II. The Likeness

Absorbed by his own story, Cirion had ceased to pay attention to anything beyond the small green world he shared with the old Prince. As he waited – for a word? for a sign? – a sudden noise brought smote his heart to his mouth. It was nothing but a cracked twig, but it was terrifyingly close. Someone had crept up on him, unnoticed till the last moment.

You fool, said Cirion to himself. He trusted you to keep watch for him, and this is how you do it.

No matter, said another voice in his mind. We’re safe here. There are none but friends on this ground.

The King’s men never came here. Whoever came here had to be a friend, or at least, not dangerous. Cirion got shakily to his feet to face the intruder.

‘Dagnir!’

 ‘My lord.’

The captain of his father’s guard bowed his head in brief salute. ‘I thought I’d find you here.  You keep a poor watch, lad. If I hadn’t warned you on purpose…’

Cirion thought of claiming that he had known Dagnir was there all the time, but with the captain’s one shrewd grey eye on him he dared not.

‘I’m sorry. I was talking…’ How ridiculous that sounded, when one was obviously alone!

Dagnir seemed unamused, and unsurprised. ‘To the old Prince?’ Cirion nodded.

‘There’s few others it’s safe to talk to these days,’ said Dagnir. ‘I think I can guess what it was about.’

Cirion looked into the seamed old face, assessing its look of humorous bitterness. Dagnir seldom expressed an opinion about anything, going about his duties with grim, silent efficiency; but Cirion had never seen him consorting with the King’s men, or giving any of them more than the time of day. Cirion had had little to do with him, but facing him here, over the old Prince’s grave, he was suddenly sick of suspicion, sick of caution, sure Dagnir was to be trusted. The Prince had accepted Dagnir. He was on their side.

‘About Andil,’ said Cirion. ‘You were there.’

Dagnir nodded heavily. ‘I was there, yes. I was there, and I did nothing.’

‘Nobody did anything.’

‘To our shame, no.’  His expression lightened a little. ‘Shall we sit down?’

Cirion slowly resumed his seat, and, a little reluctantly, motioned Dagnir to sit next to him. Cirion could sense no anger in the old Prince.

He is welcome here. Listen to him.

‘I’m thinking,’ resumed Dagnir, ‘that things have gone far enough.’ He grinned suddenly, sidelong. ‘Hanging words, those.’

‘I’m thinking,’ answered Cirion deliberately, ‘that you’re right. Now we can both hang together.’

They had spun a fragile thread of trust. Perhaps they would both hang from it, but it was all they had. 

‘The problem,’ Dagnir went on, ‘is to know what to do about it.’

Cirion hesitated. ‘Or to know who is to do something about it?’

Dagnir laughed shortly. ‘You’re right, lad. It’s easier to know those who won’t be doing anything about it.’

The words chimed in uncannily with Cirion’s recent thoughts. ‘I was thinking,’ he said, sinking his voice to a whisper, ‘that there’s many here in Ithilien, and elsewhere in Gondor, who would like something to be done about it, but daren’t start anything themselves.’

Dagnir grinned again, wolfishly this time. ‘No surprise in that. You start something, your head’s on the block.’

‘If they catch you,’ said Cirion.

‘If they catch you.’

Cirion spoke slowly, thinking things out as he went along, feeling thoughts that had floated, dissociated, in his brain for a long time coming together in a new pattern. ‘When the old Prince led his rangers here in Ithilien, when it was overrun by the Enemy, on the day he captured the Ring-Bearer, he ambushed a host of men and killed them all, and by the time the Enemy got to know about it, the Prince and his three hundred men had vanished without a trace, and were never found, though the Enemy had trackers that could smell the track of a sparrow on the wind a year after it had passed, so it was said.’

‘I’ve heard the story. What are you saying, lad?’

‘I’m saying,’ said Cirion, ‘that if you know our woods well enough, you ought to be able to vanish without a trace, so that the King’s men would never find you.’

‘Well said! But it isn’t as simple as that. In the old Prince’s time it was a matter of scouting, across the River, into Ithilien and back again to the City – a week or so at most. If they’d stayed longer, odds are the Enemy would have found them sooner or later. And to the Enemy, by all accounts, those raids were a small matter; he had other and much bigger fish to fry. If we were to “vanish” now, most likely the King would use every man he’d got to find us, and he’d have years to do it, if he needed them. Likely he’d have every tree in Ithilien cut down, if that’s what had to be done to find us. And what would we be doing meanwhile?’

Cirion was furious at having his newborn dream so brutally strangled. ‘Raiding! Striking terror into them, until no King’s man dared walk through our woods – not even a host of them! And everyone who favoured our cause would gather to us, until we were too many to overcome!’

‘Lad, you’re going far too fast. And keep your voice down. This is between you, the old Prince and me.’

Cirion glared resentment at him, but lowered his voice nonetheless. ‘What do you think we should do, then?’

‘To begin with, be patient. Be cunning. This isn’t a matter of striking a blow at an open enemy and then fading away into the woods. And it isn’t a matter of fighting for our lives against a declared evil, as it was in those days. It isn’t even a matter of proclaiming a just cause and waiting for people to flock to us. The old Enemy was out to destroy Gondor and everything in it. People had no choice but to fight him. It isn’t the same now. People can live under the King. They may not like it, but they can live. They may prefer the freedom we want to offer them; but they’re afraid, and they’ll know that if they join us, they may die. Most will want to wait until they see which is the winning side before they join it.’

Cirion snarled in frustration. ‘So. Without the support of the people, we can’t win; but until we do win, we won’t have the support of the people? Is that it?’

‘That’s about it, lad.’ Dagnir sighed, and both of them sat silent for a while. Despite his frustration, Cirion felt a good deal better than he had when he first came to tell Andil’s story to the Prince. To have an ally – even such a dauntingly clear-thinking and apparently pessimistic one as Dagnir – was immensely consoling. Dagnir, too, seemed comforted, less grim, yet more resolute.

‘I’ll tell you this, Cirion,’ he said. ‘If you can’t win over the people,  then nobody can. The people look to the Stewards as they look to no one else, but - forgive me if I speak plainly – it won’t be your father, good man as he is, and it won’t be your brother. It can only be you. It will set you against your own father and your own brother, and hang the hopes of a whole people round your neck. Can you live up to that?’

The question ought to have been a fearful one, but somehow it was not. Dagnir was only repeating what Cirion had said, in his own heart and to the old Prince, a dozen times in the past year, since the sorrows of Ithilien and of Gondor had become too much to ignore and too much to bear. There was no hesitation in his answer, and no surprise.

‘I can. Otherwise life won’t be worth living. Even if we lose, it will be better than doing nothing.’

Dagnir reached out and gripped his shoulder for a moment, then let go. ‘Cirion, I was sure of you. The old Prince’s blood hasn’t run cold yet.’

Cirion glowed. Yet there was something else that made him uneasy.

‘Dagnir?’

‘What, lad?’

‘Do we have any right to oppose the King? However bad we think he is? The old Prince was true to his King. The Stewards have never broken faith with the Kings, never…’

‘Nor the Kings with the Stewards? Nor the Kings with Gondor?’

‘Still, we promised. My father swore…’

Dagnir turned and looked him in the face again, so intently that even his blind eye seemed to pierce deep into Cirion’s mind. ‘You have an elder brother, Cirion. So long as Thalion lives, you won’t be called upon to swear that oath.’

‘That’s too easy. It’s an excuse, and not a very good one.  The old Prince had an elder brother, but he didn’t take that as a reason not to make his own judgements,’ said Cirion. ‘And allegiance isn’t just a matter of one man swearing an oath. You can’t all shelter behind one man.’

‘That,’ said Dagnir, his voice gentling, ‘is something for you to reason out with yourself and the old Prince. The really important choices are never easy ones. Maybe there’s no right choice, only one that’s less wrong.’

‘It’s so difficult.’

‘It is. But you’ve taken the first step, and it’s a big one. Now, before I leave you with the old Prince, I’ve some advice for you, if you’ll take it. And a gift, if you want it.’

Cirion smiled. ‘I’ll take both, Dagnir, and gladly.’

‘Good! First, then, the advice. I think you should take a little holiday.’

‘What?’ Cirion was taken aback.

‘I think,’ Dagnir elaborated, ‘that you should take a little trip to your family’s old estates in Lossarnach.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘Because,’ said Dagnir, ‘just lately, your expression when … certain things happen has been rather more revealing than is quite wise. Better take a nice, innocent holiday somewhere quiet, somewhere harmless, where you can learn to control your face. And because whereas Ithilien is your family’s by gift of the King, and can be taken back, the lands in Lossarnach are the Stewards’, inalienably. The people there are Steward’s men to the death, all of them. Any attempt to interfere with you there would be likely to provoke more trouble than any king would like. Go and make yourself known to them. They’ll welcome you for your face, and they’ll learn to honour you for your true heart.’

Cirion was puzzled. ‘My face?’

‘Ah, that brings me to the gift.’ Dagnir fumbled for a moment, and drew from around his neck a gold chain bearing a small, framed picture. ‘Been in our family for many a long year, this has.’

Cirion took the proffered picture, looked at it, and gasped. He was looking at himself.

A second look corrected him. If this was Cirion of Ithilien, the picture was a prophecy. Not only was it old, the paint darkened with the years, but the man in the picture was some years older than Cirion was now. It was a mature, assured, even stern face, but with a kindness about the eyes and a sensitiveness about the mouth that removed all impression of harshness. Cirion looked up at Dagnir, seeking confirmation of what he had instantly believed.

Dagnir nodded. ‘The Lord Faramir, as he was not long before the Great War. Do you think they could destroy all the likenesses of him ever made? Not likely, lad! It’s themselves they’ve cheated: having no likeness of him themselves, they don’t realise that his very fetch is walking Ithilien at this moment.’

‘And the portrait – I can keep it?’

‘Surely you can – even if you only need to look in a mirror to see him, lucky lad that you are.’

Cirion held the portrait in his two hands. It was himself as he would be. They would grow together, the old Prince and he.

‘I’ll go to Lossarnach,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask my father’s leave. He won’t suspect anything. I’ll go and climb trees and pick apples, as innocent as you can imagine, but all the time I’ll be listening, and I’ll think, and plan. Then I’ll come back.’

‘Good lad!’ Dagnir got to his feet. ‘Now I must go, before they miss me. I’ll leave you to talk it out with the old Prince, if you need to.’ Interpreting Cirion’s anxious look, he added softly, ‘Never fear, he’ll lie safe and quiet while you’re away. You can be sure of that.’

‘I am sure,’ said Cirion.

Left alone, he stretched himself full length along the grave. The grass, sun-warmed, seemed to hold him as in the grasp of two living arms.

‘I’ve made my choice,’ he told the old Prince. ‘I know it won’t be easy. I’ll do the best I can, for Ithilien and for Gondor, but above all for you. Wait here for me.’

I’ll wait. Just do the best you can