This version Beta’d by Lindorien, Lyllyn, and the incomparable Theresa Green. With the earnest hope of not offending those with grammar and spelling bumps. Plot and characterisation bumps are a matter of opinion, let me know yours.

AU Fourth Age fusion of book and movie-verse. Set ninety eight years into Aragorn’s reign.

A:L:G  OC  Friendship fic. Not slash. PG for violence and some adult dilemmas in later chapters.

Adventure

Previously posted as Unbinding the box

TBC

Adagio 2/9

"Would it please you if I directed Bess?"

Legolas tilted his head at Aragorn, who was pacing the wagon with his two guards, then Tolman, who was still sitting beside him and looking around at the vast paved plaza that backed the main gates.

Tom could see a carved stone fountain shooting jets of water merrily into the air, and, at the back of the open space, a mass of rhododendrons clinging grimly to the almost bare rock that formed the root of the Hill of Guard.

To the right, and left, a myriad of streets branched off into the city; some broad, some narrow.

The pedestrian and wheeled traffic crossed and re-crossed the square, flowing around the fountain with the ordered, but bewildering, complexity of an opened anthill.

"Please, my Lord " begged the hobbit.

With a cluck of his tongue Legolas drove the cart around the fountain and into one of the wide curved avenues paralleling the walls.

Aragorn was content to stride beside them as he had his doubts about giving Bess any extra burdens in the zigzag haul ahead. Aragorn's two missing guards caught up with them and brought another foursome from the gate guard to march behind.

Leaving Legolas to concentrate on the reins Aragorn occupied himself with pointing out buildings of interest to the rubbernecking hobbit as they picked their way along the stall-lined street.

Colourful piles of fruit and vegetables from every land were piled in pyramids, sometimes half across the pedestrian ways; the noise of hawkers and town criers was nearly deafening.

Tom could smell fresh bread, baking meats and ale as they passed the district's many hostelries.

Tubs and flowerbeds of cheerful spring flowers grew on any spare bit of land formed by the wedge shaped meeting of roads or green space left between buildings. Some even trailed from baskets swinging in the breeze in front of guesthouses and restaurants.

"Look," exclaimed Tom, pointing excitedly. "New Lampwright's Street."

The business-lined alley wound away towards the wall.

"Uncle Pippin told me about that street. There was a guest house down it where all the boys stayed."

Aragorn nodded, "Almost all of this level has been re-built since the war, but people like the old names."

As they neared the gate to the second level the crowds of basket-carrying women, darting children, laden men and yapping dogs started to thin.

The avenue became lined with warehouses, labelled with signs in the various languages of middle earth.

They passed a building with "Fine Wines of Ithilien," lettered in graceful tengwar script, and Legolas laconically returned the salutes of the three elves unloading a wain stacked with barrels.

"Good vintage this year?" Aragorn enquired with a certain vested interest.

Not fourteen twenty, but it'll serve." Legolas replied evenly.

Then they passed through the first gate and began traversing the second level.

Older buildings lined the way, facades showing evidence of Dwarven repairs.

Down side roads Tom could hear the industrious sound of tapping and hammering muffled by the intervening buildings.

Shop fronts and signs advertised clothes, money lending businesses and weapons for the less frantic and better-dressed foot traffic.

The party clopped through the first, longest tunnel piercing the Great Hill of Guard then switched back shortly after to traverse the third and fourth residential levels of the city.

Tom heard the drone of students reciting from two or three large buildings as they passed, and considered that now at least he knew why they had lost the occasional escort of urchins that had followed them on the first and second level.

On the fifth level the way ran for a space near the rim of the ring wall and there was space set aside for a lookout platform.

Legolas felt that Bess needed a rest before the last pull up to the citadel, so they pulled out of the flow of traffic.

 Aragorn and Tom walked over to the low wall and looked at the long view. They could see across the Pelennor, up to Cair Andros and down past Harlond. In the far distance showers misted the land as they fingered their way across the landscape

Tom sighed, "Me Da always said it would be like this."

Aragorn made an interrogative sound.

Tom continued, "Like you've come home. Yet found home stranger than imagining."

Tom waved at the massive stone works around them, the crenulations on the top of the Hill of Guard one level above, the steadily more magnificent homes and gardens, the view.

"Its all a bit much, really."

Aragorn had a feeling he had once known how Tom felt.

He looked fondly at the hobbit then asked, "Tell me, how fares your family, Master Tolman?"

Tom shot him a startled glance then grinned. 

"Are you sure you want to know, my Lord? Remember, I have six brothers and an equal number of sisters and I have been told, occasionally," he paused to stick his chin in the air and looked down his nose at his King in a parody of Elven hauteur, "that the doings of Hobbits can be both interminable and enervating."

"Nay."

Aragorn waved his hand in negation.

"I now have only infrequent correspondences, usually from Fastred or the Thain, and of that little informs me of the doings of the Gardeners. Since your father's passing I feel sadly ignorant about the doings of the Shire."

Tolman smiled shyly, but shook his head a little at this last.

 "But I have been out of the shire myself for most of the last twenty years, my Lord."

He looked up and saw Aragorn's face falling so rallied himself. 

"I did visit, before I set out on this trip."

He noticed the lightening of Aragorn's expression so continued with more confidence.

"I met up with the Gondorians, that is Daisy and Primrose, who live in Bag End now and look after Bilbo. He was injured in that last battle against the bandits that were hiding in the Trollshaws. I don't think Uncle Merry ever forgave himself for that you know."

Aragorn nodded wisely, but it was news to him, and he had thought he had known Merry well.

"Bilbo stays pretty cheerful though," continued Tolman, "and Ruby and Robin came over from Crickhollow and Michael Delving to have a party to see me off."

He paused again.

Aragorn asked, "The Gondorians?"

Tom blushed. "Sorry, my Lord. That's what all the younger children call themselves, the ones who travelled to your city with my Ma and Da when I was born."

Aragorn smiled, recalling earlier times.

Legolas joined them then, having used the break, and the other two's distraction, to investigate the contents of Tom's wagon.

"Master Tolman, would you tell me something of your plants? I recognise only about half of those you carry and some of those speak strangely to me."

The light of passion leapt into Tom's homely features.

"Ah, my Lord. You behold the fruit of over two decade's work. The Elves of Imladris have been helping me with me Da's writings, and since the Lord Celeborn has joined us you would not believe the knowledge we have retrieved from deep in the Lord Elrond's archives."

Eagerly he bustled over to his wagon and nearly tipped himself upside down as he rooted for something hidden on the tray.

"Look!" He came up triumphant, clutching a clay pot in both hands.

"It's Athelas," Aragorn stated.

Slightly disappointed following such an enthusiastic build up.

"But, my Lord, this is no ordinary plant. Here, take this tiny leaf and crush it."

Aragorn obeyed, and suddenly the whole air that surrounded them sang with the intensity of the smell.

Legolas swayed for a moment as if he might faint, and had to grab at the side of the wagon to stay upright.

Tom breathed in as if he could fill his lungs like balloons and float off the wall.

Aragorn felt an invigorating tingle in his fingertips, and minor aches and pains, so familiar they had ceased to be noticed, fled his form and made him feel for a space as he had as a young man before all his trials had begun.

Gradually the scent dissipated.

"Whew." Tom looked wide-eyed at the King. " 'The Hands of the Healer' really do amplify the effect, my Lord."

Just then, flying up from the fourth level, and bursting over their heads like a cloud of tumbling leaves, a flock of screaming gulls filled the air, twisting and swooping after food carried by one. Driven into the city by the lure of middens and spring storms at sea.

The Elf, the man and the hobbit all ducked, the guard sprang to attention, and Bess let out a startled bray. As soon as the birds had come, they were gone again, blown by wind and wing further up the hill over the Houses of Healing.

Aragorn and Tolman stood up, but the Elf remained crouched on all fours in the lee of the wagon, his golden hair falling forward like a curtain to hide his face, his posture rigid.

"Legolas!" Aragorn stepped quickly to his side and dropped to one knee. Gently he tilted the fair face back, enough to see his friend was absent behind his dreaming eyes.

"Is it the sea-longing?"

Tom's terse enquiry, brisk at his shoulder, caused Aragorn to nod involuntarily. Aragorn patted gently at his friend's cheeks in an effort to rouse him, to no effect.

Tom leapt into his wagon, quickly found what he wanted and approached Aragorn with another plant. Carefully he broke off one of the lumpy, blue, lavender-like flowers and then, after eyeing his King for a doubtful second, crushed the flower under Legolas' nose himself.

Awareness snapped back into Legolas' eyes, and he fell back heavily, ending up sitting square on the ground looking up at Aragorn and Tom with an expression of extreme outrage on his face.

"Elfbane! You crushed Elfbane under my nose."

He coughed, blinking his eyes, which were watering unattractively.

Aragorn looked at Tom, and then at the affronted Elf, clapped Tom on the back led him towards Bess' head to allow Legolas a moment to collect himself.

Bess made a valiant attempt at swiping the plant, but Tom was wise to her ways and calmly handed it to the King whilst finding a morsel in his pocket for his companion of the road.

He glanced back at Legolas, who was on his feet and looking anywhere but at them, and then leaned conspiratorially towards Aragorn to whisper.

"Please, my Lord, whatever you do don't tell him, in the Shire, its known as Dog's Bane."

Aragorn replied equally sotto voice, "And you learned that little trick from..?"

"Elrohir, my Lord."

Tom twinkled a look up at his King, and then walked round the donkey to climb back up beside Legolas, who was sitting in the driver's seat but acknowledging no one.

"Why am I not surprised?"

Aragorn mused to himself as he followed the wagon up to the Royal Stables on the sixth level.

Legolas, now fully himself again, masterfully swung the wagon through the gates and into the Royal Mews and they clattered over the cobbles to finally stop by a hitching post near the stable wall.

Bess brayed mournfully at the Elf's back as Aragorn's efficient stable crew took charge of the equipage.

Tom looked worriedly at his plants and lingered near the wagon as Aragorn and Legolas moved away a few steps.

"Are you all right?" Aragorn detained Legolas with a hand on his arm.

The Elf paused, and then bowed his head.

"Bad timing Estel. The power of the athelas stripped me of all my defences, and then the gulls," he shook his head lightly, and then met Aragorn's eye again. "I am well."

Aragorn doubted the truth of that, but had no answers for his friend. The last thing he could bear was the thought of losing one of the last of the companions of his youth. In fact he could hardly bear to think on it, despite his conscience, which urged him to let him go.

"Sire!" came a shout.

They both looked around. Running down the broad carved steps of one of the buildings facing the yard there came a burly man dressed in the black and silver livery of the citadel.

Aragorn returned the man's hail. "Duilin. What brings you to me?"

The man jogged up to them, one arm in his surcoat as he attempted to find the trailing sleeve.

"Sire, your son bade me find you, in haste, as you see."

Aragorn put out a hand as if to help him into his jacket but Duilin flinched away. Finally he set himself to rights, and then bowed somewhat belatedly first to Aragorn and then to Legolas.

"The party from Rohan."

"Yes, we saw them arriving, what tidings, Duilin?"

The man's face fell.

"I'm sorry, Sire. He just asked me to find you, and the Lord of Ithilien."

He looked up, eager to serve, "Shall I go and ask him, Sire."

Aragorn did grab his arm this time and endured the man's involuntary jerk.

"Hold, Duilin. We will make our way to him with all speed and find out. Where are they?"

"In the second council chamber, Sire. At least that is where I left him."

The worried expression returned to the man's face and before he could ask again whether to go check, Aragorn forestalled him.

"Duilin, since your errand is so rapidly fulfilled, would you take on a task for me instead?"

The man's face lit up with eager resolve.

Clapping his hand to his heart he exclaimed enthusiastically, "Anything, Sire."

Aragorn indicated Tom.

"Would you please make sure our guest has all he needs to care for his plants and dispose of them to his satisfaction, then help him with his belongings. I think the Shire House will be suitable for his guesting, do you know it?"

Duilin nodded as eagerly as a puppy and bowed to the halfling.

Aragorn turned to the hobbit.

"Tom, I would see you at supper this evening if you are willing, meanwhile I leave you in Duilin's capable hands. I am afraid my duties have found me. Duilin?"

The man turned anxiously back to his King, and Aragorn suppressed a sigh.

"Take Master Tolman to the kitchen very soon as I know he will be hungry and I promised him a meal, if not several."

"Yes Sire. Leave it to me, Sire."

 The man hurried over to his new charge and the other two cut across the stable yard heading for the second council chamber.

Legolas watched Aragorn intently as they strode towards the white building. Eventually Aragorn's control broke.

"What?"

Legolas looked satisfied.

"A little jumpy, your man?" he jerked his head back indicating Duilin, who was now enthusiastically emptying Tolman's wagon.

Aragorn's mouth set in a straight line.

 "He was kidnapped out of Belfalas, when he was hardly grown, and chained to an oar bench of an Umbar Corsair for two years."

Aragorn's look became even grimmer.

"It amazes me that he is not homicidal. I can forgive him his flinches. It's his gratitude I find harder to take."

Legolas closed his eyes briefly, and decided to not even bother trying to work out the logic that made Aragorn feel responsible for the actions of the most vicious group of pirates ever to trouble Middle-earth. It sufficed that it happened in Gondor, in his reign.

Since Aragorn's leadership led to the eventual vanquishing of the pirates, Legolas could understand why Duilin might feel grateful

The two friends quickly reached the colonnaded portico of the second council chamber and Aragorn returned the salute of the door guards, who snapped to attention as they approached.

The black and silver-clad guard on the left turned from his liege and slid back a small panel in the door.

"They are here, my Lord," he announced softly to someone inside.

The door opened smoothly and silently, just enough to allow Aragorn's Steward, Faramir's son, Cirion, to slide out

He met his King's eye with palpable relief.

"Sire." He bowed and then turned to Legolas. " My Lord Legolas."

He gathered the two of them up, walking them towards the side entrance that led into the warren of rooms that supported the Council Chamber.

Once inside and into one of the comfortably furnished antechambers, Cirion cleared his throat, started to fidget with his chain of office and visibly swallowed before finding the courage to look Legolas in the eye.

"My Lord of Ithilien. The delegation from Rohan have levelled an accusation that I," he turned a helpless look to his King, "and your son, Sire, find difficult to believe."

He inched closer to Aragorn like a child sheltering behind a parent before completing his question.

"My Lord Legolas, do you know the current whereabouts of the Dwarf Lord, Gimli, the Lord of Aglarond?"

He looked at the Elf hopefully for a second, then let his face fall as he realised that Legolas was no wiser than he was.

" Sire?" He turned less hopefully to his King, and then sighed heavily as he saw his expression.

Aragorn and Legolas met eyes briefly in dismay and turned back to Cirion who seemed to shrink into himself. 

Gravely, he said, "Then, my Lords. I think we may have a problem."

00000

Arwen heard Legolas' outraged shout echo down the stone corridor as she hurried to join her husband.

She had personally settled both the human and dwarven members of the party from Rohan into suitable guest quarters. Quite deliberately using her beauty and concern to overawe them, she managed to get away with the promise of another audience for them as soon as Aragorn was apprised of their concerns.

She looked over her shoulder at her son, who was trailing her by a step or two, still initialling a sheaf of documents that his secretary thrust at him as he moved quickly to pace his mother.

The two shared a look.

"It would appear Cirion has found the Lord of Ithilien," Arwen remarked dryly.

Eldarion finally worked his way to the bottom of the pile and waved the scribe away. The man vanished quickly into one of the many rooms flanking the council chamber.

"I would say you are correct, Mother."

Eldarion looked far too young to be as shrewd as he had become in the politics of Minas Tirith.

"And I would wager, from the sound of him, that he is as convinced by the charges as we were. "

Finally they reached the carven door behind which both Arwen and Eldarion could hear the sounds of urgent argument.

One of Arwen's ever present handmaids opened the door for the royal pair and dropped a respectful curtsey as they entered the room like a fresh wind, momentarily stalling the intense discussion that was going on in the front of the empty fireplace.

"My Lord."

Arwen swept towards Aragorn and took the hand he held out for her, then turned her brilliant gaze onto the glowering Elf standing across the room.

"Legolas, is this not the most ridiculous thing we have heard for an age? "

Eldarion bowed slightly to his father and then to Legolas, and then dropped heavily into one of the upholstered armchairs placed catty corner about the room.

He smiled wryly at Cirion who looked so pale he could pass for a wraith.

Sighing, Eldarion took off his mithril coronet and rubbed absently at the pink marks left on his pale skin by his badge of office.

"Father, let Cirion sit down before he falls down."

Aragorn looked startled, then waved permission at his Steward and then took a seat himself on a long sofa with Arwen.

The King looked across the room at Legolas, who was still bristling.

"Sit down, Legolas," he said. "Let us hear more of this tale from Eldarion."

Eldarion looked at Cirion. "How far did you get?"

"As far as accusing my friend. A member of the Fellowship, and arguably one of the truest beings in Middle-earth, of abducting and ravishing a maiden."

Legolas fairly growled the statement.

"A human maiden at that."

 He looked up, suddenly bewildered, and cast a lost look at Eldarion. "What say his countrymen?"

"They can add little to the sum of the tale, my Lord."

Eldarion shrugged.

"When questioned they say, as you do, that their Lord is known far and wide for his integrity; and that the fact that he vanished from their knowledge at the same time as the Master Smith's daughter, has to have some third cause as yet unknown. They come to crave our help, as much as the Master Smith comes to crave our justice."

Arwen's brow creased as she tried to sort through her memory of all the maidens she had had in her service for the last several decades. Finally she turned to a middle-aged woman sitting just behind her.

"Wasn't Gleowyn the Master Smith's daughter?"

Morwen covered her mouth and her eyes sparkled with suppressed mirth. Finally she nodded and, recovering her poise, was able to answer.

"My Lady has an excellent memory, although she did somewhat stand out, as it were."

Dimples threatened again and even Arwen smiled slightly.

Cirion looked at the ladies with an expression of horror on his face.

"Not that great clumsy ox of a lass that broke everything she laid her hand to. The Master Smith said she was a jewel, a fair maiden a…"

He broke off realising he was not being respectful, but the girl had broken a thousand year old vase that had been one of the treasures of Gondor. Her placid, moon like face, streaked with tears still haunted his dreams some nights. He gave an eloquent shudder.

" She had a very sweet nature," Morwen reproved gently.

"And beautiful hair."

Arwen supplied after casting around in her memory for some other characteristic of the girl that was positive.

"So, all in all, not a likely candidate to cause our friend Gimli to throw his honour to the wind and resort to kidnap," commented Aragorn. In the small silence that followed these revelations.

"Hardly," snorted Legolas. Recalling his friend's complete devotion to the vision of beauty and grace that was Galadriel.

Reviews are gratefully welcomed, treasured and replied to.

Rose Sared