Chapter 43

By Hidden Hands Undone

June 28

Mavranor's Palace, Harad

Stained pieces of parchment fell from Mavranor's veined fingers and scissored through the air to the floor, landing with soft whisking sounds that died to silence. There was something wrong there. They ought to have given the noise of an avalanche — of a mountain erupting into fiery death. And death it certainly was.

The queen's black eyes stared unseeingly ahead, her keen mind following the trail of inevitability as its dark prints marched into oblivion. The first… a message from the spies in Rohan. The last of the Corsairs were being discovered, routed from hiding, and slain for their deceptions in sudden justice by the Horse Lords. The second… news from Gondor's northern border. The orcs had been discovered by the Rohirrim. Curse the filthy barbarians! Not one of her minions remained to attack from the north or keep aid from coming thence. The third… word from Gondor, glad tidings in the streets of Minas Tirith. The elf queen had been cured! King Elessar had risen, as if from the mists, and was on the throne once more! Her most dreaded adversary again commanded Gondor. The fourth…

She blinked her eyes against the firestorm of failure searing her mind. Communiqués from the battle lines. Elessar, curse his foul name, had come personally — had marched through her traps like an ocean through a flood guard of damp straw. The Haradrim were routed by an army that ought to have been half their size, the mûmakil had been chased down by a mûmak of the enemies' own, and the Gondorians' fury had been terrible to behold as it fell on her troops from all sides. Ingem was slain… her men fled…

And then the last blow: a fragment of message, a ghost of suspicious, and a gray hawk perched in the aviary. Her Shadow had been cut down. Somewhere, somehow, he had met his doom, and his personal winged messenger was now freed of his control.

She felt the world collapsing, like a line of wooden slats falling — each one knocking over the next. Was it possible? Could she, Mavranor, the greatest and most terrifying power on Middle Earth, fail in every respect? Could she be standing here, watching the tide come to envelope her as her plots crumbled?

"No…" she whispered hoarsely. "NO!" And now the word was a scream as she stamped upon the messages. No, it was false! It was impossible! One failure, perhaps — two if fortune distained her — three at the worst. But five? Six? Seven? No enemy was canny enough to have seen through her every plan! No one had access to her thoughts in such a way!

"It is lies," she hissed. "LIES! No one knew! No one but I, and would I betray myself? No!"

Laughter shrieked from her throat, but it was hysterical and choked. With the words came remembrance. No one knew? One knew.

Mavranor flew across the room. Her hands shook with sudden palsy as she wrenched open the door to her secret archives and pulled out the original maps, scattering half of them in her haste. They were all still there. Nobody had taken them. Nobody had even seen them! Nobody could read her cipher! Nobody but her. And Halda.

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Halda ascended the stairs with less than his usual wariness. The queen had called him from his sleep this time and he was fighting off the lingering effects of a nightmare.

Entering her chambers, he bowed low as soon as he entered the doorway. Mavranor was mostly hidden by the deep shadows, but the candles on her desk were reflected in her dark eyes. It made her gaze seem truly on fire as she stared at him.

Shaking the fatigue from his brain, he came forward. "You sent for me, your greatness?"

She was silent for an oddly long moment. "Yes, Halda," she answered at last. "There are some things on which I need your advice." She gestured to the desk and some military communiqués lying open on its surface.

For a moment, Halda hesitated, but her smile — though habitually cruel — seemed relaxed. Her voice held only welcome for a trusted councilor. And he knew it could be death if he fled, so it was better if he could press on through. Laying aside his reluctance, but not his caution, he came forward and lifted the letter she indicated.

He had only a few seconds to skim through the contents, but random phrases leapt from the page as if rimmed in molten iron. …army has been overrun… snares in the gorges ineffectual… enemy had obtained foreknowledge of all trap emplacements… death toll uncountable… full retreat… capture of many… General Ingem is—

A hiss like a snake sounded in the dark and Halda's eyes went wide as he screamed in pain. He had turned, only a few inches, but it had been the difference between life and death. The long stiletto plunged on an angle up to the hilt into the back of his shoulder, missing his spinal cord.

Halda's world flashed in violent shades of black and white as he staggered, the sounds of Southron curses filling his ears like burning acid. Burning… something was burning… The candles had toppled and the papers on the desk were alight. There was nothing in the world but blinding agony, and then the agony doubled as Mavranor's claw-like hands tore her weapon from his wound. His whole body throbbed with it.

Desperately, he pushed it aside, pressed it back, and hid it away in the special part of his head that only he could enter. She was lunging at him again and though he was injured, he was also a third of her age and he sidestepped her, letting her charge carry her across the room. She rounded, her lips pulled back in a feral snarl of madness. The insane animal that Halda had always sensed in her was in full command now, and on a face so lined with age the effect was demonic and hideous.

She let out a scream that shot straight through his scull and he staggered back away from her, fumbling… stumbling… catching himself on the edge of the pedestal in the alcove. There was some thought in his head about the secret panel at the back of the alcove, but before the thought had truly been considered, two things happened.

First his hand found the Rohirric dagger lying atop the pedestal, the carved horses around the handle sliding into his grip like the weapon had been meant for him. Then Mavranor was upon him, her stiletto slicing towards his eyes, and jerking the dagger around and up he braced the weapon as she impaled herself on it.

It caught her in the upper chest, just below her throat. She began to choke, her mouth working horribly, and blood coating her tongue.

Halda felt his whole body trembling as he heard the stiletto she'd dropped clattering on the dark floor. He watched the dying queen collapse backwards beside her weapon, her spider hands writhing. "Traitor!" she rasped, her eyes rolling. "May your belly be torn and your eyes put out! Filthy, treacherous son of Shelob!" She coughed violently and her whole chest seemed to rattle. "Illegitimate spawn of a Southron—"

"No," Halda said hoarsely, his own words paining him. "Son of any Southron I am not. Take comfort, if you can, heartless murderer that you are. You are conquered not by your own people, but by your old enemies." He leaned close to her fading eyes. "Westu isceald, Blæc Breostcofa," he whispered, speaking his native Rohirric at long last. Fare you ice-cold, Black Heart. And he watched as her eyes widened with pain — and with recognition.

Her thin mouth worked… a snarl still wanted to come out — some last curse to rain on the one who had defeated her — but no breath was there to voice it. With the firelight of the steadily growing blaze behind them mirrored in her eyes, lending life to dead orbs, it was several seconds before Halda realized there was no breath in the body before him. The knife with which her brother had been slain by Captain Thorongil, and which she had tortured him with in turn, remained upright in her chest. Halda had no wish to remove it.

He jerked to his feet, realizing that he was now in more danger, rather than less. He had one last task to finish and he prayed for wits enough to complete it. Grabbing one of the torches from the wall bracket, he closed the chamber door behind him. Running along the hall, supremely grateful that Mavranor's paranoid love of privacy meant no sentries on this floor, he entered her war room. The secret archive room opened readily at his touch and he rummaged amidst the papers, searching for a handful of documents Mavranor had penned as a tribute to her own brilliance. They contained information on the ploys she had used to turn her fellow Southron rulers against each other. Some of these feuds were still being fought. Bundling them into a satchel, he took them with him, and before he left the room he looked around at its remaining contents. Information on Gondor's government, maps of rifts and hills useful for ambushes, lists of Rohirric nobility, documents telling of exploitable weaknesses in city walls, pages of secrets, endless miles of facts Mavranor's spies had uncovered.

With a grim smile, he threw his torch into the center of the room and let the door slide shut on another set of leaping flames.

He took a deep breath, fighting dizziness from the blood running down his back, and staggered exaggeratedly down the stairs. Here came the moment that showed whether he would live or die.

"Help!" he called in the Southron tongue. "Assassins! They tried to kill the queen!"

The entire palace staff awoke and seemed to pour from every doorway. The guards raced up the stairs — then down again, shouting unintelligibly to each other over the noise of everyone stampeding about. The fire was discovered and people were sent to put it out, but there was little water to be had and it continued to spread. Servants huddled together, for fear some sort of attack had come, and slaves broke for freedom. Then someone managed to yell above the tumult, "The queen is dead!"

Halda gasped convincingly in horror along with everyone else around him, and in the flickering shadows of the poorly lit hallways he made his escape. He had memorized Mavranor's secret tunnels and with them he was able to get to the stables and find himself a horse. He even found a stable boy to bind up the wound in his back temporarily; the boy was rather simple, so it was unlikely he'd remember to tell anyone about it.

He rode all night in silence. It was a long way yet home to Rohan, but news would be slow to reach anyone that Mavranor had died, and he hoped his disguise would hold good for that long.

Nights and days of hard riding came in succession before he was forced to give up the horse or lame the poor beast. He sold it to a farmer in exchange for food, fresh clothing, help with his wound, and a special herb he knew he would be wanting soon.

After that it took only a day and night of walking before he crossed over into southern Gondor. Shortly thereafter he almost stumbled into a narrow stream. Halda stared at the water for a long minute as longing welled within him. Taking the herbs from his satchel, he dipped up a bowl of the cool water and added the roots of the herb too it and waited until the water turned gray and oily on the surface. Swirling it briskly until it turned into a lather, he began to rub it across his bronze arms and face and through his black hair.

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Several weeks later a stranger arrived at the doors of Edoras. His skin was browned — but not bronze — his hair was a ruddy tan, like wheat, and his eyes were brown. Upon being challenged by the door warden, he responded in a quiet voice, "Will you please tell King Eomer that Beruthiel requests an audience with him?"

The warden, who knew enough about Gondorian history to recognize 'Beruthiel' as the name of a long-dead queen, looked skeptical. "On what errand?" he demanded.

"He will know when he hears the name."

The stranger was vindicated in his confidence. In only a few minutes, Eomer had cleared his court of the less pressing business. He was waiting in his private study when the stranger entered, and nodded quietly in response to the bow he received.

"I return at last, my lord," the younger man said respectfully. "I have much to tell you."

"I'm sure you do, 'Beruthiel'," Eomer agreed. "Most of it can wait until you have rested from your journey, but there are two things which I believe we ought to discuss before that. First, what can you tell me of the rumors that Queen Mavranor no longer rules in Harad?"

The young man seemed to stiffen a little. "They are true."

"Has she been dethroned?"

"In a sense. She is dead, my lord."

Eomer was surprised, but only a little. Assassinations were common enough amongst the Southron hierarchy. "By whose hand?"

"Halda's. Mine." The words were almost inaudible; there was no trace of pride.

Eomer watched 'Halda' thoughtfully for a moment. Drawing up a chair before the fire, he gestured the young man to sit with him. It was a breach in common court etiquette, but this meeting was already unusual. "Much your story about that can wait too, though I wonder what compelled you…?"

"She found me out and tried to kill me. Those battle plans I sent to you were copies of documents only she and I were able to access. It was a simple matter to put two and two together and detect my treachery, especially for her."

"And you knew that would happen?"

"I guessed. I am most sorry, my lord, for the damage I have done in this. I know you desired me to remain there for some while longer, and the breaking of my disguise was purely of my own doing. I acknowledge that completely and take full responsibility—"

"I am not angry with you," the king cut him off firmly. "As if I could be. You have succeeded far beyond anything I could have expected when I charged you with this duty, and at the risk of your life. Had you hesitated in sending those plans, many Gondorians would have died. And had you not defended yourself, I would have lost a valued warrior. In both cases you have acquitted yourself with honor. Rohan is a proud nation indeed to be served by such men as you. As am I."

The high praise warmed the room even better than the fire. They sat in silence for a long time.

"I came away with papers," 'Halda' said, a strange manner of cold efficiency clutching him for a moment. "I thought it was likely to serve you and King Elessar best if the Southrons continued to be at war with each other, so as not to turn their eyes on Gondor or Rohan, but if you wish for a bargaining chip at some point, Mavranor documented most of her schemes. I have the original papers."

"That was well thought of; I'm sure they will be very useful. Aragorn seems desirous of making peace with the Haradrim, and if that is to happen, their reasons to fight have to be eliminated. Your foresight ought to serve you well in life."

"My lord? Where do you wish to send me now?"

"Where do you want to go?" Eomer was not obviously looking at him, but he was observing him sharply all the same.

'Halda' shook his head exhaustedly, before covering his weariness with a perfect mask of inscrutability. "I have no wish to dictate to you where you best need me. I did hope, perhaps, if it were possible, to go and see my family when I returned. My father hasn't laid eyes on me for… several years."

"Of course," Eomer nodded. He had already known what reply he would give to this. He hadn't expected to feel this much satisfaction in actually saying it. "Currently the place you are most needed is Medui, a fort on our eastern border."

The young man looked up sharply. He knew full well where Medui was. "Medui? Sire, I cannot tell you how grateful I would— but please, do not do this only for my benefit if there is a better way I could serve you."

"This is not pity or indulgence, nor even mere gratitude: this is just reward. You have given, without question or complaint, five years to your king and people. In that you have earned a portion of the peace you have helped to provide for others. I do not think I will need you beyond Medui for at least twenty years or so. Farewell until the morrow. Get some rest. That is by command of your king, understood?"

"Yes, sire."

"Westu hal, 'Beruthiel'."

With the beginnings of a smile, the former spy bowed. "Westu hal, Eomer King." He departed.

A pleased voice spoke from the shadows. "I'm glad you did that."

Eomer couldn't suppress a smile as the purveyor of the comment came into the firelight. "Eavesdropping, Meriadoc?"

"Sam would tell you there's not an eave in sight, my lord," Merry twinkled. "But I mean it. It was an honorable recompense; just what I would have expected from you." He paused thoughtfully. "I still remember returning to the Shire after the War. It hurt, not fitting the way I used to, but in the end it helped like nothing else in the world. Frodo was always saying that it made my changes worthwhile to know that nobody else had to change. Well, that's Frodo for you… My point is you gave him what he needs." He grinned, his curly top glowing in the firelight. "It's just like something a hobbit would have done."

Eomer smiled and reached for his pipe. "That, Merry, I take as high praise indeed."

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A week after that, 'Halda' walked through the gates of Kopairin. Nobody paid him much heed — not even when he stood, staring mutely, at the front doors of the Unbridled Stallion for nearly fifteen minutes. It was as though he'd been confronted by something familiar… but he was afraid it would not recognize him in return.

"Lost something?" a voice asked, and the newcomer turned to find himself face to face with the mayor. Valihondo had one daughter balanced on his shoulders and another with her fingers looped through his belt, since he didn't have a hand free to hold.

"Not lost," 'Halda' admitted cryptically, only barely remembering Valihondo's face, "but not found either."

"Are you looking for work or just passing through?"

"No, and yes, but no."

Valihondo frowned a little, taking Feinalpha from his shoulders and setting her down beside him. "Do you always talk in riddles?"

'Halda' smiled sadly. "Most of the time. I'm sorry, I'm not used to being back amongst plain-speaking men. I have been assigned to Fort Medui, so I am not looking for work, and I suppose that I am only passing through, but I used to— that is, I live not too far from here and was in hopes of finding someone in town who might be willing to take me back there with them."

"Someone in particular, I take it," Valihondo guessed shrewdly.

"Perhaps." The younger man didn't want to say. He gestured behind him at the inn. "Sometimes he comes here after he's sold off his horses."

The mayor was nobody's fool; what was more, he'd recognized the stranger's features. "I'm afraid he's already been and gone, so far as his usual shipment of horses is concerned," he said, saving the good news for last. He almost wished he hadn't — the young man looked so utterly worn and dejected at the news. "But I believe he is back again this week to pick up a load of barley and harness leather. It was delayed and he couldn't retrieve it when he was here last."

"Are you certain we speak of the same man?" the stranger asked, reluctant to become excited after so much waiting.

"You have his nose and your mother's eyes," Valihondo shrugged, hugging Sorni and Feinalpha briefly against his sides without taking his gaze away. "Though you look like you've been getting a lot of sun since last I saw you."

"Yes," 'Halda' nodded, the reply empty and distant. He shook himself. "But I'm back now."

"Planning to stay?"

He nodded once. "No more traveling for me."

"Good." Valihondo's eyes caught sight of the door to the Unbridled Stallion opening behind the stranger and he smiled. "You might want to move; you're blocking the path."

The young man turned about hastily, starting to remove himself — then froze. The gray-haired Rohirrim in the doorway was similarly dumb-struck. For a long time, they stared at each other.

The stranger licked his lips, his brown eyes turning glassy as it seemed his heart would burst. "Father?" the young man whispered.

"Thorongil!" Nethtalt cried in recognition. "My son!"

As the two men embraced tightly, Thorongil could feel himself weeping and he didn't care. In all the long years that he had done his duty and served his king, this was the moment he had dreamed of. Memories came to him of long nights of loneliness and nightmares, of longer days shrouded in secrecy, of fear and death and lies until he thought he might go insane… this was what had sustained him.

Now, at long last, with the smell of his father's leather vest and the strength of his father's arms around his trembling shoulders, Thorongil knew that Halda the Southron was completely dead. Someone much younger, with a life much more hopeful, was reborn.

And like his namesake, Captain Thorongil, now king of Gondor, many leagues away… Thorongil son of Nethtalt was home.