~ Chapter 56 ~

'Aragorn looked at them, and there was pity in his eyes rather than wrath; for these were young men from Rohan, from Westfold far away, or husbandmen from Lossarnach, and to them Mordor had been from childhood a name of evil, and yet unreal, a legend that had no part in their simple life; and now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true, and they understood not this war no why fate should lead them to such a pass. 

“Go”’ said Aragorn.  “But keep what honour you may, and do not run!  And there is a task which you may attempt and so be not wholly shamed.’' 

ROTK: The Black Gate Opens

~oOo~

~ TA 3018 2^nd day of Nárië:  Master Fimon reports no sign of any living sheep from my lord’s gift of my dower.  All we had left are now accounted for.  There are none left.

~oOo~

Soft voices of men arise from down the stairs to mingle with the rising wind rustling through the thatch.  The solar goes dark with the passing of clouds and the dimness brings a chill that the next breaking of light does not warm. 

My daughter is asleep.  I have sung her eyes to their closing, easing away the fright with the lullabies of my father's house.  

"Lady," a voice calls softly from the bottom of the stairs. 

‘Tis my lord.  The hall below is now quiet, and his men gone.  My lord calls to me, yet I cannot draw my gaze away from my daughter’s sweetly breathing form nor walk down the flight of stairs away from her.

"Lady," he calls again, and I sigh and tear my gaze away.  I ease Elenir’s head from my shoulder and rise from the trundle bed.

From the top of the stairs, his face is a pale light in the shadows of the bottom of a well. Red light and shadow flicker about him, lit as he is by the fire of the hearth behind him.  For a moment, in my reluctance, all is still but the rising wind seeping through the shutters and sifting through the thatch of my lord’s house. 

"Come!" he commands softly, lest his daughter stir.  "Let me see to your wounds." 

I touch the linen beneath my sleeve, surprised to find it stiff.  For all I had washed away dark, foul blood from the skin where I was hurt, it seems I had forgotten them.  The touch brings a sudden bloom of pain.

“Come,” he says again when I turn away to catch a glimpse of my daughter snug beneath her bedclothes.  “Lady,” he says and here he falters.  “I saw thee running.”  

From the bottom of the stairs he peers up uncertainly and lifts a hand to gentle my descent.  There he awaits me, and once I am upon him, takes my hand in his grip and leads me into the hall. 

He has pulled his chair from behind his table and set it afore a bench by the hearth, so he may lay out his gear and seat me across from him.  He built up the fire and there hangs a small pot in which water comes swiftly to a boil.  There he leads me without comment. 

“Sit,” he commands and points at the bench as he takes up a bit of cloth and swings the pot from the fire.

My scarf I would not wish back, and my wrap lies upon the pasture I know not where.  I had run shears through the cloth of my sleeve from wrist to shoulder in my haste.  Once he settles himself in his chair across from me, he parts the folds of my sleeve and, taking my hand about my wrist, sets to unwinding the linen wrapped about my arm.  The sinews of my shoulder ache with the weight of my own limb and my lord’s gentle pull upon it.  Seeing my face, my lord releases me and, turning away, rolls a blanket to bolster my arm so he may tend to me without causing undue pain. 

The strips of linen are stiff with dried blood and my lord must dampen and pull on them.  The pain and trickle of blood his care releases are a distant thing, for my lord has now set out a pot of rûdh-glaew salve.  He may sing in strange words over my wounds in a low, soft voice, but I hear it not.  He may press hard upon bruised flesh of arm and face to bring blood to the surface, but I feel it not.  The warmth of the fire brings with it the smell of wine and the bitterness of cropleek and ox bile.  I know naught but the press of a small, closed room and the strain of days of care and waiting above stairs.  It is not until my lord has unfolded a square of cloth and from it drawn fresh stems of athelas and there rubbed the leaves over the warm pot are my eyes opened and I see my lord’s hall. 

My lord watches me closely, though his hands are busy with folding the cloth upon itself.  He frowns, his brow creased with concern. 

I had hoped the scent of vervain, rosemary, or lavender, or the newly unfurled buds of plum blossoms might steal throughout the hall.  But they do not.  There is naught of the scent of a garden, whether it be mine or my father’s.  But, too, no longer does the smell of wine and oxgall press upon me.  In their place, I smell naught but the sharp tang of woodfire and the scent that arises from my lord’s skin when warmed by the sun or his efforts. 

“Drink this,” he commands, and hands me a cup from which rises a thin thread of steam.

When he brewed it, I am uncertain, but I take it in my hand and sip from it. ‘Tis bitter with willow bark and valerian, but I drink it all under his watchful eye.  When he has taken the cup from me and set it down, he speaks again.

“I have seen many men treated for such bites as you bear, lady, and few do so with so little complaint.” 

“I have already done this, my lord.”

“’Tis no harm to do it again and indeed will do you a good.”  With this, he dips the cloth into the pot and then presses it to my cheek.  It is hot, but not unbearable, and soothes the burn of the air upon open flesh.  With each pass of the cloth, the pain eases, as does the look upon my lord’s face.

"We are very lucky the bite was to hold, not to rend.  I think the wounds will not poison, lady, but we will do this again and must keep them clean and dry." 

I nod, and he goes on to refresh the cloth and lave the wounds upon my arm. Still he looks upon me keenly but still I am silent through his spreading the salve thinly upon brow and cheek, and neck and arm, and then refreshing the binding of the wounds upon my arm. Throughout it all, I listen to the whistling of the wind above our heads and the snapping of the fire, and the soft sounds of my lord’s breath as he works.  It is not until he has fashioned a sling and laid my arm in it, he speaks again.

“Lady, had I known the tool you use in your spinning was so deadly, I would have seen to outfitting all my men with one,” he says as he clears the bench of bloodied rags and the tools of his craft.

Mayhap he had meant to lighten my mood but at his words I turn my head from him.

“Forgive me, my lord,” I say, and it is a wonder he hears it. 

“I know naught of weapons and war,” I go on when he says naught, but has stilled and sits quietly waiting for me to speak further.  “Yet I have presumed to know the bounds of your House's safety.  I have usurped your place, doubted you when you were within your rights and only wished I and your child well.”

"I have no wish to demand apologies from you, lady. I send my men to the House of Elrond with their return.  Though the weres will have drawn off for now, I have not the time to search them out should they not find them, and I can spare no other.  I shall send our daughter with them. Will you not go?"

"As it please you, my lord," I say, my voice grown small, whereupon he falls still and then lets loose a loud noise of displeasure and fairly throws the rags in his hand to the bench. 

"Lady," he says, his voice stern, "have I ever demanded your submission?"

I do not manage to say it, though by the flicker of light in his eyes I know my look recalls for him his words of the day afore.   Ne’er afore had my lord raised his voice to me and I think it brings him shame, for next he draws a great breath and quickly masters himself.

"Nay, I should not have spoken to you so.  I will not demand you submit," he says and then takes my hand in both of his. 

After a long moment in which his head is bowed and his face is grim, my lord sighs and turns me so I face him.  He keeps my hand clasped in his and runs his thumbs along my knuckles. 

He looks up and his eyes are grave, though, within them, too, is a deep reluctance for which I cannot account.  "Do not think, lady, I know not what you suffer." 

“My lord, you need not –“

I halt then and abandon the attempt to interrupt, for I have lost all power of speech and thought.  I can do naught but stare.  My lord's eyes shimmer with tears. 

“Just this morn, I woke to the thought I had heard his voice calling me to start the day.”

His face twists with sudden pain and the tears fall and trail upon his cheeks. I can do naught else but fix upon how they catch upon the skin beneath his eyes and capture the light of the fire behind me. 

"Even now, though it is had the world been swept clean of sign of him,” he says, “when I walk into this hall I hope to trip upon his toys scattered about the hearth or find him searching through my things.” 

At his words, it is as had a thunderbolt flown from the heavens and lodged itself in my breast.  I cannot breathe!  I would have recoiled from my lord had he not tightened his grip on my hand.  Though he seeks my gaze, a great fear wells inside of me. I struggle to pull away, but he will have none of it until I twist myself violently from his grip.  I clap my hand to my bowed face, hiding my eyes from his.  

"No," I say, my voice a thin, shaking thing. 

"And, lady,” he says as he leans close, his voice faltering and thickening until I can bare make out his words, “I cannot bear to think upon what you endured, watching my son fail, and wondering should we have –“

“No! No! No!”I shout. It is as had my heart burst and floods my veins with its poison, pressing me to my feet and setting a fire to my voice.  “How dare you!  Where wert thou?”  I pound my breast and shriek in a voice I do not recognize as my own.  “He was my son!  My son!”  

“Lady!” My lord rises from his chair.

“Do not touch me!” I flail at his hands as they grasp for me. For the first in all our years together, I want him gone!

“The son of Men,’ thou named him?” I cry and knock his hand from me. “Thinkest thou he would redeem thee thy neglect of thy people? The heir of kings, thy father named thee?  Thou hast made us thy pawns to serve thy pretensions!  Thou couldst be the son of Elendil himself and still thou art naught but a baseborn son of a cur. Thou hast squandered any rights to his name.” 

With that, my lord grapples with me and we fall heavily to his chair, scraping its feet against the stone and knocking o’er the bench and its contents in a great clatter of noise.  

“No!” I shout and twist and yank at his hold upon my wrist.  I am as a wild thing when the door to a cage first trammels it in. My hand flies free of his grasp.  I rear back.  

“Go to thy driftless ranging and leave us be!”

His head strikes the back of his chair with a sharp crack at the force of the slap.

I hear not my lord’s cry ere he smothers it against my hair.  For, despite my flailing and screaming down curses upon him, he has ahold of me again and seeks to draw me to his lap with a will that has mastered stronger men than I.  His arms are as iron.  He has wrapped them about me and grips me to him.  His breast heaves beneath mine where he pleads with me for mercy in words I cannot seem to understand. 

And then it is as had I choked on my own bitterness and lost all strength and sense. My throat burns for the raw and wild keening sounds I make.  My hand is trapped beneath his arm and so I press my face to his breast to hide from my lord’s gaze, so great is the feeling that comes upon me. 

“What have I done?” I choke, spluttering. “What have I done? Oh, ai!  I was his mother and he was naught but a little boy.”   

I know not what my lord says, but his voice echoes in the bones and sinew of the breast that presses and heaves against me.  His hand comes to grab upon my hair, and he clasps my head to him and rocks.  There, upon my lord’s chair afore his hearth, we cling to the other and weep. I am not gentle in my grief, for atimes the pain surges through me in a great flood and I scream and beat weakly upon his breast and tear at his clothes as should I wish to rip them asunder.  Nor is my lord gentle in the giving of comfort, but grips me as were he afraid he, too, might drown beneath its weight crashing upon him.  

It is some time ere a stillness settles upon the hall.  But when the quiet comes, my lord loosens his hold upon me.  We sit in his great chair and listen to the creaking of its wood as we attempt to breathe.  My brow rests against my lord’s cheek. I cannot see his face.  Nor do I wish to.  His hand clutches upon my arm and I know not would he bring comfort to me or to himself with the touch, for he breathes unsteadily and the skin of his cheek where I rest my head is yet wet with his tears.

“Will you not go to Rivendell, lady?” he asks after some time. 

Oh, ai!  We return to this.

“I do not wish it, my lord.  How can I?”

His hand comes up to tighten in my hair and he presses the sharp point his cheek to my brow.  His voice is thick and muffled by his lips against my skin. “I beseech thee, lady, please.”

I can think of but one reason to go and many to stay.  And though I must speak through the threat of more tears I must ask it.  For I am done with waiting for the axe to fall upon my neck.  “And had thy daughter died today?”

“Still I would beg thee go,” he insists.  He releases my hair to take my hand firmly in his and refuses to allow me to look at aught else other than his eyes where they are rimmed in red and swollen. 

“Lady, this I vow, I shall ever have need of thee, no matter the chances of the world.  Indeed our children are precious to me and indeed had I hoped to fill this house with as many as you would bear of me.  But you are the Lady of the Dúnedain. Thou art the mother of my children, the woman in my bed, the councilor at my table, and the lady of my House!  That is fixed and unchanging even should you ne’er bear me another.  I would yet cling to the hope one day we shall rid ourselves of the shadow of our Enemy.  Should we win free of it, still I would need thee, for you have tasted much of its bitterness and I would have you partake, too, of the joys of this world.  Should we fail and the shadow of our Enemy fall upon all the free peoples of this Middle Earth, still I would need thee, for greatly shall I require your aid ‘til the very last.”

At this, a huff of air escapes me. “For you have no other -”

“I would choose no other!”

We fall silent at this.  I cannot speak, so torn between relief and pain am I.  My lord draws his thumb along the long bones of my hand and across my knuckles as he studies them.

“And yet, not even in this, will I force thee,” he says and shakes his head.  “The choice is now put to you.  It is you who must say whether you will go or stay.”

“You ask much of your people, my lord.” 

“I know it.” His voice echoes dully, so little hope there is to warm it.  “I forgive thee thy fears and the hand thou raised against me.  Thou said naught my own thoughts have not whispered to me. Thou placed thy trust in me --”

At this, he halts, his voice faltering, and can say no more for a little.  His hand grips mine the tighter until he is ready to speak again. 

“And yet,” he says, sniffing wetly and clearing his throat, “you and I must go on. We come nigh the bitter end, lady.  Either we risk all now, or more loss awaits us.”

I shift upon his lap ere I speak.  “I know you ask no more than what should be, my lord.  But it was you who set us, your Dúnedain of the North, upon this path, and it is we who suffer for it.” 

In a voice thickened by my tears, I say, “And you will not be here to help us bear it.”

To this he says naught, but draws my hand swiftly to his lips, where I cannot tell should he wish to press kisses to it or use my flesh to stifle what noise he would make. 

“Lady,” he says low when he has released my hand, “you and I have labored long to build what shelter we can for our people.  There is little left to do but trust what hope we have in it.  I do not require it of you, to stay and endure what is to come with our folk in my place.  I do not require your suffering as payment to lessen the weight of your regrets.

At this, I cannot remain silent, but choke and press my fingers to my lips.

“Ai, híril nín!” he cries and skims tender fingers upon my cheek and wipes at tears that have lingered there with his thumb.  “I wish you would not torment yourself. I have read the accounting of your days and spoken much to my kinsman.  I have no footing to place blame.  ‘Twas of my own doing, this rift between the Dúnedain and the House of the Lord of Imladris.  It was on me to repair it, and I delayed too long and left it for you. 

“Neither of us would look back upon the path that led us here and make the same choices again had we known what would come of it, but we cannot see all that comes upon the road ahead.  I cannot say I would have chosen somewhat else in your place when in the midst of the press of all that must be addressed.  Had I knowledge of how impossible the task had become I had set for you, I would have returned the sooner and we could have chosen together.  But, alas!  Not until I came west did I hear rumor of it, and then could do naught but press on with all speed.  I knew not what to hope for.  True, grief awaited me, but I would not sacrifice the joy of finding you still here and of meeting my daughter.   

“One day we will come to it, you and I and our daughter, and we must decide whose hands shall wield the power and authority of our House upon my death.  Aye, I may be the last of the line of Isildur.  I have reconciled myself to this.  But I refuse to relinquish hope, nor the obligations placed upon my House.  I cannot abandon my daughter to those who are strangers to Men.  One day, much will depend upon her. We will have much to do to repair the trust of our folk, and the men of the Dúnedain must accept her as one of their own.  Though she may not live among them for some time, still she must know them.  Who else would I send to prepare her for this but her mother.”

He then sighs when I do not speak, nor move.  He takes up curls that were pulled from the loose twists in my hair, combing through their snarls and smoothing strands of them about his fingers as would he heal these, too, were he able.  In the silence of my thoughts, I can do naught but feel crushed between the burn of pain where I am pressed to him and the tenderness of his fingers upon me.

“Whatever your decision,” he says, “my heart tells me we have little time afore us.  I know not when you and I might next be at rest together or shall this e’er be our last.  I have spent long months visiting degradation on a creature twisted by the arts of our Enemy. I weary, lady, of the cruelty of the world and my place in it.  And I deem you much the same.  An you cannot abide my touch in our bed –“

“Nay, ‘tis not that, my lord,” I say, quick to interrupt him, but he shakes his head.

“Do not deny it, lady.  I had given no thought to offer you amends.  You would be within your rights to thrust me from your bed until I had satisfied your need for them.  You put your trust in me, and you, and our children, have suffered for it, no matter what justification I might offer for my neglect.  I will not ask it of you.

“But, could you not,” and here he falters again, and, sighing, speaks with less certainty.  “Could we not spend a little of our time, here, in quiet at our hearth?  I would watch you at your books, or your spindle or loom once more. I care not. Let the morrow come when it comes.”  He lets loose a short, bitter laugh. “For surely, such have been the days of late and the burden of the task ahead, I would gladly submit to whatever price you would claim for even the smallest comfort my wife would have in her heart to give her husband.”

‘Tis only now I can look full upon him.  I find he is much as he was when first we met, grim of face and drained of all joy.  Beneath, should one know where to look for it, where he would hide it and yet take up the burdens set for him, is the fear and grief that pierces his heart.  They were there when first he bound his hand to mine, though I had not known how to look for them then.  

I find, as then, I cannot bear it.

And so, I lay my hand upon his jaw and hold him still so I may surge forward and capture his lips in mine.  At this, he draws in a quick breath, but then his hands clasp me to him.  For long moments we stay thus, as the sighing of the wind in the thatch above our heads and the hiss of sap and snap of the fire fades to naught and all I know are my lord’s hands clutching upon me, his lips full and warm beneath mine, and the low sounds arising from deep in his throat at the sweetness of our kisses. 

When at last we part, my lord bows his head to rest upon my brow.  “This I will do for you, lady,” he says.  “Should you go with your daughter, I will go with you.  I will go to Rivendell.” 

~oOo~