Chapter 37

In Which Duurben Is Observant

June 20

Minas Tirith, Gondor

After this, Eowyn thought, watching Elladan growl fearsomely as he became wedged under a low table, I shall be surprised at nothing.

She was sitting in what the king referred to as 'The Evenstar's Nest', a wide, circular room — almost at the pinnacle of the palace — which Elessar had caused to be redesigned for his wife on their first anniversary. The windows were many and hung with long, translucent curtains. The furniture was made from branches carefully bent and wound together, then sanded and polished to a mirror shine and upholstered in finely woven shades of green, deep blue, and gray. Along the walls were long wooden boxes overflowing with Arwen's favorite herbs and flowers, and vines climbed from them, roaming up the white stone walls and in and out of the windows at will. The moss colored rug was soft underfoot and etched with designs from elven tales of ancient days. Nestled in amongst the plants and cushions were shelves for books, a loom threaded with burgundy silk, a few embroidered hangings, and scattered toys of Gilraen's.

Eowyn honestly loved the place and had visited it often whenever Faramir was called to Minas Tirith to consult with the king, since it was Arwen's preferred space to receive her visitors. It was also the first place she had asked to be taken when the healers said that she might be allowed to leave her room.

An elf from Lorien, called Tindu, and her nephews, Rumil and Orophin, had arrived at the palace a few days earlier. As Aragorn had already told Arwen before he left, they came carrying the books which Tindu had promised to leave in Minas Tirith's archives, and Arwen had been hoping to meet with her, having recognized the historian's name from her own days in Lorien. "But not in my sickroom," the queen had insisted.

Accordingly, Arwen's brothers carried their sister to her 'Nest', propped her up with cushions and love, extended the invitation to Tindu and Eowyn to join her, and proceeded to enjoy their nephew's and nieces' company with reckless abandon.

Which was how Eowyn came to be in her state of pleased bewilderment. It was a scene that reminded her strongly of her own childhood, but not one she would have expected in a room full of elves. That the graceful, exquisite queen could be seated there in perfect calm, mildly scolding her brothers for carousing in front of 'company'; that the sad-eyed historian (whom, their discussion revealed, had known several of Eowyn's ancient ancestors) could talk pleasantly over the noise; that the two greatest warriors of Rivendell, fierce and terrible in battle and still bandaged from their recent injuries, could be crawling about the room growling and chasing after three children in a game of 'Wargs and Villagers' seemed all too strange to be true.

She smiled, delight twinkling from her blue eyes. Like Arwen, she had not been made for strange, stone halls. Also like Arwen, she had married a man who understood her need for trees and clear air. If one day Ilúvatar would grant her moments such as these with her own children — and her hand rested for a moment on her steadily growing belly — she knew she could ask for no more. Hastily, she pulled her feet up out of the way of a squealing 'villager'.

Elladan had by then successfully unwedged himself from the narrow space under the reading table and caught Gilraen up over his head like a trophy.

"Aiiieee!" the girl shrieked piercingly, laughing as she yelled in her best terrified voice, "Put me down, you horrible monst—"

The rest was cut off as Elladan rolled her back to the floor and began tickling her mercilessly, grinning as she wriggled. "Horrible what?" he asked, knowing she couldn't answer through her laughter. "Horrible what, did you say? Come, now, speak up!"

Eowyn caught a glimpse of Tindu trying to simultaneously hide a smile and answer a question Arwen had put to her. Then from around her chair Lord Elrohir came on all fours with Elenwen perched demurely on his back like an empress on an oliphaunt. He winked at Eowyn in passing, making subdued warg noises whenever Elenwen shook the two slender braids she was using for reigns.

"She won't break under torture?" he asked his brother with a chuckle.

"Here, now, El," Elladan scolded in return, noticing Elrohir's passenger, "how came you, a fearsome warg, to suffer a villager on your back in such a manner?"

"I tamed him!" Elenwen declared, her cheeks still flushed from the chase.

"Only after I caught him and wrestled him to the ground!" Eldarion put in.

"Betrayed!" Elladan gasped, melodramatically, and in the process let go of Gilraen. She launched herself bodily at his midsection, shrieking with glee, and Eowyn could not help laughing aloud. Elladan's breath left him in a whoosh as he and his niece tumbled backward and up against the sofa where Arwen was reclining.

"Greetings, gwador-nin," the queen said dryly, looking down into his inverted face.

"You trained her too well."

"Thank you. Make sure you don't kill yourself with all this roughhousing, or the healers will be doubly furious with me."

"Hi, Naneth!" Gilraen chirped, happily straddling her Uncle El's stomach. She leaned forward so that her elbows rested on his chest and her nose was mere inches away from his. "I win." Her eyes crinkled as she giggled, and Elladan laughed as well, vibrating her where she sat.

"You did at that, tuima-nin," he said with a graceful smile. "I know when to admit I'm beaten."

"It happened to you all the time when we were small," Elrohir chipped in. He was upright now, Elenwen perched on his shoulders. "I remember you being particularly bad at playing Kings, for example."

Eldarion popped up from where he'd been sneaking up behind Elrohir, nearly tipping over the chair Tindu was sitting in. "I like to play Kings!"

"C'n I watch?" Gilraen ask, getting off her uncle and tumbling over him to go pull on Eldarion's sleeve.

"Only if you don't jostle the board."

"I haven't said I'll play yet," Elladan protested.

Arwen smiled at her brother, a look that showed she'd learned how to pick her battles and that this was one victory well within her reach. "Of course you have. I have granted you twenty minutes of chaos. In return you, my beloved brother, are happily prepared to bestow upon me twenty minutes of peace."

Eowyn fought another laugh as Elladan looked about at the hyper children bouncing around him. Getting twenty minutes of peace would be tricky after such rough games. "Do you lay these kinds of traps for Estel?"

"No. It would be pointless; he knows better than to walk into them," Arwen retorted, a little smugly. "It is not so hard — let them watch you lose to Eldarion at Kings and they'll be calm in no time."

Elladan hoisted Gilraen up and cast an injured look between his sister and brother. "Even she thinks I'll lose!"

"We can't help it if you're notorious," Elrohir said. "After all, how old was Estel when he beat you? Four? Three and a half?"

"I found the pieces!" Eldarion called from the other side of the room.

Then the babble of voices grew less distinguishable as they all clustered around the board and the game began.

"Your brothers remind me of my nephews," Tindu murmured, her eyes twinkling. "Especially when Haldir and Orophin were younger. Somehow Rumil was always too sensible for such nonsense."

"I assure you, I was just the same way," Arwen agreed. "I took my riding lessons with them and we would concoct outrageous races, but on the ground I was a fine lady, above such hoodlum behavior. It was an attitude I kept most faithfully… except for those few times when they went too far, of course."

"Few times?" Eowyn said in disbelief.

"Very well, more than a few times."

The three women chuckled.

"How did Lord Aragorn fit into that? You four grew up together, did you not?" Eowyn asked.

"Estel grew up with my brothers, but I stayed in Lorien most of that time and did not meet him until he was already a man. As for how he fit in, I would go so far as to credit him with saving my brothers' souls. When our mother departed Middle Earth, they were much altered — not the laughing means for mischief you just saw."

"Aye," Tindu murmured. "I have seen that happen."

"There were a great many things about Lord Aragorn I did not understand until I met you and learned of his history," Eowyn mused. She did not mean to add aloud, but said, "He is a strange man."

"He is. Beyond my comprehension at times, though I am his wife; for his human side is unlike me because I am elven, and his elven ways are mysterious because they were gathered from such wide sources. At times he is even more like Legolas than he is like my brothers or father. It is a balance that has preserved him, no matter the circumstances. Without it, he would not have come home to me this time."

"What happened?" Eowyn asked. She had not been given the full story of Aragorn's and Legolas' long journey.

Arwen's fingers, still pale and veined with blue from her illness, smoothed the soft coverlet Elladan had tucked around her. "He did not tell me all; there was no time. But he was worn and troubled and I drew as much from him as I could. He and Legolas had found the medicine I needed, and Gimli had arrived only just in time to warn them of Tantur's deceit. They were on their way back when they were waylaid by an evil thing — a creature fallen so far I cannot even call him an elf."

Eowyn started, faintly noticing that Tindu had blanched. "The same one who tried to poison you?"

"Based on Arien and Bartho's description, Estel believes so. Besides there could not be many elves this corrupted or this powerful."

A memory came to Eowyn of a conversation she and Arien had had. "Arien said he entered her mind, pulling out the worst memories of her life and choking her with them. She was dying when Bartho arrived. What kind of evil…?" she trailed off.

"I cannot say. But the same pain was meted out to Estel, tenfold. In his life he has acquired far too many targets for such malice, and this monster, Vardnauth, struck every single one." Arwen's face was drawn, her gaze turned inward, and so she missed the expression on Tindu's face. "I doubt I shall ever draw from Estel the full pain and horror of it — he desires to spare me things; does he not realize how easy it is for me to speculate? I know his 'infliction' of mortality on me could not help but arise. Stubborn man, to hide behind a barrier between us that we never erected." She seemed to refocus on the room and continued in a more normal voice. "It is a common ending to Aragorn's adventures, but if Legolas had not been there he would not have held his own. Thank Ilúvatar, the creature is dead now."

Tindu stood up suddenly, her entire body trembling like a leaf. "He is dead?" she asked strangely. "You are certain. Elessar… Elessar is certain…"

Eowyn stared at her, and then blinked at the sudden appearance of a man and an elf in the doorway, the man being Duurben, and the elf faintly resembling Tindu.

"Orophin," Tindu whispered, turning toward the elf. Her nephew, then. "You heard?"

"Enough of it," he said in a brittle voice, his face devoid of expression. "He's gone. Not without a damage trail, I suppose."

Tindu shook her head mutely. "I thought that if I warned them… No, I should have gone with them."

"What, and died?" Orophin demanded sharply. "You think that would have repaired in your heart what our forgiveness could not?"

Tindu winced as if slapped. "No. But before my mistakes were visited on another head, for once I wish I could have stood in the breach. Foolish — yes. I have reached the age of utter foolishness. Perhaps I never outgrew it." She was crying silently as she met Arwen's eyes. "I am more sorry than I can say."

There was a long, long silence. Only Orophin moved and that was to hand the papers he was carrying to Duurben, approach his aunt, and rest his two hands on her shoulders.

"Be glad you did not go," he whispered. "If you had, Rumil and I would have come. Even after all this time, I know I would have gladly torn him apart. And after that…" He did not need to finish the sentence for her to understand. “That aside, please do not say such things. We cannot spare you yet.”

"Tindu," Arwen called softly, unable to rise as she might have liked. "Aragorn would not blame you. Vardnauth is dead — we should not allow him to bring trouble from beyond the grave."

Elrohir had left the children and his twin to their game and had taken up a place behind his sister, trying to piece together what had happened in his absence. Eowyn rose to her feet, wondering what she should do.

"Excuse me," Duurben murmured apologetically. They turned as one to look at him. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to pry, but what are these papers you handed me?"

Orophin tilted his head at the guardsman in a half shrug. "Maps. A few pages came loose from the atlases and I couldn't determine which book they'd come from — the boundaries were unfamiliar."

"Gondor," Tindu and Duurben answered simultaneously.

"Specifically," Duurben added in a soft voice, "our southern border, if I'm reading the topography right. I only glanced at it at first, but your notation caught my eye. Is this the way you typically mark coordinates on your maps?"

"My brother and I devised it, yes," Tindu acknowledged. "We drew those together."

"It seemed familiar." Duurben looked over at Elrohir. "If you'll look, my lord, is this not the same notation King Aragorn found on those Southron battle plans King Eomer sent him?"

Elrohir looked startled. Coming forward, he quickly looked down the borders of the maps. "How is this possible?"

"I don't know, but I could guess," the guardsman said thoughtfully. "If Vardnauth was once Lady Tindu's student, and if he was lately in the employ of Mavranor, and if the plans King Eomer's spies obtained came from her personal archives, it is not so unlikely that any maps or information he drew up for her would be drawn the same way his original teacher had taught him. Mavranor would have favored the system, since most people would not understand it if they found it." His voice was becoming almost excited. "And even if the notation styles had not matched, this is what we were lacking. A complete map of the gorges — complete as only a pair of elves could have made it, hazards and all. If we matched this with the plans…" He looked at Arwen. "My lady, this is the piece Thorongil— I mean, the king was missing."

Arwen's lips parted as she exhaled slowly. "Dear Valar… Yes. Yes, you're right. You have to take those to him, Duurben."

"I?" Duurben asked, bewildered.

"You said it yourself, this is the key. At all costs we must get these maps to Aragorn before the attack goes forward; it could mean the difference between life and death for hundreds. You know Gondor well, you are still a swift rider, and you have the authority to pass through all garrisons and battle lines.“ She paused for a moment to look him in the eye. "Above all you're a man I know I can trust."

He looked almost lightheaded at her words, his shoulders straightening. "I thank you for your trust, my lady. But what of my duties here…? I cannot just leave. My men would do fine without me under normal circumstances, but after the attack two months ago—"

She smiled up at Elrohir. "Worry not for me."

"Anyone foolish enough to enter will get more than he bargained for," Elrohir agreed, showing for the first time the steel Eowyn had been told was in him, "and he will most certainly leave with less."

Eowyn had known Duurben was getting steadily older, but he seemed to lose several years as he considered the mission he had been given. Ultimately he was a soldier, and at his best when under orders with a firm goal ahead. "I shall leave at once," he said.

As his glance fell on Tindu, he saluted her briefly with a small smile. "It seems these maps will be the source of both our redemptions."