Author’s Note:  Well, here I am, posting again just over three months after the last time.  The usual apologies for taking so long, and thank you to all who have reviewed and/or sent messages asking when the next chapter was coming!

A few things I feel I ought to mention here.  To all who have wondered if I’m thinking of Boromir’s death at Amon Hen as matching the one in the film or in the book, in this chapter you will find the answer.  Sorry to any who may be disappointed in my choice!  Then, to fans of Elladan and Elrohir, sorry about giving the two of them only very small guest appearances here, but they will have at least a bit more to do, later in the story.

The final and to me, most important note: I need to state in the most vehement of terms that the Denethor in my story is NOT the Denethor who appears in Mr. Jackson’s film.  (I would venture to say that the Denethor in Tolkien’s work is also not the Denethor in the film.)  To me, Jackson committed a foul wrong, as well as showing complete immaturity, in portraying Denethor as wholly bad, and in needing cheap visual gimmicks such as Denethor’s messy eating to demonstrate the Steward’s madness.  As I see it, this is the bottom line: those who hate Denethor should hate him for what he does and says in Tolkien, not for what he does and says in a cinematic adaptation that has wandered ever farther from its source.

That said, I will get off my soap box, cease my rant (for now!), and say to all, thank you for reading, and on with the story!

Chapter Eighteen: The Council of the Diversion

            I sprang for the door to my brother’s room and wrenched it open.

            I could not have clearly said what I feared to find.  I suppose that I imagined discovering Faramir and our father at blows or swordspoint, disputing the merits of Aragorn’s claim to the throne.

            With relief I beheld them both on their feet, and apparently whole.  Father again was clad as though for battle, his sword girt by his side.  Only a helm was lacking to make his armament complete.  Faramir stood there barefoot, dressed in breeches and shirt and with the green tunic of his regiment clutched crumpled in his hands. 

The only obvious casualty was a shattered washbasin.  Dame Ioreth crouched on the floor between Lord Denethor and his son, making haste to gather up the shards into her apron.

As I barrelled into the room, Faramir declared, “I could have been ready ere now, My Lord, had you not thought the need more pressing to again remind me of my shortcomings – ”

Our father snarled back, “I am wearied of hearing what you ‘could have been’, Faramir.  I care not for what you could have been, but for what you are.”

“What I am, sir – ” Faramir began, only to cut off his words as the Lord Steward cast a cursory glance in my direction.  Only for an instant did Father’s eyes rest on me, but that glance was enough to turn the argument from its course.

Faramir’s gaze did not waver from the Steward’s face.  Again my father and brother glared at each other, as though each wished that his gaze alone could strike the other dead.  Then the Steward turned on Dame Ioreth and snapped, “Make haste, woman.  Lord Faramir does not have all the day to wait on you while you are demolishing the Houses’ crockery.”

             “It is not her fault, sir,” put in Faramir.  His tone of voice was calmed considerably, but there was still a bright flush of anger splashed across his cheeks.  “She would not have dropped the basin had we not startled her with our shouting.”

            Our father sneered, “Those who labour in the service of Gondor should require more than raised voices to startle them in these days.”

            It would have been highly inappropriate of me, but I very nearly laughed in my relief.  I had been a fool, I told myself, to become so caught up in the dark pictures that my fears in the night had painted.  It should have been no surprise to me to hear Father and Faramir shouting.  The surprise would have been if they had spent more than a minute in each other’s company, without getting into a fight about something. 

This was one of their everyday arguments, that much was clear.  In nine cases out of ten, just as now, Father and Faramir would cease their sniping at each other when I came into the room.  Only when their quarrel was serious indeed, did it continue unabated while I was there to hear.

The Chief Healer had skidded into the doorway on my heels.  Glancing over at him now, I saw him looking decidedly green about the gills.  But as he wavered on the verge of beating a retreat, Dame Ioreth looked up and spotted him.

            She scrambled to her feet, clutching close her apron’s-worth of shattered porcelain.  “Sir,” she exclaimed, “and My Lord Boromir!  You can tell the Lord Steward: Lord Faramir is not to be out of his bed – ”

            “It is true, My Lords,” the Warden of the Houses ventured unhappily.  “The Captain of the Dúnedain was very definite; not for ten days yet should Lord Faramir depart from this House – ”

            “My son is not bound by the limitations of ordinary Men, nor by the recommendations of a Northern vagabond.  If he says that he is well enough to leave his bed, then well enough he is.” 

The words had been spoken in a combination of pride and challenge.  Our father turned a measuring glare on Faramir, who answered the challenge in his quiet but firm-voiced reply, “I am well, My Lord.  There is nothing to prevent me from attending this morning’s council.” 

Dame Ioreth rolled her eyes as though she would lodge another complaint.  A look at the two glowering Men dissuaded her from that course.  “If you’ll pardon me, My Lords,” she muttered.  Ducking her head she scuttled between the Steward and the Captain of Ithilien, trying to keep out of the line of their matching glares.

As Dame Ioreth sped past us and made her escape, the Chief Healer nerved himself for a second attempt.  “My Lords, I must protest this,” he began.  “So long as Lord Faramir is in my charge, I cannot countenance such wilful disregard of his health –”   

“It is not for you to countenance his actions or no,” the Steward snapped out, “nor is it for the Captain of the Dúnedain to countenance them.  Lord Faramir is in his own charge.  And he will make swifter progress in dressing if he does not meet a storm of protest with every garment that he dons.”

The Healer turned a desperate gaze on me.  “My Lord Boromir,” he essayed, “can you not persuade them – ?”

I sympathised with the Man.  But so relieved was I to find the argument no worse than usual – and to see Faramir on his feet again and recovered enough to argue – that his leaving his bed sooner than recommended seemed at that moment a trifling matter indeed.

“You will do well to take your leave, Master Warden,” I advised.  “I am sure that there are other patients requiring your attention.”

Once more the Warden opened his mouth to complain.  Then with a sigh he shut it again.  “Aye, My Lord,” he snapped.  In motions as stiff as those of a marionette, he bowed and stalked from the room, not without an accusatory glower at me.

From over my shoulder came the quiet voice of Legolas, whose presence I had entirely forgotten.  “We will go to look in on Merry, Boromir,” he murmured as unobtrusively as possible.  “His room is nearby …?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, attempting a smile as I turned to the Elf and the Dwarf.  “It’s the second room along the hall.  I’ll join you there shortly.”

Both of them nodded, Legolas with a look of sympathy and Gimli with an embarrassed smile.

Faramir and our father had silently observed these various departures.  Turning back toward my family, I saw that all colour was again drained from Faramir’s face. 

I had to force myself not to hasten to his side.  He would thank me not at all for revealing concern for him in our lord father’s presence.

The Steward turned once more to Faramir, and remarked, “I trust you will not need to wait until the woman returns with a new washbasin.”

“No, sir.  I can manage without.”  To prove his words, Faramir shrugged into his tunic, face set against any betrayal of discomfort from his arrow wound.

Keenly eyeing his younger son, the Lord Steward asked now, “You are sure that you are well enough to attend this council?”

“I am certain of it, sir,” Faramir said coldly.  “Please do not concern yourself.”

The best thing that I could do, I thought, would be to get our father out of there.  Faramir could certainly use a few minutes’ respite from his company.  And I wanted the chance to learn just how fit to attend this meeting my brother actually was.

“Please go on ahead, Father,” I suggested.  “We will follow you in all haste.”

Father’s piercing gaze turned on me as soon as I spoke.  He glanced from me, to Faramir, and back to me again.  Unexpectedly his mouth quirked into a thin smile. 

“Do not concern yourselves overmuch with haste.  We need not give Lord Aragorn the notion that we are racing to avail ourselves of his counsel.”

With that he departed, whilst I refrained from pointing out that this council of war had been his own suggestion to begin with. 

Immediately our father was out of the door, I hurried to Faramir.  He was biting his lip and grimly attempting to lace up his tunic.

“Let me do that,” I ordered.  “You look like you’re about to faint.”

Faramir hesitated.  Then he gave up and allowed me to take over the task of lacing.  He gave a sickly smile.  “I swear to you,” he muttered, “some day I really am going to punch that Man.  Then what kind of a world of grief will I be in?”

I studied his pallid face, and did not at all like what I saw.  Trying not do be too much the over-protective brother, I asked him, “What was the shouting about?”

“The same as usual,” he snapped.  “Absolutely nothing at all.  Damn it, Boromir.   We were saying the same damned thing.  I said I was attending the council, he said I was attending the council, and we still ended up shouting at each other!  And then poor Dame Ioreth had to go and put in her oar.”

A sheen of sweat had appeared on Faramir’s brow.  No longer could I restrain myself from demanding, “Do you really think you’re all right to go through with this?  You do look bloody awful.”

A bitter laugh was the answer.  “Valar’s blood!  You think that I could miss this council now?  Father would poke holes in me over it for months!”  Taking on our father’s biting tones, he mimicked, “‘Of course, Lord Faramir, as you would know if you had been strong enough to attend our council of war …’”

“It’ll be much better if you swoon in the middle of the council, of course.”

For an instant he eyed me angrily.  Then with an expression of wide-eyed innocence, he pointed out, “But Boromir, I’m only doing what my big brother would do in my place.”

“Watch it, you brat,” I growled, as I finished lacing his tunic.  Glancing around, I found the rest of his garments neatly piled on the table by the door, with a pair of his boots stood at the table’s side.  Bowing to my brother, I inquired, “Will Your Lordship sit down to don your boots, or is that too much a sign of weakness?”

            Faramir pulled a face, but he sat down on the edge of the bed.  I brought his boots and clothing to him.

            Sitting down beside him, I asked, “How did you learn of this morning’s council?”

            He answered with a faint quirk of a smile, “From Dame Ioreth, of course.  When I woke I rang for breakfast and my clothes, and Ioreth couldn’t resist chattering to me about this council of war.  Good thing, too, else I’d still have been flat on my back when Father arrived to announce that he expects my attendance at the council.”

I sighed angrily.  “It’s ridiculous of him to expect it of you.  He damn well knows that, or he ought to.  And you know it too.  I ought to go after him and tell him where he can shove his expectations – ”

“It’s my decision, Boromir,” my brother stated quietly, “not his.  I’d be going whether he ordered it or not.”

“For Valar’s sakes – ”

“Look, I’ll go to my townhouse and go straight to bed as soon as the council’s over.  I promise you.  That’s going to have to be good enough.”

I sighed again.  A barely audible knock sounded at the door, to which we both called in answer, “Come.”

            Dame Ioreth cautiously poked her head around the door.  Seeing only the two of us, she bustled into the room, bearing a new washbasin which she set down upon the bedside table.

            “Dame Ioreth,” I requested, “kindly send word to our townhouses: my horse and Lord Faramir’s are to be readied and brought here to the Houses – ”

            “I already sent for mine,” said Faramir, pulling on his boots.  “It should be here by now.”

            “Did you?  Good.  Then, Ioreth, you need send to my townhouse only.  Have them bring the sorrel horse of Rohan that I rode yesterday, and the other Rohirrim steed that came to our stables this morning.  They need not concern themselves with any accoutrements for the second horse; its riders do not use them.” 

As Dame Ioreth curtsied and departed, I asked Faramir, “You haven’t seen Svip this morning?”

            He shook his head, then stood up and fastened his cloak about his shoulders.

            “I’ll need to have a look for him,” I said, standing up as well.  “He’ll be fit to be tied if I ride another horse to the council without trying to find him.”

            I made for the door, Faramir following close behind.  His stride was strong and unfaltering, but I could not hold myself from stopping and eyeing him critically once again.  My brother stubbornly met my gaze, daring me to start the argument again.

            “Well?” he challenged.  “Don’t we need to be looking for Svip?”

            “Fine,” I sighed. 

            We stepped into the corridor, and walked into another family argument. 

Standing in the next doorway along was Éomer King of Rohan.  He had apparently planted himself in the doorway to block the egress of the lady his sister. 

Lady Éowyn stood just within, golden hair flowing loose as a mantle about her shoulders, her face near as pale as were her white gown and the sling upon her arm.  The Lady stood motionless as a statue of marble and gold, but never did I see a statue’s face carved in such bitter anger.     

“Éowyn, you are not listening to me,” Lord Éomer hissed.  “Our uncle would not stand for it, and no more will I.  You have risked far too much already.  I’ll not have you traipsing off to a council of war, when not a day has yet passed since the Healers despaired of your life – ”

            “Traipsing?” she hissed back.  “Was I traipsing when I rode with the Éored?  Was I traipsing yesterday upon the field of battle?” 

The lady caught sight then of Faramir and me.  A moment only her angry gaze remained on us, then she spoke again in clear, ringing tones, all the more defiant for having an audience. 

“You are right, My Lord brother.  Our uncle did not include me in his councils.  He thought it not my place.  Perhaps it was not.  But it is my place now.  I earned that right yesterday, at the point of my sword.  Can you deny that?”

            Éomer heaved a sigh.  “I don’t deny you have earned that right.  I do deny your right to wilfully imperil your health, when your presence at the council can serve no useful purpose save to appease your pride.”

            Lady Éowyn drew in a breath, no doubt mustering her forces for a withering blast of invective.  I cleared my throat loudly and said, “Good morrow to you, Éomer King; Lady Éowyn.  Forgive us for intruding.”

Éomer started a little, then he swiftly turned and bowed.  A moment later his sister bowed her head to us with a murmured, “Good morrow, My Lords.”  Her eyes when again she looked up had lost none of their anger, a fact not lost upon the King her brother.

“Please excuse us,” said Faramir, bowing and starting for Merry’s door.  Éomer King fairly leaped after us. 

            “Ride you to the council, cousins?” he asked hastily.  “Pray wait for me, I will ride with you.”  He turned back to his sister, striving to assert some kingly authority in his tone.  “We will speak of this later, Éowyn,” he said.

            Undaunted she glared upon him, and in tones of ice she answered, “We will, My Lord.”  She turned on her heel and closed the door silently behind her.  The very silence of her action seemed to prophesy tough going for Éomer, when next they took up this discussion.       

            The young King of Rohan managed a queasy smile.  He inquired after Faramir’s health, and while the two of them were exchanging pleasantries I knocked upon Merry’s door. 

The Hobbit’s voice summoned me in.  Within I discovered Merry, assisted by Legolas and Gimli, stowing the remnants of a massive breakfast into a couple of packs.  From the look of things I would have wagered that Dame Ioreth and every other woman in the place had indulged her mothering instincts in showering Merry and Pippin with baked goods.  

            Merry seemed entirely healed, as though the black shadow had never laid its touch upon him.  Despite the Hobbitish concern for food, he abandoned his packing when Éomer and Faramir followed me into the room.  Gravely he shook hands with Faramir and exchanged greetings as I introduced them.  More gravely still he then knelt before Éomer.

            “Éomer King,” he said, “at the Hornburg I knelt to your uncle and pledged him my sword and my service.  My sword I have no more; it perished on the field where Théoden King fell.  I have nothing to pledge you now but my fealty and love, but both are yours if you will accept them.”

            Éomer smiled sadly.  “I accept both, and gladly.  Rise, Meriadoc, esquire of Rohan of the household of Meduseld.  As a son you were to Théoden King, and as a brother shall you be to me.”

            Merry stood, then stammering a little he asked, “My Lord, is – is Lady Éowyn well?”

            The Horselord attempted not to grimace at that; attempted but did not entirely succeed.  He said, “She is well enough to chafe at confinement to her room, and to have no hesitation in telling me so.  If you will, I would have you sit with her and do what you can to turn her thoughts from dark roads – but perhaps your presence is required at the council?”

            “Well,” said Merry, looking around at us uncertainly, “I don’t know if it’s required.  Pippin’s already going there,” he told Faramir and me, “your father swooped in and told him off for being absent from his duties as esquire – I’m sorry, I don’t mean he told him off, he – ”

            “I’m sure he did tell him off,” Faramir said gently, with a smile.

            Éomer said, “Then we must not make your cousin endure this council without the encouragement of your presence.  Come with us, and after if you will, I’ll assign you the duty of sitting with Lady Éowyn.”

            Our company set out again, and again I asked after Svip.  The Hobbits, it seemed, had not seen him since the night before; Merry told me that he had left soon after I did.

            In the courtyard of the Houses of Healing, our horses awaited under the care of servants from my townhouse, Faramir’s, and the Citadel stables.  I started to excuse myself to go and look for Svip, telling the others that they should go on without me.  But even as I spoke, the water creature himself hastened in through the Houses’ gate. 

Faramir’s horse neighed in startlement as Svip hurried by.  The three Rohirrim horses kept their usual aplomb, though even they seemed to eye Svip askance. 

For once he took no notice of the horses’ unease.  He walked straight past, making no attempt to keep his distance from them, and stopped before me. 

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Svip muttered.  He looked up at me briefly and immediately dropped his gaze back down to his feet.

“Svip, what is it?” I asked.

“It’s nothing.  I’m all right.  I’ll tell you about it later.”

Faramir, Merry and I exchanged surprised and worried glances.  The others had already mounted up, and Éomer called now, “Come, Master Meriadoc, you shall ride with me.”

“No,” interjected Svip, in that subdued and sullen tone that was so strange to hear from him.  “You can ride on me, Merry.  Boromir’s already got a horse.”

“I wasn’t planning on riding him,” I protested, wondering if this could be the cause of Svip’s unheard-of mood.  “I sent for him in case one of the others needed – ”

“It’s all right,” Svip cut in flatly.  “We’ll make faster progress if the horses aren’t double-burdened.” 

That statement was nonsense in the circumstances, for Legolas and Gimli’s steed was double-burdened already, and Merry was hardly heavy enough to bother these horses in any case.  But I forbore to argue, instead sharing another troubled look with Merry.

“All right then,” Merry said, striving to sound cheerful.  “Thank you, I’d – I’d be honoured to ride you.”

Svip’s sudden transformation to horse form took several of us by surprise, including Faramir’s horse.  The beast neighed and made as though to bolt, and it took the calming hands and voices of both Faramir and the groom to ease the horse’s fear.  There were exclamations of wonder from the Elf and the Dwarf, from Éomer and from Merry.

I frowned and thought that if this mood of Svip’s were not mended soon, we were like to have all the horses in the City stampeding in terror.  Forcing a smile I said to Merry, “It’s all right, Svip’s very careful with his riders.  He won’t let you fall.  Will you, Svip?”

The big grey horse looked offended, and said, “No, of course not.”

Merry cast a terrified smile up at me.  I lifted him up and set him behind Svip’s neck.

“It’s all right if you take hold of my mane,” Svip told him.  Merry gingerly obeyed.

Éomer set off at the head of our procession, followed next by Legolas and Gimli, and by Svip with the unhappy Merry.  I followed after, riding Fengel the horse of Rohan.  Faramir brought up the rear, keeping his nervous horse well out of the way of Svip.

As we made our way through the Sixth Level’s gate and past the walls of my townhouse, Faramir rode closer to me and caught my eye.  He whispered, “What is the matter with him?”

I could only shake my head.

It was a fair spring morning, with light puffs of cloud and a dancing breeze out of the west.  Almost it seemed impossible that only one day in the past the City had been a place of fire and darkness, our walls besieged on all sides and all the will of the Foe bent upon shattering our Gate. 

The white walls of the houses gleamed, scrubbed clean by yesterday’s rain.  Flowers shone brightly from out of window boxes.  Their sweet scents wafted to us from the boxes and the hidden gardens that nestle in the terraces behind so many of our townsmen’s houses.  The westerly breeze seemed to guard the City in its embrace, holding at bay the odours of war that waited on the Pelennor Fields: the reek of smoke from many bonfires where fallen mûmakil, too large for us to shift, were burned, and the heavy stench of thousands of bodies, that our burial details toiling through the night had not yet reached.

Our journey down the levels of the City took us from the illusion of peace, with its blue skies and its flowers, and back to the reality of war.  Here and there upon the Second Level, and far more upon the First, Men laboured at clearing away the debris of the enemy’s fires.  Here the scent of flowers was lost in the stink of wet ash, and the breeze caught up black flakes of soot that blew into our faces to sting at our eyes and our throats.

Beyond the Great Gate, relics of the battle met us at every turn.  Remains of three vast bonfires smouldered along the Road, where the corpses of mûmakil and mountain-trolls had proved too heavy to move.  A large party of the City Guard, aided by several groups of Guildsmen and six of the Carters’ Guild’s largest and strongest horses, were struggling to raise the great wolf’s-headed battering ram and bring it into the City. 

The bodies of our Men and the enemy had been cleared from the areas nearest the Gate, but all across the plain one could see the burial parties at work: heavy-laden carts everywhere on the move, hauling their burdens south to the mass graves for the enemy being dug at the foot of Mindolluin, or making their way back to the City when a cart was filled with our own dead.

We crossed over the blackened line of the enemy’s trenches, displaced earth hastily shovelled into place to mend the wound where a trench had sliced through the City Road.  Just under a mile beyond the City, we came to a place where the labourers were Riders of Rohan. 

North of the Road they heaped the last shovels-full of earth upon a goodly-sized burial mound.  Hard by the foot of the mound a bonfire blazed.  Oily, stomach-turning smoke caught at our nostrils.  One monstrous black wing reached out of the flames, webbed claws upraised as though the creature that had owned that wing sought yet to take to the sky. 

In subdued tones Éomer called a halt.  He dismounted and left the Road to speak with his Men.  The rest of us waited in respectful silence.  Then I heard Svip whisper, barely audible to me through the crackle of flames, “What is this place?”

Merry’s voice came in answer, half-choked by the smoke or by tears.  “It was here where Théoden King fell.  And – and where Éowyn killed the Black Rider – and that thing he rode.”

            Éomer rejoined us, riding first to Faramir and me.  He told us quietly, “The Lord your father gave his permission this morning for us to bury my uncle’s Snowmane, here where horse and rider fell.  I would we had moved that foul beast further from Snowmane’s howe.  But the stench was such that none could abide long enough to move it.”

            We rode on, following the Road up the gentle slope atop which sits the White Tree Inn.

            Outside the courtyard of the inn were gathered the Lords and Captains of Gondor, all those who yet survived.

            They stood clustered in small groups, in quiet-voiced discussions which broke off as our party rode nigh.  The Lord Steward turned to face us, cutting short his conversation with Lord Duinhir of Morthond and Prince Imrahil. 

Húrin Keeper of the Keys and Master Peregrin Took stood a few feet behind the Steward.  Pippin smiled in delight and took one step toward us.  He remembered himself then and stood again more or less at attention, but his glance wandered time and again to Merry and the rest of us.

            Aragorn stood a good distance from the Lord Denethor, near to his tents and beneath the spreading oak where last evening had taken place his encounter with the Steward of Gondor.  With him stood Mithrandir and two black haired and grey cloaked warriors, who I supposed must be the Sons of Elrond.  The banner of the King still stood before Aragorn’s tent – a sight that would be sticking in my father’s craw, as Aragorn must know as well as I.  But the Dúnadan at least wore no tokens of kingship about him, apart from the Sword of Elendil at his belt. 

Surprise and anger flashed across Aragorn’s face as his gaze lit upon my brother.  I wondered if the Northman would take us to task for Faramir’s early departure from his sickbed.  But Aragorn collected himself in time, and merely bowed.

A good thing, too, I thought, glancing at the Steward again as I dismounted and handed over the reins to one of Éomer’s Men.  It would get this council of ours off to an ill-favoured start, did we begin it with Steward and Chieftain snarling at each other over how best to guard Faramir’s health.

I thought I heard a gasp of pain from Faramir as he dismounted.  For an instant he leaned against his horse’s neck.  Anyone not standing next to him might not have seen the gleam of sweat on his brow, but no one could have failed to notice the appalling pallor of his face. 

Faramir smiled grimly at me while his horse was led away.  He reached out with seeming casualness to place a hand on my shoulder.  Desperately his fingers dug in. 

I grabbed his arm in return, and whispered to him, “You need to sit down.  I’ll find a chair for you.”

“No!” he hissed.  “Don’t, I’ll be fine.  Father’s watching us.”

I turned to face the Lord our father.  The look with which he stared at us was cryptic, but I thought I could detect in it some concern.  Perhaps it was only my usual wish, to see in our father’s actions the care for Faramir’s welfare that so often seemed lacking in him.  But this time, I was almost certain that the Steward’s words spoke of true concern for his younger son.

“If we are assembled then, My Lords,” he said, “can there not be found enough chairs for all our company to be seated?  We will have little enough comfort in the days ahead.  Let us then sit while we may.  I would not have the Dark Lord’s spies report to him that we met in terror, so ready to flee at the first sign of any foeman that we dared not even sit down.” 

            Various captains and attendants set about gathering a collection of folding campstools, supplemented by a few chairs borrowed from the White Tree Inn.  I was surprised to see that any of those chairs were yet whole; I’d have expected the enemy to break and burn every scrap of furniture across all the Pelennor, for the sheer joy of destruction.  But perhaps here they had been too busy emptying the larder and wine cellar to bother much with the furniture.

            Legolas and Gimli had hurried off in the quest for chairs, and when they returned they took their place near Aragorn.  Merry jumped down from Svip’s back, and in the next moment Svip changed shape, to the usual gasps and exclamations from those few of the captains who had not before witnessed this transformation. 

Ignoring all whispers and stares, Svip crossed to Faramir and me.  His thundercloud expression was at least temporarily replaced by concern.

            “Are you all right?” the water being asked Faramir.

            “I am fine, Svip, thank you,” said Faramir.  “What about you?”

            “I’m fine too,” Svip muttered.  But he would not meet Faramir’s eyes nor mine as he said it.

The Steward took his seat, and the rest of us followed. 

We were a grim-faced band who sat there in our circle of mismatched chairs, by the Crossroads of the White Tree Inn.  Lord Duinhir of Morthond, grey-faced and red-eyed, sat straight as a spear, staring into nothing.  I felt a guilty sort of sorrow at seeing him, illogically embarrassed that Faramir and I should be sitting before him alive, while both of his sons lay dead in the White City.  Others in that circle were there in the stead of their fallen lords: Captain Penda of Pinnath Gelin, with the look of one who had not slept in a week, and Forlong of Lossarnach’s young brother Liudolf, ten stone lighter than his late brother and looking as though he feared he would prove equally unable to measure up to Forlong as a leader.  

            My father looked around him at all of us.  Then he turned to Pippin, hovering at his shoulder.   “Be you seated also, Master Peregrin,” he said gently.  “Those short Hobbit legs have borne you all the way from your Shire; it is no disgrace to you if they could use rest.” 

With a nervous little bow, Pippin sat down on the ground beside the Steward’s chair.  At a nod from Éomer, Merry likewise sat by the Horselord’s chair.  Svip sat by me, huddling against my leg as though our contact could give some protection against whatever troubled him. 

I took comfort in that thought as well.  To myself I vowed that as soon as this council ended I would learn the cause of Svip’s troubles, let Svip try to avoid talking of it as he willed.

“My Lords,” the Lord Steward began, “we have triumphed on the fields of Pelennor for a day.  The hosts of our Enemy are scattered and fled.  Almost might we think that Gondor faces peril no more.  But all of us must know that this is not so.” 

He looked grimly about him, cold eyes seeming to pierce into each of us in turn. 

“All the East is moving.  Of the forces massed at the Black Gate, but one handful has our Foe yet sent forth, many and terrible though that handful may have seemed to us.  And though the Nameless One may take a day or two to lick his wounds, no more is he content as before to wile away centuries nursing his dreams of destruction and conquest.  The final battle is begun.  Once begun there can be no end save for our annihilation, or his.  I need scarcely tell you which of these two has the greater likelihood.

“To us now falls the task of deciding our next move.”  The Steward’s gaze turned to Aragorn and the Wizard, and he permitted himself a malicious smile.  “My Lord Mithrandir,” he said, “I will be much deceived in you if you have not an answer to that question.  I pray you then, enlighten us with your wisdom.”

            Mithrandir glowered as though he would dearly love to see the Lord Steward reduced to ashes.  Nonetheless he kept his voice civil.  “I thank you, Lord Denethor,” he said.  The Wizard rose to his feet and addressed the council.

            “The Steward of Gondor speaks true.  Hardly has our strength sufficed to beat back the first great assault.  The next will be greater.  This war then is without final hope.  Victory cannot be achieved by arms, whether you sit here to endure siege after siege, or march out to be overwhelmed beyond the River.  You have only a choice of evils; and prudence would counsel you to strengthen such strong places as you have, and there await the onset; for so shall the time before your end be made a little longer.”

            There were mutterings at that, and Uncle Imrahil exclaimed in disdain, “Then you would have us retreat to Minas Tirith, or Dol Amroth, or to Dunharrow, and there sit like children on sand-castles when the tide is flowing?”

            “That would be no new counsel,” Mithrandir replied.  “Have you not done this and little more in these decades past?”

            I heard one or two gasps and muttered angry comments, but my own anger was rushing in my ears too loudly for me to mark them.  I sprang to my feet, and I heard my voice grating out, “You will have to explain yourself, Mithrandir.  My wits no doubt are too slow to take your meaning.  Has our army, then, been doing nothing when it held the forces of darkness back upon the eastern shore?  Are they children’s games that the Regiments of the Marches have dallied in, that until this very year kept our farmers safe in their fields, the fishermen and merchants free to ply the Great River, and all the people of Minas Tirith and the Southlands free to live without fear?  If our poor efforts are so laughable to you, let you try your hand at holding eight hundred miles of frontier and safeguarding all the lives of a kingdom, and tell me then whether you would laugh at us again – ” 

            “Be seated, Boromir,” came my father’s voice, smoothly cutting through my rant.  “I am sure that Lord Mithrandir meant no offence.”

            I had to clamp my jaws shut on the words I wanted to shout: a request that my father allow me to forcibly remove Lord Mithrandir from our council, and a threat that if Mithrandir dared again to insult my father’s rule, I would finish the job that the Balrog began. 

Still fuming, I sat down.  Faramir put his hand on my arm, and Svip cautiously reached out to take my other hand.

            “Forgive the interruption, My Lord,” my father went on.  “You say to us that victory cannot be achieved by arms.  Is it your counsel, then, that we should despair?  This conclusion we could have reached without a Wizard’s wisdom guiding us.”

            “It is not my counsel, Lord Denethor,” the Wizard answered.  “I said victory could not be achieved by arms.  I still hope for victory, but not by arms.  For into the midst of all these policies comes the Ring of Power, the foundation of Barad-dûr, the hope of Sauron.”

            There were a few uneasy murmurs, and someone gave a nervous laugh.  I confess that a twinge of superstitious dread shot through me as well, to hear the Wizard so freely stating our Enemy’s name. 

It was a foolish dread, I told myself.  For how could we possibly draw Sauron’s attention to us any more than it had been drawn already?

Mithrandir ignored the whispers, instead glaring at my father as though seeking to divine his thoughts.  By no twitch of expression did the Steward reveal any response to Mithrandir’s words. 

Mithrandir went on, turning his gleaming eyes now upon each of the council.

            “Concerning this thing, My Lords, you know enough for the understanding of our plight, and of Sauron’s.  If he regains it, your valour is vain, and his victory will be swift and complete: so complete that none can foresee the end of it while this world lasts.  If it is destroyed, then he will fall; and his fall will be so low that none can foresee his arising ever again.  For he will lose the best part of the strength that was native to him in his beginning, and all that was made or begun with that power will crumble, and he will be maimed for ever, becoming a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows, but cannot again grow or take shape.  And so a great evil of this world will be removed.

            “Now Sauron knows all this, and he knows that this precious thing which he lost has been found again; but he does not yet know where it is, or so we hope.  And therefore he is now in great doubt.  For if we have found this thing, there are some among us with strength enough to wield it.  That too he knows.  Do I not guess rightly, Aragorn, that you have shown yourself to him in the Stone of Orthanc?”

            The Wizard turned to Aragorn on those words.  The Northman sat forward and said with sombre tones and grim countenance, “I did so, ere I rode from the Hornburg.  I deemed that the time was right, and the Stone had come to me for just such a purpose.”

            “Now here, My Lords,” my father put in, “it is my turn to interrupt.  I fear that you have lost me with your ‘Stone of Orthanc’.  Is there a meaning in these words that mere mortals may know?”

            His words were succeeded by a pause as tense as lightning in the air.  All seemed to hold their breath, awaiting Mithrandir’s reply.

            At last the Wizard spoke.  “If the Men of Gondor do not entirely disdain the lore of their past, then all of you should know of the palantíri, the Seven Seeing Stones brought by Elendil from Númenor, once the far-seeing eyes of Gondor’s kings.  Some of you may account these mere fable.  But fable they are not, and alas, neither are all of them lost.  One at least, doubtless the Stone of Minas Ithil, is now in Sauron’s grasp.  Another remained in Orthanc, where Elendil had placed it.  It was perhaps the search for this Stone that took Saruman to Orthanc at the first, although to our grief, only far too late did any of us perceive this.  Be that as it may, Saruman found the Stone, and through it greatly did he increase his power.  But so also did he create unwittingly a link between himself and Sauron, a link through which our great Enemy at length bent Saruman to his will.”

            Silence followed, while the most of us sought to take that in.  My father was the first to speak, leaning forward and gazing keenly at Aragorn.  “And this, My Lords,” he said, “is the Stone that you now tell us Lord Aragorn has used?  Should we not then fear that the Captain of the Dúnedain may be under Sauron’s sway, even as was the unfortunate Saruman?”

            Exclamations of shock and protest sounded from several of the assembly, the two voices that I recognised out of the general upsurge being those of Éomer and of Gimli.

            Aragorn stood, silencing the protests of his supporters with a solemn, noble glance.  “I deemed it my charge and my right, Lord Denethor,” Aragorn said calmly.  “The palantír of Orthanc, set there by the Kings of Gondor: if any Man have the power to use it without falling under Sauron’s sway, it should be the heir of those Kings.  So I believed, and so in the event it proved.  I spoke no word to him, and in the end I wrenched the Stone to my will.  That alone he must find hard to endure.  And he beheld me.  To know that I live is a blow to his heart, for Sauron has not forgotten Isildur and the sword of Elendil.  Now in the hour of his great designs the heir of Isildur and the Sword re-forged are revealed.  He is not so mighty that he is above fear, and in that fear has he struck out against us.  It was then ten days since the Ring-bearer went east from Rauros, and the Eye of Sauron, I thought, should be drawn out from his own land.  Too seldom has he been challenged since he returned to his Tower.  Though if I had foreseen how swift would be his onset in answer, maybe I should not have dared to show myself.  Bare time was given me to come to your aid.”

            Anger had been rising within me as Aragorn spoke.  Faramir saw that, for his grip tightened on my arm.  Svip’s hand clutched more tightly around mine.  But at those last few words of Aragorn’s speech, I tore myself free of them and leapt once more to my feet.

            “Are we to understand, My Lord,” I raged, “that we have you to thank for the assault we have just endured?  Is it because you thumbed your nose at the Lord of Barad-dûr that fields and farmsteads are burned, that thousands of our people lie dead, that the King of Rohan and nine of his captains, and lords of Morthand, Lossarnach and Pinnath Gelin are slain?  You tell us it is your reckless posturing that sealed their doom, and yet we are to see you as a Man worthy to be our king?”

            The cat was truly among the pigeons then.  Half at least of those present were suddenly on their feet, shouting at once.  Faramir grasped my shoulders and struggled to turn me to face him, yelling some presumably calming words that I did not heed.  One of the two Elven brothers started toward me from Aragorn’s side, only to be grabbed and held back by Aragorn.

            Aragorn’s voice cut through the shouting of the rest, and at length all fell silent to hear him.  “You may well ask those questions, Boromir,” he said.  “You ask of me nothing that I have not also asked myself.  Yet remember, when I faced our Enemy in the Stone of Orthanc, his forces were already gathering.  Already had they met battle from the Rohirrim at Helm’s Deep, already had they set forth for Cair Andros and for Osgiliath.  My actions did not create these attacks.  But it may be that I drove Sauron to act the sooner, before all his strength was gathered.  The hasty stroke goes oft astray, and mayhap we had met odds more overwhelming still, had we left Sauron to await the time of his own choosing.”

I felt bitter hatred for Aragorn in that moment, a hatred mixed with equal measures of sorrow.  Heavily I said, “That consideration will bring scant comfort to the families of those who perished in these assaults.”

            Many others started speaking, but it was Lord Duinhir of Morthond whose voice carried over the rest.  “The battle was coming,” he said. “If it found us not fully ready, would we have been any the more prepared in another week, or in two?  If in truth the strike came before the Foe was prepared in full, then for that we should be grateful.  But I am mistaken in the purpose of this council, if we are here to squabble over past actions.  If we are not here to take counsel for the future, then I cannot but think that we are wasting each other’s time.”

            No answer could be made to that.  Lord Duinhir’s words were sense; and if he with his slain sons held no grudge against Aragorn for hastening the Enemy’s assault, what right then had I to nurse such a grudge? 

I bowed to Duinhir and sat down.  A moment later Aragorn did the same.

            As the council found their seats again, I glanced over at my father.  A faint smile played at his lips as his gaze passed over our assembled captains. 

            The voice of Éomer of Rohan called us back to the discussion I had interrupted.  “I do not understand these things,” he said, frowning.  “You say the Dark Lord has seen the Heir of Isildur and the Sword re-forged, and he fears Lord Aragorn may have the Ring.  How, then, did he dare the attack?  All is vain for us, you say, if he has the Ring.  Why should he not then think it vain to assail us, if we have it?”

            “He is not yet sure,” Mithrandir answered, “and we could not learn to wield the full power all in a day.  Indeed it can be used by one master alone, not by many; and he will look for a time of strife, ere one of the great among us makes himself master and puts down the others.

            “He is watching.  He sees much and hears much.  His Nazgûl are still abroad.  They passed over this field ere the sunrise, though few of the weary and sleeping were aware of them.  He studies the signs: the Sword that robbed him of his treasure re-made; the winds of fortune turning in our favour, and the defeat unlooked-for of his first assault; the fall of his great Captain.

            “His doubt will be growing, even as we speak here.  His eye is now straining towards us, blind almost to all else that is moving.  So we must keep it.  Therein lies all our hope.  This, then, is my counsel.  We have not the Ring.  In wisdom or great folly it has been sent away to be destroyed, lest it destroy us.  Without it we cannot by force defeat his force.  But we must at all costs keep his Eye from his true peril.  We cannot achieve victory by arms, but by arms we can give the Ring-bearer his only chance, frail though it be.”

            The Wizard’s burning gaze came to rest for a moment on my father and on me, as though he dared us to voice some protest against his plan.  He declared, “As Aragorn has begun, we must go on.  We must push Sauron to his last throw.  We must call out his hidden strength, so that he shall empty his land.  We must march out to meet him at once.  We must make ourselves the bait, though his jaws should close on us.  He will take that bait, in hope and in greed, for he will think that in such rashness he sees the pride of the new Ringlord: and he will say: ‘So!  He pushes out his neck too soon and too far.  Let him come on, and behold I will have him in a trap from which he cannot escape.  There I will crush him, and what he has taken in his insolence shall be mine again for ever.’

            “We must walk open-eyed into that trap, with courage, but with small hope for ourselves.  For, My Lords, it may well prove that we ourselves shall perish utterly in a black battle far from the living lands; so that even if Barad-dûr be thrown down, we shall not live to see a new age.  But this, I deem, is our duty.  And better so than to perish nonetheless – as we surely shall, if we sit here – and to know as we die that no new age shall be.”

            We sat in silence, the silence of Men without hope.  Svip huddled closer to me and once more clutched my hand.  I looked around at the others, their faces bearing grim smiles, dark frowns or looks of despair.  Looking to Faramir, I saw him watching me, warily seeking the signs that I might be building toward another explosion.

            “What do you think?” I whispered to him.

            My brother frowned.  Then he whispered back, “I think it is the only course.  Isn’t it?”

            “Damn it to hell,” I muttered.  “I’m afraid it probably is.”

            “Then how say you, My Lords?” our father’s voice rang out.  “You have heard the counsel of Lord Mithrandir.  Has any other Man counsel that he would bring?  And if not, will you follow the words of the Wizard, or no?”

            No one spoke.  Grimly we eyed each other, but all our grim looks did nothing to come up with another plan. 

At last Aragorn said, “For myself, as I have begun, so will I go on.  We come now to the very brink, where hope and despair are akin.  To waver is to fall.  Nonetheless I do not claim to command any Man.  Let others choose as they will.”

            One of the two Elf Lords, identical to his brother save for a fresh, livid scar that this one bore across his right cheek, spoke up.  “From the North we came with this purpose,” he said, “and from Elrond our father we brought this very counsel.  We will not turn back.”

            “If this expedition is the will of this council,” said Uncle Imrahil, “then Dol Amroth will not be behind-hand.  Better far to make some attempt, desperate though it be, than to hide trembling beneath our beds awaiting the end.”

            “Rohan will ride with you,” Éomer agreed.  “To the Lords Mithrandir and Aragorn our people owe greater debts than Man can repay.  If this is the path they follow, then that is enough for me.”

            One by one, the Lords and Captains voiced their assent.  It was a wonder to me that my father did not put forth some alternate plan, for following a plan espoused by Aragorn and the Wizard must have been bitter to him indeed.  But then when I thought of it, it was perhaps not so strange after all.  Perhaps, I thought, this plan served my father’s purposes as fully as though he had concocted it himself. 

There was little doubt that Aragorn and Mithrandir both would set forth with this forlorn hope into Mordor.  Thus would my father be freed, for the moment at least, from finding them ever underfoot.  And he could hope with good likelihood of fulfillment that Isildur’s Heir and the Wizard both would be killed.  

If we met the defeat that was all but certain, then the deaths of us all would spare him from dealing more with these two whom he so loathed.  And while there was still one spark of hope, what better course than for him to cheerfully send Aragorn and Mithrandir forth?  If fortune smiled on my father, they would foil the Dark Lord and get themselves killed into the bargain.

I did not notice that all of the Captains save Faramir and myself had spoken, until Faramir said firmly,  “I can see no other choice, My Lord.  I will go in command of the troops that Minas Tirith contributes to this venture, if that is your will.”

Startled I turned to my brother, only barely holding back my demand to know what the hell he was thinking of, when just this morning he had arisen from what was very nearly his deathbed.  

            “I thank you, Faramir,” said our father, “and gladly will I accept your offer, since the conditions of your brother’s return constrain him to remain near to the Great River.  And what say you, Boromir?  Have you aught to contribute to our plans?”

            The contribution I wanted to make was to yell myself blue in the face at the Lord Steward, for blithely including my wounded brother in an expedition that anyone could see was doomed.  But, I reminded myself, we were all of us doomed, anyway.  Death in Mordor or in Minas Tirith would be death just the same.

            “I can offer no better course,” I said.  “Yet I would counsel that we do not wholly discard prudence, much though Lord Mithrandir may deride that homely virtue.  Let us take care that in our enthusiasm for this frail hope we do not send forth each and every one of our fighting Men, and leave Gondor herself unguarded.  While there is yet the slimmest chance of victory, it is our duty still to preserve our country, as it has always been.”

            Mithrandir heaved a sigh.  “I do not tell you to cast prudence to the winds, My Lord Boromir,” he said.  “It is not my counsel to leave the City all unmanned.  The force that we lead east need not be great enough for any assault in earnest upon Mordor, so long as it be great enough to challenge battle.  And it must move soon.  With your permission, Lord Denethor, I would ask of the Captains: what force could we muster and lead out in two days at the latest?  They must be hardy Men that go willingly, knowing their peril.”

            So our council moved toward its end, while each of us tallied up the Men he believed he could field. 

Aragorn reported that another four thousand Men could be expected from the southern coast, troops under Angbor of Lamedon who had been too many to fit in the captured ships of the corsairs.  Here I bit my tongue, and did not allow myself to voice the observation that those were another four thousands who might have reached the City before it was besieged, had Lord Aragorn not seen fit to show himself in the Stone of Orthanc.          

With the expectation of those four thousands, the division of our forces fell out thus:

Seven thousands were to set forth in two days’ time.  The most of them would be on foot, for all reports of the razor-sharp rocks and belching fire pits of Mordor told us that horses should likely fare worse there even than Men. 

Aragorn would lead one half of the Men expected from the south.  Faramir would command three and half thousands, a force consolidated from our regular troops, the Ranger regiments and the foot soldiers of the Outlands.  Éomer would lead one thousand of his Rohirrim, the half on foot and half on horse.  There would be another unit of five hundred horse under the command of Prince Imrahil, the combined cavalries of Minas Tirith, Dol Amroth, and Aragorn’s northern Rangers.

            For the defence of the City would remain the main strength of the Rohirrim who were yet horsed and able to fight, three thousands of them under the command of Marshal Elfhelm; and the other two thousands from the coast whose arrival Aragorn promised.

            So we reckoned.  The Lord Steward rose from his chair, bidding all of us to set about the business we had now before us.  As the assembly began to disperse, a sudden loud laugh from Uncle Imrahil caused everyone to stop and stare at him.

            “Surely,” he exclaimed, “this is the greatest jest in all the history of Gondor!  That we should march with seven thousands, scarce as many as the vanguard of the army in the days of its power, to assail the mountains and the impenetrable gate of the Black Land!  So might a child threaten a mail-clad knight with a bow of string and green willow!  If the Dark Lord knows so much as you say, Mithrandir, will he not rather smile than fear, and with his little finger crush us like a fly that tries to sting him?”

            “No,” Mithrandir replied, “he will try to trap the fly and take the sting.  And there are names among us that are worth more than a thousand mail-clad knights apiece.  No, he will not smile.”

            “Neither shall we,” observed Aragorn.  “If this be jest, then it is too bitter for laughter.”  His voice took on the ringing tones of one rallying his troops, while he obdurately ignored the irritated glare that the Steward was aiming at him.  “Nay,” he declared, “it is the last move in a great jeopardy, and for one side or the other it will bring the end of the game.”

            Aragorn then drew his re-forged sword and held it aloft, where its blade sparkled as it caught the morning sunlight.  Addressing his sword he cried, “You shall not be sheathed again until the last battle is fought.”

I stared at Isildur’s Heir, and I was hard pressed to restrain myself from following in my uncle’s footsteps and breaking out in laughter.

            Leaning close to Faramir, I whispered, “Now, that is one stupid thing to say.”

            Faramir cast a startled glance at me.  “What is?” he hissed back.

            Aragorn had by now lowered his sword and handed it over to one of his Rangers.  I smirked, “Is he telling us he’ll carry his sword unsheathed all the way to Mordor?  He’s going to cut himself on it, if he isn’t careful.”

            Now the look that Faramir turned my way suggested that he wished I’d stayed dead.  He whispered, “Boromir, for heaven’s sake …”

            “Scabbards were invented for a reason, you know.”

            My brother hissed, “Will you behave yourself!”

            “I am behaving myself.  You don’t want to know what this council would have been like if I hadn’t been.”

            “You’re right, I don’t.”

            Both of us suddenly noticed our father’s gaze turned in our direction.  The Lord Steward inquired mildly, “Have you something to add to our discussion?”

            “No, sir,” we both said, almost in unison.  Faramir was blushing furiously.  The sound of a stifled laugh drew my eyes to Húrin Keeper of the Keys, who I saw quickly cover his mouth to hide a smile as he looked at us.

Our father cleared his throat, and if I was not much mistaken there were traces of a smile on his face and in his voice as well.  “Let us not dally, My Lords,” said he, “lest Lords Aragorn and Mithrandir accuse us of sitting on our hands and not bestirring ourselves enough in taking the fight to the Enemy.”

I looked down at Svip, who was still sticking near as close to me as though he were strapped to my leg.  “If you will excuse us from attending on you for an hour or so, sir,” I said to the Steward, “Svip and I should go to the River.”

The Lord Steward eyed me in sudden concern, as though he feared I might drop down dead in that instant.  “Yes, of course,” he said quickly.  To camouflage that moment of weakness, he announced in brisk tones, “Boromir and Faramir, Imrahil, Húrin, My Lord Éomer: let you join me in two hours’ time at my conference chamber in the White Tower, that we may further discuss the division of our troops.”

As our father strode to where attendants waited with the horses, with Húrin and Pippin in his wake, I turned to Faramir.

“Now what do you think you’re doing?” I hissed.  “Here you are, more dead than alive, and you volunteer to go traipsing off into Mordor?”

Infuriatingly, he smiled.  “You sound like Éomer,” he observed.  “I assure you, brother, I have no intention of traipsing.”

I began, “You know what I mean – ”

Faramir interrupted me, suddenly turned very serious.  “If I hadn’t volunteered, he would have volunteered me.  I have to do this, Boromir.  He’d make my life not worth living, if I didn’t.”

“Damnation,” I groaned.  As I had so many times before, I wanted desperately just to knock my father and brother’s heads together.  Turning back from the impossible, I tried for something that might at least have a chance.  “You promised me you’d have a lie down after the council,” I said.  “Will you at least do that for a few minutes, before this next blasted conference?”

“I will,” he said solemnly.  “Now will you get going?  You two have got to get to the River.”

            Svip changed back into horse form.  From the crossroads we set out along the Harlond Road.  Svip’s steps were little faster than plodding, and he held to his uncharacteristic silence.

            “You had us worried about you,” I told him, trying to keep my voice light as I said it.

            “You’ve got Faramir worried about you,” my friend the horse replied.  “And your father.  And you and your father are worried about Faramir.  Everyone’s worried about someone.”

            I wasn’t quite certain what he meant by all of that, or if his comments were observations plain and simple.  I said, “It is better than not having anyone to worry about.  Or having no one to worry about you.”

            “Maybe,” Svip said.

            Svip picked up his pace, and we took the rest of the way to the Harlond at a steady canter.  The docks and alleyways of Waterfront were as busy that morn as they would be on any ordinary day, but the activity all was clean-up from the battle, not the docks’ usual bustle of commerce.  Guildsmen and soldiers hammered boards into place over shattered windows and collected into carts the few remaining corpses.  A few of our boats that had survived, and some of the smaller vessels of Aragorn’s pirate flotilla, were being used to tow across the River the burned wrecks of our fishing and merchant fleets.  Along the far shore, at the current’s edge, the wrecks were scuttled and sunk, where with luck they might in turn waylay any enemy craft heading across the River in a future assault.

            On the deck of a large and brightly-painted pirate vessel I saw Raðobard of the Merchant Adventurers, seemingly inspecting the ship.  He turned at the sound of Svip’s hoofbeats, and waved to us.  I waved back before alighting from Svip and hurrying toward our now-usual jetty.

            Svip returned to his normal form.  He did not wait for me as he ran down the steps and dived into the water.  I doffed my outer garments and followed after.

            When I came back to the surface after my initial dive, I found Svip close by me, watching me with a solemn gaze that seemed close to tears.  I realized that I could not now recall ever seeing him cry, through all that we had been through together.  I wondered if indeed his people cried.

I asked, “Shall we race across the River and back?”

            “All right,” Svip said, still with no brightening of the look upon his face.

            We were neck-and-neck throughout our plunge across the current.  Svip reached the quay-wall again scarce one length of his body ahead of me, although I would not be surprised to learn that he had held back his pace to make me feel better about my own performance.

            Together we sat upon our usual staircase, I with the waterline across my chest and Svip with the water up to his neck.

            Silently he gazed up at me, and at last I said, “Will you tell me now what is troubling you?”

            He sank down a little, and I wondered if he would submerge himself entirely.  But he stopped with his head still above the water.  Staring out into the River’s course, he said, “Finn died last night.”

            “Finn?” I murmured, caught entirely by surprise.  I thought of the Man of Minas Tirith as I had last seen him, on the day of the siege, singing to the accompaniment of his lute while Nazgûl wheeled screaming through the lightless sky above.  “What happened to him?” I asked.

            “You know he was with the firefighters,” Svip said.

            I nodded.  I knew, it of course.  It was I who had sent him there.

            “They said a roof beam fell on him, in one of the burning houses.  He wasn’t killed at the first, but the Healers said he didn’t wake up at all, before – before he died.”  Svip’s words paused for a moment, then he hurried on, without looking at me, “I went to the wall last night and got back his lute from where I left it.  I gave the lute to Captain Cirion; he said he’d get it to Finn’s family.  Did you know that Thorolf is going to be all right?  He’s awake, I talked with him this morning.  The Healers said they’d given up hope for him, it was so long since he’d spoken in his sleep, but Lord Aragorn got to him in time.  But Lord Aragorn couldn’t do anything for Finn.  Maybe his healing only works for the dark sleep – not for getting hit by a burning roof.”

            Svip looked up at me at last, the sorrow in his eyes seeming all the more painful for the lack of tears.  “I can’t bring him back,” he said.  “I don’t have any silverweed.  I don’t think it would help if I did.  I brought him back once already, I don’t know what would happen if I did it again.  I think – I think it would be something awful.”

            “He wouldn’t want you to bring him back again anyway,” I said quietly.  “He said as much, when we were escaping from the harbour at Cair Andros.  He was joking, I know, but Men joke of the most serious of things.  He said it wouldn’t be worth it, bringing him back again, since it caused so much trouble the first time.”

            Svip said, his voice of a sudden rising almost to a shout, “I don’t know if it was worth it bringing him back at all!  What good was it, if he was still going to die?”

            “It was worth it, Svip,” I insisted.  “You gave him time to see his home again.  You gave him a few more days of life with his friends, and a chance to fight again for the salvation of his City.  It was worth it.”

            “I don’t know,” said Svip.

            I raised my hand out of the water, and rubbed River water over my face.  Then I held my hand out to Svip.  He gazed at it for a moment in deliberation, then hesitatingly he reached from the water to place his hand in mine, and scrambled upward to sit on a higher step.

            Gazing down at my friend, I thought of how new all of this must be to Svip.  It was yet under a month since Svip and I had met, and since I took him from his home into the world of Men, the world of death and loss.

            Almost it was as though Svip were a child meeting death for the first time.

I thought back, remembering what it had been like for me.  I could still very clearly recall my father’s strained and grief-shaken voice, as he sought to explain to me my grandfather’s death.  Far more vague were my recollections of me trying to explain to Faramir about death, in those first black days when our mother was gone. 

I’d not really had to have such a conversation again since then.  My son had been so far progressed into his own illness when his mother died, that I’d not had to speak of it with him.  There’d been nothing I could do but to hold him, telling him fairy tales and hoping that he could hear me.

            But now, I thought, it was as if Findemir had survived to grow to adulthood, somehow without ever encountering death.  And how much worse must it be for Svip, to face for the first time the loss of people he cared for, when he had dwelt upon this Middle Earth for thousands of years? 

            “Svip,” I said, “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry I brought you into our world to face this.  Men have to deal with this, with losing those we love, all through our lives.  We grow used to it, I suppose, even though it never ceases to hurt.  I’m sorry you have to deal with it now.  Tell me, didn’t you face somewhat of the same thing, when you parted from your mother?”

            Svip tilted his head in thought.  “Maybe a little,” he said.  “But not really.  It was lonely, at first, not having anyone to talk to.  But it was better, you know – because I was old enough then that if I’d stayed, we’d just have killed each other over territory.”  Looking up at me with a sort of desperate wondering, he asked, “How do you do it?  How do you learn to keep living, when people die?”

            Ruefully I thought, Svip, you have just asked the one great question of life.

            “It’s not easy,” I said.  “Sometimes we never really do manage it.  But – you just have to be grateful that the person lived at all.  That they were given any time to be happy, and to love.  And you have to hope that they are happy again, wherever their spirits are.”

            Svip whispered, “Do you believe they really are somewhere?”

            “Yes,” I said.  “Where, I don’t know for certain.  But I believe it.”

            “I hope so,” Svip said. 

He took a deep breath, straightening his shoulders and forcing his expression into a look of determination.  He asked me, “What can I do now?” 

            I thought on that for a moment.  “Well,” I said, “working to help those who are still alive, sometimes lets you think with less pain of those who are not.  You have skills with healing and herb-lore; as great, I’m sure, as any of our Healers.  Would you like, do you think, to work with them?  Perhaps it would help you.  It would certainly be of help to them.”

            Svip considered that.  “Yes,” he said finally.  “All right.  Maybe it will help.”

            “I’ll introduce you formally to the Warden of the Houses, and give my recommendation that they take you on as an assistant.  There will be plenty to do, especially now that the dark sleep is vanquished.  They’ll be moving all those less seriously wounded from my townhouse back to the Houses of Healing, that the Healers need not be spread over two locations.  So you can help with the move, and I’m sure there’ll be no shortage of work after that.” 

            Svip nodded.  He said again, firmly, “All right.”

            I squeezed his hand, then reluctantly I got to my feet.  “We’d best be getting back,” I said, “so I can make your introductions before this next meeting with my father.  You have to promise me two things,” I went on, as I headed up the staircase with Svip hastening beside me.  “You’re not to work so hard that you forget to sleep.  You have to promise me that you’ll go back to the Fountain every night.  And I want you to meet me at dawn every morning, so we can go to the River.”

            Svip surged up into horse form while I was putting on my outer tunic.  He said, “I promise.”

            The day passed with little else requiring detail in this chronicle.  I presented Svip to the Chief Healer as I had said.  The meeting with my father and the captains I spent plotting ways to get my brother back to his sickbed where he belonged.  Faramir did not, of course, go to his bed as immediately as I thought he should.  But at last I talked him into returning to his townhouse while I filled in for him in overseeing the readying of his troops.

            Other business was now also to hand.  Our scouts brought word that another force of the enemy, those whom the Rohirrim had spotted from afar in their wild ride from Rohan’s plains, was still encamped north of the City. 

Clearly this force had been sent by their Black Captain to block the path of any such reinforcement from Rohan.  Now having failed in that task, I could imagine that their commanders must be torn between steering well clear of us on the long road back to Mordor, and trying their own assault on the City, when perhaps our guard might be down now that we had survived the first attack.

            We agreed amongst us that it would be needless recklessness to send the host from Minas Tirith, with this enemy lurking yet unfought so close upon us.  We determined that the force of Rohirrim who were to stay in defence of the City, under command of Elfhelm the Marshal, should ride that very day against our lingering foe, while those who were to march for Mordor continued preparation for their departure.

            I too, to my relief, had a task in which I could busy my hands and my mind, determined upon in that day’s consultation with my father: the re-fortification of Osgiliath.  The ferries and boat-bridges that the enemy had used in their attack could be turned now to our own use.  With the foe for the moment fled, we had the opportunity to put up again some defensive works upon the eastern shore, as well as re-strengthening our shattered defences upon the west. 

This command, my father and I agreed, would be mine – a task that would place me closer to the Great River, as well as giving me some work of use, even though I could not ride with our armies to Mordor.

Late in that afternoon I visited the Houses of Healing.  For that little time it silenced in me all voices of dread about the future, when I talked with so many of our Men in the wards who the day before had seemed all in the clutches of the grave. 

Thorolf Son of Eyjolf apologised ruefully for getting himself wounded and obliging us to haul him all the way from Cair Andros.  The rumour of my visit reached Svip, then working in another ward, and the water creature came scurrying up to us while I was talking with Thorolf.

Svip looked to me in question at the wounded Ranger’s request that Svip sit with him a while and tell him all that had been happening since our escape from Cair Andros.  I assured Svip that talking with the patients was an important part of his duties.  I left them with Svip perched on Thorolf’s bed.  His long green face was still solemn, but he spoke with much of his old eagerness as he launched into the story of our battles.

The duty that I performed that evening and long into the night, was among the bleakest that any commander must face.  Those hours I spent in penning the letters of condolence that had been grimly mounting in numbers throughout the days past.  Among these was the letter that I had promised back at Cair Andros, to Branwyn Daughter of Frithjof, whose husband Lothar had died on the wall of the island fortress.  There was also now among them the letter to Simbelmynë, Finn’s wife. 

I supposed that Branwyn Daughter of Frithjof must likely still be far from home, gone in the evacuation of City to stay with relatives or friends even as had Simbelmynë and her sons. 

How many others, I thought, would return home to letters such as I was writing now, to dark and quiet houses in which they would never again welcome home the Men that they loved?

At dawn the next morning Svip kept faithfully to our bargain, bounding down the road from the Citadel even as I stepped from my courtyard gate.  To my satisfaction I noted that his tunic was dripping, indicating that he had at least spent some time in the Fountain, as he’d promised.

 My friend was still quieter than his wont, but he did not seem so painfully burdened down as he had the day before.  I could only hope that this progress would continue – and hope against hope that there would not soon come other deaths to burden his heart again.

 When we returned to the City, the morning breeze drying all too soon my River-soaked clothes, Svip and I parted on the Fifth Level.  He hurried onward to return to the Houses of Healing, while I stopped before the Fifth Level’s tunnel, at Faramir’s townhouse.

Far from lying obediently tucked into bed, my little brother was on his feet and was just finishing getting dressed when I arrived. 

I leaned against his bedroom door and glowered at him while he hastily combed his hair.  I grumbled, “I vow that you must be the worst patient ever.  Can’t you ever stay in bed as you are told?”

Faramir raised an eyebrow at me and retorted, “I don’t intend to be carried to Mordor on a litter, you know.  If I’m riding to battle tomorrow, I had better get used to staying upright.”

“You had half of yesterday to practice it, that should have been enough.”  Sighing I stepped aside and opened the door for him, then I followed him through into the hallway.  “Where are you off to now?  I’m sure Anborn can manage things perfectly well, without you hanging over his shoulder looking like death.”

“I’m sure he can,” said Faramir, “which is why I am not rushing to get to him.  I thought I would go to pay our family’s respects to Lady Éowyn.  She is our kin, after all, and none of us have yet been to the Houses to visit her.”     

“Oh.  That’s a good idea,” I admitted.  “I’ll go along with you.”

Faramir cast me a look of disgust.  “You’re as transparent as crystal.  Why don’t you just say ‘I’ll come along to catch you if you faint’?”

“Well, that’s a good idea, too.”

We made our way through the streets and the tunnel, a bit more slowly than Faramir’s usual pace.  He did look improved from the day before; there was more colour in his face, and he seemed a good deal steadier upon his feet.  Perhaps he might almost be well enough to undertake this journey, though not as well by far as he wished me to believe.

“I know the answer to this, I suppose,” I said.  “There is no way at all to convince you not to go on this damned diversion?”

“You do know the answer,” said he.  “There is no way at all.  Look, Boromir,” he went on, “it makes absolute sense for me to go.  One of our family has to.  It should not be Father, he has the City’s care to see to – and he and Mithrandir would be at each other’s throats all the way to the Black Gate.  And it cannot be you.  I am glad to go; it will give me the chance to learn more of Lord Aragorn, so I can make a more educated choice if the time does come when he presses his claim to the throne.  You’ve already spent a journey in his company; you’ve had time to study and form your opinions of him.  I haven’t, and I’m glad of the chance.”          

“Then you’re not yet certain,” I asked him, in some surprise, “that he is our rightful king?”

“I know what my dreams told me, when I awoke,” he said quietly.  “They told me that I had been lost in horror and shadows, and that the King had called me to wake.  I know what my dreams told me, but there is more to life than dreams.  If I am to stand as one of the Council, and make the decision to hail him as King or no, then I must make that choice with more knowledge behind it than the words of dreaming.”

“Faramir – I haven’t had time to tell you of this yet.  We should talk of it, before you set out.   Father has told me lately of his past encounter with Aragorn; you should know of it too.  You haven’t spoken with Father about Aragorn, have you?”

“Just how stupid do you think I am?  No, I have not spoken with Father about him.  I would do just as well to hold a debate with him about Mithrandir.”   He smiled at me, in melancholy tinged with amusement.  “Fear not, Boromir.  I am not about to challenge Father’s ire by running through Minas Tirith’s streets hailing Aragorn as King.”

“That’s a relief,” I said, only part in jest.

In the Houses of Healing, the clerk at the desk informed us that the Lady Éowyn was walking in the gardens with the Halfling Meriadoc.  When we stepped outside again into that realm of gleaming green lawn and the first bright spring flowers, we could see the two whom we sought on one of the far paths, walking slowly away from us.  Merry, I could see, wore his livery of Rohan, while the lady was clad in a dark blue gown that seemed impossibly vivid in the sunlight.  I exchanged a worried look with Faramir. 

“She’s as impossible as you are,” I said.  “If Éomer knows that she is out of her room, he must be tearing out his hair.”

            Faramir nodded.  “Let’s hope he’s been too busy to find it out.”

            We followed the marble-paved paths toward them.  While we were still a good distance away, Lady Éowyn must have heard our footfalls or sensed a presence behind her.  She stopped and turned, and gazed at us for a moment.  The lady said something to the Hobbit, who had turned when she did.  The two of them stood waiting for us by a pair of carven marble benches.

            “Hail to you, Éowyn of Rohan,” I said, as we drew near.  “And to you, Merry.”

            Merry smiled, but worry was writ plain upon his face as he glanced quickly up at Lady Éowyn.

            Faramir and I bowed, and the lady gave a curtsy in reply.  As she did so, the brown knitted shawl that she wore slid off her left shoulder, as did the shoulder of her dress.  Trying not to let too much irritation show on her face, Lady Éowyn yanked up dress and shawl, covering again the sling on her arm that had become visible when the shawl fell.

            “Hail, Lady,” Faramir said.  “It rejoices me to see you recovered.”

            “Thank you, My Lord,” she answered, with unsmiling face and sombre gaze.  “I rejoice to see you recovered as well.  And you, My Lord Boromir,” she continued, “I rejoice to see you alive.  All of Rohan sorrowed to hear of your death.”

            I bowed again, and replied, “As does all of Gondor at the loss of Prince Théodred and Théoden King.”

“I thank you,” she murmured.  Her gaze dropped for a moment, then she looked up once more and turned her solemn grey eyes to Faramir.  “You are well then, Lord Faramir?” she asked.  “I heard that you had suffered grievous hurt.”

            “Not so grievous as many suffered.  I thank you; I am well enough,” he said.

            Éowyn nodded.  She said, “It is so also with me.”

            She glanced down at Merry, who was still looking worried.  Turning back to us, she said with a ghost of a smile, “Your arrival is well-timed, My Lords.  I have just been debating with Merry whether I should send to you, entreating you to visit me.”

            “You should not hesitate again, Lady,” I said, “if we can be of any service to you.”

            Again she nodded.  “Will you sit?” she offered, gesturing to the benches near at hand.

            The benches marked two sides of a small patio, a third side taken up by a rose bush mantled with its first new green leaves of the year.  Lady Éowyn sat on one bench with Merry, whose feet could not quite scrape the ground, while Faramir and I took the other. 

As Éowyn sat, the neckline of her dress must have shifted again.  She tugged at it and then gave us a pained little smile.

            “My brother insisted on purchasing new dresses for me here in your City,” she said.  “I forbade him to send any seamstresses to fuss about me, so he had to content himself with a few ready-made from the dressmakers’ shops – which do not entirely fit.  I have, of course, only myself to blame.  Dame Ioreth lent me this shawl, for which I am deeply grateful to her.  Forgive me, My Lords; I am certain you did not come here to discuss my clothing.”

            “If you will allow it, My Lady,” I said, “I believe we could undertake to find a dressmaker who would make the necessary alterations, while yet not fussing over you.”

            She answered, “I thank you, Lord Boromir,” forcing another smile to her face while again fidgeting with the neckline and then pulling the shawl closer about her.  “If I remain long in the City I will avail myself of your offer.”

            Faramir asked solemnly, not allowing himself to be mired in any small-talk about dresses, “Will you tell us, Lady, why it was you wished to send for us?”

            The lady’s expression grew grimly serious.  Merry frowned and looked about to speak, but then he thought better of it.

            “I will, Lord,” Éowyn answered.  “There is a great boon that I would seek of you.  I ask, My Lords, that you intercede for me with the King my brother – and if need be, with the Lord Aragorn.  My brother has forbidden me to ride with the Éored, when our armies set forth for Mordor upon the morrow.  I know I may not look it now,” she added with some bitterness, “but I rode from Dunharrow as a warrior of Rohan, and my deeds upon the battlefield are not lessened by the fact that a woman wrought them.  Éomer will listen to you,” she went on, hurriedly. “I ask this of you as my kinsmen, and as fellow soldiers.  You are both experienced commanders.  You would not leave a trained and skilled warrior here to sicken in sloth, who is well and able and longing again to fight for the sake of our countries?”

            I glanced unhappily at Faramir, and he at me.  Faramir was the first to speak.

            “We do not deny your great deeds, Éowyn Daughter of Éomund,” was his quiet-voiced reply, “nor your training and skill.  Yet as commanders we must ask the same of you that we would ask of any other warrior.  Are you indeed, then, well and able to return to battle, as you say?”

            She answered firmly, but a blush rose to her cheeks, seeming to give the lie to her words.  “I am healed,” she said, “healed at least in body, save my left arm only, and that is at ease.  But I will sicken anew if I must lie here idle, caged, while the battle rages still.”

            Merry had been sitting hunched forward on the bench, staring down at his hands.  Now he looked up, and cast a look that seemed to be of pleading, at me.

            Which side of the case he was pleading for, whether to let her go or to forbid her, I had no way of knowing.  But I knew as well as Faramir what our answer must be, whether Merry agreed with it or no. 

“And what of your left arm, Lady?” I queried, keeping my voice as gentle as I could.  “Even you do not tell us that it is healed.  Would you have us send forth a warrior who cannot hold a shield, to be slaughtered in the first clash of armies?”

Her eyes sparked in anger.  “I can yet hold a sword,” she countered haughtily, “and I can wield it.  In this battle, that will be all that matters.”

“You do not know that,” Faramir put in.  “There is still the chance that some of us may live to return.  While that chance remains, we cannot send into battle any warriors whose injuries prevent their best hope of defence.”

“Can you not, My Lord Faramir?” asked the Lady Éowyn, a dangerous glitter in her gaze.  “Not even yourself?  Yet I was told that you were wounded but four days ago by a Southron bowman, and that you were healed at near the same time as I.”

Faramir gave a rueful smile.  “It is true,” he said.  “But the fact remains that I do not have a broken shield-arm.”

“You have a wound that may re-open when you come again into combat.  That is not enough, then, to condemn you to idleness, as I am condemned?”

My brother’s smile grew more melancholy still.  “There is something else, Lady,” he said softly.  “I have a father and commander who orders my presence on this expedition, while you have a brother and commander who forbids yours.”

Merry could hold himself silent no longer.  Looking in dread at Éowyn, he burst out to her, “You will not do it, will you?”

For a lengthy moment the lady neither moved nor spoke.  Then at last she sighed, her face seeming to turn of a sudden as bleak as a winter’s sky.

“No, Merry,” she said.  “If the Sons of Denethor will not intercede for me, then I will not ride from the City in secret.  I will not again join the Éored without my King’s command.”

Merry stared as though stricken at the grimness and sorrow on her face.  In that reaction I felt entirely in sympathy with him.  The Hobbit turned desperately to Faramir and me, and demanded, “Isn’t there something you can do?”

I looked over at my brother.  He was leaning forward suddenly with a new, eager smile. 

Faramir said, “You say that you are condemned to idleness.  What if you need not be idle?  Is riding to battle the only answer that you will accept?  Or can your pain be eased through other deeds for the defence of our countries, here in Minas Tirith?”

Warily the lady eyed him.  “If you tell me to bake bread for the troops, My Lord, I will tell you that there are others whose skills are better suited to it, and that a warrior’s sword should not be exchanged for a baker’s griddle.”

“Please believe me,” said Faramir, “I was not thinking of baking.”

“It is true,” I put in, catching Faramir’s enthusiasm.  “I cannot ride with our armies on the morrow any more than you can, but I will not be taking up baking, nor idling in sloth.  There is work here in plenty.  Will you accept duty in the guarding of the City, or under my command in the re-fortifying of Osgiliath?  In fact,” I went on, “let us ask the Lord of the City himself to assign you your duties.  Our father is a practical Man; he knows how ill we can afford to leave idle any warrior of skill.  If you give me your permission to do so, I will seek audience for you with the Lord Steward, and will go with you to him to pledge my support for your cause.”  I could not refrain from smiling as I added, “Doubtless Éomer will be aggrieved with us, but he can scarcely order you back to the Houses of Healing if the Steward of Gondor himself has assigned you duty in the defence of the west.”

Lady Éowyn’s expression was wary still, as she pondered whether the plan was worthy of hope.   She asked, “And how if the Lord Steward orders me back to the Houses himself?”

“He will not do so,” I said confidently.  “But if he does, then no matter.  I will assign you command among my officers at Osgiliath, and by the time your brother returns to learn of it and complains to my father, your arm will be healed and these Houses will menace you no more.  How say you, Éowyn of Rohan?”

She gave a reluctant smile.  She said, “I would hate to be the cause that lures a Steward’s Son into rebellion against his father.  Yet so black is my dread of languishing here without purpose, that I accept your help, My Lord, even at the risk of fomenting such treason.” 

She stood, clutching with grim determination to her shawl to hold it in place.  The three others of us stood as well, Faramir and I springing to our feet and Merry jumping down from the bench.

Letting go of her shawl, which remained obediently in its place, the Lady Éowyn held out her pale, slender hand.  She shook hands with me and then with Faramir.  “I thank you for your kindness to me, Lord Boromir,” she said.  “And you also, Lord Faramir – though I grudge bitterly that you ride to Mordor and I may not.” 

“Think not too harshly of we who ride without you,” Faramir said earnestly.  “The road to Mordor would be brighter, did you ride it with us.  Yet I will risk your anger and confess that I am thankful you will not be there.  The Lord your brother will fight with a lighter heart, without the dread that he must afterward search the battlefield and find you among the fallen.  And I,” he added, smiling, “will fight with a lighter heart as well, knowing that you will be here to keep my brother out of trouble.”

“I would gladly trade places with you, Lord,” said Éowyn.  “Yet I will undertake to keep the Lord your brother safe, if you will undertake to return to the City in safety – and to bring my brother back with you.”

“It is a bargain, Lady.”

We left Éowyn and Merry in the garden, I assuring the lady that I would send word to her as soon as I secured our audience with the Steward.  Before stepping once more into the corridors of the Houses, black as caverns in contrast to the gardens’ sunlight, we stopped to look back.  Éowyn and Merry had climbed the steps to the battlement along the garden wall.  Merry stood high up in one of the embrasures and the lady leaned upon the parapet, gazing outward to the east.

Faramir said softly, “She is a valiant lady.  I hope that you have not promised her more than you can fulfil.  It will wound her to the heart if you cannot secure for her the work that she longs for.  She has been wounded too deeply already.”

“When have you known me for an oath-breaker?” I demanded.  “Of course I will fulfil my pledge to her.  It is true, after all, all that we said – true that we cannot send her forth wounded as she is; true also that we would be fools to let her languish in the Houses when Gondor and Rohan have need of her skill and courage.”

Upon leaving the Houses of Healing we parted ways, Faramir to consult with Lieutenant Anborn on the readying of their troops – ignoring as always my obligatory objection that he should retire to his bed – and I to seek out our father and request the Lady Éowyn’s audience.  In this I was not immediately successful, for I was informed by my father’s seneschal that the Lord Steward was in his chamber at the top of the White Tower.  I wrote a note requesting the audience, to be delivered to my father when he descended. 

The rest of the daylight hours I spent at Osgiliath.  On the way there and back I followed the longer route along the Rammas, to remain closer to the River. 

I had not wished to interrupt Svip’s work at the Houses by asking him to join me.   But I confess that it felt odd to me, and a little lonely, to be riding that day a horse with whom I could not maintain a conversation.

When I returned to the White City as evening set in, it was to find everything a-bustle with the recent arrival of the promised troops from Lamedon.  They were some two hundreds fewer than had been Aragorn’s estimate, but the difference was not great enough to necessitate re-ordering of our plans.

Joyous news also had reached the City by the time I returned from Osgiliath.  Elfhelm the Marshal sent messengers ahead of his Riders’ return, with the news that the Rohirrim had met the foe upon the Anórien Road.  They now had the force of Orcs and Easterlings in full, if straggling, flight.

Harried and scattered by the Rohirrim, they had broken and fled with little fighting back toward Cair Andros.  With that threat removed and the new strength arriving out of the South, the City was as well manned as we could make it.  Our scouts that we had sent across the River were returned with the report that no enemies remained upon the roads east, as far as the Crossroads of the Fallen King.

That crossroad was as far east as I myself had ever gone, except in my childhood fantasies of someday leading our armies into Mordor and throwing down the Dark Lord in single combat.  I had to shake off a melancholy that came near to taking hold of me, at the thought that Faramir, Uncle Imrahil, Éomer, Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn, and seven thousands of our Men all soon would ride beyond those crossroads, past the toppled statue of a long-dead king and into perils that I could never share.

My father had sent word that he would meet with the Lady Éowyn and me next morning after the army’s departure, which tidings I sent on to the lady.  I dined that night with Faramir at his townhouse.  We spoke little of what might lie ahead.  Instead I told Faramir of my interview with our father, when he had revealed to me the tale of Aragorn’s sojourn in Gondor as Captain Thorongil.

Faramir listened thoughtfully, commenting seldom.  He agreed that he had indeed read of Thorongil in the chronicles and reports of the last days of our grandfather’s reign.  The sum of his reactions was also much the same as mine.  With wonder and regret on his face, he shook his head and murmured, “Valar.  No wonder Father hates him.  And hates Mithrandir, too.”  

I nodded.  “I don’t know what we will do,” I confessed, “if the time comes when Aragorn presses his claim.  Father will never consider it with anything other than violent opposition.  And if the Council is moved by the claim …”

Grimly my brother smiled, and he gave the same answer that I had so often given myself.  He said, “I suppose we’ll just have to hope we’re all killed before it comes to that.”

I wished that I could postpone the morrow’s partings by talking with Faramir for a few hours longer.  But of course the dawn would come, whether we talked all the night, or no.  I bade Faramir goodnight, with another iteration of my reminder that he needed his sleep.  Then I betook myself to the Citadel, to my chambers in the King’s House.

That hallowed name possessed a taunting irony, when I thought of it that night, that it had never held for me before.

I thought, What if one of our ancestors, at some point over these last thousand years, had seen fit to change the name from King’s House to Steward’s?  Or if indeed, as I had so often asked my father, we had come to call ourselves no longer stewards, but kings? 

What if somewhere in those years, we had ceased to maintain that we were waiting for a king’s return, if we had taken the leap to ruling in name as well as ruling in fact? 

If we had ceased to claim that we were awaiting a king, would our king-in-waiting still have returned?     

            A goodly stack of reports awaited in my quarters, from Marshal Elfhelm’s battle on the Anórien Road, Húrin of the Keys and others preparing the army for its departure, and the scouts who had been patrolling the lands across the River.  I had barely sat down and begun to look through the reports, when a knock sounded at my chambers’ outer door.  At my command to enter, one of my father’s servants made his way through the front room, bowed in the doorway and said, “My Lord Boromir, Lord Aragorn Son of Arathorn is without, and requests an audience.”

My first thought was What the hell?, followed immediately by, That is just what I do not need.  Mentally I grimaced, for already I could hear my father’s inevitable accusation that Aragorn and I were conspiring together.  But since Father was bound to make those accusations whether I met with Aragorn or not, I might just as well admit him and see what he wanted.

“Send him in,” I said.  I rose and went to meet my visitor.

The outward appearance of Isildur’s Heir had changed from would-be king back to the travel-worn Ranger he had seemed during our journeying from Rivendell.  He stood just inside the door, looking about him with, as I thought, a fair degree of awkwardness.  As well he might. 

I would look awkward too, I thought, if I stood facing a Man in his home that I would be taking from him when or if the Council declared me King.  

“Come through to the office,” I told him.  “Will you have wine?”

He hesitated a moment, and I wondered if he were debating with himself how likely I might be to fulfill my father’s wishes by attempting to poison him.  Then he said, “Thank you, I will.”

I collected the bottle and two goblets from the table where they had sat beside my barrel of River water, and I led the way into my office.  Returning to my desk I poured for both of us, then I sat down and gestured for him to do the same.  He pulled up the chair with the battle scene from the Last Alliance carved upon it, and sat, still looking decidedly uncomfortable.

For some moments we sipped our wine in silence.  I was about to ask what had prompted his visit, then he began in steady and quiet tones, “We did not have the chance to finish our discussion at the council.  You blame me, do you not, for my decision to challenge Sauron in the palantir of Orthanc?” 

That is one thing I do like about him, I thought, he does not mince words.

Openness demanded openness in reply.  “I do blame you,” I answered.  “There is no point in fighting over past choices; we can never know if indeed Sauron attacked before he was ready, and if the assault would have been more dreadful had he had more time to prepare it.  But I blame you for taking it upon yourself to make that choice for Gondor, when no decision of this country’s Council or her people had given you authority to do so.”

He nodded, steadily meeting my gaze.  “I understand that,” he said.  “I ask only that you believe I acted as I believed was best, for the preservation of our country.  You may find fault with the choice if you wish, but I would not have you find fault with the motive that led to it.”

I studied him and thought, And how if the motive were only your own pride?  But I supposed that he deserved the benefit of the doubt.  I ought to accept that Aragorn loved our country – although it grated on me to hear him speak of Gondor as “ours”. 

“Very well,” I said.  “Then I would ask that you extend the same courtesy to me.  Know that I acted as I believed was best, for Gondor – throughout the voyage of our Fellowship, and on the day I parted from it, when I tried to take the Ring.”

A dark frown crossed Aragorn’s brow.  That concession clearly was one he felt far from comfortable with making.  But at last he said, whether in truth he believed it or not, “I know that you believed you acted for the best.  For Gondor.”

In silence we both took temporary refuge in our wine, to avoid having to come up with anything to say.  When the silence dragged out long enough to become annoying, I asked him, “You are satisfied that the expedition is ready to depart upon the morrow?”

He nodded briskly.  “I am.  When I met last with Lord Húrin and the Master of the Armouries they were still in the process of arming and equipping the Men of Lamedon, but they were confident the task would be completed in time for the Men to get sufficient sleep.  We will be ready.”  The Dúnadan’s expression became rueful, and he asked, “I suppose there is no chance that you could still convince the Lord your brother not to accompany us?”

“There is none,” I said.  “He will acquit himself well; you need not fear that even wounded as he is, he will be any detriment to your mission.”

“That I know.  Be assured that I meant no offence.  But I did not fight to free him from the dark sleep only to see him throw away his life at the first chance he finds!”

For a change, I found myself rather liking Aragorn.  “I share your frustration, My Lord,” I said.  “I fear it is something with which we both have to live.  At least we can be thankful that the Lady Éowyn has been dissuaded from going.”

“Aye, indeed,” Aragorn agreed, with feeling.  “At least I shall not have to bear her death on my conscience.”  In a murmur that was almost too quiet to hear, he added, “Only the deaths of seven thousand others.”

“They need not be on your conscience,” I said.  “It was the choice of all the Captains to send this expedition forth.”

“Aye,” he muttered grimly, “at my urging and at Mithrandir’s.  And if it is the wrong choice, then his soul and mine must bear the blame.”

“Is there a right choice, in these days?” I asked.  “At least you will be with them, and you will die with them if that is what fate decides.  You will not be stuck in the City with the womenfolk, with nothing that you can do but to wait and to pray and to fear.”   

Aragorn took a large swig of his wine.  Again for a moment we did not speak, then frowning he asked, “May I speak freely with you, Boromir?”

I will admit to some degree of dubiousness, as I wondered to what topic of conversation we were leading.  Nonetheless I said, “You may.  After the perils we have endured in each other’s company, I think you need not hesitate to do so.”

“Very well,” he said, “if you will answer with the same freedom.  I have hesitated to ask you this.  I know it is no easy position in which you are placed.  But still I will ask: where do you stand upon the question of my claim to the throne?”

It was now my turn to swig deeply of my wine.  “You could not pick an easy question, could you?” I demanded.

He smiled faintly, but the question was still hanging there, and could not be un-asked.

“I can tell you only the same thing I told my father,” I said.  “That if the time comes when you state your case to the Council, I will listen with the rest.  And whatever may be the choice of the Council, that will also be mine.”

His rueful smile was fixed firmly in place, but the disappointment in his voice was all too clear.  “It was presumptuous of me.  I had hoped that perhaps in the course of our shared adventures you might have come to look with greater favour on my claim.”

Valar, but this was a conversation that I did not want to have. 

“I respect you,” I said.  “I respect your courage and your skills.  But do not forget, I was raised to be the ruler of this land.  You cannot be surprised that I feel some lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of another Man taking that role – and that Man, one who has spent his life in the four corners of Middle Earth.  I know that you too have fought to hold the darkness at bay.  But yet I would have the Man who might be King of Gondor be one whose life has been spent with our people, sharing their sorrows and joys and fighting at their sides.”

“I cannot blame you for that,” said Aragorn.  “And I should not be surprised.  Boromir – forgive me for asking you this.  What do you recall of the minutes before your death?”

Now I knew that I did not like where this conversation was headed, even less than I liked where it had been. 

“Very little,” I answered.  “I remember the fight.  I remember sliding down against a tree trunk, with arrows in my chest.  I remember seeing Pippin and Merry bound and carried off.  Then I remember waking up in Svip’s home.”

Aragorn sighed.  “Then you remember nothing of what you said before you died?”

“I don’t remember it.”  And I jolly well do not want to know, either, my thoughts added.  But yet I said, “Will you tell me?”

He sighed again, and I wanted to swear at him and demand why in blazes he had brought it up, if he did not want to talk about it.

Gazing at the window and the blackness of the night, he spoke quietly, “When I reached the clearing you were sitting with your back against the tree.  Your sword was still in your hand, broken near the hilt.  Your horn, cloven in two, lay at your side.  Slain Orcs lay piled all about you, twenty of them at the least.  I had to climb over some of them to reach you.

“At the first your eyes were closed.  Then you opened them and you spoke.  You told me that you’d tried to take the Ring.  You said, ‘I am sorry.  I have paid.’  You told me that the Orcs had taken Merry and Pippin.  Then you said, ‘Farewell, Aragorn.  Go to Minas Tirith and save my people.’”

Reluctantly Aragorn tore his gaze away from the window, and looked at me.  He continued, “I promised you that Minas Tirith would not fall.  You smiled at that.  And with that smile, you died.”

Passionately I wished that my goblet were not empty, but I did not pour myself another drink.  I kept my voice steady with some effort.  “I thank you for your words to me then.  I am sorry that I do not remember them.  But may I ask why you have brought up this subject now?”

With a self-mocking bitterness, he smiled.  “Because I am a fool,” he said.  “Because clearly, like any other Man, I heard what I wished to hear, and read into your words meanings that were not there.  I believed that in your charge to me to go to Minas Tirith, lay acceptance of my right as King.  I am sorry if I misunderstood you.”

 “Gods, Aragorn!” I exclaimed suddenly, torn between laughter and weeping and vowing that I would give in to neither.  “Did no other possible reading of those words occur to you?  It never occurred to you that they might mean, ‘I am dying, I can fight for my people no longer, and since I cannot be there to fight for them, I suppose you are better than nothing’?”

In the instant I said them I regretted my words.  Raw pain showed on Aragorn’s face before he managed to control his expression.

“No,” he said flatly, mouth set in a grim smile.  “That reading of your words had not occurred to me.”  He stood up, and went on, “If you’ll excuse me.  We have an early start tomorrow.”

I jumped to my feet.  “I am sorry,” I said, cursing myself.  “It came out worse than I intended.”

“Don’t trouble yourself about it,” said Aragorn.

“I do thank you for what you said when I was dying,” I insisted.  “And I thank you for going after the Halflings.  I thank you for doing what I longed to do but could not.”  After a moment’s pause, I added, “You are still doing so.  I thank you still.”

He studied my face for another moment, then at last with a faint smile that seemed to hold no anger, he said, “I would that you rode with us tomorrow.”

“Aye,” I said.  “I wish it as well.  Aragorn – I am sorry that I cannot give the answer you wished for.  I do not say that I oppose your claim.  But neither can I commit myself and those who would follow me to its support.  I can promise only that I will do all that I can to keep Gondor safe and whole.  That is all.” 

“I know you will do that,” said the Northman.  “I had no right to expect anything else.”

He turned and walked to the door.  I walked with him.  Aragorn opened the door, then turned and asked me with a smile, “You will look after Merry and Pippin?”

“I will,” I said.  “And you will look after my brother?”

“I am sure that he does not need looking after.  But I will look after him, all the same.”

We shook hands at that, and he departed.  As soon as the door closed I crossed to the barrel of River water, drew myself a goblet’s worth and then drained it in one go.  I drew another goblet-full and took it back with me to my desk.

As I sat down and stared at the reports, I almost felt the pain of three arrows impaling my chest.  I almost felt that if I looked down, I would see the bizarre sight of them sticking there, black-feathered fletchings shakily rising and falling with my every anguished breath.

“Minas Tirith will not fall,” I whispered to myself.

I wondered if I had believed that, when I died.

I wondered if I could dare to believe it now.

The morn of the army’s departure dawned again fair, another bright spring day of clear sky and dancing breeze.  When Svip and I took our morning pilgrimage to the River, the troops were already assembling on the plain before the Great Gate.

In subdued, frightened tones, Svip asked me as we made our hurried way to the Harlond, “Do you really think they are going to return?”

“I do not know,” was the answer I had to give him.  “Logic would say there is very little chance of their victory.  Yet there has been little chance for any of us, in any of these recent battles, and somehow we have eked out enough of a victory to go on.  They may come back, Svip.  I suppose it is not much more unlikely than the victories we have already won.”

A startling thought occurred to me, when Svip and I had completed our swim and were headed again toward the rose-tinged spires of the City.

Only once, I realised, since I’d returned from my quest and my death, had I greeted the morn as I used to do, climbing to the top of the Tower of Ecthelion and watching dawn spread over the Pelennor and the rooftops of the White City.  And I had never once thought of it, as my steps turned automatically to the strand of Anduin instead of to the Tower.

I shook my head, thinking of it, and told myself that I would go to the Tower again soon.  If my altered life was to take me to the River each morning instead of to the White Tower, then perhaps I could train myself to watch each sunset from the Tower’s heights, instead.

The hour of parting was nearly upon us.  My father had ridden forth to bid our army the Valar’s speed.  When Svip and I drew nigh to the assembled forces, the Steward sat ahorseback near the van of our troops, in grim-faced conversation with Prince Imrahil.  By my father sat Pippin, upon a reasonably Hobbit-sized pony, bravely struggling to conceal his sorrow at the partings that approached.

Lady Éowyn had ridden forth as well.  On first sighting her I knew a moment’s dread that she had abandoned her resolution to remain in the City.  Indeed she was clad as though for war, in gleaming mail shirt and bright, white-crested helm, that shone not more brilliantly than her hair.  But I saw that she wore a skirt with her warrior’s panoply, not the Man’s garb that she had worn in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.  She was without weapons, as well, as was Merry who sat beside her on a pony like the one that Pippin rode.

I saw the lady exchange quiet, solemn words with the King her brother.  Then, though it seemed that Éomer objected to her action and sought to turn her from it, she galloped forward to hold speech with the Lord Aragorn.

Brief were the words they exchanged, before the lady of Rohan shook hands with the would-be king and then wheeled her steed to return to where her fellow Rohirrim awaited to command to move out.  I might have imagined it, but it seemed that a fierce blush coloured her face, and that her eyes held more sorrow and anger than ever.

One by one we bade farewell to kin and friends.  With Legolas and Gimli, sat together on their Rohirrim steed, I shared quick hand-clasps.  Gimli proclaimed gruffly that he would return with many mighty deeds to his name, and he would be sure not to let the Elf hog all the glory. 

With Aragorn also my parting was brief, a hand-clasp and each of us wishing the other fortune and victory.

I had an armour-rattling hug from my Uncle Imrahil, and I told him, “Now I expect you to describe to me every inch of Mordor when you return.  You know I’ve always wanted to see the place.”

Faramir I hugged more cautiously, hoping not to put too-great pressure on his wound.  We gazed at each other with those smiles that are all too close to tears.

At first we did not succeed in coming up with any words.  My brother smiled a trifle awkwardly at Svip, as though not yet entirely comfortable in conversing with a horse.  Nonetheless he said to our shape-shifting friend, “You’ll look after my brother for me, won’t you, Svip?”

“I will,” Svip said. 

“Well,” I said.  “That’s all right, then.  Faramir – promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”

“I will,” said Faramir.  “You too.” 

 “Right.  Well.  Then I will see you again.”

“I will see you again.”

In his best parade-ground voice our father now addressed the troops.  He said, “You who march for Mordor go with the thoughts and prayers of all who remain behind.  Though your journey takes you far from you homelands, keep foremost always in your minds and hearts the cause for which you fight: for Gondor and for Rohan!”

In their thousands our soldiers answered him, shouting forth, “For Gondor and for Rohan!”

The trumpets called, and the commands rang out to march.  Troop by troop, company by company, they set forth along the great road to the Causeway.

A small group of us waited at the side of the road, exchanging words of encouragement with our troops as they passed.  My father, with Húrin of the Keys and a detachment of the Citadel Guard, the Lady Éowyn, Pippin and Merry, Svip, and I, waited together until the last of our Men had passed us.  For another few moments then we sat in silence, gazing at the cloud of dust that obscured many of our Men from view, at the glint of the morning sun on spear and shield and helm.

My father rode near to me and said in an emotionless voice, “I am holding audience in the Tower Hall this morning.  You and the Lady Éowyn may come to me whenever you will.”  As I bowed my head in acknowledgement, the Lord Steward glanced down at Pippin and went on in warmer tones, “My Esquire has leave to delay his attendance on me for a little while.  You may bring him with you when you come for audience.”

“I thank you, My Lord,” Pippin stammered fervently.

My father and his Men rode back to the Gate.  I looked about me at the others who were left. 

“If you wish it,” I said, “we can watch their progress longer from the Prow of the City.  From there, we can see them for hours yet, if that is your desire.”

“Not for hours, perhaps,” said Éowyn of Rohan, her face and voice as sternly emotionless as those of my father.  “There is work to be done.  But, yes,” she said.  “Let us go there.”

In the grip of our thoughts we took the road up the Hill of Guard, the ponies of the two Hobbits sidestepping nervously to keep their distance from the horse-shaped Svip.  At the stables on the Sixth Level we left the ponies and Éowyn’s steed.  Svip changed back to his own form – a transformation which the Lady Éowyn observed with widened eyes, but on which she did not comment.  We passed through the torch-lit dimness of the tunnel, into the sunlight through the Citadel Gate, and outward to the easternmost extent of the Seventh Level, along the great carven ship’s keel of the Prow of the City.

The stone bench carved into the parapet was well placed so that Svip, Merry and Pippin could stand on it and look out onto the world below.  Éowyn and I stood beside the bench.  And there we watched, as far below us the tiny specks that were the Men of Gondor and Rohan marched the long, dusty road to the Causeway, to Osgiliath, and to Mordor. 

In my thoughts I repeated the words, I will see you again.

As our banners vanished in the distance, and sunlight glinted on the armour and weapons of Men we could no longer see, I prayed that those words would be true.