These characters all belong to the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. This story was written for pleasure and not for financial gain.
A Knife in the Dark
Warning – this chapter contains violence and may distress sensitive readers.
Chapter Fifteen- A Knife in the Dark
Aragorn tossed uneasily in the vast bed. Despite his assurances to Éowyn, he still felt uneasy when left alone. Every time he closed his eyes, he was reliving the attack upon him and his Steward. Muffled sounds from the next room suggested that Faramir and Éowyn were finally enjoying the intimacies of marriage. He felt delighted that the troubled young couple appeared to have finally overcome the traumas that had kept them apart. He hoped that their union this night might be a fruitful one. He felt that, somehow, the very future of both Gondor and Rohan might depend on whether or not their marriage was now blessed with children. Foresight was not an easy gift to possess; often the images were vague, clouded, and full of foreboding.
Not wishing to eavesdrop, Aragorn pulled the covers over his head and tried to concentrate on other matters. He thought of Arwen and their own child, trying to imagine the bliss of finally holding a child of his own in his arms. He wondered whether the child would be a girl or a boy, and what he or she would look like.
His thoughts then returned to Faramir. He hoped fervently that his newfound friendship with his Steward would endure. Being King was a lonely position, especially now his old friends were mostly far away. If only he could have wed Arwen soon after their troth plighting. He could have hoped by now to have a grown son who might have been a close companion to his father. Maybe Faramir could be that companion? He had felt drawn to the young man the first time he beheld him, seeing in him the image of the son he might been blessed with, had Elrond permitted him to wed Arwen years ago. Faramir looked as like to him as close kin, and the blood of Númenor ran almost as true in his veins as in Aragorn’s. It was small wonder he felt an affinity with his Steward.
Aragorn began to wish that he had asked Éowyn for some poppy juice. His body ached everywhere after sitting up and using his skills with the Elven healing touch. It had taken more energy than he had allowed Faramir and Éowyn to realise. He knew they both were in grave need of what help he could offer; these two troubled souls both deeply scarred by the past. He was certain his Elven remedies could eventually cure Faramir completely, if only the Steward would permit him to use them. They could be somewhat of an ordeal for a man like Faramir, who was even more reticent than his lord. Truth to tell, Aragorn himself would find the treatment something of an ordeal, but he knew it was well worth the discomfort.
All was silent now. Aragorn was torn between hoping the Steward and his wife would spend their wedding night contentedly asleep in each other’s arms, and a wish that they might come and see how he fared. When it seemed that they had decided on the former, he shifted against his pillows trying to get comfortable. He was finally on the verge of sleep when he heard the door open. He tensed at the unfamiliar footfalls. By now, he had become accustomed to Faramir’s quiet Ranger-like tread and Éowyn’s light footsteps.
A serving maid entered the room, trying to move soundlessly, but sounding like a young Mûmak as she moved clumsily across the creaking floorboards. What was she doing here when Faramir and Éowyn had forbidden the servants to enter without permission? The woman advanced towards the bed. Aragorn could see now that she carried something in her hand, which glinted in the dim light. To his horror, he realised it was a carving knife. Before Aragorn could cry out, a rough hand was clamped over his mouth.
“Prepare to die, upstart!” the woman hissed. “You killed my brother! I found his body in the forest. He should have killed you. He promised me he would! It’s not fair!” She gave a keening wail, and then surprisingly started to giggle. “They wouldn’t let me come and help them, being as I’m a woman, but I shall kill you, when they couldn’t! I know how to kill pigs, so I’ve had plenty of practise!” She lunged at Aragorn with the knife, aiming for his heart.
Summoning every bit of strength he had left, the King managed somehow to grab her by the wrist. She immediately tried to break free, struggling like a wild animal. Aragorn grimly hung on as she cruelly twisted his hand. In desperation, he dug his teeth into her palm. She cried out indignantly, jerking her hand away.
Aragorn screamed loudly for help. He must win, or at least survive until that help came - Arwen, the child, his kingdom, his friends, they all needed him! These thoughts renewed his strength. He managed to roll away from his attacker, and move across the bed. There was nowhere to go other than the floor. An undignified strategy, but it was his only chance! Trying to brace himself for the impact, he slid from the bed. He landed on the thick pelt serving as a rug, which cushioned his fall a little. Despite that small mercy, he yelped in pain when the stone floor jarred his wounds.
The woman flew at him again.
Aragorn found the strength to kick out. He caught her ankle, which threw her off balance, so causing her to drop the knife. He rolled towards her and seized her arms, trying frantically to prevent her from regaining the knife and attacking him again.
She struggled fiercely, kicking him in a particularly raw region of his still tender back.
Aragorn was fast wearying, breathing in ragged gasps and sweating so heavily that his vision was slightly impaired. The woman’s struggles increased and she kicked his ribs viciously. With one last surge of strength, Aragorn lunged towards Andúril, kicking desperately at the woman to hold her at bay. His bare feet made little impact on her crazed struggles, until his toe hit her in the eye, which gave him enough time to draw the sword from its sheath and hold it to her throat.
The blade felt heavy as lead. Aragorn wondered how long he could manage to hold it in his shaking hand. “Stop struggling or I will kill you!” he ordered, hoping his voice was firmer than his grasp.
“Aragorn!” With a loud cry, Faramir raced through the doorway and was beside him in an instant, grabbing his assailant by the shoulders and dragging her away from him. The woman stopped struggling. She began to sing incoherently in a high keening voice.
Éowyn then rushed into the room, seemingly oblivious to the fact she was clad only in a diaphanous silk nightgown. The housekeeper followed close behind her. Grabbing a roll of bandage from the table, Éowyn bound the attacker’s wrists before she could start struggling again.
Aragorn sighed with relief. His strength exhausted, he sank back on the floor with a groan. He feebly tried to pull down his nightshirt, which had ridden up past his knees.
The woman’s mood changed again when she cackled, “Nearly killed you, what a pity, you slew my family from the City!”
“Who are you?” Éowyn demanded of her.
The woman fell silent, scowling at her captors.
“That’s Hanna.” The housekeeper interrupted the tense silence. “If you ask me, not quite right in the head, that one, since her father died during the war. A few days ago, she found her brother and brother-in-law murdered in the forest. They were all a bit strange, that family, always on about revenge. We all lost loved ones during the war. My husband never came back, and I don’t go around trying to stab honest folk in their beds! Not that he was any great loss, mind you, when all’s said and done!”
“Could you lock her up, please?” Faramir asked. “We will take her away when we leave.” The Steward leaned heavily against the wall, panting with exertion. He looked anxiously at Aragorn. The King appeared to be bleeding; red stains were spreading across the white nightshirt he wore.
“I’ll lock her in her room, my lord,” the housekeeper replied. “The groom can help me. ”Come on, you!” She was a large, stout woman, who towered over Hanna.
“Can you return, please, to make up the fire, and bring us hot water and towels?” Éowyn requested, busying herself lighting the candles to augment the waning moonlight.
Now there was sufficient illumination, Faramir recognised the attacker as the woman who had stood watching him in the gardens and had asked him if Aragorn still lived. He realised now why she looked familiar, for she closely resembled Fennas, who was obviously the dead brother she spoke of.
As the housekeeper led her away, Hanna spat in his direction. “You should not be in your brother’s shoes, you’re not half the man that he was!” she jeered. “You should have been left to burn with your father!”
Faramir flinched at her words, but quickly turned his attention to his King, who now lay crumpled and bloodied in a heap on the floor. Éowyn was already at his side, anxiously feeling for a pulse. “I think he has swooned,” she said worriedly. “Let us get him back to bed. Can you help me to lift him?”
At the sound of their voices, Aragorn groaned and his eyes flickered open. He tried vainly to sit up.
“Stay still, Aragorn,” Faramir said, kneeling at the King’s side. Hanna’s words swirled round his head, reawakening old demons. He should never have left Aragorn alone, he thought. Boromir would never have been so thoughtless.
“Did she stab you?” Éowyn noticed to her horror, that the red stains on the King’s nightshirt seemed to be getting larger.
“No, I think not. I believe my wounds have reopened,” Aragorn told her, his head gradually clearing. “I rolled off the bed to escape my attacker.”
Faramir winced in sympathy as he helped the King to sit upright. They wanted to lift him, but Aragorn insisted on slowly walking the few steps back to bed, albeit heavily supported and grimacing in pain.
He had just collapsed back on the bed when the housekeeper arrived with the towels, hot water and firewood.
Faramir tucked a blanket round Aragorn as she entered, both to keep him warm and maintain his dignity in front of the servants.
“You are fortunate the kitchen fire hadn’t yet burned low!” the woman said, explaining her speed while she knelt to make up the fire.
Loth to begin tending Aragorn while she was there, Faramir asked if she knew anything else about Hanna.
“She lives with her old mother, who is every bit as crazy as her daughter, in a charcoal burner’s hut near here,” the woman told them. ”She has a child, a girl of about five or six summers. I’ve no idea who the father was, Hanna said he was dead.”
Everything that was previously unexplained about why they had been attacked in the forest, now fell into place. Hanna had obviously told her mother and brother when she had learned that the King and his Steward were coming to the house. As the charcoal burner’s huts were on the only track to the Hunting Lodge, it was all too easy to trap the unsuspecting travellers.
“I will see the little girl is provided for,” Faramir said. Deprived of his own mother at a similar age made him pity the unfortunate little one. “Can you think of anyone to care for her?”
“My sister lost her child to the Black Breath,” said the housekeeper. ”She would take her, but won’t the girl be as mad as the rest of her family?”
“Unlikely, if as you say her family only lost their wits after their losses in the war,” Faramir answered. ”I know only too well what grief can do to its victims. With love and care, the child should be able to have a happier future.”
“I will send a message to my sister then,” the housekeeper replied. ”Do you need anything else, my lord?”
“That is all, thank you. You may retire to bed,” Faramir said, dismissing the woman.
As soon as the housekeeper had left, Éowyn hurried to Aragorn’s side and pulled back the blanket, fearful that he might go into shock again. To her surprise, apart from a racing pulse, he seemed quite calm.
“Can you sit up?” she asked. ”I need to see how badly you are hurt.”
Aragorn nodded, wondering apprehensively if she were going to cause him more pain. He was no coward, but even when trying to be gentle, Éowyn was somewhat heavy handed.
“Would you like me to fetch you some poppy juice first?” Éowyn asked.
Aragorn was sorely tempted to say yes, but knew it would be better if he were alert while his wounds were tended. “I will wait until I wish to sleep,” he replied stoically.
Faramir helped the King to sit up, surprised that his arms and shoulders no longer ached very much. The Elven treatment was obviously highly effective, he thought, as he unfastened Aragorn’s nightshirt and gently slid it down his body.