Precisely at noon the next day, Aragorn stepped out onto a terrace overlooking the public plaza at the Citadel. Arwen glided into place beside him. She had dressed up for the occasion in a loose, flowing gown of imported Harad silk, its cheerful rose color enhancing the blush in her cheeks. Aragorn had heard men speak of the way their wives glowed when expecting a child, but he had never quite believed it until now. Arwen did not glow, at least not yet, but Aragorn could certainly see how her beauty might develop into a glow in the months to come.

He hoped the people of the White City could see it as well. Thousands of them crowded the plaza, farmers and merchants and nobles, all waiting to hear the special announcement that the King's criers had promised. The appearance of the King and Queen on the terrace prompted a flurry of last-minute fidgeting and jostling and hoisting of small children onto shoulders. When the activity below had settled down, Aragorn stepped to the rail of the terrace and took a deep breath.

"Good folk of Minas Tirith," he began. "I would share with you some most important news. An event has taken place which will forever change the House of Telcontar." Aragorn paused, and the crowd held its breath. "Your Queen, Arwen Undómiel, is with child and will be a mother this coming winter."

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the crowd let loose a roar of surprise and approval. Aragorn motioned to Arwen, and she stepped forward, causing the crowd below to cheer even louder. She blushed and dipped her head, acknowledging the cheers. As they began to die down, Arwen raised her head and smiled down at the people below.

"I thank you for your well wishes, people of Minas Tirith," she said. "I have no doubt that if such wishes await him, the child will be strong and healthy." The crowd cheered its approval, and Arwen withdrew, smiling warmly all the time. Aragorn laid a hand on her shoulder, and the King and Queen retired from the terrace to the small sitting room within.

"They love you nearly as much as I do," Aragorn observed. "They send enough good wishes to protect you and a host of new children."

As it turned out, the citizens of Minas Tirith sent more than just their good wishes. The public scribes seemed to have been deluged with business as short letters began to pour into the Citadel addressed to the Queen. Most were notes of congratulations, though not a few contained advice from older women concerning childbirth and the raising of children. Arwen and her maidens derived much pleasure from these letters, reading bits of them out loud to each other, laughing at the anecdotes offered as evidence or studying the more practical bits of advice with reverent care.

"Here," Aragorn said with a smile, dropping five new letters and a small box into Arwen's lap. "Yet more advice from the sagest mother hens of all Gondor has arrived for you."

Arwen opened the box eagerly and looked inside. Immediately, she let out a startlingly loud shriek and dropped it to the floor. A horrible dead, dried lizard fell out and lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with cold, lifeless eyes. The maidens came running to soothe the Queen, and Doronrîn and Ioreth appeared at the door.

"What is the matter?" Doronrîn asked.

"That -- that thing!" Arwen gasped, pointing to the lizard. "It was sent to me in a box!"

Doronrîn knelt down and examined the dead lizard. "Who would do such a thing?" she wondered, puzzled and suspicious. Ioreth bent down, looked at the lizard and laughed.

"You have nothing to fear, my Lady," she chuckled. "This is no insult; rather, it is an old charm from Lebennin. There, it is believed that the lizard, worn on a thong around the waist of the mother-to-be, will protect her from evil. See," she said, holding up a scrap of leather, "here is the thong to wear it on."

Arwen and Aragorn and Doronrîn stared at Ioreth. Arwen found her voice first.

"Oh," she said. "It is . . . a kind gesture, I think, though most certainly unexpected."

"Perhaps we should arrange a royal visit to Lebennin while the weather remains clement," Aragorn mused. "The better for a grateful Queen to display her new luck-ornament." He winked at Arwen, who shot him a mock glare through narrowed eyes.

Doronrîn sighed. "I fear I shall never understand the ways of Men," she said dubiously.

Arwen was especially glad of the letters offering advice. Many of the women of Minas Tirith had had experience with morning sickness and had offered various home remedies for the condition. Arwen tried several and discovered that a small piece of candied ginger root quelled the nausea most effectively. She had saved the letters carefully in a wooden box, and took them out to reread whenever she felt nervous.

Her nocturnal visits to the Archive decreased in frequency, although sometimes Aragorn would still wake in the middle of the night to find himself alone in the great bed. He no longer feared for Arwen now that he knew that Halandir would sit up for her, and when he woke alone now, he would roll over and return to sleep.

One night, Halandir's curiosity got the better of him. He set his book down on his bench and quietly slipped into the Archive, coughing discreetly to alert the Queen to his presence. She looked up sharply from a pile of books and old sheets of parchment, then smiled wanly at him.

"Be welcome in your own realm, Master Archivist," she said.

Halandir could feel the blush creeping up from his neck. "Forgive my intrusion, my Lady. I -- I only wished to know what it was that my Lady sought here. I thought that I might be able to be of assistance, perhaps."

The Queen sighed. "I seek a text that does not exist," she told him. "I have searched and searched for such a text, and I think I must admit defeat."

"What manner of text do you seek?"

"I seek a healers' text that would treat with matters specific to women."

"Specific to women, my Lady?"

"Yes." The Queen frowned a little. "I wish to read about matters relating to childbirth, but there are no texts to be found on that subject. There is much to read about disease and healing the wounds of battle, but I can find nothing written about childbirth."

"Ah." Halandir eased himself into a chair across from the Queen. This conversation would require a certain amount of diplomacy, and it was not a topic he was at all comfortable talking about, but he would do his best. "I had always understood that women did not need to learn such matters from books," he ventured. "My own wife, may she rest in peace, gave birth to our children without studying beforehand."

"Perhaps the daughters of Men may know instinctively what to do and what to expect, but I do not."

"The daughters of Men are not so wise as my Lady would credit them," Halandir said. "I imagine that they learn from one another. Most of them probably learn from their mothers."

The Queen's eyes shone liquid in the candlelight. "My mother departed these shores long before you were born, Master Archivist."

"Oh. I am sorry for your loss." He had not known, and the discovery pained him. "Is there no one my Lady may confide in? A midwife, perhaps?"

"I should tell Mistress Ioreth and Lady Doronrîn more of my thoughts," the Queen admitted. "But there never seems to be a way to broach the subject." She laid her hand on a small wooden box at her side. "Many of the women of this city have sent messages with advice. I cannot adequately express my gratitude for these messages. I wish that all of their words of wisdom could be bound together and kept for other women in my position without mothers to guide them."

"My Lady is most kind to think of the distress of others even in the depths of her own need," Halandir said gently. "I believe that, were my Lady to gather together the wisdom she has been given, I could bind the text and preserve it for generations to come."

The Queen gave Halandir a wide, beautiful smile. "That would be a regal gift to a Queen," she said. "I thank you for this offer, and I shall begin to compile this wisdom tomorrow." She stood and began to gather the scattered books and scrolls together.

"Leave them," Halandir said. "I will return them to their places. I would wish my Lady a pleasant rest."

"Thank you, Master Archivist," the Queen said. "You have eased my heart greatly this night, though you did not have to do so."

"I am ever at my Lady's service." Halandir bowed deeply, and the Queen slipped out of the Archive, closing the door silently behind her.

"Push! Push! Do not stop! Push!" Ioreth chanted. Doronrîn knelt beside the mother-to-be, supporting her as she squatted over the clean linens on the bed. The laboring woman's face was red and twisted with effort. At Ioreth's encouragement, she gritted her teeth and bore down hard once more.

Doronrîn had asked to witness a birth among the Men of the city, as she wished to observe how the Secondborn handled the event. She was surprised at the amount of time that the labor had already consumed, and she wondered how it was that the daughters of Men could bear the pains of labor for so long. Although their bodies were frail compared to those of the Elves, and their eyes and ears dull, Doronrîn had to admit that the stamina of the laboring Secondborn women was something to be admired.

"One more time!" Ioreth sang. "Push! Push hard, mother!" The woman screwed up her face, grasped Ioreth's and Doronrîn's shoulders and pushed. With a long, slithery squish, the infant slid free of its mother into Ioreth's waiting hands. Exhausted, the woman sat back on her bed as Ioreth laid the squalling baby on her stomach.

"See your child, Mistress," she said proudly. "You have worked hard, and you have a fine son as a reward."

"I shall name him Falborn," the woman said dreamily, "after my father." She hummed softly as she counted the baby's fingers. Ioreth discreetly delivered the afterbirth, and then with deft fingers, she knotted thread about the cord and cut it with a little knife.

"Lady Doronrîn," she said. "If I may be so bold as to ask it of you, will you take young Falborn and bathe him in the basin which is behind you and wrap him in a warm blanket?"

"Of course." Doronrîn reached over to the new mother. "If I may, mistress?" The woman gathered the baby up and laid him in Doronrîn's arms. Doronrîn was shocked at the weight of the infant. "Sweet Elbereth, he is enormous!" she gasped.

"What? Nay," Ioreth said absently. "He is of a perfect size for a newborn, neither too large nor too small."

"Are all the children of Men so large at birth?" Doronrîn asked as she carefully wiped the baby with a dampened rag. The sheer size of the child would certainly explain the length of time it had taken to give birth to him. Not wishing to worry the new mother, Doronrîn bit her lip as she finished cleaning the baby, then carefully returned him with a gentle smile. "He is beautiful," she said kindly.

"Did you hear that, Falborn?" the mother asked her child sleepily. "One of the Fair Folk says you are beautiful. And if an Elf says it, then it must be so." Mother and child contentedly dropped off to sleep.

Doronrîn kept her silence as she helped Ioreth clean the birthing area, and without a word she took the afterbirth to the garden to bury it while Ioreth sought out the new father to inform him of his status. It was only after both midwives had washed themselves and were returning to the Houses of Healing that Doronrîn spoke.

"You did not answer my question," she said gently.

"Oh? Which question was that?"

"I wished to know if all the children of Men were born as large as that one."

Ioreth stopped walking and thought back on the many children she had ushered into the world. She could sense that the Elf lady's question had implications beyond a simple request for information, and she was not looking forward to them. "That baby was neither large nor small," she said at last. "I have caught larger ones, to be sure, and a few that were smaller. I am glad of this child's size, for the small ones do not live as long, and are sickly and weak for many years afterward."

"Oh," Doronrîn said, trying and failing to keep the concern out of her voice.

"How big are newborn Elves?" Ioreth asked.

"They are as long as young Falborn," Doronrîn said, "but they are not as broad; I would guess that Falborn weighs a quarter again as much as an Elven infant. My own were much smaller than Falborn at birth."

Ioreth stopped walking and looked Doronrîn up and down. "Yes," she said. "You are slender, like the other Elves I have encountered. The Queen's hips are slender as well. I can see that both you and she would have an easier time with smaller babes. Perhaps the Queen's child will take after its mother."

"But the King is a Man both tall and broad," Doronrîn said. "It is likely he would sire larger children than would an Elf."

"Yes," Ioreth admitted. "That is very likely. I suppose we will not know until it is close to the Queen's time."

The two midwives began walking again. They returned to the Citadel in pensive silence, each trying to remember her most successful techniques for delivering a mother of an overly large child.

"What news, Lord Peredur?" Aragorn asked. The noble from Dol Amroth bowed at the door to the throne room, then approached the royal dais with a letter in hand.

"A message is newly arrived from Ithilien," he said. "It seems that there is a caravan of Haradaic traders and nobles who would seek to enter an agreement with Gondor. They are camped not far from the residence of Lord Faramir and Lady Éowyn. Lord Faramir writes that the leader of the caravan is none other than the Lord of Harad himself. Lord Faramir has met with him and believes him to be in good faith. He entreats my Lord to travel to Ithilien to meet with the Haradrim, hear their proposals, and inspect the goods they have to offer."

Aragorn took the letter from Peredur's outstretched hand and read it through. From Faramir's brief description, the trading goods seemed intriguing enough to be worth at least an investigation. He trusted Faramir's instincts about the intentions of the Haradrim, as his Steward had always had a knack for judging people accurately. The prospect of this short journey was appealing. And, Aragorn admitted to himself, it would be a good excuse for Arwen to travel as well. Now that the trauma of the initial months of her pregnancy was receding, Arwen was growing restless. He did not know when or if women needed to be confined as pregnancy progressed. Better to take Arwen traveling now, lest the opportunity vanish. He looked up at Peredur and nodded.

"Please send a message back to Ithilien to Lord Faramir. Tell him that the Queen and I will set forth in two days at the latest. We will hear what these Haradrim have to say and see what they offer us. Perhaps this will be an enriching experience for all concerned."

"Very well, my Lord. I shall send out a rider within the hour." Peredur clicked his heels together, bowed, and left.

Aragorn spent the next hour making arrangements for proxies to carry out his administrative duties while he was away. There were a few lords in the Citadel, some of them natives of Gondor and some of the ranks of the Dúnedain, whom he had entrusted with the power to act in his name on the occasions that he chose to travel through his kingdom. This delegation had been Arwen's idea, enabling him to enjoy the old thrill of travel while at the same time forging a closer relationship between the scattered folk of Gondor and the Crown. The ability to make these short trips had brought him great pleasure, and he felt that it had improved the cohesion of Gondor. Now, he hoped that Arwen would at last be able to derive some enjoyment from a royal journey as well.

When his schedule was properly juggled and pages dispatched to notify the relevant proxy lords, Aragorn set out to find Arwen and inform her of the chance to travel. He noted that the day was warm and sunny and decided to look first in the gardens.

Sure enough, his instincts proved correct. Arwen was in her personal garden, in a simple linen smock, weeding a patch of sweet-smelling medicinal herbs. Her experimental beds of athelas had already been tended, as the large pail of pulled weeds near it testified. Although he entered as quietly as he could, her sensitive ears caught him coming as always, and she turned to favor him with a wide, sweet smile from underneath the wide brim of her straw bonnet. Her smile had not been so sweet for months, and Aragorn's heart sang again with love for his wife.

"You look well," he said. "It is good to see the roses return to your cheeks. How goes it with you, my love?"

"I am much improved lately." Arwen stood and brushed the loose dirt from her smock. "The folk of your realm are not only kind, but clever as well. I have received much advice from the women of Minas Tirith that has bolstered both my health and my spirits."

"I shall have to find some way to thank them. Do your spirits feel improved enough to leave the Citadel for a week?"

"A journey?" Arwen's eyes sparkled. "What is the occasion?"

"I have received word from Faramir that there is a trading caravan of Haradrim in Ithilien who wish to negotiate with Gondor," Aragorn explained. "As the Lord of Harad himself leads this caravan, I had thought to make this a full royal visit from both the King and the Queen. It may be that the King will require the eyes of the Queen to aid him in judging the quality of the goods offered in trade. And perhaps there is important diplomatic business that the Queen must transact with the Princess of Ithilien as well?"

"There is indeed," Arwen said merrily.

"Then we shall leave tomorrow morning at dawn," Aragorn told her. "Provided our estimable midwives have no objections, of course."

"I think it is perfectly safe for the Queen to travel," Ioreth assured the King. Behind her, she could sense Doronrîn tensing to speak. Quickly, she stepped on the Elf woman's foot and spoke over the resulting gasp of shock. "She will, of course, travel in a wagon."

"In a wagon?" the King asked.

"Expectant mothers do not ride horses," Ioreth said firmly. "Not unless they wish to miscarry most painfully."

"I will order the wagons to be made ready," the King said smoothly. "Are there no other objections?"

Ioreth stepped on Doronrîn's foot once more, and there were no objections from either midwife. The King smiled.

"Good. We leave on the morrow. I will see to our packing now."

The midwives curtsied and withdrew. Once in the corridor, Doronrîn opened her mouth, but Ioreth spoke first. "It is hardly the time to worry about the Queen," she said. "She is well settled in with the child now, and she will ride in a wagon. Ithilien is not so far away that there will be no chance of care for her, and it will do her good to be away from the City. Poor thing, the morning sickness did her no good at all, and I think a change is just the thing to bring her back to full bloom."

Doronrîn nodded. "Perhaps you are right," she said. "We must use our time wisely. Let us share all our knowledge of birthing and babes, that we may plan for the months ahead."