king, do not forget it, you know how much I hate to remark my role in this community, but now I am giving you an order, as your sovereign, stay here with your wife, and trust me. I will bring your daughter back. " He promised.
Yeah, but how? He wondered, looking at the warm light of the summer that was coming in the room, from the large windows. Roswehn, what the heck have you done this time?