Author’s Note: My humblest apologies for letting this story go without updates for over three years, and thank you to everyone who’s emailed me asking for the story to continue. Many things in “real life” have intervened in those three years, including a move from Virginia to Massachusetts, a new job, and – last but decidedly not least – the birth of our twins, who are now eight months old. (I did resist giving our son the name “Boromir” as a middle name, but I nearly did it – perhaps that can be his nickname!)

I’ve been working on this off and on throughout those years, but the chapter kept getting longer and longer and never seemed any closer to getting finished. What you see here is, in fact, only the first third or so of what was once intended as one chapter. And I’m afraid that not really much happens in it, which may also be one reason for my difficulty in writing it. I have to keep reminding myself that there are, after all, some chapters in Tolkien in which not much seems to happen, but yet those chapters are still worth reading.

So, I hope some people are still interested in reading this, and that it does not disappoint too badly. And perhaps, I hope, the excitement of posting this will spur me to add more, sooner rather than later …

Chapter Twenty-Four:

Departures and Returns, Part One

Several moments passed before I was able to speak.

“I see,” I managed at last. “Thank you for telling me, Lord Éomer.”

The King of the Horselords watched me keenly, clearly expecting further comment. It must have grown obvious that he might be waiting a long time. He ventured, “Pardon me for asking, My Lord; does this news have any impact on your request?”

I fought to think whether it had any impact or not.

“No,” I said. I tried to pull myself together as I noticed the dazed tone in my voice. “No, I think it does not. Not yet, at least. I must speak with my brother, of course, but … I think you may be assured that Lord Faramir’s request and mine stand unchanged.”

“In that case, Lord Boromir,” Éomer went on with new intensity, “you will permit me to inform Lord Faramir of your request before you speak with him of the matter?”

The urgency in the young Man’s tones served to steady my thoughts.

“Of course, My Lord,” I told him, smiling a little at his near-to-panicked expression.

The Rohirrim, as I reminded myself, are firmly bound by tradition where such matters of etiquette are concerned. Here in Gondor, not since my great-grandsire’s day or even earlier has any lady’s guardian been so concerned with being the first to inform all suitors of any rival suit. Strictly speaking, that is still the proper way to proceed, in Minas Tirith just as in Rohan. But no Man of Gondor save the most fanatical traditionalist would lose sleep these days over disregarding that convention.

For the Horselords, it is a different matter entirely. I do not know why it should be thus, but the fact remains that such rules of behaviour are still of deepest import to the Men of Rohan – as my young cousin Éomer was now demonstrating.

“If I may make a suggestion, Éomer King,” I said, “please delay meeting with Lord Faramir on this until the first thing tomorrow. Already this has been a sorely trying day for him. He spoke also of wishing to pay his respects at our father’s tomb tonight.”

“I understand,” Éomer said, with a nod. “I will not intrude upon him this night. Tomorrow morning I will inform him of your suit; then all will be as it should be.”

I thought, All will be as it should be, except that my brother and I will have to decide what to do about the fact that we’ve proposed paying our addresses to the same woman.

Wait till the news of this gets around! I thought. The wits among our friends had submitted Faramir to no little jesting before, when he’d declared his wish to marry my wife’s younger sister. If their mirth had been roused then by the jibe that the little brother was slavishly following his big brother’s footsteps, how much more cause of laughter would they find now in the case of we two brothers courting the same maiden?

Let them laugh, I told myself. Any potential jests by our friends are likely the least of our worries!

Éomer and I shook hands and bade each other goodnight. The King of Rohan set out for the barracks’ stables in search of the lady his sister. I started toward the gate, to make my way back up the Hill of Guard. But when I had gone only a few steps across the courtyard, a familiar voice hailed me.

“Hullo, Boromir! Come join us.”

The voice was Merry’s, from the Fourth Level’s wall. I looked up to the wall and saw the pinprick glints of the Hobbits’ pipes gleaming out from the night’s shadows.

Of a sudden I realised how little I wanted to go back to my house just yet. Nothing awaited me there save to sit and worry, and to wonder what would come of my next morning’s conversation with Faramir.

Gladly I crossed to the stairs and climbed to join my comrades.

The torches along the wall showed them clearly as I approached, but I could as easily have found them by following the smell of the Halflings’ pipe smoke. Svip was with them, lying on his front along the top of the battlement, with his head resting on his arms. Pippin sat on top of the battlement as well, swinging his feet, and between the two of them in one of the crenellations sat Merry.

I sat down beside the crenellation and leaned against the battlement. Pippin greeted me, “Hello, Boromir. I’m afraid we don’t have anything to offer you; unless you’d care to try a puff of Longbottom Leaf.”

I smiled at that. Barely an evening had gone by, along the long road the Fellowship travelled together, that Pippin and Merry did not try to convince me to join them in their pipe-smoking.

“I’m afraid not, my friends,” said I. “I’m as incorruptible as ever.”

Pippin grinned as he launched into the familiar argument. “It is not corrupt. It’s a perfectly respectable pastime. Gandalf does it; what better recommendation do you want?”

“Believe me,” I said, “Gandalf does a lot of things that I don’t plan on trying.”

“Well,” Pippin admitted, after a contemplative puff, “I suppose there is something in that.”

This night Merry was not in the mood to join the venerable debate. He said quietly, “We were talking of Frodo and Sam. Do you think they’ll be all right?”

It is always touching to realise that someone believes you have all the answers. Unfortunately, the people who believe that are inevitably wrong.

I said, “Pippin knows as much on that as I do. You heard what Faramir said of them, Pippin. I fear there’ll be no help in asking Faramir for more news, either; he had such a brief glimpse of them. But – you’ll be tired of hearing this, no doubt. But you Hobbits have more strength and resilience in you than we Big People would ever imagine of you. That Frodo and Sam live at all is more than we could have dared hope. If they had the strength to come through Mordor alive, then they have the strength to recover their health now. Yes,” I realised, “yes, I do think they’ll be well.”

I heard Pippin sigh. Merry took a long draw on his pipe, then he stared up at the sky. “Thank you, Boromir,” Merry said at last. “I hope you’re right.”

Svip joined in then with a quiet question of his own. “When your friends are well,” he said, “when you’re with them again, what do you think you’ll do then? Do you think you’ll go home?”

The two Hobbits were silent. Hesitatingly Pippin began, “I don’t know what they’ll want to do. Sam would want to go back to the Shire, I think – or, he’d want to go back if Frodo wants to. But Frodo … you’d think he would want to go back. But after everything he’s gone through, everything that’s happened, who knows what he’ll want, at all. As for us – ”

Pippin stopped for a moment. Then in reluctant tones he went on, “As for me, well, I’m your sworn liege man, aren’t I, Boromir? I don’t really see how I can be much use as your esquire if I’m back in the Shire.”

Guiltily I remembered that I’d not yet told the Hobbits anything of my resignation from the Stewardship. And as Pippin had told me, he had sworn allegiance to the Steward of Gondor: to the Man who held that office, rather than to my father or to me.

“I’m sorry, Pippin,” I said, “I should have told you earlier. But Faramir only agreed to it tonight. As you are the Steward’s esquire, then I am no longer your lord. I’ve resigned the Stewardship to Faramir.”

Pippin and Merry stared at me. Pippin asked, “Why?”

Once again I explained my reasoning. I told them also a little of what had transpired earlier that night, when I’d convinced Faramir to take the Stewardship.

The Hobbits and Svip listened to me in silence. When I stopped speaking, Pippin burst out impulsively, “Are you sure you don’t want a bit of a smoke? It sounds to me like you need a good pipe, after the day you’ve had.”

“No, truly, believe me,” I said, surprised into laughter. “I am perfectly happy with what I can smell of yours.” Sobering again, I told him, “I’m sorry, Pippin; I’m sorry to go and resign on you the minute you thought you knew where you stood in the world. But you mustn’t worry. Faramir and I both will support whatever you want to do. I know that Faramir would gladly accept your allegiance, if that’s what you want. But neither he nor I would hold you to your oath, if you want to go home to the Shire.”

Pippin stared down at his pipe. “Thank you,” he said, very quietly. “I don’t know what I want to do. What about you, Merry?” he asked, trying to sound more cheerful. “Do you want to go home?”

Merry answered in surprisingly angry tones, “I could answer that better if I knew where home is.” As we all three stared at him, he went on. “I’ve got the same problem you have, Pip. Of course I’d like to see the Shire again. But I swore myself to Théoden King’s service, and then to Éomer. I don’t want to go back on that oath, ever. When Éomer and Éowyn and the rest of them go back to Rohan, maybe I’ll go with them. I don’t know.”

I ventured, “Éomer and Éowyn will think on this as I do, Merry, I’ve no doubt of it. They value your friendship and would be sorry to see you leave. But because they value your friendship, they would never wish to stop you from returning home. If that is what you want.”

“I don’t know yet,” Merry said. “Not yet.”

Pippin put his pipe back in his mouth, and gave some musing puffs. “It wouldbe good to see the old places,” he murmured. “Just for a visit, maybe. What’s it gotten to be now? Early April? The snowdrops are probably come and gone already. There may be some daffodils out – or nearly. Just think: it’s a year ago now that Frodo first started acting strange, and talking of leaving the Shire. Think of it, Merry! To think that a year ago, we didn’t know about any of this. We didn’t know about Gondor, or Rohan. We didn’t know – any of it.”

“They’ve got spring flowers in Gondor and Rohan too, you know,” Merry said testily. But for all his determination, Merry was no more immune to thoughts of home than was his cousin.

“It would be good to see the place,” he admitted. “The asparagus should be ready to pick. I should like to do a little fishing on the Brandywine. And to stop by the Golden Perch when it’s warm enough for them to set up the tables outside …” He broke off his reminiscences suddenly and exclaimed, “Curse you, anyway, Peregrin Took! You had to go and remind me of things, just when I was thinking I might not mind never going back!”

“Sorry,” Pippin said. But the spell of reminiscences was not yet broken. Svip spoke up with musings of his own.

“The rivergrass starts blooming around this time of year,” he said. “And the yellow leaves come down the River from the Elf-lands. Sometimes when the leaves flow over Rauros it seems the whole waterfall’s turned to gold. There’s more water in the River, too, from the snow up in the mountains. When I lived above the waterfall, every now and then a chunk of ice would get all the way to near the falls without melting. That was one of the first things I ever tried to collect; a big shining piece of ice, bigger than my hands. My mother had the hardest time explaining to me why it had turned to water, after I brought it inside to store it in her house.”

An edge of worry crept into his voice. “I wonder how my collection is. It should be safe; I think I’ve lived there long enough that my house shouldn’t be withering yet, not when I’ve only been gone a month. It ought to be all right.”

I did not know what to say. I wanted to offer some sort of reassurance. But any such attempt would be only empty words, and Svip would know it. I knew nothing of the house-plants of Svip’s people. How then could I tell him that all would be well, that his house and his collection would be safe and waiting for him when he returned home?

I thought, I ought to tell him to go home. I ought to tell all of them that.

Pippin blew a small smoke-ring that ghosted above the wall for a few paces before fading into the night. The young Hobbit gave a quiet sigh. He said, “What about you, Boromir? There’s not any place you wish you were, is there? You’re already home.”

I pressed my hand against the smooth marble of the wall, picturing the seven Circles of the White City rising up before my eyes.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, I am.” My voice and my resolution grew in strength as I went on. “And so should you be. All of you. All of us fought for our homes, against the darkness. Why should I be the only one to return to the place that I love? Your homes survive because of the victories that you and our comrades have won. Your homes survive, and you should go back to them.”

“It’s not that simple, Boromir,” Meriadoc said flatly. “Maybe it was that simple before we left the Shire. It isn’t any more. It won’t ever be again.”

The sound of half-heard voices drew our eyes to the courtyard below us. Éomer King and the Lady Éowyn had stepped from the stables and were walking now toward the Barracks gate, deep in conversation. I looked away from them swiftly; for no very logical reason, but probably to assure myself that I was not staring at the lady.

“Do you need to leave, Merry,” I asked, “to escort Lady Éowyn to her quarters?”

“No,” he said. “She gave me the night off, when Pip brought the news of Frodo and Sam.”

Pippin was gazing contemplatively down at his pipe. “I have come to that momentous time of the evening,” he said portentously, in a reasonable imitation of Mithrandir, “when the question comes whether to re-fill one’s pipe, or to call it a night.”

I thought again of how little I wanted to go alone to my townhouse, to contemplate whatever might be said between Faramir and me upon the morrow.

“Why not re-fill your pipes at my house?” I suggested. “My cellar is reasonably well stocked, if you fancy a drink along with your Longbottom Leaf. It will not, I’m sure, take the place of the Golden Perch. But you are welcome. You as well, Svip. I’ve not yet repaid you in kind for the wine you shared with me at your house. I’d like you to share a bottle with me, if you will.”

“No,” said Svip, his voice sounding flat and sullen once more. “I’ll go back to the Fountain.”

The two Hobbits and I exchanged worried looks, but none of us thought it wise to try and dissuade him.

Pippin and Merry accepted my invitation, and we set forth to make our way up the hill. Svip left us at the gate to my townhouse, his feet slapping hollowly on the cobblestones as he trudged toward the Sixth Level’s gate.

Pippin, Merry and I passed a pleasant evening. The halflings fumigated my Great Hall with their pipeweed while we shared a bottle of Dol Amroth white. Their reminiscing mood continued, with Merry mellowed enough by the wine that he made no further dark comments.

They spoke of friends and relatives back in the Shire; of Frodo’s odious relations the Sackville-Bagginses and of how Merry, Pippin and Frodo had conspired to deprive them of the celebrated Baggins wine cellar when Frodo sold them his Hobbit hole. By evening’s end I am certain I knew more than any other Man in Gondor of the taverns in the Shire, though I was still sadly lost in trying to keep track of how Pippin and Merry were related to the multitudinous Hobbit families they mentioned.

When we had emptied the bottle of wine, my young comrades and I strolled up to the Citadel, Pippin returning to his room in the King’s House, and Merry to Lady Éowyn’s chambers in the West Guesthouse. I bade them good night in the Place of the Fountain, where Svip, as I had suspected, was still awake. The Hobbits called their goodnights to Svip and to me and betook themselves to their beds, whilst I sat down on the wall of the Fountain.

Svip had not answered Pippin and Merry, but he swam silently to the Fountain’s edge, watching me with the distant, wary gaze that had become so bitterly familiar from him.

A message from Faramir had awaited me, when the halflings and I arrived at my townhouse. In it my brother appointed the Third Hour past the sun’s rising for our meeting with Lord Húrin of the Keys.

I knew full well that I was like to spend the entire day in meetings. It was this prospect that brought me now to Svip’s side.

I told him what the morrow was likely to hold for me, and I asked if he would go to Osgiliath tomorrow in my stead, to guide the Men in recovering what should be the final submerged remnants of the Great Stone Bridge.

“We can raise the last of the stones tomorrow, I’m sure of it,” I said, “with you there to guide the operation. Then that part of the project, at least, will be complete. Once the stones are all raised, the Stonemasons and the troops can begin construction on the bridge without us there to guide them. And that will be a very good thing,” I added ruefully, “as with the start of Faramir’s reign, my life is like to turn into one long Council meeting.”

“You want me to go without you?” Svip asked guardedly. “Will the Men follow me, without you there?”

“I’ll send a message to Captain Eradan tonight, letting him know you’ll be commanding the retrieval operation in my place. But I am certain there would be no trouble, even without such a message. You have been as much a part of this project as I have, Svip. The Men will trust you to lead them.”

“I don’t like leaving you for that long,” Svip muttered. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”

“I’ll be all right. I won’t leave the City without you. I will be in no danger, I promise you.”

He did not speak for such a time, I felt certain that he would refuse the request. But at last his brusque answer came, “All right. I’ll go after our swim tomorrow. Good night.”

“Thank you, Svip,” I said, as he swam back to his stone pillow at the centre of the Fountain. “Good night.”

In melancholy mood, I returned to my townhouse, where I penned and sent the message to Captain Eradan. It was not yet late, but it was late enough that I felt I could justify retiring to bed, to avoid spending further waking hours in the company of my thoughts.

That goal, however, was one that I failed to meet. I spent much of the night in unremitting wakefulness, my mind turning like a waterwheel through the questions of what I should say to Faramir, and what we should do.

After our morning’s swim, Svip and I parted company at Waterfront. He set out swimming upriver to Osgiliath. I rode back to the City on Fengel, brought with us from my stables.

The stolid horse of Rohan seemed entirely at ease with Svip these days. I sighed at the thought that Lady Éowyn’s training of the horses, though successful, would yet come to nothing, when Svip went through with his plan of returning home to Rauros.

Drawing nigh to Faramir’s townhouse I met with Éomer King, just walking out through the gate. I dismounted, we bowed and exchanged greetings, and the young Horselord hastened down the hill – apparently as keen as I was, to avoid speaking of the matter that had brought him there.

Húrin of the Keys, and his secretary Miroslav Son of Yaromir, were already with Faramir in his study when I arrived. Seated at his desk, my brother greeted me with a wan and harried-looking smile.

As I tried to smile reassuringly back at him, I wished for a moment that I had withdrawn my suit when Éomer asked me of it.

Faramir had more than enough confronting him now. The last thing he needed was for his brother to be seeking in marriage the same maiden he hoped to wed.

I thought that Lord Húrin had an anxious look about him as well, as he stood by Faramir’s desk with his fingers drumming nervously atop a mountain of venerable leather-bound documents. Young Miroslav the secretary, for his part, merely looked wide-eyed as he sat with his travelling desk taking notes, impressed I suppose at being in the presence of history-making decisions.

Faramir said to me, “We’ve just started. Have you brought your resignation with you?”

“I have.” I handed to Húrin the leathern folder that I had been carrying. The Lord of the Keys drew forth my resignation and read it over in thin-lipped, frowning silence.

“All seems to be in order, My Lords,” he said then, replacing the document in its folder and handing it to Miroslav. “Copies will be made and brought to you for your signature, Lord Boromir.” Húrin did not quite achieve removing the frown from his face, but he clearly knew that all time for debate and protest was passed. “I take it the copies should receive extended distribution?”

“Yes,” I said. “To be posted throughout the City and sent to all manned garrisons.”

Húrin nodded briskly. “If it meets with your approval, Lords,” he went on, “a session of the Council will be called for tomorrow at the Third Hour, to present the matter of Lord Faramir’s succession. Due to the need to move on with the business of government, and the unusual number of Council members in or near the City, I think it will be sufficient to summon all Councillors now within the Rammas? We need not wait for summons to go forth to the Outlands?”

“I think that is correct,” agreed Faramir. “For the first full session of the Council, of course, we will need to send the summons. But for this, I think we need not. With the King of Rohan and the Captains of Anórien already on hand, we have sufficient to make this a valid meeting.”

“Very good. Then, as to the scheduling of the Lord your father’s funeral …”

Lord Húrin broke off for a moment and shook his head. Faramir studied our troubled-looking Keeper of the Keys, and said gently, “Will you sit? Both of you, for the Valar’s sakes,” he added, glancing at me. “You don’t need to wait to be asked; we’re not in the Tower Hall here, you know.”

“Thank you, Lord Faramir,” Húrin muttered, as we pulled chairs closer to Faramir’s desk and sat. Húrin still had his head ducked, and was staring at his hands. “I do not mind telling you, My Lords,” he went on at last, “I have been as nervous as a kitten, trying to get my head around all of this. It’s not every Keeper of the Keys who has to plan events of this magnitude. My father, you know, never had a Steward’s funeral under his jurisdiction; he only succeeded my grandfather in the sixth year of Lord Denethor’s reign.”

Húrin nodded to the stack of books that sat on Faramir’s desk. “I’ve been reading the last several centuries of my office’s records on the funerals of the Steward. I keep fearing I will miss some vital detail, and everything will go to hell in a handbasket. Begging your pardon for saying so, My Lords.”

Faramir smiled. “You shouldn’t worry yourself over it, Húrin,” he said. “I know that I speak for my brother as well as myself, when I say that we have full confidence in you.”

“It’s true,” I affirmed. “We will leave the planning in your hands with no hesitation or concern.”

Lord Húrin looked downward again, scowling in what seemed to be embarrassment. “Thank you for saying that, My Lords,” he said. “I hope to prove worthy of your trust.” He cleared his throat and hastened on.

“You know, of course,” he said, “that by tradition, a Steward’s funeral can only take place in either the dark of the moon or at the full.”

I did not know that, in fact. I had never studied up on it, and I was too young at the time of my grandfather’s death to have noted such details. I thought back, however, and a memory did come to my mind: of standing by my father’s side during the vigil at my grandfather’s tomb, until I fell asleep on my feet in the small hours of the night and was led away to my bed. I was almost certain I remembered the cold glare of the moon, shining in through the high windows and turning every Man’s face as pallid as those of our fallen ancestors.

Húrin went on, “The next full moon is now only two days away. It would give only brief time for preparation; but as it is now eleven days since the Lord your father died, I think that none would count it unseemly haste. For practical reasons also the earlier option has merit, since none of the Steward’s or the Council’s actions can carry the full force of law until the funeral of the Steward’s predecessor.”

Faramir nodded, deep in thought. “It makes sense,” he said. “There is more logic in moving forward now, when we can, than in delaying the decisions of government for another two weeks.” He looked questioningly at Húrin and at me. “Was our grandfather’s funeral at the dark of the moon or the full?”

“At the full,” I said, then I asked Húrin, “was it not?”

“Aye, My Lord,” he said, “it was.”

Faramir decided, “Then let our father’s be the same. Who is to take part in the ceremony?” he asked the Lord of the Keys.

“That will be for you to decide, Lord Faramir,” Húrin replied. “Traditionally, the parts would be spoken by selected members of the Steward’s household; by you, of course, and by Lord Boromir as the Steward’s Heir …”

“You forget, Húrin,” I cut in, more brusquely than I had intended. “I am no longer the Steward’s Heir. I have renounced all claim to the Stewardship, for myself and all my line.”

“Forgive me, Lords,” said the Keeper of the Keys, looking in surprise from me to Faramir and back again. “Will you not be Lord Faramir’s heir? Since the succession has not been taken from you due to any misdeed, I presumed you would remain as heir until Lord Faramir has a son.”

“Oh, bloody hell,” I exclaimed, feeling my face turn red as I realised that I’d overlooked that aspect of things entirely. “I never even thought of that. There are other options, aren’t there?”

Faramir gave me a look of pitying disgust. “Yes, there are other options,” he said. “But none of them as good. Shall I not choose you over one of Imrahil’s sons? Which is the wiser choice: a Man who has trained to be Steward all his life, who has commanded the forces of Gondor and has their trust and love? Or a boy who has scarce yet seen any combat, who’s never been north of Dol Amroth save on holiday, and who’d probably get himself lost if he were ever set loose on his own in the streets of Minas Tirith?”

“That’s not fair,” I objected. “None of the boys would get lost. They know you just have to look for the White Tower, and walk downward if you want to go downward, and up if you want to go up!”

“Aye,” countered Faramir, “and is that the only requirement for the Heir of the Steward, that he should know which direction is up?”

“All right, Faramir,” I sighed, “you’re right. I will stay as Heir, if you wish it. But you’d best not tarry about getting an heir of your own. I don’t fancy being the Steward’s Heir for my entire life!”

“I am doing my best on that,” Faramir snapped. “It is not an entirely trouble-free process!”

“Oh. Yes. Sorry,” I said contritely, realizing far too late that it was a tasteless thing to say in our present circumstances.

Húrin of the Keys was looking bewildered, while his secretary concentrated hard on the papers before him. “My Lords?” Húrin asked. “Would you like us to leave, and return at a better time?”

“No,” Faramir said. “My brother and I have finished arguing.”

We returned to the planning, Húrin extracting from his stack of documents several copies of the schedule he’d drafted for the funeral, and of the parts which were to be spoken during the ceremony. After Húrin talked us through the order of the ceremony, it was agreed that he would return to wait on Faramir later in the day, after Faramir and I had time in private conference to make the decisions required of us.

As Lord Húrin stood to take his leave, Faramir said, “There is one other matter for consideration. Boromir, before you arrived Húrin told me that the commanders of the Ered Nimrais garrisons, and of some of the southern Outlands, have sent to us repeatedly, asking if the evacuees from Minas Tirith and Anórien may be permitted to return home. I have thought of it, and I am inclined to allow it – at least for those of Minas Tirith and the Pelennor. I would say that we should not yet permit any returns to north of the Rammas, until we have news of how the Army is faring. But here and through the Pelennor, it seems, there should be safety enough. What would you say to this?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, as I thought of it. “Yes, it should be well. There have been none of the enemy sighted within striking distance of the City for … over a week now, is that not right?”

“Aye, My Lord,” Húrin agreed. “The last of them were seen and dealt with by the patrols two days after your Lord father’s death.”

“Very well,” said Faramir. “Then, Húrin, you may send to the commanders that returns are authorized to the City and as far as the Rammas wall.”

“If I may,” I put in, “add to your message the urging that those who live north of the Rammas remain where they are until further notice. It will do no one any good if half of North Anórien decides to make a head start on returning to their homes, and end up camped in the City for Valar know how long.”

“Yes, Lords,” said the Keeper of the Keys, with a weary half-smile. “Thank you. I am glad to have any good news to send, for a change!”

Faramir and I both stood, I helping to stack the Lord of the Keys’ documents into a pile that Miroslav the secretary precariously balanced atop his travelling desk. We walked Húrin and his secretary to the door, Húrin bowing low and Miroslav managing a respectful nod from above the stack of books.

When they had departed, Húrin quietly closing the door behind them, I said to my brother, “Perhaps you should suggest to Húrin that he bring two secretaries the next time he needs to tote that many documents around. Troubled though our country has been, I’m sure that Gondor can afford for its Keeper of the Keys to have more than one attendant.”

Faramir flopped back down in his chair behind the desk. He shook his head as he gazed at the closed door, then he looked up at me with a bemused, rueful smile.

“Ah, the thrill of power,” he remarked. “I little thought my first task as Steward would be to provide encouragement as the Keeper of the Keys suffers a crisis of self-belief.”

I grinned a little and sat down again, leaning back in my chair. “That’s a secret closely guarded by all Stewards and Steward’s Heirs. The Steward’s primary role is to be nursemaid to all the kingdom.”

“Now you tell me.”

He smiled a moment longer. Then he sighed, and the sigh turned into a yawn that he tried to stifle behind his hand.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” I inquired.

“A little,” he said. “At least, I think I must have. I dreamed last night, of Father.”

I looked at him more sharply on those words. But what I saw gave me at least some reassurance. He looked tired and worn, but he did not have the haunted look I have so often seen on him.

“What did you see?” I asked him.

“I think it was just a dream,” he said, “not a vision. Just a dream, the kind normal people have.” He sighed again, quietly, and ran his hands over his face and through his hair.

“It wasn’t anything dramatic. I think I was a child again, and you were away somewhere, and Father had me sitting in on meetings with him, the way he would have you do, if you were there. That’s all. I just remember listening hard to try and follow what the meeting was about, and wishing you were there to talk about it with me after the meeting. And I remember the sound of his voice.”

I nodded, and swallowed back a sudden thickness of emotion in my throat.

“How are you doing?” I asked. “With – all of it?”

Faramir did not quite manage to smile again. “I am fine,” he said. “I am constantly asking myself if all of this is real. But I’m fine.”

He glanced down at the documents lying on the desk before him. He asked, “Who of Father’s household would you ask to speak in the funeral?”

“Cosimo, certainly,” I said, and Faramir nodded firmly when I spoke the name of our father’s Seneschal. “He would never forgive us if we did not ask him. And Master Pelendur. What of Hákon?” I asked then, surprised to realise that for a time I had entirely forgotten about the young Man who had been Father’s Esquire before Pippin, and who had asked for a transfer to the garrison of the Causeway Forts, when our country’s peril drew nigh. “Is he yet with the Army?”

“Yes,” Faramir confirmed, “he is with our forces under Imrahil’s command. I saw him after the Battle at the Black Gate. He lives, and I would ask him if he were here, but we cannot delay Father’s funeral in the hope that he may return in time to take part in it.”

I nodded, and began again, “Then, I think …”

I hesitated. But I felt certain that my first impulse on this was correct. “I think we should ask Pippin. It will frighten him, doubtless, and he will not be sure that he is equal to the task. But I believe that he is equal to it. For his loyal service to Father, we would do wrong not to ask him. And … I should like to ask Svip, as well.”

“Are you certain?” Faramir asked, frowning. “Are you certain that he could endure it? I thought that he did not seem … himself, when I saw him yesterday. You know him better than I do, but …”

“No,” I agreed grimly, “he has not been himself. But it is Father’s death that pushed him beyond the bounds of what he could well endure. If we give him the chance to play a role in this closing chapter of Father’s life, perhaps it may help to close this chapter for him.”

“If you think it is best,” Faramir said, “we will do so.”

The time was soon coming, we both knew, when we could no longer delay speaking of the matter that had brought Éomer King to Faramir’s office. But there was at least one other matter of which we should speak, and I seized on it.

“We need to speak more of Pippin,” I said.

I told my brother of the quandary in which the young Hobbit found himself placed; of the conflicting demands of homesickness and his oath to the Steward, and of how the terms of his oath necessitated a second transfer of his allegiance, from me to Faramir.

“It is awkward as hell,” I said. “Pippin wants to honour the terms of his oath, and we must honour it also. We don’t want it to look like we’re fobbing him off from one of our households to the other, making up posts for him because we don’t know what to do with him. And we don’t want him to think that his oath means he can’t return home, if he wishes to.”

“It is a maze,” Faramir agreed. “It seems that every step must be the wrong one. Let me think on it,” he went on. “I should be able to think of some suitable post for him, that will show him due honour but yet not separate him from you. Perhaps I can second him to your service, as Éomer has done in making Merry attendant on Lady Éowyn.”

He had spoken the fateful names, and now there could be no longer delay. Bracing myself to finally face this conversation, I said, “I met Éomer when he was leaving your office. He has told you?”

“Yes.” My brother gazed at me steadily, but his expression changed to one of doubt and regret. Of a sudden he broke forth, “I would never have sought permission to court Éowyn if I’d known you sought that as well.”

“I know that. I would never have asked if I’d known you were going to ask.”

He nodded, and for a moment neither of us spoke.

“Did you know you were going to,” Faramir asked, “before we left for Mordor?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t know. It was not until after Father’s death. I went to the Houses to pay my respects at his tomb, and Éowyn was there, paying her respects to Théoden King. It started me thinking … of how close both our houses had come to annihilation. Of how Father was always after me to marry again, and how I had always put it off. It made me think … that I should still try it now, even though he is gone. I saw Éowyn, and I thought of her prowess and her strength and her beauty. And I determined to ask.”

Faramir nodded, frowning. He looked as though he wished to speak, but he said nothing.

“Did you know you were going to ask, before you left?” I prompted.

“No,” he said distantly, his gaze shifting from mine. “I admired her skill on the battlefield, of course. I respected her determination and courage. But it was only … it was only after the Dark Lord fell, and we saw the flames die in the sky of Mordor.

“I started to think that perhaps there was hope for all of us, for our world. Real hope, for the first time in our lives. I started to think of what it might mean for Middle Earth. For Gondor and Ithilien and Mordor; for all of us. I started to think that grasses and flowers might someday grow again in all the places the Dark Lord has tainted. And I thought that I wanted someone by my side, to share that. Someone to bring to my life what this victory has brought to all of us.”

I nodded as well, not knowing how to reply.

“Do you love her?” Faramir demanded suddenly, staring straight at me.

The question took me by surprise, though I suppose that it should not have.

“That depends on what you mean by love,” I said. “I am not writing sonnets to her eyes, or serenading her outside her window at all hours of the night, if that’s what you mean.”

He snorted in impatience at that. I schooled myself to answer his question in seriousness.

“I will love her,” I said, “if we wed. I respect her and admire her. I do not love her now any more than I did Théodhild, before we married. Yet I will swear that neither Théodhild nor I felt our marriage lacking in love. If Éowyn becomes my wife, she will never lack for tenderness, consideration or honour. I hope you do not doubt that.”

“No,” my brother answered, very quietly. “I do not doubt that.”

“What of you?” I asked, almost as quietly as he. “Do you love her?”

He glanced away from me. “About the same,” he said, trying to sound off-hand about it, “about the same as what you said. I have not written any sonnets either. And I am not planning any serenades beneath her window.” He looked back at me with a faint smile.

I would have to be as stupid as Faramir has often accused me of being, not to suspect that there was more to his feelings than he was admitting now.

“Brother,” I said, “you know I have never been the most sensitive of Men. If there is more than you are saying…”

“No,” he said firmly. “No, there is not. We are on equal ground in this, you and I. The question becomes, what do we do now?”

I held back a sigh, only half convinced by his words. But despite my doubts, I thought that the reasoning I’d turned over in my mind for much of the night was still sound.

“I have been thinking of this,” I said, “since speaking with Éomer last night. I think we should act no differently than we would if this had not transpired. We should act just as we would were you and I not courting the same woman. Think of it, Faramir! There can be little that Éowyn of Rohan values above the freedom to choose her own fate. What will we be doing if one of us withdraws his suit? We will be taking the choice from her. I do not think she will thank us for that. Whether her eventual choice be you, or me, or neither of us, we do disservice to her and to ourselves if we do not go forward with our suits, and leave the decision in her hands.”

Faramir nodded, deep in thought. He said in a hesitant murmur, “Boromir … I don’t want this to cause ill feeling between us.”

“Neither do I,” I said. “If I thought it would, I’d never have suggested it. There’s no reason it has to, is there?”

“No. No, there’s no reason it has to. We’ll just have to see that it does not.” He smiled faintly again, trying to joke. “Who knows, she may not be willing to consider either of our suits. She may tell both of us to go jump in the Anduin, and then we won’t have to worry about any of this!”

“We don’t have to worry,” I said firmly. “Worry about what she thinks of us, yes. But we don’t have to worry about us.”

“All right,” Faramir said, with a deep gust of a sigh. “So we tell Éomer that we wish to continue our suits. And then we see what happens.” He sat up straighter in his chair, and pointed a finger at me in warning. “There have to be some rules in this campaign. We have to swear that we won’t tell her any embarrassing stories about each other.”

I grinned. “What stories? I don’t have any embarrassing stories about you. Everyone’s been a baby, Faramir; I don’t think she’d hold against you any tales I might tell of your bodily functions as an infant.”

“Whatever you might tell,” he said, “don’t. We have to swear here and now: neither of us tells any humorous brotherly anecdotes!”

“Fair enough,” I capitulated. “I swear it. No anecdotes. I won’t tell any Faramir baby stories if you won’t tell her how loudly I snore.”

“Ah, well,” he said, “the lady really should have that knowledge, in order to make an informed decision …”

“Come to think of it,” I mused, “I’m sure there must be some funny stories I can call to mind …”

Faramir grinned, flinging up his hands. “All right, no information on snoring! No brotherly anecdotes. I swear it. Done?”

“Done,” I agreed. We shook hands on it, and I told myself, It is the right thing to do. It does make sense, I’m sure of it. The choice does have to be hers; we’ll only make her furious with both of us if we take any of that choice away from her.

It made sense, but I couldn’t help thinking there was more to Faramir’s feelings than he had told me.

He might not have written any sonnets to her eyes, but I had a worrisome feeling that his sonnets might be lurking there, just beneath the surface.

Faramir and I remained in conference there the rest of that morning, while we talked through the plans for Father’s funeral and then moved on to other matters. I summarized for Faramir my days of forcing my way through Father’s papers, and handed to him my report on their contents.

I did not mention to him the more personal aspects of those papers: the file Father had kept on potential brides for me, and the all-but empty file on Faramir. My brother, I thought, needed no burdensome sympathy from me on that. He was unfortunately more than used to dealing with lack of attention from our father.

In short order Húrin returned with the copies of my resignation for my signature. As I penned my name time after time, and jammed my signet ring into each copy’s dollop of wax, the thought came to me, This is the first and only time I’ll be doing this. After this act of mine, this particular aspect of leadership’s tedium is all Faramir’s.

When the Lord of the Keys had again departed – and while Dame Kunegund brought us a mid-day meal to accompany our work – our discussion turned to the coming return of our people to their homes.

I told Faramir of the project I had launched to investigate the houses left empty by the centuries’ long decline of our City’s population. Eagerly he agreed with my proposal that all abandoned houses that were habitable should be opened to returning citizens who could not yet go back to their homes – those of the City whose houses had burned in the siege, and those of the Pelennor whose farms had been ravaged by the enemy.

I told him also of the plans I’d developed for reconstructing Osgiliath. This news he greeted with sympathy but with a realistic doubt that the Council would ever approve such expense.

Faramir set me to organizing the housing for all returnees who were yet homeless. “And,” he exclaimed, “there is the answer for Pippin! You said he has already been assisting you on this. I shall tell him I accept his service as Esquire to the Steward, and I will second him to your service in the work of re-housing our people. What do you think? Will it answer the need?”

“I think it will more than answer,” I said. “It is perfect. There, you see, Faramir, this is why you had to be Steward! You have the most damned brilliant ideas.”

Faramir looked un-amused. “If I had the most damned brilliant ideas,” he countered, “I would have thought of a way to get out of being Steward.” He sighed. “While you are working on the housing question, I will read through your report and take an initial look at Father’s papers.”

Before parting ways, as we sat there in Faramir’s office both of us penned letters to Éomer, officially informing him of our unaltered intentions.

I tried to squelch the feeling that we were working together on a school project, as my brother and I wrote our letters in deeply-concentrating silence. I did not ask Faramir of it, but I thought of another likely reason why he chose to set Father’s funeral for the earlier date.

Tradition forbade us to take any active steps in courtship while we were the chief mourners for a funeral yet to take place. I glanced at my brother as his pen flew across the page, as though he could make the days pass more swiftly the faster he wrote. I had little doubt that he remembered that particular tradition.

“Another thing,” Faramir said when both of us had sealed our letters. “We are not to conduct our courtships in each other’s jerkin pockets. I have no intention of spending time with the lady with you peering over my shoulders, and I’m certain you’d prefer not to have me hanging on your every word. Each of us is to conduct his courtship independent of the other, and not to speak to the other of anything that transpires. It’d be highly indecorous to give any impression that we were … comparing notes.”

“Oh, indeed,” I said, unable to resist one last small jibe at the pompousness of his tone. “And the Valar forbid that we should ever appear indecorous.” My brother rolled his eyes, and I hastened to assure him, “I agree. Let each Man proceed on his own, with no conference between us. And good luck,” I added with a smile, holding out my hand to him.

“And to you,” Faramir answered, smiling back. For the second time we shook hands on our bargain.

Faramir had sent for Pippin before we commenced our letters to Éomer. The young Hobbit arrived almost precisely on cue. He smiled shyly when Faramir invited him to come in and take a seat. Declining with thanks my offer of help, Pippin took hold of the chair that Lord Húrin had occupied and hauled it once more before Faramir’s desk.

When young Took had boosted himself into the chair, Faramir said to him, “My brother has told me of your oath that bound you to the service of Gondor’s Steward. I would be honoured to accept your allegiance under the terms of your oath, if that is still what you wish. But I know that the circumstances under which you took that oath are passed. I will begrudge it not at all should you wish to be released from those terms, to return to your home or to do whatever you will.”

Though he’d got into the chair just moments before, Pippin jumped back down from it now and stood before the Steward. “I do not wish to be released from my oath, Lord Faramir,” he declared stoutly. “At least,” truth compelled him to add with a bit less certainty, “not yet. May I – may I have leave to speak of it with you again, when I know what the others want to do? When – when Merry and I can talk it over with Frodo and Sam?”

“I grant such leave gladly,” Faramir said, smiling at Pippin. “Now, will you be seated again if I ask it of you – as your friend, I hope, not as your lord?”

Pippin hesitated a moment. Then he smiled back and once more scrambled into the chair.

With enthusiasm, the halfling greeted Faramir’s plan for him to work with me in the housing of our people. The same could not be said for the other request we made of him.

When I had explained to him the basic outline of our father’s funeral and the role we hoped he would play in it, he turned from me to Faramir and back again, with a pale and horrified look.

“Oh, no, Boromir,” he said hastily. “Oh, no, I really don’t think you want me to do that. I’d be certain to ruin it. I was never any good at Elocution in school. You can ask Merry, he’ll tell you! I’d always forget what I was saying, and stammer, and giggle, and it just went all pear-shaped. And it isn’t just school, it’s everything else, too! If Gandalf were here, he’d tell you how I always ruin everything!”

“As much as I respect and admire Gandalf,” said Faramir, smiling gently, “my brother and I need no help from him to form our opinions on this matter. And I think you underestimate yourself, Master Peregrin, as well as Mithrandir’s opinion of you. I would be willing to wager that your conduct in these months past has greatly raised his estimation of your worth.”

“I’ll wager you’d lose your bet,” Pippin muttered darkly.

“Pippin,” I said, “we don’t want to pressure you if it’s something you truly do not wish to do. But I do ask that you consider it. You can take away with you the segments we’re asking you to read; look them over and give us your answer tonight. You would have to memorize nothing; it will all be there for you to read. Have a think on it, but please don’t dismiss the possibility out-of-hand. It is your right as Father’s Esquire to take part in the ceremony. We would not have that right taken away from you.”

“I would have that right taken away from me,” our young friend sighed. “All right,” he said, “I’ll take it and look it over. But I do think you’re making a mistake!”

Pippin took the documents I handed him, with a look as though he fully expected them to turn into a Nazgûl. The Hobbit and I took our leave of Faramir, and we set to work establishing our Office of Re-housing.

The office itself we set up in the Old Guesthouse, on Rath Celerdain in the First Level. The ancient building had suffered but little from the fires of the great siege. A portion of its roof had caught fire. But it had not burned for long before it was doused by the rain that blew in from the sea, on that morning of battle.

Our repair crews already had that segment of roof replaced. I thought that the grey, weathered Guesthouse exuded as ever its air of comforting familiarity: as of an old and beloved friend, gone a bit to seed from the passage of years, but promising always a heartfelt welcome and a cheerful hearth.

I hoped that our people would feel the same, when they crossed over its threshold as a step in rebuilding their war-torn lives.

In the common room of the Guesthouse we assembled our staff. In the main they were City Guardsmen and secretaries with whom we had already worked in compiling records of the damaged and empty houses in the City. To this force I added another, at Pippin’s request: ten-year-old Bergil, son of Pippin’s friend Beregond of the Citadel Guard.

“Beregond asked if I could find some useful task for Bergil to do,” Pippin confided to me. “Bergil was here, you know, during the siege. He joined one of the fire-fighting crews, here on the First Level.”

On that, no more needed to be said. I understood all too well the implications of his statement.

Young Bergil would have been spared nothing of the horror during that day and night of siege. All about him Nazgûl had wailed in the dark, the First Level had burned, and the enemy’s catapults had bombarded our streets with the severed heads of our slain.

“He’s been pestering his father and the other Citadel Guards no end, ever since,” Pippin said. “He’s been asking for work in the service of Gondor.”

I nodded grimly. For Bergil Son of Beregond, there would be no return to childhood’s games – not yet, and perhaps not fully, ever again.

“I’ll send for him to join us, if it’s all right,” Pippin hurried on. “He’s a good lad, I’m sure he won’t be any trouble. He’s been running errands at the Houses of Healing, but the Chief Healer doesn’t approve of a child working there, and forbade him to be there now that things aren’t so busy in the Houses. Dame Ioreth felt sorry for him and let him stay on, to help out in the laundry, but he says if he has to hear many more stories about her cousin from Imloth Melui, he’ll go stark, staring mad …”

I had to grin a little at that. “If Bergil truly wishes to work in the service of Gondor, he’ll have to learn to endure worse things than Dame Ioreth’s talking. But by all means, send for the lad.”

When the young Son of Beregond arrived, wide-eyed and out of breath but standing at attention in his best soldierly fashion, I felt compelled to give him a brief lecture.

“There will be little excitement in this work,” I warned him, “and you had best get used to that, for such is often the case in the service of our country. The soldier’s lot is often not high adventure and the chance for glory, but rather everyday work, with the greatest danger being boredom. But you must know that already,” I added, “from your father’s duties.”

“Yes, sir,” Bergil said sombrely, meeting my eyes. “I understand. I want to be of help.”

I had told the boy there would be no excitement in the work we faced, but I found that was not an entirely accurate statement. To be sure, it was not the adventuresome quest of which many a ten-year-old might dream. But there was a solid satisfaction in it, and a sense of purpose and hope. That feeling lightened our steps and brought smiles to the faces of all of us, even in the midst of swearing over the minutiae of the cataloguing system we had to develop, or metaphorically tearing out our hair at the daunting estimates of the numbers we might have to house.

By all the gods, I thought, it is a joyous day when we can simply work for the betterment of our people, without the constant fear that we will fail to stave off their destruction.

Our secretaries assembled a vast catalogue of all available buildings and rooms, while teams of Guardsmen raced about the City to answer the secretaries’ queries and double-check details of the previous reports. Another listing gave all of the houses destroyed in the siege, with information on their owners and residents compiled from the latest Census of Gondor.

The list of destroyed houses was bitter enough reading, yet the number was less than we could ever have dared hope in those black hours of siege. We judged that just over one thousand houses in the First Level were too sorely damaged to permit their residents’ return. This translated, very roughly, into four thousands of the people of the City for whom we must find alternate housing.

That, as one of the Guardsmen declared, would be scarcely a challenge. But to increase the challenge before us, we had also our people of the Pelennor to factor into our reckoning.

When my father still lived and reigned, he had commanded a report on the destruction wrought on the farms of the Pelennor Fields. The report gave us a concept of the number and general locations of destroyed and damaged buildings, but more work on the ground was needed, to consolidate that information with the Census records. Thus I dispatched to the Pelennor further teams of Guards and the Steward’s clerks, armed with Census reports. They would investigate all the land within the Rammas wall, and complete our knowledge of what losses each husbandman of the Pelennor had suffered.

It would be no pleasant report they brought back, of that I was certain. The initial report and the evidence of my eyes on that day of the battle suggested to me that scarce one in ten of the Pelennor’s farmhouses might remain fit for habitation. Many farmers were like, I thought, to have some building left on their property yet intact enough, that they could convert it into a dwelling while they undertook their repairs. Yet many others had assuredly lost everything.

Then there was the question of the devastation wrought to the farmers’ fields – but that was a problem for a different day’s work.

“We will do well, My Lord,” declared Radimir, the chief of our clerks. “Even should all ten thousands of the Pelennor’s residents require housing, in addition to those four thousands of the City we must house, we have billets enough for all of them and more.” He added, shaking his head a little in wonderment, “I never thought to see the day when I should be glad of our declining population. Did we have now our numbers of former Ages, then this would be a challenge. Aye,” he concluded, “we will do well.”

“Unless,” one of his fellow clerks put in, in pessimistic tones, “the people of North Anórien start forth from their havens as well, and have to be put up here until they’re allowed to continue beyond the Rammas.”

“Aye, well, then,” said Radimir, with a shrug, “we will be up a certain creek that shall not be named due to Lord Boromir’s presence, and we will have to start investigating our supply of tents.”

Radimir was right, I thought; we would do well. We would have our preparations well in hand, ere ever the long columns of our returning people were sighted from the White City’s walls.

The Old Guesthouse itself and a score of other such establishments would do well enough for housing single people whose homes were beyond immediate repair. So also would the many empty barracks quarters of Minas Tirith, built in an Age when the armed forces of the City numbered near as many as its entire population of recent years. For families, our best options were the houses, left empty for generations by that same grim pattern of dwindling population. Armed with lists of the empty buildings, and with skeleton keys and crowbars, our detachments set forth to open all of these houses.

By the end of the day I had nigh on two-thirds of the City Guard and many of the Guild of Carpenters employed in the effort to make the abandoned houses habitable. They were cleaning out long-clogged chimneys of their rodent and feathered tenants, undertaking hasty roof repairs, opening some windows for air and boarding up others from which the glass had long since vanished, collecting and distributing bedding from the storerooms of barracks and the Citadel. As in the work at Osgiliath, I pledged my own money to pay the Carpenters’ guildsmen, as surety until the Council of Gondor approved the expense.

I believed – and I sincerely hoped – that the Council would know this was no time to be stingy. Ruefully I told myself I would have to sell off my townhouse to the Guilds, if I funded many more civic improvements out of my pocket.

As the work on the houses began, Pippin thought of another potential workman to join in these efforts.

“If only Svip were here!” the Hobbit exclaimed. “He’d love this, wouldn’t he? A chance to see into all sorts of houses of Men! He always used to be curious about everything, didn’t he? Maybe if he gets the chance to poke into everywhere, it’ll make him curious again.”

“It is an excellent plan, Pippin,” I said. “It’s decidedly worth a try.” Privately I feared that nothing in the world of Men could bring back Svip’s old joyous curiosity. But he had shown often enough how he disliked being idle, fully as much as did young Bergil Son of Beregond – or as I did myself.

I told myself that I would ask him to join us in this work, when I saw him tonight. I would ask him that, and I would ask him to take part in our father’s funeral – a question that, as I thought on it, I feared might bring him yet more pain.

Obeying my promise to Svip that I would not leave the City without him, I had restrained myself from joining any of the detachments scouting the Pelennor. Throughout the afternoon my work was the teeth-gritting business of administration. Thus when the day wore toward its end, I determined to leave the secretaries to their cataloguing, and reward myself with an hour or so of physical action.

Pippin, Bergil and I joined one of the teams at work on the Fourth Level. The Carpenters’ Guildsman who was in charge respectfully but firmly forbade me to consider working on the roofs, and I passed on that restriction to Pippin and Bergil. But even with that entertainment denied to us, we were soon happily at work, nailing shutters into place and removing birds’ nests from chimneys. Bergil worried over the first of these that he and Pippin dislodged, but it was fortunately too early in the season for the nests to hold any eggs. The boy and the Hobbit took to placing all the evicted nests in nearby trees, and I turned a blind eye to their tree-climbing, as a relatively safe alternative to roof work.

As the afternoon waned, and the Third Company of the Citadel Guard went off-duty, the Guardsman Beregond sought us out to collect his son. At the lad’s pleas not to be sent to his daymeal just yet, Beregond instead joined us in the work. He and I wrestled with a particularly large and troublesome window that had come off its hinges. With the hinges finally hammered back into place and blocks of wood wedged into the gaps left by broken panes, I stepped back to admire our handiwork.

Beregond did the same, then he began hesitatingly, “My Lord – we have seen your resignation, posted at the Citadel Gate. I am beyond my place to ask it, but, if you will forgive me – is there no way to dissuade you from this?”

“There is no way,” I confirmed quietly, meeting his troubled gaze. “But I thank you for asking it.”

The Guardsman swiftly averted his glance. “I know I am not alone in thinking thus, My Lord,” he said. “The Valar know that we will gladly follow Lord Faramir. But … they know also that we would gladly follow you.”

“We all of us follow Gondor,” was my answer. “That is what matters, whosoe’er may bear the White Rod of the Steward.”

Or, I added silently to myself, whosoe’er may one day wear the crown.

The dusk drew in and we ended our work for the night. I noted Pippin, Beregond and Bergil in quiet-voiced and earnest-faced conversation. My curiosity as to what their conversation might portend was answered, when Pippin came up to me and said, “Boromir … I will read the part in your father’s funeral, if you still want me to.”

“Of course we still want you to,” I assured him. “I am very glad you’ve decided thus.”

“Beregond and Bergil convinced me to do it,” he said. “They say they’ll help me practice the readings. I – I thank you and Faramir for trusting me to do this. I just … I just hope I won’t do anything to make Lord Denethor ashamed of me.”

“You will not. I am certain you will not.”

He asked, “Are you asking Svip to read one of the parts?”

“Yes, we had planned to. I mean to ask him tonight.”

“Good,” the halfling said, with satisfaction. “Maybe it will do him some good. I hope. If he agrees – you can tell him I’m happy to practice with him, too, if he wants. If that’ll help.”

“I will tell him,” I said, “though I fear he may be even harder to convince than you.”

I had asked Svip to join me for the daymeal when he returned from Osgiliath. Not once in the weeks since we first reached Minas Tirith had Svip been inside my townhouse, despite repeated invitations. Now, to mark what I rather forlornly wished would be the first of many visits, I had set Dame Weltrude to preparing the most appealing selection of fish and vegetables that she could conjure up.

The fish posed no difficulties, although the Mistress of my Kitchen pursed her lips in fastidious disapproval at my instruction that some of it was to be left raw. The vegetables would be more of a challenge, standing as we did at the close of the winter. I suspected that Svip would have scant regard for dried vegetables, but we had little else to work with. So Dame Weltrude promised me to do the best she could with cooked dishes using the dried vegetables. To give Svip at least an offering of fresh produce, there was lettuce and cabbage from our own kitchen garden. The good woman beamed with triumph as she revealed to me her greatest coup of the day: a small supply of fresh asparagus, bought at no little expense to our household’s purse, from one of the Merchant Adventurers’ first trips to the south since the black days of the war.

It was sunset and past before Svip appeared. I knew some moments’ dread that he would not arrive at all. In one dark corner of my mind I feared that he had not even gone to Osgiliath, but had instead swum farther: that despite my pleas and his agreements, he had set forth on the long journey to his home.

Thus it was with no little relief that I welcomed my small green friend to my house, as the bells rang for the Thirteenth Hour.

The news that Svip brought was good, and I was glad to see that he took pride in reporting it: under his command, the last of the building stones had indeed been recovered from the River. The project could now move forward. Osgiliath’s Great Stone Bridge would stride across Anduin once more, for the first time in five hundred and forty years.

I suppose our daymeal on that evening can be counted a success – considering that Svip no longer took the pleasure in anything that he would have taken, in the days before he journeyed into the world of Men.

Before we sat to the table I gave him a tour of my townhouse. He did not race about like a puppy, nor poke his nose into every chest and cupboard as once he would have done. But he seemed relatively interested in all that he saw. He even asked me a few questions, mainly about the family portraits that hang in the Great Hall and my chambers.

As for the meal itself, Weltrude had acquitted herself with honour. Svip was polite about the various cooked vegetables, but he made his way with unfeigned enjoyment through two raw fish, the cabbage, the lettuce, and most of the worth-its-weight-in-mithril asparagus. I had further scandalized Dame Weltrude by ordering that she leave the majority of the asparagus uncooked. It was a deep wound to her sensibilities, but I knew that her sacrifice was worth it, seeing Svip munch on the tender stalks with almost his old enthusiasm.

He agreed willingly enough to my proposal that with the last of the building stones raised, he should join us in the work of the Re-Housing Office. But like Pippin before him, he was a good deal more troubled by my second request.

Svip did not react with horror as Pippin had done. Rather, he peppered me with questions – almost as he might have done a month before. But they were questions with a grimly serious purpose. Frowning intently, perhaps hoping that he could solve once and for all the mysteries that haunted him about the lives and the deaths of Men, he asked me every conceivable question on the subject of funerals.

He asked me how many funerals I had attended, whose they were, what had been said and done at them. He asked me why we had funerals, what happened if one didn’t have one, whether people felt any better after them. To the best of my ability I answered him, although I fear that few of my answers held the certainty that Svip was seeking.

At length I said, “Perhaps you would like to read through the draft of the funeral that Húrin’s put together. It may answer more of your questions. That is – do you read Westron? We can get someone to translate it for you, or read it out for you, if you don’t – ”

“Of course I read Westron,” he said, looking offended. “I learned it when I was travelling before, in the Old Wars.”

“Right, then,” I said, telling myself that someday I really should get him to tell me the story of those travels. “Then you should read that, and perhaps you’ll want to read the records of the Stewards’ funerals that Húrin has in his office, as well. I don’t know if the records will answer your questions any better than I can. But they will give you more background, at the least. And they should tell you more of the lives of the Stewards, and what we chose to remember of each of them, at their funerals. It is often in remembering the lives of those who have gone, that we find the strength to go on past their deaths.”

Svip’s look of frowning puzzlement did not change, nor did he give me yet an answer on whether he would take part in the funeral or no. But he said, “All right. I’ll read the funeral and the records. Can I do that here?” he added. “I guess Húrin doesn’t want me reading the records in the Fountain.”

I readily agreed, picturing the Lord of the Keys’ face if that concept were proposed to him.

Thus I sent to Lord Húrin, asking that the records of the funerals be brought to my townhouse at once. I left Svip curled up in an armchair by the fire, already deep in studying the draft of our father’s funeral. For my part, I found, my duties for the day were not yet done.

My Seneschal Gavrilo apologetically informed me that I’d had several callers while I was still at table with Svip. He had sent them away until I should emerge to decree whether or not I was receiving visitors.

On viewing the list of the callers’ names, I decided with a sigh that I was, indeed, receiving. “Several” had been an understatement, for listed were the names of no fewer than twelve of the City’s guildleaders.

I repaired to my study whilst Gavrilo sent word to the guildleaders that I would now accept their calls. I did not even need to wait for word to reach those Men and for them to return, for in the meantime three more of the guildleaders and Councillors of Gondor arrived at our door.

Fortunately there was no need to meet with my visitors individually, for all had come upon the same errand. Beregond of the Citadel Guard was not alone in harbouring questions, when he read my posted resignation.

So now, as I met with several gaggles of guildleaders in turn, I yet again explained and defended my reasoning, thanked them for their expressions of regret and concern, and declared my immovability on this decision.

Grateful though I was for their stated regret, I was more grateful to see the backs of them.

Rađobard of the Merchant Adventurers, knowing that every Councillor in Minas Tirith was like to have the same questions, sent a letter instead of waiting upon me himself. In his typically elaborate terms, he wrote of the pleasure he had taken in working with me as Steward’s Heir, and his hope that I would continue my active involvement in the government of our country, even though I were not to hold the White Rod of the Steward.

The other Councillor who followed a different tack from that of his brethren was the Innkeepers’ Guildleader Ivarr Son of Yngvar. He arrived at my townhouse that night after the rest had gone, and he came not to question or express regret. He brought with him rather a cask of Port Linhir wine, of the first shipment he’d received from the south since our Enemy marched on Minas Tirith. I broached the cask with him, and we drank to the health and long reign of the Steward Faramir.

When Ivarr had gone, I sat up with Svip late into the night. The water creature read the records of the Stewards’ funerals, and I committed to memory my readings for my father.

The next day’s Council took place in one of the conference chambers above the Tower Hall. No meeting could be held in the Hall itself until our late Steward’s funeral.

We were a sombre-faced bunch as we met around the long table. But the meeting brought no fireworks such as those I had often witnessed – and in which I had often taken part – in Council sessions presided over by our father.

My conferences of the night before, wearisome though they were, had apparently paid off. There was little of question or debate. The Councillors merely repeated formally their regret at my decision, and this time followed those statements with pledges of their loyalty and confidence in the coming reign of Faramir.

After Faramir and I both had thanked them, the rest of the meeting was also mercifully brief. The Council voted unanimously to approve the plans for Lord Denethor’s funeral, and they accepted without many troublesome questions my report on the progress of the Office of Re-Housing.

As we all well knew, of course, the Council was not fully in session. We were bound to see all of the usual wrangling – such as, no doubt, debate upon the expenditures of the Re-Housing Office – when our father’s funeral was behind us and Faramir was invested with the White Rod of Office.

“That went better than I thought it would,” Faramir murmured to me, when all of the Council save we had departed. “Did you bribe them all not to make any trouble?”

I snorted. “Just wait. I’m sure all new governments start out with a touching show of unanimity. Give them a few days, ’till they’ve got it on record what good, loyal fellows they are. Then these hallowed halls will ring with rancour once more.”

Faramir shook his head, with a sigh and a smile. “No one ever accused you of being an optimist, did they?”

Yet my grumbling had little behind it save habit, for I saw scant cause for pessimism on that day.

Our work was progressing, and progressing well. And on our ride to the Anduin that morning, Svip told me that he would take part in our father’s funeral.

After the Council session, I rejoined Pippin, Svip and Bergil, now at work with one of the teams on the Third Level. The work on the houses was as satisfying as the day before, but I could give to it only a few hours. In the afternoon Pippin and I parted from the others. With a detachment of secretaries we set about inspecting the stores in the City’s warehouses, and deciding the procedure for issuing rations to any of our returning citizens who found themselves bereft both of provisions and of funds.

I met, further, with Rađobard and his fellow leading members of the Merchant Adventurers’ Guild, and with the Representative Council of the Vendors of the Market. Neither of those meetings was entirely satisfactory. All gave me solemn assurances that they would not think of harming our people with any such shameful tactics as price-gouging, in the lean days to come. But yet they reminded me also that they had their own folk to think of, and their own expenses. Did suppliers in the southlands take advantage of our late crisis by raising prices, they might be forced to raise their own prices, in turn.

“It’s a strange thing,” mused Pippin, as we made our way up the Hill of Guard from my meeting with the Council of Vendors. “I would have thought you’d just be able to tell them not to do it, and they wouldn’t. Would you have been able to just tell them, if you’d stayed Steward? Will they have to obey if Faramir tells them?”

“That’s a tricky question,” I admitted. “Some Stewards are able to rule more-or-less by command. My father was able to, at times, for many Men feared him. Yet even he could not force into action all the policies he wished. It is different in the army; there, the Steward is the highest captain, and his word, indeed, is law. But in civilian matters, the Steward’s will is but one part of the story. He must have the backing of the Council, if his wishes are to hold any force.”

Pippin nodded thoughtfully. In sudden curiosity, I asked him, “How is it with the people of the Shire? Have you leaders who can command the actions of their people?”

“Well … no,” said Pippin. “We have Mayors and Shirrifs and such, and every family’s got its own head, like my dad the Thain, and Merry’s dad the Master of Buckland. But – well, fathers can usually make themselves obeyed, at least till their kids get too big for them to wollop. But for the rest of it, I don’t think anyone ever did what a Mayor or a Shirrif told them to, unless they wanted to do it themselves. All a Thain or a Mayor or any of ’em can do is try and talk folk into doing things.”

“Will that be your charge someday?” I asked. “Will you be the Thain after your father?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” he said, rather uncomfortably, “always assuming I go back home, that is. And assuming my dad doesn’t live forever, which I reckon he will, since he’s the toughest old geezer as ever grew hair on his feet. Ugh,” he went on, with an exaggerated shudder, “it’s nothing I’m looking forward to, I can tell you that much sure as mustard. Sooner go to work as a muleteer, than try to talk a bunch of Hobbits into anything!”

Young Took ruminated on that a moment longer, then made haste to change the subject. “What will happen, do you think?” said he. “Are prices going to go up, like those Men say they’re bound to? Will the Men of the South drive their prices through the roof, because you’ve got no choice but to buy from them? Isn’t there – isn’t there a chance they’ll hold off, since they ought to know they owe you one? Since Minas Tirith had the Dark Lord at its gate, and they didn’t?”

“We can hope,” I said, smiling. “It’s certainly a point of which our diplomats will remind them. But our best course is to free ourselves from the need of them, as swiftly as possible. It is something I’ll have to speak with Faramir about,” I continued, more or less thinking aloud. “As soon as the farmers of Anórien can return to their land, we must launch a campaign to aid them. Much time is already lost, but if we act fast, we can still salvage much of this growing season. We will have to send troops to aid in readying the fields, and planting.”

A memory came to me of Faramir’s words from the morning before: of his longing hope that the lands blighted by Sauron’s darkness might now bloom with life again.

“Aye,” I said, my enthusiasm growing as I spoke, “much of the army may have to be farmers all this year, through to the harvest. If we can indeed spare them from frontier service; if the enemy is truly on the run, as we hope … the farmers alone could scarce hope to salvage half a crop this year from land where Orcs and Haradrim have been running roughshod. But with the army to labour beside them … I think then we have a chance.”

Pippin had been gnawing his lip as he frowned and listened to me, but now he broke into a sunny smile.

“It would be a wonderful project for Sam to work on!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you think? Maybe he’ll want to. Maybe he’ll want to stay here for a while and work on it; maybe he and Frodo won’t go back home right away. And – and then Merry and I won’t have to decide whether to go with them or stay with you and Éomer and Éowyn. Not yet.”

I started to tell him that it sounded like a good idea. But my expression gave me away.

“Oh,” Pippin said, looking up at me in remorse. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. You’re scared of what will happen when you see Frodo and Sam again. I mean – I don’t mean you’re scared, of course, I just mean – ”

I laughed a little at that and ruffled my young friend’s hair. “It’s perfectly all right, Pippin,” I said. “You don’t need to be worried about it. I am scared of what will happen.”

I sighed and shook my head. “But I should not be, for there is no point in it. I will give them my apology. After that it is up to them. It is for them to choose whether they can endure my company or no.” That last statement sounded entirely too self-pitying, and I mentally cursed it and wished I could call the words back.

Pippin, meanwhile, leapt into trying to encourage me.

“It won’t be like that,” he said. “I’m sure Frodo will understand. He’ll know it was the Ring that made you do those things, the Ring and your love for your people. He’ll understand. And if Frodo forgives you, then Sam will. Well – he will if Frodo tells him to.”

“I wish I had your confidence in that,” I said. “I hope that Frodo will understand. But if he does not … Whatever happens, I will respect his wishes and his choice. As I did not respect them before,” I added, once more unable to hold back a trace of bitterness.

“Of course he’ll understand!” insisted Pippin. “And – well, gods know what he and Sam have been through since they left us. But you remember what Frodo was starting to look like; how bad it was getting. How pale and thin his face was. How he’d seem sort of faint and see-through, like the Ring was eating at him, or that Morgul-wound, or both. How sometimes, something seemed to burn in his eyes, that wasn’t him at all. I’m sure he knows what the Ring could do, Boromir. He knows what it could do, and he knows what it did to you.”

Fullness in my heart held me back from being able to answer. I was spared the need to do so.

We had paused near the Fourth Level tunnel. Now a glad cry went up from many voices, a cry that drew our gaze to the guardsmen upon the wall.

“My Lord!” called one of the guards, seeing me. “My Lord, come look at this!”

I hastened to obey, racing up the stairs to the wall with Pippin close at my heels. I boosted him up to stand in one of the crenellations.

“There!” Pippin exclaimed. “There, Boromir, look!”

The sight was one to drive aside doubt, shadows and fear.

Scarcely more than insect-specks in the distance, winding their way along the Great South Road, we saw them: first one small cart, then a larger wain, then another, and another still.

Logically I knew they were too far away for us to truly hear them. Yet I imagined I heard their cheers rise to join those of the Men along the City’s walls. I saw some of the tiny figures in the carts rise to their feet. Through the haze of distance I felt certain I could see them wave.

“Are they the first you have seen?” I asked the guardsman at my side.

“Aye, My Lord,” he enthused, with a grin that seemed wider than his face. “They’ll be some who took refuge in the Vale of Tumladen, will they not? Or in Lossarnach? It’s too soon yet since the order went out for any to be back from the mountains …”

“Aye,” I agreed, calculating the distances in my mind. “It will be this time tomorrow, at the earliest, ere any can reach us from the nearest mountain garrisons. Is that where your people have gone?” I asked him.

“Yes, sir. My wife and girls went to her mother’s, in Minrimmon. So they’ll be here day after tomorrow, then, or the next day. Valar’s blood, sir, it’ll seem like an age!” Of a sudden abashed at speaking quite so freely to one of the Lords of Gondor, the Man added respectfully, “They’ll be sorry to miss your Lord father’s funeral, sir. I know they grieve for him, and pray for him. As do I.”

I clasped the guardsman’s shoulder. “Thank you,” I told him. “But do not grieve today. When our people are returning home, this is a day when none in Minas Tirith should grieve.”

On the evening of that day, Faramir and I climbed to the roof of the White Tower, to watch the setting of the sun.

When we gained the roof, both of us gazed at the door to the tower room, the room which had been our father’s. Then resolutely we turned our backs upon it.

“Do you know,” Faramir said softly, “I think I never truly believed that tomorrow would come. I suppose somehow I believed he would live forever.”

“I know,” I said. “I was thinking the same thing. I suppose all sons believe that. He probably believed it too, about our grandfather.”

Faramir nodded. He asked me then, “What do you remember about him at the time when Grandfather died?”

I told Faramir what I recalled: the grief in Father’s voice as he tried to explain to me our grandfather’s death, and the uncertainty that seemed so strange to hear from him, when he admitted that he did not know what faced each Man when he stepped beyond the Spheres of this world.

I went on, “I don’t know anything of what it was like for him, when he first became Steward. I never asked him about it. I wish I had.”

We were silent for a time. We gazed at the Fields of the Pelennor, at the silver River, and at the long, slow line of carts and wains that yet made its way through the evening toward us.

Faramir sighed and said in a rueful tone, “I keep thinking that now would be a very useful time for a vision. If one is going to have visions, then just before becoming Steward would be an appropriate time for one! But perhaps I should be thankful that I haven’t seen anything. If it were a vision of Father, anyway, then the Valar know he’d not be likely to tell me anything encouraging.”

“You never know,” I protested automatically.

He gave me a melancholy smile and said, “As I have always known, Brother: you and I did not know the same father.”

I argued, “For the sake of our sanity, don’t we mortals have to believe it’s possible for one’s death to bring new clarity of sight? Perhaps by dying, Father has finally figured out what a bloody fool he was in all his dealings with you.”

His smile seemed to become a shade less melancholy. “My dear, dear Boromir,” he mused, in tones of quiet wonderment. “I was wrong about you this morning, when I said you were not an optimist.”

Again for a while we fell silent, until I essayed my next hopefully cheering comment. “So maybe you won’t have a vision of Father. Maybe it’ll be of someone else, with a longer perspective on things. Pelendur, maybe, or Vorondil, or Húrin of Emyn Arnen. And whoever it is, he’ll tell you you’re going to be one of the greatest of all the Stewards of our line. And you’ll believe it when he tells you – as you refuse to do when I tell you the same thing.”

I was very glad to see amusement sparkle in my brother’s eyes as he looked at me. “You have to admit,” he pointed out, “you do have a doting big brother’s bias on the question.”

He turned again to gaze beyond the Great River, to the land no longer shrouded by fire and shadow and despair.

“I still cannot get used to it,” he breathed, “to seeing Mordor without the shadow. I think I will never get used to it.” He added, so quietly I could scarcely hear him, “Perhaps that is the only vision I should need to see.”

We descended once more to the Place of the Fountain, and found an unusual little group seated about the Fountain of the White Tree. Or rather, one of them was seated in the Fountain, while the others sat near to him on the Fountain’s low wall.

All four of them were too intent on the documents before them to notice our arrival. Svip and Pippin were huddled over one copy spread out upon the Fountain wall, while Beregond and his son sat close together with a copy that Beregond held.

Pippin was nearing the end of one of his funeral readings. Faramir and I both paused to listen. I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking of how those same words would sound when spoken again before a crowd of thousands, in this very place, a day from now.

Pippin broke off suddenly. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t see you. Hullo, Boromir, Faramir – I mean, My Lord.”

Beregond and Bergil, followed soon after by Pippin, all jumped to their feet.

“Sit back down,” Faramir urged, as we walked up to them. “We didn’t want to interrupt.”

Pippin readily, and Beregond and Bergil with more reluctance, sat down.

“Do you two want to practice with us?” asked Svip.

Faramir and I looked to each other.

“I could use the practice,” I said.

“Yes. All right,” Faramir said, smiling at the four of them. “Thank you. I’ll just go get another copy from the office – ”

“No,” said Pippin, jumping up again. “I should do that. You have to remember: I’m the one who’s supposed to be running errands, not you.”

As Pippin sped away, Faramir and I sat down by the others. A potentially awkward silence was broken when Faramir asked Bergil of the progress of the day’s work in the abandoned houses.

The Hobbit swiftly returned with two more copies of the readings, as Bergil was telling Faramir of the family of raccoons he and Pippin had relocated to the gardens of the Houses of Healing.

In the torchlit courtyard, beneath the White Tree, the six of us read aloud the funeral service for the Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor. Beregond and Bergil took turns reading the parts that others would speak, in between those of Svip, Pippin, Faramir and myself. The voice of young Bergil sounded clearly through the Place of the Fountain, while that of his father roughened and broke a time or two, on the edge of tears. Pippin stumbled a bit now and again on unfamiliar words, and was gently corrected by Beregond or by Faramir. There seemed to be no unfamiliar words to Svip, and he spoke strongly, as though he had the words near committed to memory. Faramir spoke very quietly, his words sounding like a prayer.

For my part, it was good that I alreadyhad my readings memorised. For as I put one hand on Svip’s shoulder and the other on Pippin’s, and spoke the words that I would speak again the next day when the sun sank into Mindolluin’s arms, my sight blurred too much for me to read the words before me.