Day shall come again

1. Beyond hope

Faramir

There is a state beyond hope, and a state beyond fear. I have known both of late.

Before I encountered the Halfling Frodo and his absurd and valiant servant in the woods of Ithilien, I had long known that there was no hope for us in our War – so long that I cannot rightly remember when the realisation came to me. Long ago I had learned, as we all did, to live with a pretence of hope, as a tightrope walker might imagine there was a net beneath him to break his fall. Without that pretence we could not go on.

For an instant, when I discovered what the Halfling carried, I had hope: hope of saving all I cared about. For an instant only, until I knew the hope for a delusion, since our last state, if I seized that false hope, would be worse than our first.

Those who sent Frodo on his errand had cherished another kind of hope, a fool’s hope. If I sent Frodo onward, it was not because I shared that hope but because the matter touched both our honours. That too was a pretence, a play we acted together.

And yet … when they had gone, and all the time I was preparing our own departure, there was a light in my mind, a light and a vision, and both came from the Halfling Frodo. So bright was the light, so keen the vision, that it cost me an effort to keep my mind on the task in hand. Doubtless the cause lay in my own weariness: whereas to pass one night without sleep, or even two at a stretch, troubles me little, after that I am always beset with a feeling of unreality, as if I were exiled from my own head. I thought I saw Frodo and Samwise break free from the treachery of their companion, and elude the vigilance of the Minas Morgul and the unknown terrors of the Pass; I thought I looked into the darkness of Mordor, and saw them walk into it, until I could see only a spark of light that grew ever more distant, but burned all the brighter as the darkness grew. Even as I led my company towards the River, and the darkness came to claim us, I could still see that valiant and indomitable spark. It burned my fear away, so that I was able to lead unflinching, and even jest with the men and hear them laugh amidst the darkness.

And that was the state beyond hope.

2. Night without stars

Anborn

We came to Cair Andros in the early evening, after a swift secret journey from Henneth Annûn. We had crossed the River into Ithilien from the same spot, and would not normally have returned that way; but a feeling of urgency was upon us all, and Cair Andros is the nearest crossing-point. 

The darkness was thick under the trees as we neared the River, but it was not until we emerged into the open that we realised how black the whole world had become; the air was heavy and suffocating, as if there was a great storm brewing, and it smelt of fear. As we began the last short march to the hidden haven where the boats waited, the sun cast one last red ray that sent our shadows before us, thin and quailing and fantastically long, and when the Captain turned to me, his face was like a mask of blood. And yet he smiled.

‘The darker the night, the brighter the dawn,’ he said. But the next day there came no dawn.

We were roused early the next morning – or what ought to have been morning: our company along with the garrison. Pitifully small, the garrison seemed, and palpably afraid, but they strove not to show it. As soon as we had swallowed our meagre breakfast, the Captain sent for me in Turgon’s little office.  

‘Is the company ready to march?’ he said.

‘At fifteen minutes’ notice, sir,’ I answered.

‘I’ll give you ten.’

‘Where are we going, sir?’

He looked at me, and his eyes were cold as stones in the torchlight. ‘To Osgiliath,’ he said.

If I’d ever wondered how a man feels when he hears his own death sentence, I knew the answer now. Not afraid exactly, but cold and numb. We all knew the Enemy was almost upon us, for the Darkness could mean nothing else. And we all knew that when he came to cross the River, it would be at Osgiliath, where the garrison was not much stronger than the one here at Cair Andros. Three hundred of us would make little difference; but for the honour of Gondor?

I forced a smile. ‘They’ll be glad to see us, Sir,’ I said, ‘You in particular.’

He looked at me again. ‘I am not coming.’

Now I felt more like a child whose father has abandoned it in a place of unknown danger.

‘Sir?’ I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, and the reproach.

‘I was commanded to return to the City as soon as our errand in Ithilien was done.’

His voice was harsh, his face expressionless. A lesser man might have attempted some apology, some justification; might have pointed out that we were desperately short of horses, whereas to march the whole company back to the City on foot would take far too long and expose us to even more danger than we might face by the ruins of the Great Bridge; but not the Captain. Looking for a moment into his eyes, I read the anguish in them and realised how much easier it would have been for him to turn his back on the City – where there was no other commander the people would trust now that Boromir was gone – and come with us. For a commander there are worse things, even, than facing certain death.

‘Good bye, then, Sir.’

‘Good bye, Anborn. May the stars shine on your path.’

‘I doubt they’ll do that, Sir,’ I said.

There was a shadowy smile on his face now. ‘The stars will still shine, Anborn, even if we cannot see them.’

 And so came the parting of our ways.  

3. Beyond fear

Faramir

We rode all that day in the darkness, pausing only long enough to snatch a morsel for food and water the horses, pressing the poor beasts as I would never willingly press any living thing, but as merciless to ourselves as to them; and all the time, with other eyes, I could see the small, indomitable spark that was Frodo the Halfling, crawling onward through the darkness of Mordor, though there was no light left in the real and waking world.

So it went on for many hours, and we met no enemies or any indication of their presence – though I knew in my heart that they were close behind us – until the Rammas loomed before us, and we were through, and soon afterwards nearing the City that was no more than a greater darkness amidst the darkness. And then the very darkness above us clotted into shapes of evil, seen more with the mind than with the eyes; and as the horses screamed, and the men shrieked – valiant beasts and brave men as they were – the spark that had led me went out, and there was nothing in the world except the plunging of the horse beneath me, and the air around that had turned all to fear. But here my very weariness came to my aid; for there was a cleft between the self that feared, and shrank from the evil in the air, and the self that hovered and watched and drove the other as a farmer drives an ox.

I mastered my horse at last – no horse ever had the better of me yet – and rode back to where I could hear the cries of my men; and I cursed them with every curse I could find on my tongue, so that my curses overcame the hideous cries from above us; and I bade the trumpeter blow our call, so that those in the City might know we were near even if we could not come to them; and the men dragged themselves upright and ran for the Gate, myself following, until the foulness in the air came upon us again.

After that there was a time when I did not know whether I was awake, or asleep, or dead, or in some realm of legend: for I thought I saw a great light and heard a drumming of hooves, and a great voice calling that might have been the voice of Tulkas hunting the hosts of Morgoth; and the darkness and foulness were driven away. And in what I thought was my dream I saw the dead return, for surely Frodo the Halfling had told me that Mithrandir was dead, and yet here he was greeting me by name as he used to do, though he was clad in white, and perhaps he had not returned but we were all dead together.

When I came properly to myself again we were approaching the City, and I could see that it was indeed Mithrandir, and I was not dead but still held to my task. And my father was awaiting us, and as he saw me the bitter anguish that had never left his eyes since he learned of my brother’s death turned to something close to hatred, because I was alive. The shadows of evil in the air had quenched the spark I had been living by, and I knew that Frodo had gone into the dark, and the fool’s hope was ended.  I had passed under the shadows of evil, and there was a fire in my head, and frost in my bones, and a grief and weariness upon me that were unspeakable.

 Yet my other self had become grey and calm and immune even to weariness and grief, and with that other self in command I knew I could move mountains, and yet not care whether they were moved or remained in their places. And that was the state beyond fear.

[This chapter previously appeared as a standalone on ff.net]

4. Willing

A captain of Gondor

It was ten o’clock in the morning when we paraded in our companies. Ten o’clock on a March morning, and as dark as winter’s night, and the silver sound of the city’s bells tarnished by the darkness and the fear.

We were all there, the men of the City and of the Outlands, all save those of Dol Amroth whose turn it was to stand guard. Rank on rank of men, disciplined, motionless, with their captains at their head, and with the torchlight gleaming dully on helm and mail.

The captains snapped their men to attention as the Captain General appeared. Standing there on the dais he seemed to us taller than any mortal man could be, straight and keen as a sword, and indomitable. And lonely.

He spoke few words, and in a harsher tone than usual. He was commanded to Osgiliath, to hold the fords against the Enemy for as long as might be. It was a perilous task, so perilous that he would order no man to go with him. He asked only for volunteers.

‘And mind this, men,’ he ended. ‘To those that go, I offer no glory. I offer you neither victory nor safety, but only a chance to do your duty, if that is where you perceive your duty lies. To those that stay, there will be no shame, for when we have done what we can, the defence of this City will lie in your hands. I lay no command on any of you. I only lay before you a choice.’

A murmur ran through the ranks, and then again there was silence.

‘Third Company, stand down!’

This time the murmurs were louder. There were many in the Third Company who would have followed the Captain General to the peak of Mount Doom, if he let them. But the Third Company were told off to guard the City for the next three days, and vain as it might appear to stand guard over the inner circles, or the Great Hall, or the Hallows, when the enemy was battering at the Great Gate, each guard would stay at his post, proud, vigilant and unmoving, until the enemy cut him down, because that was the discipline of Gondor and would endure while Gondor endured.

‘Now, all who are willing to come with me, take a pace forward!’

There was a slight stirring all over the massed ranks, and then again they were still. No man had stood forth from his own rank.

The Captain General’s head went back. Standing where I was, close to him, I thought I saw despair in his face.

Then he realised that every man there had, at the same instant, taken a pace forward.

I

5. The condemned

Anborn

Once, long ago, I sat up all night with a man condemned to execution at dawn. At the outset I was not well disposed to him, for he was justly condemned; but after sharing with him those hours which were like a first and more terrible death, I no longer cared anything for justice and felt only pity.

As we waited by the River, in the darkness, I remembered that man, and could have wept  with renewed pity for him, and for ourselves; for we were all condemned.

When our company first arrived, there was some rejoicing among the garrison already there, even some mirth and song; but after we had eaten – knowing that it was likely to be our last meal – we fell silent, our ears straining for the first break in the ominous silence of Osgiliath, which was a silence of satisfied waiting. They would come when they were ready; theirs to choose the time. For us, the waiting was the first and more terrible death: waiting for death, in the hours before a dawn that would never come.

But when we heard the long-feared tramp of feet, it was not from before us but from behind. Our first feeling was terror lest the City should have fallen already to some impossible foe; but as the clear, quiet challenges were exchanged through the darkness, we knew, with an unspeakable lightening of the spirits, who it was who had come to us. The Captain had not abandoned us after all.

He had brought a thousand men with him, as many as could be taken from the City and still leave enough to man the walls and keep the guard; and every man a volunteer. There was no joy among them and no hope, but there was resolution like a pale, steely light that came from the Captain and spread itself among us.

When the fatal dawn came, long ago, the man I had sat with nerved himself and made a good end. With the Captain beside me, I knew I could do the same.

 6. Go tell the Spartans

Gandalf

Inscription written at Thermopylae:

 Go tell the Spartans, ye who pass us by,

That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Once I spoke with a man who had lost his sight – not suddenly, through some wound or mishap, but agonisingly, little by little. First a slight blurring of vision, then the world growing more indistinct about him, colours fading to greyness, then the greyness to shadows, dark on dark, before everything sank into blackness, unending, unvarying, hopeless night.

So it had been in Gondor. Two days since, ‘sunrise’ and ‘morning’ had still been words with meaning. Now there was only night, although we had not quite reached the last terror of unrelieved darkness. As I rode across the cowering grass of the Pelennor, I could dimly discern the shape of house and barn and shed, deserted by their owners as by all living things; but even so, the lights I saw as I approached the Causeway, faint as they were, came as a shock. A long string of lights, high in the darkness, marking the line of forts. I wondered why, with the Enemy so close, they were showing lights at all.

I could hear no sound of battle; the silence was disquieting. For a moment I feared that all Faramir’s forces were already overwhelmed and the forts held by the enemy, but as I approached the Causeway gates a sentry, unmistakably a man of Gondor, came forward with a low-voiced challenge, uncovering a lantern that momentarily dazzled me. He was grim and suspicious, but had not the look of a defeated man; nor had the two guards at the door of the fort, one of whom summoned a lad to take charge of Shadowfax while the other guided me to the upper room.

The dim light within showed up a score of dark figures, some crouching or sitting, some standing, alert but with undrawn bows, near the arrow-slits on the River side. Even as I entered, one with a swift motion set arrow on string, took aim and fired; a shriek from below showed that he had found a mark, and he grunted with satisfaction.

At the sentry’s call one of the dark figures detached itself from the wall and came towards me. The height told me it was Faramir, and the steady walk indicated he was unhurt; but as he passed under the lantern I  saw he had the look of a man who has  exhausted his natural reserves of strength, and is kept on his feet by will-power alone. My heart twisted with pity, but his bitter gaze rejected what my eyes expressed. There was no self left in him, only that indomitable will.

‘Mithrandir? You bear a message from my father?’

The idea stung me; I felt no fondness for Denethor at that moment, nor any desire to be his errand-boy.  ‘No message,’ I replied, ‘for I did not come at your father’s command.’   

‘Then what?’

‘To offer what help I could.’

Even as I spoke there came a throb of wings, and a rattling as of iron claws on the roof just above our heads, and one of those unendurable cries. All the men flinched, and from one dark corner I heard a whimper as from a hurt child; and I saw there was a hunched form there, rocking from side to side.

Faramir barely looked up. ‘Tom-cats on the roof again, lads,’ he remarked, loudly but casually, and a flicker of scared laughter answered him. One of the bowmen leaned forward and spat on the floor.

‘ Black bogeymen,’ he grunted. ‘Left off being afraid of them when I were four year old.’ And Faramir, who normally would have called him sharply to task for unsoldierly behaviour, laughed and clapped him on the back. The hunched form whimpered again.

‘Take him down to the surgeon,’ ordered Faramir. ‘Get him a sleeping draught – a mild one, we may need him later.’ There was another breath of laughter.

Faramir took me aside. ‘You see how I am placed?’

‘I know what your last messenger reported. Apart from that, it’s hard to see anything in this murk.’

‘True enough. I can explain in a few words. The Enemy has drawn back, for a time, but not for any fear of us. With the Crossings secure, he’s bringing across his heavy war machines, and there’s not a thing I can do about it.’  His eyes hardened. ‘At least it has given me a respite. The forces he does have in the field are mere spies and skirmishers, and mercifully they’re as hampered by the dark as we are: hence the lights in the other forts. You must have wondered at them.’ He smiled bleakly at my expression. ‘I have a few dozen brave men running from fort to fort, along the inner wall, firing the odd shot from each; it gives the impression that all are manned. An old trick, but effective. Meanwhile, there are other men out there seeking out our wounded – any that may be saved – and bringing them in; and to those beyond saving they deal a quicker death than they could hope for from the Enemy.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘But our time is running out. When the Black Captain is ready, the enemy will come, and with Him behind them, and with their numbers, we won’t hold them.’

‘So?’

He looked at me doubtfully. ‘Mithrandir, I know you have greater powers than any you have yet showed me. Can you hold off the Black Captain?’

It was a question that had troubled me for far longer than he had any idea of, and I did not well know how to answer him.

‘I am not sure,’ I said truthfully; then, seeing his face tighten with the irritation of a commander given an imprecise answer, added, ‘I think not.’

He nodded, scarcely seeming disappointed. ‘But the lesser shadows? We have some four or five over us.’

‘Those I can outface, at least for a while.’

‘Then you can best help by escorting our wounded back to the City. I have wains to carry them, but they’ll travel slowly, and I can spare no other horsemen, because I’ll need them to cover our own retreat. I was about to send off the wains in any case, but you can give the men a far greater chance of life. Will you do that for me?’

‘And leave you here?’

He shrugged. ‘That’s of no importance. While there’s a man of Gondor left to fight in the field, I shall be fighting with him; and in any case I must remain to cover our retreat, for without me the men will panic. As for you, Mithrandir, I can give you no orders; I can only ask.’

As I peered up at him he swayed towards me, and I gripped him and supported his full weight. For a moment he rested his head on my shoulder; and I could feel the burning heat of his brow although his body trembled as with extreme cold. For a moment only; then that invincible will took control again and drove him upright. In the gloom, the men had noticed nothing.

‘Hey! Caranthir!’

‘My lord?’ A lad sprang at once to his side.

‘Bring me a bucket of water. Cold water.’

‘My lord?’

‘You heard me.’ The water was brought, and under Caranthir’s puzzled gaze Faramir knelt and ducked his head in it. ‘Like rain on a wilted lettuce,’ he remarked as he emerged, and his smile held genuine amusement.

* * *

The loading of the wains with suffering men was a slow and agonising task, and I expected every moment to hear the sounds of the enemy’s advance; but nothing came. When all was ready Faramir came to the gate to bid us farewell, and my heart ached anew at the sight of him.

I made a last appeal. ‘Will you not come with us? You have done all that a brave commander could do; you have no strength for more. You need rest.’

He laughed shortly. ‘Rest? I shall have time enough for that … after.’

‘Have you any message for your father?’

His fever-bright eyes looked into mine with sudden passionate anger. ‘Tell him … tell him I am sorry I cannot hold the fords or keep the Black Captain from the City. Tell him I am sorry for the men I have lost, and will lose. Tell him that if my brother had been here my men might have fought with more success, but not with more courage or resolve. Tell him I have obeyed his command as best I might. ..’ He curbed himself with a visible effort, and was stern and cold again, looking suddenly very like his father.

‘No, say none of that. Assure him of my duty and service, and for the rest … say to him what you will.’

‘I will do that.’ Suddenly, as I looked on him, I was reminded of an ancient battle and an ancient defeat that had in it all the glory and tragedy of that race of mortal men that has bound itself, through all the long and bitter years, to the struggle against evil … of Húrin and his last stand against the hordes of Morgoth. It was still the same struggle, and still the same splendid and hopeless courage.

‘Aurë entuluva,’ I said.

He caught the allusion at once, and his face was transfigured. ‘Aurë entuluva,’ he echoed. ‘Day shall come again, though we shall not live to see it.’

So I embraced him, and he turned and went back into the dark.