Peril by water

The dark water seemed very close now. Faramir could feel its icy spray on his face as the whole structure sagged and the number of defenders inexorably lessened. Boromir, beside himself with excitement, was yelling orders that became steadily more incoherent as their position grew ever more desperate.

Faramir risked a glance behind him and realised grimly that their last foothold was about to be dashed from under them. ‘It’s no good!’ he called to his brother. ‘We’ve done all we can, we’ll have to swim for it.’

Boromir laughed, cast his weapon aside with a final yell of defiance, leapt down into the swirling, foaming water. Faramir, following, felt the chill penetrate deep into his bones as he struggled vainly to find a foothold. As he struck out for the shore a strong hand grasped him by the hair and yanked him upright to fling him, gasping but safe, into the shallows.

Faramir got to his feet, rubbing his scalp resentfully, and watched the last remains of their sandcastle dissolve into the waves. The other boys whom Boromir had pressganged straggled off damply to their homes. 

‘I don’t know why you always insist on fighting the tide whenever we come to Dol Amroth,’ Faramir grumbled. ‘You always lose. And next time, I want to be the one that does the rescuing.’

My brother, by Faramir, son of Denethor, aged 6 ¾

Everybody knows my brother Boromir. He’s the hier to the stewardship and will be the greatest steward ever when the time comes, so our father says and so everybody else says so too. And so do I. 

You wouldn’t believe how strong he is. He can lift me up litteraly with one hand. He can wrestle with boys or rather men nearly twice his age and beat them to.  He’s a very powerful swordsman and can shoot well with the great bow, except that when he misses the gold he gets in a terrible temper and says the target is set up wrong, I’m not sure if this is always true but I don’t say so because I know it would only make him angry.

He is always very kind to me and never lets anybody buly me. He doesn’t always like doing the same things as I do and thinks some of them are silly, but I don’t mind this. I don’t like doing all the things he does either.

He lets me share his lessons and sometimes I help him remember things, but we have to be carefull about this in case father finds out. Father thinks Boromir can do everything. Well he can do almost everything.

When we grow up he will be captain General and I shall be his lietenant. Then let the enemy look out!!

My brother, by Boromir, son of Denethor, aged 12

I have a small brother, I say small but he’s quite tall for his age, only skinny which makes me laugh. I call him frog.

He likes to do what I do and I userly let him. He’s not very good at sowrdsmanship yet but he’s coming on thanks to my help. He’s learning to shoot strait gradualy. Not bad considering!

I suppose you have to say he’s clever. Always his nose in a book. He’s good at remembering words and dates and things like that, which can be quite useful at times. I think he’ll be a good counsilor to me when he grows up. Every great warior should have a wise counsilor so my father says.

I have to look after him because our mother made me promise I would, but Id do it anyway. I’m quite fond of him really.  

The morrowgift

A Faramir and Éowyn drabble inspired by a note in that interesting little book Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary. Faramir (no mean artist with words himself) supplies the definition.

‘I understand,’ he said, ‘that it is the custom among your people for a husband to give his wife a gift on the morrow of their marriage.’ 

‘That is so,’ she replied, ‘but there was no need…’

‘Please take it,’ he said, and she received in her hand a fine gold chain; but it bore neither jewels nor ornaments but only a small iron key: a strange gift indeed, from one with the wealth of Gondor at his disposal. Nevertheless she looked her puzzlement, and he explained: ‘It is the key to your chamber door in the house in Emyn Arnen. Take care of it, it’s the only one.’

She answered almost indignantly: ‘You give it to me so that I can lock you out?’

He smiled ruefully. ‘If you wish. But much more, so that you have a place that is yours alone.’

She looked down at the key in her hand. ‘I cannot imagine ever wanting to use it.’

He smiled. ‘Keep it all the same. And now I must leave you for a while, and go and face the knowing looks of your brother and his followers.’

Left on her own – and immediately feeling a little bereft – she sat and contemplated her gift. So that I have a place that is mine alone, she thought. Even as I give myself to him, he gives me back myself.

 Was there ever a gift-giver more generous?

Dreamslayer

My lord is often troubled with bad dreams, and always was from childhood: some reflect the evils he has faced himself, some are carried in his blood from days of old.

I was never so troubled. In Rohan, what I always feared was waking into the shrinking, suffocating darkness, listening for the real or imagined evils that came padding soft-footed up to my door. In Ithilien, in our airy chamber with my lord beside me, such night-wakenings are rare, but very sweet.  Sleep never had any terrors for me – until now.

Now I dream the same dream, night after night, and awake and lie for hours, afraid to go to sleep again. I dream that I stand once again before the Witch-King, and he casts back his hood as he did when I stood before him in reality, but he is no longer faceless. Now, beneath the mocking crown, he shows me a face.

It is my own face, but grown old, old, so old that no man could ever dream of calling it beautiful. And I shrink back, and awake weeping.

Now who will slay this wraith for me?

(Faramir's p.o.v., in case you were in doubt.)

I saw the ferries put out from the western shore, laden with laughing families come to reclaim their own; I saw the ruined farms rebuilt, the fields tilled, the vineyards full of ripening grapes, the roads in good repair. I saw the horse-herds roaming in the rich pastures by the River. I heard the goat-cries in the highlands, and the piping of the goat herds. I saw boys playing hide-and-seek in the woods, where the crack of a twig meant nothing more fearful than the passing of some small beast, or the stealthy approach of a playful comrade. I thought I heard singing amid the trees, sweeter than ever came from a human throat. I saw a girl and a fair youth standing hand in hand, silent in wonder before the unnameable colours of Henneth Annûn’s waterfall at sunset. I stood in the hills of Emyn Arnen amidst the fragrance of the flowers, and looked towards the glittering City, and distantly heard its many bells rejoicing to welcome the return of the King.

Then I awoke, and from, my high window saw the dark cloud over Mordor, and knew that I had been dreaming. 

Eowyn reflects.

Men are brave and strong and go out to fight. Women are weak and soft and stay at home. Everybody knows that.

I never accepted it, never since, at the age of four, I threw my doll down the well because, like me, it wore skirts, but its face, unlike mine, showed a fatuous contentment with the way things were.

Always, in that dangerous long-ago world, when my father or uncle or cousin or brother rode away to battle and war, dearly as I loved them, I cannot remember feeling anything but envy: envy of the dangers they would run, and the courage they would show, and the glory they would win. Envy, even, of the death they might die.  

Why were women doomed to inaction, condemned to be cowards?

At last my hour came, and I rode into battle and had my part in the slaying, and avenged my fallen kin, and won renown that has not been forgotten. Yet, even as I grasped at the warrior’s crown, there were feelings in my heart that I had not known before, and all the renown and glory that I won seemed to me worth nothing, since I could not have what I thought I most desired.

I was neither man nor woman. I was nothing.

Out of that nothing, my lord re-made me, a new woman in a new world: a world of hope, but not yet a world of peace. So I learned to send my lord into battle, and not weep to see him go, at least not where I could be seen. I learned the long, slow, bitter death of the woman who waits day by day for news that never comes.  The joy of every safe return was overcast by the knowledge that there would be a next time, and another, and another after that.

And now comes the worst time of all, when for the first time I must send not only my lord into battle, but also my son. I shall embrace them both, and smile, and stand to watch them go.

What a small, a very small and paltry thing is the courage of men, compared with the courage of women.

Embassy

The ambassador was tall, very dark of skin, richly dressed, and glittering with gold and arrogance.

‘Our king,’ he said, ‘has a thousand wives, all chieftains’ daughters. Does your king have so many?’

‘No,’ said the young counsellor, ‘Our king has but one.’

‘Our king,’ said the ambassador, ‘has ten thousand slaves to work his estates, and ten thousand more in his mines. Does your king have so many?’

‘No,’ said the young counsellor, ‘he has none.’

The ambassador sneered.

‘When our king lifts his hand,’ he said, ‘men die. Is it so with your king?’

‘Seldom,’ said the young counsellor.

‘Men tremble,’ said the ambassador, ‘when they but look upon our king. Is it so with yours?’

The young counsellor would have replied, but his words were cut off by the sound of trumpets. A man entered, and in the vast hall, every head was bowed. The man advanced amidst the bowed heads and the silence.

Over the bowed heads, his eyes met the ambassador’s, and the ambassador trembled.

The man took his seat, and the ambassador stared.

‘Why,’ he hissed to the young counsellor, ‘does your king not sit upon his throne?’

The young counsellor laughed.

‘That,’ he said, ‘is not the king. The king is away in his northern realm. That man is his Steward.’

‘Then the king is a greater man than he?’ asked the ambassador.

‘Oh, far greater,’ said the young counsellor.

The ambassador gulped nervously.

Elboron winked at his father over the heads of the crowd.

Eowyn:

For all of us there is a place, the place our heart yearns for, the place where we belong. For my Lord, though he loves our little land, the only true homecoming is the road to the City and up to the White Tower. For me it used to be the fields of Rohan and the grass-scented air that blows around Meduseld in spring; even now, the faintest ghost of that scent will bring tears to my eyes, but for long years my home has been wherever my Lord is, and anywhere else is grey and empty and a wilderness of dragging time. For my children it is Emyn Arnen: the silver of the Great River and the song of the boatmen rowing them home, and the scent of flowers and the echo of elven-song in its deep woods. For the Elves, they say, all those places are one place, the realm of bliss beyond the Bent Seas to which we Men can never come. To some it is a memory, but even those who have never seen it know that all other places are exile. More than once I have seen the shadow of that exile in the face of Legolas, but he never speaks of it, and in a moment he will be merry again so that I almost doubt what I have seen.

When my son was a small child, he became fascinated by the stories of Aman, and of those who went there and returned, or did not return. Once, being curious without kindness as small children are, he asked the Queen if she was sorry that she could never now come there. She smiled and shook her head, and said that her choice was made long ago; but her eyes met mine over my son’s head, and the anguish I saw in them haunts me yet.