Chapter 25

Departing A Little Wiser

May 12, Year 7 of the Fourth Age

Lothlorien

For a long while, elves, human and dwarf sat in marked silence. Tindu looked as frail as an autumn leaf, barely clinging to her native tree. Raking up the past had taken its toll.

Feeling an overwhelming swell of pity for the woman, Aragorn nonetheless needed the end of the story. "I imagine he escaped."

"Yes," she said softly. "For a while search parties were sent after him. He was too dangerous to exile — he had to be kept here in Lorien, under lock and key. One pair of trackers managed to catch up with him in Calenardhon, or what is now Rohan, but by that time he had learned how best to use his new powers. Only one of the elves returned from that search, bearing the unmarked body of his companion. It proved Vardnauth's skills were not only fit for torture. Then it became too dangerous to track him further — both because of his powers and because of the orcs and Easterlings which were filling Calenardhon." She took refuge in a faintly lecturing tone, rather like Elrond describing the lineage of Isildur. "When Eorl the Young launched his attack upon them, battles wracked the province. There were many debates about what part the elves ought to play, if any, but we had troubles enough on our own borders. At last Eorl and his horsemen succeeded in driving out the enemy. The original Gondorian population of Calenardhon were all but decimated already, and in gratitude Steward Cirion granted the entire province as a reward to Eorl and his people. The Eorlingas remain there to this day. And when the dust cleared, we could only assume that Vardnauth had perished in the chaos. We searched no longer."

"There was no reason you should have," Legolas pointed out. "You seem to take more blame for this than is your due, Tindu."

She gave the ghost of a smile, "Perhaps. My crimes were those of ignorance and inaction rather than deceit or rashness. And that I did not listen to Tirin." Her eyes grew shadowed. "I rue not what I did so much as what I allowed others to do. The greater crime, mayhap."

Gimli snorted into his beard, his stout arms crossed. "Say it how you please — you didn't try to take over Lorien, and you didn't attack Lady Galadriel," (this particular crime the dwarf took greatly to heart), "and you most certainly didn't stab your brother. No need to grow dark and morbid over it."

Tindu chuckled a little. "You will not remember me, Gimli, for I watched Galadriel give you her gifts from afar, but I thought then as I do now: if only elves had realized the value of dwarvish plain speaking, then our relations with your people would have fared the better. Fear not for me. I am neither dark nor, I hope, morbid. I've lived the past years under the watchful eyes of three nephews who, in spite of their own sorrows, never allowed me to linger in mine." Her eyes grew soft and fond as she spied Rúmil coming back alone from the scriptorium.

Aragorn's own memories of Haldir validated that claim. He did not dare bring it up, for he knew after Tirin's death the loss of Haldir at Helm's Deep must have been a terrible ordeal, but he felt a sudden stirring of understanding. Things about Haldir and his brothers that had never been explained. He was glad to know it.

Then Rúmil joined them and the tale seemed firmly at an end. "Orophin is busy with the last of the crates."

"Is he alright?" Tindu asked.

"Oh, aye. He slammed a few things around, but then one of your big atlases of Arnor came off the top shelf onto his head and he sat down hard. Such accidents demand a joke, as you know, and you can't joke when you're being moody."

"What did he say?" she asked, amused.

"Something to the affect that it was a good thing hobbits were so small, or getting concussed by Arnor would probably hurt a lot more."

"Classic Orophin."

Rúmil snorted. "Sheer nonsense, if you ask me."

"Why do you think he never does ask?"

"Excuse me," Aragorn asked, interrupting, "what sort of atlases do you have?"

Rúmil hastened to explain, "Tindu is a cartographer, after a fashion."

"When we were young and foolish, Tirin and I used to travel Middle Earth — he for the adventure, and I for the geography." She smiled a little, looking with particular mischief at Aragorn and Legolas. "We were as strange a pair of younglings as ever failed to avoid a bar fight in the Breeland."

Legolas snorted.

"'Twas my fault for asking foolish questions of a brigand, and in our defense Tirin paid for the mess he left behind. But we did a fair amount of work before Tirin settled down to be a respectable married captain — elven lifetimes being what they are, we could afford to wander for a few hundred years before accepting adulthood. Much of the modern history in our libraries I wrote down around that time, and I drew up a collection of atlases from our travels for the benefit of the Lord and Lady. When Lorien grew closed to outsiders, Tirin still had friends and sources outside the wood willing to bring me news of changes, so the maps are rather more accurate than most." Tindu flushed. "I'm sorry, that is vanity speaking, but I am insufferably proud of my atlases…"

Rising, Aragorn began to thoughtfully examine the mounds of papers and books of elven writing piled in the cart. "What do you plan to do with all this, now that you are leaving?"

"Take it with us. Though I do not know what good it will bring across the sea."

The king's hand brushed gently over a leather bound volume entitled 'History and Lineage of the Northern Dúnedain'. "I was thinking along those lines. It seems a shame to lose all this." He thought for a little while. "Lady Tindu?"

"Yes?" She was standing now, her head tilted a little as if she were trying to read his mind.

"Might I offer these a home in Gondor?"

The woman inhaled slowly, her eyes suddenly shining. "Would you have a use for them?"

This time it was Gimli who snorted. "He'll bury himself so deep in your scribbles, his wife won't be able to lever him loose of them. The lad's got an affinity for elvish books, though how he comes by it I'll never know."

"His father transferred it to him," Legolas laughed. "And he is rapidly imbuing Eldarion with the same love. Lady Tindu, you could not hope for a better home for all your books."

Tindu's hands were almost trembling with eagerness, "Please… please take them! They are yours and welcome, if you will truly read them." Her eyes met those of her nephew, who seemed to understand her delight, "It will not pain me so much to leave if I know I have not worked in vain."

Shaking his head, Rúmil put his hands on his aunt's shoulders. "As if you could doubt it, melin waani nin," he chided her, and she smiled at the pet name. "Come then. It is many miles to Gondor, and we still need to finish loading. I'll go tell Orophin to stir himself."

The mention of Gondor's distance seemed to stir Aragorn as well. "Yes," he said, "and we must be leaving at once." Legolas rose and Gimli knocked his pipe clear. "When you arrive in Minas Tirith send word to me through the guard and you will be admitted. After that you will be welcome to stay as long as you wish, or receive help on your journey to the Havens. It would be the least I could do in return for this gift. Until then, namárië, Tindúvalorien."

"Namárië, Elessar Telcontar," Tindu replied, bowing. "It has been my great pleasure to meet you, even if I regret the circumstances. Be cautious. You now know who the enemy is, and what few things will stop him."

Aragorn nodded once. As if of one mind, all three companions turned and set off through the trees, sensing the eyes of the historian upon them until they disappeared from her view.

"Perfect," Gimli scowled blackly. "So, we aren't facing your typical bloodthirsty assassin with delusions of ruling the world — ho, no. That'd be too dull for you both! No, you had to find a villainous elf with powers of mind control to butt your heads against."

In spite of the grave truth behind the dwarf's words, the human and the elf laughed.

"Are we frustrating you, Gimli?" Aragorn chuckled.

"No, the crazed villains I'm coming to expect. It's the fact that we're poised to run all the long way back to Minas Tirith, and I've just run from there."

"Do not mistake us, we are incredibly grateful that you did, Gimli," Aragon told him seriously. "There is no doubt things would have gone much worse had you not arrived right at that moment, my friend. And only you would have undertaken such an apparently impossible task for us in the first place."

"Well…" the dwarf grunted in a relenting sort of way.

"Besides, you've always told us you loved to run!" Legolas smiled wickedly. "I, for one, would not so much as dream of depriving you, melin waani nin."

Aragorn almost choked at the reuse of Rúmil's teasing pet name.

"WHAT DID HE CALL ME?!" Gimli thundered, as Legolas sprinted on ahead with a silvery laugh.

"You really ought to consider learning elvish," Aragorn said mildly.

"Oh yes," the dwarf said sarcastically, "The Princeling and I reading elf poetry together for a grammar lesson, with him laughing his yellow head off at every word I say. I can just picture it."

So could the human, and it was all he could do not to start laughing in his friend's face; Gimli had endured enough on his behalf already.

"I'd sooner have my teeth pulled with a pair of fire irons, and I won't be gotten round, laddie. What. Did. He. Call. Me."

"Eh… 'My dear goose'."

And then the human was off, running lightly to catch up with Legolas, with a red faced dwarf hot on his heels. At this rate, they would be home in no time.

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May 14

Southern Gondor, Battle Line, Southron Side

After nearly eight hours discussion of military maneuvers, and numbers of men, and what exactly the fighting capabilities of mûmakil were in narrow ravines and forest land, most young men would have become stir crazy. Halda, however, was not most young men. In fact it appeared to the others in the tent that he had not so much as blinked ever since taking his stand behind his queen's chair.

Beneath the surface his mind moved rapidly, listening to all that was said and analyzing it for his own benefit. General Ingem was looking as decayed as ever in the torchlight, and he was obviously hiding extreme nervousness. Halda couldn't blame him. He knew Mavranor retained the old warrior solely for his ability to follow detailed orders to the letter and for his lack of personal ambition. He was a puppet, one that she could set in motion from a distance.

Only at the moment they were not the least bit distant. They were in the middle of Ingem's hidden camp in a maze of gorges within the borders of Gondor itself, a place so dangerous at the moment as to reveal the interloper to be either foolhardy or brilliant.

It was well known that every scheme the queen ever attempted was personally planned and, frequently, orchestrated by her. If she could not lead her troops physically into battle, she could at least analyze the terrain on her own and outline every skirmish of the campaign, and the more important or complicated the plan, the closer she needed to be in case adjustments were required. But though Halda had known this — none better — even he had not expected to be roused in the dead of night and whisked away by his queen and her entourage in this way. Granted, it was doubtful her own palace guards, let alone her enemies, knew that she had ever left.

Mavranor's hands were gesturing at points on the map before her, the orange torchlight sending spider shadows waltzing through the ink ravines and out upon long stretches of wooded hills. "This will cause them to fall back. My scouts say there has been erosion here, making their only possible retreat here." She sketched an x above a narrow cove. "When your men arrive, the Gondorians will be surrounded on all sides."

Halda's dark eyes were watchful, recognizing an macabre glint in the queen's eyes.

"They have taken a few prisoners, milady," Ingem croaked, his voice pulled from mothballs for the occasion. "Do you desire a similar capture on our part to trade?"

Her thin lips curled cruelly, "I never trade, Ingem. It is worthless." Her finger came down to caress the ridgeline of her chosen cove. "No. Kill them all. I do not want to see the grass for blood. They will know they are pitted against a foe to be feared."

Ice shivered up Halda's spine. Such hate. He did not care overmuch about the common people of Harad, but he could not help but wonder if it was actually in their best interests for her to be deposed.

Mavranor was speaking about lesser matters now, and Halda's mind took one more look at this new battle scheme. He contemplated, as always, if there was any use he ought to make of it. The queen had placed herself in a vulnerable position, the like of which was unlikely to occur again for some time, and for her to bring about such wanton— He blinked, the equivalent of shaking his head to clear it. There weren't enough people here for camouflage. If he acted now, it would be all too easy to discover him. For a long time his mind worked coldly over the question.

Then Halda looked at the queen — and for the first time since he had been taken into her service, his heart truly failed him. He was terrified. Aye, mortal man he was, and almost sick with it. Was he such as weak-minded fool that having come so far and labored so long he would now fail at the moment where the most might be accomplished? Would purpose be overshadowed by survival?

Yes.

Silently he had stood thus far, in silence he continued, and when the meeting was ended and Halda found himself back in his tent, he lay down and stared at the canvas above him. Silently.