Hello to all! Well, a bit over two months, this time – not as long as some of my breaks between chapters, anyway! I’ll be interested (and nervous) to hear what people think of the events in this chapter – and I’ll do my best to get the next chapter up here before too very long.

In this chapter the date March 27th is mentioned. My use of this date is based on the info on the Steward’s Reckoning that I received from Lady Elwing’s Lithe Days site back in the days when I was working on Chapter Eight. I am (still) not an expert on the issues of the various calendars of Middle Earth, but at any rate, the important point is this: this March 27th corresponds to what would be March 26th in Tolkien’s chronology in Appendix B of LOTR.

With that in mind, on with the chapter! I hope you enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Steward’s Homecoming

I awoke. For some moments I lay gazing at the morning light, a shaft of it shining palely across a plain, wood-panelled wall.

I ached, it seemed, in every inch of my body. With a feeling of weary resignation, I thought, I suppose that means I am probably alive.

A voice, Svip’s, cried out from somewhere near to me, “He’s awake!”

I raised my head in the attempt to see where Svip was. I saw not only Svip, but a room crammed to bursting with people. I blinked at the sight, although I did not feel that I had sufficient energy to be overly surprised.

Svip, Pippin and Merry were all seated cross-legged on the foot of the bed in which I lay. In chairs beside the bed sat Lady Éowyn of Rohan, my father’s Healer Master Pelendur, and my seneschal Master Gavrilo. Standing by the window and turning suddenly toward me was Húrin Keeper of the Keys, and beyond the chairs that guarded the bed, halted apparently in the process of pacing across the room, was Ivarr son of Yngvar, Leader of the Innkeepers’ Guild and Landlord of the Orc’s Head Tavern.

A rare smile lit the face of Éowyn Daughter of Éomund. She bowed her head to me when she noted my gaze upon her. When she lifted her head again, she smiled still: a smile tinged, as always, with sadness, but yet I thought that I was very glad to see her smile.

She was not alone in showing both happiness and grief. I saw the same from most of those about me – smiles upon seeing me awake, that were quickly succeeded by expressions far more grim.

Pippin and Merry leapt down from the bed and ran in front of Pelendur, Gavrilo and Éowyn, to halt beside my pillow. Pippin took my hand that lay outside the covers and clasped it in both of his, and Merry said a trifle gruffly, “You’ve had us worried, Boromir. Pippin’s been crying so much, I thought he was going to flood all of Gondor.”

Pippin rolled his eyes at his cousin and said, “You’ve been crying too.” Turning back to me, he said earnestly, “You mustn’t do that to us ever again.”

“I will endeavour not to,” I told him, my voice sounding rusty and faint with disuse.

I knew very well what had caused the grief of all about me. I did not want to speak of it, but I knew there was no point in delay. Waiting to speak of it would not make it any less true.

“My father is dead,” I said. “Isn’t he?” As I asked that question, I knew an instant’s absurd stab of hope that in fact it would not be true, that the fight I remembered was only a vision of nightmare. But I knew the answer, for it was spoken all too clearly by the expressions of all the people in that room.

“Yes, My Lord,” Master Pelendur said quietly. “I am very sorry.”

“I’m so sorry, Boromir,” Merry added. There were murmurs of the same from some of the others; some nodded, and Master Ivarr the innkeeper turned abruptly away. Old Gavrilo my seneschal began silently to weep, his face lowered and his shoulders shaking so that I grieved to look on him.

For a moment I closed my eyes, letting my head rest on the pillow. It hurt to hear Pelendur’s words, but I did not feel the same despairing dread as I had on that hideous ride back to the River. I told myself, It is right and proper for you to grieve. But grief cannot take the place of duty. All of Gondor is looking to you now. It is for you to lead them, not to hide yourself away in your grief.

I opened my eyes and achingly managed to prop myself up on one elbow. My eyes lit again on Svip, who had not moved from his place since first I woke. He sat at the foot of the bed, gazing down.

“Svip,” I said, “Svip, and Pippin, both of you – I should have thanked you last night.” I paused then and asked, “Was it last night?”

“The night before last,” Lady Éowyn told me.

“Night before last,” I echoed. For a moment I marvelled on that, amazed that I had managed to sleep a whole day and night through. But, I reminded myself, Svip had told me that I’d slept for two days when he brought me back from death. I supposed I’d been near enough to death this time; it should not surprise me that I’d slept almost as long.

“Svip, Pippin, both of you deserve more thanks than I can ever speak. You accomplished more than should ever have been asked of you. Svip, I’m sorry I didn’t thank you, for everything you did – for bringing all of us home.”

Svip looked up, for an instant, and I caught my breath at the wild grief in his gaze. Then his glance dropped again and he muttered, “You don’t need to thank me.”

I thought it best not to pursue that further, with all of these others present. Instead I asked, “Where has my father’s body been placed?”

Ivarr Son of Yngvar answered, “Here, My Lord, at the Orc’s Head – in our best room.”

Master Pelendur put in, “His attendants have already washed the body and cleaned the wounds, in preparation for bringing the Lord Steward’s body into the City. We waited, My Lord, until more should become known of your condition, before proceeding further.”

I nodded. It was, I thought, a wait that I was very sorry to have imposed upon them – a vigil to see whether they would accompany one corpse into the City, or two.

I asked, “What is there else that I should know? The fighting at Emyn Arnen – ”

“Good news there, My Lord,” said Húrin of the Keys, looking immensely relieved to have some good tidings to report. “I believe we can truthfully say that that force of Orcs, at least, is routed. The fighting continued late into the night, until what few of the enemy were left fled again into the hills. The Riders of Rohan pursued them to the edge of the foothills, but no further. When the daylight came, the count was of near five hundreds and fifty of the enemy slain. The Rohirrim fought gallantly, as is their wont. They lost nine Men killed, with seventeen wounded.”

Lady Éowyn added quietly, “The patrols continue with increased manpower, Lord Boromir. They have met with several small bands of Orcs, and have successfully dealt with all of them.” She paused, then continued in more vehement, impulsive tones, “My Lord, the people of Rohan grieve with you – and we regret it in our hearts that you and your Lord father left alive none of those Orcs that you encountered. Sorely do we wish that our spears might have joined your swords in wrecking vengeance upon them.”

“I thank you, Lady of Rohan,” I said. “The vengeance wrought upon others of their kin would be equally sweet to the Lord my father. I grieve with you the loss of your Men. The achievements of the Rohirrim, as ever, merit the highest thanks and honour.”

We could talk of these things all the morning, I thought, but that would not accomplish any of the duties that awaited us. I said, “I thank all of you for your efforts and your care. I believe that I am fit to return to the City.” I glanced in question at Master Pelendur, who frowned a little, but nodded. “Húrin,” I went on, “is an hour’s time sufficient for any preparations yet needed before the Lord Steward’s body is escorted to the City?”

Húrin bowed. “It will be sufficient. With your leave, My Lord, I will go myself to see that all preparations are in hand.”

Húrin, Ivarr and Lady Éowyn departed from the room, the lady giving Merry permission to remain longer with Pippin, and attend on her again when we set forth for the City. When the others had gone, I sat up dizzily and swung my feet around to the floor. Gavrilo, Pelendur, Pippin and Merry all hovered nervously about me, until I managed a weary smile and waved them back. “It is all right,” I said, “I think. I don’t think I am falling over just yet.”

I was clad in a nightshirt – my own, I thought; Gavrilo must have brought it to the inn – and I saw a bandage about my right shin. I was not certain yet what other bandaging I might have under the nightshirt, but from the extent of my aches, it was likely a considerable amount.

I asked Master Pelendur, “What wounds did I sustain? I was not certain of any, save for an arrow in my shoulder.”

“Aye, there was that one,” Pelendur said dryly. “The arrow is out of the wound now; we had that out while you slept. You have been lucky, My Lord – as your family generally is. You have another arrow wound in your right shin, a sword-cut on your left forearm, various minor cuts, a myriad of bruises, and two broken ribs.”

“Ah,” I said. “That will be from the Orc that fell on me.”

“Very likely. You are, again, fortunate there; the ribs appear to have pierced no organs. They will cause you discomfort, but not, I would say, any other difficulties. They should be largely healed in six weeks’ time; likely fully so in eight. I would not, however, advise you take any part in combat until the eight weeks are up.”

I grimaced, and said, “I will do my best on that, Master Pelendur.” Looking from him to Pippin, and feeling guilty for not speaking of it earlier, I said, “Pelendur, Pippin – forgive me for not asking you sooner. You are both well, and Master Cosimo, and my father’s guards? I dreaded what he might have done to you to secure his release from your care.”

Pelendur answered, his expression bitter and bleak, “I must take full responsibility for that, My Lord. I underestimated the strength and determination of which he would be capable, when he awoke. It may be that he was awake and planning his strategy before he gave any sign of waking. He called Master Peregrin to him and requested a drink of water, and when Peregrin was within his reach, the Lord Steward seized him, holding the halfling’s own sword to Master Peregrin’s throat. With his esquire thus as hostage, your Lord father – ” the Healer paused, angry shame for a moment choking off his words. Scowling furiously, he went on, “Your Lord father compelled Master Cosimo and I and the two guards to bind each others’ wrists, the halfling binding those of the second guard, and the Steward Denethor then locked the lot of us in his wardrobe.”

“Good gods,” I murmured, for a moment staring at the Healer in disbelief. I had a hideously inappropriate urge to laugh, but I fought it down. “I am sorry, Master Pelendur. I should have left more guards under your command – ”

“I doubt it would have helped, My Lord,” was his acerbic reply. “There would merely have been more of us crammed into the wardrobe. It is my fault. I underestimated the Lord Denethor’s capabilities. I should have known him well enough not to do so. He was a formidable Man – formidable both when in his right mind, and when outside it.”

I whispered, “He was that, indeed. Pippin – I am sorry, again. Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Pippin said, shaking his head vehemently. “No, he didn’t. I don’t think he would have, really …” his voice trailed off a little uncertainly, before he went on, “I don’t think he would have. He tied me up and gagged me while he was arming himself, and then he held his dagger on me until we got over the River, but … I’m sure he didn’t want to hurt me. If I’d forced him to do something, it would have been the Dark Lord’s doing, not his. He was very kind to me once it was too late for me to give the alarm. He talked with me while we rode, he told me about some of his campaigns on the borders when he was young, and he got me talking about the Shire.” Looking and sounding again on the brink of tears, the young Hobbit said, “I’m sorry, Boromir. I should have figured out some way of stopping him.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think there was anything you could have done,” I said. “Either of you,” I added, looking up at grim-faced Master Pelendur. “He was too much for all of us.”

Pelendur gave a strained, sob-like laugh. “Aye, My Lord,” he said. “That he was.”

Master Gavrilo, his voice hoarse but attempting to sound business-like, said to me, “I have brought a change of clothes for you, My Lord. Your clothing was somewhat the worse for wear.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m sure that it was.” I stood up gingerly. “Gavrilo – I hope that Master Cosimo is uninjured, after the time he spent confined in the wardrobe?”

“I believe my brother is unharmed, thank you sir,” Gavrilo replied. “There was room to stand in the wardrobe, so it was not so painful for him as it might have been. He wished to ride with the troops when they set out after your Lord father, and it took some effort to argue him out of it. I have not seen him since word came of the Lord Denethor’s death. I fear he will not be taking it well.”

I nodded, Gavrilo and I sharing a grim look before my seneschal glanced quickly away.

In silence, Master Gavrilo assisted me to dress. The process was made more difficult by my attempts to move as little as possible.

Pippin went back to sit beside Svip on the bed, while Merry sat on the edge of the bed, near to them. I saw Pippin reach out to hold Svip’s hand. But although the water creature allowed him to do so, Svip still did not look up.

Pippin cast a worried look at Svip, then he met eyes with me, while I was doing the same. After another furtive glance over at Svip, Pippin asked me, “Boromir – what do you remember about how you got across the River?”

I frowned as I thought of that, while Gavrilo was fastening my tunic. “I …” I began, then I realised that my memories made no sense at all. “I remember the water lifting me up from the shore … and carrying me – somewhere, and then leaving me on land again. But that can’t be right,” I said.

“But it is right,” Svip answered suddenly. His voice was flat and surly, not like him at all. But at least he had looked up, and he was speaking to us. “It’s what happened. We both saw it. Didn’t we, Pippin?”

“Yes,” Pippin admitted in a helpless tone. “Yes, we did. Damnedest thing I ever saw,” he went on, then he added quickly, “sorry.”

I smiled faintly, and said, “No offence taken, Mister Took. I’m afraid your sojourn in the lands of Men has not been good for your language.”

“Oh,” put in Merry, “he said that and worse, years before he met any of the Big Folk. It’s true, though,” Meriadoc continued, with a mystified frown. “We didn’t see the River lifting you, but when Lady Éowyn and the search party and I caught up with all of you, there were Pippin and Svip on one side of the River, trying to figure out how they were going to get across to you without – without abandoning Lord Denethor’s body; and there you were, lying as flat as a mackerel on the other side of the River!”

“That … is amazing,” I murmured, staring at Pippin and Svip. “You saw the River do all of that? Truly?”

“Yes,” Pippin said again, nodding. “Of course Svip saw it more clearly than I did, but I definitely saw the water – reach out for you, like a wave, only the wave wasn’t anywhere except right around you, and it lifted you up and carried you out into the River.”

“Svip?” I asked. “What do you think it means?”

“The River wanted to help,” Svip said, looking up at me with a sort of sullen defiance. “It could tell you were in trouble and It knew you should be on the western shore, not the east, so It picked you up and It carried you there, that’s all.”

“I … If that is so, then I thank It,” I said. “Perhaps you can help me determine what I can do to show It my gratitude.”

Svip nodded, but his gaze dropped from mine again.

This was worthy a great deal more thought, but I told myself that now was not the time to think of it.

I had managed to get into my breeches without serious mishap. Now I sat again carefully and allowed Gavrilo to aid me in the effort of pulling on my boots.

Merry meanwhile was going on with the story. “Svip and Pippin waited till they’d given the Lord Steward’s body into the search party’s care, and then – Lady Éowyn gave me permission to go with them – Pip and I rode on Svip’s back and he swam across the River, so we could wait with you until the troops could ride back ’round to the Harlond, cross the River, and then ride up again to reach you. Svip said it would be best to keep you near the River, so that’s why we brought you here. Are you – do you feel all right, Boromir?”

I smiled faintly. “Yes. Thank you, Merry. The ribs are a little annoying, but I am fine.”

I sighed then, for a moment sinking back into cowardice. There were things that I must do, things that I no longer had any excuse for delaying. But I longed for an excuse, for some means of escape. For that one miserable moment, I wished that I had never awakened to face what I must face now.

Getting to my feet, I said to Gavrilo and Pelendur, “I would look on my Lord father’s body before we go into the City. Can you take me to where he has been placed?”

“Aye, My Lord,” Master Pelendur said grimly. He bowed, but not soon enough to conceal from me the pain and sorrow on his face.

The Orc’s Head Inn seemed unnaturally silent as Pelendur led me through the upstairs corridor. Never had I spent much time at the Orc’s Head in the hours of daylight. But those few memories I did have of the Inn in the daytime were accompanied by peaceful, homelike sounds: Ivarr’s wife singing as she worked in the kitchen, the bright young voices of the daughters of the house calling to each other as they went about the day’s cleaning, Ivarr himself whistling while he washed out the tankards and goblets used the night before, or chatting with the few customers who wiled their days away in the tavern’s common room.

I reminded myself that Ivarr’s family, and most of his customers as well, must be not yet returned to the City, along with the majority of Minas Tirith’s people.

Even if they had returned, there would be little cause for singing on this day.

“Here, My Lord,” sounded Pelendur’s quiet tones, as he opened for me the door to one of the chambers, and then stepped aside.

“Thank you, Master Pelendur,” I told him. I walked into the room, and heard the Healer discreetly pull the door closed behind me.

I recognized the room; it was one in which I had stayed a time or two over the years. It seemed now strangely bare. I realised that it was missing the tapestries that usually hung on the walls, as, I thought now, was the room in which I’d awakened. The tapestries, I supposed, had fallen victim to the Harlond’s recent occupation by our enemies’ army. As for the massive, dark carven bed, it must have survived untouched both the occupation and our desperate race to construct carts out of every boat, bench and bed along the waterfront, simply because this bed was too large and heavy to repay anyone’s efforts to move it. I wondered if in fact the Inn’s second story had been constructed around that bed, or if the bed had been constructed in this very room.

I was trying to think of something else, anything else, save the body that lay on that bed.

I caught myself speculating about the bed where I had slept this day and night past, trying to remember if it showed signs of recent re-construction after seeing service as a cart. I snarled at myself, Blast you, Boromir, that does not matter. I walked closer to the bed, and gazed down upon my father’s body.

His servants had dressed him in fresh clothing, the familiar black and silver raiment of our house, as well as cleansing him of all soiling and blood. The body lay uncovered, and his sword and his bow were laid by his side. I wondered distractedly how the sword and bow came to be there; Pippin, I supposed, must have placed the sword back in my father’s scabbard – it had surely been difficult for him, for the sword was nearly as tall as was Pippin – and Pippin had probably carried the bow himself during that last nightmare ride. The collar of the tunic in which the Steward’s body had been dressed was a high one, and covered all but the uppermost edge of the long sword-wound, that I knew must slice across his neck and down into his chest.

I gazed at his face, and I wanted of a sudden to flee from that room, even though there was no particular horror in what I saw.

I had seen dead Men aplenty: Men who had died in anguish, and in relative peace; bodies savaged by animals and the ravages of decay, and those who had been brutally butchered by the foe. There was nothing here that should make me wish to avert my eyes.

But I thought of how empty his face seemed, even though his eyes were not open to reveal the greater emptiness that would lie in their unseeing gaze. I thought of how wrong it seemed, to see his face so still and void of expression.

I closed my eyes suddenly and pictured him alive, as intensely and vividly as I could. I pictured him as he had addressed our troops before battle, twenty-five years ago and more, in the Cair Andros Campaign of 2993. I saw the gleam of his sword as he drew it and held it high, heard the ringing of his voice, saw the fierceness and pride that blazed in his eyes. I heard our Men cheering for his speech, cheering for their Steward.

I opened my eyes.

Another memory came to me: of my father coming to my room and waking me, one wintry night when I was five years old. He had walked with me through the torchlit corridors, holding my hand and slowing his pace to match it to mine, and he had led me to the chamber where lay the body of my grandfather, the Steward Ecthelion II.

I remembered my father’s voice, quiet and with an unfamiliar tinge of uncertainty, as he told me I should look carefully at my grandfather, so I could remember him as he had been. I remembered my father saying to me, “When we see him next, in the House of the Stewards, he will look different. More like … a statue, like all our other ancestors there. But even though you will see him like that, Boromir, even though you will see him like that, every time you stand in the House of the Stewards for the rest of your life, that is not the way I want you to remember him.”

I had nodded, and said, “Yes, Father.” But I had thought that this was not the way I remembered my grandfather, either, not this frail, somehow shrunken-seeming figure in the bed. He ought to be striding through the corridors with his guards and attendants running to keep up with him, or rumbling out his laugh so loud and deep that when I was very little, my nurse had told me that the thunder was only the sound of my grandfather laughing.

That night, by my grandfather’s deathbed, I had asked my father that most unanswerable of questions: I had asked him why people had to die.

He had walked me back to my room, and as we walked he told me the legend that death is Ilúvatar’s gift to Men; that there is more to see and know than can be found within the borders of this world, and death is the road by which we can find it.

As my father tucked me into my bed, I had asked him if the legend was true.

He had kissed me on the forehead, and told me, “I don’t know.”

Even then, as young as I was, I had realized how rare it was for my father to admit that there was anything he did not know.

As I stood in that room of the Orc’s Head and gazed at my father’s face, I wondered if he knew the answer now.

I walked from the room. The corridor outside that door at first seemed deserted. Then I saw Svip, sitting huddled against the far wall.

He jumped up and hurried over to me. “Boromir,” his words rushed out, “Boromir, I can’t bring him back. I’m sorry. It’s too late, and I haven’t any silverweed – I should have got some, I should have gone to fetch some, I should have gone as soon as the siege was ended, I should have known we’d need it. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

I knelt down to face him. “Svip,” I said, “do not do this to yourself, please. It is not your fault.”

“But I should have gone to get some. I could have fetched some, easily. Instead of wasting time training with the horses, I could have gone upriver and harvested some silverweed, and been back in time …”

“No, Svip,” I insisted. “My father would not have approved it, and no more would I. We are still at war. We do not know how many of the enemy may still be between us and your part of the River. They may still hold Cair Andros, and how many more of them may patrol the River, we cannot know. My father would never have wished to see you go into such danger, merely to fetch an herb that might someday bring him back to life. We cannot live like that, Svip. There is more to Men’s lives than simply struggling not to die.” I shook my head and sighed. “Besides,” I murmured, “I do not know if he would wish to return to life now, or not.”

And it was true, I thought; I did not know. I told myself, Of course he would; why would he not? I am glad to have returned to my life, why should not he be also? But I thought then of the torments of mind that my father had endured in these last days, and I thought also of the rage and shame that he must feel, when or if he brought himself to understand how the Dark Lord had come to direct his actions and his thoughts.

Was it not better that he should be spared that?

But he would wish to return, my thoughts answered me. He would be glad to return, regardless of all, even as I am glad that I returned. He would be glad, for in life he would have the chance to fight for our country, as he cannot do in death. He would always wish to return.

But I would not say so to Svip; of a certainty that was not what he needed to hear. I did not know if anything I could say would help, but I took Svip’s small, thin shoulders in my hands, and I said to him, “Svip, you fought as bravely and nobly as has ever any warrior of Gondor. You should feel pride in your accomplishments, not shame for what you did not do. There were chances that I missed, choices I made that had I chosen differently, it might have led me to save him. But yet perhaps that would not have saved him. Perhaps there was nothing that could. We cannot know, Svip, and all we can do is to strive to live in such ways as would make him proud of us.”

Svip stared at me, then he shook his head, his big eyes filled with uncomprehending grief. “I do not know how you do it,” he whispered to me. “I do not know how.”

“Boromir?” Peregrin Took’s voice sounded tentatively from down the hallway, followed by his equally tentative footsteps. “I’m sorry, Boromir. Lord Húrin is outside, with some of the soldiers. He asks if … if they can proceed with bringing out Lord Denethor’s body.”

“Yes,” I said. I got to my feet, and Svip reluctantly did the same. “I will go below and tell Lord Húrin that they can proceed.”

A company of the City Guard were assembled outside the Orc’s Head. They waited silently on horseback, lining either side of the street. The Men of the Carters’ Guild must have set to their labours as soon as the news came of my father’s death, for the large wain that waited in the street must have been built solely for the purpose at hand. A bier was constructed within it, that the Lord Steward’s body would be clearly visible to those who gathered to mark his passing. At its front and along either side, the wain was carved and painted with black medallions, on which the Tree of Gondor shone in hues of mithril.

Húrin and Master Ivarr led a detachment of the Guard within, carrying a stretcher draped with cloth of gold on which they would bear forth the Lord’s body. Svip and Pippin had both accompanied me outside, and now I spoke to each of them.

I asked Svip if I might ride him into the City. From the grief and shame upon his face, I feared that he would refuse, that he would say he should not be in the procession, since he had failed to save the Lord Steward’s life. But though he averted his eyes from me, he nodded in reply.

To Pippin I said, “As my father’s esquire, it is your place to stand behind him in the wain, and to carry his sword. I think you will be the first person not of Gondor ever to fulfil that duty. If you would rather not do it, I understand. But the place is yours, if you will accept it.”

The Hobbit looked more than a little uncertain, but he said, “Of course I want to do it. Only, the sword is a little heavy … I’m not sure I can hold it up for that long.”

“You need not worry about that,” I assured him. “You can stand it up before you in the wain; then you will not have to bear its weight.”

His face brightened a bit at that, and he took a deep breath. “All right, I’ll do it,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

The Guards drew their swords as one and saluted as the Steward’s body was carried forth. They held the salute until the stretcher and its burden were placed upon the bier. Then, to the sound of the Guards sheathing their swords, I lifted Pippin up to stand in the back of the wain.

That, I knew at once, was something I should not have done. My ribs twinged as though someone had kicked them, and I had to bite my lip and strive to keep the pain from showing on my face.

Lord Húrin would have handed me my father’s sword, to hand in turn to Pippin. But I nodded for him to do so instead. Húrin bowed to me, eyeing me in concern, then he handed the sword up to Pippin and helped him to stand it in place.

Húrin Keeper of the Keys went forward to mount up at the head of the procession. He waited then until Svip had taken his horse form, and I – a good deal more slowly and cautiously than usual – had mounted up on his back. Then the cortège set forth along the street of Waterfront.

Lord Húrin rode first. Behind him came the wain, driven by one of the City Guard. Svip and I followed after, and behind us rode Lady Éowyn with Merry seated before her, Masters Pelendur, Ivarr and Gavrilo, and last the company of Guardsmen.

In the unusual quiet of the town, the hoofbeats on the cobblestones sounded hollow and cold. The cries of the seabirds and the soft creaking of the wain seemed to blend together as a funeral dirge in my mind. I thought that I would never again hear those sounds without thinking of this day.

The morning had turned grey and almost cold. As we passed through the gate and onto the Harlond Road, a wind from the north blew in upon us, catching at our cloaks and causing Svip to shiver beneath me. I patted his mane.

The White City before us, beneath the dark mountain and the brooding clouds, looked faint and only half visible, more distant than it truly was in the morning’s weak light. It looked almost like a vision that some magic had conjured, and that at any moment might vanish from our sight.

But the City did not vanish. At length the Great Gate of Minas Tirith creaked open before our procession, and the trumpets sounded in the fanfare that welcomed the Steward home.

For every foot of that journey, as we followed the winding route up the Hill of Guard, our people crowded the street at either side. For a moment I ungraciously wished that there were more of them; wished that all of those who’d been evacuated had been able to return in time, that they might be here to honour their fallen Lord. But, I told myself, all of them must wish themselves at home as well. All who could be here; were here. Even with several hundreds of our Men at work in Osgiliath, and riding on the day’s patrols, people yet had gathered along every step of the way.

Some watched in silence, removing their hats or helmets as we passed. There was a muted undertone of weeping, along all the Street of the Citadel. Many spoke quiet words of farewell, stepping into the street to touch the Lord Steward’s wain, or to cast into the wain bright flowers from their terrace gardens. Many, as well, pressed close on either side about Svip and me, murmuring condolences and reaching out to clasp my hands.

I tried to acknowledge all of them, tried to meet the eyes of each whose hand touched mine, and to utter my thanks to all of them who spoke to me. But I am certain that none of them blamed me, when my gaze clouded with tears, and I was not able to acknowledge each of them in turn.

The thought came to me that no Man alive had seen brought home to the City a Steward of Gondor slain in battle. Though we had been at war without cease, in conflicts greater and lesser for more than five hundred years, my father was only the third Ruling Steward to fall in combat. No Steward slain in combat had been carried up the Hill of Guard since Thorondir my thrice-great-grandfather, and none other before him, save for Húrin II.

I felt a perverse sort of pride that my father should be numbered among that brief list. I thought that he also would feel pride in it; although he would deny it and would cast scorn at me for admitting to any such feeling. He would remind me that a Man need not fall in combat to fight bravely for his country, and that many of our greatest Stewards had died at home in their beds.

Yet still, I thought, he would take pride in it, even though he did not admit to it, and he would smile at being named in the same breath as Thorondir and Húrin. I smiled faintly myself, as I thought of schoolchildren of future years, committing the list of the Stewards to their memories and reading of the final battles of Húrin II, Thorondir, and Denethor II.

Some Stewards there were who became little more than names. Justly or unjustly, few of their deeds were remembered, when all of those who had known them in life were gone.

My father would not be one of those. I was glad of it, and I knew that he would be glad of it as well.

Through the long twisting turns of street and tunnel, we climbed the Hill of Guard, through the seas of tear-streaked faces and the murmurs of sorrow and blessing that rose like waves as we drew near.

As we rode, the sky had grown darker. The clouds pressed heavy upon us. I glanced up into their darkness. A thick pall seemed to hang above us, just beyond the Tower of Ecthelion’s spire. I thought that no clouds should loom that dark without breaking forth in rain. But we rode on along the Street of the Citadel, and no rain fell.

We passed Faramir’s townhouse, where all of his household were assembled outside the gate to pay their respects to our Lord. We rode through the tunnel of the Fifth Level, and past my own townhouse, where all the people of my household in turn waited to bid their farewells to the Lord Denethor.

The street turned toward the Sixth Level’s gate, where we would give my father’s body into the care of the embalmers in the Houses of Healing. As we made that last turning, the north wind that had blown cold and steady upon us since we had left the Harlond, seemed suddenly to die.

It was as sudden as though someone had shut a door through which the wind had been blowing. For a moment utter silence seemed to close in upon us. That silence was succeeded by whispers, from the people lining the street and those in our procession alike.

Húrin Keeper of the Keys pulled his horse to a halt, and held up his hand for the rest of the procession to halt likewise. But I think that the same instinct which called upon Húrin to stop, had spoken as well to the rest of us. Most had slowed or halted entirely before ever Húrin gave his command.

Húrin turned in the saddle and looked back, with a mystified frown. Standing before us in the wain, Pippin turned around as well. I saw him looking at something behind me, then his eyes widened and he said in a clear, wondering voice, “Look. Look there.”

Svip turned around so that the two of us could look. I felt him shiver again, and I stroked his mane as I tried to make sense of what I saw.

In the distance beyond Anduin stood the Mountains of Shadow, as they had always stood, dark sentinels ever reminding us of the power of Mordor. Beyond them, as they had burned since two decades before I was born, gleamed the red and black shadows of Orodruin the Mountain of Fire, the distant and undying promise of doom.

Yet something was different in that sight, different now from anything that it had ever been.

It seemed that beyond the mountains, another vast mountain of darkness rose. It towered up above the Mountains of Shadow, like a great black wave that would engulf the world.

Svip gasped and took a step backward as bolts of lightning flared through that wave of darkness.

Suddenly the very earth seemed to tremble. The cobbles of the street shuddered beneath us. All about us I saw people stumbling, catching themselves on their neighbours or reaching out to hold up others who would have fallen. Horses neighed forlornly in fear, as their riders strove to calm them while yet staring at the darkness beyond the mountains.

As abruptly as it had begun, the tremor ceased. A wind arose, blowing now full upon us out of the east.

“Look,” Svip whispered. “Look.”

The great wave of shadow sank and faded, like tendrils of smoke blown away upon the wind. I stared beyond the mountains, startled to see what looked like blue, sunlit sky beyond their shadows. It took me some moments longer to realise that the blue sky stretched over Minas Tirith as well. The clouds had fled from above us, faster than should have been possible, and the White Tower of Ecthelion gleamed in the morning’s sunlight.

I swallowed and slowly shook my head, all the while stroking Svip’s mane. I did not want to let myself think, to ask myself what all of this might mean.

Merry, sitting perched before the Lady Éowyn, suddenly turned his head. His gaze met mine, in an expression of wonder. He looked past me to Pippin, then back at me. “The Ring,” Merry said quietly. “Maybe it’s the Ring.”

Pippin gave a sharp little gasp. I turned to him, and saw on Pippin’s face both hesitation and hope. He looked up at me and whispered, “Do you think that’s what it is?”

I turned again, to gaze at the blue sky shining above the Mountains of Shadow.

“Maybe,” I said.

“The Mountain of Fire is over there, isn’t it?” Merry persisted.

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

My voice sounded flat and curt. This was an explanation of which I did not feel ready to think. The Ring, the Dark Lord and all their doings – not to mention whatever perils might be facing Frodo and Sam, if they even still lived – seemed intrusions that I did not want in my thoughts. On this morning when the Lord my father lay slain, I did not wish to allow myself, or anyone else, to think of anything but him.

No one is hurt, I told myself. That is the main thing. All the people and horses about us stood firmly on their feet, and there was no hint now of the tremor that had seemed to shake the entire City.

I glanced over my shoulder again toward the head of our procession, and a moment later Svip followed my lead and turned.

For a moment I gazed at the body of my father, at his face white as the buildings of our City. The silver on his tunic and the cloth-of-gold beneath him blazed fiercely in the sun.

Then I said to Húrin of the Keys, “My Lord Húrin, I believe we can go on. Pray give the order to proceed.”

He bowed to me, raised his hand in command, then turned and rode on. The wain moved forward again, and the rest of us followed, escorting the body of the Lord Steward Denethor through the Sixth Level’s gate.

At the entrance to the Houses of Healing waited the Chief Healer with all of his deputies, the Dame of the Houses and a goodly number of the Healers’ Assistants. To the left of the Chief Healer stood the four Healers who were trained also as embalmers, wearing upon their chests the bejewelled chains of office that were only ever seen upon such occasions.

The people of the Houses all bowed or curtsied as the wain halted before them. I told Svip that we should stop by the right side of the wain, and Svip stepped into place there while Húrin took his place at the wain’s other side. The Lady of Rohan with Merry, Master Pelendur and Master Gavrilo halted behind the wain, and the City Guards rode on, until they formed a semi-circle facing the Houses of Healing.

When the last of my father’s escort had moved into place, the Chief Healer stepped forward and stated formally, “My Lord Steward Boromir, it is with sorrow and love that we welcome you and the Lord your father home. We grieve to see the arrival of this day, but we rejoice that we see you amongst us, living and well.”

“I thank you, My Lord Warden,” I replied. “With sorrow and love we give the body of the Lord Steward Denethor into your care.”

The Guardsman who had driven the wain to this point stood up, to relinquish the coachman’s place to one of the servants of the Houses. Before the Guard could climb down, I asked of him, “Will you help Master Peregrin to place the Lord’s sword by his side? You’ve fulfilled your duty here, Pippin. It is not for any of us to follow him now.”

With the Guard’s help, Pippin carefully set my father’s sword beside him on the bier. Then both of them climbed down from the front of the wain, the Guard turning to lift Pippin down so he need not make an undignified leap.

The servant of the Houses took his place and the reins. The wide gate beside the Houses’ main entrance opened. The wain started slowly onward, with the four embalmers, two and two, falling into step behind.

As the wain passed through the gate, I thought again of my father’s words as we stood by my grandfather’s deathbed.

When we see him next, in the House of the Stewards, he will look different … like a statue, like all our other ancestors there.

Behind the wain and the embalmers, the gate closed once more. With a ponderous thud it was shut at last.

The Warden of the Houses bowed to me. Then he turned and walked in through the entrance of the Houses. In a long single-file all of his people followed him, until the street held only those who had made up our procession, and the attendants of the Citadel’s stables, mustered in respectful silence at either side of the stable gates.

For a moment more, the calling of the seabirds and the voice of the wind were the only sounds. Then Húrin of the Keys drew his sword and with it saluted the gate of the Houses, closed behind our fallen Lord. The Guards of the City all did likewise. Almost in perfect unison the swords were sheathed once more, and Húrin’s voice rang out, “Company dismissed!”

Gingerly I got down from Svip’s back, while the rest of the procession dismounted and turned over their steeds to the stable hands who hastened forward to take charge of them. Svip changed to his own form. The others who had watched at my bedside now clustered about me, with the hesitant looks of those who know not whether it is time to speak of grief, or to remain silent.

Only Lady Éowyn and Merry had remained on horseback. The lady spoke quietly now, “My Lord, permit me to express again Rohan’s condolences, and my own. With your leave, Merry and I will return to the Rohirrim’s barracks; unless there is a task at hand in which we can be of use.”

“My thanks, Lady of Rohan,” I answered her. “You have good leave.”

Master Pelendur was studying me with a Healer’s disapproving eye. “Will you take some rest now, My Lord?” he asked – in a resigned tone that told he knew very well what my answer was like to be.

“There is no need,” I said. “I’ve done nothing but rest this day and night past.”

I tried to think of what needed most immediately to be done. “Húrin, set the Guards to checking through the City, and send also to check the Rammas posts, and Osgiliath – learn what damage, if any, has been done by that earthquake, and what repairs may be needed.” To my seneschal I said, “Gavrilo, will you come with me to visit Master Cosimo, and see how he fares? Then you may return to the townhouse. There will be no changes yet in the households, or the distribution of staff. I will require … some time yet to determine what changes may be needful.”

I paused to think of what I should do after visiting Cosimo, and I bit my lip at the thought of what I would not do on this particular return to the City: stop in to make my reports to the Lord my father. I said, “After that I will be in … the office in the White Tower.” I had caught myself before saying “my father’s office”, but to call it “my office” yet was more than I could manage.

With Gavrilo, Pippin and Svip, I set out into the tunnel to the Citadel. We spoke little until we reached the Place of the Fountain. Then, as I stopped to listen to the Fountain and watch the sunlight sparkle on its waters, Svip asked in harsh and strained tones, “Do you need me for anything? If not – I’d like to get some sleep.”

I was by no means certain how he wanted me to answer that – to say that I did need him, or that I did not. I hedged my bets by saying, “Of course, you should get whatever rest you need. That goes for you as well, Pippin. I doubt you’ve had the day and a half’s sleep that I’ve had.”

“I’m fine,” Pippin said quickly. “I did get some sleep, really.”

Svip was plodding off to the Fountain without another word. His dejected pace and his silence both were so very unlike him, that I called after him in some foreboding, “You will go to the River with me in the morning, Svip? As usual?”

Crouched on the edge of the Fountain, he said without looking back, “All right. If you want me to.” Then he jumped in and swam to the centre of the Fountain. A moment later we saw him in his usual place beyond the curtain of water, eyes firmly closed as though he had fallen into instant sleep.

The interview with Master Cosimo was brief. We found him in his rooms near my father’s chambers. The old gentleman sat by his fireplace, in which a small blaze burned, with blankets draped over his shoulders and his legs. The windows’ shutters were closed, the sunlight piercing through in tiny slivers between the slats of the shutters.

My father’s seneschal, of course, insisted on standing to greet me, despite my protests that he should do nothing of the kind. The blanket that had been on his legs he laid carefully aside upon the chair, with the ingrained neatness of one who had spent all his life in close proximity to my father.

Fiercely striving to restrain the grief in his voice, he spoke his condolences to me, and his regrets at not having stopped my father from leaving the City. He asked if the people of the Steward’s household had my leave to start putting the Lord Denethor’s effects in order; they had waited to begin until they received my commands upon the subject.

It would be a brief enough task, I thought. There would be few indeed of my father’s effects that were at all out of order. I gave my authority for the work to begin, but for nothing yet to be removed from his chambers. All papers that he might have had out, I asked to be brought to the office in the White Tower.

I wondered if there was anything else that would require the servants’ attention. My father’s chambers, I thought, had looked scarcely more lived-in when he was here with us, than they would after his servants finished putting them in order.

Gavrilo asked my leave to remain a while longer with his brother, a request I very gladly granted. I begged Cosimo to get what rest he needed and to take all care of his health, and not to blame himself for these things that had transpired. He bowed stiffly – without, I noted, making any promise to obey those particular commands – and when he had laboriously straightened again, I took the old Man’s hand in both of mine.

For the first time, some sign of the sorrow under which he was labouring showed through on Master Cosimo’s face. With shaking fingers he grasped my hand, and he spoke in sudden fervour, “My Lord Boromir, never doubt that it is better this way. It is better for you, and for all of us, to be left to mourn him, than for him to live to again mourn your loss. I saw – all of us saw – what he went through at your death. We should thank the Valar that he will not suffer so again.”

“Thank you, my dear friend,” I said to him. I left swiftly then with Pippin at my heels, before I could succumb to the tears that trembled behind Cosimo’s words and my own.

Outside once more in the sunlight, I was confident that I had my emotions back under better control. As Pippin and I made our way from the King’s House to the Tower of Ecthelion, the Hobbit began, “Boromir?” He immediately stopped, and asked, “Is it still all right for me to call you that? Now that you’re the Steward?”

“Yes,” I assured him, “of course it’s all right. Do not ever doubt that, Pippin. It will always be all right.”

He smiled briefly, then he went on in hesitating tones. “I didn’t think I should ask you before, with all the fine folk about. But – what should I do now? I was your father’s esquire, and now – I don’t know what I’m supposed to do – what you want me to do.”

“There’s nothing you’re supposed to do,” I said, “if you don’t want to. You gave your allegiance to my father. You’re not bound to serve his successor, unless you choose to. You’re a guest in Minas Tirith; an honoured guest and a very welcome one. You need be no other than that.”

“Well,” he said, frowning a little, “but I remember the oath. I said ‘I swear fealty and service to Gondor, and to the Lord and Steward of the realm’. It was to Gondor and the Steward, not just to Lord Denethor. I shouldn’t like to go back on that. And I – I’d like to know I’m being useful. Merry serves Éomer King and Lady Éowyn, now that Théoden King is gone. Couldn’t I be your esquire now? I’d rather do that, really, than just sitting about being a guest – that is, if you don’t mind.”

I had to smile at Pippin’s bashful offer of fealty. “Of course I don’t mind. I would be honoured – so long as you promise to remember that you’re my friend first, whatever other rank you may hold. I’ve no wish to gain a servant only to lose a friend. Is it a bargain?”

“It’s a bargain,” Pippin said, solemnly gazing up at me. “I promise.”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, as we walked on, “you can be my esquire here in the Citadel, but you’d better not be at my townhouse. I’ve an esquire of my chamber there already; I don’t want Balamir thinking you’ve stolen his place from him. You can run errands and help me while I’m working – and one thing you can do that will be of the greatest help, is to give all the assistance you can to Master Cosimo. Whenever I’ve no other jobs for you, you can go to him and see what help he may need. Of course he won’t admit that he needs any help. But – he has given all his life to my father’s service. This will be as hard for him as for any of us.”

“I know,” said Pippin. “I’ll do what I can.”

We went in by the side door of the Tower. Although we did not pass the Fountain of the White Tree, I thought of it nonetheless, and of its occupant. As we climbed the stairs, I continued, “And there’s another thing that you can do. It may not be very easy. But – when you get the chance, I’d be very glad if you would spend time with Svip. Talk with him about all of this, if you can. He’s not used to facing people’s deaths. I’ll talk with him, too – but I think I will need all the help in this that I can get.”

“I don’t know what I can say to him,” the Hobbit answered grimly. “But I’ll try.”

At the door to the office, the guards saluted and then earnestly offered their condolences. Once inside the familiar, sparsely furnished chamber, I swallowed, looked about me and said, “I’ve got my first order for you already, Pippin. Go back to the King’s House and have the servants bring an armchair over here. If I spend long in these chairs, I’ll be too sore to ever get any work done.”

Pippin obediently sped upon his errand. And for the first time since I had wakened at the Orc’s Head, I was left alone.

I walked over to my father’s desk. It was, as usual, inhumanly neat. One by one I unrolled each document in the tidy stack of furled parchments. Again I felt a lump rise in my throat, brought on this time by the sheer ordinariness of those documents. There were reports of mine among them, and from other officers, on the progress of the work at Osgiliath, and a few days’ reports from the officers of the patrols. I sighed as I thought that these documents, so bland and everyday and like a million other documents that must have crossed his desk over the years, had been sitting here while the Man whose desk this was, was killed.

It is not right, I thought. It is not right for anything to be this normal. Nothing should be ordinary; nothing should be the same, because my father is dead.

I suddenly thought that I did not know what to do now.

I thought, I feel just like Pippin – wondering what I am supposed to do. Only Pippin, lucky fellow, still has people to answer that question for him. Who is going to tell me what to do?

If you had any sense, I growled at myself, you would go to your bed. Your father’s desk – your desk – is scarcely buckling under the work that is waiting for you to tend to it. You’ll have work enough, all too soon. Why don’t you, for once, make the Healers and the servants and all your friends happy? Lie down and take it easy for a day, instead of running about seeking work to do on top of sword cuts, arrow wounds, and a couple of broken ribs!

I’d thought I should make some gesture to show that indeed I had accepted I was Steward, that I was ready to take on my responsibilities. I’d thought I could show that by going to the Steward’s office, rather than to the chambers or townhouse of the Steward’s Heir.

I had chosen to go to the office in the Tower, rather than my father’s chambers in the King’s House. I’d thought that this room might be less overwhelming with the sense of his presence. But it was a foolish thought. How could I have hoped not to think of him with everything I saw in this room, when this was first time I’d set foot beyond this threshold without him being here as well?

As I looked about, I told myself that one thing at least would have to change if I hoped to spend any time in here at all. I would never be able to sit at the desk where it was now without feeling that I was pretending to be my father. If the desk were over by the window, I thought it might be change enough. Perhaps then this would seem no longer quite the same room that my father had occupied.

I gave the desk a first shove, then immediately stopped. My chest burned as my ribs twinged in protest. I took a shaky breath and decided, Moving the desk can wait for the servants to do it. I walked to the window, opened it, and stood gazing out at the roofs of the City and the astonishing blue sky.

I wished with all my heart that Faramir were home. I wished that I could tell him how lost I felt, how much I longed just to run somewhere and hide. I wanted to tell Faramir how much I wished that our father were here, and how terribly I feared that I could never take his place.

Before long Pippin and three servants from the King’s House arrived. Two of them bore a large and luxuriantly stuffed armchair, while Pippin and the third carried several satchels filled with documents. Pippin reported that the documents came with Master Cosimo’s compliments, and were all the documents that been out around my father’s chambers.

Pippin added, “Master Cosimo asks if you want your father’s filing cabinet moved over here, too. He didn’t want to take the decision on his own, since they weren’t exactly papers that your father had out. But he said he thought you’d want to see those files sometime soon.”

“Yes,” I said wearily, managing to restrain a shudder. “Cosimo’s right, of course. You can let him know to send the files over today. Then, will you place yourself at Cosimo’s disposal for the rest of the day, Pippin? I’ll need to get stuck into these papers sometime; I’m afraid I’ll not be very good company.”

The servants arranged desk and chair by the window at my direction. Then they and Pippin departed. The Hobbit cast me a smile of sympathy and apology, that told that he would help me if only he knew how.

When they had gone, I sat at the desk. The satchels sat before me like monstrous toads crouching on the desk. I glared at them for a moment, then I sighed, sat up straighter, and began to read and sort through the satchels’ contents.

Though I made reasonable progress in this task, it was with no enthusiasm, and my gaze kept straying to the window and the sky. Thus it was that I was staring blankly out the window, when I encountered a sight that seemed something out of legend or dream.

I heard it, at the first – a distant bird’s cry, but different, it seemed, from those of the birds that typically frequent the White City.

I was beginning to think I had imagined it. Then the cry came again, and with it a sudden sight: a great bird, with vast wings outstretched, that soared past the window and in an instant was gone.

I frowned, trying to determine what it was I had seen. An eagle, it had looked like, but never had I seen nor heard tell of any eagles in the environs of Minas Tirith. I had seen eagles a few times wheeling over the White Mountains, but that had been far to the west of the City, in the vicinity of Calenhad and Halifirien.

Before long the bird appeared again. It was at some distance from the Tower, flying probably over the Sixth Level. I had been watching for it, and this time I was certain of what I had seen. It was an eagle, beyond all doubt, and from the direction of its flight I thought it was likely circling the City.

One time more the eagle appeared: far closer this time, close enough to the opened window that for a brief instant I saw the bright gleam of its eye, and the individual feathers shining upon its wings. The eagle soared upward out of my sight, and I saw and heard it no more.

I heard it no more, but I was to hear news aplenty concerning it.

Húrin Keeper of the Keys came to the office in the late afternoon, to report to me on the investigations into our earthquake. That report was swiftly given: no damage from the earthquake had been discovered in the City, the Rammas or Osgiliath. Of the mysterious eagle, however, Húrin had a good deal more to say.

He asked if I had seen the eagle. When I stated that I had, the Lord of the Keys went on with reluctant and awkward mien, “And … did you hear it sing?”

“Sing?” I repeated. “I heard it cry, if that is what you mean. I’m not certain that I would describe it as singing.”

Lord Húrin gave a harassed-looking scowl. “There are stories going around the City, My Lord. A few people are saying that they heard the eagle sing, in words – though there is no agreement on what language the bird used, for some are saying it was the Common Tongue, and some are saying it was Sindarin.”

“And?” I prompted, when Húrin looked reluctant to go on. “Is there any agreement on the content of his words?”

“Some, My Lord. All versions of the tale seem thus far to agree that the eagle called upon our people to rejoice, saying that the Dark Lord is defeated. One quoted its words as ‘Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Anor, for the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever, and the Dark Tower is thrown down.’”

The Dark Tower is thrown down.

I thought again of the earthquake, and the wave of darkness we had seen above the Mountain of Fire. I thought also of Merry’s whispered words, The Ring. Maybe it’s the Ring.

And I thought of that amazing blue sky above the wastes of Mordor: a sight that never in my life had I seen before this day.

May it be true, I thought suddenly. Please, O Valar, please let it be true!

Another thought came to me then, of Mithrandir’s tale he had related at Lord Elrond’s council, that a Lord of the Great Eagles had come to him at Isengard and rescued him from Saruman’s clutches.

That could explain this, I thought. It was not impossible for me to believe that the Grey Pilgrim had sent that same Eagle Lord or one of his fellows, to bring to us news of victory.

“There is more?” I asked Húrin then. I did not think that Lord Húrin would be scowling so, if the Dark Tower’s destruction were the only import of the eagle’s words.

“Aye. A few have reported that the eagle called on us to rejoice for our King had won a victory, and he would come again and dwell among us.”

I said, “I see.”

I sympathised with Húrin’s frown. But at the same time I could not bring myself to be overly concerned at the bird messenger’s prediction, if prediction indeed it was. It was hardly new tidings that we might have to contend with Aragorn pressing his claim to the throne. And I thought that I would rather by far hear of victory to him than of defeat, for defeat to Aragorn would likely mean defeat to the rest of our Men.

“A few, you say,” I asked. “How many reports have come of this eagle’s song?”

“It is difficult to say for certain. It is one of those things for which folk are more willing to say that a relation or a neighbour or a friend of their cousin heard it, than to bear witness to it themselves. Certainly more tidings have come to me of the call to rejoice, than of the portion concerning the King. One who has stated he heard the bird sing of the King’s return is a boy, the ten-year-old son of Beregond of the Citadel Guard. Another is one of the Assistants at the Houses of Healing – and Dame Ioreth of the Houses, it appears, is repeating the girl’s story to all who will stand still long enough to let her tell it to them.”

“Aye, that is no surprise,” I said, smiling ruefully at Húrin’s sour expression. “Soon the good Dame will be saying that she heard the eagle’s tidings herself, and it will have serenaded her at her window, telling her the King’s plans and complete itinerary, in half a dozen verses.”

Húrin snorted. “Bloody bird,” he went on, with a sudden bitter vehemence. “I would I could teach it to mind its own business. Let it fly over the City again; we’ll see if it sings so well with an arrow lodged in its throat.”

“My friend,” I sighed. “I know that you are joking. But you must know, this is no matter on which to jest. If the eagle did come to us as a messenger, then its life is sacred. And if was sent to us by our allies, then it is a friend to Gondor and we must treat it as such.”

“I know it, My Lord,” Húrin muttered. “I know.”

I gave the Lord of the Keys permission to take his leave, with the request that he keep me informed on further reports of the eagle’s message. As he walked to the door, Húrin turned again suddenly and asked, “My Lord – do you believe it can be true? That the Dark Lord has fallen?”

“I believe there’s a good chance of it,” I told him. “I believe there is a very good chance indeed.”

He bowed to me, with a faint and uncertain smile, and departed with the appearance of a Man attempting to determine if his world has in fact turned itself upside down.

As I sat there and stared at the blue sky, I thought that I knew precisely what Húrin must be feeling. And another thought came to me, that made me clench my fists and bow my head in sorrow and rage.

Why, I demanded, why, if the Ring and the Dark Lord have indeed been destroyed, could it not have come to pass just a few days earlier?

Why could they not have fallen before they lured my father from his City? Why could their fate not have seized them before my father died?

As evening drew in, I returned to my townhouse, to be greeted in subdued fashion by the people of my household. All had donned black armbands with the White Tree embroidered upon them, and the eyes of many were red with tears. I requested that a light day-meal be sent to my chambers, and told young Balamir that I would not require his further attendance that night. The boy bowed and hastened from the room, to nearly collide in the doorway with his uncle Gavrilo, who had been about to knock upon the door.

I should, it transpired, have told Balamir to remain a while longer. I bit my lip at the pain from my broken ribs, as I sat down and essayed to pull off my boots. Without comment, Gavrilo knelt to take my esquire’s place in helping me remove the boots. As he did so he told me, in careful, expressionless tones, that Balamir’s sister Bettris had reported hearing the eagle’s song.

I asked, as Gavrilo set my boots aside, “Did she mention the eagle singing of the King?”

“Aye, My Lord,” my seneschal answered, although from his grim expression he would far rather not have answered. “She said that she heard it sing, ‘your King shall come again, and he shall dwell among you all the days of your life.’ My Lord,” he went on, with some vigour, “Bettris is young and imaginative, but I have never had cause to suspect her of any untruth. She is telling the truth of what she believes she heard, at the least; of that much I am certain.”

“I know,” I told him, “I do not doubt her. Very well. Thank you for telling me.”

When the morrow came, I heard of the eagle again.

In the pre-dawn mist, I went to the Fountain of the Tree, where I found Svip huddled down in the water, awake and waiting for me. He vouchsafed scarcely more than one-word replies to my attempts at conversation, while we made our way to the Great River.

I felt awkward to say the least, seeing the River again for the first time since Anduin itself had apparently taken a hand in carrying me to the western shore. Svip and I had not spoken yet of anything I should do to thank the River. So for that morning, I only greeted Anduin aloud when I stood upon the Harlond docks, bowed to it and expressed my thanks for the Great River’s aid.

My swim that day took more the form of a soak, for my ribs were in no state to allow for comfortable swimming. Svip took a quick lap across the River and back. Then, sitting beside me on our usual steps, he asked suddenly, “Did you see the eagle?”

“Yes, I did,” I replied, “but I did not hear it sing. Did you hear it?”

“Well, yes, a little,” he said with reluctance, his eyes dropping furtively from mine. “Or, I thought that I did.”

“What did you hear it say?”

“Only that the Black Gate is broken, and the Dark Tower has fallen. That’s all.”

I did not press him further, but I had very little doubt that he was lying in the hope of protecting my feelings. He would have had no cause to speak so if he did not have something to hide from me. And that something, I thought, was likely that he had heard the bird sing of the promised return of our King.

Svip went back to sit in the Fountain. I went back to the office in the Tower, there to begin making inroads on the contents of the glass-fronted, cherrywood bookcase that held my father’s current files: shelf upon shelf of precisely ordered and labelled leathern folders.

Pippin had been waiting for me, seated patiently on a stool outside the office door. The Hobbit, it seemed, was one of the few in Minas Tirith who had neither seen nor heard our fabled eagle messenger. He told me that he had been helping Master Cosimo take inventory in the Lord Denethor’s chambers, and had missed out on the miraculous visit entirely. But, Pippin went on, Merry said that he and the Lady Éowyn both had seen it – although Merry could not make head nor tail of why he had heard the eagle sing of victory, while the lady said she had heard from it no words at all.

“It’s a strange thing, isn’t it,” Pippin observed, frowning in thought, “that one should hear it singing words, and another standing right next to him shouldn’t hear a thing. But I guess we ought to be used to strange things by now.”

“Perhaps you can soon ask Gandalf about it,” I suggested. “If the eagle’s message is true, then there’s hope that we may soon see our friends return to the City in triumph.”

The Hobbit nodded, but trouble darkened his gaze. “Will we see all of them, do you think?” he whispered. “Do you think there’s – do you think there’s any chance of Frodo and Sam coming back too?”

I wished I could answer with more certainty. But I told him, “Yes. I think there’s a chance. Gandalf and the rest of our fellowship must have been there, at the Black Gate or even in Mordor itself, when it happened. They would never leave without Frodo and Sam, not while there was any hope that they could find them and bring them home.”

“No,” Pippin agreed, in quiet, sorrowing tones, “not while there was any hope.”

I sent Pippin then to see if he could be of any assistance to either Master Cosimo or Svip. Thus he was not there to see my thoroughly mixed reactions, when I opened one of first folders on the top shelf of my father’s cabinet.

I had been more than a little wary of the folder’s contents before I opened it, for the file was labelled “Boromir”.

On one side of the folder were reports and letters from me; on the other, documents about me. My father, I knew, had typically kept in his chambers only those documents that dated to the current year. The older files, with each new year, were moved to a room in the Steward’s Library. But with his file on me, for this year at least, it seemed that he had made an exception.

In the left-hand side of the folder, in order by date, was each letter or dispatch that I had sent to him in 3018, until July and my departure for Imladris. Above my last letter from 3018 were two from this year – the letter I had sent from Cair Andros, and my scribbled note imploring reinforcements for the evacuation of Waterfront.

In the right of the folder I found an unexpected assortment of documents. There was a letter from Théoden King, dated to November of 3018. This letter told of my visit to Edoras in July, the subsequent riderless return of the horse that Théoden had lent to me, and the lack of any further news regarding me. To my utter surprise, there was also a letter of around the same date from Saruman, courteously expressing his concern that I had gone missing and his regret at being unable to oblige my father with any tidings of me. There were letters from the commanders of our border stations, all of them dating from December and January, regretfully reporting that no rumour of my whereabouts had reached them. And there was then a slew of urgent dispatches from many of the same border Captains, all dated to the end of February, telling that their Men had heard the Horn of Gondor, but that there had been no sight of me.

The other documents in the file were of a very different sort. Most were letters from my father’s agents throughout Rohan and the southlands, dating from the first half of 3018, and they reported on the qualifications or lack thereof of various young ladies considered as candidates to become my bride.

Torn between laughing and crying, I flipped through these reports. Lady So-and-so was a good dancer, but had a rather shrill laugh. Lady Such-and-such was not recommended, for there were doubts about her chastity. One lady was of a fragile constitution, and might not be expected to bear healthy children; another, it was suggested, might be slightly too healthy, and inclined somewhat to overweight.

With these letters was a list, penned by Master Cosimo, of fourteen tentatively approved candidates. I did not bother to compare the list with the letters, to see which of the multitude of maidens had made it through the first cut. But one name, near the bottom of the list, caught my eye.

It was the name of Lady Éowyn Daughter of Éomund. And next to her name, in my father’s crisp and orderly handwriting, was the following note: “B. seems to like her. Spoke with enthusiasm supporting her request for military service.”

Shaking my head and thinking, Father, I wish that I could have some words with you about this, I closed the folder.

I went to the bookcase, to return my file to its place on the shelf. On an impulse then, and more than half certain that I would regret doing this, I skimmed through the folders’ labels until I found the file for Faramir.

The folder was all-but empty. In its left-hand side were the letters and reports that Faramir had sent to our father in January and February of this year. And there was nothing more.

I sighed. Carefully I closed Faramir’s file and returned it to its place.

That afternoon, I had a visit from Lord Húrin and Master Pelendur. They brought word from the embalmers that their work with my father’s body was complete, and that the body now lay in state in its place in the House of the Stewards. Looking apologetic that he must ask me to think of this, Húrin inquired, “Have you instructions to give to us yet, My Lord, regarding arrangements for your Lord father’s funeral?”

“Not as yet,” I said. “We will wait until there has been time for Lord Faramir and our troops to return to the City. I would not have the funeral take place without my brother being present, if it can at all be avoided.” I thought a moment longer, then continued, “I will go to the House of the Stewards to pay my respects. Then let it be announced that Fen Hollen and the House of the Stewards will be open to any of our people who wish to pay their respects to the Lord Denethor. Let a detachment from the Guards of the Citadel be posted as an honour guard in the House of the Stewards, day and night until such time as the funeral has been held.”

Belatedly I recalled that the body of Théoden King yet lay in state in the House of the Stewards, and that one of their Riders still stood guard for their fallen King. I amended, “Húrin, offer to Elfhelm the Marshal that the Rohirrim may have equal representation among the guard; work with him to implement that, if he agrees.”

“Aye, My Lord,” said the Lord of the Keys.

Húrin and Pelendur both had looked surprised at my order to open the Closed Door. But they had recovered swiftly, and I could see no sign that they disapproved of my decision.

Never, I am sure, had any of us heard of the Silent Street being opened to any save the Tenders of the Tombs or the Steward and his nearest relations. But there would be many of our people who had not been in the City when we brought my father’s body home. I told myself that I would not deny any who wished it their chance to bid Lord Denethor farewell.

And now I had to say goodbye to him, myself.

Húrin and Pelendur departed, leaving me to ask myself why I sat there instead of going to him without delay.

Logically I knew that my delay had no excuse. I told myself, I must do this. But my heart sank dismally at the thought.

I eyed the bookcase and thought, Perhaps another few files, first? Just to the end of the second shelf?

Little though I joyed in the task, continued slogging through the cabinet of his files seemed preferable to what I had now to face.

It startled me to realise how much I dreaded to do this.

You are behaving like a fool, I argued with myself. You have looked upon his body already, and the sight did not strike you down.

Would you not rather see him now, alone, and bid what farewells you will with no other eyes upon you? Or would you rather leave it until the funeral, when you will stand in the gaze of hundreds?

With a leaden sluggishness that owed little to my injuries, I left the office that had been my father’s and made my way down the White Tower’s stairs.

In the Court of the Fountain, Svip sat in what was rapidly becoming his usual post. He crouched beneath the Fountain’s cascade like a gigantic frog, with only his head showing above the surface of the water. His dark eyes watched me, steady and as unreadable as my father’s gaze had been.

Of a sudden, the prospect of company seemed better by far than a solitary walk to the Mansions of the Dead.

After all, I argued, you have to think of Svip. You cannot leave him to sit here in the Fountain forever.

He has lost your father, too. He should have the chance to say goodbye to him, as well.

So this is for Svip’s sake? my thoughts mocked me. And here I thought it was only that you fear to face your father alone.

“Svip,” I said, “I’ve just had word that my father’s body has been prepared, and is lying in state in the House of the Stewards. I – am going to pay my respects. I’d be honoured if you would come with me – if you wish it.”

For a moment longer Svip did not move nor speak. Then he paddled to the Fountain’s edge. There he stopped, and he asked, “Should I?”

“You do not have to,” I hastened to tell him. “It is only if you wish. It is … a custom, among Men. Though the person’s spirit is gone, it is customary to show the respect and love we felt for them, by saying farewell to the body that was theirs. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to; it’s all right.”

“No,” he said, leaping suddenly from the water and onto the wall of the Fountain. “No, I’ll go with you. If you’re sure that’s all right.”

So my diminutive friend walked at my side, water dripping from off his black and silver uniform tunic, through the Seventh Level to Fen Hollen and the Silent Street.

It was another beautiful day. The sky was again a pure blue unmarked by clouds, and it seemed that all the birds in the City were singing – although this time, there were no eagles. There in the Hallows the birdsong was the only sound, save for my booted footfalls on the cobbles and the slap of Svip’s bare feet beside me.

As we followed the winding Road of Stairs down to Rath Dínen, I started speaking quietly to Svip. I told him of the history of the Hallows, and of the Kings and Stewards whose bodies lay here in the Mansions of the Dead.

We had reached the Silent Street and were nearing the House of the Stewards itself, when Svip’s pace began to slow. Finally he stopped, gazing in trepidation up the broad marble steps and to the dark, open door beyond.

“What would have happened,” Svip whispered, “if we weren’t able to bring your father’s body home? Would that be … bad? Would it hurt him?”

“Hurt him?” I repeated. “I … I don’t know. Not for certain. There are stories that if a person’s body is not tended properly, their spirit may not move on from this Middle Earth. But I don’t know if it’s true. There are stories, too, of those whose souls do not move on even though their bodies are tended properly.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how much it matters, really, to the dead. Or if it only really matters to those of us who are still alive.”

He gazed up at me with trouble in his eyes, whispering, “What would have happened to you if I hadn’t found you? If you’d stayed in the River … do you think it would have mattered to you that your body wasn’t here?”

I swallowed, and had to say again, “I don’t know, Svip. I suppose … I would rather my body lie here, with my family, even if I myself might not know of it. I would rather my body be here, so that … so that people would feel there was somewhere they could go to talk to me, if they wished to. Even if I might not truly be here to hear them.”

My words ran down, and I cursed in my mind the ineptitude of my speech. I wished I could think of some way to explain this to Svip that did not make it sound like merely the arbitrary habits and superstitions of Men.

But perhaps, I thought, perhaps that is what it is.

Svip gazed up the steps once more. I said to him, “Svip, you do not have to do this.”

“No,” he said. “No, I want to.” But the tone of his voice was none too certain.

“All right,” I said finally. Together, we climbed the stairs.

To the left of the door stood a warrior of Rohan; to the right, one of the Citadel Guard. Both bowed in salute as we approached, and Svip and I walked side by side into the silent hall.

I winced at the inappropriateness of the thought that came to me then, as we stood within the door: that the bodies of my father and my father-in-law had played a macabre game of musical chairs. To the far left of the row of stone tables that for the most part stood empty, where Théoden King had lain when first they bore him from the field of battle, lay now the Lord Steward Denethor II. And on the next table beside his – the table that one day would be mine – lay Théoden King of Rohan.

The fallen rulers were shrouded in a curtain of drifting dust-motes, illumined in the sunlight from the high, distant windows. The sun gleamed as well upon the cloth of gold that draped Théoden’s form, on the silver Tree of Gondor that blazoned my father’s tunic, on the wax-pale faces of both Men, alike now in their majesty and their silence.

Yet they were not alike, I thought as I walked closer. Théoden’s face still bore the gentleness and peace that I had seen upon it, that night when I stood vigil with Éomer and his sword-thains. But I saw no such peace upon my father’s face.

Even with his eyes shut in seeming sleep, it seemed to me that his face held again some of his vigour and his pride. It seemed, I thought, as though he disdained to be lying there; as though if he could, he would scornfully brush aside the suggestion that death should have any hold on him. He would demand to know why I was standing there like a fool, and he would climb down from that table of stone and stride to his office, impatient to get back to work.

I paused where Théoden lay and bowed to him. Then I turned to face my father. I knelt on the upraised step that surrounded the base of the table. Svip, following me, did the same.

I gazed at my father’s face. At first I had no thought in my mind. Then, slowly, I felt anger and grief creep over me, at the wretched irony that my father’s life had been stolen from him not even two full days before our Enemy himself would fall.

It cannot be true, I thought. It is not right. I will not allow it to be true.

Which of the Valar is it who holds such hate for my father? How could they allow him to die, not two days before he could have seen the victory of all he fought to save?

I wish that you could see it, sir, I thought to him. I wish you could see the sky. I wish you could see what it looks like when there is no fire in the sky of Mordor.

I thought of the purported song of the eagle lord, his call to rejoice at the coming of our King. I thought of it, and my heart twisted in rage at the thought that our claimant King might even now be riding home in victory, while my father lay here in dust and silence.

You would have no victory, Aragorn, I thought, were it not for the victories my father has won – my father and his longfathers before him.

There would be no country to which you could return, if my father had not spent his life fighting back the wolves from Gondor’s doors.

You have won, and we are to rejoice and sing. And what of the Man who made your victory possible? Are we to think nothing of him, while we sing for you?

My rage faded again, into the sorrow of realizing all that my father would never see.

Father, I thought, I want to stand with you on the White Tower and look out over the Pelennor, and Anduin, and Ithilien, and Mordor. I want to stand with you there and know that our Enemy is fallen. I want you to see what it looks like, to see how beautiful our country is when there is only sun above us, when the fire of doom has gone out of the sky.

There were tears on my face as I whispered, “I miss you, sir. I wish – oh gods, sir, I wish that you were here.”

I wept then, with no thought of holding it back. I could not have held it back had I tried. I wept as I knelt there by my father’s tomb, and the dust and the sunlight and the proud, fierce lines of my father’s face blurred and vanished from before my eyes as I sobbed.

I do not know how long it was before my sobbing stopped. I remember finally putting my hands to my face, and willing myself into some kind of peace, and silence. I rubbed the tears from my face and shoved aside my hair that was wet now from my tears.

Svip was gone. I had no idea when he had left, but I certainly could not blame him for fleeing. I thought, I am so sorry, Svip, as I stood up unsteadily and gazed around the silent hall.

I told myself that I should go after him. I needed to find him and apologise for bringing him here, when I should have known that I was in no state of mind worthy of company.

But there were other things that I should also do; other visits I should make while I was here.

I crossed to the enclosed tombs set into the wall of the hall, nearby to where my father lay.

I had no need of reading the inscriptions, to tell me whose were the three crypts nearest to my father.

The first along the wall was that of Faramir’s Éoflæd. The next belonged to Théodhild and our son. And the third, with the swan of Belfalas sculpted in relief upon it, was the tomb of the Princess Finduilas of Dol Amroth, my mother.

I bowed before Éoflæd’s tomb. At Théodhild and Findemir’s, I paused longer, touching my hand to my lips and then to Théodhild’s carven name. At my mother’s tomb I did the same, and as I had done times beyond count, I ran my hand over the graceful form of the Belfalas swan.

Then I walked onward, turning my steps to the next row of marble tables and the bodies of the Stewards of Gondor lying upon them. I could not remember what the last occasion had been on which I had walked past each of my longfathers here, gazing into the face of each of them in turn.

In my childhood, I had visited here often. My father and my tutor both had brought me here, to memorize the reign list of the Stewards and learn the faces that went with my ancestors’ names. Several times I had walked here with my father, as he spoke to me of the challenges faced by various of our predecessors. As we walked, he would debate with me upon the questions of whether they had chosen rightly, and on how I thought that I would have chosen had their challenges been mine.

Then as a youth, I had visited by myself. With my brain stuffed with romantic ideals and with glorious dreams for the future, I had wandered here among my ancestors, seeking inspiration from them that I might worthily follow in their footsteps.

I walked along their silent ranks again now. At my grandfather’s place I briefly paused, and murmured to him, “Hello, sir.” There were others among them by whom I paused as well, as I had done many times before in my youthful pilgrimages. I paused by Thorondir, my eyes as always going to the long, raised scar along his cheek and jaw, from a sword wound received decades before the battle in which he fell. I paused by Beren and by Beregond, struck again as I had always been by how closely Beregond’s face resembled that of my brother. I paused by he who had probably fascinated me the most in those long-ago visits to my ancestors: my namesake, the Steward Boromir Son of Denethor I.

I wondered how many hours, years ago, I had spent in staring at this dead warrior’s face; at the marks left by years of pain which no Healer had been able to cure, and no embalmer had been able to erase. I gazed again now at his hair gone prematurely grey, the sunken hollows of his cheeks, the shadows of darkness beneath his eyes. I saw again the frown he now wore for eternity, and that I had imagined had never left his face in those years before he died: brow furrowed as if in impatience at his body’s weakness, lips pressed grimly together that he might hold back any complaint at his unceasing pain.

I looked at him and I thought of the debate my father and I had held here beside his corpse: whether or not Steward Boromir had chosen rightly in retaining the Stewardship, in the years after he received his Morgul-wound.

There was no easy answer to it, as was of course the reason why my father had chosen that question. I remembered clearly the essay I had written comparing the actions and events of Boromir’s reign before his wounding and after it, and the actions of Cirion his son. I had come at last to the conclusion that Boromir would have done well to step aside when it grew clear that his wound could never heal, rather than clinging to the Stewardship through agony that it seemed had indeed impaired his ability to rule.

So my essay had tentatively concluded. But I had admitted both in the essay and in the subsequent discussion with my father that I could see why he had not done so – and that I was not certain, in his place, if I could have done so myself.

I looked now into the face of my namesake who died almost five hundred years before I was born. And a thought hit me – cold and piercing and so obvious that I wondered why I had not seen it clearly before.

I thought, I cannot do it. I cannot be Steward of Gondor.

This time it was no self-doubting panic, no dread that I would fail to live up to my father. This time it was a simple fact.

I accepted it so swiftly, I thought that at some level of my mind I must already have known the truth.

I had known it, I thought, since before my father died. Perhaps I had even known it before I returned home from my journey to Imladris and Amon Hen.

I cannot be the Steward of Gondor.

I thought again of my utter incapacity three nights ago, when I fought to convince my father to return to the City, and collapsed near death for no other reason than that I was ten miles from the River.

What kind of Steward would you be, I demanded of myself, who can go to nowhere in his country save a tiny corridor along the River? How is it doing your duty, fulfilling your responsibilities to Gondor, to give them a Steward whose life hangs by so fragile a thread, and who can never go forth with his troops to battle save only if the battleground lies fewer than ten miles from the riverbank?

It is Gondor of which you are to be Steward, not merely Anduin or Minas Tirith. Your people need a Steward in health and strength, and one who can go wherever they need for him to be.

I remembered what I had written in my essay and had said to the Lord my father. I had said that I did not know if, in that other Boromir’s place, I could have put aside the White Rod of the Steward, even though it meant giving it into the hand of one who was better fitted to rule.

But, I thought, I knew that answer now. I could do it, and by all the gods, I would.

I did not stay to walk past the earliest rows of my ancestors. I bowed to the body of Boromir Son of Denethor I, then I turned and hastened from the House of the Stewards, pausing only to bow once more to my father.

I nearly ran the route from the Hallows back to the White Tower; a combination of decorum and the niggling pain from my ribs succeeded in keeping my pace just under a run.

At the courtyard I checked and found that Svip was back in his place in the Fountain. He turned his head toward me when I hurried into the courtyard. Then quickly he turned away again, and settled himself deeper down into the water.

I have to speak with him, I told myself. But, my mind argued, this other duty was the one that I had to perform first.

I had to do it, before I had the leisure to talk myself out of it. I had to set down my decision upon paper, before my resolution and my courage could ebb away.

As I hastened up the steps to the office, I heard light footsteps and turned to see Pippin running up the stairs behind me.

“Do you need anything?” the Hobbit asked breathlessly, skidding to a halt. “Is there anything I can do?” He saw then the look on my face, and frowned in concern. “Boromir – has something new happened? What is it? What can I do?”

“It’s all right, Pippin,” I told him, striving to keep my voice calm. “I’m all right. I won’t need anything for the rest of the day. Perhaps you can go to see Svip – ”

My young friend looked rather queasy at that suggestion, and I backtracked at once.

“No, no, you don’t need to. I have to speak with him myself. You have leave until tomorrow, anyway. Maybe you can go see if there’s anything Merry’s working on that you can help with. Or, whatever you want to do.”

“All right,” Pippin said unhappily. “Good night, Boromir.”

“Good night.”

I walked into the office, shutting the door behind me and then for a moment walking no farther into that room.

Faramir will be furious with me, I thought. Faramir will tell me that I am doing this out of fear; out of fear of failure and in my grief for our father.

I can convince Faramir. I can win this argument with him, for this time, by the gods, I am right.

I strode to the desk, found pen, ink and paper and grimly sat down to my task.

For a moment more I hesitated. Then I wrote, with a speed as though the words had always been there in my mind.

“I, Boromir, Steward of Gondor by right of blood succession from my father the Steward Denethor the Second, in sound mind and after full and careful consideration …”

That last point, I admitted, was hardly true; but I told myself that I would think the same as I did now after full and careful consideration of it.

“Desiring only to act as is needful for the strength and welfare of our country, I do hereby declare as follows:

“In that I have contracted a condition which renders me dependent for my continued life upon the waters of the River Anduin, and through which I am incapable of travelling from the River’s vicinity except on pain of death; and in that I have no prospect of recovering from this condition;

“So therefore I have come to the conclusion that I am unable by reason of my health to be the Steward that Gondor requires.

“Therefore I do hereby resign the Stewardship of Gondor, giving the White Rod of Office into the hand of my brother the Lord Faramir Son of Denethor, Captain of the Rangers of Ithilien, effective immediately upon Lord Faramir’s return from the Mordor Campaign.

“Be it further known that I resign all claim to the Stewardship for myself and my heirs forever, and that rightful succession shall pass without let or hindrance to the line of the Lord Faramir.

“Written at Minas Tirith this Twenty-Seventh Day of March, in the year of the Third Age 3019.

“Boromir.”