Ithilien under shadow

It was a quiet place, and inviolate. Many paths led to it, and all were well-trodden, but the grave itself was inviolate. It was a green mound, unmarked. There was no need to mark it.

Those who came, came silently, stood for a time in reverence and in thought, left perhaps a few flowers, and went away. The grass was always smooth and green, and the flowers were always fresh. Nobody had ever been told off to tend them. There was no need. The task was all Ithilien’s, and it was never neglected.

Cirion sat on the grave. No one else ever dared to do this, but Cirion was not afraid. He had the right. The grave was his shelter, his consolation, his home. He was safe there. Safe in body, for if ever a King’s man set foot on the grave, he would die. If he were not blasted into nothingness by the hands of the Valar, someone from Ithilien would kill him. The people of Ithilien were afraid and submissive, but they would never endure the violation of the grave.

Cirion was safe in spirit as well as in body. Here was the only person in the world whom he trusted, to whom he could speak freely. The one person who understood.

Elsewhere in Gondor, when they told stories about the golden age that was long past and gone, they generally began with ‘In the days of King Elessar’, but not in Ithilien. In Ithilien they always began with ‘In the old Prince’s time’. It was true that the first Prince had lived to a great age, but Cirion had never thought of him as old, only as being exactly the age that Cirion needed him to be. Sometimes he was like a father, sometimes like an elder brother, and often like a twin. There were no portraits of the old Prince; the King’s men had taken them all away long ago, and presumably destroyed them. Cirion liked to think that the old Prince had looked like himself. They were of one blood, after all, and it was Cirion who had the dark hair, whereas his father and brother had the golden hair that had come into the family with the old Prince’s wife, the Lady Éowyn. There were no portraits of the Lady Éowyn either, but there were many songs in praise of her beauty and her courage. Some said the old Prince had written them. You weren’t supposed to sing them, of course, but everybody knew them nevertheless.

This evening, Cirion had come to tell the old Prince about Andil the harper. Telling the Prince about the awful things that kept happening somehow made the things more bearable. When Cirion thought about what had happened to Andil he felt like shrieking and sobbing and stabbing the air, but being with the old Prince always calmed him and he told the story in a quiet voice.

‘Andil never meant any harm,’ he explained to the old Prince. ‘He’s a man of peace, and not very brave, but he loves the old songs and he loves to weave them together to make new patterns. Yesterday, at suppertime, he was singing about how King Eärnur rode away to war and how the good Steward ruled in his stead, and he added a new bit about how wisely the good Steward ruled and how Gondor prospered in his time, just as it did in your time, and everybody in the hall smiled and some clapped, but there must have been a King’s spy in the hall, and today the King’s men came and took Andil away, and I know we’ll never see him again. He was a good man, and tried to teach me the harp, only I was too impatient, and now I shall never have another chance to learn, or to thank him.’

He paused and choked back a sob, then went on, ‘Would you have stood by and let the King’s men take Andil away? If you had been there, I know they wouldn’t have dared lay a finger on him.’ Cirion shook his head violently, but couldn’t dispel the memory of his father sitting, ashen-faced and still, in his high carven chair, saying nothing as Andil was bound and bundled from the hall. Doing nothing to defend Andil, who was his own faithful servant and one of his people. The old Prince would never have acted like that.

But if the old Prince’s elder son had been in the City, the ‘honoured guest’ of the King? What would the old Prince have done then?

The old Prince had served his king loyally all the days of his life, but that king had been worth the serving. King Elessar had been glorious and wise and just, but there were stories – stories which were never told, but which everyone in Ithilien knew – of how from time to time the old Prince had stood before King Elessar and looked him in the eyes and said him nay, and the King had hearkened to him. Cirion had no proof, but he was perfectly convinced that if King Elessar had threatened to have the old Prince’s head cut off next minute if the old Prince defied him, the old Prince would still have done it.

But if it was his son’s head?

He would still have done what was right. Sitting on the grave, close to the old Prince, Cirion knew that for certain. Knew, also, that if he had been that son, he would have wanted the Prince to defy the King even if he himself were to be killed next minute. He would have understood that the Prince was acting out of love, a terrible kind of love, but the right kind. Better to be dead than to skulk in a world where people let wrong things happen all the time, out of fear.  The old Prince’s face would never have worn that terrible look of helplessness that Cirion’s father’s face had worn yesterday. The old Prince would have come down and placed himself between Andil and the King’s men and told them to let him go, and they would have. Andil, huddled on the grave, could see the scene in every detail, and the Prince’s face was his own face, only older, stronger, and completely fearless.  

The Stewards had always been faithful to the old line of the Kings, but for most of their time, the Kings hadn’t been there. The Stewards had ruled in their place, and if their rule had often been stern, even harsh, it had always been just. In those days there had often been fear, because of the Enemy, but the fear had come from outside, and the Stewards had kept it at bay. The men of Gondor had not feared one another. They had not looked sideways at their neighbours, fearing betrayal, nor had they guarded their tongues from minute to minute, for fear of arrest. They had been disciplined, but they had been free. The old Prince had renounced the rule of Gondor, but only because he knew that his King would honour what the Stewards had achieved. If he had known what his King’s descendants were to become, would he still have made that renunciation?

The people knew that the Stewards had kept them free: that they had defended Gondor against the terror of the Enemy, but had never themselves sought to rule by terror. The people still honoured the house of the Stewards because of this, although Cirion’s father was weak though kind-hearted, and his elder brother was a pleasure-loving fool who said ‘Yeah’ to every word of the King’s. The people still looked to the Stewards as their defenders; they still clung to that rag of hope. It was never said, of course, but Cirion could feel it.

The people of Ithilien were afraid, but under the fear there was anger, smouldering like peat on a smoored fire. If that anger could be kindled to a full blaze, by one who bore the old Prince’s blood in his veins, the people would rise. Cirion, huddled on the grave, was sure of that, too.

What if they did rise? Would the rest of Gondor rise with them, with every lord’s heir a hostage in the City and all the soldiery in the King’s pay? And what of Rohan, whose so-called king was the King of Gondor’s lapdog, full-fed on empty flattery? What of Dol Amroth, to whom blind loyalty to the King was the mainspring of life? What of Arnor, where the King seldom went and where, they said, his hand did not lie so heavily? And if Ithilien did rise, and other provinces joined it, what of Gondor’s enemies, waiting and watching for a chance to fall upon it and devour it the moment it showed a sign of weakness? 

The future might be worse than the present, and he, Cirion, might be the cause.

Tell me what to do, dear Prince, he begged silently, his cheek against the cool grass. Faramir, tell me what you would have done. Make me understand. 

II. The Likeness

Absorbed by his own story, Cirion had ceased to pay attention to anything beyond the small green world he shared with the old Prince. As he waited – for a word? for a sign? – a sudden noise brought smote his heart to his mouth. It was nothing but a cracked twig, but it was terrifyingly close. Someone had crept up on him, unnoticed till the last moment.

You fool, said Cirion to himself. He trusted you to keep watch for him, and this is how you do it.

No matter, said another voice in his mind. We’re safe here. There are none but friends on this ground.

The King’s men never came here. Whoever came here had to be a friend, or at least, not dangerous. Cirion got shakily to his feet to face the intruder.

‘Dagnir!’

 ‘My lord.’

The captain of his father’s guard bowed his head in brief salute. ‘I thought I’d find you here.  You keep a poor watch, lad. If I hadn’t warned you on purpose…’

Cirion thought of claiming that he had known Dagnir was there all the time, but with the captain’s one shrewd grey eye on him he dared not.

‘I’m sorry. I was talking…’ How ridiculous that sounded, when one was obviously alone!

Dagnir seemed unamused, and unsurprised. ‘To the old Prince?’ Cirion nodded.

‘There’s few others it’s safe to talk to these days,’ said Dagnir. ‘I think I can guess what it was about.’

Cirion looked into the seamed old face, assessing its look of humorous bitterness. Dagnir seldom expressed an opinion about anything, going about his duties with grim, silent efficiency; but Cirion had never seen him consorting with the King’s men, or giving any of them more than the time of day. Cirion had had little to do with him, but facing him here, over the old Prince’s grave, he was suddenly sick of suspicion, sick of caution, sure Dagnir was to be trusted. The Prince had accepted Dagnir. He was on their side.

‘About Andil,’ said Cirion. ‘You were there.’

Dagnir nodded heavily. ‘I was there, yes. I was there, and I did nothing.’

‘Nobody did anything.’

‘To our shame, no.’  His expression lightened a little. ‘Shall we sit down?’

Cirion slowly resumed his seat, and, a little reluctantly, motioned Dagnir to sit next to him. Cirion could sense no anger in the old Prince.

He is welcome here. Listen to him.

‘I’m thinking,’ resumed Dagnir, ‘that things have gone far enough.’ He grinned suddenly, sidelong. ‘Hanging words, those.’

‘I’m thinking,’ answered Cirion deliberately, ‘that you’re right. Now we can both hang together.’

They had spun a fragile thread of trust. Perhaps they would both hang from it, but it was all they had. 

‘The problem,’ Dagnir went on, ‘is to know what to do about it.’

Cirion hesitated. ‘Or to know who is to do something about it?’

Dagnir laughed shortly. ‘You’re right, lad. It’s easier to know those who won’t be doing anything about it.’

The words chimed in uncannily with Cirion’s recent thoughts. ‘I was thinking,’ he said, sinking his voice to a whisper, ‘that there’s many here in Ithilien, and elsewhere in Gondor, who would like something to be done about it, but daren’t start anything themselves.’

Dagnir grinned again, wolfishly this time. ‘No surprise in that. You start something, your head’s on the block.’

‘If they catch you,’ said Cirion.

‘If they catch you.’

Cirion spoke slowly, thinking things out as he went along, feeling thoughts that had floated, dissociated, in his brain for a long time coming together in a new pattern. ‘When the old Prince led his rangers here in Ithilien, when it was overrun by the Enemy, on the day he captured the Ring-Bearer, he ambushed a host of men and killed them all, and by the time the Enemy got to know about it, the Prince and his three hundred men had vanished without a trace, and were never found, though the Enemy had trackers that could smell the track of a sparrow on the wind a year after it had passed, so it was said.’

‘I’ve heard the story. What are you saying, lad?’

‘I’m saying,’ said Cirion, ‘that if you know our woods well enough, you ought to be able to vanish without a trace, so that the King’s men would never find you.’

‘Well said! But it isn’t as simple as that. In the old Prince’s time it was a matter of scouting, across the River, into Ithilien and back again to the City – a week or so at most. If they’d stayed longer, odds are the Enemy would have found them sooner or later. And to the Enemy, by all accounts, those raids were a small matter; he had other and much bigger fish to fry. If we were to “vanish” now, most likely the King would use every man he’d got to find us, and he’d have years to do it, if he needed them. Likely he’d have every tree in Ithilien cut down, if that’s what had to be done to find us. And what would we be doing meanwhile?’

Cirion was furious at having his newborn dream so brutally strangled. ‘Raiding! Striking terror into them, until no King’s man dared walk through our woods – not even a host of them! And everyone who favoured our cause would gather to us, until we were too many to overcome!’

‘Lad, you’re going far too fast. And keep your voice down. This is between you, the old Prince and me.’

Cirion glared resentment at him, but lowered his voice nonetheless. ‘What do you think we should do, then?’

‘To begin with, be patient. Be cunning. This isn’t a matter of striking a blow at an open enemy and then fading away into the woods. And it isn’t a matter of fighting for our lives against a declared evil, as it was in those days. It isn’t even a matter of proclaiming a just cause and waiting for people to flock to us. The old Enemy was out to destroy Gondor and everything in it. People had no choice but to fight him. It isn’t the same now. People can live under the King. They may not like it, but they can live. They may prefer the freedom we want to offer them; but they’re afraid, and they’ll know that if they join us, they may die. Most will want to wait until they see which is the winning side before they join it.’

Cirion snarled in frustration. ‘So. Without the support of the people, we can’t win; but until we do win, we won’t have the support of the people? Is that it?’

‘That’s about it, lad.’ Dagnir sighed, and both of them sat silent for a while. Despite his frustration, Cirion felt a good deal better than he had when he first came to tell Andil’s story to the Prince. To have an ally – even such a dauntingly clear-thinking and apparently pessimistic one as Dagnir – was immensely consoling. Dagnir, too, seemed comforted, less grim, yet more resolute.

‘I’ll tell you this, Cirion,’ he said. ‘If you can’t win over the people,  then nobody can. The people look to the Stewards as they look to no one else, but - forgive me if I speak plainly – it won’t be your father, good man as he is, and it won’t be your brother. It can only be you. It will set you against your own father and your own brother, and hang the hopes of a whole people round your neck. Can you live up to that?’

The question ought to have been a fearful one, but somehow it was not. Dagnir was only repeating what Cirion had said, in his own heart and to the old Prince, a dozen times in the past year, since the sorrows of Ithilien and of Gondor had become too much to ignore and too much to bear. There was no hesitation in his answer, and no surprise.

‘I can. Otherwise life won’t be worth living. Even if we lose, it will be better than doing nothing.’

Dagnir reached out and gripped his shoulder for a moment, then let go. ‘Cirion, I was sure of you. The old Prince’s blood hasn’t run cold yet.’

Cirion glowed. Yet there was something else that made him uneasy.

‘Dagnir?’

‘What, lad?’

‘Do we have any right to oppose the King? However bad we think he is? The old Prince was true to his King. The Stewards have never broken faith with the Kings, never…’

‘Nor the Kings with the Stewards? Nor the Kings with Gondor?’

‘Still, we promised. My father swore…’

Dagnir turned and looked him in the face again, so intently that even his blind eye seemed to pierce deep into Cirion’s mind. ‘You have an elder brother, Cirion. So long as Thalion lives, you won’t be called upon to swear that oath.’

‘That’s too easy. It’s an excuse, and not a very good one.  The old Prince had an elder brother, but he didn’t take that as a reason not to make his own judgements,’ said Cirion. ‘And allegiance isn’t just a matter of one man swearing an oath. You can’t all shelter behind one man.’

‘That,’ said Dagnir, his voice gentling, ‘is something for you to reason out with yourself and the old Prince. The really important choices are never easy ones. Maybe there’s no right choice, only one that’s less wrong.’

‘It’s so difficult.’

‘It is. But you’ve taken the first step, and it’s a big one. Now, before I leave you with the old Prince, I’ve some advice for you, if you’ll take it. And a gift, if you want it.’

Cirion smiled. ‘I’ll take both, Dagnir, and gladly.’

‘Good! First, then, the advice. I think you should take a little holiday.’

‘What?’ Cirion was taken aback.

‘I think,’ Dagnir elaborated, ‘that you should take a little trip to your family’s old estates in Lossarnach.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘Because,’ said Dagnir, ‘just lately, your expression when … certain things happen has been rather more revealing than is quite wise. Better take a nice, innocent holiday somewhere quiet, somewhere harmless, where you can learn to control your face. And because whereas Ithilien is your family’s by gift of the King, and can be taken back, the lands in Lossarnach are the Stewards’, inalienably. The people there are Steward’s men to the death, all of them. Any attempt to interfere with you there would be likely to provoke more trouble than any king would like. Go and make yourself known to them. They’ll welcome you for your face, and they’ll learn to honour you for your true heart.’

Cirion was puzzled. ‘My face?’

‘Ah, that brings me to the gift.’ Dagnir fumbled for a moment, and drew from around his neck a gold chain bearing a small, framed picture. ‘Been in our family for many a long year, this has.’

Cirion took the proffered picture, looked at it, and gasped. He was looking at himself.

A second look corrected him. If this was Cirion of Ithilien, the picture was a prophecy. Not only was it old, the paint darkened with the years, but the man in the picture was some years older than Cirion was now. It was a mature, assured, even stern face, but with a kindness about the eyes and a sensitiveness about the mouth that removed all impression of harshness. Cirion looked up at Dagnir, seeking confirmation of what he had instantly believed.

Dagnir nodded. ‘The Lord Faramir, as he was not long before the Great War. Do you think they could destroy all the likenesses of him ever made? Not likely, lad! It’s themselves they’ve cheated: having no likeness of him themselves, they don’t realise that his very fetch is walking Ithilien at this moment.’

‘And the portrait – I can keep it?’

‘Surely you can – even if you only need to look in a mirror to see him, lucky lad that you are.’

Cirion held the portrait in his two hands. It was himself as he would be. They would grow together, the old Prince and he.

‘I’ll go to Lossarnach,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask my father’s leave. He won’t suspect anything. I’ll go and climb trees and pick apples, as innocent as you can imagine, but all the time I’ll be listening, and I’ll think, and plan. Then I’ll come back.’

‘Good lad!’ Dagnir got to his feet. ‘Now I must go, before they miss me. I’ll leave you to talk it out with the old Prince, if you need to.’ Interpreting Cirion’s anxious look, he added softly, ‘Never fear, he’ll lie safe and quiet while you’re away. You can be sure of that.’

‘I am sure,’ said Cirion.

Left alone, he stretched himself full length along the grave. The grass, sun-warmed, seemed to hold him as in the grasp of two living arms.

‘I’ve made my choice,’ he told the old Prince. ‘I know it won’t be easy. I’ll do the best I can, for Ithilien and for Gondor, but above all for you. Wait here for me.’

I’ll wait. Just do the best you can

III. The Crossing

The ferry lumbered across the Great River and swung round parallel to the bank. The nearside oars groaned in their rowlocks as the rowers laid them in. Some of the groans came from the rowers themselves; the distance was not huge, compared with the coastal voyages of the patrols out of Dol Amroth, but the river was swollen by snow-melt and the current was swift,and the ferries came and went without a pause, even if they sailed empty. Criminals condemned to the oars did not see the Anduin ferry as an easy option; you even saw the odd corpse floating by where a rower had died at his task and been got rid of as quickly as may be. As the ferry tied up the crowd of countryfolk moved towards it, slowly and patiently, knowing that the checking of papers would take a long time. Men shouldered sacks of vegetables, women carried cages full of squawking hens and quacking ducks, and children plied their goads on pigs and cattle as they approached the straw-strewn gangway on to the rear deck. Cirion took a deep breath and walked towards the crowd, which parted to let him through; faces looked at him with wary respect. Beside and behind him walked his servants, the retinue demanded by the dignity of a prince’s son and the son of a Steward. He felt caged by them, caged and doomed and foolish, like a duck. By Athallach in particular, Athallach with his narrow eyes and puffy expressionless face.

He had particularly asked for Athallach on a surprising recommendation from Dagnir. ‘But they’ll never let me go alone.’

‘Of course not, lad, but if you get the chance, ask for Athallach.’

Cirion had stared. ‘But Athallach is a Messenger.’ By this he meant a tale-bearer; the King was constantly gathering ‘messages’ from people who would have sold their own brothers for a handful of silver pennies. Nobody with any sense would pass the time of day with a known Messenger. But Dagnir had answered, with a twisted grin, ‘Aye, he may be, but who knows what messages he carries?’ Cirion, wondering, had followed the advice, but felt not the slightest trust and liking for the man. Perhaps when they got to Lossarnach he would be able to give the Messenger the slip for an hour or two. The fellow must sleep some time.

A beggarwoman, trailing two children amidst her dusty rags, dodged past the two guards on Cirion’s right and approached with outstretched hand. Cirion felt in his pouch for a small coin and gave it to her, and she retired calling down hoarse blessings on his head. It happened often enough, but suddenly it made Cirion feel enraged: not against the woman, but against the fact of her existence. For how long had there been beggars in Gondor? Had they always been there, but too unimportant to notice, or were they something new? Ithilien was a rich country, everybody knew that, and the last two harvests had been good; why were there so many hungry folk around? Where did all the food go? Was this crowd of countryfolk selling food they needed for themselves? Were the taxes so high that there was no other way? If so, where did all the money go? Such ridiculously simple questions; why had he never thought of them before?

A splurge of voices at the gangplank broke his train of thought. An official was arguing with an old woman brandishing a tattered sheet of paper. As Cirion approached and the argument gained in volume he gathered that the paper granted crossing leave to her husband but not to her; since her husband was ill and could not leave his bed, she had brought the beasts down herself, and if she could not take them to market they wouldn’t be able to pay the taxes, and they would be turned out of their farm, and then they would starve… Her voice rose to an indignant shriek, and the shriek rose in pitch as the official landed a blow of his staff on her shoulder. It was not a crippling blow, but to Cirion it was sudden agony. He started forward, halted as years of bitter wisdom rose up in warning (never complain, never show resentment, never call attention to yourself), and then another voice spoke in tones that brooked no argument: these are my people and no one shall touch them, and Cirion was propelled forward with his head erect and his eyes afire; he was taking the staff from a startled hand; he was saying, not loudly but with complete decision, ‘That’s enough of that’; and a very startled official was giving way before him, while an old woman scuttled over the gangplank and a bewildered youth, presumably her grandson,  was prodding a couple of bullocks into the boat after her. It all seemed to happen between one breath and another.

‘And your papers, young sir?’ The official had recovered and approached with a leer. Cirion looked him in the eyes and said, in the same quiet tone, ‘I am the Steward’s son. I carry no papers and need none.’ Of course he did carry papers – everyone did (sometimes it was whispered that the King carried papers saying he was King, in case somebody arrested him for counterfeiting himself) – but his newly awakened pride would have nothing to do with papers. The faintest approving murmur came from the crowd. The official glowered around, and to Cirion’s astonishment, gave way and waved him forward – without the usual show of respect, but also without protest. Well done, lad, said the second voice, and it had laughter in it.

But it was only a small triumph and Cirion was given no time to savour it. As he stepped down into the boat he glanced down the line of rowers, slumped exhausted over their oars, and one of them was somehow familiar. As if sensing his gaze the rower looked up briefly, and Cirion could have howled with the shock. Gaunt, sunken-eyed and desperate, but unmistakable, the man was Andil. And Andil’s hands rested on the rough wood of the oar, and the two middle fingers of the right hand were missing. Enough fingers to grasp an oar, but not enough to play the harp. In Emyn Arnen it had always been said that to Andil, his harp was wife and child and food and drink, and the music he made on it was his breath and his life. They had taken it all away. 

The Cirion of half an hour ago would have broken down and wept. The new Cirion met Andil’s glance steadily, and smiled, and walked with unhurried dignity to his place in the bows and sat down, looking straight in front of him, with tears burning behind his eyes but not spilling over.

Steady, lad.

The embarkation was complete. The ferry cast off, turned ponderously into the stream, and the oars dipped. Over the wide river the mountains of Gondor shone flame-white under a clear early morning sky, and below Mindolluin the City came into view, high and fair and glittering with towers and pinnacles, looking from here like a queen among queens rather than the mistress of many slaves that she had become. A gust of wind, icy and fragrant with snow, came down from the mountains and tipped each choppy wave with silver. This is Gondor, thought Cirion. Gondor, my country, and she is still beautiful. Can they chain the sunlight, or imprison the wind?

A sudden great love welled in him. Ithilien, however beloved, was only a small part of Gondor. The Stewards had had all Gondor in their care and kept it safe. So it could be again. If he, Cirion, could not bring it about, he could die in the attempt. Had the old Prince and his soldiers run away from their task because it seemed impossible?

Gondor, Gondor, between the mountains and the sea…The old Prince, they said, had loved music and had a fine voice. Cirion knew little of music and his voice was not tuneful, but it was loud. He sang the ancient song with fine fervour, and the countryfolk around him began to join in, until the whole boatload was singing. It suddenly seemed to Cirion that the very beasts were bellowing out the tune, and the hens squawking and the ducks quacking in time. He choked with laughter, but it didn’t matter because the others kept up the singing, and then Cirion looked round and saw that Andil was singing as well, singing as he bent and swayed to his oar, singing with the tears pouring down his cheeks, and Cirion was weeping too, and steadied himself just in time as a very irate official came staggering over the deck – the waves in midstream were quite high – and bawling to him to stop.

‘Stop what?’

‘Stop this singing. It’s against the King’s peace.’

Cirion looked at him solemnly. ‘But nobody can hear us from here. And the words are all about the kings of old and the winged crown. It is all in praise of our lord the King and his noble ancestors. Indeed, sir, I am surprised that you did not join in and show your loyalty along with these good people.’

The official, like many of his kind, was a good bully but a bad thinker. He was still struggling for an answer when the boat reached her moorings at the Harlond.

‘Watch your step, Steward’s son’ was all he said.

‘Thank you indeed, sir,’ said Cirion with elaborate courtesy. ‘It is true that this gangplank is rather slippery. Please order your men to scour it before the return voyage.’ And as he rose to his feet he heard again that breath of laughter.