Climbing high

Unusually, the throne room was empty. Empty, that is, except the throne, and a low chair, and a host of graven images, and two boys.

Faramir, still digesting their recent lesson, gazed up at the great throne with an awe that was now deepened by understanding.

‘Wouldn’t it be a splendid thing if the King were to return again?’ he breathed. ‘If there really were a silver crown, and a mighty man like Anárion to wear it and restore the kingdom like it once was?’

Boromir shifted his feet and looked doubtful. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but I think the Stewards have ruled Gondor very well all this while.’

‘Of course,’ agreed his brother hastily. ‘I only thought that if…’

‘No king will return,’ asserted Boromir. ‘How could there be a king, since the last king left no heir?’

‘He could be living in secret, nobody knowing. Perhaps he doesn’t even know himself, but one day he will do some mighty deed that will reveal his true nature, and then he will come.’

‘That’s stupid. How could a race of kings live so long in secret?’ Boromir climbed slowly up the steps to the dais. ‘How would it feel, to be a king?’

‘How can anybody know, without being one?’

Boromir looked over his shoulder. A hundred kings looked back unseeing.

‘Very easily!’

He leaped up the last stair, and after a momentary hesitation, scrambled to seat himself on the throne. ‘Now I am king!’

Faramir stood petrified.

No sound announced the avenging wrath of the Valar. No wave swept over them, not one image stirred in its stone.

‘Now I am king, and you must bow to me,’ came Boromir’s voice, thin with bravado in the chill emptiness of the hall. Faramir did not move.

‘Go on, bow to me!’

Faramir, still unmoving, answered in a low, flat voice, ‘Come down.’ Boromir snorted. 

‘Come down! It’s wrong, something bad will come of it. Come down!’

‘Bow to me!’

Faramir’s voice grew stronger as his argument gained conviction. ‘We’re stewards, not kings. You can’t turn one into the other, it would be like trying to turn a dog into a cat. When you are Steward, in that seat, then I will bow to you, if you like. And if some day a king does return, you will bow to him and so will I. But I won’t do it now!’ He bounded up the stairs and grasped his brother’s arm, tugging with all his might. ‘Come down! It’s wrong, we can’t climb so high, it isn’t right…’

He might as well have tried to uproot a young tree.

‘Let go of me, little brother!’Boromir shook him off with a sweep of his arm that sent the younger boy head over heels down the stone steps. Accustomed to rough play, he picked himself up as neatly as a cat and stood, rubbing a bruised elbow, his eyes blazing.

‘So that’s the kind of king you’d be,’ he hissed. ‘Come…’

‘Down.’ This voice was no plea, but a whipcrack.

His father’s voice dethroned Boromir as quickly as his father’s hand sent him tumbling down the steps to join his brother.

‘Out!’

Outside the closed door, the boys turned to face each other, and both were trembling. Boromir, as always, recovered first.

‘Well,’ he said ruefully, ‘I rather think we have not heard the last of that.’

‘You won’t do it again?’

‘Probably not,’ said Boromir. He grinned, his quick anger at his brother’s opposition already forgotten. ‘It was only a game, no need to get so upset. Anyway, I’m sorry I hit you.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Faramir assured him, and meant it. He knew that Boromir never intended to hurt, and never bore a grudge. One barbed word from their father hurt far more.

‘It doesn’t matter anyway. No king is going to return in our lifetimes, so unless you want me to bow to a graven statue, we may as well forget it.’

‘I expect you’re right,’ said Faramir gloomily.

‘I wish I could be as sure that Father will forget it,’ said Boromir.

‘He never forgets anything,’ agreed Faramir. ‘A funny thing, though: I am not at all sure he was really angry. At least, not with you.’

Boromir looked dubious. ‘Do you think so? All the same, I think we would do well to be somewhere else for the rest of today. Let’s go down to the river and go swimming. We can compare our bruises, for I’m sure he sent me down those steps quicker and harder than I sent you.’