Galador, Lothíriel’s best friend from Dol Amroth and son of the former Steward to both her grandfather, Prince Adrahil and father, Prince Imrahil, had been in Aldburg for over a week. He had been charged with overseeing the exchange of the second most sought after residence in the old capital of Rohan and still its largest town, the mansion which backed on to the famed Elven Pools and shared the most beautiful grounds in the foothills of the White Mountains with King Éomer’s own family residence, the foremost residence of Aldburg. These two beautiful historic mansions had been built for twin brothers of the most noble family of the Eastfold, the Lords of Aldburg, direct decedents of the first King of Rohan, Éorl through his grandson Éofor, the third son of Brego, the second king of Rohan, and their heirs had lived in them both until this day, when Lothíriel would take possession of the second mansion from the King’s cousin, Lady Frea.
While the King and his sister Éowyn commemorated the old year in Rohan’s capital, Edoras, in remembrance of their beloved uncle, the fallen King of Rohan and his son, Théodred, their cousin, and all those who had died in the terrible battles of 3019, the Amrothians had invited Frea and her daughter Rian to spend the evening quietly with them before Frea would join her cousins at their mansion the next morning, at Éomer’s insistence, while Lothíriel, her brother Amrothos and Galador moved into Frea’s former home, which was to become the new Amrothian residence in Aldburg.
That Amrothos was already waiting with Frea for Lothíriel and Galador early morning when they walked over to receive the deeds and the keys to the new Amrothian residence was not such a surprise. It seemed evident that having escorted Frea and her young daughter, Rian, gallantly back to her old home the night before, he had not been so gallant as to escort himself back… Given her own behaviour with King Éomer, Lothíriel was in no position to comment. Today was not the day to reflect on one’s past but to look to the future.
Later that morning, the sound of hooves in the courtyard next door announced the arrival of the King and his sister to their ancestral home. Lothíriel did not deny herself the feeling of elation on knowing he was so close. It was only moments after hearing the King’s party arrive that she heard him calling for her. Too impatient to wait until he had changed from his travelling clothes, he had ridden Firefoot straight to her new abode and was being greeted at the entrance by the steward of the house, Yollander. She flew down the stairs and threw herself into his arms laughing.
‘Happy Birthday, my love,’ he said swinging her around him kissing her furiously. He took out of his tunic pocket a gift for Lothíriel, which she unwrapped excitedly. Her look of wonderment when she saw the contents of the leather pouch was all the reward he wanted.
He had found it when he had first shown Gimli the Glittering Caves after the great battle of Helm’s Deep. Gimli had told him that his dwarf kin in the North could fashion it into an heirloom worthy of the House of Éorl, to be worn by Éomer’s future wife. Gimli had been true to his word. The emerald within the necklace wrought in gold matched the colours of Rohan perfectly and lit up the green in Lothíriel’s eyes. He fastened it around her neck and stood back in awed appreciation at the combined beauty.
‘I will wear it all day,’ she said stroking his cheek gently with her hand.
He handed her another present, saying, ‘And this I would like you to wear until such a time I can officially place it on your finger…’
She opened up the second gift, knowing already it would be a ring. Attached to a gold chain to be worn around her neck, it had been wrought in the same gold as the necklace and was studded with emeralds. Lothíriel understood the meaning of the gift. She stood there, not quite able to comprehend that this was happening to her.
‘I will, my King. I will keep this safe until I return it to you the day before our wedding day,’ she promised. ‘I love you,’ she said with no pretence. ‘Even without the gifts, I love you,’ she added with a cheeky smile.
They walked over to the King’s house arm in arm together with Amrothos to greet Éowyn warmly. They had a letter for her from her own beloved Faramir, Lothíriel and Amrothos’s cousin and the new Prince of Ithilien, and gifts for both of them from their friends in Minas Tirith. While Éomer and Éowyn changed from their travelling clothes, Lothíriel went out to the stables to find Genting who had accompanied the King from Edoras.
‘Happy Birthday, my Lady,’ he greeted her with a broad smile. She tutted him and gave Rohan’s Master of Horse a huge hug, albeit taking care of his still injured arm.
‘I am Lothíriel or Lothi to you, Genting. You, more than most, know very well I am no lady!’
He laughed, ‘No, you are a mighty Princess warrior…. and I sincerely hope soon our Queen,’ he added looking troubled. ‘I share his concerns, Lothi. I cannot bear to think about what you will be doing in the next few months. It’s killing me, never mind the King.’ Lothíriel could only proffer him a wan smile.
He paused for a moment. ‘How is Hadán? I fear, he will never earn Gallend’s trust unless he dies defending you or the King,’ he observed astutely.
Lothíriel looked at him almost pityingly. ‘He is only interested in having your trust, Genting. He has mine, he has Tuor’s, and he has Maglor’s. Maglor and Tuor have been working closely together for these last twenty years, not always to my best advantage I might add. It was Maglor who told Tuor to secretly let my father know where to find me when I was hiding with Vadamir and Hella. Tuor made sure one of the Swan Knights who was visiting Pelargir saw me on stage and the man immediately sent word to my father. I am still deeply resentful; I could have been in Rohan years ago!’ She was only half-laughing when she spoke.
She put her arm through his good arm and walked out of the stables through to the gardens. She knew Éomer would find them easily enough.
‘Although Maglor was not welcome in Dol Amroth, he was there to protect me more than even my father ever realised. He came across Tuor almost as soon as I was born, this other mysterious visitor at the palace, but one whom my mother very much welcomed. It did not take him long to understand he was her brother and Maglor soon persuaded him to work with him to protect me.’ They had reached the large terrace outside the house studded with several unorthodox sculptures which were at odds with the classic elegance of the rest of the mansion. Lothíriel’s nose wrinkled up in distaste at the sight of them but ignored them to continue Hadán’s story.
‘Tuor always tested any new crew member to uncover the inevitable spies, often with Maglor on board the ship, practically invisible as usual. Hadán never knew it but they had both been studying him for six months before they made him the offer to become Cissy. They wanted me to have a female companion whenever I travelled with them, or someone they could trust me with if I needed to be away from them in more conventional society. They tested him time and time again before they entrusted me to him. Cissy could have killed me hundreds of times but the first twenty or so of those times, Maglor had been watching. Hadán is a very complex person, Genting. Incredibly clever, he has a brilliant mind, like Gallend’s but even quicker in his reactions. Hadán and I are connected in ways I cannot explain to you, and we were from the first moment we met. I myself do not quite understand it.’
She turned to him and saw Éomer approaching behind him.
‘That he loves you, I am sure. What I think he doesn’t know is whether you can love him. He knew you had no interest in him as a woman. And honestly, as convincing he is as a woman, I believe he feels most comfortable as a man, but there are considerations with that that only you two can decide.’ Éomer had stopped short of them, not wanting to interrupt. Genting turned sharply when Lothíriel’s eyes came to focus on Éomer.
‘My apologies, Sire, I hadn’t heard you approach.’ He bowed somewhat embarrassed.
‘Genting, there is no need to be so formal in this, nor indeed any other setting,’ Éomer said sounding somewhat frustrated with someone he had begun to count as family. ‘Éowyn has asked if you will join us for supper at my aunt’s followed by the play. Aunt Morwyn is most eager to meet you and we would all very much appreciate your presence.’
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That afternoon, Éomer took Lothíriel out to the island in the middle of the Elven Pools on one of the small rowing boats they stored in the boat hut next to the wooden platform on which Lothíriel had danced to the stars on the night she had spent in Aldburg with them in the autumn. The island was deceptively large. Woodland surrounded a large outcrop of rocks in the middle of the island, which was encircled by gently rising slopes leading to a grassy inlet on which a wooden jetty had been built to moor the little rowing boat.
He had a surprise for her. Taking Lothíriel by the hand through the trees he led her to a wide cavern inside the outcrop. Even though she had heard tell of the hideaway she still gasped in wonder when she entered. It was like stepping into the Glittering Caves only on a much smaller scale. The source of the water for the Elven Pools themselves was at the centre of the outcrop and heated by some deep-rooted fire within the mountains, the water was warm until it flowed into the lake and tumbled from one of the waterfalls beside the town. Stone steps led from the cavern upwards to an opening towards the top of the rocky outcrop. There were trees and grass within the open space, a hollow enclosed on all sides by beautiful translucent rock face. Lothíriel’s gaze alighted on a single large rock hewn into the shape of a bed in the middle of the stone chamber and tears welled in her eyes.
Éomer held her face in his hands and kissed away her tears. ‘I thought you could dance here, when you come back to me. I thought that if you liked it, we could spend our wedding night here beneath the stars.’
Her tears flowed. ‘I will come back to you, Éomer. This is the perfect place.’ She sat down on the bed and stroked it, still crying. ‘I must tell you something, something about this place, which may explain to you why… it will explain much. I only found out the full truth not long ago. It’s why Maglor did not come with me for today. He couldn’t bear the…’ she was struggling to control herself enough to speak. Eventually she sighed and asked Éomer to sit next to her while she told him the story of Maglor and his wife, Irielloth.
‘When I told of Maglor’s story after the battle in the Brown Lands, I left out a key part. I…. I… she did not want this part of her story to be known to the Elves. There is a reason, Éomer, that I am so connected to her, to Maglor’s wife. Her name… is Irielloth, the sister of Nimloth, the wife of King Dior of Doriath, mother of Elwing. Irielloth and Nimloth were sisters to Lord Celeborn, Lady Galadriel’s husband. It was Irielloth who rescued her niece, Elwing, from the sack of Doriath during the Second Kin-slaying, when King Dior and Nimloth were so cruelly slain. It was she who saved her great nephews, Elrond and Elros, her niece’s sons, from the slaughter of the Third Kin-slaying in the Havens of Sirion. Maglor told me he fell in love with her as soon as he saw her, as she picked up her sword to protect her nephews from him. All violence left him, her love for Elrond and Elros pierced through him and he has never loved another since.
He took the family into his home to protect them and gradually as she began to trust his love for the boys, she allowed herself to come to love him and they wed in secret, known only to Elrond and Elros, not even his brother Maedhros knew. She wanted no one to know she had betrayed her kin by falling in love with one of the sons of Fëanor.
Despite the devastation being wrought around them as the long war of the Valar against Morgoth raged, their foster sons grew to adulthood loved by their great aunt and Maglor as their own sons. But with the War of Wrath won and so much of Beleriand gone, Elros and Elrond left to search for new lands to inhabit, and Maglor and Irielloth were left alone. It was then that Maedhros came to demand that Maglor fulfilled his oath. Irielloth hid away from Maedhros while he was there, but she had already warned Maglor that if he made the choice to join his brother, she would leave him and find her way to Aman to live without him for ever more, as he had been forbidden to return. Out of love for his wife, he refused Maedhros, and Maedhros left confused and angry.
Maglor, struggling that night under the agony of his father’s accursed oath, said some things to her he has ever regretted, not meaning any of them, just unable to endure the pain of the curse. She left him to seek strength and solace in the woodlands close to their dwelling, meaning to return to give him what succour she could.
Only she did not return. Maglor never found out if it had been Maedhros or another malevolent being that had caused her to fall into a long sleep but when she woke and found her way back to her home, Maglor was gone. She knew he had left to retrieve the Silmarils with his brother. This she understood both from the things he had taken with him, but even more so by what was left behind: the Palantíri, all eight, including those that had been left to Maedhros, they were all there. That is how she knew for certain Maedhros had returned. But most tellingly, Maglor had left behind his lyre. He would never leave that unless he was going to war. It was his sign to her to forget him if she ever returned to their home.
The loss of him overwhelmed her and her mind in its all-encompassing grief erased every memory of him, and with him, all knowledge of herself. She wandered east, ever eastwards for decades. She was as one dead, but life would not leave her. She wandered until she came upon a stream in a forest of unsurpassed beauty, she rested there and fell into a long sleep. For how long, no one knows but she was happened upon by Elf-maid of Lórien, who on waking this sleeping stranger, was moved to pity at her evident distress and took her in to her household.
Éomer, this Elf-maid was Nimrodel, beloved of Amroth who became King of Lórien. As Irielloth began to respond to her new environment, they soon became devoted to each other. When Nimrodel left to join Amroth in Elhellond, our Elfhaven, Irielloth accompanied her, not being able to bear any separation from her friend. And she was with her when Nimrodel was told that Amroth had drowned.
There is a reason Nimrodel’s fate was lost to history. Like me, Irielloth was not adept at accepting loss. She had slept next to her distraught friend throughout that bitter night of grief but woke to find her gone. Desperately searching for Nimrodel, she followed her trail to the sea and spied her from afar on the beach beside what is now Dol Amroth, where we much later built the jetty from the Palace gardens. She ran down to the beach shouting to Nimrodel, but Nimrodel ignored her. I believe she could hear Amroth calling to her to join him in the sea where his spirit was waiting for her. And she did. She walked into the sea and let the waves take her.
Irielloth went mad with grief. Once more, she lost all memory of those she had loved and it was in this confused state that Imrazôr, Prince of Belfalas, my ancestor, found her in the woods, not far from what became Dol Amroth. He named her Mithrellas and married her. Maglor tells me then when he looks at me, he sees her as though she were the one standing before him.
This is the second Half-Elven bloodline of the prophecy that came to Maglor, Éomer, not the two Elven bloodlines of Arnor and Gondor, which, although I do have both, they are themselves of only one, that of Elwing and Ëarendil through Elros. This was what Maglor suffered so greatly to conceal. The house of the Prince of Gondor that was so important, was not that of Harondor, but of Dol Amroth.
Only a few years later, by pure chance Maglor saw Irielloth, on the shoreline. He hadn’t seen his wife for almost two thousand years, but he knew it was her from a long distance. She was standing on a jetty Imrazôr had built for her overlooking the spot she had last seen Nimrodel. She would often go there and be sad, so he built her the jetty to keep her safe and so he could see her clearly. The city itself came into being around that spot.
When Irielloth turned at Maglor’s call, he could see she was heavily with child, her second as it happened. He hid himself from her until he could find out more. He did not want to intrude if she had found love with one more deserving than himself. He had no rights to her after what he had done. But when he discovered she was married to a mortal, he feared for her grief. There were still Elves from Lórien in Elfhaven, who knew she had been Nimrodel’s companion and Maglor quickly found out the story of the strange, beautiful dark-haired Elf who had found her way to Lórien to be discovered by Nimrodel, with no memory of her past only a few decades after he had left her.
He foresaw that being married to a mortal man would only bring more loss and more grief to his wife than she could bear. He could see that Imrazôr was a good man and would love their children. Entranced by her beauty and grace though he was, Imrazôr felt so remote from her. He did not know how to make her happy and it troubled him. Neither Mithrellas nor her husband were happy in their marriage, however much they cared for each other.
Sensing Maglor’s presence, she became restive and heavy with child though she was, she began searching for him, not that she understood that is what she was doing. Her time came and she gave birth to a daughter. It was only then that the horror of her situation came to her, that she would love this child as she did her son, only to see them become old and die. So, she left, she abandoned them and she ran. Of course, Maglor tracked her, soothing her in the only way he knew. He sang. You have never heard Maglor sing. Excepting the Valar themselves, there is no finer voice in Aman, never mind on Middle-earth. I know I can sing, Éomer, but when I hear Maglor, I feel that my voice is but an irritating squeak. I feel that I could be hearing the very voices of the Valar when he sings, only Maglor tells me that if it is any consolation, he feels that his voice is but the same irritating squeal by comparison.’ She laughed in wonder at such a sound. ‘Mithrellas followed that voice. They walked north and west. And as she followed the voice and the song, she began to remember who she was.
They crossed the White Mountains and came here, Éomer. Exactly here. To this island. And by the time she entered the cavern below us, she had remembered everything, and that she loved him even more than before.’
Éomer had patiently listened to the story of his beloved’s ancestress, finally understanding her - her resilience, her strangeness, her strength and vulnerability. The mists that had shrouded her from his inner sight were lifting and he felt he could finally reach her.
Stroking his face tenderly, she continued, ‘It was Maglor who fashioned those stone steps you see there, and this bed we are sitting on.’ The tears had begun to flow once more as Éomer looked around him comprehending for the first time the truth of the name the Elven Pools and why Aldburg had affected her so deeply. It was in her bones as much as it was his, this place, his hometown.
‘So when you thought this is where I would want to spend my wedding night with you, there is no other place I would rather be, although’ she added practically, sniffing through the tears, ‘since we do feel the cold, unlike the Elves, perhaps we should wait for more clement weather than now?’
He laughed through both their tears and pulled her close to him. She moved to face him on the bed sitting on his lap her legs tucked around him. It was indeed chilly.
‘How am I going to keep myself from you, Éomer King,’ she whispered into his ear as she nuzzled her cheeks against his, his nose gently rubbing against hers, her lips nibbling his face until his lips found hers.
Their eyes held each other’s gaze trying to find a way they did not have to part.
‘I can’t let you go,’ he said finally as his gut clenched into knots.
‘You have to. You know this. You have sent countless men into battle, wrenched from their lovers, sons from their parents and they had to go. Their pain was no less than ours. We owe it to them. We have debts to pay, you and I, for those who have gone before us, who did their duty. Maglor knew as soon as my mother married my father that any daughter of that liaison would be the one who would have the best chance of fulfilling the prophecy. I can do this. You must have faith in me.’
They stayed for a long while, savouring every caress, every kiss. As he rowed her back to the wooden platform in their shared garden, she wondered if she would be able to leave him if they made love as they both patently wanted to. Did she want to die never having experienced that kind of love? But if she did, would it make her weaker, less effective for the role she had to play because she would not be able to put him out of her mind? Would he suffer more because he would know what he had lost, or would it be better for him not to have known? Or was it enough to feel the love they had now, the emotional love without the physical? She had no answers, only that when they kissed to leave for their respective residences to change for supper and their evening’s entertainment, she knew that he had been thinking exactly the same thoughts.
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It was only just darkening at dusk when the party made the short walk from their adjacent residences to celebrate Lothíriel’s birthday supper at Lady Morwyn’s. Two more surprises awaited. The first was the unexpected presence of Lady Morwyn’s great friend at the Court of Dol Amroth, Lady Adriel, her father’s former mistress, with whom Amrothos seemed to have recently formed a close bond. Amrothos took his sister discreetly aside to explain his newfound friendship. He had been surprised to discover that Lady Adriel was, in fact, Lady Morwyn’s cousin; the daughter of Éomer’s maternal grandmother, Morwen Steelsheen’s younger sister who had scandalously eloped with a married nobleman. Her parents had lived together happily but in disgrace, a situation Adriel had no relish in sharing. Before she was even twenty, she had found herself a much older husband, who found her fascinating, exciting and entertaining. That he was a very wealthy merchant who had no interest in her physically suited them both well, as long as she was discreet in her affairs. He was a fond and indulgent husband, and she was an intelligent and commercially astute wife.
Adriel’s affair with their father had occurred when Prince Imrahil had been very young and it had been his first and only liaison, well before his marriage to his sons’ mother, and an affair for which his first wife had been most grateful, as Amrothos had subsequently found out from his father. Adriel had taught Imrahil much about how to make a woman happy, and not just physically. After their marriage, Adriel became good friends to both husband and wife. Her own husband had died around the time Imrahil’s second son Erchirion had been born, leaving her with a fortune, even by Dol Amroth standards, as well as a penchant for younger men, and with no inclination to marry again.
Amrothos had learned a great deal from her about the time before he was born. Adriel had felt more keenly than most the change at the court and had been wary of Belegond, the newly appointed Steward to the Prince of Dol Amroth, and even more so of Belegond’s vicious wife, Melian. She heard the rumours and gossip which so undermined the trust and goodwill of those around her. Indeed, she became one of the main recipients of malicious innuendo and spite, but she had proved skilful enough to ward off such insidious attacks, mostly owing to the strong relationships she had built up over many years in Dol Amroth. Amahlia had no such defences and having been informed of Adriel’s affair with her future husband in the most unflattering of terms, Amahlia never truly trusted Adriel, much to the lady’s dismay.
This story Lothíriel had known for some time, ever since the malignant presence of Belegond and his daughter Amedlan had been removed from Dol Amroth, Lady Adriel had formidably stepped into Lothíriel’s life, as she had wanted to years earlier, at the secret behest of the great Lady Unwin. Working in concert behind the scenes to combat a threat they sensed but could not pinpoint, these three remarkable ladies of Gondor and Rohan: Unwin, Adriel and Morwyn had been close friends for decades, a friendship formed after a year spent together in Minas Tirith in the days of Ecthelion II. Lothíriel was only just beginning to piece together how influential each had been in their fight against the darkening shadows threatening their lands. She was glad that Lady Adriel was reclaiming her rightful place within the family of the Prince of Dol Amroth.
And now she had the great privilege of making the acquaintance of the last of the triumvirate, Lady Morwyn, whose past she understood the least. Snippets of conversations with different people she had come across during her time in Rohan were creating a possible history, and a possible future, if her intuition was correct.
Lothíriel’s gaze rested on her great friend and mentor from Rohan, Delwine, who was in deep conversation with the Lady. It had been clear from her first supper at Lady Morwyn’s months ago that they were good friends, but she felt something had changed in the intervening months. During their travels through the Wold together Delwine had confessed that when he had been a young man he had lacked the courage to ask for the hand of the only lady he had ever loved, and as a consequence, he had lived unhappily for half his life with a wife he had settled for out of convenience until she died a few years ago. Making mistakes, he had told her, was part of life, learning from them was a choice. She hoped he had learned enough to not make the same mistake again and end his days with a life only half-lived.
Lothíriel did not want such a lifetime of such regret, but then if she failed in her task, her lifetime would be very short.
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The stage had been set up in the grounds of Lady Morwyn’s house, just for the winter. Delighting in company, she had through the dark winter nights been enjoying hosting her many friends at her home before they all made their way to the temporary theatre on her estate. It nestled very conveniently on raised ground protected by the contours of a hill matching a perfect semi-circle around the stage. In honour of Lothíriel’s birthday, the troupe would stage a new play, so the group walked the short distance to the seats in front of the stage in excited anticipation.
The play was a triumph, ‘A Yule Tale’, a story of salvation through love lost and found, a tale with greater resonance for some of those present than many there knew. As the players mingled with Lady Morwyn’s guests in the main house at supper after the play, surrounded as she was by those she loved, all enjoying themselves immensely, Lothíriel could not remember a time she had felt such peace. She was too wise and experienced not to understand this level of happiness could not last; it was a gift of the present, one she wanted to absorb into her being and lock into her memory forever.
Through the briefest of glances much can be exchanged when the two parties know each other well enough, and Lothíriel and Delwine had developed a keen sense of interpreting the other’s wishes. They both had something of import to say to the other. Delwine delicately pulled her into a quiet corner.
‘Lothi, I do truly hope that you and the King have finally come to your senses and will be married…’ he took a short breath in, meaning to continue but was interrupted.
‘And likewise with you and Lady Morwyn: are you to be married or are you just having an affair?’ Lothíriel countered tartly.
They both eyed each other up, neither willing to concede first, before bursting into laughter.
‘Yes,’ they said at the same time.
‘Well, which of the two options are you?’ she asked partly scandalised.
‘Both!’ he replied brazenly. ‘We would have announced it tonight, but this is your birthday and well, we were hoping you might make your own announcement….’
‘We can’t, Delwine.’ Lothíriel replied, suddenly serious. ‘Those who should know will all know soon, and naturally that includes you and Lady Morwyn. Éomer was intending to tell you both formally tomorrow.’ She took his hand and held it firmly and said, ‘I have to go to Sennebar.’ He tutted unhappily and frowned. ‘I have to go. There is a risk, I cannot deny it, but it would not be seemly if I go as the future Queen of Rohan. And then, of course, as you know better than most, I need to go north for six months. Irrespective of what I may find there about my past, I need to do this for Aragorn. Arnor is, by all accounts, desolate. That I cannot do as the acknowledged future Queen of Rohan. It’s not fair on Éomer. It’s not fair on Rohan to have their prospective Queen gallivanting off around Middle-earth for what it likely to be a year… I cannot do it. You know this.’ Delwine bowed his head in reluctant agreement.
‘You had better return to us, Lothi. Our future without you would be too much diminished. I don’t even want to think about that. How long will you be staying with us before you have to leave? I will see you tomorrow at least? Morwyn and I will tell Éowyn and Éomer in the morning.’
‘Yes, we will see you for lunch at our house as planned, but you must tell me now about you and Lady Morwyn, it was she, was it not, who broke your heart before you married your wife?’
‘No, Lothíriel,’ he groaned shaking his head slowly, ‘I was a fool. It was me who broke her heart, with my insecurity and doubt. I listened to poisonous words instead of following my heart and I…,‘ he sighed deeply, releasing decades of regret, ‘it will have to wait, tonight is not the time to tell you our story. It is enough that we will have whatever is left of our lives together and we intend to live them even more intensely than before.’
Lothíriel raised her hand to his shoulder and nestled her forehead briefly on to his in a gesture of compassion.
‘And for this I commend you; none of us here know what the future holds for us. This moment, this moment we must savour, and soak up the joy and the love we have now, it is that which will sustain us when the light fades and darkness falls.’