‘Touch my world with your fingertips’

By Ivriniel

This is a not for profit work of fan fiction based on the characters of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien. Ancir, Caranthir and Calgir are my own creations. E.

Dedicated to Carolyn Golledge, who through her own writing reminded me why I it was that I first began to write. I.

Houses of Healing; Minas Tirith

“She’s the King of Rohan’s sister!” Ioreth hissed and gods, would this woman ever have a set of dentures carved that actually fit her? Having a conversation with Ioreth was like being downwind of a waterfall in spate.

“Well, my hearty congratulations to them both, see you this Tabard, old woman? I wear the White Tree, not the White Horse, and, no harm to her ladyship I am sure, but my duty lies with having our King heal our Stew…our Stew…Faramir.”

Ioreth laid aside what Boromir had called her ‘screech owl’ mode and her features softened as she touched Ancir’s trembling hand.

“There, my lamb, has no one thought to make you a cup of sweet tea? When did you learn he had passed beyond the veil?” Ioreth realised that Ancir, childhood friend and Adjutant to Boromir, had to have heard of the passing of his beloved Captain General, for that was why he could not form the word ‘Steward’.

Steward, given that Denethor had also passed, in spectacular fashion, ought to have signified that Boromir had succeeded his father. Sadly, Boromir had gone from them also. Ioreth fervently hoped, to a better place, and behind him the golden heir of the House of Hurin had left a very tragic, very lost, Lord of the Vale of Flowers, Ancir of Lossarnach.

“No, none has, you look to me like one in a night terror. Did you even know I hail from your lordship’s vale? Imloth Melui?” Ioreth asked as she drew the new Lord to the Fiefdom of Lossarnach to a chair, and there she settled him, fetched a blanket, and draped it about his shivering form.

“Boromir…” He whispered.

“He is gone, my lord, as is your own sweet father, Forlong of blessed memory, Eru take them both into his ranks with honour, and you shall never speak their names with ease if you do not…ah, weep, that’s my little one, come to old Ioreth…there…there…!”

Ancir howled like a wild thing with its foot caught in a snare; gave vent to such grief as made Ioreth visualise a wolf gnawing its own hind leg off to escape its torment.

Boromir had been more than a friend. He had been a brother…yes, a brother!

Ancir’s grief came to a shuddering halt.

“This is self-indulgence of the worst kind!” Ancir spat as he scrubbed at his reddened eyes.

Sensing a little earthy humour, such as Boromir would doubtless interject about now, was appropriate, Ioreth snickered and said:

“I have witnessed worse ‘self-indulgences’ after so many years tending wounded soldiers. At least both your hands are above the blanket….cackle!”

“Mother Ioreth!” Ancir was scandalised.

“Pish!” she snorted “You are as innocent as a fox in a hen house and I have sped up a heart or two in my prime. Tea!” She pointed one bony, arthritic, finger skywards; an ever present mental prompt to her failing memory.

“Faramir needs the King to attend him. There is none other to fetch him back from his wanderings!” Ancir persisted.

“The King cannot leave the Lady Eowyn. I really believe he cannot. He seems somehow…joined…to her soul and I imagine he must first surface from wherever her soul is at present. Calgir surely has been to attend to Lord Faramir?” Ioreth said gently.

“Why, I imagined so, surely Boromir’s own physician…” Ancir mumbled as he stood and gave back the blanket.

“No tea then, I see in your eyes that you wish to be off and hounding the poor wretch. Go, and if you have need of a brew come back, the kettle sings the day long. ‘Tis all that sings in Gondor at this moment.” Sighed Ioreth.

Ancir paused, took her hands between his own and kissed them reverently. She was old, and her hands were gnarled, but she had not always been so. What she had lost in beauty she had gained tenfold in wisdom, and Ancir had just now come to value wisdom, now that so much beauty had been laid beneath the cold soil of Gondor.

Wordlessly he bowed and left her as he went to track down the multi-faceted Calgir. Ex-Swan Knight, turned healer extraordinaire. He was at least as good as the Senior Physician of the House of Healing, the legendary Caranthir himself.

“…’tis but a scratch you whining pustule, I have men with limbs hacked off to tend, and you bring me a splinter?” Calgir growled.

The sound of a foot encased in a soft leather slipper, connecting to a Page’s backside, rang surprisingly loud in the treatment bay of the Healing Houses, and Ancir actually laughed.

He had thought never to laugh again upon hearing that first his darling father, Forlong, had fallen on the Pelennor and later that Ori, Lord Boromir, was lost too.

“One despairs.” Calgir sighed as he rubbed his eyes tiredly, and were he a child, he would be put to bed for a nap, with a glass of warm milk inside him.

“Faramir.” was all Ancir said.

“I can only aid those who wish to be aided, my lord. He has made his decision to leave us. I suspect you have guessed as much?”

“He cannot be allowed to leave. He is needed here.” Ancir wept, and his see-sawing emotions refused to be ordered today, no matter what kind of fool he called himself.

“It does not work quite like that, Ancir. He is broken on so many levels. Physically he is better than he is mentally. He is grief stricken over his father. Such loss is compounded given the method the old Steward chose, or, more probably, was informed from beyond the seeing stone to take! I believe Lord Denethor did not order his own thoughts in those last hours. But for Faramir to survive, he must actively wish to do so.” Calgir said tiredly.

“Then help me persuade the king to tend him. Please? We need to see one member of the House of Hurin survive, surely?” Ancir hissed, and now it was Calgir who broke. His shoulders shook in silence, and then he mewed like a stranded kitten, and why had Ancir not recalled how this man and Boromir had been so fond of one another?

“Oh, forgive me, of course you did try; for Boromir.” Ancir sighed as he drew the tired healer into an embrace and there Calgir settled his head against the broad shoulder still wearing the heavy Pauldrons of war.

“Hush. I had no right to speak so sharply to you. I can hear Boromir cuss from here. Cannot you? ‘Bollocks, man, you have upset my leech-ling; I ought to joint you like a hare, Ancir, you dunce!’ He loved you.” Ancir whispered and now the damn burst and Calgir wept.

So much blood, so much death, so much for so few healers to cope with, and so much guilt that so many died from not being tended, simply because there were too many to tend.

“You are worn out. I can only guess how this has taken Caranthir.” Ancir sighed.

“He is broken. He lost his beloved half-brother in dreadful circumstances. He saw Denethor’s corpse and it snapped something inside him. He is resting in his rooms with his cats, all he has left now, with one nephew gone, and the other in the queue to pass beyond the veil. I am close to Caranthir, very close, he is like a father to me, but still I am not his own flesh and blood.” Calgir sighed.

“Then make him accept you as though you are. He is too valuable to lose, and I do not speak merely of his healing abilities. He has no need to fear for his annuity now that Denethor is gone. I know that he inherits Boromir’s merchant fleet, and they generate a healthy return plying their trade. He is not destitute. Quite the reverse. Now, I must go to this King, and, gods forgive me, but to be worth all of this he indeed must be a paragon.”

“Allow me time to compose myself and I shall join you in Faramir’s chamber.” Calgir sighed.

“Ioreth has a singing kettle.” Ancir called over his shoulder.

“Ioreth is a singing kettle!” Calgir snorted “The birds do shing in May tra-la!” he sang in a screeching soprano that even fitted in that lisp from those too-big wooden dentures and Ancir could be heard guffawing as he left the room.

There he was in person, the one who was lord of them all, Aragorn, the gods help them all.

Ancir hoped he would come to change his mind over time, but at this moment, he felt nothing for this lacklustre man, who was not even spectacular to behold in his battered leathers and that ratty hair.

‘This is Isildur’s heir?’

Oh, good gods, where had that thought come from?

It was a fair comment though; given the fact the man looked to be so ordinary. Ancir bit back the venom that bubbled just beneath the surface of his consciousness. If this man were ten foot tall, built like a god, with flames of sun for hair and eyes like jewels taken fresh from Smaug’s hoard, still he would not eclipse Boromir. Not to Ancir.

All at once Eowyn began to breathe again, and her distraught brother with her, and oh, poor dead Theodred, this was to have been his place, to be Rohan’s King, and this puppy, thirteen years Theodred’s junior, stood in his stead. Theodred of Rohan, gone to his ‘Long Fathers’, unsung, barely mourned and the one he had called his shield brother, Boromir, fallen but a day apart from him.

Aragorn’s newly re-focused eyes swept over the copper haired man waiting patiently by his side, and the sight of those golden/chestnut/amber eyes, Boromir had teased to the bitter end they were topaz, arrested Aragorn’s interest.

“Yes?”

“Your Steward has urgent need of you…sire.” Oh, but the word had tried to crawl back down Ancir’s throat. He did not wish to laud this man…was this, then, the long awaited heir of Isildur’s House?

“Many have need of me.” Aragorn sighed wearily.

“Many have need; but few have fought your corner in the nine hundred odd years since your House left this land for another, and fell in ignominy, at the Gladden Fields. I rather think Faramir of the House of Hurin comes ahead of the many.” Ancir, then, was rendering most passionately, a potted history of where the line had been and where the line was drawn.

To his credit, the king did not attempt to lessen the worth of the House of the Stewards, then again, Ancir’s fist was about his sword, but that was not what held Aragorn’s attention. A memory of Boromir, dead at Amon Hen, flitted through his mind.

“I shall come.” Aragorn said wearily as he settled a blanket over Eowyn, smiled, then stood and followed Ancir.

“You are his anchor.” Aragorn said softly as they walked the corridors together. “He spoke of you often.”

“I was his anchor.” Ancir said bitterly “All the good are fallen and…”

“…all the dross has floated to the surface?” Aragorn asked, and as those grey eyes took hold of Ancir’s eyes, it was the Lord of Lossarnach who drew free first. A hand settled upon Ancir’s shoulder, and warmth radiated from it most eerily. “Still you are his anchor. He needs you now to hold his ‘little one’ firmly to these shores. I shall do what I can; but you are the one who connects him to Boro-mir.”

None other ever would say that name so sweetly.

It occurred, belatedly, that this was the one in whose arms his beloved lord had died. Ancir shivered. This…man…this king…had been the one to hear Boromir’s last words.

“Majesty…forgive me…I am acting through grief!”

“Later.” Aragorn said softly and as he spoke, he reached a warm hand and delicately tucked a strand of the lank copper hair behind Ancir’s ear.

Such peace flowed through Ancir that he closed his eyes and then opened them abruptly as a voice he had come to recognise piped up from close by his side: “Strider, come quickly!” Pippin pleaded.

“I am coming, even now, Peregrin Took, Guard of the Citadel, and, I hear, the one who saved Gandalf.” Aragorn praised.

“Eh? Oh, aye, so why are we stood here when Faramir needs us? You found him I see, Lord Ancir, good work; I knew you would carry more weight than me. Well, mostly everyone does, except for Frodo, and he’s a picky eater even when he’s not burdened by a ring of power.”

“Pippin.” Aragorn said with a sigh.

“Aye, I know shut up!” Pip said with a rueful lift of his shoulders and now he mimed tying a bow made from invisible string to seal his lips.

Aragorn shook his head and led the way to the chamber that held Faramir.

Faramir, who was rambling from fever: “…ask of me to stay…you who are even now…no…it is not fair to ask it…you who are even now…in a better place…”

Faramir, walking in his fever through a place they none of them could see, and arguing with one they could not hear. Sweat ran in rivulets from the Steward’s brow, Ancir was reminded of the map of Lebennin with her five rivers, well, that was what Lebennin meant, five rivers…and he was loon to be considering a map and such trivia at such a time.

Aragorn sat on the bed and laid one hand upon that fevered brow. Instantly Faramir stilled, his eyes were still sealed shut and he made no attempt to open them, but his silence was at least a pointer that some communication existed.

“…why am I to remain here? Because the one we waited all our lives for has actually come? Well, bully for him, says I!” growled Faramir.

No ordinary raving of fever, this. This had structure. It was almost as though the younger Hurin and…and here Ancir made an assumption… Boromir were in the same place. Oh, please, let that be so, for it meant some day they would be together again; Ancir and his golden lord, and Forlong his father and…

Aragorn smiled. He had a mental image of Boromir, who had once declared in disgust: “This is Isildur’s heir!” and had only just stopped himself from reflexively wiping his boot on Elrond’s manicured verge, now defending that same heir, to his feisty little brother, those wide green eyes rolling, one square hand with those strong, blunt fingers carding through that mane of blond hair in agitation.

“Boromir you…swine…to remind me of my duty while you have laid your own aside.” Faramir huffed and now he rolled his head as he tried to shake off Aragorn’s hand from agitation. “Don’t you bloody well start…who asked your opinion anyway…barging in…be gone!”

Aragorn set to with a will and his face was creased with concentration as he somehow linked to Faramir and was privy to all that was going on inside his head.

“Do I not want to know where the damned ring is now? Why would I care; when I am to come to you ...why should I tell him anything? He who was with you, where I so longed to be, while I tried to do my best, and was labelled coward not once, mark you, but twice by our father…yes, gods rest father’s sweet soul, and how like him to be listening by the benighted key hole!”

Pippin squeaked as he tried to hold his laughter inside.

Ancir slapped his own thigh for the same reason and wiped a tear.

“…he does too! I am surprised he had not taken a key between the horns many a time, so glued is his head to the doorknobs…well, you would defend him…”

Faramir huffed and shifted and his fever was once again climbing and obviously Boromir was nagging at his brother over the fate of the ring again for Faramir suddenly hissed:

“If I do tell him will you leave go of the damned subject? I am to say that Frodo and Sam are even now in Mordor, and making their way to MountDoom. Peace.” Faramir was interested only in dying and could a man no longer die in bed peaceably? Was this what was meant by progress?

Aragorn struggled to focus upon hearing this. He did not wish to lose this fragile connection for Faramir was not heeding him but wrangling with his brother.

“…I am glad for you…that the land beyond is pleasant and you have our father there, and I wish you luck…Mamma?”

Now there was a shift in events and now Aragorn’s eyes flew wide.

“Saw you a Lady?” Ancir asked and the king nodded and his mood shifted as he understood that pulling Faramir back now was become nigh on impossible.

“…let me come to you Boromir. It is not fair…you have Mamma by you and I want to be there…do not do this…do not go from me and leave me here in this hate filled land alone…he is no substitute for what I have lost and how may you know I shall come to honour him? I cannot understand why you would abandon me…see… Mamma has gone now and who wants to live forever anyway? That damned healer is intruding again…his majesty? You are yanking my chain…you want me to accept him...wait! I will do as you ask, only do not leave me…not yet!”

Faramir groaned and turned onto his side and Aragorn lost the contact.

Pippin was actually becoming scared by this. He sought comfort with Ancir, going so far as to settle on the red-head’s lap and peek past his shoulder at the man on the bed.

“Is he actually seeing Boromir do you think?” Pippin asked in a stage whisper.

“I believe so. How could he know where the one ring is? We do not. We all assumed Frodo had fallen by now.” Ancir shrugged and Pippin began to fidget with the leather ties on Ancir’s jerkin under the remaining sections of plate armour he wore.

Aragorn settled his hand to Faramir’s brow one last time. He was exhausted and if Faramir did not soon co-operate then Aragorn would have to abandon him.

Calgir arrived at the door and he held out a small sprig of athelas.

“That old crone insisted I brought this to you, your majesty. I finally gave in. It was that or throw her into the wash tub.” Calgir gave a bow and backed away and Aragorn called for hot water in a bowl and gave a smile of understanding.

“…the hands of the king are the hands of a healer… (snort” Faramir relayed from the world beyond. “You believed anything Ioreth spouted...remember when she said you’d go blind; well, have you? I rest my case!”

Pippin was laughing like a loon now. He could see a mental picture of Boromir, pouting, eyes crinkled, it was too funny.

The leaves floated in the basin of hot steaming water and the entire sickroom became infused with life giving vapour. A sparkling sensation that lifted one’s spirit and took away fatigue instantly.

Aragorn was mumbling to Faramir and the man on the bed was suddenly still and non-responsive and then, even as they watched, he opened his eyes.

“My lord, you called me. I come. What does the king command?”

“Walk no more in the shadows, but awake!” said Aragorn. “You are weary. Rest a while, and take food, and be ready when I return.”

Faramir nodded.

“Farewell, then for a while,” said Aragorn “for I must go to others that need me.”

And Faramir gazed into those same grey eyes that had been the last thing upon Arda that Boromir had seen and he fell into sleep.

They had gathered together to remember Boromir. Not with sadness now, for as Faramir had been at pains to assure them, in the land where all go beyond the veil, Boromir awaited them.

Ancir, Pippin, Aragorn and Faramr raised a goblet each and it was Ancir who intoned: “The glorious dead.”

No actual sadness, but still there were tears, for Boromir had been such a vibrant being, a forceful presence, and he was missed, most painfully missed.

They settled around the fire, the king, his Steward, the Citadel Guard and Lossarnach’s Lord to remember the golden son of the Citadel and it was Pippin who spoke first.

“I remember the first time I saw him. I thought…mammy-daddy!”

The colloquialism reduced all present to hysterics as the wide eyed little Halfling got into stride and settled to entertain.

“I never had seen a man so powerful. He was almost as broad as he was tall. Well, to me he was. Although, I was up a tree at the time, and so maybe that distorted my take on things just a wee bit…you see, elves…” and here Pippin paused to check over both shoulders that none were present, they had a habit of creeping up on one! “…elves had never quite grasped the concept that we Hobbits eat often. Now, they set a fair table, none fairer, but too far apart, and so when I discovered a pear tree…well, I used to go there, now and then, from time to time, to …”

“You went to commune, closely, with nature?” Faramir suggested.

“Aye, which was exactly what I was doing, sitting in my pear tree, like a plump wee partridge, eating pears, communing with the bounty of nature, when I first saw Boromir. Coincidentally, he too was communing with nature. Right up against my tree. It transpired he could not find his way back to the main house and simply could not wait even one more second. He had tears of relief in his eyes, we can all relate to that I am certain, gentlemen.”

“You were in the same tree he was…against…oh, it is too funny!” Ancir was scrubbing tears of laughter from his cheeks.

“Oh, ye think? Picture this: I’m sitting there, munching fruit, minding my own beeswax, and down below there’s this man, and well, what to say? If I say nothing and I am discovered then I might be labelled a pervert. If I do say something, what do you say to a man in that situation? Offer a hand, ‘hello, neighbour, nice to meet you, put it there.’ I don’t think so!”

Ancir was turning puce, Faramir was supporting a set of stitches in his wounded shoulder, wracked from pain and hooting madly. Aragorn slid from the footstool and slammed his backside upon the hearth!

“I thought, share the fruit, it would be a nice gesture, I plucked a nice ripe example, buffed it, leaned out of the tree and said: ‘Hello, Big man, nice pear?’ Aye, ye can tell a lot about a man when he laughs at a comment like that and comes right back with ‘Why, thank you, little one!’ That was the Boromir I came to know and love, so gentle, so funny. Pippin said wistfully.

“I remember the day he tried to teach you and Merry to use a sword. He was so patient, so careful…most of the time, except for that one time he accidentally clipped Merry and you two wrestled him down and tickled him. He was so happy that day. For that brief point in time he forgot his cares, and he was simply Boromir; and he was free of duty and acting the fool with two good friends. I understood that day just what a huge capacity to love that man possessed. I shall miss him more than he could ever know.” Aragorn said and now he turned his head to face the fire and covertly dried his face with the back of his hand.

“I have so many hilarious memories of my days with Boromir. We were together from childhood; my mother died giving me life and when Thorongil…your pardon, sire, but it is a known fact in the Citadel; you left under a cloud, and Lord Denethor requested my father to be his new Adjutant, we moved to the Citadel and I was taken under Lady Finduilas’ wing alongside Boromir. We ran tame about the Citadel and he came to Lossarnach for the summers.

I think one memory that stands out in particular was when a prank he played on a visiting ambassador backfired. The man, I shall not name him for he shall likely be in your Majesty’s presence in the near future, and you may not be able to contain your mirth, had been unkind towards Faramir. I think all of us present know Boromir would never sit still for that.

He crept into the Merethrond before the state banquet began and tracked down the miscreant’s chair. He left a small, well rather large actually, gift for the man on his seat and scuttled away to be bathed and robed to attend the…banquet…himself, I almost said function.

Imagine then his utter consternation when his father offered to take that particular chair to allow the wretch to sit closer to another guest who was hard of hearing. The standing grace came and went and then Denethor, in all his glory, sat on a pile of fresh ordure from the stables!

Boromir lit up like a beacon and sat there expressionless as his father coped in the only way he could; he sat there throughout the entire meal and pretended not to notice the waving hands and the wrinkled noses.

Boromir stood for three days after that. His only regret was he did not get the correct target. He did later on though. He put pepper in his enemy’s under drawers when the valet’s back was turned!”

Ancir let the hilarity settle down and then he whispered. “Not a day shall pass for the rest of my life, when I shall not think of him, upon waking in the morning, nor pray for him as I lay me down to sleep at night. I adored him. He was unique; and we never shall see his like again.”

“I last saw him at Osgiliath, as he parted from me to set out to seek counsel at Rivendell.” Faramir spoke up as the silence grew. “I knew; I somehow knew that we never would meet again in this life. I saw him, when I was fevered. I spoke to him. I saw him as clearly as I see all of you now. He stood at a crossroads and he was dressed in his trail clothes. All save for the sable lined cloak he wore when he set out. Now he wore a pale grey woollen one fastened with a leaf shaped brooch of some green substance and the Horn of Gondor was also missing. He had three wounds, the arrows had been taken from him but still I could see where the blood stains were.”

The knowledge that his brother had died in agony was a bitter pill and Faramir took a moment to compose him self.

“He told me to go back; it was not yet time for me to come across. He said I was to serve the King as his Steward. I was to remember I was a Hurin, and that Gondor came first. He said I was not to weep for him; that he was content to be free of the cares of his world. That Mamma was there, Father also, and when I finally do pass on they all shall be there. He said I am to say to you, Ancir, that he shall still need his anchor to ground him on the other side. I miss him. I have no notion how I shall hold myself together at the coronation. I shall see him everywhere I look. Where may one look in the city, his city, and not see his stamp upon her?” Faramir asked.

Once more they stood and silently drank to his memory.

There’s no time for us
There’s no place for us
What is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away
From us

Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever...?

There’s no chance for us
it’s all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us

Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever?

Who dares to love forever?
When love must die

But touch my tears with your lips
Touch my world with your fingertips
And we can have forever
And we can love forever
Forever is our today
Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever?
Forever is our today

Who wants forever anyway?

The end

‘Who wants to live forever?’ The theme from the movie ‘Highlander’ was performed by Queen. Words by Brian May.