Title: Smoke Nights
Author: A L Milton
E-mail: Rating:M
Summary: First fic in the Smoke and Steel series, a group of interconnected short stories exploring the complex relationships between Denethor, Finduilas, Boromir and Faramir, ranging from TA 2975 to the night before the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. In this story: It's 2975 TA and Denethor goes to Dol Amroth to fulfil a not wholly wanted mission. He soon finds out that those who do not wish to get burnt should not play with fire. A different look at the relationship between Finduilas and Denethor. Those expecting Finduilas the Wilting Flower would be well advised to look elsewhere. Warning: Rated M for adult themes, mildly graphic depictions of sexuality and het sex and frank discussion of sexual issues.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created by JRR Tolkien and owned by various persons and entities, including but not limited to the Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Enterprises, HarperCollins Books, Ballantine Books and New Line Cinema. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Further citations are to be found at the bottom of each chapter.

Smoke Nights

by

Anna L. Milton

Sleep is a belonging of all; even if all songs are old songs and the singing heart
is snuffed out like a switchman's lantern with the oil gone, even if we forget
our names and houses in the finish, the secret of sleep is left us, sleep belongs
to all, sleep is the first and last and best of all.

- Carl Sandburg, Work Gangs

1. River Roads

One night in Minas Tirith she told him she had known they'd marry the first time they'd met.

'I did not take you for one to indulge in such flights of fancy,' said Denethor. He was serious, like steel and accounts.

'It was no fancy,' Finduilas said. 'Merely knowledge.'

They met on a day of slow sunlight in Dol Amroth. Denethor had been sent by his father to speak to Prince Adrahil about ships and duty and the needs of Gondor. It was a task for an age, and so the Steward's son smouldered softly with pride and hidden anxiety. Lower still, the hidden loam of a tapestry, he smouldered with something else, the ever-present sting deep inside him. It churned around the shadow of his Other, the man with the hidden name and the hidden past, closer than a brother, sharper than an enemy. He heard the whisper, in unvigilant hours, a secret being shared just on the edge of his sight. It was the suspicion that his father entrusted him, his only son, with only the corner of missions, that he was a copyist, working off another's ideas and volitions. The feeling that he was not inside that tight red coil of trust.

Early in Thorongil's days in the city, Denethor had taken him to the topmost chamber in the Tower and shown him the mosaic in the ceiling, copied from strange figures made long ago, with the lore of Westernesse that seemed to captivate Thorongil so much. The aqueous lines swam in the red light of a dying sunset and far below them the city was a closed, thorny flower. Thorongil had said little, and for a fleeting moment Denethor had loved him, this stranger who understood the sacredness of what he was contemplating. The table in the middle of the room had bulged underneath a scarlet cloth. There are been no questions asked there, no answers given.

It was in Dol Amroth that Denethor first realised that he was in love with Minas Tirith. This other city nestled by the sea, and he had expected it to be cool, swept by clean, salty breezes. Instead, the seawater seeped into the land, birthing vast marshes, and the ocean was still and green. The city sprawled over the headland, patrician and tired beneath the unforgiving heat.

It was his host's second daughter who welcomed him, after he and his companions had had some time to stable their horses and clean off travel-dust. The Lady Finduilas had smoke-coloured eyes and the easy generosity of her languid homeland. She offered him sweet oranges and cooled mint tea; he took a polite sip. The room's marble arches were hung with netted curtains, shimmering in the sun.

'I know what is your business here,' she said, fanning herself absently. 'You will get what you want.'

'You seem rather certain of it, my lady,' said Denethor, hoping he was not glistening with sweat.

'It is a serious matter. If the Steward of Gondor needs such ships, and so many, he must have his reasons.' She pulled an orange segment with a slow hand. 'Am I mistaken, my lord? Does your father plan to use them to sail up the Anduin, angling for salmon?'

Her eyes were wide and probing and for a moment Denethor wondered if she were speaking seriously. He brushed her mind fleetingly, a young and brassy student making use of a yet half-learned skill. She was elusive, a moth buzzing to and fro, just beyond reach.

'No, he does not,' he said thinly.

'Then the seriousness of your purpose will no doubt be evident to my father.' She snapped her fan against the pokerwork table. 'But where are my manners? Do you not wish to know where my father is?'

His glance went from the warming glass of tea to the raven-haired woman in front of him to the high windows where flies buzzed fatly against the curtains. Sleek ships, carved swans at their prows, gliding through phantom mists. If we but had the ships, we could strike at the Corsairs and drive them away once and for all. But we do not have the ships, and it would take long to build such a fleet. Then build it we must. He did not care for the heat.

'Lady, the private matters of the Prince of Dol Amroth are no concern of mine. I had assumed they were such as to demand his immediate attention,' he said, dripping arrogance. 'I trust I have assumed correctly.'

She took a sip of tea, her eyes still fixed upon him. 'That depends on what you consider to be important, my lord.' She leaned towards him slightly. 'What is important for the son of the Steward of Minas Tirith?'

'The Steward of Gondor, lady, if you permit,' he corrected, with the peculiar generosity of the prideful.

'Oh. Of course,' she said, a smile deepening into a grin. 'So what would be your answer?'

Against all odds, he found himself at a loss for words. His left hand toyed with the metalwork encasing his glass of tea. The other slithered down, stopping on the hilt of his dagger; he ran his fingers over it, as unaware as someone picking at a scab.

'Minas Tirith,' he finally said. Her gaze was luminous and unbroken, a lounging cat staring at the world and finding it curious. 'Gondor,' he added, a corner of his mouth rising. He was not at all certain whether he wanted to remain under that gaze, in the heat, the curtained room; he felt an urge to rush outside, to white stone and dry winds, away from the marshlands and the buzzing of the flies and that feline stare. He shoved the thought away brusquely. This was no time for folly.

She gave a soft chuckle. He was humourless, and for a moment wondered if he should feel offended.

'You have never been to Dol Amroth.' It was a statement, not a question.

'It has never been my pleasure to visit your fair city.'

She took another sip of tea. 'And now you find yourself here, at my father's pleasure.'

And another's. A dash of bitterness, there. 'It is as you say, lady.'

'Let me show you my city,' she said, opening her fan again with a flick of her hand. 'It will pass the time, and you can tell me all about that city you love.'

'Will it not be...'

'Dull? Distracting?' She seemed amused.

He gave her a brittle smile. She refused to be read, in whatever fashion, and the unwelcome feeling was like an itch he couldn't quite reach. 'Discourteous,' he said. 'Prince Adrahil...'

'Your business with my father will take its time,' she said. 'I suggest you enjoy Dol Amroth's hospitality while you are here.'

What would you do for me?

Everything. Anything.

That came later.

The heat in Dol Amroth was like salt pouring out of a sliced sack. It oozed from the marshes, glinted off the slow sea. It hung on corners on the headland, heavily, dripped from tree branches slung slow with moss and flowers Denethor had never seen before. Flowers that seemed built, colourful and intricate baubles; flesh-flowers the size of his head, open maws of scarlet.

The Lady Finduilas spent most days with him, an eccentric warden. When he could, he and the other envoys parlayed with Prince Adrahil, a man with an easy smile and a glint of iron in his eyes. In that world he was surrounded by the slow eddies of politics, propriety, the warm familiarity of figures. Lord Imrahil, the Prince's son, joined them often in the private chamber, and he and Denethor sometimes glanced at each other, sharing in the solidarity of the heirs of powerful men.

'Your proposal - or should I say your father's proposal? - is ... interesting, Lord Denethor,' Adrahil said.

It is not mine, anymore than it is my father's. 'You have done Gondor the kindness of considering it.'

'Gondor indeed.' That hard glint again, an amused player. 'It is rather daring. And serious, I presume.'

'I am always serious, my lord.'

'Then I am glad, for Gondor needs Men of seriousness and purpose at such a time.'

'We cannot all be the dazzling swordsman.'

There was mild laughter at that, and then it was back again to the unmagical matters of money. Denethor advocated forcefully and politely on behalf of another man's idea. Another man whose name and purpose he had guessed, whose friendship came at a price he was not willing to pay. But he would fulfil his mission, because he was dutiful Denethor. Because he had been told to do a task and would do it well, at whatever cost. Because he was stern, prickly Denethor, who did what had to be done.

Sometimes, in Minas Tirith, he would wake in rainy nights. In his torpor it seemed he could hear the heart of the city, beating slow and huge beneath shale roofs and white stone. He lay in the dark, his eyes shut, strange knots of longing forming in his flesh. He did not know what he desired; it was something distant and fragmentary. The landscape of his want was always the desert, a nameless lack riding its winds. Sometimes he put out candles and oil lamps with his bare fingers, not quite knowing why, thinking of duty while small blisters raged on his skin.

Outside the comforting world of diplomacy, he founding himself in the peculiar company of Lady Finduilas. He knew her purpose; she was his keeper, learning things about him and his mission that her father could not hope to uncover on his own. He did not resent it. The Men of Gondor were loyal and true, but they were not fools. He wondered if she knew that he knew. He wondered if she would find that to be of any consequence.

'Tell me about your city.'

This was her world, the streets and squares of Dol Amroth. She showed him carved pillars overran with climbers and told him of her land, lore, fragments of poems, old ancestors, while the sun gilded the ancient ocean. Her blue dress was oddly iridescent, a dragonfly wing.

'What do you wish to know about it, lady? It lies on-'

'I know where it lies. And who built it, and of its history.' She paused. 'Tell me why it matters to you. Why you love it.'

She placed a hand on the marble bench, on the no man's land between him and her. 'Such a remarkable request,' he said, trying unsuccessfully to remove the sardonic tone from his voice.

'Indulge it, my lord.' She smiled, ineffable and conquering.

What would you do for me?

Anything. Everything.

Prove it.

Slowly, he told her of Minas Tirith.

He told her of the Tower built by his father's namesake and what it was to stand at its top in a sunset glow, world without end spreading a thousand fathoms below.

He told her of forgotten corners, nooks of white stone where salvage from the Land of Gift peered from a wall, stared from a waterless fountain.

He told her of streets that ended in tiny, nameless squares, the unkempt ground a sunburst of stone.

He told her of pennants caught in a summer breeze, unfolding like dandelions in the wind.

'Tell me,' she would demand, slender, tall, her long fingers always moving, toying, hammering some unknown rhythm. And he would tell her, almost unwilling, not knowing why he did, the oddly intimate words slipping off his tongue like wine.

At night, his dreams, always uncommonly vivid, were of a burning expanse of sand, a geography of wells.

I will be with you always.

One star-spangled night they travelled through the canals in the Prince's barge. There was a slender moon in the sky, a thief's moon. Lights floated in the black waters like incandescent ghosts. By day Denethor had found the canals to be an unpleasant network of muddy water shadowed by the promontory. By night they were mirrors, ribbons of silk, lightless roads.

Finduilas was seating near the other side of the dais, silent, her face glowing like a paper lantern in the half-dark. He found her beauty oddly antiquated, as though her face were something he might find in a portrait from Númenor, forever ageless amidst the icy glitter of a fish shoal.

One of the Prince's retinue came by, pushing a slender goblet into Denethor's hand. The drink was sweet, spicy, burning down his throat. He did not ask what it was. Perhaps she would be an Elven beauty, instead, he thought. She had told him of Mithrellas and he believed her. There was, or so they said, a Lady in the Golden Wood, beautiful as lightning, treacherous as a reef...

Imrahil slid over to him over the pillows. Finduilas was staring towards the prow, at a minstrel who played a slow, mellow lay.

'How are you finding Dol Amroth?' Imrahil asked, fair and sleek and all too young.

'I find it remarkably welcoming. Were that all in Gondor were so courteous and generous.' There was a touch of ice to his stare. Tonight he had no patience for games, and certainly not for the games of youth.

Imrahil smiled. 'I think we all understand each other, Denethor.'

'Aye, I believe we do.' His voice was serene, his pride smoothed with conspiratorial understanding. Father, are you not proud?

The barge slid on over the waters, trailing scent. Denethor struggled for steeliness. His head spun gently, blood pounding in his veins. He did not like the vulnerability of this, the nakedness to stars, smells, the notes dripping off the lute like fireflies. It made him angry, and he clung to that violent certainty.

'If you permit me, I would like to see the rest of the barge,' he said, getting up, his empty goblet forgotten upon the pillows. It was dizzying, and for an anguished moment he saw himself flopping down to the floor in a heap of ridicule. Nevertheless, he managed not to budge.

'I shall show you,' Finduilas said promptly, rising from her seat in a flurry of expensive silk.

'If you insist,' he said, offering her his arm. She smelt of night and water and half-closed flowers.

She chatted amiably as they left the canopied dais and made their way to the rear of the barge. 'As you can see, we have no need of a helmsman and I believe we can stop pretending now.'

He stared at her. Before he could reply, she was speaking again. 'Come, it is no shame,' she said, leaning against the wooden railings, where no oarsman could see her. She fingered the foam of gold at her neck. 'You were bored, and my brother is too young to know insistency is not always a virtue, and I suspect you are slightly drunk.'

'I am no drunkard,' he said, flushing with offence.

She smiled. 'Do I not know that? The line of the Stewards, sinking into a flagon? Never!' She laughed, brief and brilliant. 'But you have a body like other Men. As I said, it is no shame.'

He wanted to sniff at that in wordless derision. It was a shame, a shame that flesh was weak and fallible. The uses of bodies vexed him; he found them a mockery of the spirit, some great irony or malicious jest. That a spark of the Eternal Flame could reside in flesh, flesh that was animal, flesh that aged and rotted and died unthinking, seemed to be almost unbearable. 'I am perfectly well, thank you. I merely needed some fresh air.' The barge swayed around him and Finduilas lifted her eyebrows slightly, as though to indicate her point was proven.

'I would advise you to ask your valet for some willow bark and marsh clover tomorrow,' she said, holding court against the railings, all scent and silk. 'That was wormwood cordial you were drinking as though it were wine. It is good, but it has its effects. Most especially if you are ill-accustomed to it.'

'I will bear that in mind,' he said, with a dash of nastiness. 'My thanks for your advice.' He felt a sudden and intense dislike for this city and its people, with their burning drinks, their curiously spiced food. They seemed to relish inebriation, the pleasures of senses, the dulling of thought. And then again, no, that was not the full truth; Adrahil at least was sharp, and so was this daughter of his, standing in front of him with a subtle smile on her lips. A portrait's smile, self-contained.

'What are we doing?' she asked, serious, and took a step towards him. The torchlight gleamed on her hair, her bare arms, the top of her breasts.

'I do not know,' he whispered. It was not his habit to whisper; he always spoke in an unwavering voice. Now she was coming even closer, at arm's length, her perfume closing around them like a pair of wings. Below them the barge trailed white lines of foam in the black water.

'Do you find it foolish?' Her face was full of shadows, moving with the moon and the shifting torchlight. Above the flames flaring in their sconces, battalions of tiny moths hovered. The night was old and warm.

'What should I find foolish?' He chided himself inward for the feebleness of his answer. Finduilas put her hand on his arm - surely he could find something better to say - and stepped closer still, her body brushing his, making his skin prickle - he had always had a way with words, after all - and now she was...

Her mouth tasted of honey and clover and brandy, her tongue probing wetly against his lips. There was summer dusk amidst the high grass, and a cloud of fireflies, and the roar of alien, merciless desire in his ears, an ever greedy abyss.

He pulled back, his eyes snapping open. Somehow she had put her arms around his neck and his own hands were on her waist, pressing against her flesh. He jerked them away, as though they'd been burned.

'No, this is...' he trailed off, his mind reeling, pushing her away gently. He stared at her, her taste and warmth lingering in his mouth, his buzzing skin. She was unflustered. 'Let us not speak of this,' he pleaded, his face hot with embarrassment and self-revulsion.

'I must ask your forgiveness, lady,' he said, his voice urgent. 'I do not know what-'

She put her hand on his arm, her fingers weighty on the fabric of his sleeve. Her touch was vivid, a scarlet brand close to his flesh. A girdle of stars shone behind her head in the sultry night.

'Do not trouble yourself with it,' she said, merry like spiced wine. 'It would perhaps be best if we returned to the dais.'

He breathed deeply, trying to disguise it. That smell of hers was still wafting around him, filling his mouth like heavy water. He wanted to brush at his lips, get rid of the taste. He restrained himself. 'We should,' he said. 'But-'

'Nay, no buts now,' she answered, and offered him her arm again. He hesitated for a moment. Foolish; he was being a fool, and a blustering one at that. What care did he have of the feel and touch of hers - did he have to wallow in its memory like a pig in mud, thinking he should feel some deep offence? It had not repulsed him, for all he had expected it to.

'We shall speak more seriously, some other time,' she added, and then began chatting gaily once more. Denethor played his own part well, sitting attentive and rigid on his pillows, the wry Steward-in-waiting. He avoided looking at Finduilas, however, his skin raw and vulnerable in her presence. He did not relish the feeling, new and unwelcome.

That night, in the late hours trickling between the dying stars, he dreamt of her, a foggy, confusing dream.

+000+

Tbc...

Footnotes: The business with the fleet is, of course, leading up to Aragorn/Thorongil's defeat of the Corsairs around 2979/80 TA.

She offered him sweet oranges and cooled mint tea - homage to Leonard Cohen's song Suzanne

We cannot all be the dazzling swordsman - paraphrase of "we cannot all be lion-tamers", from Robert Bolt's screenplay for Lawrence of Arabia

Some of the desert imagery was inspired by Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient.

a thief's moon - again from Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient

you have a body like other men - again from Robert Bolt's screenplay for Lawrence of Arabia

wormwood cordial absinthe; willow bark and marsh clover are indeed cures for headache

Needless to say, none of the material I quoted belongs to me; it is being used for non-profit purposes only and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. If you find anything I forgot to reference, please contact me and I will add the footnote immediately.