Girl of the North Country, 5

V.

They rode to Gondor in the escort of Rangers until Tharbad, where they were met by horsemen in the livery of the White Tree and the Winged Crown. Diamond rode with Faramir in a fine wain out of sight of the Men. The spirit Merry had remarked at wasn’t always so strong. Men scared her. She couldn’t help it. And she knew, when she saw Peregrin again, he’d still remind her of them.

But that was a path to be taken another day.

On the Greenway, the great highway south to the Gap of Rohan, she saw for the first time the races of the wide world beyond the Shire: Men, mostly, with their families and children, moving from the south into the lands now made secure by the return of the King. Also Dwarves from the Blue Mountains, pursuing the lure of work and smithcraft and masonry. Tharbad was being rebuilt, as an inland port on the Greyflood, and there was talk among the Men and Dwarves Merry spoke with, that Fornost itself would be rebuilt for the coming of the court of King Elessar in a few years’ time.

“Not Annuminas?” Diamond interrupted, thinking of the ruins from her window.

“No,” Merry said after a moment. “Strider has chosen to leave Lake Evendim as it is.”

For some reason that gladdened Diamond.

After that evening Diamond asked Merry what would become of the Shire once the court of the King returned to the North. “Will we become vassals to the Men?”

“No,” Merry replied. “Not directly. Not, in any case, as long as Strider will have a say in it; and that’s quite a long time, since he is the King Elessar and founding a dynasty of his own. The Shire will be a free country under the Northern Scepter, administered according to the will of its inhabitants. The Mayor will run things as he has always done, and the Masters will do the same in Buckland.” A clever glint lit his eyes, and he turned a mischievous brand of smile upon Diamond. “Of course, we are all worried about the fact that the Thain has and will continue to be the King’s steward in the Shire, chief among chiefs and in point of fact Prince of Halflings. All of which sounds grand, doesn’t it. Until you realize we’re talking about Pippin.”

“Oh, dear,” Diamond responded wryly.

“Indeed,” said Merry. He nodded down at the lad sleeping with his head on Diamond’s lap. “Though I have high hopes for this one.”

“I have high hopes for the one we have at hand,” Diamond replied. “Whatever else he may or may not be, Peregrin will make a fine Thain. As fine as his father, if not moreso.”

Merry looked at her with a measuring gaze. “And his Lady?”

Diamond sighed and said nothing, merely stroking her son’s hair.

They turned east into Rohan, where their Gondorian escort was replaced by Riders of the Mark. It was almost December, and the wind had a welcome chill. Diamond noticed the change in Merry, indeed in Merry’s horse—it was a horse, not a pony—as they passed into the green fields of the lands of the Eorlingas.

“Don’t tell me you wish to move here,” she teased him. “What would Estella think?”

“Stella would come with me,” Merry replied confidently. “She can hold her own on a saddle, you know.”

“She’s saddled you perfectly,” Diamond needled.

“I resemble that remark!” said Merry, but his eyes glowed with humor. Diamond was touched. How could anyone ever have seriously thought he would leave Estella for her?

“I am envious of you and Estella,” she confessed as they stopped for a few days in Edoras. She had met the King of Rohan, perhaps the scariest Man she had yet met, and had kept herself to herself next to the dark-haired queen Lothiriel, who was much quieter, especially since Merry and Eomer proceeded to attempt a drinking game.

Merry was still recovering, though he didn’t seem unhappy about it. “Envious,” he said. “How so, if I may ask?”

“You already know,” Diamond said. “You and Estella have loved each other since you were children.”

Merry was wry. “And yet, if you believe the stories, I was quite the rake in my day. What’s the phrase? ‘Cut a swath through the lasses of Buckland’? Or something to that effect.” He chuckled, and then rubbed his aching head. “And I did, Diamond. I did.”

“And yet you loved Estella.”

“Of course I did,” said Merry. “But that wasn’t why we were married. We were married because an arrangement was made between Odovacar Bolger and my mother. It just so happened that we did love each other and wholeheartedly embraced the pairing. If we had been pledged to others, we would have gone along with it, painful though it might have been. I like to think my esteemed mother for once took our personal feelings into account, due to my being, well, her only child and so forth.”

Diamond shook her head. “How could you think of doing that, Merry? How could you think of letting your mother wed you off to some lass you didn’t even know? Especially when you had someone like Estella?”

Merry’s answer was clear-headed and plain. “Because I’m pragmatic, Diamond,” he said. “I know how the silly Shire works. I know how the old Fallohide families keep trying to hold onto their ancient positions in the face of the inevitable passing of their time. I know that hobbits like you and I and Pippin and Estella, Pearl and Frodo, Paladin and Eglantine and my mother and my Da and on and on uncountable, have ever been pieces in this game of prestige and politic. This stupid, silly game I play as well as anyone. Some are pawns. Some are queens. Some are kings. And some are knights, who move in unpredictable ways.” He nodded at her so that she knew whom he meant by that. “I’m not the dreamer,” he continued. “Neither me nor Sam. We appreciate it when we see it, but we have our feet grounded in earth. For better or worse. Frodo was a dreamer. Pippin is one too. And so are you.”

He grimaced. “I think they’ve been holding out out me, the Eorlings,” he said. “The brew they export to Buckland is not half this heady. I must have a talk with Eomer about it.” He took his leave of her. “We’ll be in Minas Tirith in a week,” he informed her. “From there we’ll see if we can track down our stray.”

He paused. They were staying in an anteroom of Meduseld. He stopped at the threshold to the hall. “When I called you a dreamer, I wasn’t being snide,” he told her. “I admire that in you. I admire that in Pippin. I always admired it in Frodo.” He smiled sadly. “I envy you, Diamond. And not just for Farrie.”

If Edoras intimidated her, how could she describe her reaction to the sight of Minas Tirith? She could not believe anything so immense, so tall and strong and bright, beaming white in the warm southern sunlight, could ever have been builded by mortal things.

“Oh, well that’s flattering isn’t it?” Merry commented as they rode through the city’s great Gate. “When they made new doors they put us on them: the Fellowship of the Ring!”

Diamond looked, and saw, among portraits in steel of Kings and Stewards, nine figures, great and small: a Wizard wise and bearded; a Man, bold and proud; an Elf, graceful and keen; a Dwarf, fierce and fearless. She saw another Man, grave and noble: the King, she thought, Elessar; and then four hobbits. Mayor Samwise, looking young yet and devoted. Merry himself: not much had changed. At the center of the figures, arranged in a circle, was Frodo Baggins, with a guard of stars, his hand, four-fingered, raised in blessing, or farewell. And up high, as if about to escape, her husband, alone among the figures graven as almost smiling.

Merry peered with his keen eyes at the runes engraved around the circle. “Mithrandir, messenger of the West. Boromir, Lord of Gondor. Legolas, Elven prince. Gimli, warrior of the Dwarves. Aragorn, the King Elessar.” His breath caught. “Iorhael, the Ringbearer, savior of Middle-earth.” He recovered. “Perhael, ever-faithful, ever-hopeful. Sam would blush if he heard that. Oh, my: Gelir, the happy-hearted, Nazgul’s bane. My word.” His voice softened. “Cordof,” he said. “Prince of Halflings.”

Peregrin, Diamond thought.

They took rooms in one of the inns on the wide First Level and then proceeded on horseback up to the Citadel. Merry sent messengers announcing their arrival. They came back, with the King Elessar’s personal invitation to “second breakfast” in the royal residence’s private hall.

Diamond was briefly horrified that she would not have a chance to change into more suitable attire before meeting the King of the West. Merry’s reassurances did not appease her. Still, what was there to do? She washed her face and dabbed some rose oil behind her ears and hoped to arrange her shawl in something approaching a becoming manner as they were brought by a servant to the hall within the residence. They entered.

Diamond saw a table, not particularly large, at which were seated four adults of Men and a small child. Two of the Men were very similar, dark-haired, clear-eyed, though one was older and had eyes of grey, while the other was kindlier and had eyes like her husband’s, like her son’s, sea-green. This one sat beside a lady who seemed to Diamond to resemble herself, though more beautiful, with her golden hair and pale white gown. And finally there was the dark-haired lady at the side of the older Man. And Diamond realized this was no woman of Men, but an Elf.

Diamond trembled, but swallowed her fear.

The older Man stood. He was tall and lean. “Merry,” he said, and his voice was warm and friendly.

“Strider,” Merry greeted happily. And then he quirked his mouth and bowed gravely. “I do beg your pardon: my lord King Elessar,” he said.

“Master Meriadoc, Esquire of Rohan,” replied Aragorn evenly. In the same tone he continued, “What did I say to you about bowing to me?”

“We bow to no one,” Merry replied. “A terrible trial, that commandment, my liege.” Diamond watched his eyes drift from the King to the fair woman, who had risen and was now smiling broadly. “My lady,” he said, and Diamond recognized Eowyn of Rohan, Princess of Ithilien.

And that meant that the man beside her—

“Forgive me,” that man said, rising and bowing to Diamond. “I fear Master Meriadoc has again revealed how smitten he is by the charms of my wife, that he must neglect the proprieties. Welcome to Gondor. I am Faramir of Ithilien, Steward of this land. You must be the lady Diamond of the Northfarthing of the Shire, my dear friend Peregrin’s wife.”

Diamond could only curtsy. “I am,” she said, speaking familiarly out of habit. “Diamond of Long Cleeve, at your service and your family’s.”

“On the contrary,” said the Steward of Gondor, “it is I who am at your service.” He looked upon Farrie, who was having a staring contest with the other toddler in the room. “And who is this young lord?”

“Your namesake,” said Diamond artlessly. “Faramir Took of Great Smials.” She tugged at Farrie. “Don’t stare,” she said.

The Elf-woman laughed gently. It was like a shower of silver. “He seems to have made the acquaintance of my son,” she said in her low, sweet voice that seemed to Diamond to be both young and full of ages. “Perhaps they shall be playmates. Welcome indeed to the City of Men, lady Diamond. I am Arwen. This is my son Eldarion.”

“You look tired,” said Merry afterward, as they walked along the Embrasure of the Citadel.

Diamond glared at him. “I am exhausted!” she snapped. “Did you expect me to be pink and fresh after traveling all night and all morning and then being brought before royalty without so much as a chance to dress properly? Don’t you laugh at me, Meriadoc Brandybuck.”

Merry raised his palms in surrender. “Far be it from me to poke fun at a girl of the north country,” he said. He looked out across the vale of Anduin. “There’s Mordor,” he said.

Diamond shuddered. “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not.” Merry pointed. “Those mountains are the Ephel Duath, the Heights of Shadow; beyond them lie the plains of Gorgoroth and Mount Doom.” He looked at her. “It’s not a pleasant place, or so I hear; but then, it’s pretty much empty now. And to the south is the somewhat friendly colony of Nurn, run by former slaves of Sauron.”

Diamond stared at the distant mountains and the names out of storybooks with unhappy endings. She could not imagine living here. She could not imagine living in a city of white stone, so high up; she was beginning to feel faint simply from standing here. Neither could she imagine living within sight of the land that she had once thought existed only in bad dreams and cruel fairy tales.

And her husband had come here? Had gone there? Had fought within sight of the Black Gates—at twenty-eight? Had become one of these people, so much so that he still often said, “I love Minas Tirith,” when the subject came up?

She had come here hoping to make everything all right. But more and more she was beginning to accept what she already knew in her heart: it could never all be right between her and her husband. He was alive, Faramir said: a Ranger at sea had told him so. But that was months ago, apparently.

“Merry,” she said, “do you still think Peregrin is alive, and coming back to us?”

For the first time she could remember, she saw Meriadoc Brandybuck lose composure. His ever-present smile completely vanished. In its absence his face was dark, almost cruel.

“He must be,” she heard him say, low and soft. “He must.”

Days passed. Diamond, wasting away in the white city, longing for fields and growing things, accepted gladly the invitation of Faramir and Eowyn to stay with them in their new town of Emyn Arnen. There the buildings were made of darker stone, and everything plainly new, and the fields and groves of Ithilien suited Diamond better. She did, however, often go to Minas Tirith, for Merry remained there, set to work at his various interests, only one of which concerned their search for Peregrin. Treaties, business arrangements, issues of tariffs and levies, even what he called “research into the herblore of ancient Numenor” for a book he was writing. A book!

And her own Faramir had decided that the little prince Eldarion was his own little brother. “Dario,” he pleaded, wanting to play; and she would take him to the nursery in Minas Tirith and he would proceed to manhandle the son of Aragorn and Arwen. “Mama, Dario pew,” he would complain, carrying Eldarion to Diamond like a sack of flour. Eldarion was barely a year old, and Farrie was just two, and they were the same size. Arwen, the Queen Arwen, would laugh gaily at the sight of her son giggling at the attentions of an overinquisitive hobbit child.

She was introduced to many people, too many for her to recall, including the Elf-lord of Ithilien, who led his people in dance and song in the dells of the spiced forests at night. She had to admit, Legolas was the most beautiful male being she had ever seen. “Oh, don’t tell me you’ve been smitten too?” Merry bemoaned theatrically.

There were many faces, too many faces, and too many places for her. Traveling from the Northfarthing to the Tookland had been such a drastic change; to be in Gondor, among Men, and Elves, even friendly Men and kindly Elves, was almost too much for Diamond to comprehend. Still, she persisted. She knew her husband belonged among these people, and if he were to come back, he would come here first. And whatever happened after that, he had to know she loved him now. She had to tell him.

She was surprised when she began receiving letters from the Shire. Of course the messengers of the Kingdom were once again riding through the lands, but somehow she had assumed only the most important missives, like proclamations from the King or letters from him to his friends in the Shire, were carried. But now she received letters, from Estella, from Eglantine, even from Pearl.

She also received letters from her father and mother, pleading with her to come home. She wrote back, saying she would not come home until she had settled things with her husband. She knew they wanted to believe Peregrin either dead or lost forever and never coming back. She wondered if they thought she, too, had gone insane.

“Perhaps I have,” she mused to herself from her rooms in the Prince’s castle at Emyn Arnen, within sight of the White City. “Look at me: sitting in a fresh-built palace in Gondor, guest of a prince, waiting for a husband who deserted me, with my son the new best friend of the future King of all the western lands.” Suddenly she began to laugh and could not stop herself. Not too shabby for a girl from Long Cleeve!

She also received letters from Paladin. They were short and to the point. Has Peregrin come back? What have you heard? How is Faramir? Whom have you met?

She wrote back to all of them after a time. Not that she missed the Shire all that much. The vast majority of the Shire had been as alien to her as this foreign land, after all. Home was the Northfarthing, with its severe beauty and its bracing cold.

On Midwinter’s Eve, however, she felt terribly homesick, and she stayed inside, singing Yuletide songs to Farrie. Merry was away visiting Rohan, and would not be back for some days. Gondor did not celebrate Midwinter’s Eve; winter here was a concept, not a reality. She missed snow more than ever. At least at Great Smials she had succeeded in having a Yule tree and a circle of candles and an exchange of gifts, in addition to the banquet. Here, all she could manage was an evergreen, some lace, and a few tallow tapers. She had bought Farrie a new toy, a plush bear cub, and he played with it as she sang.

The sharp rap on the door startled her. Rising, she went to open it. Just then, something dropped through the chimney onto the fireplace in a terrific crash.

“O-ho there!” said the apparition, all hair and beard and twinkling metal and gems. “Merry Yuletide!”

Diamond screamed.

The door was flung open and Merry stumbled in. “Di, Di, calm down, it’s all right, it’s only Gimli. You remember Gimli, don’t you?”

Diamond stared as the dwarf shook off some of the soot from the chimney and bowed deeply. “Gimli, Master-delver of the Glittering Caves, at your service, my lady,” he said gallantly. “Forgive me if my entrance caused you alarm. Ah, hey now. What’s that burning?”

“That would be you, good dwarf,” Diamond replied, trying to recover her compusure, pointing at Gimli’s rear.

“Ah,” said Gimli. “Yes, of course. I meant to do that. Where may I douse myself?”

Diamond pointed to the washbasin and water-pitcher.

As Gimli put himself out, Diamond turned on Merry. “What is going on? I thought you wouldn’t be back for days yet?”

Merry was wearing his impish smile. “I lied,” he said. “I knew Midwinter would be difficult for a Northfarthing girl here where it never snows.” Diamond smiled back at him.

“And,” he said, “I brought some friends who know about Yule.”

And to Diamond’s awe there came to her room the King Elessar and the Queen, dressed simply and bearing boxes of gifts and plates of food. And they were followed by Legolas, playing a harp, and Faramir and Eowyn, dressed as the Good King and the Snow Maiden from Shire fairy stories.

Diamond was speechless. “This is … far too wonderful of all of you,” she said.

It was Eowyn who answered. “You came here to a far country seeking for our beloved Pippin,” she said, reaching for Diamond’s hands and taking them. “We thought we should do our best to honor your courage.”

And Eowyn leaned close, and said quietly, “I know what it is like, to leave your northern home, and come to a strange place for the sake of the one you love.”

Diamond felt tears threaten, and she blinked them back, as Merry lived up to his name and Legolas and Gimli began to sing a boisterous carol that eventually the King took up as well.

So passed the months, Merry riding here and yon, Diamond remaining in Ithilien, spending her time exploring the countryside. It was like the Northfarthing, without the cold: wild and free, with a rolling wind filled with the scents of the flowers and the fields. She spent many times picking wildflowers and following streams, often with only a young Guardsman from Minas Tirith for company. His name was Bergil, he said, and he was a friend of her husband’s.

“We saw him off when he went into Far Harad,” he told her. “Do not fear, my lady. The lord Peregrin is a mighty adventurer.”

“For his size,” Diamond added smartly, making Bergil blush.

The truth was, her thoughts often turned to her husband. Where was he now? What was he doing? Was he in some hot southern land, where beasts dwelled she knew of only from nursery rhymes? Was he climbing a mountain just to see how high he could go, or sailing a sea so vast it wrapped right around the world she had just learned was actually round? Was he wandering, stripped to his essence, through some steaming forest, like a Fallohide hunter of old? Or was he lost out in the deserts she was told stretched far south of Umbar? Had he become a pirate? Had he become a warrior? Had he lived?

Had he met some woman—he was big enough for it—and fallen in love with her, if only because she would love him back?

Or was he on that horse Merry had given him, riding home even now, and only took so long because he was so far away?

Emyn Arnen looked eastward toward the south road to Harondor and beyond. Sometimes it seemed it was an endless road. Still Diamond would watch it, waiting for the sight of him, whatever else might follow after.