CHAPTER 5: FORGIVENESS, PART 1

Aragorn looked down upon the heads of his grandchildren as they sat on his lap looking at the colorful pictures in the book which told the tale of the Nine Walkers and the Quest of the Ring.

It was a tale that children all over the land of Gondor knew by the time they were five or six years of age. It was narrated by their parents, their nannies and their teachers. Sam had completed the account of it, adding to the notes Bilbo and Frodo had left, and Aragorn had commissioned it to be faithfully copied and distributed throughout his realm, so that the Fellowship of the Ring would always be honored, and so that Gondorians would always remember how dearly bought the freedom of Middle-earth had been.

A fuller version of the tale had also been produced in a book for children, which Sweetpea and Greenpea were poring over now for the first time. Aragorn had thought it a suitable peace-making gift after having missed bedtime storytelling with his grandchildren for more than two weeks. The bright smiles from the children when they received the book told him it had been a good choice; they immediately forgot about being annoyed with their grandfather, and had remained placated for the past fifteen minutes.

“Is this Gollum?” Greenpea asked, his pudgy finger pointing at the drawing of the creature.

“Aye, it is.” Aragorn said, nodding.

“Is this Legolas?”

“Mm-hmm, it is.”

“Is this where Legolas lived?”

“Yes, that is Mirk – ”

“Why is Legolas with Gollum?”

“Well – ”

“Were they friends?!”

“No – ”

“Were they fighting?”

“Uh… not quite – ”

“Did they live in the same woods?”

“No, no – ”  

“They why are they together?”

“Yes, Grandfather – why are they together here?”

When two pairs of mouths stopped firing questions, Aragorn found his own agape. And when two pairs of eyes stared up at him waiting for an answer, he broke into a chuckle before he explained how he and Gandalf had found Gollum and delivered him to the Mirkwood elves before the Quest, asking them to keep him under guard.

“Grandfather, what is happening here?” Sweetpea asked after turning the page. “Is this Gollum running away?”  

“Yes, he escaped the Wood-elves’ guard.”

“How did it happen?” The two children were looking up at him with round eyes again, and Aragorn gave each forehead a quick kiss before he answered.

“Well… Gollum’s guards had taken him out for some fresh air one day when there was a sudden orc attack, and when the elves were busy defending themselves, Gollum escaped unnoticed. It was likely to have been the cunning work of the Dark Lord. Some of the elven guards were slain or taken, and the wood-elves were understandably very upset about it.”

Greenpea pointed to the book again. “This is Legolas in another place – and… is this you, Grandfather? Look, Sweetpea! There’s Grandfather!”

“I know! This was the Council – at Imladris!” Sweetpea said excitedly.

Aragorn smiled and stroked his granddaughter’s dark curls. “Yes, sweetheart. That is the Council where we met to discuss what to do with the One Ring,” he confirmed. “That was also where Legolas informed everyone about Gollum’s escape.”

“Were you and Gandalf angry with him?” Sweetpea queried. 

The question took Aragorn aback. “What do you mean, Sweetpea?”

“You said you and Gandalf asked them to keep Gollum under guard, but they let him escape,” Sweetpea said. “So were you angry at the elves?”

Aragorn drew in a long breath and closed his eyes. His granddaughter’s question reminded him about a conversation that had taken place in a cave one night many years ago, when Eldarion had been but a boy of nine. There, while voicing his regret over some careless words he had thrown at his friend a few days earlier, he inadvertently found out – to his horror – that for ten years, the elf had remembered what the Ranger had said to him at the Council before the Quest, although the elf had not spoken of it till that night.

“I have never held anything against you,” Legolas assured him. “Not even your words at Imla – ” He stopped abruptly.

Aragorn furrowed his brows, puzzled. “What words?”

The elf did not answer, but looked away. Aragorn would not accept his mute response.

“What words, Legolas? What did you mean?” he demanded.

“They matter not, Estel.”

“Yes, they do. If you remember them, they must matter. Now, tell me: what words?”

“They are nothing.”

“Legolas, please…”

The elf sighed. A nightmare he sometimes had about what transpired at the Council played in his mind again, and his next words were uttered so softly that Aragorn could not be certain he had heard them: “The folk of Thranduil failed your trust.”

Aragorn was stupefied. “What?...When?”

“At the Council called by Lord Elrond. You said…” the elf paused again, but Aragorn grasped and raised his chin so that their eyes met.

“Saes, Legolas, tell me, please.” Aragorn’s voice was pleading now, disturbed by the shadows flitting across the elvish face, not sure if they were from the light of the feeble torches around them, or from a painful memory.

The elf released everything in a rush. “Gollum had escaped. From our hands. My patrol. When I broke the news at the Council, you said – you asked how the folk of Thranduil came to fail in their trust. I never forgot your words, Aragorn. I could understand your anger, and I do not hold it against you… but I have never forgotten your words.”

The Ranger was dumbfounded as his mind worked furiously to recollect the events of the Council and the verbal exchanges that had taken place. Men and elves and dwarves and hobbits and one irate Istari – they had all learnt of the existence of the One Ring and of the dire threat to Middle-earth, and they had all been faced with dismaying discoveries and hard decisions that brought little hope of salvation. It had been a trying time for all, not the least for him, whose destiny had propelled him into the heart of the peril, and on whose shoulders the future of Men and Middle-earth, in part, rested.

In the greater turmoil surrounding the fate of the free peoples of Middle-earth, the Ranger and the future king of Gondor had not realized what his words – impulsively uttered – had meant to one elf whose people had been charged with a creature they did not love, a creature that played a role they had no knowledge of, in a war they could not foresee. He remembered the words now: as blunt an accusation of failure as there could be.

And Legolas had borne that memory for ten years. Kept it in his elvish mind, yet remained unflinchingly loyal to the one who put it there. Such pain could not sully the noble heart of Legolas or overpower the love in it.

Aragorn felt humbled. His emotions caught in his throat when he studied the look of hurt on the fair face of his friend, though the elf tried to hide it behind downcast eyes. His mouth was dry when he tried to speak.

“Legolas,” he began and swallowed. “My words… they were rash, foolish words spoken in a moment of fear, for each piece of news and each tale told at the Council promised only certain danger and little hope for all of us, for all of Middle-earth.” He paused in brief reflection.

“My heart was in great distress, my mind in turmoil over a precarious future. Yet, that was no excuse for my thoughtless tongue. No, saes, let me finish…” he held up his hand when Legolas tried to interrupt, and continued. “The news you brought to us about Gollum – it was dismaying, although as things turned out, Gollum’s being alive was critical to the fate of the Quest, that you know. But no matter the outcome, you did not deserve the insult I dealt you. Not you, not the elves of Mirkwood, not the folk of Thranduil.” He looked deeply into the eyes of the elf before him. “Will you forgive me, Legolas?”

The look of sincere regret and pleading in the Ranger’s eyes plucked at the heart-strings of the gentle elf, who hoped his voice could capture the depth of his love and conviction as he replied:

“Estel, I have never held anything against you. Hear me and believe me.”

Aragorn tightened the hold on his friend’s hand and allowed a single tear to trace his cheek in the dark as he responded.

“I believe you, dear friend, and that is what brings me shame. Yet, in my shame, I have one more thing to ask of you: I beg you to cast aside the memory of my words that seems to have haunted you for that long. You have never failed me, Legolas, not even in the forests of Mirkwood. No fault could I lay on you for what happened. It was my weakness, not yours.”

The elf was silent as his friend bared his soul to him, but his eyes were fixed on the man, and he removed the Ranger’s tear with one slender finger.

“We have been through so much together, Legolas, through fire and snow and hurt and war and death. In all the years I have known you and through all the years of my struggles as the heir of Isildur, I have had no truer companion in elf or man. No one need remind me, for I know what lengths you would go to for me, and you know I would do the same for you. Let no foolish words hold sway over us or come between us.”

“They do not,” came the reassuring reply. “Im innas anna-nin cuil an beria lin,” Legolas said softly, looking directly into the eyes of his friend. “I would give my life to protect yours.”

“A im sui eithel,” Aragorn whispered his pledge in return, returning the steady gaze.

That night, the two friends slept peacefully, secure in the resolution of an uncertainty long kept hidden, and caressed by the solace of forgiveness given and received.

That night, the ten-year-old shadows of a Ranger’s words, and the dark nightmares that had accompanied them, vanished from an elf’s mind in the light of a renewed understanding shining brightly from the depths of two souls bound by love and loyalty.

Aragorn could not stop the moistness that had collected at the corners of his eyes at the memory of that conversation. How he wished he could retract what he had said at the Council…

“Grandfather?”

The grandfather opened his eyes to see a small hand tugging at the front of his shirt and two upturned faces with curiosity and puzzlement written all over them.

“Grandfather, were you asleep?” Greenpea asked, and Aragorn smiled despite himself.

“No,” he answered, closing his hand over the small one. “I was just – ”

“Are you crying, Grandfather?” Sweetpea’s fingers reached up to touch her grandfather’s cheek, and the king caught her hand and kissed it.

“I am not crying, sweetheart,” he replied, “but I was thinking about the question you asked me, and how I said some careless words to Legolas at the Council that… that hurt him.”

“Why? What did you say?” the little girl asked. “Were you and Gandalf angry at him?”

Aragorn sighed before he answered. “I was upset at first because we were worried about what Gollum would do, and I… I blamed the Mirkwood elves for failing our trust in them, but I should not have said that. They had not been told in full who Gollum was and why we had sent him there, and they could not foresee the orc attack. They did their best, and they lost good elves because of that ill-fated attack. I should not have caused him grief over it.”

The children kept quiet when their grandfather’s voice became hushed. They sensed that the man was still thinking about what transpired at the Council, so they turned back to the book, excitedly naming all the people they could recognise.

“There’s Grandnaneth! And look – here’s Grandfather and Legolas walking together,” Greenpea said to Sweetpea, pointing to the drawing.

“Yes, they’re leaving Imladris,” his cousin explained. “They’re starting on the Quest.”  

“Were you and Legolas friends again here, Grandfather?” the little boy asked, tugging on the king’s shirt again.

The king’s brows knitted. “Friends again?” he echoed, puzzled. “We never stopped being friends, Greenpea.”

“But you were upset with him, and you said you hurt him,” the child argued. “When Sweetpea and I fight, we don’t play together,” he said candidly, making his cousin roll her eyes and amusing his grandfather.

“But you remain cousins,” the king pointed out, “and you forgive each other and play together again. You mend things between you.”

“Did you and Legolas mend things then?” Greenpea asked.

“Well… no, not at the time,” the elderly man replied, confusing the children. “You see… Legolas did not need my forgiveness, for he had done nothing wrong. On my part, I did not realize then how careless my words had been. He told me nothing either, he just kept on being my friend and my companion. I did not find out how he felt till ten years later. Then…” Aragorn paused, “then he told me, and I was able to ask for his forgiveness.”

“Did he give it?” Sweetpea queried.

“Without hesitation,” Aragorn replied immediately. “He had not forgotten my words, but he had pushed the incident aside even before the Council was over, for he is such a friend. We did not talk about it till a long, long time after. I only wish I had known sooner,” Aragorn continued, almost to himself. “How I rue causing hurt to a friend I love so much...”

Seeing her grandfather become reflective again, Sweetpea snuggled closer to him and spoke consolingly: “Do not fret, Grandfather. He has forgiven you.”

Aragorn looked at the little girl lovingly and hugged her. “I know, sweetheart, I know.”

“And we forgive you, too,” Greenpea declared to his grandfather in his most magnanimous tone.

“Oh?” Aragorn asked, amused and genuinely curious. “And you forgive me for…?”

The little boy wore an expression that suggested how obvious the answer should have been. “Not coming to tell us stories for ages!” he clarified.

Aragorn laughed and gently pinched his grandson’s cheek.

“Well, I am glad I have your pardon then,” he said meekly, “and I am glad I have two kind-hearted, generous Peas in my arms.” Aragorn tickled the children, who squealed with laughter that warmed the grandfather’s heart as much as the thought of his friend did. 

It seemed strange to be thinking this after so many years, but he said it silently anyway:

Hannon le, Legolas. I do not know how or from where you learned to be so patient and forgiving towards me. But my life is richer because you are. Hannon le.

Note:   Part of this chapter comes from Chapter 24 of For the Love of the Lord of the White Tree.