Chapter 22: The Groundbreaking

The next morning found the city quiet and nearly empty. Most of the city had filed onto the Pelennor for the groundbreaking ceremony and celebration. The day had begun with breakfast, everyone by necessity bringing their own food. They sat to their picnics with friends and family, enjoying the break from the heat. The clouds of the previous night lingered still, and while the air remained balmy, the breeze was mild and refreshing.

Near the stage, the king sat with his friends, a simple cloth of dirt beige beneath them. Aragorn had thought about bringing the picnic blanket that Mistress Porcia had pulled out of storage. The blanket was a lovely dove white satin with a stamp of the royal crest in sable at its center, and the citizens no doubt would be expecting something of the sort. Aragorn had nearly brought it until he imagined Sam’s reaction: first, the horror of putting that pure white cloth upon the soil and dirt; second, the dawning realization that he was meant to eat upon it; and finally, his instance on putting something over it and under it to prevent it from being stained, thus completely defeating the purpose of bringing it. Mistress Porcia put the blanket away for a picnic to be taken later on the Great Lawn and brought instead the most plain bit of cloth she could find in the house.

After breakfast was over, there was music supplied by the court minstrel and the many bards of the city, as well as skits and stories from anyone bold enough to take the stage. The Haradrim were also present, and a few of their performers contributed to the celebration, including the woman who had sung so enchantingly at their welcoming feast. The dancer who had held Osric so entranced also took the stage, and even in her robes she possessed such grace that she held everyone enraptured throughout her performance.

Merry smirked. The Rohirrim were sitting near them and he saw Osric all but drooling as the dancer stepped down and rejoined her companions. Though the Rohirrim had continued in their role as guides and neighbors to the Haradrim for the past two weeks, Osric had yet to say two words to the lady. He claimed it was due to the Haradrim men being so protective of their women and the fact that she was staying with the royal court in the Citadel, but everyone had been quick to notice the freedom the women of the royal court enjoyed. They could often be seen in the city by themselves or in small groups, with not even a hint of one of their men nearby. No, the real reason was that if he got within twenty feet of her, he started shaking with nerves and would forget every speech he had been practicing.

Wulf had laughed about it one night over drinks when Merry was present. “He can stare a warg in the eye and promise to slit it from nose to navel, which he will then proceed to do, all without breaking a sweat. But he can’t talk to a pretty girl.”

“In his defense, Jamila is more than just a pretty girl,” Erkenbrand had said. “Even I have trouble remembering how to talk around her.”

Merry had only one encounter with her. He had joined the Riders at their house after their previous practice session and when he left, he nearly ran into Jamila as she was leaving the house next door, apparently on some errand for the queen. He had only managed to squeak out ‘good morn’ before forgetting the rest of the greeting. Thankfully, she didn’t understand enough Westron to realize the greeting was incomplete. Jamila was, in Osric’s poetic ramblings, the reason the word beautiful was invented, and even that fell short of the mark. With skin of honey and eyes of peridot, she was stunning to look upon, but Merry preferred plain prettiness over tongue-tying beauty any day. As Pippin had said the night of the feast, what good was a lass if you couldn’t talk to her?

At noon, Aragorn, along with Gandalf, Faramir, Imrahil and the rest of his court took the stage. The stage had been placed on the foundation of the first of ten homes to be rebuilt during the first phase. After much pondering, Aragorn had decided that the fairest way to determine the order of rebuilding was to hold a lottery. In court the day before, he had selected from a bowl the names of the first ten farmsteads. The third had been Ioveta’s.

“What will happen to the land if she does not return to it?” Merry had asked over dinner that night.

“Then another will be found to tend it,” Gandalf had answered. “Mistress Ioveta has only another week to reclaim the farm. If she does not, Aragorn will give it to Sador – the translator, Ashtir,” he elaborated when met with only blank stares.

“Will she be compensated?” Pippin had asked.

“The lands belong to the king.”

“She needs help, Gandalf.”

“And so she is receiving it in the form she will accept it. She will be kept busy.”

“Any luck finding someone who knows about her husband?” Frodo had asked.

“Aragorn is searching. It is the most he can do,” Gandalf had answered. “The few men who survived that attack have already told their tales, yet there may be one among those rescued in the Battle of the Corsairs who may know his fate.”

Now Frodo attempted in vain to spot Ioveta and her daughters or Lady Bodil. With nearly the entire city on the fields, even spread out on picnic blankets, there was such a press of people that it was difficult to look farther than a few blankets away. He hoped that they were here but he somehow doubted that Ioveta had come, even if the others had.

“The ceremony won’t be long, will it?” Pippin asked, breaking into his thoughts.

“No, it should not last too long,” Gandalf assured.

“By your estimation, or ours?” Merry asked. Gandalf had said the same thing about Aragorn’s coronation, but that ceremony had gone on for three hours, which in the hobbits’ opinion was two hours and fifty-five minutes too long.

“Estel will be the only speaker,” Elladan said. “His speech will be just the right length, Master Hobbit.”

“Which is?”

Frodo smirked. “If Bilbo taught him well, it will be just long enough to have us worry he’ll drone on forever, and just short enough that we won’t get up and walk out.” For this was how Bilbo had described his Farewell speech that long ago autumn day before his Birthday Party. Before the Ring was passed.

“How long is that then?” Gimli asked. “A dwarf’s speech can last an hour, and those are the short ones.”

“Ents can take even longer, and that’s just to say ‘good morning’,” Merry said.

“I don’t see the need for a speech at all,” Legolas said, surprising everyone. “We all know why we’re here.”

“He can’t just pick up a spade and start digging,” Pippin said. “He has to set the mood.”

“Fear not my friends,” said Elrohir. “He read the speech to us this morning. It is but a few minutes long.”

“You cannot even list all your titles and relations in that length of time,” Gimli said, frowning in disapproval.

“Lor’ knows Strider’s got a lot of names,” Sam said, looking worried. “He’s not going to list them all, is he?”

At that moment Aragorn stood forth. He had dressed comfortably for the picnic and celebration, but for the ceremony he had donned his royal cape. Upon his brow he had also placed the Star of Elendil and in his right hand was the a white sceptre. He pounded the sceptre onto the stage, once, twice. The crowd fell silent.

“Friends, countrymen and honored guests, good men and women of Gondor and beyond: Long have you been separated from your family and neighbors; long have you been bereft of your land and homes; long have you waited on the edge of a growing darkness and wondered, nay, despaired, that this moment would ever come to pass. Grim have been the months and years before the war as the Shadow in the East grew stronger. Black have been the hopes and thoughts of so many during the struggle against the Enemy. When Lord Denethor ordered the evacuation of the city, many of you must have doubted if you would ever return. 

“When at long last and beyond all hope you did return, you found a city once glorious and magnificent now destroyed and despoiled; the fields of the Pelennor upon which you now stand was stained by the blood of your loved ones and the enemy alike. The enemy was thorough in their destruction of the Pelennor. They left no building standing and the crops which were to feed you this winter they uprooted and left to rot. Many of you doubted if this city and these fields could ever be returned to their previous glory and flourish again. They can and they will.

“For these many weeks, Gimli, son of Glóin, of the Nine Walkers, has been working steadily alongside master mason, Valcamir, and the soldiers of Gondor to discover anew the art of cement, a mortar many times stronger than lime. As they strived to improve the mortar, they worked tirelessly to bake enough bricks and gather enough rocks to begin the rebuilding of the Pelennor, enough so that, once the rebuilding has started, they should be able to continue to produce enough material every day so that the rebuilding will not cease until the deed is accomplished. Our new allies, the men and women of the House of the Moon of Far Harad, have been working alongside us this week to help ensure that goal. They have shown their dedication and friendship, and for that, we thank them.”

Sam leaned close to Frodo and whispered out the corner of his mouth. “I’m beginning to wonder how long this is going to last. Does that mean it will end soon?”

Frodo patted his hand. “I hope so.”

“In a month’s time, in this very spot,” continued Aragorn, “will stand again the House of Galadmir. It’s master and his family will once again be able to return to their home and live as they had done before the war, tilling their fields and tending their livestock. So too will the Houses of Adalmir, Luedred, Faraman, Dior, Alram, Guidan, Eberwin, Hagamin and Minarmin. After them the other homesteads of the Pelennor will follow, brick by brick, rock by rock, until this great land is restored.”

“What about beds and ovens and such?” Pippin whispered.

“Shh!” Merry shushed.

“Together as one we defeated the Enemy and reclaimed our freedom. Today, we reclaim our way of life!” Aragorn concluded to cheers and shouts of praise from the crowd.

Aragorn handed the sceptre to Faramir and his cape to Gandalf, then dismounted the stage. A square of dirt had been kept clear in front of the stage. Aragorn stepped into the square, picked up a spade and thrust the point deep in the ground, unearthing a healthy chuck of rock and soil. The crowd cheered again.

The groundbreaking accomplished, many citizens returned to the city but most remained on the fields to watch as the stage was cleared and the masons and soldiers began to work or else they searched out the other homesteads to be rebuilt during this first phase.

The Fellowship remained to wait for Aragorn; they would return to the city together. Pippin found Bergil and his friends, Merry wandered off to speak with some of the Riders lingering nearby, and  Sam, Gimli and Legolas sauntered off to help with the dismantling of the stage. Gandalf, Aragorn, Elladan, Elrohir and Faramir were standing together and looking out over the Pelennor, apparently speaking about the reconstruction. Frodo spotted Sultana Farzana sitting alone with a few of her maids and came to a decision. He approached the queen and bowed.

“Queen Farzana, if I might have a word with you?” Frodo asked. Merry and Pippin had told him what Razeena had said the other day in the tavern, when she explained how she knew Frodo to be the Ring-bearer. We knew it had to be one of your kind. This troubled them, but they’d had no time to investigate further.

The queen looked up at him, her violet eyes shining pale under the bright morning sun. She looked around for her translators: Ashtir was helping the masons, Soroush was with the king and prince, and Razeena was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is Razeena? Is she ill again?” Frodo asked, worried.

The queen smiled and answered in flawless Westron, with only a hint of an accent. “She’s with child. She is resting.” She was not at all upset about having to forego her pretense of requiring a translator. Instead, she was rather amused and impressed that Frodo chose this moment to approach her and that he addressed her so casually. “What is it then you wished to speak about, Lord Frodo?”

“Why did you not say anything when you figured out I was the Ring-bearer?” he asked.

“We were told it was a secret,” she answered, a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

Now Frodo smiled. “It was, but now that everyone knows, I suppose it is no longer.”

“Oh, but there are still a few trying to figure it out,” Farzana said. “I would not want to ruin the game for them.”

“How did you figure it out?” Frodo asked and sat down to make himself comfortable.

The queen’s maids gasped at this, for no man sat before the queen as an equal. Farzana quieted them with a small gesture of her hand. “He is no man,” she told them in Haradrim. “The Rules do not apply to the Stunted Ones.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” her maids chorused. They watched Frodo with open curiosity, though they could not understand the conversation.

“It is as I stated the other night,” Farzana said to Frodo now. “We asked. People were most eager to tell us about the Nine Walkers and their quest to destroy the Ring. They told us willingly about each of them, all but for yourself and Samwise. They are very protective of you.”

“How did you know it was me and not Sam?”

The queen glanced briefly at his hand. “It was not difficult to guess, once we met you.”

“I suppose not,” Frodo said, rubbing his stump self-consciously. “Yet there are many in the city with such injuries.”

“None like yours. The Great Eye, it was said, only had nine fingers. Now I understand why this is,” Farzana said.

A chill ran up Frodo’s spine at these words, spoken so simply and casually. She was too close to speaking aloud his worst fear: that in that final moment when he claimed the Ring he had become no better than the Dark Lord. Without any great power perhaps and with a different desire for claiming it, but still no better for having done so. He had spared Boromir that humility only to fall prey to it himself. So many memories he lost after crossing the River into the Emyn Muil, so many things he could not recall, but this he could remember with perfect clarity, the overwhelming euphoria of the Ring bleeding its will into him, and the hollow void when it was suddenly gone.

“Lord Frodo?”

Frodo shook himself back to the present. He took several deep breaths in order to regain his focus and noticed only then that he was still rubbing the stump where his finger had once been. He crossed his arms and met the queen’s gaze. She was watching him with a mixture of worry and intrigue. At his nod, she relaxed and smiled.

“Do you require refreshment, Lord?”

“No, I am fine.”

Farzana raised her eyebrows at this but said nothing. She waited, allowing Frodo the time he needed to calm himself.

“There is one more thing,” he said at last. “You knew even before coming to the city that the Ring was destroyed by a hobbit. Didn’t you?”

Farzana considered Frodo closely, wondering how much to reveal. Deciding there was little point in keeping back the truth, she answered, “Our wise-woman saw the Eye’s destruction. She saw a stunted one, though old and shrunken, being sacrificed to the fire. By whom, she did not see. We assumed Men, but upon finding the four of you in the city, I began to think otherwise.”

Frodo felt the small hairs on his neck stand up and another chill washed over and through him, leaving him cold. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “Sacrificed? You think he was sacrificed?” he asked, his throat clenching on the word so that he had to force it out.

“This is how she told it to me,” Farzana said.

Frodo’s hands started to shake and his scalp tingled with a crawling fear. His hands clutched his shirt, and he took another slow, deep breath. No one but the Fellowship knew of his failure at Mt. Doom, not even Faramir. “She saw this? How?”

“Our shamaness is very powerful,” Farzana said. “She has not the power to equal the Eye, or even a wizard, but she has power enough. She can see far. One night in a dream, this vision came to her. She saw a stunted one falling into the volcano, and at that moment, the Eye was defeated and Mordor destroyed. She was convinced the two events are linked and thought it a sacrifice. King Elessar confirms a part of this. He said when the Ring went into the fire, the Eye was defeated. He told us you threw the Ring into the fire and the guide died in the explosion of the volcano.”

“Elessar is protecting me because I failed,” Frodo said, the words leaving him before he could even think them. “Gollum, our guide, bore the Ring for many years, centuries even, until Bilbo found it. Then Bilbo passed it to me before we even knew what it was. Gollum tried for years to find it. He tracked us from the mines and found Sam and me after we crossed the river. He promised not to make an attempt on the Ring and to lead us into the Black Lands, but he was always just biding his time. He betrayed us on the path into Mordor, and Sam had to carry the Ring for a while. I took it back when he rescued me from the tower; I would not have it poisoning his mind, not Sam. It was he who got us to the mountain, and how did I reward him? I claimed the Ring. Gollum reappeared then and bit off my finger and took back the Ring. It was as he celebrated his victory that he slipped and fell into the fire with the Ring, destroying it.”

“Not a sacrifice then,” Farzana said. “A judgment. He made a vow and he broke it.”

“I made a vow to destroy the Ring. I broke it.”

“Then perhaps your judgment is yet to come. Perhaps you have been granted pardon,” she said. “I do not understand the workings of such things, but I come to understand other things. There are legends that some of the Black Númenórean kings of old were given Rings of Power by the Great Eye and so he ensnared them. That was when the Faithful Houses drove the Black Númenóreans from their lands and melted all their gold. I always wondered why only the gold.

“These things I can come to understand, but as for you… You say that you vowed to destroy the Ring, and it is destroyed. Does it matter how it was accomplished? Perhaps it was not accomplished as you had planned, but all men are fools who expect the world to follow their plans. Wars are not won by standing in a palace thousands of miles away and saying, ‘this is how we will win,’ and then doing exactly that. Wars are won by doing what needs to be done when the time for action comes. Plans are to get you on the road, nothing more than that. Did you have a plan for destroying the Ring?”

“If I could not throw it in, I would jump in with it,” Frodo admitted. It was the first time he had ever voiced that decision and he wondered at the calm he felt in saying it.

“What about Samwise? I do not know you so well, but it is clear even to me he could not have survived losing you in such a manner. He is most devoted to you. What of your cousins if you did not return from that land? What of your king? As the Eye poured his life force into the Ring, Elessar put his hope into you. If you had died, his victory would have meant nothing. No, Frodo. Do not fool yourself into thinking that the Ring’s final destruction was only to save yourself. I think in fact that you had very little to do with it. You meant to sacrifice yourself and so you have.”

“You are the wise-woman,” Frodo said, ignoring the shiver that ran up his spine at the queen’s words.

Farzana laughed. “I have burden enough as the queen, so I speak with authority when I say this. Do not take burdens to yourself, Lord Frodo; they will find you well enough on their own.”

Frodo was silent for a moment, and for a while the queen thought he meant to leave. But he had one more question to ask. “What really happened to Hildifons?” 

“His luck ran out on him, in the end,” Farzana said. “Luck is a fickle thing. It often leaves us when we need it the most. Or perhaps it understands when others need it more.”

Frodo nodded. Luck had seen Bilbo through most of his adventure, but it was not enough to prevent the Battle of Five Armies or Thorin’s untimely death. Instead, an unlikely bowman shot down the dragon and became king of Lake Town. Luck had seen Hildifons through his adventures, until he sought home. When his brother sought him, Isengar found more luck than he would ever realize. Luck had seen Frodo through his quest. Who now would Luck visit?  

Frodo wandered the winding paths of the city. Overhead a full moon rose, pocked and yellow, large over the White Tower of Ecthelion. The stars faded against the moon’s brightness. They twinkled out as candles by a breeze, leaving the night sky black and forlorn, the moon alone to illuminate it, a single bright spot in the void. As Frodo wandered, the void rained down, the shadows loomed until all around him was pure darkness. The moon rose, shrinking to a pinpoint, its light indiscernible. He could see nothing around him. He reached out, groping for a wall, a door, anything to orient him and fix him in time and space, but his hand met only with empty air, and beneath his feet the earth shook and the ground broke.  

The next morning, Sam found Frodo asleep on the window sill, the mountains of Mordor peeking through the window behind him.

To be continued…

GF 7/6/09
Published 8/3/09