It was a thing that every ranger in Ithilien remembered. Seven days and seven nights in the wilds: alone save for the other cub, a stranger on whom your very life depended, and who, in turn entrusted his own to you. Those seven days saw the forging of friendships, the tempering of boys into men, and sometimes, the making of life-long enemies.

The Wild Hunt, the cubs had called it, for as long as there had been rangers in Ithilien. It was a time that some spoke of with fondness; others, with a shake of the head, for the passing of years did not dim the memories of lost brothers and friends or of those who failed the test and so left Ithilien in disgrace. But each ranger remembered in his own way the seventh night of the Hunt, for it signalled the end of his cub-days, and the beginning of his new life as one of the Brotherhood. 

            On this day, the very first morn of the Hunt, six cubs were gathered before their Captain in the fastness of Henneth Annûn. They were all young, lithe and eager-eyed; very straight they stood, their arms brightly burnished, not a hair out of place.    

The boy Mablung, who stood at the far end of the line, listened as intently as the others. He had a quiet voice, their Captain. The cubs strained to hear it above the waterfall’s ceaseless roar, for they knew well that he, with a mane like Fëanor’s own, and a temper to match, would not care to repeat himself. Mablung’s heart was hammering as though all the fiends of Angband were beating at it. Pray the Valar that it would not show. He was the youngest of the lot, for he not seen his eighteenth summer; yet, he was already accounted the finest bowman in his troop, and was inordinately proud of it.  

Had it only been six months since he had come to Ithilien to learn a ranger’s craft? Surely he had always been in Anborn’s troop, and his other life – his old life in Minas Tirith was nothing more than a distant dream? Mablung shivered. What if he should fail? Yet Anborn had judged him ready – no, he would not – could not fail, for Anborn was always right.

The Captain’s words, with the soft lilt of Anorien in them, drifted in and out of hearing. He called out the names of each cub in turn, and the one who would be his companion during the Hunt, and the marching orders for each pair were given out. Last of all, the Captain’s gaze lighted on Mablung and the boy next to him.

“Arvegil, Mablung, you are to make your way to Amon Ethir, west of the Nindalf Marshes. Go to the eastern window of the ruined watchtower at the first light of dawn, and tell me what you see. Look sharp, for I shall send the Hunters after you at moonrise tomorrow. You have seven days and seven nights to return to Henneth Annûn, but remember that should you fail in your quest or if the Hunters take you, there will be no place here for you among the Brotherhood. Do you understand me?”

            “Aye, sir.”

            Rising from his low seat, the Captain smiled. In the half-dark of the hollow hill, Mablung caught a green glint of laughter in his eye. “Very well then. There is nothing more, save to say that may the Valar speed you all. You will need it, for I shall be among the Hunters.”

            There was a moment of stunned silence.

            “Well, what are you waiting for? There is not a moment to lose!”

            So off they hurried, confused and not a little uneasy, down the slippery black rocks of the water-fall, and past the Forbidden Pool into the waiting woods. There, the cubs parted; and Mablung found himself quite suddenly alone with Arvegil.

            “Pray the Valar send us a kind pair of Hunters,” said Arvegil squinting in the sun. “Oh, send us anyone at all, but the Captain.”

            “Aye to that,” Mablung replied fervently, drawing on his mask. And together, they turned northwards to the task that awaited them at Amon Ethir.

Author’s note:

I have invented the Wild Hunt as a rite of passage – or a test if you like – that each cub must pass before he might call himself a fully fledged ranger. I have not come across any hint at such a test in Tolkien’s works, but it is reasonable to assume that the Ithilien rangers might have had in place some sort of quality control measures – after all, Ithilien was a very dangerous posting, and an incompetent ranger would only be a burden to his fellows.

I have called the trainee rangers ‘cubs’ – again this is a liberty I have taken and there is nothing in canon that supports this.

“A cunning little pair of foxes they are. It’s been a day and a night, and not a bent blade of grass to mark their trail! Anborn taught them well, it seems.”

“Rather too well, I’m afraid, sir,” the other man murmured with a quick smile. The fierce noon-day sun beat down upon them, for there was no shelter in the rocky eyrie that the two Hunters chose to halt and take stock of the chase. From their high outcrop of barren stone, North Ithilien fell away before them, green wooded country for most part, hump-backed hills rising darkly against a brilliant sky, and here and there, the straight white line of the ancient road leading north to Minas Ithil, struggling to emerge out of swamp and tangled brush.

The Captain’s companion, a slight, fair ranger of some two years’ standing, shaded his eyes against the sun, searching the distance for their prey. Within three short summers, he had grown from boy to man; the smooth unformed features of childhood buffeted by the elements, shaped by battle, etched already with the lines of compassion, joy and sorrow that only men constantly at war would recognise in each other.

Outwardly, there was little to set him apart from the other young rangers of his company save, perhaps that he was quieter than the rest, deadlier with bow and arrow, and already a skilled swordsman like his brother. He was a joy to watch, for few Henneth Annûn could equal him in grace and quickness, and his sword was the envy of the company. Never had a father’s gift been better chosen, for it was finely a tempered blade with a hilt inset with Harad ivory, a scabbard of gold-chased leather embellished with the swans of Dol Amroth. This young man was also, the Old Man noted with wry amusement, the proud owner of the only book in Ithilien, a battered copy of The Lays of Beleriand.

 Three times the seasons had turned since he had arrived in Henneth Annûn, an unhappy child stuffed full of book-learning, yearning for home. Time flies here, in the wilderness, he smiled to himself. Time heals all wounds, or so men say – but time had not smoothed away the deep scar on the boy’s cheek, the one thing that marred his beauty, or those other hurts that were invisible to the eye. Three summers, and Ithilien had cast her gentle spell over him; she had claimed the boy for her own, as she had with them all. The sullenness had vanished, and at times the Old Man even believed that the Steward’s younger son was happy after a fashion, indulging occasionally in foolish scrapes with that impudent pup Damrod. Yet, in the early days, he could not help but notice, with a little flash of anger on the boy’s behalf, the stricken look in his eyes when the time came for the men to open the letters from home – there were always fat missives written in Boromir’s bold hand, but never from the Steward himself. Now, three years later, the young ranger had learned to hide his disappointment behind an ironic half-smile. 

At first, the boy’s posting to Ithilien had mystified and even annoyed him. The rangers could ill afford to cosset a spoiled young tenderfoot, and he, their hard-pressed Captain had neither the time nor patience to play the nursemaid to a Steward’s son. Like the rest of the lads, he had heard little enough of this boy who stood so deep in his brother’s shadow – and what he had heard had made his heart sink into his boots.  Scholar, poet, he was, with hands made to wield the pen rather than sword and bow. But Ithilien had no need for scholars or poets now. He remembered the long faces of his lieutenants across the camp fire; none of them, not even young Anborn who leapt at the smallest challenge with the enthusiasm of a hunting hound would take the boy into his troop. He had sensed their unspoken resentment and understood it well, for he liked this intrusion as little as they did. Hard-bitten and fiercely independent, they were a blood Brotherhood - men whose fathers and grandfathers had been rangers before them, and of these, many could count among their forefathers the intrepid few who had formed the very first company in the days of Turin II. The Brotherhood was, intensely proud of their pedigree, their own jealously guarded customs, their lore and heroes. And the Brotherhood had never taken kindly to any outsider they thought unworthy, no matter how noble or ancient his lineage.

But orders were orders, and as soldiers of Gondor, they must obey. He had sighed, looking expectantly from face to face until his eyes found Mardil’s. He remembered how the other’s dark gaze lit with sudden laughter, and shrugging in his easy way, Mardil had said simply, “I’ll take him.” And so, it was the long-suffering Mardil, whose store of patience with unruly cubs was seemingly endless, who took the boy under his wing.       

            To the Brotherhood’s collective surprise, the boy did not take long to prove his worth; the stiff-legged wariness with which the men regarded him soon thawed into a discreet warmth. Before the year was out, he was being tyrannized and laughed over by his troop just like any of the other cubs, and Mardil’s lads were soon making themselves insufferable by crowing to the others that they had a warrior poet of their very own.

It was not difficult to see how the Steward’s younger son had charmed them all –humility, valour, wisdom and wit he had in abundance. Youth and vulnerability he had too, and although the men scarcely spoke of the Lord Denethor and their young comrade in the same breath, they made known where their sympathies lay in a thousand little ways too subtle for words. In Ithilien, it was impossible for a man to keep secrets from his brothers.       

            If the boy had ever lacked a father’s love, surely he had found a measure of it here, for what was the Brotherhood but fathers and brothers to each other? The Old Man drew a hand across his brow. He shifted his grip on his bow, his wary eyes still trained on the woods behind them. “Make haste, Faramir – must I wait all day? What do you see?” 

“Nothing of our cubs, but something’s afoot. Look.” Turning, he followed Faramir’s narrowed gaze. To the north-east, perhaps five leagues as the crow flies, he saw carrion birds, circling and diving above the trees, and as he watched, they grew as thick as a black cloud, their faint cries beginning to shrill in the heavy air. 

“Well, what do you make of that, sir?”  

“Ill tidings, my boy, that’s what it is,” the Captain said, frowning as he leapt to his feet. “If those cubs are worth their salt, they’ll look after themselves for an hour or two. Come with me.” And without another word, the Old Man vanished into the woods, leaving the other man to hurry after.

*    *          *

            “By the pits of Angband! –“ Softly, the Old Man followed up with string of choice oaths, each more furious than the last. His companion said nothing, but his pale eyes were bright with rage and grief. Crouching in the scrub, the two men looked on in grim silence. The slanting light of late afternoon, streaming serenely through the roof of foliage above, illuminated the clearing with a pale golden glow. In the middle of it lay the broken bodies of two rangers, their green-and-browns soiled with dried blood, wreathed with the flapping black wings of carrion birds. All around them the heavy smell of death lingered, for no kindly breeze stirred here.   

            It was a sight sickening enough to turn the stomach of the hardest warrior.

            They were not yet close enough to name their fallen comrades, but it was obvious that both men had been dead for at least a day, if not more. With characteristic swiftness, the Old Man swept the woods with his sharp green gaze, then signalled to Faramir to cover him with his bow. Out he crept, so lightly that the grass scarcely seemed to bend under his feet, and even the large black birds in their busy feasting took no notice of him. Nearer and nearer he came – until he was but an arm’s length away from the nearest man. The Captain’s keen eyes missed nothing, neither the three short black-fletched darts that protruded from the breast of one man, nor the great teeming wound between the neck and shoulder of the other. Only one man, it seemed, had had time to draw his sword. Of their mutilated faces, nothing was left but raw flesh, but the Old Man was certain that they were Asfaloth and Glanhir, both Hunters from Anborn’s troop. Both had seen more than five years’ service in Ithilien. He read the signs of a struggle, a furious scuffle that had churned grass into the soft dark earth, and here and there the tell-tale narrow foot-marks of the Haradrim. Three, perhaps four attackers, yet he saw with frustration that they had left no tracks that the rangers could follow to exact vengeance. This was a wolf-pack well versed in forest craft. But what in the name of the Valar were they doing so far from their desert-lands in the south?        

            Rising, the Old Man gave a long, low whistle. Instantly, Faramir was beside him; he heard a sharp, in-drawn breath and noted how the other man’s fingers grew white on the curve of his bow.

            “Yes, not a pretty sight, is it?” 

            Faramir shook his head, his fair brows drawing together. He had seldom seen the boy at a loss for words. Suddenly, Faramir dropped his bow and stooped, warding away the pointed beak of a determined kite as the bird screamed its protest. Gently, he took up Asfaloth’s hand and prised open the dead fingers. Nails, black with blood, and in the grimy open palm lay a crumpled snatch of cloth, a sullen juniper green. 

            The Old Man took it in his own hand, and frowning, rubbed the rough cloth between his fingers. Abruptly, he tucked it into a pouch at his belt. He saw the unspoken question in Faramir’s eyes and ignored it. And Faramir, seeing at once that the Old Man had descended into what Damrod impertinently called ‘one of his crotchety moods’ sighed and held his peace.

            In the silence broken only by the flapping of black wings, the Old Man, cupping hands to lips, let out a long plaintive howl – the cry of a fox. As the sound lingered in the still air, the birds flapped, screeched in a frenzy of fear, then one by one settled down again to resume their disturbed meal. The two men stood listening; then from a great distance, an answering cry rang out, then another fainter one. The call had been heard, and even now, it was echoing through the hills and woods of Ithilien, passed from man to man – the unmistakable signal for all patrols to stay on the alert, and for all other rangers, Hunters and cubs alike to return at once to Henneth Annûn. This year, the Wild Hunt had ended early.   

            There was little more they could do but to send up a burial party in the morning. 

            “We shall avenge you, my brothers,” Faramir said softly.

            “Ware!” cried the Captain. He caught the other man, thrusting him roughly to the ground. An instant later, three black arrows thudded into the grass beside them quivering with venom.

“Run!”

Another flight of arrows came whistling wickedly through the air.

And they were up again, running as though Morgoth himself were after them, slipping between the trees like shadows. Not far behind, the ululating rallying-cry of the Haradrim rose in the woods, and the ground trembled under the pounding of many war-like feet.

Now the hunters had become the hunted.

Author’s note:

Wow! This is my first piece of ME fiction after a one and a half year hiatus. Inspiration flagged, and I simply grew tired of writing. I left two stories hanging and probably lots of mail unanswered as my yahoo account got deactivated. Needless to say I lost everything in there, including email addresses of everyone I knew here. Apologies to all who were waiting to hear from me. Well, now I’m back. J

My interpretation of the rangers’ traditions, attitudes towards ‘outsiders,’ in particular their pride in their heritage is my own – nothing I have read supports this, but any elite guerrilla force that has maintained a perilous foothold in enemy country for a thousand years has a right to feel proud of itself. Thanks to Raksha and Elanor of Aquitania for pointing out a mistake in the dating of Turin II's stewardship. Happily this has now been corrected!

The moon rose, a red welt in a sky of scudding clouds. The chase had lasted all afternoon, a deadly, exhausting game of cat and mouse that stretched the guile of the Captain to its limits. Often, they found themselves at bay at the most improbable moments, only slipping out of the enemy’s ever tightening dragnet by luck alone, driven further and further from the safe sanctuary of Henneth Annûn by unseen pursuers whose forest-craft and skill were a match for the Captain’s own.

It was the storm that saved them, a torrent of water that turned the surrounding country to grey murk and made tracking impossible. They blundered on in silence, circling and back-tracking endlessly, deafened by the roar of wind and rain, barely able to see beyond the length of their outstretched arms. Low wet branches lashed at their faces and hands, drawing blood. By sunset, Faramir, rubbing his weary eyes, had to admit to himself that he was completely and utterly lost. And when the storm had blown itself out at last, a pale fog rose from the ground, swallowing altogether the familiar little landmarks the rangers depended on. He followed the Captain’s slight, purposeful figure, seemingly untroubled by the growing dark, no more than a grey shadow in the writhing mist with the trusting, absolute faith of a child. Men did not call the Captain the Red Fox of Anorien for nothing.

He was cold and tired and every step he took was beginning to jar him to the bone. Suddenly, sleep threatened to overcome him, and he slipped, crashing into the Old Man’s back. A muttered oath stunned him into wakefulness; he felt a hand on his arm, and in an instant, he was pulled into a thicket of tall reeds. At once, he knew the familiar bitter smell of wet grass and river mud, the music of the Anduin, and relief flooded over him. But where were they? He could hardly make out the water in the gloom, let alone the far bank.    

            They stayed silent for a time, listening, but there nothing, save the faint cries of night-creatures and water leaping and lapping against the muddy bank.

“I think we’ve lost our friends from Harad,” the Captain chuckled. “And good riddance too, may the Balrogs take them.” He shivered. “Give me a sip of that sour vinegar of yours, if you have not lost the flask.”

He reached for the wooden flask at his belt, vaguely aware of a dull ache in his arm. “What’s that?” the Old Man demanded sharply. “You’re hurt!”

In surprise, Faramir looked down, and in the faint light of the red moon, a black-tasselled dart, slim as needle glimmered wickedly in the shadowed curve of his elbow. For a long moment, neither man said a word.  

“In the name of Eru, why didn’t you tell me!”

Their eyes met. “I did not feel it, sir.”

“Hold still. You know these accursed things are meant to break, leaving their venomous tips behind.” Swiftly, the Old Man peeled off his sodden gloves, and almost at once the dart came away in his nimble fingers. He held it up to the faint light. “It’s broken,” he said gruffly, “but there’s naught we can do.” The Captain carried on in grim silence, slitting the younger man’s sleeve to reveal a swollen wound very like a serpent bite on the upper arm. Two dried leaves he extracted from a small pouch at his waist, “Millefoil,” he murmured, breathing a soft incantation over them before pressing them on the wound, and binding it with a strip torn from his own cloak.  

 “The leaves will draw the poison for now, but you’ll need a healer before long if you’re not to lose that arm. Does it still hurt?”

“Not at all, sir,” Faramir said, setting his teeth.

The Captain stared, then smiled, laying a light hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Brave lad. Would that I had a son like you.” A pause, a soft bark of laughter. “Oh, come now my boy, that’s no cause for blushing like a girl. We’ll cross the river – there is a ford just ahead. My sister will see to that wound of yours; there is no medicine-woman in Anorien more skilled in the healing arts than she.”

Silently, they crept like ghosts through the reeds, guided by the moon and the Captain’s own unerring sense of the ground. The wine they drank from time to time – lamentable, standard-issue stuff doled out to each ranger by the quartermaster at Henneth Annûn - hardly warmed their shivering bodies, and inwardly, Faramir cursed himself for having neither the foresight nor the resourcefulness to spirit away the flask of strong Lebenin wine that Damrod had hidden inside a spare pair of boots. Damrod was a natural forager, and his unlikely gift of conjuring up food and strong drink of all imaginable vintages out of thin air during the leanest months of the year made him a popular companion on patrol.

 They were not far from the ford when the Captain halted suddenly and put a finger to his lips. They stood very still, the Captain tense as a hunted fox, and for a long while, all Faramir could hear was the blood thundering in his ears, every sinew of his being straining, listening. Then he heard it - the thin high moaning of a dying animal or a man in agony, and saw at once that the Captain had heard it too. The Old Man gave the sign to halt, drawing his long hunting knife, and alone, slid soundlessly down the muddy bank before vanishing into the mist. Grimly, Faramir waited, his fingers tightening on the hilt of his own blade. His right arm had gone to sleep; he could hardly feel the fingers now – at least, by the grace of the Valar, the dart had not struck his sword-arm. That he should no longer be able to write or wield a sword was a fate that did not bear thinking about.        

A scream soared into the night and just as suddenly, broke off short. Mortified, Faramir slipped through the reeds and after a few breathless moments, went slithering down the bank and came to an abrupt halt almost on top of the Old Man.

“Captain – sir, are you hurt?” A pause, a gasp as his eyes found the twisted shadow of a second man lying sprawled half in the river, half out of it. “Mablung!” he cried softly. “What have they done to you?” 

“Hush, my boy! Quick, let’s get him out of the water.” It was no easy task, for although Mablung was not a big man, his clothes were sodden to the waist, and they had only three hands between them. But at last, they dragged him up to drier ground and the Captain, hissing through his teeth, shook his head, “He has a belly wound. Do you keep him quiet while I bind it; that cry of his was loud enough to wake the dead.”

There was no need after all, to keep Mablung quiet, for pain and fatigue had mercifully taken his senses from him, and he lay as unresisting as a sleeping child. He was burning with fever, and as Faramir held the boy close, he remembered that there should have been not one, but two cubs.

Where was Arvegil? The same question must surely be in the Captain’s mind. His work done, the Old Man was on his feet again, peering intently into the dark, hoping against hope.

“Have you seen any sign of the other cub?”

“No, sir. I saw no tracks save for our own, and Mablung’s.” He hesitated, “But it may be that he escaped the attack and - ”

“Well, we’ll have to leave him, wherever he is. The enemy is upon us!”

They stiffened, listening. The night air carried from afar the murmur of guttural voices, rapidly silenced, then the gentle rustle of reeds being swept aside. 

Urgently, the Old Man whispered, “I’ll hold them. Take the boy with you, ford the river and make at once for Oiolairë. Ask for my sister – her name is Nienna. This is the shallowest crossing for leagues – you’ll not find a better, but the Anduin as you know, has strong arms, and he’ll have you by the hip if he can. Come, Mablung, up with you – there’s a good lad.” He heaved the unconscious boy to his feet and somehow they got him across the younger man’s shoulders.

“But sir, we can’t leave you -” Faramir protested hotly.

“Go, you young fool! Do as I say!” the Captain growled in a tone that brooked no argument. His sword was already drawn, glinting redly in moonlight. After a moment’s hesitation and a quick clumsy salute, Faramir lumbered away into the mist.

Mablung’s weight slowed him, and often, he found himself sinking up to the ankles in mud, as though some spiteful subterranean creature was sucking at his feet. In his mind’s eye, he saw black fingers, fiends of Mordor curling their claws about his legs, dragging him down into the fathomless depths of the earth. No! Banish the thought.  Step after step after step; then relief swept over him as the soggy earth suddenly gave way to cold swirling water, and the rush of the river filled his ears. He turned back for a moment, shifting Mablung a little on his aching shoulders. Mist. The watchful moon in a sky now empty of cloud.

The Captain had not come.         

Tightening his grip on the cub, he waded into the frigid water, and almost at once felt the tug of the Anduin against his knees. Deeper and deeper; he was up to his waist and the river was still rising. Ironically, he observed that the Old Man’s idea of a shallow ford was hardly his own. Halfway across, and he was being buffeted by currents from all sides pummelling his chest, whipping his sword against his thighs.  

 He was tiring fast. The Anduin had strong arms indeed; it seized him, and twice almost drove him to his knees, and each time he came up spluttering, his eyes stinging with water. Sleep was claiming him again, his movements grew sluggish and it was only when he stumbled against an unseen boulder that he was jolted awake. Like lightning, fear struck him – a sudden unreasoning terror of slipping forever beneath the waters, taking poor young Mablung with him, a horror of failing in the task entrusted him by his Captain.      

From dread he drew strength, and as he plodded on against the growing numbness in his mind and body, it seemed that the water was receding little by little. It dropped to his waist, its vise-like grip on him slackening, then it eddied about his knees, until at last he felt only a benign lapping against his ankles.   

He crawled to the bank and sank to the ground, drawing in deep ragged breaths of sweet night air like a swimmer rising from the water. Somewhere beside him, Mablung was still alive and groaning. Staggering to his feet, Faramir found the boy, and one handed, tugged one of the unresisting arms across his shoulders. “Mablung – Mablung,” he whispered hoarsely, “Listen to me. Can you walk?”

For a moment, there was no answer, then came a feeble nod of the boy’s head.

Together, they somehow found the narrow dirt track that led to Oiolairë. Faramir never knew how long they struggled along that endless path. Often, they stopped because he was sick, and because Mablung’s weight grew too heavy for his own flagging strength. He was light-headed and the numbness in his right arm had turned into a bonfire of raging agony. How far was Oiolairë? And deep in the recesses of his memory he found the answer, the Captain’s cool voice echoing back at him, “Two hours’ march as the crow flies from the nearest ford.”  

The Valar help us – two hours!    

            Still they shuffled on, two bedraggled shadows in the feeble moonlight unable to travel in stealth or even cover their tracks. His one remaining hope was to get the boy into safe hands before the venom coursing in his veins overtook him. Of his own death he thought little. Only a single painful regret troubled his conscience - that there would be no word of farewell to Boromir, no time for this wayward son to beg his father for the one thing above all that he longed for.

Father, father…forgive me.

He felt a strange flutter in his breast, as though his soul was shaking off the coils of mortality, readying itself for its flight …      

            He sank to his knees, Mablung dropping heavily beside him.

            Then, in the blackness, hands gripping his shoulders. A man was shaking him roughly, his name ringing through the rising waves of darkness, a beloved, familiar voice husky with anger and desperation. 

            “Faramir! Faramir!”

Author’s note:

Thousand leaf or millefoil is also known as yarrow, a versatile healing herb which was according to legend, applied to wounds by the great Achilles himself.

Oiolairë is the name of a village in Anorien near the river Anduin. The village was invented by me, and its name, meaning “ever summer” was taken from The Complete Tolkien Companion. This name already appears once in Chapter 7 of my never-ending story The Phrygian Flute, where an older and wiser Mablung tells the cub Edrahil:

“We are on the other side of the Anduin, in a village men once called Oiolairë long ago, before our wolfish friends the Easterlings put the torch to it. This is where we’re keeping the wounded - almost the only house with a roof still left on it.”

            Faramir woke to the golden light of dawn and the plaintive singing of birds. Larks, he thought absently, his mind still woolly with sleep. Pale yellow curtains, the colour of buttercups billowed in the morning breeze. The sail of a ship, sailing beyond the Bent World. His mind wandered, unaccountably, to a time long since passed – his first sight, as a child, of one of the great galleys of Dol Amroth, her many-coloured pennants bravely unfurling in the wind, her tall masts soaring into the skies. Yet no sail of Dol Amroth was ever of such a hue…   

He shut his eyes against the sun and willed himself to sleep again, for he was weary, so weary, and his right arm ached to the very bone. He shifted a little, yearning to stretch himself, but shoulder, elbow and wrist would not obey his command. With a small shock of terror, his eyes flew open and he wondered if he had lost his arm after all. A twitch of the thin striped blanket, then a quick glance brought relief – it was there, neatly bound in a linen sling across his shoulder. Sighing, he lay back on his pillow.

            What had happened? He remembered the hunt, the river, the red moon. He had been shaken like a child caught stealing sweetmeats, a man’s voice in the blackness crying his name, and then nothing more. No… there had been dreams, a whirlpool of dreams. Dreams of agony and fire and a wild creature’s death rattle; a dark chamber lit by a single taper, his father’s stern shadow beside him. He heard his own fevered voice speaking, a desperate meaningless babble of sound, felt a warm hand clasp his own in answer. Yet when the light flung back the brown dark, he saw that the face was not his father’s. The world had dissolved then, strong hands holding down his thrashing body, a vague memory of a woman’s voice, the sharp refreshing scent of a herb he could not name, and a cool drink, sweet and bitter at the same time pouring down his parched throat.

            Had that vision of his father only been a dream? Surely it had been no more than that - a trick of his own fevered mind, his deluded desires? Why after all, should the Lord Steward come to his son after the manner of their last parting? Sick at heart, he drew his one good hand across his eyes. Perhaps his father had thwarted even Boromir’s attempts to visit him. Why else had Boromir not come in his hour of need? A voice spoke in his mind, so reasonable, so cold that he hardly knew it for his own. “Thus you reap what you sowed three summers ago. And a bitter harvest it is too.”

Once, he had stirred from his uneasy slumber at sunset, and the flaming glow of the evening had shown him a man’s harsh profile - a man older than his six and thirty years, with a galley’s prow of a nose, his face worn by weather, creased with lines of laugher and care. His visitor was sleeping the light sleep of a hunter in the hard wooden chair beside his cot. His mane of red hair, streaked with grey near the temples had been burnished at the tips to gold by the sun, and his fever-addled mind told him that this was surely Fëanor reborn to the world of the living. He must have moved, for the man awoke at once, laying an anxious hand on his brow. Such eyes he had – green and warm as forest leaves when the dawn touches them. Then he saw that it was not Fëanor after all, but the Captain himself – and he smiled his joy, muttering in his weakness something so unintelligible that the Captain laughed and bade him not to waste his breath. Then he fell once more into a deep slumber.         

            This morning, the sun had at last driven away sleep. Although the comfort of his cot was a sore temptation, he was suddenly eager to move, to raise his face to the sun and feel the prickling warmth of daylight on his cheeks. Slowly, he rose, every sinew stiff and aching like those of an old man. Certain that he was alone, he muttered a few choice oaths as he swung his feet to the ground. One in particular had an undeniably satisfying ring to it. Egged on by Damrod, the younger rangers had set up a Word Chest, and this, the Word of the Week, had been contributed by Maeglin, a dark-eyed lad from Lebennin. He stifled a laugh. Well, the sooner he got out of bed, the sooner he would be back at Henneth Annûn.     

            His room was small, bright and airy, unlike the damp caves of Henneth Annûn or even his old chamber in the Steward’s House with its chill shadowy corners and high ceiling. The air was heavy with the aroma of herbs – honeysuckle, thyme, rosemary, sage, athelas and other stranger scents that he knew not. And the clothes he wore were no longer his own sodden and filthy uniform, but a loose well-worn tunic and breeches a little too large for him, scented with lavender. For a time, he watched the golden square of sunlight creep across the whitewashed wall, rejoicing at being warm and clean again.  

            He stood up. “Weak as a new-born puppy,” he said to no one in particular. It was the first time he had strung a sentence together in a while, his voice deep, calm and lucid to his ears. He was himself again.  

            Then Faramir remembered with a tightening in his breast, another voice that had echoed dimly in his long slumber. A young voice crying in the night, reaching him even through the storm of his own unquiet dreams. Yet, his silent room contained only his cot, a battered bookshelf whose boards were bending beneath the weight of their burden, an ink-stained desk, and in the far corner an ancient clothes chest bound with bronze.

Mablung. Where was the boy?  

            Out he stumbled, pausing at the doorway to steady himself, for the flag-stoned floor was bucking beneath his feet like an unruly horse. How could he have forgotten Mablung? Lashed by shame and anger, tears of fury stung his eyes. Boromir would never have neglected one of his own men. Nor would the Captain.

            He lurched into another chamber, then checked in surprise. In a narrow bed by the open window lay a still form. Mablung. The cub seemed asleep, yet so pale that for an instant Faramir’s heart ceased its beating. Slowly he dropped to one knee at Mablung’s side, laying a trembling hand on the white brow, and at his touch, the boy’s black lashes fluttered, then stilled again. He was alive. He bowed his head, filled with silent gratitude.

            He remained in the little chamber for some time listening to Mablung’s quiet breathing, in part to assure himself that the boy was indeed alive, and because his small exertions had tired him beyond his expectations. Yet his strength returned before long as did his desire for the sun’s warmth, and he rose, leaving Mablung to his rest.    

            Like a tired old hound, Faramir wandered barefooted down a short passageway that emerged into a large sunlit room. At the threshold he halted in wonder. Above the kitchen range and hearth, row upon row of dried herbs hung in neat bunches from the smoke-blackened beams of the low ceiling. Marjoram, rue, vervain, hawthorn, wormwood, white horehound and scores of other healing herbs there were, each exuding its unique scent. He took a deep breath. Crossing the flagstones, he paused to marvel at the tall shelves laden with bottles of myriad colours and sizes, and chests of drawers made of sturdy lebethron wood shiny with age; and each shelf, each drawer labelled in a bold black hand, peculiarly decorated with patterns of raised dots. He paused at the crowded kitchen table, avoiding a number of silver spoons coated with drying brown stuff, but gingerly reaching out to touch a strange wooden stand that held a dozen narrow vials of glass, each filled with powders of varying colours; peering at a funnel of saffron liquid bubbling merrily over a candle flame, supported by a fantastical glass contraption. Reluctantly, he stopped himself from running a wistful hand over the leather-bound covers of Rúmil’s Anatomy, likewise decorated with the same curious dots, reminding himself that he was a man grown, and not a inquisitive child.

Passing the empty hearth Faramir came to a door that opened into a small courtyard. Following the sun, he stepped out into the light, revelling in its warmth. Here he found a vine trellis, and upon it, spiralling tendrils shivered in the breeze, the delicate leaves shining and translucent as green jewels. Beside it was a stone bench on which shallow trays filled with dandelion roots, juniper berries, willow and poplar bark had been set out to dry.

And in the centre of the courtyard, a woman was drawing water from a well; a young woman tall and slender as a willow, her long hair brown as a sparrow’s breast feathers knotted away with a crimson ribband. But when the wind caught up the stray strands and lifted them, they warmed to honey-gold in the summer sun. She took the filled pitcher in her arms with the sureness of long practise and turned towards the house, the hems of her long green gown dark where the well-water had soaked it.

He stood in the doorway watching her, quite unable to move or look away in spite of himself, for she was fairer than any girl in the White City and all her movements were as graceful as that of a swan in flight.                   

            They were no more than three steps apart when she stopped, looking up at him with a smile. It was then that he saw that her eyes were not bright, but dull as a pond glazed over with grey winter-ice.

            “Is it young Mablung or my Lord Faramir who stands there?”

            His voice stuck in his throat. “I am Faramir, lady,” and belatedly remembering his manners, added huskily, “Peace be with you, lady of the house.”

“And with you, my Lord. I am Nienna, sister to your Captain.” She halted, and with disarming honesty smiled, “Yes, I am blind. It was the sweating sickness that stole my sight when I was five years old.” 

She stepped over the threshold, and he followed her into the shade of the kitchen. There, Nienna set down the pitcher on the range and bade him sit at the table. Every step she made, every little thing she did with her hands she accomplished without the slightest pause, and even when she came to sit beside him, Faramir could not quite bring himself to believe that the world she lived in was darker than the blackest of nights.

            “So, how is it with you today, my Lord?”

            Among the Brotherhood he was simply Faramir son of Denethor, and it was so long since any man or woman had addressed him by his proper title that he squirmed with embarrassment. It was as though the Lord Faramir the Steward’s younger son was a stranger and not himself. Yet Nienna was the Captain’s sister – would it be too great an impudence to ask her to address him by name? Then he saw that she was awaiting his answer, her head tilted a little to one side, her strange walled-up eyes fixed on his own.

            “I am well, only that my right arm is a little stiff,” he confessed hastily.

“Move your fingers,” she commanded.

Obediently, he waved his fingers in the air. A moment later, Nienna laughed, “Oh no my Lord, not like that – did you forget that I cannot see you? Take my hand if you please and tap your fingers on my palm like this.”

He hesitated, momentarily stunned by the thought of actually touching the hand of the Captain’s sister. He dared not think of what the Old Man would have to say.

“I do not bite,” Nienna said solemnly.

He laughed and took her outstretched hand. It was warm and dry, slim and graceful as the wing of a bird. Yet in their own way, they were as scarred as his own, scratched by bramble thorns, herb-stained and scalded red at the fingertips by the boiling potions that she brewed.

“Yes, that is good. Now close your fist. Open it – yes, well done.” She sat back, smiling. “A remarkable recovery, my Lord. It will not be long before your arm mends, and all will be as it was. For now, there will be a little pain in the joints of your elbow and shoulder, for the venom lingers there still; bide here for but a fortnight more, and your cure will be complete.”

“And what of Mablung, lady?” he asked.

Frowning a little, Nienna folded her hands in her lap, “He was very ill, for the wound became bad, but Mablung is young, and with the grace of the Valar, he will recover swiftly enough. The fever broke yesterday, and I think the worst is over - for now.” A pause, and then she said kindly, “Do not worry, my Lord, for I shall do my best for him. My brother tells me that you brought him off in great danger and despite your own wound. It is by your courage that he lives still.”  

He looked down. “It is your skill and our Captain’s strength that saved us both. I do not know how to thank you.”

“There is no need,” Nienna answered simply. “That you live is reward enough for me.” And taking his hand, she said, “Come. Now that you are better, I will show you a means to while away the tedious hours till you are well enough to leave us.”

            In his own chamber, she pointed out to him the rare old books of poetry, history and herblore, and other stranger tomes with tiny raised dots for words on their leather spines, their pages filled with nothing but the same indentations - surely a strange new language. “Those are mine,” Nienna said, running her fingers over the cracked leather spines with great tenderness. “When I was a child, my father devised this manner of writing so that I might learn to read with my fingertips alone. My father came of an ancient family, and although we have fallen on hard times and our lineage is not exalted he set great store on learning and all noble arts. He was determined that no child of his should be unschooled and unlettered.” Like children sharing a secret, they bent their heads over a large volume. “Look, each pattern of dots forms a word,” and as she read aloud in her quiet voice a passage on the virtues of woundwort, Faramir’s eyes shone with the eagerness of a child at the discovery of this new word-magic.      

            And then she showed him the Old Man’s greatest treasure. “Do you play the harp, my Lord” she asked.

            And he remembered all at once his mother, and the harp of silver wood she had brought out of Dol Amroth. He had never forgotten the beauty of it, the flowing lines of swans and ships on its slender stem – never again would it be seen in Gondor, for it had gone to the grave with her, its song stilled forever.

“Yes,” he replied, “But not as well as I should like.”  

“You may play it if you wish. My brother will not mind in the least – he says that the damp at Henneth Annûn ruins the strings, so he keeps it here, folorn and neglected. He told me once that a friend from Belfalas fashioned it for him with his own hands, and that all the best craftsmen come from Dol Amroth.”

“Indeed,” Faramir laughed. “So do all the best harpers and all the best people. My mother could sing the very stars down from the sky.”

It was harp of black bog oak inlaid with mother-of-pearl and strung with shining strings of white bronze. With reverence, Faramir settled it clumsily on his knee and one handed, struck a few tentative notes that lingered in the silence, pure silmarils of sound. In wonder, he exclaimed, “I have never heard its like! Do you also play the harp, my lady?”

“Oh no! I have not Maglor’s gift. My talent is of another kind altogether.”

“But no lesser a one,” he smiled.

            What Nienna would have said he never knew, for the ribband in her hair had come undone, fluttering to the ground like a string of crimson rose petals. At once, he set the precious harp aside and stooped to retrieve it, but at the same instant she too, bent to do the same. Her questing fingers met his, and a long strand of brown hair brushed his cheek.   

            “Here it is, my lady,” he said gravely.

She took the ribband, and as she turned away, he saw a faint colour rising in her cheeks. “I shall leave you now, my Lord. There is much to be done this morning. My brother has burnished your sword for you, but there is a rent in your tunic that I have yet to mend.”

            Before Faramir could answer, a long shadow fell across them both and a cheerful voice rang out.

“Will you indeed? How could you leave us my dear sister, when I have only just arrived?”

Author’s note:

Just as there is no canonical record of a red-headed Captain of the Rangers in Faramir’s youth, Nienna and Maeglin are characters invented by me. Nienna first appeared in my imagination some two years ago, but at the time she went by a different name, she was not a healer, nor was she blind. She was simply the Captain’s beautiful young sister who kept house for him – that was all.   

I haven’t come across any references to Braille or its equivalent in Middle Earth, but it answers the question of how Nienna came by her learning despite her affliction. Her copy of Rúmil’s Anatomy is of course, the Middle Earth version of our Grey’s Anatomy.

The Maglor referred to was the second son of the mighty Fëanor – one of the greatest of all Elven minstrels.

Damrod’s Word Chest is also imaginary – but this might just be the sort of entertainment that spirited young men might make for themselves to while away the long and tedious hours on patrol.

One last note – I’ll be out of town for the next three weeks, so this story won’t be updated for a while. But I’ll be back!  

Chapter 5: An Old Man’s Song

            “Haldor!”

            “Yes, you foolish little wretch!” the Old Man smiled, striding in and catching his sister up in a rough bear hug. He was filthy, covered with way-dust and his tunic and breeches were streaked with dirt. “How does that battered young cub of mine?”

            “Sleeping as soundly as a babe in arms, for I gave him a black draught to speed the healing,” Nienna answered laughingly as he freed her. Standing in the pool of light streaming through the window beside her brother, she was as radiant as a rose in bloom, and as she bound up her hair, the Old Man, watching with indulgent eyes, gave it a playful tug. There was a likeness between them, not one that would strike a man immediately – yet there was something about the nobility of their bearing, the level brows and the sharp, determined chin that spoke of their kinship. 

            “And you?” the Captain asked, and with a searching gaze, laid a light hand on Faramir’s shoulder.  

            “Very well indeed, sir,” Faramir said, flushing with pleasure.

            “Did I not say that my sister has some small skill in the art of healing?” and without waiting for an answer, he cried, “But I am as hungry as ten men. Nienna, be so good as to bid Morwen ready a bowl of stew … I did not see her as I came in. Where is Morwen?” the Captain demanded suddenly, looking about him, “Is she not in the house?”

“She is not, for Rían was taken ill yesterday. It was I who sent her home.”  

“She should not be leaving you alone thus - ”

“It matters not,” Nienna said firmly. “You know I am quite capable of looking after myself for a day or so.”

 With some asperity, he cried, “You little wretch, you are too wilful for your own good!”

“Oh Haldor, please let us not quarrel over trifles when you are home again after such peril.” Smiling so that the dimples came and went in her cheeks, Nienna held out her hands to him. “I shall come to no harm with two doughty warriors of yours in the house. I am afraid we have no stew, but you shall have bread, cheese and a tankard of mead for a peace offering.”

“Doughty warriors indeed! What with Faramir as weak as a kitten and young Mablung snoring in his sleep like Glaurung himself?” Nevertheless, the Old Man took her slender hands briefly in his own before he released them. “Now go and make ready that peace offering of yours, and do try, for the love of the Valar not to break anything.” 

She turned, her pretty face full of scorn, “Have you forgotten that it is not I but Morwen who has butter on her fingers?”

The Old Man shook his head, his gaze following her as she slipped into the corridor. “She is such a stubborn child. I hardly know what to do with her. And that fishwife Morwen who dares calls herself her companion – the greatest shrew in all of Anorien – is like clay in her hands.”

             “My brother says that I am the most mule-headed of men,” Faramir confessed, grinning.

            “Well, perhaps the pair of you shall suit very well, but I’ll wager that Nienna will drive you to distraction before the week is out,” the Captain retorted. But his sharp eyes missed neither the note of longing in Faramir’s voice nor the familiar half-smile that spoke so eloquently of his disappointment. “But come with me to the kitchen. I know that you have a thousand questions to ask, and they shall all be answered by and by. I have some news for you - and a message from your brother.”

*          *          *

            They looked in on Mablung long enough for the Old Man to twitch the blanket the boy had flung off in his sleep up to his chin again; then, the Captain, commanded by the urges of his growling stomach, led the way to the kitchen where Nienna had set up a small, low table by the fire-place and was now busy slicing a large hunk of bread for her brother’s simple repast.

            Haldor wasted no time in helping himself to the mead and was soon devouring his meal with the alacrity of a ravenous wolf. Innate good manners and the formidable habit of discipline acquired after three years in Ithilien absolutely forbade Faramir from harassing the Old Man with questions, but such was the eagerness in his eyes that Haldor felt compelled to abandon a half-eaten morsel of cheese, laughing, “What an impatient brat you are. Don’t you know that your face is an open book that any man may read if he so chooses?”

            “But, sir –“

            “Oh very well! My Lord Boromir’s man arrived last night and bade me tell you that your brother is setting off post-haste from Lossarnach tomorrow, and that he shall be with you within two days, at the most. He could not come before, because our storm had washed away the roads between Minas Tirith and Lossarnach, so that the tidings of your injury came late to him.”

            “That is good news indeed,” Nienna smiled.

            Faramir had done his best to contain the joy that was setting his heart ablaze, but Haldor knew from the brightness in the young man’s eyes how much Boromir’s coming meant to him. The brothers had seldom seen each other during the last three years, for their duties had kept them apart, and those few precious meetings were almost always overshadowed by the presence of their formidable father.

“Yes,” he said simply, “I shall be glad to see Boromir again.”                  

            The sharp edge of his hunger blunted at last, the Old Man nursed his tankard of mead and began to tell, in his laconic way of his own escape from the Haradrim. He had slipped away – the Valar only knew how - after playing a game of hide-and-seek with the Haradrim among the rushes. The moon vanishing behind a bank of cloud, had left predator and prey in utter darkness for a few moments, and Old Man, having little choice now but to abandon Arvegil to his fate, had taken the opportunity to slip into the river, keeping under water and only coming up to breathe whenever his lungs had been near to bursting. After struggling upstream against the current, he had somehow hauled himself ashore a league or so from the ford, convinced that he had lost his pursuers. It had been easy enough to hunt down his two flagging comrades, for they had left tracks so clear that even a babe in arms could read them.   

His two young listeners were silent, for Faramir was by turns too grieved or too furious to speak, and Nienna, moving quietly behind them, continued to tend the potion she had been brewing since dawn in a glazed pot of brown river clay without a word.

“And Arvegil? What news of him?” asked Faramir.

The Captain did not answer at once – instead, he set down the tankard and drew a weary hand across his mouth, and it seemed to Faramir that he had suddenly grown into a tired old man. “What of him? I do not know – for two days we’ve been searching – we, and some of the lads from Osgiliath - up and down the river banks and the country all around, but found neither hide nor hair of him. And nary a trace of those cursed Haradrim too – they might just as well have been moonshine.” Bitterly, the Old man spat, “I very much doubt that what I have to report will please my Lord Boromir, or my Lord Denethor.”

He paused for a long moment, then began again, slowly, for his mind had wended its way back to the missing cub, “It is entirely possible of course that Arvegil survived and is lying up somewhere, wounded, and will find his way back to us in time, but my heart misgives me. Only Mablung can tell us what happened – once he is well enough.”

“I cannot believe that Arvegil is dead,” Faramir shook his head in disbelief.

“They are only cubs after all,” the Old Man shrugged. “That is the way of it – the strong survive and the weak die. Arvegil was not the first, nor will he be the last. That is what the Hunt is for.” The words were callous, but Faramir, looking up in shock, saw the unspoken grief on his Captain’s face.

For a time, neither man spoke, each consumed by his own thoughts, and only the sound of the crackling flames under the small earthenware pot interrupted the silence. The loss of Arvegil weighed heavily on them both; although Faramir was no stranger to the sorrow of death, he knew that the aching void left behind by a fallen comrade was one that could never be filled, even one as young as Arvegil.  

Behind them, Nienna lifted the lid of her simmering pot, and at once a familiar scent filled the kitchen – a scent as sweet as roses blooming in summer, a fragrance so sharp and fresh that it reminded Faramir of dew-drops shining on a leaf on a pale spring morning.

“What scent is this, my lady? There is a whiff of athelas in it, but also something else that I do not know.”

“It is athelas, as the ancients named it, woundwort and honey,” answered Nienna, “But common folk like us call it kingsfoil now.” A ladle in one hand and a wooden bowl in the other, she measured out a dose of the potion with great care. “You have been drinking this brew for two days now, do you not know?” she teased gently. “I would have thought that the fragrance was quite unforgettable.”      

“It was all a dream to me,” he answered so earnestly that Haldor crowed with laughter.

The Captain folded his arms. “I never knew that kingsfoil was of any use as a curing herb, sister. I do not think that Father ever used it in his medicines.”

Nienna laid the steaming bowl down on the table, and drawing up a low stool, she answered, “No, he did not. The true virtue of kingsfoil is yet unknown to the healers of Gondor.”

“Two moons ago, I was collecting herbs in the meadows, and a wise man – I know not whom for he would not tell me his name, told me that the humble kingsfoil was a plant of great virtue, and that he had journeyed long and through great peril to find this herb. I did not believe him then, and retorted that we in Gondor only esteem the kingsfoil for its scent. He laughed merrily and said that far indeed had the Men of Westernesse fallen if such was the limit of our wisdom. He told me a little about its properties before Morwen came skirling up waving that small herbing knife of hers in the air, chattering like hen about how I should not be talking to strange men.”

“I must say that for once, Morwen was right,” the Old Man interrupted.

She shook her head, smiling. “Yet, I have often longed to meet this man again, for I know now that I should have asked a thousand more questions on the lore of herbs, for he must have been a healer of great learning.” Thoughtfully, she said, “I have used kingsfoil since on foxes, birds and such other animals the village children bring me that are sick or hurt, but never on a man, and never for a wound such as this. It is this little herb that has cured you, Lord Faramir – kingsfoil, woundwort and a little honey, all of which have great healing virtues of their own.”

“Well then, say no more and drink up,” the Old Man commanded. “The lads miss you. That young scamp Damrod and your worthless friend Maeglin have been clamouring no end for your return; even Mardil is heartily sick of them already. Get back on your feet and help me keep those two out of the dragon’s den.”  

            “Aye, sir!” he cried, grinning, and promptly scalded his tongue on the hot soup.

*          *          *

            The Old Man woke long after sunset, prising himself reluctantly from the makeshift pallet on the floor of his room. The days without sleep, days of worry, vexation and terror had left him utterly exhausted, but now – blessed by the Valar with the iron constitution of the born soldier - he felt almost like himself again. A glance at Faramir’s cot told him that the boy was not there, so he wandered into the long corridor that led to the kitchen. He halted in the shadows, watching them – two young people in the fire-lit hearth-place, bent over the stove, engaged in an animated, low-voiced argument punctuated with much laughter. The warm spicy scent of mulled wine hung in the air, and Haldor recalled with a sudden pang how he had as a child, spied on his father and mother huddling over the very same stove, talking and smiling at jests known only to them. But he was no longer a boy, and those were not his parents. 

            It was not often that Nienna had an equal to talk to in the house, for her patients were for the most part simple country men and women who came to her from the villages around Oiolairë and the larger townships in Anorien. And now and then, one or two of the grander folk would journey from Minas Tirith itself to see her – it made him proud, immensely proud that his young sister’s fame was steadily growing, and he cherished a great hope in his heart that one day she might become as famous as their father had been. Yet, it was a lonely life she must have led during the long months he was away in Ithilien, for she had only Morwen for company, and no matter how much Morwen nagged and bullied Nienna whenever she was allowed to, Morwen was after all, a village woman.

Indeed, he had seldom seen her so happy – for once, Nienna was not getting her own way, for Faramir was far too clever to let her talk circles around him as Morwen did. He lingered in the dark a little longer, an odd feeling between contentment and foreboding in his heart.

            Then, he stepped out into the light, “Do I smell mulled wine, little sister?”

            Laughing, Nienna said, “Of course it is. Do you need to be fed? It’s long past supper time.”

            “I think not,” Haldor sniffed, “but some of that wine would not go amiss.” He settled himself in one of the chairs by the fire, and picking up the harp that lay on the table, idly began to tune it.

            The two young people joined him, listening intently to each flight of notes he coaxed from the strings, each as clear and shining as a tear-drop. “It is a harp fit for Maglor himself,” Faramir said softly, and it seemed to Haldor that a shadow had settled on the boy’s brow.

            “The harp is nothing without the harper. A great harper might charm men and dragons to sleep.”

            “I do not wish to sleep!” Faramir exclaimed with sudden violence. And seeing the shock in the faces of brother and sister, he flushed. “I am sorry… it was only that I dreamt… I dreamt of my father.”

The Old Man laid a warning hand on his sister’s arm and said, his voice purposefully light, “My Lord the Steward came two nights ago. He desired us to remove you at once to the White City, into the care of his own healers, but my little sister would not have it – not when the smallest movement would have cast your life into even graver peril. And when he saw that Nienna would not be moved, he said nothing more but sat by your cot, watching her every step with those hawk eyes of his.” He struck a small flourish of notes from his harp, laughing, “At dawn, the fever broke at last, and my Lord departed, entrusting you to my sister’s care.”

“So it was no dream!” Faramir said wistfully, so softly that it seemed almost that he was speaking to himself. He was silent a while, a faraway look in his eyes. “Would that I had woken.” Then, with a sudden painful eagerness, he searched the faces of brother and sister. “Did… did my father leave any word for me?”

The flames crackled, and he watched the Old Man reaching for poker, stirring the red heart of the fire until a shower of sparks crimson and gold flew about the hearth. Of a sudden, Faramir remembered a long-ago tale of his boyhood told by a father less stern and more loving, the story of Turin Turambar and Glaurung and how, in his childish imagination, the leaping fire-sparks in brazier and hearth were fragments of the dying dragon’s wings…

Looking up, he read the answer in the Captain’s shadowed face, so carefully averted. Faramir said nothing more, but merely linked his hands to steady them, a little trick he had learned long ago as a boy, a trick that was to become a habit in moments of unbearable strain. Three summers ago, he had sworn his oath of fealty to his Lord and father:

“Here do I swear fealty and service to Gondor, and to the Lord and Steward of the realm, to speak and be silent, to do and let be, to come and to go, in need or in plenty, in peace or in war, in living or dying, from this hour henceforth, until my lord release me, or death take me, or the world end. So say I Faramir, son of Denethor Lord Steward of Gondor.”

            And the Steward had answered:

“And this do I hear, Denethor son of Ecthelion, Lord of Gondor, Steward of the High King, and I will not forget it, nor fail to reward that which is given: fealty with love, valour with honour, oath breaking with vengeance.”

Fealty he had given; he had offered too with his whole being, and with a supplicant’s utter humility the simple, natural and unconditional love of a son for his father. Must he only be content with the love of the Lord and not the father? Was it wrong then, for him as a son, to desire a little more, a so very little more in return? Why had his father come in the night, why had had he gone again with the dawn without leaving even the merest word of kindness, a word to be treasured, turned over and read again and again in the loneliness of his heart like the sweetest phrases of a beloved book?    

A handful of memories he had of his father, during those golden years before his mother’s untimely death, now dimmed by manhood and the passage of time. Smiles, laughter, embraces, small gifts that are so infinitely precious to a child - he hoarded each like a tiny flawed gem, to be shared with none save Boromir who also remembered and had reminiscences of his own that he told to no other man.

After the day she died, the father had withdrawn from his younger son – as though a part of him had died with her. He had not understood this at first, and in his childish grief, he reached for the comfort of his father’s arms, only to be repelled again and again, by word and gesture until one day, he ceased altogether to knock at his father’s door and sought sanctuary instead in books and in secret, the music that his mother had once adored. And so, it fell to Boromir, five years older, to give with his noble and generous heart all that his young brother demanded.   

Yet, the years of his boyhood had passed inexorably and with every new summer, he grew more and more like her. He needed no mirror to tell him so; no witnesses were more faithful than the tearful joy of his uncle Imrahil at finding in his young nephew the very image of his lost sister, the bitter anguish in his father’s eyes, the shadow of pain in Boromir’s own. He had the same fair waving hair, the same clear blue gaze, the same grace that she had shared with Imrahil, and even his low musical voice seemed to hold a distant echo of her own. He had known for a long time now that his very presence opened afresh for his father the wound of his mother’s death and many were the times that he had woken in the darkest hour of the night wishing that the hand of fate had chosen the child and not the mother. What, after all, was the meaning of his life without absolution? 

            Then Nienna’s gentle voice rose out of the brown shifting light. “Sometimes, we who are blind – we see things that are invisible to the eye. What my Lord Steward did not say in words he said with his deeds.”

            “You are kind, lady.”

            She raised her pretty face to the light, her disconcerting gaze seemingly fixed on his own, and although Faramir knew that she was blind, he almost believed that she saw clearly, not perhaps with her eyes, but with some another sense the Valar had bestowed upon her in place of that which they had taken away.

            “No, my Lord – I am only telling the truth,” Nienna smiled. “Haldor will tell you that I always speak my mind; I am no great lady, and so have no need to coat my words with honey to sweeten the ears of my listeners.” She turned to her brother, “Is that not so?”

             The Old Man raised his hands in mock-capitulation, “If I say you nay, my dear child, I shall never have a day of peace again!”   

            And with that, they all laughed merrily. But at last Nienna said, “Haldor, it is long since I have heard music in this house. Do you play a song for us – but nothing loud enough to wake Mablung if you please!”

            “Your wish is my command, but let the choice of song be mine, for there is an old song of the Elder people on the tips of my fingers that I think you will like very well,” the Captain said, making a great show of tuning his harp. His long fingers, much marked by sword and bow, strung together a skein of shining notes, and he began:           

I have a young sister far beyond the sea

Many be the dowries that she sent me

She sent me the cherry withouten any stone

And so she did dove withouten any bone

She sent me the briar withouten any rind

She bade me love my leman withoute longing

How could any cherry be without stone

And how could any dove be without bone?

How could any briar be without rind?

And how could I love my leman without longing?

            The hearth fire sank and leapt up again, momentarily casting their faces into shadow, and the Captain’s voice dropped to no more than a whisper, yet deep, full of sorrow and yearning.

When the cherry was in flower: then it had no stone

When the briar was unbred: then it had no rind

When the dove was an egg, then it had no bone

When the soul has what it loves: it is without longing. 

            For a long moment the magic of the dying music lingered in the air and the two young people were so still that at length the Captain began to wonder if he had unwittingly set an Elvish spell over them. Without a word, he laid a light hand over the thrumming harp strings of white bronze to still them, watching the flush slowly fading from his sister’s cheeks, the brightness growing in his comrade’s eyes.

So, his little Nienna had been weaving an enchantment of her own. Without knowing why, he felt for the second time that evening, as though a shadow had fallen upon his heart.

            “When the soul has what it loves: it is without longing. Wise words,” he said dryly into the silence.

            The two young statues came alive again, and the Old Man observed the small tell-tale signs of embarrassment; Nienna hurriedly busying herself with the mulled wine, Faramir awkwardly tending with his one good hand the hearth-fire that was in no need of attention. 

            “I have heard this song only once at my uncle’s Hall in Dol Amroth,” Faramir said hastily. “It is a very ancient one, and the verses are well known in his country, but not beyond its borders. I never thought to hear it in Anorien of all places.” Suddenly he grinned, and his eye sparkled. “Sir, you should have been a minstrel.”

The Old Man snorted, “And sing for my supper, you impertinent boy?” Lovingly, he ran a finger over the smooth black wood, rubbing gently at a long white scar on the cross-piece. “Truth to tell, I learnt it from an old friend many years ago – a man from Belfalas. His mother was of the Haradrim, and the Desert People have the music in them, for all that they follow the Dark Lord.” He paused a while, remembering. “His name was Ragnor.”         

            “A sad thing it must be, to be the child of two peoples who are such great enemies,” said Nienna softly. “To feel the tug of both halves of one’s blood, and having to choose one over the other.”

The Captain stared at her, a strange spark in his eye. “Perhaps.” Sliding the harp back into its bag, he pulled the draw-string shut. Gruffly, he answered, “Yet, the claim of the blood of Westernesse was stronger, for Ragnor became one of the Brotherhood, and leader of the troop that is now Mardil’s.” Looking up, he ended, “No, Faramir, you would not have met him, for five winters ago at Mettarë he went on a patrol and did not return.” 

             “His body was never found.”

Author’s note:

Apologies for not updating in a while. Travel and work did it for me (yes, I’m back at work)! But I hope the longer chapter makes up for the wait.

Thanks to Raksha for suggesting that it’d be unrealistic for Nienna to live on her own, being handicapped as she is. So, I’ve made up Morwen the fishwife – who will make her appearance quite soon.

The “ancient song” used in this story is an old poem from the Middle Ages which I first read in Dorothy Dunnett’s “Pawn In Frankincense.” Always happy to get feedback – tell me if Nienna works for you so far! Hope she’s not too much of a Mary Sue!! Merry X'mas to all!  

            He arrived alone and unheralded on a pale, rain-washed morning – a weary traveller bespattered with the mud and dirt of many leagues. From Lossarnach to Anorien he had ridden pausing only for a mouthful of bread and fresh horses. Now at his journey’s end, he was conscious of nothing but a cold sweating fear clenching and unclenching in his belly, and for a moment he felt as though he might be sick.

            “Faramir was near death,” his father had written in his small precise script, “and I believe that it was the medicine woman’s skill alone that brought him back from the precipice. I left him in her care, for he could not be moved, nor could I stay. I do not know yet if his arm is safe. Go Boromir and see him, and when he is well enough, say that I send for him. You know what is in my mind, but give him no other message from me, for you know his contrary nature. I give him into your keeping and I shall be grateful if he lives – I ask the Valar for nothing more.”

            Near death. Boromir shivered. Once before, he had known a great sorrow, a childish sadness that had diminished with the fleeting of the years, until in manhood the memory of his mother’s passing was no more than an old wound that ached when the wind blew too keenly. Now he was afraid, deeply afraid that he too would drink from the cup of bitterness that had been his father’s; for his young brother’s death would bring him a grief like no other, a red rending of the heart and soul from which there would be no healing. 

            Here, in this quiet place where the village path straggled into the woods, here in this old house of yellow sandstone wreathed with climbing ivy and honeysuckle lay his young brother – dead or maimed perhaps - he did not know. He was not a man much given to prayer, but now Boromir closed his eyes and whispered with all the force of his will: O Valar, do not take my brother from me. Let me find him alive and whole. In payment for his life, I offer mine in return. Let it be so. Please let it be so. When he looked up into the green oak leaves trembling in the breeze, he saw that they were heavy and jewel-bright with dew and the iron grey sky told him nothing. So the Valar kept their secrets.   

            He tied his horse to the remains of a stone gate post and took with a heavy tread the smooth-scooped steps that led up to an ancient bronze-studded door. Thrice he knocked, then waited in impatient silence. For a long while, Boromir heard nothing save for the distant cries of woodland creatures and the burbling of a nearby stream; nor could he spy anything through the thick whorled window glass. He was about to knock again when the door creaked open and a young woman in a dress of plain juniper green wool stood before him. Long hair she had, the colour of a robin’s breast feathers, and a pale delicate face, pretty enough, save that eyes that met his own were the lightless eyes of the blind.

            Swallowing his surprise, he said rapidly, “Good morrow, lady. I am Boromir son of Denethor. I seek Faramir my brother. Is he here?”

            With smiling grace, the girl made her obeisance. “Greetings my Lord and peace be upon you. I am Nienna, healer and sister to Haldor of Anorien and I bid you welcome. Your coming will be a great comfort to the Lord Faramir. He has spoken of naught but you these two days past.” 

            Faramir was alive. A flood of relief, greater than any than he had ever known. In a rush Boromir demanded, “Is he well? The arm – ”

            Laughing, she said, “He is well, and the arm is a little stiff at the elbow, no more. But unless I am much mistaken all will be as it was. Oh my Lord, let you not be standing here – make haste, for Lord Faramir awaits. Here, let me take your horse, and I will see him fed and watered.”

            “Nay! Surely that is a man’s task.” 

            “I have stabled my brother’s horses since I was a child, and I handle them as well as any man,” Nienna lifted her chin with gentle pride. “Yours will do well enough with me.”   

            “I meant no offence, Mistress. Only that I do not mean to trouble the lady of house with such an errand.”

            “And there is none taken, my Lord.” She descended the steps with the nimbleness of long use and took the reins with an expert hand. “Your coming will bring Lord Faramir much joy. Go now, follow the path by the round pond and you will find him in the garden under the cherry tree.”

            “Thank you.” For an anxious moment he was tempted to linger and watch, to offer his assistance, yet he had no wish to insult his hostess. With a small sigh, he shook his head and did as she bade him.     

*          *          *         

            Long ago the walled garden had been part of a small villa complex, a summer retreat of a noble family longing to exchange the heat of Minas Tirith for green country and good hunting. In later years as the grand house and its family fell from splendour, its apple orchards returned to the wild and the garden, with its carefully sculpted beauties withered and died.

Pausing at the half-ruined archway that opened into the shaded greenness within, Boromir heard the first faint notes of harp music trembling in the still cold air. Then like a dream, a familiar voice rising, rich and honey-warm into song, and he saw in the far corner of the garden under the gnarled boughs of a cherry tree a slight young man with a harp on his knee. Faramir. For a time, he stood listening, hot tears burning in his eyes, and remembered another singer, another voice and the silver harp that had gone with her beyond the circles of the world.

His feet made no sound, for he had a warrior’s lightness of tread; and as he passed the mossy crumbling wall that sheltered neat squared plots of kingsfoil, rosemary, lavender and thyme, the singer in the dappled shadows sang on.          

A sparkle through the darkling trees,

a piercing glint of light he sees,

and there she dances all alone

upon a treeless knoll of stone!

Her mantle blue with jewels white

Caught all the rays of frosted light.

She shone with cold and wintry flame,

as dancing down the hill she came,

and passed his watchful silent gaze,

a glimmer as of stars ablaze…

“Greetings, brother,” he said huskily, “You sing well enough for a man sick unto death.”

“Boromir!”

Joyfully, they embraced; laughing, he held the other man at arm’s length, and after a long searching look, said, “Yes, it is I! But is this truly you Faramir, or do my eyes cheat me?”

“Of course it is,” Faramir scoffed. “Am I so changed since we met last summer that you do not know your own brother?” 

“Aye, you have, for I see a new sorrow in your eyes. You’ve grown up, little one,” Boromir replied lightly, then laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I am sorry I could not come before, but with all this rain there was nothing left of the roads from Lossarnach but bog.”   

“You are here now, and for that I am glad,” Faramir said simply. With the eagerness of a child, he fell to gathering up the harp he had laid aside, the quill and sheet music that fluttered to the ground with the excitement of Boromir’s arrival, “Will you be staying long with us? Oh Boromir, I have so much to say to you.”

“No. I shall stay only till the morrow’s morrow,” Boromir said, as the delight faded from his brother’s face. “Our father’s business calls me home,” and hesitating, added, “but before we ride away, I must speak with Haldor. I have sent for him and – ”  

“We?” Faramir asked sharply. “What do you mean?”

“We.” He felt his heart sinking, for the old wariness had come into Faramir’s eyes. “Brother, sit with me a while. I have something to tell you.”

So, they sat together on a worn military cloak Faramir had spread over the stone bench mottled with damp and with a deep breath, Boromir began, “It is our father’s wish that you come home with me. He would like – very much – to see you again.”   

A small hard silence followed. At length, Faramir turned to him and said with a careful blankness, “Does he? He saw me not four nights ago, is that not enough?”

“Faramir –”

“Please Boromir, say no more. He commands my presence and as I am a soldier of Gondor, I must obey my Lord the Steward or else be forsworn,” then, softly, almost under his breath, “I have not forgotten my oath.”

“Little brother, it is not like that. He calls you home, as a father to a son.” 

“Home?” Faramir exclaimed, then with a great effort stilled himself. “Only tell me, how long must I remain in Minas Tirith? When may I return to Ithilien and my troop?”  

The words stuck in Boromir’s throat, and for a long while he struggled within himself, his loyalties to his father and his brother at war with each other as they had done since the day his mother died. But today, of all days he could not find it in his heart to resist the silent entreaty in Faramir’s dark gaze. It easy, so easy to forget that he was only nineteen summers old, little more than a boy.

“I was not to tell you, but I feel I must,” he said slowly, like a man feeling his way in unfamiliar terrain, “You see, little brother, I have never had the knack of keeping anything from you. What our father has in mind for you I do not know – not precisely anyway – perhaps a place in the Tower Guard or the Osgiliath garrison. But he does mean that you should leave the Company of Ithilien altogether. The danger is too great in Ithilien, he sees that now.”       

            All the while Faramir listened without a word, cradling the harp in his arms like a thing infinitely precious and soon to be lost forever. If Boromir expected an outburst, there was none, only an infinite and terrible stillness.                 

He found himself floundering, for this new Faramir was a stranger to him. “I thought you would be pleased. You could serve with me, and none shall harm you, not while I am by your side. You were waiting for his summons, were you not, these three years past?”

“I waited as a starving beggar hungers for a feast, ‘tis true. The hunger remains, but I have since learned to satisfy myself elsewhere. It was a hard lesson.” He turned to Boromir, “I was writing a song,” he said dully. “Oh it is nothing grand, just a few verses for the joy of making something new. It isn’t any good, really.” Setting the harp aside, Faramir linked his hands with great care, an old boyhood trick he turned to in moments of strain. “Boromir, have ever known how it is to have a thing you love taken from you? Three summers ago I laid down my old life and was born again into this one. It was no easy thing, but I have a family now that I have grown to love. Haldor is like a father to me, I have my sword brothers and here, I have something more…” he paused, and a flush coloured his pale cheeks. “These few days past have been the happiest of my life. But none of that matters to him, does it? He has never cared for me. Not since she died.”   

“I will not let him take this life from me, Boromir. I shall fight him if I must. But because you love him as I do you, I will not ask you to join me. Only promise me that you will not stand in my way, for I am a man grown and must choose my own path. And you need not fear, for I shall fend well enough for myself.”

Profoundly shocked, Boromir did not reply at once. All his life, he had been first in his brother’s affections, and now there was another. Haldor. A man he had never liked; a man whose mind and heart were entirely his own; a man who guarded the ancient privileges and independence of the Rangers with the subtlety and cunning of the fox he was named for. “He is a clever and dangerous man. Beware of him, Boromir and keep him close, for I do not trust him,” his father had once said, and silently, Boromir added to the tally of Haldor’s offences the crime of theft, for he had stolen the one thing that he loved most in the world. In his heart love, guilt and pity warred with hatred and the first black stirrings of jealousy. Yet he could not deny Faramir, for the bond between them would not be broken; he would not suffer Haldor, nor any man to come between them. Mastering himself he answered quietly, “If you are sure - very sure – you have my word.”

“Thank you,” Faramir said, with a smile that lit his eyes. “I have never been more sure of myself.” 

“So, now that our pact is made, I believe that we have left our lovely hostess for far too long and etiquette demands that we should return to the house. I hope that she is a good cook, for I swear that I shall perish if I do not have some stew soon.”

Thoughtfully, Faramir said, “You’d best ask Morwen then.” He raised a fair eyebrow and grinned, “I came close to breaking a tooth on one of Nienna’s honey cakes yesterday. Whatever else she might be, she is no cook.”   

*          *          *

Author’s note:

Dear all, I’m sorry to have left this story hanging for the last 6 years, but here’s my new chapter. It’s been a long time coming, but there are more in the pipeline. This is my first Tolkien fic (or continuation of one) for ages, so I welcome any comments you may have!

This chapter explores a different aspect of the brothers’ relationship – like all elder and over-protective siblings, Boromir needs to let go and let his brother grow up. I think it only natural that Boromir would feel a little threatened that Faramir has found a new home among his fellow rangers, with Haldor as the new father figure in his life.  

The poem I have passed off as Faramir’s is from the Lay of Leithian, Canto III in Christopher Tolkien’s The Lays of Beleriand, 2002 Edition, Harper Collins, page 179.    

Chapter 7: Mablung’s Tale

It was moonrise and the household was at supper when the Old Man strode into the kitchen in a mood darker than the pits of Angband. He stood before the hearth fire, very straight and tall, making his brisk salute, “Hail my Lord Boromir, you have summoned me and I am come, obedient to your command.”

Rising at once from the table, Boromir took his hand; a perfunctory grasp, swiftly dropped on both sides. “Greetings Haldor. You have my gratitude for your hospitality, and for your great kindness to my brother, both he and I shall remain in your debt to the world’s ending.” 

“I did my duty and no more,” the Old Man said gruffly, then turned to kiss his sister. And with a curt nod to Faramir, he pulled up a chair and began helping himself to a plate of roast venison. “Morwen, make haste and bring me some of that Lebennin wine that we put by last Mettarë.”

“You men are always needing to be fed,” she grumbled, heaving herself off to the cellar, “Always ‘Morwen, bring me this, or that or the other.’ What you’ll be wanting next Master Haldor, braised rabbit from Beleriand?”

“What a splendid idea Morwen, I should like some olives from Mirkwood to go with the rabbit, if you please.”

“Olives from Mirkwood indeed! Nettles or toadstools more like.” With surprising agility for a woman of her bulk, Morwen returned some moments later, an earthenware bowl of plump purple olives in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.  

The scent of strong spiced wine wafted into the air, and as the Old Man filled his cup to the brim, Boromir, leaning forward in his chair asked, “You are looking grim Haldor. What tidings do you bring?”

“What tidings but ill ones?” the Old Man shrugged, drinking deeply. “My sword brothers are combing the hills for the enemy and the cub Arvegil remains missing.” He set the cup down and turned his shrewd gaze on Boromir. “My Lord,” he said frankly, “I do not doubt that you have called me away from my men because we have grave matters to speak of, but with your leave, I must first see the boy Mablung, for I have heard news that troubles me greatly.”

“And can you not tell me now this all-important news of yours?” Boromir asked, an edge in his voice.

“Not until I hear what Mablung has to say,” the Old Man replied tersely. Taking his sister’s hand he said, “Nienna, is the boy up? May I speak to him?”

“He awoke not half an hour ago,” she hesitated, “but if you promise not to tire him -”

“We will be quick,” he assured her. Pushing back his chair, the Captain turned to Boromir, “This way my Lord, if you please.”

Led by the Old Man, the small entourage made its way to the sick room, and Faramir bringing up the rear glimpsed in the brown half-dark of the corridor, the clenched fists of Boromir and the straight-shouldered tension about the Captain. A niggling unease had been growing in his mind through the day, a thing he could not quite put his finger on; a thing perhaps to do with Boromir’s sudden and baffling reticence, his barely concealed impatience to be gone as soon as decency permitted. He saw now that keeping the peace between those two would be no simple task, and so deep was his dismay that as he came to the doorway he walked, all unseeing into Nienna.  

The shock of it unnerved him completely and though she smiled at his fumbling apologies, all he could remember for a few intoxicating moments were the faint fragrance of lavender that clung to her hair and the softness of her skin. Hot with embarrassment and confusion, he lingered by the door watching as Boromir drew up a chair and the Old Man settled himself on a low stool at the edge of Mablung’s cot.

In health, Mablung had been a tall loose limbed boy, black-curled and with the round ruddy cheeks of a childhood spent in the country. In the shifting lamplight, his eyes were fever-bright and the gauntness of ill health showed in the hollowed cheeks and the thin hands that lay folded on a blanket of grey wool.

Softly, and with surprising gentleness the Old Man said, “Mablung my child, how you have suffered. But you are well and safe with us now.” And as the dark, haunted eyes shifted from the Captain to the tall stranger in the room, “This is the Lord Boromir. See how even the great and good have come to see you. You must be the luckiest cub in all of Ithilien.”

 Feeling unaccountably nettled, Boromir said as kindly as he could, “Nay Mablung, do not rise on my account. I do not count myself greater or better than any man who has shed his blood for Gondor’s sake, as you have.”   

Struggling to sit up, the boy fastened his dark gaze on the Old Man, “Oh sir,” he cried, “Arvegil is dead! I could not save him -”

“Help him up Faramir, if you will. Sit with him and let him lean on your shoulder.” There was an awkward pause as Faramir, woken from some reverie, trotted rapidly over from his place by the door and without meeting the sharp glance of his Captain, began propping the boy up. And when Mablung was comfortable at last, the Old Man spoke again.

“Mablung, we need to know what happened to you and how Arvegil met his end. It is very important that you should tell us everything you remember.”   

With a small sigh Mablung began, “The Hunt was a day and a night gone, and at dawn on the second day, I saw fresh tracks no more than half an hour old. It was a party of five or perhaps six men heading due west but doubling back again and again. We thought at first that they were the hunters and we lay up in the ruins of an old smithy, waiting for them to pass. And they did. It was a small band of Haradrim, five men. There was a tall bearded one at their head, and Arvegil said afterwards – for I did not see his face myself - that he was very dark like the men of the south, but with yellow eyes like a wolf.”  

At this the Old Man shifted uneasily in his seat. “A man with yellow eyes, you say? Carry on.”

“Then we ran as though all the hosts of Mordor were after us.” He stopped, licking his lips, remembered terror in his eyes. “We meant to make our way south, to the ruined watch tower on a low hill close to the Anduin, and there raise the alarm. But they were upon us within the hour and we could do nothing but turn and draw our swords. Arvegil cut down a man almost at once, and as he fell, I saw that he had stolen one of our black smoke signals, so I took it – ”

“Black smoke signal?” the Captain interrupted, and glancing at Faramir saw a puzzlement that mirrored his own.

“Yes, sir. I put it in my satchel, if I have not lost it, that is.”         

The Old Man turned to his sister, a question in his eyes. “Nienna?”

Without a word, she nodded and brought from a small table in the corner of the room, a battered pack, cracked and stiffened by river water. “Here it is,” she said, “Neither Morwen nor I have touched it since Mablung came to us.”

The buckles had to be pried apart and as the flap opened, a handful of objects tumbled onto the grey wool blanket - sodden raisins wrapped in a soiled handkerchief, a spare brace of throwing knives, a coil of rope and last of all a tubular thing the height of a man’s palm. Gingerly, the Old Man took it up.   

Faramir said, “Sir, it looks like one of ours. Only –” he broke off frowning, “It cannot be.”

“So it does,” the Captain whistled softly, turning the black cylindrical object round in his long fingers. “The make is the same, but this thing is no creation of ours.” Handing it to Boromir, he said, “My Lord, the men of Ithilien have never used black smoke signals. Not at any time in our history and certainly not now. And the art of making of such devices confined to a small company of men sworn to secrecy.”

“That makes your task simpler, does it not?”

Staring hard, the Old Man replied, “Yes, but no Captain relishes calling any man of his a traitor,” then to Mablung he commanded, “Go on, let us hear the rest of this sorry tale.”        

“I killed another man with my bow and it was hot work for a while, but it was three of them to the two of us. When I took a dagger to the belly, Arvegil told me to flee while he held them off. To my shame, I did as he bade me. So I bound the wound as best as I could, blundered my way towards the Great River and hid in a hollow oak. I must have fainted, for when I woke, night had fallen. In the moonlight, I saw tracks moving water-wards, the footsteps of one man pursued by three others – I followed them, and there among the rushes I found him.”

 “Sir, he died with his eyes open, Eru help me, I could not close them!” Mablung cried, his voice breaking as he cuffed away the tears that slid down his cheeks. “I shall never forget it sir, he had a great black wound in his throat and –”

“Oh Mablung,” Faramir whispered and drew the boy close, smoothing the dark hair that clung damp and lank on his fevered brow. They were silent for a long while until Mablung’s sobs faded, the Old Man sitting hunched over on his stool, stony faced, but when he spoke again, it was with great kindness. “Mablung, did you see anyone else? Did you see the man with the wolf’s eyes?”

“No. There was no one. I slipped Arvegil’s body into the river, for I feared what they might do to him. Then I lay down, for I was weary past caring, and when I woke again, it was you I saw. Did I do wrong?” he asked tremulously.

 “No, you did very well,” the Old Man said, laying a light hand on the boy’s cheek. 

“Have we… have I failed?”

 “No, my child. You have showed the courage of Húrin before the throne of Morgoth. Rest and do not trouble yourself, and by and by you will return to us and take your place among the Brotherhood.”

Then Mablung lay back and closed his eyes, and Nienna who had come and gone from the sickroom in her quiet unobtrusive way, laid a hand on her brother’s shoulder, “Haldor, Mablung must have his rest. He should not be over-tired.”

“Of course,” the Old Man rising briskly to his feet, “My Lord Boromir, I believe that we have a good many matters to speak of. If you will come to my study, none shall disturb us there.”

“Aye, that we do.”

Then Faramir said, “May I stay with Mablung a while?”

“Please Mistress, let Faramir stay,” the boy pleaded, “I should like some company.”

With a smile she replied “Aye, my Lord Faramir may stay if he makes himself useful.”

“I am always useful, O lady of the house,” Faramir answered brightly. “Mablung, would you like some broth? Morwen makes the best broth in the world.”

 “Hush, Faramir, don’t let Morwen hear you or you’ll be having broth for the rest of the week,” the Captain said with a wry grin. “This way, my Lord Boromir. Nienna, tell Morwen to send us some sweet wine and those little honey cakes of yours.” And as he stepped over the threshold, Boromir caught a glint of wicked laughter in his brother’s eye. 

*          *          *         

“By the Valar, that was some story,” Boromir said leaning back in his hard comfortless chair. The study had once been a sleeping chamber judging by the ancient mosaics on the floor and the faded frescoes on the walls, and in high summer it would have been very pleasant, for the long folding windows opened almost into the path outside. One could quite literally step from the room into the round pond with its small darting flame-coloured fish. Now, it was merely cold, and a three-legged brazier with an eagle’s head for a handle stood beside the heavy table of lebethron wood that served as Haldor’s desk. Lining the study were many low shelves sagging with books on medicine, music and history.      

 “We have a traitor in our midst,” the Old Man said grimly. Across the desk cleared of its habitual clutter, he poured two cups of hot spiced wine and handed one to Boromir. “Or a renegade.” 

“A renegade ranger?” Boromir sat up. “What makes you say that?”

“Five years ago a man of ours vanished on a patrol near Minas Ithil, a troop leader, no less; a tall dark man, with eyes the colour of the amber that comes from Far Harad. His mother was of the Haradrim, but his father’s people were from Belfalas by the sea. He was among our best men, and had I not been elected to the Captaincy by a mere three votes, he would be standing in my place today.” Cradling the steaming cup in his hands, the Captain said, “That was why I wished to hear Mablung’s story before I told you of the tidings I bring. Mablung spoke of this man my Lord, but a dispatch came yesterday from one who goes about my business in Ithilien, and it seems that he was sighted a fortnight ago at a tavern in Harlond. And by sheer chance, a pair of cubs making their way back to Henneth Annûn found a cache of Southron weapons not two hours’ march north of Osgiliath.  If Arvegil saw rightly, our man has returned.”         

“Has this renegade of yours a name?”

“We knew him as Ragnor son of Herumor.” Very quietly, the Old Man said, “Whatever he is called now, I shall hunt him down and kill him with my own hands.”

“You will report this to my father I assume, given that this touches so closely upon the security of our realm?”

“Aye my Lord, you assume rightly. More than that, this is a matter for the Council. This man knows our ways and all our secret places, and Eru only knows what he has betrayed to his new masters.” More wine sloshed into the two empty cups on the table. “Here, have some,” the Captain said, pushing a plate piled with honey cakes across. “Something sweet to take away the bitterness of betrayal.”

Boromir helped himself to a honey cake he did not want. It was as hard and dry as a biscuit and as he chewed manfully away, he wondered if Haldor had teeth of iron. He washed the lot down with wine and after a small pause said, “It is time we spoke of the reason why I summoned you here. My brother has served with you for three years. He has learned much from you and your people, and for that, my father and I are grateful, but he must now leave the Company of Ithilien and return to his own. By my father’s command I am to bring him back to Minas Tirith on the morrow’s morrow.”

The green gaze narrowed. “So. You are taking him to the White City. May I ask why?”

“Haldor, let us not quarrel. I come in peace, and if there is nothing else we can agree upon this night, know that I too desire the best for Faramir, for he is my only brother and therefore, dearer to me than my own life.”  

“There is one thing I would ask of you,” he said slowly.

“Well, what is it?”

Seeing the deep furrow between the other man’s brows, the Captain smiled sadly, shaking his head. The old suspicions ran deep, and for once, he did not begrudge Boromir the impatience that subtly betrayed itself in the tenseness of hand, jaw and eye. “You mistake me, my Lord. I seek no boon for myself. I only ask that you plead Faramir’s cause before my Lord Steward, that he should choose his own path.  Faramir is no longer the boy my Lord Denethor sent us three summers ago; he is a man now and knows his own mind. All his life, he has done his father’s bidding – not always willingly, I’ll grant you that – but with faith and constancy. And all his life, he has stood in your shadow,” and as Boromir made to speak, he held up his hand, “Nay, my Lord, listen to me for I speak naught but the truth, and this you know well in your own heart. Faramir loves you, but it is in Ithilien that he is loved by his brothers for his own sake; and so in Ithilien he has made himself in his own image, a man, a poet, a peace-maker, a warrior among warriors. Already, he is learning something of the art of commanding men; in time, he will grow in wisdom and strength, and one day he shall stand tall among his brother rangers, a Captain in his own right, and not by mere accident of birth. Will you see all that taken from him? Will you deny him a life wholly of his own making? In the Tower Guard, he will never be anything more than the Steward’s second son, your younger brother.”       

“Faramir has said something of the same to me.”

“Has he?”

“Yes,” Boromir said simply. “He wishes to stay with you and his sword brothers, and I gave him my word that I will not thwart his purpose.”

“If that is so, you have my gratitude my Lord.”

Boromir came to his feet and said, “Here, take my hand Haldor, if we cannot be friends, let there be a truce between us for my brother’s sake.” And as the Old Man rose slowly from his seat, they struck hands.

“A truce, my Lord. Let it be so,” the Old Man said, a reluctant smile spreading across his face.

*          *          *

Author’s note:

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! I’m glad you enjoyed it! I am honestly very humbled and quite amazed to find that LOTR fans are still reading my stories which have not been updated for years! Thanks again for the very kind reviews. : )

When I started this story, I wanted to explore Faramir’s early years in the Rangers – the difficulties he might have had fitting in, the personalities and events that might have influenced him, the journey from boy to man and the accumulation of wisdom and experience that turned him into the kind, noble and courageous Captain he was in the Lord of the Rings. I always had the beginning and the end firmly fixed in my mind – it was the middle that had always been missing – but it is coming together now, though not as I thought it might be! The fraught relationship between Haldor, Boromir and to some extent Denethor (which was not the original plan) with Faramir caught in the middle is beginning to take shape and I will probably be developing this theme further. Haldor in particular seems to be writing himself, and I’m not sure what he’ll be doing next in his quest for vengeance, except that he’s busy hatching a plan to trap his erstwhile comrade. I’m also spoiling for a fight, so I’m hoping to write an action scene within the next few chapters!

In my mind, Denethor, Boromir and the absent Finduilas have always played a large part in Faramir’s story, and the next chapter (set partially in Minas Tirith) will explore in some detail the dynamics of the Steward’s family, and I’m wondering if Imrahil should make a guest appearance. Thanks to those who commented on the nature of the Faramir-Denethor relationship – I am aware that there is quite a bit of fascinating debate on this, and I will think about it carefully when I write the next chapter. To me there is no doubt that Denethor does love Faramir (though less than his brother), but is for various reasons unable or unwilling to express that love. My version of Denethor has never been able to let go of Finduilas; the irrational part of him remains resentful that Faramir took the love of his life away from him, while the more sensible part knows that this is wholly illogical and is ashamed of his inability to control his emotions. He is also something of an autocrat and in this fic, Faramir learns to manage his relationship with Denethor: when to choose his battles, and when to bow to his father’s authority. Thus he grows from the independent-minded and passionate boy in my old fic “A Gift and a Promise” into the dutiful son who yet dares risks his father’s wrath by denying the allure of the One Ring.        

Description-wise, I have a long-standing fascination with the decline of ancient Rome, and Haldor’s house is based on the concept of a decaying Romano-British villa with gardens, frescoes and mosaics going to ruin. The three-legged eagle brazier was drawn from a picture of a similar Han dynasty object I Googled while doing my research for an original fic.

I’m off for a vacation at the end of this week, so the next update will probably be two to three weeks from now. Until then, take care!   

Chapter 8: Of Farewells and a Promise Kept

            “Away with you child, and cease your meddling!”

            “Oh Morwen, I was only trying to help.” The bowl of sugar she had been holding was whisked away and a pair of determined hands steered her into the courtyard.    

            “Sweeting, did your mother never tell you that no kitchen is big enough for two women? Get you gone and leave me to my baking, or in Yavanna’s name there shall be no cake for our lordly guests!”

            At the doorway, Nienna lingered in the shadow of the broken eave tiles that Haldor had been too busy to mend, poised between passionate argument and submission. Then with a small sigh, she stepped into the warmth of the mid-morning sun and yielded to Morwen the reign of her chosen realm. From within came the clash of pans, the wood-smoke smell of the range being fired, and above it all, Morwen’s loud muttering about mule-headed young ladies and weevils in the flour.

           Nienna was not used to idleness; like her brother, there was something restless in her nature, and banished as she was from the kitchen, she was miserable. The house was in turmoil, as it always was before Haldor’s departures but never before had she been made to feel so shut out from his world, and through him, the world beyond the quiet undemanding life that was her own. For the past hour, Haldor and the two young lords who were their guests had sealed themselves in his study, and the grave hushed voices that carried into the corridor as she passed on her way to do battle with Morwen in the kitchen told her nothing of the matters that they spoke of within. Even Mablung had no need of her, for the fever had left him at last, and he had flung himself with all the energy of impatient convalescence into burnishing the weapons of his comrades to a parade ground shine.

             She skirted the walled garden, her nimble feet following an ancient paved path round the house, past the thorny wild rose bushes and foxgloves at the height of their summer blooming; she needed no guide, for she knew every step, having trodden it in darkness since she was five years old.

              It was a place imprisoned forever in her unchanging memory, the lichened statue of a child in its livery of green and gold bearing a water jug whose trickling fountain had dried long before her grandfather’s day, small silver fish darting and rippling in a round stone basin of dark fathomless water. To her, it would always be summer here, for this was one of her last sighted memories and as the years passed, it did not grow dull as tapestries faded with time, but with each remembrance, it became brighter and more beautiful until she could no longer be sure what was real and what her mind’s eye had embellished.   

             The weathered stone bench was rough and sun-warm under her fingers, and Nienna never knew how long she sat there lost in birdsong and the strange heaviness of her heart, until steps startled her and she turned, half rising from her seat. 

             “Little sister, what are you doing here?”

            The sound of his voice brought a smile to her lips and she came to him with a child’s unfeigned eagerness. “Sunning myself like a lazy cat since your medicine chest is full again and Morwen has driven me from the kitchen. She is becoming tyrannical in her old age.”  

            As Nienna made room for her brother, he said drily, “Aye, Morwen is giving us enough supplies for a small army on a month-long march. How we shall fit all that food into two miserly saddlebags apiece is quite beyond me.”

            “Oh, Morwen will manage somehow,” she laughed. “Are you sure that you will not stay for dinner? There is some of yesterday’s pie left and Morwen is baking a seed cake.”    

            “Dearest child, I cannot. It is nearly noon and my journey is a long one. I ride with Faramir and his noble brother as far as the nearest ford, before our paths divide. I shall go north for two days, while they take the old road towards Osgiliath and then to the White City. With Morwen’s ministrations, you need not fear that dinner will be anything less than a movable feast.”

           He had thought to make her smile again, but she did not, and he saw the sudden misery in her face, the whiteness of her fingers clenched against the russet wool of her dress.   

            With grave gentleness, he asked, “Little sister, what is the matter?”

            “Oh it is nothing! Only… it is only that I shall miss –” she reddened, and after a pause, “having someone to talk to.”

              “You have Morwen, and that young scamp Mablung until he is well again.”

              And when she did not answer, Haldor said at last, “You mean Faramir do you not?”

              She was silent until he took her hand and squeezed it. In the shifting dappled shade of the mulberry tree that sheltered them, Nienna was as still as one caught in a waking dream.

             “He will forget me.”

            “He is not the forgetful sort, nor ungrateful,” and even as he strove for her sake to keep the deep dismay from his voice, Nienna drew from the pocket of her apron a small flat package that she held out in a slim trembling hand.   

             With painful eagerness, she said, “I made this for him,” and waited breathless, for her brother’s judgment.

             Haldor took it, and after a few moments of agony, said with great care, “A thoughtful gift, and one I think that Faramir will hold close to his heart, for he sets great store by all his friends.”

             “A friend…” she said wistfully, “Aye, perhaps he is that,” and took the gift back into her keeping.

             He said nothing for a time, turning her words over and over again in his mind, for what he knew now woke the guilt that had long slumbered in his heart. “Tell me Nienna – in truth – have you been very lonely these two summers since father died?”

             “Only a little, but it matters not,” she answered a little too quickly, then turned to him so that he saw all the fiery passion of youth kindled in her face. “Oh Haldor, how I wish I were a man and not blind so that I could ride away with you. It is hard sometimes to stay here with Morwen always and always. It is as though I have spent all my life in waiting, for you to come home, for things - anything at all - to happen.”

                “There were times when I was young and foolish that I wished the same, but Nienna, do you not know that you are all I have? You are my dearest sister, and not for any treasure on Middle Earth, not even for the king of Gondor himself, if he returned, would I exchange you for any brother however whole or valiant.” Tenderly, he reached out and tucked a long strand of brown hair behind her ear, “Ithilien is no place for a chit like you, and by the Halls of Mandos I am glad that nothing ever happens here – home should always remain as it is, with you and Morwen to keep it so for me.”

             She was smiling now, “Then you had best come home sooner and sell me to the highest bidder.”

            “Aye if that is your wish,” he answered, more soberly than she thought he would, “But I would not see you unhappy Nienna, and you know that the great and lordly often are.”

            “Yes, I do,” she said with gentle irony. “But you need not fear for me Haldor; you must not. After all, one cannot live without sorrow, and neither you nor Morwen can keep me safe forever. That is a lesson I learned long ago.” 

            He felt a stab of grief, all the sharper for being unexpected; by force of habit he let none of it show in his face though with her there was no need for dissembling. And in that moment, he saw her as he had never done – no longer the child she had always been in his eyes - but a young woman, strong and slender and beautiful as a finely tempered blade. She would never be invulnerable, for it was not so that the younger children of Illuvatar were made, but it was from her very weakness that strength and courage sprang. For that he loved her, she who was at once his burden and his life’s joy.    

            Taking her hands, Haldor pulled her to her feet and led her to the path that would bring them back to the house, “How wise you have become, Nienna. Very well, but I would have you remember one thing.”

            “And what is that?”

            “Where there is great love, there is also great sorrow. Never forget that, little sister.”

 *                  *                   *

            Nienna followed them for some distance, alone on foot among three horsemen. In the green shade of the weeping willow trees that grew by the wayside, the brown dirt path straggled its way to a bridge that was old even in King Eärnur’s day. There was no need for it now, for the stream it once straddled had turned from its course and left nothing in its wake but a brook so narrow that an intrepid boy could leap it without wetting his feet.       

            Silence too had followed them most of the way, and when they crested the bridge the Old Man swung his horse round. “Goodbye my little dragonling,” he said, and stooping from the saddle, he kissed her cheek.

            Boromir, reining in, bowed with solemn unsmiling grace. “Thank you my lady for your hospitality. We owe you a great debt, and I shall see that it is repaid. For my brother and myself, I wish you health and good fortune.”

            Nienna said nothing at first, a small flame of anger growing in her heart, but even as she quenched it, she made her obeisance. “There is no debt for a service freely given, no payment due where none is sought. I wish you safe journey my Lord.”

            She would have gone then, back into her old life, willing herself to forget that her small peaceful world had once collided with another far brighter and infinitely boundless in its possibilities. She would have remembered also that the one person in that world who mattered had not spoken on her behalf, his lustre tarnished forever.     

            Of the three men he was the youngest, and from the time they left the Captain’s house he had begun to slip quietly back into the mould that had been cast for him, and every fibre of his being fought against it. That it was his place to stand always in Boromir’s shadow he knew and accepted without resentment, but the part of him that belonged to only himself, the part that Gondor, his father and Boromir could lay no claim to shuddered and cried for liberty. But he knew also that the last of his freedom lay within his power, and what little he had he must give to her now before it was taken from him. When he raised his fair head and saw the pride glowing in the Old Man’s eyes and the reluctant admiration in Boromir’s he said, “Do you go ahead brother while I make my farewell.”

            A fleeting frown crossed Boromir’s brow. “Very well, but do not tarry. We shall wait by the milestone outside the village.”

             “Aye. I shall not be long.”     

             Faramir watched them for a long while, each man riding a little apart from the other, before he slid from the saddle and came to her. She could not see how pale he was, nor could she see the smile that he mustered for her sake. Greatly daring, he took her hand and closed her slender work-reddened fingers over a smooth round thing that sat perfectly in her palm.

               With a tremor in his voice, he began, “My lady, I should like you to have this. It is nothing much I’m afraid, but it will keep your hands cool in summer. I found this pebble prowling the strands of Dol Amroth when I was a small boy and I have kept it by me ever since. My uncle told me that it is as old as Arda itself, worn and tossed about by the sea; it is as grey as the sky in winter, with a white shape in the middle of it like a seagull in flight. It has been to me a memory of – of happier times, and it is my hope that you will remember with kindness the one who gave it to you.”

              The tumble of words ceased; he let her go, suddenly afraid that he had offended her with his forwardness or the meagerness of his gift, but he saw with relief that he need not have worried, for she was smiling and there was a radiance about her that had not been there before.     

             “I shall keep it as carefully as you have, my Lord,” she said quietly, “But I need no gift to remember you with kindness.” From the satchel she carried, Nienna drew a wallet of white linen fastened with a ribbon of black silk, and he saw with wonder that at the centre of it, a small tree and its crown of seven stars had been embroidered in black and silver thread. “This is my gift to you,” and as he took it, she flushed, “I ask only that you open it at your journey’s end.”  

             “You have my promise.”

            They stood for a time without speaking. Farewells did not come easily to either of them, and Faramir was loathe to begin his journey, for he might never pass her way again. Yet, the time for parting had come, and as he reached for the reins and looped them around his wrist, he turned to look upon her for the last time.

           “Will you send me word of your safe return? It will gladden my heart to know that all is well with you.”

            In the small silence that followed, he took her hand and kissed it. “Yes, I will. Farewell my lady, and may the sun and stars shine upon you.”

             “And may the Valar keep you,” she replied softly, “till we meet again.”         

             She stood on the bridge listening, long after horse and rider had passed from her hearing, and for the first time in many years, she felt the bitterness of her affliction. She would have given much for the sight of him, to look her fill and remember for ever afterwards, the sun on his hair, the brightness of his eyes, but she had to be content instead, with the sound of his voice and the shape of his hand in hers. Then she remembered that she had more than that; the smooth, cool stone that she held now in her own had been to him a precious symbol of a childhood joy long vanished. He had entrusted to her his happiness, and that she would guard with her life.  

 *                  *                   *

            The door swung open, and Faramir paused at the threshold of the unhappy boyhood he had left behind. All was as it had been when he closed this very same door on a warm summer’s morning three years before. He remembered the rawness of his boyish grief, the golden window- square on the worn carpet as he crossed the chamber to touch for the very last time, the books he had loved.

            They were there still, in their tall ornate bookcase by the casement that opened to the green, beloved hills of Ithilien. They had waited for him faithfully, these his books, and as he slid a slim volume of poetry from its place, he closed his eyes as the familiar words, long ago committed to memory sprang to life, for they had been spoken a score of times to hungry listeners across camp fires in Ithilien. But neither the sun-faded spines under his fingers nor the scent of paper browned by years and long use could take from him the sense of belonging to another world; it was as though he had crossed the Sundering Seas and now, there was no way back.

            For a while he stood surveying the room that had been his refuge; these whitewashed walls had witnessed his joys and sorrows and kept his childish secrets. He had returned, a stranger in a home no longer his, and as he cast himself onto the bed, a shocking thought came to him: that perhaps home was anywhere but here, that the ruined splendour of Ithilien, his uncle’s Hall with its laughter and music, even the Old Man’s crumbling villa in wilds of Anorien had been more home than this…

              I ask only that you open it at your journey’s end.

              How could he have forgotten? Muttering an oath, Faramir propped himself up on one elbow, reached for his satchel and with the impatience of the very young, shook out its contents onto the rough woollen blanket. The last thing that tumbled out he snatched with a jealous hand, an embroidered wallet of white linen fastened with a knot of black silk. For three days he had burned with curiosity and not even when he took his turn alone at the watch, with his sword across his knees while Boromir slept across the banked fire, did he open it. She would never have known, but he had always been fastidious about keeping his word.

               Now he unfastened it with reverence, and as the cloth unfolded, he found to his surprise and delight a strange ivory-handled implement with a tip very much like a blunt needle and two sheets of parchment. Eagerly, he flattened both and saw that one was filled with nothing more than raised dots that he could trace with his fingertips, and the other was the key to the puzzle she had set, for each alphabet had been written in a firm black hand, and below it, a pattern of dots.

               He rose at once, brimming with happiness, half-running to the battered writing desk by the window and before long, he had copied in his own small careful script, the very letter she had written, in the secret language that he now shared with her.  

              To my Lord Faramir of Gondor, I Nienna daughter of Daeron, send greetings and the bonds of friendship and affection.         

             I pray that you will not think me too audacious to write thus to you, for I desire only to be assured that you have returned to your father’s house unharmed and in better health than you left mine.   

             My Lord, you asked me not many days ago if you could learn the writing that my father devised for me. I beg you therefore, to keep the enclosure to this letter and the pen that I send with it as tokens of my esteem and the means for your study.   

             May the grace of the Valar be upon you. Farewell.

            “No, Nienna, the audacity and the esteem are mine, and you shall have proof of them by my own hand,” he whispered, and the warm glow of pleasure still coloured his cheeks when Boromir came striding in.

           “Brother, I see that you have had good tidings?”  

            “Aye, from a friend.” With deliberate nonchalance, he slipped his treasure trove into a drawer and turned the key. 

            Boromir, whose keen eyes missed nothing said lightly, “A secret friend? Nay I shall not pry, but I have news for you.”   

            “As you see, I am waiting with scarce-concealed enthusiasm. Make haste and tell me before you burst.” 

            Laughing, Boromir said, “Our uncle arrived this morning,” and as Faramir leapt to his feet, “You needn’t be in such a hurry. Father hauled him into the Council Chamber the moment he set foot here and neither of them has been seen since, but Nahar says that we will meet him at supper, or so our father has decreed.”      

            A sudden stillness had come over his brother and for a moment Faramir seemed unreachable, as though he had put up his shield between himself and the world. When he spoke again, his voice held only a quiet desolation, “Did Nahar say that father – did he send for me?”               

            Boromir flung an arm over his young brother’s shoulder, “No, he did not, but when he does, I shall stand with you, as will our uncle.” 

 *                  *                   *

Author’s Note

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter! Unfortunately this one has been a long time coming because real life work got in the way.

Denethor and Imrahil were meant to appear here, but as I wrote, it grew far longer than I expected and had to be split in two. But they will definitely be starring in the next one!

For Nienna’s letter, I did a little research on mediaeval letter writing and borrowed the style from this source:

http://www.dragonbear.com/letters.html  

I hope this chapter has been an enjoyable one!