As he broke his fast the next morning, Aragorn listened while his secretary reviewed the plans for his day. At the third hour after sunrise, the King would make an official visit to the site where the new royal granaries were being built. Officially, it was termed a Royal Inspection, but it was mainly an occasion to see and be seen, and to lend a bit of royal pomp to the tedious labor of the stonemasons. This duty did not bother Aragorn at all. He had found that he rather liked the common folk of Gondor, and he enjoyed the odd opportunity to pay them brief visits. For their part, they seemed to enjoy the favor of their King and to relish the bit of splendor and ceremony added to their daily routine. The Royal Inspection would last no more than half an hour, so that the King could return to the Citadel for the council meeting at the fourth hour after sunrise.

Aragorn scooped the last bit of cold pigeon into his mouth and left for the stables. When he arrived, Roheryn was saddled and waiting in the stable yard. As his retinue gathered together, Aragorn noticed Arwen’s gray palfrey being led into the courtyard as well. A quick enquiry with one of the grooms revealed that the Queen was to make a similar Royal Inspection of the Houses of Healing. Arwen had cultivated a patch of athelas in her private garden, and had been experimenting with crossing different strains of the herb to improve its potency. Every so often, she would gather a basket of cuttings and bring it to old Ioreth, who would examine the results of the crosses and make suggestions for further experiments. After Ioreth had seen the effects of wild athelas during the War, she had devoured all the available lore concerning the herb, and she and Arwen were fast expanding that particular body of knowledge.

It was already a beautiful morning. It being summer, the sun was already fairly high in the sky, which was a brilliant blue. A soft wind kept the heat at bay. Aragorn felt the tension and the worry of the night before fading away. No one could be unhappy on a day like this one. He swung into the saddle and balanced himself lightly, looking around to see that everyone was in place — the two pages before him, the four minor nobles in charge of the granary project behind him, and two more pages to bring up the rear. Seeing that all were ready, the King gave the signal, and the party trooped out of the stable yard.

They proceeded down a series of covered passageways that led to the palace gates. The Dwarves of Aglarond had fashioned them out of wrought iron in a cunning pattern that matched the mithril on the large gates to the city itself. One of the pages blew a short horn-call to the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper unlatched the gates, and the two sentries outside stood to attention in the presence of the King.

As he rode through the gates, Aragorn took a deep breath, smiled, and gazed at the beauty all around him. Suddenly, his eyes came to rest on a dusty brown heap hidden in a nook against the palace wall. "Halt," he commanded. "What is that, over by the gate?"

One of the sentries moved to investigate. He squatted down by the heap and prodded it gently with the hilt of his dagger. "A beggar, my Lord," he said. "He’s dead."

"What?" Aragorn dismounted and strode towards the sentry. "A beggar, dead in front of the Citadel? Why was he not taken in and given food and drink?"

"I do not know, my Lord," the young guard said calmly. "I could not see him from my post. He must have arrived and died before I took up my watch, for I saw no beggars approach."

Aragorn turned to the nearer of the two pages. "Go, boy," he said. "Find the guard who had this post last night, and bring him to me. I wish to know why any beggar would be denied the hospitality of the King in time of peace." The page scurried away. Aragorn knelt down by the body and peered at it. One of the nobles dismounted and came to stand behind him.

"My Lord," he said, "I feel obligated to point out —"

"Yes?" Aragorn said sharply.

"The Inspection, sire," the noble said. "We will be late. The masons await your presence."

Aragorn sighed. "Tell them I will be delayed," he replied. The noble waited for a few seconds, as if expecting an elaboration, then bowed, mounted his horse and rode off. Aragorn resumed his inspection of the crumpled body.

Whoever he was, he had most likely died of disease or starvation. He could hardly have frozen to death in the summer, and the clawed hand that protruded from the filthy rags did not show the ravages of extreme old age. The summer madness was a common malady among beggars at this time of year, as people gave away crusts of bread made from the last of the previous year’s grain. Perhaps this unfortunate had found hospitality some nights ago, and had filled his grateful stomach with the generosity of a farmer’s wife, hospitality that had turned unwittingly to madness and death.

A look at the beggar’s clothing revealed another mystery. Though torn and filthy, it had once been of exceptional quality. The seams were tight and well reinforced, and had been mended with care more than once. Instead of the light, cracked shoes common to beggars in Minas Tirith, this man had boots, also worn and mended, of a design Aragorn had rarely seen in the South. He sat back on his heels and tried to remember where he had seen boots of that make before. The design bore some Elvish influence, evident in the suppleness of the leather that allowed mending in the Wild, the topstitching that made it harder to get mud inside, and the lacing at the ankles that adjusted the fit of the boot. Aragorn knew that, were he to remove one of the beggar’s boots, he would find it lined with felted rabbit fur. He himself had once had — still had, in fact, in a wardrobe somewhere — such boots, well worn, often mended by his own hand.

A terrible thought struck him. He turned to the sentry, who had been standing silently watching the King’s inspection of the beggar’s corpse. "Your halberd, man," the King commanded. The guard handed it over. Gritting his teeth against the indignity, but wishing to avoid whatever contamination or vermin might be found on this body, Aragorn used the butt end of the halberd to turn the beggar onto his back. He staggered back in shock at what he saw.

Beneath the grime worked deep into every crevice of the face, beneath the sunken features of starvation, beneath the greasy, matted tendrils of hair, was a familiar face. It took Aragorn a moment to recover from the immediate shock of recognition, but it could not be denied. The man who had died alone, a sick, starving beggar huddled in a corner of the wall of the Citadel, was none other than Gofannon of the Dunedain of the North, a former comrade of Aragorn’s during the long years of exile guarding the tattered remnants of the Kingdom of Arnor from the minions of Sauron.

Gofannon had been twenty years older than Aragorn, a seasoned warrior who had taught his young Chieftain much about the ways of life in the Wild. Worn and grizzled before his time, Gofannon had taken Aragorn under his wing, molding him into a commander he could respect. He had showed Aragorn many of the secret ways through the old forests, ways that had proved useful years later when Aragorn had had to guide four hobbits and a pony to Imladris. He had ridden South with Halbarad and had joined the Gray Company, walking the Paths of the Dead and sailing up the River Anduin to win honor on the Pelennor fields. He should have fallen honorably in battle, or died peacefully in a warm bed surrounded by a loving family, not alone as a beggar on the street.

The sound of boots interrupted the King’s silent shock. A young guardsman, presumably the sentry of the previous night, saluted. "My Lord," he said. "You sent for me."

Aragorn turned to look at the lad. "I did. What is your name?"

"Dafyth, my lord,"

"Dafyth. You were sentry here last night?"

"I was."

"Did you watch this man die here, outside the gate?"

Dafyth paled visibly. "He’s dead?" he managed to choke out. "Oh, my Lord, I had no idea he was that sick. My Lord must believe me, had I known, I would never have allowed him to sit there as long as he did."

The King raised an eyebrow. "Am I to understand from this that you allowed a poor, sick, starving beggar to sit all night in the street outside the Citadel? Did you never once think to offer him the hospitality of the King?"

Dafyth’s spine became even straighter. "Do not think ill of me, my Lord; I did offer him such, and he refused the offer."

"He refused?"

"Yes, my Lord."

Aragorn took a step back. He had not expected that. He had never known Gofannon to refuse the hospitality of any house in the Bree-land, no matter how great or how small. It seemed he had indeed been plagued by the summer madness this year. Aragorn looked again at the young guard. Perhaps twenty years of age, he would still have been a gangling youth during the War. Old enough to ride forth as a squire, perhaps, getting his first taste of battle at too young an age. Old enough to remember the terror and the screams, but none of the heroes or leaders of Men. "Did you know who he was?" he asked.

Dafyth looked at the body sadly. "He talked with me a little. He said his name was Gofannon, and that he had been a great warrior once. I was surprised to hear such from a man begging in the street, and I offered to take him inside for a mug of beer in the guardhouse. Three times I offered, my Lord, and he refused. His speech was slurred, and I thought that perhaps I should escort him to the Houses of Healing for the night, but he refused that as well."

Aragorn regarded Dafyth solemnly. "What happened then?" he asked.

"He told me some stories about the olden days, when he lived in the North," Dafyth went on. "He said that he knew my Lord as a lad, begging my Lord’s pardon, and that there had been much change since then. ‘It’s like living in a dream,’ he said, ‘I have to pinch myself sometimes to see what’s around me.’ He said he often fell asleep and dreamed of striding through the forest, only to wake and find himself in the city, and then he was never sure which was the dream and which was reality.

"’Ai, Grandfather,’ I said, ‘you are ill. Come, let me offer you a bed for the night, as one soldier to another.’ But he refused. He said that he had slept under the stars as a young man, and he would do so again, for they alone remained constant. Then he sat down in that corner. I bade him good night, and never again did he speak to me."

Aragorn was silent for a moment. Then he looked up. Dafyth was still there, waiting. "Go," Aragorn told him. "You did well. Take your meal. Raise a mug for him, for he was a fine man and did not deserve this manner of death." Dafyth saluted and marched away. Aragorn knelt down by Gofannon’s body once more.

"Rest well, my old friend," he said. "Dream of the old forests long ago and be at peace." He rose and turned to the nearest of the four pages. "See that this man receives an honorable burial," he said, "for he is of a noble lineage." The page nodded and ran off.

The King walked back to his party. With a heavy heart, he mounted Roheryn. He stared off between the horse’s ears into the middle distance. For a moment, he, too, was back in the cool pine woods near Imladris. A gentle hand roused him from his reverie.

"It is sad when an old warrior sinks so low," said Lord Peredur, a representative of the royal family of Dol Amroth. "There are some such beggars in the city, old men who pine away for the days of their youth. The world moves on, yet they cannot follow. They are too proud to enter the Houses of Healing, and too ashamed to beg. I have seen them at the ateliers of artisans, sweeping the floors so that they might earn their crusts of bread honestly. One cannot help but pity them."

Aragorn nodded. "We must find a way to care for them," he said. "Some form of work, so that they may earn food and shelter. Perhaps something at the granaries, when they are finished. And we must go there now, for I owe the masons there the honor of a Royal Inspection." The King’s procession started again, flags waving gaily in the light breeze on this most beautiful summer day.