Dedicated to Phyloxena and Nimloth Bradamante 

He sped on through the wood. He knew the Orcs were all around him, but he knew also that they feared him and were unwilling to come too near. The danger excited him, lending strength to his arm and wings to his feet. Arrows were aimed at him, but none could touch him. A gaggle of Orcs stood in his track, and he smote them right and left. Their heads leapt from their shoulders. The earth was black with their blood. He sped on.

***

It had been a good game, but it couldn’t last. He’d been pretending he was the Captain-General, and for a few glorious minutes he’d been seven feet tall and as strong as an ox and as fearless as … well, as fearless as the Captain-General. Now the invincible warrior of Gondor was once again a small boy, with a stitch in his side and a pretend-sword, two lathes of wood nailed together, in his hand. There were no Orcs to be seen, alive or dead; but the forest was still very much with him, and Bergil became unpleasantly aware, first, that the light was beginning  to fade, and secondly, that his last mad dash had taken him well away from the track, and he had no idea in which direction it lay.

Finding it ought to have been easy. If the sun had been shining he would have known his direction in an instant, since at this evening hour it would have been sinking towards the West, but the sky was clouded and the light filtering through the leaves seemed to be the same in all directions. His grandsire had told him that the north side of any tree smelled quite different from the south side, and he’d sniffed the air wisely and agreed that it did, but now he couldn’t smell any difference at all. Perhaps people who lived in the City got stupid, as his Uncle Iorlas was always saying, and lost the ability to smell such things.

The trees seemed to go on and on in all directions, as if there was nothing but trees for miles and miles and miles. He knew he couldn’t really have come that far, because he hadn’t left his grandsire’s farm in the valley to pursue his lone adventure until after luncheon and he hadn’t really hurried because the climb up the valley side was steep, but – he confessed it to himself with a stirring of real fear – he had no idea of the way back, and he might be getting further and further  away all the time, or going round in circles. He’d promised his grandsire that he wouldn’t leave the track, and even if grandsire and the farm men missed him and came to look for him, they’d look on the track, not off it, and would they ever find him?

It was definitely gloomy now, under the trees. Standing still made him feel helpless, but he was afraid to start walking in case he was walking the wrong way. And he was afraid of seeing shapes in the shadows. It was one thing to slay thousands of Orcs in your imagination, but what if there were really Orcs in the forest? He’d never heard of Orcs being in Lossarnach, but now that the Enemy was getting so strong, who knew what might happen? And even if there weren’t any Orcs, there might be wolves. There were wolves in the White Mountains, and in severe winters they sometimes came right down into the townlands and watchers on the City walls would hear them howling. It wasn’t winter now, but what if the wolves decided to come and seek a meal of tender boy-meat down here in the forest? One of Uncle Iorlas’s stories came back to his mind with horrible clarity: ‘A little boy I knew, just your age, went out in the woods one winter and never came back, but when the snows melted in the spring, a forester found his head, all gnawed by wolves, and a little further on his body, and then his arms, then his legs, and last of all, very deep in the forest, his little toe-bone’ – and Iorlas had opened his scrip and put a tiny bone into Bergil’s hand, and Bergil had squealed and dropped it, and his father had said not to take any notice of Iorlas’s nonsense, but what if it was true all the time? 

Earlier on the forest had seemed very quiet, but now suddenly it was full of rustlings, and each rustle seemed to presage an Orc, or a wolf, or something even worse. Bergil told himself not to be silly, it was just imagination, but the next moment brought a sound that was definitely not imaginary: a dull, regular thud, thud, thud, thud of feet hitting the ground. It sounded like a large animal. Were there bears deep in the forest? Or dragons?

The sound grew louder. The animal was definitely approaching.  Bergil gave himself up for lost. He felt like crying, but there was enough of the Captain-General’s pride still in his mind to keep him from that. He looked wildly around for somewhere to hide, but there was no branch low enough to climb, and …

…Everything changed. Over the regular thudding came a new sound: the sound of a voice, a voice singing high and clear, the sort of voice that couldn’t possibly belong to an Orc; and what was more, it was singing in what Bergil recognised in the elven-tongue, though he couldn’t make out the words, having missed so many lessons to play follow-my-leader on the City walls with his cousin Angor. And it was coming rapidly closer: so rapidly that the horse and rider – for that was what they were, how could he ever have feared otherwise? – must be on a track or path, not picking their way through the dense forest. He was saved!

Joyfully he crashed through the trees, and a few strides brought him to the track which he had feared lost forever. Anxious not to miss the rider, he burst out, yelling and waving his arms, almost under the horse’s hoofs. The result was dramatic. The horse – it looked huge in the gloaming – checked violently, squealed, swerved, and reared, up and up until it seemed to blot out the sky, its hoofs flailing, ready to come down on a small boy and crush him to powder. Any ordinary rider would have been thrown, but this rider scarcely moved in the saddle; only his hands moved on the reins as he wrenched the horse’s head round so that the hoofs crashed to earth on the side of the track, missing Bergil by inches, and as the horse plunged in panic, the rider’s voice, both soothing and commanding, mastered it little by little until it stood still, four-square and trembling. 

There was a moment’s awful silence, and then the same voice, with the soothing note quite gone from it, said, ‘Boy!’

Bergil tried to get up, but his legs had gone to jelly and he collapsed again in an undignified heap. He tried to speak, failed, gulped, and at last managed a squeak: ‘Sir?’

‘Have you lost your wits, to dart out like that in front of a nervous horse? Or are you tired of life?’

‘Neither, sir,’ said Bergil, succeeding this time in getting to his feet. ‘I was afraid you would go by without seeing me.’

The rider’s face was hard to see in the gloom, but from the slight alteration in his tone, Bergil dared to think he must be smiling. ‘Well, you made sure I didn’t do that. But next time, try not to be so foolish.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Bergil. The stranger’s voice had certainly lost whatever anger it had had, but even so much of a reproach brought a rush of shame to overlay the relief.

‘No matter, then. Why were you so anxious I should see you?’

‘Because I’m lost,’ Bergil confessed. ‘I thought you might set me on my way.’ 

‘I might be able to do that,’ said the rider, ‘if you would tell me where you want to go.’

Bergil named his grandsire’s farm, and the rider nodded. ‘I know it, down in the valley there. It’s a fair way for short legs in the gloaming. I think you had better ride with me, if you will trust me.’

‘Trust you?’ Bergil was surprised, and then surprised at being so. There was something about this two-minutes’ acquaintance that inspired unquestioning trust, but he didn’t know what. ‘Are you a Captain of Gondor?’ he hazarded; people didn’t come much more trustable than that.

‘Indeed I am,’ said the stranger. ‘Is that guarantee enough for you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Bergil unhesitatingly.

‘Then up with you!’ and Bergil took the hand held out to him and was half-hoisted, half climbed up before the rider, holding on to the front of the saddle as the horse danced a little, and then quietened again. It seemed a long way from the ground, even for a boy who rode almost every day on the lead horse in his grandsire’s great plough-team.

‘Is this a war-horse, sir?’ he asked, impressed.

‘Yes, or rather he will be; he is young and wayward yet, and has much to learn. One day he may even learn to stand his ground when attackers leap at him out of the bushes.’ Now the tone promised not only smiles but laughter, and Bergil ventured a chuckle of his own.   

‘What’s his name?’

‘Thoron.’

‘The eagle?’ Bergil was delighted at meeting with one of the few elvish words he actually knew.

‘Just so, because he is swift and fierce and walks in high places. And here is one of them.’

With startling suddenness, they came out of the trees and found themselves on the very edge of the steep valley. After the forest gloom it seemed vividly bright, for in this final hour of daylight the clouds had parted and the sun was filling the valley with liquid light, as if to store it there until it returned again next morning. The river ran pale silver among the green pastures, and everywhere there was a great quietness. Bergil thought suddenly that the valley was very beautiful and very precious. He’d always known it, but never felt it so sharply before, so sharply that it hurt. He thought it was because of the stranger, as if the stranger was teaching him to feel in a new way. He wriggled around on his uncomfortable perch and looked at the stranger, and the stranger was indeed gazing intently, and his face looked – not sad, not glad, but an odd intense mixture of both. Bergil opened his mouth to question, but was gestured to silence. There was a tiny sound across the valley, a thread of song, clear and remote. Not an elven-song or any high minstrelsy, but very simple and very ancient: the song of a goat-herd summoning his beasts from their pasture.

The stranger lifted his head and echoed the song, and on the other side of the valley, a tiny figure lifted an even tinier hand in greeting.  ‘It is this that matters,’ said the stranger suddenly.

‘What, sir?’ asked Bergil, puzzled. What could a captain of Gondor  - one, perhaps, who served the Captain-General – find important about a grassy valley and a goat-herd?

‘All of this. Ever since the Sun first rose over Middle-Earth, above and outside and apart from all the wars and struggles and high policies, there have been valleys full of light, and rivers running through them, and goats at pasture, and goat-herds singing to them. It is the way of Men, and it is a good way, and if my blood could buy them one more day of peace under the Sun, I would spend it gladly.’

Bergil shuddered. This way of talking sat uneasily with the hero-tales he loved to hear, and with his glorious and bloodthirsty imaginings of an hour ago. ‘I thought,’ he ventured, ‘that captains of Gondor fought for the City and for glory and to kill Orcs and wicked Men.’

‘And so we do. But the City is more important than glory, and to kill Orcs and wicked Men is a necessity, not a virtue.’

Bergil struggled to digest this. ‘Have you killed Orcs and wicked Men? Many and many of them?’

‘Enough. But not gladly.’

‘Was it not glorious?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘But everyone says it is! The Lord Boromir has killed thousands and thousands of Orcs and wicked Men, and he is very glorious!’

The stranger’s tone changed again; there was a new warmth in it, but with sadness somewhere underneath. ‘So he is, very glorious, and there could be no better defence for our City. But he is not glorious because he kills, he is glorious because he loves the City and fights for it with all his strength and skill.’

Suddenly the words made sense. A long time ago – weeks, perhaps months – Bergil had overheard his uncle arguing with his father about what captain it was best to follow, and Iorlas had said of course it was the Captain-General, but Bergil’s father had said no, it was Lord Faramir because he didn’t think all the time of glory, but of what he was trying to achieve, and had some odd ideas but they made sense, and his was the best kind of courage because he didn’t rush ahead but always knew exactly what danger he was running, and held his men’s lives dearer than his own. Bergil’s father was always hoping to become one of Lord Faramir’s picked men, who went on dangerous journeys across the River and defied the Enemy just where he thought he was secure, but it hadn’t happened yet.

‘My father says….’ he began, and the stranger listened patiently to his stumbling explanations.

‘And what would master Bergil wish to do?’

‘I always wanted to serve the Captain-General,’ said Bergil, ‘but now I think I agree with my father.’

This time the stranger laughed outright. ‘Well, we all have the right to change our minds from time to time, but I would say your first choice was good enough. How old are you now, child?’

‘Eight years, sir. And five months.’

‘Then there is still time for you to change your mind again, before you become a man and a warrior. But now we must be getting you home. Hold tight!’

Bergil choked back a cry of alarm, for the stranger now rode straight for the edge of the valley and it seemed that all three of them must fall and be dashed to pieces. Then he realised that there was still a track, though it was stony and horribly steep, and the horse picked its way slowly and nervously, while the stranger guided and encouraged it in his calm voice. Bergil was glad that the stranger could not see his face, for he kept his eyes tight shut through most of the descent, especially when the great hoofs slipped on the stones and the horse slithered several yards on its tail. When, for a wonder, they reached the bottom safely, Bergil revived and said shakily, ‘I wish Thoron was truly an eagle and had wings to fly down such precipices!’

‘Instead he has the feet of a goat, though he still has much to learn. It was chiefly to take him on that descent that I came by the track where you found me, so you have Thoron to thank for your safe return. And here we are at your grandsire’s farm, and it is high time you got down, relieved their anxiety about your being out so late, and took whatever punishment your grandsire chooses to deal out.’

‘It won’t be much. He growls a lot, but his bark is worse than his bite.’

‘Then you are fortunate,’ said the stranger, with the faintest ghost of a sigh.

Bergil remembered his manners, as the representative of a family whose courtesy was a legend in Lossarnach. ‘Will you not stay and sup with us, sir? You would be welcomed.’

‘I am sure of it, but alas, time presses, and I must make all haste back to the City, even if it means riding by night. You may greet your grandsire from me.’

‘By what name, sir?’ asked Bergil, in sudden horror and confusion. ‘I’m so sorry, I never asked.’

‘My name? Haven’t you guessed it yet? If not, you are slower of wit even than I thought at first.’

Bergil thought frantically. A captain who had odd ideas that made sense; who measured risks before he took them; who cared little for glory but never forgot what he was trying to achieve…

‘Lord Faramir?’ he said, awe-struck.

‘The same. And now down with you, master Bergil.’

But Bergil, suddenly forgetting his awe, wriggled round and hugged the stranger as naturally and heartily as if it had been his father. The rider returned the embrace, gravely, and then helped the boy to the ground. Bergil, stiff and tired after his day’s adventures, staggered a little, and by the time he was firm again on his feet, the stranger had turned and was lost in the night.

He took with him the heart of one small boy, for whom the world would never be quite the same again.